The Justice Department and the FBI aren’t commenting, and the lawyer for the Governor McAuliffe’s campaign says he knows nothing about it, but officials with knowledge about the investigation say it’s been underway for the past several months.
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“As a matter of policy, the department generally neither confirms nor denies whether a matter is under investigation”, said Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department.
While there have been no official charges filed against McAuliffe, the governor is now being sued by his own Legislature.
The investigation dates to at least a year ago and has focused, at least in part, on whether donations to his gubernatorial campaign violated the law, the officials said. “The governor will certainly cooperate with the government if he is contacted about it”.
McAuliffe said Tuesday that the donor in question had been “fully vetted” by his legal team and he was “very confident” the investigation would turn up no wrongdoing.
“In 2013, the race for governor was not a campaign against Terry McAuliffe”. CNN first reported the probe Monday and said it is ongoing.
Pushed to address the 100 donors that donated to both the Clintons’ foundation and his campaign, McAuliffe said, “I think we travel the same circles”.
But the inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice stands to rekindle some of the same controversies that dogged the Clintons in the 1990s, and it comes just as Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has sought to revive allegations against Bill Clinton as he prepares to run against Hillary Clinton.
The donation McAuliffe referred to was a check of $120,000 from a Chinese businessman named Wang Wenliang.
Whitbeck says campaign contributions from foreign nationals should not be allowed, regardless of their green card status.
Mr. McAuliffe is a close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s, having previously served as a fundraiser for their campaigns and as a board member of an the Clinton Global Initiative, an endeavor of their charitable foundation. Wang donated two million dollars to the foundation, but McAuliffe said Tuesday he is not responsible for securing the donation. The check was given through his US businesses.
McAuliffe has had a busy day. Republicans had already been critical of his closeness to her, and their criticism heated last month when McAuliffe issued an executive order to restore voting rights to about 206,000 released felons. McAuliffe left GreenTech in 2012.
McAuliffe’s flights have been scrutinized since he used the plane past year to attend a U2 concert and former President Bill Clinton’s birthday party.
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The FBI probe could continue the public perception of secrecy surrounding her campaign.
