Democrat Bill Alexander, defeated for his congressional seat in a 1993 primary after the House check-kiting scandal, today will release seven boxes of documents he says prove that an airport in Mena, Ark., was used to transport guns to the Contras and smuggle drugs back into the United States in the 1980s.
Some of those drugs, Alexander says, ended up in the hands of John Gotti's crime family in New York.
Others have made these same charges, and the Mena operation has become the subject of an investigation by the House Banking Committee.
Sources say the federal Drug Enforcement Administration is gathering information that will be turned over to that committee, headed by Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa).
Alexander will give his Mena documents to the University of Arkansas at Jonesboro at noon today. The Post obtained some of these documents, including a draft indictment -- never presented to a grand jury -- that could have brought the Mena matter to light nearly a decade ago.
"Mena was a U.S. government staging area to support the Contras in Central America. The planes that were contracted to ship the weapons brought drugs back to the U.S.," Alexander told The Post.
"Absolutely no doubt about it. And I have evidence of it...The drugs came back to the U.S. and they went to various ports of entry, including Mena. Some of the drugs went to New York."
Alexander said one witness said the Gambino crime family -- then headed by John Gotti -- received some of the Mena drugs.
Alexander said then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was never implicated in the Mena operation.
"So far, it doesn't touch Clinton. This is pre-Clinton," he said.
But others in Arkansas have alleged that Clinton benefited indirectly from what was going on in Mena.
And some sources place Clinton on the ground at Mena airport at the time of this alleged drug- and gun-running operation.
Whitewater Special Counsel Kenneth Starr has begun looking into the actions of the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, which was reformed in the mid-1980s by Clinton to spur economic development in his state.
Starr is not officially investigating Mena, although his probers have put out feelers for anyone who might want to volunteer information.
Some sources in Arkansas have alleged that ADFA eventually saw some of the Mena drug money flow into its coffers through the purchase of bonds.
Dan Lasater, a convicted drug dealer, friend of Clinton and owner of a brokerage company, is often mentioned as the one who made the bond buys.
Alexander investigated Mena in conjunction with the General Accounting Office when he was a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
The probe centered around U.S. foreign policy in Latin American. He was also looking into the matter in his role as special assistant attorney general in Arkansas.
He said the probe ended when the National Security Council ordered all government agencies not to cooperate with either him or the GOA. Alexander said he has documentation that the Reagan administration quashed the investigation.
Part of the cache of documents Alexander will make public today is a draft of a 24-count indictment that he says was written by the U.S. attorney in Arkansas at the time. It was drawn up with former IRS investigator Bill Duncan, who Alexander says is the top money-laundering expert in the country.
The indictment was never presented to the grand jury for action.
The draft alleges that four people and an Arkansas corporation "would transport and cause to be transported quantities of United States currency to various financial institutions, and, therefore, used this currency to purchase numerous cashiers' checks all in amounts of less than $10,000, thus causing no currency transactions report to be filed with the Internal Revenue Service."
(Banks are required to report transactions of $10,000 or more to the IRS.)
In short, the transactions looked like a money-laundering operation. The proposed indictment covered only a "pattern of illegal activity involving transactions exceeding $100,000 in a 12-month period" starting Aug. 23, 1982.
The proposed indictment also said the late Barry Seal, the alleged ringleader in the Mena operation, modified "numerous aircraft" at the airport. Seal allegedly delivered drugs in his planes.
Alexander's stash of documents includes copies of a number of cashier's checks that Seal made out to the Union Bank of Mena.
Most journalists have avoided the Mena tale because they're afraid of being considered part of the lunatic fringe. But the press at large will probably start to notice as more and more is revealed about the antics of Arkansans in the 1980s.
Alexander's trove could be a starter kit for the lazy and reluctant.
(John Crudele is a financial columnist with the New York Post. His mailing address is P.O. Box 610, Lincroft, N.J. 07738. Click here to send him e-mail).