More Concerns about the Investigative Misconduct by Harmeet Dhillon’s Team

According to a July 2 letter from Georgia Fort’s attorney, Matthew Ebert, Civil Rights attorney Neville (Ned) Hedley told him one day prior that he didn’t want to put anything in writing for fear it “could be put before the Court and/or otherwise used against it.” We understand from Mr. Hedley the government does not intend to respond to our correspondence in writing, out of the concern expressed on the call that what it represents to us could be put before the Court and/or otherwise used against it. According to an investigative report submitted as an exhibit by attorneys for Thomas Tier, on June 2, Hedley instructed HSI Agent Timothy Gerber and three others to withdraw 24 subpoenas to Google, GoFundMe, and Meta that HSI sent out between April 9 and April 15, weeks after DOJ obtained a superseding indictment that charged Tier and dozens of others. Continuing to use a grand jury after it has indicted defendants is just one of the complaints Tier and two other defendants raise in a motion to compel discovery submitted in the Cities Church case. Evidence relating to the Government’s issuance of grand jury subpoenas after the Superseding Indictment is also [sic] because it points to an abuse of power. After a grand jury hands down an indictment, its investigation into those specific charges is officially over. The Government cannot use the grand jury’s broad powers to gather evidence for an upcoming trial—it must use standard pretrial discovery instead. United States v. Sellaro, 514 F.2d 114, 122 (8th Cir. 1973) (“Of course, a grand jury should not be used to prepare for a pending trial”); United States v. Thompson, 944 F.2d 1331, 1337 (7th Cir. 1991) (“Once a defendant has been indicted, the government is precluded from using the grand jury for the sole or dominant purpose of obtaining additional evidence against him.”) (citation modified). And if the Government uses post-indictment subpoenas to extract documents or witness statements that directly bear on elements of the existing charges, such evidence may be subject to suppression or exclusion at trial. [snip] In this case, a colorable basis exists to suspect the Government’s improper use of the grand jury. The initial indictment was returned on January 29, 2026. A Superseding Indictment charging Defendants Tier, Hauptman, and others was returned February 26, 2026. Subsequent to that date, Defendants became aware that the grand jury issued at least 35 subpoenas to third parties.5 5 Subpoena # 2026R00046-0008 (DCN 00009053) was issued on about March 10, 2026, to REI. LaVine Decl. ¶ 12, Ex. L. Subpoena # 2026R00046-0043 (DCN 00011868) was issued on about May 5, 2026, to Wings Financial Credit Union. LaVine Decl. ¶ 13, Ex. M. The subpoena numbers establish that the government issued at least 35 subpoenas between March 10, 2026, and May 5, 2026. It is unclear how many grand jury subpoenas were issued after the Superseding Indictment returned on February 26, 2026, but before March 10, 2026, and how many grand jury subpoenas have been issued since May 5, 2026. And obtaining fundraising information could violate the Sixth Amendment. The Sixth Amendment protects against unjustified governmental interference with the right to defend oneself using whatever assets one has or might lawfully obtain and prohibits the government from impeding the supply of defense resources, absent justification. United States v. Stein, 541 F.3d 130, 135 (2d Cir. 2008). Here, evidence suggests that the Government used the grand jury to investigate Defendants’ funding of its defense. This raises substantial concerns regarding the Sixth Amendment right to counsel and the integrity of the adversarial process, leading Defendants to now move the Court to compel the disclosure of materials related to this potential investigation. The more serious concerns include one that Ebert laid out in his own motion: Gerber’s use of Homeland Security summonses to conduct a criminal investigation that has nothing to do with Customs (including, on May 4, a request for employment records for the MN-based defendants). Beginning in January 2026 and continuing through at least March 2026, ICE agents issued administrative summonses purportedly under the authority of 19 U.S.C. § 1509. These summonses sought employment records, communications records, and other information unrelated to customs administration. Congress authorized § 1509 summonses for limited and specific purposes. The statute permits the issuance of summonses only “for the purpose of ascertaining the correctness of any entry, for determining the liability of any person for duty, fees and taxes due or duties, fees and taxes which may be due the United States, for determining liability for fines and penalties, or for insuring compliance with the laws of the United States administered by the United States Customs Service.” 19 U.S.C. § 1509(a)(1). The statute further identifies the categories of persons subject to such summonses, including importers, exporters, customs brokers, warehouse operators, carriers, and others involved Congress authorized § 1509 summonses for limited and specific purposes. The statute permits the issuance of summonses only “for the purpose of ascertaining the correctness of any entry, for determining the liability of any person for duty, fees and taxes due or duties, fees and taxes which may be due the United States, for determining liability for fines and penalties, or for insuring compliance with the laws of the United States administered by the United States Customs Service.” 19 U.S.C. § 1509(a)(1). The statute further identifies the categories of persons subject to such summonses, including importers, exporters, customs brokers, warehouse operators, carriers, and others involved The investigation at issue bears no relationship to customs enforcement. The Indictment alleges civil rights offenses and does not involve customs entries, imported merchandise, duties, tariffs, customs declarations, bonded merchandise, drawback claims, or any other matter within the scope of laws administered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Tier’s filing notes that using Customs summonses for a civil rights criminal investigation would violated the Stored Communications Act. The Government may not use § 1509 summonses to obtain communications and subscriber records in a civil rights case. The Stored Communications Act (“SCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq., prohibits electronic communication service providers from disclosing the contents of communications or customer records absent specific statutory authorization. Section 2703 establishes the procedures through which the Government may obtain such information, including search warrants, court orders, and grand jury subpoenas, depending upon the nature of the records sought. A customs