Shadowy facial-recognition company, tied to Alabama GOP operative Jessica Medeiros Garrison, is aligned with political figures on the right-wing fringe

Chuck Johnson and Hoan Ton-That make the "OK" sign associated with white power

A controversial facial-recognition company has ties to right-wing politics, including Team Trump, according to a report at BuzzFeed News. Clearview AI, which has ties to Alabama via Mountain Brook-based GOP operative Jessica Medeiros Garrison, came to national attention via an investigative report in January by Kashmir Hill, of The New York Times. Garrison, it turns out, is not the only Clearview insider to go undergound on social media since the Times article was published; other figures involved with Clearview have done the same thing.

How did the ties to right-wing politics take root? They started with company founder Hoan Ton-That, reports BuzzFeed News:

Originally known as Smartcheckr, Clearview was the result of an unlikely partnership between Ton-That, a small-time hacker turned serial app developer, and Richard Schwartz, a former adviser to then–New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Ton-That told the Times that they met at a 2016 event at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, after which they decided to build a facial recognition company.

Jessica Medeiros Garrison at gambling expo in Las Vegas

While Ton-That has erased much of his online persona from that time period, old web accounts and posts uncovered by BuzzFeed News show that the 31-year-old developer was interested in far-right politics. In a partial archive of his Twitter account from early 2017, Ton-That wondered why all big US cities were liberal, while retweeting a mix of Breitbart writers, venture capitalists, and right-wing personalities.

“In today's world, the ability to handle a public shaming / witch hunt is going to be a very important skill,” he tweeted in January 2017.

 Ton-That appears to associate with white nationalists and right-wing extremists:

Those interactions didn’t just happen online. In June 2016, Mike Cernovich, a pro-Trump personality on Twitter who propagated the Pizzagate conspiracy, posted a photo of Ton-That at a meal with far-right provocateur Chuck Johnson with both of them making the OK sign with their hands, a gesture that has since become favored by right-wing trolls.

“I was only making the Okay sign in the photo as in 'all okay,'” Ton-That said in an email. "It was completely innocuous and should not be construed as anything more than that.

"I am of Asian decent [sic] and do not hold any discriminatory views towards any group or individual," he added. "I am devoting my professional life to creating a tool to help law enforcement solve heinous crimes and protect victims. It would be absurd and unfair for anyone to distort my views and values based on old photos of any sort.”

What about Clearview's ties to Trump World? BuzzFeed provides details, including signs the company plans to offer services in "extreme opposition research" :

By the election, Ton-That was on the Trump train, attending an election night event where he was photographed with Johnson and his former business partner Pax Dickinson.

The following February, Smartcheckr LLC was registered in New York, with Ton-That telling the Times that he developed the image-scraping tools while Schwartz covered the operating costs. By August that year, they registered Clearview AI in Delaware, according to incorporation documents.

While there’s little left online about Smartcheckr, BuzzFeed News obtained and confirmed a document, first reported by the Times, in which the company claimed it could provide voter ad microtargeting and “extreme opposition research” to Paul Nehlen, a white nationalist who was running on an extremist platform to fill the Wisconsin congressional seat of the departing speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.

A Smartcheckr contractor, Douglass Mackey, pitched the services to Nehlen. Mackey later became known for running the racist and highly influential Trump-boosting Twitter account Ricky Vaughn. Described by HuffPost as “Trump’s most influential white nationalist troll,” Mackey built a following of tens of thousands of users with a mix of far-right propaganda, racist tropes, and anti-Semitic cartoons. MIT’s Media Lab ranked Vaughn, who used multiple accounts to dodge several bans, as one of the top 150 influencers of the 2016 presidential election — ahead of NBC News and the Drudge Report.

“An unauthorized proposal was sent to Mr. Nehlen,” Ton-That said. “We did not seek this work. Moreover, the technology described in the proposal did not even exist.”

Those tied to Clearview seem to have a twisted relationship with any notion of privacy:

Ironically for a company that seeks to erode privacy, many key figures at Clearview have attempted to lower their public profiles. Some began to do so long before the attention from the press.

Since Ton-That and Schwartz started Clearview, their social media and internet presences have been scrubbed. Ton-That deleted his Twitter and Instagram accounts, while Schwartz's LinkedIn profile vanished and his past with Smartcheckr has been obscured across the web.

When asked about this, Ton-That said in an email, "Regarding myself and others at the company, some choose not to maintain social media accounts because they are time consuming."

A search for Schwartz’s name plus "Smartcheckr" leads to results for seemingly nonsensical webpages, which include embedded YouTube videos from an account named “Seo Sgr” — results indicative of the use of a reputation management service to affect search results. BuzzFeed News also found a now-deleted press release referencing Schwartz and Smartcheckr, which linked to a New York Times obituary for a different Richard Schwartz. The company declined to comment on the fake webpages and whether Schwartz had hired someone to game search engine results.

On Monday, a BuzzFeed News reporter called a number associated with Schwartz after locating his contact information in an email to a New Jersey police department obtained in a public records request. A man picked up, denied he was Richard Schwartz, and hung up. BuzzFeed News called back again and got a voicemail recording that stated the number belonged to Schwartz.

Clearview employee Marko Jukic, who signed off on various emails to police departments around the country, also appears to have deleted various social media accounts, while the Facebook profile of customer representative Jessica Medeiros Garrison disappeared from public view following the Times’ story.

Yesterday marked the sixth anniversary of my "arrest for blogging" in Alabama, as GOP herd stormed secure Capitol room in a similar "F--k you" to the rule of law

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Anonymous commenter hints he has inside knowledge about cheat jobs we've experienced in court cases -- and Jessica Garrison's role in possible obstruction

Jessica Medeiros Garrison and Luther Strange

We recently received an anonymous comment indicating the sender has knowledge of criminal acts in our court cases, across multiple states and jurisdiction. The comment suggests connections between bad actors in Alabama and Missouri and even points to a possible conduit between the two.

Specifically, the comment raises the specter of broad criminality -- including obstruction of justice, wire fraud, conspiracy, misprision of a felony, and possibly more. All of these could form a pattern of racketeering that might be part of future criminal or civil (or both) cases under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO).

