911review

some snippets from the web I collected about
Porter Goss, the CIA, Cunningham, DHS etc...

Along with a bit of Humor :)

Just photos...
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=234999;article=60

The most extensive federal corruption scandal in a century is growing. In March, former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison (the longest sentence ever given to a member of Congress) for accepting $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for lucrative defense contracts. Yet Cunningham's crimes, the "magnitude and duration" of which are compared to the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, may end up a mere prelude.

According to recent reports, federal investigators have traced the outlines of a far more extensive network of suspected corruption, involving multiple members of Congress, some of the nation's highest-ranking intelligence officials, bribery attempts including "free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes," tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts awarded under dubious circumstances, and even efforts to influence U.S. national security policy by subverting democratic oversight.

The ringleader

At the center of the storm is California defense contractor Brent Wilkes -- aka "Co-Conspirator #1" in government documents -- "who gave more than $630,000 in cash and favors" to Cunningham "for help in landing millions of dollars in federal contracts." Wilkes devoted much of his 20-year career to "developing political contacts in Washington," a task at which he excelled, serving recently both as a county finance co-chairman of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's (R-CA) campaign and as the state finance co-chairman for President Bush. "Wilkes, his family members and his employees were heavy campaign contributors to several members of Congress," and he frequently invited members -- including Cunningham, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) -- on chartered corporate jets.

The efforts paid off handsomely: "Wilkes won tens of millions of dollars worth of defense contracts for his companies through the process of closed-door congressional earmarking of the federal budget." Indeed, "many of the contracts Wilkes secured" were for projects the Pentagon never even requested. Wilkes has thus far avoided any criminal charges, but federal officials are investigating instances of quid pro quo, since the "timing of Wilkes' many political donations closely parallels the approval of earmarks for Wilkes' companies."

'Red lights on Capitol Hill'

For more than a decade, Wilkes curried favor with lawmakers and CIA officials by hosting weekly parties at lavish hospitality suites at the Watergate and Westin hotels in Washington. Guests would gamble, socialize, and sometimes receive prostitutes; according to Harper's magazine, the festivities "began early with poker games and degenerated" into what one source described "as a 'frat party' scene -- real bacchanals." Mitchell Wade, another defense contractor who pleaded guilty in February to bribing Cunningham, has "told federal prosecutors that he periodically helped arrange for a prostitute for the then-congressman."

But investigators are digging for more: FBI agents "have fanned out across Washington, interviewing women from escort services, potential witnesses and others who may have been involved in the arrangement," attempting to determine " whether any other members of Congress, or their staffs, may also have used the same free services." Last week, a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune said that "as many as a half dozen other Congressmen" may ultimately be implicated in the scandal. (Several have already denied ever attending Wilkes' parties.) Also, investigators are reportedly "trying to determine whether Cunningham and other legislators brought prostitutes to the hotels or prostitutes were provided for them there"; there is speculation that Wilkes may be subject to felony federal sex-trafficking charges if the Virginia-based limousine service he used transported the prostitutes into Washington.

CIA's third in command admits he attended parties

The highest-ranking CIA official to admit he attended the poker parties thrown by Wilkes is Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the agency's third-ranking official. (Foggo even "occasionally hosted the poker parties at his house in northern Virginia," though he denies ever seeing prostitutes at the gatherings.) Foggo's relationship with Wilkes goes back 30-plus years; the two were roommates in college, best men at each others' weddings, and even "named their sons after each other."

By the 1980s, Foggo had joined the CIA and "was sent to Honduras to assist the Nicaraguan Contra rebels," where his "position was essentially a contracting officer -- he could get anyone anything they needed." Meanwhile, Wilkes had established himself in Washington and made his living "ferrying congressmen to Central America, where he would introduce them to Foggo and the Contras." Foggo's connections to Wilkes and fellow contractor Mitchell Wade are now the focus of an investigation into CIA contracts by the agency's inspector general, first made public in March. One of Wilkes' companies, Archer Logistics, won a contract to provide supplies to CIA agents in Afghanistan and Iraq despite having "no previous experience with such work, having been founded a few months before the contract was granted."

