WSJ: Halliburton -2: Baker Botts Has Ties to Bush Family

[ima_sinnic]

(this article is from February 13th so I couldn't put it in Latest Breaking News. I did a search of "Botts" on DU and it appears the story has not been posted. The link is to a free site, unlike the WSJ sub-only site)

by Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal

DALLAS (Dow Jones)--Halliburton Co. (HAL) has retained Baker Botts LLP, a Houston law firm with longstanding ties with the Bush family, to handle its internal investigation into allegation that illegal payments were made to secure a Nigerian construction contract.

The Justice Department, as well as investigators in France and Nigeria, are looking into allegations that a Halliburton-led consortium made $180 million in illegal payments between 1995 and 2002 in connection with the construction of a $4.9 billion natural gas plant in Nigeria. From 1995 to 2000, Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive.

The U.S. investigation follows a French probe made public late last year. In addition to Halliburton, the consortium includes the construction unit of Eni SpA (E), Technip SA (TKP) and Japan Gasoline Corp.

Houston-based Halliburton disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing earlier this month that it had hired an outside law firm to investigate the allegations. In subsequent interviews, Halliburton Chief Executive Dave Lesar declined to identify the firm. "If illegal payments were made, this matter could have a material adverse affect on our business," the company said in the SEC filing. . . .

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[SpiralHawk]

1. Hey, one of GW Bush's first jobs was messenger boy for Baker Botts

There's a link to this 'coincidence" in another GD thread. Will try to find and come back to post.

Small planet, eh?

Here we go. Thanks NNNNHOL1

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1120921

Many Gaps In Bush's Guard Records

<snip>Bush had a $212-a-month stint as a sporting-goods salesman at Sears in 1966, and was a messenger for the white-shoe law firm of Baker Botts.

He listed the "Houston Club" as a credit and character reference on one form. The "personal history" he filled out in 1968, when he was 21, listed his only foreign travel as Scotland, in August and September 1959, for "pleasure -- vacation."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=716&e=16&u=/...

[SpiralHawk]

3. Baker Bots now also defending Saudia Arabia agains 9/11 widows

that is mentioned in the GD thread linked above in response #1.

I reckon that to be moral treason. Dark business.

Excuse me for obsessing about these two threads -- but this is dynamite.

The Octopus of entangled interests is apalling beyond anything I could previously have imagined.

Thick as thieves, these buggers are.

[SpiralHawk]

2. Doesn't the name Baker-Bots sound like something from Harry Potter?

I mean, I know the whole BushCo tale is stranger and sadder than fiction, but ...

Are we in the Millennial Twilight Zone of Cronyism and Corruption?

As an unknown DUer once put it, "there is a huge roiling taking place in the netherworlds."

[CastorTroy]

4. Of course it does . . .

James A Baker III's pappy is the namesake of the firm. They have their hands in just about every energy-related deal that comes out of Houston. On top of that, many of their top partners were instrumental in the 2000 Election Theft.

[teryang]

5. the "vice" president is not a crook!

And the law firm that selected me will prove it!

[ignatius]

6. Let's see, start an illegal war, hire your VP's firm who is crooked

as the day is long to overcharge on expenses courtesy of the taxpayers, then hire another crony to defend the crook. What a circle jerk these guys have got going.

The circle of life Republican style.

[starroute]

7. Baker Botts has a long and tangled history

Remember William Stamps Farish, the friend of the Bush family who got in trouble in 1942 for doing business with the Nazis (and whose grandson of the same name is currently ambassador to Great Britain)? His wife was the granddaughter of Walter Browne Botts (1835-93), one of the founding partners of the lawfirm of Gray and Botts. James Addison Baker joined the firm in 1872, and it became Gray, Botts, and Baker.

That Baker's son, James Addison Baker, Jr. (1857-1941) was instrumental in the establishment of Rice Institute (now Rice University) and was the first chairman of its board of trustees. He was also the president of Houston Gas and Fuel, which held a monopoly in the City of Houston. The current James A. Baker is his grandson.

Rice is a major part of the picture. Back around the 1920's, Rice board members were involved in the management of Humble Oil, William S. Farish's company. And George R. Brown (brother of Herman Brown of Brown and Root) was head of the Rice Institute Board of Governors.

Enron comes into the story as well. It was originally founded in 1925 as Houston Natural Gas, in an attempt to compete with Baker's Houston Gas and Fuel. As of 1976, HNG's directors included both William S. Farish III and a future president of Rice University. And by 1997, Baker and Botts was serving as Enron's counsel.

Enron in its heyday had close ties to Rice as well as Baker. In 1995, Colin Powell received the first Enron Prize for Distinguished Public Service at the annual conference of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. In 2000, Rice University received a $5 million endowment from Enron and $3 million from the Linda and Ken Lay Family, which was intended to found the Ken Lay Center for the Study of Markets in Transition.

Baker and Botts' connections with the oil industry now seem to be moving overseas. In February 2001, the firm opened an office in Saudi Arabia, and in October, Robert W. Jordan, a partner in Baker and Botts, became US ambassador there.

The hits just keep on coming.