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00:01:00.820Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:01:12.500Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:01:15.480We begin today with breaking news and a victory for due process and the rule of law.
00:01:20.360Last night, officials in Mississippi announcing that a grand jury unanimously voted against bringing a criminal charge of any kind over the death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells.
00:01:33.100The black teenager found dead after a Fourth of July trip with friends to Horn Island off of Mississippi's Gulf Coast.
00:01:40.380The grand jury writing in its report that, quote, the position of the condition of time of discovery and location of Mr. Wells's body is consistent with drowning.
00:01:52.920If you read the whole report, it is a total exoneration of his friends.
00:01:56.960The Jackson County District Attorney went further, saying, quote, there is absolutely no evidence to support the allegations that Nolan's disappearance and death were racially motivated.
00:02:09.280This means all the racially charged rhetoric in this case that we have heard, and boy have we heard it, from the likes of Benjamin Crump, Al Sharpton, Sonny Hostin, and more, was based on nothing.
00:02:24.460It was invented to stir up racial hatred.
00:02:30.400Nolan Wells' death was a tragedy, but he was not murdered by his white friends or apparently anyone else.
00:02:39.280And those friends should never have had to deal with the attacks and threats that came with the totally irresponsible speculation that we have seen in this case.
00:06:55.320But because of that, some internet sleuths and candidly, some of the signaling that
00:06:59.980came from really prominent people that you mentioned early on, created this environment
00:07:04.760where people just made up things out of thin air and dragged these guys through the mud.
00:07:09.960We have had such an irresponsible cast coming forward and accusing these boys of murder. I
00:07:19.120mean, truly, like in some cases, explicitly accusing them of murder with absolutely no
00:07:24.080basis for it. And in many other cases, just innuendo suggesting they did something nefarious
00:07:28.780in connection with nolan's death and now we hear from the grand jury just so the audience hears it
00:07:34.140directly um this is the grand jury announcing uh that let's see the grand jury through the da's
00:07:41.560office made written requests to the family of mr wells and their legal team to provide
00:07:45.080to produce any evidence collected in their independent investigation into the death of
00:07:49.300mr wells uh blank they've redacted some of the names on behalf of mr wells's family advised
00:07:54.520that their investigation revealed, this is again on behalf of Mr. Wells's family,
00:08:00.660advised that their investigation revealed no witnesses or evidence whom the legal team
00:08:04.820reasonably believes possess information germane to potential criminal activity
00:08:08.760that warrants referral to your office, the DA's. Further, the family did not request that any
00:08:13.980additional document, recording, photograph, digital media report, or other material is
00:08:17.580in the legal team's possession be submitted to the grand jury. The grand jury received
00:08:21.900a 14-page report concerning Mr. Wells' cellular phone prepared by the family's own forensic examiner,
00:08:28.200Garrett Discovery, Inc., a preliminary report.
00:08:31.560Then they received a 21-page mobile device examination findings, the final report,
00:08:36.340and a 261-page Snapchat conversation report.
00:08:40.500The grand jury considered these reports, as well as multiple other pieces of evidence.
00:08:45.280It was made up of 23 grand jurors, 13 males, 10 females, 12 Caucasians, five African-Americans, one Asian, two Hispanics, two Native Americans, and one who preferred other.
00:08:57.720And they came out and unambiguously said the friends are cleared.
00:09:04.940The grand jury finds no credible evidence to support the public allegations that any persons who rode to or from Horn Island on July 4th on any of these three boats engaged in any criminal conduct related to the death of Mr. Wells.
00:09:19.420The allegations against the occupants of these boats are not based in truth.
00:09:24.200I'm quoting here and are solely the result of public clamor and private malice.
00:09:28.520Goes on to say the grand jury finds that the public attacks on the occupants of these three boats, as well as their family and friends, are malicious, false and have no truth in fact or evidence.
00:09:42.420I mean, this is as as good of an exoneration as you could ever want.
00:09:46.580And yet last night, what we get from Benjamin Crump representing the Nolan Wells family is no true bill, which is what the jury said, there'll be no true bill to indict, does not resolve how Nolan Wells died.
00:09:59.160They're holding a press conference. As you and I speak, we will update you and the audience as we get the information on what they're now claiming.
00:10:05.960So your thoughts. Yeah. So I think you introduced two very, very important thoughts. First of all,
00:10:09.500this grand jury is a grand jury of mixed race that you had 12 white members, but 11 members
00:10:15.240that were non-white, including five African-American members. I think one of the things people don't
00:10:19.360realize about Mississippi, you know, a lot of outsiders have made reference to Mississippi
00:10:23.200and Mississippi's past. Mississippi is probably the most diverse state in the country. I think
00:10:27.320we have the largest percentage of African-Americans in the entire country. And so this was a grand0.89
00:10:31.860jury made up of peers of both Mr. Wells and the young men that ultimately went out onto Horn
00:10:38.740Island on the 4th of July. And they unanimously said that there was no credible evidence of any
00:10:43.700crime being committed by these individuals. It's really important because some media is reporting
00:10:47.720this as the grand jury saying that there was insufficient evidence. That is not what they
00:10:51.860said. They said no credible evidence. I think the second point that you made that is incredibly
00:10:56.600important is the person that has probably been most responsible for for stoking the narrative
00:11:03.060Mr. Crump when he had an opportunity to give evidence when he had an opportunity to say here's
00:11:08.620everything we know from our independent investigation that suggests or supports the
00:11:13.380idea of a crime being committed they said we don't have any we don't have any witnesses we
00:11:18.120don't have any information to add that would be germane to your investigation so it's literally
00:11:22.480a concession, that this entire witch hunt has been fabricated. Yes, it was time to put up or
00:11:30.800shut up. The grand jury went and knocked on the door of the Wells family and their attorneys and
00:11:37.180said, please, we would love to see whatever you have. We're doing an honest investigation into
00:11:42.100how Nolan died. Give us the cell phone records. Give us the Snapchat records. Give us anything
00:11:47.680at all. Witnesses, they'd heard from many witnesses as well, they'd outlined that,
00:11:52.180and they were told, we have nothing. We don't have any, we'll give you the cell phone records,
00:11:56.440we'll give you the Snapchat records, and beyond that, we have nothing. And the grand jury looked
00:12:00.640at it all and found rust that there was nothing in there that suggested any crime whatsoever.
00:12:08.320This has been a targeted campaign to ruin the lives of his friends based on nothing other than
00:12:16.120Ben Crump's desire to see his name in the papers. I think there's a modus operandi that's become
00:12:21.620very clearly or very clear with the way he operates, at least in Mississippi.
00:12:25.660And so there was another case involving a young man named Trey Reed, who died last year,
00:12:30.340who hung himself on Delta State's campus. The state of medical examination examiner found that
00:12:36.960it had been suicide. There was contemporaneous evidence of suicide, including text messages
00:12:40.800that he had sent to his girlfriend telling her that he was going to kill himself and how he was
00:12:44.600going to do it. There's video footage from the campus that day. But whenever it came out,
00:12:51.040Mr. Crump got involved and immediately said, the investigators don't know what they're doing. This
00:12:55.820is Mississippi, so you're not going to get a fair investigation. We need an independent autopsy
00:13:00.760performed at the expense of Colin Kaepernick, which happened. And then when it turned out that
00:13:06.600all the evidence pretty much showed that this was conclusively a suicide, he just stopped talking to
00:13:11.900his clients. His clients have even put out a letter that basically said he won't communicate
00:13:15.920with us anymore. There also were comparisons in that case to Emmett Till, which was obviously a
00:13:21.600race-based murder that happened in Mississippi in the 1950s. Well, the exact same model was used
00:13:26.780here, right? From the get-go, they were trying to undermine the investigators. Oh, these investigators
00:13:32.360are saying there's no foul play. That's not ever what they said. I mean, you can look back at the
00:13:36.160written statements from Sheriff Ledbetter, who said over and over again, this is an ongoing and
00:13:39.660act of investigation. We're soliciting all the information we can from the public. We've done
00:13:43.76060 interviews. This was early on, he said. We've already done 60 interviews. We've got the FBI
00:13:48.600involved in analyzing forensic evidence. All of this was out there. But the narrative that was
00:13:53.160being created by Mr. Crump and also Mr. Sharpton was that these investigators had already dismissively
00:13:59.280decided there was nothing wrong in this case and they weren't giving it to do. Well, that's an
00:14:03.800important part of how they operate because they've got to convince people listening to them that only
00:14:08.800they know what is true, that the investigators are either incompetent or complicit. And we saw
00:14:14.100that here. And we also saw this rush to judgment, this rush to claim that it had to be racially
00:14:20.560motivated. And what is the evidence for that? The evidence that they give for that is that Emmett
00:14:25.100Till was killed in the 1950s. And so immediately they compare Nolan Wells to Emmett Till. They
00:14:31.560compare Nolan Wells to Medgar Evers. Those are two horrible blights on Mississippi's history.
00:14:36.320They also happen to be 70 plus years old. And so there's zero evidence that these things are
00:14:43.520comparable, but you introduce that kind of inflammatory rhetoric and it obviates the need
00:14:50.000for real evidence. It just becomes, of course this happened. This is Mississippi. You know,
00:14:54.920I've lived in New York, Megan. I've lived in DC. I've worked in Nashville. I've worked in New
00:14:59.400Orleans. I've worked all over the country. I've always come back to Mississippi. It is actually
00:15:03.500a special place. It is a place where there are millions of positive interactions between white
00:15:08.220citizens and black citizens. Because as I said, 38% of our population is African American. There's
00:15:13.280no way not to have those interactions. But those things don't make for good television. Those
00:15:18.020things don't make for good press conferences. What makes for a good press conference is trying
00:15:22.140to convince someone that this is the exact same thing that happened 70 years ago, regardless of
00:15:28.320whether or not there's evidence. Yes, here is Ben Crump in July. This is July 10th at a press
00:15:36.800conference they held then. Watch. The history of Mississippi is something that they don't just
00:15:44.500read about in books, but it's a lived experience for many black Americans that oftentimes when
00:15:54.760our children are killed in highly questionable
00:16:18.740there with his friends and you look at all the videos
00:16:22.840it seems to be he's the only black on the island, or maybe one other, but not many.
00:16:32.960Just completely stoking the racial fires there, Russ, based on nothing. It's a lived experience
00:16:39.780for many black Americans that oftentimes when our children are killed in highly questionable
00:16:44.340situations. Nolan Wells wasn't killed. He drowned, according to the grand jury, who also,
00:16:50.840though I should have pointed out, took evidence from that independent forensic pathologist hired by Crump and Sharpton on behalf of the Wells family,
00:17:00.360who came out and tried to lead us to believe that there was more to the story than the state's medical examiner had had espoused,
00:17:08.300that they had withhold it, withheld certain body parts from the Wells family, Emmy or forensic pathologist.
00:17:15.580And now we learn in this report, they write, in addition, the grand jury, in addition to the reports from Wells' family legal team and their forensic examination of a cellular phone, grand jury heard sworn testimony of the forensic pathologist retained by the Wells family.
00:17:33.160He was given full access to examine Mr. Wells' internal neck structures retained by the medical examiner, and his request for the making of additional slides for histological study was fulfilled.
