The Year in Obama Scandals — and Scandal Deniers

◼ See no scandal, hear no scandal, speak no scandal. - Michelle Malkin (Photoshop source: Courage in America)

Dartmouth College professor Brendan Nyhan asserted in May — while Operation Fast and Furious subpoenas were flying on Capitol Hill — that “one of the least remarked upon aspects of the Obama presidency has been the lack of scandals.” Conveniently, he defines scandal as a “widespread elite perception of wrongdoing.”

So as long as left-wing Ivy League scribes refuse to perceive something to be a scandal — never mind the actual suffering endured by the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, whose death came at the hands of a Mexican cartel thug wielding a Fast and Furious gun walked across the southern border under Attorney General Eric Holder’s watch — there is no scandal!

...Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum likewise proclaimed: “Obama’s presidency has so far been almost completely free of scandal.”

This after the year kicked off in January with the departure of lying eco-radical czar Carol Browner. In backroom negotiations, she infamously bullied auto execs to “put nothing in writing, ever.” Read The Rest

SEC warns LightSquared figure of potential fraud probe

◼ SEC warns LightSquared figure of potential fraud probe - Ed Morrissey/HotAir

It’s been a bad week for big Democratic donors. First Jon Corzine, one of Barack Obama’s main bundlers and his liaison to Wall Street, told Congress on Thursday that he had no idea that the firm he ran had somehow lost $1.2 billion in customer money attempting to cover losses from Corzine’s bets on European sovereign debt. Last night, another Wall Street figure in Democratic donor circles got news that the SEC may open a civil-fraud probe based on his operation of a hedge fund and the favorable treatment given to yet another Democrat-linked Wall Street firm...

This probe is separate from the issues surrounding LightSquared, however, but it involves more than just the $50 million Falcone apparently allowed Goldman Sachs to withdraw while preventing other investors from cashing out of Harbinger. They have already begun probing a loan Falcone took from the Harbinger fund, as well as “market manipulation,” but it’s apparently the Goldman Sachs withdrawal that has the SEC most exercised at the moment.

The news has one Senator asking for a more in-depth look at LightSquared’s connections to regulators...

◼ SEC Puts Falcone, Harbinger in Its Sights - Steve Eder/Wall St. Journal

Hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone was threatened with possible civil-fraud charges from the top U.S. securities regulator, the latest in a series of setbacks that have buffeted the investor since he rocketed to stardom in 2007.

Mr. Falcone and his firm, Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, received so-called Wells notices from the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a regulatory filing Friday, an indication that charges are likely.

Among the issues the SEC has explored is whether Harbinger agreed to allow some investors, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., to cash out of their holdings while barring other clients from withdrawing their money, ...

LightSquared disrupts 75% of GPS receivers in gov’t testing

◼ The saga of LightSquared added a new chapter last night, as Bloomberg reported on the preliminary result of tests of the satellite Internet provider’s service in relation to GPS devices. - Ed Morrissey/HotAir

The Obama administration has pushed LightSquared as a provider for its ambitious broadband expansion over the objections of the military, which warned that LightSquared’s operations would interfere with the satellite-based navigational system. The draft summary of the November testing shows that the military was right to be concerned....

If that was all there was to this story, then this would just be another commercial venture that struck out, with little interest outside the tech fields involved. However, the overwhelming failure of LightSquared’s test puts allegations from last summer in a new light. ◼ In September, four-star Air Force General William Shelton ◼ accused the White House of pressuring him in August to change his Congressional testimony to make his assessment of LightSquared more favorable. Another Congressional witness told Eli Lake that ◼ the White House had “offered guidance” on how to testify favorably towards LightSquared.

Why is this important? Philip Falcone is a big donor to the Democratic Party, and he has billions of dollars at stake in LightSquared’s approval. Also, ◼ Obama himself was an investor in LightSquared at one point, as were or are a number of his associates. The resounding failure in this test makes it look like the White House pressured witnesses to back off of exposing LightSquared’s product as exactly the kind of dangerous problem that critics had maintained all along — with the intent to mislead Congress into moving forward with LightSquared’s government contracts.

