Cunningham Bribery - Foggo (CIA)-MZM Cases Linked to Saudi Slush Fund Scandal

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Evidence related to the Duke Cunningham-MZM CIA contracting scandal was heard this morning in extraordinary secrecy by a panel of 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judges in Pasedena. See, http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20070805-9999-1m5secret.html

The extreme secrecy is highly unusual. Veteran lawyers could not remember another time when the appeals court held a completely closed hearing.

The subjects to be discussed are transcripts and documents related to the February guilty plea of Thomas Kontogiannis, a New York developer who admitted to a single count of money laundering in the Cunningham case. Kontogiannis' checkered past includes convictions for bribery and bid-rigging, an estimated $70 million fortune, and a knack for staying out of prison.

The reason this is being kept under wraps that is Greece, like Turkey, has been buying GOP Congressmen and CIA officials . . . with Saudi money, as part of an enormous multinational arms and political influence buying scheme being operated by the Saudi Royal Family in several western countries, particularly focused on the US and UK.

Thomas Kontogiannis' motives in bribing Cunningham has long been obscure. A month ago, it finally came out that Kontogiannis' interest in the matter was arms transfers to his native Greece. According to details that have slowly trickled out of the case, the Saudis are lurking in the background of this, apparently as bankers for the deal.



Mr. Kontogiannis was acting as an agent for the Greek military, which we are now told was seeking backroom business with General Dynamics and other U.S. defense contractors. See, http://news.aol.com/story/_a/disgraced-former-us-rep-duke-cunningham/n20070719164509990014

The lure of Saudi money appears to be key to these bribery and intelligence scandals, which also connects to the Valerie Plame mega-scandal and falsification of Iraq WMD intelligence by San Diego-based defense contractor, MZM.

This is just another side of the same scandal that snared Dennis Hastert, Jerry Lewis, and several dozen other Republican big-wigs and ranking members of various committees, along with the CIA #2, Dusty Foggo. This appears to be part of the American tie-in to the monster scandal in the UK involving BAE, a big British (and US) defense contractor, the Saudi Royal family, and an $80 billion slush fund, Yamamah ("The Dove", rhymes with "Ya mama"), which has been buying western politicians and intelligence services since the mid-1970s.

In 1976, CIA Director George Herbert Walker Bush first entered into an illegal deal with Saudi Intelligence Chief, Prince al-Turki, to continue covert Agency operations banned by Congress in exchange for Saudi money. In 1982, he was picked as Reagan's running mate, and, using Saudi funding, went on run a series of notorious "rogue" intelligence operations out of the Office of the Vice President. See, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1281780



This has been an ongoing conspiracy. Today, it also touches on the scandal surrounding the sudden firing early this year of US Attorney Carol Lam, who was forced out by AG Gonzales just two days after the arrest on February 13 of Dusty Foggo, chief lieutenant to CIA Director Porter Goss. Eight days later, Kontogiannis cut a deal with prosecutors in the Cunningham case, and was offered an unusually light sentence for his role in bribing the Congressman.

TPM Muckraker has been on-top of this story. Consider this Josh Marshall column from last March about Kontogianni and the connections which had then first emerged about MZM owner Mitchell Wade, and his partner, Brent Wilkes, have with corrupt elements of US intelligence and the Saudi Royals: http://beta.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_03_05.php

03.09.06 -- 4:53PM // link

Another piece of the puzzle.

Remember Thomas Kontogiannis? He's the larger than life twice-convicted Greek-born real estate developer who is better known in Duke Cunningham's plea agreement as co-conspirator #3.

If you look through the Duke files, Kontogiannis' role was mainly as a pass through for large sums of money. Yes, he gave bribes and of course he was involved in a boat transaction with Duke. But in the Cunningham corruption club that was almost a rite of passage. Now, from the records, one of things that Kontogiannis wanted from Duke was some help trying to beat the rap (and later get a pardon for) a bid-rigging scandal back in New York. And for a long time I'd always sort of figured that Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade were the real players in this story, with Kontogiannis just added in for comic relief and -- as someone who controlled a mortgage company -- someone who could easily move money around.

But I'm hearing it may not be that simple. Consider this. Mitch Wade was in naval intelligence before he left to work in the fraud and public corruption sector. Brent Wilkes -- and we're going to be hearing a lot more about this -- was deep into the darker regions of the intel world. Both of their scams were the same, plying the government contracting biz deep in the classified realm where scrutiny and oversight is minimal at best.

