*Editor’s Note* – The following article was written by former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee, James Beers, and only scratches the surface into the depth of corruption that exists in this American Government apparatus. Most people don’t want nor are they capable of imagining and then accepting the depth and breadth of existing corruption or to what extent such a powerful system of corruption will go in order to protect itself while carrying out their agendas and other clandestine operations.
What Non-Disclosure Agreements Disclose
By James Beers:
The last two weeks have seen a constant stream of news and accusations about the President paying two women six-figure sums to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements over two years ago. Reportedly the payments were made to guarantee their silence about reputed liaisons before then-candidate Trump was preparing to run for President.
Living as I do in a very Progressive state, neighbors and friends are absolutely appalled that such a thing (six-figure payments to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement to guarantee silence about a purported sex incident or matter) was done by “our” (not “their) President. If I were to ask; I am sure their outrage (they would say) was just as strong when they learned of candidate John Edwards betrayal of his wife, or President Clinton’s Oval Office escapades or all those Congressional female staffers paid off by their bosses out of a secret slush fund on Capitol Hill.
The radio talk shows and cable news stations have been a constant hum as they try to “explain” and “put in perspective” this dastardly practice of President Trump paying for “silence”. We are told:
“When John Edwards payed for the silence of his pregnant paramour during his campaign for President by having donors pay for a Non-Disclosure Agreement; the court ruled that it was a legitimate action and use of donor money”.
“When President Clinton (sic, the most powerful politician/bureaucrat on the planet) had sexual activity in the Oval Office (sic, the epitome of US government offices) with a young intern (sic, the lowest and most helpless government employee); the courts and his Congressional defenders claimed it was no big deal even when he lied about it when asked.” NOTE – Any one of these aspects, 1) sex with any employee, especially one “powerless” due to inferior status or grade; 2) sex in a government office; or 3) lying about it – had I done so would have guaranteed the loss of my job, public disgrace, and probably lifetime unemployment until they ran out of illegal aliens at the Employment Office
“Congress has kept a multi-million-dollar slush-fund for years to secretly pay staffers coerced into sex with ‘Members ’to forego any ‘Disclosure’ and return to Podunk.” Actually; they didn’t say “Podunk” but this reminded me of something very funny but true that I heard years ago from a very Progressive Feminist Politician when asked by a reporter why “all these continuous Congressional sex scandals always seem to involve male Congressmen and Senators?” Her reply was priceless, “Because we (i.e. the distaff politicians) don’t have 25-year-old lifeguards constantly throwing themselves at us”.
I have taken the time to write this, not to dwell on the salacious accusations about or provable amorous incidents of our politicians lives whether before politics, when running for office or while ensconced in “their” (actually “our”) government offices from the Capitol Building to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (i.e. The White House). I am writing this to bring to your attention an even more abhorrent and ominous use by government of the “Non-Disclosure Agreement”; that is to cover-up criminal activity using Appropriated Funds.
In the late 1990’s, during the Monica Lewinsky/Impeachment news, I was a US Fish & Wildlife Service employee that had just completed 6 years of hard work and worldwide travel to keep Animal Rights advocates and the European Union from destroying the international fur market and the trapping of furbearers and predators in the US, Canada, and Russia (the major suppliers of furs). The fact that I and others were successful in this endeavor earned me the enmity of recent political appointees under President Clinton. Although they had pretended to be advocates for proactive wildlife management (as were their predecessors for over a century), their clandestine values and relationship with radical animal rights and extremist environmental organizations were outraged by our success and they set about getting rid of me.
During this period, fellow employees jumped off elevators for fear of being seen with me; threatening official letters were left on my doorstep on a Sunday morning; and police were notified unbeknownst to me that I was going to be fired and “may be dangerous”.
One afternoon I was called by a Congressional staffer on the US House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee and asked what was going on with me? I went up to their office the next day and explained things and casually mentioned that the federal Excise Taxes collected on Arms and Ammunition (by law only to be used by the 50 States and US Territories on a formula basis for specific wildlife management activities and amounting to hundreds of Millions of dollars annually) seemed to be below expectations for several years. No one in USFWS was interested in this and there were no audits conducted on these funds.
Long story short: The House Committee subpoenaed the USFWS financial records of the Excise Taxes’ receipts and allocation. USFWS thought to be clever (shades of IRS, FBI. DOJ, et al) and lied that the figures could not be isolated from the entire USFWS Budget so they sent large boxes of contiguous computer printouts of the very complex USFWS budget with separate laws and restrictions as complex as any in the federal government. One employee had joked that, “they will never be able to figure anything out from this”. By this time, I had been sent home by USFWS and had hired a lawyer as they tried to figure out what to do with me.
