You could see this one coming a mile away:
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11, 2001 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his health-care documentary “Sicko.”
The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, a fierce critic of President George W. Bush. In the past, Moore’s adversaries have fanned publicity that helped the filmmaker create a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary.
“Sicko” promises to take the U.S. health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted Americans’ passion for guns in “Bowling for Columbine” and skewered Bush over his handling of Sept. 11 in “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 it is conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba.
“This office has no record that a specific licence was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba,” Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations, wrote in the letter to Moore.
In February, Moore took about 10 ailing workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort in Manhattan for treatment in Cuba, said a person working with the filmmaker on the release of “Sicko.” The person requested anonymity because Moore’s lawyers had not yet determined how to respond.
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