That is cause ag li a lot of reaction telling the Washington Post this. Im not for impeachment. Impeachment is so divisive it to country that unless there is something so compelling and overwhelmingly and bipartisan, i dont think we should go down that path because it divides the country and hes just not worth it. Of course, some House Democrats think it is totally worth it. In fact, more than one has already introduced resolutions to try to kick start the process of impeachment in the house. Others say impeachment is inevitable. Listen. I think we are essentially in the beginning of an impeachment process. Impeachment process begins with hearings. Judiciary committee is holding them. So we are gathering evidence. I think thats not a matter of whether, its a matter of when. What are you hearing from democrats this morning . What do they think nancy pelosi is trying to do here in this new interview . Reporter they believe that she is concerned about going down a path that would essentially be fruitless because republicans are unlikely to vote to convict this president. Two thirds would have to vote to essentially remove the president from office. Just moments ago. She was asked by her colleague why talk about this now rather than wait for the Mueller Report to come out. She said she had been saying this all along. She said it is sdraer vivery di go down this route. There are democrats who agree with her. They hope something will come out that will change Public Opinion and potentially change the speakers mind. What she said was unless there is like overwhelming you know evidence, then it didnt make sense. My personal position is that he is a blight on the american society, the american government, the american nation and humanity. He should be impeached. I think he has done things that are certainly worthy of looking into impeachment. Think about this. Every Single Person i dont care if you are republican or democrat wants the offenses, the things that you have been hearing about, instead of being rumors, lets have a Committee Process and investigate the offenses. These are really, really serious criminal activities that he is being allegedly being said that he is doing out of the oval office and should be investigated. Reporter that last comment coming from rashida tlaib. She made a lot of news on the first day of the new congress by using an ex pltive referring to impeaching this president. House majority leader told me he agrees with pelosi. At the moment the Democratic Leaders are trying to tamp this down even as some of the rank in file continue to push for it. It is a fascinating moment. Thank you so much. Lets discuss this a little bit more. Democratic congressman of rhode island. Thank you for coming in. My pleasure. Great to see you. How do you read what Speaker Pelosi is saying here . I think the speaker has been very consistent about this question. She has always said this is something which will be very divisive to the country, that we can only move forward successfully in removing a president if it is done in a bipartisan way. Democrats ran on an agenda demonstrating that we are fighting for the people of this country. With three primary objects, driving down health care costs, protecting coverage for preexisting conditions, raising family incomes with a focus on rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure of america, rebuilding our country, and taking on the self dealing and corruption in washington and get the government working for the people and not for the special interests. We are busy doing that work. We passed hr 1, the biggest anticorruption measure since water gate. We have begun hearings on the Prescription Drug bills to help drive down the cost of Prescription Drugs. We should not lose focus on the work that we committed to doing for the American People. And of course we have to wait mr. Muellers investigation do you think congressman with that and what im hearing you say in laying out what the agenda perhaps is, do you fear that if the focus becomes impeachment, if the process would begin, that it would effectively suck all of the oxygen off of capitol hill and make it impossible for you to walk and chew gum at the same time . I think we have to prove we can actually do both things. We need to deliver and we are delivering on the commitments we made to the American People on the issues that matter in their lives. At the same time, the American People also expect democrats to hold the Administration Accountable and do serious oversight. If that produces evidence which requires initiation of impeachment then we have no choice to do it. We have to do both. We have to deliver on the promises and do the oversight that has been so lacking to hold this president and this Administration Accountable. I hear you saying that spoker pelosi has been consistent. Literally in the interview she tells the reporter this is news what im telling you. I love it when you guys tell me that you are about to tell me news. She says this is news and then lays out that she is not for impeachment and says he is not worth it. Do you what this is doing is it is sparking real conversation in reaction to conversation about impeachment. Is it here . Is it now . Does the process need to begin or as nancy pelosi is putting it, he is just not worth it. Do you wish he had not weighed in in this way . No, look. I dont think that the speaker said anything inconsistent with at least her general view point throughout the last several months on this question. She is leaning more toward in her statement, she is leaning more she is leaning in in one way more than she has in the past. I think thats right. I think my view of it, this is going to be very fact specific. The facts are going to determine whether or not we move forward. The speaker has said in the past we should never move forward with impeachment for political purposes. So i think this will be determined by what the evidence and the