By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Medicare fraud, which helps zap government funding for healthcare, was at front center on Wednesday when the Justice Department announced a nationwide crackdown that resulted in charges against 91 people who were involved in roughly $295 million in false billings. Authorities said in Miami alone, 45 people—including a doctor and a…
By David G. Savage Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans have been upset at the management at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which authorized a botched sting operation near the Mexican border that put guns in the hands of drug criminals. But Republican leaders, responding to complaints from gun-rights lobbyists, have…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Sometimes the Secret Service acts like over-protective parents when it comes to its protectees. Vice President Joe Biden complains in the October issue of Car and Driver Magazine that the Secret Service won’t let him drive around town in his beloved 1967 green Corvette. “The Secret Service won’t let me drive…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com For those who like to vent about the greed of bankers, here’s more ammunition: Meet Gary Foster, the vice president in Citigroup, Inc.’s treasury finance department. Foster pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn to bank fraud involving the theft of more than $22 million from Citigroup between September 2003…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The Justice Department is transferring two controversial weapons cases and a murder case out of Phoenix, news that comes after Phoenix’s U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke abruptly resigned late last month, CBS News reports. “The Department of Justice is giving a no-confidence vote to the US Attorney’s office in Arizona,” one…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Ex-Senator and two-time presidential candidate John Edwards, whose public image quickly turned to mud after news of his affair surfaced while his wife was dying of cancer, wants the criminal charges against him dismissed. Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports that Edward’s high-powered attorneys Abbe Lowell, Jim Cooney and Wade Smith filed a…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com A Maryland scientist busted in an FBI sting in 2009 for attempting to spy for Israel, pleaded guilty Wednesday in D.C. federal court to one count of attempted espionage, the Associated Press reported. Stewart D. Nozette, 54, was charged in 2009 with giving sensitive government information to an undercover FBI agent…
