On this Salcedo Storm Podcast: Robert Montoya, investigative Journalist for the Texas Scorecard. Also, Quinn Sullivan is a student at Tarleton State University. he works to expose corruption within our local and state. government.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
I am no fan of speaker Dade Phelan. I think it’s pretty well established at this point. Mostly because he’s a betrayer of conservatism, mostly because he’s a betrayer of the Republican planks. Most of the because He enables Democrats to have power they didn’t earn at the ballot box, because he is completely devoted to making sure Democrats get their way as a mechanism to maintain his power.
This last legislative session was arguably the most egregious one on record, where Dade Phelan because there was so much going wrong in the United States courtesy of the Democratic Party in the national level. And all the conservative efforts on the state level are aimed at pushing back on that his Democrat friends who put them in positions of power and authority and who he gave positions of power and authority to they weren’t on board.
They were in it for their party and Dade Phelan was put into a position where he was supposed to be standing up for his alleged party, but he wasn’t because his alleged party, the Republican Party is not Dade Phelan’s party. He is devoted 100% to the Democrats. Why? Because they are a mechanism to his power. And he demonstrated it over and over and over again. From the hiring of an Obama parliamentarian from the Ken Paxton impeachment to the various common sense conservative bills designed to thwart the Democrat agenda that Dade Phelan single handedly and with the help of his lieutenants killed, it’s there’s plenty of evidence out there that Dade Phelan is not a trustworthy politician because his his ideology, his worldview does not mesh with conservatism does not mesh with republicanism.
So there are other issues that I have with Dade Phelan and it’s the the cronyism Phelan vibe that I get that comes off of him. It’s not just this damn speech that they give the freshmen coming in the Republican leadership, for those of you don’t know the Republican leadership sits down these freshmen and says, Look, all the promises you made to your conservative base, your voters Forget all that. We are here to play on the team. The Democrats are on our team.
It’s us in the legislature against the people of Texas. And that’s the mindset that they sit down and tell these freshmen politicians coming in. And very few people that go up there can actually withstand that indoctrination. But it’s how these people think they despise us and they act like it. Why because we conservatives get in the way of Dade Phelan, giving away the store to Democrats so he can secure power and there’s a reason why he wants to secure power.
Guys like Dade Phelan secure power and government to make themselves rich. I mean, we’ve seen it with Joe Biden. With all the allegations being thrown at him. We saw it with Harry Reid, Harry Reid came in a popper into Congress and left a multimillionaire land Baron Nancy Pelosi multimillionaire these lifers in politics, see, see the government as their meal ticket. And I just, that’s why I am really starting to despise career politicians.
It’s because they don’t go there in the tradition of George Washington to serve and then to go back into private life and work in the environment that the creative for the rest of us know. They stay in government and try to feed their private enterprises through the relationships they’ve developed in government.
Now, some of it is legitimate. I mean, You can’t work in government not make friends. You can’t work in government and not say, hey, you know, I met this guy here, I met this guy here. And when you get out, when you get out of government, then you know parlaying those relationships you fostered while you were in elected office. I mean, that’s, that’s just natural. It’s human nature. I don’t think anybody would begrudge anybody that but while you’re sitting in government, and while while you’re there, you’re supposed to be serving the people, not yourself.
And what Dade Phelan did in the last legislative session, along with a lot of his lieutenants, is they served special interests. And they basically jab the knife into the back of the constituents that they were elected to serve the vast majority of, of Texans. I can think of myriad examples from the the bill they killed to stop the sale of Texas Land to foreign enemies, to parental school choice and education, Freedom Dade Phelan as of the mindset that he doesn’t want to let we the little people get in the way of whatever his grand scheme is. The Texas scorecard has come across a story that’s raising a lot of eyebrows and will tell you about that story coming up next on Salcedo storm podcast.
Folks want to welcome to the program first, a voice that you hear often on the Salcedo storm podcast, Robert Montoya. He is an investigative journalist at Texas scorecard and want to welcome in Quinn Sullivan, a student at Tarleton State University. He works to expose corruption within our local and state government. Gentlemen, welcome.
How are you doing Chris? Howdy.
All right. So let’s talk about this story. That boy, you guys are stirring up a hornet’s nest with this one. It’s huge. So Mr. Montoya, you go first, what have you found?
Well, our investigative team which includes Quinn line here, we found that Texas Health and Human Services paid $2.3 million to accompany that speaker the house Dade Phelan as a manager and director of those payments occurred from 2017 to 2023.
Okay, so Quinn, what does this what were the payments allegedly for?
Right? So this is a payment from the Health and Human Services to his his company through his company for rent for an office space.
Okay, so okay, just so I understand the relationship here. So Phelan is the one that’s renting or the agencies, the one that’s renting.
The agency is the one that’s renting from Phelan.
I see so you’ve got state money That is they need office space and the best office space available Mr. Montoya happens to be the office space of the company that has a relationship with the Speaker of the Texas House.
Parent are apparently so that’s seems to be but seems to be the case. Apparently, this is a company that Dade Phelan. Not only Dade Phelan but also his family members, our manager and director of the name of this company is 3015 executive LLC. And with Quinn was able to find out who the managers and directors were as he was doing his research. And you got Dade Phelan there. Multiple number Phelans Mark Phelan Mike Phelan, Michael Phelan all managers and directors.
I see. So my understanding the way government is supposed to work is they’re supposed to do some sort of a bidding process. They’re supposed to go out to various comparable places. In this case, if a if an agency needs office space, it needs to be in a particular area. So they would go out the way normal people would do it, you’d get three bids. Was there a bidding process? That was done in the in this case?
We’re not certain of that. All we do know is this is we know that they’ve had this relationship. This lease from 2014 is when it started. And the original lease ended according to health and human services in 2023. What’s interesting, is the lease has apparently been extended, we were told the lease expiration date has been moved to August of 2029.
Okay, well, wait a minute. If they cancelled the lease, then who extended it? And for what purpose? I mean, is Health and Human Services in the building Mr. Montoya, is it not? Of lifeboats we have Charlottesville Health and Human Services building we’ve never been told they have vacated. They have been there since the lease started, which again, for context, the original lease started in January 1 2014. So Mr. Field, he wasn’t elected until November of 2014. And he wasn’t sworn in until the beginning of the following year. So there wasn’t he was not in a government position at that time. But since he’s been in the house, and since becoming speaker, this relationship has existed for taxpayer monies have been flowing to accompany that is his and his family’s.
That seems to me to be a bit of a conflict of interest, folks, we’re talking to Robert Montoya. He is an investigative journalist for the Texas scorecard and Quinn Sullivan, a student at Tarleton State University, who works to expose corruption within our local and state government. Quinn, you’re doing the investigation, what what was the most egregious or maybe egregious as the wrong word? What was the biggest red flag for you as you were doing your investigation?
That’s a great question. So what really what really piqued my interest was the fact that not only has this relationship existed for a long time, it’s actually increased in a way because the payments have been getting more and more. So according to Mr. Phealn’s, income statements, that he has to file in 2016 3105 executive LLC, which is the company that owns the property, paid him $25,000 or more, he has to list a certain amount of income. But on his 2023 income statement, he listed to 3105 executive LLC paid him at least $47,220 or more. So he’s getting more money as time goes on as he gains power. Or I guess you should say as as he has increased, and he’s become speaker of the house. He has also received more money from 3105 executive LLC.
Yeah, it’s a nice little tidy business arrangement for the Phelan family. So Mr. Montoya, I don’t know aren’t there ethics violations or ethics standards here that prohibit profiting from those inside of government from profiting off of state agencies to their private businesses?
Well, we asked Tony McDonald, he’s an attorney familiar with state ethics laws. And he told us that Phelan’s control over the budget for health and human services while he’s charged him millions of rent says that appears to present a serious conflict of interest. And also it’s worth noting that after we published this report, Texas Republican chairman Matt Renaldi, jumped in to this and he did some math and he posted that he’s finds based on research he did that taxpayers are paying Phelan’s companies three times the market value in 2023. And it looks like to him there’s a $260,000 windfall to the Speaker’s business. Wow, that is, yeah. That is quoting Mr. Renaldi is a big deal unquote.
Well, yes, it is. And because I’m struck here, because this is an agency that is supposed to be overseen by Texas government, what what relationship? Quinn, maybe you haven’t looked into this, but what relationship is there between the Texas Legislature and Health and Human Services? Is it run? That? I mean, I know the funding comes from the state legislature for this for this Texas government institution for Health and Human Services. So that’s where the money comes from. This, this is raising a lot of red flags about this funnel, I mean it if you have this agency saying, hey, we need a whole bunch more bucks. And all of a sudden Dade Phelan says well as agency that I’m renting space to needs more bucks, and that’s going to be more bucks in my pocket. I mean, you see where this is, this is ripe for corruption, is it not quit?
Yeah, it’s definitely very concerning. We want to be, you know, we we have no, there’s there’s no, to our knowledge, there’s nothing that is explicitly that he’s breaking the law. It’s just It’s concerning, and it’s something that voters need to be aware of. I’m forced to wonder, Mr. Montoya, how many other state wide officials and the Speaker of the House is a statewide official, he is the number three of the big three, as they say, how many of them are undertaking private businesses that benefit directly from government spending from taxpayer funding? I, I don’t know that.
That’s, that’s ethical, is it? Well, when it comes again, to the ethics part, you know, I will refer back to what Mr. McDonald said it appears like there is a conflict of interest here. And as for how many other state officials are engaging in this, we don’t know. But if citizens are curious, I will point them to how cleanse stumbled onto this information originally, I mean, who and how did you originally find out about 315 executives, and then the connection with Health and Human Services? I think the way you did this will be very useful for citizens who also want to do their own investigations.
