Episode 106: John Ben Sutter

In this episode Vic sits down with John Ben Sutter to discuss what it was like to work in the DA's Office during the Henry Lee Lucas confession spree and Vic's arrest.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the Vic Fizzell Show podcast hosted by Vick
Fizzell and Jonathan Zimmic, sponsored by Moroso Wood Fired Pizzeria
and Pinewood Coffee Roasters.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Just to know before we begin, this podcast was recorded
quite a few years ago. It was actually recorded during
the pandemic. It was recorded during Donald Trump's first term,
and as you will notice, it was actually recorded previous
to the fires that we recently had out in La
in the palis Stads. So keep that in mind as
you listen and enjoy.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Jonathan, we have the pleasure of being here today with
John ben Sutter, John Bob, Ben Bob, John Bob, Ben Bob. Yeah.
I don't know if you know that. We had Lin
Woolley on the show and he told all about John
Bob Benbob. He's supposed to find some old tapes and
send to me, but he hasn't done it yet. But yeah,

(00:55):
Vic Bob and John Bob, Ben Bob and all of that.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
So my favorite Glynn Willie's story or clip from his
radio programming was when the Winds of War UH was
being aired nationally. UH he ran through a cast of
the Winds of War using all of Waco's more apparent

(01:24):
media people and the last one and starring as and
also starring Tony Hennis who was a Casey n reporter
you remember, also starring Tony Harris Tony Hennis as as
Baylor Stadium. Tony was a big fellow. And then there

(01:48):
was of course John Bob Ben Bob and and Vig
Bob Sell and all of that.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Now, you know, I love Lynn Woolley. If he wasn't
such a right wing crazy Alex Jones kind of nut,
I'd like to hang around with him. I enjoy hanging
around with him. I just can't let him be a
Facebook friend or else he gets in arguments with my
other friends. You know, I'm just not going to let
him do that. So I had to unfriend him, although

(02:16):
we're still friends in real life.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Right right, Well, this is part of it. If I
were a radio host, the most, the most commercially successful
thing to do is to be a right wing nutbag,
simply because people listen to that, because they find that

(02:41):
as one of the few mediums that give them some
a sense of community. The true right wing. Of course,
that started all the way back into the early eighties
with the Rush Limbaugh's program. Yes, the first time I
heard of Rush Limbaugh is back when Jay was in

(03:01):
the Panhandle teaching her first teaching job up at a
college in Border Texas, and she said I was going
to go up and in the summer with her, and
she said, there's this local radio program called Rush Limbaugh,
and this guy is a fanatic, crazy man and it's

(03:24):
just so far right wing and frightening. He got up
there and then we realized that this is being syndicated.
And he was the first and many could say that
Rush was the groundwork for everything that's going on today
with Trump is and the rise of the radical right

(03:48):
in politics. That's true, lynd Glynn followed along with what
might have been commercially syllable, but also maybe just it
fit into part of his mainstream thought. I don't know.
He never seemed that way in Waco, but hey, and Waco.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Lynn was different. When he got out on his own.
He had to monetize what he was doing and fear cells,
bumper sticker mentality and fear cells. The problem all along
with the Democrats, is that they always try to be
too intellectual in the way they present their arguments, where
the Republicans do it with bumper sticker mentality and the

(04:30):
fear mongering. And you remember what got rush Limbaugh started,
what allowed him to begin, was when Ronald Reagan did
away with that law that would allow you to write
and ask for equal time fairness, yes, if they editorialized
against you and it wasn't news his opinion. That's how

(04:51):
you got your equal time with Tom Paukin. That's how
I got my equal time with Channel eight right, and
the powers would be didn't like that. The big media corporations,
the money guys, the money bags, they didn't care for it,
and they got their puppet, Ronald Reagan. Who oh man,

(05:11):
so many people just cow teut or Ronald Reagan. He's
one of the worst we ever had, one of the
besides Trump, of course, I mean, Ronald Reagan looks like
Mother Teresa compared.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
To in comparison, Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
But yeah, that's how rush Limball got started was because
of Reagan doing away with a fairness doctrine. Otherwise you
would not have been able to reply to Pawkin, and
I would not have been able to reply to Tracy
Rally on Channel EAKE. And you know you and I
are still alive, and Tracy Rally is dead.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
You know, I don't miss him. I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah, same here, same here. I remember when they were
trying to put me in prison, and I'd say, well,
you know what my revenge is that I planned out
live all you suckers. So far I've done it. So
have you, John Vin?

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yes, indeed you're looking good too.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
You've lost some weight since you worked for me.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
Oh yeah, yeah, Well I had the bariatric surgery in Yeah,
well when was it two thousand and seven or so?

Speaker 1 (06:24):
I guess it was somewhere back in there. I remember that.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Went out to California to do the surgery because back
then the best guy doing what I needed was out there,
and spent about three or four weeks in San Francisco.
So not only did I have a great vacation in
San Francisco, although most of a lot of it was
in the hospital and in my hotel room because I

(06:50):
had to stay out there for follow up treatment, but
it was San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
So hey, yeah, really I love San Francisco, except I
wouldn't want to you there right now. I mean, the
fires around there are terrible. It's scary.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
It's that I've seen the pictures of San Francisco. It
looks like some sort of town and Saturn or a
planet of red dust.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
I know it's frightening because there's always such a clean
sky and such a pretty place. I loved it there,
but I haven't been there since the nineties, so you're.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Not same here, same here. So good, wonderful to live
in California if it wasn't California exactly.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Jonathan and I are talking today about how lucky we
are to be living in wake Up. Indeed, Uh, we
don't have the Austin traffic. We don't have forest fires,
we don't have earthquakes, we don't have hurricanes. There's the
occasion tornado, but you know that's like getting struck by

(08:04):
lightning because those things have a narrow path, and everything
else here is pretty safe. The only thing I really
have to put up with here that I don't like
is all the Trump signs. But other than that, this
is a great place to live. It is, and it's
getting better all the time.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
We live in America today and we'll see a lot
of Trump signs because people, as you've talked about, respond
to fear and respond to hate, and respond to racism,
and Trump hits all those buttons, and unfortunately, that sort
of maniacal thinking cells in politics, and the party in

(08:45):
opposition two ours is very adept at using that and
has been since the early seventies. I remember some of
the early protagonists of this hate race and violent response

(09:05):
to anything other than the most basic of fear mentality
in terms of how to sell the Democratic I mean
the Republican Party starting in the early seventies, and I
remember thinking, this is the direction they're going, and they're

(09:25):
going to become very successful because it will sell because
people will respond to this, because politics is something that's
in for most people, not here but here in the
heart and their soul. And so wherever they get that

(09:46):
sort of fear, hate and general distrust of the other mentality,
it's going to be played on very successfully by the
platform they've taken for the past several decades.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Paranoia. Paranoia is an easy button to push, and they've
been pushing it since the early seventies. And then Carl
Rove came along and put the cherry on top of
the ice cream with it. I mean, he was a master.
He was a master. In between him and Nuke Gingrich
and their quote contract with America, and uh just and

(10:28):
now we've got Trump, who's so many people's daddy figure
telling him, honey, it's okay to be racist, it's okay
to hate, you know, it's all right. And now that
they're not allowed to fly the Confederate flag so much,
you know, they're flying those Trump flags. I don't remember

(10:49):
flags for candidates before. I don't, but we've got all
over Waco, big old flags the size of the American
flag flying out on pole in front of people's homes
that say Trump. Yeah. And that flotilla that some of
it sunk on Lake Travis. Lake Travis is Democrat, you

(11:10):
know a lot of those boats sunk over there with
those Trump flags on it. Yeah, Trump flags and Confederate
flags and AK forty seven's at the bottom of Lake Travis.
God bless Lake Travismen. If I could live anywhere besides Waco,

(11:31):
it would be Austin, except I wanted to be Austin
thirty years ago.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Oh absolutely, yeah. But every generation of Austinite says much
the same thing. When I was in high school, I
was my high school's delegate to the Nuclear Science Symposium
as the top science student in high school. Well, I
was a top English student in high school. But that's

(11:57):
neither here.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
But you went to high school and Cameron, so don't
brag too much.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
One of the best lawyers. A couple of the best
lawyers in Houston are Cameron alumni. Also the parent family.
We're good buddies of mine and Harry and I were
both We were always in competition to see who had
the most pictures and ride ups in the in the

(12:28):
yearly annual. And you know, in ours were this long,
everybody else's was that long. Harry's was about that long.
Mine was about that long one year and vice versa.
But I went down to Austin for this nuclear science
imposium and top science students and all over Texas, and
we were going out after a day's sessions at all

(12:50):
the laboratories at UT conferences, we went out to the
lake for a barbecue, and people in the bus were saying, oh,
oh God, I love Austin. But you know, Austin's not
what it used to be nineteen seventy and there's anything
it's not what it used to be. And that's still
the that's still the mantra that lives in Austin. And indeed,

(13:16):
I you know, I lived in Austin for several years
when I went down there to work for or up
there from this point to work for Maddocks as his
Director of Special Projects, which was a nebulous title, but
it afforded me the opportunity to do whatever Maddox needed
at the time, and it was It was just it

(13:39):
didn't have the feel that I had known Austin to have.
But Austin is sort of a bell weather for the
nation in the sense that it's constantly changing as the
nation seems to change. And it's a unique town in Texas,
without a doubt.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
You lived at a real cool place too. You lived
really close to Barton Springs. Yes, yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Our condominium that we sold for about thirty thousand and
forty thousand dollars back then, back back when we moved
down here in the late nineties, I guess it was
early two thousand and is now selling for something like

(14:28):
four hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
I'm surprised it's not more.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
I know it will be because of its proximity to downtown,
to the park, to the lakes and everything.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
My house in Austin I paid three twenty five four
twenty years later, I sold it for a million, a
cash fire, no inspections, here's the money. Get out that,
that's said my wife. I said, oh my god, we're home.
Let's know what, because we just put it on the

(15:02):
market just to see what would happen, right, and I
listed it for a lot more than what our real
estate agent wanted us to list it for. She got
kind of upset with me. I said, let's just give
it six weeks and see what happens. She called me
and says, it's been five weeks. I said, we said six.
And halfway into that fifth week, we got an offer

(15:23):
man from a guy down near Houston for right what
we were asking for, and then he bought some of
my stuff from me, you know, like the grill, the
barbecue grill and some things like that. So it was good.
And then we moved into a great house up here
and we're able to pay cash for it. So yeah,

(15:46):
that Austin market is booming.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Man. Oh well, I've not been there in several years,
and everyone that I know says, you will not recognize it,
and you think Houston traffic, it's bad, and it's horrible.
It's as bad as I remember when I used to
go to New York regularly on business when I was

(16:09):
working for that magazine publisher. The everybody complains about New
York traffic. I'm going, well, you haven't been to Houston.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah. The joke is, when you're driving to Houston and
you get to Houston, you're still two hours from Houston.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
Absolutely the case. Well, people will call me from Intercontinental
because I live, you know, down here in Sugarland is
in the south west portion of Houston, and people will
call from Intercontinental and say, hey, we're at the airport.

