A former U.S. attorney said Tuesday reports that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is under investigation by the FBI raise “serious red flags” for both Hillary Clinton and her family’s foundation.
“Terry McAuliffe’s history of ethical lapses and stonewalling, both as a former top Hillary Clinton money man and now as Governor, are well documented,” said Matthew Whitaker, director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust.
“This federal investigation of donations to his campaign raises more serious red flags, not only for McAuliffe himself but also for former Secretary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, to which he is closely tied personally and financially,” Whitaker added.
The FBI probe is focusing on donations to McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign, according to CNN, which first reported the investigation. In particular, the bureau has identified a $120,000 contribution from Chinese businessman Wang Wenliang as potentially problematic.
Investigators are also reportedly examining McAuliffe’s stint as a Clinton Global Initiative board member. The Virginia governor denied knowing he was the subject of the FBI probe before the report emerged Monday.
McAuliffe, former head of the Democratic National Committee, is no stranger to controversy.
The prolific Democratic fundraiser faced scrutiny last year following an inspector general report that suggested immigration officials improperly helped a company to which he was linked secure visas necessary to its operation.
McAuliffe said in 2013 he was unaware of an investigation into his company, GreenTech, until it was publicly reported.
Hillary Clinton’s brother, Anthony Rodham, was also accused of pressuring the Department of Homeland Security into helping GreenTech obtain visas.
In February, McAuliffe evaded questions on who he had invited to join him at a luxury Redskins box that cost Virginia taxpayers $2,345. Only four of the 15 guests present represented companies looking to set up shop in the state, according to a Roanoke Times report.
But his flirtation with scandal stretches long before he entered the Virginia governor’s mansion.
McAuliffe has made millions from connections to companies he forged in the political arena in arrangements that have often raised eyebrows.
For example, McAuliffe turned a small investment in Global Crossing, a fiber-optic company, into a major profit shortly before the company filed for bankruptcy and laid off thousands of workers.
“One of McAuliffe’s most lucrative deals, earning him $8 million, was a $100,000 investment in Global Crossing Holdings in the 1990s. The company’s chief, Gary Winnick, later became a contributor for whom McAuliffe secured a golf date with President Bill Clinton,” a 2009 Washington Post report said.
McAuliffe has previously described the extent to which his personal and political financial networks overlap.
”I’ve met all of my business contacts through politics,” McAuliffe told the New York Times in 1999. “It’s all interrelated.”
That same year, McAuliffe put up $1.35 million so the debt-swamped Clintons could afford their home in Chappaqua, N.Y., according to a Sept. 1999 report in the Washington Post.
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, McAuliffe became embroiled in a controversy over the former president’s frequent hosting of Democratic Party donors in the Lincoln bedroom. McAuliffe reportedly penned memos suggesting he facilitated the White House visits.
According to a Nov. 2013 report in Mother Jones, McAuliffe and his father-in-law once persuaded a union pension fund to invest substantial sums in a Florida development complex
“The pension fund put up $38 million; McAuliffe put up nothing, but he got a 50 percent stake, meaning that if the deal went south, the pension fund would lose millions while all he would lose were his free shares in the partnership,” wrote Stephanie Mencimer for Mother Jones. “The deals didn’t perform well, and the union never got its promised 9 percent preferred return … McAuliffe, though, walked away with $2.4 million after the pension fund bought him out.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission later investigated the transaction.
McAuliffe’s deep ties to the Clintons could pose a liability to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as she struggles to shake the perception that she is a corrupt political insider.
Her likely general election opponent, Donald Trump, has attempted to drive home that image by referring to the former secretary of state as “Crooked Hillary.”
The Clintons have taken heat over the past year for the conduct of their family foundation, which has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from many of the same donors who funded both Clintons’ multiple political campaigns.
McAuliffe’s ethical troubles could turn more attention to the Clinton Foundation given reports that the probe involves his time as a board member in the philanthropic network.
