August 14, 2026 • 31 mins
Were Democratic attorneys general preparing to wage a legal battle against Donald Trump before voters even went to the polls?
On this episode of The Tudor Dixon Podcast, Tudor is joined by The Center Square investigative reporter Adam Herbets to discuss documents showing that more than 20 Democratic state attorneys general entered into a common-interest agreement as early as April 2024—months before Donald Trump won the presidential election. The agreement allowed the states to coordinate on what they called “federal accountability projects,” which Herbets says have since resulted in roughly 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration.
Herbets explains how the states coordinated their legal strategies, why questions are being raised about taxpayer resources and public-record transparency, and whether these lawsuits are becoming a political and fundraising tool. He also details how states including California and New Jersey allocated additional money toward legal challenges involving the Trump administration.
Tudor and Herbets also examine the growing role of money in politics, Gavin Newsom’s fundraising relationships with nonprofits and major corporations, government contracts, and the increasingly blurred line between political influence and public policy.
The Tudor Dixon Podcast takes a closer look at the money, political power, and legal battles shaping government—and asks what taxpayers deserve to know about what is happening behind the scenes.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. You may remember one
time when I told you we had like seven secretaries
of state across the country who were saying that they
were coordinating in the twenty twenty four election to make
sure that nobody cheated, and that of course they were
all Democrats, and everybody was suspicious of what coordinating meant
(00:21):
for secretaries of state. That secretary of State from Michigan
is now running for governor. So she's currently like out
of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, who ran her own election for governor,
we have Justlyn Benson in Michigan who is running her
own election for governor. One person in Michigan who is
not running for a new election is our Attorney General,
(00:45):
Dana Nessel. She has she's termed out as attorney general.
She's decided not to run again. Interesting fact about Dana Nessel.
She's a pretty I would say, had historically been a
pretty far left attorney general, very against Trump, very aggressively
against Republicans. She went after what she called the fake
(01:06):
electors here in the state of Michigan. She's been like
a hardcore fighter for what I would historically say as
the far left. She just came out and said she
won't be attending the Democrat convention in Michigan, the Michigan
Democrat Convention. Why because she doesn't feel safe. She thinks
that the far left is dangerous. They've gone after her,
(01:26):
they've threatened her. And I just find this interesting because
I would say she it's like Frankenstein. She created this
monster and now it's out of control. But recently the
Center Square did an investigation and found out that attorneys
general across the country were also coordinating like those secretaries
(01:50):
of state, although they were coordinating also before the twenty
twenty four election on how they were going to sue
Donald Trump's admitted station. I have Adam Herbert's here with
me today. He is the investigative reporter at the Center Square. Adam,
thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, thank you for having us. I just find this.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Very interesting, and I wanted to talk a little bit
about Dana Nessel and where she is today because you
were telling me she was one of the first people
to sign on to this. She's been like a warrior
for the left, and now she's decided she's going to
step away from the party completely, at least in Michigan
because it's so dangerous. So what was she signing on
(02:33):
to when she signed on to do what you're going
to tell us they were doing.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, So what the Center Square on our team was
able to get a hold of just within the last
few weeks is something called a Common Interest Agreement, and
it's essentially a way for state attorneys general to coordinate
across state lines on cases where they might have a
common interest. In this case, it had to do with
(02:58):
what they're calling federal account ability projects. What we now
know is that we're talking about about one hundred lawsuits
so far against the Trump administration. It's almost impossible to
put a dollar figure on these lawsuits because different states
are being different levels of secret when it comes to
fulfilling records or fulfilling requests for public records. And Michigan,
(03:22):
as you said, was one of the first to sign
on to this Common Interest Agreement, the first states to
sign on where April twenty eighth, twenty twenty four, looks
like Michigan signed on in late May, but we're talking
about over twenty Democratic attorneys general who all signed this
document essentially planning to sue the Trump administration for hypothetical
(03:44):
policies against a hypothetical president who was very, very far
away from being re elected. I think back to April
twenty twenty four. We're talking about three months before Kamala
Harris even announced her run for presidency. We're talking about
six months before or Trump won the election, and about
nine months before he was inaugurated. So to say that
(04:05):
we have these hypothetical lawsuits that were already planning this
far in advance, I thought that was strange. But look,
we have this law fair situation going on with both parties.
I know there were hundreds of lawsuits against the Biden administration,
although that was in four years, not in two years,
and I wanted to know if any cases had really
(04:27):
been planned out this far in advance. I haven't found
any so far. One of the people we interviewed in
our story was a former Utah Attorney General who was
a Republican at least at the time, and he was
talking about some of the lawsuits against Obamacare, and that
was something that we knew was coming down the pipeline
for a long time. And even in the Obamacare lawsuit,
they waited until it passed and got their ducks in
(04:49):
a row and then eventually filed. They didn't start planning
seven eight, nine months in advance, and.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
To your point, before we even knew if Donald Trump
would be elected. I think people need to put this
into perspective. We're talking about a November twenty twenty four election.
All the way back to April. They're preparing for this
in the midst of taking him to court throughout the election.
I mean, we have you had New York taking him
to court. They were already trying to crush him personally
(05:20):
under the legal system. But to think that they're actually coordinating.
How many states are we talking that we're coordinating.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So twenty two to twenty three. It's a little complicated
because I think Minnesota accidentally signed the document twice or
had two different people signing it on two different dates.
It's so not surprising for the California Attorney General at
a press conference, you know, earlier this month, to stand
out a podium talk about his eighty two lawsuits and
(05:48):
to say that they are all a political The documents
don't seem to match that up. When they're planning these
things so far in advance, and not a single Republican
attorney general had signed on. It's just it's not a
political I mean, it's fine for the Democrat attorneys general
to coordinate, it's fine for the Republican Attorney's General Association
to coordinate. We've seen that happening now for ten twenty
(06:11):
years as the system has become more and more partisan.
But don't stand up in front of the podium say
it's a political when you don't have a single Republican
joining in.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So in fairness, there were a few, like just over
one hundred lawsuits against the Biden administration from state attorneys general.
So it's not that this doesn't happen, but we're talking
about this is twice as many, and they were preparing
them ahead of time. You've said, you've never seen a
preparation in case the president becomes the president. You've never
(06:45):
seen this before.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Right, I've never seen it before. It is difficult, of
course to analyze hundreds and hundreds of federal lawsuits and
the system overall has just become so partisan that I
think the question and the fear regard wardless of which
party is in charge at the time, is this going
to be the new normal? Is this going to be
the precedent that's set whenever the party that we don't
(07:07):
like that's going to be in charge takes over. And
I'm sure the Republican Attorney's General Association is looking at this.
I thought that maybe they would be interested in commenting
on this, because a they could talk about these types
of agreements situations where they've entered into them. But the
Republican Attorney's General Association isn't commenting either. I thought that
was interesting. But for the Democrats to plan this far
(07:31):
in advance, again, I think that's going to be the
odd precedent that this case will set, because this isn't
just a packed to plot lawsuits. It's also a way
for them to withhold public records. And they're using this
document to try and say that attorney client privilege exists
on a hypothetical lawsuit against a hypothetical policy against a
(07:54):
hypothetical president. So we obviously disagree. We have been fighting
with states across the to try and figure out what
emails were being sent across party lines, what exactly were
they talking about in April twenty twenty four or sooner,
because of course it's entirely possible that just because they
put pen to paper in April twenty twenty four doesn't
(08:16):
mean that that was their first ever conversation about it.
So we really at this point have no idea how
far back it goes.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Well, let me ask you. I know that if I
get an attorney for some reason, I have to pay
them by the hour. Now, if you are an attorney
or you work in the attorney general's office at a state,
in a state state government system, are you just getting
a salary anyway? And it's like, Okay, the taxpayer dollars
aren't paying any more for them to do this research
(08:44):
and pretend like the president might do this, How would
we respond? Or is this costing taxpayers a lot of money?
And is it the taxpayers in that state that are
then funding this? How does that work?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It depends on the state, So there's a couple of
ways to answer your question. Even in the state that
aren't allocating additional money to their budget. I don't think
you will find a single prosecutor in this country, whether
they're working for a county district attorney's office or for
the state attorney general's office. You're never going to find
someone that says that they're twiddling their thumbs and running
out of cases. And running out of work because these
(09:17):
prosecutors are very overworked across the country because of the
rampant amount of crime that exists in this country and
the amount of cases that they have to prosecute or
civil cases that they might be involved in. So if
you're looking at it just from a time and resources standpoint,
you could make that argument. There are other states, like
the state of California, like the state of New Jersey
(09:37):
that have allocated additional money to their budgets specifically to
sue the Trump administration. The New Jersey governor added about
a million dollars to his budget to fund two new
positions specifically for all of these lawsuits, and the California
Attorney General's office work together with the state to pass
a bill that would allocate twenty five million towards budget
(10:00):
to fund these types of lawsuits, and they've already gone
through about eighteen nineteen million of that, So these are
not cheap. I do think that when multiple states join together,
they do kind of share the load. So even though
there might be seventeen attorneys general on one case, it
might really be one or two of them doing all
the work. But one of the things we're still trying
(10:22):
to figure out is for a serious lawsuit, you're often
hiring outside council. So it's not even the attorneys general
or the assistant attorneys general that are doing the work
in some of these cases. They might be contracting with
an outside law firm and giving them money as you described,
you know, just like when you would hire a lawyer
by the hour dealing with those billing records, and that
(10:43):
could rack up very quickly as well. But when we
try to request those documents, we're getting varying levels of
transparency from each state.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So this starts back in April twenty four where they
just start doing legal work, let's say, on the assumption
that certain things will happen if Donald Trump gets elected.
There's money going into this, so this is happening. I mean,
we're talking about Donald Trump taking office January twentieth of
(11:12):
twenty twenty five, so potentially almost you're looking at almost
a year of money spent before the president actually sits
in the White House.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, if you're looking at the timeline
from April to January, obviously that's about nine months. But
the thing we're still trying to figure out is when
did the conversation start, when did the legal work start.
Just because a common interest agreement assigned on April twenty
eighth doesn't necessarily mean that they're starting from scratch on
that date. So we're hoping for transparency from these states.
(11:43):
We're hoping for them to comply with their respective public
records laws, and different states have different interpretations on whether
these are public records. We talk about attorney client privilege
all the time. Attorney client privilege has to exist when
you're seeking legal advice. And one of the judges we
interviewed for our story, who by the way, kind of
(12:03):
self described himself as a Trump pater, but he himself
said that if this were my case, I would throw
this whole thing out because I don't think there's any
common interest that actually exists between disliking a candidate for president,
whether it's Trump his least favorite candidate in the election,
or whether it's somebody else his legal A political interpretation
(12:25):
is that these should all be public records because having
a common interest of federal accountability is just too vague.
They've got to have something a little more specific, and
I think that we've now seen with these one hundred
ish lawsuits that it's so many different types of topics.
I mean, one of the cases that got a lot
of flack for the Colorado Attorney General was this case
(12:48):
here in California involving a merger between Warner Brothers, and
the people in Colorado are just saying, look, what does
this have anything to do with us? Why are we
signing on to this lawsuit? I understand Dan that these
attorneys general are using these lawsuits to kind of pump
up their own campaigns. In Colorado, for example, Phil Wiser
is running for governor, so he is running on a
(13:10):
platform of look at me and look at how many
lawsuits we have filed. I am somebody who is going
to take on Trump, which is why I should be governor. Now,
whether you think that's a good argument or not, I
think some people would say, Okay, well, if it's such
a great thing, then stay as ag right don't So Wait?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
What was that was, like Warner Brothers Paramount right where
they were trying to merge And was it the federal
government that was stopping them because they said this would
be a monopoly or what were the two arguments there?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
The attorneys general are saying that it would be a
monopoly if we allow them to merge. Therefore, the federal
government has failed in its duty to allow this to
go through, and like many mergers across the United States,
especially you know in the media industry, it is now
stalled and we don't have a result yet. And I
(14:02):
think for any age to come out and stand behind
a podium at these press conferences and talk about their
success rates, it's a little bit, you know, fudging the
numbers in a sense, because how do you define success
when so many of these lawsuits are still pending in
the courts.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
That's kind of a similar situation that we saw with
Spirit and Jet Blue and then Spirit went out of business.
And I think there's a lot of the public that
doesn't understand what is happening when you talk about these lawsuits.
People don't understand that your state attorney general may be
getting involved in something. And there was a lot of
manipulation when it came to Spirit and Jet Blue because
(14:41):
they were like, oh, gosh, same thing, they'll monopolize it. Well,
now you have the three big airlines that are monopolizing everything.
All the prices went up. We couldn't keep a low
cost airline out there, and competing. I think this is
the frustrating part. So we have this happening on the
state level, we don't really have control over whether or
(15:03):
not our attorney general does this. I guess you're voting,
but you made a good point on this. In the
last twenty years, we've become very separate, very partisan. You're
either Republican or you're Democrat. So there's not a lot
of information. I give you credit, the Center Square credit
credit for putting this out there, because I don't think
we've ever heard that there are things like this happening
(15:24):
behind the scenes. And I know even when the Biden
administration was in office, Ken Paxton, who is the Attorney
general in Texas, talked oft in Times about how many
lawsuits that he had filed against the Biden administration. And
at the time, many of us were like, we were
going through COVID, our schools weren't opening. There were a
lot of reasons to feel like we wanted to take
(15:46):
control back and stop the federal government from doing what
they're doing. I don't think any of us have considered
that there's this concerted effort to go how can we
go after the administration? And I don't think it is
legitimately because they're trying to protect the American public from
the administration. I think you're right. There is a sense
that they're racking up wins so that they can then
(16:09):
say I've got this, I've got this, I've done this,
and it's not necessarily it's almost a form of corruption
that you could use public funds to make your to
add to your own personal resume. That's kind of how
it feels.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, they say they're racking up wins. Really what they're
doing is racking up cases and hoping to be able
to convince the public that they are racking up wins,
because for example, they won like some very preliminary motion hearing.
And when I say one, that's not even really the
right word. It's just that the case hasn't been dismissed,
or maybe hasn't been dismissed yet. So it's just too
(16:45):
early to say whether these cases are going to be
successful or whether they're going to fail. So far, I
think eleven have been decided in favor of the plaintiffs
and four have been decided in favor of the federal
government or the Trump administration, So that leaves eighty ninety
ish It's so hard to keep track of how many
lawsuits there are because different states will decide to join
(17:06):
different ones, but so many of them are just undecided,
So we just don't know at this point how many
of them are actually going to be upheld, or maybe
somebody wins and it gets appealed to a higher court.
These things take time. Obamacare went all the way up
to the Supreme Court, and by the time it got
up to the Supreme Court, it was half of a
victory and half of a defeat because the judge kind
(17:26):
of split it depending on the issue.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Judge's on a federal level.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
At the federal level would be the Department of Justice,
So Trump's Department of Justice is probably bombarded with all
of these lawsuits, so it's taking time and resources away
from some of the federal cases that they have to
handle as well. We did reach out to them hoping
for a comment and haven't received anything either. So again
I'm wondering out loud whether everyone is just afraid to
(17:53):
talk about lawsuits because they are so worried about what
some judge in any state would say. Once this thing
starts to be discussed more transparently in the media.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Well and you have to kind of wonder if Todd
blanche was concerned that if he were to speak, then
obviously he's trying to get confirmed at this point. You
know now he is, but he was going through that
process and that was getting that was becoming iffy, and
he was even struggling with Republicans. So you have to
kind of wonder if it's if it is the control
(18:29):
of your own situation too. So you have people that
are fighting for their positions, fighting for their jobs. You've
got all this money going back and forth. But on
the outside, I've had so many people say to me,
why hasn't the department gone after more lawsuits with illegals,
Why haven't they done more on Epstein? Why haven't they
done more on this? And not realizing I don't think
(18:51):
that they've got a backup of lawsuits against them, which
is kind of an interesting fact if you think about it.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, there's only twenty four hours in the day. I mean,
if I could work nine jobs and work on twelve
stories a day, I would, but that's just not the
way the world works. And it's the same for these
attorneys general. They have to pick and choose their priorities,
and it seems that their priorities were decided long before
the election was decided. In April twenty twenty four, nine
(19:17):
months before Trump took office, we're already planning lawsuits against
policies that he hasn't even implemented yet. And I understand,
and I give some of the state's credit for being
a little more transparent. Like, for example, the state of Washington,
they held a press conference the day after Trump was elected,
and they admitted to the press and to the public that, yes,
we have been planning these for months. We didn't know
the extent of it, but at the very least they
(19:39):
were telling people and telling their voters in a blue
state that we do have a plan. We have seen
what a Trump administration looks like. So we have an
idea of what he might do in round two, and
we have an idea of what he might implement based
off of some of his campaign promises. So it is hypothetical,
but you know, I mean, how what's the percentage of
(20:00):
campaign promises that become policy. Sometimes it's not up to
just the president to decide every single thing that happens
in this country, right, So Washington a little bit more
transparent that contrasts with say Arizona, where I ask, what's
the deal with the timing on this, why are you
guys signing on in April or May or June, long
before the election? And their only response at this point
(20:21):
is there's nothing significant about that date.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
So we've obviously seen attorneys general and district attorneys and
people in the legal system who ran for office based
on the whole idea of I'm going to take Trump down?
Is that part of this? Is this a fundraising tool?
If you come out in April, and I mean some
of them were also running for election. I assume if
(20:46):
you come out in April and you say I'm going
to do this, do you suddenly have an influx of
funds from people?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Absolutely? You. I mean the Republican attorney general that I interviewed,
who now often votes for Democrats, said that he is
flooded with emails in his inbox from fellow friends, fellow
people he worked with, people he maybe didn't get along with,
asking for money and touting these lawsuits is the reason
you should give us money? And maybe that's a reelection campaign,
(21:15):
maybe it's because they're seeking higher office. But let's use
Colorado again as an example, this is front and center
the very first thing you see on the Colorado Attorney
General's office website, not the campaign website, but the actual
AG's office government website. You see the first thing on
there is the Trump lawsuits, and it is being very
braggadocious about the high number of lawsuits that have been
(21:38):
filed so far. When we asked for a full list
of cases from Colorado, they said that the list that
they publish on the front page of their website is
actually not the full list and that we would have
to spend money to actually see the full list. When
we asked to see copies of their outside council billings,
we were given a quote of I want to say
it was like two hundred and eighty two hundred ninety dollars.
(22:00):
We thought that was a bit high, but so we
went back and forth on it, we negotiated, we ultimately
agreed to pay it, and then after they quote unquote
conducted a search, we were then told that the actual
cost is going to be upwards of five thousand dollars,
So we're talking about a seventeen times increase after we
already went back and forth on the original price. So
(22:23):
one of the people we interviewed for that story was
the former chair of the Republican Party in Colorado, and
he said, if you're going to campaign on these lawsuits,
you damn well ought to be able to answer questions
from the public when they have legitimate questions about these lawsuits.
And the Colorado AG's office response is, the law doesn't
(22:43):
say we have to answer questions. The law simply says
we have to provide a response, and our responses give
us five thousand dollars and then you can see the
public records.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
It is extremely frustrating, and I think that's something that
the American public would love to know, is how much
money is spent before someone is elected to analyze what
they might do and then start lawsuits. I mean, that
could have been money that was just completely wasted had
he not been elected, and vice versa. Perhaps this is
(23:15):
happening with Republicans as well. How much money is being
wasted on hypotheticals. You should never be wasting money on
a hypothetical. The fact that we are constantly trying to
figure out budgets, it's very frustrating to hear this, especially
in the state of Michigan, where the budget has gone
from when Whitmer's time, I think it was fifty two
(23:35):
fifty two billion up to almost ninety three billion. I mean,
this is crazy when we think about the amount of
money that we're spending, and potentially there's this secret money,
but there is so much money that floats around politics.
And that's another story that you had written about Gavin
Newsom and donors that were giving him money. He ended
up getting three hundred and forty seven million, and this
(23:57):
is just a massive amount of money. Where do they
go and what are they getting for giving him all
this money?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So the asterisk on that is he himself is not
getting the three hundred and forty seven million. He's simply
fundraising it and giving it to his favorite nonprofits. That's
the I don't like using the word loophole, but that's
the law that exists in the state of California when
it comes to fundraising. Because most states put a cap
(24:25):
on campaign contributions, but in California there's this kind of
blank check system that allows you to raise unlimited sums
of money as long as it's going to your favorite
cause or to your favorite third party in many cases,
nonprofits and the governor in California says, this is actually
a way to not use taxpayer money. This is a
(24:46):
way to when we have a disaster like COVID nineteen
or a wildfire, to raise money from philanthropy instead of
adding money to our budget. Now, I don't think anyone's
going to sit here and pretend that California has this
lean budget and the system is helping California, you know,
save taxpayer money across the board. But look, when you're
raising money from Blue Shield, or from Meta or Facebook
(25:07):
or you know some big special interest group, yes, you're right,
it's not coming from taxpayer money. But then the question
that we're trying to answer here at the center square
is what is the donor getting on the back end
because they are legally required to disclose what conflicts of
interest might exist, But that in and of itself doesn't
(25:28):
stop them from donating the money. And the people giving
this money are not you know, private philanthropists with a
lot of money just burning a hole in their pocket.
They're often special interest groups with lobbyists, with big lobbying
budgets and with a lot of government business gone on.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Well, what I would love to have you guys find
out one day is we have a candidate in the
state of Michigan. You've probably heard of him, Abdul Alsaiad.
He is running for Senate. And his whole story, like
his whole shtick is just to have quote like these
little slow It's not like actual, this is what I'm
going to do. He's just running on slogans. And his
one slogan is money out of politics, money in your pocket,
(26:08):
which those two things. He's acting as though he's not
going to have donations go to politicians anymore, that you're
going to get that money. He even went as far
as to say, they say, spent thirty million dollars on
Haley Stevens, and think about what that could do in
our schools, which is those two things don't They don't
go together. That's not how that works. If you don't spend,
if someone doesn't spend on a politician, you can't take
(26:30):
that money out of their pocket. Now, I think that's
what Abdul would like to do. He would like to
go to all the billionaires and say I'm just going
to take this from you. But I would argue Abdul
is not running on just twenty dollars donations that he
has organizations that are coming in. I've seen them on
the ground, We've heard about them door knocking, we've seen
them on posting, on airplanes. We're all coming in to
(26:53):
help Abdul. A lot of money is going into those
organizations that are not necessarily listed. They're not super packs,
they're not listed as political, but they I mean that's
a form of dark money that is coming into our politics.
Is it not well?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I guess my response to that campaign slogan, or really
any big story or big promise that I see come
across my desk would be big if true. But I
don't think we're going to see money out of politics.
I think the Supreme Court has decided that we're not
going to be able to take money out of politics.
I think both parties take advantage of it. I think
(27:29):
both parties are going to try and raise as much
money as they possibly can, based off as many issues
that they think are going to appeal to voters. I
don't think that in and of itself is a bad thing.
I think what we really need to look at is
when there is money in politics, is there a quid
pro quo, is there a bribe? Is there something happening
on the back end, And I think when we look
(27:49):
at the Newsom case in California, there's a lot going
on on the back end. I mean, Blue Shield got
a no bid contract after donating to Newsom's campaigns pretty
consistently since he was just a supervisor in San Francisco
since two thousand and two, and then they get a
fifteen million dollars no big contract to administer the COVID
nineteen vaccine. No bid. For the viewers who don't know
(28:11):
exactly how that works, it means no competition. No bid
means to do some administration shows us. No one else
is going to be able to compete against us. It's
an emergency. Therefore we're the ones that get the first
crack and the only crack at this. So that's a
lot of money. But they're also giving a lot of
money in these behested payments when Gavin Newsom calls them
(28:32):
up and says, hey, can you please contribute to this
nonprofit or that nonprofit or my wife's nonprofit. And then
it just becomes really blurry, these lines, because when you're
all of a sudden soliciting money for your wife's nonprofit,
you got to talk about is she receiving a salary,
where is the money actually going. Is he essentially raising
(28:52):
money for his wife's own salary this nonprofit she receives
zero dollars, but then that nonprofit works with another nonprofit
where she does get a salary. It's very hard to
follow the money. Anyone who says follow the money, it's
like it's not a straight line, it's a web.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
I think you know. It's so hard because also I
think most people would say that's dirty politics, and there's
not anything illegal about it. So there's that issue too,
when you may be frustrated by some of these things,
but they're not illegal. That's something when I was running
for office, I had a lot of our black owned
roadbuilders come to me and say, hey, When Whitmer was
(29:32):
running for office, she said, I'm going to come to
Detroit and I'm going to give you the road contracts.
You guys are going to be much more successful if
you elect me. Those road contracts went out in no
bed and they did not go to those roadbuilders as expected.
They were very frustrated. But that was also something where
you could tie it. You can't prove it, you could
(29:52):
tie it to well. These people had given a lot
of money and therefore they got a contract which does
seem very corrupt, but also it's just like right under
the line of legal you know. So that's the problem
that we have, and that's why I think honest journalism
is so important because the people then hold the reporters
hold you accountable. The people hold you accountable when they vote.
(30:14):
They can come out and say, hey, we don't like
that you were picking winners and losers and you're not
going to be in office again. This is why what
you do is so important and we appreciate it so much.
Thank you for doing this.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that we're going to continue
working on these types of stories. Doesn't matter whether people,
you know, talk badly or talk positively about our reporting.
We just want people to know the truth about what
goes on in their government and what goes on with
their taxes. And we are nonpartisan. We don't care if
a Republican or a Democrat is in charge. We're going
to go after the money, following it and figuring out
(30:46):
where it's going, you know, regardless. And look, I mean,
you see people that take the money and do something
opposite of their campaign promises. All the time. I mean,
we just have one of the members of our team
in North Carolina. That's a date that bans gender conversion
therapy for miners. Meanwhile, they're giving money to a nonprofit
that promotes gender conversion therapy for minors. So did the
(31:10):
government know that was going on at the time that
the grant was given. That's the million dollar question, million
plus dollar question, I should say. So, these are the
types of stories we track every day at the Center Square.
We cover all fifty states. Our investigative team covers all
fifty states, and we're going to keep looking for the
truth no matter where it is.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Well, thank you, I appreciate it. Adam Herberts, thank you
so much for coming on today. Thank you, and thank
you all for joining us on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
You know where to get it, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch the
video on Rumble or YouTube at Tutor Dixon, join us
and share and have a blessed day.
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. You may remember one
time when I told you we had like seven secretaries
of state across the country who were saying that they
were coordinating in the twenty twenty four election to make
sure that nobody cheated, and that of course they were
all Democrats, and everybody was suspicious of what coordinating meant
(00:21):
for secretaries of state. That secretary of State from Michigan
is now running for governor. So she's currently like out
of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, who ran her own election for governor,
we have Justlyn Benson in Michigan who is running her
own election for governor. One person in Michigan who is
not running for a new election is our Attorney General,
(00:45):
Dana Nessel. She has she's termed out as attorney general.
She's decided not to run again. Interesting fact about Dana Nessel.
She's a pretty I would say, had historically been a
pretty far left attorney general, very against Trump, very aggressively
against Republicans. She went after what she called the fake
(01:06):
electors here in the state of Michigan. She's been like
a hardcore fighter for what I would historically say as
the far left. She just came out and said she
won't be attending the Democrat convention in Michigan, the Michigan
Democrat Convention. Why because she doesn't feel safe. She thinks
that the far left is dangerous. They've gone after her,
(01:26):
they've threatened her. And I just find this interesting because
I would say she it's like Frankenstein. She created this
monster and now it's out of control. But recently the
Center Square did an investigation and found out that attorneys
general across the country were also coordinating like those secretaries
(01:50):
of state, although they were coordinating also before the twenty
twenty four election on how they were going to sue
Donald Trump's admitted station. I have Adam Herbert's here with
me today. He is the investigative reporter at the Center Square. Adam,
thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, thank you for having us. I just find this.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Very interesting, and I wanted to talk a little bit
about Dana Nessel and where she is today because you
were telling me she was one of the first people
to sign on to this. She's been like a warrior
for the left, and now she's decided she's going to
step away from the party completely, at least in Michigan
because it's so dangerous. So what was she signing on
(02:33):
to when she signed on to do what you're going
to tell us they were doing.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, So what the Center Square on our team was
able to get a hold of just within the last
few weeks is something called a Common Interest Agreement, and
it's essentially a way for state attorneys general to coordinate
across state lines on cases where they might have a
common interest. In this case, it had to do with
(02:58):
what they're calling federal account ability projects. What we now
know is that we're talking about about one hundred lawsuits
so far against the Trump administration. It's almost impossible to
put a dollar figure on these lawsuits because different states
are being different levels of secret when it comes to
fulfilling records or fulfilling requests for public records. And Michigan,
(03:22):
as you said, was one of the first to sign
on to this Common Interest Agreement, the first states to
sign on where April twenty eighth, twenty twenty four, looks
like Michigan signed on in late May, but we're talking
about over twenty Democratic attorneys general who all signed this
document essentially planning to sue the Trump administration for hypothetical
(03:44):
policies against a hypothetical president who was very, very far
away from being re elected. I think back to April
twenty twenty four. We're talking about three months before Kamala
Harris even announced her run for presidency. We're talking about
six months before or Trump won the election, and about
nine months before he was inaugurated. So to say that
(04:05):
we have these hypothetical lawsuits that were already planning this
far in advance, I thought that was strange. But look,
we have this law fair situation going on with both parties.
I know there were hundreds of lawsuits against the Biden administration,
although that was in four years, not in two years,
and I wanted to know if any cases had really
(04:27):
been planned out this far in advance. I haven't found
any so far. One of the people we interviewed in
our story was a former Utah Attorney General who was
a Republican at least at the time, and he was
talking about some of the lawsuits against Obamacare, and that
was something that we knew was coming down the pipeline
for a long time. And even in the Obamacare lawsuit,
they waited until it passed and got their ducks in
(04:49):
a row and then eventually filed. They didn't start planning
seven eight, nine months in advance, and.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
To your point, before we even knew if Donald Trump
would be elected. I think people need to put this
into perspective. We're talking about a November twenty twenty four election.
All the way back to April. They're preparing for this
in the midst of taking him to court throughout the election.
I mean, we have you had New York taking him
to court. They were already trying to crush him personally
(05:20):
under the legal system. But to think that they're actually coordinating.
How many states are we talking that we're coordinating.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So twenty two to twenty three. It's a little complicated
because I think Minnesota accidentally signed the document twice or
had two different people signing it on two different dates.
It's so not surprising for the California Attorney General at
a press conference, you know, earlier this month, to stand
out a podium talk about his eighty two lawsuits and
(05:48):
to say that they are all a political The documents
don't seem to match that up. When they're planning these
things so far in advance, and not a single Republican
attorney general had signed on. It's just it's not a
political I mean, it's fine for the Democrat attorneys general
to coordinate, it's fine for the Republican Attorney's General Association
to coordinate. We've seen that happening now for ten twenty
(06:11):
years as the system has become more and more partisan.
But don't stand up in front of the podium say
it's a political when you don't have a single Republican
joining in.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So in fairness, there were a few, like just over
one hundred lawsuits against the Biden administration from state attorneys general.
So it's not that this doesn't happen, but we're talking
about this is twice as many, and they were preparing
them ahead of time. You've said, you've never seen a
preparation in case the president becomes the president. You've never
(06:45):
seen this before.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Right, I've never seen it before. It is difficult, of
course to analyze hundreds and hundreds of federal lawsuits and
the system overall has just become so partisan that I
think the question and the fear regard wardless of which
party is in charge at the time, is this going
to be the new normal? Is this going to be
the precedent that's set whenever the party that we don't
(07:07):
like that's going to be in charge takes over. And
I'm sure the Republican Attorney's General Association is looking at this.
I thought that maybe they would be interested in commenting
on this, because a they could talk about these types
of agreements situations where they've entered into them. But the
Republican Attorney's General Association isn't commenting either. I thought that
was interesting. But for the Democrats to plan this far
(07:31):
in advance, again, I think that's going to be the
odd precedent that this case will set, because this isn't
just a packed to plot lawsuits. It's also a way
for them to withhold public records. And they're using this
document to try and say that attorney client privilege exists
on a hypothetical lawsuit against a hypothetical policy against a
(07:54):
hypothetical president. So we obviously disagree. We have been fighting
with states across the to try and figure out what
emails were being sent across party lines, what exactly were
they talking about in April twenty twenty four or sooner,
because of course it's entirely possible that just because they
put pen to paper in April twenty twenty four doesn't
(08:16):
mean that that was their first ever conversation about it.
