It is difficult to nail down how CIA and Pentagon money is routed to politicians, but we know it happens. Not long ago, a senior CIA official resigned in part because he was present at parties where politicians were entertained by prosatitutes. A contractor who helped sponsor the parties was getting money from the CIA and Pentagon and was routing some of it back to Republicans. The scandal was not thoroughly investigated and the California US Attorney who was pursuing the matter was unceremoniously fired. Then her investigative team was dismantled.
John Meier, a Howard Hughes assistant, has written about how the C.I.A. asked Hughes to make contributions to its favorite politicians, among whom were Wallace Bennett, John Tower, James Eastland, Gerald Ford, and Strom Thurmond. Here is the list that appeared in Playboy.
Paul J. Fannin, Arizona
Wilbur D. Mills, Arkansas
Craig Hosmer, California
Robert L. Leggett, California
Gordon L. Allott, Colorado
J. Herbert Burke, Florida
Hiram L. Fong, Hawaii
Larry Winn, Jr., Kansas
Joe D. Waggonner, Jr., Louisiana
Gerald R. Ford, Michigan
James 0. Eastland, Mississippi
William J. Randall, Missouri
Paul Laxalt, Nevada
Howard W. Cannon, Nevada
Norris Cotton, New Hampshire
James R. Grover, New York
William H. Harsha, Ohio
Frank T. Bow, Ohio
John N. Camp, Oklahoma
Strom Thurmond, South Carolina
Dan H. Kuykendall, Tennessee
James H. Quillen, Tennessee
James M. Collins, Texas
Olin E. Teague, Texas
Omar Burleson, Texas
Abraham Kazen, Texas
John G. Tower, Texas
Wallace F. Bennett, Utah
W. C. Daniel, Virginia
Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia
Vernon W. Thomson, Wisconsin
Al Martin, a former intelligence operative who specialized in financial operations, wrote that intelligence operatives routinely made payments to Republican office holders in the states where they operated and to Republicans in Congress. He thought that a few Democrats were involved supporting illegal operations in Central America. He mentioned Senators Bumpers and Prior, but he did not say whether they received pay-offs. Martin said he made payments to the dentist husband of the governor of Kentucky and to an aid to Illinois Governor Jim Thompson. He thought Texas Senator John Tower was paid through his involvement in Houston Energy Partners, which was run by James Baker III. Tower later headed the Tower Commission , which looked into the Iran-Contra scandal. When Tower mysteriously died in a plane crash, Department of Defense agents arrived at the scene before the FAA people removed Tower’s metal briefcase briefcase. Tower’s daughter Penny had copies of some of his files and leaked a bit of information to the Atlanta Constitution. She then gave her papers to someone in government and her $85,000 mortgage was paid off. The check came from a corporation in the Netherland Antilles.
At a 1995 White House press briefing, Sarah Mc Clendon asked press secretary Mike Mc Curry if President Clinton was going to do anything about drug money being funnelled into both parties. She said that Vice President Albert Gore learned about it and demanded that Clinton do something to stop it. Clinton did not know this was going on. McCurry dismissed her question with “That sounds like the plot of a very good novel," but she insisted it was the truth. McCurry promised to report back but he never again addrerssed the subject.
People involved in the efforts to raise money for the contras called their operation “The Enterprise” or “The Cause.” They were intensely committed to what they were doing. Over time, however, it seems they thought that funneling money to Newt Gingrich’s GOPAC or other Republican entity was as important as helping the Contras. It was expected that some of the money raised through various government-protected fraud be channeled to the party. However, there is no evidence that money from drug running went to the party. . Martin described how he mad $135, 000 using government created shell corporations to participate in taking down a financial corporation. In this instance he was permitted to keep half the proceeds if he gave the rest to Republican organizations.
Showing posts with label Al Martin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Martin. Show all posts
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Bush Family and Covert Finances
Al Martin and some others have written that the Bush family was active in intelligence community financial opertions. Some have implied that they may have prfitted in some way, as did other people tied to intelligence work.
Jeb Bush was particularly adept in real estate schemes, but Al Martin, a former Office of Naval Intelligence operative, recalled Bush discussing with him how he was going to take down M Corporation. Martin also claimed that Bush had caused Broward Savings and Loan to write off $3.85 million in loans to Bush Realty. His partner was Armando Codina, a Cuban exile. Bush used the money to purchase a building which was later reevaluated by FDIC at $505,000. The balance of the loan was not repaid.
They bought the downtown office building in 1984 for seven million, using Edward Houston to front the deal and contribute $4.56 millikon. He borrowed the money from Broward Federals Savings. When the $1.7 for renovations and the $1 million reserve is added, the total cost is over $9 million. In the end, the $4.56 loan was closed out for $505,000 . Yet, Bush and Cordina paid the IRS $1.3 million, an acknowledgement that the building was worth a lot more than $505,000. Nothing was done about their use of a “straw borrower,” but ordinary folks playing this trick would have had endless legal problems. The Great American Bank and Trust Company of Marvin Warner also lost $9 million in a deal that involved Bush.
