“OUTSIDE INCOME” QUESTIONED, STEMMING FROM DISBANDED INVESTIGATORY COMMISSION
by Sharon Rondeau
(Jan. 23, 2015) — On Wednesday evening, The New York Times received information which predicted that the Speaker of the New York House of Representatives Sheldon Silver would be arrested by the FBI on Thursday.
Silver was arrested by FBI agents early on Thursday morning on several federal corruption charges. Several mainstream news sources have referred to Silver as “powerful.” In so describing him, The Los Angeles Times reported that “no bill is passed without Silver’s consent.”
Silver has been Speaker since 1994 while continuing to have an active practice as an attorney with the firm of Weitz & Luxenberg. New York lawmakers are permitted by law to have outside professions.
Last month, The New York Times reported that it was known that Silver was under investigation for “outside income” earned along with his salary and benefits as Speaker. He is being prosecuted by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, an Obama appointee.
Silver is accused of using his political position to award favors in exchange for large amounts of money termed “referral fees.” The criminal complaint alleges that Silver has collected between $4 million and $6 million in “kickbacks.”
Bharara said in a statement that Silver “never did any legal work” in exchange for the money. “He simply sat back and collected millions of dollars by cashing in on his public office and political influence,” The Star Tribune reported.
Bharara served as assistant U.S. attorney in the same district during the Bush administration between 200o and 2005.
Information leading to Silver’s arrest was reportedly gleaned from the work of the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption opened by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate allegations of corruption but precipitately shut down in March of last year by the New York General Assembly, replacing the commission with a set of new laws.
On July 23, 2014, The New York Times reported that a subpoena intended for a company placing highly-priced advertising for the New York Democrat Party, including Cuomo, was ordered to be “pulled back” by Cuomo’s assitant. “The pulled-back subpoena was the most flagrant example of how the commission, established with great ceremony by Mr. Cuomo in July 2013, was hobbled almost from the outset by demands from the governor’s office,” The Times reported.
Silver had opined that the Moreland Commission was “on a fishing expedition,” according to Syracuse.com. On March 24, 2014, Syracuse.com reported that “The commission has annoyed legislators, who are fighting subpoenas for information about their outside income.”
Fitzpatrick’s response to Silver’s comment was quoted as:
Maybe the dumbest thing I’ve heard in four decades in public service is Speaker Silver referring to the Moreland Commission as a ‘fishing expedition,'” Fitzpatrick wrote. “Perhaps he hasn’t noticed, but several dozen fish have been removed from his chamber under his watch for blatantly stealing from the tax-paying public.
A co-chairman of the former commission, Onondaga County District Attorney William J. Fitzpatrick, had stated that evidence of crime would be turned over to “other agencies” to prosecute.
Silver appeared in federal court later on Thursday and was released on $200,000 bail.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Silver has been “a political ally” of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
On Silver’s website as an assemblyman representing New York’s 65th district, Silver states:
As Speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver has dedicated his career in public service to improving education, protecting affordable housing, delivering quality healthcare to all New Yorkers and reforming our criminal justice system.
Last year, Silver advocated for and celebrated the passage of a law making the Lunar New Year a school holiday in deference to “Asian Americans.”
To continue my last comment-To continue to allow this entitlement without accountability and operate as “business as usual” will trumpet the end of America and it’s final approval of our country to be run by criminals and political roustabouts that have run out of control for decades and have damaged America beyond repair while entitlement people who are proud to steal behind closed doors will finally have America in the palm of it’s hands with no further challenge from any threat of reprisal. This entire 8 years has been an experiment in lawless operations but on the positive side, it has exposed how vulnerable America is to political criminals, hackers, government corruption, illegal use of government funds and authority and that there are few accountability groups or enforcers to reel in the extent of this new culture of corruption that is hovering over America like a dark cloud of evil. America is more divided than ever and our media/press totally corrupted and run by party lines that may never be fixed and will only get worse looking back at the last several decades with lip service and typical rhetoric slug at the masses. We are not buying and term limits, reduction of entitlements, removal of all security after leaving office must be considered for the welfare of America and it’s survival.
I am surprised the our “Federal Agencies” suddenly are responding to “crime”? It sure looked like ALL Federal Agencies for the last 7 years were being controlled by current DNC Operatives like Chicago Muslim Plant SERCO Redswitch Operative Valerie Jarrett (alias Vice President), Marxist DNC Operative David Axelrod and Perkins Coie DNC Operative who had kept Obama’s true identity hidden from the public at a cost to taxpayers of over $4 million, Muslim DNC illegal “dual citizen” POTUS Bari Malik Shabazz, Muslim/ Black Power Broker/ Black Panther and New York “Gun Felon” at Columbia College and right hand Muslim Legal Pen for POTUS Mr. Eric “New York Gun Felon” Black Muslim/Black Panther/White Hater Holder, DNC Criminal Al “Cop Hater” Sharpton, DNC Criminal Charlie “Communist Party” and “tax free” Rangel and half of the “Democratic Party Members” that are also members of “The American Communist Party” (now carefully called “The American Progressive Socialist Party”) and on the “payroll” supporting an opposing government against the United States, Hillary “Sol Alinsky” Clinton and Bill Clinton’s corruption-59 plus murders-Benghazi-Black Hawk Down-Extortion 17-Clinton’s theft of monies from the glowing pot of Gold in Haiti after the $4.3 billion was deposited there with phony contracts/buddy schemes and the U.S. installing an illegal Haitian President there as a paper pusher while the two former criminal leaders that bankrupted Haiti were allowed back on the payroll to run two criminal police forces, other DNC kingpins supporting Communist/Marxist/Muslim attempts at overthrowing the United States. Where were the “agents” when Lt.Cdr. Walter Fitzpatrick and Darren Huff were being illegally arrested, beaten and imprisoned in Tennessee and when Walter attempted to contact Federal Agents in the FBI and was ignored and eventually illegally arrested in a DNC initiated “False Flag Operation” in Monroe County Tennessee initiated by P.J. Foggy a DNC Carolina Operative? It sounds like they need an internal investigation inside the “agencies” before they can even start working outside of the agencies to do anything else. Not rocket science, simple corruption and theft but dealing with the problems OUTSIDE their agencies may not be so simple, especially since it was ignored by administrators for 7-that is SEVEN years now. When a Czech
spy during WWII tried to tell FBI J.Edger Hoover about Japan’s plan to attack Pearl Harbor weeks before it was to happen, Hoover went into a tirade and wouldn’t believe the man who risked arrest that was trying to warn him of the coming disaster. Is this the type of operation we still see today in our agencies? Job protection?
OBAMA SHOULD BE ARRESTED. OBAMA IS A USURPER, TRAITOR AND SPY.
Bharara says to “stay tuned” and we can only imagine what corruption is yet to be revealed and at what levels.