02.21.07
Special Federal Counsel Bloch Accused Of Intimidation
A high level investigation into allegations of homophobia, illegal gag orders, cronyism, and retaliation against Special Counsel Scott Bloch is being stymied by intimidation of those who made the complaints two federal employee groups say.
The Office of Personnel Management began the probe of Bloch in 2005 under Inspector General Patrick McFarland following a year of complaints by members of Congress, Federal Globe - the LGBT organization for federal civil servants, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility - a watchdog group.
Now those groups say the Office of Special Counsel is trying to stonewall the investigation. This month employees at the agency were told to inform OSC management when they are contacted by investigators and that any contact with investigators must be in a special conference room at OSC headquarters.
The groups say the directive is an attempt to silence them.
After an inquiry from investigators in the probe the OSC has backed down on the meeting place, issuing a second directive saying the meetings could take place elsewhere.
The Office Of The Special Council is the agency that protects whistleblowers and investigates complaints of discrimination by federal workers, but, Bloch has refused to take on complaints of discrimination based on sexuality.
The OPM Inspector General investigation into Bloch is the third probe into Bloch’s operation.
The Government Accountability Office and a U.S. Senate subcommittee both have ongoing investigations into mass dismissal of hundreds of whistleblower cases, crony hires, and Bloch’s targeting of gay employees for removal while refusing to investigate cases involving discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Before being named Special Counsel by President Bush, Bloch served at the Justice Department’s Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives.
Bloch’s stonewalling complaints of discrimination by LGBT federal workers dates to February 2004 when he ordered references to sexual orientation removed from the Office of the Special Counsel website. Since 1998, when President Bill Clinton issued an executive order prohibiting bias in the civil service, the OSC has taken that to include sexuality.
A month after the references disappeared from the OSC website Bloch said gay workers were no longer protected.
After intense pressure from Federal Globe and from Democrats on The Hill, the White House said it would honor an Executive Order signed by President Clinton that assured LGBT workers had civil rights protections.
But with Bloch’s approval, several union contracts negotiated with various branches of the government removed the list of categories that are protected replacing them with the more nebulous phrase “any class protected by law.”
Appearing in May 2005, before the the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, the federal workforce and the District of Columbia, Bloch said that his interpretation of the Clinton executive order cannot be used to protect gay workers because it does not specifically name LGBT workers.
“It is not something I can prosecute in my agency,” Bloch told the committee. “I am limited by the enforcement statutes that you give me.”