FIFA-Related Criminal Case Goes Poof After Trump ‘Peace Prize’
Just days after the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) awarded Donald Trump a newly-invented "Peace Prize," his Department of Justice moved to drop charges against Hernán López who had been “convicted of scheming to pay millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for the lucrative broadcast rights to soccer tournaments,” The New York Times reported Wednesday.
As Scott Horton noted (below), The Times somehow managed not to connect any dots between the award Trump has been craving (never mind the war crimes his administration is committing) and the sudden decision to drop charges against López.
López was the head of a Fox Sports broadcasting unit who was convicted in 2023 of “money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. Prosecutors had said Mr. López conspired to pay off the heads of national federations to win the rights to broadcast two South American soccer tournaments,” as per The Times (my emphases added). “Mr. López also helped Fox beat out ESPN to win the rights to broadcast the men’s World Cup in 2018 and 2022, prosecutors said.”
As The Times explained, López’s conviction was vacated, then reinstated by a federal appeals court. In September, he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.