More than 100 McAuliffe/Clinton Donations

Posted on May 24, 2016May 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

Feds Reportedly Examining More Than 100 Donations Made to Both Clinton Foundation and McAuliffe Campaign

LawNewz: Federal investigators are reportedly examining more than 100 donations made to both the Clinton Foundation and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s campaign as part of a larger probe into whether McAuliffe’s campaign accepted illegal contributions.

McAuliffe is a longtime friend to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, having previously served as Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign chairman and as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a part of the Clinton Foundation.

A report by CNN on Monday indicated that federal investigators have spent the past year examining whether McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign accepted illegal contributions. The probe is reportedly focused on contributions made by Chinese businessman Wang Wenliang. However, sources familiar with the probe also told CNN “investigators have scrutinized McAuliffe’s time as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a vehicle of the charitable foundation set up by former President Bill Clinton.”

Adding to the initial report, federal officials reportedly told NBC News late on Monday that investigators are examining more than 100 contributions made to both the Clinton Foundation and McAuliffe’s 2013 campaign. Wang is reportedly one of the individuals who made overlapping contributions, pledging $2 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation and another $120,000 McAuliffe’s campaign.

There is currently no allegation of wrongdoing on the part of the Clinton Foundation, according to the reports. The investigation is said to be focused on McAuliffe and campaign contributions. Federal law prohibits campaigns from accepting contributions from foreign nationals. However, a spokesman told CNN that Wang has permanent resident status which makes him eligible to make campaign donations.

On Monday, a lawyer for the campaign denied any wrongdoing and promised McAuliffe would cooperate with the investigation. McAuliffe issued his own statement on Tuesday morning denying any wrongdoing and saying he is “confident” Wang is a legitimate donor. According to Politico, the statement reads, in part:

This has nothing to do with the Clinton Foundation. This was an allegation of a gentleman who gave a check to my campaign. I didn’t bring the donor in. I didn’t bring him into the Clinton Foundation. I’m not even sure if I’ve ever met the person, to be honest with you. I know the folks that worked at his company. Has nothing to do with the Clinton Foundation. And I can tell you this, I’ve worked and helped the president on the foundation. I’ve traveled all over the globe with Bill Clinton. And you go to Africa and other places around the globe and you look what he has done for children, health clinics, AIDS research all over the globe, it really is something to see. I’ve traveled to Malawi and seen him with young women businesses over there. They have really done great spectacular work to help people’s lives. And that’s what’s what he’s focused on. He’s done a great job and honestly I’m very proud to be part of it.

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The investigation also involves the Clinton Foundation, according to CNN. CBS reported last year that Wang’s company, Rilin Enterprises, pledged in 2013 to give the organization $2 million. CNN noted that there is “no allegation” of impropriety on the foundation’s part and that McAuliffe formerly served on its board. Last year, the foundation’s decision to accept Wang’s company’s pledge drew pointed criticism because of Wang’s ties to the Chinese government—the billionaire used to be a delegate to the country’s parliament.

“Indirectly the Clinton Foundation has political influence, that’s why people give to it,” Jim Mann, former Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, told CBS. “People give to the Clinton Foundation particularly because it is the Clintons and because they are prominent politicians in the United States.”

The Department of Justice and the FBI both declined to discuss their investigation with The Daily Beast, and a spokesperson for McAuliffe said the governor would cooperate.

Wang and his company have spent big to influence American politics—$1.4 million from 2012 to 2015 to lobby Congress and the State Department, according to CBS’s estimate. And Dandong Port Co., a subsidiary of Rilin Enterprises, has hired former politicos to lobby for its interests, as lobbying disclosure forms show.

It has also shelled out for nongovernmental efforts, including a grant to New York University in 2010 to create a center for U.S.-China Relations, as well as a grant to launch the Zbigniew Brzezinski Institute on Geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in 2014.

Rilin Enterprises isn’t the first Chinese business to get mixed up in McAuliffe problems. McAuliffe and Tony Rodham, Hillary Clinton’s brother, courted Chinese investors for the troubled electric car company GreenTech Automotive. Politico called Rodham “a kind of traveling salesman” for the company.

During McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign, his work with the company became a liability—especially because of allegations that McAuliffe and Rodham used their political connections to unfairly expedite the visa process for their investors. The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general issued a report in 2015 saying a top official there, Alejandro Mayorkas, made “an appearance of favoritism and special access.”

“Mayorkas intervened in an administrative appeal related to the denial of a regional center’s application to receive EB-5 funding to manufacture electric cars through investments in a company in which Terry McAuliffe was the board chairman,” the report says. “The intervention was unprecedented and, because of the political prominence of the individuals involved, as well as USCIS’s traditional deference to its administrative appeals process, staff perceived it as politically motivated.” More from the DailyBeast.

DHS: Border Patrol/Coast Guard Drone Conflict

Posted on May 24, 2016May 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

But in 2015, the Office of Inspector General says the CBP drone program has essentially been grounded.

The IG report, the second audit of the program since 2012, found there is no reliable method of measuring the program’s performance and determined that its impact in stemming illegal
immigration has been minimal.

According to the CBP Fiscal Year Report, the drones flew about 10 percent fewer hours in 2014 than the previous year and 20 percent fewer than in 2013. The missions were credited with contributing to the seizure of just under 1,000 pounds of cocaine in 2014, compared to 2,645 in 2013 and 3,900 in 2012. But apprehensions of illegal immigrants between 2014 and 2013 fell despite the flood of more than 60,000 unaccompanied children coming across the border from Central America.

Combined with the decrease in productivity, the OIG report disclosed the staggering costs to run the program, more than $12,000 per hour when figuring fuel, salaries for operators, equipment and overhead. More from FNC.

Related: Coast Guard UAV System

Related: CBP and Coast Guard even share buildings

Bungling border agency can’t find drone records

WashingtonTimes: Homeland Security can’t find a single record of a request to fly drones to help the Coast Guard, the agency said this week in a letter to a top member of Congress — an admission that’s likely to add fuel to the guard’s request for its own fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles.

R. Gil Kerlikowske, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said his agency’s Air and Marine office records all requests, but for some reason it “could not locate any prior requests from the USCG” for unmanned aerial surveillance flights.

For Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the Coast Guard, the admission was the latest signal that the border agency isn’t treating its colleagues in the guard fairly.

“It’s baffling, really. This response goes to show just how disadvantaged the Coast Guard truly is under the DHS umbrella,” said Joe Kasper, Mr. Hunter’s chief of staff. “It’s impossible to excuse the terrible record keeping, but that aside — we know for a fact that the Coast Guard has made numerous requests for UAS support.”

Both the Coast Guard and CBP are part of the Homeland Security Department, and under the current arrangement the guard has to use CBP’s drones. That leaves the maritime mission hostage to the whims of border officials, who have their own missions, and who already struggle with logistics and maintenance problems that keep their fleet of drones grounded far too often.

Mr. Hunter is pressing for the Coast Guard to get its own ground-based drones, which it can assign on its own.

“The Coast Guard shouldn’t have to rely on CBP and vice versa. We know CBP is well intentioned, and it has its own mission, but that doesn’t help the Coast Guard beyond the joint operational space,” Mr. Kasper said.

Neither CBP nor the Coast Guard had substantive replies to requests for comment Tuesday afternoon, but in his letter, dated Monday, Mr. Kerlikowske insisted the two agencies “work side-by-side.”

He said even if Coast Guard requests aren’t recorded, there are clear instances when CBP was assisting the guard’s operations. He pointed to a Guardian drone that aided the Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell in making three interdictions over the last year.

“CBO and USCG are close partners and have been highly successful performing joint operations in support of DHS’s primary mission to protect the American people from terrorist threats,” Mr. Kerlikowske said.

He said they will try to improve operations.

But his agency has been promising better drone use for years, and has consistently fallen short, according to watchdog reports.

Just 5 percent of Drone flights were conducted in the southeast, meaning off the coast of Florida, according to a new report Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office. The rest of the time the drones were operating on the border with Canada or the landlocked southwest border with Mexico.

Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth last year called CBP’s drone program “dubious achievers,” saying hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted to stock a fleet that often can’t even get into the air.

He put the cost of flying each drone at more than $12,000 an hour — five times the figure CBP had given.

“Notwithstanding the significant investment, we see no evidence that the drones contribute to a more secure border, and there is no reason to invest additional taxpayer funds at this time,” Mr. Roth said in releasing his report last year. “Securing our borders is a crucial mission for CBP and DHS. CBP’s drone program has so far fallen far short of being an asset to that effort.”

IRS Comish Refused to Show up to Proceedings

Posted on May 24, 2016May 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

The IRS Commissioner refused to show up stating he was busy as he just returned from China. What?

Committee Resolution for Censure

Congress produces film chronicling IRS scandal at John Koskinen impeachment hearing DailyWorldwideNews

‘Koskinen has misled us’: House weighs impeaching IRS chief

Westwood/Examiner: Members of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday weighed evidence against Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen, who faces an impeachment resolution in the House.

“On his watch, volumes of information crucial to the investigation into the IRS targeting scandal were destroyed,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “Before the tapes were destroyed, congressional demands, including subpoenas, for information about the IRS targeting scandal went unanswered.”

Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the panel’s ranking Democrat, said the seven-month-old impeachment measure had “virtually no chance of success” in the Senate and argued the charges against Koskinen have been “debunked” by previous probes.

Koskinen has faced opposition from Republican lawmakers for what they see as an insufficient response to congressional investigations into allegations that the IRS targeted conservative groups.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, served as a witness at Tuesday’s hearing alongside Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., also a member of the oversight panel.

The pair of Republican lawmakers presented evidence from their committee’s investigation, which began under former Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Issa objected to Democrats’ attempts to include Koskinen’s nine-page testimony, which he released ahead of the hearing along with a letter declining an invitation to appear, in the official record.

To be candid … this is sort of Lois Lerner revisited,” Issa said, calling Koskinen’s letter a “self-serving statement.” “The opportunity to say what you want to say and not be cross-examined would seem to be inappropriate.”

Lerner, former head of the tax agency’s nonprofit arm, drew fire when, in an appearance before Congress, she made an opening statement in her defense and then invoked her Fifth Amendment rights and declined to answer any additional questions.

Although House Republicans first voted to impeach Koskinen in October, they did not introduce a censure measure until last week.

Koskinen wrote in a letter to the committee Monday that he could not attend the hearing because his schedule is too “crowded” and he was not given sufficient notice that the hearing was taking place.

Chaffetz highlighted Koskinen’s failure to provide documents to his committee. Republican lawmakers have accused the IRS commissioner of intentionally misleading investigators by promising to hand over records he knew to be missing.

“Over the course of our investigation, Mr. Koskinen has misled us about the efforts taken to locate and preserve Lois Lerner’s emails,” Chaffetz said. “His actions are in contradiction of the initial promises he made during his Senate confirmation hearings.”

Chaffetz noted that, one month after discovering Lerner’s emails, IRS employees magnetically erased 422 backup tapes that contained thousands of the ousted official’s records. Congress had already requested copies of those emails.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew issued a statement to the committee Tuesday in defense of Koskinen.

“John Koskinen is an outstanding public servant of the highest integrity with decades of experience leading both public and private institutions,” Lew said. “From the day he began his leadership of the IRS, John and his staff have cooperated with Congress.‎ And despite facing massive budget cuts, the IRS continues to carry out its mission of enforcing our nation’s tax laws while striving to provide quality service to taxpayers.”

Terry McAuliffe Under FBI Investigation

Posted on May 23, 2016May 23, 2016 by Denise Simon

This should come actually as no surprise as some clues were likely uncovered while the FBI was investigating the whole Clinton email server matter. The timing fits well.

Some even suspect that McAuliffe is on the Hillary short Veep list.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe under federal investigation for campaign contributions

Washington (CNN)Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and prosecutors from the Justice Department’s public integrity unit, U.S. officials briefed on the probe say.

The investigation dates to at least last year and has focused, at least in part, on whether donations to his gubernatorial campaign violated the law, the officials said.

McAuliffe wasn’t notified by investigators that he is a target of the probe, according to the officials.

“The Governor will certainly cooperate with the government if he is contacted about it,” said Marc Elias, attorney for McAuliffe campaign, in a statement to CNN.

As part of the probe, the officials said, investigators have scrutinized McAuliffe’s time as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a vehicle of the charitable foundation set up by former President Bill Clinton.

Related: Report cites favoritism for McAuliffe and brother of Hillary Clinton It faults the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security for creating “an appearance of favoritism.”

There’s no allegation that the foundation did anything improper; the probe has focused on McAuliffe and the electoral campaign donations, the officials said.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment.

Among the McAuliffe donations that drew the interest of the investigators was $120,000 from a Chinese businessman, Wang Wenliang, through his U.S. businesses. Wang was previously delegate to China’s National People’s Congress, the country’s ceremonial legislature.

“Neither the Governor nor his former campaign has knowledge of this matter, but as reported, contributions to the campaign from Mr. Wang were completely lawful,” said Elias.

Wang also has been a donor to the Clinton foundation, pledging $2 million. He also has been a prolific donor to other causes, including to New York University, Harvard and environmental issues in Florida.

Related: GOP sues to block McAuliffe order to let 200,000 Virginia felons vote

U.S. election law prohibits foreign nationals from donating to federal, state or local elections. Penalties for violations include fines and/or imprisonment.

But Wang holds U.S. permanent resident status, according to a spokeswoman, which would make him a U.S. person under election law and eligible to donate to McAuliffe’s campaign.

Neither Wang nor his company used to make the donations have been contacted by U.S. investigators, according to the spokeswoman.

Related: Trump gave him $25,000

McAuliffe is the second consecutive Virginia governor to be investigated by Justice Department and the FBI. In 2014, Bob McDonnell was convicted of corruption charges related to $175,000 in loans and gifts he received from a donor and friend. The Supreme Court is weighing an appeal of the conviction.

It couldn’t be learned what else the FBI and Justice Department are investigating as part of the probe in McAuliffe.

The officials say the investigation remains active and ongoing.

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Related: McAuliffe authored what became known as the “Lincoln Bedroom Memo,” which sparked controversy by offering special White House access to Clinton’s top campaign contributors.

There is much more to know about the Clinton’s and McAuliffe, historical facts are funny things. Going back to 1999:

With Some Help, Clintons Purchase a White House

NYT’s: President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday settled the question of where the First Family will live once their lease on the White House expires, signing a contract to buy a $1.7 million, 11-room Dutch Colonial home in the wooded suburbs of Westchester County. The choice of a home in New York removes one of the chief obstacles in Mrs. Clinton’s path as she prepares for a run for the United States Senate.

The Clintons, indebted by over $5 million in legal bills from the investigations that have marked the Clinton Presidency, were able to buy the white-shingled, five-bedroom home in Chappaqua after Mr. Clinton’s chief fund-raiser, Terry McAuliffe, personally secured the loan.

The White House said that Mr. McAuliffe had put up $1.35 million of his own money with Bankers Trust. Under the terms of the mortgage, Mr. McAuliffe will get the money back, with interest from the bank, once the Clintons pay back the mortgage, or, as is more likely, refinance it in five years.

The deal was announced in a three-paragraph statement issued by the temporary press office of the White House — a room in the Holiday Inn in Auburn, about seven miles from where the Clintons are vacationing in upstate New York. It apparently concludes one of the more unusual house-hunting expeditions embarked on by any American family, complicated by the Clintons’ station in life, the fact that they have not owned a home in 16 years and Mrs. Clinton’s political ambitions in New York.

”We’re very pleased about the house,” the President said last evening as he and the First Lady left a fund-raiser for her presumed Senate campaign in Cazenovia and headed to another one in Syracuse. ”It’s beautiful. We like it a lot.”

Later, emerging from the Syracuse fund-raiser, Mrs. Clinton declared to cheers: ”As of today, Bill Clinton and I are the newest homeowners in the state of New York.”

”I love it,” she added, ”we’re so happy.”

The choice of a house came after the Clintons, trailed by a Presidential-size entourage of assistants, Secret Service agents and reporters, toured homes in New Rochelle, Greenburgh, Purchase, Mamaroneck and Pound Ridge, all in Westchester County, in two trips this summer. They spent two hours in the Chappaqua house last Saturday; Mrs. Clinton had seen the home before, an aide said.

”Everything about this was normal — except that they are the First Family,” said Kathy Sloane, a broker with Brown Harris Stevens in Manhattan, who guided the Clintons through the process.

The house was shown to the public for only three days. After that, Dr. Jeffrey Weisberg and his wife, Cheryl, who have owned the house for just over 18 years, invited closed bids. The bids were opened at 3 P.M. on Sunday and the Clintons were informed shortly thereafter that the Weisbergs were prepared to sell to them, said people with knowledge of the deal.

Eight bids were submitted on the house, those people said. It was unclear last night whether the Clintons, who offered just over the $1.675 million asking price, had made the highest bid.

There was a clear sense of relief yesterday among Mrs. Clinton’s political advisers, who are concerned that charges of carpetbagging could hurt the First Lady, since she has never lived in New York. Her likely Republican opponent, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, has repeatedly attacked Mrs. Clinton on the issue of her residency.

Mrs. Clinton has begun to visit New York regularly, but her campaign advisers fear that her trips have been marred by images emphasizing that she does not live in New York: she is either leaving to return to Washington or spending the night as a guest of friends or supporters. Accordingly, the First Lady’s advisers have been pressing her to find a house as soon as possible.

The closing date is Nov. 1. Mrs. Clinton’s aides said the First Lady would begin spending a good amount of time there as soon as possible after that. (That said, one complication of the Clintons’ nomadic ways is that they do not have enough of their own furniture to fill a house, particularly one this size, a family friend observed the other day.)

Joe Lockhart, the White House spokesman, said that for the remainder of Mr. Clinton’s term, the President and Mrs. Clinton intended to treat their Chappaqua home much the way other First Families have treated their own private residences. ”The Clintons will continue to live in the White House,” Mr. Lockhart said in a telephone interview from Washington. ”As with other Presidents, this house will be their private home and they will spend as much time there as they can.”

