Speaker Of House Hastert Allegedly Bribed

[Siamanto]

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.

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg119901.html

[Anonymouse]

This is the usual behavior. I'm not surprised about this. In fact, I was surprised for the lack of inactivity by our Turkish brothers and sisters! It's about time they acted and we got to read more about the same thing. In order to live long you need to read one article about Turkish bribery of US officials or academics at least once every 3 months to maintain a healthy bowel function.

[TJ]

I sent the dirty bastard a letter and tried really hard to make him cry for being such a good politician.

[Anonymouse]

I sent the dirty bastard a letter and tried really hard to make him cry for being such a good politician.

Did you make sure to ask him why he didn't urge our Turkish brothers and sisters to do this sort of stuff more often? I mean, as an Armenian, I get bored of Turkish inacitivity and we always need to see that the Turks are busy working too trying to spread the lies and such.

[TJ]

We will stay on our tippy toes and his wallet will get fatter: seems like a good relationship.

[TomServo]

Bribing them with doners again?

[Siamanto]

The White House Bulletin:
Vanity Fair Says FBI Wiretaps Mentioned Claims Of Bribes To Hastert

August 4, 2005 Thursday
-- Bulletin exclusive from U.S. News

An article on Sibel Edmonds, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
translator turned whistleblower who is suing the Department of Justice,
reveals some new details of the wiretaps she translated that allegedly
involved conversations by members of Turkish associations and the
Turkish Consulate in Chicago mentioning bribes to House Speaker Dennis
Hastert (R-IL). The article is in the September issue of Vanity Fair
that is just now hitting newsstands. The article says the wiretaps
recorded members of Turkish groups claiming they had arranged for
tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert's campaign fund in
small checks under $200, so they wouldn't have to be itemized in public
campaign filings. Hastert's voice was never heard in the recordings,
however, and his office denies knowing anything about this.

The article says that the wiretap recordings contained repeated
reference to Hastert's flip-flop in 2000 on the decision to designate
the killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide.
At first he supported the idea, but later he withdrew the proposal.
Hastert explained that he changed his mind because President Bill
Clinton was concerned about the resolution harming U.S. interests
abroad. But in the Chicago wiretaps, according to Vanity Fair, "a
senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in
one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution
would have been at least $500,000." The article cautions, however,
that "the reported content of the Chicago wiretaps may well have
been sheer bravado, and there is no evidence that any payment was
ever made to Hastert or his campaign."

Edmonds told U.S. News and the Bulletin that she and other
whistleblowers from the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, National
Security Agency, and Department of Homeland Security, are so fed up
with lack of congressional oversight on intelligence and national
security that they plan to launch an advertising campaign targeting
government officials who have allegedly endangered national security.
The newspaper ads, which could be launched as early two months from
now, would name officials, their titles, their salaries, where they
work and their alleged or documented wrongdoing, says Edmonds. The
campaign would be funded by private donations, like the recently
formed advocacy group she heads, the National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition.

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg119935.html

[Siamanto]

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

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg119928.html

[Thai-Samurai]

can you just sum all that up.

[loseyourname]

Hey, Siamanto, I deleted the Vanity Fair article. It's not available on the Vanity Fair website, so whoever is posting it is probably doing so without permission. Just post the link to groong (the other link you had is dead).