Groups Call for Special Counsel, Information Release on J. Steven Griles

Statement of Rodger Schlickeisen, President, Defenders of Wildlife

(06/02/2003) - WASHINGTON – Good morning.  I'm Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, and this morning my colleagues and I will brief you on two actions we are today taking to facilitate full examination of the conduct of J. Steven Griles in his official duties as Deputy Secretary of the Interior.  On a day to day basis, Mr. Griles is effectively the CEO of the Interior Department and has had a direct hand in decisions that have opened huge tracts of western public lands to development, weakened wetlands protection and undermined the Clean Air Act.  Once a powerful lobbyist for oil, gas and coal interests, Griles now has a major say in the management of federal land and mineral holdings that are of considerable value to his former associates, who continue to pay him substantial sums of money even though he is a government official.

The actions we are taking are necessary to assure that Deputy Secretary Griles has not violated federal criminal or civil laws pertaining to conflicts of interest, including the prohibition against federal officials supplementing their salary from a non- governmental source, using their office for private gain, and engaging in other prohibited conduct prejudicial to the Government and to U.S. taxpayers.

When President Bush was running for office, he emphasized that if elected his administration and his appointees would exemplify only the highest standards of ethical leadership.  Yet, in more than three decades in Washington, I have rarely seen a government official with so many serious conflicts of interest.  As has been the pattern of this Administration, most of our requests for information relating to Mr. Griles' actions have been ignored or rejected - unlawfully in our view -  by both the Department of the Interior and the Office of Government Ethics.  Actions we are taking today are designed to compel a lifting of the veil of secrecy imposed by this Administration, a veil that denies the public the information it needs to evaluate the management of the Department of the Interior at its highest levels.

I would note that while Mr. Griles is the number two official at Interior, his boss, Interior Secretary Gale Norton has repeatedly vouched for Mr. Griles, denying his obvious conflicts of interest, praising his actions that benefit his former clients in the oil and gas and mining industries, and supporting her Department's refusal to provide information that should be available to the public.

The first action we are taking is to write to U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft requesting that the Department of Justice appoint a Special Counsel to convene a grand jury investigation into the possible criminal and civil misconduct of J. Steven Griles in violation of several U.S. statutes. I would note - as a measure of the seriousness of this action - that never before have any of our organizations ever found it necessary to make such a request.

The second action we are taking is to file suit in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. against the Bush Administration for violating the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to provide to the public information to which it is entitled pertaining to Deputy Secretary Griles.  A copy of our complaint is in your information packets.  We are requesting all records relating to the financial interests of Mr. Griles that relate to possible conflicts of interest.

We are, in particular, seeking a copy of the financial agreement by which Mr. Griles claims to have "sold his client list" to his former colleagues in his lobbying ventures.  It is in return for this so-called sale that Mr. Griles is being paid at least $1.1 million by members of the oil and gas and mining industries – payments which are being received by Mr. Griles while he serves as Deputy Secretary taking actions that clearly benefit those making the payments and positively affect their ability to pay.  The annual payments being received by Mr. Griles equal at least $284,000, nearly double his annual salary from the federal government.

We have been seeking this information since last September, but the most significant parts of our requests have been repeatedly rejected or ignored by the Department of the Interior and the Office of Government Ethics, which have thus far refused to even acknowledge that a sales agreement exists, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

We agree that it is theoretically possible – although unlikely in our opinion – that Mr. Griles found something legitimate to sell to his industry colleagues worth at least $284,000 per year.  But if that's the case, then why is the Bush Administration unlawfully refusing to provide a copy of the sales agreement?

Bear in mind that Mr. Griles has indicated that he sold his partners his "client list".  I would suggest, first, that it is extremely unlikely that they did not already have that list, and indeed that they did not already know those clients quite well ... after all, they were lobbying for them right along with Mr. Griles.  And I seriously doubt that these clients were required to continue to retain the services of Mr. Griles' former partners just because Mr. Griles told them to consider themselves sold. The business corporations with which I am familiar would not take kindly to the idea that their lobbying interests are chattel property to be bought and sold in the marketplace.  But that, in effect, is apparently what Mr. Griles is claiming.

We want to make certain that what Mr. Griles sold to members of the oil and gas and mining industries was not his future services as Deputy Secretary of the Interior.  But if that is what he sold, the purchasers are certainly getting their money's worth.

At a minimum, it seems apparent that there is much of which to be suspicious with regard to Mr. Griles.  Because the Bush Administration knows this, one would think that if there's nothing there to hide, they would simply obey the law and give us the documents to which we are legally entitled.  Since they haven't done that, one has to wonder: What are they hiding?

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Defenders of Wildlife is one of the nation's most progressive advocates for wildlife and habitat, and was named as one of America's Top 100 Charities by Worth magazine. With more than 430,000 members and supporters, Defenders is an effective voice for wildlife and habitat. To learn more about Defenders of Wildlife, please visit www.defenders.org.

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Contact(s):

Brad DeVries, (202) 772-0237