Harry Sargeant III is a Boca Raton business man, a Charlie Crist fraternity brother, a former naval officer, a defense contractor, a Scotch drinker, a blue marlin fisherman, the asphalt king of the world, an oil transporter, a quick-trigger litigator, a "man's man," a major Republican fund raiser in Florida, and co-finance chairman of John McCain's campaign in the state.
Yep, Harry's a busy man overseeing business interests ranging from (probably) the world's largest asphalt company to $1 billion in Pentagon contracts to ship fuel to the military in Iraq.
He's also a questionable "bundler" now being investigated by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who has launched an inquiry of possible overcharging involving a Sargeant company in Jordan.
Could he also be the next Jack Abramoff?
Did I say he's the co-finance chair of John McCain's campaign? He ought to be since he seems to nearly single-handedly raise all the money Republicans get. And he "raises" quite a lot from himself!
Between himself, family and companies, he's donated almost $2 million to committees and candidates from Florida to California, with most given in the past two years and most, but not all, to Republican causes.
Last March he hosted a fundraiser for McCain at his (Sargeant's) $8M Delray Beach mansion and in that one night took in $1M. Unfortunately, some of that money had to be returned by McCain last month, $50,000, to be precise. The Washington Post and New York Times questioned the validity of several checks sent from Arab Americans in California -- donations solicited by Sargeant's longtime business partner, Mustafa Abu Naba'a, a Jordanian citizen. The campaign warned Sargeant donors that they can't be repaid for contributions, and that only U.S. citizens can donate. And yet. . .
Who are these worthies that Mr. Naba'a solicits money from?
. . .a little more than $50,000 in March [came] from members of a single extended family, the Abdullahs, in California and several of their friends. NYT
They're just regular folks who live in hard scrabble towns like Downey and Colton, yet the Abdullahs and their friends could and did write checks in amounts as great as $9,200 to John McCain, exceeding the $2,300 limit for an individual gift. They're extraordinarily generous and open-minded because last December they gave the maximum to either Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton or Rudolph W. Giuliani, or both, totaling in the case of at least one family, more than $18,000.
The picture looks like this: Mr. Sargeant (American) -- titular fund-raiser; Mr. Naba'a (Jordanian) -- cut-out man and solicitor; Abdullahs et alia (Palestinian) -- "donors," of whom, Abdullah Makhlou gave $9200 (along with his wife) but does not plan to vote for McCain because, "He’s like a worse copy than Bush."
I've heard of the legendary Arabic tradition of generosity to strangers, but this seems more than extreme to me. Particularly so from people heretofore politically un-active and in some cases not even registered to vote. Perhaps the false promise that their donations would be tax deductible led them to open their pockets?
If his long list of talents were not remarkable in and of themselves, we must add to them. Mr. Sargeant is one hell of a persuader! A man like that obviously is not without his friends.
"I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I've got a lot of friends," Sargeant said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I ask my friends to support candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually come through for me."
The same people who have helped him build relationships around the world also helped him create a vast network of potential and real donors. In recruiting some donors, Sargeant confirmed he had help from a business associate who formerly was a top counter-terrorism official in the CIA.
. . .this collection of donors has been activated four times. Their names -- confirmed by Sargeant -- first appeared in finance records on June 19, 2006, when about 50 of them each donated $500 to Crist's gubernatorial campaign. Sargeant helped lead fundraising for Crist that year.
Thirteen of the donors resurfaced on Dec. 13, 2007, sending a combined $29,200 to Giuliani's campaign at a time when Sargeant was heading up fundraising efforts in Florida for the former mayor. Seventeen of them sent the maximum allowed, $2,300, to Clinton's presidential campaign on Dec. 24. And a dozen of them returned in March to write checks to McCain totaling $50,600.
June '06, December '07, March '08. No more than 50 people and mostly fewer than 20 and peculiarly all Middle Eastern.
Ibrahim Marabeh, who is listed in public records as a Rite Aid manager, at first denied that he wrote any political checks. He then said he was asked by "a local person. But I would like not to talk about it anymore." Neither he nor his wife is registered to vote, but the two donated $4,600 to Clinton and $4,600 to Giuliani in December.
At the Twilight Hookah Lounge, owned by Nadia and Shawn Abdalla. . .who are not registered to vote, said in an interview that they recalled writing a check to an organization in Miami, because a person with that organization was a friend of their mother's. They said they could not remember his name.
Nader, 39, and Sahar Alhawash, 28, of Colton, Calif, who at one point ran the Avon Village Liquor store, donated a total of $18,400 to Giuliani, Clinton and McCain between December and March. About 80 people in the country made such large contributions to all three, and most were wealthy business executives, such as Donald Trump.. . .Abdullah Abdullah, a supervisor at several Taco Bell restaurants in the Riverside area, and his wife have donated $9,200 to McCain.
Reached at work, Abdullah said he knows little about the campaign. "I have no idea. I'll be honest with you," he said. "I'm involved in the restaurant business. My brother Faisal recommended John McCain. Whenever he makes a recommendation, we do it."
Faisal Abdullah, 49, said he helped organize all of the contributions from members of his family. When he was asked who solicited the contributions from him, he said: "Why does it matter who? I'm telling you we made the contribution. We funneled it through the channel in Florida because that's the contact we had. I was responsible for collecting it."
Sargeant's fund raising extends beyond presidential candidates.
Sargeant's fundraising extends beyond the presidential race. He and his family have given at least $38,000 since 2003 to Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler. . .In March, Sargeant and three relatives gave $18,400 to both Miami Republican Congressmen Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart.
Sargeant's employees have also made donations. In 2002, seven employees donated to U.S. Senate candidate John Cornyn of Texas on the same days Sargeant and his family gave $7,000. . .
[Governor Charlie] Crist, has received $29,800 from Sargeant and his family over the past 12 years. Sargeant's Trigeant Air also donated $100,000 to Crist's inauguration -- money the governor returned when he canceled the gala.
Under Sargeant's watch
The Florida GOP also raised $15 million last year -- a record for a nonelection year. Sargeant delivered much of that himself: More than $1 million in donations to the state GOP have come from Sargeant, his family or his companies in the past two years. . .
But enough about Sargeant's prowess as a fundraiser. He is also an engager of lobbyists, having spent more than $518,000 on Washington lobbyists to represent his companies.
Sometimes Sargeant's business activities and his fund raising have overlapped. His firm, International Oil Trading Co. (IOTC), holds several lucrative contracts with the Defense Department to carry fuel to the U.S. military in Iraq. IOTC is one of the biggest oil producing company in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Here's an interesting relationship map.
In 2006, Sargeant hired lobbyist Otto Reich, a former ambassador and State Department official, to help gain congressional support for one company, Trigeant Ltd., then in a dispute with the Defense Department over a $48 million fuel contract.
Trigeant said it was owed $10.1 million in damages after the Pentagon reduced its fuel orders in Iraq under a 2004 contract -- a contract the Pentagon let lapse.
Trigeant lawyer Ronald Uscher said Reich lobbied Sen. Mel Martinez, a member of the Armed Services Committee and, like Reich, once a Bush administration official.
Reich approached Florida's Republican senator in September 2006 "to explain why a prompt resolution of the claim was in the best interest of both the company and the United States government," Uscher said.
After the meeting, a Martinez staffer called the Defense Department at least once on the company's behalf. Martinez said he was only helping the company gather information from a stonewalling bureaucracy. He said this was the "routine" assistance he often gives Florida businesses, and he didn't try to sway the Pentagon's stance.
"I do this for hundreds of people throughout the state of Florida," Martinez said.
Trigeant filed a lawsuit in April 2007 saying the Defense Department violated the contract and drove up the company's costs. Three months later, Sargeant and his wife gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee -- then led by Martinez.
In September 2007, the federal government agreed to pay Trigeant a $3.2 million settlement. Uscher said the company did not profit on that contract.
Martinez said he was unaware of the settlement, and that the RNC donations were "completely independent" from his office's actions on Trigeant's behalf. We mustn't forget, Sargeant is the state Republican Party finance chairman.
The dispute with the Pentagon didn't hurt Sargeant's business with the military. In 2004, he and Abu Naba'a founded International Oil Trading Co., which now has defense contracts worth about $1 billion. By any onlooker's standards, that's phenomenal growth. You can peruse the contracts awarded IOTC for FY 2007 here.
The company has established a massive operation, with some 300 tankers shipping oil from Saudia Arabia to Jordan, where the fuel is trucked in convoys into Ramadi, Iraq.
Sargeant's defense contracts remain controversial. A former partner, Mohammad Anwar Farid Al-Saleh -- the brother-in-law of Jordan's king -- filed a $13 million lawsuit in April claiming he was fraudulently cut out of the IOTC contract by Sargeant and Abu Naba'a after helping them win the Jordanian government's approval. This lawsuit has sparked a US government investigation.
In June, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Henry Waxman, demanded records from Sargeant and the Pentagon as part of an investigation of possible overcharging by IOTC, which Sargeant denies.
When not dabbling in defense contracts, Seargeant and his brother amuse themselves by controlling one of the biggest asphalt operations in the world, and other companies that have owned refineries in Texas and Alabama, as well as tankers that travel the globe.
Needless to say, Sargeant has done very well in life. He has a waterfront home and enjoys sunny days spent trolling the waters off the Bahamas for blue marlin in a 65-foot sportfishing boat called -- what else -- Black Gold.
However, business can be rough. Besides the lawsuits already described, Sargeant's companies have been pulled into disputes with the government of the Dominican Republic, Venezuela's state-owned oil company, and Cowboys owner Jones.
Two years ago, the Venezuelan company won a $12.2 million arbitration award against Trigeant for over unpaid invoices. Trigent has a practical monopoly in the Caribbean shipping asphalt to all the mainland and island countries.
One of those countries is the Dominican Republic, the current home of Abu Naba'a, Sargeant's partner.
And now this front page story. McCain wants to make Obama's associates an issue when he's currently closely involved in a money-making fashion with a guy who may make Jack Abramoff's crimes pale in comparison? If I were McCain's campaign advisor, I'd say, "Don't be a buck eejit, John!"