How is Manchin Not in Jail?

At an energy conference, Joe Manchin explicitly stated that there was a quid pro quo between his legislative positions and his campaign donations.

As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know."

How f%$#ing brazen does the corruption have to be in order for the authorities to take action?

On Friday, an energetic Joe Manchin spoke to a room full of oil and gas executives in Houston. The following Monday, after long declining to state his position publicly, he came out against Biden’s nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to become the top banking cop at the Federal Reserve, as vice chair of supervision. Like his Republican colleagues on the Senate Banking Committee—who boycotted a vote on all pending Fed nominations over Raskin’s professed willingness to incorporate the reality of the climate crisis into banking rules—Manchin cited “the critical importance of financing an all-of-the-above energy policy to meet our nation’s critical energy needs.” By Tuesday afternoon, Raskin had withdrawn her nomination.

Manchin, the Senate’s top recipient of coal, oil, and gas donations, didn’t mention climate-related financial regulations during his remarks on Friday. His industry donors have been plenty outspoken about it, though. And his address to them indicated a willingness to do what they want. At S&P Global’s CERAWeek—one of the continent’s largest energy conferences—Manchin seemed to present himself as a representative for the industry in Washington, offering the room pointers on how to deal with politicians.

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He exhorted CERAWeek attendees to provide leadership in Washington and look for a “return on investment” from politicians who solicit campaign donations from them, or “mother’s milk,” as he called it. “There’s not one of us,” he said, now apparently referring to his fellow politicians, “that doesn’t come to you, ‘Will you help me, can you help me get the finances I need right now?’ … You all have been very successful. You make great decisions, and you’ve done very well in life for yourself and your family and those around you. Use the same type of approach, when you have politicians that come and ask for support, that you do when you make a financial decision for yourself and your family: You want a return on investment.”

Manchin added that fossil fuel executives should “demand more. If you do that, you all can turn this around. You’ll get some people in Congress that basically are there for the right reasons. There’s a difference between public service and self-service, and there’s not one of you that don’t have the instincts to pick that up immediately. Just use it when you pick it up, and throw ’em the hell out of the room.” A spokesperson for Manchin’s office did not respond to a request to clarify what he meant when he suggested fossil fuel executives throw members of Congress out of the room. His office declined to comment on whether he had met with industry representatives in Houston about Raskin’s nomination.

Later on in his remarks, Manchin seemed to offer proof that he, for one, has provided his own donors with the aforementioned return on investment. He listed off his efforts to champion the Keystone XL pipeline, rebrand the White House’s moratorium on drilling on public lands as a “pause,” and battle methane rules. Specifically, he recalled a conversation with 45-year-old Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan (“just a great young man,” Manchin added) about the agency’s proposed methane rules, which Manchin thought should be scrapped if a methane fee in the Build Back Better Act was moving ahead, too. “I said, ‘Michael, don’t you think you oughta work with us a little bit and find out what might be needed in the market before you just decide in Washington?’ I said, ‘I think they’d be more than happy to tell you where’s some things that could be changed,’” Manchin recalled. “So I called the White House. I says, ‘Now tell me what you want to do. Do you just want the money, or do you want to fix the problem? Tell me what you want.’ Now to do both of them is absolutely asinine.”

Senator Maserati is deeply, and legally, corrupt.  He just admitted it before hundreds of people.

Why is he not prosecuted?