Free Republic

WDSU-TV reported this afternoon that former Mayor Ray Nagin has been ordered to appear before a federal grand jury on Friday. The source of the station's information is unclear; the report simply says that "the WDSU I-Team has learned" of the scheduled appearance. The station says that the subpoena went out last week. The report says that Robert Jenkins, Nagin's attorney, "declined to confirm the information." Jenkins frequently appears as an analyst on WDSU. He did not immediately return a phone call from The Times-Picayune. It's been well-publicized that the feds have been building a case against Nagin. The Times-Picayune...

While in office, Mayor Ray Nagin accepted a $50,000 payoff and shipments of free granite from city vendor Frank Fradella, and after leaving City Hall, he became a highly paid consultant to Fradella, according to court documents filed this morning. Fradella was in federal court to plead guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiring to bribe Nagin, described in court documents as "Public Official A." The government's description of that public official, as well as other clues, make clear that it is Nagin. Nagin has not been charged. He has not responded to an email...

Covington businessman Frank Fradella has been charged in a new bill of information that appears to implicate former Mayor Ray Nagin, who has been under investigation for months by a federal grand jury. Federal prosecutors this afternoon charged Fradella with one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiring to bribe a public official. The new documents do not name the official -- rather, they call him "Public Official A." But the official is clearly Nagin; the document describes him as an agent of the city of New Orleans from May 2002 through May 2010. That coincides with Nagin's...

A federal grand jury is investigating whether city vendors gave former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin gratuities ranging from plane tickets to materials and equipment for his family's granite-countertop business and also helped the firm land an exclusive installation deal with a retailing giant while Nagin was in office, according to several sources close to the probe. The federal probe is zeroing in on Nagin along three parallel tracks: luxury travel and home maintenance provided by city technology vendors; a granite countertop installation contract that Nagin's family company got from The Home Depot; and the possibility that at least two...

On the eve of Hurricane Irene making landfall, CBS News turned to disgraced former new Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and referred to him as an "expert." Nagin used the opportunity to plug his "self-published" book.

No, this wasn’t meant to be a joke. Although many believe the 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina was a colossal failure at every level of government, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appeared on MSNBC on Friday to offer preparedness advice for those in Hurricane Irene’s path. Speaking with Martin Bashir, Nagin gave government agencies and their leaders high marks for their preparations. But he said only time will tell if the public follows their instructions.

No, this wasn’t meant to be a joke. Although many believe the 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina was a colossal failure at every level of government, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appeared on MSNBC on Friday to offer preparedness advice for those in Hurricane Irene’s path. Speaking with Martin Bashir, Nagin gave government agencies and their leaders high marks for their preparations. But he said only time will tell if the public follows their instructions.

<p>Since Hurricane Katrina’s winds died down, Ray Nagin has cast his role as mayor of New Orleans as a me-against-the-world struggle to save his hometown against inept government officials and racist forces, sometimes even laying out vague conspiracy theories to bolster his worldview.</p>

All video - WATCH: Leadership Amidst Tragedy - Former Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin reflects on Katrina. WATCH: Heroes of Katrina - Remembering those who cared for the helpless and rescued the stranded.

WASHINGTON –Six officers with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) were charged today in connection with the federal investigation of a police-involved shooting on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina, the Justice Department announced today. The incident resulted in the death of two civilians and the wounding of four others. The indictment charges four officers – Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso – in connection with the shootings, and charges those four officers and two supervisors – Arthur “Archie” Kaufman and Gerard Dugue – with helping to obstruct justice during the subsequent investigations. The...

The state ethics board is charging former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin with two possible violations, for receiving gifts from a one-time city vendor and for his involvement with a company that was negotiating tax breaks with the city. Copies of the charges, which were sent to Nagin through his attorney late last month, were received by The Associated Press on Friday. One charge involves gifts to Nagin paid for by technology firm NetMethods and its owner Mark St. Pierre, who had several city contracts. NetMethods paid for Nagin and his family to travel to Jamaica in 2005 and to...

Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced Wednesday he is asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to send federal resources to help reform the New Orleans Police Department. Landrieu, standing beside more than a dozen community leaders, said at a news conference that he wants the Justice Department to come in and do an assessment of the NOPD and the criminal justice system. Landrieu said he anticipates that the federal assessment would eventually result in a consent decree, a move that could mean federal oversight for the troubled department. "It is clear that nothing short of a complete transformation is necessary and essential...

UPDATE, 3:20 p.m.: We’ve got so much information coming in on this story now, it’s hard to keep track of it all. So rather than craft some sort of elegant narrative of this thing, we’ll stick to bullet points. - Nobody from the New Orleans Police Department talked to Allee Bautsch at any length until Thursday of last week. - The picture at left, of which we now have several shots, is of an individual who, if he isn’t the prime suspect in the beating of Allee Bautsch and Joe Brown, sure ought to be. Bautsch told me via e-mail...

This is a copy of the police report on the Bautsch/Brown assault. The narrative begins on page 4 of the pdf. file (be patient - it takes a moment to load). The report strongly suggests that the white male perpetrators were part of the protest that evening outside of Brennan's restaurant.

Louisiana GOP fundraiser Alexandra "Allee" Bautsch and her boyfriend, Joe Brown, talk with a police officer about the savage attack on them by leftist protesters as they left a GOP fundraising event on April 9, 2010. Photo by Jack A. Neal The scandal of the aftermath of the vicious political attack on Alexandra "Allee" Bautsch, the chief fundraiser for Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and her boyfriend, Joe Brown, as they left a Republican fundraiser attended by three GOP governors (Jindal, Rick Perry of Texas and Haley Barbour of Mississippi) April 9th has taken a sickening turn as a report has...

Radical anarchists and Leftwing extremists, spreading a message of violence and hate, marched directly to the scene of the crime. Their target: Gov. Bobby Jindal, his “rich” friends, and Republicans. Is it just mere coincidence, then, that the victims of this assault were Republican employees of Gov. Jindal attending an expensive fundraiser, at the exact location, and at the exact time, that the protest took place? Is it just mere coincidence that the perpetrators purposely targeted the victims and shouted insults at them concerning “money,” as Allee’s mother claims, and their being “nicely dressed,” as the police report states? I...

…you have to more or less suspend disbelief not to recognize that. But based on various agendas, it seems like that’s what’s going on. Beyond the reactions of left-wing journals, when those sources have reacted to this story at all, we notice that Allahpundit at HotAir.com and Michelle Malkin have both gone out of their way to disparage the idea that the attack had to do with politics. The attack was political. But, and I think I’ve been clear on this and hopefully in this post I’ll be even clearer, while it was political it doesn’t appear that it was...

Walter Abbott, doing the reporting that most others in the blogosphere and the mainstream media refuse to do, has broken a story at the Lincoln Parish News Online that the host of the Republican governors fundraiser which Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's chief fundraiser Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend Joe Brown had attended before they were brutally attacked just blocks away says that he and his party fled the fundraiser after twice being targeted by protesters:In an interview this afternoon, Louisiana GOP Chair Roger Villere, Jr. told Lincoln Parish News Online he and several others were pursued by protesters last Friday...

Last Friday night, Allee Bautsch, the chief fundraiser for Louisiana's Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, was violently assaulted, along with her boyfriend, outside of a famed New Orleans restaurant. Initial reports on the incident were murky, but Yahoo! News has learned that the attacks appear to have been politically motivated.

I just had a very interesting and somewhat confusing conversation with New Orleans Police Department Public Information Officer Bob Young. Mr. Young confirmed to me that the New Orleans police had indeed taken statements from both of the victims, Jindal aide Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend, Joe Young. He confirmed that in those statements, the victims reported that their assailants had indeed hurled “insults” at them, and the “insults” were, and I quote, “of a political nature”. Describing the entire attack, he went on to say “it was of a political nature”. I then repeated what he told me, and...