Friday, December 4, 2015
Saturday Politics : FIFA and the Department of Justice
Sometimes Saturday politics is about what politicians don't do. ~~~~~ On December 3, the US Department of Justice unsealed a 92-count indictment in federal court against 16 new defendants in its growing corruption investigation of FIFA (International Federation of Football Associations). The new defendants are all current or former members of Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) and Conmebol (South American Football Confederation), including top officials. All are charged with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering all in a scheme to enrich themselves. US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said of the indictment : "The betrayal of trust set forth here is outrageous. The scale of corruption alleged herein is unconscionable. And the message from this announcement should be clear to every culpable individual who remains in the shadows, hoping to evade our investigation: you will not wait us out. You will not escape our focus.” ~~~~~ JOD also announced that eight defendants arrested in May have entered guilty pleas, including Jeffrey Webb, Alejandro Burzaco and Jose Marguiles -- Burzaco pled guilty to racketerring, wire fraud and money laundering charges and will forfeit $21 million. Webb will give up $6.7 million and Margulies, $9.2 million. Other officials arrested include Concacaf executives Alfredo Hawitt, and from Conmebol, FIFA vice president Juan Angel Napout. ~~~~~ And, at 6 a.m. on Friday, US authorities made a surprised arrest of Hector Trujillo, general secretary of Guatemala's soccer federation and a judge on the country's constitutional court, by hauling him off a cruise ship to face criminal bribery charges. Customs and Border Protection agency officers arrested Trujillo on the ship at Port Canaveral, Florida, a popular departure port for Caribbean cruise ships. On Thursday, Swiss Police working with the FBI, arrested two top FIFA executives in a luxury hotel in Zurich before dawn. In all, 41 people from soccer's world governing body and associated marketing companies are facing charges in a sprawling criminal case that has thrown world football (soccer) into crisis. ~~~~~ We know that FIFA needs to be radically purged of its current practices and reformed. The DOJ investigation is part of that process, along with a broad Swiss investigation. ~~~~~ A busy DOJ. BUT, focus on Attorney General Lynch's comment : "The betrayal of trust set forth here is outrageous. The scale of corruption alleged herein is unconscionable. And the message from this announcement should be clear to every culpable individual who remains in the shadows, hoping to evade our investigation: you will not wait us out. You will not escape our focus.” This statement of AG Lynch could have been made about : (1) Operation Fast and Furious concocted by DOJ and ATF in 2009-2010 to 'walk' guns into Mexico; it failed and a Border Patrol employee was killed with one of the guns, but nobody in ATF or DOJ has been terminated as a result of purposely losing 2,000 high-powered weapons in Mexico; the Obama administration intimidated agents to prevent testimony before Congress; Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama's appointee, stonewalled the oversight committee investigation and did not comply with congressional subpoenas to submit documents; no one has been prosecuted. (2) The IRS unit led by Lois Lerner unconstitutionally harassed conservative groups seeking tax exempt status - the apparent goal was to help Obama's re-election; Lerner pled the Fifth Amendment before Congress and was held in contempt but DOJ refused to prosecute and she retired at full pension; the IRS destroyed and hid evidence in Lerner emails subpoeaned by Congress; AG Lynch closed the file, refusing to prosecute anyone. ~~~~~ Dear readers, instead of using massive resources to clean up soccer, Attorney General Lynch and the DOJ could better use US taxpayer dollars to clean up corrupt practices inside the Obama administration. We hope the GOP Congress will investigate DOJ/Lynch priorities. Ask your congressperson about it.
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From my humble "soapbox" I view the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the office of the Attorney General as being nothing more than “gate keepers' for the protection of this president and all his minions of loyal legal type soldiers as they travel destroying the Constitution, The Rule of Law, and the conduct their daily activities of keeping the President’s Men out of jail on obstruction of justice charges and treason activities.
ReplyDeleteThe charge of the DOJ and AG is to represent the people of the United Sates in legal matters – not to build walls of legal protection when the administration gets caught with their hands in the cookie jars or as with this administration their entire bodies submerged in the cookie jar of illegal & treason activities.
Our most recent Attorney generals have been “jokes” in both their independence from the White House and their legal aptitude to stand as Attorney generals of the United States.
What they both have excelled at is their blind and moral less lack of execution of the “people’s” legal matters. They are both prime functionaries of the “Peter Principal”
The Peter Principal may be right-on in the federal Government administration of Barrack Obama.
ReplyDeleteBut let’s keep in mind the Dilbert* principal … originated in the 1990s by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams stating that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing. In this case Obama has again sadly failed. The damage they have done is significant and ruinous to the American way of life.
The serious factor that Casey Pops was alluding to is that the people’s legal business is not being taken care of. The military is being handcuffed, the Interior Department is allowing the ‘infrastructure’ to go to _ _ _ _, the IRS is running wild on invasion of private citizens and well-intentioned organizations, the State Department is running amuck everyplace it puts its fingerprints, and confidence in the government of Obama is at a dangerous low.
*The Dilbert cartoon character does have a slight resemblance to Barrack Obama.
Is Attorney General Lynch “Tilting at windmills”, as the factious Don Quixote did some 400 years ago?
ReplyDeleteDoes she see herself an adversary (though incorrectly perceived), or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied diversionary actions?
“For neither good nor evil can last forever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Progressive socialists are not motivated by intellectual ideas, good intentions, or the betterment of society. They are motivated by self-interest they are as they see the world the “ruling elites”.
ReplyDeleteThis has been true since the onset of progress socialism and the Woodrow Wilson administration. And with Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros at the helm of our government every agency head is cast in that self-interest mold. Not what is good for the country, but what is good for the ruling elites. And this one world - one government society that includes AG Lynch is simply playing her part in this latest, seemingly useless legal action against international football (soccer). It is not about the sport it is all about control and one more feather in their caps.
This Department of Justice, this action by the Attorney General Lynch of the United States, this entire Obama administration and all that have been part or parcel of it is a total failure of moral principal.
ReplyDeleteThis Obama admiration sees no difference in what is and what isn’t open to change.
Their Progressive Socialists philosophy (the same that is driving AG Lynch to become involved in FIFA scandal) is not as Ayn Rand said “an ivory-towered diversion divorced from practical concerns, but is an indispensable guide to understanding the real world and acting successfully in it.” These minions of this fellow Obama (who is directed by one George Soros) have no philosophy and everyone needs a philosophy of life in order to understand life.
Everything fits into the puzzle of life – from the Energy Crisis of the 1970’s, various TV shows, to the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon’s trip to China, to 9/11, to terrorism, to terrorists, to San Bernardino last week and France a few weeks earlier, and to the next attack someplace, to all the lies and failures of the Obama administration.
How does a scandalous administration such as the one that Obama created justify the time and expense of jumping on the band wagon of destroying FIFA (which has pretty much done itself in) and ignoring Benghazi, a corrupt treasonous ex-Secretary of State, the lies of Obamacare/ACA, etc., etc.
Maybe, just maybe someone could whisper into the ear og=f AG Lynch and tell her about the terrorist attack last week in San Bernardino, CA last week and she may wish to allocate the funds and force of the Department of Justice (and all the policing agencies that fall under its umbrella) into getting on top of what appears to be a most important terrorists operation in Redlands, CA. that could be a supply cell.
ReplyDeleteIf DOJ is in the practice of ‘cherry picking’ what they wish to investigate/prosecute, rather than protecting the homeland and its citizens then we need an investigation into DOJ and the Attorney General’s Office.