excerpt...

 

At the same time, Ben-Veniste does not resist the opportunity to settle scores, some of them of longstanding duration. He has little more than contempt for Alphonse D’Amato, the New York senator who headed the Senate Whitewater Committee’s investigation, and for Judge David Sentelle, one of the three federal judges who, upon reenactment of the independent counsel statute, appointed Kenneth Starr to take over the Whitewater inquiry commenced under Robert Fiske. Ben-Veniste also snipes at Henry Kissinger, who initially accepted an appointment as the 9/11 Commission’s chair but quickly withdrew rather than divulge his client list.

Ben-Veniste goes after Philip Zelikow, chief of staff to the 9/11 Commission, with a special vengeance. The author charges that Zelikow, a protégé of Condoleezza Rice, strove improperly to shield her from the commission’s inquiries into her failings as President Bush’s national security advisor and otherwise to sidetrack the Commission’s work at key intervals. (Zelikow, for his part, regarded Ben-Veniste as a blatant partisan, determined to mess with the Republicans in advance of the 2004 election. The relationship between the two has been described as “poisonous.”

Quote:

 

Our D.C. partner, Richard Ben-Veniste, is serving on the 9/11 Commission. Richard spoke at last year's Pro Bono luncheon and focused his remarks on the Commission's work. The Commission's report was released on July 22, so we thought that now would be a good time to follow up with Richard for an early look back on the experience....

Q: What reactions have you personally received?

B-V: Substantially positive. On the other hand there are legitimate critics, and a handful of "wack-jobs" and wing nuts whose e-mails provided me with the opportunity to exercise my constitutional right to press the delete button.

Quote:

 

Experience

Richard Ben-Veniste is a highly respected litigator who focuses on civil matters and white collar criminal cases. He also advises organizations and individuals involved in congressional investigations across a broad range of complex and sensitive areas.

Richard first achieved national prominence during the mid-1970s, when he served as one of the lead prosecutors on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. Recognized as both a knowledgeable and experienced counselor and as a skilled and accomplished trial lawyer, he has been a key figure in some of the nation’s most significant governmental activities at the intersection of law and politics. From 1995 to 1996, for example, he acted as Chief Counsel (Minority) of the Senate Whitewater Committee; from 1976 to 1977, he was Special Outside Counsel for the Senate Subcommittee on Governmental Operations; and from 1973 to 1975, he held the position of Chief of the Watergate Special Prosecutor’s Watergate Task Force. Most recently, Richard served as one of ten commissioners on the bipartisan 9-11 Commission.

Prior to joining Mayer Brown in 2002, Richard was a partner at Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP ( http://www.weil.com/ ) and Ben-Veniste and Shernoff. From 1968 to 1973 he served as Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York where he was Chief of the Special Prosecutions Section.

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.

Education

Columbia University Law School, JD, 1967; Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar • Northwestern University, LLM, 1968 • Muhlenberg College, AB, magna cum laude, 1964; Awarded honorary LLD by Muhlenberg College, 1975
Admitted
District of Columbia, 1975
New York, 1968

Quote:

 

Chairman, District of Columbia Advisory Committee on Prison Education Reform, 1984–1986
Presidential Appointment, Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, 2000-2007
Commissioner, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States (9/11 Commission), 2003–2004

Quote:

 

Co-author, Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate Prosecution, Simon & Schuster, 1977

Quote:

 

JOHN P. SCHMITZ, MAYER-BROWN, ANTHRAX,
BEN VENISTE, ETC.
MAYER-BROWN also has clients that include BAYER AG (German maker of antibiotic Cipro which fights Anthrax, about which Larry Klayman & Judicial Watch (JW) will have keen interest.

John Schmitz’s MAYER-BROWN profile also reveals that he represented ENRON, adding that “we were active in Germany [w/ ENRON] until end....It [bankruptcy] surprised me as well as anyone else,” according to Reuters (1-4-2002).

MAYER-BROWN also represents DEUTSCHE BANK regarding electronic commerce activities; & curiously, Schmitz’s law firm maintains an office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, along w/ ENRON -- if only to make sure oil is well in Caspian Sea basin.

DEUTSCHE BANK is knee-deep in pre-9/11 insider trading stock profits.

MAYER-BROWN is powerhouse multinational firm, w/offices in numerous Western European countries & U.S.. website lists clients as ENRON Corp, both of whom maintain offices in Caspian Sea basin in Tashkent, Uzbekistan - near Afghanistan; German corporation BAYER AG - maker of cipro, antibiotic used to treat anthrax; & German banking giant, DEUTSCHE BANK, for electronic commerce .

two of September 11 terrorist hijackers maintained bank accounts at DEUTSCHE BANK, including leader Mohammed ATTA...

wiki

 

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. It is one of the largest law firms in the world, with approximately 1,300 lawyers and gross annual revenue in excess of $1.7 billion.[1][2] It has grown to become a top tier law firm whose revenue places it as one of the ten highest earning firms in the world...

