Hutchinson named to Blackwater panel
Associated Press - October 11, 2008 11:04 AM ET
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansan Asa Hutchinson, a former federal Homeland Security undersecretary, has been named to a three-person panel by Blackwater Worldwide to ensure the private security firm follows U.S. export laws.
Blackwater is the target of a federal probe into whether the company smuggled weapons into Iraq. The company has strongly denied the allegations.
The other two members on the committee are: Robert C. Bonner, former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and a former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, and Carol R. Marshall, a former Lockheed Martin Corp. ethics executive.
Hutchinson is a former director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, former congressman for northwest Arkansas, and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas.
He was a special prosecutor in the impeachment trial of fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton, when Clinton was president. A Republican, Hutchinson lost to Democrat Mike Beebe in the gubernatorial election in 2006.
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