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You had to scroll all the way down this morning’s New York Times web page to find it, but the story reported, “Hawaii Lt. Gov. Is Indicted in Corruption Investigation.” The short article is almost mind-numbingly boring, packed with passive-tense, soft verbs, and a distinct absence of outrage. Maybe the reserved tone was because the indictments were more Democrats, including the highest-ranking Democrat official under indictment yet.
The Times may have downplayed it and gone light on details, but the real story emerges when you actually dig into the local Hawaii sources, and it is a doozy. It’s a tale of cash in envelopes, secret dinners at Morton’s Steakhouse, and —unsurprisingly— lucrative covid testing contracts. Pandemic connection— check.
On Friday, an Oahu grand jury indicted Hawaii’s sitting Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke (D) on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, and falsifying candidate committee reports. To put this in perspective: the Lieutenant Governor is one step below a sitting U.S. Governor. Luke has long been considered the “Governor in waiting,” widely expected to take over that job next.
You’d never know it from the dull “local interest” story’s framing, but this is one of the Trump 2.0 DOJ’s highest state-level prosecutions yet.
Also —though you’d never know it from the headline— Luke didn’t go down alone. The grand jury indicted four more individuals, all top Hawaii Democrats or party insiders. Including: Ryan Yamane, the former director of the Department of Human Services under current Democrat Governor Josh Green; Ford Fuchigami, the state’s Airport Administrator; Leo Asunción, former chair of the Public Utilities Commission and Luke’s campaign treasurer; and Tobi Solidum, a businessman and lobbyist who suddenly departed for an extended Philippines holiday on conveniently short notice. (Portlanders: that means he fled.)
Back in January 2022, when Luke was the powerful chair of the House Finance Committee, she attended a swanky private dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse in Honolulu. Also at the table were Tobi Solidum and state Rep. Ty Cullen. What they didn’t know was that Cullen had already been busted for bribery, flipped, and was wearing an FBI wire.
The gist of the dinner’s tabletop conversation was that Mr. Solidum needed the state health department and the legislature to approve emergency funding for his client company’s lucrative, no-bid covid testing contracts. He assured Lt. Gov. Luke, “By next week we’ll have 35 — so it will be halfway to our 70.” That’s $35,000 down, $70,000 total— for public health.
The U.S. Attorney described the initial payment as being delivered “in a paper bag.” Hawaii’s DHS Director Ryan Yamane, meanwhile, was allegedly stuffing cash in envelopes and texting Solidum using brilliant spy codes like, “have 1500 and wanted to pick up another 1k here. Mel will leave cash in Manila for you.” Masterminds at work.
The buried lede that the New York Times completely ignored is that this wasn’t just about a $35,000 paper bag. The real money was in the covid contracts. Solidum’s consulting business was paid more than $7 million just for “consulting” on overpriced covid testing contracts, plus another $1 million ‘dividend,’ to make a round $8 mil. Mr. Solidum, who remains at large in the Philippines, recently transferred his real estate, and moved all his bank accounts offshore.
Only $70,000 in cash political donations traded for $8 million in covid consulting fees for Solidum and a $30.5 million test contract for his client. Not bad for a week’s work! But wait. It gets better.
The National Kidney Foundation of Hawaii —Tobi Solidum’s NGO client— charged taxpayers wildly above-market prices for covid tests (up to $166 per test, when the national average was $62), with zero competitive bidding because pandemic emergency rules suspended normal procurement policies.
Even more laughably, at the time Solidum’s client got its lucrative contract, the State of Hawaii was sitting on $22.5 million in covid tests it bought in 2020 for $30 each. It never used any of them. Later, it paid a contractor $63,000 to destroy them all. One Hawaiian doctor noted, “If anyone else in the state had wasted $22 million, heads would roll. This is unconscionable.”
The pandemic emergency created a $54 million federal funding stream, and Hawaii’s uniparty Democrat machine built a not-very-subtle private extraction operation around it. The $70,000 was just the grease for the gears.
Right before she was indicted, Lt. Gov. Luke released a statement strenuously claiming she had “never granted special favors to a contributor” and had “prized integrity and honesty above all.” Irony alert!
Lt. Gov. Luke surrendered to law enforcement early last evening and promptly posted $80,000 bail.
Governor Josh Green issued a wishy-washy statement: “The Lieutenant Governor needs to consider formally resigning.” She’s not considering it. In another ironic wrinkle, Green’s own DHS Director, Ryan Yamane, was among the indicted. He stepped down in May when subpoenas began flying.
Local affiliate KHON2’s political analyst, John Hart, explained why the Governor can’t fire the Lt. Gov. Hart said, “In the Hawaii system, they didn’t get elected together. They were on a ticket, but they ran separately. So constitutionally, he can’t tell her to resign.”
