Introduction and Guest Welcome

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's February 27, 2025, and today we are here to interview the man who sued the Mormon Church for, I would say fraud and asked for his tithing back. He is none other than James Huntsman. Hey, James.

James Huntsman [00:00:23] Good morning.

John Dehlin [00:00:24] This is not your first Mormon Stories episode. Do you realize that? Do you remember the first one we did? There was some movie we reviewed back at my old office once and you appeared. I don't know if you remember right.

James Huntsman [00:00:33] I do.

John Dehlin [00:00:34] So this is actually your second technically Mormon Stories appearance that I.

James Huntsman [00:00:37] Here we go.

John Dehlin [00:00:38] I appreciate that, James. For several years we've covered on Mormon Stories Podcast James's attempt to sue the Mormon Church to get a refund on $5 million worth of tithing that he paid, feeling like the church represented what it was doing with its tithing. And it seems as though those legal proceedings are kind of either wrapping up or are wrapped up. And so James and I have always, you know, anticipated potentially one day maybe having him tell a little bit about this story. So that's kind of what today is going to be about. But if I have any influence in today's interview, what I'm most interested hearing is kind of James's Mormon story to the extent that it plays into this ultimate decision he made to sue the church.

John Dehlin [00:01:37] It's worth mentioning that the Huntsman family is very well known for the half of you who have never been Mormon. The Huntsman family is very well known in Utah and within the church. James's dad, John Huntsman Sr. Was not only a very successful businessman and philanthropist, he also was an area authority for the church From I think, 2000 to 2005, same time Hans Mattson was an area authority and his, his. James's older brother, John Huntsman Jr. Was governor of Utah and, and ran for president back in the day when Mitt Romney was also running for president. There are also a few family or close connections with apostles, Mormon church leaders, M.

John Dehlin [00:02:28] Russell Ballard, David B. Haight Rasband. You all know Apostle Rasband, who would have worked for Huntsman Chemical. But putting all that aside, James was a very successful businessman and is a very successful businessman. He, he worked for Huntsman Chemical for a long time as an executive vice president, if I remember when I knew you first. And then also he runs a film production company now called. Is it still called Blue Fox?

James Huntsman [00:02:57] Blue Fox Entertainment.

John Dehlin [00:02:58] Yeah.

James Huntsman [00:02:59] Distribution and sales. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:03:00] So he's done a lot in Hollywood. So there's so many Cool. Interesting things about James. What I want to know is kind of, what was his early Mormon story? How did it lead to. What led him to feel differently about the church? That would then lead him to feel like he felt betrayed by the church, such that he would then sue the church to get tithing back, especially given the context of his background. So that's. And. But we're also going to just talk about his experiences suing the church and those decisions that he made and how things ended up and how he feels about it and where he is now. That's my intro. James, would there be anything you would edit, add, or take away from what I said?

James Huntsman [00:03:43] No. That was great. And in keeping with Oscar's speeches, should we do a list of thanks?

John Dehlin [00:03:50] Yes.

James Huntsman [00:03:51] No, really. Thank you, John, for obviously, the amount of support you've given me personally and to this case. It really means a lot. And it was a little bit of a scary proposition to head into it because we didn't know how people would respond. So. So I appreciate your support. You've always been a great friend, a great ally. Very much appreciate it. Off camera is Marianne, my wonderful partner, life, friend, wife, and so she's here. Thank you for your support as well.

John Dehlin [00:04:21] You may refer to her as scary when you're just talking naturally about her, because that's.

James Huntsman [00:04:25] Did I drop scary, or did I say Marianne?

John Dehlin [00:04:27] No, I'm just saying I want to just anticipate that sometimes when you're in the flow, you may say scary. I'm like, what?

James Huntsman [00:04:33] Scary is her nickname. It's probably one of the coolest nicknames out there, I think.

Mark Pugsley [00:04:37] Yeah.

James Huntsman [00:04:37] And then, of course, Mark, good friend

John Dehlin [00:04:39] Mark Pugsley's in the house. Hey, Mark.

James Huntsman [00:04:41] Sorry, I. I don't want to steal the intro thunder, but just obviously thank you for being here and providing additional context and. And he's been on the show a number of times, done a great job. I love his perspective. Very smart, articulate, and so appreciate you being here as well. Thank you very much.

Mark Pugsley [00:04:59] Happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:05:00] I'm.

Mark Pugsley [00:05:00] I'm honored, actually. I. James asked me to come join him to. And just to be clear, I. I just want to say, so everyone understands, I did not. I am a lawyer, but I did not do this case. I am familiar with it. I followed it very closely, and I've read some of the opinions. But I'm here to support James, who's a friend, and also to give some color commentary on the legal stuff. But this is James's story to tell

John Dehlin [00:05:25] and remind us your background Just super quickly, Mark.

Mark Pugsley [00:05:29] I'm a. I'm a litigator here in Salt Lake City. I've been trying cases, and primarily securities cases for about 30 years now. So I've been around the block a few times and am a former Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:05:46] I guess you focus on broad and whistleblowers, is that right?

Mark Pugsley [00:05:49] Yeah, I represent whistleblowers currently and specialize in securities fraud, investment fraud, primarily.

John Dehlin [00:05:56] Okay, beautiful. All right, James, Sometimes we start with an intention of why someone would want to even come on Mormon stories and tell their story. Do you want to start with an intention or should we just dive in?

James Huntsman [00:06:11] Maybe the intention, if we could put a little bit of a boundary around it. I don't know that we'll keep within that sandbox, but we'll try. Really. I don't know that we need to go into the weeds of sort of the technical legal journey that this case has been on for the last couple of years. I think what might be more interesting is just maybe the origin story of where it all began and why.

James Huntsman [00:06:39] I think that's really important for me to. That people understand that about this case, because we've read a lot about the motives behind this case, what I was thinking, and what might or might not work, and we've really had not made any public comments on it up until now. So I. And most of what we read as far as the motivations behind this case, what our strategies were, etcetera, Maybe weren't totally accurate. So perhaps setting the record straight and giving people a perspective of a case that we never expected to be this broadly known, we thought it might be helpful to give people a little insight as to where it all began.

John Dehlin [00:07:21] Beautiful. Well, if it's all right, maybe I'll just ask a few background questions. So can you talk about your parents, if your grandparents come into this at all, and kind of just a little bit about the Huntsman family and growing up a Huntsman for you, and then we'll connect it to the church. So, sure. Because half our audience has never been Mormon and doesn't even really. The Huntsman name may not mean a lot.

James Huntsman's Family Background

James Huntsman [00:07:50] Right, right. And so. And I'll speak pretty openly about my particular points of view or beliefs or perspectives. I will leave, obviously, my parents, grandparents and siblings, all of their opinions and perspectives, beliefs, out of the discussion. I will say that our family is very close. We always have been very close. And I think all of my siblings, we stand behind each other in every endeavor possible.

James Huntsman [00:08:20] This case didn't ever change, that. It didn't separate Us, it didn't bring us closer. We were already. We always have been, we are and always will be a very close knit family. And we're very protective of each other and I would think we are very protective of what we believe is right or wrong. So when any of us venture out into the world of, shall we say, being a crusader, intended or not, that I would say the support of, of my family has been second to none. So very happy with that and, and it means a lot.

John Dehlin [00:09:01] Okay, beautiful. Are your parents from Utah? Where are your parents? Like, where did they grow up or where were they raised?

James Huntsman [00:09:10] So my mom was born in San Diego, California, and my dad was born in Blackfoot, Idaho.

John Dehlin [00:09:15] Okay, and were they both raised in those respective places?

James Huntsman [00:09:22] Off and on. I think my mom's upbringing in the church was probably a little more traditional. I think my dad's upbringing was less traditionally Mormon. And that led to an interesting dynamic growing up in a, in a household that, that tried to balance sort of the practical realities of, of one's life and faith journey and beliefs with sort of the, as some might say, the strict orthodox confines of what Mormonism, of what Mormonism is to a lot of people.

John Dehlin [00:10:00] Is it your mom that's related to David Behead?

James Huntsman [00:10:03] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:10:04] Former apostle.

James Huntsman [00:10:04] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:10:06] How are they related?

James Huntsman [00:10:07] So David B8 is my grandfather, is my mom's father, and I believe until President Nelson that he was the oldest living apostle since the origin of the church in 1830 by age until Nelson took the crown from him. So that was his claim to fame.

John Dehlin [00:10:30] Okay, so you grew up with a grandfather who was a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the twelve Apostles. Okay.

James Huntsman [00:10:37] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:10:38] And okay, do you have fun? Were you able to even hang out with him and spend time with him? I've heard really good things about all great memories.

James Huntsman [00:10:47] I don't recall any instance of, of awkwardness as it relates to the church or teachings or doctrines. Nothing in that regard.

John Dehlin [00:11:00] Got it. Yep.

James Huntsman [00:11:00] All. All good memories as it relates to, to him and, and his wife Ruby.

John Dehlin [00:11:05] Yeah. Okay. Do you know, do you remember where your parents met?

James Huntsman [00:11:09] Like, oh man, now you're. That's like asking when was like BYU

John Dehlin [00:11:14] or do you even know?

James Huntsman [00:11:16] I believe it would have been Palo Alto, California.

John Dehlin [00:11:18] Okay. Maybe just talk a tiny bit about your dad starting his businesses just to get a sense for what he became, if that's worth mentioning.

James Huntsman [00:11:30] Yeah, briefly. I think my dad was a serial entrepreneur. He, at a very early stage, followed his passion, followed his dream, and was involved with, started or in some small Way invested in a number of different financial opportunities.

James Huntsman [00:11:57] And I can. Pretty much every single one of them went bust or failed in some way, shape or form with the exception of one which was a. Which was a packaging company. And that packaging company basically then, since it was the sort of only horse standing at the time that got the. His attention to sort of get into that particular industry. And packaging ultimately led into the raw materials that go into packaging, which is chemical manufacturing. And so the original name. So Huntsman today is a publicly traded global manufacturer of many different usable products around the world. The original name was Huntsman Container and because of the packaging side of things.

James Huntsman [00:12:49] So that ultimately became what today is Huntsman Corporation, which is where my family's generated. Well, my father and his team and family generated his wealth, which then has now gone on to support and be the basis for the Huntsman Cancer Institute and the Huntsman Mental Health Institute and many other charitable endeavors.

John Dehlin [00:13:14] Is. This may be annoying. What, what I think of with your dad is like McDonald's Big Mac clamshell sort of containers is that is. Is that even anywhere near the truth of one of the things that hunts your dad first?

James Huntsman [00:13:28] Kind of, yes. Really. So that particular product is a. Was a. Was a product that was available in the market, meat trays. And it had various packaging applications at the time. McDonald's used either some type of wax paper or cardboard box to house their Big Mac. This would have been probably geez in the 70s. And he was able to get them to substitute that for a clamshell container. And so McDonald's became one of his first baseline customers. So to be clear, he didn't invent. My dad's not an inventor. He just came up with an application and found a customer in the market that didn't exist using an already existing product. And it was a great play. It worked fantastically and really helped set things off on a good way in the early days.

John Dehlin [00:14:25] Did your dad serve a mission? I don't even know enough to know.

James Huntsman [00:14:28] As a missionary, no. As a mission president, yes. He was in the Washington D.C. mission in 1980-83. Today the. It's actually the mission split in two. I think it's the Washington D.C. north and South. Back then it was one mission. In fact, it might be one mission today. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:14:46] So how many siblings did your parents end up having? How many children did your parents have? How many siblings did you have?

James Huntsman [00:14:53] So there are nine of us total and I'm lucky number seven.

John Dehlin [00:14:59] Seven of nine, Yep. Okay. And what was the what was the culture like in the family particularly related to the church? Was it a traditional Mormon family? Or would that be impossible for a Huntsman family of nine to be a traditional Mormon family or somewhere in the middle?

James Huntsman [00:15:17] Well, I guess it probably depends on what your definition of traditional is. I, I think Mormonism was always part of the upbringing. Mormonism was always part of the family dynamics. I don't know that we held family home evening on a regular basis as an example, or got up at six o' clock in the morning to read scriptures. Maybe my older siblings did. By the time I came along, I think that those were not part of the normal narrative. But at that particular time, my dad would have been a stake president and so.

John Dehlin [00:15:46] In Salt Lake, right? Yes, Monument park.

James Huntsman [00:15:49] Monument Park, 15th Ward. And so growing up, I used to, you know, other than the normal teenage angst, I never really had any issues with, you know, the, the, the integration of Mormonism and Mormon teachings and Mormon culture into family life. It was just kind of one of the same. It all seemed to work for us and no real major issues. It was great place to grow up, parents provided a great loving home and.

John Dehlin [00:16:18] Yeah, so if your dad stayed president, that means a pretty orthodox, faithful Mormon family. Or would you say it was not orthodox in some ways? Like, you know, no swearing, no. Our movies, no. No coffee, no tea, no tobacco, no alcohol. All the normal Mormon things. Was it pretty standard that way or.

James Huntsman [00:16:41] That's quite a list. I would say some yes, some no.

John Dehlin [00:16:44] Okay.

James Huntsman [00:16:45] But it would have been pretty.

Mark Pugsley [00:16:50] I don't.

James Huntsman [00:16:51] I think that my parents struck a good balance where if you were to come into our home and you were a non member, you would not feel like you're walking into Deseret Book. And conversely, if you were a member of the church walking into the home, you wouldn't feel like, boy, this family's not really toeing the line. I think we tried to make an environment that was welcoming to everyone.

John Dehlin [00:17:12] That's nice. Okay, so in terms of your faith progression from, from childhood into adolescence, you know, were you reading the scriptures, praying? Were you developing orthodox beliefs, attending seminary? Those types of normal faith based, you know, activities that a Mormon kid goes through in Salt Lake City in the what, 70s?

Faith and Youth in the Mormon Church

James Huntsman [00:17:39] I'd say it was mixed. I mean, as a teenager you kind of explore different ideas and beliefs. I'd say before my teen years, yes, because that's kind of what everyone did in the neighborhood. So there's really not a lot of incentive to severe from that.

John Dehlin [00:18:01] Is this the avenues in Salt Lake? No. Above, like saying. No, like above.

James Huntsman [00:18:06] What would you say?

Mark Pugsley [00:18:07] What's the legal technical definition area? Basically.

John Dehlin [00:18:12] Okay, okay. So up, right south of, of the univers of the university.

James Huntsman [00:18:17] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:18:17] Okay.

James Huntsman [00:18:18] Hill Zoo in between. So right. Right at the mouth of Immigration Canyon.

John Dehlin [00:18:22] And we're talking Highland High School kind of boundaries back then.

James Huntsman [00:18:26] Correct. Highland and East. We are sort of right at the boundaries of those two high schools. Okay, got it.

Mission, Marriage, and Early Devotion

John Dehlin [00:18:31] Okay, so in your teen years, you're saying, exploring. Would you say by the time you're 18, you're a faithful, orthodox believing, devout Mormon or not

James Huntsman [00:18:44] maybe late 18. Right. I went on a mission right when I turned 19, and I, I think that the sort of my personality, the, the lights are either on or off. And let's just say for a period of 16, 17, 18, the lights are off as it relates to the church with me, they're very much on. I had a terrific high school experience and the, the, the opportunity and the, the mindset required. Well, the opportunity and the mindset required to serve a mission meant that I had to sort of make a switch in relation to my relationship with Mormonism, which I did relatively quickly. I just felt it was time.

James Huntsman [00:19:31] High school days were over and I, you know, wasn't sure about university and, and my, all of my older brothers had served missions. My dad was a former mission president. It was an easy decision to make to go on a mission in the 1990s.

John Dehlin [00:19:47] Was it kind of like 1990s?

James Huntsman [00:19:50] Yeah, so I went from 1990-92.

John Dehlin [00:19:53] Okay, so are you saying kind of for you, the mission wasn't this born out of deep faith and testimony sort of thing? It was more sort of what was expected. And then maybe faith and conviction came later.

James Huntsman [00:20:10] I don't know that I would use the term expected. For me, I just saw it as an opportunity that I felt was right for me at that particular time. I would say I'm an opportunist in nature, in my personality. And so when something comes along that, and look, I always, that a mission was always lingering out there in the, in the sort of in the background.

James Huntsman [00:20:35] But yeah, there were periods prior to that where I, in my mind I'm like, I'm not going to serve a mission. I just don't. I'm not committed to the cause, so there's really no point. But when that I made that sort of mental and emotional change. And really, look, serving mission in the 90s is different than today.

James Huntsman [00:20:58] In some ways. It was a lot easier to get, maybe get through the system to go there. Really wasn't a screening process. It was just. Hey. And given my father's position and our family's position in the church, I figured that my mission would be a good one, so to speak. Maybe there are less good missions, areas that people don't want to serve. But I ended up going to central Germany. What a great mission. In the 1990s, right when the end of the Cold War and the Berlin Wall came down. And I love history and military history, and I get sent to Germany and my mission president was my father's.

James Huntsman [00:21:43] My dad's former first counselor in the state presidency. Like, what a great opportunity. Why would I skip that? So I know they also do. And my mission was a great experience for me. But again, just to be maybe clear with what, it might not be everyone's experience. And I get it. There wasn't this underlying pressure of, you need to go or else. It was really framed for me, and I saw it as more of an opportunity.

John Dehlin [00:22:12] Okay. I checked with Marianne before I asked this, and she said I can ask and you can decide if you want to respond. But one piece of. To some trivia to you would be very personal thing that if someone has learned about your family at all, they'd know is that there was, I guess there was a kidnapping at some point.

The Kidnapping and Its Aftermath

James Huntsman [00:22:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:35] That you were involved with. Is that something you would want to talk about or not? And I did ask before I got permission to ask at least.

James Huntsman [00:22:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:42] And I don't mean to joke about something that might have been serious. I actually don't know anything about it.

James Huntsman [00:22:46] Well. Well, it was quite serious. But no, to answer your question, yes, that is an actual event that took

John Dehlin [00:22:54] place and that you were how old?

James Huntsman [00:22:57] I was 17.

John Dehlin [00:22:58] Oh, so it was. Right. A year or two before your mission. Yes. Okay. Is there anything you would want to share about that or would you prefer not to talk about that?

James Huntsman [00:23:08] Oh, I don't mind talking about it.

John Dehlin [00:23:10] Okay.

James Huntsman [00:23:12] It's a whole story in and of itself, and I. I don't know that we have time to get into it because we need to.

Mark Pugsley [00:23:20] Sure.

James Huntsman [00:23:21] Keep looking at you.

Mark Pugsley [00:23:22] No, it's a funny coincidence is that my little brother Nate, I think, was student body president of Highland High when that happened.

James Huntsman [00:23:30] Oh, really? Yeah.

Mark Pugsley [00:23:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:31] So you were in high school and you were there, Mark.

Mark Pugsley [00:23:33] I was graduated. I'm older, but. But my little brother was student by president at Highland High, and I. I think that was the same year. I'm not 100% sure I'll get corrected, but I remember vividly because I live I grew up in, in the same neighborhood basically, that the Huntsman do.

James Huntsman [00:23:48] December 1987, actually, December, John. This is a great date. December 7, 1987. So the other events happen on December 7, which are also quite historical, which is Pearl Harbor. Pearl harbor and the Armenian earthquake, which our family played a role in. Not the earthquake, but in some of the recovery efforts.

James Huntsman [00:24:13] Interesting side note as it relates to that kidnapping in terms of maybe the origin story of that, of some of those behaviors and motivations from the people involved. For most of my upbringing in junior high and high school, my father was very private and the family was very private, and we preferred to keep it that way. We didn't. Being in the limelight was something that was never a goal. And I think as we get into the case and the motivations behind this case, I very much fell into that same pattern.

James Huntsman [00:24:54] My father actually gave a gift back in the. In the late 80s, actually, I guess it would have been 87 to the University of Utah. It's a five million dollar donation today. That seems like very small amounts to get. Even a chair named after you at a university cost millions of dollars. But back then, $5 million was a large amount.

James Huntsman [00:25:15] That's when the University of Utah was kind enough to change the name of the basketball arena from the Special Events center to the John M. Huntsman Center. And part of the reason the University of Utah did that was for that to be a catalyst to encourage other people to give. Basically saying, the Huntsman have given this amount, you can give something else.

James Huntsman [00:25:42] Interestingly enough, that was also the motivation for those involved in the kidnapping. Gave them the idea, from what we were told later on, of, oh, well, the Huntsman must have a lot of money. And therein led to the, let's come up with that scheme to kidnap and hold for ransom. So that's kind of how that whole thing transpired. And fortunately we made it out safely and there was a. There was an FBI agent who was unfortunately stabbed, ended up recovering just fine. And, and all the participants involved, thankfully, are living and, and, and moving on with their lives. And, you know, it's been several decades since that event, but. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:29] How long were you in captivity?

James Huntsman [00:26:31] I guess about 12 hours.

John Dehlin [00:26:33] Okay, so less than a. Less than a full day.

James Huntsman [00:26:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:36] Oh, good. And did I just. Because this is Mormon stories, did your faith. Did prayer or your perceptions of divine intervention have any role in either what happened or how you processed it afterwards? Did you ever feel like God saved you or it was a miracle, or did you pray to be saved during the captivity, you know, was Mormonism.

James Huntsman [00:27:02] I don't, I don't believe so. I mean, I, I would have been, so was December, so I would have been 16 at the time. I, I don't know that I would have leaned into my faith in that particular instance. I think where it probably came more to play was on my mission when I sort of, which I actually think is a, is sort of a, a good exercise to go through. And that is the whole notion of forgiveness and moving on and, you know, reconciling when possible. Sometimes it's not always possible, but reconciling when possible with yourself and with those around you that were involved and how Mormonism fed into that and the whole Christian narrative. And that would have had a significant impact as a, as a missionary, far more than it had an impact during the actual event.

John Dehlin [00:28:01] Okay, so in terms of like, struggling to gain a testimony, did that happen on your mission? You mentioned that you're kind of an all or nothing guy. You're either all in or kind of all out. When and how did you become all in in terms of your Mormon belief? Was that on your mission, after your mission, right before your mission? Was it a process?

James Huntsman [00:28:28] Well, that's a really good question. There's no doubt that a mission, my mission specifically for me, would have reinforced that narrative in the, in, in the 90s. I, I, I think the church was a lot more, a lot more. So where I'm looking for, maybe bold in the proclamations of the one and only and, and of being the religion and all in and we have it all, and it's Hinckley saying it's either all true or it isn't. That was really a narrative for me in the early 90s, and my personality was such that I leaned into that completely. And being on a mission just reinforced that. So like many that go on missions, I would have come home off my mission as a very disciplined, obedient soldier to the cause.

John Dehlin [00:29:37] And was, was any of that like prayer based, where you're praying for a testimony and then you get the witness? Kind of like the Moroni Book of Mormon promise, you ask and it shall be given unto you, or was it more just in the lived experience of being a missionary or some combination?

James Huntsman [00:29:53] Probably the latter. I mean, I would love to have had some type of angelic visitation or the heavens parted. I think a lot of people would like something like that, frankly, because that's kind of the narrative of what you tell people. They might get a divine intervention or a day or divine confirmation. I think in a lot of people's minds, including my own, is something that is really indescribable and quite fascinating in a number of ways. I think for me, it was probably like, like a lot of religious people out there that have some type of conversion where it was simply just putting in the work and effort. And as a result, you gain to love and support the organization that you serve. And that's just. Was just kind of the end result.

Mark Pugsley [00:30:52] Yeah.

James Huntsman [00:30:52] So no, I, unfortunately, I don't have anything to sort of say that there was some extra, I won't say terrestrial or some event that would be atypical from what I really believe that most people probably experience as it relates to their religious conversions.

John Dehlin [00:31:13] But is it safe to say by the end of your mission, you're an all in, fully believing, orthodox Mormon, 100% fully committed to the church and the traditional Mormon milestones? I think that we all.

James Huntsman [00:31:26] Yeah, without question.

John Dehlin [00:31:28] Okay.

James Huntsman [00:31:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:29] So you served. What year span did you say?

James Huntsman [00:31:33] 1990 to 1992.

John Dehlin [00:31:34] Okay. And I'm, I'm rusty on my, my history, so I, I googled who is prophet when, and it looks like Hinckley didn't become prophet until 95. So it sounds like Ezra Tab Benson and then Howard W. Hunter would have kind of been the early prophets for you, and that Hinckley would have been very influential, but he would have become the president just right after your mission ended. Does that sound right?

James Huntsman [00:32:03] Yes. And not to sort of. Trigger controversy for listeners. Spencer W. Kimball was also a key figure in my family's relationship with Mormonism. When my father was a mission president at Washington, D.C. spencer W. Kimmel actually came to visit the mission and there were some other experiences with him that sort of growing up, it was like Spencer W. Kimball and I don't know, that got replicated with or duplicated. I mean, Howard Hunter was very, very. His tenure was very brief, a year or less. He was actually in our ward growing up, so we were very close to him. My dad was very close to him.

James Huntsman [00:32:56] And then, of course, Ezra Tap Benson was largely ill during much of his. I was going to say reign presidency. And then you get to a. What many Mormons perceived and loved about Gordon B. Hinckley, you know, able to, you know, walk into a room and handle interviews and do television interviews and do publicity and all these great things which the prior leadership really shied away from for many, many decades. And now we have a situation here with him that was quite refreshing for a lot of members of the church.

John Dehlin [00:33:38] Yeah. And this plays into the lawsuit later. But because Gordon B. Hinckley was willing to go on 60 minutes, willing to go on Larry King Live, willing to be interviewed by Time magazine, we paid attention. Tell me if I'm wrong, but we paid attention to his public statements like either the church is all true or it's all false. Or, you know, know, like when City Creek is announced. Am I. Is that. Is that we. We paid attention to what Gor. Hinckley said?

James Huntsman [00:34:08] Yeah. And I. I think prior to that, the presidents of the church rarely spoke on the record. And I think since Gordon B. Hinckley, there. There ha. There. There hasn't been an equal to him as far as people going onto the record. It just happened to be during this time where it was. It was kind of the right people at the right time. And I think today, with the Internet the way it is and access to information, I don't think Hinckley could. Could be as prolific today as he was, say, in the mid-90s. I just think there was just a

John Dehlin [00:34:46] kind of a golden age.

James Huntsman [00:34:47] Yes, it was a very unique period of time, and he was the right guy for that message and resonated with a lot of people. I remember being on, you know, vacation, Marianne and the kids, and we would, you know, we. At one point, schedule, make sure we're back in the hotel room to watch. Was it the 60 Minutes interview? You know, it was like it was a big deal. When he would do something, we would, you know, you accommodate it and you. You kind of are there and support it.

Mark Pugsley [00:35:16] He's also the one that decided to build the mall. You know, so it all dovetails. It all kind of comes together. He was very instrumental in kind of reshaping downtown Salt Lake City. He had a vision. He. At the time, Salt Lake City, where I was working at the time, was deteriorating. There was. The Crossroads Mall was kind of a piece of junk. The ZCMI was almost empty at one point, if you remember. And he's the one that said, this is our. This is our place. We need to fix up the downtown. And that was his vision. He was instrumental in so many. I have very fond memories, same as James, of my childhood, watching him.

Returning Home, Meeting Marianne

John Dehlin [00:35:55] And now that we've talked about them all, I'm thinking about the fact that I was going to mention that in some ways, whistleblower David Nielsen is kind of like an angel sitting on all our shoulders. Because he's been a friend to you, James. Correct. And to you, Mark, and.

Mark Pugsley [00:36:09] And to me.

John Dehlin [00:36:11] And I don't think we'd necessarily all be here talking right now. If in part, it weren't for whistleblower David Nielsen. But as I'm thinking about Ensign Peak, wasn't it Gordon B. Hinckley that was instrumental in much of the formation to Ensign Peak and the church investments and what it became? I know Eyring was also part of that, but was in Hinckley an important part of the formation and growth of Ensign Peak?

Mark Pugsley [00:36:36] I mean, some of that. I don't know the exact history, but some of that may have been as much a product of what was happening to the portfolio. And at some point, someone in the church said, this is getting to be a lot of money. What are we going to do? We can't just keep this in the church anymore. We need to do something productive with the money. And obviously, I don't know the decision process in that, but they did decide to set up Ensign Peak at that point and move the money into a separate entity, which was a fateful decision in a lot of ways, because had they just kept it in the church itself, in the church's bank account, it wouldn't have made the kind of money that it made.

Mark Pugsley [00:37:17] I think that once they put it in the market, so. And it was growing exponentially, you know, they were. They were netting several billion dollars a year that they didn't need. And then what are we going to do with that? So they set up Enzyme Peak.

James Huntsman [00:37:32] Right?

John Dehlin [00:37:33] Yeah.

James Huntsman [00:37:33] Imagine having a portfolio that you can establish in the early 90s with significant amounts of cash, no taxes, no donations going out, and that capital can just compound interest on itself. No wonder the growth was miraculous.

Mark Pugsley [00:37:51] And it was at the beginning of one of the great market in history. And they wrote it all the way up with substantial money going in. And it's all, you know, it compounds in the stock market. So the church had fantastic timing, and luckily they had good, good cash flow.

John Dehlin [00:38:08] Yeah. And we're talking about Hinckley because he becomes an important piece of your story later. Is that, I mean, of the lawsuit. Correct. Okay. Okay. So you come off your mission from Germany, you're fully in with the church. Talk about, you know, college, marriage, early family. To what extent did you just hop on the Mormon train, as I like to refer to it, and just check off all the milestones as you. As you went along. Yeah.

James Huntsman [00:38:38] Great way of saying it. Got on the Mormon train, came home off. Off of my mission, met Marianne. Amazing, amazing situation there.

John Dehlin [00:38:47] Where'd y' all meet?

James Huntsman [00:38:48] University of Utah.

John Dehlin [00:38:49] So you went to the U.

James Huntsman [00:38:51] University of Utah.

John Dehlin [00:38:52] Were you a Greek Were you. Were you?

James Huntsman [00:38:55] No, I. I wasn't.

John Dehlin [00:38:56] Okay.

James Huntsman [00:38:57] Marianne was, but.

Mark Pugsley [00:38:58] Marianne was.

James Huntsman [00:38:59] Yeah, I didn't. I didn't get in.

Mark Pugsley [00:39:00] I was.

John Dehlin [00:39:01] Your brother.

Mark Pugsley [00:39:01] Was.

John Dehlin [00:39:02] Yeah.

James Huntsman [00:39:02] See, I. I've always been fighting from the outside.

John Dehlin [00:39:06] Are you an introvert? Is that fair to say?

James Huntsman [00:39:07] No, I just by. I. Look, I came off my mission. Last thing you want to do for a lot of people is to go to the frat house, right?

John Dehlin [00:39:14] Yeah.

James Huntsman [00:39:14] Before my mission, that might have been a different situation. But look, I. I got off my mission, and the objective was to get through school as quickly as possible and hopefully find someone to board that train together with me. And at this time, much like, I guess, Enzyme Peak Huntsman Corporation was growing as a company, my dad was having a lot of success. The family was having a lot of success, and it really was an opportunity to go into the family business and work with several of my siblings.

James Huntsman [00:39:49] What a great opportunity. And so that those opportunities were outside of the state of Utah. And so there was some level of immediacy, not pressure, but just the practical realities of trying to find, you know, a life partner, a spouse, a wife.

James Huntsman [00:40:11] And within the church, doing that in the Salt Lake Valley would have been significantly easier as opposed to being out somewhere else. So I got. Was very, very fortunate.

John Dehlin [00:40:21] What are three things you loved about Marianne?

James Huntsman [00:40:24] Well, now I can start getting emotional if you ask those types of questions.

John Dehlin [00:40:27] Not terrible on Mormons. This is Mormon stories. Three things.

James Huntsman [00:40:36] Well, smart, Strong, and sexy.

Mark Pugsley [00:40:47] That's awesome. Those are great.

John Dehlin [00:40:50] I find her to be very kind, and I'm sure the list would be very long.

James Huntsman [00:40:55] It's quite a long list. That's why I paused to say, you know, it's. It's a tough answer. We do. And, you know, and again, we were very fortunate from the standpoint that we found each other. We connected on many, many levels. And I don't think we even had a strenuous disagreement for a decade. Like, it was just. And again, it wasn't the church. I thought maybe it might have been the church that the relationship was so great. But after, you know, obviously after we exited Mormonism, the relationship was still there, and it was still great. And it was built on mutual love and respect for each other and just a level of connection that I think we would both individually say that we were very fortunate in that regard, because that's not always the case.

John Dehlin [00:41:52] Were y' all Temple married?

James Huntsman [00:41:54] Oh, come on, man. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:41:57] Salt Lake. Salt Lake city?

James Huntsman [00:41:58] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:41:58] Or D.C. which temple?

James Huntsman [00:42:00] That's Salt Lake City.

John Dehlin [00:42:01] Okay.

James Huntsman [00:42:02] Our vacations were where's the nearest temple, so we can go do a session. Oh, we were that couple.

John Dehlin [00:42:07] So when y' all got married, it was like, we're doing the Mormon thing all the way to the end sort of thing?

James Huntsman [00:42:12] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:42:13] Yeah. Okay.

James Huntsman [00:42:15] And I would say jointly.

Mark Pugsley [00:42:16] Right.

James Huntsman [00:42:17] Like, it was both. Wasn't. I think it was really equal in our desire to do that. I don't. I don't get the sense that I was ever pulling her, nor her. Me or. Um, it was very much of a mutual. Let's. Let's do the Mormon theme, because that is what we want to do, because it is the right thing to do.

John Dehlin [00:42:35] Yeah. So she came to the marriage fully orthodox, believing and committed to the church too?

James Huntsman [00:42:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:42:41] Yeah. Okay. Okay. Beautiful. Okay. So did. Did you both finish at the U? Where did. Where did life take you? How did kids come along? How did your kids come along? Did you go to grad school?

James Huntsman [00:42:55] Here's how that happened. No, I went to the University of Utah and. And just got my undergrad in history.

John Dehlin [00:43:03] History.

Mark Pugsley [00:43:04] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:43:04] Was there a part of history you were interested in, specifically military history? Oh, wow.

James Huntsman [00:43:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:09] Like World War II. Yep.

James Huntsman [00:43:10] So Germany again, that was like, oh, the perfect mission for me.

John Dehlin [00:43:14] So World War I and 2.

James Huntsman [00:43:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:16] Did you know the Germans were involved in World War I? I'm kidding. Kidding.

James Huntsman [00:43:21] I'm like, really? So. But. And then thereafter, it was immediately into. Into Huntsman Corporation and. And into the family business.

John Dehlin [00:43:34] Okay. Did you do grad school?

James Huntsman [00:43:36] No.

John Dehlin [00:43:37] Okay. You didn't go to. Okay.

James Huntsman [00:43:38] It's. I'd say I got it at work.

John Dehlin [00:43:40] Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. So how many kids. If you want to share and, like, what was it like juggling work and family and church in those. In those years? And what did the church mean to you and your family with Marianne and your kids? It's a lot.

Mark Pugsley [00:44:02] But,

James Huntsman [00:44:05] you know, I don't know that our. That our objectives would have been any different than. So I'll just use the words a traditional orthodoxy family. We, you know, attending church was. Yeah, I'm looking over at Marianne in case I'm missing something. But attending church was always not a question. You go to the three hour block, you go to your meetings, you. You know, with a young family, it's hard to read the scriptures because that's. Could be one of the boringest books in the world for young children.

James Huntsman [00:44:39] But, you know, you read the family scriptures, you try to incorporate some element of Mormonism into the daily routine. You know, blessing on the food. And when you're driving by a temple, it's you know, tap the brakes in the car and have all the kids look at the temple, out the bill, out the window. Any opportunity to introduce and reinforce Mormonism in our upbringing was just the norm. I don't feel like we're trying to force it. It was just. Look, we loved Mormonism growing up, and we were proud to be members of the church. And so to have children that we could share that experience with, it was no obligation on our side. It was an opportunity, and it was a pleasure to do so.

John Dehlin [00:45:24] So family prayer, family scripture study, and home evening, when possible, all the callings for both of you young kids, that whole thing. Yep.

James Huntsman [00:45:34] Callings. Yep. Right across the board. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:45:36] Okay. Okay. And was most of this in Texas then? And because I remember that's where I first learned about you was when you were in Woodlands, which is near my hometown. But, like, was. Was most of your time with Huntsman Chemical in Texas or.

Decades of Active Church Membership

James Huntsman [00:45:55] Yes, most of it was in Texas. There were. There was a period where we lived abroad and. But the lion's share of it was 23 years with Huntsman Corporation, and most of that was 15 or plus was in Texas.

John Dehlin [00:46:13] Did y' all like Houston area?

James Huntsman [00:46:17] I'm a mountain guy.

John Dehlin [00:46:20] It's hot and flat and humid. Right.

James Huntsman [00:46:23] I didn't mind the heat and humidity. I. I just found the. The. The sort of geography a little bit less one tone. But look to, you know, there are these communities, these planned communities in Texas, obviously not in all other states as well.

James Huntsman [00:46:41] It's a great place to raise a family. I mean, it's safe, and you have your local school, and schools are close and the church is close, your friends are close. And. And it was a great place to work. Work was. You know, those are great times for. In. In our. In our marriage and raising family. And of course, you have the church there, too. And because there are the planned communities that.

James Huntsman [00:47:09] That are relatively new, there's not a. There's not a history of Mormon families that are already there like you have in Utah. They're all people that move in. And often I would just sort of shake my head a little bit when you would go to church and people would talk about how much the church is growing.

James Huntsman [00:47:29] It's like, well, no, we're not growing. People are just moving here. That means that somewhere else the church is declining in their growth or their membership while. But it's a net. The same number. And what that meant is you had a lot of great families coming in there from Utah and other areas that really made the church And a lot of these communities, a pretty solid stable base of people.

John Dehlin [00:47:54] So the types of callings you and Marianne would have had in those years leading up to before you started having questions or doubts. Just give us a sampling of the types of callings you and Marianne would have fulfilled.

James Huntsman [00:48:09] Well, Marianne, you were Relief Society State. Oh yeah, sorry, that doesn't exist anymore. Stake Relief Society. I don't remember that. That's a tough one.

John Dehlin [00:48:25] But look a lot of normal calling.

James Huntsman [00:48:29] But look a lot of the callings that we had. I mean obviously when I get a calling it takes time out from. From us. You know, it's the usual suspects. Gospel essentials, Gospel doctrine teacher, which I did for off and on for eight years. Went through the standard works twice. High Council, Stake Mission presidency. Like, you know, you're always kind of moving around in doing something. Never, never in the bishopric, thankfully. I think that's. That would have been really tough, frankly. Don't know how we would have responded to that one back in the day. Early on, yes. But later in the marriage, I think just the practical time commitments that that calling sometimes can require. I don't know that that would have worked for us but it never came along so never had to deal with that one.

John Dehlin [00:49:28] So I'll remember what. Well I first remember I was living in Logan at the time. I think we've established it was 2000, what 13, 2014 when you first reached out to me. Is that right around that time? What do we establish something like that?

James Huntsman [00:49:46] It's tough to dispute email dates, stamped dates. I think that's right.

John Dehlin [00:49:52] Mid 2014.

James Huntsman [00:49:53] 2014. Y.

John Dehlin [00:49:54] So what, what. Let's just go and jump to the. You know what, what were the events that would have led to you listening to Mormon stories as a totally committed, devout in it to win it 100% Mormon. What would have led you to start listening to Mormon stories and then reaching out to me? When did the cracks first start developing in your faith?

James Huntsman [00:50:20] Boy, that's, that's sort of a. That whole relationship between Mormonism and me would have evolved and changed significantly over a period of years. It wasn't for some people. I know it's kind of overnight or very compressed period of time.

James Huntsman [00:50:38] But Mormonism when I, when it worked for me was something that was this all in organization that kind of did everything right and makes no apologies, makes no mistakes. You know, the Doctrine and Covenants talk about the. The religion is perfect, the members aren't, but the, the church is. I mean all this narrative that fed into Mormonism being very appealing to me, I think probably year six or year seven into gospel or maybe year eight, Gospel doctrine, church history and how church history was articulated for me became an issue because I would be a stickler for information.

James Huntsman [00:51:29] And I started to see gaps in that and gaps in the sort of. Wait a second, one plus one doesn't equal two in this particular area. And then, you know, there were just a number of areas where the narrative that I was told and that I was frankly in tears bearing testimony of, in another language to somebody I didn't know several years later being told actually that's not what had happened, it was something else. But don't worry about it because we made reference, reference to that particular issue in the friend in 1972, like that for me was a cop out. And, and when that started happening more and more and more, this sort of all in religion didn't work for me.

James Huntsman [00:52:23] Again, it can work for others. And again, I. No disrespect to anyone's relationship with Mormonism and how they frame it, how they do it, that's, that's. They're totally their business. But for me it was an all in situation. So when those cracks started to appear, that was significant for me because Mormonism for me doesn't have cracks. And when it started to have those cracks and I couldn't repair them and they became more and more and more.

James Huntsman [00:52:53] And having those discussions with some of my siblings and friends, you know, people at church that we were friendly with, one of them mentioned Mormon stories. And that's when I went on and listened and that's when I then reached out to you and said, hey, you know, this is great. And you know, it's, it's been a great relationship ever since. It's been a great ride. But that was the, you know, it was somebody pointing me in the direction of Mormon stories to say, hey, look, here's. And I believe at the time, John, you were still in, you were trying to walk that line of, of I felt Mormon stories was tailored to me.

James Huntsman [00:53:37] Hey, James, you have cracks. Let's figure out a way to heal those cracks. I don't know for looking back to that was even possible. For me, that was not possible.

John Dehlin [00:53:47] So just to make sure we give a sampling, what I'm hearing is maybe Joseph Smith's first vision and how that story changed it sounds like I heard the translation of the Book of Mormon, the stone in the hat and the gold plates not being in the room versus the Urim and Thummim. Are there other, other examples of the Types of historical discrepancies that were really meaningful to you besides first vision, Book of Mormon translation, others that stick out as big ones.

James Huntsman [00:54:18] I would maybe look at it from a. From a different context and say, for me, it became. Is there a historical narrative or a doctrinal narrative that actually hasn't changed and hasn't been altered? In my mind, they all have. And so therefore, for me, it was just one pillar being knocked out after another. And when I put the sort of the logic test or the historical task test, or for me, what I was told to teach, I really couldn't find anything that hadn't been through some type of alteration in order to tailor, make it for a Mormon today, somebody like me. And it just. It just wouldn't.

John Dehlin [00:55:10] Oh, wow.

James Huntsman [00:55:10] It just wouldn't work.

John Dehlin [00:55:11] Everything, priesthood, temple, I don't know that.

James Huntsman [00:55:15] And for some others, I'm. I'm sure that, again, may not see it that way. I can totally appreciate that. I actually don't see a single instance where that's not the case. And that's why it became problematic for me. And it went all in to, in essence, all out. And I. I just couldn't juggle all that. I. I just couldn't make it work.

John Dehlin [00:55:40] And because we're live streaming, I want to make sure everyone feels comfortable. If anyone needs to take a break, just wave at me, hop up and do it, and then I'll carry the conversation with the other person that's remaining. I don't know if that's. If you want to take advantage of that. Now, James and Mark and I can talk for a second. Is that all right?

Memories of the Huntsman Family

James Huntsman [00:55:57] Yeah, we'll do that. You want to do that?

Mark Pugsley [00:55:58] Sure.

James Huntsman [00:55:59] All right.

John Dehlin [00:55:59] Okay. So, Mark, really quickly, while James. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mark, real quickly. Do you. Do you. Do you want to share any memories of the Huntsman family? Because I think it's kind of fun. I think it's kind of fun that you grew up in the same kind of neighborhood and you and your, I guess, family would have also had memories and thoughts.

Mark Pugsley [00:56:21] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:56:22] Anything you want to share so far? Just as someone who has been sort of a friend and. Or an observer for quite some time.

Mark Pugsley [00:56:29] Yeah. Well, I. I mean, I think that it's interesting to hear the story about the kidnapping from the opposite perspective, because I remember at that time becoming friends with the Huntsman family. We all went to high school together. There were several. His cousin was my age at Highland, and I remember we went to a big party up at the Huntsman family estate. The brothers had houses Next door to each other, right up at the top of the, of the hill, kind of at the, the base by the hroc. If people are in Utah, you'll know they lived up kind of in the HROC area. And which brothers?

Mark Pugsley [00:57:05] Well, no, I was. So his cousin is. His father and his brother live next door to each other. And James, I hope I'm getting this right because he's not here, but they had these beautiful houses that were right next door. And so the, it was like the Huntsman compound. And so they were, all the cousins were there and they were all very close and everybody kind of hung out and they were very well regarded. I don't think I had an understanding in those days that the Huntsman, you know, about this significance of their financial situation. I just didn't, I was kind of clueless about those kind of things.

Mark Pugsley [00:57:45] But I do remember when the Huntsman center got renamed and then it kind of was on my radar screen that, oh, these are the Huntsman's that I know. So anyway, it's just thinking back in those days, that was a long, long time ago. I'm a few years older than James, but I was definitely aware of it. And the Huntsman family has been. I just, you know, we're going to talk about this in a minute, but I just want to say if you understand the prominence of the Huntsman family and their name and given the fact that his brother was the governor in Utah and ran for president, you know, you have to take that into perspective about what James did here because he filed a lawsuit and put his name on the top of it.

Mark Pugsley [00:58:31] And that takes a lot of bravery. I often have clients who want to sue somebody. And I have to say, now, you know, your name, this could get picked up in the paper. Your name is going to be on top of this case and that they're going to be.

Mark Pugsley [00:58:46] There's going to be fallout from that. You know, you have to be aware that when you put your name on a lawsuit, people pay attention. And if it's a significant lawsuit, then the newspaper will pick it up. And in this case, what James did has to really be seen in the context of he has a very prominent family, a grandfather who is a general authority, and he had the bravery to really do. This is important. I think it's an important part of the story from the outside seeing it. I remember how significant that is.

John Dehlin [00:59:17] Yeah, I don't have my timelines totally right. So I checked and John Huntsman Jr. Was governor from 2005 to 2009.

Mark Pugsley [00:59:25] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:59:26] And then it says that he resigned as governor to become ambassador of China under Barack Obama in 2009. Right. But I'm guessing he would have run for president during kind of, I think

Mark Pugsley [00:59:36] he ran against Mitt Romney.

John Dehlin [00:59:38] That's my primaries.

Mark Pugsley [00:59:40] In the primaries. And then Mitt Romney won that primary. Yeah, but it was, I remember that was kind of this moment for Mormonism and also for the Huntsman name. You know, all of a sudden the Huntsman name, which had been quite prominent in Utah, became prominent nationally. And people, I think the, the name in those in the late aughts or whatever that is, that the Huntsman name became a nationally known name as not just a locally known name. And that's important that, to see this story in that context.

John Dehlin [01:00:12] Yeah. And that's something I, you know, because I grew up in. I grew up in Texas away from all of this, and then I went to byu, but then almost immediately left and, you know, did my career thing. This is all kind of cultural context that I wouldn't have really had.

John Dehlin [01:00:33] And John and, and James, now that you're back. Well, I don't think necessarily you have had any intention of coming on and talking about kind of your backstory. Two reasons why I think it's really important is to establish what I think was often challenged in the lawsuit, which was your sincerity, that you really felt like you were betrayed or defrauded. And for me, it's essential to establish that you were an all in, fully orthodox, 100% true blue believer who believed in the full truthfulness and divinity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And you took, when you considered Gordon B. Hinckley to be a prophet, when you raised your arm to the square to sustain him, you. You believed he spoke with God. True.

James Huntsman [01:01:22] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:01:23] Yeah.

James Huntsman [01:01:23] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:01:24] And then also. Go ahead.

Mark Pugsley [01:01:26] You don't pay tithing if you don't believe in the church. Let me just. I don't think, I mean, when my tithing start, when my testimony started to crack, first thing I did is stop writing those checks. I think that writing significant checks to the church is really a sign of belief and faith that Heavenly Father is commanded it and you're following his commandments anyway.

John Dehlin [01:01:49] Yeah. And the second thing, in addition to sincere devout faithfulness, something that Mark mentioned while you were out for a second, James, is the, the pressure and the stress and the intensity of bearing the Huntsman name and just deciding that in spite of all the connections, families who are, you know, apostles, family members, friends in laws, a dad who's an Area authority, a mom who is devout, the business name, all the connections and ties and relationships with the church, and probably with a lot of love for the church. It's no small thing to say I carry this name. And I, I feel strongly enough about this that in spite of the ways that this might carry a lot of pressure and even disappointment for others, I'm still, I feel.

John Dehlin [01:02:43] I still feel strongly enough about this that I'm gonna. I'm gonna actually file a lawsuit. So can you talk about going from losing your faith to deciding that you wanted to file a lawsuit? Take us through that and anything else you want to add while you're.

James Huntsman [01:03:02] Man, that's a, That's a tall order. I'm glad I took a breather.

John Dehlin [01:03:07] So you're, You've. We left with you kind of doubting all the aspects of the church, but you still have to make decisions. What, what will mom and dad think? What will my siblings think? What will happen if people find out I lost my faith? Take us from that point.

James Huntsman [01:03:23] Well, again, I think it goes back to the, the, the, the strength of the relationship that Marianne and I had. And I think we were in lockstep together.

John Dehlin [01:03:35] So you were worried about how she would take your loss of faith?

James Huntsman [01:03:39] No, because I think our journey was, was we had. We were walking a similar path. There might have. Only for us, the sort of being on the Mormon train and exiting the Mormon train and doing it the way that we did over a period of time was.

James Huntsman [01:04:04] I mean, we were on the same page. There was never, I don't. There was never really any issue of why are you doing this or you're not believing that, or not going to church for three hours and, and you know, and during this transition of, as I'll use the phrase that you started with the Mormon train and leading up to the lawsuit, which was always designed to be private and non public.

James Huntsman [01:04:34] We had two boys on missions during this period of time and trying to manage that and juggle that as well, recognizing what that means is somebody who's been on a mission and what that might look like coming back to a home that is different than when you left.

James Huntsman [01:04:50] So those were all pieces that we were sort of juggling with this. And always the intention was, let's not break glass. Let's create an environment where people in and out of the church feel welcome in our home, much like my parents did, much like with, with Marianne and her family and her great parents.

James Huntsman [01:05:10] Like we wanted to continue in that trend and the impetus for the lawsuit. I can't ignore the fact that there was some piece of motivation behind that, that I wanted to give the bouncer a bloody nose. Exiting the bar where I had a bad experience.

James Huntsman [01:05:36] And I just felt like I had given so much to this organization, and at some point, I felt they couldn't give two shits about me at some point. And it was like, fine, two can play that game. Then I'm done. But as part of that exit out, you know, like, there was something I felt I wanted back from the organization that I felt didn't treat me the way that I treated that organization. And that was a different experience for me because you look at the key relationships in my life at that time and historically, my siblings, my parents, Marianne, my friends, business colleagues, I never really had something whereby I was putting so much in, and I realized I was getting very little out.

James Huntsman [01:06:34] And. And when I sort of came to terms with that, I wasn't happy. And so that, again, there were other elements we can get into, but that was in terms of the personality that drove that home, that had nothing to do with being a Huntsman or a crusader or, you know, being public or. It was just like, hey, I. This is not how. This is not how you're supposed to treat others. So there.

Beginning of Faith Crisis and Doubt

John Dehlin [01:07:02] So the decades of your faithfulness, up until your loss of faith, were you enjoying the Mormon train? Were you enjoying being a Mormon, raising your kids Mormon, living the Mormon lifestyle, or were you not like. I think that I feel like I loved my time as a Mormon. Were you loving it up until you learned that things were different than you had been taught, or something less than? Loving it?

James Huntsman [01:07:29] No, loving it.

John Dehlin [01:07:31] Okay.

James Huntsman [01:07:32] For sure. Loving it for sure. And even in the transitional period, I would say that that wasn't a massively uncomfortable time for Marianne and me. You know, we had. We still had two kids on missions. We were attending a ward in Texas. Look, the name was pretty high profile. I was gospel doctrine teacher.

James Huntsman [01:08:02] I could kind of say and do things maybe that others couldn't. And so if I had a different relationship with Mormonism, there was really no downside for me because, you know, Marian and I were generally on the same page. I had very supportive siblings, some of them, some of who shared those same views with me and those same questions and about the, you know, the structure of the church and how they were maybe less than competent at the top in terms of their leadership. That was a very hard thing for me to digest as well.

James Huntsman [01:08:38] So, yes, to answer your question, loved my time within Mormonism. I had a great mission, terrific Mission, all good memories there. Wouldn't trade it for anything. And our time in the church and serving and do it like, I just, I have really very little to look back on and say, man, that really gets underneath my skin. Gets underneath my skin.

James Huntsman [01:09:06] Up until this period of time where I felt, man, I mistreated. Yeah, I'll give you a little bit of leeway, but come on now, this is, this is over and above, you know, then the whistleblower documents come out. Like, I just thought, man, I wasn't happy and that was my way to express my dissatisfaction.

Mark Pugsley [01:09:24] Hey, John, can I, can I push back a little bit on that? Because I just have a question. James said I can push back on him if I. But, but I, I mean he. Yes, you're in a unique position. You are able to do this. But to say that there wasn't a downside isn't true. I mean, there is a big downside and there's a social cost that you, I'm sure, paid. Any of us who leave the church that have somewhat prominent families in this town, we pay a social cost in it. You lose friends, you lose, you have. It impacts your family relationships, it impacts your friendships. And I mean, is it really true that you didn't think there was any downside to you?

James Huntsman [01:10:03] Well, if we go back to the sort of the genesis of the litigation, which was a demand letter. The demand letter by design was non public. I didn't even tell my siblings. So really it was Marianne and me coming to terms with that, of what that meant. And I mean, we mentioned it to our children, like, hey, here's kind of what's happening. We just didn't expect there to be. Be. I, I hear what you're saying in the social cost of exiting Mormonism. Yes, that's a, that's a real thing. I mean, I have that. Let's just say it's a real thing. And I'm not dismissing that. I'm just saying in this case, the motivation behind it and when it became public the way that it did was a little bit of a surprise because that was never our intention.

Mark Pugsley [01:10:50] I see.

James Huntsman [01:10:51] And so we got into it with, hey, Marianne, are we good with this? Because we're probably the ones that ever going to hear about this.

John Dehlin [01:10:59] So before we jump into the litigation and the things that really upset you when you and Marianne were both really struggling with the ends of your faith, were you able to talk to your dad about your doubts and questions? Were you able to talk about grandpa hate? Were you able to talk to brother you know, Elder Rasbanda, he probably wasn't an apostle back then, but, like, could you take your doubts and questions with access to the highest levels of the church? Right. I'm sure your dad could have gotten you an audience with whoever was prophet or president in 2014. I guess that was Monson. By 2014, were you able to take your doubts and questions to apostles, prophets, high level church leaders, and at least try to have some sort of discussion to help you, to help save your faith? Basically,

James Huntsman [01:11:58] I don't think I was looking for my faith to be saved. No, no.

John Dehlin [01:12:03] Why wouldn't you use every. I mean, this isn't. I'm not doubting you, but, like, I'm thinking about me.

James Huntsman [01:12:09] Right.

John Dehlin [01:12:10] If I could have talked to an apostle, which I did. I talked to Elder Holland twice. Like, I did, like, I'm curious why you wouldn't want to turn over every stone.

Mark Pugsley [01:12:20] John, are you talking about the time frame when he's losing his faith or the time frame when he's threatening the lawsuit?

John Dehlin [01:12:24] The first.

Mark Pugsley [01:12:24] The first.

John Dehlin [01:12:25] Ok, because I think at some point you got upset. You loved the church for a couple decades. You found out that there were things that weren't true. Then you're in this point of like the dark night of the soul. Marianne's on board. I'm just, I'm wondering whether you had any opportunities or interest in trying to get those issues resolved before then. You, you know, the, the, the tithing stuff occurred to you, right? Yeah. Or had you already just figured it all out and didn't?

James Huntsman [01:12:55] Well, maybe I can answer that question with the question.

John Dehlin [01:12:57] Okay.

James Huntsman [01:12:59] I would say that the reason I wasn't looking for a resolution from them is because I think I knew what the outcome would have been. And anytime publicly or in a recorded message or anytime church leadership attempted to resolve any of these issues, it never works. And they either don't have the tools to answer the questions of their members or the answers aren't there, or they don't listen. All just the classic telltale signs of leadership not being able to deal with a particular issue. And when I looked at the leadership of the church at a local, regional and national level.

John Dehlin [01:13:47] And global.

James Huntsman [01:13:48] And global, but largely snap. I mean it. All the leadership here is they're kind of all beat to the same drum. They probably give you all the same answers. Their, Their experience with Mormonism is largely similar. I wasn't under any illusion that they had some silver bullet that I was. We started out this podcast with. We have. I was fortunate enough growing up in Having a number of relationship, connections with the hierarchy of the Mormon Church, I, I knew they didn't have the answers to my questions. And, and so going down that path and, you know, there were audiences that others facilitated on our behalf where Marianne and I went to talk to people, I went to those. But they weren't driven by me because I knew that they weren't prepared to address these issues, in my opinion. And I think that looking back, I don't think my opinion on that has changed.

John Dehlin [01:14:48] Wow. So even while you were going through your faith crisis, you had had enough exposure to the highest levels of church leadership where you were pretty confident that trying to resolve those issues with them would not have really borne any positive fruit. That's what I'm hearing. Did I get that right?

James Huntsman [01:15:08] Honestly, I would have probably felt sorry if a bishop or state president came in and tried to resolve my issues because it. They would have left probably worse than when they came in. That's just kind of how I. So I'm like, why do it? So, yes, answer your question. I didn't have any confidence that they could have resolved those issues. As an organization, they've tried. With the essays.

Mark Pugsley [01:15:30] How many?

James Huntsman [01:15:31] I think there are 15 essays now or whatever. You read through those essays and really like, to me, it just wasn't. It just. I didn't think they had the ability to deal with those issues. And again, keep in mind, I'm coming out of a.

James Huntsman [01:15:48] Out of corporate America. Okay. I'd been there for two decades within Huntsman Corporation, and my brother was the CEO before then, my father was the CEO. And I would say that I had a lot of respect for their ability to run a company, to organize leadership, and to put processes and a strategy and a business plan in place that wasn't perfect, but was seconded. Like, it was very, very good. And I grew up in that environment of when there's an issue, when there is a problem.

James Huntsman [01:16:23] This is how you fix something. This is how you deal with a. A union who isn't happy with, you know, their work environment for two decades

John Dehlin [01:16:32] or a public scandal that comes out.

James Huntsman [01:16:34] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:16:34] Or you.

James Huntsman [01:16:35] You have an issue with the SEC or with OSHA or regulatory age. That's part of earning a large company in corporate America. And there's a way to do that correctly.

John Dehlin [01:16:45] Do you want to share just a couple points? Because we would contrast that with how the church handles these types of things.

James Huntsman [01:16:51] Well, my, my point in mentioning that is that I was in that environment, and as I would sort of laugh with Marianne and say Okay, I don't think Jesus runs Huntsman Corporation, but he claims to run be the CEO of the Mormon Church, Mormon Inc. Or the corporation of the president of the church, Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints.

James Huntsman [01:17:11] How is it that when I compare the two organizations that one of these organizations appears to be very well run, organized and structured and the other one is just like barely, barely above average on a good day. And that, and that would be, in my, in my opinion, that would be Mormonism. And so that, John, is part of my. I don't mean to diminish local leadership or regional leadership or global leadership, but I could just. I had been in both organizations for decades and seen them at all levels.

James Huntsman [01:17:46] I knew what I was dealing with. Which again goes back to why I thought I had so much confidence sending a demand letter in. Because I thought any sane, competent, well run organization that knows my family and knows me well enough would want to get us out of the way as soon as possible. That, frankly was part of my logic, which is why again, I didn't mention to my siblings. I thought it would be something that would be done and dusted and I could handle with the church very privately and confidentially.

Tithing Beliefs and the City Creek Mall

John Dehlin [01:18:17] So really quickly, to just put a fine point on this, when you paid your tithing, what did you think it was going for? Right. During those two decades leading up to the lawsuit just to establish that.

James Huntsman [01:18:30] What I think it was going for is what was referred to in the manuals and general conference and, and everything else, missionary fund, you know, fast offerings to those in need. You know, you have the tithing slip and all the, all the different buckets. Excuse me for living. I just thought that those buckets meant that that's where the money was going. I.

John Dehlin [01:18:52] So build buildings, build temples, missionary work, feeding the poor.

James Huntsman [01:18:56] Yes. And this narrative that I was this savvy businessman that I should have figured out that if the church said money was going to bucket A and in fact it was going to bucket B without telling me, I don't know how I'm at fault for that, but I guess I wasn't that savvy.

Mark Pugsley [01:19:12] When did they add the language to the bottom of the tithing slip, John? Do you know the timing of that?

John Dehlin [01:19:17] I think it would have been when I was living in Logan. So sometime between 2004 and 2015. Yeah, probably.

James Huntsman [01:19:23] Was that pre whistleblower? Oh yeah, I think so.

John Dehlin [01:19:27] That's my memory.

Mark Pugsley [01:19:28] I think so.

John Dehlin [01:19:29] And tell us what that change was, Mark.

Mark Pugsley [01:19:30] Well, they, they put some kind of small print on the bottom of the tithing donation to say that, you know,

John Dehlin [01:19:36] we could use the money however we want.

Mark Pugsley [01:19:37] You can put it in your bucket, but we're not going to pay any attention to that and we can just use the money. And I, because I remember as a, as a kid when my parents fasted, when our family fasted, we would literally try to figure out, okay, how much money do we put into our fast offering bucket this, this month? Because it was supposed to be the, the money that we saved on food, I guess, was going to be our fast offerings. And we thought that that was a separate bucket. Right. We thought fast offerings were going directly to the needy, the, the. Or to the bishop storehouse, and that tithing was going to the operations of the church.

Mark Pugsley [01:20:12] That's what I always thought. And it wasn't until much later that I think anyone realized that none of that was. It was all a fiction. You know, the money's all commingled. There's a word that we're going to talk about when we get to the lawsuit, and it's commingled. And commingled means it's all in one account. We don't, you know, and I don't. We don't know all the details of what the different accounts were. But at the time, I think the church realized, well, we're really not using this in the way that we're telling people that we are. And so we better put this special legal. Some lawyer wrote this language for the bottom of the tithing slip to say, we're going to use your money however we want. Basically.

John Dehlin [01:20:49] Would you remember? So I'm looking, I'm seeing that the City Creek Mall, which factors into this, was announced in the October 2004 General Conference by Gordon B. Hinckley. Would you have remembered the announcement about the mall? And would you remember how you would have felt about the mall and how what you would have felt, how you would have felt as a businessman. The mall would have likely been funded. Does that make sense? Yeah.

James Huntsman [01:21:19] I would have approached that situation exactly as it was articulated to me, which is tithing is going here to the

John Dehlin [01:21:29] things we just discussed.

James Huntsman [01:21:32] Gospel principles, the Gospel doctrine. The title, like any, any church printed material under the word tithing, it has had, there's like four or five buckets and they're the same ones that have been that way for 10, 15, 20 years. They might have altered them recently. I'm not up speed, but at least when I was growing up. Where's tithing going? Oh, it's going here, here, here, here, and here. My attorneys would Say, how do you know that? And I said, well, that's what they told me. Like, it's in this book. It's in this talk. Like, I don't. There's never the word investment account ever appeared, but I would say. But the church has businesses. You know, back then, it was radio stations and TV stations and a little bit of land. And maybe they're making some money here.

John Dehlin [01:22:13] Insurance, beneficial life.

James Huntsman [01:22:16] Those would be entities that would be funding yet another business. And if that's how they choose to spend, then terrific. You know, no issues with that. Although in my opinion, that's according to the documentation that we've seen. That actually is not what they did at all even remotely close to it. So back in the day, yes, I would have thought, here's. You know, here's yet another example of the big, wonderful, true wealthy Mormon church. Even though we have to clean our own chapels because we can't afford a janitor and do our own gardening out in the chapel, you got to ruin your Saturdays to go out there and do it. They have all this money, but they're going to use it to beautify the city and build them all. And if that's all coming from business ventures, so be it. I just took it for the face value that it was given to me.

John Dehlin [01:23:12] So was it your understanding when Hinckley made that announcement that he said no tithing funds will be used for the mall? Is that what you would have understood?

Mark Pugsley [01:23:20] I think he said that later. My recollect, just looking at the lawsuit, the timeline, Hinckley, I. I think that he announced the temple. I'm not sure. Did he. It. Was it 2004 that he actually said that? Because there was no.

John Dehlin [01:23:33] No. I don't know.

Mark Pugsley [01:23:34] It was later is my recollection. And I. I can be corrected, but that he announced them all in 2004, but the mall didn't really happen for a number of years. It was like 2011, 2012. It took time for them to put together all the real estate and get the plans done. And at the time, I think people did start pushing back, and there was a reason. He got up in conference and said, let me reassure. Yeah, let me reassure you. Because there was pushback. And people were like, well, why is a church building a mall? That seems weird. That's not really what churches do. People outside of the church thought it was very weird.

Mark Pugsley [01:24:09] You're building a mall, not a church. So I think that that pushback was why he got up and made that announcement that no tithing money is being used to build them all. And I, but, but you know, my timeline may be a little bit off.

James Huntsman [01:24:21] I've gotten some, some of it that sounds directionally accurate.

John Dehlin [01:24:25] Okay.

James Huntsman [01:24:25] And it was that second quote that really became, in my case, the sort of key piece of evidence that really was the basis for three years of arguments. Yeah, was that quote. And we will get into it, but most of my case was just sitting and waiting and, and so, and I was on appeal throughout all that time.

Mark Pugsley [01:24:55] And yeah, let me correct because I was wrong. In 2003, President Hinckley in the April 2003 General Conference said this is the quote. We feel we have a compelling responsibility to protect the environment of the Salt Lake Temple, meaning the area around the temple. But I wish to give the entire church the assurance that tithing funds have not and will not be used to acquire this property, nor will they be used in developing it for commercial purposes. And then he talks about where the money will come from from real estate development army. So I was wrong. It was right off the bat that he said we're going to build them all, but don't worry, we're not using tithing to do it.

John Dehlin [01:25:40] And if Hinckley had said, hey Mormons, thank you for all your tithing. We're going to build a multi billion dollar commercial shopping mall with your tithing. Do you imagine how you might have felt about that and about paying tithing you just left Mark?

Mark Pugsley [01:25:56] Well, I mean it's like what, what are churches doing building malls? Why are churches building, owning most of the real estate in Florida? I mean it makes no sense. But they have so much money and they don't know what to do with it. So anyway.

John Dehlin [01:26:08] And James. Well, if, if, if Hickley had fictitiously said that, would that have been a. Imagine that would have been a problem for you?

James Huntsman [01:26:15] I think that would have, I think that would have been an issue not only for me but for a lot of members because I, I don't think my perception of how the money flowed within, within the Mormon Church was, was any different than the, than the vast majority of members because I think the vast majority of members tithing was going to where the church said it was going. And in that quote that Mark just read, funds will come from investment properties and other businesses which we now know that actually didn't happen either. So it would have been a significant public relationship issue. I think if

James Huntsman [01:26:55] they were to say something like that because and for good reason, it would have impacted a lot of people that why are we, you know, you have all of these talks of if you're going to pay tithing or pay your rent or food, electricity, whatever, pay tithing. And now that's all going. They had to keep tithing as a sacred and unique definitional, spiritual definition, not a Rolex.

John Dehlin [01:27:21] Yes. Store.

James Huntsman [01:27:23] And look, I.

Mark Pugsley [01:27:23] Building the kingdom, that's what we always thought it was for. Buying churches and building the kingdom and

John Dehlin [01:27:28] missionary work and temple work.

Mark Pugsley [01:27:29] What does a mall have to do with that?

John Dehlin [01:27:31] Right? Yeah.

James Huntsman [01:27:33] And look, I, I might differ from, from Mark a little bit from the standpoint of what was the church doing buying malls or land. I actually don't even care. Like any organization that has the funds to, to commence in a transaction in the United States or any other country, so be it, that, that that's their right and ability.

James Huntsman [01:27:54] Where, where I have an issue is how they did it and how they. They said something and did something else. And you know, the, One of the more consistent rebuttals to what I've done that I hear from people, not directly, but I don't go online much and, and read much on either side about the case, but when, when I have from time to time, it's, you know, I don't care what the church does with their money. Like, why, why should you, James?

James Huntsman [01:28:22] And pardon me, I can sympathize with that. Like, I, yeah, I don't really care what they do with their money so long as it abides with, with the law. You might not care about a lot of things an organization does, legal or illegal, but if it's against the law and it affects somebody in a negative way, then they have the right to take action, which is what I did.

John Dehlin [01:28:45] So your faith crisis happens. I imagine you and Marianne and your kids would have just written off into kind of the post Mormon sunset. Was. Was it David Nielsen as a whistleblower and the public revelations about Ensign Peak that became the big trigger for you to start thinking a potential lawsuit? Or was it something else or was it some combination? Take us to that. Because I remember when you called me and you're like, john, have you ever. Are you aware of anyone ever suing the church to try to get their tithing back? I remember that. I remember that phone call and I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't know. Like, maybe. But what, what led up to that phone call?

Deciding to Demand Tithing Back

James Huntsman [01:29:25] I think I was, I was, I called. Reached out to you. It's correct. I reached out to.

John Dehlin [01:29:32] What made you reach out to me? I guess I'm wondering, like, was it Ensign Peak? David Nielsen, whistleblower revelation or something else. Because you would have had to learn at some point that the money, tithing money went to the mall. How would you have learned that?

James Huntsman [01:29:47] Yeah, I mean, the, the, the whistleblower document was certainly key in, in, in having the basis for a legal argument. I think prior to that time when I sort of noodle on the idea of, you know, I just wasn't familiar with how the law works, how you actually, what constitutes fraud in federal court, you know, what boxes have to be ticked in order for that definition to be made and wanting to take action against the church because of what they say over the pulpit or because of, hey, you know, making disingenuous, disingenuous statements. That's not the basis for, for litigation.

James Huntsman [01:30:32] There actually has to be something more. And I think when the whistleblower documents came out, that then helped to put a nice bow around a legal argument that I feel I could make. Again, at this point, I'm not thinking of litigation. It's all a demand letter.

James Huntsman [01:30:52] But in that demand letter, I wanted to put something and signal to the church that like you, you got to read between the lines here. The, these whistleblower documents do not shine a favorable light on what you've done.

James Huntsman [01:31:10] You know, we, we know the church. I know the church very well. Like, let's, you know, I don't mean any disrespect anyone. The doctrine, like my initial demand letters, which I think both of them are, were made public. I don't remember. Remember Marianne? I think they both were made public.

Mark Pugsley [01:31:26] What was the date of those? Do you know?

James Huntsman [01:31:28] That would have been 20 last half of the Coronado pre.

John Dehlin [01:31:34] So yeah, I'm seeing the David Nielsen story broke in November of 2019. So I'm guessing what occurs to me is maybe 2020.

James Huntsman [01:31:44] Yeah, I think maybe it was. I. The reason, I'm guessing the year, I think it was December, January. So it was right in the, the crossover every year. But it, it was either three months or 12 months from that. From that period.

John Dehlin [01:31:56] So either early, either early 2020 or early 2021.

James Huntsman [01:32:01] Yeah.

Mark Pugsley [01:32:01] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:32:02] Is when you would have come up with the idea of a demand letter and tell us what the demand letter, whatever you want to share about what it basically said.

James Huntsman [01:32:10] Well, I think it's available online. So basically it's. Geez, I haven't read.

John Dehlin [01:32:17] The church would have released the demand letter.

James Huntsman [01:32:19] No, I think, I think we, I think we did as, as sort of a way to sort of. Because look, you're in a legal fight and the church is trying to defend their actions while minimizing mine. Like, that's the legal strategy. We're doing the same thing. I didn't take offense at it. I didn't particularly agree with it because I think they were making false representations. But so be it. That's the, that's the world of, of corporate litigation. I guess it was really to sort of set the record straight because I think the narrative of the church was, you know, former member, you know, James and Marianne had resigned again, which is confidential membership information that we hadn't even told our extended family.

James Huntsman [01:33:07] So we had family members find out that we had resigned thanks to the church, using that as a tool to sort of say this isn't legitimate because they've resigned from the church and they just want to damage the name of the church and James wants to do this.

James Huntsman [01:33:20] None of that was true. So the demand letter, releasing the demand letter was to sort of establish, hey, look, to everyone out there, we have no ill will. To Mormons, to the doctor, we never mentioned the doctrine. It was just, hey, you said you're going to do A, with tithing. And in fact, there is significant evidence that you did. B, you know, and I contributed to that. You weren't upfront with me. You can keep the interest you've made over the last 15 years. Just pay me my principal back. It was as simple as that.

John Dehlin [01:33:55] And are you, Are you. I don't remember seeing that demand letter, so I don't know if I missed it. Are you comfortable saying what, what the amount was that you were asking for in that original demand letter? Do you know, do you remember.

James Huntsman [01:34:07] So the, that the total amount of tithing paid, I had to go back and have it pulled from my accountants over, over a period of time. So it was tithing, all donations. Right. And, and to your point, Mark, when we went into. So I was deposed by the church and we went through depositions, we had to go through and basically prove to the church every payment, no matter what box was ticked on that tithing slip. It all went to the same bank account. And I didn't realize that sitting in my deposition, thinking, wait a second, I

John Dehlin [01:34:40] thought so missionary donations, fast offering immediately

James Huntsman [01:34:44] is commingled on the first second. And I believe according to the whistleblower documents, it goes into a Treasury account before it goes into the investment account. And from that treasury, I think from treasury it went to the mall. I left have somebody more familiar with the church's accounting. But it gets very complicated. And if you don't understand Sort of money flow in large corporations. You can sort of miss what the Church was actually doing, which is, I would argue, footloose and fancy free, which is the whole basis of the SEC document and perhaps other penalties that might be coming to the Church in the future.

John Dehlin [01:35:19] So you were saying you tallied up how much tithing you paid.

James Huntsman [01:35:23] Yeah, I was trying to remember the question. Yeah. By not answering it. Okay, so the number. Okay, so the number over a period of time was 2.3 million.

John Dehlin [01:35:32] That's how much you paid.

James Huntsman [01:35:33] That's how much I paid. Now, we actually said, okay, we will only count the portion post Hinckley's quote. So that number of what I say, 2.3, 2.4. That number was reduced because I had paid before the Hinckley quote. And there really wasn't any basis for me to say that they made false representations, although I believe they still did. But there was nothing on the record for me to take to a court. So that number was actually reduced, the $5 million number that appeared reduced to

John Dehlin [01:36:07] a million something in the demand.

James Huntsman [01:36:08] Yeah. So it was reduced to less. So really?

Mark Pugsley [01:36:10] Yeah.

James Huntsman [01:36:11] The demand letter amount. None of this would ever have happened had the Church ponied up one point something million. I have to believe they've spent significantly more on that just defending this case. And now they have half a dozen class action cases. They have a reputation hit that I think is quite significant. And I would think in my mind that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people that have altered their tithing payments as a result of this public litigation. So you look at the cost, the cost that they have borne opposite the settlement with me, which, by the way, you guys would never have heard of it.

John Dehlin [01:36:56] So you intended with your demand letter to receive the one point, whatever million and then quietly go off into the night. You weren't planning on, like, then publishing it and embarrassing the Church, telling other people how you can get your money from the church.

James Huntsman [01:37:11] No intention of that. It was a very personal battle for me. That's why Marianne. Marianne's name and no other names appear on any documents. It was something between the Church and me. That was it. And. And getting resolution for a relationship that I felt was less than up honest with me. That was my way to resolve it.

John Dehlin [01:37:34] And couple quick questions. So it's. Some would say, did you need the million? Was it really about the money? Like, how would you answer that? Like a million bucks? What's a million bucks? Did you need it? Was it symbolic? Did it represent something bigger? Is there anything you want to say about that,

James Huntsman [01:37:54] I mean, yeah, a million dollars is a lot of money. It's symbolic. Yes. I mean, it's not like I had a debit, I had to cash out. Like, I gotta come up with a million dollars before next Thursday or something's gonna happen.

James Huntsman [01:38:10] Look, the, the demand letter was. It required no apology, it required no public statement. It simply was in my mind to get square with the organization that historically and at that period of time and today has a functioning, good working relationship with my family and specifically our foundation, the Church of Jesus Christ has been a great partner. The cancer institute and mental health, all of these things are separate from this litigation, which, again, if you look at the money behind all of this, in the grand scheme of what the Huntsman family and many other great families in the state are doing and the Church, it's insignificant, which is why I was maybe, and I'm somewhat of an optimist by nature.

James Huntsman [01:39:07] I just thought, geez, if I'm on the receiving end and I get this letter, I make a phone call and it's done in 30 minutes.

John Dehlin [01:39:13] But based on some things you said about half an hour ago, I think what I think I heard or experienced was also you personally felt like the church had done you dirty, that you had given a lot and sacrificed a lot to and for the church. They had misled you, not just with the truth claims, but also with how they were spending the money you gave them. And I think if I had to project what I think was possibly going on also in your mind is it's like, hey, let's make this right. I'm just going to say, give me a million.

John Dehlin [01:39:47] You give it to me, and then I'll feel like things at least have been semi restored. That you are acknowledging that you misled me. You are acknowledging that I've been hurt. And since we have such a long relationship together, since we've, since we've. We are on some level, family, friends even, that would be a sign of respected acknowledgment that I'd been deceived and misled by you. Is that fair at all? Is that even close?

James Huntsman [01:40:17] I think that's a, that's a pretty good articulation of, of where my mind was at the time and, and, and drafting these. There were actually two demand letters by, by two different attorneys of what Marianne and I, how we felt at the time, me specifically. I don't want to drag her in unnecessarily, but yeah. That it was really never, never really intended to go, to go public when ultimately we did go public. I just thought that would be catalyst. First of all, I didn't think it would be much news, and I thought it'd be page six of the Tribune. Like, it just wasn't a big deal to me because I just thought, you can make this go away so quickly.

James Huntsman [01:40:58] It's really not that big a deal. And frankly, I thought I was one of many going in and saying, hey, look, how about a little. How about a little refund? Like, you know, Disney, they have great customer service. You have a claim issue with Disney, they fix it. And I just thought, well, not the church is Disney, but, you know, it's respect, it's restitution.

James Huntsman [01:41:23] It's a former customer, client, member of many, many years, and this is some way to make them happy going out. Like, I just don't think it was that big of an issue for them to.

John Dehlin [01:41:35] It's a good deal. I'm giving you a good deal.

James Huntsman [01:41:38] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:41:38] Right. Can I comment on that?

Mark Pugsley [01:41:40] Because I think there's a couple things that I can add to this just as background. One is the lawyer that you used as a question is James Magleby. James is a good friend of mine. He's also kind of known as one of the most aggressive lawyers in Utah, and I think you probably knew that. So if that was true, why did you hire James to be your lawyer? Because he's a. He's a guy that fights. And were you not gearing up for a fight at that point?

James Huntsman [01:42:11] I think, again, I think the expectation. My naivety was, though, that, you know, that the attorney who responded to the demand letter had worked with my father and two of my siblings. Like, it's a. We're a known entity at. What's the address of the church?

The Demand Letters and Church Response

James Huntsman [01:42:30] South Temple. I just. I can't. I don't know what they were thinking when they received the demand letter. They're probably a little surprised and maybe like, who's this? Like, we know this brothers. Like James, who is this guy? They probably were a little surprised. But to that point, I thought that it would be.

James Huntsman [01:42:52] Again, I just thought they would have dealt with it like any other organization. Assessing risk. And you compare what they could have done many years ago to where we are today, and it's been a catastrophic error for them, even though they won the en banc hearing. I think we'll talk about things that actually, on that recent hearing in San Francisco, those oral arguments and the rulings that came out, I don't think bode well for the church in future cases, but we can get into that. But as it relates to Jim, I got to know him because we did a documentary on church and state which was the, I think was Amendment three and sort of the same sex marriage initiative.

James Huntsman [01:43:39] He was the one arguing for the, for the plaintiffs against the state and largely the church, I would think. And I got to know him through that and I thought, oh wow. And I called him up again and you know, hey, it's been a while since the documentary and that's how I got to know him. I didn't do like a Google phone book search. He was just somebody that we'd worked with in the past on a documentary

Mark Pugsley [01:44:02] and a very good choice by the way. So let me put my church hat on for one second and push back, John, against what you said and why this isn't just a customer service question from the church's perspective. And that is first of all, the church is run, has a lawyer group that is very powerful and they have lawyers in the quorum of the 12 and they have a huge law firm, the largest law firm In Utah, Kurt McConkey is their kind of captive law firm and they lawyer everything. And from a lawyer's perspective, you get a demand like this and instead of looking at it as well, let's just keep these customers happy, they look at it as setting a precedent.

Mark Pugsley [01:44:40] I promise you that the conversation that happened in the church is we don't want to be seen as writing checks to everybody who left the church and wants their tithing back because that sets a very bad precedent. And if word gets out, sure, James might promise that he's not going to say it but that doesn't always work. And as John, John, you know, you've had people who have signed non disclosure agreements who've nevertheless broken those and come on your, your, your, your program. Right. I mean I, people don't always follow. They can sign non disclosure agreements or NDAs but they don't always follow them. And so the church's perspective is this is one guy.

Mark Pugsley [01:45:17] Yes, but if we set this precedent it could be we'll be flooded with people asking for them their tithing back and we don't want to go down that road. I'm sure that's what the conversation.

John Dehlin [01:45:26] Okay. And I was so. But let me ask a question in response. The Mormon Church settles multiple sexual harassment lawsuits every day. Like every day. I'm understood there are multiple sexual harassment or sexual abuse settlements by Curtin McConkey. So they do it all the time and they do multi million dollar settlements of sexual Harassment to keep them out of the press, to keep them out of the public, you know, and so, you know, why would. Why would this be any different?

Mark Pugsley [01:46:01] It is very different. And I hear what you're saying, and I know that's true. The church, first of all, in these sexual harassment cases is dead in the water legally. That's why they settle these cases. They don't want the people coming in and saying, because they don't do background checks, they've got real problems about, you know, who they're putting into youth leadership because they don't do background checks. And unfortunately, inspiration doesn't really work. So in those cases, I think they want to keep it out of the press. Yes, but they also realize that they would get killed, and they have gotten killed on those cases that have gone to trial.

Mark Pugsley [01:46:35] James's case, on the other hand, goes to some real central issues about the freedom of churches to make their own decisions about how they use their money. This is First Amendment to its core. The decision that we'll get into in a minute that on the en banc 9th Circuit case, the main decision didn't really get into it, but some of the concurrent decisions did. And I'm sure the lawyer said, look, this is not sex harassment. This is do. Can we have someone in a lawsuit tell us what to do with our money? The answer is no. He's going to get laughed out of court. Let's fight it. Different analysis.

John Dehlin [01:47:14] So I'm hearing two things I'm hearing from you, Mark, that it was a smart risk assessment determination.

Mark Pugsley [01:47:21] I didn't say smart. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that's how lawyers think. They say, can we beat this? And is it going to set a bad precedent? Then let's fight it. But otherwise they don't fight it.

John Dehlin [01:47:30] Well, the risk assessment that I'm hearing you say, Mark, is that they're thinking if we give this guy a million bucks, there's a good probability that it'll leak out. And then as soon as the. I mean, honestly, there's at least 10 million ex Mormons in the world, easy, right? Because the church claims 17 million, and there's no way there's more than five to seven.

Mark Pugsley [01:47:54] Every one of them wants their money back. Yeah, every single one.

John Dehlin [01:47:57] And I think the church is saying, we don't want a 10 million ex Mormons all asking for their money back. And it starts with one. So there's just no way we're going to allow the 1.

Mark Pugsley [01:48:09] The floodgates will open.

John Dehlin [01:48:10] That actually seems Like a smart risk assessment. I'm not trying to disagree with you, James, but do you see why that some would argue that's actually smart risk assessment?

James Huntsman [01:48:19] I would say that's not a smart assessment. Say with a smile, that's like, nice. I mean, nice guy.

John Dehlin [01:48:27] Why not?

James Huntsman [01:48:28] So, so for, for a number of reasons. First of all, the, the church probably would have recognized that statute of limitations on any fraud claims is only three years. So there's a window in which that settlement opportunity is defined.

James Huntsman [01:48:49] Second, for somebody to actually go through the process of finding an attorney and having the attorney board the case, paying the money to have the documents sent to the church and going through that process, having, having paid enough tithing to begin with to even, to even recognize the hiring of attorney, or either paying them by the hour or they're going to get a piece of the action. When you start doing the math on that for the vast majority of members, I just don't think there's a financial case for them.

James Huntsman [01:49:20] And I would be arguing in the church. Let them, let these cases come in. Okay, so maybe the Huntsman case leaks. Maybe it becomes a rumor. We're not going to comment. Realistically, how many, how many demand letters are we going to get in the next 12 months? Is it 10? Is it 12? Is it 500?

James Huntsman [01:49:36] Is it a thousand? Is it a million? I would argue that that number actually would be very, very limited. And a lot of people that I've spoken to about this particular issue, I think maybe, maybe why they like what I've done is because they recognize for whatever reason, they couldn't do it themselves, and nor would they. And I just think the floodgates of a confidential settlement with me, I just don't, maybe I'm wrong. I just don't believe the floodgates would have opened to the amount that. The alternative argument that they should have had is if this case goes forward and if the Huntsman case goes far enough, what is the risk of class action?

James Huntsman [01:50:23] Because then you're talking billions of dollars. Then you're saying TV ads of have you or a member of your family ever paid money to the Mormon Church? Call Smith lawyers. That's class action. That is worth hundreds of millions, if not billions in legal fees and expenses to the Church. That's the alternative.

James Huntsman [01:50:45] That's the analysis. I would have thought that the Church would have done in house with their attorneys, but of course, the attorneys making the decisions are also the ones billing. So that's a conflict of interest. But be that as it may, look where we are.

John Dehlin [01:51:00] Yeah.

James Huntsman [01:51:01] And, and I still would argue that the Church made a cataclysmic decision for whatever reason. And I, I don't know what, what the opinion of you all is. Has the Church ever refunded anyone's tithing? I think the answer is yes. I don't know for sure, but I believe the answer is yes. And if they chose not to with me, of anyone in the room, it was just a wrong decision.

James Huntsman [01:51:30] How many of these other tithing claims would have gone as far as mine? You think about this case, Mark. You had this, I don't know how many pages there. It's hundreds of hundreds and hundreds and thousands of pages of documents, millions of dollars spent, attorneys all over press, Mormon stories.

James Huntsman [01:51:49] My case hinged on Hinckley's quote, and I got all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court. If I'm the Mormon Church, I would be scared to death. I couldn't use any of the SEC information or any other relevant financial documentation that cases behind me can use and the consistent thread throughout these. So There have been 13 judgments, 15 judges.

James Huntsman [01:52:20] The consistent decision with all of them, I think to a T, correct me if I'm wrong, Mark, is that the Church in this case is not afforded First Amendment protection. I wasn't able to prove my fraud case to a level that met their threshold.

James Huntsman [01:52:40] All I had was a quote, and I got pretty damn close. I couldn't use the SEC filing, I couldn't use other financial documents. I couldn't even do discovery on the Church. And look how far I got for other cases coming in that can use financial documentation, knowing that it is unlikely that these courts are going to reverse that decision on freedom of religion.

James Huntsman [01:53:06] My case is certainly, my case is done right. That's why I'm here chatting. But to think that anything behind me could have been avoided for one point something million three years ago, like, I, I think that is, to me, the bigger, the bigger question, and it's a strategic question that the Church, when I spoke to individuals in my legal circle that were familiar with the law and corporate law and government law and strategy, they were all just like, oh, well, the Church will settle. Like, with your name in this case and your resources, they should settle this instantly. Because the downside, although it might be a small percentage, the downside is so significant for them, it's 1 million versus. If one of these class action cases get through, you're talking billions.

John Dehlin [01:53:59] I would think, and I would say to the Church's reputation, tens of thousands of people have law Once you see Huntsman sues church fraud, you know, I would say that's impacted tens of thousands of members, their commitment to the church, their desire to pay any money to the church. And it's like this huge funnel of awareness to the Ensign Peak scandal, which then leads both to an awareness of the fact that the church, everyone now knows that the church has 150,250 billion with a B dollars worth of stocks and bonds and real estate.

John Dehlin [01:54:41] The whole, the whole Widow's Might website. Right. That's an amazing resource. Now there's a documentary that's about to come out about the money and the wealth in the Mormon Church. Like, it's almost like their decision to say no to that settlement letter opened up this floodgate of missionary work against, you know, for awareness around the church's bad financial dealings and future lawsuits. So I'm now switching sides and saying I think there is a good argument to be made. They made a catastrophic mistake.

Mark Pugsley [01:55:18] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:55:19] Yeah.

Mark Pugsley [01:55:19] And you have to add Dave's, Dave Nielsen's revelations to that. The lawsuit, plus what they learned about their money. When you put those two together, I mean, it's a double whammy for the church. And it's going to continue. The fallout continues every day.

James Huntsman [01:55:33] And I, I, you know, I don't know specifically the, the answer to this question as it relates to, to, to Dave and his, his legal team and, and all of those individuals involved in that strategy, as well as the regulatory agencies that are looking into the whistleblower blower claims, which are currently ongoing. I have to assume if they weren't, we would know. Church would have announced that, but they're ongoing. I have to assume that maybe this case being in the public light makes it easier for some of those items as it relates to the whistleblower case to go public, including the SEC settlement, which to me was a low number. It was 4 million for Ensign, 1 million for the Church.

Mark Pugsley [01:56:19] Correct.

James Huntsman [01:56:19] That. But of what the church actually put on paper and signed, that, to me was the real, was the real issue of that settlement. You couldn't put a price tag on that. I wish I could have used that in my case, but because I'm on appeals, you know, you can't introduce any new evidence every day.

John Dehlin [01:56:38] People tell me they left the church over either inside Peak or the sec. You know, that was a little, that was amazing. Or, or your, or your case, like literally every day. So tens of thousands of people left the church over this. I think if not more, if not hundreds. Yeah, that's. Yeah.

James Huntsman [01:56:59] Maybe I was a bit naive, but honestly, just hearing us chat, maybe now you can understand when I sent that letter, I say we sent it, but. And put Marianne's name on it so she could have some semblance of exit if this thing got nasty. I thought that, hey, if we heard back, they should call back here in a couple days and just, you know, we'll be very polite and, and appropriate and respectful and shake hands and hey, it didn't work out the way we all wanted to. But let bygones be bygones. Let's focus on the future and cancer and mental health and these other areas where we can. I, that's the. Where I thought this whole thing was headed.

John Dehlin [01:57:34] And I remember when you told me the settlement was rejected, you were genuinely shocked. I would say maybe hurt. I think you felt shocked that it was stupid and maybe disrespectful. I don't know. Is that fair?

James Huntsman [01:57:51] I was, yeah, I was pretty surprised. And look, I. When we filed the case in, in district. Federal or Federal. District. Federal.

Mark Pugsley [01:58:02] District.

James Huntsman [01:58:03] Federal district court in Los Angeles and we were assigned Judge Wilson when we filed that and had the, you know, the, the Washington Post had a piece on it and, and, and then it was picked up on, on, on Drudge Report. I had somebody text me at just falling off, going after bed, 11 o'. Clock. Hey, you're on Drudge Report.

James Huntsman [01:58:23] What? I, I was so floored and I was a little nervous. I was like, where is this thing going? This hasn't been designed for that. It was always a very personal, intimate, one point something million dollar spat between two. Well, they're wealthy. But look, you know, it was over some money from wealthy institutions and individuals trying to get square with each other. Nothing wrong with that.

James Huntsman [01:58:51] We really weren't prepared for the, for the public interest in, in the case. And again, that was never, never the intention. But when you all heard about it, I'd be curious, were you just thinking, what is this?

John Dehlin [01:59:08] You know, I thought it was massive. Yeah.

Mark Pugsley [01:59:12] Yeah.

James Huntsman [01:59:12] But from a legal perspective.

John Dehlin [01:59:13] Oh,

James Huntsman [01:59:16] and then, yes, I'd love to love your take too.

Mark Pugsley [01:59:18] Yeah, well, I don't. I mean, I knew there would be First Amendment issues. Every, every lawyer that would hear about this would say, well, what control do you have over a church? You know, that's different. And especially in America where we revere our institutions. You look at Joel Osteen and how many hundreds of millions of dollars does he get on his church? And he just lives this extravagant lifestyle.

Mark Pugsley [01:59:41] No one's ever sued that guy to say why are you using this to fund your lifestyle and not to further the church? So any lawyer would, I think, immediately say, well, this has First Amendment challenges. We'll see where it goes. But I do want to say from a strategic perspective, if, if you had wanted to make a splash, if you had wanted to do this for pr, you would not have sent a demand letter, right? You would have to. Yeah. You would have just filed the case and knowing that, and you would have sent a copy to the Tribune and the Washington Post and saying, look at what I did.

Mark Pugsley [02:00:16] And I think it's important for people to realize what your motivations were here. It was not to become the poster boy. That was never your goal. And the, unfortunately, that's the result. But, you know, whether you like it or not, that's what happens.

John Dehlin [02:00:30] Was there a meaningful difference between the second demand letter and the first? Was there a bigger sum and you were going to say how you got to 5 million? Did you want to address either of those questions?

James Huntsman [02:00:40] The second demand letter was. And as a reminder, I'll go back and check to see if that's something that was public. I, I just, it's been many years and many documents in the public, public eye on this one. I'll go back and check and if we can release those, then happy to send those your way. The second one was a little bit pricklier. We had, we had a, the, the firm in, in Hollywood, one of the biggest litigators, Lively and singer, very respected firm in, in, in Los Angeles. And I was introduced to them, gave them all the information on this case. And basically their response was, we get it.

James Huntsman [02:01:20] This is really, this is a very unusual case for us. You have a high profile client, you have a high profile religion you're going after. Their early response was, this won't last long. There'll be a settlement here quickly. Like that was there. And they do this all the time.

James Huntsman [02:01:36] And so the second one was a little more aggressive, shall we say, because more money, right? No, no more money. No, no, the money was the same. It was a little bit in responding to some of the elements of the first letter, which was like, okay, come on, guys, like you're, I'm not gonna buy into this. The narrative of, of how you're trying to fish out of the situation. I think we all see her for what it is.

James Huntsman [02:02:04] Anyone with a second level of accounting understanding, and you compare that to these quotes publicly, 9 out of 10 people on the street are going to say you're guilty. Let's not go there. The 5 million was basically the original amount plus the interest, because, remember, I was giving decades ago interest and penalties and fees and everything. So that was kind of the number that we sat with, whether the court ultimately would have accepted that. Ultimately, a settlement is an agreement between the two parties. So that becomes. But we felt like we just wanted to have a number that we could sort of be consistent with throughout the process that would, you know, include all of the elements of cost, because initially it was just the principal.

James Huntsman [02:02:55] We church, you can keep the interest and everything else. We can calculate what that is based on, you know, financial performances. You know, you can kind of track that and come up with some type of number. We weren't even chasing that. It was just some recognition of the betrayal to get out of it.

Mark Pugsley [02:03:15] That's not so unusual, by the way. Let me just say that when you're sending a demand letter, which we do most of the time before we file a lawsuit, you will ask for a number that you think is a reasonable number that they would bite at. Right. And then when you file the lawsuit, then you throw everything in. So if somebody is wondering why he didn't initially ask for the full amount, it's because you're trying to negotiate a resolution and you want to show good faith that you're being reasonable. Then when you file the lawsuit, then you throw in the sun, the moon, stars, you know, like you did, the interest, the penalties, all that kind of stuff. But initially it was a reasonable request. That's exactly how I would have done it, for what it's worth.

John Dehlin [02:03:58] And did you say you felt like they did some dirty things with those two demand letters behind the scenes to make your life unpleasant? You know, like disclosing confidential information or other sorts of things?

Mark Pugsley [02:04:12] That he resigned. That was not public information. They. They're the ones. Right. That released that.

James Huntsman [02:04:17] Right.

John Dehlin [02:04:17] You preferred that to stay private.

Mark Pugsley [02:04:19] Yeah, That's. That's shady, I think. Right. That's no one's business.

James Huntsman [02:04:24] Not. Not only that I had resigned, but that Marianne had to. Like the. The. The fact that we were both lumped in there together. Again, the case was about me. And that became that. She's shaking their head to mention. Okay. The fact that I had resigned, I think the implication was that she had to. Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:04:50] Okay.

James Huntsman [02:04:50] Yeah, that. Because I think anyone that knows Marianne and me knows that we kind of do things hop on the same lily pad at the same time.

John Dehlin [02:04:56] So violating your confidentiality, maybe as a way to manipulate or coerce or punish you.

James Huntsman [02:05:02] No, you know, I don't look at it as punishment. I look at it as that was their legal strategy. It became a PR strategy at one point. And I've tried to find.

John Dehlin [02:05:13] Oh to say you're a malcontent.

James Huntsman [02:05:15] Yes, yes, yes. And that I think there was one. And we've tried to go back and find it where they actually said that they had no record of me paying tithing, therefore there was no claim because I never paid and I'm just a disgruntled member. They, you know, they thought I, at this time I was on the board of Equality Utah. They thought it was part of the sort of the, the gay movement and the gay initiative.

James Huntsman [02:05:44] Everything they could use to sort of highlight some level of discredit was used publicly. And there were times when it was like, okay, you, you want to get in the trenches and start throwing mud. Two can play that game, right? We now that was part of my sort of naivety in thinking they're going to settle because like I've. We know you guys really, really well.

James Huntsman [02:06:16] Some of you have worked for our company. Some like come on guys, really, you, you want to start slinging mud. I hope you have a face mask on. But I never went there. And the statements that we made, I, I believe to this point are all accurate.

James Huntsman [02:06:34] Some people might not like them or they might have a different perspective, but I think we tried to always be consistent with how we portrayed this case and always came back to the fraud element without mentioning other elements of the church's history or there be. That just wasn't part of our strategy and it was not our intention. And we have too many family members and friends that are in the Mormon church and have a great experience. I just, even to this day I'm not interested in going there.

John Dehlin [02:07:01] You would probably have quote, dirt on the insides of the church that you could share if you really wanted to be mean spirited and vicious that, that you just don't you. I would say maybe you are too classy to want to go there. Is that, is there truth to that?

James Huntsman [02:07:20] Let's just say I'm a class act.

John Dehlin [02:07:26] Yeah. Okay. Did. Was your father alive when you filed the lawsuit or had he passed away?

James Huntsman [02:07:32] He passed.

John Dehlin [02:07:32] He had passed. Do you think this is something he would have liked? Didn't. Wouldn't have liked? Was his passing something that made it made you feel like you could sue the church? Was. And as a secondary thing, what was the familial response? Slash pressure to the extent that you're wanting to share with your dad.

James Huntsman [02:07:58] So with my father, I think he would have been proud of it. I, he, I think he would have liked it.

John Dehlin [02:08:08] That's not to say he didn't love the church.

James Huntsman [02:08:10] No, no, no, no, no. But like I look, he's, he had a, his ancestors had saloons in Fillmore, Utah that were also Mormon. Like, he, he walked that line and, and, and tried to create space for everyone. And when there were issues or disagreements, he loved to facilitate a solution.

James Huntsman [02:08:35] And believe me, he facilitated a lot of solutions with many senior people in the church that no one ever heard about. And that's great and people don't need to hear about those. But I think as it relates to my father, I think he would have liked it. I think he would have thought, geez, go get him, boy.

James Huntsman [02:08:53] And had he been around, he would have made a phone call to try to facilitate it going way. I think he would have tried to live in both worlds of you go ahead and do this demand letter and then let me go over there and tell these guys they've got to figure out a way to do this because this isn't, this is not in the best interest of the Huntsman brand and it's not in the best interest of the Mormon brand to be fighting over a million dollars. This is ridiculous. Guys, get your act together. And if Hinckley was around, that would have happened in 30 minutes.

James Huntsman [02:09:23] Monson, maybe less. So I think after Monson, you know, my dad was old enough in his relationship with some of the leaders. Senior leadership was not what it was with prior people, shall we say. But I think he still would have tried to get involved in some way, shape or form.

Mark Pugsley [02:09:42] There's a, just a quick aside that we're not talking about this today, but you know, the reality is that there

John Dehlin [02:09:48] are

Mark Pugsley [02:09:50] lots of business dealings in this town with high level church members and always have been. And those guys are businessmen and they have deals that go bad and they have issues that come up and if one of these days those stories will be told. I have been in the legal community for a long time, so I'm aware of a lot of these things. And you know that those are out there and the church does not want that out. They do not want to. They want to make it seem like they're all just working for nothing. And, and they're serving the Lord. And the reality is they're businessmen and they make mistakes too, which is why it's also unusual why they wouldn't have seen this as a business settlement.

Mark Pugsley [02:10:31] Right, let's make a business decision. That's how you are Coming at it. Let's make a business decision to get this resolved and get it off, get it off of our shoulders so we can focus on the work. And they didn't, they didn't do that.

James Huntsman [02:10:43] So for what it's worth, and look, this is, the corporation is clearly a business. If you look at the ecclesiastical welfare side of the activities of the organization and compare that to the corporate financial wealth management side and come on, it's not, it's not even close. It's like you know, running a small church chapel with 15 people and saying you're a religious organization but on the side you're managing $100 million of cash and you're saying, well, you're really a church. Well, are you like again there's just some practical evaluations that you can do. Love the church or hate them or wherever you are. Like remove all that, just look at the data. And I think for me in the case I just said the data is this, the analysis is that the solution is, is a settlement, we're done.

The Church as a Business Entity

John Dehlin [02:11:37] But I just hear you say by 2020, the Mormon Church is exponentially more a business than it is a church. And so did I say by 2020? No, no, I'm just saying these are my words. This is around the time you're sending the letter. What I'm hearing you say is by that point the church was so incredibly wealthy that it's way more business than church at that point. And you would have expected it to act as such, as a business, unless as a rinky dink church maybe. Did I hear that?

James Huntsman [02:12:08] Yeah, I think it happened probably in my personal opinion, I think it happened long before then. I mean, yeah, pick any parish or Baptist ministry or what have you. Most of them probably have access to capital or to an endowment or to some type of funds or assets that are managing that are a small percentage of the, the size and footprint of the ecclesiastical organization. Mormon Church is the exact opposite to such a large scale.

James Huntsman [02:12:46] It's probably unprecedented. I mean the Catholic Church maybe, but the Catholic Church is a massive, massive organization. Much bigger than the Mormon Church and their assets are, you know, sometimes the Catholic Church is going bankrupt. You know, they have all these, their asset again, I don't know. But Catholic Church, my sense is that they're asset rich, cash poor and they have a very large membership. The Mormon Church is asset rich, cash rich and they have a very small membership of active participating members. It's probably low, single digit millions would be my guess. So again I just, they,

Mark Pugsley [02:13:28] There's another piece to this, which is the going back to the mall. The mall was built and they didn't have tenants. And Gateway had just been built kind of right before the Olympics in the church. People in the business community will tell you that the church was very aggressive in getting tenants and out of Gateway, which was owned by another prominent Utah family at the time, and pulling those, those tenants that they promised they wouldn't do. I mean, the church is very aggressive when it comes to business dealings. Very aggressive. People don't realize that they are. They're very. They are a business and they've got enough money now that they don't need to take the tithing. That's why. I don't understand why they're fighting over this. Tithing is meaningless. They've got a portfolio that can fund the church forever.

John Dehlin [02:14:14] Yeah. The Mormon Church in 2025 does not need its members tithing, none even to run its current operating budget off the interest of its investments in Ensign Peak. And I'll just add, like, if you think about organizations that are often compared to the Mormon Church, it's like Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists. I remember when the Ensign Peak information came out and the 150 billion dollar got swatted around. I remember looking up what the Church of Scientology was worth and it was like 2 billion compared to 150. You know what I mean?

James Huntsman [02:14:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:14:45] And that's not. It's probably. I think we know it's worth over 250 billion right now, not just 150 billion. So it is. The, the wealth of the Mormon Church is staggering.

Mark Pugsley [02:14:54] Staggering. And the real estate, I don't know if you're including real estate in your numbers, but real estate could be bigger than the portfolio in the stock market.

James Huntsman [02:15:02] Yeah, I think so.

John Dehlin [02:15:03] Yeah.

James Huntsman [02:15:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:15:05] And. Yeah. And so it's this massive corporation. I tried to put it in like the Fortune 500 and I'm pretty sure it falls in the top 80 corporations in the world for wealth. I think it's up there. It would be in the Fortune 100. The total worth of the church would be in the top 100 corporations in the world. Is that right?

Mark Pugsley [02:15:29] Yeah, I think that's right. And if you look at the. Compare it to the Harvard endowment, which is intended to fund Harvard, it dwarfs it, you know, and it's.

John Dehlin [02:15:37] Oh, you add up all the Ivy League endowments.

Mark Pugsley [02:15:39] Yeah, yeah. And it, it's, it's way beyond that top 50. Yeah, yeah, maybe.

James Huntsman [02:15:43] I mean, the cash, their cash position is what I think sets them apart. You have a lot of companies that have assets, plant, property, equipment, real estate, etc, that can be significant. And that's how they, that in conjunction with their stock price, it's how they raise capital, it's how they fund their operations. But to just be sitting on tens of billions or hundreds of billions in cash, that's where I think they get. They're set apart.

Mark Pugsley [02:16:13] There's another comparison you may have made, John. I don't remember why I heard this, but that if you compare the percentage of charitable giving of the Mormon Church vis a vis. It's wealth, it's wealth. It's just a minute. And if you look at the, the Presbyterian Church or any of these other mainstream Christian churches, they're giving 10, 20, 30% of their, of their money away every year. And the church doesn't even touch that.

John Dehlin [02:16:40] And now, now the church has stepped up its giving. Yes, but it's literally thanks to David Nielsen and the Ensign Peak whistleblower revelations where you can see, after the, and your case, you can see the donations like hockey stick as a result. So one of the things you and David and others should be proud of is this billion dollar number which is dubious each year that the Mormon Church claims to give to charity. Now look at when that happened. It certainly wasn't before you and David Nielsen started speaking out publicly.

Mark Pugsley [02:17:13] I mean, one of the. Sorry, James, really quick. The point I want to make is that one of the things I think we want to talk about and people wonder about is how do you get the church to change? What can you do to get the church to change? And we can have that discussion in a minute. But, but shame, it works. Shame is one of the things that apparently works. And pr, bad PR, is something they are very concerned about. And that's what I think they've been shamed into giving away more money. Assuming those numbers are even. Accurate.

John Dehlin [02:17:41] Yeah. Okay, so now let's jump to the. What do you all want to say about the story of the lawsuit and how it, how it went once you literally filed the lawsuit?

James Huntsman [02:17:54] Well, I'll maybe correct an earlier statement you made. I don't believe the church gives billions a year out.

John Dehlin [02:18:01] I think it tries to claim now maybe a billion a year. Maybe now it tries to claim that. Yeah. Total. Yeah.

James Huntsman [02:18:09] So most, again, most. 501. If you're a tax exempt organization, the reason in most cases you're tax exempt is because you're providing that service. Services can be defined many different ways. You're providing that service to the community in lieu of paying taxes. So the government is saying, well, we're getting the benefit of this organization, even though they're not paying taxes to the federal treasury, they are doing A, B and C, which is helping the improvement in the lives of the citizens. Right. That, that is the basis. And in exchange for tax exempt status, organizations are required to give away 5% of the corpus every year, every year on a one time deal to that, to that purpose.

James Huntsman [02:19:07] So if you put that in the context of the church's wealth, I, again, if they're skirting around that 5% number, they must have some very good accountants or tax people. But most 501c, three charities if they are tax exempt, unless I'm mistaken, you pay the, you need to pay something out in some way, shape or form, either in taxes or in donations. I, I'm just not aware of a situation where in the United States you get a free ride and you can keep all of your money and don't have to do anything with it in the eyes of the government.

James Huntsman [02:19:45] So John, if they are giving a billion a year, I would just be shocked. And if they are, they're still below their threshold. That's not 5%. And the second thing, which is I think that the whistleblower case and this, this lawsuit have done has certainly shined a light. Their, their filings, their regulatory adherence, the SEC Security and Exchange Commission compliance from their investment house, which is a investment arm, have significantly improved since 2019. And the reason they have improved since 2019 is they are skirting out outside of the confines of the law, which is what the SEC document did. The other thing they've done as it relates to my case is I believe in the General Conference immediately following the filing of my case, there were specific references made to charitable donations.

James Huntsman [02:20:42] Here's what we're doing. It could have been a coincidence or it could have been a way for them to publicly respond to. Hey, wait a second, why aren't you doing more in relation to the betterment of our people around the world?

John Dehlin [02:20:59] Yeah, I just pulled up the numbers at around 2016, I believe the church announced that it had paid like $1.2 billion over the previous 30 years.

James Huntsman [02:21:11] Break that down per year.

John Dehlin [02:21:12] It's like 40. It's like 40 million a year for a good 30 years. That's by 2016.

James Huntsman [02:21:18] There are charities in Utah that do better than that. I mean, come on.

John Dehlin [02:21:21] And then all of a sudden, 2021, they claim 908 million again.

James Huntsman [02:21:27] What, do they break it down as to where that's going?

John Dehlin [02:21:30] No, no, Even Even that, I think it's been established as a dubious number where they're like claiming people's fast offerings or they're claiming people's. Don't you know, they're Monet. They're putting a number to people's volunteer service to the church. It's not actual money that the church gave to charities, but you just see all of a sudden, 906 million in 2021, 1, 1.02 billion in 2022, and in 2023, 1.36 billion. Again, those numbers are likely dubious, but they didn't even try to claim that amount of charitable donations or anywhere close before you and David Nielsen. And the story broke, if I had

James Huntsman [02:22:11] an organization that was giving out a billion dollars every year to charity, there would be a press release every single month highlighting 150 here, 200 there, 80 there. Look, the church may be good at a lot of things, but their financial record keeping and accountability and responsibility is, in my opinion, less than stellar. Like, where is the. Again, most organizations when they give out money, you can go to their websites. Here's where the money went. And if you're giving out a billion dollars, like annually, I don't know that I've seen any. I mean, there's a little bit here and there. Again, they're a great partner with our family foundation, but according to that, we're just a drop in the bucket. And we had headlines all over the place when we would partner with the church.

John Dehlin [02:23:04] So the billionaire is, is very suspect. But let's not also forget that 40 million over, you know, a year for the 30 years prior to these complaints being filed, given how much we now know the church had, is a paltry, abysmal, embarrassing number. Am I wrong?

Mark Pugsley [02:23:25] But it's not just money, John. We have lots of good volunteers throughout the world who are doing good work. So your discount, you're not taking that into account.

John Dehlin [02:23:34] Okay, thank you.

James Huntsman [02:23:35] But sorry that when you have a, when you have a 5% of the value of the entity. Obligation, obligation to give out. I don't care if you have 10,000 volunteers, it's still 5%. You can't say, well, we're going to give 2%. We have a lot of volunteers. Again, I, I'm, as an action, I'm going to go back and see if I can round up. I doubt these donations were made confidentially. That's just not the church's style. You know, when they send people into these disaster areas and they're wearing the yellow shirts, the, you know, church Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints. I have no issue with the publicity. Some organizations do it, some don't. Whatever. If they dropped a half a billion dollars on Habitat for Humanity, I would just be surprised that they didn't issue a press release. And the fact that if you can find any press releases on churches donation,

John Dehlin [02:24:27] we did give money to the NAACP.

James Huntsman [02:24:30] Okay, that was that. Hold on. That was 5 million over three years or something like it was.

John Dehlin [02:24:35] And it was like they were buying improved PR because of their racist past, you know what I mean? Like it was kind of a little cringy.

Mark Pugsley [02:24:43] I just feel like if the church really wanted to make a difference in the world, it could. It has the finances to literally wipe out world hunger. I don't, I'm not even. There's a number. People have put a number on what that is and it's doable and it would be peanuts for the church, but they're not doing that. And what would Jesus do if he was here? You know, this is the thing that I just keep coming back.

Mark Pugsley [02:25:09] If Jesus had a hundred million dollar billion dollar portfolio, he wouldn't be just sitting on it. You know, there's so much good in the world, especially with what's going on politically in our country, cutting off aid to, you know, millions and millions of people throughout the world. Why doesn't the church step up and say, yeah, all that good work that USAID is doing will take over or something. I mean, there's just so many opportunities that they have not stepped up to take. Yeah.

The Litigation Journey and Key Rulings

John Dehlin [02:25:37] Okay, so what do you all want to say about the, the, the lifespan of the actual litigation? Do you want to tell a brief sort of highlight of how that went? You filed. What do you want to say about how that went for you personally and the legal outcome as well?

James Huntsman [02:25:55] I mean, it really is probably the least exciting element of this whole, of this whole discussion. Again, to reiterate, it was never our intention to file. We didn't want to file. We figured at the point at which we did file that it would just bring some type of discussion. There were never any settlement discussions. There were never any negotiations. There was never any willingness by the other side to even meet in the middle. Zero. Absolutely nothing. So we said, well, you know, we'll file it in.

James Huntsman [02:26:32] Sorry, as the federal district or district. Federal, Federal district, Federal district court. And we got assigned Judge Stephen Wilson. Judge Stephen Wilson was, if you can believe it, was appointed by Ronald Reagan. That's around. That's how long he's been on the bench. And his background was accounting and fraud. So I thought, this is perfect.

James Huntsman [02:26:52] And we went into this, the first oral argument there, and pretty low key event. I think the Salt Lake Tribune sent a photographer or somebody to cover. And other than that, it was just a handful of people. And I recall the judge asking, you know, okay, what are we, what do we hear? You know, what are we doing? And both sides give their, you know, brief explanation.

James Huntsman [02:27:15] And Judge Wilson asked the church's attorney, okay. After hearing both sides give very high level positions, each of the positions asked the church's attorney, can you. Well, this is easy. If you can prove that no tithing went to the mall, then I will move for summary judgment. That's what he said right out of the chutes. Which basically meant case closed.

John Dehlin [02:27:47] Yeah, just show the money.

James Huntsman [02:27:48] Yep. And he said, can you show that no money went to the mall? And I remember looking over at the church's attorney because I recognized at that point, if that documentation existed, we would have walked away. And I looked over at him and it felt like to me, maybe not to him. It felt like to me that it was the longest pause in the world. And he was thinking, how do I answer this question?

James Huntsman [02:28:16] If I say yes and we can't prove the documentation exists that no tithing went to the mall, we're dead in the water. And I can't say no, because that's the whole basis of our case, is that no tithing went to the mall. So of course he said, yes, we can show that. And the judge said, well, send me that documentation. And well, basically we'll be done.

James Huntsman [02:28:37] So that really is where it all started. The documentation went in. I was actually deposed for eight hours. Well, actually they only deposed me for about six and a half. And went through all of my donations year by year and tithing donations and asked answer all the asked or answered all their questions.

Mark Pugsley [02:28:57] Do people know what a deposition is? Is that common knowledge?

John Dehlin [02:29:00] Oh, let's tell us. Mark, get in there.

Mark Pugsley [02:29:02] Just, I'll just tell you really quick. That is. So once you move past the initial part of the filing and the answer and initial motions, then you get into what's called the discovery stage. I don't think you guys got into discovery where you were able to ask them for documents. Because we wish they would. Yeah. That's the thing the church fears the most, is if you get the financial documents from them. But how is it that your deposition was taken even at that early stage in the case? Because that's unusual.

James Huntsman [02:29:30] Exactly. And I, I was fine to do it because there really wasn't anything on my side to hide. Again, I think that. I don't know, but the church maybe was trying to look for something or to weed me out or to find a way for me to sort of capitulate. But we did the deposition and we provided all of answers to all their questions and provided them the documentation.

James Huntsman [02:29:55] We thought it was a bit unusual, but that was the judge saying, hey, if you can show no tithing went to the mall, that's great. By the way, you're allowed to depose Huntsman. We thought that was a little unusual. And then at that point, that's when Stephen Wilson had that line of no reason, basically ruled in favor of the church. Even though motions for summary judgment are based on the plaintiff and the defendant having an agreement of the facts and maybe a disagreement on the penalty or the law, in this case, we were saying there actually is not an agreement of the facts.

James Huntsman [02:30:35] One is saying tithing went to the mall, and one is saying tithing didn't, the other saying tithing did not go to the mall. So we actually. That's why we were confident in our appeal and that it didn't constitute that.

John Dehlin [02:30:47] So the church gave financial documentation to the judge?

Mark Pugsley [02:30:50] No, no, no. I mean, I don't think so. I don't think that happened.

John Dehlin [02:30:55] They.

James Huntsman [02:30:55] They provided statements if finance. They were basically brokerage statements that were largely redacted. But, okay, nothing that showed, unless you're a financial wizard. Again, I don't know what value, because we saw the documents as well. And I'm like, well, this just reinforces our case because there's nothing here that says tithing didn't go to the mall other than they had a statement from their accountant who said tithing didn't go to the mall, an affidavit.

Mark Pugsley [02:31:26] So this probably the judge wanted to do some preliminary discovery on a limited scope. And he had James sit for a deposition that is not a court proceeding. That's a private proceeding that happens in a conference room where the lawyers for the other side will ask him questions for six to eight hours, and he'll answer them. It is under oath. And there is a court reporter there taking the transcript, but it's not a court proceeding per se. And so he. They did that, I assume, to establish some basic facts about how much you paid and what your situation was or whatever else they asked.

Mark Pugsley [02:32:06] And then that was limited because really, in a lot of the lawsuits that the church gets involved in, the one thing they concern. Concerned about the most that I've from lawyers I know who've told me is that they don't want to be able have to answer questions about their finances because that's still very highly confidential. And in fact, they put everything under seal here, right? Wasn't there?

James Huntsman [02:32:27] Yes.

Mark Pugsley [02:32:28] All the documents here are sealed. You can't get into the court docket and pull up the documents they produced, even though the judge saw them. He put a seal on everything at the church's request because they're very paranoid about that.

John Dehlin [02:32:41] And it's worth saying there are plenty of churches that are public in their finances.

Mark Pugsley [02:32:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:32:45] They choose to be. Right.

Mark Pugsley [02:32:46] Oh, yeah. Well, and, and I, I was tell people, hey, look, if you had an investment, let's just say there was a company that wanted your investment money and you said to them, okay, where's the money going? And they refuse to tell you how they're going to use your money. I'm pretty sure most people would not give their money to that organization. They're like, no, I want transparency about where my money is going. I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to ask in an investment context. And it also should be in a charitable contribution. Charities also are required to give statements about where their money is, how much they have, how much they give out.

Mark Pugsley [02:33:22] They have actual rules about charities in the United States have to give away 5% of the money that they have. The Gates foundation gives away 5% or more than that every year. So there are rules. The problem is that because the First Amendment, the courts have given churches a much broader leeway. They don't have to give all the transparency, but churches could. They absolutely could. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints clearly does not want to, but other churches do. And I think anyone who gives money to an organization, whether it's a church, a charity or an investment, should require full transparency about where their money goes.

John Dehlin [02:34:03] What's also been weird to me is I run a non profit. I publish a 990 every year. It's made public. My comp, my salary is the CEO is made public. And we have to categorize how we spend our money into like 20 or 30 different categories. And donors can look at that. It's weird.

Mark Pugsley [02:34:19] It probably makes you uncomfortable, right? A little bit sometimes, maybe at first.

John Dehlin [02:34:23] But also accountable. Right?

Mark Pugsley [02:34:25] Right.

John Dehlin [02:34:26] Yeah. 100%. Like people can see where the money goes and how much I'm getting paid. And I, it's, it's uncomfortable, but I think it's probably healthy. It's probably healthy at the end of the end of the day because people are donating yeah. You know, anyway, okay, so. So the judge dismissed the case. On what grounds?

Mark Pugsley [02:34:48] First Amendment grounds, right?

James Huntsman [02:34:49] Yeah. No, actually First Amendment. He ruled and he did not rule in favor of the church on that. They were not. But it basically he was saying that there was no fraud that was committed

John Dehlin [02:35:00] based on the documents he had looked

James Huntsman [02:35:02] at, based on the fact that we were only riding on the Hinckley quote at the time. That that was a piece of information. That's where we circle that and said, basically said this is when the fraud started and took place. Because that's what, you know, when you go in federal court in the state of California, you're. Your fraud has to tick a number of boxes. So legally, strategically, that's what we had to go with as backup information, whistleblower documentation, etc. But it was really just the Hinckley quote of saying tithing. Let me reassure you, tithing didn't go to the mall. That was the crux of the argument. Did it or did it not? He ruled in favor of the church case was thrown out and then we appealed really quickly.

John Dehlin [02:35:46] Were Curtin McConkey gnarly in that deposition to you or were they super professional and.

James Huntsman [02:35:52] No, the, the deposition was handled by an attorney in California. California based attorney.

John Dehlin [02:35:57] And do you have anything to say about your experience being deposed by, by a church hired lawyer?

James Huntsman [02:36:04] Yeah, it's a pretty intense situation to anyone that's been through a deposition because as Mark, as you said, you are under oath, you are being recorded. Anything you say can and will be held against you. And you know, when you're talking about 20 years of history and you're being asked very specific questions and you're being asked a question now that they're really looking for an answer in seven questions later, like it can be a little, it can be a little daunting.

James Huntsman [02:36:37] You know, I think I was probably, I was not, I was well prepared. I, I think I chatted with a number of people who had been through this before. I had a great legal team, I had a great attorney.

James Huntsman [02:36:50] And I think there were a number of instances where the church's attorney was quite frustrated with the questioning. And so you don't, you don't have a lot of tools to use when you're being deposed, but you do have some. And I was able to use those as often as possible, maybe even too much. But within about 40 minutes of the six and a half hours, I actually felt like I was in control, if that makes sense. And I just thought, I think I know more about where this is going. I know more about church finances, I know more about church history. Just this whole situation, I know more than he does.

James Huntsman [02:37:32] So when he would start his line of questioning, I knew where the seventh question was going and it made it. I had a cheat sheet just because of my time and experience in the church. So it actually turned out to be quite a pleasant experience. If a definition, if a deposition can be described as that, sure. But no, it was not Curt McConkey.

Mark Pugsley [02:37:53] And let me add one other little thing about that. He was in California. So Curtin McConkey probably has some lawyers that could have been involved in the case, but the church hired a law firm and the, the main lawyer who argued this before the ninth Circuit, and I'm, I'm not sure if he was on the lower course case, was a guy named Paul Clement. C L E M E N T. And if you look at this guy,

James Huntsman [02:38:21] he was only 9th Circuit.

Mark Pugsley [02:38:23] It was only 9th.

James Huntsman [02:38:23] He was not the district court.

Mark Pugsley [02:38:25] Now, okay, but he is one of the top appellate lawyers in the world. I mean this is a guy who probably bills out at fifteen hundred dollars an hour. This is not. They did not mess around. They clearly, if they wanted, you know, the B team, they would have had good there. But they got the A team and I'm sure they spent a ton of money on this law firm.

James Huntsman [02:38:49] So this guy came in at the district level, case was thrown out, we appealed. It was the same. Again, just to remind everyone, when you appeal, you're basically giving the same argument to a different group of judge or group of judges. You cannot introduce new evidence. Even if the church was found guilty of major SEC violations, I cannot enter that into evidence. So really it was just giving the same arguments again to the ninth appellate court that we gave in the district court. It was a three judge panel and they ruled two of, we got two of the three to rule in our favor.

John Dehlin [02:39:27] So you got it reinstated, basically.

James Huntsman [02:39:30] And even the three of them though were unanimous in with the judge Steven Wilson, that there is no First Amendment protection. Again, that's the through line that I fraud that they can't say, hey, we're a religion, therefore leave us alone.

John Dehlin [02:39:45] Yeah, right.

James Huntsman [02:39:46] And so that is critical because that is an argument that has been one of the key arguments for the church throughout this process is hey, at the end of the day court, with all due respect, we're a religious organization. We have protection under the First Amendment. So we basically can do with tithing whatever we want. And frankly a lot of members are okay with that. That's fine. It's up to the courts to decide how far that goes and when that veers into fraud or not.

James Huntsman [02:40:15] At that point, Mark, when they lost their appeal, two things happened that actually three things happened, I think were significant in this case. Before we wrap up, I think we have to wrap up in 30 seconds. I'm just kidding.

James Huntsman [02:40:28] Number one, it was actually case law, so it was published. So that decision meant it goes into those of you, not maybe you could walk through what that means. That's a significant ruling in our favor. Number two was the whole notion of, of that the appeal was in our favor and the freedom of religion thing was, was knocked out and the judges determined that there could, could have been fraud. Let's let a jury determine it. Right. That was their decision. And the third thing that happened is when they lost that appeal, that's when they brought in Paul Clement.

Mark Pugsley [02:41:03] Okay. Okay. Interesting. The case law, case law issue is interesting because typically a district court, which is the base, the first court where you, there's the trial court where the trial would take place.

James Huntsman [02:41:15] Right.

Mark Pugsley [02:41:16] They will render opinions and those opinions typically are not published in the sense that they're not published as stare decisis is a legal term, but as basically binding on future decisions. So when you're in court, you look at prior decisions to the judges do in order to educate them about, okay, I'm going to try to be consistent. This other judge did this, this and this. So I'm going to be consistent with that. So when you get into a 9th Circuit, which is an appellate court, that opinion is going to be published. And the three, when he won, that opinion was published. And that's going to be a big deal for the church.

Mark Pugsley [02:41:53] They don't like that opinion. So they did something that's actually quite remarkable is they asked for an en banc rehearing of the case and we will. That's when Clement came on because all of a sudden the stakes got super high. We just lost in appellate court.

John Dehlin [02:42:09] We met in the church.

Mark Pugsley [02:42:10] Yeah, the church is, is like, oh, we better bring in the big guns at that point. But the, the interesting thing about the en banc decision that we can talk about is that they vacated the lower opinion or the prior opinion of the three judges. They basically erased it in a way. It's still going to be findable, but it's going to be not usable by future courts because it was thrown out by them. And they're saying, you guys got it wrong. We're going to, the 11 of us, I think there's 11 judges on en banc, meaning all of the appellate court judges together. Very rare, by the way.

Mark Pugsley [02:42:46] This is very rare. If you don't like what the ninth Circuit does and you say we want it en banc, people ask all the time. They rarely ever get it. But this one, they got it. And so that's very interesting to me. They clearly either the church felt strongly, but also the judges apparently felt strongly enough that that was not done right, that they wanted a do over. And that's what the church got as a do over on that. Interestingly, we can talk more about this. One of the judges that was on the on Bonk panel but was not in the first panel is Judge Smith, who is LDS and he went to BYU law school, I believe.

Mark Pugsley [02:43:24] He was not involved in the decision initially, but then when they went to all the judges, he was on. And may have had some, some influence.

James Huntsman [02:43:34] Yep. And then on, on bonk ruling was, you know, you tried to read through what the judges were doing. There are obviously a lot of factors at play that drive that, drive that decision. But they basically, if I can sort of compartmentalize their legal decision, they basically said, sorry, James, no fraud was committed. Sorry, Mormon church, no First Amendment protection. And it was done because the no fraud was committed. So that again, for us, the fraud side was lost. But I think for the church, that First Amendment protection, I think, which is what they crave so badly, you know, for future cases, I especially the right

John Dehlin [02:44:19] to commit fraud is what they wanted. I think that even came up in the en banc hearing. Like, is our churches protected from committee fraud?

Mark Pugsley [02:44:30] Right. Actually, you know where it came up, it may have come up in the en banc hearing. I haven't, I didn't listen to it. But it did come up just recently in the Utah class action case. So Judge Shelby, Judge Shelby had an oral argument on the motions and all of these attorneys were there for the class actions. And one of the questions Judge Shelby asked was, well, surely just because you're a church, that doesn't mean you can commit fraud. And so this, this issue of can a church commit fraud is important in this case. They really kind of said, I mean, different people can read this in different ways.

Mark Pugsley [02:45:07] But the way I interpret this decision was, you know, churches shouldn't commit fraud and can't commit fraud. But that's not what we have here. Because they point to a quote from Hinckley years prior in like 1991, President Hinckley said, oh, by the way, we have this reserve fund with the excess tithing. And that's where we invest the money. We take care of that very prudently. And so they took that as, even though it was separate by a number of years from the disclosure that you relied on. They pointed to this prior statement by Hinckley is, hey, we told everyone that we have this slush fund of the tithing.

Mark Pugsley [02:45:46] And so that's not, that's not fraud. Because people should have known. And when he spoke in conference in the 2000s about them all, people should have known that, oh, back in 1991, he told you that they have this slush fund. Right. This, this investment fund, which is pretty ridiculous. Well, it's a little ridiculous as someone

John Dehlin [02:46:05] who is a faithful Mormon at that point.

Mark Pugsley [02:46:06] Yeah. Who would have known that? It's kind of like what you were saying earlier when they, there was a friend article years ago about Joseph Smith looking at, oh, therefore we gave it to you. I mean it's kind of a catch it a gotcha moment I think. But the, the, the opinion is complicated and this is a little hard to explain, but there was a, there are several opinions within the opinion and the ruling of the, of the main group said they didn't say the church doesn't have First Amendment protection. Exactly. What they said is we don't need to decide that. We don't need to get there because we're deciding that there was no fraud.

Mark Pugsley [02:46:43] There was this prior statement. Hey, James, you should have paid attention to this talk. And whenever it was when Hinckley said that they have the, the reserves and you should have known that and therefore you weren't defrauded. So we're not going to go into the First Amendment. But there is another opinion, the second opinion, which is what's called a concurrence. It does get into the First Amendment issue in quite a bit of detail and basically says the court never should have gotten to the fraud piece because this is just, this is clearly a First Amendment case. And we should just say that first churches shouldn't be, we don't want to go there.

Mark Pugsley [02:47:20] We're not going to get into the issue of the question of second guessing what a church can say to its members, what disclosures they should make, what they should do with their money. Those are so central to churches operations that as courts we shouldn't go there. That's not in none of our business, basically. And there's a lot of questions that raises, I mean if you think about it, that's, you can think of a lot of hypotheticals where A church was committing fraud, like outright. And in fact, during the argument, there was a point where the Paul Clement, I think, was asked, what if the judge, what if the church committed fraud?

Mark Pugsley [02:47:56] And what if he said, so what if you said to the church, hey, we're going to help hurricane victims in Florida. Right. And then we actually. And so people give a bunch of money and instead we use that money and divert it to our own purposes with. And he said, interesting. The church's lawyer said, oh, if that happened, that's different and that's fraud and that would be a problem.

Mark Pugsley [02:48:20] But we didn't do that here. And I actually kind of disagree. I think that's actually very similar. I think you're telling church members that you're going to use their money for building the kingdom and you're not, you're just putting it in the stock market. People should be told that.

John Dehlin [02:48:36] Yeah. Hinckley should have said, we're building a mall, we've got a slush fund and we've got a bunch of your tithing. And it all gets commingled with business investments. And we're going to be building this mall from a combination of your tithing, profits from the business and this slush fund.

Mark Pugsley [02:48:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:48:53] And it all is in this big pool. And that's what we're using to build the mall from and bail out beneficial life from. Would that have been an honest statement?

James Huntsman [02:49:03] A hell of a lot better than they did historically. But I, I think to your point, I, I totally agree. When, when they asked that question in, in the en banc hearing in San Francisco about give us an example of what would constitute fraud. What he described, Paul Clement with the hurricane example, I believe is exactly similar to what, what I have an issue with. And the church said A and did B.

James Huntsman [02:49:27] And again, my particular legal journey has come to an end. You know, again, it was never intended to be this long and to be this public. And being in that courtroom in San Francisco was, you know, Marianne was there, one of our boys was there. It's really an awe inspiring moment. You know, it is the, you know, the bedrock of the legal system in this great country. And you have 11 federal judges coming in, there they are, they are reasonably familiar with the issue and they cut right to the chase with their questions.

James Huntsman [02:50:08] What dawned on me in that moment is that you have an attorney arguing for Huntsman who's not a Mormon, you have Paul Clement arguing for the church, who's not a Mormon, and you have 10 judges and then a chief justice.

James Huntsman [02:50:23] She was, I forget which presiding. Presiding. So you have 10. And then if it's five to five, she's the deciding vote. And they're all arguing about this issue that was so personal to me. And. And at that moment, on that particular issue, I felt I was the smartest one in the room. And I couldn't speak and. And I became sort of decoupled from the whole.

John Dehlin [02:50:49] Because they don't know Mormonism. Right.

James Huntsman [02:50:51] They were talking around the issues of. Is Hinckley the only person. Sorry. Sorry about the sound. Hinckley's the only person authorized to speak. Nobody like all these nuances that I'm like, wait a second. Here's actually how it works. Here's how you answer that question. Here is culturally how that all fits together.

James Huntsman [02:51:08] I. You can't expect people in the room to understand that if they're not steeped within Mormonism. Decades of experience with it, which is what I had. And I just thought I became emotionally detached and less interested in the case because I just thought it became a legal argument of winning and losing, and it became less about right and wrong and squaring the religion with me. And so when we got word that. That the en banc ruled in. In favor of the church, you know, I had a few. Hey, sorry to hear about the news. You two gentlemen were nice enough to respond. Thank you for that.

James Huntsman [02:51:52] But part of me was like. And, you know, Marianne was there on that day within a few 30 minutes. Like, I'm kind of ready. I've been ready to move on for a period of time. I think I've done my duty here. And although I didn't get the settlement, I still believe I bloodied the bouncer as I exited the club, if I can use that analogy.

Mark Pugsley [02:52:13] It's a great analogy.

James Huntsman [02:52:14] And. And my. My work is done. And now you have other cases now that. Class action cases. And Dave Nelson and. And basically the attorney for the church saying, in this scenario, it would constitute fraud. That's. I believe what. And if somebody can produce those documents and is willing to go to task, you know, maybe it's the third or fourth case that goes before the church. I think at some point there's going to be a reckoning here. You know, on a very separate note, the sort of sexual abuse cases and scandals, I don't know how many of those for how many years were shot down, and they just never made it through.

First Amendment Challenges and Legal Outcomes

James Huntsman [02:52:54] The courts either didn't believe it or there wasn't enough money to support the case. But when they broke through, it was a dam of Reconciliation and doing the right thing and supporting the victims and trying to make restitution. I believe in the church's financial dealings that day is coming. It wasn't with me, unfortunately, but I think the day is coming and I think if there's a little bit of.

James Huntsman [02:53:23] Maybe on a closing note, I don't know, John, if you have other questions, but we can take more questions. I had dinner with a friend of mine here a few months ago. He's of a different faith and he lives back in the east coast. And he said, you know, because of your case, we went to our local, I think it was a parish or congregation, and they basically run that congregation with donations from the local community. And they said, they, we, they went to him and basically said, you need to be transparent with where this money goes. And the head religious individual said, I have nothing to hide.

James Huntsman [02:54:04] Like, is there something wrong? Is there? No, no, we just want transparency. And sure enough, the, the head of that particular group came forth here, here's where the money's going. Flowers, paint, salaries. And he, and he said, it's all because of your case.

James Huntsman [02:54:23] And I just thought, wow, that's pretty damn cool. Like, if that's all that comes from this, of somebody that I've, I don't know, his religious affiliation or his involvement in any way, shape or form, but the relationship between him and his religion and the transparency around finances, where it's always tricky, there, there's there that that particular issue was improved because of the case that we've done. And it, I believe there's been much more benefit that has come out of what we've done. But when he explained that story to me, I thought, wow, I, I was very flattered. I was very flattered by that.

James Huntsman [02:55:05] So again, that the drive, the motivation, the impetus for all this is nothing nefarious, nothing against the Mormon Church, nothing against Mormons or religions in general. It's all about accountability, transparency, and especially when you're dealing with massive numbers, I just think that the Mormon Church and many other organizations could and should be doing better.

John Dehlin [02:55:32] As someone who just concluded a long, expensive, super painful lawsuit, I have a very clear sense of how painful and expensive these things are. And what I'm hearing you say is that in spite of the expense and the difficulty and the pain and the stress and the time invested and whatever extended, influenced or impacted reputations and relationships, it sounds like you're saying you don't regret it, you wouldn't take it back, and you're. Even in spite of not winning in some Technical ways. Sounds like you still feel happy that you did it.

James Huntsman [02:56:18] Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. And I think the support from family, from friends, and the community at large was significantly higher than we anticipate anticipated. In fact, Marianne, we're having conversations with our kids. When this was filed, like, hey, prepared for X, like, again, we didn't think it would be big news. And if it did become big news, we didn't think that there would be the outpouring of support that we received. So I think for us, the experience has been quite, quite positive. And, look, the class actions are still in play.

James Huntsman [02:56:53] And for anyone out there, myself included, if one of these does get certified, you know, to join the class, that's always an option, too. For anyone who feels that on their own, they wouldn't be able to do this. But that's the purpose of a class action, is to get people together that have a similar experience in terms of fraud. There is potentially hope for them. Not at this moment, but maybe in the future.

John Dehlin [02:57:23] And knowing a tiny bit about your family, you had a brother that ran the Sly Tribune for a while. You had a brother who served as a mission president. And I'm sure you have at least some faithful family members, if not many. What I was happy to understand is that this did not divide your family, specifically your siblings. This was not something that divided from the unified, loyal, committed family, the extended family that you talked about at the very beginning. Right.

James Huntsman [02:57:49] Most of us enjoy talking about it.

John Dehlin [02:57:52] Yeah. Yeah, I'm very happy to hear that.

James Huntsman [02:57:55] Oh, thank you.

John Dehlin [02:57:56] You've got to feel relieved that it's over. Is that true?

James Huntsman [02:58:00] I think so. Yeah. I do. I do. And. And being able to talk about it, I think for a long time, we wanted to discuss. And I think when I would. You know, we did a piece with the Washington Post and a couple with the Salt Lake Tribune. I was very. I had to be very careful on the phraseology. And you're in your middle litigation. You say something wrong, and it can come back to.

James Huntsman [02:58:22] To be a big problem. And I think just getting. For those that are interested in this case, and again, we were very surprised by the amount of interest in it of being able to give a little bit of the origin story and the backstory and the motivation for us to do this and where it all started, we thought it was interesting to have that on the record. So thank you for creating this record of sacred writings and speeches that we can enjoy for future generations.

Mark Pugsley [02:58:53] We're gonna get Dave Nelson on here. One of these Days.

John Dehlin [02:58:56] I. I'm talking about his ensign.

Mark Pugsley [02:58:59] Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I would love to hear Dave's story. Just like James. When you hear the backstory of these, I think it's fascinating, but also important to know what people's motivations were. James was not trying to get rich, and neither was Dave. And. And people have. I think the church works hard to demonize people like James who dare. Dare to speak up and try to have a principled stance on these issues. Members of the church, I'm sure, would think he's, you know, as bad as John Dehlin. You know, that's pretty bad, right?

James Huntsman [02:59:33] Oh, come on.

John Dehlin [02:59:34] Oh, heaven forbid.

Mark Pugsley [02:59:36] That's what I'm saying is this. This. People need to hear these stories because the reality is these are just good people who are trying to do the right thing. And the church doesn't have the same level transparency, but also integrity. I think James has integrity, and I wish the church had the level of integrity that he and Marianne have, because it's super impressive. I hope people see that. It's fantastic what he did. And even though. Yeah, let me say quickly about the class actions, because people are. I'm sure. I'm not looking at the chat, but I'm sure people are asking, well, what about the class actions?

Mark Pugsley [03:00:11] Are they dead, too? And the answer is, we don't know yet. They're at a different stage. They're in a different state. James's case was filed under California statute. The fraud statute in California is pretty limited. The class actions have different causes of action, different claims that they've asserted. There are different lawyers, and they're with. In front of a different judge, a judge who I believe has a background in Mormonism. Actually, Judge Shelby, I think, has at least connections to Mormonism. I'm not sure.

John Dehlin [03:00:43] Oh, he does.

Mark Pugsley [03:00:44] Yeah. So. So that's. There's a different venue and it's a different claims, and people don't need to join the class action. For those who are wondering you if the class is certified, meaning the judge decides that, yes, you can all be a class together, then they. Everyone who paid tithing was. Is automatically a member of that church, of that. Of that lawsuit. You don't need to do anything. You just need to hang tight.

Mark Pugsley [03:01:11] One of the big questions is going to be whether current Mormons will also be part of that lawsuit. So they're going to have to work that out in terms of who's in the class and who isn't, whether people who have resigned are in the class or not. Do you have to still be, have your name on the records. All of these questions are going to need to be worked out if that case is permitted to go forward.

Mark Pugsley [03:01:36] I, I, I'm hesitant to do this because James just gave such a good wrap up. But I just want to kind of help people understand how the court got to where they are. Is that okay?

James Huntsman [03:01:45] Oh, please go there.

John Dehlin [03:01:46] Yeah, yeah. I was going to ask whether you as an attorney consider this a miscarriage of justice. Was it what you expected? Up and up. I know it's probably hard. These may be judges you appear in front of someday. So I don't know.

Mark Pugsley [03:01:59] No, I mean, I, I think I would be. Well, let me just give a summary of the logic that they, why they denied his case. And it's pretty simple. And I've been thinking about this. I'm trying to think of a way that I can describe this that is that everyone can relate to. And so I've, here's an analogy. You have a bank account and you've put money into that bank account for years. And the bank account gets bigger and bigger. And it's got an interest component. So that bank account is earning interest every year. It's getting a fair amount of interest added onto it. The interest.

Mark Pugsley [03:02:38] Everyone knows this, right? The interest doesn't go in a separate account. The interest goes into the account where the principal that you put in there is. Right. Does that make sense? So you put the money into the bank account, interest is added on. So it's getting bigger. But it's not like the interest is going one place and the main account is a different place. No, it's all commingled. This is to me what the court missed. Because what the court is saying is that they really relied on this number that they had an accountant get up and say that that year the Church had money that made, I think 1.4 billion in interest or made that much money in the stock market.

Mark Pugsley [03:03:21] So therefore they used what the court said is they had enough interest to say that the interest was used to pay for them all, not the principal. And that just makes no sense because they're all in one account. You can't say that if you bought a car out of that bank account that you've been holding. You can't say I only used interest to buy the car. That doesn't make sense because the money is all there in one place. It's all commingled. And yet that is really what the court came down to, is that the Church used interest on the tithing to fund them all, not the tithing itself, which is preposterous because we all know the money is all together in one.

Mark Pugsley [03:04:05] And in fact, James's lawyers got an affidavit or declaration from Dave Nielsen, who actually said this, that there is no, there's no setting aside of interest on the account or anything else. It's all commingled. It's all in one. Therefore, it was tithing money that was used to fund them all. And you can't say that this dollar is interest and this dollar is the principal. It doesn't work that way. It's all together. It's all mixed up. And yet that is what the court relied on to say that the church didn't lie because they actually had enough money that year that they made in the stock market to fund them all.

Mark Pugsley [03:04:46] Therefore they didn't use tithing. And that's essentially what they. Why they said this is not fraud. And they don't want to go into the First Amendment issues. So that's, that's how they got to where they got. And I think I disagree 100% with that approach because I think it misunderstands. I'm a financial fraud lawyer. I deal with, with financial cases all the time. I have for 30 years. And guess what? The money, if you take a bunch of investor money and dump it into an account, that's all investor money, and you can't say that I used Mrs. Jones money here and Mr. Smith's money over here.

Mark Pugsley [03:05:21] It doesn't work that way. It's all in one account. So this is just a fiction that the court relied on to come to the conclusion that they did. However, you know, it is what it is. And the church didn't get from them a clear ruling that says that the church is immune because the First Amendment, that's what they wanted. And they did not get that. They got it in a concurrence, but they didn't get it in the main opinion. And that really deprived them of some important ammunition that they would have absolutely used in the class action case. So that's a win. That is a win.

Mark Pugsley [03:05:56] Even though I think the church, the court got it wrong. You know, it is what it is, and you didn't decide to take it to the Supreme Court, which probably wouldn't have been a good, a good form for that anyway, because they're very favorable to religion as well as well. So these are the decisions that you make as a litigant. You have to decide what's the cost benefit analysis, not just financial cost, but Also emotional cost of continuing on with this lawsuit. And James made a decision that he, he'd had enough, he'd done enough. And he said, I'm done, and that's fine. And that's his prerogative and more power to him.

Mark Pugsley [03:06:33] Other people, the, the other class actions might lose the district court and be done. We don't know. But if you really want to. The reality of justice in this country is that you need money and it's very expensive. Very, very expensive.

James Huntsman [03:06:49] Well said. Very well said, actually. Thank you for that.

Closing Reflections and Final Thoughts

John Dehlin [03:06:53] Well, there are so many comments pouring in. James and Marianne, thank you. And Mark thanking you all both for today, but also specifically for James and Marianne, for the incredible sacrifices, personal sacrifices you would have made financially, time, stress and in relationships and reputation to be willing to put your necks and your names in the public arena as private people who love our community and love people in and out of the church to make those sacrifices as people with integrity, to just try and help the church be accountable and help it treat people better.

John Dehlin [03:07:49] So many people are saying thank you. So Colby says, thank you for the interview. Crotchy writes, james Huntsman helped in the. And I say Marianne Huntsman helped in the fight against Utah's gay marriage ban, is involved with cancer research and more.

John Dehlin [03:08:05] She talks about shedding happy tears. Mariana Taylor says, james and his wife Marianne are the finest kind of people. Genuine, real, empathetic and kind. Their life as a family is commendable. No important errors about them. They have made their own way.

John Dehlin [03:08:25] So many other people have said thank you. Timothy says, I appreciate what Huntsman did here. The Huntsman's the number one way to change behavior has got to be changing the laws. That's why polygamy changed. We need more people in government that will hold the institution accountable.

Mark Pugsley [03:08:45] Good luck with that.

John Dehlin [03:08:46] Yeah. Dave says, I've always wanted to know what was behind James's motivation. This is a great podcast to shed light on his motivation. Crotchety writes, I wouldn't know anything of these stories about the Mormon church if it weren't for, you know, James and David and this YouTube channel and all the news stories about it. The news stories and the blogs and the articles are out there, but they don't get a lot of worldwide press. So they're glad you did this interview today. Brett Hutchins says, please tell James and Marianne thank you for pursuing and also that we're playing basketball tonight at 9:00 clock at the local Stake Chapel.

John Dehlin [03:09:31] Anyway, as somebody, just on a personal note, as somebody who lives in the public arena and has faced a lot of darts and has been through a lawsuit or two, it can feel very lonely because the number of people that even see the problems with the church is relatively small.

John Dehlin [03:09:54] And then of those who are willing to actually talk about it, even amongst friends and family, that number's way smaller. But the number of people that are willing to put their names and their reputations in the public arena and face media scrutiny is almost non existent. Like, I can, you know, Dave Nielsen, like you guys, you know, a couple podcasters and bloggers and YouTubers. Mark, there's very, very few people in a high demand religion context, and especially in the Mormon context that would ever be willing to put their name and their reputations on the line. And then when you add to that the Huntsman name, I don't think any of us could ever thank you and Marianne enough for what you've done.

John Dehlin [03:10:41] And I know y' all tend to downplay compliments and maybe. Thanks. But personally, y' all have moved the needle. I think I have a good sense for the needle. Y' all have moved the needle in gigantic ways and you've paid a price for it. And I just want to thank you both for being willing to do that.

James Huntsman [03:11:05] Very kind of you. And you're welcome. And you're welcome.

John Dehlin [03:11:09] And now you can sail off into anonymity. Is that what's going to happen?

James Huntsman [03:11:13] Probably right back where it was before, before this started.

John Dehlin [03:11:17] There's still Blue Fox Entertainment, right?

James Huntsman [03:11:20] Yeah, but nobody sees me there. It's the brand.

John Dehlin [03:11:24] Okay. All right. Any. Any final words you want to share, James? Final words before we end?

James Huntsman [03:11:31] No, just. Thank you for arranging this and Mark, thanks for coming, giving the spin, the legal, Legal take. I couldn't have done all that. And so that's. And, and, and so I appreciate you doing that and also your perspective.

James Huntsman [03:11:46] You know, just most families and like ours, too, I mean, we live in our family, Bubbles. And I don't, I don't know what it looks like to be an outsider looking into a Huntsman, a Puglia deland, or anyone else, because we're in that. So I, So it's, It's. We're always curious to get other people's perspectives and, and, and their opinions on things because it's, it's nice to have a, A broad spectrum of views and opinions because that's generally where you get the good information and the good paths forward is having a few different voices in the room. So appreciate you doing this. Appreciate you having set up and for those out listening, thanks so much for giving us some of your time. And I would say until next time, but

John Dehlin [03:12:38] you're open to telling your story someday.

James Huntsman [03:12:42] Get in here. Scary. Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:12:45] Appreciate it anyway. All right, Mark, any final words?

Mark Pugsley [03:12:48] Nope. Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:12:49] Okay.

Mark Pugsley [03:12:49] Glad we could do it.

John Dehlin [03:12:50] Well, thanks to everyone who joined us today. Thanks to our staff that made today possible. Thanks to our donors. We couldn't do this without you. And I shout out to Dave Nielsen for his courage and what he's done. We're. We're all serving to some degree on the back of him.

Mark Pugsley [03:13:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:13:08] And any other people that have helped contribute. Check out the Widow's Might. It's a great website to learn more about the LDS Church's finances. They do a fantastic job. And you know, to all those who are involved in the class action, lawsuits, etc. We'll see. We'll see what the future holds.

Mark Pugsley [03:13:25] We'll see.

John Dehlin [03:13:26] But thanks again, James.

James Huntsman [03:13:28] Pleasure. Have a good one.

John Dehlin [03:13:29] Thanks, Mark.

Mark Pugsley [03:13:31] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [03:13:32] And thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Email us@mormonstoriesmail.com if you have feedback. We always love your comments here. If you want to give send James and Marianne your love gratitude, you can post them in the comments here in the chat or on the YouTube feed and we'll make sure they get them. You can email forward any compliments you you have all forward them on to James and Marianne. If you've got something super nice to say. I'm sure they would love to feel your love or maybe they don't need it or want it, I don't know.

John Dehlin [03:14:04] But we always love your feedback and so please share it. Please subscribe and like the channel we're on. Tick tock, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. And we always appreciate that you'll subscribe and like and comment there because we need that for the algorithms. Anyway, you guys take care. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

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