Ten years ago this month, “climate expert” John Beale, the EPA’s highest-paid employee, was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison. His crime was like something from Ian Fleming on LSD. [You can see Power Line’s coverage of this story from the time starting here.]
In 1994, Beale told his EPA bosses he was actually a CIA spy working in London, India and Pakistan when he was actually kicking back at his vacation home. Beale pulled off the ruse for nearly 20 years, defrauding taxpayers of nearly $1 million. He was also a bust at his real job.
October 2013 hearings in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found no evidence that Beale produced anything of value in his “policy advisor” role. Even so, the EPA ponied up “retention bonuses,” authorized by deputy assistant administrator Robert Brenner. As investigators discovered, Brenner co-owned a vacation home with Beale, and at the time was staying at Brenner’s house.
The EPA’s agent 007 continued to draw a paycheck until 19 months after his retirement dinner cruise, and he got retention bonuses even after he retired. As one committee member wondered, “was that so he wouldn’t retire again?”
John Beale claimed to work for the CIA, which failed to prevent the massive Islamic terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, with 3,000 dead. Maybe some CIA officers were claiming to work for the EPA when they partied at vacation homes and spent their retention bonuses. In agencies of the federal government, the situation is always worse that you can possibly imagine.
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