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January 23, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/fugitive012309.htm Possible Sighting of FBI Fugitive in British Columbia The FBI is working with Canadian authorities to confirm the possible sighting of one of its Domestic Terrorism fugitives. Last November, the Bureau announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of four eco-terrorists known as “The Family.” Rebecca Rubin, one of the four fugitives, was spotted by a tipster who may have seen her near her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia. We received several tips about all of the fugitives as a result of the publicity. Some of...

Geithner's risky oversight of CitigroupBy JEFF GERTH - PROPUBLICA | 1/14/09 12:39 PM EST As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Timothy Geithner often preached that gargantuan financial firms like Citigroup should be held to the highest regulatory standards to make sure they couldn’t take on too much risk. But when it came to supervising Citigroup in recent years, the record shows that the New York Fed eased the reins as the company blew billions on subprime mortgages and other risky deals that ultimately forced the biggest bank rescue in U.S. history. **SNIP** Geithner’s tenure at the New...

Governor Bill Richardson says it's all a matter of timing -- that if only the feds had wrapped up a corruption investigation into his New Mexico Administration by now, he'd be cleared and would be winging his way to Washington confident of Senate confirmation as the next Commerce Secretary. Instead, he withdrew his nomination earlier this week. And maybe he's right about timing. But we'd dial the clock back not to August, as the national media have in clucking that Barack Obama has a sloppy vetting process. Rather, go back to December 7, 2006. That's the day the Bush Justice...

Two high-profile culprits in a pair of colossal economic scandals bit the dust yesterday.... * Robert Rubin, Clinton's onetime Treasury secretary, resigned as senior counselor at Citigroup. * Madoffian J. Ezra Merkin resigned as GMAC Financial Services Chairman, effective immediately. Rubin architected risky debt strategy that brought once-great Citi to its knees, costing it $20 billion in losses the past year alone. ....shares fell to 10% of as Rubin was collecting $115 million in salary - plus stock options. Now America's taxpayers are forced to bail out Citigroup to the tune of $45 billion in cash and $306 billion in...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary, resigned from Citigroup Inc on Friday, following months of criticism of his performance at the giant U.S. bank. Rubin, 70, is stepping down immediately as senior counselor at New York-based Citigroup. He will remain a director until the bank's annual meeting later this year. Rubin joined Citigroup in 1999. In a letter to Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, Rubin praised management for making the "tough decisions" to restore Citigroup to health, following $20.3 billion of losses in the year ended Sept 30. But he admitted to not having foreseen the credit...

Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary who has been sharply criticized over his role in the financial turmoil at Citigroup Inc., plans to leave the bank and has submitted a letter of resignation, according to a person familiar with the situation.

“Pay to Play” keeps getting better everyday: President-elect Barack Obama took big money from a man at the center of a federal probe that has forced one of Obama’s top Cabinet picks to withdraw. Financial records show the Obama campaign got more than $30,000 from California financier David Rubin, the target of an investigation into donations and possible “pay-to-play” deals involving New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama’s pick for commerce secretary. ~~~ In late September, Rubin attended an exclusive Los Angeles fundraiser for Obama, held at the Beverly Hills’ Greystone Mansion.

<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. - A campaign donor who is the target of an federal investigation that forced New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to withdraw from consideration for U.S. Commerce secretary also gave to Gov. Ed Rendell's campaigns and was a generous supporter of the Democratic Party and President-elect Barack Obama.</p>

Was Fast Eddie Rendell involved? http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2009/01/07/top_stories/doc49643cc4b4c99010131027.txt

HARRISBURG -- Gov. Ed Rendell was not aware the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency awarded a no-bid contract in 2003 to a California company headed by a member of his transition team for the Department of Revenue, his spokesman said Tuesday. Since then, CDR Financial Products has collected nearly $600,000 as a financial adviser to the housing agency, according to figures provided by Brian Hudson, the agency's executive director. Its current contract is for $45,000, Hudson said. CDR's president, David Rubin, donated $35,000 to Rendell's campaigns -- $20,000 of it in 2002, state records show.

