“We gonna pawty,” said high-flying US government official

Jeff Neely

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A U.S. government official at the center of an election-year spending scandal kept traveling far and wide at taxpayers’ expense – long after his boss was advised a year ago of suspected abuses, according to a congressional review released yesterday.

Jeff Neely

The official, Jeff Neely, made four-day visits in March to Hawaii and Napa, California, just days before he was placed on leave at the General Services Administra-tion, pending further investigation and possible criminal charges, the review showed.

In February, Neely, who refused to testify before Congress on Monday, citing his right against self-incrimination, made a five-day trip to Atlanta and a 17-day trip to Hawaii, Guam and Saipan.

“You allowed these trips to continue?” Republican Representative Jeff Denham, who released the review, angrily asked former GSA administrator Martha Johnson, who resigned under pressure this month.

“I’m amazed,” said Denham, who accused the GSA of having a “culture of fraud, waste, corruption and coverups.” He promised that Congress would dig deeper to expose all.

Denham made the comments at the second congressional hearing in as many days that has focused on a 2010 GSA training conference for 300 workers that Neely organized in Las Vegas. The GSA manages federal buildings and purchases government supplies.

The four-day gathering at a swank hotel cost $823,000, featured a comic, a clown and a mind reader – and has erupted into a scandal drawing Democratic and Republican fire.

With government spending a key issue in the November congressional and presidential elections, a third congressional hearing is set for Wednesday and a fourth on Thursday.

Denham’s House transportation subcommittee released a two-page paper at the hearing based on its review of the GSA’s own investigation.