Riggs Bank
From Davis Sirota (via the Poor Man), we get a tale of terror and high finance, with presidential connections to boot:
According to the 5/14/04 New York Times, Federal regulators fined the Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, $25 million yesterday for "failing to report suspicious activity, the largest penalty ever assessed against a domestic bank in connection with money laundering. The fine stems from Riggs's failure over at least the last two years to actively monitor suspect financial transfers through Saudi Arabian accounts held by the bank." The 5/14/04 Wall Street Journal reported that of particular concern, Riggs failed to monitor "tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian embassy," including "suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier's checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan." According to the 4/18/04 Washington Post, Saudi Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, "may have used a Riggs account to donate money to a charity that then gave some of it to the Sept. 11 terrorists." According to the Washington Post, federal regulators "called Riggs actions a "'willful, systemic' violation of anti-money-laundering law." Riggs officials have "acknowledged years of deficiencies in reporting to law enforcement hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious financial transactions by foreign customers, particularly those connected with the embassies of Saudi Arabia."
PRESIDENT BUSH'S UNCLE IS A CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT RIGGS BANK
According to the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice, Jonathan Bush is the President and CEO of Riggs Investment Management - a major arm of Riggs Bank. He is also the uncle of President George W. Bush. The President "credits the investors sent his way by this banker uncle as a key to his 'success' in the Texas oil industry in the early '80s." According to Public Citizen, the uncle Jonathan was a Bush Pioneer, having raised more than $100,000 for his nephew in 2000.
Wait, they're with Bush and with the terrorists? That doesn't seem to fit with the administration's decree of the binary dualism of the war on terror. But I digress.
So, Riggs Bank got themselves into trouble trouble because they had illegal dealings with certain saudis. Really? Who could have guessed that there'd be anything but good, prudent, legal banking going on after they opened a branch inside the Saudi embassy?! That's the same building, by the way, that featured in its own segment in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a movie which focused heavily on the business connections between the Bush family and the House of Saud.
An Untold Story
But W isn't the only Washington president with connections to both Riggs and the Saudi Royal Family (nor is he the best paid). Meet Steven Joel Trachtenberg, the oft' top-hatted president of the George Washington University.
Trachtenberg sits on Riggs' board of directors, where he's taken heat for opposing efforts to close the accounts of such Riggs clients as August Pinochet. But the fun doesn't stop there; according to the Hatchet, GW's student paper:
The connection between GW and Riggs runs deeper than Trachtenberg's position on the bank's board. Robert Allbritton, Riggs' CEO and son of its largest shareholder, is a member of the GW Board of Trustees (Albritton refused through a spokesman to comment). In addition, Riggs is one of four or five banks that handle the University's finances.
Ouch. Well, at least GW doesn't have any connection to Saudi Arabia.
Oh, Wait. There's that whole Saudi Princess thing. Apparently, GW has set up a sort of distance learning program for Saudi royals. Courses in which two Saudi princesses wish to enroll are held in a special classroom in the media building, where the students and professor are recorded with video equipment and desk-mounted microphones; the recordings are taken by daily courier to Riyadh (at least, so said one professor). In effect, the university has set up a satellite campus inside the Saudi royal palace, one-upping Riggs' embassy franchise. (For those familiar with GW, such behavior should come as no surprise; while only medium-sized, the university has 3 separate campuses in DC and Virginia.) And as to that embassy: if Michael Moore found its placement so close to the White House suspect, we should be positively alarmed at its proximity to GW.
According to the 5/14/04 New York Times, Federal regulators fined the Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, $25 million yesterday for "failing to report suspicious activity, the largest penalty ever assessed against a domestic bank in connection with money laundering. The fine stems from Riggs's failure over at least the last two years to actively monitor suspect financial transfers through Saudi Arabian accounts held by the bank." The 5/14/04 Wall Street Journal reported that of particular concern, Riggs failed to monitor "tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian embassy," including "suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier's checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan." According to the 4/18/04 Washington Post, Saudi Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, "may have used a Riggs account to donate money to a charity that then gave some of it to the Sept. 11 terrorists." According to the Washington Post, federal regulators "called Riggs actions a "'willful, systemic' violation of anti-money-laundering law." Riggs officials have "acknowledged years of deficiencies in reporting to law enforcement hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious financial transactions by foreign customers, particularly those connected with the embassies of Saudi Arabia."
PRESIDENT BUSH'S UNCLE IS A CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT RIGGS BANK
According to the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice, Jonathan Bush is the President and CEO of Riggs Investment Management - a major arm of Riggs Bank. He is also the uncle of President George W. Bush. The President "credits the investors sent his way by this banker uncle as a key to his 'success' in the Texas oil industry in the early '80s." According to Public Citizen, the uncle Jonathan was a Bush Pioneer, having raised more than $100,000 for his nephew in 2000.
Wait, they're with Bush and with the terrorists? That doesn't seem to fit with the administration's decree of the binary dualism of the war on terror. But I digress.
So, Riggs Bank got themselves into trouble trouble because they had illegal dealings with certain saudis. Really? Who could have guessed that there'd be anything but good, prudent, legal banking going on after they opened a branch inside the Saudi embassy?! That's the same building, by the way, that featured in its own segment in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a movie which focused heavily on the business connections between the Bush family and the House of Saud.
An Untold Story
But W isn't the only Washington president with connections to both Riggs and the Saudi Royal Family (nor is he the best paid). Meet Steven Joel Trachtenberg, the oft' top-hatted president of the George Washington University.
Trachtenberg sits on Riggs' board of directors, where he's taken heat for opposing efforts to close the accounts of such Riggs clients as August Pinochet. But the fun doesn't stop there; according to the Hatchet, GW's student paper:
The connection between GW and Riggs runs deeper than Trachtenberg's position on the bank's board. Robert Allbritton, Riggs' CEO and son of its largest shareholder, is a member of the GW Board of Trustees (Albritton refused through a spokesman to comment). In addition, Riggs is one of four or five banks that handle the University's finances.
Ouch. Well, at least GW doesn't have any connection to Saudi Arabia.
Oh, Wait. There's that whole Saudi Princess thing. Apparently, GW has set up a sort of distance learning program for Saudi royals. Courses in which two Saudi princesses wish to enroll are held in a special classroom in the media building, where the students and professor are recorded with video equipment and desk-mounted microphones; the recordings are taken by daily courier to Riyadh (at least, so said one professor). In effect, the university has set up a satellite campus inside the Saudi royal palace, one-upping Riggs' embassy franchise. (For those familiar with GW, such behavior should come as no surprise; while only medium-sized, the university has 3 separate campuses in DC and Virginia.) And as to that embassy: if Michael Moore found its placement so close to the White House suspect, we should be positively alarmed at its proximity to GW.
posted by onlooker at 9:14 PM
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