This Energy Company Escaped Corruption Charges Under AG Kamala While Bankrolling Democrats

When Vice President Kamala Harris was the state attorney general of California, her staff discovered evidence of corruption after the closing of a nuclear power plant forced payers to pay the multibillion-dollar arrangement costs. Harris was criticized for failing to sue. When Harris made the decision to turn down the plant, The Federalist reviewed economic information, which revealed that the company that ran it had been giving state Democrats hundreds of thousands.

Following a rays hole the year before, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was permanently shut down in 2013. The arrangement actually left consumers with 70 percentage of the financial stress, or$ 3.3 billion. Additionally, it left 3. 6 million kg of nuclear waste on a well-known shore in California. &nbsp,

As attorney general in California, Harris’s team discovered evidence of a secret meeting between a Southern California Edison (SCE ) executive, the plant’s primary owner, and the then-president of the California Public Utilities Commission ( CPUC) to allegedly draft the settlement. However, the analysis appeared to be beginning to wane as Harris attempted to win the U.S. Senate in 2016.

Democrat then-Gov. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Jerry Brown met with an SCE professional in 2013, who approved Harris ‘ pay for the Senate in 2016. After that year, SCE funneled$ 54, 400 to his election campaign, state records show. Later, data revealed that a second SCE professional had a meeting with the CPUC president in Poland in 2013. This SCE executive had contributed nearly$ 3,700 to the CPUC president’s wife’s battle since 2012 alone, making her a long-time supporter.

In reviewing position financial information, The Federalist even learned that while Harris ‘ investigation was afoot, SCE funneled$ 380, 000 to the California Democratic Party from March 2015 to May 2016. The organization and its people have constantly bankrolled state efforts since at least 2001, including for state senate, state legislature, and government, records show.

A Key Meeting Overseas

KPBS reported that SCE and the CPUC made up the claim that the colony “was the result of flimsy conversations between worldwide activists and the power business.” However, the report stated that” a different story emerged” after Harris ‘ investigators conducted a” judge-shopping” investigation at the former CPUC President Michael Peevey‘s residence in January 2015.

In the process, they discovered proof that Peevey had a private meeting with SCE CEO Stephen Pickett in Poland in href=”https://www.utilitydive.com/news/sce-admits-to-private-conversations-with-peevey-on-songs-closure/362628/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>March 2013, during which they” created a framework for a San Onofre lawsuit that closely resembled the ultimate public deal,” as KPBS reported.

The organizations also published an oath that the California deputy attorney general had reviewed in 2016, and the volunteer Public Watchdogs published the document notes in 2016.

“]T] here is probable cause to believe that PICKETT knowingly engaged and conspired to participate in a reportable&nbsp, father falls conversation with PEEVEY&nbsp, in POLAND to the general advantage of SCE&nbsp, in&nbsp, the following settlement process pertaining to the closure of SONGS]the atomic plant ]”, the affidavit reads.

Harris made her campaign for the Senate in January 2015. According to KPBS, her researchers served subpoenas to Edison and the CPUC to request that they turn over all paperwork and contacts related to the San Onofre arrangement six months after they conducted a search of Peevey’s home. But when the CPUC was, as the exit noted,” delayed to turn over data”, Harris was criticized for not challenging the agency’s visible filibustering.

According to an April 2016 KPBS report, a Harris representative issued a statement acknowledging that” ]n ] o government agency, and no public utilities company is above the law”, but declined to “disclose details” about ongoing investigations.

According to the outlet, the statement read,” While we cannot disclose details of any ongoing criminal investigations, this investigation will go where the evidence takes us, and any potential charges would be filed on the facts of the case, and not an election cycle,” the statement said.

Democratic Concerns at Play

Then-Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat also running for the U. S. Senate in 2016, accused Harris that year of “refusing to prosecute well-documented, illegal goings-on at the Public Utilities Commission”. Sanchez said on KPBS at the time that” the attorney general has made it clear that she would rather protect the P]ublic ] U]tilities ] C]ommission ] and political cronies than the people of California”.

Another source told KPBS earlier that year the scandal would “very likely implicate” powerful Democrats in the state, and theorized that “going up against the Democratic Party structure” was “distressing to] Harris ] when]she was ] running for U. S. Senate”.

Peevey has previously donated thousands to Democrat candidates through his work with SCE. His wife is former state Sen. Carol Liu, a Democrat. According to state records reviewed by The Federalist, Pickett donated nearly$ 3,700 to Liu’s campaign in November 2012, just months before the contentious Poland meeting.

Then-Gov. Jerry Brown, also a Democrat, endorsed Harris in 2016. In 2013, Peevey and Pickett secretly met with an SCE executive just weeks before Brown, who appointed members to the CPUC, but “r ] emt representatives of the Governor’s Office and Edison said there was no connection between” this meeting and the “new settlement push at the utilities commission,” according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. That year, SCE funneled$ 54, 400 to Brown’s reelection campaign from September to December.

SCE also shuttled more than$ 380, 000 to the California Democratic Party between March 2015 and May 2016, according to state financial records

Former San Diego city attorney Michael Aguirre, who later brought legal action against the settlement agreement, claimed that the CPUC’s powerful nature caused the investigation into the San Onofre settlement to have failed. &nbsp,

” The problem was to have the horsepower to take on the P]ublic ] U]tilities ] C]ommission ]”, Aguirre said. ” They had a whole army of people. That was going to be a very challenging issue to resolve.

Aguirre claimed to have aided consumers in reducing their portion of the settlement. A CPUC judge approved a proposed settlement in which the owners of the failed San Onofre nuclear plant agreed to split the cost of the 2012 breakdown to ratepayers in 2018, according to a report from CBS News.

” They literally should n’t have had to pay for any of this”, Aguirre said. He called the backdoor-dealing for the settlement “purely illegal”.

Aguirre said he considers himself an “FDR Democrat”, but often sues state-level Democrats.

Aguirre said,” I find myself suing the Democrats in California because the Democrats are in control.” ” This is corrupt, you know? I mean, California is not in good shape in terms of dealing with high-level wrongdoing”.

The Harris campaign did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.

Logan Washburn is a staff writer who writes about election ethics. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan was born and raised in rural Michigan, but he is primarily from Central Oregon.

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