Hollinger Int. Scandal reveals who leaked Plame's identity [View All]

[newyorican]

Just found this on another site (credit goes to toxteth o'grady):

Conrad Black resigned yesterday. The head of a Hollinger International, a small-scale version of Rupert Murdoch's conservative media empire, got caught with his fingers in the till, along with his board of directors. Shades of Dennis Kozlowski!
Now ordinarily this would be just another financial scandal in the corporate world, except that Steve Pearlstein has dug up some interesting connections between the publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times (home of Robert Novak) and some of the leading neo-cons inside the Bush White House, such as Richard Perle and Richard Burt. Put two and two together and you can figure out that Perle and Burt might have leaked Valerie Plame's identity to Bob Novak. The opportunity was there: Perle and Burt do business with the corporate parent of the Sun-Times, where they would have had the opportunity to chat with Novak about various and sundry. Sure it's speculation, but it makes as much sense as any other theory.

At Hollinger, Big Perks in A Small World

It's amazing the coincidences you find digging into Hollinger International, the publishing empire that includes Chicago's Sun-Times and London's Daily Telegraph and is quickly slipping from Conrad Black's control.

Let's start with the board of directors, which includes Barbara Amiel, Conrad's wife, whose right-wing rants have managed to find an outlet in Hollinger publications.

And there's Washington superhawk Richard Perle, who heads Hollinger Digital, the company's venture capital arm. Seems that Hollinger Digital put $2.5 million in a company called Trireme Partners, which aims to cash in on the big military and homeland security buildup. As luck would have it, Trireme's managing partner is none other than . . . Richard Perle.

Perle, of course, has been pushing hard for just such a military buildup from his other perch at the Pentagon's secretive and influential Defense Policy Board, where there are a number of other Friends of Hollinger.

There's Gerald Hillman, managing partner of Hillman Capital, which also got a $14 million investment from Hollinger, according to the Financial Times. Hillman is also a partner at Trireme.

And then there's Henry Kissinger, another longtime Hollinger director, though it must be said that Henry is very busy and was only able to make one board meeting last year.

Rounding out the Hollinger director-hawks is Richard Burt, the former arms negotiator and ambassador to Germany....

Media Baron Black Resigns

LONDON, Nov. 17 -- International media baron Conrad M. Black, who sought power and profits by buying the Daily Telegraph newspaper, one of the crown jewels of British conservatism, resigned as chief executive of his holding company Monday after disclosures that he and other executives collected millions of dollars in unauthorized payments.

Black, a swashbuckling entrepreneur who renounced his Canadian citizenship two years ago so that he could become an English lord, stepped down as part of a management shakeup that included the resignation of the publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times.

The departures follow an investigation by an independent audit committee into Black's media holding company, Chicago-based Hollinger International Inc. The audit committee, led by former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Richard C. Breeden, determined that Black had funneled $16.55 million to Hollinger's Toronto-based parent company, Hollinger Inc., following the sale of several newspapers in the United States and Canada. He had also given himself and his deputy, president and chief operating officer F. David Radler, who also was the Chicago Sun-Times publisher, $7.2 million each in 2000 and 2001 without informing the company's board of directors. Two other associates received $1.2 million....

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Very interesting...yes?