Posted on 12/10/2004 7:05:43 PM PST by Destro
Undiscovered baggage alert!
The above is not my quotation. I was quoting someone else.
But if the borders were discussed before nomination and this was not the issue, as we now know it was not, this means that Kerick agreed (and still does) with Bush about keeping the borders open to third world illegal aliens.
Maybe Kerik wasn't up front about them, maybe it was the favor to Rudy that some speculated upon nomination of Kerik. This much is true, almost every law enforcement related job in this country requires good moral character. When in almost every decade of your life you do something questionable, that's a problem.
By LARRY MARGASAK Dec 9, 2004, 07:27
Bernard Kerik, President Bush's choice to run the Homeland Security Department, made $6.2 million by exercising stock options he received from a company that sold stun guns to the department - and seeks more business with it. Taser International was one of many companies that received consulting advice from Kerik after he left his job as New York City police commissioner in 2001, when he was earning $150,500 a year. Kerik remains on Taser's board of directors, although the company and the White House said he planned to sever the relationship.
Partnering with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and also operating independently, Kerik has had business arrangements with manufacturers of prescription drugs, computer software and bulletproof materials, as well as companies selling nuclear power, telephone service, insurance and security advice for Americans working abroad.
The man who led the New York Police Department on Sept. 11, 2001, has been effusively praised by Senate Republicans and Democrats for his management during and after the attacks. He served the Defense Department in Iraq in 2003 as interior minister under the former U.S. occupation authority.
Federal ethics rules state that executive branch employees should avoid participating in decisions where their impartiality could be questioned, unless they receive approval from an agency ethics official.
Kerik's office said he was not available for comment for this story, but a White House spokesman, Brian Besanceney, said the nominee would avoid any possible conflict of interest.
"Commissioner Kerik is committed to the highest ethical standards and will divest all his holdings in Taser upon Senate confirmation to avoid a conflict of interest," Besanceney said. "In order to avoid even the appearance of a conflict he will comply with all ethics laws and rules to avoid actions that affect former clients or organizations where he served as a director."
Kerik and other former New York City officials joined the ex-mayor in Giuliani Partners, a consulting firm. In 2003, Kerik became chief executive officer of an affiliate consulting company, Giuliani-Kerik. Many of the clients needed security expertise.
Michael Hess, senior managing director of Giuliani Partners, said Kerik will be severed from Giuliani Partners and Giuliani-Kerik shortly. Neither company has federal contracts and neither does lobbying work, said Hess, a New York corporation counsel under Giuliani.
Taser International President Tom Smith, in an interview, said the company has sold Homeland Security between 300 and 500 Taser guns, which fire an electrical charge that disables a person. He said the cost was about $1,000 each, including holsters, batteries and cartridges.
"We're obviously hoping for further expansion," Smith said. "I don't see how it's going to be a conflict because he will be retiring from the board. I'm sure we're going to get questions, but I don't expect we'll get preferential treatment."
Smith said he doubts that competition for future contracts would be possible, since Taser is the only major manufacturer of the stun guns now used by some 6,000 law enforcement agencies.
Taser's chief executive officer, Patrick Smith, said Kerik has been a speaker for Taser at law enforcement conferences, presented checks on behalf of the company to families of fallen police officers and advised Taser on making sales presentations to police chiefs.
According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the Scottsdale, Ariz., company, Kerik exercised his options and sold stock in November 2003 for $913,500. He made another sale last month for $5.85 million, for a total of $6.76 million, benefiting from a huge increase in the value of Taser stock during the period when he held the options.
The SEC records show that Kerik's price for the options - counting both sales - was $567,838, giving him a profit of $6.2 million.
Kerik, who began on the company board in May 2002, also was compensated at the rate of $5,000 a year for participating in board meetings.
Since May this year, Kerik has served on the board of MedAire, a Tempe, Ariz., company that provides a global medical network for travelers needing assistance and consultations for Americans living abroad who face an immediate security crisis.
Brant Galloway, a spokesman for the company, declined to disclose Kerik's compensation as a director, a consultant and as chairman of the firm's compensation committee, which approves salary adjustments for senior executives.
Kerik has played a key security consultant's role for a number of Kerik and Giuliani clients. Among them:
-Purdue Pharma, the company that makes the narcotic painkiller OxyContin. Kerik helped the company improve security at two manufacturing plants after it experienced employee theft and found that additional security measurers were needed for the highly regulated drug. Kerik worked to improve the capacity of safes to secure the product, upgrade camera surveillance and install other security measures.
-The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry association that opposes importation of medicine from Canada and elsewhere. Kerik visited ports, reviewed prescription drug Internet sites and helped prepare a report for the industry on dangers of importation. He told a government task force in April that allowing imports could invite terrorists to purchase drugs legally and use them in a biological attack
-Entergy Nuclear Northeast, operator of five nuclear power plants. Kerik and others helped ensure the plants were operated with state-of-the-art security.
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On the Net:
Taser International: http://www.taser.com/flash.htm
Giuliani Partners: http://www.giulianipartners.com/
You are mordantly ignorant about the Bush family and everything else; including cogent,grammatical English prose.
The "WALL STREET JOURNAL WING OF THE PARTY"? What rock have you been living under? Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!
At least 60% of all Americans now own stocks and or other financial paper.Some of the WSJ's writers are LIBERALS (Al Hunt for one!).
From your absurd nic,one may assume that you are so far off to the right,that NOBODY,except perhaps loonies like Pat Buchanan,or worse,suit you.And again,your class warfare garbage is patently ridiculous,totally meritless,and makes you NOT a Conservative at all.
Besides being horribly uninformed,you're also very young,aren't you. LOL
Hmmmmmmm...some of that stuff doesn't look good.
Unbelievable!
Here we have one of the nations top cops, hiring and employing people that have entered this country illegally, to work in and around his home.
Very scary stuff.
Beyond belief!
Unfortunately Bush and Chaney did not give a shit.
Actually I was responding to your statement above which seemed to agree with the prior quote and I should have addressed that poster along with yourself. That aside, the borders were bound to have been discussed prior but that is all down the drain now. Question now is - how did a smart man like Kerik not know that nannygate was going to happen? He knows the game.
I swear to God, this is a complete disaster!
It is amazing how you guys can become so psychic.
Since you claim to be so clairvoyant, could you give me a stock tip to make a million dollars on Monday.
Actually, from what I heard, someone did the hiring for him while he was in Iraq. If that's so, this was not his fault and he acted honorably in withdrawing his nomination lest he become a distraction.
I swear to God, this is a complete disaster!
Paging chicken litlle.
Yeah, a person seeking a better life in the US is the end of the world.
Nice try, but Joe and his bunch of screamers on FR will latch on to this and by the time this is over this nanny will be more evil than osama, to them.
Dec 11, 12:37 AM (ET)
By TERENCE HUNT
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a surprise move, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik abruptly withdrew his nomination as President Bush's choice to be homeland security secretary Friday night, saying questions have arisen about the immigration status of a housekeeper and nanny he employed.
The decision caught the White House off guard and sent Bush in search of a new candidate to run the sprawling bureaucracy of more than 180,000 employees melded together from 22 disparate federal agencies in 2003 to guard the nation against terrorist attacks.
Kerik's nomination had been widely praised by Democrats and Republicans alike. A former military man, he became widely known for his role in helping direct the emergency response to the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes against the Twin Towers.
Kerik informed Bush of his decision to withdraw in a telephone call at 8:30 p.m. EST. "I am convinced that, for personal reasons, moving forward would not be in the best interests of your administration, the Department of Homeland Security or the American people," Kerik said in a letter to the president.
The White House said Bush accepted Kerik's decision.
Kerik is not the first prominent official to fall victim to the "nanny problem." Similar issues killed the nomination hopes of three candidates for top administration posts in the Clinton administration.
One administration official helping prepare Kerik for Senate confirmation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kerik's unexpected decision shocked senior leaders at the Homeland Security Department. This official said Kerik still had not filled out all his ethics filings - which would detail his sources of income and financial liabilities - and said the FBI background investigation of Kerik was still incomplete.
But the only moderately troubling information uncovered about Kerik so far had been news that Kerik had earned $6.2 million by exercising stock options he received from Taser International, which did lucrative business with the Homeland Security Department, this official said.
The White House had defended him against questions of conflict of interest involving his relationship with Taser. "We have full confidence in his integrity and we are confident that he will take the appropriate steps necessary to make sure that there are no conflicts there," White House press secretary Scott McClellan had said at his midday briefing.
In a statement separate from his resignation letter, Kerik said the problematic issue arose as he was completing documents required for Senate confirmation. "I uncovered information that now leads me to question the immigration status of a person who had been in my employ as a housekeeper and nanny. It has also been brought to my attention that for a period of time during such employment required tax payments and related filings had not been made."
Kerik said he feared that the disclosure of the issue would generate intense scrutiny that would "only serve as a significant and unnecessary distraction to the vital efforts of the Department of Homeland Security."
Joseph Tacopina, Kerik's personal attorney, said Kerik had not been asked to withdraw his nomination. "It was Bernie Kerik who uncovered this on his own," Tacopina said. He brought it to the White House, and it was his call to withdraw. No one asked him to."
Kerik's first anti-terrorism work was as a paid private security worker in Saudi Arabia. He joined the New York Police Department in 1986, first walking a beat in Times Square. He eventually was tapped to lead the city's Corrections Department and was appointed commissioner in 2000.
It was in that position that the mustachioed law enforcement chief became known to the rest of the country, supervising the NYPD's response to the 2001 terror attacks, often at the side of then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. In 2003, he took on a temporary assignment in Iraq to help rebuild the country's police force. Most recently, he has been a consultant for Giuliani Partners, working to rebuild Baghdad's police force.
Giuliani said in a telephone interview Friday night that he had discussed the immigration issue with Kerik and agreed with his decision.
"I'm disappointed that this had to happen, but I think it's the right decision, the only decision given the kind of issue that's involved here," Giuliani said. "The homeland security secretary has responsibility for immigration services."
Kerik's "nanny problem" recalls the controversies that faced several of former President Clinton's candidates to fill prominent positions. Attorney Zoe Baird, who was Clinton's first choice to be attorney general, was forced to withdraw her nomination after the disclosure she had not paid Social Security taxes for a housekeeper - an illegal immigrant - as required by law.
Lani Guinier, a Clinton classmate at Yale University Law School, was the president's choice to head the Justice Department's civil rights division until it was learned that she had not paid taxes for a domestic worker. Similarly, the nomination of federal judge Kimba Wood to be attorney general never went forward after the disclosure that she had hired an illegal immigrant as a baby sitter. She had paid the required Social Security taxes and broke no laws.
Before Kerik was picked, Giuliani was among those mentioned as a possible successor to the nation's first homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge. Others names floated at the time included White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend; Asa Hutchinson, Homeland Security Department undersecretary for border and transportation security; Thomas Kean, chairman of the Sept. 11 commission; former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Joe Allbaugh; and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Mike Leavitt.
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Associated Press writer Ted Bridis contributed to this report.
the whole country has a nanny problema.
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