Tuesday WH Briefing: John Roberts and Iran-Contra

by **seemslikeadream** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:27 pm

<img src="http://www.buzzflash.com.nyud.net:8090/contributors/05/07/images/pardons.jpg" style="border:0;"/> Tuesday WH Briefing: John Roberts and Iran-Contra. Remember, BuzzFlash Has Alerted Our Readers First that the Iran Contra Pardons are the Model for the Potential TreasonGate Pardons that Will Keep Rove, et al, and Bush In Office and Out of Jail. Roberts Played a Role in the Iran Contra Pardons -- and the White House Won't Release the Paper Trail. <a href="http://www.buzzflash.com/" target="top">www.buzzflash.com/</a> By E&P Staff Published: July 26, 2005 5:00 PM ET NEW YORK Virtually giving up, at last, on getting Press Secretary Scott McClellan to comment on the Plame/CIA leak affair, reporters at today's White House briefing concentrated on another hot issue, the Democrats' attempt to get the White House to release more of a paper trail on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. The White House says it will hand over more than enough documents, while the Democrats want more. One emerging hot button issue revolves around the holding back of Roberts documents from his days in the Bush I administration as a deputy in the Solicitor General's office, on grounds of client-attorney privilege. Of particular interest here, for some Democrats, is what advice Roberts might have offered leading up to President George H.W. Bush's pardon of Caspar Weinberger and others in the Iran-Control scandal. But some feel that that client-attorney privilege argument may not hold, legally, so the White House may also be prepared to deny documents on “national security” grounds. This prompted perhaps the most pointed question of today's briefing (from a “Dana,” presumably Dana Milbank of The Washington Post), who asked near the end of the session, “Do you consider Iran-Contra a national security issue?” “I haven't even thought about that, Dana,” McClellan replied, “to tell you the truth.” Here are excerpts from the official transcript related to the Roberts documents: *** Q Do you plan to make any claims for executive privilege for any of those documents? We know you're -- you have some attorney client privilege concerns. MR. McCLELLAN: Well, this was something we consulted with Chairman Specter about and Chairman Specter expressed his appreciation for what we are doing. We wanted to make sure that all appropriate information was getting to the Senate, so that they could move about in a timely and fair fashion on Judge Roberts' nomination. I think you need to look back at what you're referring to. There are seven former solicitor generals who have publicly expressed concerns when it comes to information related to attorney-client privilege. They rely on open, candid and thorough assessments or advice from their attorneys during the decision-making process, and you cannot have that if attorneys in the Office of the Solicitor General fear that that information might be disclosed. Q What's the case law that establishes attorney-client privilege for the work of the Solicitor General's Office? MR. McCLELLAN: There is ample case law that is available that -- Q Specifically. MR. McCLELLAN: -- talks about the importance of government attorneys having attorney-client privilege. And I'll be glad to provide you that information. There is ample case law available. Q Seth Waxman, himself, argued that the attorney-client privilege applies to the White House Counsel's Office, under the Clinton administration--and the courts found that that was not the case. MR. McCLELLAN: The Solicitor General's Office comes under the Federal Records Act. The White House Counsel's Office comes under the Presidential Records Act. And under the Presidential Records Act, there is a presumption of disclosure. All of us who come here and work at the White House know that what we are doing is going to be disclosed publicly. Q So that doesn't compromise the integrity of the discussions within the White House Counsel's Office, but it does the Solicitor General's Office? MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm saying there are two different acts that govern these issues, and that's why I was pointing back to what the solicitor general said when it came to the decision-making process in their office. Q Does the solicitor general work for the people or the President? MR. McCLELLAN: The solicitor general represents the U.S. government in issues. And so they are the attorney for the U.S. government. Q How many documents fall under this category, and what are they? MR. McCLELLAN: Fall under what category? Q The attorney-client privilege. How many are you holding back, and what do they consist of, exactly? MR. McCLELLAN: First of all, we're providing all appropriate information to the Senate. And I wanted to make that clear. That's why we went ahead and made this decision so that we could expedite that process at the Reagan Library to make that information available -- Q Right, but how many are you holding back? MR. McCLELLAN: Wait, hang on -- available before they return so that they can get about moving forward on the confirmation process in a timely manner. We think that's important. And much of this information may not have been made available if it had gone through the normal review process. Q How many are you holding back and what does it consist of? MR. McCLELLAN: But in terms of the Solicitor General's Office, the White House hasn't seen or reviewed any of those documents. It wouldn't be appropriate for us to do so, for the reasons I just stated. *** Q Wouldn't his later work be more relevant than thousands of pages of what he did 25 years ago? MR. McCLELLAN: His work on the court is absolutely something for people to look at, the last two years that he has served on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. And that's why I pointed back to the confirmation hearing process that he had been through previously…. Q On the solicitor general documents, which you are not going to release, that is non-negotiable, the end of story, as far as the White House is concerned? MR. McCLELLAN: I think we've made our views known. *** Q Back to Roberts and the documents. Does the White House maintain that what it's doing now related to the DOJ and the Counsel documents is, in effect, expediting the process? It's not that these documents wouldn't be available to members of Congress in the absence of the White House's assistance? MR. McCLELLAN: We are expediting the process when you're talking about the Reagan Library documents, absolutely. Q Democrats are arguing that, in effect, however, those documents were in the process of being made public anyway, and that the documents at the Archives were available, thank you very much, and their argument is that they haven't gotten anything that they couldn't have gotten under themselves, and what they're seeking in the solicitor general's documents, they're being denied. MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, on the Reagan Library documents, there is a process that they are going through to make those documents available publicly, but it is a process that tends to make months. At a minimum, it takes weeks and weeks and weeks. I think everybody recognizes the importance of moving forward in a timely manner on this confirmation hearing. And this is documents that we're talking about from 20 years ago . I mean, these documents essentially show a young White House staffer providing his legal analysis to support the President's agenda at the time. That's what these documents are. But we wanted to make sure that they had all the appropriate information they needed. And that's what this is about. *** Q Did you waive any attorney-client privilege in the documents that are being released? MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, the documents that are being released? Q Correct. MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the documents in the Archives are all available publicly and the documents -- like I said, the documents at the Reagan Library, I mean, they're covered under the Presidential Records Act, and I think only documents that you're talking about that might not be disclosed would be related to issues of national security concerns or privacy concerns. Q And you can't waive any attorney-client privilege under the solicitor general's documents -- is that right? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again, I expressed the views of the former solicitor generals and why they believe it's important to protect the attorney-client privilege, and members of the Senate have expressed that, as well. Q But you would have the authority to waive it if you chose to do so? MR. McCLELLAN: Again, what we're doing is moving forward and making available all appropriate information for the Senate to do their job and do it in an expedited fashion. Q Can I just ask a quick follow-up on that? MR. McCLELLAN: Quick. Q Do you consider Iran-Contra a national security issue? MR. McCLELLAN: I haven't even thought about that, Dana, to tell you the truth. <a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000991994" target="top">www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000991994</a> July 22, 2005 THE question for Congress to ask Judge John G. Roberts' during his confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Can loyalty to the President also be treason? A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION by One Citizen This is possibly THE question for Congress to ask Judge John G. Roberts' during his confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice. The balance of power between the three branches of our government here in the U.S. may be at dire risk due to a long-time loyalty between the nominee and the President. The answer to this question may stop the nomination process in its tracks if the answer reveals that loyalty between friends trumps his loyalty to do justice. Let's imagine for a moment that a member of the Bush Administration was pardoned by the president after being indicted for say, leaking a CIA undercover agent's name to the public. And let us also say for the purposes of this question that the Executive Clemency order was issued after the indictment was proffered but before the case was prosecuted. The very timing of this pardon would virtually steal the golden fleece of justice from American citizens before our Justice system could work its magic. So then let's further imagine that the federal prosecutor had no choice but to challenge the legality of the executive branch's pre-empting the full and fair prosecution of the law. Now, finally, here's the question to be posed to Judge Roberts...- "If the President issued this imaginary pardon BEFORE the conviction, and the resolution of this imaginary case came all the way down through the system to end up on your docket, how would you, as a Justice of the Supreme Court, likely rule? "Bearing in mind, of course, that the subject being prosecuted might well be innocent. Or guilty. We'd never know for sure unless you issued a verdict against the President, finding it to be an abuse of power. Now for the purpose of this question, let's say that the pardoned subject was very close to the President himself, having been a member of his immediate Cabinet ever since the beginning of the first term in office. And because of his position, likely knew and could provide testimony against the very person who had actually cooked up this foul conspiracy and set it in motion in the first place. "If only he could be compelled to testify. And that's the real twist to this whole puzzle we're asking you to solve. Let's say that due to strong loyalty and friendship, this person could not be compelled to reveal the source any other way than by being threatened with the possibility of prosecution and the resultant serious jail time for criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice. "Now wouldn't that be a fine kettle of fish if, by the sheer timing of his pardon, the President was allowed to protect himself, or perhaps shield some other guilty party in his Administration from prosecution for this most serious offense against homeland security?" Now before you, dear reader, accuse me of a most fantastic flight of fancy that would never actually come to pass in the real world, let me explain. I didn't just pull this specter of an inopportunely timed pre-emptive pardon out of thin air. In fact, I am only reframing an earlier case that actually set a legal precedent, which was pulled off by none other than George H.W. Bush. That's right, the father of our current president, and former head of the CIA successfully kept special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh from exacting justice for crimes committed during the Iran Contra illegal war which was secretly run out of the basement of Ronald Reagan's White House. You may recall when members of the CIA illegally traded arms for the crack cocaine that then saturated our West Coast neighborhoods and then somehow U.S. citizens who were being held as hostages in Iran got mixed up in that very clandestine and very, very illegal deal. CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE Unfortunately, you and I will likely never know the answer to who masterminded that one because Poppy Bush actually did order Executive Clemency for those whom Special prosecutor Walsh had just nailed. But did Bush Sr. have an act of compassion in his mind, or was he motivated by loyalty and self-preservation? And did this act harm the best interests of the citizens of this country? Because wasn't this an abrogation of Judiciary power by the Executive Branch? It is now obvious that a proper determination of the Weinberger Six's fate by our court system could have stood as a very real deterrent to those now in the Executive cabinet who committed the very real and very dangerous crime of spotlight-the-agent. Allowing former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and five others to skate away scot-free from their heinous actions likely did more harm than anyone ever thought possible.at the time. Besides making it possible for others higher up in that earlier Administration to avoid any threat of embarrassment or inconvenience that an indictment might have rendered, it also set a dangerous precedent and virtually guaranteed that there would be an escape plan for future White House Cabinet members as long as the President could be tied to the crime solely by the threat of their testimony. All future Presidents could be virtually forced to shield his cabinet from prosecution. He would be required to protect himself from being tainted with the ever-standing threat of any- or- all being plea-bargained into (at the very least) tying him (or others in the Cabinet) with foreknowledge of virtually any crime. The well-timed Presidential pardon is thus a program which provides Plausible Deniability Version 3.0 for the entire posse. On Feb. 28, 2001, House of Representatives Judiciary Committee held hearings on the constitutional limits of the President with regards to the power of Executive Clemency. During those hearings, one member eloquently expressed his opinion that "Improperly exercised, the pardon is a travesty of justice—an act borne not of mercy, but of tyranny" Besides pardoning his Secretary of Defense, Bush Sr. also ordered that the records produced as a result of the Iran Contra hearings be permanently sealed from public disclosure. Executive Order 12356 (also known as the "Weinberger Declaration") classified that material as "Top Secret" due to the probability that the material within would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to our national security. Yet his pardons weren't determined to pose a treasonous threat, because they were held to have only possibly protected him from prosecution. It is notable that he proclaimed that the "common denominator of their motivation -- whether their actions were right or wrong -- was patriotism." Yeah, right. They're Patriots. Now according to Alexander Hamilton the ''power of pardoning in the President has...been only contested in relation to the crime of treason.'' The delegates to the Constitutional Convention believed treason was a crime leveled at ''the immediate being of the society''— an offense meant to strike at the heart of America's institutions and values. Article III of the Constitution includes giving aid and comfort to the enemy in its definition of treason. In 1999, George H.W. Bush said "... I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors." But Gee Dubya obviously disagrees with that assessment. It's loyalty above all else in HIS White House. Now in their twisted attempt to shield whoever in the Bush cabinet leaked the name of a CIA undercover agent to the press, supporters of the current President have done everything from downplay the importance of the position of the CIA's undercover agent to question the intent and the patriotism of those who support her. The act of downplaying her position is important to the upcoming fight over the question of whether the act itself constituted treason. What it will ultimately come down to is a test between the branches of government and Judge Roberts' loyalty to the President who he had worked for during the election debacle of 2000. You remember, that's when Al Gore got more votes for President but was prevented by legalistic maneuvers by Roberts and others, in (of all places), - the Supreme Court. One Citizen Charleston, WV A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/07/con05249.html Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=seemslikeadream@rigorousintuition>seemslikeadream</A> at: 7/26/05 8:54 pm

