LawFuel.com – The Law Newswire – A World Bank official who helped negotiate the terms of Paul D. Wolfowitz’s job as the bank’s president two years ago said that Wolfowitz failed to resolve a conflict of interest involving his girlfriend, a bank employee.
The bank’s general counsel,Roberto Danino, who has now resigned from the bank, said Wolfowitz relied on a series of half-truths and false statements, apparently designed to mislead the bank’s executive board.
And in a statement to a bank committee examining Wolfowitz’s role in arranging a high-paid promotion for his girlfriend, a former official, Ad Melkert, said it would have been better if Wolfowitz had instructed one of his deputies to handle the transfer for Shaha Riza, to avoid conflict of interest issues.
Danino was among the witnesses who met with a committee of the board in closed session to consider the conflict-of-interest charges against Wolfowitz and decide whether to take action against him.
The 24-member board apparently hopes Wolfowitz will resign, sparing it a bruising effort to oust him. But Wolfowitz, represented by Robert S. Bennett, a high-profile Washington lawyer, remained defiant in a meeting Monday with the board’s investigative committee.
