The corruption of politics by the wealthy - even the foreign wealthy

Ecuador Family Wins Favors After Donations to Democrats

MIAMI — The Obama administration overturned a ban preventing a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman from entering the United States after her family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to finance records and government officials.

The woman, Estefanía Isaías, had been barred from coming to the United States after being caught fraudulently obtaining visas for her maids. But the ban was lifted at the request of the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so that Ms. Isaías could work for an Obama fund-raiser with close ties to the administration.

It was one of several favorable decisions the Obama administration made in recent years involving the Isaías family, which the government of Ecuador accuses of buying protection from Washington and living comfortably in Miami off the profits of a looted bank in Ecuador.

The family, which has been investigated by federal law enforcement agencies on suspicion of money laundering and immigration fraud, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to American political campaigns in recent years. During that time, it has repeatedly received favorable treatment from the highest levels of the American government, including from New Jersey’s senior senator and the State Department.

The Obama administration has allowed the family’s patriarchs, Roberto and William Isaías, to remain in the United States, refusing to extradite them to Ecuador. The two brothers were sentenced in absentia in 2012 to eight years in prison, accused of running their bank into the ground and then presenting false balance sheets to profit from bailout funds. In a highly politicized case, Ecuador says the fraud cost the country $400 million.

The family’s affairs have rankled Ecuador and strained relations with the United States at a time when the two nations are also at odds over another international fugitive: Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who has taken refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

But while scrutiny has typically focused on whether the family’s generous campaign donations have helped its patriarchs avoid extradition, the unorthodox help given to Ms. Isaías, the daughter of Roberto, has received little attention.

In the spring of 2011, Ms. Isaías, a television executive, was in a difficult situation.

Her father and uncle were Ecuadorean fugitives living in Miami, but she was barred from entering the United States after she brought maids into the country under false visa pretenses and left them at her parents’ Miami home while she traveled.

“Alien smuggling” is what American consular officials in Ecuador called it.

American diplomats began enforcing the ban against Ms. Isaías, blocking her from coming to Miami for a job with a communications strategist who had raised up to $500,000 for President Obama.

What happened next illustrates the kind of access and influence available to people with vast amounts of money.



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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/world/americas/ecuador-isaias-obama-campaign-robert-menendez-hillary-clinton.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Venal but codified by the SCOTUS.

"Independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption."
- Justice Anthony Kennedy - Citizens United v FEC

It's always nice to have an idea what it costs to buy the direct intervention of a President and SecState, thanks Obama and Hillary!

I wonder if U.S. citizens get a discount?

They've been in Florida since 1999.

http://www.dailycensored.com/us-politicians-of-both-parties-aid-and-abet-terrorists-and-criminals-in-florida-the-isaias-brothers/

http://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/05QUITO1000_a.html

"Classified By: Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney, Reasons 1.4 (b)

1. (C) SUMMARY: William and Roberto Isaias, former chiefs
of Filanbanco bank and among Ecuador's richest men, fled
Ecuador in 1999 after absconding with over $100 million in
government bailout funds. They used their ill-gotten wealth
to buy safe passage from Ecuador and later pressured
prosecutors to reduce criminal charges against them. Similar
pressure tactics resulted in GoE-prepared extradition
packages that were insubstantial and non-actionable by the
Department of Justice. Proof of their financial shenanigans
was sufficient, however, to permit the State Department to
revoke their visas on money-laundering charges in 2003.

2. (C) The Isaiases' presence in the United States has
proven a bilateral irritant for nearly six years. Ecuador's
rabid media accuse us of harboring fugitives and paying lip
service to our anti-corruption OAS commitments, and former
President Lucio Gutierrez, elected partly on a "bring the
bankers home" platform, regularly demanded their and others'
return as quid pro quo for supporting U.S. policies. From
south Florida the brothers recently spurred a bank run here,
hurting U.S. efforts to help foment Ecuadorian economic
growth, a key Mission goal.

3. (C) The Immigration and Nationality Act's Section 212
(a)(3)(C) renders inadmissible any "alien whose entry or
proposed activities in the United States the Secretary of
State has reasonable grounds to believe would have serious,
adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States
Government." Understanding 3C can be utilized to deport
aliens as well, the Embassy seeks Department support in
expeditiously expelling these individuals on foreign policy
grounds. END SUMMARY..."

Who was governor of Florida in 1999? And why would a journalist employed at the Miami Herald write this "expose" at this time, trying to pin the corruption on Democrats? Hmmmm?

They've been in Florida since 1999.

The intent can still be accomplished......ok maybe it was not Hillary, but in 1999 it was Bill.....Bill is a bad boy......therefore Hillary is a bad girl......see you can still get to the same destination.....just a different route. The Supreme Court in Citizens United left the door open for restrictions on contributions where public corruption can be proved. I think it is time for this path to sanity to be challenged. It is obvious that money in politics corrupts.

2seaoat wrote:They've been in Florida since 1999.

The intent can still be accomplished......ok maybe it was not Hillary, but in 1999 it was Bill.....Bill is a bad boy......therefore Hillary is a bad girl......see you can still get to the same destination.....just a different route. The Supreme Court in Citizens United left the door open for restrictions on contributions where public corruption can be proved. I think it is time for this path to sanity to be challenged. It is obvious that money in politics corrupts.

Funny... that's a very similar rational for the seventeenth amendment. When will the politicians themselves be held accountable?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/02/usa.books

The Bush dynasty and the Cuban criminals

New book reveals links of two presidents and the governor of Florida with exiled hardliners
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Sunday 1 December 2002 20.54 EST

The brother of President George Bush, the Florida governor, Jeb Bush, has been instrumental in securing the release from prison of militant Cuban exiles convicted of terrorist offences, according to a new book. The Bush family has also accommodated the demands of Cuban exile hardliners in exchange for electoral and financial support, the book suggests.
Last year, after September 11, while the justice department announced a sweep of terrorist suspects, Cubans convicted of terrorist offences were being released from US jails with the consent of the Bush administration, according to the book, Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana, by Ann Louise Bardach, the award-winning investigative journalist who has covered Cuban and Miami politics for the New York Times and Vanity Fair.

The Bush family connections go back to 1984 when Jeb Bush began a close association with Camilo Padreda, a former intelligence officer with the Batista dictatorship overthrown by Fidel Castro.

Jeb Bush was then the chairman of the Dade county Republican party and Padreda its finance chairman. Padreda had earlier been indicted on a $500,000 (£320,000) embezzlement charge along with a fellow exile, Hernandez Cartaya, but the charges were dropped, reportedly after the CIA stated that Cartaya had worked for them.

Padreda later pleaded guilty to defrauding the housing and urban development department of millions of dollars during the 1980s.

The president's younger brother was also on the payroll in the 80s of the prominent Cuban exile Miguel Recarey, who had earlier assisted the CIA in attempts to assassinate President Castro.

Recarey, who ran International Medical Centres (IMC), employed Jeb Bush as a real estate consultant and paid him a $75,000 fee for finding the company a new location, although the move never took place, which raised questions at the time. Jeb Bush did, however, lobby the Reagan/Bush administration vigorously and successfully on behalf of Recarey and IMC. "I want to be very wealthy," Jeb Bush told the Miami News when questioned during that period.

In 1985, Jeb Bush acted as a conduit on behalf of supporters of the Nicaraguan contras with his father, then the vice-president, and helped arrange for IMC to provide free medical treatment for the contras.

Recarey was later charged with massive medicare fraud but fled the US before his trial and is now a fugitive.

Jeb Bush sealed his popularity with the Cuban exile community by acting as campaign manager for another prominent Cuban-American, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, when she ran successfully for Congress.

George Bush Sr famously appeared with her during her campaign in Miami declaring: "I am certain in my heart I will be the first American president to step foot on the soil of a free and independent Cuba."

She has since lobbied successfully for the release of several exiles convicted of terrorist offences held in US jails but who now live freely in Miami.

Most controversially, at the request of Jeb, Mr Bush Sr intervened to release the convicted Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch from prison and then granted him US residency.

According to the justice department in George Bush Sr's administration, Bosch had participated in more than 30 terrorist acts. He was convicted of firing a rocket into a Polish ship which was on passage to Cuba. He was also implicated in the 1976 blowing-up of a Cubana plane flying to Havana from Venezuela in which all 73 civilians on board were killed.

CIA memorandums strongly suggest, according to Bardach's book, that Bosch was one of the conspirators, and quotes the then secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, as writing that the "US government had been planning to suggest Bosch's deportation before Cubana airlines crash took place for his suspected involvement in other terrorist acts and violation of his parole".

Bosch's release, often referred to in the US media as a pardon, was the result of pressure brought by hardline Cubans in Miami, with Jeb Bush serving as their point man. Bosch now lives in Miami and remains unrepentant about his militant activities, according to Bardach.

In July this year, Jeb Bush nominated Raoul Cantero, the grandson of Batista, as a Florida supreme court judge despite his lack of experience. Mr Cantero had previously represented Bosch and acted as his spokesman, once describing Bosch on Miami radio as a "great Cuban patriot".

Other Cuban exiles involved in terrorist acts, Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz Romero, who carried out the 1976 assassination of the Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington, have also been released by the current Bush administration.

The current administration also maintains a hard line on the continuing Cuban embargo despite the urgings of many in Mr Bush's own party to end it. The president's adviser, Karl Rove, "has urged him to fully accommodate hardliners in return for electoral victories for both his brother and himself", Bardach's book says.

For their help, many hardline Cuban-Americans have received plum jobs in the current administration: Mel Martinez, the Orlando Republican who arranged for the shipwrecked Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez, to visit Disney World, was made housing secretary, while Otto Reich was awarded a one year recess appointment for the western hemisphere in the state department.

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