Right. So what I did, I looked through, I looked through his income statements, and I looked through, and he listed a few others, including his family’s real investing company, I looked through I saw this name, did a simple Google search on 3105 executive LLC. First thing that pops up was this Health and Human Services contract. And we only discovered more as I did a deeper as me and my team that Kristin, we did a deeper dive into what this company did, we found more and more contracts.
Well, well, hold on a minute. So let’s, I mean, Health and Human Services is a big deal. Do you mean to tell me that this company is servicing more government agencies? Or did you find that this company is dealing which is not which is not illegal at all dealing with other private interests?
No, I meant to say just throughout the years, so we found the ones from 2016 2018 2023, things like that.
Oh, I see. So to still it’s all it’s just to be fair, it’s all health and human services that he has been contracting with. There are no other government agencies. His partnership here is dealing with correct to my knowledge, that’s correct.
Okay. So um, well, Robert, let me just let me ask you, by the way, Robert Montoya investigative journalist for Texas scorecard as our guest and Quinn Sullivan, he’s a student at Tarleton University, Tarleton State University. He works there to expose corruption within local and state government. So do we know how much in toto this this Dade Phelan enterprise the Phelan family enterprise has made off of Health and Human Services slash the Texas taxpayers? Right now the only data we have is the one that I shared earlier about from 2017 to 2023. He’s been paid 2.3 million. We’ve not yet gotten the data about from the very beginning of the lease, right. And for those who can want to do their own investigation, the term you all look for his personal financial statements. This is where Cohen was able to get the information. They’re held to Texas Ethics Commission, those who are in elected office, they have to report these regularly. So you can see the kind of financial dealings that your public says Humans have. And that’s how clean was able to go down the road. Any citizen can do this.
Well, Mr. Montoya, I’m going to keep his next question for you, because I’m imagining that you extended an invite or to get a statement, an invitation for a statement from the Speaker’s office. As to why, why this arrangement? How this arrangement is going on, what do they tell you?
We’ve, Chris, we reached out multiple times to Phelan’s reelection campaign and the Speaker’s office, and they repeatedly declined to comment. Not one single word.
I see well Quinn, I’m just going to ask you maybe not as so much as a an investigator, an investigator or just somebody who is a a Texan, somebody who’s a student. If, if a government official is asked, Hey, can you explain why your private company is making tons of money off of off of a government agency? And the answer is, we’re not going to talk to you about it. Does that raise red flags with you?
Yeah. In my opinion, that’s very concerning. You know, there could be all sorts of reasons. But I think it’s elected officials duty to talk to citizens, and in this case, a citizen organization, especially when we ask specific questions about their financial dealings. I think it’s a, a not a good sign that he won’t comment to us.
Well, gentlemen, I’ve got to tell you that if if speaker Phlean has a private enterprise that is doing business with Texas government, that is completely 100%, legitimate for taxpayers, for government overseers, those who are believing in some sort of oversight to investigate and see this, the last question and see if everything’s on the up and up here. So the last question I have for you as Mr. Mr. Montoya, has the Attorney General’s Office been made aware of this?
We do not contact the attorney general’s office about this. That’s what we would potentially do. While we were working through our process is first verify all the information we have asked Health and Human Services. If our understanding is correct, then ask the speaker for comments. And then we asked a special some ethics laws, Attorney McDonald about it. That’s something we could do. But that’s not something we have done as of this time yet.
Right. And I guess just to make sure everything’s on the up and up disclosures, making sure every every disclosure to the public is every i is dotted, every T is crossed, and that there’s no impropriety going hear that there was an open bid process, to make sure that the taxpayers are protected. And that this isn’t just some sort of funnel of taxpayer money into the coffers of elected officials, which I think there needs to be protections to stop something like that. And let’s hope your investigation triggers, at least to make sure everything’s on the up and up here with the speaker in this particular case.
So folks, we’re talking to Robert Montoya, investigative journalist at Texas scorecard and Quinn Sullivan fight Nice to meet you, young man of Tarleton State University, working to expose corruption within our local and state government. Gentlemen, appreciate you bringing this to our attention.
Thank you, Chris.
Happy to do so. Thank you.
That’s gonna do it for this Salcedo storm podcast. Do me a favor friends, visit a couple of websites, the first one Texas scorecard.com. That’s where you’re going to find all this enterprising journalism going on? And yes, there’s a lot of questions that I know Texas scorecard is going to make certain that Dade Phelan either answers or goes on record refusing to answer the other website, check out Chris salcedo.com That’s where you’ll find all of our social media hookups there. And also find out where you can find the Chris Salcedo shows on AM 700k SCV the voice of Texas simulcast on rumble, get her and on Newsmax two. You will also find us on television exclusively on Newsmax one, Monday through Friday, four o’clock Eastern until five until we visit again my friends remember this a society’s worth isn’t measured by how much power is stolen by government. It’s measured by how much power is reserved for you and me. We the People. Stay vigilant out there my friends.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
