Federal Court Case REVEALS Bizarre Tale Of Post-9/11 Operations In Afghanistan

THE CIA, SIBERIA AND THE $5M BAR BILL
A FEDERAL COURT CASE REVEALS A BIZARRE TALE OF POST-9/11 OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN
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The real question was: Did anyone not know it was a CIA trip? The CIA team had traveled under the amusingly obvious cover name of Donovan Aerial Surveys (William "Wild Bill" Donovan is regarded as the father of the CIA). The Russians in Ulan Ude were wondering what a group of private Americans were doing in Siberia in the middle of winter buying helicopters.


Posted: 3:53 am
August 16, 2009

On Dec. 4, 2001, five members of a Las Vegas-based charter crew were detained by Russian authorities after they landed without visas in Petropavlovsk. The remote Russian city, located on the Kamchatka peninsula and surrounded by active volcanoes, is nine time zones east of Moscow and cannot be reached by road.

Three days earlier, the privately owned Boeing 737 had left Biggs Army Airfield in Texas, carrying the crew and 16 Americans traveling on tourist visas. The plane, a luxury aircraft outfitted with wood paneling and a three-hole putting green, had been chartered by a small company from Enterprise, Alabama, called Maverick Aviation.

What the plane and its passengers were really doing in Russia in the middle of winter is only hinted at in an appeal filed by two federal prisoners this year. But interviews with those involved in the case reveal a secretive, and sometimes comical, mission to strike back at the Taliban after 9/11 -- a rare glimpse into the CIA's efforts in Afghanistan.

According to unclassified court documents, the group was traveling to a helicopter plant in Siberia, where Maverick Aviation, which was experienced in acquiring Russian aircraft for the US military, was planning to buy two helicopters for a "customer."

Not mentioned: That "customer" was the Central Intelligence Agency.

more:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08162009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_cia__siberia_and_the_5m_bar_bill_184851.htm?page=0

It's laughable. What a bunch of clowns. Show up in a jet like that and you know the Russians are going to charge top-dollar.

When Scott Horton wrote the story quoted below, he was only interested in helping Don Siegelman by finding another conflict of interest case involving Judge Mark Fuller. But in light of what this new story reveals about that Russian helicopter deal, it's starting to look like it might go a lot deeper.

There have been mumblings about Fuller and Enterprise and the CIA for a while, but most of them have come from Wayne Madsen, whose credibility isn't very high at the moment. This could change that.


http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000762

August 6, 5:14 PM, 2007
The Pork Barrel World of Judge Mark Fuller

By Scott Horton

For the last week, we’ve been examining the role played by Judge Mark Everett Fuller in the trial, conviction, and sentencing of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. Today, we examine a post-trial motion, filed in April 2007, asking Fuller to recuse himself based on his extensive private business interests, which turn very heavily on contracts with the United States Government, including the Department of Justice.

The recusal motion rested upon details about Fuller’s personal business interests. On February 22, 2007, defense attorneys obtained information that Judge Fuller held a controlling 43.75% interest in government contractor Doss Aviation, Inc. After investigating these claims for over a month, the attorneys filed a motion for Fuller’s recusal on April 18, 2007. The motion stated that Fuller’s total stake in Doss Aviation was worth between $1-5 million, and that Fuller’s income from his stock for 2004 was between $100,001 and $1 million dollars. ...

Second, there is a case now pending in the Middle District that was initially assigned to Fuller, involving a government contract for the procurement and modification of two Russian helicopters. In the middle of the case sits Maverick Aviation, Inc., of Enterprise, Alabama—the same town from which Fuller hails and where his business operations, which would appear to be similar in scope to those of Maverick Aviation, are sited. From the facts described in several accounts, the company would appear to be a direct competitor with Doss Aviation. Fuller, however, handled this case for several months before his recusal was sought and obtained. The recusal order has been placed under seal, making it impossible to learn what conflicts the parties saw in the matter, nor why Judge Fuller felt free to handle the case for some time before withdrawing. It could be legitimate, or it could be a coverup, and there is no way to find out with the seal in place.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kreig/alabama-decisions-illustr_b_213732.html

U.S. v. Stayton (2007). This is another Fuller case involving a recusal that didn't happen, at least not for a year. The case centers on events near Fuller's hometown Enterprise, which is located in south-central Alabama. Nearby is Fort Rucker, the nation's primary flight training base for Army Aviation.

