Jeb Bush interfered with FBI murder investigation while in Caracas by Wayne Madsen

 Jeb Bush interfered with FBI murder investigation while in Caracas

by Wayne Madsen
Knowledgeable FBI sources have told WMR that while Jeb Bush was the vice president for Texas Commerce Bank's operations in Caracas, Venezuela from 1977 to 1979, he provided the Central Intelligence Agency with high-level interference against an FBI investigation of two right-wing Cuban exile leaders for their roles in the September 21, 1976 terrorist car bombing in Washington, DC. The car bomb killed former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his American adviser Roni Moffitt on Sheridan Circle in broad daylight.

WMR previously reported, for the first time, that Jeb Bush received a top-level security and operational briefing from the CIA in 1977, prior to his two-year stint in Caracas in a job that is normally reflective of a CIA non-official cover (NOC) posting. 

When the FBI sought to interview Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile who ran a private investigative CIA front company in Caracas called Company of Commercial and Industrial Research CA, a front for CIA anti-Cuba terrorist activities in the region, and his colleague Orlando Bosch, Bush pressed the government of President Carlos Andres Perez and Venezuela's intelligence agency, DISIP, to provide interference against the FBI's wish to interview both Cubans. Although the CIA, at the time, was headed by President Jimmy Carter's friend and Annapolis classmate Admiral Stansfield Turner, George H. W. Bush, the previous CIA director, counted many loyalists among the CIA ranks, who symied the FBI's investigation of Carriles and Bosch. Eventually, the FBI did manage to collect enough evidence to have three Cuban-Americans in the employment of the Chilean intelligence service DINA and the CIA -- Alvin Ross Díaz and two brothers, Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll, indicted for the murders of Letelier and Bosch. The FBI was also investigating Carriles and Bosch for ordering the bombing of Cubana flight 455, which was blown up by two time bombs on October 6, 1976, after taking off from Bridgetown, Barbados.


Jeb Bush thanking CIA security director for his 1977 pre-Caracas intelligence briefing. Jeb's tasking in Caracas included covering up the 1976 murders of Orlando Letelier and Roni Moffitt and running interference for the CIA is stymieing the FBI's investigation of two Caracas-based Cuban CIA agents.

A U.S. CIA agent, Michael Townley, the son of John Vernon Townley, a veteran CIA agent in Chile and Venezuela, was found guilty of placing the car bomb that killed Letelier and Moffitt. However, after his 62 month prison sentence, Townley was released into the Federal Witness Protection Program. The three Cuban-Americans found guilty later saw their convictions overturned on a technicality and they were released into the Cuban-American community of Miami-Dade where Jeb Bush has received much of his political support over the years. Another wanted fugitive in the murder of Letelier and Moffitt, Virgilio Paz Romero, was captured in 1991 in Boynton Beach, Florida where he lived under an assumed name. He was given a 12 year prison sentence after pleading guilty but was paroled after just six years.


Wanted for accessory to murder: One-time CIA NOC agent Jeb Bush.

After blocking the FBI's probe of the CIA's Cuban exile CORU (Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations) operations in Caracas in the 1976 car bombing in Washington and the downing of the Cubana airliner, both accomplished with the knowledge and support of then-CIA director George H W Bush, Jeb started up his various businesses in Miami with the assistance of the city's wealthy Cuban-American elite. However, Jeb Bush's political career in Florida was built on the graves of Letelier, Moffitt, and the passengers and crew of Cubana flight 455.

There are open homicide cases against the Cuban murderers of Letelier, Moffitt, and the 73 passengers and crew of Cubana flight 455 before Argentine, Chilean, Venezuelan, and Spanish courts. Jeb Bush faces potential extradition to all four countries to answer questions under oath about his participation in the cover-up of CIA assassination squads operating out of Caracas in the late 1970s.

Jeb Bush must be asked about the 1980 October Surprise by Wayne Madsen

 Jeb Bush must be asked about the 1980 October Surprise
by Wayne Madsen

GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush has some "'splainin to do" over his knowledge of the 1979-80 operations by his father's loyalists within the Central Intelligence Agency to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term by ensuring Iran maintained custody of the U.S. embassy hostages in Tehran until after the November 1980 presidential election. A recent document uncovered by WMR from the CIA archives indicates that the man who gave Jeb Bush his CIA indoctrination before heading off to represent Texas Commerce Bank in Caracas in 1977, Robert Gambino, the deputy director for security, had an official relationship with Ted Shackley, a Bush loyalist who was fired by Carter's CIA director, Admiral Stansfield Turner. After his retirement from the CIA in 1980, Gambino went to work for the Bush and then Bush-Reagan presidential campaign, where he reported to Reagan campaign manager William Casey, Reagan's CIA director. Within the campaign, Gambino worked with Shackley, a veteran of CIA operations in Cuba, Chile, and Southeast Asia. Shackley was also later involved heavily in the Iran-contra scandal, which was laid by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh directly at the doorstep of Vice President George H. W. Bush.

As Jeb Bush turns up the heat on President Obama over the Iran nuclear pact and as President Carter confronts the most formidable challenge of his life, fighting liver cancer that has spread to other parts of his body, a full accounting by Jeb Bush over his role in the October Surprise -- a Reagan-Bush-Casey gambit to convince Ayatollah Khomeini to keep the U.S. hostages in return for weapons shipments ("arms-for-no-hostages" as opposed to the later "arms-for-hostages" conspiracy) must be made.

In May 1976, CIA director Bush appointed Shackley deputy director of clandestine operations. Shackley retired from the agency in 1979 after Turner continued his purge of Bush loyalists from the clandestine service and operations ranks. During Bush's 1980 presidential and vice presidential campaigns, Shackley met weekly with Bush. Jeb Bush and Gambino also worked closely with Shackley. George H W Bush has always denied that he participated in the October Surprise scandal that saw the Republican campaign deal directly with Iran on holding the hostages and dealing a fatal blow to Carter's re-election. In his father's stead, Jeb Bush's involvement in the 1980 campaign and his close connections to Shackley and Gambino demand a full accounting from the 2016 presidential hopeful.

An October 24, 1978 Top Secret CIA memo to Gambino, in which CIA responsibility for Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearances was proposed to be transferred to Gambino, describes how Gambino and Shackley worked together with "a few other groups" to defeat Carter's and Turner's proposed streamlining of the SCI compartmentation behemoth, which grew to over 50 special access programs under Bush's one-year tenure. 


Bush loyalists Gambino discussed ways to sink Jimmy Carter's and Stansfield Turner's special access program reforms in 1978 memo. Were one of these special access programs the one that initiated the 1980 October Surprise to sink a second term for Jimmy Carter?The CIA past of George H W Bush certainly troubled Bush's 1988 Democratic opponent for the White House, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. An April 16, 1988 memo from William Baker, the CIA's director of Public Affairs, describes how the statements of Dukakis and Jesse Jackson about Bush's CIA past were being monitored closely by the CIA and being transmitted to the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.

One statement by Dukakis alarmed the Bush loyalists within the CIA. On January 29, 1988, UPI reported that Dukakis said, "The next president should convert the CIA from an organization that 'assassinates people' into an organization that advises presidents. Dukakis added, "We have to decide in this country what the CIA is going to be -- an independent agency or an assassination agency . . . the next president also must appoint agency heads who 'respect the law and human rights.'"

After President Carter's defeat in 1980, lame duck CIA director Turner, according to an internal CIA memo, decided to strike some names off his official CIA Christmas card list. These were obviously critics of himself and Carter. They included: 

- Senator and Mrs. Henry Bellmon
- Senator and Mrs. Lloyd Bentsen
- Senator and Mrs. Dale Bumpers
- Senator and Mrs. John Chaffee
- Senator and Mrs. Thomas F. Eagleton
- Senator and Mrs. Edward M. Kennedy
- Senator and Mrs. James McClure
- Senator and Mrs. Warren G. Magnuson
- Senator and Mrs. Abraham Ribicoff
- Senator and Mrs. Richard S. Schweiker
- Senator and Mrs. Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.
- Senator and Mrs. Milton R. Young
- Congressman and Mrs. Jack Brooks
- Congressman and Mrs. Bill Burlison
- Congressman and Mrs. Melvin Price
- Congressman and Mrs. Morris K. Udall
- Congressman and Mrs. Jamie L. Whitten

Apparently, George H W Bush's Christmas card list when he served his one year term as CIA director remains classified. 

When George H W Bush became president, he appointed Gambino to head the Selective Service System. After his involvement in the Iran-contra scandal, Shackley fell out of sight. He died from cancer at his Bethesda, Maryland home in 2002.

Jeb Bush's missing CIA years: Caracas banker and Miami money launderer by Wayne Madsen

Jeb Bush's missing CIA years: Caracas banker and Miami money launderer

by Wayne Masen
During the recent Republican presidential candidates' "debate" in Cleveland, former Florida Governor John Ellis Bush (JEB) wanted to recount his eight years as governor of the Sunshine State. However, it is not Bush the politician who should be of interest to voters but Bush the Central Intelligence Agency "non-official cover" banker in Venezuela and Miami-based real estate businessman/money launderer who should alarm the American electorate. While Jeb's brother, George W. Bush, glossed over his AWOL status with the Texas Air National Guard, Jeb does not have a military record to defend but he does have a CIA employment record to fess up to.

Jeb's early work in Venezuela and south Florida is much more troubling than Dubya pretending to be on active duty in Texas while he was actually off in Alabama helping a GOP U.S. Senate campaign and getting sloppy drunk in redneck bars. Jeb should fully explain his relationship with Alberto Duque, a Colombian national  who laundered drug money for the Medellin and Cali narco-cartels and Nicaraguan contras while serving as owner of City National Bank of Miami and president of the General Coffee Company of Colombia. Apparently, there was more than coffee arriving in sacks of coffee coming into Miami from Colombia. Duque financed a $30 million real estate development project run by Jeb Bush. In 1983, Duque was convicted for fraud and sent to federal prison. Duque hired a Bush family CIA crony to serve as City National Bank's president. He was Don Beazley, who previously worked for the CIA's Nugan Hand Bank in Australia. Before it collapsed, Nugan Hand was responsible for laundering money from the CIA's Golden Triangle opium and heroin smuggling operations from Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle and paying off U.S. surrogates in Asia, including Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia, Park Chung Hee in South Korea, and various Thai generals.

In return for CIA money gifts, Marcos ordered his Energy Minister, Geronimo Velasco, to have the Philippines National Oil Corporation enter into business relationships with three Bush family-owned businesses: Zapata Petroleum Corporation, Zapata Offshore Company, and Overbey Oil Development Corporation. The three Bush firms were also linked to various CIA activities, including the abortive 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Jeb Bush's Texas Commerce Bank was also the bank used by the Zapata companies. Velasco died of a sudden heart attack in San Francisco in 2007. Velasco's Republic Glass Corporation became a holding company that owned a number of British Virgin Islands-based subsidiaries.

Beazley had also been president of Great American Bank of Miami. The bank was indicted for drug money laundering in 1982. Beazley also negotiated the sale of Second National Bank of Homestead, a subsidiary of Great American, to Nugan Hand. It was in this environment of interconnected CIA money laundering banks that Jeb Bush found himself and his real estate business immersed in the 1980s.

On January 25, 1980, Frank Nugan, the Australian co-founder of Nugan Hand Bank, was found dead in his car near Bowenfels, New South Wales from a "self-inflicted" rifle shot wound to his head. The card of ex-CIA director William Colby, who, himself was found floating in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland in 1996, was found in Nugan's pocket. Colby was Nugan Hand's legal counsel. Hand had planned to move with his wife and three young children to Florida but someone apparently did not like the idea of Nugan showing up in Florida during the year George H W Bush was trying to become the president of the United States.

After serving as vice president for Texas Commerce Bank in Caracas from 1977 to 1979, Bush joined his father's presidential campaign in 1980. Serving with Bush on the campaign was the CIA official who gave him his in-brief at Langley in 1977, Robert Gambino, the deputy director of security at the agency. In the 1980s, Jeb Bush provided liaison between his father's national security adviser, Donald Gregg, and various Florida-based right-wing Nicaraguan and Cuban exile organizations helping to fight the clandestine war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Jeb was appointed by his father to the board of the National Republican Institute, the GOP branch of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the CIA-financed money laundering operation that saw millions pour into the coffers of the Nicaraguan contras, Cuban exile groups, and Salvadorean, Guatemalan, and Honduran death squads. Jeb acted as a liaison between Dr. Mario Castejon, a right-wing candidate for president of Guatemala, and Vice President Bush. Castejon sought funding for a secret shipment of arms to the contras and other right-wing rebel groups in Central America that would be masked as "medical supplies."

Jeb Bush's relationship with City National Bank, whose other senior director was Leonard Abess, a director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Foundation, ensured that a large share of NED money flowed to Israeli security firms like Tadiran, which helped Guatemala and Honduras track down leftist guerrillas and exterminate them. Jeb Bush's current support for Israel stems from his early business relationships with Zionists like Abess and other offshoots of the Meyer Lansky "Kosher Nostra" crime family in south Florida. Abess is currently a member of the Federal Reserve Bank branch of Miami. [See linked article below in "Summary" on pre-9/11 Fed money movement to Fed branch in Miami].


Jeb's thank you letter to Gambino after his 1977 CIA in-briefing at Langley. Texas Commerce Bank was owned by the family of James Baker, an early George H W Bush adviser as well as close friend.

It could be argued that Jeb Bush, from his in-brief by Gambino at the CIA in 1977, to his unsuccessful run for governor of Florida in 1994 was a reliable CIA and Israeli asset. In 1990, Jeb urged his father to pardon Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch, a man wanted for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian passenger plane that had taken off from Bridgetown, Barbados. Jeb Bush was also a supporter of the U.S. House of Representatives candidacy of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of the most rabid anti-Castro and pro-Israeli members of Congress. Jeb also succeeded in having his father name Dexter Lehtinen, Ileana's husband, to be U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida. Lehtinen permitted a number of Jeb's friends in the Cuban and Jewish communities in southern Florida to escape prosecution for crimes ranging from drug money laundering to narcotics smuggling and contract assassinations to banking fraud.

Most of Jeb's business friends were CIA-linked bankers. In addition to Beazley, Duque, and Abess, these included Paul Helliwell, a Miami-based lawyer and the owner of two CIA money laundering banks, Great American Bank of Miami, later bought by Nugan Hand and indicted in 1982 for drug money laundering, and Castle Bank & Trust Ltd. of Nassau in the Bahamas. Helliwell, a veteran of the Office of Strategic Security (OSS) during World War II, died at the age of 62 on Christmas Eve of 1976, just a few weeks before George H W Bush departed as CIA director. The autopsy said Helliwell died from "complications of emphysema." Castle Bank shut down in 1977, the same year that Jeb moved to Caracas to work for Texas Commerce Bank. An affiliated bank that shared directors with Castle Bank, Mercantile Bank & Trust of Freeport, Bahamas, also suspended operations in 1977. Castle Bank, which had laundered CIA money to pay off such dictators as Marcos in the Philippines, Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, and Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, saw much of its revenue initially come from Nationalist Chinese drug smugglers operating out of the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia.

In addition to Nassau, Helliwell's Castle Bank operated out of the Cayman Islands and Panama. Among the bank's account holders were the Pritzker family of Chicago, which owns the Hyatt Hotel chain, and the daughter of President Chiang Kai-shek of Taiwan. Between 1964 and 1975, Helliwell's major CIA front company, Sea Supply Corporation, ran covert military operations against Cuba from Andros Island, the largest island in the Bahamas.

Jeb's business deals also put him in close contact with two other Florida banks, Northside Bank of Miami, owned by the Cali cartel, and the Popular Bank and Trust Company, once owned by Nicaragua's Somoza but transferred to CIA control after his assassination by Sandinista commandos in Paraguay in 1980.

After his return from Caracas to Florida in 1979, Jeb befriended the right-wing Nicaraguan community as much as he did the right-wing exiled Cubans. Much of the billions of dollars that the Somoza family stole from Nicaragua ended up in CIA-connected banks that helped finance Jeb's many real estate and other ventures.


Jeb Bush as CIA "NOC" in the late 1970s [left]. Is Jeb Bush [right circled] at the 1980 funeral of ex-Nicaraguan fascist dictator Anastasio Somoza at Miami's Woodlawn Park Cemetery? Others in attendance included U.S. Representatives Larry McDonald (D-GA) and John Murphy (D-NY). Somoza was assassinated by a Sandinista car bomb in Asuncion, Paraguay. The explosion left only Somoza's feet intact.
One of Gambino's last acts as the CIA's director of security was to preserve the myriad of CIA special clearance categories, including those that permitted NOCs like Jeb Bush and drug- and arms-smuggling proprietary companies and money laundering banks to flourish. The Carter administration had ordered the intelligence community to reduce its compartmented access system with over 50 code words to just five special code word compartments by July 1980. The National Security Agency and Gambino balked and the new system, code named APEX, never materialized. When Jeb's father became vice president in 1981, APEX was scrapped for the original system, which saw the number of special compartments grow in number in order to accommodate operations that included trading weapons for hostages with Iran and covertly funding the Nicaraguan contras.

One CIA official who was alarmed over APEX was the man who CIA director George H W Bush named as deputy director for covert operations in 1976, Ted Shackley, aka the "Blond Ghost." Shackley was an old colleague of George H W Bush stemming from his days as the station chief of JMWAVE, the Miami CIA office dedicated to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba. It was there that Shackley and Bush became involved with Cuban exile  and mafia parties that were later tied to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. The "Cuba thing" was mentioned by President Richard Nixon on Oval Office tapes subpoenaed in the Watergate scandal. It is now known that the "Cuba thing" was code for the assassination of Kennedy and the CIA's involvement in the operation. Shackley was also involved with Donald Gregg in the Phoenix assassination program in South Vietnam and Project FUBELT, the CIA operation to overthrow President Salvador Allende of Chile on September 11, 1973.

An undated TOP SECRET memo to Shackley from a CIA official whose name is redacted but believed to be Gambino provides details of Shackley and the CIA's security division opposition to APEX. The memo states: "there is no intention of establishing under the Community Security Group responsibility for a centralized computerized data base of all SCI [Sensitive Compartmented Information] approvals. The CSG has no functional role in this area at this time, and one is planned for the future. The CIA Special Security Center's Compartmented Information Branch is the home of the community service on special access certifications and records. They handle SPECLE . . . Any effort to upgrade the SPECLE system is years away. Further, NSA has taken no steps toward inputting their COMINT clearances." In other words, the policy of President Jimmy Carter and his CIA director, Admiral Stansfield Turner, to limit CIA special compartments and display more accountability was being undermined by two Bush embeds in Langley, Gambino and Shackley. Shackley and Gambino were eventually forced by Turner to retire. The almost limitless penchant of the CIA to create special compartments permitted assets like Jeb Bush at the Texas Commerce Bank and Barack Obama, Jr. at Business International Corporation to evade public scrutiny as CIA employees. In a January 24, 1980 memo, to Gambino from the CIA member of the APEX Steering Group, special compartments are described as as protecting "industrial" personnel working for the CIA, NSA, and Defense Intelligence Agency.

Shackley became involved in the "October Surprise" plot by Bush and William Casey against Carter, also known as the "arms-for-no-hostages" conspiracy. Gambino joined the 1980 Bush for President and, later, the Reagan-Bush campaign. According to Jeff Stein, writing for Newsday'sJuly 25, 1980 issue, joining Gambino on the campaign were at least 40 other ex-CIA officers hired by Bush and Casey.

Jeb Bush's rise to financial and political power in Florida is coupled with a trail of dead bodies, failed banks and savings and loan institutions accused of laundering money for the CIA, and dubious characters who served as CIA assets. Until Jeb Bush fully accounts for his business activities in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s, he is actually more unfit for the presidency than his draft-dodging and AWOL status brother, George W. Bush.

Massive movement of Fed money to Miami branch prior to 9/11

Jeb Bush's CIA NOC work in Caracas

Jeb Bush's CIA activities in Caracas under closer scrutiny by Wayne Madsen

 Jeb Bush's CIA activities in Caracas under closer scrutiny
by Wayne Madsen
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the third member of the Bush family to aspire to the presidency, is under closer scrutiny for his "bank" work in Caracas, Venezuela, less than a year after his father departed Langley, Virginia as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Bush started working as a branch manager and vice president of the Houston-based Texas Commerce Bank in Caracas as President Jimmy Carter's CIA director, Admiral Stansfield Turner, began cleaning hose of many of the cohorts of Bush within the agency's clandestine service. These included a number of Cuban expatriates who carried on their anti-Castro activities as part of a virtual "shadow CIA" established to stymie Turner's reforms.

The shadow CIA included a number of private sector operations, including banking, which financed shadow CIA operations in Latin America by laundering money for the Colombian drug cartels. While he worked for Texas Commerce Bank, Jeb Bush maintained close contacts with the anti-Castro Cuban community in Venezuela, as well as with the right-wing Colombian drug lords who supported their activities with cash and weapons. Jeb Bush's work in Caracas made him steadfast friends in the Miami-based Cuban exile community, including real estate mogul Armando Codina, who Bush would partner with in a number of dubious real estate ventures after leaving Caracas and setting up residence in Miami.
One of the CIA operations Jeb Bush may have played a significant role in was the Latin American support network of Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet for right-wing opponents of Castro. These operations were primarily based in Caracas and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In return for Chilean help, the Cuban exiles provided Chile's intelligence service, DINA, with CIA-trained assassins. This operation of weapons-for-assassins involved CIA/DINA professional assassin Michael Townley, who served a 62-month sentence for the 1976 car bombing assassination of former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier, a bombing that also killed Letelier's American assistant, Roni Moffitt, on Sheridan Circle in downtown Washington, DC. The man believed responsible for authorizing the "hit" on Letelier was the then-head of the CIA, George H. W. Bush, Jeb's father. Townley, who excelled in car bombings, was also charged with the car bombing assassination in 1974 of exiled Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires. Townley's father, John V. Townley, was a CIA veteran who served in Venezuela and Chile. Today, Michael Townley, after providing narrow evidence on DINA's role in Letelier's assassination but not the CIA's involvement, is protected as part of the Federal Witness Program. Townley testified that he hired five anti-Castro Cubans to place a bomb in Letelier's vehicle. Interestingly, Townley was also in Stockholm a week before the 1985 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.
The Chilean- and CIA-backed anti-Castro operations in Caracas enjoyed the protection of the Venezuelan intelligence service, DISIP. One of the chief Chilean DINA agents involved with the CIA and anti-Castro Cubans in Caracas was Enrique Arancibia, who, like Jeb Bush, provided "banking services" for the Cubans. In 1977, Arancibia, who was involved in the assassinations of Letelier, Prats, and the 1970 murder in Santiago of Prats's predecessor as Chilean Army chief of staff, General Rene Schneider, traveled to California on "banking business" for DINA and the CIA.

Arancibia answered to Italian fascist and P-2 Masonic lodge operative Stefano Delle Chiaie. The P-2 lodge was a partner for a number of CIA "false flag" terrorist attacks in Italy. Delle Chiaie was arrested in Caracas in 1989 and extradited to Italy for the 1969 false flag terrorist bombing of the Piazza Fontana in Milan, as well as the 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station. Chiaie, an operative of the CIA's Gladio operations in Italy, was acquitted by Italian courts on all the charges. Delle Chiaie also worked closely with Townley on the botched 1975 attempt to assassinate Chilean Christian Democratic leader Bernardo Leighton and his wife in Rome in 1975. The P-2 lodge was closely linked to the activities of the fascist Opus Dei, a radical right wing order within the Roman Catholic Church, which supported Pinochet's and the CIA's Operation Condor assassination operations in Latin America and elsewhere.

Townley also worked closely in Miami and Caracas with Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, two of the primary Cuban culprits behind the terrorist bombing of Cubana Airlines 455 after it took off from Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados in October 1976. George H. W. Bush was CIA director during the Cubana bombing and the Letelier/Moffitt assassinations, both of which involved CIA assets based in Caracas. Just a year later, Jeb Bush was dispatched to Caracas, under obvious CIA non-official cover (NOC), to potentially clean up for his father and help erase the CIA's fingerprints on all Condor, Gladio, DINA/DISIP, and Opus Dei operations in the Venezuelan capital.

Jeb Bush's conversion to Catholicism from Episcopalianism in 1995 after a legacy of supporting Cuban, Chilean, Venezuelan, and Italian figures identified as members of Opus Dei and the P-2 lodge deserves much more scrutiny than it is receiving from the corporate media.

Just after Jeb Bush's November 5, 1977 marriage to Columba Bush, the young couple moved to Caracas at a time when the Venezuelan capital was a hot bed of anti-Castro CIA activity.

While he was Vice President, George H. W. Bush championed the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada in order to eliminate the Cuban and Soviet "threat" to the island. The invasion came after the overthrow and execution by "extreme Marxists" of the popular prime minister, Maurice Bishop. However, Grenada was once an outpost for Pinochet's anti-Castro activities. While Jeb Bush was in Caracas, Chilean Navy ships began transporting weapons for anti-Castro Cubans to the port of St. George's in Grenada. Grenada's prime minister Eric Gairy, who was eventually ousted by Bishop, was one of Pinochet's closest allies in the Western Hemisphere. Gairy championed Pinochet at the United Nations while also calling for the world body to recognize the threat posed by unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

The Chilean weapons shipped to Grenada were marked as "medical supplies," which is noteworthy since the Reagan-Bush administration used the "danger" posed to American medical students on Grenada to justify the 1983 invasion. The Grenada medical school was also linked to CIA activities in Jonestown, Guyana. In 1978, one-time CIA asset Jim Jones presided over a mass suicide at the Jonestown religious commune after his followers assassinated California Democratic Representative Leo Ryan and members of his investigative team. Jones waited to take any hostile action against Ryan or his flock until he was notified that Richard Dwyer, the CIA station chief at the U.S. embassy in Georgetown, Guyana, was safely exfiltrated from Jonestown.

Dwyer, a veteran CIA officer from the time that George H. W. Bush was a low-level operative in Houston involved in the Bay of Pigs affair, had been stationed as a CIA official cover officer in Cairo and Damascus. Dwyer's first stop after departing Jonestown was Grenada. There were credible reports at the time, including intelligence collected by Bishop, that the St. George's University Medical School provided cover for CIA mind control experiments after Dr. Sidney Gottlieb was ordered to shut down Operations MK-ULTRA and MK-DELTA.

Ironically, the experiments at the medical school were overseen by the school's chancellor, Sir Geoffrey H. Bourne, whose son, Peter Bourne, received a doctorate in medicine in 1962 and a master's degree in anthropology in 1969 and served as President Jimmy Carter's drug czar. Peter Bourne was also a U.S. Army Special Forces psychiatric research doctor in Vietnam and at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington. Peter Bourne later became a vice chancellor at St. George's University Medical School, where his father also worked. Peter Bourne was married to Mary King, the Deputy Director of Action programs for the Peace Corps in the Carter administration. It was King who helped Jim Jones acquire the land in Guyana that became Jonestown. It is also very evident that author Robert Ludlum did not develop his Jason Bourne mind-controlled assassin character out of thin air.

The Chilean medical supplies from the Pinochet regime were off-loaded from Chilean Navy ships docked in St. George's  during the night and no trucks were ever seen transporting the supplies to any Grenadian medical centers. In fact, the crates contained weapons, which were then re-transported to Cuban exiles in Caracas and Santo Domingo. These operations took place beginning in November 1977, the same month Jeb Bush took up residence in Caracas and married his Spanish-speaking Mexican wife Columba, while ostensibly working for a Houston-based bank owned by the family of close Bush friend James Baker. Jeb remained in Caracas during 1978 and 1979, during the time frame that Caracas served as a major CIA station responsible for smaller stations in Georgetown, St. George's, Bridgetown, Kingston, Paramaribo, Cayenne, and Willemstad. It is time for Jeb Bush to come clean about his obscure activities in Caracas during some of the CIA's most egregious activities in the Caribbean region.

Jeb Bush's CIA "NOC" work in Venezuela

Jeb Bush's CIA "NOC" work in Venezuela

by Wayne Madsen
Former Florida Governor and 2016 presidential hopeful Jeb Bush may have thought he could pass himself off as "Hispanic" when he ticked off that ethnic option on his 2009 voter registration form but he was not able to easily pass himself off as a "banker" in Venezuela in the late 1970s.

One of the last things then-Central Intelligence Agency director George H. W. Bush did for his son Jeb, whose actual name is John Ellis Bush from which the "Jeb" is derived as an acronym, is to have him hired by the international division of the Texas Commerce Bank as a CIA "non-official cover" officer or "NOC." Texas Commerce Bank was an optimal cover for CIA activities. The bank was founded by the family of James Baker. All the elder Bush had to do was to call his close friend Baker to have his son hired by the bank's international division, the usual branch where CIA NOCs were placed within banks and investment firms. Other banks used by the CIA for NOC embeds included Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Manufacturers Hanover.

Texas Commerce Bank, bought by Chemical Bank in 1987 and which is now part of J.P Morgan Chase, had the right pedigree to enable it to work closely with the CIA. In 1977, its board members included Lady Bird Johnson and the recently-defeated President Gerald Ford. In the 1980s, Kenneth Lay, who founded the CIA-connected Enron, became a board member of Texas Commerce Bank. Howard Hughes's CIA-linked Summa Corporation used Texas Commerce Bank to purchase a number of properties on the Las Vegas strip.

In 1977, a short time after his father left the CIA as director, Jeb, fluent in Spanish as a result of his time as an exchange student in Guadalajara, was sent, along with his Mexican wife Columba, to Caracas, Venezuela to work as a "branch manager" and "vice president" at the young age of 24. But Jeb was no ordinary "branch manager." He was, officially, Texas Commerce Bank's top point man in the Venezuelan capital and, unofficially, the CIA's main financial liaison to the Venezuelan oil industry and the Colombian narcotics cartels. Jeb would regularly report to his CIA "official cover" counterpart attached to the U.S. embassy in Caracas as a State Department "diplomat."

 
Jeb as a CIA "NOC" in Caracas for Texas Commerce Bank, owned by James Baker

Jeb helped lay the groundwork for the future Reagan-Bush administration's 1980s covert war against Nicaragua and leftist guerrillas in El Salvador by establishing banking and money laundering links between the CIA and the Medellin and Cali drug cartels. Jeb's friends in the Colombian cartels, particularly Medellin cartel boss Pablo Escobar, would helped finance the Nicaraguan contras in return for CIA-supplied weapons. While in Venezuela, Jeb cleverly managed to hide the Colombian cartel's drug revenues as oil industry revenues of "front" companies. Texas Commerce Bank was the bank of choice for Latin American drug cartels. It was later discovered to have stashed $7 million in drug profits for the Gulf cartel of Mexico.

Jeb ready to continue the CIA's lock on the White House

Baker sold Texas Commerce Bank's Houston skyscraper to the head of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, in 1985. Bin Mahfouz was later identified as a key member of Saudi Arabia's support network for the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States, which is noted in the still-classified 28 pages of U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Report on 9/11 intelligence failures. Bin Mahfouz, who lived in the River Oaks section of Houston near George H. W. Bush, died suddenly in 2009 at the age of 59. Bin Mahfouz, who was also an Irish citizen, threatened with confiscatory lawsuits any publication that reported his links to 9/11 and his family ties to Osama bin Laden.

Jeb had no problems with the Venezuelan government in providing financial support for the Colombian cartels. For much of Jeb's stay in Venezuela, the extremely corrupt Carlos Andres Perez, known as "CAP," was president. His extravagant spending using Venezuela's revenue from the recently-nationalized oil industry earned his government the nickname of "Saudi Venezuela." Although CAP nationalized the oil industry and created the Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA) state-owned oil firm, he also was generous to American firms bidding for work with PdVSA. One of them was Bechtel Corporation, the firm of future Reagan-Bush cabinet members George P. Shultz and Caspar Weinberger. With a number of Bechtel employees in Venezuela, Jeb was not the only CIA "NOC" present in the country. But, he was the most influential.

During CAP's second term as president from 1989 to 1993, a young army officer named Hugo Chavez attempted to overthrow the corrupt CAP in a coup. Many of Venezuela's elite who Jeb befriended during his days as Langley's main NOC in Caracas later became involved with repeated CIA attempts to overthrow Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro. Today, they and their progeny live in the Miami-Dade area, particularly in Doral, nicknamed "Doralzuela," and are among Jeb's strongest and most deep-pocketed political supporters.

In 1989, CAP crushed popular protests against his government by killing as many as 3000 protesters. The massacre is known as the "Caracazo" massacre. After leaving office the second time, Andres Perez was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 28 months in prison.

After leaving Venezuela in 1980 to help with his father's presidential and vice presidential campaigns, Jeb hooked up with Cuban-American Miami businessman Armando Codina, who had his own connections with CIA-supported anti-Castro Cuban exiles in south Florida. It was Codina who helped Jeb make millions of dollars in the real estate business and eventually help launch him on his political career that took him to the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. Jeb, as a principal of the Codina Group, was able to arrange the sale of high-priced condos and mansions in the Miami area to his elite friends in Venezuela, with Jeb receiving handsome sales commissions.

One of Jeb's close Miami associates was Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch. Bosch was a key figure in the CIA's Operation Condor, which was an alliance of Latin American military dictatorships that targeted leftist leaders for assassination across international borders. Bosch helped carry out the October 1976 bombing of Cubana Airlines flight 455, which was en route from Barbados to Jamaica. All 73 passengers and crew were killed in the attack, including children and the Cuban fencing team.

The Cubana bombing plot was discussed at a 1976 meeting in Washington between Bosch; another Cuban terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles; and Michael Townley of the CIA. Jeb's father, the CIA director, was fully aware of the plot, as well as another plot to kill former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier. Letelier and Roni Moffitt, his American associate, were killed when their car exploded on Sheridan Circle in front of the Irish embassy in Washington on September 21, 1976, a few weeks before the Cubana airliner was blown out of the sky off Barbados.

Codina, Bosch, and Posada Carriles were all part of Jeb's inner circle of friends, which also included Cuban businessman Camilo Padreda, a former spy for Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and Hernandez Cartaya, both later indicted for systematically embezzling funds from the Jefferson Savings and Loan of McAllen, Texas. Padreda and Cartaya were also identified as CIA agents who helped skim funds from Jefferson and other S&Ls to fund the Nicaraguan contras. Jeb's work for the CIA in Caracas in 1977 came a few months after the CIA's worst terrorism spree in history, which also happened to coincide with George H. W. Bush's single year as CIA director.

After his father became Vice President, Jeb served as the liaison for the Nicaraguan contras and he arranged meetings between them and their supporters and the White House point man for covert assistance to the Nicaraguan rebels, one Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel by the name of Oliver North. Another one of Jeb's Cuban cronies, Miguel Recarey, owner of Miami-based International Medical Center, an HMO, was awash in ill-gotten Medicare funds. Recarey and his brother, who had close ties to the CIA, were also funded by Florida Mafia boss Santo Trafficante, Jr., a co-conspirator in several CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and a suspected co-plotter in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

A Jeb Bush presidency would maintain the CIA's lock on the White House. Barack Obama's and his family's CIA connections are a historical fact. George W. Bush ensured the CIA's control over the presidency for eight years and before him, Bill Clinton, who had his own links to the CIA's contra-cocaine network through Mena, Arkansas, has seen his Clinton Foundation benefit from a $1 million contribution from one of Jeb's old Cuban-Venezuelan friends, Gustavo Cisneros, the multi-billionaire "Berlusconi of Venezuela." Cisneros, now exiled in the Dominican Republic, was involved in the CIA's 2002 abortive coup against Chavez.

CIA bought up its own WMD-related weapons in Iraq by Wayne Madsen

CIA bought up its own WMD-related weapons in Iraq
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has successfully spun a story to, among other media outlets, The New York Times, that claims that in its highly-classified Operation AVARICE it bought from the black market in Iraq weapons of mass destruction components, including nerve-agent rockets. AVARICE is said to have started in 2005 and ended in 2006. The CIA claimed the U.S. destroyed 400 Borak rockets, procured in the 1980s, that were capable of carrying chemical weapons.

However, the CIA's real interest in buying up WMD-related components was to mask its earlier role, along with that of then-President Ronald Reagan special envoy Donald Rumsfeld, in supplying Saddam Hussein with the WMDs used to commit genocide against Iraqi Kurds and Iranian troops fighting against an Iraqi border invasion. The sudden revelation about "Iraqi WMDs" is more about cleaning up George W. Bush's record with WMDs in Iraq ("Bush Lied, People Died") for his brother Jeb Bush's anticipated 2016 presidential run. What the CIA purchased from Iraqi souks and junk yards were evidence of the CIA's own role in providing Iraq with WMDs in the 1980s.

Information about AVARICE is nothing new and, in fact, the U.S. discovered poison gas canisters in Iraq long before 2005. On November 14, 2005, WMR reported: "U.S. military intelligence personnel discovered VX gas canisters at the Bilad weapons site. The Iraqi official who took U.S. military intelligence officers to Bilad even had the American bills of lading for the nerve gas shipments." Our report continued: "The Clinton and Bush 2 administrations never paid much attention to the presence of VX nerve gas in Iraq, according to a Defense Department intelligence source. This was because the nerve gas was sent by the Reagan and Bush 1 administrations and nerve gas has a 'shelf life,' whereby the U.S. maintained it could not be counted as a weapon of mass destruction under United Nations and U.S. definitions."

On November 20, 2005, WMR followed up our initial report: "The CIA, according to U.S. military intelligence agents, never considered the U.S.-supplied VX nerve gas to be a WMD after Desert Storm. Their reasoning was that because of its binary nature, it had a shelf life and oxidization rendered it harmless after the outbreak of Desert Storm. In reality, the U.S. military sources said the CIA's admission that Iraq possessed harmless VX was a way for it to protect itself and its former deputy director [Frank] Carlucci while admitting to the fact that the Bush administration had, in fact, supplied the deadly agent to Saddam Hussein. The CIA's main mission in the 1990s was regime change and Saddam's alleged possession of WMDs was merely a causa sina qua non for continued hostilities, overt and covert. A British colonel who was the head of the special operations team that removed the VX weapons from Bilad said his detection kit registered a positive reading."


Rumsfeld in 1984 shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. On Washington's table was deadly VX nerve gas that Saddam used against the Kurds and Iranians. Rumsfeld says knew Saddam had WMDs because he sold them to the Iraqi leader. Now, the CIA spins for the Bush family by asserting it "bought" the WMD evidence in 2005 and 2006.

To bolster the point that canisters and other nerve and mustard gas, as well as other chemical weapons supplied to Iraq by the U.S. and other countries, had long since deteriorated by the time the CIA "bought" the components, U.S. Representative John Hammerschmidt (R-AR) said that in a classified briefing in 1980, the U.S. Army admitted that it possessed 730,000 rounds of deteriorated and obsolete chemical weapons rounds.

However, with Jeb Bush planning his White House run it now becomes necessary for the CIA to reveal that it discovered WMD components.

If the CIA wanted to release something of interest in Iraqi WMDs, it might start with 1980s contract documents signed between then-Secretary of State George P. Schultz's old firm Bechtel Corporation and Saddam Hussein that saw a number of precursor WMD production facilities built by the U.S. construction giant. Bechtel made most of its fortune building atomic plants under then-Atomic Energy Commission Chairman John McCone, the founder of Bechtel-McCone, Bechtel's predecessor company. In 1961, after President John F. Kennedy fired CIA director Allen Dulles, McCone became CIA chief and he continued to take care of Bechtel both at Langley and in post-CIA employment. A March 4, 1977 confidential Bechtel memorandum, titled "International Job Strategy," identifies Iraq's petrochemical and other infrastructures as a top priority, along with Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, and Nigeria, for Bechtel's business.

McCone died on February 14, 1991, just two weeks before George H. W. Bush, also a former CIA director, launched Operation Desert Storm against Iraq. The U.S. military assault attempted to destroy as much of Iraq's chemical weapons infrastructure as possible to obliterate Bechtel's, Rumsfeld's, Carlucci's, and the Bush family's role in it.

SPECIAL REPORT. Epstein plea deal with feds protected Bill Clinton and the House of Bush by Wayne Madsen

SPECIAL REPORT. Epstein plea deal with feds protected Bill Clinton and the House of Bush by Wayne Madsen

WMR obtained the heretofore sealed Non-Prosecution Agreement (NPA) struck between lawyers for billionaire Florida registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and George W. Bush-era federal prosecutors. Epstein received the NPA after he was charged with soliciting sex from an alleged "prostitute." However, the so-called "prostitute" was actually a 14-year old girl who was recruited by a network of Epstein's employees who basically served as child sex traffickers and pimps.

Lawyers for Epstein attempted to block federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Kenneth Marra from unsealing the NPA as per the wishes of attorneys for four child sex trafficking victims known as Jane Does 1 through 4. However, Marra decided to unseal the NPA on January 21 and WMR was present at the Paul G. Roberts Federal Building to obtain a copy of the NPA. However, it was also discovered that the publicly-accessible case database maintained in the court's clerk's office has been malfunctioning recently and court records are difficult to retrieve. An employee for the clerk's office told WMR that the computer system was to have been fixed but that no steps have been taken to restore ease of access to court records.

The NPA was agreed to on October 30, 2007 by U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta. Although Acosta later criticized the plea deal in an open letter, he did not respond to WMR's request for an interview on the current case in which four of Epstein's victims are suing the U.S. government claiming that the NPA violated their rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act. The victims, who are now adults, claim that the federal government's NPA with Epstein violated the 2004 CVRA. The government argues that because Epstein was never charged with a federal crime, the victims have no rights under the CVRA. In their request to Marra to unseal the NPA, the attorneys for the Jane Does, said that the federal government and Epstein colluded "to avoid a firestorm of public controversy that would have erupted if the sweetheart plea deal with a politically-connected billionaire had been revealed."

The NPA was signed on behalf of Acosta by A. Marie Villafana, the then-Assistant U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida who is now the U.S. Attorney under Attorney General Eric Holder. The plea deal with Epstein was concluded after the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami and the FBI investigated Epstein separately from the investigation conducted by the Palm Beach County Police Department and the Florida Attorney's Office.  The deal cut between Acosta and Villafana and the state of Florida, which was then under the governorship of then-Republican Governor Charlie Crist and Republican Attorney-General Bill McCollum stated that the federal government would defer to Florida the prosecution of Epstein. Acosta has gone on to become the dean of the law school of Florida International University in Miami.

The NPA also stipulated that a list of individuals who the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami and the FBI has identified as victims of Epstein's sexual abuse and trafficking would be provided to Epstein's attorneys who included Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. Jane Doe 3, identified as Virginia Roberts, has claimed that Dershowitz has sex with her while she was a minor. Dershowitz has vigorously denied the allegations and he has cited a "conspiracy" against him by anti-Semites who are getting even for his longtime support for Israel. Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories by Dershowitz aside, the fact remains that the NPA immunized all of Epstein's co-conspirators, who allegedly include Dershowitz, former President Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew of Britain from future federal prosecution. The NPA states: ". . . the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Goff, or Nadia Marcinkova." The NPA also suspended the federal Grand Jury investigation against Epstein and held ion abeyance all federal Grand Jury subpoenas in the case against Epstein. These subpoenas presumably included those directed to witnesses in the case, individuals that likely include Dershowitz, Clinton, and Andrew.

Flight manifests of Epstein's Gulfstream jet and Boeing 727 indicate that Epstein's passengers were often a mix of underage sex traffic victims and some of the world's most powerful politicians and businessmen. These include Clinton, Dershowitz, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Chicago Pritzker family chieftain and Hyatt Hotels executive chairman Thomas Pritzker (the first cousin of U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker), and failed Palm Beach mayoral candidate Gerry Goldsmith.

Epstein's Gulfstream II-B (N909JE) has, along with his Boeing 727, been spotted at Paris's Le Borguet Airport in frequent occasions. Epstein's Sikorsky S-76B helicopter has been seen flying between Palm Beach International and Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. Epstein's Cessna 172-XP has flown to and from Double Eagle II Airport outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico.



Epstein's Boeing 727-31 on ground at Prague's Vaclav Havel International Airport in May 2004. Tail number N908JE. It's the same plane that Bill Clinton flew on.

Also appearing on the flight manifests are the names of some of the alleged victims of Epstein's sex trafficking: Virginia Roberts, Cindy Lopez,   Other passengers are only listed by their first names: Colleen, Tatianna, Margarita, Carolina, Lisa, Margaret, Dana, Julie, and Jessica. Epstein's two major pimps are also frequent flyers on Epstein's "Pederast Airlines" -- Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of the late publishing tycoon and Mossad asset Robert Maxwell, and Sarah Kellen (now Sarah Kensington), the girlfriend of NASCAR driver Brian Vickers.




Alan Dershowitz's name appears on Epstein flight manifests on flights from Bedford, Massachusetts to Teterboro Airport, New Jersey (Feb. 5, 2004) and Pierre Trudeau International in Montreal (Nov. 17, 2005). "AD" appears to be Alan Dershowitz on a Nov. 17, 2005 flight from Teterboro to Palm Beach International Airport along with"JE" (Jeffrey Epstein) and "SE" (Sarah Kellen) and another flight from Bedford to Teterboro with Epstein ("JE"), Tatianna, and an "AM."


Larry Summers's name appears on a Sep. 14, 2005 flight with Epstein from Bedford, Massachusetts to Westchester County Airport, New York.


Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's Boeing 727 from Miami to Westchester, New York on February 9, 2002 with Epstein, four Secret Service agents (has the recent prosecution of Secret Service agents for liaising with prostitutes been an attempt to intimidate them if they ever decide to speak out about Clinton on Epstein's flights?), "2 males" (unidentified), "1 female" (unidentified), Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen, and a "BP."

It is noteworthy that Charlie Crist, who became a Democrat after leaving the Republican Party and becoming an independent, received the enthusiastic backing of Bill Clinton in Crist's failed bid to oust GOP Governor Rick Scott last year. It now appears that Clinton may have owed Crist more than a political favor as details begin to emerge of the Crist administration's deal with Acosta in Miami to immunize Clinton from any future prosecutions in the Epstein case. Although the NPA with Epstein was agreed upon during the Crist and McCollum tenure, Epstein's 2005 arrest for having sex with a 15-year old and the onset of his attorneys' back-and-forth with the government occurred during the Jeb Bush administration and his Attorney General Crist. The U.S. Attorney General from 2005, when Epstein was first charged with having sex with an underage minor, to October 2007, when the plea deal was signed with Epstein, was Alberto Gonzales, President George W. Bush's former chief counsel. The Epstein case, therefore, tarnishes both the Clintons and the Bushes.

Up to 40 women have been identified as being the victims of sexual abuse by Epstein. Court records indicate the number may be higher with one reference to a Jane Doe 103.

Epstein's 97-page address book, called the "Holy Grail," contains the personal phone numbers and email addresses for some of the world's most rich and famous, which, in addition to Clinton, includes Prince Andrew, John Kerry, Donald Trump (also a resident of Palm Beach), Tony Blair and his chief spokesman Alastair Campbell, Ehud Barak, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, George Mitchell, Henry Kissinger, Andrew Cuomo, Itzhak Perlman, Dustin Hoffman, Tea party financier David Koch, former newspaper tycoon and convicted felon Conrad Black and his extreme pro-Israel wife Barbara Black, Andrew's former girlfriend and porn actress Koo Stark, and Mick Jagger. Epstein is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Prince Andrew used the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland as a platform where he denied allegations that he was involved in Epstein's underage sex ring. Virginia Roberts  (Jane Doe 3) alleges that she had sex with Andrew when she was still a minor.




Andrew [far left] with 17-year old Virginia Roberts (Jane Doe 3) [center] and Ghislaine Maxwell [right] in 2001.
WMR also obtained from federal court records unsealed on January 21 a partially-released transcript of an April 7, 2011 telephone conversation between attorneys Brad Edwards, who is representing Roberts and other Jane Does, and Jack Scarola, who was representing Edwards. In the conversation, Roberts recounts that Epstein was presented with two 12-year old girls from France as a "birthday gift." The two girls were said to be from poor families in France. Roberts recalled how Epstein sent her when she was 19 to Thailand to learn Thai-style massages. However, in Thailand, Roberts said she met an Australian kick boxer, fell in love with and married him, and moved to Australia. Before that Epstein asked Roberts to bear his child and sign it over to him and Maxwell. Epstein offered Roberts a mansion and a monthly allowance if she agreed to the terms. Roberts opted instead to move to Australia with her husband. 

Epstein Non-Prosecution Agreement with Bush-era Justice Department with connivance of Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum:

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The victims of Epstein's sex slave ring may never see justice or adequate compensation. Attorneys for the victims, who are scattered from West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, appear as interested in grabbing hefty contingency fees in the event of successful suits against Epstein as much as Epstein's well-paid attorneys are interested in limiting Epstein's financial drain.

SPECIAL REPORT. The Bush clan and a seized $250 billion Treasury Note

According to WMR's sources, the FBI and London police are working together on a case that involved a $250 billion U.S. Treasury Note seized by the FBI from a London safety deposit box company, London Safe Deposit Company, Ltd. The box was reportedly placed at the London firm by self-described 20-year CIA veteran Robert Booth Nichols, who reportedly died in Geneva, Switzerland on February 14, 2009.

A heart attack was believed to have been the cause of death but there was a blow to Nichols's head. A "friend" of Nichols, a New York stockbroker who was reportedly helping Booth move a large sum of cash, bonds and gold in Geneva, arranged for a quick cremation of Nichols's body and the U.S. embassy in Bern was notified.

The T-Note is reportedly secured by 2500 metric tons of gold at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta. There are indications that the movement of the gold out of the United States involves at least one member of the family of former Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Samuel Israel III, the former head of the collapsed Stamford, Connecticut-based hedge fund Bayou Group LLC, who was arrested after he tried to fake his own suicide by abandoning his vehicle, with the words "Suicide in Painless" written on the hood, on Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson River in New York on June 9, 2008, hired Nichols to help locate the T-Note and then place it in a London safety deposit box. Israel had already been convicted of a $400 million fraud and was due to report to prison to serve a 20-year sentence on the day his car was found on the bridge.

Nichols was reportedly assisted in the location and placement of the T-Note in London by John P. Ellis, a cousin of George W. Bush and nephew of George H. W. Bush. Ellis is the son of Nancy Bush, Bush 41's sister and was the Fox News consultant in 2000 whose analysis of Florida's returns led the network to call Florida for George W. Bush. Ellis had also been a columnist for The Boston Globe.

