Office of U.S. Trustee vs. Harmon - Witness Dennis Hastert

James B. Nicholson, Trustee vs. Harmon

(Formerly Woo 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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HEARING ON MOTIONS FOR ABATEMENT, DAMAGES, ETC.

DATE: Non Hearing, per Theresa Lam, 2-12-7

JUDGE: David A. Ezra, per Theresa Lam, 2-12-7

DEFENDANT’S WITNESS

DENNIS HASTERT

235 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Fax: 202-225-0697

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; appointed Paul Bremer as Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism in 1999.

In May 2006, ABC News cited “high-level official sources” in a report claiming that Hastert was under investigation by the FBI. According to the report, the FBI was looking into a letter Hastert wrote in 2003 urging then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton to block an Indian casino that would have competed with casinos operated by other tribes, which were represented by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Hastert's office is also under investigation by the House ethics committee for it's handling of early complaints about inappropriate contacts with House pages by former Rep. Mark Foley. Hastert won reelection in November 2006.

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August 15, 2004

Hastert’s Turkish Allies Tied to Bin Laden

“If they were to allow the whole picture to emerge… certain elected officials will stand trial and go to prison.” – Sibel Edmonds

By Lynn Grant "International Post"

CHICAGO, Illinois (IP) – During the current flurry of September 11^th related news, one item has gone largely unnoticed.

Reports of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds’ allegations concerning improper financial ties between House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Turkish officials and businessman have become a source of discontent for beltway insiders on both sides of the aisle.

However, the recent coverage has not addressed why Sibel Edmonds’ information regarding Speaker Hastert’s dealings with the Turks necessitated an in-depth investigation by the September 11^th Commission.

In an August 10, 2005 interview about her reported allegations, Edmonds was asked, “What are you alleging about the Speaker of the House?” Though under a strict gag order, she replied:

“I have been giving all the details to the appropriate channels. And they have been confirmed. And what I have said all along is the fact that as far as the 9/11 is concerned, September 11 is concerned, these departments -- and when I say “these departments,” the Department of Justice, the Department of State, and the Department of Defense -- have intentionally blocked the investigations of real -- the real criminals in this country.…

Most of al Qaeda’s funding is… through narcotics. And have you heard anything to this date, anything about these issues which we have had information since 1997? And as I would again emphasize, we are talking about countries. And they are blocking this information, and also the fact that certain officials in this country are engaged in treason against the United States and its interests and its national security, be it the Department of State or certain elected officials.

While alluding to treason, Edmonds’ reply indicates that her allegations about Speaker Hastert are linked to al-Qaeda and the September 11^thattacks.

To understand this link, it is necessary to examine the substance of Mrs. Edmonds’ allegations, as reported in the recent issue of Vanity Fair:

A large part of her work at the F.B.I. involved listening to the wiretapped conversations of people who were the targets of counter-intelligence investigations.…

Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city’s large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associates. Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes.…

One name, however, apparently stood out – a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname “Denny boy.” It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert.

According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.

The Vanity Fair article adds:

The targets reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information.…

“She told us she’d heard mention of exchanges of information, dead drops—that kind of thing,” a congressional source says. “It was mostly money in exchange for secrets.”…

There was talk, she told investigators, of laundering the profits of large-scale drug deals and of selling classified military technologies to the highest bidder.…

“There was pressure within the bureau for a special prosecutor to be appointed and take the case on, “the [FBI] official says. Instead, his colleagues were told to alter the thrust of their investigation – away from elected politicians and toward appointed officials. “This is the reason why Ashcroft reacted to Sibel in such an extreme fashion [invoking the rarely used State Secrets Privilege],” he says “It was to keep this from coming out.”

Though a Hastert spokesperson has dismissed Edmonds’ allegations and no evidence is presented confirming Hastert received illegal payments, the article reports on another wiretap in which “a senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution [recognizing the Turkish slaughter of Armenians in the early 1900s as Genocide] would have been at least $500,000.”

The targets of the wiretaps translated by Edmonds were heavily concentrated near Hastert’s Chicago-area congressional district:

Vanity Fair reveals that the FBI’s investigation centered on Speaker Hastert’s Chicago-area district:

One counter-intelligence official familiar with Edmonds’s case has told Vanity Fair that the F.B.I. opened an investigation into covert activities by Turkish nationals in the late 1990’s. That inquiry found evidence, mainly via wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians in at least two major cities - Washington and Chicago. …

In December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence that had its start in 1997. “It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. But “it became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

These disclosures about Edmonds’ targets help to clarify her past statements to the press.

For example, when asked in a January 2005 interview if she had any information that would tie the targets of her FBI wiretaps to the September 11^th attacks or Osama bin Laden’s organization, Edmonds replied, “Through certain activities with money laundering, and narcotics and illegal weapons procurement. Yes.” (audio)

More specifically, Edmonds wrote in a July 2004 article that she has “firsthand knowledge of ongoing intelligence received and processed by the FBI since 1997, which contained specific information implicating certain high level government and elected officials in criminal activities directly and indirectly related to terrorist money laundering, narcotics, and illegal arms sales.”

Yet Edmonds may not be the only well-known FBI Whistleblower with connections to this 9/11-related investigation in Chicago.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, FBI Special Agent Robert Wright was given orders to investigate several Chicago-based businessmen with ties to Turkey – and Osama bin Laden.

Special Agent Wright shared details of his investigation with Brian Ross of ABC’s Primetime Live in 2002...

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9775.htm

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Internet References:

Documents, Letters, News Articles and Related Links

www.justacitizen.com/

www.antiwar.com/edmonds/

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/25/60minutes/main526954.shtml

www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=2917

www.prisonplanet.com/Pages/230904_edmonds.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds