Posted on 06/03/2013 8:33:14 AM PDT by grundle
Richard Windsor may be the most famous Environmental Protection Agency employee. Oddly, he does not exist. “Windsor” is the e-mail alias that Lisa Jackson, former head of the EPA and now an environmental adviser to Apple, used to correspond with environmental activists and senior Obama-administration officials, among others.
Windsor, we have learned, was also an employee of significant achievement. Documents released by the agency in response to a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that, for three years, the EPA certified Windsor as a “scholar of ethical behavior.”
The agency also documented the nonexistent Windsor’s completion of training courses in the management of e-mail records, cyber-security awareness, and what appears to be a counter-terror initiative that urges federal employees to report suspicious activity.
The EPA made the certifications public in response to a FOIA request from Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who was tipped off to Jackson’s use of the Windsor account by agency employees while he was researching his 2012 book, The Liberal War on Transparency.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Was her name “Suzy?” (Seinfeld reference.)
So did this “Windsor” also get fat bonus checks too?
This is a little much even for the congenital liars of Federal management.
If true, this is nothing other than a BIG FAT middle finger, from the EPA to the American Public.
Lieutenant Kijé lives again
Isn’t this fraud?
Her new persona is “Johnny Appleseed”.........
Sgt. Tuttle.
No, it was Todd. (Dilbert reference).
Criminals, street people and spies act exactly this way.
At the least, isn't this fraud of SOME kind ?
Ensign Hunkle?
Now I know why the call them pig boats!
What Social Security number did “Richard Windsor” use? Wouldn’t there be some criminal fraud associated with filing a false number to gain employment?
Were payroll checks or expense reimbursements issued? Enquiring minds want to know!
Among the certificates awarded to “Richard Windsor” was a Nov. 2, 2009 “Certificate of Completion” for “E-mail Records Management.” Jackson had only been appointed by President Obama as EPA’s top executive a few months prior to the certification.
Official policies “Richard Windsor” likely would have been informed of during the e-mail course was EPA’s bar against using fake email names while conducting official business.
During the ensuing years, however, EPA IT department officials awarded additional certificates to “Richard Windsor,” including three for completion of the agency’s “Scholastica Decentia,” the Certificate for Ethical Behavior, in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
“Richard Windsor” was a top student of ethical behavior in 2010, compiling 100 percent scores for the “Risk” and “Cyber Threats” portions of the course, but a 50 percent score on the “EPA Information” portion dropped Windsor’s total score to 83 percent.
Jackson’s use of the fake name became known in 2012 with Horner’s book, The Liberal War Against Transparency, in which he made public a memo from EPA to the National Records Archives Administration describing the agency’s creation of the “Richard Windsor” moniker.
Horner also revealed that Carol Browning, who was EPA administrator under President Clinton and served as Obama’s environmental policy czar in the White House, had made extensive use of private email accounts while doing government business.
Federal law requires agency officials to keep all official emails that may be covered by FOIA requests. Federal employees are also required to provide copies of private emails used for official business to agency FOIA officials.
January 14, 2013: EPA releases approximately 2,100 emails, supposedly from Lisa Jackson’s “one” secondary account.
At 4:55 p.m., Christopher Horner received a hand-delivered cover letter and CD from the EPA. The CD contained 2,100 emails, all of which were Google Alerts for “Lisa Jackson EPA,” news briefs from media outlets, or EPA media clips. Unlike the emails released earlier to the Center for Progressive Reform (see Nov. 19, above), these emails do not reference “Richard Windsor.” Horner called the EPA’s response “deeply troubling.”
April 2012: CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner discovers use of alias email accounts by Environmental Protection Agency officials.
While conducting research for his book, The Liberal War on Transparency, and in reviewing documents produced to CEI in response to one of his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, Christopher Horner finds an EPA memo from 2008 describing “alias” email accounts initiated by former EPA Administrator Carol Browner. Horner learns a “dual account structure” exists at the EPA whereby alias email accounts are established for high-level officials. According to the EPA memo, “few EPA staff members, usually only high-level staff, even know that these accounts exist.” The memo acknowledges the accounts were set for “auto-delete,” and that it was nonetheless possible to recreate their internal usage histories but that the EPA did not attempt to recreate the Browner account’s usage.
Former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson — she who signed off on the greenhouse gas endangerment findings — is gone, but her legend lives on. You may recall that Jackson’s alter ego Richard Windsor was a prolific author of email messages that Jackson hoped to conceal. Stephen Dinan reports on Windsor’s related accomplishments:
Richard Windsor never existed at the EPA, but the agency awarded the fictional staffer’s email account certificates proving he had mastered all of the agency’s technology training — including declaring him a “scholar of ethical behavior,” according to documents disclosed late last week.
Windsor.Richard@epa.gov was the controversial email alias used by former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, who resigned earlier this year amid questions about whether her agency was complying with open-records laws.
The new records — the latest in a series that EPA critics have pried loose under open-records requests — suggests [sic] Ms. Jackson used the alias even more widely than known, including taking required agency computer training under the fake identity.
If Obama’s ship is sinking, Lisa Jackson gives us hope that we might go down laughing. Even so, Obamacare threatens to give Obama the last laugh.
UPDATE: After writing this, I learn that my daughter Eliana is working the case of Richard Windsor in “EPA honors fake empmloyee.” Eliana’s account adds color and intrigue to this outrageous story.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/the-friends-of-richard-windsor.php
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/349934/epa-honors-fake-employee-eliana-johnson
The EPA released the second tranche of Richard Windsor e-mails required by the FOIA request from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and subsequent lawsuit against the agency (nevermind that they withheld 900 e-mails from the first batch in January without much explanation), and Ranking Republican Sen. David Vitter on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today revealed some of their findings today. Turns out Richard Windsor wasn’t acting alone,
The release shows that acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe used a private email account to conduct official business, similar to Region 8 Administrator, James Martin, who is the subject of an ongoing investigation launched by Vitter and U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR) Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
Sen. Vitter also announced today that he has learned Martin is resigning this week, less than two weeks after hiring legal counsel and following a letter from Vitter and Issa. Read more about Vitter and Issa’s investigation into Martin here.
“Region 8 Administrator Martin is likely resigning this week in part because of the open investigation about his use of a non-official email account to conduct official business,” said Vitter. “Now we know that Lisa Jackson’s acting replacement, Bob Perciasepe, appears to have been doing the same thing to dodge the agency’s mandatory recordkeeping policy. EPA owes us all some answers about their absolute disregard for transparency, especially from their acting administrator or any potential nominee to be administrator.”
In documents obtained by Senate EPW and House OGR committees, Region 8 Administrator Martin used a non-official, me.com, e-mail account, which may have been an attempt to circumvent the Federal Records Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and Congressional oversight. The Richard Windsor email release shows that Bob Perciasepe was using a non-official, “perciasepe.org,” email account, too.
So, it turns out that multiple officials within the Obama administration may have been using ‘unofficial’ e-mail accounts to try to fly their controversial agenda beneath the radar of public notice and hide the agency’s pervasive “we do what we want, the costs be damned” attitude? Meh. Just a day in the life of the Obama administration, a.k.a., The Most Transparent Administration, Evah.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/19/organized-deception-at-epa-richard-windsor-had-some-buddies/
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