SHERMAN SKOLNICK INTERVIEW -- Sept. 2, 1994

Sherman Skolnick was interviewed on Radio Free America (Shortwave, 5.810 mHz, mon-fri, 9 pm cst) on September 2, 1994. Mr. Skolnick is a veteran investigative reporter from Chicago and founder of the "Citizens' Committee to Clean Up the Courts" in that city. Following is my transcription of that interview. Host/Interviewer is Tom Valentine.

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[Awesome sounds of John Phillip Souza's "Stars and Stripes Forever"]

ANNOUNCER: It's Radio Free America, the talk show for intelligent Americans, with your host, Tom Valentine.

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And now, the newspaper that "tells it like it is" presents Tom Valentine.

TOM VALENTINE:
Somebody sent me a thing that says, "Forget the Alamo. Remember Waco." I don't know if Texans would go for that one! But we do, must, remember Waco.

Hey everybody! Welcome back, to Radio Free America.

Right now we're going to remember something that... almost as bad as Waco. Waco had 90 citizens killed by the feds, I believe. A total of 90, with 4 federal officers killed. In the Inslaw case, we have about 42 to 45 people killed! Surreptitiously. Quietly. Controversially.

I am going to introduce those of you who are new to this show to an old friend and old guest of Radio Free America. Every time things seem to be slowing down, you just make a call to Chicago and talk to the man who founded the uh, "Citizens for Clean Up the Courts" [Citizens' Committee to Clean Up the Courts, here also referred to as CCCC], the "Commission to Clean Up the Courts". And that's Sherman Skolnick. And you bring him on, and he is 24 hours a day, believe it or not, 24 hours a day that he and his sources (they're all over the country) [are] digging into the corruption that goes on in this country.

And I want to welcome you back to Radio Free America, Sherman.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...my pleasure to be on your show again, Tom.

VALENTINE: Hey! How's your television show goin'? I understand you're still one of the most popular things in Chicago...
SKOLNICK: ...public access channels here, and our Monday night show, which is a non-commercial show, out-polls three of the commercial channels. So some of the commercial TV stations in Chicago are not happy with us!
VALENTINE: Well they oughtta learn that the people are sick and tired of the pablum and would like to get something genuine and something to sink their teeth into and make them think! And that's what you're doing.

Now, the reason you're talking today is that we talked in the past about the Inslaw scandal and the cover up by the United States government when they assigned the Inslaw investigation to a "special counsel" and they named a federal judge that you are very familiar with up in Chicago. And that's Judge Nicholas Bua [pronounced BOO-ahh]. Correct?

SKOLNICK: Yes. For those that may not be familiar with the Inslaw thing: that was a super-duper software, designed originally to be used to keep track of the caseloads of federal prosecutors. But it was later modified and used so that, through satellites and others, they keep track of people worldwide!
VALENTINE: Yes. It's a great spy system and uh, oh just all kinds of good things.
SKOLNICK: Well it was given, secretly, to spy agencies all over the world: the Iraqi secret police, the Israeli secret police, the Mossad, Sweden, France...
VALENTINE: Canada. The Canadian Royal Mounties.
SKOLNICK: And the ones that designed the thing didn't know that, contrary to their copyright, it was being sold or given away in violation of law! And it was done by persons connected with the Justice Department! [Unclear] the buyer of the original software, which was designed (as I said) to keep track of federal prosecutors' caseloads.
VALENTINE: Good ol' Ronald Reagan outfit... Edwin Meese.
SKOLNICK: But what happened was that in 1991, a federal grand jury was set up in Chicago. And the special counsel to it was a recently resigned federal district judge, Nicholas J. Bua. The Justice Department put him up to do something which most of us this afternoon would consider rather foolish -- and that was, for the Justice Department to investigate themselves. [laughs] You know, on the surface you could see that there is something wrong with that.
VALENTINE: Yes.
SKOLNICK: And what happened is, they brought in witnesses from all over the world...
VALENTINE: All right, let me stop you right here and ask you: Is it true that when you want something "fixed" and you need a good "fixer", you can't do better than to go to the city of Chicago and get a genuine "fixer"?
SKOLNICK: [laughs] Well, I know what you're getting at, Tom: in other words, if you want to "fix" a case. Our [CCCC] opinion is that federal cases, federal litigation, is transferred from other places in the United States to Chicago, because here is "the big fix".
VALENTINE: The big fix. Now. Is Judge Bua, is he kind of a rookie at this sort of thing? He's never "fixed" anything before?
SKOLNICK: Well, in the 1970s he was a state court judge, and he was given the case that involved relatives of those that died in a plane crash in Chicago, where, among others, 12 Watergate figures died.
VALENTINE: We'll cover, we'll talk about that, too. My guest is Sherman Skolnick. Sherman is the director of the Committee to Clean Up the Courts. I'm Tom Valentine. This is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

All right. We are back, live. My guest is Sherman Skolnick of the Committee to Clean Up the Courts, in Chicago. We're gonna be discussing the Inslaw scandal.

Many Americans, I'm amazed, just don't understand that scandal. But in a nutshell (Sherman, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, filling in so they have the background. I want to get to the latest news. But) briefly, the Justice Department: It has been proved, on the record, that the Justice Department stole Inslaw from the Hamiltons.

SKOLNICK: That's enforced their company, Inslaw, into bankruptcy. They made what the layman would call a "counter claim" against the Justice Department. And the bankruptcy judge made an extensive trial and findings that there was deceit and fraud by the Justice Department, in stealing this highly complicated software created by the Hamiltons...
VALENTINE: Yes. And it was converted by people high up in the Reagan administration and friends of Ronald Reagan into a money maker around the world.

Now Sherman, one other thing: One of the most... One of the few still respected people in Washington would be Elliot Richardson. Would you say that's true?

SKOLNICK: Yeah. He was the former attorney general under Nixon, who was forced out in what was known as the "Saturday Night Massacre" {1} in October '73, when they were investigating the Nixon White House. And Nixon "had their heads chopped off", so to speak.
VALENTINE: Well Elliott Richardson is one of the few Washington insiders that I would want to have and would actually listen to and would believe 90 percent of what he says.
SKOLNICK: Uh now he has been, he and his law associates, lawyer associates, have been the attorneys for the Hamiltons -- the Inslaw company.
VALENTINE: All right. He represents the people who were wronged by the Justice Department.
SKOLNICK: Right.
VALENTINE: All right. Now when Judge Bua was called upon (we'll get back to Bua and your years of experience with him later), when Judge Bua was called upon to whitewash the...
SKOLNICK: But he resigned as a federal district judge and he was appointed by the Bush administration to, for the Justice Department to investigate themselves. And he was the special counsel to a special Inslaw federal grand jury in Chicago.
VALENTINE: Yeah. The "fix" was in. O.K.
SKOLNICK: We became very knowledgeable about it, because I and my associates volunteered as paralegals to assist one of the grand jury witnesses who was in Chicago in jail!
VALENTINE: He was also a rather well-known fella and he'd been a guest on this show. His name was Michael Riconosciuto.
SKOLNICK: Right. Who claims that because he "fingered" the Justice Department, they "framed" him.

We had four-and-a-half months debriefing him. And we found out so much, that we were, we were supposed to be, ourselves, witnesses before the grand jury.

And when the grand jury met, I and an associate of mine were outside the grand jury's unmarked door while the forelady of the jury was coming in. And this is not too well known, but every U.S. citizen has the right to approach the foreperson of a grand jury and offer testimony. You can't ask what they're doing behind the unmarked door! But you can offer testimony.

And I did that, and Bua was there and blocked us, but then sat us down and tried to "sweet talk" us for half an hour that we should withdraw our charges that 41 witnesses had been murdered. He promised us that between that point, which was November '92, and the inauguration of the new President, Clinton, that he didn't think there'd be any more witnesses that were "done in".

VALENTINE: Now, you know, you've told this story on the show before, and I always find it fascinating. I would guess that Nicholas J. Bua is the kind of guy that loves a good challenge and a word game. And he sat down there, face to face with you guys, knowing you're worthy adversaries, and I bet he enjoyed it!
SKOLNICK: For a half hour, outside the grand jury door, he sat there and talked to us. Uh, saying... He made us a "social bet". He says, "Not a business bet. A social bet." He says, "I bet you a luncheon that between this date" (which was November 18th, I believe. '92) "and inauguration day" (which was to be January 20th in '93) "that there would be no... there wouldn't be a 42nd witness murdered."

And we held up a copy of the London paper and said, "Look at this. Ian Stewart Sparrow has just been murdered. He was one of your witnesses." And I says, "We have..." And you know a funny thing?! We already had a lawsuit pending against Bua as a defendant! And there's the defendant, sitting, talking with us, trying to "sweet talk" us. And he says... I says, "Well the ones I accused you in court of being involved in the murdering of the witnesses is part of your FBI team, a Chicago FBI agent."

He says, "Yes. He's part of our team."

I said, "WELL WHAT ARE YOU DOIN' ABOUT IT!!" We have charged in court that he's goin' around murdering the witnesses!"

He said, "I betcha that by January 20th there won't be any witnesses."

VALENTINE: There won't be any other murders? Or they're gonna "get" all the witnesses?
SKOLNICK: The point is, he issued his report stating that there was nothing wrong with the Justice Department's use of Inslaw. That a key witness that was murdered was actually a suicide -- Danny Casolaro. And, in other words, he whitewashed the entire thing. He entered an extensive report saying that, "There was no fraud. There was no deceit." And that the Justice Department, in investigating themselves, didn't find anything. [laughs] Well...
VALENTINE: All right. What did you expect when it was sent to Chicago...
SKOLNICK: Well wait a minute!
VALENTINE: I've gotta take a break. But you remember what we're gonna wait a minute on. We'll be right back.

My guest is Sherman Skolnick. I'm Tom Valentine. This is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

O.K.! We are back, live, and Sherman Skolnick is my guest!

And Sherman, you said, "Wait a minute," and so we did. We're waiting a minute. What were you going to say?

SKOLNICK: Well, in response to Bua's grand jury report, which he publicized through the press -- he befriended some of the "news fakers" as we call 'em, in Washington and a few other places.
VALENTINE: Yes. The "news fakers" of Chicago didn't even cover that grand jury hearing, by the way.
SKOLNICK: Right. [laughs] We were the only journalists that were talking about it, on our television show, during the whole time! The [Chicago] Tribune and the rest of 'em pretended that nothing was happening.

Elliott Richardson, the Inslaw attorney, filed a rebuttal to Bua's report early in July of '93. Then a strange event occurred, a week after the rebuttal: White House aide Vincent Foster, jr. was found dead. Now, because of what happened thereafter, we realize that there was a connection. Elliott Richardson then filed, in addition to his rebuttal to Bua's grand jury report in February of '94. And there is outlined that they have witnesses whose names they're fearful of mentioning to the Justice Department, because the witnesses would be murdered, like others.

And, Elliott Richardson contends that there is a secret unit in the Justice Department, in a very... heavily secure section, in with O.S.I., the Office of, uh... Strict, of uh...

