If the Feds Want to Target You, They Can

Alex: Welcome, everybody. We have a special episode of the podcast, today. We’ve done six or seven of them now, and folks have questions, as one does about this topic.

Amy: So many questions.

Alex: And so we wanna go over and answer some of those questions to the extent that we can. So Amy, do you wanna start?

Amy: I think what I have heard the most on my Instagram and in real life is, how do I protect myself from becoming a target?

Alex: Yeah. Well, it’s funny ’cause I, I tell people on the civil side, like nothing can stop people from suing you. Like if they wanna… sue you, they can sue you. If the feds want to target you, they can target you. And so the question isn’t, can you get protected from being subjected to this? It’s the question of, can you survive it if it happens?

Amy: Yeah, which is a deep question.

Alex: Yeah, and I think the answer is you can. And it really comes down to, I think bizarrely, like some of these nonspecific things like attitude… Approach. I think being afraid is a really dangerous thing, and so you need to… The best way to protect yourself is to be informed, don’t give into despair, and whatever sort of is happening, to feel like you have some sense of control. Because people think, “Gosh, this is going on. I have no control. All these things are happening to me,” and in doing that, they let go of the choices that they can make to make a situation better.

Amy: Yeah, and the specific advice I would give, like to layer onto that is, you know, a lot of people say, when they get, get into a situation like this, “Well, I’m not a lawyer, so there’s nothing I can do.” There are absolutely things you can do. Usually in a white collar investigation, you know, it is related to your area of expertise… to your industry, and you know more about that than your lawyer does, than the prosecutors do, than the FBI agents do. And so finding a way to convey that information, like doing the work. Dig into the facts as you know them. Get all the records together. And listen, like even if you’re not a lawyer, in this modern world of the internet and AI, like you can do a lot of research and, and educate yourself. Like don’t get in your lawyer’s way.

Alex: That’s not the first step, is don’t put it on AI… because that’s all discoverable.

Amy: Well, right, but you can do research. I mean, you can do research… on AI.

Alex: Well, so let, let’s what I say. I think that, like, if you actually have specific steps, what you can do to protect yourself, one, you, you do need a good lawyer.

Amy: You do. And, and not just like the first lawyer that… your neighbor Bob recommends to you.

Alex: And so you need a good lawyer, which is the difference between you just need a lawyer. ’Cause having a bad lawyer can make things 10 times worse.

Amy: Well, let’s talk about a good lawyer in the context of a criminal investigation, because it’s not the same as a good lawyer… in any other context.

Alex: You need a lawyer who understands what’s going on, so somebody who has had experience generally in the sort of cases that you’ve had. People will be like, “Hey, if you had experience representing former Olympians… who have, been investigated for fraudulent landscaping schemes in New Mexico,” and you’re like, “No.” But that’s not the level of specificity or gener- generality you need, right? You need a lawyer… If it’s, if they’re federal, you need somebody who’s worked in the federal system. And if they’ve dealt with fraud, white collar crimes, who generally understand the crimes and who you think can understand the industry you’re in.

Amy: And the layer I would add to that is that something I didn’t know, you know, almost 98% of Americans who are accused of a federal crime resolve those allegations by pleading guilty. So there are many federal criminal defense lawyers who’ve actually never gone to trial.

Alex: Yeah. Oh, it’s… A- and it’s sort of like, do you want a doctor who’s never done a surgery… to tell you how surgery’s gonna go?

Amy: No. And s- a lawyer who’s willing to go to trial. I mean, it’s remarkable to me, but there are a lot of federal criminal defense attorneys who don’t want to go-

Alex: Are scared

Amy: Yeah, they don’t wanna go to trial. Because you’ll, it’s, you may not win.

Alex: Sometimes they lose… and they think, “Gosh, that’s a huge indictment of me.” No, I, that’s right. So I think that the qu- this first step of getting a good lawyer, y- you need to actually engage in the process, get recommendations, do your research. Don’t take the first person. I tell people who call us, “You know, call other people. Make sure you’ve got a personality fit because this is the person you’re gonna be in the foxhole with and you’re… gonna be battling with. And if you don’t trust them, if you don’t have a good sort of vibe with them, it’s, it’s much worse than it needs to be.” And then ask other people for their reputation. Ask other people how they view that person. And like you Google, like, best lawyer for this, you’re not gonna find anything. But if you talk to people and talk to people who are in the w- the world, the industry, judges, for example, are great resources if you have a friend who’s a judge. So get a good lawyer is I think one thing you need to protect yourself.

Amy: I think, too, like we should talk about money.

Alex: Well, having money is important. It’s help- helpful. But I do think, before resources, I would say people underestimate the value of their community… and their support system. And so how do you protect yourself? Have friends. You know, have family who love you.

Amy: Build relationships before you need them.

Alex: Yeah. I, I think, you know, I mean, obviously it’s good to have relationships in life, but I think when cr- any crisis happens, whether it’s, you know, a health crisis, a… you know, a crisis in your community, a crisis like an investigation, if you have a community who supports you and who you can rely upon, doesn’t matter how much money you have in your bank account, that is invaluable.

Amy: And I, and I think, too, you know, for a lot of people, certainly people like me, like, it’s hard to lean on those people at first.

Alex: ’Cause you’re ashamed.

Amy: It’s hard. Yeah. Well, you’re ashamed, and also, like, if you’re a person who’s used to just getting it done, whatever it is, you don’t often-

Alex: Used to yourself

Amy: You just do it, right? But in this situation, you will need everybody who loves you, and you will need them in ways you cannot fathom. And so you have to also be somebody who becomes willing to ask for help.

Alex: Yeah. And, and, and, and that requires you to relinquish a little bit of control… and to give up… I mean, you have to give up this illusion that you’re perfect, right? That you have this sort of, “I am not superhuman.” And a lot of people, the folks that we represent, have a hard time doing that because that’s the image and sometimes the reality of what they’ve been living. So that’s sort of a, a piece. I mean, h- the money and protecting your money, it, I think it’s important to have a sense… And, and we get this all the time with couples, where one person will know a lot about their financial situation, the other one won’t. And then they get in a crisis, and, like, they’re having to figure out, like, that at the same time where they’re trying to navigate this. It’s terrible.

Amy: Well, and I th-

Alex: You’ve got to be literate about your own financial situation.

Amy: Always. Like, just life advice. But the other thing, you know, and the thing is, too, like, I think you need to become as realistic as you can about your monetary situation when you are dealing with an investigation. Because they’re, they can be years long. If you’ve listened to the podcast, like, every single person we’ve talked to has, has gone through a gauntlet that lasted two, three, five, 10 years. Right? So you have to kind of figure out what your resources are, where you can get more resources. Like, you know, I had to take jobs that I wouldn’t have otherwise taken.

Alex: Some people rely on GoFundMes. And there’s no shame to that.

Amy: I did.

Alex: Like, if-

Amy: We did that… at one point.

Alex: If you, if you don’t have the resources you think you need, figure out how to go get them. You know? And i- if you, if you have no resources, and the federal public defenders are, can be very good lawyers.

Amy: They can be great lawyers.

Alex: Make sure you get them early. Don’t wait.

Amy: Don’t wait. And also, like, I mean, Carl and I sat down at one point, and we made a list of everything we could sell. And we did, in fact, end up selling almost everything. But I mean, that was… We made a decision just to do that. But, like, you have to kind of list out the resources that you have. It’s very tactical, but it’s a necessary thing to do.

Alex: And I think you have a good example. Like, one of your resources was your willingness to be public and be vulnerable. And, and people don’t think about that as a resource, but i- if you are willing to be vulnerable and to expose yourself to the public in this process, it, it generally pays dividends. It’s not gonna pay dividends if you’re like, “Oh, look at me,” you know, “I am just… God, how, how unfair is this?” It, it has to be a- with, with some sort of reasonable sense of like, “I recognize that this thing I’m going through is tough, and I’m-” … “hope… I’m looking for people to help me.” And I recognize, like, to the extent you’re responsible for part of it, own the part you’re responsible for. You know?

Amy: I mean, people, I think, like, no one expects anyone else in this world to be perfect, and there’s certainly no perfect victim, and there’s no perfect criminal, you know, all of these different things. But if you can… But I think what people do appreciate in this world where anybody can get on stage is someone who is willing to be their authentic self. And so sharing your story is power.

Alex: Now, that, that is not me advising folks to go out there and, and talk about their case. But there’s, but there’s a difference between the case and the investigation, the case and the process, right?

Amy: Yeah. Yeah

Alex: Yeah, I mean, number one, don’t… I think maybe the first advice before we do get a good lawyer is don’t make the situation worse. Don’t, don’t lie to federal authorities.

Amy: Well, but, like-

Alex: Don’t-

Amy: First of all, don’t talk to them

Alex: Give your whole… Right. Don’t talk to them at all, but certainly don’t lie to them. Don’t talk to them, but don’t lie. Don’t think that you’re gonna outsmart some process. Don’t destroy evidence. Don’t go delete emails. I mean, the, the most guilty looking thing, even if you’re innocent, is going in and deleting stuff.

Amy: 100%, don’t do it. And back to the point of don’t talk to federal authorities. I cannot tell you how many very smart friends of mine… will talk to law enforcement because they think, “If I don’t talk to them, I look guilty.”

Alex: Yeah, no.

Amy: First of all, it doesn’t matter how you look. It just doesn’t matter how you look. What matters is the fact that you get legal representation before you talk to federal authorities… because they aren’t your friends.

Alex: No. No, I mean… And so maybe what number one is don’t make the situation worse. Number two is get a good lawyer. Number three is make sure you’ve got a community to rely upon, and then rely upon that community or that spouse or that family.

Amy: Figure out what your resources-

Alex: And then figure out what your resources are… whether that’s monetary or otherwise. I think that’s, that’s what you can do.

Amy: Yeah. I think, you know, I think one other thing to also think about that I didn’t know when my husband got a target letter, you f- it feels like everything is an urgent crisis because you are in crisis, and you’re like, “Okay, the train, the train is moving. I have got to figure this out in one second.” You probably have more than one second.

Alex: You definitely have more than one second.

Amy: So you need to take a beat. You don’t have to hire a lawyer within the first hour. You don’t have to alert everyone in the world as to what’s going on… within the first day. Like, you can pause and figure it out.

Alex: This is a deep cut from Jack Bauer of 20 years ago on the show 24. Jack Bauer can kill 27 people in 24 hours and never go to the bathroom and save the world.

Amy: I mean-

Alex: You have s- more time than you think.

Amy: No, I could probably do that, too, but, you know.

Alex: Let’s not, let’s not wish it upon anybody.

Amy: But I also, like, I wonder about your, your take on this. So we talk about not deleting things, don’t make things worse. You know, looking back over my family’s experience, I am deeply glad that we had so many records and had so many emails and had so many of the receipts, per se. And so kind of, I think that business owners, people should- Keep records.

Alex: Yeah, look, I mean, i- if you’re innocent, having records is great. If you’re n- not innocent… having records is bad.

Amy: If you- Yeah. Yeah.

Alex: A- a- and so I think, the, the, the way I would think about it is if this were to be, if somebody were to contest this thing or were to, to create some narrative that isn’t true, I’d want a document, if I had one, to show otherwise. Right? And so I, I do think, you know, purging your stuff on a regular basis probably isn’t a great idea, because if we can tell the story through documents and not through just your say-so… that’s so much better. We, we go back to Ryan Bloom, who we had on this episode. I mean, Ryan had these just binders of every single thing, and the first time he came into the office and, you know, we used a lot of that material in talking to the prosecutors and getting them to drop the case, it was incredibly useful. You know? And so his sort of resource was, “I’ve got time and know-how, and I’m gonna go put this together.”

Amy: Yeah. And you know, one resource you probably do have, like we talk about time in the negative a lot when we’re talking about criminal investigations, and I know having survived one with a family member, the time can be the most… painful thing ’cause you just want it to be over. But time can be your friend.

Alex: Oh, if you’ve got the time and you can… spend it building sort of your s- defense, eh, to show, “Hey, we didn’t do this” or, “This is not a crime,” that’s super important.

Amy: Yeah. And my husband says that time kills all deals, and so if you… if you take your time with the investigation, it’ll probably kill it.

Alex: It might kill the… Yeah. It’s just, if you, longer you wait, they may not be there to charge you at the end.

Amy: Yeah, I think that’s right.

Alex: All right. So that was first question we’ve been getting is how do you protect yourself? Th- I guess another question, this is directed at you, when you found yourself subjected to this, what is the number one piece of advice you would give folks who are enduring it?

Amy: That you have to take care of yourself.

Alex: Oh, that’s good.

Amy: I think it’s, it seems so simple.

Alex: Self, self-care.

Amy: I know. And I hate, and I don’t mean like bubble baths-

Alex: No, but self-

Amy: And massages.

Alex: But like-

Amy: It’s kind of like-

Alex: Make sure you sleep.

Amy: Sleep.

Alex: Make sure you eat.

Amy: Sleep, eat, drink water, exercise, walk. I mean, I-

Alex: And be a parent. Take care of your kids

Amy: You know, and, and listen, like there’s no shame in taking the medicine. Like when, when the FBI first showed up at my house, I could not sleep. I just couldn’t. I was so terrified. And so my doctor, God bless him, was like, “You’re taking Xanax.” And for three months I took Xanax, and then I stopped taking it because he’s like, “Now we’re going to stop taking Xanax.” But you know, it, like it allowed me to sleep, and I… needed to, and there was just no other way to do it. And so if you need whatever kind of medicine you need, like take the medicine. But I think, it is very easy to just immediately stop taking care of yourself, and this is a marathon, it’s not a sprint.

Alex: And I will tell clients when they come in, especially if they come in with a spouse or if there’s a spouse involved, I’ll say, “You guys need to start going to therapy.” If you’re not in therapy now, start going to therapy. Because it’s, it… The process is so hard on everything, but it’s particularly hard on relationships, that it’s useful to have that space to like force yourself into an hour a week. For my clients, to say, “You guys need to spend time with somebody who’s facilitating the, the, the relationship,” because you gotta have it to support yourself through this.

Amy: Yeah. I mean, listen, like I didn’t take that advice. I’ll admit it. I did try, I did try individual therapy a few different times during this investigation. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this.

Alex: I also tell clients that, too.

Amy: But every-

Alex: Individual therapy’s great

Amy: Every single therapist I went to, I would like tell them what was going on, and they were like, “What?” And they, just like their response-

Alex: Like, we tap out. We’re done

Amy: Their response was not helpful. And I was like, “Okay, we’re just gonna-”

Alex: Next.

Amy: Yeah. Next. We’ve gotta figure out the next thing.

Alex: But-

Amy: So maybe therapy doesn’t work.

Alex: But-

Amy: But it’s good advice.

Alex: No, but I think, you know, it’s all these things that you have to… If, it’s sort of, it’s the airplane theory, right? If you’ve got the kids on the plane, you gotta put your, your mask on-

Amy: Oxygen

Alex: First. And when it’s this process, if your oxygen mask isn’t on, you can’t do the 57 things you need to do.

Amy: You can’t. And that’s, everyone’s like, “I can’t believe you always got out of bed.” And I’m like, “Well, I had to. I have four little kids.” Like there was, there was no other choice there. And I think, you know, like one thing for anyone going through something like this is that like there will be a day where fi- you find yourself finally able to hold both, to hold like the terror of what you’re going through and then the joy of your kid’s birthday. Or the excitement of the changing leaves. Like it, it will happen. You kind of can get used to the strangest things and, and you will get used to it.

Alex: You know, we, our generation hasn’t really, hasn’t experienced war in a real way. And I mean, we, we’ve sent many people off to fight in foreign ba- battlefields, but we didn’t experience World War II. We didn’t experience the things that sort of our gr- grandparents did and-

Amy: A draft

Alex: For our, for our parents in, yeah, Vietnam with the draft. And I think one of the things that means we missed is that like even in the worst of times, I mean, you know, the, the bombing of London, they had to carry on life. They, they got married.

Amy: They had babies.

Alex: They gave birth. They had birthdays. You know, they went to school. They went to church. And I think if you take that mentality around an investigation, if you are targeted, that yeah, it’s not, it’s not, oh, at all… A walk in the park, but it doesn’t mean the rest of your life has to stop, and you get to make that choice.

Amy: You, you do. And for a long time, like I, like for a while, like I didn’t. I was like, “This is hell. We’re at war. This is my whole life. There’s nothing else.”

Alex: It has a natural reflex because you’re… you’re at war, so I’m just fa, I’m worried about the bullets, I’m worried about this. Then you realize, wait a minute, I can still go for the walk. I can still… go to the playground. We can take the kids-

Amy: I mean-

Alex: You know, on vacation.

Amy: Yeah, like we would drive down to-

Alex: Let’s go. Let’s go camp

Amy: South Carolina to go to the ocean. Like we, we lived. Like it wasn’t the way that I probably would have lived otherwise, but y- it was a life. And I think it’s really important to remember that you can do that. You just have to decide to.

