The report on the Armstrong Williams contract by the Education Department's Inspector General has been released. (4:30 on a Friday, what a surprise.) Essentially, it says no laws were broken, but that some former Department officials were guilty of lapses in judgment.
From the Executive Summary:
Overall, we noted no violations of pertinent contract law and found no evidence of any ethical violations in the formation of the Ketchum contract and GWG work requests. We did find that Department officials made some poor management decisions, including the failure to provide critical information to decision makers, and exercised poor judgment and oversight. As a result, the Department paid for work that most likely did not reach its intended audience and paid for deliverables that were never received. The advertisements (ads) that were produced under the work requests appear to be of poor quality, and the Department has no assurance the ads received the airtime for which it paid. The documentation we reviewed appears to indicate payment was attributed solely to the production of ads and airtime. However, because other activities relating to commentary were included in the SOWs and activity reports, and because the invoices received and paid by the Department were vague, the appearance is that the Department may have been paying for more than just the advertising.
It looks like most of the "poor management decisions" are being attributed to former officials. Interestingly, some of their subordinates who are still at the Department are mentioned in the report as having made recommendations against using William's company as a subcontractor, or recommending that the contract be ended. For example
The former Director and Deputy Director of OPA met with Mr. Williams at the Department in the Fall of 2003 to further discuss the services the GWG could provide with regard to NCLB outreach.... While the Deputy Director indicated she did not believe it was a good idea to pursue the relationship with the GWG any further, the former Director felt otherwise. (pg. 6)
and
While the former Director of OPA was indicating he believed the campaign was successful due to the increased number of visits to the NCLB website, both the Deputy Director of OPA and the former Chief of Staff (B) indicated they raised concerns with continuing the campaign. campaign. Their concerns included the cost of the program, the inability to measure the effectiveness of the program, and the inherent conflict of Mr. Williams' role as both a public relations executive and commentator. (pg. 7)
and
On June 2, 2004, the Deputy General Counsel provided an analysis in an e-mail sent to the former General Counsel and his Chief of Staff. The analysis concluded the best course of action and main option available at that point in time was to withdraw the SOW. The communication stated there was nothing clearly erroneous with the proposal, however a weak argument could be made that the proposal may possibly run afoul of Federal statutes prohibiting use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda purposes. The analysis also mentioned the concern over whether the purchase of access to media and news programs was appropriate, even with full attribution to the Department, noting it was not squarely addressed in the statutory prohibitions cited. (pg. 8)
The report goes on to note that the former General Counsel didn't provide this analysis to former Secretary Paige, because he didn't think Paige would be interested.
The Secretary's response at the end agrees with the report and recommendations, and says the Department is going to comply with all the recommendations. In the opening paragraph, it says that the Secretary isn't asserting privilege, which I suppose is a response to the reports yesterday that she was thinking of doing so.