by Glen Richardson
Target: Mayor of Hallandale, Florida, Joy Cooper was viewed as an honest and competent mayor of the city since 2011. In 2012 the FBI targeted her and in 2018 filed three felony counts and one misdemeanor charge against her for taking what appears to be minor campaign contributions in 2012. It allowed her political opponent Keith London, apparently favored by the FBI, to take over the city. Many believe that the charges are politically motivated by the FBI and may be similar to the false corruption charges brought by the FBI against Alaska Senator Ted Stevens and former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hidden Clues: In a June 2016 guest editorial by Nasrin Kholghy (sister-in-law of Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi) titled “Truth, Lies and Coverups” she included a rendering of what the proposed project might look like. Numerous readers wrote to the Chronicle, that if you look very closely at the figures in the graphic, above, almost all of the individuals are dressed in Islamic garb. It is not known whether the rug merchants intended that the project in Glendale be largely limited to one group of people and exclude others although no such intent has ever been publicly stated by them.
According to the U.S. Congressional Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence various top FBI officials, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, had definite preferences on who they wanted to be the President of the United States and allegedly took actions to implement their preference.
Apparently, at the local level, the FBI may also want to be able to select who gets to head up towns and municipalities regardless of who the voters may prefer. Under the Obama Administration the FBI and the Justice Department also got involved in hyper-local zoning decisions under the rubric of fighting Islamophobia as well as other social justice causes. The FBI recently had the Mayor of Hallandale Beach, Florida, removed in order to have her political opponent, favored by the FBI, Keith London become mayor. The FBI may have plotted to do the same in Glendale.
The Denver FBI under Jonathan Grusing, head of the Public Integrity Section appears to have wanted Glendale to approve the building of a massive apartment/condominium building on Colorado Boulevard that was adamantly opposed by Glendale citizens and Denver neighborhoods.
Persons who publicly opposed the Kheirkhahi/Grusing project were harassed and threatened by FBI undercover agent Charles Johnson, at the direction of Grusing, at their homes and places of work. If persons complained about Johnson’s strong-arm tactics to the local police in Glendale and Lakewood, Grusing sent in FBI Special Agent Kimberly Milka to further intimidate them, apparently for the purpose of getting them not to testify against Johnson in court. Possibly the Department basis for attack on everyday citizens exercising what they thought was their constitutional right to oppose a real estate development project, was that Kheirkhahi and his extended family are Islamists. The Obama Justice Department a
pparently deemed any such opposition to be a form of Islamophobia even though most of the people who opposed the project had no idea of what religious identity the owners of the land had.
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, Agent Grusing allegedly developed a close personal relationship with Mohammad Ali who, along with family members, owned the Authentic Persian and Oriental Rugs shop along Colorado Boulevard and the associated 3.8 acres of developable land where the massive apartment/condominium project would be built. Kheirkhahi and his related family are all from Iran and have maintained close business relations with relatives and business associates in Iran as well as China and India. It is not known whether Kheirkhahi and/ or family members may also have been FBI informants concerning Iran or the Iranian American community in the United States.
Individual citizens who voiced opposition to the project were hunted down and harassed until Johnson’s arrest by the Glendale Police Department on March 17, 2016.
The FBI demanded Arapahoe County D.A. George Brauchler dismiss all charges against Johnson “for reasons that cannot be disclosed.” Brauchler suspected that something illicit was being undertaken by Grusing and the FBI and demanded that the request be in writing, signed by the Denver Special Agent in charge. He then made the letter a public document. Because of Brauchler’s courageous actions the FBI plot was exposed to the public and became national news due to national investigative reporters like Trevor Aaronson of the internationally respected website The Intercept headed by Glen Greenwald.
After the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle reported the opposition to Kheirkhahi’s project Fox 31 News discovered that the offices of the Chronicle were under 24-hour surveillance by undercover operatives presumably under the direction of the FBI.
Johnson had posed as a documentary filmmaker in the Cliven Bundy case in Nevada, and was expected to be a key witness in the Nevada trial until all charges were dismissed with prejudice in January by U.S. District Court Judge Gloria M. Navarro due to massive fraud and misconduct by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice. It is not known whether Grusing played any role in the fraud on the court in Nevada.
What was not known at the time was FBI Special Agent Grusing’s plan to remove Glendale elected officials as well as city department heads who opposed his friend Kheirkhahi’s project as the FBI had accomplished in Florida.
Joy Cooper was the mayor of Hallandale, Florida, a small city (population 37,113) on the east coast of Florida in Broward County north of Miami. It is the home of Gulfstream Park Racing and Casino. Ms. Cooper had a reputation as a conscientious and honest mayor in the town, but in 2012 the FBI decided to go after her.
Undercover FBI agents pretended to be wealthy developers and they approached a lawyer friend and supporter Alan Koslow and pretended to seek favor for a project in Hallandale Beach. She met with the undercover agents and the lawyer with the meetings recorded on audio or video. The agents met with Cooper and agents at City Hall and the FBI contends promised favorable treatment in return for two campaign contributions of $5,000 each, one before a primary and one after.
Contribution limits for that election were $500 per person. Attorney Koslow delivered checks from 10 individuals who each contributed $500 for Cooper’s re-election campaign.
What was surprising is the small amount of the purported bribe as campaign contributions. Moreover, bundling of contributions is done throughout the United States and is not illegal. The Mayor of Denver and Denver City Council members take in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Denver developers, their lawyers and lobbyists and the developers receive extraordinary favorable treatment notwithstanding citizen outrage throughout the city. Taking on mayors of large towns like Denver by the FBI would create political firestorms and thus mayors of small towns are ones more often targeted by the FBI and which fit perfectly with Grusing’s plan.
Perhaps in Hallandale, there is on the tapes, the so-called quid pro quo statement whereby the mayor guarantees approval of the project in return for the relatively small contributions but many in the community are highly skeptical. They note infamous false corruption scandals undertaken by the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department in the case of U.S. Senator from Alaska Ted Stevens and former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell.
In Glendale, Deputy City Manager Chuck Line reported that persons posing as wealthy foreign developers appeared to repeatedly ask questions of him trying to solicit bribes. Eventually Line concluded that the individuals were undercover FBI agents or informants sent by Grusing seeking a political coup.
In a meeting in Glendale, FBI Agents Grusing and Johnson tried to solicit a Glendale businessman with close financial con
nections to Kheirkhahi to wear a wire and offer bribes to Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon. The local businessman declined and reported the attempt to local officials. Mayor Dunafon had previously reported other individuals were involved in possible bribe attempts. The Glendale police would report the same to the FBI until they determined it was the FBI who were the ones setting up the bribe attempts.
Why was Special Agent Grusing trying to get officials in Glendale to take bribes? Hallandale Beach, Florida, appears to provide the answer. By charging Cooper, it resulted in Florida Governor Rick Scott removing her as mayor and promoting longtime rival Keith London to be elevated to the spot. If Dunafon would have been charged, then Mayor Pro-Tem Paula Bovo would have become mayor. While Ms. Bovo was ostensibly an ally of Mayor Dunafon, her husband was suspected to be working with the Kheirkhahi family and his car was allegedly spotted in front of their store. He may also have been in regular contact with the FBI.
With Dunafon out of the picture Kheirkhahi’s massive project might easily pass an FBI intimidated City Council. If the charges were found to be fraudulent and Dunafon reinstituted as mayor it would not matter as the prior City Council approval would stand.
The FBI refuses to comment on the allegations related to G
Small Town USA: Hallandale, Florida, is a small town (population 37,113) on the east coast of Florida north of Miami. It was previously best known as the home of Gulfstream Horse Racing Park and Casino until the FBI decided to undertake an undercover sting to replace Mayor Joy Cooper with her political opponent Keith London.
rusing and the Kheirkhahi project and it is assumed if forced to, the agency would claim it was just engaged in monitoring honest and good government. Moreover, it would assert that Grusing’s and Kheirkhahi’s relationship was purely professional in nature. But as the Whitey Bulger case of FBI malfeasance in Boston demonstrated, professional relationships often morph into much more. Since the FBI is accountable at the local level to no one it is likely the exact nature of its assault on the citizens and institutions of Glendale will never be fully revealed. The old Roman saying — Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes (Who watches the watchmen) — has never been so true as it applies to the FBI. The Roman Praetorian Guard was formed to protect Roman emperors but they soon took it upon themselves to remove and replace the emperors with persons selected by them.
Such corruption of the FBI under James Comey has been alleged to have occurred in Washington. If Glendale is any example the rot has infected the lower levels of the bureau also. As Grusing is believed to be a rising star in the FBI, average U.S. citizens may have much to fear in the coming years from their public servants at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.