Terry McAuliffe: Big Donor Gifts “Exciting, Sexy”

In light of the umber surrounding Gov. McDonnell in his daughter’s acceptance of a wedding gift from Star Scientific, Democratic candidate for governor Terry McAuliffe took advantage of the situation to call for a BAN on any gift worth more than $100 to the governor and his family. He said if elected he would sign this as an executive order. Presumably, considering  McAuliffe’s very rich circle of friends, this would mean his Christmas tree would be replete with $99 gift cards.

But McAuliffe’s disdain for big donations wasn’t always part of his stump. At one point in time, he called these donors and their money, “sexy” and “exciting.”

His history as a fundraiser in the Democratic Party has put him at the center of some very interesting financial controversies, including perhaps most infamously, the Lincoln Bedroom scandal in the Clinton Administration. During a failed bid for the gubernatorial nomination in 2009, fellow Democrat Del. Brian Moran called McAuliffe “the booking agent of the Lincoln Bedroom.”

ST/MCAULIFF11

Moran didn’t stop there. His campaign Manager in 2009 Andrew Roos noted,

“For decades, Mr. McAuliffe traded access for money, ensuring that big companies — not people — were in control, all the while pocketing millions through his proximity to power.”

In other words, McAuliffe has historically been perfectly fine with trading big money for access to power — but now that he’s going to be the one with the power and not the money he changes his tune? Something doesn’t add up, folks.

In 1997, Mother Jones — of all periodicals — did a profile on Terry McAuliffe, and called him demonstrative of “the blurry moral character of the status quo,” and lamented that “An unacceptable corrosion occurs when the influence of donors so clearly trumps that of average citizens.”

So much for McAuliffe’s hatred for big donors.

Mother Jones wasn’t done though. They noted he “came of professional and political age” under the tutelage of California Democratic Rep. Tony Coelho, the majority whip in 1989 who resigned in disgrace after — you guessed it — a pay-to-play scandal involving a sweetheart loan from the savings & loan industry, which he used to buy a $100,000 high-yield bond, but <Oops!> never disclosed it!  Coelho and McAuliffe would later be accused of influence-peddling in 1995.

TMAC Comes of Age
File Courtesy Mother Jones

Despite this scandal, Mother Jones reports, “McAuliffe has continued to play the game unfazed.”

 “I would think for a majority of the big donors, they want to be part of the action,” McAuliffe told Mother Jones. “It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s sexy, it’s got a lot of things to it that they want to be part of. Nobody comes in and says, `Hey, for this, I’ll give you that,’ because you’d throw them out of the office.”

McAuliffe is well aware of the subtleties needed to avoid legal conviction — and has as much admitted this.

McAuliffe’s business dealings have received much scrutiny, as well. In 1995, Clinton’s own Department of Justice investigated several real estate deals that McAuliffe was a part of in 1993, including receiving a $375,000 contingency fee from Prudential Insurance when the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation — a government agency — signed a $187,000,000 lease with Prudential. After the lease was signed, Prudential would contribute  $85,000 to Democratic election efforts — an effort headed up by (you guessed it again) Terry McAuliffe.

It was this deal that caused Mother Jones to remark, “On a personal level, the fuzziness of his ethics has blurred the boundaries between his political and business dealings.”

This sort of story has followed Terry McAuliffe throughout his political career. Everyone knows he’s really good at raising money, but while his dealings often receive the same sort of scrutiny being applied to Gov. McDonnell’s relationship with Star Scientific, Democrats repeatedly turn a blind eye because, as Al Gore once said, “He’s the best fund-raiser in the history of the universe.”

Сейчас уже никто не берёт классический кредит, приходя в отделение банка. Это уже в далёком прошлом. Одним из главных достижений прогресса является возможность получать кредиты онлайн, что очень удобно и практично, а также выгодно кредиторам, так как теперь они могут ссудить деньги даже тем, у кого рядом нет филиала их организации, но есть интернет. http://credit-n.ru/zaymyi.html - это один из сайтов, где заёмщики могут заполнить заявку на получение кредита или микрозайма онлайн. Посетите его и оцените удобство взаимодействия с банками и мфо через сеть.