Showing posts with label bribery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bribery. Show all posts

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Wow: With His Stolen Billions, Bankman-Fried Bribed the US Congress

Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La) who is undermining Jim Jordan for House Speaker, was bribed with money from SBF's FTX campaign finance operation, as were 13 of the 22 RINO holdouts. Source

Meantime: In Trudeau's Nazified Canada:

Trudeau's "Liberal" Party blocks bill that would have prevented Canada from euthanizing the mentally ill.

Historical Note: Britannica. T4 Program, also called T4 Euthanasia Program, Nazi German effort—framed as a euthanasia program—to kill incurably ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and elderly people. Adolf Hitler initiated the program in 1939, and, while it was officially discontinued in 1941, killings continued covertly until the military defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Justin Trudeau: Canada's Prince of Sleaze

Andrew Coyne: Conflict of interest is the least of concerns raised by SNC-Lavalin affair:

Conflict of interest, frankly, is the least of the concerns raised by this affair. There is a strong whiff, rather, of abuse of power and, possibly, obstruction of justice.

CBC: RCMP looking at SNC-Lavalin affair 'carefully,' promise to take actions 'as required'

The RCMP says it's reviewing the facts of the SNC-Lavalin affair "carefully" in the wake of a new damning report from the ethics commissioner that found Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act, following renewed calls from the Opposition to investigate.

John Ivison: PM's defence to ethics czar reveals his nasty political side

In mid-July, after Dion [Canada's Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner] had presented Trudeau with the evidence he had gathered in the SNC Lavalin investigation, the prime minister’s counsel made a written submission, that tried (and failed) to sway the ethics commissioner from finding him guilty of trying to further the interests of the Montreal-based engineering giant.

It was an ugly, mean piece of work that not only sought to portray former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould as over-wrought, irrational and incompetent, it also attempted to exonerate Trudeau from any inappropriate behaviour by his staff. ...

Dion resisted the urge to nominate Trudeau for a meritorious service medal and instead found him guilty of contravening section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act, which prohibits public officer holders from furthering the interests of people or organizations.

Friday, March 29, 2019

Why Jodie Wilson-Raybould Resigned As Canada's Minister of Veterans Affairs

Jodie Wilson-Raybould (JWR) was fired as Canada's Justice Minister and Attorney General after refusing to abort the prosecution of Québec-based engineering multi-national, SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption abroad.

She was subjected to political pressure to provide SNC with relief from Prosecution by the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, both in person and by letter, by members of the Prime Minister's staff, by Finance Ministry staff, and by David Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's most senior civil servant.

Specifically, it was expected that she would override the judgement of the independent Director of Public Prosecutions, by ordering that SNC-Lavalin be granted a so-called remediation agreement, under the terms of which penalties would be negotiated without criminal liability.

By way of pressure, JWR was given to understand that cabinet post was in jeopardy unless she submitted to the Prime Minister's wishes in the matter of the SNC-Lavalin prosecution.

JWR rejected these demands on the grounds that they amounted to interference in Canada's constitutionally protected traditions of prosecutorial independence and rule of law. Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Trudeau fired JWR as Justice Minister and Attorney General.

Following her dismissal, JWR was offered the cabinet post of Minister of Veterans Affairs, which she accepted. However, following meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on January 14th of this year, JWR resigned her new cabinet appointment. The trigger for this decision was a statement by the Prime Minister that with reference to the propriety of the Government's action in relation to SNC-Lavelin, JWR's ongoing presence in Cabinet spoke for itself. With reference to her resignation from Cabinet the following day JWR said: "I trust that my resignation also speaks for itself."

The recording of the telephone conversation between JWR and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, is here.

JWR's 21-page written submission of supplementary information for the Parliamentary Justice Committee relating to political pressure under which she was placed during her tenure as Canada's Attorney General is here.