(16:52):
Why don't you run over and spend a little and
visit with us. I've got about an hour layover. I
would have to rent a helicopter to fly up there. Now,
you know, I can get to my hometown of Cameron
about this in Central Texas about the same amount of
time as I could get to Intercontinental. Getting The biggest

(17:15):
trip in going anywhere from Houston is getting out of Houston.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah. Yeah. And when I go to Houston, I only
have to go to the Woodlands because that's where my
wife's family lives. So I hardly ever get to downtown anymore.
I used to have to go for legal things, but
we haven't been anywhere in almost a year on legal
things because of this pandemic. But yeah, it's it's pretty crazy. Yeah,

(17:43):
even getting to the Woodlands is difficult.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah. Today I'm just off of Highway six and Highway
six is now just a major thoroughfare. And if I'm
glad that my schedule doesn't require me to use normal
hours of transportation the morning rush, in the afternoon rush,

(18:09):
because I refused to get on the road anywhere from
six in the morning before the pandemic. The traffic. We
used to have a road behind the house that was
blocked ended just about a block or two. Now it
goes from Highway six. The road behind us goes from

(18:31):
Highway six all the way down to a big farmed
market world, which is now a major thoroughfare also and
it's open, so we get a lot of traffic. And
there are big, big, huge subdivisions now being built and
been built down just to the southeast of US. And
the rush hour used to start about six o'clock in

(18:55):
the morning. Now it starts about five o'clock in the morning. Yeah,
into Houston, so that they can get to work before
the rush hour traffic which starts around six o'clock and
you got caught in it. You're going to spend the
hour that you would have had in your office on
the road traffic.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Mho. The joke in Austin when I left was that
the Friday afternoon traffic traffic jam started on Tuesday.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, I believe that. I believe that completely. I believe
they completely not a problem for you because you live
in Houston, I mean you in Waco.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, someday though, you need to hop on Highway six
and head to Waco because Highway six comes through Waco
and we're only a few blocks off of Highway six
get out of town. Yeah. Well, my office is on
a highway on eighty four, which is Waco Drive, and
we're what, Jonathan, less than a mile maybe a mile? Yeah,

(20:00):
the Highway six. Yeah, a couple miles. And my home
is only about a mile off of Highway six. So
you got no excuse. Now, when this pandemic is over,
you've got to come see me.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Absolutely, absolutely no. I was up there when Lyndon Lynden
Olsen's mother died. I went up for the funeral and
spend a night or so up there, and that was
my last Then I recall my last trip up DA Waco,
and it was an relatively easy trip, but Highway six

(20:37):
is a major thoroughfare in Texas.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah. You know, Linden got COVID bars inly It nearly
killed him. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, he seems to be doing well.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Now, he's he got over it, but he went through
two weeks where he thought he was going to die.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
And fortunately for Lyndon, you know, Linden has some money,
so he was able to hire what he needed brought
into his home instead of having to go off to
a hospital, and so he was able to recover without
being exposed anything new. So yeah, I love Lindon.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
Oh absolutely, he Yeah. As you know, I've worked on
his congressional campaign and we in fact an interesting story
about that. I was working for Congressman Poe and when
mister Pogue told us he was not going to seek reelection,

(21:32):
because he said, are you John? And I just don't
like the way politics is going here to Congress.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Now.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
You used to be very collegial. We work together, whether
you're a public or a Democrat. Now everybody's trying to
fight each other for everything, and it's just just not
you know, he either worked if you demand all the pie.
You don't get any of the poe.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
It's much better to get a piece of the pie
and fight over it and not get any of the pie.
And that's the way that Congress works them.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Not now, not now. But I loved him. I've got
a picture of me, you and him together I'll find
and we'll put into this episode.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yes, I have that around here somewhere too.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
That's the photo that's so funny because, uh, you've got
your hand in your pocket, but it looks like I
have my hand in your pocket.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
I have to explain that to people. No, there's nothing
hinky at all going on here, Okay, honesty, God, No.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
It sure looks like it though. That's a funny picture.
So we're going to put that one of them.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, mister Pog and I. I take mister Pogue home
at night a lot of the times, and he'd be
sitting there and he'd be regaling me with stories all
the time. He'd have his stets and down pull down
and said, you know, I we'd back then, we'd we'd
I'd pick up my opponent and pick him and take him.

(23:16):
And well, boy, i'll tell you, one of my opponents
was such a such a such a, such a talker.
He said, he'd get up there and say, and he
you know, god, he's halfway looks like he's halfway asleeping
arm amounable soil. Talking about his opponent. I'm a man
of the people. I can go out and in the

(23:37):
morning and pick twenty bales of cotton. And they said,
mister Poel would get up and go, well, my good
friend here mister s is extolling his ability to pick cotton. Well,
then I guess we can go out and pick any cotton,
pick her out of.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
The field and put the wondrous if that's the way
we want to let people.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
But no, you want somebody knows what's going on in
pot to take care of you, not somebody picking cotton.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Pogue was amazing. How long was he there? Forty years?

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Forty two years, forty.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Two years, Jonathan crazy Congressman Pogue could be in an
airplane flying over the United States and point and tell
you exactly where he was, what river that was, and
what crop was growing over there. That's wild. Yeah, he
was on the in the world. Yeah, and he was an.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
Agriculture of an agriculture. Yeah, yeah, I knew more about it.
New people on the press plane, on the plane, on
the plane in the press pool that would go along.
A new reporter would be something, Hey, we're flying over
such and such. Why don't you go up and asked
Chairman Pogue about that? Okay, I'll do that. You go,

(24:49):
Chairman Pog. Could you tell me why? Oh?

Speaker 4 (24:52):
Yeah, we're passing over the alonga hill river which used
to foundation in Denisle, but now it cause and the
past fifty nine years it's been developing into a cotton plan.

Speaker 5 (25:04):
But no, I am And by the time I get
guy that factors, see he's going, where does he get
all this?

Speaker 3 (25:15):
He had the most prodigious memory and ability to deal
with things in his eighties.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
He did.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
It was just incredible.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
And you were a young man back then, and even
though you were from Cameron, I wouldn't have called you
a country boy. You were an intellectual. Do you remember
the story about when you ask Congressman Pogue, trying to
impress him, why doesn't that cotton have any leaves on it?

(25:45):
Do you remember that?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yes? I do, Yes, I.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Do tell us about that.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Well, actually it wasn't mister Pogue. It was my best
buddy Mark Ellison, who is now a vice president of
Texas A and M. Okay, and he's been He stayed
in Washington. He came up and we became friends. When
he came up, he was state FFA president and from Rosebud, Texas.

(26:13):
And he stayed up in Washington, became a very successful lobbyist,
and then went to work at Texas A and M.
And then went to work in various corporations and came
back finally. Now he's a vice president of development or
something at Texas A and M. But we were driving
from I picked him up. I drove from Cameron to
Rosebud and picked him up in Rosebud and we were

(26:35):
going up to the WAGO office because we were down
in the district at this point for a little while.
And we're driving past some cotton field and you know,
I eat vegetables. I don't grow vegetables. I don't go
outside unless it's absolutely necessary. Usually it's just to walk

(26:56):
from the house to the car because grassmakes me nervous
and I have to know it for one thing. And
I just don't, you know, the outdoors not for me.
Uh no books outdoors for instance. So I'm but I'm gonna.
I want to show that I'm I'm a cosmopolitan and

(27:18):
I work for the chairman just like he does the
Agriculture Committee. And uh so we're passing some farm land
and the crops look kind of dry out there, and
I said, g Mark, it looks like we haven't had
a lot of rain out here. The crops are dry
and said, no, that's cotton about to be harvested. And

(27:42):
it's not dry, it's just being uh at a point
where it's going to be uh picked. And no, you
just don't know anything about farming.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Befoliated, foliated, that's what it was.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
See, I can't even remember. You know anything I don't
know about exfoliating was when I was dating. No, no, no,
that's another thing related work, But that's a defoliate. Yeah right, Sorry.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
You know, I've it's been so long since you and
I have been face to face. We've we've talked by email,
we talk on Facebook, but just to see you and
get to talk with you like this is such a pleasure.
I've almost forgotten how funny you are. And I'm glad
you're reminding me.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Good. Yeah, being in Waco prior to being engaged, prior
to being steady with someone that was great fun during
my time in Polk's office and then OS and then
working for the magazine publisher. Oh you know, we come
back to Trump for just a moment. As you remember,

(28:52):
I used to work for a medical magazine publisher years
and years ago, and I flew to New York regularly
to call on ad agencies and product managers at Johnson
and Johnson in big corporations like that up in the
New York area, in New Jersey area. And these are
all highly intelligent, highly successful people, very knowledgeable. But I

(29:18):
also learned early on that if you're selling something, you
want to develop a rapport with a person, just like politics,
and you listen to them and engage them in things
that they're going to be interested in. And smart people
are always interested in politics and social events. And because
I was in New York even back in the late

(29:39):
seventies and early eighties, what was Donald Trump was a
major social and media player back then, even of course,
and to a person, even in the seventies late seventies,
he was detested by anybody that had any sense, any

(30:00):
knowledge of what was going on in the business. And
he was a whelcher when he signed a contract, you
can expect to be screwed on the contract. If he
was in business with you, you were going to get
the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Always. And everyone detested

(30:21):
him that knew anything of him. He was a drug addict,
he was a Studio fifty four cokehead, and he was
generally pretty considered reprehensible, criminal, mob tied. And of course
back then, the mob was where he got his funding from, generally,

(30:45):
because banks quit loaning to him when it went from
Italian where did it go the Russian mob, which is
why he's owned by Putin today because all of his
money that he would constantly have to borrow came from
Deutsche Bank that was funded by the Russians. So his
ties go way way back. And it just it befunnled

(31:10):
me how anyone could find this man worthwhile or trustworthy.
And I'd be on airplanes and see people reading Trump's books,
which the man has never read a book. The man told, oh, well,
he told Woodward that, and he told, oh, what's his name?

(31:37):
I can't think of his name right now. Well, he's
a friend of Jay's, Jaye. He said he was interviewing
it Trump at one time, he said, oh, proudly. He's
a presidential historian. Presidential historian, and he works down here

(31:58):
at Rice as well. He said, I interviewed Trump and
he said, I've never read a book about a president
ever in my life. I don't read. I don't read books.
And this guy's going, I've written more books than you've
ever read in your life, and you it just floored

(32:18):
him that anyone who is in a position of authority
in business or in government has never read a book.
So when he would say Trump would say, oh, I
was never briefed on that. Well, we gave you the
written report. I can't read. He doesn't like to read.
It's too intellectually demanding for him. So this is the

(32:43):
kind of person we have running our country, which is
why we're running in a circular pattern, as if we
were going down a toilet right now.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, frightening it is. Now. I got to take issue
with you on one thing though, because he did say
that he has read two Corinthians, both of them Trinthians.
I read two Corinthians. He doesn't even know to say
second Corinthians. You know, everybody that's ever been to church,

(33:14):
even once knows it's first and second Corinthians, not two Corinthians.
So that brings me to the question, John Ben, why
do you think so many Christians are supporting Donald Trump
when he does nothing that's Christian and everything that's against
the teachings of Jesus.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
We have to go back to Fallwell's moral majority, when
Fallwell politicized religion in order to build his notoriety and
also to promote an agenda for the most conservative aspects
of evangelical religion, in the sense that well, if we

(33:59):
elect people who all that matters, if they is, no
matter who they are, was the idea behind the moral majority,
We're going to elect people that will vote our way.
This was back in the early late seventies, early eighties.
We'll elect people who will support our agenda of eliminating abortion,
making abortions of eagle, making sure homosexuality is considered not

(34:24):
only a sin but a crime, of vehemently opposed the
same sex marriage, and the whole panoply of issues that
are related, integrated with more or less a fundamentalist, strict
fundamentalist approach to the Christian religion or any religion for

