Report finds Terry McAuliffe and Hillary Clinton’s brother received preferential treatment from Homeland Security

  A new report is out which has found that Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas might have been giving Terry McAuliffe and Tony Rodham (Hillary Clinton’s brother) preferential treatment when he intervened with stakeholders on their behalf.  

  Here is more:

A Department of Homeland Security watchdog report issued Tuesday blasted the agency’s No. 2 official for repeatedly intervening on behalf of well-connected participants in an investor-visa program, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.) and Tony Rodham, a brother of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The inspector general report faults Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for creating “an appearance of favoritism and special access” as a result of highly unusual steps he took while serving as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversaw the investment-based program known as EB-5.

  The “appearance of favoritism and special access?” You think?! It seems to have gone beyond “appearance” to me, here is even more:

“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,” Inspector General John Roth wrote. “In … three instances, but for Mr. Mayorkas’s intervention, the matter would have been decided differently.”

“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 IG report said. “The intervention was unprecedented and, because of the political prominence of the individuals involved, was well as USCIS’s traditional deference to its administrative appeals process, staff perceived it as politically motivated.”

The report also draws attention to the role played by Rodham, who ran an EB-5 visa investment known as Gulf Coast Funds Management, which directed funds to GreenTech. Rodham’s sister was secretary of state during much of the time that Gulf Coast and GreenTech were pressing USCIS for approvals to accept investments that could lead to green cards for foreigners willing to front up more than $550,000 in principal and fees.

Rodham wrote directly to Mayorkas in January 2013 about approval delays, the report said, and Mayorkas forwarded the email to other staffers “with a ‘high importance’ designation.”

  So in three instances he directly changed the outcome and we are supposed to believe this is nothing but an image problem? But do not worry, Alejandro Mayorkas has learned from this “mistake.”

“While I disagree with the Inspector General’s report, I will certainly learn from it and from this process,” he said. “As the leader of U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services, I had the responsibility to ensure that cases, including the three that are the focus of the report, were decided as the law required and that agency errors were corrected.”

  I guess we are supposed to believe he did not know there was anything wrong with what he was doing, does he really think we are all that stupid? Or is Alejandro Mayorkas really just that incompetent?

  But this story does not stop there because it looks as if Harry Reid is also involved in this:

The IG report also faulted Mayorkas’s involvement in EB-5 investment projects that drew the interest of two other prominent Democrats: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

The report says Reid and Mayorkas spoke about a Las Vegas casino-and-hotel development effort in January 2013. Mayorkas said he promised nothing beyond a “fresh look” at the issue. However, USCIS staffers say they were told that the director had agreed to provide weekly updates to Reid’s staff on the status of the petitions.

  Move along, nothing to see here…

Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium