With Gibson, Obama ‘actively discouraging’ jobs

Three House Republicans sent a letter yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Director Daniel Ashe challenging two raids on a Gibson Guitar Corporation factory by federal agents. Department of Justice spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle “decline[d to] comment” to The Washington Examiner on the representatives letter.

The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating whether Gibson violated Indian export laws by importing “sawn wood” for their guitars, which in turn would violate the U.S. Lacey Act of 1900. But Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Fla., and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., note that “the source country at issue, however, appears to have no problem with Gibson’s actions. The deputy director general of foreign trade for India has stated that India would allow the exports.”

The legislators continued by emphasizing the awkward position of these executive agencies that raid an American company during a recession:

We are deeply troubled by the suggestion that if Gibson had the skilled work done in India, using the same wood, instead of here in America, then the importation would have been legal and the Department of Justice would not have carried out this heavy-handed enforcement action.  If this is true, it is hard to conclude anything other than the fact that your agencies and this Administration are actively pursuing regulatory and legal policies that discourage job growth in the United States and encourage shipping those very same jobs overseas, through the selective enforcement of laws enacted over one hundred years ago.  This is unwise in the extreme.

The representatives also noted a report that Gibson Guitar has hired 600 new workers in recent years. In theory, their criticism of this policy should resonate with Attorney General Eric Holder. In a post on the Department of Justice blog written “courtesy of” Holder, the attorney general endorsed President Obama’s outlined American Jobs Act, explaing that efforts “to save an create jobs” have national security ramifications because “economic conditions across the country are inextricably linked to the security of our communities, and the safety of the American people.”

 

Related Content