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A CROOKED FEDERAL JUDGE AND THE OIL RACKETS
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By Sherman H. Skolnick
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Here is the scene.  It  was  October,  1990.  A half million U.S.
troops were gathering in the  Persian  Gulf.   Joined  by  a  few
thousand  troops  of  our  so-called  "Allies."  One of the great
secrets was how, in the 1980s, U.S., England, France, and Germany
supplied weapons to both  Iraq  and  Iran,  to kill each other --
hundreds of thousands died -- in a war  that  went  on  for  some
eight years, 1980 to 1988.
 
The Western Powers used the Iraq-Iran war to control the oil from
the Gulf.
 
Who  in  1990  (or  even  now)  knew or remembered that President
George Bush and his cronies  were  the  ones who were kingpins in
making Kuwait a major oil producer?  All the way  back  to  1960,
when  Kuwait  was  a  British colony.  Kuwait petroleum interests
were  big  depositors  and  transacters  through  the Rockefeller
banks, New York and Chicago.  In the U.S.,  particularly  in  the
south,  Kuwait  Petroleum  was becoming a big competitor, such as
the chain of retail  gas  stations,  once  owned by Gulf Oil, and
then called under  the  name  "Q-8"  Gas  Stations.   Kuwait  was
becoming, world-wide, too big a competitor to the Rockefeller oil
cartel, and the companies making up the monopoly with them.
 
There  was a danger that oil prices, by over-production, would go
down, severely damaging the oil trust, called The Seven Sisters.
 
A really big secret, in 1990,  and even now, was that George Bush
was a private joint venture business partner of Iraqi  strongman,
Saddam   Hussein.   Since  Bush  had  been  Director  of  Central
Intelligence, 1975,  the  CIA  created  Saddam,  by arranging the
political  murders  of  his  opponents,  including  some  of  his
power-grabbing relatives.
 
Saddam was the bully boy of the Persian Gulf, where all the other
oil producers secretly agreed to  pay  him  and  his  cronies  25
percent  of  all the oil shipped to the West, for the decade 1980
to 1990.  That was one trillion dollars worth.  The kick-backs to
Saddam and his circle  had  been  25  billion  dollars  per  year
(average), a total of 250 billion dollars for the decade.  Saddam
shared the oil loot with his partner, George Herbert Walker Bush,
and their circle of thieves and extortionists.
 
The oil kick-backs were funneled through the  Chicago  branch  of
Italy's  largest bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro [BNL], owned in
part by the Vatican.   According  to Congressional documents, BNL
was the twin and interlocked with Bank  of  Credit  and  Commerce
International [BCCI].  BCCI has been a worldwide crime, political
murder,  and espionage operation that became, supposedly, defunct
in 1991.  Actually, BCCI  has  continued on through its successor
and alter ego, Pinnacle Banc  Group,  whose  flag-ship  is  First
National  Bank of Cicero (Chicago mafia enclave suburb).  And the
Cicero bank has  long  been  dominated  by Bishop Paul Marcinkus,
once heading a church there and up until 1991 head of the Vatican
Bank.  (According to an espionage-gangster scandal in Italy,  the
Vatican  Bank  was  the  center  of  CIA/mafia gun and dope money
laundering as well as the secret  sale of nuclear device parts to
terrorists.  The Roger D'Onofrio Affair, a long-time American CIA
official, dual resident in U.S. and near Naples, Italy.  Reuters,
Naples, 12/2/95.  Associated Press, Naples, 12/2/95.  See also my
story called "Clandestine Projects.")
 
Starting in the early 1980s, BNL and  BCCI  set  up  branches  in
major  cities  in the U.S., including Chicago.  This was arranged
by partners in the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock and through their
client, Stephens & Co.,  largest  bond brokers worldwide, outside
of Wall Street.  Forming the branches required greasing the palms
of state and federal  bank  regulators  and  others,  around  the
country.   Facilitating  this corruption were two of the Rose Law
Firm partners, Hillary Rodham  Clinton and her law partner/lover,
Vincent W. Foster, Jr.
 
From the early 1980s,  Vince  Foster  was  the  equivalent  of  a
military  general  in  the  super-secret National Security Agency
[NSA].  With the help  of  Hillary,  he  headed up the NSA's bank
computer services spying operation,  keeping  tabs  on  bank  and
other money laundering worldwide -- both friend and foe.
 
Hillary  Clinton's  father, originally from the Chicago suburb of
Park Ridge, was  reportedly  a  middle-level gangster, setting up
money washing through banks and  insurance  companies,  U.S.  and
overseas.  Hillary being married to William Jefferson Clinton was
a  marriage  of  convenience.   From  an early age, both had been
separately groomed by CIA through George Bush and others; such as
the CIA London station chief  for Bill.  To use espionage jargon,
Bill and Hillary were a "CIA couple."
 
The CIA promoted Bill Clinton from state Attorney General  (which
he got from his gangster uncle, Ray Clinton), to be Governor of a
sizeable  state  with  a small population -- Arkansas -- known as
owned by  the  Rockefellers.   Savvy  folks  contend  Bill is the
illegitimate great grandson of old John D.  Rockefeller,  founder
of the infamous Standard Oil Trust.  Arkansas has been one of the
most  backward places in the nation, if not in the world -- where
anything goes.  In the  Iran-Contra period, Governor Clinton kept
his state police from interfering with  the  CIA's  guns  &  dope
operation through the small airport in western Arkansas, at Mena.
In  secluded  facilities nearby, in violation of federal aviation
regulations, small shops  were  set  up  and  operating to re-fit
airplanes secretly with special doors and long-range fuel  tanks,
to  be  used  in  faraway jungles, like Central America, good for
dropping secret loads of weapons  and  picking up dope for return
trips to various sites in Arkansas and across the South.
 
Bill Clinton's mother was the link through Hot Springs, Arkansas,
to  the  underworld's  gambling,  extortion,   and   prostitution
apparatus,  which  on  occasion  overlapped  CIA.  An outpost for
Chicago mobsters was Hot  Springs,  and  they had done favors for
the CIA, such as aiding in the CIA's murder of President  Kennedy
in Dallas.
 
So,  in  its  most  simplistic  terms,  the  marriage of Bill and
Hillary Clinton was the  joining  of  two crime families, Chicago
and Hot Springs.  A merger authorized for a CIA couple by the spy
agency.
 
A few related examples:   Operating through Chicago to reportedly
wash funds for the CIA, the Vatican Bank, and others,  reportedly
has  been  Coral Re-Insurance, having an unlisted headquarters in
the Barbados.  They reportedly money laundered 50 million dollars
of federal  funds,  part  of  58.4  million  dollars  parked with
Household  International  and   their   units   Household   Bank.
Household,  in part dominated by the Vatican, is the successor to
the Nugan Hand Bank,  like  Household,  a CIA proprietary washing
espionage, political murder, and other covert funds.  Former  CIA
Director   William   Colby,   who  mysteriously  disappeared  and
supposedly whose body was  later  found, had been general counsel
of Nugan Hand Bank which supposedly became defunct following  the
murder  of one of its founders.  Colby had a similar role for the
Nugan Hand Bank alter ego, Household.
 
As to Nugan Hand  Bank,  see  the  book  by Jonathan Kwitny, "The
Crimes of Patriots."
 
I have written extensively  of  a  complex  group  of  state  and
federal  litigation  in  Chicago,  called the Joseph Andreuccetti
Affair, involving the  mysterious  50  million dollar transfer by
Household to Little Rock and from there,  to  the  Grand  Caymans
with the aid of Coral Re-Insurance and Fuji Bank.
 
The mysterious transfer of the 50 million dollars was to cover up
the  apparent  embezzlement  of  funds  from  a federally-insured
outlet, Madison  Guaranty  Savings  &  Loan  --  some  47 million
dollars for which Bill and Hillary Clinton can be the targets  of
federal  criminal prosecution.  Congressman Dan Burton (R., Ind.)
refers to the  strange  50  million  dollars  transferred by Bill
Clinton to a known dope-money laundering center.   (Congressional
Record,  5/29/96, pages H5627-28.)  Some quote the congressman as
stating he vows to help put Bill and Hillary Clinton in prison.
 
A key player in all this  was  Brian Barnett Duff.  In the 1980s,
Duff sat as a judge in the state court in  Chicago,  the  Circuit
Court of Cook County.  Later, the Reagan/Bush team installed Duff
as  a  federal  district  judge in Chicago.  Some knew Duff to be
corrupt, but he escaped while all other local judges were sent to
federal prison in "Operation Greylord" (touched off by our work.)
 
One thing is for  sure:   Duff  was  subject  to blackmail, a key
reason someone  is  selected  for  high  office  (an  unfortunate
American  reality.)  At any moment, Duff could be whisked away to
the funny farm.  On the  bench,  he had outbursts where he wanted
to jail the more-independent lawyers for  no  particular  reason.
In  routine  cases, lawyers knew they had to grovel before him or
he would suddenly  go  nuts  and  start  threatening  one or more
lawyers and others.
 
Some just imagined Duff  as  some  psychiatric  ward  inmate  who
somehow  escaped to high federal office.  Duff acted the part and
was there to be used and blackmailed.
 
A  case   that   should   have   been   labeled  a  blackmailer's
dream-come-true was on  U.S.  District  Judge  Duff's  docket  in
October, 1990.  (You are wrong if you really believe cases get on
a  particular judge's docket by so-called "random selection."  To
make a long  story  short,  court  corruption  requires a corrupt
Court  Clerk's  office.   A  top  federal  Court  Clerk's  Office
official ended up in jail because of our work, in 1969, U.S.  vs.
Robert P. Steine.)
 
All of the foregoing almost unraveled, worldwide, but was  hushed
up -- a series of events in October, 1990.
 
A  Texas  Democrat,  in  some  ways seeming to be a populist, was
Henry B. Gonzalez.  As a very long-time congressman, he headed up
the House Banking Committee.  As  part of an investigation of the
twin banks, BNL and BCCI, Cong.  Gonzalez sought the  records  of
the  Chicago  branch  of  BNL.   A custodian of copies of some of
those records was the Federal Reserve Board who began giving them
to the congressman's committee.
 
Alarmed  when  they  found  out,  the  Bush/Saddam  Hussein  gang
instigated  the  Illinois   State   Banking  Commissioner,  which
regulated the BNL Chicago branch, to start an injunction suit  in
federal  district  court  in  Chicago  which by corrupt means was
assigned to Judge Duff, a crony  of Bush.  People of the State of
Illinois ex rel.  William C. Harris, Bank Commissioner vs.  Board
of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Case No. 90  C  6863.
Because  they  were  the  focus  of  the  litigation, becoming an
intervening party was the House Banking Committee.
 
In one of his rulings, Judge  Duff sought to bar Gonzalez's House
Banking Committee lawyer from Judge Duff's courtroom.  In one  of
his  psychiatric  outbursts,  apparently  brought on by blackmail
pressure against him, Judge Duff referred to the lawyer as an 800
pound gorilla showing no deference to Judge Duff.  In other plain
words,  get  the  hell  out  of  my  courtroom  and  out  of this
courthouse:  this matter is already "fixed," by Bush and  others,
and why are you here?
 
(A  key  development:   while  the case was pending, the Illinois
Attorney  General,  representing   the  Banking  Commissioner  in
federal court, changed from GOP to Democrat.  They half-heartedly
proceeded to push the case.)
 
Unless Congressman Gonzalez was prepared to sign -- and he wasn't
-- a national security oath of some sort that he would not reveal
the BNL Chicago records, any records he had were to  be  returned
and  he could not get any more of the bank's records.  One of the
exhibits already in the  court  record  is  a letter on behalf of
CIA, that the bank's records should not be divulged.   The  court
record  also  shows  high-level  negotiations between top Italian
officials, in Rome, with  officials  in  the  U.S. of the Federal
Reserve, regarding that the BNL records should not be disclosed.
 
Bush's blackmailable crony, Judge Duff, enjoined the  release  of
the  records of BNL.  The mass media, themselves interlocked with
crooked banks, dared not send any reporter to cover the case.  In
May, 1991, an appeal of the case was heard by a three-judge panel
of the U.S. Court of  Appeals,  7th Circuit, in Chicago.  Most of
the  judges  on  the  7th  Circuit  court  (covering   Wisconsin,
Illinois,  and Indiana) are interlocked with banks.  For example,
chief judge of that  court  for  many  years  was Judge Walter J.
Cummings, Jr.:  his father for years and years was board chairman
of the Continental Bank of Chicago.   The  Cummings  family  have
been  major  owners  of  that  bank,  along with the Vatican, the
Rothschilds,  and  the  Queen  of   England  (who  always  had  a
representative of the British royal  family  on  the  Continental
board).
 
That bank, tied to the commodity  markets, has all the years been
a center of  corrupt  secret  nominee  accounts  for  judges,  to
corruptly  influence  many  federal  judges  such  as in Chicago.
Continental Bank has been  the  head  office for several thousand
correspondent banks.  (Formed before the American Civil War, like
the Chicago  Board  of  Trade,  Continental  was  apparently  the
transfer  point for Rothschild banking empire funds implicated in
the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.)
 
The only reporter at the May, 1991, federal appeals court hearing
was  myself  accompanied   by   friends.    *Where*  *was*  *the*
*mainstream* *press*  *in*  *a*  *world-shaking*  *story*  *like*
*this*?
 
After  the  hearing,  in the back of the courtroom, I interviewed
two participants.
 
  Question:  I  heard  that  the  secret  BNL Chicago records
  involved here relate to private,  joint  business  ventures
  between George Herbert Walker Bush and his business partner
  Saddam Hussein.
 
  Answer:   (From  a  lawyer of the Illinois Attorney General
  representing the State Banking  Commissioners) Yes, that is
  correct.
 
(To be careful and sure, I asked the same question  three  times.
Same answer each time.)
 
  Question:   Why  do  the  state and federal bank regulators
  want these records suppressed?
 
  Answer:   Release  of  the   records  would  undermine  the
  authority  of  bank  regulators  and  because  of  what  is
  involved here, would cause a worldwide run on banks.
 
  Question:  Are you  confirming  it  is  that  serious,  the
  possible release of BNL Chicago's records?
 
  Answer:   Yes,  release  of  the  records  would  create an
  international  incident,  detrimental  to  the  banks,  the
  United States, and our international relations.
 
The bank's records,  among  other  things,  show  Bush and Saddam
Hussein getting, for the decade of the 1980s, 250 billion dollars
in oil kick-backs from all the Persian Gulf oil producers, or  25
billion  dollars  per  year  for  a  decade  -- for the ten years
leading up to the Persian Gulf War.
 
I then stated:   It  seems  the  appeal  record  is suppressed or
someone wants to suppress it.  Whereupon, the lawyer reached into
a leather suitcase and dragged out most of the records  and  gave
them to me.
 
I   then   interviewed   the  lawyer  for  the  Illinois  Banking
Commissioner, that regulates the Chicago  branch of BNL.  I asked
him the same question as well, three times to be sure,  and  each
time  he  answered  similar  to  the  first lawyer.  He then also
volunteered:
 
Those records also relate  to  "non  bank" records.  He explained
there are records of  BNL  Chicago  that  are  not  exactly  bank
records  but show George Herbert Walker Bush as the private joint
business venture partner of Saddam Hussein.
 
The three-judge panel  was  headed  by  Judge  Richard A. Posner,
later made Chief Judge of the 7th Circuit.  Posner,  once  a  law
school teacher at the University of Chicago (founded and operated
by  the  Rockefeller  oil  cartel)  reportedly represents the one
billion dollar (and more)  stock  portfolio  of the University of
Chicago.  (Like the other judges on the federal appeals court  in
Chicago  --  and  other  banker-judges around the nation -- Judge
Posner does NOT disqualify  himself  when his financial interests
are involved. Guess who wins?)
 
