Obama, Pras
The feds indicted Pras Michel, a rapper for the group ‘The Fugees’ on Friday for funneling millions of dollars of foreign money to Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.
The Justice Department accused Mr. Michel of funneling foreign money to pro-Obama super PACs without disclosing the origins of the money, which was reportedly tied to Malaysian businessman, Jho Low.
Jho Low was indicted last year on conspiracy charges related to a scam bilking 1MBD of hundreds of millions of dollars, but will face additional charges along with Pras Michel – Low, however remains at large.
The Justice Department announced Pras Michel was hit with a four-count indictment including conspiracy to defraud the US and making foreign campaign contributions was unsealed Friday in the District of Columbia.
Via the DOJ:
According to the indictment, between June 2012 and November 2012, Low directed the transfer of approximately $21,600,000 from foreign entities and accounts to Michel for the purpose of funneling significant sums of money into the United States presidential election as purportedly legitimate contributions, all while concealing the true source of the money. To facilitate the excessive contributions and conceal their true source, Michel paid approximately $865,000 of the money received from Low to about 20 straw donors, or conduits, so that the straw donors could make donations in their names to a presidential joint fundraising committee. In addition, Michel personally directed more than $1 million of the money received from Low to an independent expenditure committee also involved in the presidential election in 2012.
The indictment also alleges that by funneling campaign contributions through straw donors, Michel caused a presidential joint fundraising committee to submit false reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), including a false amended report in June 2013. The committee’s reports were false because they identified the straw donors, rather than Low or Michel, as the true source of the contributions. In addition, the indictment alleges that by contributing more than $1 million of the money he received from Low to an independent expenditure committee, Michel also caused that committee to submit false reports to the FEC, insofar as those reports identified Michel as the source of the contributions when, in fact, it was Low. The indictment further alleges that in June 2015, Michel submitted a false declaration to the FEC in which he claimed that he had no reason to conceal the true source of his contributions to the independent expenditure committee in 2012, even though Michel knew that the true source of that money was Low and that Michel had funneled the foreign money into the election.
