Clintons, Panama Papers and this Iranian/Iran Contra

Farhad Azima, Wins Ellis Island Medal of Honor

Farhad Azima, chairman of Aviation Leasing Group, was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor on May 9, 1998. Born in Iran, Azima is of Azerbaijani descent and currently lives in the United States.

Each year, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO) gives Ellis Island awards to ethnic Americans from all backgrounds who have made valuable professional and patriotic contributions.

Since 1981, Mr. Azima has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aviation Leasing Group of Companies (ALG). ALG is directly involved in airline operations and technical support of the aviation industry. The Group currently owns, operates, and/or manages over 50 aircraft, many of which are operated by ALG’s associated company Buffalo Airways.

fazimaFarhad Azima is Chairman of Buffalo Airways which, in addition to its airline operations, conducts a sophisticated training program which includes training for the FAA, a number of other airlines, and training for the U.S. Navy E6 program, a program which is also under consideration by the U.S. Air Force.

The Company specializes in creating turnkey airlines and provides services to clients in South America, Africa, St. Lucia, a number of USSR Republics, the U.S. and Canada. Services include aircraft leasing, procurement, financing, management, training, operations and technical support, and automation. More here.

*****

Related reading: The Clinton Global Initiative 2007 List of Members

Meet The Iranian-Born, Major Clinton Donor Caught Up In The Panama Papers Scandal

DailyCaller: The Panama Papers investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) shows a prominent Clinton donor worked with the law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Farhad Azima, who ended up in the spotlight during the Iran-Contra affair during former President Ronald Reagan’s years in office, reinvented himself after the scandal as a politically pragmatic bipartisan donor. Azima went to the White House during Bill Clinton’s presidency 10 times, “between October 1995 and December 1996, including private afternoon coffees with the president,” according to ICIJ.

Then, when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was mounting her Senate campaign, Azima “in December 1999, hosted her and 40 guests for a private dinner that raised $2,500 a head.”

Azima’s generosity towards the former president and former secretary of state continued beyond the White House years, and The New York Times reported that Azima “pledged $1 million to the [William J. Clinton Presidential] library.”

The Iranian-born Azima made his living as an aviation executive. It is his work that gave him access to a Boeing 707 cargo jet, which he allegedly lent to the CIA to send weapons to Nicaraguan Contras — though Azima denies this.

The Clinton donor told ICIJ, “I’ve had nothing to do with Iran-Contra.”

“[I was] investigated by every known agency in the U.S. and they decided there was absolutely nothing there,” Azima told ICIJ. In a final remark, he said the whole investigation into his Iran-Contra involvement, “was a wild goose chase. The law enforcement and regulators fell for it.”

The Iran-Contra affair did not stop Azima from making quite the fortune, which in part has gone to the Clinton Foundation. According to a list of donors released by former President Clinton himself in December 2008, Azima gave a donation “from $50,001 and $100,000.”

Apparently the controversial donor’s money is so irresistible that even in 1997, while still dealing with the damage to his reputation from Iran-Contra, Azima gave $143,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which the DNC at first turned down but then ultimately accepted, according to The New York Times.

Related reading: The World Affairs Council of America, Oman and Iran and Beyond

FEC records show that Azima gave Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign $2,300 in November 2007. Once President Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee, Azima gave Obama’s Victory Fund a total of $30,800 in October 2008.

Azima also has ties to known Iran sanction evader Iranian national Houshang Hosseinpour, ICIJ reports. Back in 2011, the Clinton donor was involved in a joint venture with Hosseinpour to buy a hotel in Georgia, according to ICIJ.

At the time of Azima and Hosseinpour’s collaboration, former Secretary Clinton was still at the Department of State attempting to enforce sanctions against Iran. The actions of Hosseinpour were publicly admonished by the Department of Treasury in 2014 when they referred to him by name as trying to get around sanctions.

*****

Yes of course there is more.

