According to a WH source:
An administration official said special advisers to the president, or czars, are not required to fill out the questionnaire that runs 7 pages and contains 63 questions.
The entire questionnaire, the official said, is reserved for appointees who must win Senate confirmation…
Question 61 reads as follows: “Have you had any association with any person, group or business venture that could be used – even unfairly – to impugn or attack your character and qualifications for government service?”…
An administration official said Jones never hid his controversial associations or remarks from the White House.
“It wouldn’t be fair to characterize him as being dishonest or hiding his comments or his positions,” the official said. “It’s just fair to say that he didn’t go through the most rigorous vetting process.”
A former Bush lawyer who spoke to Politico isn’t buying it:
During the Bush Administration any White House staffer with policymaking or public responsibilities would have undergone substantial vetting. At a minimum, the potential hire would have been asked the umbrella question “is there anything in your background that — fairly or unfairly — might be used to cause embarrasment to you or the President.” In, addition, anyone with a West Wing office had to undergo a national security background investigation based on the SF-86 form in order to get a permanent badge. That form includes very detailed questions about associations with anti-government groups. If Jones was asked either set of questions, the information that led to his resignation should have been disclosed…
Van Jones’ issues would probably have been flagged if he had simply been looking for a date on E-Harmony or Match.Com. Here, there was most likely a major gap in the vetting operation, a deliberate deception by Jones, or a conscious decision by someone senior to short circuit the more rigorous vetting process. The smart money would be on the latter two possibilities. This happened once in the Bush Administration with the vetting of Bernie Kerik, with awful consequences.
Jones resigned amid a furor over his signature on a 2004 petition questioning the government’s actions around the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Supporters say the administration surely knew his background when they appointed Jones, the first African American to write a best-selling environmental book, as special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In fact, agents interviewed at least one of his former supervisors in San Francisco – Eva Paterson – when the FBI vetted his appointment.
As Allahpundit states:
Jones’s association with STORM should have been a, er, red flag — enough of one, at least, to warrant completing the full seven-page questionnaire. Again, why the free pass?
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