Doug Emhoff
When Obama FBI Director James Comey investigated the Clinton email scandal and the Clinton Foundation, he recommended no prosecution by the Department of Justice.
Harris’ spouse is also a primary partner of the law firm that audited the Clinton Foundation. One of the executives of the firm in charge of the audit was Peter Comey–the brother of James Comey.
His firm, DLA Piper, not only filed Clinton Foundation taxes each year, James Comey held the mortgage for his brother’s mansion. This ties a direct financial connection between Comey and the Clinton Foundation while he was investigating Hillary.
Emhoff’s China Connection Runs Deep
Emhoff’s DLA firm has“represented lead investors” in deals with Bytedance the company of controversial social media app TikTok. The Trump Administration is set to ban TikTok since evidence has surfaced that it feeds user information to China.
-
DLA Offices
Other China state owned companies advised by DLA Piper are Huarong Investment Stock Corporation Limited, China National Gold Group, and Tencent (which hosts the WeChat app that was banned by the Trump administration over its links to the Chinese Communist Party).
Cohen Makes the Biden’s Rich
DLA Piper has a “strong strategic partnership” with The Cohen Group, a consulting firm founded by former Secretary of Defense and Joe Biden close friend and endorser Bill Cohen.
Biden deal maker William Cohen
Although Cohen described President Trump as a “tyrant,” his firm employs several high-level leaders in the Chinese Communist Party and has advised party officials as part of a Harvard program. The program has been attended by entities that the Trump administration sanctioned for committing “serious human rights abuses.”
Cohen travels to China to meet with Chinese Communist Party officials to increase Chinese capital flow into the U.S. Evidence proves this has been the main avenue through which intellectual property theft and spying has occurred. He is seen as a close advisor and key to enriching the pockets of Joe, James and Hunter Biden.
More Serious Concerns Against Emhoff
Emhoff’s firm also thrives on their Washington lobbying practice with offices in places like Moscow and Riyadh.
There are serious concerns about Emhoff-Harris ties to Big Pharma.
During his decade as a lawyer at the corporate firm Venable, Emhoff represented the pharmaceutical giant Merck in lawsuits tied to its drug Fosamax.
He also represented the arms dealer Dolarian Capital in a case related to its sale of AK-47s for use in Afghanistan; and a nightclub owner accused of sexual harassment and sexual battery, including spraying an employee’s hair and body “with a foreign substance” that he removed with “his mouth, lips and tongue.”
Although Emhoff has announced a leave of absence with the firm to campaign, he fielding criticism and suspicion.
“He should leave the firm entirely,” said Richard W. Painter, who served as chief White House ethics counsel during the George W. Bush administration. “Leave of absence still imputes the financial interests of the firm to him.” He added that clients that pay the firm could be accused “of trying to buy influence.”
The Herbalife Conflict
As California attorney general, Harris elected not to pursue an investigation of Herbalife, a nutritional supplements company accused of fraudulent practices in 2015.
Her San Diego regional office was pleading for an investigation. However, Herbalife was represented by Venable, partially owned by Emhoff.
Harris received at least $5,400 in donations at the time from an outside lobbyist who did work for Herbalife.
“You can’t tell me that as the A.G. of California, you have all these complaints, and then your husband is going to be working for this company?’’ Julie Contreras, an activist and pastor who has campaigned against Herbalife, said. “Somehow that was ethically inappropriate.”
Doug Emhoff
By 2017, Emhoff switched firms, becoming a partner at DLA Piper, and became licensed to practice in Washington. He retained a partnership stake in Venable that was worth nearly $1.2 million.
In 2018 Venable paid Emhoff $200,000, according to the couple’s tax filings. He was paid $1.34 million by DLA Piper in 2018, tax filings show.
Among the firm’s lobbying clients with interests before the federal government are Comcast, the telecom giant; L3 Harris Technologies, the defense contractor; and the governments of Afghanistan and Bahrain. Among their most concerning clients is the Qatari government-funded Al Jazeera and the Palestine Monetary Authority.
Early in their marriage Kamala Harris was pulled into a sexual assault dispute at DLA Piper. A junior partner, Vanina Guerrero filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) after being sexually assaulted four times by a top deal-maker at Emhoff’s firm named Louis Lehot.
The Sexual Assault Caper
Guerrero’s lawyer, Jeanne Christensen, asked for California Sen. Harris’ help in getting her client released from DLA Piper’s mandatory arbitration rules so she can “get her day in court.”
Mentioning the press coverage of the Guerrero case and an open letter sent to DLA Piper’s leadership last week, Christensen wrote, “I hope that you either read about the open letter yourself or that your husband Douglas Emhoff, a partner at DLA Piper, shared it with you.”
Vanina Guerrero (Credit: Vanina Guerrero)
“I am sure that you would agree that silencing women though forced arbitration must end,” Christensen wrote.
Louis Lehot
“No female employee, including a new partner, would knowingly agree to waive her right to our court system for claims involving sexual assault, battery, or rape,” Christensen continued. “Given your profile as a candidate for the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, you are in a unique position to condemn the actions of DLA Piper and make clear that mandatory arbitration must stop.”
“Again, I urge you to support Ms. Guerrero and let DLA Piper know that time is up for its draconian policy that disproportionately protects male predators at the expense of women,” Christensen wrote.
In the EEOC complaint, Guerrero wrote that Lehot lured her to his law firm with promises of fast advancement and attacked her the first time two weeks after she signed on.
Guerrero charged the attacks escalated over the next 10 months. Lehot began sabotaging her career when she resisted his advances. She said she was initially afraid to tell anyone.
“Having moved my two toddlers and husband that I support financially from Hong Kong to California for this job, I was petrified to believe what was happening to me, much less tell anyone,” she wrote in the complaint. (Read more: Clever Journeys, 10/11/2020) (Archive)