00:17:45.580The grand jury finds that Mr. Wells did not have cocaine in his system.
00:17:49.800We've considered the toxicology report.
00:17:52.120Toxicology is not particularly informative, they've learned from the experts,
00:17:56.260as decomposition fluid is an unreliable source for evaluating substance levels within a body.
00:18:01.200But they go on to say that the state of Mississippi chief medical examiner
00:18:04.640and the one from the Wells family opined, both of them,
00:18:08.380that the cause and manner of Mr. Wells' death is undetermined
00:18:11.400and that drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion.
00:18:14.340They go on to basically say that the grand jury understands that neither forensic expert has ruled out accidental drowning.
00:18:20.680And the grand jury, having heard all the evidence, found no credible evidence to support the public allegations that any persons who rode to or from Horn Island engaged in any criminal conduct.
00:18:33.040You have on camera the nastiness from Ben Crump, and then you have the dispelling, you know, piece by piece of the narrative around at every turn.
00:18:43.560And as you know, sorry, Russ, I'm all over the place. But in July, that was when they tried to parade out their independent forensic examination of the Nolan Wells remains to try to keep this thing alive, that it didn't tell the whole story.
00:18:57.500Well, the whole story was asked for by the grand jury, and they took testimony from Nolan Wells' family's forensic pathologist, who seems to have admitted to this grand jury, yeah, I'd have nothing to rule out a drowning, and I actually have been given everything from the state's medical examiner.
00:20:23.760They said that Mr. Wells' phone had been taken by his friend.
00:20:26.860In reality, there were at least five phones that were left on that Triton boat
00:20:29.980because people didn't have their phones in the water.
00:20:32.200Several of those people, including Javon Williams, who's an African-American friend,
00:20:35.440said that he had to retrieve his phone after the fact,
00:20:38.560that he had left it on that boat and then had to go get it after the fact.
00:20:41.980So that's another instance of something that was false. You heard them talk about the fact that information had been deleted or that the phone had been tampered with by his friends. They did their own independent examination. They wouldn't give it up to the prosecutor despite having an agreement that they were mutually examined the phone.
00:20:58.760But they did their own independent examination and found no evidence that the phone had been tampered with.
00:21:03.340The only person to have unlocked and opened the phone was, in fact, Nolan Wells' family after the phone was given freely by his friends over to a family friend of the Wells' family.
00:21:13.520So all of those things were just fundamentally false.
00:21:17.060Mr. Crump said that there had been an altercation involving Nolan Wells.
00:21:20.480He specifically put language to that altercation.
00:21:23.040He talked about the fact that Nolan had yelled back and forth about getting his effing phone back.
00:21:28.220People out there said, no, Nolan Wells wasn't involved in that altercation at all.
00:21:49.060So that's another instance of something that was just completely fabricated.
00:21:52.100I can go on and on and on down the list of things that they put out that had no evidence or proof.
00:21:58.900He put out a claim that Nolan was at a pool party on July 5th, the morning of July 5th, on his social media.
00:22:04.720And that was a pool party that had occurred a week before in a completely different town.
00:22:09.860And so, yes, I mean, they actively stoked conspiracy during the course of this thing.
00:22:15.420And as we kicked it off with, it resulted in actual credible death threats being made to Nolan's best friends.
00:22:26.060I mean, that's the insanity that somehow kids who are already grieving the loss of a dear friend of theirs now suddenly are being threatened with murder.
00:22:38.400Their family's being threatened with murder.
00:22:41.240Like, and now, even now, as we get this grand jury report, let me tell you what's happened over at the presser being held by Crump and Sharpton.
00:22:49.640Only 56 people are watching the live feed, Russ.
00:22:52.420So there's not a real big appetite for their brand of nonsense, but they are spewing it.
00:22:58.460Crump began by getting the crowd to chant justice for Nolan Wells.0.72
00:23:03.120So they are not ready to accept that this is justice, that a full that an impartial grand jury with several minority members has found he drowned.
00:23:12.280That's the best conclusion they can come to in zero indications of any foul play and exonerating all of his friends.0.55
00:23:18.200Crump then led a chant of we will never stop.
00:23:22.400Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McElrath will have you accept.
00:23:26.900He said that Nolan Wells's death can be summarized in three words.
00:23:31.060But the family offers three other words. We'll never stop. We'll never stop. We'll never stop. We'll never stop. We'll never stop. We'll never stop until we get to the truth, until we know the district attorney called the state's investigation exhaustive, he says.
00:23:46.240Was it exhaustive or were they just exhausted because an exhaustive investigation should lead to the truth of what happened to Nolan?
00:24:59.060And in fact, I think that makes people in these situations sometimes vulnerable to folks like Mr. Crump or like Mr. Sharpton to step in and rile them up or convince them that there's something more to the story.
