Thursday, August 15, 2013
Thursday, August 8, 2013
CORRUPTED POPULAR POLITICIANS OF THE WORLD
Top Most Corrupt Politicians in the World
There are a number of traits that all politicians seem to have in
common. The ability to speak in public, have an extensive educational
background, and be well-versed in a number of affairs is very important but it
seems one common foundation of almost all political figures is corruption. The
scope of corruption can be something simple like embezzling campaign funds to
more serious crimes such as extortion and murder.
The most corrupt politicians in the world often diversify their
illicit dealings to expand into multiple facets. It is said that corruption and
politics go hand in hand and it’s actually true. Every day we come across news
alleging the politicians of frauds, scams and corruptions. Remember, with great
powers comes great responsibilities. However, certain individuals pay too much
attention to their personal interest rather than interest of the state or
country.
Corrupt politicians threaten the economy as well as democracy of a
country — the overall confidence of the citizens also takes a beating due
to this. The following is the list of top corrupt politicians.
The
list, in alphabetical order, includes:
Dishonorable
Mentions for 2012 include:
In July 2012, the House Ethics Committee, after a haphazard
investigation, reported that Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) had omitted information
on his financial disclosure forms over
four years. However, the ethics committee took no action because once caught,
Rep. Buchanan evidently corrected the “errors.” What, exactly, were the errors?
In his disclosure statements for 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, Buchanan failed to
report all of
his positions or ownership interests in six entities and income received from
the entities.
In a
separate matter, the committee continues to investigate findings of the Office
of Congressional Ethics, Congress’s independent ethics review board, that there
is“substantial reason to believe that Representative Buchanan
attempted to influence the testimony of a witness in a proceeding before the
FEC [Federal Election Commission].”
The
alleged violation occurred during an FEC probe of Buchanan’s former business
partner, Sam Kazran. According to Kazran, during the FEC probe, Buchanan
offered him a $2.9 million settlement in a separate lawsuit if Kazran would lie
about his role in a campaign cash laundering scheme involving Buchanan’s Florida
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu :
The Department of Energy
is dubbed as one of the most important Government agencies as the world strives
to lessen each generation’s carbon footprint. It seems that good-natured energy
companies aren’t even given the chance to save the environment, unless they
financially back President Obama that is. The Steven Chu led DOE loaned out
$20.5 billion in grants in 2012, $16.4 billion of which went to companies that
were owned or run by Obama financial backers. The Chu
corruption also includes funneling $528 billion taxpayer dollars into the
energy company Solyndra…which of course, conveniently, went belly up soon
after.
“The final decisions on Solyndra were mine,” said Secretary of
Energy Steven Chu in his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce
Oversight Committee on November 17, 2011. And this should be his political
epitaph. Chu’s decision to pour $528 million tax dollars into a failing green
energy boondoggle that went belly-up in 2011 is indefensible and corrupt,
especially in light of the fact that Solyndra’s key investor (Tulsa
On March 12, 2012, Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA)
Energy and Oversight Committee exposed the full extent of Chu ’s
incompetence and corruption in a report citing “numerous examples of dysfunction, negligence and
mismanagement by DOE [Department of Energy] officials, raising troubling
questions about the leadership at DOE and how it has administered its loan
guarantee programs.” The report accused Chu ’s
DOE of having “turned a blind eye to the risks that have been glaringly
apparent since the inception of the program.”
Whether Chu indeed made the “final” decision on Solyndra, or is
simply protecting the president and his donor, this is a scandal of a major
magnitude. And yet, it is only the tip of the iceberg. As Peter Schweizer, author of the book Throw Them All Out wrote, “According to the Department of Energy’s own numbers ... In the
1705 government-backed-loan [green energy] program, $16.4 billion of the $20.5
billion in loans granted … went to companies either run by or primarily owned
by Obama financial backers—individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s
National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.”
Hilary Clinton
There’s monetary corruption and then there’s flat out lying to the
people in which Hillary Clinton apparently has no problem doing. From misleading the public about
the Benghazi attacks to using taxpayer money to film an add to cover up her
lies to being the most highly paid recipient of campaign donations from health
care companies even though she pitches for a socialized health care system, it
appears Hilary has the corruption background that is a requirement for a run
for the President in 2016.
Susan Rice
Susan Rice has proven herself to not be just a flash in the pan
corrupt official, she’s got a lengthy history of it. Dating back to when she
was serving on the National Security Council forBill Clinton, Sudanese officials offered up a terrorist by the name of Osama Bin Laden but Rice didn’t deem his Al-Qaeda group as a credible threat. Not
exactly the type of resume that would promote somebody to a potential candidate
for national security adviser but that’s an office that Rice is rumored for.
Oh, and then there’s the whole lying about the Benghazi
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN
Ambassador Susan Rice lied about the events surrounding the Benghazi
One day after the attack, on September 12, 2012,
Sec. Clinton said the following: “Some have sought to justify this vicious
behavior, along with the protest that took place at our embassy in Cairo America
And then Rice repeated the Benghazi
He said he was so exasperated at one point he
told a colleague that "for me the Taliban is on the inside of the
building."
Attorney General Eric Holder:
It had to go down like a
bad Hollywood pitch meeting: “So we’ll sell
guns to Mexican drug cartels then they’ll use them for crimes and we can trace
them back for a conviction….let’s green-light this!” The fact that Holder‘s ‘green light’ of Operation Fast & Furious resulted in the
deaths of hundreds of Mexican citizens and a U.S. Border Patrol agent wasn’t
enough to get him impeached as the Attorney General. There is even a pamphlet
circulating stating “10 Reasons to Impeach Eric Holder” and the whistleblower
who concocted the piece said he had a hard time narrowing it to ten.
A regular on our annual Top Ten Corrupt list,
Holder shamelessly operates the most blatantly politicized Department of
Justice (DOJ) in a generation. And, with the Operation Fast and Furious
scandal, it is no exaggeration that his agency has blood on its hands.
Fast and Furious was a reckless DOJ/Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “gun-running” scheme in which
guns were sold to Mexican drug cartels and others, apparently in the hope that
the guns would end up at crime scenes. Well, they did – and it appears that the
guns were involved in the deaths of hundreds of Mexican citizens, as well as the
murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with
Mexican criminals in December 2010. On December 5, 2012, CBS News reported that 17 DOJ and ATF officials had been faulted in an
Inspector General investigation of the Fast and Furious scandal. But, the man
at the top remains unscathed, even after becoming the first attorney general in
history to be cited for criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to divulge
documents about DOJ lies to Congress about Fast and Furious.
Every day that Eric Holder remains at the helm,
the Department of Justice sinks further into the abyss of cronyism, corruption,
and deceit. And it is well past time for him to go.
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL):
On November 21, 2012, Rep. Jesse Jackson
resigned from Congress in disgrace, acknowledging in his statement that he had
made his “share of mistakes.” This may well be the understatement of year. Jackson Jackson Jackson
Because Jackson
refused to resign before the November elections, Illinois
The late great Chicago newspaperman Mike Royko famously said that the
official motto of Chicago
Sen.
Robert Menendez (D-NJ):
Menendez has been
working on climbing the list of corrupt politicians dating back to 2007 when he
steered lobbying business to a consulting company of Kay LiCausi, who just
happened to be his chief of staff and his mistress. The corruption was only
beginning as Menendez continued to procure development jobs for those who
backed his campaign. He proved to be well-rounded in scandal as he was found to
have a staff member that was not only an illegal immigrant but also a sex
offender. Then there’s the whole prostitution scandal in the Dominican Republic
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) joins the Judicial
Watch’s list of Washington
As far back as 2007, Sen. Menendez was investigated by a federal grand jury for illegally steering lobbying business
to his former chief of staff Kay LiCausi, with whom he was also romantically
linked. In just a few years, her firm reported $1.3 million in business with
nearly $300,000 coming from a New
Jersey
In 2010, Menendez and his colleague in
corruption, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), allocated $8 million for a public walkway and park space adjacent to upscale,
waterfront condos built by a developer whose executives have donated generously
to their political campaigns. The veteran legislators have received about
$100,000 in contributions from the developer, according to federal election
records. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the developer’s Washington D.C.
And to top it all off,
in October 2012, The Daily Caller broke the story that two
women from the Dominican
Republic
President Barack Obama:
Were
there a “Hall of Fame” for broken promises, here is one that would get in on
the first ballot: "Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the
rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency" (President Barack
Obama, January 21, 2009). Instead of transparency and the rule of law over the
past four years, we have witnessed the greatest expansion of government in
modern political history and, consequently, an explosion of government secrecy,
scandals, and abuses of power. Among the low-lights:
• Illegal recess appointments: Perhaps
former Attorney General Ed Meese and Todd Graziano summed it up best in their
January 5, 2012, Washington Post guest commentary: “President
Obama’s attempt to unilaterally appoint three people to seats on the National
Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau (after the Senate blocked action on his nomination) is more
than an unconstitutional attempt to circumvent the Senate’s advice-and-consent
role. It is a breathtaking violation of the separation of powers and the duty
of comity that the executive owes to Congress.”
