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Baltimore limps along as mayor’s scandal keeps on unfolding
BALTIMORE — When Catherine Pugh was inaugurated as mayor, she vowed to help transform Baltimore into “the greatest city in America.” Halfway through her first term, she has thrust her chronically struggling city back into the spotlight, for all the wrong reasons.
Demands for Pugh’s resignation dramatically intensified as FBI and IRS agents carried off boxloads of documents in raids of her City Hall offices, her homes and other locations on Thursday. A federal grand jury has been empaneled, and while the scope of the tax agency’s criminal investigation isn’t clear, it follows state and local probes of murky arrangements that earned the Democrat roughly $800,000 over the years in exchange for self-published children’s paperbacks about health and nutrition.
Accusations that the mayor might have received kickbacks in exchange for government favours hasn’t helped restore public trust in Maryland’s biggest city, where Pugh promised transformational change in the wake of massive riots and protests over police abuses.