by Andrew Walden
Would you trust John Waihee III with another $2M to turn Hawaiians into a fake Indian tribe?
He hopes somebody will.
That’s the upshot of redacted documents leaked to Hawai’i Free Press by a source near the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Peeling away a large black redaction at the head, we discover Waihee addressed an August 8, 2016 plea for $2M to “Mr. John Echohawk, Executive Director Native American Rights Fund, 1506 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80302”.
Are the redactions to conceal the tribal nature of Waihee’s push for federal recognition? Each of the three redacted sections hides a reference to the Native American Rights Fund (NARF). According to its website, NARF believes Hawaiians “are Native Americans.” The group's website explains, “NARF’s foremost priority is to protect and secure continued tribal existence.” The Chairman of the Board of NARF is Moses K. N. Haia III, of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation who was cc-ed on Waihee’s funding appeal.
Laughing ...
Waihee’s “Ask” refers potential donors to www.HawaiianNation.com and www.AlohaLahui.com for more information and indicates: “The Tides Foundation, a 501(c)3, has established the Aloha Lahui Collective Action Fund. This fund serves as the vehicle to receive donations from a variety of sources for the purposes of advancing nation-building. As of August 2016, about $250,000 has been raised from a variety of sources, including individuals, Native Hawaiian organizations and businesses, and small grants.”
$250K is peanuts considering the billions of dollars in assets held by Hawaiian Trusts, but then who would want to give more money to Waihee and his cronies after they used the Kanaiolowalu Roll to suck millions out of OHA?
We asked Waihee for comment, but have received no reply.
According to our source, Waihee operative Norma Wong is still shopping the proposal to “funders in California” as of last week. This implies that NARF did not pony up. A timeline included with the leaked documents proposed $750K in payments to Waihee’s group before the November 8 Presidential election, another $250K in December and another $1M between March and July, 2017.
Who is accountable for how money is spent? AlohaLahui.com explains: “A small committee including former Gov. Waihee and participants from the ‘Aha. A central ledger will be kept in coordination with Tides and given to the Nation upon inception.”
In other words, “you’ll never see these books.”
In 2015 the complete Kanaiolowalu check register was released in response to an Open Records request by Grassroot Institute. The register shows that self dealing by Waihee’s gang of political insiders consumed almost all of the $2.999M of OHA money spent on the Roll.
...all the way ...
AlohaLahui.com features photos of John Waihee, Naalehu Anthony, and Amy Kalili laughing, as if they were on the way to the bank. Kalili is on a page headed “love of a nation” and Anthony is on a page headed “donate now.”
Akamai readers will remember Anthony and Kalili starred in the video short: “Kanaiolowalu: How to make your girlfriend rich” after Anthony's Roll Commission contracted over $600K in Kanaiolowalu Roll media work to a firm directed by Kalili.
... to the bank?
A proposed budget included with the leaked documents follows the Kanaiolowalu pattern. Many of $2.168M in expenses are nebulous, making it easy for the usual suspects to score padded communications and media contracts: $1M is for elections, “including voter base support”, $709K is for “communications”, another $315K is for “stipends and fees”, “data management and services”, and “mailings.”
Waihee in 2012 was held civilly responsible and forced to pay part of $1.3M in restitution for the $39M RightStar burial contract scam. He is currently suspended from the Hawaii Bar Association for non-payment of dues.
John Waihee’s interest in Indian tribes begins from the Broken Trust scandal. In 1995 as a Verner Liipfert partner, Waihee recommended the corrupt thieving broken trustees of Kamehameha Schools relocate KSBE corporate HQ to the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota in order to shield their criminal activities from State and Federal prosecutors.
As NARF explains: “With sovereignty, tribes can determine their own governments. They can determine their own membership. They can regulate issues such as real property, commerce and trade, domestic relations, criminal and civil conduct, and tax activities. Tribes can administer justice to enforce their regulatory laws. Tribes also have the power to exclude persons from tribal territory.”
It is fortunate that so much of the money spent on creating a fake Indian tribe is being wasted.
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PDF: Waihee $2M Money Pitch