Serious Questions for Michael Chertoff; Bernie Kerik’s Not Looking So Bad Now

By Allan P. Duncan
January 30, 2005

http://www.opednews.com/duncan_013005_chertoff_questions.htm
www.OpEdNews.com

President George W. Bush nominated Michael Chertoff to be the new Secretary of Homeland Security several weeks ago and I have some serious questions about this nomination.
 
On September 7, 2004, I published a four part series of articles titled, New Jersey and Terrorism…Perfect Together, in which I exposed Chertoff’s link to a New Jersey man who was accused of having ties to Osama Bin Laden and whose name had also come up in a federal weapons sting called Operation Diamondback.
 
Since the story is so complicated, I have tried to distill the entire article to make it a bit easier to understand since many people just don’t have the patience to read a 34 page story. I have also added some new information that was not in the original.
 
I have been trying to get this story out there for two years and it is finally spreading on the internet and several mainstream sources are currently investigating my claims. I have also been trying to contact Senators and Congressmen since the confirmation hearings are this week and time is of the essence.
 
The full article can be read by clicking the link below.
 
http://www.opednews.com/duncan_0090304_NJ_terrorism1.htm
 
In my article, I reported that in 1998, Dr. Magdy Elamir, a prominent neurologist who lives and practices in North Jersey, was named in a foreign intelligence report as having had ties for years to Osama Bin Laden. This document went on to say that Dr. Elamir owned an HMO in New Jersey that was funded by Bin Laden and that Dr. Elamir had skimmed money from the HMO to fund terrorist activities.
 
In a Dateline NBC story titled On the trail of arms merchants, dated August 2, 2002, it states that the foreign intelligence report was obtained by Congressman Ben Gillman, when he was Chairman of the House International Relations Committee:
 
“Last fall, “Dateline” obtained information about Magdy Elamir. He’s a prominent doctor, a neurologist with a practice in Jersey City. Born and educated in Egypt, he moved to this country about 20 years ago and since then has built a fortune. He lives in a mansion, is generous to local charities and is an active supporter of both political parties.
 
       Should counterterrorism investigators take an interest in Dr. Elamir? Well, “Dateline” obtained a document last fall — foreign intelligence report, that makes a startling allegation about the doctor — that he has had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years. The report was given to a senior member of Congress, Ben Gilman, back in 1998, when he was Chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
 
       “We have a former FBI person on our staff and I asked him to look it over,” says Congressman Gilman. “He thought it was credible enough to turn it over to the intelligence people. And we turned it over to the FBI practically immediately.”
 
       This was in 1998.
 
       The report alleges that an H.M.O. owned by Dr. Elamir in New Jersey was “funded by ben [sic] Laden” and that in turn Dr. Elamir was skimming money from the H.M.O. to fund “terrorist activities.”
 
Has the FBI answered those questions? Not to Congressman Gilman’s satisfaction. But what “Dateline” found intriguing is that less than a year after the congressman says the FBI received the report, Dr. Elamir’s HMO was taken over by the state of New Jersey, which opened a fraud investigation. Why? Because, according to sources close to the investigation, more than $15 million is unaccounted for. Where did the money go? Dateline” has reviewed documents that show at least some of it went into hard-to-trace offshore bank accounts. (1)
 
The date of the 1998 foreign intelligence report is very important, because an article in The Record, dated December 11, 1998, documents the fact that Michael Chertoff was Dr. Elamir’s lawyer in the fraudulent HMO case in the same year that Elamir was named in the foreign intelligence report:
 
Elamir, who has been accused by insurance department officials of
diverting state Medicaid funds to other businesses he owns, did not
oppose the state's takeover. No criminal charges have been filed against
him.

But in a hint of the gravity of his legal predicament, he was
represented in court by Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. attorney in
Newark
and counsel to U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato's Whitewater
investigation.”  
(2)
 
The Record also reported on December 18, 1998 that Michael Chertoff had access to Dr. Elamir’s financial records for the fraudulent HMO and presented them personally in court:

 
Chertoff presented a thick document from Elamir's accountant,
Mohammed Hanafy, offering explanations for the money transfers from APPP
to other Elamir-controlled corporations.”
 
