Rep. Jean Schmidt found guilty of accepting $500,000 in ‘indirect’ Turkish lobby payment

[ensho]

http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/3100


The revered Bruce Fein and foreign lobby dollars in the form of illegal payment of legal bills

-snip-

Representative Jean Schmidt, Republican of Ohio, has been ordered by the House Ethics Committee to repay a Turkish-American group $500,000 for legal services it improperly paid for to help her pursue a defamation lawsuit and other legal proceedings against a Democratic opponent in the 2008 election.

As you can see, very consciously the Times avoids naming ‘that Democratic opponent.’ Because naming him, David Krikorian, would require some fact citing and more context-background on the case; the case they together with the rest of the mainstream media went out of their way to black out. And doing ‘that’ would, God forbid, bring up the long-blacked-out state secrets privilege in my case. And ‘that’ my dear friends, is something that has been forbidden to these stenographers in the media circus.

-snip-

The action by the House committee, disclosed Friday, did not come with a formal punishment, because ethics investigators concluded that Ms. Schmidt had been misled by her own lawyers from the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund about who was paying the legal bills.

-snip-

The report above casually, and very quickly, glosses over one of the implicated, that is, directly implicated, parties in this case: Schmidt’s lawyer—the lawyer who supposedly, and intentionally, misled his client, and did so with a dollar amount not in the thousands, but actually half a million dollars. Ordinarily this slip by a government garbage disposal facility like the Times would not raise big flags. However, this lawyer is no ordinary lawyer. The lawyer in question here happens to be a famous, very public, high-profile and very deviously and shrewdly marketed man. The lawyer in this case is none other than deceivingly perceived Bruce Fein. A man who has gotten very wealthy thanks to the foreign lobby, in this case the Turkish lobby in need of a man who knows the maze that gets the cheese to the congressional mice:

-snip-
------------------------------

Turkey lobby? Turkey likes republicans/neo cons? or are the repugs easier to bribe? (copy cats of the Israel lobby?)

[Botany]

1. Don't worry John Boner will have the House Ethics .....

.... committee start the paperwork to force her to resign from congress.

Do I need to add this? :sarcasm:


1/2 million $ bribe and this will get zero media coverage.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/08/jean-schmidt-ethics-case/1?csp=34news

Nothing is gonna happen to her ..... it was all a mix up. :puke:

[blogslut]

2. I bet this has to do with the Armenian Genocide

That was one of the things that Sibel Edmonds was trying to bring to light. The Turkish Government paid a lot of money to politicians so they would help keep that nasty part of their history out of the public sphere.

[Wilms]

3. Your post is one of the reasons I love DU.

There's a lot of people here paying attention. That includes you.

[MidwestTransplant]

15. Kerkorian is an Armenian name.

[blogslut]

21. Yep

And here's a relevant article snip about the background:

'Blood Money'

Schmidt has alleged that Krikorian --- who has announced plans to run against Schmidt again, as a Democrat, in 2010 --- libeled her when he alleged in campaign materials that she had taken "blood money" as campaign donations from Turkish interest groups. Schmidt is co-chairwoman of the Congressional Turkish Caucus, according to Politico's coverage of the case, and has received more than $10,000 from the Turkish Coalition USA PAC, "making it one of her top campaign contributors", since taking office in 2005. She recently took a trip to Turkey sponsored by the Turkish Coalition of America, valued at more than $10,000.

At immediate issue in the initial Schmidt v. Krikorian tussle, is the century-long debate over whether the extermination of some 1.5 million ethnic Armenians during WWI will be declared a "genocide" by the American government. The issue is a highly contentious one that has cut across party lines in Congress, and has ensnared dozens of U.S. Congressmembers and highly-ranked officials in a lobbyist-funded, politically-charged battle...

Thanks to BradBlog: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7341

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[truth2power]

22. Yep! Mean Jean she's called. Ugh! n/t

[Myrina]

5. When does she resign and report to prison?

:shrug:

[Aerows]

7. Yesterday isn't soon enough n/t

[Botany]

10. Nothing will happen to her

House ethics panel clears Schmidt,

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/08/jean-schmidt-ethics-case/1?csp=34news

It was just a mix up .... Turkey was paying her lawyers for their work for her and she just didn't know anything about anything. :puke:

[blogslut]

28. Well

She does have to cough up half a million dollars. That's gotta sting.

[Botany]

29. The Koch Brothers might have already written the check

She just plain forgot that her lawyers worked for her for 2 years and never billed her. :wow:

[lpbk2713]

6. I think I'll go out and rob a bank.

Apparently, if I get caught the worst that will happen to me is I'll have to pay back the money I stole.

And there is no deterrent for me not to try it again after that. :shrug:

[Aerows]

9. As an added bonus

you'll know how to not get caught the next time.

[Buns_of_Fire]

16. Rob it today, don't let yourself get caught until tomorrow, and I guess you're home free.

After all, we don't want to waste time "looking back" -- we should be looking forward! (Isn't that how it goes?)

[Major Hogwash]

33. Be sure to register as a Republican first.

The odds of you being found guilty will automagically be cut in half.
Plus, your odds for an appeal to be found not guilty will double if the lower court finds you guilty.
Because this country does NOT have guilty Republicans.

"You're all suckers." -- Dick Cheney

[UTUSN]

8. K&R #10 n/t

[Scurrilous]

11. K & R

:thumbsup:

[blueknight]

13. i live in the cincinnati area

the same vicinity of mean jeans district. there has not been ONE WORD said about this on the local cincinnati news channels

[sabrina 1]

40. Someone should call the local newspapers then, and write some letters

to the editors, or put fliers in the Supermarket.

[hayrow]

12. Is this one of those times that we need to look forward, not backward, regarding criminal activity?

[fascisthunter]

14. why do so many republicans have to be of german descent

I'm half german and I find nothing in common with these whackjobs!!!

[Tatiana]

17. Mean Jean? Doesn't surprise me. Man I wish we could have picked up her seat. n/t

[madrchsod]

18. will denny hastert will escape from prosecution?

[OnyxCollie]

19. Dennis Hastert is a lobbyist for Turkey.

And look who else is involved, Dick Gephardt.

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert Contracted to Lobby for Turkey
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/04/11-1

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and others at his firm, Dickstein Shapiro, are working on a $35,000-per-month contract for Turkey, according to records on file with the Justice Department.

~snip~

The agreement is a subcontract between Hastert's firm and the Gephardt Group, founded by Richard Gephardt, the ex-Missouri congressman who was the Democratic House leader for several years. Gephardt and others at DLA Piper replaced the Livingston Group, longtime lobbyists for Turkey, as its Washington representatives last year.

~snip~

One issue Hastert and others lobbying for Turkey will have to deal with this year is a congressional resolution that defines the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in the early 1900s as genocide. The Turkish government opposes the resolution and has lobbied against it every time it has been introduced in Congress.

~snip~

Hastert has also been involved in the debate over the genocide resolution. In 2000, the Illinois Republican, then House Speaker, took the measure off the voting schedule after being asked by President Bill Clinton to do so.

[gratuitous]

20. And silencio from the popular media

You'd think a $500,000 fuck up would get some attention from somebody. Maybe the Pulitzer Committee has closed shop for the year, so why bother? Hey, Christine O'Donnell, unemployed cutie, has a book out! Let's spend some time on that.

[mikeysnot]

23. It wasn't a tweeted penis on a dem

so nothing to see here... move along. This is not the political sex scandal we were looking for.

[progressoid]

24. Beyonce is pregnant!!11!!

:banghead:

[gratuitous]

25. I know!

I got up the other day, discouraged by it all, and seriously contemplating the idea of riding directly into a head-on collision with a cement truck or something. Then the news from whatever awards show it was came through, and life was worth living again. The sun broke through, the birds chirped, and all was sweetness and goodness again.

Then, like Beyonce in the first stages of pregnancy, I went into the bathroom and :puke:

[in_cog_ni_to]

26. If she doesn't resign, Weiner goes back to Congress, Dammit!

WTF is it with our CORRUPT government that we let them continue getting away with this shit?

[Stinky The Clown]

27. I hope Jack Murtha's looking down and chuckling.

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. How did I know it was a repig before I opened this?

Ok I know her from the SPAN but still

[musette_sf]

31. Turkey for YOU, Mean Jean!

Turkey for me
Turkey for you
Let's eat the turkey
In my big brown shoe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWvQ4lPAow4

[Bluebear]

32. Sammy Davis junior only had one eye!

[musette_sf]

34. Can't believe the Mets traded Darryl Strawberry!

[Bluebear]

35. :)

:toast:

[cascadiance]

36. Still waiting for someone to charge Sibel Edmonds with perjury from that civil case...

... where she testified and finally was able to be on the record for things she heard about people like Mark Grossman exposing Brewster Jennings and other criminal elements of our government and the actions of Turkish and Israeli entities along with those countries' lobbyists.

This lawsuit followup and the deafening silence of any kind of legal response to Sibel's testimony from that court case still makes one ask why our government doesn't want to even talk about the allegations Sibel made in her testimony there. Was she right? The gravity of what she stated begs for an answer.

[WCGreen]

37. Her district will be drawn out of existence in a few months.

Ohio lost two seats in the redistricting after the census.

Hers will be gone.

[EFerrari]

38. She should 've just given the shoes back.

[pa28]

39. Just in case anybody has forgotten here is Schmidt's comment to Vietnam vet John Murtha.

"Cowards cut and run Marines never do."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8FZ_nxmf0Y

Disgusting.
Hypocritical.