Bush Dynasty

Just as it is profitable (no pun intended) to Follow the money to piece together the inner (and outer) workings of politics and government, it has always proven equally beneficial to trace the family tree.

Family Members
Parenthetical relationships are to George H.W. Bush
 * Prescott Sheldon Bush (father)
 * Herbert Walker (uncle)
 * William H.T. Bush (brother)
 * Jonathan Bush (brother)
 * Barbara Bush (wife)
 * George W. Bush (son)
 * Neil M. Bush (son)
 * Marvin P. Bush (son)
 * Jeb Bush (son; also Florida governor and potential future President)
 * Dorothy Bush Koch (daughter)
 * George P. Bush (grandson)
 * Laura Welch

Business Associates

 * Kenneth Lay and Enron
 * "the Bush family and entourage collected some $8 million to $10 million from Enron over the years"
 * Bush administration and the Enron connection
 * El Paso Corporation, Dynegy, Reliant Energy
 * Tom Hicks and Clear Channel
 * MCI/WorldCom
 * Eugene Meyer
 * Salem bin Laden
 * Diebold Election Systems
 * Augusto Pinochet
 * Ben Barnes

Benefactors
"Since Mr. [George W.] Bush took office in 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the President's elite 2004 Texas fund-raisers, their businesses, and lobbying clients, a Blade investigation shows. In Florida, massive sugar companies and development firms led by Bush Pioneers and Rangers have reaped millions of dollars from government policies; and top Ohio fund-raisers collected more than $1.2 billion in taxpayers' dollars for their companies and lobbying clients." Toledo Blade, 19 December 2005
 * Charles Beggs Moncrief of Moncrief Oil in Fort Worth
 * Tom Noe, indicted on three felony charges that he illegally laundered money into the Bush re-election campaign.
 * Lonnie "Bo" Pilgrim, the chairman of Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride, collected nearly $60 million from the federal government for selling poultry to the Agricultural Marketing Service, a government agency that assists farmers and provides food for the poor since Bush took office in 2001.
 * Of the more than $3 billion in federal contracts awarded to President Bush's key Texas fund-raisers and their lobbying clients, more than $1.7 billion went to the customers of Tom Loeffler, a lobbyist, former Texas congressman, and Bush Ranger.
 * Two of President Bush's top Florida fund-raisers in 2004 were Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, president of Florida Crystals Corp., and Robert Edward Coker, senior vice president of U.S. Sugar.
 * Erle Nye, a 2004 Pioneer and the former chairman of TXU, a large Texas energy company which has collected more than $147 million in federal contracts for supplying gas and electric services to several agencies, including the Department of Defense, since 2001.

War profiteering
Margie Burns, "All in the (Profiteering) First Family," Prince George's Journal (Maryland), April 15, 2004:


 * "St. Louis-based Engineered Support Systems Inc. (EASI), where William H.T. Bush, an uncle of George W. Bush, joined the board of directors in 2000, is a major military contractor."
 * George H.W. Bush and the Carlyle Group: "Carlyle recently sold $335 million in stock from its chief military subsidiary."
 * Neil M. Bush: "obtained a $60,000-per-year contract from a principal in D.C.-based New Bridge Strategies, a private firm set up to generate contracts in Iraq."
 * Marvin P. Bush: "A controversial $327 million contract awarded in January by the US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq potentially benefited Winston Partners, the [MPB's] private investment firm."
 * "Other companies in Winston Partners' portfolio, including AMSEC, where Bush's partner, L. Scott Andrews, sits on the board of directors, also benefit from federal contracts. The new CEO of AMSEC, Michael Braham, formerly worked for L. Paul Bremer, now head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq."


 * "These business links suggest that Ahmed Chalabi, a London-based Iraqi exile, has ties to the White House along with his known ties to Vice President Dick Cheney and the Pentagon. At a House Government Reform Committee hearing on Iraq contracts on March 11, some congressmen began to raise questions about private connections behind some of the contracts. However, committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., cut off the questions before witnesses could answer.


 * "It looks more than ever as though Bush planned all along to invade Iraq, but whatever his motives, it is certain that the war benefits his own family."

"In the 2002 election cycle, defense firms, led by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, poured over $16 million into Political Action Committees (PAC) at a ratio of 65% for Republicans and 35% for Democrats. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, those figures appear to be holding in the run up to the 2004 elections as well." 

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Bush regime characters
 * Bush regime cronyism
 * The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty (2004 book)

External resources

 * Bushology Interactivy: The Bush Dynasty
 * Bush Family Fortunes; The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
 * The Bush Family Oligarchy, by Sam Parry
 * Secrecy & Privilege, Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, by Robert Parry
 * The Royal Ancestry of the Bush Family
 * Bush family tree and biography
 * George W. Bush Genealogy.
 * Ancestry of George W. Bush, Genealogy.com.
 * GenForum.
 * Legacy Family Tree.
 * Genealogy.com.
 * Samuel Prescott Bush (1863-1948); son Prescott Sheldon Bush.
 * Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895-1972); children Prescott Sheldon Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, Nancy Bush, Jonathan James Bush, and William Trotter Bush.
 * George Herbert Walker Bush (1924- ); children George Walker Bush, Robin Bush, John Ellis Bush, Neil Mallon Bush, Marvin Pierce Bush, Dorothy Walker Bush.