THE LATEST ON THE REHNQUIST - JOHN ELLIS BUSH AUDIT SCANDAL - IT IS GETTING BIGGER, BUT FLORIDA'S MEDIA AWOL.
The Washongton Post reports today that "[t]he General Accounting Office has expanded its investigation of Health and Human Services Inspector General Janet Rehnquist, the daughter of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, beyond its initial focus on widespread personnel changes in her office. According to congressional investigators, the GAO is now also looking into allegations involving the delay in an audit of a Florida pension fund that could have benefited Gov. Jeb Bush (R) . . . June Gibbs Brown, Rehnquist's predecessor at HHS who served as IG at four federal agencies, said in an interview that requests to delay an audit are unusual and rarely reach the head of the IG office. . . .
[The] almost six-month delay earlier this year in beginning an audit of a Florida state government pension fund [occurred] at a time that Gov. Bush, President Bush's brother, was facing a tough reelection battle. The audit, scheduled to begin in April, did not start until September, ensuring that any potentially embarrassing results would not be known until well after the Nov. 5 election in which Bush eventually won a second term. St. John said the audit was delayed at least three times at the request of Florida officials. He said that at least the first request, seeking a delay because the pension fund was about to get a new director, came from Gov . Bush's office and was referred to Rehnquist.
But St. John said that the delays were not linked to Florida politics, and that the outcome of the audit would not have been known until after the election even if the audit had started in April. A congressional investigator disputed that assertion, saying that interviews with people in Florida indicated that the audit would have been done before Nov. 5.
Late yesterday, Rehnquist released internal documents on the audit decision and a letter to Grassley in which she said 'my decision to delay the audit was based on the merits and not motivated by political reasons.' According to an internal e-mail message that Rehnquist released, before the audit was delayed, OIG officials expected a draft report on the audit by Sept. 30, more than a month before the election. Rehnquist confirmed yesterday that the delay request came from Kathleen Shanahan, Jeb Bush's chief of staff. Rehnquist said her staff advised her that it was a 'reasonable request.'"