The FBI's raid of new Obama CIO Vivek Kundra's former D.C. offices is bad for Kundra, Obama--and Google--no matter how you slice it. Either Kundra knew about the scam to steal millions from D.C.'s taxpayers and he's a criminal--or he was oblivous to what was going on around him and can't be trusted to manage the nation's huge IT infrastructure, especially in this economy. Either way, Obama should probably look to replace him.
The scandal makes it clear that even in IT, there are very few good picks to be made when it comes to filling cabinet-level positions with candidates who are both qualified and politically responsible/acceptable. Kundra probably didn't realize what his staffers were up to, but even so, if he simply missed fraud on this wide a scale, it makes Tim Geithner's multi-K tax oversights look pretty small in comparison.
Google must be disappointed. It would have been nice to have a Google advocate so high up in the administration at a time when the federal government's overall IT infrastructure is being rethought and revamped. But even Google's probably hoping Obama jettisons Kundra, and fast. It's never good to have a cheerleader for your cause tainted by either criminality or massive oblivousness.
