Following In His Father-In-Law’s Footsteps
By: Nicole Belle {at} 12:05 PM - PST   Submit or Digg this Post

….certainly in terms of accountability and availability.

I think the appointment of Philip Perry, Dick Cheney's son-in-law, to the
post of General Counsel for the Dept. of Homeland Security probably
elicited a few groans of nepotism/cronyism, but not much more.  Neither did
his subsequent resignation some eighteen months later (and after the
November elections) for the properly vague reason of "wanting to spend more
time with his family."

But hearings headed by our new Democratic majority may clue in to why Perry
got out of Dodge.  The US Comptroller General testified Tuesday before a
House subcommittee that the Department of Homeland Security is rife with
accountability and oversight problems:

    (The Dept. of Homeland Security) is the government's second-largest
agency, yet it has never been able to obtain a "clean" audit of its
finances and may not be able to account for all of its spending or
resources, according to a report presented by David M. Walker, who heads
the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

    Walker reported Tuesday to the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security
that DHS has stalled his auditors and hampered their access to documents
and officials, making it difficult to sustain the level of oversight that
Congress requires.

Guess who Walker named as specifically hampering any audits or oversight?

    …(Walker) complained that GAO has had to go through the office of
General Counsel Philip Perry. [..]Walker said it is his understanding that
people from Perry's office have to review documents GAO seeks before they
are released and selectively sit in on interviews with department
employees.

    "When you have more lawyers in a meeting than program people, you know
you got a problem."
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