Author Topic: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken  (Read 218571 times)

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2100 on: November 22, 2014, 05:05:24 AM »
Losing Streak: WH Admits Improperly Inflating Obamacare Enrollment Figures
Townhall.com ^ | November 21, 2014 | Guy Benson
Posted on November 21, 2014 5:55:07 PM EST by Kaslin



Last spring, Obamacare supporters were ebullient when the Obama administration announced a milestone "victory:" Despite a truly disastrous roll-out, they'd enrolled eight million Americans in the program. The Obamacare debate, the president said, was officially over. We expressed skepticism over the White House's stats almost immediately, noting that the official numbers didn't account for duplicates, non-paying "customers," and consumer attrition -- not to mention the high percentage of "new" enrollees who previously had insurance, but were forced to use Obamacare's exchanges to obtain plans after their existing arrangements were cancelled under the new law.  The last two weeks have witnessed two more blows for the "it's working!" crowd.  First came the sharply revised 2015 enrollment projections:

Fewer than 10 million people are expected to enroll in "Obamacare 2.0" for 2015, the Obama administration said Monday. That's a significant drop from the original goal. The Congressional Budget Office had projected 13 million, but officials said they expect the ramp up to be slower than the CBO originally thought. The revised goal is 9 to 9.9 million. It raises questions about whether Obamacare enrollment will reach projections down the road. The CBO had projected enrollment would hit 25 million by 2017, but now the administration says it will probably take at least one or two more years to reach that threshold. Officials are realizing it will find it tougher to convince the remaining uninsured to enroll. Many who opted not to sign up this year said the cost was too high.

It's almost as if many people aren't too excited about purchasing less-than-affordable coverage that saddles them with high out-of-pocket costs and sparse provider networks.  One thing the administration has going for it this year is that the individual mandate tax designed to punish shirkers is rising considerably, although those penalties are still much lower than the costs associated with buying Obamacare health plans.  Now we have this embarrassing admission from administration officials, who've been forced to reveal how Team Obama inflated its top line enrollment figure:

The Obama administration said it erroneously calculated the number of people with health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, incorrectly adding 380,000 dental subscribers to raise the total above 7 million. The accurate number with full health-care plans is 6.7 million as of Oct. 15, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed today, saying the U.S. won’t include dental plans in future reports. “The mistake we made is unacceptable,” Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said on her verified Twitter account. “I will be communicating that clearly throughout the department.” The error was brought to light by Republican investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, using data they obtained from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services….The new count puts enrollment short of a 2013 estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, adopted last year as a goal by the Obama administration, that 7 million people would be enrolled this year. Federal officials said in September they had 7.3 million people enrolled in coverage through new government-run insurance exchanges. They didn’t distinguish between medical and dental plans, breaking from previous practice without notice.

Oh yes, this was surely a good-faith "mistake," which just happened to depart from "previous practice" in order to push the White House's prized total "enrollment" number above its nominal goal.  A remarkable coincidence, no? Even top Obamacare cheerleader Ezra Klein can't spin this, even as he credulously swallows the "error" line:

This is such a dumb, unforced error by the Obama administration: http://t.co/N1VuxJjUu6— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) November 20, 2014


So setting aside the previously insured population, which shouldn't count towards new enrollments in my view, the administration still fell short of its initial projections, and they've since publicly downgraded their expectations for this year.  Comprehensive data from the Census Bureau and the CDC confirms that Obamacare is falling dramatically short of enrollment expectations.  Between Jonathan Gruber's slow-motion implosion, the Supreme Court taking up the federal subsidies case, and these enrollment black eyes, it's been a rough month for Obamacare.  And the losing streak is being reflected in public polling:

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2101 on: November 23, 2014, 04:38:12 PM »
Obama: ‘Absolutely Not’ Legitimate for Future Presidents to Apply My Logic on Executive Actions
nationalreview.com ^  | November 23, 2014 | Katherine Connell

Posted on ‎11‎/‎23‎/‎2014‎ ‎3‎:‎32‎:‎42‎ ‎PM by Tailgunner Joe

President Obama rejected the idea that his executive action on immigration sets a precedent for future presidents to enact their preferred policies without Congress, at least if the policy were tax reform.

George Stephanopoulos asked Obama in an interview airing on This Week about an analogy that many of the president’s critics have drawn: “How do you respond to the argument, a future president comes in, wants lower taxes. Doesn’t happen. Congress won’t do it — he says I’m not going to prosecute those who don’t pay capital gains tax.”

Obama didn’t respond to the question and continued with his talking points, prompting Stephanopoulos to press him again: “So you don’t think it’d be legitimate for a future president to make that argument?

“With respect to taxes? Absolutely not,” the president replied.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2102 on: November 23, 2014, 05:09:09 PM »
Obama: ‘Absolutely Not’ Legitimate for Future Presidents to Apply My Logic on Executive Actions
nationalreview.com ^  | November 23, 2014 | Katherine Connell

Posted on ‎11‎/‎23‎/‎2014‎ ‎3‎:‎32‎:‎42‎ ‎PM by Tailgunner Joe

President Obama rejected the idea that his executive action on immigration sets a precedent for future presidents to enact their preferred policies without Congress, at least if the policy were tax reform.

George Stephanopoulos asked Obama in an interview airing on This Week about an analogy that many of the president’s critics have drawn: “How do you respond to the argument, a future president comes in, wants lower taxes. Doesn’t happen. Congress won’t do it — he says I’m not going to prosecute those who don’t pay capital gains tax.”

Obama didn’t respond to the question and continued with his talking points, prompting Stephanopoulos to press him again: “So you don’t think it’d be legitimate for a future president to make that argument?

“With respect to taxes? Absolutely not,” the president replied.

LMFAO of course this arrongant prick thinks his actions are different.

just remember libtards who are cheering this on, sooner or later the shoe will be on the other foot and you better keep your fucking mouths shut

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2103 on: November 24, 2014, 06:22:40 AM »
Obama: "Absolutely Not" Legitimate For Future Presidents To Use Executive Actions For Taxes








       
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GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, THIS WEEK: How do you respond to the argument, a future president comes in, wants lower taxes. Doesn’t happen. Congress won’t do it – he says I’m not going to prosecute those who don’t pay capital gains tax.

 PRESIDENTOBAMA: Well, the truth of the matter is, George, that the reason that we have to do prosecutorial discretion in immigration is that we know we are not even close to being able to deal with the folks who have been here a long time. The vast majority of folks understand that they need to pay taxes, and when we conduct an audit, for example, we are selecting those folks who are most likely to be cheating. We’re not going after millions and millions of people who everybody knows are here and were taking advantage of low wages as they’re mowing lawns or cleaning out bedpans, and looking the other way – but then you got politicians suddenly going out there saying, suggesting somehow that we should be deporting all of them. Everybody knows, including Republicans, that we’re not going to deport 11 million people.

 STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don’t think it’d be legitimate for a future president to make that argument?

 OBAMA: With respect to taxes? Absolutely not. But what is true – what is true today is we don’t audit every single person, but we still expect that people are going to go ahead and follow the law. And we have limited resources, we have to make sure that we prioritize those folks who are most dangerous and we should acknowledge what everybody has already acknowledged through their actions – and Congress acknowledges through their budget – which is we’re not in the business of deporting millions of people or breaking up families.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2104 on: November 24, 2014, 06:24:12 AM »
Obama backer, Democratic fundraiser Terry Bean charged in sexual abuse case
cnn ^  | 11/23/2014 | Alexandra Jaffe

Posted on ‎11‎/‎23‎/‎2014‎ ‎8‎:‎12‎:‎03‎ ‎PM by tobyhill

A prominent supporter of President Barack Obama and co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign was arrested last week on charges of sodomy and sexual abuse related to what authorities said was an encounter with a juvenile male.

Terrence Bean, 66, a major Democratic donor and a celebrated gay-rights activist, was indicted on two felony charges of sodomy and a misdemeanor count of sexual abuse by a grand jury and arrested in Oregon Wednesday, according to a statement from the Portland Police Bureau. Bean was released later that day on bail, pending a court hearing.

Kiah Lawson, a 25-year-old identified by multiple news outlets as Bean's ex-boyfriend, was arrested on Thursday on related charges, Portland Police confirmed. He's also been released from jail, and pleaded not guilty on Friday, according to The Oregonian newspaper.

The charges relate to an alleged encounter the two had with a 15-year-old boy in Oregon last year, The Oregonian reported. Bean's attorney has denied the charges and said in a statement that Bean is the "victim of an extortion ring." CNN is not naming the alleged victim because the network does not identify minors or victims of sexual assaults.


(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2105 on: November 24, 2014, 11:38:31 AM »
Lawless DOJ Targeted Attkisson Over Fast And Furious
Investor's Business Daily ^  | November 24, 2014 | IBD editorials

Posted on ‎11‎/‎24‎/‎2014‎ ‎2‎:‎12‎:‎43‎ ‎PM by raptor22

Corruption: Smoking-gun emails show how the administration sought to derail a CBS reporter's investigation of its "gun-waking" operation — a reporter whose computers were mysteriously and mercilessly hacked.

Fast and Furious, along with Benghazi, is one of the two "phony" administration scandals that produced body bags, and former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson is responsible for much of the truth-telling about both. That fact is enough to put her high atop the administration's enemies list.

Attkisson, a casualty of liberal media bias, resigned from CBS in March after a series of clashes between her and her bosses over her exposes of administration wrongdoing and its subsequent cover-ups. An email thread obtained by government watchdog Judicial Watch show just how upset Eric Holder's Justice Department and the White House were over Attkisson's reporting and how hard they tried to undermine her.

The email thread's topic was concern over news reports linking Holder directly to the Fast and Furious program that had resulted in the deaths of agents Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata at the hands of Mexican drug cartels. The killers used weapons funneled south of the border under the administration's program.

The first email in the thread between Tracy Schmaler, who headed Holder's Office of Public Affairs, and White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Shultz, timed at 7:46 a.m. on Oct. 4, 2011, titled "No stories," noted that media outlets such as the New York Times, Associated Press, Washington Post, Reuters and Bloomberg were ignoring Fast and Furious. There was one notable exception — Attkisson of CBS News.


(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...



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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2109 on: November 28, 2014, 06:24:16 AM »

Exclusive: Obama plan to 'Power Africa' gets off to a dim start

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Reuters
By Joe Brock
3 hours ago
 

 










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U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the University of Cape Town
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U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the University of Cape Town, June 30, 2013. REUTERS/Jason …

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By Joe Brock





JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Barack Obama last year told a cheering crowd in Cape Town that a $7 billion plan to "Power Africa" would double electricity output on the world's poorest continent and bring "light where currently there is darkness".

A year later, the U.S. president's flagship project for Africa has already achieved 25 percent of its goal to deliver 10,000 megawatts of electricity and bring light to 20 million households and businesses, according to its annual report.

But the five-year plan has not yet delivered the power.

Power Africa has not measured its progress by counting actual megawatts added to the grid but promises of additional power made in deals it says it helped negotiate, according to sources inside the project and documents seen by Reuters.

Some projects facilitated by Power Africa -- a program operated by the U.S. aid agency USAID -- were under way years before the scheme's inception, others are still in the planning stage.

It is unclear how much of the $7 billion Obama pledged has actually been spent or if a further $20 billion in private sector investment commitments will materialize.

"Saying you've met targets on projects that might never happen or taking the credit for projects that have been worked on for years makes me uncomfortable," a source working on Power Africa told Reuters. "It's misleading."

Obama's pledge to double power generation in Africa within five years looked highly ambitious from the start. Per capita electricity output in Sub-Saharan Africa has been flat for three decades because most promised power plants never get built.

