Moran’s Corruption

SPECIAL REPORT: Jim Moran’s corruption

PMA Group
PMA Group was a multi-million dollar lobbying firm founded by lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti. In November 2008, PMA Group’s offices were raided by the FBI for suspected involvement in “pay-to-play” schemes, where PMA Group would give campaign contributions to selected House members in exchange for earmarks for PMA’s clients. One of the House members involved is no other than Jim Moran, who received $177,700 from PMA Group and its employees and doled out millions of taxpayer dollars in earmarks to PMA in exchange. (PMA isn’t the only organization Moran has engaged in pay-to-play schemes with.)

Magliocchetti was convicted of making illegal campaign contributions and sentenced to two years in prison, but it seems no one has talked about the unbelievable corruption Jim Moran has practiced. So we at RetireJimMoran.com have covered this scandal extensively and put together this special page for all our coverage of the scandals.

May 2010: Berry Campaign Releases Analysis of Moran’s Pay-to-Play Corrupt Campaign Financing

May 2010: Moran Could Face DOJ Investigation over “Pay-to-Play” Earmark Scandals

June 2010: Is Jim Moran the most corrupt member of the House?

August 2010: UPDATE: PMA Group founder indicted

September 2010: Jim Moran: It’s time to come clean

Link to this story: http://retirejimmoran.com/corruption-2/#PMA

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Insider trading
In November 2011, a scandal erupted when author Peter Schweizer documented how members of Congress, including Jim Moran, attended a closed-door briefing on September 16, 2008, with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who told them a financial crisis was about to hit. The very next day, September 17th, multimillionaire Jim Moran dumped over 90 stocks he owned, helping him avoid big losses while regular citizens were losing huge amounts of money.

November 2011: Moran’s insider trading exposed

Link to this story: http://retirejimmoran.com/corruption-2/#insidertrading

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Rigging the ballot
In 2012, Moran got a Democratic primary challenger named Bruce Shuttleworth. In April, the state Democratic Party, whose chairman is Brian Moran, Jim Moran’s brother, announced that Shuttleworth had failed to qualify for the ballot, claiming he fell 17 signatures short of the 1,000 petition signature requirement to get onto the ballot. The party said Shuttleworth submitted 1,823 signatures, but only half of them, 983, were valid. The Shuttleworth campaign cried foul, and filed a federal lawsuit against the state Democratic Party and the 8th District Democratic Committee, saying hundreds of perfectly valid signatures were omitted. Those familiar with the ballot petition process know that unless the campaign is a total joke, it’s virtually impossible for half of the signatures to be declared invalid. The validation of signatures is at the discretion of the chair of the 8th District Democratic Committee, Margo Homer. Literally the same day that Shuttleworth filed his lawsuit, the party changed course and announced Shuttleworth would be on the ballot – without providing any explanation whatsoever. It appears that the party was afraid that the lawsuit would enter the discovery phase where Shuttleworth’s lawyers could legally obtain evidence from Moran and the Democrats, including all potential communication between Moran, the 8th District Democrats, and the state party. They must have been afraid of that – who knows what kind of emails are out there. It’s clear that Moran tried to cheat to kick his opponent off the ballot, but luckily for our democracy, Shuttleworth stood up against the Moran machine. We’ll never know exactly what happened, but it’s enough to make anyone sick.

March 2012: Moran gets a primary challenger

April 9, 2012: DEVELOPING: Did Jim Moran’s goon squad try to thwart Bruce Shuttleworth?

April 9, 2012: BREAKING: Shuttleworth WILL be on primary ballot

April 10, 2012: What happened?

April 16, 2012: 8th District Dems’ website still endorses Moran

April 20, 2012: Democracy? What’s that?

June 2012: Where’s the buzz?

Link to this story: http://retirejimmoran.com/corruption-2/#ballot