Showing posts with label Preetinder Bharara. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Preetinder Bharara. Show all posts

Thursday, August 28, 2014

de Blasio continues support of Cuomo reelection, in spite of NYTimes non-endorsement

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio today reiterated his continued support for Gov. Andrew Cuomo's reelection campaign, even though the governor was denied the endorsement of the powerful Editorial Board of The New York Times in the upcoming Democratic Party gubernatorial primary.

For months, Gov. Cuomo has appeared to be a person of interest to federal prosecutors, as the U.S. Attorney's Office for New York's southern district investigate the unfinished files of the now-defunct Moreland Commission and the role of Cuomo administration officials in thwarting the panel's investigations. In July, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara issued a warning letter to Moreland Commission members, asking that his office be kept informed if Gov. Cuomo or other administration officials try to influence the public statements by former commissioners in respect of the panel's record of performance.

In the time since Gov. Cuomo took action regarding the Moreland Commission to "shut the whole thing down," political bloggers and government reform activists have been expecting that possible federal criminal charges could be brought against senior Cuomo administration officials, if not against Gov. Cuomo himself. It remains to be known how could Mayor de Blasio continue to support Gov. Cuomo's campaign if Gov. Cuomo is potentially exposed to impending federal criminal charges, some political bloggers wonder.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Former Members of do-nothing Moreland Commission will receive taxpayer-paid criminal legal defense representation

Even investigators of rampant corruption need legal counsel to fend off investigations of corruption, how's that for government integrity ?

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has arranged for Michael Koenig, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Hinckley, Allen & Snyder LLP, a law firm specializing in government investigations, to represent the former members of the do-nothing, now-defunct Moreland Commission. Taxpayers will pay for Mr. Koenig's representation of the Moreland Commission ex-members.

Once empaneled, the members of the Moreland Commission were nominally tasked with investigating runaway political and campaign finance corruption across New York State, but the Moreland Commission never, ever -- not once -- prosecuted any crime. In the run-up to his re-election campaign this year, Gov. Cuomo disbanded the Moreland Commission, before it exposed any corruption that would embarrass him during a gubernatorial election year that may determine whether he will ever be popular enough to run in 2016 for president of the United States, a victorious dream that eluded his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, in part, some say, because of potential controversies in Andrew's young adulthood.

It was reported earlier that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara had empaneled a grand jury, which was issuing subpoenas right and left, from Manhattan all the way up to Albany, for records of what exactly the do-nothing members of the Moreland Commission actually did. A member of the Editorial Board of The New York Times, Eleanor Randolph, had previously complained that the Moreland Commission's first interim report was watered down to the point of being practically meaningless. That the members of the Moreland Commission believe that they need criminal defense representation has led some legal observers in the New York City activism circles to conclude that perhaps federal prosecutors were obligated to go on the record about possible forthcoming criminal indictments.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Schneiderman Scrambling To Arrest Corrupted Officials Before Federal Prosecutor Hands Down Embarrassing Grand Jury Indictments [UPDATED]

PUBLISHED : WED, 07 MAY 2014, 05:54 PM
UPDATED : SUN, 11 MAY 2014, 06:00 AM

Shirley Huntley Ruben Wills Christine Quinn Corruption photo Ruben-Wills-Christine-Quinn-Shirley-Huntley_zps3d97d1d8.png

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman Finally Gets Around To Arresting Councilmember Ruben Wills On Investigation That Is Over Two Years Old

With federal prosecutors hot on a corruption crackdown across New York state, the state's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, today arrested New York City Councilmember Ruben Wills on a charge of misusing some of the proceeds of a $33,000 state grant to New York 4 Life, a charity the councilmember managed.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schniederman and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara photo Eric-Schneiderman-Preet-Bharara_zpsc8b4f9e3.jpg

The $33,000 grant to Councilmember Wills' charity was sponsored by former New York State Sen. Shirley Huntley in 2008. Two years ago, Councilmember Wills' charity refused to fully comply with a subpoena issued by the state's top prosecutor's office, forcing state prosecutors to file a court motion to compel the charity to comply. After that, the state's case went dormant. During this time, Gov. Andrew Cuomo formed an anti-corruption panel to great fanfare, but the governor ditched the panel as soon as it appeared that the panel would investigate the governor's own questionable political supporters. Recently, the outrage by good government groups and government reform activists reached such a fevered pitch at the government's inept prosecution of corruption that the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, took over the corruption investigations of the now-defunct anti-corruption panel, known as a Moreland Commission. In the time since the feds took over, Mr. Bharara has empaneled a grand jury, obtaining subpoenas for corruption records. As government reform activists await possible grand jury indictments, all of a sudden the state's attorney general has begun to look busy. One fruit from Mr. Schneiderman's scurrying efforts was today's arrest of Councilmember Wills.

But Councilmember Wills' corruption arrest is complicated by many factors. One of the publicly-elected officials, who State Sen. Shirley Huntley was asked to wiretap and photograph as part of an undercover FBI sting operation on political corruption, was Councilmember Wills, according to Politicker. Prior to that, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn endorsed Councilmember Wills for re-election one day after he had appeared in court to face a misdemeanor stealing charge. Councilmember Wills earned his incumbency on the City Council in a special election in southeast Queens in 2010 to succeed Thomas White, who died in August in 2010, and Councilmember Wills was re-elected in 2011 to continue to serve the remainder of White’s four-year term. Councilmember Wills later appeared in court in March 2011 on charges in connection with a 1996 incident. He was accused of damaging a wall and removing a fan and track lighting at a downtown business.

After Councilmember Wills' March 2011 court appearance, Speaker Quinn defended Councilmember Wills. "I'm extraordinarily proud of my City Council and proud of the members that I get to serve with every day on behalf of the people of the City of New York," she told The New York Daily News at the time.

In spite of Councilmember Wills' troubles, Speaker Quinn had awarded Councilmember Wills $584,000 in discretionary funding in the city's 2012 budget.

That Councilmember Wills is being singled out in the attorney general's sudden efforts to catch up with the state's long backlog of corruption investigations is troublesome. As has been noted by others, it can sometimes appear that state and federal prosecutors seem to obsess with the petty crimes of minority politicians, which conveniently allows larger corruption scandals to go uninvestigated and unprosecuted. It doesn't help when the media portrays the political corruption problem as only being isolated to Queens, for example. Corruption is a bigger problem, and the bigger corruption scandals rarely receive the kind of scrutiny as petty crimes. Councilmember Wills was arrested for allegedly misusing the proceeds of a $33,000 state grant. Former Sen. Huntley is serving a one-year prison sentence in connection with the misuse of $80,000 in tax payer money. Meanwhile, there's still no update on whatever happened to the corruption probe into how Aqueduct Entertainment Group landed a multibillion-dollar casino contract. But in that AEG probe, two more black leaders, State Sens. John Sampson and Malcolm Smith, appear to be targets. Each of Sens. Sampson and Smith are also being investigated in connection with still yet other corruption charges. Another possible corruption scandal in Queens, a questionable $20 million construction project by the Queens Public Library, will probably drag on for years before any indictments or arrests are made. State Sen. Jose Peralta, another minority leader from Queens, is the subject of a possible corruption investigation that is almost five years old involving over $500,000 in taxpayer money that was funneled to Corona-Elmhurst Center for Economic Development, a dormant non-profit organization. No arrest or indictment has yet to be made in connection with state Sen. Peralta's non-profit. Moreover, there's also been no update into an alleged investigation into the awarding in January 2010 of a $50 million voting machine contract to Election Systems & Software by New York City election officials. The new voting machines turned out to be an embarrassment to city officials, when it was revealed that the new machines would be unable to timely tally votes for the primary and general elections, even though they are "electronic" machines, forcing New York City elections officials to drag out clunky voting booths that work with levers, pulleys, and wheels in the last mayoral primary election. Even after the $2 billion fiasco that is the ECTP 911 emergency call EMS system that keeps crashing over and over -- and over again -- there's still no investigation into cost over-runs, failures, or other possible wrong-doing. Also pending is the outcome of the city's investigation into the corrupt campaign spending by Super PAC's administered by one lobbying firm, The Advance Group. And all there is, is silence about the other corrupt Super PAC's from last year's municipal elections.

While the attorney general follows up on the missing $33,000 that Councilmember Wills cannot fully explain, there are millions and billions of taxpayer dollars in outstanding corruption investigations, and allegations that may call into question the integrity of our entire election system, that appear to be going cold. This pile-up of corruption cases proves that city and state prosecutors are inept at fully investigating political corruption. Instead, state and local prosecutors just looked the other way, and the incidence of corruption just kept piling on up until nothing less than a dedicated Moreland Commission would be needed to flush all this corruption out of the system. But since Gov. Cuomo scuttled the Moreland Commission, now the task of prosecuting all this corruption lands on the laps of the U.S Attorney's Office. Indeed, federal prosecutors received the files of about two dozen possible investigations from the now-defunct Moreland Commission that city and state investigators never got around to worrying about before now. When the governor first formed the Moreland Commission, the press never asked why lazy city and state prosecutors had allowed corruption to grow to become a stage 4 cancer on our government. Once the feds excise this cancer of corruption from our body of government, will we have enough good officials left to right this ship ? After all this is over, one of the first things voters should demand is for the elected officials to determine why did the state's attorney general and all of the district attorneys let corruption become so out-of-control in New York in the first place. Prosecutors should also determine the legality of allowing government officials to subvert the conduct of the public's business by elected officials, who use private e-mail services to hide the government's official work from the reach of sunshine laws, a tactic embraced by Gov. Cuomo. The shady use of private e-mail accounts to subvert the reach of freedom of information laws or the discovery process of litigation is a practise typical on Wall Street and their big money law firms. Now, Gov. Cuomo has apparently rolled out this shadowy machination to New York state government. Gov. Cuomo's pattern of political subterfuge may have contributed to the failure of the Moreland Commission to refer any criminal case for prosecution before its disbanding, and the appearance of sabotage is said to be being the focus of federal prosecutors. Government reform activists privately hope that Gov. Cuomo's interference with the doomed Moreland Commission can meet the legal definition of obstruction of justice, opening the door to a political pressure point to force government reforms, if not at least to give federal prosecutors additional evidence to hand down indictments against more crooked politicians, who are responsible for enabling political corruption in New York state government.

Andrew Cuomo photo andrew-cuomo-smiles-jpg-alg_zps9d0cdc97.jpg

In the meantime, Speaker Quinn's successor, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito has indicated that she will not allow Councilmember Wills to decide the fate of his slice of this year's City Council slush funds. Instead, her office will decide where his allocation of the discretionary funding will go, in consultation with the chair of the Queens Councilmembers' delegation. At all costs, the Council Speaker's office is intent on keeping its councilmember slush fund. Even though many officials have been charged with fraud in connection with the misuse of the City Council's discretionary funds, the corrupted elected officials are too addicted to the power that comes from doling out these grants.

Last year, former Council Speaker Quinn approved the disbursement of $3.2 million in member items requested by Councilmember Dan Halloran, even though the councilmember had been charged in a conspiracy and bribery scheme relating to his member items. In the criminal complaint against him, Councilmember Halloran suggested to an undercover FBI agent that Councilmember Halloran could increase the size of the discretionary funds he was using as a bribe by calling in favours from other councilmembers. For all the corruption that the City Council did to hide the speaker's multimillion-dollar slush fund, former Speaker Quinn herself was never prosecuted.

With millions and billions in taxpayer dollars at stake in uninvestigated political corruption, law enforcement under the de Blasio administration continues to focus on NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton's obsession with his "broken windows theory" of policing. Instead of focusing on the "criminal networks" of political corruption and corporate corruption, law enforcement instead over-police the poor and people of color, targeting them, amongst other places, on public transportation systems of subways and buses, a regressive move that may violate the Civil Rights Act.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Preet Bharara Expands Crackdown on Political Corruption, Empanels Grand Jury, Subpoenas JCOPE Complaints [UPDATED]

PUBLISHED : WED, 30 APR 2014, 09:51 PM
UPDATED : TUES, 05 MAY 2014, 10:30 AM

"Bharara’s broadening probe of pay-to-play Albany corruption is sure to send shockwaves through the state capital in an election year."

preet bharara photo: Preet Bharara - The Only Policeman In New York State Preet-Bharara-dbpix-henning-tmagArticle-NYTimes_zpsaf6e1719.jpg

Weeks after Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, took possession of the investigation files of the now defunct Moreland Commission, the corruption-fighting prosecutor has empaneled a grand jury that has now subpoenaed each of the complaints lodged with the state's ethics panel known as the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, or JCOPE, and the records from members of the aborted Moreland Commission.

Mr. Bharara's subpoena of the JCOPE complaints will give him a larger understanding of the corruption landscape across New York state. JCOPE has existed since 2011, and it was tasked with investigating ethics complaints of the state's executive and legislative branches. Against the JCOPE complaints, the federal prosecutor's office will be able to match, supplement, or cross-reference the aborted Moreland Commission investigations. And the fact that Mr. Bharara empaneled a grand jury means that federal prosecutors are seeking criminal indictments in possible connection with the aborted Moreland Commission corruption investigations. Whatever the USAO learns from the JCOPE complaints and commission member records may be the "icing on the cake," so to speak, to garnish other corruption evidence that federal prosecutors may have been able to independently gather from prior wiretaps, other investigations, and possible whistleblower-activists.

The U.S. Attorney's Office has been resoundingly criticized for the apparent free pass to Wall Street following the 2008 global financial crisis and recession. The media, notably PBS's Frontline, showed that the U.S. Department of Justice's Washington office, known as Main Justice, was compromised by officials, such as Lanny Breuer, who refused to prosecute top Wall Street executives. Even Attorney General Eric Holder, who oversees the DOJ and advises the USAO's district offices, created a scandal when he confirmed the Obama administration's aversion to prosecuting corrupt Wall Street executives, known colloquially as "too big to jail," validating a Frontline investigation and widespread public perception. Indeed, Main Justice appears to serve as a revolving door recruitment outpost for large, wealthy law firms representing corrupt Wall Street executives. For his part, Mr. Bharara has bemoaned the Washington budget cuts to the USAO that many government reform activists claim are intentionally made to curtail regulatory oversight and criminal prosecution of corruption, but some activists believe that Mr. Bharara never prosecuted Wall Street corruption stemming from the 2008 financial crisis and recession due to his close ties to Sen. Charles Schumer, who many see as enabling the corruption culture on Wall Street. Mr. Bharara's political career came to prominence when he served as chief counsel to Sen. Schumer, making the senator the prosecutor's "political daddy." Mr. Bharara has also carried out his own oppression against whistleblowers when he prosecuted Jeremy Hammond for exposing corruption by Strategic Forecasting, part of the DOJ's larger persecution of whistleblowers, including government whistleblowers. The DOJ was further seen to have become politicized under President Obama and Attorney General Holder, when the DOJ began to target journalists in an effort to undermine a free press whilst carrying out the government's vindictive prosecution of whistleblowers. Separately, the DOJ was shown to stall a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records about its vindictive prosecution of activists.

Locally, it is supposed to be the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, who is supposed to oversee the criminal prosecution of political and corporate corruption. He works for the New York State attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. Both D.A. Vance and Mr. Schneiderman have pretty much abdicated corruption prosecution to Mr. Bharara. More so than the others, D.A. Vance is vulnerable to the political realities of how he can run for office. District attorneys in the five boroughs of New York run for office with the approval of the local county political organization. Since New York is overwhelmingly a Democratic Party enclave, the county Democratic Party chair of each borough must approve of each respective district attorney candidate running for office, meaning D.A. Vance would not dare sacrifice his political career by prosecuting political corruption of officials, operatives, or lobbyists loyal to the county political organization that approves of his candidacy. That is to say, D.A. Vance will not prosecute candidates for public office, who may be engaged in questionable electioneering activities and who run with approval of the Manhattan Democratic Party chair, otherwise he risks alienating himself from his own political supporters. Instead, D.A. Vance touts his prosecution record against activists, paralleling the DOJ's own suppression campaign against activists.

Mr. Bharara's crackdown on political corruption may be his way of being able to attack the special interest money and lobbyists of large corrupt corporations, at least as they intersect with government officials, one activist said. Plus, it allows him to restore his reputation for prosecutorial independence after his and others' failures at the USAO and the DOJ. It also separates Mr. Bharara from D.A. Vance's failure to prosecute corruption of either Wall Street or elected officials.

The increased prosecution of New York political corruption cases by Mr. Bharara is taking place during the run-up to this year's state-wide election cycle, and it follows a spectacular spree of federal political corruption arrests of officials from City Hall to Albany. With the added access to JCOPE complaints and commission member records to augment his trove of Moreland Commission investigation files, Mr. Bharara may now be poised to lead a historical renewal of government integrity, regardless of his motivation. For all of Mr. Bharara's imperfections, activists in New York have not pressed the Obama administration to reform the USAO and the DOJ. Mr. Bharara's like Batman in "The Dark Knight" : not the hero that Gotham needs, but, rather, the hero Gotham deserves.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

The Nexus of Campaign Donations, Super PAC's, and Legislation : de Blasio's Mayoral Race and the Delayed Horse-Drawn Carriage Ban [UPDATED]

3 Back-to-Back Days of Sordid Coverage in The New York Daily News


SPECIAL NEWS UPDATE: SUN, 27 APR 2014, 08:00 AM
Christine Quinn FBI Investigation de Blasio NY-CLASS Scott Levenson photo 2014-04-27ChristineQuinnFBIInvestigationdeBlasioNY-CLASSScottLevenson_zps2fb7d5ad.png

The FBI questioned ex-Council Speaker Christine Quinn in its probe of alleged carriage horse conniving during last year’s mayoral race, The New York Daily News has learned. (FBI asks Christine Quinn about vicious attack ads launches by animal rights group, probes de Blasio's flip-flop on carriage ban as inquiry widens. * The New York Daily News)


SPECIAL NEWS UPDATE: FRI, 25 APR 2014, 11:30 PM
NY-CLASS Bill de Blasio The Advance Group John Wilhelm FBI Campaign Corruption Investigation photo 2014-04-25FBIInvestigationSpreadingNYCLASSdeBlasioCousin_zps7160dd53.png

FBI agents have been questioning people about each of the pledge then mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio made in March 2013 and the ads launched the following month by animal rights activists attacking former Council Speaker Christine Quinn (far right), The New York Daily News is reporting, adding that FBI agents also appear interested in a $175,000 contribution to the animal rights group NY-CLASS from a union tied to de Blasio's cousin, labor leader John Wilhelm (center). (FBI investigation of mayoral race includes Bill de Blasio's pledge to ban carriage horses * The New York Daily News)


SPECIAL NEWS UPDATE: FRI, 25 APR 2014, 09:50 AM
Scott Levenson NY-CLASS Christine Quinn Bill de Blasio FBI Investigation into Campaign Corruption photo 2014-04-25TheNewYorkDailyNewsFBIReport_zps189d95ac.png

In the past few weeks, FBI agents have been asking questions about the campaign by the animal rights group NY-CLASS to strong arm former Council Speaker Christine Quinn (center) to support a ban on the iconic horse-drawn carriages, two sources familiar with the matter told The New York Daily News. The horse lobbyists in question include Scott Levenson, and they are linked to Mayor Bill de Blasio (inset). This isn't Mr. Levenson's first time in the crosshairs of a serious political corruption investigation. Five years ago, Mr. Levenson was an official of ACORN, a community group that was charged with voter registration fraud. (FBI investigating claim that Christine Quinn was threatened by Scott Levenson for refusing to support carriage horse ban during the mayoral race * The New York Daily News)


PUBLISHED : WED, 23 APR 2014, 11:00 AM
UPDATED : TUES, 29 APR 2014, 09:35 AM

On Richard French Live, Andrew Whitman, Dominic Carter, Jeanne Zaino, and former Rep. Chris Shays engaged in a round table discussion about the controversial role of a Super PAC in last year's mayoral election that has cast a lingering shadow in the current discussions on a delayed proposed ban of horse-drawn carriages in New York City.

What is truly delaying the horse-drawn carriage ban : is it the lack of a draft legislative bill, or is it the federal definition of bribery ?

 photo bribery_zps009200f9.jpg

Two weeks ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that his planned ban of the horse carriage industry in New York City has been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, but the circumstances he identified did not include the investigation into the lobbyist Scott Levenson and his lobbying firm, The Advance Group.

The Advance Group is at the center of an investigation by city campaign finance regulators over the circuitous flow of campaign cash between Super PAC's and official campaigns administered by The Advance Group. But many government reform activists do not have confidence in the city's campaign finance regulatory authority, the Campaign Finance Board. The Campaign Finance Board is governed by a Board that routinely makes politically-motivated rulings. For example, last year former Council Speaker Christine Quinn returned what were believed to be $25,000 in straw donations connected to the corruption case of William Rapfogel, and just last week the de Blasio campaign offered to return illegal straw campaign donations -- an option the Campaign Finance Board never gave Mr. de Blasio's challenger, former city Comptroller John Liu, over the same infraction. Few reform activists believe that the Campaign Finance Board's chair, Rose Gill Hearn, who let the massive CityTime fraud scandal exceed $600 million on her watch as head of the city's Department of Investigation, is capable of carrying out thorough corruption investigations of any kind. Cementing the impression that the city campaign finance regulatory authority is incapable of investigating possible campaign corruption at City Hall is the fact that the authority's board is appointed by the mayor and the City Council speaker. Consequently, a blogger filed a civilian crime report with the U.S. Attorney's Office, asking federal prosecutors to investigate the electioneering activities of The Advance Group for possible federal crimes. Mr. Levenson has close ties to both the mayor and to the City Council speaker, and Mr. Levenson administered a million dollar Super PAC to defeat former Council Speaker Christine Quinn's mayoral campaign at the same time when the Super PAC's donors were seen to be closely allied with Mr. de Blasio's mayoral campaign. It is against federal law for Super PAC's to coordinate their independent expenditures with the political campaigns of candidates, but The New York Daily News reported this week that last summer two of Mr. de Blasio's top financial supporters contributed a total of $225,000 to NY-CLASS -- on the same day.

