Roger Tamraz, an international fugitive from Interpol, donated $177,000 to Democrats and the DNC through his companies and attended several White House dinners and coffees in 1995-1996. Tamraz is a former financier wanted, according to a 1989 Interpol warrant, in Lebanon for embezzling $200 million from his failed bank. On June 2, 1995, Tamraz was briefed by a National Security Council (NSC) expert on Russia at the same time he was negotiating a multibillion-dollar deal to build a pipeline from oil reserves from the Caspian Sea to Turkey through Azerbaijan and Armenia. On July 26, Tamraz contributed $20,000 to the DNC. After the meeting occurred, then-DNC Party Chairman Don Fowler called an NSC official to try to overturn a recommendation that Tamraz not attend high-level White House meetings. Tamraz went on to attend four more White House events with Clinton which included receptions, dinners and the premiere of the movie "Independence Day." Tamraz, through his New York-based oil company, gave $50,000 to the DNC after going to a DNC sponsored White House reception on Sept. 11, 1995, and a dinner four days later. In October, Tamraz contributed another $100,000 at the direction of the DNC to the Virginia Democrat Party using his Tamoil Inc., company. Tamraz also had coffee with Gore on Oct. 5, 1995, and with Clinton on April 1, 1996.
Hey Doug, anything in here useful to the current court case (Paul)?
Actually it is a little, I figured it was posted by Pissant.
What’s worse, the guy decided to make the investigation into an advertisement for campaign finance reform instead of sticking to the investigation of China’s and the DNC’s malfeasance.
It was a pretty weak showing, when you get rings run around you by senile old fools like John Glenn.
As I recall, after all it was 10 years ago, Fred wound up between a rock and a hard place with uncooperative or fleeing witnesses, etc.
Although House Democrats have hardly been united in recent days, some are still capable of acting in unison. One excellent example: the Dems of Armed Services Committee, all 28 of them, have banded together to push panel chairman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) to reinstate a special subcommittee dedicated to oversight and investigations of the Pentagon.
The panel was shut down under the Republicans, they say, and it's high time to restart it. Hunter, however, is mightily resisting the idea.
Any wonder why? Set aside his own troubles as a target in the Cunningham fraud investigation. According to POGO, Hunter -- who's never been a particularly toothy watchdog of Pentagon activities -- has for several years co-owned a cabin in rural Virginia with a Rumsfeld confidante and senior Pentagon official.
For the past five years, Preston M. “Pete” Geren III has been kind of a top-shelf fix-it guy for Rumsfeld, POGO's Jason Vest reports. From 2001 to 2005, Hunter's co-homeowner was a special assistant to the Defense Secretary whose duties included "keeping Congress off Rumsfeld's back," according to one of Vest's anonymous sources. In particular, Geren is said to have been tasked with quashing Hill interest in the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Since then, Geren served briefly as secretary of the Air Force before taking the job of Undersecretary of the Army in February.
With friends like these, Hunter may wonder, who needs oversight?
___________________________________________________________
It has been nearly five months since Justice Department prosecutors working the Duke Cunningham corruption case first requested information from three key House committees. To date, they haven't got a scrap of paper in return, nor a single interview with a staffer, Roll Call's John Bresnahan reports today.
In May, if you recall, anonymous Hill denizens whined to the media that if they really tried to comply, Congress would "shut down."
DoJ wants information stretching back to 1997, and requests that broad could lead them to knock on many new doors. Independent reports have already confirmed that as offshoots of the Cunningham probe, the DoJ is looking into Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Katherine Harris (R-FL), and possibly others, as well as former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) -- and, of course, Cunningham himself.
___________________________________________________________ Wanna smell something fishy?
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) -- one of the five lawmakers known to be under investigation as part of the Cunningham scandal -- is forcing the Pentagon to spend nearly $26 million on a giant killer catamaran, "despite strong objections from the Navy," reports CongressDaily this morning.
That gets us to the water's edge -- but here's the stinking fish smell, courtesy of POGO: The boat is made by Titan Corp., who uses as a lobbyist Letitia White, the former staffer for Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) who now works at the Copeland Lowery lobby firm. (White, Lewis, and the firm are all under scrutiny as part of the Cunningham investigation.)
Hunter has also pushed the Navy to buy $27 million worth of Titan missiles which don't fly right, POGO says. I wonder if the feds are looking into this one?
The recent resignation of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Rancho Santa Fe, has focused the spotlight once again on the reprehensible ways that defense contractors work with lawmakers to win fat contracts for their services, whether they help the nation's defense or not.
Cunningham's bribe-taking was repulsive. But one of the biggest problems in contractors' and congressmen's mutual back-scratching isn't Duke-style corruption. It is what's perfectly legal.
This was underlined by the Union-Tribune article, "Contractor a master of gaining political access," by Dean Calbreath and Jerry Kammer. It detailed how Cunningham and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, worked closely with two local companies – ADCS Inc. of Poway and Audre Inc. of Rancho Bernardo – to make the Pentagon pay for converting printed documents to computer files. They and a few other lawmakers got Congress to allocate $190 million for "automated data conversion" projects from 1993 to 2001.
Did the Pentagon want this "help"? No. As a 1994 General Accounting Office report noted, it already had the tools for such work.
But Cunningham, Hunter and their House allies didn't care. Audre and ADCS were generous with contributions – and ADCS executive Brent Wilkes allegedly was bribing Cunningham. No matter who griped, lawmakers could always add "earmarks" for pet projects to bills and get their way. This led to such absurdities as a $9.7 million contract for ADCS to digitize historical documents from the Panama Canal Zone that the Pentagon considered insignificant.
This isn't governance. This is looting.
Hunter disagrees. In a phone interview, he said there was support within the Pentagon for such projects, citing several official letters praising Audre's technology or endorsing automated document conversion. He said his fighting for contracts to go to San Diego-area firms is what congressmen do.
But the preponderance of evidence shows defense officials objected to document conversion spending and saw it as ridiculous. That should have carried the day – with Hunter or any lawmaker trying to bring home the bacon.
Instead, the prevailing attitude was that when you have hundreds of billions of dollars to divvy up, everyone should get a piece – and if the Joint Chiefs of Staff think the military's bucks should go toward protecting soldiers and not the pointless preservation of old documents, well, tough luck.
This is no way to run a government. Forget the fatalistic argument that pork is an inevitable part of the legislative process. Just once it would be nice to hear a lawmaker declare he wouldn't vote to spend one dime on a military project that the Pentagon didn't request – or hear a president vow to veto every defense spending bill inflated by the legislative looters.
The status quo is revolting. If only it would inspire a voter revolt. A few more stories like the one about Cunningham, Hunter and the document conversion follies, and it just might.
And I didn't even have to go back to 1997!
It is for this rason that I as a Tennessean have not made a Fred committment.
Somebody got to him. Who? why?
Can he be trusted to defeat Hillary?
According to Hunter's insurance carrier, the house was more than twice that size – about 6,200 square feet. The property also featured a 2,000-square-foot guest house, a swimming pool and tennis court.
A county assessor visited the six-bedroom house soon after Hunter bought it and took pictures, the congressman said.
But the home's description wasn't corrected in the property file. The house was reappraised at $249,000 – above the sale price but below its market value.
The discrepancy resulted in Hunter paying less in taxes than others in similar-sized properties, although the amount he saved is not clear. The county relies on square footage, lot size, comparable home sales and other factors to calculate assessments, but does not discuss specific parcels without a release from the homeowner.
Hunter refused to give assessors permission to discuss details about his property with The San Diego Union-Tribune, which has been examining the holdings of public officials since a bribery scandal last year sent former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham to federal prison.[1] Of course Hunter's ties to Randy "Duke" Cunningham are another story altogether, one that I will be looking at in the near future.
But the tax dispute with his home begs the question of whether Hunter can be trusted to execute the laws of our nation when he can't even abide by the laws of his locality?
“It was part of a deal with Trent Lott”
‘Nough said.
http://www.chinagatethemovie.com/whoiswho.html
Fred Thompson
Read the Chinagate Report
from Law & Order star, Senator Fred Thompson
http://www.chinagatethemovie.com/Chinagate_Report_Main.html
A film by John J. McGough
Sandy Berger
Clinton National Security Advisor 1997-2001; Deputy
National Security Advisor 1993-1997; convicted of
mishandling classified material.
Sandy Berger
Ron Brown
Clinton Commerce Secretary, 1993-1996. Investigated for
bribery. Deceased.
Ron Brown
Johnny Chung
DNC fund-raiser; convicted felon; received $300,000
from China’s equivalent of CIA Director for the
Democratic Party.
Johnny Chung
CITIC
Chinese state-owned investment company.
CITIC
Bill Clinton
U.S. President 1993-2001.
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Senator; First Lady 1993-2001.
Hillary Clinton
Christopher Cox
Congressman; Chairman of Cox Report Committee.
Christopher Cox
John Deutch
Clinton CIA Director 1995-1996; pardoned by Clinton for
misuse of classified material.
John Deutch
Louis Freeh
Clinton FBI Director 1993-2001.
Louis Freeh
Al Gore
U.S. Vice President 1993-2001.
Al Gore
John Huang
DNC fund-raiser; Clinton Commerce Dept. official
1993-1995; Lippo Group employee, convicted felon.
John Huang
Maria Hsia
DNC fund-raiser; convicted felon.
Maria Hsia
Hsi Lai Temple
U.S. Buddhist temple; illegally donated money to
Clinton campaign.
Hsi Lai Temple
Hughes
Electronics
U.S. satellite company; fined for illegal transfer of
missile technology to China.
Hughes Electronics
Ji Shengde
Former Chinese General in charge of military
intelligence; donated to Democratic Party; convicted
smuggler.
Ji Shengde
Jiang Zemin
President of China 1993-2003.
Jiang Zemin
Anthony Lake
Clinton National Security Advisor 1993-1997.
Anthony Lake
Lippo Group
Indonesian corporation involved in illegal campaign
donations.
Lippo Group
Liu Chaoying
Chinese Lt. General; executive at Chinese satellite
company.
No picture available
Loral Space &
Communications
U.S. Satellite company; fined for illegal transfer of
missile technology to China.
Hazel O’Leary
Clinton Energy Secretary 1993-1997.
Hazel O’Leary
Poly Technologies
Chinese distributor of military arms.
Janet Reno
Clinton Attorney General 1993-2001.
Janet Reno
James Riady
DNC fund-raiser; convicted felon; son of Lippo Group
owner.
James Riady
Bernard Schwartz
CEO of Loral; largest single donor to Clinton and
Democrats in 1996.
Bernard Schwartz
Ted Sioeng
Indonesian businessman with interests both in the
United States and China.
Ted Sioeng
Fred Thompson
Actor and Senator; possible presidential candidate;
Chairman of Senate Chinagate Committee.
Fred Thompson
Charlie Trie
DNC fund-raiser; convicted for illegal campaign
donations.
Charlie Trie
Wang Jun
Chairman of Poly Technologies and CITIC.
Wang Jun
Mr. Wu
Also known as Ng Lap Seng. Macau businessman with ties
to organized crime; advisor to the Chinese government.
Ng Lap Seng AKA Mr. Wu
A Strategic Partnership