Foley returns to work after joking about lavish GSA conference

As the deputy public buildings commissioner, Mr. Foley serves as the agency’s chief operating officer and helps oversee the federal government’s vast real estate holdings.

While Mr. Foley returns to the agency, the public face of the conference scandal, Jeffrey Neely, a GSA regional commissioner, left last week after citing his Fifth Amendment right in refusing to testify before Congress last month.

GSA spokesman Adam Elkington said last week Mr. Neely, who is no longer employed by the agency, already had been placed on leave because of his involvement with the conference. He also said the agency was completing its review of the conference and is “pursuing all available avenues for disciplinary action against those responsible.”

Even as Congress investigates the conference, a law enforcement probe is also underway.

The GSA’s inspector general in a letter to The Times declined to release records on the conference in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, citing an exemption that permits officials to keep records secret if the release could interfere with “ongoing law enforcement proceedings.”

Officials said in the letter they were withholding more than 800,000 documents.

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