Patrick Mcmahon
Congressman Bob Brady, a Pennsylvania Democrat, is now a target of an FBI search warrant around his alleged involvement in bribing his Democratic primary opponent $90,000 to drop out of the 2012 race for his seat.
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Search warrant applications made public confirm that Rep. Brady’s AOL email account is the subject of an FBI search warrant. In a statement of probable cause, the FBI makes the case that his email account is “likely” to contain evidence of numerous crimes related to knowingly violating campaign finance rules, including:
- conspiracy
- making false statements
- producing false records
- false campaign contribution reports
- violating limits on campaign contributions and expenditures
That warrant was granted, and investigators seized one disc of data from Rep. Brady’s email account. He has not been charged with a crime at this time, according to the Associated Press. An attorney for the Congressman said he had done nothing wrong and had willingly turned over his emails to authorities.
“The congressman has not been charged,” said attorney James Eisenhower. “We have not been informed that he’s even a target.”
Two people who worked on Rep. Bob Brady’s 2012 campaign, Ken Smukler and Donald Jones, were indicted last month for their alleged involvement in the bribe and cover up, according to the Daily Beast.
An aide for Jimmie Moore, Rep. Brady’s Democratic primary opponent, was also indicted; Carolyn Cavaness has already pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Federal Election Commission for her role in hiding the receipt of the $90,000 payoff.
It’s not clear if Cavaness’ plea deal includes further cooperation with prosecutors, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
If charged, Rep. Brady — who is a ranking member of the House Administrative Committee, which oversees elections — would be Philadelphia’s second prominent Democrat to see a federal court in less than a year. In December 2016, former Congressman Chaka Fattah was sentenced to ten years in prison for bribery, theft and corruption charges. It was one of the longest sentences ever imposed on a member of Congress, according to the Inquirer.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
