- Editor's Notes - In Part
I of this series FTW, thanks to the brilliant research of Tom Flocco,
demonstrated
that the CIA has, in fact, been involved in monitoring stock trades on
world financial markets, and that current CIA executives have had recent
business relationships with firms handling obvious insider trades connected
to the attacks of September 11th. Those connections ran directly into the
heart of German financial giant Deutschebank. In Part II we documented
that a former Deutschebank executive, Kevin Ingram, had recently been
convicted
on drug and money laundering charges that were directly a result of
attempts
to arm Islamic terrorist groups. Now in Part III, we conclude this series
by revealing a devastating conflict of interest in investigating these
leads on the part of President George W. Bush by virtue of his own past
insider trading through Harken Energy in Bahrain and Kuwait.
-
- The Administration's apparently deliberate omission of
key mid-Eastern banks in these two countries from post 9-11 investigations
suggests clearly that the principal financial institutions of the countries
where Harken did business have something to hide which the Bush
Administration
does not want to see the light of day - especially as potentially explosive
Enron investigations gather steam.
-
- After our publication of Part II a number of careful
FTW readers were careful to point out that our description of
"put"
options was oversimplified to the point of describing a short-sell, rather
than the more highly leveraged "put option." We acknowledge this
error but re-emphasize that the point of these stories - which could easily
be sidetracked into lengthy and detailed discussions of the workings of
financial instruments - is not the trades themselves, but who might have
made the trades, why they made them and, most importantly, why the Bush
Administration wants so desperately to conceal information about them from
the world. - MCR
-
- ___
-
-
- FTW, January 9, 2001 -- President George W. Bush may
have personal reasons for hampering investigations into insider trading
connected to the attacks of September 11th. There is substantial evidence
suggesting that a detailed investigation into Deutschebank's connection
to Islamic terrorists and 9-11 might reopen a mysteriously closed 1991
investigation of criminal insider trading connected to Harken Energy, a
Houston company where George W. Bush served on the board of directors as
a major stockholder with his some of his father's key campaign
contributors.
On January 30, 1990 Harken, with a remarkably unsuccessful history of
drilling
projects, signed major oil drilling contracts with Bahrain. Five months
later, Bush's company suffered an unexplained huge loss of stock value
just prior to the Gulf War -- but not before the future president had
already
cashed out, making close to a million dollars selling his own stock.
Because
of 9-11 leads suggesting the possible involvement of certain Arab banks
in financing the attacks, a conflict of interest exists, clearly limiting
how far the President would be willing to pursue the most obvious leads.
And U.S. government investigations since 9-11 have avoided looking at key
Middle Eastern banks in Bahrain and Kuwait already linked to terrorist
activities.
-
- In fact, two banks located in Bahrain and Kuwait - The
Faysal Islamic Bank and the Kuwait Finance House - which had been listed
in European reports as having terrorist ties were glaringly omitted from
George W Bush's financial crackdown after September 11th. [Source: The
Inner City Press, 9-11-99.] Both banks have correspondent relationships
with Deutschebank.
-
- In spite of mounting evidence of a number of connections
between German financial giant Deutschebank and the terrorist attacks of
September 11 - including previously documented links to insider trading
based upon events of 9/11 - no press agency or government entity is
questioning
why certain banking institutions in Kuwait and Bahrain with deep financial
ties to the Bush family have been overlooked in the President's supervision
of a so-called "worldwide crackdown on terrorist financing."
Reuters reported on 11-7-2001 that the Treasury Department added 61
additional
people and organizations to the President's original Executive Order of
September 23 -- including banks in Somalia and Nassau, The Bahamas. But
mysteriously, no banks in Bahrain, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia were named in
either the original order or its expansion.
-
- Moreover, the President's lack of effective direction
and oversight of terrorist finance appears to be abetted and endorsed by
the U.S. Congress.