New York elections tend to be decided in the suburbs. And while Mrs. Clinton may now be considered a suburbanite, her aides said that political considerations were not predominant in the Clintons’ deliberations. Nonetheless, the Clintons clearly avoided communities like Scarsdale and Bedford, which are well known across New York as among the state’s wealthiest suburbs.

Still, Chappaqua, if not quite as well-known as Scarsdale, is known as one of the more exclusive, and upper-middle-class, bedroom communities of Westchester County. More here.

This VA Secretary STILL Does NOT Get it

Posted on May 23, 2016May 23, 2016 by Denise Simon

In fact Disney does care about wait lines, apparently he has not been to the theme park. While the FBI is overworked, it is high time to open criminal investigations into the Veterans Administration and the FOIA requests need to be flying, this is shameful and disgusting.

VA Secretary: Disney Doesn’t Care About Wait Times, Why Should the VA?

Mediaite: Secretary for Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald had an interesting take on the criticism of long wait times at VA facilities, arguing Monday that Disney theme parks aren’t judged based on their wait times.

McDonald’s remarks, which were made during a breakfast event held by The Christian Science Monitor, started to gain attention after they were tweeted out by attendee Washington Examiner reporter Sarah Westwood.

“When you got to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important? What’s important is, what’s your satisfaction with the experience?” McDonald said in the full quote. “And what I would like to move to, eventually, is that kind of measure.”

McDonald continued to say that the “create date” metric, which measures how long a veteran has to wait from the moment they first ask for care, is not a “valid measure” of wait time. Instead, he supports measuring wait times from how long veterans have to wait past their “preferred date” for care.

In 2014, an internal VA investigation found that at least 35 veterans in the Phoenix area died as a result of the long waiting times at the local VA hospital or after being secretly removed from the list entirely.

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Examiner/Westwood: McDonald’s comments angered House Speaker Paul Ryan, who tweeted out Monday afternoon, “This is not make-believe, Mr. Secretary. Veterans have died waiting in those lines.”

McDonald faced questions at the breakfast about the VA’s lack of transparency surrounding how long veterans must wait to receive care at VA facilities around the country. The agency has weathered controversy over the past several years due to its struggle to provide timely care for many patients.

The VA secretary said most veterans report being satisfied with their care and argued that the average wait time for a veteran seeking VA treatment is only a matter of days.

He said he did not believe a measure called the “create date,” which gauges a veteran’s wait time by counting from the day the veteran first requests care, was a “valid measure” of a veteran’s VA experience.

The Government Accountability Office released a report in April exploring the metric used to count a veterans’ wait time, called the “preferred date.” The measure does not count from the time a veteran first calls to make an appointment.

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Related: VA bosses in 7 states falsified vets’ wait times for care

The newly released findings of those probes show that supervisors instructed schedulers to manipulate wait times in Arkansas, California, Delaware, Illinois, New York, Texas and Vermont, giving the false impression facilities there were meeting VA performance measures for shorter wait times.

In some cases, the system encouraged manipulation even without explicit instruction from supervisors. A manager in West Palm Beach, Fla., sent out laudatory emails touting the shorter wait times the system showed. Schedulers in Harlingen, Texas, reported being berated by supervisors when they booked appointments showing longer wait times for veterans. (It was “not pretty,” one employee said.) More here.

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Meanwhile, there is this heartwarming story:

Dying veteran’s horses visit him at hospital to say goodbye

Quadrangle: We would like to thank Roberto Gonzales for his service and sacrifice.

As he lay dying in a Veterans Administration hospital he had one wish, to see his beloved horses Sugar and Ringo one last time.

Roberto Gonzales was wounded in battle on May 21, 1970. “He was in Vietnam for a few months when he was shot an injured”, explains his wife, Rosario Gonzalez.

Now, Gonzalez is paralyzed, restricted to a hospital bed and suffering from organ failure.

He recently went to the hospital for a wound on his back, which is when it was discovered he also needed treatment for liver problems and that his kidneys were starting to shut down.

“Horses are his life”, Rosario Gonzales told CNN affiliate KABB.

A paralysed and dying Vietnam War veteran has been reunited with his favourite horses in an emotional final wish.

The visit was also a testament to Roberto’s love of the animals, as both he and his wife trained and raised horses for almost 40 years together.

Two of those animals are Sugar and Ringo, a pair of horses that have become some of Gonzalez’s closest friends. “They came up to him and I think they were actually kissing him”.