A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF GROUPS AND INSTITUTIONS IN CONNECTION WITH THE CHART in the EIR ARTICLE, "CHENEY AND DELAY, JOINED AT THE HIP."

by Anton Chaitkin

1. ALEXANDER STRATEGY GROUP, a lobbying/public relations firm.

Alexander Strategy Gro up was formed in 1997-1998 by Rep. Tom DeLay, the Enron Corporation, DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham and DeLay aide Karl Gallant. Enron reportedly provided a $750,000 contract for the new firm to start by promoting deregulation, in particular on the state level.

Names:

Ed Buckham, chairman; earlier chief of staff to DeLay, employed also by Enron and Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC) after launching Alexander Strategy Group.

Christine DeLay, wife of Tom DeLay, employed by Alexander Strategy Group for a "net salary" of $40,000 to help manage ARMPAC.

Karl Gallant, partner, 1995-1999 aide to Tom DeLay, executive director of ARMPAC; a specialist in anti-labor-union politics.

Tony Rudy, partner, former aide to Tom DeLay, former partner of Jack Abramoff, Rudy served as a reference for the loan to Abramoff to buy the SunCruz casino ship line, in connection with which Abramoff was indicted in Miami.

Mike Mihalke, former spokesman/counsel to Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa); Santorum has been the Senate leader of the K Street Project.

Terry Haines, former chief counsel/staff director, House Committee on Financial Services under its chairman, Michael Oxley (R-Ohio), the committee for oversight of mutual funds, hedge funds, etc. As part of the heavy-handed K Street Project action, Oxley/Committee former staffer Sam Geduldig reportedly pressured The Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund consortium, to hire Haines or another Republican as a lobbyist in place of a Democrat whose employment by the Institute was said to be causing Oxley to push an investigation of mutual funds. Sam Geduldig subsequently became chief of staff to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo), House Whip under DeLay's Majority leadership.

Dan Gans, former chief of staff to former Congressman Bob Riley (R-Ala), and chief of staff to Riley as Governor of Alabama. Gans handled Rep. Riley's relations to Majority Whip Tom DeLay. Gans was "senior advisor" to Riley's campaign for Governor; the Riley campaign received $600,000 from the Republican National State Elections Committee (RSEC), just after Michael Scanlon's Capitol Campaign Strategies contributed $500,000 to the Republican Governors Association, which passed along over $2 million to the RSEC, then around to Riley, all within a few days before Riley's November 2002 election. Scanlon, then Jack Abramoff's partner, had been an aide to Rep. Bob Riley before joining DeLay's staff. The Scanlon half-million-dollar contribution was evidently proceeds from the Abramoff-Scanlon-Ralph Reed effort on behalf of the Mississippi Choctaw gambling casino, to pay into the Christian Coalition and politicians for stopping competitive gambling enterprises across the border in Alabama.

Clients, other than Enron:

Alexander Strategy Group has been the lead USA lobbyist for Lazard Freres and Company, the same private banking firm which Wayne Berman has represented.

Alexander Strategy Group represents Blackwater, the mercenary military/security firm.

The Roy Blunt Project at Alexander Strategy Group

When Roy Blunt first ran for Congress in 1996, Blunt went to Washington, met with DeLay, and pledged himself to serve DeLay's powerful apparatus if he were elected.

In 1999, DeLay maneuvered to make his Deputy Whip, Dennis Hastert (R-Ill), Speaker of the House. DeLay also chose the novice Roy Blunt, then in his second Congressional term, as chief Deputy Whip, and assigned Blunt to manage the details of relations with the lobbyists.

Blunt stepped in as DeLay's money cleaner soon after becoming Deputy Whip.

Jim Ellis, coordinator of DeLay's ARMPAC, has been indicted alongside DeLay in connection with the finances of TRMPAC. This same Jim Ellis started up Blunt's own funding agency, called "Rely On Your Beliefs" (or ROYB or ROYBPAC) on May 26, 1999.

ROYB occupied the same Washington, D.C. townhouse at 132 D St. SE as DeLay's ARMPAC, which was managed, like ROYB, by Jim Ellis; the same address as the Alexander Strategy Group; and the same address as the U.S. Family Network, a tax-exempt religious-theme group set up by former DeLay election manager Robert Mills, who owned the townhouse, and employed Ed Buckham's wife as a Network staffer.

Here the laundry whirls: On Oct. 20, 1999, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) gave $500,000, its largest contribution ever, to the U.S. Family Network. Buckham, running the Network, transferred $300,000 to "Americans for Economic Growth," headed by Blunt's funding manager, Jim Ellis. Ellis bought $260,000 worth of radio ads attacking Democratic Congressional candidates and supporting Republicans who favored privatizing Social Security. The Federal Election Commission later fined the NRCC $280,000 for this pass-through, as an illegal use of corporate money. The incestuous PACs and lobbyists were soon forced to leave the laundry-house when Washington zoning authorities caught up with them.

And whirls: in 2000, DeLay's ARMPAC gave $150,000 to Blunt's ROYB, both outfits headed by Ellis, who was paid by Blunt's arm as a consultant. This was the largest share of all money received by Blunt's committee. In the same year, Blunt's ROYB paid $145,000 to Buckham's Alexander Strategy Group, and $10,000 to the DeLay Foundation.

Meanwhile, the sweatshop project in the Northern Marianas Islands was grinding away. Such Abramoff clients as Concorde Garment Manufacturing had been fined in the 1990s for notorious sweatshop conditions. On April 14, 2000, Concorde gave $3,000 to Blunt's ROYB. On Nov. 27, 2000, Abramoff's firm charged his Marianas clients for meeting with Blunt's aide Trevor Blackan. On Sept. 5, 9, and 30, 2001, Abramoff representatives met with Roy Blunt and his aides to discuss strategy for keeping slave-labor conditions legal in the Marianas.

Flush with DeLay's cash, a good deal of it from Abramoff's casinos and sweatshops, Blunt's ROYB gave $100,000 to the Missouri Republican Party on June 15, 2000.

The Missouri Republican Party turned around on July 25 and gave $11,000 to Roy Blunt's son Matt's campaign for Missouri Secretary of State, the first of $160,000 the state party was to donate to that campaign. Matt Blunt later moved up to become Governor, his present post. Shortly before the 2000 election, DeLay's ARMPAC, headed by Ellis, gave another $50,000 to the Missouri Republicans.

For the 2000 Republican National Convention, DeLay's ARMPAC and Blunt's ROYB jointly sponsored the most exotic events and perks for politicians and lobbyists under their spell. A car and driver for every Republican Congressman, a rock concert, a luxury five-car hospitality train, 24-hour concierge service, all costing an estimated million dollars. Jim Ellis ran the show for DeLay and for Blunt.

Ellis then coordinated a notorious thank-you event in Las Vegas: partying for those who contributed $50,000 or more to the DeLay/Blunt convention activities. Blunt's big backer, United Parcel Service, donated a chartered flight between Washington and Nevada for Blunt and 50-60 lobbyists, aides, and political supporters. At DeLay's Las Vegas suite, a reveller poured champagne over DeLay's daughter, the hostess in the hot tub.

Following the indictment of ARMPAC/ROYB fund manager Jim Ellis, Blunt contributed $10,000 for Ellis's legal defense—from the corporate-donations fund ROYB that Ellis had been paid to manage. Roy blunt is also the largest single contributor, among U.S. Congressmen, to the Tom DeLay defense fund.

2. AMERICANS FOR AFFORDABLE ELECTRICITY, a lobbying enterprise, created by Enron and Alexander Strategy Group, to promote the deregulation of electricity.

Former Rep. Bill Paxon (R-NY) was president of Americans for Affordable Electricity. Many other corporations were brought in as participants. The group spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertisements promoting electricity deregulation. Other companies reportedly came to object to Enron and the DeLayites dominating the initiative, and Ed Buckham and Karl Gallant were withdrawn, only to be hired directly by Enron.

The deregulation objective was accomplished in Californ ia, which was supposed to serve as a model for other states. But when California was devastated by the energy pirates, other states blocked or reversed such deregulation.

3. AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM, the personal instrument of Grover Norquist.

Norquist prefers to be known as a conservative anti-tax leader, who convinces politicians and candidates to sign his pledge not to raise taxes.

But Norquist's main role is as a director of Venetian-style informal government of financiers and their servants in Washington. In the early 1980s, Norquist was executive director of the College Republicans under chairman Jack Abramoff, and with his successor as executive director, Ralph Reed, formed a personal partnership trio for power and profit.

Mounted on a wall in Norquist's office is a photograph of Norquist holding an automatic rifle over his head, in his mujihadeen-guerrilla days, the mid-1980s, when he, Abramoff, and Reed went off into different arms of the international far-right underground apparatus (Contras, Muslim militants, South African secret police).

That Norquist office is ground zero for the "K Street Project"—the union of lobbyists, financiers, power brokers along the DeLay-Cheney axis. In that office every Wednesday, Grover Norquist convenes an assembly of, typically, a few dozen lobbyists, members of the Heritage Foundation as an agency of the Mont Pelerin bankers, some representation for Ralph Reed and allied religious herders, the Congressional power center of Tom DeLay and DeLay's PAC/lobbying managers (including Roy Blunt), a direct representative of Vice President Dick Cheney (as the power in both the Administration and the Congress), and a representative of President Bush, particularly through Bush advisor Karl Rove.

Americans for Tax Reform has also been a vehicle for the conduiting of ill-gotten funds in conjunction with Abramoff and Reed, particularly in the field of gambling casinos. Norquist has worked professionally as a lobbyist; at one point in partnership with David Safavian, Norquist was the senior strategist for the Internet gambling casino interests, with Jack Abramoff representing the largest single online casino, and Tom DeLay doing the legislative dirty work.

4. ASHCROFT GROUP, a lobbying/consulting firm.

After leaving office as Attorney General, John Ashcroft went into "private" business, in conjunction with government, formal and informal. His firm advises and lobbies government on contract with the ChoicePoint company, which does "data mining" for the FBI's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, which Ashcroft himself set up in 2002 following the 9/11 attacks. The private ChoicePoint/Ashcroft initiative is now totally integrated with the Justice Department and the Cheney/Rumsfeld Defense Department.

Ashcroft's current partner, Juleanna Glover-Weiss, was previously Vice President Dick Cheney's press secretary and public spokesman. Earlier, she had been an advisor to John Ashcroft when he was a Senator. Her husband, Jeffrey Weiss, helped manage the confirmation process through which Ashcroft became U.S. Attorney General, working alongside Cheney's David Gribbin.

Ashcroft's relations to Congress have been eased by the fact that he had helped start the political career of his young Springfield, Mo. neighbor, Roy Blunt, when he hired Blunt as a chauffeur in an unsuccessful 1972 Ashcroft Congressional race.

5. BLACK, KELLY, SCRUGGS & HEALEY (formerly Black, Manafort & Stone), lobbying/consulting/public relations firm.

The firm has a notorious pedigree in the former partners Roger Stone and Charles Black, famous for the dirty tricks and rough stuff side of Republican politics.

This firm's project, Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, has been at the center of the drive for an Iraq war and related adventures in Southwest Asia, as promoted by Dick Cheney and his neo-conservatives. Chalabi and the INC are under the long-term management of Francis Brooke, who went to Iraq on an official contract with the Black, Kelly firm.

Black, Kelly partner Jeffrey Weiss, and his wife, former Dick Cheney press secretary Juleanna Glover-Weiss, are the main Washington hosts for Ahmed Chalabi and his retinue. Their home is sometimes designated "Embassy Juleanna," and Mrs. Weiss has been called "the new Pamela Harriman" in view of the lavish parties she puts on.

6. BRACEWELL GIULIANI, Houston-based law firm, formerly known as Bracewell Patterson, which changed its name when former N.Y. Mayor Rudolf Giuliani joined it.

Lead attorneys for Tom DeLay since 2000—DeLay has paid them about $800,000, and reportedly owes them around $200,000.

Lead attorneys for Enron Corporation. When Enron collapsed at the end of 2001, some of the corporate staff lawyers returned from the Bracewell client back to the Bracewell mother firm, from which they had migrated.