-
- Just 32 days before the attack on the World Trade Center
and Pentagon, a Financial Times of Asia (FT) Wire-Business Line report
linked Deutschebank to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
Pakistani and Afghani heroin smuggling, and money laundering of narcotics
proceeds (8-10-2001). Retired Pakistani intelligence chief Brig Imtiaz
was jailed for eight years on July 31, 2001 for laundering heroin profits
-- for covert actions -- via a CIA-linked drug smuggling cell, using
Deutschebank
and other financial entities and properties.
-
- Former State Department official Jonathan Weiner
confirmed
that Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have been
of little help to federal officials regarding known terrorist funds moving
back and forth between those countries. Weiner made these statements in
a National Public Radio (NPR) interview on 11-21-2001.
-
- Weiner told host Linda Wertheimer, "Since September
11th, all those countries have frozen accounts or have looked in their
banking systems for the money of people associated with terrorist finance,
[and] have gone through the entire list provided by the United
States."
-
- He added that "country after country has announced,
'we've looked for funds. We've looked diligently. We've been ready to
freeze
some funds. We just haven't found anything.' No money in the UAE, no money
in Kuwait." Weiner then revealed, "There is, I can tell, no money
announced in Saudi Arabia, none announced in Bahrain.
-
- "Well, given that we know [that terrorist] funds
came out of there and we know [that terrorist] funds went back there, their
inability to find funds is pretty astonishing," said the former State
Department official.
-
- While 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudis, it is Bahrain and
Kuwait's strange lack of assistance in ferreting out terrorist financial
support and insider trading evidence that raises questions, given their
extremely close ties to both Bush presidents.
-
- The close financial relationships of both Bush 41 and
Bush 43 (referring to their respective presidencies) with government
officials
of Bahrain as stockholders via Texas corporation Harken Energy, which had
secured major drilling rights came during the period when the elder Bush
and his advisor son were making U.S. military decisions prior to the Gulf
War. Many Harken investors were major campaign donors to Bush 41.
-
- Current President Bush made his first million dollars
as a result of a classic insider stock trade--directly related to the sale
of his stock in Harken. Moreover, Bush's oil stock sale was finalized
immediately
prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait -- at the height of its share price
-- before plummeting days later on news of Iraq's invasion.
-
- George W. avoided prosecution, thanks to some
"well-connected"
lawyers, and a soft investigation of Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) violations -- supervised by a presidential parent who pulled the
strings with SEC enforcement staff. This, as current and past Enron
employees
have now lost their pensions as a result of illegal insider stock sales
in the oil industry through another company directly connected to the
Bushes.
-
- George H. W. Bush, the elder is a hero, an icon, with
his picture in Kuwaiti public buildings, and has been a regular visitor
to Kuwait since U.S. the Gulf War.
-
- However, considering that Kuwait Finance House and Faysal
Islamic Bank of Bahrain are both correspondent banks with Deutschebank,
questions remain as to why President Bush would not place them on his list
of banks under scrutiny for terrorist ties, given the German bank's many
links to the 9/11 attacks and the above revelations by a former State
Department
official.
-
- BANKING ON TERRORISM
-
- According to German news weekly Der Spiegel, Deutschebank
handled accounts for the bin Laden family worth $103 million British pounds
(The London Guardian, 10-1-2001).
-
- The New York Times (9-29-2001) added that FBI officials
are "focusing more than ever on Germany," and in particular,
an apartment used by Mohamed Atta -- considered the lead hijacker -- and
Ramzi Muhammad Abdullah Bin Al Shibh, who also shared the apartment with
other hijackers. Fox News and the Washington Post both reported on 1-2-2001
that Al Shibh wired $14,000 to Zacarias Moussaoui, now in U.S. custody
and referred to as the "20th hijacker."
-
- An American official said "It looks like it was
organized in Germany... there is clear evidence of meetings between Mr.
Atta, Mr. al-Shehhi, and Mr. Jarrah, three of the four suspected
hijackers,"
according to the Times.
