Free Republic

The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion. (ABC News Photo Illustration)The Saudi businessman was also named in a 2002 French parliamentary report as having links to...

"Clark is a wonderful fellow. In a day when many are seeking a reward for what they contributed to the return of the Democrats to the White House, you don't hear Clark clamoring. All he asked in return was that we advertise his law firm on the backs of one-dollar bills." -- John F. Kennedy on Washington lobbyist and ex-Truman aide Clark Clifford What can one say? Is there any wonder Tea Party supporters think they are always in danger of being played? In a Republican Establishment shell game. Sunday's New York Times Magazine brought a long cud-chewer titled "Does...

To understand what feeds former president Jimmy Carter's anti-Israeli frenzy, look at his early links to Arab business. Between 1976-1977, the Carter family peanut business received a bailout in the form of a $4.6 million, "poorly managed" and highly irregular loan from the National Bank of Georgia (NBG). According to a July 29, 1980 Jack Anderson expose in The Washington Post, the bank's biggest borrower was Mr. Carter, and its chairman at that time was Mr. Carter's confidant, and later his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Bert Lance.

INVESTIGATOR: During a Senate Whitewater hearing in 1995, Sen. John Kerry held up the briefcase that contained Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster's torn-up suicide note. LUC NOVOVITCH/REUTERS/FILE WASHINGTON - One criticism of John Kerry's early Senate investigations was that, in his own words, they "looked at strange and nefarious types that people did not take seriously." On Oct. 24, 1991, that rap ended. On the other side of the witness table in the vast Hart Senate hearing room was seated Washington powerbroker Clark Clifford - a man who'd played poker with Winston Churchill and advised every Democratic president since...

Well, how convenient it is to be a congressman. No wonder incumbents hate to leave. Sen. John Kerry proved the point last week with the release of his subcommittee's report on the BCCI scandal. The Bank of England fell down on the job, as did American bank regulators, according to the Massachusetts Democrat. The CIA is gravely at fault as well for maintaining covert accounts with the so-called Bank of Crooks and Criminals International. The Justice Department, instead of pursuing wrongdoing by the global bank, got in the way of other investigators. Price Waterhouse, the major accounting firm, was slipshod...