Earlier quoted context omitted.
My impression was "associated".
Given all the failed government projects, I feel like that people say, "As long as you can't prove it wasn't my fault" (as opposed to "my project") they won't get fired. After all nobody got fired from Big Government for following the rules... (Sarcasm intended)
Fired isn't the problem. If you're smart and ambitious and believe in public service, you don't want to spend the rest of your life in a basement cubicle re-verifying the presence of the new cover sheet on the TPS reports.