Keeping with historic trends in Puerto Rico, another corrupt governor has been arrested and indicted on corruption, bribery and fraud charges. Wanda Vazquez Garced replaced Ricardo Rosselló after he was accused of racism and having a homophobic cabinet.
During her term in office, millions of dollars’ worth of Hurricane Maria aid was discovered being stored and sold on the black market from various warehouses. [Go Deep]
The hurricane supplies provided by U.S. taxpayers were never given to citizens and were instead being used by government officials and sold to retailers. The Housing Secretary (Fernando Gil), the Department of Family Secretary (Glorimar Andújar) and the director of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency were all fired as part of the scandal.
Governor Wanda Vazquez lost her primary reelection bid in August 2020, and today was indicted for corruption, bribery and wire fraud.
(Via DOJ) -A former governor of Puerto Rico was arrested today on bribery charges related to the financing of her 2020 campaign.
Relatedly, a political consultant for the former governor and the president of the international bank have also pleaded guilty to participating in the bribery scheme.
“The alleged bribery scheme rose to the highest levels of the Puerto Rican government, threatening public trust in our electoral processes and institutions of governance,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable those who wrongly believe there is one rule of law for the powerful and another for the powerless. No one is above the rule of law.”
According to the indictment, from December 2019 through June 2020, then-Governor of Puerto Rico Wanda Vazquez Garced, 62, of San Juan, allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with various individuals, including Julio Martin Herrera Velutini, Frances Diaz, Mark Rossini, and John Blakeman to finance Vazquez Garced’s 2020 gubernatorial election campaign. (read more)
Puerto Rico has a long history of public corruption and abuse of federal funds. Back in 2015 ten government officials in Puerto Rico were arrested for corruption, bribery, honest services wire fraud, extortion and various schemes related to giving payments to friends and family via federal contracts. [LINK] This is the typical corruption PR is known for.
In June 2019, the FBI, Public Corruption Unit, posted a notification of an ongoing corruption probe and provided a tip-line for leads related to bribery and/or corruption of public officials. [LINK] This probe is connected to the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers have provided to Puerto Rico for recovery after hurricane Maria (2017).
So much money was poured into the island after hurricane Maria that hundreds of local and regional officials seized the opportunity to indulge their friends and family with funds from recovery accounts. This is the widespread corruption President Trump previously drew attention to.
This open corruption was also why Nancy Pelosi took the entire Democrat caucus to Puerto Rico in January 2019 for a vacation with her favorite lobbyists. Everyone in/around PR knows this level of corruption is the norm, not the exception.
Later that same year, six more officials were indicted under new federal charges, including two government officials: Julia Keleher, who served as Puerto Rico’s education secretary until April; and Ángela Ávila-Marrero, who was the executive director of the Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration. They were all variously charged with wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy, according to the 32-count indictment.
President Trump was exactly right when he both informed and warned voters of what would happen with money dumped into Puerto Rico.
PR was Ukraine before Ukraine.
We should sell PR to Cuba.
Pay them to take it perhaps??
And yet, the DS politicians in DC want to make PR a US State, to get 2 more criminal dems as representatives. LOL
they also want DC to be a state. 2 more democrat senators. In DC you have no peers to place on a jury if you are a conservative.
Population slightly less than Nevada (but more that Hawaii) so 2-4 Reps, as well as, 2 senators.
I wonder where the 63 billion went?
You question was hinted at in the piece. 60 billion back to Piglosis and her disciples, 3 billion to PR’s corrupt politicians
Did you know that alot of Cuban jokes start with a Puerto Rican in it somewhere? Just sayin’.
Which is why I refer to the Ukraine as the 51st State…
Study the history of Natalie Jaresko. It’s most interesting.
Good for her!
I’m done with funding everything everywhere. I know this was a natural disaster and people need help, but it isn’t the governments role to dole out money at every turn.
No more aid to anyone until we get all the illegals out, the schools in order, fix the election system, audit all departments, bureaus, agencies, THE FED, etc. (and that’s just the initial phase.)
Trim off all the excess and rebuild with a much leaner government.
I know it none of this will happen, but it should!
I agree
Why not close them all down and start from scratch with America first minded professionals? I know. I’m dreaming
There was a time when charities and churches provided the aid. Gov’t took it over to get things in return such as money and power.
Charities and churches now dispense the aid. We taxapayers are on the hook to provide the aid, that is funneled through the charities and churches that “launder” the money first. (Gotta scrub off a little cut for the “administrative” expenses, don’t-chya-know…..)
I dont understand why the Dept of Injustice would bring charges in the first place. Did Wanda attend a Trump rally? Or perhaps this move is to protect the hire ups who were involved in the money laundering schemes.
Endorsed Trump’s re-election:
https://nypost.com/2020/10/06/puerto-rico-gov-wanda-vazquez-endorses-trumps-re-election-bid/
Bingo!
“Were gonna punish our enemies and reward our friends”
-Barack Hussein Obama
Boom!
Now im thinking Wanda was set up just like any other MAGA supporter would be.
See how easy that was? Its always there, just below the fake news veneer. If you wait, It surfaces.
“Puerto Rico’s governor endorsed President Trump’s re-election bid on Tuesday.
In an interview with Telemundo, Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced announced her support for Trump and urged Puerto Ricans in the United States to vote for him on Nov. 3.”
Not a bad guess. Or perhaps she was a little corrupt by PR standards and an easy target as an object lesson from her “betters”.
Probably corrupt but regardless, there is no justice because its based on political affiliation.
Obama re-tooled/weaponized the 4th branch to target any threat to the establishment.
Wasn’t she in DC on the 6th. I’m sure she’ll turn up in a photo somewhere. /sarc
Just for the money, nothing more.
I’m thinking she got sloppy and was endangering the whole grift. Just a guess.
She took over after the PR people got out the Rosello criminal guy. People trusted her.
I’m puzzled by this as well, the Department of Injustice going after DimocRATS?? What’s going on? Perhaps they attended a Trump rally or donated to him. Pretty sure they didn’t vote for him or they would have been Arkancided by now. Something screwy is going on at the Dept. of Injustice AND the Federal Bureau of Inquisitions.
Could be that they have just been coming up short on their dues to their “betters”.
Guessing she was BFF with Tee shirt crazy lady mayor.
Nice contrast between Fl gov(R) and PR gov(D).
Mayor/Alcalde of San Juan, Yulin.
Now do former mayor of san juan, carmen cruz.
Cannot imagine that she is clean, allegedly. She hated PDJT and lied about him constantly.
I dont think carmen cruz endorsed Trump
https://nypost.com/2020/10/06/puerto-rico-gov-wanda-vazquez-endorses-trumps-re-election-bid/
Ha! I am sure you are correct……on both points.
A little under the weather here, so I was slow on the uptake.
My job in my younger days, took me to Puerto Rico more than once.
I always said, when I retire….. I want to be bambam sells seashells by the seashore in Puerto Rico. Smh.
I’m with you on that, Mass Psychosis. DOJ ONLY seeks indictments against political enemies, and this is a very strict rule!
A campaign financing charge? Something that DOJ could file against almost anyone for the most picayune violation in that big, broad gray area of campaign finance rules and regs?
And, under name that turd….
Who is the race baiting former rep from Illinois that flew into San Juan to make
sure that she had the shirts for her photo op/ propaganda opportunity?
Gutierrez.
Thanks. He seems to have disappeared lately. Unfortunately, that’s
when “people” (term used loosely in his case) of his caliber are the most dangerous.
Wow. If they sentence her to three days in a minimum security facility without a fork it will be a de facto death penalty. And, yes, Trump won. Carry on, America.
okay…I don’t care what anyone says, that’s funny right there…and true!
Then there was the Pfizer deal with U.S. government to operate in Puerto Rico… another fiasco…. Let’s make it a state! /s
That was a huge tax break expolited by many pharmaceutical companies who shifted production to PR. When the tax breaks expired, the drug companies stopped their investments.
Ha-ha, I posted before I saw your post. Right on!
PR is already a welfare state. What more do they need?
The only savings the pharma guys saw was in labor. When those tax benefits expired in 2006, all the druggies pulled out. It ruined the PR economy.
Amazing that this indictment went forward.
Puerto Rico has one federal district court, which is known as the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, with 7 Judges: 2 – Trump/McConnell, 2 – GW Bush, 2-Clinton, 1-Obama.
Puerto Rico is covered by a Unique DoJ/FBI office … the DoJ Office of Puerto Rico.
Either somebody forgot to “fix” the manning for the Local DoJ Office or she really screwed up the payola as well as favors to even upset the local democrats. A falling out among criminals.
Those poor people can’t catch a break. My in-laws have some relatives by marriage who are native to and live there. What the PR people have dealt with for the past several decades is atrocious…too much to describe here. The degeneracy simply feeds on itself. Corruption is mainstream in every government office.
OTOH, I fondly remember the brothel near the Americana, in 1966-67, called the “21 Club.” That was run nicely (I think).
Now a whole passel of them are in Central Florida. The people from the Island are pretty agreeable. The Americanized transplants from the NE and Chicago can be difficult at best. IMHO
They did it to themselves by voting Democrat year after year…
All of the money collected from taxpayers goes to fraud and most of the printed money. And the printed money taxpayers are ultimately on the hook for as well. This is why they can’t let Trump run the country.
It’s to damn hard to do the right thing.
Remember when Trump was POTUS, the DS accused him of “throwing rolls of paper towels” at them….
I do.
Is that wrong? Is that really, really wrong?
With all this corruption, it’s no wonder why the National Socialist Party is so hot on making it a State.
No thank you.
The Democrat party tried to make life as difficult as possible in PR, so the people would move to Florida and turn it blue. Tens of thousands did just that. This is part of a bigger story.
So much for that. While the PR transplants to Florida vote blue, they were drowned out by people converting to Republican. When DeSantis won in 2018 Dems had a 100K voter registation advantage, but now Republicans have a 300K advantage. That is a 400K swing to the good guys.
I really hope it pulls that out.
At least 500,000 in Kissimmi, at least. Rubio has been visiting and whoring himself out since Maria.
How much of Our tax dollars going into this corrupt island in the form of relief ended back into the Democrats election funds ?
Hi Sanjac,
I’ll take a guess here: most of it?
It’s how they roll.
A hard pass from me on either PR or the cesspool (DC) becoming a State!
That, as the saying goes, is the whole purpose of the exercise.
Say, was some Clinton $$& supposed to be inserted there ( in Puerto Rico)
???
Did they get their training in running a government from some of the past mayors of Baltimore?
I see what you did there, Mari.
Wasn’t one of them named Papa Piglosi?
More or less (D’Alesandro) but I’m thinking of the recent mayors such as Pugh and Dixon since they were convicted.
We should have sent our Army Corps of Engineers. PR would’ve been fixed up in two weeks for a pittance.
They cannot fix the problems if some want the opportunities for graft, unfortunately.
Kinda like sending the SEALs to Mexico to clean up their cartels.
Wasn’t this the dame that complained PT wasn’t sending aid as she stood in front of a wall of bottled water? 😂
No, that was the mayor of San Juan. After that she ran for governor, and she got slapped down.
Where the banana grows, man is sensual and cruel.
Which puts them just behind Illinois in their quest for statehood?
Move along folks…
Nothing to see here…
Just another CONgressional money laundering shiitehole.
Democrats were stealing the money sent to fix PR, while at the same time accusing PDJT of failing to fix PR.
They’re the scum of the Earth.
The radio host Dennis Prager often makes the observation that nothing good, only evil, flows from seeing yourself as a victim.
The Puerto Ricans very much see themselves as victims, of their circumstances, of imperialism, of racism etc.
Victimhood sanctions the abandonment of moral standards. Victimhood, paradoxically, allowed this Governor to victimize her own people.
As an extreme example, the Germans after World War I, saw themselves as victims of the Versailles Treaty (and the Jews).
The Democrat Party has become the natural home, the welcoming nest, for all the professional victims. And a negative, destructive force in America, as a result.
I need to listen to The Royal Scam again
Cryptic, Jeff.
What is it?
Victimhood also absolves the wearer of responsibility.
And you can never GROW, MATURE, and PROBLEM SOLVE until you can identify a problem, how it came about, and your part in it.
This is rife in every former Spanish colony… Lying & blameshifting, irresponsibility, without wisdom or a long-term perspective, so …They keep blaming others and making their country/society completely corrupt and dysfunctional.
Either she did something wrong or she did something right. It no longer makes a difference.
The moto of all crooks;
Never let a crisis go to waste.
It’s amazing how differently someone acts if they actually believe their immortal soul is on the line.
“Puerto Rico has a long history of public corruption and abuse of federal funds.”
That should read The USA, instead of Puerto Rico. At least they are arresting their corrupt politicians while our FBI covers up for ours and gets them reelected.
Gee I wonder where the $91+ billion went as aid was sold on the black market and why the Dems want us to send more?!?!
What more do people need to see to know ALL our politicians are raiding our treasury?!?!?? This is so frustrating. And they are doing the exact same thing In Ukraine and soon to be Taiwan. Book it. Remember this post. They will send billions and it will all get funneled back to the politicians here.
I wish you were wrong, Bshaw. But you’re not.
PR didn’t get the whole $91B. It was doled our piece by piece, with the proviso that all expenditures must be accounted for, on paper, with receipts, etc. before dispensing more $$.
This was a very new concept in money for PR. They don’t do ANY accounting… At all. The Trump White House/HUD/Sec. Carson required a current accounting of the money already given, before issuing more. Simple accountability.
PR refused, so the subsequent money was not issued. They cried bloody murder.
No tickee, no laundry.
My favorite part to this story is that the corrupt PR mayor worked in tandem with a corrupt former FBI agent!! An Italian banker! And a political consultant! LOL All of this is out of a predictable novel!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11082125/Ex-Governor-Puerto-Rico-Wanda-Vasquez-busted-FBI-bribery-scheme.html
In June 2019, the FBI, Public Corruption Unit, posted a notification of an ongoing corruption probe and provided a tip-line for leads related to bribery and/or corruption of public officials. This probe is connected to the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers have provided to Puerto Rico for recovery after hurricane Maria (2017).
You do know who runs the FBI right?
A Trump endorser for 2020 election was just punished for something the Uniparty is actually doing.
Pelosi again. I’m shocked.
I’m thinking that the Dim crews went to PR to make sure that their laundered fed $$ coming back to them were maintained.
Trumps revenge.
Anyone surprised?
Seriously folks. It is becoming a prerequisite when running for office in the Democrat Party that you have a criminal record or propensities for same. There has to be something geneticaly wrong with DemocRATS that they vote and choose criminals to represent them. What say you????
Puerto Rico just another money laundering operation.
I am shocked, shocked I tell ya.
This is what the democrats would like to see going on in all 50 states. They probably figure they can normalize is like some of the crazy stuff they are trying to normalize. like pedophilia !
We need to cut PR loose. They have no business as a US territory/protectorate/anything at all.
The only thing is that China has already bought a lot of PR real estate through shell companies, but they could create a war base in PR again.
There is the “wise” Latina who actually is a dope. There is the “blonde” Latina here who is a corrupt piece of Trailer Trash.
Both are Democrats. What a shock. Maybe they are related.
NOT DEMOCRATS? Then explain this:
“This open corruption was also why Nancy Pelosi took the entire Democrat caucus to Puerto Rico in January 2019 for a vacation with her favorite lobbyists. Everyone in/around PR knows this level of corruption is the norm, not the exception.”
I always felt that “former”Chicago Congressman, Luis Gutierrez, of Puerto Rican descent was right in the middle of all that corruption.
No room for 51 stars.
Staggering the sum of taxpayers $$$ that went from PR back to NY Democrats. With Democrats, it’s always the cronyism and grift.
Yeah she’s awful but can we trade her for the South Carolina GOPe contingent of Timid Tim Scott, Limp Wrist Lyndsey Graham, Nuke Em Nikki, and No Talent Nancy Mace?
Shocked I tell you, just shocked. 😉
Per usual, President Trump was right on the money.
400+ years of PR corruption and being somebody’s headache
PR needs to be kicked out of the US. It is just a corrupt welfare nation of moochers and a few guaranteed Dem house seats. Also Puerto Ricans are the most hardcore blue voters around (probably because they often times using welfare at high rates). Cubans and Dominicans are very different. They vote red at much higher rates and they are much more successful and they use a lot less welfare on average. I live in Florida and most Puerto Ricans I meet are extreme democrats and many of them are pot heads that do not work and live on welfare. PRs with the views of AOC and Sotomayer are not an outlier, but a majority among Puerto Ricans. The Puerto Ricans from PR that I meet are cool people, but these are the facts about a big percent of them.
No way should we ever allow PR to be a state.
PR culturally is part of Latin America.
This would have tremendous downsides with little benefit. It would immediately become dependent on the us (refrained from saying parasite).
Her good point is she had a “homophobic cabinet”!
I read it wrong:
“Wanda Vazquez Garced replaced Ricardo Rosselló after he was accused of racism and having a homophobic cabinet.”
That was Ricardo’s good point.