I just spoke to Rep. Mark Kirk, who along with Rep. Steve Israel has requested another investigation into Charles Freeman’s finances — this time focusing on his role as a member of the advisory board of the Chinese state-owned oil company CNOOC. Asked if Freeman’s appointment will stand, Kirk replied “I hope not.” He suggested that the White House should “suspend him pending a real review.” Still, Kirk says he has “great faith” in the Inspector General to handle this matter promptly and appropriately. Most troubling, Kirk says, is the “lack of disclosure by Ambassador Freeman and the lack of review by the administration.” Given that this is “one of the most important positions in the intelligence community,” Kirk said he “would have expected a comprehensive review” by administration officials prior to making the appointment. Per Eli Lake’s piece today in the Washington Times, we now know that the administration did no vetting at all of this pick, and worse was not even aware that it had been made until after Dennis Blair had offered Freeman the job. “They skipped all of those steps,” Kirk says. Perhaps most troubling, the tax forms for Freeman’s tax-exempt Middle East Policy Council were, according to Kirk, submitted to the IRS with a post-it note covering the names of his donors. This may be legal from a tax perspective, but it is deeply problematic given the slightly higher bar set for public officials — and the fact that Freeman has still yet to file his financial disclosure forms, meaning no one has any idea who precisely was bankrolling his think-tank. Finally I asked Kirk if Freeman had paid his taxes — a question that must unfortunately now be asked of any Obama appointee. Kirk said “we don’t know,” and they won’t until Freeman files those disclosure forms. Elsewhere, Greg Sargent now reports that Senator Kit Bond, the ranking member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, will meet with Freeman tomorrow. Bond has not yet made any statement on Freeman’s appointment, but if he comes out forcefully against it — and all evidence indicates that this is a fight Republicans are eager to have with the White House — it may make the cost of keeping Freeman too great for the Obama administration. The new letter to the Inspector General, who has already started an investigation into Freeman’s ties to the Saudis:
