Thread: OBAMA ENCOURAGES DRUG MONEY LAUNDERING

OBAMA ENCOURAGES DRUG MONEY LAUNDERING

By Cliff Kincaid
February 22, 2014
NewsWithViews.com

The Obama administration has announced that it won’t enforce money-laundering laws against banks doing business with marijuana stores, in a move designed to “facilitate illegal conduct,” says Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA)

The Obama administration calls it “Guidance to Financial Institutions on Marijuana Businesses.”

The Washington Post story about this development carried the innocuous headline, “Obama administration clears banks to accept funds from legal marijuana dealers,” when in fact the marijuana “business” is not “legal” under federal or international law.

“Marijuana trafficking is illegal under federal law, and it’s illegal for banks to deal with marijuana sale proceeds under federal law,” noted Grassley. “Only Congress can change these laws. The administration can’t change the law with a memo.”

He added, “This is just one more area in which the Obama Administration is undermining our system of checks and balances and the rule of law.”

Robert Charles, former Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, told Accuracy in Media that, despite the “guidance” from the Obama administration, banks will stay away from laundering marijuana money because of the fear of being sued. “The range of suits is enormous,” he said. “The guidelines do absolutely nothing. They protect no bank against anything. The DOJ won’t give any bank an assurance that it won’t be prosecuted under federal bank secrecy or anti-drug laws.”

Calvina L. Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, told AIM, “This is yet one more example of the lawlessness of the Obama administration. We all know that banks are federally regulated and that pot is still illegal at the federal level. This action will clearly put banks in jeopardy of violating regulations and will enable criminal activity to thrive.”

She added, “This action tells parents and grandparents that the government can no longer be counted on to do what it is intended to do: protect U.S. citizens from criminals who engage in drug trafficking, human trafficking, weapons trafficking, and other serious illegal activities that are inter-connected to the drug underworld. Rather, our government is now embracing this activity and enabling it.”

While most of the major media have been in support of what the Obama administration is doing to facilitate the spread of mind-altering drugs, some publications are sounding the alarm.

Whistleblower, a publication of WND.com, has published a special issue on the epidemic of drug use, legal and illegal, in American society. A piece by Art Moore titled, “Dude: Science contradicts Obama’s pot claims” refers to Obama as the “Choom Gang” president, a reference to his membership in a high school gang of heavy marijuana users, and notes that Obama’s claims about the relative harmlessness of pot are not sustained by the scientific evidence. Another article by Moore identifies Obama supporter George Soros, the hedge-fund billionaire, as the main force behind marijuana legalization.

Investigative reporter Michael P. Tremoglie says in an article on a site called Main St. that Soros is only one of several big name CEOs and rich elites who are financing the marijuana movement.

He also names:

• Google billionaire Paul Buchheit
• Facebook billionaire founders Sean Parker and Dustin Moskovitz
• PayPal founder Peter Thiel
• George Zimmer, founder of Men's Wearhouse
• John Sperling, chairman and CEO of the University of Phoenix
• Whole Foods founder John Mackey

A website called “Marijuana Majority” names dozens of other personalities backing the legalization of dope.

It appears, however, that some Republicans are moving in the direction of Obama’s soft-on-drugs policy.

Five days after the Maryland mall shootings, The Washington Times ran a front page story, “In the weeds: Paul, Christie, Perry open to softer pot laws ahead of 2016,” about possible Republican presidential candidates embracing the drug. It turned out that the Maryland mall shooter, who killed two people and then himself, was himself a pothead, and was possibly having a psychotic episode.

The Times said that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) “has arguably been the most vocal on the subject, saying the federal government should leave the issue entirely to the states.” The Times also reported that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) has vowed to scrap the “failed war on drugs.”

But David Evans, the Executive Director of the Drug Free Projects Coalition and a special advisor to the Drug Free America Foundation, notes that during the George W. Bush administration marijuana use went down among young people by 25 percent. “If we had had a reduction in any other health problem in the U.S. of 25 percent, we would consider it an outstanding success,” he said. But marijuana use has been going up under the Obama administration.

Michele M. Leonhart, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), declared in a statement issued last December that “Those who aspire to see their own or others’ children accomplish great things in life or who want to live in a nation of increasing prosperity should be very concerned about the increase in marijuana use by teenagers, including the fact that a staggering 12 percent of 13- and 14-year-olds are abusing the drug. The mixed messages being sent to America’s teens about the harmfulness and legality of using record-high-potency marijuana are obscuring kids’ awareness of the effects their use will have on them. America owes it to its children to give them the best possible start in life, so they and society are not hindered in the future.”

