Erroll Southers, Barack Obama’s nominee for TSA chief, lied to Congress about an incident in which he inappropriately accessed a federal database for personal purposes. The incident had ended with the FBI censuring Southers.

The Washington Post reports:

The White House nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration gave Congress misleading information about incidents in which he inappropriately accessed a federal database, possibly in violation of privacy laws, documents obtained by The Washington Post show….

Southers, a former FBI agent, has described inconsistencies in his accounts to Congress as “inadvertent” and the result of poor memory of an incident that dates back 20 years. He said in a Nov. 20 letter to key senators obtained by The Post that he accepted full responsibility long ago for a “grave error in judgment” in accessing confidential criminal records about his estranged wife’s new boyfriend.

His letter to Senate homeland security Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and ranking Republican Susan Collins (Maine), which has not been publicly disclosed, attempts to correct statements about the episode that were made in a sworn affidavit on Oct. 22 and have been previously reported…

Southers first described the episode in his October affidavit, telling the Senate panel that two decades ago he asked a San Diego Police Department employee to access confidential criminal records about the boyfriend. Southers said he had had been censured by superiors at the FBI. He described the incident as isolated and expressed regrets about it.

The committee approved his nomination on Nov. 19. One day later, Southers wrote to Lieberman and Collins saying his first account was incorrect. After reviewing documents, he recalled that he had twice conducted the database searches himself, downloaded confidential law enforcement records about his wife’s boyfriend and passed information on to the police department employee, the letter said.

To sum that up, he told Congress one thing, was confirmed by the committee, and then admitted he misled them. He lied to Congress to get a committee’s approval.

And yet the White House insists his lies under sworn affidavit shouldn’t affect the approval process. Which should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been tracking this corrupt administration.

Exit question: How have we reached the point where the TSA chief nominee is known to have violated privacy laws, abused his position of power, and been censured by the FBI? Does this bother no one?