And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior Elections correspondent of The Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDRLST, make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and of course to the premium version of our website as well. I'm joined today by Michael Patrick Lahey. He is the CEO, editor in chief and majority owner of Star News Digital Media, which owns and operates a family of state focused conservative news sites. Those news sites, one of them includes the Tennessee Star, which of course has become really quite a point of national interest, international interest in fact, over a very important battle on the First Amendment. Michael patrick Lahey, thanks so much for joining us today on the Federalist Radio Hour. Matt is so great to be with you, and just for all of your listeners because you're too modest to save it. Because we've worked together, you are one of the most outstanding journalists in the country today, So tip of the hat to you. Well, you're very kind for saying that and we've gotten to know each other very well over the last couple of years. Full disclosure. Michael Patrick Leahy was my former boss and operates a tremendous news organization where I was proud to work and cover politics and cover all kinds of things, including the story that we're we're really talking about today and first and foremost, you know, we reporters don't like to be the story, but in many ways, Michael Patrick Lahy, you have become the story behind the effort to have the well. I think the local law enforcement officials in Nashville and the FBI follow the laws public record laws, FOIL laws, freedom of Information Act laws, and reduce and release what has been commonly referred to as the manifesto of the trans killer, the Covenant School Killer, Audrey Elizabeth Hale. And for those of our listeners who are not familiar with this story, back in late March of twenty twenty three, Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified a biological twenty eight year old female who identified as a male named Aiden, stormed into this Christian school in Nashville and murdered three nine year olds and three staff members. That is clear. What is not clear exactly is why local law enforcement officials and again the FBI have been holding the many journals that this very deeply disturbed young woman had in her possession. You at the Tennessee Star, which is one of the news operations, of course, under the Star News network Umbrella got a hold of at least a portion of the last journal that Audrey Elizabeth Hale prepared. It was found in the car with the law enforcement officials searched after she was shot by police during her deadly Errand you have released not the documents themselves, but have obtained them, referred to them, and now suddenly you find yourself in a hell of a First Amendment battle. I guess let's take it from there if we could. Yes, So, just a little bit of the background on this March twenty seventh, twenty twenty three, audrilaz Mthel killed six people at Covenant School, where she had attended an elementary school from I think kindergarten through fourth grade from roughly two thousand and one two thousand and five or so. And she was killed subsequently by an international police within twenty minutes. She left behind in her car a journal about eighty pages, and then a spiral notebook, which was an operational plan, if you will, for that day of attack. Also, police then immediately went to carry out a very thorough investigation of the crime scene at Covenant School, and then they went to her house where she lived, not very far away from the Covenant School, where she lived with her parents. She was twenty eight years old. She had recently graduated from the Nazi College of Art and Design. But she was someone who had really had failure to thrive. As an is a good way to describe it. She didn't, you know, she's the only way she made money was delivery for various you know, instacart or various type operations. But she left behind in her house another nineteen journals or diaries going all the way back to her middle school days. And so the police recovered those nineteen journals from her house, the one journal from her car, and then and the one operational plan from her car. I think all told, this may well have been between five hundred and one thousand pages of writings. And immediately after we filed our lawsuit to obtain the writings, because we as you know now you were with us at that time, we put in foyer requests or that it's called Tennessee Public Records Acts request in the Metro National Government. They were denied and we followed the process and then we filed the lawsuit. There are other ap plaintiffs in that lawsuit, the Tennessee and newspaper, Tesse, Firearms, a few others. All of those lawsuits were consolidated and are now being heard by Judge Lashia Miles. So shortly after May twenty twenty three, Mester National Police Department transferred about a thousand of pages of her writings, anywhere from five hundred one thousand, and she has been holding these writings in review ever since, and there's been a lot of proceedings back and forth. At one point, the Covenant School as an entity, Covenant Church as an entity, and a group called Covenant Parents requested of the judge to be allowed to intervene in the case. Now she made I think an error by allowing them to intervene in the case. Less that was her ruling. And so now we have four groups of petitioners seeking these documents under the Tennessee Public Record Act. We have a respondent which is Metro National Government, and we have three different intervener groups, all of whom have multiple