Everyone's a-buzz about the State Department contract employees accessing Barack Obama's passport file 3 times and, it seems, Hillary Clinton's file and John McCain's file were also accessed. (AP) The State Department's Inspector General was supposed to look into this. However, the State Department doesn't have an Inspector General. The former Inspector General, Howard "Cookie" Krongard, was fired on January 15, 2008.
 
Wasn't the Inspector General supposed to be looking into this all along? I would think, yes. Definitely. Did he? If he did, would it matter? You have to remember who Cookie Krongard is to make that decision for yourself. Last September Henry Waxman, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to Krongard alleging that Krongard had "repeatedly thwarted investigations and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration." The allegations were based on the testimony of 7 current and former officials on Krongard's staff and private e-mail exchanges obtained by the Committee. "The letter said the allegations were not limited to a single unit or project, but concerned all 3 major divisions of Krongard's office -- investigations, audits and inspections." (See The Weekly Wonk, 9/22/07) Ya think maybe he knew about the passport file violations and either (a) was involved or (b) looked the other way?
 
In response to this letter, 2 of Krongard's aides threatened 2 State Department investigators with retaliation if they cooperated with Waxman's probe. These investigators, Ronald A. Militana and Brian Rubendall, were "among those pressing for an investigation into whether employees of Blackwater were illegally shipping automatic weapons and other military goods to Iraq without a license." Krongard ordered Militana, Rubendall, and any others involved in the investigation "not to proceed in any manner until the briefing [with the prosecutors] takes place." (See The Weekly Wonk, 9/29/07) So, here's Krongard, rather than investigating Blackwater, interfering in its investigation. Doesn't take much of an intellectual jump to assume he might have something to do with the passport fishing.
 
Then there's this. In November Krongard testified before Waxman. Waxman asked him about his brother Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard (what's with "Cookie" and "Buzzy?") who was on Blackwater's advisory board. Waxman asked him if he didn't think this was a conflict of interest and asked him to explain why he was blocking the investigation. Cookie denied that Buzzy was on the board. After Waxman produced a copy of a letter from Blackwater's founder and CEO, Erik Prince, inviting Buzzy to join the board, Cookie said he specifically asked Buzzy if this "rumor" was true and that it wasn't true and that if it was true, he would recuse himself from Blackwater-related issues. After a brief recess, Cookie came back into the hearing and stated that he'd called Buzzy and Buzzy told him he was on the board and Krongard then officially recused himself from the investigations. Buzzy then resigned. (See The Issue Wonk, 11/17/07)
 
It appears that these contract employees were not from Blackwater. Right now the rumor is that they were with a company called Stanley, Inc. Still, the fact that the State Department Inspector General was politically compromised does not instill confidence in his ability to have looked into these issues when they happened -- which is what the State Department is claiming. I don't believe it. Frankly, I don't know what I believe, but I know that the official story is faulty at best.
 
By the way, because the passport peepers were contract employees, no one, not even the Justice Department, can compel them to talk. So we'll probably never know what happened. We know we can't rely on the Justice Department to do an adequate investigation either.