$2 billion from an British arms manufacturer to Saudi Arabia’s then-U.S. ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, has come under scrutiny. Louis Freeh defends Bandar on ‘Frontline.’
The transfer of funds to accounts at Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C., has come under scrutiny as the Justice Department continues an international corruption investigation involving British arms manufacturer BAE Systems. Freeh, who is now a lawyer and consultant for Bandar, made his comments to the Public Broadcasting Service for a “Frontline” documentary to be broadcast this evening. Bandar is now a national security advisor to the Saudi king. He has denied any wrongdoing, as have other Saudi officials.
U.S. government officials said the investigation was being conducted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which has jurisdiction over business executives making bribes but not the government officials receiving them. As a result, someone like Bandar would not be the target of the Department’s investigation, but his role helping to manage the Riggs Bank accounts has made him central to the inquiry.
Bandar was among the longest-running Saudi ambassadors to the United States, serving from 1983 to 2005.
Freeh was FBI director from 1993 to 2001 and became known for his tough approach to white-collar crime and terrorism.
BAE confirmed that it is the subject of ongoing investigations, saying in a statement:
“BAE Systems’ view is that the interests of the company as well as of all its stakeholders, including the general public, are best served by allowing these investigations to run their course. The company is working with regulators towards that end, with a view to achieving resolution of the ongoing investigations.”
The British government has halted its own corruption investigation into the BAE contract. At the time it terminated the probe, there were published allegations that the Saudis were threatening to stop cooperating on counter-terrorism matters if the investigation continued. In the statement issued Monday, Freeh’s office said that “the claim that Prince Bandar attempted to interfere” with the British investigation is “refuted by the facts.”
Richard Clarke, a top counter-terrorism advisor to Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, and others said they have concerns about Freeh’s defense of Bandar.
“Someone who characterizes himself as a U.S. patriot and national security advocate ought not to be on the side of someone blackmailing people not to investigate crimes by threatening to withdraw a nation’s cooperation against terrorists,” Clarke said.
In his “Frontline” interview, Freeh emphatically tells correspondent Lowell Bergman that Bandar did not accept a bribe, either in the form of $2 billion in funds flowing to Riggs Bank or in the use of the aircraft supplied by BAE.
Freeh says that the Airbus — painted in the colors of Bandar’s favorite football team, the Dallas Cowboys — is in fact owned by the Saudi Air Force. If members of the Saudi royal family agree to allow Bandar to accept an airplane or anything else, “what was personal or not personal is really none of the business of the United States,” he says.
Actually, that question was important to a former FBI supervisory agent who oversaw the financial investigation into the Saudi government’s accounts at Riggs. Dennis Lormel said Bandar controlled at least 20 accounts at the bank and that government and personal expenditures were intermingled.
The FBI found that significant funds were used by Bandar and his family for personal travel, for his mansions and for some parties, Lormel said. “What’s personal and not personal?” Lormel asked, especially when the Saudi royal family essentially is the government. He said the FBI would ask Saudi officials, “Was this personal money? Where was the money going?” and that the Saudis’ answers were evasive.
Lormel said he had the “utmost regard” for Freeh’s integrity but thought it was nonetheless a mistake for him to represent someone who reportedly helped shut down the British investigation into BAE.
In the “Frontline” interview, Freeh strikes a politically controversial note by contending that the BAE deal was structured partly to avoid congressional restrictions on sale of U.S. parts to the Saudi military.
“U.S. arms could be purchased through BAE in a way that did not deal with the objection of the U.S. Congress to the selling of American equipment to the Saudis,” Freeh says. He does not elaborate.
BAE has sold planes with American-made components to the Saudis. U.S. law requires congressional review before such deals are completed. Congressional arms experts said that as far as they knew all such sales to the Saudis by BAE were reviewed and that they could not explain Freeh’s comment.
‘Frontline: Black Money’
April 7, 2009
First the stipulation that “Black Money,” a “Frontline” look at international bribery, is first-class journalism: high-minded, fact-filled and balanced, with some eye-catching visuals.
As British journalist David Leigh has reported in delicious detail, BAE allegedly slipped a bundle of money to a member of the Saudi royal family. Leigh’s scoops were only the beginning.
But before British prosecutors could close in on the bribers and bribes, the Saudis warned the government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair that the probe could imperil the complex relationship between the two countries.
With its British counterpart stymied, the U.S. Department of Justice is looking at BAE, which has 40,000 employees in the U.S. The U.S. has anti-bribery laws dating to the Jimmy Carter era that have made America both the envy and laughingstock of the international business community.
Months ago, in the world before the AIG bonuses, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and credit derivatives, news that the U.S. was looking at BAE as a test of U.S. anti-bribery laws would have seemed interesting, a nice bit of reporting.
Now there’s something unsettling about the prospect of government lawyers taking actions that could throw more Americans out of work. It’s a possibility that “Black Money” seems to skirt — that the price of being high-minded may be economic ruin for more Americans.
In journalism there is a concept called “being overtaken by events” in which news developments undercut your story before it’s published. “Black Money” has been overtaken by a tidal wave.
The moral of “Black Money” may be one unintended by the documentarians: that America — and the Department of Justice — should reform this country’s business practices before attempting to lecture the world.
“We did not invent corruption,” Prince Bandar bin Sultan tells Bergman. “This has happened since Adam and Eve. . . . This is human nature.”