Free read, June 2-6: Inside Lansing's secret money, UofM tracking Palestine organizers
Here's what you missed in an explosive week of news
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Hey, subscriber gang!
Summer’s coming and I can’t wait to see all of you around Midtown, New Center and the North End — where I spend most of my time these days.
Whether it’s Friday at Babo with bartender extraordinaire Hana Berishaj, Dirty Shake for a burger with Tommy Sanchez or Dessert Oasis with all of you; I’m excited for everyone to come out of hibernation.
It was quite the week in national “news” — or whatever you want to call the immature social media exchanges between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump.
Musk accused Trump, without evidence, of being a pedophile.
Local news stories published late Thursday evening and Friday morning fared more substantive.
On Thursday, Craig Mauger published records that show how politicians and their donors utilize 501c4’s to raise money. Court records revealed wealthy business executives and large companies secretly funneled money to a fundraising account for Republican state lawmakers during the pandemic. One communication from a Republican leader to potential donors assured them “no one will know.”
And on Friday morning, Tom Perkins obtained videos of a private investigator hired to track Palestine organizers pretending to be disabled and falsely accusing a student of trying to rob him.
“The back to back news bombs from @PomTerkins and @CraigDMauger this morning further shows how powerful people in this state quietly spend ridiculous sums of money to enact their will,” Malachi Barrett said on social media Friday.
Here’s what reporters across Michigan are talking about:
Court records reveal how big money donors operate in secret
Twenty-eight donors including members of the DeVos family, a major hospital system and DTE Energy gave a combined $1.2 million to a group connected to the GOP effort to limit Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's emergency powers during the pandemic.
New reporting from Detroit News’ Craig Mauger shows what requests from lawmakers to secret donors actually look like.
Michigan Senate Republican fundraiser Heather Lombardini, a political consultant who worked with Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, sent an email to a potential donor on June, 2020, asking for $25,000, court records obtained by the News show.
Lombardi said in the message, “no one will know that you contributed.”
Michigan lawmakers allow themselves to collect millions of dollars in contributions through nonprofits that aren't required to make public the donors, nor how they spend the cash. Information about how lawmakers interact with secret donors are rarely made public.
Read more from the Detroit News: 'No one will know': Records reveal secret money flowing through Lansing
UofM private investigators track on-campus Palestinian groups
University of Michigan spent at least $800,000 on a private security firm to track students engaged in political activity across campus, according to a report from Tom Perkins.
Students tell Perkins they have frequently identified undercover investigators and confronted them. In two interactions captured by one student on video, a man who had been trailing the student pretended to be disabled, and in another, falsely accused a student of attempting to rob him.
The undercover investigators appear to work for Detroit-based City Shield, a private security group, Perkins reports.
Public spending records from the university board of regents, the school’s governing body, show the university paid at least $800,000 between June 2023 and September 2024 to City Shield’s parent company, Ameri-Shield.
Katarina Keating, a member of a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine said being surveilled has caused her to look over her shoulder since November, when she was first followed.
“But on another level it sometimes feels comedic because it’s so insane that they have spent millions of dollars to hire some goons to follow campus activists around,” Keating said. “It’s just such a waste of money and time.”
Read the full story: University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters
New York Times drops new “36 Hours in Detroit” list
On Thursday, the New York Times published its latest Detroit tour guide, curated by Amy Eckert, a travel journalist based in Michigan.
Detroit Institute of Arts, The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Spirit Plaza, the Detroit RiverWalk and The Belt made the list of key attractions.
The list excludes any neighborhood stops like new developments on Kercheval or 7 Mile and Livernois’ Avenue of Fashion. However, it is a useful guide for navigating downtown for those without any need to be frugal.
Baseball’s best teams meet in Detroit
The Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs have the two best records in baseball.
Expect plenty of Cubs fans to make their way up I-94 to watch their team take on baseball’s biggest surprise this season in the three-game weekend series. First pitch on Friday is 7:10pm.
While Detroit ended its 10 year playoff drought last season, the Cubs haven’t been to the postseason since 2020.
Both teams have players who have spent time on both organizations, like Zach McKinstry, who played 47 games with the Cubs in 2022 before being traded to Detroit. Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd spent parts of eight seasons with the Tigers from 2015-21 and 2023.
Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris has ties to the Cubs as well. He served as Chicago's director of baseball operations from 2012-17 before being promoted to assistant general manager in 2018.
And slugger Javier Báez spent his first eight seasons in Chicago before signing with the Tigers in a seven year deal. Báez is having a decent season after struggling mightily in recent seasons.
The current MLB standings:
Detroit Tigers: 41-23
Chicago Cubs: 39-23
New York Yankees: 38-23
New York Mets: 39-24
Los Angeles Dodgers: 38-25