The biggest victim of the so-called Panama Papers scandal, that mass of 11 million documents referring to 215,000 offshore entities created by the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca, may turn out to be Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the most immediately relevant fact to emerge out of this mass of files, which have been transmitted by person or persons unknown to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung of Munich, is that Tony Podesta, the brother of John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, is currently serving as an unregistered lobbyist for the Russian bank Sberbank, even as Hillary Clinton and other unscrupulous Democratic Party politicians engage in totally unprincipled Russophobia attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Now we will not need to wait for the details of Hillary Clinton’s $225,000 speeches before the top honchos of Goldman Sachs to see to what degree Mrs. Clinton has been corrupted by her Wall Street connections. Extremely damning conclusions can be drawn based on the documents that have flowed into the SDZ over the past months. The Tax Wall Street Party demands an immediate congressional committee to thoroughly investigate Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, John Podesta, and Tony Podesta for this shady activity. We cannot wait until after the Democratic National Convention, when Hillary Clinton’s corruption could be revealed, demolishing her chances to win the White House and leaving Democratic voters at the mercy of Donald Trump and other Republican demagogues.
The Panama Papers in toto need not overly concern us here. This limited hangout document dump has all the classic earmarks of an Anglo-American destabilization of targeted interests using carefully selected revelations against foreign figures. This modus operandi goes back to Lockheed scandal of 1975. It also borrows much from the fake Pentagon Papers hoax of 1971, and from the later shenanigans of Assange, Snowden, and others. The Lockheed scandals alleged that many foreign politicians had demanded kickbacks on their governments’ purchase of Hercules C-130 aircraft. Many of these governments fell, and many careers were cut short. Some of the politicians involved had code names. The president of the Italian Republic was thought to be the payee code named Antelope Cobbler. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands was also implicated, along with many more.
Many of the targets of the Panama Papers are drawn directly from the CIA hit list. Among those targeted, we find members of the Assad family of Syria, the Icelandic Prime Minister, the Ukrainian NATO puppet dictator Poroshenko, and the various Arab Gulf royals. There is also the Argentinean soccer star Lionel Messi. As usual, no United States or Israeli politicians seem to be among the prime targets, although some embarrassing revelations pertaining to the family of British Prime Minister David Cameron seem to be included. The circles of Russian President Vladimir Putin are heavily targeted, as are the extended family members of Chinese President Xi.
The general model for the revelations would appear to be the recent Anglo-American destabilization of Brazilian President Dilma Roussef. The methodology appears to be the one tested out by the US Department of Justice in recent years as part of the US attack on international soccer (FIFA).
The explosive revelations regarding the Podesta brothers have not yet been fully understood inside the United States, but they soon will be. The Washington Examiner was understandably focused on the Podesta group as one vital center of gravity for the Clintonista faction:
‘The head of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is linked to a Russian bank involved with an emerging international scandal, according to documents reported on Tuesday. Registration forms indicate that the Podesta Group signed up to lobby for the Sberbank of Russia in Washington about a month ago, in early March. The bank has been implicated in a scheme unearthed on Sunday in which leaders worldwide illegally stashed their assets overseas. The Podesta Group was founded by John Podesta, the chairman of Clinton’s 2016 campaign for president and a chief of staff to former president Bill Clinton. His brother, Anthony Podesta, is listed as a lobbyist for the account on the March filing.’
The London Observer stressed the devastating implications of the Panama
Papers revelations for Hillary Clinton’s quest for the presidency:
‘Almost lost among the many revelations is the fact that Russia’s biggest bank uses The Podesta Group as its lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Though hardly a household name, this firm is well known inside the Beltway, not least because its CEO is Tony Podesta, one of the best-connected Democratic machers in the country. He founded the firm in 1998 with his brother John, formerly chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, then counselor to President Barack Obama, Mr. Podesta is the very definition of a Democratic insider. Outsiders engage the Podestas and their well-connected lobbying firm to improve their image and get access to Democratic bigwigs. Which is exactly what Sberbank, Russia’s biggest financial institution, did this spring. As reported at the end of March, the Podesta Group registered with the U.S. Government as a lobbyist for Sberbank, as required by law, naming three Podesta Group staffers: Tony Podesta plus Stephen Rademaker and David Adams, the last two former assistant secretaries of state. It should be noted that Tony Podesta is a big-money bundler for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign while his brother John is the chairman of that campaign, the chief architect of her plans to take the White House this November….Since the brothers Podesta are presumably destined for very high-level White House jobs next January if the Democrats triumph in November at the polls, their relationship with Sberbank is something they—and Hillary Clinton—need to explain to the public.’
Showing more presence of mind than usual, Hillary Clinton’s rival Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont quickly pointed out that the kind of corruption revealed by the Panama Papers would not have been possible without the nefarious provisions of the US-Panama free trade sellout accord, which he is now promising to repeal and abrogate:
‘Bernie Sanders on Tuesday vowed to end the Panama Free Trade Agreement, tying Hillary Clinton to the same policies that he claimed fostered the practice. “The Panama Free Trade Agreement put a stamp of approval on Panama, a world leader when it comes to allowing the wealthy and the powerful to avoid taxes,” the Vermont senator said in a statement released through his campaign, adding that he has been opposed to it “from day one.” Vowing to use his authority as president to “terminate the Panama Free Trade Agreement within six months,” Sanders said his administration would “conduct an immediate investigation into U.S. banks, corporations and wealthy individuals who have been stashing their cash in Panama to avoid taxes.” “If any of them have violated U.S. law, my administration will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law,” he said.’
Those attempting to accredit the Panama Papers as legitimate sources of information are of course confronted with the fact that, as per usual with limited hangouts, few Americans or none at all have been exposed in their tax evasion and related activities. Politico carried out a valiant but failed attempt to maintain the credibility of the Panama Papers by alleging that the Panama tax evasion system was now considered obsolete by wealthy US parasites seeking to avoid taxation. With the Panama method now belonging to the past, this article argued, US tax evaders are choosing other areas with more modern methods and technologies, leaving Panama to the relatively backward European tax evaders. Here is a sample:
‘“Within the [high-net worth] world, there is a national taste as in anything else,” said Edward Kleinbard, a professor of law and business at the University of Southern California, “and I think Panama is a disfavored country among U.S. advisers because it is viewed as an outlier relative to world norms.” If the Panama Papers had come out in the early 1980s, the scandal [might] have implicated far more Americans. Back then, experts say, Panama was a popular spot for parking money offshore for its lax bank secrecy laws and currency controls. But in 1989, under then President George H.W. Bush, the U.S. invaded Panama and deposed the military dictator, Manuel Noriega, and wealthy Americans have largely avoided the country since.’
This is of course the most transparent nonsense. Both the Russian government and the Chinese government have condemned the Panama Papers as transparent attempts to destabilize their respective governments and countries. We should not forget that more than $2 trillion in profits of United States companies are now being stashed in various tax havens around the world. The companies are whining that they cannot bring this money home until a tax windfall for them is arranged. In reality, these corporate predators ought to be coerced into immediately repatriating their money, under the threat of large-scale confiscatory taxation should they refuse to do so. Among the presidential candidates most concerned with protecting the tax evasion by these corporate malefactors, we find Donald J. Trump, who has been demanding special treatment for these tax evaders for the last several months.