FBI Raids Atlanta City Hall As Bribery Probe Deepens

According to WSB TV, FBI agents have targeted the City of Atlanta’s procurement office this afternoon and are questioning the City’s procurement director Adam Smith.  Presumably, they’re looking for the invisible hands behind a pay for play bribery scheme that has already netted two guilty pleas by city contractors, but none for City of Atlanta officials.

Much of the attention media has given this case surrounds Mayor Reed’s former campaign official turned city employee Mitzi Bickers. The AJC had a team of reporters do a profile of Bickers’ recent personal and professional history that’s worth a read to understand the lay of the land here.

This is the same investigation that the City and Mayor Reed decided to be quite cute with open records requests, pretending that printing electronic records (many of which were illegible or blank pages) and putting them in bulk in a room would satisfy the public.  It only served to anger the press, who continues to ask “What is the city hiding”.

Now, the FBI is asking Adam Smith.  Hopefully he’ll be able to shed some light on to who, exactly, was involved in the city’s part of this division of labor to engineer payment from contractors to guarantee city business.

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