EE_
9th July 2016, 07:45 AM
Indicted Hillary Clinton superdelegate used charity as ‘slush fund’
JULY 8, 2016
BY VICTOR SKINNER
U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, a Democratic superdelegate and member of Hillary Clinton’s “Florida Leadership Council,” was indicted on corruption charges this week and arraigned in federal court this afternoon.
Corrine BrownTwo unnamed sources familiar with the case told the Orlando Sentinel that the Jacksonville politician is tied to an unregistered charity called One Door for Education Inc. that’s under investigation by the Department of Justice. The indictment was initially sealed, but was opened Friday morning, WJXT reports.
The investigation stems from a House Committee on Ethics investigation into Brown’s involvement with the charity shortly after One Door’s director pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to work with prosecutors in March.
From The Sentinel:
Prosecutors say One Door’s director, Carla Wiley, presented her organization as an education charity starting in 2011 but never obtained tax-exempt status or filed state or federal tax returns, even as it solicited about $800,000 in donations.
Between 2012 and 2016, as Wiley withdrew or transferred to her own accounts more than $140,000, the group issued just one scholarship for about $1,000, authorities said.
While documents in Wiley’s case didn’t mention Brown by name, prosecutors alleged that $150,000 in charity funds had been used for events hosted by or in the honor of an unnamed public official, dubbed “Person A.”
Several details in Wiley’s plea suggested Person A is Brown.
For example, prosecutors said Person A hosted a July 2013 golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass to benefit One Door. Records show Brown hosted a tournament for the group’s benefit that month at the same Jacksonville-area golf course.
The Tampa Bay Times in February listed Brown among Florida’s Democratic superdelegates and Clinton’s “Florida Leadership Council.”
News 4 details the charges:
Brown … (was) charged in a 24-count indictment with participating in a conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, multiple counts of mail and wire fraud, concealing material facts on required financial disclosure forms, theft of government property, obstruction of the due administration of the internal revenue laws, and filing false tax returns.
Brown blew kisses to her supporters as she strutted into a district court and professed her innocence Friday. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Klindt insisted that all 24 counts against Brown were read out loud, during which Brown appeared to shed tears. The lawmaker faces up to 357 years in prison and a $4.8 million fine if convicted. Her chief of staff, 50-year-old Elias Simmons, faces similar charges with a potential sentence of 355 years in prison and a $4.75 million fine.
Klindt set a trial date for Sept. 6, WJXT reports.
Brown is currently running for reelection in a newly configured district that runs from Jacksonville to Tallahassee and faces two challengers in the state’s Aug. 30 Democratic primary: LaShonda Holloway and Al Lawson.
The winner will take on Republican Glo Smith in November, according to the Sentinel.
A June poll found Brown with a three percentage point lead over Lawson in the primary, the Florida Times-Union reports.
In March, Brown held a press conference to announce she’s “clean” of illegal activity, but did not respond to requests for comment about the indictment Thursday. Brown’s grand jury indictment is sealed, and her attorney refused to discuss the case with First Coast News, but documents in the guilty plea of One Door director Carla Wiley shows “Person A” benefitted personally from their arrangement with the alleged charity.
“The documents described ‘Person A’ as a public official who was often used in promotional materials for the group. Brown’s photo appeared on the website for the group before it was taken down,” according to the news site.
The Times-Union reports that One Door was run out of a single-family home “in an affluent suburb 40 miles northwest of Washington” and solicited donations from political action committees, lobbyists, and foundations with ties to Brown.
“Brown also sought donations for One Door as part of a 2013 golf tournament where sponsorship levels reached as high as $20,000, though it’s unclear how successful Brown’s fundraising push was. Invitations — which included One Door letterhead, the U.S. House of Representatives seal and Brown’s signature — were sent to her supporters and city officials,” according to the news site.
WJXT provided other details from the unsealed indictment on Friday.
“Prosecutors claim Brown, Simmons and One Door’s president, Carla Wiley, used money donated to the charity to buy plane tickets, repair their personal cars and to pay for luxury vacations in the Bahamas, Los Angeles and Miami Beach. The indictment said more than $200,000 from the charity was used to pay for Brown to host a golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, to pay for lavish receptions, a luxury box at a Beyonce concert and a box during when the Jacksonville Jaguars played the Washington Redskins,” according to the news site.
“The tax fraud charges against Brown date back to 2008.”
“Congresswoman Brown and her chief of staff are alleged to have used the Congresswoman’s official position to solicit over $800,000 in donations to a supposed charitable organization, only to use that organization as a personal slush fund,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. “Corruption erodes the public’s trust in our entire system of representative government. One of the department’s most important responsibilities is to root out corruption at all levels of government and to bring wrongdoers to justice.”
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/clinton-superdelegate-indicted-corruption/
How Hundreds of Superdelegates were "bought" by the Clinton Campaign.
By EuroYankee
Wednesday Apr 06, 2016 · 3:17 PM EDT
"Collusion between the Clinton campaign and the DNC allowed Hillary Clinton to buy the loyalty of 33 state Democratic parties last summer."
You know, I always thought it was somewhat strange that so many Superdelegates had endorsed Hillary Clinton even many months before the Primary race started.
As Debbie Wasserman Schultz explained to Rachel Maddow, the Superdelegates should not be treated or counted like pledged delegates. They do not have to declare their preference until the Convention.
I always thought it was strange, then, that so many Party officials and officeholders would be tripping all over each other in a mad rush to endorse Hillary, when the convention was still a year away.
Now I know why.
You see, these Superdelegates are members of their State Democratic Parties, upon whom they rely for support and funding for re-election. And the money that will be available for those re-election efforts has, in many cases, been provided by Hillary Clinton.
Clinton has provided funds for these candidates through a sophisticated system of money laundering that has allowed the Clinton campaign to funnel billionaire’s donations to State parties in return for their participation in a massive money-laundering payback system to also funnel money to the Clinton campaign itself.
The whole sordid affair was recently brought to light in a Counterpunch article and showcased on The Young Turks. As Margot Kidder (yes, THAT Margot Kidder) writes in Counterpunch:
In August 2015, at the Democratic Party convention in Minneapolis, 33 democratic state parties made deals with the Hillary Clinton campaign and a joint fundraising entity called The Hillary Victory Fund. The deal allowed many of her core billionaire and inner circle individual donors to run the maximum amounts of money allowed through those state parties to the Hillary Victory Fund in New York and the DNC in Washington.
Remember, this was in AUGUST — 6 months before the first vote was cast in the actual Primary. Margot continues:
The idea was to increase how much one could personally donate to Hillary by taking advantage of the Supreme Court ruling 2014, McCutcheon v FEC, that knocked down a cap on aggregate limits as to how much a donor could give to a federal campaign in a year. It thus eliminated the ceiling on amounts spent by a single donor to a presidential candidate.
From these large amounts of money being transferred from state coffers to the Hillary Victory Fund in Washington, the Clinton campaign got the first $2,700, the DNC was to get the next $33,400, and the remainder was to be split among the 33 signatory states. With this scheme, the
Hillary Victory Fund raised over $26 million for the Clinton Campaign by the end of 2015.
… and the rest of the money went to the State Parties and, eventually, the candidates, including many officeholders who are Superdelegates.
These Superdelegates are actually PLEDGED — to Clinton
Many people are speculating as to whether or not Superdelegates from States that have voted for Bernie will move their support away from Bernie.
Unfortunately, that will NEVER happen.
You see, when it comes to all this money flowing in from the millionaires and billionaires who give to Hillary, the Clinton Campaign can decide which State Parties get to partake in the spoils:
The fund is administered by treasurer Elizabeth Jones, the Clinton Campaign’s chief operating officer. Ms. Jones has the exclusive right to decide when transfers of money to and from the Hillary Victory Fund would be made to the state parties.
So if a Superdelegate whose State voted overwhelmingly for Bernie switched her support to Sanders under the reasoning that she was representing the will of her State, then Clinton’s Campaign COO would shut off the spigot and all that sweet, sweet billionaire cash would stop flowing into the coffers of her State Democratic Party — and the candidate herself.
As Kidder gently puts it:
One could reasonably infer that ... the super-delegates of these various partner states would either pledge loyalty to Clinton, or, at the least, not endorse Senator Sanders. Not only did Hillary’s multi-millionaire and billionaire supporters get to bypass individual campaign donation limits to state parties by using several state parties apparatus, but the Clinton campaign got the added bonus of buying that state’s super-delegates with the promise of contributions to that Democratic organization’s re-election fund.
So — there you have it. Not a pretty story. It is not just the money-laundering operation itself, which has allowed the Clinton campaign to “legally” obviate campaign finance law, but it has further allowed them to pervert the political process of the Democratic Party by “buying” the fealty of the Superdelegates. These Superdelegates are supposed to be “free to choose the best candidate” according to their own beliefs and their own conscience. But now many of them will have that choice essentially turned into a dilemma: they can support Hillary and stay in politics, or they can support Bernie and deprive both themselves and their State Party of significant funding from the Clinton campaign — thereby ending their career.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/6/1511462/-CORRUPTION-How-Hundreds-of-Superdelegates-were-Literally-bought-by-the-Clinton-Campaign
JULY 8, 2016
BY VICTOR SKINNER
U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, a Democratic superdelegate and member of Hillary Clinton’s “Florida Leadership Council,” was indicted on corruption charges this week and arraigned in federal court this afternoon.