00:25:12.440there's got to be something more to the story. I would just say this, though, like the notion
00:25:18.120of the medical examiner that was the independent medical examiner having come up with things that
00:25:23.880are supportive of the conspiracy is just absolutely false. I mean, the way that that report got
00:25:30.180framed, it's very telling that Dr. Robert Mitchell was never allowed to speak for himself. Normally,
00:25:35.820if you'd have a press conference like that, you'd get the pathologist up who actually understands
00:25:39.220the words that he wrote and allow him to speak for himself he was never allowed to do that but
00:25:43.060if you look at the except in front of the grand jury yeah yeah and and we see how that we believe
00:25:47.920they blacked out his name but they said that the the forensic pathologist hired by the wells family
00:25:52.240testified for sure and we see how that went but even if you just read the report like there was
00:25:57.040this they kept talking about the missing throat structure or the missing lungs the report said
00:26:01.460it was completely common practice for the state me to retain the and that's admitted that that's
00:26:06.840also admitted the grand jury heard testimony about that and said that in front of them that
00:26:11.640forensic pathologist admitted that that is standard practice for the original me to withhold
00:26:16.340but if you looked at coverage of it was like oh the missing neck the missing neck the missing
00:26:19.860neck it wasn't missing it was retained for evidentiary purposes the way it would always
00:26:24.180be retained by the organization or the official agency responsible for the investigation right
00:26:30.320or you know they made a big deal about lungs being missing and the lungs weren't missing
00:26:35.180they had been removed and dissected and robert mitchell in his own report said they were rightfully
00:26:39.660removed and dissected by the state medical examiner and so we created this painted as
00:26:44.100nefarious by ben right we can we created this perception of something nefarious to your point
00:26:48.140when in fact it was all very easily explainable if somebody would just bother to read with their
00:26:53.520own independent examiner had said and apparently that was too much to ask a lot of people i've got
00:26:59.120to ask you about sunny hostin who went out there and mouthed off about this case without knowing
00:27:03.760anything, including this. This is just one of the misdirections she fed her audience.0.57
00:27:09.780I think what's very important is that Ben Crump has been retained by the family and is conducting
00:27:16.020an independent investigation. So much so because this happened in Mississippi.
00:27:21.800There are some racial undertones to this. He was the only black kid on an island
00:27:27.060full of kids that were white. And his family is saying that he would have never on the boat,
00:27:32.940rather and his family is saying that he would have just never stayed on the island and been
00:27:37.960left behind by his friends it's just so confusing because they seemed there were three boys with him
00:27:42.700that were good friends with what are they saying and they've been they they turned off their social
00:27:47.140media accounts um they'd say that they have cooperated with with the police but they took
00:27:52.900his they kept his phone and didn't didn't give it to his parents russ can you tell the audience what
00:27:58.860you did in response to that? Yeah, I mean, you know what? First of all, I think you may be
00:28:03.120talking about another set of clients or lawyers. We have not engaged Sonny yet. I would say just
00:28:09.960from observing that, though, she's she's just repeating falsehoods that Mr. Crump pushed right
00:28:16.520without without critical thinking, without question, without challenge. The fact is that
00:28:21.060it again, it wasn't four went out, three came back. That's false. He wasn't the only African
00:28:26.200American. They did not keep his phone. It wasn't like they absconded with his phone. There was no
00:28:31.020tampering. And the truth of the matter is they are the ones that contacted Nolan's mom that night.
00:28:36.160His friends contacted Nolan's mom that night when he didn't rendezvous where they were supposed to
00:28:40.300all be gathering at a party. They were the ones that contacted the Coast Guard first, right? There
00:28:45.200was never any effort to hide Nolan's cell phone. In fact, they acknowledged they had a cell phone.
00:28:51.300And they, you know, a friend came and picked it up from their house.
00:28:54.940And so all of that that she said is false or dramatically lacking in context.
00:28:59.960But it all is just repetition of things that Mr. Crump had been putting out that were were false from the get go.
00:29:05.200And candidly, that I think he knew they were false.
00:29:07.500I think I confused because you threatened a different so-called influencer named Kimbra Lee, who had the nerve to call Bart a suspect, implied that he helped cause Nolan's death and concealed information or covered up for what happened to Nolan.
00:29:23.840Correct. Like what happened with her? Because I know you've tried to get these people you're trying to set the record straight, like withdraw your defamatory claims and clear up the record.
00:29:31.800And other lawyers representing other of the young boys went to Sonny and said, you've got until September 26th, which is coming up this Saturday, to to withdraw that claim and issue an apology.
00:29:44.100Like the lawyers, thank God, are representing these boys trying to clean up the record.
00:29:48.260But it's one thing to be Ben Crump and Al Sharpton out there spewing nonsense.
00:29:51.860But these other individuals are actually going to have to answer for their defamatory claims.
00:29:56.680100 percent. So, I mean, we've sent out five pre-litigation notices already.
00:30:00.620We anticipate two to three more going out this week.
00:30:02.960It's not just Kimberly that has received one of those.
00:30:08.420I would tell you that the way that we look at it is there are multiple layers to this.
00:30:11.940I mean, the first layer are people that are directly defaming my client and for the other
00:30:16.640set of lawyers that are defaming their clients.
00:30:18.980And those people are going to be pursued.
00:30:40.340We've not removed anybody from our board.
00:30:42.300And that's that second level of people that I think sent signals or poured gasoline on a fire or in some cases lit the match and then watched it burn instead of being honest.
00:30:52.300So like Mr. Crump, as an example of this, as of August 13th, I'd acknowledge the district attorney that they had no evidence of any criminal conduct.
00:30:59.880he didn't come out and tell anybody else that, you know, he, he, he allowed for that to sit.
00:31:07.000So what happens now? Because the grand jury has spoken. There's not going to be criminal charges
00:31:11.520against these young men. They've said that Nolan, Nolan Wells drowned to the best of all the
00:31:17.560witnesses, knowledge who came before them. And the facts is we've been able to unearth them.
