This, in and of itself, is not very interesting. If you listen to talk-radio, you realize: Anyone can have a radio show.
But on her program this weekend, Assemblywoman Fiore was joined by three other members of the Ass. GOP Caucus -- so almost one-sixth of that group -- and they engaged in the kind of dialogue that is less coherent than the Dennis Hopper clip from "Apocalypse Now" that I have attached at the end of the transcript below.
As the four prattled on, along with consultant Tony Dane, recently interviewed at his home in Virginia by Metro detectives who also confiscated material and his cell phone, you are at once amused, frightened and appalled that these are elected officials. You know, people entrusted with making laws. And in the majority.
We learned, thanks to their own admissions, assuming (cough) they are telling the truth:
►We knew Brent Jones had talked to Metro detectives. On the program, Fiore and John Moore also acknowledged talking to the police. Moore also said he "lawyered up" and is afraid to talk in the Legislative Building for fear of people wearing wires. I kid you not.
►They accused fellow caucus member Chris Edwards of selling his vote because he was so "desperate" to retire his nearly $60,000 campaign debt.
►Dane asserted that Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson once offered to get him $100,000 worth of business if he wouldn't work for Brent Jones, who was running in 2012 against his favored state Senate candidiate, Mari St. Martin. (Roberson scoffed when I asked him.)
►Dane claimed that a conspiracy from "the governor on down" exists to buy off votes for taxes with campaign contributions and to stifle people like him who fight against the Establishment. Not only did anyone question this, but some seemed to agree. Here's what he said:
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, the sheriff, the DA's office, and the AG's office has never uncovered real political corruption in the State of Nevada. And, so they cover up for those who steal that are in power. And then they go after guys like me who step in their way.
Why, yes, the power brokers in this state believe Tony Dane stands in their way. I can’t tell you how many times through the years I have heard this.
►Fiore repeated several times that by inducing Edwards to wear a wire, Metro had practiced "entrapment," which caucus colleague David Gardner, a civil lawyer, confirmed he believed was a correct legal theory. Fiore twice referred to Gardner as akin to Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor and incipient presidential candidate. I have heard that a lot, too.
►They do not like or trust the media, especially yours truly. (This wounds me. Deeply.)
I know the transcript is long, but I urge you to go down the rabbit hole because like a good Carroll novel or LSD trip, it's worth the journey. And I dare anyone who makes it through to compare it to the classic Hopper monologue I posted below and tell me which is more insane. (I have bolded the highlights and annotated in italics if you are impatient.)
And a bonus, too, attached here: Fiore, at a Citizen Outhouse meeting last year, joking (I think) about non-tax-pledgers Derek Armstrong and Paul Anderson that they be thrown down mine shafts. Oh that caucus!)
Apocalypse now? Maybe not. The horror, the horror? Oh, yes.
-------------------
Michele Fiore: Good morning. Thank you guys for being here. We are live here at the KDWN Studios on South Durango. And I'm really, really excited, because I have in studio with me Assemblyman John Moore and Assemblyman Brent Jones. And we also have Tony Dane, who's going to be talking with us here in the next couple of minutes. So after my email blast yesterday on Get Naked, Get Frisked or Get Out, because there are no wiretaps allowed when you're speaking to me. It's very important that when you talk to people, you're talking to people as if they're not spying on you. And there's nothing wrong with transparency. So I want to just make it crystal clear: there is nothing wrong with transparency. However, when you are meeting with someone and the other person doesn't say, "Hey, I'm wire tapping you and recording you," that is not okay. It's illegal to do it on the phones. I think we should apply that to body wires, as well as its entrapment. And let me tell you, with politicians, just to let you know in case you didn't, we talk a lot of smack. Okay? So, at what point do we say what's okay to record and what's not okay to record? You could record all day long what we're talking about, laws and bills and how it affects Nevada. But sometimes our personal lives are our personal lives. And you can definitely confuse extortion and entrapment. I have sitting here with me Assemblyman John Moore and we're going to talk about some of the conversations that he had that maybe he was being recorded. It was on the phone, so it could have been illegal, could have that conversation been extortion. We're going to hear from John Moore in a minute. But, first, we're going to start this show out with Tony Dane. And, Tony, welcome to the show. Are you there?
Tony Dane: Yeah, I'm here. Thank you, Michele.
Michele: Thank you so much. So, Tony, I have to tell you, the more and more I have heard about what was going on with you. You got raided and the thing that was questionable in my mind is Chris actually called you and asked you to come and meet with him. So it's hard for me to put the same word "extortion" in the sentence as entrapment. However, I'm not a detective nor a lawyer or a judge, but let the people hear the true story, Tony, and let them come to their own conclusion. Let's start off.
Tony: Okay. Well, I was talking to Chris over the phone and he wanted to meet me face to face.
Michele: And wait. So, Tony, let's just be crystal clear. We are talking about Assemblyman Chris Edwards, who was elected running under conservative principles, promising the voters he's not going to raise your taxes and he's going to definitely vote for the voters. This is who we're talking about. So, Assemblyman Chris Edwards called you.
Brent Jones: Michele, I want to chime in too.
Michele: This is Assemblyman Brent Jones.
Brent Jones: This is Brent Jones and I want to say that I've known Tony for a number of years and Tony is in the political arena. He does mailing. He does robo calling. He does surveys. So he's an active political operative, if you want to use that term, who's been very successful and worked on many big campaigns. Can you name a couple of the big campaigns you've worked on, Tony?
Tony: I worked with Tom McClintock. I've worked with Ron Paul's national campaign. I've worked in the State of Nevada. I've worked with actually Chris Edwards when he ran for Congress. I worked with Michael Roberson on his first run, but because of his vote for taxes, him and I had kind of a falling out. And part of the falling out was that I agreed to work with you, because Roberson promised me $100,000 in account if I dump you as a client. (I’m sure he can prove this.)
Brent: Yeah. And just to be clear, you worked on two of my campaigns and I think you're very good. And you also worked on Sharron Angle's campaign as well. (Well!) So you've worked on a number of big campaigns.
Michele: Okay. So I just want to clarify something. Tony Dane, you basically just said Senator Michael Roberson, who is the Majority Leader in Carson City, was bribing you with $100,000. Is that what I'm hearing?
Tony: I didn't consider it a bribe. He told me that if I was on his team, he'd bring me in $100,000 worth of business. But I'd have to dump Brent as a client.
Michele: Right. Okay, so it's politics as usual basically.
Michele: Okay. Perfect. Okay, I just want to clarify. Let me tell you, everyone is listening let me tell you. You've got a big audience right now.(Huge!)
Tony: Okay.
Michele: Okay. So let's move forward. So Assemblyman Chris Edwards tries to entrap you. (Oh? He did? You know this how?) That's where I'm going with this. Go ahead.
Tony: Okay. So we met at a Starbucks on Charleston and Rainbow.
Michele: But who called and asked for the meeting?
Tony: Chris called me.
Michele: Chris called you. Okay.
Tony: He said that he wanted to meet face to face. I told him that we could talk over the phone, but he wanted to talk to me face to face.
Michele: Right, because he wanted to record you with a wiretap.
Tony: Which I was not aware of.
Michele: Right. That's entrapment. (Michele Fiore, Juris Doctor)
Tony: [Inaudible].
Michele: Yeah. That's entrapment. Okay. Go ahead.
Tony: Okay. And the first thing I told him is that I heard rumors that he tried to solicit a bribe from someone. I never mentioned the name of the someone that he tried to solicit a bribe from. And I said that, because I knew him, because I worked with his congressional campaign. I said it could easily be a misunderstanding that you're going for fundraising purposes and he construed it as a bribe. I didn't believe that at the time that Chris would be doing that. And all of this is recorded by the police. So everything I'm saying can be backed up by the Metropolitan Police Department.
Michele: Okay. Great. So then what happened in the meeting?
Tony: He asked me if I could raise funds for him. I said, "Well, after the blackout period and if it's legal and your vote is good, you could hire me as a fundraiser." And he said he wasn't interested in hiring me as a fundraiser. He just wanted me to get him money.
Michele: Okay. And let me tell you, this is Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, the host of Walk the Talk with Michele Fiore, and I'm going to just confirm that. Because I've met with Assemblyman Chris Edwards myself at BJ's in my district. He expressed that he was $58,000 grand in the hole. (Yes, campaign debt.) He had a lot of discourse and not nice things to say about the lobbyists that weren't returning his calls or helping him. And Assemblyman Chris Edwards literally said to me, "Michele, why not just vote for Paul, you know, for leadership. Because if you do, then he will give you a check. He'll help you raise the money." And I explained to Chris within our caucus that this is the problem with our caucus. We have a caucus of 25. We don't need one or two members of the caucus dictating all of the funds that were raised and where they go. Because, as Chris felt the heat of that, they primaried him in his own race. So, the biggest reason why we wanted new leadership is to be transparent with the caucus members, have caucus votes on how we support the members, how we support new candidates, and who we hire. That still has not come—
Brent: And Michele, I want to chime in that, because—
Michele: I never considered that a bribe or extortion. It's just politics as usual.
Brent: And I want to point out that when we first elected Ira (Hansen) as our Caucus Leader or our Majority Leader, Speaker [inaudible]. We all agreed we'd have an audit of the PACs for this very reason, because there was over $750,000, of which Paul Anderson put $100 or something thousand into PAC that he controlled. So…
Michele: Wait, wait. You know what? Now that we're on the air, let's get this cleared so everyone can hear it and it's not just in our….You are talking about the $160,000 check from Sheldon Adelson, Brent. And let me tell you about that $160,000 check from Sheldon Adelson that Paul Anderson put in the Opportunity Growth PAC. I met one on one with Mr. Adelson and I'm making this public so everyone gets the story correct and Ralston or Abboud cannot switch it around as they did on their little Twitter feed.(She is referring to lil ole me and Andy Abboud, Adelson’s right-hand man. She once showed up unannounced to Adselson’s office, and he, like so many, thought she was bizarre.) The story, my word to you is this. I met with Sheldon Adelson. Sheldon Adelson donated the $160,000 to get the majority. To get us over in a campaign. Sheldon Adelson did not give Paul Anderson $160,000 to sit in an Opportunity Growth PAC for his 20 seats in 2021. There's no way a brilliant, incredible man like Sheldon Adelson is going to give someone $160,000 to sit in an account for six years to do with what they wish. So, just to be crystal clear, I spoke to Sheldon Adelson. I do not represent Sheldon Adelson. So let's be clear. I do not represent Sheldon Adelson in Carson City. What Sheldon gave me permission to say to our caucus members is the money of $160,000 that he contributed to the Republican Assembly Caucus was to be used to get us over the top and win those seats. The money that he gave to the Republican Assembly Caucus was not to sit in the Growth Opportunity Fund PAC. It was literally to get us elected. So…
Brent: Well, that's important too, because it's used later on, as we'll discover.
Michele: Yeah.
Brent: But we asked for that audit as a group, a caucus group.
Michele: That's correct.
Brent: We wanted transparency within our caucus.
Michele: That's correct.
Brent: And that audit got canceled by John Hambrick—
Michele: Yes, it did. But let me tell you how. Yeah.
Brent: —And we, as other caucus members will not get any response—
Michele: Right. We won't. Brent, and let me tell you, Assemblyman Brent Jones, let me tell you exactly what happened. The night of Brian Krolicki’s (farewell) roast. It was a Wednesday night. I believe it was Wednesday the 17th, whatever that Wednesday was, I saw Steve Martin, who was a former Controller and I said, "Steve, what's going on with the audit? Because Speaker John Hambrick had promised us that he was hiring Steve Martin to do the audit of all five PACs." Steve Martin said to me that night, "John Hambrick canceled it." Okay. Well, the next morning, that's when John Hambrick, the speaker, removed me from Majority Leader and took me off of taxation, okay? So…
Brent: Let's get back to Tony.
Michele: Yeah, let's get back to Tony. Tony, so I want to go with Assemblyman Chris Edwards basically calling you in for a meeting and trying to entrap you with the wires. Go ahead.
Tony: Okay. Now, before I get with that, as both of you know, if an elected official does something that I think is wrong, I confront that elected official on that. Michele, you and I a couple years ago had a conversation. You didn't ever wiretap me and my house did get raided, because of it. But we've had conversations where we're in disagreement.
Michele: Me and you?
Tony: Yeah.
Michele: Oh, I disagree with so many.
Tony: It was a couple years ago from one of your votes.
Michele: I don't remember it.
Tony: Okay.
Michele: Yeah.
Tony: I don't know if you remember it, but it was a conversation that we had.
Michele: Okay.
Tony: No anger, no nothing, no wiretaps, no raid came from our conversation.
Michele: Right.
Tony: But I wasn't happy with one of your votes, you know? And, so this is not something abnormal that I do.
Michele: Right.
Tony: You know, so [inaudible].
Brent: So you're in the blackout period, there's no way you're going to agree to give him any money, because you're smart enough. You've been in this business for over 20 years.
Michele: This is Brent Jones talking.
Tony: Right.
Brent: You're in the blackout period. He calls you out here to talk to him. He's upset, because there's a recall effort being started. Chuck Muth is dogging him in the press. You have mailers and robocalls going out to him and the Tea Party people are organizing PACs for a recall.
Tony: Right.
Michele: Okay. So how did this go down?
Tony: And I tell him if he votes the way the people elected him to vote, not the way Tony Dane wants him to vote. But the way the people want him to vote that they elected him under, and then there won't be no recall. The whole problem is that he's siding to the other side and people are getting upset about it. And the recall can stop if he votes the way that the people elected him to vote.
Brent: And just to clar—
Michele: That makes sense to me. And what's wrong with that?
Brent: And just to clarify—
Michele: Is that against the law? I don't think so.
Brent: I want to clarify something too. And we, when I say "we," there's a conservative number of us [inaudible] what not, Michele, which you're kind of the leader of, right? You put the votes to get John Hambrick in. Chris went against that. But if Chris would come to the side of the conservatives that don't want taxes, want less government, want accountability, then we would have control of our caucus. Even though we put John Hambrick in, he went with Paul Anderson and that group.
Michele: Right. I have to just be crystal clear, because I want Tony to continue. It's not so much controlling the caucus. It's not so much of having control of the caucus, as it is being a caucus, being fair to our caucus. There are 25 members. There are five PACs out there. We need financial disclosures, where the money is, who we're hiring, and what we're doing. Right now, we've got a one-man show. It's basically Speaker Paul Anderson with John Hambrick kind of acting as the face of it. (Really? I have no idea why these leaders wouldn’t trust you.) So Tony, please continue.
Tony: Well, Chris agreed to support somebody other than Hambrick for Speaker. And, so I asked him if he would sign a proxy to that effect. He agreed to do so, and then reneged.
Brent: Okay, and just to clarify too.
Tony: When he reneged, I sent him a text. And in that text, it says, you lied to me. I've got egg on my face and I don't want to talk to you no more.
Brent: And just to clarify, we had been operating our caucus through proxies. We had done it two times before and that's how we were electing our members and stuff is through proxies, because we're spread out all over the state. And it's hard to have these meetings. And Hambrick wouldn't have a meeting. He would not call me.
Michele: No, listen. No, Hambrick would not call a meeting. As a matter of fact, our caucus meetings, I'm going to highly suggest we start it from 4:30 [inaudible].
Brent: And then, also, Tony, so you. I want to just make this clear too. You were in communication with me, because you asked me to get that proxy signed for you.
Tony: Correct.
Brent: Okay. Go ahead.
Tony: So when the proxy wasn't signed, then a little while later, I get a text message from Chris that he wants to talk to me. I told him that I wasn't interested in talking to him. That he lied to me and if he wants to talk about anything, he could talk about why he lied. And, so, then that was the last text that was sent until I get a call from Brent that Chris went to him trying to reopen communication with me.
Michele: Okay. So let me just clarify. So Assemblyman Chris Edwards first calls you, has a meeting with you, is wired. You just basically say, "Go away." But, no. He's in hot pursuit. He's in hot pursuit. This entrapment thing, he's trying to entrap you. He then calls you back and says, "Listen, Brent's trying to open communication. I want to open communication." And he meets with you again and he's wired again?
Tony: Well, no. He doesn't meet with me. This one happens over the phone. But, before that he sends me this big, long text about how he's willing to do anything that I want as long as I'm willing to do certain things for him.
Michele: You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of, you know how we have vice here and they entrap our tourists and they throw them in jail?(Why, yes! It’s just like that.)
Tony: Yeah.
Michele: This kind of reminds me of that. Go ahead.
Tony: Well, what I did is I talked to (GOP activist) Jerry Littman and told him about it and I said, "I don't have enough information to prove that Chris is trying to solicit a bribe from me. But if Rob Lauer files with the DA's office, I could back up whatever he says with my text. And, so, at this point, I don't have enough to go on.
Michele: So do you have your text or did the cops take your stuff? Talk about what happened. What happened in your home? (This is a reference to last week’s raid by Metro on Dane’s Virginia home in which they confiscated his phone and a lot of material and interviewed him.)
Tony: They came and they took my cell phone. Matter of fact, they asked me if I gave the copy of text to anybody. And I told them no. I was about to. But I didn't make a copy for myself. I actually called up my cell company to find out if there's a way I could download the text and they said you could only take pictures of it. And, so I didn't do that yet. But after I had the final conversation with him, Chris said, "I will do whatever you tell me to do and you will control my votes." I told him I'm not interested in controlling your vote. I'm interested in you voting the way that you promised the people. I said if you need my advice on a certain piece of legislation, I'll be happy to tell you what my opinion is. He said, "Well, do I have to vote 100% your way to get fundraising?" I said, "Nobody votes 100% my way."
Michele: Right.
Tony: But I was really clear that I do not want to control his vote. And in that conversation, I told him I wasn't interested in even doing fundraising for him.
Michele: So what do you think, Tony? How do you feel this one out? So Metro police officers here from Las Vegas flew to your city; correct?
Tony: Yes, they flew to—
Michele: And where do you live?
Tony: —To Front Royal, Virginia.
Michele: Okay. Virginia, so how many? Two or three Metro police officers.
Tony: Two of them.
Michele: Two Metro police officers flew on taxpayers' dollars(Taxpayer dollars! The outrage!) to Virginia to talk with you about – did they use the word entrapment or extortion? Because obviously someone was wiring this Assemblyman Chris Edwards.
Tony: Well, according to the warrant, it says that the search warrant was issued on the count of bribery, which I'd never—
Michele: Oh, bribery.
Tony: —Told to give him any funds whatsoever. Extortion of money, I've never asked Chris for any money.
Michele: Right.
Tony: Property of pecuniary benefit, which I talked to an attorney and he says that's financial benefit.
Michele: Yeah.
Tony: There was no way that I was going to benefit financially from any of this. But that was the purpose of the warrant was those causes.
Brent: Okay. So just to be clear, this is Brent again. You didn't offer him any specific money. You never transferred any money to him. All you were doing was doing robocalls and you did a mailer to tell him basically to vote the right way, which that mailer was very clever, so…
Tony: Thank you.
Brent: And he was trying to call the dogs off, because he was worried about this recall effort. So there's no money transfer and it's in the blackout period as well. So there's no money that can really be transferred. You're smart enough to know that.
Tony: [Inaudible].
Brent: No money has been transferred, so they raid you. And tell them some of the stuff that the cops told you, Tony, blatantly.
Tony: One of the things that they told me is that I made a deal with you, Brent, to launder money through my wife's account. That you were funding this and I said, "I haven't received any money from you whatsoever." (So this is one of the avenues Metro is pursuing? Interesting. Thanks for telling everyone, Tony.) And—
Brent: So we can both go on record. You have not received any money whatsoever from me, well, let's say in the last four months, because I did pay you in my campaign.
Tony: Yeah. When it comes to recall, not a dime.
Brent: Not a dime. And I will go on record saying I have not given you a dime or one cent as well.
Michele: Perfect. Okay. Yeah.
Brent: So both of us are saying, neither of us have given [inaudible].
Michele: On the record. Yeah.
Brent: Through your wife, through Tony Dane & Associates, through your PAC, anyway.
Michele: Through your cousin who got kidnapped by an alien. Yeah, through all that.
Brent: Anyway, [inaudible].
Michele: [Inaudible]. Yeah, so, okay. Tony, so where do you think you sit today? So what's the message here? I mean, I've got to tell you, taxpayers' dollars here are at work. And how do you trust someone that you talk to that's calling you trying to make a deal with you, but actually trying to entrap you? That's kind of how I see this whole thing. (She is one smart lawyer.)
Tony: And the part that was disturbing is I never realized that Chris Edwards was a snake in the grass.
Michele: Well, welcome to politics.
Tony: When I went to that first meeting, I went there as a friend.
Michele: Yeah. Yeah. There's been a lack of integrity with a few individuals and they will be called out. This is Walk the Talk with Michele Fiore. So they have to walk the talk.
Brent: Okay. Also, Tony, I want to also put out we've been in communication, because we're friends, we work together and you were keeping me up to date on what was going on. And you mentioned to me that you actually, because you felt that something was really fishy starting to happen that you felt you were trying to be set up and entrapped that you called the FBI and filed a complaint even before the cops showed up; correct? (Well, I’m sure the FBI was receptive.)
Tony: Yes. Yeah. After the last conversation that I had with Chris, I talked to Jerry Littman and told him, I said, "I'm skeptical about what Rob Lauer has, because he hasn't filed anything yet. (Lauer’s house was searched by Metro. Metro taped him talking to Edwards about the speaker's vote. We know he talked to Citizen Outhouse’s Chuck Muth because Muth wrote about it. All these folks need to do is keep talking and Metro won’t even need what they already have on tape.) And, so I plan on filing a report with the FBI. But what I'd like to do is, because the Governor gave him donations—
Brent: Gave who donations? The Governor gave who donations?
Tony: Chris Edwards donations.
Brent: Yes.
Tony: It's my belief that Governor Sandoval bought his vote and, matter of fact, I actually said that to Chris in a text message. (Yes, the governor gave Edwards money after the election. Five grand.)
Brent: Well, why not go to Metro like Chris did? Why did you go to the FBI, Tony?
Tony: First of all, and I told this to the Metro police that was over at my house. Every major sting operation that happened with corruption, like Operation G-Sting, happened through the FBI. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, the sheriff, the DA's office, and the AG's office has never uncovered real political corruption in the State of Nevada. And, so they cover up for those who steal that are in power. And then they go after guys like me who step in their way.
Brent: So kind of like the whistle blowers tried to get stomped out and you feel that the other ones get a pass or actually do you believe that this is being directed from above or what are you saying, Tony?
Tony: I personally believe this all comes from the Governor on down. (Oh, do go on.)
Michele: I think that we're going to unravel a lot of issues here. I personally, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, spoke with one of the Metro detectives and I think I'm going to give them a holler again Monday morning to see where we're at with this. (Oh? Interesting. Please, keep talking.) Because this, to me, sounds like entrapment and I'm not really fond of a freshman assemblyman coming in and we want transparency. We want people to understand what's happening, but at what point do we say, "If you're calling me and you're trying to enter—"
Brent: Solicit.
Michele: —"Solicit my vote," it's really, because I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to solicit as many votes as I can in our caucus to stop taxes. I'm going to solicit as many votes in our caucus to make sure our leadership does what the voters want. We can work together. There are 25 members. Sure, some of us are a little bit moderate and some of us are more conservative. But the bottom line is we're small, but we're mighty and we can definitely work together and stop things. Yeah.
Tony: Michele, the problem is if the Governor can strong arm people into voting for his tax, why can't I, as a citizen say, "Hey look, I don't want this and I'm going to try to strong arm taxes like" – what I could legally do is recall somebody if I don't like what they're doing.
Michele: Right. So—
Tony: But why can't I use that strong-arm tactic to say if you don't do what the people voted you to do, I'm going to help with the recall effort.
Michele: No, you can and that's totally legal. And that's why we have elections and this next election cycle is going to be real tough for a lot of people. Because I'll tell you, everyone is listening to this. Everyone is recording this and these little sound bites will be used against each and every one of us in the next campaign. Trust me. So knowing that, yeah.
Brent: Some of the points I want to clarify. So Chris is approached—
Michele: This is Brent Jones again. Yeah. Yeah, we're going into our one-minute mark.
Brent: —Michele said that Chris approached her and said he needed help raising money.
Michele: Yeah.
Brent: Needed to go to the other side for money even though he was primaried by the other side, you got raided, your business stuff's taken away, which is harming your business and all you are is a political activist.
Michele: Okay. Yeah. And didn't Rob Lauer's house get raided?
Brent: As well.
Michele: All because this little freshman (Little freshman? How cute.) keeps missing his meetings and caucuses and everything, because he's doing interviews with the media—
Brent: Yes.
Michele: —Because he needs some attention. Okay.
Brent: And I do want to say something on that.
Michele: Yeah. Okay. So perfect. So, Tony, I have to tell you I'm excited and we will be back here right after the commercial break.
Tony: Okay.
[Commercial Break]
First Speaker: This is Walk the Talk with Michele Fiore, a conversation about what's really going on in the State of Nevada. Now, here's your host, Michele Fiore.
Michele: Hi, we are back. I know that commercial break just killed you. It just killed us too. And guess what? So, we're going to hear from Assemblyman Brent Jones, Assemblyman John Moore, and we've got our rock star, total Scott Walker material, Assemblyman David Gardner (Scott Walker meterial!) with us as well. So Brent, let's start off with you first.
Brent: Yeah. I just want to point out a lot of people are getting frustrated and they're calling us the Assembly caucus and all this stuff going on. But, I want to point out that for the last few weeks, we've been totally mum on this, meaning the conservatives. And Chris has been hanging out with Jon Ralston in the hallways, giving him sound bites. (He has?) He's been going interview after interview after interview proclaiming he's a victim. And that's why we're coming on here, because we've got to stop Chris Edwards for putting out this propaganda and this bull. And we believe that the truth needs to come out. So we prefer not to be doing this. We prefer to be doing the—
Michele: Right.
Brent: —Business of the legislature, but this is a distraction that Chris Edwards just keeps promoting, promoting, promoting and we've got to—
Michele: Yeah. Here's the sentence, Brent. The bottom line is Chris claims to be a victim when he's the one wearing a wire and all of us know his vote was for sale. (Oh? Hope you can prove that. Otherwise it’s slander.) Assemblyman John Moore, I have to, just to use some examples of some of the phone calls you've received. Let's elaborate on them. Would some of those phone calls be bribery or how would we even define that?
John Moore: Well, I mean the term extortion seems to be coming around. I guess I could possibly call Metro myself and say, well, I've been approached saying that during the first election that we had for Speaker when it was Ira Hansen and Pat Hickey when we ousted Pat from leadership. I received a phone call and things like that. Or, a phone call actually the only thing. From a pretty prominent Clark County political figure saying that I should vote for Pat Hickey. He's in tight with the Governor and if I want to get reelected or want my bills to get through, then I would vote for Pat Hickey. That would be his advice to me.
Michele: So, basically, the Chair of our Republican Party, David McKeon, had a conversation with you. And would you say that would be extortion or bribery? (Here we go on McKeon, who is not liked by the Lillimuthians because he aligned himself with, shockingly, the Establishment.) I mean—
John: That's what I'm saying. What is it? Is it extortion, bribery, but you—
Michele: And then what happened with the Paul Anderson conversation?
John: So then, after we didn't vote for Pat Hickey and Ira was elected, and then Ira resigned and just prior to the next vote coming up where Paul Anderson was running for Speaker and several others, Wes Duncan and a couple other folks, I got another phone call. And, now, keep in mind, I never contacted this person generally. I mean, I may have made a couple calls to him just in general about, "Hey, what do you think about this or that?" You know, just things like that. Because when I met the guy, I met him through Chris—
Michele: Who are we talking about?
John: Dave McKeon
Michele: Okay. Our Chair of the Republican Clark County.
John: Correct. Now, I met him through Chris Edwards. And I have no angst against Dave. I like Dave. Dave's been very fair to me as far as… he's been a nice guy to me.
Michele: Right.
John: You know?
Michele: But politics as usual—
John: Right. Politics is politics.
Michele: —So what I'm hearing is basically Dave saying, "Hey, vote," what exactly did you say?
John: Right. So on the second call that Dave called me, he was a little more forceful in that if you want to get reelected, you'll vote for Paul Anderson. (Damn. That sounds awful.)
Brent: Okay.
Michele: Yeah. Brent, what would you say? You know what? David Gardner, Assemblyman David Gardner. Let's ask David Gardner. David, are you there? Can you hear me?
David Gardner: Yeah. I can hear you, Michele.
Michele: Now, this is my Scott Walker rock star, Assemblyman David Gardner. I'm sorry. I said it first. Just saying. David, what are you thinking about this?
David: Well, thank you very much [inaudible] letting me be on your show. It would be most likely bribery. Extortion is when you're saying, "Do this or else I'm going to say something bad about you that's a lie." Is pretty much how the statute reads. Bribery is, "Do this and I will give you this reward" or "Do this and you'll get some kind of benefit out of it."
Michele: So that kind of happens on a daily basis. So in this whole picture, Assemblyman David Gardner, what are you thinking just as an outsider, because, of course, we don't have the notes and the facts and the details. And there are always so many sides to a story. How would you analyze the Tony Dane?
David: Well, from what I've heard, just so you know, I'm a civil attorney. I don't really do a lot of criminal,(Well, we should definitely listen to you then.) but I did some research at your request. In my opinion, it would definitely be entrapment. (Well, case closed.) Entrapment is not a crime in Nevada. It's a defense to a crime. So, basically, let me pull up the actual statute here. It basically says to commit entrapment, the state has to present the opportunity to commit a crime and the defendant was not otherwise predisposed to commit the crime. So they have to like kind of actively seek to get people to commit a crime. In this case, you'd be saying, according to Dane's statement, "Chris Edwards was calling him. Chris Edwards was trying to get him to say something." That would, in my opinion, be entrapment and it'd be complete defense to this possible criminal action. And I don't know why people are saying extortion. It's most likely bribery… is what the crime should be called if there is any according to Chris Edwards.
Michele: Assemblyman Brent Jones.
Brent: Yeah. And I'd like to talk about this a little bit more too after John does his testimony, because when Chris came to my office for that proxy, he was definitely trying to trap me constantly. And I didn't know it at the time. I thought it was weird, but he was wearing a wire against me too, a fellow assemblyman. But we'll talk about that after John's.
Michele: Yeah. Okay. So I agree with Assemblyman David Gardner. I mean, the law is the law. He just read the statute [inaudible].
John: And there again, Dave and I were friends prior, during the election. He helped me get elected, as did Chris, you know, (Ah gratitude.)like I've…
Michele: Yeah.
John: And I've had two separate conversations with Metro over this whole deal. (Oh?) I didn't want to get dragged into this.
Michele: Right.
John: I'm a freshman. I'm just trying to do the work of the people that elected me. That's all I'm trying to do here.
Michele: And you're doing a good job.
John: Well, thank you.
John: And there have been people that I've aligned myself with closely, as opposed to other folks in our caucus. Just because it's simply because politically, I believe more with one group than the other. It doesn't mean I don't like someone. It just means that politically, I believe in—
Brent: Can I say, John, that [inaudible] you don't want to raise taxes? That you're against taxation?
John: Oh, absolutely.
Brent: Okay. [Inaudible].
John: I will not make a vote for a tax increase of any type. (Smart position.)
Michele: You know what? Also, we have Assemblyman John Moore with us. When you spoke with Chris actually towards Thanksgiving, around that time….But, what did Chris say to you about his vote?
John: So, all along, up to that point, Chris and I had been friends and he helped me get elected and that sort of thing. As far as he helped work for me, because I had no one. I got no support from the party. I got no support from anyone. It was just me. And then when my numbers were good during early voting, Chris reached out and that sort of thing. So that's how my relationship with him started. And I thought, "Hey, this guy's friends. We're going to be friends. This is good experience. This is going to be good experience throughout this session." So then Chris and I all the time, after I got elected, we started raising money and Michele, you helped me raise money tremendously as a result. Thank you very much.
Michele: Yep.
John: And I would make comments to Chris. We'd be in his car or we'd be somewhere and I'd say, "Oh, I got a check from so and so for this amount." "Oh, I didn't get that. How'd you get that?" Or, "Michele just dropped off a check to me for this amount from these people." "Oh, well I didn't get that." He all the time was scrapping around for money. He seemed to never have any money. Now, Chris' campaign did lend my campaign money, as I stated to the Metro police and my C&E's all report that. So, anyway, Chris was always scrapping around for money, needing money. He seemed always desperate, where I was getting money and evidently he wasn't. I just left that alone. That's his business, not mine. And, so somewhere during the course of our conversations, I can't remember one day to the next. That's why my attaché gives me a card every morning telling me who I'm meeting with and what time, because I can't remember. So somewhere during our conversations, when we were electing, I believe it was the time we were going to elect, at that time, we wanted John Ellison for Speaker. (How’d that work out?)
Michele: Right.
John: I believe it was somewhere around that time. I'm kind of fuzzy there. But I mentioned to Chris and I said, "Hey Chris, come on man. What's it going to take to get you back on the winning team? Come on back over to our side?" Something to that effect. And he just kind of looks up at me with the Bobby Kennedy haircut that he has(!) and told me with a kind of a smirk, "Well, if you got a check for $10,000, I might be persuaded, he, he, he" kind of thing like that. (So Edwards solicited a bribe? Pretty serious. Hope he can prove that.)
Michele: And I can so see that. I'm sorry, John. I'm sorry to laugh, but I so see Chris doing that.
John: And I just kind of blew it off at that point. It seemed serious at the time, but at the same time, it could have been, who knows. But the bare fact that the statement was made to me. And I just blew it off you know. Because there's, as you said earlier, we talk smack all the time.
Michele: Yeah, we talk smack. And let me tell you something, this whole show is revolving around a fellow peer, a fellow assemblyman accusing another of extortion and that is not okay. (But it is OK for this gang to accuse others of just about anything? Got it.) So he wanted attention, boy he's got it. He's got my attention.
John: Right.
Brent: And, by the way, I want to point out too that it was generally known that Chris was doing this type of thing. Because that's why Chuck Muth started calling him Chris "Let's make a deal" Edwards back in December and November. And that's been going on, so it was almost like a joke within the whole conservative group.
John: I mean, Chris and I even had a conversation one time and I have spoke with legal counsel about this. So don't get any worries. I've lawyer'ed up as they say.
Michele: Yeah.
John: We had a conversation one time about lobbyists. Okay, "Hey, let's come up with a rate card. If you want 15 minutes, it'll be this. If you want 20 minutes, it's a—"
Michele: Oh, the pay to play. Like what Steven Horsford did, the pay to play.
John: Right. As a joke, you know?
Michele: Yeah.
John: We just kind of chuckled about that.
Michele: Yeah.
John: But, he's always receptive to that, because there's always money because he seemed to always be desperate for money.
Michele: Right. These conversations, sound bytes like that, you know, people wearing a wire, I've put a sign on my door that says, "Get naked, get frisked or get out," because no wiretap….”
John: I won't even talk in the building anymore. I'm afraid. And I've got nothing to do with this and I've got nothing to hide. But just the mere fact that who knows who's wired in the caucus rooms. I don't even want to speak now. I don't even want to voice an opinion, because I don't know if this guy's—
Michele: Well, Assemblywoman Victoria Seaman. If you guys remember, Assemblywoman Victoria Seaman, in our last caucus meeting tried bringing that up. She's like, "Listen, we need to bring up this wire" and Speaker Hambrick shot her down real fast and said, "No. No. We're not talking about that." Then I had to stand up and become Michele Fiore again and say, "No, we're talking about it, because I'm not going to be sitting in here fighting and arguing over bills." I mean, we talk smack. We were talking smack about SB 119. How the voters voted no on the rollovers and how we're going to squeeze something. So we talk a lot of smack in the caucus room.
