Posted on 12/15/2016 7:06:00 AM PST by HomerBohn
Salt Lake Tribune) – The $2 million cashier’s check was drawn at a St. George bank Nov. 5, 2010.
From there, it was sent by FedEx to a Los Angeles attorney who represented Ireland-based Full Tilt Poker.
Made out to “Mail Media LTD” — a Full Tilt-owned entity used to launder online-gambling funds — the millions then were deposited at Basler Kantonalbank in Switzerland, where Mail Media had an account.
And from there, Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings is investigating whether it went into a Marshall Islands account in the name of Searchlight Holding Inc. to benefit, or even bribe, Harry Reid, the once-powerful majority leader of the U.S. Senate whom online poker companies had been courting to push a bill to legalize their gaming across the nation.
But documents gathered by The Salt Lake Tribune from state and federal investigations, court filings and public records requests — including audio recordings of interviews and thousands of pages of transcripts, summaries by investigators, emails, requests for evidence and other materials — show that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI failed to pursue a vigorous investigation of this money and any potential tie to Reid.
The available evidence contains no direct connection between the money and the Nevada Democrat, only that Rawlings wants to dig into that possibility.
Federal authorities have stymied his effort, leaving Rawlings to wonder why. Were agents ordered to steer clear of that money trail? And, if so, by whom? In short, was there a cover-up?
“Harry Reid is presumed innocent and may actually be innocent,” Rawlings said in a written statement, adding that a “real, vibrant grand jury investigation” could exonerate him.
Even at the state level, though, Rawlings’ push for funding for a grand jury also has stalled. Attorney General Sean Reyes’ office has not turned over any funds for such an inquiry despite months of negotiations.
Reid’s spokeswoman did not return emails and a phone message seeking comment for this story. Previously, his office called any bribery allegations “unsubstantiated” and accused Rawlings of grandstanding to advance his political career.
The FBI declined to answer specific questions but in a joint statement with the Utah Department of Public Safety, FBI spokeswoman Sandra Yi Barker said, “At no time has the FBI or DPS been asked to back off of an investigation of any public official.”
Origins • Rawlings learned about the $2 million check from Jeremy Johnson.
The disgraced St. George businessman, according to transcripts and recordings of investigative interviews, told the prosecutor the money came out of poker funds at now-defunct SunFirst, where Johnson and his partners were illegally processing payments for poker companies. Johnson repeated the story to FBI agents that Reid, who leaves the Senate in January, was going to pocket “a little something extra” for his retirement in exchange for political help.
Johnson’s encounter with the FBI came after the DOJ had aborted an investigation of then-Utah Attorney General John Swallow and his predecessor, Mark Shurtleff, without filing charges.
The cases were picked up by Rawlings, a Republican, and Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, a Democrat. The two prosecutors were joined by Utah-based FBI agents, who, documents indicate, focused only on alleged malfeasance by the two former Utah attorneys general.
Indeed, the document trove tied to the criminal probes of Shurtleff and Swallow — along with a federal bank-fraud case that sent Johnson to prison — are notable for the DOJ’s disinterest in the allegations involving Reid.
“The FBI, via the Salt Lake City Field Office, was willing to investigate these allegations … wanted to actively engage,” Rawlings said. “The Salt Lake office was taking steps to do so, but suddenly they were not.”
Lobbying or bribery • The $2 million reached Shurtleff’s radar from Johnson, his longtime friend and campaign donor, who also told the then-attorney general in 2012 about a $250,000 bid to solicit Reid’s help in thwarting a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation of Johnson’s I Works online-marketing company.
Johnson told Shurtleff that the deal involved Swallow, then a top deputy in the Utah Attorney General’s Office, and the late Provo payday-lending magnate Richard Rawle, who had access to Las Vegas attorney Jay Brown, Reid’s friend and sometimes-business partner.
Shurtleff said he asked Johnson why he considered the $250,000 a bribe and not just “straight-up lobbying” money — as Swallow has argued it was.
“He says, ‘because I bribed Harry Reid before,’ ” Shurtleff recalled in an interview with The Tribune.
Johnson went on, the former attorney general said, to tell the story about the poker companies and the $2 million. That prompted Shurtleff to turn to the feds — the U.S. attorney’s office for Utah, the DOJ and the FBI — two times in 2012 and again in 2013 after he left office.
Following the check • One of Rawlings’ requests to federal agencies seeks an email exchange between Full Tilt executives and Johnson that discusses “a wire transfer, or a cashier’s check, for $2,000,000, or any other amount in 2010,” according to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Johnson came to believe the $2 million check was meant for Reid after the Nevada senator, according to the businessman, said at a 2010 fundraising event with online-gaming groups that he would push a bill to clear up any doubt and legalize their U.S. operations under federal law.
Rawlings has granted Johnson immunity from prosecution in his investigation, dubbed “Rogue Runner.” In a Jan. 9, 2014, interview that was part of the probe, the prosecutor asked Johnson, “So you actually did give Harry Reid $2 million?”
Johnson replied, according to a transcript, “Well, it wasn’t written to him but—.”
The funds for the SunFirst cashier’s check were in an account for a company called Powder Monkeys, one of the entities set up in St. George in 2010 to process payments for Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. The back of the check shows it was deposited into Mail Media’s Swiss account.
A copy of a Nov. 5, 2010, shipping receipt shows the check went via FedEx to Full Tilt’s Los Angeles attorney Ian Imrich, who did not return emails seeking comment.
Documents do not show where the money went, if anywhere, after Switzerland. But on Oct. 27, 2010 — a week before the check was cut — a Marshall Islands bank account was established under the name Searchlight Holding Inc., according to the country’s Reston, Va., business office. Information on who opened the account is not public — whether it was Reid or poker interests or someone else.
Rawlings believes there is a connection between the account and Reid, who has used Searchlight, the name of the Nevada town in which he grew up, with other entities, including his political-action committee, the Searchlight Leadership Fund, and the Harry Reid Searchlight Foundation.
Documents show Rawlings has been trying to obtain evidence from federal agencies about a Searchlight Holding Inc. registered in the Marshall Islands and seven “alleged overseas accounts in the Marshall Islands and Bermuda that purportedly relate to Senator Harry Reid going back to 1997.”
PUT ON YOUR TINFOIL HATS TO CONNECT THE DOTS:
(1) Harry Reid's son Rory is in business w/ the Chi/Coms on a multi-billion dollar solar energy project; Cliven Bundy and his land are standing in the way.
(2) Reports say Bill Clinton recently went to China to panhandle for his tax-exempt "Clinton Global Initiative" foundation.
(3) The "Clinton Global Initiative" (NOT KNOWN for giving out grants)---gave Harry Reid's granddaughter a grant for a Brooklyn, NY theatre she runs (what is a Brooklyn theatre's connection to "global initiatives?")
(4) A Nevada energy company also gave Reid's granddaughter's theatre group a grant.
================================================
"Money laundering" comes to mind. Could the Chinese be financing the Reid's solar project through donations to theClinton Foundations....which is then laundered to Reid's granddaughter?
================================================
REFERENCE----HARRY REID IS LIVID THAT HIS GRAND-DAUGHTER HAS BEEN OUTED AS A RECIPIENT OF LAUNDERED CAMPAIGN CASH---Reid lashed out at reporters, saying, “My granddaughter has been the target of harassing phone calls, strangers tracking her down, knocking on her door and negative, unwanted attention on the Internet.” “This has gone too far and it needs to stop now,” Reid said. “I deeply regret any role I had in creating this situation but now, as a grandparent, I say enough is enough.”
============================================
Besides the "jewelry company" financed by her grandfather, Ryan Elisabeth Reid runs the Sprat Theater Company, a small theater in Brooklyn, which is also coming under scrutiny. According to Sprat’s Theatre Company Web site, it has received grants/contributions from:
<><> the Clinton Global Initiative (connected to global terrorism via Muslim Brotherhood employee),
<><> two major Las Vegas foundations:
Caesar’s Foundation, and the NV Energy Foundation.
NOTE NV Energy Foundation---is a non-profit division of NV Energy (a public utility). The NV Energy utility is a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company which took over in 2013....and is now owned by a Warren Buffet unit.
Harry w/ grand-daughter Ryan Elizabeth Reid.
One Congressman (now in jail), and certain associates, borrowed $1 million from a wealthy supporter and disguised the funds as a loan to a consulting company for a mayoral race.
After he lost the mayoral election, the Congressman allegedly returned $400,000 to the donor that the campaign had not used, and arranged for Educational Advancement Alliance (EAA), a non-profit entity that he founded and controlled, to repay the remaining $600,000 using charitable and federal grant funds that passed through two other companies, including one run by an associate.
