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News Intelligence Analysis
RICO!
Why the Bush Administration Should Be
Prosecuted as a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization
November 16, 2003
By Katherine Yurica
Introductory Note
“Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?”
“I've been to London to see the Queen.”
“Pussycat, pussycat, what did you there?”
“I saw a little mouse under a chair.”
The question is, “Why didn't the cat see the Queen?”
Perhaps it was because the cat, being only a cat, focused only
on what cats are interested in. In this article we're going to
Washington D.C. to see the power on the figurative throne: the
President of the United States. We’re going to force our
eyes to see what we have been shielding them from. We’re
going to examine the presidency in a way no American has ever
examined it before. Prepare yourself.
In recent months impeachable offenses have been traced to
Mr. Bush and his administration. However, many commentators have
advised their audiences that impeachment proceedings against
George W. Bush “will never happen.” The reason given
is that the Republican controlled congress would never vote for
a special prosecutor to investigate the White House, let alone
vote to open impeachment proceedings. So hundreds of thousands
of citizens of this country have been raising questions about
the future of our representative democracy. For clearly it is
threatened.
In my opinion, and this article is not a legal opinion, the
Republicans in Congress as well as those in the Justice Department,
who refuse to open investigations of suspected criminal acts
that may have been committed by Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Tom Delay
and present or former Republican staffers in congress, and other
members of the Bush-Cheney enterprise, could themselves be prosecuted
for obstruction of justice.
Nevertheless, even if congressional leaders actively obstruct
justice, all is not lost: the minority members of the House and
Senate can still file an unprecedented RICO (Racketeer Influenced
Corrupt Organization) case against the Bush-Cheney enterprise.
Similarly, California’s Governor Gray Davis (or Cruz Bustamante—should
he succeed Davis) can file both a civil and criminal RICO against
the Bush-Cheney enterprise. If California victims file a class
action RICO suit in federal court and prevail, they would gain
treble damages. If the state chooses to file in the state court,
and it prevails, the statute awards double damages, which will
help pull California out of its enormous debts.
If this sounds too good to be true—not to worry. The
rule of law is worth following because it pays off. The fact
that what I am suggesting has never been done before is no reason
why it should not be carried out now. Never before have we had
a suspected criminal enterprise being directed from the White
House. RICO was created by Congress to reach racketeering activities,
including white-collar crimes that could not be prosecuted by
any other means. The government of the United States has failed
its citizenry. It has ceased to function ethically and honorably.
RICO allows prosecutors (whether civil or criminal) to name the
corporate entity, which in this case is the U.S. Government as
a defendant, plus the corrupt “enterprise” within the
government as a defendant, and the individuals who make up the
corrupt enterprise and commit the illegal acts as defendants.
A Pattern of Racketeering
What’s more, RICO is applicable because prosecutors can
show a pattern of racketeering activity. The first instance of
a known racketeering predicate act occurred during the presidential
election in 2000 in Florida where the object was to force an
election-win by any means. Other events show that when Mr. Bush
took office, he placed members of the enterprise in public positions
to continue the enterprise activities. Some goals aimed
at holding office at any cost; other goals were to reward co-conspirators
with the booty from illegal activities, which would be partially
returned to the enterprise in the form of contributions that
would help insure continued reelection of enterprise members.
(Ed. Note: For an article and documentation illustrating this
latter point see Katherine Yurica's: “How
Bush Pushed Gasoline Prices Sky High.”)
The First Predicate Act
So let’s look at what we now know. According to information
from Robert Parry's excellent article, which I rely upon below,
there was a conspiracy
to riot and there was a riot.
In November of 2000, a riot happened before the cameras of
America and the world. Its been dubbed the “Brooks Brothers
Riot” because of the prep school clothes worn by the participants.
An estimated 250 people were flown in across state lines (including
many Republican staffers from Capital Hill) to disrupt the recount
process at the election headquarters in Miami. They were offered
at the least, an all expense paid trip including: flight, hotel,
food, plus promised a Thanksgiving Day party.
According to Jake Tapper’s book, Down and Dirty,
two-dozen Republican operatives were instructed by Brendan Quinn,
executive director of the New York GOP to storm the room on the
19th floor where the canvassing board was meeting and stop the
counting. Their numbers swelled to around eighty. The rioters
threatened people, shouted, banged on doors and walls and demanded
that the counting of the votes be halted. The canvassing board
caved in by reversing its decision and canceled the vote-counting
on the spot. (But later board members claimed they were not intimidated.)
According to James Moore and Wayne Slater (in Bush’s
Brain), “Documents released to the IRS 19 months after
the election, show the Bush team spent over a million dollars
to fly operatives into Florida and another million to pay their
hotel bills.” Corporate jets owned by Enron and Halliburton,
two corporations with close ties to Mr. Bush and Cheney, (who
may be part of the Bush-Cheney enterprise) were used for the
project.