by **dbeach** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 1:08 am

roberts was the bag man in bush vs gore 2000 how many docus did he white out,steal,delay and use other schemes to obstruct JUSTICE?? Mr clean has loads of dirt.. roberts is the ultimate insider in the justice system.. BTW Is casper gonna shape shift in that photo??? he don't look like any friendly ghost that I ever seen!!

by **antiaristo** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:37 am

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I go where the evidence takes me. Weinberger is ANOTHER of Her Majesty's knights. Iran/Contra is a synonym for BCCI. What's lurking behind all this is the Windsor/Bush connection - the Medieval Mob. Treason is the issue. The betrayal of the American people to the Feudalists. From Second Batch in Data Dump. C/ Eusebio Navarro, 12 Gordon Pollock QC 35003 Las Palmas de Gran Counsel to BCCI Liquidator Spain Canaria (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu) 6 January 2004 Dear Sir, You know what happened at the Bank of England, but do you know why? You know that the Bank of England acted in bad faith, but do you know why it was dishonest? You know that Lord Bingham covered-up this dishonesty, but do you know why? Would you be interested to know that the institutional bad faith exhibited by the Bank of England is in fact a part of a mosaic of transcendental dishonesty and corruption, ranging from Lloyds of London to the invasion of Iraq? Transcendental dishonesty and corruption that is, in point of fact, perfectly legal under English law. “There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge” Allow me to introduce you to s3 of the Treason Felony Act of 1848. 3. Offences herein mentioned declared to be felonies ...If any person whatsoever shall, within the United Kingdom or without, compass, imagine, invent, devise or to deprive or depose our Most Gracious Lady the Queen, ...from the style, honour, or royal name of the imperial crown of the United Kingdom, or of any other of her Majesty's dominions and countries, or to levy war against her Majesty, ...within any part of the United Kingdom, in order by force or constraint to compel her... to change her... measures of counsels, or in order to put any force or constraint upon her or in order to intimidate or overawe both Houses or either House of Parliament, or to move or stir any foreigner or stranger with force to invade the United Kingdom or any other of her Majesty's dominions or countries under the obeisance of her Majesty... and such compassings, imaginations, inventions, devices, or intentions, or any of them, shall express, utter, or declare, by publishing any printing or writing, ...or by any overt act or deed, every person so offending shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, ...to be transported beyond the seas for the term of his or her natural life. You will note that our Most Gracious Lady the Queen can do pretty much whatever she wants to do, anywhere she wants to do it. Anybody that tries to “put any force or constraint upon her” will get (lawfully) zapped. And do you know what? For just about the whole of the twentieth century (1910 to 2001) the Windsor family has included at least two lawful queens. When King George VI “passed away” in 1952 his wife did not lose her powers under the TFA 1848. She just went underground as the “…powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge”, and became the greatest criminal mastermind in world history. She looked on as the post-war socialists built up the powers of the State, safe in the knowledge that she could legally take over the apparatus at any time. She exercised her dictatorship indirectly, through the apparatus of that state. A judge, a coroner, a regulator, an army officer, a spook, a policeman. When given a direct order from our Most Gracious Lady the Queen, what could these subjects do? If they opposed (put any force or constraint upon) her she would destroy them as she destroyed my own family. So they buckled and feigned a stupid incompetence. Lord Woolf, Michael Burgess, Howard Davies, Gordon Kerr, John Scarlett, John Stevens*: the list is without end. They did what they were told and kept their mouths shut, and their wives and children are undiminished. The Bank of England lied about the status of Bank of Credit and Commerce International because it was acting on the orders of the Windsor family**. The same is true today. Anybody that does business with or leaves their money in London is subject to the Windsor interpretation of the Treason Felony Act – just ask the ghost of Roberto Calvi. Yours faithfully, John Cleary BSc MA MBA Cc Gordon Brown correos certificado Michael Howard QC “ Mervyn King “ Jean-Claude Trichet Sir Alan Greenspan Paul Braithwaite, Secretary General EMAG Enc Cleary to Judge Peter Cory 10 July 2003 Cleary to William of Wales 4 January 2002 *It was lies from Stevens’ own corrupt officers that led to the prosecution of Paul Burrell. These lies were never investigated due to the TFA 1848 (see Cleary to Peat, November/December 2003). **At the time it acquired Anglia Television in 1994, MAI plc was effectively a private bank operating outside of the banking system.

