	id AA00827; Sun, 20 Nov 94 12:50:57 CST
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2 Num. 91


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2  Num. 91
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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[CN -- The following does not necessarily reflect the views of 
Conspiracy Nation. It merely reports what was said elsewhere.]
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK INTERVIEW -- THE JOLIET CONNECTION
 
Sherman Skolnick was interviewed on *Radio Free America* 
(Shortwave, 5.065 MHz, mon-fri, 9 pm cst) on October 20, 1994. 
Mr. Skolnick is a veteran investigative reporter from Chicago and 
founder of the "Citizens' Committee to Clean Up the Courts" in 
that city. Following is my transcription of that interview. 
Host/Interviewer is Tom Valentine.
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
[...continued...]
 
TOM VALENTINE:
O.K. That sounds a lot like that BCCI fire that we talked about 
once before.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yes, that's right. That's about the size of it.
 
Now as to what was involved here: very substantial citizens from 
areas south of Chicago contacted the topmost officials of the 
DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and complained about 
the strange goings-on past Moose Island. And what they got... And 
they complained to Anton R. Valukis himself! And what they got in 
return, instead of any remedy, were serious threats of bodily 
harm against themselves and their family. These are not dopers or 
ex-convicts that were complaining, these were fine, upstanding 
citizens. And they got no remedy. In fact they got threats.
 
Now we have been, ourselves, investigating the situation for four 
years. And when we became aware that the Treasury [Department] 
unit, who were bitter and disgruntled at being, uh, attempts to 
stop them...
 
 
VALENTINE:
Yeah, that's called the "stand down". They're told that they have 
to stand down.
 
 
SKOLNICK:
Well, their way of "standing down" was to deliver a *truckload* 
of their original documents, in their own handwriting, to [an] 
independent investigating group. We made a summary of those 
records, and, as I said, we confronted the head of the "task 
force".
 
By the way, the head of the "task force" that we confronted on 
March... On October 6, '94, previously was a White House aide in 
the Bush administration and a close crony of George Herbert 
Walker Bush.
 
Law enforcement people, and others, that are aware of what's 
involved here, believe that Bush himself is involved. As to who 
we directly *know* is involved, it's the former Governor here, 
Jim Thompson (he was the Governor of Illinois for 14 years), two 
of his cronies who were the chief federal prosecutors -- Dan K. 
Webb, from '81 to '85; and from '86 to '90 was Anton R. Valukis. 
Also, Fred Foreman(sp?), who was the chief federal prosecutor in 
this district, covered it up. *And*, as I said, at the meeting 
October 6th was the secretary to the *current* chief federal 
prosecutor, who is Jim Burns(sp?). I mean, we met in this office 
in the federal building here, and as I said -- after 35 minutes, 
the chief of the "task force", Mark Prosperi, got up [and] told 
me he's not interested. I summarized all that I've just 
summarized for your listeners. I offered witnesses and 
documentation. He said he's not interested, and in so many words, 
went out the door telling me I should mind my own business! Well 
I head up, for more than 30 years, a public interest citizens 
group. And we have exposed a great deal of corruption -- not from 
a political standpoint; that is, not to favor one political party 
over the other, but in the public interest. And we do it on our 
cable show, and we've done it on your show in the past, as you 
know, Tom.
 
 
VALENTINE:
That's right.
 
 
SKOLNICK:
I should have felt insulted on behalf of the public, that he felt 
that it was not our business to be stickin', to be goin' into 
this stuff! This is, this dope traffic that I'm describing -- 
with "China White" coming in, south of Chicago -- is, for all we 
know, a bigger operation than what was coming in to the Mena, 
Arkansas airport. And *now*, the *Wall Street Journal* (as I 
mentioned) belatedly calls it "The Mena Cover-up". (That was 
October 18th, the big story in the *Wall Street Journal*.)
 
I challenge the DEA, or the ATF (that supposedly investigated the 
burning down of the building), *or* the U.S. attorney, *or* the 
Justice Department, to *finally*, once and for all, do something.
 
 
VALENTINE:
All right. My guest is Sherman Skolnick. If you'd like to call 
in, if you'd like to chime in with something, 1-800-878-8255. We 
will take your call. You can talk to Sherman.
 
