Tag: corruption

Vatican Indicts Cardinal And 9 Other Suspects On Embezzlement, Fraud

A Vatican judge indicted a cardinal and 9 other suspects on charges of money laundering, fraud, and abuse of office Saturday, according to the Independent.

The suspects are accused of withholding millions of euros from the Holy See and investing money that was donated to the pope for charity work, the Independent reported.

Italian broker Gianluigi Torzi is accused of using 15 million euros that he withheld from the Vatican to invest in a London building in 2018. Former Holy See official Cardinal Angelo Becciu was indicted for helping organize the investment when he was the Secretariat of State’s chief of staff, according to Independent. 

Another suspect, an Italian intelligence expert, was accused of using Holy See money to buy luxury goods, the Independent reported.

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Chicago Alderman and her chief of staff indicted on bribery charges

Accused of accepting bribes in exchange for political favors, a Chicago Alderman and her chief of staff were indicted Thursday on federal bribery charges. The chief of staff was also charged in a separate scheme to purchase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits at a discount.

According to the indictment, Chicago Alderman Carrie Austin and her chief of staff, Chester Wilson Jr., conspired with construction contractors offering to provide free home improvements for assistance in acquiring city development projects between 2016 and 2019. Both Austin and Wilson allegedly abused their positions by accepting bribes, including free home improvement materials, home improvement services, furniture, and appliances.

Between December 2016 and February 2019, multiple text messages and emails recorded conversations between the public officials and the contractors with requests for kitchen cabinets, bathroom tiles, granite countertops, etc. in exchange for help obtaining city development projects. Both Austin and Wilson allegedly made illicit requests for home improvement materials and services at properties owned by each of them.

Questioned by FBI agents on June 19, 2019, Austin allegedly gave false statements when she denied receiving bribes from the contractors. Austin only admitted to receiving a cake from one of the contractors.

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Biden’s pick for German ambassador is president of university that paid him nearly $1M

President Biden’s nominee to be the next ambassador to Germany is an Ivy League president whose university paid him nearly $1 million for an honorary professor gig where he was seldom seen, it was revealed Friday.

University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann, who has headed the Philadelphia-based institution since 2004, is the first envoy to a G-7 nation to be nominated by Biden.

If confirmed by the Senate, the 71-year-old Gutmann would be the second woman to serve as America’s chief diplomat in Berlin. (Robin Quinville has served as acting US ambassador to Germany since June of last year.)

Biden accepted an honorary professorship at UPenn after he left office as vice president in 2017. He held the post until April 2019, when he launched his successful presidential campaign.

In July 2019, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Biden was paid $911,643 by Penn. The student newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, counted just nine on-campus appearances by the then-former senator and vice president between February 2017 and February 2019. Five of those events featured cameos by Gutmann.

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‘Violation of First Amendment’ – Judicial Watch YouTube Video Censored at Request of California Government Officials

The California Secretary of State’s office pressured YouTube to remove Judicial Watch’s videos on election integrity.Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch received 165 pages of new documents showing the California Secretary of State directly emailing YouTube to remove Tom Fitton’s videos on election integrity.

The video titled “ELECTION INTEGRITY CRISIS — Dirty Voter Rolls, Ballot Harvesting & Mail-in-Voting Risks!” was removed three days after California government officials made the request.

Judicial Watch had previously sued California over its dirty voter rolls and Los Angeles County agreed to remove 1.6 million inactive voters.

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BOE botched NYC mayoral primary results by including ‘test’ run

The too-close-to-call Democratic primary race that will likely decide New York’s next mayor was thrown into disarray after election officials admitted they accidentally included “test” results in the vote count, leading to 135,000 extra ballots.

The botching of the city’s first ranked-choice election was first flagged by front-runner Eric Adams, who pointed out that preliminary results from the Board of Elections showed that 941,832 votes were cast for the Democratic mayoral nomination, a huge increase from the 799,827 that were counted on primary day last week.

The BOE clarified its screwup in a tweet Tuesday night.

“It has been determined that ballot images used for testing were not cleared from the Election Management System (EMS),” the board said of the fiasco.

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Vaccines: Reasons for Concern

We can no longer trust the Centers for Disease Control to weigh honestly the risks and benefits of Covid vaccines for young people.

That is the only possible interpretation of Wednesday’s CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting about the link between Covid shots and serious heart problems in teens and young adults.

At the meeting, CDC scientists presented horrendous data. It showed that even without accounting for underreporting, a second dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines could increase the risk of problems up to 200-fold in young men.

But the scientists then went on to suggest the vaccines should still given – even to kids already suffering from heart problems.

The CDC’s focus yesterday was on two illnesses, myocarditis and pericarditis, forms of heart inflammation that can occasionally progress to heart failure and even death. The CDC and many reporters insist on calling the cases mild. In fact 95 percent of the 300+ post-vaccination cases the CDC has reviewed have led to hospitalization.

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