Ben,
This is taken from WSU last year. Let me know what you think the implications are, as being Canadian, I would like to hear views from south of the border. - Jim.
Why would anyone want to Murder Ron Brown?
By all accounts, Ron Brown was a charming fellow who worked very hard and effectively to promote U.S. business. Why, then would anyone want to kill him? And who would have the resources to do it by bringing down the #2 airplane in the White House fleet?
The answer, in brief, is that Ron Brown was going to prison - no if's, and's or but's about it. Also Bill Clinton's presidency was surely going down with him. And the President could not allow that.
To anyone who has followed the story closely, this conclusion is inescapable. Brown was up to his neck in numerous major scandals: Whitewater, the Denver airport mess, Mensa, the Keating Five, Lillian Madsen and her Haitian prostitutes, etc. Small wonder that 22 congressmen wrote Clinton in February 1995, demanding he fire Brown.
At the time of his murder, Brown was under investigation by:
- a special prosecutor in the Justice Dept.
- the FDIC.
- the Congressional Reform and Oversight Committee.
- the FBI
- the Energy Dept.
- the Senate Judiciary Committee.
- and even his own Commerce Dept. Inspector General
But in case you missed the piecemeal accounts in the papers, here is an extremely condesed summary of 11 of brown's woes. As I'll show below, many of them were shortly going to become Clinton's woes:
1. How did North Viet Nam recently get the U.S. to drop it trade embargo against them so suddenly? Easy. As a leading Vietnamese businessman and official revealed to the press, the Communist government paid Brown $700,000 to do it. The money went into a Singapore bank account, the embargo fell, and Clinton squashed a feeble FBI attempt to investigate. He and Brown also neutralized a federal grand jury probe later.
2. Brown sold plane seats on other trade trips besides the one to Bosnia/Croatia. Companies making big contributions to the Democratic Party or the Clinton Victory Fund could buy access and tax break or regulatory favours.
3. The 1-23-95 U.S News & World Report broke the news that Brown had bought a $360,000 townhouse for his girlfriend, Lillian Madsen, a prominent political player and whorehouse madam from Haiti.
4. Brown used to receive $12,500 a month as the P.R. agent for Baby Doc Duvalier, the much-loathed dictator of Haiti. Brown also managed Baby Doc's %$50 million investment fund, most or all of which is now in Viet Nam firms.
5. Brown was a key board member of Chemfix, a Louisiana "waste management" corporation that landed a $210 million contract with New York City in 1990, with Brown's help. That was despite the fact that Chemfix had two other contracts with other municipalities cancelled because of its inablility to perform.
Brown got company stock at 24% of market value, making him millions. New York mayor David Dinkins go to host the Democratic Convention. A typical Ron Brown win/win deal.
6. Brown founded Capital/Pebsco, which- fresh out of the box - got a contract with Washington D.C. mayor Marion Barry to handle the city's pension funds. Not a bad start for a new company with no investing experience.
7. In a deal that has left CIA people livid, Brown okayed the sale of a new U.S. gas turbine engine to China. China will use the engines in its cruise missiles. McDonnell Douglas developed the turbine as a military engine. But Brown arbitrarily reclassified it as "civilian." That let China build a fleet of missiles, using U.S. engines and technology, which they can point at the U.S.
8. Brown irked the Congress and most of Europe by acting as point man for Clinton to bring Iranian influence and weapons into the Bosnian War. That broke the U.S. endorsed arms embargo. The money for the arms most likely came from Commerce and Agriculture, slush fund money channeled to U.S. manufacturers; from there o U.S friendly nations and firms overseas; and from there to Iran.
The arms included helicopter gunships, big artillery, stinger missiles, land mines, anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers, and other quality weapons. Most of the arms will stay on the European scene for decades to come, keeping the area destabilized. As one leading munitions dealer put it: "Iran/Contra was slingshots and cap guns compared to the quantities and size of arms given th Croatian Serbs". That is why the Croatian Muslims enthusiastically hosted Brown's planeload of executives. They fel gratitude for the free arms, as well as a desire to do deals.
9. Bronw was the partner of a Democratic fund-raiser named Nolanda Hill. Hill paid Brown $500,000 for his 50% interest in First Intenational, Inc. a company that never made any profits. Most glaringly, Brown never invested a cent in First International. FI owned Corridor Broadcasting, which had defaulted on massive government loans of $40 million. The loans were passed on the the FDIC, which was unsuccessful in collecting anything from Hill. Yet at the same time, First International was making large contributions to the Democratic Party, and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to Brown, through shell Coporations. These payments to Brown - three checks for $45,000 each - were the core of Representative Clinger's evidence that forced Janet Reno to hire Daniel Pearson as special investigator of Brown's crimes. Brown never disclosed or paid any taxes on these amounts.
10. By personally delivering a warning letter signed by Clinton, Bronw was able to force a bargain deal with the Saudis for $6 billion in American military aircraft and hardware. To get the planes, the Saudis also had to accept a fat $4 billion phone contract with AT&T otherwise, the would get no aircraft.Also part of the deal: AT&T had a multi-million dollar side agreement with Brown's First International, which was hired as a "consultant". And the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign fund were beneficiaries.
11. The last nail in Brown's coffin was pounded in four days fefor his crash. FBI and IRS agents subpoenaed as many as 20 witnesses for a serious new grand jury probe of Brown in Washington. It seems that an Oklahoma gas company called Dynamic Energy Resources gave Brown's son Michael $500,000 in stock, a $160,000 cash payment and exclusive country club memberships. Fromer Dynamic president Stewart Price told a Tulsa grand jury that the money was to be routed to Ron Brown, who was expected to "fix" a lawsuit for Dynamic. There is little chance you heard about this death-knell, grand jury case. Radio station KTOK in Oklahoma reported it on March 28, 1996; the Washington Times made it a front-page story on March 29. But then a lock was put on the story. The AP and NewYork Times wire services blocked any further release of the information. Welcome to the new world order.
FINAL PROOF the 2-8-96 Washington Post reported Brown had retained top legal gun Reid Weingarten, a former high official in the ustice Department, as his criminal attorney. You don't pay his price ($750/hr) unless you know a criminal indictment is coming, and you're probably going to jail. Janet Reno appointed Daniel Pearson as Brown's special prosecutor earlier this year. She gave him blanket permission to investigate anything. That's when Brown angrily demanded that Clinton force her to withdraw Pearson. But Reno couldn't do that. She had been backed into a corner by Rep. William F. Clinger, Jr., chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Clinger had copies of Brown's First Internation checks, plus other incriminating documents. When Clinton said he couldn't comply, Bronw went ballistic. His fatal mistake - according to Brown confidants who requested anonymity - was telling Clinton he wasn't goin to take the rap. He wasn't going to let his wife and son take the rap, either. (Both had received hundreds of thousands in under-the-table payments themselves.) He was going to finger Bill and Hillary instead. That would have sundk Bill's re-election campaignon the spot
From that point on, Brown was dead. Like Vince Foster before hime, he knew too much. He know where all the money went for the payoffs, bribes, scans money laundering, cover-ups, participation fees, hush money and side deals - all the way from one-man operations to vast multinational trade treaty fixes.
The phony suicide fakeout used on Foster could not be repeated, of course. But an airplane crash is always viesed as an accident. -
Details from crash site - Four hours and 20 minutes after the crash, the first Croatian Special Forces search party arrives on the scene. They find only stewardess Kell surviving. The call for a helicopter to evacuate her to the hospital. When ist arrives, Kelly is able to get on board without assistance from the medics.
But Kelly never completes the short hop. She dies en route. According to multiple reports given to journalist/editor Joe L. Jordan, an autopsy later reveals a neat, three-inch incision over her main femoral artery. It also shows the incision came at least three hours after all her other cuts and bruises. The creates in your mind a horrifying scene in the back of the chopper, as on Special Forces operative holds down the struggling woman and muffles her screams, while another slices her let.
Further autopsies of other passengers probably will not be made. Clinton ordered the cremation of all victims - it's hard to perform autopsies on ashes. |
