Barack Obama's Mounting Ethical Tone Deafness, Now With Jim Johnson's Mortgage Scandal
June 11, 2008 01:07 PM ET | Bonnie Erbe | Permanent Link
You have got to check out the lead editorial in today's Wall Street Journal. Sen. Barack Obama's tone deafness on unethical conduct is absolutely stunning.
In sum, the piece notes that Jim Johnson, one of the three people Sen. Obama chose to help him select his vice presidential running mate, received below-market interest-rate mortgages from Countrywide Financial while he was the CEO of Fannie Mae, and did not disclose the sweetheart deals to Fannie's board. This while he was pulling down $21 million in pay. Obama has called Countrywide's CEO—who arranged the special loans for Johnson—one of the people responsible for the mortgage crisis.
Compounding his problems, Obama has reacted in a manner that can only be called cavalier. From the Journal's editorial:
Yesterday, ABC News asked Mr. Obama whether he should have more carefully vetted Mr. Johnson and Eric Holder, who is working with Mr. Johnson on veep vetting. Correspondent Sunlen Miller noted Mr. Johnson's loans from Countrywide and Mr. Holder's involvement as Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration in the pardon of fugitive Marc Rich. Said Mr. Obama: "Everybody, you know, who is tangentially related to our campaign, I think, is going to have a whole host of relationships. I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters."
This type of dismissive response to the campaign's growing list of corrupt allies, policy 180s, and broken promises is troubling at best and self-destructive at worst. Sen. Obama called himself "bone headed" for buying property at a discount from developer Tony Rezko. He should have sold the property back to Rezko for what he paid for it and repurchased it at market value.
Before he realized he could raise record amounts of money, Obama promised to accept federal financing for his campaign. Now that he's secured the nomination, he won't respond to Sen. McCain's calls to live up to that pledge. As reported by the New York Times, Obama outright lied to an Iowa audience this winter about passing a nuclear regulatory bill that never passed the U.S. Senate. Then, he accepted nearly a quarter-million dollars in campaign contributions from nuclear industry executives, while they lobbied him on the bill. What is the difference between that and accepting registered lobbyists' PAC money?
When is the GOP and when are the mainstream media going to notice? The Wall Street Journal is a good starting point.
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Obama's Indictment
Obama will shortly be indicted under 18 USC 1346, which is the same provision under which Rezko was convicted.
There will be MANY counts in Obama's indictment, more than there were in Rezko's. This will give you details about one of the indictments, concerning the board legislation which Obama sponsored as part of a criminal enterprise. Both Rezko and Obama are members of the Syrian Mafia, which trades--corporately--under the name General Mediterranean and is headed by NadhmiAuchi.
I don't think I need to add that if Obama is elected, the Syrian mafia will be running the United States Government. Patrick Fitzgerald, hurry up.
Below is a discussion of the board legislation by Evelyn Pringle, who published a very detailed series on Obama's crimes at opednews.com. These articles have been cited around the world.
Following her discussion is a link to a discussion, also reproduced, of 18 USC 1346, which, again is the section under which Obama will be prosecuted.
