ProtectedYesterday, when I wrote this post, it was November 27, 2014. I was shocked when I saw the posts I had written on November 27, 2012 and November 27, 2013, both about how the House Ethics Committee was asked by the FBI to defer any investigation into the only Member of Congress currently under indictment, Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm. The Staten Island Republican, who was just reelected, in an increasingly blue district, 56,221 (55.4%) to 42,786 (42,786), is a former FBI employee who betrayed the agency by joining the Gambino Crime Family (Mafia); he also knows where an awful lot of bodies are buried and the FBI is handling his various corruption cases with kid gloves, priority number one being to protect itself-- both institutionally and it's own corrupt officials. And then there's the Netanyahu connection to the Grimm case, another kerfuffle in the scheme of things which would have at least considered expulsion years ago if not for... well, no one says exactly-- just that they've been asked to hold his investigation in abeyance. And it just happened again!
For the third time, the House of Representatives Ethics Committee has deferred an investigation into allegations that Rep. Michael Grimm solicited and accepted illegal campaign contributions, filed false campaign finance reports and brokered a deal with an Israeli citizen to get him campaign donations in return for the congressman's help in obtaining a green card.The Ethics Committee first received a request from the Office of Congressional Ethics in June 2012 to look into the matter and in response to a Department of Justice (DOJ) request to do so, in November 2012 deferred considering the case.The Ethics Committee again deferred the matter in November 2013 and announced a third deferral on Wednesday.The DOJ is conducting a separate criminal probe of Grimm, handing down a 20-count indictment in April, charging him with filing false tax returns, hiring undocumented immigrants and perjury in connection with his former health food restaurant, Healthalicious.Jury selection for that case is expected to begin in January.The congressional ethics case stems from allegations that in his first race for Congress in 2010, Grimm (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) accepted tens of thousands of dollars in illegal donations from followers of Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, an influential rabbi at an Upper East Side synagogue.Grimm is also alleged to have offered Ofer Biton, an Israeli citizen, help in acquiring a green card in exchange for Biton's help in securing the donations from Pinto's followers.Grimm said in the past that the allegations are "completely false." He acknowledged accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from followers of Pinto's, all of which were legal, he said.In a previous interview with the Advance, the congressman said, "I never took any illegal cash contributions. Ever. I never conspired or coordinated or ever in any way discussed funneling illegal contributions. It is absolute nonsense."Last year, Biton pleaded guilty to an immigration fraud charge and returned to Israel with no jail time.
The House Ethics Committee's only job seems to be white washing the criminal activities of Members of the House. Since Boehner, himself the single most personally corrupt man to ever be Speaker of the House, took over Congress, the Committee has "cleared" an incredible, bipartisan array of crooked politicians starting with a mini-Grand Bargain that got Queens County Democratic boss Joe Crowley (New Dem-NY) off for bribe-taking in return for several crooked senior Republicans, including Tom Price (R-GA), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and John Campbell (R-CA). Others who got away with criminal activities and serious ethics violations courtesy of the Committee on Ethics include Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Frank Lucas (R-OK), Mel Watt (D-NC), Don Young (R-AK), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Shelley Berkley (New Dem-NV), Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Aaron Schock (R-IL), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)... to name a few. Aside from not dealing with Mikey Suits, the committee doesn't seem to have even gotten to first base with Chaka Fattah, who is planning to resign in February as part of a plea bargain for some pretty shady activities-- even if not on a scale of Grimm's handiwork.
