[Firestarter]

On 30 April 2020, Geoffrey Berman announced a deferred prosecution agreement against Israel's largest bank Bank Hapoalim, for helping to hide assets in offshore accounts and helping to bribe FIFA officials (the body that controls international soccer).
Bank Hapoalim settled the 2 cases for more than $900 million. Berman commented:

Israel's largest bank, Bank Hapoalim, and its Swiss subsidiary have admitted not only failing to prevent but actively assisting U.S. customers to set up secret accounts, to shelter assets and income, and to evade taxes. The combined payment approaching $1 billion reflects the magnitude of the tax evasion by the Bank's U.S. customers, the size of the fees the Bank collected to provide this illegal service, and the gravity of the illegal conduct.

In the first case, Bank Hapoalim helped launder millions in bribes and kickbacks paid to officials in FIFA. Between 2010 and 2015, Hapoalim’s Miami branch laundered illicit payments to FIFA officials, including former head of Colombian football and a member of FIFA’s executive committee Luis Bedoya. In 2015, Bedoya was banned from international soccer and was (is?) awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty pleading guilty to racketeering and wire fraud.
Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowsk commented:

For nearly five years, Bank Hapoalim employees used the U.S. financial system to launder tens of millions of dollars in bribe payments to corrupt soccer officials in multiple countries.

In the second case, Bank Hapoalim pleaded guilty to aiding U.S. customers in setting up accounts under false names to evade taxes on more than $7.6 billion in deposits.
For this second case alone, Bank Hapoalim agreed to pay $874 million in penalties, tax arrears and forfeited assets: http://archive.is/KOtzE

Kushner Companies of the in-laws of Donald’s daughter Ivanka Trump Kushner received at least 4 “loans” from Israel’s largest bank Bank Hapoalim that he forgot to disclose: https://www.lawfulpath.com/forum/viewtop...038&p=5440


In 2019, Attorney General William Barr “personally spearheaded” the attempt to stop the investigation by the Department of Justice into the largest Turkish state-owned bank, Halkbank.
That came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan contacted President Donald “in a bid to avoid charges” and a lobbying campaign for months to avoid prosecution.

The top lobbyist for Turkey was Trump crony Brian Ballard, who had extensive contact with Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow during that time.

On 15 October 2019, despite all the pressure, US attorney Geoffrey Berman indicted the Halkbank anyway for a multi-billion-dollar scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. Berman explained:

The bank's audacious conduct was supported and protected by high-ranking Turkish government officials, some of whom received millions of dollars in bribes to promote and protect the scheme.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/202...e-erdogan/

In 2017, the Turkish state bank HalkBank hired former Congressman Bob Wexler and Ballard Partners for $375,000 per quarter. Brian Ballard’s firm, Ballard Partners, was paid $1.5 million from 15 May 2017 to 14 May 2018.

Brian Ballard is a long-time lobbyist for Donald Trump, and raised $16 million for Trump’s presidential campaign. Trump called him after purchasing Mar-a-Largo in 1985, and paid Ballard at least $460,000 from 2013 to 2015 for lobbying work: https://www.lawfulpath.com/forum/viewtop...4440#p4440


On August 8, 2018, weeks before the midterm elections, Berman announced insider trading charges against Trump supporter, U.S. Representative Chris Collins, who subsequently resigned from Congress.

On 22 June 2017, the CEO of Innate Immunotherapeutics sent an email to the company's board of directors, including Collins, that an important drug trial for the company had failed. Collins immediately phoned his son to instruct him to sell Innate shares.
By selling before this news was published Collins and his family avoided around $570,000 in losses (the shares dropped around 90%).

Collins subsequently pleaded guilty to insider trading and lying to the FBI.
On 17 January 2020, Judge Vernon Broderick sentenced Collins to 26 months in prison. This was supposed to start on 17 March, but has been delayed to 21 April, June 23, and now 18 August, supposedly because of the COVID-19 “pandemic”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Coll...olitician)