An ongoing investigation into Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appointee Fay Beydoun’s shady $20 million state grant marks at least the second Democratic official accused of corruption in as many years.

A 2022 state investigation into Michigan Democratic Party Treasurer Traci Kornak’s alleged insurance fraud was closed after Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel intervened in the case. Kornak, who served on Nessel’s transition team when she was elected attorney general in 2018, never faced criminal charges, and actions so far in Beydoun’s case suggest it could be déjà vu all over again.

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“I’m just so disappointed,” Joe LeBlanc, a nursing home supervisor who blew the whistle on Kornak’s alleged corruption, told The Detroit News about evidence Nessel breached an internal firewall to help her friend. “Nessel talks the game of protecting our most vulnerable. We’re talking about our parents and grandparents here. To find out she is really more interested in protecting her friends and special interests is beyond devastating.”

Nessel recently announced her office launched an investigation into Beydoun, which the News revealed came only after a referral from the FBI.

In early April, the News exposed Beydoun’s spending for the first tranche of a $20 million grant awarded by the Legislature in 2022 to start Global Link International, a nonprofit business accelerator.

“Beydoun spent about $800,000 through December of the first $10 million,” according to the news site. “Among her expenses were a $4,500 coffeemaker, an $11,000 first-class plane ticket to Budapest, more than $40,000 in furniture and $408,000 in salary costs for two people over a three-month period.”

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Whitmer appointed Beydoun to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s executive committee in 2019 and Beydoun served in that role until April 5. Beydoun, a Democratic donor and former vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, has defended the spending and alleged she’s secured millions in commitments for a business retention and attraction fund, according to the News.

The revelation prompted questions from Republicans who demanded answers from the MEDC that have so far gone unanswered. Kornak’s case suggests it’s possible those answers may never come.

Kornak was accused in 2022 of intimidating employees at a Michigan nursing home to help her allegedly commit insurance fraud using her brain-damaged client’s account. LeBlanc, former chief executive of The Village of Heather Hills, alleged Kornak used her connections to create a new employee paper trail at the nursing home to claim $50,000 in care from her client’s insurance company, State Farm, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff told Fox News at the time.

“Kornack concocted some invoices, she took the nursing home’s tax ID, she told the insurance company her daughter was hired by the nursing home, and they used time sheets from another healthcare provider, put it all together and about $50,000 was built,” LeDuff said.

When the check came into the nursing home, LaBlanc confronted Kornak, who offered 10% to cash it, LeDuff alleged.

LeDuff detailed how Nessel intervened in the case despite an internal firewall created over her conflict of interest with Kornak to secure four reports regarding the investigation. Communications between Nessel and her solicitor general Fadwa Hammoud exposed by LeDuff in an Oct. 2023 column revealed the attorney general intervened because the case was “apparently holding up a potential judicial appointment for (Kornak) in Kent County.”

Weeks later, Kornak’s case was closed and LaBlanc, whom AG investigators never spoke to, was out of a job.