I have a bit of a personal interest in the following story. Seven years ago next week, a State Department security agent named Mike McGuinn, driving one of their armored SUVs, made an illegal left turn and struck me as I was legally crossing a street in Washington, DC. He messed up my left knee very badly. It took several years for me to recover physically, and several more after that for the State Dept. to settle up with me. Now it turns out that during all those years they were giving me the runaround and trying to blame me for “colliding” with their vehicle, one of their own employees was stealing a bunch of other SUVs from right under their noses.
15 Official Vehicles Stolen From State Dept.
The 15 were stolen by what federal prosecutors say was a theft ring run out of the U.S. State Department’s protective equipment and armored vehicle division from 2011 until March.
James Ratcliffe, a longtime licensed auto seller from northern Virginia, pleaded guilty in Washington, D.C., federal court Thursday to working for five years with an unnamed State Department insider to steal 15 unarmored official vehicles…
The vehicles were lost in the bureaucratic shuffle of the Diplomatic Security Service’s division…
And yet we’re supposed to be outraged that Trump just fired a bunch of State Dept. bureaucrats. It’s just been one big success after another for those dudes, hasn’t it?
You have to figure this sort of thing happens all the time. The federal bureaucracy has become so bloated, so much of our money is being pumped into all this stuff, that there’s no way to keep track of it all. It has to be tempting to take advantage of that. But we only hear about it when somebody gets caught.
I’m glad they nabbed the “unnamed State Department insider” who did this, but part of me is also kind of bummed. At least he or she got something from those SUVs other than a lifetime of pain and infirmity.
(Hat tip: John Ekdahl)