(WMR) -- WMR
previously reported on GOP political appointees receiving appointments in
senior civil service jobs during the waning days of the Bush administration to
ensure a “stay behind” network would continue to protect the interests of Bush
administration officials, particularly former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The burrowing of political appointees into civil service
jobs was particularly egregious in the Department of Defense. The Washington
Post reported in November 2008 that other burrowing was taking place at the
Departments of Interior, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development.
WMR has now learned that a similar burrowing of GOP cronies
took place at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in order
to sabotage President Obama’s plans for a universal health care system.
Moreover, in the case of HHS, it is Obama himself who shoulders much of the
blame for GOP appointees receiving permanent GS-15 civil service jobs from
their previous “Schedule C” political appointments.
Obama kept on as acting secretary of HHS, Charles E.
Johnson, the Bush-appointed assistant secretary for budget, technology, and
finance under HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, the former Republican Governor of
Utah. Johnson, WMR has learned, used his tenure as acting secretary, prior to
Kathleen Sebelius taking over the department, to ensure a number of Bush
political appointees at HHS received GS-15 positions.
Johnson was previously the president of Huntsman Cancer
Foundation and vice president of Huntsman LLC, businesses in which Utah
Republican Governor Jon Huntsman has a sizeable interest. Obama nominated
Huntsman, a potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate, to be ambassador to
China.
Washington pundits pointed out that Obama’s appointment of
Huntsman cleverly eliminated a potential political rival in 2012. However,
given the nexus of two GOP officials, Leavitt and Johnson, the latter a
one-time employee of Huntsman, in the politicization of HHS,
it appears as if Obama was aiding and abetting in the establishment
of a cadre of GOP civil servants at HHS who will ensure that the president’s
much-touted universal health care proposal is ”dead on arrival.”
Previously
published in the Wayne
Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2009 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne
Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and
nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report
(subscription required).
