Executive Departments Part 2

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Not only does it underscore SCL Group's influence, but even more so, the influence the Mercer's have in Washington. After all, Robert Mercer owns SCL Group.

[AmazonGrace]

 

The operative word is "STORIES". The same unethical actions would be all right if no one knew about it but not if it makes Trump look bad.

[fraurosena]

Apparently 'the best people' are bullies:

"We know where your kids live": How John Bolton once threatened an international official

Quote

WHO BETTER TO advise the bully-in-chief, Donald Trump, on when to make war and kill people than another bully? It’s difficult, after all, to avoid the label — that of a bully — when thinking of John Bolton, the former Bush administration official-turned-Fox News pundit who Trump recently picked as his national security adviser.

“John Bolton is a bully,” José Bustani, the retired Brazilian diplomat and former head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, told me when I reached him by phone in Paris earlier this month.

There are a number of people who claim to have been bullied or intimidated by Bolton — including Bustani. The latter’s criticisms of the famously mustachioed hawk have been public for many years now, but some of the details of his tense encounter with Bolton at the OPCW have never been reported before in English.

In early 2002, a year before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration was putting intense pressure on Bustani to quit as director-general of the OPCW — despite the fact that he had been unanimously re-elected to head the 145-nation body just two years earlier. His transgression? Negotiating with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to allow OPCW weapons inspectors to make unannounced visits to that country — thereby undermining Washington’s rationale for regime change.

In 2001, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell had penned a letter to Bustani, thanking him for his “very impressive” work. By March 2002, however, Bolton — then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs — arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a warning to the organization’s chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn’t mince words. “Cheney wants you out,” Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. “We can’t accept your management style.”

Bolton continued, according to Bustani’s recollections: “You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you.”

There was a pause.

“We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York.”

Bustani told me he was taken aback but refused to back down. “My family is aware of the situation, and we are prepared to live with the consequences of my decision,” he replied.

After hearing Bustani’s description of the encounter, I reached out to his son-in-law, Stewart Wood, a British politician and former adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Wood told me that he vividly remembers Bustani telling him about Bolton’s implicit threat to their family immediately after the meeting in the Hague. “It instantly became an internal family meme,” Wood recalled. Two former OPCW colleagues of Bustani, Bob Rigg and Mikhail Berdennikov, have also since confirmed via email that they remember their then-boss telling them at the time about Bolton’s not-so-subtle remark about his kids.

Another former OPCW official, then-Special Assistant to the Director-General for External Relations Gordon Vachon, who was in the room for the meeting with Bolton, has confirmed that the Bush administration official implicitly threatened Bustani. The OPCW chief “could go quietly, with little fuss and restraint on all sides and ‘without dragging your name through the mud,’” Vachon recalled Bolton saying, in an email to The Intercept. “I cannot say from memory that I heard Mr. Bolton mention DG Bustani’s children, probably because I was reeling from Mr. Bolton’s thinly-veiled threat to DG Bustani’s reputation.”

I reached out to John Bolton and the White House for a response to these allegations. Rather than issue an outright denial, the White House responded via a press spokesperson that referred me to a section of his 2008 memoir, “Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations,” which deals with Bustani and the OPCW. In the book, Bolton said the U.S. viewed Bustani as a “management disaster” (without mentioning Powell’s praise), but claims to have offered him “a gracious and dignified exit” — if, that is, he went quietly.

To call Bolton’s rhetoric undiplomatic is an understatement. He visited Bustani in his capacity as a top U.S. State Department official, yet his behavior was more thuggish. How on earth can a senior diplomat, representing a democratic government, justify implicitly threatening the children of an international official in order to win a political argument? How is such a person now fit to hold the office of national security adviser — the most senior position in the U.S. government that doesn’t require an election win or Senate confirmation?

“The problem with this man is that he’s so ideological, so brutal; he doesn’t open the door to dialogue,” the former OPCW chief told me on the phone. “I don’t know how people can work for him.”

BOLTON’S HISTORY OF bullying, in fact, is well-documented. Carl W. Ford Jr, the State Department’s former intelligence chief, called Bolton “a serial abuser” of junior employees and “a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.” Testifying before the Senate in 2005, Ford discussed the case of Christian Westermann, the former chief bioweapons analyst at the State Department who had refused to sign off on a speech accusing Cuba of possessing a secret bioweapons program and had been “berated” by Bolton, who “then tried to have him fired.”

Melody Townsel, a former U.S. Agency for International Development contractor, said she was harassed by the short-tempered Bolton, then a lawyer in the private sector, on a visit to Kyrgyzstan in 1994: “Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel — throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman,” she later recalled, in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

According to Time magazine, his former boss Colin Powell privately warned Republican senators in 2005, during the confirmation hearings for Bolton’s controversial nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, that “he had been troubled by the way Bolton had treated subordinates who did not agree with him.”

