Fridays with Ferguson. Volume I. Does the AG Run an Ethical Office?

hello again everyone welcome to Washington Gun Lot TV I am Washington gun law President William Kirk thanks for joining us Washington it's Friday Casual Friday we're going to go without a tie today but that's right and it is time for our first episode of Fridays with Ferguson that's right I'm going to be joining in just a few moments here by independent journalist Michael Easton who is the public disclosure request King and we're going to go through each week and we're going to dissect certain parts of Attorney General Ferguson's record so that you guys can decide whether or not this guy is the appropriate person to be the next governor of the state of Washington and better yet we're going to bring all the receipts so if anything you hear or see on this channel you have a hard time swallowing or believing well all of the receipts are down below there in the description box so today let's have our first episode of Fridays with Ferguson okay Washington it is Friday which means we're going to spend some time kind of dissecting the record of your attorney general now listen we're going to try to keep it right down the middle here we're not going to tell you how to think but we are going to give you all the stuff to think about so that you can make some informed decisions now quick little word we got three sponsors for our Fridays with Fergusons and they include Taylor freelance security gun club and of course the cougar Collective you could check out the wgl partners page right there to get more information about all three of these fantastic organizations I told you we're going to bring the man who brings the receipts that's Michael Easton so without further Ado let's get Michael here all right everyone look I promise you I would have Michael E here Michael how are you and thanks for joining us good sir how are you doing I'm very well thank you listen for anyone who's been living under a rock doesn't know what Michael E's doing and how to follow why you tell everyone how they can get plugged in with Michael Easton uh you can find me on Twitter at Michael Easton WWA okay Hey listen uh just so people know on a side note you and I are personal friends we we talk several times a week we geek out on things and we will kind of spitball ideas and so you and I have kind of been spitballing this whole idea and taking a look at a lot of things as it relates to attorney general Ferguson and so we decided we're going to do this series and we're just going to kind of Peace meal this one little myth at a time and today's myth is this that Bob Ferguson runs a very efficient and ethical Attorney General's office and if I told you that what would you say is the truthfulness of that myth I would say that as a completely false myth that is a completely false myth why why sir would you say that what have your public disclosure records discovered uh in this particular instance I have found numerous and repetitive uh instances of where Bob Ferguson and his office have had um massive lapses in judgment as well as lapses in legal uh requirements that they've had when it comes to Discovery okay just to give the viewer an idea we went back and took a look at the 12 years that he's been the attorney general and I understand that you made a public disclosure because for how many times has he been assessed attorney's fees fines assessments or anything like that and what was the the total dollar amount that you came up with for his 12 years as attorney general I came up with 54 instances as well as a grand total of6 m2452 and 58 cents $16.2 million in a 12year period yes sir that is correct okay now you remember the first time you told me that number I damn near drove my car off the roadway remember that and I said to you I said Hey listen do me a favor let's go take a look at like the King County prosecuting attorney's office an office that I have a great deal of respect for I had the pleasure of working there many years ago and I know it's a very very high volume high pressure law office that they're running there during that same 12year period of time just to give the viewer an idea how much was the King County prosecutor's office assessed in these similar types of fines fees and assessments in those same 12 years they were fined $843 1859 okay so roughly $84,000 in change compared to the Attorney General's office 16.2 million correct okay now prosecutor's office deals with more cases well yeah like I said the King County prosecutor's office is a high high volume uh office and and they also deal with a lot of juvenal cases and so and their speedy trial there's a lot of ways that a prosecutor in that system could actually step their toe accidentally so I think that that's actually a pretty admirable number um compared to what we're seeing out of the Attorney General's office so um did you find a Common Thread in the cases as to why what what he was doing in order for his office to get racked up with these fines yeah the commonality and it was across multiple multiple cases was failure to turn over documents to the other side in Discovery okay and just so the viewer understands Discovery is kind of a fancy term for my evidence and your evidence and even though you may watch courtroom dramas where it's aha we got a surprise witness or aha we got a surprise exhibit actually in the real world that's not how it works because if I had a case against the Attorney General's office I would have to disclose all the evidence that I intend on using and they would have to disclose all the evidence that they intend on using they be in the prosecution and with the burden of proof there is actually additional ethical requirements on a prosecutor and so courts will get really angry really fast with prosecutors that are the ball um Michael did you find any cases that really jumped off the page like wow I can't believe either what happened here or the dollar amount that we're talking about yeah I found uh three cases that really jumped out at me uh the first one was the uh the I forget I'm going to butcher this poor man's name but it's the zanka case yeah that's theom County right yeah yes sir that is correct yeah it's the homish county case 2014 Mr Ferguson was only a couple years into his tenure as attorney general there but you did find a rather uh steep price tag on that one for the Attorney General's office how much were they ultimately ended up being assessed on that one correct the their assessment was 1,182 19966 okay so almost uh 1.2 million yes what was the reason for those sanctions uh they were withholding documents in Discovery okay uh let's fast forward then to uh couple cases in a little bit more recent time because one would think that that would have been a very good Learning lesson for the Attorney General but instead of things getting better they actually seem to get worse didn't they yes sir they did yeah let's talk about the Tobin case um because I know you you drew my attention to the Tobin case why don't you tell the viewers about what happened in Tobin uh the Tobin case they had same thing failure to produce almost 11,000 pages of documents and they said that everyone agreed to was responsible to miss Tobin's Discovery requests uh he was ultimately fined uh $322,000 as well as the settlement for the case was $3.1 Million all right so they they failed to turn over 11,000 pages of Discovery they were personally f $322,000 for that and the total settlement that the state had to pay on that case was 3.1 million yes sir okay correct okay then the last case we're going to talk about and this is the one and this is one of the most frustrating things is that unfortunately mainstream media has not really reported a lot of these epic failures but there was one that did Garner a little bit of attention and that is the Value Village case um now for the viewers who don't know what that was all about the Attorney General's office claimed that Value Village was holding themselves out as a nonprofit organization when in fact they were a for-profit organization the truth of the matter is Value Village never did such a thing they never held themselves at it it was almost like the Attorney General's office for whatever reason decided to go on a war against Value Village Michael tell the viewer first how much was the total price tag for the state of Washington by the time this Value Village litigation was done uh including uh fines and the settlement you were at 4,341 633 $4.3 million yes sir okay now we had said earlier that there was some uh media coverage about this including a really good article out of the Olympian in which apparently uh some some in some officials from the court I don't know if it was the judge or somebody else had expressed a lot of concern about the almost abuse of power that was being demonstrated here can you share that with the viewers yes sir uh in fact uh the uh uh people involved had said the Attorney General's office admitted early on that there was quote never any evidence of consumer harm consumer confusion or any intent to deceive that was early on in the case which is actually what the statute requires in order to pursue that action but that didn't sto the Attorney General no sir it did not okay and um I also understand you went some digging around with some more public disclosure that at one point even though they had no claim of action against them value Village actually offered the state a settlement that is they would write him a check to get attorney general Ferguson's office to go away how much did they actually offer to pay him on a frivolous claim uh they offer to pay him $475,000 but that off offer was rejected by the Attorney General's office okay so so I want the viewer to understand this Value Village is subject to a frivolous lawsuit by the Attorney General's office they figure hey you know what it's probably better to pay the attorney General off than it is to litigate this thing so they offer a payment of nearly a half million doar for a frivolous lawsuit the Attorney General tells them to go pound sand they go all the way to court then we have all of the shenanigans happen same old same old not turning over Discovery and things like that and it cost the state again how much Michael $4.3 million and I understand that during that litigation even though the Attorney General's office had kind of admitted they didn't really have a claim for Action the Attorney General was sending out basically hate mail potential consumers can you tell us about that correct he was uh while they were um doing all of this they were sending out information to uh or press releases to everybody saying that they were basically doing the bad things that they were accusing them of okay so while he's trying to kill their business in court he's also trying to kill their business out of court through you know nefarious mailings and things like that which would actually have misrepresented the state the status of the case would you agree with that I would agree with that in fact uh they even said says uh was quote deceiving its customers was the wording that they used okay now just so the viewer understands that I know we've made a lot of you know bold and salacious allegations here but everything that we're stating we're going to give the receipts to the viewer right because Down Below in the description box why don't you tell everyone what they're going to be able to find down there because you brought the receipts for all of this yes sir I'll be uh posting up all of the uh giving you the links for the court documents as well as the article from the Olympian um as well as all of the U um uh there's even a spreadsheet that I created that will automatically show you the total grand total of absolutely everything okay so go full circle back to our myth the myth is that attorney general Ferguson runs a very efficient and highly ethical Attorney General's office and you believe the evidence shows us what it's completely false okay and uh would you have any faith in this individual who runs the AG's office in this fashion to run our state in any fashion that would be any different absolutely not if he can't get the Attorney General's office in line to fix this massive problem he has no business jumping up and trying to run something a bigger operation I know I wouldn't hire him in my Enterprise Michael why don't you tell the viewer one more time how they can follow you uh you can follow me on Twitter uh I my name on Twitter is Michael Easton e a s t o n w wa all right listen he's Michael Easton I geek out on him on Twitter you should be also he always brings the receipts this is the first in a series of videos we've already started brainstorming next Friday series as well Michael as always thanks a million thanks for everything you do and please stay safe thank you sir thank you for having me $16.2 million in 12 years as the the Attorney General let that snc in listen you may have more questions about this or anything else related to What's Left of our state of Washington which isn't much right now as mentioned earlier all the receipts for everything we talked about it's all down there in the description box our contact information is down there in the description box in case you want to get a hold of us maybe you got an idea for a video we should be doing around here if you do go ahead and click on that link right there maybe you just want to be part of our monthly newsletter the ability to do that is all down there in the description box and and finally and most importantly lets everyone remember that part of being the lawful and responsible gun owner like we talk about all the time here is to know what the law is in every situation and how it applies to you in any instance that you may find yourself until next time thanks for watching stay safe