News Intelligence Analysis
[Yurica Report Editor's Note: The
following articles from WorldNetDaily.com are written by Jerome
R. Corsi. Following the articles we have selected here, is a
list with links to all the pieces written by Jerry Corsi on the
subject. We urge our readers to read them all. K.Y.]
From WorldNetDaily.com
Is Harriet Miers
'Unfit for Judging'?
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
By Jerome R. Corsi
For the moment, George Bush can stop worrying about where Harriet Miers stands on abortion. The larger question is soon about to be an even messier one: How exactly does Ms. Miers fit into the never-ending George Bush National Guard controversy and the Texas Lottery pay-off scandals? Here we go again.
Ms. Miers, it turns out, plays a questionable role in Texas Lottery scandal involving Rhode Island gaming company GTECH, at whose center was none other than consultant Ben Barnes, the man credited with getting George Bush into the Texas National Guard ? the same Ben Barnes who figured prominently in the forged documents story that brought Dan Rather down from his lofty chair as CBS News anchor.
Worse yet, Ben Barnes turned on George Bush. Barnes and his network of cronies were reputed to be the third-largest campaign-contribution club backing John Kerry in his 2004 presidential run. So, by nominating Harriett Miers to the Supreme Court, President Bush has re-opened the Texas can of worms.
Let's start here. As a young man, Ben Barnes was a rising star in Texas politics. A state representative at the age of 21, he was elected Texas lieutenant governor in 1969, a position he held until 1973. Fast forwarding, he served as a top Texas lobbyist for GTECH until January 1997, when GTECH bought out his contract for $23 million.
In 1995, the year George W. Bush beat out Democrat Ann Richards for governor of Texas, Barnes helped secure the Texas Lottery contract for GTECH, a prize which granted Barnes 4 percent of GTECH's Texas revenue, as long as GTECH continued to hold the contract. Why did GTECH buy out Barnes? Texas was the largest lottery contract GTECH had managed to secure ? a contract estimated to be worth some quarter of a billion dollars in revenue to GTECH in just two years (1995-1997). But by 1997, the Texas State Lottery was embroiled in controversy that involved allegations of political kickbacks, overcharges to the state, and under-performance by GTECH.
For a while after the payoff, Barnes stayed below the radar until he was forced to give a deposition in September 1999. The deposition was in a lawsuit filed by Lawrence Littwin, a fired Texas Lottery director who alleged he lost his job as a result of political influence wielded by GTECH. Littwin had charged that much of GTECH's political clout came because Barnes was alleged to have helped get George Bush into the National Guard so he could avoid active duty during the Vietnam War ? charges that Barnes affirmed under oath. Littwin was fired by the Texas Lottery Commission after only six months on the job. The Littwin lawsuit was settled out of court when GTECH agreed to pay him $300,000.
The chairman of the Texas Lottery from 1995-2000, as all this scandal was coming down, was none other than attorney Harriet Miers. If you think that GTECH lost the Texas Lottery contract after the Littwin lawsuit, think again. Miers made sure an audit of GTECH was halted and a lower-bidding contractor alternative was dismissed. GTECH retained the lucrative deal and life in Texas remained good for everybody involved ? even for Littwin who now reportedly had some $300,000 of GTECH's money to ease his pain.
For the Bush family, in year 2000, all seemed well that ends well. George Bush Sr. denied he had ever asked Barnes to intervene with the National Guard on behalf of his son. George W. Bush was inaugurated president and Harriet Miers followed him to Washington as White House counsel.
Again Barnes dropped below the radar screen until CBS taped him during Dan Rather's infamous vendetta to get George Bush on the National Guard issue. Surely you remember Ben Barnes on camera, reduced to tears, claiming he held the power of life or death over young George and he chose life, by making sure George got into the National Guard and stayed out of combat in Vietnam.
The Barnes melodrama got drowned out by the forged document saga, but to this day nobody has disproved Barnes played the role he said he did. Nor was CBS forthcoming when they taped Barnes, making sure we all realized that Barnes was then serving as a major Kerry fund-raiser.
Why did Barnes turn on Bush? We're not sure, but if GTECH was projected to earn $250 million from the Texas Lottery contract in 2 years, 4 percent of the contract should have been worth some $40 or $50 million to Barnes had he not been forced out.
Was Littwin right in asserting that GTECH's ability to throw around cash had bought them the governor's influence needed to hold their contract while Bush was at the helm in Texas? What role did attorney Miers play as Bush's attorney in place at the helm of the Texas Lottery when GTECH was fighting for its life amid controversy and lawsuits? We probably will never know since Littwin's case was settled out of court and much remains undisclosed.