·
Illegal immigration: In mid-June, Obama announced that by
executive decree – and in apparent violation of his oath of office – his
administration would stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger
illegal immigrants who came to the U.S.
·
Unprecedented secrecy: Judicial Watch has had to file almost 1,000
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and nearly 100 lawsuits against the
Obama administration on issues ranging from Obamacare to the continued funding
of the criminal ACORN network; from tracking Wall Street bailout money to the
unconstitutional use of czars; to White House visitor logs; to the attacks on
the integrity of our nation’s elections. This president touts
transparency but condones law-breaking of open records laws by his
administration.
·
Unconstitutional czars: As far back as 2009, Reuters reported, “Name a top issue and
President Barack Obama has probably got a ‘czar responsible for tackling it.” By the
time the Judicial Watch Special Report President
Obama’s Czars was
published in October 2011, the number of Obama czars had skyrocketed to 45.
Largely unconfirmed by and unaccountable to the Senate, many of Obama’s czars
are often outside the reach of FOIA. Some of these czars exercise
unprecedented and unconstitutional control over major aspects of government
policy and programs. And a number of the czars have been linked to scandals,
thefts and kickbacks, flagrant and offensive statements, conflicts of interest,
and radical leftist political ideologies and policies.
·
Use of Executive Privilege to protect Eric Holder: On June 20, 2012, Barack Obama acquiesced to a plea from
Attorney General Eric Holder and asserted “executive privilege” to protect the
Attorney General from
being prosecuted for failing to provide Congress with Fast and Furious
documents. On March 22, 2011, when asked by aUnivision TV if
he had been informed of the Holder gunrunning program, Obama bluntly stated,
“Absolutely not. This is a pretty big government, the United States
The list could go on ad infinitum –
with Benghazigate, bailouts, abusing the perks of office for luxury vacations
for his family, and, of course, his personal involvement in the Solyndra
scandal. But the bottom line is this: The federal government under Barack Obama
is off the rails and out of control. And now, with Obama having been given the
“flexibility” of a second term, it can only be expected to get worse.
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV):
The corruption
surrounding Harry Reid is so numerous that most Google search results can’t narrow down
the crimes. There’s rumors that he’s a tax cheat, has connections with
organized crime, and is possibly even a pedophile. The Nevada senator doesn’t
even seem to hide the fact that most of his interests are personal these days
including securing $21 million for a bridge that connects Nevada gambling towns
with a small town in which he owns 160 acres of undeveloped land and securing
land appraised at $38 million for a little over $4 million dollars for the
development of a Chinese green energy company; that Reid’s son happens to be a
principal investor for.
A July 30, 2012,
headline in the Las Vegas Review-Journal alerted
Nevadans to Sen. Harry Reid’s latest influence-peddling scandal – this one
involving ENN Energy Group, a Chinese “green energy” client of the Nevada
As Reuter’s reported on August 31,
2012, “Reid has been one of the project's most prominent advocates, helping
recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China
and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada
“Well below appraised value” is a considerable
understatement. The deal Rory Reid put together for the firm his dad brought to
town saw ENN purchase the site for just $4.5 million – a mere fraction of
separate appraisals that valued the property at $29.6 million and $38.6
million. Even with all of that, however, the project has failed to move forward
as rapidly as Harry and Rory Reid would like – for the simple reason that there
is currentlyno market in Nevada
But, of course, funneling
money to the Reid family is nothing new for the Senate Majority Leader. As the Washington
Post reported
in a February 7, 2012, story titled “Public projects, private interests:”
In 2004 and 2005, the Senate majority leader
secured $21.5 million to build a bridge over the Colorado River, linking the
gambling resort town of Laughlin , Nev. , with Bullhead City , Ariz. Reid owns 160 acres of undeveloped land in Bullhead City
And according to Peter Schweizer, writing for Fox News on December 12, 2012, “Sen. Reid has
sponsored at least $47 million in earmarks that directly benefitted
organizations that one of his sons, Key Reid, [RW1] either lobbies for or is
affiliated with.
Needless to say, the well-entrenched Sen. Reid
has been a repeat Top Ten offender.
Rep. David Rivera (R-FL):
In late 2012 the Florida
On October 24, 2012, the Florida ethics commission found "probable cause"
that Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) had committed 11 violations of state ethics laws during his time in the Florida
The “probable cause” findings stem from an
investigation by the FBI and the IRS regarding Rep. Rivera’s dealings with the
Flagler Dog Track, now known as the Magic City Casino. The basis for the
investigation relates to payments reportedly totaling as much as $1 million
made by the casino to Millennium Marketing in the guise of a consulting
contract. Most of the money is said to have been paid in 2008. Millennium Marketing
is owned by Rivera’s mother and godmother, and Rivera supposedly benefited from
the arrangement, and is thus the subject of a tax evasion inquiry.
