The circumstances surrounding Clark Kent Ervin’s firing as the inspector general from the Department of Homeland Security have always been rather fishy.
Ervin generated broad and bi-partisan praise for his efforts to improve the agency and point out its shortcomings, but was shown the door a year after starting. (Ervin got the job during a 2003 recess appointment, but could have stayed on the job by going to the Senate for confirmation. Though he would have been confirmed easily, the White House decided to replace him instead.)
But now we’re starting to learn more about why Ervin may not have been welcome at the DHS and what kind of treatment he received while he was there.
The Homeland Security Department’s former independent watchdog says he was twice summoned to then-Secretary Tom Ridge’s office last year and asked why his reports criticizing the agency were being sent to Congress and whether they could be presented more favorably to the department.
Ridge “was trying to get me not to give things to Congress and also to try to spin reports in a way most favorable to the department, and I resisted both of those,” former Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said in an interview.
Ridge denied Ervin’s accusations, calling them “untrue,” and insisted that he never encouraged Ervin to suppress or withhold information.
So, who’s telling the truth? My money’s on Ervin.
Ervin is hardly a Dem activist who’s anxious to embarrass the Bush administration. He’s a Harvard-trained lawyer who worked for Bush when he was governor of Texas and for Bush’s father in the White House before that. Moreover, he’s considered squeaky clean by nearly everyone.
And on the other side is Tom Ridge, who, when he’s not a punch-line for jokes about government incompetence, has run into ethical troubles again and again and again.
Moreover, it’s also worth noting that Ervin didn’t seek out the media to blast Ridge; the media sought out Ervin with some questions.
The Associated Press approached Ervin about his meetings with Ridge after the dates turned up on Ridge’s daily appointment calendars, which the AP obtained last month under the Freedom of Information Act.
The AP first requested the calendars in December 2003. The department finally released them last month, three days after Ridge left office.
I realize these examples of casual corruption within the Bush administration have become routine, so much so that they hardly seem surprising anymore, but if a Bush cabinet secretary pressured an inspector general to hide information from Congress, as seems to be the case here, it sounds an awful lot like obstruction of justice and a federal investigation is a no-brainer.