John: Absolutely.
Michele: Yeah.
John: I had a lobbyist in my office the other day that I took outside of my office, because I didn't want to speak in there. Not that I have anything, but—
Michele: Yeah.
John: —You know, the whole point.
Michele: So Assemblyman David Gardner, all this ruckus, all this talk, where do you think we sit?
David: Well, I—
Brent: Well, before David talks real quick, can I tell my part about Chris coming to my office and what was going on with that? And then that would give David even more.
Michele: Yes! Yes! David, listen to this.
Brent: Okay. So Tony Dane, I was in communication, and then Chris reached out to me originally. And then I put him in touch with Tony Dane, because he wanted the dogs called off so to speak. Get this; he had the Tea Party people in Mesquite who Jerry Littman was coordinating, not running or anything else. But was in communication with and I know Jerry very well. And they're filling me in on what's going on. Because I have my ear to the ground so to speak, so I've been listening. Tony Dane independently with his group doing robocalls and mailers, and then Chuck Muth, of course, if you follow Chuck Muth, he's been writing about this thing for a while. So we're at the point now where we, when I say we, the conservatives elected John Hambrick. John Hambrick then, a couple weeks later, decided to then appoint Paul (Anderson), the guy that ran against him for speakership, to take over your position, Michele.
Michele: Correct.
Brent: Kicked you off taxation, took me off taxation, took Victoria Seaman off taxation, all tax pledge right after the Governor announced this big plan to increase taxes by $1.3 billion. We got removed, because they knew that was coming down the pipe.
Michele: Correct.
Brent: And then also took me off Ways and Means. So got the people off the money committees that were conservative. That same time, so Chris is being attacked by these three groups. Well, Chuck doesn't know Tony or they know each other, but they don't get along. Tony's not coordinating with the Tea Party people, so Chris comes to me, "How can I help this?" Tony sets the deal up to do this proxy, because we need to get this back under control. Chris comes to my office. At the time, I didn't think about it. I thought he was just being an honest guy, just like we talked about. We talked with fellow caucus members and don't expect anything. But he kept on asking questions, which were very pointed that were entrapment-type questions. "I need you to guarantee me that you can stop this." And I go, "I can't guarantee you anything, Chris. And if you want to, let's talk to Tony." "Tony promised me that he would do this." I go, "I don't know what Tony promised you. I'm not here. All I am is the messenger." He kept on making this, "Chuck Muth promised that he would do it." So what I did is I tried calling Tony. I said, "Look, I can't tell you what's going on. I did not make a deal, but let's try calling Tony." Tony, unfortunately, didn't have his phone on. He was at his son's hockey game. So we couldn't talk to Tony. Then he said, "Well, Chuck Muth promised that he would start writing positive about me." I go, "I can't make any representation about Chuck Muth." So we actually called Chuck Muth. I said, "Chuck, can you talk to Chris?" "I don't want to talk to Chris, but I will meet with him." That's what Chuck Muth said. So I said, "Will you meet with ****?" [Inaudible] Yeah, if you set it up." So I set it up for them to go meet. Well, Chris blew that off, and then Chuck wrote about that a couple days later in his Muth's Truth. So that was a fact. Same thing he asks, "What about this allege that somebody's got a wire, I mean a recorded conversation of me making a bribe." And I go, "I don't know about that, but Laurel, who is my political consultant, may know about it." So we called Laurel and I wasn't privy to the conversation, because I couldn't hear. But he's trying to get me to guarantee stuff for him, because he was wired.
Michele: Right.
Brent: "You've got to guarantee this." "Chris, I can't guarantee anything, but I will tell you this, you've upset a lot of people—"
Michele: Yeah, he's wired for a big reelection I'll tell you that.
Brent: I didn't know that though. I didn't know that it was wired.
John: [Inaudible].
Brent: I thought I was helping our conservative cause of low taxes, and he was just trying to set up to entrap us at somebody's direction. That's the thing. It's somebody's direction.
Tony: Well, this is what I think. A $1.4 billion tax increase, they want to pass it. And they're going to go to any means to hassle the conservatives there, because they need two-thirds vote to harass it.
Michele: This is Tony Dane talking just to let the listeners know. This is Tony Dane talking.
Tony: Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry about that. If this wasn't with the $1.4 billion tax increase involved, nobody would see this as a crime.
Brent: [Inaudible].
John: And, by the way, this—
Tony: What they're doing is they're trying to shut down the ones that are against the tax increase.
John: This is Assemblyman John Moore. And, by the way, this tax increase was known, was put out to our caucus back when Ira Hansen, when we elected him Speaker, because it was told to him, at that point, that this tax increase was coming down the pipe. That that's what at the top wanted to do and that we were all being threatened with our bills. That if we didn't vote for this thing, our bills would be dead in the Senate and all this and that.
Brent: And committees, because right after this thing with Chris, he went right back to Hambrick and them and all of a sudden the phone blows up, "Brent, you better knock this off. You're going to get off all your committees." And all the threats and all this stuff just started coming my way.
John: I always knew politics were dirty, but come on, man.
Michele: We've got Assemblyman David Gardner on the phone. So David, give me your overall.
David: This is David. I just wanted to make one point real quick. Wiretapping is legal if that person is part of the conversation, because then they have the approval of one person in that conversation. If, like, for example, nobody can bug your room, John. I mean, that is illegal.
John: Okay.
David: They'd have to get a court order for that. Say, if it was the police or something like that, but an average Bill can't do that. That's just what the law says. To record somebody, you have to have permission of at least one person in that conversation if you're in the same place with them. If it's a phone call, it takes both sides. Otherwise, it's illegal. That's what our laws say. As far as this situation, wow! I didn't know about a lot of this stuff, but it just seems to be, in my opinion, based on what I've heard, that Chris knew something. I'm talking Chris Edwards knew something was going to happen and he's trying to use this to throw people off the fence.
Michele: Right.
David: That's what it sounds like from what I've been told.
Brent: Well, here's what my analysis of the scent is. Chris first voted for the conservatives and he was primaried by the more moderates in our party, meaning Paul Anderson and his group.
John: The same people he's working with now.
Brent: Right. After we elect Hambrick, Hambrick kicks you out, Michele, and you're off taxation. The Governor only makes two donations. Two donations of $5,000. One to Chris Edwards and one to Derek Armstrong, another freshman. Derek Armstrong then gets appointed as Tax Chairman. Once you got taken off the committee, I got taken off the committee. And not only that, the Growth & Opportunity PAC, which is supposed to be caucus money controlled by Paul Anderson with no audit, donates $7,500 to Derek.
Michele: Wow!
Brent: And John Hambrick donates to Derek and Chris. You're out. You're thrown out. Us conservative people are ostracized. We're not even in the conversation now. We're attacked. We're told we're going to be thrown off committees if we say anything, do anything. (These are your elected representatives, folks.)
Michele: We have no caucus meetings.
Brent: And then they come after us with wiretaps and attempt entrapment when we're the ones standing up for the people trying to stop this tax increase. A tax increase that was just overturned four to one by the people of the State of Nevada, 80%, and we're the ones being attacked, utilizing resources of our state, the police, all this public relations, all these newspapers like Ralston (Jerk!) to attack us conservatives, because we're the ones that want to stand up for the people. And at the same time, the trail is very clear, like Tony said, and I applaud you, Tony, for calling in the FBI, because I would agree something smells fishy.
Tony: Well, this is Tony again. The thing that bothers me the most is, as a private citizen, I have nothing to gain by defeating the tax initiative. Nobody's paying me to defeat it. I'm spending my own money on this.
Michele: Well, thank you.
Tony: [Inaudible]. So there is no financial gain for me. Through the financial office out of Nevada, now, there's not even a financial loss to me if it passes. So I have nothing to gain or lose. I consider me just doing the right thing.
Michele: You know, and unfortunately, doing the right thing and common sense seems to be out of style lately. However, with this group, we're going to bring that back. We're going to bring the common sense back. We're going to bring conservative values back. And we're going to protect the people. That's why we got elected.
John: Absolutely.
Brent: And you know what? We're running out of time. But I have another story to tell that I would love to get it out with my second meeting with Chris and how he tried to entrap me again there. And then I actually went to Tony and said, "Tony, this is really stinky. They're trying to entrap us on this." And that's when this thing happened. But we're out of time. I can't tell it.
Michele: Yeah. No. We've got a couple more minutes, John. So Assemblyman John Moore, what are you thinking?
John: Well, I'm thinking that I'm not going to kowtow to anyone except my constituents. And I don't care if they're Republican, Democrat, Tea Party. I care less about party in that sense. I'm here to do what is good for the folks of this state and the people that sent me up there to work for. You know, labels, party labels, all that kind of thing. Yeah, sure. I believe my philosophical beliefs are conservative and that type of thing, but if a constituent calls me and says, "Hey, I'm a hard-core Democrat and I don't want taxes" or "I don't want this or that." Well, if enough people call me that way, well, I'm going to go with what they want, because—
Michele: That's correct.
John: —That's constituents or the same way with Republicans, Tea Party, I don't care. I'm not going to—
Michele: Because you're a true representative. I have to add that.
John: And one thing I will say and I've said this to you a thousand times is I will not be intimidated by no man. No one will intimidate me and in our first caucus meeting, someone attempted to do that to me. And I shut him down quick and I'll shut down anyone that tries to go down that road with me. I'm not playing that game.
Michele: Thank you, Assemblyman John.
Brent: And this is coming from a Special Forces Ranger—
Michele: Special Forces Ranger.
Brent: —Who saw combat duty. No one's intimidating him.
Michele: Yeah. Yeah.
Brent: Bullets don't intimidate him.
Michele: Yeah.
Brent: So words surely won't.
Michele: Yeah. Listen, basically the listeners have four electeds right now on the air with them, Assemblyman John Moore, Assemblyman Brent Jones, Assemblyman David Gardner, and myself, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore. Assemblyman David Gardner, I would like for you to give us our last two minutes of your overall of this show today.
David: Okay. Thank you, Michele. I have to say it's kind of crazy this is happening. I mean, I knew there was a fight for the leadership, as we all knew when we were talking about it. But it just seems that even with all that arm twisting and stuff that they tried on John, they tried that on me too. It didn't work. It's amazing, in my opinion, that first, the media's been so one sided. As Brent said, it was pretty common knowledge. [Inaudible] it was a rumor that Mr. Edwards was shopping his vote. I know I heard it. I heard it a couple times from a couple different people. (A lawyer repeating potentially slanderous rumors on the public airwaves. Excellent.) And, so the fact that the media keeps talking about him being extorted, that really concerns me, because extortion is not even the crime that they would be looking at. Even Mr. Dane was talking about that's not what they're trying to pin him on. They're trying to pin him with bribery. If what he is saying, if Chris Edwards is being correct and all of us are lying or the other people are all lying, it would be a crime of bribery. So I think this is one of those times that you can see either an extreme bias in the media. And I'm very thankful for shows like this that we can tell the truth. Or an extremely ignorant media, because they're not reporting the facts as are known and they know these things. Ralston's been in that building basically every day this week. Or at least I've seen him most days. And I know a lot of other people have been there everyday this week. So I mean, they've been around us. We know for a fact that certain members of our caucus were leaking things directly to Ralston and to other media people. (This sounds criminal to me!)
Michele: Oh, absolutely. I think someone took a photo of Chris whispering to Ralston.(And did they post it on Facebook? Instagram? For all the kids to see?) Assemblyman David Gardner, we have to wrap this show up and I just want to let the listeners know our next week's show will be Assemblyman David Gardner and myself. I can't wait to talk more about this. Have a great Saturday, guys.
Michele Fiore has a radio show.
This, in and of itself, is not very interesting. If you listen to talk-radio, you realize: Anyone can have a radio show.
But on her program this weekend, Assemblywoman Fiore was joined by three other members of the Ass. GOP Caucus -- so almost one-sixth of that group -- and they engaged in the kind of dialogue that is less coherent than the Dennis Hopper clip from "Apocalypse Now" that I have attached at the end of the transcript below.
As the four prattled on, along with consultant Tony Dane, recently interviewed at his home in Virginia by Metro detectives who also confiscated material and his cell phone, you are at once amused, frightened and appalled that these are elected officials. You know, people entrusted with making laws. And in the majority.
We learned, thanks to their own admissions, assuming (cough) they are telling the truth:
►We knew Brent Jones had talked to Metro detectives. On the program, Fiore and John Moore also acknowledged talking to the police. Moore also said he "lawyered up" and is afraid to talk in the Legislative Building for fear of people wearing wires. I kid you not.
►They accused fellow caucus member Chris Edwards of selling his vote because he was so "desperate" to retire his nearly $60,000 campaign debt.
►Dane asserted that Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson once offered to get him $100,000 worth of business if he wouldn't work for Brent Jones, who was running in 2012 against his favored state Senate candidiate, Mari St. Martin. (Roberson scoffed when I asked him.)
►Dane claimed that a conspiracy from "the governor on down" exists to buy off votes for taxes with campaign contributions and to stifle people like him who fight against the Establishment. Not only did anyone question this, but some seemed to agree. Here's what he said:
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, the sheriff, the DA's office, and the AG's office has never uncovered real political corruption in the State of Nevada. And, so they cover up for those who steal that are in power. And then they go after guys like me who step in their way.
Why, yes, the power brokers in this state believe Tony Dane stands in their way. I can’t tell you how many times through the years I have heard this.
►Fiore repeated several times that by inducing Edwards to wear a wire, Metro had practiced "entrapment," which caucus colleague David Gardner, a civil lawyer, confirmed he believed was a correct legal theory. Fiore twice referred to Gardner as akin to Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor and incipient presidential candidate. I have heard that a lot, too.
►They do not like or trust the media, especially yours truly. (This wounds me. Deeply.)
I know the transcript is long, but I urge you to go down the rabbit hole because like a good Carroll novel or LSD trip, it's worth the journey. And I dare anyone who makes it through to compare it to the classic Hopper monologue I posted below and tell me which is more insane. (I have bolded the highlights and annotated in italics if you are impatient.)
And a bonus, too, attached here: Fiore, at a Citizen Outhouse meeting last year, joking (I think) about non-tax-pledgers Derek Armstrong and Paul Anderson that they be thrown down mine shafts. Oh that caucus!)
Apocalypse now? Maybe not. The horror, the horror? Oh, yes.
-------------------
Michele Fiore: Good morning. Thank you guys for being here. We are live here at the KDWN Studios on South Durango. And I'm really, really excited, because I have in studio with me Assemblyman John Moore and Assemblyman Brent Jones. And we also have Tony Dane, who's going to be talking with us here in the next couple of minutes. So after my email blast yesterday on Get Naked, Get Frisked or Get Out, because there are no wiretaps allowed when you're speaking to me. It's very important that when you talk to people, you're talking to people as if they're not spying on you. And there's nothing wrong with transparency. So I want to just make it crystal clear: there is nothing wrong with transparency. However, when you are meeting with someone and the other person doesn't say, "Hey, I'm wire tapping you and recording you," that is not okay. It's illegal to do it on the phones. I think we should apply that to body wires, as well as its entrapment. And let me tell you, with politicians, just to let you know in case you didn't, we talk a lot of smack. Okay? So, at what point do we say what's okay to record and what's not okay to record? You could record all day long what we're talking about, laws and bills and how it affects Nevada. But sometimes our personal lives are our personal lives. And you can definitely confuse extortion and entrapment. I have sitting here with me Assemblyman John Moore and we're going to talk about some of the conversations that he had that maybe he was being recorded. It was on the phone, so it could have been illegal, could have that conversation been extortion. We're going to hear from John Moore in a minute. But, first, we're going to start this show out with Tony Dane. And, Tony, welcome to the show. Are you there?
Tony Dane: Yeah, I'm here. Thank you, Michele.
Michele: Thank you so much. So, Tony, I have to tell you, the more and more I have heard about what was going on with you. You got raided and the thing that was questionable in my mind is Chris actually called you and asked you to come and meet with him. So it's hard for me to put the same word "extortion" in the sentence as entrapment. However, I'm not a detective nor a lawyer or a judge, but let the people hear the true story, Tony, and let them come to their own conclusion. Let's start off.
Tony: Okay. Well, I was talking to Chris over the phone and he wanted to meet me face to face.
Michele: And wait. So, Tony, let's just be crystal clear. We are talking about Assemblyman Chris Edwards, who was elected running under conservative principles, promising the voters he's not going to raise your taxes and he's going to definitely vote for the voters. This is who we're talking about. So, Assemblyman Chris Edwards called you.
Brent Jones: Michele, I want to chime in too.
Michele: This is Assemblyman Brent Jones.
Brent Jones: This is Brent Jones and I want to say that I've known Tony for a number of years and Tony is in the political arena. He does mailing. He does robo calling. He does surveys. So he's an active political operative, if you want to use that term, who's been very successful and worked on many big campaigns. Can you name a couple of the big campaigns you've worked on, Tony?
Tony: I worked with Tom McClintock. I've worked with Ron Paul's national campaign. I've worked in the State of Nevada. I've worked with actually Chris Edwards when he ran for Congress. I worked with Michael Roberson on his first run, but because of his vote for taxes, him and I had kind of a falling out. And part of the falling out was that I agreed to work with you, because Roberson promised me $100,000 in account if I dump you as a client. (I’m sure he can prove this.)
Brent: Yeah. And just to be clear, you worked on two of my campaigns and I think you're very good. And you also worked on Sharron Angle's campaign as well. (Well!) So you've worked on a number of big campaigns.
Michele: Okay. So I just want to clarify something. Tony Dane, you basically just said Senator Michael Roberson, who is the Majority Leader in Carson City, was bribing you with $100,000. Is that what I'm hearing?
Tony: I didn't consider it a bribe. He told me that if I was on his team, he'd bring me in $100,000 worth of business. But I'd have to dump Brent as a client.
Michele: Right. Okay, so it's politics as usual basically.
Tony: Yeah, that's how I seen it.
Michele: Okay. Okay. That's right. Okay. That's right. Okay.
Tony: I did not see it as a bribe.
Michele: Okay. Perfect. Okay, I just want to clarify. Let me tell you, everyone is listening let me tell you. You've got a big audience right now. (Huge!)
Tony: Okay.
Michele: Okay. So let's move forward. So Assemblyman Chris Edwards tries to entrap you. (Oh? He did? You know this how?) That's where I'm going with this. Go ahead.
Tony: Okay. So we met at a Starbucks on Charleston and Rainbow.
Michele: But who called and asked for the meeting?
Tony: Chris called me.
Michele: Chris called you. Okay.
Tony: He said that he wanted to meet face to face. I told him that we could talk over the phone, but he wanted to talk to me face to face.
Michele: Right, because he wanted to record you with a wiretap.
Tony: Which I was not aware of.
Michele: Right. That's entrapment. (Michele Fiore, Juris Doctor)
Tony: [Inaudible].
Michele: Yeah. That's entrapment. Okay. Go ahead.
Tony: Okay. And the first thing I told him is that I heard rumors that he tried to solicit a bribe from someone. I never mentioned the name of the someone that he tried to solicit a bribe from. And I said that, because I knew him, because I worked with his congressional campaign. I said it could easily be a misunderstanding that you're going for fundraising purposes and he construed it as a bribe. I didn't believe that at the time that Chris would be doing that. And all of this is recorded by the police. So everything I'm saying can be backed up by the Metropolitan Police Department.
Michele: Okay. Great. So then what happened in the meeting?
Tony: He asked me if I could raise funds for him. I said, "Well, after the blackout period and if it's legal and your vote is good, you could hire me as a fundraiser." And he said he wasn't interested in hiring me as a fundraiser. He just wanted me to get him money.
Michele: Okay. And let me tell you, this is Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, the host of Walk the Talk with Michele Fiore, and I'm going to just confirm that. Because I've met with Assemblyman Chris Edwards myself at BJ's in my district. He expressed that he was $58,000 grand in the hole. (Yes, campaign debt.) He had a lot of discourse and not nice things to say about the lobbyists that weren't returning his calls or helping him. And Assemblyman Chris Edwards literally said to me, "Michele, why not just vote for Paul, you know, for leadership. Because if you do, then he will give you a check. He'll help you raise the money." And I explained to Chris within our caucus that this is the problem with our caucus. We have a caucus of 25. We don't need one or two members of the caucus dictating all of the funds that were raised and where they go. Because, as Chris felt the heat of that, they primaried him in his own race. So, the biggest reason why we wanted new leadership is to be transparent with the caucus members, have caucus votes on how we support the members, how we support new candidates, and who we hire. That still has not come—
Brent: And Michele, I want to chime in that, because—
Michele: I never considered that a bribe or extortion. It's just politics as usual.
Brent: And I want to point out that when we first elected Ira (Hansen) as our Caucus Leader or our Majority Leader, Speaker [inaudible]. We all agreed we'd have an audit of the PACs for this very reason, because there was over $750,000, of which Paul Anderson put $100 or something thousand into PAC that he controlled. So…
Michele: Wait, wait. You know what? Now that we're on the air, let's get this cleared so everyone can hear it and it's not just in our….You are talking about the $160,000 check from Sheldon Adelson, Brent. And let me tell you about that $160,000 check from Sheldon Adelson that Paul Anderson put in the Opportunity Growth PAC. I met one on one with Mr. Adelson and I'm making this public so everyone gets the story correct and Ralston or Abboud cannot switch it around as they did on their little Twitter feed. (She is referring to lil ole me and Andy Abboud, Adelson’s right-hand man. She once showed up unannounced to Adselson’s office, and he, like so many, thought she was bizarre.) The story, my word to you is this. I met with Sheldon Adelson. Sheldon Adelson donated the $160,000 to get the majority. To get us over in a campaign. Sheldon Adelson did not give Paul Anderson $160,000 to sit in an Opportunity Growth PAC for his 20 seats in 2021. There's no way a brilliant, incredible man like Sheldon Adelson is going to give someone $160,000 to sit in an account for six years to do with what they wish. So, just to be crystal clear, I spoke to Sheldon Adelson. I do not represent Sheldon Adelson. So let's be clear. I do not represent Sheldon Adelson in Carson City. What Sheldon gave me permission to say to our caucus members is the money of $160,000 that he contributed to the Republican Assembly Caucus was to be used to get us over the top and win those seats. The money that he gave to the Republican Assembly Caucus was not to sit in the Growth Opportunity Fund PAC. It was literally to get us elected. So…
Brent: Well, that's important too, because it's used later on, as we'll discover.
Michele: Yeah.
Brent: But we asked for that audit as a group, a caucus group.
Michele: That's correct.
Brent: We wanted transparency within our caucus.
Michele: That's correct.
Brent: And that audit got canceled by John Hambrick—
Michele: Yes, it did. But let me tell you how. Yeah.
Brent: —And we, as other caucus members will not get any response—
Michele: Right. We won't. Brent, and let me tell you, Assemblyman Brent Jones, let me tell you exactly what happened. The night of Brian Krolicki’s (farewell) roast. It was a Wednesday night. I believe it was Wednesday the 17th, whatever that Wednesday was, I saw Steve Martin, who was a former Controller and I said, "Steve, what's going on with the audit? Because Speaker John Hambrick had promised us that he was hiring Steve Martin to do the audit of all five PACs." Steve Martin said to me that night, "John Hambrick canceled it." Okay. Well, the next morning, that's when John Hambrick, the speaker, removed me from Majority Leader and took me off of taxation, okay? So…
Brent: Let's get back to Tony.
Michele: Yeah, let's get back to Tony. Tony, so I want to go with Assemblyman Chris Edwards basically calling you in for a meeting and trying to entrap you with the wires. Go ahead.
Tony: Okay. Now, before I get with that, as both of you know, if an elected official does something that I think is wrong, I confront that elected official on that. Michele, you and I a couple years ago had a conversation. You didn't ever wiretap me and my house did get raided, because of it. But we've had conversations where we're in disagreement.
Michele: Me and you?
Tony: Yeah.
Michele: Oh, I disagree with so many.
Tony: It was a couple years ago from one of your votes.
Michele: I don't remember it.
Tony: Okay.
Michele: Yeah.
Tony: I don't know if you remember it, but it was a conversation that we had.
Michele: Okay.
Tony: No anger, no nothing, no wiretaps, no raid came from our conversation.
Michele: Right.
Tony: But I wasn't happy with one of your votes, you know? And, so this is not something abnormal that I do.
Michele: Right.
Tony: You know, so [inaudible].
Brent: So you're in the blackout period, there's no way you're going to agree to give him any money, because you're smart enough. You've been in this business for over 20 years.
Michele: This is Brent Jones talking.
Tony: Right.
Brent: You're in the blackout period. He calls you out here to talk to him. He's upset, because there's a recall effort being started. Chuck Muth is dogging him in the press. You have mailers and robocalls going out to him and the Tea Party people are organizing PACs for a recall.
Tony: Right.
Michele: Okay. So how did this go down?
Tony: And I tell him if he votes the way the people elected him to vote, not the way Tony Dane wants him to vote. But the way the people want him to vote that they elected him under, and then there won't be no recall. The whole problem is that he's siding to the other side and people are getting upset about it. And the recall can stop if he votes the way that the people elected him to vote.
Brent: And just to clar—
Michele: That makes sense to me. And what's wrong with that?
Brent: And just to clarify—
Michele: Is that against the law? I don't think so.
Brent: I want to clarify something too. And we, when I say "we," there's a conservative number of us [inaudible] what not, Michele, which you're kind of the leader of, right? You put the votes to get John Hambrick in. Chris went against that. But if Chris would come to the side of the conservatives that don't want taxes, want less government, want accountability, then we would have control of our caucus. Even though we put John Hambrick in, he went with Paul Anderson and that group.
Michele: Right. I have to just be crystal clear, because I want Tony to continue. It's not so much controlling the caucus. It's not so much of having control of the caucus, as it is being a caucus, being fair to our caucus. There are 25 members. There are five PACs out there. We need financial disclosures, where the money is, who we're hiring, and what we're doing. Right now, we've got a one-man show. It's basically Speaker Paul Anderson with John Hambrick kind of acting as the face of it. (Really? I have no idea why these leaders wouldn’t trust you.) So Tony, please continue.
Tony: Well, Chris agreed to support somebody other than Hambrick for Speaker. And, so I asked him if he would sign a proxy to that effect. He agreed to do so, and then reneged.
Brent: Okay, and just to clarify too.
Tony: When he reneged, I sent him a text. And in that text, it says, you lied to me. I've got egg on my face and I don't want to talk to you no more.
Brent: And just to clarify, we had been operating our caucus through proxies. We had done it two times before and that's how we were electing our members and stuff is through proxies, because we're spread out all over the state. And it's hard to have these meetings. And Hambrick wouldn't have a meeting. He would not call me.
Michele: No, listen. No, Hambrick would not call a meeting. As a matter of fact, our caucus meetings, I'm going to highly suggest we start it from 4:30 [inaudible].
Brent: And then, also, Tony, so you. I want to just make this clear too. You were in communication with me, because you asked me to get that proxy signed for you.
Tony: Correct.
Brent: Okay. Go ahead.
Tony: So when the proxy wasn't signed, then a little while later, I get a text message from Chris that he wants to talk to me. I told him that I wasn't interested in talking to him. That he lied to me and if he wants to talk about anything, he could talk about why he lied. And, so, then that was the last text that was sent until I get a call from Brent that Chris went to him trying to reopen communication with me.
Michele: Okay. So let me just clarify. So Assemblyman Chris Edwards first calls you, has a meeting with you, is wired. You just basically say, "Go away." But, no. He's in hot pursuit. He's in hot pursuit. This entrapment thing, he's trying to entrap you. He then calls you back and says, "Listen, Brent's trying to open communication. I want to open communication." And he meets with you again and he's wired again?
Tony: Well, no. He doesn't meet with me. This one happens over the phone. But, before that he sends me this big, long text about how he's willing to do anything that I want as long as I'm willing to do certain things for him.
Michele: You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of, you know how we have vice here and they entrap our tourists and they throw them in jail? (Why, yes! It’s just like that.)
Tony: Yeah.
Michele: This kind of reminds me of that. Go ahead.
Tony: Well, what I did is I talked to (GOP activist) Jerry Littman and told him about it and I said, "I don't have enough information to prove that Chris is trying to solicit a bribe from me. But if Rob Lauer files with the DA's office, I could back up whatever he says with my text. And, so, at this point, I don't have enough to go on.
Michele: So do you have your text or did the cops take your stuff? Talk about what happened. What happened in your home? (This is a reference to last week’s raid by Metro on Dane’s Virginia home in which they confiscated his phone and a lot of material and interviewed him.)
Tony: They came and they took my cell phone. Matter of fact, they asked me if I gave the copy of text to anybody. And I told them no. I was about to. But I didn't make a copy for myself. I actually called up my cell company to find out if there's a way I could download the text and they said you could only take pictures of it. And, so I didn't do that yet. But after I had the final conversation with him, Chris said, "I will do whatever you tell me to do and you will control my votes." I told him I'm not interested in controlling your vote. I'm interested in you voting the way that you promised the people. I said if you need my advice on a certain piece of legislation, I'll be happy to tell you what my opinion is. He said, "Well, do I have to vote 100% your way to get fundraising?" I said, "Nobody votes 100% my way."
Michele: Right.
Tony: But I was really clear that I do not want to control his vote. And in that conversation, I told him I wasn't interested in even doing fundraising for him.
Michele: So what do you think, Tony? How do you feel this one out? So Metro police officers here from Las Vegas flew to your city; correct?
Tony: Yes, they flew to—
Michele: And where do you live?
Tony: —To Front Royal, Virginia.
Michele: Okay. Virginia, so how many? Two or three Metro police officers.
Tony: Two of them.
Michele: Two Metro police officers flew on taxpayers' dollars (Taxpayer dollars! The outrage!) to Virginia to talk with you about – did they use the word entrapment or extortion? Because obviously someone was wiring this Assemblyman Chris Edwards.
Tony: Well, according to the warrant, it says that the search warrant was issued on the count of bribery, which I'd never—
Michele: Oh, bribery.
Tony: —Told to give him any funds whatsoever. Extortion of money, I've never asked Chris for any money.
Michele: Right.
Tony: Property of pecuniary benefit, which I talked to an attorney and he says that's financial benefit.
Michele: Yeah.
Tony: There was no way that I was going to benefit financially from any of this. But that was the purpose of the warrant was those causes.
Brent: Okay. So just to be clear, this is Brent again. You didn't offer him any specific money. You never transferred any money to him. All you were doing was doing robocalls and you did a mailer to tell him basically to vote the right way, which that mailer was very clever, so…
Tony: Thank you.
Brent: And he was trying to call the dogs off, because he was worried about this recall effort. So there's no money transfer and it's in the blackout period as well. So there's no money that can really be transferred. You're smart enough to know that.
Tony: [Inaudible].
Brent: No money has been transferred, so they raid you. And tell them some of the stuff that the cops told you, Tony, blatantly.
Tony: One of the things that they told me is that I made a deal with you, Brent, to launder money through my wife's account. That you were funding this and I said, "I haven't received any money from you whatsoever." (So this is one of the avenues Metro is pursuing? Interesting. Thanks for telling everyone, Tony.) And—
Brent: So we can both go on record. You have not received any money whatsoever from me, well, let's say in the last four months, because I did pay you in my campaign.
Tony: Yeah. When it comes to recall, not a dime.
Brent: Not a dime. And I will go on record saying I have not given you a dime or one cent as well.
Michele: Perfect. Okay. Yeah.
Brent: So both of us are saying, neither of us have given [inaudible].
Michele: On the record. Yeah.
Brent: Through your wife, through Tony Dane & Associates, through your PAC, anyway.
Michele: Through your cousin who got kidnapped by an alien. Yeah, through all that.
Brent: Anyway, [inaudible].
Michele: [Inaudible]. Yeah, so, okay. Tony, so where do you think you sit today? So what's the message here? I mean, I've got to tell you, taxpayers' dollars here are at work. And how do you trust someone that you talk to that's calling you trying to make a deal with you, but actually trying to entrap you? That's kind of how I see this whole thing. (She is one smart lawyer.)
Tony: And the part that was disturbing is I never realized that Chris Edwards was a snake in the grass.
Michele: Well, welcome to politics.
Tony: When I went to that first meeting, I went there as a friend.
Michele: Yeah. Yeah. There's been a lack of integrity with a few individuals and they will be called out. This is Walk the Talk with Michele Fiore. So they have to walk the talk.
Brent: Okay. Also, Tony, I want to also put out we've been in communication, because we're friends, we work together and you were keeping me up to date on what was going on. And you mentioned to me that you actually, because you felt that something was really fishy starting to happen that you felt you were trying to be set up and entrapped that you called the FBI and filed a complaint even before the cops showed up; correct? (Well, I’m sure the FBI was receptive.)
Tony: Yes. Yeah. After the last conversation that I had with Chris, I talked to Jerry Littman and told him, I said, "I'm skeptical about what Rob Lauer has, because he hasn't filed anything yet. (Lauer’s house was searched by Metro. Metro taped him talking to Edwards about the speaker's vote. We know he talked to Citizen Outhouse’s Chuck Muth because Muth wrote about it. All these folks need to do is keep talking and Metro won’t even need what they already have on tape.) And, so I plan on filing a report with the FBI. But what I'd like to do is, because the Governor gave him donations—
Brent: Gave who donations? The Governor gave who donations?
Tony: Chris Edwards donations.
Brent: Yes.
Tony: It's my belief that Governor Sandoval bought his vote and, matter of fact, I actually said that to Chris in a text message. (Yes, the governor gave Edwards money after the election. Five grand.)
Brent: Well, why not go to Metro like Chris did? Why did you go to the FBI, Tony?
Tony: First of all, and I told this to the Metro police that was over at my house. Every major sting operation that happened with corruption, like Operation G-Sting, happened through the FBI. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, the sheriff, the DA's office, and the AG's office has never uncovered real political corruption in the State of Nevada. And, so they cover up for those who steal that are in power. And then they go after guys like me who step in their way.
Brent: So kind of like the whistle blowers tried to get stomped out and you feel that the other ones get a pass or actually do you believe that this is being directed from above or what are you saying, Tony?
Tony: I personally believe this all comes from the Governor on down. (Oh, do go on.)
Michele: I think that we're going to unravel a lot of issues here. I personally, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, spoke with one of the Metro detectives and I think I'm going to give them a holler again Monday morning to see where we're at with this. (Oh? Interesting. Please, keep talking.) Because this, to me, sounds like entrapment and I'm not really fond of a freshman assemblyman coming in and we want transparency. We want people to understand what's happening, but at what point do we say, "If you're calling me and you're trying to enter—"
Brent: Solicit.
Michele: —"Solicit my vote," it's really, because I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to solicit as many votes as I can in our caucus to stop taxes. I'm going to solicit as many votes in our caucus to make sure our leadership does what the voters want. We can work together. There are 25 members. Sure, some of us are a little bit moderate and some of us are more conservative. But the bottom line is we're small, but we're mighty and we can definitely work together and stop things. Yeah.
Tony: Michele, the problem is if the Governor can strong arm people into voting for his tax, why can't I, as a citizen say, "Hey look, I don't want this and I'm going to try to strong arm taxes like" – what I could legally do is recall somebody if I don't like what they're doing.
Michele: Right. So—
Tony: But why can't I use that strong-arm tactic to say if you don't do what the people voted you to do, I'm going to help with the recall effort.
Michele: No, you can and that's totally legal. And that's why we have elections and this next election cycle is going to be real tough for a lot of people. Because I'll tell you, everyone is listening to this. Everyone is recording this and these little sound bites will be used against each and every one of us in the next campaign. Trust me. So knowing that, yeah.
Brent: Some of the points I want to clarify. So Chris is approached—
Michele: This is Brent Jones again. Yeah. Yeah, we're going into our one-minute mark.
Brent: —Michele said that Chris approached her and said he needed help raising money.
Michele: Yeah.
Brent: Needed to go to the other side for money even though he was primaried by the other side, you got raided, your business stuff's taken away, which is harming your business and all you are is a political activist.
Michele: Okay. Yeah. And didn't Rob Lauer's house get raided?
Brent: As well.
Michele: All because this little freshman (Little freshman? How cute.) keeps missing his meetings and caucuses and everything, because he's doing interviews with the media—
Brent: Yes.
Michele: —Because he needs some attention. Okay.
Brent: And I do want to say something on that.
Michele: Yeah. Okay. So perfect. So, Tony, I have to tell you I'm excited and we will be back here right after the commercial break.
Tony: Okay.
[Commercial Break]
First Speaker: This is Walk the Talk with Michele Fiore, a conversation about what's really going on in the State of Nevada. Now, here's your host, Michele Fiore.
Michele: Hi, we are back. I know that commercial break just killed you. It just killed us too. And guess what? So, we're going to hear from Assemblyman Brent Jones, Assemblyman John Moore, and we've got our rock star, total Scott Walker material, Assemblyman David Gardner (Scott Walker meterial!) with us as well. So Brent, let's start off with you first.
Brent: Yeah. I just want to point out a lot of people are getting frustrated and they're calling us the Assembly caucus and all this stuff going on. But, I want to point out that for the last few weeks, we've been totally mum on this, meaning the conservatives. And Chris has been hanging out with Jon Ralston in the hallways, giving him sound bites. (He has?) He's been going interview after interview after interview proclaiming he's a victim. And that's why we're coming on here, because we've got to stop Chris Edwards for putting out this propaganda and this bull. And we believe that the truth needs to come out. So we prefer not to be doing this. We prefer to be doing the—
Michele: Right.
Brent: —Business of the legislature, but this is a distraction that Chris Edwards just keeps promoting, promoting, promoting and we've got to—
Michele: Yeah. Here's the sentence, Brent. The bottom line is Chris claims to be a victim when he's the one wearing a wire and all of us know his vote was for sale. (Oh? Hope you can prove that. Otherwise it’s slander.) Assemblyman John Moore, I have to, just to use some examples of some of the phone calls you've received. Let's elaborate on them. Would some of those phone calls be bribery or how would we even define that?
John Moore: Well, I mean the term extortion seems to be coming around. I guess I could possibly call Metro myself and say, well, I've been approached saying that during the first election that we had for Speaker when it was Ira Hansen and Pat Hickey when we ousted Pat from leadership. I received a phone call and things like that. Or, a phone call actually the only thing. From a pretty prominent Clark County political figure saying that I should vote for Pat Hickey. He's in tight with the Governor and if I want to get reelected or want my bills to get through, then I would vote for Pat Hickey. That would be his advice to me.
Michele: So, basically, the Chair of our Republican Party, David McKeon, had a conversation with you. And would you say that would be extortion or bribery? (Here we go on McKeon, who is not liked by the Lillimuthians because he aligned himself with, shockingly, the Establishment.) I mean—
John: That's what I'm saying. What is it? Is it extortion, bribery, but you—
Michele: And then what happened with the Paul Anderson conversation?
John: So then, after we didn't vote for Pat Hickey and Ira was elected, and then Ira resigned and just prior to the next vote coming up where Paul Anderson was running for Speaker and several others, Wes Duncan and a couple other folks, I got another phone call. And, now, keep in mind, I never contacted this person generally. I mean, I may have made a couple calls to him just in general about, "Hey, what do you think about this or that?" You know, just things like that. Because when I met the guy, I met him through Chris—
Michele: Who are we talking about?
John: Dave McKeon
Michele: Okay. Our Chair of the Republican Clark County.
John: Correct. Now, I met him through Chris Edwards. And I have no angst against Dave. I like Dave. Dave's been very fair to me as far as… he's been a nice guy to me.
Michele: Right.
John: You know?
Michele: But politics as usual—
John: Right. Politics is politics.
Michele: —So what I'm hearing is basically Dave saying, "Hey, vote," what exactly did you say?
John: Right. So on the second call that Dave called me, he was a little more forceful in that if you want to get reelected, you'll vote for Paul Anderson. (Damn. That sounds awful.)
Brent: Okay.
Michele: Yeah. Brent, what would you say? You know what? David Gardner, Assemblyman David Gardner. Let's ask David Gardner. David, are you there? Can you hear me?
David Gardner: Yeah. I can hear you, Michele.
Michele: Now, this is my Scott Walker rock star, Assemblyman David Gardner. I'm sorry. I said it first. Just saying. David, what are you thinking about this?
David: Well, thank you very much [inaudible] letting me be on your show. It would be most likely bribery. Extortion is when you're saying, "Do this or else I'm going to say something bad about you that's a lie." Is pretty much how the statute reads. Bribery is, "Do this and I will give you this reward" or "Do this and you'll get some kind of benefit out of it."
Michele: So that kind of happens on a daily basis. So in this whole picture, Assemblyman David Gardner, what are you thinking just as an outsider, because, of course, we don't have the notes and the facts and the details. And there are always so many sides to a story. How would you analyze the Tony Dane?
David: Well, from what I've heard, just so you know, I'm a civil attorney. I don't really do a lot of criminal, (Well, we should definitely listen to you then.) but I did some research at your request. In my opinion, it would definitely be entrapment. (Well, case closed.) Entrapment is not a crime in Nevada. It's a defense to a crime. So, basically, let me pull up the actual statute here. It basically says to commit entrapment, the state has to present the opportunity to commit a crime and the defendant was not otherwise predisposed to commit the crime. So they have to like kind of actively seek to get people to commit a crime. In this case, you'd be saying, according to Dane's statement, "Chris Edwards was calling him. Chris Edwards was trying to get him to say something." That would, in my opinion, be entrapment and it'd be complete defense to this possible criminal action. And I don't know why people are saying extortion. It's most likely bribery… is what the crime should be called if there is any according to Chris Edwards.
Michele: Assemblyman Brent Jones.
Brent: Yeah. And I'd like to talk about this a little bit more too after John does his testimony, because when Chris came to my office for that proxy, he was definitely trying to trap me constantly. And I didn't know it at the time. I thought it was weird, but he was wearing a wire against me too, a fellow assemblyman. But we'll talk about that after John's.
Michele: Yeah. Okay. So I agree with Assemblyman David Gardner. I mean, the law is the law. He just read the statute [inaudible].
John: And there again, Dave and I were friends prior, during the election. He helped me get elected, as did Chris, you know, (Ah gratitude.)like I've…
Michele: Yeah.
John: And I've had two separate conversations with Metro over this whole deal. (Oh?) I didn't want to get dragged into this.
Michele: Right.
John: I'm a freshman. I'm just trying to do the work of the people that elected me. That's all I'm trying to do here.
Michele: And you're doing a good job.
John: Well, thank you.
John: And there have been people that I've aligned myself with closely, as opposed to other folks in our caucus. Just because it's simply because politically, I believe more with one group than the other. It doesn't mean I don't like someone. It just means that politically, I believe in—
Brent: Can I say, John, that [inaudible] you don't want to raise taxes? That you're against taxation?
John: Oh, absolutely.
Brent: Okay. [Inaudible].
John: I will not make a vote for a tax increase of any type. (Smart position.)
Michele: You know what? Also, we have Assemblyman John Moore with us. When you spoke with Chris actually towards Thanksgiving, around that time….But, what did Chris say to you about his vote?
John: So, all along, up to that point, Chris and I had been friends and he helped me get elected and that sort of thing. As far as he helped work for me, because I had no one. I got no support from the party. I got no support from anyone. It was just me. And then when my numbers were good during early voting, Chris reached out and that sort of thing. So that's how my relationship with him started. And I thought, "Hey, this guy's friends. We're going to be friends. This is good experience. This is going to be good experience throughout this session." So then Chris and I all the time, after I got elected, we started raising money and Michele, you helped me raise money tremendously as a result. Thank you very much.
Michele: Yep.
John: And I would make comments to Chris. We'd be in his car or we'd be somewhere and I'd say, "Oh, I got a check from so and so for this amount." "Oh, I didn't get that. How'd you get that?" Or, "Michele just dropped off a check to me for this amount from these people." "Oh, well I didn't get that." He all the time was scrapping around for money. He seemed to never have any money. Now, Chris' campaign did lend my campaign money, as I stated to the Metro police and my C&E's all report that. So, anyway, Chris was always scrapping around for money, needing money. He seemed always desperate, where I was getting money and evidently he wasn't. I just left that alone. That's his business, not mine. And, so somewhere during the course of our conversations, I can't remember one day to the next. That's why my attaché gives me a card every morning telling me who I'm meeting with and what time, because I can't remember. So somewhere during our conversations, when we were electing, I believe it was the time we were going to elect, at that time, we wanted John Ellison for Speaker. (How’d that work out?)
Michele: Right.
John: I believe it was somewhere around that time. I'm kind of fuzzy there. But I mentioned to Chris and I said, "Hey Chris, come on man. What's it going to take to get you back on the winning team? Come on back over to our side?" Something to that effect. And he just kind of looks up at me with the Bobby Kennedy haircut that he has (!) and told me with a kind of a smirk, "Well, if you got a check for $10,000, I might be persuaded, he, he, he" kind of thing like that. (So Edwards solicited a bribe? Pretty serious. Hope he can prove that.)
Michele: And I can so see that. I'm sorry, John. I'm sorry to laugh, but I so see Chris doing that.
John: And I just kind of blew it off at that point. It seemed serious at the time, but at the same time, it could have been, who knows. But the bare fact that the statement was made to me. And I just blew it off you know. Because there's, as you said earlier, we talk smack all the time.
Michele: Yeah, we talk smack. And let me tell you something, this whole show is revolving around a fellow peer, a fellow assemblyman accusing another of extortion and that is not okay. (But it is OK for this gang to accuse others of just about anything? Got it.) So he wanted attention, boy he's got it. He's got my attention.
John: Right.
Brent: And, by the way, I want to point out too that it was generally known that Chris was doing this type of thing. Because that's why Chuck Muth started calling him Chris "Let's make a deal" Edwards back in December and November. And that's been going on, so it was almost like a joke within the whole conservative group.
John: I mean, Chris and I even had a conversation one time and I have spoke with legal counsel about this. So don't get any worries. I've lawyer'ed up as they say.
Michele: Yeah.
John: We had a conversation one time about lobbyists. Okay, "Hey, let's come up with a rate card. If you want 15 minutes, it'll be this. If you want 20 minutes, it's a—"
Michele: Oh, the pay to play. Like what Steven Horsford did, the pay to play.
John: Right. As a joke, you know?
Michele: Yeah.
John: We just kind of chuckled about that.
Michele: Yeah.
John: But, he's always receptive to that, because there's always money because he seemed to always be desperate for money.
Michele: Right. These conversations, sound bytes like that, you know, people wearing a wire, I've put a sign on my door that says, "Get naked, get frisked or get out," because no wiretap….”
John: I won't even talk in the building anymore. I'm afraid. And I've got nothing to do with this and I've got nothing to hide. But just the mere fact that who knows who's wired in the caucus rooms. I don't even want to speak now. I don't even want to voice an opinion, because I don't know if this guy's—
Michele: Well, Assemblywoman Victoria Seaman. If you guys remember, Assemblywoman Victoria Seaman, in our last caucus meeting tried bringing that up. She's like, "Listen, we need to bring up this wire" and Speaker Hambrick shot her down real fast and said, "No. No. We're not talking about that." Then I had to stand up and become Michele Fiore again and say, "No, we're talking about it, because I'm not going to be sitting in here fighting and arguing over bills." I mean, we talk smack. We were talking smack about SB 119. How the voters voted no on the rollovers and how we're going to squeeze something. So we talk a lot of smack in the caucus room.
