QAA Podcast - Episode 248: From the Cavortex Into the BallardZone

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Jim Caviezel is the moist-eyed actor who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ — and has since continued to do so in his own headcanon. He’s also a fan of QAnon, which is why we’ve covered him in the past: Episode 143, Enter the Cavortex, in which we found out how much of a nightmare he is on film sets, and Episode 238, Sound of Freedom, in which we explored his latest child trafficking summer blockbuster. The movie saw him play Tim Ballard, the head of tastelessly-named and questionably-run anti-child-trafficking non-profit Operation Underground Railroad ( OUR). But since the film was released — and promptly vaulted to the center of the culture wars — Ballard has stepped down from OUR, been accused of sexual misconduct, and was even denounced by the Mormon Church. We cover all of that in this episode with our guests: Vice journalists Anna Merlan and Tim Marchman, who’ve been covering Ballard and his organization for a while now. Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to ongoing series like 'Manclan,' 'Trickle Down' and 'The Spectral Voyager': http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous QAA's Website: https://qanonanonymous.com Music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz. REFERENCES Recent Reporting on Operation Underground Railroad by Anna Merlan and Tim Marchman Mormon Church Denounces Tim Ballard’s “Morally Unacceptable” Activities https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvjypz/mormon-church-denounces-tim-ballards-morally-unacceptable-activities Tim Ballard’s Departure From Operation Underground Railroad Followed Sexual Misconduct Investigation https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkaqvn/tim-ballards-departure-from-operation-underground-railroad-followed-sexual-misconduct-investigation ‘Sound of Freedom’ Producer Felt the Naked Breasts of Apparently Underage Trafficking Victim https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mq5w/sound-of-freedom-producer-underage-trafficking-victim Operation Underground Railroad Child-Rescue Missions Were Based on Psychic Intelligence https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bpda/operation-underground-railroad-child-rescue-missions-were-based-on-psychic-intelligence

What's up QAA listeners? The fun games have begun. I found a way to connect to the internet. I'm sorry, boy. Welcome, listener, to the 248th chapter of the QAA podcast, the From the Cvortex into the Ballard Zone episode. As always, we are your host, Julian Fields, Jake Rakatansky, and Travis Vue. Jim Caviesel is the moist-eyed actor who played Jesus in the Passion of the Christ

and has since continued to do so in his own head canon. He's also a fan of QAnon, which is why we've covered him in the past. Episode 143, Enter the Cvortex, in which we found out how much of a nightmare he is on film sets. And Episode 238, Sound of Freedom, in which we explored his latest child trafficking summer blockbuster. The movie saw him play Tim Ballard, the head of tastelessly named and questionably run anti-child trafficking non-profit, Operation Underground Railroad, or OUR. But since the film was released and promptly vaulted to the center of the culture wars, Ballard has stepped down from OUR, being accused of sexual misconduct,

and was even denounced by the Mormon Church. We'll be covering all of that in this episode with our guests, Vice journalists Anna Merlin and Tim Marchman, who've been covering Ballard and his organization for a while now. But before we jump into the Ballard Zone, I thought I'd catch you up with his handsome doppelette. ganger. Old Jimmy Caviesel, who's been up to all kinds of Q&N-related shenanigans that have landed him in hot water with just about everybody, including the director of Sound of Freedom, Alejandro

Monteverde. When asked by the LA Times whether in retrospect he thought Cavizel was the right man for the role, Monteverde answered, The lead actor needs to really believe that the atrocities are happening and have a conviction about it. When I was casting, I was looking for someone very passionate about the subject matter. His conviction to want to shine a light on this was so deep that he got emotional. The first time I met him, he was crying. That is probably only like a kind of casting tip for Christian movies. Like, I'm pretty sure if you just go into your casting for any other movie and you start weeping, they're like, okay, well, this guy's going to be a nightmare on set. Look, I will tell you, as somebody who spent the better part of a decade in, let's call

them, the acting arts, the only time you want to be crying in an acting scenario is when the script tells you to. Okay. Yeah, but I mean, I think we all know that Kavisel always keeps a tear just like Can you can you imagine like walking into an interview room? Just seeing like a little boy of a man with like two hands like over his eyes. You know, just like wet and glisting already like before you even sit down. You're perfect. You're hired. The interviewer pressed him a bit about whether he thought Jim had impacted the messaging of sound of freedom. Monteverde explained. In this case, case, it did have an impact that was not in line with who I am as a person, as a filmmaker, as a storyteller. And that is the pure reason I am here, because I need to say who I am. I don't

want to speak about other people's views. I want to stay as objective as possible to make films that create conversation and open dialogue about important subject matter. My hope was that this film creates dialogue at the social level about a subject matter, human trafficking. And that's what's happening. Yeah, so kind of throwing him under the bus, but still being a little gentle. In another interview with Variety, Monteverde stood up a bit for Kavisel, explaining that he really went the extra mile for the movie. Jim was at the level of going to a hospital one day. Like, he was really sick, but I didn't have a contingency. If I didn't shoot that day, we will lose the location. So I went to Jim and I'm like, Jim, we need to shoot this. He comes

out with a bucket. The bucket was not insane. He was throwing up for real. He could barely walk so I say I want to rewrite it like you're hung over and he could only give me one max two takes I respect that as a director to have an actor that is just going to die for the part what they do after everybody's entitled to speak their mind now on this particular film yes it did hurt my work and that's why I'm here talking now instead of secluding myself it's time for me the author the writer and the director to say what was the motive of the film so old jimmy with a bucket. Oh, Jimmy. Oh, Jimmy buckets. