- 5,891
- 12,009
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2016
cosmiccoffee9
I have a story about a big scandal in Belgium that'll likely surprise you and others here.
It involves credible accusations of bribery, corruption and lobbying on behalf of a foreign national. It doesn't sound that extraordinary until you find out who was the accused. It was our former Senate chairman, like McConnell's position. His name is Armand De Decker.
It gets worse from there.
The accusations stemmed from a law spearheaded by Senate chairman De Decker, who was very insistent on getting it passed.
His efforts were successful, and the law passed despite brewing controversy. The law in question was dubbed the 'friendly/amicable settlement law', translated literally. As absurd as this sounds, it allowed defendants in criminal cases to simply pay money to quash pending charges.
De Decker allegedly acted on behalf of one or more wealthy individuals from Kazachstan. One in particular was set to face charges in Belgium and virtually immediately after De Decker got the law passed, the wealthy Kazach paid a massive load of money to quash his charges before his case even really took off.
It was blatant bribery that took place in plain sight, but I really have no words for how absurd that law was to begin with.
The law was later ruled unconstitutional by one of our high courts. De Decker passed away before the charges against him were litigated but it was pretty obvious that he was exerting improper influence on the process of getting that law passed. Another set of key players pushing for the law was the diamond sector. Part of the law's text was actually written by attorneys representing the diamond sector, which often faces charges of money laundering etc.
Edit:
Another fun fact; a justice on one of our high courts, Jean-Paul Moerman, showed up in the Mueller investigation in connection with none other than Paul Manafort.
I'm not sure if you recall Manafort's involvement in the Hapsburg group but Manafort included Moerman, a sitting justice, on a list of potential recruits. It's not the first time this sitting justice has come under scrutiny. He has often faced accusations of lobbying on behalf of Azerbaijan's government. He went on trips to Azerbaijan, refused to disclose who was paying for his travels and lavishly praised the Azerbaijan government there. Such praise wasn't just restricted to his travels to the country, he did it over here as well. His defense was that he claimed this was a personal interest for him, nothing more and certainly not improper.
The fact that Manafort really considered recruiting this sitting high court justice to his secretive Hapsburg lobbying group says it all really. Evidently Moerman's notoriety had reached Manafort somehow.
that settlement law sounds like an American original...so you could settle a bribery charge in cash?
sometimes I feel like public representatives should be selected randomly from a pool of qualified citizens, national government seems to attract the people worst suited to any kind of control over their fellow man.