So we really at this point have no idea how
far back it goes.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Well, let me ask you. I know that if I
get an attorney for some reason, I have to pay
them by the hour. Now, if you are an attorney
or you work in the attorney general's office at a state,
in a state state government system, are you just getting
a salary anyway? And it's like, Okay, the taxpayer dollars
aren't paying any more for them to do this research
(08:44):
and pretend like the president might do this, How would
we respond? Or is this costing taxpayers a lot of money?
And is it the taxpayers in that state that are
then funding this? How does that work?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It depends on the state, So there's a couple of
ways to answer your question. Even in the state that
aren't allocating additional money to their budget. I don't think
you will find a single prosecutor in this country, whether
they're working for a county district attorney's office or for
the state attorney general's office. You're never going to find
someone that says that they're twiddling their thumbs and running
out of cases. And running out of work because these
(09:17):
prosecutors are very overworked across the country because of the
rampant amount of crime that exists in this country and
the amount of cases that they have to prosecute or
civil cases that they might be involved in. So if
you're looking at it just from a time and resources standpoint,
you could make that argument. There are other states, like
the state of California, like the state of New Jersey
(09:37):
that have allocated additional money to their budgets specifically to
sue the Trump administration. The New Jersey governor added about
a million dollars to his budget to fund two new
positions specifically for all of these lawsuits, and the California
Attorney General's office work together with the state to pass
a bill that would allocate twenty five million towards budget
(10:00):
to fund these types of lawsuits, and they've already gone
through about eighteen nineteen million of that, So these are
not cheap. I do think that when multiple states join together,
they do kind of share the load. So even though
there might be seventeen attorneys general on one case, it
might really be one or two of them doing all
the work. But one of the things we're still trying
(10:22):
to figure out is for a serious lawsuit, you're often
hiring outside council. So it's not even the attorneys general
or the assistant attorneys general that are doing the work
in some of these cases. They might be contracting with
an outside law firm and giving them money as you described,
you know, just like when you would hire a lawyer
by the hour dealing with those billing records, and that
(10:43):
could rack up very quickly as well. But when we
try to request those documents, we're getting varying levels of
transparency from each state.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So this starts back in April twenty four where they
just start doing legal work, let's say, on the assumption
that certain things will happen if Donald Trump gets elected.
There's money going into this, so this is happening. I mean,
we're talking about Donald Trump taking office January twentieth of
(11:12):
twenty twenty five, so potentially almost you're looking at almost
a year of money spent before the president actually sits
in the White House.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, if you're looking at the timeline
from April to January, obviously that's about nine months. But
the thing we're still trying to figure out is when
did the conversation start, when did the legal work start.
Just because a common interest agreement assigned on April twenty
eighth doesn't necessarily mean that they're starting from scratch on
that date. So we're hoping for transparency from these states.
(11:43):
We're hoping for them to comply with their respective public
records laws, and different states have different interpretations on whether
these are public records. We talk about attorney client privilege
all the time. Attorney client privilege has to exist when
you're seeking legal advice. And one of the judges we
interviewed for our story, who by the way, kind of
(12:03):
self described himself as a Trump pater, but he himself
said that if this were my case, I would throw
this whole thing out because I don't think there's any
common interest that actually exists between disliking a candidate for president,
whether it's Trump his least favorite candidate in the election,
or whether it's somebody else his legal A political interpretation
(12:25):
is that these should all be public records because having
a common interest of federal accountability is just too vague.
They've got to have something a little more specific, and
I think that we've now seen with these one hundred
ish lawsuits that it's so many different types of topics.
I mean, one of the cases that got a lot
of flack for the Colorado Attorney General was this case
(12:48):
here in California involving a merger between Warner Brothers, and
the people in Colorado are just saying, look, what does
this have anything to do with us? Why are we
signing on to this lawsuit? I understand Dan that these
attorneys general are using these lawsuits to kind of pump
up their own campaigns. In Colorado, for example, Phil Wiser
is running for governor, so he is running on a
(13:10):
platform of look at me and look at how many
lawsuits we have filed. I am somebody who is going
to take on Trump, which is why I should be governor. Now,
whether you think that's a good argument or not, I
think some people would say, Okay, well, if it's such
a great thing, then stay as ag right don't So Wait?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
What was that was, like Warner Brothers Paramount right where
they were trying to merge And was it the federal
government that was stopping them because they said this would
be a monopoly or what were the two arguments there?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
The attorneys general are saying that it would be a
monopoly if we allow them to merge. Therefore, the federal
government has failed in its duty to allow this to
go through, and like many mergers across the United States,
especially you know in the media industry, it is now
stalled and we don't have a result yet. And I
(14:02):
think for any age to come out and stand behind
a podium at these press conferences and talk about their
success rates, it's a little bit, you know, fudging the
numbers in a sense, because how do you define success
when so many of these lawsuits are still pending in
the courts.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
That's kind of a similar situation that we saw with
Spirit and Jet Blue and then Spirit went out of business.
And I think there's a lot of the public that
doesn't understand what is happening when you talk about these lawsuits.
People don't understand that your state attorney general may be
getting involved in something. And there was a lot of
manipulation when it came to Spirit and Jet Blue because
(14:41):
they were like, oh, gosh, same thing, they'll monopolize it. Well,
now you have the three big airlines that are monopolizing everything.
All the prices went up. We couldn't keep a low
cost airline out there, and competing. I think this is
the frustrating part. So we have this happening on the
state level, we don't really have control over whether or
(15:03):
not our attorney general does this. I guess you're voting,
but you made a good point on this. In the
last twenty years, we've become very separate, very partisan. You're
either Republican or you're Democrat. So there's not a lot
of information. I give you credit, the Center Square credit
credit for putting this out there, because I don't think
we've ever heard that there are things like this happening
(15:24):
behind the scenes. And I know even when the Biden
administration was in office, Ken Paxton, who is the Attorney
general in Texas, talked oft in Times about how many
lawsuits that he had filed against the Biden administration. And
at the time, many of us were like, we were
going through COVID, our schools weren't opening. There were a
lot of reasons to feel like we wanted to take
(15:46):
control back and stop the federal government from doing what
they're doing. I don't think any of us have considered
that there's this concerted effort to go how can we
go after the administration? And I don't think it is
legitimately because they're trying to protect the American public from
the administration. I think you're right. There is a sense
that they're racking up wins so that they can then
(16:09):
say I've got this, I've got this, I've done this,
and it's not necessarily it's almost a form of corruption
that you could use public funds to make your to
add to your own personal resume. That's kind of how
it feels.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, they say they're racking up wins. Really what they're
doing is racking up cases and hoping to be able
to convince the public that they are racking up wins,
because for example, they won like some very preliminary motion hearing.
And when I say one, that's not even really the
right word. It's just that the case hasn't been dismissed,
or maybe hasn't been dismissed yet. So it's just too
(16:45):
early to say whether these cases are going to be
successful or whether they're going to fail. So far, I
think eleven have been decided in favor of the plaintiffs
and four have been decided in favor of the federal
government or the Trump administration, So that leaves eighty ninety
ish It's so hard to keep track of how many
lawsuits there are because different states will decide to join
(17:06):
different ones, but so many of them are just undecided,
So we just don't know at this point how many
of them are actually going to be upheld, or maybe
somebody wins and it gets appealed to a higher court.
These things take time. Obamacare went all the way up
to the Supreme Court, and by the time it got
up to the Supreme Court, it was half of a
victory and half of a defeat because the judge kind
(17:26):
of split it depending on the issue.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Judge's on a federal level.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
At the federal level would be the Department of Justice,
So Trump's Department of Justice is probably bombarded with all
of these lawsuits, so it's taking time and resources away
from some of the federal cases that they have to
handle as well. We did reach out to them hoping
for a comment and haven't received anything either. So again
I'm wondering out loud whether everyone is just afraid to
(17:53):
talk about lawsuits because they are so worried about what
some judge in any state would say. Once this thing
starts to be discussed more transparently in the media.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Well and you have to kind of wonder if Todd
blanche was concerned that if he were to speak, then
obviously he's trying to get confirmed at this point. You
know now he is, but he was going through that
process and that was getting that was becoming iffy, and
he was even struggling with Republicans. So you have to
kind of wonder if it's if it is the control
(18:29):
of your own situation too. So you have people that
are fighting for their positions, fighting for their jobs. You've
got all this money going back and forth. But on
the outside, I've had so many people say to me,
why hasn't the department gone after more lawsuits with illegals,
Why haven't they done more on Epstein? Why haven't they
done more on this? And not realizing I don't think
(18:51):
that they've got a backup of lawsuits against them, which
is kind of an interesting fact if you think about it.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, there's only twenty four hours in the day. I mean,
if I could work nine jobs and work on twelve
stories a day, I would, but that's just not the
way the world works. And it's the same for these
attorneys general. They have to pick and choose their priorities,
and it seems that their priorities were decided long before
the election was decided. In April twenty twenty four, nine
(19:17):
months before Trump took office, we're already planning lawsuits against
policies that he hasn't even implemented yet. And I understand,
and I give some of the state's credit for being
a little more transparent. Like, for example, the state of Washington,
they held a press conference the day after Trump was elected,
and they admitted to the press and to the public that, yes,
we have been planning these for months. We didn't know
the extent of it, but at the very least they
(19:39):
were telling people and telling their voters in a blue
state that we do have a plan. We have seen
what a Trump administration looks like. So we have an
idea of what he might do in round two, and
we have an idea of what he might implement based
off of some of his campaign promises. So it is hypothetical,
but you know, I mean, how what's the percentage of
(20:00):
campaign promises that become policy. Sometimes it's not up to
just the president to decide every single thing that happens
in this country, right, So Washington a little bit more
transparent that contrasts with say Arizona, where I ask, what's
the deal with the timing on this, why are you
guys signing on in April or May or June, long
before the election? And their only response at this point
(20:21):
is there's nothing significant about that date.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
So we've obviously seen attorneys general and district attorneys and
people in the legal system who ran for office based
on the whole idea of I'm going to take Trump down?
Is that part of this? Is this a fundraising tool?
If you come out in April, and I mean some
of them were also running for election. I assume if
(20:46):
you come out in April and you say I'm going
to do this, do you suddenly have an influx of
funds from people?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Absolutely? You. I mean the Republican attorney general that I interviewed,
who now often votes for Democrats, said that he is
flooded with emails in his inbox from fellow friends, fellow
people he worked with, people he maybe didn't get along with,
asking for money and touting these lawsuits is the reason
you should give us money? And maybe that's a reelection campaign,
(21:15):
maybe it's because they're seeking higher office. But let's use
Colorado again as an example, this is front and center
the very first thing you see on the Colorado Attorney
General's office website, not the campaign website, but the actual
AG's office government website. You see the first thing on
there is the Trump lawsuits, and it is being very
braggadocious about the high number of lawsuits that have been
(21:38):
filed so far. When we asked for a full list
of cases from Colorado, they said that the list that
they publish on the front page of their website is
actually not the full list and that we would have
to spend money to actually see the full list. When
we asked to see copies of their outside council billings,
we were given a quote of I want to say
it was like two hundred and eighty two hundred ninety dollars.
(22:00):
We thought that was a bit high, but so we
went back and forth on it, we negotiated, we ultimately
agreed to pay it, and then after they quote unquote
conducted a search, we were then told that the actual
cost is going to be upwards of five thousand dollars,
So we're talking about a seventeen times increase after we
already went back and forth on the original price. So
(22:23):
one of the people we interviewed for that story was
the former chair of the Republican Party in Colorado, and
he said, if you're going to campaign on these lawsuits,
you damn well ought to be able to answer questions
from the public when they have legitimate questions about these lawsuits.
And the Colorado AG's office response is, the law doesn't
(22:43):
say we have to answer questions. The law simply says
we have to provide a response, and our responses give
us five thousand dollars and then you can see the
public records.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
It is extremely frustrating, and I think that's something that
the American public would love to know, is how much
money is spent before someone is elected to analyze what
they might do and then start lawsuits. I mean, that
could have been money that was just completely wasted had
he not been elected, and vice versa. Perhaps this is
(23:15):
happening with Republicans as well. How much money is being
wasted on hypotheticals. You should never be wasting money on
a hypothetical. The fact that we are constantly trying to
figure out budgets, it's very frustrating to hear this, especially
in the state of Michigan, where the budget has gone
from when Whitmer's time, I think it was fifty two
(23:35):
fifty two billion up to almost ninety three billion. I mean,
this is crazy when we think about the amount of
money that we're spending, and potentially there's this secret money,
but there is so much money that floats around politics.