Yet the big problem is that Bolton — the “madman,” the “serial abuser,” the “bully” — happens to also be pretty effective at getting things done. This is perhaps what makes him so dangerous. Take the case of Bustani and the OPCW: Bolton succeeded in having the Brazilian removed from his post. Only a few weeks after the U.S. official’s visit to the Hague, the OPCW chief was “pushed out of office” in an extraordinary meeting of the organization’s member countries (and in a decision, incidentally, that an administrative tribunal of the International Labour Organization would later call “unlawful”).

Bolton himself proudly recalled in his memoir how then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., criticized his views while praising his abilities during the 2001 congressional hearings to confirm him as under secretary of state. “My problem with you, over the years, has been, you’re too competent,” Biden remarked, according to Bolton. “I mean, I would rather you be stupid and not very effective.

Now, therefore, is the time to panic; now is the moment to sound the alarm. The bullies have come together. The “ideological” and “brutal” Bolton is about to be given a desk a few feet away from the Oval Office. As national security adviser, he’ll be the first one in the room and the last one out. “Trump is utterly ignorant of the world, prone to making impulsive decisions, and tends to defer to the most forceful voice in the room, especially when it conveys information with confident bluster,” observed Damon Linker in the The Week. “That would give Bolton enormous power to shape policy — which means the power to get the United States to launch big new wars as well as expand the numerous ones we’re already waging across wide swaths of the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.”

Is it any wonder, then, that Bustani — who did so much to prevent the threat of conflict and the proliferation of chemical weapons before being ousted by Bolton — believes the latter’s appointment as Trump’s national security adviser could spell “disaster” for the world?

 

[Howl]

20 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Yes, and the 85% reduction in size of Bears Ears National Monument was also an incredible slap in the face of tribes (Navajos, Utes, Hopi, Zuni and many others) who worked hard for the original designation and have vested interest in the Bears Ears area as sacred ground ("a living cultural landscape").  Soon after the reduction, that 85%  was opened up to mining/oil/gas claims.

However, if you have de-staffed the offices that address these complaints, or put in place Trump/Zinke sycophants, there may never be a real investigation; it will be the place legitimate complaints go to die. 

I can never remember how to spell "sycophant" and when I google it, it's a useful reminder of the  definition as well as synonyms:  a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage.

synonyms: yes-man, bootlicker, brown-noser, toady, lickspittle, flatterer, flunky, lackey, spaniel, doormat, stooge, cringer, suck, suck-up. 

And yes, @AmazonGrace, Pruitt over at EPA might want to charter a private jet to fly away as his rental scandal deepens: 

The Hits Keep Coming: WH Eyes Pruitt’s Travel, Security And Housing Expenses

EPA Reportedly Approved Pipeline Project Linked To Lobbyist Renting Room To Pruitt  Note the conditional language ("reportedly"), but if true, another nail in the coffin.

One or both of these guys leaves to "spend more time with family"?  An incredible amount of structural and institutional damage has already been done and a replacement could be worse, much worse. 

As an idle speculation side note: When Talking Points Memo reported on Pruitt's security detail breaking into his townhouse to do a "wellness" check, there was a LOT of speculation in the comments section that Pruitt may not have been "napping" alone in his townhouse. 

So yeah, a guy whose every minute is scheduled by staff, not showing up on a weekday afternoon and not informing said staff whose job it is to schedule every minute of your day......just sayin'.    It would be a riot if he was having an "Appalachian Trail" moment.  And you can bet your chahoongas that alert reporters are now sniffing around this very topic. 

 

[fraurosena]

Wait, @Howl, there's even more!

Scott Pruitt Bypassed the White House to Give Big Raises to Favorite Aides

Quote

In early March, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt approached the White House with a request: He wanted substantial pay raises for two of his closest aides.  

The aides, Sarah Greenwalt and Millan Hupp, were part of the small group of staffers who had traveled with Pruitt to Washington from Oklahoma, where he had served as attorney general. Greenwalt, a 30-year-old who had worked as Pruitt’s general counsel in Oklahoma, was now his senior counsel at the EPA. Hupp, 26, was working on his political team before she moved to D.C. to become the agency’s scheduling director.

Pruitt asked that Greenwalt’s salary be raised from $107,435 to $164,200; Hupp’s, from $86,460 to $114,590. Because both women were political appointees, he needed the White House to sign-off on their new pay.

According to a source with direct knowledge of the meeting, held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, staffers from the Presidential Personnel Office dismissed Pruitt’s application. The White House, the source said, declined to approve the raises.

So Pruitt found another way.

A provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act allows the EPA administrator to hire up to 30 people into the agency, without White House or congressional approval. The provision, meant to help expedite the hiring of experts and allow for more flexible staffing, became law in 1996. In past administrations, it has been used to hire specialists into custom-made roles in especially stressed offices, according to Bob Perciasepe, a former acting EPA administrator.

After the White House rejected their request, Pruitt’s team studied the particulars of the Safe Drinking Water provision, according to the source with direct knowledge of these events. By reappointing Greenwalt and Hupp under this authority, they learned, Pruitt could exercise total control over their contracts and grant the raises on his own.

Pruitt ordered it done. Though Hupp and Greenwalt’s duties did not change, the agency began processing them for raises of $28,130 and $56,765, respectively, compared with their 2017 salaries. Less than two weeks after Pruitt had approached the White House, according to time-stamped Human Resources documents shared with The Atlantic, the paperwork was finished.

Word of the raises quickly began to circulate through the agency. The episode infuriated some staffers; to some political aides, it was evidence of Pruitt’s disregard for the White House’s warnings to cabinet officials that they avoid even the appearance of impropriety. It also underscored the administrator’s tendency to play favorites among his staff, according to two sources with direct knowledge of agency dynamics. Hupp, in particular, is making more than her Obama-era predecessor, a five-year veteran of the agency who did not break six figures until the final year of the administration, according to public records. (While Greenwalt has no obvious peer in the Obama administration, the EPA’s general counsel had an annual salary of $155,500 in 2016.)

Said one EPA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press: “This whole thing has completely gutted any morale I had left to put up with this place.”

Neither the White House nor the EPA replied to requests for comment.

The unusual hiring scheme comes amid new questions about Pruitt’s ethics as administrator. The EPA chief rented a Capitol Hill apartment partly owned by the wife of a top energy lobbyist, paying just $50 per night for the space, according to an ABC News report last week. Pruitt also faces questions over his use of taxpayer money to make regular first- and business-class flights during his first year in office.

Now, in the wake of Greenwalt and Hupp’s salary boosts, government watchdogs are deepening their probe of Pruitt’s use of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Last May, Senate Democrats pressed the agency for answers about Pruitt’s embrace of the provision. That month, for example, Pruitt used the law to hire Nancy Beck, a long-time lobbyist for the chemical industry, as the deputy head of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Historically, that role has been filled by a career civil servant or a political appointee.

Because she was hired administratively, and not appointed by the White House, Beck did not have to sign President Trump’s ethics pledge, which mandates that Trump officials cannot work on an issue on which they had lobbied in the previous two years. Senators Tom Carper and Sheldon Whitehouse, top Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee, sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office requesting a probe into Beck’s hiring. They were concerned, chiefly, that Pruitt was using the Safe Drinking Water hiring authority as a way for new employees to evade the ethics pledge.

“[The Safe Drinking Water Act] can be a legitimate way to bring on skilled experts the EPA needs to protect Americans’ health and safety, but Administrator Pruitt seems more interested in using it to skirt ethics requirements, like the president’s order banning hires from working on matters involving former employers or clients,” Whitehouse said in a statement provided to The Atlantic.

While Carper and Whitehouse began submitting inquiries as early as last spring, it wasn’t until March that the agency’s own inspector general began seriously questioning many of the EPA’s top political appointees about potential abuse of the hiring authority.

Now, staffers are waiting to see how officials will address the raises.

“It’s a complete coincidence that Pruitt went behind the White House’s back and used this in the most unethical way possible, just as the [inspector general] starts asking questions,” said one EPA staffer. “Now they just have to connect the dots.”

It’s not as though Pruitt is the first EPA administrator to lean on the Safe Drinking Water Act hiring authority. EPA veterans of both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations said they were well-acquainted with the provision. But of the half-dozen former top EPA staffers interviewed for this article, not one could comprehend using it as a means of increasing salaries—especially following a rejection from the White House.

“I can’t imagine that being done in the regime in which I served,” said Stan Meiburg, a former acting deputy administrator of the EPA in the Obama administration. “It would have been very controversial. The accusation that would have been pinned on the administrator was that they were trying to give a private benefit using public funds.”

Meiburg, who spent his career at the EPA after joining as career staff in 1977, said that “ADs”—the internal term for employees hired under the Safe Drinking Water Act—were considered a precious commodity inside the agency.

“The number of ADs were monitored very closely by the chief of staff,” he said. “To get one was a big deal. To get one was not an easy task.”

Christine Todd Whitman, the first EPA administrator under President George W. Bush, said she couldn’t remember ever reclassifying a political appointee as an AD. “I don’t even remember it being brought up as a potential or something to think about,” she said.

As Meiburg noted, even appearing to convert a political appointee to an AD simply to give a salary raise could prove politically damaging. But other officials said the deeper effects would be felt inside the agency, where a transparent show of favoritism could inflame inter-office tensions and decrease morale. And in an office where staffers already jockey for favor among Pruitt’s “posse,” according to a source who works closely with the EPA, such a backlash is likely.

“It’s already such a toxic work environment,” the source said, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s hard to see how it could get any worse.”

Over the last several days, as press reports have zeroed in on Pruitt’s living arrangements, this is the scandal that has seized the agency from the inside. If Pruitt was on thin ice with the White House before, the acceleration of the inquiry into his payroll practices may shatter it.

“We were once the president’s favorite,” said the EPA official. “Now we’re the problem child.”

At the Executive Departments, it's like they're all taking part in a weird competition in which one of them can score the most with their corruption and demoralization. It looks like the EPA is the frontrunner at the moment.