A businessman who is entangled in the grand jury inquiry into possible "pay-to-play" schemes in the New Mexico government has also contributed heavily to Democrats, including Barack Obama. Rubin and his company donated $100,000 in 2003-2004 to the political committees of Richardson. The contributions came both before and after Rubin's company won a state contract in New Mexico to help finance $1.4 billion for highway and transportation projects, a contract that brought $1.5 million in business for the company, CDR Financial Products.

The Clinton scandals started very early in his administration, but not before there was an administration. Obama's fundraising was completely corrupt, with funds taken in from overseas and from fictitious donors like "Good Will." Once these probes get rolling, not only will Bill Richardson have some explaining to do, the Messiah may have to tell the American people exactly what he knew and when he knew about his own crooked fundraising scheme.

The Obama transition team was aware of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's relationship with the firm currently being investigated, CDR Financial Products, because Richardson had introduced the firm's founder, David Rubin, to Obama fundraisers during the Democrat convention in Denver last August. Richardson withdrew his name from nomination for Commerce Secretary due to a grand jury investigation into possible financial dealings between his New Mexico administration and Rubin's firm, CDR Financial. But it isn't just Obama and Richardson that Rubin has ties to. According to federal law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation, federal officials are also looking into CDR's...

Sixteen appointees and advisers helping president-elect Barack Obama's Justice Department transition efforts all recently sat on the board of an organization little known outside legal circles: The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. The liberal legal network, which blossomed during eight years of Democratic exile, counts as its veterans Obama’s choice for attorney general, Eric Holder: Vice President-elect Joe Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain; and future White House Staff Secretary Lisa Brown. Seven other recent board members are advising the incoming administration on legal, education, and labor-related issues. Theresa Wynn Roseborough is rumored to be a top candidate...

A new Citigroup scandal is engulfing Robert Rubin and his former disciple Chuck Prince for their roles in an alleged Ponzi-style scheme that's now choking world banking. Director Rubin and ousted CEO Prince - and their lieutenants over the past five years - are named in a federal lawsuit for an alleged complex cover-up of toxic securities that spread across the globe, wiping out trillions of dollars in their destructive paths.

In one of the most ill-advised pieces of PR I can remember, Bob Rubin has given an on-the-record interview to the WSJ, in which he takes no blame or responsibility for anything which has gone wrong at Citigroup (C). The reaction in the blogosphere has been, predictably, swift and brutal, helped along by the fact that Rubin's famous charm clearly hasn't worked on his interviewers, Ken Brown and David Enrich. Here's their lede: Under fire for his role in the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc., Robert Rubin said its problems were due to the buckling financial system, not its own mistakes,...

Former U.S. Treasury secretary Robert Rubin said the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), where he is a senior counselor, was due to the buckling financial system and not his own mistakes, according to an interview published on The Wall Street Journal's website on Friday. Rubin, who is also a director at Citigroup, acknowledged he was involved in a board decision to ramp up risk-taking in 2004 and 2005, according to the paper, and said if executives had executed the plan properly, the bank's losses would have been less. The Journal said Rubin has earned $115...

NEW YORK - Just in time for Valentine's Day, The New York Times today delivered a remarkable front-page bouquet to Robert Rubin, in the form of an unusually generous assessment of the former Treasury secretary's attempted string-pulling on Enron's behalf.

Another Sunday night, another ad hoc bank rescue rooted in no discernible principle. U.S. taxpayers, who invested $25 billion in Citigroup last month, will now pour in another $20 billion in exchange for preferred shares paying an 8% dividend. Taxpayers will also help insure $306 billion of Citi's mortgage-backed securities. Citi will cover the first $29 billion in losses on these toxic assets, and then taxpayers will cover 90% of the rest, in exchange for another $7 billion in preferred. Dilution for Citigroup investors? Yesterday's 58% pop in the bank's share price suggests the bailout is a good deal for...

If our Washington, D.C., readers noticed a cortege of blue suits carrying a casket in front of the Brookings Institution last week, be not mournful. You were merely watching the leading economists of the Democratic Party burying the faith once known as Rubinomics. May it rest in peace. Rubinomics...Lower the federal budget deficit and, as dawn follows night, interest rates will fall and prosperity will break upon the land... Mr. Rubin's successor at Treasury, Larry Summers, started the bidding with a $65 billion tax rebate and spending plan. Hillary Clinton saw that and raised, and now wants $40 billion in...