Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #590 Interview with Daniel Hopsicker: The Silencing of the Lam

Record­ed March 25, 2007
MP3 Side 1 | Side 2
REALAUDIO

Intro­duc­tion: “Con­nect­ing the dots” between GOP scan­dals that have received major news cov­er­age and the large­ly ignored South Flori­da con­nec­tions to the events of 9/11, this pro­gram notes some shady deal­ings in and around San Diego and ask the musi­cal ques­tion: “Did the fir­ing of U.S. Attor­ney [in San Diego] Car­ol Lam have any­thing to do with these activ­i­ties? Did Car­ol Lam come across more than she was allowed to pur­sue?” Not­ing a link between what Daniel Hop­sick­er calls “Hook­er­gate” and Huff­man Avi­a­tion in Venice Flori­da, the broad­cast high­lights the fact that two inde­pen­dent oil men from Mid­land [Texas] were the last known own­ers of a plane belong­ing to Huff­man Avi­a­tion [the Flori­da flight school through which Mohamed Atta and oth­er 9/11 hijack­ers infil­trat­ed the Unit­ed States.] That air­craft was bust­ed with 43 pounds of hero­in on board. The pro­gram empha­sizes the fact that there are a num­ber of oth­er evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing high­ly pub­lic GOP scan­dals such as the Jack Abramoff case with the South Flori­da 9/11 con­nec­tions.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Review of the fact that Atta and com­pa­ny vis­it­ed one of the late Gus Boulis’ Sun­Cruz casi­no boats short­ly before the 9/11 attacks; review of the fact that George Bush friend Gus Boulis was mur­dered by a man who received a large pay­ment from Abramoff asso­ciate Adam Kidan; review of the fact that Makram Chams worked for Titan secu­ri­ty [a firm close­ly linked to the scan­dals sur­round­ing Randy “Duke” Cun­ning­ham]; the fact that Chams was deeply involved with a con­ve­nience store in Venice [Flori­da] fre­quent­ed by Atta and his asso­ciates.

1. Not­ing the pri­ma­ry focal point of the broad­cast, the pro­gram sets forth some of the inter­sec­tions of Randy Cunningham’s milieu with the South Flori­da avi­a­tion envi­ron­ment through which 9/11 hijack­er Mohamed Atta and com­pa­ny infil­trat­ed the Unit­ed States. The broth­er of Cun­ning­ham col­lab­o­ra­tor Brent Wilkes was involved with a Bush Pio­neer (wealthy con­trib­u­tor) named R.D. Hub­bard. Hub­bard, in turn, was close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with two wealthy Mid­land [Texas] oil men named Wag­n­er and Brown. Wag­n­er and Brown, in turn, were the last known reg­is­tered own­ers of a plane that was bust­ed with 43 pounds of hero­in on board while being oper­at­ed by Wal­ly Hilliard’s Huff­man Avi­a­tion. Huff­man was the school that was the vehi­cle for Atta and com­pa­ny to infil­trate the U.S. This is but the lat­est exam­ple of hard, evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing the larg­er and bet­ter-pub­li­cized Repub­li­can scan­dals to the clan­des­tine world of South Flori­da covert oper­a­tions that fig­ures in the 9/11 inves­ti­ga­tion. “The Randy Cun­ning­ham ‘Hook­er­gate’ Scan­dal is not the first pros­ti­tu­tion scan­dal involv­ing close rel­a­tives of indict­ed defense con­trac­tor Brent Wilkes, The Mad­Cow­Morn­ingNews has learned. Brent Wilkes broth­er, Gre­go­ry Wilkes, man­aged the finances of The Wilkes Foun­da­tion, which was sus­pend­ed by the State of Cal­i­for­nia after fail­ing to file finan­cial state­ments for three years in a row. (NOTE: The Wilkes Foun­da­tion link above, to the Way­back machine archived page on Gre­go­ry Wilkes, was removed less than 24 hours after this sto­ry was pub­lished. If only they worked this fast tak­ing care of sol­diers with trau­mat­ic brain injuries. DH) When Greg Wilkes was­n’t busy fail­ing to file required doc­u­ments with the state on his broth­er’s char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tion, he was the Con­troller for an unfor­tu­nate ‘Bush Pio­neer’ named R.D. Hub­bard, bust­ed fly­ing almost a dozen hook­ers by pri­vate jet in June of 2001 to a casi­no he owned to ser­vice men gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments have only iden­ti­fied as ‘48 wealthy guests.’ Back in the ‘80’s Hub­bard was involved in a num­ber of Michael Milken-financed ‘green­mail’ takeover attempts, part­nered with Mid­land, Texas oil­men Wag­n­er and Brown Ltd. Strange­ly, in 2001 Wag­n­er and Brown became the last known reg­is­tered own­er of the Lear jet which belonged to ter­ror flight school own­er Wal­ly Hilliard until it was seized by DEA agents in Orlan­do who found 43 lbs. of hero­in onboard. It is the lat­est in an odd series of links between the Cun­ning­ham Scan­dal and inter­na­tion­al drug traf­fick­ing. . . .”
(“Going to Baby­lon by Cadil­lac” by Daniel Hop­sick­er; Mad­Cow­Morn­ingNews; 3/8/2007.)

2. After not­ing that there were a num­ber of San Diego links to the 9/11 inves­ti­ga­tion [aside from the Cun­ning­ham trib­u­taries], Mr. Emory and Daniel Hop­sick­er spec­u­late about the pos­si­bil­i­ty that fired U.S. attor­ney Car­ol Lam may have been “onto” these con­spir­a­tors. The Bush administration’s con­tention that Lam was fired for main­tain­ing lax bor­der secu­ri­ty is not cred­i­ble under the cir­cum­stances. (For more about the San Diego con­nec­tions to 9/11, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#507.) “Nonethe­less this seem­ing­ly inci­den­tal detail may pro­vide the con­text from which a bet­ter expla­na­tion might emerge for why Car­ol Lam, the U.S. attor­ney in San Diego who suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cut­ed for­mer Repub­li­can Rep. Randy ‘Duke’ Cun­ning­ham, was just fired. The non­sen­si­cal rea­son cit­ed this week by a Bush Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial was that ‘her pros­e­cu­tion rate for bor­der vio­la­tions was insuf­fi­cient.’ Any sug­ges­tion that ‘bor­der vio­la­tions’ have become a pri­or­i­ty of the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion has slight­ly less cred­i­bil­i­ty than a press release from the Raelian Soci­ety announc­ing the immi­nent return of the ‘space broth­ers’ from an extend­ed tour of Sir­ius. Since a close read­ing of the Cun­ning­ham Scandal’s drama­tis per­son­ae reveals that its cast includes gam­bling czars, race-track boys, hook­ers, and more nephews than a years’ worth of reruns on ‘The Sopra­nos’, the dis­cov­ery that hook­er scan­dals run in Brent Wilkes fam­i­ly comes as no great sur­prise. One plau­si­ble expla­na­tion why San Diego US Atty. Car­ol Lam was fired might be that, in a rapid­ly spread­ing scan­dal which could quick­ly grow too large to con­tain, she already knows too much. . . .” (Idem.)

3. The hook­ers that were req­ui­si­tioned by “Team Cun­ning­ham” were instruct­ed to “play nice” with rich Arab investors: “ . . . The casi­no respond­ed that the secu­ri­ty direc­tor ‘may have said some­thing to the effect that he want­ed (the two women) to inter­act more close­ly with cus­tomers.’ One of the two women stat­ed she’d been told to attend the Keeneland horse sale in Lex­ing­ton. While there, ‘She should go to pop­u­lar bars to pick up rich Arab men to bring them to the casi­no.’. . .” (Idem.)

