The federal criminal complaint against New York politicians arrested after an FBI sting was a reminder of how often real-life political scandals can read like the imaginings of Hollywood screenwriters. (Think $90,000 in cash in a congressman's freezer.)
Tuesday's allegations from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York will be just another log on the fire of the public's cynicism about politics and its practitioners. And in alleged conversations involving the implicated officials, those politicians sound pretty cynical themselves, according to the FBI.
Take Republican New York City Councilman Daniel Halloran. A one-time New York City cop who recently ran for Congress, he was arrested on charges of accepting bribes.
Among the allegations: that he accepted payment as part of a scheme to help a Democratic state senator — one who wanted to run for mayor of New York as a Republican — obtain the approval of certain GOP officials.
Halloran allegedly delivered this gem to a witness working with the FBI::
"That's politics, that's politics, it's all about how much. Not about whether or will, it's about how much, and that's our politicians in New York, they're all like that, all like that. And they get like that because of the drive that the money does for everything else. You can't do anything without the f——— money."