CIA director Goss tied to scandal?

Last week, Harper's magazine reported that party-goers "under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees -- including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post." CIA Director Porter Goss is perhaps the only individual who fits such a description. ("This is horribly irresponsible. He hasn't even been to the Watergate in decades," a CIA spokeswoman said. When asked if Goss had attended Wilkes' parties at the Westin or other locations, she repeated the denial. "It's horribly irresponsible. Flatly untrue.") But the alleged links between Goss, Foggo, and Wilkes have led some to return to questions raised when Goss initially selected Foggo to be executive director in November 2004.

At the time, the decision was viewed with skepticism since Foggo's previous position was as a "midlevel procurement supervisor," and because following his unexpected selection, "Porter Goss lieutenant Patrick Murray went to then-Associate Deputy Director of Operations for Counterintelligence Mary Margaret Graham and informed her that if anything leaked about other Goss appointments -- in particular, Foggo's -- she would be held responsible." Project on Government Oversight fellow Jason Vest reported last week that much of Foggo's counterintelligence file "has to do with various social encounters over the years, none of which he's been deceptive about when polygraphed, and all of which have been deemed to be of no threat to operational security -- but are still the types of things that could be embarrassing for Goss and the Agency." Vest suggests the latest reports raise important questions about the "relationship between Foggo and Wilkes, and the relationship of each with Goss."

Even the limo service is corrupt

Another piece of the puzzle is Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc., the firm that Wilkes used to "transport congressmen, CIA officials, and perhaps prostitutes to his Washington parties." Shirlington's president, Christopher Baker, has a "lengthy history of illegal activity," detailed in his 62-page rap-sheet which "runs from at least 1979 through 1989 and lists charges of petty larceny, robbery, receiving stolen goods, assault, and more." Shirlington Limo also "operates in what looks to be a deliberately murky way. The limo company does business under at least four different names; in addition, the office addresses listed on its business filings regularly change. A number of those office addresses are actually at residential buildings or business suites, and calls to the listed phone numbers are taken by an answering service."

The company was sued in 2004 for failing to make payments on buses it had purchased, has received eviction notices from its offices, and even had its federal license revoked by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in both 2001 and 2004. Despite all of this, the Department of Homeland Security last fall awarded Shirlington a $21 million contract "to provide transportation, including limo service for senior officials." Shirlington also won contracts "with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (for $519,823) and...the Federal Highway Administration (for $142,000)." What role did Wilkes play in Shirlington receiving these federal contracts?

The Defense Appropriations Committee 'Cabal'

A common thread links the members of Congress that Wilkes courted most aggressively, such as Cunningham and Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), and John Doolittle (R-CA). All were (or still are) on subcommittees overseeing defense and intelligence spending. On Monday, prominent conservative strategist Ed Rollins described the main players in the scandal as a "real little cabal on the defense appropriations committee." In particular, the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense is "aggressively courted not just by defense contractors, but by lobbyists for foreign governments interested in swinging US defense spending in certain directions," investigative journalist Laura Rozen notes. "It is really where the checks are signed, and decisions about funding sometimes wholly un-debated aspects of U.S. national security policy are made."

Indeed, many of the figures tied to the scandal have histories of involvement in reactionary conservative elements of U.S. foreign policy: Kyle Foggo worked extensively with the Nicaraguan contras, Mitchell Wade headed a White House-contracted group called the "Iranian Democratization Foundation", and Wilkes was reportedly set to receive a contract to "create and run a secret plane network" for the CIA before his links to Cunningham were made public. The roots of this scandal may be as much in profiteering as they are in "this club's conviction that the law is an impediment to the national security cause, that the way to run things is through these informal networks."

Red Lights on Capitol Hill?

[Foster] said he has not seen either man in years and was "shocked" when he learned about Baker's contracts.

Foster said the Baker he knew was naive about business. "He wasn't an individual I would have thought could have gotten that kind of contract on his own," Foster said.

The two defense contractors who allegedly bribed Cunningham, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from their connections with Cunningham. The Journal also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I've learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees-including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post. I've also been able to learn the name of the limousine service that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties: Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia. Wilkes, I've learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine service.

It gets even more interesting: the man who has been identified as the CEO of Shirlington has a 62-page rap sheet (I recently obtained a copy) that runs from at least 1979 through 1989 and lists charges of petit larceny, robbery, receiving stolen goods, assault, and more. Curiously-or perhaps not so curiously given the company's connections-Shirlington Limousine is also a Department of Homeland Security contractor; according to the Washington Post, last fall it won a $21.2 million contract for shuttle services and transportation support. (I tried to contact Shirlington but was unable to get past their answering service.)

San Diego -- Former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a decorated fighter pilot in Vietnam who admitted taking $2.4 million in bribes from two defense contractors, was sentenced Friday to eight years and four months in federal prison.

Asked to put the dimensions of Cunningham's corruption in perspective, Thomas Mann, an expert on Congress at the Brookings Institution, said "we haven't seen anything like" the magnitude and duration of Cunningham's crimes since the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s.

A question on the limo service retained by Brent Wilkes getting a $21.2 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security last year, despite the fact that its owner apparently has a 62-page rap sheet which reporter Ken Silverstein has obtained. Until now we've been hearing a lot about congressmen from the appropriations and intel committees specifically cultivated by Wilkes and Wade. So, this DHS contract makes one wonder: who on the Homeland Security committee might have steered business to Shirlington? Anyone at the poker parties?

P.S. A lawyer/reader writes, "This may prove to be the most important paragraph in today's San Diego Tribune story about hookergate":

Two of Wilkes' former business associates say they were present on several occasions when Shirlington Limousine & Transportation Service of northern Virginia brought prostitutes to the suite. They say they did not see lawmakers in the suites on those occasions, though both had heard rumors of congressmen bringing women to the rooms.

"The limousine company was in Virginia and, it appears, it transported prostitutes across state lines into the District of Columbia. That's a federal crime - and one that's in an entirely different class than merely providing an illegal gratuity to a congressmen. If Wilkes is convicted of sex trafficking, he'll face significant jail time. More importantly for him, such a conviction will affect where he serves time - sex traffickers don't go to minimum security work camps - they go to, at best, medium security prisons."

Update: A contact who knows Wilkes and his limo driver Chris Baker and Foggo -- the whole crew -- from way back called me as I was running out the door for lunch. I was trying to write as I was walking down the street on a scrap of paper, and commit the rest to memory, mostly just context for some of the stories above and below. In any case, some of this person's recollections: apparently Wilkes used to basically live and work out of the Watergate when he was in DC. Later, he got a deal on a presidential suite at the Westin Grand, so his business office, and apparently the poker parties moved there. Two of the former congressmen who this person remembers at some of the poker parties are Bill Lowery and Charlie Wilson, the latter as the SDUT has already reported.

Apparently Chris Baker of Shirlington Limo was Wilkes' driver from way back when.... he would pick up documents and stuff around town for Wilkes.

Also recollected: that one evening a reporter from the Washington Post came to one of the poker parties, and wrote about it in the paper (I take it this would have been in the 1990s). Apparently people (congressmen and lobbyists) were a little bit nervous about the piece, but I've been scouring Nexis for it and can't find it.

Posted by Laura at April 28, 2006 08:45 AM

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004065.html

J. Michael Springmann, formerly chief of the visa section at the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has testified that he rejected hundreds of suspicious visa applications by Saudi Aabian men similar to those named as the 9/11Hijackers Patsies when we was head of the consular section of the US embassy in Jeddah, but C.I.A. officers repeatedly overruled him and ordered the visas to be issued.

Springmann protested to the State Department, the Office of Diplomatic Security, the F.B.I., the Justice Department and congressional committees, but was told to shut up. He later realized that this was a CIA operation, and wrote about it in the Spring 1997 issue of the journal Unclassified. After 9/11, Springmann observed that 15 of the 19 Hijackers Patsies got their visas from the very same CIA controlled consulate in Jeddah ( US News and World Report 12/12/01).

