Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The DEA forked over $854,460 to an Amtrak secretary for confidential information the agency should have gotten for free, according to an internal investigation. The DEA paid the employee to be an informant despite the agency’s right to obtain the information at no cost as part of a joint drug enforcement task…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The former watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security has been placed on leave following a report that he ignored serious problems to satisfy senior Obama administration officials, the Washington Post reports. The news comes a day after the Post reported that former Inspector General Charles K. Edwards had “altered and delayed…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A key figure in the Fast & Furious gun-running operation was permitted to collect two salaries while on leave from his federal government job, the Washington Times reports. The Justice Department’s inspector general created the report after finding that three of William McMahon’s superiors with the ATF “exercised poor judgment” by allowing…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A new report shows that Justice Department lawyers committed hundreds of ethics infractions ranging from recklessness to misconduct. Now a bipartisan group of senators is supporting a bill that would empower the inspector general to conduct an investigation, NPR reports. The senators want to bypass the traditional route – using the Office of…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com A former head of the Office of Inspector General’s Atlanta office faces charges of making false statements to a bank to obtain a mortgage loan and conspiring to obstruct an investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta said Thursday. Herschell Harvell, Jr., 53, made his initial appearance in federal court in…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com After more than a dozen Secret Service agents and officers were implicated in a prostitution scandal, the agency’s inspector general sought to determine whether the male-dominated agency had widespread problems with sexual misconduct. The conclusion from the long-awaited report: The Secret Service does not have a widespread problem with sexual misconduct,…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com As Homeland Security’s watchdog, Charles K. Edwards was tasked with exposing wrongdoing. That was until Tuesday, when officials said Edwards, the department’s inspector general, was transferred because of allegations that he abused his position, the Los Angeles Times reports. Among the accusations: He hired his wife, misused travel funds and tried to…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI has been using drones domestically since 2006, longer than previously known, the Los Angeles Times reports. The findings come from the inspector general’s audit of drones, which found that the FBI flew unmanned planes weighing less than 55 pounds to track suspects and examine crime scenes. The FBI declined to…