Ellis became an investment banker and acted as a "feeder" to IM Partners (Israel-Marino), a Connecticut-based venture capital company set up by Israel and his partner Daniel Marino. Ellis, a close friend of Israel, was managing director of New York City-based G H Venture, in which IM Partners invested some $25 million.

Nichols received $10 million from Israel for locating the T-Note and securing it in the London deposit box company. According to papers filed in the cases U.S. v. Israel, 05 Cr. 1039 (CM) and Bayou Management LLC v. Robert B. Nichols, et al, 08 Civ. 6036 (CM), the box seized by the FBI in London bore the "seal of the United States Federal Reserve and the serial number SC 3040-20." However, acting pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) investigation, the FBI, working with Scotland Yard, seized the safety deposit box and the T-Note. Israel subsequently sued Nichols for return of the $10 million.

Court papers in the cases also refer to a "$250 billion obligation," as well as the Federal Reserve Bank and 2500 metric tons of gold being used to secure the T-Note.

Acting on a lawsuit filed by Bayou investors, a British judge in November 2007 froze $1 million Nichols held in London. HSBC is also named in the judge's order, along with Nichols and his wife.

Nichols maintained that he assisted Israel in moving money as part of a "project" involving U.S. "national interest."

WMR has, in the past, reported on then-Vice President George H. W. Bush shaking down soon-to-be-exiled Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos for gold seized from the Japanese (the so-called "Yamashita's Gold" looted from Asia and hidden in the Philippines by World War II Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita) and having it sent to the United States on barges owned by the CIA front company Oceaneering International of Houston. In return, Marcos was granted asylum in Hawaii. A December 2, 1982, FBI document on Robert Booth Nichols states that "Robert Booth Nichols, also known as Robert Bert Nichols, Robert Nelson, and Robert Nioon, was reportedly an internationally known launderer of money from both narcotics and organized crime activities. In addition, Nichols was well-known in the sale of armaments to various countries throughout the world. Nichols is alleged to be very influential in the sale of armaments to the Philippines Government and has assisted officials of the Philippines Government in removing large sums of money from the Philippines , thereafter, investing the money with Nichols, who was placing the money in Swiss bank accounts."

Robert Booth Nichols (right) with John Lear (left), son of Bill Lear, founder of Lear Jet Corporation. John Lear claims to have inside information on U.S. government work on extraterrestrial craft at Groom Lake's Area-51 in Nevada.

In November 2004, this editor exposed the use of a multi-billion dollar off-shore tranche of Bush fund held in an Isle of Man account and connected to the movement of the Marcos/Yamashita gold to Switzerland and UBS bank secret accounts by George H. W. Bush. Part of this money, as I reported, was used to fund the fixing of the 2004 election through the use of mercenary computerized voting machine programmers and operatives in Ohio and other states, ensuring George W. Bush's re-election. The story came under immediate attack by individuals and websites funded by George Soros.

What is unfolding as FBI and Scotland Yard pursues the case is the very real possibility that at least one member of the Bush family, in concert with Nichols, whose name arose in the investigation of the "suicide" of investigative journalist Danny Casolaro in 1991 and who was reportedly one of Casolaro's more dubious "sources," may have been involved in a criminal enterprise to move U.S. Federal Reserve gold out of the United States and into secret offshore accounts. In addition, there is the possibility that at least two other Federal Reserve Banks, in addition to Atlanta, may have been similarly looted of their gold reserves. There is also an indication that Representative Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) was referring to the looting of the Federal Reserve when he referred to a one- or two-hour $550 billion electronic run on the banks "around September 15, 2008."

President Obama recently announced a crack down on American individuals and corporations using off-shore bank accounts. Whether the President is aware of the massive gold rip-off operation against the Federal Reserve is not known but the Nichols-Israel case continues to be investigated by the FBI and Scotland Yard.

In any event, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner appears to have been neutralized as any sort of significant oversight authority over the currnet bail-out of Wall Street and the banks. Informed sources have told WMR that high-level rumors of a sex scandal involving the Treasury Secretary are swirling around both Treasury and the Inter-American Development Bank, headquartered in Washington, DC.

These stories are developing.

Out-Flanked: A New War on Terra Arrives with Bush-Lula Ethanol Deal - Another Bush Family Energy Empire Now Forming in the Heart Of South America

Out-Flanked: A New War on Terra Arrives with Bush-Lula Ethanol Deal
Another Bush Family Energy Empire Now Forming in the Heart Of South America

By Garrett St. James
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
March 19, 2007

Now that the angry masses of demonstrators have gone home, clouds of tear-gas have dispersed and that peculiar “sulfuric odor” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez likes to allude to is in the final stages of dissipation, let’s take another look at President George W. Bush’s latest tour of Latin America…

According to the mainstream media, Bush’s week long visit to five separate Latin American nations has been considered at best yet another typically half-assed fast-food episode of Bush diplomacy or a complete failure at it’s worst. Despite the never ending quagmire of Iraq and the seemingly imminent curtain raising of “Shock and Awe 2” on Iran, the domestically and internationally embattled American President decided it was important to once again head south. On one hand we were told it was to shore up the Nation’s eroding political and economic influence throughout Latin America, while on the other it was to act as an ideological counter-weight to the ever growing popularity of Hugo Chavez’s Neo-Bolivarian movement.

Unlike the fiasco of “Bush South of the Border Tour ‘05”, “Bush South of the Border Tour ‘07” was going to be different. Gone would be the endless references to the War on Terror and business as usual neo-liberal imperialism mentalities. This tour would be full of compassion and human elevation for the people of the entire Americas. It didn’t matter though.

Everywhere Bush went were angry crowds of demonstrators battling it out with police. The same old same old was happening on the television news and of course street violence always makes great copy! To make things much worse, Bush’s arch-nemesis Hugo Chavez was making an Anti-Imperialist Tour of his own, filling entire football stadiums and public arenas wherever the Venezuelan President spoke. Sadly for Bush it was very clear as to who was winning the hearts and minds of Latin America once again. However, upon a second glance it’s apparent Bush did accomplish a few things and it was quite more than a half-assed success. In fact, it was a spectacular success.

On March 9th, Bush kicked off his “South of the Border ‘07 Tour” in Brazil but I would like to review what he had actually accomplished in the other 4 countries of Uruguay, Columbia, Guatemala and Mexico first…

Uruguay: In a country very few people know about much less heard of, Bush met with President Tabare Vasquez on March 10th. The usual praise and cash was passed around but a door was opened up for Uruguay to begin direct bi-lateral trade with the U.S. With a couple of handshakes and monotonous speeches, the rival Hugo Chavez Mercosur trading block (which includes Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay) had been successfully circumnavigated.

Columbia: On March 11th, Bush traveled to one of the largest receivers of American foreign military and economic aide. Yes, the USA does import a good deal of oil from Columbia but it also imports billions more of illegal narcotics. President Alvaro Uribe was given another cool 600 million because of it. A curious side-event that transpired shortly after the visit was the fine imposed Chiquita Banana Brands International back in Cincinnati, Ohio for paying bribes to right wing paramilitaries back in 2003: a sign that this sort of thing (or for certain unfavorable companies) will no longer be tolerated by the Uribe administration.

Guatemala: Bush only spent 5 hours meeting with a very anxious President Oscar Berger on March 12th. For a country so small both geographically and in political stature, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. What was Senor Berger so nervous about? The continued unhindered “migration” of Guatemala’s extremely impoverished into the United States. Bush no doubt assured President Berger that “the wall” and recent highly publicized crackdowns on illegal immigrants was just for show and Corporate America will continue to value Guatemala’s most valued commodity, CHEAP LABOR. Though it is an unspoken taboo, everyone knows that much of Latin Americas ruling classes are using the United States as a steam valve to alleviate the ever-mounting anger and revolutionary tendencies directed at their respective regimes. The billions of dollars sent back by “the migrants” to their remaining family members also helps.

Mexico: Bush wrapped up his tour by staying a few days visiting newly/nearly elected Mexican President, Felipe Calderon. The secretive but very real North American Union was definitely the supreme topic of importance during the two leaders discussions. Merging the USA along with Canada and Mexico was going to continue on schedule with little regard to the national sovereignties and consent of its peoples. Business is business after all…

Brazil: Bush arrived in South America’s largest and most powerful country following the footsteps of a fresh new highly orchestrated “Green Campaign.” For weeks on end Brazil had been bombarded by heavy doses of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and the various evils of environmental pollution. The Amazon needed saving once again and the Brazilians needed to become much more “eco-sensitive” in their day-to-day lives.

For 23 hours the massive metropolis of Sao Paulo was virtually brought to a standstill the day Bush met with President Ignacio “Lula” da Silva. From the very outset, violence erupted along Avenida Paulista between thousands of anti-Bush protesters and Military Policemen clad in riot gear. Slogans were chanted, rocks and bottles were soon thrown and then the police moved into to administer extremely vicious ritualized beatings to whomever was unfortunate enough to be caught during the ensuing hours long melee.

As the well-televised street clashes raged, Bush and Lula were celebrating a new bio-fuels deal between the two countries and drinking champagne. The word of the day was ethanol. An interesting side-event was the same day indictment of the notoriously corrupt Brazilian politician, Paulo Maluf, in New York City. Perhaps his arrest symbolized an act of good faith on the part of the Bush Administration at the bargaining table. Then came the grandiose boasting of “an energy revolution” and “the beginning of a brand new civilization.”

These were no ordinary quotes and it was no ordinary deal, either. Ethanol is not only going to make Lula’s Oligarch buddies very rich but with the help of the United States, Brazil is also going to become very powerful. The ramifications run very deep as well as they are wide. If people begin to think the days of unrestrained First World exploitation upon Latin America are the things of a forgettable past then they are also sadly mistaken. When one begins to look at what actually transpired on March 9th, they’ll begin to realize this was the culmination of a deal at least 30 years in making and could last for another 30 years into the future.

Brazil’s notorious and brutally oppressive Military Government first introduced ethanol production, during the 1970’s as an experiment to find cheaper and more efficient forms of alternative energy. Throughout Brazil’s transformation into a democracy during the 1980’s, to the turbulence caused by corrupt administrations and market crashes of the 1990’s, the ethanol industry steadily and successfully flourished. By the time President Lula was first inaugurated in January 2003, ethanol was the most commonly used fuel for Brazilian automobiles. For Brazil, the future was looking rosy and after decades of struggle: the PT (Workers Party) had at long last taken power.

Almost from the very instant of Lula’s New Year’s Day inauguration things began to get a little strange in the capital, Brasilia, though. People were surprised by Lula’s new fashionable appearance. Gone were the red tee shirts and blue jeans often worn by the self-made leader of trabalhadoros e campahneiros, only to be replaced by super expensive Italian suits. Oh well, Lula was President after all so he had to look Presidential didn’t he?

People must also remember that Lula was the leader of probably the most radical and powerful political party in the western hemisphere if not in the world. The PT was a tough as nails and well organized coalition comprising labor unions, student groups, land reformers and intellectuals. The traditional ruling oligarchs had a lot to fear and began to brace themselves for the inevitable onslaught of socio-economic reforms sure to follow a PT Presidential victory. The Party of the People had arrived and those gringos up north were definitely going to take notice. So everyone waited, January rolled into February and then March, April, June, July but nothing happened.

There was of course Lula’s highly touted “Zero Fome” program aimed at eliminating the starvation of millions of impoverished Brazilians (Nordestinos) living in the arid North Eastern regions of the country. Upon closer look even this seemed odd considering Lula might have been possibly wasting millions of reais transporting truck loads of rice and beans rather than looking for more pragmatic approaches to arid weather farming. The mass migration of hundreds of thousands of Nordestinos to southern Brazil continued unabated which further eroded and over taxed the already decrepitating social infrastructures of major cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. For these particular cities, the already insanely violent crime kept increasing. The Favelas that had absorbed the overwhelming majority of these displaced Nordestinos kept growing and growing. It was obvious to everyone that all of these new migrants were adding to the gross over-population of metropolitan centers. Everything was affected. Everything was falling apart faster and faster. Nothing had really changed except for the worst.

What was also equally strange was Lula’s bizarre approach to international diplomacy. One example was when he quickly went to Libya attempting to open trade agreements between the two countries primarily with oil. Just days later, the international pariah Colonel Qadafi, became the new darling of the West’s Big Oil Companies which soon moved in to enjoy Libya’s world famous super-lite sweet crude. Then there was the Aristide Coup in Haiti. Lula was more than eager to supply the bulk of UN Peace Keeping forces much to the chagrin of his own government and people. Wasn’t Aristide and Haiti an American problem? Lula insisted and even today Brazilian soldiers are policing the streets of Port au Prince. Odd?

Then came wave after wave of corruption scandals, which have virtually destroyed much of the PT’s political infrastructure. Party Big Wigs and luminaries were falling like rain. It looked as if everyone in the PT was involved in some scandal or another: everyone that is except Lula. In spite of it all, Lula went on to comfortably win another four-year term in office in October of ‘06.

Today Brazil is still South America’s most powerful country. No one including Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez can do much without the support of Lula and Brazil. To the casual observer, It looks as if Lula rides the fence between the forces of radical socialist change led by Chavez and neoliberal free market capitalism from the imperialist giant up north. On March 9th, this all changed and Lula, despite what many experts are saying, is definitively now in the so-called neoliberal camp.

Not only will both Brazil and the USA become kings of the new worldwide ethanol fuels industry, but the very company running everything will be the Miami Florida based Inter-American Ethanol Commission. The former Brazilian Minister of Agriculture, and now agri-business tycoon, Roberto Rodrigues, created this newly formed company just last December. Who are his two principle partners? Luis Alberto Moreno from Columbia and Jeb Bush!

Now if people really begin to consider all the strange goings on emanating out of Brasilia from the Lula administration and the history of ethanol bio-fuels in general, things begin to make a lot more sense. Why was nothing of any importance done to stem the human tide of Nordestinos heading south year after year? Why would Lula turn his back on his Leftist past and do nothing to reform the crushing grip the oligarchs still have on the Brazilian economy? Why was the PT systematically gutted with scandal after scandal? Why was Lula so eager to commit troops after the anti-Aristide Coup in Haiti? Why was Lula running around “liberating” oil markets from previously pariah regimes like Libya and later Angola? Don’t forget that green and eco-friendly “Save the Amazon” campaign, either. Finally, what does the new ethanol bio-fuels pact between Brazil and the USA (Bush Family) really mean?

The answers are that the newly displaced Nordestino populations will make excellent slave labor for the expected ethanol producing sugarcane fields and sugar processing mills. The oligarchs as usual will be running and profiting from the enterprise. The PT has been effectively neutralized to keep anyone from getting in the way. Haiti is where the processed sugarcane will be refined into the new E10 ethanol based fuels which can be readily consumed by the American auto owners soon to be weaned off of fossil fuels coming out of the Middle East and Venezuela for starters. Lula has been an active agent promoting Big Oil’s interest in emerging third world markets and petroleum fields.

The Brazilian Amazon look’s like the perfect place to plant ever larger sugarcane crops for the soon to be exponentially growing worldwide ethanol demand. Brazil plans on doubling its ethanol production in five years to 30 billion liters. They’ll eventually have to quadruple this number once serious American ethanol consumption begins. In less than twenty years 300 billion liters are planned to be produced to feed other world markets such as China and India. Serious acreage is going to be needed to pull this off and take a big guess as to where this acreage can be found?

Finally, the Bush Family is re-diversifying its worldwide energy investments. Perhaps the sheiks of the Mid-East aren’t going to be such good close friends in the years to come? The Brazilian Oligarchs look much more interesting? Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. The Bush Family has recently bought massive amounts of real estate in nearby Paraguay’s Chaco Region: an excellent geographical area to reside if you’re also interested in other energy industries and markets such as natural gas and hydroelectric Power. In the North it’s Bolivia, to the South is Argentina, to the West are Chile and Peru and to the East is Brazil. Well done.

Of course many people aren’t going to like these new arrangements. Lula and his eventual predecessors will have to continue to sell the idea that destroying much of Brazil’s world famous nature preserves is in the best interest of it’s economy. Bush (Hillary Clinton???) will have to convince the American Congress to strike down the unfair protectionist tariffs concerning Brazilian ethanol. Both Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska are strongly backed by the fledgling American ethanol industry that supports these tariffs. It’s very interesting if you consider that both men are now running for President.

What does this all mean for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his visions of Neo-Bolivarism throughout Latin America? He too is being out-flanked like the rest of us. Eventually The United States is going to become less and less dependent upon his oil in the years to come. What about the Middle East? Everyone has been so distracted by what is going on over there that many of us have failed to notice what is going on below our noses.

Most of us know very well that the continued exploitation and needless deaths of thousands of people are going to continue in South America if Bush and friends are allowed to get away with this out-flanking maneuver: A new war on terra. Nothing ever changes with these guys…