Senator McCaskill and her Senate subcommittee have challenged the contentions of the former top administrators of Arlington National Cemetery that they did not think there were significant problems with burials at the cemetery until recently.
McCaskill has zeroed in on former cemetery superintendent John Metzler, who claimed he did not know of the seriousness of the issue until earlier this year. McCaskill says Metzler’s own testimony indicates he knew of a big problem five years ago but that he did nothing to call the attention of higher-ups to them.
Metzler claims most of the discrepancies cited by the Inspector General’s office were errors in mapping that were quickly fixed.
The former deputy superintendent of the cemetery, Thurman Higginbotham, was dismissed from testifying after he invoked the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination when asked about his role in the approval of multi-million dollar contacts for computerizing cemetery records.
 You can see the entire hearing on the C-SPAN webpage.Â
McCaskill questions Higgenbotham, Metzler 8:22 mp3
　
　
