Trump’s camp is now toying with the idea of coaxing Nikki Hailey to be his VP - Reuters
Nikki Haley for President? No, Thanks!
By Mohajer Ansari
CA
Is it any coincidence that every four years, Iowans religiously boost a wrong GOP candidate, who then goes on to ruin the country? So, the news of the same Iowans endorsing Nikki Haley ( Nimarata Nikki Randhawa) - polling a distant third - as ’transformational president Iron Lady’ for 2024, isn’t surprising. But voters shouldn’t be blindsided by the rise of former UN ambassador and ex-South Carolina governor for the Republican nomination, by just looking at her debating prowess, grassroots campaigning, and fundraising.
Yes, she is leading in the opinion polls. She has either caught up with or surpassed her other rivals – barring Trump. She has accumulated vital endorsements and financial contributions from otherwise big Trump donors, thanks to the disdain of some GOP voters for the front-runner former president. This feeds to the speculation that she may become Trump’s main and only rival. But her steady rise in the polls and financial windfall should not veil the fact that she too is as controversial and as dangerous to the American democracy as her former boss, who she believes in his 80s shouldn’t go to jail for any of his crimes!
But before she becomes a more apparent choice for the anti-Trump Republicans, independents, and even disenchanted-with-Biden Democrats, voters must realize that her combative and non-compromising attitude - both on the local and international stage - is as bad as Trump’s.
Her UN ambassadorship tenure for two years during Trump’s reign was disastrous, where she’d best be remembered as a sullen bully. She carried out Trump’s misguided directives, often using scare tactics to coerce vulnerable countries from world’s marginalized regions badly dependent on American assistance, to get what she wanted. She notably displayed unveiled hatred for Palestinian cause, vetoing fiercely every resolution against Israel’s atrocious overtures with a hawkish attitude. Her staunch and consistent pro-Zionist stand in the UN assembly, made many people wonder if she in fact was of Israeli parentage instead of Indian! As a US president, she will undoubtedly be a stauncher Zionist than the avowed Biden, going head over her 6-inch heels to do Israel’s bidding at home and outside. Her stump speeches against immigrants from Muslim countries are also testimony of her utter disdain for Muslims, just like those of Trump, DeSantis and Christie.
Beyond politics, her flip-flopping social beliefs are also opportunistic. Her farcical posturing as a voice of moderation and conciliation on reproductive rights for women is just a vote-getting ruse. She recently praised a 6-week abortion ban - a restrictive measure championed by her opponent DeSantis. Make no mistake: she wouldn’t hesitate to make it a nationwide mandate if she’s elected.
She has a big problem with women electorate too. Traditional Republican women are still in the Trump camp, no matter what. They are unfazed by his moral abyss or spiraling legal woes. USA TODAY and Suffolk University poll in October had found that about 10% of all Republican men support Haley, compared to 6% of Republican women. An early December Emerson College poll found that over 70% of Haley’s supporters are men, compared to only 27% women. Apparently, quoting Britain’s Iron Lady to woo women voters isn’t working for her. Democrat and independent female voters haven’t taken to her not-so-lady-like brusque and hubristic demeanors either.
In a recent town hall appearance in Berlin, NH, she was ambushed on the question of what caused the Civil War. Her answer tiptoed around the role of government, capitalism and individual freedom of what people could and couldn’t do. The questioner, whom Haley swatted away as a Democratic plant, challenged her response: in the year 2023, it is astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery. Realizing that she was flubbed, she tried to trap him by throwing the question back to him, to which he replied that he was not running for the president, she was, and would like to know her answer! She should have known better. The Civil War (1861-65) between the northern and southern states came after decades of growing animosity over the issue of slavery. The very first shots of the Civil War were fired in South Carlina – the first state to secede. Somewhere, Civil War is taught as the “war of Northern aggression”.
Not mentioning slavery as the main cause of the Civil War wasn’t a graceful gaffe. Hours later, she tried to blunt the damage, but as evident from roasting on X, the reckoning from her opponents in both camps was quite swift and brutal. During her 2010 run for SC governorship, she had described the Civil War as between two sides fighting disparately for tradition and change, and the Confederate flag was not racist. During the same campaign and up until July 2015, she had dismissed the need for the flag to come down from the Statehouse grounds. Only after Dylann Roof - a Neo-Nazi white supremacist - killed nine African Americans at Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on June 17, 2015, she walked back on that stand and ordered flag removal from the state Capitol!
Another alarming red flag is her intent to undermine Social Security and proposal to raise the retirement eligibility age. This would severely hurt about 55-60 million elderly people. If the soon-to-be-senior population is factored in, the numbers go up even more, hurting the middle- and low-income wage earners significantly.
Then there are not-so-transparent business assets of her husband (Michael Hailey) with huge, mysterious, and dubiously inexplicable financial windfalls – at least on paper. And this is a biggie!
When she first submitted personal financial forms in May with the Federal Election Commission as part of her presidential bid, she declared a company called Allied Defense LLC, among her husband’s “Employment, Assets, and Retirement Accounts”. This entity was identified as a “start-up business, value not readily ascertainable” that had compensated Michael Hailey, the former first gentleman of South Carolina - an amount of $201 - less than the minimum reportable value.
Strange enough, in a July update of her filing, her spouse’s start-up was reappraised, making its new worth to be between a quarter-million and a half-million dollars. The jump was substantiated under a “military technical services” descriptor! The Daily Beast investigation found that the latest financial disclosures reveal that her husband’s revised net worth came from a mysterious “military technical services company” - an apparent shell entity tied to a government contractor seeking tax credits from Hailey successor’s administration in South Carolina.
Though the financial form does not provide further details about Allied Defense LLC, public filings do. Only three companies nationwide bear that name. One is an active shooter training outfit in Michigan. Another is a small but long-standing Defense Department contractor now operating out of Florida, but previously based in Maryland and Virginia. When approached, Haley campaign spokesperson confirmed that Michael Hailey’s Allied Defense is a firm incorporated in SC on Jan 22, 2021 - two days after the end of Trump Administration.
In its filings with the state, Allied Defense LLC has used three addresses in coastal Charleston County (home to one of the state’s military air bases), SC, and the $2.4 million mansion the Haleys acquired in 2019. Small Business Administration records show that the firm engages in the “design and manufacturing of military vehicles” among other services and has registered to export vehicles to Taiwan. But according to Charleston County authorities, Allied Defense does not have a license to conduct business there, and that the company pays no real estate or personal property taxes for any assets within the county. These two facts put together mean that Allied Defense cannot legally have economic activity at the locations it purports to operate from.
A Haley campaign spokesperson maintained that Allied Defense had registered to conduct business in the county, contradicting the local department of revenue. The campaign did not provide a date on which it had done so. The spokesperson asserted that there was no income for Allied Defense in prior years because it was a startup. This would not, however, explain why the company failed to pay personal property taxes, which apply to any equipment and even furniture that a business owns within county limits.
But a legitimate firm called Defense Engineering Services (DES) does pre-exist. It has assets and a license to do business at the very same addresses that Allied Defense gave to Charleston County! DES also has some $1.8 million in military contracts and pays taxes at these facilities.
In the time between Haley’s disclosure in May and update in July, DES completed a significant expansion at a new location in Charleston County. Coincidentally, just four days before DES announced it was “up and running” in the 53,000-square-foot space in June, Allied Defense changed its address in a filing with the state to this exact location, having been previously registered at a different DES facility. The signatory on the June filing was DES co-founder, Robert Cole. Greg Gordon is listed as DES’s other principal and Donald Cinnamond its point of contact in the Defense Logistics Agency’s Commercial and Government Entity Program - a registry of firms eligible to do business with the US military.
Strangely, Major Michael Haley’s name does not appear in any official paperwork associated with Allied Defense, but according to a Haley campaign spokesperson, two owners of DES have a stake in Allied Defense. Yet, the Haley team denied that Michael Haley had anything to do with the parent firm, saying, Michael is not involved in DES. Michael has no knowledge of anything related to Defense Engineering. He is not part of that business.
The fact that Allied Defense has no government contracts viewable in any public database further adds to the mystery as to what this business of Nikki Haley’s spouse purports to, and how they explain the sudden windfall of a quarter- to half-million dollars into a fictitious shell company. By contrast, DES received its first 6-figure R&D grant in 2020 and nearly $2 million contract to work on advanced circuit breaker technology in late 2022. The company has sought other government benefits too. Apparently, there is no connection between DES and Maj. Michael Haley, yet it raises serious concerns that his partners at Allied Defense could attempt to capitalize on his political ties. As one government official said: There are questions about this murky situation that need answers. When a company with government business has an arrangement with a politically connected person, it can easily look like the company’s aim is to peddle influence.
It is no surprise that Nikki Haley’s unbridled warmongering and overt saber-rattling in support of foreign entanglement through a shadowy Allied Defense firm, would surely enrich her husband and her to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Though there is no evidence of any rule breaking yet, it would still suggest that Haleys could benefit financially from state and federal policy, including from the export of military equipment to Taiwan. Then how different is this family from Trump’s?
These discoveries by Daily Beast’s investigative team should give anyone - everyone - a serious pause to think if Nikki Hailey’ heart is really at serving the country in all her sincerity! She would need a thorough house cleaning soon before the national faux pas and media buries her campaign.
On the brighter side, these red herrings may not matter much since despite everything going against him, Trump seemingly has an impenetrable hold on the GOP nomination. His camp is now toying with the idea of coaxing Nikki Hailey to be his VP. She has haughtily refused to be a Number 2 to anyone. This may bode well for the country, as it doesn’t need an evil duo at the helm of its destiny!
