Hmmmm...
In short, Kerry chased every Republican will-o'-the-wisp, but only stumbled over BCCI. And when a continued investigation treatened his own party, he began to go slow. This would explain his readiness to drop an investigation that he had originally hoped would make his name, just when it was finally on point of coming up with the goods.
But there is also evidence that the fall of BCCI would have hurt Kerry's career directly. Clark Clifford, Robert Altman, and another law partner donated $4,000 to Senator Kerry and $1,000 to Senator Pell in early 1989--long after Clifford visited Kerry as BCCI's lawyear-lobbyist, long after Kerry had heard of the secret links between Clifford and BCCI. Insight's Eric Felton makes the additional point that Senator Kerry's impropriety-- receiving a donation from someone under suspicion in his own investigating--cannot be put down to botched staff communications: Kerry met Clifford at the fundraising party Pamela Harriman threw to kick off his 1989--90 re-election campaign, so he was presumably alerted to the possibility of a contribution.
Moreover, for the 1987-88 election cycle Kerry served as Chairman of the Democratic Senational Campaign Committee (DSCC), the Senate Democrats' very own political-action committee. In that capacity, he appointed David L. Paul, the head of CenTrust, a high-flying Florida savings and loan, as head of the DSCC's Majority Trust--the private-sector "partner" who could deliver the money.
CenTrust donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats in PAC money alone. In addition, I have discovered that the "non-political" CenTrust Foundation also poured cash into Democratic coffers, including $100,000 to the now notorious (Jimmy) Carter Center (of which $50,000 came from Pharaon and was merely laundered through CenTrust) and $25,000 in 1989 to Senator Alan Cranston's Center for Participation in Democracy, also the prime beneficiary of Cranston's friendship with Charles Keating. Beginning in January 1989, CenTrust also paid $48,000 to DSCC finance chairman Steven Wilson under the heading "overcoming regulatory issues" with federal bank investigators. In January 1989, Wilson donated $1,000 to Senator Kerry.
David Paul was personally very much involved in this largesse. He threw fundraisers for the Democrats on his thrift's $67-million yacht. He gave them free rises on his corporate jet. And, in an event extraordinary even for what Democrats call the Decade of Greed, he invited Senators John Kerry and Wyche Fowler (a Georgia Democrat and another friend of CenTrust) to his December 1988 French Chefs gala dinner, for which six chefs were flows in from Paris to provide a feast costing $123,000--all expenses paid by CenTrust.
So, as a senator running for re-election, John Kerry received donations directly from Clark Clifford, who was a BCCI attorney and former chairman of a bank secretly and illegally owned by BCCI. As chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, he raised funds in close cooperation with David Paul, whose thrift was deeply enmeshed with BCCI. As a subcommittee chairman, Kerry proved dilatory in following up indications that BCCI was an international rogue.
Senator Kerry is an extremely luckly man. If he were a Republican, all this might amount to a scandal.
Thanks for the post -- it clears up a lot.