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Posted on 9/30/01 8:10 AM Pacific by liberallarry
FAMILY HAD RENOUNCED TIES TO TERRORIST SON BUT FAMILY STILL UNDER FBI INVESTIGATION
FATHER OF PRESIDENT SHOULD PULL OUT OF INTERNATIONAL CONSULTING FIRM
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, reacted with disbelief to The Wall Street Journal report of yesterday that George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm. The senior Bush had met with the bin Laden family at least twice. (Other top Republicans are also associated with the Carlyle group, such as former Secretary of State James A. Baker.) The terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had supposedly been “disowned” by his family, which runs a multi-billion dollar business in Saudi Arabia and is a major investor in the senior Bush’s firm. Other reports have questioned, though, whether members of his Saudi family have truly cut off Osama bin Laden. Indeed, the Journal also reported yesterday that the FBI has subpoenaed the bin Laden family business’s bank records.
Judicial Watch earlier this year had strongly criticized President Bush’s father’s association with the Carlyle Group, pointing out in a March 5 statement that it was a “conflict of interest (which) could cause problems for America’s foreign policy in Middle East and Asia.” Judicial Watch called for the senior Bush to resign from the firm then.
“This conflict of interest has now turned into a scandal. The idea of the President’s father, an ex-president himself, doing business with a company under investigation by the FBI in the terror attacks of September 11 is horrible. President Bush should not ask, but demand, that his father pull out of the Carlyle Group,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.
“This has the potential of making ‘Billygate’ (Jimmy Carter’s brother’s dealings with Libya) look like small potatoes,” added Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
See "Bin Laden Family Could Profit From a Jump In Defense Spending Due to Ties to U.S. Bank," by Daniel Golden, James Bandler, and Marcus Walker, The Wall Street Journal, 9/28/01 (www.wsj.com, subscription required).
Presto, like magic, a couple phone calls later, and:
Click to scroll to commentary.
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Posted on 10/26/01 12:30 PM Pacific by Theresa
WASHINGTON (AP) - Osama bin Laden's wealthy family in Saudi Arabia is cutting its financial ties with the Carlyle Group, a politically-connected U.S. private investment firm, by mutual agreement, a source familiar with the relationship said Friday.
The bin Laden family decided to sell its investment worth $2.02 million back to the firm mainly because of public controversy over its stake in a Carlyle fund that invests in buyouts of military and aerospace companies, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The source was confirming a report in Friday's editions of The New York Times.
There had been criticism in Saudi Arabia after the Sept. 11 terror attacks that the family, which disowned exiled Islamic militant Osama bin Laden years ago, might profit from increased military spending in the U.S. war against terrorism.
The family, whose construction company is one of the largest in the Middle East, also has invested with a number of other investment funds and financial institutions around the world, reportedly including U.S. financial services giant Citigroup, Deutsche Bank of Germany and the Dutch bank ABN Amro.
Carlyle has some $14 billion in assets under management. Its chairman is Frank Carlucci, a former U.S. defense secretary. Former President George Bush, former secretary of state James Baker and Arthur Levitt, who had been chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission through most of the Clinton administration, are senior advisers to the firm.
Now, try not to be shocked, ok?
Executive Biography
John F. Harris
Managing Director and CFO
Mr. Harris is a Partner and Managing Director of The Carlyle Group and is based in Washington, DC. He serves as Carlyle’s Chief Financial Officer with overall responsibility for the firm’s investor reporting, internal controls and financial management. Prior to joining Carlyle in April 1997, Mr. Harris was a Vice President with Golub Associates, a private equity firm, where he focused on middle market principal investment transactions. Previously, Mr. Harris was a Senior Manager with 
Arthur Andersen, LLP. Mr. Harris is a graduate of the University of Virginia and is a CPA.
Source: The Carlyle Group, 2001
Enron unleashes more US horror
The amount of gimmickry and outright fraud dwarfs any period since the early 1970s, when major accounting scams such as Equity Funding surfaced, and the 1920s, when rampant fraud helped cause the crash of 1929 and led to the creation of the SEC, he says.
Enron paid Andersen, its auditor, $US27 million in fees unrelated to auditing and $US52 million in total fees last year, according to Enron's proxy statement.
Last year, Arthur Levitt, then chairman of the commission, tried to restrict the consulting work that accounting firms could do, but he backed down in the face of strong opposition from the firms. Mr Levitt, now a senior adviser at the Carlyle Group, did not return calls for comment."