4. Not­ing evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing this por­tion of the scan­dalous 9/11 milieu to oth­er of its ele­ments, the pro­gram notes that con­vict­ed GOP lob­by­ist Jack Abramoff was deeply involved in the acqui­si­tion of the late Gus Boulis’ Sun­Cruz Casi­no boat com­pa­ny. That takeover occurred after George Bush’s friend Gus Boulis was mur­dered. [Abramoff busi­ness­man Adam Kidan wrote a check to the hit­man, alleged­ly as a “con­sult­ing fee.”] A few days before 9/11, Mohamed Atta and some asso­ciates vis­it­ed a Sun­Cruz casi­no boat, for pur­pos­es that have yet to be deter­mined. For more about Gus Boulis and his killing, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#’s 516, 528, 542, 546.

5. Anoth­er major Repub­li­can scan­dal is the “Duke” Cun­ning­ham scan­dal, in which the GOP Con­gress­man from San Diego went to prison for a vari­ety of mis­deeds. One of the pri­ma­ry ele­ments in Cunningham’s oper­a­tions was the Titan pri­vate secu­ri­ty cor­po­ra­tion. Exem­pli­fy­ing the links between the milieu of 9/11 and GOP scan­dals that get a lot of cov­er­age is the oper­a­tional con­nec­tion between Titan and Makram Chams. Chams was deeply involved with a con­ve­nience store in South­ern Flori­da, at which Mohamed Atta and oth­er 9/11 hijack­ers con­gre­gat­ed. Although the Cun­ning­ham scan­dal has had a lot of cov­er­age, Makram Chams and the South Flori­da con­nec­tions of the 9/11 hijack­ers has received very lit­tle cov­er­age at all. One of the few places fea­tur­ing cov­er­age of the Chams/Titan/South Flori­da con­nec­tion is at: FTR#554.

6. Two video pro­duc­tions are being gen­er­at­ed by a cou­ple of doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ers. One is a DVD of a three-lec­ture series called “The First Refuge of a Scoundrel: The Rela­tion­ship Between Fas­cism and Reli­gion.” To learn more about this, vis­it The Anti-Fas­cist YouTube.com page. In addi­tion, there will soon be a doc­u­men­tary about Mr. Emory, titled “The Anti-Fas­cist.” For more about this project, vis­it theantifascist.com.

Discussion

3 comments for “FTR #590 Interview with Daniel Hopsicker: The Silencing of the Lam”

  1. Rui­doso Downs is a horse rac­ing track in Rui­doso Downs, New Mex­i­co.

    In 1988 the major­i­ty of Rui­doso Downs Race Track was pur­chased by R.D. Hub­bard and he became 100 per­cent own­er in 2016.

    —–
    WASHINGTON — The unlike­li­est of mar­riages — the most vio­lent Mex­i­can drug car­tel and the world of U.S. quar­ter horse rac­ing — end­ed with the arrest Tues­day of one of the top men in the Los Zetas drug traf­fick­ing ring after U.S. offi­cials began sus­pect­ing an uncan­ny run of good for­tune at the track and the laun­der­ing of mil­lions of dol­lars in drug pro­ceeds.

    Arrest­ed were Jose Trevi­no Morales, his wife, and five asso­ciates. They were tak­en into U.S. cus­tody after scores of FBI agents in all-ter­rain vehi­cles and heli­copters raid­ed horse sta­bles and ranch­es near Rui­doso, N.M.

    ——
    RD Hub­bard is a belonger in the Turks and Caicos islands. There is a law­suit where his rep­re­sen­ta­tive is suing a man named Brad­ford van Siclen. He has com­plex ties includ­ing pos­si­bly Wayne Huizen­ga in Fort Laud­erdale and avi­a­tion in Gig Har­bour, Wa.

    Posted by adam | August 23, 2016, 7:53 am
  2. Look who’s back in Repub­li­can fundrais­ing cir­cles: Adam Kidan! He’s served his time and is back out on the streets mak­ing some rather sub­stan­tial dona­tions to the Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee. $50,000 in all this sum­mer. The dona­tions are legal. They’re just high­ly polit­i­cal­ly ques­tion­able for obvi­ous rea­sons:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    DC

    GOP Took Large Sums From Abramoff’s Ex-Con For­mer Busi­ness Part­ner

    By Cameron Joseph
    August 31, 2018 6:00 am

    One of Jack Abramoff’s for­mer busi­ness part­ners is a few years out of big house — and back to giv­ing big bucks to the Repub­li­can Par­ty.

