A whistle-blower is vindicated (it appears), but his case may not provide much heart to others

Ranger Danno self-published this book about his case.

"We have seen all the types of retaliation he experienced. We just have not seen it all in one case."

-- Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

by Ken

To amplify the above quote, the Washington Post's Miranda S. Spivack introduces it, in "Whistleblower in Snyder tree case moves on to a new job, wins settlement with park service," by noting that Jeff Ruch of PEER, "who aided Danno and his attorney, Peter Noone, said the reprisals against the decorated 30-year ranger were the 'most vicious' he has seen."

Here's how Miranda Spivack introduces the apparent vindication of Ranger Danno:

The federal government has settled whistleblower retaliation complaints from a former C and O Canal chief ranger who said he suffered years of reprisals after revealing that the National Park Service had allowed Washington Redskins owner Daniel M. Snyder to cut down 130 mature trees in a federally protected area.

The settlement with Robert M. Danno comes after he complained to the Interior Department’s inspector general and to other officials about the tree-cutting arrangement, and then experienced what he says were eight years of reprisals. The Park Service, he said, removed him from his position as chief ranger for the C and O Canal park; stripped him of the authority to carry a gun; accused him of theft, leading to criminal charges (he was acquitted); reassigned him to issue picnic permits in a park in Northern Virginia with four picnic tables; and for the past three years, threatened him with termination.

Of course under the terms of the settlement, neither side can comment on the case. And of course this in no way benefits the victim in the case, except insofar as it allowed him to get his settlement. It benefits the Park Service and the government generally in being able to cover up their appalling behavior.

Danno did grant a brief interview, in which he said, "I hope that my experience helps the National Park Service get back on course." I hope this doesn't get him in trouble with a potentially vindictive cadre of government managers.

The settlement with Danno, 54, comes after the federal Office of Special Counsel spent seven months mediating the complaints. As part of the settlement, Danno soon will report to work as a division chief for wilderness planning at the Park Service’s wilderness training center in Missoula, Mont. Danno, who lives in West Virginia, has been working for the past three years as a boundary manager at Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland while under threat of termination.

Danno, who detailed his experiences in a self-published book, wrote that his problems began in 2005 after he advised his boss, C and O Canal park Superintendent Kevin Brandt, to reject a request from Snyder to cut trees in an area where tree-cutting and brush removal are generally prohibited by federal law.

The prohibitions extend to private property abutting the park, such as the Snyder estate in Potomac, to ensure that scenic vistas are maintained and natural resources are protected.

Interior’s inspector general found in a 2006 report that the Park Service violated its own policies when it allowed Snyder to clear 50,000 square feet of mature trees and replace them with saplings. The report did not find any misconduct by Snyder.

Despite the findings, the Park Service continued to marginalize Danno, he says in his book, and eventually threatened to fire him.

The inspector general’s report said that the tree-cutting plan was approved at the highest levels of the agency and that the office of then-Park Service Director Fran Mainella had given Snyder a green light to cut the trees. The report said that the approval disregarded federal environmental laws, harmed the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park and left the agency vulnerable to charges of favoritism.

The inspector general said that P. Daniel Smith, then special assistant to Mainella, pressured lower-level officials to approve the deal.

Conveniently, the IG report managed not to find clear enough lines of abuse that might have warranted, even required prosecution. The report did say, however: "Our investigation determined that NPS failed to follow any of its established policies and procedures . . . and even disregarded the recommendations of their own Horticulture and Advisory Review Committee."

Similarly, the IG report "did not accuse [Redskin's owner Daniel] Snyder of doing anything improper," but it "suggested that he had access to top Park Service officials that other residents might not have." Isn't that a special way of talking about the way rich people manipulate government to their advantage? (Reporter Spivack adds that "Montgomery County, which also had jurisdiction, later penalized Snyder for the tree cutting, requiring him to pay $37,000 and replant.")

Note that if we follow the timeline, the flagrant abuses occurred under the wholly politicized Bush regime ("Our Motto: Money Talks"), but the Bush regime ended in January 2009. We've had abundant evidence, however, that the Obama administration has if anything less lover for whistle-blowers. I guess we can credit the Obama Office of Special Counsel for mediating a settlement that would appear to pretty completely vindicate Ranger Danno -- even if the settlement it brokered doesn't allow us to describe it in those terms, or allow other whistle-blowers or would-be whistle-blowers to take heart from its example.

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