Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is November 17, 2020 and we are in the final episode of what I think has been a very, very important series for Mormon Stories podcast.

John Dehlin [00:00:20] Over the past couple weeks we've been interviewing legendary Utah journalist Lynn Packer. Lynn is the nephew of late Mormon Apostle Boyd K. Packer. He was a journalist in Utah in the 60s, 70s and 80s. He taught journalism at BYU.

John Dehlin [00:00:38] He covered so many of the really important Mormon related and Utah related news stories of the 70s and 80s. Things like the Mark Hoffman scandal, the Lafferty brothers, Gary Gilmore, all sorts of really interesting Warren Jeffs, all sorts of really interesting news stories. But what Lynn Packer is best known for is doing all the research for over, I believe 15 years doing research on Mormon General Authority Paul H. Dunn. Last episode was about that. It turns out that one of the most, probably the second most beloved Mormon General authority in the world, Paul H. Dunn in the 70s and 80s was telling lies about World War II heroics and playing professional baseball on St.

John Dehlin [00:01:26] Louis Cardinals. When in reality he, he had made those stories up and was lying to the, to the Mormonism. But it was much worse. He was using his reputation and his relationship with other celebrity Mormons like Steve Young, like the Osmonds, to advance fraudulent schemes.

John Dehlin [00:01:46] I believe it was the Affleck, if I've, if I've got the name right. But it was a scheme that, that caused Utahns and Mormons to lose millions and millions of dollars. This was all something that the Church fought to keep from coming public. It tried to suppress it. It actually fired Lynn Packer from his job at BYU for covering this story. And in the end, all of Lynn Packer's investigative work turned out to be true. Or the bulk of it, or all of it. I don't want to speak too absolute, but the result was Paul H. Dunn was forcibly put on emeritus status by the LDS Church.

John Dehlin [00:02:28] And that was an important story and it was something that affected me as a Mormon at BYU in the late 80s and early 90s. So you know, a major theme here is how the LDS Church has this history of, of number one, encouraging its membership intentionally, unintentionally to be vulnerable to massive fraud. Whether it's pyramid schemes or multi level marketing schemes or whatever, the Utah leads the nation in fraud and affinity fraud. And then too often Mormon Church leaders, stake presidents, bishops, sometimes even general or area authorities will be involved behind the scenes or even in front of the scenes in advancing and promoting these Scams.

John Dehlin [00:03:20] And it just continues and continues to happen. It's happening today. And so this is a sub theme that runs throughout all of these episodes and it and shares with the Paul H. Dunn episode last week. What we're going to be talking about today, what we're going to be talking about today is something that is going to be probably very controversial. There is a Mormon man named Tim Ballard who started a nonprofit called Operation Underground Railroad. And at face value, it sounds really amazing. Tim Ballard basically claims that he goes around the world, creates these jump teams and puts together these paramilitary groups with, with ex Navy seals and they break into brothels where children are being held against their will and used as sex slaves and, and rescues them.

Lynn Packer's Investigation of Operation Underground Railroad

John Dehlin [00:04:17] And you know, what's not to like about that? We all, we all, including myself, including Lynn Packer, we're vehemently against sexual abuse. We're vehemently against child abuse. We're vehemently against sex trafficking. So why in the world would I or Lyn or anyone spend any time doing anything other than like celebrating Lynn Packer and operational under Operation Underground Railroad and saying it's the greatest thing to happen in the world?

John Dehlin [00:04:45] Well, it turns out that Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad are under investigation for fraud. And it turns out that many people who have worked for Operation Underground Railroad, former board members, former employees, other people closely connected, including people that have gone on jumps with, with Tim Ballard and others, have started speaking out privately to me, but more importantly to Lynn Packer. And Lynn has been gathering evidence on, on Tim Ballard and Operation Operation Underground Railroad. And what he's put together is a really compelling case of potential fraud. And that's a really serious claim. I don't, I'm not claiming here on Mormon stories that, that there is fraud going on, but there is enough, you know, for me, Lynn Packer has enough credibility in his investigative work as a journalist with Paul Dunn and others, combined with the evidence that he's pulled together for Tim Ballard and operational Underground Railroad, together with all the journalists and former associates of Tim Ballard, board members, employees, people have gone on jumps, etc.

John Dehlin [00:06:03] They've come to us and provided the, the following sorts of evidence and these are some of the things that are alleged against Tim Ballard and or Operation Underground Railroad. And one of his most important proponents, which is Attorney General, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes. They're sort of team members or partners in, in what Lynn Packer is alleging to be very serious fraud. And these are some of the allegations.

John Dehlin [00:06:31] Stockpiling over $30 million without that money being used for charitable purposes just sitting in a holding tank. Excessive compensation for Tim Ballard. Unethical accounting that is apparently trying to obscure the salary of Tim Ballard even though it's, it's supposed to be a 501c3 nonprofit lavish expenditures including first class airfare, five star hotels. These dramatic helicopter appearances where, where Tim will show up at fundraiser events in a helicopter. In Shawn Reyes using excessive emotion and religious manipulation to lure donors including you know, telling these heart wrenching tear filled stories that God protected our participants or that God, you know, came to Tim Ballard at the temple and inspired him to do what he's doing.

John Dehlin [00:07:29] Claiming credit, our claiming credit for raids that they weren't involved in. Engaging in illegal and unsafe raids with these jump teams that often are very ineffective and yield no real meaningful positive results. There's allegations that team members of these jump teams have been involved in illegal drug use while on raids.

John Dehlin [00:07:53] Also sexual assault of participants or people involved in these raids. Drawing money and attention away from legitimate charities who are meaningfully trying to make a difference in this space in, in, you know, and taking all that money away so that these charities can't really do the work that they need to do. Sean Reyes politicizing the suffering of children and even victimizing children for his own political gain, including speaking about this at the Republican National Convention recently.

John Dehlin [00:08:30] Associating with and taking advantage of known conspiracy theories like QAnon which are false and incredibly damaging to innocent people. Using the LDS Church's law firm Curtin McConkey to intimidate and silence whistleblowers and in summary, just manipulating wealthy donors through religious and patriotic emotion and misusing or misallocating funds all on the backs of a very vulnerable population. So those are the allegations that Lynn Packer has put together. He has put them together in a series of five 30 minute videos that can be found on YouTube. They are incredibly interesting and for many compelling and I'm super bummed frankly that more people don't know about these, these videos.

John Dehlin [00:09:19] And I hope you'll, we'll share in the show notes a link to the channel that Lynn packers created where he, where he shares this videos and today we're going to be sharing some excerpts from these videos. It's going to be a multi hour episode so please hold on. But I promise you this is really important and, and the thing that I just want to make most clear is, and I think Lynn will agree me with, agree with me on this as people that care deeply about sexual abuse, predatory sexual behavior, ritualistic sexual abuse and sex Trafficking.

John Dehlin [00:09:58] If somebody is truly helping these victims of these sorts of crimes, then we're in full support. But if somebody is crossing the line and misrepresenting what's going on for monetary or for excessive monetary and political gain to the point where it becomes fraudulent and. Or corrupt, that goes from being something really amazing and altruistic to being something really heinous that you're profiting politically or monetarily off the back of very disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. And again, I'm not saying that Sean Reyes or Tim Ballard are guilty of these things. I'm saying that there's serious allegations and that they're currently under investigation for this, and that there needs to be journalists, Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, you know, Radio west, journalists outside Utah.

John Dehlin [00:11:00] There needs to be a spotlight shown on this organization so we can have these questions answered. And if these organizations say and provide evidence that all these claims are false, that's amazing. And I personally invite Tim Ballard or any of his people right now to come on Mormon stories in response to these allegations and. And to provide us the evidence because. Because wouldn't it be amazing if all of this is false? Limb packers all wet and everything's on the up and up, and they're just saving tens of thousands of children with their 30, 40, $50 million worth of investment.

John Dehlin [00:11:35] So that's a long introduction, but I think it's a needed one to give you a sense for what we have in store for you today. So without any further ado. Oh, and we're welcoming our viewers on YouTube and Facebook.

John Dehlin [00:11:48] If you have information on Tim Ballard, Operation Underground Railroad, positive or negative, if you have questions, if you have concerns, anything you want to share, tips, you can share it here. And we'll give you Lynn Packer's email. And Lynn will help you know how to report any evidence you have to the proper investigators so that the legal process can move forward. So without any further ado, Lynn Packer, welcome back to Mormon Stories podcast.

Lynn Packer [00:12:18] Thanks. Good to be here.

John Dehlin [00:12:20] All right, I may have goofed something in terms of the information on the introduction. I just want to give you a quick chance to correct any misstatement I may have made in the introduction.

Lynn Packer [00:12:30] No, I think that was generally a good overview.

John Dehlin [00:12:33] Okay. All right, so let's go ahead and begin. You've prepared some really important slides, and what I'll do is I'll be jumping in several times throughout your slide presentation to either ask questions or incorporate comments or share video that I put together. But we'll let you kind of Kick off the presentation as you've planned it.

Lynn Packer [00:13:00] Sure. The first slide is just an overview of Operation Underground Railroad. It's Utah based. It was formed in California, but the base is here in Utah. It's a nonprofit, could be called a charity. One of the technical terms is an NGO because it's not governmental, but it works with government agencies. It's essentially a paramilitary force, as you pointed out, that primarily they form these jump teams and go in and rescue child sex slaves.

Lynn Packer [00:13:35] But in the United. And that's outside the United States. In the United States they would not be permitted to do that. So they have another program and that's where they help law enforcement agencies that already have sort of like sex crimes units go after particularly pedophiles. Pedophiles are trolling the Internet to try and lure in young children. It's mostly involves girls, but occasionally boys and essentially commits rape with them.

Lynn Packer [00:14:10] And their highest profile advocates and fundraisers, you've pointed out, is Tim Ballard and Attorney General Sean Reyes. And again as you pointed out, has collected a lot of money. I think you use the term 60 million, it could be as high as 80 million. It's hard to determine because they only file the reports once a year. And it appears they're having a bonanza fundraising year this year. And as you said, our is now under criminal investigation by the Davis County Attorney's office. And as you point out, it doesn't mean that they're guilty of anything. It's just that they're looking into it and it could be that they complete the investigation and find nothing wrong.

Lynn Packer [00:14:58] And so the question that I pose on the next slide is this, is, oh, you are a legitimate charity or is it a scam? And how can prospective donors know? How do you tell? What do you do to find out? Because the class is good and it's something that is worthy of donations.

Lynn Packer [00:15:21] And the other question is, is why is Mormonism and Repub Republicanism so deeply embedded in its DNA? It's, it's there deeply in the roots. And the next slide shows really quick.

John Dehlin [00:15:36] Lynn, if it's okay. No, go ahead and do the next slide and then I'll ask you my questions.

Lynn Packer [00:15:40] Okay, then, then the, the, the, the next slide encourages people to research the pros and cons. And there's lots of pros out there. Far more positive information about ou are than negative. There's very little negative out there. And the positive, you can go online, you can go to YouTube and like watch the movie Operation Toussaint. You used to have to Pay to watch it. You can now watch it for free and you can go to our rescue.org and there's lots of information there about our. And the other thing you could do is you could go to YouTube and look at some of the videos that I've done. I've done five of them and the facts lead me to the conclusion that it's a scam, that Tim Ballard is a flim flam man.

John Dehlin [00:16:37] What does flim flam mean for those who don't know?

Lynn Packer [00:16:39] Pardon?

John Dehlin [00:16:40] What does flim flam mean for those who don't know?

Lynn Packer [00:16:42] It's just another word for some like a scamster, somebody that uses deception to get money. Whether it's a door to door salesman or a telemarketer. Flim flame.

John Dehlin [00:16:57] So like, like Paul Dunn you're saying?

Lynn Packer [00:17:00] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

How Child Sex Trafficking Is Sold to the Public

John Dehlin [00:17:02] Okay, so let's, let's. We're going to be digging in but I just want to spend the early bit sort of painting the picture for what people are sold into. So if, if I'm a wealthy donor and I show up and I show up at a our fundraising event, what will I, what will I experience there? And then what is the pitch that will be sold to me and, or that I'll watch in these movies that he's put out And I know we're going to get into it but just to give a high level p pitch.

Lynn Packer [00:17:34] Yeah. If you went to one of the events the star of the show would be Tim Ballard and then his sidekick Sean Reyes often is at the fundraisers and you know, further furthers the, the pitch. But basically what he will say is, is that this is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world and that it's only next to drug trafficking. That's the trafficking of young girls for sex, turning them into sex slaves.

Lynn Packer [00:18:14] That's one of the statistics. And then there's others that are involved and quite often as he tells the story, he will cry. He will talk about experiences where they've been on a raid, it's a sting. Ballard usually he doesn't anymore but somebody from our acts as a decoy. They play like they're a rich person, as you pointed out, that wants to have sex with underage kids.

Lynn Packer [00:18:45] And so they go into a brothel, they find and rescue these kids and then that sort of brings them to tears. And basically the sales pitch, the attempt to get donations is a combination of tugging at heartstrings because of these poor kids. And they often show images of them and fear mongering. So you feel sorry for These mostly kids.

Lynn Packer [00:19:20] Who are foreigners in foreign lands because they can't do that type of operation here in the United States and video it as they do. And so you really feel sorry for the kids. You see the video of it and then part of it is fear mongering. They'll continually say, it could happen here, it could happen to your child. And so you think, well, if I donate money to this, it's partly to help my children and if I could

John Dehlin [00:19:44] add a third column to it, so to speak, it's, it's celebrity, celebrity involvement. Can you, I know we're going to talk about this later, but can you just give us a high level list of some of the celebrities that, that he will, he will either make reference to privately or publicly or literally bring out on stage?

Lynn Packer [00:20:04] Well, there, there are several. It would be a fairly long list, but he gets them either to appear there. Derek Hoff, who's with Dancing with the. Not Dancing with the Stars, but the, there's another dancing show on television that he's often involved. Yeah, Dancing with the Stars, he's involved with that. And sometimes he got Steve Young, the former NFL player, to do a pitch. And always politicians like Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee and Sean Reyes. That's part of what I'm going to talk about because it's mostly conservative Republican politicians, although on occasion there are some Democrats who jump on this. Ben.

John Dehlin [00:20:46] Right. But, but a huge one is Glenn Beck. Right, I'll get into that. Yeah, Glenn Beck. Yeah, Glenn Beck and Evander Holyfield. And then of course our newly elected congressman Burgess Owens, who's an NFL, you know, star, like lot, lots of celebrities, even the Smarts. He tried to imply publicly that Elizabeth and Ed Smart were involved. I only mentioned up front because it's, it's what Paul Dunn did. It's using celebrities to push a fraudulent product. Allegedly fraudulent product.

Lynn Packer [00:21:22] Yeah, yeah, the Smarts were involved and then they withdrew our. Made a big deal out of Elizabeth Smart coming on the board of directors and working for them. And I don't think they ever mentioned the fact that she left. Some people may think she's still involved.

John Dehlin [00:21:38] Right. All right. And then of course, it's backed by really, really, really wealthy people. Millionaires and $80 million plus. Okay.

Lynn Packer [00:21:50] And some of the fundraisers, they will actually auction off an opportunity to go on a jump. Like if you donate 50,000, then you'll be able to go on this exciting thing where you're with Navy Seals and that and you can witness firsthand these kids being rescued.

John Dehlin [00:22:11] Right.

Lynn Packer [00:22:12] For that because these people are not well trained going into what could be a dangerous situation.

John Dehlin [00:22:20] And then, and then just talk quickly about the religious appeal, how, how they rely on religiosity and specifically Mormonism to, to compel donors.

Lynn Packer [00:22:31] It's the stories I'll get into.

John Dehlin [00:22:33] Okay.

Lynn Packer [00:22:34] Tim Ballard makes it clear that this is a calling by God to do this and they use that. And, and they, and what I call public prayer because remember, they usually use video cameras and they will shoot video of them praying and then make that part of their pitch.

John Dehlin [00:22:57] Okay. All right, so thanks for providing that introduction. I mean, what's not to love is, is kind of what, what I think a lot of people are thinking, like what's not to love about this? What a great guy. And actually I'm going to just share one of the first comments that I got.

Lynn Packer [00:23:12] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:23:14] Connor Jones writes smear campaign on one of the greatest men to live. And that, that actually highlights something really important because. Because he is worshiped as a, almost a demigod by his followers. Is that right?

Lynn Packer [00:23:31] Yeah. It appears to me from some of the people I've talked to that he has almost achieved like cult like status. Like one former worker said when he came up for a well planned presentation up in Rexburg, Idaho several years ago, everybody wanted to meet him, they wanted to have time with him. He has become extraordinarily popular. And some of his supporters will say, well, that's a good thing because then he provides strong leaders, leadership to rid the world of this heinous crime that's going on.

John Dehlin [00:24:10] Yeah. And, and you know, these, he'll come in, he'll, you know, there'll be a St. George event at this posh place and a helicopter will fly in, dropping down, you know, Sean Reyes and Tim Ballard. Right. And it's almost like an action hero like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rambo sort of vibe. Correct.

Lynn Packer [00:24:31] Sort of dramatic. It almost reminds me of a scene out of Apocalypse now is the choppers come in and they're there to the rescue. And in that, in the case of fundraisers to tell their stories and get people to donate.

John Dehlin [00:24:46] And with religion, you know, religion and patriotism and flag waving, you know, it's just, it's everything any, anyone could ever love. Right?

Lynn Packer [00:24:54] Yeah. And yeah. Okay, on the, the next slide, I get to some of these.

John Dehlin [00:25:00] Here we go. Let's do it.

Lynn Packer [00:25:02] Is that. And some of these are fact and some of these are my opinion. And I'll try and distinguish between the two. It's a fact that their claims are unproven. And that they're using bogus pitches. Operation Underground railroad began in 2013,

John Dehlin [00:25:23] and

Lynn Packer [00:25:24] Ballard picked up the same pitches that other organizations that were similar and existed previously. And at no time, even though I've requested it, other reporters have requested it. What's your documentation prove that this is true? Prove that this is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, and it has been for like 10 years. And so when is it going to overtake drugs if it's the fastest growing? And, and, and they, they don't do that. The next red flag is really.

Inflated Trafficking Numbers and Red Flags

John Dehlin [00:26:01] Can I talk, Can I ask you about that, Lynn? So in your video, and tell me if we're going to cover this in the later part of the presentation, you, you talk about these accusations about millions and millions of kids being trafficked. And they don't just say sex traffic, they say organ trafficked. And this is like so heinous that they're these allegations that in Latin American countries or whatever, they're keeping children in farms to harvest their organs. It's, it's, it feels like the most appalling, terrifying thing that you can imagine. But, but then they use these claims about millions and millions. Right. And you actually called an organization, I believe, in Vienna, to vet some of the statistics that they were claiming. Is that right?

