Swamp Times A Billion: Michael Cohen + Nicholas Mastroianni, The Worst Of Long Island

Mastroianni

In 2016 DWT looked closely, over the months, at a vile character named Nicholas Mastroianni, a real crook. He was the biggest financier of Patrick Murphy's ill-fated campaign-- other than Murphy's own father-- for Senate. Mastroianni contributes hundreds of thousands of dollars to both parties, especially to the most corrupt politicians, Debbie Wasserman Schultz being one of his favorites-- as well as Charlie Crist, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump... he always manages to find the worst of the worst. These corrupt politicians continued backing pay-for-play with him, even after Fortune exposed him in 2014 as a super-rich mini-Trump from Long Island with "a long history of legal problems, failed ventures, and unpaid debts-- which have continued even as his professional fortunes have turned sharply upward-- leaving a legacy of conflicts, judgments, and entanglements." And what did he want from all these corrupt politicians? EB-5 visa manipulations to make himself very, very rich.


It would be hard to find a figure who has risen faster in this burgeoning realm than Nicholas Mastroianni, II. In just four years, he has developed a lucrative role raising money for marquee projects such as Atlantic Yards, the giant Brooklyn development anchored by the Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Nets. Forest City Ratner, which is developing Atlantic Yards, has also retained Mastroianni to raise EB-5 money for its renovation of the Nassau Coliseum, home of the NHL’s Islanders. Other Mastroianni clients include the developers of three large Manhattan projects: the Charles, a 31-story condominium tower on the Upper East Side where the penthouse reportedly sold for $38 million; Bryant Park, a 32-story midtown Manhattan building with a luxury hotel and condos developed by HFZ Capital Group; and 855 Avenue of the Americas, a 41-story mixed-use edifice being developed by the Durst Organization.


All told, Mastroianni’s website boasts of involvement with $5.5 billion in development projects over the years, funded with $1.4 billion in EB-5 money, resulting in “40,000 jobs created.” Those are massive sums given that the entire EB-5 system raised a total of about $1.8 billion last year. Forest City Ratner CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin calls Mastroianni the"'go-to' leader in the field of EB-5 funding."

His career was all about Patrick Murphy and his father, Donald Trump, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz... everyone with no sense of ethics who could help his endeavors. And Thursday the Wall Street Journal connected Mastroianni to-- no surprise to anyone paying attention lately-- Michael Cohen and Kushner-in-law. The Journal reported that Mastroianni paid Washington's sleaziest law firm and lobbyist outfit, Squire Patton Boggs $370,000 to lobby Congress and the Trump Regime on EB-5 matters. Cohen was paid $500,000 a year to bring clients to Squire Patton Boggs. The Miami Herald chastised me in 2016 for breaking this news then.



Now, in the national examination of what kind of a creep Michael Cohen has always been, let's move away from Mastroianni and Patrick Murphy (currently floating trial balloons about a run for governor of Florida as the No Labels candidate) and take a look at what Pam and Russ Martens have found for Wall Street on Parade, First Republic: Meet the Bank at the Center of the Michael Cohen Scandal. Trump and Cohen both do banking with First Republic, which caters almost exclusively to the super-wealthy.

According to Avenatti, $500,000 that came into Cohen’s First Republic Bank account is tied to the Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, now on a U.S. sanctions list and closely tied to Russian president Vladimir Putin. The $500,000 came from a U.S.-based company, Columbus Nova, which has denied any corporate ties to Vekselberg. However, those clever folks at Think Progress, used the Wayback machine to access the Columbus Nova website as of January of 2017 where Columbus Nova is listed as a subsidiary of Renova Group, Vekselberg’s Russian company.

The people and businesses who have direct or indirect connections to Cohen’s account at First Republic are starting to mount up. They include AT&T, which has confirmed paying Cohen $600,000 for advice, and the giant Swiss pharmaceutical company, Novartis, which has admitted to transmitting $1.2 million to the Cohen account in order to seek “insights” on Trump. Both AT&T and Novartis confirmed to the New York Times that they had been contacted last November “by investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III….” According to a report by CNN yesterday, also questioned by Mueller’s team was Vekselberg-- the Russian oligarch tied to the $500,000 that found itself in Michael Cohen’s Essential Consultants LLC account at First Republic Bank.

Another connecting dot is Trump’s longtime personal friend, Tom Barrack, who served as Chair of Trump’s Inaugural Committee. According to the Associated Press, Barrack has also been interviewed by Mueller’s investigators. Barrack is the Founder of Colony Capital, LLC, now known as ColonyNorthstar, where he continues to serve as Executive Chairman. Barrack served on the Board of Directors of First Republic Bank from 2001 through 2007 and from 2010 to the present. The bank was previously owned by Merrill Lynch, which was absorbed into Bank of America during the financial crash in 2008. In 2010, Barrack’s Colony Capital was part of a buyout team that included General Atlantic LLC which put up “$1.86 billion in new equity capital” to purchase the bank according to a press release issued by First Republic Bank. On November 29, 2010, the bank sold shares to the public in an Initial Public Offering.

According to First Republic Bank’s 2018 annual proxy statement, Barrack owns 12,335 shares in the company. At this morning’s opening price of $97.06, that’s about $1.2 million – not a particularly large amount of money for a man that Forbes estimated to be worth $1 billion in 2013.

According to the Washington Post, “It was Barrack who persuaded Trump to hire political operative Paul Manafort-- whom Barrack first met in Beirut 40 years ago-- for the presidential campaign.” Manafort has been indicted by a grand jury convened in the Mueller probe.

Yesterday, it was widely reported that the U.S. Treasury’s Inspector General has opened an investigation into the leak of financial documents from First Republic Bank. Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Avenatti, has released information that would seem to have only come from Customer Account Cards inside the bank or documents seized in the raid on Cohen by the FBI in the Southern District of New York or from the Mueller investigation.

In a document released by Avenatti on his Twitter page, precise details from the Customer Account Card for Essential Consultants LLC at First Republic Bank appears to have been provided to him. Avenatti writes:

“In connection with the establishment of that account, Mr. Cohen was required to make certain representations to First Republic regarding Essential’s business as part of First Republic’s Know Your Customer (‘KYC’) anti-money laundering protocol.

