As ThinkProgress previously reported, earlier this month, the Nigerian government moved to “charge former Vice President Dick Cheney in a massive bribery case involving $180 million in kickbacks paid to Nigerian lawmakers, who awarded a $6 billion natural gas pipeline contract to Halliburton subsidiary KBR when Cheney was running the company.” As a part of the charge, the Nigerian government is seeking an arrest warrant through Interpol for the former vice president.

Now, GlobalPost is reporting that the company is in talks with the Nigerian government to arrive at a settlement. Sources within the Nigerian government informed GlobalPost that a possible plea bargain could “involve a $500 million settlement“:

Halliburton is planning to make a plea bargain in former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s corruption case, Nigerian officials told GlobalPost. [...]

However, Halliburton is in talks with Nigerian officials to make a plea bargain in the case, said Femi Babafemi, spokesman for Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the agency which has pressed the charges against Cheney.

“The companies are asking for a plea bargain, we are reviewing their request, we are talking with them, but we have not gone far with the talks yet,” Babafemi told GlobalPost. Although Babafemi did not give further details, other sources within the agency said the plea bargain might involve a $500 million settlement.

GlobalPost goes on to note that “Cheney and three other top executives could face sentences of three years in a Nigerian prison if convicted of the charges in the 16-count indictment.” One has to wonder how the employees and stockholders of the company feel about it possibly sacrificing half a billion dollars to keep Cheney and other executives out of jail. (HT: emptywheel)

The Nigerian government will charge former Vice President Dick Cheney in a massive bribery case involving $180 million in kickbacks paid to Nigerian lawmakers, who awarded a $6 billion natural gas pipeline contract to Halliburton subsidiary KBR when Cheney was running the company. Godwin Obla, prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said indictments will be lodged in a Nigerian court “in the next three days,” and an arrest warrant for Cheney “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol.”

KBR already plead guilty in the U.S. last year in relation to the bribery scheme, and along with Halliburton agreed to pay a $579 million settlement. “This bribery scheme involved both senior foreign government officials and KBR corporate executives who took actions to insulate themselves from the reach of U.S. law enforcement,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the Criminal Division at the time. Cheney was indeed a “KBR corporate executive” at the time, but was not specifically charged. The case revolves largely around the actions of London lawyer Jeffrey Tesler, who maintained strong connections with the Nigerian government and was hired by Halliburton subsidiaries to funnel money to them in order to obtain lucrative contracts. Halliburton Watch explains the Cheney connection:

[In June 2004], Halliburton fires Albert Jack Stanley after investigators say he received $5 million in “improper” payments from Mr. Tesler…. Halliburton spokesperson, Wendy Hall, said that during the years he ran KBR, Mr. Stanley reported to David Lesar, Halliburton’s president and chief operating officer at the time and CEO today. Mr. Lesar reported to Mr. Cheney when Cheney was chief executive…. According to the Dallas Morning News, “Mr. Cheney ran Halliburton when one of four suspicious payments occurred.” [...]

The Wall Street Journal reports on newly disclosed evidence by Halliburton, including notes written by M.W. Kellogg employees during the mid-1990s in which they discussed bribing Nigerian officials. The Financial Times of London said the evidence “raises questions over what Mr Cheney knew – or should have known – about one of the largest contracts awarded to a Halliburton subsidiary.”

A Cheney spokesperson told Reuters he had no comment, but would later today. It is important to note that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — of which Halliburton is a member — recently lobbied to weaken an important U.S. law that “stops American-based multinational firms from bribing foreign governments in order to win special business advantages,” as ThinkProgress detailed in October.

This morning on ABC This Week, Arianna Huffington brought up the role the Bush administration played in creating a regulatory system “full of loopholes, full of cronies and lobbyists filling the very agencies they’re supposed to be overseeing,” especially when it comes to the oil industry. Indeed, a 2008 report by the Interior Department’s Inspector General found that workers at the Minerals Management Service were “partying, having sex, using drugs and accepting gifts and ski trips and golf outings from energy company representatives with whom they did government business.” She then tried to talk about the role Halliburton, the energy giant formerly run by Dick Cheney, has in the oil spill, but she was soon cut off by Liz Cheney, who rushed to defend her dad and the corporation:

HUFFINGTON: Right here, we have the poster child of Bush-Cheney crony capitalism. Halliburton involved in this, and we haven’t said about that. They after all were responsible for cementing the well. Here’s Halliburton, after it defrauded the American taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars –

CHENEY: Arianna, I don’t know what planet you live on, but that’s not –

HUFFINGTON: — it’s involved again. I’m living on this planet. … Halliburton was involved in this. How can you say it is not?

TAPPER: Well, Halliburton was cementing the pipe.

HUFFINGTON: How can you say Halliburton has no relationship?

CHENEY: Her assertion that Halliburton defrauded the U.S. government –

HUFFINGTON: It did. It did.

CHENEY: It was Bush-Cheney cronyism is the left talking point –

HUFFINGTON: It was — hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq.

CHENEY: Arianna, is absolutely not true. It is absolutely not true.

Watch it:

First of all, Halliburton was involved in the current oil spill, as both Huffington and host Jake Tapper pointed out. From the Wall Street Journal:

An oil-drilling procedure called cementing is coming under scrutiny as a possible cause of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that has led to one of the biggest oil spills in U.S. history, drilling experts said Thursday. [...]

The scrutiny on cementing will focus attention on Halliburton Co., the oilfield-services firm that was handling the cementing process on the rig, which burned and sank last week. The disaster, which killed 11, has left a gusher of oil streaming into the Gulf from a mile under the surface. … According to Transocean Ltd., the operator of the drilling rig, Halliburton had finished cementing the 18,000-foot well shortly before the explosion.

