The FBI is now inside the White House

by Jerome Armstrong, Fri Sep 23, 2005 at 06:03:35 AM EDT

Whoa, even the cynic whose watched these crooks in action for 5 years has to step back a bit with the latest:Last Monday, David Hossein Safavian, a high-ranking White House official and pal of GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist, was arrested in a federal corruption case involving lobbying bad boy Jack Abramoff. According to the FBI, Safavian repeatedly lied to federal investigators in order to cover up Abramoff's shady dealings. He not only bent ethics rules to accompany Abramoff on a 2002 golf junket to Scotland; he also used his position as chief of staff at the General Services Administration to deliver GSA-managed land into the lobbyist's hands.

But Safavian's not just tied to a dirty lobbyist. He's also tied to a convicted terrorist and a suspected terrorist supporter. Lobbying disclosure forms revealed last year that he has been in the employ of Abdurahman Alamoudi, an avowed supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. Prosecutors have discovered evidence that he has links to al-Qaeda. At the time, Safavian waved aside any affiliation to Alamoudi. He insisted that he was really lobbying for a client named Jamal al Barzinji. That revelation did little to clear Safavian's name: A federal affidavit identifies Barzinji as the ringleader of a group suspected of aiding terrorists.

Via Jesse at the DCCC (and he's got lots more), to Frontpage. This is a good timeline of Safavain, if you are just hearing about it and want to catch up. Granted, FrontPageMag is a rag Horowitz joint, but this is factual stuff. I bet John Conyers is feeling a bit used by now, and Carl Levin, wtf? The patron Norquist and his old pal Karl Rove hear footsteps.

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hearing footsteps?

Being one of those cynics, my only concern is if the FBI is getting closer to Norquist and Rove couldn't they use the same excuse that Conyers and Levin would use, as being used? Hopefully their closer ties to this thug will not allow them to get away with pretending they didn't know.

I just don't know what is going to get Rove any more. I hate this creep; he's like a cockroach - surviving anything that gets thrown at him. Yuk!!!!

No matter, I'll keep on praying that justice will finally come our way!!!

by HWS 2005-09-23 07:35AM | 0 recs

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Re: stupid question

Where's the inormation on Levin and Conyers' connection?

by Abby 2005-09-23 08:42AM | 0 recs

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Re: hearing footsteps?

Thing is, Conyers and Levin didn't do business with Alamoudi and Barzinji, which Norquist and Safavian did. They were just sticking up for a hometown guy. That's something I blasted Evan Bayh for when he presented John Roberts to the Senate, but it seems Conyers and Levin probably just figured he was a careerist who would hold a middle-level government job for a few years.

The investment began when Alamoudi wrote two personal checks (a $10,000 loan and what appears to be a $10,000 gift) to help found Norquist's Islamic Institute. In addition, Alamoudi made payments in 2000 and 2001 totaling $50,000 to Janus-Merritt Strategies, a lobbying firm with which Norquist was associated at the time.

Questions about the original source of this seed money would seem to be in order. In particular, it would be instructive to know whether it came from Saudi Arabia or a pedigreed terrorist state like Libya. Last month, Alamoudi was arrested and charged with engaging in illegal financial transactions with the Libyan government. According to an affidavit filed at the time, he admitted to trying to take $340,000 in sequentially numbered $100 bills to Syria, en route to Saudi bank accounts.11 When apprehended, Alamoudi declared that the funds had been delivered to him after extensive interactions with officials of Muammar Qadhafi's government by a man "with a Libyan accent." Its source is alleged to be a charity used by Qadhafi to finance terrorist operations.

According to the affidavit, Alamoudi told authorities in Britain that once the Libyan funds were in Saudi banks, he would then draw upon them in roughly $10,000 increments to defray the expenses of organizations with which he was associated in the United States. He admitted to having undertaken "other, similar transactions involving amounts in the range of $10,000 to $20,000." He also acknowledged that he had first approached representatives of the Libyan government in 1997 - the year before Norquist's Islamic Institute was founded.

It's helpful to note here that not too long ago, after years of lobbying by oil executives (including Dick Cheney), the Bush administration dropped economic sanctions against Libya, supposedly in response to Libya's promise to not pursue a WMD program. However, Libya continutes to violate basic human rights.

And don't forget, this is the same Grover Norquist who proudly displays a photo of himself holding an AK-47 in Afghanistan in the early eighties. He was there backing the same anti-Soviet mujahideen that eventually gave rise to al Qaeda.

So what's the story with the Norquist faction of the far right working hand-in-hand with terrorists? Is it that they'll literally do anything for money? Or is it something far worse?

by Scott Shields 2005-09-23 08:50AM | 0 recs

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Damn

This is reminding me of the ending to <u>Animal Farm</u>:

"There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the mugs were emptied to the dregs. But as the animals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed to them that some strange thing was happening. What was it that had altered in the faces of the pigs? Clover's old dim eyes flitted from one face to another. Some of them had five chins, some had four, some had three. But what was it that seemed to be melting and changing? Then, the applause having come to an end, the company took up their cards and continued the game that had been interrupted, and the animals crept silently away.

But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously.

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

by Valatan 2005-09-23 10:34AM | 0 recs