Friends In Low Places *Open Thread*

Or in this case, family in high places. That would be a sister who was, at the time, the Secretary of State. Yes, that would be Hillary Clinton, and the one who benefitted from that position was none other than her brother, Tony Rodham, through the DHS. That’s right, the Department of Homeland Security in their US Customs and Immigration Services division. Wow.

Rodham was aided and abetted by a couple of very high ranking Democrats, Harry Reid (oh, what a surprise – not) and Virginia Governor, Terry McAuliffe, a good buddy of Clinton’s come to think of it. Here’s the story from the Daily Caller:

Alejandro Mayorkas, the former director of U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, favored projects championed by Nevada U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, and Hillary Clinton’s brother Tony Rodham, according to an explosive new report from the Department of Homeland Security inspector’s general (IG).

The IG concluded its investigation into whether Mayorkas, now the deputy secretary at DHS, “exerted improper influence” in the adjudication of the Employee-Based Fifth Preference (EB-5), which allows aliens to invest $500,000 in U.S. companies in order to gain residency for themselves and their families.

And indeed, the IG determined that Mayorkas did improperly exert his influence, and on behalf of companies with ties to Reid, McAuliffe, and Rodham.

“Mayorkas communicated with stakeholders on substantive issues, outside of the normal adjudicatory process, and intervened with the career USCIS staff in ways that benefited the stakeholders,” the report reads, noting that in each of those cases the outcome would have been different if not for Mayorkas’ intervention.

The report also noted that more than 15 USCIS employees at all levels conveyed “the same factual scenario: certain applicants and stakeholders received preferential access to DHS leadership and preferential treatment in either the handling of their application or petition or regarding the merits of the application or petition.”

Shocking, I know. Almost as shocking as learning that while Clinton was Secretary of State, Obama failed to appoint ANYONE to be the Inspector General there. Yep. Her entire tenure there was no IG to keep tabs on the State Department. That sure explains a lot, doesn’t it? Talk about having friends in high places. Clinton had no real oversight while at State, which has become abundantly obvious as more issues see the light of day as this Hot Air article highlights (well worth your time to check out).

Back to Tony Rodham and Governor McAuliffe at the Daily Caller article:

[…] In one case, Mayorkas intervened on behalf of GreenTech Automotive, an electric car company controlled by Gulf Coast Funds Management. McAuliffe was chairman of Gulf Coast’s board while Tony Rodham was CEO.

In an unrelated case, Rodham’s position with Gulf Coast earned him a spot on the board of a gold mining company with interests in Haiti. Rodham met the owner of that company, VCS Mining, at an event for the Clinton Global Initiative, his sister’s charity.

The IG report shows that Mayorkas became involved in the Gulf Coast’s application in July 2010. He opposed USCIS employees’ decision to deny the company’s EB-5 visa applications, though staffers felt that the GreenTech project fell outside of the scope of the program and that it was “really not so good of a project.”

But McAuliffe pushed for EB-5 and continuously called and met with Mayorkas on the matter. According to the IG report, after Gulf Coast’s application was initially denied, Mayorkas took a deep and special interest in the project, telling staff that he would personally oversee it. During one meeting, he shocked staffers by saying that he would take materials related to the application home so that he could work on the case.

Many USCIS staff believed that Mayorkas’ interest in the project indicated that Gulf Coast was “wired in” to the agency. […]

You don’t say. One thing is clear, one palm (McAuliffe’s) was greasing another’s palm (Rodham) in this scenario. But that’s not the only one. We can’t for get about then-Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid and HIS role in all of this:

[…] The report states that in Dec. 2012, a Reid staffer emailed USCIS’ Office of Legislative Affairs asking for expedited processing of the EB-5 application. The staffer said that the terms of SLS’s bank financing required that 10 percent of its investor visas must be approved by mid-Jan. 2013.

The report notes that expedited processing is rare. One USCIS staffer said he told Mayorkas that the agency had not expedited processing for any application during that entire year.

SLS filed its application on Dec. 10, 2012. USCIS denied it on Dec. 17 and said it would review the application in the order it was received.

But on Jan. 8, 2013, Mayorkas told Reid during a telephone call that he would take a “fresh look” at the application.

Mayorkas also took the unorthodox step of providing Reid’s office with weekly updates on the processing of the EB-5 request. One staffer said that doing so was “stressful.” The intervention was not successful, but Reid later thanked Mayorkas for his help, the IG report notes. […] (Click here to read the rest.)

There is so much more to this article, but it will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this.

I imagine the response to all this may be a big ol’ laugh between Sec. Clinton and the Press like her recent, continuing, email scandal. Or more likely this response from the press and Democrats: “what difference, at this point, does it make?!” Oh, and Mayorkas will probably get another big-time promotion. Yeah, that seems about right.

At least that’s what I think. How about you? This is an Open Thread.

Tags: Governor Terry McAuliffe, Sec. Hillary Clinton, Senator Harry Reid, Tony Rodham