Yes, that's right folks. Former Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Special Counsel (OSC) Scott Bloch, the man whose federal office and home was raided for destroying files; claims that he is being persecuted for protecting Gay Rights, Also, the Bloch's claim that they were offered inducements to halt a federal investigation. Inducements that included the proffer of being given a federal judgeship. Scott Bloch (Bloch) and his wife Catherine are suing as "pro se" - Karl Rove, POGO, the Executive Office of the President for $202 million in damages. Bizarrely, Mr. Bloch's brief states "No Service Needed At This Time". Presumably you sent a message out and assumed "they" (massive defendants including POGO) - would "get it".
BACKGROUND
As Director of the OSC, Mr. Bloch's denotes in the lawsuit that his duties included investigating and prosecuting Executive Branch misconduct, with its primary mission to safeguard the merit system by protecting federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices.
Specifically from reprisals for whistleblowing, committed by Executive Branch officials. Bloch also stipulates his authority came from 4 federal statutes, the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Hatch Act and USERRA (Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act).
Former DOJ OSC Director Scott Bloch's federal office and home were raided by the FBI Tuesday, May 6, 2008 (see National Public Radio story ( here)). What is juxtaposed to Bloch's allegations in his lawsuit, is the "official" reason given for the FBI raid, was that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) claimed (as did many of Bloch's employed rank & file) - that Scott Bloch was refusing to investigate any claims pertaining to issues of sexual orientation and to halt Karl Rove investigations. Bloch was then threatened and offered a bribe to look the other way on the issues. As denoted by the National Public Radio (NPR) story - Bloch allegedly retaliated against the OSC's employees for pointing out his refusal to address sexual discrimination complaint cases. Whereas;
"The Office of Personnel Management's inspector general has been looking into allegations that Bloch retaliated against career employees and obstructed an investigation. Sources close to the probe said the FBI's raid this morning was related to work the inspector general had already done".
Full Disclosure;
This DK'r, Blogger and web master had assumed (and still believes) that one of the cases the OSC stymied was that of corrupt DOJ officials in the eToys case. We put up website and blogs pertaining to this very issue ( here) & ( here). Being that the FBI raided Bloch's office for destroying case files and the eToys case was never opened; yours truly actually emailed Scott Bloch and asked him to look into the matter and demonstrate some good faith. Though it has been since revealed that Mr. Bloch is now at Tarone & McLaughlin in Washington DC; we sent him an email at his bcounsel.com email address we found registered on the CA State Bar registry ( here).
Par for the course, keeping with big Gov habits, Mr. Bloch never responded.
BLOCH found guilty and sentenced to 1 month in jail
Mr. Bloch finally received a puny 1 month jail sentence, after a huge push that he only receive a more lenient sentence. Bloch has appealed. (see Government Executive website ( here)). The Goverment Executive states the saga went on for 6 years. What makes the issues almost seem diametric and obfuscated is the fact that Scott Bloch did plead guilty. He confessed he did use a Geek squad to clean his computers - proferring a cheeky excuse that they were infected by a virus. Goverment Executive reporter Robert Brodsky denotes this about the conviction
"Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson also sentenced Bloch, the former head of the Office of Special Counsel, to one year of unsupervised probation and 200 hours community service. But Robinson did not immediately order Bloch to prison, as the sentence will be appealed.
Bloch's attorney, William Sullivan, said he would file a motion to keep Bloch out of prison until the U.S. Court of Appeals can weigh in on the case. Robinson said she will consider the request. She will also consider a request from Sullivan that Bloch serve the one-month sentence in home confinement".
DETAILS of Scott Bloch's lawsuit
Disgruntled, as well as facing the loss of his legal license to practice (and it seems having a deep sense of fear of just 1 month in prison), Mr. Bloch and his wife decided against staying passively silent any longer. Since it was President Bush's Administration and the Karl Rove gang - Bloch and his wife Catherine, have sued the Executive Branch, Rove and others for $202 million. You can see the lengthy PDF brief (
here) and the WaPo article (
here).
Mr. Bloch, according to the MSM, was forced out of office and tendered his resignation to become effective as of January 2009 (see GE story ( here)). The investigations by the OPM and OIG, he claims, were started as retaliatory. Though he mentions that Harriet Miers and her successor Clay Johnson engaged in an "illegal", vexatious, biased and ultra vires investigation and prosecution of Scott Bloch; Harriet Miers is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Perhaps it is due to the fact he plans to call her as a witness. (See the Government Executive story on the White House forcing out Bloch ( here).
Not only has Bloch sued the Executive Branch of the Government, he sued Karl Rove, Virgina Congressman Tom Davis, Washington watchdog groups such as POGO (Project on Government Oversight), whistle blower functional Government Accountability Project (GAP) and Public Employees for Enviornmental Responsibility (PEERS) - among many others.
We are surprised we are not named as well (though the lawsuit does "other unknown persons" and persons of OPM & OSC); because I have lambasted the government and Mr. Bloch even prior to his FBI raid and arrest.
The Government Executive story stipulates that Scott Bloch's sentence was celebrated by government watchdogs. As the story quotes POGO Executive Director and founder Danielle Brian as saying;
"The contempt of Congress charge is just one of the many lowlights of Mr. Bloch's time as the head of the Office of Special Counsel," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight. "Considering all that Mr. Bloch did to make a mockery of his position, it's fitting that he'll have some time to reflect about his misdeeds in a federal prison."
Bloch alleges White House offered Bribes to "back off" from Rove investigations
The lawsuit by the Bloch's alleges in the "Rove Hatch Act Complaints" portion; that Karl Rove and the White House were misusing public funds. The details of the allegations back as far as 2005 were, that the White House and Karl Rove were under investigation for using Air Force solely for campaign efforts and abusing positions and fundings for the West Wing in overseeing the reelections of President Bush and Governors. In part 33 of Bloch's lawsuit (supplied again (
here)); it denotes that Plaintiff (Bloch) initiated an investigation into "
Rove Complaints".
Whereupon the bad faith by the White House and Karl Rove was admitted = per Hatch Act violations; and the monies were reimbursed to the US Treasury. Whereupon, the crap hit the fan, as Bloch then ordered an extensive investigation into all travels, to see if the violations were systemic. Keeping in step with treating the OSC like everyone else, the White House counsel refused to cooperate with the investigation. Really!
Bloch alleges bribe and threats to stymie federal investigations.
Making allegations that should "shock the conscience" of the nation. Scott Bloch details the fact that once the OSC office was instructed to ramp up the investigations - the West Wing sent an emissary to the OSC headquarters to inform Scott Bloch that the Administration was upset with the investigation. At that time, as the lawsuit ¶38 articulates - threats and inducements were proferred - verbatim;
¶38 - "This emissry from the White House also informed Plaintiff [Bloch] that Clay Johnson of the West Wing of the White House wanted him [Bloch] to leave his job, that nobody wanted an inspector general investigation on their record, and if Plaintiff left quietly, the inspector general investigation would likely fade away as resources tend to get put elsewhere when someone leaves office, and the investigation had not really begun.
Then ¶38 continues with
"Plaintiff [Scott Bloch] was further told that the emissary knoew of several large law firms where he had contacts and with Plaintiff's background and experience, "gold in this town," he could get a good job. The emissary also said he would go to the White House within six months or so if Plaintiff cooperated, and seek a judgeship for Plaintiff either on the federal circuit or the federal court of claims. This [unnamed] individual made it cleear he had spoken with individuals in the West Wing and what he was syaing was based on personal knowledge of the White House wanting Plaintiff to leave office now".
Bloch alleges he was investigating Rove & White House for abuses of office.
Bloch also alleges in his lawsuit section entitled "Complaints Filed with OSC Against Rove, Doan, DoJ, and others in the Administration" - that - Karl Rove's emailed records vanished. This was pertaining to the issue of, whether or not, Karl Rove and the Bush Administration utilized public fund resources, employees, etc to further Republican National interests.
Bloch claims his OSC office initiated investigation
into firings of US Attorney David Iglesias & 7 others US Attorneys.
Scott Bloch makes strong allegations of criminal activity by the Administration, members of Homeland Security and more. Bloch states that he was investigating Condaleeza Rice, the FAA and Department of Justice for rejecting job candidates because of their political beliefs. Bloch's brief in ¶46 specifically makes reference to a NY Times article by ERic Lichtblau "New Scrutiny of Hiring at Justice Department" July 2, 2008 at A13.
