The State Department’s inspector general has warned the department that $6 billion in contracting money over the past six years cannot be properly accounted for and cited “significant financial risk and . . . a lack of internal control.”
Such failure, the IG said, “exposes the Department to significant financial risk and makes . . . oversight more difficult. It creates conditions conducive to fraud . . . [and] impairs the ability” of the government to protect its interests and “to punish and deter criminal behavior.”
Timing: This has a similar feel to GM's deadly recall announcement after CEO Daniel Akerson stepped down to rejoin the Carlyle Group.
Connections: Coincidentally, ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earned $200,000 speaking at The Carlyle Group's annual investor meeting. Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein later interviewed Hillary, offering her a private equity underwriter (PEU) job.
Her words: At her Joint Civilian Service Award ceremony Hillary Clinton said:
"We have pioneered a nimbler, more innovative, more effective approach to foreign policy, so I am enormously proud of what we have achieved, and I'm confident about the future."
"I like being on the American team, not the State Department team, not the Defense Department team, not the partisan team. I like being on the American team. And I think when we take these positions and take that oath of office, we really pledge to be part of the American team."--Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Hillary earned the highest award the U.S. military can bestow to a civilian. It seems appropriate given the Pentagon's inability to audit itself.
Words about Hillary:
"As Hillary often says, this is not just the right thing to do; it is also the smart and effective thing to do."--Mrs. Ververr
Content: Poor accounting and loose internal controls aren't new to the Clinton gang.
The Clinton Global Initiative confessed to handling money poorly, which personally enriched the Clinton's close contacts.
My take: It's a PEU world, where the greed and power class feel best interacting with their own. There's an unstated obligation to enrich their friends, regardless of the money source.
Leadership Question: The buck stops where?
