Liar, liar, pants on fire...

According to an article in today's Washington Post, five OPM investigators have pleaded guilty to falsifying Security Clearance reports.

One investigator admitted he lied in 30 of 67 background investigations [wow!]. Another said he lied in a dozen. Sometimes investigators conducted cursory interviews of just a few minutes, too truncated to gather meaningful information about applicants' potential drug use, associations, foreign travel and loyalty.

"This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed [you think?!]," Assistant U.S. Attorney Ellen Chubin Epstein said during the February sentencing of an investigator, the same day two others pleaded guilty in the same District federal courthouse. In court papers in another case, Epstein wrote that such lax investigations "can pose a serious risk to national security."
[interjections my own

Thankfully,

Federal authorities said they do not think that anyone who did not deserve a job or security clearance received one or that investigators intentionally helped people slip through the screening. Instead, law enforcement officials said, the investigators lied about interviews they never conducted because they were overworked, cutting corners, trying to impress their bosses or, in the case of one contractor, seeking to earn more money by racing through the checks.

[emphasis added. So, money was the only motivation behind these lies?]

We'll see where the next few months take us. In the words of Kenneth M. Mead, quoted in the article,

"I am astonished."