The federal charges announced yesterday accusing two state legislators of taking bribes to affect the fate of legislation hit like a bombshell. And the fact that the charges were brought via information instead of indictment would appear to indicate that plea deals are coming soon.
And those plea deals are likely to require the defendants to cooperate with the FBI and prosecutors by disclosing any other potentially criminal activities they have knowledge of. At least that’s the language used in a series of plea agreements related to the prosecution of former Kamaaina Termite owner, Mike Miske, Jr. I would guess the uncertainty about what could possibly be disclosed is causing some anxiety in the local political world today.
It sent me looking for things I could share regarding how things get done here, and I came across this oldie.
It’s a chapter from a very preliminary mock-up of a book I was trying to throw together back in 1993, based on stories published in my Hawaii Monitor newsletter between 1990 and early 1993. I had started working at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and never had time to do any more work on the book. I thought it was lost, but 16 years later I was able to rescue a very rough preliminary version that I had found on an old hard drive.
I’ll let this little tale speak for itself.
Caution–If you’re trying to read this on a phone, it’s probably going to be hard.
"I Need You Guy's Help": An insider's explanation of political influence in Hawaii by Ian Lind on Scribd
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I would pay for a copy of your book in advance. Please???
Some familiar names in there.
Thank goodness we have the FBI to do things that we can’t/won’t do in-house. Specific to Kalani English, he bragged about how easy it was to kill legislation vs. getting legislation passed. Kalani was instrumental in killing the SuperFerry. I’m hoping the Feds are lookign into the possibility that he may have recieved bribes from any of the industries that were against the SuperFerry (Car Rental, Airlines, Shipping) etc. It seems that things haven’t changed much since Ian’s 1993 book.
On your rec I read The Mailbox Conspiracy. Wow, i
Knew the story but what a read! Corruption in Hawaii very Much alive and well as demonstrated yesterday.
John Farias, former State Ag Board Chair was in a buisness called Windward Partners with John Henry Felix and Joe Pao. They filled Ka’ele’Pulu Pond to become theIr,
Enchanted Lakes Subdivision.
For two decades they pumped sand from Kailua Bay to fill the once enormous pond, down to a small lake with waterfront homes, 100’s. The amount of sand taken to fill over a mile in compacted pond depth forever deprived Ko’olauPoko of protection from erosion. It wasn’t global warming, who usurped the sand.
The curious part of this is why they were so greedy that they couldn’t stay within the four walls of the legal corruption of campaign contributions. Anyone who thinks that legislators can’t be bought legally is sadly naive. Once the contribution of money was determined to be protected speech we were doomed.
Clear answer: No term limits!
Your book needs to be written .. 1993?!? Nearly 30 years of these unbelievable occurrences speaks volumes regarding a “culture of corruption”. It seems so blatant in Hawaii politics. Thank you for sharing, truly hope you write that book!