Baltimore, it may interest you to know that many of your local elected officials are implicated in the Panama Papers. The Cordish family, which is tied to the Baltimore City Housing Authority, Johns Hopkins, Loyola, the Harbor Endowment Foundation, and is a major contributor to Martin-Lauer Associates’ clients, has huge assets in Mossack Fonseca.
The Baltimore Brew reports that Cordish is a big donor to mayoral candidate Carl Stokes and a client of City Council candidate Eric Costello. And of course Cordish was also a major backer of Mayor Rawlings-Blake. Also, according to Luke Broadwater at the Baltimore Sun, Cordish-tied donors have given big to Elizabeth Embry’s campaign. So, that’s Elizabeth Embry, Carl Stokes, Eric Costello & Stephanie Rawlings-Blake whose campaign cash is tied to the offshore tax havens in the Panama Papers. And as Cordish is linked to Colleen Martin-Lauer, then the possibility is very real that Martin-Lauer clients get Cordish cash, which could implicate Marilyn and Nick Mosby, Pete Welch, Mary-Pat Clarke, Brandon Scott, Sharon Greene Middleton & Bill Cole.
Of course it’s not just Baltimore City officials taking Cordish money. Dave donates big nationally. Major Cordish family individual contributions have gone from John Kasich to Hillary Clinton (whose is also linked to other big shots implicated in the Panama Papers) and everywhere between, and of course nearly every Maryland congressperson gets Cordish corporate cash, as did President Obama and Lindsay Graham.
Corruption in Panama’s offshore tax havens links to corruption in Baltimore City, in Kiev, in Tbilisi, in Washington and Westminster. The release of this information is being managed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.