Federal authorities arrested a pair of former top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials and a Federal Emergency Management Agency contractor in Puerto Rico on Tuesday in a corruption investigation.

Former deputy regional administrator Ahsha Nateef Tribble; Jovanda Patterson, Tribble’s chief of staff; and Donald Keith Ellison, former President of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC, were arrested on charges including “conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services wire fraud and disaster fraud,” according to CBS News.

The arrests come after two years of Democrats blaming President Donald Trump for criticizing Puerto Rico’s response to Hurricane Maria in 2017 when the storm devastated parts of the U.S. territory.

Trump has spent the same amount of time blaming Puerto Rico for botched emergency responses and the long recovery period.

The president’s longstanding claims, however, have now been at least somewhat justified given the nature of the recent arrests.

Tribble was FEMA’s Region II Deputy Regional Administrator assigned to power recovery in the devastated region, according to official documents posted on Twitter by CBS reporter David Begnaud.

Ellison was president of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC, which CBS reported was “the main contractor for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority” and which “executed two contracts with the agency for a total value of $1.8 billion.”

According to the documents, Patterson resigned from FEMA so that she could work at Cobra Energy, LLC.

Do you think Trump was right to criticize the Puerto Rican government for its corruption and incompetence?

The trio allegedly used Tribble’s position and influence to enrich themselves during their deployment to restore Puerto Rico’s power grid after the storm.

That $1.8 billion in contracts was paid to Cobra through the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority using FEMA funds.

As time passed, the allegation states, Ellison tried to influence Tribble with gifts such as “personal helicopter use, hotel accommodations, airfare, personal security services, and the use of a credit card.”

“In exchange, Tribble performed official acts, including influence, advising, and exerting pressure on PREPA and FEMA officials, in order to award restoration work to COBRA and accelerate payments to COBRA.”

Tribble and Ellison are facing forfeiture of nearly $5 million.

“These defendants were supposed to come to Puerto Rico to help during the recovery after the devastation suffered from Hurricane Maria. Instead, they decided to take advantage of the precarious conditions of our electric power grid and engaged in a bribery and honest services wire fraud scheme in order to enrich themselves illegally,” U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez said in a statement, according to CBS.

The arrests and scandal are a blow to anti-Trumpers who claim the president was responsible for Puerto Rico’s slow recovery.

Trump already had significant evidence supporting his position, including numerous stories about corruption and incompetence.

The biggest takeaway from this entire debacle is that government is truly terrible at responding to its people’s needs.

Yes, government is necessary for civil society to survive, but not being as directly beholden to the people as private companies, it can be slow, unresponsive, lazy and incompetent without paying nearly as high a price as private firms or individuals.

Any time someone begins talking about the wonders of socialized health care and government-run industry, just remember Hurricane Maria.

32 thoughts on “Trump Was Right About Puerto Rico”
  1. Leftists have been in control of Puerto Rico for many decades. Just like Democrats and major cities here on the mainland. Without any taxes or revenue coming to us from PR and a one-way huge pipe of $41 billion from taxpayers here to non-taxpayers and crooks there, we are being hosed.

  2. The pot calling the kettle black!!! Our gadfly president has seemingly led a corruptt WH and he has the unmitigatgall to call others corrupt. Shame on him

    1. Make sure your brain is engaged before you open your mouth! You are as blind and ignorant as a rock. Learn and listen before you give an opinion. Opinions are like A. H.
      , everyone has one!!

    2. Can you tell us some of his seemingly corrupt WH he has led! Is it the economy , the reviving of the military, the new America leading the world again, the amazing reduction of food stamp recipients, the negotiated trade deals and the ones under negotiation and so many others!

  3. politician/ corruption ..ever notice each descriptive contains the exact same amount of letters, 10 !?? Nahh, Must just be a coincidence…But then,you would need to believe in coincidences (which I don’t). History has shown ( with little exception) that most,(if not all) “politicians ARE corrupt !

  4. what a stupid article.

    these were FEMA employees — they work for Trump. don’t you remember “Brownie” who did such a great job under Bush?

    how does this actually cast any aspersions on puerto rico, its people or government. Trump’s employees are corrupt. Dog bites man as far as I can see.

    1. Well, if you don’t consider that FEMA is part of the unelected, Democrat controlled bureaucracy, you might blame the president since those people technically work for him as part of the Executive Branch. Also, Cobra Energy, LLC is not organizationally under the president. But you won’t let a little fact like that get in your way.

      President Trump gets little credit for the things he points out and is castigated for many of the things he says, but he has been proven correct time and time again. One would think that his critics would realize their folly at some point and call it quits. I’ve news for them, we’re noticing.

    2. More Dem. demagoguery? you can’t have it both ways, blame that he did not help and blame for Obama scoundrels left over!

  5. When are the Democrats going to wake up and realize that Trump is a straight shooter. They are just upset that trump is a straight shooter and digging into their private corrupt world .

  6. Yes, as always President Trump was spot on in his assessment. Furthermore, his claims have not just been proven “somewhat justified” but 100% justified. Just like his “claims” about illegal spying, conspiracy, and an attempted coup d’e tat have been 100% PROVEN !!!

