Picking the single worst, most ineffective, most scandal-ridden Bush cabinet agency isn’t easy. Sure, Alberto Gonzales’ Justice Department has to get the top spot, but there’s Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, Paige’s Department of Education, and Chertoff’s DHS.
But let’s not overlook Alphonso Jackson’s HUD, for my money, every bit as corrupt and ridiculous as any cabinet agency in decades.
We learned last month that Jackson, who has a history of allowing political considerations to dictate policy matters, demanded that the Philadelphia Housing Authority transfer a $2 million public property to a friendly developer at a substantial discount. When the housing authority balked, Jackson retaliated, including threats about the availability of federal funding.
Today, there are some additional details, which make Bush’s HUD look even worse.
After Philadelphia’s housing director refused a demand by President Bush’s housing secretary to transfer a piece of city property to a business friend, two top political appointees at the department exchanged e-mails discussing the pain they could cause the Philadelphia director.
“Would you like me to make his life less happy? If so, how?” Orlando J. Cabrera, then-assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wrote about Philadelphia housing director Carl R. Greene.
“Take away all of his Federal dollars?” responded Kim Kendrick, an assistant secretary who oversaw accessible housing. She typed symbols for a smiley-face, “:-D,” at the end of her January 2007 note.
Cabrera wrote back a few minutes later: “Let me look into that possibility.”
The similarities between Bush administration agencies and organized-crime families are routinely striking, but this is ridiculous.
Paul Kiel added:
Greene is suing Jackson for retaliating against Philadelphia because he’d denied Jackson’s buddy, conservative soul songwriter Kenny Gamble, a city property. “On the date these e-mails were sent,” the Post reports, “HUD notified the [Philadelphia] housing authority that it had been found in violation of rules requiring that 5 percent of housing be accessible to disabled residents.”
But it gets better. Cabrera abruptly resigned from his post last November. It was later reported that Cabrera had spoken to the feds as part of their investigation, and that he was not on “speaking terms” with Jackson. It was no coincidence: “HUD insiders say that the secretary was angry with Cabrera for speaking to investigators and considers him ‘a snitch,'” National Journal reported. You can imagine Jackson’s chagrin, since Cabrera seems like such a team player.
But it’s a rough place, HUD.
Keep in mind, Jackson is already the focus of a federal investigation for awarding housing contracts to his friends and a federal grand jury investigated whether Jackson lied to investigators when he told them that he doesn’t “touch contracts.”
And yet, no one at the White House, and not a single Republican in Congress, believes Jackson should resign.
The GOP has lowered the bar considerably on what constitutes a firing offense.