by **hmm** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:56 am

cant fault a broken record when its on the right track? and BCCI is also a synonym for the cia-elite's-drugs-terror nexus while i'm totally on the same page as you in that i see this as a continuation of the fight for freedom from serfdom and the desperate attempts of former elites to hold onto power in a changing world (from the 1880's pov of a changing world that is) i'm not myself as sure as to what end is wagging tail and what end "brain" All examination of the root and "recent" historical developments sheds light on the branches we see currently flourishing

by **emad** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 10:51 am

BCCI = synonym for KGB cold war dirty ops to finance planting of paid mercenaries into top global political slots. Next bank to fall in the same way as BCCI? Big money's on HSBC, a multi-billion global corruption scam that's kept Poodle in office and Dumbass sitting pretty in the White House. HSBC = the price the West paid in exchange for giving up Hong Kong back to the Chinese.

by **dbeach** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:02 am

"What's lurking behind all this is the Windsor/Bush connection - the Medieval Mob. Treason is the issue. The betrayal of the American people to the Feudalists." 'been a long time coming..gonna be a long time.."

by **hmm** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:14 am

is what i suspect it is i'm hardly going to accept the "cia-elite's-drugs-terror nexus" excuse for whats going on with BCCI just as i dont accept that same KGB excuse in relationship to the catholic church. Not based on anonymous security sources anyways. I have seen your posts in other places too so i have reason enough to respect your thoughts and i read with interest. The fact that you mention HSBC (and other posts in the past) tells me you are pretty clued in. But that only increases my suprise at the conclusions you draw. I would really be interested if you could back up any of the outlandish KGB claims as they directly contradict all other available information i as a mere mortal have seen.

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:37 am

"Asked [by Ted Koppel after the Weinberger pardon] whether I thought President Bush and President Reagan had engaged in a cover-up, I said that President Reagan thought he had done the proper thing, but his advisors had been afraid for him, which had been the reason for the cover-up. I declined further comment about Bush except to say that we would issue a grand jury subpoena if he did not promptly produce the notes that were still missing. "I said that the pardons had the effect of shutting down our prosecutions, which made them comparable to President Nixon's firing of Archibald Cox in the Saturday Night Massacre. As for history's judgment, I said 'I think it will prove to be an imprudent move.... He has shown an arrogant disdain for the rule of law. There was no excuse for pardoning these persons.... They were prosecuted for covering up a crime, for lying to Congress, to keep Congress from finding out what happened.... They were deliberate lies, and I think that President Bush's sugarcoating is going to become increasingly transparent, and the American public is, in the end, a very perceptive body of people.'" I wonder if Walsh's consideration of the public has changed any, given that this Bush administration the most transparently corrupt and criminal in American history, and have yet to held to account. I think today, Fitzgerald could be fired or Rove pardoned, and it would barely register.

