We've been hitting on the Nigerian Scandal quite a bit. If you want the main details, read the 400 websites which come up from the Google Search for Cheney and "Jeffrey Tesler" .
The brief: Nigeria awarded a $6B contract to build a natural gas plant to a consortium led by Halliburton in 1999 (Cheney was CEO 1995-2000). As part of the deal, part of that ($180M) was paid as a "finder's fee" to Jeffrey Tesler, an English Lawyer. Tesler has now testified under oath to a French investigative magistrate that he paid $5M to a Halliburton Executive Albert Stanley (into a numbered Zurich account) with the personal approval of Dick Cheney. Thus, France is about to indict him for misuse of company funds and bribery of foreign officials (see below). On June 18, the SEC -- finally realizing they were going to look stupid and biased --- opened an investigation on Cheney's actions while he was CEO at Halliburton (it was this that Sen. Patrick Leahy was joshing about with Cheney when Cheney told him to commit an anatomical impossibility).
Who's Tesler? He's been a consultant to Halliburton for 30 years, and, more importantly, a 'financial advisor' to Nigerian Dictator Sani Abacha (who died at the age of 54 in 1998 due to a Viagra-induced heart failure while in the company of Indian prostitutes). Germany has just charged him with taking a "finders fee" from Germany company Julius Berger -- for getting them a multi-billion dollar contract building roads and gov't buildings in Nigeria, for no work. In short: Tesler is the Nigerian power-structure's bagman, taking the kickback cash, managing it in Swiss accounts, and distributing it as convenient to his people. So, question for Halliburton: What work has Tesler been doing for them for 30 years, how much have they paid him, and how much in finders fees has he been paid for Halliburton contracts? And since it's obvious that he is doing the kickbacks, how is it that Halliburton's CEO Cheney approved the $180M payment to him in 1999, since that would violate US laws against bribing foreign officials?
Finally, this story is about to break big. Cheney is going to step down as the VP candidate in 2004. Who is it going to go to? Obviously: Colin Powell. Look for the announcement just prior or during the Democratic Convention. Like I predicted back in January (although in February I did say he killed his chance by saying he didn't know if he would have supported the Iraq war if there were no WMD.
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