Rogers To Lead 9/11 Probe of N.Y. Aid
Mary Orndorff - News Washington correspondent
The newspaper found money spent on projects unrelated to Sept. 11 or lower Manhattan; contracts awarded to companies and organizations linked to the people responsible for deciding how to spend the money; and loopholes allowing money to be given to people or businesses that didn't fully qualify.
"Nothing could be more despicable, however, than making even one crooked dollar out of the deaths, flames and ashes of Ground Zero," King wrote in the Daily News on Sunday.
Rogers was tapped because he is chairman of the subcommittee that oversees management and integration of the new Department of Homeland Security, which has 180,000 employees and involves 22 agencies.
The probe into the Sept. 11 aid to New York has the potential to be expansive and high-profile, and hearings could begin in early spring. Rogers said he may need to hire additional investigative staff and involve the FBI or the Government Accountability Office.
President Bush approved the aid package to the city in a meeting held two days after the attacks. A lot of it "delivered tremendous benefit to countless citizens and businesses, small and large," the newspaper said, but it questioned hundreds of millions of dollars in payments.
"Everybody knows in a disaster you have to rapidly get assets deployed to aid the victims and you're going to have inefficiencies and drop the ball once in a while, but you don't expect corruption," Rogers said Monday.
Rogers, who is in his second term in Congress, was named chairman of the subcommittee in February. He already has attracted attention for criticizing remote surveillance camera equipment for the Mexican border that he said wasted taxpayer money. The contract for the work ballooned from $2 million to $200 million.
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