All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

White House Backing Down Amid Internal Strife

The World Bank Board of Directors meeting (that is deliberating on Wolfowitz’ fate) adjourned for a few hours today because, according to the Financial Times, the U.S. asked them to do so, as the White House is getting closer to realizing that Wolfowitz has to leave the Bank. Bloomberg has a similar story. 

The Financial Times also has a great story about how the Bush administration is completely divided about the Wolfowitz scandal.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Wolfowitz Resignation Imminent?

ABC News is reporting that "World Bank officials say the bank’s board is completing an “exit strategy” that will allow World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to resign this afternoon and “still save some face” over the issue of his efforts to seek a promotion and pay raise for his girlfriend at the bank."

--Dylan Blaylock

Report Released (Bad News for Wolfowitz); Attorneys Caught Pulling a Fast One; State Department Inquiry

The big story today was, of course, that the board of directors released the Ad Hoc Committee report yesterday, showing that Wolfowitz (according to the Los Angeles Times), “violated his contract, broke the bank's code of conduct and trampled on numerous staff rules.”

An interesting thing happened last night regarding the report’s release – if you read the coverage of the report very closely (NYT, FT, Reuters, AP, WP, Bloomberg), you’ll see that not all outlets have Wolfowitz’ response to the report – only a few do. According to GAP’s sources, there was an agreement between the Board and Wolfowitz’ team that neither side would leak parts of the Ad Hoc report before today (Tuesday), in the interest of having a fair hearing (keeping the press out of it). Both sides held true for a few days, but then yesterday, apparently Wolfowitz’ attorneys released his submissions and side of the story, conveniently omitting the most damaging documents against his case. This was only given to a few key reporters. Wolfowitz’ attorneys did this in an attempt to dominate today’s newspapers with his side of the story. The Board then released everything last night to ensure this didn’t happen.

Other interesting tidbits from today include:

According to some of the notes released, Wolfowitz stated “If they f*** with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to f*** them too.”

An NPR News blog has an interesting analysis on the differences between the American and European reporting of the Wolfowitz scandal.

Canada has backed off its support of Wolfowitz.

And the late-breaking news of the day, the Financial Times is reporting that the “US State Department has launched an inquiry into its role in helping Paul Wolfowitz resolve conflicts of interest that arose when he became president of the World Bank.”  Specifically under scrutiny are “anomalies in security vetting and legal complications in the transfer of Shaha Riza from the bank to its Middle East section.”

We will definitely be hearing some more about that last one.

-- Dylan Blaylock

GAP Testifying Right Now!

GAP Legal Director Tom Devine is currently testifying (2:30 E.T.) in the U.S. House before the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, under the Committee on Education and Labor. The hearing is entitled "Private Sector Whistleblowers: Are There Sufficient Legal Protections?

--Dylan Blaylock

Wolfowitz Knew He Was Breaking the Rules; the White House Attempts a G7 Conference?

This morning’s big story was that new testimony and documents from Xavier Coll, the Human Resources official involved in the World Bank scandal, now suggest that Wolfowitz “understood that his role in ordering a pay increase and promotion for his companion in 2005 might be seen as a conflict of interest but insisted on proceeding anyway,” according to the New York Times. So it looks like he knew what he was doing the whole time. Ouch.

The story this afternoon is that, in what appears to be a last-ditch effort to save Paul Wolfowitz’ presidency, the White House is attempting to quickly convene an emergency telephone conference of the G7 countries to discuss the Bank crisis. It appears the U.S. was trying to do this before the Board got their hands on the report, but efforts to achieve that were unsuccessful. The U.S. did successfully delay the report from being distributed to the Board for five hours earlier this morning, though.

Also, Vice President Cheney is saying Wolfowitz should remain at the Bank. Big shock there.

-- Dylan Blaylock

News Round-Up

Two very good pieces emerged today in the daily Wolfowitz coverage. First, the New York Times reported on how even more pressure is coming from the Europeans on Wolfowitz to resign. Officials quoted by the Times indicated that Wolfowitz must resign by his own accord…

“…to avoid a vote next week by the bank’s board declaring that [Wolfowitz] no longer has its confidence to function as the bank’s leader.”

So it looks like a no-confidence vote is coming next week. How is this known? According to the same article:

“Bank officials say that the growing determination to oust Mr. Wolfowitz has led to a polling of the 24 members of the bank board and that a majority favor his ouster.”

So next week we may finally see a resignation.

The other great piece coming out today was the Los Angeles Times’ detailed look at Wolfowitz’ managerial actions during his presidential tenure. Specifically, the article states:

• Staff and aid groups criticized Wolfowitz, saying he ignored the advice of longtime experts and pursued a political agenda

• One senior employee recounted a meeting about improving national diversity among the staff, a priority request from the board. The group worked for 18 months and presented Wolfowitz with two options. But at the meeting, the employee said Wolfowitz told the group he had not read their briefing book or their one-page summary, and he seemed unable to make a choice. "We saw dithering, speculating, as if he was at a graduate seminar," said the employee.
      
  
• When the group prepared its final report, Wolfowitz's aides directed them to leave out the section on national diversity. "It was a phenomenally inept assessment of the board's needs — totally tone-deaf," said the senior employee.

• At one event to celebrate employees marking long-term anniversaries at the bank, spouses were invited to meet the president. Wolfowitz gave a quick speech, then returned to his office. "This is an opportunity to win friends; he's been there a year and a half, and this is how he runs the event," the veteran said, adding that Wolfowitz had "zero emotional intelligence."

• Some employees said that Wolfowitz favored his handpicked aides so much that he would blame their mistakes on the professional staff.

Interesting stuff!

--Dylan Blaylock

Andrew Young Paid by Nigeria?

Everything seems to be in a holding pattern right now since the World Bank Board granted Wolfowitz an extra two days’ time to respond to the not-so-praiseful Ad Hoc Committee report regarding his actions.

But some interesting points have come out over the last day or so. France seems to be getting annoyed that everything is taking so long. Secretary of State Rice (who still makes less than Shaha Riza), is talking to the European nations who are upset. And according to some sort of overseas online futures trading market, Wolfowitz is now more likely to quit than Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who is wrapped up in his own mess.

But the most interesting item to emerge today was from David Corn, an editor for the Nation, albeit the following piece was written on his personal blog. It seems that Andrew Young, former Atlanta mayor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who wrote a Washington Post op-ed defending Wolfowitz a few weeks back, is actually a paid lobbyist for Nigeria. Corn writes:

Young is a paid lobbyist for Nigeria. According to records Young filed with the Justice Department, he registered as a foreign agent for Nigeria and works to advance the interests of the Nigerian government in Washington. And Nigeria has been a supporter of Wolfowitz during the current imbroglio. The day after Young's article appeared in The Washington Post, Nuhu Ribadu, chairman of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, published an op-ed in The New York Times headlined, "Why Wolfowitz Should Stay." With the Young and Ribadu articles, it looked as if Nigeria was mounting a coordinated campaign to prop up Wolfowitz.

None of this was presented in Young’s bio/authorship/description line of the op-ed. Corn inquired about this glaring omission to the Post’s op-ed editor, who stated:

I asked [Young] if he had any business connection to the World Bank, and he assured me no.

Corn argues that the Post’s readers had a right to know Young was paid by Nigeria, possibly biasing him in his views.

Corn is absolutely right.

--Dylan Blaylock