How much do I know about the comment? Well, I know it was sent at 8:45 p.m. on Dec. 5, 2018, via blogger.com, which should make it highly traceable. From my blog statistics, I'm about 90 percent certain it came from Springfield, MO, where we currently reside. The comment references a less-than-famous political figure in Alabama, suggesting the commenter has more than a casual interest in cheat jobs against us. That makes me 95 percent certain I know exactly who it is. Even if my instincts about that are off, the sender likely has left enough of a digital footprint to be tracked down.

Here are the contents of the comment, which was sent to a post titled "Reporting on Steve Marshall's acceptance of illegal campaign funds in Alabama AG race shines light on the theft of our home via a wrongful foreclosure." I did not post the comment at the time because it clearly was from a troll. But I think it might yield important clues to wrongdoing against us, so I am posting it now:

You do realize you are never going to get your house back right? You know you are never going to win in a suit of any kind right? You know Jessica Garrison probably never thinks about you anymore but you think about her all the time right? This whole “House” thing jumped the shark long ago. Why not just save up and get another house. I like your blog because of the comedy elements but you have beat this joke to death. Get some new material champ.

Let's look at a few of these sentences and consider what they might mean?

(1)  You do realize you are never going to get your house back right? We've pointed to all kinds of corporate, political, legal, and judicial corruption associated with the theft of our Birmingham home via wrongful foreclosure. (See here, here, here, and here, for starters). The commenter suggests he knows about events connected to our wrongful foreclosure. Perhaps he would like to testify under oath about that?

(2) You know you are never going to win in a suit of any kind right? This blog is bursting at the seams with posts about unlawful court rulings against us. (See here, here, here, and here.) The commenter suggests he has an insider's knowledge about those rulings. Perhaps he would like to testify under oath about that?

(3) You know Jessica Garrison probably never thinks about you anymore but you think about her all the time right? If the commenter is from Missouri, how would he know much about Garrison, the one-time campaign manager and girlfriend of former Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange? Perhaps Garrison has communicated with the commenter and other bad actors in Missouri? Perhaps the commenter, and Garrison, would like to testify under oath about that?

(4) All of this leads to another question: Does the commenter have inside knowledge about multiple financial transactions involving Garrison and her curious ability to obtain pricey housing in Birmingham's "tiny kingdom" of Mountain Brook? For example, public records indicate Garrison has not had a steady job for quite some time, but she managed to purchase a house at 212 Dexter Avenue in Mountain Brook for $835,000. How does that happen? I've had a number of friends in the Dexter Avenue area over the years, and sources say several sets of eyes (with no prompting from me; they have a healthy case of curiosity) are keeping a regular watch on activities around the 212 address. Ironically, I happened to be in Birmingham a few months back and drove through the heart of Mountain Brook. Another such trip might be developing soon, so maybe I can join the "Neighborhood Watch" activities.

Is it possible the commenter is a con artist, one who doesn't know much of anything and is just jerking my chain? Yes. Is it possible the commenter knows even more than he's letting on and would be a strong candidate for a deposition in a federal lawsuit? Yes. Either way, I'm in the process of learning more about him and his apparent ties to Ms. Garrison.

Could the commenter wind up deeply regretting that he sent his vile little message, and do I intend to make sure he is unmasked in a glaring and painful way? Absolutely. Will Jessica Garrison regret screwing around with me for accurately reporting on her tawdry affair with Luther Strange? I don't know exactly how Ms. Garrison's mind works -- and I don't care to know -- but her notorious interview at Marie Claire suggests she has more emotions than brain cells. I suspect that has led her to take some ill-advised steps. -- the kind that could prove costly, even for someone living in Alabama's "tiny kingdom."

After all, Garrison already is defendant in two pending lawsuits, and more may be on the way.

Anonymous hacktivist group has emails from GOP thugs who conspired to have me arrested and thrown in jail for reporting accurately on Alabama corruption

Anonymous

Members of the Anonymous international hacktivist group possess copies of emails that prove who was behind my 2013 "arrest for blogging" and five-month incarceration in Shelby County, Alabama, according to a veteran state political insider. The source also says Claud Neilson, the crooked judge who ordered my arrest, quickly started looking for ways to release me, out of concern that I might be killed or hurt while in jail.

Jill Simpson, a whistle blower on corruption in the Don Siegelman case, writes in a recent Facebook post that a member of Anonymous contacted her and said the emails show my reporting on various GOP bad actors -- likely including Jeff Sessions, Rob Riley, Bob Riley, Luther Strange, Jessica Medeiros Garrison, Liberty Duke, and more -- was accurate. That, of course, does not surprise me, but the claim Anonymous possesses emails about my arrest is a surprise -- one with all kinds of implications.

For one, it means Rob Riley and Jessica Garrison filed their defamation lawsuits against me with zero grounds for doing so. That means they should lose their law licenses (perhaps permanently) -- as should other members of the Riley Jackson Law Firm -- and be on the hook for extensive civil damages. Two, the emails likely provide indisputable proof of a criminal conspiracy to kidnap me -- which could land the conspirators in prison for a lengthy spell.

Simpson refers to the Sessions-Riley branch of GOP criminals as "The Alabama Gang," and she explains how she came to learn about their internal communications about a scheme to silence a troublesome journalist, yours truly. Writes Simpson:

I heard . . . from a guy I had never heard of before who said he was a member of the group of Anonymous and they had restored all of Shuler's stuff on a server in India,  where it all remains up to this day from what I understand. Rob (Riley), I heard, got really mad, blaming Roger and myself for Anonymous doing this but we had nothing to do with it, which is one of the reason they went so hard after me on that deal. 

From what the individual with Anonymous said, who called me anonymously, they did not like folks who force journalists to remove true pieces about them from the Web and were putting the truth right back up again, in India, about Rob and Luther. I said, "How do you know it is true?" And then is when I was told, "We have all of the emails of the Alabama Gang." Apparently, Anonymous had been watching them for some time, as that is what I was told. The guy said if either Riley ever runs, we release (the emails) . . . and he said we read them for fun every so often.

Long-time readers might recall a controversy shortly after my release from jail where Legal Schnauzer content about the Rob Riley-Liberty Duke affair appeared at a Web site based in India. Now we know Anonymous was behind that.