The acts described should be compared to the statutes on crimes.
For instance, “extortion” under the Florida
statute (836.05) includes verbal threats with the intent
to force a person to stop doing something he wants to do or the
reverse, to make threats that would force a person to do what
he doesn’t want to do. In either case, it’s a felony
in Florida.
So we know there was a riot, and according to Jake Tapper,
we know Republican operatives were ordered to “shut the
canvassing board down.” During the riot, the canvassing
board did stop the counting of the votes. The significance of
these events must not be lost; extortion is one of the qualifying
criminal acts that meet
the RICO statutes requirements.
But there are federal statutes that may also have been violated
in conjunction with the alleged extortion. For example, it’s
a crime to conspire to oppress, threaten
or intimidate any person in the free exercise of any right
or privilege secured to him by law (18, 13, 241). And the people
on the canvassing board were acting as legally authorized election
officials and as such, were doing a federally
protected activity (18, 13, 245) when they were threatened
with violence and interfered with by rioters whose intent was
to stop the counting of the 10,750 disputed ballots that had
previously not been counted.
According to the IRS published documents, the Bush campaign
also paid individual rioters: Matt Schlapp, a Bush staffer from
the Austin office received $4,276.09; Thomas Pyle, a staff aide
to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, $456; Michael Murphy, a DeLay
fund-raiser, $935; Garry Malphrus, House majority chief counsel
to the House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice, $330;
Charles Royal, a legislative aide to Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.
$391.80; and Kevin Smith, a former GOP House staffer, $373.23.
Moore and Slater tell us that Karl Rove and James A. Baker III
put it all together. According to the Miami Herald, July
14, 2002: Three of the rioters went on to jobs in the Bush White
House: they include Schlapp, who became a special assistant to
the president; Malphrus, who became deputy director of the president’s
Domestic Policy Council; and Joel Kaplan who became another special
assistant to the president.
Significantly, it is also a federal crime to solicit
others to use or threaten to use physical force against property
or against a person (18,19, 373). So if Karl Rove and James Baker
“put it together” they are suspects and ought to be
subject to an investigation. Likewise, it’s a criminal offense
to directly or indirectly promise
employment, compensation or other benefit for any political
activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate
(18, 29, 600).
And because the rioters were flown in planes across
state lines allegedly to violate the laws of Florida to commit
extortion, the federal statute provides up to a twenty-year sentence.
(18, 95,1952). And lastly, the federal statute provides that
anyone who travels across state lines and uses a telephone or
other communications device to
incite a riot, or to organize, promote, encourage or participate
in a riot, or to commit any act of violence in furtherance of
a riot, shall be fined or imprisoned not more than five years,
or both. The statutes (18,102, 2101 and 2102) define
a ‘riot’ as a public disturbance involving one
of three or more persons, making a threat or threats of violence
with the ability of immediate execution of such threats.
The California Racketeering Activity
The next act that qualifies not only as an example of a pattern
of racketeering activity, but demonstrates the interstate or
foreign commerce in which the Bush-Cheney enterprise was allegedly
engaged in, is the California energy scam. I have written at
length about Mr. Cheney’s involvement with Ken Lay of Enron
in “Fraud
Traced to the White House,” published by the Yurica
Report.com which lays out the involvement of the Bush-Cheney
enterprise with extensive documentation at the end of the article.
The California crisis involves a well-executed conspiracy—a
plan to use wire communications in violation of the federal statute
to defraud California and its citizens out of billions of dollars
in excess charges for energy. And the conspiracy may also have
included a fail-safe backup: control of the federal regulatory
agency charged with the investigation of those same fraudulent
acts, i.e. FERC
(Federal Energy Regulation Commission.)
Let’s look at some of the facts and events. We know that
the corrupt enterprise was active in the presidential transition
period. We know Ken Lay was appointed by the President-elect
to screen candidates who would be responsible for overseeing
and regulating Enron, Lay’s corporation. Ken Lay chose the
next FERC chairman: Pat Wood who was subsequently appointed by
Mr. Bush. The facts relating to how Pat Wood rose to the position
of Chairman of FERC is an important illustration of the carefully
laid out plans of the Bush-Cheney enterprise. Consider the fact
that we know that Ken Lay knew how to rig the California system,
since Enron testified before a California commission about the
system’s flaws and we know that Ken Lay and Enron employees
had direct access to the White House.
The Federal Statute, Section
371, is the anti-conspiracy law of this nation. It is broadly
written. As John Dean pointed out, the
statute renders it a felony “to defraud the United States,
or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.”
Dean reminds us that Richard
Nixon, “was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives
for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents
are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the
executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential
power.”
The statute makes it clear, if one or more of the persons
in the enterprise “do any act to effect the object of the
conspiracy,” each shall be fined or imprisoned for up to
five years or both. The fact that the two Republican commissioners
of FERC, Pat Wood, Chairman, and Nora Brownell, both appointees
of President Bush, have unwaveringly held California’s feet
to the fire is significant, not to mention they have done it
over the vehement objections of the sole Democrat on the commission.
