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All Muck is Local: New Jersey Tackles Corruption One Dozen at A Time
To an outsider, New Jersey politics often seems like a den of corruption. The latest series of arrests doesn’t do much to change that reputation.
This week, eleven local politicians and one co-conspirator were arrested as part of a statewide bribery scandal. The crowd runs the gamut of the political scene: mayors, assembly members, staffers and local council members have all been charged. The list is dominated by ten Democrats, although one Republican makes it a bipartisan affair.
The story is slowly unfolding, as the FBI has only disclosed enough information to provide probable cause for the arrests. But it is clear that the operation began in the town of Pleasantville, where FBI agents posed as representatives from an insurance company and a roofing agency. Agents met individually with members of the town’s education council, setting up deals throughout the past year to pay cash bribes in exchange for contracts.
It would have made for a quick story of small town corruption, but the Pleasantville school board members recommended that their new FBI friends look for more "business" upstate. From there, the FBI’s insurance company bounced from willing politician to willing politician, taking them to the cities of Newark, Orange, Passaic and Patterson. As in all prime cases of local corruption, underhanded deals were carried out in parked cars and restaurants.
The two highest ranked officials are Alfred Steele, a state assemblyman, and Mims Hackett, Jr., also an assemblyman as well as the mayor of Orange. It was on Steele’s recommendation that investigators were introduced to Hackett; both men promised to help the would-be insurers obtain state contracts in exchange for cash.
Christopher Christie, the U.S. Attorney leading the investigation, took a play out of the Giuliani textbook. He organized a series of public arrests complete with handcuffs and leg shackles for the twelve, who were released on bail Thursday and left to shirk the herd of reporters on their own. (Steele resorted to running away from the press, which resulted in a rush-hour traffic jam.) Still, the Democratic leadership have been quick to challenge claims that Christie is playing partisan politics. Senate President Richard Codey addressed local Democrats on Friday saying, "these questions about whether the U.S. Attorney is too political, that's not the question. He didn't put a gun to anyone's head and force them to put their hand in the cookie jar."
As of now, both Steele and Hackett look set to resign their positions on Monday. We'll see if the immediate response of outrage by local Democrats helps to ameliorate the reputation that New Jersey is still the home of Tony Soprano and dirty politicians.
Josh
Zachary
While the FBI is setting up stings, who is investigating corruption with Doolittle, Delay, Young, and the rest of the Abramoff gang?
Isn't about time someone threw the book at them?
September 9, 2007 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The NJ Democratic machine is one of the most corrupt in the nation.
Now comes word that Corzine will soon be indicted for his illegal gifts to Katz.
September 9, 2007 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it possible that, because this was a STING operation, they avoided trying to set-up Republicans? Since we know how thoroughly the AG Dept has been politicized--might they have made it a point NOT to engage Republicans? Did they tried to lure Republicans as well as Democrats? I wonder...
September 9, 2007 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
ahhhh ... Pleasantville ... I remember it well ...
Everything is black and white there until you take your first kickback, then everything turns a vivid green.
September 9, 2007 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:47 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rejecting a wave of criticisms, the government has agreed to only modest changes in the computerized system that assesses whether each American who travels abroad poses a terrorist threat. The Homeland Security Department decided to keep the risk assessments for 15 years instead of 40 years and no longer will share them with federal, state and local officials who are deciding whether a person gets a job, a security clearance, a license to do business or a government contract. Nevertheless, travelers still will not be allowed to see their actual assessments or the reasons for them. Federal agents still will be looking at an array of information about international travelers -- Americans and foreigners; this includes even meal choices, the names of traveling companions and the number of hotel beds requested.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Traveler-Screening.html
September 9, 2007 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yo, Marla. I live in NJ and I am politically involved and aware and there has been no, absolutely no word of looming indictments against Corzine, for any reason.
Of course, the hapless and desperate NJ Republican Party has been hoping for a bit of magic, as far as indictments are concerned, but all Corzine is guilty of is being generous with his friend.
Last I looked, being generous with your friends is not, in and of itself, illegal.
So thanks for playing and you get to take the board game home with you.
