In September of 2023 a request to use HUD forms for education was served upon HUD’s Acting Deputy Chief Procurement Officer, Craig Karnes. It was a Kafkaesque moment. After repeated requests for permission to utilize two HUD documents in an education and training program went unanswered — the HUD 309 and the HUD 9519(a) — a formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was submitted. The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, is the United States federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased or uncirculated information and documents controlled by the U.S. government, state, or other public authority upon request. FOIA has been responsible for some of the greatest releases of information by the US government ever and has enlightened its citizenry in a way that no other administrative tool ever has previously. The problem with FOIA, though, is that the very people whom are paid by US taxpayers often have an agenda of their own. Today, I am going to discuss three of those people and the abuse of power rarely seen outside of the intelligence sector.
Why would Deputy Director Karnes, the former director of the HUD M&M AM and FSM program, be concerned about educating Labor performing upon HUD contracts? It is a good question. After all, one would think that HUD would have an interest in training people to correctly perform their services. Moreover, though, one would believe that not only Deputy Director Karnes, but HUD itself, would want to ensure that there would not be improper evictions of homeowners due to a lack of training. After all, isn’t providing housing to US citizens at the very foundation of HUD’s Mission Statement?
HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD’s vision is to improve lives and strengthen communities to deliver on America’s dreams — Or so Secretary Marcia Fudge likes to say. And with tens of millions of dollars spent every month on education and training by both Secretary Fudge and Deputy Director Karnes, one would think that there would be an inclusiveness embracing the hard working men and women whose role it is to perform the autopsies of foreclosed assets and plumb the very depths of the wreckage of lives left behind. Apparently, nothing could be farther from the truth. Do as I say, not as I do is the ethos of HUD, today.
Denisha G Gilet is one of the worker bees assigned by HUD to oversee the FOIA process. Her boss, Sandra J Wright, is the HUD FOIA Chief. FOIA is not a complex process unless you lock horns with Gilet or, ultimately, Wright. The request to use two, publicly available, forms for educational purposes is a pretty straightforward Yes or No. But, therein, lies the rub. Every day dozens of NAMFS members, with absolutely no Doctrine of Privity with HUD, use these forms. Software providers such as Verisk, InspectorADE, and EZInspections use these forms or variants built off of them. And all of the aforementioned parties generate a profit from these forms. In the pay-to-play scenarios which both Secretary Fudge and Deputy Director Karnes oversee gleefully, apparently if you are not paying, you do not play.
In all federal contracting it is illegal to force anyone to pay or give a kickback to receive work.
The Anti-Kickback Act of 1986, 41 U.S.C. § 51 et seq., modernized and closed the loopholes of previous statutes applying to government contractors. The 1986 law attempts to make the anti-kickback statute a more useful prosecutorial tool by expanding the definition of prohibited conduct and by making the statute applicable to a broader range of persons involved in government subcontracting. In fact, the Department of Justice has a Criminal Resource Manual dedicated to this and here is what it has to say at Section 927,
Prohibited conduct–the Act prohibits attempted as well as completed “kickbacks,” which include any money, fees, commission, credit, gift, gratuity, thing of value, or compensation of any kind. The act also provides that the inclusion of kickback amounts in contract prices is prohibited conduct in itself.
Now, obviously, I am not saying that Secretary Fudge and Deputy Director Karnes are guilty of the above. What I am saying, in extremely plain language, is that they are aware of the fact that dozens of firms in the mortgage field services industry whom are servicing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD contracts — including FHA — require a percentage discount to be paid by Labor in order to receive the services. So, you be the judge. And if you are a firm whose contract states that you must give a percentage discount in order to perform the services, I have some folks over at Justice who would like to speak with you so feel free to reach out direct.
The problem with attempting to follow the law when it comes to entrenched bureaucratic corruption is that an environment evolves which rewards the criminals and penalizes the law abiders. This is exactly the case when it comes to the HUD FOIA Department.
HUD FOIA #24-FI-HQ-00227 sat in the email in box of Deputy Director Karnes for over a month before ever being acted upon. In fact, multiple requests simply for the FOIA number assigned went unanswered by Deputy Director Karnes or multiple HUD FOIA officials. HUD FOIA regulations are quite clear on the process. First, let us address the possibility that Deputy Director Karnes was the wrong person or office to submit the request to,
If you have sent your request to the wrong office, that office will send it to the correct office within 10 working days and will send you an acknowledgment letter.
That never happened. In fact, Gilet’s own reply stated as much,
The Department of Housing and Urban Development acknowledges your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated October 4, 2023. Your request was received in the Department’s FOIA Office, on October 31, 2023.
So, either Deputy Director Karnes purposefully chose not to advise me, in writing, that my FOIA was submitted to him incorrectly — that should have been on 17 October 2023 — or Deputy Director Karnes freely, willingly, and with overt intention chose to subvert the HUD FOIA process. And in light of how the Biden Administration’s assault upon democracy has sold out the United States, I would place my bets on the latter. Regardless, it would be for a jury of Deputy Director Karnes’ peers to decide.
The issue was further discussed in Gilet’s document, which failed to list her official position at HUD, adding to the speculation of legitimacy. Gilet summarized my request as follows,
“Information as to whether or not the International Association of Field Service Technicians (IAFST), a nonprofit trade association, may use the HUD 309 and HUD 9519a forms in our educational training program. The use of these documents will be to train personnel, throughout the Mortgage Field Services Industry, on how to properly navigate these work order forms.”
Fairly simple; a thumbs up or down answer in the affirmative or negative should have been forthcoming. The fix was in, though. And whether that fix came from Deputy Director Karnes, Secretary Fudge, or President Biden himself is unknown. What is known is that Gilet issued a document replete with verbal gymnastics not seen outside of the intelligence community replies to FOIA requests. Do not take my word for it, though, read for yourself the evil that Gilet wrought with her own pen,
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Open in new tab The lunacy of Gilet’s response would normally have been comedic were it not for the fact that Gilet’s actions ran contrary to the law. And with Gilet’s joining together with Deputy Director Karnes each had turned their backs on democracy. Were that the end of the journey, the story would never have reached the pages of Foreclosurepedia.
After repeated requests for a status of the FOIA request, on 11 December 2023, HUD’s alleged FOIA Chief Deborah Snowden reached out. Now, remember, Gilet had stated the FOIA request had been received on 31 December 2023. Obviously, either Gilet or Snowden were lying as you will see from her email to me,
I apologize for the delay in you getting your questions answered. Your request has been forwarded to the program office to provide a response to your FOIA request. Once they have concluded the search in response to what you are requesting, they will return their response back to the FOIA Office, so we can prepare a response to you.
On 02 January 2024 I submitted yet another status update request and once again Gilet wrapped her corrupt arms around the request. The same email chain that contained the original FOIA request was replied to with this,
Could you please provide the FOIA request number that was given to you so that an update could be provided?
Really? Dozens of emails in the same daisy chain back and forth between Gilet, the HUD FOIA Chief and Deputy Director Karnes were not enough to identify the matter? It was a slap in the face that I have no doubt was coordinated now by Deputy Director Karnes and HUD FOIA Chief Snowden. This time, though, Gilet outright refused to ever reply. It was Kafkaesque. It was as if the very same hatred of the American people which President Biden demonstrates through flooding our Nation with illegal aliens was being directed at me for simply attempting to educate and train industry personnel. And being that Deputy Director Karnes previously hailed from US Army contracting before being moved to HUD, it was a familiar playbook.
On 17 January 2024, HUD FOIA Chief Snowden finally replied to the email requesting an update on the FOIA request. It was laiden with the same lies and platitudes as all of the other replies. It was as if all of the malice and contempt that HUD has for having to serve US citizens, instead of illegal aliens, had been packed into the single sentence sent as a reply to me.
We apologize for the delay. We have been trying to get an answer from the program area. We are finalizing your request and hope to have this completed by next week.
If there is one thing that HUD employees are good at, it is lying. They have no honor. It shouldn’t really come as a surprise, though. Under the mounting pressure of soon having to house over eight and a half million illegal aliens HUD has become a parasitic anchor upon the legitimate US taxpayer. True to form, HUD FOIA Chief Snowden had lied again. In fact, as I write this, yet another eleven days have passed with no reply.
With the dye cast by these three HUD employees, bound together in an unholy alliance, today I withdrew my FOIA request. The reality is that the FOIA request is rather moot. The Biden Administration’s desire to ensure only illegal aliens receive benefits or training is all that matters to our Alzheimer-in-Chief. We additionally lodged a formal complaint against the three conspirators which, if their recent actions are any basis for judgement, will go absolutely nowhere. And finally, we requested that HUD fire each of the parties for refusing to obey the law and engaging in their collective conspiracy.
While HUD may believe that breaking the law is the answer to preventing US taxpayers from obtaining information vital to education and training, the reality is that they have no control over the flow of that information. And while Gilet, Wright, and Karnes would all love to have this happen in a vacuum, far outside of the public’s eye, I am confident that their family, friends, and future employers are all in the loop. It is important to expose government corruption and in this article we covered multiple angles of such culminating with the abuse of the HUD FOIA process.
