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 fulltime 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.