I don't understand why people would seek charges against these upstanding Americans. There isn't anything wrong with what they did. Just ask Bush, our fine upstanding, competent drug abusing president.

Unfortunately, corporate and organizational culture is typically top-down; if the leader sees nothing wrong with voiding the constitution, engaging in international conflict for personal reasons and so, why would his lackeys operate any differently? Monkey see, monkey do ~ remember Enron and its fine, upstanding leader Ken Lay? All of a suit, you might say.

So you would impune the current President, and say the the previous one was an honorable one? The one who willingly, knowingly bore false testimony?
Continue to delude yourself into your false reality, but please try to limit your impact on the rest of us. This scandal has nothing to do with the Presidency. Please start to assign blame where it is due.

Career Federal employees unwatched, unchecked, and gaming the system is a government wide problem. This supersedes the revolving door of Presidential administrations. I am aware that this probe has gone on and on and on and in PREVIOUS administrations, prosecutors aware, but recommended NOT prosecuting. The first flaccid reactions to this corruption were transfers, retiring, and other gutless failures to slam those responsible with prison time. It's under THIS administration these criminal and corrupt Federal Employees were brought down. Good for this Secretary of Interior..piss poor for the IG.

Michael Lent, so sorry I have been sidetracked. I have been off burnishing my “ideologue” credentials since your last post. Dipping into the “Communist Manifesto” takes time, as I am sure you can appreciate, and, boy, brushing up on “Quotes From Chairman Mao” certainly becomes a slog.

But it has been worth it. Just look at how well prepared I am to discuss the current financial crisis, created by completely ignoring Government regulations, as if they were the Army Field Manual on Waterboarding. Did John Yoo write the memo for this fiasco too?

Anyway, I promised you way back then that in a couple of months you would start to see scandals that did, in fact, show Government officials on the take, and others letting contractors off when their hands got caught in the cookie jar. But more importantly, today’s post by Mr. O’Harrow refutes your theory that contracting officers seldom have a clue to how to write a contract, or know if fraud is even going on.

Today’s lesson covers those crazy lads at Interior. Kind of makes you wish Government contracting officers were as incompetent as you say. A lot less damage would get done.

Just to show you, though, that a few honest people are on top of this stuff, regardless of what you think, harken back with us to the days of that poor whistleblower who actually tried to stop this.

Yep, Justice sat on him, and then tossed him out on his ear. The Courts picked over the bones, and the guy lost a career, reputation and standing.

And, gosh, as I recall, you said that it was just all a loony conspiracy theory to think that the higher ups ordered the whistleblowers off these cases.

Wonderful folks those compassionate conservatives, and the judges they have smuggled in to give those snarky, greedy whistleblowers their just desserts for questioning that pinnacle of integrity the oil industry.

From the New York Times in April 2007:

Verdict Backing Oil-Royalty Whistle-Blower Is Overturned

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: April 3, 2007

WASHINGTON, April 2 — A federal judge in Denver has overturned a jury’s verdict in favor of a whistle-blower at the Interior Department who charged that the Kerr-McGee Corporation cheated the government out of millions of dollars for oil and gas it pumped in publicly owned coastal waters.

In a ruling that could have big implications for whistle-blowers, as well as for the oil and gas industry, the judge ruled that the former Interior Department auditor was not eligible to sue Kerr-McGee as a private citizen because he had gathered most of his evidence while on the job.

The judge did not question the jury’s verdict that the auditor, Bobby L. Maxwell, had uncovered cheating by Kerr-McGee. Nor did the judge dispute that Mr. Maxwell had filed his lawsuit as a private citizen after senior Interior Department officials in Washington ordered him to abandon his findings.

Rather, the judge said Mr. Maxwell failed a crucial technical requirement for seeking to recover money under the False Claims Act, a law that encourages private whistle-blowers to help recover money from companies that cheat the government.

Mr. Maxwell is expected to appeal, and many industry experts expect both sides to fight the case to the Supreme Court. The issue has been closely watched by the big oil companies. Many of them warned an appellate court last year that Mr. Maxwell would “open the floodgates” to litigation if he were allowed to proceed.

Indeed, three other federal auditors in Oklahoma City have filed similar fraud lawsuits against more than a dozen oil companies; those auditors also say that they were ordered by superiors to stop making their accusations.

After a one-week trial in January, a federal jury in Denver agreed with Mr. Maxwell that Kerr-McGee had cheated the government out of about $7.5 million in royalties on oil that it had been pumping on federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

Under the False Claims Act, Kerr-McGee could have been forced to repay more than $30 million, and Mr. Maxwell would have been entitled to as much as 30 percent.

But the judge who presided over the trial, Phillip S. Figa, dismissed the verdict on Friday, saying that he had re-evaluated the question about Mr. Maxwell’s eligibility to invoke the law.

Judge Figa ruled that the False Claims Act requires that a person first “voluntarily disclose” any evidence of fraud to the government before filing a lawsuit.

Mr. Maxwell presented his evidence of fraud in 2002, and the judge noted that his supervisor in Denver agreed in principle that Kerr-McGee had probably violated the law. But senior lawyers for the Interior Department in Washington said they did not want to proceed, and ordered Mr. Maxwell to retreat.

Mr. Maxwell, who filed his own lawsuit as a private citizen in 2004, was fired one week after the suit became public.

In a series of rulings before the trial began, Judge Figa repeatedly rejected Kerr-McGee’s arguments that Mr. Maxwell was disqualified from suing because of his work as a federal investigator.

But in his decision last week, the judge said he had changed his mind because of arguments that Kerr-McGee raised during and after the trial.

“The court concludes that a re-evaluation of its prior holding,” Judge Figa wrote, “is appropriate.”

Specifically, he ruled that Mr. Maxwell could not meet the requirement to “voluntarily disclose” his evidence before filing suit because he had been obligated by the rules of his work to provide the evidence.

“Once involuntarily disclosed, the same information cannot subsequently be voluntarily disclosed within the meaning of the False Claims Act,” Judge Figa ruled.

The judge emphasized that his ruling had no bearing on the question of Kerr-McGee’s reported fraud, and he noted evidence that Mr. Maxwell’s supervisor in Denver, John Russo, had agreed that Kerr-McGee probably was guilty of fraud.
Interior officials, who have repeatedly accused Mr. Maxwell and other auditors of violating procedures by going outside the department, refused to comment on the decision.

Gee, those must have been compelling legal arguments; I wonder how much cash the "Judge" has hidden in his freezer?

Were these people political appointees?

I see that Judge Figa, deceased Jan. 5, 2008, was appointed by Pres. Bush to the federal bench (a lifetime appointment) in 2003.

Sooooo, has those folks at MMS done anything that hasn't been done already elsewhere in government? Leaders must lead by example and if DUBYA's not a good example, what are ya gonna do?!

Many Americans place Politicians with the criminals. They constitute a Government 'Of the Politicians, For the Politicians, and By the Politicians'.