The House Committee asked me if I could look over the records based on my varied and long experience with Washington and the USFWS structure and budget. I did so and found numerous examples of the Excise Taxes popping up in USFWS Regional Offices, top employee bonuses, Endangered Species and a Public Affairs office in Portland. The General Accounting Office was told by the Committee to conduct an Audit* of USFWS and the Excise Tax funds.
*This was before the General Accounting Office was renamed the General Accountability Office. The point here is that this was an Audit by Accountants. In the 1990’s I had noticed that “GAO Auditors” were increasingly young women and minorities with Sociology and Economics degrees for reasons I leave to your imagination. By the early 2000’s it was becoming increasingly difficult to identify the General Accounting Office work products as “Audits” so the name was changed to “General Accountability Office” and their work products mostly as “Accountability Reports”.
Anyway, I helped the GAO with their questions and other problems to complete the Audit. The results were that $45 to 60 MILLION had been skimmed by USFWS before allocation to the States. Records had been covered up and the money was spent mostly to Trap Wolves (in Canada) and transport (without Importation border forms being filed), acclimatize and release the wolves into Yellowstone Park and on an Indian Reservation from where they now occupy all the Northern Rockies’ States. This action (releasing wolves into the Upper Rockies) had been turned down for funding by Congress and therefore was unauthorized but they (USFWS appointees) stole the money from state wildlife agencies and did it anyway. Another major use of the stolen funds was to open a new Regional Office in California (to be closer to radical organizations and their more extreme supporters) by laundering the money through the Regional Office in Portland. This too, Congress had refused to authorize or fund. Remaining Excise Tax dollars were scattered in bonuses for top managers that had nothing to do with Excise Taxes but were reminiscent of those three monkeys, “Hear no evil, see no evil, Say no evil”.
I wrote an article, years ago about how many federal criminal and civil laws and regulations were violated based on my many years and experience with Law Enforcement and big Investigations (see the Vesely Forte and Cartier Jewelry cases I made in New York City 1971-1972) but people’s eyes just glaze over.
I testified twice before the House Natural Resources Committee before a packed gallery about how the funds were taken and hidden.
My lawyer called me at home one day and said USFWS had an “offer” for me. It turned out to be a “Six-figure” amount and my lawyer’s fees to sign a NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT and retire immediately. The NDA stated I “would not speak or write about anything involved with my separation from the US government for three years or I would forfeit the payment”. I could not answer questions (there were many) or write about the affair. My wife and I were glad to be done with the matter and my former colleagues.
USFWS went about conducting Damage Control and blamed it all on a misunderstanding and faulty record keeping. All (to my great surprise) of the State wildlife agency Directors remained silent about the money stolen from “their” (actually “our”) wildlife management programs (to the delight of the animal rights/environmental extremist crowds. By this time state agencies and their national organization had grown so dependent on federal funds and federal growing authorities that they had become little more than federal subcontractors. The GW Bush/Al Gore campaigns had begun and the difficult-to-believe and understand (thanks to today’s “fake news” predecessors) affair soon faded from the public consciousness. Those USFWS/DOI appointees responsible for the theft and misuse were never named publicly and all went on seamlessly to higher-paying jobs and glory in the parlors of Manhattan and San Francisco after retirement.
In other words, “your” tax dollars were used by “your” bureaucrats to cover-up “their” criminal activities. Until this happened I had no idea such things were even possible, much less actually done.
Thus, Non-Disclosure Agreements can be financed by private funds; campaign funds; Congressional slush funds;AND BY APPROPRIATED FUNDS GIVEN TO FEDERAL AGENCIES FOR (???).
Also, Non-Disclosure Agreements can be used to “silence” allegations from women in your past; women you have made pregnant while married to someone else; fellow federal employees you have coerced to have sex with you; fellow employees you had sex with on government time or in government offices; AND EMPLOYEES OR OTHERS THAT HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF CRIMINAL OR CIVIL ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES THAT APPOINTEES OR POWERFUL PERSONS WANT COVERED UP IMMEDIATELY!
I leave it to you to note how the more egregious and dastardly the offense and/or the perpetrator of behind any Non-Disclosure Agreement, the more it is ignored by the public and less it bothers anyone. Think of it as Congressmen paying millions over time to cover-up peccadilloes, a President in The Oval Office, a Presidential wannabee everyone likes and a President the press and Washington politicians and bureaucrats hate. The last one noted is nothing more than the latest missive intended to wound him How soon we forget when we really don’t hate someone accused of “paying for silence”.
Now think about the secret practice of federal Agencies and Departments using Appropriated money and Non-Disclosure Agreements to cover up real criminal activity as either the arrogance or paradox of power.
Jim Beers
18 December 2018
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Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
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