Tag Archives: corruption

You knew how to finish the headline before you clicked. Law & Crime reports: West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Allen Loughry, who authored a book on political corruption in his home state, was indicted on 22 federal charges, ranging from fraud to witness tampering, for alleged corruption of his own. According to the indictment, Loughry fraudulently used a government-issued credit …

The Birmingham Herald reports: Alabama State Rep. Ed Henry has been indicted in an ongoing federal pill mill case in Montgomery. The indictment, announced on Thursday by Middle District U.S. Attorney Louis V. Franklin Sr., charges the 47-year-old lawmaker from Hartselle with one count of conspiring to pay kickbacks and to defraud the U.S., one count of conspiring to commit …

The Washington Post reports: Three months after Scott Pruitt was sworn in as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, his executive scheduler emailed Dan Cathy, chairman and president of the fast food company Chick-fil-A, with an unusual request: Would Cathy meet with Pruitt to discuss “a potential business opportunity”? A call was arranged, then canceled, and Pruitt eventually spoke with …

The Associated Press reports: An appeals court has refused to toss corruption charges against former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, saying it can’t assess whether his prosecution violated constitutional separation-of-powers clauses until after he goes to trial. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago says in its unanimous ruling Wednesday that it doesn’t believe appellate courts have the authority …

The Daily Beast reports: Monday, the Associated Press reported on the months-long 2017 lobbying effort carried out by Elliot Broidy and George Nader that brought the pair close to securing nearly $1 billion in contracts with the Saudis and the Emiratis in exchange for lobbying against their enemy, Qatar. Also during the pair’s lobbying blitz in the fall of 2017, …

The Hill reports: Protesters attending a Senate hearing Wednesday on the Environmental Protect Agency’s (EPA) 2019 budget request held signs behind embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt urging President Trump to “fire him” over recent scandals. During the hearing, Pruitt was lectured by Democrats, including Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.), about his spending habits at the EPA as lawmakers discussed the agency’s …

The New York Daily News reports: Former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was convicted Friday of corruption charges in his Manhattan Federal Court retrial. The venerable politician’s second trial ended with the jury returning its guilty verdicts on all counts shortly before 5 p.m. in only its second day of deliberations. Silver was originally convicted in November 2015 and sentenced to …

The Washington Post reports: After taking office last year, Pruitt drew up a list of at least a dozen countries he hoped to visit and urged aides to help him find official reasons to travel, according to four people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal agency deliberations. Pruitt then enlisted well-connected friends …

The Hill reports: Former prosecutor Solomon Wisenberg compared former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s legal strategy to a murder-suicide on Thursday after Giuliani said in an interview that President Trump reimbursed his attorney, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 he paid to adult-film star Stormy Daniels. “I liken it to a murder-suicide,” Wisenberg told CNN’s Dana Bash. “He metaphorically murdered …

Vox reports: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt will face a double whammy of hearings on Capitol Hill Thursday that could make or break his career at the EPA. The hearings are intended to give Pruitt the chance to pitch his agency’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year. But members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House …

The New York Times reports: Mick Mulvaney, the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told banking industry executives on Tuesday that they should press lawmakers hard to pursue their agenda, and revealed that, as a congressman, he would meet only with lobbyists if they had contributed to his campaign. “We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” …

The New York Daily News reports: A self-described gun lawyer to the stars was convicted Tuesday of bribing an ex-NYPD sergeant to speed up pistol permitting. John Chambers, 63, was found guilty on all four counts following a one-week trial in Manhattan Federal Court. The counts included bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services wire fraud and conspiracy to commit …

The Guardian reports: Sean Hannity’s real estate venture bought houses through a property dealer who was involved in a criminal conspiracy to fraudulently obtain foreclosed homes, according to records reviewed by the Guardian. In 2012, a shell company linked to the Fox News host bought 11 homes in Georgia that had been purchased by the dealer, Jeff Brock, following foreclosures. …

The Chicago Sun-Times reports: The federal indictment hanging over the head of former congressman Aaron Schock repeatedly references the official rules of the U.S. House of Representatives. Trouble is, some of them are pretty vague. Or so says Schock. And his attorneys insist the judicial branch has no business deciding what they really mean. To do so would be a …

The Associated Press reports: Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt’s concern with his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes. Altogether, the agency spent millions of dollars for a 20-member full-time detail that is more than three times the size …

The New York Times reports: At least five officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, four of them high-ranking, were reassigned or demoted, or requested new jobs in the past year after they raised concerns about the spending and management of the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt. The concerns included unusually large spending on office furniture and first-class travel, as well as …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Tuesday argued he has been tougher on Russia than any of his predecessors, despite frequent criticisms from lawmakers over his relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin. “Ideally we want to get along with Russia. Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Maybe we will maybe we won’t,” Trump told …

ABC News reports: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s protective detail broke down the door at the Capitol Hill condo where he was living, believing he was unconscious and unresponsive and needed rescue, in a bizarre incident last year that the EPA has for months refused to discuss, according to sources and police radio traffic obtained by ABC News. The …

The Los Angeles Times reports: The Trump administration is poised to abandon America’s pioneering fuel economy targets for cars and SUVs, a move that would undermine one of the world’s most aggressive programs to confront climate change and invite another major confrontation with California. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce in the coming days that it will scrap …

Reuters reports: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will face trial over charges he misused his influence to secure leaked details of an inquiry into alleged irregularities in his 2007 election campaign, a source close to the investigation said on Thursday. The case came about after investigators used phone-taps to examine separate allegations that late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi funded Sarkozy’s …