By Bill Wilson
As U.S. Senators take up the nomination of Loretta Lynch for Attorney General, they should keep an eye across the country on the scandal enveloping now-former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber. At first glance, these two unfolding political dramas might seem as far apart as “the east is from the west,” but a closer examination reveals a troubling common undercurrent.
First, let’s look at Lynch, whose refusal to criminally prosecute “too big to indict” banks — including those with ties to drug and terrorist organizations — has prompted intense GOP scrutiny of her nomination. More disturbingly, Lynch has vowed to implement Barack Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty provisions — flatly rejecting the very rule of law she has sworn to uphold and enforce. Clearly, her nomination should be a non-starter on that basis alone — but the real issue here isn’t so much Lynch’s unfitness for office as it is the culture of corruption from which she was spawned.
No agency — not the EPA, IRS nor NSA — epitomizes the rogue “thugocracy” of Obama’s Administration more than the U.S. Department of Justice. And it’s not just the agency’s headline-grabbing lawlessness — like the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal or its repeated efforts to spy on journalists. There’s a root evil at work — a fundamental hypocrisy that’s much darker and far more sinister.
That evil? The rising tide of unequal justice: Agenda-driven law enforcement that’s willing to overlook real crime on the one hand while manufacturing scandals out of thin air on the other — all depending on partisan calculation and ideological impact.
Which leads us to Kitzhaber and his fiancée Cylvia Hayes — who according to news reports was paid nearly $150,000 over a two-year period by a pair of environmental groups. Both of these groups hired Hayes on the advice of Kitzhaber staffers — and both were actively seeking to influence his administration on energy policy (an office where Hayes just so happened to work as an unpaid advisor).
Compounding the scandal? Hayes doesn’t appear to have fully accounted for the money she received from these environmental groups on her tax forms — while Kitzhaber had similarly failed to provide a full accounting on state ethics filings.
At a minimum, this was influence peddling of the very worst sort — part of a disturbing pattern of Kitzhaber using public resources and personal power to obtain private benefits for his partner. Kitzhaber’s fellow Democrats turned on him in the wake of the scandal, with even the liberal Oregonian newspaper — which had typically championed his views — calling on him to step down.
“Your once-admirable legacy has become soiled by your refusal to recognize and rectify wrong turns,” the paper’s editorial board wrote prior to Kitzhaber’s resignation.
“Who knew following the trail of ‘clean energy’ money could make you feel so dirty?” the Oregonian editorial added.
As far as Obama’s Administration is concerned, though, even in light of the resignation, there is no trail to follow in Oregon. Just as there was no trail to follow in Virginia over Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe’s “green visa scam” — in which the former DNC chairman made millions of dollars effectively selling permanent U.S. residency to wealthy foreign investors. Of course, former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a Republican, received a sentence of two years in jail for accepting $120,000 in gifts — most of which accrued to the benefit of his wife (and all of which he repaid).
Why was McDonnell tarred and feathered for nebulous gifts — while McAuliffe and Kitzhaber got off scot-free and have evaded federal prosecution when real corruption was involved?
That’s a good question. In fact, it’s one U.S. Senators should pose to Lynch as she tries to defend her enforcement of Obama’s blatantly unconstitutional amnesty edicts — or her own “too big to indict” policy. They should ask her: Is there also a “too green to indict” policy? Or a “too Democratic to indict” policy? Because it certainly seems as though the Justice Department’s pursuit of its stated objective is sinisterly selective — and far from blind.
The author is a Board Member of Americans for Limited Government.
