Is "Democratic" Congressman Gregory W. Meeks of NY's 6th a crook?

[originalpckelly]

If you've not heard, Allen Stanford of Stanford Financial Group is accused of a mini-Madoff style fraud totalling 8.2 billion dollars.

I decided to look up, as I usually do, who this guy donated to politically, as anyone can do on the Federal Elections Comission website:
http://fec.gov/finance/disclosure/norindsea.shtml

Well, I decided to go further than Mr. Allen Stanford himself, and I decided to look up all the people who claim to work for his company. This is possible by going to the advanced individual search on the FEC's website:
http://fec.gov/finance/disclosure/advindsea.shtml

What you do to find the company is type in the company you're looking for in the "Employer/Occupation:" box. I guess the election laws require you list your employer, if you have one, on contribution forms.

I did that, and I found a whole bunch of different congressmen and women who've received money from not only Mr. Stanford but people listed as "executives" and other high staff of his company.

So I decided to take one Congressman and look into him as best I could with my limited resources, to see what I could find. Eventually I got to this report from the FEC:
http://images.nictusa.com/pdf/045/28932691045/28932691045.pdf#navpanes=0

It's a listing of people and PACs who donated to Rep. Meeks 12 days before the primary in the 6th district last year, as the report indicates on its coversheet.

If you look through the report, you will find that a lot of it is comprised of donations from people employed by Stanford Financial Group or Stanford's PAC. Most of the Stanford donations appear to take place on 25 July 2008. On the same day, a Kevin Brandt of another financial company, James River Capital, appears to have donated to Rep. Meeks, as well another unknown man Thomas Church of Argyle, Texas.

Well, I went and looked up James River Capital and Kevin Brandt. James River Capital was fined by the National Association of Securities Dealers on October 25, 2006 for fooling around with market timing:
http://registeredrep.com/news/record-markettime-fine/

Here is further information on the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASD

NASD has since become the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) as you will read in the article. At the time of the fining of James River Capital, it was the largest fine leveled against a company for what it was accused of doing, something which I don't fully understand yet, but will endeavor to as time goes on.

Anyway, I also did the same thing for Kevin Brandt of James River Capital that I did for Stanford. I looked up the company's name. Kevin Brandt has made lots of donations to lots of politicians, and appears that he donated to many of the same politicians that Mr. Stanford donated to, but with more emphasis on Republicans.

By the way, if you look at the report from Meeks campaign to the FEC, you'll find that Mr. Brandt lives in the Virgin Islands, a place not exactly known for its up and up business practices. It also begs the question: What the hell is a guy who lives in the Virgin Islands doing donating to mainland politicians? It looks weird to me, quite frankly.

What happened on 25 July 2008? Was it like a corrupt financial guy fundraiser or something? Is Kevin Brandt closely tied to Allen Stanford's fraud? Shouldn't we be suspicious of a man who's firm was fined for some weird financial crime before and lives in the Virgin Islands?


Now on to Represenative Meeks. If you finish looking through that report, you will find that he took money from Stanford's associates or Citibank big wigs. And when you look at the PACs he took donations from in that report alone, you will find a list of who's who in the financial industry.

And isn't it a bit interesting that Representative Meeks serves on the House Committee on Financial Services? It's not like they're trying to bribe him or anything with these donations, now is it?

Here's Representative Meeks Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Meeks

He also endorsed Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá's re-election in Puerto Rico. The Govenor lost the race, and has been under investigation and was indicted on 24 counts of corruption by the FBI, though 15 were thrown out by the judge in the case, leaving 9 still against him.

Here's more on that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An%C3%ADbal_Acevedo_Vil%C3%A1#Federal_investigations_and_indictment

I wonder if the Allen Stanford scandal isn't going to break open some kind of massive corruption in the American government? It certainly looks like something corrupt is going on with Meeks, what are we to think when a crooked Ponzi mastermind and a ton of his employees donate to a guy on the Financial Services Committee?