Know Your BFEE: How Smirko Got Rich

The crazy moron made some big bucks by fronting the Texas Rangers, which he found the money to buy into by dumping his HARKEN shares on inside information before the bottom fell out on the stock. Here's a nice overview from DU's friends at Online Journal on the Rangers. The second piece from CBS MarketWatch describes HARKEN and how Bush avoided prison.

Bush' Texas Rangers' plot thickens into tax evasion and more

By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Contributing Writer

October 20, 2004—As if Bush's sale of his $606,000 share of Texas Rangers stock to owner Tom Hicks for $15 million wasn't enough, there's more from deep in the heart of Texas to nail the good old boy, namely the possibility of tax evasion. That is, Bush declared the proceeds as a long-term capital gain, which it wasn't, as opposed to ordinary income, which it was. This means Bush paid at the capital gains' rate of 20 percent as opposed to the ordinary income rate of 39.6 percent. Beating the IRS out of nearly 20 percent in additional taxes. But the fun doesn't stop there.

As reported by MakeThemAccountable.com, Bush had had prior business with Tom Hicks, who also was cofounder, with his brother R. Steven Hicks, of a radio company that merged in 1999 into AMFM, Inc. It was soon engulfed and devoured by Clear Channel Communications, of which old Tom became vice chair (I think the title is appropriate, don't you?).

Tom, a busy bee, is also chief corporate raider for the firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst. In addition to being Bush's No. 4 career patron, Hicks, Muse wanted to dip into the $13 billion University of Texas (UT) endowment for takeover deals, sort of like Michael Milken's old corporate raider "treasure chests." And we all know what happened to Mike. Indicted in 1989 of 98 counts of fraud and racketeering. In 1990, banned from operating in the securities industry for life and sentenced to 10 years in prison for security fraud by then straight shooting New York D.A., Rudy Guiliani. Sentence later reduced to 22 months, served at a "Club Fed," a fenceless prison camp for low risk inmates. Ah well, life at the top. But let's move on . . .

Coincidentally, as Bush stepped into the Texas governor's office, Hicks was confirmed as a University of Texas regent, first chair no less. Hicks corralled some lobbyists to help pass a bill to create the UT Investment Management Co (UTIMCO). Love the acronyms. Then UTIMCO handed out contracts to private investment firms to "manage" pieces of the endowment—lots of foxes in the old hen house. When a media scandal (remember those) actually exposed UTIMCO's juicy contract deals with firms connected to Hicks and Bush, and even one that President Bush 1 reportedly had a piece of, well, folks weren't too happy. Nevertheless, the management fees to Hicks for "investing" the TU billions could easily have topped the $250 million he paid for the Texas Rangers. In so many words, Bush in his official duties as governor passed Hicks the money to buy the team.

CONTINUED...

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/102404Mazza/102404mazza.html


Bush Sold Stock Despite Promise

WASHINGTON, July 16, 2002 (CBS MarketWatch)

Two and a half months before George W. Bush sold his stock in Harken Energy Corp., he signed a "lockup" letter promising to hold onto the shares for at least six months, according to internal company documents obtained by the Washington Post.

The Post reported late Tuesday that the letter, signed by Bush on April 3, 1990, is now being compared with the account his lawyers gave federal securities regulators who examined the stock sale as a possible insider trade.

According to the Post story, the letter Bush signed promising to hold onto the stock was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Freedom of Information Act. At the time he signed it, Harken was considering a public stock offering to raise money to solve a cash flow problem.

The President's lawyers have said that Bush had a pre-existing plan to sell his stock in Harken and other companies to pay a tax bill and a loan he owed for his stake in the Texas Rangers ball team.

In June 1990, Bush sold about $850,000 in shares of Harken, just weeks before the oil and gas company reported an unexpected loss. Eventually, the SEC forced Harken to restate its financials to show a loss of $12.6 million for 1989, disallowing the accounting it used for the sale of a subsidiary to a group of insiders. Bush was a director of the company, which had acquired Bush's own energy firm, Spectrum 7.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/16/politics/main515266.shtml

For this pertinent reminder of how BushCo plays the game.

Can you spell s-l-e-a-z-y?

Here's a timeline of sleaze from New Zealand's Scoop:

George W. Bush And Harken Oil - Recovered History

Thursday, 7 March 2002, 1:54 pm
Article: Alastair Thompson

RECOVERED HISTORY - From the overstocked archives of the Progressive Review a timeline of the Harken Energy Insider Trading play by U.S. President George W. Bush, a series of transactions that connects the bin Laden and Bush families, and a current link to the New York Times traversing some more of the old ground.

