Jeffrey Neely, the man responsible for planning the General Services Administration's lavish conference in Las Vegas — which led to a federal investigation and the resignation of the agency's director — and four other GSA employees are out of jobs, agency officials told NBC News on Thursday.

Neely, commissioner of the GSA's regional public building office for the southwestern U.S., had been on administrative leave pending an inspector general's review of the agency's Western Regions Conference in 2010, but he had still been collecting a paycheck from the GSA until Thursday.

"As of today, he's no longer employed with GSA," said Adam Elkington, the GSA's deputy press secretary.

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Elkington wouldn't say whether Neely left on his own or was pushed out, but Federal Times, a newspaper devoted to coverage of the federal government, reported that he had retired.

 

 

A GSA official told NBC News that four other employees had also left the agency. Those employees weren't identified, but the GSA was known to have been seeking the ousters of nine agency workers in all. The official said Neely has been asked to reimburse the agency for a private in-room party in his hotel suite that he held during the conference.

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Neely invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination last month at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is also looking into the conference.

The conference cost taxpayers almost $823,000 and featured exorbitant extras such as commemorative coins, a mind reader and a bicycle building workshop.  

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the Oversight Committee, said Neely's departure isn't the end of the story.

"The problems at GSA may far exceed his involvement in the waste of taxpayer dollars that has outraged Americans," Issa said in a statement. "The committee will continue to examine GSA's culture of wasteful spending."

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, objected to Neely's having remained on the GSA's payroll for weeks. He said he planned to introduce legislation that would allow the "immediate termination of senior level executives who violate their oaths of office by refusing to cooperate with congressional investigations or to testify before Congress."

Martha Johnson resigned as head of the GSA last month as pressure on the agency grew to explain the extravagant conference, which was chronicled in a YouTube video titled "Federal Worker, American Idle," in which GSA employees joked about their lavish expenditures and lack of productivity:

Johnson put Neely on leave on March 19, but she didn't resign and discipline other top agency officials until the GSA's inspector general released a report April 2 documenting the lavish spending.

The GSA, which manages federal properties, is also being investigated for how resources were spent on other outings and conferences, including trips to Hawaii, Atlanta and Napa, Calif., and an interns' conference in Palm Springs, Calif., attended by 150 people.

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Updated at 2:45 p.m. ET: Republican lawmakers tried Tuesday to tie the spending scandal at the General Services Administration to the White House, pressing current and former agency officials to explain why they met with senior administration officials two weeks before disciplining most of the implicated officials.

At a congressional hearing Tuesday, former GSA Administrator Martha Johnson acknowledged that she met with several top White House officials — including chief of staff Jack Lew and Personnel Director Nancy Hogan — as early as mid-March about the scandal.

Johnson put Region 9 Public Building Regional Commissioner Jeffrey Neely on leave on March 19. But she didn't resign and discipline other top agency officials until the GSA's inspector general officially released a report April 2 documenting lavish spending for a Las Vegas conference in 2010 that cost $823,000.

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The GSA, which manages federal properties, is also being investigated for how resources were spent on other outings and conferences, including trips to Hawaii, Atlanta and Napa, Calif., and an interns' conference in Palm Springs, Calif., attended by 150 people.

Neely, the official at the center of the scandal, wasn't present at Tuesday's hearing. On Monday, Neely repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Ex-GSA head apologizes for $823,000 Las Vegas spending spree

As Republicans tried to suggest a cover-up by the White House, Johnson testified Tuesday that she never spoke to President Barack Obama, but she said she did have "informational" meetings with other top administration officials the weeks of March 18 and March 25.

Besides Lew and Hogan, officials from the White House counsel's office and the president's communications staff attended some of those meetings, Johnson said.

"Those meetings were about policy," Johnson told Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., head of the Transportation subcommittee on public buildings. "We wanted to talk with them about travel policy, because obviously they are interested in how we can move forward after this event."

Denham pressed Johnson to explain why it took "all the way up to April 2nd" to fire Stephen Leeds, her chief counsel, and Bob Peck, head of the public building department, and "to put all of the other administrators on leave."

"I was working particularly with our HR (human resources) senior executives and a senior executive in the general counsel's office to understand what was the particular evidence that the IG had uncovered and how we could fit that into letters of admonishment and what kinds of disciplinary action we could take," Johnson replied, adding that "there's a due process here that we needed to follow."

In an interview with CNN before the hearing, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, made it clear that Republicans believe "people did let the White House know, and the White House did not choose to intervene or to take action early on."

But Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking Democrat on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a member of Mica's committee, pointed out that it was a Democratic appointee,  Deputy GSA Administrator Susan Brita, "who brought this to light."

Neely and others implicated in the scandal "will be brought to justice and be made to pay back the money they owe the taxpayers," Cummings said in an interview with NBC News' Andrea Mitchell.

Mica said he and Denham were examining whether the GSA's culture of squandering could be purged or whether the agency — "our government's landlord" — should be replaced.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who represents the District of Columbia, disagreed with Denham and Mica, saying, "GSA serves an indispensable function."

That's what makes the investigation "such a difficult matter," said Norton, who was lampooned in a widely circulated video the GSA made at the conference.

In his opening statement, Peck said the Las Vegas conference was an "aberration" and that most conferences he attended weren't lavish. He said he paid for some food out of his pocket in Las Vegas.

Peck also offered a personal apology and said he wouldn't shirk responsibility.

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Updated at 4:58 p.m. ET: Martha Johnson, who resigned this month as head of the General Services Administration, apologized Monday for a Las Vegas conference in 2010 that cost $823,000 and led to the ouster of the agency's top leaders.

Johnson quit; two top officials — Bob Peck, head of the agency's public building department, and Stephen Leeds, Johnson's senior counselor — were fired; and five other officials were put on administrative leave after GSA Inspector General Brian Miller reported that lavish spending was an accepted part of the agency's culture. He highlighted the 2010 conference, which included private parties in luxury suites paid for with taxpayer funds.

Miller told lawmakers Monday that investigations into other possible misconduct were under way, "including bribes, including possible kickbacks." He didn't elaborate.

The GSA is essentially the federal government's office manager, overseeing government facilities, office space and supplies. Part of its mandate is to oversee programs to hold down the cost of running the government.

"What we had was a case of the rules' being in place. People were just ignoring them," Dan Tangherlini, the agency's acting director, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which held the first of what's expected to be at least four congressional hearings into the report Monday.

The official at the center of the scandal, Jeffrey Neely, repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

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In a memo included in the inspector general's report, Neely — who hosted a $2,700 party at the conference — allegedly wrote, "I know I'm bad ... but why not enjoy it while we can? It ain't gonna last forever."

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the committee, said the panel was intent on getting "answers to questions that should have been asked long, long, long ago."

Read the full inspector general's report (.pdf)
GSA under fire for video that makes light of excess government spending

Johnson, who resigned April 2, testified that when she assumed the agency's leadership in February 2010, she learned that its Western region training conference had over time "evolved into a raucous, extravagant, arrogant, self-congratulatory event that ultimately belittled federal workers and would stain the very work that other committed staff and I were preparing to do."

"Leaders apparently competed to show their people how much entertainment they could provide, rather than how much performance capability they could build," she said. "The expensive planning for that conference was well under way when I entered GSA, and I was unaware of the scope."

Johnson said she stepped aside to "allow a new team to lead GSA as it rebuilds itself," saying she was "extremely aggrieved by the gall of a handful of people to misuse federal tax dollars, twist contracting rules and defile the great name of the General Services Administration."

"I personally apologize to the American people for the entire situation," she said. "As the head of the agency, I am responsible. ... I will mourn for the rest of my life the loss of my appointment and its role in leading a vital and important part of the government of the United States of America."

Miller, the inspector general, testified that while it good news was "very difficult to find among all the bad news and repugnant conduct," the uproar at least demonstrated that "the oversight system worked."

But "more needs to be done to establish early warning systems," he said, warning that the misconduct at the 2010 conference "could only occur in an environment where the best lack all conviction while the worst skirt the rules."

Among the evidence House investigators have accumulated is this rap video made at the conference, in which GSA employees joke about their perks:

David Foley, who was placed on leave as deputy head of the public buildings division, apologized to a member of the committee, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's delegate to Congress, for a joke about her in the video.

Norton reassured Foley that she hadn't taken the joke personally.

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The U.S. General Services Administration is under fire yet again this week, this time for a talent show-esque video making light of excess government spending. The video was made by an employee out of the agency’s Hawaii office and it won an award at a conference hosted by the agency, the Washington Post reported.

In it, the employee, who identifies himself as Hank Terlaje, sings to the tune of Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars’ (I want to be a) Billionaire.

Terlaje’s version of the song goes like this:

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“Obama better prepare, when I’m commissioner, I’d have a road show like Neely, every time you see me rolling on $20s,” he sings, pitch-perfect, referring to Jeff Neely, the acting administration for the Pacific Rim region. “I buy everything your field office can’t afford. Every GS-5 would get a top hat award. Donate my vacation, love to the nation, I’ll never be under OIG investigation.”

Prescient words, given that the agency was then investigated for a year by the OIG – the agency’s Office of the Inspector General – for spending $822,751 at a conference held outside Las Vegas for the western offices. The inspector general released a 23-page report on Monday detailing the excessive spending at the conference.

Two House committees investigating GSA spending

Halfway through the video clip, which was released by Darrell Issa, a California Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is footage of Terlaje at the conference, winning an award for the video.

GSA head resigns amid reports of lavish spending

Terlaje is made an honorary “commissioner for a day” by Deputy Commissioner David Foley, who joked about a $2,000 party held the night before in the loft suite of the real commissioner, Robert Peck, the Post reported. Peck was fired on Monday.

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