Jack Abramoff, Scapegoat of the BFEE

[Octafish]

Russell Mokhiber brings up some news that certain quarters would like forgotten:
Namely, how's it possible for lobbyists to basically control Washington through the promise of jobs.



Gee. If the promise of jobs works so well for Capitol Hill,
who's to say how it applies to America's beloved corporate CEO class?

And what about all those jobs going to China?

Scapegoat for a Corrupt System

Jack Abramoff, Whipping Boy

by RUSSELL MOKHIBER
CounterPunch
November 29, 2011

EXCERPT...

“One of the most effective ways for us to control a Congressional office is to offer the chief of staff a job when they decide to leave Capitol Hill,” Abramoff said. “And for the time they remained as the chief of staff, we were in control of that office. He or she wasn’t going to allow anything to happen that wouldn’t featherbed where they were going later. They went out of their way. They overperformed in many cases. It is really an incredibly corrupt aspect of what goes on out there. There are a lot of reasons why the revolving door has to be slammed shut. But that alone is a good enough reason.”

The chief of staff is being paid $100,000 on the Hill. When they leave for K Street, they will be paid $300,000. Isn’t that the career path of most chiefs of staff?

“Yes,” Abramoff said. “Ninety percent of the people I encountered up there had that in mind.”

SNIP...

“No lobbyist, no company or person who hires a lobbyist, no person who has their hand out for taxpayer money, for contracts, or any kind of relationship other than the normal citizen relationship with the government, should be permitted to give one dollar in political contributions,” Abramoff says.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/29/jack-abramoff-whipping-boy/

Most of all, I want to know why no one goes after the guy’s cronies in Washington, Texas, Alabama or wherever the crooks and traitors run free.

[Huey P. Long]

1. recommended

Hello Mr Fish. Its busy today, so do not let the no reply dissuade you from posting these observations.
Thank you.

[Octafish]

7. It's always a nice day in the Marianas, apart from the nookyular testing and such.

Northern Mariana Islands, Abramoff, DeLay, and Enron

Okay, this admittedly has a lot of moving parts. Let me see if I can get all of this straight.

The New York Times runs a story this morning about $1.2 million in unaccounted for work done by a Rabbi David Lapin to "promote ethics in government" for the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CMNI), a U.S. territory. Tom DeLay and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff are at the center of this one.

Here's some background:

SNIP...

6. Why would Tom DeLay care about some islands halfway around the world? Well, clearly there's the Abramoff connection. The more Abramoff made, the more he could contribute to conservative causes and campaigns to further DeLay's big money agenda. The second reason is more direct: ENRON.

7. Enron hired Ed Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff, to lobby for their interests in a new power plant in CMNI. When Enron lost to a Japanese bid, Buckham got DeLay to try to re-open the bidding. Enron was one of Tom DeLay's biggest benefactors. Buckham, it should be noted, is the linchpin to a lot of sleaze in and around DeLay's operations, a Washington source tells me.

CONTINUED w links...

http://dailydelay.blogspot.com/2005/04/northern-mariana-islands-abramoff.html

PS: You are most welcome, Huey P. Long. Thank you for giving a damn about stopping the traitors who've near-ruined the country.

[sabrina 1]

19. Lapin, I remember this. I followed this story for months right

from the beginning and was appalled that the only place it was getting coverage was on C-Span. The extent of the corruption that took place during the Abramoff years is mind-boggling, and it involved even murder. He was lucky to get off with just three years, I thought that was in return for giving information to go after more of the crooks. But I do not recall anyone else being held accountable, once his case was over. Delay is still running around free as far as I know.

It would be impossible to discuss all the tentacles that reached around the world that these criminals were involved in, yet there has been very little accountability. We are a lawless country.

The Marianas Islands part of the story alone, could fill books and that was only one aspect of it.

Thanks for the post, Octafish. Sometimes I think we will never be able to fix this country, there are just too many crooks in positions of power. I hope I am wrong.

[malaise]

2. Get thee to the greatest page

:fistbump:

[Octafish]

8. You know, Bush's Brain was very close to Jack Abramoff.

One might think they werelikethis:

New book alleges Rove held secret Abramoff meetings

Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Saturday September 2, 2006

EXCERPT...

The book also alleges that Rove held streetcorner meetings with fallen superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, knowing that all visits and phones calls to the White House were logged. Abramoff recently pleaded guilty to tax fraud and conspiring to bribe members of Congress.

"When the latest sidewalk strategy session with Karl Rove had concluded, Jack Abramoff settled into the backseat of his chauffeur-driven car," Moore and Slater write on page 9. "'Like I said, everything that comes out of the White House is logged in. The phone calls he makes. The phone calls he receives. So this is just easier.'"