1986

George W. Bush and partners receive more than $2 million of Harken Energy stock in exchange for a failing oil well operation, which had lost $400,000 in the prior six months. After Bush joined Harken, the largest stock position and a seat on its board were acquired by Harvard Management Company. The Harken board gave Bush $600,000 worth of the company's publicly traded stock, plus a seat on the board plus a consultancy that paid him up to $120,000 a year. When Harken runs short of cash it hooks up with investment banker Jackson Stephens of Little Rock, Arkansas, who arranges a $25 million stock purchase by Union Bank of Switzerland. Sheik Abdullah Bakhsh, who joins the board as a part of the deal, is connected to the infamous BCCI.

1987

Harken Energy project gets rescued by aid from the BCCI-connected Union Bank of Switzerland in a deal brokered by Jackson Stephens, later to show up as a key supporter of Bill Clinton.

1988

Bahrain officials suddenly break off offshore drilling negotiations with Amoco and decide to deal with Harken Energy, George Bush Jr.'s firm. Harken has had a series of failed ventures and no cash, so the Bass brothers are brought in to finance Harken's efforts at a cost of $50 million.

1990

January: Bahrain awards exclusive offshore drilling rights to Harken Oil. This is a surprise as Harken is in very shaky financial condition, has never drilled outside of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma and had never drilled undersea at all. The Bass brothers are brought in by Harken for sufficient equity to proceed with the effort. Harken's stock price increases from $4.50 to $5.50.

George W. Bush sells two-thirds of his Harken Energy stock at the top of the market for $850,000, a 200% profit, but makes no report to the SEC until March 1991. Bush Jr. says later the SEC misplaced the report. An SEC representative responds: "nobody ever found the 'lost' filing." One week after Bush's sale, Harken reports an earnings plunge. Harken stock falls more than 60%. Bush uses most of the proceeds to pay off the bank loan he had taken a year earlier to finance his portion of the Texas Rangers deal.

August: Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. Harken's stock price drops substantially. Two months after Bush sells his stock, Harken posts losses for the 2nd quarter of well over $20 million and is shares fall another 24 %, by year end Harken is trading at $1.25. Bush has insisted that he did not know about the firm's mounting losses and that his stock sell-off was approved by Harken's general counsel.

CONTINUED TIMELINE OF "MAL-FEE-UNCE" by the unelected dunce...

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0203/S00035.htm

Here's why the crazy moron is so crazy. He's nuts because he's a NAZI.

Origins of the G.W. Bush-Carlyle-Nazi Axis

By Alex Constantine

Even the most loyal conservative must admit that George Bush, Jr. is a strange bird. Texans have never truly accepted him as one of their own."Like his father," the UK's Observer jeered in 1994, "his home-grown credentials are questioned." In general, the natives were somewhat uneasy about the occasional bizarre antic - like the fist day of a local dove shoot, highlighted by Bush bagging a protected songbird, not the designated target (Ed Vulliamy, "White Hot Mama Fights a Texan Bush War," Observer, October 2, 1994). "No real Texan would have done that!" barked then Governor Ann Richards.

But then, in the mid-90s, the Texas political landscape shifted radically, the old order crumbling and a home-grown right-wing mutation plowing through the crust. Democrats had dominated the state since the Civil War, but with Napoleanic zeal the Christian-Right rallied and seized control of the Republican Party, led by the state's Christian Coalition and Eagle Forum, and went on to demonstrate that any political machine is mutable, even in the deep South.

But Bush still didn't quite fit the ticket, some Texans felt. True, his business was petroleum. But shortly after George, Jr. joined the board of Harken Oil, BCCI, the international bank that parlayed middle eastern oil profits into political influence, not to mention engaging in child prostitution and arming Iraq, dropped a number of lucrative drilling contracts in his lap (Petzinger, Truell & Abramson, 'Family Ties,' Wall Street Journal, December 5, 1991, p. 1). Texans were left to ponder the unspeakable question: Why in tarnation was W. in business with Shiek Khalifah bin-Salmon al-Khalifah, the scandal-ridden ruling emir of Bahrain? In 1990, the Shiek's name surfaced on a list of primary shareholders in BCCI's parent company, BCCI Holdings in Luxembourg. Bush had pulled strings to throw the contracts to Harken. In return, Harken Oil helped BCCI investment bankers gain a foothold in the U.S.