-
- Mamoun Darkanzanli, a Syrian businessman whose bank
accounts
were frozen after the attacks, has been implicated by American officials
as an associate of Osama bin Laden who took part in a 1996 attack on U.S.
troops at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials say currently
jailed terrorist and bin Laden's highest ranking associate in U.S. custody
-- Mamdouh Mahmud Salim -- named Darkazanli as the co-signer of Salim's
bank account at Deutschebank in Hamburg, also according to the Times. The
bin Laden family, with whom the Bushes have had long standing business
deals through The Carlyle Group, was later awarded the contract to rebuild
the facility.
-
- The New York paper reported that Deutschebank was also
linked to Wadih el-Hage, a naturalized American citizen from Lebanon who
served as bin Laden's personal secretary at his Sudan office, and was named
by prosecutors as also setting up terrorist front businesses for bin Laden
in Kenya during 1994.
-
- El-Hage's business card lists Mamoun Darkazanli's current
apartment as his Hamburg address, while his confiscated address book lists
Darkazanli's address, phone numbers and yet another Deutschebank account
in Hamburg -- but not the same account as Salim's.
-
- Investigators also suspect that Darkazanli was supporting
bin Laden's Al-Q'aeda network financially, using Deutschebank as his
supporting
entity for terrorism.
-
- According to the Asian Wall Street Journal (9-28-200),
insiders familiar with the family say the bin Ladens do most of their
banking
with the London branch of Deutschebank and the Saudi National Commercial
Bank; however, they also use Citigroup, a bank long linked to drug money
laundering and on whose board of directors sit former CIA Director John
Deutch and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Rubin is also the former
CEO of Goldman Sachs which was once the home of convicted Deutschebank
drug money launderer Kevin Ingram. (See Part II).
-
- DEUTSCHEBANK'S "CORRESPONDING" LACK OF
INTELLIGENCE
-
- Michigan Senator Carl Levin's Minority Banking Report
of February 2001 calls correspondent banking the "gateway to money
laundering," a financial technique wherein illicit money is moved
from bank to bank with "no questions asked," thereby cleansing
funds prior to being used for legitimate purposes. Via correspondent
banking
relationships, banks not licensed in the U.S. may gain access to American
financial markets by establishing a correspondent relationship with banks
that are. Deutschebank is licensed in the U.S. and maintained offices at
the World Trade Center. All U.S. Deutschebank records were destroyed in
the September 11 attacks.
-
- An obvious question then is why none of these Middle
Eastern financial institutions have felt the sting of U.S. investigative
wrath since the attacks.
-
- In another curious disclosure, the FBI also says al
Shamal
Islamic Bank -- Osama bin Laden's personal bank -- headquartered in
Khartoum,
Sudan -- which the terrorist leader helped capitalize with $50 million
in private funds, "is being investigated by U.S. or overseas
authorities."
According to U.S. News (10-8-2001), the Bureau won't say which authority.
President Bush, however, has failed to place Osama bin Laden's al Shamal
Islamic Bank in his Executive Order -- freezing all of its correspondent
transactions with other banks of the world. [See
http://www.banking.state.ny.us/il01102a.pdf
]
-
- This is especially strange, since the Washington Post
(9-29-2001) reported that a an unnamed bin Laden associate testified (at
the U.S. trial on the 1998 African embassy bombings) that "$250,000
was wired from al Shamal Islamic Bank directly into the bin Laden cohort's
Texas bank account -- where he used it to buy a plane delivered to bin
Laden... intended to transport Stinger missiles...." Two months later,
FT (11-29-2001) offered more information, reporting that "The money
was wired from the Wadi al Aqiq account at al Shamal bank via Bank of New
York to a Bank of America account held in Dallas, Texas by Essam al Ridi.
Al Ridi, an Egyptian flight instructor who met bin Laden in Pakistan in
1985, flew the plane to Khartoum."
-
- Congress has not sought to inquire as to whether bin
Laden's Stinger missiles were flown directly out of Texas, or how his
fellow
terrorists were able to buy a plane in Dallas to illegally transport arms,
or how a bin Laden associate was able to become a Texas flight instructor
-- let alone whether he taught other terrorists how to fly airplanes in
Dallas.