Jeb Bush was also involved in the Marine Research and Development Corporation. It was involved in many things, including direct trade with Cuba through licenses held by two Hungarian intelligence operatives that Jeb claimed not to have known. It also moved drugs and limited partnership securities. When the prime minister of Turks and Caicos Islands tried to interfere with a drug shipment, his parliament lifted the sovereign immunity that went with his office and he was tried in the US for moving drugs. Securities deals were used to entrap Democrats.
After first experiencing a good deal from MRDC, the Dems would buy into a bad deals. Then they faced loss of their funds if the investigated some things too closely or the eventual return of their money. Among them were Congressmen Bill Alexander , Ron Dellums , Steve Solarz, and Senators Dale Bumpers and David Prior. General Secord said that “If a Democrat doesn’t have a problem that we can control him with, we"ll create one for him” Dellums, who already had financial problems, was given another--cocaine addiction. Senator David Boren was entrapped in a gay relationship on an agriculture subcommittee trip in 1984 and became a solid backer of the intelligence community.
Jeb Bush was also involved in Gulf Oil Drilling Supply Company, a former C.I.A. proprietary firm or cut-outs. It held some old, pumped out wells. This scam involved several hundred millions in useless securities and even cost some big New York Banks and Merrill Lynch.
Neil was mainly involved in real estate schemes in several states Neil Bush was a director of Silverado Savings, whose crash cost the taxpayers about $1.6 billion. However, Bush was only responsible for a little less than $200 million in losses. He became a director of the bank at age 30 and helped two people who had invested in his energy company obtain large loans. He did not disclose his business relationship with either or the fact that he received a salary for serving on one of those boards. Bush survived the mess with a $50,000 fine. Five directors of the bank were banned for life from involvement in federally insured institutions, Bush was just told to refrain from unsafe financial practices.
Neil Bush faced charges of defrauding Silverado Savings and Loan of millions of dollars. The daughter of Judge Richard Matsch was mysteriously murdered, and Bush was freed of all of the charges with the proviso that he could no longer serve as a bank director. ( The same judge later got the Timothy McVeigh case.) The Silverado collapse cost the American taxpayers over one billion dollars.
Much evidence suggests that Neil continues to handle the day to day affairs of the Bush family throughout the world. The late Sherman Skolnick insisted that he uses his far flung accounts to launder drug money and funds from illicit weapons sales and gold smuggling. He and Jeb often pass funds through the Chicago unit of the major French bank, Credit Lyonnais. When Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris was in a position to help the Bushes launder money because she had the ability to hide records of shell corporations. This “laundrylady” worked through another French banking house, Banque Paribas.
George W. Bush participated at a distance in family real estate ventures. He had good connections with American International Group and other insurance providers and arranged to provide insurance and/or guaranty fidelity instruments for the deals. At worst it amounted to skirting the law, unless it could be proven he knew what his brothers were up to. The deals were often based on assets fraudulently obtained from HUD or options to buy land rather than land actually held. On a few occasions, banks got burned. But this was fairly rare.
Banks here and abroad were used to unload the shares, and they were assured they would be made whole along with god profits. When prices plunged, something would be done to pump up prices so tht banks could recover losses and make a profit. Stock would be “back doored@ to the bankers and marketers at this point. Another round of profit-taking for the insiders occurred when there was a “Areverse split” of the stock. Insiders gained profits without making an investment and sometimes big GOP contributors were enabled to participate in the same way.One of these deals involved the refinancing of a HUD backed property along the Overtown, Hialeah bodder. There were 830 apartments inbaibted by Blacks and Hispanics. The operation was called “Blackboard” and involves seven refinancing that the usual circle, but Secord’s code name was “Blackbird.” Each time HUD lost money. Not one penny was used to improve these places.
Another profitable program was the processing of fraudulent HUD loan applications. There is no evidence that the Bush family was involved in this, but it has been suggested that the intelligence community used this one to raise money for its operations. To do this well required recruiting some licensed real estate brokers. Of course, the cooperation of state and federal attorneys and a few judges was also required. The most effective of these scams operated out of the Denver HUD office. Several billion dollars was involved in this fraud. Eventually one man went to prison and two federal judges were discredited. At lest 17 cases of fraud against HUD by government operatives have come to light since the mid-1980s.
Jeb Bush was particularly adept in real estate schemes, but Al Martin, a former Office of Naval Intelligence operative, recalled Bush discussing with him how he was going to take down M Corporation. Martin also claimed that Bush had caused Broward Savings and Loan to write off $3.85 million in loans to Bush Realty. His partner was Armando Codina, a Cuban exile. Bush used the money to purchase a building which was later reevaluated by FDIC at $505,000. The balance of the loan was not repaid.
