Democrats in the Senate will take their turn on Wednesday on the General Services Administration’s spending probe involving $800,000 worth of wasted taxpayer money at an extravagant Las Vegas conference. It is the third consecutive day lawmakers have taken a shot at the GSA in the government investigation. On Monday and Tuesday, the House Oversight and Transportation Committees took their turn. The session on Wednesday, which was scheduled before the scandal surfaced, will be on the GSA’s 2013 budget, but questions about abusive spending on taxpayers’ dime are expected to dominate the discussions.
The Senate Committee will hear a testimony from the GSA’s acting administrator Dan Tangherlini and the agency’s Inspector General Brian Miller. Jeff Neely, the GSA official who organized the 2010 conference that cost taxpayers $800,000, declined to show up on Tuesday’s session of the House Transportation Committee, claiming his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the investigation. Neely was put on administrative leave in March. The hearing on Tuesday, which lasted more than five hours, included past and present GSA officials trying to explain a complex management structure that proved unable to respond quickly to misconduct cited by the inspector general’s report. The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold the hearing at 10 a.m. EST.
