Washington Free Beacon reporter Ellison Barber said (tongue-in-cheek) she was "genuinely impressed" with former senior EPA official Jason C. Beale's 12 year scam Wednesday on Red Eye. Beale pretended to be a spy for the CIA while collecting illegal salary bonuses from the EPA.
Despite stealing nearly $900,000 from the U.S. taxpayer, both Barber and host Greg Gutfeld found it difficult to muster any animus against Beale given he was so hilariously successful in pulling off his con.
"I think if we are going to be mad at anyone here, the person we should be mad at is his supervisor who never thought to call anybody at the CIA and say 'it has been 12 years, does he work over there?'," Barber said:
GREG GUTFELD: Ellison, I want to be angry at this man because this is our money. But I almost admire the level of corruption he attained.
ELLISON BARBER: Me too. 12 years and he got a day off. I am actually genuinely a little impressed. I think if we are going to be mad at anyone here, the person we should be mad at is his supervisor who never thought to call anybody at the CIA and say "it has been 12 years, does he work over there?" Because I feel like that is probably professional malpractice. I may be wrong on that, but, I'm going to say, I feel like we should maybe give him a little bit of props for getting away with it for 12 years. Because there's no way, the first time he said it he was probably like "errr," and it worked and he was like "oh my gosh!"
GUTFELD: The great thing is you can't ask to call a supervisor. "I don't know my supervisor. I just got a letter that tells me I have to go to Leningrad. I never actually met my supervisor. […]