USDA Shuts Down Congressional Audit

[Ghost in the Machine]

USDA Shuts Down Congressional Audit
Published: 2/28/08, 6:46 PM EDT
By BEN EVANS

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Agriculture Department abruptly ordered congressional auditors to leave its Washington offices this week and told employees not to cooperate with them.

"You are hereby instructed not to meet with any member of the (Government Accountability Office) today, or until this matter is resolved," Michael Watts, head of the department's office of adjudication, wrote to employees Wednesday in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

The auditors were seeking information for an ongoing review of Agriculture's civil rights office, including whether the department had provided false information about the office's progress in handling discrimination complaints.

J. Michael Kelly, Agriculture's deputy general counsel, said the GAO investigators called the department Wednesday morning to say they were on their way over and wanted to speak with certain employees.

He said the auditors refused to let department attorneys sit in on the meetings. After initially allowing interviews to proceed, department officials stopped them and told the investigators to leave the building, Kelly said.

http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=7816&eeid=5722393&_sitecat=1504&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=-2&ck=&ch=ne

[live love laugh]

1. The government is dead--a victim of democracy's demise. Sad. n/t

[walldude]

2. So now the USDA has power over Congress and the GAO?

So apparently, thanks to Bush and his crony's, no one in the government is accountable to anyone. I don't even have words for this. :mad:

[TahitiNut]

3. The ONLY acceptable response is to suspend those employees pending possible criminal prosecution.

As a former Internal Auditor, such legal issues are not unknown - albeit rare. Nonetheless, the fundamental responsibility of the management (or the BoD) at that point is to REMOVE the person from the organization, usually a suspension with pay, and proceed with a thorough criminal investigation. A failure to do so is (wait for it) Obstruction of Justice and is itself a criminal act. (IANAL ... just a former Auditor.)

It is not an exaggeration to say that the Cheney/Bush cabal have made our federal agencies into corrupt organizations which, if they were in the private sector, would be exactly the kind of criminality that RICO statutes were intended to address.

[peacetalksforall]

4. Side question? I went to the link and read the article then noticed that it was

an AT & T web site. Why there? Had I been more alert - I wouldn't have gone there because of the soiled opinion I have for them for doing what they are doing to our privacy.

They are a news source? Is Qwest a news source? I'm confused.

[bananas]

5. I can't answer your questions, but here is an alternative link

This is an AP story: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jmMDqqS37QeJR2uBIwSOwQPtBUaAD8V3K7582