James A. Baker III

James Addison Baker III was born in Houston on April 28, 1930, graduated from Princeton University in 1952, served two years on active duty as a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, took his law degree with honors from the University of Texas School of Law in 1957, and practiced with the Houston firm of Andrews & Kurth from 1957 to 1975.¹ Through the influence of his first wife he entered Republican politics, chaired George H.W. Bush's unsuccessful 1970 Senate campaign in Texas, and in 1971 became finance chairman of the Republican Party, with a regional role in the 1972 reelection of Richard Nixon.² He served as the Chief of Staff under President Ronald Reagan. He was present at a meeting of Reagan's high command following the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in June 1981, where he agreed that some sanctions against Israel were essential.³

Ford and Bush Campaigns

His public service began in 1975, when President Gerald R. Ford appointed him Under Secretary of Commerce. He then served on Ford's campaign staff as deputy chairman for delegate operations and, four months later, as national chairman of the President Ford Committee. From January 1979 to May 1980 he was national chairman of the George Bush for President Committee.¹⁴ He led presidential campaigns for Ford, Reagan and Bush over five consecutive elections from 1976 to 1992.¹

Chief of Staff

From 1981 to 1985 Baker was White House Chief of Staff.¹ According to the national security adviser Richard V. Allen, as recounted by Seymour Hersh, at the meeting of Reagan's senior officials the morning after the Israeli raid on Osirak, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger proposed canceling the sale of F-16 aircraft to Israel, and Vice President Bush and Baker agreed that some sanctions were essential; Reagan, Allen said, "rolled his eyes at me" and made clear he would take no such step. A scheduled delivery of four F-16s was suspended a few days later and quietly resumed two months after that.³

The Carter Briefing Papers

In 1983 the Time correspondent Laurence Barrett wrote in Gambling with History that a Reagan campaign "mole" in the camp of President Jimmy Carter had "filched papers containing the main points the President planned to make" in the Cleveland debate of October 28, 1980, and that Baker, then a senior campaign adviser, "looked the other way when a dirty trick was perpetrated on Carter. He was grateful not to know the mechanics of it." Baker said through an aide that he did not know how the papers were obtained. Representative Donald Albosta, chairman of the Human Resources Subcommittee of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, wrote to Baker, to the budget director David Stockman, to the communications director David Gergen and to the Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, who had managed Reagan's 1980 campaign; Albosta said the matter "appears on the surface to be more serious than Watergate."⁵

Casey replied on June 22, 1983: "I have no recollection that I ever received, heard of or learned in any other way of a set of papers which laid out the Carter debate plan or the points which President Carter had planned to make."⁶ Baker's letter, as reported in the Washington Post, stated that "it is my best recollection" that Casey was the senior campaign official who gave him a large loose-leaf book in a black binder "that was thought to have been given to the Reagan camp by someone with the Carter campaign," "with the suggestion that it might be of use to the [Reagan] Debate Briefing Team" headed by Gergen and Frank Hodsoll, and that after thumbing through it he "passed it on." He called it a "compendium" of Carter administration policy positions, wrote that he had "no recollection that I ever received or saw any debate strategy or sensitive debating points prepared by the Carter campaign or Carter White House," and said he had "never, directly or indirectly" asked anyone to get it. Stockman said the material had been "useful" in preparing Reagan. The campaign consultant Myles Martel said he had urged Hodsoll to return it: "My impression was we had something we shouldn't have had." Casey then said he did not remember "any black book" but that he had sent Baker all papers that crossed his desk about the debate.⁷

On June 27, 1983, Carter's former pollster Patrick Caddell delivered to the White House a copy of what he said was the complete Carter briefing book. After Baker, Stockman and Gergen reviewed it, the White House said it appeared "a more finished, more sensitive briefing book than they recall," and that papers retrieved from Reagan campaign officials' files had been forwarded to the Justice Department. Baker had discussed the matter with Casey at a meeting the day before.⁸ In June 1984 the Democratic majority of the Albosta subcommittee reported that "the persons using these papers were aware that they were using Carter debate briefing materials" and that the foreign policy papers were "most likely" taken from the Carter National Security Council front office or the White House Situation Room. At a news conference on June 14, 1984, Reagan said that "no one" in his campaign had seen the briefing book and called the differing recollections of Baker and Casey "easily understandable."⁹