On March 1, 2006, federal prosecutors announced the indictment on corruption charges of William C. Childree, CEO of Enterprise-based Maverick Aviation, and Jeffrey Stayton, an official at the army test and evaluation command center in Enterprise. The government charged that Childree bribed Stayton to help Maverick obtain a $4.7 million contract to modify two Russian helicopters for the U.S. government's use. This was a small part of what was reportedly a much broader campaign to buy Russian helicopters for use in Iraq. Part of that was described in a Wired article this spring by Sharon Weinberger, "How To Get A No-Bid Contract for Russian Choppers."

Much of the case remains secret because of national security. But this much is known: Fuller and his former law partner Joe C. Cassady, Sr. together owned 69 percent of Doss Aviation, according to 2003 Maine corporation counsel records, with total apparently reduced over time. But Fuller waited more than a year after the indictment before recusing himself on March 18, 2007 because of the relationship of Maverick and Doss Aviation. A jury later convicted the defendants before another judge. ...

The matter could be of continuing interest in the oversight investigations now occurring regarding several of the Justice Department's high-profile prosecutions. The Public Integrity Section is led by William M. Welch, II. He was the department's top official who signed its appeals court brief in the Siegelman-Scrushy in 2008 arguing that not a single informed U.S. citizen might think Fuller biased because of his Doss Aviation status. Welch also led the prosecution effort last fall against then-U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, the Republican from Alaska whose conviction on corruption charges was vacated this year because of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

Gee--there couldn't be anything like a judge who's in the CIA and does political things for whoever, could there? Cuz that would mean the Alabama Justice dept is compromised. And Karl Rove swore that didn't happen.

The bits and pieces go together something like this:

Rove orchestrated firing of US Attorney Carol Lam after her investigation of MZM (Wade, Wilkes) and Cunningham gets too close to half a dozen other GOP Appropriations Committee Members who have been doling out contracts for MZM's illegal domestic projects, black operations, and plain pork contracts (fabricating Iraq WMD evidence, domestic spying by the Army CIFA/TALON/Fusion Centers, support to Iranian exile groups, torture prison construction, Cheney's "office furniture")- fires other USAs for good measure.

CIA #3 (Foggo) distributes the goodies to CIA contractors, runs prostitution blackmail ring.

Fuller (CIA contractor) goes after Seigelman.

Hmmm - must be more to this.

Funneling off government (mainly defense) money and moving it under the table into Republican political operations seems to be the common factor in much of this.

The possibly-rigged election of Bob Riley as Alabama governor in 2002 is embedded in a web of Jack Abramoff's operations down there. Among other things, Michael Scanlon was a former Riley staffer and seems to have moved about a half million dollars in Indian casino money to Riley's campaign by way of (if I recall correctly) the RGA and RNSEC.

Even before that, when Riley was first elected to Congress in 1996, his son Bob Riley was channeling money to his campaign through Republican PACs in concern with the notorious Triad Management. Illegal as hell, of course, but Riley Jr. swore he was just following Triad's advice to donate to conservative PACs and had no idea (!) that the money would wind up going to his father -- and there was no way to prove he was lying.

Northern Alabama -- the area around Huntsville -- is especially heavy in federal contracting money, going primarily to NASA and the Star Wars missile defense project. And that whole area is surrounded by a persistent fog of scandals, ripoffs, and suspicions that the missile defense in particular is a gigantic boondoggle to channel federal money into private (and mainly GOP) pockets.

These are the same sort of military contracting scams that Brent Wilkes was involved in -- like that deal to digitize Panama Canal-era military documents. And wasn't Foggo also involved in some sort of procurement scandal in Germany?

By current standards, Watergate was a penny-ante operation -- but the basic principles haven't changed a bit.

:shrug;
;)

-Hoot

Otherwise the American people might find out that CIA insiders were making money hand over fist through the War on Terra.

Great and informative thread.

K&R