U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry’s statements are the crux of the federal government’s case against the Nebraska congressman.
Fortenberry voluntarily sat down for two interviews with authorities investigating illegal campaign contributions, once while his then-attorney was present.
In turn, it came as little surprise that a federal judge on Friday rejected Fortenberry’s attempts to suppress his two 2019 statements to the FBI and U.S. attorneys investigating whether he knew of the source of illegal contributions originating from a Nigerian billionaire living in France.
Judges can grant motions to suppress statements if the statements were the product of illegal, involuntary interrogations.
Fortenberry’s interviews were voluntary and voluminous, with the congressman speaking at length to FBI agents, U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld wrote.
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Fortenberry stands accused of three felonies — one count of seeking to falsify or conceal the source of conduit contributions and two counts of making false statements to a government agency. Fortenberry is scheduled to go on trial for a week beginning March 15.
The nine-term congressman, who is running for reelection, has proclaimed his innocence, alleging that he was the victim of a government scheme to set him up. Prosecutors allege that Fortenberry lied to an FBI agent who showed up at his Lincoln home in March 2019 to interview him about his knowledge of the source of contributions he received at a Los Angeles fundraiser and that he lied again during a July 2019 follow-up interview in Washington, D.C.
Fortenberry’s attorneys, John Littrell and Ryan Fraser, argue that Fortenberry relied on assurances that he was “trending toward a witness” — rather than a target of the investigation — when he agreed to sit down with a prosecutor and FBI agent in the July 2019 follow-up interview.
“It is doubtful that ... he construed the (trending-toward-a-witness) response to allow him to make false statements with impunity,” Blumenfeld ruled. “Defendant points to no clear and definite promise made to him. The motion (to suppress) fails on the merits.”
Blumenfeld also rejected Fortenberry’s defense team’s attempts to examine internal communications between prosecutors in the case, saying the defense had no evidence that federal prosecutors were withholding evidence. Littrell had pointed to statements the government made that they “expected him to, quote, come clean” at the second interview and that he instead was “doubling down on a lie.”
Fortenberry’s defense attorney suggested that internal communications “may undermine the government’s case” by showing that agents “may have expressed anger or indignation.”
Prosecutors noted that federal court rules exempt from discovery “reports, memoranda, or other internal government documents made by an attorney for the government or other government agent in connection with investigating or prosecuting the case.”
“It is further unclear if the disclosure is material such that defendant would be entitled to it,” the judge wrote. “The Court need not decide the issue, however, as the Government represented at the hearing that it does not have anything in response to this disclosure request beyond what it has already produced.”
State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk is challenging Fortenberry in the Republican primary in May. State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks and Jazari Kual, both of Lincoln, are battling for the Democratic nomination.