Marc Racicot, former Governor of Montana, joined Bracewell at the beginning of 2001 as Enron's lobbyist in Washington. Racicot lobbied Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force on behalf of Enron. In 2002, Racicot was appointed chairman of the Republican Party National Committee, and refused to accept a salary, preferring to keep his lobbyist salary from Bracewell.

7. DICK CHENEY AS VICE PRESIDENT.

Personnel of the Office of the Vice President.

Lewis Libby, chief of staff.

David Addington, counsel.

Nancy Dorn, assistant to the Vice President for Legislative Affairs, 2001 until early 2002. As a professional lobbyist, Dorn had been a member of Tom DeLay's "Kitchen Cabinet" during the late 1990s, and briefly served (late 2000) as an official advisor to the DeLay-Hastert House leadership. When Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense (1989-93), Nancy Dorn worked for him as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Inter-American Affairs, She is an long-time, close associate of Cheney Counsel David Addington, and the media quoted her effusive praise for Addington as the replacement for the indicted Lewis Libby.

Steven Ruhlen, Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for Legislative affairs. Ruhlen is a personal friend of Pat Shortridge, the senior lobbyist for Enron, who used Ruhlen as an informal contact with the Cheney Energy Task Force. Ruhlen was later head of the Washington office of JP Morgan Chase.

Juleanna Glover-Weiss, Press Secretary and spokesman for the Vice President. See under Ashcroft Group.

Household of V.P. Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne Cheney.

Lea Berman, social director for the Cheneys (2001-2002), then chief of staff to Mrs. Cheney (2003). Lea Berman is currently White House Social Director. Mrs. Berman is the wife of Wayne Berman, lobbyist and co-sponsor of the Tom DeLay defense fund and simultaneously co-manager of the Lewis Libby Defense Fund (see Wayne Berman under Federalist Group).

8. TOM DELAY "KITCHEN CABINET"

According to Juliet Eilperin, reporting in the Washington Post Oct. 18, 1999, the following persons, described in this report, were members of DeLay's Kitchen Cabinet of lobbyists:

Jack Abramoff, Ed Buckham, Nancy Dorn, Grover Norquist, Bill Paxon, along with 14 other individuals.

9. ENRON CORPORATION, Houston-based energy "pirate" corporation.

Lyndon LaRouche described the developing economic blowout in a statement Feb. 13, 2002: "Enron was the flagship of a flotilla of Congressionally legalized pirates—sometimes called 'privateers,' which, taken all together, has marked similarities to what biologists recognize as a 'slime-mold.' The result was a gigantic financial interbreeding among hedge-funds, totaling to what some of the world's best financial sources have reported to be $100 trillions or more in financial derivatives. Somewhat like the participants in a slime-mold, each of the corporate entities involved combined to form a gigantic cluster of variously 'bisexual,' 'multi-sexual,' and even, according to some testimony, 'asexual' counter-party 'hedges.' "

EIR's John Hoefle wrote in 2002, "Enron was multiply interlinked with the world's largest derivatives banks, led by J.P. Morgan Chase ... who not only arranged the sale of Enron bonds to the public, but were also partners with the company in a number of the partnerships and special-purpose entities."

Names:

Ralph Reed, religious executive and Abramoff's partner, was a paid propagandist for Enron's deregulation drive, and was simultaneously Southeastern United States chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign.

For Enron agents Ed Buckham, Karl Gallant and Bill Paxon, see under Alexander Strategy Group.

Pat Shortridge, senior Enron staff lobbyist, worked through his friend Steven Ruhlen, who as Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for Legislative Affairs, was a Dick Cheney liaison to Tom DeLay.

For Marc Racicot, Enron lobbyist, chairman of the Republican Party National Committee, see Bracewell Giuliani.

Kenneth Lay, Enron chairman, who essentially co-managed the White House Energy Task Force with Dick Cheney, and who launched Tom DeLay's PAC/lobbyist power structure; Lay will finally go on trial in January 2006, in connection with the looting of California and the Enron blowout.

10. ENERGY TASK FORCE (White House Energy Task Force, "National Energy Policy Development Group")

The official members of the Task Force were the Vice President, several Cabinet members, and other Executive Branch department chiefs. Secrecy still covers the discussion transcripts and the names of private sector participants.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Task Force chairman.

