Glen Johnson, the former online politics editor of the Boston Globe who now serves as senior adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry, required a special waiver so he wouldn’t run afoul of ethics rules by communicating with reporters from his old newspaper and the New York Times. The State Department granted the wavier back in February, but the decision wasn’t added to a public list of such waivers maintained by the Office of Government Ethics until last week. Under ethics rules that aimed to close the revolving door between government and special interests, President Obama has barred political appointees…
Author jim mcelhatton
A former State Department contract employee and her husband pleaded guilty Friday to fraud and conspiracy charges in a scam to steer tens of millions of dollars in embassy construction contracts. Kathleen D. McGrade, 64, and Brian Collinsworth, 47, face up to 30 years in prison after their pleas in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. A sentencing date is set for Nov. 8. In plea documents, both admitted that McGrade, as contract specialist for the State Department, steered nearly $40 million in embassy construction work from 2008 to 2011 to her husband’s company, while keeping their marriage a secret…
The White House has kicked off its fifth annual “Save Award” competition where thousands of federal employees submit ideas on how to cut waste from the government. Last year, Department of Education employee Frederick Winter won. Winter’s idea, which came to him after he turned 65, proposed that all federal employees with transit benefits shift from regular to senior fare as soon as they’re eligible. Steve Posner, associate director for strategic planning and communications in the Office of Management and Budget, said more than 85,000 ideas have come in from federal employees during the past four years. “We know these…
A multi-million dollar U.S.-funded construction project to build a teacher training facility in Afghanistan remains years behind schedule and marred by shoddy construction work and dangerous conditions, a government watchdog has found. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction detailed the findings in a report released Wednesday after inspecting a teacher training facility built in the northern Afghan city of Sheberghan. Calling the U.S.-funded project an example of broken promises and unfulfilled results, the IG found contract close out files reflect the fact work was finished, even though a host of electrical problems and other issues remained unresolved. What’s more,…
Nearing the end of a half hour talk on cybersecurity at a conference of contracting professionals in Alexandria, Va., Thursday, Booz Allen Hamilton vice president Mike McConnell had not uttered the name Edward Snowden. And Snowden, after all, is someone who has people talking a lot about cybersecurity these days. The now famous former Booz Allen employee stands charged with espionage and is still on the run from U.S. authorities after leaking details to the media on once secret government surveillance programs. As McConnell, a former director of national intelligence, was wrapping up his presentation, he said he’d take a…
By one estimate, it’s one of the best constructed facilities in Afghanistan, but soon the $34 million military center in Hemland province could be torn down because, well, it turns out troops are leaving and the U.S. government might not have really needed the building in the first place. Special Office of Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko outlined the scope and history of the expensive problem in a letter this week to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, which you can read about here. But for a virtual tour of the building’s clean, spacious and barren offices and meeting…
Ramon Davila is one name in a growing list. He’s among the nearly two dozen federal background check investigators to face criminal charges in recent years for falsifying his work on investigations performed on contractors and employees seeking government clearances. But more than year after charging Davila, the Justice Department only just learned that he had a troubling past that went unnoticed during his own background investigation. It turns out, officials at another federal law enforcement agency decided nearly a decade ago to keep out of his personnel folder serious misconduct findings against Davila stemming from his years as a…
Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill, lost her legs and the use of her right arm as a helicopter pilot in Iraq in 2004. She was awarded a Purple Heart for her combat injuries. Braulio Castillo broke his foot in a prep school injury nearly three decades ago at the U.S. Military Preparatory School, which he attended for nine months before playing football in college. He owns a technology business certified as a service-disabled, veteran-owned company eligible for government set aside contracts. The two met at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing Wednesday in an exchange neither will forget…
An IRS technology official at the center of a House investigation into whether he pushed the agency to award contracts potentially worth up to $500 million to a company owned by a personal friend pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify at a House hearing Wednesday. A House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report Tuesday said Greg Roseman, an IRS deputy director, may have influenced the IRS to award lucrative IT contracts to Strong Castle, Inc. The same report also said the company had given the Small Business Administration misleading information to win approval so it could obtain…
A high school injury nearly three decades ago enabled the owner of a contracting company to claim service disabled veteran status last year, opening the door to contracts worth up to a half billion dollars, a House investigation has found. Braulio Castillo, owner Signet Computers, which has been renamed Strong Castle, injured his ankle in the fall of 1984 during his year at the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School, but would later go on to play quarterback and linebacker the next year at the University of San Diego, according to a 157-page report Tuesday by the House Committee on Oversight…