HIRA News

CAUGHT IN THE ACT: Zero-Integrity Hawaii GOP Chair’s Rigged Auction and Illegal Fundraising Scandals Now Under Investigation

Milwaukee, Wisconsin – Who wouldn’t want to go to next week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and experience Donald Trump and his running mate getting nominated while having the weeklong opportunity to mingle with thousands of GOP VIPs galore at this exclusive and historic, invitation-only extravaganza?  Well, most Republicans across the state and the country would LOVE to have the opportunity to attend.  If you’re not a delegate or alternate to the 2024 RNC convention, then guest passes are EXTREMELY hard to come by.

Fortunately, the Hawaii GOP’s state chair Tamara McKay, national committeeman Gene Ward and national committeewoman Laura Nakanelua each have guest passes known as “golden tickets”.  Four passes each, for a total of twelve.  Recently, they each agreed to put one of their passes up for an online auction open to party members across the state as a fundraiser for the state party and a way to reward the generosity of the winning bidders.  But things quickly fell apart when state chair Tamara McKay decided to rig the auction to such an extreme that two of her best pals were the ONLY bidders and the ONLY winners in the rigged auction, which Ward and Nakanelua promptly disavowed and quickly turned their attention to stopping the ‘winners’ from exploiting Tamara’s fraud.

Fast forward to today:  Tamara and her braindead defenders on the Executive Committee of the state GOP have authorized hiring a mainland law firm to sue anybody who stands in the way of the ‘winners’ of the rigged auction from attending the RNC convention, even though top Hawaii GOP leaders know that Tamara massively stacked the odds in favor of her two friends winning cheaply while making it impossible for party members across the state to have any chance of participating at all.  The cease and desist letter from HRP’s obviously bamboozled attorney — Mark Ziebold of the Ziebold Law Group located in Irvine, California — shows that Mr. Ziebold has been misled by Tamara McKay about the legitimacy of the auction in question and further shows that Ziebold is under the bogus impression that a rigged auction is “legal and binding”.  Further, attorney Ziebold appears to be engaging in lawfare on behalf of Tamara and her enablers to cover up extremely bad behavior and to help his client’s cronies to retain their ill-gotten gains from the rigged auction.  Such weaponization of civil litigation is not only unconscionable, but probably a serious violation of Mr. Ziebold’s ethics which could lead to the loss of his law license.

 

 

There are an infinite number of reasons for Tamara McKay and her enablers at the Hawaii GOP to resign in disgrace.  This scandal is just another one of those undeniable reasons.  For several heated weeks now, the Hawaii Republican Party’s (HRP) leadership has been embroiled in turmoil over the outcome of its own highly illegitimate and arguably rigged online auction of extremely valuable guest passes to the 2024 Republican National Convention being staged in Milwaukee in a couple of weeks.  Endless meetings, emails, Zoom video conferences, text messages and phone calls about the controversial outcome of HRP State Chair McKay’s rigged auction have been tying up valuable time this election year which otherwise would normally be spent by any struggling political party like the Hawaii GOP trying to convince island voters to vote differently.  The conflict over the fake outcome of the rigged auction in question has reached a boiling point where threats of lawsuits and issuances of cease and desist letters being sent between state party leaders is where things stand right now at the homeless, virtual, online-only state party without a headquarters or any semblance of a statewide or even targeted campaign to unseat Democrats.  In other words, the fight over perks distributed via this indefensible scam rages while the fight over Hawaii’s future is on the back burner at HRP.

Here’s what happened.  As a state chair with arguably the poorest character in the entire GOP, McKay is being provided with several guest passes for the RNC’s upcoming national convention, where Donald Trump is expected to become the nominee of the party.  Not unlike many political wheeler dealers, McKay is quick to utilize party resources to reward her friends and supporters with insider perks just like her corrupt predecessors.  She decided to make one of her passes (along with one each from national committeewoman Laura Nakanelua and outgoing national committeeman Gene Ward) available for purchase in a party-sponsored online auction, ostensibly as a ‘fundraiser’ for the now homeless and aimless Hawaii GOP.

While the Hawaii GOP could have realized really big bucks for its coffers by advertising a legitimate online auction of these highly coveted guest passes on the state party’s social media platforms – to HRP’s 16,000 followers on Facebook, its 7,000 followers on Twitter, et al – as well as e-mailing HRP’s 15,000 party members, Tamara McKay decided to only share this auction with a handpicked micro-sized list of a reported two dozen people, including the leaders of Surfing 4 Truth (social media influencers) Andy Crossland and Lynn Surayan) who have been openly operating as online cheerleading shills for McKay’s troubled tenure as state chair for at least a year now.

In order to hide her sleight of hand, McKay set up an unadvertised online auction on Zeffy so that her pals could easily get these passes for a fraction of the market value of these highly coveted credentials.

 

And, guess what, McKay’s friends won!  And, lo and behold, Tamara’s cronies were the only bidders.  It came as no surprise that Crossland and Surayan “won” those highly coveted guest passes in a rigged auction which was disguised as a party fundraiser.  In no time at all, Tamara’s cheerleaders wasted no time crowing all over social media about what they (and Tamara) did.  According to Surfing 4 Truth, they “were welcomed personally by the Hawaii Republic (sic) Party State Chair to attend the RNC 2024 in Milwaukee!!!!”  “Surfing4Truth WON the Hawaii Republican Party auction for Golden tickets.”  WELL, OF COURSE THEY DID.  They endorsed and supported Tamara McKay for state chair of HRP while providing her with cover for her failed leadership through this very day.  Of course they won!!  That’s why nobody else was able to bid in the rigged auction.

It was a phony auction designed to cheaply transfer state chair Tamara McKay’s guest passes to the “winners” who were the only bidders.  In fact, current HRP national committeeman Gene Ward asserts that, “there was not really an authentic ‘auction’ that took place in the Hawaii Republican Party for any RNC Convention Guest Tickets, but was more so conducted as a ‘targeted opportunity’ for a few select individuals.”  That’s a nice way of confirming that the auction was rigged.

Arguably McKay’s biggest cheerleaders have been local social media influencer couple Andy Crossland and Lynn Surayan of “Surfing 4 Truth”, who have been boosting Tamara McKay’s tenure as state chair for nearly a year now, on the heels of cheering on a wifebeater for governor, blaming rigged elections in Hawaii for GOP losses, and actively helping a wacky conspiracy theorist who blames government space lasers for Lahaina’s destruction to become HRP’s new national committeeman just a few weeks ago.  According to Tamara McKay in her party newsletter congratulating the auction ‘winners’, Crossland and Surayan “are excited to experience Milwaukee and all that the convention has to offer.”  Also, McKay has been working with Trump Hawaii delegation chair Shirlene Ostrov to make sure her own “name has been included on the hotel room with Lynn and Andy Crossland.”

While Democrats are known to rig elections, the RINOs at HRP rig auctions to benefit themselves and exploit the perks of running the state party.  So, it’s no wonder that intense criticism of the McKay swindle to benefit Surfing4Truth has come from far and wide inside HRP.  The overwhelming majority of the 30+ members of the official Hawaii Trump delegation to the RNC national convention voted AGAINST allowing Crossland and Surayan to attend using the guest passes in question.  Current national committeeman Gene Ward and national committeewoman Laura Nakanelua also expressed their vehement opposition to allowing Crossland and Surayan (pictured below with Tamara McKay) to attend the convention with these controversially ‘won’ guest passes.

According to the Hawaii Trump delegation to the RNC convention, “The other two ‘winners’ of the auction were overwhelmingly voted down (84% disapproving Andy Crossland as a guest, and 81% disapproving Lynn Surayan as a guest) . . . the boyfriend-girlfriend team together leads Surfing4Truth.”  As a result, the hotel rooms reserved by the RNC for official guests have been canceled for Crossland and Surayan.  And it is increasingly unlikely that the couple will be given their passes should they spend the money to travel to Milwaukee.  Hence, the threats of legal action and the ‘cease and desist’ communications by Tamara and the misguided, clueless HRP attorney, despite the obvious illegitimacy of her rigged auction and the dubious “winners” of that scam.

Tamara’s own description on the Zeffy auction site belies her seriousness about raising funds for the party and exposes her real goal of rewarding her friends:  “This brief auction is for the opportunity to obtain a highly coveted ticket into the 2024 Republican Convention in Milwaukee.”  Highly coveted is an extremely accurate description.  Each convention guest pass could have brought in several thousand dollars, if fundraising was the actual goal.  But it appears the ACTUAL goal was to merely obtain a fraction of the worth of these passes in order for corrupt state chair Tamara McKay to quietly reward her biggest cronies on social media by handing them a rigged auction disguised as a fundraiser.  Making matters worse, the party’s governing Executive Committee and State Committee of top GOP officers went along with this sham and are backing the rigged auction done in the party’s name and the rigged outcome.

In an email dated 12 June 2024 to McKay, Ward, and Nakanelua, renowned money launderer and former HRP state chair “Big Shirl” Ostrov of the Hawaii Trump campaign was less than subtle in describing Tamara McKay’s sham ‘auction’:  “The other three guests were objected to as “winners” of a self-admitted mishandled “Golden Ticket” online auction to the party with some of the RNC’s 12 bonus tickets, afforded to the three of you. While billed as a party-wide opportunity, it appeared to only reach a targeted audience. For some reason, the three “winners” of the Golden Ticket auction were the ONLY BIDDERS. The three tickets only raised a total $600 in what would otherwise have been an amazing fundraising opportunity if handled properly.”

That’s right, the auction was designed for a VERY targeted audience, and therefore was a NON-amazing fundraising opportunity since there was no competition between the ‘winners’ and the tens of thousands of Republicans in Hawaii who were omitted from the chance to win.  Tamara McKay’s cronies at Surfing4Truth who “won” the guest passes were “the only bidders” from the completely fake, rigged, not-at-all ‘party-wide’ auction . . . a corrupt outcome which is PERFECTLY FINE with Tamara McKay and virtually the entire leadership of the Hawaii Republican Party, along with its clueless attorney.  With scammers like McKay, Crossland and Surayan, WHY would Hawaii voters want to bother replacing corrupt Democrats in power with equally corrupt Republicans?

McKay’s use of a bogus “auction” to reward her friends and intentionally defraud HRP of potentially thousands of dollars in revenue is another matter which is under investigation.  As mentioned above, guest passes to the upcoming Republican National Convention were ‘auctioned’ by state chair McKay as a purported fundraiser for the state party.  But instead of making that auction available to thousands of party members across the state or even millions of party members across the country, McKay only made that auction of convention passes exclusively accessible to the eventual ‘winners’ of the auction and a tiny handful of others in McKay’s inner circle who didn’t even bother to place bids, thereby guaranteeing that McKay’s buddies would be most likely to ‘win’ these guest passes at the lowest imaginable price.  In addition, the matter of selling tickets for admission to a dated political event – even “golden tickets” – requires preregistration of such ticket sales with the State Campaign Spending Commission.  THIS DID NOT HAPPEN.

Joining the chorus of support for letting Crossland and Surayan hang onto their ill-gotten ‘winnings’ from the rigged auction is their fellow cheerleader for Crooked Tamara McKay, America-hater and Hawaii statehood opponent Andrew Aker of “Maui Freedom TV”, who appears to believe that there’s nothing wrong with a rigged auction as long as his friends get to keep the spoils and are able to attend the RNC convention next week.  Despite being caught in the middle of this highly corrupt transaction, Aker laughably describes Crossland and Surayan as ‘corruption fighters’.  Even more laughably, in the midst of McKay’s auction rigging scandal, Aker sincerely proclaims that “Real American Patriot Tamara McKay and others are working hard to drain the swamp in HI Republican Party!”  Yeah, sure she is.  The swamp is now deeper than ever, with multiple RINO factions trying to out-sleaze each other.

The reality is that HRP is as sleazy as ever.  Tamara McKay is as slimy and corrupt (and incompetent) as Lynn Finnegan or Diamond Garcia or “Big Shirl” Ostrov or Fritz Rohlfing or Beth Fukumoto.  Hawaii voters might not be surprised to learn that the RINOs who control the Hawaii GOP are just as capable of being corrupt as the governing Democrats.  But such lawbreaking certainly won’t help the local Republican Party impress voters between now and the General Election just a few months from now.  When our party attacks Democrats for rigging elections, shameless HRP leaders think nothing of rigging an auction to divide the spoils and the perks with cronies.  Sounds just like how Josh Green runs state government.

