Goldman and Chase -- along with Glencore and Trafigura, a pair of giant Swiss-based conglomerates that were offshoots of a firm founded by notorious deceased commodities trader and known market manipulator Marc Rich -- all made notably coincidental purchases of metals-warehousing companies in 2010.
The presence of these Marc Rich entities is particularly noteworthy. According to famed Forbes reporter Paul Klebnikov, who was assassinated in 2004 after years of reports on Russian corruption, Rich made a fortune in the early Nineties striking crooked deals with the Soviet bosses who controlled the U.S.S.R.'s supplies of raw materials -- in particular commodities like zinc and aluminum. These deals helped create a fledgling class of profiteers among the bosses of the crumbling Soviet empire, a class that would go on years later to help push Russia out of its communist past into its kleptocratic present.
"He'd strike a deal with the local party boss, or the director of a state-owned company," Klebnikov said back in 2001. "He'd say, 'OK, you will sell me the [commodity] at five to 10 percent of the world-market price"."."."and in return, I will deposit some of the profit I make by reselling it 10 times higher on the world market, and put the kickback in a Swiss bank account.'"
Rich made these reported deals while in exile from the United States, which he fled in 1983 after the U.S. government charged him with tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering and trading with the enemy after being caught trading with rogue states like Iran, among other things. The state filed enough counts to put him away for life, and he remained a fugitive until January 2001, when a little-known Clinton administration Justice Department official named Eric Holder recommended Rich be pardoned. A report by the House Committee on Government Reform later concluded that Holder had not provided a credible explanation for supporting Rich's pardon and that he must have had "other motivations" that he didn't share with Congress. Among other things, the committee speculated that Holder had designs on the attorney general's office in a potential Al Gore administration.
In any case, in 2010, a decade after the Rich pardon, Holder was attorney general, but under Barack Obama, and two Rich-created firms, along with two banks that have been major donors to the Democratic Party, all made moves to buy up metals warehouses. In near simultaneous fashion, Goldman, Chase, Glencore and Trafigura bought companies that control warehouses all over the world for the LME, or London Metals Exchange. The LME is a privately owned exchange for world metals trading. It's the world's primary hub for determining metals prices and also for trading metals-based futures, options, swaps and other instruments.
With the NSA abuses including names of those who have been spied on (or blackmailed) as well as Taibbi's foray into the crooked financial aspects (NSA ties as well?) it seemed like an awesome and unprecedented run at the Deep State was nigh with some of the revelations coming very close to the domain of the mysterious and legendary "Octopus" which was the subject of work by investigative reporter Danny Casolaro who was found dead under very mysterious circumstances back in 1991.
Casolaro's research came to reach into the upper echelons of US politics at the time and included the use of the sophisticated, ahead of its time software program PROMIS which according to some accounts - notably Guy Lawson's book "Octopus" and Cheri Seymour's "The Last Circle"- was being used to rig financial markets, launder money and facilitate US and foreign espionage by utilizing "back doors" in host computers for spying. In the case of Seymour's research, elements within the US Department of Justice are implicated, particularly Reagan administration figures such as Edwin Meese in using government actions to quash criminal investigations.
Eric Holder has a long history within the DOJ and was also appointed as a judge of the DC superior court by Reagan in 1988. Having also served during the Reagan, Clinton and Obama presidencies he has an established continuity and his involvement in the Rich pardon doesn't pass the smell test, even more so given the crime spree on Wall Street that has taken place during his watch.
While most lack the necessary knowledge to recognize these historical linkages they are such that would make the establishment very nervous of the possibility of Snowden's NSA leaks being used as a point of reference for backtracking in order to reconstruct how exactly we got from Reagan's Executive Order 12333 back in 1981 to the NSA surveillance and data-mining colossus of 2014. Were enough talented investigators able to successfully run the trace it would have the potential to blow the lid off of the entire f*cking sewer which is truly what these bastards are afraid of. There are far too many crimes and crimes to cover up those crimes going back decades to risk exposure.
But I digress..
So as it sits now, with Greenwald's story in limbo - the "imminent" scoop is starting to look like it has been squashed like a pesky insect by the red, white and blue jackboot of Leviathan. There is absolutely no way that the government is going to allow it to be published in a form that will challenge the corruption of the entire system - we are not only talking about the NSA here but everything and that will not happen. Greenwald fucked up by allowing himself to be put under the control of one who benefits from the existence of that corrupt system through what is really starting to look like a legacy killer in The Intercept and First Look Media. Perhaps it is hubris, he has been so busy making appearances in an obviously dishonest domestic media conducting his victory tour after the publication of "No Place to Hide" that he never saw it coming. His delay - there have been many calling for the publication of the entire Snowden trove - has only allowed for the government to regroup, plot and bring pressure to kill the story. If the story is halted, substantially delayed or gutted then it represents a major strategic failure on his part and a successful attempt to dilute or halt the story will do immense damage to those who are desperately fighting for justice and the return to accountability.
Greenwald's failed calculus was in believing that the bastards could actually be beaten - they can't, like that classic Dire Straits song puts it "the man's too strong". This is a guerrilla war in which the only victory is in causing them problems with an ongoing series of non-centralized swarm attacks by dedicated activists, bloggers and writers - this is why the Occupy Movement was such a threat and was mercilessly and rapidly crushed.
While Greenwald's delay may only be temporary, the cave in to the government that he himself has now acknowledged will make any future revelations suspect. The affiliation with The Intercept and Omidyar which already has suffered a ding in credibility by not publishing that other country involved in the SOMALGET program. This was a transgression that Wikileaks - an organization that helped to save Mr. Snowden's ass from a US torture chamber - immediately decried and revealed what the bosses at First Look Media would not.
The only solution is to PUT IT ALL OUT THERE and let the bloggers and alternative media have at it and if the establishment successfully suppress Greenwald's big "fireworks" show then there is really no other way. If there exists a complete set of the documents (and I suspect this is so) then let one who is not subject to coercion by the rogue elements in Washington set off their own extravaganza and truly light up the sky. It would be delightful were this to happen on the Fourth of July as a symbolic gesture to the principles that this once great country was founded upon.
No more half measures.
[NOTE: Updated 7/3 for minor punctuation and grammatical corrections as well as link additions for "Deep State" and "Executive Order 12333"]
(Article changed on July 3, 2014 at 05:35)
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