    1. Where have you been the last 2.5 yrs. Trump is all about what benefits Trump. Hence we have him profiting from the presidency.
      Cobra Acquisitions LLC, a grid-focused subsidiary of Oklahoma City-based oil and gas company Mammoth Energy Services Inc., entered the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) orbit after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island’s power grid last month, according to accounts from both companies’ officials.

      FEMA Deputy Regional Administrator, Former President Of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC, And Another Former FEMA Employee Indicted For Conspiracy To Commit Bribery, Honest Services Wire Fraud, Disaster Fraud, Among Other Charges. \
      Not the Puerto Ricans, but another American company and FEMA

  7. Guess what? The buck stops at the top. If Trump suspected that funds were being siphoned off, then he should have ordered a formal investigation.

  8. President Trump has great instincts and his judgments seem to always be right. He holds to his opinions, even when every Liberal is contradicting him. Then when Trump proves to be right, the Liberals and their Media become noticeably quiet. The Liberals never admit when they are wrong, and they are wrong most of the time.

    1. Trump is always proven to be lying. No other president has told millions of lies that have been verified as in accurate and false.
      He hasn’t a clue when it comes to anything. A narcissistic sociopath never does. The world is laughing at the US. The only one that Trump obeys is Putin.
      Please refer to the latest scandal of Trump selling out US secrets to Putin.

  9. Here, we go yet again! President Trump was “finally” vindicated, and proven right “all along” regrading the literally out of control corruption in Puerto Rico!

  10. Yes, there are many Americans who applaud Trump for surviving an horrific fraudulent hoax, the Russian Collusion, carried on by former president Obama and the Deep State in an effort to effect a treasonous coup, and the criticism about Puerto Rico was just part of that coup. All of the treasonous criminals involved need to be indicted, arrested and prosecuted. We look forward to all of these traitors going away in the same way. Stay tuned!!!

  11. Every thing l read here points to outside and FEMA people stealing and being corrupt with funds meant to repair the electrical systems.
    How is Trump correct in blaming Puerto Rico?

  12. CORRUPTION & INCOMPETENCE IS CRAZY donald & D for DUMB trump’s MIDDLE NAME! The Only Area Where He Is Right At Is Proving Over & Over Again, What A SICKO CRAP, A Presidential PISS ASS PIG & MENTALLY ILL M-FUCKING MORON He Is! BOTH HE & HIS LATEST BRAIN DEAD BIMBO! mr.White House WORTHLESS WORM! mrs.White House WORTHLESS WHORE!

  13. Yes President Trump is doing a good job but has rather poor personal interacting drawbacks. But one cannot fault his business acumen and his courage in making decisions! I for one support his judgment and for the first time in years the USA has got a leader of insight and courage!

    1. Brian – your instincts are right on point! DT is a very shrewd operator. The bad Dems are in disarray when dealing with his strategies. He always wrong foots them. Then they get so so angry they can’t think straight. His next book will be ‘The Art of being Unpredictable’. It takes great skill (and IQ) to be unpredictable – and get the job done.
      After decades of predictable corruption, Americans deserve the ruthless cleansing of DT.

  14. I may not agree with everything trump says, or when his temper flares. But, like Trump, I have them too. But his long range plans, with common sense and comprehension skills that are miles better than the Liberals. Looking at their track records on immigration, and following Obama exacting orders to bolster up the southern border as Trump is doing now, shows me the Leftist only go with the flow that fills their pockets. Trump is a true down to Earth person, and many hate him, including the existing “RINO’s Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, and other phony Republicans.

  15. Wake up America,the Democrats want socialism so that they can control the government and the people.socialism doesn’t work.The people in power will have all the money and the citizens will have whatever the government gives them.You no longer have a say in what happens in the government.Wake Up!!!!!

  16. Under the repeating conditions specific to Puerto Rico’s foul weather preparedness, A builder such as President Trump inherently would understand oversights of Puerto Rico’s management, which put that territory in jeopardy. An experienced builder would have no difficulty in focusing upon those problems which were exacerbated by tropical storms damage, to a degree that the territory still had unresolved storm damage from the tropical storm which preceded the most recent storm damages.

    The President can be blunt, his language indelicate, but his approach was not the crux of Puerto Rico’s problems, and apparently the politicians charged with readying the territory’s storm defenses, were, according to the President’s builder expertise, defective to a degree that the most recent tropical storm damages further compounded the existing damages that were unresolved from prior storm damages. In his estimation, federal monies allocated would have been sufficient, had management sought correct measures in the first place.

  17. There was NOTHING new in the COMBINED disasters which struct Puerto Rico a year ago — this ‘poor’ island has been raped by democrat politicians for years. To be truthful, the residents NEVER HAD A CHANCE. While the Trump Administration CONTINUALLY tried to help, this effort was aborted by a dishonest local government which has been tied to corruption since day one !!

  18. Wake up people the republicans fascist party will destroy the middle class and make everyone a wage slave basically

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