Another member of former President Barack Obama’s administration seems to be heading for jail.
The latest blemish: Obama’s former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Inspector General Charles K. Edwards, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Edwards — along with accomplice Murali Yamazula Venkata — schemed to defraud the U.S. government, including the theft of government databases which included personal information of more than 250,000 employees.
The pair were charged with 16 counts.
The official DOJ press release states that Edwards and Venkata conspired in committing theft of government property, conspired to defraud the United States, committed wire fraud, identity theft, and theft of government property.
Edwards had served as acting DHS IG under the Obama administration from 2011-2013, though the crimes allegedly committed took place from 2014 to 2017, according to the report.
A snippet of the official press release describes the alleged crimes:
According to the allegations in the indictment, from October 2014 to April 2017, Edwards, Venkata, and others executed a scheme to defraud the U.S. government by stealing confidential and proprietary software from DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), along with sensitive government databases containing personal identifying information (PII) of DHS and USPS employees, so that Edwards’s company, Delta Business Solutions, could later sell an enhanced version of DHS-OIG’s software to the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Agriculture at a profit. Although Edwards had left DHS-OIG in December 2013, he continued to leverage his relationship with Venkata and other DHS-OIG employees to steal the software and the sensitive government databases.
The report further details how Edwards — with the help of Venkata and others — uploaded the stolen government databases on his personal computer, which allowed him to store personal information of DHS and United States Postal Service employees.
But past reports show this isn’t the first time Edwards has come under scrutiny.
In 2014 he was discreetly put on leave after the Senate concluded that Edwards was “too cozy with senior agency officials” and that he hid away critical reports of perhaps corrupt Obama-era officials.
Prior to the Senate report, Obama had allowed him to resign from his position as acting inspector general.
But after the Senate report released and alleged Edwards’ “cozy” relationship with the former president, DHS officials told Edwards it was time to go.
Perhaps it’s possible that Obama knew of Edwards’ crimes all along.
The Horn editorial team