WILL WE SEE AMERICAN FCPA CHARGES FILED AGAINST MALTA'S JOSEPH MUSCAT AND HIS "MERRY MEN' OF CORRUPTION?

The leading newspaper in the Republic of Malta is reporting, in connection with the recent indictment of the country's disgraced ex-PM and other PEPs, that Muscat and two of the former government officials charged, received substantial bribes or kickbacks in the hospitals sale scandal. Muscat, KEITH SCHEMBRI and KONRAD MIZZI, all became "consultants, and received payments from a swiss company, ACCUTOR AG, meaning indirectly from an American-owned company, in a manner that suggested it was part of a "political support (slush) fund."

We have previously reported that such corruption became known to US law enforcement during the administration of Donald Trump, but that no action was taken by the US DOJ, after senior political appointees there vetoed it, due to the fact that the Americans involved were political (meaning financial) supporters of the ruling (US) Republican Party. The question now is whether the current US Attorney General will bring Foreign Corrupt Practices Act criminal charges against the offenders.

Longtime readers of this blog will recall that yours truly once challenged Joseph Muscat to a debate of the issues regarding rampant money laundering and corruption in Malta, and the total inability of its justice system to stem systemic organized crime in what has become the biggest hotbed of crime within the EU, but Muscat declined to participate and had Labour Party-controlled media engage in a character assassination of the undersigned, to confuse the issues. Whether justice is visited upon Muscat is the central question facing Muscat in 2024, but the United States now needs to weigh in on its own violations of American criminal law.