Krongard, State Department ISG, Investigated For Multiple Cover-ups

If found guilty, penalties must be severe.

State Department Inspector General Accused of Multiple Cover-Ups
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report

Wednesday 19 September 2007

The State Department's inspector general has allegedly interfered with and blocked numerous investigations into contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as probes related to domestic issues, according to several whistleblowers who provided detailed accounts of the widespread malfeasance to a Democratic congressman.

Congressman Henry Waxman (D-California), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter to Howard Krongard, the inspector general for the State Department, requesting his participation in a Congressional investigation into Krongard's work as inspector general.

The letter contained allegations of misconduct made by seven current and former members of Krongard's staff, including the assistant inspector general for investigations and his deputy, both of whom resigned after Krongard allegedly blocked and interfered with their investigations. According to the letter, the allegations have been backed up by emails given to the Committee.

Waxman contended Krongard turned his office into an arm of the president. "One consistent element in these allegations is that you believe your foremost mission is to support the Bush Administration, especially with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than act as an independent and objective check on waste, fraud, and abuse on behalf of U.S. taxpayers," Waxman's letter stated. Krongard was appointed by Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2005.

Current and former colleges of Krongard pointed to his loyalty to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Republican Party as motivation for his potentially criminal behavior. The whistleblowers alleged that Krongard's "strong affinity with State Department leadership," and his "partisan political ties," led him to "halt investigations, censor reports, and refuse to cooperate with law enforcement agencies," according to the letter. A spokesperson for the State Department would not comment on the allegations of an improper relationship between Krongard and Rice.

Rice refused to comply with a subpoena for her testimony issued by the oversight committee in April. A spokesperson for the oversight committee had no comment when asked about the committee's commitment to enforcing the subpoena.

In the letter, Waxman's sources claimed that Krongard stymied multiple internal investigations into State Department projects in Afghanistan and Iraq, interfered with multiple investigations by other agencies, and censored State Department reports and audits.

According to Waxman, Krongard's office has not concluded a single fraud investigation relating to State Department contracts in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Whistleblowers told Waxman that Krongard prevented his staff from cooperating with a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into problems with the construction of the US Embassy in Iraq and a DOJ investigation into the smuggling of weapons by private security contractors into Iraq.

Controlling investigations into the Iraq Embassy project was a priority for Krongard according to members of his staff. Reports of human trafficking and the use of slave labor by contractors who were building the embassy were not investigated properly by Krongard or his office. According to his own testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee, Krongard personally conducted what he termed a "review" that "essentially consisted of agreed-upon or limited procedures."

According to Waxman's letter, the "review" consisted of interviews with workers who were hand-picked by the contractor. After issuing a subpoena, Waxman received a report prepared by Krongard as a result of his "review", which according to Waxman's letter, consisted of "six pages of handwritten notes showing that Krongard interviewed six foreign workers ... Krongard produced no documentation that identified the six employees ... there is no documentation indicating that you talked with any of the individuals who raised the allegations of trafficking."

Waxman also included internal emails that show Krongard instructed his staff to clear "all matters relating to the New Embassy Compound," with Krongard or William Todd, the deputy inspector general.

According to Waxman, Krongard interfered with the on-going Congressional investigation of Kenneth Tomlinson, the head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and a close associate of Karl Rove, for possible unethical behavior. According to staff members, Krongard received a request from members of Congress to investigate Tomlinson. Krongard allegedly had the request and accompanying testimony from whistleblowers faxed directly to Tomlinson. According to the letter, Congressional investigators said Krongard's actions were "inconsistent with standard investigative procedures," and "jeopardized the investigation."

The letter states officials from Krongard's office faced "daily antagonism" from Krongard. According to the letter, officials said Krongard would "'chastise the employees without warning,' causing 'people to come to work every day fearful.'" Waxman asserted this work environment caused the retention rate of trained staff to fall. "In the investigative division, for example, only 7 of 27 investigator positions are currently filled. This serious under staffing raises its own questions about your commitment to conduct investigations into waste, fraud, and abuse at the State Department," Waxman wrote.

The Oversight committee scheduled a hearing on this issue for October 16.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The Executive Cannot Be Trusted

It's all about power and obtaining more power. Nothing else matters to these thugs. Not a damned thing. Not me, not you; no one matters to them unless they vote Republican or contribute big bucks.

The Bush administration simply cannot be trusted with our lives one minute longer.

Diplomats Received Political Briefings
Bush Aides Listed Election Targets

By Paul Kane
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 24, 2007; A01

White House aides have conducted at least half a dozen political briefings for the Bush administration's top diplomats, including a PowerPoint presentation for ambassadors with senior adviser Karl Rove that named Democratic incumbents targeted for defeat in 2008 and a "general political briefing" at the Peace Corps headquarters after the 2002 midterm elections.

The briefings, mostly run by Rove's deputies at the White House political affairs office, began in early 2001 and included detailed analyses for senior officials of the political landscape surrounding critical congressional and gubernatorial races, according to documents obtained by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The documents show for the first time how the White House sought to ensure that even its appointees involved in foreign policy were kept attuned to the administration's election goals. Such briefings occurred semi-regularly over the past six years for staffers dealing with domestic policy, White House officials have previously acknowledged.

In one instance, State Department aides attended a White House meeting at which political officials examined the 55 most critical House races for 2002 and the media markets most critical to battleground states for President Bush's reelection fight in 2004, according to documents the department provided to the Senate committee.

