The Republican party was on Tuesday facing a fast-growing corruption scandal with potentially serious implications for next year's elections after a well-connected Washington lobbyist pleaded guilty to bribing a congressman and other public officials.
The plea by Michael Scanlon is a breakthrough in an investigation of influence-peddling in Congress that could reach top levels of the party. It comes at a time when the Republicans are already nervous about next November's congressional elections, with support for the Iraq war falling away and the White House under the cloud of an intelligence leak investigation.
"The potential is huge," said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution. "We've never seen an example as egregious as this with these sums of money, the bilking, the cynicism and linkages ... I think you're going to see a string of indictments."
Scanlon is expected to give evidence against public officials alleged to have accepted bribes, including free golfing trips to Scotland, restaurant meals and sports tickets, in return for pushing legislation favorable to clients of Scanlon and his boss, Jack Abramoff, a Washington super-lobbyist who is also under investigation.
The congressman named in the Scanlon plea agreement is Robert Ney, a powerful Republican insider known as the "mayor of Capitol Hill" because of his influential role at the head of the House administration committee. He received a free golfing trip to Scotland, US$14,000 in campaign contributions and regular free meals at Abramoff's Washington restaurant, Signatures.
In return, court documents allege, he backed legislation and attempted to influence administration officials on the lobbyists' behalf. He is also alleged to have put his political weight behind Abramoff's attempt to buy a fleet of Florida casino ships. The man who sold it to him was killed in a mafia-style execution in 2001.
Also reported to be under investigation are half a dozen other members of Congress, including Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who was forced to step down in September after being charged in a separate scandal over political money-laundering.
Attorneys for DeLay sought the immediate dismissal of conspiracy and money laundering charges against him on Tuesday, but a Texas judge said he would not rule for two weeks in the case.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
RSS