UNraveling

Donald Trump gave his opinion sworn testimony before the Senate last month on the $1.2 billion estimate done by the United Nations on how much it will cost to renovate its offices. Among other statements "The Donald" made was that the U.N. doesn't have a clue. (That's paraphrased, of course.)

There's no reason, Trump said, why this project should cost that much to start with and by the time the U.N. finishes if its plans are followed, the price will end up between $3 to $4 billion.

The U.N. doesn't need to move out and rent fancy digs, he said. The work can be done around them. They don't know what they have, what they want, what needs to be done or how to go about doing it.

(We're talking about the United Nations here boys and girls. What else is new.)

Trump mentioned a few other things like . . . you know, the possibility of fraud.

Fraud? At the United Nations?

A wide-ranging United Nations investigation into oil-for-food program abuses was published Monday, naming the group's head and one of his senior officers as having accepted or solicited bribes.. . .

"More than $950,000 of these payments [to Alexander Yakovlev] came from various companies or persons affiliated with such companies that collectively won more than $79 million in United Nations contracts and purchase orders," the report found.

There was no apparent connection between those payments and the oil-for-food program, however. -- CNN, August 8, 2005

No apparent connection with the oil-for-food program? So where did the money Yakovlev ripped off from elsewhere within the U.N. come from?

Alexander Yakovlev (search), the U.N. employee who resigned Tuesday following a FOX News investigation into his apparent father-son conflict of interest with a major U.N. supplier, also served as procurement officer in charge of the first stages of the United Nation’s costly and controversial headquarters renovation in New York City. -- Fox News, June 23, 2005

In its usual spirit of full disclosure and total transparancy:

The U.N. internal watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, which has itself been haunted by scandal, is investigating the conflict of interest issue, though the terms of the investigation are secret.

And if not there, then where?

With the U.N., the possibilities are endless.