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It's generally difficult to keep track of the alleged misdeeds of every high-profile campaign donor, but it's fair to say Sheldon Adelson is not just another contributor who occasionally writes sizable checks. Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate, reportedly spent close to $150 million -- just in the 2012 cycle -- to elect Republicans up and down the ticket.
It's a good thing he has plenty of money remaining to hire some good attorneys to represent his company.
The Las Vegas casino company headed by high-profile Republican donor and billionaire Sheldon Adelson said it probably violated a federal law that prohibits the bribery of foreign government officials.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. said its auditors found that "there were likely violations" of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars Americans from bribing foreign officials to secure an advantage. The disclosure was made in a filing Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The apparent violations were related to business deals in China headed by company officials no longer with the firm, according to the Wall Street Journal, which quoted an unnamed source familiar with the matter.
To be sure, this is not a new story -- allegations involving Sheldon's company and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act surfaced years ago, and the company has been the subject of ongoing investigations from the SEC and the FBI.
But Sands' concession that it "likely" violated "the books and records and internal controls provisions" of the international anti-bribery law is new.
The New York Times report fleshed out the background for those who need a refresher.
Mr. Adelson began his push into China over a decade ago, after the authorities began offering a limited number of gambling licenses in Macau, a semiautonomous archipelago in the Pearl River Delta that is the only place in the country where casino gambling is legal.
But as with many lucrative business spheres in China, the gambling industry on Macau is laced with corruption. Companies must rely on the good will of Chinese officials to secure licenses and contracts. Officials control even the flow of visitors, many of whom come on government-run junkets from the mainland.
As he maneuvered to enter Macau's gambling market, Mr. Adelson, who is well known in the United States for his financial and political clout, became enmeshed in often intertwining political and business dealings. At one point he reportedly intervened on behalf of the Chinese government to help stall a House resolution condemning the country's bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics on the basis of its human rights record.
Also keep in mind, a man by the name of Steven Jacobs led Sands' operations in Macau until he was fired in 2010, at which point he began dishing quite a bit of alleged dirt -- accusing Adelson's company of extensive foreign corruption.
The impact on the Republican Party, which relied heavily on Adelson's generosity last year, is unclear, but it can't be helpful to have the party's biggest donor caught up in this kind of controversy.
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Thinking about what we are learning from rich bastards. Perhaps We the People need to be taking a different and good look at the rich bastard’s lessons. Rich bastards teach people to lie, deceive, cheat, steal, and murder. So if we are to really learn something from rich bastards, it surprisingly looks like we have to go to their homes and lie, deceive, cheat, steal, and murder them, since that is the lesson taught. These rich bastards go and do all these things and don’t even have to pay a price for their actions. Rich bastards create wars, ruin economies, pollute the environment, steal huge amounts of money from the government, murder people, etc and all for the sake of huge profits as they use the excuse that they create jobs. Hardly any rich bastard has ever really paid for the crimes they have committed, but will boast, demand and push that everybody else has to follow these set of laws and rules. I would have to ask why should we, when rich bastards don't even do it? The rich bastards are even greedy enough they would even take what really does help everybody else Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid at the excuse everybody else is the free loaders and need to work as slave labor. Where is the justice for the American people? When do the American people get justice? And why should we even bother to follow these laws and rules, when rich bastards don’t even do it, except to use these so-called laws and rules to screw everybody else over? If you want people to follow these laws and rules, then you had better be dang sure even the rich bastards especially follow it or else no one will. And so far, rich bastards have not followed anything, except their own selfish interests.
Ah, but the usual suspects will almost certainly be along with flim-flam "arguments" about how Adelson is a "victim" of "liberal persecution" or how "both sides do it" or suchlike hogwash.
Probably, EntropyRules, but still just got to ask.
"Bloody instructions being taught return to plague the inventor." (Macbeth)
A corrupt republican...
in other news, dog bites man....
Really? It's just come out that one can get entrance to the White House for a certain amount of money, and you all are going to ding Adelson for doing business as dictated by the Chinese? As always, IOKIYAD. Heh.
In that case Adelson bought scalped tickets that were written in Crayon
Oh Shooter, forgive me. How could I have forgotten that you fully support a casino mogul who made his money in communist China and is trying to buy his way to even more tax breaks.
I'll try to do better, really I will!
He'll buy his way out of it. Duh
I think he was relying on the election of a Republican in 2012 to coax the Justice Department to look the other way.
Remember, he was backing Newt Gingrich, giving him millions of dollars for this campaign. Gingrich was looped into the Tom DeLay/Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, which featured protection of a garment industry scion in the Marianas Islands. That factory owner was in effect enslaving his workers and then putting a Made in America label on the clothes. Watch the movie Casino Jack and the United States of Money for a more complete explanation.
Now Adelson has to "go it alone" because his boys lost. I'll be following this story with great interest.
This story was out there last year for those paying close attention, making it crystal-clear why Adelson was spending so much money in an attempt to get his own politicians elected.
Now the election is finished, most of Adelson's horses lost the race, and I, for one, would love to see Sheldon Adelson spend some time in the Pen.
Don't hold your breath. We still have the golden rule "he who has the gold rules".
While bribing foreign officials is certainly illegal and immoral, Adelson's political involvement in the U.S. raises a different specter. It's one thing if he greased the palms of a few corrupt Chinese officials. It's quite another if the quid-pro-quo involved not just payments but the promise of influence on American officials to the benefit of China and its government. That's much harder to prove, and not necessarily linked to the recent admission.
It sounds like they are essentially admitting that there probably were corrupt exchanges, but are placing the blame on the third parties they paid to handle the transactions and claiming that the parent company didn't know where the money was going and only violated the accounting restrictions requiring them to keep track of such things. That's exactly why the accounting provisions exist, to prevent that line of defense, so it really only serves as PR cover.
