Time: Wed Dec 03 08:00:15 1997
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Former 7-Term Congressman Takes Aim at Reno's Justice (fwd)
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<snip>
>
>THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
>November 30, 1997
>
>Hansen Takes Aim at Reno's Justice
>
>BY CHRISTOPHER SMITH
>
> POCATELLO, Idaho -- At a time when other former
> seven-term congressmen are counting strokes on the golf
> course, George Hansen is counting his teeth. He's missing
> 24 from his three stints in prison, along with all his
> toenails.
>
> Hansen doesn't sit on any corporation's board of directors
> or manage his investments from a downtown suite. He lives
> in a rented Pocatello apartment and drives a leased white
> Honda.
>
> He doesn't hang out with congressional cronies or lionize his
> career. Indeed, he's lucky if some of his former colleagues
> even return his calls.
>
> A lot of people have forgotten about George Hansen -- the
> flamboyant former Idaho congressman whose rocky
> adventures with foreign policy, the Internal Revenue
> Service, campaign finance and the federal prison system
> dominated political headlines in the Intermountain West for
> most of the 1980s.
>
> But he's back -- and leading a Utah-based group seeking an
> investigation into the death of federal prisoner Kenneth
> Trentadue. On the political landscape of the Intermountain
> West, few characters stand out like George Vernon Hansen,
> a Mormon kid from Tetonia, Idaho, who climbed the ladder
> of political power only to plunge in a belly-flop of scandal,
> financial ruin and imprisonment.
>
> He was George the Dragon Slayer, a moniker loyal
> followers bestowed for his ceaseless battles with the IRS,
> Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the
> Immigration and Naturalization Service on behalf of
> ``ordinary people.''
>
> He was Poor Old Lonesome George, a title he gave himself
> in a bawling 1984 speech on the House floor before he was
> reprimanded for filing false financial disclosure reports.
>
> He was Globetrotting George, who went to Iran twice without
> authorization in the late '70s to negotiate the release
> of American hostages. He went to Bolivia to try to break a
> constituent's son out of prison. He went to Nicaragua to tell
> dictator Antonio Somoza that he had the ``full support'' of
> the United States. He went to Taiwan and promised leaders
> they would get equipment to complete their ``atomic
> program.'' And he went to Kuwait after the 1992 invasion
> by Iraq and declared the United States was ``overreacting.''
>
> He was Unsinkable George, winning re-election in the face
> of scandals that would have torpedoed the most adept
> politician. Even when he was on the doorstep of a prison
> cell, Hansen came only 170 votes short of keeping his
> congressional seat.
>
> And he was Jailhouse George, serving four years in prison
> for two separate crimes -- one that later turned out to be an
> illegal conviction. In prison he went on hunger strikes, grew
> an ``AIDS beard'' to protest the sharing of razors among
> inmates, claimed he was repeatedly denied dental care, got
> recurring bursitis from having his legs shackled all the time,
> and pulled his own toenails out by the roots to avoid the
> pain of hangnails from too-small prison-issue shoes.
>
> Back in Action: Although 67 years old now, Hansen
> remains a Great Dane of a man with a bearpaw handshake
> and a 6-foot-6 frame that, while never returning to his
> pre-incarceration fighting weight of 330 pounds, would still
> serve an offensive lineman well.
>
> He is only now emerging from a self-imposed hibernation, a
> purposeful attempt to stay out of the media spotlight. His
> release from prison last year after serving three years for
> bank fraud, as well as the Supreme Court vindication that
> he was falsely convicted on ethics charges a dozen years
> ago, have all but been ignored in the mainstream news
> media where he once made headlines monthly.
>
> ``It's been a real recess, but I've done it because I'm not
> running for anything and I don't need to read a news story
> to know who I am,'' Hansen says. ``I've had a little calm
> because I've stayed out of these things.''
>
> At least until now. His legendary firebrand demeanor may
> be more like damp gunpowder today, but Hansen is back to
> championing his trademark cause that made him and broke
> him: An oppressive and excessive federal government
> threatens us all.
>
> As head of his latest activist group -- the Salt Lake
> City-based ``U.S. Citizens Human Rights Commission'' --
> Hansen has placed 800 billboards and bus signs across the
> country demanding justice in the 1995 death of Trentadue.
> The U.S. Department of Justice maintains Trentadue, while
> awaiting a parole hearing, committed suicide by hanging
> himself from an air vent in an isolation cell in Oklahoma
> City.
>
> The condition of Trentadue's battered body -- soaked with
> blood and what appeared to be boot footprints and
> high-voltage stun gun burns on his face -- has led
> Oklahoma's medical examiner and others to conclude
> Trentadue was ``very likely'' murdered by prison guards.
>
> Hansen's stark billboards in California, Oklahoma and
> Washington, D.C., offer a $10,000 reward for information
> plus harangue Atty. Gen. Janet Reno for perpetrating a
> cover-up.
>
> ``Mr. Hansen's agenda is to expose and clean up the Justice
> Department, and he sees this case as one of the most
> striking examples of what's been going on,'' says Salt Lake
> City attorney Jesse Trentadue, who has brought suit over
> his brother's suspicious death. ``He wants justice for my
> brother, and he has been awfully supportive of our efforts.
> We wouldn't have gotten as far as we have without
> George's help.''
>
> Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has announced hearings on the
> Trentadue case, and Oklahoma County District Attorney
> Bob Macy vows to convene a grand jury. The national
> news media have begun picking up the story: The latest
> issue of GQ magazine features a detailed investigation into
> the federal government's alleged cover-up of the murder.
>
> Hansen will be satisfied at nothing less than ``bringing down
> the Justice Department and arresting the attorney general.''
> Vintage George the Dragonslayer, he knows, but he says
> this case cries out.
>
> ``I've always tried to stay on the side of the angels and the
> right side of the law,'' Hansen says. ``My wife [Connie] was
> asking if I'm cutting this one close, and I told her I'm on the
> side of Sen. Hatch and the side of the district attorney and
> I'm not on the side of a bunch of brutes and thugs who
> killed a man.''
>
> Hansen is no stranger to vitriolic attacks on federal agencies.
> In the late 1970s he published To Harass Our People, a
> scathing indictment of the IRS that has sold, according to
> Hansen, a million copies. The book came out shortly after a
> newspaper revealed Hansen had been delinquent filing his
> income-tax returns seven times between 1966 and 1975.
>
> ``George has always been a giant battleship rowing out into
> sub-infested waters without a destroyer escort,'' says John
> Runft, the Boise attorney who has represented Hansen off
> and on for the past 25 years. ``He fails to file his taxes on
> time, so he attacks the IRS. In his heart, he's a good man,
> but he doesn't watch out when he's on the offense. When
> he's on defense, he's always good.''
>
> The tales of Hansen's misdeeds are only matched by the
> stories of his good deeds. He once claimed congressional
> immunity when he got a speeding ticket. He once woke up
> Pentagon brass in the middle of the night to demand they
> release the body of an Air Force pilot killed in a crash to
> the man's Idaho family.
>
> He once yelled at fellow House members, who were
> rebuking him for not reporting more than $300,000 in loans
> and commodity profits from a Texas tycoon, ``You ought
> to pay me, not fine me!'' And he once tracked down a
> mother's son who had disappeared after World War II and
> was missing for 35 years, finding the man in Japan.
>
> ``Helping constituents is how I survived when everybody
> was out to get my scalp,'' Hansen says today. ``I always felt
> if a guy called me about his neighbor's barking dog, then
> government wasn't working for him and he didn't know
> what to do. I could have said, like most people, `Call the
> damn mayor,' but instead I called the mayor myself.''
>
> Hansen has an uncanny ability to connect with regular
> people. They have problems, he has problems. Rapscallion
> or raconteur, folks like him.
>
> ``Here's this great big guy who wraps himself around
> people's shoulders, and he just never forgets a name,'' says
> Perry Swisher, a former newspaper editor, public-utilities
> commissioner and Idaho's resident political curmudgeon.
> ``George has always been a rank opportunist. If there was a
> chance to steal or mislead big time, George wasn't going to
> pass it up. But he saw himself like some comic book hero,
> Superman or Batman or Spiderman.''