September 9, 2007 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like Richard Nixon was doing was just being generous for his friends.
I'm a NJ Democrat and know that in the upcoming weeks several of Corzine's aides will be subpoened.
And then comes indictments and Corzine will wish he was still in his crashed SUV.
September 10, 2007 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you kidding? This is Jersey we're talking about! You can't do business in the state if your palm isn't bipartisan.
September 10, 2007 2:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tony Saprano would be considered a mid-sized company operation in the NJ world of politics and corruption.
I also found it interesting that the investigation focused on poor urban centers. Not to say that there isn't corruption there, but its not uniquie to the state. I suspect that the more affluent parts of the state (75% of the wealth concentration) have a much more sophisticated operation with well known, established fortune 500 companies...or family connected (not in the mafia sense) companies. They are not going to waste their time with some unknown....it might be an undercover sting operation.
A good primer on NJ corruption is the UMD-NJ probe; Sharpe James; Jack Morris; Mayor Pucci; Norcross family; Kushner; School Construction Corp. ($35 million dollars to build an addition to an existing school? tell me there is no corruption going on there).
Party affliation just means that you can get elected where you live, into the money game (because that's what it's all about), nothing to do with national politics. If the Rethug's were in charge, they would all be wearing that lapel pin instead.
September 10, 2007 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
"although one Republican makes it a bipartisan affair."
Your tongue was firmly planted in your cheek as you typed this, i hope...
One might wonder if this form of entrapment by the FBI might have been accopmlished with a very selective list of targets.
And that is how the game gets played, they tempt powerful people with easy money, and by being very selective in their targets, they make the Dems in Jersey look "worse than Republicans."
The FBI could pull this scam off in either party, in any state and city, probably anywhere in the free world.
This is just partisan politics at it's worst. And Justice seems to be the only real casualty. I'd like to know how the whoe thing started, who ordered it and why there were so few Republicans on the receiving end of the sting.
The DOJ and the FBI may have just identified their own worst players in this transition. Whoever put this sting together was probably taking orders from a Republican, is there any doubt about that?
The rest is simple logic.
Go back to the origins of this sting, and you will see it fits right in with so many other political prosecutions, the likes of which Rove wanted loosed on EVERY Democratic candidate in the country, the likes of which some other DOJ Attorneys were fired for not pursuing.
No doubt, the New Jersey area US Attorney never faced being listed for removal.
And now we all know why. That is all this represents, is one of the loyal Bushies doing exactly as was expected of them.
This is pure politics, not Justice.
September 10, 2007 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Christopher Christie was never on Monica's list, was he?
Or even considered for it.
And this entrapment scam is why..
September 10, 2007 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
A Corzine debacle will only complicate what is already underway with Siegelman.
How long before the public figures out these Democratic governors who are being persecuted are just political witch-hunt victims.
They are ALL dirty, but when they start digging in each-others' dirt like this, the public sees both sides, not just the prosecution.
And that is the issue, there is so much money in politics, they are ALL comprimised, at the very least through campaign obligations, and at the worst, through outright bribery and blatant cronyism.
Finding that corruption is what our DOJ needs to be doing, not by inventing it but by uncovering it.
This is obviously just entrapment, for political purposes.
September 10, 2007 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't buy the partisan argument here. Remember, this is New Jersey we are talking about. There are many apt analogies, some involving fish and barrels and shooting. I bet the next barrelful will have a few more Republicans.
September 10, 2007 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I bet the next barrelful will have a few more Republicans."
Only if there's a Democrat somewhere in the Justice que...
September 10, 2007 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, Chris Christie! The same US Attorney that kept his head while others around him were losing theirs (apologies to Rudyard Kipling). Of course, it didn't hurt that he brought questionable charges against Dem Senatorial candidate Robert Menendez just before the 2006 elections, did it.
And does any else think it's a questionable use of resources for a US Attorney's office to go after local school board members and mayors? That's the domain of country prosecutors. There couldn't be any political aspects of this sting, could there? I mean, all the news of late has been GOP corruption. The GOP wouldn't be trying to drum up Dem corruption cases to fight their growing image of the party of corruption, would they?
d
September 10, 2007 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink