Last week, when the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform held a hearing into the politicization of the Department of Justice’s quarter of a billion dollar grant program, one DOJ official, Michelle DeKonty, refused to testify, citing her Fifth amendment rights. Today, she was fired:
A Department of Justice official was fired yesterday after refusing to testify at a Congressional hearing regarding whether or not her office awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in grants based on political favoritism and personal connections.
Michele DeKonty, Chief of Staff for the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Administrator, cited the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and declined to appear at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing last week.
DeKonty’s departure also comes on the heels of a Justice Department probe into alleged irregular contracting practices within its own ranks according to a federal law enforcement official close to the investigation.
Questions about the agency’s awarding of grants were raised earlier this month by ABC News on Nightline. (click here to watch the report)
OJJDP staff members were notified of DeKonty’s departure this morning in an email from the office’s administrator, J. Robert Flores, who is also under investigation by the DOJ’s Inspector General. That investigation probes Flores’ hiring of a Honduran Colonel as a contractor on faith-based issues and his alleged golfing during conferences on taxpayer-funded business trips, according to a staff member who was contacted by the OIG.
In the email Flores said, “Over the past 2 years I have had the benefit of working with a talented and professional Chief of Staff in Michele DeKonty. Yesterday, ended her tenure with our Office.”
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George Bush is an idiot.
Murray Waas is an excellent investagative report.
George Bush hires cronies to work in senior government positions if they’re loyal because they are his friends. Murray Waas covers the stories that result.
Dick Cheney helped George Bush start an aggressive war of choice in Iraq. Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney leaked a covert CIA agents name to the press to discredit a war critic and defend the case for war. Dick Cheney should be in jail. So should Scooter Libby.
George Bush’s friends are raping the treasury with no bid contracts building billions of dollars worth of stuff in Iraq while our bridges fail and our public transportation needs renovation as a result of $5/gal gas.
George Bush’s friends in the Department of Justice are misappropriating 1/2 million dollars at a time for corrupt reasons.
Dick Cheney is determined to use military force against Iran.
These guy are bad war-starting, money-grubbing, people. How many days left? What will be left when they go?