The firm is rated as one of the top law firms by Vault.com. Chambers gives the firm high marks in the following practice areas: Bankruptcy, Corporate, Litigation, M&A, Private Equity:Buyouts, Investment Funds:Fund Formation, Financial Services Regulation, Intellectual Property, Antitrust, Patent Litigation, Labor and Employment, Securities Litigation, Entertainment Litigation, Wealth Management, and Tax.

Quote:

 

B. Keith Gibson is an associate in the Litigation department of the New York office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges...He has also defended companies in mass tort actions relating to the Holocaust, slavery reparations, the South African apartheid, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.

Quote:

 

Elmaghraby and Iqbal
Urban Justice Center/Detainees; Elmaghraby and Iqbal v. Ashcroft, et. al.
Weil Gotshal joined the Urban Justice Center and Koob & Magoolaghan to represent detainees held by the US Government in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. Claims on behalf of plaintiff Ehab Elmaghraby were settled in February 2006, in the amount of $300,000, the first reported settlement between the U.S. Government and any persons detained in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. The case continues on behalf of plaintiff Javaid Iqbal. On June 14, 2007, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the vast majority of a district court ruling, holding that the exigencies of 9/11 did not entitle high-level officials to qualified immunity for claims related to religious and racial discrimination and the abuse plaintiffs suffered while detained in solitary confinement.

Quote:

 

Weil, Gotshal & Manges Works With The Urban Justice Center And Koob & Magoolaghan To Win Landmark Settlement Involving Post-9/11 Abused Prisoners; U.S. Government Agrees to Settle for $300,000.
Business Wire | March 3, 2006

NEW YORK -- Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP today announced a settlement agreement with the United States government regarding claims arising from the brutal abuse and mistreatment of Arab and South Asian Muslim men who were held in Federal detention in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
Ehab Elmaghraby, an Egyptian Muslim man who was held in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center ("MDC") in Brooklyn, New York between October 2001 and August 2002, is the first such victim to receive compensation. Abuse of detainees at the MDC and abroad, at Abu ...

Quote:

 

about Richard Ben-Veniste - Commissioner:

Partner in the law firm which represented the insurance beneficiaries of the court-ordered multi-million dollar payout for the World Trade Center destruction.

Richard Ben-Veniste was partner in Weil, Gotshal, and Manges, which played a key role in the Enron scandal. According to the NY Post: “Weil, Gotshal, and Manges. among the biggest bankruptcy firms in the world - famously received a $3 million retainer from Enron when the energy company filed in 2001. When all is said and done the law firm expects to squeeze more than $200 million out of the bankrupt energy company in fees that are secured by a court.” http://www.nypost.com/wealth/63212.htm (dead link)

Quote:

 

...WorldCom retained New York law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Enron's lead bankruptcy law firm, to to advise to the company, sources familiar with the matter say. The company is also expected to hire a financial restructuring adviser - possibly as soon asnext week.

Quote:

 

Organization Name: PALOMAR CORPORATION State: DC
Status: REVOKED Initial Date of Registration: 6/6/1980
File No.: 802409 Organization Type: DOMESTIC NON PROFIT CORPORATION

registered agent:
RICHARD BEN-VENISTE
4801 MASSACHUSETTS AVE., SUITE 400
Washington, DC 20016

Quote:

 

Along with Feldbaum's extraordinary depth of knowledge regarding the biotechnology industry, he brings to the role a distinguished policy background. He came to Washington, D.C. in 1973 as an assistant special prosecutor for the Watergate special prosecution force. He served as chief of staff to Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) and was president and founder of the Palomar Corporation, a national security "think tank" in Washington, D.C. Before founding Palomar Corporation, Feldbaum was assistant to the Secretary of Energy, and served as the Inspector General for defense intelligence in the U.S. Department of Defense.

Quote:

 

Rapporteur for Aspen Institute Berlin conference, "Changing East-West Security Relations." Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Palomar Corporation, Washington, DC Wrote analyses, reports, and studies to U.S. government clients on U.S. nuclear and chemical weapons policy issues, including: nuclear crisis management since 1945, Pershing II and Cruise Missile NATO deployment, strategic arms limitation, nuclear safety and security issues, Soviet attitudes toward nuclear safety, the nuclear winter theory, chemical weapons binary modernization and arms control issues, chemical weapons demilitarization, and domestic counterterrorism strategies. Clients included DoD, DOE, and Executive Branch elements: Office of Net Assessment, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy (Chemical Matters), the Defense Nuclear Agency, and the National Security Council. Testified before the Presidential Commission on Chemical Warfare Review re: European attitudes...

Quote:

 

Prior to his legal career, Mr. Lee worked for five years with Palomar Corporation, a Washington, DC-based national security consulting firm.

Quote:

 

Mr. Peter K. Rogal has over 30 years of experience in the high tech electronics industry as a sales and marketing executive, serial entrepreneur and business executive. Mr. Rogal started his career at a defense contractor, Lockheed Sanders in 1979. Subsequently, he was the founder, equity partner and sales executive of a defense electronics firm Dynaco Corp. Mr. Rogal was a majority shareholder of Comtel Electronics, a military printed circuit board and electro-mechanical assembly company. In 1996, Comtel and Dynaco were sold to Palomar Corporation.

Quote:

 

To the Editor:
Richard Ben-Veniste (Op-Ed, Oct. 23) calls for the removal of Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel, if it is found that he misrepresented his knowledge of the development of Linda R. Tripp's evidence against President Clinton. This suggests a compromise that should leave no one wholly dissatisfied.

Quote:

 

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...

Quote:

 

1982 Richar Ben-Veniste represents Barry Seal and arranges for him to become a DEA informant. (Washingon Weekly, Apr. 1, 1996)

Quote:

 

Richard Ben-Veniste represents Boeing and United Airlines. [CBS News, 3/5/2003] He also has other curious connections, 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.” He 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 is also alleged to have had CIA connections. [Hopsicker, 2001, pp. 325-30]

22205

Sep 22 2009, 01:33 AM

Co-author, Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate Prosecution, Simon & Schuster, 1977

Quote:

 

One of the most common deceptions in our time is the offering of false leadership

[...]

The best way to understand this strategy is to observe it in operation, and a good place to begin is with the Federal Reserve System

[...]

Secrets of the Temple, which was offered to the public in 1987 as a scathing exposé of the Federal Reserve System. Greider’s history was excellent, but his conclusion was fatally flawed. After having proved that the Fed was conceived as a weapon of the banking elite against the common man and having shown that this is exactly the function it has always served, his conclusion was, not to abolish the Fed or even to make serious changes to it. His “call to action” was simply to stop worrying about it. The Fed has made mistakes, he said, but we have learned many lessons along the way. All we need now are wiser men to run it! That is exactly the kind of powder-puff solution that made his book acceptable to the giant publishing house, Simon and Schuster. It is no solution at all. The elite do not care what we know about a problem if we don't do anything about it. They are quite good at putting forth their own opposition – writers like Greider – who will sound the alarm and rally the troops but lead them exactly nowhere.

[...]

In the year 2000, Simon and Schuster published another book in this same genre, Day of Deceit; The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor, by Robert Stinnett. It is a block buster of facts and previously hidden documents proving beyond any doubt that FDR, Secretary-of-War Henry Stimson, General George Marshall, and many others high in the Roosevelt Administration secretly plotted to cause Japan to successfully Attack Pearl Harbor as an excuse to bring the United Stated into World War II supposedly as a victim of an unprovoked attack. So, what was Stinnett's conclusion? Was it to condemn these men for their treachery? Not at all. It was that this act was justified because it helped put a stop to Hitler in Europe. In other words, to halt totalitarianism in Europe, it was necessary to adopt totalitarianism in America, and to do so was an act of great statesmanship! Once again, Simon and Schuster provided the American people with a false opinion leader. What's the point of getting all frothed up over a president lying to the voters and deliberately causing thousands of Americans to be killed if we are then to decide that he was a hero for dong so?

[...]

In 2004, Simon and Schuster continued the tradition with a book entitled Against All Enemies, by Richard Clarke[/b]. This is an excellent overview of certain aspects of George W. Bush’s abuse of the Presidency.

[...]

The book’s true agenda is revealed by the author’s solutions. He accepts totalitarian measures in the U.S. as necessary for homeland security and indirectly supports the expansion of UN power as a desirable goal on the path to world order. However, the real “solution” that jumps from almost every page was the need to replace Bush in the November 2004 elections. That made a lot of sense, but who would take his place? The fact is that Bush would have been replaced by John Kerry. (Clarke’s book didn’t go to press until after Kerry had become the frontrunner of the Democrat Party.) This was no solution at all. Kerry was a member of the CFR and, although he might have made minor alterations in Iraq, we can be sure that he would have continued to follow the CFR blueprint for world government based on the model of collectivism. In fact, in his campaign speeches, he told us that he would. When he refused to allow a challenge to the validity of Bush’s victory in the Ohio elections – as Al Gore previously had prevented a challenge to Bush’s victory four years previously in Florida – it was silent testimony to the fact that the boxing match had been rigged. These men had been paid in some way by the king makers to lose, not win. It was not yet their turn.

[...]

When Against All Enemies hit the bookstores in March [...] it was given incredibly favorable coverage in the mass media. It was on the network news and received front-page coverage in almost every major publication. No book publisher could purchase that kind of exposure at any price. No author who offered genuine opposition to the CFR agenda would ever receive such a favorable and extensive media blitz. If you understand the degree to which CFR members control the media, you would know immediately that Clarke’s message was given the green light by that group. They were leading their own opposition. If Kerry had created a landslide at the polls, they were perfectly prepared to dump Bush, because they would win either way.

[...]

I am not aware of any of [Simon and Schuster's] hundreds of titles that seriously challenge the goals of the CFR.