Will the Politician Who Sabotaged Justice for Flint Finally Pay the Piper?

No agents "had ever seen this shit before," an FBI source familiar w/ Flint criminal investigation told us about fraud that MI AG Dana Nessel buried. She was just subpoenaed over alleged wrongdoing.

Although the national media stopped covering, or caring, about the poisoned people of Flint long ago, Status Coup has continued to report on the ONGOING water crisis—and cover-up—that has crept into its 11th year.

Cancer is surging in the city, the water is still contaminated, teen suicides are on the rise (their brains were damaged by lead as young children), sick residents have still not received a dime from a $600 million legal settlement, and no politician or private fraudster has gone to prison.

On the latter, as I’ve extensively reported and exposed in my award-winning book “We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel singlehandedly sabotaged justice for Flint residents by:

• As a candidate for AG in 2018, publicly condemning the ongoing criminal investigation that, based on my reporting, was “flipping” defendants in former MI Governor Rick Snyder’s administration to turn on those politicians higher up the food chain—and was building a historic criminal case against Snyder himself for involuntary manslaughter for his role in the poisoning of Flint.

• As a candidate, all-but vowing to fire the independent Flint water special prosecutor who had successfully forced the two top MI health officials to face trial for involuntary manslaughter. As a result of her publicly hinting that, if victorious, she would overhaul the criminal investigation, criminal defendants who were cooperating went silent, refusing to cooperate knowing that the prosecutors they had struck deals with were about to be canned.

• Upon entering office, firing special prosecutor Todd Flood, chief investigator Andy Arena, and the majority of the original Flint investigative team. As I broke in The Guardian in 2022 and further exposed in “We the Poisoned,” Flood and Arena were close to filing a massive financial fraud (RICO) case against government officials over the water privatization scam that caused the Flint water crisis. “Nessel let it go,” the late Flint councilman Eric Mays, told me about Nessel’s abandonment of the RICO case after firing the team who was actively pursing it. “Was it a lack of political or legal will? I cannot say.”

• Upon firing experienced prosecutors and investigators—based on my reporting based on political vendettas and pettiness—Nessel appointed replacements for whom sources within her office told me were “amateur” prosecutors who had never tried a case before a jury. These prosecutors quickly became “overwhelmed” by the case, which involved corruption and crimes at all levels of government (federal, state, city, country), private foundations, and Wall Street banks.

• Nessel inexplicably dropped criminal charges against eight state and city officials, citing vague issues with the cases and the original prosecution team’s methods. Of the charges she dropped, several were financial fraud charges—related to a fraudulent bond deal that allowed a nearly bankrupt Flint to borrow nearly $100 million dollars to help finance a completely unnecessary new water system (KWA)—against several state and city officials.

• A year-and-a-half later, Nessel re-charged many of the officials’ for which she had dropped charges against—with the same exact charges or lesser charges. As part of this, she charged former MI Governor Rick Snyder—who based on my reporting knew about and helped cover up Flint’s deadly Legionnaires Disease outbreak at least 16 months before he notified the public—with a misdemeanor. The Legionnaires outbreak killed an untold number of Flint residents (sources indicate it could be as many as hundreds).

• Despite warnings of the risks from some within her office, Nessel’s team used a secretive one-man grand jury process to pursue Flint indictments rather than a public pre-trial. After criminally-charged state and city officials challenged Nessel’s office’s use of a one-man grand jury, the Michigan State Supreme Court unanimously ruled it unconstitutional and tossed out Nessel’s Flint criminal cases. As a result, Nessel announced the ending of the Flint investigation in 2023.

On top of all of this, Nessel’s office—I believe with her involvement—lied to yours truly in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests I submitted to the AG’s office seeking critically important documents that, based on high-level sources, would expose unknown corruption related to the privatization scam that caused the Flint water crisis. The timeline of which I explained in an email I sent to the Michigan House Oversight Committee (posted at the bottom of this story).

Infuriatingly, especially to the poisoned people of Flint, Nessel has never been held accountable for essentially sabotaging any chance of criminal justice residents had…

Until now (sort of).

In a bipartisan vote, the 17-person Michigan House Oversight Committee—including seven Democrats—voted unanimously to subpoena Nessel to testify in front of the committee over two non-Flint related alleged scandals.

The Republican Michigan House Speaker Jay DeBoyer accused Nessel of stonewalling the oversight committee’s repeated request for documents.

Nessel is under fire over two separate cases. The first involves how her office handled a campaign finance complaint and criminal referral against nonprofit Bipartisan Solutions, which is a major funder to the the Fair and Equal Michigan ballot committee (Nessel is gay; Fair and Equal is an LGBTQ+ rights group for which Nessel’s wife was co-chair). Nessel is accused of meddling in the case in order to help Bipartisan Solutions.

The other case involves Nessel’s alleged meddling in a criminal complaint involving former Michigan Democratic Party Treasurer and personal injury attorney Traci Kornak. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning Michigan journalist Charlie LeDuff, Kornack—who is a friend of Nessel’s—was “accused by the director of a west Michigan nursing home of using the account of her elderly, brain-damaged client to fraudulently bill an insurance company for nearly $50,000.” Nessel, who implemented a so-called “conflict wall” over the investigation to prevent any appearance of her involvement in her friend’s case, was accused of improperly meddling anyway and pressuring investigators’ to close the investigation.

Needless to say, at a time where Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on the weather, the fact that the 17-member House Oversight Committee unanimously across party lines voted to subpoena Nessel indicates something smells really rotten in the AG’s office.

Why does a politician unethically—and potentially illegally—meddling and obstructing criminal investigations to help out her family members and/or friend matter?

Because, thus far, Nessel, with the help of politicians in both parties and a lazy and irresponsible media, has gotten away with burying massive financial fraud—the kind of fraud that was so corrupt, one FBI source familiar with the Flint criminal investigation told me no agent “had ever seen this shit before”—that poisoned a major American city.

With Nessel now under the microscope, albeit not related to Flint, I figured it was worth a shot to reach out to the Michigan House Oversight Committee to make them aware of her actions that I believe could be potentially criminal or, at the very least, unethical. In my outreach to the Committee, I urged them to expand their subpoena to Nessel to include a request for the documents she is improperly withholding from journalists—documents that, based on high-level sources, would expose more about the individuals, and Wall Street banks, that helped poison Flint via an illegal privatization scam.

As I’ve been repeating for the nine years I’ve reported on Flint: if the people who poisoned Flint get away with it—and there is zero accountability—that will become the playbook for government officials and private entities in other cities and towns to use to avoid culpability in the growing list of communities that are becoming corporate sacrifice zones (and lord knows Status Coup is having trouble keeping up with that growing list).

Below is my email to the Chair and co-chairs of the Michigan House Oversight Committee regarding Nessel and expanding its subpoena to her to include a demand for the documents she is improperly withholding from me. I’m certainly not holding my breath anything will come of it; but if it does, you will be the first to know.

Good Afternoon House Oversight Chair/Co-Chair/Minority Vice Chair,

This is journalist Jordan Chariton with Status Coup News and author of the award-winning book "We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans." I've reported on the Flint water crisis for nearly a decade, made 21 reporting trips to Flint, and broke stories on the water crisis cover-up for major outlets. I've also worked with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff on investigative Flint water bombshells in The Guardian and Detroit Metro Times. Those stories revealed AG Nessel:

1) Blocked/obstructed a major Flint water RICO case from being charged against government and private officials
2) Routinely breached so-called "conflict walls" her office erected during its Flint criminal investigation.

In light of the unanimously-voted House Oversight subpoena to AG Nessel over separate potential conflicts, I wanted to bring to the Committee's attention other concerning—and potentially unethical and/or illegal—conduct that the Committee might want to investigate and/or add to a subpoena to AG Nessel related to her office's Flint water criminal investigation.

I believe there is evidence that the AG's office violated FOIA law by misleading me concerning critically important documents it possess related to the Flint criminal probe—documents that the public are entitled to. Based on strong sourcing, I can tell you these documents in the AG's possession exposes the widespread financial fraud that sparked the Flint water crisis—fraud that was the basis for the RICO case that was close to being filed before Nessel took office, fired the original prosecutors and investigators, and chose not to further pursue it. For reference, in 2019, the chief Flint water investigator Nessel fired, former Detroit FBI chief Andy Arena, told Detroit News his team was within six months of filing additional financial-related Flint water criminal charges (he called it "dropping a heavy rock). Based on my sourcing, that "heavy rock" was a sprawling RICO case that was close to being filed by special prosecutor Todd Flood before Nessel fired him.

After being denied FOIA requests by her office citing the ongoing Flint criminal investigation, I put in new FOIA requests last year after her office closed its Flint investigation. What ensued afterward was a highly unusual sequence I've never experienced in my 15-year journalism career (which has included many FOIA requests).

Here is the timeline:

March 5th, 2024: I put in a FOIA request with Nessel's office seeking to obtain a 52-page briefing document titled "Prosecution Memorandum Racketeering Enterprise." The document was authored by special agent Ron Reddy in December 2018, and provided to Michigan Attorney General's Office and potential recipients Attorney General Dana Nessel, Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, and investigator Jeff Seipenko. Based on sourcing, I was aware that this set of documents was delivered to the AG's office and digital receipts existed that the AG's office received them.

March 27th, 2024: The AG's office responded to my FOIA claiming it did not possess the documents. Wording of the FOIA denial.

"After a search for records, to the best of the Department’s knowledge, information, and belief, the Department does not possess records under the description given in your request or by another description reasonably known to the Department. Therefore, your request must be denied."

***This was shocking to me as I knew for a fact that AG's office had the documents and, although it is not uncommon for government offices to deploy delaying tactics to avoid releasing revelatory documents to the public, I had never come across a government office straight up lying to me that they did not possess documents that they indeed do possess.***

April 19th, 2024: I emailed the AG's FOIA division intimating before I take further action, I wanted to give them one more opportunity on the record to state whether they had or did not have the documents. My email to the AG's office:

"Before I take any further action, I wanted to follow-up one more time. Is the AG office's position firmly that they do not possess this document? "Prosecution Memorandum Racketeering Enterprise" dated December 2018 and prepared by special agent Ron Reddy and signed by chief Flint investigator Ron Reddy?"

May 6th, 2024: After I appeared on a show in Flint alluding to the AG's office misleading me on these documents—and hinting at possibly suing the AG's office—the AG's office emailed be back (over two weeks after my 4/19 email), claiming they were considering my 4/19 email to them as an "appeal" (I had not put in a formal appeal) and stating they would "conduct another search for a record or records under your above-quoted description."

***Again, this was highly unusual compared to my previous dealings with FOIA and other government offices.

May 28th, 2024: Nessel's office magically found the critically important Flint documents they told me they did not possess—which my sources indicate reveal important details of the impending Flint RICO case Nessel killed—but told me they would not provide them to me citing they were exempt from disclosure under section 13(1)(h) of the FOIA, MCL 15.243(1)(h).

**Unrelated to the fact that the AG's office clearly misled me when they claimed to not have the documents I requested through FOIA, I see no actual legal basis for the AG's office withholding these documents from the people of Flint and wider public. They could release them with redactions to protect identities of individuals or companies the documents might indicate were being investigated and/or there were plans to charge with crimes.

My experience does not seem unique; as Gongwer News Service detailed last year, the AG's office provided itself illegal extensions to responses to Flint water-related FOIA requests. From Gongwer:

"Nowhere in FOIA is there a provision for a public body, after the expiration of its 10-business day extension, to conduct further review for 10 business days, five business days or two business hours.

On April 24, the department's FOIA coordinator informs us the department needs another five business days to complete its additional review. Again, there's no apparent legal authority for such a move."

I understand that, politically speaking, the Flint water crisis occurred long ago and might not be top of mind to your committee or state media outlets. With that said, I would hope both Republicans and Democrats can agree that transparency and accountability is critical related to the poisoning of a major American city and who-knew-what-when (and also what efforts were made to cover up potential crimes).

Based on my reporting, which is outlined in my 2024 book, "We the Poisoned," Nessel's office unnecessarily fired experienced prosecutors and investigators who were making major headway in the Flint criminal probe; appointed inexperienced prosecutors who sources within her office labeled "amateurs"; and made inexplicable decisions to drop financial fraud charges linked to that broader Flint water RICO case. My reporting also indicates the original prosecutors Nessel fired were building a case against former Governor Rick Snyder for involuntary manslaughter before they were fired (and Nessel charged him with misdemeanor willful neglect of duty).

I believe your committee subpoena to Nessel should expand to include Flint water-related matters including the 52-page, 2018 briefing document titled "Prosecution Memorandum Racketeering Enterprise" (with appropriate redactions). Simply put: these documents will reveal currently unknown, major financial fraud that led to Flint being poisoned—a crime that residents are still suffering through 11 years alter as cancer rates surge, new water-related illnesses compound on top of each other, and residents still complain of contaminated water. I would also urge your committee to look into potential legal or ethical violations Nessel engaged in through breaching the so-called "conflict wall" she implemented during her office's Flint water criminal probe.

I would be happy to provide more information if requested and would also consider testifying before your committee. As humbly as I can say it, there is no other journalist in America who has reported more consistently on the Flint water crisis—and cover-up—than I.

Will you consider expanding your subpoena to obtain and release to the public these important Flint water-related documents and/or further investigating Nessel's conduct related to her office's Flint water investigation?

Jordan