OUTLANDISH CONSPIRACY THEORIES: The October Surprise is not what Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr had in mind

Nuremberg printing of Luther’s 95 Theses

They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.

Martin Luther
#27 of 95 Theses nailed to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church,
October 31, 1517

Before I get too far ahead in my dramatic story-telling — what my grandmother would call blood and thunder — let’s stop for a minute and take some questions. A number of queries have rolled in from prior Outlandish Conspiracy Theories (OCT) columns, and answering them will, I believe, help your understanding of the assault on independent government responsive to the public that is going on in Georgia, if we take a minute to absorb some lessons before moving on to more disturbing intrigues.
Here is one I get a lot:

Q: Why is this CL series called Outlandish Conspiracy Theories? Isn’t that suggesting these tales of government corruption are not credible, not to be believed?

A: First, I agree, none of this long-running saga, a battle with state government that has gone on for 10 years now, is believable. None of it is credible. When I first defended UGA professor Dezso Benedek and caught the attorney general of Georgia red-handed attempting to hide evidence, I could not believe it either.

But, sure enough, one of the attorney general’s witnesses admitted the attorney general showed her an email clearing Benedek of the charges a week before the hearing, to discuss how to testify on that point — but the attorney general illegally withheld this exculpatory email from Benedek’s defense counsel. I really had an OMG moment right there in the UGA Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom (a place so dear to the heart of many of my legal colleagues and classmates).

And some law students who were there for their edification really got an education in subornation of perjury. Who ever thought it would come from the attorney general? Not me!
The problem is, it is all true — all the lies and corruption — as outrageous as that seems. A series of attorneys general has, for lack of a legal argument, attacked my credibility. But I always tell people: Don’t take my word for it. Look at the documents, mostly from the state’s own records. There is a lot of truth hiding in plain sight because the arrogant crooks who abuse the powers of their office really don’t expect anyone to ever look. It’s almost that simple — to the practiced eye (which means, of course, not really). The hidden scandals are not that brilliantly camouflaged, though, if I can find them out.

You have to understand I got my training trying to sort out the facts in places like Cuba and Iraq, where they were much more ingeniously disguised than anything the Georgia GOP good ole boys and girls ever devised. The key to it all — whether discerning truth through a Southern drawl or the mumbled Spanish of Holguín province — is like reading the Rosetta Stone.

If you know one thing that is true, if you know for sure what one thing means, all the rest of the lies and puffery fall clattering away, and the reality takes shape from there. I don’t mind giving away a secret or two, because few can replicate them, anyway. Brian Kemp, after all, is no Fidel Castro, which I am sure he would naively take as a compliment.

So the truth is there to be divined. Many people don’t want to believe it, anyway. A Fox I-team reporter, who has done some good and important work, said he would have to see some documentation before he gave any credence to my tales of corruption and conspiracy. So I sent him a couple hundred pages of annotated state records and never heard from him again.
But back to the question. You thought I forgot it. When it comes to exposing corruption, the normal is byzantine and circuitous.

Back before he was caught like a rat in a trap (friendly judges keep letting him out), former Attorney General Sam Olens used to try to mock the RICO actions I brought against corrupt state government officials. In addition to concocting the argument that they had sovereign immunity to commit felonies, Olens tried out some one-liners and sound bytes (he couldn’t cite any cases to support his arguments, after all).

One of my favorites was when Olens admitted his office never investigated any of the crimes I pointed out in state government. So I asked the governor to appoint an independent investigator (remember what I told you? Don’t take my word for any of this). Six years and two governors later, no resident of the mansion on West Paces Ferry has ever responded to 11 separate requests to appoint an independent investigator.

But in lieu of the governor, Sam Olens did respond to the first request to get to the truth. Olens called my request for an independent investigation one of “Humphreys’ attention-seeking gimmicks.” I’m sorry, I still can’t help laughing when I hear that!

One of the sound bytes the Olens brain trust conceived was to call my RICO complaints, against state government agencies and officials, “outlandish conspiracy theories.” Olens said it. His spokesperson repeated it. Assistant attorneys general even recited the phrase in radio interviews. They may have even tested it in a focus group, for all I know, but they reiterated it more than a Willie Horton ad, which doesn’t seem strictly kosher for an attorney general, even if it’s technically legal.

I say it’s not fair game because, remember, Olens admitted the attorney general’s office never investigated any of the allegations he was ridiculing.

And that’s an example of what I mean by putting two-and-two together. No one ever writes out a contract, “We hereby enter a conspiracy to commit a crime,” the way Trump tried to stonewall in the Russia and Ukraine investigations. Criminal or counterintelligence investigation — it’s all the same. Just look for what doesn’t add up.

But not to sound mysterious or sinister, Olens, to coin a cliché, was merely trying to suggest in his subtle way that I might wear a tin-foil hat to bed at night, or double as the Mad Hatter by day, or maybe I accused Ted Cruz’ father of assassinating JFK. That is what you do when you are the attorney general of Georgia, the top law enforcement official in the state, and you are defending the criminals.