John Wilhelm, cousin to Bill de Blasio photo JohnWilhelm_zps25ae64d5.jpg

"One of the givers was his cousin, John Wilhelm, then head of the union group UNITE HERE!, which wrote out a check for $175,000 to NYCLASS — the biggest contribution NYCLASS had ever received. The other was Jay Eisenhoffer, an attorney. Wilhelm and Eisenhoffer both acted as 'intermediaries' for de Blasio’s campaign, collecting $165,000 for him, records show," The New York Daily News reported.

melissa mark viverito photo: New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito MelissaMark-Viverito-Frown-mmv2e-1-web_zps61f81731.jpg

Equally troubling for Mr. Levenson and his lobbying firm is that they provided free lobbying services for Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign at the same time when Mr. Levenson, along with his Super PAC's and their donors, were pressing for the city to enact a horse-drawn carriage ban. Under federal law, if a lobbyist pays money or makes a gift to an elected official and asks for a favor of the elected official, that's enough to prove a bribe has been transacted. On or about the time when The Advance Group was advising Councilmember Mark-Viverito on her speakership campaign, Councilmember Mark-Viverito established a campaign finance account with the state campaign finance regulatory authority, the Board of Elections, in betrayal of the spirit of campaign finance laws which act to minimize the corruptive role of money in politics. Prior to opening the Board of Elections account, Councilmember Mark-Viverito had already drawn down an entire fundraising cycle of regulated campaign contributions, subjects to fundraising caps, spending limits, and public matching dollar eligibility, in order to win her reëlection to the City Council. Her opening of a second campaign account through the Board of Elections was unprecedented. No law was changed to allow Councilmember Mark-Viverito to establish her Council speakership campaign finance account with the Board of Elections, and it is believed that her predecessor, former Council Speaker Christine Quinn, as corrupt as many activists believed Ms. Quinn to be, never flagrantly violated the spirit of campaign finance laws to this same extreme degree. Moreover, the free lobbying services provided by The Advance Group to Councilmember Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign were never declared as in-kind contributions to the Campaign Finance Board or to the Board of Elections, even though the law requires that donations of services or other gifts to campaign committees must be declared and disclosed. Perhaps to further deceive campaign finance regulators, Councilmember Mark-Viverito publicly announced that she had fired The Advance Group from her speakership campaign after The Advance Group became engulfed in a series of corruption investigations by bloggers and mainstream media, but the truth is that The Advance Group kept working on her speakership campaign, contrary to Councilmember Mark-Viverito's statements to the press. NY-CLASS has a long history with Councilmember Mark-Viverito, stretching back to at least 2010, when she co-sponsored legislation pushed by NY-CLASS to phase out the horse-drawn carriages.

Now that The Advance Group faces at the prospect of more than one investigation into its questionable electioneering activities, the mayor and the Council speaker have delayed the enactment of the horse-drawn carriage ban in a political move some consider to be a possible cover-up of the quid pro quo nature of the crucial roles that The Advance Group's Super PAC monies and its free lobbying services played in the election of the mayor and the selection of the Council speaker, respectively.

To manufacture a delay in the horse carriage ban bill, Councilmember Daniel Dromm has been nominally tasked with the bill's drafting, striking back at Queens Democratic Party officials with whom he broke during the Council speaker race

Queens Democrats have historically supported the horse carriage industry, at least since the time when Thomas Manton was chair of the Queens Democratic Party. After Councilmember Daniel Dromm's recent break with Queens County Democrats during the Council speaker race, the councilmember now very publicly opposes the horse carriage industry -- and ranking Queens Democratic Party officials.

Word on the street for many years was that the reason that former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wouldn't support a ban on horse-drawn carriages was because the former chair of the Queens County Democratic Party, former Rep. Thomas Manton, was allied with the horse carriage drivers, who are unionized, making them a natural constituency group.

After Mr. Manton passed away, Rep. Joseph Crowley, became chair of the Queens County Democratic Party. Councilmember Dromm was elected to his post in 2009 as an insurgent candidate without the institutional support of the county Democrats. Recently, Councilmember Dromm and his close colleague, Councilmember James Van Bramer, turned their backs on the Council speaker candidate, Councilmember Daniel Garodnick, who had the support of their former fellow Queens County Democrats. Therefore, Councilmember Dromm's break with his Democratic Party peers in respect of the proposed horse-drawn carriage ban is adding to the bad blood created during the schism over the recent Council speaker race, perhaps indication of a lingering resentment stemming from his unsupported 2009 race for City Council. All this unnecessary political agita.

Steve Nislick NYCLASS Edison Properties LLC photo Steve-Nislick-NYCLASS_zps7cee6296.jpg

Stalling the horse carriage ban bill gives the mayor a political cover story to explain his backpedaling.

A few critics of the mayor's promise to ban the horse-drawn carriage industry point to the special interests that Edison Properties LLC and its former chief executive officer, Steve Nislick, have in emptying the land being used as horse stables by the carriage trade.

At the other end of this fight are animal rights activists, who are trying to change the hearts and minds of the public about animal rights. Animal rights activists make the noble argument that horses have no place in Midtown Manhattan traffic, given the many examples of traffic accidents, injuries, and even deaths caused by what they see as inhumane conditions.

But the real issue of the delay in the ban, the use of the drafting of a bill as a stalling tactic, and the mayor's changing of the timeline to ban the horse-drawn carriages from his first day in office to sometime later this year comes down to investigations of a campaign consulting and lobbying group at the center of the issue's swift rise to prominence.

The Advance Group, headed by the lobbyist Scott Levenson, administered a Super PAC largely funded by donors loyal to Mr. de Blasio to defeat his chief challenger in last year's mayoral race, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. The Super PAC donors also included advocates pressing for the horse-drawn carriage ban. Mr. Levenson also advised the 501(c)(4) non-profit animal rights group named New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets, or NY-CLASS, which was conveniently founded by Mr. Nislick, the real estate developer. Mr. Levenson also authorized his firm to provide free lobbying services to Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito in her successful bid to be selected as the current City Council speaker. Any legislative ban, once Councilmember Dromm has finished drafting the bill, must have Speaker Mark-Viverito's support. Thanks to Mr. Levenson's crucial support during her speakership campaign, Speaker Mark-Viverito is now indebted to The Advance Group's legislative asks. To cement The Advance Group's role at the nexus for campaign donations, Super PAC spending, and lobbying services that benefitted the mayor and the Council speaker, The Advance Group also is a paid lobbyist to Edison Properties LLC. Edison Properties LLC stands to benefit from banning the horse-drawn carriage trade from the closure of the carriage horses' stables, which would free up that space, which Edison Properties LLC covets, for possible zone-busting real estate development. The Advance Group is getting paid or has positioned itself to benefit from each side of the mayor's promise to ban the horse-drawn carriage trade. And, as if to compensate for The Advance Group's undeclared in-kind contribution of free lobbying services to Councilmember Mark-Viverito's Council speakership race, Edison Properties LLC paid The Advance Group $15,000 at the start of this year, potentially coinciding with the end of Councilmember Mark-Viverito's successful speakership electioneering campaign.

