The Los Angeles Times digs a little deeper into the sudden resignation of the Pentagon’s inspector general, reminding us of rising tensions between an influential Republican senator and the former inspector general who quit the Defense Department to join a high-profile Iraq contractor.
Rather than regurgitate the usual bye-bye press release of Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz, reporter T. Christian Miller finds that Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is leading a congressional inquiry to determine if Schmitz had blocked two criminal investigations last year.
“I am writing to inform you that I intend to conduct an oversight investigation into allegations that you either quashed or redirected two ongoing criminal investigations last year,” Grassley said in a July 7 letter obtained by The Times.
Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is reported to be concerned about two questionable Schmitz probes. One deals with the criminal investigations in which Schmitz allegedly intervened involved John A. “Jack” Shaw.
Shaw, the former deputy undersecretary of Defense for international technology security, was found to have tried to manipulate a lucrative contract in Iraq in 2004 to favor a telecommunications company whose board included a close friend, The Times found last year after talking with former workers of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
Grassley’s second concern is whether or not Schmitz interfered with testimony by Mary L. Walker, general counsel for the Air Force, on invetigations involving either the Air Force Academy or Boeing Co.
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Relations between Grassley and Schmitz began getting rocky in February 2003 when I did a series involving whistleblower Ken Pedeleose from the Defense Contract Management Agency in Marietta, Ga. Pedeleose had found that Lockheed Martin purposefully used false information to justify excessive prices for airplane parts on the C-5. The guy spent more than a year to get someone’s attention to correct the fraud and he was convinced that Schmidt had turned a blind eye to his complaint.
Grassley, a champion of exposing goverment waste and a strong ally to whistleblowers, told me at the time in November 2003: “I have the utmost confidence in the Inspector General.”
Grassley’s confidence began erroding when Schmidt ignored the findings of his own investigative staff that Lockheed used false pricing data. Schmidt preferred to call on the Defense Department auditors in his Feb. 23, 2003 report on the matter to “maintain vigilance.”
Gassley fired off a letter the following day charging that the Schmidt’s conclusions were “weak and incomplete,” noting that Defense Department auditors “have a long-standing reputation for turning a blind eye to contractor rip-offs.”
Schmit’s findings also left whistleblower Ken Pedelose, who successfully blew the whistle on the C-130J program some months later, twisting in the wind:
“The IG ignored its own [DCIS] investigators that found there was fraud in 2001,” said Pedeleose, who believes he has ruined his career and lost any chance for promotion because of his fight over the C-5 parts. “Fraud is staring them in the face, and nothing is done to stop it. Urging continued vigilance is mush.” — Federal Times, April 5, 2004
Meanwhile Reuters sat down with Schmidt for a little chat about the need for a culture change at the Pentagon when doing business with contractors.
