GSA Vegas Scandal Latest Symptom of Out of Control Federal Bureaucracy

Issa on Hannity Radio: Exposing & Investigating GSA Vegas Convention

White House defends Secret Service amid prostitution investigation

Washington (CNN) -- The White House defended the Secret Service and its director Tuesday amid an embarrassing investigation into whether several agents brought prostitutes back to their hotel in Colombia ahead of a presidential visit.

Eleven Secret Service members have been implicated in the investigation, which began Thursday after one of the women complained that she hadn't been paid. In addition, as many as 10 U.S. military personnel from all branches of the armed forces are being questioned about potential involvement in any misconduct, two military officials told CNN.

The Americans were in Cartagena to prepare for President Barack Obama's weekend visit to the Summit of the Americas, and Obama has said he expects a "rigorous" investigation.

The investigation is being led by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, who has been briefing members of Congress. A leading senator said Tuesday she had been told as many as 21 women had been involved, and questioned whether the incident could have endangered the president.

"Who were these women? Could they have been members of groups hostile to the United States? Could they have planted bugs, disabled weapons, or in any other (ways) jeopardized security of the president or our country?" asked Maine's Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

At the White House, presidential spokesman Jay Carney said Obama "has confidence" in Sullivan, who he said "acted quickly in response to this incident," and in the agents around him.

"The work the Secret Service does, the men and women who protect him and his family and those who work with him, is exemplary as a rule," Carney said. "They put their lives on the line, and it is a very difficult job, and he acknowledges that and he appreciates it."

Collins said she believed Sullivan "will fully investigate" the allegations and take "appropriate action" if the allegations bear out. But she questioned whether there was any similar misconduct on previous missions, and whether the issue is a sign of a deeper problem within the agency.

The Secret Service agents and officers involved range in experience from relative newcomers to nearly 20-year veterans, and all have been interviewed at least once, two government officials with knowledge of the investigation told CNN on Monday. Their security clearances have been pulled while the investigation is under way and could be reinstated if they are cleared, the officials said.

The agents were offered an opportunity to take a polygraph test, according to a U.S. official.

Some of the agents and military personnel maintain they didn't know the women were prostitutes, the official told CNN.

"Even if they weren't (prostitutes), it was totally wrong to take a foreign national back to a hotel when the president is about to arrive," Rep. Peter King, R-New York and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight."

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, said he thinks the agents should take the polygraph tests, if they haven't already done so.

"For these individuals, if they want to have any career at all, they have to decide on telling the entire truth and seeing whether they have something going forward."

Issa said his level of confidence in Sullivan is "high."

The Homeland Security Committee's chairman, Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman, said his staff is looking into the accusations and he may call hearings on the matter.

"History, unfortunately, is full of cases where people in positions of great responsibility, including security, have been compromised by, well, enemies or spies," Lieberman said. "I'm not saying that happened here, but once you conduct yourself in this way, you open that risk."

California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who leads the chamber's intelligence committee, said she was "profoundly disappointed" by the allegations.

"I've always respected the Secret Service as kind of numero uno of our law enforcement community," she said.

U.S. government sources have said there was a dispute between at least one Secret Service member and a woman demanding payment. At least one of the women brought to the hotel talked with police, and complaints were filed with the U.S. Embassy, the sources said.

While soliciting prostitution is legal in certain areas of Colombia, it is considered a breach of the agency's conduct code, the government sources said. Military law also bars service members from patronizing prostitutes, displaying conduct unbecoming an officer or, for enlisted personnel, conduct "prejudicial to good order and discipline."

The military personnel involved were sent to Colombia to support the Secret Service. A military official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigation told CNN that two of those being questioned are Marines who handle military working dogs. Air Force and Navy personnel, some of whom are believed to be explosive disposal experts, also are being questioned, the official said.

The alleged misconduct occurred before Obama arrived in Cartagena, and the Secret Service said the personnel involved were relieved of duty and sent home before the president landed. But the news broke while he was there -- and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday that the incident distracted attention "from what was a very important regional engagement for our president."

"So we let the boss down, because nobody's talking about what went on in Colombia other than this incident," Dempsey said.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, said he would consider holding hearings on the conduct of the members of the military involved in the scandal, but wants to learn more first. The committee's top Republican, Arizona Sen. John McCain, said he is sure "the guilty will be punished," but lamented that a few members of the military and Secret Service "have tarnished the reputations of many."

CNN's Barbara Starr, Jessica Yellin, Deirdre Walsh and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

Expect Canceled Conferences In Near Future From GSA & Federal Agencies

Government Gone Wild -- GSA Wasting Your Money, OGR Investigates



What Did Oversight Cmte Find Out During Hearing On GSA Spending Spree?

Addressing GSA's Culture of Wasteful Spending

GSA Chief of Staff Informed White House of Las Vegas Conference Scandal in Spring 2011

GSA Chief of Staff Spills Beans on When He Told White House About Vegas Spending Spree

Exposing Waste, Abuse & Mismanagement at the GSA & Secret Service

GSA's Wasteful Spending & Lack of Accountability Goes Beyond Party Lines

GSA official Neely pleads the Fifth

By Mike Lillis

 

The General Services Administration official at the center of a scandal over lavish government spending declined to answer questions at a congressional hearing on Monday, invoking the Fifth Amendment.

"Mr, Chairman, on the advice of my counsel I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutionally privilege," Jeff Neely, the GSA official, said repeatedly in response to a string of questions from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

 Issa had subpoenaed Neely for his role in organizing a 2010 Las Vegas conference of the GSA's Public Buildings Service, for which Neely serves as a regional commissioner.

A damning GSA Inspector General report, released earlier this month, detailed the almost $823,000 taxpayer-funded tab for the conference, including $146,527 for catered food, $6,325 for commemorative coins and $75,000 for a cooperation-building exercise to construct bicycles.

The report led to the quick resignation of GSA's Administrator Martha Johnson, and brought a wave of loud condemnation from Republicans, who contend it reveals a culture of corruption in the GSA, in particular, and a trend of overspending in the Obama administration, in general. Democrats have also loudly criticized Neely and GSA, something they continued at Monday's hearing.

With Capitol Hill quiet for the last two weeks of spring recess, the GSA story caught fire in the media, creating a circus-like atmosphere Monday in the Rayburn hearing room on Capitol Hill, where the line to get in snaked down an otherwise quiet hallway and the press table spilled with reporters even 30 minutes before the hearing began.

Other GSA officials – including Johnson and David Foley, deputy commissioner of the Public Buildings Service – offered no attempt to defend the spending on the Vegas junket, instead apologizing repeatedly for the scandal that occurred under their watch.

"I personally apologize to the American people for the entire situation," Johnson said. "As the head of the agency, I am responsible."

Brian Miller, the GSA Inspector General, applauded the internal oversight system that allowed his office to issue its damning report without political interference. But he warned that more needs to be done to ensure that taxpayer dollars aren't similarly wasted in the future.

"While a private business may use its profits to rewire employees in a lavish fashion, a government agency may not," Miller said in his prepared testimony.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), senior Democrat on the oversight committee, was quick to pile on the criticism, particularly when it came to Neely's actions.

"I do not support granting Mr. Neely immunity at this time," Cummings said.

Cummings warned that Neely's behavior shouldn't be used to attack all federal workers.

"They disregarded one of the most basic tenets of public [government?] service: It's not your money," Cummings said. "It tarnishes the reputation of hard-working government workers," Cummings said. "They should not be painted with the same brush."

Monday's hearing is just the start of Congress's probe into dubious GSA spending. On Tuesday, the Transportation Committee's subpanel on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management – headed by Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) – will take another shot at the embattled agency. And Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), head of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Financial Services Subpanel, have both scheduled hearings on the topic Wednesday.

Like Issa, Denham has requested testimony from Johnson, Neely and other GSA officials directly involved in the Vegas junket. The Senate Democrats, by contrast, have invited only Miller and Dan Tangherlini, GSA's acting administrator who replaced Johnson.


The Hill

Issa: Secret Service Incident Likely Not The First

United States Secret Service

.

 

 WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior House Republican says he doubts that a Secret Service scandal involving prostitutes in Colombia was a one-time incident.

Rep. Darrell Issa (EYE'-suh) warns the agency that protects the president that Congress will want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Issa, who leads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, says he's not sure whether there will be congressional hearings. But he tells CBS' "Face the Nation" that lawmakers will be looking "over the shoulder" of the Secret Service's own investigation to ensure the agency isn't endangering the nation's VIPs.

Eleven Secret Service employees have been placed on administration leave after allegedly partying with prostitutes in advance of President Barak Obama's weekend summit in Colombia.

Issa says "things like this don't happen once, if they didn't happen before."


My Fox Phoenix 

Will Holder’s Watergate Become Obama’s Waterloo?

By Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President

Will Holder’s Watergate Become Obama’s Waterloo?

Any doubt surrounding the mindset driving the gun-ban crowd, especially those infesting the Obama administration, in using human suffering and murder as propaganda tools has been erased by hard evidence coming straight out of congressional investigations of the government’s “Operation Fast and Furious.”

That proof is in an email boasting of gun traces held secret from Mexican authorities—part of the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal conspiracy to run guns from U.S. retailers to Mexico.

“Some of these weapons bought by these clowns in Arizona have been directly traced to murders of elected officials in Mexico by the cartels, so Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby.”

Those are the words of Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in an April 2010 email to a colleague boasting about the propaganda value of his “Operation Fast and Furious” and predicting its huge public impact.

The “clowns,” in fact, were sanctioned criminals reportedly funded with federal money to break federal firearm and smuggling laws ostensibly under Burke’s supervision. In that “gun-walking” operation, Obama administration operatives encouraged, bankrolled and oversaw repeated felonies at gun stores and at border crossings with criminals smuggling at least 1,700 firearms into Mexican drug-fueled criminal commerce.

Knowledge of the scheme was withheld not only from Mexican authorities, but from U.S. law enforcement officials assigned to Mexico. So the claim that the operation was designed to “interdict” illegal guns is breathtakingly false—all to create new U.S. gun control.

That scheme—designed to give truth to the administration’s meme that U.S. gun stores were the source for cartel firepower—has resulted in the murders of hundreds of Mexican citizens and at least one U.S. law enforcement officer, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. He was killed in a December 2010 ambush near Nogales, Arizona, by Mexican cartel criminals. Found at the scene were firearms illegally obtained and smuggled under “Fast and Furious.” The record shows that Mexican lives lost in this scheme were a predictable consequence. Terry’s death was collateral damage.

Read Burke’s characterization again: “Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby.” The grief of Mexican families, the loss of Mexican public officials brave enough to stand up to the cartels, all summed up in the words, “this baby.” Despicable.

First reported in the Arizona Republic, Burke’s memo in this “gun-walking” scandal came from a middling 486-page document dump—a small part of the paper-trail evidence demanded by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Those documents only begin to reveal the elaborate screen of lies to cover up the Obama administration’s culpability in the murders.

The quote was buried in a puff-piece about Burke that noted “firearms politics … has been a pet theme through most of his 23 years in government.” It also revealed his passion for banning guns: first as a key Judiciary Committee staffer credited with Senate passage of the 1994 Clinton gun ban, then as a key White House “policy analyst” working under President Clinton’s gun-ban guru, Rahm Emanuel, who in turn became President Obama’s White House chief of staff. Burke was a close associate of Janet Napolitano, now secretary of Homeland Security.

In 2009, President Obama tapped Burke as U.S. Attorney for Arizona. Under the cloud of “Fast and Furious,” Burke has resigned his post.

Released just days prior to Attorney General Eric Holder’s Feb. 2 appearance before Rep. Issa’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is investigating “Fast and Furious,” the documents contained emails and memos clearly indicating that Holder flat-out lied when he told Congress he casually had heard about “Fast and Furious” from the media many months after Agent Brian Terry’s death broke the scandal wide open.

With the news of the Terry murder, memos show Burke frantically informing Attorney General Holder’s deputy chief of staff within hours that guns found at the scene were part of “Fast and Furious.”

Days after Terry’s killing, Sen. Grassley was approached by ATF whistle-blowers revealing the complicity of Justice officials in the murderous gun-running scheme. Email exchanges show Burke privately attacked Sen. Grassley’s efforts as “categorically false,” a claim repeated by Justice.

Burke also opposed what should have been a pro forma application by the Terry family to obtain crime victim status under federal laws to give them the right to appear before the court. Burke argued that the family was not “directly or proximately harmed” but that the real victim in Terry’s murder was “society in general.” Terry’s family has now filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the Justice Department and ATF.

Based on earlier evidence, NRA has sought Holder’s resignation or firing, but the tip-of-the-iceberg material now in Issa’s and Grassley’s hands suggests independent criminal investigations are a must.

Already at least one Justice Department official has claimed his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify, which Rep. Issa said, “… heightens concerns that the Justice department’s motivation for refusing to hand over subpoenaed materials is a desire to shield responsible officials from criminal charges and other embarrassment.”

Further, hostile Justice Department witnesses appearing before earlier sessions of the Issa committee clearly lied or misled Congress.

Issa’s committee investigators have sought some 80,000 documents and have received only a fraction. Among the 6,000 produced by Justice, censors have redacted virtually all text in key emails and memos. This administration-wide ”Fast and Furious” stonewalling and cover up has prompted Issa to consider extraordinary action against Holder and others. Issa’s justifiable anger is reflected in a letter putting the attorney general on notice:  “If the Department continues to obstruct the congressional inquiry by not providing documents and information, this Committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress.”

Holder’s attempt to delay and obfuscate to hide the facts is creating a true constitutional crisis. Since the expiration of the “Special Prosecutor law,” appointment of independent criminal prosecutors is now at the whim of the U.S. Attorney General. Will Holder investigate Holder? Hardly.

However, Congress can pass a specific law establishing and funding a “Fast and Furious” special prosecutor, with explicit powers to pursue any criminal wrongdoing. This is the only way the American public will ever know how high the conspiracy goes.

If Watergate brought down President Richard M. Nixon—largely because of a massive cover up—“Fast and Furious” should land on the desk of President Barack Obama. After all, nobody died in Watergate.

As individual fighters for freedom, NRA members must demand accountability from the news media, from Congress, and through the presidential candidates left standing after the current debates and primaries. For too long, Obama and his followers have blamed us and our Second Amendment rights for murder and mayhem in Mexico. It’s time to put the blame where it belongs.

This is Barack Obama’s scandal, and it must become a national issue in the coming election. He has to answer for the loss of life in Mexico. And he has to answer—personally—to Brian Terry’s family.


NRA MEDIA