A Sad Realization: The Executive Branch is Incapable of Investigating Corruption in Its Own Ranks
Today I received a letter from Charles H. Lee, Jr., the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations for the U.S. DOT Inspector General's office, saying that "we [that is, the IG's Office of Investigations] will not be conducting any further investigation into those issues." He's referring to the issues that I raised in January 2007, when I spent two hours with Special Agent Malik Freeman and his supervisor from the IG's Investigations Division at the OIG's offices in DC explaining the Traffic.com scandal.
Over the next six months or so I would talk with SA Freeman multiple times, and receive 10 email messages from him. He was particularly interested in my allegations about Mr. Mineta's ties to Trimble Navigation. I believe that SA Freeman could have gotten to the bottom of this scandal if his supervisors had supported him in that action. However, that was clearly not the case.
To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of receiving letters like this from bureaucrats trying more to protect their asses rather than to do what's right and dig into what is clearly serious fraud and corruption in our federal government.
A few weeks back I received another letter from a Senior Counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission, with whom I had talked on multiple occasions and to whom I had sent substantial information about where Shuster's, Mineta's, Jackson's, and others' financial interest in Traffic.com very likely could be hidden. The SEC's investigators, of course, could also play a key role in ascertaining how many extra Trimble Navigation stock options Mr. Mineta almost certainly received under the table back in 2000.
That SEC letter appears to be a form letter. The tipoff is where it says "Although the Commission is always eager to be of service to investors..." I never even remotely intimated that I was an investor in Traffic.com or Trimble Navigation (and I never have been), so that reference is particularly inappropriate. ("Let's send form letter No. 313 to Mr. Werner -- that should get him off our back!")
The only conclusion I can draw from these latest letters is that the people in the Executive Branch who are ultimately responsible for ensuring that our government is honest and ethical will not investigate major fraud and corruption in their own branch. The reason? Because these individuals either report directly to the crooks themselves or to other senior officials in this Administration who absolutely don't want news of more scandals getting out. We're seeing a failure of the "authorities" to investigate all kinds of scandals in our federal government these days, so I probably shouldn't be surprised. It's a very sad state of affairs, and doesn't at all bode well for our future.
In the case of the whole Traffic.com scandal, a thorough investigation by the OIG's Office of Investigations would ultimately and undoubtedly lead to the top executive suite in the USDOT, to both to the current occupant and her predecessor. However, the "investigators" ultimately report to the people who occupy that office, and clearly don't see it as helpful to their career aspirations to even start an investigation that could very likely lead there. Much safer from a personal standpoint not to open up Pandora's box in the first place.
I used to think that "career executives" in the big federal bureaucracies, as opposed to "political appointees," helped ensure that their agencies remained ethical and honest, because they weren't overtly pursuing political agendas that might obscure what is truly in the public interest. But the flipside is that these career executives are by definition concerned about their career growth, and investigating corruption on the part of your boss could very likely be a career-stunting -- if not career-ending -- exercise. Again, better to just not open this can of worms at all.
It's all pretty discouraging and disappointing, but I will not quit. As one of my key advisors from a non-profit government corruption watchdog organization recently observed, "you sure have a lot of torpedoes in the water, and I think at least some of them are going to hit."
I think he's right.
Jerry
Over the next six months or so I would talk with SA Freeman multiple times, and receive 10 email messages from him. He was particularly interested in my allegations about Mr. Mineta's ties to Trimble Navigation. I believe that SA Freeman could have gotten to the bottom of this scandal if his supervisors had supported him in that action. However, that was clearly not the case.
To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of receiving letters like this from bureaucrats trying more to protect their asses rather than to do what's right and dig into what is clearly serious fraud and corruption in our federal government.
A few weeks back I received another letter from a Senior Counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission, with whom I had talked on multiple occasions and to whom I had sent substantial information about where Shuster's, Mineta's, Jackson's, and others' financial interest in Traffic.com very likely could be hidden. The SEC's investigators, of course, could also play a key role in ascertaining how many extra Trimble Navigation stock options Mr. Mineta almost certainly received under the table back in 2000.
That SEC letter appears to be a form letter. The tipoff is where it says "Although the Commission is always eager to be of service to investors..." I never even remotely intimated that I was an investor in Traffic.com or Trimble Navigation (and I never have been), so that reference is particularly inappropriate. ("Let's send form letter No. 313 to Mr. Werner -- that should get him off our back!")
The only conclusion I can draw from these latest letters is that the people in the Executive Branch who are ultimately responsible for ensuring that our government is honest and ethical will not investigate major fraud and corruption in their own branch. The reason? Because these individuals either report directly to the crooks themselves or to other senior officials in this Administration who absolutely don't want news of more scandals getting out. We're seeing a failure of the "authorities" to investigate all kinds of scandals in our federal government these days, so I probably shouldn't be surprised. It's a very sad state of affairs, and doesn't at all bode well for our future.
In the case of the whole Traffic.com scandal, a thorough investigation by the OIG's Office of Investigations would ultimately and undoubtedly lead to the top executive suite in the USDOT, to both to the current occupant and her predecessor. However, the "investigators" ultimately report to the people who occupy that office, and clearly don't see it as helpful to their career aspirations to even start an investigation that could very likely lead there. Much safer from a personal standpoint not to open up Pandora's box in the first place.
I used to think that "career executives" in the big federal bureaucracies, as opposed to "political appointees," helped ensure that their agencies remained ethical and honest, because they weren't overtly pursuing political agendas that might obscure what is truly in the public interest. But the flipside is that these career executives are by definition concerned about their career growth, and investigating corruption on the part of your boss could very likely be a career-stunting -- if not career-ending -- exercise. Again, better to just not open this can of worms at all.
It's all pretty discouraging and disappointing, but I will not quit. As one of my key advisors from a non-profit government corruption watchdog organization recently observed, "you sure have a lot of torpedoes in the water, and I think at least some of them are going to hit."
I think he's right.
Jerry
posted by Jerry Werner | 3:03 PM
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