VALENTINE: Special Investigations.
SKOLNICK: Right! Who are supposed to be "Nazi hunters".
VALENTINE: Yes.
SKOLNICK: But that these other ones are in that same section, and that they go around murdering witnesses!
VALENTINE: Now that's a hell of a thing! You've alleged that on this show, and we have had Mike Fuller of Virginia and Washington, D.C. allege it on that show, and a couple of others! But now Elliott Richardson has alleged it in this...
SKOLNICK: Yeah! And he said that he has witnesses in key positions that confirm that. And that among others, that this, that the special murder team, in the Justice Department, among those that they murdered was Danny Casolaro, who was looking into the Inslaw thing. And Casolaro, a journalist, was working on a book in which he claimed the Inslaw thing was "The Octopus", that it was tied in to the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, and numerous other diabolical...
VALENTINE: But especially BCCI! [Bank of Credit and Commerce International]
SKOLNICK: Right.
VALENTINE: Yes. We don't want to forget that one. We want the listeners to all get that, those 3 letters, 4 letters, that's a 4 letter word: BCCI.
SKOLNICK: Right. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International. That's a secret. By the way, I don't want to digress, but we did a program recently on television for an hour, pointing out that BCCI, contrary to what the press says, has not gone under! They are operating under another name and they're buying out banks in Chicago through their holding company, Pinnacle Bank Group, which is tied in with Jimmy Carter's people which is where that BCCI started from in the beginning! Bert Lance and those people.

And by the way, one of the reasons for what we believe is the murder of Vincent Foster, jr., is that he and his law partner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, arranged secretly for BCCI to have a great presence in the United States. And evidently, Danny Casolaro was on to that.

But getting back to Elliott Richardson's additional rebuttal to Bua's grand jury report -- He said there's a secret unit in the Justice Department, and as a front, they're operating through 100 commercial companies, as a front. But their main business is to go around murdering witnesses!

Now that is very interesting...

VALENTINE: It is, because you said that many years ago.
SKOLNICK: Yeah! And we brought a federal lawsuit against Bua, and his colleagues in the courthouse bottled us up and wouldn't allow any hearing. But we contended that there were, at that time, which is the fall of '93, of '92, that there were 40, over 40 grand jury witnesses murdered!

So I mean, what kind of a report could he [Bua] issue to the grand jury if over 40 witnesses were murdered! I mean, the thing is... It's outrageous! And...

VALENTINE: Well it was a farce!
SKOLNICK: Right! And we made it all a matter of record.

Now what's interesting now is, in Chicago, the papers here have been covering an embezzlement scandal. The federally funded Chicago Housing Authority [CHA], which builds buildings for poor people to live in, you know?

VALENTINE: The famous Robert Taylor Homes, Cabrini Green, and so forth.
SKOLNICK: Right! Their pension fund, the CHA pension fund, has been embezzled out of $12 million. That's been contended day after day in the Tribune and the Sun-Times and so on.

What's interesting is, we found out that there's a grand jury in another part of the country looking into a tremendous scam involving hundreds of millions of dollars. And what do ya know?? The pension fund scam here, of the Chicago Housing Authority, is a part of it. And this other grand jury is hearing testimony that Nicholas J. Bua is involved.

VALENTINE: Huh! O.K. My guest is Sherman Skolnick. And you just heard it: right now, somewhere in the U.S., is a grand jury, and our judge is involved.

We shall return. I'm Tom Valentine. This is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

All right. Sherman Skolnick of the Committee to Clean Up the Courts in Chicago is my guest. And Sherman, tell everyone (before we get back to this very exciting news item about Judge Bua being somehow part of this pension fund rip-off, or at least being alleged that at a grand jury hearing), um, tell us about your telephone message service first. 'Cause a lot of people want to hear what you've got to say, and you change those messages several times a week.

SKOLNICK: Right. We have a recorded, 5 minute message, which is a regular phone call -- it's not an expensive call. You can call it at night, for example, when it's cheaper. And it's 731-1100. And that's Chicago, which is area code 312. 731-1100, in Chicago.
VALENTINE: Right. You call up Chicago, area 312, 731-1100, any time of day, around the clock, and you can listen to a recorded message. How long is it usually, Sherman?
SKOLNICK: Five minutes, and we change it 3 times a week. We've got listeners [laughs] all the way from Hawaii to Maine to Puerto Rico to Canada. It's a regular phone call, and we've been running it...
VALENTINE: Now you coulda run this as a 900 number years ago and probably done all right. But you've kept it cheap for the folks.
SKOLNICK: Right. It's a regular... It's just a regular long-distance call.
VALENTINE: Very good.
SKOLNICK: Now our current message is about Bua. But now here's the point! In this pension fund case, people far away are being arrested, with international connections. For example, there's a story in the Tribune, August 26th, that mentions that there was a character arrested in Fort Lauderdale [CN -- apparently named Mr. Polichemi], who's got a $5 million home there, with banking connections all over the world, including in Luxembourg. And that he is reportedly involved in this pension fund rip-off in Chicago.

