David Safavian: former top procurement official in the Bush administration indicted

A federal grand jury indicted David Safavian, the Bush administration’s former procurement policy chief, on charges of obstructing an investigation into his ties to a lobbyist, the Justice Department announced Oct. 5.

The five-count indictment accuses Safavian of covering up help he allegedly gave the lobbyist, who was pursuing land deals with the General Services Administration in 2002. Safavian was chief of staff at GSA at the time, and he allegedly told GSA and Senate investigators that the lobbyist had no business with GSA at a time when Safavian was giving the lobbyist advice and accompanied him on a golf trip to Scotland, the indictment says.

Safavian resigned Sept. 16 as administrator of federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget, the same day criminal charges were filed. He was arrested Sept. 19.

Each of the five counts carries a maximum five-year prison term, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

Safavian’s attorney, Barbara VanGelder, released a statement saying “this is not a case of guilty as charged.”

“Rather, it is an attempt to prove guilt by association” because of Safavian’s ties to the lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation, she said. She said the government can’t prove its claims and Safavian will plead innocent at his arraignment.

“We look forward to [the] opportunity to respond in court to the government’s charges,” she wrote. “We believe that after all the evidence is aired, Mr. Safavian will be acquitted of all charges.”

http://federaltimes.com/index2.php?S=1156140

The resignation and arrest of David Safavian has once again left the federal government’s procurement system as a body without a head.

For the second time in three years—though under different circumstances—the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy has stepped down, leaving a host of major, potentially money-saving initiatives, such as SmartBuy, strategic sourcing, competitive sourcing and share-in-savings, without an acquisition sponsor.

Safavian abruptly resigned Sept. 16, after less than a year at OFPP, in the lengthening shadow of approaching Justice Department investigators. After leaving his position, the FBI arrested Safavian at his Alexandria, Va., home the following Monday on charges of obstructing a federal investigation and making false statements under oath.

Safavian is under investigation for his work while chief of staff at the General Services Administration, Justice said.

Safavian allegedly made false statements to both GSA’s ethics officer and the agency’s inspector general, and obstructed the IG’s investigation.

While the criminal charges could change, Safavian is facing potentially five years in prison and undetermined monetary fines. He was released on bail last week.

An attempt to reach Safavian at home was unsuccessful.

Robert Burton, the deputy administrator for OFPP, is managing the office until a new or acting administrator is named. Burton spent more than a year as the acting administrator when Angela Styles left OFPP in Sept. 2003.

Safavian’s departure will be felt across government, especially on IT issues, and gives federal acquisition another in a long list of black eyes over the past few years.

“Obviously, to have David leave over misconduct of this nature is troubling, to say the least,” said a government official who requested anonymity. “Particularly in light of [the Air Force’s] Darlene Druyun’s downfall this year as well.

“As hard as we all try every day to prove to our stakeholders in Congress and to the American people that our acquisition workforce is trustworthy and dedicated to getting the best value for their tax dollars, the fall of icons in our system just reinforces folks’ belief that we’re all crooks and need more, not less, oversight.”

That oversight is coming from Congress, in provisions tucked into spending bills and investigations. The administration has managed to excise some of what they considered arduous measures, but experts said that without a politically appointed OFPP head, it becomes more difficult.

Safavian was not opposed to more stringent oversight, but he had said in previous interviews that it had to be the right kind, such as post-award audits under the General Services Administration’s Federal Supply Service.

Larry Allen, executive director of the Coalition for Government Procurement, a Washington trade association, said issues such as reviving the use of post-award audits and guidance on when to use time-and-materials contracting could fall by the wayside as the administration focuses on its core issue, competing federal commercial jobs with the private sector.

IT initiatives that are procurement-heavy, such as the SmartBuy enterprise software initiative, could also be affected.

Safavian worked closely with Karen Evans, the Office of Management and Budget’s administrator for IT and E-Government, co-signing three memos in the past six months.

Allen said Burton did an admirable job as the acting OFPP administrator last time, knows the landscape very well and has the respect of the acquisition community.

“Where the office will suffer is from a lack of profile,” he said.

Allen said another area that could lose some support is the merging of non-GSA procurement assistance centers, such as the Interior Department’s GovWorks. Safavian wanted to shut down these organizations or merge them with GSA.

It is unclear whether the administration will go through the confirmation process again or just name an acting administrator to serve out the final three years of President Bush’s term.

When former Clinton administration OFPP administrator Deidre Lee returned to a career job, OMB just named an acting administrator for the final six months of the president’s term.

Safavian’s troubles began while serving as GSA’s chief of staff from May 2002 to January 2004. He allegedly aided Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff in trying to acquire GSA-controlled property in and around the District of Columbia. The Justice Department said the lobbyist, who is not named in the affidavit against Safavian, went on a golf trip to Scotland with Safavian and others in August 2002.

Safavian told the GSA ethics office and the IG that Abramoff had no business with GSA prior to the August 2002 golf trip. But according to an affidavit filed by the FBI, Abramoff contacted Safavian by e-mail asking about GSA properties three weeks before the golf trip.

Justice is investigating whether Safavian concealed the fact that Abramoff had prior business with GSA before the golf trip, and that he was aiding Abramoff in his attempts to do business with GSA.

GSA spokeswoman MaryAlice Johnson would not comment on the matter, referring all calls to the Justice Department. Jack Lebo, GSA’s inspector general, also would not comment, saying it was an ongoing investigation, and also referred all questions to Justice.

http://www.gcn.com/24_29/news/37089-1.html

In the days leading up to his arrest, David Safavian was an important, if obscure, cog in the government’s Hurricane Katrina response operation.

He and his small staff at the Office of Management and Budget were scrambling to complete instructions to agencies on how to use rules allowing speedier contracting for relief and reconstruction in the Gulf Coast and other disaster regions. His instructions, issued Sept. 13, told agency heads how to guard against the misuse of those rules as agencies raced to spend tens of billions of dollars on new Katrina-relief projects.

But three days after he issued that guidance, Safavian abruptly quit his post as OMB’s administrator of federal procurement policy. That same day, Friday, Sept. 16, the Justice Department, armed with a damning affidavit by an FBI special agent, filed criminal charges in a U.S. District Court against Safavian, alleging he lied to investigators and obstructed an investigation.

The next Monday morning, Sept. 19, federal authorities arrested Safavian at his home in Alexandria, Va.

Safavian is just the latest figure to be ensnared in a widening investigation of high-powered lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The criminal complaint against Safavian also alleges he improperly applied his influence in 2002 in an unsuccessful attempt to help Abramoff, a friend and former colleague, acquire two federal properties. At that time, Safavian was serving as chief of staff at the General Services Administration, which owns and manages federal properties.

Safavian’s arrest comes less than a year after a high-level Air Force procurement official, Darleen Druyun, went to prison for trading favorable multibillion-dollar contracts for a top job with Boeing Co. It also comes as the federal contracting community is trying to rectify a pattern of shoddy contracting detailed in a series of inspector general audits in the past three years. And it comes a year after Congress and federal auditors announced they were looking into allegations of improper contracting and price gouging by companies engaged in the Iraq reconstruction effort.

Government contracting expert Dan Guttman, a fellow at the Washington Center for the Study of American Government at Johns Hopkins University, said Safavian’s arrest couldn’t have come at a worse time. “We’ve got a bunch of perfect storms here with Iraq and Katrina,” he said.

Neal Couture, executive director of the National Contract Management Association, agreed. “At a time when the federal procurement system is already strained to its limits in support of the war in Iraq . . . that’s just not a good place to be,” Couture said.

An OMB spokesman said Safavian’s departure “hasn’t impacted the Katrina relief in any way.”

“Our priorities last week are the same as our priorities this week,” the spokesman, Alex Conant, said Sept. 21. He said OMB is looking for a replacement. Meanwhile, Associate Administrator Robert Burton, who was Safavian’s deputy, is filling the post.

Druyun redux?

Guttman compared the impact of the Safavian case with that of Druyun.

“Think about what kind of a message this sends” to lower-level procurement officials, who could be discouraged about the apparent motives of higher-level people in their field, he said.

The procurement field has drawn considerable criticism from auditors in recent years, and the General Services Administration responded last year by launching a campaign called Get It Right to educate procurement agents on proper contracting methods. Despite the campaign, the Defense Department inspector general revealed in a report last month that poor contract planning and improper use of information technology funds continue to plague the department.

