News from Marc Ambinder:
Tomorrow, as part of an effort to convince Congress and the public that he's serious about transparency and accountability, President Obama will name Earl Devaney, a former Interior Dept. inspector general, as chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board.
Who is Earl Devany?
If you've followed the Jack Abramoff saga over at TPMuckraker, you've read Devany's name. Back in September of 2006, he testified to a Congressional subcommittee that "'Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior.'" This quote was in regards to the practices of giving oil leases away to the oil companies. He elaborated:
Over the course of this seven-year tenure, I have observed one instance after another when the good work of my office has been dynamically disregarded by the department," he writes in his testimony. "Ethics failures on the part of senior department officials, taking the form of appearances of impropriety, favoritism and bias have been routinely dismissed with a promise 'not to do it again.'"
Later in 2006, Devany reported to Congress on criminal investigations related to the leases, and to, yes, Jack Abramoff. In early 2007, Devaney reported he had 10 employees investigating Abramoff's activities, having
uncovered golf outings, dinners, hunting trips, concert tickets and box seats at sporting events being accepted against the rules by Interior officials. They have also uncovered exclusive access and special favors by Interior employees to select outside groups.
In September 2008, Devany testified that the Bush administration was lax in prosecuting misconduct.
Bush Justice Department declined to bring charges, a decision that the IG, Earl Devaney, publicly criticized, telling a congressional committee last September: ''I would have liked a more aggressive approach, and I would have liked to have seen some other people prosecuted here.''
Devaney also complained during his testimony that his report had been incomplete because Chevron -- one of the companies charged with giving gifts to the staffers -- had hired lawyers for six employees implicated in the scandal who later refused to cooperate with the IG' investigation.
Now Devany is in charge of ensuring the public knows how the stimulus act's money is being spent. Based on his recent history, it appears he has backed up President Obama's stern lecture to the nation's mayors that the federal government will be making sure officials are accountable for the money.