Corrine BrownTwo unnamed sources familiar with the case told the Orlando Sentinel that the Jacksonville politician is tied to an unregistered charity called One Door for Education Inc. that’s under investigation by the Department of Justice. The indictment was initially sealed, but was opened Friday morning, WJXT reports.
The investigation stems from a House Committee on Ethics investigation into Brown’s involvement with the charity shortly after One Door’s director pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to work with prosecutors in March.
From The Sentinel:
Prosecutors say One Door’s director, Carla Wiley, presented her organization as an education charity starting in 2011 but never obtained tax-exempt status or filed state or federal tax returns, even as it solicited about $800,000 in donations.
Between 2012 and 2016, as Wiley withdrew or transferred to her own accounts more than $140,000, the group issued just one scholarship for about $1,000, authorities said.
While documents in Wiley’s case didn’t mention Brown by name, prosecutors alleged that $150,000 in charity funds had been used for events hosted by or in the honor of an unnamed public official, dubbed “Person A.”
Several details in Wiley’s plea suggested Person A is Brown.
For example, prosecutors said Person A hosted a July 2013 golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass to benefit One Door. Records show Brown hosted a tournament for the group’s benefit that month at the same Jacksonville-area golf course.
The Tampa Bay Times in February listed Brown among Florida’s Democratic superdelegates and Clinton’s “Florida Leadership Council.”
News 4 details the charges:
Brown … (was) charged in a 24-count indictment with participating in a conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, multiple counts of mail and wire fraud, concealing material facts on required financial disclosure forms, theft of government property, obstruction of the due administration of the internal revenue laws, and filing false tax returns.
Brown blew kisses to her supporters as she strutted into a district court and professed her innocence Friday. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Klindt insisted that all 24 counts against Brown were read out loud, during which Brown appeared to shed tears. The lawmaker faces up to 357 years in prison and a $4.8 million fine if convicted. Her chief of staff, 50-year-old Elias Simmons, faces similar charges with a potential sentence of 355 years in prison and a $4.75 million fine.
Klindt set a trial date for Sept. 6, WJXT reports.
Brown is currently running for reelection in a newly configured district that runs from Jacksonville to Tallahassee and faces two challengers in the state’s Aug. 30 Democratic primary: LaShonda Holloway and Al Lawson.
The winner will take on Republican Glo Smith in November, according to the Sentinel.
A June poll found Brown with a three percentage point lead over Lawson in the primary, the Florida Times-Union reports.
In March, Brown held a press conference to announce she’s “clean” of illegal activity, but did not respond to requests for comment about the indictment Thursday. Brown’s grand jury indictment is sealed, and her attorney refused to discuss the case with First Coast News, but documents in the guilty plea of One Door director Carla Wiley shows “Person A” benefitted personally from their arrangement with the alleged charity.
“The documents described ‘Person A’ as a public official who was often used in promotional materials for the group. Brown’s photo appeared on the website for the group before it was taken down,” according to the news site.
The Times-Union reports that One Door was run out of a single-family home “in an affluent suburb 40 miles northwest of Washington” and solicited donations from political action committees, lobbyists, and foundations with ties to Brown.
“Brown also sought donations for One Door as part of a 2013 golf tournament where sponsorship levels reached as high as $20,000, though it’s unclear how successful Brown’s fundraising push was. Invitations — which included One Door letterhead, the U.S. House of Representatives seal and Brown’s signature — were sent to her supporters and city officials,” according to the news site.
WJXT provided other details from the unsealed indictment on Friday.
“Prosecutors claim Brown, Simmons and One Door’s president, Carla Wiley, used money donated to the charity to buy plane tickets, repair their personal cars and to pay for luxury vacations in the Bahamas, Los Angeles and Miami Beach. The indictment said more than $200,000 from the charity was used to pay for Brown to host a golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, to pay for lavish receptions, a luxury box at a Beyonce concert and a box during when the Jacksonville Jaguars played the Washington Redskins,” according to the news site.
“The tax fraud charges against Brown date back to 2008.”
“Congresswoman Brown and her chief of staff are alleged to have used the Congresswoman’s official position to solicit over $800,000 in donations to a supposed charitable organization, only to use that organization as a personal slush fund,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. “Corruption erodes the public’s trust in our entire system of representative government. One of the department’s most important responsibilities is to root out corruption at all levels of government and to bring wrongdoers to justice.”
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/clinton-superdelegate-indicted-corruption/
How Hundreds of Superdelegates were "bought" by the Clinton Campaign.
By EuroYankee
Wednesday Apr 06, 2016 · 3:17 PM EDT
"Collusion between the Clinton campaign and the DNC allowed Hillary Clinton to buy the loyalty of 33 state Democratic parties last summer."
You know, I always thought it was somewhat strange that so many Superdelegates had endorsed Hillary Clinton even many months before the Primary race started.
As Debbie Wasserman Schultz explained to Rachel Maddow, the Superdelegates should not be treated or counted like pledged delegates. They do not have to declare their preference until the Convention.
I always thought it was strange, then, that so many Party officials and officeholders would be tripping all over each other in a mad rush to endorse Hillary, when the convention was still a year away.
Now I know why.
You see, these Superdelegates are members of their State Democratic Parties, upon whom they rely for support and funding for re-election. And the money that will be available for those re-election efforts has, in many cases, been provided by Hillary Clinton.
Clinton has provided funds for these candidates through a sophisticated system of money laundering that has allowed the Clinton campaign to funnel billionaire’s donations to State parties in return for their participation in a massive money-laundering payback system to also funnel money to the Clinton campaign itself.
The whole sordid affair was recently brought to light in a Counterpunch article and showcased on The Young Turks. As Margot Kidder (yes, THAT Margot Kidder) writes in Counterpunch:
In August 2015, at the Democratic Party convention in Minneapolis, 33 democratic state parties made deals with the Hillary Clinton campaign and a joint fundraising entity called The Hillary Victory Fund. The deal allowed many of her core billionaire and inner circle individual donors to run the maximum amounts of money allowed through those state parties to the Hillary Victory Fund in New York and the DNC in Washington.
Remember, this was in AUGUST — 6 months before the first vote was cast in the actual Primary. Margot continues:
The idea was to increase how much one could personally donate to Hillary by taking advantage of the Supreme Court ruling 2014, McCutcheon v FEC, that knocked down a cap on aggregate limits as to how much a donor could give to a federal campaign in a year. It thus eliminated the ceiling on amounts spent by a single donor to a presidential candidate.
From these large amounts of money being transferred from state coffers to the Hillary Victory Fund in Washington, the Clinton campaign got the first $2,700, the DNC was to get the next $33,400, and the remainder was to be split among the 33 signatory states. With this scheme, the
Hillary Victory Fund raised over $26 million for the Clinton Campaign by the end of 2015.
… and the rest of the money went to the State Parties and, eventually, the candidates, including many officeholders who are Superdelegates.
These Superdelegates are actually PLEDGED — to Clinton
Many people are speculating as to whether or not Superdelegates from States that have voted for Bernie will move their support away from Bernie.
Unfortunately, that will NEVER happen.
You see, when it comes to all this money flowing in from the millionaires and billionaires who give to Hillary, the Clinton Campaign can decide which State Parties get to partake in the spoils:
The fund is administered by treasurer Elizabeth Jones, the Clinton Campaign’s chief operating officer. Ms. Jones has the exclusive right to decide when transfers of money to and from the Hillary Victory Fund would be made to the state parties.
So if a Superdelegate whose State voted overwhelmingly for Bernie switched her support to Sanders under the reasoning that she was representing the will of her State, then Clinton’s Campaign COO would shut off the spigot and all that sweet, sweet billionaire cash would stop flowing into the coffers of her State Democratic Party — and the candidate herself.
As Kidder gently puts it:
One could reasonably infer that ... the super-delegates of these various partner states would either pledge loyalty to Clinton, or, at the least, not endorse Senator Sanders. Not only did Hillary’s multi-millionaire and billionaire supporters get to bypass individual campaign donation limits to state parties by using several state parties apparatus, but the Clinton campaign got the added bonus of buying that state’s super-delegates with the promise of contributions to that Democratic organization’s re-election fund.
So — there you have it. Not a pretty story. It is not just the money-laundering operation itself, which has allowed the Clinton campaign to “legally” obviate campaign finance law, but it has further allowed them to pervert the political process of the Democratic Party by “buying” the fealty of the Superdelegates. These Superdelegates are supposed to be “free to choose the best candidate” according to their own beliefs and their own conscience. But now many of them will have that choice essentially turned into a dilemma: they can support Hillary and stay in politics, or they can support Bernie and deprive both themselves and their State Party of significant funding from the Clinton campaign — thereby ending their career.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/6/1511462/-CORRUPTION-How-Hundreds-of-Superdelegates-were-Literally-bought-by-the-Clinton-Campaign