[Infowarrior] - GAO: Lawyers stonewall Homeland Security oversight

[Richard Forno]

GAO: Lawyers stonewall Homeland Security oversight
By Michael Hampton
Posted: February 8, 2007 6:09 am
http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2007/02/08/gao-lawyers-stonewall-homeland-se
curity-oversight/

The Government Accountability Office, which investigates waste, fraud and
abuse in federal government agencies, reported Tuesday that its attempts to
audit and investigate the Department of Homeland Security have been
frustrated by the department¹s lawyers.

³DHS has not been receptive towards oversight and its delays in providing
Congress and us with access to various documents and officials have impeded
our work,² GAO head David Walker testified (PDF) before the House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

Walker, joined by the department¹s inspector general, said that department
officials, and especially the office of general counsel, had delayed
investigations and demanded to be present during employee interviews, in
order to intimidate those employees.

    ³Every document we seek to review has to be reviewed (first) by the
general counsel¹s office,² Walker added. He said the department¹s general
counsel wants to ³sit in on every interview,² which he deemed inappropriate.

    Walker said when there are more lawyers than other staff involved,
³you¹ve got problems.²

    ³I agree wholeheartedly,² said Inspector General Richard Skinner. ³It¹s
not a denial of information, but it¹s very cumbersome to obtain
information.²

    Skinner also said that having a supervisor or attorney present when his
office interviews an employee ³sets a chilling effect² and tells the
employee he¹s presumed not to be a team player.

    Until his resignation last month, the general counsel was Phil Perry,
son-in-law of Vice President Dick Cheney. ‹ Associated Press

The general counsel¹s office insisted on reviewing ³sensitive² documents
before releasing them to Congressional investigators or to the inspector
general, a cumbersome process which Skinner said was ³structured to delay,
delay, delay.²

A Homeland Security spokesman said that the statements were inaccurate and
unfair.

In December, the inspector general released a semiannual report on its
activities, including investigations and prosecutions of DHS employees for
criminal activities. One wonders if this is what Perry worried so much about
investigators digging into.

Morale in the Department of Homeland Security is the lowest of any
government agency, and has been persistently low since the department¹s
creation in 2003.

I wonder why.