It strikes me as highly suspicious that the Dept. of Justice is now investigating whether New Jersey Governor Chris Christie overcharged the government for official hotel expenses while serving as US Attorney in that state a few years ago. The allegation is that Christie stayed at hotels that were over the government-authorized per diem rate and supplied inadequate justification for paying a higher hotel rate. Christie says there were no suitable hotels that accepted the government rate.
As a DEA agent, I traveled a lot- so much in fact that I took a lot of ribbing for my frequent travel. My last two years in DEA, I was in the Office of Training's International section, which meant that I was literally traveling the world participating in drug law enforcement training courses for foreign drug officers. I think I know a little about this topic.
The US Government maintains a per diem list of authorized amounts that can be spent per day by government employees on travel. In effect, every state, city, foreign country and major city is covered. It tells the employee the authorized hotel rate and amount of money authorized per day based on the cost of living in that particular area. It is revised every month. (At least that is the way it was during my career up to my retirement in 1995.)
Many hotels in the US and around the world have a standing agreement with the US government to provide a "government rate" to government employees while on official travel. However, not all do. In that case, as I recall, if an employee plans official travel to a particular area, it is sometimes the case that a hotel may not be available at the government rate, which means the employee has to pay an amount in excess of the authorized per diem for lodging (as well as food). In that case, it is possible to use lodging at "actual expenses". That requires approval, and frankly, I don't remember if that approval is before or after the actual travel. Nevertheless, after the travel, the employee must submit a travel voucher which notes the actual expenses. The voucher is signed by the immediate supervisor and goes to Washington for approval. Any portion disallowed is to be re-paid by the employee.
In the case of Christie, it appears that the travel vouchers in question were approved by the bean counters in Washington at the time. Now it is all being questioned by Eric Holder's political apparatchniks in DOJ. That is $2,000 over a 6 year period ($333.00 a year by my calculations). To me, it reeks of politics. I wonder if, I were to become a big-time political player, would DOJ go back through my old travel vouchers and put me under investigation?
Maybe it's time for DOJ to get back to investigating real crime, like voter intimidation in places like Philadelphia and Houston.
One of the better Republican ideas is to take every government agency back to zero, then build up an inventory of what they really should be doing, and are capable of doing, with anything not approved for renewal automatically ceasing. Perhaps this type of investigation should be done only when
ReplyDeletea) the sum of money allegedly mis-spent exceeds $10,000 a year, and,
b) the alleged malfeasance was committed within the last five years, or,
c) there is evidence of deliberate falsification and embezzlement, as distinct from negligence or error.
That would apply to many things besides this particular investigation. Hire enough civil servants into an agency designated to investigate, and by gosh they will find something to investigate, whether that really makes us all safer or not.