'He got screwed': Gillum absent from indictment after DeSantis bashed him as corrupt
Source: Politico
Federal authorities unveiled a 44-count, 66-page indictment Wednesday of a Tallahassee politician and a city official that involved six companies, five other players and a bank in a wide-ranging bribery, extortion, fraud and racketeering scheme.
But amid all the detail and alleged corruption in the indictment, one name is conspicuously absent: Andrew Gillum, who was Tallahassees mayor at the time and who was accused repeatedly on the gubernatorial campaign trail this year by Republican opponent Ron DeSantis and even President Donald Trump of being tied to the suspected wrongdoing the FBI was investigating.
Republicans spent at least $7 million on TV ads 27 percent of the total $26 million dropped on air in the general election attacking Gillum in connection with the FBI probe. But the investigation, records indicate, ultimately had little to do with the former mayor.
The campaign, however, took its toll and Gillum lost to DeSantis by the narrowest margin ever for a Florida Democrat running for governor: 0.39 percentage points, or 32,463 votes out of more than 8.2 million cast. It made the Tallahassee mayor collateral damage in the investigation, which resulted in a multi-count indictment against Tallahassee City Commissioner Scott Maddox and his former chief of staff, Paige Carter-Smith, the citys Downtown Improvement Authority executive director who was his alleged partner in crime.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/12/12/he-got-screwed-gillum-absent-from-indictment-after-desantis-bashed-him-as-corrupt-742989
More of the real deep state....
SunSeeker
(51,378 posts)Yet shied away from Gillum over nothing more that GOP evidence-free smears.
KPN
(15,587 posts)SunSeeker
(51,378 posts)JI7
(89,182 posts)Nelson.
nitpicker
(7,153 posts)denvine
(798 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)I'd like the OIG to look into why this FBI investigation stayed open all through the election period instead of closing shortly after, though. And how the FBI became a player in the last two weeks when Republicans put the investigation into the news by releasing new documents that had nothing to do with Gillum. Wittingly involved or unwitting political tool, that's not okay.
Or why Gillum wasn't dismissed long ago after investigation answered all significant questions and failed to find any evidence of corruption.
Ink Addict
(36 posts)Just what's in a name, indeed: Paige Carter-Smith versus Carter Page --- Must have driven the FBI nuts deciding when and whether investigators should dot those i's and/or crossing the t's - doncha luv co-in-cee-dences...so weird.