" />
« “No Fly Rule” Thwarting Terrorists Posing as Infants
If Barbara Boxer’s Hot Air Production Was An Energy Source, The Problem Would Be Solved »

Many Democrats Received Funds From Law Firm Targeted By Grand Jury

Partners and staff of renegade law firm Milberg Weiss, under investigation by federal prosecutors, have been major contributors to a number of Democratic candidates. If guilty, that means money earned fraudulently by the law firm flowed directly to those candidates’ campaigns.

We believe Independent Sources is first with this story of the links between the troubled law firm and key Democrats.

In a post yesterday, Fraud-Tainted Law Firm Is #1 Source of Law Biz Contributions To Barbara Boxer, we wrote about the expanding federal criminal probe of Milberg Weiss. According to published reports, three former partners of the firm, notorious for its shareholder class action suits against companies with falling stock prices, face indictment for conspiracy.

But Boxer is only the sixth largest recipient of funds tainted by the firm’s illicit activities. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is #1, receiving over $50k from the firm and / or its affiliates during the 2001-2004 election cycles. John Kerry and John Edwards are high on the list as well.

Here are the top 15:

Rank Contribution Contributor
1 $50,750 Schumer, Charles E
2 $50,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte
3 $41,900 Kerry, John
4 $37,500 DNC Services Corp
5 $32,250 Edwards, John
6 $31,500 Boxer, Barbara
7 $28,315 Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte (plus #10?)
8 $26,000 Nelson, Bill
9 $20,400 Blue, Daniel Jr
10 $20,000 DCCC/Non-Federal Account 5 (same as #7?)
11 $20,000 Democratic Executive Cmte of Florida
12 $17,500 Gephardt, Richard A
13 $15,250 Feingold, Russell D
14 $15,000 Biden, Joseph R Jr
15 $14,999 New Jersey Democratic State Cmte

Source: Independent Sources analysis of data from OpenSecrets.org. You can download a detailed spreadsheet we made by right-clicking on these words and choosing “save file to desktop” or the equivalent.

If the firm commited fraud, or worse, in the process of collecting its fees, then distributed those ill-gotten gains to the firm’s partners (or employees, as bonuses), any contributions they made are tainted.

We ask Senator Schumer et al the same question we want Barbara Boxer to answer: if Milberg Weiss or any of its partners are indicted, will they return the tainted contributions? Or better yet, get them back to the shareholders of the companies Milberg Weiss shook down?

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Share this post! These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • del.icio.us
  • digg
  • Fark
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • Spurl
  • YahooMyWeb
  • SphereIt
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2005 at 12:42 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Nemesises ... Nemesi?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Similar Independent Sources posts:

Comments are below the ad.


3 Responses to “Many Democrats Received Funds From Law Firm Targeted By Grand Jury”

  1. 1
    Overlawyered Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 4:55 am

    Milberg’s donations The class action firm, now under investigation (see Jun. 28), has been generous to politicos over the years. (Independent Sources, Aug. 16 ).

  2. 2
    The Blue State Conservatives: August 2005 Archives Says:
    January 17th, 2006 at 2:01 pm

    […] he firm was the fourth-largest contributor to Barbara Boxer. Today we learned that is just the tip of the iceberg. New York Senator Charles Schumer tops […]

  3. 3
    Area 417 Says:
    March 18th, 2007 at 4:43 am

    Independent Sources