CONTINUED ...

http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/axisbx.htm

G-O-D-I-R-E-C-T-L-Y-T-O-J-A-I-L
D-O-N-O-T-P-A-S-S-G-O
D-O-N-O-T-C-O-L-L-E-C-T-120-B-I-L-L-I-O-N-D-O-L-L-A-R-S

Harper's Magazine,  Feb, 2000  by Joe Conason,  Kevin P. Phillips

I. THE GEORGE W. BUSH SUCCESS STORY

A heartwarming tale about baseball, $1.7 billion, and a lot of swell friends

By Joe Conason

FORTUNE'S CHILD

As George W. Bush's wealthy admirers continue to pack cash into the largest presidential war chest in American history (at last count a staggering $58 million). perhaps the time is ripe to examine how the would-be president became rich himself--quite rich, in fact, if not by the standards of H. Ross Perot or Steve Forbes, at least by the measure of most Americans. Bush, who received $15 million for his share of the Texas Rangers franchise, would be the richest Democratic or Republican nominee since Lyndon Johnson. On the June 1998 day that the baseball team was sold, Bush told reporters, "When it is all said and done, I will have made more money than I ever dreamed ..."

Indeed. The sum represented an enviable 2,400 percent increase on the $606,000 investment Bush had made in the team nine years earlier, with borrowed money, and a considerable improvement on his own record of losing millions invested by others. Together with his elation about the windfall there may also have been a feeling of vindication for the eldest scion of the Bush family. Although twice elected governor of Texas (in 1994 and again in 1998), the son known as "Dubya" had lived through nearly two decades of business failures, embarrassing bailouts, and eyebrow-raising favors that had besmirched his family's reputation.

The money, coming late in Bush's life, at age fifty-one, is understood not to have corrupted him, and his handlers depict him as a man of religious faith and moral character who will cleanse a White House soiled by scandal; Bush, in their audience-tested Calvinistic fable, is a once-upon-a-time hard-drinking ne'er-do-well transformed into a well-to-do teetotaler. The fact that his political rise has been crowned with material rewards might, in the metaphysics of American capitalism, very well be deemed a sign of righteousness and divine favor.

But viewed in less sentimental terms, the history of George W. and his millions is a success story about a privileged young man who grew up in proximity to money and political power, appreciated the relationship between them, and so learned to live happily ever after with his wealth and his conscience. Not only does the story explain why Bush is so attractive to the corporate leaders and Washington lobbyists now staging his nomination for the presidency; it is also a textbook lesson in modern American civics. We who might soon elect Bush should hear this story, to know how he might act should he achieve the Oval Office. Although the immediate mechanics of the Rangers deal were well-documented by the media, the sale of the team was but a moment in the governor's long and still-unfolding political and financial relationships with certain fortunate personages--some of whom, it can reasonably be expected, might be appointed to positions of authority in a new Bush administration. The numbers are complicated, and many of the sums imponderably huge, but the power is real and the outcome as observable as, well, a brand-new baseball stadium.

CONTINUED...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1797_300/ai_59086099

If more people had read this article when it first appeared in the February 2000 Harper's, the election wouldn't have been as close. Who knows how different the last four years would be?

But nothing has been done over Harken.

When Poppy speaks, people listen...

The good folk at campaignwatch.org have collected several articles on the subject:

Other Bush Kinfolk
Also Had Dealings
In Projects Abroad 

By Jill Abramson and Peter Truell 

12/06/1991 
The Wall Street Journal 
PAGE A4 
 
Prescott Bush , 68, forged a lucrative but ill-fated alliance in 1989 with a company linked to the Japanese mob. Members of his family say he had no idea that West Tsusho Co. was part of the empire of Susumu Ishii, who headed Japan's second largest underworld syndicate before his death in September. Prescott Bush didn't return several messages left for him. 

Mr. Bush set up a consulting business in 1984 after a long career with a New York insurance brokerage firm. In 1989 his Prescott Bush & Co. helped arrange two U.S. investments for West Tsusho . That firm paid $3.8 million for a stake in Quantum Access Inc., a Houston software firm headed by a nephew of Mr. Bush , Draper Kauffman; and it paid $5 million for a 38% stake in Assets Management International Financing & Settlement, a New York firm on whose advisory board Mr. Bush had served.
 
SNIP...


Family Ties:
How Oil Firm Linked
To a Son of Bush Won
Bahrain Drilling Pact

Harken Energy Had a Web
Of Mideast Connections;
In the Background: BCCI

This article was prepared by Wall Street Journal staff reporters Thomas Petzinger Jr., Peter Truell And Jill Abramson 

12/06/1991 
The Wall Street Journal 
PAGE A1
 
. . . The mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy may prove nothing more than how ubiquitous the rogue bank's ties were. But the number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken -- all since George W. Bush came on board -- likewise raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.

Among those relationships: 

-- Sheik Khalifah bin-Salman al-Khalifah, the prime minister of Bahrain and a brother of the country's ruling emir, is identified on an October 1990 shareholder list as one of the 45 investors who own parent company BCCI Holdings (Luxembourg) S.A. The emir played a role in approving the Harken transaction. 

-- Sheik Abdullah Bakhsh, a major Harken shareholder represented by Mr. Othman on the company's board, has been a co-investor in Saudi Arabia with alleged BCCI front man Ghaith Pharaon, and used Khalid bin-Mahfouz, until recently a principal BCCI shareholder, as his banker. . . . 
For the complete article, enter http://www.wsj.com and sign up for a two-week free trial membership.  Then go to http://interactive.wsj.com/documents/atlas-frm-searchold.html, select ALL DATES, and enter search keywords George and Bush and BCCI and Harken

SNIP...

Bush Brother's Firm to Pay
Settlement to Connecticut 

03/11/1991 
The Wall Street Journal 
PAGE A6B 

HARTFORD, Conn. -- A New York investment management firm owned by President Bush's brother agreed to pay a $4,000 settlement of charges that it did business in Connecticut without proper registration. . . .
 
For the complete article, enter http://www.wsj.com and sign up for a two-week free trial membership.  Then go to http://interactive.wsj.com/documents/atlas-frm-searchold.html, select ALL DATES, and enter search keywords Jonathan and Bush and infraction

 
Bush 's Son Misses Deadline
For Reporting `Inside' Sale 

04/04/1991 
The Wall Street Journal 
PAGE A4 

George W. Bush , eldest son of the president, reported a large 1990 "insider" sale of stock last month, almost eight months after the federal deadline for disclosing such transactions. . . .
 
Under SEC regulations, the sale should have been reported by July 10 of last year. But according to a report released by the SEC, it wasn't reported until the first week of March. 

Mr. Bush didn't return phone calls seeking comment, and the White House said it doesn't comment on the activities of the president's children.

SNIP...

Miami Mystery:
Paid to Treat Elderly,
IMC Moved in Worlds
Of Spying and Politics

Medicare Money Flowed In;
Only Mr. Recarey Knows
Where It Flowed Next

Contras, 'Bugs' and the Mob 

By Sydney P. Freedberg 

08/09/1988 
The Wall Street Journal 
 
MIAMI -- Miguel Recarey Jr. was a big man in this town. An immigrant from Cuba, he built a firm called International Medical Centers into America's largest health-maintenance organization for the elderly. He knew people, important enough people to be invited at least three times to the White House. 

But then last year Mr. Recarey started getting invitations to court. A grand jury accused him of conspiring to bribe union leaders to get patients for IMC. A second indictment charged him with running an illegal wiretapping operation. Finally came yet another indictment, charging him with defrauding the U.S. government.

By this time, Mr. Recarey had vanished. His company collapsed. And investigators found themselves puzzling over what had happened to nearly $1 billion in federal Medicare funds that had poured into IMC since 1981. . . .
 
-- Mr. Recarey had longstanding business ties to the late Santo Trafficante Jr., who prosecutors say was the Florida underworld boss -- and who told Congress he once was part of a botched Central Intelligence Agency plot to kill Fidel Castro. . . .
 
IMC also gained various waivers of HHS rules, among them lucrative waivers that let the HMO draw more than 50% of its revenue from Medicare. C. McClain Haddow, a top aide to HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler in 1985, testified to Congress that he approved such a waiver on her instructions -- after both he and Mrs. Heckler had received telephone
calls from Vice President Bush 's son, Jeb. . . .
 
SNIP...

Vetting the Frontrunners I -- George W. Bush:
From Oil to Baseball to the Governor's Mansion 

By Micah Morrison 

09/28/1999 
The Wall Street Journal 
Page A26 
 
. . . Mr. Bush's career with the Rangers baseball team, for example, is likely to come under intense scrutiny in the next 12 months. In 1989, when Mr. Bush brought together his investment group to buy the Rangers, the seller was Eddie Chiles, a longtime friend and supporter of President Bush. Mr. Chiles let the president's son and his group go to the head of the line. But in a pattern repeated through his business career, Mr. Bush's play did not quite make the grade. Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth stepped in, brokering a deal that brought Fort Worth financier Richard Rainwater together with the Bush group. Mr. Ueberroth's pitch to Mr. Rainwater was that he join the deal partly "out of respect" for President Bush, a source close to the negotiations told the New York Times. . . .
 
A wide-ranging 1991 team report by Wall Street Journal reporters Thomas Petzinger Jr., Peter Truell and Jill Abramson revealed many of the BCCI links to Mr. Bush and Harken , but found no evidence of improbity by anyone connected to the company. "The mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy may prove nothing more than how ubiquitous the rogue bank's ties were," the article noted. "But the number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken -- all since George W. Bush came on board -- likewise raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son."

Mr. Bush told the Journal in 1994 that he been "against the Bahrain deal" and he had "no idea that BCCI figured into" Harken 's financial dealings.  Harken officials refuse to release any documents, such as board minutes, that might support Mr. Bush, though two company executives have publicly stated he opposed the Bahrain operation. . . .
 
