Republican Culture Of Corruption News

FBI Looking Into John Ensign’s Affair, Payoffs

9:58 am EST January 20th, 2010 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Link

In recent days, FBI agents have contacted former aides to the Nevada Republican in Washington and Las Vegas, said several sources familiar with the matter. The sources also said that a Justice Department prosecutor has been assigned to the case but has not yet convened a grand jury.

‘Yes, the FBI has contacted witnesses — in this case, former aides,’ said one source familiar with the matter. ‘We’ll see where it leads.’

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Investigator Finds Palin May Have Violated Ethics Laws

5:11 pm EST July 21st, 2009 | Republicans | 53 Comments

The sudden resignation explained?

An independent investigator has found evidence that Gov. Sarah Palin may have violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts.

The report obtained by The Associated Press says Palin is securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, set up by supporters.

An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the ‘official’ legal defense fund.

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Karma Comes For Bush 2000 Rioter Thomas Spargo

3:32 pm EST December 10th, 2008 | Republicans | 2 Comments

So sad.

A former Supreme Court Justice of the Third Judicial Circuit of the State of New York was charged today with attempted extortion and federal program bribery, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich of the Criminal Division announced. Thomas J. Spargo, 65 was charged in an indictment returned today by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of New York.

According to the indictment, while Spargo was a state Supreme Court Justice in 2003, he allegedly solicited $10,000 from an Ulster County, N.Y., attorney who had cases pending before the judge. The indictment further charges that Spargo solicited the money by causing the attorney to fear that Spargo would use his official acts and influence to harm the attorney if he was not paid and, conversely, to help the attorney if he was paid.

Who is Spargo?

Spargo, who came to the bench after a high-profile career as an elections lawyer and Republican Party advocate, also was criticized for engaging in a range of prohibited political conduct. But the most serious charges, and the ones the commission said warranted his removal from the bench, centered on an allegedly escalating pattern of misconduct after he came under the watchdog agency’s scrutiny for political misconduct.

Spargo first appeared on the commission’s radar at a time when he was a part-time town justice and full-time elections lawyer and political consultant with deep ties to the GOP. In his role as advisor to the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush, Spargo was shown on national television partaking in a boisterous demonstration during the infamous Florida recount.

In addition, while sitting in town court, he presided over cases presented by the Albany County District Attorney’s Office without disclosing on the record that the district attorney had been his client in a political matter and still owed him $10,000 in legal fees.

Then, while campaigning for Supreme Court in 2001, Spargo courted voters by giving out doughnuts and jugs of cider, buying rounds of drinks for all the patrons of a bar and handing out to potential voters $5 coupons to a convenience store.

In other words, your standard issue conservative Republican.

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Ted Stevens Guilty

3:23 pm EST October 27th, 2008 | Republicans | 26 Comments

Amen.

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of seven corruption charges Monday in a trial that tainted the 40-year Senate career of Alaska’s political patriarch.

The verdict, coming just days before Election Day, adds further uncertainty to a closely watched Senate race. Democrats hope to seize the once reliably Republican seat as part of their bid for a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

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Sarah Palin Troopergate Report Released

7:27 pm EST October 10th, 2008 | News | 37 Comments

Here. (or you can read it after the break)

Finding #1: “Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.”

ABC: Troopergate Report: Palin Abused Power

Sarah Palin abused her power when she fired her Public Safety Commissioner this July, a state investigation has concluded.

The Alaska legislature voted to release the several hundred page report on the “Troopergate” scandal, a state kerfuffle which has come to haunt Gov. Sarah Palin’s vice presidential bid.

AP: Troopergate panel: Palin abused power

A legislative committee investigating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has found she unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state’s public safety commissioner.

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McCain Campaign Lied/Was Duped About Rick Davis Being Paid By Fannie Mae

2:54 am EST September 28th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

I am shocked.

The McCain campaign told reporters the fees were irrelevant because Davis “separated from his consulting firm … in 2006,” according to the campaign’s Web site, and he stopped drawing a salary from it. In fact, however, when Davis joined the campaign in January 2007, he asked that his $20,000-a-month salary be paid directly to Davis Manafort, two sources who asked not to be identified discussing internal campaign business told NEWSWEEK. Federal campaign records show the McCain campaign paid Davis Manafort $90,000 through July 2007, when a cash crunch prompted Davis and other top campaign officials to forgo their salaries and work as volunteers. Separately, another entity created and partly owned by Davis—an Internet firm called 3eDC, whose address was the same office building as Davis Manafort’s—received payments from the McCain campaign for Web services, collecting $971,860 through March 2008.

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Rick Davis Didn’t Leave His Company Being Paid $15,000/Month From Freddie Mac

10:58 am EST September 25th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 14 Comments

That’s right, unsurprisingly John McCain’s campaign is lying to you again.

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McCain Wants Freddie Mac Lobbyist On Transition Team

10:29 am EST September 23rd, 2008 | News | 3 Comments

After this campaign is over there’s got to be some in depth examination of why John McCain so strongly desired to surround himself with lobbyists. The latest is William Timmons Sr., tapped to lead McCain’s transition team, who is a Freddie Mac lobbyist. God willing, this transition team will exist only in theory.

The lobbying firm of the man Republicans say John McCain has chosen to begin planning a presidential transition earned more than a quarter of a million dollars this year representing Freddie Mac, one of the companies McCain blames for the nation’s financial crisis.

Timmons & Co., whose founder and chairman emeritus is William Timmons Sr., was registered to lobby for Freddie Mac from 2000 through this month, when the federal government took over both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Newly available congressional records show Timmons’s firm received $260,000 this year before its lobbying activities were barred under terms of the government rescue of the failed mortgage giant. Timmons, 77, is listed as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac on the company’s midyear financial-disclosure form.

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McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis Paid By Fannie Mae To Lobby McCain

2:15 am EST September 22nd, 2008 | News | 37 Comments

That’s right, John McCain’s campaign manager was paid $2 million by Fannie Mae to specifically lobby John McCain. They were trying to fend off regulation and I guess they wanted to curry favor with the self-described “deregulator”.

Then he hired him as his campaign manager.

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Interior Department Ethics Scandal Is The Sort Of Thing John McCain Wants To Continue

3:05 pm EST September 10th, 2008 | News | 2 Comments

This must have been what the GOP conventioneers meant when they said drill, baby, drill.

As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

‘A culture of ethical failure’ besets the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.

The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.

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