The White House Connection: 
Saudi 'agents' close Bush friends 
by Maggie Mulvihill, Jonathan Wells and Jack Meyers 
Boston Herald: Tuesday, December 11, 2001 

Partners at Akin, Gump include one of President Bush's closest Texas  
friends, James C. Langdon, and George R. Salem, a Bush fund-raiser who 
chaired his 2000 campaign's outreach to Arab-Americans


http://www.bostonherald.com/news/americas_new_war/akin1112001.htm  


A powerful Washington, D.C., law firm with unusually close ties to the White 
House has earned hefty fees representing controversial Saudi billionaires as 
well as a Texas-based Islamic charity fingered last week as a terrorist front. 

MORE ON: The Saudi Connection  
-> Part One: U.S. ties to Saudi elite may be hurting war on terrorism

-> Saudis with U.S. oil tied to bin Laden

-> Part Two: Bush advisers cashed in on Saudi gravy train 

The influential law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld has 
represented three wealthy Saudi businessmen - Khalid bin Mahfouz, Mohammed 
Hussein Al-Amoudi and Salah Idris - who have been scrutinized by U.S. 
authorities for possible involvement in financing Osama bin Laden and his 
terrorist network. 

In addition, Akin, Gump currently represents the largest Islamic charity in 
the United States, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in 
Richmond, Texas. 

Holy Land's assets were frozen by the Treasury Department last week as 
government investigators probe its ties to Hamas, the militant Palestinian 
group blamed for suicide attacks against Israelis. 

Partners at Akin, Gump include one of President Bush's closest Texas 
friends, James C. Langdon, and George R. Salem, a Bush fund- raiser who 
chaired his 2000 campaign's outreach to Arab-Americans. 

Another longtime partner is Barnett A. ``Sandy'' Kress, the former Dallas 
School Board president who Bush appointed in January to work for the White 
House as an ``unpaid consultant'' on education reform. 

In September, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas for Holy Land records 
around the same time terrorist investigators froze the assets of a North 
Texas Internet firm hired by Holy Land. 

Holy Land shared office space with that firm, InfoCom Corp., which was 
raided by police on Sept. 5, just days before the World Trade Center and 
Pentagon attacks. 

Holy Land has denied any link to Hamas. 

According to Akin, Gump, the firm represents Holy Land in a federal lawsuit 
filed against the charity and another suspected Hamas entity by the parents 
of a man allegedly murdered by Hamas operatives in the Middle East. 

In a statement issued Friday, Akin, Gump said it decided last week to 
decline a request to represent Holy Land in its defense of terrorism-related 
charges made by the U.S. Treasury Department. 

Akin, Gump, which maintains an affiliate office in the Saudi capital of 
Riyadh, is also a registered foreign agent for the kingdom. It was paid 
$77,328 in lobbying fees by the Saudis during the first six months of 2000, 
public records show. 

In addition to the royal family, the firm's Saudi clients have included bin 
Mahfouz, who hired Akin, Gump when he was indicted in the BCCI banking 
scandal in the early 1990s. In 1999, the Saudi's placed bin Mahfouz under 
house arrest after reportedly discovering that the bank he controlled, 
National Commercial Bank in Saudi Aabia, funneled millions to charities 
believed to be serving as bin Laden fronts. 

A bin Mahfouz business partner, Al-Amoudi, was also represented by Akin, 
Gump. When it was reported in 1999 that U.S. authorities were also 
investigating Al-Amoudi's Capitol Trust Bank, Akin, Gump released a 
statement on behalf of their client denying any connections to terrorism. 
One year earlier, the firm had co-sponsored an investment conference in 
Ethiopia with Al-Amoudi. 

Akin, Gump partner and Bush fund-raiser Salem led the legal team that 
defended Idris, a banking protege of bin Mahfouz and the owner of El-Shifa, 
the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant destroyed by U.S. cruise missiles in 
August 1998. 

cw-2 The plant was targeted days after terrorists - allegedly on the orders 
of bin Laden - bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa. The U.S. Treasury 
Department also froze $24 million of Idris' assets, but Akin, Gump filed a 
lawsuit and the government later chose to release the money rather than go 
to court. Idris, who insists he has no connection whatsoever to bin Laden or 
terrorism, is now pursuing a second lawsuit with different attorneys seeking 
$50 million in damages from the United States. 

Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a 
Washington, D.C.-based non-partisan political watchdog group, said Akin, 
Gump's willingness to represent Saudi power-brokers probed for links to 
terrorism presents a unique ethical concern since partners at the firm are 
so close to the president. 

The concern is more acute now, Lewis said, because Bush has faced stiff 
resistance from the kingdom in his repeated requests to freeze suspected 
terrorist bank accounts. 

``The conduct of the Saudis is just unacceptable by international standards, 
especially if they are supposed to be one of our closest allies,'' Lewis said. 

Speaking of Akin, Gump partner Kress' office in the White House, Lewis 
added: ``That's not appropriate and frankly it's potentially troublesome 
because there is a real possibility of a conflict of interest. Basically you 
have a partner for Akin, Gump . . . inside the hen house.'' 

But another longtime Washington political observer, Vincent Cannistraro, the 
former chief of counter-intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, 
said the political influence a firm like Akin, Gump has is precisely why 
clients like the Saudis hire them. 

``These are cozy political relationships . . . If you have a problem in 
Washington, there are only a few firms to go to and Akin, Gump is one of 
them,'' Cannistraro said. 

Cannistraro pointed out that Idris hired Akin, Gump during the Clinton 
presidency, when Clinton confidante Vernon Jordan was a partner at the firm. 
``He hired them because Vernon Jordan had influence . . . that's a normal 
political exercise where you are buying influence,'' he said. 

Akin, Gump is not the only politically wired Washington business cashing in 
on the Saudi connection. 

Burson-Marsteller, a major D.C. public relations firm, registered with the 
U.S. government as a foreign agent for the Saudi embassy within weeks of the 
Sept. 11 terror attacks. 

One of Burson-Marsteller's first public relations efforts for the Saudis was 
to run a large advertisement in the New York Times reading: ``We Stand with 
You, America.'' 

The Washington chairman for Burson-Marsteller, which also maintains an 
office in Saudi Arabia, is Craig Veith, who ran communications for the 
Republican Party in the 1996 elections. 

Other GOP heavyweights who have held top positions at the PR giant include 
Sheila Tate, the campaign press secretary for the elder George Bush; Leslie 
Goodman, deputy director of communications for the 1992 Bush-Quayle 
campaign; Craig L. Fuller, chairman of the 1992 Republican National 
Convention and elder Bush's vice presidential chief-of-staff.