EFL UNITED NATIONS -- A second U.S. congressional committee subpoenaed a former investigator with the U.N.-appointed oil-for-food probe, as part of efforts to determine whether a recent report did not place enough blame on Secretary-General Kofi Annan, officials said Friday. The committee, led by Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., issued the subpoena for Robert Parton on Thursday, Shays spokeswoman Sarah Moore said. Parton quit the U.N.-appointed probe last month with a second investigator because he believed it played down evidence critical of Annan in a recent report. The announcement of the subpoena came a day after Parton turned over boxes of documents from his time as an investigator with the Independent Inquiry Committee to the House International Relations Committee, led by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., in response to a separate subpoena request.
That move drew an angry response from the United Nations, where officials accused Parton of violating a confidentiality agreement. Lawyers for the Independent Inquiry Committee said Parton should have invoked the immunity he had with the committee and refused to obey the subpoena. | Sorry, boys. He was a investigator for the "Independent Inquiry" Committee, not a UN diplomat. He doesn't have immunity. |
Parton's attorney, Lanny Davis, said his client was required by law to comply with the subpoena.
Along with the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, there are five U.S. congressional committees investigating allegations of wrongdoing in oil-for-food. Shays' committee said it also would seek documents from Parton and that he would be expected to appear at a hearing Tuesday. A statement from Shays' office said he had issued the subpoena only after Volcker's committee refused to cooperate otherwise.
In an interim report released in March, Volcker's committee said there was not enough evidence to prove that Annan tried to influence the awarding of an oil-for-food contract to a Swiss company that employed his son, Kojo. But it accused Kofi Annan of failing to properly investigate possible conflicts of interest surrounding the $10 million-a-year contract. It criticized him for refusing to push top advisers further after they conducted a hasty, 24-hour investigation related to his son and found nothing wrong.
On Tuesday, Shays had written letters to both Kofi Annan and Volcker said the March report left many unanswered questions about Annan's involvement in oil-for-food. He criticized Volcker for not giving him access to Parton. Volcker responded Thursday with a letter saying the IIC needed to maintain confidentiality to go about its work properly. | But, Paul, I thought your investigation was completed? |
One of the other committees, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., is also considering whether to subpoena Parton. |