The now persistent turmoil in the ranks of the Hawaii GOP leadership has risen to the level of a civil war over state chair Tamara McKay’s questionable use of a highly manipulated online auction to sell guest passes to the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to her closest associates.  The big question is whether the state party was defrauded by McKay out of thousands of potential dollars so she could ensure that her friends would ‘win’ the rigged auction.  The weeks of resulting internal battles have largely been fixated on Surfing4Truth, the unlikely ‘winners’ of the auction and the cheap price they paid.  But the state attorney general now has the evidence of the unregistered fundraiser and the alleged defrauding of HRP.  And the party’s legal problems don’t end there.  Those problems are just starting to get worse.  Not to mention what Donald Trump and the RNC would think of this glaring corruption problem involving the integrity-challenged HRP and the cheating state chair’s cronies Surayan and Crossland at ‘Surfing 4 Truth’ wandering around the national convention with tainted guest passes.

Even before breaking this news story, HIRA News has already heard from dozens of party members who are upset about Crooked Tamara’s rigged auction and her zero-integrity “winners” from Surfing4Truth who have no shame in knowing they were the only bidders in a rigged auction.  After all, Tamara, the HRP leadership, and the ‘winners’ of the ill-gotten gains – McKay’s buddies Andy Crossland and Lynn Surayan – KNOW that the outcome was a total scam and outright fraud.  Even the dumbest lawyer in California should understand that to knowingly deprive party members from being able to bid or even have access to the online auction while skewing and rigging that auction to steer the guess passes to McKay’s buddies is the very definition of unfair, misleading and deceptive practice.  Just imagine the potential for lawsuits against HRP by party members from Hilo to Hanalei who wanted to participate in the auction yet who were deliberately prevented from participating while top party officers who knowingly facilitated a fraudulent transaction in the guise of a party auction; whereby the obvious fraud and the party’s obvious financial loss (due to rigging and zero competition in the auction) have been pointed out clearly by the Hawaii Trump campaign.  Could a class action lawsuit and prosecution for fraud be far behind?  To date, Tamara McKay and her cronies (and her clueless lawyer) are defending the indefensible situation whereby secret, exclusive access to the online auction site was provided ONLY to the ‘winners’ and a handful of others, despite having tens of thousands of followers on social media and nearly that many e-mail addresses of party members whom Tamara refused to allow to participate, even though this was supposed to be a party-wide auction.  This crooked arrangement is a very strange hill for the above-named corruptniks to want to die on.  No wonder HRP has hired a mainland lawyer to help the fake winners of the rigged auction retain the spoils of this scam by attempting to intimidate those who complain.  Like her crooked predecessors as state chair, Tamara McKay is resorting to a classic HRP waste of donor monies while she continues to fritter away the few precious weeks remaining before the General Election.  Auwe!

Stay tuned:  If the two fake winners from the rigged auction STILL attend next week’s RNC convention as guests of Tamara McKay, then you’ll instantly know HRP is too crooked to take on the Democrats in 2024.  If  REAL conservatives are in charge of the Hawaii GOP, then the rigged nature of the contest should instantly invalidate the outcome.  But will it?  Probably not.  We’ll see . . .

 

 

EVEN MORE ILLEGAL HRP FUNDRAISING EVENTS UNDER INVESTIGATION

Today, HIRA News can confirm that the Hawaii Republican Party (HRP) is also under criminal investigation by Hawaii’s attorney general Anne Lopez and other government law enforcement agencies for organizing a series of multiple illegal fundraising events over the past few weeks resulting from the state party failing to register a “Notice of Intent to Hold a Fundraiser” for multiple fundraisers with the State Campaign Spending Commission (CSC) as required by §11-342 of Hawaii Revised Statutes.

This investigation comes on the heels of the bribery scandal at the Hawaii State Capitol which ended the political careers of state senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English and former state Rep. Ty Cullen – who admitted in court that they took bribes from Milton Choy of H2O Water Systems to steer legislation related to cesspools – changes were made to state campaign finance law.

