from www.madcowprod.com Asa and the Drug Smugglers by Daniel Hopsicker George W. Bush's nomination of Asa Hutchinson to head the Drug Enforcement Administration is a crushing blow to those who couldn't bring themselves to believe the sordid stories of George Junior consorting with drug smuggler Barry Seal. As reported in the new book "Barry & `the boys,'" and magazines and newsletters like "From the Wilderness" and "High Times," George the II had much more than a nodding acquaintance with the biggest drug smuggler in American history and his notorious Mena operation. Instead of downplaying this connection while focusing all eyes on the tee-ball on the south lawn, Bush has now put it right in our faces. Current Republican Congressman and former Western Arkansas US Attorney Asa Hutchinson was directly involved in the Mena drug smuggling operation, providing the critical legal `protection' necessary for any operation of that size and magnitude, and acting to squelch whatever legal action which local citizen outrage prompted. In addition to the people already on record regarding Hutchinson's coziness with the Mena cocaine smuggling�former IRS agent Bill Duncan prominent among them�numerous witnesses have stepped forward for the first time on Hutchinson in "Barry & `the boys." According to the Arkansas State Police Commander in charge of Mena, Finis Duvall, on at least one occasion then-US Attorney Asa Hutchinson `took care' of a Mena legal entanglement for Barry Seal that has never been surfaced in the press. According to Duvall, who was there, the Arkansas state police didn't even try to develop a case against the Mena drug smuggling, because it was well known that it was being 'protected' by US attorney Hutchinson. "We always knew we couldn't prosecute Barry Seal, no matter what we got on him, because of the politics involved in the Western Judicial District," the crusty Finis Duvall told us. Then there are Hutchinson's recent business dealings with drug smugglers. Recently a Barry Seal drug smuggling associate, Michael Roy Fugler, took a company called Netivation public. Netivation.com (NASDAQ: NTVN) portrays itself as an Internet public policy and political Web site, offering a package of fundraising services to candidates and campaigns. The Virginia State Democratic Party, for example, raised money for Netivation.com to produce Web sites for its candidates, and Netivation.com received a percentage of any campaign contribution made to candidates via the Web pages. It also publishes the US Congress Factbook, and has a major Internet site for campaign fundraising. One question might be: what does a drug smuggler have to do with the US Congress Factbook? But wait...there's more. After going public, Netivation turned around and immediately signed as their initial marketing "poster boy" none other than Arkansas Congressman Asa Hutchinson. Hutchinson, of course, before becoming the marketing "poster boy" for a company drug smuggler Barry Seal's associate Michael Fugler took public, had been the U.S. Attorney for the Western Judicial District in Arkansas, which encompasses Mena. That's enough for a grand jury, right there. It provides direct and concrete evidence that what's been called "the goings-on at Mena" reveal exactly what the "conspiracy theorists" have been loudly proclaiming for a decade: the visible efforts of a huge and largely invisible organization. Paying off a favor isn't, of course, illegal. But abetting drug smuggling, unfortunately for Mr. Hutchinson, is. This is no small matter, especially since Michael Fugler was no mere legal counsel to Barry Seal; rather, he was an integral part of the smuggling organization, and already, by the middle Seventies, deeply involved in all of Barry's various businesses, including the 'front' sign companies. We had heard from several of Seal's associates accounts of Fugler's activities which the State Bar of Louisiana would presumably frown on� Like the time he had left a briefcase filled with over $100,000 of drug money sitting on the front car seat of a rental car at Baton Rouge Airport, and then been too afraid to go back to attempt to retrieve it. Congressman Hutchinson has the sheer gall to serve as a member of the House Speaker's Task Force for a Drug-Free America. As what? An industry representative? The Task Force has a mandate "to seek out new and more effective approaches to combating the threat of drug use among the nation's youth." Numerous witnesses in western Arkansas can be found who can directly testify that Mr. Hutchinson's actions, as opposed to his words, have been absolutely and unequivocally detrimental to achieving this goal. As an aside, Hutchinson somehow also found the time to present the case to the Senate for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, where he urged the senators in his closing argument to "let justice roll down like mighty waters." Were that to happen, we would urge Asa not to wear his good suit to work that day, because Clinton wouldn't be the only one getting wet. Hutchinson made tough-talking speeches to community groups in Arkansas about cleaning up what even he had been forced to acknowledge was "a haven for international drug trafficking" Barry Seal had continued to operate from an airfield, Mena, just a few short miles from Hutchinson's office. Maybe the sound of the big C123's rumbling overhead had scared him. But obserbers of Hutchinson's lack of performance grew increasingly skeptical of their boys' fire-eatin' crime-fightin' credentials. Hutchinson's actions never once matched his rhetoric. IRS agent William Duncan had been the first to take his accusations public. In a deposition for the Arkansas Attorney General, he was asked, "Are you stating now under oath that you believe that the investigation in and around the Mena airport of money laundering was covered up by the U.S. Attorney?" Duncan's reply: "It was covered up." Now we know why. By following the money trail left behind by Barry Seal, we have now discovered that more than a dozen years after Seal's death one of the key members of his drug smuggling organization brought a company public which had then signed on Asa Hutchinson to be the poster boy for its marketing efforts to attract fundraising clients. Small world? Please let us stay on topic and be civil. 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