Scott Bloch

Media sources, Congress, and gay rights organizations continued to criticize Special Counsel Bloch and the OSC's lack of enforcement of its policies, particularly in regards to dismissing gay discrimination complaints. For example, Michael Levine, a 65-year-old and openly gay radio technician, claimed that, after he blew the whistle on a coworker's and his supervisor's workplace misconduct, a personnel officer engaged in retaliatory action against him: pursuing knowingly false allegations of child pornography against Levine, suspending Levine for 14 days, seizing his computer, and referring to gay people as "those fucking faggots".[14] One year after filing both a retaliation and antigay discrimination complaint with the OSC, Levine received a letter from the OSC on December 28, 2004. Without interviewing even a single witness, the OSC wrote that it was unable to investigate the complaints because only conduct, not sexual orientation, was protected under the Civil Service Act of 1978[14]—a reversal of Bloch's April 8, 2004 statement that sexual orientation-based discrimination was prohibited due to imputed conduct and therefore that the OSC has the authority to pursue such complaints.[10]

After being embroiled in a related "internal purge" controversy (see below), Special Counsel Bloch testified before a Senate panel on May 24, 2005 and reiterated his original position that he lacked the authority to protect federal employees on the basis of sexual orientation.[15] The next day, the Log Cabin Republicans called on Bloch to resign.[16]

Bloch's defenders, including writers at the conservative magazine Human Events, argued that Bloch was being unfairly attacked.[17]

In January 2005, controversy ensued when Bloch ordered twelve OSC staffers, including the only two known gay employees, to transfer to distant cities or lose their jobs.[18] Bloch was accused of conducting a political purge of OSC employees by three government watchdog groups (the Government Accountability Project, the Project on Government Oversight, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), two federal trade unions (the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union), an LGBT rights organization (the Human Rights Campaign), and the OSC employees themselves.[19] This prompted several government investigations concerning Bloch's performance as a public employee, including destruction of emails and lying to Congress about it.

The Washington Blade reported that, according to unnamed sources "familiar with the agency", employees had been targeted partly because of their disagreement with diminishing the jurisdiction of the OSC in prosecuting antigay workplace discrimination.[20] Another of the twelve employees had reached a favorable settlement on behalf of a gay federal employee who filed a discrimination complaint against his supervisor.[18] In the end, ten of the twelve employees resigned.[21] Meanwhile, according to complaints, at least one staffer who had been supportive of Bloch's interpretation was promoted.[7]

In October 2005, the US Office of Personnel Management ordered an investigation of claims that Special Counsel Bloch retaliated against employees who disagreed with his policies. Ironically, the OSC would ordinarily oversee such whistleblower disputes. The probe is also investigating whether Bloch showed an antigay bias in refusing certain whistleblower and discrimination claims.[7]

In February 2007, Bloch was again accused of unfair supervisor practices when several of his staffers complained they felt coerced into not cooperating with the OPM probe. Bloch's deputy issued a memo urging OSC employees to only meet with probe investigaters in a certain conference room and to report their interactions to their supervisors. Employees reported other attempts to obstruct the investigation including "suggestions that all witnesses interviewed ... provide Bloch with affidavits describing what they had been asked and how they responded."[22]

Bloch became most notorious for hiring "Geeks on Call", a private technological services company, to perform a "seven level wipe" of his home and office computers in 2007 after becoming involved in litigation with OSC subordinates who accused him of politically motivated harassment.[23][24] This prompted several government investigations concerning Bloch's performance as a public employee, including destruction of emails and lying to Congress about it. Bloch pleaded guilty to criminal charges of contempt of Congress in 2010, but was allowed to withdraw that plea in 2011 after being sentenced by the U.S. Magistrate Judge to serve 30 days in jail in addition to other conditions, of which imprisonment (and public chastisement) his attorney, William M. Sullivan Jr. of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors had not expected. Bloch later pleaded guilty again in U.S. District Court, this time to the misdemeanor of destroying government property, and was sentenced in June 2013 to serve two years probation and a day in jail, as well as to pay a $5000 fine and devote 200 hours to community service.[25] After the OSC settled with the disgruntled former employees concerning the 2006-2008 charges, the Inspector General of the Office of Personnel Management issued a report critical of Bloch's conduct in office.[26][27][28]

It is alleged that Scott Bloch erased the files on his office personal computer in 2007, and that the FBI tried to determine whether the emails were deleted improperly. The inspector general of the Office of Personnel Management examined the case at the urging of the White House. The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2007 that Bloch called the tech support service Geeks on Call for help deleting computer files instead of using his agency's own in-house computer technicians. Bloch confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call, but insisted that it was to remove a computer virus.[29]