BCCI’s collapse has touched so many Democrats that everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Surely, Washington’s reasoning goes, the Pakistani masterminds who pulled the $12 billion scandal including everything from money laundering to global influence peddling–must have bought influence with Republicans as well. Nothing yet indicates wrongdoing by Hatch; last week, following an inquiry from the senator, the Justice Department sent a letter confirming that “you are not now either a subject or a target” of any investigation. But pin the tail on the elephant–any elephant–has become the favorite parlor game in town. And Hatch is the first to get targeted.
BCCI first hit the U.S. police blotters with the late-1988 money-laundering charges against BCCI and nine executives. By early 1990, BCCI had settled its case with a $15 million fine negotiated between the Justice Department and an army of attorneys directed by Washington superlawyers Clark Clifford and Robert Altman, whose reputations have been tarnished by their role as BCCI advisers and bosses of the bank’s secretly held First American Bankshares. (The two have denied knowing of the arrangement.) On Feb. 22, Hatch took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to defend both the deal and BCCI. Hatch said BCCI’s crimes, though serious, were the work of only “a small number of BCCI’s more than 14,000 employees.” He extolled “senior management, directors and shareholders of BCCI for the responsible way” they dealt with authorities. Last spring Hatch admitted that the 1990 speech was made after two meetings with Altman and two other BCCI lawyers’. The speech was even prepared in part by Altman. Hatch says he spoke solely out of friendship with Altman, receiving nothing. “Sure I’m embarrassed,” Hatch says in retrospect. “But nobody then knew what we know today.”
Information published recently raised new questions. The Wall Street Journal reported that from the early 1980s Hatch had met several times with Lebanese businessman Mohammed Hammoud, allegedly a front man for BCCI in its purchase of First American. But Hatch insists nothing untoward occurred: “We discussed Utah, the Middle East, Lebanon’s leadership and the hostage crisis. Every time. There was never a mention of BCCI.” Adding to Hatch’s BCCI connections, NBC News reported that a Houston businessman of Lebanese origin, Monzer Hourani, in early 1990 asked Hatch to recommend him to BCCI for construction loans. Though Hatch first denied the report, he admitted a day later that he did indeed contact former BCCI CEO Swaleh Naqvi by phone in 1990 on Hourani’s behalf. No loans were ever made, and Hatch said he was simply doing a favor for a friend, Middle East adviser and fellow Mormon. “Any business contacts were incidental,” Hourani says.
Hatch suspects there may be more at issue in the allegations against him than partisan tit for tat over BCCI. The senator spearheaded an attack on Anita Hill’s credibility during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings and now says, “There are a lot of people unhappy with, the Clarence Thomas hearing.” Hatch says that all of his BCCI ties are now public. He’d better hope so. As his Democratic counterparts have found, explaining anything about BCCI once you’re in the line of fire is very hard to do.