But, what the Tribune and the rest of 'em do not mention is that there's a grand jury outside of Chicago which is looking into this and that apparently, Mr. Polichemi reportedly is in some way connected with Bua! -- the former federal district judge who went on to be the special counsel to the Inslaw grand jury.

Other things that the out-of-town grand jury reportedly is hearing is that Bua originally was installed on the federal bench through a shadowy character in California named George K. Pender -- that's P-e-n-d-e-r.

VALENTINE: That's a Reagan "Kitchen Cabinet" guy!
SKOLNICK: Right. And Pender, according to documents that we [CCCC] have, ran a company... He was the president, chairman, and director of a company in Santa Monica, California, named First Intercontinental Development Corp. And according to documents from that company, here are the ones that were directors of Pender's company. (And Pender is the one that's reportedly been in with Bua.)

A director was Robert A. Maheu(sp?) [pronounced MAY-hoo], former chief executive for Howard Hughes' operations. And Maheu has been accused, in various books, as being a long-time CIA operative, reportedly supervising assassins -- such as Chicago gangsters.

VALENTINE: Yes, that's been reported in many books.
SKOLNICK: Another senior vice-president, director, and chairman of the investment committee of that company, was Robert Booth Nickols(sp?) [pronounced NIK-kuls], who was Riconosciuto's former business partner.
VALENTINE: Yeah! And a major Inslaw player and possibly the man behind the killing of Casolaro!
SKOLNICK: Right. And Robert Booth Nickols uh, we confronted his former business partner, Riconosciuto, who went straight into orbit when he realized that we found out that Nickols apparently was implicated in the New York World Trade Center bombing.
VALENTINE: Who went through the roof? Mike Riconosciuto?
SKOLNICK: Yes.
VALENTINE: Oh-oh. Must have touched a nerve, huh?!
SKOLNICK: We spent four-and-a-half months interviewing him and he usually kept his cool. But when we confronted him about Nickols being possibly involved... Well, we reached him on the phone, actually, after that World Trade Center bombing, and he shouted at us that we must get off that case!

So we think there's a connection there.

Another director of Pender's company was Clint W. Murchison, jr., a close pal of Nixon. And there are some that claim that Murchison was involved in the JFK plot.

VALENTINE: Yeah, I've heard that too. Don't give it a lot of credence, but I've heard it.
SKOLNICK: Yeah, right. Now what's interesting is that Pender reportedly helped install Bua in Chicago as a federal district judge. One of the first things that Bua did as a judge was to cover up the Alan Dorfman case. Alan Dorfman was the wizard of the Teamster's pension fund. And he was murdered just after the BBC interviewed Dorfman about his CIA connections, that is, running CIA money through the Teamster's pension fund. We [CCCC] were the only ones that worked on the story, yet there was a BBC crew here in Chicago. The BBC did not go with [televise/broadcast] the interview. We're the only ones that talk about it.
VALENTINE: That's right, remember? You had that BBC fella come on my show!
SKOLNICK: Yeah, right. O.K. Now, a case involving the estate of Dorfman ended up with Bua. And he covered it up.
VALENTINE: That's his job, obviously! He was put in there by the powerful Reagan bunch and whoever's behind them...
SKOLNICK: O.K. But now, here: this grand jury in another part of the country is reportedly hearing testimony that Bua was the "courier" or "bag man" for reported graft by a major defense contractor to the Reagan White House and the Bush White House. That was the Northrop company.

The head of Northrop, according to previous stories, already had been found guilty of certain misconduct regarding the Defense Department. But here is Bua, apparently involved in some way with Northrop, corrupting the Reagan and Bush White House.

