Jefferson Hasn’t Paid Back “Personal Loan”

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I don’t want to jump to conclusions. I’ll just note some facts here, courtesy of The Times-Picayune and you can make up your own mind.

In 2001, an Ethiopian businessman named Noah Samara, who’s CEO of a global satellite radio company called Worldspace, made a personal loan of between $50,000 and $100,000 to Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA). Jefferson still hasn’t paid the money back. And he won’t say what the money was for. And he didn’t disclose the money in his annual disclosure form until last week, because, he claims, he didn’t know personal loans had to be reported.

Meanwhile, Samara has testifed before the grand jury hearing evidence against Jefferson and says that he’s “cooperated fully” with the investigation. I think we’ll probably hear more about this later.

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