Parton hands documents over to Congressional committee (Updated)

May 5 - Robert Parton, investigator for the Volcker Commission who resigned as a matter of principle, has turned over documents about Annan's actions in the Oil-for-Food program to one of the Congressional committees investgating the Oil-for-Food Scandal last night.

The documents were handed over after Parton was issued a subpoena by the House International Relations Committee on Friday night.

"I have directed investigators for the Committee to begin an immediate and careful examination of documents received from Mr. Parton," Rep. Henry Hyde, the committee's chairman, said in a statement. "I wish to extend to Mr. Parton my thanks for fully complying with the committee's subpoena. It is my hope and expectation that neither the United Nations nor the independent inquiry will attempt to sanction Mr. Parton for complying with a lawful subpoena."

[...]

After the subpoena was issued Friday night, Parton's attorney wrote to the United Nations and to IIC head Paul Volcker asking if they would instruct Parton to defy a Congressional subpoena.

When both the United Nations and the Volcker committee refused to answer, Parton took action and, on Wednesday night, handed over the boxes of documents to a congressional committee.

Those boxes contain records of Parton's investigation of Annan's actions and are believed to be damaging to the secretary-general.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, earlier was preparing subpoenas to force Parton and Duncan to testify. It was expected that those subpoenas could be issued as early as Thursday.

Congress has been trying to talk to Parton ever since his resignation two weeks ago. Last week, Volcker tried to block such efforts by insisting that Parton and Duncan, both Americans, had diplomatic immunity.

[...]

"It's also being pointed out that if Mr. Volcker is asserting that his team has U.N. diplomatic immunity, then he is admitting that his committee is not in fact independent but a part of the very organization it is supposed to be objectively investigating," said Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation.

Gardiner said it is vital for Parton and Duncan to be heard.

"It's absolutely essential that these two individuals be allowed to testify before Congress to give the full picture. After all, this is a $30 million investigation being funded by the Iraqi people. They demand absolute accountability from this inquiry," Gardiner said.

In other U.N. news, paper-shredder Iqbal Riza will not be disciplined. Annan issued a statement claiming the shredding was due to carelessness.

Maurice Strong had hired his stepdaughter as an aide despite U.N. regulations forbidding the hiring of immediate family relations.

She was employed as his aide for two years:

The UN envoy took temporary leave from his post April 20, after which the United Nations did an internal review of his office and found when stepdaughter Mayo was hired in February 2003 "she did not disclose she was related to Mr. Strong," Haq said.

She resigned immediately April 21, he said. Haq said he did not know Mayo's age or the salary she received from her stepfather's UN office.

"We are continuing with our examination of why staff regulations were not followed," Haq said.

Strong's office did not reply immediately to a request for comment.

So shredding documents before an inquiry is okay if you explain to was due to "carelessness" but failure to note your potential new boss is also your step-dad on a application form is wrong.

The Volcker Commission is independent of the U.N. but is entitled to diplomatic immunity under the U.N.'s aegis.

Got it.

Oh, and one more thing: Robert Parton and Miranda Duncan seem to have more than their share of integrity and steel - fine, tempered steel.

Would it be too low to mention that a U.N. worker is being questioned in connection with the terror attack on the British Consulate early this morning? Actually, yes.

18:55 - I knew I had forgotten something: a senior official with the U.N. Development Program, Justin Leites, took a paid leave last year to campaign in his home state of Maine for Kerry-Edwards. This is not exactly the same as the "fake volunteers" who worked to re-elect Liberals in Canada, but it does mean that tax-payers somewhere paid for Leites to work in an effort to elect U.N.-friendly Democrats to the White House:

Twelve UNDP staff members filed an official complaint with the internal investigative arm of UNDP. The document alleges that involvement by the agency's internal communication chief, Mr. Leites, in Senator Kerry's presidential campaign places election advisers and other U.N. operatives worldwide in jeopardy.

Both staff members and U.N. officials agree that Mr. Leites left his UNDP position last year for a two month period to serve as political director for the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign in the blue state of Maine.

"By taking an active leadership role in the bitterly fought 2004 U.S. presidential election, Justin Leites has handed to terrorists and would-be hostage-takers the perfect excuse to kidnap and threaten the lives of UNDP and U.N. colleagues elsewhere, especially those providing electoral assistance in more than 30 countries across the globe," states the complaint, which was filed on April 7 and was obtained by The New York Sun.

"If UNDP staff can interfere with impunity in the internal politics of the most powerful country on earth, how can UNDP maintain that it is not interfering in a similarly partial manner in any of the weak and failing states in the developing world?" the complaint demands. It also notes that while Mr. Leites was "campaigning zealously in America on behalf of his political masters, three UNDP electoral workers were seized in Kabul, Afghanistan, and held hostage for nearly a month in October 2004."

Another interesting aspect is the fact that the employees who filed the complaint chose to remain anonymous:

[UNDP associate spokeswoman Cassandra Waldon] ... did not dispute that Mr.Leites left last year to work for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. She said that the current investigation is yet to determine whether then-UNDP director, Mark Malloch Brown, who is now the U.N. chief of staff, allowed Mr. Leites to campaign, or whether Mr. Annan made the decision.

The signatories of the UNDP complaint write that they chose to remain anonymous because Mr. Leites "has powerful protectors within and beyond UNDP, including high-level Democratic Party figures." They added that "current safeguards for U.N. system whistleblowers are inadequate and have been acknowledged to require strengthening."

Mr. Malloch Brown continues to run UNDP, although Mr. Annan last week named a former Turkish finance minister, Kemal Dervis, to a replace him. Mr. Malloch Brown was named U.N. chief of staff early this year after a group of mostly Democratic American "friends of Kofi Annan" met secretly last year in the apartment of America's ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton, Richard Holbrooke.

[...]

The Sun reported about the involvement of Mr. Leites in the Kerry-Edwards campaign in the past, and at that time a UNDP spokesman, William Orme, contended that no U.N. staff rules were broken. The staffers' complaint, however, now alleges that specific staff regulations, as well as the U.N. charter, were indeed violated.

"In the performance of their duties, the secretary-general and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any other authority external to the Organization," reads Article 100 of the U.N. charter. "They shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the Organization."

According to U.N.'s staff regulation 1.2 (h), "Staff members may exercise their right to vote but shall ensure that their participation in any political activity is consistent with, and does not reflect adversely upon, the independence and impartiality required by their status as international civil servants."

Whistleblower protection is long over-due at the U.N.

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