I got off my lazy duff and looked at the U.S. code. I see no provision for qui tam enforcement of false statements. So the question is whether the qui tam provision under the False Claims Act might be used. The following lists what are considered false claims.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode31/usc_sec_31_00003729——000-.html
Offhand, it’s not obvious what might apply to Obama, since false claims specifically “does not include requests or demands for money or property that the Government has paid to an individual as compensation for Federal employment.”
But if there is a contracting provision he has violated, then Fukino theoretically could be prosecuted under “knowingly makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim”
It may bolster your spirits to remember that for all the murder and mayhem Al Capone caused, what he went to prison for was the more mundane crime of tax evasion.
I do think about Al Capone often, believe it or not. lol
So it would have to be for something he did not as a federal employee but for work his company, for instance, did for the federal government. I wonder if any of his community organizing stuff would qualify that way. Trouble is, as long as he was in the country legally he could submit a claim for reimbursement by the feds without it being a false claim.
There was something in there regarding submitting a claim for “approval”; I wonder if anything would work with that.
With Hutch News, I suppose the only real threat to them is if somebody like Issa did do an investigation, since none of the US Attorneys or US AG would do anything about it.
See, that’s where we’re so vulnerable. Law enforcement is directed by political appointees. So it’s crooks telling their buddies to look the other way, and the people can’t do anything about it. That’s my gripe.
I thought the actual conviction on Capone was Mail Fraud.
Of course the fraudulent use of the US Postal system was the tie to tax evasion.