White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer March 20, 2002

Ari & I

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Published on Wednesday, March 20, 2002

	7/14/03: Ari, in the 2002 election campaign, the Republican Party took in $7.2 million from convicted criminals. Is the President okay with his party taking millions of dollars from convicted criminals?...
	6/10/03: Ari, is the President concerned about a culture of cheating, lying and criminality taking hold in the country? And if he is, what does he plan to do about it?...
	6/9/03: Ari, you said in April that the war was about weapons of mass destruction. The war resulted in thousands of innocent civilian deaths, according to the Los Angeles Times. Do you personally feel any remorse given the public case that is being made that this war was based on that false pretext?...
	5/27/03: Ari, there is a new documentary film by an Irish journalist, Jamie Doran. He alleges U.S. military involvement in a massacre of 3,000 Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan...
	5/19/03: Ari, one of your predecessors, Jerald terHorst, resigned as President Ford's press secretary, he said, as a matter of conscience - because he couldn't defend President Ford's pardon of President Nixon. I was wondering, is there anything President Bush has done as President, that made you think, even for a moment, that you would resign as a matter of conscience?...
	5/14/03: Ari, you said on April 10th, about weapons of mass destruction, "That is what this war was about." On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the group directing U.S. search efforts for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is winding down operations without finding proof...
	5/8/03: Ari, the President was in Santa Clara, California last week. And he appeared at United Defense, a major defense contractor controlled by the Carlyle Group. The President's father is a paid advisor to the Carlyle Group...
	4/22/03: Ari, MSNBC reported this week that Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal rivals that of France and Britain. Given that arsenal, does the President support Syria's call to make the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction?...
	4/15/03: Ari, a 21-year-old British peace activist, Thomas Hurndall, was shot by an Israeli sharp shooter and killed on Friday. That brings to four the foreign peace makers who -- peace activists who have been shot or killed or wounded in the last couple weeks. I'm wondering if the President is concerned that the Israelis are targeting peace activists?...
	4/14/03: Ari, Lawrence Eagleburger, the Secretary of State under George Bush Sr, told the BBC yesterday: "If George Bush Jr. decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran - after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes"...
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Ari & I
White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer

Wednesday, March 20, 2002 12:30 p.m

by Russell Mokhiber

Mokhiber: Ari, the cover of Fortune Magazine has an article this week called "It's Time to Stop Coddling White Collar Crooks -- Send Them to Jail." In a nutshell, the argument is that corporate and white collar criminals together inflict more damage on society than all street crime combined. Does the President agree with that analysis?

Ari Fleischer: I don't know that the President has seen the story, so I'm not going to comment on that.

Mokhiber: Second question. The Treasury Department enforces the Trading with the Enemy Act law against -- they have settled hundreds of cases over the last couple of years against companies big and small. Yet they don't publicize them, unlike the Bureau of Export Administration, which puts their settlements up on their website. Why does the President allow this to happen -- for the Treasury Department to make these secret settlements with big companies that are trading with Iraq and Iran and so forth?

Ari Fleischer: Russell, I think you need to ask the Treasury that question. That's the first I've heard of that program or even the question. So, you might want to check with Treasury.

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-Thanks to Russell Mokhiber

White House reporter Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter - www.corporatecrimereporter.com. He co-authors the weekly Focus on the Corporation column with Robert Weissman which Common Dreams publishes. He can be reached at: russell@nationalpress.com