[AmazonGrace]

 He'll be fired in a tweet within a week

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

 He'll be fired in a tweet within a week

I hope his next home is on the banks of the Love Canal. I hear he can buy a plot of land real cheap. 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

 He'll be fired in a tweet within a week

Yeah, that's the presiduncial equivalent of the Kiss of Death.

[GreyhoundFan]

33 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

I hope his next home is on the banks of the Love Canal. I hear he can buy a plot of land real cheap. 

I'd rather it be IN Love Canal. In one of the barrels.

[onekidanddone]

Does Scott get to play Fredo for the day?

2 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Yeah, that's the presiduncial equivalent of the Kiss of Death.

[fraurosena]

If this was in a third world country, all kinds of charities would be fundraising to help these poor kids and their poor teachers. But as this is the US, meh, just shrug. It's only a public school after all.

 

Here are some other hard, sad facts about education in America.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Wow: "EPA explored private jet lease for Pruitt’s travels last year"

Spoiler

Aides to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt last year considered leasing a private jet on a month-to-month basis to accommodate his travel needs, according to current and former agency officials.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the agency ultimately did not move forward with the plan because it would have been prohibitively expensive. Pruitt’s aides had contacted NetJets, a well-known firm that leases such planes, and received a cost estimate of roughly $100,000 a month, the officials said.

The idea was quickly scuttled after some top advisers objected, according to these individuals. Aides were discussing the arrangement before Tom Price resigned as secretary of health and human services amid revelations about costly flights he had taken aboard chartered planes.

“This is not news,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement Monday. “EPA’s [chief financial officer] regularly receives solicitations for this type of travel, we did our due diligence, found it was not as cost efficient and continued to fly commercial.”

NetJets, an Ohio-based company, declined to comment Monday.

News that Pruitt’s team explored a six-figure contract for chartered flight comes as he is facing a number of ethics questions in addition to scrutiny from lawmakers of both parties about the many first-class domestic and international flights he took during his first year in office.

In recent weeks, the EPA turned over documents to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) detailing $68,000 in newly disclosed travel costs for Pruitt since August.

That comes after The Washington Post reported on the tab for Pruitt’s earlier travels, including a trip to Italy last June that cost the agency at least $120,000 for the administrator, his aides and his personal security detail.

EPA officials attribute the elevated expense of Pruitt’s travels to the security precautions they have undertaken because of the number of threats he has received — especially compared with his immediate predecessors — since joining President Trump’s Cabinet in February 2017. The agency has argued that Pruitt’s predecessors also spent large sums on foreign travel, though they typically flew coach.

The administrator has received round-the-clock security protection since shortly after he took office. Last spring, the head of his security detail recommended he fly in first or business class after a confrontation in which a traveler made vulgar remarks to Pruitt, officials have said.

While it appears that Pruitt has primarily taken commercial flights, he has flown at least four times on noncommercial and military planes since mid-February, costing taxpayers more than $58,000. Those costs included $36,068 for a military jet to get him from a presidential event in Ohio to New York to catch a flight to Europe; a $5,719 chartered flight in Colorado to visit the site of a mine spill; and use of an Interior Department plane at a cost of $14,434.50 for meetings in Oklahoma.

All of those trips were signed off on by EPA ethics officials.

More recently, Pruitt has faced scrutiny over his installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office and the disclosure that he rented an apartment in a prime location on Capitol Hill from a lobbyist couple, paying $50 per night only on the days he stayed at the property.

White House officials said late Monday that they were looking into Pruitt’s rental arrangement last year but did not provide details about the probe.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

But her emails.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Par for the freaking course: "A fierce opponent of the Endangered Species Act is picked to oversee Interior’s wildlife policy"

Spoiler

Susan Combs, a former Texas state official who compared proposed endangered species listings to “incoming Scud missiles” and continued to fight the Endangered Species Act after she left government, now has a role in overseeing federal wildlife policy.

Combs was selected by Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke as acting secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. Zinke made the move after his bid to make her an assistant secretary for policy, management and budget stalled in the Senate. The nomination has been on hold since July because of opposition from Republicans and Democrats for various reasons.

At first, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was preoccupied with a pileup of Environmental Protection Agency nominees who required confirmation. Later, the committee’s chairman, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), held up hearings for Combs because of a dispute during President Trump’s attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. When that ended, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) held up the nomination over concerns about the administration’s bid to redraw national monument boundaries.

Seemingly in retaliation, Zinke made the new appointment, first reported by the Austin American-Statesman last week.

“Of course we would rather have Susan Combs confirmed and in her intended position as assistant secretary for policy, management and budget,” Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said in an emailed statement Tuesday.

“Until then, she will serve in an acting capacity,” Swift said. She described Combs as “highly qualified” and said Interior officials “are more than confident that she will be an effective manager at Fish and Wildlife and Parks while she patiently awaits her Senate confirmation.”

Zinke has teamed with lawmakers in the House in a bid to strip the Endangered Species Act of much of its power. Several bills would remove the act’s provisions to save species from extinction regardless of the economic impact, rely on peer-reviewed scientific data and reward conservation organizations that successfully sue to protect animals by paying their court costs.

Combs is a rancher and former Texas comptroller with strong ties to the oil industry whose politics align with efforts to weaken the law. As comptroller, she fought the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service repeatedly over its attempts to enforce the Endangered Species Act in the state. In a 2015 report, the Austin American-Statesman showed how Combs worked to remove endangered protections for a native state songbird, the golden-cheeked warbler, claiming that its listing hurt military readiness.

Following a successful bid to keep a tiny lizard off the endangered list in 2012, Combs hailed the decision as a victory for state jobs and the national energy economy.

A year later, in an appearance before the legislature, Combs made the “incoming Scud missiles” remark, the newspaper reported. It uncovered records showing that she disagreed with “nearly every listing proposal from Washington,” questioning the science, estimates of their economic impact and the amount of resident input.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Education Secretary Betsy DeVos asked whether leakers could be prosecuted, internal report shows"

Spoiler

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos asked her department’s Office of Inspector General whether grounds existed to prosecute employees who leaked budget data to The Washington Post and unclassified information to Politico, according to an internal department report.

The response: It would be challenging, because the department has “little” written policy or guidance on how employees are supposed to handle information.

“While evaluating the . . . incidents of alleged unauthorized releases of non-public information, we identified challenges to criminal prosecution or taking significant administrative actions against individuals responsible for the release of this type of information,” the report said.

The author of the report, Assistant Inspector General for Investigations Aaron R. Jordan, recommended the department establish policies to address unauthorized release of information and that it train employees on the protection and marking of “controlled unclassified information.” 

Jordan wrote that implementing the proposed recommendations could make it easier for department officials to punish future leakers and “may increase the potential” for the inspector general “to obtain a criminal prosecution in certain cases.”

In a footnote, however, he added that any new policies should “take into consideration whistleblower rights and protections,” because “there may be times when what may be viewed as a ‘leak’ or unauthorized release of non-public information could involve a protected disclosure.”

The Education Department did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment. Jordan also did not respond to a request for comment. His report said the department “did not provide a formal response to the suggestions” he had made.

The Education Department leaks were hardly rare in the Trump administration; there are routine leaks of information from the White House, and President Trump has taken to Twitter to urge the FBI to find those responsible.

DeVos routinely bars the media from department forums on key issues and rarely gives interviews. Her public schedule is often released late.

The department request to the inspector general and the response were detailed in Jordan’s report, which is dated March 29, and was sent to Kent Talbert, who is acting as the Education Department’s No. 2 official. The Office of the Inspector General investigates “prosecutable violations of law by department employees within the scope of their employment,” the report says. It generally focuses investigative efforts on “federal felonies,” though it may also pursue noncriminal probes of “serious misconduct” by employees.

Titled “Final Management Information Report Unauthorized Release of Non-Public Information,” the report says the department wanted to know the feasibility of punishing leakers and cites three examples:

“Between May and October 2017, the Department requested that the OIG investigate three incidents in which there appeared to be unauthorized releases of non-public information.

“May 17 and 18, 2017: The Washington Post published news articles that included information from the President’s FY 2018 Budget Request for the Department. This information was not scheduled to be released until May 23, 2017.

“June 20, 2017: Politico published an article indicating the Department’s intention to delay the effective date of the borrower defense regulations published the prior November. The article stated that Politico had obtained internal documents showing ‘that the Trump administration wrestled with the precise rationale for delaying the rules’ and that the Department had ‘considered writing a new “interim final rule” that pushed back the effective date of the rules by two years to July 2019.’

“October 31, 2017: we received notification from the Department regarding the unauthorized release of the draft document titled, Assistance to States for the Education of Children with Disabilities: Preschool Grants for Children (NPRM). We were informed that the document was still in the clearance process and was still under deliberation and internal review when it became public.”

Borrower defense regulations, which date to the 1990s, wipe away federal loans for students whose colleges used illegal or deceptive tactics to get them to borrow money to attend. The Obama administration revised the regulations to simplify the claims process and shift more of the cost of discharging loans onto schools, but DeVos is rewriting the rules to the benefit of for-profit colleges.

In May 2017, days before the administration made public its 2018 budget, the Post published information from the Education Department’s budget. There was deep interest in the education world about the administration’s budget priorities because Trump and DeVos had said they were charting a new course for U.S. public education.

Their top education priority, they said, would be expanding alternatives to traditional public schools, and the proposed budget would have made deep federal funding cuts to traditional public schools — which educate the vast majority of America’s children. It also sought about $400 million to expand charter schools and vouchers for private and religious schools, and $1 billion to push public schools to adopt policies that encourage alternatives to traditional public schools. Congress rejected much of that budget proposal.

The administration’s proposed 2019 budget had some of the same elements in it, and Congress has made clear it will again reject them.

Administration staffers, who asked not to be identified because they feared repercussions, said DeVos was furious with the budget document leaks to the Post, and officials sought to find the person or people who leaked them. One source said DeVos believed the leak came from the Budget Service office, and that led her to seek to split the now-centralized budget office during her major reorganization of the Education Department.

