The House panel that oversees the Bureau of Land Management has accused the Interior Department of “dishonesty” for withholding information about a damning report on employees assisting in land sales for personal financial gain, until a few days after the panel held a hearing on the issue.
The Interior Department Inspector General posted the report on Monday, and concluded that the ex-BLM director was “personally and substantially involved” in the sale of 480 acres of land in Henderson, Nev., to a developer who planned to build a sports complex but later backed down.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, who chairs the House Natural Resources subcommittee on oversight, has ordered an un-redacted copy of the report, which was officially issued May 27 and publicly released on May 31.
Gohmert, in a letter to Interior Inspector General Mary Kendall, said it was “troubling” that Kendall waited to release the report’s summary until three days after a subcommittee hearing on Interior Department ethics violations, and that panel staff had days earlier “specifically asked” about one Interior staffer named in the report without getting an answer.
“As someone who investigates dishonesty,” Gohmert wrote to Kendall, “you certainly understand that evasive answers designed to mask the truth are in an of themselves dishonest and further evidence of a major problem.”
Gohmert’s subcommittee has been tracking Interior Department ethical problems for months.
The IG report summary found that former BLM Director Bob Abbey was inappropriately involved in the sale of 480 acres in Henderson to land developer Christopher Milam. According to the IG, Abbey stood to benefit because he planned to leave BLM and return to work for a private consulting firm involved in the project that was set to receive $528,000 from the completed sale.
The IG gave the report to the the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nevada, which declined to prosecute Abbey last year.
The IG summary also accused another BLM employee who worked closely with Abbey’s future consulting firm, and said that employee “appeared to violate federal regulations that prohibit preferential treatment and the improper use of non-public information.”
