Oregon Democrats are jumping ship in defending scandal-plagued Gov. John Kitzhaber as calls for his resignation intensify, reports the Associated Press.
Influence-peddling allegations and a series of alarming clean energy cronyism allegations surrounding his controversial fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, have Kitzhaber on the political ropes.
Last October, Kitzhaber and Hayes revealed that in 1997, Hayes married an Ethiopian immigrant for $5,000 as part of an illegal “green card marriage.” Now, as the Los Angeles Times reports, Hayes and Kitzhaber face “tawdry allegations” that Hayes had “falsified tax forms and been paid consulting fees to influence her future husband” on green energy initiatives.
On Friday, The Oregonian reported that a collection of new emails “show Cylvia Hayes directed state employees how to implement a new policy while she was being paid $25,000 by an advocacy group to promote it.” The paper added, “The emails appear to erase any doubt that, as first lady, Hayes was taking money in her private role and pushing the same policy in her public one.”
The Los Angeles Times reports that among the key allegations surrounding Hayes is the fact that between 2011 and 2012, she bagged “$118,000 through the Clean Economy Development Center in Washington, D.C., while serving as an unpaid energy advisor to her then-boyfriend” and failed to list that income on her taxes. “And that Kitzhaber did not account for that money on his required ethics filings.”
The Oregonian reports that “A big chunk of Hayes’ fellowship money, $75,000, came from the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation, a nonprofit that funds clean-energy initiatives such as the low carbon fuel standard.”
The left-leaning Oregonian newspaper’s editorial board has called on Kitzhaber to resign.
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