[end of partial transcript]
Just making a dishonest buck or two
"Last but not least, I must look at another company, this one prospering more than ever. Founded in 1987, it is called the Carlyle Group and is now thought to be worth around $12.5bn. It is run by Frank Carlucci, Ronald Reagan's defence secretary and a close chum of Donald Rumsfeld (they used to wrestle together at Princeton). It specialises in buying defence companies that are performing indifferently, and injecting them with new blood. One such typical company was United Defense Industries, a firm that manufactures the $20bn, 42-ton Crusader Advanced Field Artillery System - a system about to get the chop when Bill Clinton left office, but restored by Rumsfeld.
Carlyle's reach is staggering: until it speedily divested itself last October, its investors included the Binladin Group, the $5bn family business run by Osama's half-brother Bakr. And on its payroll you will find such luminaries as George Bush I, James Baker, the former secretary of state, and John Major: it helps, you see, if a chap trying to beef up the defence business has a little governmental star pulling power. Bush I and Major went to Saudi Arabia last year on behalf of Carlyle, I am told (when Bush II, lest we forget, was already US president); Bush I netted $17m in his first coup for Carlyle and has probably now accrued around $50m. The current President Bush, apparently, sees nothing wrong with what Dad is now doing.
The shenanigans of Enron, meanwhile, are now being investigated by six Congressional committees, the labour department, the justice department (from which Ashcroft has recused himself) and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Arthur Andersen, which destroyed key documents during its audit of Enron, is now the subject of a criminal investigation. But where was Arthur Levitt, chairman of the SEC and crusader against "greed and arrogance" while the Enron mayhem was unfolding? Er, we don't know. Where is he now? Working for Carlyle, that's where."
[end of partial transcript]
Apteka-Holding, established in late 1997, is ranked among the top five distributors of pharmaceutical products in Russia. In 1999 the international investment fund The Carlyle Group became a partner and shareholder of Apteka-Holding.
"At the request of The Carlyle Group the business processes of the company were surveyed at the first stage of the project by the specialists of Arthur Andersen, one of the Big Five consultancies."
[End of partial transcript]
The CIA's Role in the Anthrax Mailings
"The preceding year (September 1998), Bioport Corporation took over a failing anthrax vaccine business from state-owned Michigan Biologic Products Institute. Less than a month later, the company landed an exclusive $29 million contract with the Department of Defense to "manufacture, test, bottle and store the anthrax vaccine." Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and close personal aid to President Clinton, with no financial investment of his own, received 22.5% of Bioport's stock to promote, secure, and manage military anthrax vaccine contracts.(14)
3. Bioport's principal investor was Saudi business man Fuad El-Hibri-a close friend of the bin Laden family, and a previous merger and acquisitions manager for the Rockefeller-linked Citigroup in New York.(14,15)
According to some investigators,(16) additional Bioport shares were believed to be held by The Carlyle Management Group-America's 11th leading defense contractor largely directed by past CIA director Frank Carlucci, James Baker III, George H.W. Bush, and former British Prime Minister John Major.
4. According to the Associated Press, Past President George H.W. Bush acts as a business agent for the Carlyle Group and wealthy Saudi families including the bin Ladens.(17)"
[end of partial transcript]
Papers on BioPort [Anthrax Vaccine Maker] found in office of terrorist suspects
Bin Laden Family Could Profit From a Jump In Defense Spending Due to Ties to U.S. Bank
"If the U.S. boosts defense spending in its quest to stop Osama bin Laden's alleged terrorist activities, there may be one unexpected beneficiary: Mr. bin Laden's family. Among its far-flung business interests, the well-heeled Saudi Arabian clan -- which says it is estranged from Osama -- is an investor in a fund established by Carlyle Group, a well-connected Washington merchant bank specializing in buyouts of defense and aerospace companies.
Through this investment and its ties to Saudi royalty, the bin Laden family has become acquainted with some of the biggest names in the Republican Party. In recent years, former President Bush, ex-Secretary of State James Baker and ex-Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci have made the pilgrimage to the bin Laden family's headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Bush makes speeches on behalf of Carlyle Group and is senior adviser to its Asian Partners fund, while Mr. Baker is its senior counselor. Mr. Carlucci is the group's chairman.
...A Carlyle executive said the bin Laden family committed $2 million through a London investment arm in 1995 in Carlyle Partners II Fund, which raised $1.3 billion overall. The fund has purchased several aerospace companies among 29 deals. So far, the family has received $1.3 million back in completed investments and should ultimately realize a 40% annualized rate of return, the Carlyle executive said.
But a foreign financier with ties to the bin Laden family says the family's overall investment with Carlyle is considerably larger. He called the $2 million merely an initial contribution. "It's like plowing a field," this person said. "You seed it once. You plow it, and then you reseed it again."
The Carlyle executive added that he would think twice before accepting any future investments by the bin Ladens.
[end of partial transcript]