Andrew Lundquist, Task Force executive director; Lundquist also served as an advisor on Vice President Cheney's own staff; later a partner in Lundquist, Nethercutt & Griles.

Joseph Allbaugh, official Task Force member as chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); later a partner in Lundquist, Nethercutt & Griles, and lobbyist for Halliburton Corporation.

J. Steven Griles, unofficial, but active Task Force participant as Deputy Secretary of the Interior; point-man for Jack Abramoff schemes within the Interior Department; later a partner in Lundquist, Nethercutt & Griles.

11. FEDERALIST GROUP, lobbying firm.

The firm is owned by the former Ogilvie Mather public relations/advertising company, long run by senior British Intelligence figure David Ogilvie.

Wayne Berman, the chairman, who merged his Berman Enterprises into the Federalist Group in 2004, is vice chairman of Jardine Lloyd Thompson, the London-based giant of private banking and risk management. Berman has been a lobbyist for Lazard Freres and George H.W. Bush's Carlyle Group, and was Assistant Commerce Secretary under the Bush, Sr. Administration. Berman got hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for arranging for Connecticut state pension funds to be invested in the Carlyle Group, and in Maurice Greenberg's AIG. In 1998, Berman hired into his lobbying firm the former Connecticut State Treasurer, Paul Silvester, but Silvester was convicted in 1999, and went to prison for taking kickbacks for his pension-fund deals. At that time Berman, who was never penalized, was a star member of Tom DeLay's Kitchen Cabinet. Berman is the husband of Lea Berman, a top staff member of the Cheney family.

Drew Maloney, partner, former DeLay Congressional staff member, who reportedly convened meetings, every six weeks, of former Tom DeLay staff members who had been through the revolving door into lobbying.

Maloney raised funds from Reliant Energy, the client of the Federalist Group, to pay into Tom DeLay's TRMPAC. Maloney arranged the 2002 Tom DeLay golf tournament in which Reliant and other energy-firm donors to DeLay got to play alongside DeLay on the eve of a decisive House-Senate conference on an omnibus energy bill. DeLay was criticized by the House Ethics Committee.

Chris Giblin, partner, former head of Reliant Enrgy's Wahsington office (1998-2003), managed the California crisis for Reliant.

12. "THE FELLOWSHIP"

This secretive movement was founded in the 1930s-1940s by Abram Vereide, Episcopal Rev. Sam Shoemaker, and Shoemaker's son-in-law, Sen. H. Alexander Smith (R-NJ), followers of Frank Buchman, as a initiative paralelling Buchman's pro-Nazi "Moral Rearmament." Originally called International Christian Leadership, the movement was officially sponsored by the Dutch monarchy through Vereide's work with Prince Bernhard, and co-organized by figures in the British military intelligence such as Admiralty official Ernest Williams and the British Air Commission's Col. Sir Vivian Gabriel.

The Fellowship (or "Fellowship Foundation" or "The Family" among other names variously supplied) combines personnel in politics, the intelligence community, the military-industrial complex, and religious leaders, for control over society and government.

Sub-Institutions:

National Prayer Breakfast, formerly Presidential Prayer Breakfast; prayer breakfasts in the military and other government institutions.

Prison Fellowship Ministries, led by Watergate felon Charles Colson.

Closely Associated entities:

Christian Coalition, founded and directed by dirty-tricks operative Ralph Reed with Pat Robertson as the spokesman. Now with Reed and Robertson out, the Coalition is more or less defunct nationally, but several of its state-level organizations have continued with significant political power, often deployed by Ralph Reed. The apparatus within the Texas Republican Party which specifically sponsors and protects Tom DeLay has been dominated by the Christian Coalition. The Christian Coalition of Alabama was a notorious partner with Ralph Reed in the schemes of Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon.

Officers Christian Fellowship (USA)—members have included Iran-Contra's Col. Oliver North.

Military Christian Fellowships (worldwide), based on a 19th Century-origin British empire military movement.

The Navigators, and other groups such as James Dobson's Focus on the Family, all based in Colorado Springs, clustered around the U.S. Air Force Academy. The Navigators spun off the Promise Keepers, and developed the curriculum that was used in the men's group to which George W. Bush belonged in his conversion to fundamentalism.

Names

John Ashcroft, close associate of Fellowship leader Douglas Coe. Ashcroft's father was director of worldwide outreach for the Assemblies of God. Ashcroft was U.S. Senator (R-Mo); then U.S. Attorney General; and is currently a lobbyist in Ashcroft Group, consultant for "data mining" with the Department of Justice, and partner of Juleanna Glover-Weiss.

Douglas Coe, successor to Vereide, long-time current leader of the Fellowship.

Charles Colson, director of President Richard Nixon's Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), convicted in the Watergate affair, the frightened Colson gave his life to the Fellowship in exchange for restored power. Through Colson the Fellowship created the Prison Fellowship Ministries, now in most U.S. prisons and many overseas, a mainstay of the "faith-based initiative."

Tom DeLay was recruited to The Fellowship soon after arriving in Congress in 1985, reportedly with the initial overture by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va).

David Gribbin, reportedly an insider at Fellowship headquarters, The Cedars, with a master of divinity degree. A high school friend of Dick Cheney, Gribbin was Cheney's assistant from 1979 to 1989, Assistant Secretary of Defense under Secretary of Defense Cheney; vice president for government relations for Halliburton when Cheney was CEO (1995-2000); and director of relations to Congress for the Bush-Cheney transition team (2000-2001), managing with DeLay and Co. the confirmation of John Ashcroft as Attorney General.

Former Rep. Steve Largent (R-Okla), for a time a resident at The Fellowship's Capitol Hill domicile; Tom DeLay assembled his Congressional allies in Rep. Largent's office for the abortive 1997 attempt to oust Speaker Newt Gingrich in favor of Rep. Bill Paxon.

Tom Phillips, Raytheon Corp. (military contractor) CEO, who paid for the Fellowship's purchase of its Arlington, Va. headquarters mansion, "The Cedars." Phillips recruited Charles Colson.

Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-Pa), chairman of DeLay's Values Action Team.

Pat Robertson, televangelist, co-founder of the Christian Coalition with Ralph Reed; Robertson's religious-corporate empire was shaped by Fellowship agent Harald Bredesen.

Abram Vereide, founder, The Fellowship and the National Prayer Breakfast.

13. GREENBERG TRAURIG, law/lobbying firm, based in Miami, Florida.

Jack Abramoff came into Greenberg Traurig in late 2000, using the firm's Washington, D.C. office as an outpost of "DeLay, Inc." until he was forced to leave in early 2004.

The Associated Press (Dennis Cook) reported May 6, 2005, that in the first ten months of Bush-Cheney, "GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration.... The meetings between Abramoff's lobbying team and the administration ranged from Attorney General John Ashcroft to policy advisors in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, according to his lobbying firm billing records."

From his Greenberg Traurig office Abramoff directed the DeLay, Inc. schemes for sweatshops and casinos, worth well over $100 million to the whole team. By late 2004, investigators of the Florida SunCruz fraud and murder cases, the Indian casino political slush funds, and the Texas DeLay redistricting-financing initiative, were all talking to each other. Abramoff is now reportedly prepared to talk freely to save himself, as his lower-level cohorts are already doing, as are many Enron executives, as are Larry Franklin (in the Cheney-Rumsfeld Defense Department intrigues) and others. As all the cases hit the courts, the thousand tangled webs of the informal government between Tom DeLay and Dick Cheney have become the weight which will drag them all down together, under unified attack by law enforcement and patriotic opponents.

14. HALLIBURTON CORPORATION, Houston-based multinational energy services and construction company.

Dick Cheney was chairman and CEO 1995-2000, after serving President George H.W. Bush as Defense Secretary, 1989-1993. In 1998, Cheney merged Halliburton with the oilfield-services firm Dresser Industries, getting the Kellogg division of Dresser to form the Kellogg, Brown & Root construction division of Halliburton (renamed KBR).

Dresser had been controlled by the Bush family and the Harrimans since the 1920s. George H.W. Bush began his oil career at Dresser, which was directed top-down by his father, banker Prescott Bush (grandfather of the current President).