“In order to establish the account, Mr. Cohen subsequently submitted information claiming, among other things, the following:

(a) Essential is a real estate consulting company that collects fees for investment consulting work;
(b) The company’s typical clients are U.S.-based high net worth individuals;
(c) The company’s primary source of funds will be derived from within the U.S. or a U.S.-based company;
(d) The company expected one (1) to twenty (20) incoming domestic only wires totaling $1,000 to $10,000 each month for consulting fees, and one (1) to twenty (20) ACH credits and electronic transfers totaling $1,000 to $10,000 each month;
(e) No outgoing wire transfers and debits related to ACH or electronic transfers were expected; and
(f) Receipts of the business would be internally transferred to Mr. Cohen’s personal account at First Republic Bank.

According to the Wall Street Journal, First Republic Bank filed a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) with the U.S. Treasury’s FinCen unit on the Cohen account. Avenatti has said at least three SARs have been filed with FinCen related to this matter. In early April, Avenatti wrote to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin requesting that the SARs information be released to the public, citing numerous legal case precedents for doing so. Thus far, Mnuchin has not supplied the information.

So where did all this illicit money sloshing around between Cohen, Trump, various Mafias and corporate America wind up-- and who got what? This morning Robert Cruickshank of Demand Progress reminded us that the $600,000 that AT&T funneled to Trump through Cohen's phony shell consulting firm went "to influence Trump’s position on regulatory issues at the FCC-- including net neutrality." The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote-- in just a few days-- on whether to overrule Trump's crooked FCC and save net neutrality. Perhaps we'll get a hint about who else got some of this illicit dough by watching which sleaze-bag senators vote against it. Jack Shafer this morning: Giuliani insists that Senor Trumpanzee had no idea Cohen was raking in influence bucks. Really? "Money always leaves a trail. Dirty money leaves a trail of slime that taints everybody it touches. One unanswered question this week is whether all the consultative moolah coursing through Cohen’s LLC and moving through his 'shadowy business empire' of real estate, New York City and Chicago taxi medallion holdings, and assorted investment is on the up and up. If proved dirty, will they contaminate his boss, Trump, who traditionally loves using other people’s money? And, if Cohen has committed the money crimes that some suspect of him, will special counsel Robert S. Mueller III convince him to flip on his one-time boss and testify against him? Mueller has already demonstrated his interest in the slosh of Cohen cash and deal-making on behalf of the Trump Organization to Georgia, Kazakhstan and Russia."

Trump Is Bringing In More Foreign Workers Instead Of Hiring Americans-- Fox Will Never Report That!

All capital letters and exclamation points don't mean he's talking about jobs for Americans. AND HE'S NOT! HE NEVER IS! TRUMP IS A FRAUD! Last week Palm Beach Post writer Jeff Ostrowski explained how Trump the crooked businessman applied to Trump the illegitimate White House occupant to import more foreign workers for his Mar-A-Lago estate and, believe it or not, Trump the illegitimate White House occupant granted the wishes of Trump the crooked businessman.

The key to this story is that H-2B visas are only supposed to be granted if there are no American workers qualified to do the job. Trump (the crooked businessman) uses them constantly ignoring that part of the law. "Trump," Ostrowski reported, "won permission to hire 70 maids, cooks and servers at the Mar-a-Lago Club for the 2017-18 tourist season, according to newly released data from the U.S. Labor Department. In 2016-17, Trump hired 64 foreign workers at the Palm Beach property." Are there Americans qualified to work as "maids, cooks and servers." Of course there are, but Trump prefers to hire Russians. "Trump isn’t alone in looking overseas for low-wage workers through the federal government’s H-2B visa program. Nationwide, thousands of employers won permission to hire nearly 134,000 workers for 2017-18, up from 119,000 for 2016-17." But many of those jobs are high tech and highly specialized jobs. Trump uses the visas-- illegally-- for maids, cooks, servers (also for prostitutes for his "modeling agency").

Hiring workers from abroad seems to contradict Trump’s public pronouncements. The president has publicly shamed Carrier Corp., Ford Motor and others for moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico.

During a March 2016 presidential debate, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio criticized Trump for bringing in workers from overseas, saying American citizens could fill the jobs. Trump defended his hiring of foreign workers.

“It’s very, very hard to get people,” Trump said. “Other hotels do the exact same thing.”

...CareerSource Palm Beach County, a nonprofit job placement agency, says it knows plenty of American citizens willing to work at Mar-a-Lago.

"We currently have 5,136 qualified candidates in Palm Beach County for various hospitality positions listed in the Employ Florida state jobs database," CareerSource spokesman Tom Veenstra said Friday.

While Mar-a-Lago asks the federal government for dozens of H-2B visas every tourist season, the private club rarely asks CareerSource for help finding a local employee, Veenstra said. Mar-a-Lago in 2015 put in a request for a single banquet server.

In addition to the 70 visas at Mar-a-Lago, Trump also won permission to hire foreign workers at other properties that bear his name. He landed visas for 10 waiters and waitresses and six cooks at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, plus eight waiters and waitresses at Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.

Trump is a scumbag and  if you voted for him because you thought he was going to make America great again, you need to start school over again. Oh, and by the way, the crook who was paying Patrick Murphy to help him with a scheme to sell visas to Chinese citizens, Nicholas Mastroianni, gave Señor Trumpanzee a big fat $150,000 bribe.

A Culture Of Corruption At The FEC? You Bet!

Last week, I tried catching everyone up on the complaint DWT filed with the FEC last year against a cook of crooks, Nicholas Mastroianni and then-Congressman Patrick Murphy. Murphy, Upchuck Schumer's pick to run for the Florida Senate seat, was taking massive bribes from Mastroianni for help in getting wealthy Chinese "investors" into America on EB-5 visas-- same trick the Kushner-in-law family has been using to make some cash. Florida is a swingy purple state and the presidential election was very close last year. Trump edged Hillary 4,617,886 (49%) to 4,504,975 (84%). But Upchuck Schumer's Senate candidate fell flat on his ass, despite all the money Mastroianni poured into Murphy's pockets. Rubio outpolled Trump and Murphy underperformed Hillary. Rubio beat Murphy 4,835,191 (52%) to 4,122,088 (44.3%). Sorry for the tangent.

