Birds of a feather, …. Hillary has done a great job of picking a VP candidate of, shall we say, “questionable” character. Oh, heck, why mince words? It certainly looks like Kaine may just give Hillary a run for her money in the corruption department. Here’s just a couple of dirty little secrets that are certain to be among the first of many, many more interesting tid-bits to come in the weeks ahead.
Politico reported just shortly after Hillary announced her pick for VP that Kaine was raking it in, as far as gifts and special interests are concerned.
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine took advantage of the state’s lax gift laws to receive an $18,000 Caribbean vacation, $5,500 in clothes and a trip to watch George Mason University play in the NCAA basketball Final Four during his years as lieutenant governor and governor, according to disclosures he filed.
Now a leading contender to be Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Kaine reported more than $160,000 in gifts from 2001 to 2009, mostly for travel to and from political events and conferences, according to disclosures compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project. The givers included political supporters, a drug company that soon after bought a facility in Virginia, and Dominion, the state’s biggest provider of electricity.
And while his people all claim everything is and was above board, … well the giving and taking just kept on coming.
Shortly after winning the governorship in 2005, Kaine and his family vacationed on the exclusive West Indies island of Mustique in a house belonging to Charlottesville-area investor James B. Murray Jr. Murray made a fortune investing in cellphones together with Kaine’s Senate predecessor, Mark Warner. Murray invited Kaine to spend a week at his house to relax after the campaign.
“I didn’t consider it a gift: There was no cash, I just let him use a house,” Murray said in an interview with Politico. “There was no quid pro quo. I don’t have any business with him.”
For the purpose of the disclosure, Kaine’s staff determined that $18,000 was the fair market value of a week’s stay. Kaine paid all his own expenses besides lodging.
“It’s just the kind of thing you do for a friend, but who’s to draw the line?” Murray said. “It’s probably better to declare everything.”
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And there is more…
Kaine also accepted $5,500 worth of clothes in 2003 and 2005 from Stuart C. Siegel, a close friend and campaign booster who was then chairman of a Virginia-based discount menswear company. The disclosure also lists a baccarat crystal vase, valued at $0. Siegel didn’t answer a request for comment through a foundation of which he’s a board member.
Most of the gifts came in the form of travel to conferences or campaign events. President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign gave Kaine $45,000 for airfare and lodging. Kaine’s own leadership committee, Moving Virginia Forward, footed $20,000 of travel expenses. The Democratic Party of Virginia paid almost $11,000.
Richmond-based power company Dominion gave Kaine $2,000 for travel to meetings of the Democratic Governors Association and Southern Governors Association and to watch George Mason University play in the NCAA Final Four in 2006. Kaine rode on Dominion’s jet because he missed the commercial flight he booked to attend a state legislator’s funeral. A regulated utility, Dominion lobbies the state on energy policy.
CBS News claims Kaine took $160,000 in gifts while in the Governor’s office.
Sen. Tim Kaine legally accepted more than $162,000 in gifts when he served as lieutenant governor and governor of Virginia..
The disclosures have been publicly available for years, but they could be under some scrutiny now, since Kaine has been floated as a possible vice presidential pick for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Virginia Democrat disclosed the gifts from 2001 to 2009, according to reports filed by the Virginia Public Access Project, which Politico reported.
Most of the gifts were for travel to and from political conferences and events. Accepting gifts is legal under Virginia’s lax ethics rules, and Kaine’s aides pointed out there was no suggestion of official favors in return, and he has exceeded the reporting requirements.
“During his eight years as lieutenant governor and governor, Sen. Kaine went beyond the requirements of Virginia law, even publicly disclosing gifts of value beneath the reporting threshold,” a spokesperson told Politico. “He’s confident that he met both the letter and the spirit of Virginia’s ethical standards.”
The disclosures showed he received an $18,000 Caribbean vacation from Virginia-based tech investor James Murray, Jr., and in 2007 received $5,500 in clothing from Stuart Siegel of S&K Menswear, a company that declared bankruptcy in 2009. Teva Pharmaceuticals gave $12,000 for expenses incurred for the Democratic Governors Association meeting in Aspen in 2006. Obama for America had the largest disclosure–$45,075 for travel and lodging related to the 2008 presidential campaign.
And foreign policy won’t be untouched with a Clinton/Kaine administration because there are deep, deep ties to radical Islam, not only from Hillary, but from Kaine too.
The Federalist Papers:
He appointed a Hamas supporter to a state immigration commission, once spoke at a dinner honoring a Muslim Brotherhood terrorist suspect and has received many donations from well-known Islamist groups.
Back in 2007, Breitbart reports, then-Governor Kaine chose Muslim American Society (MAS) President Esam Omeish to the state’s Immigration Commission. It was an appointment so controversial that even a Muslim group against radical Islam criticized the appointment and lack of vetting.
In 2008, federal court filings found that MAS was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.”
According to Omeish’s website, he was also President of the National Muslim Students Association and served for two years on the national board of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which the Justice Department also labeled as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial.
His website says he was Vice President of Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a radical mosque known for its history of terror ties including having future Al-Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki as its imam and being frequented by two of the 9/11 hijackers and the perpetrator of the Fort Hood shooting. Omeish’s website says he remains a board member.
Omeish directly expressed extremism before Kaine appointed him. He claimed the Brotherhood is “moderate” and admitted that he and MAS are influenced by the Islamist movement. In 2004, Omeish praised the Hamas spiritual leader as “our beloved Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.” Videotape from 2000 also surfaced where Omeish pledged to help Palestinians who understand “the jihad way is the way to liberate your land” (he denied this was an endorsement of violence).
In the second example of Kaine’s deep connections with Radical Islam, he spoke at a 2011 dinner honoring Jamal Barzinji, the “Founding father of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.”
Barzinji has been on the FBI’s radar since 1987, when an informant told them that Barzinji was part of a network of brotherhood fronts to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.”
Barzinji played a major role in nearly every Brotherhood front in the U.S. and was vice president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, which came under terrorism investigation also. Barzinji’s group was so close to Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian that IIIT’s President considered his group and Al-Arian’s to be essentially one entity.
Finally there’s the money … Barzinji’s organization, IIIT, donated $10,000 to an organization, New Dominion PAC, that gave $43,050 to Kaine’s bid for governor between 2003 and 2005.
So much, so early in the mix. With only a few months left before the November elections, the news cycle is sure to be full of dirty laundry on such a corrupt Democratic POTUS candidacy team.
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