BP hires CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin as lobbyist

Some call him Stanley the Fixer, Catherine Austin Fitts for one, a former high level government and Wall Street insider, now editor of Solari.com and running Solari, Inc., an ethical online investment firm specializing in preserving family wealth. Besides on her own firm and a wealth of information on important topics, her site provides extensive coverage of Sporkin, including unanswered questions about him.

On September 5, 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that BP hired him as ombudsman "to hear worker complaints from Alaska and elsewhere in the US," a move to quiet criticism about company operations, given its history of safety and environmental violations, and long record as a serial scofflaw, making daily headlines for the past two months and sure for much longer, keeping Sporkin hyperactive on the job.

"I'll report them as I see them," he said when appointed. "My mandate is to do whatever is necessary to ascertain the facts about and identify solutions for problems that exist today as well as those likely to become issues in the future."

According to Kim Eisler in his Washingtonian.com July 16, 2007 article headlined, "Stanley Sporkin Does Things His Way:"

Sporkin "landed a very big client, BP America, and has been seen around town with (its then) president Bob Malone in tow....attempting to guide (him) through a maze of Capital Hill hearings and state inquests (concerning investigation(s about the company) over everything from Alaska pipeline failures to refinery fires and lost....worldwide CEO in a scandal."

Sporkin calls his job troubleshooting, "leading a team of investigators through the charges and countercharges," using his longtime fixer influence. While his compensation isn't known, "it's said to be substantial - more than (he) ever made during his years as a judge or at the CIA and SEC."

Who then is Sporkin, and what about his dark side? More on the latter below.

He's been a partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in its Washington, DC office, involved in corporate governance, other litigation matters, arbitration and mediation services. He's also a member of the Gavel Consulting Group with other former judges and senior government officials, and served as counsel to Wall Street Management & Capital, Inc.

Earlier, he served 20 years with the SEC, the last seven as Director of Enforcement, another five years as CIA General Counsel (under William Casey during the Iran-Contra years - more on that below), and 14 years as a US federal judge for the District of Columbia. He's also a CPA and consummate fixer, given his high-level insider connections, now BP's ombudsman representing its interests, not workers or what benefits them. That's cover for his real job.

Serving Wealth and Power Interests

Sporkin made his reputation doing it, including judicially harming Hamilton Securities, approving its takeover, locking out its staff, and seizing its software and databases - its innovative system to save taxpayers billions of dollars in government-guaranteed mortgage loans, what might have prevented the housing crisis and mortgage fraud, what profiteers engineered collaboratively with Washington, as well as the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, likely to way surpass it before recovery.

A Case History of Sporkin Shenanigans

Catherine Austin Fitts founded and was president of The Hamilton Securities Group, a Washington DC-based investment bank and financial software firm. She explained its establishment as follows:

While serving as Assistant Housing Secretary and FHA Commissioner at HUD (under GHW Bush), she "tried (in vain) on numerous occasions to persuade (HUD Secretary) Jack Kemp and his staff not to propose new policies that would result in the abrogation of government contracts or contractual obligations with respect to financial assets."

Had she succeeded, it might have prevented the housing bubble, mortgage fraud, and spillover financial crisis, destroying the wealth, jobs, home ownership, and futures of millions of Americans, what didn't happen by chance, what was engineered and implemented over years to let Wall Street and other profiteers earn billions at the public's expense.

In 1990, Fitts left HUD to found Hamilton months later, several years afterward winning a competitive bid to serve as the Federal Housing Insurance Administration's financial advisor, executing, from 1994 - 1997, $10 billion in mortgage loan sales as well as strategic services for the agency's $500 billion mortgage and mortgage insurance portfolio, using revolutionary techniques greatly benefitting HUD and millions of taxpayers. On Solari.com, she then explained what happened, saying:

"One day I was a wealthy entrepreneur with a beautiful home, a successful business and money in the bank....The next day I was hunted, living through 18 audits and investigations and a smear campaign directed not just at me but also members of my family, colleagues and friends who helped me."

She believes it "originated at the highest levels," putting her through more than two years of "serious physical harassment, and surveillance, (including) burglary, stalking, having house guests followed, and (finding) dead animals left on (her) doormat."

What most people think can't happen in America, in fact, does, to anyone challenging corporate or government power - trashing the rule of law for their own interests, cleverly manipulating the public not catch on, or when it does, it's too late.

In Fitts' case, Hamilton's business and future opportunities were systematically wiped out, what led her to found Solari.com, focused on ethical investment, to help individuals and families protect their assets by understanding how dark Wall Street/Washington forces collaboratively drain investors and communities.

Hamilton Securities Litigation - Enter Sporkin

By trying to prevent the housing bubble and mortgage fraud, Hamilton was targeted by numerous lawsuits, including Ervin relator for United States v. Hamilton Securities (Qui Tam).

In March 1998, through his appointed Special Master trustee, then US District Court Judge Sporkin approved the court's takeover of Hamilton, and seizure of its software and databases.

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