Posted on 06/28/2010 6:30:39 PM PDT by STARWISE
President Barack Obama’s political director failed to disclose that he was slated to receive a nearly $40,000 payout from a large labor union while he was working in the White House.
Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House.
In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.
Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.
“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.
Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.
Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.
“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.
Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.
Gaspard, who made $172,200 in 2009, has from $35,000 to $80,000 in credit card debt and student loans, according to his financial disclosures.
This SEIU payout was first raised in early June by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top GOP lawmaker on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He sent a letter to the White House asking for information about the payment. They have yet to respond
Move along, Citizen...there’s nothing to see here. Shut up, get to work (if you have a job) and pay your taxes. Move along.
Don’t tell me the man responsible for all those mesmerizing lies DumBO reads may be frog walked.
MEMO TO PRESIDENT: Avoid even the appearance of corruption. Accept his resignation immediately.
We’re being far too hard-assed about this. Who among us hasn’t forgotten about getting a $37K+ payout from a labor union? I’m sure all the SEIU members will be very forgiving about this, what with their sleeping on their overpaid overweight asses these last twenty years.
If not exactly like Detroit, certainly by folks with the same skills and abilities...
Because you're a tad uptight and have picked one out of hundreds of currently popular phrases ("Under the Bus" anyone?) to make a snarky point about, when your ire could as easily be directed in countless directions, maybe?
Local 1199 of the SEIU was the old Communist Party founded and led Local 1199 of the Hospital Workers Union, NY City, led by red Leon Davis (never publicly identified as a member of the CPUSA, his record of support for their operations left no doubt in anyone’s mind as to where his loyalties, or disloyalties, lay).
Gaspard is another hardcore leftist brought into the White House.
Check him out at www.newzeal.blogspot.com
Given the sheer amount of ethics waivers this lamearse Jack Squat Administration has handed out, this is a no biggie.....just ask WhiteHouseCourtJesterGibbs, etc. =.=
“Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.”
Thirty percent of Obama’s 800 billion dollar “stimulus package” went to government union pension benefit funds. Obama improperly used TARP funds to nationalize the auto industry and give a big stake to the union thugs that bankrupted GM and Chrysler. He’s deliberately sabotaging our economy by sneaking through 3000 page legislation like “Cap and Trade” and “Health Care Reform” at three in the morning.
And now some MSM flunkies are holding out this little piece of crap as an example of “a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration”, which has “made ethics a fetish “?
Give me a break. This story was probably leaked by Obama’s public relations people.
I knew there was more .. thanks, Liz ..! I believe he’s also been labeled Valerie Jarrett’s fixer .. meaning .. y’know .. he knows how to twist arms and bend the outcome care of inconvenient situations.
In other words = union thug.
~~~~~~~~~
Meet Obama’s Karl Rove
Excerpt:
But Gaspard, a “smooth operator,” according to one DNC political organizer, is not shy about wading into a fight. In 2009, he famously leaned on New York Governor David Paterson to abandon plans to run for election this fall, imparting word in no uncertain terms that the White House had lost confidence in his ability to win.
Paterson rebuffed him, only to be forced to drop his campaign amid a hail of negative publicity in February. (There are no hard feelings, a close friend of the governor told The Daily Beast.)
Just before Election Day 2009, Republican Dede Scozzafava, trailing in the polls in a three-way special election campaign in New York’s 23rd District, dropped out—frustrated over the national GOP support that flowed to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
Democrat Bill Owens was adrift in the polls. Gaspard phoned Scozzafava—and within 24 hours, she endorsed the Democrat. Gaspard “was terrific,” says Dan Cantor, executive director of New York’s progressive Working Families Party, who has known Gaspard for many years. “And we won.”
Heading into November, Gaspard will oversee where and how the administration throws its weight around. Naturally, the Obama White House is not lacking in political opinions. David Axelrod, the lugubrious keeper of the Obama message, David Plouffe, the baby-faced campaign manager turned voice of Organizing for America, and Rahm Emanuel, who perfected his belligerence as 2006 chairman of the DCCC, all have outsize political footprints.
The president himself told Gaspard during campaign season: “I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”
Nevertheless, Gaspard, who holds the job occupied most recently by Karl Rove, is one of the most powerful men in American politics.
His team, along with deputy chief of staff Jim Messina and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, handles most of the incoming pleas from the numerous candidates and constituencies in search of political TLC. “He builds relationships; he puts out fires; he identifies fires when they’re about to start; he’s a sounding board for the president whenever something is happening,” says the DNC organizer, who has worked with Gaspard on events and messaging. “And he’s just never rattled.”
For 10 years as executive vice president of the influential Service Employees International Union’s 1199 chapter, Gaspard taught a master class in influence within New York City.
“There is no political office in New York that did not feel his impact, and many of them owe their careers to him,” says one organizer affiliated with a progressive labor party.
His circle of allies range from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to key SEIU health-care broker Dennis Rivera, to Joe Bruno—the Republican former head of the New York State Senate recently convicted of fraud.
Since his early days working for candidates like Jesse Jackson and David Dinkins, and organizing protests in the wake of the 1999 Amadou Diallo shooting, Gaspard has been deemed a “liberal creep” by conservative Michelle Malkin for his ties to the now-defunct ACORN operation.
He’s also built a reputation as a “lethal,” “bulldoggish” organizer. “His forte was getting feet on the ground and working at the grassroots—for or against you,” says Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York. “You wanted Patrick on your side.”
So, too, did candidate Obama. After months of trying, he recruited Gaspard in August 2008, both as a link to the labor movement and to what had been Hillary Clinton’s home turf.
Obama appreciated Gaspard’s loyalty to SEIU (he recently turned down a plum job there to remain in government), his commitment to organizing, and his comparatively exotic family history—Gaspard was born in then-Zaire to Haitian expatriates.
And like Obama, he builds easy bridges to different demographics. “People can relate to him, old and young,” says Meeks. The 41-year-old organizer “understands civil rights and he understands hip-hop.”
http://madayo.com/2010/06/06/meet-obamas-karl-rove/
$40,000 in vacation and leave? He worked for 40 years and didn’t take his weeks vacation for all of those 40 years?
C’mon! Seriously. Who has $40,000 in vaction time? It’s BS. It’s a payoff/gift.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Hehe. Couldn't resist.
It annoys me,too. I’m glad you brought it up.
And the severance pay was for what reason? My understanding of severance is that you are laid off due to company downsizing. Did he get a severance because he left SEIU for a job in the Obama administration?
That’s theft of taxpayers money if that is the case. I would love to leave one job and go to another and receive compensation for it......
“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms ... "
It must be nice to make enough money where forgetting about an extra $37,000+ of income would be considered a small administrative error.
Actually Mayor Bing isn't doing a bad job. I'd say America is being run like Chicago...and the mob.
With all the info you posted, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him mixed up in the Sestak affair.
Apparently you believe the sheeple care.
Bingo!
~~~~~
Pennsylvania Democrats could end up wishing they left Arlen Specter alone. The MSM is not going to be a White House ally on this one as the Washington Post, and CBS and MSNBC are covering it.
Eric Holder’s dodge of Dan Issa’s questions coupled with Robert Gibb’s evassions this week lead one to conclude there’e a there, there. Administration talking points are making it look like Sestak is the one telling the truth.
So whom would have made that call to Sestak?
The most likely person to have made such a call to Sestak would have been WH Political Director Patrick Gaspard.
It was Gaspard whom brokered the deal to secure in the NY-23 special election last fall. It is Gaspard who is trying to strong arm David Patterson out of the New York race for governor.
President Obama is certain to see a kindred spirit in Gaspard with his ties to SEIU and ACORN. And why not? Gaspard is an extremely skilled and well connected operative, a man the President badly needs this fall and beyond.
AHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHA! I needed a good laugh tonight.
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