Thread by @reveal

1/ L.A. wants to dig a subway tunnel under Beverly Hills High.

An heiress and power broker is enlisting her Trump connections to get the president to kill the project.

Our latest with @AltaJournal looks at the ultimate test of Trump’s local cronyism. revealnews.org/article/the-ul…

2/ Lisa Korbatov crossed paths with the president more than a decade ago, through a very peculiar real estate deal in Beverly Hills.

We investigated that deal.
revealnews.org/article/a-smal…

3/ Korbatov, a GOP donor and former president of the school board, has for years led Beverly Hills’ long, costly effort to derail LA’s nascent mass transit system.

4/ The project scares Korbatov.

She says students in this enclave of wealth and celebrity could die of cancer, or an underground methane gas explosion or even a terrorist attack.

Her boosters argued it was a “mega-disaster” waiting to happen.

5/ But in court, the LA Metro transit agency has debunked the scare stories again and again.

And judges have given the go-ahead for the big dig.

6/ Thwarted in court, Korbatov now is lobbying Trump to derail the project by pulling a $1.6 billion federal grant that was awarded to L.A. long ago.

She’s also sought help from many who are – or were – in Trump’s inner circle.

7/ To get the subway project killed, Korbatov has approached Ivanka Trump, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and the president himself, she told supporters.

8/ For the legal fight, the Beverly Hills School board hired the firm of Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s lawyer on the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as many other matters.

9/ Korbatov also deployed Elliot Broidy, a Beverly Hills investment banker and influential fundraiser for Trump and the Republican National Committee.

10/ Then the scandals started.

* Kasowitz resigned as Trump’s lawyer over allegations of alcoholism. propublica.org/article/trump-…

* Hacked emails implicated Broidy in trading on his access to Trump to get millions in contracts with foreign governments. nytimes.com/2018/09/20/wor…

11/ So far, Beverly Hills has spent an estimated $16 million on failed lawsuits in an attempt to stop the subway.

To pay the lawyers, the school board is spending school construction bond money.

12/ Last fall, the school district organized a student walkout to protest the subway. @latimesopinion called the anti-subway campaign “hysteria.” latimes.com/opinion/editor…

13/ For many in Beverly Hills, it is long past time to abandon the subway fight and try to get Metro to pay to ease the disruption of construction.

The opposition “continues to waste millions of dollars that are earmarked for school improvements,” said former Mayor Stephen Webb.

14/ Korbatov, for her part, seems determined to keep fighting the subway.

Trump “told me he’s (going to) look into it,” she recently told supporters.

15/ For more stories like this, please subscribe to our newsletter: revealnews.org/newsletter