Larisa Alexandrovna: Bush U.S. Atty Arranged Lenient Plea Deal With Company Paying Terrorists

[Hissyspit]

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/21/buying-the-law

The Department of Justice, Corporations, Buying the Law – Part II: Strange Bargains

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BY LARISA ALEXANDROVNA AND MURIEL KANE

Published: July 21, 2009
Updated 3 hours ago

Bush US Attorney arranged lenient plea deal with company paying terrorists; Lawyer who helped secure plea deal? Obama’s future Attorney General

When the US Justice Department announced in March 2007 that Chiquita Brands had pleaded guilty to “one count of engaging in transactions with a specially-designated global terrorist” and would be paying a $25 million fine, observers were astonished at the lightness of the sentence.

Between 1997 and February of 2004, Chiquita made $1.7 million in payments to a right-wing paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), in regions where it had banana-growing operations. During that period, AUC conducted a “dirty war” against Colombia’s left-wing FARC guerrillas, marked by widespread murders of union leaders and farmers, as well as trafficking in cocaine and heroin.

“Several American multinational corporations have been accused of essentially underwriting those criminal activities – in violation of U.S. law – by providing cash, vehicles and other financial assistance as insurance against attacks on their employees and facilities in the South American nation,” the Los Angeles Times wrote in July 2007. “But only one such company – Chiquita Brands International Inc. – has been charged criminally in the United States.”

“The plea agreement reached with Chiquita in March (2007 – in which it acknowledged making the illegal payments – has been criticized as far too lenient by many outside legal experts and some high-ranking Justice Department prosecutors,” the Times added.

Although the decision to let Chiquita off lightly was criticized as a case of the Bush administration favoring powerful corporations, it was not seen at the time in light of the deep-seated politicization of the Bush Justice Department, which only became fully apparent in the wake of the US Attorney scandal. That scandal – which involved the firing of nine US Attorneys, allegedly for political reasons – was just starting to break at the time of the plea agreement.

The US Attorney who arranged the plea agreement for Chiquita, Jeffery A. Taylor, had been sworn in just six months earlier, in September 2006, under a controversial provision of the Patriot Act which enabled him to hold that position until May of this year without ever being confirmed by the Senate.

Prior to that appointment, Taylor served in the Justice Department as a counselor to Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales. In early 2006, he participated in discussions of the forthcoming attorney firings with Kyle Sampson, who was the chief coordinator of the firings and whose resignation Mar. 12, 2007 marked a major turning point in the scandal.

In 2005, Sampson had laid out the ideal of the type of Bush loyalist the administration wanted to have serving as US Attorneys, a profile which Taylor fit. Sampson proposed him in early 2006 to replace soon-to-be-fired Carol Lam as US Attorney in San Diego, but prior to Lam’s actual firing Taylor was appointed as US Attorney for Washington, DC.

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[National Steel 27]

1. It all goes round in circles, don't it?

he more things change, the more they remain the same.

[leveymg]

2. Small world. McCain's oldest, biggest funder owns Chiquita - Carl Lindner, a BCCI figure

Lindner has ties with the Bush wing of the CIA and the Mob that go back through Iran-Contra to the earlier death squad era of Plan Condor. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/365

So, now, we see Taylor a Justice Dept. underling who was tapped to replace Carol Lam. USA Lam was fired after she went after Wade and Wilkes, two other shady GOP-funders with old ties to the Bush wing of the CIA, guys who were busted after their company produced phony Iraq WMD evidence, who were running Iranian exile groups, who also getting funds from Cheney's office.

Small world, indeed. A nice, tight spiderweb of murder and terrorism there.