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Creator of Buckyballs® Sues Federal Government for Unprecedented Regulatory Overreach

November 12, 2013 by

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Media Contact:

Elise Flick

212-333-0275

epf@karvcommunications.com

                                                           

Creator of Buckyballs® Sues Federal Government for Unprecedented Regulatory Overreach 

Entrepreneur Craig Zucker Strikes Back Against Consumer Product Safety Commission for Egregious Abuse of Agency Power

WASHINGTON – Craig Zucker, co-founder of the company that created Buckyballs®, filed a lawsuit today against the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for naming him personally liable in its $57 million case CPSC v. Maxfield and Oberton Holdings, LLC. et al. Maxfield and Oberton, the company that sold Buckyballs®, one of the world’s most popular adult desktoys, was sued by the CPSC to force a full product recall in July 2012 and, due to the action, driven out of business in December 2012. Although the products have never been proven to be defective and remain legal to sell today, the CPSC has now turned its sights on Zucker individually, grossly over-reaching its authority by naming him personally in its suit.

Zucker has retained government accountability group Cause of Action to push back against the CPSC by filing a complaint in the U.S. District Court of Maryland. This complaint states that the CPSC lacks jurisdiction to carry out this unprecedented action against Zucker, a former corporate officer at Maxfield and Oberton, and seeks an injunction to stop the CPSC’s abuse of power.

Last month, Zucker launched “United We Ball,” a campaign selling new products, such as Liberty Balls, to help raise funds for his ongoing legal battle, the effort of one individual to stand up for what’s right for American consumers, businesses, and individuals. The campaign has received media praise and an overwhelming amount of support from the public.

“For too long I have been a target of the CPSC and I am no longer willing to just take it,” said Zucker. “Despite over zealous regulators targeting me in the first place for speaking out, I am now taking legal action to defend myself against the CPSC’s egregious attempt at rewriting our cherished laws of limited liability. The success of United We Ball has given me the support base from consumers, lawmakers, and the media to take our fight to the next level. I will keep going until the case is won and ensure the CPSC can’t ever do this again to another individual.”

“The Commission has committed an unprecedented act by attempting to hold an individual entrepreneur liable for a recall that CPSC is seeking against a company that it forced out of business,” said Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein. “At a minimum this action is an obvious overreach of the CPSC’s authority and at maximum it is an illegal abuse of power by persons within the Commission who seek to punish Mr. Zucker. Entrepreneurs in this country should not have to face a rogue federal agency that is merely making up the rules as they go along. The CPSC’s actions against Mr. Zucker are a very real threat to the liberty of every small business owner nationwide.”

The CPSC is arguing that Zucker is personally liable for the costs of the recall due to the Park Doctrine. The Park Doctrine, named for the 1975 Supreme Court case, United States v. Park, holds that in some circumstances, corporate officers can be individually liable for criminal violations committed by their corporate employers. However, under the Park Doctrine, former corporate officers have not been required to personally carry out civil remedial orders issued in response to the conduct of their former corporate employers. In this case, the corporate conduct was not illegal in the first place. Neither Maxfield and Oberton nor Zucker have committed any crimes or been accused of any criminal activity.

In addition to the lawsuit, Cause of Action is also filing Freedom of Information Act requests to discover the facts, factors and circumstances that led to the Commission’s extraordinary, unprecedented and illegal overreach against Zucker, as well as an Information Quality Act complaint with the CPSC to seek and obtain correction of false statements made by the Commission concerning Zucker, Maxfield and Oberton, and Buckyballs®. Copies of all filings can be found at www.UnitedWeBall.org/legal.

For more on contributing to Zucker’s legal defense and to purchase Liberty Balls, please visit www.UnitedWeBall.org.

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About United We Ball

United We Ball is a campaign founded by Craig Zucker and his supporters created to sell new products and fight the legal battle of one individual against the government to stand up for what’s right for American consumers, businesses, and individuals. The ultimate goal of United We Ball is to prevent more overreaching bureaucratic lawsuits against job-creating entrepreneurs who speak out against selective justice and to fight to preserve principles of limited liability for responsible company officers and entrepreneurs. 100% of the profits from United We Ball will go towards the legal fees of defending CPSC v. Maxfield and Oberton Holdings, LLC, et al. The campaign web site can be found at www.UnitedWeBall.org

About Cause of Action:

Cause of Action is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that uses investigative, legal, and communications tools to educate the public on how government accountability and transparency protects taxpayer interests and economic opportunity. For more information, visit www.causeofaction.org.

To schedule an interview with Craig Zucker or for more information, contact Elise Flick, epf@karvcommunications.com, 212-333-0275

To schedule an interview with Cause of Action’s Executive Director Dan Epstein, contact Mary Beth Hutchins, 202-499-4232. 

Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: ,

Report Exposes Forest City Enterprise’s Bait and Switch Business Model

November 7, 2013 by

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                 

CONTACT:      

Jamie Morris, 202-499-2425

Report Exposes Forest City Enterprise’s Bait and Switch Business Model

“The Ratner Way: Lobby, Profit and Bilk” reveals how Forest City Enterprises

Ravishes Communities of Local and State Tax Dollars

 

WASHINGTON –Cause of Action (CoA), a government accountability organization, today released “The Ratner Way: Lobby, Profit and Bilk,” the second installment of the three-part investigation, “Political Profiteering: How Forest City Enterprises Makes Private Profits at the Expense of American Taxpayers,” examining how real estate development giant Forest City Enterprises (FCE) has extended its pattern of using politics for profit across the country.  As part of CoA’s ongoing investigations into crony companies, the report reveals how FCE pocketed $277.2 million in subsidies from taxpayers in Brooklyn, N.Y. and Albuquerque, N.M. after contributing $310,450 to local political candidates and spending over $8.6 million on lobbyists. Additionally, FCE promised to create more than 70,000 permanent jobs and 3,750 affordable housing units in Brooklyn and Albuquerque, but has actually produced only 3,000 permanent jobs and built no affordable housing units.

“FCE’s unfair pattern of creating a false market for themselves extends across the country, leaving a trail of broken promises and nearly $9 million in the pockets of lobbyists,” said Dan Epstein, Cause of Action’s executive director.  “Even when taxpayers from Brooklyn and Albuquerque delivered on $277 million in tax incentives and subsidies to FCE, the company failed to ensure the creation of the jobs and housing units promised, instead opting to back out of projects.”

Among the most nefarious of examples of FCE’s profiting from communities revealed in the report:

  • Forest City Ratner (FCR) promised to create 10,000 permanent jobs and 2,250 units of affordable housing in exchange for $270 million in direct taxpayer money to build the Barclays Center.  To date, none of the affordable housing has been built and only 2,000 permanent jobs have been created — 1,900 of which are part-time jobs.
  • Despite receiving $270 million in subsidies for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and a commitment of $630 million over 25 years for its Mesa del Sol project in Albuquerque, FCE has failed to deliver the public benefits promised in exchange for taxpayers’ financial support.
  • FCE provided $150,000 in campaign contributions and use of its corporate jet to then-Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson in order to push through a bill creating a new subsidy for real estate development in 2006.  In 2007, FCE received commitments from the City of Albuquerque and the State of New Mexico for up to $130 million and $500 million in subsidies, respectively, over 25 years.
  • FCE’s Residential Group (FCRG) has promised the City of New Rochelle, N.Y. that its Echo Bay project will create about 59 permanent jobs and increase local tax revenue.  Despite the fact that residents have been facing property tax increases and cuts in public services for years, FCRG seeks $20 million in tax abatements from 2016 to 2035.

To access the full report, click here.

To access the first report, Anatomy of a Crony Capitalist, click here.

About Cause of Action:

Cause of Action is a non-profit, nonpartisan government accountability organization that fights to protect economic opportunity when federal regulations, spending and cronyism threaten it. For more information, visit www.causeofaction.org.  

To schedule an interview with Cause of Action’s Executive Director Dan Epstein, contact Mary Beth Hutchins,  202-400-2721 or Jamie Morris, jamie.morris@causeofaction.org.

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Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With:

REPORT: Political Profiteering of Forest City Enterprises Part II

November 7, 2013 by

Political Profiteering:

How Forest City Enterprises Makes Private Profits at the Expense of America’s Taxpayers

Part II

Download Report

Executive Summary

 

“Without government development incentives, most of [Forest City Enterprises’] development projects ‘would not be economically viable.’”

 

            – The New York Post, August 6, 2013

            Forest City Enterprises (FCE) is a $10.6 billion real-estate development company that profits from public subsidies at the expense of taxpayers, job seekers, and those seeking affordable housing. Without delivering the jobs and affordable housing it forecasts, FCE takes advantage of communities where it builds large-scale, mixed-use projects, creating a pattern of broken promises. This is the second report in a three-part series detailing how FCE makes private profits at the expense of America’s taxpayers.  As part of Cause of Action’s (CoA’s) ongoing investigations into crony companies that use politics for profit, we found that local residents have been victimized by FCE’s real estate projects in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Albuquerque, N.M.; and New Rochelle, N.Y.

FCE’s pattern promises local governments that its development projects will generate plentiful jobs, housing, economic development, and tax revenues.  Concomitantly, FCE employs a well-funded public relations campaign, a team of politically-connected lobbyists, and campaign contributions to local politicians in order to acquire subsidies, tax breaks, and property through eminent domain.  However, once FCE receives public financial support, it often renegotiates or delays implementation of the benefits that it had previously promised.  In short, it lobbies, profits, and then bilks the taxpayers by breaching its promise to the community.

CoA’s investigation revealed that FCE promised to create more than 70,000 permanent jobs and 3,750 affordable housing units in Brooklyn and Albuquerque, but that it has actually produced only 3,000 permanent jobs and built no affordable housing units.  Meanwhile, FCE pocketed $277.2 million in subsidies from those communities after contributing $310,450 to local political candidates and spending over $8.6 million on lobbyists.  Sadly, these are not isolated incidents, but endemic of an intentional method in which FCE does business.  This pattern is poised to continue in the proposed project in New Rochelle.

Profits over Promises

FCE promised in 2004 that its 22-acre Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn would generate 10,000 permanent jobs and 2,250 units of affordable housing.  In return, the company received $270 million in direct subsidies in order to construct a new sports arena, the Barclays Center, and to bring the New Jersey Nets there to play.  FCE purchased land for the project at less than half-price and received other land after the government seized it by eminent domain.  To date, the Barclay’s Center has been completed, but only 1,900 part time jobs have been created and the affordable housing remains unfinished. 

Backtracking on Promises

For the Mesa del Sol project in Albuquerque — a 12,900-acre mixed use community — FCE promised to create 30,000 economic base jobs, 30,000 service sector jobs, and 1,200 units of affordable housing over a 50-year period.   After FCE  provided $220,000 in cash and in-kind contributions to candidates for state office in New Mexico — including $150,000 to Governor Richardson’s gubernatorial campaign and the use of one of the company’s corporate jets for three campaign trips in 2006 — FCE received commitments of up to $630 million over 25 years through a new state subsidy.  But by May 2013, FCE announced the sale of its stake in Mesa del Sol, citing its need to focus on “core markets.”  As of May 2013, FCE has received $7.2 in subsidies, but only 2,000 jobs have been created and the construction of affordable housing will be delayed for at least six years.

FCE’s Next Victim of Political Profiteering

The next victim of FCE’s political profiteering appears to be the city of New Rochelle, where FCE has proposed a waterfront redevelopment project known as “Echo Bay.” FCE’s Residential Group (FCRG) has promised to add 285 luxury apartments, 25,000 feet of retail space, and a five-acre park, which FCRG estimates will generate $49 million in revenue and $307 million in economic benefits, including 211 construction jobs, 59 retail and residential management jobs, and 1,000 indirect jobs over a period of 20 years. The project would also provide FCRG with at least $20 million in tax abatements between 2016 and 2035 through a proposal that includes twenty years of Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT).  Echo Bay fits the pattern that CoA exposed with FCE’s past projects.  Specifically, FCRG scaled back the scope of its original proposal, which offered 150,000 square feet of retail and 600 luxury apartments.  Additionally, FCE’s consultants for the project gave $17,000 in campaign contributions to Mayor Noam Bramson, who is a staunch defender of the project.

What follows in this report is a portrait of FCE’s pattern of exploitation and broken promises, documented through news reports, campaign contribution reports, lobbyist filings, litigation, and government documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.  CoA filed seven FOIA requests to attempt to uncover how FCE works with government agencies and city councils behind the scenes, but found a lack of adequate record keeping and uncooperative responses.  CoA’s first report exposed how FCE used $23 million in political spending over the past ten years to obtain $2.6 billion in government subsidies and financial benefits. In its final report, CoA will show how FCE has enriched itself through bribery and political graft, colluded with the government to take advantage of the EB-5 investor program, and benefited from eminent domain abuse.

II. Findings

  • Finding:          Despite receiving $270 million in subsidies for the Atlantic Yards project and a commitment of $630 million over 25 years for its Mesa del Sol project, FCE has failed to deliver the public benefits promised in exchange for taxpayers’ financial support.

Atlantic Yards Project: Brooklyn, New York

  • Finding:          Forest City Ratner (FCR) promised to create 10,000 permanent jobs and 2,250 units of affordable housing in exchange for $270 million in direct taxpayer money to build its sports arena and land provided to it through eminent domain.  To date, none of the affordable housing has been built and only 2,000 permanent jobs have been created—1,900 of which are part-time jobs.
  • Finding:          FCR drafted a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in 2005 in order to gather local support for the Atlantic Yards project, but the promised benefits have not been provided.  FCR has not provided an Independent Compliance Monitor to oversee enforcement of the agreement.

Mesa del Sol Project: Albuquerque, New Mexico

  • Finding:          FCE employed lobbyists and provided $150,000 in campaign contributions and use of its corporate jet to then-Governor Bill Richardson in order to push through a bill creating a new subsidy for real estate development in 2006.  In 2007, FCE received commitments from the City of Albuquerque and the State of New Mexico for up to $130 million and $500 million in subsidies, respectively, over 25 years.
  • Finding:          FCE promised to create 60,000 jobs over a 50-year period and 1,200 units of affordable housing in exchange for the commitment of $630 million in subsidies. However, by the time FCE sold its stake in the project in May 2013, only 2,000 jobs had been created and the original affordable housing agreement had been renegotiated to delay construction by at least six-and-a-half years.

Echo Bay Project: New Rochelle, New York

  • Finding:          FCE’s Residential Group (FCRG) has promised the City of New Rochelle that its Echo Bay project will create about 59 permanent jobs and increase local tax revenue.  However, FCRG seeks $20 million in tax abatements from 2016 to 2035 despite the fact that residents have been facing property tax increases and cuts in public services for years.
  • Finding:          FCE executives in Cleveland gave New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson $5,000 in campaign contributions in August 2007 after FCE was selected as the developer for the Echo Bay project in December 2006.  Mayor Bramson has received $17,500 in campaign contributions from FCRG’s consultants since December 2012.

 

Filed Under: Investigation Tagged With:

New York Times: In Regulators’ Sights

November 1, 2013 by

In Regulators’ Sights

By HILARY STOUT

Published: October 31, 2013

Over the last three weeks, more than 2,200 people have placed orders for $10-to-$40 sets of magnetic stacking balls, rising to the call of a saucy and irreverent social media campaign against a government regulatory agency.

The money from the sales of the so-called Liberty Balls goes to a legal-defense fund. At the crux of the battle is an arcane legal tussle that has caught the attention of a number of mainstream business organizations and free-market legal groups.

It involves an effort by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall Buckyballs, sets of tiny, powerfully magnetic stacking balls that the magazines Rolling Stone and People once ranked on their hot products lists.

Last year, the commission declared the balls a swallowing hazard to young children and filed an administrative action against the company that made the product, demanding it recall all Buckyballs, and a related product called Buckycubes, and refund consumers their money. The company, Maxfield & Oberton Holdings, challenged the action, saying labels on the packaging clearly warned that the product was unsafe for children.

