Scott Bloch, the one-time special counsel to President George W. Bush, has decided he’d rather take his chances in court than plead guilty and go to jail for obstructing justice.

 

The former head of the Office of Special Counsel—who’s supposed to be an advocate for whistleblowers—got into trouble for allowing hundreds of whistleblower complaints to be dismissed without any investigation, not enforcing a ban on sexual discrimination and retaliating against his own staff for bucking his actions.

 

After Congress decided to investigate, Bloch hired Geeks on Call to erase data on his hard drive and later claimed the deletions weren’t intentional. It was this violation of law that resulted in a guilty plea, with Bloch assuming he’d only get probation for his actions. Once he realized his mistake, he asked a federal judge if he could withdraw his plea, with the blessing of federal prosecutors.

 

But the judge refused and sentenced him in May to one month in prison. He appealed to a higher court for the right to withdraw his plea.               

 

Bloch also has filed a $202 million lawsuit “against a strange collection of defendants, apparently including everyone who may have ever criticized him,” according to the watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, which has been named as one of the defendants, along with Bush advisor Karl Rove, Congressman Tom Davis (R-Virginia), former White House Counsel Fred Fielding, other Bush administration officials, and the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Former Bush Special Counsel Scott Bloch Wants a 'Do-Over' on Guilty Plea (by Joe Newman, Project on Government Oversight)

Prosecutors Support Scott Bloch in Fight to Withdraw Guilty Plea (The Blog of the Legal Times)

Former OSC Scott Bloch Sentenced to One Month in Prison (by Robert Brodsky, Government Executive)