facts are. It will be really fact specific. Mr. Muellers report will inform that as well as the oversight investigations that are underway. I think the speakers main point is in order to do this t would require some participation of our republican colleagues. There is so far no willingness to be part of oversight and impeachment proceedings. I think that is a reality. I think she was reinforcing that point. We have a lot of important priorities that we committed to delivering on. I hear you on saying that it needs to be based on facts. I think everyone would hope that any significant move like impeachment would be based on facts. But it is by definition an entirely political question. That is really at its core. How can you say that politics isnt really a part of the consideration . Well, again, i think you have to first start with an examination of the evidence. If the evidence provides a basis for removal of the president of the United States, that it meets the Legal Standard that we believe that the constitution establishes, then we are obligated to move forward. If the facts dont provide that basis then we cannot. So is your read that people are misreading nancy pelosi or maybe nancy pelosi went further than nancy pelosi probably wanted to go with her comment . I dont want to interpret what the speaker meant. I think you have to ask her that question. I think she has made the point very clear to democrats that we should recognize the divisive nature of impeachment. We should refrain for doing it if it is perceived for a political purpose just to change who the president is. If there is overwhelming evidence of misconduct that would warrant removal from office we should be prepared to do it. That is how i heard her remarks. She told the reporter it was news. I do want to ask you while i have you. President trump for about a week now has been saying in public to reporters and reportedly behind closed doors to donors some variation of democrats are antiisrael, democrats are an antijewish. Yesterday Sarah Sanders was asked about this. What do you want to say to the white house about this thought . I dont have that element confirmed. Just this narrative that he is pushing. What do you think . It is just a typical approach of the president to try to use every occurrence to some political advantage to himself. The Democratic Party has a loud tradition of supporting israel, supporting relationship between israel and the United States. The vast majority of American Jewish voters vote democrat. It is an absurdity. That is not to say that are is not criticism within the Democratic Caucus of some israeli policies. We welcome that. We want to debate on the issues. For the president to debate that i think is an absurdity and he ought to stop it immediately. Thank you for coming in. I still believe that nancy pelosi gave me news because nancy pelosi said she was giving me news. Thank you so much. Coming up we have first clues about what could have caused the flight to crash. What does it mean as more countries and airlines are grounding the boeing 737 max 8. New yorks attorney general zeroing in on the Trump Organization. What are the state investigators looking for now and what does it mean for President Trump . Pardon the interruption but this is big now with tmobile get the Samsung Galaxy s10e included with unlimited data for just 40 a month. Their medicare options. Before theyre on medicare. Come on in. Youre turning 65 soon . Yep. And youre retiring at 67 . 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So there is a new investigation into President Trump today not from robert mueller, not from the Southern District of new york, not even from congressional democrats, this one from the new York Attorney general issuing subpoenas to Deutsche Bank, the Large International bank extended loans to the Trump Organization for the past decade and now they are in the spotlight. What are you learning . The new York AttorneyGenerals Office has subpoenaed Deutsche Bank seeking documents and information relating to a series of loans, mortgages and lines of credit that the bank has extended to the Trump Organization specifically referring in the subpoena according to a source the trump hotel in chicago, the golf course outside of miami, the Trump National and also are asking for information about the Trump Organizations efforts to obtain a loan from Deutsche Bank in a bid that they lost to buy the Buffalo Bills football team. The New York Times is also reporting that the new York AttorneyGenerals Office has subpoenaed Investors Bank relating to financial dealings that they had done with trump park tower. This is the latest wave of subpoenas. They now seem to be targeting the Trump Organization and financial dealings and appear to be stemming from Michael Cohen who when they testified had essentially alleged that the Trump Organization and trump had manipulated his financial statements. It was my experience that mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes such as trying to be listed amongst the wealthiest people in forbes and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes. The new york a. G. Is not the only investigator looking after this. Last week we reported that new yorks top insurance regulator has subpoenaed the top insurance broker. We are getting some breaking news just in to cnn. A dozen people are facing charges now in a College Entrance exam cheating scheme that seems to be widespread and hitting some of the nations top universities and big names. We have the details as we are await ag press conference. What have you got . Reporter the big names that we are hearing who have been arrested or awaiting arrest giant scheme uncovered by the fbi is Felicity Huffman and laurie who say they were involved in the scheme. I want to explain the scheme to you as we are being told before this News Conference. This person would basically help students take s. A. T. S or a. C. T. S. Those