'Impossible to Fire' State Dept. Bureaucrat Admits Working for Socialist Group on Gov't Time

Out of all the departments in the federal government, my favorite is probably the U.S. Department of State. In addition to lying to everybody constantly about the stuff they’re doing all over the globe, a few years ago they took the time to lie about little ol’ me personally. Back in 2010, a State Department employee operating a State Department SUV made an illegal left turn on a D.C. street and crippled me for life. And as if that weren’t bad enough, then the State Department lied about it.

They actually blamed me for what they did to me. They said I was jaywalking, which wasn’t true. They said I collided with the vehicle, which is insane on the face of it. They just made up a bunch of stuff about the incident, without ever talking to me about it. And as far as I know, every person involved in the whole debacle — from State Department security agent Mike McGuinn, who struck me and shattered my knee, to the State Department lawyers who looked me in the eye and lied to me — is still employed by the federal government. The State Department threw me a little money for my inconvenience, and then they all went on their way.

No accountability. That’s how government works. I’d always suspected it, but now I know it from personal experience.

So I must admit to a certain measure of schadenfreude at the following news from Project Veritas:

Today, Project Veritas released the first installment in an undercover video investigation series unmasking the deep state. This video features a State Department employee, Stuart Karaffa, engaged in radical socialist political activity on the taxpayer’s dime, while advocating for resistance to official government policies. In addition to being a State Department employee Stuart Karaffa is also a ranking member of the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America (Metro DC DSA.)

Metro DC DSA is a socialist group that works to advance progressive causes in the metropolitan DC area.

Oh my. That doesn’t sound like something a federal employee is supposed to be doing on the taxpayer’s dime, does it?

And of course, the report comes complete with the delicious hidden camera footage we’ve come to expect from James O’Keefe:

I’m old enough to remember when undercover journalism like this was a good thing. But now, the same news outlets that have relied on hidden camera footage for decades are outraged when O’Keefe does the exact same thing they do. It’s not “edited video” when they do it.

If you want to know what Stuart Karaffa thinks about this report, well…

I think we can assume he didn’t like it!

Karaffa is entitled to his political beliefs, but why should taxpayers have to pay for his political activities? Even if you don’t care about the Hatch Act, does that seem right to you? If so, would you say the same thing if he was doing work for an alt-right group on your dime?

Now, this guy is a small fish. But how pervasive is his attitude? I have to wonder how many other Stuart Karaffas woke up this morning and said: “I can do whatever I want. I have nothing to lose. It’s impossible to fire federal employees.”

Presumably, Karaffa will be proven right. I’ll be surprised if anything happens to him, or to his rubber-stamp supervisors, or to anybody else whose salaries we pay out of every dollar we earn. That’s not how it works. That’s not what happens to unelected, unaccountable lifetime bureaucrats. They know it, and they know we know it, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Or at least that’s what they think. We’ll see if it’s true this time. So far, mum’s the word at the State Department. It takes time to come up with even the flimsiest cover story.

Nothing will ever undo the physical and mental anguish the State Department put me though. Nothing will ever give me back the years those liars took from me. But laughing at this arrogant little idiot on their payroll is a pleasant enough way to pass a Tuesday.