An optimistic view of the corruption in D.C.

Last week was a particularly bad week for Republicans who look at polls. It kicked off with a report from ProPublica about corruption in Senator Susan Collins 2020 campaign. And worst of all? The story started at a Corner Bakery cafe in 2019 that I went to several times a week, often to edit a Washington Post TikTok. Why didn’t I look up from my laptop and notice what was happening in front of me? A Watergate moment in broad daylight! I was looking for the scoop in poorly-lit parking garages but the whole time it was right in front of me ordering a half sandwich and half soup!

We’ll get to that story in a minute, which I’ve linked twice in the prior paragraph. So, give ProPublica a click but also scroll down this newsletter for a summary.

And in case you missed it, our latest weekly episode of ‘What’s Your Source?’ is live. This week, we answered “Why did everyone think Mitch McConnell died?”

My dad first introduced me to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) back in high school. I’d already seen and come to love It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), so I was prepped for this kind of storytelling, which is to say Jimmy Stewart in a black-and-white film playing a really good, morally strong character … except for one scene where he is inexplicably violent.

Besides Stewart violently shaking his future wife in It’s a Wonderful Life, and literally punching every person on the street in D.C. for a 1-minute montage in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, both films hold up pretty well.

I watched it for a third time Friday night and came away with that same hopelessly optimistic feeling I did the first time around. For the uninitiated, the film is about a 30-year-old man appointed to the Senate by his state’s governor, following the death of another senator. Relatively quickly, the naive but incredibly — almost embarrassingly — patriotic Mr. Smith uncovers the corruption in Washington, specifically that of the senior Senator in his own state. I really want readers to enjoy it for the first time without spoilers, so I’ll just say that, in the end, the good guy wins. You can watch it for free on Tubi (with an embarrassing and not-at-all patriotic, amount of ads).

A few stray notes from this rewatch:

In a somewhat inconveniently placed strip mall off I-29 in the “northland” of Kansas City lies a coffee shop called Fitti’s Espresso. From the outside, it looks like it just opened yesterday. The sign is a banner pinned up on a plain brown wall. It’s also weirdly isolated in the parking lot, behind other more prominently featured stores.

This is all to say that when I wandered in there this weekend, I had relatively low expectations. Well folks, this is the speakeasy of highway strip mall coffee shops. It was absolutely lovely and warm and pumpkin spice-y inside. The coffee was good. The breakfast sandwiches could cure any hangover. And for non-coffee lovers, they even offer soda with different syrups. You know, like those Coca-Cola Freestyle machines but manual! Veterans and first responders get a discount too. It’s a good place. The vibes are right. I will be back! Thank you for reading my Yelp review disguised as a section of a newsletter.

I’m in Atlanta right now, preparing to speak on a panel with former president of CBS News Wendy McMahon, fellow independent journalist Don Lemon, and beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk. It’s a strange feeling, working fast to get this newsletter written before going on stage with the CEO of the company distributing it. Tyler and beehiiv are also the presenting sponsor of our long-form show ‘What’s Your Source?’ (thanks again, Tyler!).

Anyway, panels, and public speaking events in general are always a fun puzzle. The audience could be made up of people who know your work entirely. But more often, they have no idea who you are, what you’ve done and why you’ve earned this spot on stage. I like that challenge, however. And I’m looking forward to explaining to yet another confused audience how I went from making TikToks at an old newspaper to co-founding a company called Local News International.

While last week started off bad for Senator Collins, ironically those very bad polls had at least one bright spot… her race in Maine. Those polls will not yet reflect public sentiment towards that report from ProPublica, but it’s interesting that she still has a solid chance to win.

Here’s what happened:

Facing another tight election in 2020, a Collins Super PAC was allegedly looking for more cash, you know, to inundate the people of Maine with even more advertising. So they went to Hawaii! Like the Brady Bunch! Sort of. They went to a defense contracting company based in Hawaii called Navatek. A Collins fundraiser met with three Navatek executives at a Corner Bakery cafe in D.C.

In exchange for a just $150,000, Collins allegedly agreed to help Navatek score $32 million in government contracts. But, like the Brady Bunch in Hawaii, this exchange was cursed. After pleading guilty in 2022, CEO Martin Kao started talking to the FBI about illegal campaign contributions, he sang like a canary. It turns out that Senator Collins is part of a much larger political machine that ensnares other big names in D.C. Still, in the end, Collins was only named and not charged.

It’s easy to feel pretty bummed out by this. Because, regardless of your political affiliation, you should be super concerned that a politician is accepting bribes of this magnitude. It often feels like, in this multiverse version of Earth, there are no rules! Corruption reigns!

Yet, like the fictional Mr. Smith in Washington confronting corruption, I found this whole story to be a good sign of what’s working. Here’s a newsroom uncovering a massive scandal that Trump’s FBI has dropped. Just like Mr. Smith filibustering on the Senate floor, a glimmer of the truth emerged out of nowhere. Despite a vast, powerful, corrupt political system, desperate to quash leaks, we still learned the truth. The American dream isn’t achieved through cruise control, it’s earned through continuous work by Americans who give a damn.

On top of all that, in the same week, the president of the United States was forced to rescind his illegal press ban of three news outlets. Does it suck that it happened in the first place? Of course! But the law won in the end, the free press wrote about it, and I can’t help but feel a little bit of that Mr. Smith optimism, and dare I say, patriotism.

Here’s one of our short videos from Friday that is also an excerpt from our latest ‘What’s Your Source?’ episode. This one was co-written and edited by Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer, who is quickly becoming one of the most important cogs in the Local News International machine.

If you liked this, you’ll love the full episode of /wys. Make sure to subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts! Like Spotify! And Apple Podcasts!