re: "James Hogan Case: Wife of Missing Diplomat Charged with Witness Tampering, False Statements, and Obstruction of Justice"

Domani Spero at Diplopundit ("an obsessive compulsive observer, diplomatic watcher, and opinionator who monitors the goings on at ‘Foggy-Bottom’ (i.e. the State Department) and the “worldwide available” universe from Albania to Zimbabwe") had a major update to the case of the missing vice consul.

Money quote(s):

"James Hogan Case: Missing Diplomat’s Wife Pleads Guilty to Obstruction of Justice"

&

"We have been following this case since September 2009 when FSO James Hogan was first reported missing in the Netherlands Antilles.... Despite the obstruction of justice guilty plea here, we are nowhere closer to understanding what happened to Mr. Hogan over there."

From the old Diplopundit site (8/26/2011):


"James Hogan Case: Wife of Missing Diplomat Charged with Witness Tampering, False Statements, and Obstruction of Justice

The spouse of James Hogan, the U.S. diplomat who disappeared in the Netherlands Antilles has been charged by DOJ in a multiple count indictment for her alleged role in the "obstruction of a multi-national investigation into the disappearance of her husband": "

Clearly, this raises a set of some fairly obvious suspicions about whatever fate (or fates) befell our colleague V/C Hogan. And just as obviously I'm going to not air any unfounded speculation on that score in this venue. CAA has no inside scoop on this, and if I did I wouldn't discuss that here.

I will say that the police force(s) and investigator(s) on this case seem to be turning over pretty much exactly the rocks they should be overturning in their effort to discover what befell V/C Hogan. And it may be that, whatever guilt may actually attach to Mrs. Hogan, this is as much as can be proven in a court of law.

Read the whole update here.


8/26

re: "Marginally More Serious Fare"

The Diplogeek ("FSO Geekery") shared some of his life on "the line."

Money quote(s):

"So I’m aware that I don’t talk about the nitty-gritty of work all that often on this blog, beyond things like the vast numbers of applicants showing up in our waiting room and the fact that I work with a very cool group of people (well, cool in that slightly Type A, geeky way unique to quiz bowl teams and the Foreign Service). Part of this is because in all honesty, barring a uniquely awesome/not-remotely-awesome applicant, most days are kind of the same; I go to work, check my e-mail, sit at an interviewing window and interview people until there are no more people left to interview. The next day, I do it again. That’s not to hate on the job, by the way; it’s way more intellectually taxing than I would have initially thought. But short of detailing the stories of individual applicants, there’s not a ton to tell, and I’m not going to delve into particular applicants here because really, would I want some visa officer at the… I don’t know, Turkmeni Embassy laughing on the (very public) internets at my loser-ness? Probably not."

DG is a good (albeit new) officer. He's conscientious, self (and publicly) aware, and clearly maximizing the opportunities of his current assignment. He may go far in the (consular) business.

"(A)ccording to the law, we couldn’t issue. The applicant was understandably devastated and wept in the window for a good ten minutes. The whole thing was pretty horrible, and not what I would call one of my proudest moments, despite having followed the law, which is, after all, my job. This is, as one of my coworkers put it, why we get paid the big bucks."

This part sucks. Crying at the window. The U.S. does not, so far as I'm aware, intentionally hire heartless automatons to be vice consuls. Quite the opposite. But, as I've noted previously, we implement the law as it's written, not as we'd necessarily have written it ourselves. That is, indeed, why we get "paid the big bucks."

(An aside: in the current economy, the salary and benefits package for an FSO, at least when contrasted against unemployment benefits, may appear to be "big bucks." It's also, like all government salaries, currently frozen. And I haven't heard anybody on this side of the payroll actually complain about that. We all have family and friends who are not federal employees and we get it.

For actual "big bucks," however, one would do well to complete one's probationary period, be promoted into the mid-grade ranks, and, eventually, "cross the threshold" into the Senior Foreign Service.)

I used to tell my vice consuls, when they were a little depressed from having to deliver bad news like DG did, that they should expect to have someone cry at least once a week; and that at "visa mill" posts that would be daily. (More experienced officers will quickly learn about "crocodile tears.")

I also used to tell my vice consuls, when disappointed visa applicants threatened to complain to their supervisors, that dealing with complaints was part of my responsibility, why I got the "big bucks" and that if they were doing their jobs and applying immigration law correctly they didn't need to worry.

(Of course, if they weren't doing their jobs and were applying immigration law incorrectly, that was also my responsibility.)

Every visa refusal (plus a percentage of mostly randomly-selected issuances) gets reviewed by a more senior consular official. Daily. Them's the rules. Part of a consular managers job is to train line officers how to write their case notes so that it's clear to the reviewing official exactly what led them to make the refusal/issue decision they reached. If there's an error of law or if there's some additional or overlooked information about a decision that the manager thinks the adjudicator should consider, then the manager brings that to the line officer's attention. Ideally, it's a daily series of what I like to call "learnable moments."

(I find the term "teachable moment" to be annoying in the extreme.)

"(E)ven if I’m refusing someone a visa or telling them that I can’t give them what they want very badly, I can at least do so in a compassionate and respectful way. When you’re interviewing upwards of a hundred and fifty people a day, it’s easy to lose sight of that, I think, and get impatient and frustrated.

Anyway, that’s me processing. Clearly, it’s a good thing that it’s my visa adjudication that’s bringing in the (alleged) big bucks and not my Torah scholarship. And I promise more cheerful content next time, but I do think it’s worthwhile for anyone reading this who’s thinking of joining the Foreign Service to understand what it can mean, sometimes, agreeing to uphold these laws and interests of ours. Most of the time, the law and my feelings on a particular case coincide, but when they don’t, it can be a difficult thing to rationalize."

It's important to be professional in dealing with the public, even when "the public" is just one single individual on the other side of a bullet-resistant interview/transaction window. After all, on our side of the transaction window, we're the U.S. Embassy, the "G," in all its awful majesty. So courtesy is essential. Even when you're delivering bad news, you deliver it sincerely and respectfully.

(6/26)

JO - There is more than one way to skin a cat

From my archive of press clippings:

Jamaica Observer

There is more than one way to skin a cat

Sunday, April 04, 2010

A few days ago, at the opening of the US Embassy's consular office in Montego Bay, the point was made that the great northern power considers Jamaica a friend.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Not a word would the American officials let slip about any possible impact that Prime Minister Bruce Golding's handling of the extradition request for his friend, Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, might have on the relationship between both countries."

"According to Vice-Consul David Stone, some 120,000 visas are issued per year, way more than the number of visas that are cancelled.

This, coupled with the fact that the Embassy has spent a pretty penny on infrastructure within the past three years, is, according to Embassy officials, indicative of their intentions to maintain strong relations with Jamaica."

"Mr Stone's explanation that the small number of visas that are cancelled on a yearly basis are done so for reasons that are personal and unique to the individuals, is perfectly plausible.

But it would be nothing short of simplistic to twin the local presence of the US with the supposition that the 'Dudus' issue is one that we can afford to sustain in its current format.

Never mind the broad smiles and assurances of the Americans. They know, as do we, that there is more than one way to skin a cat.

There's no need to close down embassies or pull out of Jamaica over this issue. We are, after all, talking about one man... 33, counting Mr Golding and his team."

&

"No undiplomatic venting, no inappropriate scenes, just a systematic unveiling of information that raises serious challenges to much of what is coming out of the Government's mouth."