Now you have the third player Thomas Kontogiannis (#4 was Kontogiannis' nephew. So I'll consider him an extension of his uncle.). Given the background and habits of the other two, is this guy really just a real estate developer from Long Island? Consider this passage from a piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune that I excerpted back in November ...

In a previously undisclosed link between Cunningham and Kontogiannis, the developer accompanied the congressman to Saudi Arabia last year. A Saudi-American businessman flew Cunningham to Saudi Arabia twice last year aboard a private jet. On the second trip, the jet stopped in Athens to pick up Kontogiannis, a native of Greece with businesses interests in several countries. Ziyad Abduljawad, founder and chairman of San Diego-based PLC Land Co., paid for Cunningham's two trips to Saudi Arabia, each at a cost of more than $10,000. Cunningham has described Abduljawad as an acquaintance who shares his interest in improving U.S.-Saudi relations.

SNIP

It was unclear who paid for Kontogiannis' trip.

SNIP

Just how did Kontogiannis get into the mix with Wilkes and Wade? What's Kontogiannis's real line of work?

Justin Rood fills in the answer to that last question, here: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000391.php

Cunningham, Felon Met With Saudi Crown Prince

By Justin Rood - April 17, 2006, 1:06 PM Over the weekend, a new profile by Copley News Service added to our understanding of former GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's "Co-conspirator #3," the mysterious Thomas Kontogiannis. Today, we can add a bit more. Recall that Kontogiannis bribed Cunningham through purchasing a yacht from the congressman -- and paying several hundred thousand dollars more than it was worth. His finance company also handled some of Cunningham's questionable mortgages. But reporters and investigators have struggled to understand what Kontogiannis was getting from Duke for all the money he spent on the lawmaker. The latest theory seems to be that Duke was introducing him to world leaders. As Copley reports:

Cunningham "introduced him to people. It was like he had a congressman on retainer," added.

The Copley story notes that he twice accompanied Cunningham to the White House, and kept a picture of himself meeting President Bush in his house. Now, TPMmuckraker has learned he apparently met the man who would shortly become king of Saudi Arabia. It's been known that Kontogiannis, a wealthy businessman and two-time felon, in 2004 accompanied Cunningham and a Saudi constituent, San Diego real estate mogul Ziyad Abduljawad, to Saudi Arabia. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) also went. Abduljawad paid for the trip. Until now, we haven't known much about the trip -- who the group met with, why, what they talked about. Cunningham is said to have gone in order to promote U.S.-Saudi ties, or some other such pap. Beyond that, we've had nothing. I called Calvert last week to ask him more about the trip. (He's the only one of the crew who's talking these days: Cunningham's in the pen, Abduljawad declined an interview, Tommy K's lawyer doesn't return calls.) Calvert's memory wasn't perfect, but he had some details to share. The group met with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah -- then the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and now its king. Kontogiannis was at the meeting, Calvert recalled, although "he didn't say anything, as I remember," the lawmaker told me. Copley now tells us its sources say Tommy K's purpose "appeared to center on an oil business he owned in Europe." That's not much to go on. The group also met with "ministers of various government institutions within Saudi Arabia," Calvert said. He recalled Kontogiannis being present for "some" of those meetings. As for what was discussed, Calvert recalled only that a number of the ministers pressed Cunningham to help ease post-9/11 restrictions on student visas for Saudis. With Abdullah, Calvert said the discussion was "primarily social," and "trying to build a better relationship with the United States." Now a U.S. citizen, Kontogiannis is worth about $70 million, Copley reporter Joe Cantlupe tells us. He spent over $300,000 on Cunningham. "What Kontogiannis, 59, got from the relationship with Cunningham remains unclear," Cantlupe writes, but notes that the businessman visited the White House twice with the Duke. And now we know they visited the Saudi crown prince together also. Was that it? He bought Cunningham -- a well-positioned but hardly towering member of the U.S. House -- to meet world leaders?

Bottom-line: MZM-Cunningham appears to be part of the American side to the monster scandal involving multi-billion dollar kickbacks from defense contractors to the Saudi Royal family, which has been in turn buying western politicians and intelligence officials for decades.

Over the years, the Yamamah slush fund has bankrolled a series of Saudi black operations from Pakistan's nuclear program, to the BCCI rip-off, to the Iran-Contra operation, to the creation of al-Qaeda and political influence buying in the US and UK by various factions of the Royal family.

Every time the US and Britain puts together an arms deal with the Saudis, and now with third-countries such as Turkey and Greece, the overpricing and kickbacks funds a black program, often inside the US and Britain.