Posted on 01/02/2002 7:49:19 AM PST by JohnHuang2
TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Robert Novak
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Robert Novak (back to story)
January 2, 2002
What's wrong with Racicot
WASHINGTON -- Several weeks ago, President Bush's aides placed discreet telephone calls to members of the Republican political network. Would there be trouble if Marc Racicot, a registered federal lobbyist, becomes the party's new national chairman? No trouble, responded some. But others protested that this was a bad idea and, indeed, bad politics.
Those dissenters probably muffled their objections, because party loyalists hesitate to question their president's judgment. Anyway, the White House had no ready alternative to Racicot to head the Republican National Committee (RNC). The attitude of the president's inner circle seemed that -- amid a war against terrorism -- nobody would notice Racicot's impediments, and if somebody did notice, nobody would care.
Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, noticed, cared and reported Racicot's lobbying activities in a scathing Washington Post op-ed column Dec. 20. That day Congress adjourned for the year, but Republicans remaining in the capital read Lewis and perceived political problems. During the past week, I have questioned many of the GOP faithful surveyed earlier by presidential aides, and many told me they believe Marc Racicot as RNC chairman is a mistake that should be corrected.
"We have succeeded in turning Terry McAuliffe into a Boy Scout," said one of the Republican operatives. The Democratic Party looked like it was playing with fire a year ago when it followed the urging of Bill and Hillary Clinton and selected McAuliffe, a notorious deal-maker, as national chairman. But McAuliffe does not lobby. Racicot, after a long and distinguished public life in Montana culminating in eight years as governor, does lobby.
When I arrived in Washington 45 years ago, it was unthinkable that a party's national chairman would double as a lobbyist. That was long before the capital's giant law firms, whose partners earn seven-figure incomes while never appearing in a courtroom. For them, "practicing law" means lobbying.
When the lobbying law firm of Hogan & Hartson in 1985 hired Republican National Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf, he insisted he was not lobbying even when he connected clients with high government officials. In 1989-93, Democratic Chairman Ron Brown kept his partnership in the Patton Boggs lobbying firm and actually did a little lobbying himself. Haley Barbour's lobbyist occupation was used against him when he ran for RNC chairman in 1993. While he did not divest himself from his own firm, neither did he lobby during his four-year term.
There is no subterfuge or limitation with Racicot. He is plowing new ground as an open partner and registered lobbyist for the Houston-based Bracewell & Patterson firm. Unusually gentle and self-effacing for a politician, Racicot is going farther than the brazen Brown or the flamboyant Barbour dared.
After the 2000 election, Racicot ruled out a Bush Cabinet post. He made clear that 12 years in low-paying elective office in Montana was enough and that for his family's sake, he needed to make some money -- specifically, a seven-figure Washington lobbyist's paycheck. Republican senators hoped he had piled away enough during 2001 to run against Sen. Max Baucus in a 2002 election that could determine party control of the Senate. Despite pleas from the president, Racicot said he still could not afford to live on a senator's salary (more than $150,000 in 2003, a king's ransom for most Americans).
Racicot accepted Bush's offer of the national chairmanship only because he could keep his lobbyist's job. If he had to make do with the chairman's yearly pay of $150,000, the Republican community agrees that Racicot even now would turn down the party post. That is no indictment of a man who long has been dedicated to public service, but a snapshot of political values in today's America.
How is it that giving a registered lobbyist total access to the highest level of government did not seem an apparent conflict of interest for the Bush White House? Arrogance, ignorance, or both? That question could have been finessed if Bracewell & Patterson gave Racicot a handsome bonus to tide him over while he suffered through a year or two at $150,000. Instead, the president's advisers are betting their new ethical boundaries soon will be accepted in Washington.
©2001 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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Just what are you implying? This sounds defamatory - - - I'm just calling the guy a selfish jerk who doesn't have the party's interests, or the country's, at heart - and the party's stupid to reward him with the chairmanship. YOU'RE implying something sinister, if I read you right - with no backup. I don't traffick in that kind of inuendo.
by Yellowstone Sam
April 13, 1998
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Canadian-Montana border is now the principal point of entry of illegal drugs coming into the U.S. Montana is awash in them. A series of clandestine airfields stretches across the state. Naturally the journalists covering the Freemen picked up none of this bigger story right under their noses. Big names are involved in the drug operation, including the soon-to-be-indicted Governor of Montana." J. Orlin Grabbe June 17, 1996
Marc Racicot keeps a very distressing secret. It is a secret about financial transactions leading up to accounts in the Norwest Bank Branch in Helena. It's a secret that has shattered the political hopes of a man some Montanans call Athe most popular governor in America. It's a secret Marc Racicot knows will lead to his destruction and criminal indictment.
The secret is this: Marc Racicot took money into Norwest Bank of Helena accounts as part of his payment for allowing large scale shipments of heroin and cocaine to cross Montana from Canada. The payments were discovered during a drug investigation (involving the CIA and DEA) of Columbian drug kingpin, Fabio Ochoa, and others.
The documentation in bank records is unmistakable. A forensic criminal audit has been performed on the accounts. It's all there in black and white. Marc Racicot knows it. So do several bankers. Four lawyers close to Marc Racicot=s inner circle also know. Consequently there have been some frantic phone calls made by Governor Racicot=s close associates during the last few months.
Once Marc Racicot's name began to circulate as a Republican Presidential or Vice Presidential hopeful the national public began to pay close attention to Marc Racicot1. What astute journalists found was that Racicot's ambitions for national office were closely linked to the Bush family and were targeted much earlier in the foreign press 2. The wildly conflicting reports are underscored by an apparent battle between rival U.S. intelligence factions.
Varied and knowledgeable intelligence sources have referred to an enormous drug smuggling operation in Montana. Some of the sources include David Hume, a retired U.S. Coast Guard intelligence officer; Chip Tatum, former CIA and OSG-3 operative; longtime CIA operative Charles Hayes; Jack Wheeler of Strategic Investments (co-editor with William Colby, former CIA director, prior to Colby's accidental death); and a Phoenix, AZ. private investigator, Mike Roe.
The drug smuggling operation involved light plane shipments of cocaine and heroin into the Montana, as part of a scheme involving corrupt FBI agents and local law enforcement officers. The planes flew from a staging area near Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Several of the pilots who flew drugs into Canada- have co-operated with an internal FBI investigation which implicates Miami FBI agent Terry Nelson.
Several of the sources maintain that Marc Racicot was involved in the drug scheme and that Racicot took payments from some of the other conspirators. The payments were made into an account (or accounts) in the Norwest Bank of Helena. One of the sources, Charles Hayes, offered in writing to testify and provide copies of the bank documents to the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee3.
Racicot's involvement in the operation seems to be underscored by Mike Roe who says that his investigations into drug related corruption in Sidney and Chinook (two of the small towns used by the smugglers for landings) were personally spiked by Racicot when he was Attorney General. It was obvious that eye-witnesses were intimidated or ignored in the investigation.
It all might have been forgotten except for the fact that Michael Wolf and Bruce Madsen turned up dead in Sidney on December 16, 1993. Those deaths coupled with the Cowan murders in Chinook six years earlier, left a group of journalists and researchers who were convinced that the killings were tied to a drug ring.A drug ring with heavy links to law enforcement.
As more research turned up additional unexplained deaths on the Fort Peck Reservation, it became clear that persons involved in the smuggling operation were also tied to the killings.Mike Perry of the Chinook Opinion, who began to cover the broadening investigations, also began to feel the brunt of personal attacks when Perry editorialized about the corruption. At the root of the harassment- time and time again- it was found that Marc Racicot was micromanaging the situation .
While Marc Racicot was ignoring investigations, and allowing harassment of witnesses, he also was busy working on a public relations campaign which he thought would get him into national political office. Racicot was very wrong with that strategy.
As Racicot assistants, such as Mary Jo Fox, fanned the flames of presidential rumors about Racicot in Montana, journalists outside the state noticed that something was amiss with the candidate's background. Do you consider for a minute that Racicot's involvement in drug trafficking would go unnoticed by the national media? Of course not.
