Ex-US official admits charges linked to Malaysian scandal

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Justice Department official admitted his role Friday in a multimillion-dollar effort to try to get the United States to drop its investigation into a money laundering and bribery scheme that pilfered billions from a Malaysian investment fund.

George Higginbotham’s guilty plea in federal court in Washington marked the first public acknowledgement of a secret attempt to pressure American officials to drop their probe of the fund known as 1MDB.

The massive corruption investigation, which upended Malaysian politics, spanned the globe with the money from the fund gambled in Las Vegas, spent on diamond jewelry and a luxury yacht and used to finance the “Wolf of Wall Street” and other Hollywood productions. The long-ruling coalition in Malaysia was ousted in a May election, and then-Prime Minister Najib Razak, who set up the fund, now faces criminal charges there.

Prosecutors say Higginbotham, who worked on the congressional affairs staff in the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs, helped open bank accounts and created false loan documents for shell companies to pay an influential person to pressure officials to drop their probe. That person’s identity wasn’t revealed in court.

-snip-

By MICHAEL BALSAMO
18 minutes ago


Read more: https://apnews.com/05613df8082e42878d6c205c6e6658f1

[pecosbob]

1. So who is this 'influential person' this guy is supposed to have bribed?

[lark]

2. Drumpf or Sessions?

Those would be my guesses, although on 2nd thought, i think Whittaker is a strong possibility as well since we know he's a thief.