state department

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s subpanel on human rights and the law is holding a hearing today in which the Justice Department, State Department and FBI have sent officials to boast of their impressive record of prosecuting human rights violators. Really. The subcommittee isn’t addressing the U.S.’ record of prosecuting its own officials who have committed [...]

Remember ArmorGroup, the negligence-and-fraud-prone security contractor that’s responsible for protecting the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan? When last I checked in, the State Department was reviewing its contract — yes, again — and dangling the possibility that it might finally revoke the deal after credible allegations emerged of widespread incompetence, dabbling in prostitution, the inability of [...]

In New York, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave the press a brief reaction to news of Iran’s concealed and still-under-construction nuclear facility near Qom:
This is further evidence of Iran’s continued defiance of IAEA and the United Nations obligations. Iran is breaking rules that all nations are expected to follow, and we fully [...]

According to a State Department spokesman, a new review currently underway within the department might result in controversial security company ArmorGroup North America losing its $189 million contract to guard the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
“Action with regard to the existing static guard contract in Afghanistan is under review,” said Andrew Laine, a spokesman for the [...]

The congressionally chartered commission on wartime contracting is meeting today, and one of its witnesses is Danielle Brian, the Project on Government Oversight executive director who blew the lid off of ArmorGroup’s failures in protecting the U.S. embassy in Kabul.  In her prepared testimony, she excoriates the State Department for its laxity in overseeing its [...]

Despite the State Department’s insistence that staffers for Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on the Senate government affairs committee didn’t turn over information about its buck-wild contractor ArmorGroup from whistleblower John Gorman, Lieberman’s staff isn’t backing off the claim. “The Senator’s staff verbally conveyed the information it received from Mr. Gorman to the State Department Inspector’s [...]

I asked in an earlier post just what the State Department did with information provided by ArmorGroup whistleblower John Gorman that the office of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said it gave to the department’s inspector general in November 2007. Gorman, a former project manager of the contract ArmorGroup holds to protect the U.S.  embassy in [...]

John Gorman, the former ArmorGroup Kabul project manager turned whistleblower whose allegations against the company I wrote about yesterday, met with aides to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in 2007 to share with the Government Affairs Committee chairman his account of widespread fraud with the company State chose to protect its Kabul embassy.
CBS News confirms that [...]

P.J. Crowley, the State Department’s assistant secretary for public affairs, said in today’s press briefing that he wouldn’t speak to any specific allegation in the new ArmorGroup whistleblower lawsuit. But he did say, repeatedly, that the department has exercised rigorous oversight over the company that it’s paying $189 million to guard the embassy in Kabul. [...]

The company tasked with guarding the U.S. embassy in Kabul stands accused of defrauding the State Department, hiring non-English speaking guards and involvement in prostitution.