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The Book on Ben-Veniste
Fri Apr 9, 2004 20:27
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Thursday, April 8, 2004 10:44 p.m. EDT
The Book on Ben-Veniste
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/8/225732.shtml

Sept. 11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, who grilled Condoleezza Rice on Thursday as if she were a criminal suspect, is usually identified in press reports as merely a former Watergate prosecutor.

But as the leading finger-pointer in the 9/11 probe, a few other details in Ben-Veniste's background might be deemed relevant.

The Washington super-lawyer's last high-profile roll came in 1995-96, when he served as lead Democratic counsel for the Senate Whitewater hearings. His chief mission: Defending Bill and Hillary Clinton for all he was worth.

A review of press reports from the period shows that he'd been auditioning for the job since at least 1993, when he stepped up to the plate to assure reporters that there was nothing untoward about the Clintons dispatching White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum and other top aides to rifle Whitewater lawyer Vince Foster's office on the night of his death.

"Novelists aside and skeptical Washington journalists aside, I don't hear anything involved in this tragedy that leads me to suspect either Bernie Nussbaum, who himself has an impeccable reputation, or anybody else associated with the White House has done anything that is not on the up-and-up," Ben-Veniste told the Associated Press at the time.

The next year, when independent counsel Kenneth Starr was appointed to look into Whitewater, Dr. Rice's griller was troubled, telling CBS News that the move would "inevitably ... create an impression that this decision was in part politically motivated."

Of course, Nussbaum, Ben-Veniste and Hillary Clinton were by then already old friends, having worked shoulder-to-shoulder on the Watergate committee two decades earlier.

When the Clintons' fund-raiser extraordinaire Terry McAuliffe got into legal hot water in the campaign finance scandal of 1997, Ben-Veniste was ready to take his case.

Speaking of the allegations that swirled around his client at the time, Ben-Veniste told the Legal Times that McAuliffe "has been advised that he is not a target of any investigation. And on the basis of what I know about the matter ... the conclusion will be that there's nothing there."

The Clinton Justice Department decided that Ben-Veniste was right and McAuliffe was off the hook. Three years later, the Clintons installed Ben-Veniste's client as head of the DNC.

The Democratic legal ace's most unusual case by far, however, took place not in Washington - but in Arkansas.

Ben-Veniste's client, a flamboyant pilot named Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal, was said to have flown guns out of Arkansas' Mena airport at the CIA's direction. On the return trip his plane was allegedly loaded with cocaine.

Still, the high-powered lawyering didn't do much to protect Seal. Ben-Veniste's client was assassinated in 1986 after he began cooperating with a federal probe into the Mena drug ring that flourished while Bill Clinton was governor of the state.

Editor's note:
# Did you know that China`s military manual first suggested the idea of bombing the World Trade Center? Click here now for details

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
9/11 Commission
Clinton Scandals
=================
-------- Original Message --------
From: "Linda Minor"
Subject: Re: [cia-drugs] Fwd: The Book on Ben-Veniste
To:

http://www.geocities.com/spdster2003/timeline23.html

Democratic choice Richard Ben-Veniste has a very curious history, according to a
2001 book on CIA ties to drug running written by Daniel Hopsicker, which has an
entire chapter called "Who is Richard Ben-Veniste?" Lawyer Ben-Veniste,
Hopsicker says, "has made a career of defending political crooks, specializing
in cases that involve drugs and politics." Ben-Veniste has been referred to in
print as a "Mob lawyer," and was a long-time lawyer for Barry Seal, one of the
most famous drug dealers in US history who also is alleged to have had CIA
connections.
[Barry and the Boys, Daniel Hopsicker, 9/01, pp. 325-330, link to the chapter on
Ben-Veniste]

Richard Ben-Veniste
Commissioner

Richard Ben-Veniste is a partner in the Washington law firm of Mayer, Brown,
Rowe & Maw. He served as assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District New York,
from 1968 to 1973, which included service as chief of the Special Prosecution
Section from 1971 to 1973. Mr. Ben-Veniste was chief of the Watergate Task Force
of the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office from 1973 to 1975 and Special
Outside Counsel Senate Committee on Government Operations from 1976 to 1977.
>From May 1995 to June 1996, Mr. Ben-Veniste was chief counsel (minority) of the
Senate Whitewater Committee. Mr. Ben-Veniste received an A.B. from Muhlenberg
College in 1964, an LL.B. from Columbia University Law School in 1967, where he
was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and an LL.M. from Northwestern University
School of Law in 1968 under a Ford Foundation fellowship grant. He is a member
of the bars of New York and the District of Columbia.

Mr. Ben-Veniste is the co-author of Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate
Prosecution (Simon & Schuster), and has been a guest lecturer at numerous law
schools, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Georgetown and Fordham. He is a
frequent commentator on current affairs involving the intersection of law and
politics.

Mr. Ben-Veniste has been listed in Who's Who in America since 1975, The Best
Lawyers in America since 1983, and Washingtonian Magazine's Top Lawyers in
Washington, DC, since 1992, when the list first appeared.

Mr. Ben-Veniste is a Presidential appointee to the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese
Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, which is mandated to
review and declassify secret documents relating to World War II era war crimes.
http://www.madcowprod.com/issue35.html "Six Degrees of Richard Ben-Veniste"
December 20—world exclusive
by Daniel Hopsicker
copyright MadCowMorningNewsmay not be reprinted without permission

At the same time Wally Hilliard's Venice flight school was training dozens of
terrorists to fly—including both pilots crashing into the World Trade Center—the
owner of Huffman Aviation in Venice Florida was also involved in a murky
aviation transaction with a multi-millionaire Texas oil-man who played a
prominent role in the Whitewater Scandal.

Truman Arnold, chief fund-raiser for the Democratic Party in 1995 when the
scandal broke, was investigated for a variety of dubious money-raising schemes
ranging from renting out the White House's Lincoln Bedroom to selling tickets on
Air Force One. He was also fingered for procuring cash (read hush money) for
convicted Clinton friend Web Hubbell.

Arnold, who played golf with Clinton regularly, coordinated payments to Webster
Hubbell from businesses controlled by old friends of President Clinton and
campaign donors that included the Lippo Group, organizers of a
multibillion-dollar development in China that received the endorsement of the
Clinton administration.

Now Truman Arnold's name has surfaced in connection with the investigation into
the Venice FL flight schools made infamous by the September 11 terrorist attack.

In a curious aircraft transaction discovered while probing the tangled business
affairs of Wallace J. Hilliard, 70, of Naples, FL, Truman Arnold appears to have
'loaned' Hilliard—for only a dollar—a Beechcraft King Air 200 worth over $2
million.

Moreover, it wasn't until almost a year later that Hilliard finally got around
to arranging financing to pay for the plane, according to documents obtained
from the FAA by the MadCowMorningNews.
"Being connected means never having to say you're sorry."

On December 10, 2000, Truman Arnold engaged in his act of munificence with Wally
Hilliard, owner of two flight schools which beginning in 1999 induced hundreds
of Arab men to leave their desert kingdoms and come to American shores to learn
to fly...

Wally Hilliard's newly-discovered association with a benefactor at the heart of
the American political process raises anew questions about whether the
appearance of Mohamed Atta and his terrorist buddies in Venice, FL. was—as the
official story has it—just a matter of mere happenstance.

Wallace Hilliard, it is clear, has ties extending well into the upper reaches of
American political circles, ties which may hold the answers to questions about
how sophisticated operators like Hilliard and Dekkers were taken in by foreign
student pilots demonstrating none of 'the right stuff.'

In another bizarre twist, Truman Arnold’s lawyer during the Whitewater
Investigation turns out to have been Democratic power-broker Richard
Ben-Veniste, just nominated to serve on the 9/11 probe.

If Ben-Veniste client Truman Arnold's business dealings with terror flight
school owner Wally Hilliard come under scrutiny in the 9/11 probe, the slick
Washington lawyer may find himself involved in a major national scandal from two
different sides.

If he does, for Ben-Veniste, it won't even be for the first time. He served as
Majority Counsel to the Congressional Whitewater probe investigating the actions
of Truman Arnold, and then went on to defend Arnold before Ken Starr’s
Whitewater grand jury, an action for which he was roundly criticized.


"Six Degrees of Richard Ben-Veniste"

Published reports at the time tarred the Democratic superlawyer for alleged
misbehavior during the Whitewater investigation, claiming Ben-Veniste, while he
was the Democratic counsel to the Whitewater Committee, had blocked inquiries
about Webster Hubbell's hiring by the Lippo Group, and then turned around and
defended a man he had just been (supposedly) investigating.

Addressing his critics Ben-Veniste wrote, "Truman Arnold's name never came up
during the Whitewater investigation... because of the entirely collateral nature
of the inquiry about Hubbell and Lippo... and given Arnold's total lack of
involvement in any aspect of the matters before the Whitewater Committee, no
honest argument can be made that my representation of Arnold transgresses
professional guidelines."

Richard Ben-Veniste has been a 'utility player' in major American scandals in
roles that are often not clearly-defined. Now Ben-Veniste, about to serve on his
third major national investigative panel (Watergate, Whitewater, and 9/11), may
be about to face the same criticism all over again.

But Ben-Veniste once again turning up at the 'scene of the crime,' is by no
means the oddest thing about Truman Arnold and Wallace Hilliard’s aviation
transaction...

