In early 1989, seven weeks after his father moved into the White House, Jeb Bush took a trip to Nigeria.
Nearly 100,000 Nigerians turned out to see him over four days as he accompanied the executives of a Florida company called Moving Water Industries, which had just retained Bush to market the firm’s pumps. Escorted by the U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, Bush met with the nation’s political and religious leaders as part of an MWI effort to land a deal that would be worth $80 million.
“My father is the president of the United States, duly elected by people that have an interest in improving ties everywhere,” he told a group of dignitaries in a private meeting, according to a video documenting the visit. “The fact that you have done this today is something I will report back to him very quickly when I get back to the United States.”
Just days after Jeb Bush returned home, President George H.W. Bush sent a note to Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida, thanking him for hosting his son. “We are grateful to you,” President Bush wrote on White House stationery.
MWI eventually got the deals it was seeking. Former employees said Bush’s participation was crucial. “There’s no question about it: ‘Here is the son of the president of the United States.’ It was a big deal,” Cornelius Lang, MWI’s former controller, told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “He could open doors we couldn’t.”
Today, as he works toward his run at the White House, Bush touts his business experience as a strength that gives him the skills and savvy to serve as the nation’s chief executive. He has said he “worked my tail off” to succeed. As an announced candidate, Bush soon will be making financial disclosures that will reveal recent business successes and show a substantial increase in his wealth since he left office as Florida governor in 2007, individuals close to the candidate told The Post.
But records, lawsuits, interviews and newspaper accounts stretching back more than three decades present a picture of a man who, before he was elected Florida governor in 1998, often benefited from his family connections and repeatedly put himself in situations that raised questions about his judgment and exposed him to reputational risk.
www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/jeb-bush-dogged-by-decades-of-questions-about-business-deals/2015/06/28/0138223c-edb7-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html
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