Speaker of House Hastert Allegedly Bribed by Turks to regect Genocide Resolution

[Hovik]

Speaker of House Hastert Allegedly Bribed

Democracy Now, NY
Aug 4 2005

A new story in Vanity Fair is alleging that Turkish-Americans may have
attempted to bribe a group of U.S. lawmakers including Republican
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. The allegation appears in
an extended piece in the magazine about FBI whistleblower Sibel
Edmonds. According to the magazine, Edmonds was helping the FBI
translate tapes surrounding an investigation of Turkish nationals.

She was fired from her job after she complained about corruption
at the agency. Edmonds is under a federal gag order not to publicly
discuss what she heard on the wiretaps. But sources told the magazine
that Edmonds has testified that she heard wiretaps of individuals
boasting that they had covert relationships with Speaker of the
House Dennis Hastert and that Turkish interests had given tens of
thousands of dollars in small donations to Hastert. The donations
were reportedly given around the time that the House was considering
passing a resolution condemning the Turkish genocide of Armenians.

Hastert originally backed the resolution but then withdrew it minutes
before it was scheduled to go up for a House vote. Hastert's office
has denied receiving any such payments and Vanity Fair reports that
there is no evidence that any payments were made. Edmonds is suing the
government over his dismissal but the Bush administration is attempting
to have the lawsuit squashed claiming it would reveal state secrets.

[Hovik]

GOP Criminal Flip-Flop: Was Denny Hastert Bribed By Turkish Agents?

GOP Criminal Flip-Flop: Was Denny Hastert Bribed By Turkish Agents?

Blogcritics.org
Aug 4 2005

Posted by Balletshooz on August 04, 2005 08:03 PM (See all posts by
Balletshooz)

Filed under: Politics - Scroll down to read comments on this story
and/or add one of your own.

Speaker: Lessons from Forty Years in Coaching and Politics
Dennis Hastert
Book from Regnery Publishing, Inc.
Release date: August, 2004


Why exactly did Denny Hastert flip-flop at the last moment, derailing
a Congressional resolution designating as genocide the killings of
Armenians between 1915 and 1923? He initially attributed it to a
letter from Bill Clinton, but new FBI wiretaps show Turkish foreign
agents mentioning Hastert's name in the context of a bribe, right
before the resolution was scheduled to pass.

Is Denny Hastert taking bribes from foreign officials and why is
the Justice Department trying to squelch an investigation into the
matter? What are they trying to hide? These new allegations, if allowed
to surface, will make Tom Delay and Karl Rove look like Mother Teresa
and Gandhi. Call it Genocide-Gate, Traitor-Gate, or Hastert-Gate,
the American public and American law enforcement deserve to know and
must take a close look at this unfolding scandal.

For many years, attempts had been made to get the House to pass the
genocide resolution, but they never got anywhere until August 2000,
when Hastert, as Speaker of the House, announced that he would give
it his backing and see that it received a full House vote. Thanks to
Hastert, the resolution, vehemently opposed by the Turks, passed.

Then on October 19, minutes before the full House vote, Hastert
suddenly and without explanation withdrew it.

Vanity Fair's September edition, which has yet to hit national
newsstands, has an article about Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator who
has been gagged by the Bush administration from revealing information
about conversations she translated surrounding a seemingly major
corruption scandal involving Turkish nationals and U.S. lawmakers.

The following are some brief excerpts from RAW STORY surrounding the
allegations Edmonds has made-some of which the FBI has confirmed-about
the specifics surrounding her case:

· According to those briefed on the case, Edmonds says she has heard
classified wiretaps, which indicate Turkish nationals tried to bribe
lawmakers in Chicago and Washington.

· Edmonds was fired from the FBI after trying to persuade her bosses
to investigate a Turkish family, the xxxxersons, she said was trying
to trade on her status as an FBI operative. She suspected that the
American Turkish Council, which the family tried to persuade her to
join, was a front group for criminal activity.

· On top of the usual prohibition against disclosing classified
information, the Bush administration has smothered her case beneath the
all-encompassing blanket of the "state-secrets privilege"-a Draconian
and rarely used legal weapon that allows the government, merely by
asserting a risk to national security, to prevent the lawsuits

Edmonds has filed contesting her treatment from being heard in court
at all. According to the Department of Justice, to allow Edmonds her
day in court, even at a closed hearing attended only by personnel
with full security clearance, "could reasonably be expected to cause
serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the
United States."

Edmonds' attorney, who works for the ACLU, says: "It also begs a
question: Just what in the world is the government trying to hide?"
One counterintelligence official familiar with Edmonds's case
has told Vanity Fair that the FBI opened an investigation into
covert activity by Turkish nations and found evidence, mainly via
wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians. One
name apparently stood out-a man the Turkish callers often referred
to by the nickname "Denny boy." According to some of the wiretaps it
was Denny Hastert. The FBI's targets had arranged for thousands of
dollars to be paid to Hastert's campaign funds in small checks. Under
Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are
not required to be itemized in public filings.

An examination of Hastert's federal filings shows that the level
of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was
very high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal
donations to the Hastert for Congress fund amounted to $483,000. In
contrast, un-itemized contributions to the same period to the
committee run on behalf of the House majority leader, Tom DeLay,
Republican of Texas, were only $99,000. An analysis of the filings
of four other senior Republicans shows that only one, Clay Shaw,
of Florida declared a higher total of un-itemized donations than
Hastert during the same period: $552,00.

Edmonds reportedly added that the recordings contained repeated
references to Hastert's flip-flop in the fall of 2000, "over an
issue which remains of intense concern to the Turkish government-the
continuing campaign to have Congress designate the killings of
Armenians between 1915 and 1923 a genocide." Hastert's spokesman
denied the allegations that he was bribed by a foreign agent, and
said he knew nothing of the Turkish group.

Hastert's defense is sounding a lot like some parallel Republican
defenses to ongoing criminal investigations, namely Karl Rove, Tom
DeLay, and Randy "Duke" Cunningham. They claim to have no involvement
in the crime until it becomes obvious they are involved, and then
they try to smear anyone willing to talk about it. This has become
an ongoing pattern in the Republican administration and a danger to
democracy. Only the justice system running its proper course can shed
light on what crimes, if any, have been committed by Denny Hastert, and
obstruction of the investigation should be roundly condemned by all.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/04/200318.php

--Boundary_(ID_mMHb8ShwhD8YfuuS9QrJ1w)--

[Hovik]

Fbi Whistleblower Appeals To Supreme Court

FBI WHISTLEBLOWER APPEALS TO SUPREME COURT
BY REBECCA CARR

Cox News Service
August 5, 2005 Friday

WASHINGTON -- FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds is asking the
U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether a lower court erred in dismissing
her claims of wrongful termination based on the rarely used "state
secrets privilege."

By invoking the "state secrets privilege," the Justice Department
prevented Edmonds, a former language translator, from airing in
court her allegations that the bureau fired her for reporting serious
security breaches and possible espionage.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in May
that Edmonds could jeopardize national security if her case proceeded.

But the state secret privilege was created by the high court 52 years
ago to be used as "a shield for sensitive evidence, not a sword the
government can use at will to cut off argument in a case," said Ann
Beeson, who represents Edmonds as the associate legal director of
the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU is asking the high court to "rein in the government's misuse
of this privilege," Beeson said.

The ACLU is also asking the Supreme Court to reverse a decision by
the court of appeals to ban the media and the public from hearing
Edmond's appeal.

There are at least four other cases now pending where the federal
government has asserted the state secrets privilege, which effectively
ends the case when a judge approves the use.

On Thursday, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond
affirmed the CIA's use of the privilege to end a discrimination
lawsuit filed by a Jeffrey Sterling, a former operations officer in
the agency's Near East and South Asia division.

"The district court properly concluded that this case would require
disclosure of highly classified information concerning the identity,
location and assignments of CIA operatives," the court's ruling states.

When the government invokes the privilege, the person seeking justice
against discrimination or retaliation loses because the case is
dismissed, open government advocates say.

The executive branch is increasingly using the privilege to obtain
dismissals of civil cases that allege unlawful conduct by federal
agencies, said Mark S. Zaid, who represents Sterling.

The government sends a message of "keep your mouth shut" to all
whistleblowers when it invokes the state secrets privilege, Zaid said.

Congress needs to investigate whether the executive branch is
misusing the state secrets privilege, said Beth Daley, director of
communication for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog
organization based in Washington.

"The executive branch is abusing this authority," Daley said. The
result is that national homeland security whistleblowers are afraid
to come forward when they see wrong doing because their cases end up
in a black hole, she said.

The Justice Department did not return calls seeking comment, but in
the past it has argued the privilege is a necessary tool to protect
government secrets.

Edmonds was hired by the FBI as a contract linguist soon after the
Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks for her fluency in Turkish, Farsi
and Azerbaijani.

Between December 2001 and March 2002, she reported a number of serious
security breaches to her superiors, including an allegation that a
fellow translator had been associating with an FBI target.

New details of those allegations appeared in the September issue of
Vanity Fair.

The article stated that Edmonds listened to wiretapped conversations
of FBI targets at the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of
Turkish American Associations and the Turkish Consulate in Chicago.
The article claims that the Turkish groups arranged for tens of
thousands of dollars to be paid to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's
campaign funds in small checks of less than $200 so they would not
have to be itemized in public campaign filings.

The article states that recordings mention Hastert's decision in
2000 to withdraw his support for a congressional proposal that
would have designated as a genocide the killings of Armenians in
Turkey between 1915 and 1923. The article said that a senior Turkish
official claimed that the price for Hastert to withdraw his support
was at least $500,000.

Hastert's voice was not heard on the recordings. And the article
notes that there was no evidence that any payment was ever made to
Hastert or his campaign.

Ron Bonjean, Hastert's spokesperson, said the allegations are
"nonsense." Hastert changed his vote because former President Bill
Clinton asked him to withdraw his support out of concern for U.S.
interests abroad.

" It makes for great summer time reading," Bonjean said. "The
next thing you know they will blame the speaker for the Jennifer
Aniston-Brad Pitt break up."

The Vanity Fair article also states that Edmonds listened to a
conversation between a Turkish official and a State Department
staffer. In the conversation, Vanity Fair reports, that government
officials agreed that the State Department staffer would send a
representative to pick up $7,000 in cash at the American-Turkish
Council's Washington headquarters.

"I deny the allegations in the article in the strongest possible
terms," said James Holmes, president of the American-Turkish Council.
"The article's treatment of the ATC is packed with knowable lies. Any
rookie fact checker could have found out that the facts were wrong."

Edmonds' legal battle with the Justice Department began soon after
she was fired in March 2002. She filed a federal lawsuit alleging that
her termination was in retaliation for reporting security breaches.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton dismissed her case in July 2003
because then-Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the "state
secrets privilege," allowing the government to block the release of
any material that would harm national security.

In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed
her dismissal of her case based on the state secrets privilege.

"This privilege was supposed to be invoked rarely, but you see here
that they are using this as a tool to gag whistleblowers," Edmonds
said on Friday. "It is extremely dangerous the way they invoke it.
According to them, my place of birth, my languages, my resume, are
all state secrets. It's ludicrous."

On the Web:

The American Civil Liberties Union's filing before the U.S. Supreme
Court: www.aclu.org

Rebecca Carr's e-mail is rcarr(at)coxnews.com

[Gavur]

Abramoff Lobbying Scandal

by James Ridgeway

Mondo Washington
January 4th, 2006 10:11 AM

Abramoff Lobbying Scandal: Big Timber Falls Hard
Hastert on tainted money: Okay, okay, I'll give it back

WASHINGTON, D.C.--With leaders of both parties compromised in the Jack
Abramoff lobbying scandal, questions now center around Republican
Dennis Hastert, speaker of the House, who yesterday shed himself of
tainted campaign contributions totaling $70,000. He gave the money
to an unspecified charity.

In November of last year, the Washington Post described a fundraiser,
held by Hastert, at one of Abramoff's restaurants. The party yielded
Hastert $21,500 for his political action committee. While several
lawmakers who received money from the fundraiser had already returned
it, only yesterday did Hastert come forward.

"The speaker believes that while these contributions were legal,
it is appropriate to donate the money to charity," a spokesman for
the Illinois Republican, Ron Bonjean, said.

Hastert, often viewed as a weak Speaker and little more than a
frontpiece for indicted majority leader Tom Delay, recently was
linked to another potential political campaign scandal. Vanity Fair
last fall ran an article in which Sibel Edmonds, the former FBI
translator blocked by a government gag order from telling what she
knows about the FBI operations around the time of 9-11, describes how,
in her days as an FBI interpreter, she ran across wiretaps of Turkish
officials discussing campaign contributions to various politicians,
including Hastert.

"Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references
to large-scale drug shipments and other crimes," wrote Vanity Fair.

"To a person who knew nothing about their context, the details were
confusing and it wasn't always clear what might be significant. One
name, however, apparently stood out--a man the Turkish callers
often referred to by the nickname 'Denny boy.' It was the Republican
congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert.

According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.'s targets had arranged
for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert's campaign funds
in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations
of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings."

The magazine went on to point out that there had been a large
amounts of money--some $483,000 from 1996 through December 2002--in
non-itemized contributions to Hastert's re-election committee.

Edmonds said the phone recordings made repeated references to
Hastert's role in first supporting, then unexpectedly opposing,
a House resolution declaring the killing of Armenians in Turkey
as genocide. Hastert claimed he withdrew the resolution after then
President Clinton said it would hurt U.S. interests in Turkey. There
is no evidence Hastert himself knew anything about this, and his
spokesman denied any connection to Turkish lobbyists or groups. He
also denied any wrongdoing.

[Gavur]

Is the US State Department still keeping April Glaspie under wraps?

Important Notice: Jang Group of Newspapers web site can be accessed
only by using http://www.jang.com.pk and http://www.jang-group.com

Is the US State Department still

keeping April Glaspie under wraps?

By Kaleem Omar

It is now more than fifteen years since that fateful meeting on July 25, 1990 between then-US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie and President Saddam Hussein that the Iraqi leader interpreted as a green light from Washington for his invasion of Kuwait eight days later.

The US State Department, which is said to have placed a gag order on Glaspie in August 1990 prohibiting her from talking to the media about what had transpired at that meeting, is apparently still keeping her under wraps despite the fact that she retired from the American Foreign Service in 2002. .

In all the years since her meeting with Saddam Hussein, Glaspie has never spoken about it to the media, never appeared as a guest on a TV talk show, never written an article or a book about her time as the US’s top diplomat in Baghdad. The question is: why? What has she got to hide?

April Catherine Glaspie was born in Vancouver, Canada, on April 26, 1942 and graduated from Mills College in Oakland, California in 1963 and from Johns Hopkins University in 1965. In 1966 she entered the United States diplomatic service, where she became an expert on the Middle East. After postings in Kuwait, Syria and Egypt, Glaspie was appointed Ambassador to Iraq in 1989.

Glaspie’s appointment followed a period from 1980 to 1988 during which the United States had given substantial covert support to Iraq during its war with Iran.

Before 1918 Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman province of Basra, and thus in a sense part of Iraq, but Iraq had recognised its independence in 1961. After the end of the Iran-Iraq War (during the course of which Kuwait lent Iraq $ 14 billion), Iraq and Kuwait had a dispute over the exact demarcation of its border, access to waterways, the price at which Kuwaiti oil was being sold, and oil-drilling in border areas.

It was in this context that Glaspie had her first meeting with Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990. Glaspie herself had requested the meeting, saying she had an urgent message for the Iraqi president from US President George H. W. Bush (Bush Senior). In her two years as Ambassador to Iraq, it was Glaspie’s first private audience with Saddam Hussein. It was also to be her last. A partial transcript of the meeting is as follows:

US Ambassador Glaspie:

"I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I have lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country (after the Iran-Iraq war). We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your other threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship - not confrontation - regarding your intentions. Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s borders?"

President Saddam Hussein:

"As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death."

US Ambassador Glaspie:

"What solution would be acceptable?"

President Saddam Hussein:

"If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab - our strategic goal in our war with Iran - we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (which, in Iraq’s view, includes Kuwait), then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States’ opinion on this?"

US Ambassador Glaspie:

"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasise the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."

(Saddam smiles)

At a Washington press conference called the next day (July 26, 1990), US State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutweiler was asked by journalists:

"Has the United States sent any type of diplomatic message to the Iraqis about putting 30,000 troops on the border with Kuwait? Has there been any type of protest communicated from the United States government?"

To which Tutweiler responded

"I’m entirely unaware of any such protest."

On July 31, 1990, two days before the Iraqi invasion, John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, testified to Congress that the

"United States has no commitment to defend Kuwait and the US has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq."

The trap had been baited very cleverly by Glaspie, reinforced by Tutweiler’s and Kelly’s supporting comments. And Saddam Hussein walked right into it, believing that the US would do nothing if his troops invaded Kuwait. On August 2, 1990, eight days after Glaspie’s meeting with the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein’s massed troops invaded Kuwait.

One month later in Baghdad, British journalists obtained the tape and transcript of the Saddam Hussein-April Glaspie meeting on July 25, 1990. In order to verify this astounding information, they attempted to confront Ms Glaspie as she was leaving the US embassy in Baghdad.

Journalist 1:

"Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Ambassador?"

(Ambassador Glaspie does not respond)

Journalist 2:

"You knew Saddam was going to invade (Kuwait), but you didn’t warn him not to. You didn’t tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told him the opposite - that America was not associated with Kuwait."

Journalist 1:

"You encouraged this aggression - his invasion. What were you thinking?"

US Ambassador Glaspie:

"Obviously, I didn’t think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait."

Journalist 1:

"You thought he was just going to take SOME of it? But how COULD YOU?! Saddam told you that, if negotiations failed, he would give up his Iran (Shatt al Arab Waterway) goal for the ‘WHOLE of Iraq, in the shape we wish it to be.’ You KNOW that includes Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always viewed as a historic part of their country!"

(Ambassador Glaspie says nothing, pushing past the two journalists to leave)

"America green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit signalling Saddam that some aggression was okay - that the US would not oppose a grab of the al-Rumalya oil field, the disputed border strip and the Gulf Islands (including Bubiyan) - territories claimed by Iraq?"

(Again, Ambassador Glaspie says nothing as a limousine door closes behind her and the car drives off.)

Two years later, during the American television network NBC News Decision ‘92s third round of the Presidential Debate, 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot was quoted as saying:

"...we told him (Saddam) he could take the northern part of Kuwait; and when he took the whole thing we went nuts. And if we didn’t tell him that, why won’t we even let the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee see the written instructions for Ambassador Glaspie?"

At this point he (Perot) was interrupted by then President George Bush Senior who yelled:

"I’ve got to reply to that. That gets to national honour!...That is absolutely absurd!"

Absurd or not, the fact of the matter is that after April Glaspie left Baghdad in late August 1990 and returned to Washington, she was kept under wraps by the State Department for eight months, not allowed to talk to the media, and did not surface until just before the official end of the Gulf war (April 11, 1991), when she was called to testify informally before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about her meeting with Saddam Hussein.

She said she was the victim of "deliberate deception on a major scale" and denounced the transcript of the meeting as "a fabrication" that distorted her position, though she admitted that it contained "a great deal" that was accurate.

The veteran diplomat awaited her next assignment, later taking a low-profile job at the United Nations in New York. She was later shunted off to Cape Town, South Africa, as US Consul General. Nothing has been heard of her since her retirement from the diplomatic service in 2002. It’s almost as if she has become a non-person.