Rob and Bob Riley

Claud Neilson, it turns out, was not comfortable being part of a scheme to have me kidnapped and thrown in jail. Writes Simpson:

As for Claud Neilson it is well known to the Alabama Resistance that he was manipulated by the Riley bunch. During the middle of Roger being jailed and after my shaming Religious-Right Republicans for doing the Riley's dirty work against Roger, with an article I did for OpEd News, where I pointed before anyone else that Roger was being held illegally as the only U.S. journalist imprisoned for outing public corruption. I heard from a member of the Religious Right who told me the Riley-Strange bunch had forced this upon folks like Neilson, this deal with Roger. They told me Mr. Neilson wanted an excuse to let Roger go, as he was afraid Roger would get killed after some guy sky dived off his bed next to Roger -- and Neilson was afraid he would be blamed if Roger was hurt. I was told by several religious right folks that they knew this gang of thugs led by Rob (Riley) and (Montgomery lawyer Baron) Coleman might cause Roger to get killed,  and we the progressive left, if we could get Roger's wife to take it down even for a day,  they would let him go and give him back to us and never put him back in no matter what. (The Religious Right folks) recognized what had happen. So as many of you all know I got Andy Kreig to come to Alabama, who I turned to for help to talk to Carol, as she refused to take it down (because) it was true.

[Note: Neither Carol nor I wanted to have it taken down, and I told her via jailhouse phone not to take it down. Two reasons: (1) I knew my reporting was accurate; (2) We knew my arrest was unconstitutional.]

The impact of Alabama's crooked GOP goes well beyond the state borders. Donald Trump and his associates, Simpson writes, can thank Alabama-connected slimers, such as Sessions, Riley, Strange, Garrison, Tripp Vickers (Alabama State Bar), and Ali Akbar (with his Montgomery lawyer, Baron Coleman), for their headaches with the Mueller investigation. It started, Simpson says, in part from efforts to expose Republican corruption in Alabama. In fact, Simpson notes that Ali Akbar threatened her one day after I wrote about Jessica Garrison's sweetheart deal on a $400,000 house in Mountain Brook:

Y'all will see Roger's time line in this piece, which coincides with my time line, as the next day after he ran the Jessica Garrison piece is when Ali Akbar threatened me -- he and his lawyer buddies in Alabama were going to get me shortly. After that is when Stacy McCain (another National Blogger Club member) called my boyfriend, now husband Jim, and said they were going to get me, with Ali's lawyer who happened to be Baron Coleman, the former law-office mate of Tripp Vickers who did all the meaness to me of getting me placed on disability with the Alabama State Bar due to my missing a hearing awaiting surgery for a broken neck with a doctor excuse. 

Looking back, it was awful what they did to both me and Shuler, but I believe it made all of us, our spouses included, more determined than ever to out how corrupt the whole GOP operation is. 

When Trump thinks about his investigation, he should thank those in the Alabama Gang who basically pushed us so far we outed it all, and the Trump bunch should thank them for stupidly running their mouths on what they were doing. With Trump, we tracked their whole weapons-grade propaganda machine, run by Russians and British operatives like Cambridge Analytica, because of folks like Ali and Coleman and Bannon and Rob . If Coleman and Ali -- with Riley and Strange and their buddy Vickers -- had not done what they did, then Trump probably would never have had his whole operation tracked.

Daily Caller "journalist" Chuck Ross, who broke story of Jessica Garrison's $3.5-million judgment, is outed for the racist and misogynistic writings in his past

Chuck Ross

The Daily Caller (DC) "journalist" who broke the story of Jessica Medeiros Garrison's $3.5-million default judgment against me has a history of publishing racist and misogynistic blog posts before joining the DC staff, which once was led (in part) by current Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Chuck Ross broke the story of the Garrison judgment on April 4, 2015, in a post titled "Blogger Who Accused Alabama AG Of Carrying On An Affair Slapped With $3.5 Million Defamation Judgment." Ross broke the story before I even knew about the judgment -- a sign that somebody fed it to the DC -- and it's possible Ross' "inside source" on the story was . . . Jessica Garrison -- who with her professional ties to Trump attorney general Jeff Sessions, former U.S. Sen. Luther Strange, and U.S. Circuit Judge William H. "Bill" Pryor -- has the right-wing bona fides to have written for The Daily Caller herself.

Of course, Garrison once served as head of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and the affiliated Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF). That was before The New York Times unmasked RAGA as a shakedown outfit. Not long after that story broke, Garrison quietly left her positions at RAGA and RLDF. She held an "of counsel" position at Birmingham's Balch Bingham law firm, until that firm and Luther Strange became engulfed in the evolving Birmingham Superfund scandal. Once riding high in right-wing circles, Garrison doesn't seem to do much of anything now but work as a "consultant." How does Jessica afford that $835,000 house in Mountain Brook? When Luther Strange's ties to the Superfund scandal hit the press, Garrison's social-media profile went dark for several weeks.

Has Chuck Ross followed up with a Daily Caller post about all the dirt swirling around Jessica Garrison -- and Luther Strange? Has he informed readers that Garrison's default judgment, as a matter of law, is void and can be attacked as such at any time? Did he reveal that Garrison works for the DC? Of course not, and I didn't figure he would -- given the DC isn't known for making attempts at remotely balanced or complete journalism. After reading Ross' story on Garrison's $3.5-million judgment, the first words out of my mouth were, "This is the most inaccurate, one-sided, sophomoric piece of 'garbage journalism' I've ever read."

Ross' article on the Garrison judgment is such a sham that it takes me a while to describe all of its shortcomings. It also requires time to list some of the seedy right-wing blogging characters with whom Ross, the DC (and Garrison?) are affiliated. We'll do that in a bit, but first, let's examine recent reporting by Washington Post media writer Erik Wemple, who reveals that Ross' "training" for his Daily Caller position included producing racist and misogynistic scribblings at a nasty blog called Gucci Little Piggy. From the Wemple piece:

Back in 2010, some blogger wanted to vent about something. “Small towns like the one I’m from in Texas have a fat girl problem. The scent of cheap perfume, sweat, grease … forms a troposphere-like force field surrounding the town that I call ‘that fat girl smell,'” wrote the blogger. At the end of another post, this same fellow concluded, “When given equal opportunity women don’t have the tools to perform as well in business as men.”

