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This slipped under my radar but it explains a lot:
SWISS INVESTIGATION INTO BUSH/CHENEY INVOLVEMENT IN OIL COMPANY
BRIBES TO KAZAKHSTAN
The GOP presidential ticket may be fending off questions from reporters
concerning a Swiss investigation linking George W. Bush and Dick Cheny to big
oil's bribes and pay-offs to foreign interests.
by Martin Mann, August 14,
2000
I was doing a search on James H. Giffen when I found
it. He is (or was) on trial for paying bribes to foreign officials.
Interesting thing... he claims to have been working for the CIA and he
worked closely with James Baker III and other former Reagan Administration
officials - including George H. W. Bush. I've documented what I've
found here:
In December 1984, as a member of the American Trade Consortium,
Giffen became one of the first Americans to be received in Moscow by Mikhail
Gorbachev. Giffen worked actively to cultivate relationships with officials of
the Communist Party, including rising politician Nazarbaev. By the late 1980s,
a booming new industry was emerging: providing advice on doing business in the
former Soviet republics.
By 1991, Giffen was attending Gorbachevs Kremlin
dinners with the political elite: President George H.W. Bush and his wife,
Secretary of State James Baker, and National Security Adviser Brent
Scowcroft.
Here is the New Yorker article referenced in the
footnote:
The Price of Oil
by Seymour M. Hersh
Issue of 2001-07-09
Posted 2003-04-07
Here is an analysis by Dick Eastman that's looking
pretty good right now -
Here is a 1988 article on the Heritage Foundation
website. It has several very interesting references:
To take advantage of such experience, several
companies have created the American,Trade Consortium, which in April 1988
signed a Protocol of Intentions with its Soviet counterpart the state-operated
Soviet Foreign Economic Consortium. .Consortium members may be able to obtain
concessions from the Soiriets that will facilitate joint ventures. For example
Consortium members will be exempt from the Soviet requirement that each joint
venture must cover all of its expenses in hard currency before it can recover
any hard currency profits on the world market. Membership in the
Consortium reportedly costs $1 million Floppy Disks and Sweeteners. Mercator Corporation President James H.
Giffen is President of the Consortium. He reports that Archer Daniels
Midland Company is 8 It is instructive to compare Soviet regulations on
East-West joint ventures with those of the Chinese. In China, there are no limits to the share a
foreign company may own. Some Americans operate wholly owned subsidiaries in
China. Perhaps the most significant Chinese reform is the "special economic
zones SEZ concept introduced in 1979, which reduces customs duty, income
taxes, rent, utility charges, and wage rates in selected border areas.
By mid-1986, the overall effect of Chinese reforms was that China had
attracted contracts for $lB.l billion in investment and 2,500 joint ventures,
127 of which were wholly owned foreign corporations.
[ Do some research on 'Intermodal Commerce Zones"
and Smart Ports on the CANAMEX trade corridors that are being
built. These are the U.S. implementation of the Chinese "special economic
zones". ]
Unless the Soviets are prepared to make similar
reforms, there is some doubt that Western partners could ever become involved
in joint ventures with the USSR on any similar scale. See Marshall I. Goldman,
Go&uchev's Challenge (New York: W.W. Norton Company, Inc 1987 ch. 7 9
East- West Joint Ventures, op. cit p. 22 5 negotiating joint ventures,in
agricultural processing with the Soviet Ministry Gosagroprom.
Sometimes I just can't believe this shit - I just
found a brief bio of James Giffen. It seems that Giffen is from Stockton
California. Only some of you will get the significance of the
highlighted references.
Local man at heart of oil scandal
A graduate of local schools, James H. Giffen is the
son of the late clothier Lloyd Giffen, who operated the classy Oxford Shop for decades on Pacific Avenue. His stepmother,
Rosemary Giffen, still lives in town. As does his first cousin, retired Judge
William R. Giffen.
Giffen
married the granddaughter of Franklin D. Roosevelt's right hand man, Harry
Hopkins, in 1961. Thus connected, after earning a UCLA law degree in 1965,
Giffen hit the ground running.
Going boldly against Cold War taboos, Giffen
got in on the ground floor of trade with the Soviet Union.
Giffen's import-export company by 1970 was doing half of America's
then-modest trade with Russia.
He later formed a New York investment bank,
Mercator, and led a trade group of 300 companies seeking Russian
trade.
According to Bloomberg.com Giffen jetted overseas
hundreds of times, moving in circles of senior Soviet officials and industry
captains.
He amassed enough
power to lobby Mikhail Gorbachev on issues such as the right of Russian Jews
to emigrate.
He also became filthy rich. Mercator earned about
$67 million in fees from 1995 to 2000
alone, prosecutors say.
"You couldn't go to a Kazakh minister,
particularly if you were an American company, without going through Giffen," a
former Chevron executive told Bloomberg.com.
Kazakhstan, one of the most corrupt nations
in the world, ranks a dismal 122nd out of 142 nations on Transparency
International's corruption list.
The feds allege Giffen bribed
Kazakh leaders with $20 million to grease the wheels of a $1.05 billion oil
concession for Mobil; paid multimillions to gain entrée for Texaco; diverted a
whopping $84 million to Swiss bank accounts owned by Nazarbayev and other
Kazakh officials; and other extravagant
violations.
Reminder - Tom Delay is under investigation for his
involvement with Russian oil Executives.
DeLay of course is linked to Jack Abramoff who is linked to Grover Norquist
- Americans for Tax Reform.
And here we have a connection to what otherwise would be a
curiosity. Keep in mind when you read this that banking laws between
countries are RECIPROCAL - you report to us, we report to
you. If we did not have reciprocal banking agreements
with Switzerland, James Giffen never would have been caught.
My question of course, is how many of our lawmakers have bank accounts in black
box banking countries that would benefit from breaking the reciprocal banking
laws between countries.
Coalition for Tax Competition letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow
Dear Secretary Snow,
To boost America's economy and uphold the rule of law, we
urge you to permanently withdraw the
proposed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulation (Reg 133254-02)
that would force U.S. banks to
report deposit interest paid to nonresident aliens. This initiative is
inconsistent with current law and it will undermine our economy's performance by
causing capital to flee the American banking system. The regulation was
misguided when issued in the final days of the Clinton Administration, and the
cosmetic changes the IRS put forth in 2002 do not address the proposed
regulation's fundamental shortcomings.
Our objections are both procedural and substantive.
Signatories to this letter believe that some or all of the following concerns
warrant the withdrawal of this misguided proposal. The concerns
include:
- The IRS is abusing its regulatory authority Executive
branch agencies and departments are supposed to issue regulations that
implement the laws enacted by Congress. More specifically, the IRS is supposed
to promulgate regulations that help enforce U.S. tax law. And since the United
States government does not tax bank deposit interest paid to nonresident
aliens, there is no need to collect this information. Indeed, the IRS even
admits that the purpose of the proposed regulation is to help foreign
governments tax U.S.-source income.
Vicky Davis
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary
act. ~ George Orwell
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Complete archives at http://www.sitbot.net/
Please let us stay on topic and be civil.
OM
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