James Reynolds Bath (born August 18, 1936) is a Texas businessman who has business interests in aircraft sales and leasing and real estate.
[2] Bath is an acquaintance of former president George W. Bush, whom he met when both men were serving in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s.
[4] After Bush started his first business, Arbusto Energy, Bath invested $50,000 in the firm.
[5] A former business partner of Bath, Charles White, who was involved in a number of suits against Bath, claimed in a 2003 interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that the investment in fact came from bin Mahfouz and bin Laden, and amounted to over a million dollars,[6] reiterating allegations that previously appeared in The Outlaw Bank, a 1993 book regarding the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) authored by Time journalists S.C. Gwynne and Jonathan Beaty.
[8] Similar conclusions have been reached by journalist Steve Coll in his 2008 book The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century.