Hart added, “I think her political career is probably at an end at this point, regardless of whether she’s convicted or not.”
The Times may have downplayed it and gone light on details, but the real story emerges when you actually dig into the local Hawaii sources, and it is a doozy. It’s a tale of cash in envelopes, secret dinners at Morton’s Steakhouse, and —unsurprisingly— lucrative covid testing contracts. Pandemic connection— check.
On Friday, an Oahu grand jury indicted Hawaii’s sitting Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke (D) on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, and falsifying candidate committee reports. To put this in perspective: the Lieutenant Governor is one step below a sitting U.S. Governor. Luke has long been considered the “Governor in waiting,” widely expected to take over that job next.
You’d never know it from the dull “local interest” story’s framing, but this is one of the Trump 2.0 DOJ’s highest state-level prosecutions yet.
Also —though you’d never know it from the headline— Luke didn’t go down alone. The grand jury indicted four more individuals, all top Hawaii Democrats or party insiders. Including: Ryan Yamane, the former director of the Department of Human Services under current Democrat Governor Josh Green; Ford Fuchigami, the state’s Airport Administrator; Leo Asunción, former chair of the Public Utilities Commission and Luke’s campaign treasurer; and Tobi Solidum, a businessman and lobbyist who suddenly departed for an extended Philippines holiday on conveniently short notice. (Portlanders: that means he fled.)
Back in January 2022, when Luke was the powerful chair of the House Finance Committee, she attended a swanky private dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse in Honolulu. Also at the table were Tobi Solidum and state Rep. Ty Cullen. What they didn’t know was that Cullen had already been busted for bribery, flipped, and was wearing an FBI wire.
The gist of the dinner’s tabletop conversation was that Mr. Solidum needed the state health department and the legislature to approve emergency funding for his client company’s lucrative, no-bid covid testing contracts. He assured Lt. Gov. Luke, “By next week we’ll have 35 — so it will be halfway to our 70.” That’s $35,000 down, $70,000 total— for public health.
The U.S. Attorney described the initial payment as being delivered “in a paper bag.” Hawaii’s DHS Director Ryan Yamane, meanwhile, was allegedly stuffing cash in envelopes and texting Solidum using brilliant spy codes like, “have 1500 and wanted to pick up another 1k here. Mel will leave cash in Manila for you.” Masterminds at work.
The buried lede that the New York Times completely ignored is that this wasn’t just about a $35,000 paper bag. The real money was in the covid contracts. Solidum’s consulting business was paid more than $7 million just for “consulting” on overpriced covid testing contracts, plus another $1 million ‘dividend,’ to make a round $8 mil. Mr. Solidum, who remains at large in the Philippines, recently transferred his real estate, and moved all his bank accounts offshore.
Only $70,000 in cash political donations traded for $8 million in covid consulting fees for Solidum and a $30.5 million test contract for his client. Not bad for a week’s work! But wait. It gets better.
The National Kidney Foundation of Hawaii —Tobi Solidum’s NGO client— charged taxpayers wildly above-market prices for covid tests (up to $166 per test, when the national average was $62), with zero competitive bidding because pandemic emergency rules suspended normal procurement policies.
Even more laughably, at the time Solidum’s client got its lucrative contract, the State of Hawaii was sitting on $22.5 million in covid tests it bought in 2020 for $30 each. It never used any of them. Later, it paid a contractor $63,000 to destroy them all. One Hawaiian doctor noted, “If anyone else in the state had wasted $22 million, heads would roll. This is unconscionable.”
The pandemic emergency created a $54 million federal funding stream, and Hawaii’s uniparty Democrat machine built a not-very-subtle private extraction operation around it. The $70,000 was just the grease for the gears.
Right before she was indicted, Lt. Gov. Luke released a statement strenuously claiming she had “never granted special favors to a contributor” and had “prized integrity and honesty above all.” Irony alert!
Lt. Gov. Luke surrendered to law enforcement early last evening and promptly posted $80,000 bail.
Governor Josh Green issued a wishy-washy statement: “The Lieutenant Governor needs to consider formally resigning.” She’s not considering it. In another ironic wrinkle, Green’s own DHS Director, Ryan Yamane, was among the indicted. He stepped down in May when subpoenas began flying.
Local affiliate KHON2’s political analyst, John Hart, explained why the Governor can’t fire the Lt. Gov. Hart said, “In the Hawaii system, they didn’t get elected together. They were on a ticket, but they ran separately. So constitutionally, he can’t tell her to resign.”
Hart added, “I think her political career is probably at an end at this point, regardless of whether she’s convicted or not.”
☕️ SPRINGTIME IN THE GRAND JURY☙ Saturday, July 25, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
A paper bag in Honolulu, $38 million in covid contracts, and the buried reason state-level indictments suddenly started. Plus: The Science™ gets cranky about customs forms. And even more.