Halliburton is under investigation in connection with no-bid contracts and alleged fraud against the U.S. armed forces in Iraq, the bribes Halliburton paid in Nigeria, and Halliburton enterprises in Iran. The company's contracts in Iraq are expected to generate $10-20 billion. Halliburton stock has gone from the $10 range in mid-2002 to over $60 by the end of 2005.

Cheney officially retired from Halliburton during the 2000 election campaign. But Halliburton paid Vice President Cheney a "deferred salary" of $205,298 in 2001, $162,392 in 2002, and equivalent sums in the next three years. Vice President Cheney has some 433,000 share-equivalent Halliburton stock options, the value of which tripled to about $9.5 million since Cheney's lies brought on the Iraq war.

David Gribbin, Cheney's long-time aide and associate from high school, was Halliburton's Vice President for Governmental Relations, and immediately afterwards directed the arrangements between the Cheney-led transition team and the DeLay-led Congress in preparation for the Bush-Cheney administration. (See Gribbin under "The Fellowship".)

Joseph and Diane Allbaugh have been registered lobbyists for Halliburton/KBR, since early 2005. Joseph Allbaugh was chief of staff for Texas Gov. George W. Bush, manager of the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000, head of FEMA, and a member of Cheney's Energy Task Force, while his wife Diane was a Reliant Energy lobbyist. Vice President Dick Cheney assigned Allbaugh's work in counterterrorism within FEMA.

15. LEWIS LIBBY DEFENSE FUND ("Libby Legal Defense Trust")

Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis Libby has been indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction, and lying to the FBI, in the probe of Cheney and his associates regarding the leaking of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

The initiative to raise funds for Libby's legal defense is not being conducted in the open, but media accounts uniformly agree that Wayne Berman and Bill Paxon, top operatives in the coordination between Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, and the Enron-Reliant energy scams, are among the leaders of the Libby Legal Defense Trust.

16. LUNDQUIST, NETHERCUTT & GRILES, lobbying firm.

The Cheneyites put this firm together at the beginning of 2005 while DeLay Inc. still ruled K Street.

Andrew Lundquist, partner, former aide to Dick Cheney and executive director of Cheney's Energy Task Force.

Former Congressman George Nethercutt (R-Wash), partner, who joined with Lundquist and Griles after losing a Senate race.

J. Steven Griles, partner, former Deputy Interior Secretary, participant in the Cheney Energy Task Force and in the Abramoff-Norquist machine. A professional lobbyist, Griles was the go-to guy in the government for oil, gas, and coal leases. Griles continued getting $284,000 per year from his former lobbying and consulting firm, for four years, on top of his Interior Department salary.

Joseph Allbaugh, partner with Lundquist in an auxiliary of the firm. (See under "Energy Task Force" and "Halliburton.")

Kate Ackley reported in Roll Call], Nov. 8, 2005: "At 10 a.m. today, a group of almost 250 business lobbyists and conservative activists will huddle inside the Capitol with House GOP leaders. At the 45-minute, closed-door session in Room HC-5, the House's Whip team and Republican Conference members will plead with K Street representatives for help in scoring a victory on the upcoming reconciliation bill.

"Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who serves as both Majority Leader and Majority Whip ... will ask the lobbyists to call on their closest Capitol Hill contacts to urge them to approve the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The measure promises to be one of the toughest fights this year and will serve as a test for the leadership of Blunt, whose portfolio grew significantly when Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was indicted in September.

"This particular coalition between the GOP Whip team and downtown lobbyists is the latest in a long string of collaborative efforts... Ever since Republicans took over the majority a decade ago, they have ... regularly drafted lobbyists—whose employers or clients have important business before Congress—to become unpaid adjunct Whips during key legislative battles....

"This coalition happens to be ... stronger on first responders and anti-tax groups that can tap into a large grass-roots network such as Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform....

"Among corporations, the Whip team is working with Motorola ... [which] retains outside consultants with close ties to the Whip operation, including [former Tom DeLay chief of staff] Susan Hirschmann of Williams & Jensen ... and Tim Kurth with Lundquist Nethercutt & Griles...."

17. PRESTON, GATES, ELLIS & ROUVELAS MEEDS, Seattle-origin law/lobbying firm.

Jack Abramoff was based in the firm's Washington office from 1994 to the end of 2000, and was joined there in 2000 by former Tom DeLay spokesman Michael Scanlon.

