Mulroney Ancient History? Hardly

You have to be pretty green sapwood to consider something very much ongoing 'ancient history' even if its origins do go back about 20-years. That's especially true when the revelations about the matter keep emerging, stripping away one layer of obfuscation after another.

Brian Mulroney desperately wants you to dismiss the Mulroney/Schreiber/Moores/Airbus business as ancient history. Nothing would make Stephen Harper and his caucus happier either. Harper dodged demands for an inquiry into Mulroney/Schreiber before he was forced to relent, causing his to sever his newfound friendship with his latter-day mentor. The Tories laughably claimed Mulroney was exonerated during last year's Commons ethics committee hearings.

Mulroney has seemed to slip off the hook several times over the years. He thought it was all dead and buried after the Liberal government settled his lawsuit. The former prime minister had, after all, given sworn testimony that his only dealings with Schreiber after he left office were just a few get togethers over cups of coffee. No money ever changed hands. And that seemed to be an end to it. Mulroney was exonerated, the Liberal government said so. It even paid him a tidy two million dollars, the cheque pinned to its letter of apology.

In the course of his victory, Mulroney made an enormous mistake. He disparaged his former friend, Karlheinz Schreiber. It appears that was entirely gratuitous, the sort of hubris that brings down so many highly placed people. It was easy to take a swipe at Schreiber. The German government was pursuing extradition proceedings against the man for bribery charges. Who are you going to believe, a guy who's on the run from the law in Germany or a former prime minister of impeccable character?

It's entirely likely Schreiber would have remained mute had he not been slammed by Mulroney. This mistake, however, revealed how Schreiber could retaliate. Armed with a trove of documents, Schreiber has played his hand brilliantly. He's released documents frugally and with calculated timing. In the process he's achieved two things. He's drawn in his fair weather friends and he's kept the process alive and moving in the direction of his choosing.

And oh how they've lied and lied and lied, the entire lot of them, each in his turn. Mulroney swore he'd had no business dealings with Schreiber. Then he scurries off to file a 'voluntary disclosure' with Revenue Canada when Schreiber hands The Fifth Estate his Swiss banking records. Those documents also seem to implicate Mulroney friend, former Newfoundland premier and Ottawa lobbyist Frank Moores who for some strange reason sees fit to make his own 'voluntary disclosure' to Revenue Canada.

The Fifth Estate and the Globe & Mail keep the story alive and churning to the annoyance and embarrassment of Stephen Harper who had embraced Mulroney as a mentor, a prime ministerial Big Brother. Harper's minority government was suddenly on the hook. It couldn't prevent the Commons ethics committee from holding hearings into the matter (atrociously amateurish in any case). Nor was he able to long resist demands for an official inquiry into Schreiber/Mulroney.

Two important things happened during the ethics committee hearings. Mulroney school chum, confidante and aide to the former prime minister, Fred Doucet, told the committee, unequivocally and under oath, that he'd never had anything to do with Airbus. The most important thing, however, was largely overlooked. It was Schreiber telling the committee that focusing on his dealings with Mulroney was missing the point, looking in the wrong direction. That statement confirmed my suspicions that the Airbus story wasn't about Mulroney and Schreiber. It was about Mulroney and Moores.

In the months following the ethics committee hearings, Schreiber has fed a trickle of documents to reporters that may be highly probative. First came documents from Mulroney's PMO aide Fred Doucet making enquiries about the very thing Doucet had sworn he'd had nothing to do with - Airbus.

Tonight, according to the latest Globe & Mail, The Fifth Estate, will air further revelations from a former Airbus official and a former employee of Frank Moores' lobbying firm, GCI.

In the years since Mr. Moores's 2005 death, documents have emerged, and a number of sources have come forward, that contradict his assertion that neither he nor his lobbying firm, Government Consultants International, was involved in the Airbus sale.

Interviews and notes written by Mr. Moores, as well as memos written by his former staffers, show the firm was intimately involved with the Airbus deal: making overseas trips to promote the European manufacturer to Canadian diplomats, strategizing on how to approach federal officials, as well as approaching officials in Air Canada, a Crown corporation at the time.

...In interviews with CBC's The Fifth Estate, which is airing a documentary tonight about the Airbus sale, two former salesmen for Airbus in the United States have said that Mr. Moores was lobbying on behalf of the European manufacturer.

Anthony Lawler, who was based out of Airbus's Virginia office, told the program he was in a meeting with an Air Canada official when he realized the manufacturer had an additional, unannounced campaign going on behind the scenes.

Mr. Lawler told the program that, in the middle of the meeting, which took place in the mid-1980s, the Air Canada official was beckoned out of his office by his secretary because of a telephone call.

“He came back and said ‘Oh, that was Frank Moores and he wanted to know which aircraft we were looking at,'” Mr. Lawler said. “It didn't mean anything to me at the time ... only after I learned he was in Ottawa and was a lobbyist.”

A former GCI lobbyist, who spoke to The Globe and Mail on condition that he not be identified, has said that staffers at Mr. Moores's firm were told to cloak their work for Airbus in secrecy, and were warned: “If anybody asks, we're not working for Airbus. Don't tell anyone we're working for Airbus.”

Mr. Moores's history of denials dates back to 1985, which is when Mr. Mulroney appointed him to the board of Air Canada.

The Oliphant inquiry's mandate is to examine only Schreiber's dealings with Mulroney not Mulroney/Moores or Moores/Airbus. Schreiber's biggest challenge yet may be to force Harper to widen the investigation.

Where There's Smoke - There's More Smoke

A fascinating account in today's Globe & Mail about Frank Moores, Gerry and Fred Doucet, Government Consultants International, Thyssen, KarlHeinz Schreiber and the never to be Bear Head armoured vehicle plant.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080314.wpayments14/BNStory/mulroney/home

The story has an interesting account about a certain "letter of intent", money that flowed from Germany and some interesting accounts that were then rendered:

"After the document was signed, one of the first invoices to arrive for Mr. Schreiber was from Fred Doucet, whose new company was Fred Doucet Consulting International.

It was dated Nov. 2, 1988, which was less than three months after Mr. Doucet left his government job and about a month after the document was signed. His invoice was for $90,000.
Other invoices started rolling in. The law firm of Gerry Doucet, Mr. Doucet's brother, also billed for $90,000. Gary Ouellet's consulting company billed for a further $90,000. Frank Moores sent his $90,000 invoice and his lobby firm, Government Consultants International, issued an invoice for $250,000.

All of the invoices used similar language to describe the work that was performed: “professional services,” “services rendered” and “consulting services.”

And sure enough, over a period of 20 days, money started winding its way from Germany back to the lobbyists. Thyssen sent $2-million to one of Mr. Schreiber's Liechtenstein shell companies. That was transferred to another shell company, which in turn sent $1-million to one of Mr. Schreiber's Swiss bank accounts. Then, $610,000 was transferred out of the Swiss bank account – codenamed “Frankfurt” – the same day Fred Doucet invoiced Mr. Schreiber.

After the money made its way through another Liechtenstein company, Mr. Schreiber paid all of the parties – a total of $610,000 – on Nov. 15, 1988, from one of his Calgary companies, Bitucan."

Maybe it's just coincidence. Maybe Fred Doucet and maybe Gerry Doucet and maybe Frank Moores each really did do work costing exactly, to the penny, $90,000.00. But we may never know. Frank, of course, is long dead and neither Fred nor Gerry seem to want to talk about it.

Wait, I know. We should just ask KarlHeinz. He paid them.

Since When Does a Prime Minister Lobby for a Lobbyist?

Karlheinz Schreiber may be a sideshow in the financial affairs of Brian Mulroney. It was always thought that Schreiber received the $20-million in Schmiergelder, or grease (bribe) money, paid out by Airbus Industries in the course of the Air Canada deal. Schreiber says that money went, instead, to GCI (Government Consultants International), a lobby firm owned by Mulroney croney, the late Frank Moores.

GCI is gone and Frank Moores is dead so getting to the bottom of this is going to be more difficult than it otherwise might. That said, the records of Air Canada and its board during the Mulroney years do exist and might shed a lot of light on what happened.

Why did Mulroney sack some 15-Air Canada directors and why did he include among the replacements he appointed Frank Moores? Why did Frank Moores hurriedly resign this directorship? Why did Moores repeatedly deny claims that he and GCI acted for Airbus on the sale (although correspondence has emerged plainly showing just that)? Why did Moores run off in lockstep with Mulroney to make his own "voluntary disclosure" to Revenue Canada when Schreiber's Swiss bank records became public?

One thing, however, stands out. It's been reported that Mulroney repeatedly pressured the Air Canada board to pay GCI a $5-million fee of some sort related to the Airbus purchase. Did Mulroney, while prime minister, really lobby for the lobbyist and, if so, why and what did he get out of it? Why would Air Canada pay a fee to GCI if it was acting as lobbyist for Airbus? Did any money pass from Air Canada to GCI or Frank Moores and, if so, how much and for what?

Norman Spector did ponder what the Commons ethics committee might have learned had it held the current enquiry back in 2002 while Moores was still alive. It's too bad he was never asked to expand on that thought.