Obama Appointees Must Repay Salaries After Enabling Fraud
A federal agency will be breaking the law unless two of its top Obama administration appointees repay many months of their salaries to taxpayers after barring another federal employee from telling Congress how higher-ups were allowing multi-million dollar frauds as part of a political deal.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined Tuesday that the two Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) political appointees refused to let an employee speak with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about a major scandal.
Most transparent administration evah!
The congressional watchdog agency cited a federal law barring the use of taxpayer dollars to pay executive branch officials to obstruct Congress:
No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other act shall be available for the payment of the salary of any officer or employee of the federal government, who … prohibits or prevents, or attempts or threatens to prohibit or prevent, any other officer or employee of the federal government from having any direct oral or written communication or contact with any Member, committee, or subcommittee of the Congress.
The GAO said that unless HUD’s associate general counsel and a deputy assistant secretary personally return their salaries, the department would be knowingly retaining “improper payments” on its books in violation of the law.
But this is the Obama administration and ignoring Congress and the law is it's most salient feature.
A HUD spokesman told The Daily Caller News Foundation that officials there have no plans to require the salary repayments despite the GAO opinion. The spokesman also said the GAO is “weighing a request that GAO reconsider its opinion of this 2013 case.
I like this law; is there any hope of using it against Hillary Clinton for her conduct as Secretary of State? I can see widespread application of this principle.
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