Surprise, Trump-Appointed DHS Inspector General Is Sleazeball Who Needs Firing
What?
Donald J. Trump’s presidency is long gone, hopefully forever, but like a used jockstrap at the bottom of a hamper, its stench lingers on. Now the the integrity committee of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency is asking for Joe Biden to fire, or at least discipline, or do some fucking thing, about the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, Joseph Cuffari Jr.
A thousand-page report has come out detailing the depth and breadth to the things Cuffari has done, a fraction of which would’ve gotten anybody fired from the Piggly Wiggly. Not to mention, he has been under investigation since his Senate confirmation hearing. Stuff like how he spent $1.4 million in taxpayer funds on lawyers to investigate the dozens of staff members who’ve complained about him, and another $1.1 million in taxpayer bux to settle a wrongful termination claim, trying to influence investigations and lying about his own misconduct, ignoring sexual harassment and misconduct claims — yep, he’s a Trump guy, all right! That whole administration was a clown car of lackeys, whose main qualification was an eagerness to kiss Trump’s ass. And one gets the sense that Trump didn’t hate people that he could have a bit of kompromat on, too.
If you don’t remember this particular clown, he was appointed DHS Inspector General by Trump in 2019, which made him head of oversight for an agency of 240,000 people and a $50 billion budget, in spite of only having previously led a five-person office in Tucson, and having a degree from an online diploma mill. And as it turns out, Cuffari retired from that job in 2013 while he was under investigation for violating ethics rules, which he oops-forgot to mention during his confirmation hearing at the Senate.
If you do remember him, it’s probably from his baked-potato face stalling and refusing to investigate the Secret Service over those deleted text messages from January 6. We are old enough to remember when Republicans went into apoplexy conniption-fits because Hillary Clinton deleted her email coupons from Bed, Bath, & Beyond. But they never seemed too concerned about the Secret Service messages incident. Weird!
Cuffari’s office found out in December of 2021 that the Secret Service messages had been deleted, in spite of them having been told to preserve records, which was in-your-face totally against the law. Also deleted, messages from DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and acting DHS Deputy Ken “Cooch” Cuccinelli, the two guys Trump had allegedly been pestering about seizing voting machines. Along with all the other shady shit they had been into!
All those messages sure would have been some tasty tea! Cuffari was legally bound to tell Congress that the Secret Service had deleted evidence, but instead he dicked around for 14 more months before finally informing them that the Secret Service’s phones had been erased in a “planned systems upgrade” and there was nothing he could do about it. And he refused to let his employees be interviewed about it. Cuffari also deleted his own messages from his government phone.
Cuffari’s own staff called for his resignation or firing way back in 2022, in a letter that they signed anonymously out of fear of retaliation, describing how Cuffari refused to move ahead with work, delayed “the release of audits, inspections and investigations, sometimes for months or even years,” and edited reports to remove findings he didn’t like. His department was so rife with sexual harassment, 10,000 employees out of a survey of 28,000 reported experiencing it. So Cuffari’s solution was to try to delete the embarrassing findings from the report, then delay releasing it, then refuse to release it entirely. Your tax dollars at work!
Joey Cuffs also refused to scrutinize the Secret Service’s handling of the Black Lives Matter protests in Lafayette Square in 2020, when protestors and reporters got charged by officers from the Secret Service, Military Police and Park Police and tear-gassed with no warning, just so that Trump could waddle out of his bunker to hold a Bible upside-down for a photo op. Wouldn’t you like to know more about how that went down? Well, too bad.
Anyway, why Biden didn’t fire Cuffari guy years ago is a mystery. He’s trying to be the un-Trump who doesn’t just go around firing people, maybe? But for someone this in-your-face bad, who is wasting all of our money, seems like Biden ought to make an exception.
If you want to hear more about gross old Joey Cuffs and his misadventures, the Project on Government Oversight has a show called “Bad Watchdog” with podcast episodes about his misadventures. Enjoy!
[POGO/ Washington Post gift link/ NY Times gift link]
>> If you don’t remember this particular clown, he was appointed DHS Inspector General by Trump in 2019, which made him head of oversight for an agency of 240,000 people and a $50 billion budget, <<
It also made him DHS IG during the same time when a DHS team was firing on me and my fellow Portland protesters in 2020. And, you know, in the aftermath when the question arose as to whether or not it was good, reasonable, and very legal, very cool to give the power to shoot at citizens peaceably assembling to a Border Patrol SWAT team tasked with fighting non-citizen terrorists and serving arrest warrants on the most dangerous of non-citizen violent felons.
I mean, I guess if this guy says my rights were rigorously respected I'll have to take him at his word.
O/T nice time. As of 15 minutes ago we have power and water back on. Except for about 20 hours last Monday, a week ago, we've had no power or water at the house since a week ago Thursday. According to math, that amounts to, carry the 1, ten days +/- metric conversions.
Proper shout out to FEMA, the National Guard, and the hundreds of linemen and linewomen and volunteer citizens from all over the country who have been working round the clock, zone by accessible zone, to help us all out.
All the love and kindness to these wonderful helpers!
OK, back to proxy firing Joey Cuffs.