How Do You Spell Coverup?
Sometimes the crooks do such stupid things that you just have to smile! Today, the Project on Government Oversight received a response from POGO's second Freedom of Information Act request dated January 17, in which POGO asked to get copies of former USDOT Secretary Norman Mineta's original and earlier copies of his CY 2000 Public Financial Disclosure Reports.
The reason for this request was that the CY 2000 disclosure that I obtained several months ago from OGE had an obvious and glaring problem -- Mr. Mineta disclosed an income of "$100,001 - $1,000,000" in stock options for Trimble Navigation, yet checked the box saying "none" related to any transactions for calendar year 2000. Clearly, if he made money in stock options he had transactions in stock options.
It's also clear that the latest disclosure on file is an amended version, both by the dates you can see on the front page as well as the fact that these reports are due on May 15 of the following year -- which would mean May 15, 2001 for CY 2000, and the version OGE sent me is dated April 19, 2002. Hence, it's clearly an amended version.
Those dates show up huge. In the OGE's response, they say "Our file review has not located any such other copies or versions of that schedule or the CY 2000 report itself." Huh? They can't even find the report itself? Maybe I should sell my version back to them!
The OGE's response letter also talks about the six year deadline for such reports: "Please note that copies of SF 278 reports are available to the public for six years after receipt pursuant to the special access procedures of section 105 of the Ethics in Government Act..."
But the CY 2000 report they sent me a few months back is dated April 19, 2002, which means that they should keep it on file until April 19, 2008, more than a year from now.
How much do you want to bet that former Secretary Mineta, with all his contacts and clout in the Administration, pulled some strings so that OGE would conveniently "lose" all of the Calendar Year 2000 reports, because he knew that what they disclosed would be embarrassing to him or worse -- it would show that he unduly profited from Trimble stock options?
I don't know about anyone else, but I spell it "C-O-V-E-R-U-P", and somebody's going down for these shenanigans. I've already contacted members of the press who have opened investigations into the Traffic.com scandal, and am in the process of contacting both the FBI and the USDOT OIG.
This is actually getting fun, like Molly Ivins said.
Jerry
The reason for this request was that the CY 2000 disclosure that I obtained several months ago from OGE had an obvious and glaring problem -- Mr. Mineta disclosed an income of "$100,001 - $1,000,000" in stock options for Trimble Navigation, yet checked the box saying "none" related to any transactions for calendar year 2000. Clearly, if he made money in stock options he had transactions in stock options.
It's also clear that the latest disclosure on file is an amended version, both by the dates you can see on the front page as well as the fact that these reports are due on May 15 of the following year -- which would mean May 15, 2001 for CY 2000, and the version OGE sent me is dated April 19, 2002. Hence, it's clearly an amended version.
Those dates show up huge. In the OGE's response, they say "Our file review has not located any such other copies or versions of that schedule or the CY 2000 report itself." Huh? They can't even find the report itself? Maybe I should sell my version back to them!
The OGE's response letter also talks about the six year deadline for such reports: "Please note that copies of SF 278 reports are available to the public for six years after receipt pursuant to the special access procedures of section 105 of the Ethics in Government Act..."
But the CY 2000 report they sent me a few months back is dated April 19, 2002, which means that they should keep it on file until April 19, 2008, more than a year from now.
How much do you want to bet that former Secretary Mineta, with all his contacts and clout in the Administration, pulled some strings so that OGE would conveniently "lose" all of the Calendar Year 2000 reports, because he knew that what they disclosed would be embarrassing to him or worse -- it would show that he unduly profited from Trimble stock options?
I don't know about anyone else, but I spell it "C-O-V-E-R-U-P", and somebody's going down for these shenanigans. I've already contacted members of the press who have opened investigations into the Traffic.com scandal, and am in the process of contacting both the FBI and the USDOT OIG.
This is actually getting fun, like Molly Ivins said.
Jerry
posted by Jerry Werner | 3:00 PM
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