I couldn't locate a thread regarding this subject (though I'm certain that one must exist). The story below appeared in the NY Post on May 31st. With Silver and Skelos both found guilty, does the focus of the investigation shift to Cuomo?
Lastly, could the investigation into Cuomo's activities expose some in local governments? Might the "competition" for the Governor's award of locations of casinos in NYS have included some questionable influence peddling?
My hat is off to Bharara. Finally, someone is addressing the corruption that was known to have existed in our state government for a very long time.
Hillary has lied her pants off and...........she is still considered a viable presidential candidate!!!!
ya just can't make this stuff up!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Hillary has lied her pants off and...........she is still considered a viable presidential candidate!!!!
ya just can't make this stuff up!!
But Bumhbler... you always do make this stuff up
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
lets not forget what happened to spritzer when he exposed wall st/banker's corruption..... it long...but worth the read.
Quoted Text
Not Too Big to Jail: Why Eliot Spitzer Is Wall Street’s Worst Nightmare
Posted on August 19, 2013 by Ellen Brown
Before Eliot Spitzer’s infamous resignation as governor of New York in March 2008, he was one of our fiercest champions against Wall Street corruption, in a state that had some of the toughest legislation for controlling the banks. It may not be a coincidence that the revelation of his indiscretions with a high-priced call girl came less than a month after he published a bold editorial in the Washington Post titled “Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States from Stepping in to Help Consumers.” The editorial exposed the collusion between the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street in deregulating the banks in the guise of regulating them, by taking regulatory power away from the states. It was an issue of the federal government versus the states, with the Feds representing the banks and the states representing consumers.
Five years later, Spitzer has set out to take some of that local regulatory power back, in his run for New York City comptroller. Mounting the attack against him, however, are not just Wall Street banks but women’s groups opposed to this apparent endorsement of the exploitation of women. On August 17th, the New York Post endorsed Spitzer’s opponent and ran a scathing cover story attempting to embarrass Spitzer based on the single issue of his personal life.
Lynn Parramore, who considers herself a feminist, countered in an August 8th Huffington Post article that it is likely to be in the best interests of the very women who are opposing him to forgive and move on. His stand for women’s reproductive rights and other feminist issues is actually quite strong, and his role as Wall Street watchdog protected women from predatory financial practices. As New York Attorney General, he was known as the “Sheriff of Wall Street.” He is one of the few people with not only the insight and experience to expose Wall Street corruption but the courage to go after the perpetrators.
Targeted for Take-down
The February 2008 Washington Post article that preceded Spitzer’s political travails was written when the state attorneys general were being preempted by the Federal Reserve as watchdogs of the banks. Critics called it a case of the fox guarding the hen house. Spitzer wrote:
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. . . . These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . [A]s New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. . . .
Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye. . . . The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). . . . In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules. But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.
Less than a month after publishing this editorial, Spitzer had been exposed, disgraced, and was out of office. Greg Palast pointed to the fact that Spitzer was the single politician standing in the way of a $200 billion windfall from the Federal Reserve, guaranteeing the toxic mortgage-backed securities of the same banking predators that were responsible for the subprime debacle. While the Federal Reserve was trying to bail them out, Spitzer was trying to regulate them, bringing suit on behalf of consumers.3 But he was quickly silenced, and any state attorneys general who might get similar ideas in the future would be blocked by the federal “oversight” then being imposed on state regulation.
A Rooster to Guard the Hen House
In a July 2013 article titled “Why Eliot Spitzer’s Return Terrifies Big Finance,” Thomas Ferguson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts and a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, wrote of Spitzer’s bid for comptroller:
Suddenly, the Masters of the Universe were staring at their worst nightmare: the prospect of a comeback by the only major politician in the U.S. whose deeds — and not simply words —prove that he does not think corporate titans are too big to jail.
Who, when the Justice Department, Congress, and the Securities and Exchange Commission all defaulted in the wake of a tidal wave of financial frauds, creatively used New York State’s Martin Act to go where they wouldn’t and subpoena emails and corporate records of the malefactors of great wealth, winning convictions and big settlements.
