The role of inspectors general in the Bush administration has elevated the position to new heights. Because Congress decided, shortly after Bush’s inauguration in 2001, that administrative oversight would no longer be necessary, controversies that used to spark hearings and/or investigations on the Hill are now often handled by an agency’s inspector general, an allegedly independent official who serves as a “watchdog” for his or her agency.
When Bush’s Department of Health and Human Services lied to Congress about the cost of the president’s Medicare bill, for example, it was HHS’s inspector general who reviewed the scandal. When Bush’s Department of Education started paying third-rate pundits (among them, Armstrong Williams) to tout the president’s education policies, it was the department’s inspector general who was charged with looking for wrongdoing.
A problem emerges, of course, when a cabinet agency’s inspector general is not independent and the government needs a watchdog for a watchdog. Consider, for example, Joseph Schmitz, the Pentagon inspector general until two weeks ago. Schmitz is not only facing accusations of corruption, he’s also being described as having a bizarre fetish involving a German Revolutionary War hero.
Schmitz slowed or blocked investigations of senior Bush administration officials, spent taxpayer money on pet projects and accepted gifts that may have violated ethics guidelines, according to interviews with current and former senior officials in the inspector general’s office, congressional investigators and a review of internal e-mail and other documents.
Schmitz also drew scrutiny for his unusual fascination with Baron Friedrich Von Steuben, a Revolutionary War hero who is considered the military’s first true inspector general. Schmitz even replaced the official inspector general’s seal in offices nationwide with a new one bearing the Von Steuben family motto, according to the documents and interviews.
It gets worse.
Professionally, Schmitz appears to be something of a political hack. Pentagon officials who worked with him directly note that he took far more interest in a new bathroom for his executive office suite than looking for waste and/or abuse in the Defense Department’s budget. What’s more, Schmitz took so much interest in investigations of senior Bush administration appointees that Pentagon officials had to stop telling him who was under investigation.
For an inspector general, that’s a problem. One senior official in his office said, “He became very involved in political investigations that he had no business getting involved in.”
But it’s that Von Steuben thing that’s just so darn odd.
Some of the more unusual complaints regarding Schmitz deal with what senior officials called an “obsession” with Von Steuben, the Revolutionary War hero who worked with George Washington to instill discipline in the military. Von Steuben reportedly fled Germany after learning that he was going to be tried for homosexual activities.
Shortly after taking office, Schmitz made Von Steuben’s legacy a focus. He spent three months personally redesigning the inspector general’s seal to include the Von Steuben family motto, “Always under the protection of the Almighty.”
He dictated the number of stars, laurel leaves and colors of the seal. He also asked for a new eagle, saying that the one featured on the old seal “looked like a chicken,” current and former officials said.
In July 2004, he escorted Henning Von Steuben, a German journalist and head of the Von Steuben Family Assn., to a U.S. Marine Corps event. He also feted Von Steuben at an $800 meal allegedly paid for by public funds, according to Grassley, and hired Von Steuben’s son to work as an unpaid intern in the inspector general’s office, a former Defense official said.
He also called off a $200,000 trip to attend a ceremony at a Von Steuben statue earlier this year in Germany after Grassley questioned it. […]
“He was consumed with all things German and all things Von Steuben,” said the former Defense official, who did not want to be identified because of the ongoing inquiries. “He was obsessed.”
Where does Bush find these guys for key roles in the federal government? Are there any standards at all?