If the WSLCB were a Fish, Rickey Garza would be its Head – Corruption in the WSLCB

Author’s note – 3/15/2023: In the spirit of the Roman tradition of paying off debts by the Ides of March, I would like to offer an apology today that I recently discovered I owe to Director Garza.

The core evidentiary basis of my assertion of Dir. Garza’s corrupt behavior was the dramatic increase in Ms. Kohler’s salary upon her return to the LCB in 2018, as reported in the state employee salary database provided by the Office of Financial Management.

Apparently, the salary number that the OFM reported included not just the salary she was paid for her final stint at the LCB, but also accumulated unused sick and vacation time that was paid out upon her departure from Public Service.

Mea culpa.  I should not have assumed that the OFM salary numbers were actually salary numbers.  By doing so, I neglected to identify and remove the value of these unused benefits while calculating the percent change in salary  she received moving heading the DOL to shouldering the LCB.

In reality, she (appropriately) received a DECREASE in salary commensurate with the step down in position that the move represented.

This effectively nullifies what I wrote below in the section titled “Corruption”.

Again – my apologies to Dir. Garza.  Mea culpa.

My thanks to Board Chair David Postman for looking into my accusation and informing me of my error (and also that Ms. Kohler was actually only with the LCB for 5.5 months at the end of 2018, and not 6, as I state in this post).

I have always taken pride in the quality of my work and, as many of you likely know, am intolerant of any intentional misuse of data and/or logic — particularly when the resulting output either directly or indirectly causes harm.

This mistake was not intentional, but it WAS a mistake and it falls short of the standards to which I hold myself.

Once again, I sincerely regret making this mistake, Rick.   I apologize.

Jim

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In addition to this apology, I will include the  above note in a re-post tomorrow of the original Facebook announcement that linked to this article in 2021.

It is said that “When a fish rots, the rot starts at the head”.  While generally a fish rots starting in its gut, this saying has come to be commonly applied to situations where poor leadership is the root cause of an organization’s failure and, if unchecked, its eventual demise.

What follows is (to paraphrase one of my favorite investigative reporters) a somewhat verbose and rambling background piece (tinged with a Canadian accent) that outlines details about the only two people to have occupied the Administrative Director’s office at the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) since 2002. 

For those of you that suffer from TLDR complex (aspiring to illiteracy, as I like to call it), feel free to skip the BACKGROUND section and go right to the CORRUPTION (and Et Tu, DOL?) sections (they are short and relatively to the point).

If you are concerned with how Rickey Garza seems to have ripped off the good people of Washington in order to give a generous publicly-funded gift to his old mentor Pat Kohler, then check out the POSTSCRIPT and see if you agree with me that the agency is in need of both a comprehensive externally-run audit and  greater ongoing oversight.

Background: Rickey Garza and Pat Kohler history
(not necessary to read, but this helps set the stage for the “reveal” and I also hint at other areas in which I believe individuals and functions seem to fall short of the standards the agency purports to hold itself to and, in some instances, that the law and basic ethics may actually require.)

Rickey Joe Garza (Rickey) joined the WSLCB in 1997, following 13 years as a public servant providing support to the Legislative branch of Washington state.  There, he advanced through the positions of Legislative and Tribal Liaison, Policy Director and Deputy Administrative Director under Pat Kohler who was and had been the Administrative Director for the Agency since the beginning of 2002.

Six months after the passage of I-502, Ms. Kohler (Pat) was promoted to head the Dept. of Licensing (DOL) and, no doubt with her support, the Board chose Rickey to replace her.  Rickey was to lead the agency (under Board supervision) charged with opening one of the first two legal cannabis markets in the nation.  Rickey had become a “made man”.  He had an agency to shape.  He had a regulated cannabis market to launch in under 13 months and many rules to create in under 6.

Rickey went on to oversee operations that involved significant disruption to his agency and to the copious tax revenues it protected.  While preparing to build the regulatory foundation for cannabis, Rickey was busy closing up the business enterprise that had previously run the state-run liquor distribution system before legislators opened the market up to private ownership and competition.  In doing that work, Rickey and his agency gained valuable skills in the areas of administrating inventory returns to suppliers, selling the huge state-owned liquor distribution center, and conducting final audits of all stores to close their financial records properly.

In addition, Human Resource staff had the difficult job of carrying out a Reduction in Force (RIF) process potentially impacting over 900 full-time employees.  With massive cuts, Rickey was presented an opportunity to REALLY shape his team into the group he wanted.  He had a motivated candidate pool from which to choose.  He felt he could choose a team that would support him and be loyal to him.   He knew that he could choose a team that appreciated him and the fact that he allowed them to continue accumulating salary and benefits and “points” toward their pensions.

To make life easier for everyone, Rickey went so far as to allow only 334 regulated cannabis dispensaries in the state, and not the 1,800 or so that folks expected.  Consumers had gotten used to having somewhere between about 1,000 and 2,800 “green cross” dispensaries that criss-crossed the state in the days before cannabis regulation.  Staff knew and were very comfortable with the number 334.  It was the same number of liquor stores that had existed up until privatization took hold in 2012.  Regulating 334 retail locations would be easier than regulating 1,000 or more.  Besides, for some reason, the agency had to deal with thousands and thousands of wholesale applicants interested in growing regulated cannabis and/or in creating cannabis-based products for sale in those retail outlets.

In spite of being hampered by a licensing and enforcement computer system that was archaic by the turn of the millennium, somehow the right people* got the right cannabis licenses in the right places well within the expected timeframe.  Most importantly, the tax (and fee and penalty) revenues kept flowing.

Rickey then went on to successfully infuse the system with an additional 222 medical cannabis stores in an effort to help protect the medical cannabis patients of Washington*.  The jury is out on the success of the agency’s implementation of a regulated medical cannabis ecosystem, but most straw polls suggest that it has been an abysmal failure. 

In the face of all this, cannabis tax revenue growth has consistently outpaced official forecasts which, on balance, seems to be considered a success by key parts of the government.  One of these is the Office of Financial Management (OFM) that I believe is supposed to provide a degree of financial oversight and service to Rickey’s agency.  Rickey’s wife serves as the confidential secretary to the head of the OFM.  It’s good to know the right people and have them in the right place —at the right time.  One might expect, at minimum, that communications between the OFM and the WSLCB — or, at least, high-level ones — are very efficiently handled.

Zoom forward to 2018 and things are going swimmingly.  Cannabis taxes are hundreds of millions higher than expected and the agency successfully invested some of those earnings in a newer, better, more secure seed-to-sale traceability system that purportedly enables easy agency insight into the marketplace and allows staff to ensure that the promises made to the Federal government regarding state employees regulating thousands of drug pushers are all kept.   That holds at bay any related Federal actions against those state employees and, presumably, the license-holders that they regulate. 

The new system was to let the agency know where every bit of cannabis was and where it was going and, ultimately, to where it went.  The new system was to let Rickey know EVERYTHING about the market until the point where the retail cannabis customer left the store and got out of the field of view of the store’s security cameras.

Rickey was content.  He’d done right by Washington.  He deserved to Pat himself on the back.  He seemed to be smiling more than usual around that time.  Life was good at the WSLCB.  The 2018 annual off-site celebration of the Enforcement & Education Division was a hoot that year.  All that alcohol, all those quasi-officers, all those guns, none of that cannabis and SOOOO much success.  The party was a hoot.

Selling out Undocumented Immigrants in Olympia

Unfortunately, things were not going so swimmingly for his old boss and mentor.  Under Pat Kohler’s leadership and direction, the DOL had been caught directly violating Governor Inslee’s directive that state entities not supply information to the Feds that might put undocumented immigrants within Washington at risk of persecution by I.C.E. or other immigration-linked personnel. 

In response to DOL’s transgression, Governor Inslee re-iterated that no-one in his government should support I.C.E. in that way and the press were informed that Deputy Director, Jeff DeVere’s resignation had been accepted by Pat.  I’d imagine that Jeff felt bad about harming the immigrants.  He probably also felt bad about being the only ignorer of the Governor’s directive whose apparent sanction was mentioned by the media. 

A few months later, Pat stepped down from her position for personal reasons.  A bunch of illegals got abused and deported.  Rickey’s agency kept nurturing the new tax windfall being generated by cannabis-related commerce. 

The next day, Pat’s personal situation apparently changed again and she started working for Rickey as his new Deputy Administrative Director.  In just over five years, the old boss now reported to her old D.A.D..

