From: lar-jen@interaccess.com (Larry-Jennie) Subject: Re: Attn: Larry-Jennie, rip him a new one Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 21:37:38 -0600 >In article <53o6eu$4bs@usenet.harbinger.net>, bbottoms@rouge.net (Bear >Bottoms) wrote: >> You guys are wrong about Mena. First off. Clinton was fully knowledgable about Mena. Clinton lied when he said the state would pay for a grand jury. It never did. "Clinton: State did all it could in Mena case" By Scott Morris THE ARKANSAS GAZETTE September 11, 1991 Gov. Bill Clinton said Tuesday that the state did all it could to investigate allegations that the Mena Airport was used to run drugs and guns. However, he said he was pleased the issue had been raised again. Attorney General Winston Bryant and U.S. Rep. Bill Alexander say they will present the Iran-Contra special investigator at Washington with "credible evidence" next week that the CIA used the airport to export guns to the Nicaraguan rebels and bring back drugs in the 1980s. "I've always felt we never got the whole story there, and obviously if the story was that the {federal Drug Enforcement Agency} was using Barry Seal as a drug informant ... then they ought to come out and say that because he's dead," Clinton said. Seal, a convicted cocaine smuggler, worked out of the airport as a government informant before being slain in 1986 in Baton Rouge, ostensibly by Colombian gunmen. At the urging of a group of University of Arkansas students, Bryant and Alexander have interviewed a former CIA pilot, a former IRS agent, a state policeman who investigated the Mena Airport activities and others, Bryant said Monday. Bryant said he and Alexander will meet with Craig Gillen, chief investigator on the staff of Lawrence Walsh, the Iran-Contra special investigator, at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 17. Clinton, speaking to reporters at the state Capitol, said the Arkansas State Police conducted a "very vigorous" investigation several years ago after allegations began to swirl about Mena. The investigation raised questions "that involved linkages to the federal government," the government said. He said he authorized the state police to tell local officials the state would help pay for a grand jury, which he expected would be costly because of the need to bring witnesses in from outside the state. "Nothing ever came of that," Clinton said, adding he didn't know whether federal officials pressured the local prosecutor in any way. When local officials failed to act, Clinton said, the state police file was given to the U.S. attorney, who eventually called a grand jury. The state police investigator was called to testify "rather late in the proceedings" and felt he was asked "a rather limited range of questions," the governor said. Seal received "inadequate security," Clinton said, adding that he "raised all kinds of questions about whether he had any links to the CIA and if he was involved with the Contras ... and if that backed into the Iran-Contra deal." In the deal, the U.S. allegedly sold weapons to the Iranians and used the proceeds to finance the Contras. When the federal grand jury failed to act, Clinton said, the state sent its investigative file to a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. ******************** Barry Seal testified he worked for the CIA. And it is confirmed he flew arms to the COntra, part of a CIA covedt operation. Excerpt from: Headline: "Dope Story: Doubts Rise on Report Reagan Cited in Tying Sandinistas to Cocaine --- Little Evidence Backs Tale, Which Came From Pilot Who Claimed CIA Link --- Deal for a Lighter Sentence" --- By Jonathan Kwitny WALL STREET JOURNAL April 22, 1987 In the early-morning darkness of June 26, 1984, Adler Barriman Seal, a wealthy, convicted drug smuggler working as a federal informant in hopes of leniency, landed his C-123 cargo plane at Homestead Air Force Base near Miami. On board was 1,500 pounds of cocaine he said he had brought from Nicaragua. Within a few weeks, unnamed "administration officials," citing information provided by Mr. Seal, leaked to the press stories saying that top Nicaraguan leaders, including a brother of President Daniel Ortega, were trafficking in cocaine with the help of Soviets and Cubans. The Reagan administration has used the Seal story -- which Nicaragua denies -- ever since in attempts to rouse congressional and public support for aid to the Contra rebels fighting to overthrow Mr. Ortega's Sandinista government. On March 16 of last year, in an appeal for a Contra aid package, President Reagan displayed on national television a photo taken by a camera hidden in Mr. Seal's plane. "I know that every American parent concerned about the drug problem will be outraged to learn that top Nicaraguan government officials are deeply involved in drug trafficking," Mr. Reagan said. "This picture, secretly taken at a military airfield outside Managua, shows Federico Vaughan, a top aide to one of the nine commandants who rule Nicaragua, loading an aircraft with illegal narcotics bound for the United States." But Mr. Seal's evidence of Nicaraguan drug trafficking doesn't appear to be as sweeping as he or the Reagan administration portrayed it. The Drug Enforcement Administration says the cocaine on Mr. Seal's C-123 is the only drug shipment by way of Nicaragua that it knows of -- and Mr. Seal said he had brought it there to begin with. The Nicaraguan "military airfield" that officials said Mr. Seal flew from is in fact a civilian field used chiefly for crop-dusting flights, the State Department now concedes. That concession undermines the basis for linking Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, President Ortega's brother, to the operation. In fact, the man who supervised Mr. Seal's work for the government -- Richard Gregorie, chief assistant U.S. attorney in Miami -- says he could find no information beyond Mr. Seal's word tying any Nicaraguan official to the drug shipment. As for Federico Vaughan, the man Mr. Reagan called an aide to a Sandinista commandant, federal prosecutors and drug officials now say they aren't sure who he is. Asked about the matter, a White House spokesman says, "We got the information from DEA and have received no indication from them of any change in their original