Rep. Katie Porter probing possible bribery scheme involving Trump administration officials

Rep. Katie Porter says the House Natural Resources Committee is looking into a potential bribery scheme involving Trump administration officials that resulted in pardons for two ranchers convicted of setting fires on public lands.

Porter and Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., said they uncovered a possible “incident of bribery” involving Mike Ingram, an Arizona developer.

They recently requested documents from the U.S. Department of the Interior that may shed a light on whether he coordinated with administration officials to secure pardons of ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, a father and son duo convicted in 2012 of purposefully setting fires on public lands.

Ingram was the subject of the first criminal referral by the House Committee on Natural Resources, which Grijalva leads, earlier this year. That case involved his proposed real estate development in Arizona and an alleged bribery scheme to get federal approval.

Porter and Grijalva now allege Ingram may have made an out-of-cycle campaign donation to a PAC supportive of former President Donald Trump as a result of his pardoning of the Hammonds.

In May 2018, they said, Ingram’s executive assistant sent an email to a senior deputy director at DOI containing articles, including an op-ed in support of pardons for the duo, about the Hammonds’ case.

A few weeks later, then-Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who supported pardoning the Hammonds, said in a tweet that he spoke to Trump who said he was “seriously considering” a pardon.

The next day, on July 2, according to a letter sent to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Ingram made a $10,000 donation to the pro-Trump America First Action PAC.

Trump pardoned the Hammonds on July 10, 2018.

“In this case, political influence through financial donations appear to have been used to rewrite the rules of law to favor one person,” Porter, who represents the 47th congressional district, said in an interview. “Regardless of your political preference … this pattern of conduct is an attack on our foundational principles of democracy.”

Lanny J. Davis, an attorney for Ingram, told the Register that his client does not know the Hammonds.

“I know Mike Ingram personally and as the head of a company I have represented — and I have no doubts about his integrity and honesty,” said Davis, who served as special counsel to then-President Bill Clinton.

“This allegation of a connection between Mr. Ingram’s support for a pardon, which was supported by others in the Oregon ranching community, and any political donation Mr. Ingram made is baseless — another example of innuendo accusations of a crime unsupported by facts,” Davis continued.

A spokesperson for the DOI declined to comment.

Lawmakers requested documents and communications from the DOI involving the Hammonds, Ingram, American First Action and more.

Porter said the committee will continue to follow up with the DOI, adding she hopes the upcoming new congressional leadership will allow them to continue the probe.

And while she said their findings so far showed a “disturbing parallel with the prior criminal referral” they made to the Department of Justice, lawmakers are not yet at that point with this case.

Porter is also the chair of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.