back in 2017 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former\u00a0DNC\u00a0Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was\u00a0pulled\u00a0into yet another scandal when on July 25 former IT aide Imran Awan was detained while attempting to flee the country and charged with bank fraud for wiring nearly $300,000 to Pakistan ahead of his planned escape. Imran Awan, who was employed by\u00a0Wasserman Schultz\u00a0until his arrest, is under criminal investigation for \u201cwide-range equipment and data theft.\u201d He reportedly tried to destroy hard drives confiscated by the FBI. Though the investigation began in February, Wasserman Schultz only recently\u00a0granted\u00a0U.S. Capitol Police access to a laptop Awan hid in a crevice of a congressional office building. The case is one of many scandals that have engulfed the\u00a0Democratic Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Pennsylvania, Democratic\u00a0Mayor of Allentown Ed Pawlowski and former Democratic Mayor of Reading Vaughn Spencer, along with three others, were\u00a0indicted\u00a0by the FBI on July 26 for a pay-to-play scheme. Earlier this year in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia\u2019s District Attorney Seth Williams, a Democrat, decided not to run for\u00a0re-election\u00a0because he currently faces an FBI probe into $160,000 of gifts he failed to report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democratic Congressman Robert Brady, who represents Pennsylvania\u2019s first congressional district, is under\u00a0FBI investigation\u00a0for paying a primary challenger to drop out of the race in 2012. Brady, one of the longest serving\u00a0Democrats\u00a0in Congress, is the latest\u00a0Democratic\u00a0congressman to come under FBI scrutiny. Last year, Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah was convicted and sentenced to prison for corruption charges. Fattah had been in\u00a0office\u00a0since 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seattle\u00a0Democratic\u00a0Mayor Ed Murray isn\u2019t\u00a0running\u00a0for re-election this year due to a sex abuse scandal he is implicated in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\u00a0Democratic\u00a0National Committee\u00a0(DNC) is plagued by corruption and inefficiency. It currently faces an ongoing class action lawsuit filed by\u00a0Sen.\u00a0Bernie Sanders\u2018\u00a0supporters for rigging the primaries in favor of Hillary\u00a0Clinton. Another class action lawsuit was filed earlier this year on behalf of\u00a0Clinton\u00a0campaign field organizers who weren\u2019t paid overtime, despite the\u00a0Democratic\u00a0National Convention Committee\u00a0handing\u00a0out $1 million in bonuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In May 2017, former Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown was convicted on several charges related to a fraudulent charity. She had\u00a0served\u00a0in Congress since 1993. The Florida Democratic Party chair race in January 2017 was rife with scandal: Billionaire donor Stephen Bittel\u00a0broke\u00a0the party\u2019s rules to win the controversial race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In March 2017, Sen. Bob Menendez exhausted all his appeals to avoid facing trial for bribery charges. The trial is\u00a0set\u00a0to begin in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chicago Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel is\u00a0hoping that early fundraising\u00a0will save his bid for re-election in 2019. He will likely face staunch opposition due to his office being plagued by scandal, most notably a cover-up of police shooting unarmed black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2015. His largest labor union backer, John Coli Sr., was recently\u00a0indicted\u00a0on extortion charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In New York, Former\u00a0Democratic\u00a0Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver\u00a0managed\u00a0to get his corruption conviction overturned this month, but the U.S. District Attorney Office for the Southern District of New York is retrying the case. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose former aides\u00a0were charged\u00a0with corruption last year, is in damage control over an MTA\u00a0State of Emergency\u00a0in New York City.\u00a0The New York\u00a0Daily News<\/em>\u00a0reported\u00a0earlier this month that Cuomo diverted funds meant for MTA repairs to boost his \u201cpet projects.\u201d In May 2017, former New York\u00a0Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner\u00a0plead guilty\u00a0in an underage sexting case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In California, the California Democratic Party Compliance Review Commission found that over 300 votes cast in the election for California Democratic Party chair posed problems in their potential legitimacy. The election was decided by 62 votes. Last weekend, the commission invalidated 25 votes for Eric Bauman, the winner, and 22 for Kimberly Ellis, who lost the election, but Ellis noted its overt bias for Bauman, the party establishment\u2019s choice for the position. Ellis has\u00a0indicated\u00a0that a lawsuit will likely have to be filed to hold the party accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In May 2017, the California Democratic Party\u00a0paid\u00a0a small fine over allegations that it laundered big oil money to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown\u2019s 2014 re-election campaign. A watchdog organization\u00a0noted\u00a0the small fine was the result of lax campaign finance laws that demand irrefutable evidence of a quid pro quo, but that\u2019s now how political corruption works anymore. \u201cWhen pundits moan about \u2018no smoking gun\u2019 and \u2018no quid pro quo,\u2019 they must be referring to some cartoon definition of corruption, as if it involved an envelope stuffed with dead presidents, handed over to some grubby-fingered hack in the backroom of a greasy tavern with a tired Kiefer Sutherland doing the voice-over,\u201d\u00a0wrote John Kass in an August 2016\u00a0op-ed\u00a0for the\u00a0Chicago Tribune<\/em>. \u201cBut people with governments and nations in the palms of their hands don\u2019t deal that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\u00a0Democratic Party\u00a0focuses on anti-Trump\u00a0rhetoric but largely ignores the corruption among its members. While party leaders fend off progressives\u2019 calls for reform, the current\u00a0Democrats\u00a0in office serve as walking examples of why accountability is needed. As voters become privy to the party\u2019s incessant scandals, they become apathetic and disenfranchised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" back in 2017 Former\u00a0DNC\u00a0Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was\u00a0pulled\u00a0into yet another scandal when on July 25 former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1020,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions\/1020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}