But the fuss now has less to do with safety. After Maxfield & Oberton went out of business last December, citing the financial toll of the recall battle, lawyers for the product safety agency took the highly unusual step of adding the chief executive of the dissolved firm, Craig Zucker, as a respondent in the recall action, arguing that he controlled the company’s activities. Mr. Zucker and his lawyers say the move could ultimately make him personally responsible for the estimated recall costs of $57 million.

While the “responsible corporate officer” doctrine (also known as the Park doctrine) has been used frequently in criminal cases, allowing for prosecutions of individual company officers in cases asserting corporate wrongdoing, experts say its use is virtually unheard-of in an administrative action where no violations of law or regulations are claimed.

A spokesman for the product safety commission said the group had never used it in a recall action. He declined to say why it was used in this case.

“I think this case presents some important and troubling legal issues that really break new ground legally for the C.P.S.C.,” said Nancy A. Nord, who was the only commissioner to vote against filing the administrative action. Ms. Nord retired from the commission last weekend.

Three well-known business organizations — the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association — banded together this summer to file a brief urging the administrative law judge reviewing the recall case to drop Mr. Zucker as a respondent.

The groups argue that holding an individual responsible for a widespread, expensive recall sets a disturbing example and runs counter to the business desire for limited liability. They contend that such risk would have a detrimental effect on entrepreneurism and openness in dealing with regulatory bodies.

“It really has a chilling effect on the kinds of things all of us were trying to do, which is involve corporate officers in these kinds of decisions — to decide if something should be reported and if there should be a recall,” said Lee Bishop, a lawyer for the manufacturers association, who helped draft the brief.

Conservative legal groups like Cause of Action, a nonprofit that targets what it considers governmental overreach, have been watching the proceedings with interest and weighing taking some action.

“This really punishes entrepreneurship and establishes a bad precedent for businesses working to create products for consumers,” said Daniel Z. Epstein, the group’s executive director. “It undermines the business community’s ability to rely upon the corporate form.”

Mr. Epstein once worked for a foundation run by Charles G. Koch, who, with his brother David, has funded numerous conservative and antigovernment or antiregulatory causes. He would not disclose the donors behind Cause of Action. The Washington Legal Foundation, which promotes pro-business and free-market positions, has weighed in with a background paper titled “C.P.S.C.’s Misuse of R.C.O. Doctrine Bodes Ill for C.E.O.’s and Consumers.”

The administrative law judge on the case has refused to drop Mr. Zucker’s name from the case. Last month, Mr. Zucker, 34, began the so-called “United We Ball” campaign on Facebook, Twitter and other outlets to raise money for his legal defense fund. The products for sale, called Liberty Balls, are bigger versions of Buckyballs — too big, he says, to be a swallowing risk. So far, he says, the campaign has raised more than $100,000.

“The Consumer Product Safety Act in the Congress is very clear that recalls cannot be conducted by individuals, so entrepreneurs can innovate and create products and don’t have to be in fear of personal bankruptcy and personal financial ruin in the case of a product defect,” Mr. Zucker said in an interview. He added: “But Buckyballs weren’t defective. The commission changed its mind. It said the product was lawful and changed its mind.”

The case is now in the hands of the administrative law judge. If he rules that the product does present a hazard and a recall is warranted, Mr. Zucker may appeal to the commissioners, who will then vote on what action to take.

Buckyballs were created by Mr. Zucker and Jake Bronstein, two friends who said they were down to their last $1,000 each when they invested it in the company. There was something strangely addictive about stacking the powerful little magnets into endless shapes, and the product took off. By 2011, sales reached $18 million. Mr. Bronstein has not been named in the case.

The company had a history of collaborating with the commission, including during a voluntary recall of the product in 2010 to change its warning labels. The original labels said the product was unsafe for people under 13, but after Congress passed a law changing the definition of a child to anyone under 14, the company worked with the commission to recall the product and replace the labels.

The product safety agency says it has reports of about 1,700 emergency room visits involving children who had ingested Buckyballs. The power of the magnet in some cases caused ripped intestines.

“The core issue for Consumer Product Safety Commission is we did not see progress on safety to children,” said Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the agency. “The labels were not effective,” he said, explaining that many people did not keep the balls in the packaging so the labels were going unnoticed. “Children were getting access to this product,” he said.

