GOP Criminal Flip-Flop: Was Denny Hastert Bribed By Turkish Agents?

Blogcritics.org
Aug 4 2005

Posted by Balletshooz on August 04, 2005 08:03 PM (See all posts by
Balletshooz)

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Speaker: Lessons from Forty Years in Coaching and Politics
Dennis Hastert
Book from Regnery Publishing, Inc.
Release date: August, 2004

Why exactly did Denny Hastert flip-flop at the last moment, derailing
a Congressional resolution designating as genocide the killings of
Armenians between 1915 and 1923? He initially attributed it to a
letter from Bill Clinton, but new FBI wiretaps show Turkish foreign
agents mentioning Hastert’s name in the context of a bribe, right
before the resolution was scheduled to pass.

Is Denny Hastert taking bribes from foreign officials and why is
the Justice Department trying to squelch an investigation into the
matter? What are they trying to hide? These new allegations, if allowed
to surface, will make Tom Delay and Karl Rove look like Mother Teresa
and Gandhi. Call it Genocide-Gate, Traitor-Gate, or Hastert-Gate,
the American public and American law enforcement deserve to know and
must take a close look at this unfolding scandal.

For many years, attempts had been made to get the House to pass the
genocide resolution, but they never got anywhere until August 2000,
when Hastert, as Speaker of the House, announced that he would give
it his backing and see that it received a full House vote. Thanks to
Hastert, the resolution, vehemently opposed by the Turks, passed.

Then on October 19, minutes before the full House vote, Hastert
suddenly and without explanation withdrew it.

Vanity Fair’s September edition, which has yet to hit national
newsstands, has an article about Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator who
has been gagged by the Bush administration from revealing information
about conversations she translated surrounding a seemingly major
corruption scandal involving Turkish nationals and U.S. lawmakers.

The following are some brief excerpts from RAW STORY surrounding the
allegations Edmonds has made-some of which the FBI has confirmed-about
the specifics surrounding her case:

· According to those briefed on the case, Edmonds says she has heard
classified wiretaps, which indicate Turkish nationals tried to bribe
lawmakers in Chicago and Washington.

· Edmonds was fired from the FBI after trying to persuade her bosses
to investigate a Turkish family, the Dickersons, she said was trying
to trade on her status as an FBI operative. She suspected that the
American Turkish Council, which the family tried to persuade her to
join, was a front group for criminal activity.

· On top of the usual prohibition against disclosing classified
information, the Bush administration has smothered her case beneath the
all-encompassing blanket of the “state-secrets privilege”-a Draconian
and rarely used legal weapon that allows the government, merely by
asserting a risk to national security, to prevent the lawsuits

Edmonds has filed contesting her treatment from being heard in court
at all. According to the Department of Justice, to allow Edmonds her
day in court, even at a closed hearing attended only by personnel
with full security clearance, “could reasonably be expected to cause
serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the
United States.”

Edmonds’ attorney, who works for the ACLU, says: “It also begs a
question: Just what in the world is the government trying to hide?”
One counterintelligence official familiar with Edmonds’s case
has told Vanity Fair that the FBI opened an investigation into
covert activity by Turkish nations and found evidence, mainly via
wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians. One
name apparently stood out-a man the Turkish callers often referred
to by the nickname “Denny boy.” According to some of the wiretaps it
was Denny Hastert. The FBI’s targets had arranged for 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.

An examination of Hastert’s federal filings shows that the level
of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was
very high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal
donations to the Hastert for Congress fund amounted to $483,000. In
contrast, un-itemized contributions to the same period to the
committee run on behalf of the House majority leader, Tom DeLay,
Republican of Texas, were only $99,000. An analysis of the filings
of four other senior Republicans shows that only one, Clay Shaw,
of Florida declared a higher total of un-itemized donations than
Hastert during the same period: $552,00.

Edmonds reportedly added that the recordings contained repeated
references to Hastert’s flip-flop in the fall of 2000, “over an
issue which remains of intense concern to the Turkish government-the
continuing campaign to have Congress designate the killings of
Armenians between 1915 and 1923 a genocide.” Hastert’s spokesman
denied the allegations that he was bribed by a foreign agent, and
said he knew nothing of the Turkish group.

Hastert’s defense is sounding a lot like some parallel Republican
defenses to ongoing criminal investigations, namely Karl Rove, Tom
DeLay, and Randy “Duke” Cunningham. They claim to have no involvement
in the crime until it becomes obvious they are involved, and then
they try to smear anyone willing to talk about it. This has become
an ongoing pattern in the Republican administration and a danger to
democracy. Only the justice system running its proper course can shed
light on what crimes, if any, have been committed by Denny Hastert, and
obstruction of the investigation should be roundly condemned by all.

–Boundary_(ID_mMHb8ShwhD8YfuuS9QrJ1w)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress