Last month, the federal government noticed that a “mysterious” company named Flannery Associates has been buying up a huge amount of land surrounding Travis Air Force Base in California. The purchases add up to nearly a billion dollars but the company doesn’t seem to actually be doing anything with the property which is primarily farmland. Some of the former landowners have said they really didn’t want to sell in the first place, but Flannery was offering such high prices they couldn’t turn down the offers. Efforts to find out who is behind the company and whether or not they have any ties to foreign nations have largely come up empty. And now, to make the situation even stranger, Flannery Associates is suing the farmers they bought the land from, accusing them of jacking up the price of the real estate unfairly. (NewsNation)

While questions remain about a mystery company buying 52,000 acres of land near an Air Force base, a congressman says farmers in the area are being targeted in a lawsuit from the group.

Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., has been speaking out over the past five years about the $800 million in land acquisitions by Flannery Associates near Travis Air Force Base. Garamendi says the purchases just don’t add up.

In an interview with NewsNation, Garamendi said he’s been in contact with the families of farmers who handed over their land to Flannery saying they didn’t want to sell in the first place. Since no California laws require them to sell, the land was bargained for by both parties at a much higher price. But now, Flannery is suing those families for $510 million, accusing them of conspiring together to inflate the value of the land.

This entire situation is simply bizarre. First of all, how can it be so hard to find out who is behind this company and what they’re up to? The California branch of Flannery Associates is a subsidy of Flannery Associates LLC, which was incorporated in Delaware in 2019. The parent company was incorporated in 2000. The only officer associated with the company’s registration is named Thomas Mather. According to Flannery’s Linkedin profile, they are “a retained executive search firm that specializes in finding talented leadership professionals for the health care and manufacturing industries.”

The company profile shows that it’s quite small, with between 2 and 10 employees. So if they are a professional talent recruiting firm for the healthcare field, what do they need with more than 50,000 acres of farmland outside of a U.S. Air Force base? A spokesperson told investigators that they are not a foreign-based outlet, with 97% of the company being owned by U.S. citizens. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything if those citizens are spending money they received from the CCP.

And what’s up with this lawsuit? Their attorneys are accusing the farmers of “conspiring to inflate the value of their land.” Most of the farmers weren’t even listing their land for sale. Flannery approached them and made offers. If they paid too much for the land, that would seem to be their problem. If I offer to sell you a beat-up 1969 VW minibus without an exhaust system for $20,000 because it’s “a classic” and you’re dumb enough to pay me, shame on you.

We’ve watched Chinese interests buy up massive amounts of farmland across the south and out west in the past few years. Perhaps Flannery isn’t tied to China, but it certainly seems to fit into the same pattern. The fact that this particular stretch of land is so close to an Air Force base makes the situation all the more suspect. At first glance, it doesn’t sound as if there is anything illegal about these real estate transactions, and Flannery Associates is entitled to make purchases if they have the funds to cover it, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be investigated. This is all very suspicious and I won’t be surprised if an investigation eventually finds the Chinese Communist Party lurking somewhere at the bottom of this barrel.