Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Filed Amended Financial Disclosure Following DCNF Report

A co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus filed an amended financial disclosure report Friday revealing in 2017 his service on the board of a dark money nonprofit group dedicated to helping his caucus achieve its legislative goals. Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin filed the amended report one day after The Daily Caller News Foundation revealed he had omitted from his original disclosure his position on the board of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center (CPCC). Legal experts said Pocan could face civil and criminal penalties if he knowingly and willfully failed to disclose his position with the group from his financial disclosure. Pocan and his fellow progressive caucus co-chair, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, served on the board of the CPCC in 2017, according to the nonprofit’s 990 tax form from that year, the most recently available. But neither lawmaker disclosed their board position on their original 2017 financial disclosure statements, as required by the House Committee on Ethics. “These positions clearly were reportable. It seems pretty cut-and-dry to me,” a former general counsel to the National Republican Congressional Committee, Jessica Furst Johnson, told TheDCNF.

Jayapal, who was the first vice chair of the progressive caucus in 2017, has yet to file an amended financial report for that year to correct her omission, as Pocan did Friday. Her office did not return a request for comment asking if she intended to file an amended report. Furst Johson cautioned that it’s unlikely the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics will penalize Jayapal and Pocan for their omitting their CPCC board positions from their original 2017 financial disclosures. “Under the Ethics in Government Act, if it’s a knowing and willful failure to disclose, then they’re subject to penalties both civil and criminal,” Furst Johnson said. “There is a little bit of leeway that’s typically granted with respect to financial disclosures. The committee seems to give the benefit of the doubt that an omission was unintentional.” “But if it’s a knowing and willful violation, that’s certainly not the case,” Furst Johnson added. Pocan said at a February townhall the CPCC would be funding staffers to work for the progressive caucus, which experts previously told TheDCNF is a violation of congressional rules.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/04/29/progressive-caucus-finance-disclosure/

Americans Prepare First Lawsuits Against Corporations Using Stolen U.S. Property in Cuba

Americans who lost land during the 1959 Cuban Revolution will begin to file lawsuits against corporations profiting from their stolen property for the first time this week, a result of President Donald Trump choosing to allow U.S. citizens to exercise that right for the first time in history.

Americans have had the right to sue corporations that do business on property “nationalized” by Fidel Castro following his ascent to dictator of the island under Title III of the Libertad Act of 1996, commonly known as Helms-Burton after the nickname of the bill that preceded it. Every president in its existence before Trump, however, has blocked the implementation of the law, depriving Americans of legal recourse. The Trump administration announced this month it would no longer follow the trend and cease to stand in the way of justice for the Americans who lost their property.

Corporations operating in the United States and profiting from business with the repressive Castro regime have opposed the implementation of Helms-Burton for decades. The Cuban-American outlet Radio-TV Martí reported on Sunday that Carnival Cruises, the first U.S. company of its kind to send cruise ships to Cuba, would also be the first subject of a lawsuit under Helms-Burton. Carnival ships have used stolen ports currently operated by the Castro regime to dock their ships since 2016, when they began offering lavish voyages to Cuba after the administration of then-President Barack Obama reformed America’s foreign policy to be more favorable to the regime. Carnival was initially so eager to profit from the stolen property that it banned Cuban-Americans from the cruises to appease the Castro regime, a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Attorneys for Cuban-American neurosurgeon Javier García-Bengochea – the rightful owner of the Port of Santiago, which Carnival uses to dock its ships along with the port of Havana – said they will file the first Helms-Burton suit in the law’s history on Thursday morning in Miami. Nick Gutiérrez, an attorney working with the group helping the families who lost property in Cuba during the revolution, told Martí that the lawsuit against Carnival for profiting from using García-Bengochea’s property, which the Castro regime robbed from his family under threat of force in 1960, will be one of hundreds of such lawsuits.

“The one [lawsuit] for the Havana airport is coming, there are lawsuits against Spanish hotel chains in Cayo Coco, in Holguín, Varadero … there will be a good number of demands,” Gutiérrez said, referring to major tourist destinations across the island. He added that he believes many of these cases will not go to trial, as the corporations would prefer to settle and keep their role in using stolen property out of the spotlight.

García-Bengochea has been advocating for Washington to allow Helms-Burton lawsuits for years and discouraging companies from illegally using his property. In conversation with Breitbart News last year, as part of the “Don’t Aid Theft” campaign against business with the Castro regime, García-Bengochea warned that “everything in Cuba is stolen,” as the communist regime banned private ownership of property. “Any American venture – any venture involving anyone – is almost a necessarily involving stolen property,” he insisted.

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/04/29/americans-prepare-first-lawsuits-against-corporations-using-stolen-u-s-property-cuba/