Graham Spanier may have been ousted from his post as Penn State president over the sex-abuse scandal that engulfed the university, but it seems he’s found a backup employer: the American taxpayer. Spanier was faulted in an internal Penn State report after former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted of child molestation. The report said that Spanier, head coach Joe Paterno and others helped cover up Sandusky’s abuse.
His attorney confirms to the Loop that Spanier is working as a part-time consultant for a “top-secret” agency on national security issues. But the gig is so hush-hush, he couldn’t even tell his attorneys the name of the agency.
In April — months after his ouster as president but before the release of the internal report — he told the Patriot-News of central Pennsylvania that he was working on a “special project for the U.S. government relating [to] national security.”
But who’s he working for? The CIA? Homeland Security? A consulting firm with a government contract?
“I have no idea,” said his attorney, Peter Vaira . “We know the work is in security and he’s prohibited from disclosing which agency or agencies he’s working for.”
After the internal report — by former FBI director Louis Freeh — was released, Spanier complained in a statement from his attorneys that the document didn’t mention his government clearance — something he apparently thought was evidence of his trustworthiness. He noted that his security clearance (which he apparently had obtained while still at Penn State) “required a re-review when the Sandusky matter surfaced in November” and that federal investigators conducted their own probe of his role in the scandal. The federal investigation ended with his clearance being “reaffirmed,” the statement read.
The Office of Personnel Management, essentially the federal government’s human resources department, didn’t shed any light on Spanier’s mysterious gig as a possible federal employee. They instructed us to call individual agencies, even though we pointed out that we didn’t know which agencies to contact.
Have you spotted Spanier, sporting a government ID on a lanyard, and perhaps carrying a brown-bag lunch? Let us know at intheloop@washpost.com.
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Poster Comment:
I posted this under Pious Perverts.