10/19/2021- 9:27 p.m.
Washington— The Justice Department on Tuesday charged a Republican congressman from Nebraska with lying to the FBI during a campaign finance investigation, a claim the legislature vowed to fight.
The Justice Department accused the legislator, Representative Jeff Fortenberry, of lying twice to the FBI about whether he knew he had received illegal campaign donations, including during a government interview that his attorney attended, according to the federal indictment.
While waiting for the department to plan to charge him, Mr. Fortenberry said in a video posted online Tuesday morning that FBI agents unexpectedly visited his home two years ago to question him about the possibility that he had received illegal campaign donations.
“I told them what I knew and what I understood,” Mr Fortenberry said.
“They have accused me of lying to them and are accusing me of this.” He called the possibility of criminal charges shocking and astonishing.
The indictment stems from a separate federal investigation into Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese Nigerian billionaire charged with conspiracy to make illegal campaign contributions to US politicians in exchange for access to them.
Federal law prohibits foreign citizens from contributing to U.S. election campaigns.
Chagoury admitted this year that he gave about $180,000 to four candidates between June 2012 and March 2016. He said he had used others, including Toufic Joseph Baaklini, a Washington lobbyist, to mask his donations.
Mr. Fortenberry, who served in Congress for 15 years, was one of those politicians.
He does not dispute that the donations, ultimately from Mr Chagoury, were illegal.
“Five and a half years ago, a person from abroad illegally moved money into my campaign,” Mr Fortenberry said in his video. “I knew nothing about this.”
Mr. Fortenberry is not accused of aiding Mr. Chagoury in his plan. Instead, prosecutors are looking to see if the congressman lied when they asked him in 2019 if he knew some contributions to his 2016 campaign had been made illegally.
The government said in court files that in the spring of 2018, one of Mr. Fortenberry’s fundraisers told Congress that he funneled $30,000 from Mr. Baaklini to the 2016 re-election event, but that the money “probably came from Gilbert Chagoury.”
The fundraiser, referred to as Individual H in the indictment, was allegedly collaborating with police when he spoke to Mr Fortenberry, according to the indictment.
Despite the fact that the donations were most likely illegal, Mr. Fortenberry failed to take appropriate action, such as filing an amended report with the Federal Elections Commission or refunding the contributions, the indictment said.
It was only after the Justice Department contacted him in July 2019 that Mr Fortenberrry returned the contributions, according to the document.
In his first interview with the FBI in 2019, Mr. Fortenberry said the people who contributed during his 2016 fundraiser had all been made public and he was not aware of any contributions from foreign citizens, according to the indictment.
During a subsequent interview at the office of Mr. Fortenberry’s attorney, the Justice Department claimed that Mr. Fortenberry “falsely stated that during the 2018 phone call he was not told by Individual H that Baaklini had given Individual H $30,000 in cash. in his campaign, and that “he was not aware of an illegal donation” during the fundraiser.
Mr. Fortenberry told investigators he ended the 2018 conversation with the cooperating government witness after that person made a “concerned remark”, although the indictment alleged that the witness “repeatedly and explicitly” described illegal contributions and referred to an illegal contribution from a foreigner.“We will fight these charges,” Mr Fortenberry said in his video. “I told them what I knew.”
In any case, he has been aware of the possible charges in recent weeks; he used the investigation’s existence this month to raise money for a legal protection fund.
That campaign was first reported by Axios.Prosecutors said in court documents that Mr. Chagoury was advised to donate to “politicians from less populous states because the contribution would be more noticeable to the politician and thereby promote greater donor access.”Mr Chagoury entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Ministry of Justice in 2019.
Under that agreement, he admitted that he had committed wrongdoing. The department can use those recordings for other purposes. He also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation.
In return, the US government agreed to drop the charges. The case was finally resolved this year, when Mr. Chagoury paid a $1.8 million fine.