It's a bad movie: the commission blamed the victim for her rape.
Then it held the victim liable for contracts made under duress
that benefit the very companies that joined in the gouging. These
findings by FERC are either remarkable coincidences or are the
end result of a conspiracy to keep the lid on the California
criminal enterprise and make sure that no one traces the fraud
back to the enterprise that planned and executed the fraud. This
may not be an example of manipulating and misusing an agency
for the purposes of covering up and obstructing justice, but
without prosecuting the RICO case, we may never find out.
But neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Cheney were present in California
where the fraud took place, doesn’t that remove them from
suspicion? Under
California law (as well as federal statute) there is no distinction
between someone who directly commits an act constituting the
offense, or someone who aids and abets the commission of the
act. And if a participant can’t be present at the scene
of the crime, if he advised and encouraged its commission, then
he is a principal in any crime committed. (Cal Penal Code §
30)
But suppose a person knows “X” is the mastermind
behind a crime that has already been committed, and he harbors,
conceals or aids X with the intent that X may avoid or escape
arrest. Is he innocent of wrongdoing? No, for that person, according
to the California
statute (§ 32) becomes an accessory to the felony. So
if you have a person who refuses to give congress any information
about any of his own or the president’s activities, under
the circumstances, he invites not only speculation, but warranted
inquiries and warranted ranking on a suspects list.
As I have previously
shown, there is evidence that the president and vice president
had to have known the California energy crisis was carried out
through rigging and fraud at the time California and its citizens
were being fleeced—yet they did nothing. They failed to
report the events to any law enforcement agency. While the
Justice Department has prosecuted several executives, the members
of the Bush-Cheney enterprise have not been investigated, deposed
under oath or made to answer in any way.
One worries if the California recall of Governor Gray Davis
and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s entrance into the governor’s
replacement race, is an attempt to stop the spreading of potential
prosecutions in the energy fraud cases. This concern should be
examined in light of the new information about Schwarzenegger
that has emerged. According to Joe
Conason, Arnold Schwarzenegger attended a secret meeting
with Ken Lay on June 21, 2001, along with other Republicans.
Ken Lay called for ratepayers to pay the billions in debt racked
up by the participating utilities. And Lay also “contended
that federal investigations of price gouging are hindering the
situation.”
Conspiracy to Lie and Lying to Congress
The third instance of a racketeering activity involves the Bush-Cheney
enterprise in another major fraud that once again could enrich
corporations closely linked to or part of the corrupt enterprise.
It involves lying to Congress. No big deal? On the contrary,
John Dean,
in a brilliant article, “Why A Special Prosecutor’s
Investigation Is Needed,” states that “it is a crime
to give false information to Congress.” In fact, according
to Dean, it is a felony under the federal false
statements statute §1001. Dean analyzes Mr. Bush’s
State of the Union address. The speech made on January 28th of
2003, according to Dean, contains eight major deceptions made
by Mr. Bush to Congress on the reasons the United States should
go to war against Iraq. Let me make it clear: this is not about
sixteen words—it’s about two thirds of the speech!
And it’s about enormous contracts being awarded to Halliburton
without the usual competitive bids.
John Dean wrote, “[A] criminal conspiracy to mislead
Congress, which involved others at the Bush White House, could
also be prosecuted under the conspiracy
statute, which makes it a felony to conspire to defraud the
government.”
What Can Ordinary Citizens Do?
People who have been educated solely in specialized fields of
knowledge often find it difficult to see the whole. A RICO prosecution
requires a generalist’s broad knowledge rather than compartmentalized
thinking. The culprits in this story are hoping that Americans
will see things only in little compartments and will remain blind
to the whole. So the future is in your hands. Every American
who loves this country must make their voices heard. “Investigate!
Prosecute! RICO! RICO!” needs to be heard across the breadth
and length and heights of America. My dear reader, it’s
up to you now. The dots have been connected.
Katherine Yurica was educated at East Los Angeles College,
U.S.C. and the USC school of law. She worked as a consultant
for Los Angeles County and as a news correspondent for Christianity
Today plus as a freelance investigative reporter. She is
the author of three books. She is also the publisher of the Yurica
Report.
Send a letter
to the editor
about
this article
Here's another
Article on the
application of the RICO statutes
to an ordinarily benign organization.
It's written by a lawyer: Marci Hamilton
is the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law
at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
It's
Time For A RICO Prosecution of the Catholic Church
An archive of her columns on the Catholic
Church's clergy abuse scandal, among
other issues, can be found at
http://www.findlaw.com
If you are interested in purchasing
a book mentioned in the article, consider purchasing it through
our web site and our favorite book store Village Books or at
Amazon.com. Many thanks.
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how
to detect evil? Buy these
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