Who in 2005, as New York State Attorney General, actually sued AIG instead of thinking up ways to hand it billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. . . .
And who in 2013 with business as usual once again the order of the day, is promising to review how the Comptroller’s Office, which controls New York City’s vast pension funds, does business with Wall Street and corporate America.
Yves Smith, writing on her blog Naked Capitalism on July 25th, expanded on this threat. She noted that private equity [PE] investment managers had persuaded their clients that their limited partnership agreements [LPAs] were a form of “trade secret,” and that nobody was looking closely at whether PE firms were complying with the fee and expense provisions of their agreements:
Public pension fund investors have almost universally acceded to the demands of PE firms to exempt the LPAs and cash flow reports from state FOIA laws, which keeps the eyes of the press and the public off the documents.
. . . However, the New York City Comptroller has access to this critical information. Hence the freakout at the prospect that Spitzer might get the job.
Hence also the $1.5 million ad campaign against Spitzer brought by a coalition of business leaders, labor unions and women’s groups.
The Issues that Matter to Women
On July 10th, the head of the local chapter of a national women’s advocacy group asked a small gathering outside City Hall:
Do we want an elected official who has broken the law and who has participated in sustaining an industry that we all know has a long history of exploiting women and girls?
The speaker lumped Spitzer with Anthony Weiner, who is running for mayor after sending out sexually explicit tweets, and Vito Lopez, who is running for City Council after resigning from the Assembly over sexual harassment allegations. She asked whether these men would address the issues that matter to women, “or are they just going to see us as objects?”
Sexual exploitation is an issue that matters to women, but the best way to save women from the sort of desperation that leads to exploitation is to keep them out of ruinous debt. Wall Street fraud, corruption and abuse have caused millions of homeowners to lose their homes and have tipped cities toward bankruptcy; and Spitzer is one of the brave few who has exposed and attempted to prosecute those predatory practices. As comptroller, he could make more information available to the public concerning the companies in which public pension funds are invested, look out for exploitive fees, insist on plain English reporting of derivatives exposure, and take steps to ensure that nurses and teachers are not being financially exploited. He can monitor contracts and business dealings and help protect the city from the kinds of rip-off schemes that deplete city funds for education, infrastructure, and the social safety nets that women, particularly, rely on.
In a December 2011 article in Slate titled “We Own Wall Street,” Spitzer argued that bad corporate behavior could be stopped by a political movement uniting shareholders, pension funds and mutual funds – the actual owners of the corporations – who could then take coordinated action to demand transparency and accountability.
This is the sort of creative thinking that will be needed if we the people are to take back our power from Wall Street and the corporatocracy. We need a mass movement, coordinated action, and leaders who can organize it; and Eliot Spitzer is one of the few people in a position to play that role who have the experience, vision and courage to carry it through.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
From this mornings edition of The Buffalo News. The corruption investigation will expand to upstate NYS.
Quoted Text
NEW YORK – The prosecutor who took down the speaker of the New York State Assembly isn’t finished.
Not even close.
Three weeks after charging Sheldon Silver in a bribe and kickback scheme that prompted the Manhattan Democrat to step down as Assembly speaker and after putting six other downstate legislators in prison, Preet Bharara told The Buffalo News last week that the evidence he has seen shows corruption is appallingly common throughout New York State – and not just in New York City.
“It’s all over,” Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in an interview in his office in Manhattan.
What’s more, he indicated that his current probes – based on the investigative files of the Moreland Commission, a state anti-corruption effort created and then abruptly shut down by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo – could lead to cases against upstate lawmakers.
“In the same way that we often prosecute narcotics cases and other kinds of fraud and conspiracies in the Southern District when the principals may live elsewhere, the same is true in public corruption cases,” Bharara said. “And a lot of business – including political and financial business – often takes place in Manhattan, for example, even if the legislators represent people in districts elsewhere.”
In fact, Bharara’s office already has charged one upstate lawmaker – Sen. Thomas W. Libous, a Broome County Republican – with making false statements to the FBI.
Refusing to discuss the particulars of any of his ongoing investigations, Bharara nonetheless seemed aghast at what his investigators, in total and over time, are finding.
“It seems to be that every time effective investigators like the ones we work with begin to turn over rocks, they find creepy crawly things,” he said.
Bharara’s comments, in his first newspaper interview to be published since Silver’s arrest, would give no comfort to a state politician who might find himself or herself the target of a federal investigation.
It’s unclear exactly who those politicians might be. But former State Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, acknowledged last year that federal investigators were looking at his campaign fund. He said he has done nothing wrong and has nothing to hide.
And a New York television station reported earlier this month that Bharara was investigating the real estate dealings of Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, although Skelos denied any contact with federal prosecutors.
In any case, Bharara made it clear that his 12-member Public Corruption Unit remains very busy.
“If I could put 50 prosecutors on public corruption, chances are they would not be lacking for work,” Bharara said.
That’s partly because of Cuomo’s decision to disband the Moreland Commission. Nine months after appointing the state panel to fight corruption, Cuomo shut it down last spring in a budget deal with legislators that included new ethics reforms.
“I don’t believe we needed another bureaucracy for enforcement. We needed laws changed, and that’s what Moreland (Commission) was about,” Cuomo said at the time.
Soon after the shutdown, though, Bharara’s office seized a truckload of documents that the commission had gathered.
“We don’t think worthy investigations should die on the vine,” Bharara said in the interview. “What I knew at the time we took the files and confirmed since we took the files, is that there was a lot of good work there.”
The files contain evidence the Moreland investigators amassed about state legislators, but Bharara’s work may not stop there.
The New York Times has reported that the Cuomo administration meddled in the Moreland Commission’s affairs, and Bharara has said his office would consider looking into any attempts to interfere with the commission’s work.
At the time of Silver’s arrest, Bharara said, ominously, “Stay tuned.”
Asked to elaborate, Bharara declined to comment on any specific cases during the interview.
Sweeping probe
No matter what happens when Bharara and his team complete their examination of the Moreland files, experts who have been watching the situation say one thing is for certain.
An extraordinarily aggressive prosecutor will have taken an unprecedented deep dive into the goings-on in Albany.
“Preet has made it his mission to clean up Albany,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York.
Whereas most U.S. attorneys focus on one or two major public corruption cases during their tenure, Lerner said, Bharara already has filed charges against 11 state legislators – most of them even before he obtained the Moreland evidence.
“This is happening now because of the more aggressive stance of Preet Bharara,” said Seymour Lachman, a former Democratic state senator who left office frustrated enough to write a book called “Three Men in a Room.”
That, of course, is a reference to the troika that has ruled Albany for decades: the governor, the Assembly speaker and the Senate majority leader.
And it also appears to be one of Bharara’s favorite frustrations. He keeps a copy of Lachman’s book on his desk and has met with him about it, and in a recent speech at New York Law School, he mercilessly mocked the concept of devolving democracy down to three men.
“Why three men?” he asked. “Can there be a woman? Do they always have to be white? How small is the room that they can only fit three men? Is it three men in a closet? Are there cigars? Can they have Cuban cigars now? After a while, doesn’t it get a little gamy in that room?”
Yet Bharara said there was a serious point behind his satiric imagery.
“When you have a lot of concentration of power, that can give rise, common sense will tell you, to a culture in which people take shortcuts, people are not as open and transparent as they might be, people think they can get away with things, and that’s never good for democracy,” he said in the interview.
Prepared to refer cases
It’s no good for the people of the state of New York, either. Albany’s corruption shakes the public’s faith in democracy, Bharara said, and that’s just the start.
“A lot of things that affect people’s everyday lives and their kitchen table and their bank accounts comes out of their legislature, and if people are routinely compromised and serving some master other than the people who put them there, then in countless ways that you can’t even measure, that hurts average people,” he said.
And so, Bharara presses on.
Acknowledging that the Moreland Commission may include evidence of state crimes that he can’t prosecute, Bharara said he is happy to make referrals to district attorneys across the state. And noting that the files also could contain evidence of crimes that took place outside the bounds of the Southern Judicial District, which includes Manhattan, the Bronx and six counties just to the north of New York City, he said he’s also prepared to refer cases to other U.S. attorneys across the state.
William J. Hochul Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York, declined an interview request for this story.
Impressive résumé
Bharara’s aggressive approach to public corruption should come as no surprise. A Harvard University and Columbia University School of Law graduate, Bharara has been taking a take-lots-of-prisoners approach to the law at least since his days as a counsel to Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., a decade ago.
Impressed with Bharara’s work, Schumer recommended Bharara for the job of U.S. attorney in the Southern District – one of the nation’s most prominent prosecutorial positions – in 2009.
“Chuck Schumer is a tiger, and he hires tigers,” said former Rep. John J. LaFalce, D-Town of Tonawanda, a lawyer who has admired Bharara’s work from afar. “And Preet’s a tiger.”
Just ask former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. Behind the scenes, Bharara guided Schumer’s investigation of the politically motivated firing of several U.S. attorneys in 2007, which culminated in Gonzalez’s resignation.
Or ask the 85 Wall Street figures who have been convicted or pleaded guilty in Bharara’s insider trading probes – which landed Bharara on the cover of Time magazine in 2012.
In that story, one of Bharara’s predecessors in the Southern District – former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican – said Bharara was doing a “great job.”
Not surprisingly, Bharara’s headline-grabbing prosecutions have spurred speculation that he, like Giuliani, will move into politics someday. Asked about that last week, the normally loquacious Bharara replied with a one-word answer: “No.”
Policing politicians
Instead, Bharara remains focused on policing politics, saying the state’s politicians can’t seem to do that themselves.
“As far as I can tell, there’s almost zero self-policing going on,” he said. “That may not seem bizarre, that people don’t want to police themselves, but I think you find less self-policing going on in Albany than in the legislature across the river in the state were I grew up (New Jersey), and including in the United States Congress.”
Then again, Bharara stressed that there’s only so much he can do to control corruption. Much of the responsibility remains in the hands of the Legislature, which is the only body that can change its own rules to increase transparency and to deal somehow with the troubles that can arise when part-time legislators earn vast amounts of outside income.
“The Legislature itself has to figure out what rules makes sense so they don’t become even more of a mockery, with indictment after indictment,” Bharara said.
Fresh off the duel convictions of both the former Assembly speaker and majority leader in the state Senate, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on Monday criticized state lawmakers for “whispered whining” of his prosecutions rather than focusing on how to fix corruption in state government.
“I think we now appreciate that even though there have been a few apples convicted, it seems something about everyone else,” Bharara said on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show. “Through the course of all of this, there has been a little more whispered whining on the part of some legislators without attribution in the press than focus on how to solve the problem and focus on healing themselves.”
Bharara’s office has successfully prosecuted cases involving nearly a dozen former lawmakers accused of corruption. In the course of less than two weeks, former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and ex-Speaker Sheldon Silver, have been found guilty on all counts of federal corruption charges, surrendering their seats in the Legislature as a result.
Bharara in the radio interview said the convictions should a moment for New Yorkers — especially members of the Legislature — to reflect.
“It’s a moment to reflect on what that means,” he said. “I think as I’ve said many times, there’s no doubt now that after two trials concluded, on top of several trials before that, there’s a deep problem of corruption in Albany.”
Bharara pointed to the testimony in the Skelos case of Queens Sen. Tony Avella, the chairman of the Senate Ethics committee, who has not held any hearings on the issues before his committee.
“Everyone has their part to play in making sure we have honest and clean government,” Bharara said. “The politicians themselves have a role in self-policing. The first line of defense is the institution itself. It seems based on Senator Avella’s testimony and others, they are doing a pretty poor job of self-policing.”
But as he has done before in interviews, Bharara declined to specifically provide input on what he thinks needs to be done, though he spoke favorably of both term limits for lawmakers as well as creating a full-time Legislature that would limit outside income.
“I think a lot of things should be discussed and on the table,” he said while adding, “It’s a little bit harder to get away with bribery, it’s harder to get away with extortion if there are strict limits on outside income.”
By the same token, Bharara refused to comment on any current investigations, including whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s remains under scrutiny for his decision to close down an anti-corruption panel after less than a year, a move that was preceded by an agreement on ethics measures in the state budget.
“I’m not going to talk about any investigations we have open,” Bharara said. “We have lots of investigations open.”
He added the caveat: “You shouldn’t read anything into what I’m saying.”
Nevertheless, Bharara said the commission was “on the right track” with its investigations.
“Fortunately, people in my office are pretty fearless and aggressive and picked up the ball where they dropped off,” he said.
Bharara last week also joined Twitter, but insisted his first post on the social media site was meant in jest.
“I said ‘stay tuned’ for more tweets,” he said. “It was a joke.”
Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
YONKERS, NY — December 1, 2015 — Today’s Buffalo Chronicle leads with the headline: Emboldened by Silver Conviction, Bharara to Indict Como Jan 2nd. The article stipulates that sources advise the Buffalo Chronicle that following the conviction of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on all seven corruption charges, Bharara is now focusing on the New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Three unnamed sources are confirming that Bharara intends to indict Governor Andrew Cuomo on January 2nd — along with a half dozen associates and former staffers — on public corruption, racketeering, conspiracy, and honest services fraud.
The Buffalo Chronicle is unable to confirm widespread rumors that the former staffers are Howard Glaser, Joe Percoco and Larry Schwartz; even so, the reader is teased in contemplating how those allegedly mentioned may be swept caught in a legal we from which few escape Bharara’s legal acumen.
Glaser resigned in June of last year as Director of State Operations and was thought to be Cuomo’s top aide. Percoco left a $175,000 job with the Governor on October 25th of this year, and was known as Cuomo’s “political enforcer.”
Schwartz was caught up in the Moreland Commission scandal. He is thought to be guilty of obstruction of justice for actions he took in the hours immediately following Bharara’s confiscation of Moreland Commission documents.
One of the three sources — a longtime Albany insider — says that there are at least three additional targets of the investigation, including Alain Kaloyeros, the head of SUNY Polytech who, at $800,000, is the highest paid state employee.
The other two men are said to be from Buffalo and have been “involved in the Administration’s economic development deals in particularly unseemly ways,” but the source would not elaborate.
Stay tuned.
Stay tuned indeed. I understand that there may be others under investigation.
funny how you don't hear much about this on the news.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
The other two men are said to be from Buffalo and have been “involved in the Administration’s economic development deals in particularly unseemly ways,” but the source would not elaborate.
Perhaps, there is also focus on the "criteria" upon which the Governor's decision re: casino locations was made. I suspect that all of those who were involved in the "competition", be they local government officials or private sector investors and developers, may be investigated and/or subpoenaed. There are some who represent counties that were not awarded the location decision who have suggested that the decision was unfair/biased.
Perhaps, there is also focus on the "criteria" upon which the Governor's decision re: casino locations was made. I suspect that all of those who were involved in the "competition", be they local government officials or private sector investors and developers, may be investigated and/or subpoenaed. There are some who represent counties that were not awarded the location decision who have suggested that the decision was unfair/biased.
all of the counties that applied for the casino have expressed that the decision was most definitely unfair/biased......aka political.
anyone with half a brain knows Schenectady should not only have NOT gotten the green light...but should have really never been even considered.
most everybody knows it...doesn't take a rocket scientist.
if there is corruption....they better dig it up FAST...cause times running out!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
... Cuomo, meanwhile, was described by one associate as “edgily nervous’’ about the next move to be made by federal prosecutor Bharara, whose successful prosecution of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) and startling admonition to “stay tuned” has led to widespread speculation that the governor is his next target.
The Buffalo Chronicle posted last month that Preet Bharara planned "to indict Governor Andrew Cuomo on January 2nd — along with a half dozen associates and former staffers — on public corruption, racketeering, conspiracy, and honest services fraud."
Well, it's January 2 - a Saturday - and the courts are closed, US Attorney Preet Bharara is getting ready to address the Kentucky legislature next week over ethics and Governor Cuomo's schedule reads:
Governor Cuomo is in Albany
The day's not over yet, of course, but you'd have to be loopy from Easter egg hunts at the governor's mansion to think a grand jury is going to indict the governor on a Saturday, one day after New Year's Day, or that a previous indictment will be unsealed today and revealed publicly.
So much for the Buffalo Chronicle story.
That said, this doesn't mean those looking for Cuomo to follow his two amigos, Shelly Silver and Dean Skelos, to criminal court should lose heart.
There are plenty of reasons to keep a close watch on where Preet Bharara goes next now that he's got Shelly Silver convicted on seven corruption counts and Dean Skelos on eight corruption counts.
The first reason is the reported investigation into Cuomo's alleged tampering with the Moreland Commission, for which Cuomo lawyered up, hiring "prominent white-collar criminal defense lawyer Elkan Abramowitz" to represent his office in the investigation.
The second is the investigation into Cuomo's Buffalo Billion Project - with subpoenas having gone out to Cuomo donors and state entities involved in what appears to be a rigged bidding process.
The third is how defensive the Cuomo administration is about the investigation (see here and here).
The fourth is the probability that if the feds start nosing around into Cuomo's donor base, they're going to find an awful lot of interesting stuff there, especially around all that Glenwood largesse.
The fifth is Bharara's refusal to let Cuomo off the hook publicly when asked if he's investigating the governor.
There you have five good reasons to keep watching the news wires for leaks about the Moreland investigation or the Buffalo Billion Project investigation that indicate the governor could have some legal trouble coming down the Thruway.
There are no guarantees on any of this, of course, and Bharara may decide that he doesn't have anything in either investigation and nothing comes of any of this.
But Bharara has a way of working with leaks that tends to set the stage for coming events (i.e., eventual criminal charges.)
He did it with Shelly Silver (leaking news of a federal investigation into the speaker one month before the criminal charges were filed in January), and he did it with Dean Skelos (leaking first in January, then again in May right before the criminal charges were levied against Skelos.)
The September leaks about the Buffalo Billion investigation and the subpoenas to Cuomo's donors and state entities involved in the Buffalo Billion Project bidding process were not good signs for Governor Cuomo's administration, that's for sure.
Those leaks didn't spout up from nowhere and if the pattern in the Silver and Skelos leaks is followed here, they're not the last we're going to get.
So keep hearts, folks - January 2nd may have come without a Cuomo indictment, but the governor's not out of the woods yet by a long shot.
In September 2014 when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intention to step down, Bharara was speculated as being a potential candidate as the next United States Attorney General.[97][98]
In 2012, Bharara was named by Time magazine as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World," and by India Abroad as its 2011 Person of the Year.[99][100][101][102] His office has prosecuted several international terrorists, and secured life sentences for many high profile ones like Faisal Shazad, the Times Square Bomber.[103] He has charged several former and current elected officials in corruption cases and acted against organized crime in the country. Bharara was included in Bloomberg Markets Magazine’s 2012 "50 Most Influential" list as well as Vanity Fair’s 2012 and 2013 annual "New Establishment" lists.[104][105][106] His brother, Vinit Bharara, is the entrepreneur who co-founded Diapers.com,[107] a company sold to Amazon.com for $550 million in 2010, and who launched, it was reported, news-site network Some Spider in 2014.[108]
he is in a position to squeeze a bunch of people to get where he wants just so that he stops doing what he's doing
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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