New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin (D) on Monday charged Democratic power broker George Norcross and five others with first-degree racketeering in a 13-count indictment, that, among other things, said he channeled tax breaks to himself and others in his circle.
Also on Monday, Norcross — a longtime kingmaker in the world of New Jersey Democratic politics — sat front row at the news conference in Trenton, N.J., as Platkin announced the charges. As some eagle-eyed social media users noted, the suit-clad Norcross was wearing shoes without socks.
“The state alleges that George Norcross has been running a criminal enterprise in the state for at least the last 12 years,” Platkin said. “This alleged conduct of the Norcross enterprise has caused great harm to individuals, businesses, nonprofits, the people of the state of New Jersey and especially, especially to the city of Camden and its residents.”
A bullish Norcross showed up to Platkin’s news conference Monday, listened to the attorney general, denounced the charges, and called Platkin — a fellow Democrat — a “coward,” according to the Associated Press.
Platkin and his team have been investigating Norcross for over a year in connection with redevelopment projects across Camden, one of New Jersey’s poorest cities. According to Platkin’s office, Norcross and the five other defendants “obtained property and property rights on the Camden Waterfront for itself and others, collected millions of dollars in government-issued tax credits, and controlled and influenced government officials to further the interests of the enterprise.”
The allegations are the latest strike to the powerful grip of the New Jersey Democratic politics machine. Earlier this year, upstart primary challenger Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) dealt a significant blow to the party’s power after he sued to do away with the “county line” — where for decades political bosses in the 21 counties have wielded outsize power to determine who gets elected. Kim won the Democratic primary for Senate in early June.
Norcross now lives in Palm Beach, Fla. He was charged alongside his brother Philip A. Norcross and former Camden mayor Dana Redd. Philip Norcross is the chief executive of a law firm headquartered in Camden. Another one of his brothers, Democratic Rep. Donald Norcross, who represents New Jersey’s 1st District that includes Camden and other Philadelphia suburbs in New Jersey, was not named in the indictment.
New Jersey Democrats are also dealing with fallout from the corruption trial of longtime Sen. Bob Menendez, who has been accused of accepting gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz and other bribes from business executives with ties to the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
The latest indictment alleges that the “Norcross Enterprise” used “its power and influence over government officials to craft legislation tailored to serve the interests of the enterprise,” and that, with Redd’s cooperation, alongside that of other officials, they were able to use part of the city’s government to acquire “property and property rights” “through coercion, extortion, and other criminal acts.”
Norcross’s lawyer, Michael Critchley, did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Norcross has long been a kingmaker in New Jersey politics, perhaps one of the most powerful nonelected Democrats in the state. A wealthy insurance executive, Norcross is known in New Jersey for being a generous political campaign donor and credited for building a powerful group of South Jersey state legislators, and the Norcross family name is well known among Democrats seeking political office in South Jersey.
At least $1.1 billion of $1.6 billion in tax breaks going to firms making capital investments in Camden went to Norcross’s insurance brokerage, his business partnerships and charitable affiliations, and clients of the law and lobbying firms of his brother Philip, an investigation by WNYC and ProPublica in 2019 found.
The New Jersey indictment against Norcross unsealed Monday is rife with examples of how he allegedly used his influence to threaten individuals. In one instance cited, Norcross is said to have threatened in 2016 a developer who would not relinquish his rights on Norcross’s terms, by telling him he would make sure the developer never did business in Camden again.
“I will f— you up like you’ve never been f—ed up before,” Norcross allegedly told the developer. When the developer asked Norcross if he was threatening him, Norcross allegedly said: “Absolutely.”
President Joe Biden’s longstanding increase for Israel, seven months after a critical assault by Gaza-primarily based Hamas terrorists, is being examined address never before.
On the left, knowledgeable-Palestinian protesters hound the president in public with cries of “Genocide Joe” and beget disrupted college campuses across the United States for months amid what Mr. Biden calls a “ferocious surge” in antisemitism. After pausing a cargo of bombs to Israel, Mr. Biden has now threatened to cut some weapons deliveries altogether if the Israelis apply by plot of on a beefy-scale defense power operation in Rafah – a menace that has horrified Democratic supporters of the Jewish utter.
Politics tamfitronics Why We Wrote This
A longtime supporter of Israel, President Joe Biden is having to take care of knowledgeable-Palestinian protesters on college campuses and in other locations – and photography which are making a broader sense of disarray.
In political phrases, the arena for Mr. Biden – locked in a tight reelection bound with presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump – isn’t basically the Israel-Hamas warfare itself. Polls demonstrate that the warfare ranks barely low on the checklist of voter considerations, even among young voters, who prioritize factors equivalent to jobs, inflation, housing, and health care.
But the news and social media beget been awash with chaotic photography of campus protests – along side the takeover and subsequent police clearing of a constructing at Columbia College. Nearly 3,000 demonstrators beget been arrested across the country.
“Folks don’t address dysfunction,” says presidential historian George Edwards, a professor emeritus at Texas A&M College.
Of the total challenges President Joe Biden faces, one stands out nowadays as severely knotty: the warfare in Gaza and the United States’ characteristic as Israel’s chief foreign backer.
President Biden’s deeply held increase for the Jewish utter, seven months after a critical assault by Gaza-primarily based Hamas terrorists, is being examined address never before. After pausing a cargo of bombs to Israel,Mr. Biden has threatened to cut some weapons deliveries altogetherif the Israelis apply by plot of on a beefy-scale defense power operation in Rafah. Residents are fleeing the southern Gaza city, belief of as Hamas’ last redoubt, but some 700,000 participants reportedly remain – various them displaced Palestinians.
Mr. Biden’s menace has horrified supporters of Israel across the U.S. political spectrum, along side in a Democratic Celebration already riven by the warfare. On the left, knowledgeable-Palestinian protesters hound the president in public with cries of “Genocide Joe” and beget disrupted college campuses across the country for months amid what Mr. Biden calls a “ferocious surge” in antisemitism.
Politics tamfitronics Why We Wrote This
A longtime supporter of Israel, President Joe Biden is having to take care of knowledgeable-Palestinian protesters on college campuses and in other locations – and photography which are making a broader sense of disarray.
With graduation season now in beefy swing and college leaders cracking down, knowledgeable-Palestinian encampments are dwindling. Over the weekend, some commencements saw protests – along sidea walkout at Duke Collegeas vocally knowledgeable-Israel comic Jerry Seinfeld received an honorary degree – though reviews of disruptions were shrimp. Aloof, the Democratic convention this summer season in Chicago would possibly perchance presumably moreover neutral be fertile ground for a resurgence of unrest.
The aptitude looms for a schism in U.S.-Israeli members of the family, if Israel launches a critical invasion of Rafah and Mr. Biden follows by plot of on cuts to defense power lend a hand. Amongst the president’s most devoted knowledgeable-Israel Democratic allies, the frustration is palpable.
A talented-Palestinian demonstrator holds a flag in front of a police line after protesters were knowledgeable to disperse at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the set apart apart a graduation ceremony for graduates from Pomona College used to be being held, Could per chance per chance per chance 12, 2024.
Mr. Biden “already doesn’t beget mountainous [poll] numbers on being a solid chief, and in case you note equivalent to you’re giving in to protesters, you give a raise to that sense of weak point – and that’s deeply problematic,” says the chief of a Jewish Democratic organization who requested to retain his name so he would possibly perchance presumably moreover order candidly. “It is miles a mountainous lesson on alienate everyone.”
In political phrases, the arena for Mr. Biden – locked in a tight reelection bound with presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump – isn’t basically the Israel-Hamas warfare itself as a driver of votes. Polls demonstrate, no doubt, that the warfare ranks barely low on the checklist of voter considerations, even among young voterswho prioritize factors equivalent to jobs, inflation, housing, and health care.
But the news and social media beget been awash with chaotic photography of campus protests – along side the takeover and subsequent police clearing of a constructing at Columbia College. Nearly 3,000 demonstrators beget been arrested across the country.
“The optics are no longer factual; participants don’t address dysfunction,” says presidential historian George Edwards, a professor emeritus at Texas A&M College. “They seek for dysfunction, and don’t understand what these college students are doing – tenting on campus, no longer studying. Endure in mind, the in style voter didn’t lope to varsity.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is struggling to lend a hand a cosmopolitan ally. In two TV interviews Sunday, Secretary of Deliver Antony Blinken strongly criticized Israel’s habits in Gaza, the set apart apart some 35,000 participants beget died in the warfare, per local authorities. The warfare began last Oct. 7 when Hamas-led militants raided southern Israel, killing extra than 1,200 participants and taking some 250 hostages.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Secretary Blinken decried “a fallacious loss of lifetime of harmless civilians,” and known as on Israel to devise a “credible belief” to mitigate civilian casualties before going into Rafah.
Mr. Blinken moreover acknowledged a Biden administration sage to Congress on Friday that found the utilization of U.S.-equipped weapons in Gaza seemingly violated world law, but added that the proof used to be incomplete.
A cease-hearth and return of hostages would possibly perchance presumably be the ideal manner for Mr. Biden to silence his critics, analysts sing, but negotiations beget proceeded in fits and begins. And Israel’s expected assault on Rafah has cooled expressions of optimism.
Mr. Biden has faced criticism, too, for being sluggish to retort to the campus protests. He at last spoke out Could per chance per chance per chance 2 briefly White Dwelling remarks, underscoring the honest to free speech but insisting that “reveal must prevail.”
Secretary of Deliver Antony Blinken meets with families of the hostages taken in the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, out of doorways a resort in Tel Aviv, Israel, Could per chance per chance per chance 1, 2024.
The president moreover delivered a protracted address last week in the U.S. Capitol at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony, speaking emotionally relating to the killing of 6 million Jews in the course of World War II – a stain on history that Mr. Biden says made him a dedicated Zionist.
That devotion has buttressed Mr. Biden’s steadfast increase for Israel for the reason that Oct. 7 attack – which many name that nation’s 9/11 – at the same time as his relationship with the Jewish utter, below conservative Top Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, exhibits ordinary pressure.
For American Jewish leaders, it’s moreover a time of mountainous stress amid spiking antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment. They are saying expressing increase for the Jewish participants isn’t tricky at all.
“That’s what the president realizes,” says Ted Deutch, CEO of the nonpartisan American Jewish Committee (AJC) and a old Democratic member of Congress. “He realizes that it’s no longer sophisticated to acknowledge the anguish and dismay that the neighborhood is feeling.”
Most of the protesters, especially on college campuses, Mr. Deutch says, are marching “no longer in increase of peace but in increase of the terrorists who dedicated atrocities on 10/7.” Essentially based fully totally on AJC knowledge, he says, nearly half of American Jews beget modified their habits in reveal no longer to be identifiably Jewish.
Aloof, divisions in the course of the Democratic Celebration over the handling of Gaza – personified on the left by neutral Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s Jewish – beget sophisticated lifestyles for Mr. Biden, especially in an election one year.
Senator Sanders has made headlines suggesting Gaza would possibly perchance presumably be “Biden’s Vietnam,” an inauspicious comparability to the election of 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson opted no longer to bound for reelection, saddling his successor, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, with an unpopular warfare. Republican Richard Nixon narrowly beat him.
On “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Mr. Sanders doubled down on the Vietnam comparability, announcing, “I deem many of us are very disappointed. … It’s hurting [Mr. Biden] politically.” Aloof, the Vermont senator eminent that he’s composed “strongly supporting” the president on home factors.
Conservative political analyst Henry Olsen sees in Mr. Biden’s handling of the warfare in Gaza a longstanding tendency to purpose for the “center” of his event, wherever that will seemingly be at the time.
“He’s doing what he’s carried out in the course of his profession, which is to notice at both facets within a Democratic Celebration divide and clutch a note at to score the heart,” says Mr. Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Coverage Center in Washington.
“To that extent, he’s no longer magnificent any individual,” he continues. “But he’s no longer driving any individual irrevocably away, either – and that can presumably moreover very successfully be the ideal he can quiz.”
