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Guardian: DoJ to Investigate Bandar Payments
From The Guardian:
The US department of justice is preparing to open a corruption investigation into the arms company BAE, the Guardian has learned. It would cover the alleged £1bn arms deal payments to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia.Washington sources familiar with the thinking of senior officials at the justice department said yesterday it was "99% certain" that a criminal inquiry would be opened under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Such an investigation would have potentially seismic consequences for BAE, which is trying to take over US arms companies and make the Pentagon its biggest customer.
Those "seismic consequences" would be sure to extend to the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. After all, Tony Blair scotched a British investigation of the payments for just that reason. One wonders if the Bush administration might do the same.
Here's Spencer's piece from earlier this week on the alleged payments to Bandar.
Comments (11)
Jane wrote on June 14, 2007 1:29 PM:So who besides Bandar owns BAE? Anyone we know?
blogenfreude wrote on June 14, 2007 1:36 PM:The US department of justice is preparing to open a corruption investigation ...
That's rich!
Mrs P wrote on June 14, 2007 2:15 PM:Since we are likely to hear a lot more about Prince Bandar, how about a more recent photo of him? Bander is just about all gray now.
Anonymous wrote on June 14, 2007 2:20 PM:Well, according to Wiki and other sources. BAE Systems is an English Company born of a merger between British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems, in 1999.
syvanen wrote on June 14, 2007 2:49 PM:Now it is the 4th largest defence contractor in Britain, the 7th largest contractor of USA Dept. of Defense. .
BAE has been criticized for the usual cost overruns, project delays. plus the above allegations in Saudi Arabia.
It obviously has enough clout to shut down the British investigation.
The DOJ has conscientious career employees who, if allowed to follow their judgment, can investigate these cases well. This is the real advantage of the USA firing investigations -- the political appointees are spending all their time protecting themselves and worrying about provoking new scandals. The career attorneys are free to do as they wish.
This is the reason to keep Gunny as AG. Do we really want Bush to put in some competent operative of his?
Snarl wrote on June 14, 2007 3:29 PM:Yeah, re the picture: couldn't you find one taken this century?
Here's a good candidate:
http://shlonkombakazay.blogspot.com/bandar_bush_flips_off_larry.jpg
azbill wrote on June 14, 2007 6:10 PM:Was the good Prince once the Ambassador to the United States and then left the post in the middle of the night to return to Saudi Arabia? If I recall there was a lot of speculation on why the Prince would leave the post as ambassador to the US when his good friend George Bush was so close. I mean how much money can a person spend? A typical Republithug, never enough money.
JNagarya wrote on June 15, 2007 2:07 AM:The US department of justice is preparing to open a corruption investigation ...
That's rich!
Posted by: blogenfreude
Date: June 14, 2007 01:36 PM
The DOJ is currently under intense public scrutiny. You don't _REALLY_ belive all in the DOJ are corrupt, do you? If so, you're dead wrong.
And if you think the DOJ is going to pull frauds while under such scrutiny, then you don't think.
Gonazles is neutralized. Best he can do is sit and twiddle his thumbs -- and be careful he doesn't cheat in how he does that.
JNagarya wrote on June 15, 2007 2:18 AM:The DOJ has conscientious career employees who, if allowed to follow their judgment, can investigate these cases well. This is the real advantage of the USA firing investigations -- the political appointees are spending all their time protecting themselves and worrying about provoking new scandals. The career attorneys are free to do as they wish.
This is the reason to keep Gunny as AG. Do we really want Bush to put in some competent operative of his?
Posted by: syvanen
Date: June 14, 2007 02:49 PM
Thank you. And exactly right. There are good and honest public servants in gov't, including at DOJ. An exemplary instance is Patrick Fitzgerald: he put aides to Mayor Daley of Chicago -- Democrats -- in jail. He put IL Gov. Ryan -- a Republican -- in jail. He demonstrates that justice can be done with no regard for politics.
I doubt he'd take the job, but as AG he could be trusted to clean up the DOJ.
And, yes: I prefer Gonzo staying right where he is, keeping the issues alive and front-and-center, and the DOJ under intense public scrutiny. It's called "oversight". "Democracy is responsibility." -- Justice Louis Brandeis.
theswan wrote on June 15, 2007 2:32 PM:Now, the fastest way to end and investigation into the BAE, Bandar, Blair, Bush war machine is to let the DOJ collect the information and bury it. End of issue!
francis walsingham wrote on June 16, 2007 1:53 AM:How does Lord Woolf, an old boy from Fettes College (Tony Blair's old school tie) and the Queen's Bench (the Blair family's chambers), qualify as being objective?