Michael Chertoff and the sabotage of the Ptech investigation

[Minstrel Boy]

Posted to my blog here.

Michael Chertoff and the sabotage of the Ptech investigation

Remember Ptech? That's the Boston software firm financed by Saudi businessman Yassin Al-Qadi, who also happens to be an al Qaeda bagman, whose clients happened to include numerous sensitive US federal branches and agencies, including the FAA, the FBI, the military and the White House.

A little background, from the mainstream, even, thanks to WBZ-TV:

Joe Bergantino, a reporter for WBZ-TV's investigative team, was torn. He could risk breaking a story based on months of work investigating a software firm linked to terrorism, or heed the government's demand to hold the story for national security reasons. In mid-June, Bergantino received a tip from a woman in New York who suspected that Ptech, a computer software company in Quincy, Mass., had ties to terrorists. Ptech specialized in developing software that manages information contained in computer networks.

Bergantino's investigation revealed that Ptech's clients included many federal governmental agencies, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Naval Air Command, Congress, the Department of Energy, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, NATO, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service and even the White House.

"Ptech was doing business with every federal government in defense and had access to key government data," Bergantino said.

...

Bergantino was ready to air the story by September, but the government had different plans. Federal authorities told Bergantino not to air the story because it would jeopardize their investigation and would threaten national security. According to federal authorities, documents would be shredded and people would flee if we ran the story, Bergantino said. But Bergantino claims the government's demand to hold off on the story was merely a pretext.

In October 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order freezing the assets of individuals linked to terrorism. According to Bergantino, the list identified Saudi Arabian businessman Yassin Al-Qadi as a key financial backer of Osama Bin Laden. As it turns out, Bergantino said, Al-Qadi also is the chief financier of Ptech. The government failed to investigate Ptech in October 2001 and didn't start it's investigation until August 2002 when WBZ-TV's investigation called attention to Ptech.

Bergatino's tipster was Indira Singh, who has said she recognizes the separate command and control communications system Mike Ruppert describes Dick Cheney to have been running on September 11th as having "the exact same functionality I was looking to utilize for Ptech."

Now, how does Chertoff figure in the Ptech story? It goes back to the turf war of two years ago over Operation Greenquest, "the high-profile federal task force set up to target the financiers of Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups." The aggressive, Customs-led task force was folded into Homeland Security, sending both the FBI and its minders at the Department of Justice into a tizzy. They "demanded that the White House instead give the FBI total control over Greenquest."

Now, consider this, also from Newsweek:

The FBI-Justice move, pushed by DOJ Criminal Division chief Michael Chertoff and Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, has enraged Homeland Security officials, however. They accuse the bureau of sabotaging Greenquest investigations — by failing to turn over critical information to their agents—and trying to obscure a decade-long record of lethargy in which FBI offices failed to aggressively pursue terror-finance cases.

...

One prime example of the tension is the investigation into Ptech, the Boston-area computer software firm that had millions of dollars in sensitive government contracts with the Air Force, the Energy Department and, ironically enough, the FBI. In what turned into a minor embarrassment for the bureau, the firm’s main investors included Yasin Al-Qadi, a wealthy Saudi businessman whom the Bush administration had formally designated a terrorist financier under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Al-Qadi has vigorously denied any connection to terrorism.

The Ptech case turned into an ugly dispute last year when company whistleblowers told Greenquest agents about their own suspicions about the firm’s owners. Sources close to the case say those same whistleblowers had first approached FBI agents, but the bureau apparently did little or nothing in response. With backing from the National Security Council, Greenquest agents then mounted a full-scale investigation that culminated in a raid on the company’s office last December. After getting wind of the Greenquest probe, the FBI stepped in and unsuccessfully tried to take control of the case.

The result, sources say, has been something of a train wreck. Privately, FBI officials say Greenquest agents botched the probe and jeopardized other more promising inquiries into Al-Qadi. Greenquest agents dismiss the charges and say the problem is that the bureau was slow to respond to legitimate allegations that an outside contractor with terrorist ties may have infiltrated government computers.

(And still, there are no charges or indictments against Al-Qadi or Ptech.)

The turf war was won on May 13, 2003, when John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge signed a "Memorandum of Agreement between the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, giving the FBI "unprecedented unilateral control of all terrorist-financing investigations and operations."

Several seasoned government agents fear for the nation’s security should the FBI be tackling most terrorism cases, as their ineptitude in preventing terrorism has been established time and time again. Yet, the memorandum between Ashcroft and Ridge places the FBI in an incredibly powerful position over Homeland Security. According to the memorandum, "all appropriate DHS leads relating to money laundering and financial crimes will be checked with the FBI."

Well, no reason to fear now, now that Michael Chertoff is heading up Homeland Security. Right?

[seemslikeadream]

1. Indira Singh/PTech deep moles in FAA help accomplish 9/11! WTF??

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2203166

State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=610235

Sibel Edmonds: Turkey, drugs and 9/11
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1894035

DOJ Asked FBI Translator To Change Pre 9-11 Intercepts
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=442067


:hi:

[Minstrel Boy]

2. not-to-be-missed testimony from Indira Singh

Download audio and video here.

The files "Indira Singh Sibel's Letter" and "Indira Singh and Ruppert Questions and Answers" both contain a lot of valuable material re: Ptech.


:hi:

[whatelseisnew]

3. this is gonna get swamped amongst the fri. news dump

what did the pnac

say to the ptech?

[Octafish]

5. U.S. probes terror ties to Boston software firm

A little background...

U.S. probes terror ties to Boston software firm

By Jerry Guidera and Glenn R. Simpson
The Wall Street Journal, 6 December 2002

QUINCY, Mass. -- A software company raided here by antiterrorism investigators was targeted because several employees already are under scrutiny for alleged terrorist ties and because it does computer work for the military, the Federal Aviation Administration and Congress and may have access to classified information.

Agents with the U.S. Customs Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the company, Ptech Inc., at 4 a.m. Friday, confiscating files and computer equipment. Based in a blue-collar suburb south of Boston, the firm has annual revenue of up to $10 million and specializes in software programs that help run corporate networks.

Efforts to reach Ptech executives for comment were unsuccessful. Its offices were closed Friday, and no one returned a call left on the company's voice-mail system.

According to General Services Administration records, Ptech gained government approval in 1997 to market its services to "all legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the federal government" under a Clinton Administration government-efficiency improvement effort. The company has stated in government filings that it has enjoyed security clearance to work on sensitive projects since December 1997, according to records obtained by the Washington-based the Investigative Project, a terror research group. Revenue from federal government work totaled $3.1 million as of August 2002.

Among other projects, Ptech helped build the Military Information Architecture Framework, a software tool used by the Department of Defense to link data networks from various military computer systems and databases, a contract that was renewed in September. The company also has done work for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the House of Representatives and the Energy Department, and the FBI itself has used its software for budgeting tasks.

CONTINUED...

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=ptech

[Octafish]

4. Chertoff's a regular legal BFEE whizz wizz

Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's Top Gremlin

Spreading Mischief from DoJ to the Federal Bench

By ELAINE CASSEL

EXCERPT...

A good place to look for Chertoff's legal philosophy is in the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui , now taking place in the Eastern District of Virginia. Chertoff is not the prosecutor of course, Paul McNulty of the Eastern District is. But Chertoff is McNulty's boss and he is calling the shots. So Chertoff argued the government's case in the super secret hearing before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last week. The government is trying to block trial judge Leonie Brinkema's ruling that Moussaoui and his lawyers have access to the government's star witnesses against him. The government has refused and appealed. Judge Brinkema, who still believes in the Constitution, rightly ruled that to deny Moussaoui that access is a blatant violation of the Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses.

Brinkema indicates that she will not be a party to making exceptions to the Constitution on a case-by-case basis. She, in effect, suggests that maybe Justice better take Moussaoui to Guantanamo and try him there in secret, in the military tribunals they set up. Easy there to not only try him, but convict him, and execute him . So why is the government insisting on keeping him in federal court?