(34:46):
that matter, in any respects. But when that became the
approach to politics that said to fall well and do
all of the then teleevangelist preachers who then became not
only tele evangelists but political Bellweathers, I will get close

(35:11):
to all the politicians. We're going to elect people no
matter what their personal morals are, their personal belief about religion,
as long as they will vote the way we want
them to, that's what we want. And Trump has given
the moral majority type everything they want. We have a

(35:36):
Supreme Court that is doing their darnedest and with another
with one more. If Ruthie ruth Bader Ginsburg dies that
before he leaves office, either hopefully the end of this
year or in seventeen years in his next term because
you extended to sixteen and then want one more, then

(36:02):
we'll have a majority that's far right. Yeah, and this
will be a new country, a different country, it will,
and we'll have our own Hightola in the White House.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yep. I agree. Yeah. And we see even with some
of these preachers that they're not moral themselves. All the
scandals that have come out with Jimmy Swagger Follwell, Junior,
I mean, go down the list. If it's not sex,
it's money, you know, or both. Yeah, and Trump has

(36:36):
also given all of these professing Christians, I'm not gonna
say real Christians, but professing Christians, permission to be hateful,
to be racist, to be homophobic, to be everything that
Jesus was against. Because the only people Jesus ever gave

(36:58):
any hell to we're the fundamentalist, the Pharisees, the strict rule,
people who had no love in their hearts. So yeah,
it's kind of a sad thing, it really is.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
I in my lectures and class when we get into
I'll get into areas that are I think we'll stimulate people,
my young people to think about issues. In fact, that's
one of the reasons I left politics and working in

(37:38):
politics to go into teaching, simply because I felt, you know,
maybe the biggest problem that we have in this country
today is we don't teach what government's about. In high
school and in college, it's all about political science. Ooh,
the science of politics. It's not a science, it's an art.

(38:01):
It's almost like religion. It's a sense of who is
doing what good for people or who is doing bad
for our people. And electing people into office is simply
a matter of electing the best human being possible to

(38:22):
do the best for everyone in our country or our
state or our district. And you don't get any of
that in high school. Don't get any of that in
grammar school. We never had. I didn't have any government teaching,
didn't have a government class per se in high school health.

(38:45):
Even in my history classes. I had to write the
tests for my teachers because they were coaches.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Me too.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
In fact, I had one coach I wrote a question,
said there was a multiple choice question for one of
his tests. The United States entered World War Two in
December nineteen forty one when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor,
and he said, John Benn, I always thought it was Japanese. Wow,
that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
I was so fortunate I went to Leander. There were
only thirty three people in my graduating class. Our football
coach was our history teacher. But he was brilliant. He
was one of those oddballs who was a good athlete
and a coach but also a thinker and yeah, and

(39:40):
I loved him except for one thing. He couldn't stand
Bobby Kennedy. And I was a big Bobby Kennedy supporter
back then. Yeah, but he was a good guy and
a real thinker, and he would go to Alaska during
the summers and work on the Alaskan Pipeline way back
when it was still in Alaska, and then take that
money and come back to Leander and be able to

(40:02):
live on a teacher salary. So he was a really
great guy. His last name was Kemper. I don't know
his first name because we always called him Coach Kemper,
and that's what the yearbook says. Because I found o
yearbook and tried to find, well what his name was,
I was going to reach out to him, but it's
just coach Kemper even in the yearbook. Hey, Jonathan, I'd like,

(40:23):
I mean, John Ben, I'd like to talk about how
did you come to work for me, and then from
there into what you remember about Tom parkin mhmm, So
just take off.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Okay, Well I remember so well because I was Dale Doherty,
you remember I do. Yes, he did videos for you
when you were making your first making your attempt, starting
your race for district attorney. And at the time I

(41:01):
was unattached romantically and was dating and two or three girls,
not this same night, but that would wear you out. Really.
I did that once and I'd always end up at Kelly's.

(41:23):
Remember the Kelly's.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
I remember Kelly's, I do. It's a barbecue place now, yeah,
Uncle Dan's.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Yeah. And there was another place on Lake Air Drive.
I can't recall, but they frequented that place. And I
met him through one of my girlfriends at the time,
and he was, you know, a videographer and he was
making commercials for you. And I told him my background

(41:53):
in politics and working in Washington and working on a
congressional campaign and other campaigns. And he said, oh, I've
got this guy that's running for DA and well, I
could use some help writing, helping him with writing commercials.
And I said, well, I'd be happy to do that.

(42:13):
And I mean, that's fun because I would go to
Kelly's and I had several clients, but back when I
was single, i'd just go there because the food was free,
and I just buy a beer.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
Same here, one beer, and eat the buffet and eat
the buffet.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
And I could sit there all night because I liked
being around the people. But when I was writing, I
could focus because the noise became sort of like a
big soft blanket around me, and I would write things.
I would write and so I started writing commercials and
gave them to Dale, and he gave them. They gave

(42:58):
them you you like them, and started working on those.
And at one point Dale said, well, Nick would like
to know who the hell is writing his commercials. These
are great and really great new ideas, and so I said, well,
I love the meeting. So that's how I first met
you through Dale.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
And I still remember some of those commercials. It used
to be that a man's home is his castle. Well
not anymore. You wrote that.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Yeah, that was great that I enjoyed that. That was fun.

Speaker 4 (43:36):
You know.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
A story related to that is when I worked for
mister Poe. When I went up there. I went up
there to interview just to save Fortis on the Supreme Court,
because my master's thesis at Baylor was going to be
about Justice Fortes and his relationship to Lyndon Johnson because

(43:57):
they were good friends. He had been his lawyer during
the New Deal days. And uh Ford was appointed to
the Supreme Court. It was a very prominent Washington lawyer
and LBJ appointed him to the Supreme Court. He did
not want to go to the Supreme Court, and because

(44:19):
he was making bookoos and bookous of money, and he
liked money a great deal and was an enormously powerful
and successful Washington lawyer. Well A Linden By Linden by
God wanted you. I want you on my Supreme Court.
And no, no, mister President. He was a slight man,

(44:40):
very quiet. I remember when I interviewed him, I could
barely hear him because he spoke in a whisper. But
when Abe for there was an article in a newspaper
magazine rather about him, said, when Abe Ford calls, you
return that call and its call on the phone and
in person. He spoke very quietly, but you listen, because

(45:02):
he was enormously intelligent and enormously powerful. Well For this
was told by Linden, It's come to the White House, okay, yes,
or mister President. So he left from the Washington firm
and went over to see London in the White House.
Now now, now, Abe, I'm going in there and I'm

(45:24):
about to send ten thousand boys to Vietnam. Now I'm
going to send you to the United States Supreme Court too.
I'm nominating you. Now you're going to see these boys
are going over there to risk their lives to serve
their country. Can't you get off your duff and go
to the Supreme Court to serve your country for your president. Okay, okay,

(45:51):
I guess we hope. And he just kind of goes
out there lock he's going to get his head chopped off,
and said, yes, thank you, President, I'm proud to be
going to the Supreme Court. So but yeah, I interviewed
a Fordison. It was just an enormously incredible thing. But
I went up there and I went over to see

(46:11):
Poel and just as a courtesy called because Narviy Caperton
had been the postmaster in Cameron was a good friend,
and he said, now, John Ben, you need to go
see Congressman Pope. And back in high school, I remember
going to the Rotary Club one time as a guest
for the Rotary Club meeting, and it's one of the

(46:32):
guys that introduced me. And then that introduced me said,
now John Ben's president of the band, he's president of
the National Untor Society, he's the president of Young Historians,
he's president of Future Teachers, and next week he's going
to be President of the United States. So Narviy Caperton

(46:53):
calls mister Pope and says, I'm sending John Ben Sutter
to go see. He's from Cameron. You need to put
him on a story after because he's coming, Pope, He's coming.
So Pogue offers me a job, and I was just
getting to work in his office for a while. And
then after a while, I'm doing things for Pogue and
taking them home every night. I start writing his press releases.

(47:13):
He gets sick in Membery he had cancer, and uh,
I took missus Poe Francis up there every day and
we were by his bedside when she and I were
the people standing by his bedside when he came out
of surgery. So he became like a grandpa to me,
very close. And so I did his press and did

(47:37):
work for him there. And at one point when mister
Poge announced that he was not running for really told
us he was not running for reelection, I decided, oh god,
I got to yet moving because I gotta make use
of this or to do something, because I'm gonna have
to find a job. So I decided to his press

(48:00):
secretary by now, and I just worked into it by
doing it and knowing what I was doing from my
time working at Channel six and being a courthouse reporter
and things like that, and I majored in political science
and journalism. And I I talked to the people that

(48:26):
were working on oh the on their campaigns. They're thinking
about it. And the first person I went to see
was Linden and fell in love with Linden. And I'm going,

(48:46):
this is my I mean, he's like a doppel gamer.
We'd think alike, we talk alike. Sometimes we even address alike.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
No, no, no, that's Patty Duke. You're showing your age.
Jonathan's looking at me, like, what are y'all talking about?

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Who's Patty Duke?

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Is no idea?

Speaker 3 (49:11):
Yeah? And anyway, so, uh, I committed going to work
for Lyndon in his congressional campaign. Well, Marvin leif you know,
had been his when it was a banker in Marlin,
and he had been one of mister Poe's administrative assistants.
And so I just thought I didn't know he was

(49:33):
going to run for congress, going to seek to see
and when I let people know that I was going
to leave and go to work for London, yeah, it
was just oh no, Ahi, John, I expected you to
go work for Marvin. I'm supporting Marvin. Well, I didn't know, mister,
I thought you do everything I thought, and it became

(49:58):
a full court press that Marvin was. Marvin took me
out to lunch, took me out to dinner, and I
said to John Man, I didn't know because Marvin was
real close to mister Poge, and I liked Marvin a
great deal.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
I liked both of them. I met them both through you.
I had never met either of them before. I loved
Bog Pogue, and then I got to know Marvin Leith.
And so my big question is why did you come
to work for me instead of Marvin Leith. I'd have
gone with Marvin Leith.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
And well that was later. I mean, what had happened
was I Marvin wanted me to come work. If I
had gone to work for Marvin, I'd have stayed up
in Washington. In fact, he and get Part friends and
get Part ran for president, and he said he told me,

(50:51):
Marvin told me that Geppart's promised me to be Secretary
of the Army if he gets elected, and I want
you to come up there to be my assistant. Wow,
And I said, okay. Of course. When gap Part went
out and spoke, he wondered, well, when is he getting here? Oh,
he's been talking for twenty minutes. It was just sort
of you know how Geppart had white hair and white eyebrows,

(51:15):
like he didn't have any eyebrows. He'd lost them in
the fire or something. And just Jay one time said
is he there yet? I mean, it was not there,
So that was unfortunate. It was funny. Dale Hennington was
another assistant of mister Pogue. He didn't run for office,
but he was thinking about it at the time. And

(51:38):
there was a time when we were running around the
district with Senator Talmage. Senator Talnadge had come down to
support Congressman Pogue. He was chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee,
and mister Pogue had been Chairman of the House Agriculture
Committee before the Watergate babies ran him out of office
at seventy four. Was it the seventy four seventy six? Well, anyway,

(52:00):
you know all those people that brought in on reform,
they got rid of the older members of Congress who've
been there for so long. It's chairman. But we're running
around with his Dale and I when Talmadge was down
here with mister Pogue and his administrative assistant was with Dale.
Talmages and me and I was driving through the district

(52:24):
following Pogue and Talmage, and I was talking about the
media campaign that we need to be running and this
is how useful is what we need to do. And
later Dale came up to me and said the Talmage's aide,
who's really one of the top people in Washington, said, uh,
you listened to that kid that was driving us around

(52:46):
because he knows more about politics and any a lot
of people I know up in Washington. He knows media
left and right. If he says to do something, you
do it. So Dale, who was thinking about running, wanted
me to work for his campaign too. So just a
lot of opportunities. It's just that people darn it lose. Yeah,

(53:10):
and Dale even was going to be the administrative assistant
to the new Senate Majority Leader. Unfortunately he didn't get
elected Senate Majority Leader, but he called me up from
Washington said I want you to come be my assistant
if I get to be Senate Majority leader's assistant. And
I'm going this another one, Dad, come it. So when

(53:33):
are you going to run for Attorney General? Vic Let's
get to work on this it.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
You know, John Ben, the first time I ever saw you.
I didn't meet you that night, but I saw you
at Kelly's and you're on the dance floor, and I
remember thinking that guy's a pretty good dancer. And then
later I put when I met you, I realized that
was you I had seen out there dancing. Yeah, because

(54:02):
you were a pretty good dancer.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Man, I thought I was you werebody else did? Yeah?
The girls? Oh boy, I was a dating fool. I
just dated loads of single women left and right back then.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
I know, I know, I've seen some of the pictures. Yeah,
some q ones.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, good old days. But that's not
where we are now. We're older men, and we're trying
to survive in a world of politics and keeping our
wives from doing things it might hurt us.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Well, I'm doubling down, man, I figure, you know, I
gotta really start kicking it this last twenty yards or so.
You know, I'm doubling down on everything, doing everything I can.
This pandemic has slowed me down some. But yeah, but yeah,
I remember you from Kelly's Men, and then it wasn't
long after that that's when you came to work for me.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
And yeah, and and and and Dale Dale said, and
he and Dale said, I I just said, just just
use my commercials. You don't have to. I'm not trying
to sell anything, but you know, I make a little
extra money. But this is just fun for me more

(55:19):
so than anything else. And and at one time Dale
came up and he said, Vic wants to meet the
guy that's reading writing these commercials. And I said, okay,
we'll love to meet him sometimes. So we met. And

(55:48):
I loved doing radio. I worked on radio when I
was at Baylor, and uh, I did newscasts at Baylor,
and of course I was at KSE NTV and I
was an evening news producer and did the weather on
weekends and was a reporter. But I just loved writing

(56:13):
commercials and telling stories in thirty seconds. And so yeah,
it was great fun to do. And I miss campaigning terribly.
But then again, today it's not so television is secondary
to media, out to the new media of the Internet
and Facebook, and so if I were running a campaign today,

(56:36):
i'd have to learn new technology, like you get more
information across and can do more on Facebook than you
can do on television. Because for instance, down here, Waco's
still a good market because if you're running for office,
in Waco, for the county, you've got a television station
that primarily covers all of your voting district and you

(56:59):
don't waste a lot of money because it doesn't spread
out for too much further. Yeah, down here, there's just
if you buy television time, you are spending a lot
of money for a very few number of votes. But
you've got to do it. And nevertheless, but you spend
you're still paying for four million voters when you buy

(57:21):
an ad, even though you're only trying to reach a
couple of hundred thousand in your particular distance. Frankly, if
I were working on a campaign down here, I wouldn't
know what to do these days, particularly in the new
media markets that are available. Not that I wouldn't learn quickly,
but it's a new world. It's a new world trying

(57:41):
to run for office. Yeah, but it's still exciting. You know.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
I deal with some experts that help market, the law
firm and all that. Yeah, and I'm convinced that nobody
knows what they're doing these days. They're just throwing stuff
at the wall and seeing what it'll sticks. You know.
It's just it's just a crazy day. It's we're living

(58:05):
in crazy times. I thank God all the time that
they didn't have social media back when I was DA
I mean, Jim Adams and his propaganda machine would have
run us over like a steamroller. Absolutely if there had
been social media. We had to worry about the paper, three,

(58:25):
two or three TV stations depending on where you are
in time, because Channel twenty five came along a little later, right,
and then toward the end of my first term, we
really had to worry about Channel eight.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Oh yeah, yeah. So, speaking speaking of our of our
dear friends in the media, where is Kelly Grannell these days?

Speaker 1 (58:49):
I have no idea. I have no idea. I don't
care either. The only time I ever see Kelly Greanell
is when I'm inter when it's when I'm reviewing Ovo tapes,
And the one I love the most is where she's
having to announce that I've been found not guilty, and
you can tell that's just breaking her heart, just breaking

(59:14):
her heart. Oh, I mean, John Ben, tell me what
you remember about Tom Pawkin and the way he was used,
because we know now from the discovery I did on
Channel eight and from all the open records and stuff
from the depositions, and it was Pawkin who set Ron
Boyder up with Charles Duncan. And we know that Pauwkin

(59:41):
had connections with Colonel Jim Adams, you know, because Pawkin
had been some big poohbah in the Republican Party, and
Jim Adams he was the deep state. He pulled the
strings behind the scenes, and he could make anything happen,
you know. I don't know if you've seen the Senate
tapes of him being raked over the coals over the

(01:00:02):
Martin Luther King bedroom tapes and the letter that was
sent to Martin Luther King telling him he should not
accept the Nobel Prize. Oh yeah, we have those tapes. Oh,
we've done all kinds of work to get everything together.
I think we've played bits and pieces of it, haven't we. Yes,
we have, yeah, oh yeah. He was one powerful dude,

(01:00:24):
and so it was Jim Adams to Pawkin, and Pawkin
had connections with Channel eight and he's the one who
brought Ron Boyder and Charles Duncan and Bill Johnston together
at the Ramatta Inn in April nineteen eighty five after

(01:00:44):
we had started the Lucas investigation. And that's how it
all hatched. That's how it all started. Adams to Pawkin
to Bordering Johnston to Charles Duncan Channel eight. Yeah, and
you remember the name Ron Border. I'm sure he's the

(01:01:05):
one that served the subpoena on you the couple of
days before the election.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Yes, yes, well he first, he and Zane Bob Zane,
who I was really good at imitating.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
The FBI agent Bob Zane.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
FBI agent Bob Zane boy, talk about a pale ghost
of a human being. Uh yeah, when they first decided
to subpoena me to the grand jury.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
You were running for county judge at this time, in
addition to working for me. Yeah, right, and Sandy Gaily
was running for county court at law number one.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Exactly, Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was out campaigning, of course,
and h Jay's at home and we weren't married, but
we were cohabitating because we were on our way to
get getting married. And knock on the Fairview house door

(01:02:05):
and she opened the door and there's the Sane embroider
and said, I would like to see John Ben John
Ben Satter And I said he's not here. Do you
know where he is? I tell you what you're with
the FBI. Why don't you find it? No, I don't know,
and they kind of.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
Go and this was before cell phones, this is before
the internet, this was before cell phones. You could get
lost in the country back.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
Then, absolutely absolutely, So they said, well, we need to
find and said you're the FBI. You find him. I
don't know where he is. And now, why don't you
get off my porch? And so they go, well, yeah,
they turned walking off. Oh, by the way, you want
a campaign sign. Pull. They just looked at him and

(01:02:56):
ran back to their car, and they held each other
and said that you just can't believe that she treat us. No,
they didn't, that's in my imagination. But then they again, ah,
didn't work to find me and uh and.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
Seeing what I recall is that they were putting word
out to all the media that they were out looking
for you in chains if they had.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
To, absolutely and you know, and here's the deal. I
had never been contacted before. But it's just now coming
close to the election, and it's just a few days
before the election that they hit me and h And

(01:03:47):
at one point I was out at Paul Quinn, the
Black College in UH in Waco back when it was
in Waco, and all of a sudden, Jay walks up
to me and I've been talking to people and campaigning
there and having a wonderful time. I love the place.

(01:04:09):
And she said, excuse me, gentlemen, I need to speak
to my husband. And she looked at me with that
Jay look, mm hmm, come with me now here, and
I'm going I'm either in trouble or I'm in trouble,

(01:04:32):
but either way that look meant to what she says,
and do it now. And so we leave and she said,
you know, we're they're trying to get you. And I
decided to go campaign out in mart out in the county,

(01:04:52):
in Falls County, and I happened to be campaigning out
in the farmer's place that I'm well out in the
middle of a pasture, big pasture. So if they'd have
to do really good work to find me. Not that
I was trying to evade anything, but if it were
a serious, serious matter, I'd be more than happy to

(01:05:17):
appear before a grand jury. I'd be more than happy.
But this was not about the investigation. This was about
the election.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
It's about in an election. Yeah, precisely, interfering in an
election doesn't that sound familiar?

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Very familiar. I wanted to talk to Hillary and say, hello,
been there, done that before they even got to you. Yeah,
And see, to most people, now, you've been involved in
the law since you were a youngster, and I've been

(01:05:54):
interested in it the same way since I was a
kid and subscribed to the eight I was a member
of the ac LU when I was in high school
and got their journals. But to the average person, subpoena
is a terrible thing of you know me, you go

(01:06:15):
before a grand jury, talk to them. That's fine. I'll
talk to you. I know you're going to do everything
you can to trick me, but I'll be listening very
carefully and tempering my answers to make sure they're honest,
but as narrow as possible. And But to the average person,
subpoena is a bad thing. It is a bad thing.

(01:06:37):
I don't want to be subpena anywhere if I can
avoid it. But subpoena is like a suppository. It's not
something you want to have to happen to you unlessens.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
We joked about that about subpoena below the penis they
got you by the ball.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
That exactly exactly so they when they try to first
give me a subpoena me, they couldn't find me. So
that grand jury went that subpoena died, and so I'm in.

(01:07:12):
I don't hear from them until the right before the election.
The runoff election was the runoff.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
You were the front runner in the prime there were
three people, three people running. You came in first, Raymond
Macken came in the four running. Yeah, you came in first,
Raymond Macken came in second, and then you all went
into the runoff.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
Yeah, that's right, that's right. And uh, never heard from
them until, you know, right before the runoff election. And
you know, border got me and thank you very much,
kiss you when you go back into the cart. Uh,
thank you so much for your gift. And what happens.

(01:08:00):
It's the front it's front page news in the Waco paper,
Led six and ten on all all three television stations.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Yeah, we've got an article here about it. Hold it
up to this camera. Then Jonathan will later take some
paragraphs from this and blow it up so it can
be seen. But the date on this is May twenty ninth,
nineteen eighty six. John Ben Sutter, Administrative assistant to mcclennan

(01:08:32):
County District Attorney Vic Fazzell and candidate for mclinnan County Judge,
has been served to subpoena to testify before a federal
grand jury in Austin. And this is this is Waco trip,
big time news. Sutter had been scheduled to testify Thursday,
but said he received word from Assistant US Attorney jam Patterson.

(01:08:54):
Sure remember that name. We're going to do about ten
episodes on her. Heard from Jamison late Wednesday afternoon that
his testimony had been postponed. Sutter, who faces Waco attorney
Raymond Mackin in a June seventh runoff election for the Wednesday,
June seventh runoff election for the Democratic nomination for County Judge,

(01:09:18):
said Wednesday he believes the timing of the subpoena is
politically motivated. Well, no kidding, Yeah, pretty obvious one week
one week before the election. I think this is you,
he says. I think it's blatantly obvious what they are
trying to do. Sutter said, I've been Vic Fizzel's administrative

(01:09:42):
assistant for three and a half years. This federal investigation
has been going on for about a year now. It
seems awfully peculiar that they call me to testify now,
just a few days before the election. To say the
timing is suspect would be an understated well there you go,

(01:10:02):
pretty good words, John Ben Miss Patterson told The Tribune
and Harold last julye that a federal grand jury investigation
of Fizel had been ongoing for several months, which we
know now is an absolute flat lie. That investigation didn't
start until I sat down across the desk from Colonel

(01:10:24):
Jim Adams and tried to give the grand jury to him.
I said, you clean up your own backyard and we'll
let it go. Remember I was down there with Reed
Lockhoof and Mike Hodge, part of Maddox's office. They were
probably still there when you were working for Maddox. And
did she flat light about that as she did about
so many other things. Yeah, I bet we do, I said, ten,

(01:10:48):
I bet we'll probably do five episodes on jam Patterson.
But yeah, right before the runoff, and then you came
in second in the runoff, a close second. Had they
not interfered with your with your election, John Ben, you
would have been county judge and I really liked your
approach to run in for county judge. You weren't trying

(01:11:11):
to be some kind of quasi judicial officer that here's
a will contest. You were concerned about this city losing
its industry. General Tire had shut down. We were losing
jobs left and right. And your whole thing was to
try to promote jobs here in Waco and to be

(01:11:31):
a business manager for the county, not somebody sitting in
the office playing golf or pretending to be a judge
on a will contest. I think if you had been elected,
we might have a different Waco today. We might have
more opportunity here today, we'd have some of the opportunities

(01:11:51):
that Austin is getting now. And so they not only
hurt you, John Benn, but they hurt the citizen of
mcclinon County with what they did.

Speaker 3 (01:12:03):
Thank you. I agree. I won't have to agree with
that because there there is such a paucity of the
sense that Waco is a not only a vibrant community,
but it is literally at the center of Texas. We're

(01:12:24):
right between Austin and Dallas. Talk about a hub for communications,
for transportation, for business, and right in the middle of
I thirty five, between those two huge metropolitan areas. We
could be a part of that, We should be a

(01:12:44):
part of that, but we don't promote ourselves to It's
seemingly that it seems that Waco and the Clinton County
is kind of a a joke for the rest of Texas,
the rest of Texas. So it's just Waco, w Aco,
just a silly little town. No, no, it's there. There are.

(01:13:07):
You've got a great universe, two great universities here, You've
got uh, you've got well, excuse me, Paul Quinn's no
longer in Waco, Isn't that right?

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
But MCC is here and they're offering bachelor's degrees. Now yeah, no,
I didn't. Yeah, in certain areas, yes they are. Yeah,
Oh that's oh man, they have grown. They're incredible. It's
a beautiful campus.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
She's a she's a wonderful president. The president of MCC
is doing a remarkable job. That is marvelous. Uh. No, there,
they're they're all sorts of opportunities that are still open for
mer Clennon County. But you just don't have the kind
of leadership that you need to.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
Don't And if you were called back then, the leaders
of mcclennan County and Waco, they're a great idea for
pushing Waco forward into the future was to put up
a few billboards said have a weekend in Waco. And
I've got a newspaper article here dated January twenty third,

(01:14:08):
nineteen eighty six, right after you started running for county judge,
you say, as your next county judge, my principal goal
will be to lead the fight to bring jobs in
the industry to mcclennan County, not just a weekend in Waco,

(01:14:29):
but for a lifetime.

Speaker 3 (01:14:30):
He said, who who said that?

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
You did?

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Wow, pretty good?

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
Huh talking about Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I, in fact,
I was the first person that I know of that
in Waco or m'clinton County that was running for office,
unless it was Lester maybe event did it when he

(01:14:58):
was running for.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
A missioner.

Speaker 3 (01:15:02):
Yeah, yeah, who said that we need to have an
affirmative action program for hiring in the county right for
the county government. And needless to say, that was not
taken well by some members of the community. But regardless
of that fact, we didn't need it and it was
the right thing to do. And that's what politics should be,

(01:15:26):
all about doing the right thing, even when it's not
always the popular thing. Courage popular with.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Courage to do what's right, not what's easy.

Speaker 3 (01:15:38):
Yeah, that's a good phrase.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
That's the phrase, is it? I think I think you
wrote that for me.

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):
I think I did, but it was one that did
it fit for you for both of us? Yes, exactly,
says here.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Sutter earned a master's degree in political science with an
emphasis on public administration from Baylor University in nineteen eighty three. So,
and that's that's when I was reminded that you had
a master's degree in political science. I had totally forgotten
about that, John Van. Yeah, so God bless you.

Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
Best courses. Yeah, some of the best courses I had
were and then ever were in that class and had
some very good professors. One of my favorite was a fellow.
Did you ever know Gail Event?

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, and you Gall well, you and I
used to go to lunch with him. He taught it Baily. Yeah.
We went to a lunch a lot with Congressman Pogue too.

Speaker 3 (01:16:35):
Oh yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
He liked Chinese food. We would always go to house
to Chin and because you and I would go to
House to Chen. The grand jury, the Federal Grand Jury
subpoenaed missus Chin. She wanted to know if I owned
They wanted to know if I owned an interest in
that restaurant because I ate there so often. She just no,

(01:16:56):
just me and my husband said, we own it, but
we enjoy Servnvic and his friends. Yeah, they subpoened missus Chin.

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
I'm surprised they didn't subpoena water Burger as often as.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
I go to Yeah, no or or matter of fact,
when I got my FBI file during all the discovery
for the below lawsuit, there's a thing in there where
one of their snitches calls Bob Zaane and it's right
there in an FBI three to oh two report. I
got a call from so and so who said he

(01:17:31):
saw John ben Sutter and Vic Fazelle having breakfast together
at McDonald's. I said, oh god, I'm ashamed of that.
I don't go to McDonald's anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:17:43):
Yeah, goll hey, I mean can't wait to found a
better place to have breakfast anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
I know, Oh my god, they're having breakfast at McDonald's.
They must be up to something.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
There's I mean, if you're going to plot the overpow
of the government and all of the things that are Christian,
and well, obviously you have show up for McDonald's and
have a big bag or a big goal whatever they
have in the breakfast. I just had breakfast at McDonald's
as a matter of fact, yesterday. I should be able
to have remnants of it somewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
And I haven't been in one of those places in
twenty years.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
Really, yeah, yeah, for the better.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
But speaking of bag, they were accusing you of being
my bag man.

Speaker 3 (01:18:25):
Oh I know, remember that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
But yeah, lawyers were handing off envelopes to Vic Fazill,
I mean, handing off armlopes to jump in Sutter and
then he would give him to Vic Fazil ooho, But
not true.

Speaker 3 (01:18:41):
Why would First of all, why would they give him
to me? Anyway, if if I were wanting to bribe someone,
I wouldn't give it to the assistant, I know, the man,
so that you could shake the man's hand that sort
of thing. Uh huh. I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
And it's harder to keep a secret and there are
more people involved.

Speaker 3 (01:19:02):
Absolutely, it's just stupid, But it also brings more targets
because if you've got more targets, maybe if I can't
get to him. I can get to him.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
Yeah, And when they weren't able to do anything with you,
then that's when they started twisting the arms of the
defense lawyers here in town, and every one of them
got audited by the IRS. And those were illegal audits
brought down by the US Attorney's Office, and those guys
were getting immunity on IRS charges to testify against me, yeah,

(01:19:37):
claiming that John Nciter had been my batman. But John
Ben never gotten indicted because there wasn't any evidence to.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
It, and he was hanging out in the field of
the dreams Cornfield right on to find him. Yeah, right,
Kevin Costner and the rest of the Yankees.

Speaker 3 (01:19:52):
I really liked meeting James Earl Jones. That was great.
Jordan Ben, the force is with you. Oh my goodness,
talk about a crazy experience to live through. I mean,

(01:20:13):
it was surreal. It was absolutely surreal, and it is
frightening that something like that could happen in this country.
But it's just a reminder that power is abused as
much as it is used. Yes, and again it goes

(01:20:35):
back to my whole central fasis. Why I teach people
need to learn that government's not. It's like any tool,
it's not good, it's not bad. A hammer can build
a house or smash someone's head, same way with gun
it can kill an innocent person or can defend your family.

(01:20:58):
And politics is neither good nor bad. Government's neither good
nor bad. It's who you put in there that's manipulating it.
You put good people in, you'll have good government. You
put bad people in, You've got Jean Adams and people
who will abuse the system for their own political purposes.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
That's You're absolutely right. Here's another article I want to
talk to you about. Sutter says charges are all hocus pocus.
DA doesn't take bribes. And you were talking to the
East Waco Lions Club, he said. Sutter urged members of

(01:21:42):
the East Waco Lions Club to pray for Vic during
these hard times. He wants to see justice done. Then
further down, it says, uh, you're talking about Jim Adams,
and you say Mark White, who's our governor back then,
wanted to fire Adams before he got elected, but after

(01:22:06):
White took over the governor's office, he changed his mind.
Sutter wonders, if he's got the goods on the governor,
does Adams have the goods on the governor. Well, you know,
Adams grew up at the on the knee of Jaigar Hoover.
He learned his dirty tricks from him, absolutely, And Jaigar

(01:22:26):
Hoover was the only man in the world that Lyndon
Johnson was afraid of. Yeah, yeah, because Johnson was going
to fire Jaegar Hoover, just like Mark White was going
to fire Jim Adams. Yeah, but it didn't happen. They
had their little private meeting in the office. He walks
in with a file under his arm and comes back
and uh, Jaggar Hoover is made director of the FBI

(01:22:49):
for life. Who ever heard of such a thing? Life,
life or life.

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
I have had a come to Jesus Maeten and I
recognized the truthfulness and the integrity of Jim Adams, and
I believe that we need to put him in that
office to serve I mean, not Jim Adams, but Jaedgar Hoover. Yeah.

(01:23:19):
You know, it doesn't have to be anything in the file.
You just have to hold the file up to say
I've got the goods on you, and someone will have
somewhere in the back of their conscience something that they
know that might be bad and it doesn't have to
be in that file, but if they think it could
be in that file, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:23:39):
Well, knowing Jack gar Hoover, annoying his reputation, and knowing
Jim Adams like I knew Jim Adams, those guys were
afraid that if they had done anything wrong, those were
two people who would have found out, who had the
ability to find out and had the ability to use it.

(01:24:00):
And you know that's the reason that they were after
me so bad, even more so than Maddox is because
if we had had to fold, Maddox would have had
to fold. Can you imagine another DA anywhere in the
state of Texas calling a grand ury to investigate the
task Force and letting Maddox come in. No, it would

(01:24:24):
have been over. It would have been over.

Speaker 3 (01:24:28):
No. No, After all of this, did anybody open up
any any DA in the entire state of Texas, open
up any of the Lucas confessions. No, no, d No
DA was going to touch that because they saw what
happened to you, Adam exactly what he wanted.

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):
Until thirty years later when the DNA started vindicating us.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Yeah, right right now, that Adams is also dead.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
Yeah, you know, he died recently last month.

Speaker 3 (01:25:03):
Gee, I knew. I felt something in the.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
Yeah, there was a disturbance in the forest. It got
a little lighter. Yeah, yeah, we we we felt the
fresh breath of air. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:13):
Oh, man, I would have to go along with Truman
Simons that I just probably wouldn't want to stand in
that line at the funeral because well, you know, I
guess I shouldn't tell that story.

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
I'll tell it. That's when Boutwell died. They buried Boutwell
at the Leeander Cemetery. I found out about it. I
called Truman on the phone. I say, Truman, you want
to meet me down at the Leander Cemetery and we
can take a whiz on Jim Boutwell's grave. He goes, No,
I promised myself when I got out of the Army,

(01:25:50):
I'd never stand in line again.

Speaker 3 (01:25:53):
None of them long line for me again.

Speaker 1 (01:25:56):
Truman could say something funny about once a year, maybe
every other year, but when he did, it was funny.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
Man. It was good. It was good. I remember we
were watching and we went to I think it was
one of the read Dragon or one of the one
of those films, and a bunch of us from the
office went there, and of course there was a lot

(01:26:23):
of law enforcement there at Manhunter I think was in
the theater then. And it was the first of the
Thomas Harris books that were made into a movie. It
was actually based on the book Read Dragon, which Truman said, Suttern,
you got to read this Book's best crime novel I've
ever seen. Thomas Harris was a Baylor graduate, and it's

(01:26:44):
written all of the Hannibal books.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
Yeah, the Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, I remember us all going
to see that movie. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:26:50):
Right, And the protagonist, the investigator, Will Graham, Will, as
Hannibal Lecture would say, came on screen. I said, wow,
he's He's Hollywood's answer to Truman. Simon in front of us.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Went, I'm looking at another article here. This was on
the day I was arrested. He's got a picture of
me scratching my forehead and Gary Richardson standing beside me. Oh,

(01:27:35):
before I get into this, let me tell a funny
story about Gary Richardson and Bob Zaye. We're in trial,
my criminal trial down in Austin. Bob Zane and Jack
Frils are sitting there at the table. People are starting
to come in, and Gary, in his way, walks over
to Bob Zane and says, hey, Bob, how old are you?
And Bob goes, well, I'm forty. Really, I have thought

(01:28:00):
you were a lot older than That must be the baldness.
And then he picked on jam Patterson a lot too,
some things I'm not even going to say, but one
of them was that he always called her Patty. Hey Patty,
my name's not Patty. Then five minutes later.

Speaker 3 (01:28:18):
Hey Patty, I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
I recalled too. The way we faked them out during
my trial, Remember we had you come sit out in
the hallway all day long, and man, they brought in
a push cart with like five boxes on it that
said John Ben Sutter. So they were getting ready to
cross examine you because they thought you were going to

(01:28:45):
be our next witness, because they hadn't bothered to call you.
They knew you were going to make too good a witness,
but they got afraid we were going to call you.
So we had them working their butts off getting ready
for you. And then the minute that last witness got
off the stand, that's when you you to leave the
courthouse and go back to the cornfield, and then Gary
called me to the stand and they were taking off

(01:29:07):
guard man. They weren't ready for me.

Speaker 3 (01:29:10):
Yeah, I mean, that's just wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
Well, here we are, the DAW's arrested. Sutter discusses DA's arrest,
and we're going to get back to Tom Pukin in
a minute because we can. We can move this stuff
around like a Rubik's que. Well we can't, Jonathan Camp.
Sutter discusses DA's arrest. John Ben Sutter shrugged his shoulders

(01:29:35):
and motioned toward an FBI agent when asked if he
could talk Wednesday morning at the mcclennan County District Attorney's office.
You'd better ask him, Sutter said, smiling, smiling weakly and
pointing at an FBI agent. The FBI agent, who didn't
return the smile, stared at Sutter h the administrative assistant

(01:29:58):
to the District Attorney, Fazil. His face was as pale
as light as his light gray suit, and his lips
were clamped shut. Well, that must have been Bob Zayan.
You know, you're talking about how the ghosty bail he was.

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
They do that at FBI training. They teach them to
look like their blood has been drained from their face.

Speaker 1 (01:30:20):
Yeah, Boris Karlov. Yeah, nobody here ask who that is? Yeah,
said the FBI agent said, you can talk after a
few seconds. You just can't bring anyone in here into
the office. This is under controlled access. Oh, this is
written by Mark England. Mark was a pretty good writer

(01:30:41):
for the trip. You know, I'm kind of impressed with
his right. Sutter nodded and walked toward the door, passing
a sign that said support Fort Fazil. When Sutter opened
the door, agents from the FBI and the Texas Department
of Public Safety could be seen through the office of
fazel who had been arrested hours earlier on racketeering and

(01:31:05):
mail fraud charges and issued under a sealed indictment. The
agents quit talking when the door opened, showing the poise
he developed in an unsuccessful race for county judge. Sutter
stopped to shake hands with the grim faced FBI agent
before leaving the office. It pissed him off. Sutter slipped

(01:31:31):
a lodging onto his tongue and leaned against a wall.
Sutter was homesick with bronchitis when he got the phone
call from a secretary telling him Fazel had been arrested.
I went over to see Bernie Fazzell's wife when I
heard he said he was. She was as fine as

(01:31:53):
one could be under the circumstances. And then I came
over here. The timing of Fazzell's rest rest, he said,
was suspicious. It came a little more than a month
before Fizzelle's reelection bid against Republican Paul Gardner. It came
a day before the Fazelee fundraiser. With or without Vic,

(01:32:15):
Sutter said, we're still having it. I like that man.
That's ballsy. That's tough, he says. I'm not being flippant
about this, he said, I recognize the seriousness. But I
believe people who voted for Vic Fazzelle, who have followed
his career closely will be able to see the past

(01:32:39):
veritable prop will be able to see past the veritable
propaganda being put out about him. Good with words, John.

Speaker 3 (01:32:47):
Ben Well, it was accurate, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
Tell me what you remember about Tom Paukin. Oh, while
we were talking about Lucas though in him leaving Lucas
with you, Yeah, a couple of times we even left
Lucas under the supervision of my ex wife Bernie in
the law library at the DA's office. She has a
funny story where she had a cup of coffee and

(01:33:14):
she steps in to see him and his coffee cup
is empty, and we had those little styrofoam cups, you know,
And she said, Henry, would you like another cup of coffee?
And he goes, yeah, that'd be nice, thank you. And
so she goes out there and pours the two. She
walks in and she can't remember which one is hers.
She goes, here, Henry, I brought you to.

Speaker 3 (01:33:45):
Yeah, he was in more jeopardy under Bernie's watch than
he'd ever be with Truman or anyone else.

Speaker 1 (01:33:56):
I mean, yeah, Well, you remember the first time, first
time Maddix ever saw him. Maddox talked to him for
a little while and came out into the hallway. Uh,
and you were there, and he looks at both of
us and he said, I believe a good sized woman
could whip his ass.

Speaker 3 (01:34:17):
I don't remember that, but got dang, it sounds just
like him. Yes, indeed, I loved Maddix.

Speaker 1 (01:34:23):
I really miss him.

Speaker 3 (01:34:24):
Oh, I know, it's terribly, so terrible. He'd come over
when we were in Austin. He'd called, said he'd come over.
He'd come over to my condo and say, uh, you're
twenty dollars Jay, go over to the grocery store and
get some spaghetti bag and make spaghetti for uce. Wow,
And I'm going that guy's got more balls than I'd

(01:34:46):
ever I wouldn't tell my wife that, I swear to God,
but oh yeah, one time he loved mince meat pile
pie from oh, what was the name of that cafeteria?
I just the other day was talking about it and
told Jay about it, and I remember remember the name then,

(01:35:06):
but I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
Remember where was it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:08):
It was on. Oh, I don't remember what street it was.
It's been so long since I lived in Austin and
never felt comfortable at Austin and all that. So if
it wasn't it wasn't not a main drag, but it was.
It was not one of the major It was in Austin, Ah,
it was very popular in Austin.

Speaker 1 (01:35:28):
It sounds like thread Gilds, because he loved thread Gills
a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:35:31):
He did, But this was this was a cafeteria per
se like Gluby's. Okay, but I loved their men's beat pie.
So I took him a min's beat pie over his
house one day and I was working for him. I
think he wanted me to get one for him, So
I did and walked in the house and I said,
Jim General and he said, you buy yourself from back

(01:35:58):
and said yeah, okay. He chops out in his T
shirt and and chocky pants, white jockeys, and I'm going, well,
you better let me cut this thing up and see
if it's any good, because you know these things can
get rotten real quick. So let's just let's have a
piece right now and make sure it's good. And I said,

(01:36:19):
sounds like a damn fine idea. We're standing there hearing
and underwear and me we're eating mince meat pie. That's
that's gym maddics.

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
Maddox reminds me a lot of what I knew of.
Maddox reminds me a lot of the stories I've heard
about Lyndon Johnson. They had similar personalities.

Speaker 3 (01:36:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remembered him when I was working
in Washington because one of my first jobs, mister Poe went,
I'd gone up there. Like I said to you before
the interview, A fortis for my thesis at Baylor interviewed
Justice Fordas for it, and uh, it was just awesome
to get to meet him and produced you remember Lyle Brown,

(01:37:04):
He's still alive in away from doctor Brown at Baylor
political Science told Jay, who was also a student of his,
years later, said John Ben wrote the best master's thesis
we ever had here at Baylor when he interviewed just
the same Fortas for his went to Washington and interviewed
Forts for his thesis, and uh, yeah, it was it

(01:37:33):
was pretty awesome to have that opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:37:36):
But and so you ran into Maddox in Washington. Yeah,
Maddox was a congressman. And you know, mad Congressman had
beat Pawkin twice, okay job.

Speaker 3 (01:37:47):
Yeah, detested him.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
Yeah, and so there was there already.

Speaker 3 (01:37:53):
Oh yeah, that's one of the reasons Paulkin and I
had something to talk about him. Yeah, I worked for Maddix.
We were real good friends. I said, right, yeah, yeah,
I know, I know, I know. I know. That's politics.
So isn't it isn't it, Tom, It's just politics.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
Not it was personal, it's personal.

Speaker 3 (01:38:11):
Well, it's one of the reasons I kind of liked
Pawking from the standpoint of I dealt with Pawkins. I
dealt with Pawkins before talk poking type people. Although he
was he was, unfortunately the future of the Republican Party

(01:38:32):
and the kind of nasty politics that he played. I
remember when I was one of my first my first job,
mister Pogue put me when I went up there, because
I've gone up there if I said the interview for
this and I went and saw Pope and he said, well,
I gotta you want to stay up here for a
while and just for the rest of the summer, and
put you on a house job, being in the door

(01:38:54):
doorkeeper's office. So it opened up opportunities because I got
to meet all four and thirty five members of the
House representatives, because I had to memorize all of their
names and faces because I worked the door to the
Speaker's chamber and so people when they'd go out that
door behind the Speaker's podium. But met Pawkin at all

(01:39:20):
sorts of congressmen. And one of my favorite congressmen was
a guy named Bob Bowman. And I'd stay late and
go sit up in the gallery and watch him because
there'd be just two or three people in the chamber.
But Bowman was a Republican and he was I just
just detested his politics, but he was a master at

(01:39:42):
parliamentary procedure and the rules of Congress, and he would
use that to advance his agenda, and I just admired
his skill very much. Never I talked to him a
few times, but it's one of those situations where even

(01:40:03):
though he was spouting things that I just horribly disagreed with,
he was basically fascinating to watch and interesting to talk to.
And to an extent, Pawkin was that way as well,
but he was sort of like needing a very very

(01:40:26):
big dog that could be rabbit with Halkin, because you
knew that you can only trust him about as far
as you could stand away from him in that regard.
But because we had the Washington experience, we could talk
from that perspective, and so there was we had something

(01:40:53):
in common which allowed me to get into his head
a little bit that he was able to get into
mind had a little bit. So it was an interesting situation.
But yeah, yeah, we even after years afterwards. Uh, in
the early days of Facebook, we were on Facebook together

(01:41:16):
and we communicate, but he just couldn't take my liberalism
on Facebook. So I got befriended by talking No, no,
no real problem there, no real problem there.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
But about the time we started the Lucas thing, that's
when he came after us.

