WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s second-in-command has quietly stepped down amid reporting by The Associated Press that he as soon as consulted for a pharmaceutical distributor sanctioned for a deluge of suspicious painkiller shipments and did comparable work for the drugmaker that grew to become the face of the opioid epidemic: Purdue Pharma.
Louis Milione’s 4 years of consulting for Big Pharma preceded his 2021 return to the DEA to function Administrator Anne Milgram’s high deputy, renewing considerations within the company and past concerning the revolving door between authorities and trade and its potential impression on the DEA’s mission to police drug corporations blamed for tens of 1000’s of American overdose deaths.
“Working for Purdue Pharma should not help you get a higher job in government,” stated Jeff Hauser, the manager director of the Revolving Door Project, a watchdog for company affect within the federal authorities. “Too much collegiality is a problem. It’s hard to view your past and potentially future colleagues as scofflaws. Any independent person would find this abhorrent.”
Milione initially left the DEA in 2017 after a 21-year profession that included a two-year stint main the division that controls the sale of extremely addictive narcotics. Like dozens of colleagues within the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control, he went to work as a guide for a few of the identical corporations he had been tasked with regulating.
AP reported in May that Milione’s consulting included testifying on behalf of the nation’s fourth-largest wholesale drug distributor, Morris & Dickson, because it fought to avoid wasting its license to provide painkillers to hospitals and pharmacies. A federal administrative decide decided 4 years in the past that the Louisiana-based firm didn’t flag 1000’s of suspicious orders on the top of the opioid disaster however the DEA didn’t transfer to strip the license till days after the AP inquired concerning the case.
New reporting has discovered that in his time within the non-public sector, Milione additionally served as a $600-per-hour knowledgeable for Purdue Pharma because it fought authorized challenges from Ohio to Oklahoma over its aggressive advertising of OxyContin and different extremely addictive painkillers. Milione left the DEA once more in late June simply 4 days after AP sought remark from the Justice Department about his prior work for Purdue.
Milione stated in a press release this week that he stepped down for private causes unrelated to AP’s reporting. Both he and the Justice Department stated he recused himself on the DEA from all issues involving his private-sector work the place there was even the looks of a battle of curiosity.
Milione added that his consulting stint helped drug corporations adjust to DEA guidelines, simply as his return to authorities gave the DEA perception into how enterprise selections are made in the actual world.
“I care deeply about the DEA, its mission and the brave men and women that sacrifice so much to protect the American public,” he stated.
But Milione by no means confronted scrutiny from lawmakers over his consulting earlier than taking the DEA’s No. 2 place as a result of the DEA has for greater than a decade not crammed the job of deputy administrator that requires a presidential appointment and Senate affirmation. Instead, the DEA immediately employed Milione to fill a profession place with primarily the identical duties however a barely totally different title – “principal deputy administrator” – that requires no such oversight.
“DEA has demonstrated a willingness to take painstaking measures to avoid the Senate’s watchful eye – including by potentially using a technicality to shirk Senate confirmation of a key agency decision maker,” stated U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Avoiding congressional oversight is a tired game the DEA can’t stop playing. It begs the question: What else is the DEA trying to hide?”
John Coleman, who was head of operations for the DEA within the Nineteen Nineties, stated the Biden administration possible by no means nominated Milione to function deputy administrator, regardless of his many {qualifications}, as a result of his conflicts would have absolutely raised questions.
“Someone at the agency had to be aware of the implications of bringing someone back who was employed in the industry regulated by the agency,” Coleman stated. “It was an obvious and classic conflict.”
The DEA didn’t reply to requests for remark. The Justice Department advised the AP that Milione disclosed his potential conflicts when he returned to the DEA and that the principal deputy administrator’s place was created earlier than Milgram’s tenure. It stated the method for filling the confirmed deputy administrator place is ongoing and referred additional inquiries to the White House, which didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The DEA made no announcement of Milione’s most up-to-date retirement however eliminated his bio from the company’s web site over the July 4 vacation and changed it with that of his successor, profession DEA official George Papadopoulos. But in an inside e-mail to employees, Milgram hailed the 60-year-old Milione as a “DEA legend” greatest recognized for main the abroad sting that in 2008 nabbed Russia’s infamous arms trafficker Viktor Bout.
“I was thrilled that he agreed to come back home to DEA,” she wrote in a June 26 e-mail obtained by AP. “Lou has used his skills as a master case maker to help us bring cases against entire criminal networks and to investigate the entire globally fentanyl supply chain.”
Milione’s exit provides to the turmoil on the high of the DEA following quite a lot of different high-level departures, misconduct scandals and the launch of federal watchdog investigation into tens of millions in no-bid contracts awarded to previous associates of Milgram.
Mostly Republican members of Congress grilled Milgram throughout a routine price range request in April, and the administrator additionally is anticipated to testify later this month in a House oversight listening to trying into the DEA’s operations and effectiveness combating the flood of fentanyl into the U.S. from Mexico.
Since Milgram took the reins of the DEA two years in the past, she has cycled via virtually three dozen senior aides, a lot of them veteran brokers who had been pushed out or stop as a result of variations with Milgram. That contains the heads of all the DEA’s principal divisions in addition to the DEA’s chief counsel, its congressional affairs liaison and the highest agent in Mexico.
Milgram’s defenders say that home cleansing is a part of an agency-wide reset to fight the fentanyl disaster. She’s additionally exhibited a zero tolerance for racism and sexism that has festered contained in the old-boy community that has lengthy formed personnel selections contained in the DEA.
“Change is hard and some people don’t like it,” Chuck Rosenberg, a former DEA administrator, advised AP this spring. “Time will tell whether she was right or wrong, but my money is on Anne.”
Most of Milione’s consulting work was completed as a senior managing director of Guidepost Solutions, a personal investigative agency primarily based in New York. Under his watch, Guidepost expanded its DEA compliance apply, which now contains 9 former DEA staff.
Guidepost declined to remark. Purdue stated in a press release that its retention of Milione as an knowledgeable on DEA compliance points ended when the Connecticut-based firm filed for chapter safety in September 2019. “To the best of our knowledge, no one at Purdue had any business communications with Mr. Milione after he returned to government,” it stated.
For Purdue, which has twice pleaded responsible to federal prison expenses for its function in fueling the opioid disaster and final yr reached a $6 billion nationwide settlement geared toward staunching a flood of lawsuits from states, Milione produced a 16-page knowledgeable report in 2019 that was by no means launched into proof. That report, obtained by the AP, praises Purdue’s efforts going again to 2000 to trace the unlawful sale of opioids by rogue pharmacies and “pill mill” docs.
“These are the kinds of programs DEA encourages and supports manufacturers in undertaking,” Milione wrote, “as it considers them a valuable part of diversion control efforts.”
Former DEA official Coleman questioned why Milgram selected Milione as her No. 2 regardless of his company entanglements and whether or not it was ever practical for him to be walled off from lots of the place’s management capabilities.
“There’s no way to isolate that person from the day-to-day business of the agency, which includes regulating companies that make and distribute controlled substances,” stated Coleman, who’s now president of Drug Watch International, a not-for-profit that seeks to scale back drug abuse. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”
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