Bob Cusack, managing editor of The Hill, joins Morning Joe to reveal an exclusive story with explosive details about unethical conduct at the Treasury Department.
By Rachelle Younglai, NBCNews.com staff and news wires
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A Treasury Department employee violated conflict of interest rules by using government resources to solicit prostitutes, and another staffer reportedly accepted gifts from supervised banks, reports from Treasury's internal watchdog said.
One investigative report found that a Treasury Department staff member with the now-defunct Office of Thrift Supervision used his government email account to arrange sexual encounters with women advertised on Craigslist. He also viewed Web sites offering erotic services and met with prostitutes on three separate occasions.
The Office of Thrift Supervision has since merged with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The staff member
targeted by the investigation retired from government service in 2010. He did not provide any banking information to any prostitute, the report said.
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The documents, first reported by The Hill newspaper, were posted online on July 9 and made public through a request under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
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The Hill reported that the employee had violated government rules on ?notoriously disgraceful conduct.? The case was referred for criminal prosecution?to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. However, the U.S. attorney decided? not to prosecute "absent aggravating circumstances such as underage prostitutes or human trafficking," according to The Hill.
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The Treasury Department's inspector general also found that a national bank examiner violated conduct standards by accepting gratuities, playing golf during official work hours and recording his golf time as work hours while playing with bank employees.
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Bank supervisors are barred from accepting anything of value from the banks they examine and are not allowed to play golf with members of a supervised bank due to potential conflicts of interest.
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In this case, also, the government decided not to prosecute the bank examiner.
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A spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said these "are isolated incidences and do not diminish the highly ethical behavior of thousands of other OCC employees."
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"OCC employees, and in particular examiners, are held to ethical standards that go beyond those applicable to government employees generally," the spokesman said in an emailed statement.
The report also found one long-time employee with Treasury's Financial Management Services used the government's express mailing system to process her personal mail from February 2002 through April 2010.
The reports come after Secret Service employees were accused of bringing prostitutes back to their hotel rooms in Colombia ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama this year.
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