Fagan's stalled, conflicted investigation into record-breaking Democrat donation.
Fagan's stalled, conflicted investigation into record-breaking Democrat donation.
Documents made public here for the first time provide a glimpse into a secretive, high stakes criminal investigation into a $500,000 donation to the Democratic Party of Oregon.
Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s (Dem) office last week produced to Oregon Roundup a trove of documents related to that office’s investigation into a $500,000 donation made to the Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO) in the name of former FTX executive Nishad Singh. This article is the first in a three-part series I hope to complete this week, each focusing on new information contained in the produced documents.
Fagan’s investigation into potential criminal charges against Singh or DPO began November 1, 2022. Nearly six months later, the Oregon public knows little about the status of the investigation.
On November 1, 2022, The Oregonian broke the story that the Democratic Party of Oregon had incorrectly described, in a filing with the Oregon Secretary of State Elections Division, the source of the largest donation it had ever received. The DPO had originally reported the $500,000 donation as coming from Prime Trust LLC, an obscure Nevada company. The same day the story broke, the DPO revised its filing to show the donation coming from Nishad Singh, then an executive for FTX, a crypto currency firm then days away from filing bankruptcy.
In response to The Oregonian story, Fagan, observing there had “not yet been a complaint filed” with her office related to the donation, directed Alma Whalen, election law investigator, to begin an investigation that same day.
The Elections Division in Fagan’s Secretary of State’s office has the authority under Oregon law to investigate civil and criminal infractions related to campaign donations. If it finds a civil infraction, it levies a fine against the offending parties. If it finds evidence of criminal infractions, it refers the matter to the Oregon Attorney General for prosecution.
Just over a month after Fagan asked her Elections Division staff to begin the DPO investigation, she forced the resignation of the person in charge of that Division. Fagan told Willamette Week she asked for the resignation of Elections Division Director Deborah Scroggin in part because Scroggin refused to publish in the state voters pamphlet a Democrat congressional candidate’s statement that was filed late. Fagan overrode Scroggin’s decision and published the statement contrary to Secretary of State rules and past practices.
On December 29, Fagan’s communications director Ben Morris emailed her with information to help her prepare for an upcoming interview with Willamette Week’s Nigel Jaquiss. Morris predicted that Jaquiss would inquire about the termination of Scroggin (by then, Willamette Week had received documents from Fagan’s office that undermined the initial explanation for Scroggin’s departure), and the investigation into the DPO donation.
Regarding Scroggin, Morris wrote that he believed the office had already made the point that “the FTX investigation had nothing to do with asking Deborah to resign.” However, more work was needed to explain why Scroggin resigned.
“Our goal in doing so should be to steer Nigel away from his apparent misconception that there is anything newsworthy about the resignation,” Morris wrote.
The steering didn’t work.
On the FTX/DPO investigation, Morris observed that it was “appropriate that you’re not in the weeds on” the details of the investigation. Morris’s comment may have been an allusion to concerns (expressed in this venerated publication if nowhere else) that Fagan, having received over $400,000 in campaign donations from the DPO, is ill-suited to oversee the investigation.
Morris attached to his email an update provided by Alma Whalen, the investigator. Whalen wrote that she had received the DPO’s response to the investigation on December 20, and would decide between three possible outcomes of the criminal investigation in January.
As of this writing, Fagan’s office has not announced its findings or next steps with regard to the DPO investigation. I asked her spokesman, Ben Morris, for a comment on the delay relative to Whalen’s prediction of a January decision. He declined to comment.
In February, Fagan announced that her office intended to assess a civil fine against the DPO for the late filing of the amended donor information related to the $500,000 donation. That fine is based on an equation, contained in Secretary of State campaign finance rules, involving the amount of the donation and how late the amendment was filed.
Which brings us back to Scroggin, and her replacement. After she forced Scroggin’s resignation, Fagan appointed Molly Woon as interim Elections Division Director. Woon, who had previously served as Fagan’s strategic projects director. Before joining Fagan’s office the year prior, Woon had worked as the deputy director of the, wait for it, Democratic Party of Oregon. In her new role, Woon would oversee the investigation into her recent employer.
In late January, Fagan appointed Woon permanent Elections Division Director. In a January 30 email to Deputy Secretary of State Cheryl Myers, perhaps in response to gathering media concern about Woon overseeing the DPO investigation, Woon observed that, actually, she did not have a conflict of interest and “can neutrally oversee” the investigation.
In a subsequent email, Woon clarified that she left the employ of the DPO on December 31, 2020, not 2022.
I asked Ben Morris, Fagan’s spokesman, whether Fagan had sought or received any opinion regarding Woon’s ability to neutrally oversee the DPO investigation other than that provided in Woon’s email. Morris declined to comment.
I also asked Morris whether Woon’s statement that she “was not involved in its solicitation” indicates the Secretary of State’s office is in possession of evidence that the DPO solicited the $500,000 donation. Evidence of solicitation would be highly relevant to the criminal investigation because it could indicate the DPO knew the true identify of the donor when it incorrectly claimed it came from Prime Trust LLC. Knowingly misreporting the source of a donation is an element of the potential crime Fagan and Woon are investigating.
In response to my question, Morris declined to comment.
Stay tuned for another article in the coming days about other key findings in the Secretary of State documents.
Surely you are not insinuating that Shemia " Madame Mao" Fagan and her little band of Young Pioneers are a tinsy winsy corrupt. Parish the thought
Further evidence that both the Offices of Secretary of State and state Attorney General should be non-partisan, to avoid built in conflicts of interest like this.
There is nobody in the AG's Office with any special expertise in election law, yet that office had exclusive authority over such criminal cases. On top of everything the current AG is the most overtly partisan and political in the last 50 + years!