In early 2025, the FBI opened a sweeping investigation into bribery on Capitol Hill with Graham’s steakhouse dinner at the center. Kao confessed to federal agents that his business model consisted of bribing public officials in exchange for government contracts, and that the research Navatek was providing to the government was often worthless.The scheme involved some of the most powerful figures in Congress, he said — in both parties. In South Carolina, Kao told agents, Navatek made a campaign cash-for-contracts deal not only with Graham, but also with the state’s top Democrat, Rep. James Clyburn, and another influential Republican, Rep. Joe Wilson.Kao told agents that Graham in particular left little room for ambiguity: “This is how much I want, and how much I am going to give you,” Kao remembered Graham saying, according to notes one agent took during their debrief in late 2024.
Resistance to new electeds who don't come from within the normal channels is to some degree about ideological and clan replication, but it is also because newcomers might be shocked to find all the gambling in the casino.
Trump made all these investigations go away.
The Supremos have made bribery an almost nonexistent crime, but something doesn't have to be a crime to be incredibly corrupt, something many journalists have been pretending to forget lately.