Joseph Edward Schmitz (born on August 28, 1956 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin)[1] is an American lawyer, former Inspector General of the Department of Defense and a former executive with Blackwater Worldwide, a private contractor providing security services to the U.S. State Department and the U.S. military.
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Joseph Edward Schmitz is the son of the John G. Schmitz, former California State Senator, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and U.S. Presidential candidate (1972). Schmitz attended Catholic schools as a child and Georgetown Preparatory School while his father served in Congress. He holds a Bachelor of Science (1978) from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and a Juris Doctor (1986) from Stanford University. He was on the wrestling team at the Naval Academy. His siblings include Mary Kay Letourneau, Jerome Thomas Schmitz and John Patrick Schmitz.[2]
Upon graduation from the Naval Academy, Schmitz served in the U.S. Navy for approximately four years, including a stint as an exchange officer with the German Navy. Schmitz left active duty and was in the Naval Reserve until 2001. After leaving active duty, Schmitz attended law school. He clerked with James L. Buckley, Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and was a special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III during the Reagan Administration. Schmitz entered the private sector in 1987, eventually joining the Washington, D.C., firm of Patton Boggs LLP.[3] He was an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University in the 1990s.
He is a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.[4]
Schmitz was nominated by President George W. Bush to be Defense Department Inspector General on June 18, 2001. His nomination was held up in the Senate Armed Services Committee for unknown reasons until March 21, 2002 , when he was confirmed by the full Senate by voice vote.
Although Senator Charles Grassley published numerous allegations against Inspector General Schmitz toward the end of his almost four year tenure as the Senate-confirmed Inspector General of the Department of Defense, none of those allegations was ever substantiated. All of Senator Grassley’s allegations were investigated by an independent Office of Inspector General under the auspices of the Integrity Committee of the President’s Council on Integrity & Efficiency (PCIE), which on October 19, 2006, “concluded that there was no wrongdoing.” [Citation: PCIE Integrity Committee Fax to PCIE Chairman, October 19, 2006. See also, “Corrections,” The Washington Post, p. A02, November 20, 2010 (clarifying that its prior article about Inspector General Schmitz, “failed to state that Schmitz was exonerated of any wrongdoing by the Integrity Committee of the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency in 2006“).]
Schmitz resigned as Defense Department Inspector General on September 9, 2005 in order to take a position with the Prince Group, a holding company for Blackwater Worldwide, which provides security services and training to the U.S. military in Iraq and elsewhere. In a letter dated June 15, 2005, and posted on the Inspector General's website on September 2, 2005, Schmitz recused himself from investigating all matters related to Blackwater.
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