DEA paid $123,000 to charter jet for boss' trip to Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Tuesday, 02.17.09
DEA paid $123,000 to charter jet for boss' trip to Colombia

Despite having a fleet of planes at its disposal, the Drug Enforcement Administration spent $123,000 to charter a jet for its boss to go to Colombia last fall.

BY MARISA TAYLOR
[e-mail]

WASHINGTON -- The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration spent more than $123,000 to charter a private jet to fly to Bogotá, Colombia, last fall instead of taking one of the agency's 106 planes.

The DEA paid a contractor an additional $5,380 to arrange acting administrator Michele Leonhart's trip last Oct. 28-30 with an outside company.

The DEA scheduled the trip as the nation was reeling from the worst economic crisis in decades and the national debt was climbing toward $10 trillion.

Three weeks later, lawmakers slammed chief executive officers from three automakers for flying to Washington in private jets as Congress debated whether to bail out the auto industry.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/907263.html

[cboy4]

1. That's completely outrageous .. his regular jet was down

for maintenance, so they decided to charter one for one hundred-plus grand.

I mean, :wtf:

[Thor_MN]

14. His? The Michele who's picture I saw looked pretty much like a "Her"

She could have flown commercial for under a grand....

[rpannier]

2. Republikkans will tell you it's just a drop in the bucket

But if you were giving that money to the poor they'd tell you what a monumental waste of money it was

[DUlover2909]

3. I am so glad my hard earned tax dollars are being used so frivolously.

Regular people like me work HARD for their money. It's not EASY to wake up in the morning every day to go work. From asshole bosses to asshole customers, work is freaking HARD! Making sales is HARD! Dealing with problems like the weather, climbing ladders, reading schematics, sustaining injuries, however minor, carrying heavy equipment, repeating the same activity over and over, you name it: WORK IS FREAKING HARD! And these pricks spend 3 times an average person's yearly wage on a plane flight to fight a ridiculous war on recreation?

They fight hard to keep people locked up in jail, paying probation fees, court fines, and lawyers just to keep themselves in business. If people are spending money on drugs, then they won't spend that money on beer or Chinese made consumer goods, or car repairs, or donuts. We can't have that!

Drug offenders are political criminals.

[HillbillyBob]

4. The only Enforcement they do is protecting their sales market areas

They are enforcers for their own drug sales. Only killing off the competition to their own dealings.

[No Elephants]

5. And buying a ticket on a commerical airline was out of the question because....?

[ronnie624]

7. Because they were under a "threat".

A "threat" in Colombia that can't be revealed because it's of a "sensitive law-enforcement nature" that the Colombian government was completely unaware of.

[crikkett]

11. ...because you can't smuggle drugs and/or people back into the US via commercial air?

just a guess.

[TommyO]

6. $2339 for a refundable, business class ticket on Avianca

Orbitz is your friend Mr. Administrator.

[bdab1973]

8. Context

"instead of taking one of the agency's 106 planes."

The DEA fleet is ill-suited to fly passengers from the US to Columbia. Most of the aircraft are helicopters (OH-6, OH-58, Bell JetRanger, AS350Bs, etc). The vast majority of the fixed-wing fleet are light single-engine aircraft like Cessna 206s and 208s. They don't have the range to get to Columbia, nor the speed to do it in any reasonable time (206s cruise about 130 knots). The DEA operates a very small fleet of Cessna Citation business jets, but most are outfitted with surveillance equipment in the back and thus are not suited for carrying passengers. They may have one or two aircraft that can carry passengers overseas, and as someone else mentioned, it was likely in maintenance.

While I won't pretend to know exactly why they chartered an airplane, it could possibly be due to security. After all, the drug lords in central and south America would love to take out the head of the DEA, and the airlines don't really offer many security guarantees or flexibility.

Who knows...but while we're at it, many members of Congress and their staff fly on US military aircraft such as Gulfstream IV and V jets, as well as Boeing 737s on a fairly regular basis. Any time they go to a country where there is a security risk, they typically do NOT fly commercially. Those aircraft are not cheap to operate.

[ronnie624]

9. Some more context:

However, Brown said that he didn't consider seeking a loaner plane from another federal agency, although he said he had at least a week to schedule the flight.

and

Government watchdogs, however, question whether the trip could have been rescheduled or whether Leonhart could've taken a commercial flight.

[bdab1973]

12. I wasn't directly challenging that...

It's quite possible he could have scheduled something through DoD like most other government officials do.

But I was specifically taking issue with the statement that he chartered a jet instead of taking one of the other DEA aircraft.

[Peace Patriot]

10. What was he smuggling in or out of the country, that he needed $123,000 worth

of private charter jet for?

I have long suspected that the Bushwhack "war on drugs" is extremely corrupt. They have lavished $6 BILLION in military aid on the drug traffickers and death-squad connected drug lords running Colombia, with not a dent in the cocaine trade. Further, Colombia has become a hotbed of fascist plotting in South America. The Colombian military has hatched a couple of assassination plots against neighboring Venezuela's leftist president; caches of arms and military equipment have been discovered in Venezuela (at least one with connections to fascist politicians in Venezuela). In March 08, the U.S./Colombia also bombed/raided the temporary FARC camp of hostage negotiator Raul Reyes, just inside Ecuador's border, slaughtering 25 people in their sleep--an act that was orchestrated from the U.S. embassy "war room" in Bogota, and that nearly started a war between Colombia and Ecuador. This extremely provocative incident also resulted in Rumsfeldian, "Office of Special Plan"-like, cooked intelligence (--an alleged FARC laptop, later laptopS) implicating the presidents of Venezuela and Ecuador as "terrorist" sympathizers. (The alleged emails turned out to be non-existent.) This is just one of the more notorious dirty tricks the Bushwhacks were perpetrating against the democratic, leftist tide in Latin America.

One other thing: During the same time-frame as this $123,000 private jet use--fall 08--the U.S. embassy in Bolivia was orchestrating (funding, organizing) a fascist coup attempt in Bolivia, to topple the government of Bolivia's first indigenous president, the very popular Evo Morales. Morales threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia. UNASUR, the new South American common market (which does not include the U.S.), hurried to Morales' defense, and the coup was foiled (but not before the fascists had rioted, sacked government and NGO buildings, blown up a gas pipeline and machine-gunned some 30 unarmed peasants). Morales accused the U.S. DEA of using "war on drugs" funds and their presence in the country to support the fascist opposition.

All in all, I would say that the Bushwhacks had a lot of things to "clean up" in South America, before they were booted from the White House. This $123,000 private jet might have been mere lavish corruption, but I suspect it was more than that, and I'd sure like to know who and what were on board that private jet in and out of Colombia. Was the use of a private jet because honest elements within U.S. or allied forces in Colombia/South America wouldn't go along with something (or to keep them from finding out)?

Morales (Bolivia), Chavez (Venezuela), Rafael Correa (Ecuador) and others oppose the U.S. "war on drugs" as a violation of their sovereignty, too militaristic, corrupt and ineffective. It is not just their resources that the Bushwhacks seek control of (big oil reserves in Venezuela and Ecuador, and gas/oil in Bolivia)--the most obvious part of Bushwhack policy and probably the main reason behind their arming of Colombia and their reconstitution of the U.S. 4th Fleet in the Caribbean (on Venezuela's oil coast)--but also, it is my suspicion, the Bushwhacks wanted corrupt and militaristic control of illicit drugs/weapons routes.

A third motive is sheer military/police-state boondoggle--stealing money hand over fist from U.S. taxpayers, to stuff the pockets of private corporations like Dyncorp and Blackwater (also big U.S. chemical corps, for toxic pesticide spraying of peasant farmlands, to eliminate small coca leaf competitors of the big drug lords, and destroy organic food crops and drive peasant farmers from the land, to benefit giants like Monsanto and Chiquita).

Billions and billions and billions of our tax dollars have been used for extremely corrupt purposes in South America, as outlined above--including infusions of U.S. cash into fascist political parties in countries with leftist governments (most of the continent, but concentrated in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina). USAID and NED funds. "War on drugs" funds. Food aid funds. And black budgets.

Dare I use the cliche "tip of the iceberg" for this $123,000 jet in and out of Colombia? I hope there are some honest FBI agents somewhere, following this up. And I hope they stay safe.

[jmowreader]

13. I wouldn't have wanted them to use the DEA's plane anyway

The drug cartels in Colombia know what the DEA's plane looks like. They would like to shoot it down.

As for the high cost...would YOU let someone fly your plane to fucking Bogota for the normal rate? Ah hell no.

OTOH, I would like to know what business she had to do in Colombia, that she couldn't do by picking up the phone.