One case involves John A. "Jack" Shaw, a deputy undersecretary of Defense accused by whistle-blowers in Iraq of directing a lucrative telecommunications contract to a company whose board members included friends. Shaw has denied wrongdoing. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Schmitz, who had signed an unusual agreement giving Shaw limited investigative powers, sent the case to the FBI over the objections of his own investigators and then blocked them from assisting the FBI, according to interviews and e-mails obtained by The Times.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday September 30, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 28 words Type of Material: Correction
Pentagon watchdog -- An article in Sunday's Section A about former Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz misspelled the first name of his son, Philip J. Schmitz, as Phillip.
"It's a safe bet you can bury something at the FBI, because they won't have time to look at it," said one Pentagon official.
After the publication of Times articles about the accusations leveled at Shaw, Schmitz helped to draft a press release in August 2004 that appeared to exonerate Shaw. The release said that Shaw "is not now, nor has he ever been, under investigation by the [Department of Defense inspector general]."
Schmitz's own staff strenuously objected. Chuck Beardall, head of the agency's criminal investigative service, said the release was "dead wrong and needs to be removed ASAP. Failure to do so reflects poorly on the DOD's and our integrity," according to an Aug. 13 e-mail.
But Schmitz told an assistant, Gregg Bauer, that he was inclined to "let the sleeping dog lie."
"We did the right thing by recommending a less-inclined-to-misinterpretation" version of the press release, Schmitz wrote in an e-mail response.
When confronted later by congressional staff about the accuracy of the release, Schmitz told the Senate Armed Services Committee in August 2004 that the release was "technically correct." But this year, when asked again, he acknowledged that the release was "inaccurate." The Department of Defense has also acknowledged that the information in the press release "may not have been accurate."
Another case in which Schmitz intervened came when the inspector general's office began examining the jobs received by Pentagon officials who left for the private sector, according to another U.S. official, who also declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
One of those on the list was Edward "Pete" Aldridge, the former Pentagon procurement chief who took a job with defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Schmitz would not sign a subpoena allowing investigators to examine employment documents, the official said.
