FederalDaily - November 10, 2006

Bush Nominates Gates to Lead Pentagon

In the wake of Republican losses in the midterm election, President Bush has replaced embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Robert Gates, a veteran CIA operative who served as spy chief for Bush’s father. Gates, 63, is a Bush family friend who since 2002 has been president of Texas A&M University. Texas A&M also is the site of George H.W. Bush’s presidential library and museum. “The Secretary of Defense must be a man of vision who can see threats still over the horizon, and prepare our nation to meet them. Bob Gates is the right man to meet both of these critical challenges,” Bush said. Gates became a CIA analyst in 1966, and rose through the ranks to become deputy director under President Ronald Reagan and CIA director during the elder Bush’s presidency. Gates must yet be confirmed by the Senate.  Some Republicans already are pushing for an early hearing date in the upcoming Congress. To see more, go to: www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061108-4.html

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Group: Congress Cut Feds’ Investigative Ability

A federal government watchdog group said that even as reports of contracting fraud and contractor malfeasance continue to accrue, lawmakers add to the mess by reducing the government’s ability to investigate itself. OMB Watch, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, said Nov. 7 that the House Appropriations Committee eliminated funding for the jobs of 60 investigators charged with closely monitoring defense contracting and intelligence spending. Furthermore, Congress added a measure to the 2007 Defense authorization bill that effectively abolishes the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction, which had focused on contractor abuses in Iraq. Typically, only government officials have the authority and resources to perform comprehensive reviews of government contracts. Were it not for these offices, much of what Congress and the public now know about contract abuse may never have emerged, the group says. “Congress has acted to make it harder for itself and the executive branch to keep up even the current, grossly inadequate, level of oversight,” the group said in a report. To see more, go to: www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3640

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FTC Settles Postal Job Scam

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said on Nov. 8 that it has reached a settlement in its effort to close down a Tennessee marketing scam it said was selling prep materials for post office jobs that didn’t exist. Jeffrey Wayne Simmons and his companies, Information Resources of Nashville, LLC, and Career Services, LLC, agreed to halt the operation and pay FTC a settlement of $1.3 million. FTC charged that the operation sold worthless prep materials for jobs that didn’t exist. FTC said the scheme misrepresented an affiliation with the U.S. Postal Service and the availability of postal jobs, and sold the proposition that getting a passing score on the postal exam guaranteed applicants a job. None of the claims, or the USPS affiliation, was true, FTC said. As part of the settlement, Simmons agreed to give up material assets which include property in Antioch, Tenn.; a motorboat; two jet skis and cash in his bank accounts. The settlement also prohibits the defendants from misrepresenting any material fact about other products. To see more, go to: www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/11/simmons.htm

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