We Always Knew Mike Pence Was Irrelevant, and Now We Know He's Corrupt, Too
We Always Knew Mike Pence Was Irrelevant, and Now We Know He’s Corrupt, Too
https://www.thedailybeast.com/we-always-knew-mike-pence-was-irrelevant-and-now-we-know-hes-corrupt-too?source=twitter&via=desktop
Until Vice President Mike Pence chose to stay at a Trump hotel 180 miles from where his meetings in Ireland were taking place, he fell somewhere in the middle of vice presidents: those who did so little to distinguish the office no one remembers them—Elbridge Gerry, Hannibal Hamlin, Dan Quayle—and those who did so much to disgrace the office—Calvin Coolidge, Spiro Agnew, Dick Cheney—that we can’t forget them.
Pence has moved from the first category to the second, not for dismissing claims that Trump paid off a porn star as baseless. It’s because rather than impose his Bible-thumping religion, with its commandment “Thou shalt not steal” on Trump, he has let Trump corrupt him. A glance at Trivago would reveal numerous hotels smack dab in the middle of where Pence’s meetings were taking place, and yet when Trump said, according to Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short, “Why don’t you stay at my place?” he said yes.
When I invite someone to stay at my place, even if they chip the wedding china and drink all the good wine during their visit, I don’t bill them. But what “staying at my place” means when it’s Trump doing the inviting is that the taxpayer will pay dearly—likely six figures for the whole entourage (a suite with ocean view, high-count thread sheets, in-floor heat, and bespoke decor goes for $1,000 per night), and that’s without the cost of the commute by helicopter, or the bar tab.
The defense that Mike Pompeo’s State Department purportedly approved every last dollar of the trip is just confirmation that everyone’s on the take.
By dipping into the U.S. Treasury, Pence has gone beyond lining Trump’s pockets with $250,000 of his donors’ money at Trump’s DC hotel and steakhouse. Trump didn’t select Pence to enrich himself—he has others for that. It was to vouch for him with the Christian Right. The thrice-married casino boss needed a rock-ribbed, church going, once-married TV Dad with the hair God gave him for ballast among evangelicals.
Pence’s signature achievement, in addition to his belief in praying away the gay, was driving Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act to passage. It wrote discrimination against LGBTQ citizens into law so there would be no question that a baker could refuse to put a groom and a groom atop a wedding cake.
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Pence Family’s Shuttered Gas Stations Left Millions In Cleanup Costs To Public
**HOLD FOR STORY BY BRIAN SLODYSKO**Residents of an Indianapolis neighborhood cheered December 11, 2017, when a massive storage tank at a Kiel Bros. facility was torn down. Kiel Bros. sold the site in 2005 for $10 and neighbors say it’s been an eyesore ever since. (AP Photo/Brian Slodysko)
In this Dec. 11, 2017, photo, a storage tank at a Kiel Bros. facility is torn down in Indianapolis. The collapse of Kiel Bros. Oil Co. in 2004 was widely publicized. Less known is that the state of Indiana and, to a... MORE
By BRIAN SLODYSKO
July 13, 2018 11:17 am
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GARDEN CITY, Ind. (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence turns nostalgic when he talks about growing up in small-town Columbus, Indiana, where his father helped build a Midwestern empire of more than 200 gas stations that provided an upbringing on the “front row of the American dream.”
The collapse of Kiel Bros. Oil Co. in 2004 was widely publicized. Less known is that the state of Indiana — and, to a smaller extent, Kentucky and Illinois — are still on the hook for millions of dollars to clean up more than 85 contaminated sites across the three states, including underground tanks that leaked toxic chemicals into soil, streams and wells.
Indiana alone has spent at least $21 million on the cleanup thus far, or an average of about $500,000 per site, according an analysis of records by The Associated Press. And the work is nowhere near complete.
The federal government, meanwhile, plans to clean up a plume of cancer-causing solvent discovered beneath a former Kiel Bros. station that threatens drinking water near the Pence family’s hometown.
To assess the pollution costs, the AP reviewed thousands of pages of court documents, tax statements, business filings and federal financial disclosures, as well as federal and state environmental records for Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. The total financial impact isn’t clear because Indiana officials have yet to release cost figures for 12 contaminated areas. Other records are incomplete, redacted or missing.
The public cleanup of more than 25 former Kiel Bros. sites in Kentucky and Illinois — where officials have done a better job keeping costs down — has been much less expensive, totaling about $1.7 million, according to an analysis of records obtained under each state’s public records law.
Kiel Bros. has paid for only a fraction of the overall effort. In court documents , the company cited payment of $8.8 million in “indemnity and defense costs,” but also noted that $5 million of that amount came from the states.
Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management, which regulates gas stations, did not respond to a detailed list of questions from the AP. Spokesman Ryan Clem said the agency is working to provide records requested under Indiana’s public records law that could shed some light on how much former Kiel Bros. sites have cost the state.
Pence spokeswoman Alyssa Farah called the findings “a years old issue” that the vice president has addressed before. She did not elaborate.
In a statement, Pence’s older brother Greg Pence — who was president of Kiel Bros. when it went bankrupt and is now running for Congress as a Republican — distanced himself from the cleanup costs.
“Greg Pence has had nothing to do with Kiel Bros since 2004. This is another attempt by the liberal media to rehash old, baseless attacks,” campaign spokeswoman Molly Gillaspie said.
The fact that the company stuck taxpayers with the lion’s share of the cleanup bill rankles some observers, especially in light of the family’s reputation as budget hawks critical of government spending.
The Pence family, especially Greg Pence, has “some answering in public” to do, said A. James Barnes, an environmental law professor who served in high-ranking posts at the Environmental Protection Agency under President Ronald Reagan.
Mike Pence, then a third-year congressman, lost more than $600,000 when the company went under. He later became Indiana governor and now has assets worth between $532,000 and $1.13 million. Greg Pence, who is seeking the vice president’s old congressional seat, has total assets worth $5.7 to $26 million.
Nearly a decade after going under, Kiel Bros. sites still ranked among the top 10 recipients of state money for such cleanups in Indiana in 2013, the last year for which the petroleum industry has reliable spending data for the company. That was out of more than 230 companies seeking cleanup money that year, including major gas station chains with a substantially larger presence in the state.
Founded as an oil distributor by businessman Carl Kiel in 1960, the company expanded into the gas station business. Pence’s father, Edward, joined in the early years and, by the mid-1970s, rose to corporate vice president.
Mike Pence says he worked for the business — which mostly operated under the name Tobacco Road — starting at age 14. But it was his brother who took over after Edward Pence’s 1988 death and eventually became president.
By the early 2000s, Kiel Bros. was swimming in debt as industry consolidation and low gas prices stretched profit margins to the brink. The business racked up environmental fines and closed stores. In June 2004, Greg Pence resigned as the company filed for bankruptcy.
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^sung to the G.I. theme....
The self dealing is just astounding, I'm starting to appreciate middle east public hangings.
That would Trump's biggest crowd!?!
