Food Storage Manager Changed His Story

As an attorney I’ve often seen witnesses change their story. When this happens I always ask, “Why?” What happened to make them deny what they had said earlier? The answer to that question often tells you more about what is really going on than their original testimony told you. This is true of the Mormon Food Storage story we reported earlier this week.

Last week the Oath Keepers’ web site reported that Federal agents had shown up at a Tennessee Mormon Food distribution facility and demanded a list of customers that had purchased food for long-term storage. On Monday I passed along that story to all Liberty Legal members, along with my comments and recommendations. Almost immediately we began getting e-mails telling us that the Oath Keepers had “pulled the story.” We also got messages ranging from “the story has been debunked” to “the story isn’t true” to “this never happened.”

What really happened is the Oath Keepers put a notice up stating that their witness that had originally told them about the federal agents visiting the LDS facility had changed his story and now denied that federal agents had demanded any lists. The Oath Keepers are a very trust-worthy organization that doesn’t want to represent facts that they can’t prove. Once their witness changed his story the Oath Keepers reported that fact. This does not mean that the original story isn’t true, or that the witness didn’t report different facts to the Oath Keepers before changing his story.

I don’t know what happened because I wasn’t there. What I do know is that Rand Cardwell, the Oath Keepers Officer that reported the story, and Oath Keepers as an organization, have both been scrupulously honest sources of information in the past. The fact that they pulled their own story when their source changed his story supports my conclusion that Oath Keepers are a trustworthy source. Their web site emphasizes that they will now require video or documentary confirmation of any facts before running such facts in the future. They explain that this will prevent such incidents of changed-stories in the future. Nothing in the Oath Keepers web site states that the incident didn’t happen. It simply explains that they can no longer prove that it happened.

So, I’m back to my question: Why would the LDS facility manager tell one story to one person, then change the story later? Two answers are likely. First, he almost certainly didn’t anticipate the amount of attention this story would get. Second, he almost certainly didn’t know that he could be charged as a criminal for telling the truth about an event of public interest. That’s right, under the Patriot Act the LDS facility manager could have been criminally charged for telling ANYONE that Federal agents asked him about his customer list.

Now, I don’t know that the LDS manager was threatened with criminal charges. But it seems to fit the facts. I have little doubt that Rand Cardwell was telling the truth, that the LDS manager initially reported that Federal agents asked for a customer list, and that the Federal agents became threatening in order to obtain the information. I believe that the LDS manager later changed his story. I know that the Patriot Act gives Federal agents the right to press criminal charges against a person that tells any third party about the Federal agents’ attempts to collect information. So, it seems likely that Federal agents asked for the list, the LDS manager told the Oath Keepers, the story exploded on the Internet, the Federal agents threatened the LDS manager in order to get him to change his story, and he did exactly that.

Whether I’m right or not, we should all be appalled that the Federal government has granted its agents clearly unconstitutional authority to write secret warrants and threaten private citizens for doing nothing more than reporting what the Federal government is doing to its own citizens. These aspects of the Patriot Act are undeniably unconstitutional, regardless of whether they were used against the LDS manager in this particular case.

Finally, my message from Monday was intended to encourage you all to invest in long-term-storage food, and make sure no one outside your trusted circle knows you are doing so. Regardless of what happened or didn’t happen at the LDS facility, I still encourage you to invest in food carefully. It just makes sense.

In Liberty,

Co-Founder, Lead Counsel

LIBERTY LEGAL FOUNDATION