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Earlier this month, our media outlet reported on some shady financial activity involving the husband of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley – one of the 2024 “Republican” candidates for the American presidency.
Our report was basically a follow-up on material exclusively reported by William Bredderman of The Daily Beast – material which should have sparked a scandal but which instead was greeted by the mainstream media with a resounding yawn.
According to Bredderman, an estimated $500,000 of Michael Haley‘s net worth is tied to “an apparent shell entity tied to a government contractor seeking tax credits from her successor’s administration.”
The entity – Allied Defense LLC – was incorporated on January 22, 2021 in South Carolina. It has used multiple Lowcountry addresses for its business location in the past – including the address of a Kiawah Island mansion purchased by the Haleys in 2019 for $2.4 million.
According to small business filings uncovered by Bredderman, the firm is involved in the “design and manufacturing of military vehicles,” and has specifically been “registered to export vehicles to Taiwan.”
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The more we dug on this story, the worse it sat with us … especially considering the Haleys’ history of such underhanded self-dealing. Last summer, senior editor Mark Maremont of The Wall Street Journal filed a report detailing how Michael Haley was gifted secret ownership shares in a company tied to the Two Kings Casino Resort in Kings Mountain, N.C.
“The stakes held by the politically connected people were masked from public view through several layers of corporations and limited-liability companies,” Maremont noted.
They hid the shares, in other words … which I referred to as definitional “pay-to-play.”
The real scandal, though, lies in the fact Haley – the most unbridled warmonger in the 2024 presidential field – has been overtly saber-rattling in support of the precise foreign entanglement which would enrich her husband (and her) to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
“Don’t wait for something to happen in Taiwan,” she told an audience in New Hampshire earlier this summer. “Do it now. Make sure our allies are working with them to make sure they have the equipment now, to make sure they have the ammunition now.”
The equipment? Like those military vehicles?
Last week, Haley’s financial ties to the military-industrial complex she breathlessly extols was detailed in another excellent piece of investigative journalism from Lee Fang. Fang’s piece explored “the curious background of Haley, who went from near negligible wealth – with virtually no assets or investments other than a bank account with less than $15,000 in 2017 and up to $1 million in debt – to a sizable fortune.”
According to Fang, Haley’s warmongering has helped her (and her husband) amass a net worth of more than $12 million.
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“Haley became wealthy in large part from her ties to a network of defense interests and hawkish advocacy organizations tied to U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials,” Fang wrote. “Haley’s primary income, aside from speaking engagements, is from United Against a Nuclear Iran, an advocacy group shrouded in secrecy.”
Haley has also been paid handsomely to consult for Prism Global Management, a company with ties to the hardcore neocon America’s Frontier Fund as well as In-Q-Tel, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s venture capital nonprofit.
This is the literal belly of the beast, people … and Haley’s presence therein is yet another reminder that she remains squarely in the pockets of those seeking to profit from the reckless application of American military muscle abroad.
“(Haley) valorizes U.S. military intervention abroad with the rhetoric of humanitarian causes,” Fang wrote, noting understatedly that “such justifications for U.S. foreign policy are rarely applied in a consistent way.”
The grim reality? Neocon politicians like Haley (and Lindsey Graham and the late John McCain) have a costly lust for spending other people’s blood and treasure to pad the pockets of their wealthy military donors.
And in Haley’s case, to pad her own pockets …
Never mind what World Wars we might start … or how many trillions of dollars we don’t have might get flushed down the toilet.
Given my personal history with Haley, I’ve done my best not to unfairly criticize her since she announced her candidacy for the American presidency. In fact, I praised her earlier in the campaign (and more recently) for staking out some important ideological ground on the issue of entitlement spending. Also, where she has shown promise in the polls, I’ve reported on that – and will continue to do so.
But the truth remains: This is a dangerous politician. One whose policies would endanger this country. The fact she has a clear self-interest in advancing them? That’s frankly something Haley needs to be called to account for.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.
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12 comments
Didn’t the owner of this blog make a big deal about the affair he had with Nikki Haley while her husband was serving in Afghanistan?
What happened with that and why would anyone listen to this blogger’s thoughts on Nikki now?
you did
1. Folks is NOT a “blogger.”
2. Folks didn’t make a “big deal” about his Nikki Haley interaction until she felt scorned when he met someone else.
3. Haley is LBJ 2.0 with her war-mongering. Kennedy wanted out of Viet Nam. Rat-Lyndon wanted to make money. And the rest is history.
1. FITS once won a “best state political blog” from WaPo. FITS is absolutely a blog.
2. lol… Is that you Will?
3. The only anti-war Republicans at the debate are the ones that want us to let Russia stomp all over Ukraine.
Thank you for exposing yet one more Haley wart! She is mute testimony as to why women are terrible political candidates. The men are hortible, but women take love of themselves and love of money to additional levels.
Who hurt you, incel?
Why nobody, simp!
He ain’t totally wrong.
It’s sad to see the Republican Party and its media allies reduced to simple trolls.
A large group who just exist to annoy and attempt to provoke others, while offering no solutions or helpful ideas to whatever they are trolling about.
This more often than not leads to a large amount of self-owning on the Republican’s part, and yet they carry on. Sad to see.
Thanks for this information, FITS. Perhaps I’m a bit jaded, but we live in an age of career politicians that intermittently have do something to fill their time and pay their bills between elected offices. Rather than go back out into the world to work a real job, they cool their heels at a think tank, act as an advocate for a nonprofit, go on the speaking circuit, sit on company board, write a book with a huge retainer fee paid upfront, or if they are a Democrat, get a cushy teaching job at an Ivy League school where they teach 3 days a month and otherwise, write, schmooze and grift. For Republicans and neocons who almost never get the latter cushy “Big Ed” option, there is the vast and rich military industrial complex. They all then advocate for the causes of their sponsors. In that sense, Nikki is completely unremarkable, par for the course, a peer with many equals – but we appreciate the Fourth Estate actually doing its job and letting us know which of those interest circles the particular politician before us is aligned with.
She is a warmanger, and is getting paid for now, wish she would go over there and fight if she believes in meddling and warmongering so much
If you think for one minute that Nikki Haley doesn’t make millions off of war, then I have some swamp land to sell you!! Open your minds and eyes and stop being deceived!! Honestly all you have to do is a little research!! Geez!! Don’t be so dang gullible !!