Radio host Mark Levin had an interesting interview of Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
In case you haven’t heard, Eric Holder and the U.S. Justice Department decided to make life difficult for the Gibson Guitar Company. On Wednesday, August 23,\u00a0more than 20 armed federal officers descended on three of their factories and their corporate offices. They went in at gunpoint, shut Gibson’s facilities down, and evacuated the employees. They showed a warrant giving them the right to search for 30 very general types of items. They proceded to seize various wood products, paperwork, and computer hard drives.\u00a0When Juszkiewicz asked the cause of the search, the officers said it was sealed and they wouldn’t tell him. The factory was shut down for the day, and life continues to be difficult for the Gibson Guitar Co.<\/p>\n
The Gibson people decided, out of self-defense, to go public with the incident in hopes of putting pressure on the government to provide information on the cause of the attack, and to hopefully get them to do the right thing. They learned that the government’s contention is\u00a0that the rosewood and ebony that Gibson imports from India is illegal to export from India, under Indian law.<\/p>\n
But here’s where the story gets even more interesting. Not only is Juszkiewicz known in environmentalist circles as a very environmentally sensitive businessman, he has letters on file from very high Indian government officials\u00a0certifying that\u00a0this wood was legally exported. Furthermore, the wood is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. And\u00a0Gibson has\u00a0been buying the same wood for well over 17 years.<\/p>\n
But it gets even more interesting yet. Virtually all of Gibson’s competitors use the same wood from the same sources, but they are not targets of any investigations. Oh, and then a little detail. Juszkiewicz has donated several thousand dollars to Republican members of Congress from Tennessee. Oh, and one of his chief competitors is the C.F. Martin & Company. It’s CEO, Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic donor with $35,400 in contributions to Democrat candidates and the DNC over the past couple of election cycles. (Source: see Landmark Report<\/a>, August 26, 2011.)<\/p>\n But remember, this is the same Eric Holder that processed all those pardons for terrorists and other criminals who had done favors for the Clinton administration, just as Clinton was leaving office back in 2001.<\/p>\n Which leaves us pondering the obvious question. Was this action taken to punish Juskiewicz for donating to Republicans? Or was it taken to reward Martin for his support of Democrats? Tough to say. I really don’t know.<\/p>\n And remember folks, these are the Democrats that represent the party of civil liberties. Oh yes, it’s true. They’ve told us so.<\/p>\n Read more about the Gibson Guitar scandal<\/a> at HotAir.
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