Lynn Packer [00:26:45] Right. Yeah, they, they use some of their statistics, and the representative in Vienna is disappointed that they're using them because they're unproven.

John Dehlin [00:26:55] Can I play that part of your video? Do you mind if I play that part?

Lynn Packer [00:26:58] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:27:00] Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump, I'm going to jump to one of, one of Lynn's video segments. And, and in it you talk, Lynn, about the failure of Utah media, national media, to vet statistics. And so you give an example, and I'm just going to play that for a second to kind of give meat to this. Is that okay?

Lynn Packer [00:27:28] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:27:28] Okay.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:27:30] A KUTV report said, according to a press release, human and child sex trafficking is one of the fastest growing and most profitable crimes found through throughout the United States. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports there are more than 20 million people currently enslaved in human trafficking worldwide. Two million of them being children.

Video Clip 1 [00:27:52] There's the report, they're saying it said 20 million current trafficking slaves, 2 million children. That's what they say. Read this again. United Nations Office on Drugs, Drugs and Crime reports there are more than 20 million people currently enslaved in human trafficking worldwide. Two million of them being children. Is that true?

Video Clip 1 [00:28:16] Here's what the report actually says, and it includes a Graph. All you have to do is read. It says in 2016 a peak of more than 24,000 detected victims was recorded. There is no mention of 20 million currently enslaved or 2 million of them being children.

Video Clip 1 [00:28:34] It's 24,000 versus 20 million. OUR inflates the number more than 800 times. OUR has a legal duty to document its claims it didn't. Reporters are free to fact check the claims they didn't. So I did. I called Vienna, Austria. I left a message and also emailed the UN's research expert on trafficking in persons, Fabrizio Sirica. He's the one that wrote the report.

Video Clip 1 [00:29:04] He responded via email saying he would get back with a detailed response. But in the meantime, he said many things of what you ask clarifications for are indeed not accurate. Information that keep on being reiterated that indicates he's aware people out there are citing unproven statistics. The last section of my office.

John Dehlin [00:29:25] Okay, so I'll, I'll stop that. Um, and I thought that was just an incredibly important piece of journalism you did, Lynn. You basically, you're not just claiming that they're using false statistics. You called the origin of the statistics they're citing and demonstrated that they're, they're using fraudulent statistics as a way to make the problem seem bigger than it is so that then they can raise more money in a fraudulent way. Right.

Lynn Packer [00:29:54] It's what reporters are supposed to do. They're supposed to fact check. If someone provides some information, in particular a statistic that seems incredibly high, then they should check it out. One of the major statistics is that continually Ballard, Reyes and others claim that there's all these stranger abductions going on. This is by a stranger, not by someone that the person knows.

Lynn Packer [00:30:23] And the child being forced into sex slavery, whisked away from their parents. And we've asked repeatedly for one example in Utah. Just one. Not dozens or hundreds, but just one. And it's something that apparently they throw around as part of their fear mongering. Your child could be abducted off the street or out of your house and then put into sex slavery where they're sold for sex and they can't provide one. It would be helpful if they did that. It would be helpful if our would talk to reporters. But the pattern is that Reyes and Ballard only talk to reporters they think are going to do a fluff piece.

John Dehlin [00:31:16] And this is what's so desperately needed today is just fact checking and good journalism and, and people are believing way too many things with no evidence. And so it's just so important what you're doing. And you know it it in Utah, you've got these wealthy men and women who are terrified about their children being abducted. And so these types of stories can whip up their own emotion about their own kids and their heart going out for kids in poverty. It can make people feel like they're donating to a super worthy cause to prevent children from having their organs be harvested. But if that's not really going on in any serious way, and especially if all you are is really not doing anything about that, then they're raising millions of dollars for something that isn't going to the problem. They're. They're marketing. Correct.

Lynn Packer [00:32:05] The whole child trafficking thing is extremely complex. And I don't want to try and oversimplify it here. It takes a lot of reports and a lot of reporting to get into it. And it's also why O should not oversimplify it. It's very complex.

John Dehlin [00:32:22] Right. Okay, thank you. All right, let's, let's keep going. Thanks for that.

Lynn Packer [00:32:26] Well, the next point is one that I raised was they emphasized stranger danger pedophiles. And that's rare. It happens. It happens once in a while that somebody just flat out, a kid is kidnapped and then sold into sex slavery. But it's extremely rare. What happens most of the time are pedophiles who are known to the child and, or known to their parents. And there's no way that a jump team with machine guns can go dropping into a neighborhood, into a Cub Scout den or a little league team or sometimes in a grade school and catch these child sex predators because they're very subtle about it.

Lynn Packer [00:33:14] They groom. They don't just grab the child and haul them off into a closet. They groom them over a period of time. And if parents are to be warned, that's where most of the warning should go. It could happen right under your nose. And it's not somebody in a hippie van pulling up and grabbing your child.

John Dehlin [00:33:35] And if I can just add what my experience has been covering sexual abuse over the past several years, the number one protector and the number one protector of sexual abusers of children in Utah could possibly be the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is if you understand how many abusers have been protected by their bishops and stake presidents at the expense of victims.

John Dehlin [00:34:02] I think this is one of the main critiques that if Tim Ballard really wanted to protect children, he would get Curtin McConie in the Mormon Church to stop protecting real abusers. Bishops, I mean, how many bishops just in Utah over The past few years have been convicted of abusing children and teenagers as bishops in their Mormon wards in Utah. Like it's almost become a joke every month. If you know, many, many argue that if Tim Ballard really wanted to protect children, he would go after Curt McConk in the LDS Church. Not fictitious statistics that don't have any backing behind them.

Lynn Packer [00:34:39] Yeah, there would be programs because education is would be a big factor if the church were taking action itself and educating that is beginning even in primary when kids are really young is very carefully start teaching them, teach the parents and be on the lookout itself. When I was in scouting, it was years later that I found out that the assistant scoutmaster was a sexual predator and was not caught during the time he was assistant scoutmaster. It's common happens all the time. The these predators want to get into a situation where they're near young people and can pick off one that's susceptible to being groomed and then commit the crimes.

John Dehlin [00:35:41] I was, I was just stunned by an article that came out this week. National News article. Nearly 90,000 sex abuse claims filed against the Boy Scouts of America so far. And the reason why I bring that up is because anyone who studies child sex abuse will tell you that the vast majority of abusers are trusted and known friends or family of the child, including church leaders and Boy Scout leaders. And again it's places like the Boy Scouts or you know, havens religious havens like the Catholic Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormon Church, where the vast majority of these kids are being abused. Anyway, I think I've made that point.

Lynn Packer [00:36:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:26] Then let's, let's go back to your, to your. Thanks to your slide. Okay, next.

Lynn Packer [00:36:33] The, the, the next one is is that politically our is highly partisan and it's also infused with Mormonism with, with both of these things. And I think when any organization, especially one that's a charity and one that's being actually supported by everybody, even if you don't donate to our, you're subsidizing our because people getting tax breaks for making donations OOR is getting tax breaks on expenses that it has. And some of that slack has to be picked up by people who aren't getting the tax breaks. So anyway, so all you are is if you took a population as a whole and over here on the right side, you have extreme Republican politics meshed with extreme Mormon religion.

Lynn Packer [00:37:38] And that really defines the underpinnings of OU are if you go to the next slide, it's a mixture of a union of church and state where you have the two arch conservative religious and political tenets come together. And so it's very closely aligned, as I'm going to point out, so people can look at the examples and see whether they disagree or not. It's very closely aligned with extremist Mormon church and Republican Party tenets, beginning with the, with the next slide.

Lynn Packer [00:38:17] One of the keys is that President Trump has in fact supported this so called anti child sex trafficking prosecutor detection and prosecution. He's done it by promoting legislation and he is very close, in very close contact with Utah's Attorney General Sean Reyes and with Tim Ballard. Both of them are advisors and Tim Ballard even sits on one of President Trump's committees. So it's all closely tied together with that politics. Now how.

John Dehlin [00:38:59] And Lynn, can I ask you a question about that?

Lynn Packer [00:39:01] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:39:02] So I have listeners, Mormon stories that support Republican policies and that might even support Trump and ones that might support other parties. What I don't want to give the appearance of is that we're just doing an ad hominem argument. We're basically saying our is bad because it's affiliated with Republicans or Trump. So can you talk just a little bit more? You know, there are going to be a lot of people that are going to say that guilt by, there's no guilt by association there per se. So what is, what is the problem with the political affiliation to you that's most concerning, separate from the fact that it just happens to be Trump or the Republican Party. Is there something else to that or.

Lynn Packer [00:39:44] Well, a couple of things. One of them is, is that we don't know exactly what's going to happen to these programs because Trump was not elected and, and a Democratic president is going to take over. And, and one reason that it's important is you have to ask yourself is all this money that the federal government is pouring into this problem besides our. And the federal government is putting in millions and millions. The FBI is involved, the CIA is involved, the Department of Homeland Security is involved, the United Nations. They're all working together to crack down on anyone who is victimizing young children, whether it's to harvest organs or forced labor or forced sex.

Lynn Packer [00:40:34] So we don't know what the impact is going to be. And so to begin with, it's no bad thing that President Trump puts money into this and has a committee and has assigned Ivanka, his daughter, to do it. And that's why Ballard and Reyes have a lot to do with working with Ivanka Trump.

Lynn Packer [00:40:51] The question is, is it being used effectively and people who donate and people who pay taxes should, should want to know, is it being used?

John Dehlin [00:41:02] Well, and I think it's also for me, what's most problematic, specifically about Shawn Reyes, and I mentioned this in the intro, is if he's simply using claims of rescuing victims of child sex trafficking as a way to gain political notoriety and popularity, if he's claiming association with and or support of this, when in reality it's just a big money grab that's using children as the way to make the money and, and to get the political power, then that. That political use is what becomes problematic. Does that make sense?

Lynn Packer [00:41:40] Well, yeah, and that's exactly why both donors and the news media should be interested in having more information. I've tried again and again to get our to answer questions, to do interviews. They could give statistics and they could say, well, we're not going to get a fair shake. But you can't have it both ways. You can't say you're not telling the full story, but we're not going to help you out in getting the full story.

John Dehlin [00:42:12] Okay, excellent. All right.

QAnon Connections and Political Dog Whistles

Lynn Packer [00:42:15] Okay. So you could go to the next slide.

John Dehlin [00:42:22] And tell us what QAnon is. I know the slide mentions QAnon. For those listeners who have not yet heard about QAnon before you talk. Yeah. Give us, give us a sense of what that is.

Lynn Packer [00:42:34] Yeah. Pull the slide up again, because here's what the QAnon conspiracy is. And I think most of your viewers have at least heard about it, even if they don't know exactly what it is. Q is an anonymous person on the Internet who is clearly on the far right in terms of politics, far right, conservative politics.

Lynn Packer [00:43:00] And nobody that I know of knows who Q is and started this theory some time ago. It mushroomed. It was promoted largely or extensively by supporters of Donald Trump. And these Q supporters would turn up in great numbers at all of his rallies. And so you would often see different types of Q signs at the rallies. And the theory is simply this, that President Trump is a messianic figure. As I put on the slide, as I have on the slide, who is battling these pedophiles.

Lynn Packer [00:43:45] And these pedophiles are influenced by Satan and they're mostly Democrats and Hollywood stars. That's the theory, the conspiracy theory in a nutshell. And so if you believe, and if

John Dehlin [00:43:58] I can add, it's like Oprah, Tom Hanks, you know, pick any loved, you know, beloved Hollywood movie star. It's basically that Oprah and Tom Hanks and all these movie stars are keeping children in the basic basement of a Pizzeria somewhere and then selling them out to be, you know, sex slaves in Hollywood and in Washington D.C. and that Trump is our savior to rescue the kids and to go after, you know, these, these liberals. Check child sex traffickers.

Lynn Packer [00:44:31] Right, right.

John Dehlin [00:44:32] Yeah.

Lynn Packer [00:44:33] And, and as the slide points out, Trump has been asked repeatedly by reporters, don't you denounce it there. Nobody has ever proven this. Nobody has ever shown that there's all these Satan influenced pedophiles, mostly Democrats, out pillaging and raping. But Trump did say he's made very few comments. He's tolerated them. He doesn't eject them from his rallies. He said they like me very much. He knows that they really like him obviously because they're some of his most enthusiastic supporters. And he said, I've heard that these are people who love our country. In the meantime, this QAnon conspiracy has, has spread worldwide. You will find QAnon supporters probably in almost every major country. It's just a conspiracy theory that a lot of people like to believe.

John Dehlin [00:45:37] And weren't several, several candidates for Congress and maybe even some elected congresspeople this recent term, didn't they win, win some of those elections based on claiming to be QAnon supporters?

Lynn Packer [00:45:52] They did. That's how, that's how I'll give one example in a couple of minutes. But exactly they ran on that platform that, that they're against child sex trafficking and then they will, then they'll flat out say it's mostly Democrats, it's mostly movie stars. Even our has come under criticism from some QAnon people. The reason is, is because Ballard hobnobs with some movie stars and they didn't like that. Some people have accused the Mormon Church of harboring child sex slaves in the tunnels underneath the church office building and the, in the temple in Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [00:46:39] So and, and by the way, for people who think this sounds kooky, I have personally friends who believe that, that the First Presidency in the Quorum of these are friends I love. They believe that, that the LDS Church First Presidency in the Quorum of the Twelve have catacombs in the basement of the Salt Lake Temple that hold women and children in, in prisons so that the First Presidency of the Quorum of the Twelve can have sex with them, have babies and then kill and harvest the babies and their hearts and eat them.

John Dehlin [00:47:12] And these are people that I know and love who tell me they believe this. And this is the same sort of satanic ritual abuse stuff that we covered early on Mormon stories that's now kind of morphed into QAnon.

John Dehlin [00:47:25] And it's, it, you know, in and of itself, it's sort of just a really far fetched baseless and outrageous claim. But if people are raising money and getting political power by terrorizing people, that's where it becomes a problem.

Lynn Packer [00:47:39] But you're right, and it's, it, it resurfaces. I mean, conspiracy theories like this, they'll sort of die out and then they pop up again. So it's not anything that's really new. It's just that the, the, the, the alleged facts behind the theory or note.

John Dehlin [00:47:57] Okay, all right, okay.

Lynn Packer [00:48:00] Then on the next slide, Sean Reyes gave one of the speeches at the Republican National Convention and a lot of his critics construed it as a QAnon dog whistle speech. And I have just a tiny summary there on the screen of what he said. He talked about young girls sold into sex slavery.

Lynn Packer [00:48:24] And then President Trump summoned Ivanka, directed hundreds of millions of dollars for raising awareness, liberating victims and prosecuting predators. Which is more confirmation of all the millions of dollars, not just by our donors, that are going into this.

Lynn Packer [00:48:41] And here are just a couple of the critical comments. I don't have the positive ones. I'm just taking the critical one sort of out of context. But one says there's real concern or real concern about real problems drowned out by dog whistles to the QAnon crowd. And then somebody asks Sean, have you been drinking QAnon juice? Is Trump your messiah?

Lynn Packer [00:49:05] And I think it's clear that Trump and other conservative Republicans running for office like Reyes could not afford to offend Trump, their QAnon supporters, because there are so many. There are in the millions now around the world. It just mushroomed. Nobody knows exactly why. And it doesn't matter how many press reports there are saying there's nothing to this. There's no proof.

Lynn Packer [00:49:34] Trump, Reyes, nobody has given any evidence whatsoever. And yet they say it and people believe it. Then the next slide shows a corollary that to the QAnon conspiracy theory that I'm sure many of your viewers have heard about because it was really hot for a while. All the networks did stories, the local press did stories. And that was the Wayfair QAnon like conspiracy theory where Wayfair, which is a website, is sort of like an Amazon of furniture and they sell furniture on the web. My wife has bought two or three chairs from Wayfair. And the theory was the, the allegation was that Wayfair was trafficking children, sex slaves in these furniture boxes that that's how they delivered them.

Lynn Packer [00:50:24] I know it's preposterous, but hundreds of thousands of people believed it. They retweeted it, they. They sent this information out and they panicked over it. That something so heinous could be going on by what appeared to be a legitimate company, but wasn't. It was just basically making huge amounts of money, trafficking with these. With these kids. That one died out a little bit more quickly than the broad QAnon conspiracy theory. It still is out there, but it died down more quickly because it was specific. You had one company doing it, and all you need to do is find a witness who intercepted one of these boxes with a spot sex slave in it, and it would have blown the lid off of it.

Lynn Packer [00:51:11] Of course, that never. That. That never happened Now. So did. Did Reyes and Ballard. Discredit the. The Wayfare theory? Because what happened is, is when the Wayfare allegation was at its hottest, it was driving a lot of traffic, and I believe a lot of donations to operate Operation Underground Railroad, because they're the group that. That gets out there and stops these bad guys. And so what happens when Reyes and Ballard are asked to denounce it and the next slide shows that is that instead of saying, this is terrible and disregard it? Rhea said it's possible, positive that people are more attuned to human trafficking cases and people are questioning and people are concerned.

Lynn Packer [00:52:08] So, oh, my heck, instead of saying, this is terrible, it's a lie, and you're not only discrediting a major company, but you're scaring the hell out of people, he says that's a positive thing, just giving people a talk about it. And then he says it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Lynn Packer [00:52:27] Ben Ballard has been asked about it several times, and he said, with or without Wayfair, child trafficking is real. So instead of saying it's not Wayfair the first time, he said, well, it has to be investigated to see if it's Wayfair. And then he says, 2020 has been a horrific year for our children.

Lynn Packer [00:52:48] He says this year has been the worst. And what he says is reports of child abuse cases are millions higher this year than they were last year. And again, he says, is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world.

Lynn Packer [00:53:03] This is really, really dishonest because what happened is, is when the QAnon thing started getting all this traction on the web, and then when Wayfair came, the. The child sex reporting hotlines were overwhelmed with people seeing a sex predator behind every bush.

Lynn Packer [00:53:30] Thousands and thousands of reports that were absolutely not valid. But people erring on the side of, oh, I saw this person on the street, must be, or I saw this or that. And it got to where the organization that runs the hotline made a desperate plea to quit making calls that aren't valid, that, you know, make your call. And there have been calls to that hotline that have resulted in pedophiles being arrested. But what it was doing was getting in the way of legitimate calls.

Lynn Packer [00:54:04] And Reyes and Ballard and Trump all contributed to that by not coming out quickly and saying, there's nothing to this. Don't panic. And by the way, there aren't very many pedophiles out there actually abducting kids into sex slavery. It just isn't happening that much.

John Dehlin [00:54:24] Yeah. And, and a lot of people might think, what's the big deal? Why is this such a big deal? QAnon, why is it bad? Like, for those who don't know, there was this thing called Pizzagate, which was kind of the start of QAnon, where it was rumored that, you know, that, that Hillary Clinton was talking about this pizza joint and these emails got linked. But the, the QAnon conspiracy theorists said that they weren't really talking about pizza. They were, they were talking in code about children that were being sex trafficked out of the basement of this popular pizza joint in, you know, the D.C. area. Do you want to, do you want to finish the story, Lynn, or do you want me to finish it?

Lynn Packer [00:55:08] Well, you can finish it. It just, it just, it came to nothing. When you identify a specific place, then you can really go and check it out. And if you finish the story, somebody did go to.

John Dehlin [00:55:22] So this guy, was it like North Carolina? He like gets all these rifles and machine guns and all these handguns and he drives to the pizza joint near D.C. breaks into it, and I think he shoots some people because he's demanding to get into the basement.

Lynn Packer [00:55:41] He's there. He wants to free the sex slaves. It's sort of like a one man operation underground railroad jump.

John Dehlin [00:55:47] And what does he find in the basement? Yeah, there's no basement. There was no basement in the pizza joint at all.

Lynn Packer [00:55:56] Right. Yeah. The next slide shows just shows that there's the extent to which the Trump administration has meshed with, with Utah, with Sean Reyes and Tim Ballard, and Robert o' Brien is President Trump's security advisor. It's a major position in the White House. And he's lds, and so he comes to Utah and while he's in Utah, he helps support the, our Cause he said, it's my pleasure to join Reyes and share the work President Trump is doing to combat human trafficking. We're going to continue bringing the full force of the government to combat this in terms of attention and money.

Utah Political and Religious Figures Tied to OUR

Lynn Packer [00:56:43] And then Reyes had invited some of the key people to this meeting with this guest that has come from Washington. And Doterra Vice President Missy Larsen was there, and the president, CEO of Maloof Incorporated, Sam Maloof, who has.

Lynn Packer [00:57:06] A charity that's similar to and supports ouar. And so they were there to the meeting, then jumping to the next slide. And this is fairly well known, this is another Trump supporter. And I am cherry picking these. These are not representative. But I'm just giving you some examples of more Mormons who have bought into the conspiracy theory. And taking it to another level is this. David Farnsworth is a Republican legislator in Arizona, and he believes in the global sex trafficking conspiracy, that children are abducted and sold into sex slavery, which is a major step when they're taken and pushed into this.

Lynn Packer [00:57:51] And he believes that Trump's friend, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, he's the one that committed suicide after being accused of having sex with underage girls. He said he didn't commit suicide in a federal prison. So I just said he committed suicide. He said that didn't happen, but he was murdered because he could blow the lid off the alleged sex trafficking network that is at the cure of QAnon. So he's saying there's a conspiracy to murder this person who's an accused pedophile.

Lynn Packer [00:58:25] And he fears that children are being funneled into the hands of sex traffickers and get this, by rogue workers within the Arizona Department of Child Safety. He's an Arizona legislator, and he's saying our Department of Child Safety is supposed to be protecting kids, is that they're assisting in this child sex trafficking.

Lynn Packer [00:58:49] And he says that the Book of Mormon commands members of his faith to awaken people to prophecies of secret combinations is what he means that seek to support, to destroy government and freedom. And so in Mormon terms, this worldwide cabal is a secret combination. Because it's secret, nobody knows much about it.

John Dehlin [00:59:16] Okay, so, so, Lynn, can I, can I ask you a few questions? So, so Joe Boyd, one of our listeners, writes people didn't think Jeffrey Epstein island was real either. And what he's getting at there is, is that he's basically saying, yeah, Lynn Packer, you're poo pooing QAnon. But nobody believed that the Jeffrey Epstein island where Jeffrey Epstein allegedly or I think it's proven took teenage girls and maybe boys to, to have sexual experiences, you know, with adults. And I think it's, you know, I watched the Jeffrey Epstein documentary. I believe that, and I think that's legitimate. And I think he legitimately went to jail because of facts and evidence. But basically, people are saying, look, if Jeffrey Epstein can happen, QAnon can happen. What would you say in response to that?

Lynn Packer [01:00:08] Well, I would say it's unfortunate that the case didn't go to trial. Now one of his assistants has been charged, and that case was. May go to trial. But trials are one forum where facts and the truth emerge. If the lawyers are good and they're diligent in finding the facts and bringing them out in that particular form. And so it's easy to wonder and be skeptical, like your viewer is, well, was there really an island where this happened? Or there are other famous people who may have gone there, like Bill Clinton. They wonder that and shouldn't wonder it. But when you have a trial, you have the facts come forward, and then you're still free to believe. After you hear all that, you hear the, the prosecution and the defense witnesses and all the exhibits they use, then you can better make up your mind whether you think that there was this sexual fantasy island.

John Dehlin [01:01:08] And Joe Boyd, another listener, makes, makes a good comment. He basically says, I think the Epstein case gave a lot of life to QAnon and other stuff because it's in the same atmosphere. So that's a, that's a good observation from Joe Boyd. Thank you so much for sharing. And I just want to say that for me, again, the two biggest problems are there's so many real problems in the world, like real sex abuse of, of real Mormon kids in Utah and Boy Scouts and others. I don't like the distraction on the things that aren't real. That's the first problem. And then the second thing is, is when people are getting monetary or political power from whipping up people's fear about these conspiracies that don't exist. I'm repeating myself. But anyway, yeah, okay.

Scrutiny of OUR's Tactics and Accountability

Lynn Packer [01:01:56] And then jumping to the next one, because what I'm leading into is to talk, talk about some of the. Remember my, my theory is the case I'm putting forth here is a lot of extremist politicians and extremist Mormons have sort of coalesced around Operation Underground Railroad. So this slide has the magnet on it says that our. Has sort of been a magnet for some of these people. The main one, and I'm going to go through these individually, is Glenn Beck.

Lynn Packer [01:02:29] And then Eric Mutsos. He's been in the news in Utah. Most of your listeners and viewers may not recognize his name, but remember when they tried to organize a concert to protest against the use of Max masks in Utah? And first it was going to be in Kaysville, where I live, was going to be the park not far from my house.

Lynn Packer [01:02:57] And the mayor supported it, but the city council voted her down. And then it was going to be out in Grantsville. And then finally it was held in southern Utah. So that's Eric Mutsos. Then there's Utah Senator Mike Lee, who is a very strong our supporter politically. And then newly elected Burgess Owens. Just yesterday, the race was declared in his favor. And so now the one loan Democratic representative Utah had to Congress is gone, and it's all Republican now. So first I'm going to jump into Mootsos, the next one.

John Dehlin [01:03:34] Before you do, I'm going to have one question from a listener that I'd love you to answer. Sir Bonavox writes, I agree that there needs to be accountability for funds donated to combat child trafficking. But to say that human trafficking isn't really a worldwide problem is incorrect. Is that what you're saying? And I don't think, I don't think that's what we're saying. But, Lyn, what would you say to Sir Bonavox?

Lynn Packer [01:04:01] I would say that this is, again, a really extremely complex problem is what happened is many years ago, this use of sex trafficking and labor trafficking was hardly ever used. When, when I was a reporter at ksl, I covered lots of stories about prostitution, about child prostitution and about pedophiles. And it was always like prostitution. That's what it is. And so gradually, over the past decade and a half, people have started lumping any type of crime, sometimes not even crimes that involve children, as trafficking, whether it's for set organs or labor. And it's just expanded, expanded, expanded. And so under that definition, child trafficking, if we narrow it to children because there are others who could be trafficked for labor, is a huge problem worldwide.

Lynn Packer [01:05:06] But then you look at everything that's under that umbrella and so many things, it's really meaningless. It does not mean anything. We need to get back to where we develop terms and language that address specific, specific types of crimes so that you can't, on one hand say it's this huge worldwide problem.

Lynn Packer [01:05:29] And then you start talking about a very narrow part of it, as if that narrow part really is a lot wider spread than it is. For example, abduction of kids into child Sex slavery.

John Dehlin [01:05:46] Right. Okay. So I don't think we're saying that it doesn't exist or that it's not bad. I think we're saying that, that it's way more rare than, than what Tim Ballard and OU are. Are claiming.

Lynn Packer [01:06:00] They define it. I mean, and, and I'm not the only one that's raise this concern.

John Dehlin [01:06:07] Oh yeah, there are articles I, I could. I'm going to post four or five articles where mainstream national or international news outlets treat this topic more. More delicately and more in, in more detail. Yeah. It's not just you. Okay, next slide.

Extremist Rhetoric and Misuse of Trafficking Claims

Lynn Packer [01:06:27] Okay, so now I'm going to talk about in fairly. I have several slides here that talk about Eric Mutsos. He's a former Salt Lake City police officer and a devout Mormon. He made a lot of news when he left Salt Lake City pd He says about Book of Mormon and Jesus, I knew it was true.

Lynn Packer [01:06:49] And he said, there's times when I feel where I feel so close to Christ I can almost audibly hear his voice. So this is someone that believes he's being much like Tim Ballard. And he's seen here in the photo with Tim Ballard. For those of you that can see it, he's very much like Tim Ballard. God is directing me when I do. And if you really believe God is directing you, you should act with a lot more vigor than someone who thinks, well, I just made up my mind to do this. I'm not sure if I'm right or not, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Lynn Packer [01:07:21] And then he has made statements like called on the Mormon Church to divest itself of KSL Television and Deseret News or they're going to be reduced to ashes after the Savior comes to burn Babylon to hell. So he believes in the second coming. He not only believes that pedophiles and robbers and drug traffickers are going to be reduced ashes, but also KSL Television, the Deseret News because they tell balanced stories or they try to.

Lynn Packer [01:07:57] They don't do a very good job at that. But he's still unhappy with what they do. And he recently attended church and remember he's the one who organized the anti mask rallies. He recently attended church when it was opened up again. He said, I thought our family would be the only ones maskless. And he says no. To my surprise, most of the congregation didn't have masks on and it was a beautiful sight.

Lynn Packer [01:08:22] I don't follow it that well, but I don't think the church yet and maybe it has recently come out with an absolute mask requirement for going to the meetings. I just don't follow it. But at least when he went, it wasn't an absolute requirement, it was only a recommendation.

John Dehlin [01:08:38] Now it's so weird. If you watch General Conference just this past October, all of the brethren wore masks and they took them off to speak. But they're social distance. They're wearing masks. The churches encourage mask wearing. So for this guy to be a devout Mormon, but then like glorifying people getting together in groups and not wearing masks during a global pandemic when the hospitals are filling up, it's kind of weird.

Lynn Packer [01:09:04] It's weird and it's not responsible. But. But that's. That's just. These people are adamant. And I'll show you in a minute that Ballard and Reyes support what he does. Okay, next slide shows what he says about God's wrath. He said that the California fires, remember this was a month or so ago, said that the reason that God sent these fires was because the state decided to change the law to give more freedom to pedophiles.

Lynn Packer [01:09:40] That's why he said that was God's vengeance on. And of course, he is completely misstated. There was some legislation that involved pedophiles, but it wasn't to give them more freedom. It was to more clearly define the law. But they jump on it. Here's a law, it has something to do with pedophiles. And so the government is corrupt. And then not long after that, we had that windstorm where a lot of trees were blown down. And his answer to the press, yeah, I believe God did something with that that came crashing down in Soleil. So he sees these acts as being literally acts of God.

Lynn Packer [01:10:19] And then the next slide is, is that like other a lot of QAnon supporters, is that he believes there will be inevitably an armed rebellion in the United States. He predicts a doomsday with everybody being forced to defend themselves and their families.

Lynn Packer [01:10:40] And when he says it may not be against foreign invaders, these radical preppers, there's lots of preppers that aren't radical, but these radical preppers that are amassing machine guns and ammunition and such, such, they believe they're going to be fighting our government.

Lynn Packer [01:10:56] They believe the Constitution is going to hang by a thread and it's going to be some of these people using force to save the United States. And then he says that specifically it will most likely be our very government, because people being apathetic and not doing anything, they've allowed the government to take control and do things like tell us to wear masks and tell our children you can't go to school.

Lynn Packer [01:11:25] Then he says, can anybody explain how at this point it's not inevitable? And then you see somebody holding up a sign saying that one reason why government would want to disarm you is because they intend to do something that you would shoot them for. Like, and you can see why some of the mask demonstrations, the anti mass demonstrations in Utah have been so passionate because they're fired up by people like Bruce House.

Lynn Packer [01:11:55] Then the next slide shows Ballard appearing at one of his events on July 22. I don't have a slide for it. I had the photo, but Reyes appeared at one of them a few weeks before that. Mouth would have these events, rallies, most people not wearing masks, nobody, not many. Social distancing. And that's where you see, you mentioned Evander Holifield, the boxer. He shows up. And so you see that photo with Ballard, Mutsos and the boxer on the slide.

Lynn Packer [01:12:34] And they went out of the way saying you don't have to wear masks. And Moutso said this about Ballard. He said, he spoke about Operation Underground Railroad. In my opinion, he's a true hero. He puts it all on the line. He has saved over 4,000 kids from the worst evils our world won't look at. In other words, the world is not taking notice of this, which simply is not true. I ticked off the United Nations FBI Department. Holland. They all have programs, you may argue, well, they're not effective or they need to do better, but they all have programs to protect kids and to try and find and arrest pedophiles who commit these crimes. So it's just not true that only these NGOs, these charities are the ones leading the way.

John Dehlin [01:13:29] Let me, before we go on to the next slide, were you going to finish the thought or can I ask a question here?

Lynn Packer [01:13:35] No, go ahead. I'm just.

John Dehlin [01:13:36] Okay. So one thing that I'm not totally. I wanted to make sure we drive home the point. So, you know, in the, in the world, there's a lot of people that believe weird things. There's a lot of secular and religious people that believe weird things. You basically said that this Mutsos guy believes these weird things, that God sends the fire because California is supporting pedophiles, that God sends the windstorms, you know, that he's telling people not to wear masks. That's like half of our country. And so I guess what I'm asking is what does this have to do with our. In what way does this sort of, you know, become a problem for Tim Ballard in our. Is it just. Are you saying he's associated with people who believe weird things, or is there something more to it?

Lynn Packer [01:14:21] Well, no, I think it's more than guilt by association. If it were just guilt by association, you'd have the two separate not doing anything together and not direct support other than just maybe verbal, like Ballard saying, I like what this guy's doing. And then you'd say, okay, he's guilty by association because this guy's doing weird things. This is Ballard and Reyes going to his events. This is Ballard and Reyes speaking at the events. They can look out over the crowd and say, you guys aren't wearing masks. You're not social distancing. I cannot participate in this and I'm leaving.

Lynn Packer [01:14:57] But no, they sort of lead the cheers. And they'll often try and have it both ways. They will appear at certain events wearing masks, and they will sometimes say nice things about masks. And remember, even some of your viewers who are against wearing masks, it doesn't necessarily mean they're against other people wearing them. That's not the point. The point is they don't want to be forced and required to wear masks. Now, some of them take that to an extreme and say, masks cause you to get coronavirus. I've heard that one. But in any event, it's more than guilt by association. It's guilt by participation.

John Dehlin [01:15:39] So you're saying they're participating in Covid related practices that violate the federal and the state guidelines for health, and they're raising money.

Lynn Packer [01:15:51] Ballard, when he's going there, is going to give a speech and hope that people get out checkbooks. And he's using this venue of some of whom probably are QAnon leaners, but certainly those who are virulently against the state of Utah telling him, you can't wear masks. These are a source of funds and political support. So you're going to cut them off.

John Dehlin [01:16:16] And. And if I look at this thing with Evander Holyfield, the way I understand the way it works is you reach out to someone like Evander Holder Holyfield, you talk to his agent, you say, hey, we'll pay him 10 grand or 20 grand to appear at this event. He'll get, you know, first class airfare, he'll stay in a super nice hotel. And so this is how affinity fraud works. And so by. By using donations, right, to pay for a celebrity like Evander Holyfield to come out and endorse an event, then other rich donors who are in the audience, they're like, whoa, really famous, high profile, national, internationally known people are supporting Tim Ballard.

John Dehlin [01:16:58] I'll open up my wallet and give more money. And that's how affinity fraud works, is you get the celebrities. You use donor money to pay celebrities to come endorse an event so you can raise even more money. Is that right or not?

Lynn Packer [01:17:12] Or that too. And, or you talk to celebrity into making a donation that is covering their airfare and that's a donation, and it probably would be a tax deduction if they, if they care to take it.

Glenn Beck's Role in Promoting Tim Ballard

John Dehlin [01:17:26] Okay, before we jump out of the next slide, there's just a comment that I think is worth sharing. Roger. Roger writes Roger Moffitt. Child trafficking is factually not a huge issue. Fewer than 100 child abductions in the US per year. And he's saying sex trafficking is a subset of this. And so he's, he's basically saying that it is a super rare problem as, as the way Tim Ballard defines it. And he's basically trying to reinforce this idea that the statistics are misleading to generate the money and the power.

John Dehlin [01:18:04] And, and, and so thanks, Roger, for that. Rochelle writes QAnon and conspiracy theorists claim that there's a worldwide network run by powerful people. There's no evidence for that. I think Rochelle's responding to the thing about, you know, the Jeffrey Epstein thing, which I think we all believe. We all know there's people who are on the island with Jeffrey Epstein saying, here's who the visitors were. There's a visitors list. There are people talking. There are former victims who were brought to the island who were talking about the ways that they were expected to perform sexual acts with adults as underage. You know, there's, there's evidence, there's, there's witnesses, there's testimony.

John Dehlin [01:18:43] And that's the sort of thing that, that we're basically calling on. And I, I just thought that those things were worth sharing. Right. Okay. Should we go to Glenn Beck?

Lynn Packer [01:18:54] Yeah, you mentioned him before, and Glenn Beck is a huge player in this. I believe that with. Without Glenn Beck's support financially and on his network with his, you know, with his followers, that there wouldn't be an O.

Lynn Packer [01:19:14] Because as I mentioned earlier, our was founded in 2012 or 2013, a year before Ballard and Beck had connected as kindred spirits because Ballard brought out a book titled the Covenant, and it was right up Glenn Beck's alley. Both of them believe in this covenant theory that I'll talk about a little bit.