are the entrance exams, in order to get into elite colleges. This person was paid by parents to do that. That was one side of the scheme. Another side of the scheme was the same person now indicted by federal authorities would bribe universities coaches to help students get into the universities basically through College Athletics even if they had no talent whatsoever when it came to athletics. The two names that were big were Felicity Huffman. Right now we are seeing that they are being charged with conspiracy to conduct mail fraud according to court paperwork filed here in boston. We are getting more information as soon as the News Conference starts. We will bring you more as soon as we can. It does seem to be a huge thing that justice officials are going to be laying out in boston in just a few minutes. We will bring more details as we get them. While we await that, i want to bring in cnn legal analyst. Y can you give me your sense of what this actually means. We have huge big name universities, big name celebrities. The accusation is trying to pay off schools or people to get their kids into college. What does it mean . It is very interesting. Federal prosecutors are using a statatory scheme call rico indictments. They are saying this Advisory Board for parents the nickname was the key was accepting huge amounts of money to employ people to take s. A. T. Tests, take a. C. T. Tests and even more interestingly to forge athletic resumes for the students in question. For instance, there is one case cited here involving Yale University where 1. 2 million was paid to get a coach to say that a young lady had a spectacular athletic background to help her get into yale. And it was this sort of obviously, we know that in theory, her academic record would be less of a consideration getting her into school because of her athletic abilities. Thats correct. Its really amazing on all fronts, how big this scheme seems to be, how long it went on. I think it started back in 2011 going all the way to 2019. Charged and arrested and charged with a felony. Does that surprise you . It always surprises you what lengths people will go to to cheat to get their kids into school. We are seeing reporting of 49 people arrested across seven indictments. They are using the racketeering statute. This is a major scheme. And it appears that the enterprise was all about fraud. This guy set up the company to help people cheat to get into college. There is a big market for that. People who have money apparently some of them will pay money to get their kids in. That seems to be what ensnared the actresses. We will be hearing from justice officials coming up. What answers are you looking to get from them now . There are pages and pages coming out in the indictments. I think what we want to see, these are elite colleges that are admitting these students. How could they be so easily defrauded by having false takers of the s. A. T. And a. C. T. In. Now the fault is on the parents who are trying to bribe their way into college. That is where the criminal conduct occurs. You have to wonder how they pull the wool over the eyes of the admissions people at some of the Great Colleges that are involved. One thing i am very surprised by is when you forge an athletic resume, when you say that someone is a superstar Soccer Player who deserves to play for yale, how do you pull that off . Its really going to be amazing to see the details here as to how this scam was executed. It went on from 2011 to 2019, over 25 million allegedly in bribes paid to admit the students. The dollar amount here is really mind boggling. What they are accused of doing is really offensive to anybody who went through the regular process of trying to get into one of these schools. Some of the people charged are people who worked at the schools. Some of the coaches at the schools were also involved which explains how these people got through. One other interesting thing is listed singer who was the architect of the scheme and owner of the Test Prep Company is charged in what is called in information. It usually means the person is cooperating with authorities. That is of course one question that comes up is how did this case begin . How did they uncover this Key Foundation . And who is cooperating . It is usually not the top guy. They usually dont cooperate the architect of the scheme. That is one thing to look out for. As im looking at the information coming into cnn, Felicity Huffman is charged with mail fraud and Honest Services mail fraud. What kind of punishment comes with this . There are multiple indictments here. I have read online at least they are posting as many as seven indictments coming down with different groups of people. This is the 345i8 fraud indictment. Mail fraud can be punishable from five years and up in terms of the punishment depending upon the criminal record. Needless to say, all of these charges are very serious felony charges. It begs the question what it means for their kids if they are still in school. The kids you have to think the kids would be innocent victims. If you are forging an athletic career for a kid not if they didnt take the exams. The kids are adults and obviously knew what they were doing if somebody else took the test. Justice officials will be speaking any minute now. Anymore detail we get, the charges that they filed, the arrests made, high profile universities, yale, georgetown, others, high profile names, actresses are charged in this. We will bring that to you live as soon as it happens. Well be right back. As the number one choice of hospitals pampers swaddlers is two times softer and wraps your baby in our most premium protection. Because everything that touches your baby should be this comforting. Pampers. The 1 choice of hospitals, nurses parents. That we just hit the motherlode of softserve ice cream . I got cones, anybody wants one oh, yeah get ya some no, i cant believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my Car Insurance with geico. Ed ed we struck sprinkles [cheers] believe it. Geico could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. Lets see, aleve is than tylenol extra strength. You fifteen percent and last longer with fewer pills. So why am i still thinking about this . Ill take aleve. Aleve. Proven better on pain. All of you. How you live, what you love. Thats what inspired us to create americas most advanced internet. Internet that puts you in charge. That protects whats important. It handles everything, and reaches everywhere. This is beyond wifi, this is xfi. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity, the future of awesome. A dozen people including actress Felicity Huffman and Laurie Loughlin a facing charges in a College Entrance exam scheme that just osficials say they have uncovered with a lot of indictments. We are waiting to hear from federal authorities. They are supposed to be holding a new conference. It is wide ranging and it is complicated. Let me get over to i am being told the press conference is starting right now. Lets go there and listen in in boston. Good morning. We are here today to announce charges in the Largest College admissions scam every prosecuted by the department of justice. We have charged meaning s. A. T. And a. C. T. And second securing admission to elite colleges by bribing coaches at those schools to accept certain students under false pretenses. In return for bribes, these coaches agreed to pretend that certain applicants were recruited athletes which they were not. Overall we have charged three people who organized these scams, two s. A. T. Or a. C. T. Exam administrators, one exam proctor, one college administrator, nine coaches at elite schools and 33 parents who paid enormous sums to guarantee their childrens admission to certain schools through the use of bribes and fake academic and athletic credentials. A central defendant in the scheme, william singer, will plead guilty today to charges of racketeering conspiracy, Money Laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States. Singer allegedly ran the key worldwide foundation. Between roughly 2011 and 2018, wealthy parents paid singer about 25 million in total to guarantee their childrens admission to elite schools including yale, georgetown, stanford, university of Southern California, the university of texas, ucla and wake forest. Beyond enriching himself, singer used that money to bribe college officials, division i coaches, college exam administrators all to secure admission to the children of his clients not on their merits but through fraud. The organization reported to be a Charitable Organization but was a front singer used to launder the money that parents paid him of which he would take a portion and dole it out as bribes to coaches and others. More specifically with respect to the s. A. T. And a. C. T. Scheme, numerous parents paid singer between 15,000 and 75,000 to have someone either take the exam for their child or to correct their childs answers afterward all to achieve a sufficiently high preagreed score on those tests. Singer accomplished this by paying defendant mark ridell, also charged today, to take or correct the exams and by bribing two exam administrators, defends Nicky Williams and igor to allow this to happen on their watch. Singer paid williams about 5,000 per student. To facilitate the scam, singer counseled parents to take their children to a therapist and get a letter saying that because of purported learning disabilities or other issues, the child needed additional time to complete the a. C. T. Or the s. A. T. Once the companies that administer those exams had agreed to the extra time, singer arranged for the child to take the exam individually with one of the proctors he had bribed or one of the administrators he had bribed either at a location in houston or a location in california. Beyond the s. A. T. And a. C. T. Scam parents paid singer money that he then used to bribe coaches and administrators to designate their children as recruited athletes for various schools. In return for bribes, coaches would use slots that their schools had allocated to them for the recruitment of athletes instead to take the applicants singer had identified. Singer worked with the parents to fabricate impressive athletic profiles for their kids including fake athletic credentials or honors or fake participation in elite club teams. In many instances, singer helped parents take staged photographs of their children engaged in particular sports. Other times, singer and his associates used stock photos that they pulled off the internet, sometimes photo shopping the face of the child on to the picture of the athlete and submitting it in support of the applications for these children to elite schools. In one example, the head womens soccer coach at yale in exchange for 400,000 accepted an applicant as a recruit for the yale womens team despite knowing that the applicant did not even play competitive soccer. The student was in fact admitted and afterward the students family paid singer 1. 2 million for that service. In addition to the standardized test scam and College Admissions scam, singer also arranged for someone to take Online High School classes in place of certain students so that those students could submit higher grades as part of their Overall College application packages. The parents payments to singer for the services were made at least in part as charitable contributions to the sham charity that singer had set up. At his direction, employees sent clients acknowledgment letters falsely confirming that no goods or services have been exchanged for the purported donation. This enabled theparence to not only mask the true nature of the payment, but also take the tax write off at the end of the year. Today, we have charged 33 parents nationwide with hiring Singers Group to defraud Testing Companies and or various universities. These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege. They include ceos of private and public companies, successful securities and real estate investors, two wellknown actresses, a famous Fashion Designer and the co chairman of a global law firm. Based on the charges unsealed today, all of them knowingly conspired with singer and others to help their children either cheat on the s. A. T. Or a. C. T. And or buy their childrens admission to elite schools through fraud. Singers clients paid him between 100,000 and 6. 