WASHINGTON — The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration spent more than $123,000 to charter a private jet to fly to Bogota, Colombia, last fall instead of taking one of the agency’s 106 planes.
The DEA paid a contractor an additional $5,380 to arrange Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart’s trip last Oct. 28-30 with an outside company.
The DEA scheduled the trip as the nation was reeling from the worst economic crisis in decades and the national debt was climbing toward $10 trillion. Three weeks later, lawmakers slammed chief executive officers from three automakers for flying to Washington in private jets as Congress debated whether to bail out the auto industry.
If one of the agency’s jets isn’t available for official trips, the DEA can borrow one from another federal agency to avoid racking up unnecessary costs to taxpayers. However, [William Brown, the special agent in charge of the DEA's aviation division,] said that he didn’t consider seeking a loaner plane from another federal agency, although he said he had at least a week to schedule the flight.
Brown said the administrator couldn’t have taken a commercial flight because she and other officials who were traveling with her were under “specific” threat in Colombia at the time. He wouldn’t reveal details about the threat, saying only that it was of a “sensitive law-enforcement nature.” He added that the threat prompted him to conclude that “a government aircraft would provide a level of security not available on a commercial aircraft.”
A U.S. official in Colombia, however, said that officials there weren’t aware of any threat against Leonhart other than the general insecurity in the country due to the drug trade. The official wasn’t authorized to speak to journalists and asked to remain anonymous.
A private plane, contracted in a rush, for a Halloween week trip to Colombia? Did anyone think to check Leonhart’s bags for any suspicious white powders? You know, in the era of multi-billion-dollar “disappearances” of pallet-loads of $100 bills and multi-billion-dollar bailouts, $123,745 taxpayer dollars seems kinda quaint. I like to think of Michele Leonhart’s privilege to charter a private jet rather than use one of her own 106 planes or one of the federal government’s planes or even spending the extra dough to fly commercial first class as just one young American whose entire college education could have been paid for. (Did you know: the DEA’s budget was $2.3 billion in FY 2007?)
Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could get some stasher activists, like some hanging out in the stashbox, to attend one or two of the local DEA smash & grabs, take a butt load of pictures, and then post the pictures here. It would be especially neat if we got the pictures of the agents and made them slightly famous :)
I still think DEA could’ve borrowed a federal plane. I understand the notion of the bounty on a DEA Administrator – but it makes you question how well the drug war is going when the top general can’t even fly into the country without the highest level of protection.
Most Loathsome Cops… hmmm…
I’m not convinced on this one. I served the Military and lived in Panama for many years. While living there, we worked quite a bit with the DEA, and I can tell you for a fact, there is a real bounty on the head of any DEA agent in country (including Military — the gorillas can’t tell the difference). While living there, I lived with the threat of a 50k price tag on my head every day for many years.
The question remains; why did they contract out a specific aircraft? The reason was probably armor plating and chaff/flares (tactical vs recon aircraft). None of the DEA’s planes have any of these capabilities; they are the kind of aircraft made for surveillance and troop transport, not the kind of plane made for flying over someone who might shoot a rocket at it. Although they might look identical, one is equipped with equipment capable of greater communications, sensors for radars and tracking devices, and one that has a EW package with perhaps chaff & flares.
Although I despise the DEA and everything they have done over the years, this isn’t the ‘bone to pick’……
Instead, we should be focusing our efforts in identifying the specific DEA agents who are robbing the clinics in California, and posting their pictures on a site we could call, NORML’s “Most loathsome cops”. Get pictures of under cover operatives so we can expose them in plain view.
Russ, good shot at it — but this isn’t a real issue.
Cheers!
DudeMaster