CONTINUED...

PS: Gracias, Tia! The things one learns on DU are second only to the people one meets.

[leveymg]

14. Rove was getting a big cut of the money Abramoff made after 9/11 introducing Bush to figures

connected to terrorism and AQ Khan's Saudi-financed nuclear proliferation network. Just months after 9/11, Rove and Abramoff brought the Malaysian PM to the White House in exchange for a $1.2 million bribe (er, political donation) that got split with the head of the Heritage Foundation who employed Abramoff's lobbying partner, Michael Scanlon. Here's the link to something I wrote here years ago about that:

Rove Linked to Multiple Major Criminal Investigations
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/308

[Octafish]

17. BCCI - the miracle Bank of Crooks and Criminals International

Wish I'd seen that OP, M-ster. That is some important information.

From one great reporter:

BCCI: The Bank of the CIA

by Jack Colhoun
Covert Action Quaterly
Spring 1993

Jack Colhoun was Washington correspondent for the (New York)
Guardian news weekly from 1980 to 1992. He has a Ph.D. in
history and specializes in post-World War II U.S. foreign
policy. His soon-to-be-published book The George Bush File (Los
Angeles: ACCESS, 1993) includes reprints of several of his
articles cited below.

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) scandal
opens a window with a spectacular view of a subject usually
shrouded in secrecy: How the CIA uses banks to finance
clandestine operations.


The view is spectacular because BCCI, which earned the
moniker the “Bank of Crooks and Criminals International,” worked
closely with former Director of Central Intelligence William
Casey and the Reagan administration’s off-the-shelf arms
Enterprise. BCCI financed some of the Enterprise’s arms-for-
hostages deals with Iran. Arms merchants linked to the October
Surprise banked with BCCI. The CIA funneled funds through the
bank to underwrite the Agency’s secret wars in Afghanistan and
Nicaragua.

But BCCI’s ties to the shadowy world of intelligence go deeper.
Clark Clifford and Richard Helms--retired, but still connected
senior members of the U.S. intelligence community--helped pave
the way for BCCI’s secret acquisition of the Washington, D.C.-
based banking network, Financial General Bankshares. Sheikh
Kamal Adham, the founder of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service,
also played a key role on behalf of BCCI in the takeover of
Financial General, which was renamed First American Bankshares.

Casey met “every few months” with Agha Hassan Abedi, the
Pakistani founder of BCCI, in Washington, D.C. and Islamabad,
Pakistan, over a three-year period in the 1980s. Casey and Abedi
talked about Iran-Contra arms deals, the Agency-funded war in
Afghanistan, and the ever volatile situation in the Persian
Gulf. Abedi even made arrangements for Casey’s travels in
Pakistan.1

1. For the Casey-Abedi meetings, see Peter Truell and Larry
Gutwin, False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, The
World’s Most Corrupt Financial Empire (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1992), p. 133; and NBC News, Sunday Today, February 23, 1992.

Abedi founded BCCI in 1972 in Pakistan, but the bank’s main
office was in London. BCCI also had major international banking
centers in the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg, where banking
regulations are virtually nonexistent. By 1991, when it was shut
down by international banking regulators, BCCI had branches in
more than 70 countries. This far-flung network was well suited
as a clandestine conduit for financing weapons transactions,
arranging bribes, and laundering money. Not surprisingly, the
CIA had accounts at BCCI branches around the world, including
more than 40 separate accounts at First American in Washington.

BCCI, utilizing its operations in the Cayman Islands and
Luxembourg, escaped the scrutiny of international banking
regulators. It moved money around the world for weapons
merchants and intelligence operatives through a convoluted web
of BCCI accounts and shell companies designed to camouflage
the transactions. The bank’s good connections in the Third World
enabled it to provide local financing for arms deals and covert
operations.

SOURCE (sorry WAYBACK says it's blocked by robots. Those who want, PM me and I'll forward text): http://web.archive.org/web/20001117161900/http://www.alternatives.com/library/pol/polintel/cova0008.txt

Some more background on the Petrodollar-BFEE axis of weasels:

The Family That Preys Together - the Bush Family

by Jack Colhoun
Covert Action Quarterly, 1992

EXCERPT...

Junior's value to Harken soon became apparent when the company needed an infusion of cash in the spring of 1987. Junior and other Harken officials met with Jackson Stephens, head of Stephens, Inc., a large investment bank in Little Rock, Arkansas (Stephens made a $100,000 contribution to the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 and gave another $100,000 to the Bush dinner committee in 1990.)

In 1987, Stephens made arrangements with Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to provide $25 million to Harken in return for a stock interest in Harken. As part of the Stephens-brokered deal, Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, a Saudi real estate tycoon and financier, joined Harken's board as a major investor. Stephens, UBS and Bakhsh each have ties to the scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

It was Stephens who suggested in the late 1970s that BCCI purchase what became First American Bankshares in Washington, D.C. BCCI later acquired First American's predecessor, Financial General Bankshares. At the time of the Harken investment, UBS was a joint-venture partner with BCCI in a bank in Geneva, Switzerland. Bakhsh has been an investment partner in Saudi Arabia with Gaith Pharoan, identified by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board as a "front man" for BCCI's secret acquisitions of U.S. banks.

Stephens, Inc. played a role in the Harken deal with Bahrain as well. Former Stephens bankers David and Mike Edwards contacted Michael Ameen, the former chief of Mobil Oil's Middle East operations, when Bahrain broke off 1989 talks with Amoco for a gas and oil exploration contract. The Edwardses recommended Harken for the job and urged Ameen to get in touch with Bahrain, which he did.
"In the midst of Harken's talks with Bahrain, Ameen-simultaneously working as a State Department consultant-briefed the incoming U.S. ambassador in Bahrain, Charles Hostler," the Wall Street Journal noted, adding that Hostler, a San Diego real estate investor, was a $100,000 contributor to the Republican Party. Hostler claimed he never discussed Harken with the Bahrainis.

CONTINUED...

As you know, this here mafia goes way back to moneymaking off the Civil War. What's different now is they also own the Cavalry to which they sell cannon.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. This is done at the local level as well.

If the local network wants something bad enough, they will go as far as supporting fraud and conspiracy as long as they get what they want.

Just my casual observation:

1) People who consider themselves consultants suddenly become presidents of large economic organizations where they have access to people
who can become clients.

2) Or, they get City jobs.

3) Or, people who already have cushy jobs, get other perks like flexibility on building codes.

Government for sale. At a local level it's a bleeder.

[Octafish]

9. Excellent points, and Buy-Partisan.

Some of the local powers like a certain drift, all sorts of opportunities open. Cross them by saying, "No" like or asking an impudent question like "Is this legal?" and all of a sudden it's "Goodnight, Lurleen."

Here's a bit on the national corrupt non-profit scene:

Five NGOs Sold Clout to Abramoff

By James V. Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 13, 2006; 1:32 AM

Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday.

SNIP...

Officers of the groups "were generally available to carry out Mr. Abramoff's requests for help with his clients in exchange for cash payments," said the report, issued by the Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee after a one-year investigation.

SNIP...

The report states that the groups probably violated their tax-exempt status "by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff's direction; taking payments in exchange or writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff's clients in a favorable light; introducing Mr. Abramoff's clients to government officials in exchange for payment; and agreeing to act as a front organization for congressional trips paid for by Mr. Abramoff's clients."

The groups are Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which was co-founded by Norquist and Gale Norton before she became Secretary of the Interior; Citizens Against Government Waste; the National Center for Public Policy Research, which was a spinoff of the Heritage Foundation; and Toward Tradition, a religious group founded by Abramoff friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

CONTINUED...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200889.html

I've lived and worked in several cities, including LA and Chicago -- I call Detroit home now, and the story is the same: The crumbs fall on the connected. The rest are ghosts, as far as those with power and cash are concerned, especially when combined in the same pocket. OWS going up like a house on fire shows things are the same all over. And before we become like Haiti, they're doing something about it.

[spanone]

4. k&r...

[Octafish]

10. Thanks, spanone! Didya see this from Onyx Collie a coupla weeks back...?

Let's see...

Gov. Siegelman files a fraud complaint against ExxonMobil for gas pumped out of Mobil Bay. A jury sides with Alabama and awards $3.6 billion. ExxonMobil appeals to the Alabama Supreme Court and the award is rejected, 8 to 1, with the sole Democrat dissenting. The $3.6 billion is reduced to $51 million.

Gov. Siegelman wants a state lottery to fund public education. He asks Richard Scrushy to contribute.

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is concerned about their gambling revenues, and pays Abramoff to fight against the lottery.

Abramoff takes the money and secretly funds Christian anti-gambling groups in Alabama with the help of Ralph Reed.

Abramoff's partner, Michael Scanlon, provides money through PACs to Gov. Siegelman's anti-gambling opponent, Bob Riley.

Gov. Siegelman loses the election after a midnight recount in Baldwin County. A recount is denied by AG William Holcombe Pryor, who later is appointed during a congressional recess to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals by George W. Bush.

Pryor pays William Canary, friend of Karl Rove, $40,000 in 1998 to be his consultant.

Canary receives $38,000 from Steve Windom, Siegelman's opponent in the '02 election. Windom runs on investigating Siegelman. Windom loses in the primary to Riley.

Canary's wife, Leura, and Alice Martin are appointed US Attorneys by Bush. Canary gives assurance to Rob Riley, son of Alabama Governor Bob Riley, that "his girls" would "get Siegelman".

Original Thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2325115

[Liberal_Dog]

5. K & R

[Octafish]

12. Thanks, Liberal_Dog! Didya hear what Don Siegelman says about Jack Abramoff?

Don Siegelman: Abramoff's New Book and What It Reveals About Me and My Case

EXCERPT...

So where does that leave you, Don? Do the Abramoff revelations help you in your legal battles?

I am left facing false charges by a felon who was plea bargaining to keep from going to prison. No. Nothing much has helped so far.

Karl Rove's client began the investigation March 19th, 1999, just days after I was the first governor to endorse Al Gore.

At that time, money had been pouring into Alabama from Abramoff to Karl Rove's confidants, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, to defeat me and my Education Lottery.

Rove and Canary were working against me.

Rove and his best friend and his wife started a federal investigation.

Rove's partner, along with a future Abramoff employee, stole my election.

[Donnachaidh]

6. k&r -- bookmarked for later reading. n/t

[Octafish]

18. Thanks, Donnachaidh! You might wanna check this out, too...

More about the wherewithall to make this wonder of the present age come to be:

Ménage a Trois: Oil Money, BCCI, and the CIA

by Fred Dexter
Covert Action Quarterly

In early August 1991, the global scandal surrounding the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) hit the headlines, and linked the powerful financial institution with the CIA. Acting CIA director Richard Kerr quickly decided to go public with a part of the Agency's relationship to what prosecutors have called the largest bank fraud of all time.

His choice of forum, a lecture to a group of U.S. high school students meeting at the National Press Club in Washington, was odd but rational. His chosen audience was obviously less prepared than journalists or members of Congress to ask tough questions about the Agency's relationship to the drug‑corrupted bank. Within this context, Kerr could put the information out in such a way that the CIA had total control over what was said and could thus cast it in an entirely positive light.

Kerr told the students that the bank's global reach and ties to various Middle Eastern groups early on made it a key vehicle for intelligence‑gathering by the Agency. At the same time, the Agency expanded its links with the bank, Kerr explained, both as a source for information on drug money laundering and drug trafficking, and as a mechanism for moving U.S. government funds. Because the bank operated branches in so many countries ‑ some 73 around the world ‑ the CIA used it also for moving Agency monies to its local assets. When the CIA found out the bank was engaged in improper activities, explained Kerr, it passed the information to federal law enforcement. Once it determined that the bank's activities were criminal, the acting director stated, the CIA of course began reducing its operations with the bank, and stopped them completely by the end of 1988.

Acting Director Kerr had indeed chosen his audience well. None of the high school students challenged his superficial account of the CIA's role with BCCI.

Among staff and members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, however, there were grumblings of skepticism. In August 1991, as part of its review of the nomination of Robert Gates for DCI, the committee began an investigation and an audit. The results of that audit are stiff secret, but some scattered facts have emerged from the public record, and are therefore available to Senate Intelligence staff. Taken together, they suggest a rather different picture of the CIA's role.

There is evidence, for example, that from its 1972 inception, BCCI was a CIA‑related operation designed to strengthen ties between the U.S. conservative regimes in the Middle East. By the 1980s the Bank was being used by the CIA for money transfers, and may also have become one of William Casey's off‑the‑books operations.

CONTINUED...

SOURCE (Links busted, WAYBACK's blocked by robots. PM me and I'll forward the words): http://covertaction.org//content/view/150/75/

You think We the People can get ahead when the one-percent own these guys?

[Major Hogwash]

11. Yes, Jack got caught and the story remains his to tell, but nothing changed.

And that was the fucking problem!!

[Initech]

13. I'm still angry at Pelosi for not bringing full on criminal investigations into the BFEE.

[Quantess]

15. Counterpunch has a ton of excellent articles.

[Octafish]

16. Very true, Quantess! Excellent in every way...

In fact, I love CounterPunch.



I don't always believe everything I read,
but when I do, it's often in CounterPunch.

My beef with CounterPunch regards Cockburn's willful ignorance re JFK Assassination.