Cleaning The Swamp

The Democrats swept into power in 2006 on the promise of 'cleaning the swamp', ostensibly by getting rid of all that nasty corruption in the Republican party.  Let's see how well it's going:

DSCC Chair arrested for bank fraud

Hassan Nemazee was more recently a heavy donor and bundler for both the Clinton and Obama Presidential campaigns, bringing in over half a million for the new President; he was also a major bundler for the Presidential Inaugural.

NY Businessman Charged With $74 Million Bank Fraud Against Citigroup

A New York man was charged with allegedly defrauding Citigroup Inc. (C) out of $74 million in loans.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan and the Federal Bureau of Investigations say Hassan Nemazee, with residences in Manhattan and Katonah, N.Y., fraudulently applied for the loans for Nemazee Capital Corp., of which he is chairman and chief executive.

Federal prosecutors contend Nemazee obtained the money by giving the banking giant "numerous documents that purported to establish the existence of accounts in Nemazee's name at various financial institutions containing many hundreds of millions of dollars," the Justice Department said in a statement. "In fact, those were fraudulent and forged documents."

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee underestimates his assets by half

Rangel's amended disclosure statement for 2007 reports new assets worth between $647,000 and $1.38 million. That raises the value of his holdings to between $1.03 million and $2.95 million.

Assets missing from Rangel's original 2007 disclosure, filed in May 2008, include a Congressional Federal Credit Union IRA worth between $250,001 and $500,000; four mutual fund accounts worth between $365,004 and $750,000, and PepsiCo and Yum! Brands stock valued between $16,002 and $65,000.

...A Rangel source said there are "good explanations" for why Rangel didn't report those holdings and "he'll answer those questions in due time" - after the House ethics committee completes its nearly year-long probe of the powerful Democratic Ways and Means Committee chairman.

"The congressman is confident there was no effort to hide anything," the source added.

This guy is one of the key architects of Obamacare, which will control roughly 17% of the entire American economy.  What if he underestimates the cost of Obamacare by half...?


'Justice' Department kills probe of Dem. Bill Richardson

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former high-ranking members of his administration won't be criminally charged in a yearlong federal investigation into pay-to-play allegations involving one of the Democratic governor's large political donors, someone familiar with the case said.

The decision not to pursue indictments was made by top Justice Department officials, according to a person familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be identified because federal officials had not disclosed results of the probe.

"It's over. There's nothing. It was killed in Washington," the person told The Associated Press.

Maybe he's a member of the Black Panthers.  The 'Justice' Department let them get away, too.


Chairman of Senate Banking Committee continues hiding documents from sweetheart mortgages

So I call the Senate Ethics Committee "a joke" on the Corner for not pursuing the "Friends of Angelo" mortgage scandal, and a half an hour later they announce they're dissmissing the charges against Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad.

Oh and by the way, it's been 378 days since Chris Dodd promised to release all his mortgage paperwork to the public for examination. He still hasn't made good on that promise. Regardless of whether the Ethics Committee has cleared him, if Dodd really had nothing to hide he'd release the mortgage documents already.

It's a group thing in New Mexico...

The former Secretary of State and several top Democrats were indicted today in New Mexico.
The ABQ News reported, via Free Republic:

Former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, Democratic Party consultant Armando Gutierrez and lobbyists Elizabeth and Joseph Carl Kupfer were indicted Wednesday on 50 counts each of conspiracy, fraud, embezzlement, money laundering over $100,000 and other charges for alleged acts occurring from 2004 through 2006.

The four, who are named in separate indictments filed Wednesday afternoon in Bernalillo County District court, also are charged with making or permitting false public vouchers, making or taking kickbacks and tampering with evidence. The evidence-tampering charge stems from a "memorandum" back-dated to Sept. 2, 2004, "fabricated" with the intent of avoiding prosecution, the indictments say.

Inspector General agrees: Nancy Pelosi lied about CIA interrogations

The IG report belies House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claims that she wasn't told about all this. "In the fall of 2002, the Agency briefed the leadership of the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of both standard techniques and EITs. . . . Representatives . . . continued to brief the leadership of the Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of EITs and detentions in February and March 2003. The [CIA] General Counsel says that none of the participants expressed any concern about the techniques or the Program . . . ." Ditto in September 2003.

Whew!  It's a good thing that Democrats are back in charge, isn't it?  We might be in trouble if they hadn't cleaned things up.

There's my two cents.