Congress took a dim view of that idea, inserting language into the massive spending bill passed last month that not only rejected many of DeVos’s 2019 budget priorities but also forbade her from making fundamental changes to the budget office. DeVos had wanted to send staff members in the Budget Service office to different sections of the department, which could make it more difficult for career budget staffers to see how money is being spent overall.

This was not the first time Education Department officials have been told there are no written policies or regulations for employees on how to handle information deemed sensitive.

The recent report notes that in June 2012, the Office of Inspector General issued an audit concluding that when the department begins setting new rules by negotiating with interested parties, it should have “specific documented protocols to protect sensitive information during the process” and that “a lack of written protocols increases the risk to the Department that sensitive information may be inappropriately shared with parties who are not privileged to such information.”

David Pozen, a law professor at Columbia University who researches government leaks, said he is not aware of criminal prosecution of any Education Department employees or contractors for leaking government information.

The Trump administration has said it would vigorously go after leakers. Last August, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department was investigating three times as many leak allegations as the Obama administration had left open. And federal prosecutors last summer charged a federal contractor with giving a top secret document to a news organization.

Trump is continuing practices of the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both of which went after leakers, and in some cases, journalists. Under Bush, New York Times reporter Judith Miller stayed in jail for 85 days after refusing to identify a source and being slapped with contempt of court charges. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, most of the prosecutions under the Espionage Act for leaking secrets came while Obama was president.

The difference between those cases and the Education Department leaks: The earlier episodes involved top secret material. Education budget documents and regulations are not classified.

Here is the complete list of recommendations Jordan made in his report to the department:

1. Develop interim policy requiring Department employees to clearly mark non-public documents with markings that indicate the information is not for public release.
2. Provide training to all Department employees and at least once again every two years thereafter on the proper protection and marking of controlled unclassified information, as specified in 32 C.F.R. § 2002.30.
3. Create a new ACS [Administrative Communications System] Directive to address prohibitions on the unauthorized release of sensitive or non-public information, the definition of controlled unclassified information, and proper marking of documents as indicated in Executive Order 13556, 32 C.F.R. Part 2002, and the guidance located at https://www.archives.gov/cui.
4. Update ACS Handbook OCIO-15, as necessary, for consistency with the new ACS Directive and pertinent National Institute of Standards and Technology publications.
5. Evaluate the current list of offenses within the table of penalties located in HCP 751-1, and consider the inclusion of “Unauthorized Release of Non-Public Information” and/or “Unauthorized Release of Controlled Unclassified Information.”
6. Apply Information Rights Management (IRM) to sensitive electronic documents during the review process when additional security controls are warranted. IRM can be used to prevent a document from being opened, forwarded, copied, or printed, except by those who have permissions to do so.

Here’s the full report:

on Scribd

... < document linked >

I'm surprised she knows the word prosecute.

[GreyhoundFan]

The latest on our least-favorite grifter: "After leaving $50-a-night rental, EPA’s Scott Pruitt had no fixed D.C. address for a month"

Spoiler

After moving out of the Capitol Hill condo apartment he rented for $50 a night last summer, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt appears to not have maintained a Washington residence for a month, instead traveling extensively for work and remaining for weeks at his Tulsa home.

Pruitt ended his housing arrangement with lobbyist Vicki Hart on Aug. 4. At that point, he already had embarked on a more than week-long trip across five states to visit with elected officials and farmers about the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda, with a weekend at home in Tulsa along the way.

He then took an extended vacation, according to agency records, during which time officials said that he underwent knee surgery and recuperated at home while receiving staff briefings. After another round of meetings in Oklahoma and a visit to Texas to survey the damage from Hurricane Harvey, Pruitt returned to EPA headquarters Sept. 5, according to his public calendars. Members of his round-the-clock security detail remained with him while he was away from Washington.

While EPA has declined to disclose when the administrator began renting his second Washington apartment in the U Street area, the new building was under construction much of the summer, and no residents moved into the complex before Aug. 29, according to the property.

Multiple agency employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Pruitt had instructed his staff to arrange the extensive travel schedule during early August. Another individual involved in his housing search said Pruitt continued to consider different rental options and made clear he would be away much of the month.

Since he took office 14 months ago, EPA has not divulged much in advance about Pruitt’s schedule or his whereabouts when traveling on government business.

A statement Wednesday from agency spokesman Jahan Wilcox noted Pruitt’s surgery in Tulsa last August and said he “remained there for recovery. During that time he had a number of staff briefings.”

In an interview Wednesday with The Washington Times, Pruitt complained about The Washington Post’s inquiry about his living situation eight months ago, saying it was an example of “how crazy” the scrutiny surrounding him has become.

“It was during recess, while the president was in Mar-a-Lago, etcetera. And so I scheduled this [surgery]. I had complications. I had physical therapy,” he said. “The next thing … is going to be, ‘Do you like brown shoes or black shoes?’ So, it gets frustrating.”

