Rachel Maddow

A statement on his behalf says in part, quote, Mr. Lewandowski adamantly denies ever demanding any payment or compensation from any potential former or current government contractor.

The statement says the allegations are, quote, not supported by a single piece of evidence because there is none.

I should tell you these reports have nonetheless spurred a congressional inquiry by Democrats on House oversight.

But alongside those allegations, there's a second sort of mysterious financial update we have for you about the Homeland Security Department and specifically how the Trump administration has been buying up warehouses all over the country to use as Trump prison camps to hold people without trial.

Well, now, in at least two of the places where they are trying to do that, in Utah and Georgia, local press are reporting that the Trump administration agreed to purchase these warehouses to turn into Trump prison camps.

But they appear to have purchased these facilities for way, way, way more than the facilities are worth.

In Georgia, for example, the Trump administration has agreed to pay $129 million for a vacant warehouse.

Just a little over a year ago, that same property was valued at just $26 million.

A fraction of what the Trump administration just paid for it.

Same thing over in Utah.

The Trump administration agreed to pay more than $145 million for a warehouse there.

According to local property records, that warehouse is only worth around $97 million, meaning the Trump administration potentially overpaid for that one by, oh, say, $48 million.

Why the overpaying?

These proposed Trump prison camps have been wildly unpopular in the communities where Trump has been buying up these warehouses.

As you see here in Utah, there have been multiple protests against the planned conversion of this Salt Lake City warehouse, which the White House appears to have massively overpaid for, at a time when the agency that paid for them is being accused of rank corruption and self-dealing at the highest levels.

What's going on here, and do these two dots connect?

More on this in just a moment.

Stay with us.

Nate Bluen is a state senator from the great state of Utah.

His South Salt Lake City constituents are wildly against the Trump administration's efforts to put a massive Trump prison camp in a warehouse in Salt Lake City, a prison camp to hold thousands of people indefinitely and without trial.