Nice catch by the Legal Times: Looks like Scott Bloch is putting out an interesting spin on the five scandal-plagued years he spent as chief of the Office of Special Counsel.
Bloch’s bio page at D.C.-based Tarone & McLaughlin LLP, the business law firm where he now works, says “he attained notoriety as the head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.”
Indeed.
As Special Counsel, Bloch was in charge of disciplining federal employees for certain infractions and protecting whistleblowers. But he is instead remembered for a series of scandals, including allegedly intimidating his own employees, and allegedly summoning Geeks on Call to erase the files on his office computer — and then paying them with taxpayer money.
That episode led to FBI raids of Bloch’s home and office and a criminal investigation that, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia tells the Legal Times, is still ongoing.
Bloch’s bio says he “garnered national news” and, apparently without shame, continues:
he … has appeared regularly in the media on programs such as NPR (Morning Edition and All Things Considered), CNN, C-Span, < /SPAN>NBC Nightly News, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, US News & World Report, St. Louis Post Dispatch.
(A couple typical headlines from the New York Times: “New Scrutiny of Hiring At Justice Department” and “U.S. Agency And Home Of Its Chief Are Raided.”)
Finally, the bio boasts, Bloch “has testified on federal rights before the United States Congress” — an apparent reference to a Senate panel grilling Bloch about his failure to enforce a ban on discrimination of federal employees based on sexual orientation.
Also worth a look: the official site of the Scott Bloch Legal Defense Trust.