Democrats will not prosper in Guam if Democrats do not call out the corruption in plain sight being perpetuated by Democrat elected officials.
In nearly all of my editorials and private postings criticizing the Trump administration and the president’s Republican surrogates, there has been one common theme responding to my scrutiny: What about the corruption of the Democrats?
They ain’t wrong.
Another common thread from Republicans: “You just don’t get it.” What they mean is that they see Democratic scrutiny of Mr. Trump as hypocrisy, when what galvanized their support for the Forty-seventh president was the corruption of the Democrats in power the past four years.
Think Hunter Biden. Think Eric Adams. Think Josh Tenorio.
An FBI investigation into activities linked to Guam’s Democrat lieutenant governor began during the pandemic, some time before the 2022 gubernatorial election. Republicans and others throughout that election season knew of allegations of the corrupt use of federal and other public funds. They weren’t quiet about it, either. Then-gubernatorial candidate Michael San Nicolas and his runningmate Sabrina Salas Matanane called it out publicly. So did gubernatorial candidate Felix Camacho.
The administration and campaign of Lou Leon Guerrero and Joshua Tenorio managed to keep the investigation under wraps, and sailed to reelection in November 2022. The federal investigation went silent after that. Until August 18, 2024.
That was the day federal agents executed a warrant to raid businesses connected to Mr. Tenorio. The FBI also executed warrants to secure bank records. Several witnesses and victims were called in and agreed to cooperate with federal agents. Many of those witnesses talked to Kandit off the record beginning in September. None would agree to go on the record, until last week.
On Thursday evening, two witnesses – “Tyler” and “Pat” – approached Kandit, telling us that after seeing coverage of the government’s apparent protection of the lieutenant governor’s relative in a terrorizing and destruction of public property case, they had had enough. They agreed to our recording of their accounts so long as we would not reveal their identities to the public for fear of retribution by the administration.
What they recounted was a long list of multiple counts of federal felonies allegedly committed by members of the lieutenant governor’s family. These alleged crimes include:
This is not one of those, ‘We won’t comment before a jury decides,’ type of moments. We know that this will never see the inside of a courtroom if the public does not demand criminal justice. We know the system is rigged for the elite. We’ve seen over and over in our contemporary history how people in power escape accountability.
Think Pacific Star Hotel. Think Covid mask contracts. Think gun grabs. Think Red Jeep. Think my Jeep.
Democrats, we have no moral authority to pick the splinters out of the Republicans’ eyes with the logs jammed into ours.
Democrats, you’re giving Republicans a reason to win. You’re rolling out the red carpet to their victory. How? You’re giving voters a continued reason to hate us over our hypocrisy, and our party’s complicity through action and inaction in the corrupt things our elected officials do.
You want Joshua Tenorio to win, but we’re all going to lose because of it.
