The chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee ordered his staff to begin an investigation Friday into allegations that some of the nation’s largest lending institutions have cheated veterans and taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars by charging illegal fees in home refinancing loans.

Committee staff members met Friday with officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs to discuss the charges, which are made in a whistleblower lawsuit unsealed this month by a federal court in Atlanta.

“I will reserve judgment on the appropriate next course of action, to include the potential for a full Committee hearing, after having the opportunity to review the results of the staff investigation,” Rep. Jeff Miller, (R-Fla.), chairman of the committee, wrote in a letter Friday to Rep. Bruce Braley, (D-Iowa), the ranking member of the committee’s subcommittee on economic opportunity.

Braley on Wednesday requested that the committee hold a hearing to examine the allegations. “It is disconcerting that charges have arisen that banks are not following rules governing fees that can be charged for refinancing loans,” Braley wrote in a letter to Miller.

On Tuesday, Sen. Jon Tester, (D-Mont.), a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affair Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that the Department of Justice investigate the allegations. “If true, this type of behavior is illegal and it’s un-American,” wrote Tester.

Under a VA program, veterans are able to refinance with loans guaranteed by the government, enabling them to lower their interest rates or shorten the terms of their mortgages. The rules prohibit lenders from charging attorney fees.

The lawsuit was brought under the False Claims Act by two mortgage brokers in Georgia who allege that the banks instructed them to disguise attorney charges by listing them as part of the title examination fee.

The suit, which was filed in 2006 but remained sealed while the allegations were investigated, seeks to recover damages and civil penalties from 13 lending institutions on behalf of the U.S government.

The Justice Department has notified the Federal court in Atlanta that it is not taking over the case, but will consider doing so at a later date. “I request that you provide justification for this decision, and urge you to reconsider,” Tester wrote in his letter to Holder. “I also request that you investigate the full extent of these illegal activities.”

The Justice Department has not yet responded to the request, according to Tester’s office.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate panel that oversees federal personnel issues. (Andrew Harrer - Bloomberg) Congress should freeze the pay of federal employees for a third year and retool calculations of their retirement benefits to help pay down the federal deficit, two senators responsible for federal personnel issues said Friday.

Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), the chairman of and ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said they regret recommending a third year of pay freezes, “but people across the country are struggling, most especially those who are suffering from historic levels of unemployment. And all Americans, including those of us in the public sector, must help get our country out of the hole we are in.”

Lieberman and Collins also endorsed tallying federal workers’ retirement benefits based on an employee’s five highest years of compensation, instead of the three highest years. But any change should limit any adverse effects on workers nearing retirement eligibility.

Disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff might hope his upcoming book sells well, but he won’t see all of the profits from it. A federal court has garnished money earned from “Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist” and will use it to pay back the author’s victims.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an Oct. 11 order instructing Worldnetdaily Books, the Washington-based publisher of the upcoming tome, to turn over any money it owes Abramoff under the book contract or other agreements.

The court noted that after he was convicted of fraud, corruption and conspiracy stemming from shady lobbying deals, Abramoff was ordered to pay back more than $23 million to his victims, mostly to Native American tribes who were his clients. He still owes more than $22.7 million, the court said.

Abramoff’s first-person account of his rise and spectacular fall, including a three-and-a- half year stint in federal prison that ended last June, is slated to hit bookstands Nov. 14. Other books have chronicled the convicted lobbyist’s tale, but Abramoff’s self-penned tale is being billed as a “corrective” version of the story.

A spokeswoman for the publisher said that the company couldn’t comment since it had not yet received the garnishment order and that Abramoff would not be available for comment because he was observing the Jewish holiday.

(The U.S. Post Office in Olive Hill, Tenn., located in the back of a general store, is on the Postal Service’s list for possible closure. (Evan Kalish))

With thousands of post offices across America on the chopping block, fans of the U.S. Postal Service are entering a new era of nostalgia.

At 24, Evan Kalish may be the kind of person who’s helping make old-fashioned mail obsolete in the Internet age. But he’s harnessing new technology to preserve history as it’s unfolding, post office by post office.

