Hensarling To Reinstate Indicted Mafia Thug Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm On The Financial Services Committee

Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), crooked chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is one of the GOP's bagmen for Wall Street banks. He collects the dough from the toxic banksters he's supposed to be overseeing and distributes it inside the Republican caucus to build his own power base among the rank and file. He wrote a personal check to the NRCC this cycle for $2,130,739. And his leadership PAC-- Jobs, Economy & Budget (JEB) Fund-- handed out $655,403 to Republican members and congressional candidates. One of the candidates who got a maximum $10,000 contribution was indicted Republican criminal, Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm.

The NRCC and most of the GOP Establishment abandoned Grimm once it became clear he's likely headed for prison. But not Hensarling. Aside from the $10,000 from the FEB Fund, his Friends of Jeb Hensarling Committee gave Grimm another $3,844 and the PAC also gave Grimm's separate legal defense fund $5,000. When Boehner kicked Grimm off the Financial Affairs Committee in May he was replaced by Luke Messer (R-IN) and when Grimm announced during a debate with Domenic Recchia, the hapless Steve Israel recruit who Grimm beat 56,221 (55.4%) to 42,786 (42.1%), that Hensarling "has already said my spot it waiting. The chairman of Financial Services has donated to my campaign. He's supporting me fully," the claim was confirmed to the media by Hensarling's communications director for the Financial Services Committee David Popp.

Over the weekend the Staten Island Advance, which had endorsed Grimm despite his connections to the Gambino crime family (or because of them-- who knows?), celebrated Grimm's victory by informing voters-- most of whom basically boycotted the election-- that Grimm will benefit from the enhanced power the GOP has gained in Congress.

[D]espite the shadow of the indictment hanging over his head, Grimm has already made progress in getting back in with his party, which makes him more relevant and powerful. Who knows how the trial will end, but Grimm already has one leg up on the Democrats by reason of being a Republican come Jan. 3 when the new session begins.

The prosecutors in Grimm's legal case, however, are undaunted by his reelection, something The Advance, a local GOP mouthpiece, is furious about.

Prosecutors can scoff all they want at the idea that Grimm was targeted for who he is, rather than what he might have done, but the prospect of nailing New York City's only Republican congressman on criminal charges was too enticing for the highly politicized Department of Justice to ignore. Under Attorney General Eric Holder, the agency became so intoxicated with power and so overreaching in pressing an extreme political agenda that it lost an astonishing 20 cases before the United States Supreme Court by unanimous rulings.

There is a clear distinction, however, between what a lay person might view as a selective or vindictive prosecution and the exacting legal requirements that the law imposes on a defendant seeking to establish those defenses. The public's perception fails to take into account the broad discretion prosecutors have traditionally enjoyed as to whom to prosecute, and to what extent.

On Oct. 21, Judge Pamela Chen denied a motion by Grimm's attorneys seeking detailed information from prosecutors to assist them in establishing that Grimm is being selectively and vindictively prosecuted. Although Chen cited the failure of the attorneys to present sufficient evidence of prosecutorial wrongdoing to support such disclosure, it was the sheer impossibility of doing so that prompted their demand in the first place. In other words, Grimm's attorneys were, and as a consequence of her ruling remain, caught in a classic catch-22 situation.

Should Grimm be convicted, Chen's ruling gives him a viable issue to raise on appeal, perhaps one of sufficient weight to support a stay of any sentence imposed pending completion of the appellate process. A stay could also facilitate his retaining his congressional seat during that lengthy period of time.

Grimm's reelection intensifies the case's high-profile status, something that will likely stiffen the prosecution's resolve to emerge as the clear winner. The government doesn't like to lose tax-related cases at all, much less one involving a sitting congressman. So suggestions that Grimm's legal problems somehow got easier to traverse because of his reelection make no sense.

Nor is it far-fetched to imagine vows within the Obama Administration to stick it to those rednecks on Staten Island for having the temerity to reelect him.

With the nomination of Loretta Lynch, the U.S Attorney for the Eastern District, to succeed Holder as Attorney General, speculation abounds that her successor, perhaps somebody without political aspirations, may be more amenable to settling the Grimm case in a manner that would allow him to keep both his freedom and his congressional seat. That's exactly what should happen, even if he's guilty of the charges lodged against him.

The government had the discretion to handle this matter civilly, something it's done for others similarly charged. Its decision to pursue a criminal prosecution against Grimm supports the proposition that it's acting out of political animus. In an era when pretty much all crimes short of the highest felonies result in lenient dispositions for first offenders, there is no logical reason why Grimm, a former U.S. Marine with a record of service to his community, shouldn't be accorded the same benign treatment.

Don't look for that to happen, however. If, as it has appeared from the outset, the shots on this one are being called out of Washington, there is no reason to expect a change of approach by the government regardless of who replaces Lynch.

Feel good knowing Hensarling, whose political career is financed by the banksters, and Grimm, a member of the Gambino Crime family, will be working together to wreck Dodd-Frank's financial consumer protections?