WSJ:

The daughter of Kazakhstan's president used well-connected Washington private security consultants to gather information on a U.S. bribery probe involving her father that has stymied the nation's access to $84 million in disputed funds.

The efforts of Dariga Nazarbayeva, the Kazakh president's daughter, to learn more about the probe shines a light on the role of such private consultants, often former intelligence, military and law-enforcement officials, who monitor government activities for potential risk on behalf of clients. It also highlights the sensitive situation this could create for government officials.

In a filing last year in a Manhattan federal court, federal officials alleged that the $84 million stems from bribes paid by U.S. companies to Kazakhstan's president and other top officials for access to Kazakhstan's rich energy reserves. The government has ordered the money frozen in Swiss bank accounts while the investigation continues. The government of Kazakhstan hasn't contested the claim and signed a settlement agreement containing the allegations.

Last week, Justice Department officials warned that they might veto a proposal to release the $84 million for social programs in Kazakhstan. U.S. officials said one group seeking to disperse the funds has too many connections to the Kazakh government.

Through a company she controls called World Media Corp., Ms. Nazarbayeva deployed consultants to learn details of the Justice Department bribery probe. Ms. Nazarbayeva controls a wide swath of the Kazakh media and is viewed by some analysts as the likely successor to her father, Nursultan Nazarbayev, a former Communist Party boss who has ruled Kazakhstan since it gained independence 17 years ago.

Neither she nor World Media could be reached.

The effort underscores how concerned Kazakh leaders are with the bribery investigation, which has been an impediment to broader ties with the U.S. The Kazakh ambassador to the U.S. declined to comment.

One of the firms involved in the effort to gather information about the bribery case was GlobalOptions Management, an affiliate of Washington consulting firm Global Options Group Inc. A constellation of top Washington players has worked with GlobalOptions Group, including former Central Intelligence Agency Director R. James Woolsey and former FBI Directors William Webster and William Sessions. The three men said they weren't involved in the private intelligence-gathering operation but did attend some social events with Ms. Nazarbayeva.

In a 2003 client report, GlobalOptions Management said the firm mined connections at the White House, State Department, Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to learn more about the inquiry. The effort is detailed in hundreds of pages of subsequent reports in the possession of former Kazakh government officials and viewed by The Wall Street Journal. ...

It isn't illegal to attempt to gather information on a criminal inquiry, but U.S. law enforcement and judicial officials and even private lawyers are bound by strictures on what they can disclose to outside parties. Any indication that officials disclosed confidential information would be embarrassing to the U.S. [...]

The documents describing the information-gathering effort claim that unnamed persons within the FBI and the Justice Department provided the consultants with the names of witnesses, financial details and other information from the Kazakh investigation.

The 2003 report claims that "team operatives" learned from "a source at the London FBI office" that one of Mr. Nazarbayev's advisers is "a potential key witness for the cases." It also states that in the U.S., "a meeting was held with one senior level FBI official, as well as with an FBI special agent tasked with Central Asian organized crime investigations."

GlobalOptions Management said it couldn't comment on the reports without seeing them. ...

The U.S. indicted Mr. Giffen in 2003, but his case hasn't yet come to trial. He claims in court filings that he was working as a U.S. intelligence asset, which has caused a federal judge to impose secrecy measures, making details of the case classified.

The Justice Department and the World Bank had earlier negotiated a plan that would have allowed the release of the funds to help the poor in Kazakhstan, internal World Bank emails show. Through an aide at the American Enterprise Institute, where he now works, former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said he approved the project at the behest of professional staff at the bank. People familiar with the matter said Mr. Wolfowitz discussed the program with Mr. Nazarbayev at a meeting in October 2006 at Blair House, a diplomatic reception facility across the street from the White House. ...

Global Options has done similar work accessing the high reaches of the Justice Department on behalf of several times indicted post Soviet mobster Simeon Mogilevich. ... Would be interesting to know who in the FBI's London and DC offices is leaking to the dictators' lobbyists info on the witnesses providing evidence against their clients.

Posted by Laura at May 12, 2008 09:51 PM