NEW PROBE OF WHITE HOUSE ALREADY CRUMBLING

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility News Release (www.peer.org)

For Immediate Release: April 26, 2007
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337

NEW PROBE OF WHITE HOUSE ALREADY CRUMBLING — Jurisdiction and Subpoena Limits Hamstring Questionable Special Counsel Gambit

Washington, DC — No sooner had the U.S. Office of Special Counsel announced a wide-ranging probe into allegedly improper political activities by White House officials and appointees than the effort has run aground, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Project On Government Oversight. Further complicating matters, Special Counsel Scott Bloch’s pledge to investigate the White House comes as a White House-commissioned investigation into misconduct charges against Bloch enters its final stage.

Bloch’s plan to combine seemingly unrelated high-profile investigations (the firing of U.S. Attorneys, missing Karl Rove emails and political briefings of General Services Administration managers) has also prompted protests both inside and outside the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Emerging snags include:

• OSC likely does not have jurisdiction over a complaint filed by former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias (a complaint solicited by a Bloch deputy) alleging discrimination on the basis of his service in the Navy Reserve. Presidential appointees who have been confirmed by the Senate are not entitled to claim statutory protection against decisions regarding their continued tenure. In addition, there are profound separation of powers questions about applying statutes to block presidential prerogative to remove his own appointees;
• OSC has only a qualified subpoena power and lacks the authority to enforce its subpoenas in court. If a party simply refuses to comply, OSC must obtain the consent of the General Counsel of the Merits Systems Protection Board, headed by a Bush-appointee, who would then be charged with bringing an enforcement action; and
• The legal basis for an OSC investigation into e-mails from White House staff sent on Republican National Committee accounts as well as OSC’s power to order surrender of the missing missives have not been spelled out.

“It makes no sense for Scott Bloch to investigate the White House while the White House investigates Bloch,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that Bloch has told allies that the White House has twice asked Bloch to resign but Bloch, who is in the midst of a fixed five-year term, can only be removed for cause. “Bloch should recuse himself from this case and hand the matter over either to career staff at OSC or to an outside entity, such as the relevant Inspectors General or Congress.”

The ongoing investigation of Bloch undertaken by the Office of Personnel Management Inspector General at the behest of the President’s Office of Management & Budget comes as a result of a complaint filed by his own staff members and whistleblower groups, including PEER, alleging a host of misconduct charges against Bloch. Ironically, one portion of that complaint concerns Bloch’s improper interference with the handling of Hatch Act cases, the very statute that Bloch is now invoking as the basis for looking a White House political briefings.

“Scott Bloch brings the investigative acumen of an Inspector Clouseau to a very complicated and delicate matter,” Ruch added, noting that Bloch has admitted that he has never undertaken an investigation of this magnitude. “It is not that Bloch has lacked the opportunities to conduct complex investigations since virtually every whistleblower in town goes to the OSC, but Bloch has ignored them all. It is only when a probe serves his political agenda that he latches onto it as if it were the last helicopter leaving Saigon.”

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Find out about the White House-commissioned investigation of Scott Bloch

View the portion of the complaint detailing allegations of Hatch Act irregularities by Bloch

Look at media reports about attempts by the Bush White House to remove Bloch
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12769&R=EE02229
and
http://www.bendweekly.com/Opinion/1162.html

See letter asking that Bloch be recused from the new probe

URL

Critics Say Official Investigating Rove is Wrong Man for the Job

Critics knock special counsel for administration ties

Spokesman disagrees, says probe already underway.

By Tom Hamburger

Times Staff Writer

April 25, 2007

WASHINGTON — Even as Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch moved forward with plans for a sweeping probe of the Bush administration, several advocacy groups complained that his ties to the administration and to conservative groups, as well as his record on gay rights and whistle-blowers, made him the wrong man for the job.

"There is a serious question as to whether Bloch will just provide cover for an administration that is covering for him," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a Democratic-leaning group.

A spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel, communications director James Mitchell, waved away the complaints, saying agency staffers have already begun to form an internal task force, led in part by career staff, to probe three broad areas of activity involving the White House and senior advisor Karl Rove.

The agency will use its subpoena power if necessary, Mitchell said. It will focus on whether White House political concerns improperly intruded on the decision to fire at least one U.S. attorney; whether Rove's office staff or others violated the Hatch Act in briefing Cabinet agency managers on political developments and Republican campaign goals; and whether the White House improperly used Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for official business.

Many of those e-mails are now missing, and Bloch has said his agency will probably join the effort to find them.

The advocacy groups charge, among other things, that Bloch initiated a policy that made it more difficult for gay employees to allege discrimination.

A whistle-blower group said Bloch had a poor record of protecting those reporting wrongdoing. And, these critics pointed out, the Office of Personnel Management is investigating alleged improper employment practices including intimidation of workers at the Special Counsel agency.

"This is a job where you don't have a lot of friends," Mitchell said. "You don't make people happy when you zap them for violations or reject their whistle-blower complaints." At Bloch's confirmation hearing, Mitchell said, the incoming director was urged to reduce the large backlog of whistle-blower and other complaints. Bloch disposed of a great many of them — so many that an advocate for environmental whistle-blowers said they had received no satisfaction from the agency.

"He just ignored them," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Mitchell said office procedures on whistle-blower and other cases were reviewed by a bipartisan congressional staff in 2005 that later provided a positive report.

While Bloch has alienated advocacy groups on the left, he has also lost support from White House insiders, according to one report. The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, reported last year that Bloch was ostracized by the White House and might even be urged to step down.

Mitchell said such attacks are expected by investigators like Bloch. "He is a watchdog," Mitchell said. "That's what he likes to do."

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tom.hamburger@latimes.com