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Oregon ‘first lady’ cops to green-card ‘marriage of convenience’ in exchange for $5G

 

 

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber got one hell of an October surprise, as his fiancée tearfully admitted Thursday to having a green-card marriage to an 18-year-old Ethiopian immigrant.
The stunning admission comes after an alternative newspaper first reported that Cylvia Hayes – who despite being engaged goes by the title “first lady” in the state – had been married, and divorced, three times before.
Two of those were known. But the Democratic governor to whom she’s engaged, and the public, apparently didn’t know about the third.
"This is the most painful part for me," she said, according to Oregon’s Fox 12. "John Kitzhaber deserved to know the history of the person he was forming a relationship with. The fact that I did not disclose this to him meant that he has learned about this in the most public and unpleasant way."
Wiping away tears at a Thursday news conference, Hayes said she accepted around $5,000 to marry the immigrant, Abraham Abraham, in 1997 so that he could remain in the United States.
"It was a marriage of convenience," Hayes said. "He needed help and I needed financial support."
Hayes said she was "ashamed and embarrassed," and did not tell the governor about the marriage until the Willamette Week newspaper began asking questions. She and Abraham have since divorced.
The Democratic governor has not publicly addressed his fiancee's secret marriage, but the issue could come up when he debates Republican state Rep. Dennis Richardson on Friday.
Hayes said she was "associating with the wrong people" while struggling to put herself through college when she agreed to the sham marriage. Hayes was twice divorced and just shy of her 30th birthday when she married the Ethiopian man.
Hayes said she and the Ethiopian man never lived together, met only a handful of times and have not had any contact since the divorce was finalized in 2002.
Kitzhaber, who was governor from 1995 until 2003, divorced his second wife, Sharon, shortly after leaving office. Kitzhaber made a political comeback in 2010. Though they have yet to marry, Kitzhaber refers to Hayes as the "first lady," and she has embraced the role of political spouse while continuing her work as an energy consultant.
A story in Willamette Week on Wednesday said that Hayes has used her title and her role in advising the governor to advance her private consulting business. Hayes said she'll step back from her work advising Kitzhaber for now.
Richardson, trying to gain traction before voters begin casting ballots next week in Oregon's all-mail election, has tried to shift attention to that story.
"It's clear from her past history that the first lady has had no qualms with breaking the law in order to make financial gains," said Meredith Glacken, a spokeswoman for Richardson.
Hayes said she's been cautious in trying to avoid conflicts of interest between her business and first lady work.

First Lady Messes Up Name of Candidate She's Campaigning For 7 Times: I'm Getting Old

What’s in a name? For Michelle Obama, a whole lot of confusion.
While campaigning in Des Moines, Iowa Friday for Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley, she referred to him multiple times as “Bailey” before she was corrected by someone shouting from the audience.
The flub came despite a huge array of signs in the hall where she was speaking, all spelling Braley’s name correctly.
The first lady also referred to Braley as a Marine Corps veteran, which he is not. Braley’s staff said she meant to refer to his late father, Byard Braley, a Marine who fought at Iwo Jima.
Braley’s opponent in the Senate race, Republican Joni Ernst, is a member of the Army reserve and National Guard.
After being corrected on her candidate’s name, Obama said contritely, “I’ve been travelling too much.” When she did pronounce it correctly, she drew a cheer from the audience.
It didn’t take long for web pranksters to capitalize on Obama’s error. Clicking on the website votebrucebailey.com immediately redirects the user to Ernst’s campaign site.

Dems returned $20G check to father of White House aide linked to prostitution scandal

The father of a White House advance team member connected to the Secret Service prostitution scandal was refunded a hefty Obama campaign donation, records show, around the same time additional details about that possible link were made public.
The $20,000 donation was made by Leslie Dach -- whose son Jonathan has been linked to the scandal -- on Sept. 19, 2012, to the Obama Victory Fund.
One day later, Leslie Dach had a meeting at the White House with a top presidential economic adviser, according to White House visitor logs. One day after that, the lead federal investigator into the Colombia prostitution scandal said for the first time that White House personnel may have been involved in the incident.
On Sept. 24, 2012, campaign finance records show, the Obama Victory Fund returned the $20,000 donation to Leslie Dach.
The chain of events might be coincidental, but nevertheless raises questions about Dach’s interactions with both the Obama administration and Democratic campaign officials.
The Federal Election Commission filing that listed the refund to Dach did not give a reason. But his attorney Richard Sauber told FoxNews.com in an email that the money was returned because Dach did not attend a fundraising event as planned -- and “so the check (he thought) was either returned or not cashed.”
Sauber said Dach could not recall the details of the event. It was a high time for fundraisers, less than two months before the presidential election. On the day the donation was dated, a star-studded Obama Victory Fund fundraiser – attended by Gwyneth Paltrow and other celebrities -- was held in London which guests paid $15,000 to attend, according to press reports at the time. It’s unclear if this is the event Dach’s lawyer says he missed.
Sauber also said the Sept. 20 meeting with Eugene Sperling, then director of the National Economic Council, was “unrelated” to the campaign contribution. At the time, Dach was working as lobbyist for Wal-Mart.
Dach has been a major donor to Democratic candidates since the 1990’s. He gave $28,500 in 2008 to Obama and the Democratic Party to shore up Obama’s election bid.
Records also show he gave $2,300 to Hillary Clinton before she lost the Democratic nomination to Obama and $1,000 for her New York Senate race in 2000. Other prominent Democratic recipients include: Bill Clinton ($1,000); Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy ($2,250); and former Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln ($3,800).
The Dach family has been in the spotlight after The Washington Post reported late Wednesday that on the trip where Secret Service agents were caught with prostitutes, a woman was registered to Jonathan Dach’s hotel room shortly after midnight one night. Dach was a member of the White House advance team on the trip, reportedly as a volunteer. 
The White House has denied that any member of their team was involved in inappropriate behavior and said previously that the volunteer was wrongly implicated based on inaccurate hotel records. The White House on Thursday stood by those claims. Sauber also said the allegations in the Post were “utterly and completely false.”

London mayor says security services monitoring 'thousands' of terror suspects

The mayor of London has disclosed that "thousands" of potential terror suspects are being monitored every day in the British capital, providing a broad glimpse of the threat of homegrown Islamic extremism against America's staunchest ally. 
Boris Johnson made the comments in an interview published in The Daily Telegraph Saturday, saying "In London we’re very very vigilant and very very concerned. Every day ... the security services are involved in thousands of operations."
British intelligence officials believe that approximately 500 British citizens have traveled to the Middle East to join the Islamic State terror group, commonly known as ISIS. However, Johnson's comments suggest that the terror threat in the U.K. goes beyond radicals returning to Britain. 
Of the "five or six hundred" who have joined ISIS, Johnson estimates that "we think a third, maybe more – maybe half – come from the London area. If and when they come back, we have a real job to deal with them."
British-born ISIS fighters have acquired a reputation for particular brutality, bolstered by a fighter known as "Jihadi John," who has appeared in videos depicting the beheadings of American hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff. 
Johnson's comments were published in the same week that four men were arrested by police in London on suspicion that they were in the early stages of planning an attack in the city. Last month, police in Australia arrested 15 people accused of plotting to attack and behead randomly selected civilians on the streets of the country's cities. 
In August, the U.K. raised its terrorist threat level to "severe" -- the second highest  -- as Prime Minister David Cameron warned that ISIS was planning attacks on the country. 
London is home to over 8 million people, over a million of whom are Muslims. The city acquired the nickname "Londonistan" during the 1990s due to the tolerance of various controversial Islamist groups by local and national authorities.