Top Texas Health Official Resigns Amid Questions About Iraq Connection
The inspector general for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission submitted his letter of resignation to Governor Greg Abbott Thursday, following questions from Texas Monthly about his consulting work related to the Iraqi government.
advertisement
Stuart Bowen, who was tasked with overseeing $40 billion in health and welfare spending in Texas, was appointed to the post by Governor Abbott in 2015 after he had been the U.S. inspector general for the reconstruction of Iraq. Texas Monthly started inquiring about Bowen's remaining ties to the country after discovering that his name popped up quite a bit in a Washington, D.C. lobbying and law firm's multiple letters to the Trump Administration, asking the president to remove Iraq from the travel ban. Which Trump did.
Texas Monthly's R.G. Ratcliffe found that Bowen was contracted at $300 an hour with the Washington firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck — which is registered as a foreign agent for the Iraqi government — to consult about anti-corruption efforts in the country's financial services sector. In the firm's lobbying letters to the Trump Administration, the firm identified Bowen as a "senior adviser to our firm" and urged Trump officials to set up meetings with a senior Iraqi aide to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
In one letter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, the Brownstein firm wrote: “Stuart Bowen the former Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction under President Bush and has worked with you in the past, is a senior advisor to our firm.” Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, at one time commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://www.houstonpress.com/news/hhs-inspector-general-stuart-bowen-resigns-over-questions-about-iraq-9435411