Lynn Packer [01:19:43] And so they had made a connection before Ballard brought up the idea that we should There should be some sort of company formed to make a movie. And that was the initial plan to publicize this problem and ostensibly to make money about these jump teams that are well armed going around the world freeing child sex slaves. And so that was a year later and Glenn Beck made the initial million dollar donation. So he plays this key role.

John Dehlin [01:20:19] Would it be okay if I played a couple videos real quickly? Would this be okay if I play a couple Glenn Beck videos? Okay, I just, I love, I love your videos and I want to get as many people as possible to go to your website because it's, it's really powerful stuff and, and this kind of, it tells the founding, but it also talks about some of Glenn Beck's most troubling conspiracy theories. So I'm going to just show a couple clips and you can describe after I play it, you know, you can give commentary. Is that okay? Okay, here we go.

Lynn Packer [01:20:57] Church closings and the left normalizing pedophilia.

John Dehlin [01:21:01] Okay, so this is basically, I didn't play the audio but basically Glenn Beck is saying that mail in voting, black lives Matter, you know, mask wearing, closing of churches and the left normalizing pedophilia are all going to lead to a civil war. And for those who are just listening, there's this picture of Glenn Beck in front of a chalkboard that says Civil War in 2020. So it's kind of this extreme fear mongering. And then I'll play what comes after that.

Guest [01:21:28] Well, tonight I'm going to show you why this revolution is nothing like anything we've ever faced before. I will show you why this one is dark, dangerous, sinister and flat out evil. The revolution will destroy all of us. And tonight, the way America could end in 2020. Tonight I'm going to talk to you about civil war and the destruction of America as we know it. Civil war, it's going to begin at the election. You are going to realize that your country is in its final stage. It is only in its final stage if you don't know you are being played. If you don't know what's about to happen and if you strike out or add to the chaos in any way, you will be an accelerant on this fire. You must trust in God. You must pray like you've never prayed before.

Lynn Packer [01:22:41] Glenn Beck's impact.

John Dehlin [01:22:43] Okay, so tell us, tell us why for you, Lynn Packer, that video with Glenn Beck is kind of disturbing and worth noting. And then I'm going to play one more.

Lynn Packer [01:22:53] Well, he's like mouth that they're predicting that there could be armed rebellion, especially if, if a Democrat is elected president and if they continue pushing Black Lives Matter, that issue civil rights. If a Democrat gets elected president and for example, creates a nationwide mask requirement, it's possible they could do that.

Lynn Packer [01:23:25] So all this, they say, is taking away our freedoms. And it's tied into the covenant idea. Their covenant is Mormons go to the temple and make covenants. When you get married and you promise fidelity and such to your spouse, this is a little bit different. This is a covenant that people generally make with God to support freedom and to pray and to preserve this democracy that God paved the way for.

Lynn Packer [01:23:59] And that's the covenant that you, you have to preach to people and get them back on their knees praying to God and, and, and praying for righteousness and electing Republicans who don't believe in forcing people to do things like wear masks or forcing programs that, that would improve the plight of, you know, the discrimination that still exists in the United States.

John Dehlin [01:24:34] What's disturbing to me is there are all these gun owning conservatives, and I'm not against gun owning at all. You know, I grew up in a home where we had guns. I was, my dad was a former police officer. I, I learned how to use guns. I'm not against the ownership of guns. But you've got these people that have like literally arsenal, arsenals of guns and weapons and ammunition in their basements. And you have Glenn Beck telling them there's going to be a civil war and mask wearing in a pandemic and supporting of, you know, people of color being mistreated by police officers, which is Black Lives Matter and mail in ballots.

John Dehlin [01:25:16] Those are the signs that a civil war is coming. How in the world is it healthy for our society for Glenn Beck to be saying these sorts of things to his followers? How is that not inflaming and agitating the potential for violence in our country?

Lynn Packer [01:25:33] Well, and see, it sets up the, the notion that at some point to stop government, you've got to take up arms and there's got to be, there's got to be a rebellion against the government, much like there was at the beginning of the nation where the Americans rebelled against the, the British.

Lynn Packer [01:25:58] And that's why Washington is a hero for these people. But that's what it sets up, is the, the possibility of that happen, happening. And Reyes, we know himself has a machine gun in his office at the Capitol building.

Lynn Packer [01:26:15] Now, he hasn't said directly what it's for, but he's hinted it's in case we need it. It's in case. Now he could think that maybe some terrorists are going to attack the Attorney General's office. Maybe a bunch of pedophiles don't like what our is doing and they're going to attack. Or it could be that the federal government fails in its mission to preserve democracy and you have to take matters in your own hands to take back the government.

John Dehlin [01:26:44] Right. Okay, well this next clip is a clip of. I think it's Glenn Beck telling the story of the founding of, of our and Tim Ballard. And I just think it's effective to just kind of play some of this so the listeners can hear it from Glenn Beck's own mouth. So here we go.

Lynn Packer [01:27:04] In this video clip, Beck describes the first time Ballard pitched our and he

Guest [01:27:09] explained what he was doing and explained that he needed to get out of working with the government and he had a way that we could really make an impact. But they needed a million dollars to start it. And I happened to be with an attorney and he was sitting with me and I asked a whole bunch of questions and my attorney said you, no, no, no, you can't, you can't, you can't. What happens? Something goes wrong, blah, blah, blah. If you're raising money and it's on the border and these guys are, you're, you're in Texas, Glenn, aren't you doing really inspect. This is child trafficking. Tim is the most sincere, most honest, honorable man I think I've ever met. And I said I'm in. We'll, we'll raise your first million. My time, my network, everything is at your disposal.

Lynn Packer [01:28:11] This photo shows Glenn Beck's back.

John Dehlin [01:28:13] Okay, so, so that's basically just a video showing Glenn Beck that he's the initial investor and that he's all in because you have to save the children.

Lynn Packer [01:28:22] That's the, the very beginning of our. And if you go back to the slide that we had on the screen, is that at the beginning? No, it's the one.

John Dehlin [01:28:30] Just one second. Just one second.

Lynn Packer [01:28:32] Studio. The movie producers.

John Dehlin [01:28:36] Sorry, one second. Okay.

Lynn Packer [01:28:38] Two separate but cooperating ventures.

John Dehlin [01:28:42] Okay, go ahead.

Lynn Packer [01:28:43] Okay, so if you go back to the, to the, the slide, the Glenn Black that one is that there were two separate organizations created at the beginning. One was Ballard's nonprofit O U R and the other one was a for profit movie television action series venture, Abolitionists llc. And so a couple of the people that you saw in that video at the very beginning of our were filmmakers because they were on board and ready to make this film initially. Glenn Beck, who has his own Network that where he broadcasts both on video online and also on the radio.

Lynn Packer [01:29:25] Initially, he was going to broadcast the series, an action series, a reality TV series about these rescues going on. And then for some reason, he backed out. And then the movie production company pitched it to networks and it failed. It never materialized. And that's how the movie the Abolitionists came about, is they just put some footage together and created a movie, a documentary that did succeed in helping them raise a lot of money. And then we segue to.

OUR's Movies, Raids, and Donor Involvement

John Dehlin [01:30:04] And do you want to just talk about. In your videos, your very excellent videos, you talk about these three movies that Tim Ballard has produced. And I, you know, you can, you can moderate what you say by future slides that are coming. But there's a problem with these three movies that have been created, correct?

Lynn Packer [01:30:22] Well, there are the first two. The one I focus on is called Operation Tucson. It's one. All of your viewers can go and watch it. It's about an hour and 20 minutes. They can Haiti right on YouTube and make up their own minds. But what I do is essentially in one of my videos, go through and analyze all parts of it to see whether it's true and whether it's well done. As someone who is engaged in making documentaries, because this is a documentary, I gave it an F for both falsehoods that are in it. The way that it's shot, the way it's portrayed, and it really is a piece of propaganda. It's not a documentary, is it?

John Dehlin [01:31:07] It's basically, at least the culminating scene is set in Haiti, right?

Lynn Packer [01:31:11] Well, yeah, most of it is set in Haiti.

John Dehlin [01:31:13] And, and it's basically showing this, this staged kind of intervention in Haiti. And by the way, I just have to ask, like, if Haitian citizens, if a group of well intended Haitians decided they were going to fly to America with weapons and break into, you know, some massage parlor that had some, some women there from a Asian country that were giving massages. You know, can you imagine it being legal in the United States for foreigners to come in with guns and break into us, you know, businesses to liberate their imagined captors?

Lynn Packer [01:31:58] Mostly, they mostly go to countries where democracy is not well established, where the institutions don't work well. And frankly, there's been people make the allegation that a lot of the police departments that they work with, because they have to work with a police department to make the actual arrests, are really corrupt. And it's, it makes for good video, but it's really questionable whether it's effective at all.

John Dehlin [01:32:29] Right? Yeah. And it's Just, you know, that's what law enforcement's for. We don't go to other countries and become the law enforcement officers.

Lynn Packer [01:32:37] We should.

John Dehlin [01:32:38] You know, my. My sense is we want to deal with the systemic problem. You work with the law, with the government officials, with the law enforcement agencies in effective ways to get to the root of the problem, not these staged, dramatic, cinematic interventions. And you show in one of your videos that what happens at the end of this movie that they claim is some big dramatic climax, what actually happens

Lynn Packer [01:33:03] in Haiti, people can watch it. They claim that they've arrested a kingpin who. Who is a major figure in prostitution and especially childhood prostitution in Haiti. There's never been any evidence to show that this woman, this madam, was at any kind of kingpin. She has ran one of many prostitution brothels in Haiti, and she did have children on hand for customers who wanted sex with children. And she was arrested. Our won't say what happened to her. I don't know if she went to jail or what happened. And it's very difficult to get that kind of information out of Haiti. Haiti is, is. Is. Is a. A country that is way underdeveloped, and there's just corruption at every level in Haiti. It's unfortunate, but it's a country where you could go in and do things that you could not do here in the United States.

John Dehlin [01:34:16] And you, and you talk in your video about, you know, Tim Ballard and Sean Reyes having the staged political event where they bring a diplomat from Haiti here and give them some award as if they've done some really noble and big thing again for fundraising purposes for Tim Ballard and for political influence purposes for Sean Reyes. And what, what problem did you have with. With that act of bringing the Haitian diplomat here?

Lynn Packer [01:34:47] Well, the movie shows the equivalent of the attorney general of Haiti coming here getting an award because he supported ouar breaking up this sex trafficking ring, they call it. It was just a whorehouse, basically. And. But he was out, I think within months after Haiti. They go through a lot of government officials and there was some question about his honesty and integrity, but I didn't follow up on that. I just know that the. That he was out. People who want to know more should watch the movie and watch the. My one episode where I talk about it, and then they can decide for themselves whether they think that it's a valid, good, solid movie or not.

John Dehlin [01:35:45] Right. Okay, that's, that's. That's useful. And, you know, I just want to say that these, these jumps, what are they called, the interventions they call Them

Lynn Packer [01:35:59] the term they use the most is jumps. But it's. It's also. Others use the term raid. It's a raid. But our likes the term jump. So I'm just using. Yeah, they frequently call them and something

John Dehlin [01:36:13] that concerns me and many other people is, you know, are these safe? Could civilians get killed? Could participants get killed? Is it our business to even be doing it? Are they staged?

Lynn Packer [01:36:29] There's. There's one segment in Operation Tucson where the, the jump team, you know, the ex CIA, the ex army seal, these guys are in a hotel room and they're getting ready to go. They're getting ready to go take down this madam who they never run into people being armed. You wonder why these major sex traffickers don't have bodyguards with guns. But anyway, they're going ready to. Getting ready to take her down.

Lynn Packer [01:37:01] And this is in the movie. This isn't something I found out from outtakes or from somebody else. This is in the movie. One of the, One of the guys who's organizing it says, okay, somebody could get hurt, somebody could get stabbed, they could get shot.

Lynn Packer [01:37:19] And then he holds up what is, I guess a military grade first aid kit. When I was in the military, everybody had these first aid kits with all kinds of stuff in it for trauma like that, stab wounds, gunshot wounds, explosions, all of that. And then he says, is anybody here familiar with this?

Lynn Packer [01:37:44] Can anybody. Does anybody here know how to use this? And he looks around and everybody's silent. And at that point they show a cutaway of Reyes and valor just standing there like, does anybody know how to use this first aid kit? And then he sort of puts it aside and says something like, well, I guess that's not to do any good. And then they go off on their way or somebody could get shot. But. But they're notorious for really bad planning on these. I mean, you hear lots of stories about how poorly these things are planned.

John Dehlin [01:38:17] One of our listeners, Akeem, writes something interesting. He writes, haiti is so poor that with a bit of money you can probably make some officials there endorse everything you want them to endorse.

Lynn Packer [01:38:30] And that's a good point. And that very may very well may be what happened in Haiti.

John Dehlin [01:38:36] I have a question for you, but first I'm going to read one more comment from a friend. I'm not going to use his name, but this is a personal friend of mine. He wrote, I've been on an our jump. I did an undercover mission with them in 2015. My good friend was the head editor and I knew the production team that ended up quitting because of the sketchy nature of things. I was actually just meeting with the journalist yesterday that's putting a piece together on this same thing. It's mind blowing. Dude, thanks again for shining a light on all of this. So here's my question to you, Lynn.

John Dehlin [01:39:09] Pushing back just a tiny bit. What I hear is that Tim Ballard brings wealthy people on these jumps as a way to generate more money. Sure, but, but if the jumps are, are unprofessional and sketchy and dangerous and, and potentially fraudulent, then I mean, this is reminding me of Joseph Smith's treasure digging as I'm asking you this question because Joseph Smith brought wealthy people on treasure digs and was able to abscond money from them anyway. But, but my question is how could it be beneficial if these jumps are so lame, to take fund to take donors on the jumps where they can see the jumps firsthand. Any, any response to that?

Lynn Packer [01:39:53] Well, they may not recognize that they're poorly organized. They do a lot of them. They end up just being sort of the same thing. You have the decoys, that is somebody from ou r play like they're a rich guy who wants to have sex and they arrange to bring a lot of girls into a hotel room or somewhere where there's a party going on.

Lynn Packer [01:40:17] Then the local police come storming in and make the arrests. It's pretty much the same thing. But some people who donate money may not recognize what dangers are and what's going on. I was in the military, so I know the emphasis that's put on training and organization and these things. In one of my videos I show a Keystone Cops sequence. And to me from, based on my experience, they're a bunch of Keystone Cops sometimes bumping into each other and, but on the other hand, I don't see a huge amount of danger because I don't think they're taking down the types of people they're describing. I think most of these mafia types, these sexual predators, I think most of them aren't even armed.

Lynn Packer [01:41:12] I've never even heard a single Oor story. Maybe there is one where when the arrests are made, they confiscate switchblade knives, grenades and machine guns or any kind of gun. So if that's the case, they're not generally very dangerous.

John Dehlin [01:41:33] Yeah. And, and of course it's possible to, to plan an event in a way to where donors only get access to certain parts of the jump.

Lynn Packer [01:41:43] Well, sure. And I, I believe this. I mean the, the Ballard's made a statement that we Keep them at a distance. And I think that that's true.

John Dehlin [01:41:53] Yeah. So they could fly there, they could see the poverty. You could describe it. They could see the men with guns,

Lynn Packer [01:41:59] but they're not in the room where if some of these people were armed, the, the shooting would take place. Right.

John Dehlin [01:42:06] Okay, that makes sense. Okay, let's go to the next slide.

Political Associations and Book of Mormon Connections

Lynn Packer [01:42:10] Okay, now we get to current news or no, just before we get to the, the current news. This is, this just shows that, remember that Glenn Beck and Ballard and all these guys are, have close political ties with senators, with the President and with other people. But remember I mentioned that there's also all these close religious ties and Ballard and Beck put together

John Dehlin [01:42:38] these

Lynn Packer [01:42:41] Book of Mormon evidence gets, gets get together. It's, it's still popular and it surprises me, but it is, is there's still a lot of Mormons who are gathering evidence to prove that the Book of Mormon is true. And it's actually become sort of a competition. And you know more about this than I do because I don't take that much interest in it. But there has been for years the debate is whether the main part of the, of the Lamanites and Nephites were the main settlements were in North America, Central America or South America. And so now there's even a debate and competition among moral Mormons trying to prove the Book of Mormon as to where it takes place.

Lynn Packer [01:43:27] And so back in Ballard are among those that are the, what are called the Book of Mormon heartlanders. So where the heartland of the Book of Mormon was. And so they have these annual conferences and I just mentioned that just to show their, their infatuation with and their work on proving that the Book of Mormon is true.

Lynn Packer [01:43:53] And so when Reyes flashes a Book of Mormon which he does and talks about the Book of Mormon and Scripture, that has saved his life. I mean, he's really into it. He's not, he's, he's all into this Book of Mormon history and, and documenting whether it's true or not.

John Dehlin [01:44:14] I think it just sort of like demonstrates that a huge populace of the backing of Tim Ballard and our. Are kind of these prepper Ezra Taft Benson inspired fundamentalist Mormons who also believe kind of weird religious things like the heartland theory of the Book of Mormon.

Lynn Packer [01:44:36] Yeah, a lot of these people quote Ezra Taft Benson. He's sort of been resurrected. He's come back as one of their spiritual leaders, Cleon Skousen, you know, Cleanse gas and Book the Naked Communist. All of that has sort of come back and, and are Idolized by a lot of these people. The next slide you've already gone over. Well, that.

John Dehlin [01:45:00] Go ahead and talk about it.

Lynn Packer [01:45:02] Well, it's just where in that video he predicts this imminent civil war. He uses the term Marxist a lot. That. That's another way of saying communist, but a little bit stronger. I get a kick out of it because Karl Marx was a German. Never envisioned. Karl Marx was like a professor of economics.

Lynn Packer [01:45:25] A professor of economics. Marxism is an economic theory and it got picked up by some countries, especially Russia, and turned into communism. But I. So I get a kick out of people saying it's a Marxist conspiracy. But I know what they mean. They mean, you know, communism too. And it was against all of the things that you ticked off the mail in voting was a conspiracy Black Lives Matter movement. That's a conspiracy to destroy democracy.

Lynn Packer [01:45:53] The defunding police campaign, even though the defunding didn't mean what a lot of opposite candidates said it was supposed to mean, it meant a shift in the way police pleasing work. Mask wearing is a big one. Church closings is huge. Huge.

Lynn Packer [01:46:14] And then really important is the left normalizing pedophilia. They say that they're making it normal that it's okay to be a pedophile, which is absurd. But that's part of QAnon that you have these powerful pedophiles, Hollywood stars and so on.

John Dehlin [01:46:33] Yeah, I just want to see any evidence of mainstream, reputable people trying to legitimize pedophilia. I think that's outrageous and I want to see evidence of it because we would all be violently against that. We all have kids. We all love our kids. Who's for pedophilia? That's of sound mind and spirit. But to be claiming that a civil war is about to happen because Oprah and Tom Hanks and Hillary Clinton are pedophiles, because it's outrageous and. And half the country seems to believe it.

Lynn Packer [01:47:04] Yeah, there are some parents who prostitute out their kids around the world, but that's still an exception.

John Dehlin [01:47:10] Right.

Lynn Packer [01:47:11] Pedophilia is a heinous crime. Most everybody is against it. And certainly no Democrat has. Has proposed legislation that endorses and makes it easier for pedophiles to groom and get victims. And then we transition to the next slide, which is really current news. And that is Burgess Owens. He's newly elected to the 4th district and he's probably further to the right. And it remains to be seen because maybe he campaigned on these extremist right positions. And when he goes to Congress, he's going to backpedal and become more centrist. But at least the way he campaigned, he's further right than Mike Lee. And that's saying something. And that's saying something. And so he has far right political and LDS beliefs. He is a token and an Uncle Tom. And I know everybody says, well, you can't call somebody that. I mean, it is what it is. It is what it is.

John Dehlin [01:48:21] He said now that many, many find that an offensive term. And so I just want to note that and then I want to say, what do you mean by that?

Lynn Packer [01:48:30] What I mean is. And you see it pop up. And I've experienced it. I have personal experiences where blacks decide, okay, a lot of powerful white groups, they need a token. They need to trot out a black who believes the same way they do and to show that they're not racist, they need to show that. And I experienced that when I was working at KSL and, and the church was under heavy fire and criticism because of its racist policies. Remember there were boycotts at BYU basketball games. There was fear and rumors that blacks terrorists were going to attack Salt Lake City.

Lynn Packer [01:49:19] And people were afraid. And I was a reporter and you were preparing to cover that kind of story because that rumor, that rumor was out, but you get these blacks that take advantage of it is that if, if a powerful white group doesn't matter if it's religious or political or especially even in business, especially business, they need their token black to show that they don't discriminate, that they hire blacks and they'll usually elevate them in both profile and in pay that they get so that they're prominent and they're out there and, and of course, that's what's going on here. I mean, okay, I may get, I

John Dehlin [01:50:00] may get some angry comments or email about that comment.

Lynn Packer [01:50:05] But yeah, it's just, it's just, I mean, he's taking advantage of that. And so he even. And he's been called that by other people. But he adds in one of his tweets, coon, which I would not say, I think that is, is a terrible thing to say.

John Dehlin [01:50:23] But he says this is Burgess Owens's own tweet.

Lynn Packer [01:50:26] This is his own tweet where he's called an Uncle Tom and a token. He says all terms the white liberal Taylor Swift supporters. I guess Taylor Swift maybe said something. I don't know. I listened to some of her songs, but I don't know what she did. Supporters feel the need to call an older black man because they understand white Supremacy. So much better, which he says facetiously. And then he says that's why Donald Trump will win big in 2020, which didn't happen, but he did. I mean, he won.

Lynn Packer [01:50:55] That's a big victory for Republicans. It's going to make it more difficult for President Biden to get things in. I don't know how we will fit into the Republican caucus, but it is a big win. And so, anyway, let's go to the next slide that says a little bit more about Burgess Owens and why I draw the conclusion that I, that I did is that Burgess Owens is a big. Our supporter. You see him here. One shot with Reyes, another one with Ballard.

Lynn Packer [01:51:34] You already mentioned that he was an NFL star. Good player. Good player. Super bowl champion. You have to be at the top of the game to play and start on a Super bowl championship team, which he did. And a Mormon convert.

Lynn Packer [01:51:50] And of course, a conservative Utah Republican. He also spoke with Reyes at the rnc. Did. I think he was a token speaker. That was what I thought. He opposes, you know, he checks off all the right boxes. He opposes Obamacare.

Lynn Packer [01:52:10] He tweeted congratulations to a QAnon supportive Republican, Lauren Borbert, after she beat the incumbent first. She ran as a QAnon supporter against an incumbent Republican to show how conservative her district is. And then, of course, went on to win in the general election over the Democrat.

Lynn Packer [01:52:39] And he made child sex trafficking a big issue. And if you go to the next slide, it shows some of his campaign material that he used and human trafficking. He talks about his opponent, Ben McAdams. He's done nothing to stop the scourge of pornography and trafficking. King makes the usual statements. It thrives today. There's, you know, and then he uses the same statistics, and he talks about. About where the voices against black lives matter.

John Dehlin [01:53:15] He.

Lynn Packer [01:53:16] He says, I don't know if I have the slide there. What's the.

John Dehlin [01:53:20] Yeah, yeah.

Lynn Packer [01:53:21] Next.

John Dehlin [01:53:21] Right here.

Lynn Packer [01:53:22] Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. He stands by the president. And what he does is on one hand, he says essentially that President Trump is an advocate for black issues, black kids getting educated. And he says on occasion that he's done more for blacks than any president of recent times.

Lynn Packer [01:53:42] And then he turns around and says Obama hurt the black movement, that he was damaging to blacks. And then I think I may have one more slide. I don't remember. Let me pull it up. Where he uses vilified politics like a lot of candidates do. I think it's more often Republicans than Democrats, but people can make up their own minds. He calls All Democrats, Marxists, you know, just parodying what Glenn Beck says. Of course, he appears.

Lynn Packer [01:54:19] He's interviewed by Glenn Beck and appears on Fox News a lot. He says that the Democrats are the ones starting trying to start a race war. Calls Biden a segregationist, says that the NAACP is a communist organization and points out that most of the NAACP original organizers were white. And he thinks that's a, a bad thing. That shows that they were just using blacks, I guess, or their issues to form that opposes mandatory mask wearing in public because of constitutional rights, although he wears a mask on occasion.

Lynn Packer [01:54:57] He says he reads the Book of Mormon daily. Again, the Book of Mormon thing pops up and how he. I don't know if somebody went through his Book of Mormon and blacked out all the racist language, I have no, no idea. And he never says what he thinks about it. And he was invited to speak at that Book of Mormon evidence conference that Reyes and Beck put on.

Tim Ballard's Finances and Allegations of Misconduct

John Dehlin [01:55:21] So, Lyn, we're getting some feedback from some of our listeners that, you know, they, they appreciate the political associations, but they're less interested in that. They're basically some. And this isn't to change the course of our conversation. I just wanted to you into what some people are expressing, and that's that they're, they're much more interested in discussing Tim Ballard's fraud, the financial fraud, the accounting improprieties, than they are more political associations. I think some are thinking that we're sort of like trying to impugn Tim Ballard's character by associating him with Republicans and conservative politics. And, you know, there's a lot of people that are saying that's not necessarily, you know, condemning him because some support those politics, but they're also saying we're getting too much into the political weeds. Tell us why. You know, again, associations with, with Republican or conservative politicians is a problem from your perspective.

Lynn Packer [01:56:21] Because it explains the nature. It simply explains the nature and the underpinnings of O you are. And I think anyone who donates and supports it and all of us support it because we're all taxpayers, should know what it's about. My belief is that most charities that get tax breaks, thus the support of the federal government, indirectly, they're subsidized by the federal government, should try to be as moderate as possible and as open to as many, you know, to many different political and religious persuasions. And I'm just pointing out that our is way over to the right, both in terms of religion and in terms of politics.

John Dehlin [01:57:12] Okay.

Lynn Packer [01:57:13] And if people would rather hear a presentation where more of this is left out. They should just watch my videos because I'm talking about it here more than. Than I. Than I do in my videos. And I'm doing it because I think it's important, and I think I'm talking to people whether they're Trump supporters or Biden supporters, whether the Republicans or Democrats. I think your audience mostly gets it, and even those who are critical get it because they know to criticize what I've said.

John Dehlin [01:57:49] So would it, Would it be okay if we. If we pause the PowerPoint presentation just for 10 or 15 minutes and talk about the. The financial improprieties and then come back to the political discussion? Because I. I do want to make sure we hit that, and I don't want to lose people as we. By only focusing on the political and religious stuff, because I think many people are mostly concerned about how he's breaking the law.

Lynn Packer [01:58:15] Well, I can do that in two minutes. It doesn't take 10 minutes.

John Dehlin [01:58:20] Okay. So is it okay if I just ask you a few questions about that?

Lynn Packer [01:58:24] Well, why don't I just give you a brief overview?

John Dehlin [01:58:30] Okay. Yeah, yeah. Give us a brief overview, and then I'll pepper you with a few questions along the way.

Lynn Packer [01:58:35] Okay. Utah law requires that anybody seeking money, whether it's donations, investments, payment for a car or insurance, to be accurate and tell the truth. It's written into Utah law. So if you raise money, if you get money and you use falsehoods, or if you fail to report the truth, that's material for somebody making a decision, that's a violation of Utah law. That's one of the things I believe is being investigated. They're going to look at what. What has been said to get money and to see if it's truthful and to see if they have failed to explain something that a donor or an investor would want to know.

John Dehlin [01:59:28] Who is. Can you tell us who's investigating Tim Ballard to know you are?

Lynn Packer [01:59:32] Yeah, It's. The Davis county attorney only has authority within Davis County. The investigation would only involve donations and things that have happened within the county. And our. Has had a lot of fundraisers in Davis county, so he doesn't lack for some of the activity now.

John Dehlin [01:59:54] So it's a criminal investigation, right?

Lynn Packer [01:59:56] Pardon?

John Dehlin [01:59:57] It's a criminal investigation, yeah. Okay.

Lynn Packer [02:00:00] And so. And so it's possible that once they investigate that, they find that what was said is sufficiently accurate that. That it's not an egregious violation of the law. And if they do that, they'll just Investigate and then they'll drop it. It also could be that they just don't get the facts. They, they, they, you have to document it, you have to prove. You'd have to have video or you'd have to have witnesses. If they can't marshal that, then the case goes away and that's the stage it's in right now. So this is something that may not result in a criminal prosecution.

Lynn Packer [02:00:38] I believe that then under the criminal level you have the ethical level, whether it's honest and whether it's ethical. And while reporters and journalists don't have anything to do with whether somebody's prosecuted criminally, I think it is the job of reporters to do fact checking and say from an ethical standpoint, is it okay to lie to get money?

Lynn Packer [02:01:05] Is it okay to lie to get power or to get votes as some people have accused Reyes of doing by being involved with this. So he's popular and well known because there's a lot of publicity. So he gets reelected. And that's something that everybody has to decide on their own. Now you want to know about finances, There's a couple of other things and

John Dehlin [02:01:28] really quick, when you say lie, you mean exaggerating statistics, using false statistics, claiming to do jumps that they're not doing

Lynn Packer [02:01:37] that you either knew was false or you should have known that you should have been responsible enough. It's like if you sell a car and say this car has a hundred thousand mile warranty on it, that's something that you should have known that maybe you didn't know and you're just trying to make a sale or you should have known that so that it's an honest sale. That's, that's the example.

Lynn Packer [02:02:01] And so the individual. So you want to know about money, another possible crime. And I don't know what laws they're applying, but I've had enough experience to know what laws are applied in some non profits. I know of a specific case of one where it's the fiduciary duty is that when you join a board of a corporation you have a fiduciary duty to the company and the board, not the president.

Lynn Packer [02:02:33] Yeah, but it's an entity. Corporations are entities that aren't people and you're on a board and that's where your fiduciary duty lies and there are laws that govern that that that's where your duty is. My view is, and the Davis county attorney may not share it, is that you have an even higher fiduciary duty if it's a, if it's a nonprofit because taxpayers are involved. So it's possible if our misused some money, let's say somebody embezzled money or pocketed money. And I don't know that anybody has. But let's say an investigation shows that. A thorough investigation.

Lynn Packer [02:03:10] And the directors don't know that and they don't do something about it. They might be liable in some ways of having a fiduciary duty. And even the officers, the president of the company has a fiduciary duty. Besides directors. Right now, Tim Ballard doesn't have any position in the company. He's a volunteer. So I don't know how that plays out legally.

John Dehlin [02:03:36] Yeah, and I think you have this on a previous slide, but you showed that a couple years ago he was making over $300,000. And then all of a sudden, last year, in 2019, it drops to zero. I don't think there's anybody that's going to believe that, that our is now got 30 million in the bank and Tim Ballard's making nothing from this venture. He's got to be making money, probably a lot of money. So are they hiding his salary through some type of shell organization? Is that part of what you're asking?

Lynn Packer [02:04:09] He. He has explained that and said that he has now developed other means of income. And so that money that he would have gotten, I guess, could go to rescuing child sex slaves and, and victims of pedophilia. But OUR has two sort of interesting. They're sort of like subsidiaries. Two other organizations, one's called Deakin Inc. And the other one's called the Nazarene Fund. And they don't report anything about that. And whether he's getting money through those, I have no idea. The thing is, for sure, the. OUR is not transparent. If a reporter who is knowledgeable about reporting business activities and can ask the right questions, they're not getting answers. I think that one thing that all you are should do to combat any of these suspicions that are false is just to open up the books and answer questions, say, what do you want to know and what do you want to see?

John Dehlin [02:05:18] Now I'm, you know, I. I have a nonprofit. I have a salary. My board sets my salary. They. They did several studies to determine what my market value was based on my education level, my experience, my competence, all that.

Lynn Packer [02:05:32] Look around and find out. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:05:34] And then, and then we publish. We give the IRS every year what's called a 990, which is this form that it's probably 20, 30 pages, and it goes into pro. Pretty extensive financial Details broken out, you know, by expense categories, how the money gets spent. So I'm sure that our is releasing an annual OU990. Have you reviewed these 990s and if so, what have you found?

Lynn Packer [02:05:59] Well, I found that like one year, right. The power made more than $340,000. In the next report he made, he didn't make zero because he continued making money into that year for three months. So he made 120,000 and then his salary was shut off.

Lynn Packer [02:06:18] And he is heavily involved in the Nazarene Fund. And I don't know how that's funded or how much he makes. He's not required to release his personal tax returns. I personally think that this reporting should be a lot more extensive and there should be a lot more oversight, that there should be an organization within a state to at least randomly pick nonprofits and go through them with a fine tooth comb besides greater reporting requirements, but that there isn't any oversight that I know of.

Lynn Packer [02:06:56] The law gives some oversight power to the Attorney General. Reyes and I only know of one non profit case that he's ever brought. And so I, so I don't. Maybe he's brought more, I don't know. But I don't think he's. I don't think he's functioning in that role as Attorney General. I think it's a free for all Right.

John Dehlin [02:07:19] There's a clip in one of your videos.

Lynn Packer [02:07:21] I think that you could do a lot of things if you wanted and get away with it.

John Dehlin [02:07:25] There's a clip in one of your videos where Reyes is making a public statement that he, he's scoured our finances and he's found nothing improper. So he's basically using his political office to promote this nonprofit and make everyone believe that everything's on the up and up. And then the nonprofit in turn is touring around with Reyes doing all these public relations events, helping to elevate Reyes's status as a politician not just in the state, but in the country.

Guest [02:07:58] Yeah.

Lynn Packer [02:07:59] And because of that, he's not an unbiased observer. So you have to give whatever weight you want to give. When he says there's nothing to see here, that this is all on the all on the up and up.

John Dehlin [02:08:12] And are these wealthy donors that are donating to Operation Underground Railroad also donating to Sean Reyes and his reelection campaigns and that sort of thing, Is that, is that a fair question to ask?

Lynn Packer [02:08:23] Serve some crossover, but I haven't studied it.

John Dehlin [02:08:26] Okay, so do you have any reason to believe there's financial impropriety going on within our.

Lynn Packer [02:08:32] No, I'm just suspicious that when any organization is not transparent, when the president of the organization is also the accountant, I think that's like outrageous and could signal all kinds of problems. But until you get the books and records, he could be the most honest guy in the world. He just allowed himself to get into a compromise situation.

John Dehlin [02:08:57] Okay, so you're saying that the president of the nonprofit is also the accountant. And you're right. I, I'm. I'm the CEO of my nonprofit. But we have. I picked the most reputable nonprofit accounting firm in the state and they do all the accounting. Independent bookkeeping and accounting. Independent of me. I would never be the accountant and the leader of my nonprofit.

Lynn Packer [02:09:20] Oh, you aren't dead.

John Dehlin [02:09:22] Yeah. Any other, any other red flags or smoke around finances? You mentioned hiring these helicopters to fly in Reyes and, and Ballard.

Lynn Packer [02:09:36] They do fly. The rumor is they fly first class sometimes and they stay in five star hotels. But donors have to gauge whether that's important to them or not.

John Dehlin [02:09:48] And don't you mention Ballard using personal trainers. Money from the organization to hire personal trainers.

Lynn Packer [02:09:55] That's just something that somebody has alleged. I don't know if it's true.

John Dehlin [02:09:59] Okay.

Lynn Packer [02:10:00] I, I know that the. Our owns a gym where, where these jump team members work out. They own a gym. That's. And there's nothing improper about that per se because non profits can under certain circumstances own for profit businesses. So even though the gym probably is for profit, maybe it doesn't even make any money. But I don't see anything wrong with that.

John Dehlin [02:10:36] What have you heard about Curtin McConkey? Their law firm, which is the same law firm the LDS Church uses using its power to silence and intimidate potential whistleblowers.

Lynn Packer [02:10:48] Well, I don't think. I don't know that they've done that. What Curtin McConkie did was to not threaten a whistleblower, but a reporter and threatened him who was reporting on some OU activity in California and sent him something like a cease and desist letter. It was a threatening letter. You're going to be sued. And the reporter ignored it and bas and put it on his website and basically went on business as usual. Because I was beginning my reporting after that, renewing it because I've reported before. I called the attorney who sent the letter and said, I'm now beginning reporting and I want you to explain to me what you mean by this letter and whether it applies to me.

Lynn Packer [02:11:39] And he wouldn't talk to me. I said, you're the Attorney, you threatened another reporter. I won't talk to you. But he said, I will have somebody from OU talk to you because I'm not current on everything. And of course that never happened. And that's the last time I had contact with him.

John Dehlin [02:11:57] Okay. Are there any other you talk about one of. In your video you talk about. I believe it's the third video, maybe the fourth, where you talk about at least one of the main participants in our being accused of sexual impropriety during his involvement with our. And then you mentioned a video that Tim Ballard's hiding that actually shows some of this inappropriate sexual behavior. Do you want to talk about that as, as one of the problems that you're. That you've uncovered?

