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The White House Bulletin:
Vanity Fair Says FBI Wiretaps Mentioned Claims Of Bribes To Hastert
August 4, 2005 Thursday
-- Bulletin exclusive from U.S. News
An article on Sibel Edmonds, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
translator turned whistleblower who is suing the Department of Justice,
reveals some new details of the wiretaps she translated that allegedly
involved conversations by members of Turkish associations and the
Turkish Consulate in Chicago mentioning bribes to House Speaker Dennis
Hastert (R-IL). The article is in the September issue of Vanity Fair
that is just now hitting newsstands. The article says the wiretaps
recorded members of Turkish groups claiming they had arranged for
tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert's campaign fund in
small checks under $200, so they wouldn't have to be itemized in public
campaign filings. Hastert's voice was never heard in the recordings,
however, and his office denies knowing anything about this.
The article says that the wiretap recordings contained repeated
reference to Hastert's flip-flop in 2000 on the decision to designate
the killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide.
At first he supported the idea, but later he withdrew the proposal.
Hastert explained that he changed his mind because President Bill
Clinton was concerned about the resolution harming U.S. interests
abroad. But in the Chicago wiretaps, according to Vanity Fair, "a
senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in
one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution
would have been at least $500,000." The article cautions, however,
that "the reported content of the Chicago wiretaps may well have
been sheer bravado, and there is no evidence that any payment was
ever made to Hastert or his campaign."
Edmonds told U.S. News and the Bulletin that she and other
whistleblowers from the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, National
Security Agency, and Department of Homeland Security, are so fed up
with lack of congressional oversight on intelligence and national
security that they plan to launch an advertising campaign targeting
government officials who have allegedly endangered national security.
The newspaper ads, which could be launched as early two months from
now, would name officials, their titles, their salaries, where they
work and their alleged or documented wrongdoing, says Edmonds. The
campaign would be funded by private donations, like the recently
formed advocacy group she heads, the National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition.
Vanity Fair Says FBI Wiretaps Mentioned Claims Of Bribes To Hastert
August 4, 2005 Thursday
-- Bulletin exclusive from U.S. News
An article on Sibel Edmonds, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
translator turned whistleblower who is suing the Department of Justice,
reveals some new details of the wiretaps she translated that allegedly
involved conversations by members of Turkish associations and the
Turkish Consulate in Chicago mentioning bribes to House Speaker Dennis
Hastert (R-IL). The article is in the September issue of Vanity Fair
that is just now hitting newsstands. The article says the wiretaps
recorded members of Turkish groups claiming they had arranged for
tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert's campaign fund in
small checks under $200, so they wouldn't have to be itemized in public
campaign filings. Hastert's voice was never heard in the recordings,
however, and his office denies knowing anything about this.
The article says that the wiretap recordings contained repeated
reference to Hastert's flip-flop in 2000 on the decision to designate
the killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide.
At first he supported the idea, but later he withdrew the proposal.
Hastert explained that he changed his mind because President Bill
Clinton was concerned about the resolution harming U.S. interests
abroad. But in the Chicago wiretaps, according to Vanity Fair, "a
senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in
one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution
would have been at least $500,000." The article cautions, however,
that "the reported content of the Chicago wiretaps may well have
been sheer bravado, and there is no evidence that any payment was
ever made to Hastert or his campaign."
Edmonds told U.S. News and the Bulletin that she and other
whistleblowers from the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, National
Security Agency, and Department of Homeland Security, are so fed up
with lack of congressional oversight on intelligence and national
security that they plan to launch an advertising campaign targeting
government officials who have allegedly endangered national security.
The newspaper ads, which could be launched as early two months from
now, would name officials, their titles, their salaries, where they
work and their alleged or documented wrongdoing, says Edmonds. The
campaign would be funded by private donations, like the recently
formed advocacy group she heads, the National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition.