Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Jill Simpson blasts Doug Jones operative Matt Osborne and lays out backstory on reports about extramarital affairs involving GOP stalwarts Rob Riley, Liberty Duke, Luther Strange, and Jessica Garrison


Jill Simpson
An Alabama political insider has fired back at a Doug Jones operative who claims she was the source for several major stories we broke here at Legal Schnauzer. Matt Osborne, who dreamed up the Dry Alabama scam to help Jones get elected to the U.S. Senate, also claimed that our reports (apparently referring to the Rob Riley-Liberty Duke and Luther Strange-Jessica Medeiros Garrison extramarital affairs, along with U.S. Judge Bill Pryor's ties to 1990s gay pornography) were false. Jill Simpson, confirming what I already knew, said the stories were accurate, but she was not a source for them -- and that is true.

As a legal aside, Riley-Duke and Garrison sued me for defamation, and as a matter of law. my reporting never was found to be false or defamatory. In both instances, there was no discovery, no jury trial (as required in defamation cases), and no requests in original filings for money damages (the lawful remedy for alleged defamation). In both cases, crooked Alabama judges -- Claud Neilson and Don Blankenship -- acted as one-man censors, contrary to long-standing law that prohibits such actions. As for Blankenship, he found for Garrison and issued a $3.5-million default judgment, which clearly is void because I received no notice of the default application or hearing. The judgment can be attacked as void at any point, with no time limit under Alabama law.

As for Matt Osborne, he apparently is flustered at our reports that, contrary to his own claims, the Dry Alabama scam violated federal law. Seemingly unable to counter that indisputable fact, Osborne threw an online tantrum and resorted to name-calling against Simpson and me. One of his efforts included this pearl, sent directly via Twitter to me: "Good luck with your demented career regurgitating Dana Jill Simpson's libels."

First, as shown above, my posts were not libelous -- either in reality or as a matter of law. Second, Jill Simpson did not take kindly to Osborne's barb, as she expressed in a Facebook post dated 4/4/19:

The batshit crazy nut Matt Osborne, who in his own press meeting contends he did the fake Russian-bot deal to get Doug Jones elected, smearing Roy [Moore] with a fake site called Dry Alabama, is once again smearing me with lies about stories I did not do, and I believe [the stories originated] with his boss, Doug Jones. 
For some reason, Osborne keeps claiming I am responsible for the Rob Riley-Liberty Duke story. So I have decided to address a few things. I did not have anything to do with the Rob and Liberty story being told. In fact, Shuler needs to say it did not come from me again so everyone is clear. It came from old law enforcement boys, as I tracked it down since I keep getting blamed for it.

(Note: I'm not going to disclose sources, but I can say individuals connected to law enforcement were part of my sourcing on the Bill Pryor gay-porn story, and I have reported that several times. As for the Riley-Duke story, I'm not aware of any of my sources being tied to law enforcement, unless it was second- or third-hand. Simpson is correct that she was not involved as a source on any of the stories noted above.) 


Simpson says the roots of at least some of these stories originated in the now-defunct Haskell Slaughter la firm, of Birmingham. Doug Jones once was a member of that firm, along with Montgomery-based attorney Tommy Gallion. Simpson also says that Jones pretended to be Rob Riley's friend, while behind the scenes, helping to release unflattering stories about the son of former governor Bob Riley. Again, I'm not aware of the Riley-Duke story coming from anyone tied to Doug Jones, unless it was at a significant distance. Writes Simpson:

Matt [Osborne] is a long-time DNC-Netroots paid operative type, and according to Republicans all across the state, was hired by Doug Jones' bunch to smear Roy Moore. What I really think is that Jones is trying to cover up that the Riley-Duke story came from investigators working for his Haskell Slaughter firm at the time, and he was a ring leader of the story to get close to Rob Riley and cast shade on me. The Haskell Slaughter firm had hired a lot of old ABI [Alabama Bureau of Investigation] boys to follow Rob,  which Doug would snitch about to Milton McGregor and Tommy Gallion -- where Rob was going while acting like Rob's friend.

They followed Rob often to a condo on an island near Mobile, I was told by Milton which is where the stories came from -- and where the pictures were taken by some guy named [Bill] Rhegness, who worked for Doug and Tommy -- who worked for the Gaming Kings of Alabama and considered the pictures to be insurance. It was Doug's firm's gaming clients, hiring former retired ABI guys, who were following governors, their sons, and AGs to get the dirt about their girlfriends and or boyfriends (in the case of Pryor). That is how the Pryor pictures were obtained, as well. All these pictures belonged to Doug's firm, not mine, and were obtained for their clients, not mine.

Photos that go to the Luther Strrange-Jessica Garrison affair also are in circulation, Simpson says, and have been used in curious ways. Montgomery attorney Priscilla Duncan is tied to the "Alabama naughty pictures" story, especially in the case of Bill Pryor. Writes Simpson:

Rob Riley is nuts if he thinks I give one hoot who he screws, as is Luther Strange. Tommy Gallion showed me his picture collection, as he is quite proud of it, and as you all know, Tommy is an accomplished Republican political operative.  He let Doug, for $1 million, buy into Haskell Slaughter, as Doug wanted to be the next political master, like Tommy, in our state. It is their damn pictures, and they need to leave me out of their shit. I want zero part of it.

I know Tommy and Doug had the Pryor pictures that Roger ran, as Tommy showed them to me after Priscilla [Duncan] showed me the Bad Puppy pictures and asked if my friend [Wayne] Madsen would run them years before, which he did for her. Priscilla has denied it,but those were her pictures, not mine -- and that caused Tommy to show me his, trying to determine if he had a leak, which I believe he suspected was Doug Jones.

In 2018 (or '17?), Priscilla worked for the Jones bunch, trying to put a patch on the election machines in Alabama, which [SOS John] Merrill refused. 
As for the Luther Strange pictures with Jessica Garrison . . . well when Lowell Barron was charged, I heard from Milton McGregor that [Montgomery lawyer] Joe Espy and Doug and Tommy had pictures from ABI and were threatening to release them, but Luther decided to drop the charges.

Once again, I heard Doug was saying I had these pictures, when it reality, they belonged to his gaming kings. I complained loudly about this back in 2016 when I heard I was being punished for Doug's gambling king's nasty pictures of Rob and Luther. I even called Luther's office and spoke to an investigator and said I am sick of being blamed for Doug and Tommy's Haskell Slaughter picture collection. I additionally went to the FBI, which was not interested in hearing my story in Gadsden and said it was me, Jill, with all these pictures, and I was like nope it is them.

Osborne is dancing in dangerous territory, Simpson writes, given that he clearly is ill-informed about the origins of these stories :

Now Doug's boy Matt Osborne is once again blaming me for stories I did not tell Roger. So everyone knows, I told Roger, who I like, "I might not do those stories, if I were you, because Rob Riley might have you hurt. I knew already, from telling the Siegelman political-prosecution story that Doug Jones caused my house to blow up on one end, and my car to get blown up, and I did not want anything to happen to Roger, as he had helped protect me telling the stories about those incidents.

Tommy Gallion
 As for the Rob and Luther sex stories, they belong to Doug Jones, who I think used me to get his "Republicans 4 Jones" signs and support from the Rileys. Now he is trying to make  me the big, bad wolf , via Matt Osborne, but those pictures belong to gambling king clients of one Doug Jones.

That is my opinion, and Matt Osborne needs to stop throwing shade at me for Doug Jones -- and Matt should think long and hard what he is doing. It may buy him a very long time in jail. What. he did to Roy Moore was wrong; he participated in a campaign to smear Roy with fake Russian bots we tracked right to him and Jones. He also has been smearing me as the "aggrieved girlfriend of Bob Riley," so I hear -- and, well, it is him and Doug Jones who do these kooky, crazy stories, not me.

He needs to leave me alone. I might add I am happily married to my husband and not going to put up with his and Doug's nonsense any longer. Doug needs full credit for all the pictures he collected for his gaming kings at Haskell Slaughter.

Jones' back-stabbing ways even extend to national political figures, such as Hillary Clinton, Simpson writes. Ironically, it was the Bill Clinton administration that appointed Jones as a U.S. attorney in the late 1990s:

I have always liked Gallion, and I think he probably is the best political operative the state has ever had. But when things started going toward Doug Jones . . . well, he was just downright the meanest, nastiest political operative our state ever has seen. Matt Osborne keeps slapping at me, as he knows that I know his boy Doug is a snitch and troublemaker -- and I've been outing it.

Osborne needs to leave me alone; my patients with him is wearing thin. I also want to make real clear that Doug Jones has been a long-time Democrat snitch to Republicans, one who would run to Gallion and tell him everything he knew. Jones even joined Gallion's firm, paying in and snitching on Democratic presidential campaigns, such as the one for Hillary Clinton in 2008, while Gallion was helping the John McCain campaign.

I hung around and watched, until June 2008, when I went to Russia to help elect President Obama. I was working to uncover. as a press operative, what was going on with the McCain camp. Tommy Gallion liked me, but got really mad when I helped Obama's  bunch out Mccain's involvement with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. But I really switched parties and was always honest with Gallion. I could no longer help the GOP because of Saudi and Russian stuff, due to my FEMA and state clients.

Doug Jones, on the other hand, was yapping a storm about Hillary to McCain bunch, and Tommy shared as he thought he could beat Obama easier than Clinton.I hung around,  taking it all in to help Obama. I was secretly at the time leaking to Madsen all McCain was doing, plus Hillary. You can look back at his articles and see it.

I love Tommy, but we were no longer operatives for the same party. As for Doug Jones, he snitches for all sides and is a creep. But Doug and Tommy were helping McCain. I told you all that Jones was a closeted Republican.

Matt Osborne needs to wake up; his guy is a closeted Republican. I am thankful for all I learned from Republican operative Gallion. I feel like I was taught by one of the best GOP operatives how to get info from all sides -- and I have taken all I learned to the Progressive Democrat team.

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