US Treasury officials solicited prostitutes, accepted gifts

A Treasury Department probe has revealed rampant unethical behavior, including accepting gifts from business executives, soliciting prostitutes, and other conflicts of interest.

The Hill reported the details emerged this month in documents on governmentattic.org, which publishes Freedom of Information Act requests. FOIA is a law that allows access to information from the federal government.

According to the New York Daily News, investigators at the Treasury's Office of Inspector General (OIG) found in 2010 that one employee “misused” government resources to browse and hire prostitutes on Craigslist.

The Hill also reported the OIG found staffers accepted golf fees, meals from bank executives and improper gifts such as flowers and at least one limousine ride.

The Treasury is just the latest branch of the government to be plagued by scandal.

In the last few months, the Secret Service has been rocked by a major investigation that began when agents were caught soliciting prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia during a March 2012 trip with President Barack Obama to that nation.

An investigation found the Colombia-prostitute scandal was far from an “isolated incident."

As CBS News reported agents also paid for sexual favors at a strip club in El Salvador in March 2011, which was followed by reports of parties at strip clubs in Buenos Aires in 2009, and of a similar incident in Moscow in 2000.