IAFF-FC: The Irish Ax

Eric Lamar
2 min readMar 6, 2023

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Gagged

As Kurt Becker, head of the IAFF-FC, pressured John Hughes to agree to the kickback scheme, Hughes made the decision to notify the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of his ethical concerns.

He did so by email on January 17th of this year while also notifying Becker of his actions.

The very next day, January 18th, IAFF president Ed Kelly held a meeting in his office which included Hughes and Becker.

Kelly

In the meeting, Kelly apparently said that “things were not working out.” That’s the standard line when the Irish ax falls on Kelly’s latest casualty.

Hughes was then offered an anemic separation package contingent upon agreeing to a gag order.

Guess who the gag order covered.

Hughes was to be barred from communicating with IAFF members or the boards of the IAFF-FC or the IAFF.

Kelly was trying to silence Hughes and prevent him from fulfilling his ethical and fiduciary obligations.

Hughes refused to agree and now the IAFF is once again involved in controversy.

Even worse, the IAFF-FC has been flagged to the SEC as breaching ethical and fiduciary requirements.

The Kelly/Becker circus is a serious crisis with far reaching consequences.

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