Did White House pressure IG into blocking probe of staffer in Secret Service scandal?
At first, this story from the Washington Post seems impossible to believe. After all, the White House insists that they were cleared of any involvement in the Cartagena prostitute scandal by, er, their own internal investigation - a claim that White House aide Eric Schultz repeated to the Post's Carol Leonnig and David Nakamura. That settles it, right? Wrong.
The White House "internal investigation" consisted of … asking the aide if he was involved. Twice, though, so they could call it a thorough internal investigation:
The Secret Service shared its findings twice in the weeks after the scandal with top White House officials, including then-White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. Each time, she and other presidential aides conducted an interview with the advance-team member and concluded that he had done nothing wrong.The "nothing wrong" conclusion wasn't that the staffer, identified by the Post as Jonathan Dach, the son of a prominent Democratic donor, didn't have one or more prostitutes in his hotel room. Dachs denied the allegation, and Ruemmler simply took him at his word because she didn't want to pursue it.
The IG report was due in July 2012, a few months before the 2012 presidential election. The report got delayed, though, so that the Secret Service and DHS could comment on it. In late September, Congress began to hear rumors about cover-ups and political pressure, and the IG, Charles Edwards, insisted that nothing political was involved. At the same time, multiple media outlets reported that a White House staffer would be named in it. When the report finally did get released, the staffer mysteriously escaped mention.
Now we know why. The Post reports that the IG's office got pressured to delay the report and to ignore evidence that pointed to the White House staffer. When members of the IG's team balked, they got put on administrative leave. Edwards later resigned over allegations of misconduct, in this and other cases. The Secret Service agents had to undergo polygraphs; Dach apparently did not, not even after the Secret Service repeatedly brought evidence of his involvement with the prostitute scandal to the White House. At the time, the Secret Service Director was Mark Sullivan, who resigned in March 2013 in part due to the scandal.
Ruemmler, as readers may recall, has been mentioned as a possible short-lister to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General. This should effectively kill her chances of getting that nomination, or any other job requiring Senate confirmation. Even if one doesn't believe that Ruemmler knowingly misled people about the aide's involvement, being part of a cover-up (even unwittingly) is not a resume-enhancer for the top law-enforcement job in the United States.
Ruemmler's woes are the least of the problems for the White House, though. This is a full-blown cover-up, potentially a case of obstruction of justice, and appears to show that the Obama administration has corrupted the Inspector General process...Also read:
7 fast facts about White House hooker-gate aide's crony campaign donor dad, Leslie Dach
CNN Accused of Burying White House Prostitution Scandal, Cover-up
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