Special counsel Carolyn Lerner quickly raises the profile of her office
https://dervishcom.blogspot.com/2011/12/special-counsel-carolyn-lerner-quickly.html
Carolyn Lerner had the Air Force’s top four-star general boxed in.
Gen. Norton Schwartz was reeling from revelations that the Dover Air Force Base mortuary had lost and sawed off body parts and mishandled other remains of America’s war dead. In the glare of television cameras, the Air Force chief of staff was forced to issue mea culpas for the scandal in November.
Lerner, the newly installed federal lawyer whose tiny office uncovered the gruesome findings, was ready for a fight.
Lerner accused the Air Force of deflecting blame — and a mortuary official of lying and obstructing the probe by firing one of the workers who blew the whistle. When Schwartz declared that Lerner’s Office of Special Counsel had prevented the military from notifying the families of the dead service members for more than a year, she dressed him down to the news media.
The claim was “patently false,” Lerner charged. It was Schwartz who resisted. The Air Force, her deputy said, showed “as much, if not more, reverence for its image as it has for the families of the fallen.”
Just six months on the job, President Obama’s fact-finder for federal wrongdoing had America’s military in her crosshairs.
Since she took over the obscure investigative unit that reviews disclosures of government wrongdoing — and advocates for employees who are punished for reporting it — the employment and civil rights lawyer, 46, has shown a willingness to shake things up.
In several high-profile cases, Lerner has gone to the mat and tried to expand the boundaries of the law’s protections for whistleblowers. She has lifted long-sagging morale at an agency that, instead of behaving as an independent watchdog, has treaded water for much of its existence.
Lerner’s staff is tackling neglected cases, in contrast to her predecessor, whose office had thrown many out, and claims have shot up since she arrived, Lerner says. She has challenged judgments by the panel that decides civil service disputes. And she has called for wholesale changes to the law prohibiting politicking by public employees so local and state workers can run for office, even if their jobs are tied to federal funding.
The bar is still high for Lerner’s office to pursue a case, but if the office thinks a case has merit, the federal agency in question must investigate within 60 days, a mandate that in the past routinely stretched to three times that long. Managers are being told they need to step it up.
In a WikiLeaks era, the special counsel is a throwback to painstaking truth-seeking, the nemesis of the indiscriminate document dump.
“There’s this new air in the room with Carolyn in that seat,” says Danielle Brian, executive director of the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.
“We’ve had people in that job who were actually hostile to the mission of the agency. She’s embraced the mission.”
With an $18 million budget and 100 lawyers, the unit is a small dot on the federal canvas. Lerner, who left a partnership in private practice, calls it the “best-kept secret in the federal government.”
Gen. Norton Schwartz was reeling from revelations that the Dover Air Force Base mortuary had lost and sawed off body parts and mishandled other remains of America’s war dead. In the glare of television cameras, the Air Force chief of staff was forced to issue mea culpas for the scandal in November.
Lerner, the newly installed federal lawyer whose tiny office uncovered the gruesome findings, was ready for a fight.
Lerner accused the Air Force of deflecting blame — and a mortuary official of lying and obstructing the probe by firing one of the workers who blew the whistle. When Schwartz declared that Lerner’s Office of Special Counsel had prevented the military from notifying the families of the dead service members for more than a year, she dressed him down to the news media.
The claim was “patently false,” Lerner charged. It was Schwartz who resisted. The Air Force, her deputy said, showed “as much, if not more, reverence for its image as it has for the families of the fallen.”
Just six months on the job, President Obama’s fact-finder for federal wrongdoing had America’s military in her crosshairs.
Since she took over the obscure investigative unit that reviews disclosures of government wrongdoing — and advocates for employees who are punished for reporting it — the employment and civil rights lawyer, 46, has shown a willingness to shake things up.
In several high-profile cases, Lerner has gone to the mat and tried to expand the boundaries of the law’s protections for whistleblowers. She has lifted long-sagging morale at an agency that, instead of behaving as an independent watchdog, has treaded water for much of its existence.
Lerner’s staff is tackling neglected cases, in contrast to her predecessor, whose office had thrown many out, and claims have shot up since she arrived, Lerner says. She has challenged judgments by the panel that decides civil service disputes. And she has called for wholesale changes to the law prohibiting politicking by public employees so local and state workers can run for office, even if their jobs are tied to federal funding.
The bar is still high for Lerner’s office to pursue a case, but if the office thinks a case has merit, the federal agency in question must investigate within 60 days, a mandate that in the past routinely stretched to three times that long. Managers are being told they need to step it up.
In a WikiLeaks era, the special counsel is a throwback to painstaking truth-seeking, the nemesis of the indiscriminate document dump.
“There’s this new air in the room with Carolyn in that seat,” says Danielle Brian, executive director of the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.
“We’ve had people in that job who were actually hostile to the mission of the agency. She’s embraced the mission.”
With an $18 million budget and 100 lawyers, the unit is a small dot on the federal canvas. Lerner, who left a partnership in private practice, calls it the “best-kept secret in the federal government.”
