seafan's Journal - Jeb Inc.

This is one individual who must never be allowed anywhere near the White House.

Jeb Inc.

BRIAN SMITH | Special to the Times (2006)

By Sydney P. Freedberg, Times Staff Writer
July 6, 2008

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Entrepreneurial capitalism. Bush is becoming quite an expert on that. In the 18 months since leaving the Florida Governor's Mansion, he has quietly remade himself into a capitalist-entrepreneur extraordinaire. Capitalizing on his eight years as governor and a network of Bush family supporters, he leads a busy, and lucrative, life: global speaking engagements, a new consulting firm and affiliations with three big businesses. He earns hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and stock and has joined the ranks of private equity executives on Wall Street. And he keeps his hand in politics through five nonprofit organizations that help maintain his profile, champion his favorite causes and keep people wondering: Will Jeb Bush seek public office again?

Bush, 55, is determined to keep his gubernatorial afterlife low key, closely guarding the identities of business partners and clients and refusing to discuss his speaking fees or sponsors.

He declined interview requests, saying in an e-mail that he is "trying hard to stay out of the public eye to let my successor do his thing.''

Through a spokeswoman, he dismissed any suggestion that any of his post-office business activities might create an appearance of a conflict. He issued a brief statement that highlighted his legacy as governor, not his recent entrepreneurial ventures.

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While in office, Bush noted that his family finances suffered because of his public service. He left Tallahassee in January 2007 reporting a net worth of $1.3-million.

Despite the dropoff, Bush declined a state pension — the only living governor to do so. His spokeswoman, Kristy Campbell, says he opted out because he believed that he should serve the state for eight years and "not make a career out of the office.'' It is "voyeuristic" of the Times to publicize that, she said.

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No, ma'am, THIS is voyeuristic:

Oct 5, 2002 | Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, running for reelection in November, has a habit of getting himself in trouble when making statements in front of reporters -- particularly ones he doesn't know are there.

Bush's latest gaffe comes on the heels of the first arrests in the tragic Rilya Wilson case. The child, who turned 6 last month, has been missing from state custody for more than a year, having last been seen at the home of her guardian Geralyn Graham. Graham, who has a long rap sheet for fraud and more than 40 aliases, says a worker from the state's Department of Children and Families picked up the little girl from her home and never returned with her. She and her sister Pamela Graham claimed to be the child's maternal grandmother and grand-aunt, respectively, but turned out to be acquaintances of Rilya's mother. They're now under arrest, along with two of Geralyn Graham's grown children, for allegedly obtaining more than $14,000 worth of state assistance for the girl after she went missing.

News of their arrest prompted Bush to tantalize GOP lawmakers at a Wednesday meeting with what he called "juicy details" about the women -- who he implied were not sisters at all, but rather a lesbian couple.

"As was being arrested," Bush told the Panhandle lawmakers, "she told her co-workers, 'Tell my wife I've been arrested.' The wife is the grandmother, and the aunt is the husband." Bush added gestures, using his fingers to make quotation marks as he emphasized the word "grandmother."

"Bet you don't get that in Pensacola," Bush added for flourish, apparently not realizing that a reporter with Gannett Regional Newspapers of Florida was in the room. His comments were first reported in Wednesday's editions of the Pensacola News-Journal, and soon made the rounds of media across the state.

On Thursday, Joshua Fisher, Pamela Graham's attorney, called the governor's comments "outrageous" and "disgusting."

"He's making jokes when there is still a missing baby here, or doesn't he care?" Fisher said.

Bush's people called his latest gaffe a "nonevent," but it quickly drew the fire of the state's largest gay-and-lesbian advocacy group, Equity Florida, whose executive director, Nadine Smith, called Bush's remarks "childish" and "locker room homophobia." And a spokesman for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill McBride remarked that "Floridians would be concerned that Jeb Bush has a different message behind closed doors than what he does in public."

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Jim Morin, Miami Herald, 10/9/02

More from the St. Petersburg Times:

When Bush came to the governor's office in January 1999, he reported that he had a net worth of about $2-million, much of it earned in partnership with a friend of his father, Miami real estate developer Armando Codina.

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(After leaving office in early 2007): First, Bush renewed the real estate broker's license he first got in 1982. He registered with a firm founded by Jose I. Juncadella, one of South Florida's top commercial brokers. Before Bush became governor, they worked together at Codina's real estate firm.

Next, he founded a consulting company, Jeb Bush & Associates. It doesn't seem to have a Web site, and Bush declines to discuss what it does or identify its clients.

Bush set up a small office in a Miami skyscraper a block from Biscayne Bay. He shares a suite with lawyer and developer M. Ronald Krongold, a golfing friend for 25 years who helped run Bush's successful 1998 campaign.

Armando Codina and Jeb go WAY back:

Jeb Bush in '06 facilitated Office Depot deal for benefit of former business partner, Armando Codina, January 28, 2007

Jeb Bush's former business partner Armando Codina takes $255 Million from FEC stock sale in buyout, that Bush facilitated while he was governor., September 11, 2007

Times:

Like many out-of-office politicians, Bush hit the lecture circuit, speaking regularly on topics ranging from the poisonous political atmosphere in Washington to his passion for bold leadership and what he likes to call "BHAG'' (big, hairy, audacious goals).

As a former governor who is the son of one president and brother of another, Bush is in demand. His speaking schedule has carried him from Bonita Springs to Seattle, with at least five speeches outside the country.

"One week he might be in Singapore and the next week in Chile,'' said Al Cardenas, Florida's former GOP chairman. His law office is a stone's throw from Bush's office.

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Neither Bush nor the speaker's bureau will discuss his fees, schedule or sponsors. Most sponsors told the Times that Bush's contract bars them from discussing what they paid him.

One sponsor, a large media company in New Delhi, hosted Bush at a conference in October. A year earlier, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke at the same event for $200,000 (including a $40,000 agent's fee).

When Bush delivered a speech about diversity in South Korea in May 2007, his host was Jin Roy Ryu, a longtime family friend and contributor to his father's presidential library. About four months later, a subsidiary of Ryu's company, Poongsan Corp., was awarded a contract of up to $1.1-billion to supply the U.S. Mint with metal used in coins.

Bush says the Mint contract never came up during the trip and he never even knew about it.

Ryu did not respond to e-mail inquiries about how much, if anything, Bush was paid for his appearance.

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Like father, like son, perhaps?

The Moon-Bush Cash Conduit

Times:

Besides "speechifying,'' as Bush calls it, the ex-governor has landed lucrative roles in corporate America. He works for three big firms, all of which did business with state government during his tenure.

Through Campbell, his spokeswoman, Bush said no company or organization ever got favorable treatment from state government to further his post-office plans. Campbell called the Times' questions about his recent ventures baseless, preposterous and offensive.

Bush's friends say he had his choice of firms and took care to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. His first pick: the board of Tenet Healthcare Corp., which wooed him with an initial stock grant valued at $260,000, plus fees and stock totaling $191,581 last year. That was more than any of the other eight non-employee directors received.

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Bush said that since joining the board, he has never asked anyone in state government to rule favorably on any matter affecting Tenet.

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While he was governor, Tenet's Florida hospitals received about $14-million from the state, much of it from Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor. Its hospitals also ran afoul of regulators in Tallahassee, prosecutors in Washington and lawsuits alleging patient abuse and financial fraud.

In 2005, then-Attorney General Charlie Crist filed a racketeering lawsuit against the firm, accusing it of bilking taxpayers by as much as $1-billion. Crist later settled with Tenet for a nominal $7-million.

Steve Uhlfelder, a Tenet lobbyist and longtime Bush friend, said the former governor never asked regulators to go easy on Tenet.

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Bush got a $500 contribution from Tenet in 2001, and the state Republican Party received $108,000 from the company between 1999 and 2006.

He denied campaign contributions ever influenced him, saying the "moral compass'' that guided all of his decisions was his goal to improve the economy, the education system and "the quality of life for our fellow Floridians.''

Times:

About two months after joining Tenet, Bush became a consultant to Lehman Brothers and a member of the firm's private equity advisory board, which buys and sells companies worldwide.

The investment bank refuses to comment on Bush's duties or compensation. When the Wall Street Journal learned about it, its Web site called Bush "Lehman's secret weapon.'' Others in the financial media speculated his hiring was part of a lobbying blitz to help the secretive private equity and hedge fund industries head off more regulation and tax increases.

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"The private equity business is in many ways about relationships, so being skilled at making connections is basically the way deals get put together,'' Blaydon said. "Being an ex-governor helps, but being part of a family that is a serious player in the world of big money and big oil is even more important.''

While Bush was governor, Lehman Brothers won at least six new contracts and $9.9-million in fees from the two agencies that handle Florida's bond deals and public investments, records show.

Bush denies any conflicts in the awarding of business to Lehman Brothers or other companies that now employ him. He also has denied any role in the sales by Lehman of risky securities to the State Board of Administration, which manages billions of dollars in investments for hundreds of local government agencies in Florida.

The official who supervised the agency was Coleman Stipanovich, brother of J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich, a GOP consultant who ran Bush's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 1994.

Last year, when some school districts and local governments grew alarmed and began withdrawing billions of dollars, the state put a temporary freeze on withdrawals. Coleman Stipanovich was forced out as regulators began investigations that are still ongoing.

Gov Crist asks whether Lehman may have hired Jeb Bush to gain influence to sell bad debt to Florida, May 31, 2008

Forbes: Jeb Bush involvement with Lehman raises questions in Florida investment fund debacle, November 30, 2007

Times:

In November, Bush was appointed to the board of another financial services firm, CNL Bancshares, a bank holding company led by real estate developer and major GOP donor James M. Seneff Jr.