I have the answer, and it lies in Chertoff. Chertoff's goal, I believe, and the goal of Ashcroft and Bush in supporting this prosecution in federal court, is to subject federal trials, as they see fit, to ad hoc exemptions of whatever laws (be they constitutional, criminal code, or rules of procedure) that will suit their purposes. Their grand scheme is to ultimately cripple and dismantle the federal courts as we know them, one brick at a time.

Support for this theory of mine includes their prosecution of attorney Lynne Stewart, for, in effect, zealously representing her client; rules created by Ashcroft that subject attorneys and their clients to surveillance, be they under secret wiretaps issues by the secret FISA court or monitoring of all contacts in prison settings. These procedures came about by fiat from Ashcroft. They make any attorney who represents someone charged with an act of "terrorism" (and a terrorist crime is one defined by Bush and Ashcroft-that is an ad hoc determination, as well).

The Moussaoui case has many examples of legal changes. Moussaoui and even his attorneys (!) cannot receive all documents related to the case, because of "national security" interests. Witnesses may appear in court behind screens (!) so that they cannot be seen. And, the Fourth Circuit hearing last week was closed-closed-for the first time in history. Under Ashcroft we have had secret warrants (or no warrants), secret hearings denying bail, secret trials, and now secret appellate court arguments. Next, we can expect the Supreme Court to be closed, can't we?

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel06112003.html

This goes over the heads of the average American. So that's why the press doesn't cover it, right?

Hey, Maestro Minstrel! It's like what the dumbass king said about Mozart's music: "Too many notes!"

[Al-CIAda]

6. Thanks...More...

Thanks for the post -btw -Your link to the blog doesn't seem to be working.


Another article-
Did Bush's New Homeland Security Nominee Protect Terror-Linked Doctor from Prosecution?
 Bernard Kerik, Michael Chertoff... Who's Next?  Tony Soprano?
Daniel Hopsicker
January 12, 2005 - Venice, FL

Michael Chertoff, appointed by President Bush to head the Homeland Security Department, may have shielded from criminal prosecution a former client suspected by law enforcement of having funneled millions of dollars directly to Osama Bin Laden while in charge of the U.S. Government’s 9.11 investigation.

Egyptian-born Dr. Magdy el-Amir, a prominent New Jersey neurologist, was at the center of terrorist intrigue in Jersey City.

-El-Amir gave money to a conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.

-His brother in Cairo was caught on tape attempting to buy weapons from an American undercover agent for Islamic militant groups.

-Before being arrested in a terrorist deal involving oil and heroin for guns and training, arms smuggler Diaa Mohsen was paid at least $5,000 by one of Dr. el Amir's companies, NBC’s Dateline reported.

And his HMO was suspected by law enforcement of being used to funnel money directly to Osama bin laden.  


Wire Transfers to "Unknown Parties"

Chertoff’s client "caused more than $5.7 million to be paid by wire transfers to unknown parties," said the lawsuit filed shortly before the state took over his failing HMO. News accounts about el-Amir’s legal difficulties contain unanswered questions about undue political influence and its effect on national security.
For example, how did el-Amir, who only the month before had been granted a state license to operate an HMO, finagle a lucrative contract from the state of New Jersey in 1995?

“Why was this doctor allowed to start a health plan?” asked the October 25, 1999 issue of the medical trade journal Medical Economics.

“How could this medical entrepreneur, who had no experience running a managed-care or health insurance company, receive a license for an HMO that now provides care to 44,000 of New Jersey's most vulnerable citizens?" asked The Bergen Record. “Moreover, how could the state pay such a novice $ 6 million a month in taxpayers money to take on such a responsibility?”

Why did Michael Chertoff even take the case? 


Skimming for Osama in New Jersey

Answers were slow in coming, until it was revealed that at the same time el-Amir was pitching state business he had begun making generous contributions to the governing Republican party, donating nearly $ 18,000 to various GOP candidates in 1996. 

And a foreign intelligence report made available to the Chairman of the House International Committee alleged that an HMO owned by Dr. el Amir in New Jersey was “funded by Ben Laden,” and that in turn Dr. el Amir was skimming money from the HMO to fund “terrorist activities.”’…

 Stuff like that doesn’t happen, does it?  In New Jersey?

CON'T LINK-
http://www.madcowprod.com/01122004.html

[Minstrel Boy]

7. thanks - here's the correct link:

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/01/michael-chertoff-and-sabotage-of-ptech.html

[Al-CIAda]

12. Thanks! -eom

[seemslikeadream]

8. Classified Letters Regarding FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds

>>> The following three letters were recently declared classified, even though they had been considered unclassified since their creation in summer and fall 2002. They regard Sibel Edmonds, the former FBI translator who charges that the FBI's translation service 1) is incompetent and corrupt and 2) received specific warnings about 9/11 before the attacks.

As one step to gag her, the Justice Department refused to let her testify at a civil trial regarding 9/11, invoking the rarely-used "state secret" privilege. Meanwhile, the FBI refused to give Edmonds documents concerning herself, which she requested under FOIA (a court upheld the FBI's refusal). Then the FBI retroactively classified its congressional briefings about Edmonds, including any material resulting from those briefings.

This means that three letters written by Senators Leahy and Grassley are now classified. The first two have been pulled off the Senators' websites, although the third one inexplicably remains online . Edmonds and the Project on Government Oversight have launched separate lawsuits challenging this retroactive classification.

All three letters are reproduced below

http://www.thememoryhole.org/spy/edmonds_letters.htm

[Al-CIAda]

15. A conservatives take (Worth a listen IMO)- Sibel Edmonds

Sibel Edmonds is discussed and is an integral part of the Karl Schwarz story as well...

NATIONAL INTEL REPORT
Thu., January 13, 2005: Playlists: M3U | RAM (Individual MP3s: Hr1 Hr2)
Guests: 1st Hour - Karl Schwarz
http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Stadt05.html
------------

IN STOCK NOW, FOR IMMEDIATE SHIPPING-
ONE WAY TICKET TO CRAWFORD, TEXAS
The author of the forthcoming book, "One Way Ticket to Crawford, Texas: a Conservative Republican Speaks Out," argues that 9/11 was the needed provocation to gain hegemony over Central Asian Oil. He reveals related (and outrageous) conflicts of interest among members of the Kean Commission. New information about the Bush-Cheney conflict with Bridas, the Argentine-led consortium that would have secured rights to much of the Central Asian oil prize - if not for 9/11. The revelations are explosive get your copy before they're banned!
PRICE: $24.95 + $6.00 PRIORITY SHIPPING (U.S. Only)

http://www.karlschwarz.com/

[Octafish]

16. Official: Evidence Supports FBI Complaints

A brave, honest, intelligent and patriotic person she is.
To read the latest makes plain that so much is left unsaid
and unreported.

Official: Evidence Supports FBI Complaints

Updated: Saturday, Jan. 15, 2005 - 12:27 AM
By TED BRIDIS
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI never adequately investigated complaints by a fired contract linguist who alleged shoddy work and possible espionage inside the bureau's translator program, even though evidence and witnesses supported her, the Justice Department's senior oversight official said Friday.

The bureau's response to complaints by former translator Sibel Edmonds was "significantly flawed," Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a report that summarized a lengthy classified investigation into how the FBI handled the case. Fine said her claims "raised substantial questions and were supported by various pieces of evidence."

Edmonds maintains she was fired in March 2002 after she complained to FBI managers about shoddy wiretap translations and told them an interpreter with a relative at a foreign embassy might have compromised national security by blocking translations in some cases and notifying targets of FBI surveillance.

In response to the new report, the FBI said Friday it still was investigating Edmonds' claims. It also said FBI Director Robert Mueller has reminded senior bureau officials to protect employees against retaliation for raising concerns. The government has said Edmonds did not qualify for formal whistle-blower job protections because she worked with the FBI under a personal contract.

"The report substantiated the most serious of Sibel's allegations and demonstrates that the FBI owes Sibel an apology and compensation for its unlawful firing of her rather than hiding behind its false cloak of national security," said her lawyer, Mark Zaid.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?sid=13122&nid=116&template=print

[Al-CIAda]

28. bump -eom

[Gabi Hayes]

9. more on the new jersey terror funding scheme

http://www.opednews.com/duncan_0090304_NJ_terrorism1.htm

scroll down to ''Part 2: The Good Doctor Who Wasn’t So Good.''
for Chertoff's involvement, although part 1 is equally interesting

in which the story, given some air on AAR and nowhere else that I've been able to find, despite arduous minutes on google, segues into Chertoff's defense of a possible money laundere of Ramsey Yusef, etal.

he was DEFENDED the other day on that horrid Talk of the Nation program as a defender of the little guy when he helped quash the investigation of Dr. Magdy Elamir, whose possible connections to terrorists would have gotten just about anybody else in similar circumstances a LONG, anonymous stay at some undisclosed location.

snip:

So here we have a prominent neurologist who is alleged to have funneled money to Osama Bin Laden through his fraudulent HMO, and we also discover that he has been involved in at least two accident fraud schemes, operated unlicensed MRI centers and had a license revoked by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC license revocation is especially troubling since unauthorized and unlicensed personnel at Dr. Elamir’s clinics were handling nuclear materials.....

.....I then took a closer look at the articles and court documents I had collected on Dr. Magdy Elamir and they revealed who his lawyer was.

“Elamir did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment. But his
attorney, Michael Chertoff, said several of the five MRI centers may be
exempt from licensing requirements, a position questioned by state
health officials.” (13)

The same article states that Dr. Elamir’s lawyer, Michael Chertoff, also represented him in the fraudulent HMO case

sorry if this is a rehash, but I haven't seen it here, and stumbled upon it, based on that Hopsicker story

[Gabi Hayes]

10. jesselyn radack vs. chertoff.....heard about this?

listen here for awwhile at AAR

http://airamericaradio.com/layout.asp?baseurl=Unfiltered/1-13-05/Unfiltered.wma

in which Chertoff won't listen to advice from this woman, regarding the JW Lind case, then LIES about it during his senate confirmation hearings

http://www.rcfp.org/behindthehomefront/index.php?list=337,245,157

here's part of her story:

The New York Times today looked into the case of Jesselyn Radack, the Justice Department ethics attorney who challenged the department's handling of the interrogation of John Walker Lindh and told her supervisor that documentation of her advice had been withheld from a federal judge. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who, as we reported last month, had asked Attorney General John Ashcroft for answers on why she was forced out of her job, got to ask his questions again when Michael Chertoff, the head of Justice's criminal division and now a federal judicial nominee, came before the Judiciary Committee. But at the hearing last week, Chertoff claimed he had no knowledge of the e-mail dialogue between his subordinate and Radack. Kennedy said he was troubled by Chertoff's lack of active involvement in the case, according to the Times account. "I'm very concerned about this Radack situation," Kennedy later told the Times. "It appears she was effectively fired for providing legal advice that the department didn't agree with."

The dispute has slowed but not derailed Chertoff's nomination. Kennedy, who got the confirmation delayed for one week over dissatisfaction with Chertoff's responses, told the Times that he planned to vote in favor of the nomination, and Chertoff's nomination passed the committee later today. But by the time of the vote, six Democrats -- including Kennedy -- decided they needed more information on a late allegation about the prosecutor's conduct when he was a U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, and only responded "present" when the vote was taken.

At today's confirmation hearing, the Times account of the Radack story came in for special abuse by committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, who opined, "It's disgraceful that at this last minute The New York Times is attempting to impugn anybody," and later noted that Eric Lichtblau, the author of the article, had "shared bylines with the infamous Mr. Blair," the reporter who has admitted faking a number of Times articles. That remark reportedly prompted Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to warn his colleague about avoiding "McCarthyism."

The Times had also reported that a "senior Justice Department official said today that Ms. Radack's accusations regarding the possible concealment of documents and retaliation against her were recently referred to the department's Office of Professional Responsibility for an investigation." Better late than never; the investigation of leaks of Justice's concealment has been underway for a few months now


the government has been hounding her ever since, FIRING her, putting her on the nofly list, going after her wherever she's tried to practice law, attempting to get her disBARRED!

if you want more:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+Jesselyn+Radack+michael+chertoff&btnG=Google+Search

[Minstrel Boy]

11. Excerpts of Singh's testimony to the 9/11 Citizens' Commission

Sept, 9, 2004. (And need I mention that neither Indira Singh nor Ptech, nor Sibel Edmonds, are mentioned in the official 9/11 Commission report?)

INDIRA SINGH: I have spoken with Sibel because what I have uncovered in Ptech connects with some of the things that she has discovered. Sibel is not allowed to disclose content but she can ask me questions. I know some of the things that she mentioned there connect directly to what I discovered.

...

INDIRA SINGH: I did a number of things in my research and when I ran into the drugs I was told that if I mentioned the money to the drugs around 9/11 that would be the end of me. That is a current threat that I’m under and therefore I will speak out about the drugs at another forum.

I did not expect the Kean Commission to go anywhere near the FBI and Ptech. But I hope all Americans will demand answers regarding the FBI and Ptech. I would like to leave you with this one question. Not only why is Ptech still operating but why did Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Chertoff state that they cannot differentiate between terrorism, organized crime and drug dealing and is that the reason the Kean Commission will not make terrorism financing a priority in the future?

...

INDIRA SINGH: Ptech was with Mitre Corporation in the basement of the FAA for two years prior to 9/11. Their specific job is to look at interoperability issues the FAA had with NORAD and the Air Force in the case of an emergency. If anyone was in a position to know that the FAA, that there was a window of opportunity or to insert software or to change anything it would have been Ptech along with Mitre. And that ties right back to Michael Ruppert’s information.... The functionality that Michael is claiming that Dick Cheney utilized is the exact same functionality I was looking to utilize Ptech for in the bank. I was looking to set up a shadow surveillance system on everything going on, every transaction and the ability to backdoor, to look at information unobtrusively and to backdoor intelligent agents out there to do things that other people would not be aware of. To stop… in risk the whole shift is from bad things going on and finding it after the fact to preventing it from happening. So we were looking for patterns and have the intervention in there. So we were looking for interventive software, something that would stop. What Mike Ruppert is referring to is exactly the same kind of functionality…surveillance and intervention.

http://justicefor911.org/September-Hearings.doc

[Octafish]

14. Why it's called the 9-11 Omission. Ask Khalid bin Mahfouz & James R Bath

TESTIMONY OF MATTHEW LEVITT
SENIOR FELLOW IN TERRORISM STUDIES, THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY
BEFORE THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM UNITED STATES SENATE

"Subversion From Within: Saudi Funding of Islamic Extremist Groups Undermining US Interests and the War on Terror from within the United States"

September 10, 2003

TEENY EXCERPT...

The now defunct Muwafaq Foundation was run by Yassin al-Qadi, designated by both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as a terrorist financier. According to U.S. court documents, al-Qadi not only intentionally financed Hamas attacks through a U.S.-based front organization, he also established Muwafaq as a front organization through which wealthy Saudis forwarded millions of dollars to al-Qaeda. Muwafaq was endowed by Khalid bin Mahfouz, a former chief of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia and, like al-Qadi, a member of the Saudi elite close to the royal family.<34> A Boston area computer services company, Ptech, with sensitive U.S. government contracts was raided on December 6, 2002 after it was determined the firm was financed in large part by al-Qadi.<35>

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/levitt/levitt091003.htm

Scratch a bit further down and we find Mahfouz is tied to...Bath ...Bush...and BFEE Beyond

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

Wednesday, 28 August 2002, 10:18 pm
Article: www.UnansweredQuestions.org

Following the lead of several major news organizations whose stories we quoted from for two articles appearing on this website, "Bin Laden's Brother-in-law Had Close Ties to Bush" (8-28-2002) and "Chairman Kean's pre-9/11 Oil Links to bin Laden Severed Just Before Appointment to Commission" (4-1-2004), we are correcting the reports referring to Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz as Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, as a financial backer of Delta Oil Company, and as a link to the finance of terrorism in America.

We had quoted from Fortune Magazine, Washington Post and USA Today, etc., all of whom have recently issued similar corrections. Moreover, former CIA Director James Woolsey was quoted in the LA Times on 2-20-2004 regarding his prior Senate testimony that "I don't know what to say other than there was some confusion, but I never meant to refer to bin Mahfouz's sister," having previously reiterated this on 12-15-2003 in a libel trial against the Wall Street Journal. We quoted and referred to statements made in USA Today regarding its references to Sheikh Mahfouz as having financial links to Islamic charities under FBI investigation for financing terrorism. USA Today and others have retracted that assertion, and we do also. Since Fortune Magazine published a correction saying that Sheikh Mahfouz never had an ownership interest in Delta Oil Company, our quoted reference to that statement in USA Today is also retracted. In the interest of fairness, accuracy and doing what is right, we apologize to Sheikh Mahfouz for quoting and/or referring to statements in major news media organizations which were recently corrected and/or retracted. The two articles in question have been removed from this website and a link is provided regarding additional information related to the Sheikh's recent settlements with Pluto Press and London Mail on Sunday.


See also http://www.binmahfouz.info/faqs_1.html for more information on Khalid bin Mahfouz.

Unanswered Questions: Thinking For Ourselves
Presented by… http://www.unansweredquestions.org/

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.

BIG SNIP...

A BATH ALWAYS COMES IN HANDY

Does George W. Bush Have Something To Hide?

Mahfouz’s past also includes business dealings with George W. Bush, having invested $50,000 in the younger Bush’s first company, Arbusto Energy, through his U.S. representative James R. Bath, an aircraft broker and friend of Mr. Bush from their days together in the Texas Air National Guard. (Wall Street Journal (WSJ), “Vetting the Frontrunners: From Oil to Baseball to the Governor’s Mansion,” 9-28-1999)

Legal papers regarding Bath's contested divorce listed one of his assets as a $50,000 investment in Arbusto Oil -- Bush's first company. Moreover, Bath's business partner said he had no substantial money of his own at the time he made the Arbusto investment, implying that Bath received the money from someone else: "Most of Bath's investments....were really fronts for Mahfouz and other Saudis connected with the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI)." (The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride Into the Secret Heart of BCCI, Random House, Beaty & Gwynne, 1993, page 229.)

Award-winning author and journalist at the Houston Chronicle and “The Economist,” Peter Brewton, consulted James R. Bath’s resume and wrote that in early summer 1976 Bath received a huge business break:

Bath was named a trustee for Sheikh Salem bin Laden of Saudi Arabia , a member of the family that owns the largest construction company in the Middle East. Bath’s job was to handle all of bin Laden’s North American investments and operations.” ( The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush, Shapolsky Book Pub., 1992) (Simon & Schuster had first signed Brewton, then decided not to publish his book)

CONTINUED...

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

The case is clear. Bush is in bed with the Sheikhs and a lot of the world's richest NAZIs and so forth.
Keep connecting the dots Minstrel Man and DU.
The indictments will follow...

[Al-CIAda]

40. I missed some of this, thank you -eom

[kk897]

24. oh jeez, not The Mitre Corporation...

...I don't know anything about them, but the name is enough to fan the flames of my Masonic paranoia (which I'm not sure is such a good thing...The Masons may be an extra and not a main player on the stage of world events, to mix my metaphors).

Once again, gotta love those putting the pieces of the jigsaw together (yet another tortured metaphor...sorry!)

:loveya:

[UTUSN]

13. **AND*****This CHERTOFF Vampire Was in Charge of the Anthrax Investigation

[eridani]

19. I have not been able to find a link on this

Help me out here?

[seemslikeadream]

20. Chertoff ran the criminal division of the Justice Department

Chertoff, 51, ran the criminal division of the Justice Department for the first three years of Bush's tenure and was instrumental in crafting the administration's legal response to the terrorist attacks, including the USA Patriot Act. Some critics charge Chertoff trampled on civil liberties while prosecuting a legal war on terrorism at Justice.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/12/MNGMSAOR8O1.DTL

Chertoff played key role on 9/11
By Kevin Johnson and Mimi Hall, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — In the minutes after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, while Attorney General John Ashcroft was rushing back from Milwaukee, Michael Chertoff was calling the shots.
Chertoff, then chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, breached the prickly territorial lines that have long divided the Justice Department from the FBI. From a fifth-floor office at FBI headquarters, above the streams of panicked people who flooded Pennsylvania Avenue, he set up shop in the bureau's crisis center. For the next 20 hours, he directed the government's initial response to the most lethal terrorist attack in U.S. history.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-11-chertoff-side_x.htm

[eridani]

21. Seems like kind of an indirect connection

of course if he was the big cheese, the buck ought to have stopped there.

[Octafish]

29. Typical BFEE Turd -- takes all the credit

Don't know what else this turd Chertoff's up to, but it sure looks like he makes sure to get credit for all the busts made by those under him. I'm sure the doo-doo rolls down hill, too.

Department of Justice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2003
WWW.USDOJ.GOV
CRM
[phone]
TDD [phone]

DEFENDANT PLEADS GUILTY TO ISSUING FALSE ANTHRAX PRESS RELEASES

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff of the Criminal Division and United States Attorney Carol C. Lam of the Southern District of California announced today that Charles W. Kallmann, the former Chief Executive Officer of 37Point9, Inc., pleaded guilty in federal court in San Diego, California, to a criminal information charging him with two counts of securities fraud for issuing false press releases in an effort to bolster his company's sagging stock price during the anthrax scare in 2001.

37Point9 Inc., was a holding company headquartered in San Diego. The common stock of 37Point9 was registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and was traded on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board, a quotation service operated by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD).

According to the criminal information, Kallmann exploited the publicity generated by the October 2001 anthrax incidents to fraudulently promote the sale of 37Point9 shares through the issuance of false press releases promoting an anti-anthrax product. In October 2001, Kallmann drafted two press releases which made false and misleading claims about the development, testing and effectiveness of a product named "SurfaceShield" which was purportedly designed to have a long term killing effectiveness against anthrax, as well as a wide variety of bacteria, viruses, germs and fungi. One of the press releases stated that a wholly owned subsidiary of 37Point9 had entered into an agreement with a laboratory "to develop an addition to its SurfaceShield product that will enable the enhanced SurfaceShield to kill bacillus anthracis (anthrax) while it is in its vegetative state and prior to release and sporulation of vegetative cells." In fact, 37Point9 had not entered into such an agreement.

37Point9 was a thinly traded "penny stock."Around the time of the issuance of the false press releases, the volume of trading in 37Point9 shares increased approximately 1500 percent to over 32 million shares and the price of 37Point9 shares increased approximately 300 percent.

"The defendant in this case brazenly manipulated his company's stock price," said Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff. "Worse still, he did it by exploiting public fears about the anthrax scare."

John R. Kingston, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's San Diego Division, added: "This case illuminates the FBI's commitment to corporate fraud investigations and particularly those who attempt to exploit the public's anxieties."

Kallmann faces a maximum sentences of 10 years in prison on each of the securities fraud counts. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for June 9th before U.S. District Judge Gonzalez.

This case was investigated by the FBI, in cooperation with the NASD. The matter was referred by NASD to the Fraud Section, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, and prosecuted by DOJ Trial Attorney Raja Chatterjee.

###

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/March/03_crm_149.htm

[Gabi Hayes]

17. from NYT, via AAR's Unfiltered, who had Radack on the other day

this WRT one of Chertoff's confirmation hearings:

At that time, Senate Democrats questioned him extensively about concerns in the department that the F.B.I. might have improperly questioned Mr. Lindh in Afghanistan even though his family had hired a lawyer for him. The questioning yielded potentially damaging admissions from Mr. Lindh that factored into his decision in July 2002 to plead guilty to felony charges, resulting in his 20-year prison sentence.

Mr. Chertoff, chosen this week by President Bush to succeed Tom Ridge as homeland security secretary, earned strong endorsements from important lawmakers in both parties and appears quite likely to be confirmed. Some Senate Democrats said they wanted to examine his counterterrorism record at the Justice Department closely before voting to confirm, and he is likely to face fresh scrutiny over the Lindh case then.

At his confirmation hearing in 2003, Mr. Chertoff said he and his deputies in the criminal division did not have an active role in discussions about ethics warnings in the case from lawyers elsewhere in the department.

