(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Investigating Mike Johnson’s Finances [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-11-13

There have been a lot of questions about the new House Speaker’s finances, since reporting that he doesn’t appear to have reported any assets in his House filings.



Johnson’s recent launch from obscure congressional backbencher to one of the most powerful people in the country has come with a wave of scrutiny. Reporters are combing through his past and finding weird stuff — his curious arrangement with his son to monitor each others’ digital devices for porn, for instance. One less salacious but perhaps more consequential discovery involves his finances. In his most recent annual financial disclosures, released last year, Johnson (R-La.) reports no assets at all . Zero.



The diary I published on Friday based on Catherine Rampells op-Ed suggested a simple answer- he was depositing his money into a non-interest bearing account, which he isn’t required to report. But the diary generated a lot of interesting discussion and in particular I’d like to highlight this comment by PissedGrunty:

Forego interest to hide your money? Seems like a small price to pay. Would also be very easy to only use that account for the direct deposit, then move it elsewhere. And I highly doubt that’s his only asset.

I told him I’d look around for shell companies in his name and I did. You’ll probably be disappointed by my results — none— but I’ll explain my methodology and maybe someone else can take the ball and run with it.

…

In my previous job I did real estate research. Part of my job was finding owner contact information for commercial buildings. This is valuable information to would-be buyers, vendors, city assessors, or real estate agents. It’s easier to find than you’d think.



In my experience most commercial real estate buyers would purchase their building under an LLC. I don’t know all the ins and outs of why, I assume it’s for tax or liability reasons. But it also offers a small degree of anonymity, because in most states deeds go into public record. But you know what else goes into public record? LLC names and the names of parties that manage them.



Now some people get clever. They register the LLC under a different LLC and list a PO Box as an address. They get some third party to “manage” the shell company. This sort of thing made my job a lot harder. But this was rare- most people didn’t know how to do this, or they didn’t care. We’ll get back to why I’m noting this later.

So anyway, here’s my tips for finding out who owns what.

Starting point is your states business registry. I’ve never seen a state that didn’t have one and they’re all pretty similar. Louisiana’s is here. We’re going to search business entities.

I’d start by plugging in his name, which is actually James Michael Johnson, possibly the most generic name in America. And by the results, you’ll see we have a problem- we don’t know which one is him.

Here’s how I would narrow the search. We can find in news stories where he’s from, but there’s a better way.



*** I have to stop right here and explain why I’m being vague. I don’t know the legality or the site guidelines on revealing the Speaker’s personal info and I don’t want to end up on any watchlist. So I’m not going to tell you what I found and I’m only going to explain how I would find things. Please DO NOT post any details here***



The way I would often connect a person to an address is to do the business entity search backwards. I find a business that I know for a fact someone owns and then plug that name into the business entity search. Now if they’re lazy like most people I’ll see their name and their address. I don’t know of any businesses that Mike Johnson owns, but I know most of you are clever enough to figure out how to tie him to a known business that you might find in profiles of him.



So now we’ve narrowed it down and… nothing. I didn’t find any results that I’d consider a match. Now it’s possible that he’s smart enough to know how to hide his shell companies, but I doubt it. I’m confident this is a dead end.



I’m not satisfied that we know enough about his finances but I think I’ll have to pass the mantle to someone who has ideas for a different tack. And, finally, this method is pretty useful for potentially finding out stuff about other candidates. I suggested earlier in the year that we do some sleuthing here to help root out any future George Santoses. I may write a diary on how to do this without having to name names.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/13/2205549/-Investigating-Mike-Johnson-s-Finances?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/