Damming to you, looks like pretty weak tea to me. If NOAA LEOs exceed their statutory authority regarding inspections, the the "fruit of the poison tree" doctrine applies and any evidence gathered is inadmissible in court.
As noted, due to NOAA's horrible bookkeeping, KPMG only managed to audit a small percentage of the transactions in question. My guess is there is a lot more tea to be made, assuming the OIG does it job. As also mentioned, these reports were only released in the last week so there hasn't been time for the fruit of any trees to be introduced into the picture. My guess is that will be upcoming and worth watching.
But put on your investigator's hat, dude. I've walked into several state agencies with poor inventory control, know what walks, quickly isolated missing inventory, and referred that info on to auditors and investigators. It's kinda sad how easy this stuff is, and how uncreative agency employees are when they abscond with stuff.
Or put on your citizens hat and imagine what it's like to have an agency crawl up your butt, inconsistently enforce policy, subject you to high fines, appear to factor in your ability to pay when enforcing policies, drive and float around in swag bought on your dime, and then thrust you into judicatory predicaments that wouldn't be tolerated in most federal or state courts. Take a look at the tables toward the end of the second OIJ report, note the few instances KPMG were able to follow up on, but note the percentage where the auditors found for the complaining citizens. Weak tea? The original Tea Party occurred for similar sorts of excesses and the NOAA privateers ought to be forced to wear red coats.
But fear not, despite all the malfeasance the OIJ reports well documented, two people have been moved to other jobs at the same rate of pay. The citizens who have been preyed upon are no doubt sleeping better these days.
