Thursday, January 20, 2005
 In case you missed it, first go read this article about how Riggs Bank has been funding covert CIA ops for decades.
Now, check out the latest from Washington Post January 17, 2005: On the board of Riggs Bank or its holding company, Riggs National Corp., was... Joe L. Allbritton, the bank's largest shareholder, who dominated nearly all aspects of the company for more than 20 years until his resignation from the board in 2004....
"One thing [Joe Allbritton] prided himself always in was his relation with foreign embassies and foreign governments," Calvin Cafritz, chairman of the Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, who was on the Riggs board . . . He flew all around the world in the Gulfstream, meeting with heads of state."
[...]
Other well-known past directors include Floretta Dukes McKenzie, former superintendent of the D.C. Public Schools, and John M. Fahey, president and chief executive of the National Geographic Society.
None of the past or current directors agreed to speak on the record...
Of the current 10 members of the Riggs corporate board, [six] have personal or business ties to Allbritton or Riggs, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents and sources with knowledge of the directors' relationships with the Allbritton family. Business ties between directors and the banks they oversee are unusual in the industry...
Jack Valenti, former president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America and one of Washington's best-known lobbyists, has known Allbritton for more than five decades and been a Riggs director since soon after Allbritton bought control of the company. Valenti was involved in one of Allbritton's early Texas savings-and-loan deals in 1950s Houston...
Steven B. Pfeiffer, a partner in the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski LLP, has long done legal work for Riggs and other Allbritton family interests, including Allbritton Communications Co., the family's chain of television stations...
Eddie N. Williams, the recently retired chief executive of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, has been on Riggs's board since 1993. The center, an advocacy and research group on issues affecting minorities, has received $311,000 from Riggs over 25 years...
[...]
The nine-member board of Riggs bank is a separate body whose responsibilities include making sure the bank operates in a safe and sound manner, and dealing directly with Office of the Comptroller of the Currency examiners. In addition to Hebert and Robert Allbritton, the board includes Frederick J. Ryan, president of Allbritton Communications. Two bank board members, Robert Allbritton and lawyer Heather S. Foley, are trustees of George Washington University, whose president, Stephen J. Trachtenberg, is also on the bank board.
[...]
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