This wouldn't be the first time that allegations involving The Advance Group using a third-party vehicle to structure a payment stream that has, at times, over-lapped with services The Advance Group was providing to a political campaign. The Advance Group became implicated in questionable electioneering work on behalf of City Council Candidate Igor Oberman. "Last April, records show, Mr. Oberman signed off on a six-month, $45,000 lobbying contract with the Advance Group for the portion of the massive Coney Island co-op he runs a part of, Trump Village, at the same time the Advance Group was running Mr. Oberman's political campaign, separately earning $73,000," reported Crain's Insider muckraking journalist Chris Bragg. Mr. Bragg also uncovered The Advance Group's use of a fictitious political consulting firm to help obscure its backroom Super PAC political machinations during last year's municipal elections.

Last year, The New York Daily News examined how politicians and lobbyists are "often connected at the hip" as a consequence of campaign consultants doubling as lobbyists, a troubling situation that is "raising alarms for ethics watchdogs." Among the two-timing campaign consultants/lobbyists singled-out in the article was The Advance Group.

Against the backdrop of The Advance Group proverbially "jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money," to borrow Matt Tiabbi's famous phrase, is the crackdown on political corruption being waged by federal prosecutors in New York. Although city and state laws have not kept up with the corruptive role of campaign consultants doubling as lobbyists, federal laws make it easy to prosecute criminal cases against corrupt lobbyists.

Blll de Blasio Scott Levenson The Advance Group NY-CLASS Horse Drawn Carriage Ban Super PAC Pay to Play Bribe Corruption photo bill-de-blasio-Scott-Levenson-The-Advance-Group-NY-CLASS-Super-PAC-horse-drawn-carriage-ban-article-bramhall-0423_zps018b06a4.jpg

Based on the federal definition of a bribe, a corrupt lobbyist doesn’t have to get payback to be guilty. A corrupt lobbyist just has to pay money (like, perhaps, steer donations or make a valuable gift, like the undeclared free provision of lobbying services) to a political candidate or an elected official, and then make an ask for a legislative favour for the lobbyist's client. That’s it : that's sufficient to make the corrupt lobbyist guilty.

No matter how long the mayor or the City Council delay the legislative ban on horse-drawn carriages, or whether the ban ever comes to fruition, it may not have any impact on a possible federal bribery charge, if that is what federal prosecutors find what happened between The Advance Group in respect of the mayor's promise to ban the horse-drawn carriage trade. Perhaps that is why one saw the Editorial Board of The New York Times trying to persuade the mayor earlier this month into abandoning the horse-drawn carriage ban, because the editors suspect that legal troubles may lay ahead.

Since city and state prosecutors are known to rarely, if ever, prosecute public corruption cases involving lobbyists and other corrupt political insiders, and with the notable disbanding of the Moreland Commission, the loose city and state laws that permit shady lobbying activities will not govern any federal review of possibly illegal campaign finance and bribery activities that may apply to The Advance Group's role in the drive to ban carriage horses, no matter how noble the cause may be to animal rights activists.

HORSE POLITICS -- “Mayor de Blasio's position on horse carriages switched as the cash rolled in” by News’ Greg Smith: De Blasio switched positions on the issue, first expressing doubt about a potential ban and later embracing it. Along the way, he pocketed $45,000 in a stream of campaign checks from the anti-carriage crowd, a Daily News review found.

“He was also the beneficiary of a highly choreographed media blitz against his chief rival for City Hall — former Council Speaker Christine Quinn — an effort funded to a great extent by the anti-carriage crowd. … De Blasio’s spokesman, Phil Walzak, did not respond Tuesday to questions about the donations. …

“Checks from anti-carriage supporters like [Wendy] Neu, NYCLASS co-founder Stephen Nislick and others continued through 2009 and into 2010. Meanwhile, de Blasio — then public advocate — stayed neutral when dueling laws to either reform or simply ban the carriages popped up in the City Council. …

“By January 2011, NYCLASS supporters had written $20,400 in checks to de Blasio. One month later, he came around for the first time, declaring support for an outright carriage ban in a Huffington Post story.” (Mayor de Blasio's position on horse carriages switched as the cash rolled in * The New York Daily News with Summary by Capital New York)

The horse-drawn carriage ban is about more than just a corrupt real estate deal for the horse stables ; it's emblematic of a broken political system that keeps giving permanent government insider lobbyists access to elected officials.

The common denominator to the public corruption cases being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office are the corrupt political operatives that grease the wheels of government.

Equally important, it seems, is another of the mayor's broken campaign promises : to reform the municipal campaign finance system, which The New York Times recently described as open to manipulation.

The corruptive influence of Super PAC money in the last municipal election cycle is no more different than the role that big money donations have on government policy.

Ironically, one of the many TV attack ads that the NYC Is Not For Sale Super PAC administered by Mr. Levenson broadcast about former Speaker Quinn focused on the $30,000 in campaign contributions she received from the family that controls the Rudin Management Company, a large New York City real estate developer.

When NYC Is Not For Sale asked voters how could they support Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign for allowing the role of big money donors to influence the luxury condo development that is replacing St. Vincent's Hospital, it could very well ask a version of the same question of the role of the Super PAC money influencing Mayor de Blasio's policy on the proposed horse-drawn carriage ban.

Christine Quinn,Rudin Family,Rudin Management,Mayor 2013 NYC,Campaign Donations,Real Estate Deals,Hospital Closings,St. Vincent's Hospital

In the wake of the three days of back-to-back reporting by The New York Daily News, the mayor keeps denying he had any role in coordinating the corrupt Super PAC spending. Confronted last year about the NYC Is Not For Sale campaign, then candidate de Blasio initially defended NYC Is Not For Sale's attack ads, saying, "People decided to speak out, and that's their legal right. But the fact is in our system, everything can and will be disclosed, and that's what the people require," although, contrary to then candidate de Blasio, the Super PAC got into trouble for failing to fully disclose its activities, as "the people require." At the time, Mr. de Blasio added that he'd be open to later reforming campaign finance laws (presumably after NYC Is Not For Sale sank former Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign). "The important thing is to respect the fact that we may not like the way the law is, but it's the law. I certainly will put energy going forward into trying to further reform the campaign finance system, but so long as the law is the law, people will make choices within it. That is their right, but I will certainly never ask anyone to engage in such behavior." But so far, the mayor has betrayed his campaign promise to reform the loose campaign finance laws that allow Super PAC's to game elections. Furthermore, former Speaker Quinn has appeared to be milking the NY-CLASS scandal to portray herself as a victim of shady campaign finances ; meanwhile, she has a long record of political corruption.

How can we clean up our election process from the scourge of big-money special interest donors, corrupt Super PAC's, and double-dealing lobbyists ?

Breaking: Vermont Passes JRS 27 To Overturn Citizens United & End Unlimited Campaign Funding photo vermont-money-out-of-politics_zps0c8276b8.jpg

The only answer to clean elections is to ban all private campaign contributions, to fully fund elections with public money, and to institute stricter regulations on campaign consultants and lobbyists. If Mayor de Blasio were a true progressive, he would ban all private campaign contributions in New York City elections as a model for what a new era of real government reform looks like, setting a pattern that could be spread to the rest of the nation. Learn more about why advocates for "clean money" elections want to ban private donations.

While an outright overturning of the corruptive role of Citizens United may be technically impossible to create at a municipal level, there are other actions that City Hall can still nonetheless undertake. Municipal lawmakers and the mayor can repeal the law passed by former Council Speaker Christine Quinn, which weakened campaign finance regulations. There are other municipal steps that can be taken to roll back the corruptive influence that lobbyists and big business and special interest money have on local elections : (i) reforming the do-nothing Campaign Finance Board ; (ii) pressuring progressives to enforce transparency ; (iii) improving Speakership electioneering reporting to make it more difficult for candidates to jurisdiction shop to obfuscate disclosure ; (iv) ending loopholes that allow subcontractor operatives to skirt disclosure requirements ; and (v) ending the provision of free campaign services, including for the Speakership. There are still yet other local reforms that the city can enact. Another important reform that the mayor and the City Council can swiftly enact is to close the corrupt "messaging" cloaking loophole for lobbyists.

One of the principal gains made during the Progressive Era was the spread of voter referenda in state governments across the United States to counteract the outsized influence of corporations on determining government policy. Referenda gave voters a direct say in specific and important government issues, and because corporations now exert so much power over government, people should be given a direct say in corporate governance. The mayor and his municipal legislators should consider enacting a law requiring all corporations domiciled or doing business in New York City, especially those doing business with the governments, to enact reforms to their operative agreements or corporate charters that incorporate "public service" and "socially responsible investing" as business purposes and to create a public, binding stakeholder resolution process to allow city stakeholders to enforce the corporation’s "public service" and "socially responsible investing" business purposes in the way the corporation does business. A stakeholder resolution process would give voters an access point to exert public pressure on corporations to enforce compliance with public ethics. This kind of scrutiny would end the flimsy self-regulation of corporate social responsibility and create public involvement to compel true social responsibility as an influencing purpose on the governance of corporations. Other reforms that the mayor and municipal legislators could consider would be to pressure prosecutors to enforce anti-trust laws against corporations that exert monopolistic-like powers, most especially the typical special interest corporations like public and private money center banks, insurance companies, and real estate developers based right here in New York City. If Mayor de Blasio and the City Council have become too corrupted by their teams of campaign consultants and lobbyists-operatives to enact these kinds of legislative reforms, perhaps the U.S. Attorney's Office can "defeat" the culture of corruption by changing corporate culture by stipulating to these and other novel kinds of reform measures into consented court orders, settlement agreements, deferred prosecution agreements, or other plea agreements with criminally corrupt corporations. Since City Hall and the City Council have become corrupted by the influence of big money donors and corrupt lobbyists, the U.S. Attorney's Office can and should take the lead, through its court cases, to help right our democracy. The U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the teams of federal prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's Office is far from being free from political influence. Witness how the DOJ is stalling on a very important Freedom of Information Act Request pertaining to the wrongful targeting of activists for federal prosecution, and other examples of how President Barack Obama has politicized the DOJ. Even within this imperfect system, hopefully a few brave leaders like Preet Bharara and Loretta Lynch, the top federal prosecutors for Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively, can help reform the DOJ -- and our broader government.

Voters can also learn more about campaign finance reform activist Howie Hawkins' gubernatorial campaign for ideas of what it would look like to reform our corrupt campaign finance system.


QUESTIONING THE NEW YORK CITY CAMPAIGN FINANCE BOARD

With John Liu's lawsuit against New York City over conflicted city campaign finance regulators, this makes three federal referrals of elections violations, forcing Mayor de Blasio to lawyer-up, recruit special inside election counsel.

After a wave of federal complaints that have been lodged over electioneering violations in last year's municipal elections, Mayor Bill de Blasio has hired a special legal advisor specializing in election law.

Since Mayor de Blasio and City Council Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, and/or their political operatives, are entangled in some of these federal complaints, it should come as no surprise that Mayor de Blasio is now maneuvering to use his public office to defend himself against allegations of wrong-doing that took place during the electioneering of last year's municipal elections.

The three federal complaints lodged following last year's municipal elections :

  1. GOP consultant E. O'Brien Murray argued to the State Department that Patrick Gaspard, a former top White House aide with a deep history in Gotham politics, violated the federal Hatch Act by getting involved in Mayor de Blasio's campaign -- and City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito's subsequent election as speaker -- while representing the U.S. in South Africa. (GOP Operative Files Hatch Act Complaint Against U.S. Ambassador Patrick Gaspard * The New York Daily News)
  2. Louis Flores, a local political gadfly who ran a blog and wrote a book criticizing Christine Quinn, has filed a complaint with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s criminal division against Scott Levenson and The Advance Group consulting firm, which came under deep scrutiny during the mayoral campaign. (Federal Complaint Filed Against The Advance Group for Election Work * Politicker)
  3. Former New York City Comptroller and failed mayoral candidate John Liu has filed a federal lawsuit against the city and its Campaign Finance Board. He says the board unfairly crippled his campaign by denying him matching funds in last year's race for mayor. (Ex-NYC mayor hopeful sues Campaign Finance Board * AP/The San Francisco Chronicle)


Thursday, April 10, 2014

Who is politically responsible for obstructing the work of the Moreland Commission ?

PUBLISHED : THURS, 10 APR 2014, 10:26 AM
UPDATED : SUN, 13 APR 2014, 08:03 PM

Andrew Cuomo photo andrew-cuomo-smiles-jpg-alg_zps9d0cdc97.jpg

The culture of corruption up in Albany mirrors the cultures in Washington and New York City, and the lax justice departments at each level of government play politics with justice, except for one man, Preetinder Bharara

Journalist superhero Matt Taibbi was interviewed by Leonard Lopate on WNYC earlier this week during which Mr. Taibbi said that our broken justice system allows "massively destructive fraud by the hyper-wealthy to go unpunished, while it turns poverty itself into a crime." But Mr. Taibbi doesn't even address who politicizes the wide swath of city, state, and federal prosecutors that renders our justice system so broken.

The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Preetinder Bharara, has asked the press to step up their investigation work against a backdrop of Justice Department budget cuts made by the White House and Congress. On the state level, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's most recent state budget stripped valuable resources from state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, leaving him with fewer resources to fight corruption. In another controversial move in the same budget deal that further undercut the state's important prosecutorial work, Gov. Cuomo disbanded the Moreland Commission, a public corruption investigation panel tasked with cleaning up government across New York state. More locally, the corrupt DA in Manhattan, Cy Vance, can't keep running for office without the consent of the Manhattan Democratic Party chair ; same for the other county prosecutors in New York City. That approval acts as a backdoor check on what kind of corruption cases the county DA's can bring, because the DA's have to be mindful not to investigate corrupt political operatives and supporters, who are loyal to the county chairs. Look at how all this corruption happens all over New York City, but nobody ever gets prosecuted by the Manhattan DA's office.

With these conditions undermining our justice system, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, like the hero in "High Noon," is forced to rescue almost single-handedly a town from crooks, who are about to lay siege. Indeed, The New York Times reported that Mr. Bharara is going to take possession of all of the Moreland Commission’s case files, or whatever is left of them. "Staff members of the panel, several said, regularly deleted emails and often communicated with BlackBerry messages not recorded on government servers," the article in The New York Times noted.

Gov. Cuomo’s obstruction of the Moreland Commission's work, some bloggers said, represented politically-motivated machinations to prevent the potential for an embarrassment for the governor during an election year, particularly since the Moreland Commission had subpoenaed records from some of the governor's shady political supporters, such as those in the corrupt real estate industry known for making big money campaign contributions in exchange for zone-busting approvals and huge tax breaks. Examples of how Gov. Cuomo obstructed the investigations of the Moreland Commission included actions by Lawrence Schwartz, the governor’s secretary, and Mylan Denerstein, Gov. Cuomo’s counsel, who each "would routinely call and say, ‘How can you issue a subpoena like this?’ or ‘These people shouldn’t be on it,’" a Moreland Commission member told The New York Times. Further complicating the Moreland Commission's own work was the fact that one of its co-chairs, Bill Fitzpatrick, an upstate district attorney, publicly disavowed the investigation panel's crucial role in busting up public corruption in New York state. Another panel co-chair, Kathleen Rice, a district attorney from Long Island, ditched her responsibilities on the Moreland Commission once she had gained enough fame to run for Congress.

And to make it more painful, the whole focus of the justice system has become deliberately distracted with the failed "broken windows" theory of law enforcement by such discriminatory police commissioners, such as New York City's William Bratton. But who makes these decisions ? It's one thing for Mr. Taibbi to point out that this paradox exists. But where is the community pressure to appropriate political blame for these misplaced priorities ? Who defunds the Justice Department and the state Attorney General's office ? Who disbands the Moreland Commission ? Who appoints irresponsible police commissioners to lead the troubled NYPD ? Which legislative bodies consent to all this ?

What's plainly missing is rolling up political responsibility for these failures to politicians. People have to fully engage/challenge the corrupt political system in order to reform these failures. There is no other way, and, like our hero Sheriff Preet is demonstrating, there is no short cut.

2014-04-01 Moreland Commission - Follow-Up E-Mail Re Pitta Bishop USAO

Letter From U S Attorney Preet Bharara Re Moreland Commission Investigations 2 by katehinds

Letter From U S Attorney Preet Bharara Re Moreland Commission Investigations by katehinds