Robert Gates and Iran Contra

[JDPriestly]

The man Bush has selected to serve as Secretary of Defense has a troubling history. Walsh entitled Chapter 16 of the Iran Contra Report simply "Robert Gates." Here are quotes from that chapter of the Report. You need to go to the link because these excerpts are too short to make sense.


Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, Charles E. Allen, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the contras.2 Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr. The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October.

2 See, for example, Gates, Grand Jury, 5/1/91, p. 135 (``Q. Do you recall that in this time frame also you became initially -- well, let me not characterize it -- you became aware of what is now referred to as the diversion. A. Yes. I had a meeting with the NIO, the national intelligence officer, Charlie Allen, on the lst of October.''); Gates, SSCI Confirmation Hearing, 2/17-18/87, p. 13 (response to written interrogatory about his knowledge of the diversion).

cut

Gates's defense was that he did not recall the Kerr meeting.15 To say the least, this was disquieting. He had been told by a very senior officer that two of President Reagan's personal priorities were in danger -- not something an ambitious deputy director of central intelligence would likely forget. Allen was acting as a whistle-blower in a difficult situation. His concern was for the safety of the hostages and the success of the efforts of the President. His information suggested serious malfeasance by Government officials involved in a clandestine and highly sensitive operation. Even though Gates may have believed Allen to be excessively concerned, could such an expression of concern be forgotten, particularly after it had been corroborated within a few weeks? Logically, Gates could ignore or forget the Allen report only if he already knew of the diversion and he knew that Casey and Poindexter knew of the diversion. Gates also was on the distribution list for highly reliable intelligence that should have informed him of the pricing dispute among Kangarlu, Ghorbanifar, and the U.S. Government, although it did not refer specifically to any diversion of funds. Gates claimed that he rarely reviewed the intelligence.16 North testified that he did not discuss the diversion with Gates or in Gates's presence. Gates also never met with Richard Secord, whom Gates was aware of only as a ``private benefactor'' (the CIA's term for non-Government donors to the contras) by July 1986.17

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_16.htm

[texpatriot2004]

1. I thought so. I thought he had something to do with that scandal

and sure enough.

[blm]

10. And another reason why Clinton harmed this country IRREPARABLY by letting outstanding issues

on IranContra, BCCI and CIA drugrunning get shoved under the rug.

The people need to know EVERYTHING that happened. At this point we don't even know the HALF - especially since 9-11 it is WRONG to hide what has happened, because it is American CITIZENS who end up paying the price.

[JDPriestly]

2. Thanks to Rachel Maddow, not to me, for raising this fact.

[Graybeard]

3. Once again * reaches down into the slime...

...for a nominee.

[jwirr]

4. Another one of Poppy's pals. The reason he has to reach so

far down is because no one with any brains will work for him anymore so once again Poppy is bailing him out.

[leesa]

5. They're running out of people dirty enough to cover up their crimes.

Gates will do it. He's done it before.

[JDPriestly]

6. Precisely.

Gates may be subject to a sort of blackmail by the Bush cabal. Apparently, there is evidence that he has already lied for them. If the Walsh accusations are true, Gates sold his soul to the Bushies when he lied to get out of the debt he owed the nation for his crimes in the Iran Contra affair. Congress needs to be made aware that they will be held responsible if they consent to the appointment of yet another Bush crony in crime. Bush is not making amends. He is covering his crimes.

[Dosaybe]

7. Gates on BOD VoteHere biggest lobbiest for HAVA (Evote, Abramoff, Bob Ney)

Quoting from BBV posting tonite:
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/45174.html

Bev Harris
BBV Activist
Username: Site_admin

Post Number: 162
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?)

Posted on Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - 05:26 pm:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfield will resign, reportedly to be replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates. Did you know that Robert Gates was involved in the voting machine industry?

Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids.

You can find copies of the VoteHere lobbying forms here: http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0

I can't get them to save to pdf, perhaps you can. Enter search terms in both "registrant" and "client" fields and put in terms "Rhoads" "Livingston" and "Votehere" (one at a time.). Then look at the gravy train while it was in the process of derailing American democracy.

I first became acquainted with VoteHere when I met a source, Dan Spillane, who is the wonderful guy that identified the Diebold source code modules for me after I found the Diebold files. He is the person who introduced me, and subsequently everyone else, to the odd role of The Election Center and R. Doug Lewis in the elections industry.

Spillane filled me in on The Livingston Group, VoteHere lobbyists, run by Bob Livingston -- the fellow that Hustler publisher Larry Flynt outed during the Bill Clinton blow job days. Larry Flynt offered a million dollars to anyone who could out a Republican congressman for adultery, and out popped peccadillos by Livingston.

Livingston couldn't live that one down, so he resigned his post as House Speaker-Elect and became a lobbyist -- but that's not all! He also launched a group called "Center for Democracy" which was going to "monitor elections." This group also featured several good old boys from the tobacco industry and some mining companies.

Former VoteHere test engineer Dan Spillane was looking into all this because he had been fired after he questioned the certification process on a touch-screen system in which he had identified 250 flaws. It was way back in November 2002 that Spillane told me, "The voting machine industry is a house of cards. And the certification and testing process is the bottom card in the house of cards."

But don't run out of the room to take a shower yet. There's more.

VoteHere, a company shilling cryptographic solutions and filled with NSA types (another director was Admiral Bill Owens), for some reason claims they were unable to prevent themselves from being hacked. In this alleged hack, VoteHere claims that someone stole their source code. Said source code was offered to me, an obvious attempt at entrapment which I refused to touch with a 10-foot pole.

Nevertheless, VoteHere claimed to the newspapers that they had supposedly "tracked" the hacker and had identified the hacker as an activist in the election reform community.

For some reason, it was decided that I should be investigated for this "hack" of VoteHere -- nevermind that I can't remember how to change the password on my own laptop. Therefore I was interviewed by the Secret Service several times about this. Curiously, they never seemed to ask any questions about VoteHere, only my role in finding the Diebold files and publishing the Diebold memos.

This nonsense eventually culminated in a gag order and a letter from the U.S. Attorney to appear in front of a federal grand jury with information on all the visitors to the Black Box Voting Web site. (As if they couldn't get that in less dramatic ways in post-Patriot Act America).

Attorney Lowell Finley went to bat for me on this. A reporter named George Howland from the Seattle Weekly got wind of it. When it hit the press, the investigation stopped.

VoteHere never sold any voting machines that I can find, but apparently did set up some deals to embed its cryptography into some voting systems. We found memos in the Diebold trash about VoteHere's crypto-crap, and Maryland Director of Elections Linda Lamone shows up in VoteHere-related letters. Sequoia Voting Systems signed an agreement with VoteHere, but its not clear to me whether they ever did anything about it.

Robert Gates stepped away from VoteHere shortly before he showed up in Chapter 8 of my book, Black Box Voting, in a short bit about the VoteHere company history. You can read that here: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a paper, pencil, and count by hand at the polling place than have former CIA director Robert Gates fooling around with my vote.

But that's just me.

-- Bev Harris
Founder, Black Box Voting

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org

[texpatriot2004]

8. kick nm

[blondeatlast]

9. We need to resurrect and remind America of Iran-Contra.

I'm old enough to remember and I don't like that the man sending our sons and daughters in harm's wayhas his blood-stained hands all over it.

Here's another interesting budding thread dealing with Gates; let's get both of these discussions on the "Greatest" page.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2947222

[kentuck]

11. Just a coincidence that he comes back same time as Ortega??

Keep your eyes on this.