SNIP...

Prescott Bush Faces Inquiry Over Pay
Received in Arranging Investment Deal 

By Jonathan M. Moses 
09/09/1992 
The Wall Street Journal 
PAGE C15
 
NEW YORK -- A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee is investigating whether Prescott Bush Jr., the president's brother, was overcompensated for arranging an investment by a Japanese company in an international trading company of which he was a senior adviser and
shareholder. 

In court papers, the trustee, Robert M. Fisher, has raised the possibility that in allegedly arranging for $1 million in payments in return for setting up a $5 million investment, Mr. Bush may have violated his fiduciary duties to Asset Management International Financing & Settlement Ltd.  The company filed for bankrupcty-court protection last year and is
currently being liquidated. . . .

For the complete article, enter http://www.wsj.com and sign up for a two-week free trial membership.  Then go to http://interactive.wsj.com/documents/atlas-frm-searchold.html, select ALL DATES, and enter search keywords Prescott Bush and organized crime
Select the article title above and enter payment to obtain the full article.  Fees for archive services are typically about $3.00 per article.
 
Police Raid Sites
In Greater Tokyo
To Track Payments 
By Masayoshi Kanabayashi 

07/11/1991 
The Wall Street Journal Europe 
PAGE 12
 
TOKYO -- Police raided three companies and one country club in the Greater Tokyo area in connection with the alleged illegal remittance of investment money to the U.S. by two Japanese companies that police say are linked to a local gangster group. 

The two allegedly gangster-affiliated firms suspected of the illegal remittance are West Tsusho Co., a real-estate and trading company, and Hokusho Sangyo Co., a real-estate concern. Police say they are affiliated with Susumu Ishii, a former chairman of Japan's Inagawakai gangster organization.

As reported, West Tsusho had retained Prescott Bush , the 68-year-old brother of President George Bush , as an investment consultant for its various share purchases in the U.S. . . .

ARCHIVE SOURCE:

http://www.campaignwatch.org/refs2.htm

Yeh, BiggJawn, like Al Capone's criminal enterprises throughout Chicagoland of the Roaring '20s, today's BFEE is protected worldwide. Where's today's Elliot Ness? His name certainly isn't Louis Freeh or Robert Mueller.

They used eminent domain to get the ground to build that stadium.

A part of eminent domain in most jurisdictions, is that the land owners get "market price" and maybe a bit more for the property that is condemned. You have no choice about it, you either settle for what they offer or else you go to court and then they TAKE it for whatever the court deems a fair price.

I was told by a guy who used to be a commercial appraiser in Texas, that the guys who wrote the valuations on those condemned properties were paid a handsome fee to keep those values WAY below market. He had reviewed some of that work and had raised questions about it to the state of Texas. He was told to just sit down and shut up.

I've never taken the time to research it, but I'd always figured that those same guys had ties into the whole S & L fiasco that happened in Texas. A lot of what busted those S & L's was bad appraisal work from somebody who did it intentionally. From what I recall, brother Neil Bush was smack dab in the center of all of that mess...

Apologies for the lack of link--this was all coming from a guy that had no real reason to lie about it when he told me--in fact he was about as GOP as it gets!


Laura

Much obliged for your information. This unelected idiot is crazy about making money, which runs in the crime family. Do you think if Hillary Rodham Clinton were to do something like this, the mainstream media would cover it?

Stealing Home

BY ROBERT BRYCE • THE TEXAS OBSERVER, MAY 9, 1997

George W. Bush loves baseball. And why not? After all, baseball has been very good to the governor. When it comes to power, the governor is a true triple-threat. Consider his record: (1) His initial baseball investment of $600,000 carries the current potential of a 2,500 percent return. (2) Through savvy P.R. and political maneuvering, he and his partners have persuaded a city and the state to directly subsidize a facility for their business. (3) Not content with taxpayer subsidies, he and his fellow owners have also successfully used the power of government to take land from other private citizens so it could be used for their own private purposes.

Yes, baseball has been very good to Bush. Moreover, the biggest deal Bush has ever done, the career-shaping transaction he boasted of on the campaign trail—the planning, funding and construction of the Texas Rangers’ Ballpark at Arlington—has been largely ignored by the national media as they rush to paint Bush’s presidential portrait.

Yet whether the public interest issue is taxes, size of government, property rights, or public subsidies of private sports ventures, Bush’s personal ownership interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team has been wildly at odds with his publicly declared positions on those issues. And ongoing litigation over the Ballpark deal has revealed documents showing that beginning in 1990, the Rangers management—which included Bush as a managing general partner—conspired to use the government’s power of eminent domain to further its private business interests.

Since he took to the stump three and a half years ago to run for governor, Bush has railed against "big government." On the very first day of his campaign, November 8, 1993, Bush told supporters in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas that "the best way to allocate resources in our society is through the market place. Not through a governing elite, not through red tape and over-regulation, not through some central bureaucracy."

But through the Arlington stadium deal, Bush, who owns 1.8 percent of the Rangers, has been personally enriched by using the "governing elite" and the "central bureaucracy" not only to confiscate land for private purposes, but to get a huge public subsidy for a stadium that generates profits for himself and the Texas Rangers. Though Bush’s present ownership percentage of the team is relatively small, the asset represents a large part of his personal wealth; moreover, Bush’s deal with the team includes a provision that will almost certainly multiply his future ownership interest to 11 percent.

CONTINUED...

http://www.texasobserver.org/showMisc.asp?FileName=970509_f1.htm

Highlights from one of many threads by the Fish

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=610051


An old article that is relevant today:

QUESTIONABLE TIES
Tracking bin Laden's money flow leads back to Midland, Texas

by Wayne Madsen

On September 24, President George W. Bush appeared at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to announce a crackdown on the financial networks of terrorists and those who support them. “U.S. banks that have assets of these groups or individuals must freeze their accounts,” Bush declared. “And U.S. citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing business with them.”

But the president, who is now enjoying an astounding 92 percent approval rating, hasn’t always practiced what he is now preaching: Bush’s own businesses were once tied to financial figures in Saudi Arabia who currently support bin Laden.

In 1979, Bush’s first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden’s, in Arbusto.

In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the ’80s in what has been called the “largest bank fraud in world financial history” by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the ’80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.

CONTINUED...

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature3.shtml


Bin Laden’s Brother-in-law Had Close Ties to Bush

by Tom Flocco *
AmericanFreePress.net * And Scoop.co.nz
August 28, 2002

Saudi Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, an Osama bin Laden benefactor, has laundered money into tax-exempt U.S. entities for years as a foreign financier of terrorism. But a new 9/11 lawsuit is thrusting Mahfouz’s latent past business links to George W. Bush back into the spotlight and raising important questions about links between Saudi finance and terrorism in America.

Nine hundred families of September 11 victims recently filed a trillion-dollar lawsuit against members of the royal Saudi family, businessmen worth a combined $5 billion, and banks and charities. The lawsuit accuses them of financing Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban government. And one of the defendants - Saudi Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz -- will likely draw increasing attention in coming months due to his past business relationships with President George W. Bush - the sweetheart deals he made during the elder Bush's presidency.

According to a Saudi government audit acquired by U.S. intelligence officials, five of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest businessmen, including National Commercial Bank (NCB) founder and chairman Khalid bin Mahfouz, transferred personal funds along with $3 million diverted from a Saudi pension fund, to New York and London banks with accounts linked to terrorism. (USA Today, 10-28-99)

The money transfers were discovered in April, 1999 after the royal family ordered an audit of both NCB and Sheikh Mahfouz.

The plot thickens when we find Mahfouz is also linked by marriage to terrorist Osama bin Laden, as Mahfouz’s sister is married to the Al Qaeda leader, according to not only former CIA Director James Woolsey in 1998 Senate testimony, but also Jean-Charles Brisard, lead 9/11 lawsuit attorney Ronald Motley's researcher, and author of the book, The Forbidden Truth.

CONTINUED...

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0208/S00148.htm

Deals for Dubya

Bush’s family ties to shady bank BCCI help explain his “success.” in the oil biz

by Bob Fitrakis

Trying to make sense of George W. Bush’s days in the oil business and his bizarre Harken Energy stock transactions? Well, if you dig deep enough, you’ll find a core group of people surrounding the notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International (aka Bank of Crooks and Criminals International).

BCCI was, among other nefarious things, the bank of choice for al Qaeda, the CIA, Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega. This spooky collection of opium warlords, Arab sheiks, Pakistani financiers and organized crime perpetrated perhaps the greatest banking fraud in world history. BCCI’s global criminal conspiracy was aided by connections to Washington insiders like the Bush family, former secretary of defense and CIA co-founder Clark Clifford, Senator Orrin Hatch and President Jimmy Carter.

Award-winning journalists Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin document Dubya’s ties to al Qaeda’s favorite bank in their authoritative tome, False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World’s Most Corrupt Financial Empire.

SNIP...

When Dubya organized Arbusto Energy Inc. in the 1970s, James R. Bath, a well-known Texas businessman, provided some of the financing. During George Bush senior’s tenure as CIA director, the agency allegedly used Bath, a business associate of the Saudi Khalid Bin Mahfouz—described by Truell and Gurwin as a “BCCI insider”—to buy CIA planes from Air America and other secretly held agency airlines.

