Philly’s longtime Democratic US Representative Bob Brady and been under a cloud of suspicion for months since reports first broke of a February 2012 payment to coax a political rival into dropping out of the race.
Now new federal documents have come to light with new details about the investigation of Brady, who has chaired the local Democratic Party since 1986.
It was reported earlier this year that Brady in 2012 gave $90,000 in campaign funds to potential political rival and former municipal court judge Jimmie Moore, who in return agreed to drop out of the race for Brady’s seat in Congress before the primary. (Moore has already pleaded guilty to his role in the alleged conspiracy).
Brady has declined to comment on the case, although he recently told Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky the charges were “total bull.”
The latest documents, from a federal warrant, were posted on Twitter by a terrorism expert who later said he “stumbled” on them while searching federal court records online.
“A sitting member of Congress is being investigated by the FBI for false statements, conspiracy, and campaign fraud,” Seamus Hughes wrote on Twitter. “They got a search warrant for his email and believe he’s lying.”
The documents indicate that the FBI is investigating Brady for the crimes mentioned by Hughes, and state that Brady’s email, bobcongress@aol.com, “is likely to contain evidence of these crimes.”
Two of Brady’s former aides, Donald Jones, 62, and Kenneth Smukler, 57, were indicted in October on charges of making false statements to the Federal Election Commission.
Moore pled guilty Oct. 2 to the same charges. He was accused of having “used false invoices to generate a paper trail” that would make the payment look like a legitimate payment in return for political polling services.
Read the warrant for Brady’s email here.
