Posted on 07/13/2019 6:43:10 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Democratic representative Alcee Hastings (Fla.) has paid his girlfriend the maximum congressional salary for the seventh straight year.
Patricia Williams, Hastings's longtime girlfriend, who first appeared on his payroll in 2000, received the maximum congressional salary of $168,411 throughout 2018, according to salary data posted to Legistorm, a government tracking website.
Williams has collected the maximum allowable salary since 2012, and has been compensated at a higher rate than Hastings's Washington, D.C., chief of staff, typically the highest paid position in a congressional office. Williams had been listed as district director out of Hastings's Broward County, Fla., office, but in March she switched titles to district chief of staff, which appears to be a newly created position.
Hastings, whose relationship with Williams dates back decades, also employs Williams's daughter in the Broward office.
Williams served as co-counsel alongside Hastings during his impeachment trial as a federal judge in the 1980s, when he was charged with "conspiracy and obstruction of justice for soliciting a $150,000 bribe in return for reducing the sentences of two mob-connected felons convicted in Hastings's court."
William Borders, a D.C.-based lawyer indicted with Hastings, was convicted in 1982, while Hastings was acquitted by a federal court in 1983.
"A year after Borders was convicted of conspiracy, the result of an FBI sting effort, Hastings's case came before the criminal court," the Senate Historical Office wrote. "Despite Borders's conviction, and the fact that Hastings had indeed reduced the sentences of the two felons, he was acquitted in a criminal court in 1983 and returned to his judicial post."
However, a later probe found that Hastings had tampered with evidence, conspired to accept bribes, and committed perjury.
The House of Representatives voted 413 to 3 to approve 17 articles of impeachment against Hastings, the most brought against any individual to that point. Hastings was the first judge to be charged while on a federal bench and in 1989 was ordered to be removed from office by the U.S. Senate.
The Senate, however, did not vote to disqualify him from holding future office. In 1992, Hastings was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
In addition to Williams and her daughter, the Democratic congressman brought Dona Nichol Jones, a convicted money-launderer, onto his full-time staff in Palm Beach last year, the Washington Free Beacon previously reported.
Nichol Jones is married to Mikel Jones, who worked for Hastings as a district administrator from 2003 to 2011, when he was convicted of 30 counts of fraud for an elaborate scheme to defraud a lender. Hastings quietly placed Nichol Jones onto his payroll as a "part-time" employee three years after the conviction and consequent firing of her husband.
Hastings has thrown his 2020 support behind Sen. Kamala Harris (D.,Calif.), who said that she was "proud to have" his endorsement. The endorsement was hailed by CNN as a major win for the California senator's efforts to win over southern black voters.
The publication failed to note any past controversies that engulfed the longtime Florida representative, including taxpayers footing a secretive $220,000 bill for Hastings to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit that was brought against him by a former staffer.
Hastings's office did not provide comment on the payments to Williams's and her responsibilities in the Broward County office by press time.
Hastings has thrown his 2020 support behind Sen. Kamala Harris (D.,Calif.), who said that she was “proud to have” his endorsement. The endorsement was hailed by CNN as a major win for the California senator’s efforts to win over southern black voters.
The publication failed to note any past controversies that engulfed the longtime Florida representative, including taxpayers footing a secretive $220,000 bill for Hastings to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit that was brought against him by a former staffer.
A probe found that Hastings had tampered with evidence, conspired to accept bribes, and committed perjury.
The House of Representatives voted 413 to 3 to approve 17 articles of impeachment against Hastings, the most brought against any individual to that point. Hastings was the first judge to be charged while on a federal bench and in 1989 was ordered to be removed from office by the U.S. Senate.
Why the hell are the taxpayers on the hook for these f'n bastards.
He is protected by the RACE CARD and being the RAT that he is, also immune to the same laws that would have any of us Deplorables rotting under a jail cell, somewhere.
She must do “a very good job!”
But his faithful tribal constituents have kept re-electing him.
Is his corruption, though more inept than most, otherwise the norm?
I fear that the answer is a yes.
That is, as a percentage, I’d guess that somewhere between one and two-thirds of our government is substantially corrupt.
Anyone else want to give their estimates?
Some criminals never stop unless incarcerated or eliminated.
Because the only oversight is the electorate, most of whom are too “busy” with their day-to-day lives to keep tabs on the criminals they send to Congress.
The Hastings story was big when he was impeached. Yet it is no surprise to me to see the propaganda media is totally airbrushing our history.
You have to appreciate Hastings for consistency. He has never altered his effort to remain, at least, tied for the most corrupt person ever to draw a federal paycheck.
Lying, cheating, stealing and law breaking in general are not only acceptable attributes in certain cultures but in fact are resume enhancers. Alcee Hastings has got it all going for him.
No mention of the bribe money found in his freezer...
“Money in freezer” - I think that was a black congresscritter from Louisiana. I believe he did go to jail.
Winsome Packer
Cong Hastings Record sexual harassment settlement exposes byzantine congressional process
by LEIGH ANN CALDWELL / NBC NEWS
WASHINGTON — With new harassment accusations being revealed on a nearly daily basis in Congress, documents obtained by NBC News from the Hastings case shed light on how taxpayer money ends up being used to essentially sweep such incidents under a bureaucratic rug with little accountability. On Capitol Hill, a sexual harassment complaint is a long process. The documents include drafts of a letter approving the settlement and a confidentiality agreement as well as an internal “lessons learned” memo written by a House employment lawyer. And while many of the accusations and details of the case remain in dispute, the eventual settlement is a case study of a process shrouded in secrecy despite being funded by taxpayers.
In 2011, Winsome Packer, a congressional staffer who worked for the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (known as the Helsinki Commission) filed a complaint against the commission, alleging that its chairman at the time, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., made unwanted sexual advances toward her and that she was threatened with retaliation. The details of Packer’s specific allegations are recorded in the complaint she also brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Publicly filed court documents in that lawsuit show that Packer alleged that she “was forced to endure” repeated “unwelcome sexual advances, crude sexual comments and unwelcome touching” by Hastings. In describing the incidents, Packer alleged that Hastings had hugged her multiple times, sometimes in front of witnesses at public events, pressing his whole body against her, and his face to her face. Packer also claimed that after she complained to the commission’s staff director, she was subject to threats of retaliation by both the director and Hastings himself, including “threats of termination.”
Hastings, who has been in Congress since 1993, has denied Packer’s allegations. He called them “malicious” and “absolutely false” in a letter obtained by NBC News. The Office of Congressional Ethics referred the matter to the House Ethics Committee in 2010. After reviewing more than one thousand pages of documents and interviewing eight witnesses, the committee closed the case after finding that while the congressman admitted to having made some unprofessional comments, it had found “no additional evidence supporting [Packer’s ] allegations.”
The federal court also dismissed the case, with prejudice, in June 2014. Both sides maintain they were wronged. But this case, which took four years to settle, shows the system is so flawed that even Hastings’ House-provided attorney issued a retrospective critical of the process. In an internal congressional document obtained by NBC News this week, Gloria Lett, an attorney for the Office of House Employment Counsel, offered some “lessons learned” from Packer’s case that recommended the adoption of new policies to handle such claims.
So how did Winsome Packer end up getting a $220,000 taxpayer-funded settlement in May 2014? And why was that payment, settling sexual harassment claims against a member of the House of Representatives, not included in a disclosure to the House Administration Committee of all such settlement payments in the last five years, provided by Congress’ Office of Compliance, the congressional office that approved the payment?
The puzzle of a byzantine process starts with what Packer says happened when she first made the complaint. Packer claims that from the outset she faced a system that was onerous and intimidating. In an interview, she told NBC News that the process “is designed to totally demolish you and convince you to drop it.” At the beginning, like any accuser who files a complaint with the Office of Compliance (OOC), Packer paid for her own legal representation while it’s the taxpayers who provide free legal counsel for the member of Congress or the office involved in the complaint. Packer completed an initial requirement of a 30-days-or-less, mandatory counseling period for accusers, and then proceeded to a second requirement of a 30-day mediation period. She called that process “worse than the harassment.” She and one of her lawyers describe an attempt to undermine her credibility and intimidate her. George Chuzi, who represented Packer in her first meeting regarding the complaint, said the House lawyers were “unbelievably aggressive.”
Two government-paid lawyers representing Hastings sat across the table, as did her immediate supervisor. According to Packer and Chuzi, among the first things the House counsel said is that Packer is a “liar and an extortionist.” Packer added that the House attorneys also made an initial demand: Packer had to quit. Chuzi said he was “in shock” about the treatment of the accuser. Packer continued to press her case in federal court for three years. How Congress is trying to expose sexual harassment payouts Packer eventually received a settlement payment of $220,000, an amount confirmed by documents reviewed by NBC News and the largest known about since the Congressional Accountability Act was passed in 1995. One document obtained by NBC News details early draft terms of Packer’s settlement, and it is one of few such documents that have become public.
The others have not been released because confidentiality requirements, established by Congress and signed into federal law as the Congressional Accountability Act, bind accuser, accused and other legal entities from disclosing any terms or details. Despite these confidentiality requirements, Packer said she had decided to speak out because the environment has changed for accusers and she has little to lose. Packer, 60, who worked for the commission from 2007 until 2014, said she has not worked since the settlement was reached nearly four years ago, and is now living with her sister in Florida. Prior to her work as a policy adviser to the Helsinki Commission, Packer worked as a GOP staff member on the House Homeland Security Committee from 2003 through 2006. But when NBC News directed questions about the settlement and the payment to the two congressional entities the documents showed were involved in establishing and approving them — the Office of Compliance and the Senate Office of the Chief Counsel for Employment — neither provided answers. In an email, the Office of Compliance’s media representative wrote that “the Congressional Accountability Act requires that the OOC maintain the confidentially of contacts made with the office. The OOC cannot comment on whether matters have or have not been filed with the office.”
The Senate legal office did not respond to questions — including why it reached a settlement in this case even though Hastings is a member of the House. In the “lessons” memo written by Lett, the counsel representing Hastings’ side, she argued that “the manner in which the case was resolved was not ideal, and, going forward, we strongly recommend that the commission consider adopting regulations or policies to avoid this type of situation.” According to Lett’s memo, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who succeeded Hastings as chairman of the Helsinki Commission in 2011, did not favor moving forward with the settlement. Hastings sent letters to Smith and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who was the ranking member of the commission at the time, in 2012, saying, “I strongly oppose any settlement with Ms. Packer that would involve her receiving any money or things of value,” calling her allegations “absolutely false.”
According to the “lessons” memo, Packer contacted the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment’s office and “indicated her interest in settling the case.” A draft confidentiality agreement between Packer and the commission, obtained by NBC News, forced Packer to resign in order to accept the settlement. She also had to agree to never seek employment with the commission again. The agreement was also made with the commission, not Hastings, and required commission employees to attend a sexual harassment training session. Hastings was not required to attend. According to the settlement, the commission’s harassment politics also had to be redrafted and distributed them at the seminar.
The Senate office didn’t communicate with the House office that first opened the case on the terms and details of the settlement, according to Lett’s “lessons” memo. Other than a conversation between Hastings and Cardin in 2014 that a settlement had been reached, Hastings was never provided any details of the settlement until it was reported in the press last week. “Until (last Friday) evening, I had not seen the settlement agreement between the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and Ms. Packer,” Hastings said. “At no time was I consulted, nor did I know until after the fact that such a settlement was made.”
Typical Third World values and conduct.
SPJNK.
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