Alex: Yeah. I, I, I was in prison visiting a client, I don’t know, a month or two ago, and there was a dad there with his three kids, and the kids were all there. And, and it felt sort of normal, which is both sad in its own way, but also I felt like it was really kind of affirming because, you know, the kids are sitting on the dad’s lap. This was a place where they allowed sort of the… luckily it was low enough level they allowed the prisoners to like touch their family. But I, I was struck by both, you know, how sad it must be to have a family member in jail ’cause it’s a huge just massive, just, ugh, tears a family apart. But also that in those moments, like, “You know what? We’re gonna go see Dad. We’re gonna spend time with him.” And still find a way to sort of continue to walk through kind of what’s happening. And I think you have to find ways, even when you think things are really hard, to be like, “All right, we’re gonna be normal today.”

Amy: Yeah. You have to try. Give it everything you have.

Alex: So another question we, we get, that I’ve got a few times is, all right, well, if they can come in and take your money, is there any sort of safe place for your money?

Amy: There’s not.

Alex: The government can, the government can come grab your money every which way. But at the same time, I do think, if you go back to the first piece of advice, get a good lawyer. If the government’s grabbed your money, you do have some grounds to start fighting, and it may be a lot slower than you want, and it may take a lot longer, but you can start to pick fights around that in ways that y- you can’t with other… With if they, if they hadn’t taken the money.

Amy: Yeah. Actually, that’s a really good point because, you know, in the investigation that my family went through, the government did use civil forfeiture to seize all of our assets. But because, they did not indict my husband after that, the rules around civil forfeiture required them to file, the government, to file a civil lawsuit against my husband’s… bank accounts and my bank accounts-

Alex: That’s right

Amy: Because they took my money, and that provided us an avenue to talk with the DOJ… which they might not have spoken to us otherwise. And to start sharing the truth.

Alex: Like, “Hey, guys, you got this wrong.” And eventually, they, they did relent and… On that front. So I think that, yeah, no, there’s no… Y- you can’t hide… I mean, maybe, I guess, if you want to put pennies in the backyard and dig, but they can find those too.

Amy: Yeah. I also don’t think it’s really smart, you know? It’s kind of like my husband-

Alex: It looks, it looks suspicious, man.

Amy: It looks bad. And the thing is, like, when you are under investigation, don’t do things that look bad. Like, my husband got a letter. The day he got a target letter, he got a letter from the federal prosecutor saying, “We intend to seize these certain assets,” which was really weird. But at that point, like, we were on notice. Don’t move any money out of these bank accounts or it looks bad, and it would’ve been, like, another thing-

Alex: Well-

Amy: For them to look at

Alex: At the same time, I always tell clients, “Look, if you’re not guilty, don’t act guilty.” If you were about to buy… If you got that letter from the government and you were about to buy a house and you had a contract on three days before, buy the house. Because if… Go. You gotta keep trucking through and live your life.

Amy: See, but I disagree though, because it’s like, in my, in my family’s case, if we’d bought the house, then they would’ve seized the house.

Alex: Yeah, maybe. But you would still be living there, right? I mean, like, I think at the end of the day, like, i- if you’re not guilty, don’t let the government’s sort of steps they take stop you from doing what you’re going to do.

Amy: Yeah. I also, I also think, like, you know, people are like, “Oh, cash.” Well, in my family’s situation, two weeks after they seized our bank accounts, the FBI executed a search warrant on our house, and had we had piles of cash somewhere-

Alex: They would’ve been like-

Amy: They would’ve been-

Alex: “Why do you have piles of cash?”

Amy: That would’ve looked… really bad, and the government would’ve taken them. So it really was just like, no. There was, there was kind of nowhere.

Alex: Yeah. So the answer is no, there’s no sort of secret way to protect your money except if they take it, fight like hell.

Amy: Yeah. The last question that we had is, how do you know if you may become a target?

Alex: Well, sometimes they’ll show up and knock and tell you. Sometimes you’ll get a letter.

Amy: In the mail, literally.

Alex: In the mail. Literally in the mail. Hey, by the… Or F- you know, FedEx will come sometimes. And sometimes you’ll get an email, that’ll say, “Hey, you’re under investigation.” They’ll generally say, “Here’s what we’re looking at you for. Here are the crimes.” It’ll be from the prosecutor or the FBI agent. It’ll say, “If you have a lawyer, you know-

Amy: Come in

Alex: Have them call us. If you don’t have a lawyer, you should probably get one and have them call us.”

Amy: Yeah. And sometimes you get nothing. Sometimes you get the FBI at your house.

Alex: Yeah. Sometimes you get a search warrant. And we’ve had, you know, some clients who just get indicted. Right? But again, to go back to what I said a moment ago, just if… Especially when you’re innocent, just live your life. And if the government wants to come and tell you that you’re a target, great, well, then you can start fighting it then. But a lot of folks who are like, “Oh, I’m, I’m so worried. Maybe they’re looking at me. Maybe I’m not,” that gets you nowhere.

Amy: You can’t stop them. Right? Like, you can’t… I think it’s so hard.

Alex: You can’t stop them from investigating.

Amy: Yeah, you can’t stop them from investigating you. And I think that is a really hard thing to grasp and to hold because if you live in a world where you’re dealing with a lot of rational processes, you’re just thrown into this one with really smart people kind of around you that’s not very rational.

Alex: Totally irrational.

Amy: And you’re kind of like, “Well, if I just explain, everyone will understand.” And that is just not true, and you kind of just have to endure. And so to your point, like, you do have to live your life. You can’t just say, “I’m just gonna focus solely on this, and I will make it go away if I give all of my effort to it.” That’s not how it works.

Alex: No. No. I, I think another, question that has come up, some in the comments about this is, you know, gosh, aren’t, aren’t these folks all guilty? Or, you know, oh, this person may have gotten a pardon, but clearly they did these things. A- and I think, what I, I think it’s critical to know about the process is that the truth or falsity of the accusations is, like, so far down the list of what this process actually elicits… that it, it is, I would say, so many more clients, for example, plead guilty because of lack of funds… or because they want it to be over or for certainty or, or the risk levels than because they actually did the thing that they said they did.

Amy: Yeah. I mean, I go back to, I think this is a great example for people because it’s an investigation a lot of people know. If you remember Varsity Blues.

Alex: Absolutely.

Amy: Where a lot of, CEOs and celebrities went to prison because they allegedly paid bribes to a college recruiter to get their kids into college.

Alex: And to get how ridiculous this is, if you pay a lot of money to a college… that they put your name on a building-

Amy: It’s okay

Alex: It’s okay. They’re gonna let your kids in. And that, that kind of bribe is okay. But the government was really upset that people were paying less than that amount… to get their kids in.

Amy: But everybody knows Varsity Blues, and they think of it as this insanely successful DOJ investigation. I th- correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it is true that the government did not convict any of their targets through a jury trial. The only people that went to prison-

Alex: They lost repeatedly at jury trials

Amy: Yeah, the only people that went to prison were people who pled. And so j- just to explain the process to you of like this isn’t the government always proving something, and even if they do go to trial and win, it doesn’t mean that there is someone who walked in there with an intent to defraud and commit a crime.

Alex: Yeah, I mean, there’s, okay, the most famous, you know, honest services fraud and wire fraud cases in the last decade have been ones where the government’s got convictions, and then three years later, the Supreme Court has said, “Well, that’s actually not a crime.” And, and so a lot of that, I think people don’t recognize. That especially in this type of kind of white collar cases, some people have done things that are ethically questionable… that have probably violated different civil laws they could get sued over. But the line as to what’s criminal and not is often just determined by who the government wants to mark a criminal.

Amy: Right, and then the understanding of the jury of that statute that is kind of ambiguous to begin with. And-

Alex: In, in one jurisdiction, the jury’s gonna go one way, one juris- I mean, most places, if you’re charged with murder, the jury’s gonna convict you if they think you did it. That is definitely not true for kind of the white collar crimes. There are some jurisdictions that are much more like, “Well, you know, we’re kind of business friendly here, and that seems like a reasonable business decision.” There are some that are like, “Man, you’ve got money. We don’t like that. We’re gonna throw you in jail… even if you did nothing wrong.” And those sort of just which u- absurdities in the system, I don’t think people appreciate how much they play a role, and they just sort of, you know, armchair throw out like, “These are bad folks.”

Amy: Yeah. Yeah

Alex: And it’s just not, it’s not accurate.

Amy: No, it’s not. So don’t believe everything-

Alex: Don’t believe everything

Amy: That you read.

Alex: When you see an, a, a press release, be a little bit skeptical about how that press release got, got written.

Amy: I think that’s right.

Alex: Well, thank you all. I appreciate, everybody listening and watching, and we’ve got more ep- episodes to come, and until then, keep sending us questions.