summons issued under § 1509 is not among the mechanisms authorized for obtaining communications records in a domestic civil rights investigation. The filing also points to a 2017 DHS OIG memo, issued during the first Trump Administration after officials used a summons to try to find the identity of the ALT_USCIS Twitter account, laying out that such misuse of Customs summonses could get DHS into legal trouble. While it’s not entirely clear what happened, what we do know is that HSI used a grand jury to obtain — among other things — communication records long past the indictment. Ned Hedley ordered HSI to withdraw them in May. Yet all the while, HSI was using Customs summonses to unlawfully spy on defendants in this case, potentially in violation of SCA. And after that happened, Hedley refused to go on the record about all this out of a concern that it could be used against him. The local district attorney and the state AG have to be combing the state laws to see if they can find charges that would enable them to hold DOJ attorney’s like Hedley and investigators like Gerber accountable for their misconduct. As I said on an earlier related thread, it is past time for the judge to bring the US attorney into the courtroom personally, put them under oath, and ask a few pointed question like “how do you intend to discipline lawyers who show such disregard for the courts and the constitution?” and “How do you suggest I discipline you for your failure to conduct appropriate supervision over your own folks?” I’m fascinated by the “and/or otherwise used against it”. “It” is the government. However, I think Hedley is worried about himself. He is probably thinking of how other similarly situated lawyers have been treated in this DOJ. It’s “Make Attorneys Get Attorneys” all over again. That’s a great point. These people all have a bad case of “L’État, c’est moi”, but we might actually be at the “rats jumping ship” stage? Yes, that’s what I assume. My WAG, and it is just a WAG at this point, is that Hedley can’t bring Gerber to adhere to rules that bind criminal process, quite possibly bc anyone in ICE believes they only have Stephen Miller to answer to, and as a result his law license is on the line while Gerber continues to do whatever he wants. It’s not an unfounded fear, because there are more backchannels in this WH than an ant farm. It’s also well known that Convict-1 decides things based upon who spoke to him last, usually Miller or Natalie. If one has time, look up how Russia operated under Nicholas II in particular with its army of secret police, even willing to assassinate Stolypin to slander the opposition. It has eerie parallels to now. It’s a swamp. If Hedley goes to a judge and rats out Gerber, any chance to save his license? I think we’ve passed the “smart rats leaving the sinking ship” but we might be at the “dumb rats eating each other” stage before too long. Probably no shot at getting Gerber in legit criminal trouble, since Stephen Miller probably has a ton of blank-but-signed Presidential Pardon forms that he told Trump were signature requests. I’m beginning to wonder if the crashing poll numbers aren’t creating a fear of future personal accounting for actions taken today. In the second block quotation (1st big one) it looks like 2 paragraphs are in reverse order. TY Neville S. Hedley is listed on the docket as a lead lawyer, so I assume that’s Ned Hedley mentioned in this post. His signature block identifies him as a lawyer with the Civil Rights Division in DC, but he doesn’t show up on a basic search or in a search on the Civil Rights Division site or at Main Justice. The only two results on the first page are to LinkedIn, which I don’t access, and a post at the Federalist Society saying that he’s with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Center. This page shows the lawyers and alumni lawyers of that group, and he isn’t there. https://hlli.org/about-us/#the-attorneys The FedSoc page says he was a bank lawyer. The Hamilton Lincold group is a free market anti-regulation group. If this is Hedley, he’s in way over his head. It looks like John Arboleda, who was on the phone call mentioned in the previous post on this issue, is one of the JAG lawyers sent to MN to fill in for all the honest lawyers who left that office. https://www.floridabar.org/about/section/profile/?num=1050716 There’s no reason to think he knows any federal criminal law. Also, for funsies (or not), take a look at this page in the Action Center. https://www.justice.gov/crt I can see the Action Center remake now: Tech Billionaire: “Come and see the violence inherent in the system. I’m being repressed by DEI.” Trumpking: “Bloody Billionaire! Here have another tax break to soothe your pain” Amazed Second Tech Billionaire: “How can you tell he’s the Trumpking?” Tech Billionaire: “Cause he’s all covered in shit!” Jesus That reads like here’s your complaint topic and since we don’t care if it’s real or not, write us an essay about “poor me” story and you too could get a DOJ attorney that make you a STAR TRUMP VICTIM on social media. A seasoned litigator knows that every communication relating to a case might be put before the court. They still put most things in writing, especially communications with the other side. Among other reasons, if you don’t, you end up with what happened here. Only one side created a contemporaneous record of a conversation and that’s all the court has to go on. The approach here is fundamentally stupid. It screams foul play and guilty knowledge. It’s as if every DOJ litigator is following Trump’s typical civilian litigation strategy. Take outrageous positions, file suit for unheard of amounts of money, litigate mostly in the press, refuse to engage in discovery, when the court makes you do so, drop the case — and assume no harm will follow. Ha ha. Given what appears to be his background I’m betting Hedley didn’t know this basic fact taught to me by one of my law partners. My mother said, about genealogy, and it applies here, too: if you don’t have it on paper, you don’t have it. (Records as proof of existence. And of marriage, birth, death, etc.) It is odd that Todd Blanche and his DOJ lawyers – who demand, “Show me your papers, please!” in every other circumstance – refuse to follow routine lawyerly practice in documenting their actions and the progress of a prosecution. You’d think they had something, many things, to hide. I would add that contemporaneously made business records are the evidentiary gold standard. Documents generated later are inherently less reliable, owing to loss of evidence, memory lapses, need to promote a position you didn’t take at the time, and so on. Contemporaneous records are primary records, and the ones you really want to have. The rest are secondary, at best. Shorter EoH: Trump and the DOJ lawyers are learning that FAFO is a real thing at law when you are the government.