PANTS ON FIRE

Judge Denies Rep. Fortenberry’s Effort to Get Charges for Lying to FBI Dropped

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry was indicted last year for allegedly lying about a scheme to funnel an illegal $30,000 foreign donation to his campaign.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) may be going to trial in California for allegedly lying to the FBI after a federal judge Monday denied several motions by the congressman’s legal team to get the charges against him dropped. U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. dismissed five of the Nebraska Republican’s challenges to his case, including a motion to disqualify Assistant U.S. Attorney Mack Jenkins, who is leading the prosecution after heading up the investigation into Fortenberry’s alleged illegal activities. Also thrown out by the judge was the defense’s argument that the representative had allegedly lied in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Washington, D.C., not in California where charges were filed. Fortenberry is accused of hiding information from federal agents who were looking into a scheme to funnel an illegal $30,000 foreign donation to Fortenberry’s 2016 campaign. A Fortenberry spokesperson said in a statement following the ruling that the case was nothing more than “a California prosecutor’s attempt to use deceptive investigative tactics to set up a widely-respected Member of Congress.”