I. John Cornyn is the Senator from KBR/Halliburton. According to Source Watch:
Halliburton is one of the largest energy company contributors to both Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress. These contributions total $150,514 to the 110th US Congress (as of the third quarter), the largest of which has been to Rep. John Cornyn(R-X) for $10,000. Rep. Cornyn, for his part, has consistently voted with the coal industry on energy, war and climate bills.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=HalliburtonToday, Sen. Cornyn (R-Texas) has vowed to obstruct the nomination of Eric Holder to be the next U.S. Attorney General until Holder vows not to prosecute U.S. citizens for torture.
"Part of my concern, frankly, relates to some of his statements at the hearing in regard to torture and what his intentions are with regard to intelligence personnel who were operating in good faith based upon their understanding of what the law was," said Cornyn.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/21/senate-republicans-to-del_n_159740.htmlHowever, if you look at Cornyn’s history, his reason for being in Washington is to protect the interests of energy companies—like former Vice President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton and KBR. I believe that Cornyn is less worried about intelligence agents than he is about private contractors who committed atrocities in Iraq in the name of greed, not national security.
Corynyn and Halliburton go way back. When John Cornyn was Texas Attorney General he refused to intervene when Halliburton shredded documents which had been subpoenaed in a lawsuit. Cheney and Co. made no bones about the fact that they shredded the documents rather than turn them over to the court.
In a traditional civil lawsuit, judges have wide latitude to impose sanctions against a defendant for destroying evidence. They can tell a jury to assume that the information was extremely damaging to the defense. They can impose fines. They can find for the plaintiff and toss out the rest of the case to punish the other side, regardless of how strong the case was.
But when Pennington later went before the Halliburton arbitrator, the arbitrator dismissed his case, saying he had failed to produce sufficient evidence to support his claims, which, of course, was difficult to do after Halliburton had shredded part of his personnel file. The arbitrator made no mention of the evidence destruction. Wall protested the evidence destruction to the Texas Attorney General, Republican John Cornyn, who is now a U.S. senator, but Wall says Cornyn's office never investigated and no one was ever held accountable for it.
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/12/cheney-no-justice-for-jamie-jones.html II. The Case Against KBR/Halliburton for Torture and Human Rights Abuses If Attorney General Eric Holder were to pursue a case against Dick Cheney’s company KBR and its former owner Halliburton for torture and other human rights abuses, he would find plenty of people willing to testify.
July 27, 2004
More Indian workers are returning from Iraq with distressing tales of torture and human rights violations in the military camps of the United States.
"It is slavery there in the American camp. We are being treated worse than animals," Peter Thomas, a native of Mavelikkara in Kerala, who did odd jobs such as cleaning and laundry works in an American army camp, told rediff.com
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.cfm/Page/Article/ID/1774It gets worse.
According to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, the Nepalese workers were recruited in 2004 in their home country by KBR and its Jordanian contractors, Daoud & Partners, to work as kitchen staff in a luxury hotel in Amman. Once they reached the Jordanian capital, however, their passports were taken from them and they were sent to Iraq. While travelling in an unprotected convoy, the Nepalis were kidnapped and later executed.
Snip
The lawsuit says that, after the 12 men were kidnapped, the sole survivor, Buddi Prasad Gurung, was forced to work for 15 months against his will in a warehouse at the al-Asad air base before his passport was finally returned. The plaintiffs allege the "illicit trafficking scheme - from their recruitment in Nepal to their eventual employment in Iraq - was engineered by KBR and its subcontractor".
The lawsuit was brought under a new human trafficking law that allows foreign citizens to sue the US government, military or corporations over human rights abuses committed in their countries.
Earlier this year, the US Department of Labour ordered Daoud to make a payment of $1m (£500,000) to be split between each spouse and set of parents of the murdered 12 Nepalis. The company has so far failed to comment on the lawsuit.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/08/29-1That’s human trafficking, slavery and murder.
After Jamie Leigh Jones was gang raped by fellow KBR employees, her superiors threatened her, incarcerated her and tried to cover up the crime.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Jones described the container as sparely furnished with a bed, table and lamp.
"It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened."
Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.
The State Department had to free her from imprisonment and get her a rape exam. However, the evidence of that exam later disappeared.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=3977702&page=2And this was not an isolated case.
Nelson is right to be disappointed, especially since Jones’ assault may not be “an isolated case.”
Former Halliburton/KBR employees have described an atmosphere of “rampant sexual harassment.” Poe has also confirmed that his office has heard from multiple other women who were victims of sexual assault while working for KBR in Iraq.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/08/dod-not-investigate-kbr/Over the course of the next few years, 38 other women would come forward to report that they too had been raped at KRB. The Bush DOJ would do nothing.
http://wmtc.blogspot.com/2008/02/follow-up-jamie-leigh-jones-and-at.htmlMukasey obligingly decided to deny these women justice, however, Eric Holder may not be so friendly to Big Business.
Is this the kind of “torture prosecution” that Sen. John Cornyn is afraid of? Never mind the whole issue of the “no-bid” contract and the overcharges for work done in Iraq and the poisoned National Guards from Indiana. Maybe Cheney showed some foresight when he decided to move corporate headquarters to Dubai.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=HalliburtonIf Cornyn has his way, Holder will have to promise never to indict
anyone , including people like the ones at KBR who tortured, abused and murdered
for money before he can become our Attorney General. And that just is not right.
III. Money Makes Cornyn’s World Go Round: Republican Attorney General Association Let’s go back in time a little to before Cornyn went to Washington. He was in Texas state government, as the Attorney General, when W. was the governor. Cornyn helped found something called the
Republican Attorney General Association which has been called a “slush fund” to which corporations, especially those guilty of wrong doing, contribute money, so that they can buy the favor of Attorney Generals in states where they are being sued. Cornyn started it in Texas, after Democrat Dan Morales started the landmark tobacco lawsuit that got him targeted by the Bush DOJ.
http://www.tpj.org/Lobby_Watch/raga.htmlhttp://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Republican_Attorneys_General_AssociationThese two documents describe the corporations (like Enron and Halliburton) which have donated money to the fund in exchange for favors.
The primary method of contributing money to RAGA is to become a member. Membership costs from $5,000 to $25,000, with increasing levels of access to attorneys general depending on the donation amount.
Unfortunately, knowing the full details of the contributions RAGA receives is very difficult since all money received by RAGA is passed to the Republican National Committee without any public links, especially money received from direct solicitation by attorneys general.
Internal fundraising documents obtained by The Washington Post show that Republican state attorneys general were asked to solicit contributions from corporations and trade groups subject to lawsuits and regulations by their states. The companies solicited include Shell Oil, Brown & Williamson, Pfizer Inc., MasterCard Inc., Eli Lilly and Co., Anheuser-Busch Cos., Citigroup Inc., Amway Corp., U.S. Steel Corp., Nextel Communications Inc., General Motors, and Microsoft Corp. The documents state that company officials would be allowed to meet, participate in conference calls, and socialize with the attorneys general.
This is nothing but a shakedown. You want the state to back off on a case that is costing your business money? Give the Republicans the money instead.
Is John Cornyn throwing roadblocks up in the confirmation hearings in order to advertise his latest money making venture? If your company does not like a bill up for consideration---say a environmental bill that would cost your company money----all you have to do is give him a bribe---oops, donation---and he will arrange an obstructive maneuver
like the one he is staging right now for KBR/Halliburton. I find this pretty easy to imagine, because the only thing John "Senator Invisible" Cornyn has
ever stood for is the financial best interest of the folks who can pay him the most.
IV. But wait! There is More! Attorney General John Cornyn Worked With Abramoff to Shut Down an El Paso, Texas Casino, Too! If there was a financial scam out there, you can bet that John Cornyn was up to his eyeballs in it. When Jack Abramoff was playing the Christians against the Native American Casinos, Cornyn was glad to oblige.
http://newspapertree.com/opinion/1704-john-cornyn-worst-senator-ever-for-el-paso As Texas Attorney General, Cornyn led the campaign to shut down the Tigua Indians’ Speaking Rock Casino and Entertainment Center in 2001. Speaking Rock was closed in February, 2002, after the U. S. Supreme Court agreed with Cornyn’s charge that the casino violated Texas’ anti-gambling laws.
Snip
“A state report has indicated that losing the casino will cost this area 2,200 jobs and at east $60 million in payroll at a time when El Paso is already hard hit by the loss of 14,000 jobs since 1995 because of military base closings, global competition and the economic slowdown.
Snip
When John Cornyn ran for the U. S. Senate, lobbyist Jack Abramoff contributed $1,000 to his campaign, the maximum amount legally allowed. Cornyn also received $6,250 in contributions from Las Vegas casino interests who opposed Indian gaming, some of which were made at the same time Cornyn was pushing to close the Tigua's casino in El Paso.
Although Cornyn denies any ties to convicted lobbyist Abramoff, the public record clearly reflects that Abramoff certainly had ties to Cornyn. Abramoff, along with his partner Michael Scanlon, pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges, including allegations of defrauding six Indian tribes of about $80 million between 2001 and 2004.
Former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed claimed in a 2001 e-mail to Abramoff that he choreographed John Cornyn's efforts as Texas attorney general to shut down two Texas Indian tribes’ casinos.
http://newspapertree.com/opinion/1704-john-cornyn-worst-senator-ever-for-el-pasoHere is more on the cover up to protect Cornyn, who was much too valuable to Bush-Cheney and the corporate interests they represent to be prosecuted along with Abramoff.
Cornyn claims he doesn't know Abramoff-- making him virtually the only Republican in America who doesn't (if you believe him)-- but he does confess to knowing Reed. He also claims, according to Gamboa, that "he did not remember receiving a letter from Young or Reed, or providing a letter to Young." In a move to protect Cornyn's "good name," fellow Republican senator John McCain, head of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which is investigating this scandal, blocked out Cornyn's name in the released e-mails. That fooled no one at all, thanks to sloppy work on the committee and no is now denying that all the references were to Cornyn.
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2005/11/cornyn-abramoff-reed-connection.htmlMaybe the new Attorney General needs to look more deeply into Jack Abramoff’s criminal activity, especially his dealings with the former Texas Attorney General?
V. All Texas Republicans are Corrupt, But Cornyn Is In a Class With…Phil Gramm I live here. Though I have not voted for the man even once, I guess I share some kind of collective guilt for him. It was not as if we were not warned. Look at how he described himself in 2002 when he was running for office.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2002/races/tx_cornyn.html State Attorney General John Cornyn says he'll continue the legacy of retiring three-term Sen. Phil Gramm, a fellow Republican.
The same article also mentions that Cornyn received almost $200,000 from Enron, a sure sign of political corruption.
VI. Did Cornyn’s Criminal Attorney Tell Him He Had Better Become a Darling of the Right Wing In Order to Gain Political Coverage Before the New Justice Department Decides to Indict Him for One of the Crimes that the Bush Administration Has Been Ignoring?You have to consider the possibility. Why else would someone this dirty decide to become high profile at a time like this? Better to be a thorn in the side of the Obama administration than a notch on Eric Holder's belt.
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