Presenting: The Most Corrupt Members Of Congress

CREW’s Charges: Richardson is being investigated for claims that she forced her official Congressional staff to work on her re-election campaign, then later obstructing an official ethics investigation into the claims.

If the claims against Richardson are true, the California Congresswoman is an awful boss. According to the CREW report, Richardson repeatedly forced her congressional staff to do hundreds of hours of unpaid work for her 2010 re-election campaign, and penalized employees who fell short of her expectations.

Some instances are particularly glaring, like forcing an employee to put fliers on cars until two in the morning, or penalizing someone who was on vacation. She also forced interns to attend a fundraiser and even had one staff member volunteer for her opponent to collect intel.

Earlier this year, Richardson admitted to a seven-count Statement of Alleged Violation in front of the House Ethics Committee and was forced to pay a $10,000 fine.

CREW’s Charges: Rivera is under investigation by the FBI and the IRS for multiple money laundering and tax evasion schemes.

According to CREW, David Rivera has cooked his campaign books, repeatedly misreporting income on mandatory finance disclosure forms, and using campaign funds to steer money to family and friends. His accounts situation was described as “a mystery” by a prosecutor, and, according to investigators he’s been dishonest on reporting information.

Rivera is also accused of breaking multiple campaign finance laws when he intervened in a Democratic primary by paying for his preferred opponent’s mailers.

CREW’s Charges: Andrews earmarked federal funds for his wife’s employer and also used his campaign money for personal expenses — including a lavish family trip to Scotland.

In 2011, Andrews used campaign funds to fly to Scotland for the wedding of a friend, spending three nights at the five-star Balmoral Hotel and racking up $30,000 in extravagent expenses, including the purchase of fine china and thousands spent on food and petty expenses.

He also tapped into the campaign fund for a $10,000 elegant carnival-themed graduation party for a daughter, and later spent $97,000 on California trips to jump start his daughter’s acting career. And his congressional campaign made generous donations to theaters where his daughter performed.

His wife’s employer, Rutgers University School of Law, has received more than $1.5 million in earmarks from Andrews.

CREW’s Charges: Bishop solicited campaign donations from a hedge fund advisor who asked him to help get permits to put on a fireworks show for his son’s Bar Mitzvah.

When Eric Semler, a Long Island hedge fund advisor, had trouble scoring the necessary permits for the fireworks show, he reached out to Bishop, his congressman with whom he’d had little prior contact. Bishop offered to make a few phone calls to grease up some wheels in the local government.

Soon after, Bishop’s daughter called Semler and hit him up for a contribution of up to $10,000.

Semler, the hedge fund manager, described the experience as “really gross.”

Read our story on Semler’s fireworks fiasco here >

CREW’s Charges: According to CREW, Grimm, a freshman congressman, set up an illegal system to funnel money into his campaign.

Essentially, there’s a maximum amount that people can give to a campaign, and Grimm flouted that by setting up a way for big donors to give money through middlemen.

So, if Big Donor A wanted to give $20,000 to Grimm illegally, Grimm would accept the cash — literally at a money drop — and then find eight people, known as “straw donors,” who were willing to say that they each contributed the maximum $2,500, and tell the FEC that the money came from those fake donors.

Even more damning, some of Grimm’s big donors were allegedly non-U.S. citizens, which is illegal, and Grimm may have offered a green card in exchange for fundraising assistance.

He also used CSPAN footage of a floor speech in campaign emails, which is against House rules. He had previously used official materials — namely, the FBI’s seal and the Marine emblem — for fundraising purposes.

CREW’s Charges: Vitter — who is infamous for being fingered in a prostitution sting — is now under investigation for an attempted bribery of the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

According to the CREW report, Vitter told Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar that he would block legislation granting the secretary’s pay raise until the Department issued six permits for deepwater exploratory wells each month.

The Senate Ethics Committee issued a letter stating that Vitter’s actions were inappropriate, but Vitter later took pride in his action and said he would do it again.

CREW points out that, technically, this is a bribe.

CREW’s Charges: Rogers used his position as the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee to steer millions of dollars in earmarks to a local manufacturing company in exchange for campaign contributions.

CREW’s report claims Rogers engaged in an unseemly deal with the Kentucky manufacturing firm Phoenix Products, which later overcharged the Army for drip pans that were priced at 700% market value.

Rogers repeatedly claimed in press releases that he had secured more than $17 million in earmark funding for Phoenix Products, including an Army contract for $17,000 drip pans that typically cost $2,500.

The owners of the company have given $20,400 to Rogers since 2004.

CREW’s Charges: Broun failed to disclose the true source of loans made to his campaign fund.

According to CREW, Broun lied a couple times about how he found a way to finance his first campaign. Essentially, Broun spent more money than he had during his first campaign for congress, and had to take out a bunch of loans to avoid being politically bankrupt.

Broun claimed that they were zero-interest loans worth $309,000 from his own personal account. His campaign gradually paid these back over his term into the Congressman’s personal account.

The thing is, Broun didn’t have that kind of money, and actually had just gotten the loans, which were not interest-free, from a bank. In 2011 his campaign began to pay “interest” into his own personal account, totaling $30,200. Because Broun obscured the source, that’s illegal.

CREW’s Charges: His list of potential violations include coercing contributions, conduit contributions, excessive contributions, corporate contributions, witness tampering, obstruction of agency proceedings, bribery of a witness, false statements of personal financial disclosure forms, tax evasion and conduct not reflecting creditably on the House.

Buchanan, a three-term member of congress and former Florida car dealership owner, is the subject of an ongoing investigation into allegations that he bullied employees into giving to his campaign and reimbursed them out of his own pocket if they refused to otherwise.

According to CREW, Buchanan ended up paying some of them back using $67,000 of his company’s funds.

Buchanan has been accused of offering his business partner $2.9 million to sign an affidavit lying that the the illegal employee contributions were his idea, and that Buchanan was not involved. The company’s former CFO has since accused Buchanan of committing tax evasion and fraud.

CREW also notes that Buchanan has been a party to thirteen different lawsuits since 2008.

CREW’s Charges: Meeks is under multiple investigations, including probes into improper gifts and loans, involvement in charities under federal investigation, and acting on behalf of convicted banker and campaign donor R. Allen Stanford, who ran a Ponzi scheme.

One of the most glaring examples of Meeks’ corruption involves a massive discount he got on a $1.2 million Queens McMansion because he has the word “Congressman” on his business card. CREW claims that he got the 30 percent taken off by obscuring a bunch of under-the-table, interest-free loans