The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration could have improperly awarded millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to employees with past ties to the agency’s top administrator. DEA Chief Anne Milgram is being accused of corrupt hiring practices.
The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General is investigating more than $4.7 million that was allegedly improperly used to hire Milgram’s close associates, bypassing typical hiring protocol.
The employees knew Milgram from her time as New Jersey’s attorney general and when she taught law at New York University. According to The Associated Press that first reported on the probe, there are at least a dozen people who have been hired by the DEA under what government watchdog officials have called “swampy” deals.
The general counsel of the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, Scott Amey, said contracts should never be “awarded based on who you know” and that federal contracting is not intended to bypass the government hiring process.
Amey said there should be no preferential treatment and even the appearance of a conflict of interest should be avoided. Those are some of the things the Inspector General’s office will be looking for in its active investigation.
