Los Alamos Whistleblower Assaulted

Los Alamos whistle­blower “Tommy Hook is still hos­pi­tal­ized today after being bru­tally assaulted over the week­end,” the Project on Government Oversight is say­ing. “A group of three to four assailants threat­ened Hook to keep silent, in appar­ent ref­er­ence to his upcom­ing Congressional tes­ti­mony on fraud at Los Alamos.”

Mr. Hook was slated to tes­tify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee this month. Congressional staff from the Committee were already sched­uled to arrive Tuesday, June 7th to inves­ti­gate Tommy Hook’s alle­ga­tions. Also fly­ing out tomor­row is the Project On Government Oversight’s Senior Investigator Peter Stockton who inves­ti­gated the 1974 mur­der of nuclear whistle­blower Karen Silkwood in his pre­vi­ous posi­tion as a Congressional inves­ti­ga­tor.
Mr. Hook had planned at the end of last week to meet an indi­vid­ual who claimed to have cor­rob­o­rat­ing infor­ma­tion about fraud at Los Alamos. That indi­vid­ual never attended the meet­ing. Late Saturday evening, some­one who might have been pos­ing as that indi­vid­ual called Mr. Hook and asked to meet with him at a bar in Santa Fe. He went to the bar and waited but that per­son never showed up. When Mr. Hook got into his car to leave, attack­ers pulled him out of the car and bru­tally assaulted him. The assailants threat­ened Mr. Hook to keep silent. A bouncer at the bar inter­vened and broke up the attack. Mr. Hook was hos­pi­tal­ized in an Emergency Room with severe trauma to his face and head, includ­ing a frac­tured jaw, and a her­ni­ated disk. He is heav­ily med­icated today and unable to speak to the media.
Mr. Hook and whistle­blower Chuck Montano appeared on the CBS Evening News ear­lier this year. Audit reports con­ducted by Mr. Hook and Mr. Montano in 2002–2004 found a dis­turb­ing pat­tern of finan­cial irreg­u­lar­i­ties in the Los Alamos Lab’s pro­cure­ment divi­sion. In com­pli­ance with Department of Energy (DOE) require­ments, Mr. Hook and Mr. Montano pro­duced a report assess­ing the Lab’s con­tract­ing oper­a­tions. Lab super­vi­sors refused to allow the report to be sub­mit­ted to DOE, instead sub­mit­ting a report that glossed over the prob­lems iden­ti­fied by Mr. Hook and Mr. Montano.

Although a lab spokesman once told the Albuquerque Journal’s Adam Rankin that “retal­i­a­tion against whistle­blow­ers is not tol­er­ated,” the fact is that Los Alamos offi­cials have been pretty vicious with whistle­blow­ers in years past. But the assaults have always been finan­cial, or polit­i­cal, up until now. I’ve never heard of any­thing like this.
There’s going to be a con­fer­ence call with Hook’s wife and his part­ner, Montano, in a few hours. I’ll let you know what hap­pens.
THERE’S MORE: The con­fer­ence call is done. Details are above, here. And back­ground on Hook’s long war with Los Alamos man­age­ment is here.
AND MORE: As John notes, “Interfering with a wit­ness is against the law. Let’s hope the GOP Congress does some­thing about this.”

June 6th, 2005 | Los Alamos and Labs | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.