This is precisely why Racicot's political campaign for the year 2000 isn't going anywhere, (and was never going anywhere). The powerful men who were involved in the Republican Party were quick to jettison the pretentious governor from Montana. Racicot's explanations about the drug scandal being "ridiculous" weren't bought by many people in Washington D.C. or Montana.
At the point that the funds transferred into the Norwest Bank of Helena for Marc Racicot were publicly identified, Marc Racicot was doomed. The man has privately wept bitter, bitter tears because he knows other people know his secret, (and he can't control the situation). His typical public response has been to avoid the topic- or ridicule the story; but his tactics have worn exceedingly thin.
What exists now is that Marc Racicot has moved into the end game. His secret is no longer a secret.
CONCLUSION
Marc Racicot cannot explain some bank transfers into Montana Bank of Helena accounts. The money trail implicates Marc Racicot in large-scale drug smuggling and related murders.
Please print this out and let other people know. Let's work together to see that this evil man is brought to justice. We invite you to share Marc Racicot's secret.
[just one of the links from the aforementioned google search]
You bet !!!! A steady reign of terror is accompanying an international drug smuggling scandal along the northern border with Montana.
Maybe you can do something to help. We encourage you to circulate this article afreely.
The 'Hi-Line' Murders
http://members.aol.com/pegpress./hiline.htm by Chip Tatum
A series of killings along the Burlington Northern railroad in Montana, commonly known as the "Hi-line," may be tied to Canadian smuggling operations involving FBI agents and Montana officials. Recent information received indicates that nation shaking U.S. federal indictments may be in order shortly, identifying the smuggling ring. However, the most tragic part of the corruption, a series of related killings along the northern Montana "Hi-Line," may be felt as aftershocks in Montana for decades.
In March of this year I published an article, 'Northern Exposure' which told of my knowledge, as a former U.S. intelligence officer, of an 'officially' sanctioned drug smuggling ring from Colombia through Canada into the United States. Masterminds of the operation included south Florida FBI agent Terry Nelson, Mike Huxtable, a Canadian with deep Canadian intelligence links, and Colombia drug cartel kingpin Fabio Ochoa. FBI agent Nelson outlined the ring's scheme to me while I was working for the CIA and OSG-3 in 1989.
FBI agent Nelson also mentioned several of the Montana towns, Sidney, Chinook, and Havre, as locations where the loads of cocaine and heroin were delivered by light aircraft. Those small towns were chosen by Nelson and Huxtable because Nelson had arranged to recruit local authorities to allow the shipments to pass through.
As this article goes to press, still more indictments involving drug money laundering at the Whitefish Mountain Bank have been handed down. Further, the related Oklahoma City confiscation of $100 million worth of cocaine bound for Dallas from Canada last fall, and the arrests of Richard Aupine and Siegfried Stumpf, both of Montreal, again underscore key facts of the story and demonstrate at least part of my assertions.
The far-out, cold blooded cynicism which inspired many of these killings is astounding. My private inquiry into the reports also dictates that at least some of the other deaths were accidental or suicides and many of the killings were only loosely related. For instance, the airplane death of candidate Jim Waltermire appears to be, at this stage, an accident. Still, there are solid reports that Waltermire met with persons in Glasgow on the date of his death and discussed drug corruption issues before leaving for Helena. The flight ended in a fatal crash. Likewise, Democrat Chet Blaylock's death prior to last year's campaign debates in Missoula was explainable. Coincidental, however, was the fact that Blaylock's campaign workers had been gathering ethics information and Blaylock was considering widening the corruption issues in the debates at the time of his death. People die every day by accidents and natural causes. Journalists who make something out of flimsy evidence betray their most important occupations and they become polemicists instead.
But...The 'Hi-Line Murders' don't need a spin.
Miles City The death of Rachel Smith Bonham was not self-inflicted. The autopsy was flawed. A neighbor's statement described a violent struggle in Rachel's apartment just before her death. This was ignored by officials. Rachel's death may be related to her assailant's familiarity with cocaine supplied from the Sidney area by a Sidney lawyer. Until investigators confront the realities of a past drug-compromised investigation at the local level, little progress will be made. Rachel's mother continues the inquiry and requests information about the killing. She is active in Parents Against Corruption and Cover-up.
P.A.C.C.
