SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An anti-corruption agency in Haiti on Wednesday accused three members of the country's transitional presidential council of bribery in a scathing report that threatens to destabilize the country’s fragile political stability.
Smith Augustin, Emmanuel Vertilaire and Louis Gérald Gilles are accused of demanding more than $750,000 from the director of the government-owned National Bank of Credit to secure his job, the Unit for Combating Corruption said in its report.
“The message is clear. No one is above the laws of our republic!” said Hans Joseph, the unit's director, as he detailed the corruption allegations during a news conference where he unveiled the report.
Behind him stood at least half a dozen investigators wearing caps and face masks, their identities concealed.
The report is a significant blow to the nine-member council and is expected to further erode people's trust in it. The council was appointed earlier this year after targeted gang violence forced the country's former prime minister to resign, leaving Haiti without a leader. The council works alongside new Prime Minister Garry Conille and is tasked with helping run the country.
It wasn't immediately clear if the council would take any action against the three members, who did not return messages for comment.
Impunity remains widespread in Haiti even as the Unit for Combating Corruption continues cracking down on government officials.
The agency accused Gilles of organizing a meeting on May 25 among the council members, the former bank director, Raoul Pascal Pierre-Louis, and Haitian consul Lonick Léandre at the Royal Oasis Hotel in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where the demand for more than $750,000 was made.
According to the report, Pierre-Louis told investigators that Gilles and Léandre took his phone and those of others present before the meeting began. “At first, I thought it was a joke,” he was quoted as saying.
After the meeting, Pierre-Louis mentioned the demand to several officials, including Prime Minister Garry Conille and a judge.
Pierre-Louis then scheduled a second meeting at his home “to continue the discussions,” with only Augustin and Gilles attending. Unable to come with the more than $750,000, Pierre-Louis proposed instead to arrange loans or lines of credit, according to the report. Pictures of the dinner were later shared with investigators.
Authorities said that four lines of credit were soon arranged, three of them up to $20,000 each for the council members accused, and a fourth up to $13,500 for Léandre.
The three council members and the bank manager all face criminal charges of bribery and corruption, the anti-corruption unit said. Léandre faces charges of instigating bribe payments. None of them could be reached for comment.
A judge is now expected to review the report’s findings and issue any arrest warrants if needed.
Augustin previously served as Haitian ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Gilles is an ex-senator and Vertilaire is a former investigative judge.
The report noted that all five denied the accusations, adding that Vertilaire told investigators, “It would be an absurdity on my part to demand money from someone I don’t even know, from someone I saw for the first time.”
The agency also called on the U.S. government to extradite Pierre-Louis.
FILE - Ex-senator Louis Gerald Gilles, from left to right, pastor Frinel Joseph, barrister Emmanuel Vertilaire, businessman Laurent Saint-Cyr, interim Prime Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert, Judge Jean Joseph Lebrun, who is not a member of the council, former senate president Edgard Leblanc, Regine Abraham, former central bank governor Fritz Alphonse Jean, former diplomat Leslie Voltaire and former ambassador to the Dominican Republic Smith Augustin, pose for a group photo during an installation ceremony, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File)
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris handed out meals, embraced a shaken family and surveyed Hurricane Helene’s “extraordinary” path of destruction through Georgia on Wednesday as she left the campaign trail to pledge federal help and personally take in scenes of toppled trees, damaged homes and lives upended.
She visited Augusta, where power lines stretched along the sidewalk and utility poles lay cracked and broken. The vice president spoke from a lectern erected in front of a house with a fallen tree teetering on its roof, acknowledging those who had died in the disaster while also trying to project a tone of unity and hope for communities now facing long and expensive rebuilds.
Harris and President Joe Biden, who visited the Carolinas on Wednesday, were seeking to demonstrate commitment and competence in helping devastated communities after Republican former President Donald Trump’s false claims about their administration’s response.
Harris said she wanted to “personally take a look at the devastation, which is extraordinary.” She expressed admiration for how "people are coming together. People are helping perfect strangers.”
The Democratic presidential nominee said that shows ”the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us,” an echo of a line she frequently uses on the campaign trail.
Before delivering her remarks, Harris could be seen embracing and huddling with a family of five grappling with the storm's aftermath.
“We are here for the long haul," she said.
Harris also toured a Red Cross relief center and received a briefing from local officials, praising those working to “meet the needs of people who must be seen and must be heard."
“I am now listening,” she said.
Brittany Smith, an Augusta resident, walked away from the distribution center with Styrofoam boxes of food and some fruit cups, beaming that she got a photo with the vice president. She said there's a hole in her roof and she had to send her kids elsewhere to live because it wasn’t safe.
Harris' visit, she said, “made it better” despite the hardship.
Smith said she was encouraged that Harris traveled to the town instead of just appearing on television. “She’s a person. She’s not just a voice.”