Related:
Toronto Sun: Lilley — Trudeau's lies
CBC: Wilson-Raybould: 'no regrets'
CBC:Feast hosted for Jody Wilson-Raybould on Vancouver Island
Global News: Phone call leaves Liberals’ SNC-Lavalin narrative — and excuses — in complete tatters
Global News:Michael Wernick never briefed Trudeau on Wilson-Raybould phone call — says PMO
NaPo: Christie Blatchford: The Jody Wilson-Raybould solution
NaPo: Andrew Coyne: Wilson-Raybould recording brings SNC-Lavalin affair crashing back to reality
The Tyee: Jody Wilson-Raybould: Cassandra of the Trudeau Government

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Trudeau About to Call Election?

Québec Newspaper: Trudeau likely to call May election:

The Suburban: Is Justin Trudeau really relaxing in Florida this week to recharge his batteries and forget about the SNC Lavalin scandal? Or is he getting ready to hit the road for a re-election campaign?

Several good sources tell me that Trudeau will soon pull the trigger on an early May election. It makes a lot of sense. He cannot have this story* follow him for the next six months. So after his party tables a good news budget, he will tell Canadians that he did the right thing by asking Jody Wilson-Raybould, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General at the time, to intervene in an ongoing criminal prosecution case against SNC Lavalin.
———
* The story, that is, of his determination to overrule the independence of the Attorney General in order to give Québec-based engineering giant, SNC-Lavalin, a pass on prosecution for systematic resort to swindling and bribery.
David Lametti, Justin Trudeau's accommodating replacement for attorney general Jodie Wilson-Raybould, can hardly order the Director of Public Prosecutions to grant SNC-Lavalin a remediation agreement during the run up to an election. The Liberals would be unable to outrun the stink. But waiting until October, the heretofore expected election month, may be unacceptable to SNC, who seem to be impatient for action now. Thus, for Trudeau, who for whatever reason, seems irrevocably committed to SNC's interest, the only option may be to call the election now, and do the deed for SNC immediately afterwards, that's assuming he wins another four-year mandate, God help us. 

Friday, March 8, 2019

Gerald Butts Offers Serpentine Explanation for Quitting as Trudeau's Brain

Asked by Liberal MP, Randy Boissonnault, during Wedenesday's Parliamentary Justice Committee hearing why he quit his job as the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary, Gerald Butts offered this gem of snake-like obfuscation:

I think I was put in a position where I had to ask my colleagues to fight another colleague over accusations a colleague was making, and I think that put the prime minister in an impossible position given the nature of our friendship.

Which interpreted, means:

I was put in a position

Justin wanted this.

I had to* ask my colleagues to fight another colleague =

I persuaded various cabinet minsters to make snide comments about then Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould, with the intention of making the obdurate bitch resign from cabinet, thereby making way for some malleable tool who would follow directions and tell the Director of Public Prosecutions to drop the prosecution of SNC-Lavelin on charges of bribery and corruption, as conviction would have detrimental consequences for the Prime Minister.

over accusations a colleague was making =

The accusation being the fully justified objections that Jodie Wilson-Raybould had addressed to the Prime Minister and others, concerning efforts by Butts, the Head of the Civil Service, the Minister of Finance, the Deputy Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister's legal advisers, and the Prime Minister himself to interfere in the independent action of the Attorney General and the Federal Prosecution Service concerning the ongoing prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption. 

and I think that put the prime minister in an impossible position given the nature of our friendship =

It would have been totally out of character for me to have instigated the campaign of vilification against Jodie Wilson-Raybould without the Prime Minister's knowledge and approval, therefore, as a longtime close friend of the Prime Minister I am resigning to create the impression that the whole dirty scheme was entirely my own idea and carried out contrary to the commitment of the Prime Minister (if any) to the rule of law, even when the application of the law causes him a massive pain in the arse.

———
* Note the reference to compulsion: "I had to." In other words, what Butts did appears to have been something contrary to his own judgement of what was right, and must, therefore, have been ordered by the Prime Minister.

Related:

CBC: SNC-Lavalin loses bid for judicial review of prosecution decision

Monday, March 4, 2019

Trudeauphobia

IPSOS Poll:
Most Canadians Want Trudeau Out
And 85% want a police investigation.

As Justin Trudeau informs the world that he is "still reflecting" on whether  Jody Wilson-Raybould  (the just resigned Justice Minister) can remain in the Liberal caucus, another senior female minister, Treasury Board President Jane Philpott, resigns from the cabinet of Mr. Feminist, as the Prime Minister was contemptuously labelled by a female MP, last week.

Thus the Prime Minister's support at the highest level of the Liberal Party seems to be seriously eroding. Will others go? Unless Trudeau goes first, others surely will. The reason? Short-term pain for long-term gain. Since Trudeau's corruptionist balls-up over SNC-Lavalin, the Liberal Party of Canada has gone from a slim lead in the polls as the October general election looms closer, to a seven percentage point deficit. Better, then, so some must surely be calculating, to quit the cabinet now in the hope of being reinstated under a new leader with a chance of recouping lost ground, than sticking with a sinking ship.

So who's next. Or will the Liberals weakly  follow the lead of Mr. Feminist, the Imposter and Phony-in-Chief as he has been rudely named, on a near certain journey down the tubes.

Maclean's: Paul Wells — Justin Trudeau, Imposter
The story a few Liberals were telling privately, in the early hours after Jody Wilson-Raybould delivered her extraordinary testimony to the Commons justice committee about the endless procession of men who tried to make her cancel a criminal trial for SNC-Lavalin, was that she just didn’t get it.

The former attorney general is a nice enough sort, the story went, but she doesn’t really understand the way the world works. The whole point of amending the Criminal Code to provide for deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) was to make that option—a sort of negotiated fine in lieu of a trial for fraud and bribery—available to SNC-Lavalin. And if the option was available, why not use it? Jobs were at stake. Elections were at stake. Elections, plural, for Pete’s sake. First an election in Quebec last autumn, then a federal election this autumn.

So you could drag SNC through the mud of a court trial, long after the individual executives who actually did any frauding and bribing had fled the company, for what? To visit punishments upon everyone else in the company? To maybe scare it out of Montreal for good? To endanger the jobs of thousands of fine upstanding Quebecers and other Canadians? On the eve of elections? Plural?

All of this was just so obvious to everyone who leaned on Wilson-Raybould, it was said privately. What the heck was she missing? Why didn’t she get it?

If it’s any comfort to the former attorney general, at least she can rest assured that she’s not the only person who didn’t get that blindingly obvious fix-the-Criminal-Code-to-suit-SNC-Lavalin-and-save-jobs-and-Liberal-hides connection. Because also out of the loop were the people of Canada. And if we were out of the loop, it’s because Justin Trudeau and his apparently inexhaustible supply of yes-men worked hard to keep us uninformed.

Long story short, the government of Canada was telling one story to itself and another to Canadians. To themselves, they said they were protecting jobs. To the rest of us, they said they were getting tough. A government that indulges in that much sustained double-talk clearly thinks it has something to hide. It’s being disingenuous. It’s being phony. And since the lot of them never stop calling themselves #TeamTrudeau on Twitter, I guess we can, without fear of contradiction, say the Prime Minister of Canada has been the phony-in-chief.

Read more
Related: 
NaPo: Trudeau gets a lesson in politics and principles
Canspeccy: Justin Trudeau, the Worst Canadian Prime Minister Since Pierre Elliot Trudeau

Quote of the Day:
Andrew Coyne: Monday morning the Prime Minister was musing aloud whether Jody Wilson-Raybould, having resigned from cabinet and laid bare the sordid inner dealings that make up the SNC-Lavalin affair, should be allowed to remain in caucus. By Monday afternoon, with the resignation of Jane Philpott, the question was whether he would still be allowed remain as prime minister. Read more

Thursday, February 28, 2019

While Trudeau Tries Selling Canadians on the Virtues of Corruption, Five Former Attorney's General Call for a Police Investigation

Justin Trudeau and his palace guard have repeatedly claimed that prosecuting Québec-based engineering firm SNC Lavelin for bribery and corruption (including according to press accounts, the provision of whores, nude dancers, pornography and airline tickets for the delectation of Saadi Gadhafi, son of murdered Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi) is contrary to the public interest, since it would, um, well discourage SNC Lavalin from engaging in similar bribery and corruption when seeking further work abroad.

SNC-Lavalin paid for the debauchery of Gaddafi's son while in Canada
The Londoner:
A report by Montreal’s La Presse newspaper says that SNC-Lavalin allegedly paid for a sex-filled trip across Canada for the son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

“Naked dancers, porn movies and many, many, many prostitutes,” the story states.
The argument is that without the bribes, jobs would be lost. But whose jobs? Mostly, SNC Lavalin operates abroad and of those it employs abroad few are actually Canadian. So why should Canadians care?

Then there's the sob story from the Prime Minister's supporters about the poor suffering share-holders of SNC, poor sods, for whom not buying prostitutes for the worthless progeny of foreign dictators would mean lesser returns on their investment. What's more, failing to satisfy the apparently gross appetite of the likes of Saadi Gaddafi no doubt hurts the domestic white slave trade. 

So, no, let corruption blossom. 

Source: Canada — so pure: pure corruption-free blue. According to
perception. A perception our glorious leader wishes to change
Except, might not their heretofore reputation for stainless integrity be of value to Canadian firms seeking government contracts in at least a few countries? Are there no ruling elites that wish to uphold a reputation for honest dealing? In which case, isn't the prosecution of SNC Lavalin for bribery and corruption abroad a net positive for Canada?

So, apparently, some former Canadian Attorneys General seem to think. Indeed they're calling the cops on Trudeau

Related: 

Canadian Press: Former MUHC manager pleads guilty in SNC-Lavalin bribery case

Michelle Rempel, Calgary MP, Consigns Fake Feminist Trudeau to the Garbage Can of Canadian Political History Brilliant:

Thursday, February 21, 2019

LavScam and the Trudeau Doctrine


Better dirty hands than empty bellies 

"Better dirty hands than empty bellies" is the Trudeau doctrine as enunciated, not by Justin Trudeau, but by Pierre Elliot Trudeau, speaking about the delivery of lethal military equipment to the US during the Vietnam war.

It now appears that, during the fall, Justin Trudeau acted in accordance with the Trudeau doctrine by bringing pressure to bear on his now ex Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould, urging her to scotch the prosecution of Quebec-based global engineering firm SNC Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption. In so doing, he presumably resorted to the argument he has made repeatedly in public that prosecution of SNC Lavelin would put many Canadian jobs at risk.

The trouble for Trudeau with this line of action and logic is two-fold.

First, under the law, a company guilty of corruption cannot be granted a "remediation agreement" instead of prosecution on the grounds of "national economic interest," , as Trudeau may have urged.

Second, when Trudeau discussed the prosecution of SNC Lavalin with the Attorney General on September 17, a prosecution had already been launched, which gives the Prime Minister's intervention the appearance of an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

To an adherent of the Trudeau doctrine, obstruction of justice for the sake national economic interest might well be considered a reasonable trade-off. But if so, it proved to be a mistake to demote the  Attorney General to the lowly cabinet portfolio of Veterans Affairs so soon after she apparently refused to join the Prime Minister in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the Lavalin case.

As a consequence of her demotion, Ms. Wilson-Raybould seems not to have been chastened, but rather embittered, giving rise to vilification by some cabinet colleagues and senior officials who reported her behavior in Cabinet to be self-centered and confrontational.

In response, it seems, to that further humiliation, the former Attorney General resigned her new cabinet post, while giving no reason since, so she claimed, as the former Attorney General, what she had to say was subject to solicitor-client privilege that only the Prime Minister can waive.

It is now reported that Ms. Wilson-Raybould will appear next week to testify before a Parliamentary committee. Whether she will speak freely remains to be seen. In the meantime, young Justin may be wishing he'd kept his hands clean.

Monday, February 18, 2019

Justin Trudeau's Final Blunder?

Among journalists, Andrew Coyne is a very much smarter than most, and in the matter of SNC-Lavelin and the resignation of Trudeau's Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, he appears to have left the rest of the commentariat in the dust.

In a weekend article in the National Post, he makes five points that seem to leave little more to be said, other than Justin Trudeau's resignation speech. 

First:

The director of public prosecutions, Kathleen Roussel, it has been widely reported, decided not to offer SNC-Lavalin the remediation agreement it had so feverishly, and successfully, lobbied for. But in fact she may have had no choice. The relevant provision (sect. 715.3) of the Criminal Code sets out a long list of “conditions” that must be present and “factors” prosecutors must consider before they can even enter negotiations on such an agreement; another list sets out the “mandatory contents” of the agreement itself.

First, prosecutors “must” consider “the circumstances in which the act or omission that forms the basis of the offence was brought to the attention of investigative authorities,” in the service of one of the legislation’s key objectives, “to encourage voluntary disclosure of the wrongdoing.”

But SNC-Lavalin didn’t voluntarily disclose that it allegedly paid bribes of $48 million to Libyan government officials and defrauded various organizations in the country of $130 million. The matter only came to light after a lengthy police investigation.
Second:

... the agreement must include “the organization’s admission of responsibility” for the alleged offence. Has SNC-Lavalin explicitly admitted corporate responsibility in the Libyan affair? A lawyer friend who has closely followed the case can find no example of it, in any public statement. It has dismissed the charges against it as “without merit,” insisting any alleged crimes were the work of a few rogue executives “who left the company long ago.” Perhaps that weighed heavily in the director’s deliberations.
Third:

Finally, there is sect. 715.32 (3) of the Code, under the heading “Factors not to consider.” For offences under section 3 or 4 of the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, it reads — SNC-Lavalin was charged with one count of corruption under sect. 3(1)(b) of the act, along with one count of fraud — “the prosecutor must not consider,” inter alia, “the national economic interest.” (This is not only a matter of domestic law. It is a virtual word-for-word transposition of our obligations under the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials.)

So its defenders’ stated rationale for sparing SNC-Lavalin from prosecution — the dire consequences for jobs and the economy should the company be convicted, and presumably collapse — is not only economically suspect (SNC-Lavalin is not the only employer in the construction industry, nor would the work for which it has contracted disappear just because the company did) and morally dubious. It’s expressly precluded in law.
Fourth:

The DPP was not only within her rights, then, to refuse to negotiate a remediation agreement, she would arguably be breaking the law if she did.

Suppose that were not true. Could the attorney general order her to? That, too, is far from clear. Under the law the attorney general is required to sign off on a prosecutor’s decision to negotiate a remediation agreement. But the prosecutor needs no such consent to decline to negotiate; neither is there anything in the law that says the attorney general can order her to.
Fifth:

This is not contradicted, as another lawyer friend points out, by that much-quoted provision in the Director of Public Prosecutions Act — the one obliging the attorney general to make public any order “with respect to the initiation or conduct” of “any specific prosecution.” Whatever limits that places on the AG’s ability to influence the “conduct” of a prosecution, it would seem to grant no power to stop one after it has started, still less to order a remediation agreement be pursued in its place.

Understandably, therefore,Trudeau keeps Wilson-Raybould firmly gagged by the solicitor-client privilege that only he can waive. After all, who better than the former Justice Minister to draw the attention to the circumstances that make Trudeau's action in firing Wilson-Raybould indefensible.

Source 
Related:
CanSpeccy: Justin Trudeau: The Worst Canadian Prime Minister Since Pierrre Elliot Trudeau?

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Forget the Dollar, Say Good-Bye to Gold: Now Is the Time For the Numero

In response to my post: Is the US Fed Truly Evil? A Dialog Between a Goldbug and a Bank Apologist, a reader remarked that what is needed is form of money less easily manipulated than either gold or fiat currency.

In response, I described the perfect — and perfectly practicable — monetary unit, the Numero (pronounced with a long "e"), in a post entitled The Numero: Beyond Gold and Fractional Reserve Banking.

Now, as the World again teeters on the brink of a financial disruption that will enrich a handful of billionaire speculators, disrupt economies and hurt ordinary folk throughout the world, it is time to return to the need for an impartial, self-regulating monetary system such as existed when gold and silver were everywhere the monetary standard, and all paper instruments were convertible to precious metal. The Numero provides the perfect basis for such a system, but with many advantages over gold: it can neither be stolen nor can it be used for corrupt purposes, and it costs essentially nothing to create.

Instead, today, we have a infinitely manipulable monetary system under which countries strive to take advantage of trade partners by stealing their jobs with undervalued currencies or by getting stuff free by printing wads of worthless paper, while stealing from their own citizens by currency debasement.

China and other Asian nations have long been in the job-stealing business with undervalued currencies, the US and other Western nations have long been in the business of printing worthless paper to cover their expenses.

As a result, resentments build up. China is a currency manipulator. The US rips off the world for $trillions-worth of oil and manufactured goods by virtue of its exclusive right to print the world’s reserve currency. Smaller countries, do what they may, are constantly in danger of economic disruption due to the tidal forces created by currency market manipulation and intervention.

But there is a simple solution, a return to a gold-exchange-standard-type system established under the Bretton-Woods Agreement, but without the absurd waste of energy and resources that a gold-based system entails as it drives the mining of a metal destined for permanent storage in a steel-and-concrete-lined vault.

As I have already explained, such a system can be based on an entirely cost-free resource: namely, the set of cardinal numbers. Named the Numero, each unit of currency would have a unique whole number. Existing currencies would be converted to the Numero at the current exchange rate with either gold, or the US dollar or, the price of a Big Mac, or a basket of commodities, manufactured goods and services.

If the US dollar is taken as the initial standard, then every US-dollar-account balance will be unchanged except in the designation of the currency, which will now be the Numero not the US dollar. Balances in other currencies would be exchanged at their rate of exchange with the US$ on the designated date of conversion.

Now we would have an electronic currency that cannot be counterfeited, costs nothing to create, and can be traced every moment through a global network of computers that record the ownership of every single uniquely numbered currency unit.

As with a gold-backed currency, the Numero cannot be printed unilaterally by the government of any country, since not only would that amount to fraud upon the trading partners of that country, but because such fraud would be immediately identified, since each new currency unit would have a unique unauthorized number.

The Numero, like gold, would automatically adjust international trade balances toward zero, since countries with an international trade deficit would run short of currency, which is to say, would experience a contraction in money supply that would depress prices and increase international competitiveness. Conversely countries with a trade surplus would experience an expansion in money supply that would increase prices and decrease international competitiveness.

Other benefits of the Numero include the prevention of financial theft, money laundering, bribery and corruption, since stolen, laundered, or illicitly gained funds would appear with their identifying numbers and their source, in the account of the receiving party where they could be immediately identified.

As the global economy expands, or contracts, the supply of Numeros could be modified automatically by adjusting every Numero bank balance by an appropriate factor. Thus if the world economy grows by 0.25% per month, every Numero bank balance would be credited each month with an addition of newly minted (i.e., authorized and uniquely numbered) Numeros equal to 0.25% of that account's balance, in accordance with the Biblical principle that "to those that have, more shall be given." Conversely, "from whom more shall be taken away" in the event of a global contraction.

As for lending, banks would have to make do with funds deposited with them, instead of creating booms and busts by printing money, as they are free to do now, without regard to prevailing economic conditions or the fundamental needs of the economy.

The above is based on a post of September 24, 2012.