Judicial Watch: FBI is investigating SEIU leader Andy Stern

The powerful leftist union leader who regularly visited the White House last year and participated in closed-door Obamacare meetings with the president, vice president and House speaker is being federally investigated for corruption.

Andy Stern, who sits on President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, is the target of an FBI probe focusing on his crooked dealings as head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Stern and Obama have long been good friends and last year the veteran Big Labor leader was the most frequent White House visitor, according to recently disclosed records.

Stern was also a key figure in secret Obamacare meetings, which violated the president’s campaign promise of televising all healthcare discussions. Health Department records obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reveal that Stern attended the covert powwows to take over the nation’s healthcare system along with other leftist union leaders, Vice President Joe Biden, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, among others.

So far the president has refused to comment on his pal’s corruption probe, which centers on a six-figure book contract and a shady “confidential” deal he approved for a California SEIU leader (Alejandro Stephens) sentenced to prison a few weeks ago for fraud. Under the secret agreement Stern gave Stephens, who headed the Los Angeles SEIU local for county government workers, $150,000 for “consulting” work that was never performed.

With more than 2 million members the SEIU is the nation’s second-largest union and among the most corrupt. Under Stern’s leadership the SEIU, with an economic model that includes an expansion of social welfare programs, increased taxation and universal healthcare, regularly bullied companies into signing agreements to let it represent its employees. The SEIU also pushed hard to make Hilda Solis, a California congresswoman with close ties to the influential La Raza movement, Labor Secretary.

Judicial Watch just sued the Labor Department to obtain records involving Solis’s federal program (“Podemos Ayudar”—We Can Help) to assist “vulnerable and underpaid” illegal immigrant workers obtain fair wages. At least 1,000 field investigators have been deployed to reach out to Latino laborers and illegal workers who contact the government for assistance have been guaranteed that they won’t be reported to federal immigration authorities.