The DOJ does another favor for Biden.
The Justice Department took the rare step earlier this month of moving to dismiss a $3.3 billion civil fraud lawsuit against Dish Network — months after founder Charlie Ergen and his wife donated more than $113,000 to President Biden’s re-election campaign late last year.
Ergen, a former professional poker player who helped launch what was then called EchoStar Communications in 1980, has battled the federal fraud claim for nearly a decade.
But the Tennessee native saw his luck change shortly after he and spouse Candy contributed $100,000 to Biden’s super PAC and maxed out with matching $6,600 donations to the president’s principal campaign committee in December, according to campaign finance filings.
This past January, Dish nabbed a $50 million grant from the administration to help expand 5G coverage nationwide — the “largest award” of its kind, the company crowed — through a $1.5 billion fund created by the CHIPS and Science Act.
On Jan. 12, two days after the $50 million award was announced, attorneys at the Justice Department intervened on behalf of Dish — and “tried to bully” Vermont Telephone, which filed the fraud claim, “into an unethical settlement” by threatening to have the suit dismissed, according to lead attorney Bennett Ross.
The move to dismiss the case scrapped plans to depose the Ergens about their knowledge of the allegedly fraudulent scheme, prompting Vermont Telephone’s attorneys to accuse the Justice Department of political interference.
“[I]t appears that the effect — if not the purpose — of the DOJ’s rush to seek dismissal of this case is to protect Mr. Ergen from being questioned under oath,” Ross wrote in a Feb. 8 letter to the lead DOJ attorneys handling the case, according to a copy reviewed by The Post.
“We do not believe it is a coincidence that Mr. Ergen, his wife (who also is scheduled to be deposed next week), and DISH’s Political Action Committee collectively contributed in excess of $5 million to Democratic candidates and causes between 2008 and 2022,” he added.
“With the upcoming election, this case looks like just the latest example of the DOJ’s two-tiered justice system under which the well-heeled, politically connected are treated one way, while everyone else is treated differently.”
The government officially filed a motion to dismiss on March 8. A ruling by senior DC US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is pending.
The DOJ’s Civil Division had opposed the case being dismissed in 2022 and 2023, court filings show, and interference in such fraud claims is highly uncommon.
……In their motion, DOJ attorneys wrote that “the benefits to the Government of continued litigation are marginal given the lack of evidence and the difficulty in establishing damages. Conversely, the costs to the Government (and this Court) are high as a result of extraordinary discovery.”
……White House visitor logs show Ergen had at least three meetings with Biden officials, including an Oct. 16, 2023, sit-down with Kurt Campbell, then a deputy assistant to the president who now serves as deputy secretary of state.
Companies donating to politicians is a common practice, especially with regard to special interest lobbying and favors. The Biden Crime Family benefits from the practice…..a lot.