This blog has heard as yet unconfirmed… repeat unconfirmed… rumors of resignations of two key members of the legal staff conducting the investigations into the UN Oil-for-Food scandal on behalf of the Volcker Committee. What does this mean if true? It can’t be anything good for public confidence in Mr. Volcker’s committee.
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I don’t know, I guess it would mean they did not see eye to eye with Volker.
Are we goiing to get Bolton or not? And if we do what will that mean to future investigations.
Wow. What an embarrassment. This could be a disaster for the committee.
Mr. Simon posted exclusive information a few weeks back that one or more of the lawyers (Americans?) objected to the investigation’s “purview” being limited.
The scope of the investigation is managed by Reid Morden.
So this may be the nexus. What is outside the “purview”? I suggest Morden wants to limit the investigation to certain UN officials and keep Paribas, Desmarais, etc. clean.
The key is finding out what’s inside the purview and not.
About my cite, here’s what Mr. Simon said on April 1 of this year-
“Most of the heavy-lifting, the interviewing of witnesses, has been conducted by three attorneys – Michael Cornacchia, Robert Parton and Miranda Duncan. All three are Americans and relatively unknown —
Cornacchia is the lead investigator, though Parton is apparently the one doing the more serious questioning. Parton is not a happy camper, however, and seems to have threatened to resign a few weeks ago because the committee was not pursuing leads they thought went outside their purview. To have had an investigator quit at that point would have created a mini-scandal of its own and a compromise was worked out to keep him. This could account for some of the equivocal language in the report.”
Who determines purview? Looks like Reid Morden from the investigation’s own website:
http://www.iic-offp.org/story15june04.htm
“STAFF
Mr. Reid Morden has been appointed Executive Director responsible for the overall direction and coordination of the Inquiry staff, including primary responsibilities for liaison with governments.
Mr. Morden, capping a career in the Canadian Foreign Service, was Deputy Foreign Minister in the mid-1990ís. Earlier he served four years as Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. On leaving Foreign Affairs Mr. Morden became President and CEO of Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd., Canadaís national nuclear company. Subsequently, he was Managing Director of the Canadian arm of Kroll Associates, the international investigation firm, and later became Chairman of KPMG Corporate Intelligence Inc.”
Many other names at the page worth exploring.
“”Mr. Laurent Kasper-Ansermet has been appointed Chief Investigation Officer, Europe, and will be concentrating particularly on European and other areas outside North America from a small Paris office.”"
Funny. UN mentions the Paris office is “small.”
I know one of the junior attorneys working for the investigation. I haven’t spoken to her since she went to work for them, and I wouldn’t ask her to violate a confidence, but she is smart, honest and speaks and writes Arabic. That said, all the above will be worth a bucket of warm spit if they can’t investigate the right people or all the docs have been shredded.