Thread by @gumby4christ

In one of his best works, "George W. Bush, Harken Energy, and Jackson Stephens, c. 1979 – 91," Mark Lombardi mapped out W's connections to BCCI, the Bin Ladens, and more through the prism of W's shady series of oil companies. But there's one figure Lombardi left out: George Soros

Harken bought out W's fledgling Spectrum 7, appointing W to Harken's board of directors. Harken's biggest backer was Soros, and after the deal, Harken became the exclusive manager of Soros Oil.
publicintegrity.org/environment/a-…

Though Harken would ultimately crash and burn, both Soros and W would make out like bandits. For his part, W infamously unloaded his stock for above-market value just before Harken's massive losses were made public, which naturally crashed its stock price.

Despite never doing much of anything, Harken attracted major investors, including Harvard's endowment fund, the ultra-rich Bass brothers, Clinton crony Jackson Stephens, and the CIA's dirty bank BCCI.

In fact, during one of Harken's periodic low points, it was W who saved the firm by introducing Jackson Stephens. Stephens got the firm bailed out by UBS. UBS was a partner of BCCI's Geneva branch and both banks were used by Noriega to launder drug money.

UBS's cash infusion pumped up the value of Harken's stock price, allowing Soros in 1989 to sell his 6.9 million shares in the company for $29 million. That buyback would cause Harken to fall on hard times once again only to get inflated back up just in time for W's exit.

All of which is to say, Harken looks like a long-running pump-and-dump scheme that pulled in some of the shadiest covert ops players of the '80s.

After Harken blew up, the SEC swooped in and did nothing. After that was all wrapped up, Soros moved a bunch of his money into a different fund. One that, like Harken, involved the Saudi royal family, the Bin Ladens, the Bushes & more: The Carlyle Group. washingtonpost.com/archive/busine…

This thread didn't have any particular purpose. It was kicked off by a by-the-way mention in this old article on Soros in CovertAction: covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/upl…

Most of the info in this thread is drawn from this excellent Harken Energy timeline: scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0210…