[VIDEO] CONGRESSWOMAN FUNNELED $294,245 IN CAMPAIGN CASH TO HERSELF

Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-CA) has bagged at least $294,245 since 1998 by loaning her congressional campaign money at interest rates up to 18%--a scheme that effectively funneled campaign contributor donations directly into her personal bank account.

The self-loan ruse was exposed Sunday night during a joint investigation by 60 Minutes and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer based on Schweizer’s forthcoming book, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets.

After numerous attempts to interview Napolitano, Kroft finally confronted her outside a Hispanic Caucus meeting.

“She told us that as a woman and a minority, banks wouldn’t lend her money, so she had to withdraw $150,000 from an investment account to lend it to her campaign,” said Kroft.

Kroft then questioned why she would charge 18% interest. “That’s what the Mafia gets,” said Kroft.

“It isn’t like I’ve really profited,” said Napolitano. “I still live in the same house. I drive a small car. I am not a billionaire, or a millionaire, for that matter.”

Schweizer exposes Napolitano’s self-loan money extraction technique in Extortion.

In 1998, Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-CA) loaned her congressional campaign $150,000 at a staggering 18% interest. Napolitano then let the loan linger unpaid for 20 years. In the first decade of the loan, Napolitano bagged $200,000 in interest payments. Then in 2006, Napolitano lowered the interest rate to 10% and kept drawing interest checks. In the 2008 and 2010 elections, the California Democrat pocketed another $94,245 in interest.

Presently, Schweizer, who appeared Monday morning on CBS Early Show, says the self-loan scheme is legal under congressional rules. The only stipulation is that lawmakers must charge a “commercially reasonable” interest rate on the loans they make to their campaigns—a term of art that is undefined and almost never enforced.

“Napolitano is a longtime member of the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Transportation Committee, which means that donations from industries in those areas were not only donating to her campaign but also putting money in her pocket,” said Schweizer in Extortion.

The publisher of Schweizer's book, Houghton Mifflin, says the book contains myriad revelations and never-before-published documents on top Democrats, Republicans, President Barack Obama, and Attorney General Eric Holder. 

Via: Breitbart

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GAI RESPONDS TO OBAMA 'FACT CHECK' OF FRAUDULENT DONATIONS REPORT

The Government Accountability Institute (GAI) on Wednesday called out the Obama campaign for refusing to address the ownership of the Obama.com domain by a campaign bundler who lives and has business interests in China. GAI also alleged that the Obama campaign has not fully addressed its weak online security measures to prevent fraudulent or foreign campaign donations. 

GAI President Peter Schweizer said GAI was “troubled by the fact that the Obama campaign has nothing to say about one of the main concerns we detailed in our report: the mysterious Obama.com redirect website anonymously owned by China-based campaign bundler Robert Roche.” 

“Robert Roche has an unusually close relationship with the Chinese government, to whom he is dependent for the operation of his Chinese-based company, Acorn International,” Schweizer said. “At the same time, he owns this redirect website which sends international web traffic to a contribution page of the president’s campaign.”

The Chinese government has a history of trying influence American elections through campaign contributions, and Roche is not a random figure. He was seated at the head table of the China State Dinner in 2011.

Immediately after the progressive magazine Newsweek published a story, based on a nine-month GAI investigation of how easily foreigners can illicitly donate to President Barack Obama’s campaign due to lax online security measures, the Obama campaignresponded with a purported “fact-check” that tried to dismiss the report as a partisan attack on the Obama campaign.

Via Breitbart

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REPORT: NEARLY HALF OF CONGRESS VULNERABLE TO FRAUDULENT, FOREIGN ONLINE DONATIONS

A startling report by the Government Accountability Institute finds that almost half (47.3%) of congressional campaign donation websites lack basic anti-fraud credit card security systems common on most e-commerce websites. That, says Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer, leaves federal House and Senate elections vulnerable to illegal foreign or fraudulent credit card contributions.

“Fraudsters and foreign governments have long sought to illegally influence U.S. elections,” Schweizer said in an interview with Breitbart News. “From the Shah of Iran funneling money to Richard Nixon’s campaign, to Johnny Wong and Charlie Trie shuttling funds to Bill Clinton’s election coffers, campaign donor fraud is a bipartisan problem with a long history. But in the Internet age, the threat is now just a click away.”

There are 380 members of the House of Representatives seeking reelection that have active donation pages on the web, and 194 have campaign websites that require donors to enter their credit card security code, known officially as the Card Verification Value (CVV). Of the remaining 186 members of the House of Representatives who lack basic anti-fraud protections, 125 are Democrats and 61 are Republicans.  

In the Senate, 25 senators’ campaign donation websites were found to lack basic credit card protections; four are Republicans, 20 are Democrats, and one is an Independent. 

The Government Accountability Institute report, titled America the Vulnerable: Are Foreign and Fraudulent Online Contributions Influencing U.S. Elections?, also investigated the donation websites of the two major presidential candidates. Gov. Mitt Romney’s website requires donors to enter the credit card security code.  President Barack Obama’s website does not.   

“Here’s the good news: it’s a one click solution,” says Schweizer. “Federal candidates simply need to tell their webmasters to do the right thing and turn on CVV protection. The FEC should also require candidates to use basic anti-fraud protection and make publicly available all campaign donations, including those under $200 that are currently kept private.”

To find out if your senator or congressperson is vulnerable to foreign or fraudulent online donations, visit the Government Accountability Institute’s interactive map at www.campaignfundingrisks.com.

Via: Breitbart

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BOMBSHELL: OBAMA.COM OWNED BY BUNDLER IN SHANGHAI WITH BUSINESS TIES TO CHINESE GOVERNMENT

In an explosive report set to send shockwaves through official Washington, the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) released a 108-page GAI investigation into the threat of foreign and fraudulent Internet campaign donations in U.S. federal elections (visit campaignfundingrisks.com to download the full report).

Breitbart News obtained an advance copy of the bombshell report which reveals that the Obama.com website is not owned by the president’s campaign but rather by Obama bundler Robert Roche, a U.S. citizen living in Shanghai, China. Roche is the chairman of a Chinese infomercial company, Acorn International, with ties to state-controlled banks that allow it to “gain revenue through credit card transactions with Chinese banks.”

There’s more.

The unusual Obama.com website redirects traffic directly to a donation page on the Obama campaign’s official website, my.barackobama.com, which does not require donors to enter their credit card security code (known as the CVV code), thereby increasing the likelihood of foreign or fraudulent donations. The website is managed by a small web development firm, Wicked Global, in Maine. One of Wicked Global’s employees, Greg Dorr, lists on hisLinkedIn page his additional employment with Peace Action Maine and Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights. According to the GAI report, 68 percent of all Internet traffic to Obama.com comes from foreign visitors. 

And still more.

In 2011, Mr. Roche obtained one of the most sought-after pieces of real estate in Washington, DC: a seat at the head table for President Obama’s State Dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao. How Roche—a man whose infomercial company hawks fitness equipment, cell phones, and breast enhancement products—landed a seat alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, Sen. John Kerry, former President Jimmy Carter, and Chinese President Hu Jintao remains unclear.  

Since 2009, White House Visitor Logs list the name Robert Roche at least 19 times, despite the fact Mr. Roche’s primary residence is in China.  

Mr. Roche, who is originally from Chicago, is a co-chair of the Technology Initiative for the Obama campaign. 

According to Acorn International’s prospectus, the success of Mr. Roche’s company hinges on maintaining access to state-run media and “preferential tax treatments and subsidies” doled out by the People’s Republic of China (PRC):  

Our business depends on our access to TV media time to market our products and services in China….PRC law is vague and is subject to discretionary interpretation and enforcement by PRC authorities…Loss of these preferential tax treatments and subsidies could have material and adverse effects on our results of operations and financial conditions.

In addition to the Obama.com redirect revelation, the Government Accountability Institute report—America the Vulnerable: Are Foreign And Fraudulent Online Contributions Influencing U.S. Elections?—exposes myriad gaping online security holes that stand to threaten the integrity of House, Senate, and presidential elections.  

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for continuing coverage…

Via: Breitbart

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REPORT: JP MORGAN MAKES OVER HALF A BILLION DOLLARS OFF FOOD STAMPS

A new report by the Government Accountability Institute finds that JP Morgan has made at least $560,492,596 since 2004 processing the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards of 18 of the 24 states it has under contract for the food stamp program.

Indeed, JP Morgan’s Christopher Paton told Bloomberg News that food stamps are big business for the big bank: 

“We are the largest processor of food stamps in the country…[the EBT program] is a very important business to JP Morgan. It’s an important business in terms of its size and scale…. Right now volumes have gone through the roof in the past couple of years or so. The good news from JP Morgan’s perspective is the infrastructure that we built has been able to cope with that increase in volume.”

While some may be glad that a private company—not a government agency—is tasked with EBT transactions, the GAI report reveals that JP Morgan does not use the same fraud detection systems commonly used by today’s credit card companies.  In fact, federal and state agencies—not EBT processors—are the ones tasked with policing food stamp fraud. 

That means EBT processors enjoy multiple pathways to profits that run counter to efficiency and strong oversight.  For example, writes GAI president Peter Schweizer:

 Any time TANF recipients withdraw their cash benefits or make balance inquiries through out-of-network ATM machines, the user may incur ATM transaction fees generally ranging from $.75 to $1.50. In addition, most states allow EBT processors to charge card replacement fees. Arizona cardholders, for example, are permitted one free replacement a year, after which a $5 per card fee is imposed. The same goes for customer service calls: After an EBT cardholder exceeds the state’s maximum number of free calls, EBT processors typically tack on a $.25 per call fee.

By making welfare inefficiency and abuse lucrative, the poverty industry has created a potentially toxic brew of corporate cronyism and government inefficiency that lets food stamp abuse enforcement slip through the bureaucratic cracks:

 According to the USDA’s website, the federal food stamp program has “over 100” inspectors to police the nearly 200,000 retailers nationwide that accept EBT cards. For its part, the state of Florida has 63 positions allocated to police over 3 million EBT users. JP Morgan is currently involved in an eight-month pilot project with Florida focused on EBT fraud and abuse. The total staff? Just one JP Morgan employee and five to ten state employees, according to Florida officials.

So how did EBT processors like JP Morgan land its lucrative half-billion dollars worth of contracts? 

Via: Breitbart

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