The Feds coverup in the botched “Culture of Corruption” investigation continues

In a decision “not recommended for publication” three Republican appointed Judges, on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals left their work to a law clerk. Senior Judge Eugene Siler Jr, clocking in at 87 years old, and appointed by George H.W. Bush, along with Judge Chad A. Readler 51, a Trump appointee, and Judge Amul R. Thapar (54) also appointed by Trump- took their time in a de novo review of the case that had seen 3 Federal judges recuse themselves and a fourth summarily dismiss it on a lame technicality, to come up with a stupefying defense of bad behavior by the FBI and the DOJ.

Today, I filed a motion for En Banc review, (a review of at least 11 members of the court) to reconsider their decision. The next step is an appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Readler, who was on the appeal in the Higgins case ^[1], already is well aware that the 6th Circuit court has a problem in the Southern District of Ohio with under-representation of Blacks in the jury pools and on juries, as well as a propensity to charge Blacks at a higher rate than should be statistically probable. That part of this case is really not central- although the fact that 10 years after the Feds started investigating “The Culture of Corruption” in Dayton- the only white person they charged, Steve Rauch, got a slap on the wrist. We, the public, are supposed to believe that no elected white people did anything wrong- most of all, former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley.

This case, was on the surface, just an appeal of a denial of public documents, under the “Freedom of Information Act” (FOIA). However, the FBI and DOJ stalled the response every which way for almost a year. The process is way to arcane and dysfunctional to actually be a part of good government. Every Federal agency has a different portal and process, a system built for confusion and costly mistakes.

Once the Feds finally responded, it was to tell me that the tapes that were played to the Grand Jury were both none of my damn business and a matter of national security through their use of the Glomar exception. They also diddled on about Nan’s right to privacy when she’s breaking the law as a public official.

Glomar, for those of you not familiar was named after “Global Marine”- a company owned by Howard Hughes, that was building a super secret ship to recover a sunk Russian sub with nukes aboard. You’ve heard the exception over and over on police procedurals on TV- “We cannot confirm or deny the existence of that information.” Word to the Feds- there isn’t any thing Nan Whaley has ever said that is a matter of National Security- and if you have some kind of new super-secret spy tech, you’re wasting our money, since you obviously couldn’t convict her.

While much of the info is recapped in my filing, any astute student of Dayton political history will know that the people who operate the landfills and fill them with demolished dreams of a once robust city, are the people who control the politicians here.

From the summer of 1993, when I was running for the seat eventually won by Dean Lovelace in the special election to replace Mark Henry, when former Dayton Mayor Richard Clay Dixon took offense at me suggesting his big campaign war chest was funded by people “who maybe wanted to build a landfill on the West side.” Clay took me outside the church on Edgar Avenue and started a one-sided fight with his fists, breaking his watch on my head, and ripping my shirt. I knew better than to hit back- being younger, an Army Veteran, and already knowing how it would look if I landed a haymaker on him.

In 2009, the donations by Kitt Cooper of Westerville to both Rhine McLin and Nan Whaley were excessive ^[2]– unless you looked at them as down payments on filling his Vance road landfill.

When the Feds announced the indictments of Former Dayton City Commissioner Joey D. Williams along with Roshawn Winburn, Clayton Luckie and Brian Higgins, I was there asking the hard questions. Like, “do you only arrest Black people?”

The real story came together later- when it turns out the FBI had hired one of Steve Rauch’s former lieutenants, a dishonorably discharged Army veteran named Mike Marshall and had him set up a false front operation, “United Demolitions” to try to get city business- and catch the crooks taking payoffs.

Williams had a patio enclosure built on his home- because, well, “everyone else was doing it” and Winburn took sacks of cash for contracts. But, it got deeper than that. Williams, Winburn and private businessman Brian Higgins (note Higgins is a friend and former client) were going to start up a new company with Marshall- called “Airborne Demolitions” to make millions, after Marshall had screwed up his first contract as United so badly.