I doubt if the Swift Boat Vets will come back together to pursue this one the only complaint the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ever agreed on was that John Kerry was "Unfit for Command," not that George W. Bush was. Just writing this article should dismiss some of the urban legend that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were just a Bush campaign surrogate. There's plenty here for the blogosphere, even if the mainstream media doesn't bite into investigating Texas Lottery corruption during the Bush years. Is Harriet Miers "Unfit for Judging"? We shall soon see.
Larry Littwin: George Bush's
John Dean
Posted: October 15, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
From WorldNetDaily.com
Before Larry Littwin is subpoenaed to testify before the Senate
Judiciary Committee, Harriet Miers should withdraw her nomination.
If she does not, the threat is that the Bush administration may
unravel before one year is complete in the second term.
Larry Littwin sits at the center the Texas Lottery Commission scandals that Harriet Miers has helped keep covered up for nearly 10 years. The moment Larry Littwin begins to testify under oath, he is going to bring forward a volume of detail and possibly even documents that threaten to bring down the Bush presidency itself. Make no mistake about it ? Larry Littwin is the John Dean of the George W. Bush presidency.
Who is Larry Littwin? On June 10, 1997, the Austin American-Statesman announced that the Texas Lottery Commission had voted to hire Lawrence Littwin of New York to be its new executive director. The lottery was embroiled in a scandal involving GTECH, the Rhode Island company operating the lottery, over a kickback and illegal political influence scheme that ended up with J. David Smith, GTECH's national sales manager, being convicted of federal felonies in a plot that involved Ben Barnes, the former Texas lieutenant governor and lobbyist whom GTECH was paying $3 million a year to make sure the company kept the Texas contract. The previous executive director, Nora Linares, was fired when it was learned that GTECH was paying her boyfriend in New Mexico $6,000 a month to be a "consultant."
Littwin was hired from a field of 700 applicants. He was to be paid an annual salary of $100,000, largely because of his credentials working 25 years for Control Data, including time spent with CD's subsidiary's lottery company, Automated Wagering International, or AWI.
In 1991, GTECH had won the contract by bidding against AWI. In June 1997, when Littwin was hired, Automated Waging International, now spun-off from Control Data, sensed that the GTECH scandal was an opportunity to get the Texas contract away from the Rhode Island firm. When Littwin was hired, the Texas Lottery Commission was in the process of putting the GTECH contract out to bid, even though it did not expire until 2002. By June 1997, AWI was GTECH's leading competitor around the country. Seen from GTECH's perspective, the Texas Lottery Commission had hired the enemy.
Determined to hit the ground running, Littwin almost immediately opened the window for competitive bids. AWI announced a bid would be made. Next, Littwin moved to begin a thorough records search within the Lottery Commission, aimed at uncovering any patterns of influence peddling or corruption. When it became apparent that Littwin was going to examine Democratic Party campaign contributions, Commissioner Harriet Miers seemed initially supportive.
On Sept. 18, 1997, the Dallas Morning News reported that Miers said Littwin "is doing the right thing for the right reason." Littwin was investigating Barnes, who is a Democrat. Miers was the personal attorney of Gov. George W. Bush, who appointed her chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission in 1995.
Then, on Sept. 21, 1997, the Dallas Morning News reported that Bush was becoming nervous.
"I don't think any of us understand what [Littwin] was doing," Bush told the paper. "If in fact he was gathering data to try to embarrass a member of the House or Senate or the executive branch, it's inappropriate behavior. I just don't understand what was gong on there, and I don't think anybody does yet. I think that'll be clarified by the commission."
Littwin soon became armed with a state auditor's report that cited irregularities involving GTECH. He was moving fast, apparently with determination to uncover the corruption wherever he found it.
On Oct. 29, 1997, the commission clarified the situation by voting to fire Littwin, though he had been on the job less than five full months. Littwin objected, loudly. On Oct. 30, 1997, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Littwin believed he was being fired for political reasons.
"The commission really showed little or no backbone in dealing with the political process in the state of Texas," Littwin said. "Everybody got very upset when I started to look at GTECH's campaign contributions. I think I stirred up concerns that perhaps something might be going on."
The Houston Chronicle reported on the same day Littwin's claims that the competitive bidding process would not succeed.
"In every state where GTECH has been present and the lottery director has not become a close friend of theirs, something happens to the lottery director before the procurement process is complete," he told the Houston paper.
GTECH sued for breach of contract, refusing to bid in the open competition. On Feb. 19, 1998, the Texas Lottery Commission voted to end the competitive bidding and stay with GTECH, just as Littwin predicted. The commission had received three competitive bids, including one from AWI, a bid AWI claimed would have saved the commission $92 million over five years, plus a new computer system AWI would have installed at its expense.
Littwin hired a lawyer who sued GTECH in federal court. He pressed to get a deposition from Harriet Miers, but she resisted the subpoena. A federal magistrate ruled that Miers did not have to testify. Still, Littwin succeeded in taking a deposition with Ben Barnes.
Under oath, Ben Barnes discussed his alleged involvement with helping Bush get into the National Guard to avoid Vietnam and his political influence peddling for GTECH. Littwin won. GTECH settled out-of-court, agreeing to pay Littwin $300,000. As a condition of the settlement, Littwin agreed to destroy all documents produced by the litigation, including any copies he may have had of the Barnes deposition. The Barnes deposition in the Littwin case has never come to light.
Mr. Littwin is now 70 years old, and he resides in New York City. If he is subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has told reporters he will testify. The Senate's subpoena will trump any silence clause of the wrongful termination settlement. If any remaining copies of the Barnes deposition can be found, the deposition will come to light when Littwin testifies to the Senate under oath.
The truth is had Bush been fully candid about his National Guard service, few would have cared, even if the full truth was not entirely favorable. During the Vietnam War, most who got into the National Guard got in because of political pull. Moreover, Bush could have argued that after he got into the Guard, he got more serious. He learned to fly combat aircraft and he volunteered for Vietnam. But during the 1995 gubernatorial election, Bush responded to questions by saying that his family did not use influence to get him in the Guard.
Bill Clinton's problem was not having sex with an intern in the Oval Office; the problem was that he lied about it under oath. Bill Clinton lied because he was trying to cover up the sex. Lies are always dangerous, and cover-ups are always a bad path to follow. Maintaining lies requires cover-ups, and cover-ups often attract shady characters that are prone to be loose with the law. Cover-ups, quite simply, are dangerous to maintain.
George Bush, in nominating Harriet Miers, should have been advised not to open the Texas scandals can of worms unless he was prepared to deal with what might come out. The moment Larry Littwin is subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the worms that threaten to come out will give President Bush's critics, including John Kerry and his principal supporter, Ted Kennedy, enough ammunition to reopen the question. Kerry undoubtedly is still feeling raw over the questioning of his war record undertaken by the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth and the book "Unfit for Command."
Why did George Bush choose to nominate Miers, knowing that a thorough examination of her past would demand an examination that would end up throwing new fuel on this old fire? Someone with psychological credentials will have to answer that question.
Richard Nixon's problem in Watergate more than anything else was that he lied, and the lie itself called into question his assertion that he was not a crook. Does George W. Bush really want the old National Guard can of worms reopened by the Harriet Miers nomination? Evidently, he does. Otherwise, a way should be found to end the nomination as quickly and as gracefully as possible.
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Monday, October 17, 2005
Is Miers firm under criminal
investigation?
By Jerome R. Corsi
From WorldNetDaily.com
In defense of Harriet Miers, the White House has argued that
she was not personally involved in the legal work done in various
investment scams involving Locke Liddell lawyers while she was
co-managing the firm. Taking a close look at the record provides
a strong basis that at best Ms. Miers was negligent in her management
of the firm.
In September 1996, former football star Russell Erxleben founded Austin Forex International, or AFI, the currency-exchange company he would use to defraud over 600 people, most of whom were unsophisticated investors, out of some $33 million, much of which represented the lifetime savings of senior retirees. In April 1997, AFI hired the law firm of Locke Purnell (later merged into Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP) for legal representation in general corporate, tax and securities/regulatory matters. WND has obtained a copy of the class-action petition filed on behalf of the defrauded investors, which indicates Locke Purnell lawyers were intimately involved in the details of assisting Erxleben perpetrate his fraud.
From the beginning of the relationship through AFI's demise, Locke Purnell and its attorneys assisted Erxleben and AFI in continuing its fraudulent recruitment and retention of investors. This conduct included, without limitation, assisting AFI in continuing to sell unregistered securities through a firm that was not a registered broker by salespeople who were unregistered agents, aiding AFI in sending false statements to its clients, aiding AFI in concealing loses from its clients, aiding AFI in sending out false brochures to potential new investors, and allowing AFI to tout its relationship with Locke Purnell to continue deceiving current and potential clients.
Prior to landing the AFI account, Locke Purnell attorney Dan Matheson had failed to make partner in the firm. With the fees AFI was able to generate, that changed, and Matheson became both a partner and a senior shareholder in the firm. Only the firm's management committee would then have been considered more senior to the position to which Matheson was elevated by virtue of the AFI account.
The class-action petition charged that right up until AFI closed its doors on Sept. 14, 1998, Matheson and two other Locke Purnell attorneys, including Matheson's wife, put their own financial interests ahead of the defrauded investors, making sure all Locke Purnell fees were paid before investors were notified that all their funds had been lost.
There is no record that Harriet Miers or the management committee of the firm ordered any internal investigation until a year later, when the firm learned that lawyers for the defrauded investors planned to file a class-action suit against what was now Locke Liddell. Court records show the suit was filed on Oct. 13, 1999. Matheson, his wife and attorney Curtis Ashmos were at that time still listed as directors, partners and shareholders of Locke Liddell.
When the suit was filed, co-managing partner Harriet Miers acted as spokesperson of the firm.
"Locke Liddell has done nothing improper and in our judgment never should have been named as a defendant," she stated, as reported by the Class Action Reporter, Nov. 3, 1999, as posted on Bankrupt.com. Six months later, on April 15, 2000, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Locke Liddell agreed to pay $22 million to settle the investor's suit out-of-court.
Evidently, Harriet Miers and the Locke Liddell management committee did not conduct an internal review even after AFI closed its doors. In August 1998, the firm decided to represent another con man when Locke Liddell attorney Phillip Wylie took on Brian Russell Sterns and his Trans-Global Asset Management, a company that perpetrated a huge bond scandal. On Feb. 22, 2001, the U.S. District Court-Austin Division convicted Sterns of 80 counts of fraud-related conduct, and on July 12, 2001, U.S. District Court Judge James R. Nowlin sentenced Stearns to 30 years in federal prison, ordering him to pay restitution in the amount of $36 million. In October 2001, Locke Liddell paid $8.5 million to settle out-of-court with the investors Stearns had defrauded.
Locke Liddell's professional malpractice insurance policy covered the bulk of the $30.5 million in settlements required by the two cases. Both suits had charged that Locke Liddell lawyers had been negligent in allowing their activities to contribute to the frauds perpetrated. Lawyers who filed the class-action suits believed they could have won fraud suits pressed against Locke Liddell. They decided to file negligence suits because the standard of proof required was less stringent and the attorneys believe that as a consequence they could collect from Locke Liddell quicker.
Still, there was more. In 1999, Locke Liddell lawyer Brent Clifton wrote an opinion letter supporting an Ernst & Young tax shelter known as "CDS" (or "Contingent Deferred Swap"). The tax scheme was reported on Feb. 8, 2005, by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs as being an abusive tax scheme whose only significant purpose was "the avoidance or evasion of federal, state or local tax in a manner not intended by the law."
According to the Senate investigative report, from 1999 through 2001, Ernst & Young sold 70 CDS transactions involving 132 high net-worth taxpayers, generating fees of some $27.5 million for Ernst & Young, plus $3.5 million for Locke Liddell in payment for the marketing use of the Locke Liddell opinion letter.
In May 2004, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York reportedly initiated a federal criminal grand jury investigation of Ernst & Young regarding its sale in 1999-2001 of tax shelters to corporations and wealthy individuals to escape or reduce federal taxes.
In a related tax shelter case, one that had also been investigated by the Senate Permanent Investigating Committee, federal prosecutors on Aug. 30, 2005, unsealed criminal conspiracy charges against eight former officials of the public accounting firm KPMG. Also indicted was the legal counsel who provided KPMG with a legal opinion that was utilized in the KPMG tax shelter scheme. KPMG also agreed to pay $456 million in fines as part of the agreement struck with the U.S. Justice Department. When asked by WND if indictments might be forthcoming against Locke Liddell lawyers in the Ernst & Young case currently under criminal investigation by the New York grand jury investigation, the Justice Department declined comment.
How is it possible that Harriet Miers could co-manager Locke Liddell through a period rocked by one investment scam scandal after another without demanding an exhaustive internal review to assure safeguard procedures would be put in place to prevent the firm's lawyers from participating in fraudulent investment schemes? When we look at Exerleben's AFI Ponzi scheme, Stearn's Trans-Global Asset Management bond fraud and Ernst & Young's tax scam, all three have one element in common. Central to each investment scheme was the Locke Liddell opinions and representation that said the deal was legitimate. Two of the deals have already been proven in federal criminal court to have been professional con jobs. Was Locke Liddell so hungry for large fees that professional standards of ethical legal representation had become unimportant when Harriet Miers was at the helm?
The record strongly supports the contention that Harriet Miers was negligent in managing Locke Liddell. The firm has paid $30.5 million in settlements already to defrauded investors who produced exhibits showing Locke Liddell's complicity in the investment scams. We don't know yet how the Ernst & Young investigation will turn out. How negligent does the manager of a law firm have to be before the problem is not negligence, but instead, outright fraud?
Will the Ernst & Young tax shelter scam perpetrated while Harriet Miers was co-managing partner proceed the way the KPMG investigation has gone such that Ernst & Young officials face criminal charges? Will Locke Liddell lawyers face federal criminal charges for writing a fraudulent or criminally negligent opinion letter, as happened in the KPMG case? Only time will tell.
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'Miers fix' is on in Texas
By Jerome Corsi
Posted: October 18, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
WND has learned from reliable sources within the Texas lottery scandals that pressure from prominent Texas Democrats, including former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, is being placed on Democratic senators considering the high-court nomination of Harriet Miers – whom Gov. George W. Bush appointed as chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission – to keep away from investigating the lottery scandals.
WND was told, "The fix is on." Why? The corruption surrounding Texas lottery operator GTECH buying political influence in Texas was bi-partisan, reaching across from the administration of Democratic Gov. Ann Richards into the administration of Republican Gov. Bush. Texans who were named in the scandals of the 1990s are concerned that if the Senate Judiciary Committee does its job and subpoenas prominent players such as former lottery executive director Larry Littwin, many will go to jail.
An attempt is being made to convince Democratic senators that since Miers is the "best they are ever going to get" as a Supreme Court nominee from the Bush administration, they should "keep the lid on" and give her an easy time during her confirmation hearings.
Democratic senators are being reminded that Miers, as recently as 1988, contributed to Al Gore's presidential campaign. The argument is that Miers lacks a strong judicial philosophy, and even the Oct. 3 "Anderson Group" teleconference investigated by Wall Street Journal reporter John Fund did not included Miers herself affirming she will overturn Roe v. Wade. By the time the hearings roll around, Democrats are being told that Miers will have moved to an acceptable centrist position that Roe v. Wade is "established precedent," code words meaning she will not automatically vote to overturn the decision.
That there were crimes committed in the Texas lottery scandals became apparent in 1996 when J. David Smith, the national sales manager of GTECH, the Rhode Island company operating the Texas lottery, was convicted by federal prosecutors in New Jersey of multiple counts of political influence buying and money laundering. In an unusual move, U.S. Attorney Faith Hochberg of Newark made public Jan. 15, 1997, her charges that Barnes, a Democrat, had been involved in a $500,000 kickback scheme with Smith. At that time, Barnes was GTECH's chief Texas lobbyist, receiving 4 percent of GTECH's gross Texas revenue in a contract that earned him some $3 million a year.
At that time, Harriet Miers, the chairwoman of the Texas lottery, claimed that the Lottery Commission would look into the federal prosecutor's allegations against Barnes, yet WND can find no records that any investigation was conducted. Why did Miers cover-up for Barnes?
For years, Barnes had claimed to be the person who exercised preferential treatment to get George Bush into the National Guard. Barnes made theses claims under oath in a deposition given in the wrongful termination case of Larry Littwin, the executive director of the Texas lottery who was abruptly fired in 1997 when he began looking too aggressively into charges of political influence buying by GTECH officers and lobbyists. As part of Littwin's $300,000 settlement with GTECH, the Barnes' deposition has been suppressed to this day.
In the controversy that resulted from the release of Hochberg's allegations, Barnes lost his contract with GTECH, a blow softened by a $23 million "negotiated settlement" payment to Barnes. Miers and the Texas Lottery Commission refused to make the details of Barnes' settlement public until months later, in June, when Texas Attorney General Dan Morales ruled in favor of Texas newspapers that the Lottery Commission could no longer keep the Barnes settlement secret.
In April 1998, Miers publicly agreed with the decision of then-lottery executive director Linda Cloud to end competitive bidding and allow GTECH to retain the contract, despite lower competitive bids being on the table.
In February 1998, in a virtually unprecedented move, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Politan ruled that New Jersey federal prosecutors had to apologize for making public their pre-sentencing report regarding J. David Smith – the report that contained the charges of the Barnes kickback scheme. While federal prosecutors complied and admitted their release of the report was inappropriate, the charges against Barnes appear to have been well-founded in the evidence presented against Smith. No one has ever explained why criminal charges were never pursued against Barnes either by state or federal authorities after these allegations against him were disclosed.
WND was told that individuals in Texas are seriously worried that an aggressive investigation reopened by the Senate Judiciary Committee will lead to criminal investigations against many, both Democrats and Republicans, who were implicated in the lottery scandals of the 1990s, and maybe even beyond.
Sources say that Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee are being pressured not to subpoena Littwin out of fear that he "knows too much and will talk." Littwin is currently 70-years-old and resides in New York City's upper East Side. Reportedly, he will forfeit $50,000 if he breaks the "gag order" imposed on him by GTECH in the settlement of his wrongful termination suit. A subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee should trump that silence agreement, allowing Littwin to testify freely without suffering economic loss.
The question now is whether any senator, Democrat or Republican, is sufficiently committed to a thorough and honest investigation of Miers' professional background and qualifications for the Supreme Court. The Bush administration insists Harriet Miers had a brilliant legal career that began in Texas. Why should anyone resist examination of her accomplishments? If Littwin is not called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee the American public should be alerted – the fix is on in Texas. Does anyone have the courage to investigate?
Gag-order release paves way for
potentially explosive Miers testimony
Posted: October 21, 2005
12:01 p.m. Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
GTECH, under pressure from Senate Judiciary Committee attorneys,
has agreed to release Larry Littwin from his gag order, opening
the way for him to work with the committee staff and prepare
for public testimony in the upcoming Miers confirmation hearings.
Littwin, the controversial former director of the Texas Lottery, was hired and fired by Harriet Miers and the Texas Lottery Commission in a whirlwind five-month period in 1997, from June to October.
WND previously has reported that Littwin was fired because he wanted to investigate seriously improper political influence-buying undertaken by GTECH lobbyists, including Ben Barnes, the former Texas lieutenant governor who is credited with having pulled strings to get George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
Littwin also wanted to reopen the GTECH contract for competitive bid. GTECH has held the operating contract on the Texas Lottery since the lottery began in 1991.
Barnes gave a five-hour deposition when Littwin sued GTECH over losing his job as executive director of the Lottery. GTECH settled with Littwin for $300,000, under the condition that he destroy all documents pertaining to the litigation, including the Barnes deposition.
Until now, Littwin has been under a gag order as part of his "negotiated settlement" with GTECH, under which he would suffer a $50,000 penalty if he discussed openly any details of his Texas Lottery employment.
Today's decision by GTECH releases Littwin so he now is free to talk with Senate Judiciary Committee staff, including giving public testimony during Miers' confirmation hearings. Insiders following the Texas Lottery Commission scandals believe that Littwin's testimony is potentially explosive.
Littwin, according to hundreds of Texas contemporary newspaper accounts examined by WND, will be able to establish under oath that the GTECH contract was preserved on a no-bid basis by then-chairwoman of the Lottery Commission Harrier Miers in order to "keep the lid on" the National Guard controversy involving then-Gov. Bush. Rumors are circulating that influence-peddling crimes, including money laundering, may yet remain to be prosecuted.
Senate Judiciary Committee leadership has pledged to investigate fully Miers' background and qualifications for a lifetime appointment as Associate Supreme Court Justice.
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Previous columns:
Charges against Miers firm next shoe to fall?
Miers meant to 'keep lid' on lottery scandals
Is Miers firm under criminal investigation?
Larry Littwin: George Bush's John Dean
Miers protected money launderer?
Did payment to Miers' firm violate law?
Ronnie Earle linked to Miers-run lottery
Were winners cheated on Miers' watch?
Harriet Miers enabled abusive tax shelters?
Harriet Miers contributed to Hillary's election in 2000
Was Harriet Miers asleep at the helm?
How Miers' law firm helped defraud investors
Federal crimes, GTECH and influence peddling
Harriet Miers at center of investment fraud
Cover-up deep in the heart of Texas
Is Harriet Miers 'Unfit for Judging'?
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Jerome R. Corsi received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972 and has written many books and articles, including the No. 1 New York Times best-seller, "Unfit for Command? Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry." Dr. Corsi is an expert on political violence and terrorism and founder of the Iran Freedom Foundation.
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