On Jan. 4, just after the 2006 elections tossed the Republicans out of congressional power, Rove met at the White House with six U.S. ambassadors to key European missions and the consul general to Bermuda while the diplomats were in Washington for a State Department conference.

According to a department letter to the Senate panel, Rove explained the White House views on the electoral disaster while Sara M. Taylor, then the director of White House political affairs, showed a PowerPoint presentation that pinned most of the electoral blame on "corrupt" GOP lawmakers and "complacent incumbents." One chart in Taylor's presentation highlighted the GOP's top 36 targets among House Democrats for the 2008 election.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, asked whether the briefings inappropriately politicized the diplomatic agencies or violated prohibitions against political work by most federal employees.

"I do not understand why ambassadors, in Washington on official duty, would be briefed by White House officials on which Democratic House members are considered top targets by the Republican party for defeat in 2008. Nor do I understand why department employees would need to be briefed on 'key media markets' in states that are 'competitive' for the president," Biden wrote.

His aides said Biden plans to raise the matter at a confirmation hearing today for Henrietta Holsman Fore to be administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, whose political appointees received at least two White House briefings in the past 10 months, as well as at an oversight hearing tomorrow on the Peace Corps.

Several months ago, White House aides said that about 20 private briefings were held in 15 agencies before the 2006 midterms and that other briefings were held irregularly throughout Bush's first term.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel found, in a May report, that General Services Administration chief Lurita Alexis Doan violated the Hatch Act when she allegedly asked GSA political appointees how they could "help our candidates" win the next election at a January briefing by White House officials. The Hatch Act insulates virtually all federal workers from partisan politics and bars the use of federal resources -- including office buildings, phones and computers -- for partisan purposes.

Doan has denied any wrongdoing.

Spokesmen for the State Department, the Peace Corps and USAID said that only political appointees were invited to the briefings and that attendance was not compulsory. They also said that no specific actions were subsequently taken to boost political campaigns.

"We believe that these briefings were entirely appropriate," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "They conformed with all the applicable regulations."

The ambassadors included in the Rove briefing were Eduardo Aguirre Jr. of Spain, James P. Cain of Denmark, Alfred Hoffman Jr. of Portugal, Ronald Spogli of Italy, Craig Stapleton of France and Robert Tuttle of Britain. Gregory Slayton, the consul general to Bermuda, also attended.

In total, the seven diplomats donated more than $1.6 million to Republican causes from 2000 through 2006, according to a Center for Responsive Politics report on large Bush donors who were named ambassadors. The State Department, in a letter to Biden, said that Cain -- one of Bush's top fundraisers in North Carolina -- requested the meeting with Rove and did not notify department officials in advance.

The briefings struck some former ambassadors as highly unusual.

"That just didn't happen. Frankly, I am shocked to hear it," said former senator James Sasser (D-Tenn.), who served as President Bill Clinton's ambassador to China in the late 1990s. "I'm one who strongly believes that politics ought to end at the water's edge."

James Dobbins, who was an ambassador in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, said that some senior diplomats and State Department officials come from political backgrounds and stay informed through back channels.

But Dobbins, who rose through the Foreign Service ranks, said that he never attended an organized meeting for political appointees.

"I don't know of any methodical effort to inform presidential appointees of the state of play in the domestic political arena," he said.

The Peace Corps briefing occurred in 2003 with about 15 political appointees, said Amanda Beck, a spokeswoman for the agency. The central mission of the Peace Corps is sending volunteers into Third World nations to help with development.

Beck, who said she attended the March 2003 "recap" of the 2002 elections, said the appointees who attended the briefing "did it on our free time during the day." She added: "It was a courtesy to political appointees," offered by the White House, and "there was no suggestion of getting involved in anything" campaign related.

J. Scott Jennings, the White House political director, separately led two briefings for USAID officials, one last fall before the midterm elections and another in February, with 20 to 30 aides on hand for each. One was held at the agency's headquarters, and the second was held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to an agency letter to Biden.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel dismissed Biden's notion that ambassadors and political appointees from agencies such as the Peace Corps should be walled off from partisan politics. "Why shouldn't the president's appointees have our understanding of the political landscape?" he asked.

Biden sent letters in early May to Rice and the heads of six other agencies under his committee's jurisdiction after an April 26 report in The Washington Post about briefings from Taylor and Jennings. Four of the agencies -- the Overseas Private Investment Corp., the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and the Millennium Challenge Corp. -- reported that no political briefings were held for their top officials.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Is Blackwater The New SS?

Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked an armed standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said," the Washington Post will report on Sunday page ones, according to an advance copy of the article acquired by RAW STORY. Excerpts:
#

A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested downtown area.

Blackwater confirmed on Thursday that its employees were involved in two shootings but said there were no casualties in either incident, according to a company official who declined to be identified because of the firm's policy of not addressing incidents publicly. The official said Saturday that the Thursday incident did not occur.

Blackwater's security consulting division holds at least $109 million worth of State Department contracts in Iraq, and its employees operate in a perilous environment that sometimes requires the use of deadly force. Matthew Degn, a senior American civilian adviser to the Interior Ministry's intelligence directorate, described the ministry as "a powder keg" after the Iraqi driver was shot Thursday...

FULL STORY NOW AVAILABLE HERE.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.