The facts
Arizona House Speaker Steve Montenegro sent a criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Fraud Enforcement Division on July 21, saying a House investigation uncovered substantial evidence that leaders of Sunshine Residential Homes committed bribery, wire fraud and honest services fraud. The referral came from a House Republicans' investigation launched in February that cost taxpayers almost $307,000, run by the James Otis Law Group, a Missouri firm founded by John Sauer, who is now Trump's solicitor general at the DOJ. Sunshine Residential runs group homes for children removed from their families by the Arizona Department of Child Safety. In 2023 it received a special rate increase worth approximately $4 million a year while other providers were denied. The increase came after CEO Simon Kottoor touted his connections to Gov. Katie Hobbs, who had taken office months earlier, and after the company began giving to Hobbs' political operation, contributing over $550,000. The referral's centerpiece: former DCS Director Mike Faust told House investigators that Kottoor offered to recommend Hobbs keep Faust in the job if Faust approved the rate increase. Faust declined. The state attorney general's two-year investigation ended in August, concluding there was no evidence Hobbs or her staff committed bribery; it discounted Faust's claim as a he said, he said dispute he never reported to law enforcement. There is no public evidence the DOJ opened an investigation. Spokespeople for the Governor's Office, DCS, the Hobbs campaign, and Sunshine's attorney all said they had not been contacted by the DOJ.
Our take
Four investigations. Two years. A cool $307,000 of taxpayer money pissed directly into a hole dug by Arizona House Republicans. And the entire, earth-shattering case against Governor Katie Hobbs boils down to this: one guy says another guy offered to maybe put in a good word for him at work. That's it. That's the whole fucking conspiracy. These Republican clowns hired a law firm founded by Trump's own solicitor general, spent a quarter-million dollars of public money, and then fired their pathetic little referral into the black hole of Trump's brand-new 'National Fraud Enforcement Division' like a kid throwing a paper airplane at a battleship. And what happened? Fucking nothing. Two months of silence. The DOJ treated Steve Montenegro's big, brave 'criminal referral' like a dick pic from a blocked number - absolute, utter, and total radio-fucking-silence. Now the Senate Republicans have launched a fourth taxpayer-funded probe, because why the fuck not? The only people getting rich off this 'scandal' are the lawyers, and the only thing being exposed is the breathtaking, cuntish vanity of politicians so desperate to score points they'll burn $307,000 on a story a fucking kindergarten snitch would be ashamed to tell.
