By Richard Gaines

Two U.S. inspector generals — one at Homeland Security, the other in the Commerce Department — have been asked to "carefully review" meeting notes indicating that the chief judge of the Coast Guard administrative law system asked a special investigator to retract his finding of another Coast Guard judge had "at least the appearance of a conflict" in deciding a high-profile fishing industry case.

The request for the involvement of two inspector generals was made in writing last Wednesday by Massachusetts Congressmen John Tierney, Barney Frank and William Keating — one day after the Times reported on contemporaneous notes of the Nov. 15 meeting among Coast Guard judicial chief Joseph Ingolia and two subordinates from the Coast Guard system and Special Judicial Master Charles B. Swartwood III.

Emails and the fragmentary notes of the meeting, taken by Swartwood's assistant Tony K. Lu and obtained from Commerce under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, identified Geovette Washington, the deputy general counsel, as involved in setting up the meeting, which lasted about an hour and concluded with Swartwood's flat refusal to alter his original report — despite urgings by Chief Justice Joseph Ingolia, who has since retired.