◼ Falcone’s LightSquared Said to Disrupt 75% of GPS in Tests - Todd Shields/Bloomberg

◼ The laboratory testing was performed for the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Systems Engineering Forum, an executive branch body that helps advise policy makers on issues around GPS. It found that 69 of 92, or 75 percent, of receivers tested “experienced harmful interference” at the equivalent of 100 meters (109 yards) from a LightSquared base station.
◼ For Obama, lack of huge stock portfolio helps avoid need for blind trust - Michael D. Shear/Washington Post

Scandal Watch: LightSquared partner ($267 million fed loan recipient) goes under; stonewalling at NTIA

◼ More government loans to nowhere… - Michelle Malkin

◼ LightSquared: Obama’s Dangerous Broadband Boondoggle
◼ NTIA Cannot Find LightSquared Documents, Tells Magazine to Go Fish - GPS World

Soros turns up in Obama's LightSquared imbroglio

◼ As Republican lawmakers begin to dig into the White House's cozy relationship with a startup wireless company and the wealthy Democratic donor who owns it, a new character has appeared on the story's edges: liberal superdonor, conservative bete noire and controversial investor George Soros. - Timothy P. Carney/Washington Examiner

In the LightSquared affair, Soros shows up repeatedly.

First, Soros is reportedly an investor in LightSquared. The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2010: "In 2009, while some investors were asking for withdrawals, others were lining up to put money into Harbinger. They included Soros Fund Management, which during the past year became a significant new investor, say people familiar with the matter."

Additionally, the telecom- and tech-related liberal nonprofits Soros funds have gone to bat for LightSquared in its various policy fights. In April 2010, the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission backing Harbinger's business plans and met with an FCC commissioner on the matter. Four groups that belong to that coalition received six-figure gifts from Soros' Open Society Institute the year before.

Six months later, those four Soros-funded groups -- Free Press, Media Access Project, the New America Foundation, and Public Knowledge -- filed a joint comment backing LightSquared in a related regulatory matter.

Lawmakers this week raised fresh questions about the proposed network by Virginia-based Lightsquared, a firm backed by billionaire Philip Falcone, a prominent donor to Obama's Democratic party.

◼ Lawmakers question White House role in wireless project - Yahoo

Republican lawmakers say the White House may have tried to push through a company's proposed wireless network despite objections from the military that the project could disrupt vital satellite navigation systems....

At a hearing Thursday of the House of Representatives strategic forces subcommittee, the Republican chairman, Michael Turner, said he would request that the House Oversight Committee investigate whether the company received special treatment from the White House or federal regulators.

The hearing came after a report in the Daily Beast website alleged the White House pressed the head of US Air Force space command, General William Shelton, to downplay his concerns and alter his testimony to lawmakers....

◼ The Pentagon has worried for months that a project backed by a prominent Democratic donor might interfere with military GPS. Now Congress wants to know if the White House pressured a general to change his testimony. - The Daily Beast

The four-star Air Force general who oversees Air Force Space Command walked into a highly secured room on Capitol Hill a week ago to give a classified briefing to lawmakers and staff, and dropped a surprise. Pressed by members, Gen. William Shelton said the White House tried to pressure him to change his testimony to make it more favorable to a company tied to a large Democratic donor....

According to officials familiar with the situation, Shelton’s prepared testimony was leaked in advance to the company. And the White House asked the general to alter the testimony to add two points: that the general supported the White House policy to add more broadband for commercial use; and that the Pentagon would try to resolve the questions around LightSquared with testing in just 90 days.

◼ Did Obama’s former investment play role in pressuring 4-star general to change testimony? - HotAir

As it turns out, LightSquared is more than just a Democratic donor. The Lonely Conservative points us to a July 2011 article at The Huffington Post, in which it seems that Barack Obama himself has a personal interest in LightSquared:

Obama himself was an early investor and came to the presidency a firm believer in expanding broadband. He remains close to other early investors, like Gips and investment manager George W. Haywood, inviting some to luxe social events at the White House and more intimate gatherings like a night of poker and beer.

Presidents put their investments into blind trusts when they take office in order to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. Well, most modern Presidents do, anyway. It seems that Obama considers himself an exception to this rule, or at the very least he did until April 2010. The Washington Post’s Michael Shear reported at that time that Obama had refused to establish a blind trust...