{"id":1280,"date":"2004-09-01T05:29:12","date_gmt":"2004-09-01T12:29:12","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2004-09-01T05:29:12","modified_gmt":"2004-09-01T12:29:12","slug":"honor-among-thieves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/01\/honor-among-thieves\/","title":{"rendered":"Honor Among Thieves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No wonder Richard Perle <a href=http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/cole\/?articleid=2368>digs<\/a> convicted embezzler Ahmed Chalabi so \u2013 they&#8217;re <a href=http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/wp-dyn\/A50704-2004Aug31?language=printer>two perps in a pod<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>Press tycoon Conrad M. Black and other top Hollinger International Inc. officials pocketed more than $400 million in company money over seven years and Black&#8217;s handpicked board of directors passively approved many of the transactions, a company investigation concluded.<\/p>\n<p>A report by a special board committee singled out director Richard N. Perle, a former Defense Department official, who received $5.4 million in bonuses and compensation. The report said Perle should return the money to the Chicago-based company.<\/ul>\n<p>Please note that this is a company investigation, not a <a href=http:\/\/www.fee.org\/vnews.php?nid=5420>politically motivated waste of taxpayer money<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>The new report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Monday, added details of what it called the &#8220;corporate kleptocracy&#8221; Black and Radler created at Hollinger. It said they treated the company as a &#8220;piggybank&#8221; and fashion accessory, with Black using the prestige of the newspapers to gain access to the wealthy, powerful and royal. <\/p>\n<p>For example, the report said Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel Black, treated the Hollinger corporate jet as a private shuttle between cities such as Chicago and Toronto and vacation spots. They took frequent trips to Palm Springs and one 33-hour round trip to Bora Bora, which cost the company $530,000, the report said. It also said Black charged the company $90,000 to refurbish a Rolls-Royce, and used $8 million in company money to buy memorabilia of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, about whom Black wrote a book.<\/ul>\n<p>Could that corporate-statist thief FDR have any better disciple?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No wonder Richard Perle digs convicted embezzler Ahmed Chalabi so \u2013 they&#8217;re two perps in a pod: Press tycoon Conrad M. Black and other top Hollinger International Inc. officials pocketed more than $400 million in company money over seven years and Black&#8217;s handpicked board of directors passively approved many of the transactions, a company investigation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1280"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}