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Outraged Bank of America customers are boycotting the bank after learning it snooped through hundreds of innocent people's accounts at the request of the government as part of its investigation into the Capitol riot, using a broad criteria that meant anyone who made a transaction in DC that day came under a federal microscope. Tucker Carlson revealed the bank's involvement in the investigation on his FOX News show on Thursday night. After being contacted by the government, Bank of America handed over the information of 211 people. The feds asked for information including: Customers confirmed as transacting, either through bank...

A flurry of significant stories broke on Friday, including the Obama administration's belated capitulation on executive privilege assertions pertaining to the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal, as well as the release of a large document dump to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Another potentially-meaningful revelation came via Fox News' Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne, who reported that the timing and context of US officials' extradition of a Romanian hacker is "not a coincidence" vis-a-vis the FBI's ongoing criminal investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's national security-compromising email scheme. Let's follow the breadcrumbs: The extradition of Romanian hacker “Guccifer” to the...

Racial Politics: Unable to pin racism charges on Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, Attorney General Eric Holder is using half-baked data to manufacture a case of racism against his entire police force. Holder's race-baiting civil rights crew combed through several years of Ferguson Police Department data on traffic stops, searches and arrests and "found a pattern of racial disparities in Ferguson's police activities." "African Americans are overrepresented in FPD's vehicular stops" and victims of "racial bias," Holder concludes in his report.

Looks like Rep. Gregory Meeks is running on a new campaign slogan: Viva Las Vegas!As The Post’s Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein reported last Sunday, the Queens Democrat spends an awful lot of time in the gambling city, ostensibly raising funds for his political action committee.Problem is, he has precious little to show for these outings.In fact, Meeks spent more than $8,000 late last year on hotels and food in Sin City — plus another $17,000 on fund-raising “consultants” — but didn’t report taking in a single penny.Worse still, he isn’t very forthcoming about the trips on his official...

It's not every day that an American labor union gets investigated for possible ties to two of the world's most lethal terrorist organizations. But Chicago's Service Employees International Union Local 73 isn't an everyday union. Last September 24, FBI agents raided residences in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan of more than a dozen radical activists in an effort to connect them to the Hamas (Gaza and the West Bank) and FARC (Colombia) guerrilla movements. Two of the occupants were SEIU Local 73 chief steward and executive board member Joe Iosbaker and former local board member-steward Tom Burke. Neither they nor anyone else has...

The arrests of a Prince George's County liquor store magnate and his wife by federal authorities last week as part of a broad corruption probe involving County Executive Jack B. Johnson has pulled back the curtain on the complex and often incestuous world of liquor and politics in the county. The county's chief liquor inspector is also the head of the local Democratic Party. One of the five members on the Board of Liquor License Commissioners - responsible for granting and revoking liquor licenses - is also on the party's central committee, which helps choose the board members. The liquor...

Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson and his wife were arrested at their home Friday and charged in federal court with trying to hide or destroy the proceeds from a bribe from a local developer, according to court papers and federal law enforcement authorities. Johnson and his wife, Leslie E. Johnson, were charged with evidence tampering and destruction, alteration and falsification of records. After brief hearings late Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Connolly ordered Jack Johnson to be released and placed under electronic monitoring. The judge released Leslie Johnson on her own recognizance. Both Johnsons were ordered to surrender...

Nine people, including three Prince George's County police officers, were arrested Monday on charges involving drugs, guns and a large-scale scheme to distribute untaxed cigarettes and alcohol, according to federal officials. Sources said the charges are connected to the recent arrest of Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson, but it is unclear exactly how the cases are related. The arrests are part of a larger investigation of corruption in Prince George's. The nine arrested Monday were taken into custody in the early morning hours during an operation that involved 150 law enforcement officers executing as many as a dozen...

  The abrupt departure by Andrew Stern this spring as president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), after 14 years on the job, blindsided a lot of observers. After all, he was a shadow cabinet member of the Obama administration. Reported ongoing federal investigations into two unrelated, and possibly illegal, financial arrangements may shed light on his motives. The Associated Press ran a story last Tuesday stating the FBI and the Department of Labor have been interviewing persons potentially knowledgeable about the possibility that Stern: 1) received unauthorized funds from a book he'd authored several years ago; and...

ALBANY — John L. Sampson, the State Senate leader, performed legal work for a Queens real estate broker who was being investigated by state authorities on allegations of fraud and predatory lending, and was disciplined for acting as a notary for the broker after his notary license had expired, according to state documents. The broker, Edul Ahmad, has been at the center of a loan scandal involving United States Representative Gregory W. Meeks of Queens, who this month admitted that he had failed to disclose a $40,000 loan from Mr. Ahmad on his federal filings. The loan appeared to...

On Saturday, Congressman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) made the following statement: Beginning at the height of the selection process for Aqueduct Racino development investors as I fought for local participation, and for the past several months, right-wing interest groups such as the National Legal and Policy Center and sensationalist media outlets have lodged unfounded attacks against me and other respectable members of the Queens community related to my family home and my involvement with New Direction Local Development Corporation.While speaking out against these baseless allegations, I felt it was important to confirm that I have been in full compliance with the...

Queens congressman Gregory Meeks appears to have turned to a major Democratic fund-raiser to help him settle a secret $40,000 loan after the FBI began probing the deal.Last month, Meeks borrowed $59,650 from a Westchester-based investment firm owned by Dennis Mehiel, a businessman and one-time candidate for New York lieutenant governor.Days later, he paid $59,000 to Ed Ahmad, a Queens businessman from whom he borrowed $40,000 in 2007. The additional cash was meant to cover interest Meeks said he owed on the first loan.Meeks originally borrowed the money from Ahmad in January 2007 to help cover the cost of...

Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks made no payments for three years on a secret $40,000 personal loan - and repaid the cash only when the FBI started asking questions, the Daily News has learned.Meeks received a check for $40,000 from Queens businessman Ed Ahmad in January 2007 to finish paying off his new $830,000 home, two sources familiar with the matter said.There was no discussion about interest rates, due dates or collateral requirements for the loan, the sources said, and Meeks did not report it on his 2007 and 2008 financial disclosure forms.The congressman made no payments on the loan until...

A congressional ethics office asked the Justice Department on Thursday to review evidence it found suggesting that companies are providing campaign cash to lawmakers for no-bid contracts, and consider a criminal probe. The Office of Congressional Ethics investigation focused on companies that were clients of the once powerful lobby firm the PMA Group and sought earmarked contracts from lawmakers who sat on the House Appropriations committee. The referral was an end-run around the House ethics committee, which earlier this year declined to investigate the matter as the OCE recommended and said it found no substantiation that lawmakers were engaged...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley Chief Executive James Gorman said he had no knowledge of any U.S. federal investigation into the Wall Street firm as was reported by media. "We have not been contacted by the Justice Department," he said at a joint news conference with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in Tokyo. "We have no knowledge whatsoever about the Justice Department investigation," Gorman said. The Wall Street Journal reported U.S. federal investigators are probing whether Morgan Stanley misled investors about mortgage derivative products it helped create and sometimes bet against.

Among the Queens charities to benefit from the largess of embattled Rep. Gregory Meeks is the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. That relationship has apparently drawn attention from federal investigators, who have reportedly subpoenaed Meeks' records related to the group. A federal grand jury is probing several Queens nonprofits' connections to local politicians. In 2003, Meeks helped steer $21 million in tax credits to Greater Jamaica to create an as-yet unbuilt "airport village" complex of housing, shops and a hotel near the Jamaica Long Island Rail Road and JFK AirTrain station stops. The 10-parcel site, which is just under one acre,...

When software firm MobilVox wanted to break into the lucrative world of defense contracting, it pursued an unmistakable strategy: It expanded operations from its Northern Virginia base in Rep. James P. Moran's congressional district to the southwestern Pennsylvania district of Rep. John P. Murtha. Working with two of the most powerful members of a House subcommittee that controls Pentagon spending, the company also hired lobbying firms that employed former top aides of both the Democratic lawmakers and Mr. Murtha's brother. Company executives and their lobbyists donated thousands of dollars to the two congressmen. Soon, money flowed the other way. Between...

The Appropriations Defense Subcommittee — always considered the high altar of congressional spending power — has suddenly become a liability for lawmakers touched by criminal inquiries scrutinizing the nexus of lobbyists, earmarks and Pentagon contracts. Just in the past week: A Pennsylvania businessman with ties to Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) pleaded guilty in a kickback scheme, leading to new questions about Murtha’s role in getting earmarks for his brother’s lobbying business. FBI agents raided a Florida company linked to Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), leading Young to withdraw a $4 million funding request for the firm the next day. And Rep....

WASHINGTON — With the current chairman under fire for his connections to a lobbying firm under FBI investigation, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., could be in line to take over the chairmanship of the House panel that oversees Pentagon funding. But even as that possibility looms, Dicks himself faces increased scrutiny for his relationship to the lobbying firm at the heart of the investigation. So far, Dicks hasn't been sucked into the latest earmark-campaign contribution scandal on Capitol Hill, though he and a handful of other lawmakers have skated around the edges. Dicks adamantly denies any wrongdoing and said he hasn't...

A former executive for a defense contractor with ties to powerful Democratic U.S. Rep. John Murtha is charged by federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh with taking about $200,000 in kickbacks from a subcontractor. The executive charged is Richard Ianieri, of Doylestown, who used to work for a company called Coherent Systems International Corp.