Harriet Miers, Bush, TANG, Texas Lottery: Greg Palast Article
Thu Mar 15, 2007 at 02:22:44 PM PDT
Greg Palast reports that this is not the first time Harriet Miers fired investigators to protect her god, George W. Bush. In 1997, Ms. Miers was responsible for granting a contract to handle the Texas Lottery. Even though a winner (via bids) was already announced, Miers gave the multibillion dollar contract to GTech--- at the secret request of then Governor George W. Bush. G-Tech didn’t even submit a bid. In order to carry out this little deed, Miers fired the director of the Lottery who had discouraged GTech from bidding because of its history of corruption.
More below...
The real Miers story: another contract scandal with TANG ties
Tue Oct 11, 2005 at 10:36:36 AM PDT
Alright Everyone. While it is fun to tease Miers apparent self destruction, there is a real opportunity to expose yet more Bush corrupt cronyism (as opposed to the blind faith groupie cronyism which everyone is putting on Miers at the moment).
Josh Marshall dug up something on October 6 about Miers and her role as the Texas Lottery Commissioner and multi-million dollar contracts passed around. Bush appointed her for the job and somebody got a contract. Anybody suspicious yet?
And guess what - we can even bring in old friend Ben Barnes and the Air National Guard story (the story that won't die and should have sunk Bush a long time ago).
But before we get carried away, check this out for that part of the story:
http://loadedmouth.com/node/2155
Where was Miers in the GTECH-Littwin-Barnes
Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 01:00:56 PM PDT
nexus scandal, which was all about undue access for, and huge payments ($
23 M) to, Texas
lottery lobbyist Ben Barnes because of the favors he had done for Bush [and what Barnes knew from then] in an earlier decade? Miers was lottery commissioner from 1995 to 2000.
The Houston Chronicle on Nov. 17, 2004 recapped the events surrounding Gtech when the Chronicle covered Miers' appointment to WH Counsel -
Miers led the commission to
fire two of its executive directors and sought to rebid the GTech contract. After a year with the agency in a morass, the commission gave up when GTech threatened to sue the state and shut the lottery down . . . .
But the case of [ex-director] Lawrence Littwin became a political problem for Bush, because Littwin alleged that GTech had paid Barnes a $23 million severance package to keep him quiet about how Bush got into the Air National Guard in 1969 during the Vietnam War.
The Commission did vote in 1997 for a renewal of GTech's contract instead of following lower bids.
By the way, I never troubled myself much with the hullaballou about Barnes helping Bush gain entrance ...
