JUDICIAL WATCH: WHAT ABOUT
MCAULIFFE'S FAILED CAR COMPANY? Issue
arises as Mississippi demands $6.4 million be repaid to government, by Bob
Unruh, 7/8/17, WND
There is a flood of allegations
swamping American government these days, accusing officials of improper
ties: to Russia, to each other and to various companies. It’s all there in the
headlines.
But at least one allegation has been
virtually ignored: The failure of the electric car company founded by Virginia
Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
McAuliffe was the chairman of
Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and he’s a former Democratic
National Committee chairman.
“The mainstream media is ignoring
this pertinent fact,” explained investigators with Judicial Watch. “Most mainstream news outlets ignored the story
altogether and a few kept McAuliffe’s name out [of] the minimal coverage.
Judicial Watch pointed out that the
Washington Post ran a lengthy wire service story that matter-of-factly
mentions McAuliffe in the very last sentence.
The article explained McAuliffe
resigned as the firm’s chairman in December 2012 and said he divested his
interest. “How convenient!” Judicial Watch said. “The
article omits that, as GreenTech founder, McAuliffe brokered the deal in which
the company got millions in public funds by promising to invest $60 million
locally and creating hundreds of new full-time jobs.”
“That never happened,” Judicial
Watch said, “and instead taxpayers got fleeced.”
The report pointed out that
Mississippi state auditor Stacey Pickering is ordering that the money be repaid
with interest and investigative costs. The exact figure is $6,360,019.60.
Judicial Watch explained McAuliffe
was the founder of the company, based in Mississippi. It shut down in January.
“Only a small Richmond, Virginia,
newspaper prominently reported McAuliffe’s ties to the scandal, stating in the
headline that ‘Mississippi auditor demands $6.4M repayment from McAuliffe’s
former electric car company,” Judicial Watch reported.
The Washington watchdog organization
said McAuliffe is “a renowned Democratic fundraiser who made a fortune with
shady investments in a telecommunications giant that went bankrupt.”
“He started his fundraising career
in Jimmy Carter’s 1979 re-election campaign and has raised big bucks for
Democrats over the years, but not without controversy. McAuliffe was
investigated for campaign-finance abuses during the 1996 presidential election and
was deposed by the Senate committee investigating the matter.
In 2002 the Virginia governor was
investigated for his role in an unprecedented case of political profiteering
for turning a $100,000 investment in telecommunications giant Global Crossings
into an $18 million profit. The company later made the fourth-largest
bankruptcy filing in history and McAuliffe insisted he only did ‘political
work’ for the company’s founder who, incidentally, donated $1 million to Bill
Clinton’s Presidential Library.”
Judicial Watch pointed out
it had put McAuliffe on its list of most corrupt politicians in 2013 and
sued him last year on behalf of voters after he issued an executive order
restoring the voting rights to not quite a quarter million convicted felons. Judicial
Watch said the fight is escalating, and “could be headed toward a bitter end in
court.”
“Ending his four-year term as
governor with a higher national profile and record as an exuberant pitchman for
Virginia, GreenTech’s unraveling could dog McAuliffe amid speculation about a
2020 presidential bid,” the organization said in its “Corruption Chronicles”
report on McAuliffe.
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