13456 Muirkirk Lane
Herndon, Virginia, 20171-3305.
P.A.C.C. is a human rights group made up of parents, families, and survivors of persons who have lost loved ones due to official corruption. Rachel's family has also been greatly assisted by Billings newsman Al Hauf.
Glendive
The death of Jerry Herdt, who lived in the Fairview-Sidney area most of his life, is surrounded by suspicious circumstances. Although officially ruled a suicide, Herdt's death came two weeks after Herdt told acquaintances he was 'meeting secretly with FBI agents' and was providing them 'information about a Sidney lawyer.' Herdt was believed to be involved in large scale drug trafficking. The lawyer Herdt referred to is suspected of being a front man for the Cali-Medellin drug shipments into the Sidney area. It is also suspected that FBI agents from the Glasgow office were meeting with Herdt immediately prior to his death....hmmmm.
Sidney
Then there is the double murder of Bruce Madsen and Michael Wolfe outside Sidney on December 15, 1993. These are just two references which ties to corrupt law enforcement officials. Bruce Madsen's home was fire bombed a few weeks before his death. Michael Wolfe told his friends that he was about to be murdered by a police detective only days before his death. The forensics around the death of the two boys point to a professional murder. Glasgow FBI Agent Scott Cruise ridiculed the idea that a Sidney police detective could be involved in the gruesome deaths. Cruise ignored completely the statements made by Wolfe only a few days prior to the murder. (Details of the Wolfe-Madsen deaths are listed on the P.A.C.C. website.) There are two other Sidney killings which are related to corrupt officials in Sidney; Donnie Kukas and Bob Voss. Both men died under a suspicious pattern of circumstances officially determined to be 'suicides.' The investigations of the Sidney deaths have been hampered greatly due to the confusion around drug investigations of a Sidney police detective and the Sidney City Attorney. Mike Roe, an investigator based out of Phoenix, Arizona published a report which indicates that the cover up leads directly to Governor Marc Racicot. Mike Roe claims that Montana's governor, Marc Racicot, spiked the criminal investigation of the attorney and detective from his office in Helena.
Malta
As a matter of forensic science, 'suicides' should always be looked at as very suspicious in Montana. Time after time pathologists are finding unusual 'non-scientific' conclusions in the coroner's reports. The local funeral home director or a deputy sheriff with no medical training will often be tasked as the 'official coroner' for a county. Montana Highway Patrolman Loren Anderson was looking into the Canada/ Montana smuggling allegations involving a Malta businessman prior to his 'suicide.' Anderson was a family man who enjoyed life and loved his children. Evidence could surface if investigators considered the facts of a large scale cocaine and heroin smuggling operation involved with law enforcement in the immediate area. The death of Loren Anderson cries out for an in depth investigation.
Fort Peck Reservation
The Assiboine-Sioux tribe is only now beginning to understand the genesis of their plight. Several tribal groups have obtained numerous statements which recount small aircraft landing at night and unloading drugs. These flights are believed to be from Canada. Information also indicates that corrupt FBI agents, including Terry Nelson of South Florida and at least two agents formerly from the Glasgow office, were involved in the illegal operations. The federal officers missused their office to control drug shipments to the reservations. They also used their criminal enterprise to intimidate, coerce and murder witnesses. There are more than 40 suspicious deaths on the reservation which are complicated by the federal officers' involvement in the drug operations. The deaths are also complicated by allegations that long time local state District Judge James Sorte (now deceased) was coerced into cooperating with the enterprise to obstruct prosecutions.
Here are only a few of the victims...
Jody Howard - lived near Frazer - missing since 1991, 'presumed' murdered.
Kenneth Shields, Jr. - Fort Kipp- suspicious drowning at a train bridge just east of Poplar.
Bobby Weeks - 'murdered,' - body discovered near 'Hi-Line' train tracks in Wolf Point.
Charlie Cantrell- age ten - Brutally murdered and body dumped near Fort Kipp. Suspicions are that the murder was related to attempts to intimidate the boy's father Newton Cantrell into cooperation.
Ruben Castro Cantrell - Poplar - Ruben Cantrell was found by hunters after he had been beaten to death. The killing appears to be related to officially sanctioned drug activities on the reservation.