Further on the article states:

Keupper says the state is not satisfied with Hanafy's explanations,
noting that officials have been unable to obtain a full accounting of
services provided by Elamir's corporations to APPP.”
(3)
 
Michael Chertoff apparently represented Dr. Elamir in the fraudulent HMO case from 1998 through December 2000 according to articles and records I have compiled.
 
The Dateline NBC story from August 2, 2002 also revealed that in 1999, Dr. Elamir’s brother in Egypt, Mohamed El Amir, tried to secure false paperwork for a warehouse full of weapons in Italy that he wanted to ship:
 
“Dateline” has found another reason why federal investigators might want to pay close attention to Dr. Elamir and his family. It’s something we learned when we interviewed Randy Glass, the con-man turned undercover operative who helped the government break up an illegal weapons ring allegedly tied to terrorist groups. It turns out that one of the people recorded trying to arrange an arms deal with Randy Glass was Dr. Elamir’s own brother, Mohamed, an engineer, also a U.S. citizen now living in Egypt. And just listen to what he was interested in.
       “There was a warehouse full of weapons in Italy that they needed shipped,” says Glass.
       It was the spring of 1999. Mohamed Elamir explains that he wants false papers that would identify a shipment of weapons — as vegetables.
       Randy Glass: “ But you’re talking about, they’re saying they wanna ship vegetables, right? Is what they want — is what they want on the paperwork, correct?”
       Mohamed El Amir: “Yep.”
(1)
      
This information now documents the fact that in the Spring of 1999, while Michael Chertoff was representing Dr. Magdy Elamir in his fraudulent HMO case, that Dr. Elamir’s own brother, Mohamed El Amir, tried to secure false paperwork for a warehouse full of weapons. Dateline NBC also revealed that Mohamed El Amir also had alleged ties to Osama Bin Laden since he was named in the same foreign intelligence report that Congressman Gilman received in 1998:
 
       “Did Mohamed give Glass any indication as to who was going to get these arms?
       “Never got a chance to ask him,” says Glass.
       Glass says federal agents told him to drop the matter.
       So, what happened to the case? “Nothing,” says Glass.
       There was no follow-up. “No,” says Glass.
       Was this a missed opportunity? “Hundred percent,” says Glass.
       And Randy Glass doesn’t know the half of it, because that same intelligence report that talks about Dr. Elamir also names his brother Mohamed as having ties to Osama bin Laden.
(1)
 
The Dateline story also revealed that the same intelligence report stated that Dr. Elamir had financially supported the Al Salam Mosque in Jersey City, the same city where Dr. Elamir has his practice:
 
      “Dateline” caught up with Dr. Elamir recently outside his office. He said he couldn’t talk about his HMO and the missing money. But he had this to say about allegations he’s connected to bin Laden and terrorism.
       
       Dr. Elamir: “That’s preposterous. Never.”
       Chris Hansen: “Why would somebody say something like that about you?”
       Dr. Elamir: “I have no idea. I have no idea.”
       
       But the intelligence report suggests one thing that he doesn’t deny. That he has donated money to the mosque where the blind sheik once preached, Omar Abdel Rahman, who is now in prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.” 
(1)
 
Here’s a bit of history about the mosque:
 
It is nearly a straight shot from the Jersey City waterfront overlooking the rubble of the twin towers up to Al Salam, the third-floor mosque here that for more than a decade has been tainted with suspicions of terrorism.
First there was the 1990 murder of a militant rabbi, linked to an Al Salam regular. Then there was the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, spurred, prosecutors said, by the incendiary sermons of blind Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and carried out by his followers.”
 
 “Al Salam had a tradition of passionate preaching against the Egyptian government, which is supported by the United States. Journal Square has a large Egyptian population, and many worship at Al Salam.
 
The mosque's most famous scholar, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, was convicted in 1995 along with nine followers of conspiring to bomb the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan and several other buildings, bridges and tunnels in New York.
 
Prosecutors also said Abdel Rahman had galvanized his followers to carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and wounded 1,000.
 
Three years later, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who prosecutors said masterminded the 1993 bombing, was also convicted. Abdul Rahman Yasin, another suspect in the 1993 bombing who lived in Jersey City, fled the country.
 