-
- A Financial Times of Asia Wire story (8-10-2001) revealed
that dirty money profits for covert actions resulting from CIA-linked
heroin
smuggling (which is a primary means of financing terrorist operations)
through Pakistan and Northern Afghanistan have been shown to find their
way into the international banking system. This was the role played by
Kevin Ingram, formerly of Deutschebank in New York as described in Part
II of this series.
-
- And while U.S. News (10-8-2001) reported that FBI
officials
say Deutschebank is "being investigated by U.S. or overseas
authorities,"
again the Bureau will not say which authorities, indicating that the U.S.
may not even be taking a lead role in investigating the matter.
-
- A spokesman for Deutschebank said it had provided
investigators
with information on accounts linked to members of the bin Laden family
(The Guardian, 10/1/01). No further information has been made
public.
-
- Meanwhile, continued and current revelations indicate
that negligence and the "prior-knowledge issue" -- insider
trading
or otherwise - -will not go away. An executive at a Pan Am flight school
in Minnesota told Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-MN) and Rep. Martin O. Sabo
(D-MN) that he had discussed and been questioned by an FBI agent on August
15 -- 27 days before the 9/11 attacks, "warning that a Boeing 747-400,
which [alleged terrorist Zacarias] Moussaoui was seeking to learn how to
fly, could be used as a bomb,'' (Washington Post, 1-2-2002). But
shockingly,
the executive also told the lawmakers that "it took between four and
six telephone calls to find an [FBI] agent who would help," according
to a letter obtained by the Post.
-
- In a Fox News interview hosted by Rita Cosby on 1-3-2002,
political analyst Dick Morris exposed more governmental negligence by
reporting
that President Bush "used information provided by FBI wiretaps dating
back to 1993 to determine which terrorist-related bank accounts he would
freeze in 2002," -- indicating lengthy U.S. intelligence prior
knowledge
of terrorist financial transactions. Fox's revelation of the additional
careless handling of critical pre-9/11 intelligence data may yet face
scrutiny
in three states via courtrooms of victim families, despite congressional
oversight silence -- and a quickly legislated compensation statute making
victim families promise not to sue the government.
-
- Given evidence of prior knowledge, insider trading, CIA
ties, and other financial relationships leading directly into Deutschebank
(http://www.copvcia.com/stories/dec_2001/death_profits_pt1.html), the
question
is begged as to why "President Bush's original Executive Order
[freezing
assets] didn't name any banks," (Washington Post, 9-29-2001). The
President has the power to freeze American monetary operations connected
to global banks with institutions in countries refusing to cooperate in
his terrorist finance probe.
-
- On December 31, 2001, a U.S. State Department Memo
revealed
that the president again avoided dealing with middle eastern countries
-- with close ties to the Bush family -- by announcing that assets of 1
German and 5 Irish terrorist-linked organizations had been frozen--but
still no banks linked to the epicenter of terrorist finances in Bahrain,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or the United Arab Emirates had been touched
(http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/02010202).
-
- THE CIA, TERROISM AND DRUG MONEY
-
- Documented Russian organized crime connections to money
laundering also lead back to Deutschebank, Pakistan, and terrorist
financing.
-
- On September 5, 1999, the German newspaper Weld am
Sonntag
quoted Deutschebank CEO Rolf Breuer saying that "It could be that
we were abused as an intermediate coordinating point" in the
fast-developing
Russian money laundering scandal. Deutschebank and its U.S. affiliate
Bankers
Trust (BT) filed "suspicious transaction" reports about Russian
clients, as BT had "correspondent banking" relationships with
Russia's Inkombank, which "allegedly had ties to organized
crime,"
according to USA Today ( 8-27-1999 ). Moreover, an Inner City Press story
(9-11-1999) also revealed that German magazine Der Spiegel quoted Breuer
as admitting that it was "possible" his bank was
"misused"
as an intermediary for money laundering.