Her statement takes on even more significance now that Obama has disregarded the scientific evidence, declared the drug to be relatively harmless, and is encouraging banks to launder money from the marijuana traffickers.

Pro-marijuana groups are demanding that Obama fire Leonhart. But she continues to enforce the federal laws against marijuana as best she can. The DEA announced on January 27th that the owners of a “medical marijuana” dispensary in Bakersfield, California, had been charged with trafficking in both methamphetamine and marijuana.

© 2014 Cliff Kincaid - All Rights Reserved

Cliff Kincaid, a veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff concentrated in journalism and communications at the University of Toledo, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Cliff has written or co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign policy issues. One of Cliff's books, "Global Bondage: The UN Plan to Rule the World" is still awailable.

Cliff has appeared on Hannity & Colmes, The O’Reilly Factor, Crossfire and has been published in the Washington Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events and Insight.

Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc.

E-Mail: cliff.kincaid@aim.org

http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff805.htm

the Drug Enforcement Agency has helped launder “millions of dollars in drug proceeds” on behalf of Mexican drug cartels

Eric Holder: Largest Money-Launderer in the Drug Business

John Ransom | Dec 10, 2011

As if Congress didn’t have enough evidence that the Department of Justice has completely lost its mind, the New York Times is reporting that the Drug Enforcement Agency has helped launder “millions of dollars in drug proceeds” on behalf of Mexican drug cartels, a figure much higher than previously estimated.

The Department of Justice has been under investigation by Congress for facilitating gun smuggling during Operation Fast and Furious. Fast and Furious was a gun running scheme on the US-Mexican border that’s resulted in violence and death on both sides of the border including the deaths of federal agents in the line of duty. The operation used illegal weapons purchases with reluctant gun dealers who cooperated with the ATF on the so-called stings.

The problem however is that there has never been a sting, an arrest or results that would justify breaking the law- there were just illegal arms pouring over the border and escalating violence all facilitated by the Department of Justice in an effort, in part to make a case for stricter gun control laws.

One source who was quoted anonymously in the money-laundering story in the Times was concerned about similar negative results saying that the “D.E.A. could wind up being the largest money launderer in the business, and that money results in violence and deaths.”

Consequently, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif, chair of the oversight committee already investigating Fast and Furious has done some fast and furious of his own. Issa has opened a probe into the money-laundering program according to the Houston Chronicle.

He sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder informing him of the probe, drawing “a parallel between the reported money-laundering operation’s tactics and those in Fast and Furious,” according to the Chronicle.

“The existence of such a program again calls your leadership into question,” Issa wrote in a letter to Holder, says the Texas newspaper. “The managerial structure you have implemented lacks appropriate operational safeguards to prevent the implementation of such dangerous schemes. The consequences have been disastrous.”

The DEA denies the charge saying that they have been running money-laundering stings since 1984. “The Drug Enforcement Administration has been working collaboratively with the Mexican government to fight money laundering for years. As a result of this cooperation, DEA has seized illicit transnational criminal organization money all around the world.”

Obviously whoever wrote the press release for the DEA flunked the “irony” portion of their English exam.

The DEA has become the leading money-laundering crime fighter by becoming one of the leading money-launders?

Man, this has become a government that can justify anything it does by whatever tortured logic it chooses.

And that’s what you get when you’re governed by people who think that, as our own Guy Benson pointed out, lying is a complicated concept that revolves around a state of mind as does Mr. Attorney General Holder.

Issa is having none of it, though, since he’s been given the run around on Fast and Furious from the beginning.

He knows what he has to deal with at Justice.
From FoxNews:

Issa indicated he's skeptical, particularly after the Justice Department on Friday gave Congress hundreds of pages of documents showing how Justice officials initially provided inaccurate information about Fast and Furious.

"The first answer you get from this Justice Department doesn't have a high credibility," Issa said.
And no answer ever will have credibility in the Department of Justice as long as Holder remains at the helm.

http://finance.townhall.com/columnis...ness/page/full

http://www.alipac.us/f19/matt-taibbi...ml#post1396611