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Newspaper: NASA official under investigation

NASA Inspector General Robert W. Cobb is under investigation for allegedly failing to investigate safety violations.

NASA Inspector General Robert W. Cobb is under investigation after subordinates complained that he failed to investigate safety violations and retaliated against whistle-blowers, The Washington Post reported Friday.
     The investigation was being conducted by the Integrity Committee of the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, a group charged with investigating misconduct by agency inspectors general or their staffs.
    Most of the complaints came from current and former employees of Cobb's office. The complaints alleged that he suppressed investigations within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and penalized his own investigators when they pursued cases, the Post said.
    Sen. Bill Nelson's office forwarded complaints to the council and was told an investigation would be carried out, a Nelson spokesman said early Friday.
    "We sent information from probably more than a dozen current or former employees to the integrity council," the spokesman, Dan McLaughlin, said in a telephone interview. "Senator Nelson received a letter from the integrity council notifying him that they would be conducting an investigation."
    McLaughlin would not disclose the nature of the allegations made by the current or former employees. Nelson, a Florida Democrat who as a congressman once flew on the space shuttle, is the ranking minority member on the Senate Commerce subcommittee that oversees NASA.
    The Post said at least 16 people provided documents and written complaints about Cobb to council, including that he hampered investigations into problems such as a malfunctioning self-destruct procedure during a space shuttle launch and the theft of data on rocket engines.
    Cobb would not discuss the case with the Post but said, "The office has been particularly dedicated to ensuring an atmosphere where safety concerns are fully addressed."
    In April 2005, The Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, reported on allegations that Cobb had retaliated against NASA research pilot Robert Rivers in a dispute over aircraft safety.
    Dan Samoviski, who retired in 2004 as deputy IG director for audits at NASA headquarters, told the Post, "Personally, I just think he created a hostile work environment."
    Several sources also told the Post that Cobb suppressed audits and stopped investigations to avoid embarrassing NASA or its leadership.
    Chris Swecker, assistant director of the FBI's criminal investigative division, leads the Integrity Committee. It also includes the head of the Office of Special Counsel, the director of the Office of Government Ethics and several sitting inspectors general.
    FBI officials did not immediately return phone messages late Thursday.

From: CNN.com, 05-04-2007

Report: NASA inspector general abused authority

• Robert Cobb tipped officials about internal investigations, panel says
• Integrity Committee's role is to investigate inspectors general
• NASA administrator proposes sending Cobb for leadership training
• Congressional committee heads are demanding Cobb's resignation

NASA's inspector general routinely tipped off department officials to internal investigations and once quashed a report related to the Columbia shuttle disaster to avoid embarrassing the agency, investigators say.
    The 1,000-page report by the Integrity Committee, a government board that investigates inspectors general, found that Robert Cobb "created an appearance of a lack of independence" and said NASA did not plan to do enough to discipline him.
    NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has proposed sending Cobb to leadership training and requiring that he meet regularly with department officials on how to improve, but that is not enough, said James Burrus, chairman of the Integrity Committee.
    "All members of the committee believe that disciplinary action, up to and including removal, could be appropriate," Burrus said in a previously unreleased report that also faulted Cobb for abusing authority and creating an "abusive work environment."
    In responses to the Integrity Committee, Griffin defended Cobb in noting that he was being faulted for the mere appearance of a conflict of interest. Cobb has acknowledged that he cultivated relationships in the department to build trust but says he never stepped over the line.
    "This has been a trying year for Mr. Cobb, and I have been impressed with his continued focus on his professional obligations to the Congress and to the agency," Griffin wrote. He said the report "does not contain evidence of a lack of integrity on the part of Mr. Cobb."
    The report, completed January 22 and made public this week by the House Committee on Science and Technology, threatens to renew questions of conflicts of interest and cronyism in a Bush administration under fire for allegedly exerting undue political influence in the firing of U.S. attorneys.
    Only President Bush can dismiss Cobb, a former White House aide whom Bush hired as NASA's inspector general in 2002. The White House has said it is satisfied with NASA's plans to require leadership training for Cobb, who was adviser on ethics to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales when Gonzales was White House counsel.
    Three lawmakers who chair Senate and House subcommittees with jurisdiction over the space agency are demanding Cobb's resignation and are pledging to pursue hearings if necessary to investigate Cobb's conduct.
    "This inspector general's own peers, after months of investigation, found that he has abused his position of authority and lacked an appearance of independence from top officials at NASA," said Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon, chairman of the Science and Technology Committee.

E-mails reveal goings-on inside NASA
Internal e-mails and documents made available Thursday paint a picture of Cobb as an inspector general more concerned with preserving cozy relationships than maintaining independence in the agency he is assigned to oversee.
    The report found that Cobb met then-NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe at least twice monthly between 2002 and 2005 for private lunch meetings dubbed "Administrator's Hideaway" in calendar logs. Cobb also flew with O'Keefe on NASA aircraft and accepted O'Keefe's golf invitations.
    "What was the name of the guy who worked at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service that we played golf with at Belmont?" Cobb wrote in a December 2003 e-mail to O'Keefe.
    Cobb also routinely sought O'Keefe's advice in e-mail on how to structure audit investigations and allowed O'Keefe to review a draft opinion regarding the independence of the Columbia accident investigation.
    At one point, Cobb went "ballistic" when he learned that the Texas Rangers, an auxiliary police force in Texas, were planning to release a "Crime Stoppers Report" to the public to announce an alleged theft of jewelry from Columbia astronaut Laurel Clark, whose ring was taken from her recovered remains.
    In a meeting with one of his staff, Cobb, who demanded that a tape recorder in the room be shut off, said no report on the ring would be issued because the "whole NASA Columbia investigation was not going well, NASA wanted it finished and for the outcome to reveal nothing that would make NASA look bad," according to an e-mail.
    At other times, Cobb tipped off O'Keefe to various audits, including documents he planned to request and search warrants that the FBI planned to issue.
    "Please keep close hold," Cobb wrote in a June 16, 2004, e-mail regarding forthcoming warrants in an undercover operation targeting suppliers of bad parts to NASA.
    O'Keefe replied: "OK -- keep me posted. More incoming cowpies I suspect."
    A year earlier, O'Keefe also teased Cobb after he broke a lunch appointment with him, suggesting he should "cool his jets" on investigations.
    "Moose -- sorry I stiffed ya for lunch today," O'Keefe wrote in January 2005, referring to Cobb by his nickname.
    Noting that he ran into the SEC chairman at the House Government Reform Committee, O'Keefe passed along the message: "His legis affairs rep advised as how I should tell our IG to cool his jets and get a life. Just repeating the comment... ."
    In response, Cobb told the Integrity Committee that he squelched the Columbia report because there was not enough evidence yet to document whether a theft had occurred. He said he should not be faulted for the appearance of wrongdoing.
    "I cannot control how people feel," he wrote.


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