Bush Appointee Escapes Justice

Just great. Another former Bush official breaks the rules and gets off scot free.

A former Justice Department grant-making administrator violated federal ethics and procurement rules in awarding hundreds of thousands of dollars in sole source contracts to ideologically favored companies and individuals, the department's inspector general concluded today.

The administrator, J. Robert Flores, was a political appointee during former president George Bush's administration who left his post after the inauguration in January. The department's public integrity section declined to pursue civil or criminal charges against Flores after ethics watchdogs forwarded their findings, investigators said.

A two year investigation and the department says it doesn't have enough documentation to prove intent in the awarding of sole source contracts like this:

Among the organizations that received awards from OJJDP that year were the World Golf Foundation's First Tee Initiative, whose honorary chair is former president George H.W. Bush; the Best Friends Foundation led by Elayne Bennett, the wife of conservative commentator William Bennett; and Victory Outreach, which had hired a former Bush White House official.

Just sick. You have to ask why they bother to have rules and investigations if nobody is ever held accountable?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]