The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has appointed corruption-fighting Deputy District Attorney Max Huntsman to be the County’s inspector general.   Huntsman’s marching orders give him independent authority to investigate numerous allegations leveled against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.  Huntsman has a strong reputation for handling public corruption and police misconduct cases as a supervisor in the LA County DA’s Public Integrity Division.

OpenCdA can imagine what Kootenai County Prosecutor Barry McHugh’s response would be to that:  “What?  You expect Idaho’s county prosecuting attorneys to aggressively prosecute corrupt public officials and dirty cops?  You’re kidding, right?  We need them to get re-elected or elevated to the bench!”

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The Washington Post is reporting Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and some better-known national public officials have served on the board of directors of a nonprofit organization which sought to understate rather than fully expose and prosecute high-dollar thefts from the organization.  The organization is the American Legacy Foundation.

The WaPo’s articles are headlined Inside the hidden world of thefts, scams, and phantom purchases at the nation’s nonprofits, and Non-profit groups often seek restitution, not prosecution, when money goes missing.

According to our local skewspaper, the Coeur d’Alene Press, first-term State Representative Lucas Malek is considering becoming a candidate to be Idaho’s Secretary of State.

Predictably, the Press article had a mini-bio which included this statement:  “His education and work experience are a good fit to lead the office, he said. A graduate of the University of Idaho’s law school, he’s a former Kootenai County deputy prosecutor and served Jim Risch as North Idaho regional director when Risch was governor.”

Wow!  He’s a former Kootenai County deputy prosecutor!  Hard-hitting crime fighter? Oh, not so fast, Lukey-Dukey.  According to the Idaho State Bar Association, Malek was admitted to the Bar on April 28, 2011.  And according to Malek’s own LinkedIn information, he served as a deputy prosecuting attorney from May 2011 until April 2012.  But that same LinkedIn information also notes that Malek declared his candidacy for the Idaho State Legislature in December 2011, so we wonder how much time he really spent as a functioning deputy prosecuting attorney.  By his own admission, it was no more than one year.

It appears to OpenCdA that Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Barry McHugh put Malek on his office’s county payroll more to bolster Malek’s political resumé than to serve as a functioning deputy prosecutor for the people of Kootenai County.  Malek had been endorsed by outgoing Representative Marge Chadderdon, and it was her vacant seat Malek sought.

Thus far, Malek’s resumé appears to reveal more self-serving ticket-punching than a legitimate long-term commitment to public service.

The Washington Post is reporting that two US Secret Service Supervisory Special Agents, Ignacio Zamora, Jr. and Timothy Barraclough, have been reassigned after an internal investigation of their off-duty conduct.  The details of the allegations against them are reported in the news article.

The article also states:  “All Secret Service employees must maintain top-secret security clearances to be employed. An inspector general’s report this year that dealt with events in Cartagena said employees’ sexual behavior should be considered in granting or revoking security clearances “when the behavior may subject the individual to coercion, exploitation, or duress, or reflects lack of judgment or discretion.” ”

That statement is the essence of “suitability” as it applies to many federal employees including US Secret Service employees.

There is no doubt more to the story than what was reported by the WaPo.  The bigger question that needs to be answered for both Zamora and Barraclough is, “Does their conduct warrant revocation of their security clearance, and does it warrant suspension or termination?”  If their security clearances are revoked, they will be ineligible for continued employment as Special Agents with the US Secret Service.

Their reported sexting with a subordinate female Special Agent may result in separate personnel actions against any or all three of them.  That will depend on the outcome of the investigations.

Once upon a time in a land known as Appalachia West (more commonly, Idaho), a  Governor named Clem appointed 19 members of Idaho’s Health Insurance Exchange Board, a panel authorized by the Idaho Legislature to set the rules and regulations for implementing a state-based insurance exchange.   The Chairman was a guy named Weeg, a retired executive director of Health West.

One of the Board’s 19 members was a guy named Chan.  In typical A-W (Idaho) fashion, Chan got the Board’s executive director, a gal named Dowd, to award his computer company a technology contract worth up to $375,000.  Chan quit the same day his company was awarded the sole-source contract.

So Chairman Weeg did the right thing — he went to the Idaho Attorney General and requested a full and complete investigation to determine if there was wrongdoing in awarding the contract.   Didn’t he?  Wait … What?  He didn’t?  Really?  No, he didn’t.  Remember, this is A-W (Idaho), not someplace that believes public officials should be held  to the rule of law.

No, Chairman Weeg decided that his committee would hire a private attorney to conduct what passes for an investigation in A-W (Idaho).

According to a news story by Associated Press reporter John Miller, “Board members of the Idaho health insurance exchange said Tuesday that they will keep secret the findings of a $15,000 taxpayer-funded investigation into how one of its own members won a lucrative no-bid contract.”  As Chairman Weeg reported after today’s meeting, the Committee’s private attorney/investigator found that Dowd and the Committee “violated no law, that lapses of judgment were made around the procurement policy and conflict-of-interest policy.”  Weeg went on to say that the public will never be allowed to see the results of the investigation, because , “It deals with personnel, and it’s done under attorney-client privilege.”

This sounds less like a personnel matter than a posterior protection proceeding, commonly known as ass-covering.  Isn’t it reassuring to know that the Committee’s privately-hired attorney has decreed that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the people who hired him?  Imagine that!

If only there was an Attorney General in A-W (Idaho).  If only there was a US Attorney in A-W (Idaho).  If only…