http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=754
Rudy Giuliani Tied to ‘Superhighways’; Law Firm Represents Consortia Funding NAFTA-Related Routes
posted by Linda
By Jerome R. Corsi - World Net Daily
Questions are being raised over Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s policy on terrorism, after a report revealed he has strong ties to two foreign investment consortia working to own or lease U.S. toll roads, including the Trans-Texas Corridor 35, which is identified as part of the I-35 “NAFTA Superhighway.”
Although he opposed NAFTA in 1993, Giuliani recently declined to call for building a fence on the United States border with Mexico, and he has supported a guest-worker program.
Columnist Michelle Malkin also has documented that while mayor of New York City, Giuliani kept the municipality a sanctuary city for illegal aliens, adhering to a policy first established by Mayor Ed Koch in 1989.
Now comes a new report about Giuliani’s involvement with public-private-partnership projects that include NAFTA Superhighway funding and his open borders record on immigration questions, all of which could undermine his otherwise tough policy on terrorism that has resulted from the 9/11 role Giuliani played in managing New York City’s response to the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Giuliani’s Houston-based law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, is identified by the Texas Department of Transportation as the sole law firm representing Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A., the Spanish investment consortium that has joined with Zachry Construction Company in San Antonio on the TTC project.
WND previously reported that TTC-35 is the new four-football-fields-wide car-truck-train-pipeline corridor to be built parallel to the existing I-35 as the Texas segment of the emerging Mexico-to-Canada I-35 NAFTA Superhighway.
Bracewell & Giuliani also has advised Cintra on the completion of the Comprehensive Development Agreement negotiated with Texas to develop State Highway 121 into a toll road through Collin and Denton counties.
The state highway department also gave Cintra a 50-year concession to operate SH 121 as a toll road, with Cintra agreeing to pay $2.1 billion upfront and annual lease payments totaling $700 million.
In addition, Bracewell & Giuliani successfully negotiated a $1.3 billion deal with TxDOT for Cintra-Zachry to build the remaining 40 miles of State Highway 130 as a toll road.
WND also has reported that Giuliani Capital Advisors was acquired in March by Macquarie, an Australian investment consortium which has also been involved in leasing and operating U.S. toll roads.
Further, the Federal Highway Administration has created a public-private-partnerships website on which both Cintra and Macquarie are featured as joint venture partners in the 2005 deal involving $1.83 billion paid to the City of Chicago to operate the Chicago Skyway under a 99-year lease.
The FHWA website also discloses that Cintra and Macquarie partnered in the $3.85 billion 2006 deal to operate the Indiana Toll Road on a 75-year lease.
WND has previously reported EuroMoney Seminars, a UK-based company, is holding seminars to teach state and local governments in the U.S. how to lease a wide range of public assets – from highways to water departments, to prisons and schools – to international and foreign investment groups.
Just this month, independent journalist Diane Grassi first broke the story of Giuliani’s involvement with the NAFTA Superhighway, writing that, “All negotiations for Cintra were and are presently handled by the law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, LLP, of which Republican Presidential candidate, Rudolph Giuliani, has been a senior executive partner since March 2005. His law firm is the exclusive legal counsel for Cintra.”
The New York Sun also earlier reported that an October 2002 contract between Mexico City and Giuliani Partners, a Giuliani consulting firm, to reduce crime was a failure.
Giuliani began the project in January 2003 with a fanfare initial tour of Mexico City that included a motorcade of a dozen bulletproof SUVs, 400 officers, and a helicopter.
Still, the Sun reported that Giuliani Partners ended up being paid less than the full $4.3 million contract price tag, despite some 20 trips to Mexico City booked by Giuliani associates over a 10-month period.
In December 2004, Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, resigned as CEO of Giuliani-Kerik, a law enforcement-oriented subsidiary of Giuliani Partners, amidst the various scandals that developed following Kerik’s nomination by President Bush to head the Department of Homeland Security.
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