VA Gov.’s Former Electric Car Company Zaps Millions of Tax Dollars

VA Gov.’s Former Electric Car Company Zaps Millions of Tax Dollars

The American press obsession with Russia is leaving vital news on the cutting room floor.

For example, Judicial Watch is reporting that the state auditor of Mississippi is demanding that Virginia Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe’s former company, GreenTech, repay millions in public money because the electric vehicle company shut down and failed to deliver on its promises to create new jobs.

The government watchdog group also notes that most elite media outlets are not covering another green energy failure, especially as it involves a leading Democratic politician.

An electric car company that folded after taking millions of taxpayer dollars was founded by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair, but the mainstream media is ignoring this pertinent fact. The Mississippi-based company, GreenTech, shut down in January but is back in the spotlight because this week the state’s auditor demanded the firm repay $6.4 million in public funds. Only a small Richmond, Virginia newspaper prominently reported McAuliffe’s ties to the scandal, stating in the headline that “Mississippi auditor demands $6.4M repayment from McAuliffe’s former electric car company.”

…[A]s GreenTech founder, McAuliffe brokered the deal in which the company got millions in public funds by promising to invest $60 million locally and creating hundreds of new full-time jobs. That never happened and instead taxpayers got fleeced. Now Mississippi State Auditor Stacey Pickering is ordering that the money be repaid with interest and investigative costs. The exact figure is $6,360,019.60.

Digging deeper into the story, one can clearly see that the the vaunted “green energy jobs” did not live up to the promises weaved by the Democrats under the last administration. Furthermore, a Mississippi state auditor is having a difficult time determining if the firm lived up to the terms of its loan.

A Mississippi official investigating the activities of an electric car company created by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has found that the company did not come close to creating the 350 jobs it promised and had shrunk to around 10 employees as of early 2017.

In a report released Wednesday, the office of Mississippi State Auditor Stacey Pickering said GreenTech Automotive had at one point generated 143 jobs.

But the number stood at 94 new, full-time jobs at the end of 2014, the designated point to measure whether the company was living up to the terms of a $3 million economic development loan from the state.

Because the company submitted data with “numerous errors,” the auditor’s report says, the state was unable to determine whether the jobs paid the required average of $35,000 per year.

For his part, McAuliffe is distancing himself from this fiasco. However, GreenTech featured prominently during his quest for the governor’s seat.

McAuliffe’s foray into electric cars came between his failed 2009 run for governor and his successful 2013 bid. He left the company in late 2012 and said this week that he has had “nothing to do” with the company’s activities since then.

GreenTech was a prominent feature of McAuliffe’s résumé in 2012 as he courted Virginia Democrats ahead of his second gubernatorial campaign.

The company’s statement downplayed the governor’s involvement, saying its activity in Mississippi predated McAuliffe’s “brief association” with the company. The public funding from Mississippi, the company said, was for construction of a manufacturing facility that occurred “well after” McAuliffe had left.

However, the contract laying out the terms of the deal was signed in the summer of 2011, before McAuliffe stepped down as chairman.

The Judicial Watch assessment is that Virginia’s governor may be in serious trouble.

The Virginia paper that reported his key role in the bankrupt electric car company points this out: “McAuliffe’s office has said the governor has had no involvement with the company since stepping down as its chairman and divesting his financial stake. But the escalating standoff in Mississippi raises the likelihood that the business deal McAuliffe brokered could be headed toward a bitter end in court. Ending his four-year term as governor with a higher national profile and record as an exuberant pitchman for Virginia, GreenTech’s unraveling could dog McAuliffe amid speculation about a 2020 presidential bid.

I suspect the elite media will continue to ignore the story, unless it involves collusion with Russia.

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