The FBI confirmed Wednesday that its investigation into the South Dakota immigration-visa program that has ensnared Republican Senate nominee Mike Rounds remains “active,” the Argus Leader reported.
“We have an active investigation,” Kyle Loven, chief division counsel for the FBI’s Minneapolis division, told the newspaper. “As it is an active investigation, I’m not in a position to provide any details.”
The scandal over the EB-5 program, which gives wealthy foreign investors an opportunity for U.S. residency, is devilishly complex, but has included a suicide by one of the principals and nagging questions about Rounds’s knowledge about possible conflicts of interest in the program’s administration during his time as South Dakota’s governor. Vox and the Argus Leader have complied extensive overviews of the controversy.
What seems certain, though, is it has opened up an unexpected opportunity for either Democratic candidate Rick Weiland or former GOP Sen. Larry Pressler, now an independent, to pull an upset in the three-way race. Rounds was getting only 55 percent of GOP voters in a poll earlier this month.
According to TPM’s PollTracker average, Rounds is currently at 36.3 percent, Weiland at 31 percent and Pressler at 26 percent.