The empire’s operatives exposed: The Krongards, 9/11, and Blackwater/Iraq

From the archives: Connecting the dots, those revealed in the past with those revealed recently:

By Larry Chin Online Journal Associate Editor Nov 19, 2007,

New bombshell testimony before Congress has revealed that Alvin B. “Buzzy” Krongard, the former CIA executive director connected to 9/11 insider trading, is a consultant and advisory board member of Blackwater USA, the New World Order’s leading intelligence-related corporate mercenary death squad now under investigation for war crimes, murder, arms smuggling, and fraud in Iraq.

“Buzzy” Krongard’s Blackwater role was confirmed by “Buzzy”’s brother, Howard “Cookie” Krongard, who (not ironically) is the Bush/Cheney administration’s State Department’s inspector general, and the official under fire for stonewalling and quashing attempted probes of Blackwater’s operations.

It was during the last Wednesday's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Henry Waxman (D-CA), that “Cookie” Krongard denied, then confirmed later in the same testimony, the fact that his own brother was a Blackwater advisory board member throughout the period in which “Cookie” engaged in the cover-up of Blackwater. It is not known if “Cookie” Krongard lied, or was lied to, but he has now recused himself from “all matters having to do with Blackwater."

As thoroughly documented by Michael C. Ruppert in Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, until 1997, A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard was the vice chairman of investment bank A.B.Brown (Alex. Brown). A.B. Brown and its previous incarnations have been involved with Bush family business ventures for generations, including deals with the Carlyle Group. It was also one of many major investment houses implicated for money laundering in congressional probes.

Brothers in illegal arms

Krongard joined the CIA in 1998 as the counsel to CIA Director George Tenet, and was named CIA executive director (the CIA’s #3 position) by George W. Bush in March 2001. The Deutsche Bank/Alex.Brown private banking operation headed by Krongard through 1998, and taken over by Krongard’s colleague Mayo Shattuck III, was one of the major hubs of 9/11 insider trading, where put options were purchased on United Airlines and other 9/11-related stocks. As written by Ruppert, “the trades could only have been made by people high enough in the US, Israeli and European intelligence community (including Russia) to know about the attacks and -- more importantly -- which of the many planned attacks were going to be successful.”

It is no surprise that Howard “Cookie” Krongard has, along with brother “Buzzy," enjoyed high official Bush/Cheney positions, and profits, from the “war on terrorism" -- apparently continuously from 9/11 all the way to the present Iraq occupation and quagmire.

These and other damning facts add to the multitude of direct lines leading from 9/11 to Iraq and beyond, and have been exposed piecemeal in recent years and months (in media reports that are largely ignored and misunderstood by the masses). They confirm and underscore years of exhaustive existing evidence about the true nature of the “war on terrorism," its imperial architects from across the international political spectrum, and its multinational universe of “soldiers” (exemplified by the Krongards), and intelligence proprietaries, cut-outs, and political and media fronts.

The New World Order’s “above the law” criminals -- from the Krongards and the entire Blackwater apparatus, to Bush, Cheney, Blair, and the entire membership of the Bilderberg Group -- have committed unprecedented atrocities out in the open, and have more than earned the kind of “interrogations” that they and their armed-to-the-teeth functionaries continue to inflict on political adversaries and innocent patsies in CIA prisons all over the world.

Tragically, particularly in the present milieu, it is more than likely that the Krongards will not be touched, any more than Bush, Cheney, et al will receive the punishment they deserve.

Not only have no “heads rolled” since 9/11, but virtually all of the 9/11/ “war on terrorism” criminals continue to hold the highest offices of power, brazenly committing new crimes in the open, while holding the people of world in contempt. The criminals, and their crimes, are on television, every hour on the hour. Witness the fact that Rudolf Guiliani, who was thoroughly exposed as a hands-on participant in the 9/11 operation in Mike Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon, is a leading 2008 presidential candidate. Senator Joe Biden, one of many members of Congress who enjoyed breakfast on 9/11 with Pakistani ISI chief and 9/11 “money man” Mahmoud Ahmad, is also running for president.

Given the bipartisan complicity of the US Congress, it is likely that the Blackwater probes, like all congressional “investigations” in modern history, are simply more limited hangouts, designed to strengthen, not expose, what remains a massive ongoing cover-up of imperial crimes.

In a time of open and unprecedented political lawlessness and corruption, and mass public ignorance and acquiescence, true investigation remains the bitter and tragic duty of a minority of courageous individuals willing to seek the facts. They are contained on the pages of this publication, and the following list of sources on the Krongards:

Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, Chapter 14: 9/11 Insider Trading, or “You Didn’t Really See That, Even Though We Saw It”

Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly Into CIA's Highest Ranks

(Mike Ruppert, From the Wilderness, October 15, 2001

Profits of Death: Insider Trading and 9/11 (Tom Flocco, From the Wilderness, December 27, 2001)

Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater:The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army

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Carlyle Groups Settles in "Pay to Play" Scandal Probe

This certainly comes as no surprise. Where there is a financial scandal, there is usually a Bushie or some of their wealthy Arab friends or both.

These people make me sick!

Politically-Connected Firm Admits Payments of $13 Million to Indicted Middleman to Get New York State Business

By RICHARD ESPOSITO and BRIAN ROSS

May 14, 2009—

The Carlyle Group, a giant Wall Street firm best known for its ties to former President George H.W. Bush and other prominent public officials, made more than $13 million in payments to a indicted political fixer who arranged for the firm to receive business from a New York pension fund, New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo said today.
 
Cuomo said Carlyle had agreed to $20 million to "resolve its role" in the ongoing corruption investigation and agreed to a new code of conduct that prohibits the use of such middlemen.
Cuomo said the code would "help eliminate the conflicts of interest and corruption inherent in a system that allows people to buy access to those holding the pension fund purse-strings."
 
Carlyle is the latest high-profile firm to be ensnared in a nationwide probe known as the "pay for play" scandal because Wall Street firms allegedly paid politically-connected fixers to get them business from pension funds controlled by public officials.

According to Cuomo, his corruption investigation found that in 2003, Carlyle hired Hank Morris, the chief political aide to then New York state comptroller Alan Hevesi, as "a placement agent" to help obtain investments from the New York Common Retirement Fund.

"If Boss Tweed were alive today, he would be a placement agent," Cuomo said.

In a statement, Carlyle said it "was unaware of any improper conduct" and "was victimized by Hank Morris' alleged web of deceit." Carlyle said it intended to file suit against Morris and has "cooperated extensively and voluntarily" with Cuomo.
 
Carlyle paid Morris through shell companies he controlled, according to Cuomo. Morris allegedly shared the payments with a hedge fund manager, Barrett Wissman, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to securities fraud in connection with the investigation.

Until it hired Morris, said Cuomo, Carlyle had "experienced limited success in obtaining investments" from the New York state fund.
 
Carlyle then received more than $730 million in New York state pension funds for five different projects, according to Cuomo.
 
Carlyle employees also made about $78,000 in campaign contributions to Comptroller Hevesi's campaign in 2005 and 2006, according to Cuomo, some solicited by Morris.
 
Morris was indicted in March in the "pay for play" investigation for allegedly arranging "sham placement fees" for himself and other Hevesi "political cronies" and for extracting "millions of dollars in campaign contributions" to ensure "the Comptroller's approval of their proposed investments."
 
Morris has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
 
Hevesi has not been charged.

Politically-Connected Powerhouse Firm

Carlyle is a politically connected powerhouse whose board of advisors has been graced by the names of numerous political luminaries from both the Democratic and Republican Parties including former President Bush, his Secretary of State James Baker III, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, Britain's former Prime Minister John Major, ex-Time magazine media glitterati Norman Pearlstein and former Clinton White House Chief of Staff, Mack McLarty. The firm is currently headed by the highly regarded ex-IBM CEO Lou Gerstner.
 
Carlyle is the first firm to sign the Code of Conduct, which Cuomo first proposed in April. The Code eliminates the role of middlemen who are hired, retained or compensated for the specific purpose of obtaining pension dollars. The language is carefully worded to allow for the use of marketing department employees and marketing firms.

According to union records, Carlyle received $878 million in private equity investment from "the New York State Common Retirement Fund." The fund's $122 billion in assets is for the retirement benefits of state and local employees in New York. The state paid total management and incentive fees of $37.5 million between
2005 and 2008 to Carlyle, according to fund records. The fund is the third largest in the nation.
The firm has allowed only two outside partners into its ranks over the years.

The nations largest public retirement fund-- the California Public Employee Retirement Fund--paid $175 million for 5.5 percent of Carlyle: now worth a considerable amount more.

The other is Abu Dhabi, the once high growth sheikhdom that paid about $1.5. billion for 7.5 percent of the firm.
 
Cuomo's wide ranging probe has already resulting in two guilty pleas in New York State. According to published accounts it is said to be one of 30 such probes across the nation. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a related civil suit.

Unregulated Middlemen

In the closely regulated and monitored world of public employee fund investment, the use of unregulated middlemen has been a loophole through which, in return for passing public funds to private firms, at least in some cases, public corruption has resulted, Cuomo's office has charged. The practice is rife with the potential for quid-pro-quo, including pay-for-play political contributions, and revolving door government to private sector job hopping, his office and union officials have said.

At the end of April, Cuomo said that practice of using unregulated middlemen to garner public pension fund dollars results in "the worst of both worlds."

"This is the nexus of private-sector fraudulent operators meeting fraudulent government and political operators," Cuomo said, according to Bloomberg News.

At the center of the storm is one time New York Democratic Party operative Morris who is accused of steering state pension fund business to firms that paid him millions in kickbacks. Morris is the target of a 123 count indictment unsealed by Cuomo's office in March. It accuses Morris of pension fund related activities including "enterprise corruption, securities fraud, grand larceny, bribery and money laundering."

At the time of the indictment Cuomo's office said in a statement, "If proven, the allegations in the indictment reveal a complex criminal scheme involving numerous individuals operating at the highest political and governmental levels of the Office of the State Comptroller. The charges entail a web of corrupt acts for both political and personal gain.

Also under scrutiny is a firm co-founded by Steve Rattner, President Obama's auto industry Czar. That firm, Quadrangle, used Morris firm and is under the spotlight for allegedly failing to disclose the relationship.
Carlyle began receiving New York dollars when Alan Hevesi was state comptroller. Hevesi pled guilty for a single felony unrelated to his fund management. Morris was Hevesi's political consultant.

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