Robert Bauer Partner in Perkins-Coie; sound familiar?
Breaking: full details to come on SOCN and Jolly Rogers
As Glenn Beck reported on Fox yesterday Robert F. Bauer, Anita Dunn’s husband, has been offered the position of Chief White House Counsel. What hasn’t been reported is that the firm, of which he is a partner; Perkins-Coie, not only is defending Osama Bin Laden’s driver but is also responsible for the ethics complaints filed against Sarah Palin’s Alaska Defense Fund. Of course, the charges were completely bogus but the firm tried to do as much damage as possible by bringing them.
More details and analysis are forthcoming Jolly Rogers.
UPDATE: Analysis
September 24, 2009
reprinted in part from Jolly Rogers for full article go here
Who is Bauer? In addition to being the alleged source of Obama’s decision to forgo general election spending limits, he was chief counsel to Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. Bauer was also counsel to Bill Bradley’s failed run for the presidency and is the current chairman of the Political Law Group at the Washington Firm of Perkins Coie LLP.
And of course Perkins Coie is known for the pro bono defense of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, aka Saqr al-Jedawi, Osama Bin Laden’s former chauffeur and good buddy of Nasser Al-Bahri who was linked to the bombing of the American Destroyer U.S.S. Cole. The case, which the law group brought to the Supreme Court: Salim Ahmed Hamdan versus Donald H. Rumsfeld, et al. With charges dropped as unconstitutional, Hamdan was held as an enemy combatant and brought up on new charges July 21, 2008. He was sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment, but had already served five. He was cleared of terrorism and conspiracy charges and transferred to Yemen where he was released January 8, 2009.
That isn’t the end of the strange coincidences involving Bauer and Perkins Coie. This law group hasn’t only been involved in backing folks like Hamdan (which set the course for the whole question of Guantanamo Bay detainees, the War on Terror and military commissions versus civil trials, etc.), but they’ve been involved in American politics – deeply.
Perkins Coie is the group responsible for boosting the intensity of one of the most persistent ethics attacks against former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
In an e-mail dated July 14, 2009 Kim Chatman, a blogger in Alaska, filed an ethics complaint against Sarah Palin, making the allegation that the governor established a trust fund for the purpose of soliciting donations from members of the public. The original report on this complaint was published in the Anchorage Daily News. Chatman was a co-plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against Palin and filed a complaint regarding Palin’s use of per-diem monies. In all, Chatman leveled
The Alaska Personnel Board asked Perkins Coie to review the complaint. Their nine- page report to the Alaska Personnel Board found essentially nothing, but combined with the pressure of 17 other complaints against the Governor and former candidate for Vice President, may have contributed to her finally leaving office. This complaint was number 13 in that long list.
Perkins Coie has offices in Anchorage, Beijing, Bellevue, Boise, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Madison, Melo Park, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Shanghai and of course, Washington, D.C.
But it’s the firm’s experience that makes it most interesting. Listed on its’ website are the areas which it excels at. These include Industry, clean-tech, communications, e-commerce, electronic financial services, energy, energy commercial transactions and project finance, energy litigation, energy project permitting and development, energy regulations and policy, forest products, franchising and distribution, hotels and leisure, interactive entertainment, life sciences, mining, renewable energy, retail and consumer products, semiconductor, senior housing and winery and vineyard.
So, knowing that, we can understand why there is an office in Anchorage, Alaska, and we could understand in a basic sense why the Personnel Board may have asked that firm to review the complaint and offer their opinion – after all, they have a big office there in Anchorage. But isn’t it strange coincidence that the very firm they ask to offer a review is so deeply involved in alternative energy concerns, and has made such a big mark by going up against Donald Rumsfeld, allowing a scumbag like Hamdan to walk – and in that single stroke, producing the firestorm of legal problems that Guantanamo creates. One might just have to wonder who is benefiting from this? More lawyers? And who benefits from the quick passage of Health Care Reform without addressing tort reform?
More lawyers.
And who benefits from taking Sarah Palin out of the game – people like Bauer and people like Obama – more lawyers. Why Perkins Coie? What do they have to gain? Well, they’re not just lovers of Guantanamo detainees. Perrkins Coie is connected to Boeing, Google, Nintendo, Microsoft, Craigslist, AT&T, Western Urban Water Coalition, Dragonslayers (wildfire mitigators) and something called America Votes.
America Votes claims to be the largest grassroots voter mobilization effort in the country. Its’ website has the following on the home page: “America Votes is the centerpiece of a permanent progressive campaign infrastructure nationally and in the states. America Votes and our coalition partners, coordinate independent electoral activity, share innovative strategies and resources, maximize electoral impact and build lasting capacity.
If you’re unsure what that really means, you can get a better explanation from the column on the right of the page. The organization, which is connected to Perkins Coie, is designed to improve “progressives’ ability to succeed in the long term.” The site explains that this effort “is directly linked to the work we do today to build the infrastructure in the states.”
The question I have is “what is the real infrastructure being built and how much of this really has the specific aims of destroying the country regardless of who gets in the way?” And the more obvious this becomes – the more of this structure is uncovered, the faster everything will change. And it won’t be Obama’s “change.” All that will be finished.
Because I think they counted Sarah Palin out too early. She’ll be coming back swinging along with an enraged public.
Hardin Montana- A Conspiracy of ‘Twitter’ Proportions Revealed
Hardin, Montana has definitely seen some hard times the past few years. Two Rivers Authority is Hardin’s economic development branch. Building a detention center was supposed to help Hardin during it’s rough economic times. However, when the jail was completed in 2007, Montana no longer had the need for more prison space. Therefore, the Two Rivers Detention Center has sat empty for two years and the bonds used to pay for the jail have been in default since May 2008.
With foreclosure of the land and facility looming, Hardin – a struggling town of 3500, first came to national attention when, in its desperation to fill the jail, announced they were willing to take Guantanamo detainees. Unfortunately for the town, Congress voted not to fund the $80 million in the President’s plan to close Guantanamo. Thereby, leaving Hardin with a still empty jail. Enter, American Private Police Force Organization, Inc. (APF).
APF swooped into Hardin and made them an offer too good to refuse. Most private security firms who manage corrections facilities, receive money from the City, County, or State to administer the facility. Not so for APF. ‘Captain’ Michael Hilton, the company’s lead public figure and Greg Smith, then Two Rivers Executive Director, announced a 10 year contract had been inked. APF said it planned to invest $30 million in new projects for the city, including a military and law enforcement training center with a 250 bed dormitory and an expansion of the jail to 2000 beds. The company also said it would build a homeless shelter, offer free health care for city residents, deliver meals to the needy and possibly provide a local police force. Not bad for a city of only 3500 inhabitants.
All seemed well until Hilton brought in three Mercedes SUV’s complete with removable decals emblazoned with ‘City of Hardin Police Department.’ If Hardin actually had police department it probably would have gone relatively unnoticed. However, Hardin hasn’t had a police department in over 30 years and that brought the entire story worldwide attention. This time, bloggers and conspiracy theorists heated up the internet with stories of FEMA camps and Big Brother. At this point I am certain Hardin would be happy if that were the case. Instead, it is something far more mundane and possibly more harmful to the ones who were sucked in by the company. Add to it the fact that neither Hilton nor Smith would disclose the exact terms of the contract, who was backing APF in the multimillion investment, or who APF’s parent company was and you have a conspiracy of Twitter proportions. Factored in to the ‘conspiracy’ are dubious remarks by Smith’s wife, when questioned about the specifics, “Don’t panic, just go with the flow and everything will be fine,” Kerri Smith, City of Hardin Mayoral candidate.
Shortly after the contract was signed by Two Rivers Authority and APF, the executive director of Two Rivers, Smith, was place on administrative leave with no public explanation. In addition, the Billings Gazette staffer, Becky Shay, who had been covering the detention facility and the subsequent APF storyline, suddenly quit her job with the newspaper and became APF’s Public Relations Officer within an hour of quitting the paper. The supposed world wide paramilitary organization hired a local beat reporter to manage its worldwide PR. Just as the number of questions surrounding APF, Smith, and Shay were mounting up, the company’s website was mysteriously taken down; thus, fueling the internet rumors of black helicopters and interment camps.
Well, we can now declare the mystery has been solved. Unfortunately, I suspect jobs will be lost and reputations of life long Hardin citizens ruined. All at the hands of a grifter.
According to Matthew Brown (AP) who has been following this story closely:
Public documents and interviews with Hilton’s associates and legal adversaries offer a different picture, that of a convicted felon with a number of aliases, a string of legal judgments against him, two bankruptcies and a decades-long reputation for deals gone bad.
American Police Force is the company Hilton formed in March to take over the Hardin jail.
“Such schemes you cannot believe,” said Joseph Carella, an Orange County, Calif. doctor and co-defendant with Hilton in a real estate fraud case that resulted in a civil judgment against Hilton and several others.
“The guy’s brilliant. If he had been able to do honest work, he probably would have been a gazillionaire,” Carella said.
Court documents show Hilton has outstanding judgments against him in three civil cases totaling more than $1.1 million.
As for Hilton’s military expertise, including his claim to have advised forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, those interviewed knew of no such feats. Instead, Hilton was described alternately by those who know him as an arts dealer, cook, restaurant owner, land developer, loan broker and car salesman — always with a moneymaking scheme in the works.
Hilton did not return several calls seeking comment. American Police Force attorney Maziar Mafi referred questions to company spokeswoman Becky Shay.
When asked about court records detailing Hilton’s past, Shay replied, “The documents speak for themselves. If anyone has found public documents, the documents are what they are.”
Shay declined comment on Hilton’s military experience.
Al Peterson, vice president of Hardin’s Two Rivers Authority, which built the jail, declined to comment on Hilton’s legal troubles. He refused to say if he knew about Hilton’s past when the authority reached a 10-year agreement with American Police Force last month.
The deal is worth more than $2.6 million a year, according to city leaders.
Hilton has also pledged to build a $17 million military and law enforcement training center. And he’s promised to dispatch security to patrol Hardin’s streets, build an animal shelter and a homeless shelter and offer free health care to city resident’s out of the jail’s clinic.
Those additional promises were not included in the jail agreement, which remains in limbo because US Bank has so far declined to sign off on the contract. The bank is the trustee for the bonds used to fund the jail.
A US Bank spokeswoman declined to comment, but Peterson was adamant the deal would be approved.
“It’s a solid deal. That’s all I’ll say,” he said.
But a representative of a corrections advocacy group that has been critical of Hardin’s jail and has investigated Hilton’s past said city leaders dropped the ball.
“I’m amazed that city officials didn’t do basic research that would have raised significant questions about American Private Police Force and Mr. Hilton’s background,” said Alex Friedmann, vice president of the Private Corrections Institute.
Hilton, 55, uses the title “captain” when introducing himself and on his business cards. But he acknowledged it was not a military rank.
He said he is naturalized U.S. citizen and native of Montenegro. Aliases for Hilton that appear in court documents include Miodrag Dokovich, Michael Hamilton, Hristian Djokich and Michael Djokovich.
One attorney who dealt with Hilton in a fraud lawsuit referred to him as a “chameleon” and he has a reputation for winning people over with his charm.
His criminal record goes back to at least 1988, when Hilton was arrested in Santa Ana, Calif. for writing bad checks.
Beginning in 1993, Hilton spent six years in prison in California on a dozen counts of grand theft and other charges including illegal diversion of construction funds.
The charges included stealing $20,000 in a real estate swindle in which Hilton convinced an associate to give him a deed on property in Long Beach, Calif., ostensibly as collateral on a loan. Hilton turned around and sold the property to another party but was caught when the buyer contacted the original owner.
After his release, he got entangled in at least three civil lawsuits alleging fraud or misrepresentation. Those included luring investors to sink money into gold and silver collectible coins; posing as a fine arts dealer in Utah in order to convince a co uple to give him a $100,000 silver statue; and, in the case involving co-defendant Carella, seeking investors for an assisted living complex in Southern California that was never built.
Carella said he was duped into becoming a partner in the development project and that Hilton used Carella’s status as a physician to lure others into the scheme. He was described in court testimony as a “pawn” used by Hilton to lure investors.
Those involved with Hilton say he is an accomplished cook with a flair for the extravagant — wining and dining potential partners, showing up at the Utah couple’s house to negotiate for the silver statue in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes.
“This is the way we got taken,” said Carolyn Call of Provo, Utah, who said she gave Hilton her family’s silver statue to sell on the open market.
According to court documents, Hilton turned around and gave the statue to an attorney to pay for his services.
Two California attorneys said Wednesday that after learning of Hilton’s latest activities they planned to follow him to Montana to seek payment on the outstanding judgments against him.
“Once I know that there is an asset or some sort of funds to go after, we’ll go after it,” said Call’s attorney, Roger Naghash.
