The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has refiled simmering charges against former U.S. congressman Jeffrey Fortenberry that bordered on “falsifying and concealing” campaign donations received from Nigerian-Lebanese businessman Gilbert Chagoury, a close associate of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.
The U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) prohibits federal office seekers from accepting donations from foreigners and mandates them to disclose names and addresses of donors who give more than $50, a law that the FBI said Mr Fortenberry clearly violated.
The FEC also forbids conduit contributions to stop individuals and entities from donating to election campaigns using other people’s names.
In the event that the FEC was previously furnished with wrong information, the election law allows politicians to disclose accurate information, including the source of funds, in amended reports.
The former U.S. lawmaker was previously charged in California, but the case was thrown out because the venue was not appropriate, leading the FBI to bring a fresh indictment against him in Washington, D.C., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in April.
The FBI informant who collected the $30,000 from Mr Chagoury —previously convicted and pardoned in Switzerland over money laundering charges — then distributed it to different people, who in turn contributed it to Mr Fortenberry’s campaign.
The contribution was made at a fundraiser for Mr Fortenberry’s campaign outside Los Angeles in 2016, but the lawmaker did not disclose the contribution in federal election filings.
Mr Fortenberry should not have taken the money from Mr Chagoury because Mr Chagoury is a Nigerian-Lebanese based in Paris, and it is illegal to receive campaign contributions from a foreigner.
Two years later, precisely in 2018, Mr Fortenberry called the FBI informant about hosting another fundraiser in Los Angeles, and the informant told him “on multiple occasions” about the illegal source of the 2016, fundraiser, but the congressman did nothing.
Mr Fortenberry did not bother to file an amended report to disclose the illicit donations and still insisted he did not know about the funds in an interview with federal investigators a year later.
The FBI is not charging Mr Fortenberry for collecting the money, which happened in 2016, but for lying about having collected it when he was interviewed by agents in 2019.
He denied knowledge of the donations from Mr Chagoury and said he would have been “horrified” to learn money raised from the fundraiser was illegal even though he was clearly told by the informant in the 2018 phone call.
He “misleadingly” told federal agents that he ended the 2018 phone call after hearing a “concerning comment” from the other end of the phone.
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The former congressman, in March 2019, according to the indictment, “made false and misleading statements after being advised it was a crime to lie to the federal government” when he was asked for a clarification on donations and donors from the 2016 fundraiser.
Mr Fortenberry has already hired lawyers to fight the charges on his behalf. He resigned from the House of Representatives in March 2022 after he was initially charged in California.
A spokesman for Mr Chagoury declined comments to Peoples Gazette over the matter.
