JEB!’s tie to fugitive goes against business-savvy image he promotes

(Washington Post)  Jeb Bush was a young man building a real estate business in Miami in 1985 when health-care entrepreneur Miguel Recarey Jr. hired him to help locate office space in South Florida.

Bush, then the son of the vice president, later provided another service: opening doors in Washington, where Recarey had mounted an aggressive lobbying effort for a waiver from Medicare rules that would allow his fast-growing company to continue to expand.

Recarey got what he wanted. But two years later, the firm, International Medical Centers, was shut down as regulators searched for millions in missing federal funds. Facing charges of bribery and bilking Medicare, Recarey fled the country to avoid prosecution. He remains a fugitive in Spain, where a court denied U.S. requests for extradition.

The Recarey case illustrates aspects of Bush’s business record that are likely to resurface as he moves closer to a campaign for president. Time and again, he benefited from his family name and connections to land a consulting deal or board membership, sometimes doing business with people and companies that would later run afoul of the law.

In the case of Recarey, Bush has said over the years that he “made one call” to a mid-level official to seek a fair deal for a Florida businessman.

But new interviews and a review of congressional testimony show that Bush engaged in multiple calls on Recarey’s behalf to senior administration officials — and that his advocacy made a difference.

One recipient of Bush’s outreach on behalf of Recarey, C. McClain Haddow, then the chief of staff to the secretary of health and human services, Margaret Heckler, told The Washington Post that hearing from the vice president’s son “certainly altered the trajectory of the decision.”

Transcripts from a 1987 congressional inquiry show that another HHS official, Kevin Moley, who was a Bush family friend, became concerned when he heard Bush was helping Recarey...

Bush’s work with Recarey was one early element in what would become a sprawling business portfolio that he developed before and after his eight years as governor.

He was involved in dozens of businesses, starting in real estate in the 1980s when he joined forces with a politically connected developer, Armando Codina. Bush later established a lucrative consulting practice, becoming part-owner of a professional football team, sitting on corporate boards and, most recently, launching a successful Florida-based investment partnership.

Bush has severed ties with his business interests in recent months as he turns his attention back to politics. He has long touted his business experience as a political asset.

But his business résumé also includes some ventures that could provoke criticism on the national stage, as some did during his past Florida campaigns.

In one case, Bush reportedly advocated for a federal loan guarantee for a Miami contractor later convicted of fraud in applying for the loan, though Bush later said he did not recall doing so. He became a board member and consultant to a Florida-based manufacturer whose two top officers are now serving federal prison sentences for defrauding investors and the U.S. government. And he worked with another Florida firm investigated for alleged fraud involving a deal to sell water pumps to Nigeria underwritten by the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Read more.