That’s certainly not the most hateful stuff on the Internet, if only because there’s a lot of competition in this dubious category. What makes it noteworthy, however, is that it’s part of the oeuvre that preceded the blogger’s hiring at Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, starting in 2014.

Also: The blogger, Chuck Ross, is now renouncing those words and many others. “A lot of the stuff I wrote on my blog and in comments sections on other websites were hare-brained responses to stupid arguments taking place within the tiny community of bloggers I knew at the time,” notes the 36-year-old Ross in a written statement to the Erik Wemple Blog. “I wrote a lot of stuff that I didn’t believe, but I’d write about it for the sake of argument, and sometimes to be provocative or to piss off other bloggers. 

“I’ve matured immeasurably since then, and I regret that I put these ill-formed thoughts out into the public domain.”

Sounds like Ross is trying to save what's left of his tattered reputation. Was the work that led to his spot on The Daily Caller staff really just a matter of "ill-formed thoughts"? You can decide, with assistance from Erik Wemple:

The Daily Caller launched in 2010 under the editorial leadership of Tucker Carlson, who showed little compunction about posting content that objectifies women. Race, too, has been a problematic coverage area.

Such proclivities may explain why the Daily Caller first took a liking to Ross, who once wrote on politics, culture, society and other topics for a blog named “Gucci Little Piggy,” an apparent reference to a lyric from the rock band Radiohead. From this platform, Ross came up with some theories. Like this one, in a 2010 post:

Erik Wemple

 "Black people walk slow – everywhere. This is especially puzzling since they tend to run so fast. Blacks meander through cross walks in traffic. They jaywalk in front of oncoming vehicles. They do the “Dougie” on two-way streets. Don’t get stuck behind them in a crowded mall or in line somewhere; they’ll walk slow just to go against the grain or force you (white person) to swerve around them. Inevitably, they’ll make fun of you for being a goofy, neurotic white person."

Ross has tried to sweep the ugliness in his past under the proverbial rug. But Wemple has not let him get away with it:

Those racist thoughts no longer appear on Gucci Little Piggy. The link to the post — titled “Black Passive-Aggression” — no longer works. That’s because Ross eliminated that post from his site, which he shut down in 2014, less than a year after his hiring at the Daily Caller. Many of his posts, accordingly, survive only as block-quoted references on other sites, as well as on archived pages. “I shut it down completely,” Ross tells this blog. The remaining digital trail shows that in January 2010, for instance, he springboarded off of an essay by a social psychologist regarding genetics and behavioral differences among groups:

The question becomes, if each one of these groups is acting in accordance with their “nature”, how do we go about doling out justice or incorporating every group into the social fold? I touched on the question previously. As an example, if blacks have higher levels of testosterone and are more predisposed towards violent and aggressive behavior, “intertribal” competition, and work-aversion – antisocial behavior in today’s Western world – is it fair to “punish” them using white Western legal and social proscriptions? In these cases, legal codes and social norms that worked well for white Westerners may not work so well for blacks of African descent or people of other ethnicities and races who have had much less time to co-evolve within “our” society’s proscriptions.

Another archived post from “Gucci Little Piggy” went a bit further:

Let’s use blacks – especially African Americans – as an example. Blacks’ higher testosterone levels lead to increased aggression which in today’s confined society inevitably leads to increased violence and crime. In fact, African-Americans’ ancestors – slaves – were bred for high testosterone levels. A properly implemented penal code would account for the difference in nature to curb the problem. Laws and punishments that seek to reprimand outlying behavior on the “normal” (white) distribution of lawfulness may not fit the distribution of lawfulness for blacks. 

Obviously, the U.S.’s penal code has led to blow back on the black community. A never-ending cycle of criminality and incarceration of blacks is one of the reasons for their low socio-economic status, low education levels, and higher crime. While individuals are responsible for their actions on the micro level, systematic incongruency will lead to higher incarceration rates on the aggregate. It’s nice to think that an individual will behave in accordance with the law, but its a pipe dream that a whole group will act against their nature to live by the letter of the law.

This all suggests The Daily Caller article about Jessica Medeiros Garrison' $3.5.-million default judgment was written by a raging racist. That's ironic because the judgment was issued by Judge Don Blankenship, a black man who apparently has no problem sucking up to the white conservative elites who have turned Alabama into a legal and political sewer.

Jessica Medeiros Garrison and Luther Strange

How bad is Chuck Ross' article on the Garrison judgment? And who are the sleazy band of right-wing bloggers with whom he and the DC are affiliated? We will examine those questions in an upcoming post.


(To be continued)

Luther Strange declares himself a corruption fighter as rising billboards and rampant investigations show the soon-to-be-former senator is a corruption creator

U.S. Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) is the political equivalent of a canker sore. Just when you think you are rid of him, he pops back up -- usually in a painful and annoying way. With a special election just one week away -- Roy Moore or Doug Jones will be elected to Jeff Sessions' old seat, which Strange has been keeping warm on an interim basis -- "Big Lutha's" days as a political force appear to be numbered.

But darned, if he didn't crawl out from under his rock the other day with a guest column at al.com, containing a headline that seemed right out of The Onion. The title of Lutha's screed: "The importance of taking on corruption."

Readers all over Alabama must have spit up when they read that. The Strange column came as VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor has erected billboards around the state that shout "Exposed!," followed by photos of Strange, former governor Bob Riley, and former U.S. Attorney Leura Canary. Reports Josh Moon, of Alabama Political Reporter (APR):

The billboards, McGregor said on Monday, were a reminder to the people of the state about the corruption he feels was exposed by the documentary “Atticus v. Architect: The Political Assassination of Don Siegelman.”

“I think that film peeled back the layers of corruption in this state and exposed these people for the crooks they are,” McGregor said. “They have gone unpunished and been allowed to stay in power far too long. I hope to, at the very least, let every person in this state know what they did.”

McGregor has received an up-close view of Strange/Riley/Canary corruption. Writes Moon:

The film also details the attempted prosecution of McGregor, which the VictoryLand owner has long maintained was motivated by politics and lacking evidence of criminal activity on his part. A federal jury agreed, acquitting him and his co-defendants of all charges.

But the trial was not McGregor’s only run-in with Riley and Strange. After operating a legal electronic bingo casino operation in Macon County for more than five years — a business that was inspected and deemed legal by then-state Attorney General Troy King — Riley decided the business was illegal and formed a task force to shut it and other casinos down. McGregor’s casino was raided numerous times — both by Riley’s task force and by Strange’s office — and to add insult to injury, machines confiscated from VictoryLand were allowed to be transferred — with VictoryLand stickers still attached — to the casino floor at the Poarch Creek Indians’ Wind Creek Casino.

Strange's corruption-fighting column came roughly six weeks after APR reported there are so many complaints against Strange the Alabama Ethics Commission can't keep up with them all:

A formal complaint was filed by Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill last spring regarding transfers of campaign funds that Strange made between his various campaign accounts. The issues were similar to the charges filed against former Gov. Robert Bentley, leading to his conviction and resignation.

The Ethics Commission was expected to take up the matter by late summer but it still hasn’t found its way onto an agenda. There was plenty of speculation about the cause – with most guessing the Commission was bending to political pressure, since Strange was facing a Republican primary in a special election this fall. That speculation grew when the Ethics Commission mysteriously delayed its July meeting until a day after the primary.

But multiple sources familiar with the Ethics Commission’s investigation say it was additional allegations that led to the long delay. Those allegations run the gamut, including that Strange violated ethics laws by accepting the appointment to the U.S. Senate from Bentley, that he broke multiple campaign finance laws and that he used his office for personal gain in several instances.

The allegations also have tied Strange to the ongoing bribery scandal surrounding the north Birmingham superfund site. However, U.S. Attorney Jay Town, earlier this month, stated that no elected officials other than Oliver Robinson were being investigated in that matter.

For those keeping score, let's count the Strange-related scandals mentioned in the above passage:

(1) Improper shifting of funds from one campaign account to another;

(2) Accepting a U.S. Senate appointment from former "Luv Guv" Robert Bentley, who was the subject of an investigation by Strange's attorney general's office;

(3) Violations of multiple campaign-finance law;

(4) Using his office for personal gain;

(5) Connections to the North Birmingham Superfund scandal.


On top of that, Strange and his former campaign manager/mistress Jessica Medeiros Garrison are defendants in two pending federal lawsuits that my wife Carol and I have filed -- "The Jail Case," regarding my unlawful arrest and incarceration in Shelby County; and "The House Case," regarding the theft of our Birmingham home of 25 years, via a wrongful foreclosure.

Luther Strange and Jessica Garrison

Legitimate discovery in those cases likely will reveal astonishing corruption involving Strange and his associates.

Speaking of Strange, Garrison, and the use of public office for personal gain, we can't forget a story with this unforgettable headline: "How Did Jessica Garrison Have A Mt. Brook House in 2011, When Foreclosure, Public Auction Didn't Come Until 2012?" From the story:

Court documents show that a Republican political operative with close ties to Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange was set to live in a Mountain Brook home in 2011, even though the property in question was not sold at public auction until summer 2012. . . .

Did Garrison's ties to GOP heavyweights help her obtain a home in Birmingham's most exclusive suburb when the house apparently was not even on the market yet? Did powerful figures pull strings to help keep Jessica Garrison quiet about certain party secrets, and in the process, commit mortgage fraud, foreclosure fraud or other wrongdoing . . . ?

[A court document in her child-custody case] establishes that Jessica Garrison had the Crestline home lined up on July 26, 2011, but that is at odds with a Foreclosure Deed on the property that is dated July 20, 2012. . . .

How did Jessica Garrison know she had a house in 2011 when it wasn't sold at foreclosure until 2012? We don't know--but we do know that Ms. Garrison isn't anxious to answer questions about it.

Yep, I tried to interview Ms. Garrison about her curious home acquisition, but she wanted none of that. Two days after the interview request, however, I received a letter from her lawyer, Bill Baxley, threatening a lawsuit. Two weeks after my post on the subject, Shelby County cop/thugs broke into our house, kidnapped me (no warrant), and threw me in jail for five months.

In fact, I wrote a followup post (dated Oct. 22, 2013) on the cushy nature of the Garrison house deal and was arrested the very next day.

Gee, that doesn't sound the least bit dirty, does it? But hey, Luther Strange is one fine corruption fighter . . . Cough! Hack! Snort!

Modern Alabama history suggests the longer Jeff Sessions stays in office, the more likely Americans will see their free speech and property rights trampled

Al Franken and Jeff Sessions
(From politicaldig.com)

The most widely covered moment in Attorney General Jeff Sessions' testimony this week before the Senate Intelligence Committee involved a testy exchange between Sessions and U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN). But the most newsworthy moment, for those of us who care about the First Amendment, came when Sessions refused to say that his Justice Department would not arrest journalists for doing their jobs.

Sessions tried to apply some soft edges to his answer, but we don't have to guess about how this can play out on his watch. Journalists already are subject to arrest in Alabama, where Sessions served as a U.S. senator for 20 years before joining the Trump administration in early 2017. I know because I was unlawfully arrested and incarcerated in Shelby County, AL, in October 2013, part of the fallout from a defamation lawsuit brought by GOP operative Rob Riley and his one-time mistress, lobbyist Liberty Duke.

That made me the only journalist in the western hemisphere to be arrested in 2013, the first U.S. journalist to be arrested since 2006, and apparently the only journalist in U.S. history to be arrested because of a preliminary injunction that has been prohibited in defamation cases by more than 230 years of First Amendment law. Does Jeff Sessions respect the First Amendment or the rule of law? My experience indicates the answer is a resounding no. And my five-month stay in jail was smeared with the fingerprints of Sessions' allies -- including Rob Riley (son of former Gov. Bob Riley), former Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange (who was appointed to fill Sessions' Senate seat on an interim basis), U.S. Circuit Judge and former Alabama AG Bill Pryor, and Jessica Medeiros Garrison, one-time mistress and campaign manager for Luther Strange.

A prominent Alabama opposition researcher, activist, and whistle blower warns that Sessions has several tools he can use against those who speak out against him or the Trump administration. Jill Simpson, who played a major role in bringing the Don Siegelman political prosecution to light, says asset-forfeiture laws could, under Sessions, become little more than a license for law enforcement to steal.

