Source:
Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents have arrested two big-time donors to former President Barack Obama.
According to The New York Times, two millionaire fugitive brothers from Ecuador, Roberto and William Isaías, were arrested late last week in Miami by immigration officials.
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The Isaías family has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into American political campaigns, including Obama’s campaign.
The two brothers, who are fugitives from Ecuador, and their family gave roughly $90,000 to help re-elect Obama to a second term in office during the 2012 presidential election.
Here’s more from the Times report:
The Isaías brothers, bankers vilified in Ecuador for increasing their wealth in the late 1990s just as their bank collapsed — wiping out tens of thousands of customers’ savings — were convicted of embezzlement by a court there in 2012. They were sentenced to prison terms in absentia, having arrived in South Florida almost a decade earlier.
The brothers have vehemently denied accusations that they looted their bank, and said that the Ecuadorean government had politicized the case and unfairly seized their assets. They are still battling in the courts to recover their properties at home.
Ecuador has estimated that the brothers cost the country $400 million, and has for years sought their extradition. At one point, even the American ambassador in Ecuador lobbied for their prompt return, accusing the men of financing a $2 million bribe to get Ecuador’s attorney general to drop the case.
As their criminal case heated up in Ecuador, the cash started flowing in the United States. The Isaías brothers’ relatives donated tens of thousands dollars to members of the United States Congress, and $90,000 to help re-elect President Barack Obama.
A year after the donation to the Obama campaign, the Department of Justice rejected Ecuador’s extradition request, saying it lacked sufficient proof.
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A 2014 piece from The New York Times details how the brothers made huge donations to Obama’s campaign and others:
The donations kept pouring in: hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to President Obama and more than a dozen members of Congress, carefully routed through the families of two wealthy brothers in Florida.
A year after their relatives gave $90,000 to help re-elect Mr. Obama, the administration rejected Ecuador’s extradition request for the men, fueling accusations that such donations were helping to keep the brothers and their families safely on American soil.
Donations from the relatives of criminal suspects have proved vexing before. In 2012, Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign said it would return more than $200,000 raised by relatives of a Mexican casino magnate who had fled charges in the United States and sought a pardon to return.
Quite ironic that ICE just arrested two major Obama donors while several Democrats in Congress are currently pushing for ICE to be abolished.
The Isaías are criminals and broke countless laws, and ICE is doing exactly what they should: deporting them.
