LA Times: “Federal agents Tuesday swarmed the home and office of the Bush administration official responsible for protecting government whistle-blowers, part of an investigation into whether the official retaliated against his employees and obstructed justice.”
Washington Post:
More than a dozen agents participated in the daylong raid, temporarily shutting down the e-mail and computer systems of the Office of Special Counsel and confiscating several desktop computers, including that of Scott J. Bloch, the agency head. Bloch’s home in suburban Virginia also was raided, and agents from the FBI and the Office of Inspector General for the White House Office of Personnel Management were seen carting off boxes of documents in unmarked government sedans.
As Global Integrity has previously reported, according to the watchdog group Government Accountability Project (GAP), “the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) has been eroded to the point that federal workers have virtually no protections from agency retaliation.”
Bottom line: if the head of the whistleblower protection agency is retaliating against employees, we have problems.
You certainly do have problems if the head of the Office of Special Counsel is retaliating against his employees. The FBI raids covered in the Washington Post and LA Times shows the true controversy and misconduct of Mr. Bloch. Will he be held accountable for his abuse of powers? Will he be removed from office? Those questions remain unanswered.
John Schilling
Author of “Undercover”
http://ethicsolutionsllc.com
Keeps getting better. WaPo — “Some staff members had complained that Bloch used agency funds to buy for his office restroom $400 hand towels decorated with a special OSC seal, according to another person familiar with the raid.”