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发帖数: 4653 | 1 http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/controller-john-liu-sinks-de
Controller John Liu’s credibility as the city’s chief fiscal watchdog has
been severely undermined by a federal criminal complaint depicting his
campaign treasurer as aggressively ripping off taxpayers.
While the charges against Jenny Hou are unproven, the evidence outlined by
the government convincingly places her at the center of a scheme to milk the
city’s program of providing public funding for campaigns.
Liu confronts two possibilities in the event that the facts are documented,
one worse than the other. Either a) he was clueless that his war chest was
filled with a substantial pot of purloined money gathered through elaborate
ruses; or b) he was in on it.
So far, the FBI has not implicated Liu in the alleged thefts. If evidence
emerges that he knew of them or participated, bye-bye, Mr. Controller.
In the court filings, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara says that Hou
arranged for straw donors to hide the origins of contributors and to game
the public matching funds program.
She also allegedly offered to illegally reimburse a donor, hid the
identities of so-called bundlers who collected money for Liu and engaged in
obstruction by willfully refusing to turn over subpoenaed records.
In November, the feds charged Liu contributor Oliver Pan with creating straw
donors to evade campaign contribution limits. Then Liu could say that Pan
acted on his own and was unconnected to his team.
Not so for Hou, who serves as the legal custodian of the campaign’s books,
just as Liu serves as the legal custodian for the public’s books.
Finally, the feds say Liu’s campaign failed to come fully clean about its
bundlers as late as last month, when the controller released a long-overdue
roster of 59, claiming it was complete.
Under the glare of the investigation, the complaint says, in effect, that
Liu allowed some to remain secret. Come to think of it, “undermined” is
too nice a word for his credibility. |
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