Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat and staunch proponent of stiffer gun-control laws was sentenced today in federal court on corruption charges tied to, among other things, a conspiracy to traffic weapons. Although this is off-the-charts hypocritical of Mr. Yee, a wonderfully sensational corrupt politician story ripe for national news, none of the Big Three broadcast evening news programs last night so much as devoted a news brief to the story.
[You may also recall that Yee was behind a spurious smear against Rush Limbaugh in 2011. Read about that here.]
Adding to the seriousness of the weapons trafficking charge, as the AP reported in March 2014, is the fact that the group he wanted to do business with were Islamist extremists (emphases mine):
SAN FRANCISCO — A California state senator who authored gun control legislation asked for campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.
The allegations against State Sen. Leland Yee were outlined in an FBI affidavit in support of a criminal complaint. The affidavit accuses Yee of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms. He was arrested Wednesday.
Yee is also accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and cash payments to provide introductions, help a client get a contract and influence legislation. He or members of his campaign staff accepted at least $42,800 in cash or campaign contributions from undercover FBI agents in exchange for carrying out the agents’ specific requests, the court documents allege.
Yee discussed helping the agent get weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder fired automatic weapons and missiles, and took him through the entire process of acquiring them from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines to bringing them to the United States, according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Emmanuel V. Pascua.
He was unhappy with his life and told the agent he wanted to hide out in the Philippines, according to the affidavit.
“There’s a part of me that wants to be like you,” he told the undercover agent, according to the affidavit. “You know how I’m going to be like you? Just be a free agent there.”