In some way it's tied in with Pender and this overall thing. Now...

VALENTINE: This is not what we normally mean when we say a "Washington insider".
SKOLNICK: Right. Now the one that has just been arrested (and I think he's gonna be brought back to Chicago from Fort Lauderdale) was Joseph Polichemi. P-o-l-i-c-h-e-m-i. And according to authorities in the county down there in Florida, he's got the largest home in the county, assessed -- they got a picture of it in the Tribune -- assessed at $5.2 million. And he apparently funneled some of this pension fund rip-off money out of the country to a Luxembourg bank -- it is so contended in the Tribune. But what they left out of the story is the apparent connection of Polichemi to Bua, to Northrop, to the entire situation, of which the Housing Authority [CHA] pension fund rip-off is only a small part. It is a tremendous, several hundred million dollar scandal, and the $12 million is just, uh the pension fund has been embezzled is a small part...
VALENTINE: Yeah, it's potatoes. O.K. My guest is Sherman Skolnick. You're hearing all this for the first time. I'm Tom Valentine. This is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

This is Tom Valentine. We are back live. It's Radio Free America. And we're talking with Sherman Skolnick, and he is filling us in now on the goings-on, of the rip-off, of the Chicago Housing Authority pension fund for a "measly" $12 million. But pension funds have been ripped-off for a long time and there's gonna be a real collapse of pension funds shortly! Unfortunately. We've been talking about that for a long time.

SKOLNICK: And so Spotlight has done the most in bringing that out to the public.
VALENTINE: Yes we have.
SKOLNICK: Uh now another group of details that is involved here, which we've been working on for some time, involves the CIA "black budget" [i.e., the part of CIA's budget which is classified] and the use of savings & loan that are in failing condition. One book came out on this by a Houston...
VALENTINE: Peter Brouton(sp?). [CN -- mentioned also in L.J. Davis interview] And it's an outstanding book. Pete was a guest on this show back when he wrote it.
SKOLNICK: The Mafia, The CIA, and George Bush.
VALENTINE: Yep.
SKOLNICK: ...found out there's 26 S&Ls, that were actually operated by the CIA, in Colorado and in Texas. He never got around to the Chicago end of it. But we've [CCCC] been working on it and he may use some of our material in an upcoming book.

But there are 3 S&Ls, in Chicago, in the Chicago area, tied in to the CIA black budget -- which is also involved in this overall picture that I've been spelling out! The 3 savings and loans are, Libertyville Savings & Loan (which is a northwest suburb of Chicago), Olympia Savings & Loan, and Clyde Savings & Loan. Olympia Savings & Loan had an unlisted director, Dr. Earl Bryan, who is very much mentioned in the Ins...

VALENTINE: Ho ho ho. That's the man who stole Inslaw!
SKOLNICK: Right!
VALENTINE: Yeah!
SKOLNICK: And unlawfully sold the Inslaw software to foreign intelligence agencies.

Clyde Savings, a director of it has been congressman Henry Hyde. And the Resolution Trust Corporation brought an action against Henry Hyde, claiming multi-million dollar misfeasance. The CIA angle began to be involved, and the judge in the Henry, uh Henry Hyde case ordered all proceedings to be impounded. They brought in a lawyer from the CIA, and the case is proceeding only in chambers. And the docket shows that there has to be a 10-day notice before anything is even considered to be public! But we know a lot about it because, we have, on our TV show, we have publicly charged that Henry Hyde, a purported congressman, is actually the head, the head of the CIA's black budget and has more power than the director of Central Intelligence.

Now I'm sure some of your listeners will immediately come to the conclusion there's something unconstitutional, because a congressman in the legislative branch is not supposed to be doing anything in the executive branch, of which the CIA is a part! And yet he is apparently the head of the CIA black budget -- congressman Henry Hyde. And the case against him in the federal district court here is being bottled up in chambers! It is shown on the docket of the case and we've been investigating that case and we know that they brought in an attorney for the CIA to work this thing.

So you can see why Chicago is so important...

