Florida representative Corrine Brown has been indicted by The Feds for allegedly using a fraudulent charity as a personal slush fund.
The 69-year-old Democrat appeared in federal court “on charges of mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction, and filing of false tax returns, according to the Associated Press.
A high-ranking official at The Department of Justice gave the seedy details:
“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,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in a statement.
Obviously, she pled “not guilty.”
Elias “Ronnie” Simmons, Brown’s chief of staff, was also indicted in the scheme to route thousands of dollars into private accounts. Carla Wiley, the President of the “charity” One Door, has already confessed to one count of “conspiracy to commit wire fraud” and allegedly deposited $800,000 into the foundation’s account over four years.
Brown, who has represented her Florida district since 1993, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lavish gifts at taxpayer expense, such as Beyonce concerts, golf tournaments, Redskins games (no less), and vacations to the Bahamas.
As reported by The AP:
According to the indictment, more than $200,000 in One Door funds were used to pay for events hosted by Brown or held in her honor, including a golf tournament, lavish receptions during an annual Washington conference and the use of luxury boxes for a Beyonce concert and an NFL game between the Washington Redskins and Jacksonville Jaguars.
One Door money was also used for such things are repairs to Brown’s car and vacations to locations such as the Bahamas, Miami Beach and Los Angeles. In addition, House of Representatives money was used to pay a “close family member” of Simmons identified as “Person C” more than $735,000 between 2001 and 2016 for a job in Brown’s office that involved little or no work, according to the indictment. Simmons allegedly benefited from some of that money.
If you thought that Brown would fess up to the wrongdoing, she has an extremely familiar explanation for the DOJ’s persecution:
“I’m not the first black elected official to be persecuted and, sad to say, I won’t be the last.”
That’s right. The race card — played against black Attorney General Loretta Lynch, no less.
But adding insult to taxpayer injury, was her reference to Orlando shooting victims, which came by way of her insult to investigators:
“These are the same agents that was not able to do a thorough investigation of [Orlando shooter Omar Mateen], and we ended up with 50 people dead.”
Let’s reconstruct this: A Democratic representative implied that the Orlando shooting wouldn’t have happened if federal investigators weren’t so obsessed with a racist witch hunt to persecute her instead of tracking suspected terrorists.
An article in the Orlando Sentinel by reporter Scott Maxwell pinpoints what actually went wrong in Brown’s case:
For starters, the feds say Brown’s chief of staff also controlled her campaign committees. That’s a wicked conflict when the same person who’s helping craft laws that special interests want is also handling the money special interests give.
Brown is notorious for getting fat wads of campaign cash from the industries she helps regulate. She sits on the transportation committee and — surprise! — gets big checks from the transportation industries. (Railroads, trucking companies and transportation unions account for three of her top four industry donors and $95,000 of the $356,000 she got this cycle alone, according to OpenSecrets.org.)
Nancy Pelosi called the indictment of Corrine Brown “deeply saddening.”
Not as saddening as “public servants” who use fraud to fatten their wallets, claim any official inquiry into their corruption is fueled by “racism,” then drag in the deceased to score cheap political points against their accusers.
The post DOJ Accuses Dem of Taking Cash from Fake Charity. She Responds by Dragging in Dead Orlando Victims. appeared first on Independent Journal Review.
Source: independent journal
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