{"id":30747,"date":"2017-12-18T13:06:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T21:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=30747"},"modified":"2017-12-18T13:06:45","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T21:06:45","slug":"the-corker-kickback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/18\/the-corker-kickback\/","title":{"rendered":"The Corker Kickback"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I learned on Friday that Senator Bob Corker had flipped on the Republican Tax Scam, I wondered why.  He had said that he would not support a tax bill that added a penny to the debt.  $1 trillion plus is a lot of pennies.  That is in character for him, because he has been a deficit hawk throughout his career.  Trump could not threaten him, because he retires in January.  It just made no sense to me at all… until now.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"1218bob-corker\"<\/p>\n

Remember those five minutes when Republican Senator Bob Corker tried to position himself as the principled conservative opposition to Donald Trump? That ended this week, when the GOP bribed Corker into voting for his tax scam bill by adding a provision that benefitted him financially<\/strong>. It turns out Corker is nothing more than a financially corrupt conservative who happens to personally dislike Trump. Now it turns out Corker could be in actual legal trouble for his vote.<\/p>\n

Corker, who is set to retire from the Senate in about a year, faced immediate blowback when it was revealed that he changed his vote to \u201cyes\u201d after the Republican Party made a change to the bill which sharply boosted Corker\u2019s own personal financial prospects. There has been some debate in legal circles as to whether this qualifies an actual crime under the law, or merely a moral crime. But we may be about to find out \u2013 and Corker may be far from the only one facing potential reckoning.<\/p>\n

The current Republican-controlled Congress naturally won\u2019t investigate Bob Corker for any laws he may have broken in the name of voting for their corrupt tax bill. However, with Corker set to become a private citizen at the end of 2018, he could theoretically be prosecuted like anyone else who has committed financial fraud. If it can be demonstrated that he changed his vote specifically because he was offered a provision whose primary purpose was to personally enrich him, it could be categorized as a \u201ckickback\u201d or essentially a bribe<\/strong>…  [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <The Palmer Report<\/a>><\/font><\/p>\n

I disagree with the author about prosecuting Corker, because even when intent is obvious as it is here, proving it to a legal certainty is a virtually impossible task.<\/font><\/p>\n

Amy Goodman covered the story<\/a>, including Corker’s absurd protestations.<\/font><\/p>\n