In 1990, Al Salam regular El Sayyid Nosair was charged with murdering Rabbi Meir Kahane during a speech in New York.(5)
Ramzi Yousef, by the way, is the nephew by marriage of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, acknowledged as the architect of the 9-11 attacks.
Michael Chertoff served as Assistant United States Attorney and then United States Attorney for New Jersey from 1987 to 1994. He would have been in office when “In 1990, Al Salam regular El Sayyid Nosair was charged with murdering Rabbi Meir Kahane during a speech in New York” and would also have been in office when “Abdel Rahman had galvanized his followers to carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and wounded 1,000.” Chertoff was also in office when “Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, was convicted in 1995 along with nine followers of conspiring to bomb the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan and several other buildings, bridges and tunnels in New York.
 
I am sure that Michael Chertoff must have had a role in investigating these cases and I’m quite sure he knew quite a bit about the Al Salam Mosque’s members and supporters. It is certainly ironic that he ended up representing Dr. Magdy Elamir who financially supported the Al Salam Mosque, the same mosque that planted the seeds for terrorist attacks within Michael Chertoff’s own jurisdiction.
Michael Chertoff was appointed Assistant Attorney General, under John Ashcroft, in early 2001 and was placed in charge of the Criminal Division. Since Operation Diamondback was an active case when he took office, and culminated in arrests in the Summer of 2001, the case would have fallen under his pervue since it was handled as a criminal case and not as a counterterrorism case. This means that one of his former clients, Dr. Magdy Elamir, along with his brother Mohamed El Amir, were now suspects in a case under his supervision.
 
Operation Diamondback ran from the Fall of 1998 through the Summer of 2001. As I reported above, Michael Chertoff represented Dr. Elamir in his fraudulent HMO case from sometime in 1998 through December 2000. We also know that Dr. Elamir had  been named in the foreign intelligence report in 1998 as having ties to Osama Bin Laden for years and that his HMO had been funded by Bin Laden and that millions of dollars had been siphoned from the HMO to fund terrorist acts. This means that Michael Chertoff had access to the financial records of an HMO, which was allegedly a front for and funded Bin Laden, for at least two years after his client Dr. Magdy Elamir was named as having ties to Bin Laden.
 
Neither Dr. Magdy Elamir, nor his brother Mohamed, were ever arrested by US authorities when Operation Diamondback ended. Michael Chertoff had represented Dr. Elamir for two of the three and a half years that the investigation spanned and had also overseen the case for a number of months after he was appointed Assistant Attorney General in 2001.
 
Operation Diamondback dealt with much more than what I have presented in regards to Dr. Elamir and his brother. The case also involved other Middle Eastern men operating in Jersey City with ties to Dr. Elamir and his brother. Three of these men attempted to secure components for nuclear Dirty Bombs and also wanted to secure Plutonium. They also tried to buy 500 Stinger Missiles. In one instance one of the men who was named as a member of the Pakistani ISI, pointed towards the World Trade Center and stated “Those towers are coming down.” The conversation was recorded by the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force and yet nothing was done with the information as we found out the hard way on 9-11. (1)
 
The suspects named in Operation Diamondback are now known to have had ties to AQ Khan’s nuclear weapons network operating out of Pakistan. This info was not known during the operation by the ATF and FBI Agents who worked on the case. Dateline NBC revealed this information on January 14, 2005. ATF Agent Dick Stoltz who supervised Operation Diamondback had this to say:
 
“In the summer of 1999, a group of illegal weapons dealers were meeting at a warehouse in Florida, their conversations recorded by federal investigators. One of the men, from Pakistan, was seeking technology for nuclear weapons. Who did he say he was working for? 
Dick Stoltz: “Dr. Abdul Khan.”
Chris Hansen: “A.Q. Khan.”
Dick Stoltz: “A.Q. Khan.”
Former federal undercover agent Dick Stoltz was posing as a black market arms dealer.
Hansen: “Did you realize what you had at the time?”
Stoltz: “No. We didn't.”
But now he does -- because A.Q. Khan is considered, by some, to be the most dangerous man in the world. Why? Because Dr. Khan has peddled nuclear weapons technology to some of the countries the United States considers most dangerous, and some accepted his offers.”
 
Further on:
 
“Undercover federal agent Dick Stoltz says there's evidence Khan's operatives were at work here in the U.S., like a man who asked  if Stoltz could supply heavy water, an ingredient used to make plutonium for nuclear bombs.
 
Stoltz: “He said that Dr. Khan was handling the negotiations behind the scene, as far as-- the heavy water.” (6)
 
Only two of the men I am referring to were arrested and only one of them spent time in prison after he had been sentenced to 30 months. Today all of the players involved in Operation Diamondback are walking the streets of North Jersey even though we now know they tried to secure Plutonium and components for a nuclear weapon and were working on behalf of AQ Khan.
 
When the attacks on 9-11 occurred, Michael Chertoff was placed in charge of the investigation. On Oct. 25, 2001, CBS reported that the Feds had launched Operation Green Quest in an attempt to stop the financing of terrorism. Here’s what Dr. Magdy Elamir’s former attorney had to say on the subject:

"The lifeblood of terrorism is money, and if we cut the money we cut the blood supply," said assistant attorney general Michael Chertoff, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division. (7)
 
The next day, on October 26, 2001, Michael Chertoff testified before Congress and had this to say:
“As an integral part of this national effort, the Department of Justice and the FBI have established an interagency Financial Review Group to coordinate the investigation of the financial aspects surrounding the terrorist events of September 11th and beyond. All members of this Committee recognize the importance of understanding the financial components of terrorist and criminal organizations. These financial links will be critical to the larger criminal investigation, while also providing a trail to the sources of funding for these heinous crimes. The importance of "following the money," in this instance, as well as in the investigation of all criminal enterprises, cannot be overstated.
 
The members of this Committee are also well aware that money laundering constitutes a threat to the safety of our communities, to the integrity of our financial institutions and to our national security.(8)
On March 25, 2002, CNN reported:
 
Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff is the Dick Cheney of the Justice Department. Brainy, intense and well connected, the former federal prosecutor can usually be found at Attorney General John Ashcroft's elbow as the department's top counterterrorism tactician. And last week Chertoff vanished to an undisclosed location.
 
With no deputies along and no publicity, Chertoff was on a stealthy swing through France, Belgium and the Netherlands. His mission: sell Western European governments on a new Bush Administration plan to post U.S. Justice Department prosecutors overseas in unprecedented numbers. "The sinews that hold a terrorist network together are money, communications and transportation," Chertoff told TIME before his trip. To help sever those sinews, Chertoff wants to have American prosecutors stationed in key capitals, where they can work behind the scenes with their counterparts to overcome the legal and cultural obstacles to shipping evidence to the U.S. for use in court.” (9)
 
I find it very interesting that Michael Chertoff, the man tapped to cut off the flow of finances to known terrorists, had in fact represented a man from 1998-2000 who allegedly had ties to Osama Bin Laden and may have sent millions of dollars to him.
 
I also find it interesting, that while Michael Chertoff served as Assistant United States Attorney and then United States Attorney for New Jersey from 1987 to 1994, that terrorist acts, including the first World Trade Center bombing, were perpetrated under his watch and were fueled from a mosque in Jersey City that was never shut down and still exists today. Chertoff’s former client, Dr. Magdy Elamir, is known to have supported the mosque financially while having suspected ties to Osama Bin Laden. Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing, just happens to be the nephew of the 9-11 mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
 
If you read my entire four part article you will discover a wealth of information about terrorist activities in the North Jersey area from before the 1993 bombing through 9-11 with a lot of evidence that many of the 9-11 hijackers spent time in North Jersey before the attacks.
 
Questions for Michael Chertoff
 
If I could question Michael Chertoff during his confirmation hearing set for this Wednesday, I would ask him if he knew of any of his former clients who may have had ties to terrorists or terrorist activities.
 
I’m sure he would say no.
 
I would then ask him if he had knowledge of any civil case that he had handled that might have involved an entity that had been funded by a terrorist or been used to fund terrorism.
 
I’m sure he would also say no.
 
I would then ask him if he had ever represented Dr. Magdy Elamir in a case involving a fraudulent HMO.
 
At this, he would most likely answer yes, but maybe not though if he cited attorney client privilege. I’m not a lawyer so I’m not sure how much he has to say about a case.
 
If he said no, I would then tell him that I know he had represented Dr. Magdy Elamir and would spell out my evidence.
 
I would then ask him if he had knowledge that Dr, Magdy Elamir had been named in a foreign intelligence report in 1998 as having had ties for years to Osama Bin Laden.
 
If he said no I would then ask him if he was aware that the HMO that his former client Dr. Elamir owned and operated may have been funded by Osama Bin Laden and that millions of dollars may have been siphoned from the HMO to finance terrorist activities.
 
If he said no I would ask him if he had ever had access to the financial records of the HMO in question.
 
If he cited attorney client privilege I would then ask him if he knew what happened to the nearly 6 million dollars that were made in wire transfers from the HMO’s funds to unknown people.
 
He would most likely cite attorney client privilege again so having made several points I would move on to another subject.
 
I would then ask him if he was aware that his former client had been named in a weapons sting run by the ATF and FBI while he was representing his client in his fraudulent HMO case.
 
If he said no I would then ask him if during his tenure as Assistant Attorney General was he aware that his former client Dr. Magdy Elamir had been named as a suspect in a federal weapons sting investigation that fell under his pervue.
 
If he said no I would then ask him why he didn’t know this since he was the head of the Criminal Division and the case would have fallen under his supervision.
 
If he said he was aware that his former client had been named as a suspect while the case was under his supervision I would then ask him if he took any actions to guarantee that there was no conflict of interest.
 
After his answer I would then ask him if he knew why his former client had never been arrested for operating an HMO that may have been funded by Osama Bin Laden, for skimming millions from the HMO that supposedly went to Bin Laden or for having been a suspect in Operation Diamondback.
 
If he said he didn’t know I would then make the point that he should have known since he was the Assistant Attorney General at the time.
 
I would also ask him if he was aware of historical terror ties to the Al Salam Mosque in Jersey City.
 
I’m sure he would then try to talk up the rest of my time by telling stories about the mosque so I couldn’t ask him any more questions but I’d cut him off after a few minutes and ask him if he was aware that his former client Dr. Magdy Elamir had financially supported the Al Salam Mosque.
 
If he said no then I would tell him that he doesn’t seem to know a lot about what has been happening in his own home state, especially since one of his own personal clients has been accused of being up to his neck in terror ties that could jeopardize our national security.
 
I would then close by asking Michael Chertoff how he thinks he can protect our homeland when he failed to shut down terrorism with roots in New Jersey while he was Assistant United States Attorney and then United States Attorney for New Jersey from 1987 to 1994, and then failed to cut financial ties to terrorism that might have involved one of his own former clients after he became Assistant Attorney General and was put in charge of Operation Green Quest.
 
I know that I won’t be able to ask these questions of Chertoff on Wednesday, but I’m hoping that at least one Senator on the confirmation committee will have received this information by then and has the intestinal fortitude to actually pose some of these questions
 
In my opinion, Michael Chertoff has no business becoming our Secretary of Homeland Security until these questions are answered. If he can’t secure his own backyard…there’s no way possible he can secure our entire country.
 
 Sources:
(1) Dateline NBC, On the trail of arms merchants, August 2, 2002
http://www.msnbc.com/news/788686.asp
 (2) The Record (Bergen County, NJ), Judge Orders State to Take Over Newark-Based Medicaid HMO, By Linda Washburn, December 11, 1998
(3) The Record (Bergen County, NJ), Judge Orders Bond, Freezes Assets of Failing HMO's Owner, By Randy Diamond, December 18, 1998
(4)  Dateline NBC, Stinger missile sting operation, March 18, 2003
http://www.msnbc.com/news/887141.asp?cp1=1
(5) The Seattle Times, New Jersey mosque's faithful stung by its alleged ties to terrorists, By William Yardley  
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134359268_njmosque27.html
(6) Dateline NBC, The most dangerous man in the world?, January 14, 2005

 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6827441/
 
(7) CBS News, Feds Launch 'Operation Green Quest', Oct. 25, 2001
 
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/10/25/attack/main315901.shtml
 
(8) Prepared Testimony of the Honorable Michael Chertoff Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division United States Department of Justice, 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, September 26, 2001
 
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2001_hr/092601_chertoff.html
(9) CNN, Ashcroft's man on a mission, By Elaine Shannon, May 25, 2002
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2002/04/01/mission.html