Treasury and BCCI

Baker became the sixty-seventh Secretary of the Treasury on February 3, 1985, exchanging jobs with Donald Regan, and also chaired the President's Economic Policy Council. The Treasury Department credits him with guiding the 1986 tax reform bill through Congress and with "encouraging international economic cooperation by lowering the value of the dollar"; the State Department's historians describe him as "instrumental in passing the Plaza Accord of September 1985."¹²⁴ He resigned on August 17, 1988, to chair the Bush campaign.⁴

Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin wrote in their 1992 history of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International that a CIA report dated September 30, 1986, alleging BCCI's involvement in drug trafficking and money laundering and its secret control of First American Bankshares, was distributed to the State, Treasury and Commerce departments but not to the Federal Reserve, and that Regan, asked about it, said he did not recall seeing it and suggested it may have gone to Baker, his successor, who at the time was traveling in Morocco. They also wrote that in 1987 the Iranian businessman Mohammed Rahim Motaghi Irvani, whom they describe as having multiple ties to BCCI, wrote to Baker, whom they identify as Bush's campaign manager, offering to help, and that the letter was forwarded to Baker by the former CIA director Richard Helms with a note describing Irvani as "a man of substance and decency"; the letter and Helms's cover note were released by the Senate subcommittee chaired by John Kerry. They recorded that Jackson Stephens, whose firm had gathered First American stock for BCCI's clients, was a member of Bush's "Team 100" and that his wife ran Bush's 1988 campaign in Arkansas.¹⁰

Secretary of State

Baker was appointed Secretary of State on January 25, 1989, and served until August 23, 1992, the sixty-first holder of the office; he traveled to 90 countries.¹² On February 9, 1990, in Moscow, he told Mikhail Gorbachev, according to the American memorandum of conversation released under the Freedom of Information Act, that "if we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east." The Soviet record of the same meeting has him saying that "not an inch of NATO's present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction." The same day Robert Gates, deputy to the national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, told the KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov at the Lubyanka the same thing. On February 10 Baker wrote to Chancellor Helmut Kohl that he had asked Gorbachev whether he would prefer a unified Germany "tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO's jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position."¹¹

Matrix Churchill and the BNL Prosecution

An authentication certificate numbered 89/3648-2, dated March 14, 1989, attests the seal of the Ohio Secretary of State, Sherrod Brown, on papers of the Cleveland firm Matrix Churchill. It reads: "In testimony whereof, I, James A. Baker III, Secretary of State, have hereunto caused the seal of the Department of State to be affixed and my name subscribed by the Authentication Officer of the said Department," and is subscribed "James A. Baker III, Secretary of State. By Annie R. Maddux, Authentication Officer, Department of State." Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, chairman of the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, placed it in the Congressional Record on August 10, 1992, with a similar document of May 10, 1989, issued over the name of Acting Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger. Gonzalez said that Iraqis had taken control of Matrix Churchill in late 1988, that Iraqi law required American firms to be certified before opening a branch, that "unwittingly, in 1989 both James Baker and Lawrence Eagleburge[r] helped Matrix-Churchill establish its Baghdad branch," and that the State Department then held intelligence identifying the firm as an Iraqi front company.¹²¹³

Independent Counsel Frederick Lacey, appointed by Attorney General William Barr on October 16, 1992, to investigate the handling of the prosecution of Christopher Drogoul and others in the BNL Scandal, listed Baker among the people he and his staff had "spoken to, interviewed or deposed under oath." Lacey classified the second part of his report "Top Secret Codeword."¹³ He recorded that, according to the daily log of the Atlanta prosecutor Gale McKenzie in the fall of 1989, "then Secretary of State Baker was most interested in the BNL case and was receiving frequent briefings," and that the Justice Department first contacted her office on October 26, 1989, when Robert Mueller called for information on the case; by the time of Lacey's inquiry Mueller was Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division.¹³

Lacey quoted an October 26, 1989, State Department memorandum to Baker from Kelly and Sofaer, sent through Kimmitt and McCormack, warning that "our ability to influence Iraqi policies in areas important to us, from Lebanon to the Middle East peace process, will be heavily influenced by the outcome of the CCC negotiations." On November 8, 1989, the Agriculture and State Departments overcame the resistance of the National Advisory Council and obtained approval of 1 billion dollars in Commodity Credit Corporation guarantees for Iraq for fiscal 1990, of which one 500 million dollar tranche was released before the Gulf War. The two departments asserted at each stage that there was "no evidence to date that would lead us to recommend that the Department should not extend the guarantees," a claim Lacey called "inconsistent with McKenzie's statements to the contrary." He wrote that it was "not within my responsibility to address the wisdom of the decision." Citing a memorandum of April 17, 1990, from Kimmitt to Baker, he wrote that "as with the CCC program, political considerations have been brought to bear upon Eximbank decisions," while the Export-Import Bank had found Iraq "not creditworthy by any reasonable standard" in April 1989.¹³