Noting that the alleged offenses by Safavian took place before he assumed the government’s top procurement post, Couture suggested they should not really reflect on acquisition officials.

The charges, if true, “frankly have more to do with influence peddling, rather than procurement fraud,” he said.

“It’s kind of premature to arrive at any conclusions, because he was just arrested,” Couture said. “We’re not going to prejudge what he may or may not have done. I just don’t think there’s enough fact out at this point. We’ll let the legal system do its work and arrive at its conclusions.”

The criminal complaint

The specific charges against Safavian are that he lied to a GSA ethics officer, and later to investigators, when he told them that he and Abramoff were not conducting business together when Abramoff flew Safavian on a golf junket to Scotland in August 2002.

In his affidavit, FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Reising said Safavian and Abramoff traded many e-mails before the golf trip discussing how Abramoff could obtain two GSA-owned properties: 40 acres of the Naval Surface Warfare Center at White Oak in Silver Spring, Md., for a private high school Abramoff planned to build, and the Old Post Office, located blocks from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, which Abramoff sought to obtain for his tribal clients.

Reising alleges that an e-mail Abramoff wrote to a colleague explained that the reason he invited Safavian along on the Scotland trip was to conduct business.

Reising did not specifically name Abramoff in his affidavit, referring only to a person he called “Lobbyist A.” Lobbyist A could only be Abramoff because of details in the document, including Safavian’s reference to their time together at a law firm.

Safavian had been giving advice to Abramoff when he told a GSA ethics officer on July 25, 2002, that the lobbyist had no business with GSA, the complaint says. It added that Safavian failed to mention the help he was giving Abramoff.

The ethics officer then cleared Safavian to accept free air fare from the lobbyist for a golf trip to Scotland in August 2002. Safavian ended up paying $3,100 for his portion of the trip expenses.

Safavian allegedly told the GSA inspector general’s office in May 2003 that the lobbyist had no business with GSA before the golf trip. Among others on that trip were Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Administration Committee, and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed.

The Abramoff connection

Safavian built his career in a manner not uncommon in a town famous for revolving doors.

He began on Capitol Hill in the late 1980s with stints in the offices of former Michigan House members William Schuette and Robert Davis, both Republicans.

Safavian left Washington to attend law school at the Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University, where he graduated in 1993. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., would later note during testimony in support of Safavian’s nomination to the top procurement post that Safavian had the confidence of Michigan lawmakers.

“The Michigan delegation is behind him,” he told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee April 29, 2004. The hearing preceded the Senate’s vote to confirm Safavian as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy on Nov. 21, 2004.

After law school, Safavian began his legal work at the Washington office of Preston Gates Ellis LLP, where he met friend and mentor Jack Abramoff. The two men started their stints at Preston Gates Ellis within two months of each other in early 1995, according to the firm’s records.

At about the same time, Safavian married his wife, Jennifer, who is now chief counsel for oversight and investigations on the House Government Reform Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va. The committee is responsible for overseeing GSA and federal procurement. When Safavian was confirmed as OMB administrator for federal procurement policy, his wife recused herself from any involvement in the committee’s oversight of her husband’s work.

After two years with Abramoff’s team, Safavian left the firm to work as a lobbyist and in 1999 founded Janus-Merritt Strategies with tax-reform advocate and Bush administration ally Grover Norquist.

His clients included those with gambling interests, such as the Interactive Gaming Council and the National Indian Gaming Association, as well as others like BP America, Fannie Mae and Houston Shell & Concrete, according to lobbyist registration records filed with the Senate.

Abramoff also represented gambling clients and Indian tribes with gambling interests during the late 1990s.

Abramoff, who has close ties to House Majority Leader Tom Delay, R-Texas, and other influential Republicans, was indicted last month by a federal grand jury on fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from his attempted purchase of a fleet of Florida gambling boats. He also is under investigation by Congress for allegations that he swindled Indian tribes out of millions of dollars even as he lobbied on their behalf for various gambling laws.

‘A person of … honesty’

In 2001, Safavian returned to Capitol Hill as the chief of staff for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. Cannon also testified on Safavian’s behalf before the Senate committee that considered his nomination.

