Monday, October 19, 2015

It doesn't take long for Jessica Medeiros Garrison's rant against Legal Schnauzer to start springing leaks


Jessica Garrison and Luther Strange
(From marieclaire.com)
How long does it take for Jessica Medeiros Garrison's public-relations assault on Legal Schnauzer to show that it has a disconnect with the truth? The answer is one paragraph--specifically, three sentences.

We've already shown that Garrison's claim that I stalked her is laughably untrue--in fact, Garrison presents zero evidence that I've ever been anywhere near her house and admits that on one occasion she was convinced a boogeyman (me, I guess) was outside only to discover it was cops doing a drive by. Her assertion that I reported Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange is the father of her child can be proven false with a simple search on my blog.

You have to read down into the Garrison piece a ways to discover the stalking and "Lutha as baby daddy" fables. But the nuttiness starts right at the top. Consider the lead on Garrison's piece, which was told to a marieclaire.com writer named Liz Welch, who apparently is incapable of asking a few questions to determine if anything Garrison says is true. Ms. Welch also must not have been capable of sending me an e-mail or calling me and allowing me to respond to Garrison's wacky tales.

Perhaps Welch was afraid I would present a number of facts that would run contrary to the point of her juicy piece--and facts were not supposed to get in the way of this "good story." Here is how Garrison/Welch start their tall tale, in Garrison's voice:

​My saga started in July 2013. A friend texted me, asking, "Do you know this guy, Roger Shuler?" I didn't, but quickly learned he was the political blogger behind the website Legal Schnauzer and author of a new post that would forever change my life: "AG Luther Strange Has a Messy Extra-Marital Affair with Ex-Campaign Aide Jessica Garrison."

A reasonable assumption here seems to be that the friend was not asking if Garrison knew me personally; the question seems to be: Did she know of me? And Garrison's answer was no. Well, I've got evidence to show this is false.

It appears the friend's inquiry was triggered by my first post about Garrison's affair with Luther Strange, and that post was dated July 17, 2013. Garrison gives the impression that she was baffled as to who I was or what I was working on. But e-mail records show she had every reason to know who I was and why I had contacted here. That's because I sent her an e-mail on July 12, 2013, informing her of my investigation on the alleged affair and asking for an interview on the topic.

Here are the contents of that e-mail:

Ms. Garrison:

I am a journalist in Birmingham, reporting on justice/legal issues at a number of Web sites, including the blog Legal Schnauzer. I've received reports from multiple sources that you and Luther Strange had an affair that culminated with your divorce and his election as attorney general of Alabama. I have been researching this matter for several months, and I'm at the point where the stories are ready for publication. I would like to give you an opportunity to respond to questions and ask that we schedule a time for an interview, either via phone or in person.

My plan is to begin running the articles in the next few days, so I ask that you respond to this request by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, July 16.

Thank you,

Roger Shuler

legalschnauzer.blogspot.com
(205) 991-7438

Roughly five days before the inquiry from her friend, Garrison knew exactly who I was and why I was contacting her. So Garrison either has a horrifically bad memory--in which case, marieclaire.com should not be running her story--or she is lying.

Garrison chose not to respond to my interview request, and it's her right to do that. But you will notice that she had every opportunity, before publication, to state that the affair story was inaccurate and answer questions on the subject. But it wasn't until a couple of months later that she chose to file a lawsuit, publicly proclaiming the affair story to be false and defamatory--when she earlier had passed on an opportunity to make pretty much the same declaration.

The careful reader--for example, one who has followed the Garrison/Strange story here at Legal Schnauzer--has every reason to doubt Garrison's veracity from the opening lines of the Marie Claire article.

In terms of accurate reporting, the story only goes downhill from there.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ms. Garrison hints that you were stalking her because you ran a photo of her house that came from the Internet? Unreal. Was she even living in the house at the time?

legalschnauzer said...

I don't see how she could have been living there, @10:45. My memory is that the photo came from a site like Trulia or Zillow, and the house was on the market at the time. The photo almost had to have been taken before she lived there--and I certainly didn't take it. Probably came from some real-estate agent's portfolio.

Anonymous said...

Sock it to 'em Legal Schnauzer!

Anonymous said...

I don't know, Schnauzer. Pretty hard for me to believe a Republican operative (a lawyer, on top of that!) in Alabama would lie about anything. What's the world coming to?

David in S. Alabama said...

Republicanism is such a terrible affliction.

Anonymous said...

Whoa! I just read the Marie Claire article, it is nothing but a "feeling sorry for herself" drivel aimed at whitewashing Rebekah Caldwell Mason's past. I'm stunned that this east podunk one horse town political crowd from Tuscaloosa all of a sudden has connections all the way up to Marie Claire (originally a Canadian magazine). What in the world is going on?

Anonymous said...

Did you receive a read response from the email? If not, your article may not be correct. There is a very real chance that she did not receive your email. There are plenty of possible reasons why she didn't; perhaps the email address you sent it to was incorrect, perhaps she didn't read it because she thought it was spam or maybe she was on vacation when you sent it and hadn't caught up on her emails. Just because you sent an email, doesn't mean she knew who Roger Shuler was in July 2013. So your reporting in this article actually doesn't prove anything.

Anonymous said...

Why does Ms. Garrisson claim she won the 3.5 million dollar law suit and the assertion you could never pay it seem credible? Is she delusional?

Robby Scott Hill said...

Think about this. Politicians & lawyers are in the business of blurring the facts & molding public perception. If you torture a weak man long enough, he will begin to see things which aren't there & admit to things he hasn't done.

Now, maybe you should have revealed your sources, showed us some pictures, etc. before you published the story. In fact, I won't confirm, deny or republish it until you do. However, I'm not going to let Jessica Garrison or Luther Strange inside my head to mold my opinion of you when they don't have their facts straight themselves.

The system has violated your First Amendment Right to Freedom of the Press by engaging in prior restraint by jailing you because you refused to obey a clearly unconstitutional court order by a judge who is not elected & not accountable. He was appointed by a chief justice who was previously removed from his office for (get this) refusing to obey a court order. Think long and hard about that shit while you are smoking your next joint. A Chief Justice who isn't big on obeying court orders himself, had you jailed by proxy (INHALE marijuana deeply like his son does & clear your mind so you can get this shit right) for refusing to obey a motherfucking court order! Unbelievable is it not?!!

Brian said...

It is possible that she never did see your email to her. I have seen legitimate emails get mislabel as spam by software filters.

legalschnauzer said...

Response to @7:46 and Brian:

Bill Baxley, Garrison's lawyer, referred to my e-mail inquiries to her in two different letters he sent me. Seems quite clear that she got the e-mails. (There was a second e-mail inquiry, which I've reported on previously.)

Garrison's whole "stalking" charade comes from Baxley's letters and from the fact she received my e-mails.

Here are posts that show the Baxley letters:


http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2013/08/al-attorney-bill-baxley-makes-ludicrous.html


http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2013/09/borrowing-phrase-from-bill-baxleys.html

legalschnauzer said...

Is Garrison delusional, @8:02? I don't know, you tell me. She certainly seems hysterical, based on the language in her article. As for her claim that she "won" her lawsuit, she neglects to inform her audience that her "victory" included no jury trial, no adversarial proceedings of any kind, no notice of a default-judgment hearing to the opposing party, no discovery, no unsealing of her divorce file . . . and so on. A case can't get much more one-sided than that, and Don Blankenship (a clearly compromised Jefferson County judge) allowed it to happen.

I'm betting Blankenship will run for office with no opposition next time, in return for his willingness to behave like a "good boy" in the Garrison case.

If you consider that credible, I would say you have an incredibly low bar for credibility.

As for the $3.5-million judgment, which is supported by zero fact or law, how many people do you know who could pay that?

Brian said...

Just because an email gets labeled as spam does not mean that one can not go to the spam folder and find it later. It has happened to me, an email with a job application got labeled as spam by outlook and put in the spam folder where I had found it later.

The letter by Bill Baxley does not give a timeline on when Garrison read your email from you leaving a potenial time frame for first read from July 13th, 2013 to August 19th, 2013. Which leaves her statement in Marie Claire as plausible. It is easy to imagine that Garrison was told about your story about her, read it noting that you stated that she did not respond to your request for an interview, and then found your request hidden away in her spam folder.

How often do we check our spam folders?

A delivery receipt would only tell us when it was delivered to her inbox, but it would not tell us if read or delete or marked as spam. A read receipt would tell us when she first read it, but some email clients will allow users the option of not sending a read receipt.

e.a.f. said...

if you repeat things 3 times in an article, usually people accept it as truth. Now she has the article in a women's mag and more publicity. It will help when she runs for office. remember the old line about, I don't care what they say about me, just spell my name correctly.

she is taking her story, where ever she can. there will be more at play here than there currently is.

Anonymous said...

After investigating this a little further it seems Ms.Garrison did indeed win the case.

This link will confirm it: http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/04/35_million.html

Further establishing Ms.Garrison's credibility is the fact she understands you could not possibly pay the 3.5 million, but was more pleased with Judge Blankenship's decision.It seems by your response and I quote: "Don Blankenship(a clearly compromised Jefferson County Judge) allowed it to happen." I assume that was Ms. Garrisons victory.

