TPMMuckraker Yolanda Suarez: January 2010
Allen Stanford
A Washington Tale: As Feds Closed In, Stanford Boosted Efforts To Buy Influence
Allen Stanford
As the federal government closed in on Allen Stanford in 2008, he began desperately pulling out all the stops in a bid to stay one step ahead. The Texas banker launched his own in-house lobbying shop, run by a former top aide to a powerful congressman. And he hired a former Clinton administration PR specialist to aggressively deflect reporters looking into his financial empire.
The Stanford story, of course, is primarily about how a high-living tycoon used a Caribbean tax shelter to allegedly orchestrate a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. But it's also an object lesson in how Washington works: How wealthy and powerful people can buy a level of influence and access that allows them to play by a different set of rules. In Stanford's case, that only worked for so long. But it's not hard to see how he could have thought playing the Beltway influence game might be his salvation.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)Topics: Allen Stanford, James Conzelman, Lobbyists, Lula Rodriguez, Yolanda Suarez
Yolanda Suarez
Top Stanford Aide Schmoozed Lawmakers, Sweet-Talked Journos
Yolanda Suarez and Allen Stanford
In the late nineties, Douglas Farah, at the time a reporter for the Washington Post, was looking into a then-obscure Antigua-based businessman who had played a key role in helping the island nation rewrite its banking laws, frustrating U.S. efforts to crack down on money laundering.
Farah's reporting suggested that Allen Stanford wielded surprising influence in the Antiguan government. And Farah was hearing that the Texas-born billionaire and his company, the Stanford Financial Group (SFG), had ties to Latin American drug money.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (9) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Topics: Allen Stanford, Campaign Contributions, Yolanda Suarez
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