attorneys. Okay, so fast forward, So the judge hasn't made any decision on whether to release or whether she's released redacted versions gone through an over a year of hearings and litigation. We then legally obtain a number of items from the criminal investigation file of Intronational Police Department. We obtain these documents, which include eighty pages. The eighty pages that constitute the very last journal she kept or diary for the period of January, February and March of twenty twenty three, the journal that was left in her vehicle. We obtained that. We obtained no none of the other writings, none of the writings from the other earlier nineteen journals, none of the writings from the operational plan. But in addition, Matt, we obtained a number of documents from the criminal investigation file of Metro National Police Department. We obtained these documents legally. These documents from the criminal and jet investigation file are not part of the writings currently being reviewed by the judge in camera for her decision. Okay, So, and then we also have a number of crime scene photos. Now, just so you know, because we legally obtained these because there's a First Amendment right, We clearly have the right to publish any of these documents that we've received and obtained legally. We began writing a series of stories at the Tennessee Star based upon these eighty pages of the Audie Elizabeth Hale's last journal, discovered in her vehicle on March twenty seventh, twenty three by international police. We don't what we have is images two pages at a time, so we have little over forty images, but we have all of it, and we've written maybe twenty five stories with you know, it's got a lot of, you know, very troubling things such as she thought she had an imaginary penis, she hated being a girl, she wanted to kill her father. These are all part of the writings that we've written these twenty five stories about. We've also written a number of stories based upon the documents we obtained legally that are not under review by Judge Lashia Miles. Perhaps the most stunning of the is a May eleventh, twenty twenty three document document, a three page memo that we have published in a story on June fifth, twenty twenty four, and that in that story we identify that this was a memo sent from the Behavioral Assessment Unit of the FBI at Quantico, Virginia. In fact, it was the subset was a critical response group. It was sent directly to the mayor, the Chief of Nashville Police, John Drake, and the subject line of the memo said, protection of legacy tokens, Matt. Until you read that story, had you ever heard of the term legacy tokens? No? When I first learned about legacy tokens, as it was noted in the Tennessee Stars story from the FBI memo, I would have a suit that they were some sort of thing that you take the kids to the arcade and you put them in some kind of a machine. That is not the case. In what legacy tokens are I know you will explain, Really in this FBI memo is at the core of what you and several other litigants in the press, as well as in a Tennessee Firearms Association and yours truly as a plaintiff in a similar case against the FBI. This is what we have been really fighting about, is the suppression of this information, and the reasoning why is rather astounding, And I think that FBI memo really shows us why it is also astounding. Yeah, and just a little bit on the memo. It was not signed. It came from the Critical Response Group of the FBI out of out of Quantico, Virginia. I got the impression, Matt, from reading that that this is kind of what they send out to police chiefs every time there's a mass murder that takes place. And you know what happens then, is this behavioral Assessment unit swoops in and takes over many aspects of the investigation. And I think this is sort of part of their protocol, I think, and we haven't. I mean, I'm sure we could find out who the head of the Critical Response Group of the FBI was at that time. We haven't done that. So it's an unsigned memo, but in it they advise mayor the Chief of Police, Jandrake, to never release these quote legacy tokens, the writings of the Covenant Killer. And why is that? The reasoning for that is interesting to me because there have been a lot of people who have had suspicions about why this information hasn't been released, and you know, some of those suspicions, of course, are tied into the politics of it all that you have an identity politics Biden administration, a DOJ that does not want to leak out damaging information that could really damage the transgender movement, that portion of identity politics that the Biden administration has been pushing in its woke agenda over the last three and a half years. And I think the FBI speaks to some of those suspicions by people they do in this memo, and they cite three reasons why they're telling Intronational Police Chief John Drake on May eleventh, twenty twenty three, in this three page memo why he should never release the writings of the Covenant Killer, which they're referring to as legacy tokens. Number One, there might be copycats. Number two, pontificators and others will misinterpret it, and the public at large willst misunderstand it. Number Three, certain groups might be blamed in a bad way for these actions. Well, come on, we know what they're talking about there. There's been a proliferation of transgender killers, right. They don't want any bad press for transgenders. That's my take on that particular memo. These jobs reports are just a movie trailer for a bad movie Watched Out on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. The month of May bareley created any full time jobs, mostly from their government, and tons of part time jobs. The headline number may look good, but the rest of it is a dud. Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watched Out on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. That is. And I think that's very interesting. But the questions, of course abound. You've asked them as a plaintiff. Others have asked this question too, including the Tennessee in Tennessee's i think Tennessee's largest newspaper, if not one of its largest newspapers. They've asked the same question as a litigant in this as a plaintiff, and that is, why is it the responsibility of the FBI and the local law enforcement officials to suppress information from the public, And certainly, why is it the responsibility of law enforcement organizations to block records for the protection of what seems to be identity politics. It's one of those unanswered questions. But I got to tell you more about this memo. So there's another paragraph in the memo. Matt and your listeners may be astounded by what I'm about to tell them. The FBI told Metro National Police Chief John Drake. Oh, by the way, Chief Drake, there is a precedent for the destruction of legacy tokens such as videos or writings, and we just want to remind you about that precedent for the destruction. The president apparently had to do with the nineteen ninety nine Columbine shootings out of school, and the perpetrators there recorded what we're called the basement videos, and apparently those basement videos were destroyed. So that is a major revelation. The other major revelation that we have from documents obtained that are not part of the documents of the writers of the writings of The Covenant Killer currently under review by Judge Lashia Miles, and that is that on the very first day of this investigation March third, twenty twenty twenty three, the March twenty seventh, twenty twenty three, rather Mesro National Police Department learned that Audri Elizabeth Hale had been under the care of Vanderbilt Psychiatric. In fact, in her bedroom there was a folder from Vanderbilt Psychiatric because in twenty nineteen. In August twenty nineteen, she was part of a thirty day intensive outpatient program to treat her mental health problems that came about because her first psychologist learned, and we got this from other documents and writings from Metro National Police Department, learned that she was a threat, had threatened her father and fantasized about mass murders at a school. The first psychologist didn't tell the father, as she's required to do under Tennessee statute, but indeed, by when this got so bad, she brought Audrey Elizabeth Haile to Vanderbilt Psychiatric and said, Hey, this girl needs to be involuntarily committed for some reason. Vanderbilt Psychiatric, which is part of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, didn't do that. I have seen and reviewed Matt that I've seen and reviewed notes taken from the police that got the affidavit that said police officer said Vanderbilt University has been treating her since from and one, twenty twenty three. We need a search warrant. They got a search warrant, they got the files. The notes of reviewing the files showed that the Metro National Police had written down that mental health professionals at Vanderbilt knew she Audrey Elizabeth hale I fantasized about killing your father and about committing a mass murder at a school. Wow. Absolutely astounding button Matt. But Matt was very interesting about that. There's a duty to warn law here, and apparently we have no record and no sources in Vanderbilt tell us, sources of the Metro National tell Us, the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, no professionals ever told, ever told the victim here the father or took the appropriate steps under the law that they should have that they were in danger. Now there's no criminal penalty for violating this law. It's thirty three deaths three two six. But there is Matt civil liabilities to anybody who fails to do this. But there's a catch on it. The statute of limitations is wait for it one year. So the killing has happened in March of twenty twenty three. We did not obtain these documents or publish this until mid June of twenty twenty four. The question I'm sure of some lawyers are going to sort out is when does that one year begin. Does it begin on the day of the event, or does it begin with people learn that allegedly that these that Fantobook Industry Medical Center failed in this its statutory duty to warn well. These are all good questions, striking information, of course, that we would not have learned had you not released this information. Again, it should be pointed out. And we're talking with Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO, editor in chief and majority owner of The Star News Digital Media, the Star News Network, which owns and operates a family of state focused conservative news sites, such as The Tennessee Star, its flagship publication, that has indeed brought light to this very dark chapter in Nashville and Tennessee history. And I guess that's the question. I think you've answered the question, but we won't know unless we have, you know, ultimately somebody saying something about it or documented proof. But do you think these mental health institutions wanted to keep this under lock and key because they had culpability here? It appears based on what you've reported on, based on these documents, it's interesting to ask that question knowing some of the context as I do. The parents of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, early on in this legal battle over these documents, over the so called manifesto, took what I