    The Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee has accept­ed $50,000 in dona­tions from Adam Kidan this sum­mer, tak­ing mon­ey from a for­mer busi­ness part­ner of the noto­ri­ous lob­by­ist Abramoff who served 31 months in jail then spent three years on pro­ba­tion after plead­ing guilty to fraud and con­spir­a­cy.

    That mon­ey came in the form of $30,000 in direct dona­tions to the com­mit­tee, and anoth­er $20,000 Kidan gave to House Speak­er Paul Ryan’s (R‑WI) joint fundrais­ing com­mit­tee that was passed along to the NRCC. Both were made in late June, accord­ing to fil­ings with Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion.

    Those dona­tions are com­plete­ly legal, but raise ques­tions about why the NRCC decid­ed to accept them, giv­en Kidan’s rap sheet.

    “What they have to answer for them­selves is are they will­ing to explain this and why they think it doesn’t taint them to take this mon­ey. Are they will­ing to be asso­ci­at­ed with him? Tak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion is a way of asso­ci­at­ing with a per­son,” Lar­ry Noble, a for­mer gen­er­al coun­sel for the Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion, told TPM. “With all the ques­tions about the Repub­li­cans right now, all the peo­ple who are hav­ing legal prob­lems … It plays into a nar­ra­tive that they don’t have that much con­cern who they’re deal­ing with as long as they get the mon­ey.”

    Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee spokes­men didn’t return mul­ti­ple calls and emails request­ing com­ment on the dona­tions and ask­ing whether the orga­ni­za­tion planned to keep the mon­ey or return it. Ryan’s team declined to com­ment on record.

    These dona­tions aren’t chump change, and cam­paign com­mit­tees usu­al­ly have a pret­ty good idea of who their major donors are, if only to seek them out for more dona­tions. While Kidan isn’t a house­hold name, he played a key role in reveal­ing the biggest polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion scan­dal of the pre­vi­ous decade.

    Kidan went to jail in 2005 for defraud­ing a bank, along with Abramoff, a friend of his since his days in the Col­lege Repub­li­cans. The pair had promised to put up more than $20 mil­lion as part of an agree­ment to secure a $60 mil­lion loan to buy a fleet of casi­no ships, but instead secret­ly arranged with the the company’s sell­er to pay him in the future with­out putting any mon­ey up front, and pro­duced a fraud­u­lent wire trans­fer to prove to the bank they’d giv­en him the mon­ey.

    The sto­ry gets sig­nif­i­cant­ly dark­er from there. The company’s ear­li­er own­er, Gus Boulis, kept a small stake in the busi­ness. He and Kidan were soon fight­ing, part­ly because he wasn’t get­ting paid back as promised. He alleged­ly phys­i­cal­ly attacked Kidan dur­ing one alter­ca­tion, lead­ing Kidan to hire an old friend who had close ties to New York City’s Gam­bi­no crime fam­i­ly to pro­vide pro­tec­tion. That man end­ed up killing Boulis.

    The sto­ry was so wild that a movie was made out of it, “Casi­no Jack,” star­ring Kevin Spacey as Abramoff and Jon Lovitz as Kidan.

    Kidan was nev­er impli­cat­ed in the mur­der, and tes­ti­fied against the men who killed Boulis. He was sen­tenced to 70 months in jail, the same sen­tence as Abramoff, and end­ed up serv­ing 31 months, get­ting out in 2009 before serv­ing three years on pro­ba­tion. The mur­der tri­al may be head­ed back to court for a retri­al, which could put Kidan back on the wit­ness stand.

    The Wash­ing­ton Post has a good full account of the case.

    Kidan told TPM that he’s served his time and por­trayed him­self as an an inno­cent cit­i­zen look­ing only to sup­port caus­es he believes in.

    “I’m not in an indus­try or busi­ness that needs leg­is­la­tion or wants any­thing done. I’m just look­ing to help,” said Kidan, who as evi­denced by his gen­er­ous polit­i­cal dona­tions has bounced back finan­cial­ly since he got out of jail. He now serves as the CEO of a staffing needs com­pa­ny and lives in east­ern Penn­syl­va­nia.

    “You know my back­ground with Abramoff. I saw first­hand what bad peo­ple can do in gov­ern­ment,” he said. “When I do see the rare good pub­lic ser­vant I like to make a dona­tion.”

    Kidan said he’s only met Ryan “in pass­ing a few times” and didn’t know Rep. Steve Stivers (R‑OH), the NRCC’s cur­rent chair­man.

    “I sim­ply want from the side­lines to help orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als who’ve had a pos­i­tive effect on our coun­try,” he said.

    Kidan’s case was sep­a­rate from the polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion case that helped bring down Abramoff, sent for­mer Rep. Bob Ney (R‑OH) to jail, end­ed then-House Major­i­ty Whip Tom DeLay’s (R‑TX) polit­i­cal career and played a key role in top­pling the GOP’s House major­i­ty in 2006. But it helped shine a spot­light on Abramoff, who went from being one of the GOP’s most pow­er­ful lob­by­ists to the poster boy for polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion and served his own time for his role in the fraud.

    ...

    Kidan’s recent dona­tions to the nation­al par­ty come after he gave more than $30,000 to var­i­ous House can­di­dates late last year: Reps. Clau­dia Ten­ney (R‑NY), Bri­an Fitz­patrick (R‑PA), Lloyd Smuck­er (R‑PA), Roger Mar­shall (R‑KS), Drew Fer­gu­son (R‑GA) and Paul Mitchell (R‑MI) . Those dona­tions were orig­i­nal­ly report­ed by the Dai­ly Beast in April.

    TPM reached out to all of those mem­bers’ cam­paigns. Only Tenney’s respond­ed. Ten­ney and Fitz­patrick, the two mem­bers on that list fac­ing seri­ous reelec­tion chal­lenges, have said they’ve giv­en the amount of Kidan’s dona­tions to local char­i­ties after the dona­tions were orig­i­nal­ly exposed in the press.

    Kidan said it would be hyp­o­crit­i­cal for Democ­rats to slam the NRCC for tak­ing his mon­ey, giv­en the party’s sup­port for let­ting for­mer felons vote.

    “I’m very sur­prised the Democ­rats would crit­i­cize some­one who’s back on their feet again and hav­ing a sec­ond chance,” he said. “It’s a sor­ry state that it is that way that a per­son can’t be giv­en a sec­ond chance in life to make a con­tri­bu­tion with­out it being taint­ed. It’s real­ly sad.”

    But Noble said that hypocrisy cuts both ways.

    “It’s some­what iron­ic if the party’s fight­ing giv­ing for­mer felons the right to vote but they’re also tak­ing mon­ey from them,” he said.

    ———-

    “GOP Took Large Sums From Abramoff’s Ex-Con For­mer Busi­ness Part­ner” by Cameron Joseph; Talk­ing Points Memo; 08/31/2018

    “The Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee has accept­ed $50,000 in dona­tions from Adam Kidan this sum­mer, tak­ing mon­ey from a for­mer busi­ness part­ner of the noto­ri­ous lob­by­ist Abramoff who served 31 months in jail then spent three years on pro­ba­tion after plead­ing guilty to fraud and con­spir­a­cy.”

    Big bucks from Adam Kidan. While legal, it’s not a great look:

    ...
    These dona­tions aren’t chump change, and cam­paign com­mit­tees usu­al­ly have a pret­ty good idea of who their major donors are, if only to seek them out for more dona­tions. While Kidan isn’t a house­hold name, he played a key role in reveal­ing the biggest polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion scan­dal of the pre­vi­ous decade.

