THE REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER: Franklin Haney needed $5 billion in federal loans to finish a nuclear plant. In March 2018, at Mar-a-Lago, he pressed President Trump on his project. Trump waved over his longtime fixer, Michael Cohen. Trump's message to Cohen:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/10/us/trump-properties-swamp.html

Trump was, in effect, peddling access to his own administration.
* Haney hired Cohen to a $150,000-a-month contract, promising a profit share in the nuclear plant if it got built.
* Cohen barraged Trump's own appointees at the Department of Energy about Haney's application.

When Cohen went down, Haney simply hired another Trump lobbyist -- Roy Bailey, who was also a fund-raiser for Trump's inauguration and super PAC.
Haney and Bailey returned to Mar-a-Lago for Kim Guilfoyle's birthday party this year. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/10/us/trump-properties-swamp.html

Around the same time, in March 2020, Haney's company told federal regulators that it was close to getting the $5 billion in federal loans.
The Department of Energy won't comment.