But in previously undisclosed department documents, provided to The New York Times by a person involved in the case who insisted on anonymity, a longtime lawyer in the division who worked under Mr. Chertoff detailed numerous contacts he had with lawyers inside and outside the division on Mr. Lindh's questioning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/politics/13home.html?oref=login

what sort of brillian lawyer, does NOT know that you can't question someone who has a lawyer without risking serious problems in making your case from that moment on? this kind of crap is infuriating. for them to insist that they didn't contact their Professional Responsibility Advisory Office certainly sounds that the best they can do is plead incompetence, both in not contacting them, and going against the most basic criminal lawyering precepts involving Miranda-like situations. Not that Miranda has any more weight now than the fourth-eighth (add others as you choose) amendments.

[Gabi Hayes]

18. brief summation of Chertoff's perjury/Radack legal fund URL, senate phones

Yesterday, we spoke with whistleblower Jesselyn Radack about the nomination of Judge Michael Chertoff to head up the Department of Homeland Security.

Radack was an ethics lawyer r at the Department of Justice during the John Walker Lindh case. She warned Chertoff about interrogating Lindh without the presence of his lawyer. Despite Radack’s warning, the DoJ went ahead and interrogated Lindh without his counsel; Lindh’s testimony resulted in a twenty-year prison sentence.

However, in his previous senate confirmation hearing, Chertoff denied having any contact with Radack and her office.

Radack not only has emails and hard evidence of warning Chertoff, but the Bush Administration has retaliated against her by forcing her out of two jobs and placing her on the no-fly list.

Give the members of the Committee on Homeland Security a call and tell them that Chertoff perjured himself and he has no place in the President’s cabinet.

Republicans
Susan M. Collins, Chairman (R-ME)
[phone]

Ted Stevens (R-AK)
[phone]

George V. Voinovich (R-OH)
[phone]

Norm Coleman (R-MN)
202-224-5641

Tom Coburn (R-OK)
[phone]

Lincoln D. Chafee (R-RI)
[phone]

Robert F. Bennett (R-UT)
[phone]

Pete W. Domenici (R-NM)
[phone]

John W. Warner (R-VA)
[phone]

Democrats
Joseph I. Lieberman, Ranking Member (D-CT)
[phone]

Carl Levin (D-MI)
[phone]

Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI)
[phone]

Thomas R. Carper (D-DE)
202-224-2441

Mark Dayton (D-MN)
[phone]

Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
[phone]

Mark Pryor (D-AR)
[phone]

The Jesselyn Radack Legal Defense Fund has been established to help Jesselyn Radack pay for legal fees and related expenses resulting from actions taken by USDOJ and her former employer after Ms. Radack blew the whistle on USDOJ's handling of the John Walker Lindh case. http://www.cradl.info/pages/3/page3.html?refresh=1090345080782

[Minstrel Boy]

22. media coverage of the Ptech investigation compiled by Indira Singh:

http://www.justicefor911.org/iiA7_PtechPress_112204.php

[seemslikeadream]

23. The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket

The agency is withholding a damning report that points at senior officials.
It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.

"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."

When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days ago asking for it to be delivered. "We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned."

more
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102004V.shtml


Government: FBI Translator's Complaints Were Supported by Evidence, Witness
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1150876#1153645

Sibel Edmonds and 9/11 coverup
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=125&topic_id=27243

[Octafish]

25. Here's why all the secrecy fuss...

War Crimes and War Profiteering

by Norman D. Livergood

EXCERPT...

Bush Senior In Collusion with the Bin Laden Family

Since he left office, ex-President and ex-CIA Director George Bush, working as a consultant, has been using his influence and contacts for the Washington-based Carlyle Group, a $12 billion private equity firm and eleventh largest defense contractor in the U.S. Carlyle's portfolio is heavily invested in defense and telecommunications firms.The Bin Laden family has large investments in Carlyle. The New York Times has reported that former President George Bush met with the bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia in 1998 and 2000.

Bush senior's Carlyle connection means he is on the payroll of corporate interests that receive defense contracts from the U.S. government while his son is president. Charles Lewis of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, indicated that "in a really peculiar way, George W. Bush could, some day, benefit financially from his own administration's decisions, through his father's investments."

Bush Senior specializes in Saudi Arabia and therefore has a personal interest in the corrupt Saudi regime's survival and continued profitability. The public-interest law firm Judicial Watch earlier this year strongly criticized Bush senior for his ties with the Bin Laden family, pointing out in a March 5 statement that it is a "conflict of interest could cause problems for America's foreign policy in the Middle East and Asia."

In a Sept. 29 statement, Judicial Watch added that, "This conflict of interest has now turned into a scandal. The idea of the president's father, an ex-president himself, doing business with a company under investigation by the FBI in the terror attacks of September 11 is horrible." Judicial Watch demanded that President Bush make his father pull out of the Carlyle Group.
The New York Times on October 26, 2001 reported that, "The Saudi family of Osama bin Laden is severing its financial ties with the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm known for its connections to influential Washington political figures, executives who have been briefed on the decision said today." Some of those influential figures include George H.W. Bush and his son, President Bush.

George junior is no slouch when it comes to shady deals with the Bin Laden family and other crooked interests such as drugs.

CONTINUED...

http://www.new-enlightenment.com/profiteering.htm

SIDEBAR:

"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.new-enlightenment.com/profiteering.htm


The Ancestor of the Iran/Contra Scandal

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/ February 17, 2004
From a CBC interview(1) with Bill White by Bob McKeown on the subject of James Bath:

"Well if you recall back in the mid-1970's the CIA came under fire for trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, for engineering elections in Latin America and putting friendly Dictators in power. The Church and Pike committees were empanelled in Congress to bring the Agency under control. After these Intelligence committees investigated illegal CIA activities they issued a stinging report concluding that it is incompatible for the Government of a Democratic Society to engage in KGB-type activities. What Bush did as CIA Director, rather than just terminate these activities, was to privatize them.

"He began to look for people qualified and willing to form quasi private corporations to take control of these assets and continue to do the CIA’s bidding. Because he needed a pilot to form an Aviation cutout, he turned to the obvious referral source - his Son George Jr. who was in an Air National Guard Aviation Squadron. All military pilots like myself and Bath have to hold top-secret security clearances, are clearly patriots, and have been vetted by the FBI. Knowing this (as a former Naval Aviator himself), George Bush Sr. asked Dubya: 'Do you know a guy in your Air National Guard Unit who we could bring in to operate an Air proprietary and deal with the Saudis?' George Jr. responded by recommending his drinking buddy, Jim Bath."

And:

". . . Bath explained to me that he had been tapped by George Senior to set up a quasi-private aircraft firm that would basically engage in CIA-sponsored activities funded by the Saudi Royal Family. He explained that the Saudis had basically entered into a quid pro quo relationship with Bush and that Bush when he was CIA Director worked with the head of Saudi Intelligence and the CIA trained the Palace Guard to protect the Saudi Royal Family who was concerned about a fundamentalist revolution. And it was at that point I think that this thing got kicked into high gear and the Saudis agreed to provide surreptitious funding to the United States to fight it's secret wars in Afghanistan and Nicaragua."

The Saudis in Texas were Salem Bin Laden, Osama's brother, and Khalid bin Mahfouz, who were both probably acting as agents for the Saudi Royal Family (I've already (2) gone over the BUSH/HARKEN/BCCI/CIA/BIN LADEN/ENRON connections in some detail). White told the CBC:

". . . Bath had told me that he had used Saudi money to fund George Bush Junior’s start up in the Energy business."

And, on how he knew the money Bath was investing was Saudi money:

CONTINUED...

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1537

C'mon DU! Read and pass this around. The TRUTH is what will bring down these traitors.

[seemslikeadream]

26. Brief Filed in Appeal by Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2950254


from G_j

(for anyone interested in the Edmonds 'case' who may have missed this)
----

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=1730...

