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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@TAG
Anyone who has worked in private industry is quite familiar with how well executives live on the company’s dime. There may be massive layoffs but the private jet is always going to be well stocked with food and drink. It is not only government that has problems like this..
I still blame the government. Corporate taxes are now so high that the poor businessmen are forced to entertain themselves to an early grave in a last-ditch attempt to retain whatever profits they may have made… /sarc
It isn’t appropriate to say an “NBC News investigation reveals” anything. John C. Beale was tried for this in open court months ago. He’s openly admitted to what the article says. This has been on the public record for some time now. Plenty of people have discussed it before this piece was written. For example, it was covered in the Washington Post months ago. Heck, even the Huffington Post covered it.
I get this story may be new to a lot of people, and there’s definitely a story to be told about how little attention this has gotten, but I’ve known about it for months since coming across it in a newspaper article. NBC News didn’t discover anything.
REPLY: OK, point taken, until this morning, I was not aware of it at all. I’ll edit appropriately – Anthony
I have read accounts on this case before. But somehow any mention of his being a glowball warming guru seem to have been left out.
“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.””
I think the word he is searching for is ‘gullible’, as in, “the EPA is the most gullible of any federal agency if something seems to support their agenda.”
And on that I would agree.
so is $206,000 a year the going rate?
“These include helping to rewrite the Clean Air Act in 1990 …”
So who is doing what to whom? Does this affect the Supreme Courts ruling?
http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2006/2006_05_1120#argument
If I read this correct the EPA was arguing it had no power to regulate co2 by the Clean Air Act and was forced to do so by the Supreme Court that upheld(overruled) in Massachusett’s favor. (but i’m no attorney, help anyone?) Of course this was in 2006 and not now but this man may have likewise tainted the act that the Supreme Court used for it’s ruling. Hmm.
Chip Knappenberger says:
December 16, 2013 at 10:38 am
Hmmm. Maybe Roy Spencer has a point. It seems while active at the EPA, Mr. Beale was pivotal in covering up critique of (extremely costly) EPA regulations from other government agencies.
————-
Oh, shoot. And there I was thinking Beale was one of the harmless ones.
“How long will it take them to figure out that he’s not really a climate change expert either?”
Actually he is a climate change expert, fraud is fraud.
phillipbratby says:
December 16, 2013 at 9:34 am
” Already our government feels like that of a third world country.” Come to the UK and see what it is really like to be heading for a banana republic…………….”
Phillip, I thought the UK was turning into an Islamic Republic?
Also, The CIA will soon announce that one of their agents was claiming to be a Climate Scientist.
And collected $millions in salary and was seldom there…. ;^)
The NBC news story includes this quote from Beale’s lawyer John Kern: “Kern also said Beale was driven “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities””. Sounds like Al Gore and so many more of his disciples. It still galls me to remember all the “studies” that have come out about the supposed mental health issues of catastrophic climate change non-believers.
TAG says:
December 16, 2013 at 10:36 am
————————————————-
I have never heard of a private company continuing to employ someone who never showed up at the office for 18 months with the exception of Initech, although their employee continued to show up to work for 18 months after he was technically fired.
But I suspect Beale was wearing 37 pieces of flair which kept him out of trouble for so long.
I know I am echoing Dr. Spencer here, but maybe paying EPA climate officials to NOT work is an extremely wise investment, and a trend we should encourage.
…maybe he was searching for all of the Hiroshima-sized nuclear explosions that Gore says are going off all of the time?
Alberta Slim says:
December 16, 2013 at 11:25 am
Bingo! This is how the intelligence community is secretly funding itself away from all that pesky (but still not very effective) Congressional oversight. They send trained operatives to infiltrate all the various green groups awash in public funding to “fight climate change” and siphon off a good bit of it (or most of it if internal controls are on the same level as the EPA’s) to secret offshore slush fund accounts.
/sarc — or maybe not. I’d better check with Lewandowsky first.
The comment that I find most disturbing:
“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.”
As I understand it, the EPA spends a lot of time in court, defending actions from environmental groups, that they gave money to, to institute those legal actions.
Oh wait. The people EPA always lose, and have to bring in legislation, outside the authority of elected representatives.
It must be that trusting and accepting nature that causes the EPA to lose.
I hope he gets no leniency, I really dislike people that mixes bullying, intimidation, charm and just being “fresh”, ever exploring and exploiting the limit of what they can get away with. Give them a meek superior or board and they will serve themselves with both hands. If they had really checked this guy out he most likely would have track of inflated expense reports going back to day one. To bad they only bothered going back a few years. Given they will not get their money back I understand why they choose to stop when the case is strong enough.
The irony of it all is, as Dr Spencer points out, that defrauding the governement on expenses is small potatoes compared to his share of responsibility for “CAGW prevention costs”. But he may claim negligence and escape the 25 to life he deserves 🙂
So, say this money from this guy and thousands of others doing the same or more or less,,
and say 50% of it is converted to cash and handed underhanded to Democrats like Al Gore , Obama and John Kerry tu use to get elected.
There would appear to be adequate evidence in the public view now to indicate that Beale not only had “insecurities” he was attempting to cover, but that he was a chronic liar as well. It seems that someone to “urge” EPA to reassess every single thing that Beale has ever done in the agency’s name.
I understand Beale is married… All of this leads me to wonder, too, how long his wife will stand by him as she reportedly knew nothing about any of this either, especially since the government will be reimbursed for its losses; I would think that’s going to make an impact on her quality of life. Apparently she liked the money and the fact that he took a lot of trips. Makes me a little suspicious of her, too.
Sigmundb said:
December 16, 2013 at 11:53 am
I hope he gets no leniency…
————————————–
He will likely get a nice new job like
Richard WindsorLisa Jackson did.from WaPo, 28 May 2013:
“Former EPA head Lisa P. Jackson becomes Apple’s top environmental advisor”.
They also will probably both receive behind-the-scenes golden handshakes for their duty to the warmunist party.
If your boss at a government agency can use an alias to keep emails secret and FOIA-free, employees might find a way to deceive too and consider that to be quite normal.
A fish rots from the head down.
What was he doing? Galavanting around the world first class and staying in 5 star hotels at taxpayers expense, that’s what.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mmmm isn’t that what they all do?…Oh and preach to everyone else not to travel by air/car etc whilst completely ignoring their own surmon.
But, they might still have a need for a ‘bag man’*. The flow of cash has not stopped.
.
.
* Bag man (or climate science bagman) – is a person designated to collect dirty money, e.g. in a protection racket. A bag man may also be known as a delivery boy or running man. Originally applied only to Mafia members collecting for mob bosses, but later spread in application for use in corrupt police precincts for patrolmen who picked up and delivered bribes from the local mob(s) to the precinct captain.
Bagman commonly receive a fraction of the money collected. The term can also be used for a person who performs small tasks for the Mafia, such as chauffeuring or transporting goods…
.
So, not one prediction that the alarmists have made has been realized. In fact, just the opposite has happened. You know what this means: “It’s worse than we thought!”
Should be “Business as usual at the EPA from agency’s top paid climate official”. There – I fixed it for you.
Move over, Frank Abagnale, Jr.