"We're dealing with megawatts on paper, rather than on the grid," a second source working on the project said.

"Is that really what Obama promised?"

The first African-American U.S. president, the son of a Kenyan father, Obama has often been criticized for a lukewarm engagement in Africa, consisting more of words than deeds.

"WE'RE LIKE A PHARMACIST"

The 48 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, with a combined population of 800 million, produce roughly the same amount of power as Spain, a country of just 46 million. This constrains Africa's growth and keeps hundreds of millions in poverty.

Power Africa coordinator Andrew Herscowitz told Reuters there had been some confusion about the role of the program. He said it was always intended to "expedite transactions", facilitating private investment rather than handing out aid.

Herscowitz said Power Africa was there to help the private sector deliver electricity and it had already negotiated commitments from companies worth $20 billion, although he did not know how much of this money had been spent.

"We’re like a pharmacist, where people come to us, we reach out to people and figure out what is needed," he said.

"In some projects we may have a lot of involvement and in some we have very little involvement."

Foreign companies sign billions of dollars of agreements with African governments to build infrastructure every year, although a large number never get built.

In April 2011, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corp., a government aid agency involved in Power Africa, signed a $350 million deal to "revitalize" Malawi's power sector.

More than three years on, 1.7 percent of that money has been spent, according to the programmer's website, which gives no detail on progress on the ground.

Memoranda of understanding Power Africa signed this year with its six focus countries -- Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Liberia and Ghana -- contain less than $100 million of financial commitments targeted at specific countries, most of which is for consultants.

U.S. consultancy Tetra Tech won a $64 million contract and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Africa Governance Initiative was given a $3 million deal.

As with many African aid projects, rights groups have criticized Power Africa as mostly being a vehicle to subsidize U.S. companies.

Documents show $5 billion out of the $7 billion pledged is for loans for U.S. exports from the government's Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC).

TURN ON THE LIGHTS

"It’s absolutely not true. Power Africa is an opportunity to turn on the lights for millions of Africans by taking investment from all over the world," Herscowitz said.

Herscowitz rejected suggestions Power Africa merely tapped into existing projects, highlighting a 5 megawatt "NextGen" solar project in Tanzania and a 30 megawatt biomass scheme in Kenya which he said "didn't exist before Power Africa".

The NextGen project website, however, says a power purchase agreement for the solar project was signed in January 2013, six months before Power Africa was launched.

It is by no means guaranteed that the Power Africa program, which has an initial five-year mandate, will continue or be seen as a priority when Obama's final term ends in two years, U.S. government sources told Reuters.

In addition, the investment banks EXIM and OPIC are fighting for their survival in Congress, where Obama's Democratic Party was severely weakened in mid-term elections this month.

In a change of tack, the U.S. government said this month it wants to partner with China on improving power in Africa.

Meanwhile, corruption in the countries that Power Africa operates in remains a problem.

Nigeria's state oil company was accused last year by the then central bank governor of withholding $20 billion in oil funds due to the government, while Tanzania's parliament is currently reviewing a report on graft in its energy sector.

(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Robin Pomeroy)

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2112 on: December 04, 2014, 12:41:45 PM »
Obama on Garner: 'My Tradition is Not to Remark on Cases'
Breitbart ^  | December 3, 2014 | Joel B. Pollak

Posted on ‎12‎/‎4‎/‎2014‎ ‎2‎:‎02‎:‎16‎ ‎PM by upbeat5

In his remarks Wednesday on the non-indictment of the New York police officer who allegedly choked Eric Garner to death during a routine arrest, President Barack Obama claimed that he does not involve himself in such controversies. "My tradition is not to remark on cases where there may still be an investigation," he said.

The opposite is true: from Skip Gates to Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown, Obama nearly always weighs in.

Even more bizarre was the fact that Obama upstaged New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The news networks had all been awaiting the mayor's press conference at 4:45 p.m. ET. Yet Obama broke in with his own remarks at about 4:43 p.m., interrupting his own pre-scheduled address to a gathering of Native American leaders at the White House to offer his take on the grand jury decision before local officials had their chance to react.


(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2113 on: December 08, 2014, 04:57:55 AM »

Review & Outlook

Professor Tribe Takes Obama to School

The liberal lion blasts the EPA’s climate rule as an illegal power grab.
 


 




  President Obama during a cabinet meeting at the White House in July. ENLARGE   
President Obama during a cabinet meeting at the White House in July.  Getty Images 
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Dec. 5, 2014 7:01 p.m. ET
 
 515 COMMENTS   
 
In his Harvard days,  Barack Obama  studied under law professor Laurence Tribe. Perhaps the future President spent too much time at the law review and missed the part about limited powers. We say that because Professor Tribe delivered a constitutional rebuke this week to the Obama Administration that is remarkable coming from a titan of the liberal professoriate.

Mr. Tribe joined with the world’s largest private coal company,  Peabody Energy , to criticize the “executive overreach” of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule to regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants. In joint comments filed with the EPA, the professor accuses the agency of abusing statutory law, violating the Constitution’s Article I, Article II, the separation of powers, the Tenth and Fifth Amendments, and in general displaying contempt for the law.

The Clean Air Act doesn’t give the Administration the authority the EPA claims to impose its climate crackdown on existing power plants by effectively eradicating coal power. The EPA instead uses—in Mr. Tribe’s words—“a hitherto obscure provision” of the Clean Air Act, known as Section 111, to justify its actions. Such legal scavenging is a characteristic of this Administration, and rarely has it been so thoroughly dismantled.

“The Proposed rule rests on a fatally flawed interpretation of Section 111. According to EPA . . . Congress effectively created two different versions of Section 111, and the agency should be allowed to pick and choose which version it wishes to enforce,” writes Mr. Tribe. “According to EPA, since 1990 the U.S. Code has reflected the wrong version of Section 111, and EPA has discovered a mistake [made by Congress]. According to EPA, both the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court have previously misinterpreted Section 111. According to EPA, the two different versions of Section 111 have created ‘ambiguity’ triggering deference to the agency’s [interpretation]. Every part of this narrative is flawed.”

We quote Mr. Tribe at length because the Administration likes to dismiss concerns about its extralegal exertions as partisan or political. But Mr. Tribe shows that there are genuine issues about the law and democratic process at stake.

He writes that even if EPA’s theory of two versions of Section 111 were correct, the agency’s “claim that it is entitled to pick and choose which version it prefers represents an attempt to seize lawmaking power that belongs to Congress. Under Article I, Article II, and the separation of powers, EPA lacks the ability to make law.” Mr. Tribe adds, icily, that a “presidential speech” is insufficient to claim such authority.

The liberal icon also explains how the EPA rule likely violates the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause with its “palpable unfairness of imposing all the costs on a small subset of entities [coal] within the agency’s cross-hairs. The Proposed Rule represents a radical shift in federal policy that upsets settled, investment-backed expectations, with no attempt by EPA to quantify the climate or environmental benefits from the Proposed Rule.” Mr. Tribe urges Democrats and Republicans to resist the rule and “stand in strong support of the rule of law.”

None of this is likely to deter the EPA, which is determined to impose its climate agenda without having passed a single new act of Congress. But once the agency issues its final rule, the courts will get their say—and they may pay more attention to Professor Tribe than to his wayward student.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2114 on: December 09, 2014, 06:42:12 AM »



Obama pal Whitaker ruled 'hostile witness'—suggests racial bias



Mon, 12/08/2014 - 8:31pm

Chris Fusco

@FuscoChris | Email
















SPRINGFIELD — Dr. Eric E. Whitaker, one of President Barack Obama’s closest friends, was declared a “hostile witness” in the multimillion-dollar fraud trial of a Chicago couple Monday — after an explosive hearing in which Whitaker suggested prosecutors were biased against African-Americans.

U.S. District Judge Richard Mills declared Whitaker “hostile” just minutes after Whitaker testified in his Springfield courtroom in the trial of businessman Leon Dingle Jr. and his wife, Karin Dingle.

On the witness stand for more than two hours, Whitaker voiced concerns that the Justice Department’s pursuit of state grant-fraud cases in the Central District of Illinois has been racially motivated.






Prosecutors have charged the Dingles and eight other people in six different cases, most of which involve no-bid grants and contracts that began being doled out when Whitaker headed the Illinois Department of Public Health for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich between 2003 and 2007.

Of those 10 people, only one of them — Karin Dingle — is white, while the rest are black.

“Almost everybody who’s been indicted or scrutinized has been African-American. That’s what I mentioned to you,” Whitaker, who also is black, told Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy A. Bass. “What I don’t support is a selective investigation.”

Seven of the 10 people have pleaded guilty to crimes including bribery and theft. They include Whitaker’s former health department chief of staff, Quinshaunta R. Golden, 46, and his former health department human resources director, Roxanne B. Jackson, 49.

The White House and Justice Department didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Whitaker — who met Obama when they attended Harvard together and often is photographed golfing and playing basketball with the president — became a figure in the federal investigation in 2009, when he was named in a subpoena to the health department.

He’s not been charged with any crime, though he testified Monday that he felt he was being asked “target-ish” questions when prosecutors interviewed him under a cooperation agreement in December 2012. Whitaker’s lawyer cut short the 2012 interview after prosecutors asked the 49-year-old Chicago physician if he’d had a “personal relationship” with Golden.

Whitaker’s refusal to answer questions ever since — combined with emails and photographs that prosecutors say show Whitaker had a close relationship with Dingle when he ran the health department — prompted the prosecution to file its hostile-witness motion last week.

“Personally, I’m upset about this process and how I’ve been made to look like I’m on trial,” Whitaker said. “My not answering a question was really about an affair. . . . I’ve been made to seem like I’m somehow corrupt. I’m angry about that.”

But Whitaker also said he didn’t see himself as a hostile witness.

“I’m angry — but not hostile,” he said. “I would testify truthfully . . . and let the chips fall where they may.”

Mills, though, didn’t flinch in ruling Whitaker “hostile,” which means prosecutors — should they summon him as a witness before the jury hearing the Dingles’ case — would have the leeway to ask him leading questions that normally wouldn’t be allowed. They could, for instance, lay out broad statements and ask Whitaker whether he agrees or disagrees with them.


RELATED:
Obama pal Eric Whitaker stonewalls feds in grant-fraud case
Justice Dept. labels Obama pal Eric Whitaker a 'hostile witness'

The questioning of Whitaker Monday came outside the jury’s presence. Prosecutors said they would tell the judge Tuesday morning whether they intend to call Whitaker as a witness.

The hostile-witness issue has been simmering since Oct. 1, when Dingle attorney Blaire C. Dalton noted in a pretrial hearing that Whitaker had “answered every single question posed to him by the government other than the question of whether or not he had, in fact, this sexual relationship with Quin Golden.”

But prosecutors on Monday didn’t ask that question of Whitaker, who with his wife and family often vacation with the Obamas. The closest they got was asking Whitaker if his relationship with Golden was “more than professional.”

“That’s fair to say,” Whitaker replied, not elaborating.

Asked about the scheme between Jackson and Golden — in which they’ve admitted stealing about $400,000 from taxpayers — Whitaker replied, “I had no idea. . . .I didn’t participate. I had no knowledge.”

Prosecutors also introduced emails in which one of Whitaker’s brothers, Larry Whitaker, apparently had been communicating with him about obtaining business for his printing company from Dingle and state government.

“Tell Vic to kick me some low-dollar, no-bid stuff, just to keep me open for now,” one of the emails from Larry Whitaker to Eric Whitaker read.

“I don’t recall this, and I don’t know who Vic is,” Whitaker told Bass.

Bass also questioned Whitaker about a 2007 bird flu summit trip to Las Vegas in which Dingle paid a $1,471 bill for Whitaker, Golden and others to attend a dinner and Toni Braxton concert at the Flamingo hotel. Whitaker told Bass he believed he reported the outing in accordance with state gift rules.

Whitaker also testified that he and Golden called Dingle shortly after Dingle’s indictment.

“It’s been my experience that, if I know them, I call people and give them a good word,” he said.

Whitaker and Golden oversaw the awarding of about $4 million in state grants to Dingle between April 2003 and September 2007. Dingle got another $7 million under Whitaker’s successor, Dr. Damon Arnold.

Dingle, 77, is accused of spending more than $3 million from those grants — intended for AIDS-awareness and other health programs — on vacation homes, luxury cars and other items for himself and his wife. He's charged with conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering.

Karin Dingle, 75, is charged with conspiracy and mail fraud for allegedly aiding in the scheme.

Judge Mills grew testy with Whitaker after Bass asked him about Tony Rezko, a former fund-raiser for Blagojevich and Obama. Rezko, like Blagojevich, is now in prison after being convicted on public corruption charges.

Obama has said that in 2003, when he was an Illinois state senator, he gave a “glowing” reference for Whitaker to Rezko, who helped Blagojevich fill vacancies heading state agencies.

Dalton, Dingle’s lawyer, objected to the Rezko question, prompting Whitaker himself to ask if an objection is warranted.

The judge was taken aback, telling Whitaker “Who’s running the show here?” and denying the objection.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2115 on: December 10, 2014, 10:55:54 AM »
Obama administration claims a right to hide evidence before Supreme Court
washingtonexaminer.com ^  | 12/10/14 | Kyndra Miller Rotunda and Rear Admiral James Carey (Ret.) and Bob Carey and Joshua Flynn-Brown

Posted on ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2014‎ ‎1‎:‎32‎:‎48‎ ‎PM by ColdOne

Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in United States v. June, a case that has received little attention, but will have far-reaching implications. The case boils down to this: Can the federal government actively conceal material evidence in order to escape liability? Common sense says no. The Obama administration says yes.

June involves the Federal Torts Claims Act (FTCA) and a doctrine called “equitable tolling.” Prior to 1946, the doctrine of sovereign immunity prohibited citizens from filing suit against the government. That all changed in 1946, when a military plane crashed into the Empire State Building, killing and injuring many civilians. Congress responded by enacting the FTCA, which waives sovereign immunity and allows citizens to sue the government in instances.

However, claimants must file a claim within two years of injury. Equitable tolling freezes those two years under certain considerations, like government officials hiding pertinent facts. Courts across the country have consistently applied the doctrine of equitable tolling to FTCA claims.


(Excerpt) Read more at m.washingtonexaminer.com ...

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2116 on: December 14, 2014, 05:41:25 AM »
nst Non-Profits
Townhall.com ^ | December 14, 2014 | Bruce Bialosky
Posted on December 14, 2014 at 5:04:48 AM PST by Kaslin

With the attempt to limit the deductibility of contributions to charities by high-earners, the Obama Administration has opened a multi-front attack against the American tradition of “neighbor helping neighbor” and financially successful people turning large portions of their wealth over to charities that improve the American culture in august manners. The governmental power grab competes with the attempts to control the financial sector for its significance and may exceed it in the long-term effect upon our culture.

One first has to marvel at how liberals can twist logic to rationalize a tax increase. It happens regularly from the local government level up to the national level. Does anyone really believe that the cameras at intersections are for driver safety? The politicians preach about how lives are being saved while what they are really doing is extorting more monies for their various projects.

In the same manner, the Obama team worked hard to define their argument to limit the benefit deduction. They outlined three main points. The first is that high-income people should not get greater tax benefit than people taxed at the lower rate of 28 percent. They then argue the tax-benefit would be the same that was provided during the Reagan era when the top rate for everyone was 28 percent. These are marvelous twists of semantics that would delight any Orwellian scholar. These assertions beg the question of a lower top rate or a flat tax. The last point they make is just totally bogus and must have derived from some obscure study by a misguided PhD. The President stating with a straight face that tax benefits have little influence upon charitable decisions displays either his naiveté or his disingenuousness.

Republicans fell for a similar argument during the Bush 41 Administration. The Democrats argued for the income tax rate at 31 percent stating that the phasing out of deductions created a bubble and that certain people were getting an advantage. This new rate would bring everyone to a true 28 percent; thus equalizing taxes. The Republicans foolishly bought that argument – merely a precursor for the next argument. Not long after, the second step of raising the rate to 31 percent was argued for because now the top earners were paying a 28 percent on their top income, and it would only be fair to raise the top rate to 31 percent for all income. This same convoluted logic will be used as the first step toward eliminating the charitable contribution for everyone.

One might conclude, upon reading the left-leaning press, that a tax-benefited gift to charity is a nefarious scheme. This press and its followers revolt against the fact that religious organizations benefit from these gifts. An assertion is made that the tax benefit constitutes stealing money from the government even though the money is used for deeds that actually help people.

American volunteerism has been assaulted by the establishment of AmeriCorps and the recent passage of the Serve America Act of 2009. No longer will Americans work to improve their community through the United Appeal, Red Cross or hundreds of other noble organizations. Now young and old Americans are being paid to “volunteer” for projects that charities did more efficiently. With the ever growing involvement of government in charities the omnipotent control will follow.

During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a prime example of the difference between how the government and a non-profit operates was obvious. A convoy of Red Cross trucks sat waiting to help the citizens at the Superdome, while Michael Brown, the then-FEMA director, sought authorization from the government of Louisiana. He could not contact his counterpart at the state level since that person was in prison on corruption charges, and no one filled that position for making emergency management decisions. He contacted then-Governor Blanco, who dithered while the people suffered, and finally decided against sending in the Red Cross. Left to its own devices, the Red Cross, experts on crisis management, would have immediately aided the people and avoided one of the blackest marks in American history.

We have seen people time and again tackle problems through charitable operations that government would allow to languish in political debate while elected officials worry about their next election. Does anyone really believe that we would have made the heroic efforts Jerry Lewis has achieved to eradicate muscular dystrophy if left up to the government? Or if Nancy Brinker’s sister had not contracted breast cancer, does anyone believe the Susan G. Komen Foundation would have been equaled by the government in the saving of women’s lives.

Stories like this abound in America because our past political leaders realized government could not do all. Encouragement of Americans to conquer problems from education deficiency to drug-abuse to cures for disease could be accomplished through the vital efforts of average people who created a passion to help.

Paying people to do good while limiting people’s tax benefit to do good leads us down the wrong path. Instead of expanding governmental control and limiting charities, President Obama should set an example by working with charities to solve problems the government will never solve. His onslaught against independent entities helping fellow Americans needs to stop. This centralizing of money and control in the federal government will lead our country down the bleakest road imaginable. It will destroy the essence of America that was defined ages ago by de Tocqueville, thus reducing us to merely an ordinary rather than extraordinary country.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2117 on: December 14, 2014, 03:33:46 PM »
Our poor president is misunderstood by an increasingly large portion of the population, as his second shellacking last month showed.

Yet his unpopularity is not because of his policies (which were all on the ballot), but because, as MIT professor and multi-million-dollar government consultant Jonathan Gruber has said many times, Americans are just too stupid to understand the nuance that is Obama.

Dinesh D’Souza, in his new book, America, says, “America’s suicide, it turns out, is the result of a plan. The plan is not simply one of destruction but also one of reconstruction—it seeks the rebuilding of a different type of country, what President Obama terms ‘the work of remaking America.’

“ “While Obama acknowledges the existence of the plan, he is not responsible for the plan; it would be more accurate to say that it is responsible for him. The plan preceded Obama, and it will outlast him. Obama is simply part of a fifty-year scheme for the undoing and remaking of America, and when he is gone there are others who are ready to continue the job. What makes the plan especially chilling is that most Americans are simply unaware of what’s going on. Their ignorance, as we shall see, is part of the plan. It should be emphasized at the outset that the domestic champions of American decline are not traitors or America-haters. They are bringing down America because they genuinely believe that America deserves to be brought down.”

That’s one theory; I have a different one: Obama hates America. If one starts with that hideous premise, all his actions make sense. Let’s look at a few.

As-yet unfulfilled, but perhaps the greatest tactical injury this president has wrought on America is in the Bowe Bergdahl swap. Obama, under cover of secrecy, traded a screwed up sergeant to the enemy, for five of their top strategists and tacticians.

Bergdahl is of no strategic value to the nation, but the exchange was of immeasurable value to our enemy. The president didn’t even try to get a bundle of concessions; he just wanted to help the murderous fanatics.

Bergdahl was nothing to Obama but a cover, as he (Obama) aided and abetted the future mayhem

Whatever his reasons, he is working to destroy our nation. And whoever his successors or predecessors, he is the current point of the spear and he is the one who needs, today, to be stopped.

Obamacare is both a political and economic example of his plan. It is not health care; it is insurance, and an examination of the very concept of insurance reveals that its purpose is to reduce the risk of the riskiest as the least at-risk pay for it.

Insurance companies prosper, not by paying for coverage, but for collecting premiums.

Politically, Obamacare divides the population against itself, pitting women against men, young against old, union against free workers, and active against sedentary; he can play each segment to his advantage.

Worse, in Obama’s version of “faithfully executing the laws,” Obamacare’s blatantly unlawful manipulation by the president, unopposed by not just the Republican leadership but by the zombies who vote, established a tyrannical precedent.

Which is biting all of us in Obama’s deliberate dilution of the American electorate. From the beginning of his reign, he has worked, often through his henchman and Attorney General Eric Holder, to lessen the value of the peoples’ votes.

From non-prosecution of obvious voter fraud and intimidation, through non-subtle demands that voters not be vetted, through the planned importation and dispersal of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants (many with serious criminal backgrounds), to his illegal amnesty for millions, President Obama has done everything in the book to make Americans’ votes irrelevant.

Obama’s promise to destroy mining, and particularly coal mining and use, is coming to fruition, not lawfully, but by administrative action at his Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA is a law unto itself, targeting the economies of red states particularly, as it assumes the authority to put thousands out of work and increase energy costs on the nation, raising prices on everything and leaving our infrastructure vulnerable to unproven technology – or technology which is already proven to be inferior.

And speaking of administrative law – something not allowed by the Constitution but encouraged by lazy and cowardly legislators – Obama has weaponized the IRS, using it as Bill Clinton did, but on a much broader and nastier scale.

Though candidate Obama railed against the fraud and corruption in the VA system, as president, he has done nothing about it, except for replacing some of his top pawns and savaging some good people who sold out and did what he wanted.

Through TARP (passed during G.W. Bush’s term with Obama’s support and spent in its greatest part by Obama) and a series of “Quantitative Easing” programs at the Federal Reserve, Obama has encouraged the devaluation of the dollar, robbing savers, investors, and those on fixed incomes as he pumps up Wall Street, readying it for another bubble that’s timed to hit as soon as he’s near the end of his second term – and thus putting blame on minor players.

And the destruction of American incentive that’s due to a doubling of the National Debt during his reign cannot yet be measured. But the idea that the U.S. is “the richest nation in the world” is exactly, 180 degrees wrong: the United States of America is the most-indebted nation today, and in the history of the world, owing over $18 trillion dollars on the books, and facing another perhaps $200 trillion in unfunded obligations in the future.

Though Obama himself didn’t spend all the money, he enjoyed spending it, and he certainly did nothing to slow down the hemorrhage.

Obama’s foreign policy has consistently appeased and even encouraged enemies, even as he has made the U.S. an increasingly unreliable ally, from the Kurds in Iraq to the corrupt regimes there and in Afghanistan, to the selling-out of allies in the Middle East and the encouragement and support of radical rebel governments, to the deliberate undermining of efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program, to opening the door to everyone, including criminals, along the border.

Lastly (last only in this column, not in reality; there are many more examples), Obama has taken on the military might of the United States and done everything he can to destroy not just the war fighting budget, but the structure and morale of the fighting units.

His caprice, based on a lack of understanding of the military and an ambiguous foreign mission for the U.S., has made a joke out of the greatest fighting force in history.

Our president wants to ruin America. He is too consistent to be merely stupid; it’s his plan, his dearest wish. No?

Why else would anyone who loves this nation work so hard to weaken its military, weaken its military, confuse its mission, divide its populace, and destroy its morale?



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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2121 on: December 16, 2014, 08:30:50 PM »
http://viral.buzz/breaking-obama-may-be-linked-to-massacre-in-pakistan



Disgusting

This would be the story of the year, if obama releases him, and a week later he blows up 120+ kids.

Link to it on brietbart or FOX news?   The story has been out for a week now - I'm refreshing but they have nothing yet.  1130pm EST.


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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #2123 on: December 17, 2014, 05:23:48 AM »
MIAMI — The Obama administration overturned a ban preventing a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman from entering the United States after her family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to finance records and government officials.

The woman, Estefanía Isaías, had been barred from coming to the United States after being caught fraudulently obtaining visas for her maids. But the ban was lifted at the request of the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so that Ms. Isaías could work for an Obama fund-raiser with close ties to the administration.

It was one of several favorable decisions the Obama administration made in recent years involving the Isaías family, which the government of Ecuador accuses of buying protection from Washington and living comfortably in Miami off the profits of a looted bank in Ecuador.

The family, which has been investigated by federal law enforcement agencies on suspicion of money laundering and immigration fraud, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to American political campaigns in recent years. During that time, it has repeatedly received favorable treatment from the highest levels of the American government, including from New Jersey’s senior senator and the State Department.

Photo

 
 
Estefanía Isaías had been banned from entering the United States for visa fraud. The ban was later waived. Credit Expresiones 

The Obama administration has allowed the family’s patriarchs, Roberto and William Isaías, to remain in the United States, refusing to extradite them to Ecuador. The two brothers were sentenced in absentia in 2012 to eight years in prison, accused of running their bank into the ground and then presenting false balance sheets to profit from bailout funds. In a highly politicized case, Ecuador says the fraud cost the country $400 million.

The family’s affairs have rankled Ecuador and strained relations with the United States at a time when the two nations are also at odds over another international fugitive: Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who has taken refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

But while scrutiny has typically focused on whether the family’s generous campaign donations have helped its patriarchs avoid extradition, the unorthodox help given to Ms. Isaías, the daughter of Roberto, has received little attention.

In the spring of 2011, Ms. Isaías, a television executive, was in a difficult situation.

Her father and uncle were Ecuadorean fugitives living in Miami, but she was barred from entering the United States after she brought maids into the country under false visa pretenses and left them at her parents’ Miami home while she traveled.

“Alien smuggling” is what American consular officials in Ecuador called it.

American diplomats began enforcing the ban against Ms. Isaías, blocking her from coming to Miami for a job with a communications strategist who had raised up to $500,000 for President Obama.

What happened next illustrates the kind of access and influence available to people with vast amounts of money.

 A Senator’s Assistance

Continue reading the main story

For more than a year, Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his staff engaged in a relentless effort to help Ms. Isaías, urging senior government officials, including Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, to waive the ban. The senator’s assistance came even though Ms. Isaías’s family, a major donor to him and other American politicians, does not live in his state.

The Obama administration then reversed its decision and gave Ms. Isaías the waiver she needed to come to the United States — just as tens of thousands of dollars in donations from the family poured into Mr. Obama’s campaign coffers.

Photo

 
 
Roberto A. Isaías has been living in Miami after leaving Ecuador where he is wanted in connection with a failed bank. Credit Angel Valentin for The New York Times 

An email from Mr. Menendez’s office sharing the good news was dated May 15, 2012, one day after, campaign finance records show, Ms. Isaías’s mother gave $40,000 to the Obama Victory Fund, which provided donations to the president and other Democrats.

“In my old profession as a prosecutor, timelines mean a lot,” said Ken Boehm, a former Pennsylvania prosecutor who is chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog. “When a donation happens and then something else happens, like the favor, as long as they are very, very close, that really paints a story.”

In 2012, the Isaías family donated about $100,000 to the Obama Victory Fund. Campaign finance records show that their most generous donations came just before a request to the administration.

Ms. Isaías’s mother, María Mercedes, had recently donated $30,000 to the Senate campaign committee that Mr. Menendez led when she turned to him for help in her daughter’s case. At least two members of Mr. Menendez’s staff worked with Ms. Isaías and her father, as well as lawyers and other congressional offices, to argue that she had been unfairly denied entry into the United States.

Over the course of the next year, as various members of the Isaías family donated to Mr. Menendez’s re-election campaign, the senator and his staff repeatedly made calls, sent emails and wrote letters about Ms. Isaías’s case to Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Mills, the consulate in Ecuador, and the departments of State and Homeland Security.

After months of resistance from State Department offices in Ecuador and Washington, the senator lobbied Ms. Mills himself, and the ban against Ms. Isaías was eventually overturned.

Mr. Menendez’s office acknowledged going to bat for Ms. Isaías, but insisted that the advocacy was not motivated by money.

“Our office handled this case no differently than we have thousands of other immigration-related requests over the years, and to suggest that somehow the senator’s longstanding and principled beliefs on immigration have been compromised is just plain absurd,” said Patricia Enright, the senator’s spokeswoman.

Ms. Enright said Mr. Menendez’s office worked on the case because Ms. Isaías had previously been allowed to travel to the United States six times despite the ban, and the decision to suddenly enforce it seemed arbitrary and wrong. She said the senator routinely acted on cases he got from across the nation.

Continue reading the main story

Mr. Menendez is currently under investigation by the Justice Department for his advocacy on behalf of another out-of-state campaign donor, Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, who ran afoul of federal health officials for unorthodox Medicare billing.

In the Isaías case, the senator wrote seven letters for various members of the family, including four on April 2, 2012, alone.

Photo

 
 
Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, lobbied on behalf of Estefanía Isaías, though she is not a constituent. Credit Mel Evans/Associated Press 

A month after succeeding in Ms. Isaías’s case, Mr. Menendez sent another letter to the head of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to waive a ban on her sister, María — who had also been deemed an immigrant smuggler because she had brought maids into the United States and left them with her parents while she traveled abroad.



As that letter went out, their mother gave $20,000 more to the Obama Victory Fund.

Immigration officials forwarded the senator’s inquiries to Homeland Security Investigations, the immigration bureau’s investigative arm. Officials there noticed that the Isaías family had made several donations to the senator, and informed the F.B.I. in Miami.

Agents with Homeland Security Investigations are working to have the Isaías brothers deported. The Ecuadorean government has repeatedly requested that the men be extradited, but Washington has declined, saying that the extradition request was poorly prepared and did not meet legal standards. The criminal case in Ecuador was also marred by irregularities.

 Support on Capitol Hill

The Isaías brothers consider themselves political exiles unfairly attacked by the Ecuadorean government and have garnered support on Capitol Hill, where sentiment against Ecuador’s leftist president runs strong.

But the case involving Estefanía could prove awkward for Mrs. Clinton, who was in charge of the State Department at the time high-ranking officials overruled the agency’s ban on Ms. Isaías for immigration fraud, and whose office made calls on the matter.

Continue reading the main story

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Ecobuilder
 10 minutes ago
Negotiations dictate local, state, federal, and global politics - just as they are key to any business.



peddler832
 10 minutes ago
What a concept, flat out bribery, who would have guessed it! Now we can all wait with bated breath as we watch the current Justice...



ms wanderlust
 11 minutes ago
And we as a nation think we are better than countries where bribery is a way/cost of doing business!Someone please tell me what value the...
 
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Alfredo J. Balsera, the Obama fund-raiser whose firm, Balsera Communications, sponsored Ms. Isaías’s visa, was featured recently in USA Today as a prominent Latino fund-raiser backing Mrs. Clinton for president in 2016.

Mr. Balsera declined repeated requests to explain what work Ms. Isaías had done for his company, which has close ties to the Obama administration. To stay in the country under her three-year visa, Ms. Isaías would have to remain employed by Balsera Communications, request a change of immigration status or get another employer to sponsor her.

The company website does not list her as one of its 12 employees, though it has biographies and photos of even junior account executives, and news releases were issued when others were hired. Ms. Isaías’s name has not been mentioned on the company’s blog, Facebook page or Twitter timeline, and she is not present in any of the dozens of photographs posted on social media sites of company outings, parties, and professional and social events.

David A. Duckenfield, a partner at the company who is now on leave for a position as deputy assistant secretary of public affairs at the State Department, said Ms. Isaías worked for the firm but declined to comment further. Another senior executive at the firm said she must work outside the office because he had never heard of her.

Photo

 
 
Cheryl Mills, who was former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief of staff. Credit Michael Buckner/Getty Images for J/P Haitian Relief Organization and Cinema for Peace 

Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story

Continue reading the main story

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton and her chief of staff, Ms. Mills, denied any special treatment for Ms. Isaías. Although Ms. Mills is unlikely to serve in any official capacity on a potential 2016 presidential campaign, she would undoubtedly be a strong behind-the-scenes presence and one of a small number of longtime advisers whom Mrs. Clinton would rely on for advice.

“There are rigorous processes in place for matters such as these, and they were followed,” said the spokesman, Nick Merrill. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

A White House spokesman, Eric Schultz, declined to comment, saying that visas are issued free from political interference by other federal agencies.

‘Not His Constituents’

Linda Jewell, the American ambassador in Quito, Ecuador, from 2005 to 2008, when Ms. Isaías’s immigration fraud was detected, said the intervention in Ms. Isaías’s case was far from routine.

“Such close and detailed involvement by a congressional office in an individual visa case would be quite unusual, especially for an applicant who is not a constituent of the member of Congress,” Ms. Jewell said after reviewing emails and documents related to the case. “This example of inquiry is substantially beyond the usual level of interest.”

Others have expressed concern. When Mr. Menendez’s office reached out to Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, to get him to write a letter on Ms. Isaías’s behalf, his office refused.

The office “discovered from the State Department that there were some red flags associated with the individual in question, and we took no further action,” said Mr. Nelson’s spokesman, Dan McLaughlin.

Mr. Boehm, the former Pennsylvania prosecutor, said Senate ethics rules allowed members of Congress to reach out to the administration on behalf of a constituent. “Members of Congress do a lot for their constituents,” Mr. Boehm said.

“These folks are not his constituents,” he added, referring to Mr. Menendez.
Continue reading the main story 
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The Isaías family did not return several requests for comment. Ms. Isaías did not respond to emails and messages left at her home in Miami. Her lawyer, Roy J. Barquet, did not respond to phone and email messages.

In an interview this year, Roberto Isaías said the family’s donations were targeted to members of Congress who fight for human rights and freedom of speech in Latin America. He said he had met Mr. Menendez once or twice. “If you go to his website,” Mr. Isaías said, “it says, ‘If you have an immigration problem, call me.’ ”

The senator’s website does offer such casework assistance, under a category titled “Services for New Jerseyans.”