Schumer's Link to Eller & Co - Was this the whole reason for the Ports Flap?

I have found some interesting documentation of connections between Chuckie Schumer and the Eller & Co - the stevedoring firm that filed suit to stop the transfer of P&O to DP World. According to a story in the Buffalo News on March 4, 2006....

"Attorney Joseph Muldoon III represents Eller & Co, a Miami-based shipping firm that is fighting the transaction here and in Britain's highest court.

In an interview, the attorney said Eller & Co does not want to become an unwilling partner of DP World's Miami operations.

Muldoon told The News he unsuccessfully appealed two months ago to Sen. John Warner, R-Va, whom he knows personally, and also saw staff members for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, to stop the sale on national security grounds.

"I'll check it out," Muldoon quoted Warner as responding.

So Sen Warner was aware of the P&O/ DP World Deal TWO MONTHS AGO!!!! So much for the "sneak attack" by the Bush Administration.

"Finally, I went to Sen. [Charles E] Schumer because he is a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the Treasury Department board which approved this thing. If this hadn't been for Sen. Schumer," Muldoon said in an interview, "this issue would never had gotten any traction."

"It was not until Muldoon called Schumer's office 3 weeks ago that it bloomed into an issue that threatens the president's hold on Republican majorities in the House and Senate. "I had an instinct about this situation", Schumer said, "and it was to keep it as bipartisan as possible. So I went first to [Sen. Tom] Coburn [R-OK] and he was very concerned."

"Muldoon said, "Schumer was hanging out there all alone on it until" Re. Peter King, R-NY, announced his oposition."

Now who could have guessed that Schumer would have less than altruistic concerns about port security.... He saw this as a political opportunity and ran with it. Schumer played the weak-kneed spineless RINOs like a fiddle and they took the bait - as did over half the country. Meanwhile, who knows how much campaign money Chuckie got out of this little deal. And he got to undercut the Bush administration and the soldiers. How the HELL did this get past our media? Never mind...

I'm gonna keep researching and digging through the Internet for more info and will post it here as I get it. I realize that it is just water under the bridge now since DP World has withdrawn from the US ports portion of the deal, but the background of how this became such an issue needs to be brought into the sunlight. In the meantime, I urge everyone to GET THIS NEWS OUT THERE...

UPDATE: According to the Middle East Times...
"Eller's campaign included a lobbying blitz on Capitol Hill that has produced a groundswell of Democratric Party opposition to the deal. Eller 'was really the canary in the mineshaft for many people on the Hill and in the media', said Israel Klein, a spokesman for Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY."