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GOP Rep. Jeff Fortenberry charged with lying to FBI about campaign contributions

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., was charged on Tuesday with mendacity to the FBI about contributions to his 2016 re-election marketing campaign to him from a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Fortenberry, 60, on one depend of “scheming to falsify and conceal materials information” and two counts of mendacity to federal investigators, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Central District of California mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday. Every cost carries a statutory most penalty of 5 years in federal jail.

Prosecutors allege that Fortenberry “repeatedly lied to and misled authorities” throughout a federal investigation into unlawful marketing campaign contributions made by Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-Nigerian businessman who’s banned by federal legislation from contributing to any U.S. elections. Chagoury allegedly organized for a $30,000 contribution to Fortenberry’s re-election marketing campaign throughout a 2016 fundraiser held in Los Angeles.

Knowingly making false statements to a federal agent throughout an investigation is a felony. It is also a felony to make use of conduits, as prosecutors allege on this case, to disguise the supply of marketing campaign contributions.

The indictment got here a day after the nine-term Republican introduced in a YouTube video despatched to supporters on Monday night that he anticipated to be indicted and proclaimed his innocence.

“We are going to combat these prices,” he mentioned within the video along with his spouse and their canine. “I didn’t deceive them. I instructed them what I knew. However we’d like your assist.”

Prosecutors mentioned Chagoury entered right into a deferred prosecution settlement with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in 2019 wherein he admitted funneling roughly $180,000 to 4 totally different political candidates. Chagoury agreed to pay a $1.8 million high quality and cooperate with federal authorities.

An unnamed informant supplied info on Fortenberry’s contributions, prosecutors mentioned, and realized over the course of the investigation that Fortenberry “knowingly and willfully falsified, hid, and coated up by trick, scheme, and system materials information” in regards to the unlawful marketing campaign contributions to federal officers.

Fortenberry is predicted to seem for an arraignment in federal court docket on Oct. 20 in Los Angeles.

Andrew Blankstein contributed.

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