considered to be a very unprecedented move in turning over intellectual property rights or copyrights of their very disturbed and deceased daughter's writings to the Covenant School. The parents the people who were, in essence the victims of this shooting. That too, now with the information that you have reported on, raises some serious questions, doesn't it. It does, And my attorneys tell me that the such copyright claims that has been transferred to the parents of a number of the Covenant students, I think it's not just the parents of the students that were killed, but the surviving the parents of the surviving kids. My attorneys tell me that that copyright will be very, very almost impossible to enforce. But let me kind of fast forward a little bit to kind of where things stand today. So I appeared at the order court of Judge Lashia Miles in court yesterday, ostensibly for the purpose to respond to her June tenth ordered show up and explain to her why I shouldn't be thrown in jail on contempt of court charges for violating her court order. And of course my attorney steps up there at the very last finally gets a few minutes and says, well, your honor, my client is in court to answer that question for you. But at first we need to know which court order are you referring to, because we looked all over the court orders we can't find one. And she basically slapped him down and said no, interrupted him, no, no, you can't ask that question today. I told you the purpose of this was to find out if we should still go on with the release of the documents. Well that seems I mean, that's Alice in Wonderland stuff, right, I mean literally, she's depriving me of my due process rights right there, no doubt about it. But let me just add this one part. Mat So, on Thursday she put out another order when she denied our emergency motion to set aside her first motion, in which she said, I'm going to hear from everybody on Monday, and I'm going to try and determine if Layy did anything wrong, and if he did something wrong, I will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate him and to prosecute him for contempt of court. Now you're thinking, what, So on Monday she basically said, Okay, I've heard everything I need to know. I will then, you know, decide if I'm going to issue an order about what our next steps are going to be. Now, if you listen to what she said in court, it was clearly what she was trying to do is set up a record that she was, you know, not violating my rights. It's like when we meet in court next and the next step of this process. Right, I'm telling you, Matt, if I hadn't hired Dan Horwitz to represent me, and if we hadn't fould that emergency motion, she would have put me in jail on Monday. She wants to put me in jail because I'm a conservative writer and she's a far left you know, DEI judge basically just got elected. It is a personal and ideological animist with Bud. The judge bears towards me. If you watch that testimony, I think I sent you the hearing. Did I send you the YouTube of that hearing? You did? And that's what I wanted to note. I saw the hearing I saw how the judge behaved. I saw how she treated your attorney and one of your biggest defenders, Deborah Fisher, who is has been a you know, a well known journalist in Tennessee for a long time and represents an organization that is devoted to open government and you know, in public records laws defending them, and you know, she described this whole situation being in the courtroom as a judge who a was ignorant of the laws in place. But then she acknowledged, she said, it certainly looked like she had an agenda because first and foremost, there seems to be a lack of understanding from this judge, quite frankly, about a lot of different things, principally the constitution and due process. But it appeared to me watching this video in the exchange between the judge and your attorney, that she was looking for some way to make you pay for releasing this information. That's just the feeling that I had by watching this, and others have said the same thing. Yeah, I think that's correct. So where this stands right now. When we left, after she refused to answer any of my attorney's questions or provide any information, shut them down interrupted, I don't know four or five times in a very condescending way. I would add no, yes, no, yes. She said, I will take all of this under advisement, and I will issue an order about further proceedings on this matter. Well, so she's crafting an order right now. You know, from all of the signaling she gave, most of the people there have the impression that she was looking for a way out. I had a different impression because all of this, I could see she was targeting me to say, I'm protecting your rights, but I'm gonna come I'm gonna come after you, and I've done nothing wrong. She's not said what the crime is. She's not stated what the court order is that I violated. I have to wait and see. You know what she's going to claim I violated because I did not violate a single court order at all. It is it is absolutely clear. Now, so she could we'll find out in this order she could in fact appoint a special prosecutor under Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure forty two B, which authorizes a judge to do this if she determines that there has maybe been a contempted court situation. This is rarely used by judges. I talked to a couple judges. They couldn't even remember it ever being used. The only time we saw it being used in Tennessee that I'm aware of was back in the early nineteen nineties, and that was when an attorney in a case before a judge after he had an unfavorable outcome in the trial, after the trial