Natalie Roshto, whose husband died after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, has filed a lawsuit against BP and oil rig owner Transocean for violating “numerous statutes and regulations.” The suit also names Halliburton, claiming that prior to the disaster, it was “engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion.” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) has also sent a letter to Halliburton seeking more details about its role. (Josh Dorner and Rebecca Lefton of CAPAF have more here and here on Cheney’s ties to this disaster.)

Second of all, Halliburton became notorious for its malfeasance in Iraq. It allegedly tried to cover up the gang rape of one of its contractors, knowingly exposed U.S. troops to deadly toxins, and ignored warnings of unsafe electrical wiring that led to the death of U.S. soldiers. In 2007, federal auditors told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the government had wasted $10 billion on “overpriced contracts or undocumented costs.” Of that amount, $2.7 billion was charged by Halliburton.

Transcript: Read more

Facing possible jail time for their roles in the largest oil spill in American history, BP and Halliburton are building high-powered legal teams with “deep Department of Justice and White House ties.” But the companies are pursuing other means to defend themselves as well.

Halliburton’s campaign donations have spiked as it tries to curry favor with key members of Congress investigating the disaster. The company donated $17,000 in May, making it “the busiest donation month for Halliburton’s PAC since September 2008,” Politico reports. Thirteen of the 14 contributions from May went to Republicans, while seven went to members of Congress who are “on committees with oversight of the oil spill and its aftermath”:

About one week before executive Timothy Probert appeared before the House Energy and Commerce’s investigative subcommittee, Halliburton donated $1,500 to Ranking Republican Joe Barton’s reelection effort. It was Halliburton’s second-largest donation of the month — topped only by $2,500 to former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is running for the Senate.

In the Senate, Idaho Republican Mike Crapo, who serves on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson, who serves on the Commerce Committee and North Carolina Republican Richard Burr (N.C.), who serves on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, all got $1,000. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also got $1,000.

Meanwhile, a Hill analysis found that primarily during the Bush administration, BP and other oil companies “paid for dozens of trips and meals for officials” from the Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of Homeland Security — agencies deeply involved in the regulation of oil exploration and spill cleanup. BP had the “highest tab for gifts to government officials” of all oil and gas companies:

BP and its affiliates — BP America and BP Exploration — show up in the gift reports at least 16 different times, paying for meals as well as for oil and gas industry seminars and tours of oil facilities. The cost of the gifts totaled more than $7,200.

Only two industry-funded trips took place during the first nine months of President Obama’s administration. In 2004, BP paid for a group of Interior officials to visit an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The group included then-deputy secretary J. Steven Griles, who later went to prison for his role in Jack Abramoff scandal. In 2005, BP paid for travel and meals for then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton and then-Minerals Management Service (MMS) Director Johnnie Burton to attended the dedication ceremony of another offshore rig in the Gulf. BP also paid for officials from the EPA and the Fish and Wildlife Service to visit Prudhoe Bay, Alaska over a period of several years. A recent Interior Inspector General report covering 2005 to 2007 found a “culture of lax oversight and cozy ties to industry.” Since January of 2008, BP lobbyists have spent $30 million to influence legislation, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Some coastal governors have benefited from BP as well. BP and other oil companies gave Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) $1.8 million dollars for his campaign, and since the spill, he’s been aggressively downplaying the disaster and encouraging people to visit his state’s oily beaches. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) traveled to a BP-funded conference in Houston last month “to lobby aggressively to drill for oil and natural gas without delay.” Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) dismissed potential BP negligence by calling the spill an “act of God” at a trade association funded by BP in May.

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. The attack occurred while she was out with a “small group of Halliburton firefighters,” just four days after her arrival in Iraq. After taking a few sips of her drink, she later woke up in the barracks, “naked” and “severely beaten.” Her “breasts were so badly mauled that she is permanently disfigured.”

In an apparent attempt to cover up the incident, the company then put her in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” Even more insultingly, the DOJ resisted bringing any criminal charges in the matter.

Jones tried to sue the company for failing to protect her, but KBR argued that Jones’ employment contract — created for the company under the tenure of then-CEO Dick Cheney — warranted her claims being heard in private arbitration, without jury, judge, public record, or transcript of the proceedings. Basically, KBR argued that Jones’ brutal rape was a workplace injury — nothing more. But in September, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Jones. “Jones’ allegations do not ‘touch matters’ related to her employment, let alone have a ‘significant relationship’ to her employment contract,” wrote the court.

KBR is now petitioning the Supreme Court to reverse the ruling. The contractor is personally going after Jones’ integrity to argue that she shouldn’t have a fair and open hearing. Stephanie Mencimer from Mother Jones reports:

On Jan. 19, it petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing Jones to press her case in a civil court rather than in arbitration. Among its many arguments in favor of a high court hearing: that Jones is a relentless self-promoter who has “sensationalize[d] her allegations against the KBR Defendants in the media, before the courts, and before Congress.” … KBR also suggests that much of Jones’ story is fabricated. The company says in a footnote, “Many, if not all, of her allegations against the KBR Defenandants are demonstrably false. The KBR Defendants intend to vigorously contest Jones’s allegations and show that her claims against the KBR Defendants are factually and legally untenable.”

The Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010 signed into law by President Obama in December contained an amendment by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) — inspired by Jones’ story — that prohibits defense contractors from restricting their employees’ abilities to take workplace discrimination, battery, and sexual assault cases to court. Mencimer notes that in its petition, KBR is “clearly miffed about the Franken Amendment, which it credits Jones with getting passed.”