    Kidan went to jail in 2005 for defraud­ing a bank, along with Abramoff, a friend of his since his days in the Col­lege Repub­li­cans. The pair had promised to put up more than $20 mil­lion as part of an agree­ment to secure a $60 mil­lion loan to buy a fleet of casi­no ships, but instead secret­ly arranged with the the company’s sell­er to pay him in the future with­out putting any mon­ey up front, and pro­duced a fraud­u­lent wire trans­fer to prove to the bank they’d giv­en him the mon­ey.

    The sto­ry gets sig­nif­i­cant­ly dark­er from there. The company’s ear­li­er own­er, Gus Boulis, kept a small stake in the busi­ness. He and Kidan were soon fight­ing, part­ly because he wasn’t get­ting paid back as promised. He alleged­ly phys­i­cal­ly attacked Kidan dur­ing one alter­ca­tion, lead­ing Kidan to hire an old friend who had close ties to New York City’s Gam­bi­no crime fam­i­ly to pro­vide pro­tec­tion. That man end­ed up killing Boulis.

    The sto­ry was so wild that a movie was made out of it, “Casi­no Jack,” star­ring Kevin Spacey as Abramoff and Jon Lovitz as Kidan.

    Kidan was nev­er impli­cat­ed in the mur­der, and tes­ti­fied against the men who killed Boulis. He was sen­tenced to 70 months in jail, the same sen­tence as Abramoff, and end­ed up serv­ing 31 months, get­ting out in 2009 before serv­ing three years on pro­ba­tion. The mur­der tri­al may be head­ed back to court for a retri­al, which could put Kidan back on the wit­ness stand.

    The Wash­ing­ton Post has a good full account of the case.
    ...

    So what did the Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee or Paul Ryan’s office say when asked about this? No com­ment:

    ...
    That mon­ey came in the form of $30,000 in direct dona­tions to the com­mit­tee, and anoth­er $20,000 Kidan gave to House Speak­er Paul Ryan’s (R‑WI) joint fundrais­ing com­mit­tee that was passed along to the NRCC. Both were made in late June, accord­ing to fil­ings with Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion.

    Those dona­tions are com­plete­ly legal, but raise ques­tions about why the NRCC decid­ed to accept them, giv­en Kidan’s rap sheet.

    “What they have to answer for them­selves is are they will­ing to explain this and why they think it doesn’t taint them to take this mon­ey. Are they will­ing to be asso­ci­at­ed with him? Tak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion is a way of asso­ci­at­ing with a per­son,” Lar­ry Noble, a for­mer gen­er­al coun­sel for the Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion, told TPM. “With all the ques­tions about the Repub­li­cans right now, all the peo­ple who are hav­ing legal prob­lems … It plays into a nar­ra­tive that they don’t have that much con­cern who they’re deal­ing with as long as they get the mon­ey.”

    Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee spokes­men didn’t return mul­ti­ple calls and emails request­ing com­ment on the dona­tions and ask­ing whether the orga­ni­za­tion planned to keep the mon­ey or return it. Ryan’s team declined to com­ment on record.
    ...

    And you have to mar­vel at Kidan’s expla­na­tion: he’s mak­ing these large dona­tions to Repub­li­cans because “I’m just look­ing to help”. He learned first­hand from his expe­ri­ences with Jack Abramoff what bad peo­ple can do in gov­ern­ment, so to make things right he’s donat­ing large sums of mon­ey to Repub­li­cans. Bwah! You have to love it:

    ...
    Kidan told TPM that he’s served his time and por­trayed him­self as an an inno­cent cit­i­zen look­ing only to sup­port caus­es he believes in.

    I’m not in an indus­try or busi­ness that needs leg­is­la­tion or wants any­thing done. I’m just look­ing to help,” said Kidan, who as evi­denced by his gen­er­ous polit­i­cal dona­tions has bounced back finan­cial­ly since he got out of jail. He now serves as the CEO of a staffing needs com­pa­ny and lives in east­ern Penn­syl­va­nia.

    “You know my back­ground with Abramoff. I saw first­hand what bad peo­ple can do in gov­ern­ment,” he said. “When I do see the rare good pub­lic ser­vant I like to make a dona­tion.

    Kidan said he’s only met Ryan “in pass­ing a few times” and didn’t know Rep. Steve Stivers (R‑OH), the NRCC’s cur­rent chair­man.

    “I sim­ply want from the side­lines to help orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als who’ve had a pos­i­tive effect on our coun­try,” he said.

    Kidan’s case was sep­a­rate from the polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion case that helped bring down Abramoff, sent for­mer Rep. Bob Ney (R‑OH) to jail, end­ed then-House Major­i­ty Whip Tom DeLay’s (R‑TX) polit­i­cal career and played a key role in top­pling the GOP’s House major­i­ty in 2006. But it helped shine a spot­light on Abramoff, who went from being one of the GOP’s most pow­er­ful lob­by­ists to the poster boy for polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion and served his own time for his role in the fraud.
    ...

    So this will be some­thing worth keep­ing an eye on. Because Kidan clear­ly has mon­ey to play around with. Maybe it’s all his own mon­ey or maybe he’s col­lect­ing mon­ey from var­i­ous sources. But he’s clear­ly inter­est­ed in reen­ter­ing the GOP finance cir­cles and the par­ty appears to ready to wel­come him back. And what bet­ter time than now, under Trump’s reign, for some­one like Kidan to return. The par­ty is more mobbed up than ever. If this isn’t the right time for Kidan’s return, when would be?

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 4, 2018, 2:11 pm
  3. Here’s a quick fol­lowup on the recent dis­cov­ery that Adam Kidan donat­ed $50k to the Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee (NRCC) in June along with direct dona­tions to sev­en GOP can­di­dates:

    First, recall how two of those sev­en can­di­dates decid­ed to give Kidan’s dona­tions to char­i­ty after they learned about his ties to Jack Abramoff and a the mafia mur­der mys­tery of Gus Boulis. The oth­er five can­di­dates and the NRCC had yet to respond to ques­tions of what they were going to do with the mon­ey.

    Well, the NRCC final­ly has an answer: It’s keep­ing his mon­ey. And based on the NRC­C’s state­ment it sort of sounds like they’re hap­py to con­tin­ue tak­ing his mon­ey. Amaz­ing­ly, they also claim to have had no knowl­edge of his past. Yes, the NRCC claimed to have no knowl­edge of one of Jack Abramof­f’s close asso­ciates and the guy who appeared to pre­cip­i­tate the mur­der of Gus Boulis. But now that the NRCC acknowl­edges knowl­edge of this past, they’ve deter­mined that because he’s paid his debt to soci­ety they have no plans on return­ing the mon­ey. And while there was no state­ment on whether or not they would con­tin­ue accept­ing his dona­tions in the future, that’s the kind of state­ment that sure sounds like they would be hap­py to con­tin­ue accept­ing his dona­tions in the future.

    The oth­er five GOP­ers who received direct dona­tions for Kidan have yet to respond, which is the kind of ongo­ing silence that sug­gests they’re going to fol­low the NRC­C’s lead. So it real­ly does look like Adam Kidan is being qui­et­ly wel­comed back into the GOP’s fundrais­ing net­work:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    DC

    House GOP Won’t Give Back Cash From Abramoff’s Ex-Con For­mer Busi­ness Part­ner

    By Cameron Joseph
    Sep­tem­ber 7, 2018 2:34 pm

    After weeks of ques­tions from TPM, House Repub­li­cans final­ly said on Fri­day that they have no plans to give back large dona­tions from an ex-con for­mer busi­ness part­ner of the noto­ri­ous Jack Abramoff.

    The Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee received a com­bined $50,000 in dona­tions in June from Adam Kidan, who served 31 months in prison for fraud and con­spir­a­cy for his promi­nent role in one of Abramoff’s numer­ous ille­gal schemes. And they see noth­ing wrong with spend­ing that cash to try to keep their major­i­ty.

    We were unaware of his his­to­ry. We don’t con­done his actions in any way. We believe he’s paid his debt to soci­ety and have no plans to refund at this time,” NRCC com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor Matt Gor­man told TPM in an emailed state­ment Fri­day after­noon.

    That response comes weeks after the group ignored ques­tions from TPM when it first report­ed on the dona­tions late last month.

    NRCC spokes­men had declined to respond to mul­ti­ple calls and emails request­ing com­ment on whether or not they planned to keep that mon­ey in late August.

    ...

    The NRCC’s deci­sion to keep the mon­ey in spite of Kidan’s shady past, which you can read about more here, stands in con­trast to the two House Repub­li­can can­di­dates fac­ing tough reelec­tion fights who’d received dona­tions from Kidan — then decid­ed to give that mon­ey to char­i­ty after media scruti­ny.

    Before he gave to the NRCC, Kidan had made siz­able dona­tions to sev­en GOP con­gress­men. The two con­gress­men in tough races, Reps. Bri­an Fitz­patrick (R‑PA) and Clau­dia Ten­ney (R‑NY), sub­se­quent­ly said they’d give those dona­tions to char­i­ty. The oth­er five stayed mum, and didn’t respond to ques­tions from TPM.

    But the size of those dona­tions paled in com­par­i­son to Kidan’s sum­mer gift to the NRCC, which TPM first report­ed on in late August.

    ———-

    “House GOP Won’t Give Back Cash From Abramoff’s Ex-Con For­mer Busi­ness Part­ner” by Cameron Joseph; Talk­ing Points Memo; 09/07/2018

    ““We were unaware of his his­to­ry. We don’t con­done his actions in any way. We believe he’s paid his debt to soci­ety and have no plans to refund at this time,” NRCC com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor Matt Gor­man told TPM in an emailed state­ment Fri­day after­noon.”

    “We were unaware of his his­to­ry.” LOL! The GOP’s demen­tia prob­lem is appar­ent­ly far more wide­spread than pre­vi­ous­ly rec­og­nized. And now that they know about that his­to­ry the NRCC has deter­mined Kidan paid his debt to soci­ety so they see no rea­son to return the mon­ey, an answer that implies they see no need to not take his mon­ey in the future.

    And five of the sev­en House can­di­dates who received funds from Kidan appear to agree, based on their ongo­ing silence:

    ...
    The NRCC’s deci­sion to keep the mon­ey in spite of Kidan’s shady past, which you can read about more here, stands in con­trast to the two House Repub­li­can can­di­dates fac­ing tough reelec­tion fights who’d received dona­tions from Kidan — then decid­ed to give that mon­ey to char­i­ty after media scruti­ny.

    Before he gave to the NRCC, Kidan had made siz­able dona­tions to sev­en GOP con­gress­men. The two con­gress­men in tough races, Reps. Bri­an Fitz­patrick (R‑PA) and Clau­dia Ten­ney (R‑NY), sub­se­quent­ly said they’d give those dona­tions to char­i­ty. The oth­er five stayed mum, and didn’t respond to ques­tions from TPM.
    ...

    So it looks like the NRCC and those five con­gres­sion­al can­di­dates have deter­mined that Adam Kidan mon­ey-spig­ot is worth the poten­tial bad pub­lic­i­ty. And giv­en how lit­tle atten­tion this sto­ry has received that may be the cor­rect cal­cu­la­tion. We’ll see.

    But it’s worth not­ing that the NRCC just cre­at­ed a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty for the Amer­i­can pub­lic to revis­it the remark­able sto­ry of cor­rup­tion dur­ing the GOP’s Abramoff-era of fundrais­ing. An era that includ­ed some strik­ing con­nec­tions to the his­to­ry of the 9/11 hijack­ers oper­at­ing in South Flori­da. Will the Amer­i­can pub­lic take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore that cru­cial chap­ter of the his­to­ry of 9/11? Prob­a­bly not, but it’s an option thanks to the NRC­C’s insa­tiable greed and shame­less­ness.

    And in oth­er GOP fundrais­ing news...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 8, 2018, 1:44 pm

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