Editorial
As the presidential campaign narrows and its costs skyrocket, detailed disclosure of financial resources becomes ever more important. Of the leading contenders, so far, only Senator Barack Obama has released his full income-tax returns — a level of disclosure once routine for candidates after the political corruption of Watergate
Release of the tax returns should not be made conditional on winning the nomination, as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has made it. Both Senator John McCain, the Republican front-runner, and she owe it to their parties and to voters to promptly make available their Internal Revenue Service filings, and to respond to any questions about them. It is true that as senators, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain are required to file financial disclosure forms. But those forms present only general parameters of family financial resources, not the detail available on tax returns.
The need for greater transparency regarding the income and overall financial dealings of candidates and their spouses was underscored by Mrs. Clinton’s recent decision to make a $5 million loan to her campaign. Such borrowing is a permitted practice under the campaign laws. But the campaign said the money came from her share of the Clintons’ joint resources, and that calls attention to the lack of information about their family finances. As a former president, Bill Clinton has been making millions annually giving speeches and traveling the globe. What is publicly known about his business dealings is sketchy, and clearer disclosure of them is required to reassure voters that Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy is unencumbered by hidden entanglements.
In the same spirit, the Clintons are obliged to make prompt disclosure of the major donors who have been backing the former president’s library and foundation. It is not even clear whether Mr. Clinton would disclose his library’s donors if his wife won the White House.
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Participation in big-money politics inevitably runs the risk of encountering deep-pocketed benefactors who can become back-slapping embarrassments. Mr. McCain learned that lesson when he was caught up in the Keating Five scandal in the 1980s. The Clintons have also learned this lesson across the years, just as Senator Barack Obama rues what he calls “boneheaded” dealings with Antoin Rezko, a Chicago businessman indicted last fall for fraud and influence peddling.
Mr. Obama felt obliged to return $150,000 in Rezko donations. Critics question why the senator had a favorable land deal with Mr. Rezko even after reports emerged of a federal investigation into Mr. Rezko’s affairs.
The reluctance of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain to reveal more about their finances ill-serves voters and the nominating process of both parties. It also sets a terrible precedent for future campaigns for important posts at the national and state level.
moreAh, the Clinton library and finances!
Follow the money and it becomes clear why
full disclosure is necessary:
Bill Clinton's presidential library raised more than 10 percent of the cost of its $165 million facility from foreign sources, with the most generous overseas donation coming from Saudi Arabia, according to interviews yesterday.
The royal family of Saudi Arabia gave the Clinton facility in Little Rock about $10 million, roughly the same amount it gave toward the presidential library of George H.W. Bush, according to people directly familiar with the contributions.
The presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has for months faced questions about the source of the money for her husband's presidential library. During a September debate, moderator Tim Russert asked the senator whether her husband would release a donor list. Clinton said she was sure her husband would "be happy to consider that," though the former president later declined to provide a list of donors.
The Saudi Royal Family, follow the money:
Spectre of 'another 7/7' led Tony Blair to block bribes inquiry, high court toldDavid Leigh and Rob Evans The Guardian, Friday February 15 2008 Article history • Contact us
Prince Bandar, head of Saudi Arabia’s national security council, leaving Downing
Street last October. Photograph: Martin ArglesSaudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.
Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.
He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.
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Documents seen yesterday also show the SFO warned the attorney general that if he dropped the case, it was likely it would be taken up by the Swiss and the US. These predictions proved accurate.
Bandar's payments were published in the Guardian and Switzerland subsequently launched a money-laundering inquiry into the Saudi arms deal. The US department of justice has launched its own investigation under the foreign corrupt practices act into the British money received in the US by Bandar while he was ambassador to Washington.
Prince Bandar yesterday did not contest a US court order preventing him from taking the proceeds of property sales out of the country. The order will stay in place until a lawsuit brought by a group of BAE shareholders is decided. The group alleges that BAE made £1bn of "illegal bribe payments" to Bandar while claiming to be a "highly ethical, law-abiding corporation".
more Some of the court documents (
.pdf) and
highlighted excerpts. That regime has held a gun at all of our heads for a long time, and what to do about it is something one hopes the next administration will seriously review, with more creativity and flexibility and discipline and perhaps ruthlessness than has been shown in the past. Maybe it takes cutting a deal with Iran, one correspondent, no softy on the Iran threat, suggests. The $20 billion in arms sales to Riyadh US defense firms just secured on Bush's recent trip there are central to the problem too, and their armies of lobbyists, white-bred law firms and bought officials and think tanks here as well, so institutionalized they have become part of the marble firmament of this corrupted city. In the meantime, maybe Bandar should lose his White House and Crawford pass?
linkLetter to the President on Saudi Arabia's Alleged Money LaunderingAuthor:
John F. Kerry
May 21, 2003
Foreign Affairs
Senator John Kerry, D-Mass.
May 21, 2003
Dear Mr. President:
I am writing to request that you instruct the Secretary of the Treasury to identify Saudi Arabia as a primary money laundering concern under the authority provided in Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act (P.L. 107-56).
I also request that U.S. financial institutions be required to provide enhanced scrutiny of financial transactions from Saudi Arabia, with particular focus on international charity organizations in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, the Department of Treasury should immediately issue regulations requiring U.S. financial institutions to impose enhanced due diligence on financial transactions involving Saudi Arabian financial institutions, charities and high net-worth individuals to determine whether any transactions pose an unacceptable risk of being related to the finance of terrorism. I believe this will help ensure that funds designated to assist al-Qaida, Hizballah, Hamas or other international terrorist groups do not originate from or pass through Saudi Arabian financial institutions on their way to the United States. It will also help persuade the Saudi Arabian government to crack down on the flow of funds from their country to international terrorist organizations.
Saudi Arabia is a growing financial center in the Gulf Region of the Middle East and should be credited for its increased vigilance in the fight against money laundering since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The Saudi Arabian government has frozen accounts of individuals and organizations in response to information provided by the United States and is currently considering a proposal to develop specific laws dealing with money laundering offenses.
I remain concerned that a number of charity organizations headquartered within in Saudi Arabia and with operations and office around the world are being used as conduits to provide funds for terrorist organizations. There has been a series of published reports alleging Saudi Arabian charities and individual Saudi Arabians have been providing funds to organizations both in the United States and elsewhere which have direct links to terrorist organizations. Last year, an independent task force sponsored by the Council of Foreign Relations released a report on terrorist financing focusing on the connection between Saudi Arabia and al-Qa’ida which stated “... it is worth stating clearly and unambiguously what official U.S. government spokespersons have not: For years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for al-Qa’ida; and for years, Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to the problem.”
As long as al-Qa’ida retains access to a viable financial network, it remains a lethal threat to the United States. That is why I believe the United States must take any and all necessary measures to stop Saudi Arabian charity organizations from providing any additional funds to international terrorist organizations -- such as al-Qa’ida, Hamas and Hizballah – that could be used to attack either the United States or United States interests abroad.
While the Saudi Arabian government has introduced some controls to limit the transfer of funds to terrorist organizations, I am concerned that their efforts have not gone far enough to stop international terrorist organizations from receiving funding to carry out attacks against the United States or United States’ interests around the world. The tragic bombing in Riyadh this month demonstrates the lethal ability of terrorists to operate within Saudi Arabia and raises serious concerns over the Saudi government’s ability to incapacitate terrorist networks.
The Department of State reports through the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report that some funds from Saudi Arabian charities have been channeled to terrorist organizations. For this reason, your Administration has classified Saudi Arabia as a country to be monitored for potential money laundering.
The United States has the largest and most accessible economic marketplace in the world. Foreign financial institutions and jurisdictions must have unfettered access to markets to effectively work within the international economic system. In 2000, I introduced legislation that became Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act to provide the federal government with the authority to leverage the power of United States financial markets to encourage countries like Saudi Arabia to reform and enforce their counter-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws. As you are aware, it provides measures that are graduated, discretionary, and targeted, focusing on international transactions involving criminal proceeds, while allowing legitimate international commerce to continue unimpeded.
If we are to lead the world in the fight against terror and increase the security of the American people, we must effectively use our own laws to cut off the flow of laundered funds from terrorist groups through the international financial system. The measured use of Section 311 authority against Saudi Arabia provides the United States an opportunity to demonstrate leadership in the fight against international terrorism and money laundering.
I believe the U.S. must press for action by other nations against those Saudi persons and institutions about which there is substantial reason to believe have supported terrorism. This can be done immediately within the framework of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). I urge you to discuss this issue in your upcoming meetings with the European Union, the G-8, and other multilateral forums. Thank you in advance for your consideration of my request.
Sincerely,
John F. Kerry
June 10, 2007
by emptywheel
The whole
BAE thing blew up again last week while I was visiting. The short version is that Bandar Bush bin Sultan got caught with his hand in a very large cookie jar--to the tune of billions. But you'll recall that I
suggested we'd be hearing more about this scandal back back in December. Today, Isikoff and Hosenball
reveal that this may relate to the Riggs Bank scandal from a few years back (though keep in mind--it's Isikoff, so all the usual caveats about misleading half-truths apply).
Hundreds of pages of confidential U.S. bank records may be the missing link in illuminating new allegations that a major British arms contractor funneled up to $2 billion in questionable payments to Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The BBC and Guardian newspaper reported last week that BAE Systems made "secret" payments to a Washington, D.C., bank account controlled by Bandar, the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States who is now the kingdom's national-security adviser. The payments are alleged to be part of an $80 billion military-aircraft deal between London and Riyadh. Last week British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged that his government shut down an investigation into the payments, in part because it could have led to the "complete wreckage" of Britain's "vital strategic relationship" with Saudi Arabia. Before the U.K. closed the inquiry, British investigators contacted the U.S. Justice Department seeking access to records related to the Saudi bank accounts.
And you remember the
Riggs bank scandal, don't you? Where Bush crony Joe Allbritton and uncle Jonathan Bush oversaw a bank that was laundering money for Augusto Pinochet, Equatorial Guinea, and ... the Saudis? Or rather, Bandar Bush bin Sultan? Riggs was a regular old BCCI, it turns out, only no one really bothered to investigate why it was laundering money for some of the biggest creeps in the world.
So let me just throw out a few more datapoints:
• Riggs leads to Equatorial Guinea, the same place where Margaret Thatcher's son--one of the main beneficiaries of the BAE bribery—
sponsored a coup ... now where do you suppose he got the money to sponsor that coup?
• Cheney and Bandar
have been freelancing on foreign policy of late. Of course, Congress is not paying for that free-lancing.
Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.
So where do you think Cheney and Bandar are getting the money?
moreFollow the money:
Oliver North wrote a piece
endorsing John McCainAs for Hillary, she probably wishes she could take back her
Cheney did it too comment about praising Kazakhstan.
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