Speaker 3 (01:41:36):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:41:38):
Well, the first thing he did, and Jonathan has played
excerpts of this interview. Uh, he brought Sergeant Bobby Prince
and Captain Bob Mitchell of the Texas Rangers onto his show,
which they said a bunch of things that you know,
made some hay for them back then, but have proven

(01:41:58):
not to be true in the meantime. Uh. And then
he would editorialize against this every chance that he got.
And I'm telling you your rebuttal was just fabulous. Uh.
We we may even play that again because it was
really good and I enjoyed it a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:42:18):
And well that you know, and that's the thing about Paulkin.
I understood what he was doing, and I it was
and it was almost easy to to he was he was.

(01:42:40):
He was a harbinger of of of Rush Limball. I
think he wanted to be a Rush Limball with this
radio program, but never could achieve that because he didn't
have the skill of a limb ball. And in terms
of reaching down into the guts of people, because Paarkin

(01:43:01):
tried to keep it here on more of an intellectual plane.
Although when I talk about intellectual, his idea of intellectual
and my idea of intellectual would be slightly different. I
guess because of he spoke of evil and I believe
we spoke of good. But be that as it may,

(01:43:26):
he could never get his program off the ground because
he was hoping to get it syndicated and advanced. And
I don't think he played that well in Waco even
back then. Today, he'd probably be a tremendous figure.

Speaker 1 (01:43:43):
He had a stronger signal. Yeah, that was a good
thing we had going in our favor. If you were
like more than a two miles from Krzy, you couldn't.

Speaker 3 (01:43:54):
That's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. What is
he doing now? I haven't kept up with him.

Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
I have no idea, And uh, I really don't care
to know a lot of these stays away from me.

Speaker 3 (01:44:06):
Well, you just you definitely don't want to run into
him and and and lose uh, yeah, lose control and
go why are you? Why? Why are you upset with me?
Just because I punched him out doesn't mean that I
don't respect him for the person that he is. But yeah,

(01:44:27):
uh you know, he was state party chairman for the
Republican Party.

Speaker 1 (01:44:32):
Yes, yeah, he was a He was a muckety muck.
He was one of their high pooh bars.

Speaker 3 (01:44:37):
Yeah yeah. And he ain't pooh bar anymore. No, I
don't see him anywhere anywhere.

Speaker 5 (01:44:42):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:44:42):
He and Carl Rove had a falling out and I
had to fall and the bushes had a fallen out,
and so he he kind of was persona ingratis after
all of that.

Speaker 3 (01:44:54):
Yeah, well, now I'm not familiar with that. What happened?

Speaker 1 (01:44:58):
That's in some of the books about car It's either
boy Genius or Macabelly's Shadow, one of those. And I'm
going to get you a copy of Doug Swanson's book,
so don't buy it, Jonathan and I Cult of Glory
about the Texas Rangers.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
I've got a copy.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
Oh you do? Okay, Well I was going to send
you one.

Speaker 3 (01:45:22):
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. But that's okay, I
got it.

Speaker 1 (01:45:25):
Well, we're going to buy four or five and have
Doug sign them and give this show. Okay, I'll get
you a signed one. Help me remember that, John, He
helps me remember the things I promised to do. Just
like you would always help me remember names. It couldn't
be in politics without John Benn because I can't remember

(01:45:45):
anybody's name. Even back then, I couldn't remember anybody's name.
But Sutter always had his reporter's book in his back
pocket taking notes and hit. See somebody across the room
head in my direction. He go, that's John Smith. His
wife is named Mary. They have a son that plays
baseball and he just hit a hit a triple. Talk

(01:46:05):
to him about that, and I go, John, how you doing?
And say hi to Mary. Tell me about that son's
baseball career, and everybody of it came from Suttern. Usually
I wouldn't even know who the guy was.

Speaker 3 (01:46:16):
Yeah, I my memory was a little better then. But
also the trick was I wrote everything down, yes, which
you said, I'm really worried about that now that the
Feds are investigative. You've written everything down? Yeah, of course
nothing nothing that could be used against you though, But

(01:46:39):
yeah I did. My records were prodigious, and.

Speaker 1 (01:46:45):
Now I really, I really hope you have written a
bunch of it down that you still have it. You
ought to write a book, man, I mean, that was
a hell of a time. We went through.

Speaker 3 (01:46:54):
I know, I know, it's it really is a story
that beg used to be told in greater depth than
anything that's been dumb. Everything's been kind of sporadic. We
ye here a little bit there, and they're pulling it
all together would be very worthwhile.

Speaker 1 (01:47:12):
That's why we're doing this podcast, and so this is
a good primary source for anyone that wants to write
a book too, because we're getting into great detail. We're
following the timeline. You remember Alan McCutcheon, He was a
reporting I hired Alan to be my legal assistant after
I left the DA's office and he helped me put
together the blow case.

Speaker 3 (01:47:32):
But yeah, he was a remarkably bright fellaw he was,
he really was, and it was a very very good
reporter and was I think extremely useful for you.

Speaker 1 (01:47:45):
Yeah. Well, he put together the timeline that we're following now,
and we're only into like May and June nineteen eighty five,
but we're skipping ahead in segments to cover things like
your race for county judge and things like that, but
then we'll fall back to the timeline. It took us
weeks just to get through April, maybe months.

Speaker 2 (01:48:08):
It took like two months to get through April.

Speaker 1 (01:48:10):
Two months to get through April nineteen eighty five. Those
one of the longest months of my life. Then that
was the month we started the Lucas Granduri. You can't
think any of the stories about Henry Lucas you'd like
to share.

Speaker 3 (01:48:25):
Well, that really was my favorite Lucas story. But it
was always a topic of conversation with whomever I met
in Waco and I went to the funeral, Jay and
I went to Lucas's funeral down in Huntel No. Yeah,

(01:48:48):
and that was an interesting experience, needless to say. Sister
Clemmy was there. The priest that worked with Henry and
in prison was at the funeral. Uh, just a snattering
of people.

Speaker 1 (01:49:06):
Not many. I've seen pictures of the funeral. I've seen
you in Jay there and Cleming. But there's just a
handful of people.

Speaker 3 (01:49:13):
There, just and just just one or two reporters. And
here is the alleged greatest mass murder in history that
is now forgotten and not a certainly one of those
controversial figures in true crime. Legend was the subject of

(01:49:36):
numerous movies about the horrible mass murderer Lucas.

Speaker 1 (01:49:42):
Portrait of a Serial Killer, and then the book Hands
of Death that Jim Botwell wrote the forward.

Speaker 3 (01:49:48):
For Oh yes, Yes, which Henry autographed for me my
copy of Hands of Death. No yeah, he said, because
I was worried about my weight back then, because I
was terribly obese and having to fight that and all
the time me Rodin's I hope you will achieve that

(01:50:09):
your happiness and losing that weight or something that really sweet,
really sweet. Frankly, I I kind of liked talking to Henry.
He was folk.

Speaker 1 (01:50:26):
It was a sad puppy dog.

Speaker 3 (01:50:28):
He really was a sad story.

Speaker 1 (01:50:33):
One thing I'm going to do, is In want to
do in this program, is encourage our listeners to go
on the internet and google Blonde Sense Rove attacked a
friend of mine. That's an article that Jay wrote. It's
still active on the internet. Oh yeah, I mean I've
got a copy right here. I got off the internet

(01:50:54):
just the other day. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:50:59):
Yeah. There was a report this woman, uh, a woman
started it up in the Northeast and that she had
about five different writers across the country and Jay was
one of the regular contributors to it. And that's one
of the articles that she wrote. Four Blonde Sense now
that they fell apart at that early Facebook. Uh, or

(01:51:23):
maybe it was a blog.

Speaker 1 (01:51:24):
It's a blog. It's a blog.

Speaker 3 (01:51:27):
Yeah, and blogs kind of fell after Facebook came into power.

Speaker 1 (01:51:32):
Yeah, except for Bernie's blog. Man, she's got more readers
than you can imagine. And she's pissing people off in
Waco so bad that they're able to get get it
to where you cannot repost her blog onto Facebook. Yeah.
She made a couple of public officials here really upset,
and they've been complaining to Facebook and pulling, throwing their

(01:51:55):
weight around.

Speaker 3 (01:51:57):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:51:57):
They've even threatened her with an indictment out of Austin
for exercising her First Amendment rights. Yeah, she didn't know
it was against the law to publish the address of
a public official, and she put the sheriff's address in
our blog. She's since taken it out, but she had

(01:52:18):
his address in there so people could ride drive by
and look at all the new equipment he had out
by his place, and she was just wondering how he
could afford it, that's all. And so her her blog
is being blocked, but man, has she got the readers.
That's incredible. Yeah, it's called I'm mad to Harry.

Speaker 3 (01:52:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:52:41):
Yeah, So anyway, Jay Sutter writes here from Boy Genius,
an excellent book on Rove. From a rowdy past as
a young Republican and Richard Nixon's Washington to masterminding the
defeat of Anne Richards the popular government of Texas, to

(01:53:01):
his triumphs on the national stage, Karl Rove has taking
no prisoners in his quest to elect his candidates and
destroy his rivals. The FBI agent mentioned in Peter's post
investigated every major hub popular Democratic office holder in the
state who could whip Republicans, and that was Greg Rampton.

(01:53:24):
Remember Greg Grampton. He led the search of my home
and he was involved with Bob Zane. And Greg Grampton
was also involved with Ruby Ridge. Jerry Spence brought it
out during the trial of Ruby Ridge that Greg Grampton
had actually rearranged evidence before photographing it. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:53:49):
He ended up having to admit that on the witness stand.

Speaker 3 (01:53:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:53:55):
She goes on to say that that Rove's first victim
had been an ambitious Waco district attorney named Vic Fazell.
But here I like this She's talked about. My husband
worked for Vic and he has been a personal friend
for twenty years, and she says that John Ben took

(01:54:16):
me on our first date over for Chinese food at
the House of Chin restaurant. He told me that we
were going to spend the rest of our lives together.
That's missus Chin. That's the one that got Subphoene into
the grand jury. Yeah, and she goes on to talk
about how you were the one who got sixty minutes

(01:54:37):
to come in and do their story on us. That's
an end. Do you remember how that happened?

Speaker 3 (01:54:43):
Well, I remember the long letter I wrote to uh huh.

Speaker 1 (01:54:47):
And you put it in an envelope and mailed it.
And then later when we met the producer, his.

Speaker 3 (01:54:51):
Name was Jim Jackson.

Speaker 1 (01:54:54):
Okay, i'll take your work.

Speaker 3 (01:54:57):
Carson, Jim Jackson and Roll's car.

Speaker 1 (01:55:00):
I remember Rise. Yeah, she was really sweet. And the
other one you said was Jim Jackson, right, all right?
It was Jim Jackson said that he was walking past
the front desk and there was this big stack of
mail and he was wondering what one of their next
things is going to be. He said, I just kind
of reached into the middle of it, pulled one out,

(01:55:21):
took it to my office and it was John Ben's letter,
and with the back of that thank you Lord, It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
And that's that's how we got on sixty minutes. John
Benn was your letter and a stroke of luck.

Speaker 3 (01:55:36):
Rall's told well, it was it was. Actually, God always
looks after Vic Fazell. I recognize that fully because that's
what my letter got picked out because and God goes, oh,
it's Seth Sutter.

Speaker 1 (01:55:55):
Guy.

Speaker 3 (01:55:55):
What am I going to do? Let me flip a coin?
What am I? Oh? He loses today. Roz told either
Jay or Bernie. I think it was Jay that we
were really Jim wanted to hire John Ben to come
to sixty Minutes, but we had big cutbacks at CBS.
Otherwise John Ben would be going because that letter just

(01:56:19):
was awesome and and his help was awesome, and we
wanted him to come, but we couldn't hire him because
of the cutbacks at CBS.

Speaker 1 (01:56:28):
I'm glad they didn't hire you away from me.

Speaker 3 (01:56:32):
I would I would have still been Okay, excuse me,
h Morley, excuse me. I can't talk to you right now.
Talking to Vic. I got Waco, you know, and I'm sorry, Mike,
but talk to your son about this. Stuff on that
new thing called Fox News. Get him off that, you know,

(01:56:54):
Mike Wallace and all my friends up there. We had
sent everybody down and take care of everything.

Speaker 1 (01:57:02):
I remember when you and I went to Washington in
either eighty three or early eighty four, and we met
Mike Wallace in the elevator and he was having some
kind of temper tantrum because somebody had not let him
into the office. And then you're just really going crazy
and complaining and grapping. And then he calmed himself down,
and we were looking at him and he introduced himself

(01:57:24):
to this like we didn't know who he was. But
that was really sweet. And that was the same day
we went over to visit with Lloyd Benson, Senator Benson.
I've still got that photo that you took of me
and Benson together. It's hanging in our break room.

Speaker 3 (01:57:40):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, And you got I think you got.
You took a picture of me and Benson.

Speaker 1 (01:57:46):
I did, Yes, I did.

Speaker 3 (01:57:47):
I still have mine, still have mine up somewhere now.

Speaker 1 (01:57:51):
The last paragraph of her article, and this is the
one that you kind of brought up before.

Speaker 3 (01:57:58):
Oh excuse me, save that last paragraph. But another thing,
my favorite not my favorite memory, but one of the
most start memories of that Washington visit. We were in
Old Town Alexandria, which was one of my haunts back
when I was in Washington, and we were crossing a
street and this guy ran a lot nearly ran us over.

Speaker 1 (01:58:18):
He nearly ran over the curb. Yeah, he almost hit you,
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:58:23):
And I banged on his back fender. He really and
jumped out of the car and came up, well you
a little sorry hit in my car and this and
you nearly ran over me, and you get you know,
this was a big guy.

Speaker 1 (01:58:35):
He shoved you. I remember he shoved you.

Speaker 3 (01:58:38):
Yeah, And Vic said hey, hey, hey, come on, let's
all settle down, and he got back in the car. Sutter,
could you pick on somebody smaller next time?

Speaker 1 (01:58:49):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:58:50):
I didn't want to get into a fight.

Speaker 1 (01:58:52):
God I didn't either, and that guy was big, but
I had to step between you because he was ready
to go to town on you, Sutter, And all you
had done kind of slapped the side of his van
as he almost ran over your toe. Yeah, yeah, I
recall that.

Speaker 3 (01:59:06):
Then well, you could beat me up with a habit
license plate and we could assue the crap out.

Speaker 1 (01:59:12):
I would think he's probably judgment proof. From what I
recall for our listeners, judgment proof means you don't have
any money. And why why assume you just had to
hang that judgment on the wall.

Speaker 3 (01:59:24):
Well, it would be as I wheeled over to it,
look at my judgments anyway. I didn't mean to rupt,
but I.

Speaker 1 (01:59:36):
Oh, no, that's a good story. I like that story.

Speaker 3 (01:59:41):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:59:42):
Jay ends the article with this, talking about the Lucas situation.
She said, no one was fired for the Lucas matter.
Not one person had to answer for their hoax. Not
one prosecutor or investigator was reprimanded. No investigation by a
government an official other than the district attorney and Texas

(02:00:03):
Attorney General has been done. And she wrote this now
well as after boy Genius came out, So it wasn't
that long ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, ten years ago something
like that.

Speaker 3 (02:00:16):
Right, right, yeah. And what is also remarkable but predictable,
I suppose, is not a single district attorney has ever
tried to reopen a case in their jurisdiction where Lucas

(02:00:38):
cleared cases after it became obvious that he was lying
about it, because they saw what happened to Vic Fizzell.
Jim Adams got what he wanted, even though he couldn't
get you in jail. He got the rest of the
state and every district attorney where this happened, where Lucas

(02:00:58):
had come in and fast false sleep crimes. If he
did not commit in order to clear cases that either
couldn't be solved or the rangers didn't want solved.

Speaker 1 (02:01:10):
Right, they didn't want and they did not want the
truth coming out. They did not want it coming out.
And had it not been for the them saving the
DNA off of Rita Salazar, her case would have never
been solved. And that was the one I dug my
heels in about. She and her boyfriend had been kidnapped

(02:01:32):
down their round rock. They had run out of gas.
He was killed there and she was brought up and
shot in Hewitt and dumped on the side of the
highway in Hewitt. So mcclennan County had jurisdiction, and I
remember reading that confession and going no way, man, no way.

(02:01:52):
Then then later after we got into we found out
there are actually three confessions. Henry confessed that he did it,
and Florida out his tool, confessed that he did it,
and then later Henry confessed that he and Ottis both
did it, along with Frank and Becky Powell, who were
little kids. And we were able to get Frank and

(02:02:12):
Becky Powell's school records and proved they were in school
that day.

Speaker 3 (02:02:16):
You know, don't forget I confess to it. It was
on a roll.

Speaker 2 (02:02:25):
Might as well we get some free milkshakes out of it.

Speaker 3 (02:02:28):
At least precisely. At least editions that the Rangers put
into my milkshakes.

Speaker 2 (02:02:35):
Get you a little stamp card. Every three confessions gets
you a strawberry.

Speaker 1 (02:02:38):
Strawberry milkshake with a side of thorozine.

Speaker 3 (02:02:41):
That really adds to it. It's better than the malted
milk that you put in. You know.

Speaker 1 (02:02:47):
It gives it a kick it do.

Speaker 3 (02:02:51):
Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't.

Speaker 1 (02:02:54):
Oh, we're just chit chatting now. Man, I've already covered
everything I need to cover with you, unless you can
think of.

Speaker 3 (02:03:01):
Oh I can probably think of something, but I can't. Offhand.
I know that as soon as we sign off, I'll
have about twelve different things I should have mentioned.

Speaker 1 (02:03:10):
Well, now that we know how easy this is, just
make a list of it and we'll do this again. Okay,
correct and and and fill in what we forgot because
we'll be working on this over the next couple of months.
Oh yeah, yeah, and then when we get it finalized,
we'll put it on a thumb drive and send a tea.

Speaker 3 (02:03:28):
Okay, that'd be fun. I'd gad to see. Oh. I mean,
there's so many stories about politics in Waco we could
talk about and campaigning in Waco and the uniqueness of
Waco as a as a as a as a as
an example of of retail politics and getting out and press,

(02:03:50):
pressing the flesh. That's that's your your your ability not
only to communicate over television effectively, but getting out meeting people,
your your your campaign speeches, your your sermons, your singing performance.

(02:04:13):
They weren't quite as effective as the other things, but
they certainly were memorable. They certainly were memorable. Did you hear.

Speaker 1 (02:04:22):
That that that fundraiser you were talking about, that we're
going to have it anyway, even if it can't make it. Well,
I was able to make it and I sang that night,
Remember I sang your Cheating Heart and dedicated it to
Jim Patterson. Yes, oh my goodness.

Speaker 3 (02:04:43):
That the fundraiser we had at the convention center. Mister
Poele walked up to me afterwards. I said, John, Yeah,
is it true that you and and and and Bernie
put this thing together pretty much? Yeah? Yeah, it's kind
of busy, so I've never seen anything like this in

(02:05:07):
McLennon County in my entire history. This was great. I'm
just impressed as all hell. I said, well, mister Folk,
is an honor to hear, because we're very proud of
what we did tonight. But it's just an outpouring of
how people felt. And if you're going to be any place,
and as long as he didn't at vic Fazel, this
was the place to be.

Speaker 1 (02:05:28):
I remember him being there, and I remember him telling me,
and you might have been stating there when he said this.
I've got some great photos from that night too, I
need to share with you. We'll find some and put
them up. Then I'll put some on a stickings and
to you, he said. To me, he said, and I
can't imitate him like you can, he said, it's.

Speaker 3 (02:05:49):
Just for years and years. I remember one time at
the dedication of the Folk Library, a fella from Washington
came up to me and should uh, John Ben, you
sound just like Bob Pogue. You called me one time
and I stood up because I thought I was talking

(02:06:11):
to Bob Poge. For God's sake, This is incredible.

Speaker 1 (02:06:13):
You could imitate him so well, And you could also
imitate Maddox. You used to call people down in Maddox's
office and make them think you were Gem Maddox, just
playing practical jokes on him. That those were the fun times.
Oh yeah, but what Pogue said, and you might have
been standing there was, and maybe if you were, you
can say it in his voice and we'll cut my

(02:06:34):
part out. But he said, I haven't seen this many
people show up for a politician in mcclennan County since
Roosevelt came to town.

Speaker 3 (02:06:44):
Since Roosevelt came town. Roosevelt Roosevelt. How they pronounced it,
A lot of folks pronounced it that way back then.
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (02:06:56):
We have a street in Waco named after Bob Pogue,
poe Avenue. It's out out in Woodway, and nearly everybody
I run into now calls it poe og oh oh
down there by poe Ag Avenue, you know, or in
some people call it Poeaje. They don't even know who

(02:07:16):
Bob Pogue was and they can't even pronounce his name.
And he did so much for the state, so much
for this county. It's sad. That's horrible, the memory of
man runneth not to the contrary. Oh well, make your
bullet point list and let's do this again in the

(02:07:37):
near future.

Speaker 3 (02:07:40):
Absolutely looking forward to it. This was much more fun
than UH one should be able to have without taking
their clothes off.

Speaker 1 (02:07:53):
I love you always, John Vin. Thank you, sir, Thank
you for listening to The Vig Fizzell Show podcast. We're
a primary source podcast. We talk about people we've known,
things we've experienced. We're a primary source podcast. For more information,

(02:08:13):
visit vicfazzel dot com, leave us a comment or a review,
Subscribe to our YouTube, Instagram and Facebook pages, and thank
you for listening. Share us with your friends. Sometimes things

(02:08:34):
happen that you never saw coming, like a sudden car wreck,
leading you feeling helpless and overwhelmed. You need someone who
understands and genuinely cares about you. Vic Fazzell is the
experienced advocate you deserve, fighting for the compensation you need.
Don't wait for the dust to settle. Call now, because

(02:08:54):
consultations are free, and if we don't put money in
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