Woo vs. Harmon - Witness Lloyd Bentsen

David C. Farmer, Successor-Trustee vs. Harmon

(Formerly Woo vs. Harmon & Nicholson vs. Harmon)

CV05-00030 DAE KSC

U.S. District Court For the District of Hawaii

Judges: David A. Ezra; Kevin S. Chang

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DEFENDANT’S WITNESS

LLOYD BENTSEN

Address to be determined.

Lloyd Bentsen is a former Texas Senator and former U.S. Secretary of Treasury; lobbyist for Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate.

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Oct. 28, 1991

A Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes

By Jonathan Beaty

The Harken Energy folks are not the only Texas-based colleagues of George W. Bush with fortuitous, if not extraordinary, Arab connections. Another is the mysterious Houston businessman James R. Bath, a deal broker whose alleged associations run from the CIA to a major shareholder and director of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International. The President's son has denied that he ever had business dealings with Bath, but early 1980s tax records reviewed by TIME show that Bath invested $50,000 in Bush's energy ventures and remained a stockholder until Bush sold his company to Harken in 1986.

Bath's penchant for secrecy has been frustrated by a feud with a former business partner, Bill White, who claims that Bath was a front man for CIA business operations. White contends that Bath has used his connections to the Bush family and Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen to cloak the development of a lucrative array of offshore companies designed to move money and airplanes between the Middle East and Texas.

White, an Annapolis graduate and former Navy fighter pilot, claims it was Bentsen's son Lan who suggested that White go into the real estate development business with Bath, a former Air Force fighter pilot. The partners prospered together at first, but since their falling out they have dueled in five lawsuits in which Bath has kept the upper hand, White claims, by privately asserting to the court that he had "national security" connections. White now claims in court that Bath wanted to borrow $550,000 from their real estate venture to cover funds that Bath had "misappropriated" from an aircraft company he controlled.

Bath, 55, acknowledges a friendship with George W. Bush that stems from their service together in the Texas Air National Guard, and says he is "slightly" acquainted with the President. But Bath vehemently denies White's accusations. "I am not a member of the CIA or any other intelligence agency," he says, describing White's portrayal as a "fantasy." Even so, Bath, while insisting he is nothing more than a "small, obscure businessman," is associated with some of the most powerful figures in the U.S. and Middle East. Private records show, and associates confirm, that Bath is a "representative" for several immensely wealthy Saudi families, an unusual position for any small-time Texas businessman.

Bath got his start in real estate in 1973 by forming a partnership with Lan Bentsen. One purpose, sources tell TIME, was to find investments for the Senator's blind trust. Bath and Bentsen have said they have not been partners for years, but secretaries at Bath's office still answer the phone with a cheery "Bath Bentsen Interests." Bath says he simply hasn't got around to changing the name of his company.

Bath opened his own aircraft brokerage firm in 1976, but his Middle East connections first surfaced two years later, when he became a shareholder and director of Houston's Main Bank. His fellow investors were former U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally; Saudi financier Ghaith Pharaon, an alleged B.C.C.I. front man; and Saudi banker Khaled bin Mahfouz, who subsequently became a major B.C.C.I. shareholder. Pharaon later sold his Main Bank holdings and bought the National Bank of Georgia, allegedly on behalf of B.C.C.I. Unusual transactions involving Main Bank in the late 1970s came to light last year when a researcher discovered that the small community bank, at a time when it held only $58 million in deposits, had been buying $10 million a month in new $100 bills. Purpose: unknown.

Bath controlled a fleet of companies connected to his aircraft business, and he enjoyed unusual carte blanche to direct the U.S. investments of several wealthy Middle Easterners. Associates confirm that Bath has brokered more than $150 million in private plane deals in recent years, concentrated in sales and leases to Middle Eastern royalty and other influential figures. Pharaon is believed to have bought several expensive jets for his construction company. One Bath entity, Skyway Aircraft, leased a $10 million Gulfstream II to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., which is controlled by Sheik Zayed bin Sultan an- Nahayan, the President of the United Arab Emirates and the current owner of B.C.C.I. Bath's partners in Skyway, one of four similarly named companies he controls, are artfully hidden. The firm that incorporated Bath's companies in the Cayman Islands is the same one that set up a money-collecting front company for Oliver North in the Iran-contra affair.