For a long time, Rep. Rivera denied ever
receiving any income from the dog track, but just before heading to Congress,
Rivera admitted receiving $132,000 in “undisclosed loans” from Millennium. He
claims he paid the money back. Investigators are also taking a close look at
Rivera’s campaign spending, including $75,000 he paid in 2010 “to a now-defunct
consulting company owned by the daughter of a top aide.”
On September 12, 2012, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Kathleen Sebelius became the first member of the President’s cabinet in U.S. history to have been found guilty of violating
the Hatch Act when she campaigned for the reelection of Barack Obama in her
official capacity of Secretary of HHS. According to Politico,
“During a speech to the Human Rights Campaign Gala in North Carolina in
February, Sebelius . . . outlined the Obama administration’s accomplishments so
far and said, ‘One of the imperatives is to make sure that we not only come
together here in Charlotte to present the nomination to the president, but we
make sure that in November he continues to be president for another four
years.’”
After
the speech, Sebelius tried to cover her tracks by reclassifying the event from
“official” to “political,” and claiming her appearance was in her personal
capacity. The scheme didn’t work.
According
to the official statement put out by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel: “The
Office of Special Counsel (OSC) sent findings to the President today from its
investigation of complaints of prohibited political activity by Secretary of
Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. OSC concluded that Secretary
Sebelius violated the Hatch Act when she made extemporaneous partisan remarks
in a speech delivered in her official capacity on February 25, 2012. The
Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from using their official authority or
influence to affect the outcome of an election.”
Thoroughly
unapologetic, Ms. Sebelius justified her transgression by informing the OSC
that she simply “got a little caught up in the notion that the gains which
had been made would clearly not continue without the president’s reelection.”
In other words, her Obamacare agenda took precedence over the law. Normally,
when a government official is found violating the Hatch Act, the punishment is termination. How did
President Obama respond? There was no punishment whatsoever.
Dishonorable Mentions:
Former Sen. John Edwards
(D-NC):
On May 31, 2012, a jury in the corruption trial of
former U.S. Senator from North
Carolina
John
Edwards conducted an illicit affair with campaign employee Rielle Hunter that
resulted in the birth of their daughter. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Edwards
reportedly persuaded his former political aide Andrew Young to claim that he
was the father of the child, and not Edwards. The ruse failed and Edwards was
forced to admit to the whole sordid mess. The focus then shifted to whether
Edwards unlawfully diverted campaign funds to hide the affair.
Edwards
denies the claim, but according to witness testimony Hunter and Young received
nearly a million dollars in “hush” payments from philanthropist Rachel “Bunny”
Mellon and Texas
“Federal law…prohibits
the conversion of campaign funds to any personal use (2 U.S.C. §439a). Most
important, FEC regulations state that the payment of a personal expense by any
person other than the candidate is considered a contribution to the candidate,
unless the payment would have been made irrespective of the candidacy (11 CFR
113.1). As the FEC said in a prior advisory opinion (AO 2008-17), the key
question is, ‘Would the third party pay the expense if the candidate was not
running for Federal office?’”
In
short, John Edwards may have eluded the reach of the law. But, in the courtroom
of public opinion he remains one of the “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians”
for 2012.
Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY):
Though Staten Island ’s Rep. Michael Grimm managed to eke out a
reelection victory on November 6, it wasn’t because he had failed to supply his
opponent with serious issues of campaign corruption. During the race, Grimm was
the subject of an FBI investigation into allegations that his 2010
congressional campaign had accepted contributions over the legal limit and from
noncitizen donors via Ofer Biton, a former aide to a prominent Israeli rabbi,
in exchange for helping Biton obtain a green card.
According to ABC News, “In early 2012, the New
York Times reported
that Grimm, a devout Catholic and former agent for the FBI, allegedly accepted
illegal donations from members of an Upper East Side rabbi's congregation. Ofer
Biton, an Israeli citizen and a top aide to the prominent Orthodox rabbi
Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, came under investigation by the FBI over allegations
that Biton embezzled millions of dollars from the congregation. It is said that
while campaigning with Biton, the Grimm campaign collected over $500,000 in
campaign contributions.”
Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano:
According a Gallup Poll, a full 62 per cent of the American
people believe that stopping illegal immigration should be a top priority of
the U.S.
Not
satisfied with skirting the law in 2011, Napolitano decided to abandon it
altogether in 2012. Accordingly, on June 15, 2012, she announced: “By this memorandum, I am setting forth how, in the
exercise of our prosecutorial discretion, the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) should enforce the Nation's immigration laws against certain young people
who were brought to this country as children and know only this country as
home.”
In short,
this amounted to blanket “temporary” amnesty for illegals under the age of 30.
With her single statement, she simply declared upwards of one million illegal
aliens entirely legal. Just like that. No legislation. No debate. No votes. No
court rulings. The Constitution of the United States
Gen. David Petraeus:
General
Petraeus was forced to resign after news leaked of his long-term extramarital
affair with Paula Broadwell, a writer and military analyst who penned a
Petraeus biography. Compounding the scandal are questions involving whether
Petraeus’ mistress had improper access to classified information from the
nation’s top spy. At the University of Denver on July 28, Broadwell said,
“I had access to everything, it was my experience not to leak it, not to
violate my mentor, if you will.”
There is
also a major question about whether Petraeus misled Congress about the Benghazi
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA):
Judicial Watch uncovered evidence that Elizabeth Warren gave false
statements under oath regarding Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
activities when she served as the agency’s interim director. According to the
records, Warren and the CFPB were intimately involved in brokering a 50-state
settlement underway with the nation’s largest mortgage lenders related to
alleged improper foreclosure procedures. This evidence seems to contradict Warren
During a March 16, 2011, hearing of the House Financial Services
Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, Ms. Warren
downplayed her agency’s involvement in the state settlement negotiations: “We
have been asked for advice by the Department of Justice, by the Secretary of
the Treasury, and by other federal agencies. And when asked for advice, we have
given our advice.”
But this
does not come close to telling the full story.
Emails
obtained by Judicial Watch from several states suggest her agency’s
participation was far more intense and aggressive. Warren Warren Warren
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA):
Maxine Waters has used her time in politics to rise to become a
very influential congresswoman but that does not necessarily mean her influence
has always been beneficial to the people. It turns out the people that have the
most to gain from Waters career is her family who have made over $1 million
through companies whose cause she has supported. She also steered congressional
funding of $12 million dollars to OneUnited Bank, which ironically Waters and
her husband have shares of and even serve on the board. The litany list of
corruption will probably end though once Waters takes her voted-in spot as the
ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee.
In early
December, Democrats chose the scandal-plagued Rep. Maxine Waters to be the
ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee despite her many
transgressions over the years. The influential congresswoman has helped family
members make more than $1 million through
business ventures with companies and causes that she has helped, according to
her hometown newspaper.
In
August 2010, Waters’ influence peddling earned the attention of a subcommittee
of the House Ethics Committee which charged Rep. Waters with three counts of
violating House rules and ethics regulations in connection with her use of
power and influence on behalf of OneUnited Bank. After a highly
controversial investigation, plagued by accusations of impropriety and
corruption, on September 12, the committee failed to hold Waters to account for
steering a $12 million to OneUnited, in which she and her board member husband
held shares.
The
Financial Services Committee, among other responsibilities, has jurisdiction
over all issues pertaining to; you guessed it, the banking system.
Cristina Kirchner
Just to prove that corruption isn’t limited to the United States Argentina
Mohamed Suharto
This gentleman was president of Indonesia Indonesia
Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Marcos is another president who was in news for
misappropriation and diversion of funds for his personal interest. He was
president of Philippines
Mobutu Sese Seko
He embezzled funds worth more than $5 billion during his regime as
President of Zaire from 1965-77. He was involved in many cases of frauds and
scams which hampered the economy of Zaire
Sani Abacha
Sani Abacha, this Nigerian president made a fortune of $5 billion
during the years 1993-1998. He had many properties and foreign assets. After
his death, the post-Abacha government recovered more than $3 billion from his
family and representatives.
Slobodan Milosevic
Well, no wonder this list contains another president. Slobodan was
president of Serbia
Jean-Claude Duvalier
Even though he was the president of small country Haiti
Alberto Fujimori
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He was a controversial figure in the political circles of Peru
Pavlo Lazarenko
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Even though he was the Prime minister of Ukraine
Arnoldo Alemán
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The Aronoldo administration was full of cooperation from top to
bottom. At the end of his presidency at 2002, it was alleged that he has
amassed wealth of $100 million. His property and foreign accounts were sealed
by the court and he was sent to prison for nine months on charges of
corruption.
Joseph Estrada
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Last in the list comes
the president of Philippines
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