Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's secret $300 million offer to VW
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- New leaked documents raise more questions about Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's secret $300 million offer to Volkswagen.
The Haslam administration has claimed that the deal to help Volkswagen expand its Chattanooga plant never went through because the offer expired after the automaker failed to meet a deadline to respond -- and that it had nothing to do with the governor's opposition to the United Auto Workers.
But emails leaked to NewsChannel 5 Investigates -- emails that the state had refused to release -- show Volkswagen lawyers had actually drawn up papers for a potential deal to bring more than a thousand new jobs to Tennessee, but it was the Haslam administration who pulled the plug on the incentives it had offered in August 2013.
"As far as the emails that I'm looking at today, they just confirm what I think everybody already knew -- which is, these jobs, this package was pulled for reasons that have nothing to do with any deadline," said state Rep. Mike Stewart, D-Nashville, after reviewing the documents.
Administration officials were "essentially holding Volkswagen hostage and saying 'if you don't do what we want, based on our political agenda, then we are going to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars' -- which are, of course, taxpayer dollars," Stewart added.
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/25334989/leaked-emails-raise-questions-about-governors-300m-offer