While all this was going on, the Feds already had wiretaps on both Nan Whaley and Willis Blackshear Sr. in 2013. We know this because the wiretap requests which were quietly unsealed in 2017, came to light all the way later in 2021 when the Ohio Capital Journal found them ^[3].

The key here is Williams was about a year into his fifth term on the Commission when he got caught. The Feds turned him into a confidential informant ^[4]ostensibly so they could catch others in City Hall who were corrupt. Somehow- Williams only was able to give them information on Black people is what we’re supposed to believe, because when he was indicted, April 30 of 2019, that’s all they had.

No Nan, no City Manager, no one in purchasing in City Hall, no white people.

But, the real crime, wasn’t the corruption in Dayton.

The real crime, was that Williams was under the control of the FBI as a “Confidential Human Source” and was allowed to run for re-election, with an agreement to resign if re-elected, which he did. Joey was the Fed’s “Manchurian Candidate” and they were tampering with an election.

Had they arrested Williams in the 3 years before he ran for re-election, Fairchild and Shenise Turner Sloss would have probably won that time. Hell, maybe Nan would have lost to Rennes Bowers. We don’t know- but we do know that it cost us a special election, where Darryl Fairchild had to run against the party person Darrel Ward. This is a question of national importance right now- as the question of is Donald Trump eligible to run for office while indicted?

Williams hadn’t had his day in court, but the deal had been done long ago, he was going to prison, and the only thing that was stopping it was his cooperation in return for being an informant and taking a guilty plea on one charge of bribery. He was sentenced to a single year in prison, and got let out after 3 months thanks to Covid. The Feds who pulled a fast one on us, committing election fraud, or what I called Misprision of a Felony, ^[5] got off.

Until I filed. And they deflected. It’s not just that I know they committed a crime, but, I also know that tapes of Whaley were played to the same grand jury- and that a member of that Jury was surprised when they never asked for the jury to indict- because it was obvious that “She’s dirty.” Dayton is a small town- that’s how you find these things out- and while the secrecy of a grand jury is somehow unchallengeable in this country – there is an exception found in a case decided by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1987, Senate of Puerto Rico vs DOJ ^[6]. In it- the idea that you could hide criminal behavior of public officials by just taking it to a grand jury to whitewash ill deeds was debunked and dismissed.

This was a key argument in my case. The judges said it wasn’t relevant because of Glomar, which wasn’t used by the FBI in 1987, probably because RBG would have laughed them out of the courthouse. So, the short, poorly written and defended 4 page decision that these 3 Republican Judges signed off on, basically gave the federal government free reign to interfere with local politics, rig elections, play favorites with immunity deals in exchange for being a snitch- and not have to submit to oversight because this is about the NATIONAL SECURITY of our country. To which I said- horseshit. Here’s the filing:

Note, this is document number 39 in this case. If I was paying an attorney who specializes in FOIA cases (a very small group of highly experienced litigators) he would bill me $690 an hour, and if I won, it would be reimbursed. Granted, it might take him a fraction of the time I’ve spent on researching and writing this motion and all that have come before (I started this process on May 28, 2021), but the only reimbursement I’m eligible is my filing fees. I have hundreds of hours in this case already.

To those of you who’ve bothered to read this far, and who’ve read through the filing, you’ll know that this question of access to government records goes all the way back to the founding fathers. One of the cases I cite is Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 170 (1803) ^[7] yes, James Madison. The Freedom of Information Act is critical to the concept of Democracy- where a people have a right to know what their government is doing. The dirty little secrets of this “Culture of Corruption” investigation in Dayton was all a sideshow, a distraction, to federal agents running wild, playing power brokers with our elections.

This case must be heard- and properly adjudicated, or we no longer have a government of the people, for the people.

endnote: You may realize I’ve not been publishing with my normal frequency lately. This lawsuit is one part of it, my run for congress ^[8] is another and the third part is another story of when government goes wrong and a veteran gets abused by the system. As time allows, I’ll try to get back to publishing more frequently. As always, donations ^[9]to support this citizen journalism effort are always appreciated.