To conceal the contribution and repayment scheme, the defendants and others allegedly:
<><> created sham contracts, and,
<><> made false entries in accounting records, tax returns and campaign finance disclosure statements.
In addition, after his defeat in the mayoral election, he sought to extinguish approximately $130,000 in campaign debt owed to a political consultant by agreeing to arrange for the award of federal grants of tax dollars to the consultant.
The Congressman directed the consultant to apply for a tax dollars in the form of a $15 million grant (which he did not ultimately receive), on behalf of a then non-existent non-profit entity.
In exchange for the award of the funds to the non-profit, the consultant allegedly agreed to forgive the debt owed by the Congressman's campaign.
The Congressman also misappropriated funds from his mayoral and congressional campaigns to repay his son’s student loan debt. To execute the scheme, arrangements for his campaigns to make payments to a political consulting company, which the company then used to lessen the son’s student loan debt.
Between 2007 and 2011, the consultant made 34 successful loan payments on behalf of the Congressman's son, totaling approximately $23,000.
In another alleged scheme, beginning in 2008, the Congressman communicated with individuals in the legislative and executive branches in an effort to secure an ambassadorship or an appointment to the U.S. Trade Commission. In exchange, the putative appointee provided money and other items of value to the Congressman.
As part of this scheme, the indictment alleges that the defendants sought to conceal an $18,000 bribe payment by disguising it as a payment for a car sale that never actually took place. Finally, the indictment alleges that one insider obtained $50,000 in federal grant funds that supposedly claimed would be used by EAA to support a conference on higher education. The conference never took place.
Instead, the insider used the tax dollar grant funds to pay $20,000 to a political consultant and $10,000 to her attorney, and profited herself by riting several checks to herself from EAA’s operating account.
Could Harry Reid’s part in visa fraud scandal be connected to his retirement announcement?
March 27, 2015 | Carmine Sabia / BIZPAC
Could Harry Reid’s part in the latest political scandal play a part in his decision to retire from the Senate after his term comes to an end?
Reports surfaced this week that the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security pushed through visas for foreigners investing in a Las Vegas casino project at the behest of Reid whose son Rory was the lawyer on the project.
The report alleges that Alejandro Mayorkas, who at the time was Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, was pressured by Reid to give “special access and treatment to certain individuals and parties,” according to Fox News.
Mayorkas involvement led to the expedited visas being granted to the foreign investors even though others in his department advised against it.
Wednesday on Fox News’ “America’s News Room,” William La Jeunesse said Mayorkas intervened when Citizenship and Immigration Services denied the visas. Harry Reid personally called Mayorkas asking him to reconsider.
“Not only did Mayorkas overrule his department, he ordered them to brief the Senator on a weekly basis,” La Jeunesse said.
Dan Epstein, the Executive Director of Cause of Action, said Reid pushed for the special accommodations to benefit his son.
“These applications were denied for ‘suspicious financial activity,’ Epstein said. “Then Harry Reid, realizing that he could benefit his son financially and potentially himself politically, decided to overturn those petitions by directly contacting USCIS and asking them to overturn those petitions.
According to La Jeunesse, Mayorkas also did favors for other top Democrats including Democrat National Committee chairmen Ed Rendell, Terry McAuliffe and Anthony Rodham, the brother of Hillary Clinton.
I have always thought it was strange him retiring.
Reid’s family scheme to steal water rights from Nevadans will break this wide open.
Harry Reid Wanted $600K Bribe to Make Federal Investigation Go Away
“I am not a criminal,” Reid said.
April 20, 2014
Daniel Greenfield
Isn’t there some way we can get money out of politics? Let’s ask Harry Reid.
A Utah businessman is rocking both state and national politics after claiming Utah Attorney General John Swallow helped him broker a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make a federal investigation into his company quietly disappear, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Jeremy Johnson was allegedly told that the price would be $600,000, and claims to have made an initial payment of $250,000 when he was slapped with a federal lawsuit. Now he says he wants his money back.
The Salt Lake Tribune points out that Johnson has no way of knowing whether the funds actually made it to Reid, even if he did make a massive payment to Reid’s alleged intermediary.
...
Then, with the FTC investigation continuing, Johnson said Swallow suggested Reid could make problems with regulators go away — for a price.
“I said, ‘OK, what do I need to do?’ He’s like, ‘OK, it costs money,’ ” Johnson said, who claimed Swallow was adamant he make a deal.
“I think he told me, ‘Richard Rawle has a connection with Harry Reid,’ ” Johnson said.
He said Swallow at first wanted $2 million to enlist Reid’s help. But [his company] I Works was no longer profitable and he did not have the money, Johnson said, so they eventually agreed on $300,000 upfront and $300,000 later.
So did the money ever make it into Harry Reid’s grubby little hands? There’s no way to know, but it’s not exactly the first time this has come up.
On Monday, Harry Reid’s close friend and donor, Harvey Whittemore was sentenced to two years in prison for funneling more than $130,000 in illegal campaign funds to Sen. Harry Reid’s re-election committee in 2007. He received three felony convictions, his sentence includes $100,00 in fines and 100 community service hours. Whittemore was a former Nevada power broker and named the most powerful lobbyist in Nevada who worked for gambling, alcohol and tobacco industries. His nickname was the “64th legislator”.
According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, Reid and Whittemore go way back; four of Reid’s sons were hired by the law firm in which Harvey Whittemore was a senior partner. Sen. Reid and Whittemore were involved in very big land deals, including federal legislation to help the development of Coyote Springs.
But again, supposedly Reid knew nothing.
The Nevada Democrat also defended his role in fighting Republican attempts to water down Obamacare as a condition to keeping the government open, responding directly to a National Review piece that called him the “villain of villains.”
“When I read this yesterday, I thought, no one likes to be called a villain,” Reid said, reading aloud definitions of the word that mean “uncouth,” “scoundrel” or “criminal.” “I am not a criminal. I am not a scoundrel. So they better get a different definition of me.”
See, he’s not a crook. He even said so.
There is another problem: Until 1993 he did pay the federal grazing fees (signed into law under Ronald Reagan). So, it would seem that he did recognize the federal government as owning the land–at least up until 1993. Furthermore, the Nevada Constitution explicitly recognizes federal ownership of this, and other land within the Nevada territory. So in effect Bundy’s claimed allegiance to Nevada State Law is awkward at best, since he is in fact contradicting it.
I think you should ask Bundy that...I just keep the articles because I have seen this happen way to many times in the west...by the way...where do you live?
Lived in Texas most of my working life. Now on the east coast for how long I don’t know.
HarleyLady how in the world is Mr.Trump EVER going to get through the tentacles of this corruption OMG it is TRULY overwhelming!!! Just reported on FOX NEW that the IRS employees that are allotted 63.00 a day for travel have been running up credit cards and expenses to stay at the Ritz Carlton for 40,000 a month, using black car transportation, wining and dining in the BEST restaurants WTH is going on??? These BASTARDS need to be arrested!!! I PRAY Mr. Trump can wrap his arms around this, this man is going to be OVERWHELMED with the corruption!!! I PRAY he rids the FBI of Comey and places Rudy as the head of FBI!!!
Merry Christmas!
Thanks.....the best of this happy holy season to you, too.
Unfortunately Rudy will be on the outside...you have to understand that while 9/11 was going on, and he was attending most all of the funerals he had cancer...since I have had cancer I can attest, it takes a lot out of you, especially as you age...so he will be an ‘outside adviser’ to President Trump, but guaranteed he will have the President's ear anytime he needs it...
This corruption has been going on for years and years...and each President coming in has never been willing to do anything about it, especially the past 8 years...lies, crooks, money, power and that includes the Republicans and the RATS and the Senate, House and the alphabet gangs...
But I have faith in President Trump...he has the best people for the best positions, read about them, they are the greatest and he will ‘clean the swamp’...the only problem after 8 years, will it go back to being the ‘swamp’ or will it stay clean...
That's why it's so important for all of us to watch our Senators, Representatives in Washington D. C. : McCain AZ; RINO RYAN WS; Turtle head Kentucky; Linda Graham S.C.; and others...then it's important to watch who your State is putting in to run the State from the Governor on down, and what bills are they after, who they associate with, etc.
Have faith, President Trump has the Lord's Hand on him, he will do fine, God NEVER fails!!!
may this be a Christmas present to all of us... 8^)
Who is William La Jeunesse?
Reporter.
Thanks forthe succinct explanation of goings on with bunch and Hammond ranch
LOCK HIM UP!
LOCK HIM UP!
LOCK HIM UP!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.