Feb 22 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury chief John Snow, head of the panel that cleared a deal for a state-owned Dubai company to manage major U.S. ports, said on Wednesday he was not involved in deliberations until after the transaction was approved.
I think Mr. Snow is trying to distance himself from a perceived conflict of interest, emphasis on "perceived".
CSX Corp., which Snow headed until he took over Treasury three years ago, sold the [CSX] port assets [to DP World] for $1.15 billion in 2004.
OK, that makes at least two of the federal agency heads (Snow and Rumsfeld, not to mention Bush) admitting that they had no knowledge of the deal until the munchkins approved it.
Which makes perfect sense. That's the way it's supposed to operate. No reason to get the Grand Poobahs involved when it's all routine.
The problem is in our definition of "routine." It seems to me that only Congress can solve this issue.
I don't have time to watch C-SPAN today so will catch the summaries later, but Warner isn't impressing me as having a burning desire to do anything but cover the administration's exposed flank.
I'd agree. He likely delegated attendance to someone (probably quite high up, but I don't know whom) for this deal, but he still retains chairmanship.
I caught the tail end of the Senate Armed Services hearing just in time to hear Hillary's statement that she is going to introduce legislation that no foreign government can have an ownership interest in our port facilities, just as they can't have an ownership interest in our airports.
Good for Hillary! (Never thought I'd say that!)
The impression I got from the answers I caught earlier is that the administration is, or believes itself to be, powerless to stop the process now and that it will go forward.
Will be interesting to see how the other committees handle this.