John Liu, City Comptroller, Under Federal Investigation For Alleged Campaign Shenanigans

City Comptroller John Liu, who has won kudos for taking on the Bloomberg administration over cost overruns on consultant contracts, is being investigated by the Feds for campaign finance irregularities, the New York Times is reporting.

A grand jury has issued subpoenas for records from his campaign office and from a company which does business with the city, and contributed thousands to Liu. Liu is also under investigation, dating to his 2009, for whether his campaign received foreign contributions.

Nine employees of Dynasty Stainless Steel were listed as donating $800 each to Liu's campaign. "But at least four have said they did not work for the company, and two of those said they did not give money to the campaign," The Times reported.

Eleven employees of Farewell International, a Brooklyn seafood company, gave Liu $800 this year. But a company official told the Times that the firm has just three employees, stating, "They put other peoples' names under our company. We don't know why."

And Liu still hasn't released the names of his "bundlers," people who solicit contributions from others. He is required to disclose those names under the law.

Liu insists that his fund-raising was proper, but he apparently is about to hire criminal attorney Paul Shechtman, the Times says.