If Tshibaka was 'exonerated' in federal fraud case, where is the evidence?

More than a year ago I first wrote of the 2011 federal fraud investigation of U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka.

Now that the fraud claims have become central in attack ads against Tshibaka, Alaska news organizations owe it to their readers, listeners and viewers to put the investigation in context and report on what it means and doesn’t mean.

Here is the redacted investigation, which I stumbled onto while researching Tshibaka’s background. In sermons made by Tshibaka and her husband, Niki, in their Virginia church, they confirmed that Tshibaka was investigated and that the authors of the report wanted her prosecuted.

The National Reconnaissance Office of Inspector General investigators recommended that fraud charges be pursued against Tshibaka. The Department of Justice declined prosecution “in favor of administrative action” by the Office of Director of National Intelligence, where Tshibaka was employed.

According to Tshibaka supporter Suzanne Downing, an opponent of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell’s super pac has ‘unleashed the hounds of hell” on Tshibaka with its attack ads. This is a bit excessive, on a par with Downing’s claim that Donna Arduin was the best-dressed woman in Juneau.

The problem for Hounds of Hell Downing and Tshibaka is that the McConnell attack ads are based on a real investigation by federal officials who found that Tshibaka billed the government for 596 hours of work that she wasn’t entitled to get paid for.

The investigators, who had no connection to the person who made the original complaint, concluded that between 2008 and 2011 Tshibaka falsified her federal work records and claimed that she worked 596 hours that she should not have been paid for.

The disputed hours included comp time claims, unexplained absences during the day, inappropriately charging hours to excused absences when she was already on leave and when there was an early dismissal for federal holidays. At her pay grade, the hours cost the government $36,000.

This is from the redacted 2011 federal investigation of Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka that found 596 “questionable hours” on her time and attendance records as a federal employee.

Tshibaka provided an affidavit in which she said she worked remotely for most of the 596 hours, but her supervisors were unable to substantiate her claims, a key reason why the investigators wanted fraud charges against her.

There is no evidence that the investigation was wrong.

Downing, who clearly hasn’t bothered to read the full investigation, simply repeats the claim Tshibaka has been making since 2011, that Tshibaka was “exonerated” in some fashion.

To be “exonerated,” there would have to be a document that says the National Reconnaissance Office of Inspector General produced a false report.

All that Tshibaka has to do to quiet the hounds of hell is to produce the evidence that the investigation was erroneous. She won’t.

Tshibaka also claimed in 2011 that her “exculpatory evidence” was not considered or reviewed in the NRO investigation. But she was interviewed for the investigation and given the chance to make her case.

It is possible that Tshibaka’s superiors at the ODNI opted to ignore the inspector general’s investigation because the report did not put her superiors in a good light and said they were not aware of some of the things that Tshibaka was charging comp time for, such as “physical fitness.”

She submitted an affidavit saying that most of the 596 questioned hours were those during which she worked remotely. She her supervisor approved her working remotely 20 hours a month, but the inspector general said her supervisors did not substantiate that statement.

The investigation mentions interviews with Tshibaka in the presence of her attorney and evidence that she provided during questioning. She referred to “37 days of badge machine errors” and said she had taken comp time for physical fitness activities no more than 7 times, a lower number than she had given in an earlier interview.

The NRO inspector general said her “supervisors were unable to substantiate all of the compensatory hours for which she claimed to have received approval to work outside the office.”

In 2011, the NRO investigators asked her how much time she spent on Bible studies, Agency Christian Fellowship and meeting or praying with friends in the cafeteria or elsewhere. “We’re allowed to talk to people,” the report quoted her as saying.

“She had no idea how much time she spent a week in these activities,” the report said.

The 596 disputed hours did not include the unknown amount of time during office hours that she spent on Bible studies, conducting interviews for a book and other church activities. There were dozens of personal folders and documents about her church activities on her Agency Internet Network. She said at first she did 20 interviews for her book, a project she never finished, and later revised that number to 11, conducted over five months.

The investigation concluded that from March 2008 to February 2011, she claimed 596 hours for which she should not have been paid. This did not include the 25 work days in which she had received the OK to work at home.

When Tshibaka received phone calls at home, she was tracking the time to count as comp time, the report said. She also went running at the end of the work day at times and charged that as comp time, though a person who appears to have been her supervisor said he was not aware that she was doing either of those things. He also said he was not aware that she had taken excused absences for physical fitness activities.

The Office of Inspector General briefed the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia on May 17, 2011, but that office “declined prosecution in favor of agency administrative action.”

Tshibaka was transferred within the same agency shortly after the report recommending “administrative action” was completed.

At the time she told friends and wrote on her blog that her new job was one she really wanted. But in a 2014 sermon, Tshibaka contradicted that claim. She said she wasn’t happy, having been moved to a cubicle down the hall. She said that God had told her she would be given a position with broader responsibilities.

“I found a quiet place at work where I could hide where I screamed out to God almost every day at work, ‘This is not broad. I don’t understand. Are you messing with me?”

She said she waited for two years when an old boss of hers called about a job that could put her back on the track that the investigation had knocked her off of. Six weeks later, in July 2013, she had a new job with the inspector general’s office of the Federal Trade Commission, with broader responsibilities.

She was later named acting inspector general of the Federal Trade Commission. In late 2014, she told her congregation that God had promised her she would be promoted and she took that to mean she would become the permanent inspector general.

In a 2014 sermon, Niki said that Kelly wasn’t there that day because she didn’t get the job.

“What was difficult was that the person got appointed to the position was a former boss of hers back when she was working in the intelligence community and this person is known to be a really bad manager. And she was a person that Kelly worked for years to try to get away from,” Niki said in his sermon.

“And so for her it wasn’t so much just the disappointment of not getting the job. It’s like ‘God, what are you doing? It’s like I’m being chased after by this lion. Like, this is not the person. Of all the people that you would have put over me, why are you putting this person over me when you know I prayed for years to get away from this person? And you helped me escape from under this person’s leadership.”

“So that’s been very difficult for her, trying to work through feeling unsafe,” Niki said.

The comment about God helping her “escape” from Roslyn Mazer’s leadership refers to Kelly Tshibaka’s experience in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the fraud investigation that clouded Tshibaka’s career.