A String of Wet Sponges: OMG...OIG !!!

Balanced legal review ?

Congressman Issa in his October 16, 2012 letter  asked NCUA OIG to independently investigate the use of contingency fee arrangements by the Agency with outside counsel.  The Wall Street Journal front-paged the fact that contingency fees weren't used by other federal regulatory agencies due to a Presidential Executive Order ban and that the "sweetheart deals" had cost credit union owners of the NCUSIF $42 million - so far !

Had the NCUA General Counsel and Board acted legally?  OIG's task was to explore that legal decision. Here's how OIG conducted that independent legal research (it's on page 5 of the Issa letter):

"On November 16, 2012, the NCUA Office of the General Counsel [OGC were the folks OIG was supposed to be investigating!] sent the OIG Counsel an email entitled "Legal Opinion on Applicability of E. O. 13433." In that email, the OGC stated that "[w]e recently requested the attached opinion, I am forwarding it to you as it might be of interest in connection with your investigation."

The legal opinion [called the "Cooper opinion"] was dated November 15, 2012 and OIG states... "Consequently, in the spirit of full disclosure and attribution, we note that OIG Counsel's legal analysis ... derive in part from the Cooper opinion.  On January 2, 2013, representatives from my office met with your office [Issa's staff] to discuss the Cooper opinion and the circumstances surrounding the OIG Counsel's receipt of it."

"The circumstances surrounding..." Yep, even the OIG realized that having the suspect conduct your legal research for you smells of dead fish.  But this seems to be in line with NCUA's standards..... 

To measure fairly, the true value and veracity of The "OMG...OIG" Letter to Congressman Issa, no one has ever said it better than H. L. Mencken:

"It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights."

BOW WOW !

OMG... OIG !!!