This is stunning, yet not surprising. We know people get caught up in “the cause”, and that there are massive egos involved in some of the more visible climate advocates that lead them to irrational excesses of word and deed, but this one takes the cake.
This NBC News (coverage of the EPA internal*) investigation reveals that the highest paid individual at the EPA, John C. Beale, bilked the agency out of nearly $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade.
The EPA’s highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change deserves to go to prison for at least 30 months for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job, say federal prosecutors.
Beale perpetrated his fraud largely by failing to show up at the EPA for months at a time, including one 18-month stretch starting in June 2011 when he did “absolutely no work,” as Kern, Beale’s lawyer, acknowledged in his court filing.
What was he doing? Galavanting around the world first class and staying in 5 star hotels at taxpayers expense, that’s what.
The two sentencing memos, along with documents obtained by NBC News, offer new details about what some officials describe as one of the most audacious, and creative, federal frauds they have ever encountered.
When he first began looking into Beale’s deceptions last February, “I thought, ‘Oh my God, How could this possibly have happened in this agency?” said EPA Assistant Inspector General Patrick Sullivan, who spearheaded the Beale probe, in an interview with NBC News. “I’ve worked for the government for 35 years. I’ve never seen a situation like this.”
And of course, here’s the “anything for the cause” blindness that allowed it all to happen:
Sullivan said he doubted Beale’s fraud could occur at any federal agency other than the EPA. “There’s a certain culture here at the EPA where the mission is the most important thing,” he said. “They don’t think like criminal investigators. They tend to be very trusting and accepting.”
Translation: he’s doing good work for “the cause”, so there’s no need to look further.
More here: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/16/21911592-climate-change-experts-fraud-was-crime-of-massive-proportion-say-feds?lite (h/t to WUWT reader Martin Rettig)
While this is a massive fraud of salary and benefits, one has to wonder what sort of fraud this man may have perpetrated in his role as a climate official. According to the story,
These include helping to rewrite the Clean Air Act in 1990, heading up EPA delegations to United Nations conferences on climate change in 2000 and 2001, and helping to negotiate agreements to reduce carbon emissions with China, India and other nations.
In this EPA document, they don’t seem to be looking into any of those things, only his travel abuse. I think they have “team blinders” on since I haven’t found anything where they look into the quality of his climate work.
The culture of corruption in Washington will be the death of the republic if it isn’t reined in soon. Already our government feels like that of a third world country.
Related articles
- Climate Change Expert’s Fraud Was ‘Crime of Massive Proportion,’ Say Feds (freepatriot.org)
- Feds charge EPA’s climate-change guru with fraud (wnd.com)
- Third EPA Official Implicated in $900K Scam (freebeacon.com)
- REPORT: EPA knew for years of illegal salary going to ex-official… (washingtonpost.com)
- EPA’s Christmas Gift to the Nation: 134 More Regulations (politicaloutcast.com)
* edited for accuracy
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Wonder if his former boss, “Richard Windsor” (aka Lisa Jackson) testified on his behalf?
Fraud? In our government?…the most transparent administration EVAH?
Truly hard to believe 😉
Jim from Maine
We had a similar, albeit “cheaper” scandal in this state several years back. An employee did not show up for work for 12 years, yet was continually paid and her supervisors even gave her evaluations. The organization was a cooperative run by the state and the feds. Community development if I remember correctly.
Any wonder we are $17 trillion in debt?
“I’ve worked for the government for 35 years. I’ve never seen a situation like this.”
Govt Employee Chekalist:
1. Blinkers on: Check.
Its a Travesty that this scientists extremely important work is being interrupted by legal harassment…
Boy his “bosses” must be one heck of a fool to not get agency verification on such a huge claim as that. Shoot, my wife works at the VA and has a heck of a time just trying to get more than a week off approved by her bosses and they always refuse to reimburse for any portion of conference attendances even if it is a part of maintaining certifications.
Probably as a result of arrogance! Once people believe they can get away with it, their excesses get worse the more it is overlooked! Happens in the UK too!
playing the devil’s advocate here…maybe this was the least costly outcome of his job as far as an impact on the economy goes.
Spell check last para:
Reign: What a king or queen does
Rein: To control by a physical lead, originally in reference to draft animals
Rain: Drops keep fallin’ on my head
The [Washington] Post previously reported that in 2012, McCarthy notified the EPA general counsel’s office about her suspicions. That office, in turn, notified the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security, which has no investigative authority [Note 1], delaying the inspector general’s probe for months. Source: WaPo Dec. 10.
[Note 1] but I bet they are armed.
Our government: dishonesty, incompetence, stupidity. Pick any three.
Sic semper Tyrannis.
==============
Grandpa Simpson warned us about the EPA…
I’ve seen it go both ways with government employee waste, fraud and abuse. If they cross someone higher they get caught and dealt with relatively quickly. If they don’t, then it seems it can go on forever. I’m amazed that the IG’s “surprise” statement.
Try terminating a GS employee for cause. It only takes a year or so and you can get midnight phone calls from OPM asking if you really want to do it. The system is set so you can’t easily get rid of the abusers.
Isn’t this old news? Or is more out about it then what was known before?
Spelling corrected. (“rein”)
There’s a bit of perfect symmetry at work here – in an industry (climate change/global warming/whatever) that is, at its heart, a total fraud, it stand to reason that the greatest and most skilled con artists would rise to the top. Not the penny ante pikers who write papers that no one reads, but the real thing, the ponzi schemers, the “catch me if you can” manipulators like this guy.
I suspect, if we were to know the whole truth, that the only difference between this man and someone like Pachouri is that one of them has done a much better job of paying off their respective officials in their home country.
That’s really Beale’s only big mistake – he forgot to spread the wealth around enough, at least not to the “right” people.
Enablers above and below him in the hierarchy. This calls for an investigation. Get the Inspector General on it. Well, someone anyway.
===========
“Beale. JOHN Beale.”
His lawyer in trying to get him leniency writes in the nbcnews.com article: “With the help of his therapist, Mr. Beale has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior.” and also said Beale was driven “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities.”
“fabrication of grandiose narratives” that seems to fit a lot of the CAGW usual suspects.
Now, Taph, you know he was working for the CIA. A small price to pay the better for us never to know.
=======
Have you ever talked to a lifetime government employee? Their mindset toward money is warped. Governments take; businesses must earn. Lifetime government employees never ever realize that when costs go up, prices go up too. Because the government takes money they do not have to work to get that money. They think you can just take more. This make corruption and waste much easier.
Hehe. Just like the good ole UK, with its government full of scammers and troughers. Welcome to the club – and to the Third World (Futures Division).
Mary McCarthy said,
“Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.”
After reading the article, I must confess, being a Canadian, I yawned. Mr. Beale was simply acting like one of our Senators in Parliament, and we have 100 of them. Ho-hum.