Cia Visas For Patsies

Springman Interview>

The chairmen of the Joint Inquiry on 9/11 Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss are in "conflict of interest".
Or are we dealing with something far more serious?
The chairmen of the Joint Inquiry have dubious links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
which is known to have actively supported Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Moreover, according to intelligence sources, including the FBI, Pakistan's ISI played a role in financing the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The two Joint Inquiry chairmen Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss
were fully cognizant of the "Pakistani ISI connection" and the role played by its former head, General Mahmoud Ahmad.
Why then did they choose to exclude an examination of the role of the ISI from the Joint Inquiry's 858 page Report?

In late August 2001, barely a couple of weeks before September 11,  Senator Bob Graham,
Representative Porter Goss and Senator Jon Kyl were on a top level mission in Islamabad,
which was barely mentioned by the US media.

On the morning of September 11, the three lawmakers Bob Graham, Porter Goss and Jon Kyl
 (who were part of the Congressional delegation to Pakistan) were having breakfast on Capitol Hill
 with General Ahmad, the alleged "money-man" (to use the FBI expression) behind the 9/11 hijackers.
 Also present at this meeting were Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S.
Maleeha Lodhi and several members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees. 

Mysterious September 11 Breakfast Meeting on Capitol Hill

Investment Espionage And The White House
Bush Administration Links To Pre-9/11 Insider Trading

There is growing evidence that the FBI and other government intelligence entities are more closely linked to the documented accumulation of pre-9/11 insider trading profits than was originally thought. But thus far the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee has not publicly referred to prior knowledge of the attacks as it relates to stock transaction profits, while also failing after nine months to publicize the critical Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) "control list" report tracing what in effect were stock trading profits of death.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spokesman Tom Crispell denied that the CIA was monitoring "real-time," pre-September 11 stock trading activity within U.S. borders using such software as the Prosecutor's Management Information System (PROMIS) or the Echelon satellite monitoring system. However, when asked whether the CIA had been scrutinizing world financial markets for national security purposes, Crispell replied, "I have no way of knowing what operations are [being affected by our assets] outside the country." Given 3,000 deaths, victim family lawyers may want to know.

CIA AND 9/11 INVESTMENT ESPIONAGE?

A January 23, 2002 Houston Chronicle report revealed that Enron Corporation's top security team, including four former CIA officers and an ex-FBI agent left the company to form a private firm, Secure Solutions International (SSI), while continuing with Enron via a consulting contract. John W. Presley, the FBI agent now heading SSI could not be reached for comment. But the team probed a "variety of allegations of fraud and other kinds of rule-breaking by Enron workers," according to the Chronicle.

Team member and former CIA agent David M. Cromley's business biography at Enron listed him as Enron's director of business analysis, the Chronicle reported, adding that Cromley gave Enron executives "detailed and unique information" allowing them to make "investments, sales of assets, joint ventures and [financial] products."

But no public information has been forthcoming as to whether such "detailed and unique information" or sensitive CIA software was used in conjunction with Enron's controversial off-shore investment products, or whether their missing assets may have been employed in what former German Minister of Technology, Andreas von Bulow, estimated at $15 billion in insider trading profits. (Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 1-13-2002) Von Bulow then buttressed his astounding charges: "26 intelligence services in the U.S. with a budget of $30 billion....For 60 decisive minutes, the military and intelligence let fighter jets stay on the ground....48 hours later, however, the FBI presented a list of suicide hijackers.
But within ten days, it emerged that seven of them were still alive."

SENATE AND HOUSE LINKS TO TERRORISTS

Worrisome reports link two intelligence leaders in the Senate and House directly to the leader of Pakistan's intelligence arm, The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and indirectly to the leader of the 9/11 Hijackers.

A Times of India (10-12-2001) story by Manoj Joshi revealed that Pakistani ISA Director-General Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after the U.S. attacks -- confirmed by top sources in India, because of evidence produced by India showing his links to Mohammed Atta, the terrorist hijacking leader.

The Times said that "U.S. authorities sought his [Ahmad's] removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 was wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh on the instructions of ISI Lt. General Ahmad." Senior [U.S.] government sources "have confirmed that India contributed significantly to establishing the link between the money transfer and the role played by the dismissed ISI chief."

The Times added that "while they did not provide details, they said that Indian inputs, including Sheikh's mobile phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing the link."

Serious questions remain, however, as Senate Joint Intelligence Co-Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL) and his House Intelligence Co-Chairman and former CIA operative Porter Goss (R-FL) were meeting with ISI Chief, Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad, on the very morning of the September 11 attacks, according to published reports. (New York Times, 2-17-2002 & MSNBC-TV, 10-7-2001).

Since Graham and Goss are Co-Chairmen of the Joint-Intelligence Committee investigating the 9/11 attacks, difficulties could arise when the Congressional Open Intelligence Hearings commence in mid-September, and whether other Members will have the courage to seek testimony from the Chairmen of their own Committee, regarding their questionable links to the U.S. terrorism.

Thus far, Graham and Goss will have been able to postpone open hearings for over one year, as they are currently scheduled to start near the end of September. Moreover, devastated and grieving 9/11 victim families have been unable to hold Congress accountable to seek justice, while hearings have continued behind closed doors in a sound-proof room at the Capitol.

Other members of the Joint Intelligence Committee could be placed in the uncomfortable position of having to call Graham and Goss to testify as to why they were meeting -- on the morning of the attacks -- with the Pakistani ISI Chief, who was having money wired into the United States to support the efforts of the leader of the terrorist hijackers while the attacks were in progress!

Other Committee Members would likely be interested in what was said at the meeting with Lt. Gen. Ahmad, and more about his relationship with Graham and Goss, given Ahmad's links to Mohammed Atta.

These and other growing connections indicating prior knowledge of the attacks also make a case for how the profits of death were accumulated by insider trading via the United States Stock Market. This, while the SEC will not release its "Control List" of suspicious stock trades involving companies and airlines directly related to the attacks. 

 

An examination of SSI's website reveals that its corporate members have "managed cutting-edge counterterrorism and counterproliferation operations for the CIA, implemented advanced technical information and security programs for the CIA, and conducted a wide range of investigations for the FBI," while also "overseeing all security arrangements for several large gas pipeline companies."

It is yet to be determined if Congress will publicly question CIA Director George Tenet as to whether CIA and FBI employees were "loaned" to Enron's corporate espionage program, involved in personal pre-9/11 insider trading, or merely relaying sensitive insider political information to others involved in prior knowledge of the attacks. However, victim family lawyers will likely be forced to subpoena government documents and officials to effectively prosecute any negligence claims against government entities.

The fraud-racked Enron Corporation has had at least 20 CIA agents on the payroll in the last eight years. But while the Houston Chronicle reported the operatives as "former" CIA, a February 26, 2002 National Enquirer story quoted a top Washington insider familiar with several secret investigations into Enron, as reporting that they were given "leaves of absence without pay and put on the Enron payroll."

The source added that Enron's CIA members used "info gleaned from a satellite project called 'Echelon,' which intercepted emails, phone calls and faxes with detailed business information," adding that "pure and simple, [taxpayer-funded] U.S. intelligence agents were involved in corporate espionage." Another Enquirer source with ties to the CIA revealed that "the cozy deal between Enron and the CIA allowed the 'on-loan' undercover operatives to return to the Agency's payroll before Enron's collapse."

Known CIA links traverse a curious variety of unexamined threads in the U.S. financial community. Online Journal's Larry Chin (2-1-2002), reminded that [mega-money conglomerate] "Citigroup has repeatedly been charged with money laundering. This, as it's Board of Directors includes John Deutch, former CIA Director, Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary and intimate friend of Enron's Ken Lay, but also former CIA Executive Director Nora Slatkin."

Even Congress has a close CIA link. Senate Joint Intelligence Co-Chairman Bob Graham and his House Intelligence Co-Chairman and former CIA operative Porter Goss were meeting with the Chief of the Pakistani Intelligence Service on the morning of the Sept.11 attacks, according to published reports. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that room.

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