To reiterate what transpired last week with the FEC... they dismissed the case, which centered on how Mastroianni was paying Murphy off for his help in corruptly using the EB-5 visa program that Murphy has pushing in Congress. Basically, we were quite certain that Mastroianni had orchestrated a scheme to funnel more than $100,000 into Murphy’s political campaign efforts by using shell companies and straw entities to hide the source of the money, which were coming from Chinese nationals participating in Mastroianni’s EB-5 visa-for-sale program. Shell companies were already being broadly scrutinized for being possible illegal donor entities under the law. But more importantly in this case, Chinese nationals cannot legally make contributions in federal races. We complain about the help the Russians gave Republican Donald Trump... but what about this Chinese cash being funneled into Democrat (barely) Patrick Murphy?

In return for these donations to his campaign and his Super PAC, Murphy co-sponsored legislation for Mastroianni’s benefit. Namely, Murphy used his elected office to try to expand the EB-5 program and make it permanent. In return, Mastroianni has used LLC’s, businesses, family and associates to move money to Murphy, his EB-5 go-to boy.

So, as I said, last week we finally heard back from the FEC-- 36 pages of legalese claptrap. I finally got an attorney to help me put it into English. Remember, Mastroianni had been taking in foreign partners in the EB-5 program, and buying real estate. In one case, the real estate partnership made the contribution to Murphy’s campaign, not Mastroianni. Foreigners can’t contribute to political campaigns in America, though they have been doing it very regularly. When Mastroianni was challenged on it, he said, in essence, "you haven’t proved that my partner was foreign." The FEC didn’t bother to ask him whether his partner was, in fact, foreign. Instead, they just said, in sum, "the papers before us don’t prove that Mastroianni’s partner is foreign, we are not going to bother to ask, and therefore, we are dismissing the complaint."

Oddly enough, this happened right around the time that Mastroianni (or maybe his foreign friends) contributed $150,000 to Señor Trumpanzee’s Super PAC. Love that bipartisanship! You too?

Two of the three Democratic FEC Commissioners dissented, and basically said, “this is BS." I mean, this was an incredibly blatant case of corruption. This was the dissent:

But Thursday it got stranger. One of the dissenting commissioners, Ellen Weintraub, complained about the decision on Twitter, something I’ve never seen before:

Weintraub went right to the heart of the problem. In the Trumpian kakistocracy there is no such thing as Justice or even right and wrong-- just what works for the kakistocrats. I was surprised to see Bloomberg cover the story a couple days ago. They were also perplexed that the FEC dropped the case without investigating it. "Two Democratic FEC commissioners, Ellen Weintraub and Ann Ravel, said the allegations raised 'serious questions of misconduct' that should have been investigated," wrote Kenneth Doyle.

The case was among the first involving allegations of illegal foreign campaign money released by the FEC following the 2016 election cycle. Pending cases are kept secret until they’re resolved; FEC officials have indicated more than a dozen matters involving foreign money allegations still are pending.

A complaint filed with the FEC alleged that a $50,000 contribution to the pro-Murphy super PAC, called Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, came from money raised by real estate developer Nicholas Mastroianni. The money was collected from Chinese nationals seeking to participate in an immigration program known as EB-5, the complaint said, citing news reports.

The EB-5 visa program, which facilitates immigration by foreigners investing in U.S. projects, has been derided by critics as “cash for citizenship.”

The FEC complaint said foreign money from aspiring Chinese immigrants was funneled by Mastroianni into a limited liability company called 230 East 63rd -6 Trust LLC, which in turn contributed to the pro-Murphy super PAC.

The complaint also alleged two other LLC contributions to the super PAC, worth an additional $25,000, were made illegally with money that actually came from Mastroianni.

Floridians for a Strong Middle Class spent a total of nearly $2.5 million on ads supporting Murphy and opposing his opponent, Sen. Marco Rubio (R), who won the Florida Senate race. Overall, more than $90 million was spent on the 2016 Senate race in Florida, according to FEC reports analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics.

A “statement of reasons” was filed in February by Weintraub and Ravel, following a preliminary vote on the case-- designated Matter Under Review (MUR) 7081.

“For our democracy to work, the American public must have confidence that they-- and not some unknown foreign actors-- are financing our candidates for office,” their statement said.

UPDATE: The FEC Dropped My Complaint

You may remember that last year DWT formally complained to the FEC and the Office of Congressional Ethics about a crooked Patrick Murphy contributor named Nicholas Mastroianni II. In June of 2016 I wrote about the complaint and published the official complaint here. As I wrote at the time, our complaints centered on how Mastroianni was paying Murphy off for his help in corruptly using the EB-5 visa program that Murphy has pushing in Congress. Basically, we were quite certain that Mastroianni had orchestrated a scheme to funnel more than $100,000 into Murphy’s political campaign efforts by using shell companies and straw entities to hide the source of the money, which appears to be coming from Chinese nationals participating in Mastroianni’s EB-5 visa-for-sale program. Shell companies were already being broadly scrutinized for being possible illegal donor entities under the law. But more importantly in this case, Chinese nationals cannot legally make contributions in federal races. We complain about the help the Russians gave Republican Donald Trump... but what about this Chinese cash being funneled into Democrat (barely) Patrick Murphy?

In return for these donations to his campaign and his Super PAC, Murphy co-sponsored legislation for Mastroianni’s benefit. Namely, Murphy used his elected office to try to expand the EB-5 program and make it permanent. In return, Mastroianni has used LLC’s, businesses, family and associates to move money to Murphy, his EB-5 go-to boy.

This week we finally heard back from the FEC-- like 36 pages of legalese claptrap. I finally got an attorney to help me put it in English. So again, Mastroianni had been taking in foreign partners in the EB-5 program, and buying real estate. In one case, the real estate partnership made the contribution to Murphy’s campaign, not him. Foreigners can’t contribute. When Mastroianni was challenged on it, he said, in essence, "you haven’t proved that my partner was foreign." The FEC didn’t bother to ask him whether his partner was, in fact, foreign. Instead, they just said, in sum, "the papers before us don’t prove that Mastroianni’s partner is foreign, we are not going to bother to ask, and therefore, we are dismissing the complaint."

Oddly enough, this happened right around the time that Mastroianni (or maybe his foreign friends) contributed $150,000 to Señor Trumpanzee’s Super PAC. Love that bipartisanship! You too?

UPDATE

A member of Congress sent me a note about this post the day after I wrote it. It included these painfully honest lines: "That’s accurate. The last thing that either party wants right now is to focus attention on the illegal contributions that both take... with a smile."

Does Schumer Wish He Had Vetted Patrick Murphy Before He Recruited Him To Run For The Senate?

I'm not supposed to write about this but last weekend Beltway party boss Chuck Schumer schlepped down to Florida for a come-to-Jesus meeting with his-- and Wall Street's-- puppet candidate, Patrick Murphy. No one taped the meeting but Schumer was down there to tell Murphy to stop screwing up, meaning that he should stop exaggerating his nonexistent accomplishments. This means, in effect, that he wants Murphy-- who already doesn't ever debate his opponents-- to stop doing any public appearances where the media may ask him questions, which is basically where Murphy already is. When the Florida Dems had their annual meeting a week ago, Murphy ducked every caucus meeting. (There were a dozen of them.) Murphy sent a "surrogate" to at least one of them, even though he was in the building at the time, but they wouldn’t allow any surrogates to speak and people started wondering what Schumer is saddling the Florida Democratic Party with.

If Schumer imagined their meeting was going to stop the bleeding, though, he must have been very disappointed when the biggest local paper in Murphy's district ran another feature about Murphy's role in the EB-5 scandal, the scandal this blog has filed a complaint with the FEC about. Isadora Rangel reminded TCPalm readers that on Sept. 18, 2014, Murphy co-sponsored a bill to expand the controversial foreign investor program. That same day, a developer who's using the program to help fund a project in Miami gave $15,000 to a political committee affiliated with Murphy whose own company, Coastal Construction, is building the Miami Worldcenter. "Murphy's connections to developers who rely on the foreign investor program known as EB-5," she wrote, "have been called into question by his U.S. Senate race opponents, and the Democrat has had to do a lot of explaining lately. Seven developers who used EB-5, their family members and employees have given $309,000 since 2012 to Murphy and political committees that support him, a Treasure Coast Newspapers analysis found. That's more than previously reported by other media outlets. Murphy's family company, in which he owns stock, was involved at some point in at least two of those donors' projects."

Murphy's opponents accuse him of trying to benefit his family and donors when he signed onto two unsuccessful bills in September 2014 to make the EB-5 program permanent. The program allows foreigners to apply for a green card if they invest at least $500,000 and create at least 10 U.S. jobs, but there have been allegations of fraud and questions over whether it has been the economic driver its creators intended it to be.

GOP incumbent U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and the other U.S. House member running for his seat, Democrat Alan Grayson, did not receive money from the EB-5 developers who gave to Murphy, federal campaign finance records show.

"Voters deserve to know that Patrick's own company stands to make millions off this program that he's pushed while in office," said Grayson's campaign manager Michael Ceraso.

Murphy's campaign points out the EB-5 program has received broad bipartisan support in Congress and Grayson also was a co-sponsor of one of those extension bills. The immigration reform package Rubio spearheaded, which cleared the Senate but failed to become law in 2013, also would have made EB-5 permanent and the program has received praise from Republican leaders such as Gov. Rick Scott.

"This is an absurd smear from Alan Grayson and Republicans who also support this program," Murphy's campaign spokesman Joshua Karp wrote in an email.

Developers who benefit from EB-5 have given hundreds of thousands to Congress members. Some of the donors who gave to Murphy also gave to other co-sponsors of those two bills. Former U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia, a Miami Democrat who introduced one of the bills, received the most. After leaving office in 2015, he was hired to work for an EB-5 regional center, which connects foreign investors with projects in need of capital in Florida.

Murphy told the Tampa Bay Times in April he didn't know whether his family company had done any EB-5 projects. Yet Coastal Construction's ties to the program and Murphy's ties to developers who benefit from it are inextricable.

Coastal Construction, in partnership with New York-based Tishman Construction, was picked as the Worldcenter's general contractor in February and held a groundbreaking ceremony for the retail, entertainment and housing complex in March.

Two weeks later, a company owned by the brother of Worldcenter developer Nitin Motwani gave $25,000 to a pro-Murphy super PAC. Dev Motwani also hosted a Murphy fundraiser in March 2013, according to the website Political Party Time, which tracks political fundraisers.

One of the directors of that pro-Murphy super PAC, Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, also is a registered lobbyist for SkyRise, whose developer Jeffrey Berkowitz is a Murphy family friend. Also a family friend: Murphy's top EB-5 donor, Nicholas Mastroianni II, a major player in the program and developer of Jupiter's Harbourside Place.

Coastal also served as a lead contractor for the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, which initially sought EB-5 funding but ultimately relied on other financing.

Murphy's campaign said he has "no management role in Coastal Construction, and hasn't since taking office" and said donations from EB-5 developers had no input on his decision to support the program.

"This program is a bipartisan effort to create jobs in America and it is widely supported by both Democratic and Republican leaders, including President Obama," Karp wrote.

On top of that, the investigation into all the straw donors-- straw donors are illegal-- from the Saudi's maids and in-law's grandmother to cronies of Steve Israel's-- look who else came up: Mastroianni’s former fiancée, Jennifer Genco. Before she and Mastroianni got engaged towards the end of 2011, she had never made any political contributions. And then-- suddenly-- a year and a half worth of donations to all the corrupt Dems in Patrick's circle of corruption-- $32,700 to three of Congress' most corrupt and "for sale" New Dems: Patrick Murphy, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Joe Garcia. Genco, who lists herself as a "homemaker," is almost sure to have been given the money by Mastroianni to buy influence with these 3 notorious crooked congressmembers. Same technique Murphy has used to get the Al-Rashid family to have their associates and employees max out to Murphy's campaign. Did I mention that straw donations are illegal?

What Is Patrick Murphy's Role In Selling EB-5 Visas To Chinese Nationals?

Patrick Murphy is a rich, spoiled Republican without a single legislative or professional accomplishment that he can honestly point to. The key word being honestly. He’s been outed recently for lying about his resume and background, and he got caught doing it again this week. As we've been warning readers for 3 years, he’s worse than a liar and Wall Street sellout. I believe Patrick Murphy and his corporate cronies are breaking campaign finance, bribery and ethics laws. So this week I filed separate complaints with Department of Justice, the Office of Congressional Ethics and the Federal Elections Commission, calling for investigations into Murphy and his dirty donors. I started this blog with the express purpose of doing my part to make sure Duke Cunningham (R-CA) had his day in court. I'm proud that our work helped-- in whatever small way-- put him in prison. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the law catches up with the equally reprehensible Patrick Murphy and his cronies.

The complaints center upon the sleazy Nicholas Mastroianni II and EB-5 program Murphy has pushed in Congress. DWT has written quite a bit about this shady fundraising figure and his ties to Murphy and other corrupt corporate Democrats. Basically, I believe he’s orchestrated a scheme to funnel more than $100,000 into Murphy’s political campaign efforts by using shell companies and straw entities to hide the source of the money, which appears to be coming from Chinese nationals participating in Mastroianni’s EB-5 visa-for-sale program. Shell companies are already being broadly scrutinized for being possible illegal donor entities under the law. But more importantly in this case, Chinese nationals cannot legally make contributions in federal races.

In return for these donations to his campaign and his Super PAC, Murphy co-sponsored legislation for Mastroianni’s benefit. Namely, Murphy used his elected office to try to expand the EB-5 program and make it permanent. In return, Mastroianni has used LLC’s, businesses, family and associates to move money to Murphy, his EB-5 do boy.

As the complaint lays out [and I've included the documents I submitted to the Office of Congressional Ethics], it appears that Mastroianni used a Manhattan luxury condo and a shady LLC linked to it, to possibly funnel Chinese national money on to Murphy’s Super PAC.

Murphy’s family has been linked to dodgy campaign fundraising schemes in the past, including playing a key role in Ami Bera’s father being convicted of campaign finance fraud. But Murphy’s EB-5 antics are just too much. If investigators take these allegations seriously, it could prove to be a great federal test case for whether shell companies can be used to fund SuperPACS.

But hopefully these complaints will also draw attention to the shady fundraising that Murphy and his SuperPAC are engaging in, which appears to be directly tied to his official efforts to expand and make the EB-5 program permanent.

All of this, of course, doesn’t account for the fact that Murphy’s own family business, Coastal Construction, stands to make money off the EB-5 program. It’s been hired by high-profile EB-5 developers, and Murphy is an owner of Coastal, possibly sitting on as much as $5 million in company stock. It looks like Murphy pushed EB-5 legislation not only to pad his campaign account, but also to benefit personally through Coastal; that's just as corrupt as anything Duke Cunningham did to land him in prison. The Depratment of Justice needs to look into it, even if Murphy calls himself a "Democrat." And other developers tied to EB-5 projects have showered Murphy’s various campaigns with hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. As the Miami Herald’ Alex Leary recently explained:

Murphy also played down questions about his support for the EB-5 visa program. His campaigns have received contributions from Florida developers who tap into the funding source. Foreigners who invest at least $500,000 are given green cards; many participants are from China. The program has enjoyed broad support but also come under scrutiny for fraud and a perception it sends the wrong message about the country's immigration system. Nicholas A. Mastroianni II, a major EB-5 player based in Florida, has along with family members given Murphy about $25,000 and he has used companies to give at least $50,000 to the pro-Murphy super PAC. Another EB-5 developer and Murphy donor is Jeffrey Berkowitz, who is developing SkyRise Miami, a $430 million entertainment and observation tower. Coastal Construction was a partner in that project but no longer is, according to Murphy campaign spokesman Joshua Karp. Company officials could not be reached. A registered lobbyist for SkyRise, Brian May, is part of the team working for the super PAC, records show. Murphy said Mastroianni and Berkowitz are friends and he gives them regular updates on the campaign. But he said he did not recall specific conversations with them about legislation he sponsored in 2014 to make the EB-5 program permanent. He also did not recall meeting with Liu Yu, a New York based lawyer who specializes in the field. The two appeared in a 2014 article on a Chinese-language website. Murphy said the EB-5 program has enjoyed bipartisan support and that it brings investment and creates jobs. ‘I'm a member of Congress and I'm not actively involved in the family business... so feel free to reach out to them and learn more about what they do,’ he told reporters on a conference call his campaign arranged last month to blast Grayson over alleged ethics issues. ‘But as far as I know, they have not done any projects to do with EB-5.’ In February, Coastal, in a partnership with Tishman Construction, was named general contractor for the Miami Worldcenter, a $1.7 billion shopping, entertainment and housing project planned for 27 acres in the city's downtown. Financing will come in part from EB-5 investors. Project developers and family have given Patrick Murphy more than $30,000 plus $25,000 to the super PAC. Murphy's campaign said Friday it was unaware Coastal was involved in the project.

Murphy and his EB-5 connections are deeply troubling and deserve a hard look by investigators. What’s more stunning is that Chuck Schumer and the Establishment didn’t vet Murphy enough to spot these or Murphy’s many other weaknesses. Maybe federal investigators will ultimately do that job for them. Meanwhile, Blue America has, once again, endorsed progressive icon, Alan Grayson, who the establishment is running Patrick Murphy against. It's the one race in the country where Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell both agree! Please help Grayson defeat party bosses Reid, Schumer and McConnell and their corrupt conservative puppet by tapping on the thermometer:

Patrick Murphy's Out Of Control Corruption-- A Perfect Symbol For Reid's Clouded Departure And Schumer's Ominous Arrival

I only ever had one argument with Keith Ellison. He wanted the Congressional Progressive Caucus to endorse Patrick Murphy when Murphy first ran for Congress against war criminal Allen West in 2012. I pointed out that Murphy was a rich, spoiled, drunken Republican without a single Democratic value-- let alone progressive value-- in his simple, fogged little mind. Ellison didn't dispute the obvious but claimed that Murphy would take direction from him. Fortunately, not enough CPC members agreed and they didn't endorse Murphy. Many Democrats did however. The DCCC loved everything bad about Murphy and spent $548,517 on the election, coordinated with a $2,375,691 expenditure from Nancy Pelosi's House Majority PAC, some of that money coming from the powerful Al-Rashid family from Saudi Arabia, which has taken a gigantic role in financing Murphy's political career. (Murphy managed to get himself assigned to the House Intelligence Committee, which is exactly what the Saudis wanted of him.)