VALENTINE: It is.
SKOLNICK: ...the thing, in the CIA's black budget, in the Polichemi case, in the BCCI case. Apparently the CIA is working their black budget tricks through Chicago!
VALENTINE: Well you pointed that out when we went clear back to your very, very sensational show, on this show, and in The Spotlight, when you said that congressman Henry Gonzalez, the idiot of the Whitewater hearings but the genius against the Fed [i.e., Federal Reserve] -- I mean, he demanded information on BCCI and the Banco Lavoro Nacional from Chicago, Illinois, and they wouldn't give it to him!
SKOLNICK: By the way, let me just tell a little anecdote that might be [of] interest.

I and my associates, in September of '92, were in Bua's private office. By then he was a private lawyer acting as special counsel to the Inslaw grand jury. He was no longer on the bench.

I ended up in his office and we began talking about Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, the... BNL. And he says he never heard of them.

I says, "Well it's been much in the paper about Bank Lavoro scandal in Atlanta."

He says, "I never heard of 'em."

I says, "Judge..."

He says, "Don't call me 'Judge', Skolnick." He says, "You know me 30 years. Call me 'Nick'."

I says, "Nick. How could you say that you don't know about Bank Lavoro?"

He says, "I don't."

I says, "They're right downstairs, Judge. Let me take ya right to 'em. THEY'RE RIGHT DOWNSTAIRS OF YOUR OFFICE!!"

He says, "Well, I..." [laughs] He didn't have an answer for that!! I said, "How could you not know that their Chicago office is right downstairs!? Come on, Judge."

"Call me 'Nick'," he says.

VALENTINE: Yeah, "Call me 'Nick'." That guy... I told ya this guy enjoys this fight! He's on top of the world; he's not the least bit afraid of you.
SKOLNICK: Notice what kind of a fraud he is! He says he never heard of Bank Lavoro and they're right downstairs of his office! [laughs]
VALENTINE: Yeah well you see, every time you get a little barb like that, it just makes him enjoy the game all the more and, I think -- I don't even know the man -- but from the things you've told...

Now. The important part of that story, that you told on the air, was that you confronted, as a journalist, the people in the court, the different attorneys for the banks. And you got a confirmation from them that George Bush and Saddam Hussein were what?

SKOLNICK: Were business partners. And I asked the participants in a federal case, in the back of the courtroom -- I wish we had our video equipment there. We would have gotten it on video. There was a case involving Saddam Hussein's secret partners. [Congressman Henry] Gonzalez's committee were interveners in the case. They later tried to stop publicity by telling an editor at Spotlight that there was no such case. You remember what happened.
VALENTINE: Yeah.
SKOLNICK: We came up with the docket and all the documents.

But the unlisted secret partner of Saddam Hussein, the Baghdad tyrant, was George Herbert Walker book... Bush. {2}. And the participants in the hearing confirmed it to me. I asked them 3 times. I wanted to be absolutely sure. And I used his 4 names: George Herbert Walker Bush. And they says, "That's right. He's the partner in oil kickbacks with Saddam Hussein." And Spotlight, and your program, were the only ones to discuss it. In fact, a few days after that federal hearing (which was in May of '91), I was on your program with exclusive details.

VALENTINE: That's right.
SKOLNICK: The details now...
VALENTINE: We gotta take a final break! My guest is Sherman Skolnick. And as you can see, a lot of things happen in Chicago and it's good for us that there is a guy like Sherman available to tell us about it.

I'm Tom Valentine. This is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

All right. We are back. And my guest is Sherman Skolnick. And this is the final leg of this hour.

Sherman, have we not hit anything, of the updated stuff? Because we don't have a lot of time now.

SKOLNICK: Well. Let me just summarize it.
VALENTINE: Where'd you go!?
SKOLNICK: Uh... Are you there?
VALENTINE: I... I have something wrong with my phone-set I think.
SKOLNICK: Can you hear me?
VALENTINE: All right. Now I can, I think. Speak up.
SKOLNICK: O.K. But...
VALENTINE: Ah, there you are. Good. O.K.
SKOLNICK: Let me just summarize what we tried to cover briefly. Obviously, in the one-hour period we can't cover all the details.

But you can see why the late journalist, Danny Casolaro, called it "The Octopus". You can see what's happening here. And you can see why Bua, as the special counsel for the Justice Department to the Inslaw grand jury felt obligated to call what everybody else that knows anything calls a "murder", he calls it "suicide".

Also, you probably can see why some of us believe that White House aide Vincent Foster, jr., was murdered. Because -- and we've said it for a year! Because he was trying to tell Clinton, "Look. There's a murder team in the Justice Department and if you don't do anything you're gonna get impeached!" Well, instead they murdered Vincent Foster, and made it look to us as a suicide.

But. By the way. These murder teams specialize in two things: airplane sabotage, which is a subject that I have spent more than 20 years investigating...

VALENTINE: Yes. And you and I were both involved in that big one in Chicago that killed E. Howard Hunt's wife, Dorothy.
SKOLNICK: Right. And...
VALENTINE: Who was the state judge that blocked that?
SKOLNICK: Bua!
VALENTINE: Judge Nicholas Bua. Call me "Nick"! [laughs] O.K. I just wanted to get that point.
SKOLNICK: The second thing with this murder team, which operates, according to Elliott Richardson, in a secret section there, in, with, or behind O.S.I., in the Justice Department -- they specialize in murder, disguised as suicides. And in Danny Casolaro, and a number of other situations, a lot of the Inslaw grand jury witnesses supposedly, one by one, killed themselves. {3}.
VALENTINE: This is not a secret any longer, because Michael Fuller has said it on this show. Dave Tompkin, Thomlin(sp?), David Thomlin said it on this show. The Wayro(sp?) gal, Maria Wayro, the former police officer, the whistleblower in Washington said this. So it's coming out, little by little.
SKOLNICK: But the overall thing is... Let me just tick off briefly who all's involved.

Apparent bribery of the White House by Northrop, a defense contractor, apparently through Bua. People that were a part of Reagan's "Kitchen Cabinet", George K. Pender, Robert Maheu, Robert Booth Nickols, a CIA explosives expert that was Riconosciuto's former business partner.

You can see why the late Casolaro called it an "octopus". I mean, it is an international thing. And the Tribune, here in Chicago, is playing up the thing as simply a $12 million pension fund rip- off. I mean, and yet they put in their story, August 26th, that this guy Polichemi, who's being held in custody in Fort Lauderdale, that he's got worldwide connections through Luxembourg! Which is where BCCI operated through also.

I mean, in other words, they're not...

VALENTINE: It was right under their nose, but they're not going to see it, because the powers-that-be will nail them if they try to see it.

Sherman, I want to thank you very much. Again, you've given us plenty to chew on. And we will stay in touch.

Sherman Skolnick is the guy who started the Committee to Clean Up the Courts more than 30 years ago. That telephone number for him is 312-731-1100. You can call at any time. They change the message 3 times a week.

Sherman, thanks a lot.

SKOLNICK: Thanks for listening. Thanks for having me.
VALENTINE: We'll see ya next time.

All right! Here we go again, you see? Things are going [on], even though you don't get 'em in the news! You don't see it in the newspapers. You don't see it on TV. But it's happening. That's why you need Radio Free America and The Spotlight. That's why I need guys like Sherman Skolnick.

We'll be back! Wide open lines, lot of commentary, next hour. Right after the news.

-------------------------<< Notes >>----------------------------- {1} Skolnick actually says "October Massacre" but I am fairly sure it is really known as the "Saturday Night Massacre".

{2} "...George Herbert Walker book... Bush." "Book" as in police jargon, "Book him."

{3} These 41 deaths of Inslaw witnesses find parallels in the Clinton body count (in Arkansas, primarily) and in the deaths of witnesses connected to the JFK assassination.

Brian Francis Redman bigxc@prairienet.org "The Big C"

"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."