Missouri's state auditor reveals a well-traveled past

Tom Schweich always had a yen to be in public service, but he didn't take a direct route there.

Schweich, elected Missouri auditor in 2010, spoke to an audience of about 150 people at the First Friday Coffee on Friday at the Show Me Center.

A Harvard-educated lawyer, Schweich talked about his background and programs he's added as auditor. Before running for office, Schweich was chief of staff for U.S. Sen. John Danforth when he investigated the Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas, and when Danforth was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Schweich also has traveled all over the world for the U.S. State Department.

As state auditor, Schweich investigates waste, fraud, abuse and corruption in municipalities -- largely in counties that don't have auditors, as 89 of Missouri's 114 counties don't. But he and his staff also are called if there is credible information of wrongdoing.

"You see really tangible results from this job, and I like it," Schweich said.

"Most states have an appointed auditor," he said, but Missouri's is elected and does not report to the governor or legislature.

A fifth-generation Missourian, Schweich grew up in Clayton and attended St. Louis County public schools. He earned a degree in Roman history from Yale and a law degree from Harvard. He started his career at the law firm of Bryan Cave LLP, where he practiced for more than 20 years focusing on government contracts, corporate internal investigations, audits, litigation and commercial disputes, according to his biography.

After a stint teaching on the U.N. and Afghanistan at Washington University in St. Louis, Schweich said a group of residents asked him to run for auditor. He said he won with support from Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and then-state Rep. Wayne Wallingford, R-Cape Girardeau.

"I always wanted to do public service, but never had a route in," Schweich said.

He wrote a book titled "Protect Yourself from Business Lawsuits (and Lawyers Like Me)" in 1998, which Danforth read and liked. In 1999, then-attorney general Janet Reno called Danforth to investigate the 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian complex.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted a raid on the Davidian compound on a warrant for weapons violations in 1993. The raid resulted in the deaths of four ATF agents and five Branch Davidians. A 51-day standoff by the FBI ensued, and 84 people, including 24 children, ultimately died in a fire at the compound.

Schweich said the FBI injected tear gas into the main building and it burned. FBI agents testified under oath the Branch Davidians died as a result of a suicide pact, and no pyrotechnic tear gas was used.

But there were allegations otherwise, so Schweich, through Danforth, was drafted to help investigate.

The conclusion of Schweich's investigation was it was a suicide pact. Schweich said there were "severe flaws" in the initial investigation and the FBI lied about the use of pyrotechnic tear gas.

In 2004, President Bush appointed Danforth ambassador to the U.N., and Danforth called Schweich to be his chief of staff. Danforth stayed only about six months and was replaced by John Bolton, who asked Schweich to work for him as well.

Under Bolton, Schweich investigated corruption at the U.N. and the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, then Iraq's ruler, sold oil to build palaces instead of buying food and medical supplies. Bolton named Schweich principal deputy assistant secretary of state and acting assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the State Department.

At INL, Schweich oversaw 4,000 people in more than 40 countries. In the program, Schweich helped design and implement programs devoted to police training, justice sector building, counternarcotics, counterterrorism, anti-money laundering, border security and anticorruption, his biography said.

From 2007 to 2008, Schweich was U.S. coordinator for counternarcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan. Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's heroin. The U.S. gets its heroin from Mexico and Colombia, he said. Schweich said he taught Afghans to grow alternative crops to opium (which is made into heroin), although they were not as lucrative.

At the time, everyone, including the Taliban and insurgents, were taking their cut of the opium crop. About half the opium fields were controlled by the Taliban and the other half by the government, which was pro-U.S. but wanted the extra money, Schweich said. Government officials were making about $20,000 a year and building mansions in Kabul. "We used to call it narcitechture because the houses were built with drug money," Schweich said.

As state auditor, it's not as action-packed, but he enjoys it. He has a 120 career staff members in the office and has implemented several new programs, such as a rapid response team, so his auditors can get to a site before important documents are destroyed.

"Now, if we have credible allegations of fraud and someone destroying documents, we go in," he said.

Since he took office, he's conducted 400 audits, but only two rapid responses -- one at St. Louis schools where there was "massive attendance fraud" and the other for a clerk accused of stealing money in McDonald County. The clerk ultimately pleaded guilty, he said.

He said he has found 21 public officials embezzling and said he will announce more in the next few weeks.

He started a grading system for audits of "excellent," "good," "fair" and "poor." If an government office gets a poor grade, Schweich will send in a follow-up team within 90 days to see whether corrective measures were taken. Schweich said people have looked favorably on this because they like to show improvement.

Schweich also implemented an anti-embezzlement program. He said a few of the key things to look for are:

* Closed-loop accounting where finances are handled by only one person. He said this doesn't always mean there's a problem.

* Embezzlers never take a vacation because they're afraid someone will look at their books and realize something's wrong.

* They give expensive gifts.

* Previous fiscal trouble or allegations of wrongdoing, such as stealing cookie money from Girl Scouts, Schweich said.

"By the time you get to seven or eight on our list, you have an embezzler," Schweich said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

Pertinent address: 1333 N. Sprigg St., Cape Girardeau