Utah Officials Call on Feds to Investigate Senators Reid, Lee

[specsaregood]

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/utah-officials-call-feds-investigate-senators-reid-lee/story?id=22905068&singlePage=true



Two local prosecutors in Utah say a corruption investigation looking at state politicians and online gambling interests has yielded evidence that could implicate Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah.

The two district attorneys – one Democrat and one Republican – already working with a team of FBI agents, are urging federal prosecutors to pick up the case and investigate – something the Department of Justice has thus far declined to do.

The Utah officials say the evidence relates to suspect campaign contributions and other financial transactions.

Reid, a liberal Democrat, and Lee, a rising star in Republican politics, could not be more opposite politically but both have ties to the on-line poker world, the prosecutors say.

“The most appropriate entity to review those type of things, if they would, would be the Department of Justice,” Davis County District Attorney Troy Rawlings, a Republican, told ABC News. “Basically to look at their own. To look at allegations of conduct or misconduct involving federal officials.”

Sim Gill, a Democrat, who is the district attorney for Salt Lake County, agreed.

“Could there be an innocent explanation for [the evidence]? Possibly. Could there be a more sinister explanation for it? That's also possible,” Gill said. “So I think the-- those are the things that we have to try to figure out.”

more at link...

[specsaregood]

another excerpt:


Johnson claims he was instructed by online poker figures to hide illegal contributions to the campaigns of Reid and Lee in 2010 by finding “straw donors” who were reimbursed from poker accounts in the bank for money they supposedly contributed.

Reid’s spokesperson, Adam Jentleson, called Johnson, “a desperate individual who’s been indicted on over 80 counts. His allegations are false and the flailings of a desperate man.”

Another Johnson allegation involves a 2010 fundraiser event at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas, where on-line poker industry officials hosted Reid.

Johnson says Reid promised to introduce federal legislation to legalize on-line poker if he was re-elected.



In a later, secretly recorded conversation with the then-Attorney General Swallow, widely publicized in Utah, Johnson related how he asked one of the poker executives how the industry was able to obtain Reid’s support.

“I said how in the hell did you guys get him to do that. And he says let's just say he got a little something in his retirement fund. And I was like okay, that's how it is," Johnson says in the recording.


Looks like it is mainly focused on Reid. Maybe they threw Lee in there to seem nonpartisan.

[Valli6]

FBI blocked in corruption probe involving Sens. Reid, Lee
Thursday, March 13, 2014
FBI agents working alongside Utah state prosecutors in a wide-ranging corruption investigation have uncovered accusations of wrongdoing by two of the U.S. Senate’s most prominent figures — Majority Leader Harry Reid and rising Republican Sen. Mike Lee — but the Justice Department has thwarted their bid to launch a full federal investigation.


The information involving Mr. Reid and Mr. Lee is not fully developed but centers on two primary issues:

• Whether both or either politician sought or received money or other benefits from donors and/or fundraisers in connection with doing political favors or taking official actions.

• Whether Mr. Lee provided accurate information when he bought, then sold a Utah home for a big loss to a campaign contributor and federal contractor, leaving his mortgage bank to absorb large losses.

“There are allegations, but they are very serious allegations and they need to be looked at by somebody,” Sim Gill, a Democrat who is the elected chief prosecutor in Salt Lake County, told The Times. “If true, or even if asserted, they truly should be investigated and put to rest, or be confirmed.”


The investigative efforts have been further complicated by the fact that Mr. Reid worked to get Mr. Lee’s chief counsel, David Barlow, confirmed in 2011 as the U.S. attorney in Salt Lake City. That action — a Democratic Senate leader letting a Republican be named to a key prosecutor’s position in the Obama administration — raised many eyebrows and angered some Democrats.

Subsequently, the entire office of federal prosecutors in Utah was forced to recuse itself from the corruption case after questions surfaced about a conflict of interest involving one prosecutor and a subject of the probe. After the recusal, state prosecutors secured a court order transferring the federal evidence gathered up to that point to their possession.

The process has left FBI agents in the unusual position of trying to help two local prosecutors make a case in state court without the ability to use the federal court system to determine whether accusations against two powerful members of Congress are true.

“We’re just two local prosecutors but everybody who was supposed to look at this evidence above us has made a decision not to, and by default left it to us to investigate and prosecute at the state level,” Mr. Gill said.



Lee questions

The questions in the broad-ranging state probe that surround Mr. Lee involve real estate transactions in which the Republican bought a home for $1.1 million in Utah in 2008 when he was still a private lawyer and then sold it for $720,000 after becoming a senator, leaving his mortgage bank, J.P. Morgan, to absorb a significant loss.

Investigators want to know whether Mr. Lee accurately described his personal finances in conjunction with the mortgage transactions.

Investigators have gathered information that Mr. Lee sold the home in a short sale in 2011 to a campaign contributor and federal contractor. As part of the short sale, Mr. Lee forfeited his down payment and left the rest of the loss to his bank, then immediately turned around and rented another property from the same donor for just more than $2,000 a month.

A spokesman for Mr. Lee confirmed the house transactions but said the senator accurately reported all of his finances and all the transactions were legal and proper.

“The purchase of the house was completely aboveboard so there was little to consider about appearances,” spokesman Brian Phillips said, adding that Mr. Lee at the time of the house transaction didn’t even know the buyer was a federal contractor.

Around the same time, Mr. Lee made a speech on the Senate floor praising the same donor who bought his home. Mr. Lee called the donor a “friend” and suggested the donor’s books and writings might offer a blueprint for compromise in congressional budget talks.

Mr. Phillips said his boss did no other favors for the donor and that the brief mention on the Senate floor was “an off-the-cuff, unplanned remark referencing a single line from a widely sold book” by the donor.

Mr. Lee told a local newspaper in Utah that his sale of the home and the rental of the new property were not connected, but rather separate transactions involving the same friend. He said he gained empathy with average Americans after experiencing the loss of his first home in the short sale.

“It certainly is something that is painful to go through, and I know a lot of people are going through it, and I feel for those who have had to go through it,” Mr. Lee told the Salt Lake City Tribune.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/13/fbi-blocked-in-corruption-probe-involving-sens-rei/?page=all#pagebreak

[HOLLYWOOD]

lol! There is NO RULE of LAW... we know the game and it's rigged, just like everything else FOR SALE in Washington DC
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/images/icons/icon1.png "FBI blocked in corruption probe involving Sens. Reid, Lee" FBI blocked in corruption probe involving Sens. Reid, Lee
Thursday, March 13, 2014
FBI agents working alongside Utah state prosecutors in a wide-ranging corruption investigation have uncovered accusations of wrongdoing by two of the U.S. Senate’s most prominent figures — Majority Leader Harry Reid and rising Republican Sen. Mike Lee — but the Justice Department has thwarted their bid to launch a full federal investigation.

[Dianne]

I know this may come as a shock to you all, but Eric Holder seems uninterested in advancing the investigations any further into the conduct of Harry Reid lol.

[Valli6]

Guess I'm biased, but the thing about Lee's mortgage sounds contrived to me - more like a targeted audit from the IRS, than a reasonable suspicion of wrong doing. And I don't understand this part:

"…the Republican bought a home for $1.1 million in Utah in 2008 when he was still a private lawyer and then sold it for $720,000 after becoming a senator, leaving his mortgage bank, J.P. Morgan, to absorb a significant loss."
I've never sold a house or been "under water" myself - by what process was his mortgage bank left to "absorb a significant loss" and was this unusual at that time, considering the housing market (house purchased in '08 and sold in '11)?

Of course the DOJ blocking the investigation is strange. I wonder if they intentionally created some reason to add a Republican's name to the story, so it could look nonpartisan when they shut down the investigation? (As well as tarnish Lee's name.)

[asurfaholic]

I don't see anything that Lee did that is remotely questionable. Reid should be investigated though...

[specsaregood]

I've never sold a house or "been under water" myself - by what process was his mortgage bank left to "absorb a significant loss" and was this unusual at that time considering the housing market (house purchased in '08 and sold in '11)?


It isn't completely uncommon. It is called a "short sale", I looked at a couple houses recently that were short sales. Its an alternative to foreclosure.
http://homebuying.about.com/od/foreclosures/f/072509_Short-Sale-vs-Foreclosure.htm

[Brian4Liberty]

I know this may come as a shock to you all, but Eric Holder seems uninterested in advancing the investigations any further into the conduct of Harry Reid lol.

Absolutely.


Guess I'm biased, but the thing about Lee's mortgage sounds contrived to me - more like a targeted audit from the IRS, than a reasonable suspicion of wrong doing.

Agree. They were grasping at straws to go after Lee.

Three felonies a day. There are enough laws (and regulated business transactions) that they can smear whoever they want.

Reid, on the other hand, is probably in deep with gambling interests.

[Christian Liberty]

Good. Hope they both go to prison.