The Washington Blade has learned that Scott Bloch, Bush’s anti-gay director of the Office of Special Counsel from 2004 to October 2008, is suing the Human Rights Campaign, two gay Obama officials (John Berry and Elaine Kaplan with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management), as well as Karl Rove for a grand total of $202 million in civil and criminal damages. Why? Because they all allegedly conspired to force Bloch out of his job through a “trumped up criminal investigation.”
Following a 2008 FBI raid on his home and office, Bloch pleaded guilty in April 2010 to a charge of contempt of Congress for “improperly [seeking] to purge employees in his office who disagreed with him and later [seeking] to cover up possible wrong-doing by hiring a computer services company to “scrub” files from his government office computer.” Kaplan also accused Bloch of “dismantling LGBT-supportive policies at the Special Counsel’s office that she established there.” Blocj claims that his attempt to reverse a U.S. civil service law interpreted by Kaplan as protecting federal workers from sexual orientation earned him threats from White House aides who promised to “arrange his dismissal” if he did not back off.
Strangely though, it has not yet been revealed on what specific grounds Bloch and his wife (who will represent themselves in court) plan to sue HRC, Berry, Kaplan, Rove, and other 12 or so people named in his suit. We assume he’ll claim that all parties involved had a hand in coordinating the FBI raid and his subsequent charge of contempt, but is this just his play for political absolution?
Cam
He plead guilty, that pretty much puts an end to it. It would be like somebody suing their neighbor for reporting a drug lab they had in their basement to the police.
Did you have a drug lab? “Well YES, but they never would have caught me if HE hadn’t called them!”
Hyacinthe
Conspiring to remove someone from their office for breaking the law isn’t a conspiracy; it’s good government. I hope this gets laughed out of court.
DavyJones
Heh, the write up left out this bit from the article:
“Other parties named as defendants in the lawsuit include the Executive Office of the President, the Office of Special Counsel, the National Treasury Employees Union, and several government watchdog groups, including the Government Accountability Project.”
This guy is suing just about everyone in Washington; including the president. There must be something more going on in the background, I mean the guy seems crazy; but this is too obviously stupid not to have some underlying backstory…
hf2hvit
@DavyJones: Amazing what they do to try and keep that closet door shut…