A Grimm Tale Of Selling Out Our Country... To Foreign Interests Or Crooked Interests?

Now, what could these two pious baloneys
have in common, other than corruption?

This weekend shady Staten Island Republican Michael Grimm was in Florida shilling for Mitt Romney's rough-and-tumble campaign against Newt Gingrich. Back home in New York, his claustrophobic little world was collapsing under the weight of revelations, long suspected, that he has been involved with illegal fundraising-- and for high stakes.

Israelis eager to gain more control over the U.S. government haven't only been financing Newt Gingrich. Turns out Grimm is another one, although as much as his half million or so dollars was illegally obtained from a "mystic" rabbi/real-estate swindler and his followers. Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto has been close with Anthony Weiner and Eric Cantor but was apparently looking for another congressman he could control. Grimm, of course, is denying any and all wrongdoing. But so did Al Capone.

Mr. Grimm, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Roman Catholic who regularly attends Sunday Mass, traveled around the New York region with one of the rabbi’s top aides, Ofer Biton, to raise campaign money from the rabbi’s followers. In all, the Grimm campaign collected more than $500,000 from the followers, according to numerous interviews and an analysis of Mr. Grimm’s campaign records.

That money-- more than half of the total that Mr. Grimm raised from individuals-- proved instrumental in his upset of the Democratic incumbent in November 2010. Since then, Mr. Grimm has established a profile as a rising Republican star.

But now, Mr. Biton, an Israeli citizen, is being investigated by the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn over accusations that he embezzled millions of dollars from the rabbi’s congregation. And an examination by the New York Times has highlighted Mr. Biton’s unusual role in the Grimm campaign-- as well as questionable donations that the rabbi’s followers said Mr. Grimm had accepted.

The examination of Mr. Grimm’s fund-raising was based on more than 15 interviews with followers and associates of the rabbi, Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, who divides his time between Israel and Manhattan, where he has a large congregation.

...Three of the rabbi’s followers said in separate interviews that Mr. Grimm or Mr. Biton told them that the campaign would find a way to accept donations that were over the legal limit, were given in cash or were given by foreigners without green cards.

Congressional campaigns are not allowed to accept cash donations of more than $100. Foreigners without green cards are barred by law from giving to political campaigns. They are also not allowed to solicit contributions for campaigns.

One follower of the rabbi said in an interview that Mr. Grimm pressed him for $20,000. The follower said Mr. Grimm instructed him to meet him “near the F.B.I. building,” in Lower Manhattan, in summer 2010 to give the money. The follower said he handed over $5,000 in cash in an envelope to Mr. Grimm in Mr. Grimm’s car.

Within a week, the follower said, he gave Mr. Grimm a $5,000 check from a friend. Mr. Grimm then repeatedly called the follower and demanded another $10,000, the follower said.

“Every day, he used to call me, over and over,” the follower said.

The follower said he ignored the calls and did not give again.

A second follower recalled that Mr. Grimm came to his office in Manhattan to solicit a legal contribution. As he was handing over the check, the second follower said, Mr. Grimm confided in him that there were ways of working around the campaign rules.

“Grimm wanted you to supply the money, and if someone wants to give and cannot give, you have to find a friend to give it through,” the second follower recalled. “Let’s say someone is not legal to give because he’s not American. Grimm wants this guy, Joe A, to give the money to Joe B so Joe B can make the contribution to the campaign.”

A third follower said he picked up, at Mr. Biton’s behest, $25,000 for Mr. Grimm’s campaign from a single Israeli.

“I give the checks to Ofer, and he gives them to Michael,” the third follower said.

The third follower said the money donated by the Israeli was falsely listed in Mr. Grimm’s campaign disclosure records as having been given by at least five other people. The practice referred to-- creating so-called straw donors-- is illegal.

...The donors interviewed by the Times said they gave money to the Grimm campaign because Mr. Biton told them that Rabbi Pinto wanted people in his congregation to do so.

The rabbi’s followers said Mr. Biton rounded up campaign money for Mr. Grimm in hopes that if Mr. Grimm won, he would help Mr. Biton obtain a green card.

It's unclear at this point if Grimm helped Biton get the green card or how much of a kickback Grimm gave Biton, an embezzler, for his help in raising the illegal contributions from the rabbi's flock. But reports of envelopes filled with cash were all over New York this weekend. There had been a minor tiff over this in 2010 when Rep. Mike McMahon first got wind of the fact that Grimm was getting large amounts of weird money from people who had never donated to a political campaign before. His campaign never fully threaded the needle, and the story went nowhere-- until this week.