Pruitt dismissed the recent attention on his ethics decisions as “a distraction” from critics trying to undermine the effective job he has done rolling back Obama-era regulations. “It’s been noisy and competitive since day one, because this agency has been a bastion of liberalism since day one.”

His travel plans also had included a 10-day trip to Australia that was slated to begin Aug. 31, but it was canceled after Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast. “The official trip to Australia was canceled as soon as Hurricane Harvey hit the U.S., and the administrator instead traveled to Texas for hurricane briefings and EPA responsiveness,” Wilcox added.

Pruitt’s decision not to maintain a fixed address in the city where he was leading a major federal agency underscores how he has operated during his tenure — crisscrossing the country and parts of the world to tout the president’s agenda but regularly returning to Oklahoma, often at taxpayer expense.

In recent weeks, Pruitt has been dogged by revelations that he took dozens of first-class flights during his government travels, which EPA officials have argued was necessary due to security concerns, as well as by the disclosure of a housing agreement he struck during his early months in Washington with the wife of a lobbyist he knew from Oklahoma. Under that arrangement, Pruitt paid for a room in the condo a block from the Capitol but only paid for the nights he stayed. Both his living and travel arrangements have drawn inquiries from lawmakers and government investigators.

“We’re reviewing the situation,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday when asked about the controversies surrounding Pruitt. “The president thinks that he’s done a good job, particularly on the deregulation front. But again, we take this seriously, and we’re looking into it. And we’ll let you know when we finish.”

Environmental Integrity Project Executive Director Eric Schaeffer said Pruitt’s month away from Washington last August raises additional cost and transparency questions.

“Since Mr. Pruitt has insisted on round-the-clock protection, every day he spends in Oklahoma means taxpayers are covering hotel and food bills for his security detail,” Schaeffer said. “EPA needs to come clean and give us a full accounting of where Mr. Pruitt was, how his time was spent and how much it cost for him to operate out of Tulsa instead of the office of the agency he heads.”

Pruitt has given interviews in the past 24 hours to several conservative media outlets, arguing that he has come under fire for his housing and travel logistics by people who oppose the president’s policies.

“Do I think that because we are leading on this agenda that there are some who want to keep that from happening?” he told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “Absolutely. And do I think that they will resort to anything to achieve that? Yes.”

Referring to his rental arrangement with Vicki Hart, Pruitt said he “was living out of a suitcase for the first four or five months I was here.” He said he had known her husband, J. Steven Hart, whose law firm lobbies on energy as well as other matters, long before moving to Washington.

“I’m dumbfounded that that’s controversial,” Pruitt said of the condo rental.

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Pruitt elaborated on the arrangement. “This was like an Airbnb situation. … When I was not there, the landlord, they had access to the entirety of the facility,” he said. “When I was there, I only had access to a room.”

He also told Fox he had learned Tuesday that his senior counsel, Sarah Greenwalt, and his director of scheduling and advance, Millan Hupp, had gotten raises in March of 52 percent and 33 percent respectively. Hupp had overseen Pruitt’s housing hunt last year. Her and Greenwalt’s pay increases went through after the two were reappointed under an obscure provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“I found out this yesterday, and I corrected the action, and we are in the process of finding out how it took place and correcting that going forward,” Pruitt said.

“So, hang on. Both of these staffers who got these large pay raises are friends of yours. I believe from Oklahoma, right?” Fox’s Ed Henry asked.

“They are staffers here in the agency,” Pruitt replied.

“They are friends of yours,” Henry said.

“Well, they serve a very important person,” Pruitt replied.

“And you did not know that they got these large pay raises?” Henry asked.

“I did not know that they got pay raises until yesterday,” Pruitt said.

Suuuuure, he didn't know about the pay raises until yesterday. I totally believe that. NOT.

[Cartmann99]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The latest on our least-favorite grifter: "After leaving $50-a-night rental, EPA’s Scott Pruitt had no fixed D.C. address for a month"

  Reveal hidden contents

After moving out of the Capitol Hill condo apartment he rented for $50 a night last summer, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt appears to not have maintained a Washington residence for a month, instead traveling extensively for work and remaining for weeks at his Tulsa home.

Pruitt ended his housing arrangement with lobbyist Vicki Hart on Aug. 4. At that point, he already had embarked on a more than week-long trip across five states to visit with elected officials and farmers about the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda, with a weekend at home in Tulsa along the way.

He then took an extended vacation, according to agency records, during which time officials said that he underwent knee surgery and recuperated at home while receiving staff briefings. After another round of meetings in Oklahoma and a visit to Texas to survey the damage from Hurricane Harvey, Pruitt returned to EPA headquarters Sept. 5, according to his public calendars. Members of his round-the-clock security detail remained with him while he was away from Washington.

While EPA has declined to disclose when the administrator began renting his second Washington apartment in the U Street area, the new building was under construction much of the summer, and no residents moved into the complex before Aug. 29, according to the property.

Multiple agency employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Pruitt had instructed his staff to arrange the extensive travel schedule during early August. Another individual involved in his housing search said Pruitt continued to consider different rental options and made clear he would be away much of the month.

Since he took office 14 months ago, EPA has not divulged much in advance about Pruitt’s schedule or his whereabouts when traveling on government business.

A statement Wednesday from agency spokesman Jahan Wilcox noted Pruitt’s surgery in Tulsa last August and said he “remained there for recovery. During that time he had a number of staff briefings.”

In an interview Wednesday with The Washington Times, Pruitt complained about The Washington Post’s inquiry about his living situation eight months ago, saying it was an example of “how crazy” the scrutiny surrounding him has become.

“It was during recess, while the president was in Mar-a-Lago, etcetera. And so I scheduled this [surgery]. I had complications. I had physical therapy,” he said. “The next thing … is going to be, ‘Do you like brown shoes or black shoes?’ So, it gets frustrating.”

Pruitt dismissed the recent attention on his ethics decisions as “a distraction” from critics trying to undermine the effective job he has done rolling back Obama-era regulations. “It’s been noisy and competitive since day one, because this agency has been a bastion of liberalism since day one.”

His travel plans also had included a 10-day trip to Australia that was slated to begin Aug. 31, but it was canceled after Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast. “The official trip to Australia was canceled as soon as Hurricane Harvey hit the U.S., and the administrator instead traveled to Texas for hurricane briefings and EPA responsiveness,” Wilcox added.

Pruitt’s decision not to maintain a fixed address in the city where he was leading a major federal agency underscores how he has operated during his tenure — crisscrossing the country and parts of the world to tout the president’s agenda but regularly returning to Oklahoma, often at taxpayer expense.

In recent weeks, Pruitt has been dogged by revelations that he took dozens of first-class flights during his government travels, which EPA officials have argued was necessary due to security concerns, as well as by the disclosure of a housing agreement he struck during his early months in Washington with the wife of a lobbyist he knew from Oklahoma. Under that arrangement, Pruitt paid for a room in the condo a block from the Capitol but only paid for the nights he stayed. Both his living and travel arrangements have drawn inquiries from lawmakers and government investigators.

“We’re reviewing the situation,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday when asked about the controversies surrounding Pruitt. “The president thinks that he’s done a good job, particularly on the deregulation front. But again, we take this seriously, and we’re looking into it. And we’ll let you know when we finish.”

Environmental Integrity Project Executive Director Eric Schaeffer said Pruitt’s month away from Washington last August raises additional cost and transparency questions.

“Since Mr. Pruitt has insisted on round-the-clock protection, every day he spends in Oklahoma means taxpayers are covering hotel and food bills for his security detail,” Schaeffer said. “EPA needs to come clean and give us a full accounting of where Mr. Pruitt was, how his time was spent and how much it cost for him to operate out of Tulsa instead of the office of the agency he heads.”

Pruitt has given interviews in the past 24 hours to several conservative media outlets, arguing that he has come under fire for his housing and travel logistics by people who oppose the president’s policies.

“Do I think that because we are leading on this agenda that there are some who want to keep that from happening?” he told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “Absolutely. And do I think that they will resort to anything to achieve that? Yes.”

Referring to his rental arrangement with Vicki Hart, Pruitt said he “was living out of a suitcase for the first four or five months I was here.” He said he had known her husband, J. Steven Hart, whose law firm lobbies on energy as well as other matters, long before moving to Washington.

“I’m dumbfounded that that’s controversial,” Pruitt said of the condo rental.

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Pruitt elaborated on the arrangement. “This was like an Airbnb situation. … When I was not there, the landlord, they had access to the entirety of the facility,” he said. “When I was there, I only had access to a room.”

He also told Fox he had learned Tuesday that his senior counsel, Sarah Greenwalt, and his director of scheduling and advance, Millan Hupp, had gotten raises in March of 52 percent and 33 percent respectively. Hupp had overseen Pruitt’s housing hunt last year. Her and Greenwalt’s pay increases went through after the two were reappointed under an obscure provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“I found out this yesterday, and I corrected the action, and we are in the process of finding out how it took place and correcting that going forward,” Pruitt said.

“So, hang on. Both of these staffers who got these large pay raises are friends of yours. I believe from Oklahoma, right?” Fox’s Ed Henry asked.

“They are staffers here in the agency,” Pruitt replied.

“They are friends of yours,” Henry said.

“Well, they serve a very important person,” Pruitt replied.

“And you did not know that they got these large pay raises?” Henry asked.

“I did not know that they got pay raises until yesterday,” Pruitt said.

Suuuuure, he didn't know about the pay raises until yesterday. I totally believe that. NOT.

 I have it on good authority that Pruitt eats two big bowls of Sugar Frosted Bullshit Flakes every morning.

[AmazonGrace]

Wow this is crazy.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Hopefully Scotty will be the #1 contestant in the "Who Gets Fired This Weekend" contest. Tomorrow is Friday, and I think Dumpy has gone more than 72 hours since firing anyone, so it's about time.

[AmazonGrace]

He could fire Sessions because he has a replacement: