Former Justice Department Employee Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Deceive U.S. Banks about Millions

[laserhaas]

Source: US Attorney Press Release

Link to tweet

.
A former employee with the U.S. Department of Justice pleaded guilty today for his role in a conspiracy to deceive banks in the United States about the source and purpose of millions of dollars sent from overseas to finance a lobbying campaign on behalf of foreign interests, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

George Higginbotham, 46, of Washington, D.C., who was employed at the Justice Department as a Senior Congressional Affairs Specialist from July 2016 to August 2018, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to make false statements to a bank before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District of Columbia.

According to admissions made in connection with his plea, in 2017 Higginbotham helped facilitate the transfer of tens of millions of dollars from foreign bank accounts to accounts in the United States to finance a lobbying campaign to resolve civil and criminal matters related to the Department of Justice’s investigation of the embezzlement and bribery scheme concerning 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Higginbotham admitted that the foreign principal behind the lobbying campaign was alleged to be the primary architect of the 1MDB scheme. Higginbotham, as a Justice Department employee, played no role in any aspect of the investigation and failed to influence any aspect of the Department’s investigation of 1MDB. Higginbotham further admitted that another purpose of the lobbying campaign was an attempt to persuade high-level U.S. government officials to have a separate foreign national, who was residing in the United States on a temporary visa at the time, removed from the United States and sent back to his country of origin.

Read more: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-justice-department-employee-pleads-guilty-conspiracy-deceive-us-banks-about-millions

[pecosbob]

1. Lots of crooks in DC...

at the very least Mike Cohen was peddling influence to anyone with enough cash to buy him some new suits....he's already in a plea deal. Mike Flynn was peddling influence to Turkey, along with Rudy Giuliani. Broidy was peddling influence to the Chinese. We got Erik Prince trying to diddle the Saudis so he can set up Mercenaries-R-Us over there but he can't get an audience for all the Trump spawn trying to give blowjobs to MBS. Manafort was a straight-up freaking agent for the Russians, but then the Russian kleptocracy has been paying their dues up front since the nineties once they had consolidated their powerbase. The GOPers have been taking their money for thirty years.

[laserhaas]

2. It sucks - big time - that I'm hard pressed

To find fault w o th your remarks.

Treason 101is the order of they day.

[Hortensis]

3. The "influential person" that Higginbotham

was supposed to bribe to pressure government officials wasn't named in the court documents. Low and two Goldman Sachs bankers are involved in the giant theft. What a surprise to see that name connected to something like this.