FBI Sting, Bribery Charges, and a Supreme Court Win

P.G.: You, the government, are basically asking me to lie… say that I did something that I didn’t do. I wake up at, like, 3:30 AM in order to meet eight FBI agents in the driveway of my home to be arrested.

Amy: Even if you’re not convicted, the process is the punishment.

P.G.: And this was an old friend, a longtime donor to all my political campaigns. In no universe could I have fathomed that I was on a wire at that time. The outcome everyone was working towards was, let’s separate this man from his wife and from his young children. There’s something deeply anti-family… about the American justice system. This guy commits crimes, signs a proffer agreement, doesn’t get prosecuted, gets paid to help ensnare innocent people.

Alex: It’s a good deal.

Alex: I’m Alex Little, a former federal prosecutor who now is a defense lawyer that stands on the other side of the courtroom defending clients.

Amy: And I’m Amy Nelson, a former Wall Street lawyer and entrepreneur who’d never touched criminal law until the FBI knocked on my door, and I had to walk my husband through a four-year DOJ investigation. This is the TARGET podcast.

Alex: This is the TARGET podcast.

Amy: You’re one of the youngest elected officials in the state of Ohio. You’re running for mayor of Cincinnati, and one day you find out that a friend of yours has been wearing a wire for nearly a year and a half, recording your conversations, and setting you up in an FBI sting. This is the wild ride of P.G. Sittenfeld. It ended up in the Supreme Court, a pardon, and a dismissal of his case. So as we sit here today, the indictment against you was finally dismissed officially. Where were you when you got the news?

P.G.: Probably, that’s a good question. I think I, I have three young sons, so I… The days are a blur. That’s my first sort of caveat or excuse. I’m almost positive I would’ve taken my ki- my two older kids to school. I usually then come back from that routine. My main professional endeavor is, uh, sort of journalistic and essay writing now. So I probably would’ve been sitting down to, like, start on whatever the day’s project was, and then gotten, you know, a forwarded email from one of my Jones Day lawyers saying, “Hey,” you know, like, “As we expected, but you never know.” And as I and we all know, kind of things can go awry in the… American criminal legal system. So having it be official and, say, you know, five years and change after this surreal saga got started that went through, you know, trial, prison, a presidential pardon, Supreme Court victory, to ultimately have the same judge who’d presided over the trial say, “This is dismissed with prejudice, and the government has to return a fine,” it was, um, it was more than a coda. I mean, it was, it was very hard fought, but yeah, I think, I, my guess is, I should know the answer, I’m almost positive I would’ve been, like, sitting at my kitchen table. Not a very glamorous setting, but as good as any.

Alex: When it started, did you ever think that you’d have that day? I mean, did you think, “Okay, this is gonna go up and down, but at the end I’m gonna end up sort of fully vindicated”?

P.G.: It’s a good que- I think I probably would’ve, that would’ve been, like, a bit of a roller coaster and sort of vacillating emotions and, like, intellectual assessment. I think I had probably more, as many people would who have not experienced the criminal legal system directly, I probably had more confidence that like… “Oh, doesn’t the system on balance generally get it right?” And it’s like…

Alex: Nope

P.G.: it, it gets it wrong all the time, sadly. And with, um, as you both know, like, great human toll and human consequence. So I think I initially would’ve thought that. Then there were moments of, you know, shock and anguish and despair, and also moments of, like, hard to have sort of higher moments of triumph that, you know, I, I wish so many defendants, especially innocent defendants… got to experience some of the moments of triumph that I did. I think the only thing that never changed throughout, you know, a long, winding, harrowing process for me, I always knew that I would fight it tooth and nail… every step of the way. The day that I learned, to my great shock, I was gonna be arrested and indicted through, you know, the, the trial court saying, “Dismissed permanently forever, and the government owes you a fine back,” um, I always know, like, I’m gonna fight them. I think this is so wrong and misguided and was done in such bad faith. So that was the consistent. In terms of my faith that, like, we would ultimately have, you know, that form of vindication and victory, it would’ve depended on the day you would’ve asked. Not ’cause I didn’t think it was warranted, but… I mean, look, you know, the s- it’s really hard being a defendant in… Now, would I trade our system for, like, the Russian gulags or whatever? Of course not. But that doesn’t mean it’s not, um, ripe with many flaws.

Alex: Yeah. Well, I, I do wanna ask about that. I mean, the, the difference in how we perceive the system often depends on our upbringing, what we saw growing up. I mean, you went to phenomenal schools all growing up. Um, you were a Marshall Scholar, right? For grad school. You went over to Oxford. All the great…

P.G.: One of the dumber Marshall Scholars. But yes, nonetheless.

Alex: But, but the accomplishments. I mean, you, you, you sort of, all the golden rings you got to grab, and you then nonetheless find yourself in the system. How do you think your sort of prior, you know, years living and a success, what did it teach you about the system that, that was entirely wrong?

P.G.: Well, I think one of the reasons why, you know, I speak at law schools and law firms, and I go back to prisons, and part of the reason why…

Alex: Mm

P.G.: I mean, I’m a little bit, you know, tired of my own story, but one reason I actually think it is important to share with a very diverse set of audiences is if you went to Princeton and were an elected official and come from, you know, privilege or at least a relative degree of privilege, and you can still get steamrolled by… the system and by the sort of bureaucratic, you know, winning over doing justice nature of things, if this can happen to me, it can happen to anybody. And I think that, you know, it’s… We probably won’t get the reforms that are needed and get the change that is needed until people who, you know, feel comfortable and feel safe and think to themselves, “That happens to other people. That happens to… those people,” whatever sort of they would mean by that. Everyone should think that this can happen to me, and I don’t want, you know, I don’t want people to walk through their life paranoid, but a bad faith prosecutor whose goal is, you know, headlines or victory… not doing justice can wreak…

Alex: Mm

P.G.: havoc in the life of any American at any time. Um, yeah, and there are obviously, there are ad- you know, indict a ham sandwich, things like that, so.

Alex: I, I totally agree. I will say, the, the question I have is the people who you went to college with, people you went to graduate school with, people who are in positions of power in politics, if you told them that back when you were in those positions, what percentage do you think would believe you? 2%?

P.G.: Very few.

Alex: 1%?

P.G.: Very few. It’d be hard to put a percentage on it.

Alex: So, how do you build, how do you bridge that gap between the folks who really need to know, look, the system is not great… and those who don’t wanna hear it?

P.G.: Well, it’s an irony in that, like, you know, 70 million Americans, I believe is the number, have some form of a criminal record. That’s just directly, right? You then say if those people have a couple family members… a couple best friends, it’s like we basically should live in a country or close to living in a country where, like, everyone knows someone… and yet I do think a lot of people in power or affluent, not everybody by a long shot…

Alex: Mm

P.G.: but still have been and feel buffered. So it would be a low percentage to… And look, I do not wi- you know, I have an amazing wife, and at the time this first started, we had one son. Then we added a second son and have a third son. You know, I don’t wish the sort of anguish that was, um, put upon them. So I don’t wanna sort of be, like, an educational guinea pig- … for the sake of my social milieu. But I am glad, if that’s not totally the wrong word, that everyone who knows and is friends with P.G. Sittenfeld and felt my righteous indignation about this prosecution from the get-go, they think, “Man, wow, this really could happen to anybody.” Yeah, so I mean, you know, the, the racial and wealth disparities about sort of who gets targeted and who doesn’t really have the ability to fight back. I mean, my, my privilege in this was that I had the chance to fight, right? And it’s really important, I say this every place that I speak, um, getting… This was not what our founders and framers envisioned. But just getting to go to trial, getting to fight your case all the way to trial, that reflects a privileged position.

Alex: Unbelievably so.

P.G.: 98 or whatever the percentage is, roughly 98% of people, they don’t take pleas because 90, ’cause 100% of that group are guilty. It’s to mitigate, you know, ruinous legal costs. It’s to mitigate the potential punishment. So yeah, I, I, I don’t know. How do you make, uh, how do you get people to think they are as vulnerable as they could be? I don’t know, beyond- … you know, sharing stories that make people say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Amy: Well, and I think that’s one of the reasons it’s so important you’re sharing your story. I think sometimes if you survive the system, you’re just so tired and you just wanna be done with it, and you don’t wanna draw the ire of anyone who already was angry. You know, and they’re probably angrier that you got out of the, whatever, got out of the situation that they wanted to keep you in. And so I think, you know, these stories are just so incredibly important. And so we appreciate you coming to tell yours, even if you’re tired of it.

P.G.: No, no, and I say I’m tired of it. I mean, I like connecting with people. I like trying to… inspire people, but actually I think, Amy, you make such a good point. You know, I, I have a lot of fr- I, on a weekly and often… on a daily basis, I speak to friends, these are genuine friends, who are still in prison. Right? And I do not blame anybody who is churned through this system for when they get, you know, to the other side, as much as you ever get to the other side…

Alex: Mm

P.G.: saying, “I want to look forward, not back.” “I wanna kind of divorce myself from that chapter or those chapters of my life.” I completely understand that as an emotional response. It’s actually why I felt it’s important to, like, I’m going to take this thing that happened, integrate it, and, and I’ve sort of done kind of hardcore… the opposite of, like, proximity to the experience because I wanna use it as a tool to, you know, inspire and motivate change… in other people, educate people that might sort of think, “Oh, greatest system on, in the world. Totally flawless.” And yeah, exactly.

Alex: Well, so I wanna start now, kind of rewind a bit, go to the beginning.

P.G.: Yeah, your viewers are like, “What happened in this guy?”

Alex: Yeah. What’s, what’s the first day, first moment you realized, “I’m under investigation for a crime,” and then what did that feel like?

P.G.: So this, the, actually started, there, the FBI in Ohio, um, as far as we can tell, basically, like, unfurled a dragnet across the entire state looking for public corruption, which I abhor and should be rooted out and should be punished. It shouldn’t be fabricated and invented where it doesn’t actually exist. So they were aggressively looking in state government, cities, townships all across the state. About a week before I ended up getting arrested and indicted, they arrested a colleague of mine on the city council, and as part of, uh, publicly unveiling that indictment, they divulged details about these two people who I had understood to be in, uh, gentlemen who wanted to invest in a blighted, uh, dangerous eyesore of a building in the heart of downtown Cincinnati. If you’re a councilman and you have out-of-town investors saying, “Hey, we wanna help improve and revitalize your downtown,” you’re like…

Alex: Sign me up.

Amy: Great, yeah

P.G.: you’re like, “Great, this sounds fantastic.” So in unveiling the indictment for my colleague, they basically kind of blew the cover of these undercovers. And I was like… “Wait a minute. These two guys-”

Alex: They’re not real.

P.G.: These two guys, yeah, who, I mean- Talk about a moment of disorienting of, like, you have entered a Truman Show scenario… of fiction. So I then did what you would think I’d do. I called a friend who actually had spent 25 years, uh, of noble service in the US Attorney’s office that subsequently indicted me. She was from the onset disgusted with the prosecution, but I called her and said, “What I thought was the case is not the case. Talk to…” She put me in touch with another lawyer, who I did not know initially. So it was in the hands of someone who, a very competent lawyer, but was a stranger, which we can come back to sort of… my feelings about that piece of it. Um, and then that lawyer spoke to the US attorney, who the day before actually said, uh, “Your client is gonna be arrested and indicted tomorrow.” In one of the most, uh, dramatic and surreal drives of my life, my amazing wife, Sarah, who is a oncologist, was doing her training at the Cleveland Clinic. I was a city councilman in Cincinnati. I happened to be starting the day up there, so I wake up at, like, 3:30 AM to drive 250 miles down I-71 in order to meet eight FBI agents in the driveway of my home to be arrested. So, um, it ca- I mean, I had sensed, like, a- again, never in any universe felt like I have done something unethical or untoward, let alone that crossed any threshold of criminality. Um, when the prior indictment of, uh, my colle- s- city council colleague was announced, I was like, “Okay, what’s going on here?” It still came as the shock of a lifetime that I was being indicted and that I was being arrested.

Amy: What did you think about on that drive?

P.G.: Oh, boy. I mean, in any, like, sort of peak emotional experience, your brain is going in all sorts of places. So I’m sort of thinking, like, everything ranging from, “Am I dreaming?” Like, “Am I gonna wake up?” And like, “Oh, I’m in my bed, and there’s Sarah. Ooh, that was a spooky dream.” “But it was just a dream.” To, I think I remember thinking, like, “Is my life just gonna unravel to such a crazy degree?” And I think I had the thought, like, “Maybe I’ll go and join, like, a Catholic monastery on the other side.” My faith is very important, but I, like… So, I mean, maybe that’s not such a crazy thought.

Amy: Maybe.

P.G.: But to also then sort of trying to remember, like… ’Cause I still, I hadn’t seen an indictment. I didn’t know what I was being accused of. Thinking, “What could they possibly be charging me with?” To, you know, really mundane, banal thoughts like, “Wow, at 4:00 AM, I-71 doesn’t have too much traffic,” sort of thing. So I do remember, uh, the first woman I, I, uh, reached out to, Kathy Brinkman, the woman who was the AUSA in the Southern District of Ohio US Attorney’s Office, uh, and is a heroic, saintly woman. She actually called me probably about, I don’t know, 4:00, 4:30 AM to check in on me, ’cause I needed to be home by 9:00 AM to not, you know, set loose some manhunt or whatever.

Amy: I, I also just wanna pause for a minute, because people just can’t comprehend this. You were told you were going to be arrested.

P.G.: Which is not the norm.

Amy: I know. But, like, but, but sometimes it plays out in this bizarre way. You’re told you’re going to be arrested.

P.G.: Correct.

Amy: They’re like, “Be at your house… by this hour to be arrested at your home.”

P.G.: Yeah. Yeah, it’s a, it’s a da…

Amy: I mean, it’s just a…

P.G.: It’s a date, yeah.

Amy: It’s just ridiculous.

Alex: And as opposed to just show up at court.

Amy: Like…

Alex: Like…

Amy: Like, like…

Alex: Like, you could just show up at court…

P.G.: Oh, the, the…

Alex: and do this the right way.

P.G.: And, I mean, d- d- do eight, you know, like… I think I had a fly swatter in my kitchen. The waste of taxpayer dollars through these…

Amy: Shocking

P.G.: sort of theatrical… show of force. Taxpayers, if no one else, should actually be offended by that. But anyway, so Kathy Brinkman, career federal prosecutor, disgusted by this prosecution. She calls me an hour into my drive, and is just like, you know, “Stay strong. I wanna make sure you’re on the road.” And then she said to me, um, “This experie- what lies ahead,” and I couldn’t have known then, you know, what would lie ahead. A trial, as the things I said, a trial, prison, a pardon, victory in the Supreme Court. She said, “This is gonna change your views of government.” Uh, and that was…

Alex: Oh, yeah

P.G.: a subtle but accurate comment, to say the least.

Amy: Yeah. It, I mean, I don’t think there’s, you know, any way around that- … that outcome for you. But to, to go back to the, the arrest moment. You pull up into your driveway, and there’s eight agents.

P.G.: S- so, yeah. I got there a little bit early, and then I knew I was gonna leave. At, I, I basically understood I would be released on my own recognizance at the end of the day. And this is stuff that, like, you know, when your life is, when that degree of upheaval is happening, some of these details might seem kind of, you know, like peripheral. But I was sort of thinking about a lot of, so I was like, “I don’t want, like, you know, a 12-person press corps… following me back home, feeling sort of trapped inside my own house. So what I actually did, I get home. I don’t know, like, I change clothes, put in my contact lenses. I then actually move my car, like, two streets over… so I could just get my car from there and then drive home at the end of the day. I then, after, uh, leaving my car, I then walk back to my driveway, and that’s when the eight FBI agents sort of… And they, you know, there was, there was a weird sort of, like, cordiality to them that day. I always remember them being like, ”Oh, are these handcuffs too tight?“ As though they were, like, fitting me for a men’s loafer or something. I was like, ”You’ve basically showed up to play your dutiful part in trying to ruin my life,“ and the sort of all of this, like, the manners. I would’ve been like, ”I think you guys are doing something, uh, very unethical, to be hon- I know you’re doing your job.“ ”But I think you’re doing something immoral. Like, if you’re gonna go 90% immoral, just go all the way.“ Like, you know, you don’t even need to be polite.

Amy: Who cares how they fit?

P.G.: Kind of, yeah.

Amy: Who cares? You like the new handcuffs. I, it’s just, oh, God.

Alex: So that first day, you go to initial appearance. You find out what you’re being charged with. What is your first kind of reaction to that?

P.G.: So I’m sitting in a US marshal holding cell, and at some point they bring in another guy. I won’t say his name here, but I, I’ve always remembered his name, ’cause it sort of felt like we, this other guy and I had led very different lives. It was immediately apparent. And yet fate had brought us to share a US marshal holding cell on the same day at the same time. And I’ve actually, I’ve always thought I need to do, like, a journalistic piece that sort of, like, tells our parallel stories that converge…

Alex: How you both end up the same place at the same time, yeah

P.G.: in this one moment, yeah. So I’m sitting in there with him, and the US marshal comes by and is like, “Hey, here’s your indictment.” Of course, first thing as most defendants, uh- … this is probably a jarring part of the overall experience. You look and then across the top of it, it says, “Your name versus the United States of America.” And you’re like, “Holy sh-” Am I, am I allowed to curse on this podcast?

Amy: Oh, yeah.

P.G.: Like, that is a formidable opponent, okay? The, uh, me versus the United States of America. But then there was a weird thing where I read through it, and I’ve been thinking, “This whole thing feels so bizarre and surreal, and, like, it can’t possibly be happening. Is it possible that I’m not remembering something?” And so then I read through it, and no, I remembered absolutely everything. And I remember thinking, “WT,” uh, like, “This is what they’re charging me for?” And, you know, my case ultimately ended up implicating free speech and constitutional… issues, and there was a passage in there, uh, in the indictment that I guess they felt like they had to include, where a cooperating witness, someone who they had gotten to cooperate because he signed a proffer saying he’d committed three felonies of his own. He, uh, basically asserts a quid pro quo, and this was an old friend, a longtime donor to all my political campaigns. I and the public had no idea he’d gotten himself into deep le- deep legal trouble. Um, in no universe could I have fathomed that I was on a wire at that time. So this guy offers a quid pro quo. If ever there’s a moment where, like, your guard is down, you’re gonna speak freely… you’re talking to an old friend, you have no idea that he’s wired up. Like, a criminal person, a corrupt person would be like, “Oh, yeah, let it rip.”

Amy: Let’s do it, yeah.

P.G.: I immediately am like, “Hey, nothing can be a quid pro quo. Nothing can be ille-” Like, like, Boy Scout, goody two-shoes. And I see this in the indictment, and I’m like, “What, what is the real motivation behind them bringing this case? Like, who is trying to feather their resume?” “Or what’s going…” I just remember being, honestly, kind of, like, upbeat and buoyant to be like…

Amy: Oh

P.G.: this seems like one of the flimsiest… Uh, like I, you know, I have not lived in the world of criminal prosecution, right? But I’m thinking, “This seems so flimsy and misguided.” Weirdly, despite the very dire circumstance, despite, you know, being in custody at that moment, reading what I was being charged of and the evidence for the first time, I was sort of like, “We’re gonna beat this.” I didn’t know it’d be quite as winding a road as it was… to beat it, but that was my reaction at, in that moment.

Amy: And at the time, you’re running for mayor in Cincinnati. You were a city councilman. And you’d actually been tapped. Uh, your friend had been wearing a wire for 18 months? I mean, a while.

P.G.: He, he, by the time the, throughout the… They, they ran this really elaborate sting over… Yeah, no, sorry. By the time I’m in the holding cell, yeah, he’d been wearing a wire for probably close to two years, yeah.

Amy: Which is wild.

P.G.: Yeah. It was, um… I had a lot of prosecutors, including people who were… You know, there ultimately ended up being some incredible amicus briefs, one of which was by a group that, you know, isn’t the most, doesn’t, it’s not the most typical thing for them to criticize their own. That is former public corruption prosecutors. And I’m talking about, like, the public corruption chiefs from SDNY. The person who, that brief was authored by the person who ran the criminal division for all of DOJ. So people who have… some real chops saying this was a misguided prosecution, um, that never should’ve been brought. Some of these people, who are a lot wiser in this realm than I am, they said if the government actually thought they had a strong or winnable case, you do not keep running a sting and running a sting and running a sting because of the resources and frankly the risk to something going haywire… and sort of b- blowing their own cover. So I think, you know, no one’s ever… The government, when they, uh, err or do wrong, they’re not quick to come with an apology. I think that that’s, uh, an under…

Amy: What are you talking about, DG? I think they’re just…

P.G.: An understatement, right, yeah

Amy: willing to do whatever they want…

P.G.: Mea, mea culpas are- … are not their specialty. But I think, though none of, no one’s, no one’s ever said this from the government directly, I think they knew they were, you know, sitting on a very weak case. So their answer to that was, “Let’s just keep running at him and running at him-” “and running at him.”

Alex: Well, they doubled down, right? If it’s weak, they have to be harsher. If they’re weak, they have to put more pressure on you. They, they have leverage in certain ways.

P.G.: Yeah, so, so, I mean, if, if Attorney General Barr… can, I, I’m sure he was incredibly thoughtful and deliberate with the amicus brief, but if he can read a draft of an amicus brief that has all of the central salient facts and pretty quickly say, “This is garbage,” not the brief, the c- the prosecution is garbage. The brief is great. I’m gonna add my name to it. What are the people on the ground thinking to keep… And I think, I think it’s a combination of, of tunnel vision… of probably, like, you know, s- not wanting to account for, like, you know, sunk cost sort of phenomena, where they’re like… “We have to have something.”

Alex: It’s pride. It’s ego.

P.G.: Pride.

Amy: It’s all of that.

P.G.: They wanna have something to show for all the effort that you put in.

Alex: But, but, but that’s because it’s pride and ego, right? They have to feel…

P.G.: I think that’s right

Alex: like they accomplished something.

P.G.: I think that’s right, yes. And I, I am forever very grateful to Attorney General Barr for, with two other former attorney generals of the United States… lending his name to that brief.

Amy: Well, this is something that’s really interesting because I think when we see news about, you know, federal prosecutions at, at this moment in time in this country, we think everything is so politicized and that, of course, whoever the president is or the attorney general knows everything… that’s happening at the DOJ. Right? Like, across…

Alex: Not at all

Amy: all 92 offices and all the line prosecutors, and that’s just absolutely not true. And the other thing that I think I didn’t really understand about the system until my family was involved in it is that line prosecutors or US attorneys in, you know, that run each of the offices around the country, they have enormous influence on the types of cases they want to pursue. Right? Like, what they’re interested in.

Alex: Oh, yeah.

Amy: What they, they can develop things. Like, in this case, and tell me if I’m wrong, but no one was investigating you until the man, your, your friend who, you know, admitted that he, you know, committed these felonies…

P.G.: Had a debt to pay off

Amy: he had a debt to pay off. He didn’t go to prison.

P.G.: Correct.

Amy: And he wasn’t prosecuted.

P.G.: Correct.

Amy: And so the reason he wasn’t is he said…

P.G.: It’s like trading for… I do not think of myself as a big fish…

Amy: But…

P.G.: but clearly the feds…

Alex: Oh

P.G.: attitude was… And that guy, you know, he was a local real estate developer. He’d played in the NFL. They were like, “Oh, we’ll let that guy get away-” “… with crimes he’s confessed to if we can get-” “… the guy who’s gonna be m…

Alex: Well, and the main…

P.G.: The main cooperating witness here was paid Uh, like healthy five figures to try and con- uh, for his role in the, in the sting

Alex: To, to, to do the work, for his work, his time.

P.G.: So, so if you… follow the sequence, it’s commit- this guy commits crimes, signs a proffer agreement, doesn’t get prosecuted, gets paid to help ensnare innocent people.

Alex: That’s a good deal.

P.G.: And it is, it is a very bizarre thing about, you know, a system that we all wish we could be idealistic and feel really good about when people basically say, like, “Okay, we’re gonna throw the full force and weight of the federal government against our perception of this bad deed. But by the way, this thing that’s related to that-”

Amy: No problem

P.G.: “we’re gonna completely let that go-” reward it, not pu-“ Like, what message does that send? I’ve tried not to, like, personalize it relative to, um, you know, the people who prosecuted me. I also… They also get to live with the fact that, you know, the Supreme Court, the executive branch of government, three attorneys general of the United S- like, the number of people that basically, in their own words, said, like, ”You got it wrong.“ ”You whiffed. You did the wrong thing here.“ Now, does that bother them? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.

Amy: Well, but that’s…

Alex: Nope

P.G.: Maybe not, but I, I hope they’re, um… I hope they wrestle with that a little bit before going on to, to, you know, a, a bad faith prosecution of the next person.

Alex: Yeah. I think the problem, though, is there’s not really any focus or push to make prosecutors…

P.G.: Have…

Alex: have that sort of… Well, just to have that thought process of, “Where did I make a mistake? How can I make sure I don’t do that again?” That conversation doesn’t happen.

Amy: Well, and not only that. I, I find it, you know, coming from corporate America, I find it fascinating that you can be at the DOJ and you can pursue a very public prosecution that, say, you know, we were talking about one, um, of a former governor in Virginia who signed on as amicus in your case. He was convicted of, uh, honest services fraud in the Eastern District of Virginia. It was overturned by the Supreme Court 9-0.

P.G.: 9-0, right.

Amy: Nonetheless, the lead prosecutor on that case went on to become, years later, the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Right? And so in corporate America, if you, you know, have that kind of track record, like, you’re not going to be CEO. So it’s not only that we’re not asking prosecutors to reflect on this, to think about it, we’re promoting them despite. You know? And that to me is strange.

P.G.: The, the, the one…

Alex: Well, this is a political question too, though, ’cause as a politician, I mean, the thing that I’ve seen about all this is…

P.G.: In my, in my former life

Amy: Former, former politician

P.G.: Yes. I’m a, I’m a writer, as I say.

Alex: Let’s call you a recovering politician. That, that so much of that is because I think you have these prosecutors who the, the, the things about… We don’t actually look at prosecutors and say, “Tell me about your judgment,” right?

P.G.: Mm.

Alex: We wanna say, “Gosh, you put bad people behind bars.” “I like you.” And, and where in the political system is there any space for realizing that what they’re doing is they’re exercising judgment… and that nobody’s ever actually checking that judgment.

P.G.: Yeah. Well, I was gonna, uh, not a pushback, but sort of like this is, this is about individuals and their good judgment or their bad judgment, rather than a sort of systemic thing. I do think the scale, like, when you have a really large bureaucracy…

Alex: Oh, yeah

P.G.: and it thinks its, its initial mission was noble, right? But over time it gets into self perpe- I, I, my, I have worries about bureaucracy that gets into self-perpetuation mode, and that’s when I think things drift from the mission of justice to the mission of, you know, justifying yourself and, and winning, right? Even, even in the sort of the wrong way. And I think when that machinery is so expansive, it need, like, it needs to churn out a widget, right? And that widget here is a conviction. It’s bringing a prosecution in the first place. So I do think, I think the machinery is a little bit bloated, and in some ways incentivized to find criminality… even where it doesn’t exist.

Alex: I think I, I totally agree with that on the federal system. I think the problem that I have even broader is we look at these state court prosecutors. The difference between a federal prosecutor is federal prosecutor never has to bring a case. They could just sit there and never indict a thing.

P.G.: Again, not what the founders… intended in any way.

Alex: But, but they don’t have to, right? The, the, s- states are plenary. They’re supposed to take the rule, you know? So if somebody gets shot and killed, state prosecutors have to try to find… that person and charge that case. And some of these offices are very small. In some of these counties you may have four prosecutors… you know, doing, kind of protecting the public. You see the same problems there, right? The same lack of accountability, the same unwillingness to accept that they may be wrong, the sense that, like, our… I mean, my favorite phrase is, “Well, our officers,” is what a, a state court prosecutor generally will call the police depa- the police witnesses. “Oh, that’s all, our officer will be here later,” or, “Our, our, our officer can’t.” No, that’s a witness in your case. That’s not… You know, putting yourselves together is a problem. Um, but I think you’ve touched on many pieces of that. I wanna go back to the lack of any sense that what they’re doing affects real people’s lives. Because going back to the FBI showing up there, “Oh, sir, let me, um, let me make sure these cuffs aren’t too tight,” and they’re aware of that immediate moment of human connection, right? Was there ever any sense, though, from anybody, from the FBI agents, the prosecutors you dealt with, that what they were doing affected much more than just the immediate? That this is a family, this is a person’s career, this is a person’s sort of life, reputation, and was there ever a sense that there was any sort of respect for that?

P.G.: In short, no, because… think about this was everyone playing their… And it takes a lot of people, right? So you have…

Alex: Mm

P.G.: your FBI agents, you have your undercovers, you have your US attorneys, you have your people transcribing secret recordings. You have your judge and your courtroom deputy. But collectively, the outcome everyone was working towards was, “Let’s separate this man from his wife and from his young children.” So someone might say, “Oh, like, I was just this,” like, “I was just doing my job, going and putting him in handcuffs,” that they’re like, you’re all part of a whole, and anyone who… I mean, look, I, I would not be a good judge or prosecutor- … or FBI agent, because I take, like, families and that bond, or any, the bond… of any human connection. Now, obviously, like, if someone is a murderer, right? You are preserving families by removing that person from society. So…

Alex: Absolutely

P.G.: like, I’m not some prison abolitionist. I think there are absolutely things that deserve to be punished. But- When, in a case like mine where obviously, like, I’ve underscored my own belief and other people’s belief in my innocence, but also where there’s maybe not a sort of a victim or… a different kind of, different kinds of transgression, I don’t know, I think they don’t really take very seriously or grapple with this, to me, profound act of family separation. And I think there are ways that… And I’m not just talking about innocence here. I’m talking about are there ways that people who have done wrong can, and I’m not talking about violent crime here where someone needs to be separated, but where someone can, um, pay back their debt to society…

Amy: Mm

P.G.: to their victims while, like, working really hard or serving or trying to earn money to pay off restitution. I don’t, I don’t know. I, I, making sort of even, like, temporary orphans out of, of… fam- or, I, it just, I…

Alex: Well, the, the rest of the Western world can, has gotten that right. But apparently… But apparently we haven’t.

P.G.: Yeah. There’s something…

Amy: Well…

P.G.: deeply anti-family… about the American justice system. And yeah, the one… You know, I haven’t thought as much about this, but speaking of the rest of the world, this conversation made me think. In many countries is it the case that if you bring a prosecution and you lose, you, like, you’re paying their…

Amy: You lose

P.G.: attorney’s fees?

Alex: Oh, yeah.

P.G.: It seems like there could be some simple, elegant thing that at least made someone think, “Are we bringing, like, a righteous slam dunk of a case, or is this case really more about my ambition as a prosecutor?” “But if I lose, it’s gonna look really bad when I have to write a check for $100,000 or a million doll-” I mean, I wonder if there couldn’t be, if we had…

Alex: That’s a great idea

P.G.: legislators that had the, the will and the courage to do it… uh, could really change the incentive model for prosecutors, which…

Alex: Oh

P.G.: it sound like that’s part of what we wanna do.

Amy: I think in theory we’ve done that with forfeiture, right, with CAFRA, with the anti, with the for, Civil Forfeiture Reform Act. Now of course, it’s, like, very similar to what we see with pleas. People end up just kind of settling those cases. But if you, if you fight the civil forfeiture… and you win, you get your attorney’s fees. So it can be done.

P.G.: But isn’t it funny that that would be on the civil side, and yet you can separate someone from their family. They can later be determined to be innocent.

Amy: Mm-hmm. And that’s it.

P.G.: In my case, my… was acquitted, uh, four acquittals at trial, two convictions. These, uh, convictions are later vacated unanimously by the Supreme Court of the United States. No apology letter.

Amy: Nothing.

P.G.: Let alone, like…

Alex: Yeah, any repayment of fees.

P.G.: Let alone.

Alex: No, it, it’s, it’s unbelievable. There’s not even a federal statute for wrongful conviction. I mean, it, so s- states have done this.

Amy: Unbelievable.

Alex: There’s Tennessee…

P.G.: It’s your podcast, but I’m like, w- why is that? It just seems like… there’s stuff that everyone’s common sense would agree…

Alex: It’s…

P.G.: When you go down this… deeply misguided path…

Amy: Seriously

P.G.: everyone can agree that, like, the victims, in this case the victims of law enforcement… and bad faith prosecutors, they deserve to be made whole, as much as you can, ’cause you can never give back, you know, time.

Amy: So were you ever offered a plea?

P.G.: Oh, yeah. This is… I mean, one of the thing, when I assess other people’s, at least assess their belief about their own innocence or guilt, are there some people that are like, “Yeah, you know, this person definitely did it,” but they still go to trial? Maybe. But if you, like, if you know you did it- … you’re probably not going through the effort…

Alex: Oh, yeah

P.G.: potentially the enormous expense, the trial tax where you realize the punishment could be greater. So I… Fighting doesn’t automatically mean that someone is innocent, but it certainly is a step that point…

Alex: Good indicator.

P.G.: that, that points in that direction. And I’ll, for myself, underscore this a little bit here. I was offered a plea deal that included the possibility of zero prison time. And it was one of the easiest deci- Now, I don’t… People, again, I believe innocent people accept plea deals for things they didn’t do, again, to mitigate risk and potential punishment.

Alex: Especially with more serious crimes.

P.G.: And for more serious crimes. Um, so I, I don’t wanna, um, say that I can’t understand why someone would, but rejecting that plea deal was one of the easiest decisions of my life. I, I, my own personal sense of integrity said y- you the government are basically asking me to lie… say that I did something that I didn’t do. And then my reward is there might be zero prison time involved. So now again, a lot of people would say, “Well, you’ve been charged with something. The possibility of zero prison time, like, that’s really good.” It w- I was, again, to go back to where I started, like, I was gonna fight this tooth and nail every step of the way, and I am, I would do it again to make the government carry their burden. That’s another systemic flaw, is that just…

Alex: Oh, yeah

P.G.: for them to never have to carry that burden… I think it gives them more capacity for more cases that don’t deserve to be brought in the first place. Where is, if you had to run the whole gauntlet… and prove to, you know, a judge or a jury of peers, whoever, or, and get it past an appeals court, that really… A, a prosecutor I’m also very close with, one of the things they said about my case is they were like, “Even if you thought it was, you know, murky,” and she did not think it was murky, but, like, there’s no room for murky. Like, there are enough righteous cases. Isn’t there… you know, there’s enough that’s prosecutable out there. Like, go s- foil and stymie…

Alex: A little bit

P.G.: like, a terrorist plot…

Amy: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah

P.G.: or stop a bad guy from doing something rather than… So she, her point was, like, even the sort of murky ones, if you’re a good prosecutor, like, go, go, you know, solve a, a real crime.

Amy: And beyond that, you know, a- or another layer on this, right, is that even if you’re not convicted, the process is the punishment. So for example, with you, you were in city council, you were running for mayor, and you were indicted. And before you were convicted…

P.G.: I had to withdraw from the race. I was considered, like, the slam dunk favorite to become the mayor. Yeah. I’ve never… I, I totally agree with your point because, you know, I’m very grateful for the blessings in my life, m- my wife, my children, you know, my health. These sort of, like, the foundation of things. I’ve actually never spent almost any time bemoaning, like, there’s an alternate universe in which I should be the mayor. I, I loved and really cared about public service, and I believe I would’ve done a good job and was in it for the right reasons. That hasn’t felt like sort of as much of the loss to me versus, you know, being separated from my family for four and a half months, where, like, that is something that no one ever gets to give back to me. But I totally agree with you. I mean, if, if, the, the process, the amount of upheaval … reputational…

Alex: Absolutely.

P.G.: Familial… professional. If you don’t have a strong sort of, like, spiritual discipline, like, it can spiritually leave you feeling adrift. Now, again, I, I worked on my spiritual muscles, so yeah, there’s no… Yeah, there, I, I, I, I agree. I agree.

Amy: Yeah. And it’s interesting, too, a question, you know, that I struggled with going through this process, my relationship with, uh, this country. ’Cause you mentioned, like, looking at this piece of paper…

P.G.: Patriotism? Yeah

Amy: yeah, like, looking at this piece of paper, you know, that’s like United States of America versus P.G. Sittenfeld. And it’s like, that’s my country. Why are they against me and, or my husband… or whomever it is? And ultimately, the way I came out of it was, like, I feel m- like I am more of a patriot and more of an American… bec- having walked through this system and tested it and tried it. How do you feel about it?

P.G.: I would go back to what my assistant US attorney friend said when, you know, being prosecuted is gonna change your views about government. And to get to the punchline- … I do favor a more limited view, I mean… my values are as compassionate as they’ve ever been. My views about how large- … and centralized and bureaucratic I want the federal government to be…

Alex: It’s just…

P.G.: that- … that has changed. But I think it’s a really important distinction, so… that’s my own view about government. In terms of my patriotism, uh, it’s undimin- like, I am proud to be an American, and I love America, and my answer to that is because, like, America is not the people, it’s not the person who’s the US attorney for this district. It’s not the person who’s the president. I mean, that’s an expression of the people’s sort of, like, orientation in any given moment. But to me, I mean, America’s beautiful because of, like, the idea and the ideal, and that’s a place where, you know, I had the chance to fight, right? Like, you get to dis- your patriotism can be expressed in all the ways… you disagree about a messed up system, right? Like, that’s America. America’s not the bad people that might sometimes fill different government seats. America is an idea written down 250 years ago.

Amy: Mm.

P.G.: And, like, that I can say is, remains beautiful today even, you know, with the painful things that sort of I, I went through.

Amy: How did you walk through this with your family by you? You are one of four kids. You have a wife. You had small children. You have parents. What was, what was that like?

P.G.: Oh, a lot that I could say there. I’ll maybe focus on, on two pieces of it. Um, and I, I’ve, I’ve shared this a few other places, but when I learned… ’Cause I, you know, I got the call from my lawyer saying, “I talked to the US attorney, and you’re gonna need to drive home at the crack of dawn tomorrow to be arrested.” Uh, I am in Cleveland when I get that call, and I’m took the call, like, in a downstairs mud room sort of basement. And I walk upstairs, this house we were renting when my wife was doing her medical residency, and I say, like, you know, “This is a total shock to me,” and, like, I kinda can’t believe these words are coming out of my mouth, “I’m gonna be arrested and indicted tomorrow.” And you think about all of the things that a spouse could, like, immediately be really angry, immediately withdraw, be sad, like, confused, start peppering me with questions. The first words out of my wife’s mouth were, “For better or worse.” She takes my hand in hers and repeats, you know, our wedding vows from that day.

Alex: Mm.

P.G.: I know, I, it’s, I… So I just wanna stay with that as… That, that gave me…

Alex: Well, that’s the bar, folks.

P.G.: No, no, I, I, I…

Alex: That’s the bar. If you, uh…

P.G.: It is. I, I…

Alex: If any of you are thinking about relationships, this is what you need.

P.G.: Look, I, I…

Alex: Have you thought about being a therapist?

Amy: I’m s…

P.G.: I’m, I’m, no, I’m not, I’m not a person to give marital advice, but it has…

Alex: I think you just did. Whatever.

P.G.: It, what it’s made me realize of, like, you know, saying your wedding vows as we all do on our wedding day, it’s great, and you should mean them, but, like, do you fulfill them when they are put to the test?

Alex: Living them.

P.G.: Like, that, do you w- live your vows… on the worst, hardest day of your marriage? And my wife did not hesi- I mean, like, she reached out her hands and said, “For better or worse.” And I think in that moment, the amount of, um, like, strength and freedom and just relief that that gave me probably… Again, there’s maybe some sort of, like, dystopian scenario where this would never have been- … Sarah, but, like, you’re getting peppered and yelled at… and, like, sort of, “How could you do this to our family?” without knowing all the details. Like, that might have set me… I, I, not just because of that, but that kind of summoned, like, created a virtuous cycle or that actually summoned my best self throughout my hardest days. So, um, Sarah is the he- this horrible prosecution, uh, Sar- you know, Jones Day is heroic. The attorney generals were heroic and Miki. Like, I’m proud of my own fight. Sarah is the hero of this story. Um, more, uh, somber and grim, my, uh, father played a huge role in my life. We had, you know, father-son relationships. I now have three sons of my own. They can be complicated. Uh, I love my dad. He had a big role in my life, big role in my career. You know, we could also knock heads every once in a while, totally unrelated to my prosecution. But, uh, four months after I’d been indicted, he got a diagnosis of a aggressive, fast-moving liver cancer and passed away early on in this process. And, you know, he had a f- he had a very full life. He packed, Paul Sittenfeld packed five lifetimes into 73 years. Um, so I’m grateful for the life he had. I think there were moments when I, you know, like, we want our Father there, right? Um, so there were moments when I missed him, and I thought, “God, I’m going through this hellscape, and I’m doing it sort of, you know, down a parent.” There were other moments when I thought, “I am glad you are, you know, with our Heavenly Father and not down here to, you know, see your son as the defendant in a courtroom or have to witness…” I mean, in so many ways, like, the local media colludes basically…

Amy: Ugh, yeah

P.G.: with the government. Regurg- and again, in an area with no accountability. I, I hope that, um, the children of some local journalists, like, go to college and get a great education and, uh, go on and save the world- … with the funds that, like, the clickbaity stories about me… helped fuel. But, you know, my da- am I glad that my dad was spared having to sort of stew in some of those. So, you know, the familial journey, it’s a complicated one. Um- And then obviously, you know, my sons were, uh, very young… by the time that I was actually in prison. So we called it… We really thought about, “How are we gonna socialize this?” And I had talked to other people who said, “Don’t even bring them there. Like, they shouldn’t even see that setting.” I said, “I’m their father. I need to stay in their life.” We called it daddy camp. Um, I did say, I had some people say, “We explained to our kids, daddy’s going to, like, an adult time out.” I was like, “We’re not saying that bullshit- … ’cause I’ve been doing this…

Alex: I know

P.G.: my whole life. They’re gonna be like, “Why are you in time out?”

Alex: I shouldn’t be in time out.

P.G.: No, in the, in the fullness of time, I’m gonna be like… “Daddy was very brave- … while the government, you know… tried to pull some real bullshit…

Alex: Oh, yeah

P.G.: on him.“

Alex: Also, yeah.

P.G.: But so, so anyway, so, um, uh, I am… I wish if I could bottle up the, um, love and support, starting with my family, but also from a wider universe of people, I wish… That’s the one thing I wish I could share with everyone who is churned through, you know, the system in America. ’Cause some people are innocent. Some people did it. Some people, it’s up the middle. But, like, you know, no one’s gonna become a better person by feeling, like, isolated. So I, I… The, the net-net is I was, this was very difficult on them. I ultimately absolutely came to feel that my incarceration was harder on my wife… than it was on me.

Alex: She’s very…

P.G.: Now, not getting to tuck your kids in at night, like again, that is a sort of singular thing, but keeping it all together while you’re worried about your hus- So I tried to do as much as I… And I was strangely very okay in prison. I was, like, making cheesecake and leading Bible study- … and writing and making friends and stuff. So I projected as much okayness as I could so that my okayness would give them the peace to sort of be okay there. Um, yeah, so it’s, it’s a complicated journey. It doesn’t just, uh, affect the defendant, right? It, the whole family… goes through it together. And, like, they’re innocent, right?

Alex: Right, right, yeah.

P.G.: They’re as innocent as innocent. So it’s, I, that’s the other reason why I wish judges would sort of say, “You’re not just passing judgment and imposing a sentence… on this person.” Like, I’m not trying to make this sound overly, like, uh, like, put numbers to it, but my wife’s a cancer doctor. She literally saves people’s lives who are suffering from cancer. So by making her, overnight, ostensibly a single mother, giving her less capa-… I was like… should you as a judge sort of think about the big picture on this? But it’s, the system also seems to reward narrow thinking.

Alex: Yeah, I mean, th- the narrow thinking being that imprisonment is, is the, what punishment it, it has to be. Awaiting…

Amy: That’s, that’s the only time out

Alex: imprisonment with pu… That’s the only type of time out we have. And, and, and for so many non-violent offenses, it’s just…

Amy: Yeah, it makes no sense

Alex: it makes no sense. I mean, it, we’re moving, you know…

P.G.: We, we said, uh, you see a lot of defendants do this, um, we try to be very thoughtful about it, say… Oh, there was a line I’ve never forgotten. There was a line in my pre-sentence investigation report, right? So an agent of the court, which…

Alex: Which for folks who are listening that don’t know, there’s a report written between the time you’re convicted and sentencing that goes to the court, that gives background about you and generally talks about the circumstances of the offense

P.G.: who’s this person… kind of what’s their life been like, what are the specifics of the offense… exactly. There’s a line, and this is an agent of the court, there’s a line in my pre-sentence investigation report that says, “There are no identifiable victims associated with this crime.” While I strongly agree with the sentiment- … what a disorienting thing to hear… when you’re like, “Wait, I’ve been prosecuted, I’ve been convicted, and the court itself is saying there’s not even a victim here?” So we go as part of sentencing…

Alex: That’s right. It’s the public.

P.G.: Right. So we, so we go as part of sentencing and put together these very thoughtful proposals where I say, “I will be a unpaid full-time volunteer for,” one was a faith-based organization, one was a veterans organization. Say, “This can be my, my punishment. Like, I will be out doing good for society and the vulnerable every single day. At night, I will be a husband and father. Like, you can trim my sails. I’m not gonna be mayor.” And of course, they, in, uh, in what world is it m- more logical to say, “No, go to prison. Prison’s the only answer”?

Alex: It’s, it’s the only answer. We, our system does not ap- appear to have another answer.

P.G.: Yeah. I hope, I mean, I hope that, I, another, Amiki, was a former SDNY prosecutor, and he has some line to me where he’s like, “In 100 years,” I hope it doesn’t take this long…

Alex: God

P.G.: “we’ll look back on this, and it will seem, like, futile.” Like, it will seem like… like, did we real- Like, great Grandpa… did we really used to… send people…

Alex: Throw people in these concrete…

P.G.: or they’re, yeah, like throw them in the dungeon… right, sort of thing, so.

Alex: Yeah, uh, but it is. I mean, you’ve been there. I mean, you were in a nicer version of that, but these prisons are not nice places to be.

P.G.: Yeah. Look, I was in a camp, so I don’t want to, uh, diminish the difference between a camp… where you are basically safe, there’s freedom of movement… from a place where, like, your moment-to-moment, uh, safety might be much more imperiled. But I’ll also say, I mean, 99.9% of the punishment, to me, is, it’s family separation. It’s separation from loved ones. I mean, like, I can sleep, you know, on the ground on a bed of nails if I’m with my wife and my children. So the, the punishment is being separated from your loved ones.

Amy: After you were convicted of some of the counts in your indictment…

P.G.: And acquitted of others

Amy: and acquitted of others…

P.G.: Four acquittals, two convictions, yeah

Amy: which I wanna go back to in a second, but between that period of when you were, well, when you were acquitted, sentenced, before you reported, what were you most afraid of? Like, what were you thinking of in that period of this process?

P.G.: Sorry, uh, after the sentencing and before reporting to prison? I had, um, I always liked being a student, so I kind of approached the, you know, like, very undesirable, looming circumstance of reporting to prison as like, well, I’m gonna really, really do my homework. So I’m calling all sorts of guys… who I hadn’t known before, I’m like, “Tell me everything.” So they walk me through, like, you know, “Don’t barge into the TV room and go changing the channel.” Like, that, you might get your ass…

Amy: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm

P.G.: I mean, some intuitive stuff. Um, they had different opinions. I did, again, I talked to some guys that were like, “Don’t have your family visit.” Other guys, they were like, “Of course, have your family visit.” So I think I gave myself, there is no way, uh- … fully socializing, like entering that foreign new environment for the first time. But I tried to give myself a base of knowledge to sort of calm my nerves. The hardest thing was, um, one of my… You’re not supposed to cry in prison. I probably cried, like sort of cathartic and, and happy tears as part of this Bible study, but maybe the moment of peak catharsis is when you first get there. There are… I just wrote a, a essay in the Wall Street Journal… about, you know, that includes, there are a lot of contraband cell phones. I made a decision…

Alex: Many, many, many.

P.G.: Many, many contraband cell phones in prison. And by the way, a lot of these guys are using them to stay in touch with their families.

Alex: Talk to their families.

P.G.: So I’m like…

Alex: Only do it, yeah.

P.G.: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’m, I’m not passing judgment on that… at all. Um, I didn’t wanna do anything that could in any universe risk… extending my stay. So I determined like I’m, even if it’s offered, and it was, I’m not gonna have a, uh, use a contraband cell phone. You don’t just get to go in there and be like, “Okay, 1-800-CALL-SARA-SITTENFELD” sort of thing. I think it was trying to soak up family time. Educate myself to the degree possible about what’s prison gonna be like and how should I approach it. Now, one other thing I will add there, the collective feedback I got was basically, “Keep your head down. Don’t be getting up in other people’s business.” P.G., you were a politician. Don’t like be like running for class president in, in prison.

Amy: Don’t be mayor of, of…

P.G.: Don’t, don’t go and be mayor. And I heeded that for about 48 hours. And then maybe it was just FCI Ashland and, you know, that collection of men at that time. I was like, “This is not actually what I have to do, and actually I can add something to this space by being who I am,” which is like curious, and a good listener, and warm, and consoling. I mean, these men are going through really hard times. They don’t need another guy who’s like head down, keep it to myself. So… uh, by probably 48 hours in, I was like- … I am here to soak up all of the, this place that no one wants to end up, I’m gonna soak up all of the humanity here. So a lot of my pre-prison education of don’t do this, don’t do that, I ended up chucking that playbook very quickly upon arrival. I don’t wanna say my life currently is, is buffered because, you know, I visit prisons and I’m, I, I’m, I interact with a broad swath of humanity still, but day in and day out, I don’t quite have the proximity. Like, a guy who I could cheer up and make a difference in his day was five feet away…

Amy: Ooh

P.G.: in prison, right? And I, I don’t wanna say I miss that because, like, I don’t miss that place that put me there. But there is something, and, you know, um, Bryan Stevenson to me is like the, the most eloquent person on this. Like… there is something really redemptive and powerful in proximity to other people suffering. And let me tell you, there is a lot of proximity to a lot of suffering in prison, and that can kind of alchemize what could otherwise just be a horrible experience and turn it into something redeeming and beautiful in its own way.

Alex: S- the reason, I mean, all that, that suffering, that sort of lack of humanity, when did you first feel that in the process happening to you, that they were trying to sort of dehumanize you?

P.G.: When, when I was, you know- … put in handcuffs. And, uh, I mean, I don’t know if that’ll be on video. Uh, like, again, my weapon in the house would’ve been, like maybe a fly swatter. I don’t know. Was it an electric fly swatter? My hands were not in front of me. Uh, I was such a threat that my hands were put behind me. I remember getting down to the US Marshal cell. I’m like 6’2“. Maybe in my middle age I’ve shrunk a quarter of an inch. But steel…

Amy: We’re also looking at scaffolding

P.G.: steel ankle shackles, where like you’re trying to take, you know, a, a step forward and, like, you know, for my str- going more than a foot, you feel it, like, digging in. So I mean the…

Amy: Are you serious?

P.G.: Yeah. The, the a…

Amy: Ankle shackles?

P.G.: I would say so much of the pro- And again, this is like this guy’s crime was trying to help revitalize a blighted downtown building. Ankle shackles.

Alex: Right. If you believe he did it.

P.G.: If you believe he did it. So, so…

Alex: We need to have him a…

P.G.: I mean, to me…

Alex: face mask, whole Hannibal Lecter

P.G.: th- yeah. I mean, I, I think this, the process is meant to…

Amy: Oh

P.G.: dehumanize. And that’s why now, I mean, my favorite, one of my favorite things to write about in the writings I’m doing is to, like, in this inhumane process, and process that’s meant to sort of, like, stifle and, and, you know, like take people’s humanity out of them, is to really highlight that, like, humanity is perseverant, right? Like, you know, the… the grass growing out, the, the flower growing out of the cracked sidewalk. Like I, that’s a good metaphor for prison in some ways ’cause the camaraderie, the culinary innovation, like the Bible studies, the pickup basketball. Guys and women in women’s prisons, which I’ve also visited, um, like they find a way, but I would say it’s like it’s not… When did I think that the process was trying to sort of dehumanize?

Alex: From day one.

P.G.: From the get-go.

Amy: But…

P.G.: How consistently? Across the board. The, the thing that I most… Again, this wasn’t, this didn’t come as a total surprise, but there was a really palpable sense of these guys wanna feel useful… and like they have something to give. And, you know, maybe a lot of the guys shouldn’t have even been there, and they could be sort of like put to societal greater use… not in the context of prison, but also like giving more ways of letting… guys f- like, having someone just sit idle when they could be putting some skill to use that makes someone else better, and I kid you not…

Alex: Real

P.G.: like the culinary innovation, the guys who were… taking care of dogs as part of a dog training pro- I mean, guys had all sorts of skills that that skill languishing when it could be benefiting someone. Like, forget it being good for that person, this could be helping someone else’s life.

Alex: 100%.

P.G.: There’s just a lot of, there’s a lot of wastefulness in the system too.

Amy: That, maybe that was a better word than I said of boredom… of kind of like there’s so much skill here that we happen to…

P.G.: Well, of, yeah, co- of course, taxpayer wastefulness…

Alex: Waste of human capital

P.G.: but also…

Amy: Waste of human capital.

P.G.: Absolutely.

Amy: That’s, that’s the way to put it.

P.G.: Hugely so.

Amy: Yeah. Along those lines, transitioning back into kind of like what happens after you’re out of prison, like you… Okay, so you were pardoned.

P.G.: Yes, although that’s not wh- how and why I left prison.

Amy: So talk about… But I, the reason I…

P.G.: But I was pardoned, yes.

Amy: Yeah, the reason I… Well, I f- let’s talk about the pardon, and then I wanna ask a follow-up question. But you didn’t apply for a pardon.

P.G.: I did not apply for a pardon. … there’s a full formal pro- I didn’t… I didn’t send a letter, I didn’t fill out paperwork, I didn’t, you know, do whatever the DOJ process is. But there’s a very good reason why I didn’t apply for a pardon, not because I wouldn’t have welcomed a pardon. Uh, I had been released early by a panel of three federal judges from my 16-month sentence because they said, “There is a meaty question here that, while it’s being adjudicated and resolved, uh, this person should not be incarcerated.” Kudos to the panel for at least do- For at least doing that.

Amy: Because some people go to prison even if they appeal their conviction. Some people are sent, you know, to prison to begin their sentence. Some people aren’t sent to prison and are allowed to be out.

P.G.: Correct. They have bond pending appeal. I was not granted that. But the reason we didn’t, uh, I was not pursuing or had not applied for a pardon was because we were full speed ahead, like, “Let’s go win our case and set a new precedent at the Supreme Court of the United States.” And I will say, Litzen, amazing law firm. Jones Day, amazing law firm. They took this case on pr- entirely…

Amy: Mm

P.G.: pro bono for the appeal. They put their absolute top guns.

Amy: Best folks, yeah.

P.G.: Best guy. I mean, by the end of it, my counsel of record, you know, early in his life he’d been the solicitor general of the United States. So it’s not that I wouldn’t have welcomed a grant of clemency. It’s that we truly believe, we’re like, “A wrong has happened here. The greatest lawyers on the planet, alongside Litzen- … are taking this to the highest court in the land.”

Amy: We’re gonna win.

P.G.: And we’re gonna win… 9-0. Uh, as, as is, we des- deserve to happen. So when… And we- look, in the back of my head it was like, if that doesn’t work out, would we throw a hail… I never thought it would be possible that I would get a pardon, for a whole lot of reasons. So would it have been like a fourth quarter time winding out… Hail Mary, dear God, I don’t want to go back to prison sort of scenario? Yes, but our, we were 100% SCOTUS focus. So no, no one… People, people do not believe this- … and I kind of understand why not, ’cause they’re like, “Who gets a pardon when, you know, this is the Trump administration… and he was a, like, liberal Democrat in office, and he didn’t seem to do…” I didn’t hire a lobbyist, I didn’t, like, you know, do all the things that people seem to do. And, and by the way, like, I don’t blame anyone for pursuing clemency… for their freedom by, you know, however they’re going about it. Did not do any of that stuff. So pe- but no one… And because of that reason, no one was more shocked than I was…

Amy: So…

P.G.: to receive the pardon.

Amy: So where were you? How did it happen?

P.G.: The pardon I remember vividly. Um, I was working from my home office. It’s around 4:00 in the afternoon, and, uh, I end up talking with one of my Jones Day lawyers who, over the phone… You know, like, I’d never seen pardon verbiage before. He reads me the like, you know, theref- I should have it memorized, right? But it’s just, like, it’s a paragraph.

Amy: It’s a real proclamation, isn’t it?

P.G.: It’s a real proclamation… with a nice…

Amy: It’s like the 1800s

P.G.: with a nice thick Sharpie signature at the bottom.

Amy: Yeah, that’s hilarious. Yeah.

P.G.: And he reads it, and I just kind of remember, there have been… I probably overuse the word surreal, but a lot of these moments have been pretty surreal. Having your, when you think you’re about to go win a Supreme Court case, but you also realize, “If I don’t, I could face reincarceration.”

Amy: Gotta go back to jail.

P.G.: My wife, the hero of this story, happens to be eight months pregnant with our third child at the time. I know the date was, uh, May 28th of 2025. We can check our calendars- … for what day that actually was. My Jones Day lawyer, uh, reads me the verbiage of the pardon, and later sends, maybe like 10 minutes later, sends a screenshot, uh, in my inbox. So I’m like, “Okay, I’m actually looking at a copy of the pardon now.” My wife ends up getting home from, uh, you know, her work day at the hospital, like, maybe 15 minutes later, and she’s, you know, nor- she’s like, “Okay, PG’s working in the office,” so she goes to our bedroom. I walk, I don’t know, 30 feet, and I go in the bedroom and I’m like, you know, “Sweetie, this is also gonna sound kind of-”

Amy: I’ve got some news.

P.G.: “… kind of crazy.” Well, we were both, like, I mean…

Amy: Just like bracing, like, “What is the news?”

P.G.: I get a lot, yeah. And but I, the, the thing I’ve always remembered about walking to our bedroom and seeing my incredibly pregnant wife, like, lying there, I don’t know, getting ready to, like, check her non-work email… or something, is being like, “This is joyous and a huge relief.” We’re getting ready to welcome another human into the world…

Amy: Yeah, and you’re gonna get to be there

P.G.: in a month, but also having the feeling like, what a weird, what a weird path you’ve traveled by the time you’re telling your spouse, “Hey, the most powerful person in the world- … exercising this truly and basically, like, godlike power…

Amy: Oh, yeah

P.G.: enshrined by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution.“

Amy: I know.

P.G.: That power and, like, a signature unfolding the Oval Office and your life have intersected, and the result is freedom, clemency, not being re-separated from your fam- It was just like, there was a lot to that moment. So we were both like, “Wow, this is great. Wow, this is, isn’t this weird? This is so weird,” like this whole, yeah.

Amy: Donald Trump and his Sharpie.

P.G.: And then, and then…

Amy: That’s right, that’s right

P.G.: and then, uh, the other reason I sort of remember all of this vividly, I had a preplanned trip taking one of my sons camping into the Redwood Forest. So I find out that day, and that’s, I don’t, like, you know, put a billboard up, ’cause I’m still, I’m grateful, but I’m also, like, processing, “Wow, what just happened?” I get on a flight, and I’m not the kind of guy that, like, buys internet on flights, and then I go into the Redwood Forest. So basically, like…

Amy: Oh, you mean…

P.G.: hundreds and hundreds of…

Amy: Text messages are…

P.G.: The craziest messages. Well, you know, like… my prosecution and fighting it and all of that, like, it had made na- it’d been saturation local news. It had made national news, but when Donald Trump does something… like, this is very, very big n- I mean, it c- sort of, like, the most on steroids aspect… of this entire thing. So literally hundreds of messages are pouring in when I either don’t have cell phone reception- … or I’m, like, on a plane cut off. So there’s this sort of comical, like, this bombshell has been dropped and I’m not even in a position to, like- … field the incoming.

Amy: So interesting. It’s just interesting the way the universe unfolds that way of, like, you, you were gone. You were going to the woods. That’s interesting. There is so much news about Donald Trump’s use of the pardon power, you know, about people saying it’s pay to play, all of these different things. You obviously wouldn’t fall into that bucket of people saying it’s pay to play, and you have different politics than Donald Trump. Like, what do you think about Trump’s use of the pardon power?

P.G.: I favor… I mean, only he, in, like, his own mind, can say, “Here is why I granted clemency to this person. Here is why I granted clemency to that person.” So like, if P.G. Sittenfeld were the President of the United States, like, would I have pardoned this person but not par- Like, maybe we would’ve come down in different places. I favor, and again, this goes back to, like, I mean, if you are Christian, I’m Catholic, I mean, it’s kind of all about grace, right? So I fought really, really hard for justice. Justice is when the deserved thing, the right thing happens. Doesn’t happen enough in our system as it is.

Alex: Absolutely.

P.G.: Grace is when the undeserved thing happens. And, you know, some of your listeners, viewers might not necessarily agree with this, like, we all need grace and forgiveness in our lives. So I actually… People, I mean, I see why it’s been controversial, but I favor an expansive use of this tool for grace. Our country needs more grace. And by the way, like, we have the pardon because Alexander Hamilton fought really hard for it. One of the, like, you know, primary early users of the pardon, uh, power and, and presidential clemency was George Washington, the Whiskey Rebellion, and then Abe Lincoln after the Civil War. Like, I think people wanna see it as a legal, political tool, and it is a legal, political tool. I’m really interested in this, uh, you know, this, you know, again, constitutionally enshrined power. Can it be a grace and healing tool? So I appreciate, I mean, of course, I’m grateful, incredibly grateful that I was a recipient of it. We a- we ultimately went to the Supreme Court and got vindication there as well. But I hope he can… I don’t know. I hope that other, that future occupants of that office look and say, “I don’t have to…” If we have a messed up system, and if you don’t think it’s kind of a messed up system, you’re willfully putting your head in the sand a little bit, and have a tool that can be a balm and a corrective for it, I hope other people might look at that and say, “I can be more imaginative, more expansive.”

Alex: Absolutely.

P.G.: And again, like, I know people wanna make sort of, like, transactinal, transactional accusations and stuff. Like, I, I am interested in it as a tool for, yeah, you know, as a, as a great grace, forgiveness, um, healing. I think it can be that.

Alex: Well, so you obviously didn’t give up, but a question I like to end our, most of our conversations on is, if you went back to that first day when, when you found out, when you got the call that, that they’re looking at you, uh, you know, you were told by your prosecutor friend that you’re gonna view government differently, what would P.G. now want to go back and tell you back then? A lesson, an advice. You know, what, what c- what would you like to sort of pass back in time through this process?

P.G.: Some people might want sort of, like, you know, profound legal advice or navigating the system. I think I would probably say more something about, like, the flame that burns inside all of us, which is, like, every struggle and hardship is an invitation. Like, it might be an invitation for personal growth and learning, might be to discover that, like, you’re tougher or more resilient than you thought you is. But I, I think we live in a country right now that sort of, like, you know, pathologizes the hardship that is baked into the human existence. I’d say what’s happening to you might be a walk through hell…

Alex: Mm

P.G.: but if you are lucky, get the people you love and, like, get arm in arm, walk through hell with them, and let this be, like, a journey of growth. So I, I think I would… Now, I’m biased, ’cause I, I kinda feel like I did that.

Alex: You did. Yes.

P.G.: And I, I’m proud of myself for doing that. Like, it’s not easy work.

Alex: So were you a time traveler? Were you…

P.G.: Yeah, if you, if current me went back and told me… No, I think I sort of, I think I intuited that that was… The person who’s now my spiritual mentor, I mean, the first, as you all know, it’s dizzying and disorienting to be indicted. So that first month was a blur of phone calls with lawyers and getting briefing and finding old emails and doing all this crazy stuff. I, like, sort of took a beat in the, uh, you know, one day about a month in, and I sent off an email to a guy named Cyrus Habib. S- People should Google him. He’s very inspirational. He had been the lieutenant governor of Washington State and left to become a Jesuit priest.

Alex: Oh, wow.

P.G.: I mean, this guy, David Axelrod was like, “He’s the next Obama.” This guy could’ve been the president of the United States. He truly could’ve been the president of the United States, and instead takes vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, right? So a… And I sent him an email, and I was basically like, “I know what lies ahead of me is gonna be a legal journey and a political journey, but I think it’s also, like, I need it to be a spiritual journey, too. Like, I need to sort of find a way to exercise those muscles.” And I think I probably got the phrase from him of, like, you know, see every struggle as an invitation.

Alex: Mm.

P.G.: They’re hard work, and then they’ll say, “Okay, an invitation to what?” But if it was easy, then it wouldn’t be a journey, right? So some of the sitting with that. So I think, I think I intuited that at some level and ended up doing it, but I would say to someone else who gets the worst news they could ever fathom today in the form of an indictment, maybe not the worst news, but, like… a really, really bad piece of news, I would say there are gonna be opportunities in this to come through whole and complete and different and in some ways even, even better than you are. Don’t skip over that, ’cause there’s gonna be a lot of horrible shit- … that you have to deal with. Don’t pass on the good stuff, too.

Alex: Yeah. Yeah. That’s great.

Amy: Thank you.

Alex: Well, I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much talking to us.

P.G.: Thanks for having me on. Yeah, great to be with you both.

Alex: This is the TARGET podcast. Every week we’re gonna sit down with someone who’s been in the crosshairs of an investigation, sometimes federal, sometimes state. People have been indicted, exonerated in some cases, some who’ve been pardoned, some who’ve been convicted, and some who’ve been acquitted.

Amy: This isn’t about guilt or innocence. It’s about what they wish they’d known on day one.

Alex: Every single one of the people we’re going to talk to has a day one story. That’s ’cause most people don’t understand how this system works.

Amy: Until they’re standing inside of it.