18. RELIANT ENERGY, Houston-based energy "pirate" corporation.

Reliant Energy was run directly by the J.P. Morgan interests from 1901 to 1942, and thereafter by Morgan's allies, in the apparatus EIR has described as "Southern Strategy, Inc., an alliance of Wall Street and European financiers, steered by the oligarchic Schlumberger/Lazard financial and intelligence apparatus."

Reliant and Enron bled California dry, through a ten-fold increase in the state's energy bill. The company and its executives will soon go on criminal trial in Houston.

R.G. Ratcliffe reported in the Houston Chronicle Feb. 23, 2004, about the audacious tour through the offices of Reliant Energy by a Texas state legislator Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, raising funds for Tom DeLay's TRMPAC. This outrage "has become part of a growing Travis County grand jury probe into possible criminal misuse of corporate funds to finance a Republican takeover of the Texas House."

Rep. Woolley "swept through Houston corporate offices on Sept. 9, 2002, raising money for targeted House races as well as for Texans for a Republican Majority, according to an itinerary of her travel obtained by the Houston Chronicle.... Among the money Woolley raised that day was $25,000 in corporate contributions from Reliant Energy for TRM."

TRMPAC led Tom DeLay's successful effort to take Republican control of the Texas House in 2002 and to elect DeLay's man Tom Craddick as Texas House Speaker. Craddick subsequently named Barbara Woolley to chair Calendars Committee that decides what bills are debated on the House floor. DeLay's control of the Texas legislature enabled him to change the Texas districts for the U.S. House of Representatives and cement his Congressional power.

The Houston Chronicle article notes that Woolley had hand-written on her itinerary that the trip was a "36Kday + 25 Reliant"—i.e., $36,000 raised from individuals directly for candidates and $25,000 in corporate money from Reliant. The Chronicle reports that the "donation to TRM was made by then-Reliant Senior Vice President Bruce Gibson."

See also references to Reliant lobbyists Drew Maloney and Diane Allbaugh.

19. SUNCRUZ, a Florida-based ocean cruise line of floating gambling casinos.

The entire DeLay, Inc. apparatus took part in the takeover of SunCruz.

Jack Abramoff and his partner Adam Kidan are charged with fraud in pretending to make a $23 million payment towards the purchase of SunCruz from its former owner, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis. After Boulis protested that Abramoff had not paid him, and reportedly tried to take back control of SunCruz, Boulis was murdered, Mafia-style, on Feb. 6, 2001 on a Fort Lauderdale street.

In the drive to seize SunCruz, on Sept. 18, 2000, Abramoff brought financial executive Greg C. Walker to a seat in Abramoff's personal box at the Washington Redskins' football stadium, to be introduced to Tom DeLay. This show of power was used to help close the deal to borrow millions from Walker's company, Foothill Capital, to buy SunCruz. Abramoff has now been indicted for allegedly lying to Foothill and forging documents, to get the money. Abramoff used DeLay aide Tony Rudy as a personal reference on his loan papers.

In January 2001, Abramoff flew Tom DeLay's aide, Tim Berry, to Florida on a SunCruz jet, to go gambling on a SunCruz floating casino. Abramoff at that time was paying himself a $500,000 SunCruz salary. To help Abramoff gain control of SunCruz, former DeLay spokesman Michael Scanlon had arranged with Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio) to speak in Congress about Boulis's unfitness to run the company. After the takeover, Ney spoke again, in praise of the honor and integrity of Abramoff's partner, Adam Kidan, though Kidan was a bankrupt and disbarred attorney.

Abramoff, Scanlon, and Kidan have been indicted for fraud. Mafia-connected Anthony Moscatiello, who was paid $145,000 in SunCruz funds, has been indicted in the murder of Gus Boulis. Tony Rudy, who had earlier flown on a DeLay/Abramoff Scotland golf junket, and was Abramoff's loan reference for the SunCruz scam, left DeLay's staff to work for Abramoff, and then joined Alexander Strategy Group. Prosecutors have informed Congressman Ney that he will be indicted in relation to the SunCruz and Indian casino cases.