That distinction would have to go to the aircraft bill of sale which conveyed
the plane from Arnold to Hilliard.

Although it is dated December 10,2000, the MadCowMorningNews has learned
exclusively that it was not submitted to the FAA until almost a year later, on
January 31,2002.


Bread crumbs along the paper trail

While the purpose of this arrangement is unclear, one possible reason, aviation
sources indicate, is that had the plane come under law enforcement scrutiny
during this time, the person coming under suspicion would have been—not Wally
Hilliard, the man using the plane—but Truman Arnold, who was still the owner of
record.

This is no small benefit, considering that the December 10, 2000 transfer date
for the twin-engine King Air came right after Hilliard had lost his bid to
retain possession of a Lear jet he owned which the DEA confiscated on the runway
at Orlando Executive Airport in July of 2000 with 45 pounds of Columbian heroin
aboard.

When that happened, Mr. Hilliard's name was 'mud,' at least with certain federal
authorities.

Nonetheless, Hilliard continued putting together a company, Florida Air
Holdings, which planned to offer commuter air service, after briefly flying in
the Spring of 2000, when it was touted by Florida political luminary Katherine
Harris.

When it offered commuter service again, under the name Discover Air, it went out
of business again after not one ticket was sold on its inaugural route.
Notwithstanding this dismal record, another Florida political luminary, Gov. Jeb
Bush, stepped forward to tour its facilities and praise its seemingly
un-praiseworthy management.

Against this backdrop of inexplicable aviation activity by Hilliard in Florida
the State Dept announced a change of policy in January, after President Bush's
swearing-in, instructing the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Anne Hamilton (from
DEA chief Asa Hutchinson's home of Fort Smith, Arkansas, just minutes by air
from infamous Mena, home of the biggest narcotics trafficking operation in
history during the 1980's) to urge Columbia to "stop its opium eradication
activities in favor of eliminating coca."

When he found out, Republican Dan Burton was livid, and brought the matter
before his House Govt. Reform Committee.

"In 2000 we saw initial success with the heroin strategy," Burton stated in the
hearing. "Our allies and the Colombian National Police eradicated 9,200 hectares
of opium poppy plants in Colombia's high Andes Mountains. This put a serious
dent into the supply of heroin coming into the United States."

"It was then that the State Department chose to stop opium eradication," Burton
fumed, "to, as Ambassador Patterson put it, 'take advantage of a historic
opportunity to eradicate coca.'"

During hearings, Burton said that "Eradication of opium with the new Black Hawks
that we gave them last year was stopped -- stopped while the coca eradication in
the south took a priority. And the only problem is Colombia's cocaine is now
increasingly headed in another direction: to Europe. And the opium poppy used to
make more deadly Colombian heroin is almost exclusively headed to the United
States of American and our East Coast."



"It's a small world after all."

What makes this digression into the politics of heroin of especial interest are
two related facts:

1.Richard Ben-Veniste represented notorious Contra-era drug smuggler and CIA
pilot Barry Seal, covered (read the chapter here) in Barry & the ‘boys.'" And

2.The King Air 200 which passed from Truman Arnold into Wally Hilliard's hands
was originally one of a number of special "mil-spec" planes produced in 1981 for
use in the Contra adventure in Central America.

Barry Seal 'owned' one, which later became the favorite plane of then-Texas
Governor George W. Bush.

Now Wally Hilliard 'owns' another.

Also of note is the fact that Barry Seal had attempted to plea bargain himself
out of trouble through the simple expedient of offering to 'roll' on his own
attorney, Richard Ben-Veniste.

This novel approach caused a nervous Ben-Veniste to write a letter to Seal
(reprinted in Barry & the boys from Seal's own archive) in which he says, "I
have mentioned several times that I would appreciate your returning my two
briefcases of legal materials which you have been holding as soon as possible."

Some observers detected a whiff of blackmail.

When we originally learned of this maneuver while writing "Barry & 'the boys,'"
we thought, how odd.

Offering to roll on your attorney is odd. But rolling on someone else, slightly
higher up in your particular criminal organization, like your boss...

That happens all the time.

Years later, well after Seal's assassination, the Wall Street Journal called him
"the ghost haunting the Whitewater probe."

Richard Ben-Veniste may one day be known as "the ghost haunting the 9/11
investigation."

Today the Truman Arnold Company tops the Arkansas Business list of that state's
largest private companies, after unseating Jackson Stephens Inc. of Little Rock,
long unchallenged as the state's largest private company.

Jackson Stephens was often referred to by drug smuggler Barry Seal of the Mena
drug smuggling operation as the "Old Man"

No doubt all of this is mere coincidence, without the slightest relevance to an
understanding of what happened in America on Septe