00:31:21.200They looked at the toxicology report around Nolan Wells. They did not find cocaine or other drugs
00:31:26.260in his system. They acknowledged perhaps there might have been something in his system that they
00:31:30.480couldn't tell from a body that had been in the water for, you know, some number of hours, more
00:31:35.400than 24. So we're not going to know exactly what he had consumed and how much, but that they,
00:31:42.160no one could give evidence that led them to believe that there had been foul play around
00:31:45.380Nolan's death, that they thought it was an accidental drowning. So that's what the official
00:31:49.800conclusion is now. So, so now what, what, what exactly can somebody like a Ben Crump or an Al
00:31:55.600Sharpton, who won't accept this, do. Yeah, I mean, it seems like their modus operandi really
00:32:01.100is a PR campaign, that they want to make Mississippi look as bad as possible. They
00:32:06.880want to make investigators look as bad as possible. They want to allow people the leeway or the breath
00:32:13.140to continue promoting conspiracy theory in the absence of evidence. And the best way to do that
00:32:19.460is to call into question the investigation itself or say that it's, you know, insufficient.
00:32:25.200In terms of what they can do legally, you know, I don't know.
00:32:28.200At one point, they had considered filing litigation against people.
00:32:31.720I think that they would have a really hard time doing that at this stage, given the nature
00:32:35.540of the investigation, their own admissions.
00:32:37.800And candidly, I think if they were to file litigation, it opens them up in a big way.
00:32:41.620And so more than likely, what you hear here is a lot of saber rattling from them, followed
00:32:47.800by them trying to figure out a way to extricate themselves from this situation and it wouldn't be
00:32:52.300the first time i would i would go back to the trey reid situation uh where you know the same
00:32:57.060comparisons were made the same criticisms were made and then when it became apparent that he
00:33:01.960was wrong and that trey reid had in fact killed himself he just went quiet he quit talking to his
00:33:06.980own clients he didn't have the the decency or the integrity to come out and say you know all that
00:33:11.740stuff i said before i was wrong about right the evidence suggests that i was wrong no he's still
00:33:16.660pushing the lie about Michael Brown, uh, allegedly being gunned down as an innocent by a terrible cop
00:33:22.740in Ferguson, Missouri. I mean, he's a, he's a, an established liar, Benjamin Crump, not to mention0.96
00:33:29.080Al Sharpton. Same. Um, I know you've got to go. I just want to ask you very quickly, because he0.92
00:33:34.260just said, Crump did, he's making a big deal out of the fact that alternate causes of death were
00:33:39.380not explored and that drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion. That means all the causes must be
00:33:45.260ruled out prior to certifying a death is drowning. He's not, you know, he's going to try to say
00:33:49.400there wasn't proof positive of the drowning. Do you feel that there's been proof positive
00:33:55.040of the drowning or as much proof as we're ever going to get?
00:33:57.300I think there's as much proof as you're ever going to get. I think the autopsy showed that
00:33:59.980there was physical signs of drowning. I think the location of the body shows that there are
00:34:03.980physical signs of drowning. I think the absence of defensive wounds suggests that it's accidental
00:34:08.120drowning. There were no lacerations. There were no bruising on the body, nothing like that. Even
00:34:12.520I know people are talking about bruising on the back of his head, the musculature on the occipital bone, but that's not what the ME said.
00:34:19.480The ME said that it was red discoloration, and candidly, other pathologists have explained that that is a byproduct of lividity, right, the way the body was transported, the way the body was kept.
00:34:28.520And so there's zero evidence to suggest anything other than accidental drowning, but understanding that scientists work on situations where they have to have absolute proof or they leave things open.
00:34:39.020And so that's why you see people say things like undetermined but consistent with drowning, right?
00:34:45.720I think that you've got as much evidence as you're ever going to have that the young man drowned and that it was accidental.
00:34:52.040I understand that people still have questions.
00:34:54.540And candidly, what I would say, Megan, is people should be allowed to ask those questions.
00:34:57.640People should be allowed to have opinions on these things.
00:35:00.180What people should not be allowed to do is invent evidence out of thin air, lie about people, and put them in physical danger.
00:35:06.940And that's the part that we've got problems with.
00:35:09.020OK, I don't you know, there are things that I hear people say in the political sphere that I don't agree with and I can look at it and shake my head no or maybe get a little upset about it.
00:35:17.380That's very different than saying Bart Edmondson, you know, Russ's client, did this horrible thing with no evidence.
00:35:26.440And he certainly has been accused very directly of killing his friend with no evidence.
00:44:35.060You guys might remember that in the fall of 2022,
00:44:39.700we did a tribute on this show to a young man named Blake Barklage, who died in October of 2021
00:44:48.380of myocarditis. He had had COVID, but he'd also had the vaccine, two shots. And at age 17,
00:44:58.920he died of, again, a heart infection called myocarditis. And his parents, we didn't know
00:45:07.340them very well when Blake died. We knew them a bit, but we got to be very good friends, and now
00:45:13.240they are amongst our best friends on earth, Tom and Allison Barkledge. Well, the way they handled
00:45:20.440Blake's death, I was floored by it. They were an example to us all in how to deal with grief.
00:45:27.340They were incredibly devastated along with their daughter, Alexis, who was Blake's younger sister,
00:45:32.220But they talked about it. They found opportunities to smile, even in those early days where they could. And they leaned into Blake's friend group, eight young men, all 17 years old, all seniors in high school, at the prime of their youth, about to head off to college and find out where they were getting in and so on, who did everything together.
00:46:00.780And with Blake added in, they called themselves the Divine Nine, and Tom and Allison called
00:46:15.240His friends are now graduating from college, having just graduated.
00:46:19.100It's just, it's a tough time, as anybody who's suffered loss knows.
00:46:23.240But what Tom and Allison have said to me all along these five years is that the Divine Nine has gotten them through it, that those eight friends of Blake's are more responsible than anyone for helping the mother and father deal with their grief.
00:46:45.700And they pointed out to me that that's what these young men in Mississippi would probably love to do for Nolan's parents, if only they would let them.
00:46:58.400Here's a bit from our piece that we ran about Blake and the Divine Nine.
00:47:03.480This picture was taken of the guys last October.
00:47:06.700Within a month, eight of them would be pallbearers at Blake's funeral.
00:47:10.920They remain a constant presence in the Barclages' lives.
00:47:14.140i kept spending time with them like guys this is where we need to lean on each other
00:47:19.860like i need you as much as you need me because i want to hear about the stories i want to hear
00:47:25.960about the funny stories maybe not in front of allison but you can tell me those stories i want
00:47:29.880to hear about blake when i didn't see what he hid for me after what happened we're we're literally
00:47:35.500like family now yeah especially with alexis like she said to us early on that like she gained like
00:47:41.680eight new brothers even i remember one day putting up christmas ornaments i have uh the lights
00:47:45.940outside blake and i would always do that i started putting lights up broke down in tears walked away
00:47:49.800couldn't do it next day seven eight of the boys are over at the house helping me put the lights
00:47:54.480on it's just such good kids why why wouldn't nolan wells's parents lean into their relationship
00:51:11.300good luck. ER, slammed. Telehealth, maybe, but the pharmacy's closed. That's where a medical
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00:51:58.040MK. Update for you now on the death of Presley Gerber, the 27-year-old son of Cindy Crawford
00:52:07.940and businessman Randy Gerber. His little sister is Kaya Gerber, also now a model and actress in
00:52:16.200her own right. We are learning more about what happened. Yesterday, we talked a bit about the
00:52:21.840fact that he OD'd at a rehab facility. And I made the point that I had a loved one in a rehab
00:52:31.540facility and that you could not get anywhere close to said rehab facility with anything
00:52:37.900resembling alcohol or a controlled substance or anything that could be used potentially for a
00:52:44.100so-called high. And it turns out Presley Gerber was not at such a facility at all. And I don't
00:52:52.760mind telling you my loved one was at the Karen Rehab Facility, C-A-R-O-N, here in the Northeast.
00:53:00.360and they were wonderful. They were wonderful. Absolutely loved them and really recommend
00:53:06.940the program there. But I can't imagine how you would go about ODing in this facility.
00:53:18.500Well, he was at a very different facility. And I saw TMZ issue this report later in the day,
00:53:24.360and I was like, well, that's definitely not consistent with my own experience with Karen.
00:53:28.600um but this is what they said and i think they're basing it on what we see out in la and malibu
00:53:37.440when it comes to so-called rehab watch you know the thing that has been shocking to a lot of
00:53:44.040people in hearing this is that he was actually at a rehab center and i think people have the
00:53:49.140wrong idea that when you're at a rehab center that means there are no drugs around it's not
00:53:54.740that, um, it's never that clear cut and, uh, it is possible, uh, for people to have substances
00:54:02.080at these rehab centers. And, you know, Presley was in a, a unique situation. Like, I think
00:54:08.820everyone thinks of rehab that you're in one building, everyone's together and there are
00:54:14.320staff, they're always watching you. And that's just not the way it works, especially at sort
00:54:19.400of luxury rehab centers and the place where he was has been described as that.
00:54:24.020Totally. And it was like an all men. So he was with all these guys.1.00
00:54:27.720And when you look at photos of the house that we've seen, it doesn't look like a rehab facility.
00:54:34.300It looks like a house that you would go and maybe party in.
00:54:37.860Or, I mean, it's got a ping pong table and all this stuff that you look like I have a good time at.
00:54:42.460It's got a lot of recreational things. And really, you know, rehab centers, especially in the L.A. area, kind of market themselves this way.
00:54:50.380They want you to come to get the treatment, but they want it to feel like a great—
01:12:23.760And haven't we been talking about that?
01:12:25.120It's like, I feel like advice that comes on conservative or right-leaning broadcasts gets completely dismissed by the so-called mainstream.
01:12:36.560But he's saying something that will not be of any surprise at all to any single person listening to this discussion right now.
01:12:44.920We all know that getting outside, getting sunlight, yes, walking in the sand, swimming in the ocean, reconnecting with nature and staying busy in this way, right?
01:12:57.960Like quality of life, that's what he's talking about.
01:13:01.760That is extremely helpful to mental health, very helpful to mental health.
01:13:07.660And he was doing all of that in an age-appropriate way.
01:13:10.540his busyness of like high school and the water and all that got turned into social media classes
01:13:17.460and, you know, how best to make your eyebrows look. And how do you walk for Calvin versus
01:13:23.400Dolce and Gabbana? You know, it's like not, not problems. And that's to say nothing,
01:13:28.400nothing of what was likely happening in the nightclubs in Europe and in New York and in
01:13:35.060Hollywood. And he's, he talked about how, with all due respect to his family of origin, how the
01:13:40.780holidays stressed him out. He talked about how he really loved some people in his life, but he just
01:13:47.600did not want to be around them, around them, that they were not good for him when he made that black
01:13:51.720and white video from the sauna in November of 2025. You know, there were clearly some issues
01:13:58.120there. And I know that Randy Gerber and Cindy Crawford are two of the most successful people
01:14:03.680on earth, I mean, this was an area that really needed their many gifts focused solely on it,
01:14:13.020the problems around their son. You know, all the other campaigns, the new business launches,
01:14:22.080the trips with George Clooney, Randy Gerber's best friend and business partner, could wait.
01:14:26.720Fentanyl overdose into a coma, DWI, multiple stints in rehab, face tattoo that reads misunderstood.
01:14:40.800Talk about red flags everywhere, everywhere. And I'm just going to say, and like Kaya Gerber in
01:14:46.400that same Vogue interview talked about how she too is into a bunch of therapeutics and was a big
01:14:52.140proponent of the use of psychedelics. I'm just going to say this girl too seems like she may be
01:14:58.060struggling and she speaks, if she writes, whatever she told the interviewer about how
01:15:03.120she felt enormous pressure to be the good girl because Presley was so troubled. That doesn't
01:15:08.940mean she is feeling 100% well. It means she's learned to mask it so that she doesn't add to
01:15:17.820the family's problems. But I think there should be an immediate, serious probe into how their
01:15:24.520remaining child is doing. Because she's still now in double toxic industries, modeling and0.79
01:15:32.320Hollywood acting. Again, this looks glamorous from the outside, you guys, but on the inside,
01:15:38.700if you've known any models or been next to that industry, it's usually a life of bulimia
01:15:43.960and or anorexia. That's the number one thing about that industry. You have to fucking starve
01:15:52.000yourself to death. And by the way, a GLP-1 drug can only do so much. I'm sure it makes it easier,1.00
01:16:00.060but you still have to starve yourself to death. I mean, there's a lot of speculation in the press
01:16:05.740right now around kaya gerber allegedly having gotten butt implants she is so skinny that she0.95
01:16:14.480reportedly allegedly reportedly has decided that she needed implants in her butt in order to have0.96
01:16:21.760any sort of female curves whatsoever it's just i realize this is all the rage thanks to kim0.97
01:16:29.560kardashian but i mean for a woman like kaya gerber to be looking in the mirror thinking1.00
01:16:33.620I need any surgery whatsoever is insane.
01:25:15.120We take care of that in the courtroom.
01:25:16.960How's it been for her and for you and for the team, so to speak, since the trial and
01:25:22.300moving into this next phase? We're anticipating the 29th. I'm hoping that Judge Sullivan
01:25:27.260allows the termination of the case. I mean, it's just a case that needs to be done. It needs to
01:25:35.480be done. Have you heard from the DA at all? You know, are you and Tim Cruz very tight, I'm sure?
01:25:41.680No, we're good friends. Tim and I go way back. I knew him when he was a defense attorney. I know
01:25:45.360him, obviously, as a prosecutor, and I'm sure I'll hear from Tim.
01:25:48.100okay so he's hoping judge sullivan will terminate this case he has now filed uh two motions the
01:25:56.580first asked the judge to make public the jury deliberations notes and transcripts of the sidebar
01:26:01.860discussion during the deliberations that seems fine the second is a 34 page motion to dismiss
01:26:08.300based on double jeopardy grounds you know under our constitution once you've been acquitted of a
01:26:13.200You cannot be retried for the same crime. And he is treating the hung jury as the mistrial as an acquittal and saying she can't be tried again. How does he do that? He says, well, the mistrial was improperly declared and that there was no manifest necessity for the declaration of a mistrial.
01:26:32.800Because what should have happened is the judge should have pulled that holdout juror into chambers or asked him from the bench questions that that got to the revelation that the juror wasn't applying the law to his doubt, to his alleged doubt that the juror foreperson, the jury foreperson alleged that he had.
01:26:53.520and that had the judge uncovered through questioning of this holdout juror the fact
01:27:00.100that he wasn't abiding by his promise made under oath. Remember, he was accused of being a felon
01:27:05.020by Reddington for lying under oath, allegedly, when he said he could follow the law. So once
01:27:11.220the judge had, in this fantasy world, unearthed the juror's commitment not to follow the law,
01:27:15.820he would have been bounced off the jury. And in Kevin Reddington's world, he would have just
01:27:21.580gotten an acquittal. We would have gone with 11 jurors. Well, that's not what would have happened.
01:27:26.200Really, what would have happened unless the prosecution agreed to an 11-person verdict,
01:27:29.980which they absolutely would not have because they understood what he understood, which was the 11
01:27:34.300jurors were going against them. You had to start all over. You would have had to elevate another
01:27:39.100jury, another juror to the jury, and they would have had to start at square one. This court cannot
01:27:44.380go through this imaginatory gymnastic exercise by like, okay, we should have taken, I'm talking
01:27:51.380about the appellate court. He should have taken the jury, the juror, into chambers and asked him
01:27:56.280questions that would have allegedly shown that the juror was not applying the law to whatever doubt
01:28:02.960he allegedly had, that the foreperson said he had. But by the way, he's now issued a statement
01:28:07.020in writing after the fact saying he had no doubt. Actually, there wasn't any doubt.
01:28:11.760But we're supposed to disregard that. We're supposed to just take the word of the foreperson
01:28:15.900and say he was lying and this would have been unearthed by the trial judge who would have been
01:28:22.360cross-examining him. Then he would have bounced him off the jury and then we would have elevated
01:28:26.860an alternate and that alternate absolutely would have felt as the other 11 did as opposed to how
01:28:34.200the holdout did. Like, what the fuck are we talking? This is ridiculous. There's not going0.99
01:28:39.520to be a denial of a new trial based on double jeopardy grounds, Kevin, not unless the Massachusetts0.99
01:28:47.180courts are as crazy as you are. This is not going to happen. This is, you know, a pipe dream.0.91
01:28:55.900But in the meantime, he is doing his level best to harass that holdout juror to the point where
01:29:02.560we're now really in what could be a potential constitutional crisis. And the lawyer for the
01:29:08.600juror. The lawyer's name is Edru Andrew, Andrew Paltzik. Uh, and we're just going to say that
01:29:13.980you hold our jurors name now because he's come out publicly with it. So there's no reason not
01:29:17.920to. His name is Michael Desronville, D E S R O N V I L. And this lawyer has issued a barn burner
01:29:25.740of an ex post at one 15 this morning. I'm not going to read you the whole thing, but here's
01:29:29.680some highlights. He says the Looney tunes motion filed by Reddington to investigate Michael is
01:29:36.420not this is the one that we told you about yesterday that wants Michael's cell phone
01:29:39.880records. It wants surveillance video of Michael when he was standing with the jury in the corridors
01:29:45.640outside of the deliberation room. It wants all of Michael's dealings with the DA's office back when
01:29:51.480he was, you know, just a mere civilian. Oh, wait, that's what a juror is, too. And this six years
01:29:58.100prior because he allegedly had a domestic violence incident with the wife, soon to be ex, six years
01:30:02.900early. He wants everything. Again, like I said yesterday, a legal colonoscopy. And he says this
01:30:07.420motion is a full frontal attack on the U.S. Constitution because if the new normal is that
01:30:12.680jurors are going to face brutal reprisals for disagreeing with a defense attorney, you can kiss
01:30:17.040the Sixth Amendment goodbye. That's what gives you the right to a fair and impartial jury.
01:30:21.460And you're not good luck getting one if this is what we do to jurors if they don't go along with
01:30:25.800the majority. Lots of in here. And then he says pretty soon we're going to end up with a retrograde
01:30:31.420justice system that will look a lot like the Hatfield-McCoy feud, a cycle of carnage so
01:30:36.640malignant that its origins will fade in importance, replaced by the hopeless death spiral of the cycle
01:30:41.900itself. Right on. Kevin Reddington's disgusting motion to investigate Michael is worthy of nothing
01:30:47.620but universal condemnation. It is all going to backfire spectacularly on sore loser Reddington.0.98
01:30:55.980Jonathan Turley of Fox News and also JonathanTurley.org, a great website.
01:31:01.380He teaches at George Washington Law, has a new column blasting Reddington for this.
01:31:07.320He appears to be moving, Turley writes, from zealous advocacy to virtual stalking in this case.
01:31:13.020He's seeking phone records, surveillance, and criminal records of Michael Desronville.
01:31:17.580This demand follows his unprofessional attack on the juror on the courthouse steps after the trial,
01:31:21.940Not to mention, Turley must have missed it, inside the courtroom where he called him basically a felon by saying he had lied to the judge under oath when he said he could follow the law.
01:31:31.940In his filing, Reddington seeks to question Desronville after reviewing his records to see whether he lied on his jury questionnaire, violated court rules by using a cell phone in the jury room and failed to pay attention during deliberations.
01:35:01.280But let me tell you this, Nicole Hannah-Jones was 100 percent, in my opinion, applauding the people who were doing the fake neck shots because she loathed Charlie Kirk with that much of a passion.
01:35:14.980And what we learned from her own writing over the weekend was that she enrolled her daughter, who's black.0.96
01:35:22.100She's black and she's married to a black man in a terrible, awful New York City public school that she knew was terrible and awful.0.94
01:35:30.980And she did it because she thought that somehow she would be an evil person if she because she has some money and works for The New York Times, chose a better school for her child.0.98
01:35:40.420That like somehow this would be abandoning the black kids who are in that terrible school by not choosing to add her child to the list of black students who are being underserved.
01:35:54.700Now, she reveals that the daughter was at a school that was riddled with fighting, lazy teachers who wouldn't watch the children, who wouldn't grade the papers, who wouldn't even look at an individual child's work and testing and results before having a parent-teacher conference with Nicole Hannah-Jones and her husband.
01:36:15.160I mean, the level of dereliction was just sky high, and she still didn't pull the kid, still did not pull her.
01:36:20.880By the time we got to middle school, she moved to another school that was equally as bad.
01:36:24.820So even then, she didn't improve the child's lot in life at all.
01:36:29.440And finally, the kid managed to convince her to let the child pick the school for high school.0.67
01:36:34.160And heavens to Betsy, she chose one that was predominantly white and a better school.
01:36:39.100And Nicole Hannah-Jones felt the need to come out and tell everybody that that had happened1.00
01:36:42.300because she'd been making herself a mini-celebrity off of her principal decision
01:36:46.480not to send her child to a white school all these years.
01:36:50.240And my own belief is it was time to apply to college, and she realized she needed to do something to justify her child's struggles and bad grades and presumably not great SAT.
01:37:00.860And now this can be part of her essay about what her mother did to her.
01:37:05.640And I'm sure the word was getting out that Nicole Hannah-Jones' child was at a mostly white school, notwithstanding the fact she'd been feted as a civil rights leader for not sending her to one.
01:37:20.080The husband comes out and gives an interview on this decision by the family and actually says she belongs, Nicole Hannah-Jones, next to MLK as a civil rights icon for this decision.
01:39:24.360She absolutely did not expect the teacher never to get back to her when she wrote asking about her child's progress.
01:39:28.800she didn't expect to be told that your daughter couldn't read or do math at grade level without
01:39:35.120the teacher having looked at any of your daughter's work what do you mean she didn't expect1.00
01:39:38.880any of that you bullshit liar he says by the way he works uh in it for the aclu he also said his0.98
01:39:46.340wife did not regret the decision despite nicole hannah jones admitting in her piece quote i feel0.99
01:39:52.120that i failed both my values and my child cut back to her husband faragi we don't regret the choice
01:39:58.420I think as she gets older, think, meaning their daughter, will appreciate it.
01:40:03.320We knew that my daughter would be fine because she has parents who know how to advocate and intervene on her behalf.
01:40:09.880No, no, your wife's whole point is that even though she was Nicole Hannah-Jones writing for the Times and making this her issue du jour,0.97
01:40:19.260she was called the Beyonce of school reform for doing this, she couldn't make change.1.00