Now all interviewers have their own style, and my style is to
try to get to the point and to be intensely curious.
And the key to interviewing is listening.
Take a look behind the curtain with a real whistleblower and
American patriot. Prepare to embrace the
uncomfortable truth because this program has no time for
comforting lies. Here is civil liberties
enthusiast, Second Amendment defender, and recovering FBI
agent Kyle Serif. Well, hello my friends and
welcome to the first ever Sunday sit down.
Best of edition. This is going to be with one of
my favorite guests of all time, the one of the most, I think,
impactful folks on my thinking. A reminder that we can all
change. We can all move beyond our
partisan differences. We're going to be talking to Amy
Nelson. Yes, this is an older interview
and I've reached into the archives.
For the first time ever, we're going to do kind of a replay
show. I noticed that we had about 300
views and a very shortened version of this over on YouTube.
If nothing else, it reminds me that we should share it with
that audience. But we didn't used to have the
same reach, and this story deserves that reach.
The story of Amy Nelson is one of government overreach.
It's one of a Democrat who left her party and decided that
that's not what she stood for as an American when she saw a
weaponization of government in a very first hand way.
It is a heartbreaking story. I can tell you that I have, I
have shed tears over this and that's not a thing that I do
very easily. You guys will see there's some
emotion involved in this interview.
We've done a few talks with Amy and I'm going to pepper them in
over the next couple weeks because I want you to hear the
story. And then I'm going to have Amy
come back on and talk to us because her story's ongoing.
And you'd think it would be over and you'd think that four years,
five years would be long enough, but it's not.
So we're going to keep doing that.
And I'm going to go into the archives and grab some of the
other stories. We've talked to FBI
whistleblowers that you guys, you know, if you're relatively
new to the channel, you probably haven't heard.
And I'm not asking anybody to go digging in there and find it.
So I'm going to represent it if that's OK with you all.
And there's going to just be times when we do a best of show.
I want to make sure that we give the roots of this program the
proper, the proper acknowledgement.
We didn't always, I didn't always work out of a set that I
had built like this. We've it's been a very organic
process. Anyone who thinks that popped
out of nowhere. You'll get to see.
The audio wasn't as good, the video wasn't as good, the
editing wasn't as clean, the intros weren't there.
I didn't have thumbnails. There's a whole bunch of stuff
that I had to learn how to do. This was not a job that I
thought I was going to go out and do in my life, and I didn't
know that it was going to last or be able to turn into an
income. So appreciate all of you that
have joined us. And that's a great reminder as
you're watching right now if you're over on Rumble and you've
been there since the beginning. Yeah, I like the video.
You guys know what to do. Same thing on YouTube.
Really would appreciate that. And those of you follow on X,
especially for those of you that find that as your primary
source, We don't get monetized there, but I have no problem
with anybody watching it wherever you watch it.
So make sure you guys are doing that, like the videos, make sure
you're thumbing up. Share with a friend if you
would. If you want to do it the easiest
way possible, just send them a link to kyleseraphinshow.com.
You see it on the screen. That's our Spotify channel.
You can follow us there. You can leave comments, you can
give us a five star review. All those things are great.
And it's where we have some of our best monetization when it
comes AD revenues and there's not that much of it.
Locals is another way you guys can support us at
kyleserafin.com if you guys want to join our insider group.
And lastly, any of the video platforms, it's always easy.
Make sure you like it. That gives us an algorithmic
boost. Share it with a friend if you
like and make sure you subscribe to those channels.
So that's all I'm going to say. You will hear some intermittent
pop up Spotify ads if you're listening on the audio, if
you're watching on the video, the odds are there's going to be
some aftermarket where they punch in their own little AD
revenue. For whatever it's worth, we do
get a chunk of money out of all those things.
None of them are enough to pay the bills, but all of them help
a little bit. And so, you know, I appreciate
your tolerance with all this stuff.
I can't demonetize individual videos.
I don't think. I haven't seen how that works.
So God bless all of you. Look forward to sharing this
story with you. Haven't heard it.
And if you have heard it and it's a little reminder, then
that's OK too. You're going to hear the story
of a really courageous woman and a Great American, Amy Nelson,
coming up now. Welcome my friends.
Today on the Kyle, Sarah and Show.
We have a wonderful guest who agreed to come talk to us.
I heard her story only in part while I was driving back from
the SHOT Show in Vegas, and I told her I didn't want to hear
anymore until I heard it from her mouth.
I didn't want it second hand. So we're going to get the the
original reaction on this. There's no rehearsals and
there's very little background. Her name is Amy Nelson.
She's an attorney. She has a mother of four
wonderful, very cute little girls, which we'll we'll show
you her her Twitter page here. She's a wife and an
entrepreneur, and she is also the host of the What's Her Story
with Sam and Amy podcast, the founder of the Riveter Company,
which we'll also throw in the description below so you guys
can check out that link. And I want to welcome her right
now and we'll jump right into this thing with no further ado.
Amy, welcome to the Kyle Seraphin show.
Thanks so much for having me. And we're really lucky because
we have producer Phil today, because usually when I do these
things solo, they're always a little bit more sketchy.
So I got Phil. He's he's, he's left me alone.
I was in a hotel in Vegas doing a taping by myself, and I had no
one. It was just me just just winging
it. That's frightening.
You never want to do it. No, it's never good.
It's never good to go alone. Tell us a little bit about where
you grew up and and how you got to this point.
And we'll do kind of a quick intro, folks.
I know I've gone a little long and some of these.
So we're going to keep this kind of tight and then we're going to
get into a story, which is wild. Yeah, so I grew up in Columbus,
OH, with a great family and then went away to college when I was
18. I went to Emory University,
studied International Studies, and then went to law school at
NYU. And I ended up working in New
York as a commercial litigator for a number of years.
And then eventually I met my husband and we moved to Seattle
together. He joined Amazon Web Services,
which was at the time was a little subsidiary of Amazon.com.
And I kept layering until I became a mother.
And then when I became a mother, I was really struggling in
corporate America to kind of both see my my daughter and
work, which were two things I wanted to do.
So I thought I would go out on my own as a lawyer and started
going to classes on how to write a business plan and do all those
things and figured out that women didn't really have support
and community around starting businesses.
So I built a business called the Riveter to do just that.
And this is based on Rosie the Riveter.
Is that kind of where it's coming from?
It is. It's based on Rosie the Riveter,
which was, you know, a time when women were called to the
workforce to support the American war efforts and really
rose to the occasion. And so just to kind of pay
homage to that, to those incredibly patriotic and amazing
women. For sure, absolutely.
It's got to be tough too, just trying to bounce out being a
mother, especially now that you have 41.
It's a challenge and and we have 3, you know, my wife is also has
a professional degree and it's one of those things that I think
is a it's a big challenge and she opted, you know, to stay and
just deal with them because they're full speed, especially
boys and girls mixed up. And, you know, how does that
challenge factor into being? Attorney's pretty demanding work
usually, and running a company can't be.
Yeah. I mean, being an attorney, the
thing about being an attorney, so I worked as a litigator.
So it's client services, which I think a lot of people forget,
like you're just at the beck and call of your clients and it's
completely unpredictable. And at the time we lived in
Seattle, my husband was travelling constantly for
Amazon. So I was really alone and my
amazing mother, who had retired from 35 years as a public school
teacher, came out and helped me. That's big.
Didn't feel like a great fit. I think ultimately for me too,
as a lawyer, and this is ironic when we go into my story, but I
really felt like lawyers like hindering innovation.
They're kind of like had made themselves very necessary, but I
they didn't really contribute a lot.
And I really wanted to contribute.
And so that's why I watched people building businesses as a
lawyer. And I said, I want to be on that
side of this. That seems to be more
interesting to me. It's funny, I had a kind of a
funny experience in law enforcement.
We have attorneys at the FBI. They're, you know, kind of the
no factory. It's like, I got this creative
idea, I want to go do this. And they're like, no, you can't
do that. And then you bring up another
idea and it's no, it's no. And so it's funny that it, that
would also be the case in private industry.
It does. It makes sense to me because
they're they're always seeing the risk and you know, where the
where the pitfalls are and people who are innovators and
people who are entrepreneurs are always seeing what the
possibilities are and the goals. So yeah, they're kind of
antithetical to each other with the way that they started, lined
up their goals, right? They really are, until and
unless you get a company like Amazon that's big enough that
they don't play by the rules. And they just crush everybody.
Yeah, I think. I think there are obviously
examples of the brick and mortar end that was Walmart for a long
time, just steamrolled through, didn't care about litigation,
didn't care about regulations. They could go through and make
that happen. And obviously Amazon stepped
into that space in a big way. Yeah, there's a name for it.
There's a name for it. They call it lawfare when you
use the law as warfare. And I think that's a
interesting, interesting way to describe it.
Well, So what my my listeners who are, you know, big kind of
advocates of things like Second Amendment and and now First
Amendment I think has also been a big issue since the Twitter
Files will be familiar with that because it's the only way that
you can really fight back. Unfortunately, it's usually very
expensive and it's usually take some very courageous souls in
small industry to go step up against these big guys because
they can just stomp you. I mean it really does.
And I think when I practice law in New York, I practice First
Amendment law. And when I went into First
Amendment law, I thought I would be working for media, etcetera.
It was interesting because I ended up working a lot around
business and businesses who needed their First Amendment
rights protected. And you know, it is, they look,
we have very, we actually have very few rights and their rights
that are enshrined are important.
And so however they come to manifest, it's really important
that we that we care and that we try to keep them.
It's funny, my, my colleague who is another FBI whistleblower
just wrote a piece on the 3rd Amendment, which is probably the
forgotten amendment in the Bill of Rights that nobody really
thinks about. But he had a really interesting
take on it. And it's funny that you say that
we, I mean, we do need to protect our rights.
There's only a few of them. It's, it's they're, they're
supposed to be cordons where the government's not supposed to
intrude. And we act like the government
has granted them to us. And I think that fundamental
shift has been really, you know, it's really dangerous for
Americans who don't understand civics.
Yeah, I agree. And it is.
It's also interesting too because I feel like our rights
are politicized a lot and they shift with the winds.
Like if you look at 20 years ago, progressives and Kyle, you
know this, but I identified as a progressive.
Yeah, we're we're going. To get into that in a second,
because I think, I think it's really interesting.
But, you know, progressives hated the FBI, right?
In the post 911 era, it was, you know, it's just so against the
FBI. And now progressives are just so
pro FBI because they believe that the FBI is taking on
something Trump that they don't like.
And it's really dangerous for both progressives and
conservatives to politicize our rights and the agencies that
were built to allow us to keep those rights. 100% agree with
you. It's funny, I, I've seen some,
some memes that have been out there on the Internet and
there's a lot of very creative, intelligent people that make
these and they show it. I think that the Alvin King,
whatever his name is Elrond, I think it's showing, you know,
that the ring of power and, and it says libertarians and it says
don't take it. And then it's got, you know, two
different groups. You got Gollum who they, they
had the Democrats and they had, you know, the, the, the kings of
men that were the, the Republicans.
And everybody wants to wield the ring of power.
The only thing you can do with the wing of power is either have
it, you know, hidden away and apolitical or you got to throw
it in the fire. And, and it's fun that, that
we've seen this. I, I always told people like
what I'm doing is not political. It, it shouldn't be at least.
And most people that I met that were in the FBI, particularly in
the enforcement, and we're not political people, especially the
people 10 plus years in. So that goes back to the kind of
the old school. But, and, and you may agree with
this, I think the FBI has committed pretty significant
sins in every decade of its existence.
And I think there's pretty good documentation for it.
I mean I. Agree like when I I always say
to my friends who are progressive like you are, you're
so pro FBI right now. Do you remember 2016 when James
comedy you know, came out two weeks before the election and
caused chaos like we don't know if Hillary would have won.
We don't know, but like that was an inappropriate action pursuant
to FBI policy. It's.
Funny because I, I think that he probably just pushed people into
their own silos. I, I think that the, the balance
of it probably cut. It was a double edged sword
because the people that were on the liberal side, the
progressive side, you know, they, they heard what they
wanted to hear, that she didn't do anything with prosecution.
And the people that were on the other side heard, you know, that
they weren't going to prosecute and they were also mad at her.
And so then, you know, I don't know that it cut either way.
But but it's really dangerous to get messing around with
politics. It is, it is a dangerous thing
to do. So I yeah, I've definitely
learned a lot. I didn't really know anything
about the FBI and I've learned quite a lot over the past few
years, so. I imagine so.
All right, So just quick political background, you grew
up at you in Ohio and then you went to New York.
NY's a pretty left-leaning place.
Seattle obviously very left as well.
You're a registered Democrat, I assume, or you at least vote
that way. I mean, beyond that.
So I was on Barack Obama's national Finance Committee.
I worked on out the vote efforts for Democrats would be kind of
in like the legal boiler rooms on Election Day for voter
rights, like spent a lot of I worked for Jimmy Carter, not as
president. I'm not that old, I'm only 42,
but I was going to. Say we're the same age, so yeah.
He has an organization called the Carter Center that works on
peace and democracy around the world.
I worked for Jimmy Carter when I was 22, worked on elections in
Ethiopia, Jamaica. So I mean, I dedicated a large
part of my life to this. Would you say it goes far as to
say not just a an advocate but also like an activist in that
realm? I was a believer.
I was a believer in democracy. I think it's.
And what's funny is I think that when you and I were growing up
and like I say, we're we're within an age, you know, an hour
one year or so of each other. I think that everybody kind of
agreed on what the values looked like, what America sort of was
as as an idea. And we disagreed with how to get
better about it. That was the kind of a thing.
And I wasn't a political kid growing up.
Like my parents didn't care. And I didn't care until I was
probably in my 30s when I started having kids.
But essentially, we all kind of agreed on the fundamental, you
know, this is a good place. We can make it better.
We should be striving towards a better ideal, a platonic ideal
of what America is. And now it feels like there's
such a big divide down the middle that people look at each
other and like, you're an enemy. You're not even part of the same
clan as me or the tribe or whatever it is.
I agree. And I also think that like, I
think we could get back to the place we were at as children.
But I believe, and it's so hard to say all this because I feel
like I sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I'm not like I
believe that we really live in an oligarchy where corporations
dictate the laws, dictate who's elected, dictate what
politicians are focused on. And then, you know, the fallout
is kind of we divide ourselves among these issues that like, if
you look at like transgendered kids, that is probably less than
5000 kids in America. And it dominates so much
political conversation. Yep.
And I would much rather have the right.
Yeah, it's a right wing boogeyman and it's a left wing
talking point, and they're both they're both feeding into media
frenzy on both sides. A. 100% right.
It's like if you look at like just the ink that is built, the
time that is built on things that are distracting us from
like making sure our kids are educated and fed.
Yes. Right, which is?
The basic things and that they learn how to read.
Yes. And I don't know if you did.
I mean, when I was 817 years old, one of the, the programs
that was part of I went to a Jesuit high school.
So which actually turns out to be extremely liberal at this
point. They're, they're like
communists. They, they all like Mark, They,
they like what's called liberation theology, which is a,
a Marxist ideology that works its way into Catholicism.
And amusingly enough, like I, I think very smart.
We had a 500 hour minimum volunteer requirement to
graduate. And so I spent a bunch of time
in inner City Schools in Dallas, TX, teaching, you know, 5th and
6th graders how to read Cat in the Hat.
And when I was in 5th and 6th grade, we were studying and
analyzing the Lord of the Rings as literature, as allegory.
And I just look at the, the, the differential and the
opportunities that that's going to afford those people is it's
staggering at, at 5th and 6th grade that you're, you're
sounding out words that are 3 letters.
It's really horrifying and it's not something politicians ever
focus on. And that was 20 years ago.
Yeah. And I'm certain it's worse.
I mean, I've just seen what it looks like.
I've seen writers. I mean, I'm sure you have, too.
You go out there and you read what are reasonable
publications. And the grammatical errors and
the weak sentence structure and the things that, you know, you
should know how to critically work through are just.
They're everywhere. And my wife is always like, God,
we need an editor. Like do people not pay editors
anymore? Well, and it goes into media,
right, which is, you know, like our journalists are supposed to
be the defenders of of democracy at the end of the day, right, to
try to transfer. Cheerleaders.
Well, 22 media companies own all the media, right?
Like that's it. It's that's it.
So you'll find this funny. I spent about four or five hours
last night in a space, Twitter Spaces.
And, and I like try to cut down the middle.
I always try to be fair. And so people always want to
bring me these like wild conspiracy theories, which I
despise. Like, there are things that are
true that are evil. There's no question about it.
And they go after good people. And we're going to get into your
story very shortly. But what I also find is that
there's some people that have some wild ideas like this lady's
like, you know, would you agree that Trump is still really the
president and that Joe Biden is actually, it's like, no, I just
they go, you know, she gave about a paragraph long thing on
the phone. And so I'm listening and I'm
listening and I'm like, Oh my God.
And at the end of it, they go, you know, what's your reaction
to that? And I go, all of that is false.
That's my only reaction. It's just nonsense.
It is, but like it's it is. And like I understand in some
ways why people go there. It's ludicrous.
It's crazy. But like then they go on Twitter
and they're like the Twitter Files, which are true, right?
And I don't think that that you know me, Donald Trump is not
president. He did not win the election but
like. Of course not.
No, no, I agree. But did like, did the public
like was the public square, which is the Internet
manipulated for sure A. 100%. Right.
And so you just you help people feed into those conspiracies.
Well, moreover, I there they're looking for that unifying thread
when I always tell people that petty corruption usually is a
bunch of people doing the same sort of things, but not because
they're coordinated, just because they're lousy people and
they have low ethics and low morals.
And so they just sort of align with these goals.
And and if they are ideologically aligned and a lot
of them are, then we end up pushing towards a direction.
But it's not like a bunch of guys like we saw in The X-Files.
It's not, you know, 29 guys that, you know, wear overcoats
and smoke cigarettes in the backroom in the dark.
That's not what happens. But it does feel like that.
And then when you start talking about how these companies kind
of do have a lot of, you know, a massive hand, they're not just
putting a thumb on the scale, they're putting their whole arm
on it and they're they're tilting it.
All right, so let's get into your story.
How far back do you want to go? And you can tell me the
beginning because I'm sure you're the expert at where to
start. Well I guess I mean I think like
a reasonable place to start is April 2nd 2022 weeks into the
pandemic? My husband and I are in Seattle.
We have our 4 little girls. The baby was I think 8 months
and she's little. Our oldest was 5.
My company had just kind of like exploded into 1000 pieces
because the Riveter had in real life Co working in events across
the country. And so everything came to a
screech. We lost all of our revenue
overnight. We were the lucky recipients of
APPP loan which allowed us to keep functioning.
But do you? Do you want to do you mind
telling people, because there's a lot of people that don't
understand what the PPP loans did and I've worked some of
those fraud cases explain kind of what the mechanics of that
was and why we why those were probably a good thing.
So when this oh, the shutdown orders kind of flowed throughout
the country and real life businesses had to shut down.
And so the business that I had built where I had leased spaces
and turned them into event and Co working spaces and then had
memberships, my members stopped paying.
I still had to pay my landlords, right.
And so my business was shut down by virtue of a government act.
And so, you know, right or wrong, there's lots of politics
to it. It happened 100.
Percent. And so the government said,
well, we don't want these businesses to disappear forever.
At the time, if you remember, at the beginning of COVID, I think
we all thought it was a short horizon event, you know, so the
PPP. Two weeks.
So the PPP loan was meant to be a short term loan to keep
businesses afloat. The terms of it were incredibly
generous and that if you used the loans to pay your existing
staff and your existing operational expenses, and they
were, they were divided out in a certain way by the government,
then you would get the loan forgiven.
If you. It was like 60% for payroll.
As long as 40% went to your overhead, your rent or whatever,
then you were good. Exactly, Yeah.
And you had to use it within 8 or 24 weeks.
You got to choose the term. And then if you, if there were,
if you used it for other business expenses, they wouldn't
be forgiven and you would have to pay the pay that loan back at
like a 1% interest rate over 5 or 10 years.
I mean, very generous terms for for companies dealing with a
very dramatic act that we've never seen in our lifetime.
Where did the where did the money come from?
Where they coming from? Individual banks that were being
underwritten by the government? Or is the government just
straight right? Like where did this money come
from? The money came from individual
banks that were being underwritten by the government.
But where does all money come from?
We just. Printed.
Yeah, we just printed. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, just just quantitative easing and solve
the problem, ease the problem. OK.
So so you got a payroll protection?
We're dealing with this. My husband had worked at Amazon
Web Services, which is a subsidiary of Amazon, that it's
where the Internet lives. So the Internet lives in these
big data warehouses that exist on this planet, not in the
cloud. And my husband worked in real
estate and he helped scout real estate locations that would be
OK for data centers and helped work when Amazon built them
themselves, would help build them.
He had been fired from Amazon in June of 20/19.
He was told he was fired after seven years for yelling at a
vendor. Amazon is a very political place
is all I can say. Yeah, my kind of guy.
Sometimes you got to yell at people I don't know.
I mean it. Yeah.
And it was shortly after my husband had been working on the
Amazons Jedi bid for their $10 billion cloud contract.
You want to tell people a little bit about what that is, because
I think it's very relevant. Yeah, so I didn't really know
this about Amazon, but so Amazon, we all think Amazon.com
where we buy all of our things on the Internet is like the big
money maker and why Amazon is so successful.
It's not actually. Their retail business is a money
loser. However, their cloud business
where they sell Internet space is where they make all of their
money. And Amazon Web Services biggest
clients are you and me as taxpayers.
Amazon stores the data for the FBI, the CIA, the National
Security Agency and various other government agencies.
And DoD, I believe as well, right?
And DoD and Amazon makes massive profit, billions of dollars from
the government. And at the time my husband was
fired, Amazon was trying to win a $10 billion contract from the
Department of Defense. Yeah, that's B.
That's ten billion with AB folks.
That's a big time money stuff and that's just one of these
contracts that we're talking. About it's 1.
And in fact, like if you look at Amazon's stock, in 2013, Amazon
Web Services won a $600 million CIA contract and that forever
changed the trajectory of Jeff Bezos life and company.
The Amazon stock started going up and up and up and up for the
next 7 years because of that CIA contract.
So anyway, my husband had been fired, but that was fine.
He had been planning on leaving while he worked at Amazon.
He had set up a new company and take an investment, which his
employment contract explicitly allowed him to do, which is.
And this is like the terms of his of his termination or NDA or
whatever were allowing. Him like his employment contract
that he signed way back in 2012 was 10 pages.
It was Amazon's OG contract in the 1990s when it was a startup.
And one of the things that allows you to do is like start a
company and seek investment, as long as the investor is not also
an investor in Amazon. Now this all makes sense if you
think like Jeff Bezos while he was CEO of Amazon, he he bought
the Washington Post, he started Blue Origin, right?
He's doing all sorts of different things and he allowed
his entrepreneurial employees to do the same.
So my husband has set up a company.
He was really excited to go out and work on real estate
development on his own, which is exactly what he did, right?
When he left, Amazon started consulting for various
developers, some of whom were working with Amazon.
But Amazon doesn't sell real estate.
So it wasn't like a competitive thing to Amazon, right?
Amazon just occupies real estate.
So he goes about his life. He's incredibly successful at
this. He's, you know, in his early
40s. He spent 20 years building this
career to do this. And real estate development is
big risk, big money. You know, it's, it's a big
thing. I'm so proud of him.
He's happy. So we're two weeks into the
pandemic. We think, you know, OK, we're
going to have to deal with this mess with my business, but
we're, I'm, I am not someone who gives up.
So I was like, we're going to figure this out.
And my husband's real estate development's fine.
He does industrial real estate development not impacted by
COVID. If impacted at all, it's a
benefit. And then on April 2nd, 2020, at
about 6:40 AM, there was a knock at our door and we had a glass
door. We lived on a very busy St.
It was the first house we'd ever bought and I was up because I
had little kids, so of course I was awake.
Yeah, you've been up for an hour.