Before becoming a judge on the federal appeals court in  Chicago,
Posner  ran  a  court  litigation  service  company  described by
reliable  sources  as  reportedly   specializing  in  bribing  or
blackmailing federal judges on behalf of major corporations.
 
After an appeals court hearing, most usually their ruling is made
months later.  In the meantime, in this case, after the  hearing,
the  Bush Justice Department began circulating stories -- but the
press fakers were afraid to go  into  it and follow it up -- that
Judge Posner had reportedly received bribes in eight other cases.
Funny thing, our group  already  knew  about  those  eight  other
cases, not news to us.
 
Responding  to the bribery blackmail, Judge Posner, in the summer
of 1991, made a strange  and  rare  ruling:  that the BNL Chicago
case should not be in this  courthouse  and  should  be  entirely
removed.
 
Only  a  right-wing,  conservative  newspaper  dared  publish the
details of all this. ("Spotlight," 8/19/91)
 
Saddam Hussein's half-brother,  in  Geneva, Switzerland, has told
European reporters that if Saddam is assassinated by the American
CIA, that  records  will  be  released  compelling  the  American
government to prosecute George Bush for treason.
 
In March, 1996, I did a program on my popular public access cable
TV  program  in  Chicago,  called  "Broadsides," that Judge Brian
Barnett Duff was observed by me and an associate of mine during a
three-hour  hearing  in  a   case  involving  Chicago  City  Hall
patronage jobs.  A former city employee contended that  thousands
of  city  workers  have  been defrauded out of amounts that total
into the hundreds of millions.  That  this was because of a fraud
upon the federal district court  in  Chicago.   Implicit  in  the
hearing was that Judge Duff was in some way himself a part of the
fraud  upon  his  court.   Duff  implied that the situation is so
serious, as to the  amounts  involved,  that  it could cause city
government of Chicago to declare bankruptcy.
 
During the lengthy hearing, described  on my cable TV show, Judge
Duff raved and ranted like he had just escaped from a nut  house.
For  a  lengthy  period  he condemned one of the lawyers that had
filed papers  about  the  fraud  upon  Duff's  court  in the city
patronage cases.  Just as Duff looked  at  the  lawyer  Duff  was
berating,  Judge  Duff said: "If you say anything more I am going
to do something  to  you."   Such  as  jailing  him for contempt.
Funny thing, the lawyer had not said hardly a word.
 
After the taping of my show, before it was even cablecast,  Judge
Duff had heard about my show about him.  Judge Duff saw me in the
lobby  of  the  federal courthouse and came up behind me and in a
very sarcastic  tone  said  to  me,  "Thanks  for the compliment,
Skolnick."
 
After the show was cablecast, because of the large viewership, it
became widely known and understood that Judge Duff is certifiably
insane, and has a psychiatric disability.  To once  and  for  all
hush up the whole business about Judge Duff and the rulings about
BNL  and  Chicago and such, Chief Judge Posner issued a series of
rare and  strange  rulings,  called  mandamus  cases,  brought by
lawyers complaining that Judge Duff is erratic (if  not  actually
crazy.)   Suddenly  the  mainstream  press began condemning Judge
Duff as erratic.  Was there a danger that Judge Duff was going to
start blabbing about the  big  fix  involving  himself in the BNL
Chicago case?  Judge Posner's  much  publicized  rulings  against
Duff on the mandamus petitions discredited Duff.  Thereafter, who
would believe anything Judge Duff said in or out of court?
 
Then  stories  began  circulating  that  the  Justice Department,
because of a crazy ruling by Judge Duff, in a secret complaint to
Congress,  wanted   Judge   Duff   impeached.    The  one-million
circulation Chicago Tribune, in  a  front  page  story  headlined
"Beleagured  Judge  Steps  Down From U.S. Bench -- Duff was known
for erratic actions."  The Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court
in Chicago is quoted  as  saying  Duff "has a legitimate physical
disability."  What he really meant is that Judge  Duff  has  long
been  known,  and  subject  to  blackmail,  because of his mental
disability.
 
The Justice Department complaint against Judge Duff was so secret
that the U.S. Attorney in  Chicago  warned his entire office that
if anyone there talked about it, they would be fired.
 
The funny thing was that the federal appeals  court  in  Chicago,
populated   with  banker-judges,  removed  Duff  from  a  lawsuit
contesting the state's treatment  of  the mentally ill.  Duff had
demanded in court that the Illinois Governor come personally  and
privately  to  meet  Judge  Duff  about the mental hospital case;
otherwise, Judge Duff threatened  to torpedo numerous other state
lawsuits pending on his docket, to cost the state many millions.
 
Lawyers complained that Judge Duff was so nuts, that motions  and
briefs  filed  without inclusion of his middle name were rejected
out of  hand.   A  local  group  called  "The  Chicago Council of
Lawyers," in a 1991 evaluation (blackmailing Duff during the  BNL
Chicago  case?)  said,  "Some lawyers report that the only way to
avoid Judge Duff's ire is to grovel and constantly flatter him."
 
See the lengthy front-page story, Chicago Tribune, 10/11/96.
 
Some contend the BNL Chicago  case,  covered up by Judge Duff and
then nailed shut by appeals Judge Posner,  involves  a  lot  more
than  just  the  treason  of  Bush  being in business with Saddam
Hussein; at the same time Bush  sent a half a million U.S. troops
in harm's way to the Persian Gulf.  Although the press  said  the
Gulf  War  casualties  were  just  a few hundred -- how about the
80,000 ex-GIs suffering from  Gulf War diseases?  Medical sources
claim several thousand of those ex-soldiers have  since  died  of
the  strange  illnesses.   One  source  claims  15,000  of  those
suffering from Persian Gulf War Syndrome have perished.
 
Some contend the BNL Chicago record cover-up involves among other
things:
 
** the money that  paid  for  the political assassination of Olof
Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, who started  to  complain  about
the Swedish arms merchant Bofors committing high crimes in secret
weapons shipments to Iraq and Iran.
 
**  the  American  CIA  as  well as foreign intelligence agencies
washing political assassination funding through BNL Chicago.
 
** the bribery, by BCCI, to  try  to spread out more in the U.S.,
of 25 percent  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and  28  U.S.
Senators.   (Some  have  forgotten  about  my  exclusive story in
Spotlight  in  October,  1991,  about  the  BCCI-Congress bribery
mess.) 
 
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[CN:  The following paragraph was conveyed  to me by phone by Mr.
Skolnick subsequent to his having written the above article.   He
wished  it to be included with this story.  Thanks to a CN reader
for pointing out to myself  and  Skolnick the apparent Henry Hyde
connection to Judge Duff.]
 
Judge Duff apparently helped  cover  up  things in the Resolution
Trust Corporation  (RTC)  case  against  Congressman  Henry  Hyde
(Republican,  Illinois).   The  case  is  still  pending.   It is
alleged that Hyde, as a director of Clyde Savings & Loan, through
wrongful conduct, caused the downfall  of Clyde S&L. A CIA lawyer
came in and,  in  chambers,  asked  that  records  be  impounded.
Subsequently  such an order by Judge Duff ordering that principal
records be impounded was  issued.   Duff also apparently arranged
to delay the trial so as to help Hyde.   Hyde  is  reportedly  in
charge  of the CIA's "black budget" and has more actual authority
than the Director of Central Intelligence (DCIA).
 
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Since  1963,  Mr.  Skolnick  has  been  founder/chairman  of  the
Citizens' Committee to Clean Up  the  Courts,  a  public-interest
group  researching  and  investigating  judicial  corruption  and
political  murders.  Updates of their work are on a regular phone
call, a recorded phone  message,  5 minutes:  (773) 731-1100.  He
is now the  moderator  of  a  public  access  cable  TV  program,
"Broadsides,"  in  Chicago, available to some 400,000 households.
Using a good browser, you can find many thousands of citations to
his  stories  and  reports  on  Internet.   Office:   8  a.m.  to
midnight, 7 days,  (773)  375-5741.   9800  South Oglesby Avenue,
Chicago, Illinois 60617-4870.  Call before sending Fax. (The area
code changed from 312 to 773 on 10/12/96.)