The Daily Caller: EXCLUSIVE: DHS Refuses To Investigate Top Official Who Fast-Tracked Visas For Hillary’s Brother

IRLI In The News

October 3, 2016

By Jonah Bennett

Both the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Government Ethics have refused to fully pursue an ethics investigation against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, and now-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, despite findings that DHS official Alejandro Mayorkas gave preferential visa treatment to a company with strong links to Rodham that was co-founded by McAuliffe.

This is likely a breach of federal law.

The DHS’s inspector general determined in 2015 that Deputy Secretary Mayorkas, who at the time served as director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, had improperly involved himself in fast-tracking visa applications under the E-5 investor visa program for McAullife’s company GreenTech Automotive, which McAullife was involved in four years before he became the governor of Virginia in 2013.

Federal regulations state that the director of the Office of Governmental Ethics (OGE) “may recommend” that the head of an agency launch an investigation if the OGE director “has reason to believe” a violation has taken place. These regulations also empower the agency to take “appropriate disciplinary or correction action.”

But according to documents obtained by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), an investigative watchdog group, the OGE director never took the recommendation step, as he did not believe there was any reason Mayorkas violated ethics rules when he was caught fast-tracking visas for GreenTech Automotive under the EB-5 program, as listed in the DHS IG report. … Read the full story by Jonah Bennett.

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