Nesbitt Pushes DOJ Probe into Whitmer Connections

It's all talk on a Wednesday morning. I hope you're having a fabulous day. I'm Kevin Deeds coming to you from the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building. The number is 1-800-859-09-07, 1-800-8-5-9-0-WJR. Give us a call, gives us a text, be a part of the show. Michigan Senate Minority Leader and gubernatorial candidate Eric Nesbitt is calling for the U.S. Department of Justice. to investigate whether Governor Gretchen Whitmer had any role in a $20 million state grant scandal involving businesswoman Faye Badoon. Baydun faces 15 felony charges related to the alleged misuse of funds awarded to her company, Global Link International. Nesbitt argues the matter warrants federal scrutiny because what he describes as close political and personal ties among Gretchen Whitmer, Baydun, and Attorney General Dana Nessel. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has not been charged, and there is no public evidence that she has committed wrongdoing. Let's bring in Eric Nesbit, Michigan's Senate Minority Leader and Republican gubernatorial candidate. Good morning. How are you? Hey, Kevin, thanks for having me on. And what a beautiful day to be here in Michigan. Michigan taxpayers are really being robbed to fund the lavish lifestyle of Gretchen Whitmer's political cronies. And it's time to put an end to it. That's why I'm calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to step in because the Lansing Swamp is incapable of policing itself. And it doesn't matter who you are or what your title is. If you steal from taxpayers, you belong in prison. Governor Gretchen Whitmer is not exempt from that. Okay, let's talk about what you've asked the Justice Department to investigate. Is there any evidence in the ask, or are you saying please look into this and see if there's any evidence? Well, Faye Bid Dune was not a random grant applicant. She was a major Gretchen Whitmer donor and a former Gretchen Whitmer appointee. And records show that Bay Dune hosted a high dollar fundraiser for the governor right around the exact time she was actively seeking this $20 million grant. Governor Gretchen Whitmer even signed a letter written by Bay Dune herself to Qatari officials to help further this scheme. And this is just another textbook. pay to play politics. You fund the governor's campaign and she hands you millions of tax dollars to buy a $5,000 coffee maker, tens of thousands of dollars in Tunisian rugs, first class flights to Europe and get a half million dollar year salary for a nonprofit that only existed a few days before the grant money was sent out. And what we've seen is that Attorney General Dana Nessel and Governor Gretchen Whitmer share a long, well-documented personal friendship and a deeply intertwined political alliance. And we simply cannot just trust the Michigan Attorney General to impartially investigate her closest friend and political ally. But the grant was not just approved by Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The legislature approved this money, this $20 million. How did that happen?

Yeah, this is why it's so important that we pass the changes we pass with House Republicans and the Paul ethics and accountability package is saying that any of these grants have to be known beforehand and have to be looked in. And that's why I'm pulling on a full 72 hours, a review of any budget that's actually passed in the future. The process of budgeting is broken in Lansing. It needs to be fixed. And this is, you know, on this, this is why I'm... appeal directly to the acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, we needed independent federal authority to follow the money wherever it leads, even if it leads to the governor's desk. The textbook pay-to-play politics. You fund the governor's campaign. She hands you millions of tax dollars, and this needs to end. When a $20 million request comes in, that's a big number. It really is. It's a lot of money. Did her grant request look similar to other $20 million grant request? Because I've read that it looked like it was something that was slipped in, very little detailed information, last minute, late night vote, things like that. This is the problem. What we saw over the last several years is a $9 billion surplus blowing through, a 50% increase in state spending. You know, nearly $30 billion have increased state spending over the last eight years. And you haven't had this accountability that's needed here in Lansing. We have to root out the waste, fraud, and abuse. There has to be openness and transparency. And this is taxpayer money. It's not government money. And this is what makes me so upset whenever I call on the repeal the state property tax to keep more money in working class families' pockets because we know an average family here in Michigan is just getting squeezed. It's just tough to make it in Michigan. The average family makes $9,000 less here in Michigan and the average family does nationally. And yet we pay some of the highest insurance rates and property taxes and energy rates. And that's why I'm running as for governor is to repeal the green new scam, to lower the cost of energy, forest utilities to roll back the rates by a billion dollars, running for governor to repeal the state property tax to make sure. hardworking families keep more of what they earn and not have to send it to the Lansing and running for governor to lower the cost of insurance and to hold our insurance companies accountable. And that's how you make sure families can make it here in Michigan. What do you think the chances are that the Department of Justice will investigate Governor Gretchen Whitmer? Well, between what we've seen from the Trump administration and the Department of Justice and working to root out waste, fraud, and abuse at the federal level, these are taxpayer money, and Michigan taxpayers are sick and tired of the two-tier justice system where Lansing insiders protect their own, just the same reason why there's been so much support for what President Trump's been doing in Washington, D.C. My commitment is to ruthlessly root out waste, fraud, and abuse of our tax dollars. If Governor Gretchen Whitmer stole from taxpayers,

She needs to be prosecuted. She needs to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. And I'm going to uncover the truth, deliver justice, and then the fraud so that everyone can make it in Michigan again. Well, typically it would be the Attorney General's job to investigate this. Has the Attorney General investigated any possible connection to Governor Gretchen Whitmer? Or has she found none, investigated and found nothing? Well, she, we don't know, but what we do know is that she filed 16 criminal charges against Faye Badoon. And my question is she being used to the fall person? What did Gretchen Whitmer know? When did she know it? And that's what we need to find out. How long does it take for the federal government to acknowledge your request like this? Yeah, the Justice Department works on their own timeline, and we're going to continue to follow up and work on it. And we're not just going to wait for the federal government to work through it out waste, fraud, and abuse. I've already got the Auditor General looking into the fraud in our child care system after the Minnesota issues. I've been working with independent reporters and working on Medicaid fraud and rooting that out of what we've seen out of Deerborn and Wayne County, especially on the pharmacy side. And I've been... We've been uncovering some fraud in the adult foster care system where we found Nigerian immigrants that don't speak English, no trace that they're actually taking care of patients, and yet they're getting six, seven figure checks from the government. This needs to end. These are taxpayer dollars. Michigan taxpayers, families and seniors work way too hard and send their taxpayers up to Lansing for it to be spent on waste, fraud, and abuse and $5,000 coffee makers. Well, I think about this Faye Bay Dune $20 million grant, and if it happened once, I feel like maybe it's happened before. Do we know? Is there a system in place to look at other grants to people connected to either this governor or previous governors? Yeah, this has been the challenge the last few years with all these COVID dollars and all the $9 billion surplus that the Democrats and Governor Gretchen Whitmer, you know, wasted, you know, just spent away and without seeing any real long-term positive effects for the state. And so this is the reason why there needs to be better transparency in Lansing, better openness to root out the waste, fraud, and abuse. And we made a first step. working with House and Senate Republicans to say, hey, any of this legislative directed grants or earmarks have to have 45 days where the public can review it, where reporters can review it, and there needs to be that openness and transparency. And I'm calling on a further thing. Any final budget deal needs to allow at least 72 hours, if not longer. Absolutely. To read that, you can't dump that on people and expect to vote in a couple of hours. Eric Nesbett, Michigan Senate Minority Leader and Republican-Gubon-Trial Canada, thank you so much for your time. It's all talk. I'm Kevin Deetz.