It just seems impossible to me.
Congressman Ami Bera, a smart physician, the former chief medical officer for Sacramento County, and a member of a tight-knit family and the son of wealthy and accomplished immigrants from India, received in 2010 and 2012 some 130 illegally laundered contributions to his campaign for Congress involving 90 people – all family and friends, who received illegal kick-backs for their contributions to Ami from his father, a retired 83 year-old engineer. Bera’s father has pleaded guilty to two counts of election fraud. The illegal money amounted to some $270,000 contributed by fake “straw” donors, to avoid the limits on individual contributions that is the keystone of the Federal Election Commission Act’s purpose to eliminate the influence of single large direct contributors to Federal elections. What is impossible to me is: how could Ami Bera NOT know, or have even an inkling, that 90 members of his family and friends, led by his own father, cheated in giving him all that money for his campaign? Having run for office myself in the past, and also being a member of a tight knit family that included an immigrant mother, it is absolutely unbelievable to me to that Ami Bera did not know of the scheme. If he did of course, he would be guilty of conspiracy to violate the Federal Election Commission Act. He’d probably have to resign his seat in Congress, which is one of the most hotly contested between Democrats and Republicans in our state.
Yet the Obama Administration’s U.S. Attorney’s office “turned up no evidence” that Ami Bera knew of the money laundering that helped him win two close elections. The same administration that sent conservative author Dinesh D’Souza to prison for reimbursing just a couple contributions of a college friend amounting to less than 10% of Bera’s illegal haul. Will Bera have to give the money back? Unlikely! Democrats don’t seek the same type of “election fraud” justice against other Democrats that they do of Republicans.
We really need some change in our state and nation.