Illinois Dem Hit With Ethics Complaint Over Alleged Bribe
Marie Newman's contract with potential political opponent warrants 'immediate investigation'
Collin Anderson • May 26, 2021 1:28 pmA watchdog group is calling on the House Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate congresswoman Marie Newman after the Illinois Democrat promised a six-figure job in her official office to a potential primary opponent.
The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) Complaint comes months after Palestinian activist Iymen Chehade sued Newman for breach of contract. Court documents show that Newman in 2018 promised Chehade a senior role in her congressional office should she win election. According to the activist, the agreement aimed to "induce Chehade not to run against [Newman] in the primary."
FACT executive director Kendra Arnold said the Contract warrants an "immediate investigation" as federal law "specifically prohibits" candidates from "promising a future government job in an attempt to gain political support."
"This is a serious allegation against Rep. Newman, and the written employment contract is extremely persuasive evidence in this case," Arnold said in a statement. "The Office of Congressional Ethics and Department of Justice need to immediately investigate as this is clearly not tolerated in America."
The Newman campaign did not return a request for comment.
Newman promised Chehade a salary of up to $140,000 to serve as both chief foreign policy director and either district director or legislative director, the contract shows. The role did not compel Chehade to "maintain specific hours at the office," and Newman gave the activist "complete discretion about the selection and employment termination of staff members under his supervision." Under the agreement, Newman also vowed to "use her best efforts to provide Chehade a private office within the congressional suite."
Chehade did not enter the primary after signing the contract—a boost to Newman, who narrowly defeated pro-life Democrat Dan Lipinski in March 2020. Chehade's presence in the tight race likely would have hurt Newman, as the activist has deep ties to the district's significant Arab-American community.
The Newman campaign responded to the lawsuit by calling Chehade's claims "fictitious and frankly ludicrous" in a statement. The campaign has not, however, disputed the authenticity of the contract.
For Arnold, Newman's motivation behind the agreement was presumably political.
"Both the timing of the contract and the fact that Newman entered into it indicate she directly promised a government position for the purpose of procuring support for her candidacy," FACT's complaint states. "There does not appear to be any other reasonable motivation for entering into this contract."
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE THREAT TO AMERICA FROM THE LAWYER CLASS!
It's disgusting stuff, very unethical, surely illegal, and something the doddering old fraudulently elected president needs to answer some congressional questions about. Hunter's payouts were closely linked to Joe's political fortunes and Hunter admitted that if his name weren't "Biden" the company would probably have no use for him. They didn't even have use for him when Joe was out of office. The whole thing was about leveraging Joe's power of office for personal gain, both for Hunter and Burisma. And now, it's clearer than ever to see.
So Hunter Biden took a big pay cut from Burisma after 'The Big Guy' lost office...
[See also Andrea Widburg's post on Joe Biden lying about his involvement with Burisma here.]
Among the Bidens, coincidences abound.
So sure enough, the New York Post, in its daily journalistic diggings, found this beaut from deep inside the bowels of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop computer.
The Ukrainian energy company that was paying President Biden's son Hunter $1 million a year cut his monthly compensation in half two months after his father ceased to be vice president.
From May 2014, Burisma Holdings Ltd. was paying Hunter $83,333 a month to sit on its board, invoices on his abandoned laptop show.
But in an email on March 19, 2017, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi asked Hunter to sign a new director's agreement and informed him "the only thing that was amended is the compensation rate."
"We are very much interested in working closely together, and the remuneration is still the highest in the company and higher than the standard director's monthly fees. I am sure you will find it both fair and reasonable."
After the email, the amount listed on Hunter's monthly Burisma invoices was reduced to $41,500, effective from May 2017.
Gee. Joe in office? The money flows. Joe out of office? Much less cash to be paid. Funny how that happens.
And no, this wasn't based on some oil or natural gas bust going on in Europe, energy prices being volatile things that can affect profits of companies. Nope, prices of natural gas imports in Europe were largely flat at the time (see the second chart on the "interactive" tab), meaning Burisma's profits were likely steady at the time. Burisma is a secretive private company run by Ukrainian oligarchs, so there are no books to look at to check to see if profits were down and everyone had to have a pay cut. In 2017, Burisma was actually expanding operations, which doesn't happen to companies that are losing money, so it's unlikely that that pay cut was based on market conditions.
According to Reuters:
In an upbeat 2017 promotional video, Burisma presents itself as an energy company looking to expand beyond Ukraine's borders. Photographs of Hunter Biden and the other four board members appear over the company's "key corporate governance principles: leadership, efficiency, remuneration and transparency."
Coincidences, coincidences. It sounds as if maybe the company had less use for Hunter with old dad, "the big guy" as Hunter put it, out of office. No office, no influence — sorry, Hunter, you're just not as "expert" as Joe says now that Joe is out of office. Take this salary cut and be happy.
It's an old political game we've seen before, again and again: money flows from someplace to some downwind entity that appears legit whenever the Democrat in power is in office. Money ebbs when there is no influence to be bought.
We saw that with the Clinton Foundation, whose donations collapsed in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was defeated for the presidency by one Donald Trump. She never got over it, and don't imagine that at least some of it was the now vanishing money from people who suddenly weren't so turned on to the Clinton Foundation's Potemkin projects as they claimed they had been before. Remember Haiti? Scandals never turned these donors off, but Hillary Clinton not winning her election most certainly did.
According to a 2018 editorial from Investor's Business Daily:
[T]he most glaring indictment of the Clinton Foundation came from what happened last year, after Hillary Clinton lost the election — and effectively ended her political career.
First, the Clinton's almost immediately shuttered the Clinton Global Initiative and laid off 22 employees.
Now, fresh financial documents show that contributions and grants to the Clinton Foundation plunged since Hillary lost her election bid. They dropped from $216 million in 2016 to just $26.5 million in 2017 — a stunning 88% fall. Throughout Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, the foundation pulled in an average of $254 million a year. (See the nearby chart below for a timeline.)
If the Clinton Foundation was as good as defenders claimed, why did all its big-time donors suddenly lose interest? The only reasonable explanation is that donors weren't interested in what the foundation supposedly did for humanity. They were interested in the political favors they knew their money would buy.
That's modern influence-peddling. Gone are the days of black bags handed to pols under the table. Now it's influence-buyers handing the cash to intermediaries with plausible denial, watching the cash get where it needs to go, all in exchange for...something. Hunter himself said old Joe skimmed 10% off the top in some emails and took a 50% cut in others. The Clinton Foundation, meanwhile, has seen a tiny uptick in donations since the last campaign season. The swamp game continues.
It's disgusting stuff, very unethical, surely illegal, and something the doddering old fraudulently elected president needs to answer some congressional questions about. Hunter's payouts were closely linked to Joe's political fortunes and Hunter admitted that if his name weren't "Biden" the company would probably have no use for him. They didn't even have use for him when Joe was out of office. The whole thing was about leveraging Joe's power of office for personal gain, both for Hunter and Burisma. And now, it's clearer than ever to see.
IMAGES OF JOE BIDEN’S MANSIONS:
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a33809100/joe-biden-real-estate-homes/
RIDING THE DRAGON: The Bidens' Chinese Secrets (Full Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRmlcEBAiIs
Schweizer: ‘It’s Going to Be Business as Usual’ for Hunter’s Dealings
Video:
On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer said he reads President Biden’s statements about his son Hunter’s deals as a declaration that “it’s going to be business as usual in the Biden administration as far as these deals are concerned.”
Schweizer said, “Joe Biden has said there are going to be no sketchy overseas deals during his second term. Here’s the problem: He does not believe that the early deals that Hunter was involved in, the China deal, Burisma, he’s never described those as sketchy. So, I read that as saying, it’s going to be business as usual in the Biden administration as far as these deals are concerned.”
The national media don't view the Kennedys, Clintons, or Bidens as corrupt, and electronic media may be systematically covering it up its evidence. If one Googles "most corrupt Democrats," the result will be pages of results on "Trump corruption." It appears that Google and other high-tech players are suppressing information about the corruption of the liberal elite
Report: Then-VP Joe Biden Met with Hunter Biden’s Foreign Business Associates
A report in the New York Post Wednesday appears to confirm reporting by Breitbart News last October that then-Vice President Joe Biden met his son Hunter’s business associates from Kazakhstan at Café Milano in Washington, DC, despite earlier denials.
In August 2019, on the campaign trail in South Carolina, Biden told reporters: “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period.”
The new Post report casts further doubt on that claim.
In October 2020, Breitbart News revealed a photograph showing Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden with oligarch Kenes Rakishev of Kazakhstan, who had explored business ventures with the younger Biden.
As Breitbart News reported: “The photograph of the Bidens with Rakishev and [Kazakhstan’s former prime minister, Karim] Massimov appears to have been taken at Café Milano in Washington, D.C. The iconic restaurant’s logo appears on the drapes in the background (backwards in the photo). The date of the photograph is unknown.”
The Post report notes:
Joe Biden met with Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakhstani business associates of his son’s at a dinner in Washington, DC, while he was vice president, records on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop show.
The dinner, on April 16, 2015, was held in the private “Garden Room” at Café Milano, a Georgetown institution whose catchphrase is: “Where the world’s most powerful people go.”
It is not clear whether that dinner meeting was the same one reported by Breitbart News, or whether there were similar ones.
But the date is crucial: the next day, April 17, 2015, the Post notes, was when Hunter Biden received an email from a senior member of the corrupt Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, thanking Hunter for introducing him to his father. The email was one of the most significant documents to emerge on Hunter Biden’s laptop last October.
At the time, the Biden campaign lashed out, claiming Biden’s “official schedules” showed no meeting with the Burisma executive. The mainstream media, and Silicon Valley, suppressed the laptop story.
After the campaign, Hunter Biden admitted he was under federal investigation over tax problems.
There may be other legal troubles for the Bidens ahead.
The Post suggests that Hunter Biden used the World Food Program as a cover for the introduction between his father and his business associates. And Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) has already asked the DOJ last year to look into Hunter Biden’s failure to register as a foreign agent while representing Chinese companies in the U.S.
There will also be questions about then-Vice President Biden’s apparent use of his position to benefit his son’s business interests.
In his new book, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption, Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow revealed that Hunter Biden took flights through Joint Air Base Andrews — home of Air Force One and Air Force Two — 23 times during his father’s tenure from 2009 to 2014.
Thanks to the Senate trial of former President Donald Trump earlier this year, there is now a precedent for impeaching and trying former officials for actions they took in office, even after they have left that office.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new e-book, We Told You So!: The First 100 Days of Joe Biden’s Radical Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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