was over, yelled and screamed and intimidated the jurors and the opposing attorney, and the judge was made aware of this and then appointed a special prosecutor. Yes, but the language at that time actually, which was only seen there not statutory. It was in the order of the judge appointed a special prosecutor for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting that attorney. The language used in the Thursday updated order from the judge was exactly the same as from that language. They call it a ami ki CURIEI an attorney friend of the court, but it's really a special prosecutor. But the language she used is this, she may this judge may appoint a special prosecutor for the purpose of quote, investigating and prosecuting me for contempt of court. Even though there is zero zip not an evidence that I've ever done that. But here's the rest. So that process is that guy, if she appoints such a special prosecutor, I'll spend several months, you know, fending off subpoenas, et cetera. And then that special prosecutor will present evidence in front of guess who, Judge, Leshia Miles. That's exactly right. So and then process, the process is the punishment. Well, but she could despite no evidence that I that I've violated the rules of court orders of the court, she could then sentence me uh to ten in jail and for contempty court, it's ten days in jail and a fifty dollars fine. And the way that works is you go in, you get booked, you get your mug shot, y'all automatically bail out. It's very low, and then you file the appeal process. It goes to the appeals court, Supreme Court. That's another year. But in the end, obviously it'll be a five zero unanimous decision in my favorite from the Supreme Court. This is a vindictive abuse of power of this judge against me personally, because I'm a conservative journalist who reported news she didn't want to have reported. Well, we've heard a lot about the legal term, you know, reversible, the term as it has applied. Certainly, we've heard that with Donald Trump in Manhattan kangaroo court. This from a First Amendment perspective, seems like a kangaroo court to me, certainly. You know, you take a look at the facts surrounding this case. If the argument is that you are in contempt of court because you violated her order on keeping these documents out of the public eye, A, you that that order does not relate to you. B And most most importantly, your news organization did not publish this information as is claimed in her order calling you into court. There are no links to these documents. Everything in the in your publication is a report on the documents, by the way, that the Metro Nashville Police Department has authenticated. So she doesn't even seem to have the evidence at all. And bear in mind, you have the right to report this information basically by however, whatever means you have them legally exactly right. Yeah, So you have ad that you will go to jail if you have to. Do you think you do? You think you will will go to jail ultimately in defense not only of your rights as a news outlet to do the work that unfortunately, let's be honest here, Michael Patrick Leahy, that too many news outlets in your city, in your state, and around this country have failed to do. Let's start there. But so you you did your duty as journalist. You release this very important information to a public that has, in the main, I believe, wanted this information. And secondly, you know you are you are battling for the First Amendment for the rights of other reporters and news outlets to do this. Do you think you'll ultimately have to go to jail for this fight? It depends on one thing. What is included in this judge's next court order on this matter. If she appoints a special prosecutor, it will be kangaroo court, you know, from beginning to end, and she will ultimately, because she hates my guts, because I'm a conservative, she will ultimately convict me and I will spend that hour in jail. But it'll be reversed. Now if, on the other hand, she kind of dodges it and doesn't, you know, set up a special prosecutor, I'll be fine. It's just amazing, and I mean it's absolutely amazing that we are here in this country experiencing this with reporters. But I think if you take a look at what is going on elsewhere in the country, you take a look at what is happening in terms of federal prosecutions against former presidents who happened to be the main opponent of the current administration, it's Banana Republic stuff. And it's not just happening at the former president Donald Trump. It's not just happening on a national level in Washington, d C. It's happening in our states as well through these kinds of courts, well in Blue City primarily, Matt. If I could add just one thing at the end, if anybody in your listening audience wants to help me pay our legal fees here to defend the First Amendment, go to Tennesseestar dot com slash donate Tennesseestar dot com slash donate. All right, very good. Yeah, this has been a fight that is so worth having on many fronts, and we appreciate your courage and your dedication to that fight. Like to thank my guest today Michael Patrick Lahey. He is the CEO, editor in chief and majority owner of the Star News Digital Media, which owns and operates a family of state focused conservative news sites, including the Tennessee Star. Well, you will find this series of very important stories on the trans killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale. Thanks again, Michael, Matt. It's a great honor to be interviewed by you and a lot of fun. Thank you. Absolutely, we'll continue to follow this story as well. You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the Fray