An Inspector General’s report has revealed that the United States Department of Defense (DoD) has watched unconcerned, as its employees waste scarce taxpayers’ monies on gambling and stripers in nightclubs.
This latest probe at the Pentagon was conducted in response to questions from the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
The damning report comes as a similar probe by the Inspector General found in August 2016 that officials at the country’s defense headquarters cannot account for a whopping $6.5 trillion allocated by Congress for defense spending.
The United States defense spending has been rising over the years. In 2015, the country is said to have spent about $601 billion on defense, which is more than the next 7 highest spending countries combined.
In this latest report, investigators bluntly revealed how some employees at the Pentagon routinely used government travel cards at strip clubs and casinos. The report not only found DoD employees improperly using their work credit cards, but also their supervisors failed to take appropriate action after discovering the rotten conduct.
The investigation was a follow-up audit of a previous report, which discovered the US military had racked up 5,000 charges at casinos and strip clubs, totaling more than $1 million over the course of a year.
“DoD management did not take appropriate action when notified that cardholders potentially misused their travel card at casinos and adult entertainment establishments,” excerpts of the report said.
To show the level of rot at DoD level, the report randomly selected 30 Pentagon cardholders for the audit – because they had the highest dollar amount of high-risk transactions from the previous investigation. This included seven cardholders used as examples in the earlier audit, four who used their travel cards at strip clubs to charge expenses of $1,000 or more, and 19 others who used their cards in casinos at ATMs or for quasi-cash transactions.
The report delved down into the specific details of misbehavior for 13 people, three of whom had multiple types of transgressions. Some of the example behavior appears to have been employees attempting to see what they could get away with, such as the Air Force civilian – identified as Cardholder 3 – who sought and received direct reimbursement of $59 for using his travel card at a casino. That same worker also used his card for seven casino transactions totaling $1,565. This person, surprisingly, was never disciplined. It was revealed his supervisor misinterpreted his labor agreement, allowing him off the hook.
Again, an Air Force civilian who formerly served as a reservist – identified as Cardholder 19 – had 371 transactions totaling more than $32,000 at casinos under three different commands, only because the information was not passed between supervisors. When the misuse was discovered at his third command, where he was a civilian, his access to classified information was temporarily suspended. In response, he said that he had not been properly trained on the use of travel cards and had severe financial difficulties, therefore using the card to avoid starving to death, becoming homeless, or being stranded in the desert due to no gas. As a result, his superiors suspended him for seven days. He was then transferred to another command. At this new command, his new supervisors were not informed of his previous misdeeds or punishments. When they tried to reactivate the travel card, Citibank denied the application and said the cardholder was not eligible at any time for reinstatement.
Further, Cardholder 22, who worked as a Navy civilian, was also found to have abused his travel card for years. The extent of misuse was never detected until the investigation. His transaction history showed 274 transactions totaling $31,732 at casinos and stripes clubs while not on travel orders.
We cannot detail all the 30 cardholders selected. But The Free Thought Project has gone a step further than us. You can click on their link to get more details.
The report blamed the Defense Travel Management Office and Pentagon managers – either commanding officers or civilian supervisors – for the misuse of the cards.
“Specifically, DoD management and travel card officials did not perform adequate reviews for the cardholders reviewed and did not take action to eliminate additional misuse. They did not emphasize proper use of the travel card, and DoD policy did not sufficiently specify what actions DoD officials should take when misuse was identified,” the report said.
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