MIDEAST TERROR WAR ADDS URGENCY TO CARLYLE GROUP CONTROVERSY
Former President Bush Works for International Investment Firm With Ties To Saudi Arabia
Company Had Bin Laden Family Connections
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today pointed out that the recent spate of terror attacks on Israel has lent new urgency to the need for former President Bush to resign from the Carlyle Group, an international investment firm with close ties to the government of Saudi Arabia.
The former president, the father of President Bush, worked for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, meeting with them at least twice. The terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had supposedly been “disowned” by his family, which runs a multi-billion dollar business in Saudi Arabia and was a major investor in the senior Bush’s firm. Other reports have stated his Saudi family have not truly cut off Osama bin Laden.
In the wake of Judicial Watch and other criticism of its ties to the bin Laden family business, the Carlyle Group reportedly no longer does business with the bin Laden conglomerate. Yet the Group, among other conflicts of interest, reportedly has a major business relationship with the Saudi Arabian government, which many have criticized for its lack of cooperation in America’s war on terrorism and its financial and other support for terrorist attacks on Israel and U.S. interests.
“It stands to reason, as noted in the David Sanger piece in The New York Times today, that President Bush consults with his father on issues of the day. In a normal situation, this would be appropriate, but with President Bush’s father being effectively an agent of the Saudi Arabian government, it raises, in the least, a conflict of interest problem. Questions can be raised, for instance, if the ‘kid gloves’ treatment of Saudi Arabia by the Bush Administration has anything to do with his father’s financial ties to the Saudi regime. Former President Bush would be doing his son and his country a favor by immediately resigning from the Carlyle Group,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.
