The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

ABC News: Paula Broadwell's Gun Commercial Raises Ethical Concerns

Watch More News Videos at ABC | 2012 Presidential Election | Entertainment & Celebrity News

By ANDRE FRANCISCO

Paula Broadwell, General David Petraeus' mistress, may have used her ties to Petraeus to promote a new lightweight machine gun for a defense contractor.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, said political influence should have no place in federal contracting.

"It's an uneven playing field. That is not how a contract should be decided," Brian said.

Watch the video above to see the ABC News story. Read the report at ABC News.

Andre Francisco is an online producer for the Project On Government Oversight.

Follow @andrefrancisco

The Parties Versus the People: An Interview with Mickey Edwards

 

Former U.S. Rep. Mickey Edwards.

The Parties Versus the People by Mickey Edwards. Available now from Yale Press.

By ANNA MEIER

With a dismal record of passing legislation, perpetuated by hyper-partisan gridlock, the 112^th Congress has been called the “worst Congress ever.” Some prefer to stop at “dysfunctional,” but whichever nickname you choose, there’s something seriously off about Congress these days.  Bills are proposed with the goal of advancing partisan interests, and not necessarily the public’s. Debates have deginerated into bitter partisan bickering, not thoughtful consideration of public policy.

In such an environment, it’s natural to search for someone to blame. But according to former Congressman Mickey Edwards, who spent many years as a member of the Republican leadership, the problem in Congress isn’t its members—it’s the system itself.

Fortunately, it’s not beyond repair. In his new book, The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Democrats and Republicans into Americans, Edwards, who served 16 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Oklahoma's 5th Congressional District, lays out the features of the American political order that make it easy for parties to seek power over the public interest.

In order to combat cronyism and get Congress back on track, he proposes sweeping changes to our political system, from ending party-controlled primaries to eliminating corporate donations to candidates. We caught up with Edwards to talk about provoking accountability, moving beyond labels, and encouraging a more effective Congress.

POGO: You've said that partisanship, not polarization, is to blame for dysfunction in and frustration with government today. Can you explain the difference?

Mickey Edwards: Polarization is a natural part of the democratic process; there are more than 300 million of us and a lot of different viewpoints, some of them very strongly held.  A democracy depends on a vigorous exchange between those alternative visions.  Some of the greatest advances in our history have come not from the political center but from the “poles,” including the civil rights movement and the women’s movement, both of which were radical reversals of long-held practices and beliefs.

Partisanship, on the other hand, is the taking of political positions that seem advantageous to one’s political club. Today, neither Democrats nor Republicans are open to proposals—no matter what their merits—that emanate from a member of the other party. The democratic process requires a willingness to engage honestly in an exchange of views, with an openness to considering an opponent’s perspective; partisanship cuts off that exchange and proceeds solely from a cold political calculus that depends on hurting the other side in order to gain an advantage in the next election. The two terms—polarization and partisanship—are often confused, but they are very different.

Federal Bank Examiner Violated Ethics Rules by Playing Golf with Bank Employees, Probe Finds

By MICHAEL SMALLBERG

A federal bank examiner violated ethics rules by golfing with bank employees during work hours and letting them pick up expenses, according to a report by a government watchdog recently released under the Freedom of Information Act.

A series of banking scandals and crises has called into question whether bank regulators are independent enough from the banks they oversee. The report by the U.S. Treasury Department’s inspector general offers a glimpse of one such relationship.

The report accuses one national bank examiner of “playing golf during official duty hours,” “accepting gratuities” in the form of “golf fees and/or food,” and “recording his official time and attendance hours as working while playing golf” with employees of a bank whose name begins “First National Bank of.”

The rest of the bank’s name is blacked out, along with the names of the examiner and bank employees.

The inspector general released the July 2010 report last month to the web site governmentattic.org, which posts records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The Project On Government Oversight found the report in a batch of documents on the site.

Despite New Law, Members of Congress Still Profiting on Stock Deals

Defense Lobbyist Got Fat Bonus Before Joining Congressional Staff

Northrop Grumman's E-2D Hawkeyes are among the billions in weapons the U.S. government buys from the company each year (DoD photo)

Click here to join POGO's Un-Do Influence Campaign: a movement to reclaim Washington

By DANA LIEBELSON

Sure, the fat severance bonus Northrop Grumman paid lobbyist Thomas MacKenzie right before he left to work for the House Armed Services Committee may have been a reward for a job well done. However, that doesn’t keep the cynics among us from wondering if the company was hoping the cash might also help MacKenzie remember his old friends fondly.

Lee Fang at Republic Report found this week through a recently filed ethics disclosure form that in 2011, Northrop  awarded MacKenzie a $498,334 bonus, worth almost as much as his $529,379 annual salary. MacKenzie got the money right before he left to go work as a congressional staffer under Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.).

At his new job, where he’ll be working on many issues that could affect his former employer, MacKenzie will earn about $120,000 per year.  

“The sheer size of the bonus appears extraordinary,” Sheila Krumholz, executive director for the Center for Responsive Politics, told POGO. “A reasonable person might wonder if the bonus was paid to compensate the pay cut, with the expectation that he will work for Northrop Grumman on the inside.”

Follow the Defense Dollars -- If You Can

By JOE NEWMAN

Remember last summer when everyone thought the sky was falling?

The mounting budget deficit had Chicken Littles on both sides of the aisle crying doom and gloom. There was hemming and hawing and the obligatory appointment of a special-joint-bipartisan-really-important congressional panel.

Super Committee, anyone?

It seems the more things change, the more they stay exactly the same.

As Congress gets down this month to approving hundreds of billions of dollars in national security programs and policies, the deficit is hardly front and center.

The version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that the House of Representatives passed Friday is $3 billion fatter than President Obama's defense budget request and about $58 billion more than the potential automatic cut established by the House-approved budget deal from last year.

Seriously?

Un-Do Influence: Obama's Lobbyist Ban is Tough (Except When It Isn't)

Facepalm Ratings Guide = Stupefying example of everything that's wrong with the system. = Outrageous; shameless, even. = Worthy of rebuke. = Even if there's no conflict of interest, appearances matter.

---------------------------- Click here to join POGO's Un-Do Influence campaign.

By JOE NEWMAN

For a guy who likes to talk about keeping lobbyists out of his administration, President Barack Obama sure doesn't mind making some notable exceptions.

Now comes the latest dust-up involving Vice President Joe Biden's hiring of Steve Ricchetti to be a senior advisor. That's the same Steve Ricchetti whom the Obama campaign in 2008 attacked for being a lobbyist/bundler for then Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Listening to the administration spin the hire is pretty funny. Ricchetti hasn't personally lobbied since 2008. What was he doing instead? He was running his, um, lobbying(!) firm.

Obama has taken legitimate and laudable steps to slow the revolving door between lobbying firms and the White House and reduce private interests' disproportionate influence on executive branch policymakers. The restrictions he passed upon taking office were unprecedented, and intended to reduce industry influence peddling. 

But then there are those waivers and exceptions. Those are fine by us if they're used to bring public interest lobbyists into the fold. Not so much when they're granted to, say, a lobbyist for a top defense contractor. 

Look, lobbying, per se, isn't a bad thing. There's a place in our democracy for it—citizens, and that includes those paid to represent special interests, have a right to directly petition their elected leaders.

But one only has to look to Jack Abramoff to see how the system can be corrupted when lobbyists with access to piles of cash are able to buy influence through gifts, perks, campaign contributions and in the worst cases—bribes.

President Obama was right to want to distance himself from their influence. But if you're going to talk the talk, you've got to expect to some flak when you (or your vice president) bend your own rules. Sorry, Mr. President, the buck stops with you—you and Vice President Biden earned four facepalms.

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Penn's Awkward Silence on Academic Integrity

Controversial DARPA Chief Regina Dugan Bolts for Job with Google

Regina Dugan at Cal State Fullerton Commencement

Click here to join POGO's Un-Do Influence Campaign: a movement to reclaim Washington

By JOE NEWMAN

Regina Dugan's tenure at the Department of Defense's shadowy research arm is apparently over with news that Dugan is once again headed back to the private sector. Wired's Noah Shachtman reported that Dugan is taking a job with Google.

As Shachtman points out, Dugan's time at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) won her both praise and criticism. The controversy stemmed from her ties to DARPA contractor RedXDefense, the company that she founded after she left her job as a DARPA program manager in 2000. When she passed through the revolving door to rejoin Darpa in 2009, her father succeeded her as CEO of RedXDefense; her uncle is on the board of directors.

After the media reported that RedXDefense had received $1.75 million in contracts after Dugan became DARPA director, that it still owed her $250,000 and that she still had a financial stake in the company, the Project On Government Oversight asked the Pentagon's Inspector General (IG) in May to investigate the potential conflicts of interest, as well as shortcomings in DARPA's ethics policies.

At Public Citizen, Jack Abramoff Calls for End of the Revolving Door

Click here to join POGO's Un-Do Influence campaign: a movement to end the undue influence that powerful corporate interests have on our federal government

By DANA LIEBELSON

When former lobbyist Jack Abramoff needed to get something done on the Hill, he had a tried-and-true strategy: offer a congressional staffer a job. Not right away, but six months or a year down the road—enough time to gain some advance access. And if a staffer said no? Well, that was rare. They all fell under Abramoff’s money-spell eventually.     

“[Those who said no] were so incredibly complimented, from then on, anything I asked was absolutely granted,” Abramoff said at the Washington, DC headquarters of Public Citizen on February 6. “That was almost a bribe itself.”

If anyone can speak about bribery, it’s “Casino Jack,” the notorious felon and former Washington insider who was convicted and sentenced for giving illegal gifts to legislators and defrauding Native American tribes out of tens of millions of dollars. 

His appearance at the public interest advocacy group, Public Citizen, was the latest stop on his so-called “redemption tour.” Since getting out of prison, Abramoff has been pushing out his book, Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth about Washington Corruption from America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist, and—more controversially—is now shedding light on the revolving door culture in Washington.

“I believe that those who engage in public service, those who work on Capitol Hill, those who are elected to federal office and the administration, should not be able to move from those positions into the influence industry,” Abramoff said.

This is precisely what POGO has been preaching in its “Un-Do Influence” campaign—although, hearing the words come out of Abramoff’s mouth is a bit unnerving. The revolving door in Washington gives corporate interests and lobbying firms valuable insider access, and breeds corruption in our government by allowing current and former officials to use their positions for private gain.

Un-Do Influence: Air Force's Revolving Door Helped Booz Allen Hamilton Get Unfair Edge

Facepalm Ratings Guide = Stupefying example of everything that's wrong with the system. = Outrageous; shameless, even. = Worthy of rebuke. = Even if there's no conflict of interest, appearances matter.

---------------------------- Click here to join POGO's Un-Do Influence campaign.

By JOE NEWMAN

Global consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton is paying the price for playing fast and loose with federal contracting rules. But it's how Booz Allen's San Antonio operations may have obtained information from a competitor that takes our facepalm ratings to a new low.

According to a Feb. 6 Air Force memo, in April 2011, Booz Allen hired retired Air Force Lt. Col. Joselito Meneses, who had served as deputy chief in the Information Technology division of the Medical Support Agency under the Office of the Air Force Surgeon General.

On his first day of work for Booz Allen, Meneses arrived with a hard-drive containing non-public information he had obtained during his Air Force tenure.

Some of the data on the drive was proprietary information from one of Booz Allen's competitors, which the San Antonio office used to help shape its own bid to the Air Force, according to the memo.

As a result, the Booz Allen's San Antonio unit has been suspended and recommended for debarment. The company fired Meneses after a whistleblower brought the activity to the attention of company officials.

Meneses shows how the revolving door can corrupt the federal contracting system by allowing companies to get unfair, competitive advantages when they hire former government employees. The case also shows how former federal officials are motiviated to use their insider knowledge to help their new employers. Meneses knew better. He gets our maxium four-facepalm rating.

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Rep. Grimm Faces Accusations of Improper Fundraising

We've raised questions about Rep. Michael Grimm's efforts to gut protections for financial sector whistleblowers, and how it appears the only people who would benefit from such legislation are Grimm's backers on Wall Street.

Now, Grimm (R-NY) is facing much more serious allegations of influence peddling and improper fundraising. According to a New York Times story, Grimm enlisted the help of Ofer Biton, an Israeli citizen, to help raise more than $500,000 from the followers of a New York rabbi.

The FDA's Better-Late-Than-Never Department, Super PAC'd and Casino Jack's New Gig

Click here to join POGO's Un-Do Influence campaign: a movement to end the undue influence that powerful corporate interests have on our federal government.

By JOE NEWMAN

Here at the headquarters for the Un-Do Influence Campaign, we love holding the powers that be accountable when they sell out the public interest on behalf of their cronies in industry. But that doesn't mean we won't hand out a few laurels here and there when someone does the right thing.

In the case of  the Food and Drug Administration's Dr. Margaret Hamburg, it's time to hand her a laurel, or at least half of one. If you recall, we gave her two "facepalms" recently because of the FDA's failure to recognize potential conflicts of interest on a joint advisory committee that was weighing the risks and benefits of the Yaz/Yasmin oral contraceptive. Three members of the joint committee, which essentially voted to endorse the pill, had financial ties to Bayer, the maker of the drug, while another member had ties to a company licensed to make a generic version.

Maybe it was the fuss we made about the tainted birth control vote (take a bow, because thousands of you signed our petition), but now according to Ed Silverman's excellent Pharmalot blog, Hamburg has decided to drop her unrelated push to loosen ethics rules for FDA advisory committees.

In doing so, Hamburg is listening to the advice that the Project On Government Oversight gave her in August. In an Aug. 3 letter, we told her that the FDA's rationale for loosening conflict of interest restrictions simply weren't true.

In fact, there was more than enough reason to think that the only ones to benefit from loosening the restrictions were pharmaceutical companies. We thank Dr. Hamburg for her about face but, unfortunately, the FDA has a LOT more work to do if it ever wants to free itself from industry influence.

As Colbert Exposes Underbelly of Super PACs, Should We Laugh or Cry?

Click here to join POGO's Un-Do Influence campaign: a movement to end the undue influence that powerful corporate interests have on our federal government.

By JOE NEWMAN

Are we seeing the "Colbert Effect" -- a greater awareness and concern about the impacts of Super Pacs on our elections? Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert has arguably done more to educate the average American about how Super Pacs work than a stack of New York Times editorials could ever hope to do.

A PEW Center survey found that among voters who were aware of the Citizens United ruling (the 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the door to unlimited political spending by corporations, unions and advocacy groups), 65 percent said that Super Pacs were having a negative impact on the 2012 presidential campaign. Gotta figure there's a bunch of Colbert Report fans among those polled.

If you haven't seen Colbert and Jon Stewart lampoon the federal law that requires Super Pacs to act independently of candidates, check it out.

Will SEC Watchdog Lose its Bite?

That collective sigh of relief you're hearing? That's coming from some Wall Street types who just got the news that David Kotz, the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) inspector general, is leaving at the end of January. (Charles S. Clark writes about Kotz' departure in Government Executive.)