Pat went on to complete a 6-month term at the WSLCB during which time she got to do all kinds of exciting things like testifying to the State Auditors (JLARC?) about some things regarding the WSLCB and money and data and then speaking to the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO — specifically the Technology Services Board (TSB) that oversees the state’s bigger, more expensive I.T. projects) about ongoing improvements in the MJ-Freeway LEAF seed-to-sale traceability solution that was crucial to implementing the suggestions of the Auditors. 

I was there and was shocked at what I heard the agency present to this oversight body.  It was a memorable instance of agency opacity (another story at another time).

Pat also (I believe) may have had the privilege of approving an extension to MJ-Freeway’s contract, allowing them to continue serving anyone inclined to divert product or invert product or sell untested product or do pretty much whatever they wanted to do as they reaped the many rewards of selling in a market with virtually zero competent (and/or engaged and/or informed) oversight.

During her final 6 months in the public service, Pat also authored a note to the OCIO’s TSB rebutting some testimony I gave to them in Oct. regarding how Pat’s agency was not being particularly transparent regarding the HUMONGOUS problems continuing to hobble system function and accuracy.  I came across that letter not by being afforded the common courtesy of being copied on it.  Instead, I first saw that letter in the OCIO project-tracking portal as a document which had been made part of the project’s permanent record.  I was surprised when I read the letter and felt that Pat had done a disservice not only to transparency and honesty, but also to me.

I intend to respond this fall to the letter Pat sent to the TSB.  I am awaiting the third anniversary of the day I provided that testimony, in which I discussed the LEAF scam being wrought upon the good people of Washington and the less-than-honest input that that oversight body was receiving from the good deputy administrative director and fellow members of Rickey’s loyal team. 

Pat should have known what she was talking about.  She’s been trained in Lean Six Sigma, for goodness’ sake.  Those folks know their numbers and logic and probability and risk management and statistics and decision-making and logic.   At least the good ones do.  Lean Six Sigma is a cornerstone of Governor Inslee’s “Results Washington” initiative in which tens of thousands of public servants are attempting to ensure continual improvement in state government operations. She oversaw the implementation of a version of the new traceability software that allegedly fixed a few bugs and she steered the big agency IT project aimed at modernizing their archaic licensing and enforcement systems.  It is my understanding (I have not confirmed this) that one of her favorite consultants (Deloitte) from the days when she oversaw the DOL was brought in to help make this other ongoing boondoggle yet more expensive (while, hopefully, fixing some things or building some things that work or making the clients at least feel better about the failure that surrounds them).

Pat seems to have Information Technology “chops” similar to the type regularly displayed by Mary Mueller, the ex CIO of the WSLCB.  So much so that Pat seems to have leveraged her close bond with some of the consultants she had come to know at DOL to inform her decision-making regarding the choice of potential technology solutions intended to address the risk presented by the WSLCB infrastructure.  Their core Enforcement and Licensing functions currently depend on legacy systems running on an IBM AS-400 and written, presumably in one of the old versions of basic that require line number references in the code.  Agency operations would be severely compromised if the ancient system upon which they depend were to break.  The risk of that happening increases with every year that they further delay building and implementing its replacement.  The longer the system runs, the more likely that a GOTO loop makes a dyslexic mistake and brings major agency functions to a standstill.

The passion Pat applied to the Systems Modernization Project was evident even from a distance.  That passion may have reflected her apparent love for paying experts public funds to spend a great deal of time getting her current agency no closer to a solution than they were yesterday.  Pat was on a roll.  Pat was a machine.  Everyone around Pat was making money (some of which was tax revenue, and most of which was paid by tax revenue).  Pat was saying the things that the Agency (and Rickey) wanted her to say.

It would seem that Pat’s personal situation then changed again as she left the agency and state government at the end of calendar year 2018 and started to work as a “Specialist Master” for Deloitte Consulting where she serves as Consultant and Specialist Master in the Customer and Marketing group for Government and Public Services.

It must have been nice for Pat to finally get to work as a peer with the same close contacts she had paid to do consulting work both at DOL and while she took work off of Rickey’s plate during her brief return to his agency.

The agency wished her well and went on with their responsibilities overseeing cannabis, alcohol, tobacco, and anything either vaped or that they deem particularly attractive to children.

I was a bit put off to see Pat leave her senior public service position and immediately take employment in what a reasonable person might see as a position rife with conflict-of-interest.  In choosing to sell out the position of trust that the people put in senior government officials such as her by choosing to work for a company that feeds off the government teat, Pat was only following the lead of ex WSLCB Board-member (and Senator) Chris Marr. Ex-Senator-Board Member Marr was able to leveraged his experience helping to shape the rules that defined WA’s new cannabis industry to fuel a reasonably lucrative lobbying gig — working largely on behalf of licensees within that cannabis industry.

While the poor apparent ethics in Pat’s move to the private sector no doubt sensitized me, I confess that I was even more upset when I learned that my Senator (Guy Palumbo) decided to dance the same dance shortly after joining with fellow lawmakers in early 2019 by signing his name to a letter critical of Russ Hauge, the WSLCB enforcement division, and the organizational culture of the agency. Senator Palumbo took a job as Amazon.com Services’ Director of Public Policy— apparently with responsibility for lobbying both his ex-colleagues in the Senate and anyone else (Seattle?) that might have influence over Amazon’s fortunes.  Don’t be surprised if you see Amazon at the front of the line when Guy’s ex colleagues surprisingly approve drone-based home deliveries of cannabis.

I raise the issue of ex-Senator Palumbo not because of the potential nexus that critical letter represented between his Sicilian ancestry and the supposedly cartel-free regulated drug industry whose regulators were the target of it’s vehemence. No. I raise the issue because that letter struck me as a very aggressive attempt by someone who was able to get 10 lawmakers to sign (literally) onto the effort to achieve “regulatory capture” with the WSLCB. Castrate the Board. Hobble enforcement. Let all staff know that they could be next. DO WHAT V’s PEEPS SAY — or else!

Until I saw this assault go down, I always thought that regulatory capture involved nice things and bribes and good feelings and positive vibes. I did not know that there existed a darker side to the art. To this day, at least one truly horrible and dangerous company continues to serve cannabis consumers and tax collectors in Washington because of this letter. Thank -you ex-Sen. Palumbo. Please know that I neither appreciate nor respect “la tua cosa” and my state would certainly be better off without it.

Regardless, I almost feel as if Pat should be cut some slack for her most recent career decision.  What she did seems to be what is done in her circles.

Corruption (note 3/15/2023 -please note disclaimer at top of this article for an error that invalidates my assertions below regarding Pat Kohler’s salary during her final stint with the WSLCB)

What REALLY put me off, though, and the primary purpose of this article was the seemingly inappropriate six-figure boost in wealth that Rickey gave to his recently disgraced ex-boss and new D.A.D.  A six-figure boost that you and I (assuming you pay taxes to the state of Washington) will fund.

In as few words as I can, I’ll lay it out for you … and minimize editorializing.  You’ve read enough words already (and there’s a POSTSCRIPT that follows).

To summarize:

Pat’s agency (DOL) outed undocumented people and families to the Feds, in direct opposition to Governor Inslee’s prior suggestion for state personnel to not do so.

A few months later, Pat left the DOL for personal reasons and the Governor lauded her long outstanding public service.  She did this on the last day of the state’s 2018 Fiscal year.

The next day, the first day of the state’s 2019 Fiscal year, Rickey hired her into his agency, bringing back his old boss and mentor as his new D.A.D..

Six months later, at the end of the calendar year, Pat left State Government employment and very shortly after that began working for Deloitte.

It’s when you look at the salary information for state employees which the OFM kindly makes available that some odd things come into better focus. 

One might expect the Director to have, at best, received a neutral to negative performance evaluation following her agency’s misdeeds.  One might expect to see her step down in disgrace (with or without personal reasons) and leave with her decades-long accumulation of pension and, likely, deferred compensation benefits to tide her over.  We could wish her well and she could move on with a reasonable pension in hand.

Instead, Rickey hired her for 6 months during which time she pulled down a base salary of $91,400 ($186,800, annualized).  That level of pay is surprising for a D.A.D.   It is even more so when one realizes that it represents a 7.7% increase, when compared to ½ of the salary she pulled down in the prior calendar year.  I don’t know exactly when “merit” increases are distributed to state employees, but assume them to often take effect on July 1, at the beginning of the state fiscal year.  One might think that taking a step down from heading up DOL to being Rickey’s D.A.D. (Deputy) might have resulted in, at best, no DECREASE in Pat’s terminal public salary.

On the assumption that Pat participated in the PER1 “pension” program, that salary bump and the $91K she got for her 6-month stint back with Rickey increased her AFC (the average final compensation used as input into the calculation of monthly pension payments) by $13,982 — or $733 per month.

On the further assumption that Pat is now at the full “60% of AFC” that is the maximum pension benefit allowed under PER1, the LCB salary increase bumped her final expected monthly pension payment by $440 per month or $5,280 per year.

Rickey treats those that treat him well very well, indeed.

If you also assume that the extra 6 months (to the end of the calendar year, no less) also bumped her pension multiplier by 2% for completing an extra year of service, then it goes up even more, but I don’t have enough details to assume this.  She’s been there long enough that she may have already been capped at the 60% maximum.

Given this, if Pat collects that pension for 25 years, that represents a $132,000 bump in her lifetime pension benefit, ON TOP OF the $91,400 of salary (a portion of which could well be “deferred” to minimize her tax burden).  This estimate uses constant dollars and no assumption of appreciation in the PERS1 monthly benefit over time (and likely, therefore, underestimates the actual gain she was gifted.)

I don’t know if the WSLCB was able to post the job and interview candidates for the D.A.D. slot between when Pat announced her departure from DOL the prior day and when she started her WSLCB job the next morning.  I don’t track that stuff closely enough to dissect how multiple staffing processes and procedures and practices were all properly completed within hours.  Their HR department seems amazing.  The very high pay of their now ex-HR Director supports that supposition

Question for my readers:

Do you think that what Rickey Joe Garza did was acceptable for a senior exempt state government staffer?

(Remember that it is OUR money that he just gave away to reward his “friend”.  Not his.)

Follow-up question:

Knowing what you now know about his stewardship of public funds, how comfortable are you having Rickey oversee an agency whose fingers touch around $500,000,000 of state revenue each year (with, apparently, little fiscal oversight) and whose decisions and actions and “preferences” can influence licensee revenue streams that often amount to millions of dollars per month?

Et Tu, DOL?

In addition to all of this, Pat’s salary increase during her last year at DOL was 11.2% (comparing her last 6 months there vs ½ of her prior-year’s salary).  That level of increase is surprising for a tenured department head.

At least some Washington state government departments and agencies seem to send their friends off with a bang and a very nice set of golden watches.  They embrace equity to the extent that, in sharing their largesse with their own, they do not even discriminate against the disgraced ones.

I’ll leave it to someone else to calculate what the combined increase in Pat’s 25-year pension benefit is expected to be from these two changes taken in combination (the impact, though, will be multiplicative).  DOL and WSLCB have a long history of working closely together.  Co-operation and, quite possibly, collusion come as second nature to them.

It does not seem too much to ask for the oversight entities within our state government to take a look at this agency and its partners in what I have referred to above as corruption.

Then again, this is Governor Jay Inslee’s Washington.  Perhaps this behavior is acceptable to the big guy.

I am hopeful that his ex Chief of Staff and the new WSLCB Chair (David Postman) will not see it that way.

That’s all.  This needs to be published. 

Your time (or TLDR focus on the CORRUPTION and Et Tu DOL? sections) is appreciated.

Postscript – going forward

Rickey Joe Garza is no longer the “head” of the new WSLCB.  Chair David Postman is now its head.  Unlike his predecessor, David appears to be taking control of the agency and even appears to be holding staff accountable for their actions, words and — perhaps most importantly — targeted and inequitable LACK of actions.  He has impressed me on a few occasions during his first months chairing the agency’s oversight board.  I have noticed an improvement in staff responsiveness during that brief period, as well.  Chair Postman is in a wonderful position to evaluate his new agency and its leadership, staff and level of and/or lack of function in various key areas.  I wish him well, and hope that he actually pans out to be the agent of change that I suspect him to be.

Rickey Joe Garza is the “core” of the legacy WSLCB.  He has overseen its operations for over 8 years.  He has shaped it in his image of that which is good. 

It’s not the agency staff that is its core.  It’s not the agency’s commercially-produced boilerplate policies and procedures.  It’s not the vision, mission, goals and values that they publish annually and supply (in slightly redacted form) in response to public records requests.  It’s not the AS-400, in spite of the massive power that it draws, relative to its capabilities. 

Rickey is the “core”.  His eight years leading and shaping the agency he inherited from Pat have created the agency that Rickey always wanted.  Compliant to him.  Responsive to him.  Obedient to him and subservient to him.  Above all else, Rickey wants those around him to be LOYAL to him.  He also likes people to talk softly and to only use nice words in his presence.

After years of watching Rickey’s agency closely and years of diving into the data they spit out and that others spit out which relates to their operations, I’d like to announce that I have come to the conclusion that there is substantial evidence supporting the presence of widespread and significant problems in Rickey’s agency that go beyond the “cultural” criticisms that have been made in recent years. 

It is increasingly difficult to gain a clear, comprehensive and accurate view into the cesspool that has taken over 1025 Union Ave SE in Olympia.  Rickey keeps his shop “clean” and staff typically tell others exactly what Rickey wants told. 

In spite of that organizational discipline, I began to suspect in about 2017 that the agency was functioning in a way designed to enhance “mediocrity” in the efforts of it’s staff.  The way they have crippled their own centralized traceability function is one element that particularly caught my eye. The way that agency staff — seemingly with intent — crippled one of the richest investigative tools they had in hand still amazes me. It runs counter to how I have approached and utilized data my entire life. It runs counter to how most organizations approach and utilize mission-critical data streams.

Some of the structural decisions, some of the policy decisions, some of the Human Resources decisions, many of the information technology decisions, a rather disturbing number of the financial decisions and the way the agency emphasizes prevention for a medically efficacious substance all seemed to converge on an unwritten policy platform of either obfuscating internal operational details or of causing risk, pain, damage and suffering to as many smaller licensees, consumers, patients,  medical producers and practitioners, researchers and honest labs as possible.

It’s fairly obvious that Rickey’s agency has been a bit heavy handed and uneven in its enforcement efforts in recent years— but they seem to be changing that.  The agency went so far as to create a new leadership position for the old Chief of enforcement so that new blood could be brought in to shake things up.  They did that while the pandemic was raging and the agency was preparing for the possibility of spending cuts.  They did that while they were decreasing the salaries of many senior exempt personnel.  To their (and his) credit, though, no staff layoffs were required while the were busy creating new senior management positions.  Rickey takes care of his friends — and his followers.

Rickey addressed the issues raised by the frustrated masses (most importantly, the ones raised by the 10 legislators influenced by WACA, to write that nasty note criticizing Russ Hauge and the allegedly-bullyish quasi-officers of the agency).  Rickey’s on top of it.  Rickey’s on his game.  Shuffle some chairs, create a new $120,000+ per year position out of thin air while a pandemic rages around you and all is good.  This only strengthens the LOYALTY of the now ex Chief.  People that don’t want to lose their jobs (and future pension benefits not yet accrued) tend not to make waves.  They tend not to “rat”.

Rickey treats those that treat him well well in return.  Rickey has resources with which he can aid others.  Rickey has resources with which he can destroy (or, at least, harm) others.  Rickey has resources that can enrich others.  Rickey has juice (full plant?).

In the summer of 2019, a full year after Pat Kohler was steering the WSLCB into a series of seemingly never-ending extensions of lucrative consulting contracts for the buddies she met at DOL, the FBI announced that they had discovered evidence of corruption tainting the halls of state legislatures and of agencies granting cannabis licenses.  The Bureau was actively soliciting public input to uncover and, presumably, discourage increasing levels of corruption amongst those defining emerging cannabis markets and their legal and regulatory boundaries.  I would expect their interest remains, particularly as industry cashflows have increased and as additional states have jumped on the “post prohibition” bandwagon.  The Bureau did not reveal much about their specific areas of interest, but they did mention that some retail licenses were “going for” over $500,000.

Enriching a friend, and long-time public servant at no small expense to the taxpayers of Washington may not be the systemic type of corruption that interests the Bureau.  I would expect, though, that their very capable and seasoned investigators may well be in agreement with the notion that people that demonstrate inappropriate generosity with the money of others are risky to put in charge of revenue streams measured, ultimately, in the billions of dollars.

Rick Garza is the WSLCB’s core.  Rick Garza appears to be rotten.  I sincerely hope that someone with decent investigative resources takes a look, but it is my firm belief that there are individuals (and teams) within the agency that are corrupt and that have benefitted themselves and others in the course of allegedly serving the public and that the public has paid for that corruption in many unfortunate ways.

Footnotes:

• *This is not a generally-agreed-to statement.