Even if Bath is a clandestine public servant, the U.S. may not always get a bargain. The Houston Post reported last year that the U.S. had spent millions of dollars more than necessary by fueling military aircraft, including Air Force One, at privately owned Southwest Airport Services at Ellington Field rather than using a government fuel station there. Bath operates and holds a majority ownership stake in Southwest Airport Services, which the Post said was charging a markup of as much as 60% on the fuel. So far, the paper's charges have prompted no official investigations.

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974114,00.html

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March 19, 2007

Bush Hit-Woman Behind Prosecutor Firings Has
Long History of Purges to Protect Bush

Harriet Miers fired investigator in 1997
to cover Bush draft-dodge

by Greg Palast,
from the original reports for BBC Television and the Guardian (UK)

The Mister Big behind the scandal of George Bush’s firing of US Attorneys is not a ‘mister’ at all. The House Judiciary Committee has released White House emails indicating that the political operative who ordered the hit on prosecutors too honest for their own good was Harriet Miers, one-time legal counsel to the President.

But this is not the first time that Miers has fired investigators to protect Mr. Bush.

In 1999, while investigating Governor George Bush of Texas for the Guardian papers of Britain, I obtained an extraordinary, and extraordinarily confidential, memo to the US Attorney’s office in Austin. It disclosed that, in 1997, Governor Bush secretly suggested to the chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission that she grant a contract to the client of a Bush ally.

The Governor’s back-door demand to the Lottery chairwoman was not so easy. Bush wanted the Lottery to grant a multi-billion dollar contract to GTech Corporation. But GTech hadn’t even bid on the contract - and a winner was already announced.

There was only way for the Chairwoman to carry out the fix: fire the director of the Lottery who had discouraged GTech from bidding because of its history of corruption.

The Chairwoman, Harriet Miers, did the deed: fired the Lottery director; Miers then ignored the winning bid — and gave Bush’s favored company the contract, no bidding, in perpetuity.

Miers and the Draft

Neither Miers nor President Bush have ever denied the contents of the memo [I’ve posted it here] despite repeated requests from the Guardian and BBC Television.

Bush’s attempt to appoint Hit-woman Harriet to the US Supreme Court in 2005 surprised many. Not me. Miers, personal and governmental lawyer for George Bush, had quite a file on her boss, and he must have been grateful for her discretion.

Most crucially, she knew why Bush so desperately needed to give GTech the lottery contract. The heart of the matter was the then-successful cover-up of the Bush family’s using its influence to get young George Bush into the Texas Air National Guard and out of the Vietnam war draft.

The memo to the US Attorney reads:

“Governor Bush thru [name withheld] made a deal with Ben Barnes not to rebid because Barnes could confirm that Bush had lied during the ‘94 campaign [for governor of Texas]. Bush was asked if his father … had helped him get in the National Guard Bush said no he had not, but the fact is his dad call then-Lt. Gov. [Ben] Barnes ….”

Lt. Governor Barnes, through a cut-out, called the Texas Air Guard commander and got Bush into the ‘top gun’ seat and out of the war.

You may recall that in 2004, years after we reported this story in Britain, Barnes confessed to the draft-dodge fix on 60 Minutes. [That was the report that brought down Dan Rather; but the Barnes confession was never challenged.]

What 60 Minutes missed is the creepy Miers involvement. Barnes, after he left the post of Lt. Governor, became a lobbyist — for GTech, the lottery company. By using his influence to get and keep the lottery contract for GTech, Barnes picked up quite a nice fee: over $23 million. With those millions in his pocket, Barnes kept a happy and lucrative silence about his saving little George Bush from the draft.

According to the memo from the US Attorney’s office, Barnes met with Bush about GTech and the lottery. Then,“The Governor talked to the chair of the lottery [Miers] two days later and she then agreed to support letting GTech keep the contract without a bid.”

Note something else here: this information was sitting in the hands of the US Attorney. Yet, no action was taken in 1997 though we now know that, from Barnes’ confession in 2004, the accusation about his putting in the fix for young George Bush is true.

An insider told BBC TV that the US Attorney’s office and Justice Department, though under Democratic control, never acted because they discovered that Barnes, a Democrat, had not only manipulated the system to get George Bush into the Texas Air Guard, Barnes did the same for the sons of Democratic big wigs including Congressman (later Senator) Lloyd Bentsen and Governor John Connolly.

In other words, control over a US Attorney and what is called their “prosecutorial discretion” is worth its weight in gold to politicians. They can provide protection for cronies and exact punishment on enemies. And no one knows that better than “Justice” Harriet Miers and her boss, fighter pilot George W. Bush.