"As CNLBank continues its expansion beyond its headquarters in Orlando ... Gov. Bush provides both credibility and visibility to our company throughout the state,'' Seneff said in a statement.

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The company declined to discuss Bush's pay. Half of all corporate directors in a recent survey made more than $100,031 a year, according to the Corporate Library, a business watchdog group.

CNL Bancshares is affiliated with a group of Seneff companies forming one of the nation's largest privately held real estate investment and financial services firms.

In 2003, while Bush was governor, his office approved up to $3.1-million in tax refunds to be paid over eight years to CNL Holdings, which is an affiliate of CNLBancshares. The company was to receive the money in return for creating 418 new jobs with an average annual wage of $62,170. Only $181,875 was paid, however, because CNL fell short of its job promises.

A company spokeswoman and Bush said there was no connection between the tax break and Bush's appointment.

All three corporations that now employ Bush say they sought him for his business smarts and knowledge of Florida, not to reward him for past or future actions.

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Well, THAT certainly relieves my mind. What about everyone else??

Times:

Although Bush does his nonprofit work for free, his five nonprofit organizations have raised millions of dollars. Some of the donors belong to the same network of lobbyists, developers and business executives who helped finance Bush's political aspirations — and helped his father and brother reach the White House as well.

The nonprofits champion two of his favorite causes — education and ethanol (see chart on Page 12A). They also help the former governor maintain a public profile while legally sidestepping rules designed to limit political influence.

Unlike political candidates, many nonprofits — known as 501(c)s for the tax code section that applies to them — can accept donations of any amount, from virtually anyone, including foreign sources. They are not required to provide a detailed breakdown of their spending.

They are not required to disclose their donors, either, and two of Bush's don't. But a partial list of donors includes longtime family friends, lobbyists and companies that benefited from state government while he was governor.

For example, his Foundation for Florida's Future received $550,000 in 11 installments from the Villages, a giant retirement community developed by Republican booster H. Gary Morse. Morse's company also donated $100,000 to a nonprofit affiliate led by Bush with a similar name, Foundation for Florida's Future Action Fund. And he has donated more than $800,000 personally and through his businesses to the state Republican Party since 1999.

While he was governor, Bush signed a bill that allowed the Villages' hospital to expand without having to undergo the same costly review as other hospitals.

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Legislators give GOP donor exemption for expanding hospital at The Villages, April 23, 2003

Cutting regulation for his buddies is one of Jeb!'s most useful achievements.

Times:

Bush's nonprofits provide jobs for several politically savvy staffers, too.

One of them is Patricia Levesque, Bush's former deputy chief of staff for education. She is the executive director of two of Bush's education nonprofits.

She was among seven former Bush aides or political appointees who served on the 25-member Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, a panel that meets every 20 years to propose changes to Florida's tax structure.

Levesque helped push Bush's education agenda during the deliberations of the commission, which ultimately adopted two proposed constitutional amendments that would provide legal protection for private school vouchers.

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When it’s easier to con voters than convince them, June 15, 2008

Jeb Bush's attempt to obliterate FL's church-state separation in November has national ramifications, June 3, 2008

Voucher deception on ballot for November, 2008 (Jeb Bush's devious plans again), May 20, 2008

Jeb Bush allies put pro-voucher plans on ballot (guts constitutional separation of church/state), April 25, 2008

FL House quietly trying to resurrect Jeb's school vouchers in spite of unconstitutionality ruling., May 1, 2007

See, it doesn't matter that Jeb! is out of office. His minions are strategically salted throughout the power structure.

Times:

(Kristy) Campbell, who served in Bush's gubernatorial press office, said his nonprofit groups meet all state and federal reporting requirements. She would not say how much she, Levesque or other foundation staffers make. She also denied the groups are being used to keep Bush's political donor base intact or former aides employed.

"Raising student achievement and fostering excellence in education are about as nefarious as our goals get,'' she said.

Yet, increasingly, people who are mulling a campaign for political office set up nonprofits, which pay for travel, staff salaries and other expenses.

"It's pervasive and politicians in both parties do it,'' said Frances R. Hill, a law professor at the University of Miami and director of a group that analyzes money in politics. "There may be legitimate reasons to maintain multiple tax-exempt entities, but my antenna go up when a powerful political figure has this many floating around.''

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Indian American Journalist Warns of Possible Jeb Bush '08 Run, June 15, 2007

Jeb Bush is the jackal crouching behind the rocks. He's going to make his move soon., April 9, 2008

Florida will be suffering the pain, destruction and stench of Jeb Bush and his Republican-controlled legislature for years to come.

And isn't it interesting how much effort Jeb Bush and his operatives go to, in order to deny ANY conflicts of interest in his decades of shady business dealings, from before he was governor, while he was governor, and now?

When will more bright lights of justice and accountability finally focus on Jeb Bush?

Thanks to Sydney P. Freedberg at the St. Petersburg Times, for this refreshingly factual reporting.

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