Murphy went on to beat a stunned West, who remarked during the campaign that Murphy "doesn’t want to be in front of the public, he has no ideas, he does not address any of the issues, he is the emptiest of an empty suit-- I think he’s just a name on the ballot." That was a perfectly accurate description. And as soon as Murphy took his seat, he joined the New Dems and started amassing an incredibly reactionary voting record-- the 4th worst of any Democrat in the House, featuring votes to remove President Obama from the Keystone XL Pipeline decision-- he wasn't following Ellison on that one-- and joining the Republicans to establish an anti-Clinton witch-hunt called the Benghazi Committee-- again, not following Ellison.

In 2013, the Shark Tank reported that Murphy "Boehner granted Patrick Murphy’s request to a private meeting to discuss Murphy’s possible defecting to the Republican Party" and then turned down his conditions and told him to stay with the Democratic Party. Friday I confirmed this story with a former Boehner staffer who told me he had first had knowledge of the meeting.

Now Murphy is being heavily pushed by Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, the Wall Street banksters and, of course, the Al-Rashids for the open Florida Senate seat Marco Rubio is giving up. His Democratic primary opponent is independent-minded progressive champion Alan Grayson, who is loathed by corruptionists on Wall Street and their Beltway puppets-- namely Schumer and Reid. When Reid publicly announced he wanted Grayson to lose, Mitch McConnell chimed in that he agrees and that he also wants Grayson to lose. Steven Law, the CEO of McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund said. Grayson's "Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders agenda of more government may appeal to uncompromising liberals, but it's the wrong direction for our country." Last week, Josh Holmes, McConnell's former chief of staff talked about the Florida Senate race with the media and said he "can envision a scenario where the balance of the Senate tips to the Democrats with the election of Alan Grayson. And I'm not the least bit kidding about that...Grayson could beat that entire field of Republicans."

Friday, the Courage Campaign noted that Wasserman Schultz, like Murphy a corrupt New Dem, was getting too much of the blame for the pay day lender scandal. Sure, she took massive amounts of money from the finance sector and she "is pushing to gut a rule by Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to crack down on predatory payday lenders" BUT "it turns out she's far from the only corporate Democrat attacking the CFPB while cashing in on Wall Street. Representative Patrick Murphy, the lead Democrat sponsoring the bill, received $1.4 million from the financial sector this year alone, the fifth-most of anyone in the entire House of Representatives... Wall Street is stuffing millions into the pockets of corporate Democrats who are attacking Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."

Writing for the Washington Post last week, Jennifer Rubin, gave more "credit" for the disaster that Murphy has turned into to Reid than to the real culprit, Chuck Schumer, who has vowed to the Wall Street banksters that he can "deliver" Murphy as a way of "balancing" Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley and other progressives. Rubin, writing that the Dems will find it nearly impossible to take back the Senate without winning Florida, asserted that Reid "set out to crush" Grayson on behalf of Patrick Murphy.

Reid’s handpicked candidate turned out to be a nightmare. One GOP operative gleefully said, “Murphy has had the worst month of any Senate candidate.” That could well be true, considering the stream of revelations and stumbles that suggest Reid and the Democratic establishment did not vet Murphy very well.

Murphy was caught embellishing his academic record. In and of itself, that might not raise concerns, but it comes amid a slew of other issues.

Local media have seized on a swirl of controversies about his wealthy father’s campaign support:

The Democrat has seen an avalanche of news headlines and political attacks in the last week surrounding: money his family-owned company and father gave to a super PAC that supports him; donations he received from an admitted felon; and a House bill he co-sponsored that would have benefitted political donors and his family business.

Most of these facts aren’t new, but Republican groups and primary opponent U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson have latched onto them.

Two Federal Election Commission complaints have already been filed concerning allegations about illegal coordination between his campaign and his super PAC. One of his donors was Ibrahim al-Rashid, who is the son of a shady adviser to the Saudi royal family and who pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex-wife. (Murphy was compelled to return the donation from Rashid, whose father has given huge amounts to the Clinton Foundation.)

That’s not the only fishy donor, according to local press accounts:

Murphy also played down questions about his support for the EB-5 visa program. His campaigns have received contributions from Florida developers who tap into the funding source. Foreigners who invest at least $500,000 are given green cards; many participants are from China. The program has enjoyed broad support but also come under scrutiny for fraud and a perception it sends the wrong message about the country’s immigration system.

Nicholas A. Mastroianni II, a major EB-5 player based in Florida, has along with family members given Murphy about $25,000 and he has used companies to give at least $50,000 to the pro-Murphy super PAC. Another EB-5 developer and Murphy donor is Jeffrey Berkowitz, who is developing SkyRise Miami, a $430 million entertainment and observation tower... Murphy said Mastroianni and Berkowitz are friends and he gives them regular updates on the campaign. But he said he did not recall specific conversations with them about legislation he sponsored in 2014 to make the EB-5 program permanent. He also did not recall meeting with Liu Yu, a New York based lawyer who specializes in the field. The two appeared in a 2014 article on a Chinese-language website.

As if that were not enough, yesterday the Tampa Bay Times reported:

“Immediately following the BP oil spill, Congressman Murphy spent six months in the Gulf of Mexico leading cleanup efforts with his small business, Coastal Environmental Services,” reads his official House website.

But a review raises questions of whether Murphy exaggerated his role in the catastrophe... His campaign refuses to make public contracts he says he secured to clean up oil, or to characterize how much oil the company’s skimmers cleaned up and how much the firm earned.

Meanwhile, a source familiar with the records from Murphy’s first congressional race is pouring through the money trail of maxed-out donors to determine whether there are irregularities. (Patterns of low-income voters related to or employed by the candidate or candidate’s close associates and family can raise the issue of so-called “straw” donors.)

One wonders whether Reid could have benefited from a cursory Google search about Murphy before going out on a limb and going to war with Grayson. The primary is now turning into a lose-lose for the Democrats. If Grayson wins, Reid is humiliated and is stuck with a gadfly candidate. If Murphy wins, he’s a sitting duck for Republicans in the general election. Maybe Reid needs a new handpicked candidate to take out his first handpicked candidate.

Better idea: maybe Reid-- and, more important, Schumer-- should stop interfering with Democratic primaries outside of their own states. Contributors to the DSCC have been furious that Schumer and Reid have directed Jon Tester to spend immense sums against progressive Democrats and in favor of the kinds of corrupt conservatives Schumer and Reid prefer. Please consider contributing to Grayson's Senate campaign here:

A Sewer Is Open In Florida And Endless Dark Money Is Flowing Out Of It, Corrupting Politics

Chuck Schumer has picked this garbage as the Florida Democratic Party's Senate nominee

It was almost 4 months ago that we started writing about the corrupt relationship between Patrick Murphy and Nicholas Mastroianni, II. At the time we wrote that a deceptive right-wing PAC, "Floridians for a Strong Middle Class," is funneling the corrupt money Murphy falsely claims to oppose, into his election bid. An entity run by Schumer/Wasserman Schultz related sleaze-ball Nicholas Mastroianni, II, called the "230 East 63rd-6 Trust LLC" just gave them $50,000 for Murphy's campaign. Mastroianni, who gives immense sums to corrupt right-wing Democrats and has personally maxed out to Murphy, was profiled by Fortune a year and a half ago. He's a super-rich mini-Trumpf from Long Island with "a long history of legal problems, failed ventures, and unpaid debts-- which have continued even as his professional fortunes have turned sharply upward-- leaving a legacy of conflicts, judgments, and entanglements."

In recent years, the EB-5 visa program, which essentially allows wealthy foreigners to buy U.S. citizenship by investing $500,000 in a project that creates U.S. jobs, has exploded: The number of visas granted under the program has more than doubled since 2009. As that has happened, the program has taken on more and more glamorous, big-budget projects and the controversy surrounding it has increased.


It would be hard to find a figure who has risen faster in this burgeoning realm than Nicholas Mastroianni, II. In just four years, he has developed a lucrative role raising money for marquee projects such as Atlantic Yards, the giant Brooklyn development anchored by the Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Nets. Forest City Ratner, which is developing Atlantic Yards, has also retained Mastroianni to raise EB-5 money for its renovation of the Nassau Coliseum, home of the NHL’s Islanders. Other Mastroianni clients include the developers of three large Manhattan projects: the Charles, a 31-story condominium tower on the Upper East Side where the penthouse reportedly sold for $38 million; Bryant Park, a 32-story midtown Manhattan building with a luxury hotel and condos developed by HFZ Capital Group; and 855 Avenue of the Americas, a 41-story mixed-use edifice being developed by the Durst Organization.


All told, Mastroianni’s website boasts of involvement with $5.5 billion in development projects over the years, funded with $1.4 billion in EB-5 money, resulting in “40,000 jobs created.” Those are massive sums given that the entire EB-5 system raised a total of about $1.8 billion last year. Forest City Ratner CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin calls Mastroianni the"'go-to' leader in the field of EB-5 funding."

Mastroianni is an associate of Murphy's corrupt father, a crooked Florida builder and Trump partner, and Mastroianni has been incredibly generous to Papa Murphy's ethics-free son, Patrick, who was one of only 7 co-sponsors of GOP crook Aaron Schock's EB-5 Regional Center Extension Act of 2014, a bill that would ease restrictions on EB-5 regional centers like the one Mastroianni runs, directly benefitting Mastroianni's business, a highly illegal and unethical quid pro quo if I ever heard of one.

Yesterday, the Tampa Bay Times' DC bureau chief, Alex Leary, introduced Florida newspaper readers to Papa Murphy, who is destined to share a prison cell with the father of another crooked conservative New Dem, Ami Bera. He describes rich Republican Trump partner Thomas Murphy as the financial muscle behind Patrick Murphy's Senate bid. That's partially true; Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and the Wall Street bankster cabal are funneling even more money into Patrick's sleazy campaign than Thomas is. Leary wrote that Thomas "has given more than $1 million to super PACs supporting his son's campaigns and used donations to help create allies in Florida and Washington. His Coastal Construction Group has been the source for more than $180,000 given directly to the candidate's House and Senate campaigns." But that's just the beginning of the money trail.

A month before Patrick Murphy launched his first campaign, his father gave $10,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Last August, Tom Murphy contributed $33,400 to the committee, which a few months earlier endorsed his son.

The financial muscle gave the younger Murphy standing in the party and he's been able to build on that, drawing financial support from across Florida and the country. He is Democrats' best chance for taking the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. No other Florida Senate candidate has raised more.

But the family advantage has provoked criticism from Democrats and Republicans who cast him as a rich kid and a hypocrite because he laments the influence of money in politics while benefitting from his father's largess.

"It's not unlawful. But it's just a way of playing the inside game of politics that I find distasteful and I think a lot of voters would find distasteful, too," said Pam Keith, a longshot Democratic candidate who volunteered for Murphy's first House campaign.

"This is about politics by the wealthy for the wealthy," she said.

Also rising are questions from his rivals about a potential overlap between Murphy's work in Congress and the family business. His father's company has partnered with developers who have an interest in visas given to foreign investors, a program Murphy has supported on Capitol Hill.

Currently, Coastal Construction is the general contractor for the $1.7 billion Miami Worldcenter project, which has actively sought Chinese investors.

Developers on that project and other businessmen with interests in the visa program, known as EB-5, have given to Murphy's campaign or the super PAC backing him.

The candidate, who holds between $1 million and $5 million in Coastal stock, said contributors get no special treatment. He said he gives the same commitment to any size donor: "I'm going to be the hardest-working congressman I can be and hopefully the best senator this state has ever seen."

Leary forgot to mention that in the history of the known universe, no politician has ever admitted that the bribes he was paid resulted in special treatment for the people bribing him. And bribery and quid pro quos come into questions Murphy has had to deal with again and again, since bribery and quid pro quos define his entire political career. Apparently Patrick a chip off the old block, even before he met the Senate's most corrupt Democrat, his sponsor, Chuck Schumer.

A Republican, Tom Murphy has long been politically active and has given money to Charlie Crist, Alex Sink, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. (Patrick Murphy also donated to Romney and was a registered Republican until shortly before launching his first campaign.)

The builder has given at least $1.7 million since 2000, according to Federal Election Commission records.

That does not include money Murphy's wife or employees of Coastal Construction, which include Patrick Murphy's two older brothers, have given the candidate. All told, people affiliated with the firm have given Murphy at least $182,000 since 2011.

Current donors can give a maximum $5,400 covering the primary and general elections. But no such limits apply to super PACs.