In the days before the February 1991 indictment, during the war with Iraq, the list of defendants grew to include the Jordanian businessman Wafai Dajani, whose company handled grain for Iraq at Aqaba and whom Drogoul called "the brother of the Prince of Jordan," but Dajani and others "were removed as defendants a few days later at a February 13 meeting" of the Atlanta prosecutors and Justice Department officials, Mueller among them. At that meeting the State Department did not want the Central Bank of Iraq indicted while the Atlanta office still did, and the Treasury, Defense and State Departments, the Export-Import Bank and the Federal Reserve then answered Mueller with a joint memorandum supporting indictment of Rafidain Bank but opposing indictment of the Central Bank. The prosecutors denied any State Department interference and said the decision not to indict Dajani was their own, for want of evidence. Lacey recorded that Dajani had paid Drogoul 100,000 dollars through a consulting position in 1990 and 1991 and was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. He found "absolutely no support" for reports that the Justice Department, "perhaps influenced by others in the Executive Branch," had imposed the theory of BNL as a victim on the Atlanta office.¹³

Baker Botts and Foreign Principals

Baker served as White House Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor to President Bush from August 1992 to January 1993.¹ The Houston firm of Baker Botts was registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as Baker & Botts, L.L.P., registration 4293, from September 15, 1989, to September 30, 2003. Its foreign principals were the Federation of German Industries (Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie, September 15, 1989, to April 30, 1993), the French chemical company Rhône-Poulenc (May 1, 1991, to February 13, 1996), Middle East Airlines Airliban of Lebanon (May 23, 1991, to November 1, 1993), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yemen (April 22, 1992, to July 21, 2000), the Government of Abu Dhabi (July 29, 1992, to March 31, 1995) and the Japan External Trade Organization office in Houston (November 9, 1992, to September 30, 2003). In 1977 the firm had registered for the Indonesian state oil company Pertamina, and from September 15, 2017, to October 12, 2018, it was registered for the Ministry of Financial Services and Home Affairs of the Cayman Islands.¹⁴

Carlyle and Corporate Boards

Baker has been a senior partner of Baker Botts since March 1993 and was a senior counselor of the Carlyle Group from 1993. The 2002 proxy statement of Electronic Data Systems, which had been split off from General Motors in June 1996, lists him as a director since 1996 and chairman of its governance committee, and as a director of Reliant Energy, Reliant Resources, Rice University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; it discloses that EDS retained Baker Botts for legal services during 2001.¹⁵

Carlyle's Schedule 13D filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission list him among the executive officers of its holding entities. The filing of May 21, 2001, on Net2000 Communications names him among the executive officers of TC Group, L.L.C. and TCG Holdings, L.L.C. and members of TCG Holdings, with Frank Carlucci, Richard Darman, William Conway, Daniel D'Aniello, David Rubenstein, Jerome Powell, Glenn Youngkin and Afsaneh Beshloss, and as one of nine managing directors of TCG Ventures, L.L.C.; the reporting entities included Cayman Islands partnerships, and the directors of TCG Ventures, Ltd. were Rubenstein and a British Virgin Islands company in care of Julius Baer Bank & Trust. The amendment of January 13, 2005, on Magellan Midstream Partners again lists him among the executive officers of TC Group and members of TCG Holdings, with Louis Gerstner and William Kennard.¹⁶

Florida, 2000

On November 9, 2000, Baker was in Tallahassee, identified by CNN as an observer for the Bush campaign "there to supervise a recount of the state vote in Florida on behalf of George W. Bush." He said he would meet the Florida secretary of state later that day and hoped to meet Warren Christopher, whom the Gore campaign had sent "to do the exact same thing."¹⁷ On November 28 he introduced the senior litigation team for the contest of the result: Barry Richard of Greenberg Traurig, Fred Bartlit and Philip Beck of Bartlit Beck in Chicago, and "two law partners of mine at Baker Botts in Houston, Texas," Irvin Terrell and Daryl Bristow.¹⁸

