This administration is corrupt from top to bottom. In this instance, the DOE Secretary prohibited employees from speaking to Congress after a ‘scathing’ inspector general report revealed that a division of the DOE “violated DOE hiring guidelines in ways that disadvantaged military veterans.”
Not only that, but employees who participated in the IG report were “fired, suspended, or otherwise sanctioned.”
FREE BEACON – Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, revealed in a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon that the deputy secretary of energy issued the gag order following a scathing inspector general report last week.
The report revealed that the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a division of the Department of Energy (DOE), had violated DOE hiring guidelines in ways that disadvantaged military veterans.
BPA employees who cooperated with the IG’s investigation, the report found, were fired, suspended, or otherwise sanctioned.
Issa revealed in a Wednesday, July 17, letter that Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman “verbally instructed Elliot Mainzer, the individual [Poneman] chose to serve as acting administrator of BPA, that no BPA employees were to talk with anyone regarding these allegations, including congressional investigators.”
Issa suggested that such a gag order could be illegal.
“Obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime,” he noted. “Additionally, denying or interfering with employees’ rights to furnish information to Congress is against the law.”