Blackwater & State Department: All in the Family?
 

It just gets better and better. Or weirder and weirder.

Now the brother of the State Department Inspector General is reported to have told Congressional committee staff that he DID tell his brother about his Blackwater connection -- some time before the IG testified differently.

As we recall, the IG denied that his brother had a Blackwater connection; then, after checking during a break in a hearing, he said he had just found out about his brother.

My my my. Hard to know who to believe.

Who would think that an appointed federal official and a corporate board member would have such different recollections?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071116/..._blackwater_dc

Brief excerpt:

Rep. Henry Waxman decided to call State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard and his brother A.B. "Buzzy" to the same hearing after they separately gave the committee conflicting accounts about Buzzy Krongard's ties with Blackwater, which protects U.S. diplomats and other State Department officials in Iraq.

Earlier this week, Howard Krongard recused himself from probes into Blackwater after saying that he had just discovered -- during a break in a hearing of Waxman's government oversight panel -- that his brother had attended a meeting of Blackwater's advisory board. . . .

Waxman said in a memo to his committee members on Friday that Buzzy Krongard now has called committee staff to assert that his brother was previously aware of his Blackwater ties. . . .

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...9jo&refer=home

Krongard has decided to make like a tree and leave:
Brief excerpts from article:
State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, who has been under investigation for possible conflicts of interest, said he will retire Jan. 15.

.. . . Krongard's position was undermined when he denied under oath to Waxman's committee Nov. 14 that his brother had a business relationship with a security contractor that Krongard's agency was probing, and later admitted that such a relationship existed.

As the State Department's chief watchdog since May 2005, Krongard oversees audits, inspections and investigations in the U.S. and abroad.