Text Messages, Emails Show KBI Had Full Knowledge Of Raid On Kansas Newspaper’s Office
from the ohhhhh-THAT-small-town-paper-raid dept
On August 11, the Marion County PD — with the assistance of the Kansas Department of Revenue, the county sheriff’s office, and (for some fucking reason) the local fire marshal — raided the office of the Marion County Record, along with the home of its co-owner, 98-year-old Joan Meyer.
The raid was prompted by the very expansive reading of two state laws, one involving identity fraud and the other involving computer crimes. The first response from nearly everyone but Police Chief Gideon Cody was a denial of knowledge, much less involvement.
But as reporters kept digging into the story, the denials — starting with the county attorney Joel Ensey’s claim of innocence when he asked a court to quash the warrants — began to unravel. The DA claimed he’d never seen the warrants prior to their service. But an email exposed this lie, showing Chief Cody had informed of his plans to search the paper’s office, as well as sent him copies of the warrants he planned to deploy.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) strode onto the scene, presenting itself as a force of good, here to get to the bottom of this pile of constitutional violations.
It, too, claimed it had nothing to do with the raids.
Attorney General Kris Kobach, who has oversight of the KBI, told reporters on Aug. 16 that the KBI “was not notified of the searches prior to their taking place.”
That statement is, at best, misinformed. Perhaps Kobach just didn’t know. But the KBI sure did. It, too, had been informed of Chief Cody’s unconstitutional plans. Not only that, it apparently approved of them, as Jessica McMaster reports for KSHB:
Text messages obtained by the KSHB 41 I-Team reveal Gideon Cody claimed the Kansas Bureau of Investigation was “100 percent behind” him one day after the raids on Marion County Record and two homes.
The text messages, provided by a source and independently verified by KSHB 41, are between Cody and Joel Ensey, Marion County Attorney, who revoked Cody’s warrants within days following the raids.
More evidence of KBI’s involvement and prior knowledge. And more evidence of the county attorney’s prior knowledge and direct involvement.
Now, it could have been that Chief Cody was putting words in the mouth of the KBI. But if so, he was doing it constantly. A text sent to county attorney Ensey on August 9, two days before the raids, said “KBI will be lead in the investigation.” One day after the raids, Chief Cody sent Ensey another text referring to KBI’s apparent support of his actions.
The final message from Cody on the subject of KBI and the newspaper raid stated KBI was taking its own route with the investigation. Not an investigation of the raids themselves, mind you.
Cody sent another response: “They want to use an independent lab not affiliated with [the] government for forensics, and they appear to be taking this case over. I will let you know.”
So, the staties wanted to do their own digging into the seized electronics using an “independent lab,” whatever that means in this context. The KBI never got a chance to do it. The court ordered all devices and data returned to paper and its employees before they were ever in the hands of the KBI.
Additional emails obtained by KSHB contain even more evidence of foreknowledge and approval, if not direct involvement.
One day before the raids, Todd Leeds, KBI special agent, sent an email to a Marion police officer. He wrote, “Did you guys execute this today?”
The police officer responded, “No. My understanding is that the county attorney wasn’t in the office today.”
The subject of that email is, “Additional SW for Eric Meyer’s Residence.”
Given these facts, it would make zero sense for KBI to be allowed to engage in an investigation of the Marion County PD and its actions. It has already let everyone know what it thinks about what happened here and seems unlikely to discover anything damning when doing so would mean damning itself.
Hopefully, this latest bit of news means the KBI will be stepping away from this entirely.
Multiple sources confirm an outside law enforcement agency has joined Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s probe into the events surrounding the raid on the Marion County Record newspaper.
Eric Meyer, publisher of Marion County Record, Deb Gruver, former reporter of the Record, and Ruth Herbel, vice mayor of Marion, told the KSHB 41 I-Team an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has reached out to them about the case.
According to those who spoke to KSHB after speaking to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent, CBI is definitely not digging into the actions of the newspaper or its employees. It wants to know why this investigation was initiated by the Marion County PD and why it decided the best plan of action was an all-day assault on constitutional rights.
Hopefully, the CBI will expand its investigation to include the KBI, which is certainly far from blameless. This debacle — every small part of it — needs to be dragged out into the sunlight. The last thing the KBI should be allowed to do is creep back into the shadows while everyone’s paying attention to an outside agency and its apparently far more competent investigative work.
Filed Under: 4th amendment, eric meyer, gideon cody, joan meyer, journalism, kansas, kbi, marion county, marion county pd
Companies: marion county record
Comments on “Text Messages, Emails Show KBI Had Full Knowledge Of Raid On Kansas Newspaper’s Office”
Something’s rotten in the state of Kansas. There won’t be justice until all these chucklefucks get convicted of conspiracy. I won’t be holding my breath.
Re:
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
What? I’m shocked that a great republican state would have it’s government acting like the gestapo in order to silence speech.
Absolutely shocked.
FBI
On day one, I wanted the FBI to get on top of this.
Maybe they are, but if so, it is quiet.
They have plenty on their plate already.
Once again, huge props to Jessica McMaster for her astounding work on this story. We might not have a lot of the information we have right now if not for her.
If they're willing to lie about something like this...
Having the KBI not only be an in-the-loop partner on a raid of a newspaper but lie about it certainly bodes well for any investigations in that state they might be involved with.
Why, I’m sure they are totally above-board in all their other investigations and this is an extreme outlier that’s not at all indicative of their usual actions and level of honesty and integrity.
The KBI should stay in its lane. Which is apparently refereeing competitive cornhole and judging pie eating contests.
Re:
Well, the cornhole part is right at least.
I didn’t know that Kansas is part of Colorado. But, good thing CBI is on the case.
/s
i’ll be shocked if the CBI “finds” anything. LEOs are only ever adversarial when making jurisdictional claims over who has control or gets credit.
Re:
…or who gets to keep the goodies from a CAF seizure.
Oh lordy...
This shithole just keeps getting deeper and stinkier.
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I don’t see what the issue is, besides Tim Cushing making a whole lot of noise about nothing.
Re:
If you don’t see the issue, maybe you should invest in glasses.
After all, somebody died.
The Chief may have resigned cause he didn’t want to “defend my actions to the Council…”, but there are a lot more people in on this that need to answer regarding their role.
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Re: Re:
“After all, somebody died”
Still not seeing the problem. Sounds to me like you just want to shit on cops, because that’s what you Anonymous Chickenshits do.
Re: Re: Re: Try reading, it helps
No, it sounds like you just want to lick boots. A reporter was investigating a potentially corrupt cop and, when said cop got wind of it, said cop conducted an illegal raid of the newspaper to shut them down. And it turns out, a lot of other officials were in on approving the clearly illegal raid.
Sounds like you want to white knight for all cops, even the corrupt ones.
Re: Re: Re:2
“Sounds like you want to white knight for all cops, especially the corrupt ones.”
Fixed.
Re: Re: Re:2
Ignore this guy. It’s a troll impersonating another troll for attention. The real davec has an account that they always use for their comments.
Re: Re: Re:
You should move to Kansas and write a book about how great everything is there.
Re: Re: Re:
Why would we expect you to see something you’ve trained yourself to ignore because it is contrary to your biases? Your failure to see a problem is your problem. You’re telling on yourself again.
There has been a problem ever since things like “parallel construction” isn’t prosecuted similarly to perjury.
This Kansas matter is another symptom with a rotten justice system.
Well when your spokesman’s first response before getting any information (allegedly) is that even papers aren’t above the law you pretty much shot yourself in the dick.
A state law enforcement investigative department fscked up so well that they needed to turn the investigation over to another state to try to make sure people wouldn’t assume the investigation was biased.
But hey as far as I can tell none of the drunk drivers in this tragedy has faced any legal consequences for breaking the law… and thats the important thing… I guess.
Waiting for the city to play hide the evidence with the insurance companies lawyer so that she just walks the hell away after denying coverage.
Re:
If you look at the emails between the Marion SO and PD, it was not the KBi who wanted to use an outside lab but the PD and SO are the ones. That was why Ensey told them they needed the warrants signed by a district judge to have the items searched outside of the county because they were going to use a lab in Kansas City. Cody hid what he was doing from the KBi and only sent them one search warrant which was for Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel. So the KBi only had knowledge of a search for identity theft and misuse of office. If you read the email from KBi Agent it says “Did you serve THIS today” it did not say did you serve These* today
Repeating History
I think I saw this whole scenario played out on an episode of Bonanza.
Does anyone think the ME will have the courage to state, “Cause of death is heart failure secondary to state government’s violation of deceased’s rights”?
KBi Knowledge
If you look at the emails between the Marion SO and PD, it was not the KBi who wanted to use an outside lab but the PD and SO are the ones. That was why Ensey told them they needed the warrants signed by a district judge to have the items searched outside of the county because they were going to use a lab in Kansas City. Cody hid what he was doing from the KBi and only sent them one search warrant which was for Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel. So the KBi only had knowledge of a search for identity theft and misuse of office. If you read the email from KBi Agent it says “Did you serve THIS today” it did not say did you serve These* today.