I'm Tom Valentine. This is *Radio Free America*.
 
[...commercial break...]
 
All right, we are back live on *Radio Free America*. We're 
chatting with Sherman Skolnick. He's uncovered an investigation, 
a long-term investigation, that's been going on up in [the] 
Chicago area, near Joliet.
 
And as you've been hearing, we've got John in Syracuse, New York. 
You're on with Sherman. Come ahead, John.
 
 
JOHN:
Yes, hi. I used to be stationed, Tom (I never told you this; I've 
told you some of the places) -- but I used to be stationed in 
Glenview, Illinois.
 
 
VALENTINE:
O.K. At the naval air station there. Yeah.
 
 
JOHN:
...naval air station, which has recently been shut down. It's 
been sold back to the city of Glenview. Everything's been moved 
out of that area, and all the airplanes have been transferred out 
to the east coast. Just as I was retiring, I had moved some of 
the airplanes out of that area.
 
But I had a question for your guest that, on all of the stuff 
that's gone on in this investigation, how has it been that these 
agencies aren't talking to each other in this investigation?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
I can give a simplistic answer. Because of the Whitewater affair, 
there is a horrendous fight between the Treasury and the Justice 
Department. The Treasury [Department] wants to come out with 
investigative records showing that the Clinton White House is 
highly corrupt, going back to the time that Clinton was Governor 
and covered up the Mena, Arkansas thing. The Justice Department, 
under Janet Reno, wants to continue the cover-up because of the 
complications of the strange death of Vincent Foster.
 
 
VALENTINE:
Now this is the, this is the Treasury Department bureaucrats. Not 
necessarily Lloyd Bentsen [Secretary of the Treasury].
 
 
SKOLNICK:
Right.
 
Bentsen himself was involved in the CIA and the S&L scandal, 
according to Pete Brewton's book, *The Mafia, the CIA, and George 
Bush*.
 
 
VALENTINE:
Yes.
 
 
SKOLNICK:
So we've got a Secretary of the Treasury that's *far* less than 
an angel. I've never accused him of being honest, let's put it 
that way.
 
But the point here is that the Treasury [Department], at least 
the *unit* -- *tried*. And they've gone to substantial risk, to 
allow their office to be cleaned out; put onto a truck all their 
notebooks and performance files and delivered into the hands of 
private citizens that are making this public. I mean...
 
 
VALENTINE:
This has happened, this has happened to you before, Sherman. Uh, 
go ahead, John. Is there something else you want to get in on?
 
 
JOHN:
Well, yeah. There was one more thing.
 
Sarah McLendon(sp?) the other day, Tom, in a news conference, 
asked Bill Clinton when Mena, Arkansas went down and there was 
drugs bein' smuggled in there, why didn't the state of Arkansas, 
when he was a Governor, hold an investigation of what was goin' 
on there. He blew it off, he blew off the question, and said to 
her, back to her, "Oh, the federal boys were in here doin' all 
this. And I didn't get involved. All I did was some background 
checks." And he left it at that. But he said that he knew that 
there was something going on at the Mena airport. You know, Mr. 
Skolnick, some of this ties together. And I think some of this 
stuff has to be tied in, before we can ever press forward on it.
 
 
SKOLNICK:
Sarah McLendon's question to Clinton was not picked up by any of 
the major press that was at the press conference. The first 
mention of it was, just briefly, in this story "Mena Cover-up" in 
the *Wall Street Journal*, October 18th. But the *Washington 
Post*, the *New York Times*, and all the major papers, pretended 
that there was no such question put to Clinton -- which was very 
revealing. Some people feel that Clinton, as Governor, ordered 
the State Police to look the other way, regarding the dope coming 
in *there*.
 
Now the question is, is it the Clinton White House and the 
Clinton Justice Department ordering various people to look the 
other way now that the dope transit point has been switched from 
the Mena, Arkansas area and is just south of Chicago, in Joliet? 
I mean, there's a vast cover-up in the works! And as I said, very 
substantial citizens have complained to the DEA and the Justice 
Department. And instead of any remedy, they got threats of death 
and so on!
 
So there's a vast cover-up in the works. And one of those that 
was involved in the overall thing was this John E. Gearham.
 
                   [...to be continued...]
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."
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