>
> Man of the People: His re-election squeakers
> notwithstanding, perhaps the most stunning example of the
> loyalty Hansen engenders among his southeastern Idaho
> followers came at his 1992 Boise bank-fraud trial. After his
> release from prison the first time, Hansen and an associate
> were convicted of running an elaborate multimillion-dollar
> check-kiting and bank-fraud scheme. Hansen took loans
> from more than 180 people, promising big returns, yet
> eventually wound up bankrupt and owing creditors $16
> million.
>
> At trial, nearly 100 of the supposed victims of Hansen's
> deception presented affadavits and petitions telling the
> judge and prosecutors to lay off George.
>
> ``Now these were not dumb farmer types, but business
> people who testified George was their political champion
> and if he could pay back the loans, fine, if not, that was
> fine too,'' says Runft, who represented Hansen in the
> criminal trial.
>
> U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge was flabbergasted.
>
> ``The Court has never been in this predicament in its life,''
> Lodge said at the sentencing hearing. ``Where people that
> are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars have no idea
> what they are owed. That they are willing to testify under
> oath that they are willing to eat those losses. They feel
> it's nobody's business the manner in which they make their
> loans on a personal-loan basis. That they were not
> defrauded. And they feel that it is inappropriate for the
> court to consider them as victims.''
>
> Lodge sentenced Hansen to 4 years in prison, less than half
> what federal sentencing guidelines called for, because of the
> mitigating circumstances.
>
> A funny thing happened while Hansen was again behind
> bars. In 1984, he had become the first congressman ever
> convicted under the Ethics in Government Act and had
> done two six-month stints in prison in 1986 and 1987 as a
> result.
>
> In May 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on an obscure
> Michigan case, Hubbard vs. U.S., finding that the Ethics In
> Government Act applied only to the Executive Branch, not
> members of Congress.
>
> The Supreme Court ruling was supreme vindication for
> Hansen, who had sworn all along the law was being
> misapplied to members of Congress. Because of the year he
> had served under the now-vacated conviction, Hansen was
> released from prison on the bank fraud charge a year early,
> gaining freedom in March last year.
>
> The government returned his $40,000 fine with interest,
> restored his federal pension and said, ``Sorry.''
>
> Hardly anyone noticed.
>
> ``With all the high drama that had accompanied his career,
> there was an absolute boycott of any news about George
> being vindicated or being released from prison,'' Runft says.
>
> Hansen says if he hadn't been falsely convicted on the
> ethics charges, he never would have wound up involved in
> the bank fraud. Runft calls that ``George's
> Devil-made-me-do-it'' defense.
>
> Still, the Idaho congressional delegation is looking into
> sponsoring ``private legislation'' to force the federal
> government to financially compensate Hansen, who sold his
> homes in Idaho and Virginia and remains in debt over legal
> bills. Hansen would like Congress also to reverse its 1984
> vote to reprimand him, a move that ``destroyed'' his
> political career.
>
> ``There's no question George Hansen was politically
> maltreated,'' says Runft. ``If not for the conviction, he
> probably would have won that 1984 election. It's like that
> saying: `The saddest words of tongue and pen are justly
> these: It might have been.' ''
>
> While Hansen chuckles that some southeastern Idaho folks
> want him to run for governor, he has no plans for a political
> resurrection.
>
> ``Around my house, my wife tells me, `If you run for
> anything again, it'll be for your life,' '' Hansen smiles.
> ``The trouble is, politics anymore is for the rich. I used
> to think you could offset it with some hard work and ingenuity,
> but things have changed.''
>
> And time has passed. He would never admit it, but George
> the Dragonslayer may not have much more fight left in him.
>
> ``People like me can thank God George is 67, because if he
> was 37 he would be a force to be reckoned with in this age
> of Rush Limbaughs and militias,'' says Swisher. ``It
> personally p---es me off, because I'm 74, that when people
> reach a certain age, they don't have the vocabulary of
> leadership. Old f--ts cannot beat the drum.''
>
>1997, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
>
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