About 200 miles north in the Carolinas, Biden was also surveying the storm's aftermath. With many of the area's roads inaccessible, he flew by helicopter over toppled trees, twisted metal and towering piles of debris in the normally tourist-friendly downtown of Asheville.
From the air, Biden saw flooded roads, piles of shredded lumber and displaced sandbags, emergency trucks and downed power lines. In one area, homes were partly underwater, and it was hard to distinguish between lake and land.
Visits to disaster zones are a familiar responsibility f or Biden, who has frequently been called on to survey damage and comfort victims after tornadoes, wildfires and tropical storms. But this was Harris' first visit to a disaster area as vice president.
Because of the destruction where Biden was on Wednesday, he was unable to walk around and personally comfort people as Harris did in Georgia.
Biden wore a vest and boots and, before his air tour, he hugged and grabbed the hand of Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, who was at the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, to meet him. The mayor, with visible emotion. said they could not close down the area’s one operable road for Biden’s motorcade.
Biden will be back in the region Thursday to visit Florida and Georgia, and Harris plans her own North Carolina trip in coming days — as Helene's aftermath continues to pose a political and humanitarian test for the administration.
Before leaving Washington, Biden made a point of mentioning how an ongoing dockworkers strike could make getting supplies to hard-hit areas more difficult.
“Natural disasters are incredibly consequential. The last thing we need on top of that is a man-made disaster that’s going on at the ports,” he said. “We’re getting pushback already, we’re hearing from the folks regionally that they’re having trouble getting product that they need because of the port strike.”
Harris is being especially watched as her bid for the White House enters its closing stretch, and Helene's path included the battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina.
The vice president last visited scenes of natural disasters as a California senator, including when she went to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017 and when she walked through charred wreckage in Paradise, California, after the Camp Fire in 2018.
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Harris’ campaign manager and former state director in her Senate office, said the vice president uses her experience consoling victims as a courtroom prosecutor to connect with people after tragedies.
She said the trip to Georgia was a chance for Harris "to continue to show her leadership and her ability to get things done, versus Donald Trump and JD Vance who want to dismantle the basic services and the role that the government should play.”
Trump, the Republican nominee, traveled to Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday with a Christian charity organization that brought trucks of fuel, food, water and other supplies. The former president accused Biden of “sleeping” and not responding to calls from Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. However, Kemp had spoken with Biden the previous day, and the governor said the state was getting everything it needed.
Biden was infuriated by Trump’s claim, saying Trump was “lying, and the governor told him he was lying.”
The storm's death toll climbed to at least 178 people, and power, running water and cellular service remained unavailable in some places. Later Wednesday, Biden flew to Raleigh, North Carolina, for a briefing with officials and called Helene a "storm of historic proportions.”
“The nation has your back,” Biden said.
The tone of both Harris and Biden was far different than Trump, who claimed without evidence that Democratic leaders were withholding help from Republican areas. He recently threatened that he would withhold wildfire assistance from California because of disagreements with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
When Trump was president, Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people. His administration waited until fall 2020, just weeks before the presidential election, to release $13 billion in assistance for Puerto Rico’s recovery. A federal government watchdog also found that Trump administration officials hampered an investigation into delays in the aid delivery.
Weissert reported from Washington.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris poses for a photo as she helps distribute food with the American Red Cross at the Henry Brigham Community Center in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris greets people who were impacted by Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as from left, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., FEMA deputy direct Erik Hooks and Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson watch. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris walks with Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as she visits areas impacted by Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two at Augusta Regional Airport in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, en route to Washington, after visiting the area impacted by Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks as she tours an area impacted by Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson, left, and FEMA deputy administrator Erik Hooks listen. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Marine One, with President Joe Biden on board, flies over areas impacted by Hurricane Helene over downtown Asheville, N.C., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden and Gov. Roy Cooper, D-N.C., greet first responders after touring areas impacted by Hurricane Helene, at the ariport in Greenville, S.C., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a briefing at the Augusta Emergency Operations Center as she visits areas impacted by Hurricane Helene, in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris greets people before a briefing at the Augusta Emergency Operations Center as she visits areas impacted by Hurricane Helene, in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Joe Biden shakes hands with Gov. Roy Cooper, D-N.C., with Gov. Henry McMaster, R-S.C., standing right, as he arrives at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in Greer, S.C., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, to survey damage from Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden walks up the steps and boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as he heads to North and South Carolina to survey damage from Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden speaks to the media before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, as he heads to North and South Carolina to survey damage from Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to members of the media, Tuesday Oct. 1, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Joe Biden listens during a briefing on the government's response to Hurricane Helene in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to members of the media, Tuesday Oct. 1, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Joe Biden speaks during a briefing on the government's response to Hurricane Helene in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, as Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, left, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, right, look on. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
