The classroom is silent. Every third grader is seated at their assigned seat, head lowered, eyes focused at the desk. Something bad has gone down. Some classroom crime has been committed, and the teacher is determined to find out who is at fault. Since nobody is coming forward, everybody has to stay in for recess.
Maybe you lived through this elementary school nightmare. If you did, you know that this tactic rarely works. In that moment, the students learn the power of a shared secret and the bond that forms when all the clams clam up together.
There may be a sense of impending doom in the classroom air, but no one – not the guilty party, not those who know what happened, not even those who have heard the rumors — is willing to be the first to break. They all know that peer retribution is far worse than what the teacher can mete out.
Civil Beat is focusing on transparency, accountability and ethics in government and other institutions. Help us by sending ideas and anecdotes to sunshine@civilbeat.org.
In the case of the $35,000 in a paper bag handed to an unnamed “influential” Hawaiʻi lawmaker, leadership of both the state House and Senate asked their members if they did it or if they knew who did. Unsurprisingly, everybody said no.
One may imagine that having Senate President Ron Kouchi corner you and ask, in his low, Godfatherly voice, “Was you?” would scare the poop out of just about anyone. But still, liars gonna lie, and those who know who took the bag of money have been keeping quiet about this for years now. It may be hard to imagine, but it’s going to take more than Kouchi’s powers of persuasion to make this particular perp come to light.
The background, though everybody knows this by now:
In 2022, an unnamed lawmaker, described in a federal investigation as a “influential state legislator” accepted $35,000 in a paper bag from a man involved in a federal bribery investigation. The transaction was secretly recorded by former state Rep. Ty Cullen, who was by then cooperating with the FBI after being caught taking similar payments for legislative favors.
Whoever got the loot in the bag did better than Cullen, who pleaded guilty to taking cash payments totalling $23,000 and served prison time. Meanwhile, as a result of the same sprawling investigation, former state Sen. J. Kalani English pleaded guilty and served time for taking gifts and benefits in excess of $15,000. The unnamed influential Hawaiʻi is still walking around anonymous and free, perhaps even continuing their influence at the legislature.
Granted, $35K is not “change your life” kind of money. It might buy a new Toyota Prius, but it won’t get you a Maserati and a nice house in Kahala. (Yes, that’s a Kealoha reference, lest we forget.) It may, however, be enough to kill a bill unfavorable to a business interest or get a relative hired or change the wording in a piece of legislation. And it may not be the only paper bag that unnamed influential lawmaker collected that year.
Former Rep. Ty Cullen admitted to taking bribes from a businessman. He later helped federal investigators before resigning the day charges against him were made public. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2023)
Let us take a moment to focus on the detail of the brown paper bag, of all things. So seedy. So retro. Where would one even get a brown paper bag these days? A liquor store? A food truck? Some stores will sell you the kind with handles for 15 cents, but those arenʻt the proper bribe-holders of yesteryear.
The bag is such a trivial detail, but it adds so much to the tawdry element of this crime. If it was a crime. Gov. Josh Green, in calling for the recipient of the bag of money to reveal themselves, allowed for the possibility that the money perhaps was not a bribe but merely a campaign donation.
Because, as we know, thatʻs a totally different thing.
What lawmakers may have forgotten from elementary school is that when nobody claims responsibility or names the culprit, everyone is under suspicion. This whodunnit isnʻt going to be forgotten in the churning news cycle. It has become the hottest story in local politics. After all, Hawaiʻi politics is often boring, and this is the most gossipy thing to gossip about right now.
The idea of a chunk of money being handed over to a local lawmaker in exchange for favorable treatment and that lawmaker getting away with it when two others got locked up for the same thing is like a Netflix true crime series missing the final episode. People want to know what happened.
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