Friday, July 22, 2016

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde On Trial for Finance and Political Corruption

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

The arrogance of liberal leftists are a worldwide phenomenon.

Like pretty much every liberal leftist statist socialist collectivist puke, European lefties are a bunch of criminals, too.  It seems like corruption and statism go hand in hand.  In the case of International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, France's high court has ruled that she must stand for a 2008 arbitration ruling that handed 400 million euros to a politically-connected business magnate.

Lagarde, at the time, was the French finance minister.  Her crime, which she has denied committing, of course, involves corruption with tycoon Bernard Tapie.

She is accused of negligence in a case regarding Tapie.

Last December a special court ruled Lagarde should stand trial, but she appealed.  This week the appeal was rejected.

The accusations arose about the time Lagarde was grabbing the reins of the IMF. . . after her predecessor was accused of sexual misconduct. . . another leftist norm.

The penalty, should she be found to have been negligent in the case as a person invested with public authority, could be up to a year in prison and a 15,000 euro ($16,500) fine.

The case is part of a larger legal saga centering on Tapie, a flamboyant magnate and TV star who had sued French bank Credit Lyonnais for its handling of the sale of his majority stake in sportswear company Adidas in the mid-1990s. With Lagarde's approval, a private arbitration panel ruled that he should get 400 million euros in compensation, including interest.

The deal was seen by critics as a sign of a too-close relationship between magnates and the French political elite. Tapie was close to then-President Nicolas Sarkozy, Lagarde's boss.

In a separate part of the case, Tapie has been ordered to pay back the entire 400 million euros. An appeals decision is pending. He could also face a criminal trial on fraud charges, which would be separate from the Lagarde trial.

If Lagarde has the tendrils of corruption that are dug in as deep as Hillary Clinton's, she'll likely be accused of wrong-doing, found to have committed wrong-doing, but there won't be enough evidence to prosecute her to the full extent of the law, and she'll get a little tap on the wrist - and then will be given a step up in authority.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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