assessment." Meanwhile, some DEA officials complain that the administration's use of Mr. Seal's story against the Sandinistas sabotaged a much bigger drug case, against Colombians. Now there are allegations that besides drugs, Mr. Seal may have been involved with other sensitive cargo. Four drug pilots in prison in Florida say they knew Mr. Seal as part of a network that delivered weapons to airfields in Central America for the American-backed Contras and then sometimes flew back to the U.S. with cocaine. Over the years, Mr. Seal told associates and testified in court that he sometimes did ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ work for Central Intelligence Agency operations. Though the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Justice Department was quick to follow up Mr. Seal's Nicaraguan story with an indictment, it rejected allegations from the pilots and others of drug dealing by Contras. ********************** "Testimony reveals leak in drug probe Cost Seal his life, witness says" By Maria Henson THE ARKANSAS GAZETTE July 29, 1988 WASHINGTON The late Barry Seal did fly a cocaine smuggling mission out of the airport at Mena, Ark., a congressional committee was told Thursday. He even accompanied Colombian drug runners to the airport in 1984, a witness said. The testimony came in a hearing by the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime. The hearing prominently featured tales about Seal, a convicted drug pilot turned government informant. Investigations about his exploits at Mena and elsewhere have been under way for several years and have been highly publicized. The testimony Thursday was in the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime. Its chairman, Rep. Bill Hughes, D-N.J., said Seal was involved in one of the most significant undercover drug investigations in U.S. history. And the testimony, he charged, showed that the investigation was compromised because of a politically motivated news leak by someone in the U.S. government. The leak, Hughes said, cost Seal the principal informant in the investigation his life. Seal was slain Feb. 19, 1986 in Baton Rouge, La. DEA adds details Ernst Jacobsen, a Drug Enforcement Administration investigator, provided more details of the ongoing, mysterious allegations involving Seal, who he said flew 50 trips for the cartel. Testifying behind a screen to protect his identity, Jacobsen said that after Seal turned government informant in March 1984, Seal flew to Colombia the next month to meet with members of the Medellin Cartel to plan a cocaine pickup. "After Seal returned from Colombia, the cocaine cartel had instructed some of their representatives in Miami to meet with Mr. Seal, go to Mena and observe the aircraft that was going to be utilized in the smuggling operation," Jacobsen said. "Seal met with three or four of the Colombians in Miami and took them to Mena to buy the aircraft." Chronology provided A chronology provided by the subcommittee's lawyer indicated that Seal, his co-pilot Emil Camp, Felix Dixon Bates and three Colombians traveled to Mena on April 18, 1984, to see a Lockheed Learstar plane. The next month, May 28, Seal and Camp left Mena at 2:30 a.m. in the plane for Colombia, the chronology said. Jacobsen said the plane landed on a muddy dirt strip, where drug kingpin Carlos Lehder awaited them. (Lehder was sentenced last week to two consecutive life terms for drug smuggling and conspiracy.) Lehder, on horseback in the rain, directed Indians to load the plane with 1,500 to 3,000 kilos of cocaine. When the plane tried to take off, however, the wheel dug into the mud and it turned over. Lehder helped Camp and Seal out, while the Indians took the cocaine "torched it, cut it up and buried it," Jacobsen said. Seal and Camp hid in the jungle with Lehder for three days until they got another plane to transport 700 kilos of cocaine. That operation, however, was aborted when the new plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and had to land in Managua, Nicaragua. Seal and Camp were detained overnight. Hughes said Seal was the DEA's key operative in the undercover investigation, and that his cover was blown when the Washington Times printed an account on July 17, 1984, alleging that the Sandinista government in Nicaragua was involved in drug trafficking. "I heard from my superiors that the leak came from an aide in the White House," Jacobsen said. Aide not identified Jacobsen didn't identify the aide, but Hughes suggested it was retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, a main player in the Iran-Contra affair. The subcommittee released "15 declassified pages" of North's notebooks containing references to "leak on drug," and "Washington Times article on cocaine," but they don't reveal any direct link between North and the leak. "The evidence suggests clearly that Oliver North and the CIA both wanted to make it public," Hughes said. "There have been a lot of suggestions that it was for political purposes... . The Contra aid vote was moving through the process at that point." A second DEA official, Ron Caffrey, testified that he briefed North on the investigation before July 7, 1984, and North "did ask when this investigation could go public." But Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., a committee member, said the leak could have come from several sources. Jacobsen said that after the Times ran the story, the DEA ended its investigation and rushed the next day to obtain arrest and search warrants. They had lost their opportunity to achieve their goals: identifying drug trafficking routes, identifying all the drug cartels' U.S. assets and staging a surprise arrest of all the drug cartel members. Hughes said the leak blew the investigation. "We've never had in the history I believe of enforcement an opportunity to reach that level of the cartel," he said. "In addition to that, Barry Seal was dead. That was the net result of the leak to the press. It was a disaster." $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ The CIA cocaine smuggling on behalf of the Contras through Mena, Arkansas corrupted the Presidencies of Bill Clinton, George Bush and Ronald Reagan. For details, see: ftp://pencil.cs.missouri.edu/pub/mena/ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$