Luis Pagan

The deeper I dig into Puerto Rico’s power crisis—and last week’s pathetic excuse for a Congressional hearing that I reported on (see below)—the more infuriating it gets. Puerto Ricans are stuck with the worst electric grid in all of the US and its greater territories. Blackouts happen 8x more often and last 13x longer than anywhere else in the U.S. And it’s only gotten worse since Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017. Families are suffering. Businesses are shutting down. On New Year’s Eve 2024, 90% of the island lost power. A complete BLACKOUT! And here’s the kicker… $13.5 BILLION in FEMA @fema funds have already been allocated to rebuild the grid. In 2020, President Trump’s administration announced in an official White House statement that this was the largest amount of FEMA infrastructure grants EVER awarded to Puerto Rico. But, none of it can be used. Why? Because the system is still buried in bankruptcy. The power grid is bankrupt, broken, and is literally leaving people in the dark. Meanwhile, the money is moving—just not to where it’s needed. Proskauer Rose @proskauer, the lead law firm that has been contracted by Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB), has already collected more than $400 MILLION in legal fees over the last decade that this process has been underway. They’re billing $4.2 MILLION a month. That breaks down to nearly $1,000 an hour *per* lawyer. And who’s footing the bill? The people of Puerto Rico—the same people who can’t even rely on their lights staying on. At the average wage of $718 a week, it takes 1,350 full-time Puerto Rican workers just to cover one month of Proskauer’s fees. These attorneys are billing more than the average Puerto Rican makes in a week. It’s outrageous. And it raises a serious question: Is this crisis being prolonged because it’s just too profitable for the lawyers to fix? I’m following the money because this really appears to be the next USAID 2.0 scam, and if so, it’s the perfect target for a crackdown under the Trump admin as it relates to WASTE, FRAUD and ABUSE! If you have any additional tips about this corruption, feel free to DM me! 🕵🏻‍♀️ See documentation below 👇🏻