Well, you know what they used to say back in 1517, as soon as the coin clinks in the money chest …

Nowadays, the OCT sound byte has the bite of irony, since Olens’ poor replacement, the literally lawless Chris Carr, cannot even answer the documented allegations of criminal fraud and obstruction in state government that I make on a regular basis. In fact, Carr has not been able to fashion a substantive answer to a RICO pleading for more than three years now. See, for example, The Phantom Case from Kennesaw State.

So now we use “Outlandish Conspiracy Theories” with an ironic, slightly sardonic twist — sort of like twisting the knife in Attorney General Chris Carr, who can no longer respond to our documented dead-to-rights allegations of fraud on the federal government and money laundering in the University System of Georgia (USG).

Former Attorney General Sam Olens also launched a few smear campaigns and intimidation tactics, but it took nice guy Chris Carr to really get down in the ditch to fight dirty. I say that not because he is some dreaded Leon Spinks disguised as a choir boy, but mainly because he really undermined the law to try to defend the status quo of the people who placed him in a position of authority. I don’t say a position of power, because he has none, really. And part of his problem is he doesn’t really even know what the law is. That’s not a qualification any more in Southern Trumplandia.

I will tell you more about the attorney general smear tactics, retaliation, and intimidation campaigns at a later date. Would you like to hear about it next week?

19th-century painting by Julius Hübner depicting Luther’s posting of the Theses before a crowd.

Q: I have seen you abbreviating Outlandish Conspiracy Theories as OCT, for short. Does that acronym have any hidden meaning?

A: O-C-T, of course, are the initials of Outlandish Conspiracy Theories, a mouthful that can also take up a lot of space when writing it out. So, yes, OCT for short.
But since you are looking for some hidden meaning or Freudian slip, let me try some numerology on you. OCT is also an abbreviation for October, and that reflects a very important data point in this epic struggle.

On October 31, 2009, I wrote the letter to the Board of Regents on behalf of my client, Professor Dezso Benedek, exposing corruption at UGA — not 95 theses, but 25 pages worth, which was plenty, but not nearly enough, because I did not know yet what I was missing. At any rate, that October 2009 missive is what incurred the wrath of then-UGA President Michael Adams, and caused him to scream in the halls of the Board of Regents offices — to ask if anyone could rid him of this meddling professor.

Next thing you knew, I was in the Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom, proving that the attorney general of Georgia was bringing knowingly false tenure revocation charges based on manufactured evidence. Needless to say, no one’s tenure got revoked that day. But Adams and the attorney general said sovereign immunity allowed them to tamper with evidence and witnesses, and commit a string of other felonies to retaliate against Benedek, so here we are, still, 10 years later, litigating that very pertinent question.

The attorney general, needless to say again, is on the side of the bad guys. Who can explain it? It probably has something to do with something about something clinking in the chest, or something like that. Though it’s funny how, around here, the head racketeers love to make a big deal out of being such devout Christians.

On October 31, 2014, I wrote my first letter asking Governor Deal to appoint an independent investigator. As I mentioned: never answered, seven letters total. Brian Kemp is lagging behind — Kemp has only ignored four letters requesting him to appoint an independent investigator.

Also on October 31, in 2016 this time, I filed the RICO action for extortion and bribery, Richards v. Olens, that later, with the passing of years, became the fabled Phantom Case at Kennesaw State.

If you notice an historical pattern in the dates, you must have realized by now that October 31 is not just Halloween. From a more religious perspective, it is the eve of All Saints Day, the last day of October, and that is the reason why it is the date on which Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door. Some days I think I know how he felt, to bang on the door and make someone in a funny hat very unhappy. And there are days I could use a little indulgence, and would love to be released from purgatory myself.

Luther said his dramatic action was an invitation to debate. Just like I invite Chris Carr or any Georgia Supreme Court Justice to cite one statute, case precedent, or constitutional provision that supports immunity for state officials who commit a cold-blooded crime (not a tort of negligence), contrary to all the legal authority they judiciously ignore that states otherwise.

I’ll admit Martin Luther is one of my heroes, though I also have to admit he kind of lost his shit later in life. In his defense, that was only after the Reformation set people on one another with pruning hooks and scythes all over Europe. For my part, I’ll try to remain a lifelong responsible citizen.

And people often ask me, in that vein: Don’t you fear you are going to let loose a whirlwind? Some people think I am attacking UGA, of which I am a proud graduate, or that I am going to ruin its national reputation (to my own detriment).

Funny how they blame me for giving the school a black eye. They don’t blame Mike Adams, who ran the University like a racketeering enterprise. In fact, that is where I got the idea to bring the first civil RICO actions ever leveled against state government entities. So that’s historical.

My thought is that the best thing for Georgia’s reputation is to clean the place up. Don’t claim there is nothing not to be proud of — when we all know that is a lie just swept under the rug to fester with the dust mites.

Well, I promised to answer several questions, but I see with my loquaciousness and observational asides, we are already out of time, so I am going to have to stop at two questions today. See you next week with another installment of OCT. We’ll have another Q&A again sometime soon. In the meantime, feel free to send in your interrogatories. Unlike the state government officials who are defendants in my RICO cases, I will actually try to answer them. I’m not immune. —CL—