Transportation honcho relieved of personnel-security duties Clinton holdover how the games are play

WASHINGTON – In response to public criticism, and a sign of more chaos at a key agency in charge of protecting airline passengers from future terrorism, the Transportation Department has relieved a top official with a checkered record in federal security of a critical assignment investigating the backgrounds of new federal airport guards.

WorldNetDaily first reported April 24 that the official – K. David Holmes Jr. – had a reputation for "rubberstamping" applicants for key jobs, some demanding Top Secret clearance, as Commerce Department security chief during the Clinton administration.

His aviation-security duties at Transportation were reassigned in May, sources say.

Holmes became the Transportation Security Administration's associate undersecretary for inspection in February – upon the recommendation of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta. Holmes doubled as Mineta's bodyguard at Commerce, when Mineta, a Clinton appointee, headed that agency.

Holmes, who formerly headed Vice President Al Gore's protective detail, was hired by former TSA chief John Magaw, also a Secret Service veteran. Magaw reportedly was fired earlier this month after a series of highly publicized security-policy blunders, blown deadlines and cost overruns.

Holmes' responsibilities included vetting airport checkpoint screeners and conducting internal-affairs investigations. He's now in charge of internal affairs only, sources say.

"Holmes was relieved of personnel-security duties," an official told WorldNetDaily.

TSA's human resources office is now supervising background checks of airport-security personnel, who by law must all now be U.S. citizens with no criminal records, according to sources.

"That was moved to HR the end of May," confirmed an official in TSA's office of inspection.

Security officials who worked with Holmes at Commerce say he was lax in vetting employees, at times approving applicants even when background investigations turned up criminal records. Other times, they charge, he would waive background checks altogether.

"Holmes broke all the rules about investigations and vetting at Commerce," said one official. "He would bring on Schedule C appointees, political appointees, gophers, strap-hangers and entourages without any investigations at all, and give them access to classified information."

Holmes was hired by former Commerce Secretary William Daley, who later became Gore's presidential campaign manager, to plug security holes left after the John Huang Chinagate scandal.

But he made little progress and was called to task by the department's inspector general, a confidential internal document obtained by WorldNetDaily reveals.

Last year, moreover, lawyers for the House Government Reform Committee questioned him in closed session about the chronic security lapses, WorldNetDaily has learned.

In 1999, Holmes, who's black, shocked Commerce security officials when he sanitized a Y2K counterterrorism report distributed to the Census Bureau by removing Islamic threats. Only threats from white "right-wing" groups were included in the report.

It turned out, however, that the only substantive millennium threat came from an Islamic terrorist who was caught at the Canadian border with explosives. The so-called "right-wing militia nuts" were relatively quiet.

HOMELAND INSECURITY

TSA honcho nixed Islamic groups in terror report

'Made us take out every group that wasn't white -- no minority groups allowed'

WASHINGTON – The official heading investigations for the Transportation Security Administration nixed Islamic groups in a Y2K report on terrorist threats, say security officials who worked with him in the Clinton administration.

They say their former boss, David Holmes, who headed security at the Commerce Department after leading former Vice President Al Gore's protective detail, zeroed in on white militia groups in a 1999 threat analysis. Holmes ordered his counterintelligence officers to gather information on terrorist groups to protect Decennial census enumerators, who had received anonymous threats in some parts of the country.

Commerce officials who worked on the case say Holmes' exclusion of every threat group that wasn't white was in keeping with what they say was a broader Clinton administration policy of focusing on domestic threats from white militia groups, rather than Islamic groups, in combating terrorism.

"We gathered information on all the known threat groups from the FBI, CIA and other law enforcement sources," said a Commerce security official. "It (the report) included all types: Islamic, white supremacist, anti-government, militant black, Latino crime syndicates, druggers."

"Holmes made us take out every group that wasn't white – no minority groups allowed," he added. "He was toeing the liberal line" of the Clinton administration.

Holmes was recently hired from Commerce by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, another Clinton holdover, to supervise the background investigations of the thousands of airport security checkpoint screeners the government is hiring. All must now be U.S. citizens fluent in English with no felony records. Screeners often had been foreign nationals, many of them from Middle Eastern countries.

Holmes also is in charge of investigating whistleblower complaints lodged by any TSA agents stationed at the nation's 429 commercial airports. At Commerce, where he was assigned to plug security holes after the John Huang scandal, Holmes nonetheless was known for "rubberstamping" questionable applicants for sensitive positions. Even felons were given classified clearance.

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