Thanks for the post/ping, Saber ! ...What's that smell? </Twilight Zone Music>
Posted on 03/26/2004 7:52:53 PM PST by Sabertooth
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:46:10 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Could this be why no top dog conservative medium has run with this? Does it all seem to lead nowhere with no real documentation? I really thought this story had legs at first.
That sounds reasonable. Another possibility is that he was threatened and decided to back off but didn't know how else to do it. Maybe it's the Kerry people he wants to deceive. In which case he's decided not to use the material.
Stupid not to do this w/ something so explosive.
Guess no one ever heard of Xerox machines...Or Adobe Acrobat...or scanners...or microfiche files...
Back during the first Bush administration, circa 1987, a southern Illinois farmer applied for a Farmer's Home Administration loan to pick up a piece of property adjoining his that had come up for sale as an estate clearance. He got turned down for the FmHA loan by his local administrator, but another fella made an application for the same piece of property and his loan got approved...and the farmer had a new neighbor. Not too surprisingly, he started checking out the guy who had beat him out of the deal, and found out that he'd not only previously made several similar purchases of farms in locations all over the county, but that on some of them he was either in a partnership with the fella who had denied his application, had cosigned with him, or was the owner of machinery used to work the properties involved.
More digging around the state showed the pair, Fife and Lawless, were engaged in similar operations in several other counties, with multiple holdings in at least a dozen more. Indeed, some were overdue on state taxes, but because of intervention by that county farm agent, the states were letting it accrue to be passed on to the next buyer, in effect, a no-interest loan for those involved that would have to be paid off by a third party. sSince the pair didn't appear to be playing by the book, the farmer who first noticed what was going on notified the IRS that they may also be evading federal income taxes, and let the FBI know that fraud of the FmHA may also be involved. There was an investigation, and the county agent was literally taken out of his office in handcuffs. Lo and behold, a USDA internal investigation showed that the agent had used his office to make a profit for himself, and ordered him terminated. He had his attorney file a Civil Service complaint, which was held before a St Louis area special judge, who ordered that all the records of the investigation be sealed, that the agent was to get his position and back pay back, and that all court records and transcripts of the case were to be destroyed, with an exemption from any FOIA requests to be issued stating that none of the records were available ON NATIONAL SECURITY GROUNDS. But it was done, and that was about that. The pair took a briefcase [airline chart bag] full of hundred-dollar bills and toured the state courthouses, paying off back taxes. The best estimate I heard of it was that it came to over a quarter million dollars. Bush was defeated by Clinton, and that was about that.
The farmer tried to get copies of any of the records and court orders from the case and found himself getting stonewalled. The farmer hired a Washington FOIA attorney who filed a FOIA suit against the Justice Department. Now there was a farmer, a lawyer and some newspapermen digging. It turned out that Fife and Lawless were political campaign contributors. Some of the amounts contributed matched amounts loaned by banks using FmHA-taxpayer dollar purchased farm and other properties as collateral. Others, vacant and lying fallow, were getting crop subsidies though they were also paid to set aside the land for agricultural uses. Others were also sold at a profit. In all, the investigationshowed over 50 million defrauded from the taxpayers. And some of it, perhaps as much as a third, was going into the political campaign accounts of politicians of both parties, including Republican John Ashcroft and Democratic House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt. Others, in state and federal offices were also apparantly involved.
After 8 years of Clinton/Reno, Bush II came in and appointed a new Attorney General- John Ashcroft. Neither the IRS, the FEC nor the FBI will touch this one with a 10-foot pole. The local newspapers won't touch the story because of the Democrats involved. There was a 60 minutes reporter who did a piece on some of the related FmHA fraud, but he's taken ill and isn't expected to recover.
That's a pretty barebones sketch of what's been going on there, with some of the details, like the farmer's name and that of his attorney being left out for now. But the 50 million stolen from the American people and laundered through politicians campaign fund accounts was around 50 million or more from 1988-1995. From 1995 to 2004, it's probably that much again, if not more.
I've got some internal FBI FD-302 internal forms that were not supposed to be released, and there are some other newsmen from the area who have ideas of some of what's been going on, especially in some of the smaller towns away from St Louis. And there've been some newspaper accounts.
But so long as a criminal suspected of involvement in stealing from the American people runs the Justice Department, it's a pretty good bet that there won't be much help there, unless something along the lines of the Watergate hearings takes place again. Note that the last time that happened, the result we got was Jimmy Carter; this time around it looks like it'll be John Kerry who could benefit from a replay, IF they decide to sacrifice the Democrats involved to get a re-elected bush, I can only think of one person who'd benefit and who has extensive ties into Chicago and St Louis financial circles and the political position to pull it off.
Thanks for the post/ping, Saber ! ...What's that smell? </Twilight Zone Music>
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