There's a reason why Adelson funneled $150 million into the 2012 campaign on behalf of Republicans, and it wasn't altruism. I'm reasonably certain he stands to lose many times that when the curtain is pulled back and the extent of his shadowy activity is exposed. Those donations were a pure business deal.
The Supreme Court considers that "free speech". And that's the tricky part. The line between free speech and corrupting influence is very fuzzy, and there are risks in pushing that line too far in either direction.
I think the sensible solution would be electoral reform that replaces private money with public, but that's tricky too, since you have questions of access and the dominance of the two major parties. This is a problem with no simple or perfect solution, but it's also a problem that demands that we do something, even though there is little political will within the government to even try.
We have to amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United and it must include clauses that stipulate: 1) Corporations or other groups are not people and only individual citizens are protected as persons and 2) that money is not speech.
Until and unless we get the money out of politics our democracy will belong to the highest bidder.
So there are really two issues we're talking about here. One is the money paid to Chinese officials to pave the way for his gambling operation in Macau and the other is campaign donation with the expectation of leniency or even avoiding prosecution in return for major contributions to selected candidates.
I think Adelson is admitting wrongdoing in Macau, but attempting to minimize his participation there. It's the attempt to influence the outcome of the U.S. election that bothers me more, if it was to gain protection from prosecution.
In the case of the Marianas factory-owner that I mentioned in 3.1, Jack Abramoff acted as a go-between to secure campaign donations from the owner in return for a promise from Tom DeLay to pigeon-hole any legislative action on the subject--in other words, to kill it in committee. Shockingly, DeLay believed that this selling-influence-to-the-highest-bidder scheme was a perfect example of the free market working just as it should.
Since Adelson's candidates didn't win, prosecuting him on influence-peddling charges would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. But this is the evil that has been introduced with Citizens United and the rise of the PAC monster.
And have the details of his astonishing bullying of Spanish authorities to build Eurovegas near Madrid emerged? To clear the air for some of you, this led to a regional govt. crisis that ended with the resignation of the President of the Regional Community of Madrid. In exchange for many law changes from everything from cigarette laws to work relations. Just to build a mega-casino.
No doubt he's an a$$ho'. I've been to Singapore twice, my wife has family there. They were small wheels once, and all I can say is that corruption is tradition. Of course Adelson didn't operate as a reformer and I hope he goes down. He'd rather be in the Israeli army, anyway.
Is citizens united and lobbying is a "legal" form of bribery?
Adelson's business interests - keeping the SEC and FBI at bay and the Chinese happy - had nothing at all to do with his massive support for Republican candidates. No, nothing at all. He's just a concerned citizen.
Now, of course, he's suffering the consequences of making the wrong bets. Oh well, karma's a bitch, mo-fker.
Too bad you weren't able to buy a president who could disappear this problem for you, eh Sheldon?
This is why Americans distrust. Sheldon Adelson, billionaire - there will be NO real justice dispensed, just a paltry fine. If "Justice" were actually dispensed in this country his tired tail would be sitting next to Bernie Madoff along with the CEO's Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, et.al that helped to cause the economic collapse that WE are still paying for! How dare US as Americans believe that WE and our way of life is so much more morally/economically superior to other nations when the richest amongst US get away with lying, stealing, cheating, murder, bribery, et.al! At least other people in other nations know that their politicians are corrupt and every now and again come out with their pitchforks & torches; while WE sit here just being angry and NOT protesting this nonsense!
Where are those people thumping on those bibles protesting the immorality of this nonsense?!
You ask "Where are those people thumping on those bibles protesting the immorality of this nonsense?!
The bible thumpers are being paid by these characters to direct their divine rage towards other forms of immorality like abortion, expanded health coverage, limits on gun ownership, etc.
Well, you knew the other shoe had to drop. Even a multi-billionaire (especially a Republican) doesn't spend $150M on an election unless there's something very tangible in it for him. This also applies to the Koch brothers (elimination of all environmental regulation) and Foster Friess (elimination of all business regulation) and countless other "donors" with "special needs." How awesome a Romney presidency would have been!
Will Adelson's casinos give 100 to 1 odds that nothing comes of this? They should, they stand to make a ton of money
My sister has a friend who lives in Las Vegas and she reports that Nevada stands to lose a lot from the sequester -- head start, housing assistance, etc. Because Nevada already has a lot of poor people, the state will miss these funds.
Why does Nevada have so many poor: the casinos attracted alot of immegrents, many no doubt illigal, who work as maids, waiters/waitesses, cashiers, etc. and probably plenty of prostitutes at the casinos. Instead of paying his workers living wages Adelson spends his profits trying to buy elections. Why can't he use his $150 million plus to help these people who make his money for him? By refusing to pay good wages and refusing to pay federal taxes, he expects the federal government, i.e. the American taxpayers, to support his workers while he bribes the Chinese. Why not keep your money at home Sheldon?
Having Romney on the news again. Oh yea sure Romney is such a nice, sweet, and honest man. That is why Romney had his head up Sheldon Adelson arse that the loss of oxygen affected his brain function. So who was kissing whose arse more there, Adelson or Romney? Do you actually think Romney is that honest and decent with all those things he has done, give me a break.
When in Vegas, always remember Adelson and Steve Wynn, who declared Obama has an anti-colonial side, whatever that actually is. Both run anti-union casino resorts, both casinos only cater to the uber-rich, and both casinos have the very worst pay scales for video poker. They are nice to walk through and use the bathroom, but those places get no love from my wallet, not a dime. Wynn steals tips from dealers and gives it to management, I am not making that up...
tweet of the day at Kos: "It's ironic that Sheldon Adelson only breached US law when he shifted to buying FOREIGN politicians."