Questions have been raised over whether P. Daniel Smith was given a sweetheart deal after stepping down as deputy director of the National Park Service/NPS
Editor's note: This updates with response from the National Park Service officials regarding Smith's role with the agency.
National Park Service officials, reacting to allegations that P. Daniel Smith was given a sweetheart deal last fall when he stepped down to allow David Vela to serve as the agency's de facto director, said Thursday that Smith fills an important role for the agency.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility on Tuesday filed a request (attached below) with the Interior Department's Inspector General to investigate Smith's working arrangement, which allows him to live in North Carolina and work from there with office space at Guildford Courthouse National Military Park.
While Park Service personnel said Wednesday that they hadn't seen PEER's allegations and had no comment, they issued a statement Thursday after seeing Traveler's story.
"Former deputy director Dan Smith continues to serve an important role in the leadership of the National Park Service. As the National Park Service Commemorations Specialist, he is leading NPS efforts on the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence, working with our parks, partners, stakeholders and the United States Semiquincentennial Commission to plan an inclusive commemoration for visitors from around the world," said Park Service spokesperson Mike Litterest.
"The semiquincentennial will be a multi-year commemoration of one of the most momentous eras in American history and will span national parks across the nation,' he added. "With more than 30 years of experience at all levels of the National Park Service and within the Department of the Interior, Dan's leadership will prove invaluable to the success of the commemoration."
No further information would be forthcoming, added Litterest, who also said Traveler's request to speak to Smith would not be granted.
Smith's tenure with the National Park Service has been tenuous at times. He was a political appointee working for then-Park Service Director Fran Mainella in 2004 when he became involved in a dispute at Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park in which he was implicated for improperly paving the way for the owner of the Washington Redskins to cut down trees on a 2-acre scenic easement held by the park.
An investigation by the Inspector General's office at the time found that Smith "inappropriately used his position to apply pressure and circumvent NPS procedures" to permit Redskins owner Dan Snyder to have trees up to 6 inches wide at breast height on the easement cut down to improve the Potomac River view from his mansion. According to the investigation by then-Inspector General Earl Devaney's staff, the Park Service failed to conduct the requisite environmental assessment as required by the NPS Director's Handbook before issuing the special user permit to Mr. Snyder.
Smith later was appointed superintendent of Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia, a position he held until retiring in 2014. He then was brought back to the Park Service in January 2018 by Zinke to serve as a deputy director who could exercise the authority of the director, as there was no Senate-confirmed Park Service director. In March of that year he was accused of inappropriately grabbing his crotch in a hallway of the Interior Department, and while he later acknowledged it was inappropriate he was cleared of sexual harassment claims.
Smith also was involved with directing Park Service managers during the partial government shutdown early in 2019 to tap Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act funds if needed to keep parks operating. The Government Accountability Office last September concluded that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt twice broke the law when he told Smith to allow the diversions. Smith also gained attention in September when, acting at the Bernhardt's direction, he allegedly ignored a number of laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, as well as the National Park Service Organic Act, to push through e-Bike access in the parks.
Last October Smith stepped down from his role as deputy director, and into a job as special advisor to the Park Service director for all commemorations tied to the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding, as well as to coordinate the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution activities. Those positions attracted PEER's attention. The group contends they've received information from Park Service employees that Smith "has done little to no observable work in the position and appears to have violated the NPS’s teleworking policies."
Ironically, PEER notes, those teleworking policies, which, in part, require that employees report to an active duty station at least two days every bi-weekly pay period, were put into place when Smith led the agency as its de facto director.
"It should be noted that Mr. Smith, as deputy NPS director, reportedly had previously signed orders that restricted several NPS officials in their preferred teleworking authorizations," PEER claims in its letter calling for an OIG investigation. "His own current telework approach appears inconsistent with those orders. Significantly, this was a new position drawn up especially for, and presumably largely by, Mr. Smith prior to his departure from the NPS leadership position.
"To the extent that it was drawn up by Mr. Vela, it is highly relevant that it was Smith who last year gave Vela his initial NPS Deputy Director job," the letter continues. "It has the appearance of a sinecure for Smith; that is, an easy GS-15 appointment with no management or supervisory responsibilities and low demands."
PEER failed to find any evidence that Smith "has done any work related to the Semiquincentennial or to a commemoration of the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution, his other alleged duty."
Traveler was unable to reach any Park Service employee who could say whether Smith was actively performing his roles, though current and retired personnel said they had received reports from active employees complaining of Smith's deal.
Back at Park Service headquarters in Washington on Wednesday, Litterest did not respond to Traveler's questions as to whom Smith regularly reports to, whether there was any work product that could be attributed to Smith, whether the positions he's filling merit such a highly paid employee, or whether there was competition for the positions.
While Thursday's statement said Smith was the Park Service's point person for the 250th anniversary of the country's founding, he apparently missed a meeting last month in Vice President Mike Pence's office with the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission. Smith was not among those pictured with the vice president. On top of that, a report from the commission sent to President Trump in December also failed to mention Smith, though it mentioned that Independence National Historical Park Superintendent Cynthia MacLeod was the "National Park Service representative to the Commission."
Litterest did not reply when asked whether Smith was at the meeting.
Comments
A few of the posters in this thread need to stop typing and start researching.
As was correctly stated by Kurt there were many "turning points" in the fight for independence.
To claim Guilford Couthouse was one of those major "turning points" only shows the lack of research espeically with regard to the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution.
To any knowledgeable historian, it was the Battle at Kings Mountain that, as Jefferson wrote, ""I remember well the deep and grateful impression made on the minds of every one by that memorable victory. It was the joyful annunciation of that turn of the tide of success which terminated the Revolutionary War with the seal of our independence."
The leader of the British forces in the Colonies, Sir Henry Clinton writing about the Battle at Kings Mountain, stating:
"the first link of a chain of evils" that ended in "the total loss of America."
President Hoover who could have visited any Southern Campaign site, chose the Battle at Kings Mountain stating:
"Here less than a thousand men, inspired by the urge of freedom, defeated a superior force entrenched in this strategic position. This small band of patriots turned back a dangerous invasion well-designed to separate and dismember the united Colonies. It was a small army and a little battle, but it was of mighty portent. History has done scant justice to its significance, which rightly should place it beside Lexington and Bunker Hill, Trenton and Yorktown, as one of the crucial engagements in our long struggle for independence."
C.P. Russell, Supervisor of Interpretation in Washington writes regarding the Battle of Kings Mountain, "Probably no other battle in the Revolution was so picturesque or so furiously fought as that at Kings Mountain. The very mountain thundered. Not a regular soldier was in the American ranks. Every man there was actuated by a spirit of democracy. They fought under leaders of their own choosing for the right to live in a land governed by men of their own choice."
Consider what two more American Presidents stated armed with a battery of available historians to guide their words where Theodore Roosevelt's wrote in his book, The Winning of the West, described the Battle of Kings Mountain:
"This brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution."
Most recently, President Jimmy Carter who wrote "The Hornets Nest" book armed by consulting historians affirmred throughout the book hes reverance for the Battle at Kings Mountain but especially notable was the Q&A from the Publisher and the President at the end of the book where the question was asked in question #17, "Were there any particular battles or moments in the war that most engaged you - perhaps a small skirmish that, for you, best enscapsulated the war and the ultimate fate of the British forces?
Carter replied citing the French alliance but included in his answer as a shared "ultimate turning point":
"The refusal of southern militiamen to surrender was extraordinary, and it is likely that their victory at King's Mountain was as significant, practically and psychologically, as any battle in leading to Cornwallis's final surrender."
Yet, some of you claim Guilford Courthouse?
That is about as accurate as stating the British wore Bluecoats.
Cornwallis lost his commander for the western flank of his army, Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of Kings Mountain who was captured in numerous diaries as proclaiming "God and all of his Angels can not take me from this mountain!" He was right since he is buried there under a growing pile of rocks laid to respect a much hated commander. A bit of trivia, sonar has confirmed he was buried face to face with one of his two mistresses, both named Virgina who were with him on the mountain....the other escaped.
From Kings Mountain in October of 1780, Cornwallis retreated back into South Carolina since at the time, Kings Mountain was surveyed as being in North Carolina where it remained for over a century until the border was surveyed just south of the battlefield.
Nearly four months later, a battle that most historians agree (this one included) at the "Cowpens" saw Continenental Army General Daniel Morgan use remants of the Kings Mountain battle, these "Overmountain Men" to bait the British into the valley of their demise where Cornwallis and his remaining Commander, Banestre Tarlton (who was Ferguson's counterpart on the eastern flank) saw these "shirtmen" aka "scoundrels" who had carried the day at Kings Mountain and revenge led them to charge the enemy believing they had them at significant disadvantage.
Waiting in a flanking position called the "Double Envelope" military strategy still taught at Westpointe, General Morgan sounded the charge and the British regulars and loyalists were soundly defeated.
At this point, Cornwallis led a decimated army, his resupply lines cut off, unable to tend to his wounded, unimaginable losses, and he initiated his retreat fleeing north in an attempt to reunite with the main British army led by Sir Henry Clinton.
It was during this "no mood to fight" that Cornwallis encountered General Greens and his Colonial forces first at the Battle of New Garden just south of Guilford Courthouse where Tarleton took a lead shot, not lethal, further hastening Cornwallis' acceleration to the safety of the main army.
The Battle at Guilford Courthouse by most accouns was a draw with equal losses but the Continental Army did claim their dead which by definition usually defines the victor.
Had Cornwallis has his resupply, had he dug in, had he engaged fully in battle, Guilford Courthouse could have been a similar outcome to the disgraced cowardly loss by Washington's dispatch of General Gates at the Battle at Camden.
After a retreat east into North Carolina, in October of 1781 Cornwallis arrived at Yorktown hoping to escape by sea but gazing out to the Atlanic, he saw an armada of French warships.
He has outrun his spy network and reasoned he had both militia and Continental Army giving chase which led to his unthinkable decision to surrender.
His shame was so great, he could not bring himself to face Washington, so an Officer was sent to offer terms of surrender. Washington respected this act dispatching a similar ranked Continental officer to accept terms and most thought that was the end of the matter only to later learn that King George refused to accept this outcome until several years later where at the Treaty of Paris he lamented he had lost his beloved Colonies.
So there you have as Paul Harvey quipped "the rest of the story."
So please, learn from this account, it is without bias or error. It is founded on the best accounts of what happened by those who wrote in their diaries and from those who committed their entire lives to study this account.
For some of you, you shame the sweat and blood of those men who won your freedoms many of who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Please stop, please let the "fake news" dominate current news accounts, fight your natural tendancies to revise history you know little about.
For those of you who have made accurate accounts, I offer you a hearty HUZZA!
Concerned Citizen
Has there been any production out of this position since it was filled? Clearly it was a gift but at some point Mr. Smith needs to produce something. A brochure, an inerpretive talk, a tweet, what is this job doing to earn the paycheck? Maybe the new Acting Director can check in on Mr. Smith. A GS 15 should have some level of performacne expected. Right now, crickets.