John: Absolutely.
Michele: Yeah.
John: I had a lobbyist in my office the other day that I took outside of my office, because I didn't want to speak in there. Not that I have anything, but—
Michele: Yeah.
John: —You know, the whole point.
Michele: So Assemblyman David Gardner, all this ruckus, all this talk, where do you think we sit?
David: Well, I—
Brent: Well, before David talks real quick, can I tell my part about Chris coming to my office and what was going on with that? And then that would give David even more.
Michele: Yes! Yes! David, listen to this.
Brent: Okay. So Tony Dane, I was in communication, and then Chris reached out to me originally. And then I put him in touch with Tony Dane, because he wanted the dogs called off so to speak. Get this; he had the Tea Party people in Mesquite who Jerry Littman was coordinating, not running or anything else. But was in communication with and I know Jerry very well. And they're filling me in on what's going on. Because I have my ear to the ground so to speak, so I've been listening. Tony Dane independently with his group doing robocalls and mailers, and then Chuck Muth, of course, if you follow Chuck Muth, he's been writing about this thing for a while. So we're at the point now where we, when I say we, the conservatives elected John Hambrick. John Hambrick then, a couple weeks later, decided to then appoint Paul (Anderson), the guy that ran against him for speakership, to take over your position, Michele.
Michele: Correct.
Brent: Kicked you off taxation, took me off taxation, took Victoria Seaman off taxation, all tax pledge right after the Governor announced this big plan to increase taxes by $1.3 billion. We got removed, because they knew that was coming down the pipe.
Michele: Correct.
Brent: And then also took me off Ways and Means. So got the people off the money committees that were conservative. That same time, so Chris is being attacked by these three groups. Well, Chuck doesn't know Tony or they know each other, but they don't get along. Tony's not coordinating with the Tea Party people, so Chris comes to me, "How can I help this?" Tony sets the deal up to do this proxy, because we need to get this back under control. Chris comes to my office. At the time, I didn't think about it. I thought he was just being an honest guy, just like we talked about. We talked with fellow caucus members and don't expect anything. But he kept on asking questions, which were very pointed that were entrapment-type questions. "I need you to guarantee me that you can stop this." And I go, "I can't guarantee you anything, Chris. And if you want to, let's talk to Tony." "Tony promised me that he would do this." I go, "I don't know what Tony promised you. I'm not here. All I am is the messenger." He kept on making this, "Chuck Muth promised that he would do it." So what I did is I tried calling Tony. I said, "Look, I can't tell you what's going on. I did not make a deal, but let's try calling Tony." Tony, unfortunately, didn't have his phone on. He was at his son's hockey game. So we couldn't talk to Tony. Then he said, "Well, Chuck Muth promised that he would start writing positive about me." I go, "I can't make any representation about Chuck Muth." So we actually called Chuck Muth. I said, "Chuck, can you talk to Chris?" "I don't want to talk to Chris, but I will meet with him." That's what Chuck Muth said. So I said, "Will you meet with ****?" [Inaudible] Yeah, if you set it up." So I set it up for them to go meet. Well, Chris blew that off, and then Chuck wrote about that a couple days later in his Muth's Truth. So that was a fact. Same thing he asks, "What about this allege that somebody's got a wire, I mean a recorded conversation of me making a bribe." And I go, "I don't know about that, but Laurel, who is my political consultant, may know about it." So we called Laurel and I wasn't privy to the conversation, because I couldn't hear. But he's trying to get me to guarantee stuff for him, because he was wired.
Michele: Right.
Brent: "You've got to guarantee this." "Chris, I can't guarantee anything, but I will tell you this, you've upset a lot of people—"
Michele: Yeah, he's wired for a big reelection I'll tell you that.
Brent: I didn't know that though. I didn't know that it was wired.
John: [Inaudible].
Brent: I thought I was helping our conservative cause of low taxes, and he was just trying to set up to entrap us at somebody's direction. That's the thing. It's somebody's direction.
Tony: Well, this is what I think. A $1.4 billion tax increase, they want to pass it. And they're going to go to any means to hassle the conservatives there, because they need two-thirds vote to harass it.
Michele: This is Tony Dane talking just to let the listeners know. This is Tony Dane talking.
Tony: Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry about that. If this wasn't with the $1.4 billion tax increase involved, nobody would see this as a crime.
Brent: [Inaudible].
John: And, by the way, this—
Tony: What they're doing is they're trying to shut down the ones that are against the tax increase.
John: This is Assemblyman John Moore. And, by the way, this tax increase was known, was put out to our caucus back when Ira Hansen, when we elected him Speaker, because it was told to him, at that point, that this tax increase was coming down the pipe. That that's what at the top wanted to do and that we were all being threatened with our bills. That if we didn't vote for this thing, our bills would be dead in the Senate and all this and that.
Brent: And committees, because right after this thing with Chris, he went right back to Hambrick and them and all of a sudden the phone blows up, "Brent, you better knock this off. You're going to get off all your committees." And all the threats and all this stuff just started coming my way.
John: I always knew politics were dirty, but come on, man.
Michele: We've got Assemblyman David Gardner on the phone. So David, give me your overall.
David: This is David. I just wanted to make one point real quick. Wiretapping is legal if that person is part of the conversation, because then they have the approval of one person in that conversation. If, like, for example, nobody can bug your room, John. I mean, that is illegal.
John: Okay.
David: They'd have to get a court order for that. Say, if it was the police or something like that, but an average Bill can't do that. That's just what the law says. To record somebody, you have to have permission of at least one person in that conversation if you're in the same place with them. If it's a phone call, it takes both sides. Otherwise, it's illegal. That's what our laws say. As far as this situation, wow! I didn't know about a lot of this stuff, but it just seems to be, in my opinion, based on what I've heard, that Chris knew something. I'm talking Chris Edwards knew something was going to happen and he's trying to use this to throw people off the fence.
Michele: Right.
David: That's what it sounds like from what I've been told.
Brent: Well, here's what my analysis of the scent is. Chris first voted for the conservatives and he was primaried by the more moderates in our party, meaning Paul Anderson and his group.
John: The same people he's working with now.
Brent: Right. After we elect Hambrick, Hambrick kicks you out, Michele, and you're off taxation. The Governor only makes two donations. Two donations of $5,000. One to Chris Edwards and one to Derek Armstrong, another freshman. Derek Armstrong then gets appointed as Tax Chairman. Once you got taken off the committee, I got taken off the committee. And not only that, the Growth & Opportunity PAC, which is supposed to be caucus money controlled by Paul Anderson with no audit, donates $7,500 to Derek.
Michele: Wow!
Brent: And John Hambrick donates to Derek and Chris. You're out. You're thrown out. Us conservative people are ostracized. We're not even in the conversation now. We're attacked. We're told we're going to be thrown off committees if we say anything, do anything. (These are your elected representatives, folks.)
Michele: We have no caucus meetings.
Brent: And then they come after us with wiretaps and attempt entrapment when we're the ones standing up for the people trying to stop this tax increase. A tax increase that was just overturned four to one by the people of the State of Nevada, 80%, and we're the ones being attacked, utilizing resources of our state, the police, all this public relations, all these newspapers like Ralston (Jerk!) to attack us conservatives, because we're the ones that want to stand up for the people. And at the same time, the trail is very clear, like Tony said, and I applaud you, Tony, for calling in the FBI, because I would agree something smells fishy.
Tony: Well, this is Tony again. The thing that bothers me the most is, as a private citizen, I have nothing to gain by defeating the tax initiative. Nobody's paying me to defeat it. I'm spending my own money on this.
Michele: Well, thank you.
Tony: [Inaudible]. So there is no financial gain for me. Through the financial office out of Nevada, now, there's not even a financial loss to me if it passes. So I have nothing to gain or lose. I consider me just doing the right thing.
Michele: You know, and unfortunately, doing the right thing and common sense seems to be out of style lately. However, with this group, we're going to bring that back. We're going to bring the common sense back. We're going to bring conservative values back. And we're going to protect the people. That's why we got elected.
John: Absolutely.
Brent: And you know what? We're running out of time. But I have another story to tell that I would love to get it out with my second meeting with Chris and how he tried to entrap me again there. And then I actually went to Tony and said, "Tony, this is really stinky. They're trying to entrap us on this." And that's when this thing happened. But we're out of time. I can't tell it.
Michele: Yeah. No. We've got a couple more minutes, John. So Assemblyman John Moore, what are you thinking?
John: Well, I'm thinking that I'm not going to kowtow to anyone except my constituents. And I don't care if they're Republican, Democrat, Tea Party. I care less about party in that sense. I'm here to do what is good for the folks of this state and the people that sent me up there to work for. You know, labels, party labels, all that kind of thing. Yeah, sure. I believe my philosophical beliefs are conservative and that type of thing, but if a constituent calls me and says, "Hey, I'm a hard-core Democrat and I don't want taxes" or "I don't want this or that." Well, if enough people call me that way, well, I'm going to go with what they want, because—
Michele: That's correct.
John: —That's constituents or the same way with Republicans, Tea Party, I don't care. I'm not going to—
Michele: Because you're a true representative. I have to add that.
John: And one thing I will say and I've said this to you a thousand times is I will not be intimidated by no man. No one will intimidate me and in our first caucus meeting, someone attempted to do that to me. And I shut him down quick and I'll shut down anyone that tries to go down that road with me. I'm not playing that game.
Michele: Thank you, Assemblyman John.
Brent: And this is coming from a Special Forces Ranger—
Michele: Special Forces Ranger.
Brent: —Who saw combat duty. No one's intimidating him.
Michele: Yeah. Yeah.
Brent: Bullets don't intimidate him.
Michele: Yeah.
Brent: So words surely won't.
Michele: Yeah. Listen, basically the listeners have four electeds right now on the air with them, Assemblyman John Moore, Assemblyman Brent Jones, Assemblyman David Gardner, and myself, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore. Assemblyman David Gardner, I would like for you to give us our last two minutes of your overall of this show today.
David: Okay. Thank you, Michele. I have to say it's kind of crazy this is happening. I mean, I knew there was a fight for the leadership, as we all knew when we were talking about it. But it just seems that even with all that arm twisting and stuff that they tried on John, they tried that on me too. It didn't work. It's amazing, in my opinion, that first, the media's been so one sided. As Brent said, it was pretty common knowledge. [Inaudible] it was a rumor that Mr. Edwards was shopping his vote. I know I heard it. I heard it a couple times from a couple different people. (A lawyer repeating potentially slanderous rumors on the public airwaves. Excellent.) And, so the fact that the media keeps talking about him being extorted, that really concerns me, because extortion is not even the crime that they would be looking at. Even Mr. Dane was talking about that's not what they're trying to pin him on. They're trying to pin him with bribery. If what he is saying, if Chris Edwards is being correct and all of us are lying or the other people are all lying, it would be a crime of bribery. So I think this is one of those times that you can see either an extreme bias in the media. And I'm very thankful for shows like this that we can tell the truth. Or an extremely ignorant media, because they're not reporting the facts as are known and they know these things. Ralston's been in that building basically every day this week. Or at least I've seen him most days. And I know a lot of other people have been there everyday this week. So I mean, they've been around us. We know for a fact that certain members of our caucus were leaking things directly to Ralston and to other media people. (This sounds criminal to me!)
Michele: Oh, absolutely. I think someone took a photo of Chris whispering to Ralston. (And did they post it on Facebook? Instagram? For all the kids to see?) Assemblyman David Gardner, we have to wrap this show up and I just want to let the listeners know our next week's show will be Assemblyman David Gardner and myself. I can't wait to talk more about this. Have a great Saturday, guys.
David: Thank you for letting me be on it.
Michele: Thanks, David.
Brent: Thank you.
David: Okay, thank you.
Comments: