RUDY’S SPECIAL DEAL….Time magazine has the latest on Rudy Giuliani’s lucrative post-9/11 lobbying contract with Seisint, a database mining company founded by former cocaine smuggler Hank Asher:
The firm’s potential seemed endless to [Giuliani Partners], and it signed on for what Seisint saw as a heavily discounted fee of $2 million a year, plus a percentage of revenue from company sales to government and corporate buyers.
In the first year, GP earned $6.5 million, Seisint records show, in part for what [Seisint shareholder Michael] Brauser and Seisint’s in-house lobbyist, Dan Latham, say were commissions for state and federal contracts. Giuliani “came through,” says Brauser. “The doors were wide open. It was almost a flood of business opportunities.”
….But the Seisint deal wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. One problem: the payment of percentages or commissions to “solicit or secure” government contracts is prohibited by federal law and laws of some states….A GP official who refused to be named insists that the firm never received “commissions” from Seisint — despite what Brauser and Latham remember and despite the fact that payments to GP are labeled “commissions” in both the minutes of a Seisint board meeting and a key financial statement. Instead, says the official, GP earned “special bonuses” based on the achievement of corporate “milestones.”
Ah, yes, “special bonuses.” I guess that’s something like “special interrogation techniques” and “special mortgage offers.” Very special.
This is why I keep thinking Romney is going to win the GOP nomination, Mormon underwear or not. Unless John McCain can somehow bring himself back from the grave, who else is there? They’re all dead men walking.
