disinfozone/The_Info_Web
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity Actions

vault backup: 2026-09-22 19:54:11

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
disinfo.zone 2026-09-22 19:54:11 -04:00
parent b11b1ded59
commit ed5835c2fb
No known key found for this signature in database
42 changed files with 309 additions and 91 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

2
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/House Banking Committee.md
View file

@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ The House committee that became the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affa
### Gonzalez and BNL
Gonzalez became chairman in January 1989, and his hearings on [[Charles Keating]] and [[Lincoln Savings and Loan]] produced the evidence against the five senators who had intervened with regulators for Keating.[^2] After the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] raided the Atlanta branch of the [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]] in August 1989 and found billions of dollars in off-book loans to Iraq, Gonzalez proposed hearings; the attorney general's legislative aide, [[Lee Rawls]], advised [[Richard Thornburgh]] in 1990 that "our best attempt to thwart any further congressional inquiry by the House Banking Committee into this case is to have you contact Chairman Gonzalez directly." Gonzalez declined the call, and Thornburgh wrote to him on September 26, 1990, that a hearing and staff interviews raised "the prospect that culpable parties will elude prosecution."[^3][^4] The committee issued subpoenas, and from February 1992 Gonzalez read classified documents into the *Congressional Record* in some twenty special order speeches.[^4]
Gonzalez became chairman in January 1989, and his hearings on [[Charles Keating]] and [[Lincoln Savings and Loan]] produced the evidence against the five senators who had intervened with regulators for Keating.[^2] After the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] raided the [[Atlanta]] branch of the [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]] in August 1989 and found billions of dollars in off-book loans to Iraq, Gonzalez proposed hearings; the attorney general's legislative aide, [[Lee Rawls]], advised [[Richard Thornburgh]] in 1990 that "our best attempt to thwart any further congressional inquiry by the House Banking Committee into this case is to have you contact Chairman Gonzalez directly." Gonzalez declined the call, and Thornburgh wrote to him on September 26, 1990, that a hearing and staff interviews raised "the prospect that culpable parties will elude prosecution."[^3][^4] The committee issued subpoenas, and from February 1992 Gonzalez read classified documents into the *Congressional Record* in some twenty special order speeches.[^4]
The committee took testimony from [[SerVaas Inc.]] on April 9, 1991, that the brass factory it sold to Iraq was for commercial products; on September 25, 1992, Gonzalez produced a memorandum of July 31, 1988, showing the Iraqi buyer meant it for cartridge cases and artillery fuses.[^5] On April 28, 1992, he told the House that "BNL was a client of Mr. Scowcroft's while he was the vice-chairman of [[Kissinger Associates]]."[^6] [[Lawrence Eagleburger]] told the committee that year: "Quite frankly, the selective disclosure, out of context, of classified documents has led, knowingly or otherwise, to distortions of the record, half-truths, and outright falsehoods."[^3] Director [[Robert Gates]] ordered a damage assessment of one of Gonzalez's disclosures, and on August 4, 1992, the minority leader, [[Bob Michel]], introduced a resolution calling for an ethics investigation; Gonzalez was not censured.[^7] He called the report of the special counsel [[Frederick Lacey]], who in December 1992 found no grounds for an independent counsel, a whitewash.[^9] On November 9, 1993, [[Christopher Drogoul]], the former manager of the Atlanta branch, testified under oath before the committee with five other former employees.[^9]