Government is Abusing “States Secrets Privilege” to Cover Up National Security Blunders, ACLU Says

January 12, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: [email protected]

Brief Filed Today(January 12)in Appeal by Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today urged the D.C. Court of Appeals to reinstate the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, saying that the government is abusing the "state secrets privilege" to silence employees who expose national security blunders.

"The government should be applauding, not punishing, employees who risk their jobs to expose threats to our nation’s security," said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson. "If the lower court ruling stands, many thousands of government employees will be unprotected from retaliatory dismissal, with no recourse in the courts, and others will be even less willing to risk exposing misconduct or corruption."

Edmonds, a former Middle Eastern language specialist hired by the FBI shortly after 9/11, was fired in 2002 after repeatedly reporting serious security breaches and misconduct in the agency’s translation program. She challenged her retaliatory dismissal by filing suit in federal court. Last July, the district court dismissed her case when Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the so-called state secrets privilege. The ACLU is representing Edmonds in the appeal.

The ACLU has announced its willingness to support other national security whistleblowers and has encouraged others to come forward. Notable whistleblowers such as John M. Cole and Frederic Whitehurst support Edmonds’ case, as do several senators, the families of 9/11 victims, the Project On Government Oversight and a long list of others. Many of them will be joining a friend-of-the-court brief to be filed later this month. Representatives of these groups will be available for interview at a noon news conference at the National Press Club on Wednesday, January 26.

In the brief filed today, the ACLU sharply criticizes the government’s "radical theory" that every aspect of the Edmonds’ case involves state secrets and therefore it cannot go forward. In accepting the government’s theory, the ACLU said, the district court relied on the government’s secret evidence but denied Edmonds the opportunity to prove her case based on non-sensitive evidence. That approach, the ACLU said, "made a mockery of the adversarial process and denied Ms. Edmonds her constitutional right to a day in court."

"As a U.S. citizen, I am disturbed that my government is imposing such severe punishment on truth tellers," Edmonds said. "I am pursuing this appeal not only on my own behalf but on behalf of government employees everywhere who understand that nothing is more important than protecting our security."

The state secrets privilege, when properly invoked, permits the government to block disclosure of particular documents that would cause harm to national security. In the Edmonds case, the government used the privilege not just to protect particular documents but to urge dismissal of the entire case.

History has shown that the government has relied on the state secrets privilege to cover up its own negligence. In the 1948 Supreme Court case Reynolds v. United States, the government claimed that disclosing a military flight accident report would jeopardize secret military equipment and harm national security. Nearly 50 years later, in 2004, the truth came out-the accident report contained no state secrets, but instead confirmed that the cause of the crash was faulty maintenance of the B-29 fleet.

The government is engaged in a similar cover-up in the Edmonds case, the ACLU said. In 2002, at the request of Senate Judiciary Committee members Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the FBI provided several unclassified briefings to Members of Congress in which it confirmed many of Edmonds' allegations.

More than two years later, the Justice Department retroactively classified those briefings, which were reported in the Congressional Record, and asked Members who had the information posted on their web sites to remove certain documents. The ACLU said the move was a blatant attempt to bolster the government’s efforts to dismiss Edmonds’case on state secrets grounds. The retroactive classification has also been challenged in a separate lawsuit brought by the Project On Government Oversight.

Only two weeks after the district court dismissed Edmonds’ case, FBI director Robert Mueller wrote a letter to Senator Grassley reporting that the Department of Justice Inspector General had completed a classified investigation and concluded that Edmonds’ allegations "were at least a contributing factor in why the FBI terminated her services."

Later this week, in response to a separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Inspector General is expected to release an unclassified version of the report’s executive summary. The rest of the report will remain classified.

Oral argument in Edmonds’ case is scheduled for April 21, 2005. Ann Beeson will be arguing on behalf of Edmonds. Co-counsel in the case are: Melissa Goodman and Benjamin Wizner of the national ACLU; Art Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area; Mark Zaid of the Washington law firm Krieger and Zaid; and Eric Seiff of New York.

The ACLU brief is online at http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.c... .

An October 28, 2002 news release from Sen. Grassley’s office in support of Sibel Edmonds, with links to his letter to FBI Director Mueller and the transcript of a "60 Minutes" interview, is online at http://grassley.senate.gov/releases/2002/p02r10-28.htm .

A website about Edmonds’ case is online at http://www.justacitizen.com /. Nearly 7,000 people have already signed an online petition in support of her case.

[seemslikeadream]

27. The agreement, he told Leahy, no longer held.

The next morning Leahy sat in his office across a polished wood conference table from Ashcroft, Hatch, Michael Chertoff, chief of the Justice Depart-ment's criminal division, and Gonzales, the White House counsel. They'd come together to sign off on the deal. But Ashcroft was having second thoughts about some of Flanigan's concessions. The agreement, he told Leahy, no longer held.

....

On October 17, the capital was confronting a new threat: anthrax. It was contained in a letter mailed to Daschle, and no one knew how many people might have been exposed. Were there more letters? Were anthrax spores floating through the Capitol's ventilation system? Suddenly, it became more urgent than ever to get the Patriot Act to the president's desk.

Amid the panic, Leahy, Daschle, Flanigan, Dinh and others gathered in House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office to smooth out the differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill. The House bill, which passed in the early morning hours of October 12, included sunset and court-oversight provisions Leahy had been unable to get in the Senate.



The Washington Post Magazine | Oct 27, 2002
Six Weeks in Autumn
by Robert O'Harrow, Jr.
http://www.muckraker.org/one_investigation.php?id=3&topic_id=7&show_all=0

[Gabi Hayes]

30. Ted Kennedy's statement before Chertoff's 93 confirmation

.......Today we vote on the nomination of Michael Chertoff to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Last week, I expressed my concern about Mr. Chertoff's failure to provide serious, consistent, and responsive answers to the questions asked by members of this Committee. In particular, his answers to my first set of written questions were non-responsive, evasive, and hyper-technical. They were stingy in substance, avoiding the questions that were asked, and often answering questions that were not asked.

As Mr. Chertoff is too good a lawyer not to understand what he has been asked, I assume that the White House and Justice Department advised him to avoid the questions, and not to answer them. At last week' s Committee meeting, I asked my good friend, the Chairman, to hold Mr. Chertoff' s nomination over for another week. The Chairman agreed, and I submitted an additional set of questions, which Mr. Chertoff answered in a substantially more direct and forthcoming manner. I also met with Mr. Chertoff yesterday afternoon, and discussed with him a number of important issues.

Having received serious answers to my serious questions -- and in spite of concerns that I continue to have about Mr. Chertoff's performance as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division -- I have decided to support his nomination to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. I hope, however, that the delay that occurred with this nomination sends a message to future nominees and their Justice Department and White House handlers. Members of this Committee have both the right and duty to ask questions that reflect on how nominees are doing their present jobs, before we vote on their lifetime promotions. Evasive and non-responsive answer will not do -- no matter how "uncontroversial" a nomination may otherwise be. I appreciate the support of the Chairman, the Senator from Vermont, and all my colleagues in refusing to acquiesce in this kind of evasion of the Committee' s inquiries.

skip.......

However, other policies and decisions involving criminal justice matters during Mr. Chertoff's tenure as Assistant Attorney General have raised serious concerns. At his hearing, I asked Mr. Chertoff extensive questions about the Justice Department's advocacy on behalf of the Feeney Amendment to the AMBER Alert bill. This Amendment has nothing to do with protecting children, and everything to do with handcuffing judges and eliminating fairness in our federal sentencing system. Its provisions effectively strip federal judges of discretion to impose individualized sentences, and transform the longstanding sentencing guidelines system into a mandatory minimum sentencing system. As Chief Justice Rehnquist has said, they "do serious harm to the basic structure of the sentencing guideline system and . . . seriously impair the ability of courts to impose just and responsible sentences

.....skip.....

