Frontline’s long-awaited report on international bribery and corruption finally aired last night and did not disappoint. I have been writing about this investigative report for months now in anticipation of the finished product. Lowell Bergman goes into great detail to show how an agreement between the British and Saudi governments for fighter jets became a gift from Allah, so to speak, for the Saudi royal family, among many others. Investigators have tracked money from BAE Systems in the UK to Washington, the British Virgin Islands, Switzerland and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The allegations are not trivial and were enough for Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan to threaten to end cooperation in terrorism investigations if the original British investigation into the deal continued. The British government complied and Tony Blair ended the investigation. However, we will have to wait and see whether the FBI will be forced to end its investigation as well, due to BAE System’s critical participation in US defense and American jobs. Prince Bandar is a longtime friend of the Bush family, Clinton’s and Carters, so with the new administration perhaps this investigation has wings. As one of the original French prosecutors involved in the creation of the international anti-bribery laws said, we are good at prosecuting low level and mid level corruption but only by accident are we able to successfully investigate and prosecute high level corruption and bribery cases.

Investigations involving major international defense contractors employing 10’s of thousands of jobs (in the US alone), the leading family of the largest oil distributing country in the world (not to mention the good personal friends of every US President since and including Carter) and government officials of some of the largest economies in the world do not play themselves out easily. The political will needed to allow such an investigation to see its way through is more than I can imagine. The US Justice Department didn’t have the political will to be able to fully investigate the 2000 presidential election, so I’m skeptical to say the least that this will see the light of day. However, the FBI must try, even though Prince Bandar is being legally represented by former FBI Director Louis Freeh. I know!! What better way to beat a charge than hire the investigative body’s former head as your attorney! The video is embedded below, however please go to Frontline’s website to continue reading and watching this tremendous job of reporting by journalists from all over the world.

I am more apt to listen to the conspiracy theorists than I am the mainstream view. Perhaps this is partially due to my father being a journalist or even the fact that both of my parents are baby boomers, but I’ve always had a good, natural dose of reality and skepticism. This holds true with political elections, assassinations and business deals. But it also holds true of such things like a banking system that has collapsed and is now trying to right itself.

This week Bill Moyers interviewed a former senior regulator during the Savings and Loan scandal who is now a professor at the University of Missouri, William K. Black. Black had a lot to say and although Moyers seemed to be surprised by some of it, I doubt much of what Black said was news to Moyers. How do I know? Why should we believe Black when he says the financial collapse was caused by the same people who are still in power at these banks along with the people in government pretending to regulate the aftermath? He describes this massive cover-up in detail, alleging favoritsm for banks while kicking the auto industry to the side. (On a side note, I don’t think for a moment some of the same crap isn’t happening with the auto industry, but not on the grand level it is with the finance sector.) First, a look at some of his charges:

BILL MOYERS: What did AIG contribute? What did they do wrong?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: They made bad loans. Their type of loan was to sell a guarantee, right? And they charged a lot of fees up front. So, they booked a lot of income. Paid enormous bonuses. The bonuses we’re thinking about now, they’re much smaller than these bonuses that were also the product of accounting fraud. And they got very, very rich. But, of course, then they had guaranteed this toxic waste. These liars’ loans. Well, we’ve just gone through why those toxic waste, those liars’ loans, are going to have enormous losses. And so, you have to pay the guarantee on those enormous losses. And you go bankrupt. Except that you don’t in the modern world, because you’ve come to the United States, and the taxpayers play the fool. Under Secretary Geithner and under Secretary Paulson before him… we took $5 billion dollars, for example, in U.S. taxpayer money. And sent it to a huge Swiss Bank called UBS. At the same time that that bank was defrauding the taxpayers of America. And we were bringing a criminal case against them. We eventually get them to pay a $780 million fine, but wait, we gave them $5 billion. So, the taxpayers of America paid the fine of a Swiss Bank. And why are we bailing out somebody who that is defrauding us?

BILL MOYERS: And why…

WILLIAM K. BLACK: How mad is this?

BILL MOYERS: What is your explanation for why the bankers who created this mess are still calling the shots?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, that, especially after what’s just happened at G.M., that’s… it’s scandalous.

BILL MOYERS: Why are they firing the president of G.M. and not firing the head of all these banks that are involved?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: There are two reasons. One, they’re much closer to the bankers. These are people from the banking industry. And they have a lot more sympathy. In fact, they’re outright hostile to autoworkers, as you can see. They want to bash all of their contracts. But when they get to banking, they say, ‘contracts, sacred.’ But the other element of your question is we don’t want to change the bankers, because if we do, if we put honest people in, who didn’t cause the problem, their first job would be to find the scope of the problem. And that would destroy the cover up.

BILL MOYERS: The cover up?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Sure. The cover up.

BILL MOYERS: That’s a serious charge.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Of course.

BILL MOYERS: Who’s covering up?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Geithner is charging, is covering up. Just like Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it’s going to take $2 trillion — a trillion is a thousand billion — $2 trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they’re allowing all the banks to report that they’re not only solvent, but fully capitalized. Both statements can’t be true. It can’t be that they need $2 trillion, because they have masses losses, and that they’re fine.

These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed, not because…

Black goes on to make many more accusations about corruption, fraud and massive deception at the highest levels of government and industry. But why should we believe him? What is the smell test for conspiracy theories? When it comes to political assassinations, how much proof do we need before we start to believe the conspiracy theorists? What about financial and political fraud and corruption? If these accusations aren’t true, why would a distinguished professor risk his career and more just to say these things?

According to Wikipedia:

Slander per se

The four (4) categories of slander which are actionable per se are (i) accusing someone of a crime; (ii) alleging that someone has a foul or loathsome disease; (iii) adversely reflecting on a person’s fitness to conduct her business or trade; and (iv) imputing serious sexual misconduct (especially the chastity of a woman). Once again, all you would have to prove is that someone had published the statement to a third party. No proof of special damages is required.

Fraud is a crime. Black has made public statements that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, the heads of Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and many others have committed serious crimes. If this ISN’T true, wouldn’t you expect to see the slander lawsuits flying? Or at least some statements out of the halls of Washington and Wall Street condemning these accusations? Wanna bet they are silent in the coming days? Black hasn’t said that any of them have engaged in any serious sexual conduct (especially, the chastity of a woman), just fraudulent misconduct fucking with the chastity of America and the heart of capitalism. I, for one, believe every word he said.

Update: Glenn Greenwald has posted his own bit on the Moyers/Black interview as a part of a wide-ranging discussion about senior Obama officials’ involvement in this debacle. Well worth the read, here.

Why is Chris Matthews such a panty waist? I’ve asked this question many times before and yet somehow I’m still surprised when new evidence of his fresh disposal is found. Thanks to TPM for this little clip where Matthews discusses how the Justice Department has dropped the charges against Senator Ted Stevens due to prosecutorial misconduct… Well, sort of. That is why the charges were dropped, but apparently Tweety Bird thinks the charges should have never been brought! Oh, and apparently Sen. Stevens is no longer the senior Senator from Alaska BECAUSE of these now dropped charges, according to this blithering idiot.

Well, Mr. Matthews – Just to clarify a few points: Sen. Stevens was already convicted last fall for not reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from an oil executive (normally we would call this a bribe, but somehow in this country the crime is just not telling anyone about the bribe, not the bribe itself). And to say that the charges should have never been brought? That is not at all what the Justice Department has said, rather that the charges held merit but that the prosecution failed to share evidence with the defense, thereby screwing up the case. On a related note though, perhaps Matthews should be more concerned with another politician whose re-election bid and political career WERE affected by prosecutorial misconduct, politicization of a trial and a whole other list of crap. Don Siegelman, the former Democratic Governor of Alabama has another appeal pending to try and have his charges dismissed, but he lost his re-election bid years ago because of this crap. Any mention from Matthews on this lately? Some of his other colleagues at MSNBC are a bit better, but so far only when it is convenient. Siegelman was interviewed by TPM regarding these comparisons and you can read that here.

Last week I featured an incredible report by SVT TV in Sweden, on the international bribery involved when Saab subsidiary Gripen, BAE and the Czech Republic crafted a deal for the possible sale and eventual lease of fighter jets to the Czech government. (That was part 1 of a 2 part series on bribery and corruption with the 2nd part coming soon.)

But lets revisit the Swedish report again with something new in mind this time. First, the report reads like another episode of the Bourne series of movies with its vast network of shell companies, offshore accounts, Austrian Counts and money changing hands everywhere. In the end, the Czech government leased a number of Gripen planes from the Swedish government. However, the real winners and losers in this deal were far more complicated. Winners? That Austrian Count is a couple of million richer, Gripen and Saab got a chance to make some change, BAE (who orchestrated the deal through its shell companies and contacts) got a hefty sum and possibly dozens of Czech politicians were able to purchase vacation homes in their destination of choice. Losers? Well, the Czech citizenry, Gripen competitors and many other unknown lives were cheated because of this enormous fraud.

However, one surprising fallout to this episode (although no one has yet to connect the dots) is the loss of possibly thousands of jobs in Sweden. GM, Saab’s owner for the time being, is crashing and burning with no end yet in sight. Saab’s sales are dismal and only getting worse and GM, dealing with its own host of problems, is looking to dump Saab as quickly as possible. I mentioned that something new came up? Well, the New York Times wrote a long feature today on the Swedish government turning its back on Saab in this financial crisis. Yes, you read that right. The Socialist country so famous for its assistance of individuals and companies has said that it won’t bail out Saab leaving thousands of employees’ futures in limbo.

My question is this: How, when Saab, Gripen and BAE went through all of this trouble to orchestrate a very profitable deal for Sweden does the Swedish government turn its back now that the automaker is in trouble? Well, one unproven theory is that this is punishment in some sense for dragging the Swedes’ name through the mud in the Gripen investigation now blowing wide open. Or, perhaps the Swedish government, however unlikely it is, was unaware of the huge bribes going on with the Gripen deal and has decided to let Saab suffer because of it. The third possibility is that perhaps, as the NY Times suggests, this is just the Conservative party, now in power, flexing its muscles in order to change precedence. Whatever the case, the waters are muddy and full of piranhas of all stripes.

This is the first of a two-part series on international bribery and the use of offshore accounts. We first touched on this subject a couple of months ago when pointing you towards Lowell Bergman and Frontline’s excellent work on international bribery. I’d like to thank Frontline for pointing me to the following report. They have compiled some great reporting on bribery which can be seen here. However, the greater issue here is transparency vs. secrecy, what part politicians play and how the media report on such activities, or not… The second part of this series will focus on the ongoing US financial bailout and how US taxpayers’ money is being used to prop up companies who invest millions in the politicians they lobby.

Below are two reports from a Swedish television crew who investigated a multinational arms deal between Sweden and the Czech Republic. Demonstrating great investigative reporting, they uncover how SAAB (working with BAE Systems) used third parties and offshore holdings to influence the deal in their favor, to the tune of millions of euros in compensation to any number of agents, politicians and defense contractors. The Czech deal was just one of many, including similar arrangements with South Africa and Hungary. The first video explains the Czech deal and the second video goes into greater detail when the reporters work under cover to expose the rampant bribery going on in the international arms industry.