NASA report clears O’Keefe
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While no illegalities were found, the recent NASA report did deem two trips as wasteful tax-dollar spending from Washington, D.C., to New York in 2003 and 2004.
One trip was for a speaking event at Syracuse University, where O’Keefe previously worked, and the other was for a ceremony naming him one of the top “100 Irish Americans,” according to the NASA report written by Kevin Winters, assistant inspector general.
In a response to the report, NASA Chief Financial Officer Ronald Spoehel stated there would be no attempt to recoup travel costs from O’Keefe.
“Based on the OIG’s (Office of Inspector General) findings, there was no criminal conduct, nor was there an intentional or knowing violation of any laws or agency policies, on Mr. O’Keefe’s part,” Spoehel responded.
“Rather, the issues raised with respect to those trips appear to be the result of failures in the agency’s procedures and processes for the review and approval of Mission Management Aircraft flights at the time,” the response continues. “Those procedural deficiencies have since been corrected.”
As a result of Spoehel’s response, NASA considers “this matter closed.”
O’Keefe, who came to LSU in 2005, resigned in January after losing support from LSU President John Lombardi and much of the LSU Board of Supervisors. After he resigned, the LSU System revealed that one of several issues that arose during O’Keefe’s evaluation process was whether an “inordinate amount of time” was spent away from campus for personally compensated engagements and corporate board matters.
O’Keefe was recently hired as head of General Electric’s aviation operations in Washington, D.C.
The NASA inspector general matter first arose from a 2005 U.S. Government Accountability Office report, “NASA Travel, Passenger Aircraft Services Annually Cost Taxpayers Millions More Than Commercial Airlines.”
NASA determined that all of the flights alleged to be wasteful were job related, except for the two aforementioned trips.
NASA questioned whether the Syracuse trip pertained to post-government employment with the university, which O’Keefe denied, according to the report. As for the Irish American trip, O’Keefe responded that he would have flown commercial if he had known there was a problem.
O’Keefe claimed both trips were job-related because he discussed NASA during speeches.
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