(NAME-MCE) OpEdNews: ABC News Investigates Hastert Scandals & Turkish Connections

[Lucinekasbarian at aol.com]

June 4, 2008 at  07:16:39
Headlined on 6/4/08:
_Sibel  Edmonds Case: ABC News investigates Hastert scandals and the Turkish  
Connections._ 
(http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sibel-Edmonds-Case--ABC-Ne-by-Luke-Ryland-080604-30.html) 

by _Luke  Ryland_ (http://www.opednews.com/author/author7748.html)      Page 
1 of 2  page(s)  
_http://www.opednews.com_ (http://www.opednews.com/)  
 
 
(http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sibel-Edmonds-Case--ABC-Ne-by-Luke-Ryland-080604-30.html) 
Live links:
_http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sibel-Edmonds-Case--ABC-Ne-by-Luke-Ryland-08
0604-30.html_ 
(http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sibel-Edmonds-Case--ABC-Ne-by-Luke-Ryland-080604-30.html) 


 
(http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=Sibel-Edmonds-Case--ABC-Ne-by-Luke-Ryland-080604-30.html)  

As far as I know, this is the  first time that the Vanity Fair 
_investigation_ (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm)   has ever been 
referenced in the corporate media... 34  months after publication. 

Please head over to the _ABC  article_ 
(http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4990933&page=1)  and leave a message of support & encouragement. We need 
to  reward this sort of reporting, and also build on the momentum. The  
popularity of my _article about  Hastert_ 
(http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/2/7597/02420)  on Monday demonstrates that there is a groundswell of interest 
 in these matters. 




Fox News, of all places, has also been _reporting_ 
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,361061,00.html)  on  (some of) Hastert's crimes:

"Budget earmarks became a national scandal - and a national  joke - after 
some wasteful schemes made headlines  recently:
[...]
The most recognizable name is Illinois Republican  Dennis Hastert...

In February 2004, Hastert, with partners and  through a trust that did not 
bear his name, bought up 69 acres of land  that adjoined his farm some 60 miles 
outside Chicago. The price was  $340,000. In May 2005, Hastert transferred an 
additional 69 acres from  his farm into the trust.

Two months later, Congress passed a  spending bill into which Hastert 
inserted a $207 million earmark to fund  the "Prairie Parkway" which, when completed, 
would run just a few miles  from the 138 acres owned by Hastert's trust.

After President Bush  flew to Hastert's district in August 2005 to sign the 
bill, Hastert and  his partners flipped the land for what appeared to be a 
multi-million  dollar profit.


One of the problems with political reporting  today is that these issues tend 
to only (if ever) get reported in 'silos.'  We need to take the opportunity 
of Hastert's new job to present the  portfolio of his crimes and dodgy deals in 
their entirety, and decide  whether we really want to allow these people to 
seamlessly cross-over into  private practice to continue to make millions of 
dollars, selling out the  national interest.

One thing that I didn't mention in my _article_ 
(http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/2008/06/sibel-edmonds-case-dennis-hastert-to.html)   on Monday is 
that Sibel has repeatedly stated that there was actually a  concerted effort 
to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the fact  that these Turkish 
interests were buying up congressmen, including  Hastert.

_Here's  Sibel_ 
(http://wotisitgood4.blogspot.com/2006/02/sibels-interview-with-meria-heller.html) :

"...What happened was, FBI had this information since 1997.  In 1999, the 
Clinton Administration actually asked the Department of  Justice to appoint a 
Special Prosecutor to investigate Hastert, and  certain other elected officials 
that were not named in this (VF)  article, to be investigated formally. And the 
Department of Justice  actually went about appointing this prosecutor, but 
after the  Administration changed they quashed that investigation and they 
closed  it despite the fact they had all sorts of evidence, again I'm talking  
about wiretaps, documents- paper documents- that was highly explosive  and could 
have been easily used to indict the Speaker of the House  Dennis Hastert. That 
investigation was closed in 2001, and this was  around the time I started 
reporting my cases to the  Congress."


Vanity Fair _reported_ 
(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm)   the same thing, from a different source

"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. 
[...]
[I]n 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. "It became apparent that Chicago 
was  actually the center of what was going on." 

Its subject was  explosive; what sounded like attempts to bribe elected 
members of  Congress, both Democrat and Republican. "There was pressure within the  
bureau for a special prosecutor to be appointed and take the case on,  "the 
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," he says "It was to keep this from coming  out." 

In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what  she recalled 
hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed  to listen to more than 
40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz.  Many involved an F.B.I. 
target at the city's large Turkish Consulate, as  well as members of the 
American-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."


An enterprising reporter ought to be able to  track some of this down... 
Counter-intelligence officials have confirmed  that steps were taken to appoint a 
Special Prosecutor to  investigate the fact that Hastert and _others_ 
(http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/2008/01/sibel-names-names-in-pictures.html)  
 were taking bribes from officials at the Turkish Consulate, and key  Turkish 
lobbying groups (American Turkish Council and Assembly of Turkish  American 
Associates) 
related to "large scale drug shipments and other  crimes."

We know that the FBI has been _trying  to determine_ 
(http://wotisitgood4.blogspot.com/2006/05/sibel-giraldi-american-conservative.html)  the source of the 
money, and trying to determine how it  is distributed:  
Some of it may come from criminal activity, possibly drug  trafficking, but 
much more might come from arms dealing. Contracts in  the hundreds of millions, 
or even billions of dollars provide  considerable fat for those well placed 
to benefit.


We know that some of the other people _named_ 
(http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/2008/01/sibel-names-names-in-pictures.html)   by Sibel have since 
been added to the Turkish payroll, with multi-million  dollar salaries. 
_Sibel  Edmonds Case: ABC News investigates Hastert scandals and the Turkish  
Connections._ 
(http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sibel-Edmonds-Case--ABC-Ne-by-Luke-Ryland-080604-30.html)  
by _Luke  Ryland_ (http://www.opednews.com/author/author7748.html)      Page 
2 of 2 page(s)  
_http://www.opednews.com_ (http://www.opednews.com/)  


 
(http://www.populum.com/tellafriend.php?page=http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/Sibel-Edmonds-Case--ABC-Ne-by-Luke-Ryland-080604-30.html) 

We know that Sibel has outlined a  'recipe' _whereby_ 
(http://nswbc.org/Op%20Ed/Op-ed-Part1-Nov15-06.htm)   "ex-congressmen turned lobbyists ... (pocket) a 
few dozen who still serve."  

This is not about Hastert himself, so much as perpetuating a system  where 
people like Hastert - and Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Eric Edelman, Marc  
Grossman, Roy Blunt, Dan Burton, Tom Lantos, Bob Livingston, Stephen Solarz and  
_others_ 
(http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/2008/01/sibel-names-names-in-pictures.html)   - continue to subvert American democracy for private profit. 



What will it take to stop it?

(For  starters, please leave a supportive comment over at Justin Rood's 
_article  at ABC News_ 
(http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/comments?type=story&id=4990933) )

Crossposted at _Let Sibel Edmonds Speak_ 
(http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/)   
Take action -- click here to contact  your local newspaper or congress people:
_Investigate Dennis Hastert's alleged bribes_ 
(http://www.usalone.net/cgi-bin/oen.cgi?qnum=4186)  
_Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional  reps and 
local newspapers_ 
(http://www.usalone.net/cgi-bin/transparency.cgi?qnum=oen4186)  
_http://lukery.blogspot.com/_ (http://lukery.blogspot.com/)   
Luke Ryland is a blogger with a particular interest  in Sibel Edmonds' case. 
***


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