Recorded Feb­ru­ary 26, 2006
REALAUDIO

In this inter­view, Daniel Hop­sicker updates the audi­ence on the sta­tus of a law­suit filed against him by “Stephan” (name with­held by request), one of the Ger­man, Aus­trian and Swiss asso­ciates of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Daniel informs us that Stephan cor­rob­o­rated an impor­tant detail about Wolf­gang Bohringer, another of Atta’s Ger­man asso­ciates. After dis­cussing the upcom­ing pub­li­ca­tion of new, sup­ple­mented edi­tions of both of his books, Daniel pro­vides more detail about con­nect­ing links between the scan­dals envelop­ing the GOP.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Dis­cus­sion of the fact that Bohringer’s father owned a fleet of taxi­cabs and was the con­trol­ling fig­ure in the Fly­ing Club of Munich, to which Wolf­gang belongs; the use of such “clubs” by post­war Ger­man neo-Nazis to cir­cum­vent that country’s anti-Nazi laws; the fact that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and asso­ciates vis­ited Sun­Cruz casino boats at least four times in the run-up to 9/11; links between GOP oper­a­tor Brent Wilkes and the Iran-Contra drug smug­gling front World Finance Corporation.

1. The pro­gram begins with dis­cus­sion of forth­com­ing new edi­tions of both of Daniel’s books—Barry and the Boys and Wel­come to Ter­ror­land. Both vol­umes will con­tain sup­ple­men­tal infor­ma­tion not con­tained in the orig­i­nal edi­tions. Mr. Emory then notes that there are sig­nif­i­cant ele­ments of con­ti­nu­ity that run through­out both of Daniel’s books and many of his arti­cles. As we saw in FTR#’s 482, 483, 484, the milieu in Florida in which Mohamed Atta and com­pany oper­ated has many evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning in the direc­tion of the Iran-Contra scan­dal and the epic drug-smuggling that accom­pa­nied that oper­a­tion. That is the milieu of Barry Seal, the focal point of Barry and the Boys.

Future pro­grams will fea­ture dis­cus­sion of some of the evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning between Daniel’s books and some of his arti­cles on the over­lap­ping GOP scan­dals involv­ing Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

Daniel men­tioned that the new edi­tion of Wel­come to Ter­ror­land will con­tain a con­sid­er­able amount of infor­ma­tion from Mark Shu­bin, a for­mer U-2 pilot who was part of the aero­nau­ti­cal milieu around Venice (Florida).

2. Much of the first side of the pro­gram involves devel­op­ments in a law­suit the Daniel has been fight­ing. Filed by “Stephan” (name with­held by request)—one of the Ger­mans, Aus­tri­ans and Swiss with whom Atta asso­ci­ated in Florida–the suit fea­tured an inter­est­ing depo­si­tion about Wolf­gang Bohringer. Dis­cussed briefly in FTR#477, Bohringer was one of the Ger­man asso­ciates of Atta, and may have been involved in some of the plan­ning for the event. In his depo­si­tion, “Stephan” cor­rob­o­rated a key detail about the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Bohringer’s entry into the United States. Amanda Keller—Atta’s girl­friend in Florida—mentioned to Daniel that Bohringer won his green card in a lot­tery. “Stephan” cor­rob­o­rated this detail. In the dis­cus­sion of the green card lot­tery, both Daniel and Mr. Emory men­tion that they had never heard of a green card lot­tery. Sub­se­quently, a num­ber of lis­ten­ers help­fully men­tioned that such lot­ter­ies are not uncom­mon in other countries.

3. Dis­cussing Bohringer’s back­ground, Daniel men­tions that Bohringer was part of an orga­ni­za­tion called the Fly­ing Club of Munich, which is con­trolled by his father. (FTR#477 con­tains a brief men­tion of the Fly­ing Club of Munich.) Dis­cussing that orga­ni­za­tion, Mr. Emory notes that many neo-Nazi orga­ni­za­tions in post­war Ger­many rep­re­sent them­selves as clubs or civic orga­ni­za­tions of some kind in order to hide their true nature. Mr. Emory cites the Sport­group Hoff­man, a neo-Nazi orga­ni­za­tion that was active in the Mid­dle East and worked with Arab and Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ists. (For more about the Sport­group Hoff­man, see FTR#333.) Dis­cussing Bohringer’s father, Daniel men­tions that he owns a taxi­cab com­pany in Munich, an inter­est­ing detail in light of the lib­eral use made of cabs by Atta and com­pany in their South Florida oper­a­tions. Mr. Emory notes that own­ing air­craft and cabs would facil­i­tate any num­ber of clan­des­tine activ­i­ties, includ­ing drug and arms smug­gling. Appar­ently, Bohringer’s father is quite wealthy and pow­er­ful. The pos­si­bil­ity that he may be asso­ci­ated with the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work is not one to be too read­ily dismissed.

4. Not­ing some of the evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning between Daniel’s books and his ground-breaking inves­tiga­tive pieces, Mr. Emory men­tions that Atta and com­pany vis­ited one of the Sun­Cruz casino boats on Sep­tem­ber 11th of 2001. (Sun­Cruz was owned by the late Gus Boulis, a friend of the elder George Bush who was mur­dered gangland-style in Feb­ru­ary of 2001.) Daniel men­tioned that there appear to have been at least four trips to Sun­Cruz boats by Atta and com­pany, per­haps to laun­der money. (For more about the Boulis mur­der and the takeover of Sun­Cruz by GOP big­wig Jack Abramoff, see—among other programs—FTR#516.)

5. Not­ing again the numer­ous evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing Daniel’s inves­tiga­tive pieces with his books, Mr. Emory notes that Brent Wilkes, an asso­ciate of dis­graced (and now con­victed) San Diego con­gress­man Randy “Duke” Cun­ning­ham, used to work for the World Finance Cor­po­ra­tion, one of the money-laundering vehi­cles for the Iran-Contra drug smug­gling.
For more about this con­nec­tion, see “Cun­ning­ham Scan­dal Fig­ure Linked to Iran Con­tra Cocaine Traf­fick­ing”.

6. Mr. Emory also notes that Wilkes ran a front com­pany used by Randy Cun­ning­ham in many of his oper­a­tions. That front com­pany kicked back vast sums of money to lob­by­ing firm run by Jack Abramoff and oper­ated by two for­mer asso­ciates of Tom De Lay.
For more about this, see “Cun­ning­ham Stripped $700 Mil­lion from U.S. Defense: ‘Dukester’s’ Epic Boo-Boo Hid­ing Mass­sive Pen­ta­gon Rip-Off”.