corruption

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Politician's Wife Busted With $79K in Bra

She hid cash as FBI waited at door; bribery charges likely

(Newser) - If two FBI agents showed up on your doorstep, it's understandable that you might call your spouse and ask what to do. But that's where Leslie Johnson and Everyman parted ways yesterday morning: "Don't answer it," husband and prominent Democratic Maryland politician Jack Johnson told her, while instructing...

'It's Better to Like Beautiful Girls Than Be Gay': Berlusconi

Italian PM offers up an interesting defense

(Newser) - Despite calls for his resignation , Silvio Berlusconi will not step down—or apologize—following reports of his involvement with a 17-year-old belly dancer. His defense: “It’s better to like beautiful girls than to be gay,” Ireland's RTÉ reports. At a motorcycle industry show, he insisted he hadn’...

Berlusconi Is Sick: Catholic Media

Italian PM accused of intervening in teen girl's theft case

(Newser) - A major Catholic magazine in Italy has blasted Silvio Berlusconi for having what it calls “a disease, something uncontrollable” when it comes to women, the Daily Telegraph reports. The latest accusation in the PM’s never-dull love life: That he stepped in and helped get an underage girl out...

US No Longer One of 20 Least Corrupt Nations

Falls to new low in global corruption rankings

(Newser) - For the first time ever, the US has fallen out of the top 20 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, thanks to financial scandals and the growing influence of money in our politics, Reuters reports. The US is now seen as the 22nd-least-corrupt country in the world, down from...

Iran Slips Karzai Scads of Cash
 Iran Slips Karzai Scads of Cash 
Oct 24, 2010 7:06 AM CDT

Iran Slips Karzai Scads of Cash

Tehran's influence in Afghanistan is growing

(Newser) - Afghanistan, never a bastion for the honest or politically uncorrupted, is taking hefty bribes from a new source: Iran. As the New York Times reports, Tehran secretly and continuously slides a key aide to Hamid Karzai literal bags of cash that amount to a multi-million-dollar "presidential slush fund" aimed...

State Politics: Hotbed of Sleaze, Booze, Scandal

ABC investigation finds no shortage of sleaze at state level

(Newser) - You hear a lot more about the sleaze in Congress and governors' mansions than the sleaze at the state legislator level, but that's not because of a lack of low-down behavior, an ABC News investigation finds. Five grad students sent to cover a national convention of state legislators in Louisville,...

Alabama Pols, Casino Owner Nabbed in Vast Bribery Bust

Lobbyists also nabbed in big electronic bingo bust

(Newser) - Federal officials have indicted the owner of Alabama's largest casino, four state senators and several top lobbyists in a scheme to buy and sell votes to get electronic bingo legalized. The federal investigation found criminal activity that was astonishing in scope, according to the assistant attorney general. He calls it...

US Relies on Corrupt 'Afghan Robin Hood'

Abdul Razziq keeps order in ways US can't

(Newser) - Abdul Razziq is illiterate and corrupt. His network skims custom duties, facilitates drug trafficking, and smuggles contraband across the Pakistani border. Yet the 32-year-old is also essential to the war effort, bringing the kind of security to the city of Spin Boldak that has so eluded the US elsewhere. “...

Afghan Elections: A Corrupt 'Free-for-All'

Widespread fraud reported in nearly a third of provinces

(Newser) - From stuffing ballot boxes to arresting election workers to, incredibly, haggling over the sales price of a vote, Afghanistan's election is so rife with corruption and fraud that the results are questionable in one-third of its provinces, reports the New York Times. And as a test of Afghanistan's nascent democracy,...

Nicaragua's Ortega Rewrites Constitution Overnight

To give his buddies more time term in office

(Newser) - What do you do when your country’s pesky constitution won’t let your buddies have another term in office? Why, declare a national holiday, and then rewrite the darn thing while everyone’s vacationing, of course. That’s what Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega did last week, reports the Christian ...

Thousands of Complaints Expected in Afghan Election

Karzai says it's 'too soon to tell' if it was successful

(Newser) - Looks like this weekend’s election in Afghanistan went about as poorly as the last one. Afghanistan’s official election watchdog says it’s already received more than 700 complaints, and expects the figure to reach 3,000 over the next two days, according to Reuters . An independent watchdog meanwhile...

US Lets Corrupt Afghan Officials Off the Hook

Cases will be worked behind closed doors to appease Karzai

(Newser) - The Obama administration intends to dial back its attempts to clean up Hamid Karzai’s government, sources tell the Washington Post . Senior administration officials say they’ve generally agreed that instead of prosecuting allegedly corrupt Afghan officials, they should work out backroom compromises that won’t embarrass Karzai. “The...

Senate Opens Impeachment Hearings on La. Judge

Chamber's first since Bill Clinton's in 1999

(Newser) - The Senate will open today an impeachment trial against a Louisiana judge facing a slew of corruption charges, Fox News reports. The House already voted unanimously to impeach US District Judge G. Thomas Porteous, accused of lying under oath and taking payoffs. A Senate impeachment panel will hold three all-day...

Drug Cartels' Secret Weapon: US Agents

Smugglers pay big money for insider help

(Newser) - Mexico has a vast, well-known corruption problem, but drug cartels are increasingly finding helping hands across the border in the form of US border agents, finds the Washington Post . In one typical case, an American mother of two, Martha Garnica, worked with smugglers to sneak people and drugs across the...

Corrupt Karzai Aide Is on CIA Payroll

Official at center of corruption probe has fingers in many pies

(Newser) - The aide who Hamid Karzai intervened to free after his arrest on corruption charges has been on the CIA payroll for years, according to Afghan and US officials. It's not clear what exactly Mohammed Zia Salehi does to earn CIA cash, or whether the Afghan president knew he was an...

Karzai Moves to Curb Afghan Anti-Corruption Agencies

Afghan president accuses agencies of abusing suspects

(Newser) - Hamid Karzai is looking to curb the powers of two American-supported anti-corruption agencies operating in Afghanistan with a presidential decree, the New York Times reports. The Afghan president claimed that abuses by the Major Crimes Task Force and the Sensitive Investigations Unit—in particular, the arrest of a close adviser...

Karzai: US 'Mafia' Firms Are Looting My Nation

Demands contractors get out

(Newser) - In a rare US media appearance yesterday, Hamid Karzai blasted US private contractors in Afghanistan as "mafia-like" thieves and called for them to pull out of the country within the next four months. Appealing directly to US taxpayers on ABC's This Week, the Afghan president said the contractors waste...

Karzai Intervened in Aide's Corruption Probe

Bribery charge lifted after 'enormous pressure' from Afghan prez

(Newser) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai personally stepped in to secure the release of an aide arrested on corruption charges, officials say. The aide, Mohammad Zia Salehi, was arrested for soliciting a bribe. He was also being probed by two task forces for supplying cash and gifts like luxury Lexuses to presidential...

Feds End Tom DeLay Probe
 Feds Clear Tom DeLay 
Aug 16, 2010 12:05 PM CDT

Feds Clear Tom DeLay

Six-year investigation quietly closes without charges

(Newser) - Tom DeLay is probably doing a little dance right now. The Justice Department has informed DeLay that it has ended its six-year investigation into his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and won’t be filing any charges. “This was one of the longest and expensive and thorough investigations...

Rangel Cuts Deal to Avoid Trial
 Rangel: Deal or No Deal? 
hearing begins, amid rumors
Jul 29, 2010 1:28 PM CDT

Rangel: Deal or No Deal?

He's accused of 13 House ethics violations

(Newser) - Charlie Rangel may have reached a deal to end the ethics investigation against him—or not. Both the Wall Street Journal and WCBS say his lawyers struck some kind of last-minute agreement, but that didn't stop a House investigatory panel from conducting a short "organizational" public hearing today at...

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