5 mill where for the service. This case is about the widening corruption of elite College Admissions through the steady application of wealth combined with fraud. There can be no separate College Admissions system for the wealthy and i will add there will not be a separate criminal Justice System either. Every year, hundreds of thousands of hard working, talented students strive for admission to elite schools. As every parent knows, these students work harder and harder every year in a system that appears to grow more and more competitive every year and that system is a zero sum game. For every student admitted through fraud an honest, genuinely talented student was rejected. The parents charge today despite already being able to give their children every legitimate advantage in the College Admissions game instead chose to corrupt and illegally manipulate the system for their benefit. We are not talking about donating a building so that a school is more likely to take your son or daughter. We are talking about deception and fraud, fake test scores, fake athletic credentials, fake photographs, bribed college officials. As you can see from the various charging documents unsealed today in this case, the investigation was complex and extremely labor intensive. Two defends will plead guilty this afternoon. As i mentioned before, william singer will plead guilty at 2 30 today in this courthouse and john vander mort who is the head sailing coach at Stanford University will also plead guilty today at 3 p. M. I want to thank the four prosecutors in my office who were assigned to this investigation for their extraordinary work on this case. The lead prosecutor on this matter eric rosen is up here with me today. I also want to thank the fbi and irs for their usual professionalism and skill. The take down today involved over 200 federal agents nationwide who arrested 50 people in 6 states and on both coasts. With that, i will hand things over to joe who is the special agent in charge of the Boston Office of the fbi. Thank you. Thank you, andy. Once again, i am the special agent in charge of the fbi boston division. Operation varsity blues cull miinated early this morning when approximately 300 special agents from the fbi and the irs criminal investigations set out to arrest 46 individuals across the country for their roles in an international College Admissions bribery and Money Laundering scam. So far, 38 individuals have been safely taken into custody and 7 are working toward surrender. One is being actively pursued. Another four are expected to plead guilty here in boston, two later today and two in the coming weeks. We believe all of them, parents, coaches and facilitators lied, cheated and covered up their crimes at the expense of hard working students and taxpayers everywhere. Our investigation began last may after we uncovered evidence of a large scale elaborate fraud while working an unrelated under cover operation. Following ten months of intense investigative efforts using a variety of sophisticated techniques, the fbi uncovered what we believe is a rigged system, robbing students all over the country of their right at a fair shot to getting into some of the most elite universities in this country such as yale, stanford and georgetown. We believe everyone charged here today had a role in fostering a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven Playing Field for students trying to get into these schools the right way through hard work, good grades and community service. Unfortunately, what many students didnt know was that the odds had already been stacked against them by corrupt practices including but not limited to bribery, falsification of athletic profiles and near perfect s. A. T. And a. C. T. Scores that were fraudulently obtained when in realty they were far from perfect. Make no mistake, this is not a case where parents were acting in the best tropical stointeres children. This is a case where they flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat the system so they can set their children up for success with the best education money can buy literally. Some spent anywhere from 200,000 to 6. 5 million for guaranteed admission. Their actions were without a doubt insidious, selfish and sha shameful. And the real victims in this case are the hard working students who did everything they could to set themselves up for success in the College Admissions process but ended up being shut out because far less qualified students and their families simply bought their way in. Whats also a cause for concern is how this was even allowed to happen in the first place. P evidence we have obtained shows that trusted coaches and administrators manipulated the system has the universities had in place to accommodate students with fake athletic credentials, some of whom did not even play the sports they were recruited to play. It is a sham that strikes at the core of the College Admissions process throughout colleges across the country and the alleged master mind behind it rick singer offered a variety of cheating options as part of a widespread conspiracy while facilitating cheating on act and sat exams recruiting on exchange for bribes and concealing the nature and source of those bribes. There is no telling what the school of thought was while carrying out the conspiracy but todays arrests should be a warning to others. You cant pay to play. You cant lie and cheat to get ahead because you will get caught. This was a complex and demanding investigation. And it was charged accordingly. The use of the rico statute signals the magnitude of the criminal enterprise and the seriousness of the crimes. I would like to personally recognize the investigators and prosecutors and pursued this case. However, our work snais not don our Investigation Continues and we will continue to find and stop those who are not playing by the rules because as you can see in this case the impact on every day people is real, has consequences and broad ranging effect. My sincerest appreciation for the tremendous work done by the United States attorney and his team as well as my thanks to special agent in charge Christina Oconnell and her folks at the irs criminal investigation for their continued partnership and support. This was truly a team effort. Thank you. Good morning and thank you all for being here. I would like to thank u. S. Attorney and fbi special agent in charge for the opportunity to address you here today. I am the special agent in charge of the irs Criminal Division of the boston field office. This morning special agents from irs criminal investigation along side the fbi arrests dozens of individuals for their role in a nationwide scheme to exchange bribes for College Admissions. At the center of the sweeping Financial Crime is william rick singer. Singer and the others arrested today conspired to not only make and receive bribes, but to also funnel the bribe payments for a bogus charity. Utilizing this business facade he was able to conceal the source and nature. To further the false legitimacy he advised parents that they could deduct the payments as charitable donations on their own individual income tax returns. Overall, irs criminal investigation and the fbi traced over 25 million in bribes laundered through this alleged charity founded by singer. Overall, our investigators also revealed that the true objective of those involved was not charity at all, but greed. Irs criminal investigation will continue to collaborate with our Law Enforcement partners and the United StatesAttorneys Office on the complex financial investigations to make sure the honest taxpayers receive the message that irs criminal investigation will never let financial corruption and greed trump hard work and honest effort. Thank you. Questions . It appears to be a conspiracy nationwide in scope. There are several connections to the boston area. So fake test scores for example were submitted to boston college, Boston University and northeastern. Two of the defendants live in this state. A lot of the activities, phone calls, meetings did happen here. And we frankly had the resources and the sophistication to take down a case of this magnitude. [ inaudible question ] this is still ongoing. The 33 parents that we have charged, their children were able to get in somewhere. There are more than that, but im not prepared to give you a total. Im sorry. Is anything going to happen to the students . There are two aspects to that question. What is the reaction of the schools they go to . We leave that to the schools. As to charges against them, were still considering that. Its not an accident that there are no students charged in these charging documents. The parents, the other defendants are clearly the prime movers of this what degree of the students graduate . In the sense of the students that got in fraudulently, will they graduate with degrees . I dont know the answer to that question. Those two parents, Felicity Huffman and lori loughlin, it sounds like they took two different routes. Can you go into detail about that . There were essentially two kinds of fraud that singer was selling. One was to cheat on the s. A. T. Or a. C. T. , and the other was to use his connections with division i coaches and use bribes to get these parents kids into school with fake athletic credentials. Some parents took advantage of one. I think miss huffman, for example, took example of one of these which was the s. A. T. Cheating scam. Some took advantage of the other, some took advantage of both. Any answers as to why she didnt do it for her second child . I cant comment on that. Can you tell us more about how you guys uncovered this . I think i can say that our first lead in this case came during interviews with a target of an entirely separate investigation who gave us a tip that this activity might be going on. How did rick singer get this started . How did he build up all these connections . He started in the College Business years ago and built up his connections over time. As you can tell from the charging documents, the recruitment part of the scam depended on the personal relationships he had established with division i coaches at a variety of elite schools. The students are minimally involved in the exam cheating, but for a lot of these things in terms of the scam, how involved were the students . How much did they know was going on . That varies in the complaints indictment. Youll see where its important to the parents that their child not know this occurred. So someone work forg siing for would come in afterward and correct the answers in the exam. In some aspects, the student did know. There is an example where the parent and their daughter was on with this whole thing. Was it for personal gains or sometimes for athletic programs at the school . It was both. There is one coach who did not take any of the money for himself. The other coaches all took some money for themselves, some took all of it for themselves, but most, it appears, gave portions to the Schools Program and took some for their own use. Was this case tied to the other case . Was this the jerome allen case . No, it was not. You said there were victims of the admissions. Can you elaborate on that . They all received test scores that were inflated through the cheating scandal. In one instance as youll see in the complaint, it appears one of the defendants entered a quid pro quo with singer where singer would help that defendant student commit fraud, and in exchange, the parent would help one of singers other clients with admission to northeastern university. I know its a little confusing but youll see that in the complaint. There is no evidence that the schools knew anything about this . They just believed it . It appears the schools are not involved. It appears that in all of these instances, with the exception of one usc administrator who we have charged, university of Southern California university that was charged, coaches were a alotted slots for athletic recruitment. Singer accepted bribes. Singer gave the coaches sufficiently effective fake athletic credentials. The coaches used those athletic profiles to convince everyone internally that thfis was a goo recruit for the team, the student was admitted and the coach pocketed the bribe. [ inaudible question ] its a little premature for that. The actual sentence someone might face, we just dont know that yet. Its very premature for that. Some of these bribes are substantial, bribes between, as i said, usually 250,000 and 400,000. Actually, i should say donations to singer from which he made these bribes of college coaches. Its a little premature to say what ranges of sentencing they might be in. Are there corroborating witnesses . As you guys know, and as you can see in the complaint affidavit, we do occasionally flip targets and they wind up cooperating, but i cant comment on whether any of these people will. I will say that the investigation remains active. These are not the only parents involved. We suspect these probably arent the only coaches involved. And so we will be moving ahead to look for additional targets. Did singer ever work for one of these major universities before . Meaning was he an employee of one of these universities . Right, as an administrator. Did he get his start that way . Sitting here now, i dont know that. Any criminal history . Im not going to comment on that. He said hes planning on pleading guilty today. Whats been the conversation that led up to that . Obviously he didnt hear about the charge just this morning. I cant shed a lot of light on that because most of it is confidential. I can state the obvious which is that we identified singer some time ago and he has decided under a plea agreement to plead guilty to racketeering, among other charges. You knew that already, but thats really all i can tell you. You dont know the sentencing tied to that, then . Offhand, i dont remember what the provisions of the plea agreement will say about sentencing, but the plea agreement should ultimately become a Public Document and you will be able to see that yourself. It will be docketed. You mentioned that it appears the schools are not involved with the exception of that one administrator. Are the schools under investigation, are they currently part of the Ongoing Investigation . Right now the schools themselves are not targets of this investigation. As you can see from the charges we brought, the investigation was very broad. Weve charged a lot of people throughout the investigation in our investigation of each of these targets. We have not seen the schools as coconspirators with this activity. How long has this investigation been underway . I think its been under investigation a little over a year. Am i right about that . A little over a year. What about the students who purportedly played these sports that got into these programs and they dont play the sport . It varied. Some simply never showed up for the athletics. Some pretended an injury, and i think some played briefly and then quit. One of the defendants [ inaudible ] beyond whats in the complaint, i cant tell you about that. Are any of the students still currently enrolled, parents of the children that were charged . As youll see from the charging documents, most of this activity is fairly current, so i assume i cant tell you directly that the vast majority of the students admitted under false pretenses are in these schools and are enrolled and are active students. [ inaudible question ] i dont know the answer to that. I can tell you that based on what ive seen in the charging documents, i dont think thats the case. I think they got admission, but i dont think they got separate athletic scholarships. What singer was good at doing was calibrating the fake credentials to appear realistic and not so impressive as to invite suspicion or additional scrutiny. Did he have any relationship with the clients or was it entirely a scheme . I dont know the answer to that. [ inaudible question ] one defendant is in hawaii, and so its a time difference. Question . There are rules governor earning what times of day federal agents can make arrests. You cant show up at 2 00 in the morning and arrest somebody. So thats what accounts for that. When he was taking the exams, i know sometimes he would change the answers. Was he equipped to know those answers or was he [ inaudible ] he was just a really smart guy. If i understand your question correctly, he didnt have inside information about the answers, he was just smart enough to get a near perfect score on demand or to calibrate the score. So singer would discuss with their clients what kind of score they were looking for. If your daughter took the s. A. T. On her own the first time and got a particular score, retaking the exam, if her score goes up too much, that would provide scrutiny. So singer would discuss with parents what kind of score was impressive but not too impressive, and then would instruct riddell to attempt to get that score. And he was just good enough to do it. [ inaudible question ] im not sure how much of that is public so im going to err on the side of not answering that. I think in the charging document for riddell which is now public, you will find whatever im allowed to say on that point, but i dont remember standing here. How are they able to change