FBI raids special counsel's home, office

WASHINGTON — FBI agents Tuesday raided and temporarily shut down the offices of a federal watchdog agency charged with protecting the rights of government whistle-blowers that has been accused of retaliating against whistle-blowers in its own ranks.

The raid on the Office of Special Counsel and another at the home of its director, Scott Bloch, followed accusations that Bloch had destroyed evidence on government computers that might demonstrate wrongdoing.

Bloch, who has held the post of special counsel since January 2004, has denied intentionally destroying evidence from his agency's computers, though he has acknowledged paying $1,000 of public money to a technology company, Geeks on Call, to scrub his own government computer in 2006. He has said he was trying to rid the computer of software viruses.

James Mitchell, a spokesman for the agency — which has about 100 employees — said federal agents were in Bloch's offices "most of the day going through his files, and I believe they took his computer."

A lawyer for Bloch, Roscoe Howard, had no comment.

The FBI confirmed that its agents, along with investigators for the inspector general of the Office of Personnel Management, had carried out raids based on a "number of court-authorized search warrants."

The counsel's office, which answers to the White House, is charged with protecting federal employees from reprisals for whistle-blowing and with investigating accusations of political interference in their work. It has been in turmoil during much of the four-year tenure of Bloch, who has been accused of using it to promote conservative social causes.

He has been under investigation since 2005 by the inspector general of the Office of Personnel Management, after a complaint filed by some employees of the counsel's office. He has been accused of failing to protect federal workers from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and of retaliating, through intimidation and involuntary transfers, against employees who complained.

Bloch also has been involved in several highly publicized investigations of other government agencies, including a look into the role of White House officials in the firing of several U.S. attorneys.

Last year he called for disciplinary action against the head of the General Services Administration, Lurita Doan, over accusations that she had mixed politics with the workings of her agency. She resigned last week.