On the Right Track

This week I sent out about 300 more email messages about former Transportation Secretary Mineta's possible violation of the Ethics in Government Act to long-time contacts and friends in the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) field.

One friend responded with this note:

Good job. If he doesn't take you to court, you will know you are on the right track.

I'm definitely on the right track.

Back in 2005 John Collins, Traffic.com's Vice President, threatened to sue me for libel when I first challenged the Traffic.com scam on NTOC's Talking Operations Forum. I told him back then that he was of course free to sue me, but that might not be the smartest thing he's ever done because it was my understanding that the truth is an absolute defense against libel and slander. He didn't follow through.

The same concept applies now. If Mr. Mineta takes me to court now it will only open up Pandora's box and further expose the details of his involvement for all to see, and I have the truth to back me up -- everything that I alleged in my four white papers is based on fact and truth. The press would likely be all over a story about a recent Cabinet member suing a former contractor who has provided federal authorities with details about ongoing fraud and corruption in a major federal department. Just the news of such a lawsuit would likely spur investigative reporters to look further into the serious shenanigans that were and are going on within the USDOT.

I'm more than willing to take the heat. This scandal involves serious federal fraud and corruption by Mr. Mineta and his high-level collaborators. It needs to get exposed and shut down, because this is not the way our federal government should work.

Jerry

Were Mr. Mineta's Favors for Trimble Navigation Unethical or Illegal? Both!

Yesterday I sent an email message to numerous Federal Highway Administration staff members that described former Transportation Secretary Mineta's problematic connection to Trimble Navigation. My message linked to my four white papers that lay out the details of this connection in great detail.

(In the event you're a newcomer to this blog, I discovered Mr. Mineta's apparent shenanigans related to Trimble Navigation in reviewing the Public Financial Disclosure Reports of several high-level USDOT officials I suspected of collaborating with Mr. Shuster in the Traffic.com scandal.)

I sent a copy of this message to a long-time friend of mine (I'll call him "Bill," not his real name), a conservative who regularly comments on our nation's transportation policies and who has close philosophical ties to the Mineta and Peters regimes. Over the past two years I've sent him many details about the Traffic.com scandal, and he regularly responds that he found the information interesting or applauds me for making an impact. However, while I think he accepts the fact that former Cong. Bud Shuster is a big-time crook, he has (so far) refused to believe that Mineta or Jackson have collaborated with Shuster in this scandal.

This was Bill's response to my forwarded message yesterday:

Thanks, Jerry. I note that you do not accuse Mr. Mineta of any illegal or unethical practices. Or do you?

Regards,
Bill

My reply:

Bill,

I'm not a lawyer, of course, I'm an engineer. However, according to Jack [not his real name, the Chairman of a DC-based government corruption watchdog organization], who is a lawyer, it's very possible that Mr. Mineta violated the federal Ethics in Government Act that requires senior federal officials, including sitting Cabinet members, to fully disclose details of their financial transactions while in government service.

Clearly, Mr. Mineta failed to disclose how many Trimble Navigation stock options he cashed in just after he became Commerce Secretary. I think he did so deliberately (and fraudulently), because he knew that things wouldn't look right if he were to publicly disclose that a company gave him a whole lot more stock options than he should have received by company policy just before assuming a Cabinet position in which he would have a major influence over federal policies that would impact that company.

Jack sent me a bunch of information related to a violation of the Ethics in Government Act by Ronald Blackley, who was Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy's Chief of Staff during the Clinton Administration. Blackley was convicted of failing to disclose $22K of income from an agri-business company, and was sentenced to two years in prison, as I recall.

I believe that Mr. Mineta almost certainly received stock options worth many times that amount of money, and that he favored numerous policies and initiatives designed to benefit Trimble Navigation while both Commerce and Transportation Secretary. E9-1-1 is one of the most obvious ones he championed when he became Transportation Secretary. One FHWA insider and a long-time friend of mine told me -- unprompted -- that shortly after Mr. Mineta became Transportation Secretary the word came down to JPO [the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office] that they had to divert $7 million of their existing funding into this new initiative. This person told me that everyone was scratching their heads about why the USDOT should be leading a communication initiative, not a transportation initiative, that logically should have been spearheaded by the FCC and not the USDOT. In hindsight, I think that USDOT led it because their leader at the time (Mineta) was doing a favor as payback for a company that gave him a whole lot of extra stock options under the table.

So, yes, I believe that he violated the Ethics in Government Act in a big way, which is a felony. I don't know how you feel about this, but I don't think that our federal government's top leaders should be "bought and paid for" by special interests in this way. I think it's reprehensible behavior.

The only question I have is whether the authorities, including the SEC and the OIG, have sufficient integrity and independence to get to the bottom of this matter. The SEC surely could, if they wanted to.

[snip]

Jerry

Do What You Gotta Do

That's the title of one of my all-time favorite songs, which was written by Pat Flynn and originally recorded by New Grass Revival almost 20 years ago. More recently, Garth Brooks made it a hit.

Sometimes you've got to take the heat
If you're gonna walk down on the mean street
Take the heat and you see it through
'Cause sometimes it comes down to
Do what you gotta do

Sometimes it goes right down to the wire
And you might have to walk through the fire
Walk on, boy all the way through
Sometimes it just comes down to
Do what you gotta do

Well, there's people that'll tell you
It's just no use
And there's people that'll tell you
That you're gonna lose
People that'll tell you
Anything you're gonna listen to
Do what you gotta do

Someday they're going to call your name
They'll come looking for some one to blame
What's your name, boy
Hey, you just tell them true
'Cause they can't take the truth from you
So do what you gotta do

Well, they'll call you a hero or a traitor
But you'll find out that, sooner or later,
Nobody in this world is gonna do it for you
Do what you gotta do

There ain't nobody in this world
That's gonna do it for you
Do what you gotta do

Here's a version recorded off TV where Brooks sang it, accompanied by New Grass Revival (songwriter Flynn is the guitarist in the red shirt):



I agree with some of the YouTube reviewers that NGR's original version is much better, in large part because their lead singer (John Cowan) has a much better voice than Brooks. Heck, I have a much better voice than Garth Brooks.

"Do What You Gotta Do" is really an anthem for those who believe -- no, who absolutely know -- that they are doing the right thing. That's the way I feel about trying to "out" the whole Traffic.com scandal. It's the right thing to expose major fraud and corruption in our federal government and to shut down a program that works strongly against the public's interest in many of our nation's most traffic congested cities. It's also the right thing for the crooks, particularly those high-profile "public servants" who have betrayed the public's trust, to find justice.

I'm quite sure that as a result of my recent mailings to over 300 people in the ITS field (including over 80 to FHWA staff), some of my colleagues consider me a "traitor," as the song says. From their own narrow perspectives, they see me as attacking the federal ITS program (and thus, their own livelihood), rather than trying to fix a major wrong in the program so that it actually works in the public interest. They choose to just look the other way and ignore such major fraud and corruption, so long as they can continue to feed at the federal trough. They're all about the status quo.

Pat Flynn has clearly been there, and knows how people react when someone rocks the boat and threatens their self-serving position.

Too bad, that boat is going to continue rockin'.

Jerry