Jeff Fortenberry Served For Lying To The Feds And Corruption!

Republican lawmaker convicted of bribery and lying to the feds.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and QAnon leader Karen McCarthy (R-CA) are calling for a Nebraska Republican to resign or be expelled.

When the federal court found Rep. Karen Fortenberry (R-NE) guilty of accepting an illegal donation from a Nigerian businessman and lied to the feds, they knew they had enough evidence to convict him.

A close friend ratting him out. That friend said he was a middleman to help funnel $30,000 from a Nigerian-born billionaire to the lawmaker reelection campaign through straw donors.

He had to appear in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to hear witness testify against him.

Toufic Baaklini said he gotten the cash from the son of businessman Gilbert Chagoury. The money was then left inside an envelope in the car of a Los Angeles doctor to distribute to Fortenberry in the city.

The Omaha and Lincoln area lawmaker who served nine terms in the U.S. House denied he lied to federal authorities about illegal contributions but the feds already had the evidence. Baaklini was told to wear a wire and was told how to conduct the transactions to catch Fortenberry and his aides in the act.

McCarthy, the QAnon leader who is hoping to keep the pressure on President Joe Biden certainly don't want the subject to be on him and the Republican conference. He already is worried about Rep. Karen Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Karen Cawthorn (R-NC) and Rep. Idiot Karen Greene (R-GA) being distractions.

The charges carry five years for each conviction. He was convicted on three of the five charges.

Fortenberry who is a loyal member of Washed Up 45's circus. He earned the ire of the former president by joining the Democrats in establishing a bipartisan committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

He also supported the overturning of the 2020 election. He is still an elected official.

It will take a full House vote to strip him of his committees and soon his position as a lawmaker. He will join Greene and Rep. Karen Gosar (R-AZ) as members who were stripped of their committees.

Chagoury entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office in 2019 and came clean about providing about $180,000 that was used to make illegal contributions to four candidates in U.S. elections.

Prosecutors successfully argued at Fortenberry’s seven-day trial that he lied to investigators on two occasions when he was asked in interviews what he knew about the illegal donation.

Fortenberry, 61, also failed to file an amended report with the Federal Election Commission.

“After learning of illegal contributions to his campaign, the congressman repeatedly chose to conceal the violations of federal law to protect his job, his reputation and his close associates,” U.S. Attorney Tracy L. Wilkison said in a statement Thursday. “The lies in this case threatened the integrity of the American electoral system and were designed to prevent investigators from learning the true source of campaign funds.”

The jury deliberated for about two hours before it returned the guilty verdicts.

Fortenberry falsely told investigators he was not aware that one of Chagoury’s ties — Toufic Joseph Baaklini — was involved in illegal campaign contributions when he spoke with investigators in March 2019, after having learned about the illicit contribution, prosecutors said. They also said Fortenberry claimed that all donors at the 2016 fundraiser were publicly disclosed and that he was not aware of any contributions from a foreign national.

In a second interview two months later, Fortenberry denied awareness of any illicit donation made during the 2016 fundraiser or that he had been told that Baaklini provided $30,000 in cash at the fundraiser, prosecutors said.

A judge set Fortenberry's sentencing for June 28.

It is unclear whether Fortenberry will stay in Congress or what repercussions he could face if he does not step down.

NBC News has reached out to Fortenberry's office for comment.

Fortenberry is on the ballot for the GOP primary in May and faces five challengers, including state Sen. Karen Flood, who is seen as the strongest contender. Flood has cited Fortenberry's legal woes in his congressional bid.

Fortenberry was first elected in Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District in 2004 and has often cruised to re-election in the reliably red state. In 2020, he defeated his Democratic opponent with 59 percent of the vote.