Cheney's Illegal Actions Raise Warning Flags at White House

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2004-07-08 12:49am

Also, a French judge is confident to bust him on money laundering and bribery

Vice President Dick Cheney illegally intervened to secure a $7 billion no-bid contract for his former employer, energy giant Halliburton, an analysis by the White House counsel’s office concludes. Although the analysis is not available to the public because of the secrecy of “attorney-client privilege,” it has generated speculation among senior White House aides who suggest the Vice President should step down as President George W. Bush’s running mate for the November Presidential elections.

Vice President Cheney Those who have read the analysis say it presents a “devastating” case against the Vice President and concludes Cheney has violated both the “spirit and intent” of federal laws on conflict of interest.

Even worse, Cheney faces indictment by a French court on charges of bribery, money laundering and misuse of corporate assets because of fraud associated with the construction of a $6 billion petrochemical plant built by Halliburton in Nigeria in partnership with Technip, one of France’s largest petrochemical engineering companies.

Cheney is under investigation by Judge Renaud van Ruymbeke, one of France’s famous investigating magistrates. Ruymbeke is a legend in legal circles because of his investigation into French campaign scandals in the 1990s, resulting in multiple indictments and convictions of top officials.

Because of Ruymbeke’s work on the case, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into a $180 million “slush fund” that the French judge says was used to pay bribes.

London Lawyer Jeffrey Tesler, a consultant to Halliburton, admitted under oath in May that he made payments from the fund to Albert “Jack” Stanley, president of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root and a longtime friend and associate of Cheney. The payments, Tesler said, were personally approved by Cheney, who headed Halliburton at the time.

Although Cheney left his position at Halliburton before becoming Vice President, his financial disclosure statements show he continues to receive dividends from stock as well as deferred compensation from the company.

At least $5 million in payments to Stanley from the fund were wired to a secret numbered bank account in Zurich which Judge Ruymbeke discovered belonged to the KBR President. Tesler also testified he paid another $350,000 to another KBR executive, William Chaudran, through another secret bank account on the isle of Jersey.

Cheney served as CEO of Halliburton from 1995 until 2000 and approved the Nigerian contract in 1999. Halliburton publicly announced on June 18 it was “severing all ties” with Stanley, admitting he had received “improper personal benefits” while serving as President of KBR. Sources within Halliburton say the company’s internal investigation clearly implicates Vice President Cheney but acknowledge the investigation will remain sealed in light of the company’s $7 billion sweetheart contract with the Pentagon for work in Iraq.

French Judge Ruymbeke, however, is said to be offering Stanley a deal if he implicates Cheney and sources within the French legal system say the judge has more than enough to indict the Vice President on charges of bribery, money laundering and misuse of corporate assets.

The assessment of the White House counsel’s office agrees that Cheney faces “serious legal implications” from the pending French indictments and add that the Vice President’s illegal and unethical lobbying on behalf of Halliburton for the no-bid contract “raises additional questions.”

Cheney, however, is standing firm and recently told Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont to “f**k off” when the Senator questioned him on the Halliburton matters.

According to White House sources, President George W. Bush laughed the matter off at a recent cabinet meeting.

“F**k ‘em all,” Bush said.

The President’s bravado, however, is not shared by worried White House aides. Some point to the last vice president to step down because of fraud and corruption – Spiro T. Agnew, who served under President Richard M. Nixon, another Republican forced to leave office because of scandal

"Go fuck yourself"

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-07-08 12:59am

Oopsie...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-07-08 12:59am

What, no right-wing apologist has stepped in yet to say why all of this is perfectly acceptable, and indeed, noble?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-07-08 01:02am

Reuters, BBC, AP?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-07-08 01:23am

Just making sure: would you concede that Cheney is a criminal piece of shit if other sources are indeed found?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-07-08 01:34am

Darth Wong wrote:Just making sure: would you concede that Cheney is a criminal piece of shit if other sources are indeed found?

Of course, but these are pretty serious allegations and I don't think it's too ridiculous to ask for a source a bit higher up on the credibility chain than Capitol Hill Blue to confirm them.

And yes, I would say the same thing if John Kerry was the individual in question.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-07-08 01:37am

Ah, speak of the devil:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5333896/

Nothing implicating Cheney yet, but it's something.

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-07-08 04:01am

Of course, but these are pretty serious allegations and I don't think it's too ridiculous to ask for a source a bit higher up on the credibility chain than Capitol Hill Blue to confirm them.

And yes, I would say the same thing if John Kerry was the individual in question.

Yahoo has similar story:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... /54425&e=5

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-07-08 04:05am

Doesn't all of the recent stories seem to add up to something? Not sure if they are really true or 100% real what nots but doesn't something something say that the simplest answer is often the correct answer?

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-07-08 04:10am

Oops...for those who don't want to open another website:

The Cheney Connection: Tracing the Halliburton money trail to Nigeria

Fri Jun 18, 3:00 PM ET Add Local - Los Angeles Weekly to My Yahoo!

By Doug Ireland LA Weekly Writer

Was Halliburton, the oil conglomerate once headed by Dick Cheney (news - web sites), involved in a massive $180 million bribery scheme in Nigeria on Cheneys watch? Hopes that the veil may finally be lifted on yet another odoriferous Halliburton scandal were raised last Friday, when it was announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission (news - web sites) has finally opened a formal investigation into the alleged bribery — which French authorities have been probing for a year. In Paris, official documents revealing that Cheney might be among those indicted on corruption charges as a result of the French investigation made front-page news there last Christmas — but not here.

The newly launched SEC probe was undoubtedly sparked by the latest revelations in the French investigation. A Halliburton London lawyer, Jeffrey Tesler — identified by the French investigating magistrate conducting the international bribery probe as the bagman who controlled the secret $180 million slush fund set up (according to French press reports) by a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) — admitted in mid-May, under oath, making two payments from the slush fund totaling nearly $1 million to two top KBR executives.

At the heart of the complicated scandal is a $6 billion gas-liquefaction factory — one of the largest in the world — built in Nigeria on behalf of oil mammoth Shell by Halliburton in partnership with a large French petro-engineering company, Technip. Nigeria has been rated by the anticorruption watchdog Transparency International as the second-most corrupt country in the world, surpassed only by Bangladesh. The French investigation is the first under a new statute, passed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and ratified by France in 2000, making bribe giving in the course of business transactions a crime. The U.S. is one of the 30-country member signatories to the OECD conventions, and U.S. law has banned such payments for 25 years.

Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke, Frances best-known investigating magistrate who is heading the French probe of Halliburton, is notoriously independent with a reputation as untouchable. Together with the famous Spanish investigating judge Baltasar Garzon and the former chief Geneva public prosecutor Bernard Bertossa, he was one of the initiators of a 1996 call for greater international cooperation on corruption cases signed by investigating magistrates from all over Europe and known in judicial circles as the Geneva Appeal.

Van Ruymbeke — no stranger to the unsavory world of oil-and-gas politics — unearthed the existence of the $180 million fund now being investigated by the SEC. He made his name investigating a series of corruption scandals in which politicians of both right and left were convicted — including a former cabinet member from Jacques Chiracs conservative coalition. Van Ruymbeke stumbled across the Halliburton scandal while investigating the oil giant Elf for corrupting and bribing public officials (a scandal that earned Elfs CEO, Loic LeFloch Prigent, a five-year prison sentence). Elf has had a raft of hand-in-glove dealings with Technip, the French firm now under investigation with Halliburton.

The roaming $180 million now being investigated by the SEC was first paid to the mysterious, 55-year-old Tesler — who worked for Halliburton at the same time he was financial adviser to the late Nigerian dictator General Sami Abacha and controlled his personal fortune — through a front company called TriStar that Tesler set up and controlled in the British tax haven of Gibraltar. TriStar in turn got the money from a consortium set up for the Nigeria refinery deal by Halliburton and Technip, and registered in the island fiscal paradise of Madeira.

According to Agence France-Presse, Georges Krammer — a top official of Technip who is cooperating with Judge Van Rymbekes investigation — has testified that the Madeira-based consortium was a slush fund controlled by Halliburton (through its subsidiary KBR) and Technip, and that Halliburton insisted that Teslar be the intermediary in the Nigeria deal over the objections of Technip. According to Newsweek, another top Technip official interviewed by the magazine in February (Christopher Welton, chief of Technips investor-and-analyst relations) confirmed that Halliburtons KBR subsidiary was the chief principal and decision maker in the venture.

Judge Van Ruymbeke, according to French press reports, believed that some or all of the $180 million which Halliburton/KBR claims were retro-commissions were, in fact, bribes given to Nigerian officials and others to grease the wheels for the refinery deal (which required Nigerian government approval) and its construction. One of the many witnesses deposed by Judge Van Ruymbeke is the former Nigerian oil minister Dan Entete — who is suspected of having used some of the alleged bribe money to buy himself fancy apartments in Paris and a chateau in Normandy. Entete, according to the Journal du Dimanche (a large Sunday paper), confirmed the judges suspicions that Tesler laundered the money through offshore and secret bank accounts, and that part of the money wound up in dictator Abachas coffers.

The French judge then launched a series of international search warrants, some of which covered Tesler-controlled bank accounts (some in the names of Tesler family members) in Monaco; Geneva, Switzerland; Madeira; and elsewhere. Documents revealed, among other things, bizarre payments to two top Halliburton/KBR officials by Tesler, according to the investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaine. With those documents in hand, Judge Van Ruymbeke then got Tesler to come to Paris for two days of testimony by telling him: Either you come voluntarily, or well issue an international warrant and make you come. In his sworn testimony, the French paper said, Tesler admitted making two payments from the $180 million fund to Halliburton execs: a $385,000 payment to Albert J. Jack Stanley, president of KBR and a close associate of Dick Cheney — a payment which Stanley had sent to a numbered bank account in Zurich, baptized Amal; and another payment of $350,000 to top KBR exec William Chaudan — who had the money routed to an anonymous bank account on the island fiscal paradise of Jersey. (Neither Stanley, Chaudan nor KBRs public relations director responded to calls seeking their comments for this story.)

If these were legitimate business payments, why route them to secret foreign bank accounts? Were they, perhaps, just old-fashioned, Enron-style boodling? Or destined to be laundered as bribes? Or were they ultimately intended for GOP coffers (one of the hypotheses Judge Van Ruymbeke is not excluding)? And where did the rest of the $180 million go?

A Department of Justice (news - web sites) inquiry into the slush fund quietly begun earlier this year under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has gone nowhere — partly because it has limited itself only to asking Halliburton for documents, partly because the national press has shown almost no real interest in the story (if it did, the pressure on Justice to move more aggressively would be enormous). And obvious conflict-of-interest questions must be raised about any investigation of a company formerly run by Cheney that is controlled by Cheneys political pal John Ashcroft (news - web sites).

Getting to the Brown and Root of the matter is an old Texas expression for follow the money. Thats why the SECs tardy investigation is good news — as an independent agency it has some insulation from political pressure. But not, of course, as much as the incorruptible Judge Van Ruymbeke — who last December formally notified the French Ministry of Justice that Dick Cheney could wind up among those eventually indicted in the scandal.

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Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2004-07-08 07:52am

According to White House sources, President George W. Bush laughed the matter off at a recent cabinet meeting.

“Fuck ‘em all,” Bush said.

LOL if that's for real Bush and Cheney are some cocky motherfuckers, so much shit keeps piling up to them being modern day robber barons and they just laugh it off.