The Saudi Defense in the September 11 Litigation

Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reported on April 15, 2003, that "a trio of lawyers from Baker Botts" had filed a motion for Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi defense minister, in the September 11 families' suit, arguing that he was immune and acknowledging that he had approved payments of about 266,000 dollars a year for 16 years to the International Islamic Relief Organization and grants of 52,000 dollars to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth as official acts. Isikoff wrote that Baker Botts "still boasts former secretary of State James Baker as one of its senior partners" and that its recent alumni included Robert Jordan, President Bush's former personal lawyer and then ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The plaintiffs' lead lawyer, Ron Motley, said: "We smoked out the prince."¹⁹ On November 14, 2003, Judge James Robertson of the District of Columbia dismissed the claims against Sultan for his official acts for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and those for his personal acts for lack of personal jurisdiction, and dismissed the claims against Prince Turki, the former head of Saudi general intelligence, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.²⁰ William H. Jeffress Jr. of Baker Botts appears among defense counsel in that opinion, and Jeffress, Christopher R. Cooper, Sara E. Kropf and Jamie S. Kilberg of Baker Botts in the consolidated opinion of January 18, 2005, in the Southern District of New York.²⁰²¹

The Iraqi Debt Envoy

On December 5, 2003, President George W. Bush announced that "in response to a request from the Iraqi Governing Council" he had appointed Baker "to be my personal envoy on the issue of Iraqi debt," reporting directly to the President.²² Naomi Klein wrote in The Nation on November 1, 2004, that Baker was then senior counselor and an equity partner of Carlyle "with an estimated $180 million stake," that Saudi Arabia was among Iraq's largest creditors, that Carlyle and Baker Botts did extensive business with the Saudi royal family, and that on December 12, 2003, the New York Times had called editorially for him to resign from both. She wrote that documents obtained by The Nation showed a consortium including Carlyle and the Albright Group of the former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright proposing to Kuwait that its claims on Iraq, as much as 57 billion dollars, be transferred to a foundation the consortium would control, with Kuwait investing 2 billion dollars in a private equity fund, half of it through Carlyle. The proposal, she reported, said the role of Carlyle figures including former President Bush, John Major and Baker was "now more limited" because of his appointment but that after his "retirement from his temporary position" they would "once again be free to play a more decisive role." On January 21, 2004, the day Baker met Kuwait's foreign minister as envoy, the consortium hand-delivered the proposal to the same minister.²³

Carlyle's spokesman Chris Ullman told Klein that "neither the Carlyle Group nor James Baker wrote, edited or authorized this proposal to the Kuwait government," that Carlyle knew of the proposal and stood to receive a 1 billion dollar investment but "played no role in procuring that investment," and that after Baker's appointment Carlyle "explicitly restricted its role to only investing assets on behalf of Kuwait." The consortium's chief executive, Shahameen Sheikh, said the timing "had nothing to do with Mr. Baker's visit." Klein wrote that the White House and Baker's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.²³

The Iraq Study Group

In late 2005 Representative Frank Wolf asked the United States Institute of Peace to facilitate an assessment of Iraq with the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Baker and the former Representative Lee Hamilton co-chaired the Iraq Study Group, launched on March 15, 2006, at a Capitol Hill meeting hosted by Senator John Warner. Its members were Eagleburger, Vernon Jordan, Edwin Meese, Sandra Day O'Connor, Leon Panetta, William Perry, Charles Robb and Alan Simpson; the former CIA director Robert Gates was an active member until his nomination as Secretary of Defense. Recommendation 62 of its December 2006 report urged technical assistance to the Iraqi government "to prepare a draft oil law" creating "a fiscal and legal framework for investment," and Recommendation 63 urged that the United States "encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies" and help reorganize the national oil industry "as a commercial enterprise."²⁴

Envoys and Commissions

From 1997 to 2004 Baker was the personal envoy of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Western Sahara conflict. He co-chaired the Commission on Federal Election Reform with Carter in 2005 and the National War Powers Commission with Warren Christopher in 2008, and is honorary chairman of the Baker Institute. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991.¹

Political Contributions

Federal Election Commission records itemize contributions from James A. Baker III of Houston: 1,000 dollars to George Bush for President on June 6, 1980, and 1,000 dollars on June 11, 1980, to the Connally for President Committee, with his employer given as Andrews Kurth Campbell & Jones; 1,000 dollars to Bush for President Inc. on March 16, 1999; 2,000 dollars to Bush-Cheney '04 Inc. on December 3, 2003, two days before his appointment as envoy; 15,000 dollars to the National Republican Senatorial Committee on April 11, 2006; 2,500 dollars to Romney for President Inc. on July 26, 2011, and July 5, 2012; 2,500 dollars to RickPerry.org on September 16, 2011, with his employer given as the Baker Institute; 2,700 dollars to Jeb 2016 Inc. on January 18, 2016; and 2,800 dollars to Team Graham on September 23, 2020, with Baker Botts as employer in the other filings.²⁵