-
- The FT Asia Wire report (8-10-2001) suggested that at
least 30 Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officials,
serving and retired have accumulated wealth through heroin smuggling. In
pervious stories, FTW and other news agencies have thoroughly documented
that the Pakistani ISI is a creation and surrogate of the Central
Intelligence
Agency.
-
- The FT report also revealed that "Pakistani
residents
are allowed to maintain dollar accounts with no questions asked about the
origin of the money and about its liability for income tax." FT added
that "the total amount of dollars in private circulation since the
military regime came to power was almost equal to that in the Government
coffers, if not more....[and] largely, if not totally, derived from the
heroin trade."
-
- Additional direct CIA and Deutschebank ties to heroin
smuggling and money laundering were also revealed by the FT story. "In
the 1980's, at the instance [sic] of the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Internal Political Division of the [Pakistani] Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI), headed by Brig Imtiaz... started a cell for the use of heroin for
covert actions. This cell promoted the cultivation of opium and the
extraction
of heroin in Pakistan as well as in those parts of Afghanistan under
Mujahedeen
control for being smuggled into the Soviet-controlled areas to get the
Soviet troops addicted.
-
- "After the withdrawal of the Soviets, ISI's
[Pakistani]
heroin cell started using its network of refineries and smugglers to send
heroin to the West and use the money to supplement its legitimate
economy...
After capturing power on October 12, 1999, Gen. Pervez Musharraf had Brig
Imtiaz, because of his proximity to Mr. Nawaz Sharif, arrested and
prosecuted
for having assets disproportionate to his known sources of income....He
was convicted by a court on July 31, 2001 (52 days before the 9-11
attacks),
and jailed for eight years.
-
- "According to evidence produced in the court by
the National Accountability Bureau, Brig Imtiaz had foreign exchange bearer
certificates worth $20 million, a Pakistani rupee account in the Union
Bank with a balance of Rs 2.13 billion, a dollar account in Deutschebank
with a balance of $19.1 million, five residential houses, five commercial
units and three shops. This huge wealth was allegedly accumulated by him
through heroin smuggling."
-
- BAHRAIN, KUWAIT AND DEUTSCHEBANK -
THE DOOR TO HARKEN ENERGY
-
- According to attorney Matthew Lee of Inner City Press
(ICP), after September 11, regulators in Luxembourg, former headquarters
of the notorious Pakistani Bank of Credit and Commerce International
(BCCI),
circulated a list of five banks, in addition to President Bush's U.S.
Executive
Order of September 23, freezing the accounts of suspected
terrorist-connected
individuals and organizations.
-
- In Part II of the Profits of Death series, located at:
(http://www.copvcia.com/stories/dec_2001/death_profits_pt2.html) the U.S.
government's ongoing scrutiny of terrorist banking was documented in an
AP story by Catherine Wilson. The story provided clear indication that
U.S. intelligence agencies routinely monitor banking transactions in
terrorist-related
cases. Wilson wrote about the current prosecution of Egyptians in a case
connected to former Goldman Sachs and Deutschebank securities trader Kevin
Ingram's attempt to launder heroin and cash for the illegal sale of weapons
to Islamic terrorists. She added that "numerous promised wire
transfers
never arrived, but there were discussions of foreign bankers taking payoffs
to move the money to purchase weapons into the United
States..."
-
- Moreover, the AP story never questioned how the federal
agents knew the names of particular banks and bankers, so as not to arouse
suspicion on the part of Kevin Ingram and the other Middle Eastern
accomplices,
because the bankers had previously been "in-the-loop" of drug
money laundering and illegal arms sales.
-
- The Bush Administration would necessarily have to be
concerned if congressional investigations of Deutschebank ties to Faysal
Islamic Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait Finance House started to dredge up and
revive old financial investigations into the 1991 probe of Harken
Energy.
-
- AN INSIDE TRADER DIRECTS PROBE OF INSIDE TRADERS -
THE MOTHER OF ALL ENRONS
-
- One reason why the Administration has not frozen the
assets of the two banks in Kuwait and Bahrain with correspondent
relationships
with Deutschebank leads directly to Harken.