First, Evelyn's discussion:
The evidence presented in "Tony Rezko's] trial focused on his influence over officials in getting members appointed to the Boards. Prosecutors did not discuss how the legislation got passed that enabled the Planning Board to be set up in a way that allowed for the appointment of members to rig the votes to begin with. That part of the scheme will likely be detailed in future indictments, probably starting with Blagojevich. Blagojevich signed the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Act with an effective date of June 27, 2003. However, before he could sign the act, a bill had to be passed by the Illinois House and Senate. As discussed fully in Curtain Time Part II, Obama was the inside guy in the senate who pushed through the legislation that resulted in the Act. Obama was appointed chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. The minute the bill was introduced, it was referred to his committee for review. The sponsors of the bill also served on this committee with Obama. Within a month, Chairman Obama sent word to the full senate that the legislation should be passed. On May 31, 2003, Senate Bill 1332 passed and specified that the “Board shall be appointed by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate." The legislation reduced the number of members from 15 to 9, paving the way for the appointment of a five-bloc majority to rig the votes. The corrupt members appointed included three doctors who contributed to Obama. Michel Malek gave Obama $10,000 on June 30, 2003 and donated $25,000 to Blagojevich on July 25, 2003. Malek also gave Obama another $500 in September 2003. Fortunee Massuda donated $25,000 to Blagojevich on July 25, 2003, and gave a total of $2,000 to Obama on different dates. After he was appointed, Dr Imad Almanaseer contributed a total of $3,000 to Obama. Almanaseer did not give money to Blagojevich. When the first pay-to-play scheme was put in play, and the application for approval of a new hospital was submitted, the Department of Human Services, along with four other Illinois agencies, sent recommendations that the project should be approved even though experts said the hospital was not needed. During the trial, Rezko’s attorney presented an email exchange to the jury that hinted at Obama's role in setting up the scheme. The exchange showed that Obama and seven other top Illinois politicians consulted on the legislation passed in 2003 and were involved in recommending the members for the board. Matthew Pickering wrote the memo to Blagojevich’s general counsel, Susan Lichtenstein, on behalf of David Wilhelm, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who headed Blagojevich's 2002 campaign for governor. Pickering said he and Wilhelm had “worked closely” over six months with state legislators. The memo recommended the appointees listed above and stated, “our attached recommendations reflect that involvement” with the political leaders. The persons appointed to rig the votes, including those who contributed to Blagojevich and Obama, are cooperating in exchange for immunity or lighter prison sentences. Feds shut down pay-to-play schemes. Only two pay-to-play schemes succeeded before the Feds swooped in and shut them all down. Blagojevich did not receive the $1.5 million from the Planning Board deal because the hospital was never built. But Obama received $20,000 from the first kickback paid in the pension fund scheme and the straw donors used to funnel the $10,000 payments, Elie Maloof and Joseph Aramanda, also made $1,000 contributions to Obama's failed run for Congress in 2000. In addition, Aramanda gave $500 to Obama's senate campaign on June 30, 2003. In the summer of 2005, Aramanda's son landed an intern position in Obama's Washington office. Obama also received contributions for his senate campaign from the two persons appointed to rig the vote on the pension fund board. On June 30, 2003, Jack Carriglio contributed $1,000, and the other appointee, Anthony Abboud, donated $500 on June 30, 2003, $250 on March 5, 2004, and $1,000 on June 25, 2004. The person chosen to funnel the kickback in a future scheme, Michael Winter, donated $3,000 to Obama on June 30, 2003. All these people are also cooperating in exchange for immunity or lesser prison sentences but prosecutors pointed out during closing arguments that people who entered into agreements with the government are required to tell the truth or all deals are off.
And now the discussion of the law under which Obama will go to prison, 18 USC 1346:
groom.com.
This article provides brief guidance as to the manner in which courts have interpreted 18 U.S.C. § 1346, which generally provides that for purposes of federal mail and wire fraud statutes (18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1343, respectively), a "scheme or artifice to defraud" includes a "scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right to honest services." Specifically, this article examines the manner in which courts have interpreted the broad language of § 1346 in circumstances that do not involve the explicit bribery of public officials.
I.
Background
18 U.S.C. § 1346 was enacted in 1988, for purposes of reversing the Supreme Court's decision in McNally v. U.S.,483 U.S. 350 (1987). In McNally, the Supreme Court overruled a long line of lower court decisions by holding that the federal mail and wire fraud statutes did not encompass schemes to defraud citizens of an intangible right to honest government service from pubic officers. Id. at 355. By enacting 18 U.S.C. § 1346, Congress restored "honest services" within the ambit of the federal mail and wire fraud statutes, meaning that a scheme to deprive the public of "honest services" by a public official could be punished as mail or wire fraud (assuming, of course, that such an instrumentality was used as part of the scheme or artifice).
II.
Judicial Interpretations of the "Honest Services" Fraud
A.
General Parameters of the Statute
Not surprisingly, the majority of cases that have analyzed the "honest services" fraud set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 1346 have involved the bribery of public officials, where the charge under § 1346 is in addition to other charges. However, there have been numerous prosecutions under § 1346 against public officials (and those who have corrupted public officials) for transactions that do not involve outright bribery, but which nonetheless involve the provision of cash or gifts to a public official in exchange for the public official's exercise of power on behalf of the individual or entity providing the gratuity.
Courts have recognized that the term "honest services," as used in § 1346, is incredibly broad, but the statute has survived repeated challenges asserting that it is unconstitutionally vague, with courts resorting to a "common sense" usage of the phrase "honest services." In rejecting a constitutional void-for-vagueness challenge to the statute's wording, one court opined that "[c]oncrete parameters outlining the duty of honest services should not be necessary. . . . The concept of the duty of honest services sufficiently conveys warning of the proscribed conduct when measured in terms of common understanding and practice." U.S. v. ReBrook, 837 F. Supp. 162, 171 (S.D. W. Va. 1993), aff'd. 58 F.3d 961 (4 th Cir. 1995). Another court demonstrated little patience for the defendant's void-for-vagueness challenge in the context of a kickback scheme, holding that "t should be plain to ordinary people that offering and accepting large sums of money in exchange for a city councilman's vote is a type of conduct proscribed by the language of § 1346." U.S. v. Paradies, 98 F.3d 1266, 1283 (11 th Cir. 1996). Nonetheless, courts have refused to allow § 1346 to be used as a "catch-all" that subjects every unethical or illegal act to federal mail and wire fraud prosecution. See, e.g., U.S. v. Bloom, 149 F.3d 649, 654-56 (7 th
Cir. 1998) (noting, inter alia, that "not every breach of fiduciary duty works a criminal fraud"); U.S. v. Welch, 327 F.3d 1081, 1107 (10 th Cir. 2003) ("the right to honest services is not violated by every breach of contract, breach of duty, conflict of interest, or misstatement made in the course of dealing"). Recognizing the difficulty of interpreting the undefined phrase "honest services," courts have attempted to establish general criteria that must be satisfied to successfully assert an "honest services" fraud claim. One of the leading circuits interpreting the scope of the honest services fraud is the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that: First, . . . honest services convictions of public officials typically involve serious corruption, such as embezzlement of public funds, bribery of public officials, or the failure of public decision-makers to disclose conflicts of interest. Second, . . . the broad scope of the mail fraud statute . . . does not encompass every instance of official misconduct that results in the official's personal gain. Third, and most importantly, . . . the government must not merely indicate wrongdoing by a public official, but must also demonstrate that the wrongdoing at issue is intended to prevent or call into question the proper or impartial performance of the public servant's official duties. U.S. v. Czubinski, 106 F.3d 1069, 1076 (1 st Cir. 1997) (emphasis added) (internal citations and quotations omitted), (discussing the First Circuit's prior decision in U.S. v. Sawyer, 85 F.3d 713, 724 (1996). The Seventh Circuit has held that "[m]isuse of office (more broadly, misuse of position) for private gain is the line that separates run of the mill violations of state law fiduciary duty . . . from federal crime." U.S. v. Bloom, 149 F.3d 649, 655 (7 th Cir. 1998). The court went on to note that "in almost all of the intangible rights cases decided . . . (before McNally or since § 1346), the defendant used his office for private gain, as by accepting a bribe in exchange for official action[,]" but also noted that "[s]ecret conversion of information received in a fiduciary capacity is a form of fraud against the owner of that information." Id. Accordingly, the Seventh Circuit summarized its test for an honest services fraud as follows: "[a]n employee deprives his employer of his honest services only if he misuses his position (or the information he obtained in it) for personal gain" (emphasis added). Id. at 656-57.
John Ryskamp of CA
Jun 11, 2008 14:57:34 PM [permalink] [report comment]
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