🚨"He denies it" is NOT the same thing as "it didn't happen."
In the fall of 2022, then-DCS Director Mike Faust says Sunshine Residential CEO Simon Kottoor offered to recommend that Gov. Katie Hobbs keep him in the job — if Faust approved a rate hike.
Faust says he said no.
January 2023: Hobbs does not keep Faust. A new director, David Lujan, takes over.
May 2023: Sunshine gets the special increase.
Remember, after Hobbs won, she personally called Sunshine CEO Simon Kottoor and asked him to be a gold-level sponsor of her inauguration. He said yes. Sunshine and Kottoor went on to put more than $550,000 behind Hobbs and Democrats. He sat on her inaugural committee. She later had dinner at his home.
Kottoor denies the conversation with Faust ever happened.
Attorney General Kris Mayes declined to charge anyone, calling it a “he said, he said” that she said would not hold up in court.
But is “he denies it” the same thing as “it didn’t happen”?
And if Faust is telling the truth, where does that leave us?
A top state official and a major donor tell starkly different stories about a conversation that is now at the center of the Sunshine Residential political firestorm.
azcentral.com/story/news/pol…