'Pugs' - Three Stars-Poplar - found murdered in an alley in Poplar. Targeted by the criminal enterprise.
Edward Spotted Bird - Brockton - Spotted Bird's badly decomposed body was found by a BIA officer after he had been stabbed to death in criminal enterprise related violence.
Larry Hopkins- Wolf Point - murdered in conjunction with trailer arson near Poplar.
Valen Hoptomanie - missing since 1995 and presumed murdered, related to Reservation criminal enterprise.
There are another 30 deaths on the Fort Peck Reservation. Deaths which go unexplained. Several of these deaths may also relate to attempts to silence witnesses who knew of the drug flights from Canada.
Chinook
Richard Cowan and Bernadette Doiron were murdered by professional hitmen, Loyd Wilson and Richard Bone. Both men were convicted of the double murders and received lengthy prison sentences. Former Chinook newsman Mike Perry obtained a statement from a man who was the last to see the couple in Havre on the night they were murdered. Richard Cowan told the witness that he intended to provide information about a large scale drug ring to authorities. Cowan had arranged to meet with authorities the following morning. For Cowan, the sun would not rise. Cowan and companion Bernadette Doiron were murdered that night. But Cowan anticipated problems. Before leaving, Cowan told at least one witness that he was concerned that the Blaine County Prosecutor would kill him before allowing him to meet with law enforcement in the morning. There were six other killings around the Chinook and Havre area related to the Terry Nelson-Mike Huxtable criminal enterprise. All of these deaths occured while investigations into the deaths of Cowan and Doiron were at their peak. Attorney General Marc Racicot took a very public role in investigating the wrongdoing and could find no 'credible' evidence implicating his personal friend, the Blaine County Attorney, in the murders. Arizona investigator Mike Roe later asserted that Racicot, serving as Montanas' Attorney General, had 'spiked' the murder and drug investigations in Chinook. Four Chinook police officers who also provided damning testimony concerning the drug flights and murders were fired. During 1996 newsman Mike Perry, owner and editor of the Chinook Opinion, had to wear a holstered pistol in his print room as he published his small town newspaper, due to threats for his continued publications concerning the criminal enterprise. By October of 1997 Mike Perry had been forced to sell his newspaper and has since left the state. Agent Scott Cruise was tasked with investigating the drug allegations in Chinook in 1994, and refused to interview key witnesses. In the months before Perry went out of business, a staff member of Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) called Perry four times requesting copies of the Perry editorials which addressed the drug scandal.
Fort Benton Mickey Sullivan, an occasional police officer from the Butte-Anaconda area, accidentally shot himself three times as he climbed a barbed wire fence. Let me repeat that - Mickey Sullivan, an occasional police officer from the Butte-Anaconda area, accidentally shot himself three times as he climbed a barbed wire fence. That was the official finding, but deserves a deeper look. This finding was indeed anomalous as Sullivan, a professional police officer, was highly proficient in the safe use of fire arms. Mickey Sullivan...was an embarrassment. He had been previously been arrested in a strong-arm attempt to shake-down the Kurth Ranch marijuana growing operation. In this particular case, a Great Falls bank - now a Norwest Bank branch, was heavily fined. The corrupted officers were not criminally prosecuted in the matter handled personally by Montana Attorney General... again...Marc Racicot. This name seems to appear quite often when describing questionable events.
Joplin Gene Moore was killed in a gun battle with law enforcement officers on April 23, 1996, outside Joplin, Montana. The circumstances surrounding his death are highly questionable. On the day he was killed Moore told his family that he was being targeted for what he knew about the operations of a local 'drug cartel.' Moore was killed while allegedly resisting arrest for the killing of Walt Sullivan, a financial auditor from Butte, Montana. Numerous inconsistant statements were made by law enforcement subsequent to Walt Sullivan's murder, and the Moore killing. Gene Moore's widow claims that she came upon the scene where Moore was shot that day. But rather than finding a dead husband, she heard Gene Moore screaming for help, and she was quickly led away. Had Moore actually been killed in a gun battle, she never would have heard him screaming for help. ...dead men don't scream.
Conrad
Area rancher Bob Krop was murdered in a staged 'auto accident' while returning from Salt Lake City. Krop had refused to participate in an alleged scheme to bribe the Montana Supreme Court. Krop found himself tabbed a liability...time to go. Krop was attempting to mediate the famous 'Bouma' case in Pondera County. Ralph Bouma, a stubborn Dutch farmer, had fought a searing multi-jurisdictional legal battle to recover a wheat farm which had been fraudulently taken. The Krop murder is the key to understanding the turn-key Montana bribery and blackmail system which allowed Cali-Medellin operations to exist unchecked in Montana for a decade. Was Krop's death an accident? I think not. New forensics studies show that the Krop vehicle went over the cliff in reverse. Additional evidence shows that Krop was beaten after he exited the vehicle. support for this astounding information can be found in a recent book authored by Great Falls newsman, Ralph Bidwell. The book details these events which surrounda the Bouma case. Recently published, the book is entitled, 'You Be the Judge.'
Whitefish
Mountain Bank president John Ochenrider fell to his death two weeks before his trial. Ochenrider was being tried on federal money laundering charges as a co-defendant with Al Luciano. Now that's a familiar name...any relation to the notorious Lucky Luciano? You bet. But the criminal enterprise could not risk the possibility of the banker turning snitch and exposing the enterprise and its members...so it was arranged for John Ochenrider to take-up mountain climbing. Ochenrider plummeted down a mountainside on his first and last attempt at mountain climbing. Killing witnesses doesn't always stop an investiagation, especially when it involves FINCEN audits. That's why the August, 1997, indictment of former Mountain Bank CEO Werner Schreiber for drug related money- laundering was anticipated in some circles. Still more indictments are coming as the Mountain Bank drug-profit money laundering scandal unfolds. As other financial audit trails are revealed they will lead to a prominent Helena politician.
Libby-Eureka
Lucky Luciano was a most notorious gangster. He knocked around with Al Capone and worked closely with Meyer Lansky. Luciano was known during his lifetime as the 'world's largest heroin dealer.' It was Lucky Luciano's Mafia spy network used for smuggling heroin in Sicily and Corsica, that assisted U.S. intelligence during World War II. The same netwok extended into the Libby-Eureka area, and to the Al Luciano family living in that locale. One of the earliest of the Hi-line killings occurred, near Eureka, when Montana Highway Patrolman Remz was gunned down after he stopped vehicles entering and exiting an air strip run by Joseph Bonano. The Bonano and Luciano families had learned that there was a long standing system in place which would gladly protect their operations in Montana. Lucky Luciano loved Montana, but he moved to Hot Springs Arkansas, (and the home of future Arkansas governor Bill Clinton ) before he was deported. The killer of Patrolman Remz remains at large today.
Conclusion
As the criminal enterprise is exposed in Montana, many families will be shocked to realize that their loved ones were killed in conjunction with a Canadian/American drug ring, orchestrated by corrupt FBI, law enforcement, and one very corrupt Helena political figure. Just today, state Senator Casey Emerson was threatened; a prisoner in the Roosevelt County jail was threatened; a business was burned out on the Fort Peck Reservation; all three of these events relate directly to the criminal enterprise described above. A Canadian source has informed me that the Canadian government may try to apprehend one of the U.S. conspirators. To date, attempts to extradite these criminals to Canada has met with brick walls. It has been decided by Canadian officials that an unsanctioned operation into the U.S. to snatch these criminals is in order. Wish I could be there.
As the expose' unfolds and prosecutions begin...whether in Canada or the U.S., these notorious thugs will beg for leniency...and then we will find out why the lives of these unfortunate Montanans were taken. It is my experience that people of this caliber, in their attempt to be first to 'tell all' in exchange for leniency, will equal a stampede yet unknown to Montana.
[just another sample from google this time using the keyword racicot heroin murder]
Have seen people in the past post on wierd stuff going on in Montana and corruption at this site, stuff I would be ignorant of if it is there.
Doesn't look http://www.google.com/search?q=montana+heroin+murder&btnG=Google+Search good. The same stuff comes up even if racocot's name isn't entered in the search.
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