Will Robinson? Will Robinson?
Posted on 09/19/2003 9:28:26 PM PDT by Brian S
09:47 PM MDT on Friday, September 19, 2003
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO - A millionaire investor from Idaho who has been fighting a long-running tax battle with the federal government has become one of the largest contributors to GOP front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for governor.
William A. Robinson gave $100,000 to Schwarzenegger's Total Recall committee and $21,000 to his candidate committee Tuesday, public records show. Schwarzenegger's recall committee is not subject to the same Proposition 34 campaign contribution limits as apply to his individual campaign, and can accept unlimited donations to promote recalling Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.
In May, Robinson, who attended high school in Shreveport, La., donated $1 million to Chimp Haven, a home for primates there.
But the $121,000 to Schwarzenegger eclipses Robinson's combined previous political contributions since 1990 of $45,600, all of which went to two Idaho congressmen and various Republican national committees.
Schwarzenegger has made political reform a major campaign issue, saying he won't take money from special interests. His campaign couldn't immediately explain Robinson's interest, and messages left at Robinson's ranch and office were not returned today.
A representative for Robinson attorney Roy Moulton said Robinson is currently residing in one of three California homes he owns in Bel Air, La Jolla and Palm Springs.
Robinson, who describes himself as a rancher/investor, lived in Half Moon Bay in the early 1990s before moving his legal residence to Tennessee and now Tetonia, Idaho.
He helped form Document Handling Limited, one of the nation's first courier services, in 1970, and it soon grew into an international operation.
A 2001 book by Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity entitled ``The Cheating of America'' listed DHL and its predecessors and subsidiaries and owners among those the center's investigators said avoided paying taxes by sheltering its income in international tax havens.
Disputes over its domestic or foreign status led the Internal Revenue Service to claim it own $581 million in back taxes; a judge ordered the DHL to pay $550 million in back taxes and penalties in 1998.
DHL appealed and won a partial victory over the value and transfer of the courier company's DHL trademark, which the IRS had valued at $100 million.
Robinson owned 75 percent of the voting stock of what became DHL Airways, which previously was based in San Francisco, with the remainder of the stock owned by the German postal system through foreign-based subsidiaries.
FedEx and UPS allege Robinson was fronting for Deutsche Post, which would make the airline a foreign-owned corporation and severely limit its ability to compete with the U.S. carriers.
An act of Congress required the U.S. Department of Transportation to assign an administrative law judge to consider the ownership question, with a ruling scheduled for next month. The Transportation Department had previously ruled in DHL Airways' favor.
Robinson and Deutsche Post have since sold the airline for $57 million and it has been renamed Astar Air Cargo Inc. The ownership dispute continues, however, with a federal judge ordering Robinson to testify in the administrative law case on the question of Deutsche Post's involvement.
A message left at Astar's Miami headquarters was not returned today.
The two U.S. carriers have been fighting Deutsche Post's acquisition of Seattle-based Airborne Inc., the nation's third-largest carrier, through subsidiaries DHL International and DHL Worldwide Express.
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Will Robinson? Will Robinson?
Primates, or Arnold, they both need a lot of coaching to preform well.
My money is on the "Primates"...
Where ever there's money supporting moderated conservatism, look for the Lincoln Club.
Turn over the rocks at the bottom of the Lincoln Club pond and you'll find GHW Bush.
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