As if the sequester weren’t already playing the mustache-twirling villain — blamed for just about every possible woe — it turns out that the across-the-board-cuts are also responsible for that massive leak of government secrets that’s got everyone so hot and bothered.
In our colleague Jerry Markon’s excellent interview with Lon Snowden, the father of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, the senior Snowden says it was the sequester that led his son to take the private-sector contracting job that allowed him access to the secret NSA data that he would ultimately make public.
“Edward has said he took his final government contracting job with Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii to gain access to sensitive NSA information,” Markon reports. “But his father said Edward told him that his previous contracting job had been eliminated because of the federal budget sequestration.”
So no sequester would mean no access, which would mean no leak.
In a parallel universe in which there was no sequester, Snowden might be just another contractor collecting checks, instead of an internationally notorious fugitive camping out in the Moscow airport.
So much for those theories that the sequester had little impact.
Dynamic duos
Every presidency has its “power couples” holding down top jobs in the executive branch. The Obama administration’s second-term examples include:
In our colleague Jerry Markon’s excellent interview with Lon Snowden, the father of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, the senior Snowden says it was the sequester that led his son to take the private-sector contracting job that allowed him access to the secret NSA data that he would ultimately make public.
“Edward has said he took his final government contracting job with Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii to gain access to sensitive NSA information,” Markon reports. “But his father said Edward told him that his previous contracting job had been eliminated because of the federal budget sequestration.”
So no sequester would mean no access, which would mean no leak.
In a parallel universe in which there was no sequester, Snowden might be just another contractor collecting checks, instead of an internationally notorious fugitive camping out in the Moscow airport.
So much for those theories that the sequester had little impact.
Dynamic duos
Every presidency has its “power couples” holding down top jobs in the executive branch. The Obama administration’s second-term examples include: