Critic alleges Ridge urged 'spin'

WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department's former independent watchdog says he was twice summoned to then-Secretary Tom Ridge's office last year and asked why his reports criticizing the agency were being sent to Congress and whether they could be presented in a more favorable light.

Ridge ''was trying to get me not to give things to Congress and also to try to spin reports in a way most favorable to the department, and I resisted both of those," former inspector general Clark Kent Ervin said in an interview.

In a statement, Ridge said: ''I did not always agree with the tactics, interpretations, conclusions, or recommendations of the inspector general. At no time, however, did I ever ask him to suppress or withhold a specific report."

Ervin's statements are ''untrue and deserve no further comment," said Ridge, who left as secretary last month.

Ervin spoke about his meetings with Ridge after the dates turned up on Ridge's daily appointment calendars, which the Associated Press obtained last month under the Freedom of Information Act.

Ervin was the department's first inspector general. As the agency's legally independent watchdog, he wrote several reports taking issue with department spending and contending other problems with the Bush administration's efforts to protect the country.

He left his job in late December. The Senate never voted on his nomination during his time as inspector general, and the administration chose not to reappoint him.

Ervin said the meetings with Ridge in June and September of 2004 were his lone one-on-one contacts with the secretary.

During a June 9 meeting, ''Ridge said a couple of times, 'Look, are you my IG?' and I said, 'No, I'm not your IG,' " Ervin recalled.

Congress created the federal system of inspectors general in response to the Watergate scandal. The intent was to free these officials from political pressure so they could aggressively oversee Cabinet agency programs.

Ervin's periodic criticism of Homeland Security programs was a discordant note amid a chorus of praise by the administration for the president's leadership in the fight against terrorism, the central theme of his reelection campaign.

In an earlier interview this year, Ervin said that senior agency officials had at times urged him not to release some of his critical reports, but that Ridge never ordered him to do something.

''To his credit, the secretary never did that," Ervin told CNN.

Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general at the Justice Department, said he found the idea that the inspector general ''would be asked to limit distribution of his reports or spin them to be wholly contrary to the purpose IGs are supposed to serve."