I know of at least two others, in Connecticut and Illinois. I couldn't find any simple, direct description of them, but here are some basic indications. (Notice also the bonus AIG and Bear Stearns references.)
http://www.davidcorn.com/WParchive/53.htmlAnd this past fall the Bush campaign received a scare when one of its lead fundraisers, GOP lobbyist Wayne Berman, was implicated in a scandal involving Carlyle. On September 23 former Connecticut State Treasurer Paul Silvester pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges regarding his handling of state pension funds. Berman pocketed about $1 million from Carlyle for helping the firm win $100 million in pension investments from Silvester.
http://tpj.org/pioneers/wayne_berman.htmlWayne Berman
This ex-Bush Administration Commerce Department assistant secretary suspended Bush Pioneer fundraising to comply with a federal probe into his ties to ex-Connecticut treasurer Paul Silvester. Silvester was convicted in '99 of taking kickbacks from the private money managers to whom he awarded contracts to invest state pension funds. Four other Pioneers were large donors to Silvester's campaign (Herbert Collins, Thomas Foley, Maurice Greenberg and Peter Terpeluk, Jr.). Berman snagged a $500,000 'finder's fee' for helping Pioneer Greenberg's AIG Capital Partners land a contract to invest $100 million of these pension funds. Berman hired Silvester to work with his lobby firm (which was then Park Strategies) after Silvester lost a '98 re-election bid (see also Pioneer Christopher Burnham, another ex-Connecticut Treasurer who left office under an ethical cloud). Berman has lobbied for two other firms that won major investment contracts from Silvester. These firms are PaineWebber and the Carlyle Group.
http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showConnection.php?id1=145&id2=2946Beginning in 2002, the Republican-connected Carlyle Group hired Kjellander to secure an eventual $500 million investment from the {Illinois} state teacher’s pension fund. Kjellander received a finder’s fee of $4.5 million, which the pension board now says they knew nothing about. The scandal sparked a public uproar that caused the Illinois State Senate to pass legislation banning such payments. Kjellander called the bill an “overreaction.” Federal investigators probing the deal have subpoenaed records on Kjellander, but he has yet to be accused of a crime.
In 2003, Kjellander was involved in another state pension deal, this time a $10 billion bond deal with the Bear Stearns investment firm that netted him a “finder’s fee” of $809,000. When the deal came under scrutiny by the state General Assembly in 2004, neither state officials nor Bear Stearns could produce any kind of documentation showing what Kjellander had actually done on the deal, which helped sparked ongoing investigations by the SEC, Illinois Attorney General and the governor’s inspector general.
The scandal began in earnest, however, when a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2004 alleged that a Bear Stearns broker who had worked with Kjellander on the deal had helped secure the contract for the firm through a criminal kickback scheme.
http://www.tomroeser.com/blogview.asp?blogID=23216Official Washington follows the maneuverings of both parties with consummate attention but hasn’t given more than a nanosecond’s consideration to the uncanny ability of a close friend of Karl Rove to endure and prosper hugely through shadowy bipartisan dealings. Beyond his ability to become a multi-millionaire thorough close friendships with national Republicans and the Democratic state administration, the case of Robert Kjellander (pronounced “sha-lander”) is a glaring case history of how the Illinois GOP has become incestuously entwined with the Democratic party of Daley for the last thirty years.
Kjellander is the Republican National Committeeman for Illinois, holding down a post that in years past have gone to venerable GOP patriarchs including James M. Kemper, founder of the Kemper Insurance Group and Robert D. Stuart, Jr., chairman of The Quaker Oats Company, both of whom had spent decades of service in fund-raising and organization for the GOP. The Illinois native parlayed savvy patronage work for a liberal Republican governor to lobbyist and then, through friendship with Karl Rove, to not only Committeeman but also national treasurer of the GOP. He is involved in a federal corruption investigation concerning his winning the Illinois pension fund business for the Carlyle Group, a Washington private equity investment firm with top ties to Democratic and Republican establishment figures. Bush-appointed federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is probing corruption at the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement Systems, a state-run teachers’ pension fund. Kjellander received $4.5 million in fees from the Carlyle Group for delivering an okay from the Democratic Blagojevich administration. Fitzgerald wants to know if Kjellander, who is no investment banker and has no training as such, did any work at all in getting the business for Carlyle or if he just utilized political contacts which may have been greased by some exotic machinations. Most Republicans want to know if Kjellander did double-agent service to Governor Rod Blagojegvich for being made a multi-millionaire by the Democratic state administration. Recently he was served with a subpoena by Fitzgerald in the matter.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