In answer to your question, "how many people do I know who could pay that? The answer is two people.

Thank you for allowing the option to be anonymous in the comment section of your blog.

I just saw Carol's arm x ray and it saddened me. I hope in some way she will be compensated for such violent treatment.

Anonymous said...

Dont you think the al.com article was more about bringing doubt to the Mason/ Bentley "rumors" than about Garrison? That is the subject of the last few paragraphs.

legalschnauzer said...

Reasonable folks can have different opinions, @9:37, but I think the al.com and marieclaire.com stories were all about Garrison and Luther Strange. I think she just mentioned the Bentley/Mason stuff as a diversionary tactic. Garrison admitted she knew nothing about the Bentley/Mason story, and she claimed Mason was "standing up" for her good name and reputation, when I'm not aware of Mason doing anything of the sort. Has Mason made any public statements regarding the affair story? I haven't seen it. My guess is that Garrison and Strange would be happy if Bentley and Mason went to prison (and they might) because that would open more room for Lutha to pursue some higher office. Garrison is pretending to care about her fellow Republicans, but I believe this is all about some perceived opportunity for Lutha and Jessica.

legalschnauzer said...

Brian: I have no idea how you came up with spam as a factor in this. Bill Baxley refers to my e-mails as "inquiries," which is exactly what they were, so his client read them. You are welcome to twist yourself into all sorts of contortions to make excuses for JMG. But she received my inquiries, in the words of her own attorney, knew who I was, knew I had given her an opportunity to sit for an interview, and she chose not to do so. Those are the facts, regardless of what you try to conjure up.

legalschnauzer said...

The al.com article hardly is the final word on who "won" a lawsuit, but it is instructive. Does the article make any mention of Garrison/Strange being questioned under oath in an adversarial proceeding, does it mention Garrison/Strange sitting for depositions, or turning over documents (emails, texts, etc.) regarding their relationship, does it mention Garrison/Strange willingly unsealing her divorce file? No, it mentions none of those things because none of them happened. Jessica Garrison did not "win" anything on the merits because she has yet to show in an adversarial proceeding that her claim has any merits. That's how you win a lawsuit, by proving your claims on the merits; she hasn't done it, and she can't do it.

Litigation generally involves all of the elements I noted above, and Garrison's case involved none of them. This wasn't even litigation, much less litigation that she "won."

Unknown said...

Mr. Shuler there is no doubt JMG knew who you were. By 2013, everybody in politics in Alabama knew you. I have read your blog since about 2008 and look forward to reading it every day. Mr. Shuler, you have enlighten me about the law. The MSM is controlled by "The Powers that be."Since you are "Independent" you are a threat to "The Power." They cannot tell you: who, what, when, where and how. Therefore, your pen is powerful. They have tried to kill you numerous times but you keep coming back to life with more zeal and determination. I admire you for your don't give up attitude. A lot for people in your situation would have laid in the coffin. Moreover, the people who comment negatively about your blog,(want to hold to a higher standard than the MSM) don't spend a lot of time on them. They are paid to try to discredit you. It's their job to write comment against your blog. They work for "The Power." It's 'The Truth" in your blog that they hate. God is with you.

Anonymous said...

i agree with your reply to me at 953 am, but what i was trying to point out is that the al,com article was written ABOUT the marie claire article, not a direct interview with Garrison. The last few paragraphs lead me to believe that the writer for al.com was trying to give the governor and Mason some cover by highlighting the story and going on to tie it in with Bentley and Mason. In other words readers, don't believe any rumors you hear or read about these fine Republican folks.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for a clearer understanding on how lawsuits are won.From your answer they are won by proving your claims on the merits and not a judges decision.

Robby Scott Hill said...

Our generation must finish what John Baker's generation started. The 21st Century Church & Court System are just as corrupt as those of the Sixteenth Century. The Conservative Church with its Supply Side Jesus must be taxed & the preachers who He saves so much money on their taxes must pay their fair share. May Shaheed's Allah guide you as Moorish America rises & the Sons of Ishmael multiply. The Celtic-American Civilization is nearing its end & Allah will deliver People of Color to their rightful place of power & return the Red Man to the Land Unetlanvhi gave him. Moorish America is for the Black, the Brown, the Red & the Poor White who knows his place in the new society.

Anonymous said...

Gee, she didn't remember a random email from a looney blogger that most likely went to her spam folder. Yeah, that's some smoking right there.

legalschnauzer said...

Sorry to let facts get in the way of your fantasy land, @8:41, but her attorney's letter acknowledges that she received my "inquiries."