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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Probe: DHS watchdog cozy with officials, altered reports as he sought top job

    Probe: DHS watchdog cozy with officials, altered reports as he sought top job

    By Carol D. Leonnig, E-mail the writer

    The top watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security altered and delayed investigations at the request of senior administration officials, compromising his independent role as an inspector general, according to a new report from a Senate oversight panel.

    Charles K. Edwards, who served as acting DHS inspector general from 2011 through 2013, routinely shared drinks and dinner with department leaders and gave them inside information about the timing and findings of investigations, according to the report from an oversight panel of the Homeland Security and Government Operations Committee.


    Read the document


    A year-long bipartisan investigation by the panel also found that Edwards improperly relied on the advice of top political advisers to then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and acquiesced to their suggestions about the wording and timing of three separate reports.

    The Washington Post obtained an advance copy of the Senate document, which will be released to the public Thursday.


    Edwards’s actions occurred while he was seeking President Obama’s nomination to be the permanent inspector general overseeing DHS, the third-largest government agency, with a $39 billion budget and more than 225,000 employees.


    “We found that Mr. Edwards was a compromised inspector general . . .who was not exercising real oversight,” said Sen. Ronald H. Johnson (Wis.), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee on financial and contracting oversight, which led the investigation of Edwards’s tenure. “Any report generated out of his office would be suspect.”


    Edwards declined to comment through a department spokesperson.

    Edwards, a 20-year federal career employee with expertise in computer engineering, resigned his office in December, three days before he was scheduled to appear at a Senate hearing to answer questions. DHS granted his request to be transferred into its office of science and technology, and the hearing was canceled.

    Johnson and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), the subcommittee’s chairman, opened the investigation while looking into the hiring of prostitutes by Secret Service agents ahead of a 2012 presidential trip to Cartagena, Colombia. Whistleblowers alleged that Edwards had ordered them to remove derogatory information about the service and evidence implicating a White House staff member ; more staff members came forward to allege deletions and delays in other reports.


    Several staff members said Edwards told colleagues, meanwhile, that he was the White House’s pick for the permanent job.


    Investigators said they confirmed improper deletions and delays in several reports but did not reach a conclusion on the Secret Service-related allegations because the department declined to provide Edwards’s e-mails about the Secret Service report.


    Napolitano, now president of the University of California system, said in a statement issued by her office several weeks ago that no changes were ordered in IG reports related to the Secret Service. “Neither Secretary Napolitano nor her staff ordered that anything be deleted in the Inspector General’s investigative report. Any suggestion to the contrary is false,” the statement read.


    Napolitano said Wednesday that she could not comment on the Senate panel’s findings without reading the report.


    One senior aide said Edwards ordered changes to a March 2012 report about Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the request of senior DHS officials, according to the Senate inquiry. The report dealt with complaints that senior DHS officials intentionally misled Congress and the public about a new program to identify illegal immigrants called Secure Communities, and whether local law enforcement was required to participate.


    Edwards agreed to delay the release of the report at the request of a DHS official, Senate investigators said. The report was on Edwards’s desk on March 1 of that year, but he agreed to a request from John Sandweg, then DHS general counsel, not to release it until March 27.


    The timing meant the report was not issued until after the director of ICE testified at a House hearing that month.


    In another instance, the Senate report said, Edwards followed the suggestion of a top DHS official by adding information to a report questioning the effectiveness of advanced imaging screening by the Transportation Security Administration. Edwards’s chief investigator complained that the move was an effort to “derail our report and minimize our findings,” according to the Senate report.


    Edwards agreed with the DHS official’s suggestion to classify the TSA report as “Top Secret/Secure Compartmented Information” — the highest level of classification — rather than the looser restriction of “Secret.” The label meant that members of Congress could read the document only if they had a reason to do so, made arrangements and reviewed it in a specially secured room.


    The panel’s investigators said they could not confirm Edwards’s role in a report on Secret Service culture because — unlike in the other cases — his office declined to provide any related e-mails or correspondence. Edwards’s investigation concluded that the agency did not have a broad leadership or cultural problem in the wake of the Cartagena scandal.


    The Senate investigation found that Edwards placed on administrative leave three people who questioned the Secret Service report deletions, including the office’s general counsel, who was on paid leave for eight months before getting another job. The federal office that reviews whistleblower complaints sided with the counsel’s argument that Edwards was retaliating against him for complaints the counsel made about Edwards’s conduct.


    Edwards was particularly close to members of Napolitano’s inner staff and often communicated more with them than with his own senior leadership team, the Senate inquiry found. Before scheduled testimony in front of a House committee in March 2012, Edwards asked Sandweg, Napolitano’s top political adviser and acting general counsel, how Edwards should respond to questions from Congress about the best way to improve a department program, the report said.

    Edwards also asked Sandweg to edit a memorandum of understanding that involved Edwards and to provide ongoing legal advice at work, investigators said. “I really need some legal help,” Edwards wrote in one e-mail to Sandweg. “Please help me for the next four months.”


    Federal law requires inspectors general to remain independent of the agencies they oversee and to seek legal advice only from their own counsel or another IG’s counsel. Edwards told Senate investigators he didn’t trust his staff counsel.


    The Senate report said Edwards conferred regularly with both Sandweg and Noah Kroloff, Napolitano’s chief of staff, at the same time he was allegedly pushing to delete embarrassing information from the Secret Service report. Kroloff has close ties to Mark Sullivan, the Secret Service director at the time of the inquiry, and left the department to co-found a private consulting company with him.


    Kroloff declined to comment through a spokesperson, saying he had not seen the report. Sandweg, who resigned in February as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also said he could not comment without seeing the report.


    Senior officials in the inspector general’s office said they were not aware of Edwards’s private communications to DHS. Edwards told the Senate there was nothing improper about such updates.


    A new DHS inspector general, former federal prosecutor John Roth, was confirmed by the Senate last month.


    DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said in a Wednesday statement that Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson “believes in and values the critical role the IG plays in this department” and that he is confident in Roth’s new leadership of the office.


    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...815_story.html

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    Senior Member vistalad's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnDoe2 View Post
    The top watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security altered and delayed investigations at the request of senior administration officials, compromising his independent role as an inspector general, according to a new report from a Senate oversight panel.

    Charles K. Edwards, who served as acting DHS inspector general from 2011 through 2013, routinely shared drinks and dinner with department leaders and gave them inside information about the timing and findings of investigations, according to the report from an oversight panel of the Homeland Security and Government Operations Committee.
    Is there anybody in this administration who doesn't lie or misuse their office? This is becoming absurd.
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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    He is just another lap dog that covers up for the corruption and lies. JMO

  4. #4
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    NO AMNESTY

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    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    AP Absurdity: New DHS Head's Moves Following Scandalous Behavior Have Prevented Scand

    AP Absurdity: New DHS Head's Moves Following Scandalous Behavior Have Prevented Scandals

    By Tom Blumer | April 26, 2014 | 09:49
    newsbusters.org

    From time to time, leftist media members have regaled us about how the Obama administration somehow remains totally or nearly scandal-free (two of many examples are here and here). Part of the reason they actually believe this is because real-time press dispatches covering scandalous circumstances are rarely described that way.

    The journalistic gymnastics involved were on vivid display Friday evening at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press. In one of the more ridiculous such dispatches to date composed by the Obama-supportive media, AP reporter Alicia A. Caldwell lauded new Department of Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson for taking actions to "to tamp down what could have been political scandals." The problem with that assessment in two of the three instances Caldwell cited is that a "scandal" ("a disgraceful or discreditable action, circumstance, etc.") had already occurred.

    Even more absurd, Caldwell criticized previous DHS Janet Napolitano for having "allowed problems to fester until they become unavoidable entanglements." That is, the woman Matt Drudge frequently called "Big Sis" had plenty of real scandals occur on her watch, but Campbell could bring herself to characterize them using that dreaded S-word.

    Here is the opening portion of Caldwell's Friday evening comedic contraption, followed by an especially damning later paragraph (the story currently has a Saturday morning time stamp; bolds are mine throughout this post):



    EX-DHS WATCHDOG PUT ON LEAVE AFTER CRITICAL REPORT

    Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson put his agency's former internal watchdog on leave within hours of the publication of a Senate report that concluded the employee was too cozy with senior agency officials and delayed or classified some critical reports to accommodate President Barack Obama's political appointees.

    Charles K. Edwards had been allowed to quietly resign as acting inspector general and transfer to another post within the Homeland Security Department in December, just before Johnson took office. But after Johnson reviewed the 27-page report from a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs oversight subcommittee Thursday he put Edwards on leave.

    Johnson's quick response was at least his third move to tamp down what could have been political scandals, and stands in marked contrast to the leadership style of his predecessor, Janet Napolitano, who on several occasions allowed problems to fester until they become unavoidable entanglements.

    "Since I took office in December, I have made clear that injecting a new energy in the leadership of DHS is a top priority," Johnson said in a statement. "I have also made clear to our leadership that ethics in government, setting the example, and remaining above reproach are essential elements of good leadership."

    In February, less than two months into his tenure, Johnson abruptly scrapped plans for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ask a private company to give the government access to a nationwide database of license plate tracking information. The contract proposal had been posted on a government website for a few days before it was noticed and publicized in the media. An ICE spokeswoman said the contract solicitation had been posted "without the awareness of ICE leadership."

    Last month, Johnson met with senators to discuss the latest embarrassing episode involving drunken Secret Service agents sent home from a foreign trip with the president.

    ... Thursday's suspension came within hours of a report that concluded that Edwards was not only politically influenced, but wasn't qualified for his job. The report said that he also lacked the independence required of an inspector general.


    The Edwards and Secret Service situations are textbook scandals, regardless of the actions Johnson has taken in their wake.

    Michelle Malkin's Friday syndicated column had more details concerning Edwards's behavior:

    Investigators found that Edwards compromised the independence of his office by socializing and sucking up to senior DHS officials. “There are many blessings to be thankful for this year,” the sycophantic Edwards wrote to the DHS acting counsel on Thanksgiving 2011, “but one of the best is having a friend like you.” Geez, get them a room.

    Whistleblowers outlined how Edwards cozied up to multiple DHS execs and legal staffers, who directed him to alter reports on immigration enforcement, TSA screening and the Secret Service’s dalliances with prostitutes in Argentina. Edwards failed to obtain independent legal analysis of ethics issues. The IG counsel was cut out of the loop. Edwards ordered reports to be doctored or delayed. He failed to recuse himself from audits and inspections that had conflicts of interest related to his wife’s employment. (Caldwell's AP report never noted that Edwards's independence problems were largely spouse-related. -- Ed.)

    The probe among DHS employees also discovered that Edwards’ apparent retaliatory actions against staff dissenters “contributed to an office environment characterized by low morale, fear and general dissatisfaction with Mr. Edwards’ leadership.”

    The Obama White House was quite happy, however. The administration installed this 20-year career bureaucrat as acting DOJ senior watchdog despite the fact that he had zero experience conducting audits, investigations and inspections — the three fundamental duties of an inspector general. They got exactly what they needed: A do-nothing, know-nothing, toothless lackey.

    Edwards’ main non-accomplishment was carrying water for the Obama corruptocracy as he dithered on the internal investigation of Alejandro Mayorkas, who was confirmed late last year as the No. 2 official at Homeland Security. As I’ve previously reported, veteran internal whistleblowers told Capitol Hill about fraud, reckless rubber-stamping and lax enforcement under Mayorkas’ tenure as head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

    Put on your shocked faces: The DOJ’s IG probe into Mayorkas’ role on fast-tracking visas for wealthy Chinese investors on behalf of GreenTech — the crony company with ties to Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Hillary Clinton’s other brother, Anthony — has yet to be completed after more than a year.


    Commenting on the Edwards situation, Jack Marshall, the proprietor of the Ethics Alarm blog, summarizes the Obama administration reality succinctly: "I have concluded that the entire Obama Administration is an Ethics Train Wreck."

    And it has had plenty of scandals, many of which are ongoing (e.g., IRS conservative targeting, Obamacare's rollout), whether or not Alicia Caldwell, the AP, or the rest of the establishment press choose to categorize them as such.

    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blu...vior-have-prev
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