Exclusive: These Expensive DOJ Offices, Rented With Your Money, Are EMPTY!

PJ Media has obtained video taken inside Justice Department offices which show empty, unused office space within leased commercial space. The offices are intended for at least twenty federal employees according to DOJ sources — but only TWO are using them.

The Justice Department Community Relations Service offices in Dallas are on the 20th floor of the Harwood Center, a luxury downtown high rise. Justice Department sources provided PJ Media with a video taken inside the Dallas DOJ offices which documents the brazen waste of taxpayer dollars.

The video shows empty offices, boxes stacked on unused desks, jumbo window offices with couches, large conference rooms with television sets running, enormous offices which appear to be unused, stacks of printer boxes, bookshelves filled with VHS tapes, and a kitchen area with seating for four.

The video shows 58 chairs for use by just two employees working in the office.

Here is the video:

The Community Relations Service has been at the center of high-profile, racially charged controversies involving the Justice Department, including the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore and the Trayvon Martin shooting in Sanford, Florida.

PJ Media has previously covered other instances of waste, fraud, and abuse infecting the DOJ component at the center of so many racial controversies. In fact, Attorney General Loretta Lynch was sent a letter — obtained by PJ Media — from DOJ employees in January 2016 which details misconduct and waste by DOJ employees at CRS.

Lynch has taken no action.

Chairs stacked in DOJ Dallas offices

Hans von Spakovsky recently provided an article published at PJ Media describing the role that the DOJ’s Community Relations Service played in some of the nation’s most incendiary racial incidents:

During the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, CRS helped to organize rallies and protests against George Zimmerman. CRS did the same thing in Ferguson, pouring gasoline on the flames of protests, violence, and looting. This included training demonstrators on how to protest and “spreading the word” that what had happened was racially motivated — which the grand jury investigation concluded was completely untrue.

Further, I have previously reported that DOJ Community Relations Service employees were using tax dollars to fly to dine at Emeril’s, and to visit the dentist in Miami:

The DOJ employees have complained that Battles makes taxpayer-funded travel to Miami approximately 24 times a year to visit his family — and also to attend to personal affairs such as visiting his favorite dentist for teeth cleanings. Regional CRS employees in the Miami office purportedly are not even aware of Battles being in Florida when these taxpayer-funded visits occur.

In response to this series of articles at PJ Media about waste and corruption inside CRS, DOJ lawyer Antoinette Barksdale and others recently held a series of meetings at headquarters in Washington, D.C., to discuss our revelations.

But instead of focusing on the mismanagement, sources report that those leading a meeting were less concerned with the corruption than they were with my reporting, and with the reporting of Hans von Spakovsky.

DOJ Lawyer Antoinette Barksdale

Further, this video is just the tip of the iceberg.

The waste goes far beyond Dallas:

— The DOJ Community Relations Service in Boston also rents office space — even though DOJ employees tell us that the entire office telecommutes.

— DOJ sources report that the agency rents offices in Seattle large enough for ten employees, but only occupied by two.

— In Miami, the agency has an office large enough for eight being used for a single employee.

We have reported on pervasive mismanagement, political cronyism, and violations of federal workforce protections at the DOJ Community Relations Service. But there is much more.

Stay tuned!