We are going to run a short series of posts labeled, for lack of a better name, ”The Corruption Chronicles.” It seems that lately there have been a run of news reports on how corrupt the entire American political class has become. We will be discussing known, alleged, and reported corruption of public officials. But the real worry is that these known cases are likely just a small fraction of the total corruption that goes on these days, corruption that wastes our tax dollars, corrupts our elections and judicial processes, and which benefit no one else but American politicians.
The inspiration for this series came from a meme I came across on Facebook which read: “They printed $8 trillion for covid relief, gave you a measly $1,400, and kept the rest for themselves.” I believe that the $8 trillion number is high, it is probably around $5 trillion, but the premise still holds water: after we got our crumbs, what happened to the other trillions of dollars?
Let’s go find out:
1) We have often discussed the reality that Hunter Biden traveled to China on Air Force Two with his Vice President dad, Joe, on taxpayer expense, to enrich himself with deals being made with Chinese companies, many of which were controlled by the Chinese Communist party. That is a whole set of corruption in itself. But the corruption goes even further:
According to news reports, Joe Biden agreed to pay his son’s legal fees in a deal the son made with a Chinese controlled company.
This is a direct contradiction that Joe Biden has previously made when he denied having any knowledge of his son’s overseas dealings.
Biden paid these bills out of the millions of dollars he and his wife made after Biden left his position as Vice president.
But for even more corruption, Biden declared almost $7 million more on his post Vice President income tax returns than he declared on his government transparency reports.
According to the Daily Wire reporting: “The ‘missing millions’ – combined with emails on Hunter’s abandoned laptop suggesting Joe would have a 10% share in Hunter’s blockbuster deal with the Chinese – raise a troubling question: did Joe Biden receive money from the foreign venture?”
More corruption: “In the three years after Biden left his post as Vice president, he and his wife earned a whopping $16.5 million in book royalties and speaking fees. But in Office of Government Ethics (OGE) fillings for the same period, Joe only reported $9.6 million in income for himself and his wife.”
We know that daddy Joe paid some of Hunter’s bills from an email continuing the following quote in an email from Katie Dodge, Hunter’s bookkeeper: “I spoke with Hunter today regarding his bills. It is my understanding that Hunt’s dad will cover these bills in the short-term as Hunter transitions in his career.”
The email had a spreadsheet of the bills that had to be paid, all of which totaled over $737,000.
This conflict of interest is in direct opposition to a quote Biden made when he allegedly paid these bills and he was still VP: “No one in my family will have an office in the White House, will sit in on meetings as if they are a cabinet member, will, in fact, have any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or a foreign country.”
Using taxpayer wealth for self enrichment, paying fees to a foreign government while in office for a family member, filing conflicting government forms, making untold millions of dollars in just three years, lying about that conflict of interest, etc., the corruption is wide, varied and disgusting.
2) But it is not just Presidential families and families of politicians that get rich off of their government corruption:
A high ranking Homeland Security Inspector General executive under Obama, Charles Edwards, and one of his staff members, were indicted on 16 counts of theft and fraud.
According to the Justice Department: “The indictment charges Charles K. Edwards, 59, of Sandy Spring, Maryland, and Murali Yamazula Venkata, 54, of Aldie, Virginia, with conspiracy to commit theft of government property and to defraud the United States, theft of government property, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. The indictment also charges Venkata with destruction of records.”
They are alleged to have stolen government software and databases.
Furthermore: “The indictment further alleges that, in addition to stealing DHS-OIG’s software and the sensitive government databases, Venkata and others also assisted Edwards by reconfiguring his laptop so that he could properly upload the stolen software and databases, provided troubleshooting support whenever Edwards required it, and helped him build a testing server at his residence with the stolen software and databases,” the Department of Justice said in a press release announcing the indictments. “As further part of the alleged scheme, Edwards retained software developers in India for the purpose of developing his commercial alternative of DHS-OIG’s software.”
Edwards eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and theft of government property.
So, this guy was in charge of protecting the country from bad guys and here he is stealing important government documents and software for the purpose of personal enrichment, the security and lives of Americans be damned.
3) A lot of government corruption comes from the government’s inability to properly operate the programs it is supposed to be in charge of:
One of the most fraud infested government programs has always been the Medicare program.
And fortunately one of the alleged corrupt fraudsters was indicted for their fraud in North Carolina.
Dr. Anita Jackson operated several ear, nose and throat medical clinics in the Raleigh area.
She was indicted, however, for stealing $46 million from Medicare, and the American taxpayer, over a four year period.
Simple math shows that she was, on average, collecting over $11 million a year in fraudulent claims against the Medicare program, almost a million a month!
Such a ridiculous amount of fraud and yet it took the government four years to finally nail her down with fraud indictments.
Makes you wonder how much corruption and fraud is NOT getting caught.
4) And finally, political corruption can also be pretty perverted:
Robert Jacob is the former mayor of the town of Sebastopol, California.
He was recently arrested on six charges, all of which involved having sex with a 14 or 15 year old girl.
These sexual assaults are alleged to have happened between December, 2019 and March, 2021.
According to Sebastopol police chief, Kevin Kilgore: “Right now that investigation is ongoing for a determination as to the number of victims.”
He was sent to the county jail without bail under suspicion of committing five felonies and one misdemeanor.
These charges allege that he had sex with a minor, transported a minor for he purpose of having sex, distributing child pornography, and soliciting a minor for lewd purposes.
Corruption comes in many forms when it comes to the American political class: corrupting minors, corrupting a government program, criminally stealing government secrets, and heading up a crime family even though you are the President of the United States.
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