And that's another story that you had written about Gavin
Newsom and donors that were giving him money. He ended
up getting three hundred and forty seven million, and this
(23:57):
is just a massive amount of money. Where do they
go and what are they getting for giving him all
this money?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So the asterisk on that is he himself is not
getting the three hundred and forty seven million. He's simply
fundraising it and giving it to his favorite nonprofits. That's
the I don't like using the word loophole, but that's
the law that exists in the state of California when
it comes to fundraising. Because most states put a cap
(24:25):
on campaign contributions, but in California there's this kind of
blank check system that allows you to raise unlimited sums
of money as long as it's going to your favorite
cause or to your favorite third party in many cases,
nonprofits and the governor in California says, this is actually
a way to not use taxpayer money. This is a
(24:46):
way to when we have a disaster like COVID nineteen
or a wildfire, to raise money from philanthropy instead of
adding money to our budget. Now, I don't think anyone's
going to sit here and pretend that California has this
lean budget and the system is helping California, you know,
save taxpayer money across the board. But look, when you're
raising money from Blue Shield, or from Meta or Facebook
(25:07):
or you know some big special interest group, yes, you're right,
it's not coming from taxpayer money. But then the question
that we're trying to answer here at the center square
is what is the donor getting on the back end
because they are legally required to disclose what conflicts of
interest might exist, But that in and of itself doesn't
(25:28):
stop them from donating the money. And the people giving
this money are not you know, private philanthropists with a
lot of money just burning a hole in their pocket.
They're often special interest groups with lobbyists, with big lobbying
budgets and with a lot of government business gone on.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Well, what I would love to have you guys find
out one day is we have a candidate in the
state of Michigan. You've probably heard of him, Abdul Alsaiad.
He is running for Senate. And his whole story, like
his whole shtick is just to have quote like these
little slow It's not like actual, this is what I'm
going to do. He's just running on slogans. And his
one slogan is money out of politics, money in your pocket,
(26:08):
which those two things. He's acting as though he's not
going to have donations go to politicians anymore, that you're
going to get that money. He even went as far
as to say, they say, spent thirty million dollars on
Haley Stevens, and think about what that could do in
our schools, which is those two things don't They don't
go together. That's not how that works. If you don't spend,
if someone doesn't spend on a politician, you can't take
(26:30):
that money out of their pocket. Now, I think that's
what Abdul would like to do. He would like to
go to all the billionaires and say I'm just going
to take this from you. But I would argue Abdul
is not running on just twenty dollars donations that he
has organizations that are coming in. I've seen them on
the ground, We've heard about them door knocking, we've seen
them on posting, on airplanes. We're all coming in to
(26:53):
help Abdul. A lot of money is going into those
organizations that are not necessarily listed. They're not super packs,
they're not listed as political, but they I mean that's
a form of dark money that is coming into our politics.
Is it not well?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I guess my response to that campaign slogan, or really
any big story or big promise that I see come
across my desk would be big if true. But I
don't think we're going to see money out of politics.
I think the Supreme Court has decided that we're not
going to be able to take money out of politics.
I think both parties take advantage of it. I think
(27:29):
both parties are going to try and raise as much
money as they possibly can, based off as many issues
that they think are going to appeal to voters. I
don't think that in and of itself is a bad thing.
I think what we really need to look at is
when there is money in politics, is there a quid
pro quo, is there a bribe? Is there something happening
on the back end, And I think when we look
(27:49):
at the Newsom case in California, there's a lot going
on on the back end. I mean, Blue Shield got
a no bid contract after donating to Newsom's campaigns pretty
consistently since he was just a supervisor in San Francisco
since two thousand and two, and then they get a
fifteen million dollars no big contract to administer the COVID
nineteen vaccine. No bid. For the viewers who don't know
(28:11):
exactly how that works, it means no competition. No bid
means to do some administration shows us. No one else
is going to be able to compete against us. It's
an emergency. Therefore we're the ones that get the first
crack and the only crack at this. So that's a
lot of money. But they're also giving a lot of
money in these behested payments when Gavin Newsom calls them
(28:32):
up and says, hey, can you please contribute to this
nonprofit or that nonprofit or my wife's nonprofit. And then
it just becomes really blurry, these lines, because when you're
all of a sudden soliciting money for your wife's nonprofit,
you got to talk about is she receiving a salary,
where is the money actually going. Is he essentially raising
(28:52):
money for his wife's own salary this nonprofit she receives
zero dollars, but then that nonprofit works with another nonprofit
where she does get a salary. It's very hard to
follow the money. Anyone who says follow the money, it's
like it's not a straight line, it's a web.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
I think you know. It's so hard because also I
think most people would say that's dirty politics, and there's
not anything illegal about it. So there's that issue too,
when you may be frustrated by some of these things,
but they're not illegal. That's something when I was running
for office, I had a lot of our black owned
roadbuilders come to me and say, hey, When Whitmer was
(29:32):
running for office, she said, I'm going to come to
Detroit and I'm going to give you the road contracts.
You guys are going to be much more successful if
you elect me. Those road contracts went out in no
bed and they did not go to those roadbuilders as expected.
They were very frustrated. But that was also something where
you could tie it. You can't prove it, you could
(29:52):
tie it to well. These people had given a lot
of money and therefore they got a contract which does
seem very corrupt, but also it's just like right under
the line of legal you know. So that's the problem
that we have, and that's why I think honest journalism
is so important because the people then hold the reporters
hold you accountable. The people hold you accountable when they vote.
(30:14):
They can come out and say, hey, we don't like
that you were picking winners and losers and you're not
going to be in office again. This is why what
you do is so important and we appreciate it so much.
Thank you for doing this.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that we're going to continue
working on these types of stories. Doesn't matter whether people,
you know, talk badly or talk positively about our reporting.
We just want people to know the truth about what
goes on in their government and what goes on with
their taxes. And we are nonpartisan. We don't care if
a Republican or a Democrat is in charge. We're going
to go after the money, following it and figuring out
(30:46):
where it's going, you know, regardless. And look, I mean,
you see people that take the money and do something
opposite of their campaign promises. All the time. I mean,
we just have one of the members of our team
in North Carolina. That's a date that bans gender conversion
therapy for miners. Meanwhile, they're giving money to a nonprofit
that promotes gender conversion therapy for minors. So did the
(31:10):
government know that was going on at the time that
the grant was given. That's the million dollar question, million
plus dollar question, I should say. So, these are the
types of stories we track every day at the Center Square.
We cover all fifty states. Our investigative team covers all
fifty states, and we're going to keep looking for the
truth no matter where it is.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Well, thank you, I appreciate it. Adam Herberts, thank you
so much for coming on today. Thank you, and thank
you all for joining us on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
You know where to get it, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch the
video on Rumble or YouTube at Tutor Dixon, join us
and share and have a blessed day.
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