Kalish, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, belongs to a small group of mail buffs who visit, photograph and document the lives—and now, deaths— of the nation’s post offices. He’s on Number 2,571 in 43 states and counting.

“Now, it’s just a race against time to collect as many stories as I can before they cease to exist,” he said.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaks in Detroit, in May. (Paul Sancya - Associated Press) Add Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to the list of Obama administration officials not planning to stick around if President Obama wins reelection.

LaHood told the Chicago Tribune Thursday that he is staying in his job for one term and will not run for public office again.

He said he anticipates some “wonderful opportunities” awaiting him once he leaves government.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta (Alex Wong - GETTY IMAGES) There are no immediate plans to change the military’s retirement system, but any future changes will not affect those currently serving, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told lawmakers Thursday.

Speaking at a House hearing on military budget issues, Panetta said any proposals to cut more than roughly $450 million from the Pentagon budget in the next decade would be devastating.

“I don’t say it as a scare tactic, don’t say it as a threat,” Panetta told members of the House Armed Services Committee. “It’s a reality.”

Regarding potential changes to the military’s retirement system, Panetta conceded: “I’ve got to put everything on the table and take a look at it. And compensation in the retirement area is one of those.”

The Kenosha North Pierhead Lighthouse, located near Simmons Island Park, Kenosha, Wis., is one of several federal sites divested in recent years. (GSA Auctions) Updated 6:00 p.m. ET

President Obama’s goal of trimming the federal real estate portfolio moved one step closer to reality Thursday as a House panel approved legislation that would establish a commission to select federal buildings, warehouses, storage sites and silos worth selling.

The bill, approved by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, would establish an independent commission to review federal sites and determine which could be sold or given to states and cities or nonprofit groups. The proposed panel, modeled on the Base Realignment Commission (BRAC) that selected military sites to shutter, would make recommendations to Congress and the president to be accepted or rejected en bloc.

President Obama with his wife Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha, during a visit to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. (Alex Brandon - AP) Uncertainty in the euro region is rattling markets and parliaments around the world and it also means fewer Europeans are visiting our national parks, according to a veteran park observer.

Foreigners from Europe and Asia have long been some of the most loyal visitors to sites including Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and the Grand Tetons. But European visits are down slightly this year at 392 sites operated by the National Park Service, Ron Tipton, vice president for policy with the National Parks Conservation Association, a private group advocating for the NPS.

Total visits to national parks topped 281.3 million in 2010, a decline of about half a percent from 2009, according to agency stats. Less reliable monthly data compiled by park rangers shows that park visits are off 2 percent year-to-date at all parks and historic sites. (Total numbers and an official visitor tally for 2011 won’t be known until next March, according to Tipton.)

(Timothy Fadek - BLOOMBERG) Transferring tens of billions of dollars in federal worker retirement accounts back to the U.S. Postal Service would not address its long-term debt problems and would force unfunded liabilities on to taxpayers, according to a new government report.

The conclusions set for release Thursday by the Government Accountability Office run counter to the opinions of postal regulators, the postal inspector general and congressional Democrats, who say Congress should refund as much as $75 billion to the Postal Service for improperly overpaying federal retirement accounts since the 1970s.

A draft copy of the GAO report was provided to The Federal Eye by congressional sources in advance of its official release.

Gay rights activists picketed the White House in 1965 to protest government discrimination against homosexuals. The demonstration was organized by the Mattachine Society of Washington, founded by Frank Kameny (second picketer facing the reader). (file photo - UPI)

Frank Kameny, who died Tuesday night at 86, started his long run as a father of the gay rights movement writing maps for an obscure federal agency.

As Kameny is remembered this week by friends and colleagues, we’re reminded of a haunting piece of federal history tucked into his personal papers: the government’s firing of gay federal workers.

In 1957, Kameny was fired from his job with the Army Map Service in Washington after a run-in with police in Lafayette Park, a gay cruising area across from the White House. The then-Civil Service Commission booted him. After protesting with allies in front of the White House and the commission office downtown, Kameny tried to take his case to the Supreme Court as a violation of civil rights based on sexual orientation, but his petition was turned down.