They bought the downtown office building in 1984 for seven million, using Edward Houston to front the deal and contribute $4.56 millikon. He borrowed the money from Broward Federals Savings. When the $1.7 for renovations and the $1 million reserve is added, the total cost is over $9 million. In the end, the $4.56 loan was closed out for $505,000 . Yet, Bush and Cordina paid the IRS $1.3 million, an acknowledgement that the building was worth a lot more than $505,000. Nothing was done about their use of a “straw borrower,” but ordinary folks playing this trick would have had endless legal problems. The Great American Bank and Trust Company of Marvin Warner also lost $9 million in a deal that involved Bush.
Jeb Bush was also involved in the Marine Research and Development Corporation. It was involved in many things, including direct trade with Cuba through licenses held by two Hungarian intelligence operatives that Jeb claimed not to have known. It also moved drugs and limited partnership securities. When the prime minister of Turks and Caicos Islands tried to interfere with a drug shipment, his parliament lifted the sovereign immunity that went with his office and he was tried in the US for moving drugs. Securities deals were used to entrap Democrats.
After first experiencing a good deal from MRDC, the Dems would buy into a bad deals. Then they faced loss of their funds if the investigated some things too closely or the eventual return of their money. Among them were Congressmen Bill Alexander , Ron Dellums , Steve Solarz, and Senators Dale Bumpers and David Prior. General Secord said that “If a Democrat doesn’t have a problem that we can control him with, we"ll create one for him” Dellums, who already had financial problems, was given another--cocaine addiction. Senator David Boren was entrapped in a gay relationship on an agriculture subcommittee trip in 1984 and became a solid backer of the intelligence community.
Jeb Bush was also involved in Gulf Oil Drilling Supply Company, a former C.I.A. proprietary firm or cut-outs. It held some old, pumped out wells. This scam involved several hundred millions in useless securities and even cost some big New York Banks and Merrill Lynch.
Neil was mainly involved in real estate schemes in several states Neil Bush was a director of Silverado Savings, whose crash cost the taxpayers about $1.6 billion. However, Bush was only responsible for a little less than $200 million in losses. He became a director of the bank at age 30 and helped two people who had invested in his energy company obtain large loans. He did not disclose his business relationship with either or the fact that he received a salary for serving on one of those boards. Bush survived the mess with a $50,000 fine. Five directors of the bank were banned for life from involvement in federally insured institutions, Bush was just told to refrain from unsafe financial practices.
Neil Bush faced charges of defrauding Silverado Savings and Loan of millions of dollars. The daughter of Judge Richard Matsch was mysteriously murdered, and Bush was freed of all of the charges with the proviso that he could no longer serve as a bank director. ( The same judge later got the Timothy McVeigh case.) The Silverado collapse cost the American taxpayers over one billion dollars.
Much evidence suggests that Neil continues to handle the day to day affairs of the Bush family throughout the world. The late Sherman Skolnick insisted that he uses his far flung accounts to launder drug money and funds from illicit weapons sales and gold smuggling. He and Jeb often pass funds through the Chicago unit of the major French bank, Credit Lyonnais. When Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris was in a position to help the Bushes launder money because she had the ability to hide records of shell corporations. This “laundrylady” worked through another French banking house, Banque Paribas.
George W. Bush participated at a distance in family real estate ventures. He had good connections with American International Group and other insurance providers and arranged to provide insurance and/or guaranty fidelity instruments for the deals. At worst it amounted to skirting the law, unless it could be proven he knew what his brothers were up to. The deals were often based on assets fraudulently obtained from HUD or options to buy land rather than land actually held. On a few occasions, banks got burned. But this was fairly rare.
Banks here and abroad were used to unload the shares, and they were assured they would be made whole along with god profits. When prices plunged, something would be done to pump up prices so tht banks could recover losses and make a profit. Stock would be “back doored@ to the bankers and marketers at this point. Another round of profit-taking for the insiders occurred when there was a “Areverse split” of the stock. Insiders gained profits without making an investment and sometimes big GOP contributors were enabled to participate in the same way.One of these deals involved the refinancing of a HUD backed property along the Overtown, Hialeah bodder. There were 830 apartments inbaibted by Blacks and Hispanics. The operation was called “Blackboard” and involves seven refinancing that the usual circle, but Secord’s code name was “Blackbird.” Each time HUD lost money. Not one penny was used to improve these places.
Another profitable program was the processing of fraudulent HUD loan applications. There is no evidence that the Bush family was involved in this, but it has been suggested that the intelligence community used this one to raise money for its operations. To do this well required recruiting some licensed real estate brokers. Of course, the cooperation of state and federal attorneys and a few judges was also required. The most effective of these scams operated out of the Denver HUD office. Several billion dollars was involved in this fraud. Eventually one man went to prison and two federal judges were discredited. At lest 17 cases of fraud against HUD by government operatives have come to light since the mid-1980s.
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