by **antiaristo** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:26 am

BCCI returns to haunt Bank of England A court case looking at events in the 1980s could set a precedent for suing regulators Simon Bowers Saturday January 3, 2004 Guardian It was on the eve of the first creditors' meeting following the dramatic collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, with hundreds of furious and confused depositors expected to fill Wembley Arena baying for compensation, that the liquidators announced they had served writs against just about everyone connected with BCCI - including the Bank of England. No one has successfully sued the Bank, which as the former regulator enjoys immunity against all claims save those alleging dishonesty. The liquidators were claiming the Bank of England had not only made a series of breath-taking errors and omissions in its supervision of BCCI, it had done so knowing full well that depositors' life savings might be in pe[/i] BCCI was finally shut down in 1991, amid a welter of fraud and corruption charges, with outstanding debts of $10bn. To some, demands for £850m (in today's money) in compensation from the Bank may have looked like panicky sabre-rattling on the part of liquidators at Touche Ross, now Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Eleven years on, the claim is nevertheless being doggedly pursued, with the scene set for a marathon legal battle that is expected to occupy the same courtroom as the Hutton inquiry for about a year. In two weeks' time, Gordon Pollock QC, counsel for the liquidators, will take to his feet in the high court and open the first of the 125 lever-arch files containing the hearing's core documents. His initial address is expected to take up to three months, during which time he will level countless accusations of malicious recklessness against 22 of those Bank officials who oversaw the supervision of BCCI. Among the witnesses the Bank is expected to call in its defence will be former governors Sir Eddie George, Lord Kingsdown (formerly Robin Leigh-Pemberton) and Lord (Gordon) Richardson. Other prominent names to take the stand include Brian Quinn, chairman of Celtic football club, and Peter Cooke, who headed the Bank's supervision department for much of the 1980s. Several other central players have died in the time it has taken for the case to be heard. The central allegation facing the Bank is that it deliberately perpetuated the charade of BCCI as an overseas bank, allowing it to operate outside Bank of England full regulatory control throughout the 1980s. The claim is among a series of allegations that go far beyond conclusions drawn by Lord Bingham's 1992 official report into BCCI's demise. Lord Bingham, now Britain's most senior law lord, concluded that over-worked Bank of England regulators had made an innocent mistake when they designated BCCI a Luxembourg bank in 1980. They had done so despite the fact that it was no secret that BCCI's Luxembourg holding company was a little more than a brass plate, with most meaningful operations run out of offices at 100 Leadenhall Street in the City - a stone's throw from the Bank of England. Lord Bingham said: "In applying this new and unfamiliar statutory regime [the 1979 Banking Act], it was necessary for the Bank, first of all, to understand what was meant by 'principal place of business'. That was a legal question. "Those who handled this matter in the Bank had many applications to process in a very limited time, and did not recognise this as a question to be asked. So no legal advice was sought ... The question was simply never addressed." Mr Pollock will challenge this conclusion, pointing to internal Bank papers, seen by the Guardian, which appear to show senior banking supervision officials and lawyers had indeed, from the outset, raised the question of whether BCCI should be more appropriately classified as a British bank. As early as February 1979 Frank Hall, a senior lawyer at the Bank, wrote an internal memo to colleagues concerning the imminent Banking Act. In it he said: "I should be grateful if you could let me know whether ... there are any companies which are not registered in the UK but which have their principal place of business or place of central management or control here ... but which we should not want to recognise." Copies of the memo, which was circulated among senior department officials, show several hand-written annotations. "I can't think of any, can you?" says one, to which another official replies: "No." "But for this - BCCI?" appears in the sidelines, written in the hand of Peter Cooke, the head of banking supervision. Mr Pollock will argue this critical exchange fits into a catalogue of alarming internal reports on BCCI, each of which ended in the Bank wringing its hands behind closed doors but ultimately shirking its regulatory responsibilities. He is likely to stop short of direct criticism of Lord Bingham, but his remarks may, at the very least, call into question the fullness of information supplied by the Bank to the Bingham inquiry. A string of other internal memos make clear the Bank's state of panic. In 1982 BCCI was described as "on its way to becoming the financial equivalent of the SS Titanic!". Another paper from the same year insists BCCI's status as a Luxembourg bank "has always been something of a fiction ... I believe it would be wrong for us to continue to allow a large international banking group to carry on business on a largely unsupervised basis". The following year yet another Bank analyst wrote a report on BCCI entitled "Why action is now urgently required". It suggested the Bank was left with "two basic choices": to close BCCI down or to insist it be redesignated a UK bank, under full Bank of England supervision. Later memos, Mr Pollock may suggest, show shades of cowardice behind the Bank's intransigence. "It is hard to see how we can to other than turn a blind eye ... since we have accepted [BCCI] up to now," wrote one Bank official as the charade of BCCI's Luxembourg status wore increasingly thin. Mr Cooke himself even described the late BCCI chairman Agha Abedi as "the living personification of Uriah Heep". In its defence, the Bank is expected to claim that such remarks, when read in context, do not amount to a call for BCCI to be shut down. It will accept that grave mistakes were made, but will insist there was no dishonesty involved. The Bank is likely to concede there had been internal exchanges over whether to designate BCCI a British or an overseas bank, but will characterise such discussions as fleeting and academic, with little or no bearing on the final - albeit mistaken - decision to declare BCCI a Luxembourg bank. If the high-profile case is likely to be damaging for the Bank of England's reputation, despite being stripped of its role as banking regulator since 1997, it may also prove awkward for Gordon Brown. As shadow chancellor following the collapse of BCCI, he was savage in his criticism of the Bank. "The Bank of England's so-called 'light hand' has made it a soft touch for a crooked bank," he told the Commons in 1992. "Are we not paying a heavy price for the free-for-all of the 1980s which denied regulation its proper place in the management of our financial institutions?" He went on to ask if the then Conservative government had sought the resignation of the Bank's governor, Sir Eddie. Since his move to the Treasury, however, the chancellor's indignation may well have cooled. Not least because of legal concerns over what precedent any payout by a state regulator might set. It is thought the BCCI case will be closely watched, for example, by Equitable Life policyholders, who may be considering building a similar case against the Financial Services Authority. Deloitte has so far recouped 75% of depositors' losses, having won settlements from the likes of Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the sheikh and government of Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates. The liquidators are believed to have told the 6,500 BCCI creditors it represents in Britain that a win against the Bank could bring the recoup figure up to 87% or 88%, while costs involved in a loss would shave less than a percentage point off the existing 75%. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 Now, doesn't this remind you all of the case for war in general and the Niger claim in particular? Tell a lie and then claim it was all a misunderstanding? Then the inquiry comes along You know what happened at the Bank of England, but do you know why? You know that the Bank of England acted in bad faith, but do you know why it was dishonest? You know that Lord Bingham covered-up this dishonesty, but do you know why? Would you be interested to know that the institutional bad faith exhibited by the Bank of England is in fact a part of a mosaic of transcendental dishonesty and corruption, ranging from Lloyds of London to the invasion of Iraq? Transcendental dishonesty and corruption that is, in point of fact, perfectly legal under English law. “There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge”

by **emad** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 11:42 am

My sources on BCCI: I am an expert witness in the BCCI London class action at the Royal Courts of Justice. In 1990 I was one of several UK based journos who provided extensive testimony to Bob Morgenthau's US investigation that resulted eventually in its operations being closed down. We handed over our data bases and contacts registers for BCCI in the UK, Europe, Middle East and Asia. I am of course aware of the UN Security Council moves that resulted in Democrat Senator John Kerry being briefed extensively re BCCI in USA and the Carribean and the contribution he made to Morgenthau's ultimate successful closure in the US> As you may know, the successful US operation that closed down BCCI was the result of the initial domino-effect started in London where BCCI was headquartered. The first ripple started when BCCI London General Manager John Hilberry was questioned by City of London cops in 1988 re his connections to organised crime viz the 1983 Brinks Matt bullion scam (£26 million gold ingot heist) and the July1986 'disappearance' of London estate agent Suzy Lamplugh (an alias for renegade MI5 junior officer Maria Gelli). Hilberry eventually did a plea bargain re what he knew about BCCI offshore financial conduits that implicated shareholder/directors it its ultimate parent company in the Carribean the International Credit and Investment Corporation (ICIC) . The 1981 edition of the Middle East Financial Directory (published in London by Middle East Economic Digest) listed these shareholder/directors as being one John Gelli, Richard McGarrach Helms, Robert Maxwell and James R Bath. Hilberry's plea bargain may have cost him his life as although he managed to winkle out a witness protection programme out of MI5 and UK Terrorist Branch that included a new ID, passport, financial support and foreign residence that appeared to hold good for a number of years, he was tracked down and shot dead in London on a rare trip back home to collect items believed to have been stored in a bank deposit box in North London that may not have been disclosed to UK cops. As I understand it this item may well have been a fuller copy of the list of bank accounts, sort codes, transaction records, credit cards, phone numbers and PO Box addresses relating to the director/shareholders of ICIC. For many years I worked firstly as a UK/US constitutional lawyer and then as an author/writer/broadcaster + publisher/journalist specialising in researching cold war corruption scams particularly in the Middle East. As a hobby I would trawl the press cuttings section of the British Library and copy anything that related to financial corruption. The result of that is many thousands of hours worth of material published in UK mainstream press since the early 1950s that relates to cold war corruption initiated by the KGB, particularly as its main thrust into Western public life following the Cuban missile debacle and the assasination of JFK in 1963. I have collated all this material including that sourced from the UN Library, the Royal Archives at Windsor, the UK's Public Records Office (prior to 1997) and the US Congress Library and have collarated with a number of fellow journos/former intelligence specialists/archivists and historians to publish it all under one cover: 'Who's Who in World Corruption' (Cold War edition and Follow Up edition). The material will go on the internet shortly. Some copyright issues under the UK's 30-year rule have meant that we have had to delay our initial publication target of last year. But we are now pretty confident of an imminent launch date within a matter of a few weeks. All the material that I have posted about re the KGB's infiltration of the Vatican and of high public office - especially in the UK and the US - will be included and is sourced from previously published articles, features and news items. The vast majority of these have been systematically excised from internet archives - including four major UK stories from early 2000 relating how Blair used the scare of the 'Millenium Bug' to hire IT specialists to erase all such material from the internet, especially anything relating to Bush 1, Bush2, himself and a pedophile ring operated by the KGB since the early 1960s. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=emad@rigorousintuition>emad</A> at: 7/28/05 11:12 am

by **emad** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:36 pm

I have posted on this excellent website some of the background material I have referred to: See: Calvi: "murder commissioned in Poland" <a href="http://p097.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm10.showMessage?topicID=22.topic">p097.ezboard.com/frigorou...D=22.topic</a> Lawsuit accuses Vatican Bank of role in World War II crimes <a href="http://p097.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm7.showMessage?topicID=572.topic">p097.ezboard.com/frigorou...=572.topic</a> HSBC: From my observations of the BCCI saga I have noted that the London class action has taken some 12 years to bring to open trial in the UK and shows that a huge effort has been made by security/intelligence services to keep the spotlight on this particular scam. Best guess is that it works on the premise that "if the Bank of Enlgand - the financial arm of the UK Treasury's role in British Government - didn't know about which crooks in public office, security/intelligence, military and political admin were corrupt during the Cold War, then they couldn't have know which ones were corrupt then and after the fall of the Soviet Union in corruption scams involving China". In previous posts I have referred to how John Bond (now Sir John Bond, CEO of HSBC, the parent company of the former UK-based Midland Bank) acted as the personal bank manager for the UK-based Polish Catholic Order of the Marian Fathers, who stole a vast portfolio of assets belonging to a well known US/UK owner. And how that portfolio was laundered via Banco Ambrosiano straight into Cardinal Marcinkus's coffers at the Vatican Bank, which collapsed with massive debts shortly after Ambrosiano fell and Calvi was murdered. And how illegal loans raised on that portfolio led to those bankruptcies, which have remained shielded by corrupt US politicians chiefly 'George Herbert Bush' who gave Marcinkus immunity from prosecution over 20 years ago because he said Calvi was depressed and clearly topped himself. John Bond has implemented a vicious programme of banking acquisitions that have almost erased the cold war trail or corrupt financial practises that swelled HSBC's coffers and acted as the ultimate trophy for the Chinese when Hong Kong reverted to their jurisdiction in 1999. But at the heart of HSBC's dilemma is its connection to series of dodgy deals initiated by the US's Carlyle Group - by George Herbet Bush and by John Major, ex-UK PM - that bankrolled Russian oligarchs in the 1990s and saw the rise to immense wealth of Mikhali Khodorkowsky and Roman Abramovich. Bond is yet another cold war plant, a body-double who is from the Freeman family - a brother of Robert Maxwell, the blood-father of Cherie Blair. EDIT: logging on again to resume. His lengthy relationship with Edmond Safra RIP - who died in a mysterious fire in Monaco in 1999 for which nurse Ted Maher received a custodial sentence for manslaughter - was a matter of intense speculation by UK spooks who periodically realleged that Bond smoothed the way to overcome political obstacles that enabled Safra to purchase Republic New York Corporation. That HSBC was then able to buy Republic and Safra Holdings off Safra is hardly surprising. SNIP: "In 1992 HSBC purchased Midland Bank at £3.9 billion. Mr Safra praised HSBC's chairman, Mr Bond, as "One of the very few great global bankers," adding that "I am pleased to entrust to him the banks I dedicated my life to building." AND: "HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) is to buy Republic New York Corporation and its sister company Safra Republic Holdings for $10.3 billion (£6.3 billion) - its biggest-ever foreign take-over of an American bank. The deal adds $71 billion to HSBC's $483 billion assets, making it the third largest bank in the world, behind Citigroup and Bank America. However, Republic is also precisely the type of midsized American bank that analysts expect to be the focus of the next wave of mergers and acquisitions. Both Republic New York Corporation and Safra Republic Holdings are part of the banking empire of reclusive Edmond Safra, who stands to make about $2.9 billion from the sale. He set up Republic New York Corporation in 1966 as a community bank with 55 employees. " SEE: Safra Sells His Banking Interests <a href="http://www.dangoor.com/72page21.html">www.dangoor.com/72page21.html</a> Of particular interest is the vast wealth inherited by Safra's widow Lilly. This is her THIRD husband that has died in mysterious but convenient circumstances. A previous one from Brazil committed suicide by shooting himself at point blank range in the head. Twice, that is. Lilly Safra is a total con. She is the mother of the cold war KGB plant who is currently enacting the role of 'Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall, wife of Prince Charles'. As background material to what MAY be awaiting Bond and his corrupt HSBC emire is this stroy from the UK's London Evening Standard: KHODORKOVSKY WAS CIA TARGET: 2 June 2005 MIKHAIL Khodorkovsky, the former oil magnate jailed by a Moscow court for nine years for fraud and tax evasion, was the target of an undercover operation by America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which believed he was involved in a huge money-laundering operation by the Russian mafia and ex-KGB officers. America has condemned the prosecution of Khodorkovsky, accusing Russia of 'back-sliding' on democracy, but the undercover CIA operation against him suggests the US government is being hypocritical because it had also regarded him with great suspicion. Finance and defence consultant Karon von Gerhke-Thompson has given a detailed account of the CIA operation to a congressional committee investigating Russian corruption. She says the investigation began after she was introduced to Alexandre Konanykhine, who was close to then Russian President Boris Yeltsin. 'He represented himself to be the US vice-president of Menatep Bank, a bank owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky,' Gerhke-Thompson told the US House of Representatives banking and financial committee. According to Gerhke-Thompson, Konanykhine needed her help to set up an offshore bank for Menatep and buy 100 passports for 'preferred clients'. He also wanted 15 diplomatic passports 'at any cost for very, very special clients of Menatep'. 'He wanted to establish the bank and obtain the naturalised passports from a Latin American or Caribbean country that offered unrestricted [transfers] of capital and stringent bank secrecy laws.' He wanted the passports to 'enable Menatep's clients to travel freely into eastern and western European countries to manage their assets and business investments'. Gerhke-Thompson was suspicious and 'telephoned a senior official with the CIA', she refers to as 'Mr Z'. She was further contacted by another CIA official known as 'Mr V'. 'Without identifying Konanykhine or Khodorkovsky by name, Mr Z informed me that the CIA was very interested in obtaining intelligence on their activities,' she said. The CIA asked Gerhke-Thompson to work for Konanykhine from April 1993. 'I volunteered my services as an unpaid intelligence asset to the CIA on a CIA operation to penetrate what the CIA, FBI and Department of Justice knew was a KGB money-laundering operation with tentacles that reached in the Kremlin to Boris Yeltsin,' she said. 'The CIA believed that financial aid from the US and international lending institutions to support Russia's transition was being laundered through front firms into offshore banks. A substantial amount of the laundered money was believed to be in safe havens in offshore banks or was used to establish offshore businesses and joint venture partnerships with Western firms.' 'According to Mr V, Konanykhine and Khodorkovsky were key players to unravelling the ties between the KGB, senior government officials and Russian organised crime families.' Gerhke-Thompson said her role for the CIA was eventually compromised by American double agent Aldrich Ames. She said a CIA officer told her that after Ames had blown her cover, she would be killed or arrested if she travelled to Russia. Congressional sources say Konanykhine denied the claims and was granted political asylum in America after saying the Russian mafia wanted to kill him. Khodorkovsky reportedly sought a meeting in 2001 with Condoleezza Rice, but was rebuffed. The CIA operation may explain why. Yukos declined to comment on the CIA operation. ©2005 Associated New Media | Terms | Privacy policy <a href="http://www.thisislondon.com/news/business/articles/timid400994?source=This%20is%20Money">www.thisislondon.com/news...is%20Money</a> I maintain that if for 12 years the CIA said nothing about monitoring THIS particular scam, then that may have given it the perfect cover for being able to say it knew nothing else of KGB scams worldwide. And that this may be the cover story for their undoubted deep intelligence about Russian involvement in the Saddam Oil-for-Fraud UN scam and Dumbo/Poodle's IRAQ WMD intelligence fiasco. Hope that's been of some use to you.... Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=emad@rigorousintuition>emad</A> at: 7/28/05 11:07 am

by **dbeach** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 1:23 pm

THANX EMAD And please do stay mad..mad as in anger at the injustice inflicted upon humanity by an elite satanic ruling gang of aristorats..hell bent on bringing HELL to the planet.. our planet..our mother earth not owned by busheviks,bliar or stinking KGB or CIA or chinese SS or whatever.. all in on their big secret gig to sacrifice humanity! King George Bush the second = KGB II

by **hmm** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:18 pm

and this is indeed a most excellent site. I had not read about your personal involvement in the BCCI class action and while i have been a press-addict for quite a while i wont pretend to have your level of experience. I really look forward to the launch of your site because quality writing and good sourcing is often missing from discussions of this kind.And your posts are very helpful and informative. I do remember much of what you relate but i hadnt made the connection between this and Edmond Safra for example,and i cant understand i dont remember helms & baths involvement for obvious reasons. I want to make clear i am not faulting your expertise or research or calling into question many of the excellent connections you have been making if anything it is that which makes it interesting for me to discuss it further and because except for a few conclusions i dont understand i am "with you".So if it does interest you too i'll talk away.. To me it is a logical conclusion that if you accept the minor revelations of the church and pike committee,if you accept that the FOIA documents that have trickled out from America are the the tip of the iceberg then by definition the majority of facts in our media that relate to the KGB is elaborate propaganda.The books are out there detailing precisely how far this went during the cold war.And i dont see how the collapse of the soviet union would mean a sudden end to this by MI5 and the CIA and others. You only have to read Philip Agee's 1975 book "Inside the Company: CIA Diary" (the seminal cia book?) for a deadly boring yet chillingly comprehensive account of what i mean. so when i look at your research and what would be a more left-ist reading of history and the para-political, BCCI is a mirror of nugen hand bank,and anything called "KGB" after the collapse of the soviet union has little to do with "communists under your bed" and anyone that had worked for the KGB and wanted to be a player became part of this nexus i spoke of in my previous post. BCCI was financing Islamic extremism against the soviet union at the behest of the cia with the collusion of arab puppet states. Why does everything para-political you touch end up with the same names and always when you scratch a little deeper the cia?I mean everything from the end of WWII on. Everywhere you follow the money it leads back to the military-industrial-complex and the "elites". The oligarchs,not just in the former soviet union,they are not ordinary people in any traditional sense, that have loyalty to their country,they hold multiple passports,move money at will. Every entity involved is a capitalist one. After the collapse of the soviet union the cia moved in,any kgb moles that had no future use where outed,there where quite a few cases in the media. Just like after WWII the nazi machine was not destroyed it was turned and exploited,why would they change a winning tactic.You can still see this when you really take a look at who the current security forces are in Iraq,its the worst of Saddam's henchmen combined with private militia's of powerful expatriots. HSBC is such a good example because you only have to look at its birth to understand that bank.And after the collapse of BCCI it was HSBC that blossomed. Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The name alone is fascinating,to us hong kong means "fragrant harbor", but to the chinese the hong mean something very different.And much more sinister. The hongs,the foreign trading houses that set up business in china wel before marx and lenin were born,they made their money smuggling drugs and anything else that made money.This was in the late 18th century.Part of the reason for the success of communism in china is due to the groundwork laid by the exploitation of the chinese by these hongs Same old white elites exploiting “inferior” people,with the collusion of a few tamed colaborators as we have seen everwhere in the world, with the middle class kept just happy enough with trinkets and the everpresent fear of the “otherman” as the stick to go with the poisoned carrot. Many of the bogeymen sold to us in the war on communism started out fighting the elites that control the news,.many of the bogeymen from the war on drugs turned out to be cia assets. Many past terrorists are now recognised as part of a “strategy of tension” from a leftist reading of history bush is not news its just the mask is off for all to see. It cant give a complete history of the world in a post on a board but i think it explains how your evidence fits in with my worldview even if your conclusions seems the opposite That or any differences where pure semantics? a link: agee's book is a must read,names names lots of names,many died,most hated man in the cia and by the elder bush.The edition i had listed organisations and names in the back,most educational part.ITwas published in 1975 Why could he publish and live?Print the whole truth and they cant stop it and killing you only makes it true,this is what Decamp claimed William Colby, retired head of the cia, told him.Decamp published and he's alive,Cobly died after a midnight canoe trip in 1996. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0883730286/103-1464831-5183006?v=glance">www.amazon.com/exec/obido...6?v=glance</a>

by **rain** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:08 am

"Although the Portugese led the way into China (the Portugese colony of Macao was established in 1535), Britain's East India Company was the dominant China trader by the mid-eighteenth century. By 1750 tea had become the fashionable drink in Britain. The East India Company spent 4 million pounds a year, and the average Londoner expended 5 per cent of the household budget on China tea. Because China had little interest in European goods, the East India Company had to pay for tea in silver so that the balance of trade ran heavily against the company. After 1773 when the company gained an Indian monopoly on the cultivation of the opium poppy, it began to use opium to balance its China trade. In spite of imperial edicts forbidding its sale and use, the ready supply created a keen demand and opium smoking became fashionable in southern China. By 1938 even labourers were soking opium and there were between 2 million and 10 million addicts in southern China. Chinese attempts to curb the trade, together with the Emperor's insistence that the British conform to the tribute system of foreign relations, led to the conflict in 1839. The obsolete Chinese weapons were no match for British gunnery, and the Chinese were forced to sign the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. The conditions of the Treaty meant that: -China paid an indemnity of $21 million. -the ports of Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen(Amoy), Fuzhou(foochow), Ningbo(Ningpo) and Shanhai were opened to foreign trade -China ceded Hong Kong to the British. Similar concessions were granted to the United States (Treaty of Wongxiu) and France(Treaty of Huangpu) in 1844. These treaties created privileged foreign enclaves which acted as bases for western economic and religious penetration of China." excerpt from The Long Revolution. Terry Buggy. 1988. next up - 'slicing the melon'.

by **emad** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:23 am

(who never fails to amaze me with her dogged sleuthing of corruption and instinct for political humbuggery). hmm: That Agee book is excellent, I agree. And thanks for your lengthy reply. Just waiting now to source a story linking Caspar Weinberger, former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten, Edmond Safra and HSBC's John Bond to financial consultancy payments initiated by the Carlyle Group in 1996/1998 on behalf of an advisory consortium chaired by Ken Lay that investigated the viability of Russian gas fields in disputed Chinese/Russian/Japanese waters. Will post when I get hold of something juicy. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=emad@rigorousintuition>emad</A> at: 7/29/05 10:00 am

Tuesday WH Briefing: John Roberts and Iran-Contra

Tuesday WH Briefing: John Roberts and Iran-Contra

Re: Tuesday WH Briefing: John Roberts and Iran-Contra

Sir Caspar Weinberger

Re:Sir Caspar Weinberger - Iran/Contra is a synonym for BCCI

Re: Re:Sir Caspar Weinberger - Iran/Contra is a synonym for

Re: Re:Sir Caspar Weinberger - Iran/Contra is a synonym for

Re: good you mention HSBC although if your source on BCCI

From Lawrence Walsh's "Firewall":

Iran/Contra - The British Contribution

Re: good you mention HSBC although if your source on BCCI

Re: good you mention HSBC/ if your BCCI: ADDENDUM

Re: good you mention HSBC/ if your BCCI: ADDENDUM

Re: i thank you for taking the time for a reply of this kind

'hong' - business as usual

Thankx very much hmm, dbeach, rain & seemslikeadream

Who is online