{"id":126197,"date":"2014-06-25T19:56:17","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T19:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=126197"},"modified":"2014-06-25T20:13:10","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T20:13:10","slug":"congress-grill-ex-im-bank-chairman-corruption-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/congress-grill-ex-im-bank-chairman-corruption-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress to Grill Ex-Im Bank Chairman Over Corruption Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, Fred Hochberg, chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank,\u00a0<a style=\"color: #bc0202;\" href=\"http:\/\/dailysignal.com\/2014\/06\/25\/ex-im-bank-go-microscope-house-financial-services-hearing\/\" target=\"_blank\">will be grilled\u00a0<\/a>by members of the House Financial Services Committee over charges of corruption and mismanagement at the 80-year old agency. His task to defend the agency appears formidable, especially with its charter coming up for renewal at the end of September.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday the\u00a0<em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0reported that four Ex-Im employees have either been suspended or fired over the last few months as a result of \u201cinvestigations into allegations of gifts and kickbacks.\u201d But that\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg. The Heritage Foundation reported on the same day that there have been at least 74 cases of \u201cintegrity\u201d investigations by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the agency, plus dozens of other cases of outright fraud that have been referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. Not bad for an agency that employs just 402 people.<\/p>\n<p>Hochberg\u2019s problems are compounded by the committee\u2019s chair, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who says that the agency deserves to have its charter withdrawn because of its reputation as a funnel for taxpayer dollars to large companies as a form of corporate welfare. In addition, the newly-minted Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, who replaced Eric Cantor in a surprise upset last week, has also weighed in against the agency, saying that the bank ought to be shut down its operations are \u201csomething that the private sector [is] able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Created by an executive order issued by then-President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, the Ex-Im Bank was established as an agency of the executive branch. Its task, allegedly, was to offer financing to assist in the export of American products and services where private financing wasn\u2019t available due to excessive credit risk. The agency\u2019s stated goal at inception was \u201cto aid in financing and to facilitate exports and imports and the exchange of commodities between the United States and other Nations or the agencies or nationals thereof.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/usnews\/congress\/item\/18563-congress-to-grill-ex-im-bank-chairman-over-corruption-charges\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, Fred Hochberg, chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank,\u00a0will be grilled\u00a0by members of the House Financial Services Committee over charges of corruption and mismanagement at the 80-year old agency. His task to defend the agency appears formidable, especially with its charter coming up for renewal at the end of September. On Tuesday the\u00a0Wall [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-126197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}