OPM investigator launches probe of Office of Special Counsel chief

[The Straight Story]

OPM investigator launches probe of Office of Special Counsel chief

By Daniel Pulliam
[e-mail]

The Office of Personnel Management's inspector general has begun an investigation into charges that the head of the small, independent agency responsible for protecting federal employees against prohibited personnel practices, including retaliation, improperly retaliated against his own employees.

The investigation of Scott Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel, stems from a complaint filed in early March with the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency by a group of anonymous OSC career employees. A coalition of nonprofit Washington-based whistleblower protection groups--Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the Government Accountability Project and the Project on Government Oversight--joined in the complaint.

The OSC employees and nonprofit groups claim that Bloch retaliated against employees who complained about office policies, issued an illegal gag order, abused his hiring authority, discriminated against homosexuals, allowed political bias to influence enforcement of the Hatch Act and forced senior career staff to relocate from OSC's Washington headquarters to a new regional office in Detroit.

Bloch has flatly denied the charges. OSC declined to comment on the OPM IG's investigation.

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