A federal agency with only 230 employees has a full-time public affairs staff of three dedicated to responding to media inquiries, even though it appears to have received only about a dozen notable media inquiries between July 2013 and January 2014.
A Washington Examiner review of more than 5,000 pages of emails from Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Director of Public Affairs John Arnold and others in the agency showed that he granted none of the requested interviews.
Many of the requests were sparked by Examiner stories about waste, fraud and corruption in FMCS that appeared during that period.
The emails, which included the 16-day October 2013 government shutdown and budget negotiations, also showed the FMCS employees’ fears about the possibility that their funding could be reduced.
In addition to fielding a handful of media inquiries, the federal labor mediation agency’s public affairs staff forwards news articles about labor issues to the staff. Arnold, a former congressional staffer and newspaper reporter, also monitors Capitol Hill issues that could affect the agency.
“Tea Party opponents to a moderate CR at FY 2013 levels are gaining momentum in the Republican Caucus. This does not bode well! Unless Boehner can tamp down these crazy people and make them see reason, there is a real threat of trouble,” Arnold wrote to FMCS managers in a Jan. 17, 2014 email, referring to a continuing resolution to fund the government.
As early details of a budget deal trickled out, FMCS executives rushed to see whether it might affect government-funded personal cars.
“I’m sure our current car lease puts us well under the limit, but the omnibus bill, as best as I can determine,” leaves car lease rules unchanged, Arnold wrote.
After the Examiner published a series on FMCS executives spending federal funds for personal luxuries and using credit cards to circumvent government contracting rules, which began Oct. 1, 2013, officials considered suing for defamation.
“Fran – Having raised the question of defamation, I decided to do a little research, and unfortunately, it is very difficult to take legal action when the subject is public policy or matters of public interest. Difficult, but not impossible,” Arnold wrote to chief financial officer Fran Leonard Nov. 1.
After someone inserted references to the reporting on Wikipedia pages about FMCS and Cohen, Arnold altered the pages to combat references to scandal, and also attempted to find out who had edited the pages by looking into the IP address of editors.
The FMCS emails also provide a look at how Congress is lobbied to keep spending flowing not just by K Street, but by self-preserving bureaucrats as well.
“FMCS is an excellent bargain for taxpayers,” Arnold wrote to a House appropriations committee staffer in July 2013.
Coincidentally, on Sept. 20, the day the Examiner told FMCS of its upcoming series and asked for a response, and as the shutdown loomed, the staff of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who was chairman of an oversight subcommittee, emailed FMCS officials to inform them that consideration was being given to having a hearing on abolishing FMCS. That sent agency officials into a tailspin.
The staffer asked, “Given the proliferation of private sector organizations that provide mediation and [alternative dispute resolution] services, why the federal government continues to provide these services as well, particularly in private sector labor disputes. I have asked several people who know of the FMCS’s work and have not really gotten a satisfactory answer.”
Arnold wrote to Cohen: “I am highly dubious about what is going on here. This could be trouble.”
On Sept. 21, he went to the staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee to try to avert the scrutiny.
“We see problems for labor and management, especially small unions and businesses, associated with the privatization of FMCS functions … this thing really sneaked up on us,” Arnold wrote to an appropriations staffer.
After House Republicans informed FMCS that they had begun an investigation prompted by the Examiner stories, the services of Robert Muse, a partner in the law firm of Stein Mitchell Muse Cipollone & Beato LLP who specializes in representing subjects of congressional investigations, were retained. That action apparently expended tax dollars for the purpose of defending prior expenditures to Congress.
Freedom of Information Act requests are ordinarily handled by an assigned staff employee dedicated to processing those requests according to rules about what is releasable. But the emails obtained by the Examiner showed that when the paper requested travel logs for top FMCS officials, Cohen convened a meeting of those officials to discuss the request, and did not invite the FOIA officer.
When first asked for a response to the Examiner series’ findings, top officials consulted with their general counsel, and shielded their discussions behind attorney-client privilege.
Cohen said he would be OK with saying in a statement that “allegations” had all been “dropped.” In fact, much of the reported wrongdoing was beyond dispute.
The statement ultimately included that phrase and focused on impugning the motives of a whistleblower, saying a former FMCS employee who provided documents was “disgruntled,” rather than addressing the substance of the claims, which were largely confirmed by documents.
After the Examiner published an internal memo from Cohen announcing his resignation, which occurred days after learning he was the target of a congressional investigation into whistleblower retaliation, FMCS officials expressed a keen interest in finding out which employees were leaking.
“This is the lowest of low reporting. I want to know how he got George’s memo,” an email sent from Cohen’s account, apparently to a friend who is a private attorney, said.
“Same employee who is referenced in article???” Leonard wrote.
“I would guess the same employee who gave him the quote,” deputy director Scot Beckenbaugh said. “Reads like written by a [sic] elementary kid…”
After an Examiner editorial on FMCS was published, Cohen sent it to Muse, the white-shoe lawyer, and instructed him to call his cell phone about it.
The emails show that the FMCS’ press office received calls and emails about how the government shutdown would affect the agency, several from a trade publication and some about a San Francisco transit strike. There were also a handful more concerning Cohen’s resignation.
The office consists of Arnold, who is a GS-15 and was paid $153,000, Kim Warren, who made $101,000, and Barbara Washington, who made $52,000.
Arnold did not respond to the Examiner for this story.
UPDATE: John Arnold, director of public affairs for the FMCS, insisted in a Jan. 5, 2014, message that he emailed a response to the Examiner on Dec. 31, 2014, at 11:04 am, prior to the original publication of this post. While he included a copy Monday, the Examiner was unable to locate the original response in its email system.
