Congressman Jerry Weller, IL 11, the senior Republican on the Central-American subcommittee of the House Foreign Relations committee, has huge amounts of investment in land in Nicaraugua. How much, is not quite clesar. His ethics reports have well-understated the amounts. The most recent report does better. The Chicago Tribune reported Friday that not only has he understated the value on his ethics reports -- or kept silence about some of the property -- he undervalues it even more in his reports to the Nicarauguan government. His local taxes are based on those reports. those reports.
Actually, this isn't the latest scandal or breaking news. It was reported last year in the Chicago Reader by Frank Smyth here. The author packed teh documents he mentioned onto his web page. Go here and search under "weller" in his "secret documents" section.
The news is that the Tribune printed the story here.
Weller is married to the daughther of previous Guatamalan dictator, Rios-Montt. When that marriage took place, many people urged him to quit his subcommittee post. That conflict of interest pales before his pushing of CAFTA, which gave guarantees to US investors in Central America, including Weller on the land deal and any yanks he sells to.