One of these changes was requiring ALL fundraisers, no matter the ticket price, to be pre-registered with the CSC so that the public would know about the fundraising activity through legally mandated transparency.  No more secret fundraising events could fly below the radar.  But it appears that Team Tamara doesn’t care about obeying the law.

So much for legally-mandated transparencyMultiple fundraising events have been organized by HRP, including several held in conjunction with the party’s two-day state convention held in Mililani last month on May 4th and 5th.   As HRP’s website clearly shows, there were three fundraisers which charged $25 per person per event to attend.

 

According to the CSC website, HRP failed to give notice of any fundraisers held in May in advance of (or even since) these three party fundraisersa cocktail party, a breakfast event with Gene Ward and a breakfast event with Elijah Piereck – were advertised and held.

 

However, as can be clearly seen, party fundraising events held before and since the state convention do appear on the CSC website; clearly indicating that party leaders occasionally obey the law and actually know how to be legally compliant if they wish to.

The required form to be completed and filed with CSC in advance of a fundraiser, no matter the ticket price, can be viewed HERE.  There’s simply no mistaking the requirement for full disclosure ahead of time, as it plainly reads:  “Under Hawaii Revised Statutes §11-342, no fundraiser shall be held unless a notice of intent to hold the fundraiser is filed with the Campaign Spending Commission (“Commission”) for any function held for the benefit of a candidate, candidate committee, or noncandidate committee that is intended or designed, directly or indirectly, to raise contributions for which any price is charged or any contribution is suggested for attending the function.  The person in charge of the fundraiser shall file the notice with the Commission prior to the fundraiser.”

HIRA News reached out to HRP state treasurer Mike Jauch for comment.  But Jauch, who goes by the social media username @bullwhip1954, blocked HIRA News from communicating with him on Twitter and elsewhere immediately after he and McKay were caught by HIRA News holding a private teleconference with anti-American activists who currently hold leadership positions throughout the Hawaii GOP and intend to lead a fight to have Hawaii secede from the United States of America and become an independent third world banana republic operating under a monarchy.  Yes, you read that correctly.

HIRA News also reached out to HRP state chair Tamara McKay for comment.  But McKay, who operates on social media as “Redtime Stories”, blocked HIRA News after being called out for proudly featuring the anti-American ‘sovereignty flag’ used widely by America haters in Hawaii as part of the Maui GOP’s July 4th float, which McKay proudly posted on her Facebook page.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Unlike HIRA News, investigators and prosecutors from the Hawaii AG’s office won’t have to worry about being blocked by either Jauch or McKay, as the AG has subpoena power to obtain the same damning records now in the possession of HIRA News.  In time, the attorney general’s investigation should be able to get to the bottom of the refusal by both McKay and Jauch to register all of these illegal party fundraisers with the CSC.  Are they knowingly and intentionally breaking the law?  Or are they simply clueless about how to do their jobs?  HIRA News awaits news of the seemingly inevitable prosecution.

RECENT FINES FOR IDENTICAL LAWBREAKING TELL THE STORY:  It should be noted that corrupt city councilwoman Andria Tupola (the state’s biggest ever loser as the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate in 2018) was fined $1,150 for merely holding a single one of her own secret and unregistered fundraising events where she ostensibly cashed in by selling out to Hawaii’s greedy pro-rail industry in a seemingly apparent pay-to-play scheme where she shook down Big Rail for campaign money in exchange for her vote to allow Honolulu taxpayers to go into even more debt to pay for the boondoggle.  Tupola held fundraisers right before and right after the big vote at city hall which indebted Oahu taxpayers.  No local media ever reported the fine or the corruption.  But Tupola was forced to admit to the fine in her campaign finance report on the CSC website.

Sadly, HRP is run by corrupt and incompetent RINOs, as always.  They wear Trump hats and t-shirts to disguise their lack of experience and their Democrat-like ways.  But don’t be fooled.  2024 is shaping up to be yet another political disaster at the hands of these braindead signwavers who’ve never led a winning campaign in their lives.  Democrats will sleep very well at night.  And the State Elections Office has confirmed to HIRA News that there are no plans to postpone the General Election because HRP’s leadership team doesn’t have its act together because its so busy distributing the perks of office to cronies that party leaders don’t have time or energy to mount a winning campaign against the party of Josh Green and Mazie Hirono.  Auwe!

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