http://www.businessinsider.com/the-...enges-everything-about-citizens-united-2015-4 A good read on the indictment of Bob Menendez, the democratic Senator from New Jersey who was recently indicted on charges of corruption and accepting bribes. If there should be anything that Dems and Repubs should be able to agree on is that the Supreme Court got it completely wrong with the Citizens United decision.
No doubt that Menendez needs to go, provided he is indeed found guilty which seems to be the case, and anyone else for that matter. I have no tolerance for guys like him regardless of party affiliation. I do believe that the Citizens United decision will lead to more and more of this unless something is done about it.
Harry Reid (who may be retiring as a result) and Hillary as well as a couple of other Dems did the same thing. They just didn't cross the President who has the Attorney General in his camp. It stems from the party in power so I agree with you either could have done it, but the selective prosecution is strictly political. Nixon would be proud...
I haven't heard anything about the others, other than Menendez convinced Harry Reid to accompany him for a visit to Kathleen Sebilius' office, where Menendez proceeded to ask Sebilius to take her investigators off of a medicare fraud case involving Menendez' pal the Opthamologist. From what I hear, Sebilius didn't take kindly to the request at all and blew the whistle. With anything else like this, I am sure that Menendez got sloppy and the Sebilius request was just the tipping point. I have heard nothing about Hillary on this one but I am sure that some pundits aren't missing a chance to try and align her with this scandal because of her potential candidacy.
The FBI interviewed Reid over a year ago with regards to their investigation and there is absolutely no evidence, nor any accusations, of Reid's involvement in any shape, form or fashion. His retirement is something that has been in the makes for years. The conservative media are desperately trying to make this scandal spread throughout the Democratic party but it simply isn't true. What Menendez has allegedly done is serious enough and nothing should take away from the seriousness of a sitting US Senator accepting a bribe or the consequences that go with such an egregious act.
The DHS IG inspections says differently, but again, no one will hold him accountable, not even the media as they are lauding him going into retirement. The report concluded that Reid pressured a compliant DHS official to override normal departmental procedures and rush through 230 EB-5 foreign visa applications, thereby freeing up $115 million the applicants invested in the SLS Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The report did not, however, reveal the now confirmed fact that the owner of that casino project had hired Reid’s son, Rory Reid, to provide legal representation for the project. “At the request of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, [current DHS Deputy Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas intervened to allow expedited review of investor petitions involved in funding a Las Vegas hotel and casino [SLS], notwithstanding the career staff’s original decision not to do so,” the report found. “The career staff noted that the purported urgency was of the applicant’s [SLS’s] own making and that the decision to expedite fell outside EB-5 program guidelines,” the report stated. “Nevertheless,” the report concluded, “Mr. Mayorkas pressured staff to expedite the review. He also took the extraordinary step of requiring staff to brief Senator Reid’s staff on a weekly basis for several months.”
this is the first time I've read this report and while it definitely is damning in the fact that Reid leaned on DHS to rush through the eb-5 applications, I don't see any indication that he strong armed them through in the sense that they were not properly investigated, simply that they were allowed to cut in line basically. While unethical no doubt, I don't know if this rises to the heights of the criminal or not. At this point the only information I am finding on this online is through ultra conservative news outlets like Breitbart, so while it is something that I will keep an eye on and I am not willing to say that there is nothing to it, until it becomes more mainstream I'll stop short of condemning Reid. There was one article on ABC but it stopped well short of accusing Reid of criminal activity. Very interesting none the less and thanks for bringing this report to my attention, definitely an eye-opening read if nothing else.
Man If they only went after corrupt politicians, it would just be Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders left in Washington.
