RUBIN SMOKING GUN

WASHINGTON - Congressman Mark Foley (FL-16), one of the first Members of Congress to call for the testimonies of former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Senator John Corzine for their companies’ involvement in the Enron scandal, today wrote the Big Three television network anchors asking them to cover the Rubin-Enron story on their broadcasts. The letter to Tom Brokaw of NBC, Peter Jennings of ABC and Dan Rather of CBS is as follows:

As you know, over the last few weeks, print and broadcast news has been peppered with reports on corrupt CEOs and talk of corporate accountability legislation on Capitol Hill. As President Bush and our Congressional Leaders promised, the strong action Americans demanded has come to fruition.

While I am not writing to complain about your coverage of the scandals or the legislation, I am calling upon you to cover what could be the real smoking gun in the Enron scandal - former Clinton Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin.

Numerous media reports directly implicate Mr. Rubin in this scandal. Here’s how John Fund of the Wall Street Journal put it: “Citigroup, which he [Rubin] has headed since 1999, played a central role in concealing Enron's growing debts from investors and regulators. Last November Mr. Rubin phoned Peter Fisher, a Treasury undersecretary, and asked him to intervene with credit-rating agencies that were about to downgrade Enron's status. John Diaz, a managing director of Moody's Investors Service, says Mr. Rubin also contacted him about getting a higher credit rating for Enron. Both men rebuffed Mr. Rubin's requests, which struck them as highly unusual.”

Since this has come to light, I have been calling on Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the subcommittee probing Enron's internal practices, to subpoena Mr. Rubin and hear his testimony.

Additionally, when you consider the fact that Citigroup has, over the last five years, been one of Mr. Lieberman’s top campaign contributors and has also dipped into its coffers for Mr. Levin, this story takes on an even more troubling dimension.

Gentlemen, I’m assuming you simply haven’t found the time to cover this story. However, now that the Fox News Channel, CNN, USA TODAY, The Associated Press, The Washington Times and many others have begun their coverage of this story, I would hope you will find a few minutes to devote to this before the Senate breaks for its August recess next week.

Also, wasn't there another little escapade that Rubin was involved in when he was just a little bit younger?

Maybe this is what you are remembering. Maybe not, I seem to remember something else back before clinton became the top scandal story or maybe it was before he became Tres. secretary in 1995. I'll keep searching. ;-)

Introduction

The problems with the FDIC/Donna Tanoue and the 2 big Hawaii banks will undoubtedly effect people throughout the country. I believe that the Hawaii link to Mochtar Riady are attempting to gain access to the American capital market through Riady's brother-in-law, Mumin Ala Gundawun. Riady was too hot (BCCI, Chinagate), so they wisely chose to approach their plan via the Hawaii connection.

Sec. Treasury, Robert Rubin played a major role in setting up this new bank scandal by lobbying for repeal of the bank Holding Company Act. The purpose for this action is to allow Bank Holding companies (Hawaii's Pacific Century financial Corp. and BancWest) to expand their financial services, thus allowing them to become full service securities brokerages. This seems like an ideal front to legitimize their deals to the American capital markets.

The 2 Hawaii banks have violated numerous securities rules leaving themselves exposed to sanctions by the SEC and NASD. This would put a damper on their schemes and bring attention to this situation. The Hawaii banks have been churning the trust fund accounts of their customers by selling them units on their family of mutual funds. The problem is that the same people that control the daily newspapers here, also sit on the boards of the banks.

More details can be found by following the link below. China-US Campaign Scandal and Illicit Capital Flow - The Link Between Mochtar Riady and the Clinton Administration

Also see Teflon Bob and Banking Deregulation

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Few top government officials, whether elected or appointed, have managed to emerge as unscathed from a half dozen years in the Washington, D.C. spotlight as former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. And Rubin did better than escape without scratches -- he ended his term of office with his image enhanced.

Wall Street and the financial press practically beatified him for his role in overseeing the global economy through difficult times and working in tandem with Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan to keep the U.S. economy working smoothly.

Rubin helped precipitate the Asian financial crisis which has inflicted untold suffering on tens of millions, orchestrated the bailout of foreign bankers and investors in connection with the Mexican and Asian financial disasters, and crafted or helped implement domestic policies that ensured the overwhelming portion of benefits from economic growth would go to the rich -- but none of this managed to sully the reputation of the Secretary Rubin.

Now Teflon Bob appears on the verge of demonstrating that his immunity to criticism makes Ronald Reagan look like he was coated with bubble gum.

When he stepped down from his Treasury post this past summer, Rubin left unfinished a legislative effort to re-write the nation's banking laws. Misnamed "financial modernization" legislation was really a deregulatory initiative -- reminiscent of the S&L deregulation that led to a corporate crime spree, the collapse of the industry and the subsequent taxpayer bailout of epic proportions.

The centerpiece of the deregulatory bill, which different fragments of the finance industry have pushed for a decade and a half, is the repeal of the revered Glass-Steagall Act, which bars the common ownership of banks on the one hand, and insurance companies and securities firms on the other.

Although powerful interests have long backed the legislation, it has repeatedly failed to make it through Congress because of a maze of intra-industry disputes, turf fights between different parts of the federal regulatory structure, and the concerted efforts of consumer and community development advocates.

Another failure seemed possible or likely this fall, especially as Senate Banking Chair Phil Gramm, R-Texas, refused to compromise on privacy and community development issues.

Another failure, however, was not acceptable to one company above all -- Citigroup. The product of the merger between Citibank and Travelers, Citigroup is operating in apparent violation of the bar on common ownership of banking, and insurance and securities, thanks to a loophole that provides for a two-year transition period.

Enter Robert Rubin. According to a report in the New York Times, Rubin helped broker the final compromise language on financial deregulation.

And while he was brokering a deal between Congress and the White House, he was also, according to the New York Times account, negotiating his own deal with Citigroup. A few days after the banking deal was finalized, Citigroup announced it was hiring Rubin as a de facto co-chair of the corporation.

This chronology and these arrangements raise serious issues about whether federal ethics statutes and informal Clinton administration rules have been violated.

Rubin told the New York Times that he was proud of his work in preserving the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA -- an important law that requires banks to make loans in minority and lower-income communities in which they do business). In fact, the final version of the bill significantly weakens CRA: there will be no ongoing sanctions against holding company banks that fail to meet CRA standards, it will lessen the number of CRA examinations, and provisions of the bill will discourage community groups from challenging banks' CRA records.

And the weakening of the CRA is only one element of the finance industry's deregulatory wish list which is included in the compromise legislation.

The bill will:

* Pave the way for a new round of record-shattering financial industry mergers, dangerously concentrating political and economic power;

* Create too-big-to-fail institutions that are someday likely to drain the public treasury as taxpayers bail out imperiled financial giants to protect the stability of the nation's banking system;

* Leave financial regulatory authority spread among a half dozen federal and 50 state agencies, all uncoordinated, that will be overmatched by the soon-to-be financial goliaths;

* Facilitate the rip-off of mutual fund insurance policy holders by permitting mutual insurance funds to switch domicile states -- thereby enabling them to locate in states where they can convert to for-profit, stockholder companies without properly reimbursing mutual policyholders (a conversion of tens of billions of dollars);

* Aggressively intrude on consumer privacy (and promote a still-greater intensification of direct marketing), thanks to provisions permitting the new financial giants to share finance, health, consumer and other personal information among affiliates; and

* Allow banks to continue to deny services to the poor (Congress rejected an amendment requiring banks to provide "lifeline accounts" to the poor, so they would have refuge from check-cashing operations and the underground economy).

Robert Rubin helped deliver this ticking time bomb of a bill to Wall Street, first while in Treasury and then while in negotiations to land a top spot at the finance industry's largest and highest-profile company. He may well escape unscathed yet again, but it is sure to blow up on the rest of us.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter.

Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor.

They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999; http://www.corporatepredators.org)

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Liars-- and Sleaze, Incorporated... ( my files on the clintons and friends )