Following the release of the Panama Papers, we learned that a company named FlyGeorgia was being used as a conduit to circumvent economic sanctions against Iran. An Iranian national named Hosshang (or Houshang) Hosseinpour has been targeted by the U.S. Treasury Department as part of a broader effort to enforce the sanctions. Hosseinpour and two others set up a number of front companies, some based in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, to facilitate their plan. To quote from the Irish Times article cited above:

The files show that [Farhad] Azima and Hosseinpour appeared on corporate documents of a company that planned to buy a hotel in the nation of Georgia in 2011. That was the same year treasury officials asserted that Hosseinpour, who co-founded the private airline FlyGeorgia, and two others first began to send millions of dollars into Iran, which led to sanctions being taken against him three years later.

Farhad Azima is one of the infamous middlemen involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, the Savings and Loan scandal, and other weapons trafficking incidents. Unnamed in any of the Panama Papers reporting on FlyGeorgia is George Cannady. But he is right there lurking in the shadows of Azima and Hosseinpour.

An entry in the Business Registry of Georgia shows that Cannady was a partner in Georgia Transport Management with Levan Tskhadadze. Tskhadadze had formerly been a manager at manager at Hosseinpour’s front company FlyGeorgia. Other people who list FlyGeorgia as an employer are Ursula Freseman, Lalit Dang, and Iranian former intelligence officer General Ali Asgari Reza. Freseman and Dang also list Heavylift International Airlines as a former employer. Heavylift is one of Farhad Azima’s many companies with which notorious weapons trafficker Viktor Bout was at one time affiliated. More here from Fareport

 

 

 

Vehicles as Weapons, not a New Terror Tactic

Directly after the terror attack in Nice, France, Islamic State instructed soldiers to go to the their Telegram channel for more information and discussion. While Islamic State has not claimed responsibility, they encourage this kind of attack as did al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in 2010 published in their Inspire magazine.

Vehicles as weapons

Before Nice, Palestinian terrorists used cars as lethal weapon

Vehicular attacks have featured heavily in wave of violence against Israelis since October; similar attacks recently in UK, Canada, read more here

******

MEMRI: On October 11, 2010, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the second issue of its English-language magazine Inspire. In its Open Source Jihad (OSJ) section, two articles written by Yahya Ibrahim discuss possible methods for American Muslims to carry out terrorist operations.

Yahya’s feature article, titled “The Ultimate Mowing Machine,” discusses the idea of using “a pickup truck as a mowing machine, not to mow grass but mow down the enemies of Allah.” Yahya says that this idea comes as a response to America’s brutality towards Muslims.

In the next segment, Yahya provides tips for American Muslims on various aspects pertaining to the planning and execution of terrorist attacks against the U.S.

When presenting the different options for operations, Yahya talks about the use of biological or chemical weapons. Yahya ends his article promising further information in future issues of the magazine on the topic of weapons of mass destruction.

The following are excerpts from Yahya Ibrahim’s “The Ultimate Mowing Machine,” followed by selected excerpts from Yahya’s tips for American Muslims:

“Use a Pickup Truck as a Mowing Machine – Not To Mow Grass, But Mow Down the Enemies of Allah”

“America is a terrorist state and Americans are complacent in some of the worst forms of terrorism our Muslim nation has been subjected to. Millions of Muslim lives have been lost to American brutality. It is about time Muslims wake up and payback America what is due to it.

“In this section, the OSJ [i.e. Open Source Jihad], we give our readers suggestions on how to wage their individual jihad. Here is one idea of how an individual Muslim may do so. It is a simple idea and there is not much involved in its preparation. All what is needed is the willingness to give one’s life for Allah.

“The idea is to use a pickup truck as a mowing machine, not to mow grass but mow down the enemies of Allah. You would need a 4WD pickup truck. The stronger the better. You would then need to weld on steel blades on the front end of the truck. These could be a set of butcher blades or thick sheets of steel. They do not need to be extra sharp because with the speed of the truck at the time of impact, even a blunter edge would slice through bone very easily. You may raise the level of the blades as high as the headlights. That would make the blades strike your targets at the torso level or higher.

“Pick your location and timing carefully. Go for the most crow[d]ed locations. Narrower spots are also better because it gives less chance for the people to run away. Avoid locations where other vehicles may intercept you.

“To achieve maximum carnage, you need to pick up as much speed as you can while still retaining good control of your vehicle in order to maximize your inertia and be able to strike as many people as possible in your first run. Keep in mind that as soon as people realize what you are up to, they would scatter and run in every direction looking for cover. They would look for areas where the vehicle cannot reach them. Therefore, it is important to study your path of operation before hand. The ideal location is a place where there are a maximum number of pedestrians and the least number of vehicles. In fact if you can get through to ‘pedestrian only’ locations that exist in some downtown (city center) areas, that would be fabulous. There are some places that are closed down for vehicles at certain times due to the swarms of people. If you have access to firearms, carry them with you so that you may use them to finish off your work if your vehicle gets grounded during the attack.

Yahya’s Tips for American Muslims to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction

The following are selected excerpts from Yahya’s tips for American Muslims, lightly edited for clarity:

“…These are some of our suggestions [to our brothers in the U.S.]. The best operation however is the one where you come up with an innovative idea that the authorities have not yet turned their attention to, and that leads to maximum casualties or – equally important – maximum economic losses.

“The Firearm Operation…It’s the least suspicious if you already own a firearm. For this choose the best location. A random hit at a crowded restaurant in the Washington DC at lunch hour for example might end up knocking out a few government employees. Targeting such employees is paramount and the location would also give the operation additional media attention.

“Also those brothers of ours who have specialized expertise, and those who work in sensitive locations that would offer them unique opportunities to wreak havoc on the enemies of Allah, should take advantage of their skills.

“For those mujahid brothers with degrees in microbiology or chemistry lays the greatest opportunity and responsibility. For such brothers, we encourage them to develop a weapon of mass destruction, i.e. an effective poison with the proper method of delivery.

“Poisonous gases such as nerve gas are not out of reach for the chemist and require simple equipment. A microbiologist would be capable of developing the most effective strains of Clostridium botulinum and thus develop the most lethal toxin of all: botulin. An effective botulin attack administered properly could lead to hundreds if not thousands of casualties.

“For such brothers we would ask them to take the utmost security precautions and take their time even if that means years [of preparation]. Such an operation is worth the wait.

FBI Required to Sign Unique NDA on Hillary Case

If you think the Hillary team, the Department of Justice and the FBI have not colluded with the White House to alter the course of history and the election, then think again.

Proof? Click the link and read it for yourself.  It is all clear now how confident Hillary was, why Comey made his press briefing and why Loretta Lynch refused to answer questions at the hearing. This takes the Department of Justice to the highest level of corruption and collusion in American history. Think about that.

Hillary FBI NDA

‘Gag’ order: FBI confirms special secrecy agreements for agents in Clinton email probe

FNC: The FBI has confirmed to a senior Republican senator that agents were sworn to secrecy — and subject to lie detector tests — in the Hillary Clinton email probe, an extensive measure one former agent said could have a “chilling effect.”

A July 1 letter sent by a senior deputy to FBI Director James Comey to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, detailed the restrictions on agents. The letter, reviewed by Fox News, confirmed agents signed a “Case Briefing Acknowledgement” which says the disclosure of information is “strictly prohibited” without prior approval, and those who sign are subject to lie detector tests.

“The purpose of this form is to maintain an official record of persons knowledgeable of a highly sensitive Federal Bureau of Investigation counterintelligence investigation,” the agreement attached to the Grassley letter reads, “….I (FBI agent) also understand that, due to the nature and sensitivity of this investigation, compliance with these restrictions may be subject to verification by polygraph examination.”

The measures show the extent to which the bureau has gone to keep additional details of the politically sensitive case from going public. While Comey has provided some information ‎on why the FBI did not opt to pursue charges, Attorney General Loretta Lynch repeatedly ducked questions on specifics of the case at a House hearing Tuesday.

A recently retired FBI agent, who declined to speak on the record, citing the sensitivity of the matter, said a “Case Briefing Acknowledgement” is reserved for “the most sensitive of sensitive cases,” and can have a “chilling effect” on agents, who understand “it comes from the very top and that there has to be a tight lid on the case.”

The former agent said the agreements can also contribute to “group think” because investigators cannot bounce ideas off other agents, only those within a small circle.

 

 

 

Hillary Emails Recovered by FBI to be Released

Earlier this year, top officials at the Justice Department and FBI began formulating a rough plan for how the findings in the unusual Clinton probe would be announced, officials close to the matter said.The idea that some top officials supported was that the FBI and the Justice Department, which have jointly managed the probe, would announce their decision together and at the same time announce how they came to it. This would prevent the spectacle of the FBI concluding its investigation then handing over recommendations to the Justice Department for review, with a final decision to be announced by Lynch.

But as the investigation drew to a close in the late spring, Comey began having other thoughts.
The political furor of the investigation was reaching a fever pitch.
FBI officials and Clinton’s lawyers began discussing plans for her interview and possible dates when she could come by FBI headquarters, preferably without a mob of reporters following her. There were some internal disputes about timing, with some at the FBI believing the interview could have happened weeks ago and Justice lawyers pushing to wait for more investigative work to be completed.
And last week, just when the political atmosphere surrounding the FBI investigation couldn’t seem more charged, things took a new bizarre turn. Former President Bill Clinton charged uninvited onto Lynch’s plane parked on the tarmac at the Phoenix airport. Lynch and the former president said they discussed nothing related to the probe and kept the visit to social matters. More on all the pre-planning and political planning is here from CNN.
*****
Senator Cornyn introduces, S.3135, the Taking Responsibility Using Secured Technologies (TRUST) Act of 2016, would put Congress on record saying that Clinton should have no access to classified information “until she earns the legal right to such access.”
*****

State Dept. to release deleted Clinton emails uncovered by FBI

You can bet these emails wont be released until after the November election, right?

WashingtonExaminer: State Department officials plan to publish all work-related emails discovered on Hillary Clinton’s private servers by the FBI once agents turn over the records Clinton withheld from the government.

“Just as we processed the material turned over to the department by former Secretary Clinton, we will appropriately and with due diligence process any additional material that we receive from the FBI to identify work-related records and make them available to the public,” agency spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.

Clinton had previously stated her legal team provided everything that could possibly considered related to her State Department work to the agency in late 2014.

However, the year-long FBI investigation into her treatment of classified material discovered “several thousand” work-related records on the servers agents took into custody last year.

Clinton has yet to address the contradiction in her statement and the findings of the FBI.

Kirby did not provide a timeline of when the newly-uncovered emails would be available to the public.

****

While much attention has been given to the meeting between Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on her private plane, there are symptoms the decision was made long before to close the case and not prosecute Hillary Clinton for violations of the Espionage Act. When Hillary made the ‘gesture’ to meet with the FBI for 3.5 hours on a Saturday morning, nothing was gained such that the FBI did not take her responses with any seriousness to continue with the investigation. So…..what is the chatter at the water coolers at the FBI?

Source: FBI Agents Believe An ‘Inside Deal’ Protected Hillary Clinton

“FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting.”

Was the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information cooked from the very beginning? According to the New York Post, FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured, private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State were required to sign unprecedented non-disclosure agreements prohibiting them from disclosing anything about their investigation of Hillary.

A former FBI chief told the New York Post that such a requirement is “very, very unusual.”

While FBI agents are typically required to sign vanilla non-disclosure agreements as part of their security clearances, law enforcement sources say they’ve never heard of a “Case Briefing Acknowledgment,” the agreement agents investigating Clinton were reportedly required to sign.

“FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting,” a source told the Post.

Last week, FBI Director James Comey said that despite Clinton being “extremely careless” with classified information, the agency would recommend the presumptive Democratic nominee not face any criminal charges. Following his comments, the U.S. Department of Justice formally closed the Clinton email case.

A week before the DOJ closed the case, Attorney General Loretta Lynch privately met with Bill Clinton aboard a private jet on the tarmac of an airport in Phoenix — raising serious concerns about the integrity of the investigation.

Hillary Clinton is reportedly planning to keep Lynch on as AG if she wins in November, according to The New York Times.

During a congressional hearing last week, Comey told the House Oversight Committee the FBI had no transcript or recording of its July 4 weekend interview with Hillary Clinton, nor was she required to swear an oath promising to tell the truth.

Grid Hacking Tool Found, Have a Generator Yet?

Researchers Found a Hacking Tool that Targets Energy Grids on the Dark Web

Motherboard: A sophisticated piece of government-made malware, designed to do reconnaissance on energy grid’s system ahead of an eventual cyberattack on critical infrastructure, was found on a dark web hacking forum.

Cybersecurity researchers usually catch samples of malicious software like spyware or viruses when a victim who’s using their software such as an antivirus, gets infected. But at times, they find those samples somewhere else. Such was the case for Furtim, a newly discovered malware, caught recently by researchers from the security firm SentinelOne.

SentinelOne’s researchers believe the malware was created by a team of hackers working for a government, likely from eastern Europe, according to a report published on Tuesday.

Hacking forums, of course, are home to a lot of malicious data and software. But they are usually not places where sophisticated government-made hacking tools get exchanged.

Udi Shamir, chief security officer at SentinelOne, said that it’s normal to find reused code and malware on forums because “nobody tries to reinvent the wheel again and again and again.” But in this case, “it was very surprising to see such a sophisticated sample” appear in hacking forums, he told Motherboard in a phone interview.

“This was not the work of a kid. […] It was cyberespionage at its best.”

Shamir said that the malware, dubbed Furtim, was “clearly not” made by cybercriminals to make some money but for a government spying operations.

Furtim is a “dropper tool,” a platform that infects a machine and then serves as a first step to launch further attacks. It was designed to target specifically European energy companies using Windows, was released in May, and is still active, according to SentinelOne.

Another interesting characteristic is that Furtim actively tries to avoid dozens of common antivirus products, as well as sandboxes and virtual machines, in an attempt to evade detection and stay hidden as long as possible. The goal is “to remove any antivirus software that is installed on the system and drop its final payload,” SentintelOne’s report reads.

Security experts believe that critical infrastructure, such as the energy grid, is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks, and believe a future conflict might start with taking down the power using malware. While it might sound far-fetched, at the end of last year, hackers believed to be working for the Russian government caused a blackout in parts of Ukraine after gaining access to the power grid using malware.

It’s unclear who’s behind this cyberespionage operation, but Shamir said it’s likely a government from Eastern Europe, with a lot of resources and skills. The malware’s developers were very familiar with Windows; they knew it “to the bone,” according to him.

“This was not the work of a kid,” he said. “It was cyberespionage at its best.”

****

The dropper’s principle mission is to avoid detection; it will not execute if it senses it’s being run in a virtualized environment such as a sandbox, and it also can bypass antivirus protection running on compromised machines.

The sample also includes a pair of privilege escalation exploits for patched Windows vulnerabilities (CVE-2014-4113 and CVE-2015-1701), as well as a bypass for Windows User Account Control (UAC), which limits user privileges.

“It escalates privileges after all these checks and registers a hidden binary that it drops onto the hard drive that runs early in the boot process,” SentinelOne senior security researcher Joseph Landry said. “It will go through and systematically remove any AV on the machine that it targets. Then it drops another payload to the Windows directory and runs it during login time.” More from ThreatPost