Lynn Packer [02:12:31] Well, one of the jumps in one of the decoys with one of the jumps, the rich businessman, I think, and Reyes may have been on this jump. This was early on where he was alleged to have had improper contact with one of the child sex slaves. And just sort of boiling it down. He says he was touching her arm and maybe she moved it and looked like he touched something that he shouldn't. Other people say that he flat out maybe touched her breast. It was, that's the allegation that it showed that it was caught on camera and probably caught on two different cameras five years ago when I reported.

Lynn Packer [02:13:15] So this is an old story. I tried to get a hold of the footage and at one time I was told I could get it. And then after that the person who was going to give it to me was threatened with a lawsuit and did not provide it. So I've never seen it. I've only heard it described. I have interviewed at length the individual who is accused of doing the improper touching.

Lynn Packer [02:13:41] And he basically explains what I told you, that it may have looked like that, but it wasn't. But what happened is, is that Doterra, this multi level marketing company, is a big sponsor. And when they heard about this, they started to temporarily withdraw and maybe even cut off donations, but at least they were concerned about it. And the explanation that was given was not that he didn't touch her breast or something like that, but what it turned out is she looked like she was underage and she was overage. She was like 18 or older. And so he really wasn't molesting a child sex slave. That was the explanation that was given. And it's resurfaced where reporters are trying to get a hold of that video. It's the, everybody wants to see that video.

John Dehlin [02:14:36] Now.

Lynn Packer [02:14:36] The individual who was accused of doing this has since left all you are. He remains friends with Sean Reyes and he's now forming his own version of all you are that's going to do basically the same thing. But he's had a falling out with, with, with Ballard and he says he doesn't say very nice things about Ballard. But that story hasn't come out yet.

Fundraising Methods and High-Profile Supporters

John Dehlin [02:15:03] Let me go ahead and show one of the videos that you, that you share from, from your videos that talks about how they do fundraising because I think addresses, it basically highlights a concern about celebrities and fundraising that I think is worth using to illustrate the points we're making. Is that. Okay, yeah, this is about Hutchinson. Do you want to tell us a little bit about Hutchinson?

Lynn Packer [02:15:26] Hutchinson is the person.

John Dehlin [02:15:28] Yeah, but tell. Do you give our listeners a bit of background about Hutchinson?

Lynn Packer [02:15:32] Hutchinson is a, was a multi millionaire, very successful in business, had a lot of money and he also became good friends with both Reyes and Ballard. And he's, he's also a prepper and proud of it. You know, accumulates weapons ammunition on that. He's, I found him an enjoyable person to talk to. He's a friendly guy. If you talk to him, you wouldn't think he's a multi millionaire, but he is a schmoozer. That's the role he played in the, in the company that he was in too. Because if you're, you know, you have to bring in rich people to invest and he did that and so he knew a lot of rich people. Someone our starts up and they wanted somebody that has a contact list of a lot of millionaires that could be engaged. He's the man to see and that's part of the role that he played with our.

John Dehlin [02:16:32] So I'll play this video clip that, that kind of illustrates the, the culture, the fundraising culture. So this is, it's a, it's Paul Hutchinson. Right?

Lynn Packer [02:16:42] Right.

John Dehlin [02:16:43] Okay.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [02:16:43] Years ago called Doomsday Preppers. I would have won that show. You know, they, they had a, have a TV series out years ago that was called Doomsday Preppers.

Video Clip 2 [02:16:54] I would have won that show.

Video Clip 2 [02:16:57] But I don't tell everybody that's what I had at the time. But Hutchinson is more than a millionaire. He's also well connected to the rich and famous. He knows dozens of millionaires and is skilled at getting them to not only invest in his company but but also to donate to our he networks by throwing celebrity studded parties is how you network. You, you throw really cool parties and invite a whole bunch of guys that you already know who are rock stars and Guys, you want to know who are rock stars? And then you tell these other rock stars, hey, these rock stars are coming

Video Clip 2 [02:17:31] and we're doing something really cool.

John Dehlin [02:17:33] And see in the video that we just showed is they're basically showing a bunch of wealthy people buy Lamborghinis and Ferraris and expensive sports cars. And then Sean Reyes and other super rich celebrities all hobnobbing at these sorts of events. So what, what point are you trying to make with that video?

Lynn Packer [02:17:51] Well, that he has the ability to deliver rich donors and he does. I mean he's the, when it comes to hobnobbing with jazz players and millionaires, of course, they're millionaires too. He, he can deliver. And he did that with his company and he did that with our, oh, you are may miss him because of those connections. He may use those donors to fund his new venture that he's, that he's doing.

John Dehlin [02:18:25] And there are a couple of, there are a couple videos you show of Sean Reyes that just were a little bit weird and kind of disturbing. So I'll just play a couple of them. I think the first one is Sean Reyes doing some sort of rap. Is that right?

Lynn Packer [02:18:41] Well, yeah, he likes to rap and he will often rap at our events to entertain the crowd.

John Dehlin [02:18:47] So here's a, here's a quick video of that.

▶ Video Clip 3

Video Clip 3 [02:18:50] At ou are fundraisers. I will give him the time. This is all on YouTube, aka Cassius Clay. You want to take my title, Best step away Political pugilist.

Video Clip 3 [02:19:13] I don't play.

Video Clip 3 [02:19:13] You're feeling lucky, punk. Come on and make my day because I could rope a dope give you hope, take your best hits and when I'm standing there smiling, you know I'm legit. Who was the.

John Dehlin [02:19:23] So I think, I think what you're the point, you know, for those who weren't able to see it, the first one is, is Sean Reyes, it looks like on the steps of the Capitol dancing with Stormtroopers. And then the second one, he's up on stage doing some sort of rap.

Lynn Packer [02:19:37] Yeah, the first one he was helping out with a fundraiser where these Star wars guys showed up. And, and he, he raps at lots of events. He likes to do it. He also sings, I think, but I've never heard any of those.

John Dehlin [02:19:51] And your point with that is what? Because I guess technically rapping isn't an offense, right?

Lynn Packer [02:19:56] Oh no, I, I think I, I, I, I like rapping. I think he's a bad rapper. That's what it shows that he can't do it, but he does it Anyway, but.

John Dehlin [02:20:08] But is it also. Are you trying to make the point about just like almost shameless PR that's related to our. To. To. To raise money for our. But also to boost the. The political career of Sean Reyes?

Lynn Packer [02:20:25] Well, you can take it both ways. I think half the people who watch him rap will say, this is beneath the dignity of an attorney general. Why is he doing that? And the other half would be, finally, we have an attorney general who's just a real guy and not just somebody wearing a suit to work for a big law firm.

John Dehlin [02:20:45] Okay. Okay. Some people want to know if. If Tim Ballard is related to M. Russell Ballard and if there's any relationship there.

Lynn Packer [02:20:57] No, but I've got a slide.

John Dehlin [02:20:58] Okay.

Lynn Packer [02:20:59] Start rolling through this or we'll never get through it.

John Dehlin [02:21:01] Okay, so. Well, listen, I don't regret that we talked about the. The accusations of impropriety, because I think that's one of the main reasons people are listening.

Lynn Packer [02:21:10] Well, yeah, I think so.

John Dehlin [02:21:11] Okay. All right. So. So you wanted to make a point about Mike Lee.

Lynn Packer [02:21:16] Well, yeah, I'm just pointing out that. That the. Ballard gets a lot of support. He got it from Orrin Hatch, and Mike Lee questioned him during a hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee that Mike Lee's on. And then another time, the photo below is where he did a video with Ballard when Ballard appeared before a House subcommittee. So Ballard's been back to Washington probably lots of times. He lobbies and he makes his appearances, and then he gets a lot of press. Ballard has a really high profile around the United States doing what he does.

John Dehlin [02:22:01] Yeah. So he's connected to Mike Lee and to Donald Trump, which in and of itself isn't necessarily condemning.

Lynn Packer [02:22:07] See, and then the next one just shows again, the. The political as well as the religious bent of these individuals is that Mike Lee is. Was known. This shot was shown around the world where Mike Lee is in an event at the White House.

Lynn Packer [02:22:26] People are not wearing masks and he's hugging people, and they flaunt this idea that you should be social distancing and wearing masks. And the other shot shows him with President Trump. Of course he's close. And then the other one is like a caricature of him playing the role of a Book of Mormon figure. And if you go to the next slide of not Lee, but Trump, because just before the election, Lee compares Donald Trump, sees him as a Captain Moroni out of the Book of Mormon and compared him to that. You can. Your viewers can just read what it is said that he was inspired to fight for Religion, freedom and family.

Lynn Packer [02:23:19] And he said his LDS friends thinking think of him as a Captain Moroni and they probably do. And he doesn't seek power, but he wants to pull it down. He doesn't want to seek praise of the world or fake news. He seeks the well being and peace of the American, American people. Of course, he was saying this to try and help Trump get the Mormon vote. He knew he had it. In Utah, that's not a problem. But in, in Arizona, the Arizona race turned out to be close. And I don't know how Mormons voted in Arizona. I tend to think that they did not vote as overwhelmingly for Trump there as they did in Utah. I think that they may not have even given him a majority vote. But we'll have to wait and see

John Dehlin [02:24:08] how those, and I'm going to ask you to if you can flip on some lights, your room's getting super dark. I don't know if you can increase the lights. But while, while you're doing that, I'm just going to make a point. I think, I think part of what you're trying to say, Lynn Packer, is that it's not again, guilt by association. I think what you're trying to say is that the combination of Tim Ballard's our charity that's making false claims and generating emotional appeal is also being used by, by conservative politicians to advance the cause of a certain brand of conservativism. And it's this weird, unsavory kind of dual relationship between a nonprofit and political people and the gaining of power, or at least the attempts to gain power.

Lynn Packer [02:25:04] Well, exactly. And, and people can make of that what they want, but they at least need to know about it. I'm just bringing to light that that's the way it is, that it is used politically. There are some Democrats that use it and get on the hey, we need to rescue these child sex slaves. And I don't think they've looked into it well enough. But bottom line is, or is how is the money being used and has it been used effectively? Then you could forget all about whether what, how much Ballard makes and what he says to get donations. Bottom line is, is the investment that Americans make and they make it through an Oor even though they don't contribute directly and the tax money that they pay is a paying off.

Lynn Packer [02:25:55] Is it really helping end child sex slavery? And I seriously doubt it. I doubt that it's made any kind of a dent and I think it could have been counterproductive, that it could have made things worse. That becomes complicated. That's not a story you can get up on a stage at a rally and tell in 20 seconds. But it's a story that people who really want to minimize the risk of pedophilia is something that they need to look into because that money should be directed to actually solving the problem and not just being thrown around and making a bunch of movies about it.

John Dehlin [02:26:34] Yeah. So I'm going to share a critical comment from a listener. Philip Smith writes, so far, I really don't like this episode. This is far from fair and very anti conservative. Why is Mormon stories going so political? Lyn's statements lack proof and are lacking evidence.

Affinity Fraud and Utah Charity Concerns

John Dehlin [02:26:51] And I just want to respond to Philip. I appreciate that you're listening. And the political climate is so hard. You can't talk about things related to politics without people politicizing this. This is not me, and I don't even think it's Lynn, saying Democrats are better than Republicans. That's not what we're saying. We're not saying that Democrat philosophies are better than Republican philosophies. We're. We're not saying that. We're not saying that Mike Lee and Sean Reyes are bad because they're Republicans and that we're for Democratic candidates. That's also not what we're saying. What we're saying is that there's this institution called a nonprofit that gets money from people based on charitable donations.

John Dehlin [02:27:35] And whenever a nonprofit misrepresents their purpose or manipulates people to get money under false pretenses, that's bad. And then what we're also saying is that when politicians like Sean Reyes, who's an attorney general, are supposed to be using their office to protect the public, to prevent scams, to prevent fraud, but instead they are providing cover and even fundraising for, for these potentially fraudulent nonprofits and gaining massive political favor as sort of a quid pro quo, I think. Lynn Packer, that's what you're saying is the problem. You're not, you're not trying to make a point that people should have voted for Biden over Trump or that, you know, Democratic policies are better than Republican or conservative policies. Is that fair? Did I characterize that right or do you want to correct me?

Lynn Packer [02:28:38] I have a track record of attacking similar potential problems or alleged problems that involve Democrats. When I was doing a series on the Bonneville Pacific fraud, I did a long series of stories, probably could be 10, 15, about Salt Lake Mayor Dede Corradini, who's a Democrat, allegedly committing tax fraud in connection with her investments and her working for Bonneville Pacific. My series won the top award that year for investigative reporting and it ended her career.

Lynn Packer [02:29:23] And she's a Democrat. When I was working at ksl, I came into information that there was corruption in the Utah Highway Department. This was when Rampton was governor, a Democrat. He was furious about my report. I produced a one hour documentary and to this day it's the only one hour documentary in KSL history that was run during primetime because the station was concerned about corruption in the highway department and why our roads falling apart part.

Lynn Packer [02:29:59] He was mad, but he put together a commission, looked into the practices and there were significant changes in the way roads were specked, the way bids were let out, and most important, the way that these projects were bid bid out. Because there were a lot of inspectors were on the take.

Lynn Packer [02:30:20] They would take bribes and let substandard construction pass. That saved these contractors millions of dollars. And I could point to the exact roads that you've seen falling apart and they were improperly inspected and contractors saved money and these inspectors made money.

John Dehlin [02:30:42] And so I think the point you're making is that this, this doesn't have a political agenda.

Lynn Packer [02:30:47] This is just business as usual. And Ballard happens to be a Republican.

Multi-Level Marketing and OUR's Network

John Dehlin [02:30:52] Okay, let's switch to the slides you have about how our is connected to another major source of fraud and you know, financial ruin for so many people. Actually financial gain for so many people in Utah and financial ruin for so many people in Utah, which is the whole multi level marketing industry.

Lynn Packer [02:31:15] Yeah, it's multi level marketing, telemarketing, it's all the same. Utahns have some of the biggest and best of both telemarketing and OOR is connected to multi level marketing. Doterra is one of the big sponsors. Many of these MLMs have a very religious almost cult like undertone with them. They have these massive crusade like rallies and, and I'm not just picking on Utah MLMs. There's others that aren't in Utah. It's just that most of the big ones are here and there are other organizations that have nothing to do with Mormonism, like Tupperware, Mary Kay. They get these big rallies. I don't know if you've been to one that the people just go wild and they get TV sets and all, all of that kind of stuff.

John Dehlin [02:32:09] It's like a mega church but for, for money, right?

Lynn Packer [02:32:12] Pardon?

John Dehlin [02:32:12] It's like a mega church but for money.

Lynn Packer [02:32:15] Well, yeah, they, they, they make. The ones who are good at it make a lot of money. I think most people know how it works is that the, the, the, the person who is marketing the product gets salespeople underneath them and there's methods that they profit off of what they sell and it's called a downline. And Mormons are the best in the world at organizing these and, and doing it. And I'm just pointing out that that's part of Utah's conservative Republican politics. The politicians protect these companies so that they can exist. And you tell me how many of these MLMs Sean Reyes has prosecuted the however many years he's been there. Zero.

John Dehlin [02:33:05] Right.

Lynn Packer [02:33:07] You know, it pays to donate, pays to be a big donor. If you go to the next slide, Doterra, what they do, one of the things that they did is you see a vial there that has one of their essential oils in it to have a special one.

Lynn Packer [02:33:26] And it, it has, you peel it back and it has some our material in it. And so what they did is pledged if you buy one of these that then they will donate so much money. Tim Ballard appeared. It's a sort of a bad shot but he's at the Vivint arena, which is another multi level marketing company. He's at the Vivint arena, thousands of people where the jazz play just going wild when he talks about rescuing child sex slaves. And then doterra executive once talked about how she met with a child sex slave.

Lynn Packer [02:34:07] And this is the quote that you see there. There was an immediate bond as we opened our bags, let them choose their favorite essential oil and gave aroma touch massages. What a tender moment that will forever be written upon. Upon my heart. And so they're connecting this essential oil with maybe just at least momentarily relaxing this poor person who's being trafficked sexually.

Lynn Packer [02:34:32] Okay, but, but I think it's, I think it's an extraordinary bad taste. But that's just me. Other people will say that's a heartwarming story.

John Dehlin [02:34:41] So Ian says Vivint is not an mlm. I don't think he claimed Vivints and mlm. I think he said that this was at the Vivint center just responding to.

Lynn Packer [02:34:50] Well, yeah, I, the Vivint center is not an mlm. It's a arena. The Vivint isn't a multi level marketing operation.

John Dehlin [02:34:57] It's not.

Lynn Packer [02:34:59] Oh, you're saying it's not.

John Dehlin [02:35:00] No, I don't, I don't know. I'm one of our listeners says Vivint is not an mlm.

Lynn Packer [02:35:05] Oh well that has changed. It was.

John Dehlin [02:35:08] Oh maybe, maybe it is.

Lynn Packer [02:35:09] I don't even know Vivint has gone through two or three different products. It sold home alarm systems. I think it may have sold, I don't remember solar.

John Dehlin [02:35:23] Solar stuff.

Lynn Packer [02:35:24] They did solar panel bug spray. They all have different products. But if it's changed, it's changed. And I wasn't saying anything about Vivint other than it was at, it was

John Dehlin [02:35:34] at the arena and at least at

Lynn Packer [02:35:35] one point it was in, in Mellon.

John Dehlin [02:35:38] All right, how about, what about monavie?

Lynn Packer [02:35:40] Well, monavie, I'm just pointing out how it sort of ties into religion again. There's lots of them and they hold these rallies and it's just the, the head of the CEO said attending a conference is like going to church and going to temple. And it's where you mix this sort of religious fervor and business fervor.

Lynn Packer [02:36:03] And indeed, many of these multi level marketing companies are organized just like the LDS missions, almost like identical the way they run. And they go out of their way to recruit returned missionaries to sell their products around the United States and sometimes around the world.

Lynn Packer [02:36:26] And I just point out that Trump is a big fan of multi level marketing. That's not widely known. He participated in a multi level marketing company that was involved with nutritional supplements. It was sort of funny a little bit because if I've got this right, you'd have to look it up. But people would urinate in a little bottle and send it in and they would analyze it and say which nutritional supplement you needed. And one time on Letterman, Letterman said, if you lost everything, had to start over. He said, I would do an mlm.

John Dehlin [02:37:01] Yeah. Now we have a, we have a listener again that's asking a loaded, extreme question. But Shelley writes, are you saying that all MLMs are bad and dishonest? And I think that's a, I think that's a good segue to the next slide. But go ahead and respond to her question and then we'll show the next slide.

Lynn Packer [02:37:18] That's a long story. It's like a lot of this stuff is that you. It's complex and you can't discuss it. I followed mlms multi level marketing for years, going back to when I was at KSL and there was a couple of key Supreme Court decisions involving them. These have been around Utah forever. I covered them in the 70s and then in the 80s they just keep getting more and more and they become more sophisticated and they learned how to comply with the federal law. And if anybody is a lawyer or wants to look it up. There was an Amway decision. It was about Amway. It was a multi Level marketing.

Lynn Packer [02:38:04] And it had gone across the line. And so the court ruled and said here's where the line is and don't go over that line, don't cross that line. And so that's been the standard for all of them for years and years.

Lynn Packer [02:38:18] Where does the fraud take place? Most of the big companies that are responsible have attorneys who say here's where the line is. And when they talk to people, they say don't go over the line. But you know what happens in all practicality if somebody gets out there and they're trying to sell something and all of a sudden, even if somebody said don't claim that it cures anything, all of a sudden the products or something. And if fraud takes place, it's at that level.

John Dehlin [02:38:46] And so with, with companies like Doterra and Young living, part of the, if, if there's a problem, part of the problem is, is that people will claim that these oils have powers far beyond what science would ever indicate science and

Lynn Packer [02:39:01] what the, and what the Amway decision would permit, right? People, they, you know, if lying pays and it can help you sell stuff. And I'm not just saying multi level marketers, I'm saying car salesmen, insurance salesmen, people, telemarketers. I get telemarketing calls all the time and there isn't a single time when the first sentence that they utter isn't a total lie and should be prosecuted under Utah's communication fraud statute. But Sean Reyes is the attorney general and a lot of these companies operate out of Utah, predominantly in Utah county, the telemarketing companies.

John Dehlin [02:39:46] So talk about this slide and why you call the MLM play, why you call it a plague and why you call it a cancer for years has

Lynn Packer [02:39:54] had a reputation of being the fraud capital of the, the United States of the world. And you would think that legislators and the church would say, let's just clean it all up, let's clean it all up. Let's have pass some laws that reel in these multi level marketing companies, make it easier to prosecute if somebody does lie. But the fact is that these MLMs generate huge amounts of tax and tithing revenue and a lot of the money comes from out of state. And so it's just the church and the congressional delegation or legislators have accepted that. And they not only don't move against MLMs, they pass legislation to protect them. And I think I have on the next slide one of the examples

John Dehlin [02:40:51] and

Lynn Packer [02:40:51] former governor John Huntsman, who at one time possibly was going to run and he signed into law a measure that essentially gutted Utah's anti pyramid scheme fraud scheme law. And so in essence he was, he helped open up China to Utah MLMs. They make a lot of money over there like new skin and Usana a nature sunshine and these are like health remedies. And, and I happened to vote for, for him in the, the last time around. But still that's what he did. I mean that's what you do if you're a Utah legislature. You support multilevel marketing.

John Dehlin [02:41:37] Right? Okay. There's a, there's a really good comment previously that I think kind of summarize the problem that I think we're trying to explore here. FW Willis wrote, the Mormon Church has a long history of blurring the lines between religious and political influence going back to Missouri and especially Nauvoo. To separate the two is to ignore the problem. I would even add, I think it's combining religious, political and commercial interests together in a way that, that isn't always healthy. Is that, is that kind of what you're trying to say?

Lynn Packer [02:42:14] Yeah, it would be a lot healthier if we actually had separation of church and state. I mean it's a noble, it's a great concept. The United States is, you know, tried to do that. It does somewhat well nationally. We do a terrible job here in Utah doing that. And it is a bad mix because you accumulate money and power and once you have it, it's like today Utah's Democratic Party is a joke.

Lynn Packer [02:42:43] It's one time I was talking to the Republican candidate for Attorney general, Greg Scotus, who ran against Reyes. We were having a discussion and I said, well, you know, over at the Democratic headquarters is this and such. And he said, well, where is the Democratic headquarters? He's running for Attorney general. He doesn't even know where the state Democratic headquarters is. But that shows the strength of the party. It's just nothing.

Lynn Packer [02:43:12] It's deteriorated to nothing. This is a Republican state. And as I told I have some good friends in the Republican Party. I have a good friend who used to be the Republican Party chairman, used to work on national campaigns.

Lynn Packer [02:43:31] Good friend. And the discussion I had is we have a two party system now in Utah. It's within the Republican Party. You have the far right, the Mike Lee types and you have the moderates, the Bob Bennett types and the far right has most of the control because they bounced Bennett out of there and replaced him with Mike Lee. So if you want to participate in politics, be a Republican and then fight it out within the party.

John Dehlin [02:43:58] Yeah, but, but for all, all intensive purposes except for Salt Lake City and a few local regions.

Lynn Packer [02:44:07] Took care of Utah having at least one Democratic.

John Dehlin [02:44:13] Yeah. Now all four of our congressmen are Republicans, even though 40 of the state is Democrat.

Lynn Packer [02:44:20] Yeah, that's where.

John Dehlin [02:44:21] Couple, couple compliments. I've only been sharing the criticisms. Alana writes, the point of investigative journalism is to bring forth facts and investigations that are not covered in the mainstream media. Thank you to Lynn for his work, questions and critical thinking. And then Knight Writer writes, this is mind boggling. Thank you so much, Mr. Lynn, for being willing to expose what you have found. There's always some vicious pushback when you take on big business, so a lot of people are grateful for the stuff you're sharing. Let's. Let's hop back to the next slide. It's talking more about Sean Reyes. What do you want to say that we haven't said?

The Gardy Case and Affinity Fraud Tactics

Lynn Packer [02:45:02] Yeah, this is just talking more about how affinity fraud works. As I told you earlier, that they not only pray a lot, but they want to be shown as praying. The jump teams will be shown to be praying before they strikeout against these sex traffickers. You see Ballard and Reyes here praying as they're supervising a live operation. If you go to the next slide.

John Dehlin [02:45:32] So for listeners who can't see it, it's basically a picture of Sean Reyes saying a prayer like he's an elders quorum and Tim Ballard holding a Book of Mormon, I think, saying a prayer like he's in elders quorum. And. And you actually share some videos in your videos about that that show just how Mormony and, and quote, spiritual a lot of these fundraisers are. And, and you know, Tim Ballard talking about how he went to the temple and God told him to start our.

Lynn Packer [02:46:03] And yeah, I have a coming up about that.

John Dehlin [02:46:07] Oh, you. Okay, okay. We'll come to it. Okay, go ahead.

Lynn Packer [02:46:11] Okay. This is one where, you know, he's very open about this. The national press, the New York Times did a piece three months ago about our and its activities up in Washington state. And they tell this same story. And he's not ashamed of it. He puts it out there and he says that he made the decision with his wife after prayer and fasting to leave government and go looking for the kids who are outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

Lynn Packer [02:46:44] It says that they went to the temple for guidance. The next morning, it became clear he got a spiritual download. It was clear his mission in life was to go find the lost children. And this epitomizes affinity fraud. God told me to do it. I'M a good Mormon. He posts this shot. If you go back to the shot online of him and his family in front of the temple, they're wearing temple clothes. The. Not the ones that they put over, but you go. Usually go to the temple in white clothes.

Lynn Packer [02:47:17] And I'm guessing he adopted two kids, two black kids from Haiti. This could have been when they. The kids were seal, I don't know, some event at the temple. And the whole family's there. He has nine children and the two who are adopted. But this, this, this resonates with Mormons. To see him standing with a big family, a happy wife, two adopted black kids. I mean, it looks, it's, it's.

John Dehlin [02:47:44] It's in front at the doorsteps at the steps of the temple, right?

Lynn Packer [02:47:48] Yeah, it's.

John Dehlin [02:47:50] Yeah, it's a, it's like religious virtue signaling or dog whistling a little bit.

Lynn Packer [02:47:54] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:47:54] Yeah.

Lynn Packer [02:47:55] And if you keep. You go to the next one. There's more about this on the same theme is the. The. He's not related to Elder Ballard. Ballard is right now president of the quorum of the 12. It's the office that my uncle held before he died.

John Dehlin [02:48:11] And

Lynn Packer [02:48:14] Ballard, he. He doesn't say this publicly, but he has told associates that an impetus to leave his government job and form OUR was Russell Ballard when he was an apostle asking for help finding a child who had been kidnapped from a church parking lot in Haiti. And that basically is the beginning, at least on the spiritual side of our.

Lynn Packer [02:48:41] And so it's not only God telling him to do this in the temple, it's also a respected, well known Mormon leader asking him for help. He didn't. I don't think he told him to do it. He said, can you help us? Can you help us find this child who was kidnapped from a church parking lot in Haiti?

Lynn Packer [02:49:02] And if you go to the next slide that has become our's poster child, people can go online and read about Guardi. It would take me a long time to take this story. Tomorrow is getting late. But it's searching for Garthy. Garthy was the son of a bishop who was taken from a church parking lot and disappeared and has never come back. But OUR has gone back to Haiti time and time, time again and raised money looking for Garthy. And it's their poster child. He which was the scourge of its day against kids.

Lynn Packer [02:49:46] And Garthy is. Oh, you are his poster child. He's why you should donate money and keep funding these attempts to go back to Haiti and find out what happened to him. They don't know what happened to him. Ballard is always speculating. It's child.

Lynn Packer [02:50:04] It's. It's these bad guys. He was kidnapped into child sex slavery or labor slavery. They simply don't know what happened. There could be mysterious circumstances. What he doesn't point out is that the chief suspect behind the kidnapping when he was taken from the church was a member of the LDS ward where his father was bishop. They don't point that out.

John Dehlin [02:50:35] So would it. Which would imply not trafficking so much as a local case of kidnapping.

Lynn Packer [02:50:39] Again, I don't know. It could have been a bad member. There are some who decided to sell him to into traffic. Almost anything could happen until you know, you probably shouldn't even speculate. But Reyes uses it to raise money.

John Dehlin [02:50:55] And your point about Guardian and the. And the poster child is what. What's the problem with Guardian? The poster child. Guardian the poster child.

Lynn Packer [02:51:04] Well, because I think they don't know. I mean the implication always is is he was stolen by traffickers and you just simply you. There is no proof. The FBI investigated. Ballard has been there many, many times looking for Garti and that's what it's called, looking for Gardy party. They've never found him. And maybe if they find him someday or find his remnants, they will be able to piece together what happened. They don't know. And so it's not right to raise money based on wild speculation. Especially when it was likely a Mormon involved with the kidnapping. If it was a kidnapping, gone, he's missing. He never came back. We don't know what happened happen.

John Dehlin [02:51:52] Okay, got it.

Lynn Packer [02:51:54] Okay, then the next slide is Ballards. The two Ballards, both Russell and Tim share the same Mormon centric view of history. That is God has paved the way through pilgrims, through George Washington for the promised land and for the rebirth birth of his church, the only true church. And that's Mormonism. And the, the.

John Dehlin [02:52:26] The.

Lynn Packer [02:52:27] The idea is that both of them share, both Russell and Tim Ballard is that Nephi foresaw the pilgrims, that God saved the pilgrims from starvation so that the. So that America could come about so that there would be a democracy and that the pilgrims and the Constitution prepared America for the restoration of the only true church. I'm just saying that both of them subscribe to this same Mormon centric concept that basically all of this circulates around and was for the restoration, which is the Mormon Church.

John Dehlin [02:53:10] Right. And that leads to some of his books and other financial sources of income. Right. Videos and other sorts of things.

Lynn Packer [02:53:18] Yeah, he's always again and we've talked about this all the way through. He's always talking about the Book of Mormon. He's doing interviews about the Book of Mormon. And he's always taking Mormon scripture and using it to show that God has prepared this land for Mormons and that God has saved him from annihilation. That he leans on the Book of Mormon to confirm his faith and to confirm his belief that God has spared his life so that he can rescue these kids.

John Dehlin [02:53:53] One of the really striking things in one of your videos, it talks about how he tells this story to fundraisers, of how he was, like, surrounded by 70 guns and he was about to be killed. You want to tell that story? Because I think it. It reminded me of Paul Dunn. Well, yeah, I thought it was really effective.

Lynn Packer [02:54:10] Paul Dunn equivalent story is they were surrounded, guns and knives pointed at him. There's two different versions of it. In one of the versions, he goes to a vehicle that was there. He prays, he looks at his Book of Mormon. And while he's doing that, in the process, he looks outside the vehicle and these guys have just vanished as if, I don't know, an angel, something came over them, the spirit of God. But suddenly, what could have been a disaster and they could have all been killed, they're spared so that they can go on rescuing children.

Media Coverage and the Decline of Investigative Journalism in Utah

John Dehlin [02:54:48] Okay. All right. So we've already talked about the criminal investigation.

Lynn Packer [02:54:54] Yeah. You can pass this slide because we've gone into it.

John Dehlin [02:54:58] So I guess there's some breaking news you wanted to share with us. Is that right?

Lynn Packer [02:55:01] The last two slides, I saved the last two for best is that last night, last night, about 9:30, I was watching television, getting ready to go to bed, and I hear this headline. And if you go to the next slide, it said in the promo, a KSL investigation revealed a sharp increase in online sex crimes in Utah during 2020.

Lynn Packer [02:55:29] I think, oh, my heck. This has totally escaped my attention. Here I am covering this, and all of a sudden there's a huge increase in child sex crimes. That would be pedophiles raping children in Utah during 2020. And I have to point out, and I know this well, that television news and television, they seek ratings and they have sweeps periods. I don't know if you've heard of that, but a sweeps period is a month or a little over a month where the surveyors find out how many people are watching your station.

Lynn Packer [02:56:09] And depending on the demographics and how many watch determines how much money you can sell a spot for in that newscast. It's extremely important. It Was that way when I was working at ksl. It's continued to be that way. Right now we're in a sweeps period. So look for a lot of sensational headlines and investigative reports.

Lynn Packer [02:56:29] That was the headline. I was blown away by that. I thought, wow, wow, maybe there's something to this. If you go to the next slide, that headline is pure fear mongering. It is hyping ratings at the expense of truth. That is not what happened anyway. And even when you get the fact that they distorted it when you know what they're talking about, it's even worse. This is incredibly bad journalism.

Lynn Packer [02:57:00] It is so bad that if I were giving this a grade like when I taught journalism at BYU and expected students to meet certain journalistic standards, there is not a grade low enough. It is lower than an F.

Lynn Packer [02:57:16] But this is how much the local media is in bed with the OOR concept and Sean Reyes and Tim Bauer. Because what happened is the actual story was not about crime going up, but child predator tips increasing in Utah during COVID 19.

Lynn Packer [02:57:40] Huge difference. If you get a lot of tips, it doesn't necessarily mean there's a crime behind it. And so they call this an investigative report. It's not an investigative report. It's reporting by news release. Somebody told them, hey, the, the reports have gone up and so they make a story out of it. Then if you go to the next slide, I think there's one more is that it says that when you get into it, it says again, an investigation revealed a sharp increase in online check child sex crimes. That means children being abducted or raped or pedophiles getting them goes through blah, blah, blah.

Lynn Packer [02:58:23] These crimes believe the elevated number of child predators with virtual access is due to COVID 19. This is pure, pure Tim Ballard hype. Tim Ballard's theory is that because of COVID 19, children are in greater danger in their homes than in school.

Lynn Packer [02:58:44] The reason he says, is they have greater unsupervised access to computers. The predators are out. They lure them out of the house, they nab them and rape them. That's his story. That's his story. And they would be safer in school because the school is better equipped to protect kids from pedophiles. That's his story. And it just simply is. There's no truth to it. He has no statistics, no experts who really know backing him up. If you go back to that slide is that, well, they go Utah's icac, which is supported by. Oh, you are go ahead. And then they give this Ballard story. They're in more danger at home. And then I think there might be. Let's see one more slide. I'm looking over at mine.

John Dehlin [02:59:37] Yeah, there's one more.

Lynn Packer [02:59:39] Yeah, go to the. I think this is probably the last slide.

John Dehlin [02:59:42] This is the last slide.

Lynn Packer [02:59:44] And that is. Is that Tim Ballard's theory that kids are in greater danger of being lured out of the home by online pedophiles and kidnapped has been debunked. Again, I asked the question, how many kids in Utah were lured out of their homes and kidnapped into sex slavery?

Lynn Packer [03:00:07] That would be news. That would be something you would report as a reporter. And then back to the slide. It says there was a spike in reports and this is how bad this is. This is how dishonest and irresponsible this is. There was a spike in tips nationwide, a huge spike during coronavirus of calls into these hotlines, the take calls if you suspect a child is being molested or raped or kidnapped. I already explained it. The reason it went up is because of Wayfair and QAnon.

Lynn Packer [03:00:52] People saw bad guys everywhere and were calling in and reported and it got so bad the hotline had to plead with Americans, don't call in a tip unless you know or have good reason to believe that a crime is being committed.

Lynn Packer [03:01:11] QAnon actually and Wayfair put children in greater danger because the actual calls, genuine calls that called for an investigation, were being buried under this avalanche of everybody's a predator, Everybody's a predator. Then if you go back to the slide again, even our go online, you have several people here who are familiar with all your law our and I've already said their website is is child rescue.org or something like that. You go online and our tells its adherence, don't call in unless you know because they knew it had been overwhelmed. And it shows you that Tim Ballard and the people who run our on a day to day basis are not on the same page.

Lynn Packer [03:02:05] Ballard is out stirring up this panic and this fear mongering and you saw that in the KSL story. And even our website says watch it. We're getting all these false reports. And that's what the story is about. It's a manufactured fake news story.

Lynn Packer [03:02:22] All these reports must mean all these kids are being kidnapped and molested. KSL should be ashamed. They should apologize for it and they should do what they should have been doing all along and that's quit cheerleading for all you are and just do some fact checking. Assign some actual reporters who know how to cover business, political and religion stories.

John Dehlin [03:02:47] Yeah, it's almost like by by Whip by by Sean Reyes and Tim Ballard and all these celebrities whipping up conspiracy theories about child abuse. Then the media doesn't do their fact checking and all these citizens are reporting fake child abuse and then the media reports a massive increase in child abuse and it's all manufactured and whipped up in sort of a moral panic frenzy of like you say, a fake news.

Lynn Packer [03:03:19] Yeah, it's appalling. Of all the bad reporting that's been done on our the report last night sunk to levels sunk so low you, you can't grade it. If you have a headline that the crimes spiked during coronavirus parents are going to watch that is fear mongering at its worst using absolute misrepresented well in the first place they, they turn the the reports into actual crimes which they weren't and, and then you look at why there was a spike and it's because fear mongering, all these theories about predators being on the loose, it's bad. But that's where we are. That's we're here to this new law.

John Dehlin [03:04:13] So I'm going to share some comments really quick because I think there's some good ones. Trevor writes, KSL isn't exactly a journalistic organization. To Trevor, it's just another church propaganda machine. Carol writes, I have friends and family who support this organization. She seems a little bit outraged.

John Dehlin [03:04:32] Vicki writes, pedophiles gravitate towards large organized religions such as the Jehovah's Witnesses or the LDS Church. As they know sexual transgressions blamed on victims. Churches hide cases to protect their image. And that's true whether it's the Boy Scouts or the LDS Church or Jehovah's Witnesses. These are proven havens of protection for child abusers. And I think we made the point at the beginning. If Tim Ballard really wanted to curb the abuse of children, he would go after religions like the Catholic Church, Jehovah's Witnesses and the LDS church and Curtin McConkie, the law firm it actually employs because those are, you could argue, potentially the biggest protectors of child abusers in the state of Utah.

John Dehlin [03:05:20] At a minimum. Zach writes Reyes and Ballard always seemed a bit slippery. Smooth smiles to convince people to donate to an organization funded by propaganda instead of helping where it really matters. That is Zach's opinion. Trevor says, this all reminds me of the Satanic panic of the 1980s and 90s. That's true, Trevor, and we've covered that on Mormon stories. There's a really good book called Remembering Satan. I highly recommend it. To everybody. Also, mistakes were made, but not by me and the Demon Haunted World. Those are all books that cover the false claims of recovered memory and satanic ritual abuse. And Lawrence Wright, the author of the book Going Clear, which was made into a documentary about Scientologists before he wrote Going Clear. Lawrence Wright, a good investigative journalist, wrote Remembering Satan, which is a book I recommend to everyone. Yeah.

Lynn Packer [03:06:19] And I covered that story back when it happened and tried my hardest to find that these allegations were true, and they just simply weren't. And of course, they were so insidious that they were accusing leaders of the Mormon Church of being behind it, which was, of course, both false and reckless.

John Dehlin [03:06:40] And these conspiracy theorists, it gets so crazy. And even Trump is saying this now that with the voting, which is a separate issue, but it's related, they say that the lack of evidence is evidence. In other words, they can't find evidence. And so they claim that because there's no evidence, there must be a conspiracy so sinister and powerful that they're able to eliminate all evidence. And that's the evidence.

Lynn Packer [03:07:07] Yeah, you have people who want to believe these theories and, and, and nothing has changed. I mean, we both pointed out that this is just another spin off of other similar theories that have gone on for decades, if not centuries.

John Dehlin [03:07:24] Great comment from CC Red. CC Red writes as a social worker and someone a month away from graduating with a master's in social work, this type of false reporting, misleading marketing, and a lot of what was discussed tonight is upsetting. I felt like, why get an education when we don't listen to experts? Thank you so much for this episode and investigative reporting. It covers up good work done by professionals and covers up real issues. That is super valuable. Really quickly, Lynn, I have just a final questions for you before we end. Are you at all afraid, number one, that really super powerful people, Sean Reyes and others, really wealthy people, even people with a lot of guns and ammunition, are you ever afraid of your own personal safety for going after, you know, this. This system?

Lynn Packer [03:08:19] Well, you do when you do investigative reports, reporting. I've had my life threatened several times. One time I was doing a drug story and had a.45 pistol put to my head by a drug trafficker. One time I was doing another drug story in Idaho and had one of the interviewees come out and put a shotgun across his lap.

Lynn Packer [03:08:42] Another time I did a story about the Gary Gilmore killing or execution and whether it had been filmed and there was a prisoner who threatened to bomb me and another reporter working on the story. So we had to check our cars and houses for a couple of weeks.

Lynn Packer [03:09:02] It goes with the job. There's people who get really upset. What's a little bit scary about this particular one is how well armed a lot of these people are. And in some ways, you know, there's concern there. But I fear that there could be some violent outbreak as this transition from a Republican to a Democratic presidency takes place. And I hope that that's pulled under control. I hope that what Glenn Beck was saying and Musto's and these others is just saber rattling and there's no intention to actually try and harm somebody in order to gain control of the presidency back.

John Dehlin [03:09:52] What about being sued? There were a couple comments made that you could be sued for libel or slander for misrepresenting Tim Ballard or our. And again, Curtin McConkie is super powerful. What if the church aimed its army of lawyers at you for going after Tim Ballard and our. Are you concerned about that?

Lynn Packer [03:10:12] No, I don't think the church will. I don't think Curtin McConkey would. Would do that. You never know where a lawsuit. I've been sued twice to involve libel. Both cases went to the Supreme Court twice. One is Diva versus ksl. For anybody who wants to look it up, it's on the record. The other one is Morse v. Packer. That was the one related to Paul. All done. Like I said, both of them made two trips to the Supreme Court and we won both of them in spectacular fashion.

John Dehlin [03:10:50] So you're not worried about getting sued?

Lynn Packer [03:10:52] Pardon?

John Dehlin [03:10:52] You're not worried about getting sued?

Lynn Packer [03:10:54] Well, I handled the second case that went twice the Supreme Court myself.

John Dehlin [03:11:00] Okay.

Lynn Packer [03:11:00] If I get sued, you know, reporters fear that because they'd have to. Have to. It probably cost between 250 and $400,000 to defend a suit like that. But if you can do a lot of it yourself, you spare that. And you also have the advantage that now you have subpoena power. Now the questions they won't ask as a reporter, you can ask as a litigant. You can subpoena records and you can depose witnesses. A Tim Ballard that doesn't have to talk to me right now would have to talk to me in a, in a deposition.

John Dehlin [03:11:37] So one of our listeners asked if, if Tim Ballard knows that he's under investigation for criminal activity and if he knows about what you're doing.

Lynn Packer [03:11:48] I'm not certain, but I know Reyes does. But I'm not certain about Ballard. But since they associate together, I, I suppose that they've read everything that I've that I've written and are banking on the fact that it's not going to be picked up in the popular media and that they'll just ride out this storm.

John Dehlin [03:12:10] That was my next question is what in the world can we do about the fact that investigative journalism in Utah seems to be dead? Like we used to be able to rely on the Deseret on the Salt Lake Tribune for this on local TV affiliates. And you know, if you look in the 70s and 80s and 90s, even the 50s and 60s, there's this rich culture of investigative journalism. Why is a pot a random podcast that is not in any way. It's barely financially viable. And you, an independent retired journalist, independent investigator. Why are we doing this work? Shouldn't this be Kueer and, and, and the TV networks and, and the newspapers?

Lynn Packer [03:12:57] Yeah, generally good reporting in Utah is gone. There are pockets, but they're not really meaningful pockets. There's a couple of really good reporters still at the Deseret News, a couple of really good reporters at the Tribune, but they're not given the time and money it takes to do investigative reporting.

Lynn Packer [03:13:17] When you, when you're understaffed, you have to cover the Daily News, you can't say, okay, you've got three months to investigate our. And because of the high likelihood of attracting a lawsuit, because these stations have deep pockets and I don't, then they say, okay, you'll get sued. Even if we win, it'll cost us a half million dollars. We can't afford it. We're not going to do it.

Lynn Packer [03:13:41] So they shy away from doing it. They shy away from assigning what few good reporters they have. And we saw what happened last night on ksl. It is mind boggling how bad that story is. But that's, I have told people that it is sinking and we haven't seen the bottom and we may not see the bottom in my lifetime. And what's going to have to happen is journalism has to be reinvented and nobody knows for sure right now how it's going to be a long time off and there's going to be a lot of bad things happen because there is not good news reporting.

John Dehlin [03:14:19] I have a listener named Jill who's asking you to talk about the Fairness Doctrine. Did you. I think you already talked about that. But is there anything you want to say about that story?

Lynn Packer [03:14:27] It was in play when I was a reporter at ksl. That's why we were freer to objectively report on issues that involved the church. But they, but that's the Fairness Doctrine is mostly gone and for many reasons. That's a topic for a journalism lecture or a speech to Rotary sometime as to why. Why did this happen?

John Dehlin [03:14:52] So, so one of our listeners writes, this is cece Red. Again, great, great comments from cece. What can we do? In other words, what can we do to support investigative journalism in Utah, in Mormonism, and even in the broader United States? How can we help? And Jill writes, I guess we need to donate to Lynn and John and I do support, I do appreciate donations to the Open Storage Foundation. But Lynn, what can be done?

Lynn Packer [03:15:20] I'll tell you this so anybody would feel inclined to donate me money. Give it to John. I don't need the money money. I don't want it. I'm still working. I should have retired, but I'm still working and making money other ways. Most of the freelancing I've done, I've done it just because I think it needs to be done. It's just sort of my contribution after having been a reporter and having instructed journalism and consulted on television journalism in Germany for so many years, is just sort of my, sort of my contribution. There's not a lot that can be done. You just have to wait and see how all this plays out and just root for good journalism and donate to those who are online because that's where the good journalism will eventually emerge.

Lynn Packer [03:16:11] It's not right now, but eventually will. And so if maybe, you know, Mormon stories is a part of a lot least good journalism in the, in covering religious topics. So donate to that.

John Dehlin [03:16:27] Well, I, you know, on the one hand, we do our best and I, I do think we sometimes provide a, a journalistic function, but in no way do we do I have training in the ethics and the standards of journalism. No way do I have the time or the money or the resources to do the type of investigative work that you did. And so while I appreciate my small role in trying to help carry forward the tradition, it's in no way what is needed to be a check to the, the corrupting power of politics, corporate interests and religion on the, on the public.

Lynn Packer [03:17:05] Yeah, you just, you do what you do. You just do the best you can and then just see eventually what happens.

Lynn Packer's Personal Connection to the Story

John Dehlin [03:17:15] So you didn't say what got you like, do you have any personal interest or personal connection to this? Tim Ballard, our story? Like, I didn't. Is there, is there anything that made you care about this versus 50 other things you could care about and dedicate

Lynn Packer [03:17:33] time to as Remember, I reported this in 2015, again in 2017. This is just the follow up and more in depth. And there is a backstory to it, but I'm not going to tell it now.

John Dehlin [03:17:48] Okay. Ronald's asking, when will the Davis county wrap up their criminal investigation? And before you answer that, I have a. I have a slightly different question. In addition, what can. What can people do if they have tips or information that could be useful to investigators? How do they. What can they do to report that to you or to investigators?

Lynn Packer [03:18:13] Well, they could report it to me. I'd rather not give out my email address. But they could report to you and you could relay it. They can report to the Davis County Attorney's office and my either first or second episode has the contact information on it. So they could just get that offline or they could look in the phone book. And those who have information on both sides should. If they have something of substance. Don't be like the QAnon people reporting to the child sex hotline. If you have something of substance on either side saying, I know this individual, they were good, they stood up for this or that.

Lynn Packer [03:18:53] And I know facts where something may look bad, but I've got a document and I've got an email that shows that there's nothing wrong here. Report it. If you have facts, records that show that something was wrong, report that. And then it'll just all come out in the wash. And to answer the question, investigations like this usually take months and can take more than a year. It just depends on the breaks they get, how many people they have working on it, how many witnesses come forward and all of that. And that's probably a good place to end this with people knowing where they can go to get more information and if they were inclined to report something, where they could go to do that.

John Dehlin [03:19:40] One of our listeners viewers writes, I gave about $15,000 worth of my time to our in their documentaries. Thanks for this podcast. I always felt that it might not be what I thought it was and I. I personally have spoken to several people who have worked with our even at high levels in the organization who expressed concerns. Haven't you as well spoken to former employees and or board members of our.

Lynn Packer [03:20:06] What was that again?

John Dehlin [03:20:08] Haven't you spoken to former employees and. Or board members of our.

Lynn Packer [03:20:14] Right. Yeah.

Guest [03:20:16] Okay.

John Dehlin [03:20:16] And that's where you get a lot of your evidence.

Lynn Packer [03:20:18] Sure.

John Dehlin [03:20:19] Roger wants to know where they can find your website. I think he means the YouTube channel. Is that right?

Lynn Packer [03:20:25] My website, you just go to YouTube and type in Lynn Packer Ballard or something like that and they will pop up and what I'll do is I'm working on another one. So there will be a part six and what I'll do is I'll send you those John, and you can post them somewhere and then somebody could just click on it and go to whichever one they wanted to watch.

John Dehlin [03:20:46] Also for those on Facebook and YouTube, right now I'm, I'm pasting a link to his YouTube channel and they really are excellent videos. They, they only have somewhere between 500 and a thousand views, maybe 3,000 at the most. These should have 50,000 views. They're so good.

Lynn Packer [03:21:08] Well maybe, maybe, maybe you'll stare some more people there. I just hope not. That, that and it's not so much about being anti our is getting the money and attention to where it would do the most good and prevent the most attacks by pedophiles on, on these, on kids who really can't defend themselves. And so I think the attention needs to be directed in a clearly different direction than it is right now. And the money.

John Dehlin [03:21:44] Right. We should be asking ourselves what's. What are the biggest problems and how do we get the right amount of money to the right organizations that have the biggest impact for the problems we care about?

Lynn Packer [03:21:58] Right.

John Dehlin [03:21:58] That's what it comes down to really quickly. Is there anything else we can expect for you in the future, Paul Dunn, who you are, Paul.

Lynn Packer [03:22:08] Done. Is that I'm in discussions with Benchmark Books. We, I've talked to Benchmark over, I don't know, two or three years about doing a hard copy and doing it upright. The, the paperback that I have doesn't have illustrations in it. It hasn't been updated. So I'm in discussion with Benchmark Books about doing a better job with better editing with more visuals so you can see some of the things that you and I showed your viewers, some of the documents, photographs and such. So that's in the discussion stage and I think that that might happen and like I said, I've got a part six that should be out within a week and I'll let you know so that you can pass that along.

John Dehlin [03:22:55] And that book is Lying for the Lord. Right?

Lynn Packer [03:22:57] The Paul Dunn's book. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:22:59] And will you do other, other stories in the future potentially? Do you want to keep doing investigative journalism?

Lynn Packer [03:23:06] I don't know. Maybe not. I want to re. Engage with consulting and maybe be part of the solution for finding a new journalism. So as soon as I finish a project that I've been working on the past year, I'm going to turn my attention to that and probably a Lot less reporting.

John Dehlin [03:23:24] Okay. All right. And final, you know, this, this sort of closes out the, the series that we plan to do together. So, you know, you've, you've shared with us so much about Boyd K. Packer, about your journalism career, about Utah stories, about Paul Dunn, and now about Tim Ballard and our. Any final words you want to give to the audience as we close out this incredible series that you've shared with us? Any final words?

Closing Reflections and Parting Thoughts

Lynn Packer [03:23:53] No, just that I think these discussions are good. I think it's good to talk about how business, politics, and religion come together. There's been a lot of critical comments, and I think that that's good. That's part of the dialogue. That's part of talking. And see, America's becoming divided. And to get back together, you have to talk. And you may not change each other's minds very much, but you'll learn to get along. I have friends and relatives who vote for Trump, and we still get along fine. And I think that that needs to, we need to do a better job nationally learning how to get along and learning how to dialogue better. And that's part of what has taken place tonight.

John Dehlin [03:24:46] One of the most inspirational things about your whole story is just how you and Boyd K. Packer remained in communication long after he knew you stopped believing in the church. And that was inspiring to me that that can happen.

Lynn Packer [03:24:59] Yeah. All right.

John Dehlin [03:25:01] Lynn Packer, I'm so grateful for coming on Mormon Stories. My listeners, thank you. My viewers, thank you. Please live long and prosper, and please keep doing investigative journalism.

Lynn Packer [03:25:13] All right, thanks. See you.

John Dehlin [03:25:15] All right, take care, Lynn. And a huge thanks to all our listeners for this series. All the comments and questions have been amazing. Huge thanks to everyone who supports Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation. Your donations make this possible.

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John Dehlin [03:27:12] That's what we do. If you want to support us, we would love your support. Please go to MormonStories.org, donate there and it'll mean the world to us. And we'll keep doing this as long as there's support. Thanks again to all our listeners and viewers. There are so many ways you can support us.

John Dehlin [03:27:29] You can like us on Facebook or on YouTube. You can follow us on YouTube or on Facebook. You can give us positive reviews on our Facebook page or on itunes. Those positive reviews make a huge difference. We have haters who brigade us who don't even listen to the podcast, but they try and get our ratings down by by brigading our Facebook page on Mormon Stories or our YouTube channel, our our iTunes channel and leaving one star, zero star reviews to bring our ratings down. So right now, if you go to itunes or if you go to our Facebook page, give us a positive review. If you value what we do, that'll help immunize us from the haters that brigade us.

John Dehlin [03:28:16] You can also share these episodes on social media, on Twitter, on Facebook, on Reddit, on Instagram, wherever you do social media. If you like an episode, you can post an image of it, a screenshot, share what you liked about it. You can post it to private groups, share it with friends and family. Whenever you share an episode, it helps spread the word.

John Dehlin [03:28:38] That's super helpful. And of course, your emails@mormonstoriesmail.com for recommendations on stories on topics we should cover, people we should interview. That's super helpful. And if there are clips of Mormon stories, past Mormon stories episodes that you really like, little five to ten minute clips, you can email us@understandmormonismmail.com it's our new YouTube channel with video shorts and you can send us the link of the episode you loved with the 5 to 10 minute time code of the beginning, the starting and the stopping point of an episode that you liked, including this one of a segment of an episode. And we'll repurpose those videos and release them as shorts so that even if you don't have time or if your friends or family don't have time to watch a six hour interview, they can watch a five to ten minute clip of a really meaningful part of a past Mormon Stories episode.

John Dehlin [03:29:35] So if you value that, send it to understand Mormonism gmail.com with the link to the video and the start and stopping point of the clip and we'll turn that into a video short. Melissa says, this has been an amazing series.

John Dehlin [03:29:53] Ronald says, great ending, John. So many, you know. Kate says, thanks for doing this. Thank you. It's our pleasure. And thank you for supporting us. Thanks to everyone who supports the Open Stories Foundation. Please become a supporter. But most of all, a huge thank to Lynn Packer. Thanks to Lynn Packer and his amazing investigative journalism for all his decades of support of truth in Mormonism, accountability in Mormonism in Utah, Utah politics, Utah journalism, Utah business. Huge thanks. Thanks to everyone who supports us. You guys take care and we'll see you guys all again very soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.