| Scott J. Bloch | |
|---|---|
| Born | New York City, New York |
| Education | University of Kansas School of Law |
| Spouse | Catherine Bloch |
| Children | Seven children |
| Parents | Walter Black |
Scott Bloch is a US attorney, former deputy director and counsel to the Department of Justice's Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives, and former Special Counsel at the United States Office of Special Counsel. He is notable for a significant scandal in his department which led to his guilty plea to criminal charges of contempt of Congress.
On October 20, 2008, Bloch announced his intention to resign from his position as Special Counsel at the OSC on January 5, 2009. But his employment ended abruptly on October 23, during a meeting with White House officials. He was subsequently barred from entry to his office by the United States Federal Protective Service, which handles security at federal facilities.[1]
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Bloch's first major actions as head of the office were to choose as deputy a lawyer who had publicly taken a position against the "homosexual agenda", and to hire young lawyers from Ave Maria School of Law.[2] In February 2004, Bloch ordered all mention of sexual orientation workplace nondiscrimination be removed from OSC's website and printed materials. Bloch stated his office lacked the authority to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.[3]
Bloch's critics argued that gay employees were protected by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which prohibits discrimination against federal employees "on the basis of conduct which does not adversely affect the performance of the employee." Since its enactment, all five prior presidential administrations (Ford, Carter, Reagan, H. W. Bush, and Clinton) had interpreted this law to protect homosexual employees.[4]
After complaints from Congress, [5] the Bush Administration released a statement saying homosexual employees were still protected in April 2004. [6] Bloch issued a statement that after conducting a legal analysis: "It is the policy of this administration that discrimination in the federal workforce on the basis of sexual orientation is prohibited." [7]
This did not satisfy gay rights organizations, which claimed a lack of enforcement of the policy. The OSC has still not restored the language on its website or printed materials. [8][9] Notably the Federal GLOBE (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Employees of the Federal Government) called for Bloch's resignation.[10]
Bloch later retracted his statements and stated his office did not have the legal authority to protect employees from workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Media sources, Congress, and gay rights organizations continued to criticize Special Counsel Bloch and the OSC's lack of enforcement of its policies, particularly in regards to dismissing gay discrimination complaints.
For example, Michael Levine, a 65-year-old and openly gay radio technician, claimed that, after he blew the whistle on a coworker's and his supervisor's workplace misconduct, a personnel officer engaged in retaliatory action against him: pursuing knowingly false allegations of child pornography against Levine, suspending Levine for 14 days, seizing his computer, and referring to gay people as "those fucking faggots".[11]
One year after filing both a retaliation and antigay discrimination complaint with the OSC, Levine received a letter from the OSC on December 28, 2004. Without interviewing even a single witness, the OSC wrote that it was unable to investigate the complaints because only conduct, not sexual orientation, was protected under the Civil Service Act of 1978[11]—a reversal of Bloch's April 8, 2004 statement that sexual orientation-based discrimination was prohibited due to imputed conduct and therefore that the OSC has the authority to pursue such complaints.[7]
After being embroiled in a related "internal purge" controversy (see below), Special Counsel Bloch testified before a Senate panel on May 24, 2005 and reiterated his original position that he lacked the authority to protect federal employees on the basis of sexual orientation.[12] The next day, the Log Cabin Republicans called on Bloch to resign.[13]
Bloch's defenders, including writers at the conservative magazine Human Events, argued that Bloch was being unfairly attacked.[14]
In January 2005, the controversy escalated when Bloch ordered twelve OSC staffers, including the only two known gay employees, to transfer to distant cities or lose their jobs.[15] Bloch was accused of conducting a political purge of OSC employees by three government watchdog groups (the Government Accountability Project, the Project on Government Oversight, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), two federal trade unions (the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union), an LGBT rights organization (the Human Rights Campaign), and the OSC employees themselves.[16]
The Washington Blade reported that, according to unnamed sources "familiar with the agency", the employees had been targeted partly because of their disagreement with diminishing the jurisdiction of the OSC in prosecuting antigay workplace discrimination.[17] Both of the gay staffers had been critical of reducing OSC's role. Another of the twelve employees had reached a favorable settlement on behalf of a gay federal employee who filed a discrimination complaint against his supervisor.[15] In the end, ten of the twelve employees resigned. [18] Meanwhile, according to complaints, at least one staffer who had been supportive of Bloch's interpretation was promoted.[4]
In October 2005, the US Office of Personnel Management ordered an investigation of claims that Special Counsel Bloch retaliated against employees who disagreed with his policies. Ironically, the OSC would ordinarily oversee such whistleblower disputes. The probe is also investigating whether Bloch showed an antigay bias in refusing certain whistleblower and discrimination claims.[4]
In February 2007, Bloch was again accused of unfair supervisor practices when several of his staffers complained they felt coerced into not cooperating with the OPM probe. Bloch's deputy issued a memo urging OSC employees to only meet with probe investigaters in a certain conference room and to report their interactions to their supervisors. Employees reported other attempts to obstruct the investigation including "suggestions that all witnesses interviewed ... provide Bloch with affidavits describing what they had been asked and how they responded."[19]
Scott Bloch was under investigation for the alleged improper deletion of emails on office computers.[20]
It is alleged that Scott Bloch erased the files on his office personal computer in 2007, and that the FBI is trying to determine whether the emails were deleted improperly. The inspector general of the Office of Personnel Management is examining the case at the urging of the White House.
The Journal reports that Bloch called the tech support service Geeks on Call for help deleting computer files instead of using his agency's own in-house computer technicians. Bloch confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call, but insisted that it was to remove a computer virus.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered the White House to save all of its emails in response to lawsuits from two private organizations, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government, and The National Security Archive. The groups allege that as many as five million White House emails are missing.
On May 6, 2008, FBI agents raided Bloch's offices. NPR and the Wall Street Journal reported that the raids were in relation to an investigation into allegations of obstruction of justice by Bloch's office.[21] The New York Times reported that the investigation concerned whether Bloch had hired an outside company to "scrub" computer files to prevent an inquiry into whether he had violated the Hatch Act by mixing politics with his job, which is to shield whistleblowers.[22]
As part of an investigation into destruction of evidence, Bloch's person was searched and two portable memory devices were recovered.[23]
On April 27, 2010 Bloch pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of Congress for, according to the U.S. Attorney, "willfully and unlawfully withholding pertinent information from a House committee investigating his decision to have several government computers wiped ...."[24] Bloch was originally slated to be sentenced on July 20, 2010. However, the sentencing was postponed after watchdog groups objected to a plea deal which would have likely seen Bloch only get probation; contempt of Congress carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison. On February 2, Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson ruled that Bloch faces a mandatory sentence of at least one month in prison.[25]
The misdemeanor contempt statute to which he pled, 2 U.S.C. 192, is not a lying to Congress misdemeanor, is not a false statement statute. He was not under oath in the interview with Congress over a computer incident in his office. He was asked over two hours of questions a year and a half after the events occurred without any reference to notes or documents of any kind. The plea was based on not fully cooperating with Congress in that interview on five particular questions and answers deep into the interview. [26]
He has moved to withdraw his plea because it was obtained in violation of the Constitution and the federal rules governing pleas. [27] The open records of the Court indicate from the U.S. Government that they have entered into negotiations for a different misdemeanor plea if this one is vacated by the U.S. District Court where the appeal is pending. [28]
Scott J. Bloch served as United States Special Counsel from December 12, 2003, when George W. Bush signed his appointment, filling out his five year statutory term on December 11, 2008. Bloch achieved a great deal of oversight while Special Counsel in the United States Office of Special Counsel, which was widely reported on during his five year tenure, including aviation near miss cover ups and airworthiness safety check cover ups that caused the grounding of 1000 plus planes. [29] Since 2009, he practices law in Washington, D.C. in the areas of complex litigation, government contracts, injured contractors abroad, class actions, and employment matters in the federal and private sector. [30] He has sued Blackwater Worldwide and Xe Services, formerly Blackwater, alleging that Blackwater deprived thousands of security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan of their employment benefits and retirement benefits by misclassifying them as independent contractors. [31]
Bloch achieved many things in the Office of Special Counsel, and shook up the bureaucracy, in ways nobody in office had ever done, which resulted in attacks from many quarters on the Left, on the Right, and among federal employee groups, activists and interest groups. One commentator on the federal bureaucracy stated that the mistreatment of Bloch resulted from his taking them on and making them do things differently. [32] He caused an Inspector General to leave office, and a United States Attorney, as well as, some say, Karl Rove himself. [33] Others have written that the animus directed at Bloch came from an anti-Catholic bias. [34]
He cleaned up his own agency, dispensing with a ten year old backlog while at the same time increasing positive whistleblower referrals by 400 percent, slashing processing times for employment complaints by more than half, increasing USERRA service member rights enforcement by slashing processing times by more than 1000 percent with vastly increased results for service members, and increasing Hatch Act prosecution and enforcement and slashing processing times for those complaints by half. [35]
He has continued to be an advocate of greater transparency and adherence to safety oversight in the federal government in the face of continuing violations of regulations and danger to the flying public that OSC, under Bloch, fought to correct. [36]
He is the grandson of renowned abstract expressionist Albert Bloch.[37]
He has continued to write op eds on important public interest subjects like the Hatch Act investigations he instigated, that resulted in a recent lengthy report and the White House’s abolishing of the Office of Political Affairs overseen by such notables as Karl Rove under President George W. Bush and James Carville under President Bill Clinton. [38]