The good news is that Simpson predicts Sessions will be indicted, convicted, and imprisoned for his role in the Trump-Russia scandal -- and hopefully, that will happen before Sessions can turn the United States into a greatly expanded version of Alabama.

As for Sessions' thoughts on a free press, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) asked if he would commit to not jailing journalists for doing their jobs. Here is Sessions' reply:

Well, I don't know that I can make a blanket commitment to that effect. But I would say this: We have not taken any aggressive action against the media at this point. But we have matters that involve the most serious national security issues, that put our country at risk, and we will utilize the authorities that we have, legally and constitutionally, if we have to.

Is this answer mostly horse manure? Well, let's look at the environment that Jeff Sessions helped create in Alabama. Was aggressive action taken against the media there? It sure as heck was. I had a cop enter our home -- without showing a warrant, stating he had a warrant, or stating his reasons for being there (all violations of state and federal law) -- knock me to a concrete floor three times, douse me with pepper spray, and drag me to my driveway, where one of his colleagues threatened to break my arms.

Oleg Deripaska and Paul Manfort

If that sounds aggressive to you, it sure felt aggressive to me. And consider this: One day before my arrest, I posted about an apparent sweetheart deal where Jessica Medeiros Garrison took ownership rights to a Mountain Brook house appraised at more than $400,000 after paying $30,000 at a foreclosure auction? For whom did Garrison once work? Jeff Sessions. Was my arrest sparked by reporting here that was getting too close to the truth about Garrison's house deal -- and did she solicit the help of Sessions, or one of his compadres, to make sure I was beaten and tossed in the slammer? My answer to both parts of that question is yes.

Sessions' statement on press freedom this week should not be a surprise. He hinted in early August that the jailing of journalists could be coming. Like me, Jill Simpson knows enough about Sessions to take his "out there" statements seriously. From her Facebook post yesterday about asset forfeiture (with editing for clarity and brevity):

Most people have no idea what can happen in Alabama when you cross the Alabama Gang. People around the nation need to be very worried of this asset-forfeiture deal, as Sessions and his gang take his road show from Alabama to nationwide. I suspect this will be used as a weapon against activists. . . .  I know during the days of fascism and oligarchs retaking Russia, this kind of thing happened, as it is designed to scare activists and make them fear speaking out. 

I don't think many people understand yet what is taking over our country.  Each day, we are moving further from being a democracy. . . . Sessions' crew may use this asset-forfeiture tool nationwide to take everything from folks who speak out against them. . . . . When you run the courts and police like the Sessions bunch does, you can do anything.

Is there hope for saving our democracy from a serious internal threat? Simpson suggests a major source of hope is Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation of the Trump-Russia scandal. It should show, Simpson says, that Sessions and others from Alabama (Bob Riley, Bill Canary) long have engaged in unsavory dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Vladimir Putin. In the end, Simpson predicts, Sessions will wind up in "The Big House." From Simpson's Facebook post earlier this week about Russia-Alabama connections:

Jeff Sessions is a lying Russian-ass-kissing traitor, and Al Franken proved it. He called him on all his lies, and Jeff lied again, pushing the goal post further. When I came forward in the Siegelman case, I gave a detailed account to the press and a bunch of lawyers, showing that these Republican idiots connected to Riley and Canary's Alabama Gang (including Sessions) were wheeling and dealing with Oleg Deripaska, Vladimir Putin's top business spy on the EADS tanker deal. The U.S. Military knows it as well. (Also, Deripaska has $60 million worth of connections to former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort.)

If Mueller checks, he will find that Sessions got in bed with Deripaska when the Republicans were making money off Oleg. He is the sugar daddy for the Alabama Gang. Oleg is very powerful. His father-in-law was Boris Yeltsin 's KGB/FSB handler, and when they retired, Oleg became Putin's top FSB handler. It was passed on to him by his father-in-law.

Over the years, Putin has gained the upper hand but, they are a tag team. Oleg first started working years ago trying to get a visa to be able to come to the states, but the Clinton administration fought him and his lawyer, Bob Dole. Oleg next hired the head of the Republicans, Haley Barbour, who introduced him to the Alabama Gang (Canary, Riley, and  Sessions). Their representatives would meet Oleg at the Paris air show, where he . . . got Sessions to try to help them steal the tanker deal from Boeing and give it to the EADS/Airbus team, which had Russia as a minority shareholder. Since then, Sessions has been the go-to guy for Deripaska and the Russian government.

That is why Sessions meets with the Russians so much. Intel folks in every agency know Russia thinks Sessions is their guy, and they have been all over him for years. . . . It is well known in D.C. that Russia has a mole in the DOJ -- and it is Jeff Sessions. Yep, the evil elf of Alabama has really "elfed" up by lying so much in D.C.

He is caught, but the question remains: Does he realize they know what he has done for Russia, on behalf of his Alabama Gang? It is all going to come out, and the Keebler elf of Alabama is going to prison -- it is just a matter of time.

(Note: I was reminded of my time in the Shelby County Jail, with yesterday's reports about the FBI's annual nationwide human-trafficking sting. Operation Cross Country X1 rescued 84 children and netted the arrests of 120 suspected adult traffickers.

Antonio Key

One of the arrestees, Antonio Key, was apprehended in Shelby County, AL, and landed in the same jail where I spent five months. Let that sink in for a moment: I was arrested for blogging, and Key was arrested for human trafficking -- yet we wound up in the same place. I was held for five months, with no bail, and it's possible Key will spend less time there than I did. The Web site for the Shelby County Sheriff's office shows Key is being held on $20,000 bond, which probably means he can be released by paying $2,000.

(I was in an Alabama jail for five months because I was a blogger; Antonio Key likely will spend less time in the same jail, and he is accused of human trafficking. Is that what postmodern American justice has come to?)

Luther Strange appears in Birmingham's Superfund bribery scandal, raising questions about Jessica Medeiros Garrison and her ties to Balch and Bingham

Luther Strange and Jessica Garrison
(From facebook.com)

U.S. Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) has been linked to Birmingham's evolving EPA-Superfund bribery scandal, according to a story this morning at Alabama Political Reporter (APR).

