Reply #9: SEND THIS TO LEAHY, WAXMAN, CONYERS before Gonzales testifies tomorrow.

[seafan]

US Attorney General's office stalled investigation of Novation, LLC's hospital supply kickback practices. Alberto Gonzales was a senior partner in the law firm representing Novation, LLC.


Full story

Press Release 365 : 04/16/2007 - Novation LLC a hospital supplier in Irving, Texas admitted in a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals filing dated April 9th, 2007 that it was identified as a co-conspirator in a 2002 scheme to use US Bancorp’s trust division to prevent Medical Supply Chain from entering the market for hospital supplies by withholding escrow accounts and misusing the USA PATRIOT act as a pretext.

.....

On July 31, 2006 the London Times reported the existence of the US Department of Justice investigation of Novation’s conduct as a hospital group purchasing organization or “GPO” and quoted Professor Prakash Sethi, president of the International Center for Corporate Accountability at Baruch College in New York who stated “My most conservative estimates suggest that GPOs extract extra profits of $5 billion (£2.6 billion) to $6 billion which legitimately belong to their principal clients, the hospitals.”

After Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General on February 3, 2005, the investigation of Novation was suppressed even though insider Novation executives came forward to the US Department of Justice with evidence of laundering hospital funds through the publicly traded electronic hospital supply marketplace Neoforma, Inc. that was then controlled by Novation, Volunteer Hospital Association (VHA), and University Health System Consortium (UHC) and is now owned by the electronic hospital supply marketplace GHX, LLC.

In an April 18, 2005 affidavit, Medical Supply Chain founder Samuel Lipari complained about FBI misuse of USA PATRIOT Act surveillance powers. The affidavit described interception of electronic communications and searches by law enforcement officials being used to interfere with and obstruct Lipari’s civil prosecution of the Novation defendants in Medical Supply Chain, Inc., v. Novation LLC et al, US District Court for the W.D. of Missouri No. 05-0210-CV-W-ODS

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confirmed the existence of the program for warrantless surveillance, first reported in The New York Times, on December 19, 2005. However on January 25, 2006 Gonzales wrote that “there has not been a single verified abuse of any of the provisions” of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Samuel Lipari again complained on October 12, 2006 in the US Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit in St. Louis, Missouri that US District Attorney Bradley J. Schlozman failed to investigate evidence of public corruption brought to his office and permitted obstruction of justice to continue despite the injuries to Samuel Lipari, his family and associates.

On January 16, 2007 Attorney General Gonzales responded to criticism of his misuse of the USA PATRIOT Act by announcing John Wood would be taking Bradley Schlozman's place in Kansas City two days before he gave his previous testimony to Congress.

And, just 4 days ago we learned that Jeb Bush has just been appointed to the Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare board. This company was the subject of multiple investigations into Medicare overbilling, and finally reached a $900 million settlement with the US government last year.


Well, now, isn't that interesting that old Jeb's suddenly found *a new priority*.