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Posted on 01/23/2005 10:26:09 PM PST by freepatriot32
Federal Appeals Court Judge Michael Chertoff’s ties to the financiers of the Sept. 11 attacks may prevent his confirmation as Homeland Security Chief.
According to a June 20, 2000 article in the The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, Chertoff defended accused terrorist financier Dr. Magdy Elamir.
Elamir’s HMO was sued by the State of New Jersey to recoup $16.7 million in losses. At least $5.7 million went “to unknown parties... by means of wire transfers to bank accounts where the beneficial owner of the account is unknown,” according to the article.
Foreign intelligence reports given to then chairman of the House International Relations Committee Ben Gilman, R-New York, in 1998 accused Magdy Elamir of having “had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years,” according to an Aug. 2, 2002 Dateline NBC broadcast.
In 1999, Magdy Elamir and brother Mohamed were named suspects in Operation Diamondback, an FBI/ATF undercover infiltration of Pakistani arms merchants who sought to arm Osama bin Laden with conventional and nuclear weapons, according to independent researcher and former New Jersey police officer Allan Duncan and taped transcripts with FBI informant Randy Glass.
Mohamed Elamir tried to purchase “small arms and ammunition” in a recorded telephone conversation with Glass, according to Dateline.
Dateline confirmed that Elamir and his corporations had paid at least $5,000 to Egyptian arms dealer Diaa Mohsen, who Elamir referred to on camera as a family friend. Moshen was sentenced to 30 months for his involvement in Operation Diamondback. However, Elamir was never convicted.
Duncan, who was hired by family members of the Sept. 11 victims to research government ties to the attacks, said the reason Magdy Elamir was never convicted was because he was never charged with a crime.
“By the time Operation Diamondback culminated in arrests in the summer of 2001, Michael Chertoff was the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division and Operation Diamondback would have fallen under his prevue since it was a criminal case and not a counterterrorism case,” Duncan said.
From 1990 to 1994, Chertoff was U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, during the period when the first attack on the World Trade Center took place.
Omar Abdel-Rahman preached at the Al Salam mosque and was later arrested for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, according to Dateline. Magdy Elamir was one of the Al Salam mosque’s financial supporters.
“The Jersey City area and particularly the Al Salam mosque were allowed to continue to be one of the major hubs of terrorist activity in the United States,” Duncan said.
In October 2001, Chertoff was appointed head of Operation Green Quest, a multi-agency initiative to target sources of funding for terrorist organizations, according to a U.S. Customs Service press release. Chertoff told the Associated Press on Oct. 25, 2001 that, “The lifeblood of terrorism is money, and if we cut the money we cut the blood supply.”
Chertoff served in the capacity of Assistant Attorney General of the criminal division at the Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003.
While acting in this position, Chertoff played a central role in formulating U.S. anti-terrorism policy — from increasing the FBI’s authority to conduct domestic surveillance at religious gatherings to the effort to secretly detain hundreds of Middle Easterners in the United States.
Chertoff was one of the chief architects of the Title III of the USA PATRIOT Act, also known as the International Money Laundering Abatement and Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001...
Whether or not Chertoff had prior knowledge of Elamir’s alleged connections to Diaa Mohsen and bin Laden is unknown. Calls to Chertoff’s office were not returned.
Senate confirmations hearings for Chertoff have yet to be scheduled, according to the office of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Ping!
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general chat and gardening ? this is front page news this is about the war on terror this is about crime and the goverment what you wont find in this article anywhere is anything at all to do with gardening in any way shape or form
I did a little checking.
First off, the title isn't right. The original title is Security Risk? by: Melissa Johnson and Sander Hicks, News Reporter and Special to the Star. It was published in the University Star, campus paper of TSU-San Marcos.
Second off, it's a bit odd that you link to this other site. What is that? Why did you do that?
I imagine if you'd corrected those issues the topics would be more likely to have been left as they were. Instead, we have this ridiculously biased and incredibly inaccurate headline, which needed to be pulled, not just mis-topicked.
ping
John Adams defended the British soldiers who opened fire on the protestors.
I don't see how this disqalifies him from the post. It is interesting though... It should be talked about...
ping
Thanks!
Since this report relates Chertoff ties prior to September 11, serving on the defense side might have provided a unique opportunity for insight into how these operations function and the most effective methods to combat them.
I hope that's the case.
Now that is an interesting thought!
Lots of interesting information here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1318410/posts
and here:
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:iMRd1QoZzk0J:msnbc.msn.com/id/6813011/+Michael+Chertoff+%2B++defense+attorney&hl=en
Interesting, too, is that a Google search indicates that ties to Dr. Magdy Elamir are made on primarily left leaning sites.
ping
When did that happen?!
-good times, G.J.P. (Jr.)
thanks for the ping.
what ping list is this?
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