Trump DOJ should review Fagan/La Mota probe dismissal

The federal criminal investigation stemming from a $10k/month consulting contract while Fagan was serving as Secretary of State was quietly dropped by the Biden Administration in Dec 2024

La Mota cofounders Rosa Cazares and Aaron Mitchell react on camera, in real time, to the news then-Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan had resigned following revelations she had scored a $10,000/month consulting gig with an affiliate of the cannabis company. (Image courtesy KOIN TV)

The Biden Justice Department last December quietly terminated a federal criminal investigation into former Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s financial relationship, including $10,000-per-month payments under the umbrella of a purported consulting agreement, with outlaw cannabis firm La Mota, according to Willamette Week. No charges were filed prior to the closing of the investigation.

The federal investigation was launched Spring 2023 shortly after Fagan was forced to resign due to her close ties with La Mota and its co-founder Rosa Cazares, culminating in the purported consulting agreement, just as Fagan’s office was putting the finishing touches on an audit skeptical of the state’s regulation of La Mota and other cannabis firms.

The closure of the investigation by the lame duck Biden Administration the same month Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, and a slew of others was convenient for Fagan and for other Oregon Democrat headliners including Governor Tina Kotek and U.S. Representative Val Hoyle who reaped between them over $100,000 in campaign contributions from La Mota and its founders. In particular, Kotek, who is gearing up for a re-election try as one of the least popular governors in the country (albeit in a state that loves electing unpopular Democrats), surely appreciates there will apparently not be a federal probe over which she has no direct control bringing La Mota back into the headlines.

The storyline of Democrats saving Oregon Democrats from the consequences of their alleged malfeasance is all too familiar to anyone who reads this here Oregon Roundup. The Trump Justice Department should review whether it was appropriate for his predecessor’s administration to drop the investigation as to Fagan (it’s unclear whether there remains a federal criminal investigation into La Mota or its founders).

It’s possible the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Oregon, helmed until February by Biden appointee Natalie Wright, properly determined after receiving documents pursuant to subpoeans from that office, that no criminal liability attached to Fagan. It’s also possible, given the timing of the dismissal, that this was one final get-out-of-jail-free card care of the outgoing administration to its Democratic allies in Oregon.

The facts of La Mota’s efforts to influence the way Oregon regulates the cannabis industry are shocking to even the Oregon conscience. La Mota’s founders gave Oregon elected Democrats thousands of dollars in cash in, literally, brown paper bags. They failed to pay rent on a home they rented, and at which they hosted Kotek for a 2022 fundraiser, and failed to pay taxes timely. Putting Fagan on the company payroll for the purported purpose of helping it obtain cannabis licenses in other states while she was allowing Cazares to offer edits to a state cannabis audit was especially brazen.

Then Gov candidate Tina Kotek plays pickleball during a fundraiser at a mansion rented by La Mota cofounders Aaron Mitchell (right) and Rosa Cazares. Mitchell and Cazares later had to vacate the mansion for nonpayment of rent.

La Mota’s chummy relationship with Kotek may have contributed to her forcing the resignation in early 2023, around the same time Fagan inked her deal with the company, of chief Oregon cannabis regulator Steve Marks, whom Cazares saw as hostile to the cannabis industry.

There is recent precedent for federal officials seeing through a cannabis corruption case. Biden Administration prosecutors charged a host of California local elected officials for crimes involving receipt of funds from cannabis companies in exchange for preferential regulatory treatment.

But that California case did not threaten a governor or a sitting congresswoman of the Biden Administration’s party. The Oregon case did, increasing the political stakes.

According to Willamette Week, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission has re-initiated its investigation into Fagan, which it had paused while the federal probe was underway. This is good, but insufficient. The Ethics Commission has a slender jurisdiction and cannot bring to bear the criminal sanctions available to prosecutors. Its chair is appointed by the the Governor, and most of its members are Democrat appointees. Its director, Susan Myers, was hired following an apparently successful interview with the Governor’s office, according to the Salem Statesman-Journal.

Oregon Government Ethics Commission director Susan Myers

The Oregon Department of Justice is unlikely to touch the Fagan matter with a 10-foot-pole. The only plausible enforcement entity that does not owe its continued existence to the Democrats who run the state is the United States Department of Justice.

Oregon’s state government badly needs some policing. The Trump DOJ should take a look and reopen the investigation if the evidence supports doing so.