After the company protested the recall, the commission approached retailers directly. At least six — including Barnes & Noble, Brookstone and Bed Bath & Beyond — initiated a voluntary recall and agreed to stop selling the product.

Buckyballs were also popular in Europe and elsewhere, including Canada and Australia, which have both initiated similar regulatory actions. The product had distributors in approximately 15 foreign countries, accounting for about 15 percent of sales, according to a spokeswoman for Mr. Zucker. When Maxfield & Oberton went out of business, sales to those distributors stopped as well.

Last week, the commission moved ahead with plans to outlaw these types of small powerful magnets from the marketplace, separate from the recall action. Five doctors testified about safety hazards in a hearing aimed at drafting a federal rule limiting the force and size of magnets for sale to the public.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/business/buckyball-recall-stirs-a-wider-legal-campaign.html

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Cause of Action files opposing briefs in Department of Energy cronyism lawsuit

October 17, 2013 by

As we’ve seen over the past month the DOE is reviving its loan program, this time under new management.

Yet Cause of Action (CoA), a government accountability group, hasn’t forgotten how the DOE handled applications for the Loan Guarantee Program in the first go-round.

Today CoA took a step in a lawsuit we filed against the DOE for corrupting its lending programs to favor political insiders, and arbitrarily denying applications by failing to review applications with ‘established merit criteria’ as required by law.

CoA has been investigating the DOE’s loan guarantee program for  more than a year and has uncovered that the agency failed to give XP Vehicles and Limnia, Inc., two qualified applicants under the DOE’s loan guarantee program fair treatment and the honest opportunity to compete for Government loan funds to build advanced technology vehicles and components.

Click here to see the Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss the Official Capacity Claims

Click here to see the Opposition to the Individual Capacity Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss

Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: , ,

POLITICO: Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour boosted visa firm

October 17, 2013 by

Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour boosted visa firm

A company closely tied to former Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe, and currently under scrutiny for allegedly trying to win political favors from the Department of Homeland Security, earned high-powered support only a few years ago from Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and then-Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, according to documents obtained by a nonpartisan watchdog group.

Both Jindal and Barbour wrote letters to DHS in 2008 seeking federal approval for the firm Gulf Coast Funds Management to become a regional EB-5 center – a hub that helps channel foreign investment into American projects and opens a path to green-card status for foreign businessmen.

GCFM, which is now headed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s brother, Anthony Rodham, has recently been drawn into an internal government investigation into whether a DHS official inappropriately aided the firm.

Republicans have sharply criticized McAuliffe and his former car company, GreenTech Automotive, for collaborating with GCFM and allegedly trying to use political influence to win government approval for EB-5 investments in Virginia. McAuliffe’s relationship with GreenTech started in 2009, well after the Jindal and Barbour letters were sent.

Jindal chairs the Republican Governors Association, which has attacked McAuliffe in TV ads for his ties to GCFM (one August ad cited this POLITICO headline: “Report: DHS probes firm with ties to Terry McAuliffe.”) The Louisiana governor has said that McAuliffe “disqualified” himself from high office through his questionable business dealings.

In documents obtained by the group Cause of Action – and shared exclusively with POLITICO – Jindal and Barbour endorsed GCFM’s bid to become a regional visa center servicing Mississippi and Louisiana. They jointly wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on June 19, 2009, to seek support for a company that they said would help the region bounce back from natural disasters.

“We believe that the situation in Mississippi and Louisiana is uniquely affected by the storms of 2005, and GCFM should be granted an exception to invest at the $500,000 level in both states,” the two governors wrote. “These areas are ‘targeted employment areas’ because only capital investment that creates new jobs can bring full recovery and allow all of our people to come home. Given these issues, we request your support for the GCFM regional center in a manner that allows it to fulfill the objectives of the EB-5 program and put funds to work to create needed jobs in Louisiana and Mississippi.”

Earlier in the year – on Feb. 27, 2008 – Jindal wrote separately to Chertoff to lobby for “a regional [EB-5] center that serves all of the state of Louisiana” and mentioned GCFM by name.

“The EB-5 program is an efficient way to direct private equity into all of the regions in Louisiana that need investment capital,” Jindal wrote. “I further understand that Gulf Coast Funds Regional Center has an application pending at this time for a regional center that serves both Louisiana and Mississippi. I ask you to evaluate this application, and all regional center applications from this area as quickly as possible so that investor dollars can be put to use immediately.”

Both Barbour and a spokesman for Jindal told POLITICO that at the time the two governors expressed support for GCFM, neither Terry McAuliffe nor GreenTech Automotive were involved in the project. Rodham only appears to have come on board at GCFM several years later, and McAuliffe didn’t become chairman of GreenTech until after his losing 2009 bid for governor of Virginia.

Barbour said that the point man at the time for GCFM had been a New Orleans-based investor, David Voelker, who died in May of this year. The DHS approval letter for GCFM’s regional center application, dated Aug. 18, 2008, is addressed to Voelker and another investor, George E. Brower II.

“At the time the letter was written, it was different people who were going to have the EB-5 center [and] we were dealing with a different automobile company,” said Barbour, himself a former RGA chairman.

He said a pair of foreign businessmen, Benjamin Yeung and Charles Wang, were involved in the initial EB-5 center application; only Wang ultimately went on to become deeply engaged with GreenTech and its investments in Mississippi.

“There was, as far as I know, no relationship with Hillary Clinton’s brother [in 2008],” Barbour said, emphasizing: “These are different people at a different time.”

Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin said in an emailed statement that it was not surprising that the two governors teamed up to advocate for economic development in their two states, and noting that McAuliffe’s involvement with GCFM came later.

“Louisiana and Mississippi have often cooperated since Hurricane Katrina to cut federal red tape and encourage private sector job creation,” Plotkin said. “It’s unfortunate that well after these letters were sent Terry McAuliffe tried to abuse this federal program and take advantage of a town in North Mississippi. Federal authorities should hold him accountable for any violations that might have occurred.”

An email to a GCFM inquiries address seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Cause of Action executive director Dan Epstein said that regardless of the timeline of GCFM’s activities and its relationship with prominent Democrats, that Jindal and Barbour had “very clearly lobbied for GCFM to get approval as a regional center.”

“Political connections should never be the grounds on which a company gets support from the government. We want a transparent and competitive system,” said Epstein, whose group has been highly critical of McAuliffe and his various business connections during the current gubernatorial race.

He noted dryly that Jindal is now “rather critical of Terry McAuliffe and actually cites Mr. McAuliffe’s bad businesses with GreenTech Automotive, which is of course financed by Gulf Coast Funds Management.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/bobby-jindal-haley-barbour-boosted-visa-firm-98491.html#ixzz2i0nZM95m

Filed Under: News

Law Clerk

Are you interested in putting your skills to work for a great cause? Cause of Action Institute is looking to hire a Law Clerk for Summer 2017 to advance a free society through strategic investigations and litigation to fight unconstitutional government overreach and expose waste, fraud, and abuse in the government. The organization is an independent 501(c) (3) public interest group that uses public advocacy and legal reform tools to ensure greater transparency in government, protect taxpayer interests, and promote economic freedom.

Cause of Action Institute will work with you and your law school to attempt to obtain school credit, as permitted, for this unpaid position.

Essential Responsibilities:

  • Perform legal research and writing in the areas of litigation, transactional, non-profit, and general law.
  • Work on a variety of projects (investigations, reports, etc.) as assigned to assist Senior Counsel and others throughout the organization to examine government action/inaction.
  • Understand and maintain 100% compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.
  • Work both independently and as part of a team.
  • Hours will be 10-20 per week or more.

Qualifications:

  • Completed 1L (first) year and currently enrolled in an ABA-accredited law school.
  • Excellent legal research and writing skills.
  • Excellence in academics and good class standing. Strong performance in public-law related course work preferred.
  • Demonstrated interest or familiarity in the Freedom of Information Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and other statutory schemes in the public law field.
  • Provide strong references.
  • An understanding of free market principles and a passion for advancing the mission of the organization is required.
  • Submittal of LSAT scores and unofficial transcripts encouraged but not required, and can be uploaded along with your resume and cover letter

Click here to apply.