-
- The probe in question is tied to Bahrain and Kuwait,
and directly involves George W. Bush and SEC lawyers appointed by his
father.
According to SEC records, on four separate occasions President George
W. Bush disregarded federal statutes by failing to file insider stock trade
reports on a timely basis, back-dating one trade by some four months.
(Harken
Energy SEC Abstract Filing, transaction date: 6-22-1990; Oil stock sale
made 41 days prior to Iraq's attack on Kuwait -- $848,560 profit, filing
date: 3-4-1991- 8 1/2 months late and reported to the SEC two days after
Gulf War was over on 3-2-1991; Harken Energy SEC Abstract Filing,
transaction
date: 6-16-89, filing date: 10-23-1989 -- 17 weeks late.) [Sources: Wall
Street Journal, 4-4-1991 and 9-28-99; Time, 10-28-1991; U.S. News,
3-16-1992;
Associated Press, 10-28-94; Houston Post, 10-18-1994.]
-
- The younger Bush denied the charge of insider trading
in spite of his positions on the Harken Energy board of directors, audit
committee, and stock restructuring panel. He added that he had no idea
Harken was going to get an audit report full of red ink until weeks after
he had made his stock sale.
-
- During December, 1999 into January, 2000, journalist
Tom Flocco's former research associate, Mario Calabrese, repeatedly called
the SEC requesting copies of George W. Bush's original Harken Energy stock
filings. After some 3 1/2 weeks of calls made during the critical Florida
Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court arguments deciding the Bush-Gore
election,
SEC representative Linda Thompson called Mr. Calabrese on January 14, 2001
to confirm that all original Bush SEC documents had been destroyed.
Thompson
said that "the dates you requested have all met their (6 year)
retention
time." It is possible that copies are still available via major
search
engines.
-
- The future president completed his key insider trade
eight days before Harken announced a $23 million second quarter corporate
loss and about six weeks before the invasion. Having just profited by
nearly
$1 million--representing a 200 % insider windfall--George Jr. watched
Harken
stock take a nosedive on the bad news. Thus, Harken Energy, a Houston oil
company doing business in Bahrain, wherein some of his father's largest
contributors also maintained substantial stock positions, made George W.
his first million which served as seed money for his upcoming Texas Rangers
deal.
-
- The April 4, 1991 Wall Street Journal added that
"Mr.
Bush did not return their phone calls seeking comment, and the Bush White
House tersely said 'It doesn't comment on the activities of the president's
children.'" Moreover, the SEC also declined to comment, according
to The New York Times. [3-9-92]
-
- Neither the younger Bush nor the media made much of the
blatant conflicts of interest since the chairman of the SEC was Richard
Breedon, former lawyer with Houston firm of Baker and Botts. Breedon had
served as deputy counsel to Bush 41 when he was Vice President under Ronald
Reagan.
-
- Moreover, the SEC investigation of George W. was led
by general counsel James R. Doty who, according to a UPI report,
mysteriously
neglected to interview any of the Harken directors --including the younger
Bush -- regarding "enforcement" oversight. Moreover, Doty had
previously served as George W. Bush's personal lawyer Bush 43's purchase
of the Texas Rangers baseball franchise.
-
- So, in the end, a future president--George W. Bush --
was cleared of insider trade wrongdoing by his personal attorney and by
his father's counsel. That said, the Bush Administration is currently
keeping
a low profile regarding campaign contributors at Enron Corporation which
participated in insider stock sales that bankrupted the corporation while
Enron employees were prohibited from cashing in their Enron stock-based
401K plans as their value plummeted.
-
- BUSH IN BAHRAIN - PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
-
- In October 1991, Time Magazine questioned why the tiny
country of Bahrain would stake so much of its financial future on Harken
Energy, which it labeled an "obscure, money-losing company with no
refineries and no experience in offshore oil exploration." The
magazine
also noted that oil insiders speculated that Bahrain's rulers saw the
arrangement
as a way to gain influence with the Bush Administration.
-
- In January, 1991, The Village Voice reported a potential
nexus regarding foreign policy and personal financial interests as in 1990,
the Bush Administration signed an agreement with Bahrain that chose the
small country as the permanent principal allied base in the Middle East,
although it was some 200 miles away from the hostilities in Iraq and
Kuwait.
-
- The military base deal came right after Harken announced
its January 30, 1990 joint oil-drilling venture with Bahrain, suggesting
that the elder Bush's contributors and his son, the future President of
the United States, were involved in personal financial business involving
Harken, while also making decisions - including dispatching Ambassador
April Glaspie to tell Saddam Hussein that it's actions vis a vis Kuwait
were none of the U.S.'s business - that led directly to the Gulf
War.
-
- And neither Bush let the press know that they had
permitted
Kuwait and Bahrain to infuse $19.6 million in foreign cash to hire U.S.
public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to lobby Congress and the
American
people into a war frenzy against Iraq.
-
- A former U.S. ambassador to Bahrain, Sam Zakhem, funneled
$7.7 million in advertising and lobbying dollars through two front groups:
Coalition for Americans at Risk (a former front group for the contras in
Nicaragua) and Freedom Task Force. The Iran-Contra front group prepared
and placed TV and newspaper ads and had 50 speakers available for pro-war
rallies and publicity events; however, neither disclosed Bahrain as the
source of the money. [Source: O'Dwyer's Foreign Agent Registration Act
Report, October, 1991 and "Flacking for the Emir," by Arthur
E. Rowse, The Progressive, October, 1991]
-
- AN ILLEGAL PRIVILEGE TO "NOT" RELEASE
DOCUMENTS
-
- On March 16, 1992, U.S. News & World Report said
that "according to documents on file with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, Bush 43's position on the Harken (restructuring) committee
gave him detailed knowledge of the company's deteriorating financial
condition."
-
- Spokesmen from Texas Gov. Ann Richards' campaign said
"Was this a real investigation, or was it a whitewash of an insider
stock sale by the son of the sitting president?" UPI noted that
"while
Bush claims the [conflicted] SEC investigation absolved him of illegal
insider trading, he has refused to release the investigation
files."
-
- The younger Bush has continued his practice of hiding
family information (which should be publicly available) to Congress and
the American people. On September 18 he asserted "Executive
Privilege"
in a proclamation refusing to release his father's vice-presidential and
presidential papers as required by law. This is a violation of the
Presidential
Records Act of 1978. What those documents might have revealed remains a
mystery that only legal action by families of the victims of 9-11 might
disclose.
-
- On December 20, 2001, Fox News analyst, Judge Andrew
Napolitano, quoted Congressman Dan Burton, Chairman of the House Government
and Reform Committee, saying that "George Bush is abusing his power
regarding executive privilege in refusing to release documents."
Burton
(and other members of the House Government Reform Committee are) attempting
to acquire the elder Bush's papers, Vice President Cheney's closed-door
energy policy meeting papers and closed FBI investigative reports of
alleged
wrongdoing in the Bureau's Boston field office. All requests have been
denied by Bush and Cheney.
-
- It does not seem likely that Chairman Burton will push
for records that may reopen Harken energy in the past or shed light on
Enron in the present. Only an as-yet nonexistent suit filed in civil court
by families of the victims of 9-11 would have the necessary legal clout
to drag the records into court. In the meantime all the profits of death
remain hidden behind a wall of government secrecy.
-
- Tom Flocco is a freelance writer and researcher. Email:
TomFlocco@cs.com
-
- Previous stories in the Profits of Death series:
-
- PART I - CIA Does Not Deny Stock Monitoring Outside the
U.S.:
-
- http://www.copvcia.com/stories/dec_2001/death_profits_pt1.html
-
- PART II - Trading With The Enemy:
-
- http://www.copvcia.com/stories/dec_2001/death_profits_pt2.html
|