Yeah, But generally, I think I've learned that when the FBI
shows up your house to talk to you, they try to catch you off
guard, maybe when you're sleeping, wake you up.
So I go to the front door and I'm like, who is at the door?
And I have a baby on the baby on my hip, just in her diaper.
But I'm like, did something happen overnight?
Like, is this the health authority?
Is like, is it the apocalypse? What is going on?
Right. Right.
Because, yeah, we got to put ourselves in that mindset.
So this is April of 2020. We have just started doing the
lockdowns for, what, 2 1/2, three weeks?
There were signs. And so my my team was on
surveillance, driving around. I was in Albuquerque when it all
shut down. And we had a little baby as
well. And I remember looking, it was
like, yeah, is this the zombie apocalypse?
Is that what's happening next? There's signs that are flashing.
There's like trash blowing in the streets because nobody's
walking around. Everybody's got a mask on
hiding. So, yeah, this would have been a
really, really wild time to have this experience that you're
about to have, having been on the other side of the door and
having been waiting for that. You know, I've been waiting for
that knock for the last year or so and I'm and I'm hopeful it
doesn't happen. And I know Phil has the same
thoughts about it. Sometimes it's like it's not
good when the FBI is at your door.
So, so when you did they did you hear them banging do an FBI
search warrant or what were they saying?
Oh, they were not there for a search warrant.
OK, not this time. But Kyle, they came in.
No, but not this time. Yeah, I I read that in.
So they, you know, I kind of like, I motioned to the door,
like I shrugged my shoulders because I didn't feel like
opening the door in the pandemic.
And there was a woman and a man and they didn't have on the FBI
jackets normally. They did not have masks on.
And the woman took out her badge and it said FBI.
And I was like, you know, I, I was like, I.
Yeah, what planet am I on? Right.
I have no idea what this is. So I kind of crack the door and
they're like, is, is this Carl to Nelson's house?
And like, yes, I'm his wife. And they're like, we'd like to
speak to him. So I'm like, OK, so I call Carl
down. He comes down.
He was awake, but he was upstairs.
And I'm like, the FBI is at the door and he opens the door and
they say, we'd like to talk to you about some Amazon real
estate deals. And at the time, we were like,
oh, OK. You know, like, yeah, he works
at Amazon for a long time. He did a lot of deals.
Like, who knows? But then he he invites them in.
And then I look at him and I think many people would be
terrified to do this, but I'm a lawyer.
And like, there's nothing wrong with saying this.
And I looked at my husband and I said, you cannot talk to these
people without a lawyer. That's right.
No, it's brilliant. And and we just literally
covered that last night in this Twitter space.
This woman says, you know, the FBI knocked on my door.
And I've been advised my whole life you never talked to the
Bureau. You never talked to any cops.
You just ask them, you know, to come back when you have a lawyer
and everybody invites us in. Everybody talks to us.
I don't know why that is. It's uncanny.
I know why I think. You're panicked.
I think you. I think Americans feel like if
they ask for a lawyer, they're saying they did something wrong.
Correct. Asking for a lawyer just means
you have a brain like not to be like, I mean like it's like you
are like, it's just, I mean, but my and my husband says it's OK,
I'll talk to them and I'm like, no, but like, I mean, I can't
get in a fight with him in front of the FBI agency.
No, I mean, well, you could. It'd be.
It would not be. I should have like, he talked to
them. He ended up talking to them for
three minutes and they said, you know, they said, like, do you
know, they asked if they knew this real estate developer named
Brian Watson. My husband's like, I do know
him. And they go, we're going to stop
you right here. This is your chance.
We know everything. And my husband's like, I don't
know, like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
So we're going to stop here. And I will call a lawyer.
And they said we're going to hand you a few pieces of paper.
And then they left. And, you know, we opened the
pieces of paper. One was a letter telling him
that he was the target of a federal investigation in the
Eastern District of Virginia. We are in Seattle.
The Eastern District of Virginia is 3500 miles away.
Yes, that's my old district. And it is the Eastern District
of Virginia is where the government goes to prosecute
Edward Snowden. It's, I mean, it's it's.
Yeah, there's, there's really two or three soft seats for
government prosecution. 1 is the Southern District of New York,
the other one's going to be the District of DC.
And then lastly it's Eastern District of Virginia.
Everything around the around Washington DC is easy so.
And Amazon, because they built data Centers for the CIA and the
NSA. They build them in the Eastern
District of Virginia. A lot of them.
It's called Data Center Alley. Just this weekend, Amazon
announced $35 billion in investment in Virginia for
Amazon Web Services. And so that was the first letter
telling who was the target of a federal investigation.
And then the second one was a letter that said we intend to
seize these bank accounts. And it listed like three bank
accounts. And I'm like, what the hell is
happening? Right.
And then and they said they were going to seize them under civil
asset forfeiture proceedings. Is that what they?
I, my husband was not charged with a crime.
In fact, and it's important, my husband has never been charged
with a crime. This was 2020.
It's 2023. My husband's never been charged
with a crime. So they say they're going to
seize these. And I'm just like, I will admit,
and I'm so disappointed in myself, but this for me started
three weeks of like shock and panic because I think I knew
enough about the legal system to know that this, like, this was
bad. You know that they're like then
it wasn't something we could resolve easily.
Yeah, people can't see it, but producer Phil is nodding.
Phil used to work white collar crimes and and he's ACPA and
he's got some knowledge in this this sphere.
And there's just nothing good about what's about to come down
that we're about to hear about. And the letter said that the you
know that he's a target of a federal investigation in the
Eastern District of, of Virginia related to allegations of
private sector honest services fraud.
And I'm like, what? What's?
The Yeah, say that one more time.
Private Sector Honest Services Fraud It is a federal crime of
depriving your private sector employer of your honest
services. Why?
It turns out it's probably much more likely to be, you know,
involved in that sort of fraud if your employer is enormous and
has a huge contract with DoD and DOJ.
I. Mean we are like, I mean, yeah.
I mean the Eastern, like, in my obsessive research over the many
years, I learned that, like, the Eastern District of Virginia and
prosecutors hadn't prosecuted this since 2001.
Well, So what we're also saying too is that that is the new
game. The game is it doesn't matter
whether it's charges of 1001, which is the lying or false
statements. Those have never been
prosecuted, but they've always been add on charges.
They're also, you know, they're also rants.
They're their modifiers to get pleased, but they're not
something that we individually charge, although we started
doing that. And the same thing with Farrah,
which I don't know if you're familiar with that, the Foreign
Alien Registration Act never charged ever.
Stern letters, that's what they do.
And now they're charging people. So you were right kind of on the
ground floor when the the game started shifting in a lot of
ways and you unfortunately, you guys were the recipient of it.
Yeah. And so that happened.
I, I call, I call the law firm that the Riveter used in
Seattle. I called my lawyer and I said,
my husband needs a lawyer. So I'm like shaking and also
like, do I need to tell my board for the riveter?
And we decided I needed to call my board for the riveter right
away, tell them this is happening, get my husband a
lawyer. And, and then it was.
And then the the next part of our life began.
Yeah. What what kind of lawyer were
you thinking that you needed and was that the right kind of
lawyer when you went? Because a white collar criminal
defense lawyer. And that's what you found, Yes,
yeah, yeah. And so you at least you had
that. I think a lot of people would be
really concerned. It's like, do I need a criminal
defense lawyer? But that would there it's pretty
specialized because you're talking about white collar fraud
and and a lot of people don't do that kind of work.
It's kind of technical. I have to imagine and it's.
Former prosecutors who do it. That makes sense.
Which is the people you want to be fair, That's who you want.
People who sat in the other chair.
It is, but it's just so, I mean, this revolving door between
people who prosecute and hold the white glove of the law and
then they go defend people. It's just and they're, they're
all friends. They're all buddies.
Like it's it's a game. It is a game and somebody was
telling me this the other day that owned a big company and
they said no matter whether I win or lose, the lawyers all win
every time. I was just emailing Jeff Bezos
about this yesterday. I emailed Jeff Bezos a lot.
I'll I'll get him later, but I just take it upon myself to do
it. So anyway, that's the.
That's the thing though, right? Like, they all win.
They're all going to litigate, they're all going to get their
hourlies. Oh.
Yeah. And it's just, you know, it's,
it's, it's shocking. So we didn't really understand
what my husband was even accused of.
Because when you say private sector honest services fraud,
it's kind of vague and ambiguous.
So my husband's lawyers called the prosecutors in Virginia.
And, you know, between April and May, it was very clear that what
was happening was that my husband was accused of taking
kickbacks on real estate deals. So essentially, the government
said that he steered Amazon real estate deals to a developer in
exchange for kickbacks. Got it.
That did not happen. And I can explain what my
husband did do, but what was very clear was that my husband,
there wasn't a conversation. My husband was being accused of
a crime. There was no, there was no what
happened. You know what didn't happen?
It was like you're accused of a crime, you committed a crime and
you are going to plead guilty to a crime.
And I learned between April and May and June, the set of tools
that prosecutors have when they want you to plead guilty to a
crime. And what they did, you know, the
FBI actually executed a national operation a day on April 2nd, 2
weeks into the pandemic for Amazon, which I, I know now
because we learned many years later that it was actually
Amazon that had accused my husband of a crime.
It was Amazon who hired a former federal prosecutor in the
Eastern District of Virginia and paid him millions of dollars to
lobby his former colleagues. His name is Patrick Stokes, he
works at Gibson Dunn. He directly called up the then
US Attorney Zachary Terwilliger set up a meeting before the
first meeting Pat Stokes sent the DOJ an e-mail saying our
first priority is asset restraint and recovery went in
pitched A20 that you pitch a crime like in a 20 decks A20
slide deck PDF they pitched a crime we got to we.
We got to pump the brakes on that one and go through that
just a little bit slower. So people hear that because I
think it's really interesting when we work criminal matters
that are not white collar because there are not millions
of dollars in play. It's, you know, some little girl
being trafficked by MS13. It is, you know, some guy that's
running a brothel in DC. We don't pitch the crime.
The crime comes in, there's an allegation or information that
happened. We go find out who did it and
then we sit on them, figure out who they are.
White collar is a totally different animal.
And interestingly enough, it probably is the place that the
Bureau could be the most effective because there's a lot
of fraud against the government. But it's a complicated and it
takes a lot of patience. It's not it's not something for
me. I can already tell you that
right now, like that's not my world.
But the idea that somebody's going to come in and lobby DOJ
and lobby the Bureau to take on an investigation with like
here's the elements that we're going to go after and here's our
targets because here's why we need that on a space.
Seems that feels very corrupt from the positions when I used
to work crimes because that's not the way that we would get
them. Do you want to know something?
I do. It's shocking.
And, and again, like I have to emphasize, we knew none of this
in 2020. This was slowly pieced together
in 2021 and 2022 after a lot of work in in figuring things out.
But the night before Amazon's lawyers met with DOJ, they
officially broke a contract with the real estate developer, Brian
Watson. And per the terms of the
contract, the only way that they could break the contract is if
Brian Watson, the real estate developer, was found guilty or
pled guilty to ACEO to a felony crime.
Amazon did not tell that to the Department of Justice.
That is very, very important though.
So what we are playing here is that there is probably what
millions or is it billions of dollars?
Over 100 million in damages. OK.
So $100 million in play. And the way that they can get
out of this contract is that there has to be the people that
are involved that have to plead guilty to a felony and it shows.
And that that obviously is going to be bad faith negotiations and
that's how they're going to walk away from it.
But otherwise this is this is otherwise a good contract.
Oh, and it's it's related to data centers that Amazon kept.
They do not allege they overpaid for the data centers.
They are now selling cloud computing to the government from
the data Centers for billions of dollars.
Amazon alleges no financial harm.
Got it. They didn't lose anything, they
just were trying. To they gained.
Wow. All right.
So you're finding out that these meetings are happening.
DOJ has gone out there, done their 20 deck slide, pitch said.
This is our original targets. And you know what the targets
were at this point is that was that, Yeah.
The targets were Brian Watson, the real estate developer.
So and the Amazon did a national operation on April 2nd.
An hour after their national operation, the termination
notice was delivered to Brian Watson that he'd been
terminated. Now he worked for Amazon Web
Services as well. He was a real estate developer
that built data centers in Amazon.
So he was Amazon came to his development company and
contracted to to base. Yes.
That right? Yep.
Exactly.
And Amazon only paid monthly rent.
They don't own the data centers like so and they don't allow.
It's so crazy, but so we didn't know any of them.
At the time, yeah. And what and what was your, what
was your husband's connection to Brian Watson at?
That time, so my husband worked on Amazon's real estate team.
When Brian Watson's team got these real estate development
deals, however, my husband had no signing authority. 12 people
above him approved every contract.
What happened is somebody who made money from Brian Watson
from North Star, the real estate developer, months later went to
my husband and said you should build a business that competes
with Brian Watson and Northstar, like you know more about data
centers and Brian Watson does. I'll give you the, I'll give you
the seed capital to do it. I'll invest in your company.
So he, so my husband got a lawyer who you should also know.
The lawyer is a target of the DO JS investigation.
They're saying this lawyer, this lawyer is part of this criminal
real estate gang. And so the lawyer, you know, so
the lawyer sets my husband's company up.
The investor puts money in the company.
It's legally documented. Like there are lawyers
everywhere and legal documentation everywhere.
Like I have investors in the Riveter, including Amazon's for
Jeff Bezos's first investor is my biggest investor.
And my husband has investors in his company like and again, my
husband's employment contract explicitly says while he worked
at Amazon, he could start a company and seek investment from
anyone as long as they weren't an investor in Amazon.
OK. Just out of curiosity, so this
was all served in April, May and you're dealing with it in the
the early part of 2020 or the mid part of 2020?
He separated in 2019 from Amazon, correct.
And so when are they alleging this crime took place?
20/17/2018. 2017 and 2018, so 2, you know, 2-3 years prior or two
years prior to him leaving and now we are working 2-3 years in
arrears. Yeah.
And it's 2023. Yeah.
So and that just tells you how long this has been working
because that's how long it takes.
Like you got to go out there and structure all these things
together. So this is a long plan unfolding
and they picked the Covic pandemic to to roll it out.
On this is actually crazy. It's not that long.
This is something that I just am always blown away by.
Amazon called DOJ in early February 2020.
They had their first meeting February 20th, 2020 and there
were target letters and a national operation on April 2nd,
2020. It's because Amazon needed to
give notice of the termination of their contracts, so they
needed the FBI to go out and do their national knock and talk.
That isn't. That's truly incredible.
There are e-mail, there are emails showing that Amazon was
working with the DOJ on the timing of taking the
investigation overt. Now you've done you've told me
you had a big TikTok following on this.
Did you expose any of your documents on?
Is there places where people can kind of check your?
Yeah, so I'm actually going to put all of.
So this is something I think that is also wild that I never
understood. So had my husband ever been
charged with a crime, we would have never known any of the
things I'm telling you today because we never would have seen
any communications between the Department of Justice and Amazon
the accuser. And you can tell that Amazon DOJ
never thought anyone would see these emails because.
That's how it works. Crazy.
I mean, the emails are crazy. And like, like, here's just a
quick example. Like Amazon asked for civil
forfeiture. The FBI agent working the case
said, can you just send me over the employee bank account
numbers from when they got their direct deposits?
And Amazon, Amazon's lawyer was like, you're going to need to
send us a grand jury subpoena for that so that we don't get in
trouble. And then boom boom boom, it was
done. So what's wild is Phil and I
have always said that there's a lot of cockiness, there's a lot
of smug people that work in the Bureau when they're doing these
things. And the emails that go back and
forth would amaze people that people are willing to put it in
writing. They would go, oh, they would
never write that down. It's like, oh, you don't know
the colleagues that we've worked with.
There are some absolutely unbelievable things that if any
lawyer had sat there and knew that they were out there, if you
just went, you know, digging for a gold mine, there's gold in all
the mines. They're all gold mines.
It's all full, crazy and pretty. Yeah, pretty amazing stuff that
it's out there and and it's in writing.
It's like it's not denying and. I have no doubt that what you're
saying is true. That's what's so funny to me
because you're talking to somebody who 100% would believe
those stories because that's what that's what we assume is
out there. I'm sure there are ways that
they have referred to me and, and to Phil and some of my
buddies that will shock people when they come out.
And I hope they come out in Congress at some point soon.
And yeah, it's just the nature of the beast.
It's like there's just, it's an arrogance, or maybe it's just a
completely, maybe they just don't know that it's ever going
to see the light of day. But we are explicitly told
everything you send in text message, everything you send in
e-mail is discoverable. It's always discoverable.
Yeah, it has to be. It has to be, but I think so.
When someone is accused of federal crime, there's a 98.2%
chance that they will plead guilty.
Not maybe not because they think they're guilty.
Many people don't, right? Because a lot of these white
collar crimes require this very specific intent to defraud
someone. You know, my husband believed he
was abiding by his employment contract.
He went to a lawyer. I mean, there's so many things
here, right? And Amazon wasn't harmed.
They benefited. Like this is all, it's wild, but
98.2% of people plead guilty. And, you know, having lived
through what prosecutors can do to you, I understand why.
Like what they did to us. So they tried to get my husband
to plead guilty to a crime. It was always very unclear, like
specifically what they wanted him to say.
But anyway, my husband's like, I'm not pleading guilty to
something. I've committed no crime.
Yeah, that's the right. But The thing is, so few people,
they're looking down the barrel of whatever the punishment is.
They're looking at what it's going to cost to, to litigate
and, and they just go, it's easier for me to just take a,
you know, a misdemeanor plea deal or something and end up on
probation for a little while, whatever it may.
Be the crazy part here is that like they needed a very specific
thing a felony against Brian Watson this real estate
developer so they went and they accused I think like 5 people of
a crime. No one pled guilty.
So then they, then they, they pulled the trigger on the civil
forfeiture. So on May 20th, they emptied our
bank accounts and they didn't just empty my husband, they
emptied my bank account because we shared money.
So we literally had no money. And then they also went to our
lawyers client trust account and seized all of the money we had
paid our lawyers. Whoa.
Which we will, you will you will you break it down for layman
civil asset forfeiture, which I have seen, but I haven't done
the process on a lot. I understand it's a very
powerful tool and certain things like rego cases, it's great.
You can do it against transnational organized crime
organizations and you know, trafficking and gangs.
They do a lot of that with it. You know, so it's going to be
ill gotten gains is essentially what they're arguing.
But kind of break it down for people what they what they do to
you, because the filing is not against you.
They don't have to prove a crime against you.
They go after your. They file essentially that that
your your assets are part of a criminal.
Because then your assets don't have due process, which is why
they do it this way. So when civil forfeiture, the
United States government on the federal level also, this is in
all States and most local governments too.
They can seize your bank accounts, your home, your car,
your assets on the suspicion of a crime.
They do not have to charge you with a crime.
They do not have to prove a crime and once they take it.
No due process not proved, not in front of a jury of your
peers, and they're depriving you of more than $20 without a jury
trial because they didn't file the charges against you.
They filed against your stuff, which are not people.
So, yeah, so they just take it and it's a it's a in the case.
I have gone back through the Eastern District of Virginia and
I cannot find a single instance in the past thirteen years where
prosecutors have ever done this in a non drug case.
Like once again, just it's for Amazon.
And and that's my experience as well.
It's almost always like I say, we what we call talk, which is
transnational organized crime, which is drugs and gangs.
That's what it is. I mean, it was that's.
Where they go? It's wild so.
OK, So what did, what did you guys do?
Because your bank account gets empty.
Like that's that's like full panic mode for most people.
It was full. So I will say we didn't have
exactly no money. You look, you look.
Flustered right now because you're reliving some of that, I
can tell. It's so hard, but devastating
when we, when we got that first letter that they were going to,
that they intended to seize the accounts, which first of all,
our lawyers were like, what is this?
Like they just take the money or they don't, they intend to seize
it. So my husband and I both opened
up new bank accounts and then started putting the money we
were earning into our new bank accounts.
So we had like 2 months of earnings when they took our
money. So we had like a little bit of
money, but not enough to pay lawyers.
And So what we did, OK, sorry, this part is always hard for me
to talk about because it really impacted my kids.
That's right. And mind you, we got the money
back 21 months later, but we we sold our home, the home that we
bought, that we'd like, we'd worked so hard to buy.
Right. We sold a car, we liquidated
retirement, we borrowed money from family and friends.
I think we borrowed like $130,000, which is a lot of
money we. And it and it means nothing to
the government to spend $130,000 on litigation like they'll spend
$10,000 a day just watching you. Yeah.
People don't understand that like, like you're, you're
fighting a bottomless pit of money.
And also my mom would have keep saying like, don't they care
that you can't feed your kids? And I'm like, they literally
they don't care. They do not care.
And then eventually and we, we moved to stay with family
because we didn't own our home anymore.
And then eventually I my company wasn't making enough money to
keep paying me a salary and I had to move away from my family
and live in a different state and take a different job like
from my babies. Yeah, so you, so you were gone,
your husband was with your, your children, which is just insane.
And so people that listen to me will also know, you know, I sold
my house. I did the same thing.
You know, the government basically took my paycheck nine
months ago. So I, I have that.
They didn't come after my assets.
Thank God, but we sold our house.
I took my kids away from the family and their friends.
We're living in two bedrooms at my parents house at this moment,
Like I'm sitting in a, I'm sitting in an RV.
So I feel you. I feel like everything you're
saying, like my wife cries at night.
And the only thing that's made it better is that we're we're
all together. We're all together in tiny
quarters. But I keep having to go and do
weird things in weird places and run around and talk to people
and, and you got to do what you got to do, but you're away from
your children and there's nothing worse because it's the
best time when there's such little, you know, gems and
they're just having like a little moments, like all the
time. And you, all you see is like a
video or a FaceTime of it. It's not the same.
It's not the same and it's, you know, it's brutal.
And it's worse for moms. I know it's worse for moms.
I just. But you know, like The thing is
like I would have never stopped fighting, nor would my husband
because we weren't we weren't we weren't going to do this like we
were not going to let you had because we had not just DOJ
against us, but Amazon like this is like.
This is the 2 evil giants. Here's the thing.
I love you guys. I don't know you, but I love you
for what you did. I really do.
Because the number of people that rolled over when this stuff
happens is 98.2%. It's everybody.
It's freaking everybody. And there's a small number of
people that go, this is wrong. And no matter what happens, I'm
trying to live in a world where my children know that I'm going
to do the right thing, even though it's incredibly hard.
So it's. It's simple, but it's not easy
as my buddy was to say. But it's like, it's really, my
husband always says this right? Like we've got God at our back,
right. Like we're right, we're right.
And so you know, the right right doesn't always win, but you have
to try. Do you mind if I dig into that
just for a second? I'm curious, were you always
spiritual people or did this drive you somewhere?
So we were both raised spiritually, but we had not
really gone to church and not talked a lot about our faith as
married people. And this is just, you know,
it's. New, right?
It's new when you find hardship. And then it's like, yeah, what?
Like who else are you going to turn to?
There's no one else, right? And so you know, and it is.
My wife was baptized last year and she had grown up without any
religion at all. And and she was like, how did I
not know about this? It's, it's one of the, it's one
of the only things. It's like you just got to throw
yourself into God's hands and say, like, I'm not driving this
train, I'm just riding it. I think I'm doing the right
thing and. Yeah, And somehow you get, you
get saved every time, right? Like we should have never
survived this. Like this should have been very
easy for them to do to us. Yes.
But I think there's a bigger purpose to it and the and the
things keep happening like, you know, this new committee on the
weaponization of DOJ. You know, I believe that my
family's story, particularly because we have the emails, is
like the clearest, simplest example of the weaponization of
DOJ by corporations and you. Want to testify there?
I'd be 100% want to testify, absolutely.
I'm going to I'm going to make that I'm going to work to make
that happen because I'm making a lot of things happen that I have
no business being able to do but it.
But I had Jim Jordan say my name five times on radio last week.
So those people who listen to, you know, Sean Hannity, which I
don't always listen to Hannity, but I, I listen to this one to
hear it because it's like he didn't even get prompted for it.