Public records show that in 1976 the CIA sold several planes to Skyway, a firm managed by Bath. Bath denies it, but his former business partner Bill White has alleged the CIA’s role in Skyway in lawsuits and also attested that Bin Mahfouz was an owner of Skyway.

Criminal and civil suits against BCCI established that Bath invested money on Bin Mahfouz’s behalf and that he and Bin Mahfouz were part owners of Houston’s Main Bank with Ghaith Pharaon, the son of a royal advisor to Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal.


http://www.columbusalive.com/2002/20020829/082902/08290208.html

THE GW BUSH--OSAMA BIN LADIN CONNECTION

EXCERPT...

"...BCCI would make payments to key officials, sometimes in suitcases filled with cash. As BCCI officer Abdur Askhia stated in interviews tithe Subcommittee staff: Abedi's philosophy was to appeal to every sector. President Carter's main thing was charity, so he gave Carter charity. Pakistani President Zia's brother in law needed a job, he got a job. Bangladeshi president Ashraf's mistress needed a job, she got a job. Admission of your son to a top college, he would arrange it somehow. There was a world wide list of people who were in the payoff of BCCI...". from United States Senate Subcommittee Report on Bank Credit Commerce International, 1992--the Kerry Committee.

SNIP...

Osama bin Laden, whose funds were inherited from his father, Sheikh bin Laden's BCCI investments, has been operating out of Afghanistan since he was established as a conduit for CIA funds in the 1980's. "Afghanistan was by far the biggest; it was, in fact, the biggest CIA operationof all time, both in terms of dollars spent ($5-$6 billion) and personnel involved..."from the book The CIA's Greatest Hits.

SNIP...

The story of the Bush involvement in the BCCI scandal involved "trails that branched, crossed one another, or came to unexpected dead ends...". It was like a "three dimensional chess game." from The Outlaw Bank, page 227.

SNIP...

The BCCI bribery connection went straight to the George Bush oval office. The White House political director, a man whom the Senate noted sat in on presidential meetings, named Ed Rogers, was hired away from the Chief of Staff's Office to represent the BCCI's American representative, Sheik Adham.

SNIP...

"Q-Mr. President, considering your concern about propriety in government, what was your reaction when a senior member of your White House staff, Ed Rogers, left the White House employ and signed a contract with a Saudi sheikh accused of being a key figure in the BCCI scandal?

The President-Well, he is a free citizen to do anything he wants once he leaves the White House. My concern is about the White House itself, that it be beyond any perception of impropriety.

Q-Well, what do you think he was selling to the Saudis except for accessing---

The President--Ask him. I don't know anything what he's selling. I don't know anything about this man, excpet I've read bad stuff about him. And I don't like what I read about him. But I would suggest that the matter is best dealt with by asking this man what kind of representation he is doing for this sheikh. But it has nothing to do, in my view, with the White House." from the Official Papers of the Presidents, Press Conference, October 25, 1991. George Herbert Walker Bush.

SNIP...

CONTINUED...

http://www.geocities.com/burningbush2000/3.html

CBC's Fifth Estate did a documentary on 9/11 and the Bush/Bin Laden..


connection, aired last night. Here is a link to a website where you can watch it. I highly recommend it!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5103.ht...

Octafish

Good show, Spazito! Saw it last noche!


Metro Detroit picks up CBC from our friends to the south in Windsor. The show was dynamite for those who are unfamiliar with the facts linking the House of Bush and the Saudi Roils and bin Ladens. I especially liked the part with Mr. White describing how James R Bath handled bin Laden investments of "more than a million dollars."

The anti-conspiracy slant of the beginning part bugged me. The CBC reporter implied Ruppert was on the same level as the French guy who says a missile hit the Pentagon (whoo, boy). The Vreeland part of the story ommitted the telephone call to his office in the Pentagon from the Canadian courtroom. The reporter also said Vreeland skipped bail. He was released by a judge, without notification of Vreeland's lawyer. Strange timing because Vreeland was very vulnerable physically.

Still for those who are unfamiliar with the 9-11 connection to the Bushes and BCCI, it was an excellent introduction. The stuff on this thread should help fill in some gaps for those seeing how these treasonous bastids have been hard at looting the world's treasure, and enslaving* the world's people, for a looooong time.

* Those people they don't kill first.

Bush & Bin Laden - George W. Bush Had Ties to Billionaire bin Laden Brood

EXCERPT...

President Bush and the bin Laden family have been connected through dubious business deals since 1977, when Salem, the head of the bin Laden family business, one of the biggest construction companies in the world, invested in Bush's start-up oil company, Arbusto Energy, Inc.