In 2012, Tom Murphy sank $550,000 into two super PACs helping his son, one of which produced a controversial ad showing West, the Republican incumbent, in a boxing ring punching women. Now he has given $500,000 to Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, the committee set up to aid Murphy's Senate bid. More than half the money collected has come from Mr. Murphy.

...Murphy also played down questions about his support for the EB-5 visa program. His campaigns have received contributions from Florida developers who tap into the funding source. Foreigners who invest at least $500,000 are given green cards; many participants are from China. The program has enjoyed broad support but also come under scrutiny for fraud and a perception it sends the wrong message about the country's immigration system.

Nicholas A. Mastroianni II, a major EB-5 player based in Florida, has along with family members given Murphy about $25,000 and he has used companies to give at least $50,000 to the pro-Murphy super PAC. Another EB-5 developer and Murphy donor is Jeffrey Berkowitz, who is developing SkyRise Miami, a $430 million entertainment and observation tower.

Coastal Construction was a partner in that project but no longer is, according to Murphy campaign spokesman Joshua Karp. Company officials could not be reached. A registered lobbyist for SkyRise, Brian May, is part of the team working for the super PAC, records show.

Murphy said Mastroianni and Berkowitz are friends and he gives them regular updates on the campaign. But he said he did not recall specific conversations with them about legislation he sponsored in 2014 to make the EB-5 program permanent. He also did not recall meeting with Liu Yu, a New York based lawyer who specializes in the field. The two appeared in a 2014 article on a Chinese-language website.

Murphy said the EB-5 program has enjoyed bipartisan support and that it brings investment and creates jobs.

"I'm a member of Congress and I'm not actively involved in the family business ... so feel free to reach out to them and learn more about what they do," he told reporters on a conference call his campaign arranged last month to blast Grayson over alleged ethics issues. "But as far as I know, they have not done any projects to do with EB-5."

In February, Coastal, in a partnership with Tishman Construction, was named general contractor for the Miami Worldcenter, a $1.7 billion shopping, entertainment and housing project planned for 27 acres in the city's downtown. Financing will come in part from EB-5 investors.

Project developers and family have given Patrick Murphy more than $30,000 plus $25,000 to the super PAC.

Murphy's campaign said Friday it was unaware Coastal was involved in the project.

I'm outraged by the role Patrick Murphy and his parents-- yes, his mother is in on it too-- are playing in the corruption of the EB-5 visa program and, let me guarantee you, this isn't the last you'll be hearing about it here at DWT. Meanwhile, please consider helping Alan Grayson fight back this overflowing sewer of money propping up less-than-zero congressman Patrick Murphy.

What's Worse, Stinking Rich Self-Funders Or Candidates Who Sell Their Souls For Contributions?

Florida politics is a case study in campaign finance corruption

If you like conservative spoiled rich kid Patrick Murphy-- and apparently voters along Florida's Treasure Coast do-- there's no reason why you wouldn't like conservative spoiled rich kid Randy Perkins, the newly-minted "Democrat" who's running for the congressional seat Murphy is giving up as he runs for the open Senate seat against progressive Democrat Alan Grayson. The DCCC certainly loves him as much as they love any corrupt conservative self-funder. Today, Murphy is mired in multiple fundraising scandals-- from a Steve Israel scheme that is sending Ami Bera's father to prison and is about to come down hard on Murphy's corrupt parents, Thomas and Leslie, to a PayDay lender bribery situation and an operation that funneled over $100,000 in Saudi money-- perhaps many hundreds of thousands of dollars-- into Murphy's shady political career. Oops... I almost forgot the massive bribes Murphy has been taking from EB-5 visa crook Nick Mastroianni.

Randy Perkins, who maxed out to both Mitt Romney and Rick Perry in recent cycles, and (along with his wife) has given at least $1.7 million to Republicans and about $840,000 to Democrats, including a huge bribe he gave to Chris Christie to get a contract for Hurricane Sandy cleanup work in New Jersey) is self-funding his bid to buy a congressional seat. Last FEC report we saw showed him having taken just over $2 million from his own bank account and put it into his campaign (which was back on March 31).

Yesterday, Randy was featured by Politico calling campaign fundraising too disgusting and appalling for him to continue doing it. "Whether you’re running as a Democrat or a Republican," said the stinking rich and corrupt Perkins, "the expectation is you’ve got to raise, raise, raise, raise. It’s not something I’m willing to do. It’s disgusting and appalling."



"Fundraising," wrote Marc Caputo, "takes a considerable amount of time. And it’s awkward to ask others for $2,700 checks per election if you’re a self-made man worth as much as $200 million from working in the blue-collar field of disaster recovery."

Just down the road from the district Perkins is pretending to live in, campaign finance reform champion Tim Canova-- who is running against corrupt campaign fundraising vacuum-cleaner Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- is not asking for $2,700 checks. As of yesterday, Canova's very grassroots campaign had raised $1,017,632 from 53,155 individual contributions-- no money from corporate PACs and just 9 maxed out contributions. His average contribution is $18.55 and 98% of his donors have given less than $200. Like campaigns by Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Alan Grayson, that's as close to a publicly-funded campaign as I've ever seen! "When elected," he told me this morning, "I will not owe a single favor to any corporate interests." Amazing when a candidate has something to say about policy ideas and voters get that the race isn't just about a careerist move, the way Wasserman Schultz's and Perkins' races are.

Caputo reported that Perkins "was ready to spend at least $3.5 million of his own fortune before he even entered the race. Now he’s on the hook for millions more."

Jonathan Chane, Perkins' main Democratic opponent told us that "When I'm elected to Congress I'm committed to overturning Citizens United and fighting for real campaign finance reform that will take the corrosive influence of money out of politics." The DCCC has been discouraging Democratic donors from helping Chane's campaign and have put Perkins on a list they give out to donors, primarily of the most corrupt and unscrupulous candidates running for Congress-- the Red to Blue list. Caputo interviewed Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics watchdog group, for his piece and she explained that "there are benefits and drawbacks to having independently wealthy candidates and politicians."

“The good news bad news is most people who self-fund lose. And that’s good because we don’t want Congress just made up of rich people,” she said. “But that’s bad because if they don’t self-fund, candidates and members need to spend all their time fundraising.”

You can contribute to make Florida congressional politics slightly less of a stinking cesspool by helping elect clean-government reformers like Tim Canova and Alan Grayson on this ActBlue page: