{"id":39121,"date":"2014-01-02T07:48:31","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T12:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=39121"},"modified":"2014-01-02T08:52:41","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T13:52:41","slug":"the-ig-gets-one-right-and-gets-ignored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=39121","title":{"rendered":"The IG Gets One Right &#8211; and Gets Ignored"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Improper endorsement of a non-Federal entity.\u00a0 Use of government position for private gain.\u00a0 Improper use of government resources.<\/p>\n<p>Those sound like fairly serious issues, IMO.<\/p>\n<p>Such were the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/article\/20131231\/NEWS02\/312310011\/Army-IG-Mont-politician-misused-adjutant-general-position\">findings of a 2010 DAIG Report of Investigation (ROI)<\/a> concerning the then-Montana Adjutant General (and now Montana Lieutenant Governor), John Walsh.<\/p>\n<p>Walsh apparently had ambitions of being elected to national office within the National Guard Association of the US (NGAUS).\u00a0 But Montana\u2019s membership rate in the NGAUS was fairly low at the time.\u00a0 So Walsh decided to do the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pressure subordinates to join the NGAUS and the Enlisted NGAUS (ENGAUS).<\/li>\n<li>Tell his subordinates to make the NGAUS and ENGAUS priorities and that supporting these organizations was a \u201creadiness concern\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>Use Federal resources to do the above.<\/li>\n<li>Use his staff to perform administrative duties related to the NGAUS.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Walsh\u2019s justification for doing this?\u00a0 He \u201cinterpreted the rules to determine that he was not a DOD employee\u201d and because it \u201cwas my time and my own resources in a lot of cases\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Um, Walsh?\u00a0 <em>Horsedung.<\/em>\u00a0 Even if you were ARNG vice RA or USAR, there\u2019s these little matters called \u201cFederal recognition\u201d and \u201cJoint Ethics Regulations\u201d.\u00a0 You were using Federal resources (official DoD e-mail and DoD-funded staff) in violation of law and regulation.\u00a0 The NGAUS and ENGAUS are not Federal entities, so the Joint Ethics Regulations \u2013 which are binding on ARNG personnel as well \u2013 forbid both endorsement of and encouragement\/coercion of subordinates regarding joining non-Federal organizations.<\/p>\n<p>And doing this just so you could \u201cget ahead\u201d in the NGAUS politically?\u00a0 That&#8217;s pretty damn low in my book.<\/p>\n<p>All of that is also outside the scope of your official duties at the time \u2013 Montana AG.\u00a0 So there\u2019s also the question in my mind of whether or not you were neglecting your primary duties while pulling this stunt.<\/p>\n<p>No, the dollar amounts weren\u2019t large, and the conduct here wasn\u2019t as egregiously bad as some we\u2019ve seen.\u00a0 But the behavior is still completely unacceptable in any senior military official.<\/p>\n<p>His boss at the time didn\u2019t seem to mind, though.\u00a0 Former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer says he trashed the DAIG ROI when he received it because it was \u201c\u201ca completely partisan end-run in the National Guard attempting to embarrass him (Walsh).\u201d\u00a0 Walsh received no punishment for his wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, really?\u00a0 Well, <a href=\"http:\/\/billingsgazette.com\/army-inspector-general-s-investigation-of-john-walsh\/pdf_95d3fcd3-6850-5bee-b236-f44078f90de3.html\">here\u2019s the redacted DAIG ROI<\/a> concerning the matter.\u00a0 It\u2019s short (9 pages), direct, and to the point.\u00a0 Read it for yourself and see if it sounds like a \u201cpartisan hit-piece\u201d to you.\u00a0 It certainly doesn\u2019t to me.<\/p>\n<p>Walsh is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Baucus this year.\u00a0 Sounds to me like he\u2019ll fit right in in DC &#8211; if he\u2019s elected, of course.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully the good voters of Montana place a bit more value than Walsh does on ethics and integrity, and he never finds out just how well he\u2019d fit in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Improper endorsement of a non-Federal entity.\u00a0 Use of government position for private gain.\u00a0 Improper use of &hellip; <a title=\"The IG Gets One Right &#8211; and Gets Ignored\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=39121\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The IG Gets One Right &#8211; and Gets Ignored<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,208,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues","category-national-guard","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}