And so like we have, you know, you talk about God putting us in
a place. Phil and I talked about this
too, probably two years ago almost that there is no reason.
If I had told people that you and I'd be sitting having this
conversation in the situations that we're in that we should
have been able to do this shouldn't exist.
I agree. And I also think that like for
me too, I think I can be this really important bridge to like
maybe help progressives stop just swallowing a lot of stuff
about the state that we live in that we don't have to it's.
Not a good, it is not a good pit bull to have #1 And moreover,
like when you and I grew up, people might joke about the
government could listen to your phone calls, but they didn't
know where you were every second of the day.
They didn't know what you bought.
They didn't know all the things that you were saying everywhere.
You were your, your privatest thoughts that you're texting to
your spouse. Those were not within the
purview of the government. And now it's assumed that that's
the case. Yeah, it really is.
Yeah. I mean, they, the government, we
know now. I mean, the government
subpoenaed my husband's emails. They they did come and do a
search warrant, which was another crazy experience
because. I'm doing the same thing right
now because this like this emotionally affects me as well.
I can, I can. I literally, I literally know
how you guys feel about things like this.
It feels hopeless and it feels like an unbelievable betrayal
when you didn't do anything wrong and then everything just
goes massively sideways and you think like, why me?
And I'll tell you why you? It's because you guys had the
shoulders to be able to handle it.
Like nobody knows why, but that's why.
Because you, because you could and someone needed to and it was
you, unfortunately, but also thankfully.
Yeah, I mean, but then you have to use it to do something.
You have to use it. You have to.
I mean when they came into the search warrant, my mind was
blown 1000 times over again because they did the search
warrant two months after they told my husband he was a target
of an investigation where it's like.
They do that sometimes. We, I mean, I've seen it before,
but explain to people what that felt like on your end a bit
because you're not. Are you in your own house at
that point or have you sold? It fill in our house in Seattle,
because this is like 10 days after they took the money.
Like it took us a few months to like realize, Oh my God, we have
to sell our house. We're not getting the money
back, which it you have to litigate to get your money back,
which we did. But anyway, they show up at our
it's June 5th and we thought they were there.
It was June 5th again. It was before 7 AMI am again
awake with the baby on my hip and there is not a knock on the
door. It is a Bang, Bang Bang and I I
mean. You know right then too, I'm
sure. IA 100% thought they were there
to arrest him because they had been telling us.
One of the other tools in a prosecutor's arsenal is that
we're just, we're going to come arrest you in your home in front
of your kids. You don't plead guilty.
We're coming and that is living under siege.
I will tell you it's living under siege.
It's an emotional siege, but it's a it's a siege nonetheless,
and you're waiting for it, I'm sure.
Just waiting. Yeah.
And I mean, I I lost 20 lbs in two weeks.
My body went into pure shock. And this.
Is after the search warrant or waiting for it?
This is beef waiting for it. We're waiting for the arrest,
really. And, you know, I had been
nursing and I wasn't able to. I mean, it's, you know.
No, it's, it's like the things that they do, it's not you,
It's, you know, it's your family, it's your kids that
everybody gets it. And if you're nursing, then
that's part of it. And then if you're, you know,
you're emotionally snappy and you're not patient with your
children and loving the way you could have been because you're
just, you're on edge at all times.
I, I know that I know exactly this feeling like I, I've been
living it. My wife told me like, are the
Clinton death squads coming for us, which is, you know, the sort
of the right wing joke? Is someone going to come and try
to off us in our night is what we've done?
But I slept with a but I slept with a rifle that was next to my
bed. And I still have a night vision
helmet and a rifle next to my bed.
I. Understand.
And I'm not exaggerating. Like that's just the way I have
to be right now. I can't imagine.
I understand my our lawyers all the time are like, Amy, no one
is going to come hurt your family.
And I'm like, no like. You're like, well, nobody should
have come and taken my bank account either and nobody should
have come and knocked on my door and told my husband he did
something that he didn't do because some huge corporation
needs to make, you know, multi billion dollar profit on us back
of just crushing your life. Yeah, they just don't.
And so the FBI source warrant like so we thought they were
there to arrest him. What?
What kind of team did they send in?
Were they all? Were they?
4 agents so I went to the door again.
Poor me. No, I went to the door and it
was 4 agents and they it's. Better than them knocking it
down to be honest. Yeah, they had their guns out.
They had their guns out and they had on their Navy blue FBI
jackets and, and I mean, 100% thought they were there to
arrest Carl. So my mind was like, how do I
keep the older girls away from this, right.
Like they're, they're in the basement.
I'm like, I'm gonna open the door.
I'm gonna get Carl out here and I'm just gonna keep him in the
basement. We're just gonna sit down there
until this is over and he's gone so they don't have to see it
because that was all the. Church warrants even worse
because I know they had to put you all in the same room and
watch you. No, listen to this, Kyle.
This is so crazy. So they're like, and the agent
was like, we're, you know, I opened the door and I was like,
we have a daughter in here with febrile seizures, which they
knew our oldest daughter had very bad febrile seizures.
We'd told the DOJ that because again, it's the height of the
pandemic and if you've ever seen a child sees.
I have, yeah. I'm a paramedic.
I've seen it a lot. And with COVID and the, and the
fevers and whatnot, and they had put an agent on a plane across
the country, I think a private plane to do the search warrant.
They put the lead case agent on a private plane to come to our
house to the search warrant. This is a week after my
husband's lawyers had given a big presentation to the
government about why my husband didn't commit a crime.
So they knew they were walking into tons of attorney-client
privileged materials. Of course.
Anyway, so I opened the door and I was like, we have a child with
seizures and he's like, we're going to let you and the girls
leave. And I was like.
Where? I go, I was like, what?
He's like, yeah. He's like, get all your
daughters and put them in the car and leave.
And I was like, and he goes, but don't do anything stupid.
Don't take anything. And I was like, and he goes, you
already did something stupid. And I was like, I'm sorry.
And he was like, you wired money to pay your attorneys.
And I'm like, you're not allowed to talk to me.
That's what I said that when I was like, we're represented.
You are not allowed. Like, let's not do this, right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, but then my husband walked up and I thought that they I
don't know what I thought. And he he walked up.
He hadn't heard At that point I I think I realized they were
there to do a search warrant. My husband walked up with his
his. If you can see me, I'm putting
my arms out because. He's ready to be cuffed.
He wanted to make it as quick
and fast and we. Cuff in the We cuff in the back,
but he's. Not he's not a he's not a long
term con artist. Yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't
know exactly. Yeah, somebody says assume the
position and they know they turn around, they put their hands
behind their back. But yeah, he came, you know, he
did the AOC like hands up front thing, which is which is what
people would assume. And also, you know, that's
that's it's such a, you know, it, it's such a just an even
keeled posture. It's like what this is
happening. You just, you're accepting it,
you move on. So did they cuff him?
No. Thank God for that.
They they do have discretion, so thank God for that.
So they walk. So I am like, so they kind of
all waited at the door until I got the girls and I left.
And so I get, I get all the girls.
I'm like shoving them into the minivan.
I, I got our German Shepherd and put her in the minivan too,
because I didn't want anything to happen to her.
And I am tying my shoes, called Carl's lawyer while I'm tying my
shoes. And I'm like, they're here for a
search warrant and they're like, what?
They're like, this makes no sense.
What is 'cause they had just subpoenaed my husband.
He hadn't even had a chance to respond to the subpoena as it
was going to. And they're like, what is going
on? And I now know it's just a
pressure tactic, you know, because.
Yeah. So we, we say the, the process
is the punishment in this case. And I've only been seeing it
more and more recently. I don't think that I've ever
participated in something like that.
I, I'm pretty confident that I have not 'cause I I'm pretty
good at throwing the bullshit flag when it comes up.
I try not to swear actually, too, but there's no other way to
call it when these things happen, you know, You know,
somebody's got PCP and guns and they're felons.
It's kind of a different animal. Then you go to a mom's house.
It's like, why are we not doing a summons?
Yeah, we need to do a search. Like, you know, we could work
this through the attorneys. It seems pretty straightforward.
And also, like my husband had said, if you're going to arrest
me, like if you're going to charge me, please let me come
and turn myself in and I will. And they were like.
Yeah, that's the summons we're going to do.
That's just your house. And it's unbelievable stuff.
Phil had a comment to me and not long ago where he said, you
know, at this point that these guys, you know, the people that
are that are followers of the regime because these people
obviously believed in what they were doing, right?
Would you agree with that? That's why they were talking
that you've already done something stupid.
You send money to a lawyer, It's like, shame on you.
You know, they're believing in what they do.
And at this point, I think, I think Phil told me something
that he he thinks that our former colleagues and and by the
way, they came out of those people came out of our former
office. I was right of Washington Field.
So that's where it came from, I mean.
I know their names so I can tell you, but yeah, you.
Can and, and I, and that's the whole thing about this is like,
I don't, I don't need to protect anybody's name.
They have a public facing job and they serve the public.
So you feel like saying it, feel free.
You're there's no restrictions on it.
But those people would, you know, people that, that believe
in what the Bureau does so wholeheartedly that they're
willing to go and like knock somebody out of their house in
this kind of way on a white collar crime.
They would kick their grandma into a wood chipper for their
next promotion. Which is also remember a process
crime like lying to an FBI agent like Amazon is not harmed here,
right? Like this is.
Right. There's no violence, there's no
danger. There's no, there's no, you
know, public risk that's being. No monetary, no monetary loss.
Not even any loss like it's a process crime.
It's just yeah, so. It's incredible.
OK, so you got the kids in the car.
You got the dog in the car. I got a German shepherd too, so
I empathize with that one as well.
You got to take care of your baby, your fur baby.
And so we left and went to, I went to like my best friend's
house. She doesn't have kids.
I called her, I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm coming over with all
of my kids. Like, you just have to deal with
this for a minute. And I thought that we would be
there all day at my friend's house because I, I don't, I
guess from the movies, I thought that search warrants lasted all
day. It was 30 minutes.
Yeah, it it goes, it goes the whole gamut.
I've seen 48 hour search warrants where we'll hold the
scene for 48 hours or more. But I've also seen them go
through where they just tear up and go get they need and that's
it. They get.
Did they get electronics? They didn't tear anything up.
They just took my husband's cell phone and his laptop.
Yeah. And then like a few pieces of
paper, including memos on law firm letterhead that said
attorney-client privilege, they just went ahead and took those.
And my husband again. People can't see this, but Phil
is shaking his head in disgust right now.
It is disgusting because those like you're literally supposed
to leave that sort of stuff. Well.
Yeah, it's literally like he's preparing to be indicted and go
to trial and this is his defense, right?
You're like. You're now you're now infringing
on his ability to do A to mount a solid defense.
And so the they go get upstairs to my husband's office and
they're very careful like not to take anything of mine, I think
because I'm a lawyer and that would have been maybe a.
Well, so I'm sure I don't know if you guys saw the search
warrant like the the what is it? Is it Appendix A?
Is that what it's called the appendix where it says like
actually what they're allowed to search?
And usually it should be, it should be focused to him.
If you have a drawer that's not his drawer, then you shouldn't.
It shouldn't go into yours, all that kind.
Of stuff. Yeah.
So they took, so they, they had him open up his laptop and
they're like, will you open it and enter the password?
We can do this the hard way or the easy way.
And my husband's like, I'll give you the password, Whatever have
it, I don't care. Why, Yeah.
Like, you know, like have it like I like I've done nothing
wrong. Go for it.
So he gives them the password, they open it up.
So it it opens up to like presentation like all to our
attorney-client stuff because that was all he was doing.
So anyway, search for an ends. I come home and we are, you
know, conversations with our lawyers and our lawyers
immediately go to DOJ and they're like you took
attorney-client privilege stuff. You know that like you're not
stupid. You know you did this and
they're. Like do they have a tank team or
anything like that that's set up to be able to evaluate that?
Let me explain this to you. Sorry, they take this, so they
take they get this laptop, it's gone.
And again, we're like, you need to put a taint team in place.
Like of course, like this is we have to do this.
Tell people what that is just. A paint team is so if they do a
search warrant and they think they're going to get stuff
that's attorney-client privilege.
