The House's EPA Investigation Has a New, Porn-Addicted Villain

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Employment tips:

1. Do not watch porn at work. 
2. Especially do not watch porn at work if you work for the government.
3. And especially especially do not watch porn at work if you work for a politically sensitive agency like the EPA.

An unnamed "career EPA employee" was caught "actively viewing pornography on his government-issued computer" by an investigator for the department's Office of Inspector General. On Wednesday, Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Investigations Allan Williams gave testimony before the House Oversight Committee on a series of investigations into employee and manager misconduct at the agency. That's how we met the porn guy, who has already prompted the Free Beacon to rename the EPA the "Extreme Pornography Agency." 

Here's the key excerpt from Williams's statement. We've added emphasis: 

the OIG has several ongoing investigations involving EPA employees and serious misconduct that is allegedly occurring. One such investigation involves a career EPA employee who allegedly stored pornographic materials on an EPA network server shared by colleagues. When an OIG special agent arrived at this employee’s work space to conduct an interview, the special agent witnessed the employee actively viewing pornography on his government-issued computer. Subsequently, the employee confessed to spending, on average, between two and six hours per day viewing pornography while at work. The OIG’s investigation determined that the employee downloaded and viewed more than 7,000 pornographic files during duty hours. This investigation has been referred to and accepted by the DOJ for  prosecution.

Williams added that the employee in question is still on the payroll and makes about $120,000 a year. 

His testimony was part of an Oversight Committee hearing on investigations into EPA employee behavior in general, titled "Is EPA Leadership Obstructing It’s [sic] Own Inspector General?" It's pegged to John C. Beale, a former administrator at the agency who was sentenced to 32 months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing $900,000 in government pay by posing as a CIA agent. Beale was the agency's top expert on climate change, making the news of his crimes something of a Christmas for those who already don't care for the agency or for the science behind climate change.  Republicans leading the investigation have accused the agency of allowing criminal activity among its 15,000 employees, most of whom are not, presumably, filling up the EPA's servers with porn or pretending to work for the CIA. 

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.