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Watchdog: Doc Shows Bloch Ginned Up White House Investigation to Protect Himself
Since 2005, Special Counsel Scott Bloch, whose office is charged in part with protecting federal whistleblowers, has been under investigation for retaliating against whistleblowers in his own office and generally politicizing the OSC.
Now government watchdog POGO says they've discovered evidence that Bloch's apparent motivation for launching a very well publicized probe was to make himself invulnerable:
An extraordinary document obtained by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) from inside the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) reveals that Special Counsel Scott Bloch created a special task force to investigate sensitive and high-profile matters and then ignored virtually every recommendation made by it. The document lends support to POGO's theory that Bloch used the task force to launch an investigation of the White House, issuing demands for documents termed by his own task force as "overly broad," to create the appearance of a conflict of interest with an ongoing investigation into allegations that Bloch himself had engaged in misconduct.
POGO has posted the document here (pdf). As they say, the document shows that Bloch worked to maximize the probe of Karl Rove and other White House aides against the recommendation of his own advisors. You might say that shows he was just being aggressive, but his task force evidently thought they were wasting their time by getting into matters the OSC had no authority to investigate.
Comments (7)
Well, well, ain't this fun. Thank you, POGO.
May 7, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why all the investigating when these folks are about to get booted out of office? These asshats needed to be put under the microscope 5 years ago!
May 7, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it weren't for the trillions of dollars stolen and the hundreds of thousands and more dead and maimed, this mini farce would be major news for the fact that it's a microcosm of the cancer on American and the world that is the Bush administration. Bloch, a minor metastasis.
Somehow some document that alleges political motivation or some sort of dereliction of duty in the face of requested reports indicating a need for action is supposed to be a major gasp inducing discovery. We just had a claim by a general, at one point in charge of major operations in Iraq, of exactly that sort of behavior by Donald Rumsfeld, requesting a report on how it was that after "mission accomplished" and the completion of "major combat operations" that the vast majority of American military personnel were removed from Iraq, leaving a small force completely inadequate for the mayhem in the process of exploding there.
Yet this is the gasp item.
We're told that an email indicates politically motivated investigations and possible actions related to such investigations. It isn't simply that the people investigated actually should have been investigated, prosecuted, convicted and punished long ago. If this is the major crime here, politically motivated governmental actions where political considerations are supposed to be unwelcome and even criminal, who in the current administration shouldn't be "put up against the wall?"
This was presumably all started on news that some computer hard drives were "cleaned" by an outside firm. The hard drives that were literally smashed to pieces by the White House to prevent possible discovery of the contents within? No problem even though there were strong indications that the drives contained evidence of criminal activity and even the destruction was criminal since the items were considered evidence in major investigations of life and death national importance going on at the time.
FBI raids? Of course they were called for in the Bloch situation. For Fitzgerald's investigation of possible treason in the White House? Only REQUESTS from "independent" prosecutors for missing documentation. Those sort of pointless requests continue to this day. Raids? Don't make me laugh.
Can you imagine what could have been or, even now, would be discovered if the FBI actually carried out raids on the White House, the Vice President's office .. geez .. even the RNC.
Farce. Absolute farce on a level Kafka would have been stretched to imagine. We have a government of marketing experts and thieves. Con men in other words. They can talk and pocket. No skill beyond that.
But they control the police and the army. It's that old kid's line again, "You and what army?"
May 7, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Imagine if George W. Bush had a say in our government until the day he died. Well he does. One of his famous executive orders has given him the right to control what we know about his administration not just until he dies but forever!
Read Orders and Acts and Lies. Oh my!
When are these cowards who are supposed to represent us, you know, We The People going to do something for this country?
May 7, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Special Counsel Scott Bloch created a special task force to investigate sensitive and high-profile matters and then ignored virtually every recommendation made by it."
A Bush-league trait: set up a commission, then ignore the advice. Just like the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group.
May 7, 2008 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there one Republican who isn't a corrupt jerk?
May 7, 2008 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jim, there is no such thing. All goopers are corrupt, care nothing for this country other than forwarding their own agendas and pocketbooks.
Republicans SUCK!
http://livefrankly.wordpress.com
May 7, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink