Speaking of the Saudis
Check out who Bandar Bush bin Sultan hired to defend him in the BAE bribery investigation:
Prince Bandar, a confidant of the Bush family, recently retained the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director Louis J. Freeh, as well as one of the fathers of the F.C.P.A., the retired federal judge Stanley Sporkin, to represent him.
“Therehave been no charges filed,†Mr. Freeh said in an interview. “Theprince denies any impropriety and violating any statutes in the UnitedKingdom or the United States.â€
The news is eye-popping (to me, at least) for more than just Freeh’s former role as the head of the FBI. You see, Freeh is a very good buddy of our new AG, Michael Mukasey, showing up at his confirmation hearings.
Something in the front row of the spectator’s gallery kept catchingmy eye as I watched the stock footage of the Mukasey confirmationhearings being played over and over on Friday–I kept thinking isn’tthat Louis Freeh in the front row? So, on Saturday Morning I did a little googling and lo and behold! — it WAS Louis!
How curious!
What would Louis Freeh be doing at that hearing? Hmmmm?
And his swearing-in ceremony.
Dignitaries in attendance included Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., SamBrownback, R-Kan., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and former attorneysgeneral John Ashcroft and Dick Thornburgh. Also seated near the frontwere FBI Director Robert Mueller and ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh, aformer Southern District of New York judge and friend of Mukasey’s.
I’d say recent events have taken a turn in Bandar’s favor, wouldn’t you? How convenient that the newly-installed top law enforcement officer in this country happens to be great buddies with your lawyer.
Somehow, Bandar manages to have all the luck.
Not all the luck. That whole adopting into the Bush family thing finally went south on him…
Stop teasing us!! I remember that you thought it was very curious. Now I am truly intrigued. â€WHAT IS HAPPENING ??†(line from a scary movie to be said while screaming : o
Is just like a little fraternity, isn’t it?
File under: ’Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer….’
Everything comes to him what has, or so some say.
I’m guessing Bandar’s money doesn’t hurt in the luck department either
For no good reason, I’ve always felt Bandar and the Saudis conveyed the primary ’intel’ behind the ’chatter’ that became the August 6, 2001 PDB, ’Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.’
It’s still an open question just how much the Saudis really knew about the activities of Al-Qaeda prior to 911, but one has to assume that, of all the parties interested in the activities of Bin Laden, the Saudis had to be ’the most’ interested.
How hard is it to imagine the Saudis warning Bush that Osama was going to hijack our own planes and fly them into the same buildings he tried to blow-up 8 years previously?
How hard would it be to imagine Bush, in his staff meeting, dismissing their intel, anyway, with a casual wave of his hand and a smirking aside to Condi, â€That’ll never happen, the Arabs aren’t smart enough to fly our modern jet aircraft. Next item.â€?
Bandar’s gonna walk.
Eh, if it wasn’t Mukasey, Bandar would have hired whoever was buddies with whomever became AG.
I can see the t-shirts now:
An FBI agent, holding a Spork, with a bubble over his/her head that says: Freeh Bandar!
Freeh and Mukasey are also both sales pitching Giuliani.
On the practical side, using Freeh should get around all kinds of issues that may come up re: classified info. I guess that would probably be the case with Sporkin too, since he was CIA counsel in the olden days.
On the cutlery side – there really aren’t all that many times you can work a sporkin to conversation.
I guess in a universe where Congress actually did real investigations and impeached for wrongdoing, someone, somewhere, would be borrowing from Sporkin’s comment on the Lincoln Savings & Loan and, with regard to torture, kidnap, illegal and horrifically ill-advised war, outing CIA agents, lies to courts, etc. of this administration they’d be saying: â€Where were the professionals?!?
Ummm, well, in the case of Freeh, apparently the professionals were investigating a brothel in New Orleans in lieu of terrorsts on 9/11.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..ge=printer
10 agents recorded the men’s demands, the brothel keepers’ deals and the prostitutes’ complaints. The agents were listening on Sept. 11, in the days before and in the days after. With 90
calls a day to monitor, the listening post was busy.
…
The keen interest of the federal government in prostitutes, in pre- and post-Sept. 11 America, has baffled the local legal community.
…
Particularly puzzling to the lawyers is that government agents couldn’t have known much more when they stopped listening than when they started — that they were eavesdropping on a tightly run, profit-maximizing operation. Drinking was not allowed, and the women were pushed to see as many men as possible, at one-hour intervals (â€I like to get it to seven to ten a dayâ€). Men who called from pay phones or who refused to give last names were turned away. Important customers got special treatment (â€Get the house clean because the judge will probably be comingâ€).
Glad to see Prince Bandar is A-listing.
Doesn’t matter.
Bandar will be pardoned in 14 months.
Not sure if it means anything, but Bandar took his US house off the market.
IHT.com
ASPEN, Colo.: Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador to the United States has taken his sprawling estate near the ritzy Colorado ski resort town of Aspen off the market, his lawyer said.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan had put the 90-acre (36.4-hectare) ranch and 56,000-square-foot (5,202.5-sq. meter) mansion up for sale in 2006 for $135 million.
Maybe there’s just no market these days for $135 million houses.
Holy mackerel. I mean, how tasty.
I bristle a bit when I read NYT reporters writing disingenuously of how Blair shut down the British investigation and of â€tensions between the United States and Britain over the matter†— as though Tony Blair was acting independently on this or many other scores. There are some names missing in that story.
Still, the names that are there are tasty. Mr Gardiner and Sir Kevin are worth the price of admission, and this gave me such a pure laugh:
On the cutlery side – there really aren’t all that many times you can work a sporkin to conversation.
Interesting, TheOtherWA. That bears watching. Does Bandar plan a resurgence here in the US? Which would be significant, in any case, for the way it’d give him hands on control over affairs with the US.
Sounds as if all the usual suspects are jumping on the Bandar wagon.
Other Wa
â€Prince Bandar bin Sultan had put the 90-acre (36.4-hectare) ranch and 56,000-square-foot (5,202.5-sq. meter) mansion up for sale in 2006 for $135 million.
Maybe there’s just no market these days for $135 million houses. â€
It may be that bandar is concerned that he might be facing arraignment. Since he is foreign national with substantial oversees assests, he would normally have a hard time being bailed.
He has to show ties–expecailly monetary ties in th US. He will also need to put up US assets to secure his bail.
He might also be looking at home confinement.
All reasons why he needs to maitain this house for a bit.
If you just look back overall the arguments in the Conrad Black litiagtion, you see the issues
If that house was near almost any other ski resort, national park, or similar vacation escape destination it wouldn’t raise eyebrows, but we all know the significance of Aspens turning at their roots, and unlikely meetings there.
Maybe ole’ Bandar got one of them there bad sub-prime loans and he’s upside down! No? Ok, Bandar probably doesn’t have any interest rate reset issues; but, seriously, how does the current real estate malaise effect $135 million properties in Aspen? Are they affected, or in that price range does it just not even matter? Did you folks know that the dollar has tanked so low the Brit airlines are running Christmas shopping junkets to New York like it is some kind of Atlantic City casino? Yep, factor in the airfare and a night’s stay in the Big Apple, and its still cheaper for them than shopping at home. I think LHP has a good point on the security for pre-trial release purposes; but, additionally, maybe Bandar just thinks he needs a little time for his family to get the dollar back up to value before he sells.
Seriously, Mary is on a roll. Her answer is cooked to such perfection, you could stick a spork in it….
Freeh who damaged the FBI as much as anyone ever has, Bandar Bush, and Mukasey the Bush-Cheney-Addington-Fielding puppet and champion of the Imperial Executive policy–quite a trio–3 modern day mafiasos out of the Godfather tradition. Bush will get nothing passed of consequence in the pussy Congress domestically, except whatever he wants in the Intelligence Bill in the next month (including complete Telco amnesty.
I don’t see how Bandar could be indicted by Godfather Mukasey DOJ, which is really run by Addington-Fielding, and if he were, the Bush portion of his Saudi family would simply pardon him as they did the white afluent crook Libby.
In Bushworld, White Affluent friends don’t do BOP time or probation or ankle bracelet city house arrest.
Reading the Times BAE story this morning, a thought occured to me. Is there any chance that the EO authorizing confiscation of assets of anyone threatening the Lebanese government is actually targeted at the Saudi (and maybe secondarily the Chinese) investments in the US? That might be a way of neutralizing Saudi (and Chinese) leverage over the US (and helping to right the national balance sheet to boot). I.e. if the Saudis do move OPEC oil off the USD, then the USG discloses (possibly fabricated, possibly real) evidence of Saudi (or Chinese) support for Syria, Hezbollah, or what have you — and then on that basis nationalizes in one fell swoop all Saudi assets in the US. (Pretty rich stuff there, what with the longstanding Bush family ties to the Sauds — â€Take that, Daddy!â€). Balance of economic terror. So to avoid triggering all that, the Sauds see to it that OPEC remains on the dollar, at least for the time being. And the House of Saud makes all pally with every USG-connected player it can.
Of course even in the highly unlikely event that this scenario were valid, that power dynamic wouldn’t be a permanent fix, it would at best only buy time — once onto the game, the Saudis (and Chinese) could slowly move enough investment out of the US, eventually reaching the point where they’re no longer at enough risk to be controlled any longer by the confiscation threat.
I’m nuts, aren’t I? Please tell me I’m nuts with this?