There’s an upcoming sunset in Hawaii that wonʻt soothe with the orange peace of dusk, but instead menaces with a looming darkness.

Historically, Hawaii has gone through cycles of scandal and cycles of correction. We are currently in an era of accountability with public officials prosecuted and sent to jail. However, appetite for those efforts when it comes to white-collar crimes committed here in the islands is waning. 

As the Kaneshiro-Mitsunaga bribery trial is working through its paces and the trial of three ex-Honolulu officials charged with arranging an improper payout as part of the Kealoha conspiracy is set to begin in October, this phase of accountability in Hawaii seems to be approaching an end. 

After the fires on Maui that killed at least 101 people and displaced thousands further exposed the fragility of trust in Hawaii’s political leadership, there was a chance for redemption with our political officials, but our legislators have decided not to take on serious reforms. 

To further take the air out of the efforts to deter bad behavior by our officials, the pair of ex-lawmakers (Sen. J. Kalani English and Rep. Ty Cullen) convicted for taking bribes from Milton Choy, and other officials involved in some of Hawaiiʻs most notable corruption cases, could soon be released early from prison thanks to changes in federal sentencing guidelines.

Discussing the current situation with Hawaiiʻs top observers of political corruption and Civil Beat colleagues led to a number of very depressing and pessimistic conversations. 

Randall Roth, a professor emeritus at the William S. Richardson School of Law and the co-author of the book about scandals involving Bishop Estate, “Broken Trust: Greed, Mismanagement and Political Manipulation at America’s Largest Charitable Trust,” said a lesson that has been learned in Hawaii is that we need to encourage investigations and prosecutions from external parties if we are serious about curtailing corrupt behavior.

“If you assume that a tight-knit community is going to have a certain group in power, then they have enough power and are willing to exert it in whatever way they have to prevent investigations and prosecution of other people in that in-group,” said Roth.

Watchdog efforts based in Hawaii, he said, failed at proper oversight because of cultural inclinations not to upset the status quo.

Hawaii’s Democratic leadership hasn’t had the political will to allocate the needed resources to police our bad actors. We’ve had to rely on the federal government, namely Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Wheat from San Diego, to investigate and prosecute those who have abused their public offices and the trust of Hawaii’s citizens. 

So after the federal team led by Wheat finishes with the prosecution of Donna Leong, Roy Amemiya and Max Sword for arranging improper payouts to former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, who can we count on to investigate and prosecute bad actors in Hawaii? 

And to add a layer of pessimism, the results of the next presidential election could lead to a complete remaking of the Department of Justice.

So what will white-collar investigations, if they do happen, look like in Hawaii’s future?

It’ll be based on luck, and not hard work, according to Alexander Silvert, the former public defender who wrote “The Mailbox Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Greatest Corruption Case in Hawaii’s History.” 

“It’ll always be occasionally the ones that fall into your lap, you’re investigating something else and you uncover this or someone gets arrested and they start cooperating and they tell you about some contract bribe,” Silvert said. “Those are the types of cases I foresee in the future, the ones that just come around once in a while when they fall into law enforcement’s hands rather than anything being proactively investigated.”

What troubles me most is how susceptible our officials seem to be to the “fraud triangle.” The “fraud triangle” is a model developed by Steve Albrecht of the National Whistleblower Center. 

The model highlights how motivation, opportunity and rationalization led individuals or institutions to engage in fraud.

I happened upon the fraud triangle when reading up about the betting scandals that are rocking the sports world. The leagues, their broadcast partners and their sports betting advertisers are struggling to stave off existential credibility questions by utilizing big data and artificial intelligence to suss out malfeasance. 

Hawaii doesn’t have those kinds of resources to deter corrupt behavior. Plus, as my fellow columnist Denby Fawcett pointed out, it didn’t take much to buy off pols in Hawaii. It’d be hard for data scrapes to turn up essentially loose change fallen behind the couch cushions. 

Besides being caught, politicians like English and Cullen should be embarrassed to have been such cheap dates. That they could be benefiting from revised federal sentencing standards and being released early shouldn’t lead others to think there isn’t a tremendous cost for their prison time, Silvert said. 

There simply should be more prosecutions and investigations unfolding. The fact that they’re not doesn’t mean that there’s no corruption and Hawaii governing officials and their donors have cleaned up their act. It just means people are successfully keeping their heads down. 

As the current prosecutions come to an end, the risk to Hawaii’s reputation as a place where corruption can flourish is great and growing. 

“I don’t know what’s going to break the cycle,” Silvert said. “I thought the Kealoha case, and certainly these follow-up prosecutions, would break the cycle because they’re so significant and they’re so broad and so meaningful and it hasn’t.”

There’s an adage that the opportunities presented by a crisis shouldn’t be wasted. For Colin Moore, a longtime political observer and University of Hawaii professor, the opportunities to promote reform in the wake of the English and Cullen scandal were wasted. 

“It’s a black mark on the Legislature, on the state, and I think the concern is that it could be wasted because it was so brazen that it is one of the few scandals that really generated the kind of political will to make change,” Moore said. “It’s very frustrating, and a cultural shift in the way donors and legislators behave has to happen.”

The chance at serious reform this legislative session was wasted when Rep. David Tarnas once again killed public financing for election campaigns.

“Societies that don’t trust each other are worse on almost every dimension from health to economic performance,” Moore said. 

Trust, he said, “is a precious thing and once you lose it, it’s very hard to get back. It’s expensive to have to look over everyone’s shoulder all the time. That’s not a society you want to live in.”

The most important thing right now in Hawaii is keeping people accountable. And it’s the underpinning of everything that’s going on here. Not much can get solved without basic trust that we know that people are doing the right things for the right reasons. 

So with the sunset comes the darkness, but I don’t think all hope should be lost. After all, the Polynesian navigators found (and are finding) their way using the lights of the night sky. Perhaps that metaphor can help restore trust and faith in Hawaii.