According to the New Yorker article published on March 10, 2003, two weeks after the Justice Department filed charges against Lindh, Ms. Radack, a highly qualified employee who received a merit bonus the previous year, received a "blistering" performance evaluation which severely questioned her legal judgment, and she was advised to get a new job. Mr. Chertoff has told me that has no knowledge of the facts surrounding Ms. Radack's employment, performance, or departure from the Department, and I take him at his word. Nevertheless, I remain very concerned about Ms. Radack's situation. According to press reports -- and the Department has never issued any statement disputing them -- Ms. Radack was in effect fired for providing legal advice on a matter involving ethical duties and civil liberties that higher-level officials at the Department disagreed with. Furthermore, after Ms. Radack notified Justice Department officials that they had failed to turn over several e-mails requested by the federal court, Department officials notified the managing partners at Ms. Radack's new law firm that she was the target of a criminal investigation. I submitted questions to Attorney General Ashcroft regarding this matter in March, and I await his response."

of course, he voted FOR Chertoff, after pretty much accusing him of committing perjury

WTF goes on with these jellyfish? As in the Feinstein/Rice fiasco, do these slugs have absolutely NO idea how to play the game? Imagine, as many have said, if the shoe were fitted otherwise: you know what the pugs would be doing/would have already done in this case.

this is beyond sickening

if you haven't had enough...... the rundown of how Radack lost her first job after leaving ''Justice:''
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1056139907383

then this, by the author of the previous story, regarding the JD bugging of either Radack's phone, or Micheal the elf Isikoff's phone, or both
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Ti11db4IhccJ:www.cjr.org/issues/2004/2/mccollam-track.asp+radack+american+lawyer&hl=en

My article for American Lawyer centered on the dispute between Radack and her firm. But in the course of reporting the story, I obtained a document that raised a separate and creepy issue: Had Justice traced calls from Isikoff to Radack? The document in question was an October 2002 e-mail from Hawkins Delafield’s management committee to Radack’s lawyer, Frederick Robinson. The e-mail cited conflicting statements Radack had given to government investigators about her contacts with Isikoff, as well as a detailed log of their telephone calls. A few things about the phone log immediately caught my eye. First, it included the date and time of two calls Isikoff had made, not to Radack, but to lawyers at the Department of Justice. How would Hawkins Delafield know that? Second, six other phone calls it detailed came from Isikoff to Radack, not the other way around. How had this information been obtained?

As you might expect, the government had little to say to me when I called, only that the investigation was continuing and they wouldn’t be commenting for my story. Hawkins Delafield was similarly mum, citing their dispute with Radack. The firm did make clear, however, that based on what the government told it, the management committee was convinced that Radack was Isikoff’s source; it would not employ a known leaker because the firm did most of its business with government entities. The firm’s sympathies clearly lay with the government; the e-mail made evident that the firm was receiving information from investigators. The question then was: Where was the government getting its information?

Guidelines adopted by the Department of Justice after Watergate establish a clear procedure for subpoenaing a journalist’s phone records. First, the government must take all other reasonable steps to obtain the desired information. Once it has exhausted those options, the department may seek a subpoena of the reporter’s phone records from a court, but must notify the reporter so that he may oppose the request. Under extraordinary circumstances, and with the direct authorization of the attorney general, federal agents may subpoena a reporter’s records from the phone company without the reporter’s knowledge, but are still required to inform the reporter within forty-five days that it has done so. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

When I called Isikoff, however, he had received no such notice and had no idea his calls to Radack had been traced, a prospect that understandably alarmed him. When I pressed the government for an explanation, Paul Martin, a spokesman for the Office of Inspector General, which is handling the Radack inquiry, replied, in part, that agents had “conducted the investigation properly and in close consultation with department attorneys.” Stonewalled and out of time, I let the issue pass with only a brief mention in my piece. But a short time later I talked with Mark Marchand, a spokesman for Verizon, about the company’s policy on tracing calls for the government. He said that he knew nothing about the Radack case, but that Verizon did not disclose customers’ phone records absent a court order or a subpoena, and even then it generally informed the customer. “It’s been a basic tenet for a hundred years that customers have an expectation of security in their calls,” Marchand told me. But just when I thought I might be on the verge of a true Woodward-and-Bernstein moment, Marchand said something that surprised me (though it would be no surprise, I later learned, to aficionados of detective shows): the phone company keeps computer files of all local calls for several months. Local calls? I asked him if that meant someone, say a law firm, could obtain records of all local calls into its office over a given period and then search for specific incoming phone numbers. Marchand confirmed it was possible, though he said going through files would be very labor-intensive and very expensive. “We’d expect to be paid for that,” Marchand told me.

[rainbow4321]

31. He also defended a NJ doc w/ alleged Osama connection....

http://www.opednews.com/duncan_090504_njterrorism2.htm


This story really caught my attention since allegations were made that Dr. Elamir had financial ties to Osama Bin Laden for years and that Bin Laden had funded an HMO that Elamir was operating in New Jersey . The intelligence report that Dateline refers to also infers that Dr. Elamir may have skimmed money from the HMO to fund “terrorist activities”.
<snip>

I didn’t know who Michael Chertoff was when I ran across his name as the attorney who defended Dr. Elamir in his fraudulent HMO and MRI cases, so I did some research. I was completely blown away by what I discovered about Michael Chertoff.


As it turns out, Michael Chertoff was appointed Assistant Attorney General, under John Ashcroft, in early 2001 and was placed in charge of the Criminal Division. Since Operation Diamondback was an active case when he took office, and culminated in arrests in June of 2001, the case would have fallen under his pervue since it was handled as a criminal case and not as a counterterrorism case. This means that one of his former clients, Dr. Magdy Elamir, along with his brother Mohamed El Amir, were now involved in a case under his supervision.

<snip>

Perhaps Chertoff could have saved some time and effort and looked in his own backyard for evidence of terrorist financing. To date, Dr. Magdy Elamir and his brother have not been arrested and are still free. I have a theory that Elamir was not arrested, because if his case did come to court, then Chertoff’s role as his lawyer in the HMO case might have been exposed. Since Elamir’s HMO was supposedly a front for Bin Laden and millions of dollars were allegedly skimmed from the HMO to fund terrorism, Chertoff himself might be implicated in some way since he had to have had access to the HMO’s books and Elamir’s finances when he defended him.

[seemslikeadream]

32. Folks back up and pay attention to what Sibel D. Edmonds made public

...

I keep reminding folks to back up and pay attention to what FBI Translator Sibel D. Edmonds made public and that Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft slapped a gag order on her immediately. She found—and pay close attention this time if you did not last time or this is the first time you have heard this—she found "drug trafficking, money laundering, foreign names and AMERICAN NAMES involved in the financing of 9-11."

Sibel Edmonds is not fluent in Arabic. She is fluent in Farsi (Iran), Turkish (her mother) and Azeri (her Azerbaijani father). What she found was not in Arabic notwithstanding the Bush and Ashcroft insistence that her "Arabic translations" regarding Osama bin Laden, attack on the U.S., and jet airplanes, which for the record are not even germane to the translations that Sibel Edmonds did find. What Sibel Edmonds found was not from "counter-terrorism" but rather from ongoing FBI investigations into drug trafficking and money laundering by certain foreign and American persons.

Then from another source we learned that there was a transaction due to close on 9-11 or 9-12-2001 involving payment of $120 billion. That payment it seems was problematic because the payment would have been prima facie evidence of a criminal fraud in progress relating to Brady Bonds and bogus gold instruments of which there are reportedly now over $10 trillion of such instruments floating around the world markets.

The documents for that closing were reportedly housed in WTC I, and, gosh, that company took a jet airplane right in the face. Consider that, and consider that no one is that lucky.

My sources inform that Cantor Fitzgerald was the underwriter / bond trustee on the $120 billion payment that was due. It may have been another firm, but my sources say Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC 1, 101-105 floors. Also, INTER AMERICAN INVESTMENT CORPORATION is the vehicle that has been used to float the bogus gold contracts and that entity is both a Reagan administration creation and still closely tied to George H.W. Bush. It was also noted that Global Crossing Holdings Ltd., that well known telecom fraud that fleeced global investors of billions, was on the 83rd Floor of WTC 1, but that and the fact that former CEO of Global Crossing Lodwrick Cook being on the board of the GHWB Presidential Library is a separate story.

more
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/011405Schwarz/011405schwarz.html

[Gabi Hayes]

34. g zeus fricking Kriste!

how come nobody is picking up on this?

hard to believe anything these days, BUT, it's equally difficult to put ANYthing past this collection of thieves, pervs, psychos, stooges, and weasels.

does anyone doubt that they're capable of whatever they deem necessary.

look at the OBVIOUS, like invading a country/killing over a hundred thousand people, based on the most clearly bogus "evidence" since the magic bullet

OK...since Whitewater

[Gabi Hayes]

35. ps...a big kudos to Online Journal, one of the most underappreciated

pogressive JOURNALISM sites on the web

[Al-CIAda]

36. A funny thing happened on the way to 'The Truth'

Conservative Christian Republican Demands 911 Truth
Special Report
A funny thing happened on the way to 'The Truth'
By Karl W. B. Schwarz
Online Journal Guest Writer
September 24, 2004—I am a conservative Republican who has come to the conclusion over the past 12 months that I would not vote for Bush Cheney 2004 under bribe, duress or at gunpoint. I have come to that conclusion for many reasons that are well documented and in some instances is information that is known only to myself and several executives that I work with.
I have written a book about my experiences with the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Bush Cheney, and bring forth facts that I found stunning and disgusting to the point that I am convinced that both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and RNC, and our political system, are in need a serious house cleaning. America needs leadership, not an endless stream of talking heads and game show hosts to keep us entertained. That is my opinion and I am sticking to it.

It would also help if Americans had The Truth but that seems to be something that Washington, DC fears these days.

I read the recent analysis written by Sibel D. Edmonds regarding the 9-11 Commission findings and recommendations. That article was posted on Antiwar.com for those readers that missed it. For those that do not know who Sibel Edmonds is, she is the FBI translator that Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft have gone to great lengths to silence.
The 9-11 attorneys Motley & Rice zeroed in on her as a possible key witness after filing that $1 trillion lawsuit, and when that happened none of us should be surprised that Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft went into "shut her up mode."
Out of curiosity as to how her facts might concur or disagree with the facts I assembled in my book, I tracked Sibel down and we had a long visit via telephone. That conversation was just another example of "don't believe everything you read" in our major media outlets
I followed her story as it developed and the media always reported to us "mushrooms" that her testimony was being blocked "due to national security" and "protecting the Global War on Terrorism." Good enough reasons I thought at first, until I had the chance to hear it from the source.

During the FBI translations Sibel came across pre-9-11 drug trafficking and money laundering and that is evidently what they are trying to keep quiet. It does not take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that first, the Saudis do not need drug trafficking to generate cash flow to finance terrorism if they are in fact the culprits, and secondly, that tidbit of information does not fit what we have all been told about how al Qaeda financed the attack upon America. After I weighed it all, I thought the 9-11 attorneys might not be as interested in Sibel Edmonds' testimony as they first thought because drug trafficking and money laundering is not exactly a Saudi modus operandi.

More importantly, what Sibel Edmonds found was not from counter-terrorism sources. It was from ongoing FBI investigations of Americans and foreign nationals involved in drug trafficking, money laundering and apparently pre-9-11 activities and financing of that attack. Now that explains why Emperor GW cannot dare let Sibel Edmonds testify under oath in that $1 trillion lawsuit, or before Congress or before the 9-11 Commission. We have not been told that Americans might have been in part involved in 9-11. Wouldn't that be a hoot compared to the endless lies we have heard from the Bush administration?

No wonder her testimony (if ever heard in an open forum) is giving heart palpitations to Emperor George, Prince Dick, and Squire Ashcroft......

CONTINUED-
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/092404Schwarz/092404schwarz.html

[Al-CIAda]

33. kick

[oceans13]

37. Chertoff's buddy wrote a blog about him

One of his co-workers wrote about him on his blog (www.nickstewart.us) and gave him an endorsement: http://nickstewart.blogspot.com/2005/01/serving-justice-part-3.html

[seemslikeadream]

39. Welcome oceans13, Nick's a doll, no mention of Riggs Bank?

The Bush-Riggs Connection

The decision last week by federal regulators to fine Riggs Bank $25 million for a "willful, systemic" violation of anti-money-laundering laws is raising new questions about whether the Bush administration's ties to powerful moneyed interests is unduly influencing U.S. foreign and national security policy. Riggs Bank is headed by longtime Bush family friend Joe Allbritton, employs President Bush's uncle Jonathan as a top executive, and other executives have been financial donors to the Bush campaign. The bank is at the center of a controversy, according to the Wall Street Journal, for failing to monitor "tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian and Equatorial Guinean embassy," including "suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier's checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan." Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) "said members of the bank's board of directors should be held to account for failing to exercise their watchdog role over Riggs's operations" and said refusal to follow money laundering laws "allows terrorists to funnel their blood money through the system."

CONNECTION – JONATHAN BUSH AND RIGGS: Jonathan Bush, President Bush's uncle, was appointed CEO of Riggs Bank's investment arm in May of 2000, just months after his nephew secured the nomination for the presidency. At the time of the appointment, Jonathan Bush had already become a major financial backer of his nephew, rising to "Bush Pioneer" status by raising more than $100,000 for his nephew in 2000. The move solidified the relationship between Jonathan Bush and Riggs, which was originally initiated in 1997 when, according to American Banker newsletter, Riggs paid Bush $5.5 million for his smaller investment firm. That transaction, according to the NYT, "deepened links to the Bushes." While Riggs denies any connection between Bush and the accounts being investigated in the money laundering probe, Riggs President Timothy Lex told the Washington Times in 1997 that "there's a blurring of distinctions between banks, mutual-fund families, broker dealers and everything else across the board."

CONNECTION - ALLBRITTON-BUSH LINK: Allbritton, who said during the federal probe that he was stepping down from Riggs's board, also was close to the Bush family. As the NYT reported, he (along with Riggs client Saudi Prince Bandar) was a financial backer of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, with National Journal noting he contributed between $100,000 - $250,000 to the project. And there also appears to be a personal bond with the current President Bush: As the 2/15/01 WP noted, "When President Bush climbed out of his limousine on Inauguration Day at the corner of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, he spotted Allbritton, waved and said, 'Hey Joe, how are you doing?'" That might have something to do with the fact that, according to the 11/7/2000 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Allbritton-owned TV station KATV in Little Rock broke 39 years of precedent and publicly endorsed Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The station, which is the biggest in the state, proceeded to air its endorsement 10 times throughout Arkansas, and refused to give equal time to Democrats "who asked for the time to present an alternative to the station's endorsement."

ACTION – LOOSENING BANKING REGS THAT COULD AFFECT RIGGS: According to Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon's "Age of Sacred Terror," upon taking office the Bush administration tried to halt efforts to tighten international banking laws – some of which may have affected Riggs. As he notes, the new Bush Treasury Department "disapproved of the Clinton administration's approach to money laundering issues, which had been an important part of the drive to cut off the money flow to bin Laden." Specifically, the Bush administration opposed Clinton administration-backed efforts by the G-7 and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that targeted countries with "loose banking regulations" being abused by terrorist financiers. Meanwhile, the Bush administration provided "no funding for the new National Terrorist Asset Tracking Center."

ACTION - HIDING INFORMATION THAT COULD BE DAMAGING TO RIGGS: Newsweek reported that checks to "two Saudi students in the United States who provided assistance to two of the September 11 hijackers" may have come "from an account at Washington's Riggs Bank in the name of Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan." This, and other details, were reportedly part of the bipartisan House-Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the Saudi money flow after 9/11. Yet, instead of allowing the committee's final report to be published in full, "Bush administration officials, led by Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, have adamantly refused to declassify the evidence" surrounding the transactions.
more
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=99415#3

Riggs Directors on 2 Boards Share Personal Ties to Allbritton
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1157609
Riggs and Equatorial Guinea
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=9558&mesg_id=11993&page=
Threads on Equatorial Guinea
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=9558&mesg_id=18254&page=
Threads on Equatorial Guinea part 2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=9558&mesg_id=25607&page=

:hi:

H.E.A.D.S.U.P. -- A.C.T. S.M.A.R.T.

[Al-CIAda]

38. bump -eom

[Al-CIAda]

41. What? Like I'm not going to kick this again? Ha! -eom