James R. Bath, a friend and neighbor, was used to funnel money from Osama bin Laden's brother, Salem bin Laden, to set up George W. Bush in the oil business, according to The Wall Street Journal and other reputable sources.

Through a tangled web of Saudi multi-millionaires, Texas oilmen, and the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Bush was financially linked with the bin Laden family until Salem met an untimely end in a freak flying accident near San Antonio in 1988.

CONTINUED...
http://www.americanfreepress.net/10_07_01/Bush___Bin_Laden_-_George_W__B/bush___bin_laden_-_george_w__b.html


:hi:

Harken, Bush and BCCI

The first of many G.W. Bush business ventures eventually bailed out or liquidated before bankruptcy was his oil company Arbusto Energy. In 1977, Bush received a $50,000 investment from James R. Bath, a Houston businessman who "made his fortune by investing money for Mahfouz and another BCCI-connected Saudi, Sheikh bin Laden" according to Time correspondents Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne. Of special note is that Sheikh bin Laden is widely believed to be the brother of Osama bin Laden, terrorist bomber of two U.S. embassies in 1998.

Bath, who had no funds of his own, is believed to have acted as the American representative for Saudi Arabian sheikhs who, as Hatfield describes it, used "their enormous financial resources to influence U.S. policy." As son of the recent director of the CIA, G.W. Bush and his oil startup were a perfect opportunity to buy influence. Ironically, it was with money allegedly tied to the family of Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden.

SOURCE (GOOGLE Cache)...

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:BPRwr1P0AEYJ:aor.cat4.net/nwo/harkenbush.php+bush+%2B+harken+%2B+bcci&hl=en&ie=UTF-8


Harken, Bush and BCCI

by Thomas Petzinger Jr., Peter Truell and Jill Abramson
The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1991

Two years ago, Talat Othman didn't have the president's ear. But since August 1990, the Palestinian-born Chicago investor has attended three White House meetings with President Bush to discuss Middle East policy.

Mr. Othman's political access coincides with the remarkable ascendance of a little Texas oil company on whose board he serves alongside George W. Bush, the president's oldest son. That company, Harken Energy Corp. -- though it had never drilled a single well overseas or in water -- recently won the rights to drill potentially lucrative offshore wildcat wells in a contract bestowed by the government of Bahrain.

When the Harken deal was announced in January 1990, it attracted only perfunctory notice. More recently, a number of publications have written about the case, raising questions about whether Bahrain might have chosen Harken in part because a presidential son sat on its board.

Now, George W. Bush is emerging as a principal adviser to his father. He was a lead player in the campaign to oust White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, and was cited by his father yesterday as among those who will play "key roles in the reelection effort." Thus, the issues surrounding the Harken deal take on fresh importance. The White House says there is nothing questionable in this story of petroleum, politics and the presidential son. "There is no conflict of interest, or even the appearance of conflict, in these business arrangements," says spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. The matters had been reviewed and disclosed, he said, adding, "They are legitimate business undertakings."

CONTINUED (GOOGLE Cache)...

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:BPRwr1P0AEYJ:aor.cat4.net/nwo/harkenbush.php+bush+%2B+harken+%2B+bcci&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Editor's note: In light of last week's horrific events and the Bush administration's reaction to them, we are reprising the following from the last column Jim Hatfield wrote for Online Journal prior to his tragic death on July 18:

July 3, 2001—There may be fireworks in Genoa, Italy, this month, too.

...

According to court documents, Bath swore that in 1977 he represented four prominent and wealthy Saudi Arabians as a trustee and used his name on their investments in the United States. In return, he received a 5 percent interest in their deals. Time reporters Beaty and Gwynne suggest in their book that the $50,000 Bath invested in Dubya's Arbusto Energy drilling company may have belonged to Bath's Saudi clients since the Houston businessman "had no substantial money of his own at the time."

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Hatfield-R-091901/hatfield-r-091901.html

Thanks seventhson for the reminder

BUSH KNEW IN JULY 2001...not August.



Plot to assassinate Bush - reports

Bin Laden: Believed to have a network of guerrillas

July 9, 2001 Posted: 9:23 AM EDT (1323 GMT)

MOSCOW, Russia -- Osama bin Laden has threatened to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush at a G8 meeting in Italy, the head of Russia's Federal Bodyguard Service has said, according to reports.

The Associated Press said Yevgeny Murov was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying: "Bin Laden is threatening the American president, but we know what international terrorism is today and therefore all the bodyguard units concerned are preparing for this.

"We view the threats as totally serious, but hope that with joint efforts we can solve all the problems."

The Group of Eight summit is meeting between July 20-22 in Genoa, Italy. Leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States are expected to attend the summit.

CONTINUED...

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/06/20/russia.binladen/