Plaintiff Bloch also alleges in ¶47 of his lawsuit, that he was investigating Lurita Doan for engaging in illegal political activities in violation of the Hatch Act. That Doan was required to resign - to end the investigation. Bloch claims that Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) who at that time was the Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was praising Scott Bloch's work until that worked also focused on Lurita Doan. Bloch alleges that Rep Davis and Lurita Doan are closely tied. Bloch even details how the schemes of money for gain - gain from money transpired. As is denoted in the Bloch's lawsuit midway in ¶47 and large allegations in ¶48;
"In or about 2003-04, Doan and her husband gave approximately $500,000 to the Republican National Committee, George W. Bush for President, and various candidates across the country as directed by Tom Davis for use as chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee-- Rep Davis and his wife were involved in helping Doan to become successful in her business, NMTI, which she [Doan] sold in or about 2005 for an estimated $200 million."
Then in ¶48 - Bloch alleges;
"During her [Doan's] time in obtaining government contracts, Doan used her husband's position at the Department of Homeland Security to bid for contracts for her technology company or obtain non-public information, which was contrary to government laws. On information and belief, [Bloch's] Defendants Davis, Doan, McFarland, Maroney, Cope and Fielding knew that Plaintiff was investigating Doan for this.
Scott Bloch then goes on to say that it was at the time that the Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel was considering making a criminal referral of Doan's utter failure to cooperate - that is when the FBI raid on the OSC and Scott Bloch's home transpired.
BLOCH claims he was handling sexual orientation issues correctly
and was retaliated upon for so doing
As stipulated in Bloch's brief, under the
Plaintiff's Discretionary Decisions, Whistleblowing, and Retaliation For Them - ¶15 - that;
"Upon taking office, Plaintiff [Bloch] initiated a comprehensive review of OSC operations, including OSC's legal and policy interpretations -- Plaintiff concluded that his predecessor had erroneously determined that one of the key statutory provisions enforced by OSC, 5 U.S.C. § 2302, provided broad protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation".
Bloch claims that subsequent to his actions to correctly address sexual discrimination issues, President Bush's Deputy White House Counsel ("DWHC"), in March 2004 met with Plaintiff Bloch an made several phone calls to Bloch's subordinates and threatened him with termination if he did not reverse his decision. Bloch had decided that sexual orientation claims could be processed by the OSC. When Scott Bloch informed the DWHC that he was the head of the agency and would make " independent " prosecutorial decisions in accordance with his determination of the Law. To that the Deputy White House Counsel snarkly replied;
"What does "independent mean in the executive branch"?
After that mockery of the Constitutional standards was stipulated, the DWHC told Bloch that he would become another victim of ouster like others.
Whatever the case may be, if Bloch did indeed address and defend the right to grant sexual discrimination cases the ability to file a claim with the OSC. Then he performed his job in accordance with the Law.
Furthermore, if Scott Bloch was raided by the FBI because of his investigation into Lurita Doan and abused thereby from Rep Davis, then I may even owe him an apology. It may be a heated debate over, whether or not, Bloch destroyed the eToys files cases that provided proof the Dept of Justice US Attorneys in DE and CA participated in the frauds. Even if, arguendo, everyone claims the case was not tossed - we can only then respond - Where are the Investigations and Prosecutions!
Bloch also claims that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and at least two investigations by the Government Accountability Office ("GAO") transpired. The conclusion of which was that Bloch maintains they determined that he had fulfilled his responsibilities efficiently and within the boundries of the Law.
Be that as it may, there are other issues larger and of more national significance. Such as the bad faith acts of Lurita Don and her husband at Homeland Security and the subsequent purported Obstruction of Justice and Bribes by the West Wing to halt the Karl Rove investigations - a Congressional or Senate hearing is in order - and an Special Independent Prosecutor needs to be assigned to the case(s).
We may never really know, our Government believes we are sheep for the slaughter. Most people are so comfortable wallowing in the bull shit provided to us, the never clean their eyes enough to see. This is why DailyKos is such a good place to be - we seek, speak and argue over the truth - and try to avoid being manure dwellers.
New Head of DOJ Office of Special Counsel
Scott Bloch's former entity, the Office of Special Counsel - has now found a to be confirmed replacement Carolyn Lerner (see Gov Exec story ( here)). Lerner promises to boost morale and restore/improve the reputation of the agency. We heard the same promises from Mary Shapiro - but Goldman Sachs is still getting away with organized crime in our federal courts and NY US Attorney Preet Bharara mentioned the other day that false affidavits were not necessarily lies.
We will give Carolyn Lerner the benefit of the doubt. She has established herself as one who fights for the civil rights of women, is the founding partner of a Washington DC Law firm and serves on the boards of the Center for WorkLife Law and has served as a mediator for the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
Regardless of who is appointed - it is a mess to clean up and America needs proof!
Sheeple we are and Sheople we will be - until revolution comes from anarchy!