Press Room
 

FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

April 4, 2005
JS-2357

Harold Damelin Sworn in as Treasury Inspector General

Harold Damelin, a Washington, D.C. attorney and graduate of Boston College Law School, was sworn in today as the Inspector General of the Department of the Treasury. President Bush nominated him for this position on January 24, 2005, and the Senate confirmed him on March 17, 2005.

As Inspector General, Damelin will lead the efforts of the Office of Inspector General to keep the Secretary and the Congress informed on the effectiveness and efficiency of Treasury programs and operations, to conduct audits and to investigate allegations of waste, fraud and abuse.

Prior to becoming the Inspector General of the Department of the Treasury, Damelin served as Inspector General of the Small Business Administration for the past two years. Damelin came to the Inspector General community with over thirty years of litigation experience in the Federal government and in private practice. Before entering private practice in 1986, Damelin served for thirteen years as a Federal prosecutor with both the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia. From 1986 to 1995, he was a partner in two law firms where he specialized in white collar criminal defense.

In 1995 Damelin rejoined the public sector, serving for two years as Staff Director and Chief Counsel for the U. S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and then for a year as Senior Counsel to the U. S. Senate's Special Investigation Committee which examined allegations of wrongdoing surrounding the 1996 federal election campaigns. In 1999, Damelin returned to private practice for five years with the Washington, D.C. firm of Powers, Pyles, Sutter and Verville, where he headed the firm's fraud and abuse practice group. He left that firm in 2003 to become the Inspector General at the Small Business Administration.