Say Anything Blog

A lot of people are shaking their heads and wondering how a buffoon like Al Franken could be elected to the United States Senate. Putting aside the issues of voter registration fraud and double counting of Democratic Votes, it certainly appears that Franken got somewhere around half the votes in Minnesota.

The fact is that Franken could not have been a serious (not a word normally associated with Al) candidate without the generous financial contributions and fund raising support of George Soros. What many fail to realize is that getting Norm Coleman out of the Senate was a high priority for Soros and his associates.

A recent article in the American Thinker explains why.

As a Senator, Norm Coleman was one of the few who seriously investigated the oil-for-food scandal at the United Nations. That investigation implicated a close associate of in the scandal.

Norm Coleman was the chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and as such took a leading role in uncovering and investigating the United Nations oil-for-food scandal.  Coleman was the leader in the Senate when it came to scrutinizing the operations of the United Nations; he appeared frequently in the media. The United Nations had never before come under such public criticism in the Senate. The mandarins and their fellow travelers were made very uncomfortable by the work of Senator Coleman.

This scandal involved not just negligence of the UN officials that set up and monitored the program (which immeasurably helped keep Saddam Hussein in power and, in a sense, helped create the conditions for the invasion of Iraq),  but also involved corruption that reached the highest levels at the United Nations.

Coleman was dogged in his pursuit of the wrongdoers at the UN. The investigation tarnished the image of Mark Malloch Brown (UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s deputy and right-hand man at the UN) who was seen as spinning away any culpability of Annan and the UN itself in this travesty of a program. Coleman thereby clearly earned the wrath of George Soros, for the ties between Brown and Soros are tight and seemingly mutually beneficial.

How close was Soros to Mark Brown?

Soros provided an apartment of very advantageous rates for Brown; the favoritism bestowed upon Brown only began with that token of appreciation and support. Upon leaving the UN under the cloud that Coleman helped create, Brown was named the vice-president of the Quantum Fund run by his friend George Soros. Brown had no experience in the hedge fund world, but such sinecures are generously passed out by billionaires wanting friends that might reach high places—they are an investment (see Axis of Soros in the Wall Street Journal’s archives).

And apparently it’s been a longtime project of Soros to get Brown the tp slot at the World Bank.

Mark Malloch Brown, who had previously worked at the World Bank, had been in the running to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank. That would be yet another friend in a high place—that Soros collects like so many cards in a deck. Since the World Bank often helps private businesses in their investments, this friend in a high place would have been particularly valuable to George Soros, who invests billions of dollars in the type of lesser-developed nations on which the World Bank focuses. David Asman of Fox News called Mark Malloch Brown George Soros’s “Ace in the Hole” at the World Bank when it appeared that Brown was vying for the top job at the Bank. Asman noted that Brown would be in a prime position to help Soros play the currency markets since currency traders’

As head of the world bank, Brown could help Soros add to his immense fortune.

Alas for Soros and Mr. Brown, the post went to Robert Zoellick. Don’t count Brown and Soros out yet, though. A new President is coming to town and President Obama will have a new chance to pick the head of the World Bank (though the World Bank is an international body, traditionally the United States chooses the person who leads the Bank).

So Norm Coleman’s work uncovering the oil-for-food scandal got in the way of George Soros plan to have his own man running the world bank.

George Soros would pay Coleman back by not only funding and raising money for the Franken campaign, but also by helping put Mark Ritchie into the position of Minnesota Secretary of State. It has been Ritchie who has overseen the scandal plagued recount process.

Soros seemingly does not forget friends or enemies, and he thinks and plans far ahead. He paid particular attention to the race in Minnesota the past couple of years—funneling money to the Secretary of States project that helped elect Mark Ritchie (a Democrat) to the post of Secretary of State. This office, charged with ensuring the integrity of the voting process, allowed Ritchie to influence the vote recount of the contest between Coleman and Franken.

Soros also funneled money to so-called 527 groups that worked to oust Coleman.  Covering all the bases, Soros doubled down and hosted a fundraiser for Al Franken after the election.

Perhaps, Soros was looking backward and wanted to “punish” Coleman for his tarnishing of the reputation of Brown. More likely is that Soros was looking forward: should Barack Obama nominate Mark Malloch Brown to be the head of the World Bank, wouldn’t it be better to have Norm Coleman—who knows more about corruption and disgrace at the United Nations than most Senators—out of the Senate?