Couldn't Leave Well Enough Alone

Sometimes when I know something is wrong deep down in my gut, I can't just let it go without a response. So was the case with former Commerce/Transportation Secretary and current Hill & Knowlton Vice Chairman Norman Mineta's recent posting on Hill & Knowlton's Ampersand blog, entitled "The Changing Face(s) of K Street."

K Street, of course, is home to many of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, DC. Mr. Mineta himself is a high-paid consultant/lobbyist as Vice Chairman of the big international PR firm Hill & Knowlton, and his own company's office in DC is just a short five block detour off K street.

Mr. Mineta's Ampersand posting talks all about how, to quote him directly, "this change [to the Obama Administration] is going to extend to the way that we, as consultants and lobbyists, conduct business on behalf of our clients."

I found his remarks both condescending and arrogant, especially in light of his own serious ethical lapse that I discovered by accident in digging into his and others' involvement in the whole Traffic.com debacle. He was, in effect, lecturing his audience about the impact of the Obama Administration's attempt to institute more ethics and honesty in the federal government.

(To be sure, the jury is still out as to whether these new ethics rules will "take" or not. While President Obama announced some very significant ethics reforms, he immediately circumvented these rules with the proposed appointment of the new Deputy Secretary of Defense, a recent Raytheon lobbyist -- see this recent alert from POGO. Not a very good precedent.)

I noticed that the Ampersand blog invited comments to its postings, so added a short one of my own to Mr. Mineta's piece: "Interesting commentary. One hopes that the changing terrain that Mr. Mineta talks about includes a new and more ethical government than we've seen in recent years." I included a link to my invited guest editorial last June in HawaiiReporter.com in which I laid out the facts of Mr. Mineta's ethics problem.

Much more publicly available evidence is laid out in four chapters of my new book, The 'Smart Road' Scam, including details of how the U.S. Office of Government Ethics apparently tried to lose Mr. Mineta's key CY2000 disclosure in which he was required by law to disclose his stock options income of up to $1 million (but didn't). It's very likely that Mr. Mineta violated the same federal disclosure laws for which Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was recently convicted, except that more money may well be involved in Mr. Mineta's case.

Here's a PDF of Mr. Mineta's Ampersand piece showing my comments. I'm not holding my breath to see if they approve it.

Jerry