Attorney: Freshman US Rep. David Rivera facing federal probe into possible tax evasion
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 23rd, 2011 4:35 am by HL
Attorney: Freshman US Rep. David Rivera facing federal probe into possible tax evasion
An attorney says his client is being interviewed by federal authorities investigating South Florida U.S. Rep. David Rivera over possible tax evasion.
Investigators are looking at whether taxes were paid on a secret million-dollar contract Rivera signed in 2006 to manage a campaign to expand gambling in Miami-Dade County.
Among those being interviewed by FBI and IRS agents is Lori Weems, an attorney who helped draw up the contract between the owners of a Miami casino and a company linked to Rivera. Her attorney, Andres Rivero, says at least five other people are being interviewed as witnesses.
Obama campaign attracts Wall Street money, despite tensions
So much for President Obama’s Wall Street problem.
About a third of the money his top fundraisers have brought in this year has come from the financial sector, suggesting that strained relations with Wall Street have not hurt the president’s ability to attract donations there for his reelection campaign, according to data released Friday by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The numbers represent a notable increase from 2008, when bundlers in the investment and banking arena accounted for about 20 percent of the total brought in by top fundraisers for Obama.
Budget cuts cut Social Security service
The Social Security Administration says it will close its field offices 30 minutes earlier every day to save money. Beginning Aug. 15, offices that currently are open from from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. will close to the public at 3:30 p.m.
“While agency employees will continue to work their regular hours, this shorter public window will allow us to complete face-to-face service with the visiting public without incurring the cost of overtime for our employees,” said SSA Commissioner Michael J. Astrue. “Congress provided our agency with nearly $1 billion less than the president requested for our budget this fiscal year, which makes it impossible for us to provide the amount of overtime needed to handle service to the public as we have in the past.”
In Iowa, Mitt Romney wages a stealth campaign
DES MOINES — At this time four years ago, Mitt Romney was everywhere in Iowa. He popped up at ice cream stands. His glossy likeness landed in mailboxes. His sons drove a Winnebago they bought on eBay (the “Mitt Mobile”) to all 99 counties. And at Romney headquarters in Urbandale, two dozen paid staffers and an army of volunteers toiled in a space as sprawling as a supermarket.
This time, it’s Tim Pawlenty with the R.V. and campaign ads and shock troops. That big Urbandale headquarters? The former Minnesota governor has the lease now.
A lose-lose political proposition on the debt ceiling debate
The death of a grand bargain on raising the debt ceiling — announced moments ago by President Obama — not only heightens the policy stakes as the default deadline rapidly approaches but creates the very real possibility that the issue will be a major political loser for everyone involved.
“We have now run out of time,” Obama said in a hastily called public event Friday evening in which he was barely able to contain his anger at the inability of the two sides to cut a deal.
He said he planned to bring the Congressional leaders of both parties to the White House on Saturday at 11 a.m. to figure out whether there was a way forward to avoid default.
