GAO issued a slew of corrections in November to an undercover investigation into for-profit colleges requested by Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, who had unveiled the report at a hearing highly critical of the schools Aug. 4.
A secret internal evaluation email of what went wrong says GAO was put under “extreme short time frames” by Harkin to issue the report and “congressional staffers” demanded the inclusion of numerous details as it was being finalized.
“It certainly discredits the report, doesn’t it?” said Rep. Rob Andrews, New Jersey Democrat and long-time advocate for the for-profit schools.
Indeed. And given Sen. Tom Harkin’s record of lying about having served in Vietnam, it’s not entirely surprising that he would be associated with this piece of politicized deception — or that the press would mostly let him get away with it.