The they're supposed to have a separate team of FBI agents and
lawyers review everything and then separate out anything that
might be attorney-client privilege and not let the
prosecutors and agents working on the case review it.
Problem here, they sent the lead case agent across the country to
do the search warrant when anyone in Seattle could have
gotten the laptop. If you feel shaking his head
right now, can you see? I mean like.
Is it nuts? It's nuts.
Like it's just the other thing
is they put on the search warrant, they included to search
for communications between my husband and his business lawyer
that has set up his company. So like they were purpose.
I mean, I don't anyway, So, so this happens.
But and they're like the prosecutor who wrote back to my
husband's lawyers, his name is Uzo Sonia.
He was a prosecutor for Robert Mueller.
He has since left and gone to work for a law firm that
represents Amazon. Oh, shocker.
Yeah, that would never happen. Why would someone who just did
a, you know, Amazon hatchet job get an Amazon job?
That doesn't make sense. That's not how we do it, is it?
Yeah, it's so ridiculous. But anyway, he so he writes back
to the lawyers and he's like, you will not dictate the time,
the timing of our investigation. We'll get back to you when it's
appropriate. And then we never heard back.
And then like a year late, a year later, this is how like
slowly this all. Moves and you're not in your
home and you don't have your money.
Living with my husband's family, we don't have our dog.
She's left with a friend because we're in a different state and
it's so sad. Anyway.
When when did you get did you reunite with your kid at us to
go after you went to go work or were you?
Still, we all now live together in Ohio.
OK. Is that where you are right now?
Yeah, I'm in Ohio now. Yeah, We live in Columbus, OH
now where this is where my family is.
We eventually came here and stayed with my family.
I was, and that's when I was commuting to New York to work a
job. So I was living in New York
Monday to Friday. My kids were here.
But now in, like, I mean, sometimes good things happen in
the world. We were able to rebuild my
company. I am now the CEO of my company
again. It is amazing.
I'm home. It's, you know, but so we learn
a year later after the search warrant, that somehow in the
government's possession, my husband's laptop has become
encrypted and it is unencryptable.
They they didn't put the password in right and they they
locked it down. So it's gone.
All of his stuff. All of it.
And he couldn't unlock it either.
No. So what they needed was
something called a Microsoft BitLocker key, and my husband
hadn't gotten the laptop from Amazon.
Oh. He didn't.
He wasn't like, it was like a gift from his boss.
So he didn't have the BitLocker key.
We called Microsoft and we we tried, we tried right to like,
we tried to get it open. It's just gone.
Everything you had in there. Everything is gone.
And then eventually we learned that the FBI agents and the
prosecutors did look at the attorney-client privileged
materials. Of course, yeah.
They got the FBI agent got removed from the investigation
by the DOJ. Well, at least there's that.
Did they get hit with any sort of OPR coverage?
No. No, and we had to fight.
We had to fight. Out of curiosity, did you file
an OIG complaint? Not yet.
It's like a hole because the investigation.
It's awful. And listen, I don't have any
faith in that process either. I'm going to do it just because
you do it. You do it because it's a pain in
the ass for them and that's the only thing you can do.
But. I mean, but I I like Kyle, the
investigation ostensibly could still be ongoing.
Like we don't know correct what's going on, You know, it's
but it could be, it could go on for five years, I guess, right.
So. I could go on.
Yeah. Is there a statute?
Is that what it is? Yeah, five years.
Yeah, so. Unless they added different
things to it, if they added, you know, false statements or, you
know, obstruction charges and they could do it for another,
whatever it is. Yeah.
So there's no question about it. Yeah.
There's no question that it could be ongoing, but also
probably has to lose some steam because they're like what the
hell they can do and Amazon got what they wanted.
Well, Amazon hasn't got what they wanted really, because they
still. They didn't get to break the
contract. But they did break the contract
without a felony. So unless, unless they get a
felony, they're going to be liable for these damages.
Like there's still, that's why we know.
I can tell you too. And I want to see head shakes at
this one. Phil, do we know from the emails
that we've seen that Amazon was able to meet with prosecutors
over 100 times to lobby for criminal charges, that is?
100 * a. 100 times. It should be one time.
It's like here. We'd like to report this problem
and then the FBI says, cool, thank you.
And then we don't comment on ongoing investigations. 100
times. That's insane.
There's no other way to say it. Like that's just the most insane
thing. All right, so let's let's keep
pushing through this story like I'm there's some light on the
end of the tunnel only because you're OK now and you're there.
So let's let's keep pushing through.
They they lost the laptop. It's all fully encrypted.
They can no longer so now they now they don't have access to
all your stuff, but they all saw it and they removed the case
agent who I'm sure could never talk to anybody else in the
office. White collar squad.
I'm sure that you know he sits right next to the other people
that do the same work. Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, right.
Like the other agent that's been on it the whole time is still
never got removed from it. And their friends, their
Facebook, that's the other thing.
I have been able to figure out so much stuff about connections
just by looking at Facebook and LinkedIn and it's.
Not something it's we call that, we call that open source.
In fact, there's a so there's a guy that I was in a Twitter
space with last night and he goes by name redacted.
I know his real name, but I'm not going to say it.
And he has and he basically does open source research on Twitter
and on Google and on Amazon and on all these different FBI and
CIA and other intelligence community people that are hired
on there. And he did it all through going
through LinkedIn and he went through their, their Facebook
connections and, you know, their access that they have on Twitter
and who they're following and who their friends are and all
that. And it's out there and they're
not. They're not scared about putting
it out there. The prosecutor, the one
prosecutor has been there the whole time.
He was removed in July of last year.
And I'll tell you why because that's another crazy story.
But he is like on LinkedIn, liking like Amazon HQ 2,
bringing a lot of jobs to Virginia.
And I'm like, can you just try a little bit?
Yeah, this is the this was the Crystal City project, is that
right? That they're.
Yeah, I mean, I was there when that was going down, obviously.
Yeah. But like, so he's he's liking,
Yeah, way to go in. Like why is he following?
Him and then like the Amazon lawyer who's lobbying the
prosecutors is like when Uzo and Sonia left to get a job, you
know, in the private sector, the Amazon lawyer used for Omar is
like good luck, Uzo, thanks for everything and it's like.
It's all there. Getting beers together, like is
that what's happening, going. To the strip club in Crystal
City. I mean, it's basically what it
feels like it's. And they probably are.
Well, and you know, and going through LinkedIn, I realized
that Amazon is hiring hundreds of former prosecutors and FBI
agents. So like, of course we like, you
know, like my husband's not going to hire your former FBI
agents or, and you're going to make 3 or 5X what you did at the
Bureau going to work for Amazon. And Amazon has on their board
the former head of the NSA, Keith Alexander.
Like what business experience does Keith Alexander have?
Like what business? Experience.
Do any of them have? No, the only reason Keith
Alexander is on the board is to help Amazon get contracts with
the NSA and other government agencies.
Correct. So I've been calling this the
the information industrial complex, very similar to what
goes on then. OK.
And so I'm not, I didn't originate because I actually
Google searched it and I found out there are mentions going
back to 2014, some academic papers.
But the information industrial complex is essentially the same
thing that goes on in the military industrial complex.
You don't hire generals because they know the most about tanks
or planes or small weapon systems for squad based, you
know, operation. You hire them because you know
who's buying them, and they're friends with the guy who writes
the check for the next round because that guy just took his
old job and they were buddies. So that's the same thing that's
going on in this intelligence community.
It's like the people who are going to stroke out the check
that pays for the web services for hosting Jedi or whatever
else they're buddies with, and they just left that job so that
you know exactly what I'm talking.
About well, I figured out I'm, I'm just me, you know, I'm just
this Mama for I guess I'm a lawyer, but like I'm just doing
Google research and there's this woman named Christine Halverson
who was like a 20 year agent. She spoke at AWS Big conference
which is called Reinvent. What's her name?
Christine Halverson. Halverson, OK.
So she spoke at this big AWS reinvent conference as a member
of the FBI saying the FBI say or AWS saved the FBI.
Take a guess where she works now.
Oh, I wonder if she works for Amazon Web Services.
She does indeed, and guess she does sales for the government.
It's. Great.
Is it because she knows people in the government?
That's strange. I mean it's.
Just like what's also funny is that a lot of these people
haven't worked in a decade, especially when they're senior
executives. They literally haven't had a
job. They just so, you know, they
just get accolades. Their job is literally compiling
their resume to say what people under them did because they're
not operationally doing invest. You know, they're not doing
investigations, they're not doing any of this stuff.
It's nauseating. I think the only good thing is I
think the only silver lining out of all this kind of insanity is
that they're visible in a way that they've never been before.
And it's like this year, you know, in the last four months,
they're visible in a way that nobody's ever seen.
And now they're realizing like, oh crap, we better hide some of
this stuff. But it's too late because the
scurrying, it's it's happening. The lights already on.
Well, in fact, like the prosecutor that liked, you know,
and had all these interactions with Amazon and LinkedIn, he
took down his LinkedIn profile because he's in fact about to be
seated as a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia.
And he took. Oh, that's wonderful.
Thank. You took down his LinkedIn
profile after? I, like, put something on
Twitter, but like, it's like, I mean, this is all, it's just all
so transparently corrupt. It, it just bothers me.
It's like, and and part of it is like, did you think we were all
so stupid that we wouldn't try to figure this out?
Like, I wouldn't care for my family.
Yeah, I, I care. Do you think I don't care enough
about my husband's freedom to try to go fight and figure this
out? Like I, I just like you're
trying to put people in prison like you.
Said it. You went to war for your family.
That's what my that's what my my wife calls what I'm doing right
now. This is the war.
We're in it. You guys are not done with it
like you can't be. And, and obviously you're out
there talking about it too. And that's the only other way to
do it. It's like we have to spread
information because this is this is what's called 5 GW.
Are you familiar with that that term?
No, no. Five GW is it's it's known as
fifth generation warfare. So there's different types of
warfare like third generation is like modern conventional
warfare. 4th generation is like the counterinsurgency insurgency
type fighting. 5th generation war is an information war and
when you and when everybody is feeling right now in this
country is that anxiety that is being seated by being in the
middle of a of an actual civil war or an actual war.
It doesn't have to be civil. I guess I don't know what you
like the the the parties are not even.
But. But but what we're fighting is,
is a legitimate information war. And it's it's done with
misinformation, it's done with distrust operations, it's done
with, you know, fighting against it and marginalizing
institutions. It's it's manipulation of the
media. It's, you know, everyone always
calls it like psyops. Psyops are like battles.
Yeah. In a larger war.
And so that anxiety, like what's wrong with our country and how
did we get here and what is going, you know, all the things
that I know that are wrong. And it doesn't matter whether
you're on the left or the right politically speaking, because
everybody has that same sensation.
Like there's something that is not right.
That's five GW. And so you know, you're in it
whether you like it or not. And so you you mentioned the
word, you're accurately stating that.
And I want to reaffirm what you're saying that because it's
very important that people know this is not like a turn of
speech. This isn't there's an actual,
you can look at the definition of five GW and you can read all
kinds of stuff. There's whole books written on
it. And and they've gone back, you
know, probably to World War One. Those were psyops campaigns.
It always accompanied. They just didn't, you know,
codify it and and study it. But when we start looking at
what that is it, it makes more sense that like the things that
you're, you know, the sort of emotional traumas and, and the
wreckage of family lives that go along.
It's very real. Like it's real trauma, it's real
destruction that is is wreaking havoc on your life.
Phil had the same experience. I had the same experience.
Yeah, I'm so sorry that you went through that like it's well.
It's like we're in it together. So like, you don't have to be
sorry. We're we're, we're teammates on
this. The teammates are people that
know that something is wrong, yeah, and, and, and not wanting
it to continue. So I think.
People like don't understand kind of like the the real
repercussions of it. Like I until I work, I've I've
like, I've never been someone who's like on it's OK if you go
to therapy. I like, don't judge, but I've
never been someone who had like, you know?
I married a therapist because I needed it probably like I'm I'm
vertically integrated in my house.
But I always thought like, oh, I'm tough, you know, I'm tough.
But after the FBI search warrant, after the search
warrant, I started taking my daughters up.
I would wake them up at 5:30 every morning for months and
Carl and my husband and I would take them out of the house to go
to a park for like hours and then we had a baby monitor in
the window and we would. And that was literally so that
you were not there if they did it again, people need to
understand how how real that is because that's not you're not
the only person I've ever heard of doing that.
I was waking up at 5:00 AM for the last couple months as well.
Part of it's because I have a 2 year old, a sub 2 year old who
wants to wake up and scream stuff.
But part of it is because my wife and I were just sitting
there awake. And it's like, is this the
morning? Is this the morning?
You know, it's like, I know and there's we had a, we have a
security gate at my parents place that like is locked
outside of the front door. And so it would be, it would be
not easy for them to like bang through it.
They probably, I mean, they could, they'd have to breach
with the team though. But if they send someone for me,
they're sending a swat team, right?
Like I'm trained. I have like, I have all kinds of
weapon systems. It's next to my bed.
I I talk about it publicly. So I'm up because I don't, I
want at least identify what the target is like.
It's not some like rogue, you know, criminal agent that they,
they turned on us and it's actually like federal agents.
And if it is, then we have to open the door.
So we're having that. And it's like, I'm not trying to
get in a shootout in front of my children, right.
But I'm also I don't know who's going to come.
Like I don't know who's coming and neither do you.
And so that like sleeping on the floor and waking up and, and
getting your kids out of the house before six.
That is, that's that's insanity for most people.
And that was your reality for a while.
Yeah. And then even when we stopped
doing it because we finally, I think in the fall of 2020, the
prosecutors agreed that if they were going to charge him, they
would let him turn himself in. And that felt like a miracle to
me. I was like, Oh my God.
And that should have been the default position.
And people, people who are, if you're just listening to our
audio stream, you can't see it. Like, you know, Amy's got some
emotion on her face. I'll just say it like, that's
the only way. And I feel the same way right
now, too. It's it's devastating to like
have to have that conversation with your spouse and like,
what's the Strat? Like what is our strategy for
surviving the unknown here? That's coming down?
Because that's what it is. It's unknown.
And last night, my husband and I were talking about like, how
we're proud of ourselves that through this, our kids are
loved. And they're, you know, they know
they're loved. They, they, they think they're
safe and that, like, we have found a way to like, laugh and
find joy. But that's what people at war
do, right? You learn to live at war.
Like you, it is the war. Babies are born at war, you
know, like, it's like you just, you learn to live like this.
And I know, like, eventually this will end, but I cannot
imagine what it will feel like because the war doesn't end when
our situation ends. And the thing that we have to do
when this ends is keep being loud.
And I do feel much safer being loud.
I feel so much safer being loud. Isn't that funny?
I had a funny conversation. I called the FB is field office
and I found the investigator who who got me thrown out of the
office and it was for BS charges.
Like I was out shooting in the desert in the middle of public
land. It was like 20 miles of desert.
Nobody cares. Oh my God, I have to tell you
something. When you're done.
Yeah. You tell me now and I I know my
story. You tell me your story.
Speaking of like BS charges, like they're, they're, they're
the like, he's the chief information officer at Amazon.
He was a former FBI guy, wasn't a special agent.
He was like an IT guy. He was accused while at the FBI
of charging a private plane ride home from an assignment on a
government credit card without authorization.
He wasn't kicked out of the FBI, no.
What is? This and like you're like
shooting a guy in the desert and they're like, you're out like
this. I'm, I'm, I'm literally wearing
my duty belt and my badge on my belt and I am doing training,
handgun training because if I have to ever draw my weapon, I
want to be precise and I want to be accurate because I might save
a life that way, whether it be at my church or whether it be on
duty, it doesn't make a difference.
I want to take shots that are only good shots and I want to be
disciplined on him and I want to be fast and all the things.
So I'm out there doing that. And this woman from
headquarters, I called her up and she didn't know what I
recorded her for an hour and 8 minutes because that's, you
know, she's in a one party consent state and so am I.
So let's do this. So I, I recorded her and she
started counseling me and she was like, you, all the things
you're doing because I'd already gone public with the media.
She's like, you know, my son is crying in the background while
this, like while this taping is going on.
It's kind of funny because I put it on the Internet.
So like, screw it. I was like, I'm, I'm 100%
transparent. Here's the body Cam footage of
what I did. Like people can go see it.
If you're new to our channel, go back and look, it's, there's a
whole thing called why I got suspended.
And then it mixes in the this woman's conversation with me and
she's like, all the things you're doing just, you need to
stop moving. And, and she was like, you're
making things more complicated for yourself.
And I'm like, no, I'm making it really simple.
I only have one path forward. It's incredibly loud and it's
full transparency, radical transparency, things that you
guys are not comfortable with me on.
Last night I publicized a an e-mail that I forgot I had and I
redacted the names of people that I like.
And I left the names of the people that are the senior
executives that were in it, including the phone number for
the chief diversity officer, who's a former FBI agent and
then got promoted because he's a black guy to be in charge of
diversity of all things. And they said in the e-mail, we
are going to hire people from historically black colleges and
universities over any other applicants, regardless of the
year in major because, because diversity, because we need to
hire black people, Which is insane to me because I had great
friends that on my, you know, on my squads who were black.
But it wasn't because they were black.
It's because they were just awesome guys.
Like they were just good dudes. And there was a couple of good
girls that I worked with that were actually at the, you know,
girls, gals, whatever, that were at my Academy class.
And they were studs. Like they were fast and they
could shoot and they could wrestle and they were like the
things you want to work with and who cares what color your skin
is? I thought that was the whole
point of what I grew up in the 80s.
I thought we were over that. And then we get this e-mail and
it literally says regardless of their of their their major and
regardless of the year of study, these people need to be
interviewed for the job. And with the implicit sort of
like that, you have to hire them.
Amazingly, at least to me, that is an incredibly, incredibly
valuable and competitive program.
So like we would get people that had, you know, master's degrees
coming out of Yale and security studies that had 810 years of
like military experience and then went back to grad school.
And then they come out for this internship because you get a top
secret security clearance. You can walk into a you can walk
into a six figure government job with it.
And we are giving them out to people based on race.
So I published that too. It's like, screw it.
Like all radical transparency. Everything should be explicit.
The louder you are, the safer you are.
And you're exactly right with that instinct, I think because
they didn't know what. To do with me.
Yeah. I mean, I also think that like
talking about radical transparency from what I've
learned about the FBI. And again, this is just like, as
someone who's been on the other side of an investigation, like
it was really mind blowing to me that when the government, when
the FBI interviews someone, even in this modern age where we all
carry recorders in our pockets, the government, the FBI doesn't
record the interview. They take notes.
And then those notes to are typed up into a memo, and then
that memo is the official record of what happened.
This is my recorder. I recorded every interview that
I could. I brought my own.
I paid for it with my own money. You know why?
Because I can send it to the defense attorney and we don't
have any disagreement. But what was?
Why wouldn't every agent want to do that?
Why wouldn't the? Agent, it was $85.
I make plenty of good money. When I was working as an agent,
I had a six figure gig and I can afford an 85 dollar thing and I
would put on the table and I would say the same thing every
single time. I'd like to record this with
your permission, I will send you a copy of it.
Please give me a business card or an address right now and you
will get a copy of it and I'll send one to your defense
attorney on the government's time.
It's easy days. That is like that.
That to me, would revolutionize the FBI.
You. Want to know another thing?
It's policy that they do it, that they record.
It's policy. Yeah, It's permissive policy,
though. It's a it's a may, but not
shall. And here's why.
It says when feasible, all interviews should be recorded.
So all they have to say is, well, like I didn't get a
government issued recorder. We don't issue them.
And so it's not feasible. If we did a field interview, I
brought this, I recorded phone interviews, I would put it on
speaker. I would let people know exactly
what's going to happen. Hey, I'd like to record this for
your, you know, for our both of our safety.
I want you to have a copy of it and then I would do direct
quotes out of it. When I did my 3O2, the three O 2
is the testimonial document that you would that you received
along with those notes. But like I don't take notes.
Why I have the words? That's so.
I mean so. It doesn't matter.
I'm just paying attention to what you say and then we'll go
back and we'll just see what that conversation looks like.
Like I'm pretty good at talking to people.
I've got a pretty good memory. That's why I got hired.
And moreover, your defense attorney can hear exactly what
it was you said. And when I would do it with an
attorney present, I would hell him right on front on the camera
or on the on the recording. It's it's like, listen, this is
your client. Your job is to protect your
client. My job is to ask your client
questions. Please make sure that they refer
to you before answering anything.
If you want them to like put a hand up and I won't, I'll just
wait. Like I just care about the
truth. I don't get paid by winning the
cases. There's literally no incentives.
I don't care. So, like, The thing is, is like,
if it's about the truth, like that's the way the system is
supposed to work. Like in our case, I know from of
the emails that like when Amazon accused my husband of a crime to
avoid a million, $100 million in damages, the prosecutors in the
Eastern District of Virginia lined up their press office.
Of course. I mean, that's ridiculous, yeah.
I don't have time for that. That's not what I signed up for,
and I know there's a lot of people that didn't.
The problem is plenty of people are going to look down the
barrel and say, well, if I have a big case, I can brief it
forever. I can take a headquarters
position, I can go be a program manager or unit chief.
I can come back in and be a supervisor of a squad.
I can promote to ASAC. And like what?
Are they looking at Amazon? I mean, that's the other piece,
right? So that's not, that would never
even factor into my brain that existed until recently.
But that is a that is a thing that goes on because we've been
watching out like the guy who used to run the Washington field
office who would have been in charge during this time, Steve
Deantuano, he just went and became a partner.
What was the where did he go, Phil?
What's he where? He's a partner at KP and G.
So he went and and yeah, like, what the hell does he know about
accounting? I can promise you nothing.
Like not he hasn't done accounting in in 15 years.
He hasn't been working cases in 15 years.
So they're not bringing a skill set.
But it's so easy to record just dialing back into what's so
crazy. And so you experienced this in a
funny way, not funny, but like quirky.
I would say that they're out there taking notes and that
notes got scanned in. So you got a copy of that in
your discovery? Well, we never, so we actually
never did because Carl's never charged with a crime and that.
And so of course, the way the way we got.
That's what you would have gotten though.
That's what we would have gotten.
And the way that the way that we got all the emails between
Amazon and DOJ is that when Amazon could not get the
criminal charges they were spending millions lobbying for,
they sued everyone in civil court.
They did not move that case forward while they were in the
background meeting with DOJ, but they kept the lawsuit going to
try to like deprive people of money essentially.
And we have forced that into trial.
It is going to trial on May 1st like the defendants have forced
it to a trial date. So that's coming to a head,
right, which is great. And we're my husband is so
looking forward to his day in court.
Yeah, and let's plan on doing another one of these and, and
doing a reaction 'cause I want, I want the, I want Part 2, the
wrap up when you guys actually see what happens.
I'm sure they'll appeal it whatever that happens, but.
But during the in in between, just to wrap that part up, like
we did litigate, when your money is taken by civil forfeiture and
you're not charged with a crime, the government has to file a
civil lawsuit against the bank account.
So the bank account is the defendant and then you as the
human being have to pay for the bank account's defense.
And we did that. And so the government.
Say, say that one more time for people to like grasp because I I
don't think it's easy to grasp it.
Civil asset forfeiture The defendant is a is a a non thing.
It's a bank account, it's a house.
It's like the address of the house.
So ours it's. Your Ferrari.
It was like USB-4, like they choose one of the they seize
multiple bank accounts far. So it was like USB $4780 at
Wells Fargo and that's the case. Right.
So then the government, they filed the complaint and then
they stayed the complaint. They didn't want to litigate it,
and the judge gave them six months.
Then they stayed it again, and they wanted six more.
Months. So they're kicking this down the
cans that you're still dealing with.
Nothing we can do, right? Nothing we can do.
So the government the second time was like you get 4 months
and then that four months was up and I was like, yes, we get to
litigate. We get I want them to prove, see
if they prove their case and when it's a civil burden.
So it's just more likely than not, right?
Yeah, proponents of the evidence, right?
The day, the day comes that the government has to prove their
case and they're like, do you want to settle?
So we were like we by the. Way they're they're terrified of
going to trial. My buddies who were AUSAS told
me that the new generation of US attorneys and the new generation
of assistant US attorneys, which is the frontline prosecutors,
they have 0 court experience. A lot of times they are used to
plea deals, like you said. And they are so scared of being
like, put up against, you know, legitimate defense attorneys who
used to actually go to court because it used to be that like,
that's where the battle is. Yeah.
You know, like for the F for the FBI agent, it's it's like, I
want to go to court if you like, like, first of all, I want to
come and win right away. I want to be able to show you so
much stuff that you don't have any choice.
That's really good if you have a righteous case.
But if they're going to contest it, you know, that's the that's
where you get to show like, hey, we did really good work here.
And when you don't have it, when it's not there, there is nothing
scarier. I have to imagine then knowing
that your reputation and your future jobs as a defense
attorney and whatever else that you think you're going to go to,
you're about to lose. You're going to have a losing
court record. And it's not going to be a lot
against a lot. It's going to be pled down 98%,
lost every time I went out in front of a jury.
That's not good. Yeah.
And so like they, they said you want to settle and we wanted to
ask for 100% back and we didn't think we'd get it.
So we're like, fine, we'll ask for 85% back.
The government did not negotiate.
They just gave us 85% back and we had to sign something saying
we wouldn't sue them. Right.
Isn't that something? So all they did was deprive you
of your resources? Take 15% of 15% of your net
worth I assume. Yeah, and then after Amazon got
the civil forfeiture, then Amazon sued my husband in civil
court. So they they deprived my husband
of being able to defend himself against a trillion dollar
company in civil court like. It's disgusting.
It's so gross. It's so.
And here's you know, I know. It's unfair and we know it's
unfair, but it like everybody, everyone goes, yeah, of course
it's unfair. You're like, yeah, but you
haven't experienced it. Like there's a fundamental part
of your body that knows what fairness is like.
Human beings know from a very young age your your little
children know if you gave one person a biscuit and the other
one didn't get a biscuit, like they'd be pissed even if they
don't like biscuits. My 8 year old.
We, we did that last night. I'm just saying, I just, I, I
mess with my oldest all the time.
I'm like, sorry, we're out of biscuits.
No biscuits. My oldest is 8 now and she
knows. She knows now.
They know what's right and. Wrong.
She knows what's right and wrong, but she knows about
what's going on with Amazon and the the thing she always asks me
is why? Why wouldn't Amazon talk to
Daddy when they thought he did something wrong?
Why did they make accusations about talking to Daddy?
That's. The thing that we would teach
them to do. Well, in my, in one of my latest
emails to Jeff Bezos, I asked him that I, I pointed out when
my 8 year old asked because it's worse than that.
When my husband, when the FBI showed up at her house on April
2nd, my husband had his lawyers call Amazon and say I would like
to talk to you. I don't understand this, what
this is about. But I, I'm happy to share
anything with you like you know everything.
And Amazon's lawyer said we will not speak to you unless you are
pleading guilty to a crime. Isn't that something that's so
disgusting? Yeah, that's why I think it's
like the most clear example of corporate weaponization of DOJ
that you could ever see. It's just.
And I am, and I have to imagine that the for the one of you,
there's 9 1/2 other people that rolled over and didn't get to
that point, even though they were right to.
Well, I believe so. Like in this instance nobody
rolled over but like IA 100%. Well, I'm saying not in your
case, I'm saying in other, in the other cases, because this is
a tech. Here's the thing that we know,
like you don't try techniques that fail.
You try techniques that are affect.
Like these are companies, they they adjust their fire and they
and they make, you know, accurate shots.
So this this had a probability of winning that was beyond, you
know, a reasonable doubt for them.
It was almost 100% right because they accused multiple people,
each with a 98.2%. You know, if you get one person
to plead guilty, you're going to.
Right. Yeah.
And they're basically playing stacked odds that like any one
of them could have. Fallen and it's funny because I
always say to my husband, like, what was their Plan B?
He's like they had no Plan B. Because they don't lose.
They don't lose. Amazon never expected to go to
trial in the civil case. The government never expected to
be here. They never like, they don't
give. I'll just point this out.
The government does not give money back in civil forfeiture.
Like it barely ever happens. Like we were told no matter
what, we probably never going to die back.
It's just going to be the way it was going to be.
I would agree with that. That's, that's the my limited
experience, but being, you know, tangentially associated with
people that did that kind of work.
And, and usually it's because the people have no case to stand
on because they're gangsters or they're drug dealers or whatever
they are. I mean, that's, that's, I mean,
that's what happens. So the odds that somebody even
stood up to the process is probably just like completely
foreign to the to the civil apps that coordinator in the in the
field office who probably hasn't had to deal with this before,
like contested. What are you talking about?
Like there are emails between the the the forfeiture
prosecutor and Amazon that are now public where like the the
the prosecutor wrote to Amazon's lawyer, we seized the money too
early. What?
What does that? Even mean like you didn't have
probable cause but you didn't like but like.
No, it means that they they overshot their hand, they took
their shot when that, you know, when it wasn't lined up and
that's obviously what's the case.
It's just it's, it's so incredible.
It's it's incredible how many parallels, you know, you you're
fighting it from the outside of it.
I'm watching it from the inside. But you talk about like, they
had no backup plan. They have no backup plan for me.
It's like suspended security clearance.
Take away his money and then he'll just go away.
That's what they do. They just resign and they go get
another job somewhere and they're not our problem.
And it's like, guess, yeah, It's like, guess what, suckers?
Like I had money put away. I've been doing this for a long
time. And like, I thought that as a
national security person, it's my responsibility to be able to
go for a couple years without a paycheck.
Like I'd be a fool to think that I'm going to be able to like I,
I made $30,000 a year before I got hired on by the FBI.
You know, I, I, I made $100,000 working as a financial analyst.
I made $18,000 when I was 27 and enlisted in the military.
And I did that for almost 4 years.
So I made no money. And you really learn how to
adjust your life on to nothing. And then my wife and I were
working together and she made 30 and I made 30.
She was like a, like a nonprofit counselor in Texas.
So we didn't make any money. I was working on, on an
ambulance. So you don't make any money
doing an ambulance. And I help people in the ER and
that was cool. And then, you know, she got a
job with Aetna working as a counselor, like over the phone
and they paid her $55,000 a year, which was the most either
one has ever made. And we're like, we're killing
it. And then so I stopped working.
I went to the FBI. When I got the FBI job, she
stopped working. She started having babies and,
and literally, you know, my last salary IS120125.
Like these are all public records.
So I just say I was A131 and you know, any other part of the US.
So I'm making $120,000 a year, which is not a lot of money, but
it was more than enough for what we had done.
I mean we were doing fine. I bought guns left and right.
People were like where's your money coming from?
I'm like, I saved like crazy. We have a very inexpensive life.
You know, we have a 0 down mortgage from the VA because I
was a disabled vet and my wife doesn't buy anything.
She buys organic foods. That's her luxury item.
She doesn't buy shoes, she doesn't buy purses, she doesn't
buy clothes. I probably spent more money on
clothes this year than, well last year at least than my wife
did. Like the whole time I've known
her, she just doesn't spend money.
So we're frugal, that's it. And then we were able to go do
this thing and so now they don't know what to do.
They're like, so this guy, you know, like I have friends that
are like, they know we're not like the the FBI director has
been briefed on my name and that I'm a problem.
I am. But wait, wait till tomorrow
because tomorrow we're we're putting out AAI may or may not
be working with the Daily Wire on a story that they did that
they're quoting me on. But Chris Ray's going to have to
answer for, you know, somewhere upwards of a million and a half
dollars of discretionary spending on his jet that he
shouldn't have done. So we're pushing the envelope
forward. Like you say, you're in the
fight. You might as well be loud.
Here's the other problem. They didn't work with me that
hard when I was at the FBI. So I spent a lot of time looking
around and figuring out where the bodies are buried and wrong
guy to mess with. It turns out, because like 1.
I actually do have some principles.
My principles are just my own. It's like, I don't want to get a
COVID shot. I don't think anybody should be
mad at that. If you don't want to hang out
with me, I'll tell you up front, you don't have to.
You don't have to hang out with me.
But I already had COVID and I have some, you know, religious
problems with it. I have some medical issues up.
We'll see where they all go. And I, I don't wish I'll on
anybody. When they, when they came to
shove that thing down, I was like, no, I'm not doing that.
Like you can fire me, it's fine. But they can't fire you because
I, they had to go through due process because I was a federal
employee. So they removed due process,
same as you. They went and around, they
pulled my security clearance, which I have no right to.
So there's no due process about a security clearance.
That's it. There's a there's a court case.
Like, well, they have these methods always of like trying to
like, fill you by slicing you and the ankles enough times that
you fall down and can't get back out.
Yeah. It's death by 1000 cuts.
It's pull your paycheck and let you start my my attorney called
the wither on the vine technique and and he's like, yeah, they'll
just, they'll just put you out to past year.
They'll suspend you indefinitely.
So like technically, you know, the FBI can.
I'm on the FBI's register. It's 277 days since I've been
back in an FBI office. My buddies are keeping count for
me. It shows it on the ticker.
There's a little like, you know, Skype link you'd have like your
buddy list and the buddy list will tell you how many days
you've been offline. And mine's 277 as of today.
I have to leave in like 8 minutes.
I'm so. Yes, I, I don't want, no, this
is perfect. I think we did.
I think we did good justice to your story.
I'm looking forward to a second wrap up.
Tell people where they can follow you and and where they
can see some more of your your stuff and what's going on.
Yeah, you can follow me on all channels, Instagram, Instagram,
Twitter and TikTok at Amy under Score K under Score Nelson and
my company is theriveter.co and we are a membership network that
advances and amplifies working women.
And so if women are starting a company, they can come and they
can click on your website and and connect with you guys.
Yeah, we have courses. Courses, connections, all sorts
of tools. It's a super welcoming
community. Everybody belongs there.
We just want to help women make money.
I want to help make women make money too.
That sounds great. Women who want to make money
should be able to make money if they want to do it.
That's all wonderful. We're going to put those links
down in the description. So folks, if you will look in
the description on our Rumble channel, you'll see them there.
Amy, thank you so much for spending time with us.
I'm sure it's also pee break time.
That's just the nature of these things.
So once you sit long enough and the coffee kicks in or gets
through the middle of the day. Thanks so much for sharing your
story. And I appreciate you being so
open and honest and and transparent about it all.
And I'm really sorry what your family has gone through.
But like I said, the Seraphim family loves you now.
We're all in this together. We really are.
It's such a strange time. We got to hit him from every
angle. So God bless you.
And you know, God bless your little girls and your husband
and thank God for fighting. And we will talk to you when
this court case comes through. Thank you so much, Kyle.
And that was part one of our best of show, the first one
ever. Thanks for joining us.
Really appreciate all of you that have been watching.
And it is really a big deal to us, whether you know it or not,
to be able to walk back to these archives and see how it's gone,
how it's gotten there. It's it's both humbling it it's
also kind of embarrassing to see how much I needed to grow.
But we all come from somewhere and we're not going to hide from
it. If you guys want to make sure
you're supporting the program, Kyle serafinshow.com, you can
follow us on Spotify. If you use Spotify, make sure
you're following the channel. I'd really appreciate that.
We'll boost those numbers there. How about on locals?
You want to support us, you want to keep this kind of work
growing. I'm never done or satisfied.
Kyle seraphin.com. So Kyle Seraphin Show and Kyle
seraphin.com. And if you're watching on
YouTube or on Rumble, make sure you like it.
Make sure you're sharing with a friend and always subscribe to
those channels over there if you haven't done so already.
We'll keep boosting those numbers as well.
Thanks so much for being a part of the Sunday Sit down.
Thank you for hearing the story of my friend Amy Nelson, and I
look forward to sharing many more with you guys.
Again, we'll see you on Monday at 0930 for the Kyle Seraphin
Show. Thank you for listening to the
Kyle Seraphin Show, streamed live weekdays on rumble.com/kyle
Seraphin. Follow Kyle on Twitter, True
Social and Instagram at Kyle Seraphin.