bribery Archives

Ted Cruz’s Father Confessed to Bribery

The Texas senator credits his father with shaping his views on immigration, and talks about following the rules: ”In my opinion, if we allow those who are here illegally to be put on a path to citizenship, that is incredibly unfair to those who follow the rules.” But Raphael Cruz acknowledged on NPR that he bribed a Batista official to get out of Cuba.

“I came to this country legally,” Cruz’s father says. “I came here with a legal visa, and … every step of the way, I have been here legally.”

In an interview near his home outside Dallas, the elder Cruz says that as a teenager, he fought alongside Fidel Castro’s forces to overthrow Cuba’s U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista. He was caught by Batista’s forces, he says, and jailed and beaten before being released. It was 1957, and Cruz decided to get out of Cuba by applying to the University of Texas. Upon being admitted, he adds, he got a four-year student visa at the U.S. Consulate in Havana.

“Then the only other thing that I needed was an exit permit from the Batista government,” Cruz recalls. “A friend of the family, a lawyer friend of my father, basically bribed a Batista official to stamp my passport with an exit permit.”

Republican Big-Time Donor Sheldon Adelson Admits To Possible Bribery

Sheldon Adelson was a heavy donor to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He really wanted Romney to win. He held fundraisers and even traveled overseas with the Republican candidate. At one point in the campaign, Adelson bragged that he would donate as much as $100 million dollars to make sure that Romney win the election.

Now we know why. Imagine if Romney had won. Sheldon Adelson would have definitely had a say in a Romney administration and could have possibly been in charge of the government department now investigating him. Imagine that!

The Las Vegas Sands Corporation, an international gambling empire controlled by the billionaire Sheldon G. Adelson, has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it likely violated a federal law against bribing foreign officials.

In its annual regulatory report, filed with the commission on Friday, the Sands reported that its audit committee and independent accountants had determined that “there were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The disclosure comes amid an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the company’s business activities in China.

It is the company’s first public acknowledgment of possible wrongdoing. Ron Reese, a spokesman for the Sands, declined to comment further.

The company’s activities in mainland China, including an attempt to set up a trade center in Beijing and create a sponsored basketball team, as well as tens of millions of dollars in payments the Sands made through a Chinese intermediary, had become a focus of the federal investigation, according to reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in August.

In its filing, the Sands said that it did not believe the findings would have material impact on its financial statements, or that they warranted revisions in its past statements. The company said that it was too early to determine whether the investigation would result in any losses. “The company is cooperating with all investigations,” the statement said.