Fellow GOP OC Board Member Opposed Steel’s Sham Process, calling it: “very much not transparent process,” and a “terrible way for government to do business.”
Steel Voted to Approve Deal for Corporate Donor, But Only After She Took Nearly $20,000 In Campaign Donations
Despite deep and considerable concerns from Orange County residents of corruption and a lack of transparency, Michelle Steel yesterday personally steered a lucrative taxpayer funded airport contract to her top campaign donor, ACI Jet.
Steel steered such a sham process for her campaign donor that even other Republican members of the OC Board of Supervisors criticized Steel for what was “very much not transparent process,” and for it being a “terrible way for government to do business.”
Steel’s work to ram this contract through was “a process chock full of corruption concerns” especially after new reporting showed that Steel worked to steer the 35-year exclusive bid airport contract to her top campaign donor – with Steel’s Congressional campaign raking in nearly $20,000 in direct donations from ACI Jet corporate executives.
Meanwhile, Steel has given at least two contracts in recent years to ACI Jet and pushed private jet expansion that will severely benefit ACI Jet despite the serious and strenuous objections of Orange County residents.
Statement from DCCC Spokesperson Andy Orellana:
“Michelle Steel is Orange County’s most corrupt career politician. Steel’s pay-to-play scheme gives taxpayer dollars to one of her donors, a private plane company that has completely ignored the residents of Orange County and turned a deaf ear to their concerns. Steel is a corrupt career politician who is making sure her corporate campaign donors get paid regardless if it comes at the expense of Orange County families and taxpayers. Michelle Steel is so corrupt that even her own GOP colleagues are calling her out for her lack of transparency.”
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