It's pretty pathetic looking forward to the 2016 presidential nomination when all we hear is that the two leading front-runners for both political parties, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, come from two of the most corrupt political families in American history who obtained their super wealth by trading on the positions of influence in government they've wielded. An announcement this week that Jeb Bush would be forming an exploratory committee to run for president was accompanied by news he will be stepping down from an advisory position with a mega British bank, Barclays, that nets him more than a million bucks a year for a job with no clearly defined duties other being a Bush.
Barclays bank was one of the biggest beneficiaries indirectly of the TARP bank bailout money in 2008, which Bush supported as a consultant to Lehman Brothers. Barclays acquired Lehman Brothers in bankruptcy on the cheap, and he inherits all of the associated baggage, like it or not. Yesterday, Bush pounced to criticize President Obama's announcement that he planned to normalize relations with Cuba. In 2010, Barclays paid a fine of $298 million to the federal government for transactions the international bank illegally conducted with Cuba, Iran, Sudan and other countries subject to U.S. sanctions.
Bush's sordid history with banks dates way back to his first job fresh out of college. His daddy's best pal, James Baker, got him a good job working for the Texas Commerce Bank, whose board Baker chaired at the time. TCB had many prominent board members before it eventually wound up being controlled by JP Morgan/Chase, including former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, former President Gerald Ford, former Enron CEO Ken Lay, former U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan and Texas oil industrialist Bill Noel. The bank sent Jeb down to Venezuela where he opened up its first branch in the capacity of a bank vice president. I doubt Bush did much traditional banking down there, but I'm sure he was a valuable asset for the company that made his father--the CIA.
After Bush's father was elected vice president, he moved to Miami where he quickly became business partners with a self-made Cuban exile, Armando Codina, in a real estate development company. As a partner of The Codina Group, Bush pocketed 40% of the profits. Not all of The Codina Group's investments proved profitable, at least to the banks that loaned it money. Federal taxpayers wound up repaying most of the $9 million The Codina Group owed a failed savings and loan, Broward Federal Savings and Loan. Bush also served on the board of a Swiss-owned bank, The Private Bank, which was later seized by federal authorities after paying generous salaries to its board members who neglected their duties.
Bush was sued for stock price manipulation in his capacity as a member of another corporate board, Ideon Group, a credit card fraud notification company, after it was acquired by CUC International. The suit was later settled for $15 million. Another company Bush co-founded with a long-time CIA associate, Bush-El Corporation, which sold water pumps in Nigeria, was accused of bribery and fraud. The company was later cleared of the bribery charges but found liable for fraud. Financing for the company was supposed to have come from a private company, which instead borrowed the money from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. The Justice Department later sued the company that loan Bush's company the money for fraudulent misrepresentations for which it was later found liable. Bush, of course, pleaded ignorance of any wrongdoing and was not personally liable for the other company's actions.
See the Media Matters rap sheet on Bush's shady financial dealing here. Believe me, that's only the tip of the iceberg. This guy has more shady dealings in his past than just about any person the Republicans could nominate, including many associations with known drug traffickers in south Florida, who have been very generous past campaign contributors dating back to his early days in Miami as the Chairman of the Dade Co. Republican Party. Yes, the evidence proves Jeb Bush was in deep in the Iran-Contra affair his father helped orchestrate from the shadows. Most of Bush's businesses with which Bush has been associated often have the hallmarks of being CIA front companies just like his daddy's companies. That's to say nothing about the sordid lives of his family, including his wife Columba's bust for failing to disclose $20,000 to U.S. Customs for purchases she made during a shopping spree in Paris upon her return trip, or his daughter's past arrests for prescription drug fraud and cocaine possession. The Republican Party couldn't sink much lower than to nominate yet another Bush son born to entitlement president just like their father, but as it stands today, the odds of that happening are more likely than not.
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