“He believes fundamentally that a transparent governing policy is the best policy long term,” Cannon told the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on April 19, 2004. “He is a person of forthrightness and honesty. He is a person of great mental capacity. I have the greatest confidence in David Safavian, and I think he’ll do a great job for the American people.”

In a Sept. 20 statement, Cannon called the criminal allegations against Safavian “disturbing and sad news.”

“I can only hope that the charges are proven to be untrue,” he said. “At the same time, government officials should be held to a high standard of law and conduct and David Safavian is no exception.”

Safavian’s second stint on Capitol Hill was short-lived. After little more than a year, he was tapped to be the chief of staff at the General Services Administration.

Filling this position, which reports directly to the administrator, is often a political decision, said one former GSA official.

“The fact of the matter is, whether you like the system or not, it is what it is. Once an election is won, to the victor go the spoils. You have a certain amount of jobs you can hand out,” said Frank Pugliese, a 32-year GSA veteran and former Federal Supply Service commissioner.

Pugliese, now managing director of DuPont’s government business development group, said Safavian was qualified for the job.

“He has good credentials. He is a lawyer who’s worked on procurement,” he said. “There have been all levels of people that have held that job over the years. You become a gatekeeper. If you are a political chief of staff like Safavian, you also become the link between the agency and the White House. That’s not unusual at all.”

Larry Allen, executive vice president of the Coalition for Government Procurement, which represents government contractors, also worked closely with Safavian. He said there was nothing remarkable about how Safavian came to be GSA’s chief of staff.

“He had what I would describe as a typical pedigree for someone coming into that position,” he said.

Allen called his working relationship with Safavian “mutually respectful.”

“He was amenable to discussing our issues. If he agreed with you, he’d tell you. If he disagreed with you, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell you, and that would pretty much be the end of that,” he said.

While Allen said Safavian was “an easy guy to work with,” he also said Safavian “has a very strong belief in who he is, and that may have created some blind spots.”

Safavian did not return phone calls and declined to speak with a reporter who visited his home.

Property deals

Despite the alleged conspiring between Safavian and Abramoff to secure the federal properties for Abramoff, neither deal panned out and both properties remain available today.

Joseph Moravec, former commissioner of GSA’s Public Buildings Service, said when he left the agency in late July, the White Oak facility was still in the “planning and conceptual stage” and had yet to be offered to agencies, which is GSA’s first step in determining what to do with surplus property before considering whether to make it publicly available.

However, court documents say Safavian corresponded with Abramoff about the property and assisted his efforts to acquire it. In e-mails obtained by the court, Safavian gave Abramoff suggestions on how to persuade GSA officials to acquiesce to his request and arranged a meeting between the lobbyist’s wife and top GSA officials.

Moravec said he was “out of the country” the day this meeting was held.

According to Moravec, GSA issued a request for information for the Old Post Office a few months ago and is still considering options for leasing the building, which totals more than 500,000 square feet. He said that there was a lot of interest in the post office by owners of luxury hotels, but that he didn’t know anything about Abramoff’s interest in either property.

“I was not aware of any contact with [Abramoff] or any private citizen relating to White Oak or to the Old Post Office,” he said.

Moravec said he was shocked to hear about Safavian’s arrest.

“If the allegations are true, I’m disappointed in David. I never would’ve expected anything like this,” he said. “He made no secret of his previous association with Abramoff or of his work as a lobbyist, but I was not aware of any improprieties. He was a very smart guy, hard working, a real straight shooter.”

GSA officials refused to answer any questions concerning Safavian’s tenure at that agency, including even the dates when he worked there. GSA spokeswoman Mary Alice Johnson referred all inquiries concerning Safavian to the Justice Department.

The most qualified candidate

After being confirmed unanimously by the Senate, Safavian began work as OMB’s top procurement administrator on Nov. 29, 2004.

Clay Johnson, OMB’s deputy director for management, said he interviewed four or five people for the administrator position. He said he was looking for someone who understood federal procurement policy, had prior experience working with different agencies and knew how Capitol Hill operated.

“He had all three of those things and was the most qualified person, so my recommendation was that he be nominated to the position,” Johnson said.

He said he was happy with Safavian’s performance at OMB and said Safavian met the performance expectations set out for him.

On a personal note, Johnson said he was surprised to learn of Safavian’s arrest. “I’m very sad for him, and it’s a very difficult time for him,” he said.

Safavian resigned Sept. 16 from OFPP, the same day the Justice Department filed its criminal complaint with the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.

His attorney, Barbara VanGelder, said the resignation was voluntary.

“When he resigned, he did not know that he was going to be arrested. The timing was close, but more coincidental. He had been approached by the Justice Department and didn’t want to embarrass the administration,” she said.

VanGelder called the charges against her client “creative.”

“I don’t think the Justice Department would’ve acted in the same manner to arrest my client if he had no connection to Abramoff,” she said. “This is guilt by association, not guilty as charged.”

A lesson learned?

Comptroller General David Walker, Congress’ top watchdog over government mismanagement, waste, fraud and abuse, said the cases of Safavian, Druyun and others highlight the need for additional oversight of contracting activities and other key areas.

“One of the important checks and balances in order for any system to work is to have adequate transparency and accountability mechanisms, and there are not. They are not adequate at the present point in time,” Walker said in an interview.

Without adequate transparency and accountability mechanisms, Walker said, people will hold themselves only to the standard of what’s arguably legal.

“We have to keep in mind that the law represents the floor of acceptable behavior, not the desired state. We want people who do things that not only are certainly legal, but they are ethically and morally right, and both in fact and appearance,” Walker said. “Some have strayed from that, and we need to get back to it.”

Read the affidavit (see http://federaltimes.com/content2/safaviantimeline2005.html ) by FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Reising.

http://federaltimes.com/index2.php?S=1130126

The "Fox in the Henhouse Gang" Strikes Again. If you think that Michael Brown's selection as head of FEMA was a joke, you're going to love the background on David Safavian, the former head of federal procurement who resigned Friday before last, and was indicted in the Abramoff probe the following Tuesday. The FBI complaint against Safavian alleges that he made repeated false statements to government officials and investigators about a golf trip with Abramoff to Scotland in 2002, and that he concealed his efforts to help Abramoff acquire control of two federally managed properties in the Washington area.

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http://watchingthewatchers.org/story/2005/9/25/14298/0093

In reporting on the October 5 indictment of former White House official David Safavian for obstruction of justice and lying to investigators, the Los Angeles Times made no mention of Safavian's connections to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), who is currently under indictment for conspiracy and money laundering. In contrast, both The New York Times and The Washington Post mentioned DeLay in their coverage of Safavian's indictment.

The October 6 Los Angeles Times article reported that Safavian, formerly the General Services Administration's (GSA) chief of staff, allegedly lied to investigators about lobbyist Jack Abramoff's ties to the GSA. According to the Los Angeles Times, the indictment alleges that Safavian falsely denied Abramoff had any dealings with the GSA, and that he accepted an offer from Abramoff to go on a golf junket to Scotland without disclosing to an ethics officer that Abramoff "had business pending before the agency." Abramoff, currently the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department, is closely linked to DeLay. In fact, the Justice Department's inquiry into Abramoff recently expanded to include a 2000 trip DeLay took to Britain, for which Abramoff paid the travel expenses -- an apparent violation of House ethics rules. Despite the fact that the scandals surrounding Safavian and DeLay share a common link in Abramoff, the Los Angeles Times simply noted that Abramoff has "close ties to top Republican lawmakers in Congress."

By contrast, the October 6 New York Times article reported that although "Mr. DeLay has not been linked to the investigation of Mr. Safavian," news of Safavian's indictment followed revelations that the Justice Department's investigation of Abramoff expanded to include DeLay. According to The New York Times: "Administration officials acknowledged this week that the Justice Department had asked the British police to interview former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about a meeting with Mr. DeLay during a 2000 trip to Britain arranged by Mr. Abramoff. It was the first public acknowledgment that Mr. DeLay's actions were also under investigation."

Similarly, an October 6 Washington Post article on Safavian's indictment noted that "[f]ederal investigators are known to be looking at trips to Scotland that Abramoff arranged for members of Congress and others, including former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and House Administration Committee Chairman Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) and Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and now a candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200510060003