Yesterday, the House Committee on Homeland Security released - get this - a 22-page report entitled "The ICE Halloween Party: Trick, Treat, or Cover-up?" 

The report explores the 2007 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Halloween party where an employee who dressed as a Rastafarian prison inmate, complete with black face, was awarded a prize for "most original costume" by Assistant Secretary Julie Myers and other senior ICE officials.  You may remember our coverage of the event back in October.

The short version of the story is that some employees found the winning costume offensive and Secretary Myers admitted, after getting a slap on the wrist, that granting an award for the costume demonstrated "a bad judgment call."  Case closed, right?  Wrong. 

For the past four months, members of the House Committee on Homeland Security have been "investigating" the incident.  Apparently, they had nothing better to do with their time, like say, helping pass immigration reform or improving homeland security.  Instead, they put their energy and your tax dollars into what seems like nothing more than a well documented witch hunt to get rid of government executive whose appointment was subjected to great debate in Congress. 

So what did they find out? Not much really. The first 15 pages of the report merely summed up the events of the case.  However, it does state that Myers ordered the destruction of photographs from the party to conceal the details of the party. 

Myers contends she "instructed [her] Chief of Staff to direct ICE’s official event photographer to delete all photos of the employee in the inappropriate costume so they would not be placed into the agency’s photo archive and inadvertently used in future publications.” 

The action seems like the logical thing to do.  After all, why hang on to photos of a costume others found disturbing unless you want to continue disturbing people?

The report ends by recommending a "full investigation into any and all actions taken by ICE officials that either led to or were meant to lead to the concealment of this incident."  Talk about conspiracy theories!  It was a costume in very poor taste by people who admitted their poor judgement, not an act of terrorism! 

And apparently, in four months time, the Committee was unable to meet its own definition of a full investigation. 

OhMyGov!

The infamous picture of Myers with the award-winning costume.