The scandal already has ensnared former State Rep. Oliver Robinson (D-Birmingham), who agreed to plead guilty last week to bribery, conspiracy, and other federal charges. John Archibald, a columnist for al.com, wrote yesterday that the scandal could go way beyond Robinson, perhaps unmasking the law firms/lobbyists (Balch and Bingham) and corporate entities (Drummond Coal, Alabama Power, etc.) who have been at the center of Alabama's toxic political environment for decades.

Strange's connection helps bring the story close to home for your humble blogger. For one, Strange is a defendant in a pending federal lawsuit over the wrongful foreclosure on our home of 25 years in Birmingham. He likely will be added as a defendant in a second pending federal lawsuit, regarding my unlawful arrest and incarceration in Shelby County.

Jessica Medeiros Garrison, Strange's one-time campaign manager and mistress, is lead defendant in "The House Case" -- and where did she work until recently? That would be Balch and Bingham, the downtown Birmingham law firm that seems to be up to its neck in the Superfund scandal.

How did Garrison, a relatively young attorney with thin credentials, obtain an "of counsel" position at Balch and Bingham? Why does she no longer appear on Balch's roster of attorneys? How did she come to purchase an $835,000 house last year from an Alabama Power executive? How is Garrison paying for her snazzy Mountain Brook digs, now that she is out at Balch and Bingham, the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), and the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), which once seemed to be her main sources of gainful employment?

On a personal level, did Garrison and Strange engage in criminal behavior related to the glorified theft of our house, perhaps determined to make sure I was not in Alabama to report on the superfund scandal when it bubbled to the surface? Were they also involved in criminal behavior related to my unlawful incarceration, perhaps in conjunction with their political cohorts -- Bill Pryor, Jeff Sessions, Rob Riley, and other GOP luminaries? Were they connected to our unlawful eviction, which seems driven by someone's desire to make sure we stayed in Missouri, and left my wife, Carol, with a shattered left arm -- courtesy of thuggish Greene County deputies?

We will be looking for an answer to those questions. But, for now, let's focus on Luther Strange's connections to the superfund scandal. Writes Josh Moon, of APR:

State Rep. John Rogers told federal investigators that he was approached by executives from Drummond Coal and then-Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange and offered what Rogers considered a bribe if he would lead the state’s and Drummond’s efforts against the EPA’s cleanup of a superfund pollution site in north Birmingham, a source close to Rogers told APR.

Asked about the allegations, Rogers declined to confirm them, saying he didn’t want to talk about it “yet, because it’s too volatile.”

“I don’t want to get into that stuff right now,” Rogers said. “You have to be careful about that. These people are dangerous. I’ll keep that to myself until a later time.”

"These people are dangerous." What a curious thing for John Rogers to say. My response? Tell me about it. Here is more from Josh Moon:

According to the source, Rogers said he was offered control of a “super PAC or non-profit” into which Drummond Coal and other entities would contribute money in exchange for Rogers speaking out against the 35th Avenue superfund site and working to keep the EPA from assigning the area to the National Priority List.

Designating the area in north Birmingham a superfund site allowed the EPA to do testing in the area and start a process of identifying “potentially responsible parties” that caused the environmental damage. Levels of toxins in that 35th Avenue area have so far exceeded acceptable levels that the top layers of hundreds of residents’ yards have been removed.

Under EPA rules, responsible parties are on the hook for the cost of cleanup at superfund sites, meaning Drummond Coal, Alagasco, ABC Coke, U.S. Pipe and KMAC were potentially on the hook for around $20 million for the site cleanup.

As for John Archibald, he says the superfund scandal could be much bigger than most Alabamians realize. He says it could become "Alabama's Watergate":

This -- this is far bigger that Robinson. Or it could be. In his indictment, the feds point to Balch and Bingham and Drummond Co. as bribers. If proven, it'll be a body check to the very systems that run Alabama politics and fund the ugliest parts of them.

It just depends on what Robinson will spill to keep his sentence to a minimum.

It depends on what the unnamed co-conspirators at Drummond and Balch are willing to say, and whether the actions outlined in the federal documents can be quarantined.

Because these players -- and those they associate with -- provide the grease that makes Alabama run.

That grease, of course, does not make Alabama run well. The grease just makes everything it touches slimy. This now has national and international implications. Lawyers from Balch and Bingham are closely aligned with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, now at the heart of the Trump/Russia scandal, which could bring down a presidency. Writes Archibald:

Balch and Bingham is one of Alabama's most powerful firms. You can't follow a political story -- as the recent drama at the state board of education shows -- without tripping on a Balch lawyer or lobbyist.

Gov. Kay Ivey just appointed Balch lawyer Will Sellers - a longtime confidante - to the Alabama Supreme Court. And several Balch lawyers sit in positions to advise U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Balch and Drummond both contribute heavily to political campaigns inside and out of Alabama. Each gave more than $215,000 in last year's federal election cycle, which was enough to put them in the state's top 10 donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

But this is not just about those tainted by the Oliver Robinson scandal. This is about the way political money is spent.

Both Balch and Drummond have substantial ties to another Top 10 giver -- Southern Company, parent to Alabama Power.

No matter how ugly the superfund scandal gets, it could prove to be the best thing that has happened to Alabama in a long time -- especially if it pulls the mask off slime balls like Luther Strange, Jessica Garrison, Jeff Sessions, and a few of the state's many corrupt lawyers. Write Archibald:

What is clear is that money from entities supportive of coal and power - and other interests -- have flowed through Balch and into the hands of those who change opinions. Balch has employed . . . Matrix group, which worked with entities such as the Partnership for Affordable Clean Energy (PACE), which lobbied hard in 2013 to prevent the Public Service Commission from holding formal utility rate hearings -- which Alabama Power opposed.

Understand, Alabama. What happened in north Birmingham is not about Birmingham. What happened to Robinson is not just about Robinson.

Alabama's political status quo is at risk. For the first time in a long time.

That's a good thing.

Luther Strange and Jessica Medeiros Garrison produce moments of high comedy in their testimony from defamation case against Legal Schnauzer and me

Luther Strange and Jessica Garrison

U.S. Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) and his adviser/mistress Jessica Medeiros Garrison produced some comedic moments in their testimony at a default-judgment hearing connected to Garrison's defamation lawsuit against Legal Schnauzer and me.

One memorable moment is of the "hah, hah" comedy variety. The other is what might be called "black comedy." Both are worth noting because they say a lot about the people involved:

Jessica Garrison thinks Legal Schnauzer has investigative super powers

In an almost terror-stricken tone, Garrison says she can't imagine how I obtained her address in Crestline because she is unlisted, almost "underground," one might think. She suggests that I've gone to extraordinary lengths to get her address, hinting that I have all sorts of devious plots in mind. Naturally, there is a very simple explanation for how I, or anyone else, could get her address, but Garrison (who is a licensed attorney) apparently can't figure what that might be.

This is from a transcript of her interaction with attorney Bill Baxley on the subject. (The full transcript is embedded at the end of this post.), From page 67:

Q: Do you think in the future you still might have things like bad dreams and lay awake at night and things of that matter because of some of these allegations?

A. Sure, and the fact that he published a photo of my house and my street address. I'm not listed. I'm not listed anywhere. But it made me incredibly nervous when he's posted my address and my home for the world to see, so I've added a security alarm. I was paranoid that my house was either -- I was paranoid people were watching me.

Do I really have investigative superpowers, with plans to use them to torture Garrison and her young son? Not exactly. As we explained in several posts, including this one, her address at the time (119 Main Street in the Crestline section of Mountain Brook) was a matter of public record. It was in her divorce/child custody case, as plainly can be seen below:

The parties were divorced . . . on October 21, 2009 . . . [and] the parties have joint legal and physical custody of their minor child. . . . The Plaintiff (hereinafter "Mother") initially petitioned this court on December 9, 2010, for full custody of the minor child due to a material change in circumstances, and included in her petition notification of an anticipated relocation. The Defendant (hereinafter "Father") responded, objecting to the proposed relocation, and counter-petitioned for a modification of custody. The Mother was able to secure alternate employment that did not require her to move more than sixty (60) miles from the residence of the Father, and she amended her Petition for Modification of Custody accordingly. The Mother's new address is 119 Main Street, Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Father's address remains 1609 Alaca Place, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

That's how I found Jessica Garrison's address, by looking up a record that could not be more public. Anyone else on the planet could do the same thing by walking in the Jefferson County Courthouse, going to the clerk's office on the fifth floor (or third, I can't remember which) and asking to see the Lee Garrison/Jessica Garrison child-custody case out of Tuscaloosa County. So much for my investigative superpowers, but I guess Garrison wanted to have a moment of hysteria on the stand. That a lawyer could not figure out her address was available on her recent divorce/custody case . . . well, it blows the mind.


Luther Strange tells a tall tale that hides Bill Baxley's underhanded tactics

Strange addresses Dothan blogger Rickey Stokes and his coverage of the Strange/Garrison affair, noting that Stokes had pursued the story aggressively before apparently backing off. Strange doesn't say why Stokes backed off, but the reason has been obvious for quite some time -- especially for those who read this blog.

From page 17 of the transcript, as Baxley questions Strange:

Q. Okay. Now, let me ask you this: Did Ricky Stokes write something in his blog adversely to you on that occasion, the first occasion?

A. On the first occasion, he had repeated -- and I don't have the exact chronology, but he had repeated the allegations that the Legal Schnauzer had made.

Q. So he repeated something that Mr. Shuler had written?

A. That's correct.

Q. Subsequent to that, after that did Ricky Stokes later publicly in his blog apologize to you and say he didn't believe what he had written?

A. He did subsequently publish something that said these allegations I believe are highly questionable and backed off of his previous reporting.

We've reported on all of this here at Legal Schnauzer, and we know exactly what happened. We also know that Strange and Baxley pull some con artistry here on the court. Follow us briefly on this timeline of relevant events:

*  July 31, 2013 -- We publish a post about Strange's refusal to answer Rickey Stokes' questions regarding the then-attorney general's extramarital affair with Jessica Garrison. That's the first Stokes article Strange references in his testimony above.

* August 21, 2013 -- We publish a post about Stokes' reversal, where he claims my reporting is "highly questionable as to truth and accuracy." This is the second Stokes article Strange references in his testimony. Stokes says his reversal is based on a conversation with a source he "would trust with my life in his hands." We note that the source likely is someone connected to the Baxley family, which is from Stokes' home base of Dothan. And we note that the source probably did not disclose that Bill Baxley was representing Jessica Garrison in her lawsuit, giving him a vested interest in trying to discredit me. We suggest that Rickey Stokes and his readers have been conned.

* September 30, 2013 -- We publish a post in which Stokes admits Bill Baxley conned him into writing the post that claimed my reporting was "questionable." From our post about Rickey Stokes and his public confession that Bill Baxley conned him:

In a comment posted to wiregrasslive.com at 1:48 p.m. on September 1, Stokes confirms that our suspicions were right on target: Bill Baxley was the source of his post claiming our reporting was "highly questionable"-- and Baxley did not disclose his personal stake in the matter, via his threatened lawsuit on Jessica Garrison's behalf. . . .

Translation: Bill Baxley blew copious amounts of smoke up Rickey Stokes' anal cavity -- and Stokes fell for it.

Perhaps I have a warped sense of humor, but I found both of these pieces of testimony amusing, especially when you know their backstories -- as I do, and as I've outlined here. To be sure, however, these are serious matters.

Consider a few questions:

* Was Luther Strange, Alabama's chief law-enforcement officer and now a U.S. senator, involved in Bill Baxley's con job on Rickey Stokes? Did Strange come up with the idea, or did he at least know it was going to happen, to help make sure Stokes no longer would confront him with uncomfortable questions in public places? If so, is that the kind of man Alabamians want representing them in the U.S. Senate?

* If Jessica Garrison had such a strong defamation case against me, why did Baxley (and maybe Strange) resort to chicanery involving Rickey Stokes? Why did Baxley, Strange, and Garrison take all sorts of underhanded steps to ensure they would not have to engage in discovery, go to trial, or testify under oath before a jury?

Humor aside, the testimony highlighted above adds to the evidence that Jessica Garrison never had a legitimate defamation case -- and she, or someone close to her -- made sure my wife, Carol, and I were subjected to a wrongful foreclosure, ensuring that I would be in Missouri and not in Birmingham to defend myself.