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Ex-Interior official getting probed
Posted by Fired Fred on May 22, 2007 4:29 PM
Imagine my surprise at learning yet another Beltway insider has been found to be lining her pockets at someone else's expense. In Julie MacDonald's case, that "someone else" is the Sacramento splittail fish.
Our girl Julie, formerly the deputy assistant secretary of the Department of Interior, got the little fish yanked off the endangered species list. Why would Julie do this to a fish? Let's go to the Intarwebs...
But her participation in the decisionmaking at any stage of the process may have violated conflict of interest rules because MacDonald owns an 80-acre farm in the Yolo Bypass, a floodplain of wetlands, pastures and row crops north of the Delta that is key habitat for the fish.Uh oh. Even in the current Administration, that has to be a red flag for a conflict of interest. So does this...
According to financial disclosure reports, MacDonald's farm is worth more than $1 million, and she receives $100,000 to $1 million a year in income from it.Thanks for that blinding flash of the obvious there, Mary.
"At the very least, this certainly has the appearance of a conflict of interest," said Mary Boyles, spokeswoman for Common Cause in Washington.
Julie resigned her position at the end of April. She's got a laundry list of other accusations out there regarding her misbehavior while acting as a civil servant. I'm hoping she gets back into government service, preferably as an inmate somewhere. Poor little fishies.
Fish sticks really sound good for dinner. Mmm, with some ramen too. Yum.
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