Indicted Dem Rep Says She Has Been Targeted Because She Is Black

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown addresses the media outside the Federal Courthouse, Friday, July 8, 2016, in Jacksonville, Fla. Brown and her chief of staff have been charged with multiple fraud and other federal offenses in... U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown addresses the media outside the Federal Courthouse, Friday, July 8, 2016, in Jacksonville, Fla. Brown and her chief of staff have been charged with multiple fraud and other federal offenses in a grand jury indictment unsealed Friday. (Bob Self/The Florida Times-Union via AP) MORE LESS
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida congresswoman indicted on fraud charges is telling supporters she’s being “persecuted” by federal authorities because she’s black.

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., and her chief of staff pleaded not guilty after being indicted last week on multiple fraud charges and other federal offenses.

In a statement posted Sunday on her campaign website, Brown says her indictment was part of a “very rough” week that included a black man fatally shooting five officers in Dallas and the killings in Louisiana and Minnesota of two black men by white police officers.

Brown proclaimed her innocence, saying the indictment was “very scary.” She wrote: “I’m not the first black elected official to be persecuted and, sad to say, I won’t be the last.”

She was one of the first three African-Americans elected to Congress from Florida since Reconstruction.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. That’s exactly what Jesse Jackson, Jr. said.

    Then again, it is curious that a lot of white grifters never seem to ever run afoul of the law.

  2. Michael Grimm? Rod Blagojevich? Jim Trafficant? And those are just the ones that come immediately to mind.

  3. There are serious and legitimate concerns about how American society treats black people, and Corrine Brown trivializes them when she pretends that she’s being persecuted because of her race.

  4. at least she didn’t use the old standby…

    ‘I’m being judged on a double standard because I’m a woman because men don’t get targeted for doing the same things’

  5. I was thinking more along the lines of Donald Drumpf, Mike Hucksterbee, et al.

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