Walter Reed Maintenance Contract Delayed 3 Years
“An Army contract to privatize maintenance at Walter Reed Medical Center was delayed more than three years amid bureaucratic bickering and legal squabbles that led to staff shortages and a hospital in disarray just as the number of severely wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan was rising rapidly. While medical care was not directly affected, needed repairs went undone as the non-medical staff shrank from almost 300 to less than 50 in the last year and hospital officials were unable to find enough skilled replacements.” (AP)
Amid Concerns, FBI Lapses Went On
FBI counterterrorism officials continued to use flawed procedures to obtain thousands of U.S. telephone records during a two-year period when bureau lawyers and managers were expressing escalating concerns about the practice, according to senior FBI and Justice Department officials and documents. FBI lawyers raised the concerns beginning in late October 2004 but did not closely scrutinize the practice until last year, FBI officials acknowledged.” (Washington Post)
Gonzales Quietly Filled Two Long-Vacant Jobs
“With no public announcement, the attorney general named permanent chiefs last week for the Public Integrity Section, which prosecutes government corruption cases and oversees Abramoff-related investigations, and for the Fraud Section. Bill Welch, deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section, moves up, as does Steve Tyrrell, acting chief of the Fraud Section. Both posts were vacant for more than a year. A Justice spokesman says the delay was because of interviewing multiple candidates. âItâs not something that can be done overnight,â he says.” (WSJ)
Pentagon Acts to Crack Down on Recruiter Misconduct
“The military is considering installing surveillance cameras in recruiting stations across the country, the most dramatic of several new steps to address a rise in misconduct allegations against military recruiters — including sexual assaults of female prospects and bending the rules to meet quotas. In a letter to Congress obtained by the Globe, a top Pentagon personnel official outlined the initiatives, which also include a ban on recruiters meeting with prospective recruits of the opposite sex unless a supervisor is present.” (The Boston Globe)
Ethics Offers Travel Rule Guidance
“In a memo issued Friday, the House ethics committee attempted to clear up lingering confusion over the ban on privately funded travel adopted earlier this year.” (Roll Call)
Iglesias: My Firing Was a ‘Political Hit’
“Today on Fox News Sunday, former U.S. attorney David Iglesias beat back several misleading claims by Bush administration officials, and reasserted that his firing was a ‘political hit,’ not done for performance reasons. He pointed out that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales agreed to write him a recommendation even after he was fired. ‘If [my firing] was performance based, there is no way they would have agreed to have allowed me to list them as a reference,’ he said.” (Think Progress)
White House Effort to ‘Gum to Death’ US Attorney Process Moving Forward
” On Jan. 18, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, that âwith respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney.â The administration understood that its plan to skirt Congress in the appointment of interim US Attorneys would be met with severe criticism. In a Dec. 19 email, Sampson wrote to a White House aide, “We should gum this to death.” With little attention, this scenario is exactly what is playing out now, as the White House is running out the clock to keep Griffin in office.” (Think Progress)
DeLay Sees the Reason for His Party’s Loss
“Tom DeLay, the fiery former House majority leader, knows why his party lost control of Congress last year. And he is not to blame. I would suggest that Republicans lost because they did not communicate their message and their victories with enough strength to overcome short-term, media-fed issues that arose right before the election,’ Mr. DeLay writes.” (New York Times)
