Canton Cover-Up Part 266: US Attorney’s Office Says They Want Their Messages with Norfolk DA’s Office to be Made Public
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At the last Karen Read hearing on January 5th, Judge Cannone heard several motions, many of which weren’t ruled on that day. One motion left unresolved was whether to allow the public release of eight letters of correspondence between the Norfolk County District Attorney’s office (NDAO) and various federal agencies, including the U.S. Attorney and the Department of Justice. Judge Cannone asked that the U.S. Attorney be notified and have a chance to be heard on the matter in advance of her ruling on January 18th.
Today, well in advance of next week’s hearing, Joshua Levy’s office filed the following response. After reading both motions filed by the defense and Commonwealth, they have no objection to these letters being released.
As you may recall, these letters contained correspondence between several members of the NDAO, including Morrissey himself, and various federal agencies over the last year. On January 2nd, the defense filed their opposition to the Commonwealth’s Protective Order on the first six letters, which included brief descriptions of said letters:
So just to summarize-
- Letters 1-2- First Assistant Beland of the NDAO writes letters to US Attorney Levy fishing for grand jury minutes of Levy’s investigation of the NDAO, citing their discovery obligations to Karen Read. Because clearly they’re so concerned about providing discovery timely.
- Letter 3-Levy’s response to Letters 1 & 2, which most likely tells Beland to pound sand, in so many words.
- Letter 4- On May 15, 2023, Pass the Gravy himself sends a letter asking for the manager (the Department of Justice) to move the investigation out of MA citing conflict of interest by Rachael Rollins and a former ADA’s husband.
- Letter 5- On June 1, 2023, the Department of Justice responds to Gravy’s 5/15/23 manager letter.
- Letter 6- On November 22, 2023, Gravy writes letter to Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in charge of the FBI.
In their motion opposing the impoundment, the defense cites the Ted Daniel news special and even makes some of the same arguments made by Ted when his FOIA request was denied back in November. They delve further into case law to support their motion and call out the absurdity of some of the Commonwealth’s argument to impound. For example, the Commonwealth once again attempts to argue that the correspondence pertains to an ongoing grand jury, which is blatantly false as surely they aren’t in possession of grand jury minutes for an investigation into their own office. According to the defense, the Commonwealth wanted only certain portions of the letters released, which were cherry-picked to appear favorable to the NDAO.
As for the last two of eight letters, the Commonwealth filed a Notice of Discovery and immediate related Motion to Impound in the late hours of January 4th, on the eve of last week’s hearing. While the content of these letters is still unknown, they were cited as relating to both 1) “a pending state grand jury investigation” and 2) “a federal grand jury investigation”. Given these last two were also approved to be made public by Levy, we can assume they contain further correspondence with his office and/or the DOJ.
While Joshua Levy’s office takes no issue with the release of these letters, at the end of the day it’s up to Judge Cannone. Given the U.S. Attorney himself does not oppose releasing this correspondence, why would Judge Cannone oppose its’ release? Auntie Bev from May would probably deny this request. But Auntie Bev 2.0 is acting very differently since finding out the Feds are watching closely. Why has the NDAO worked so hard to keep the public from seeing these letters? Isn’t it their job to be transparent and seek the truth? Siding with the Commonwealth to impound would only make Judge Cannone appear openly corrupt at this point. If I were to guess, I’d predict she rules in favor of the Defense here. Now if this were a few months ago, I would have fully expected her to side with Lunchbox. However as we saw in her recent rulings, where she allowed the Defense to access communications among Trooper Proctor, Jen McCabe, Brian and Nicole Albert, we’ve seen a more fair Judge Cannone. Almost as if the tides are turning and she’s aware she’s being watched by the Feds.
It should be noted that there are three parties involved here:
- Karen Read’s defense team
- the Commonwealth
- U.S. Attorney’s Office
Of these three, the only one who has a right to advocate for privacy is Karen Read’s defense team because they are the only one that is not a government institution. There’s a reason that we can FOIA government officials messages but we can’t FOIA Brian Albert’s cellphone. Yet it is the defense who is asking for full transparency and the Commonwealth who is trying to hide public records. Meanwhile, the institution that is investigating the Commonwealth is also asking for full transparency. That speaks volumes about who has something to hide and who doesn’t.
The energy is shifting. This will all be ending soon.
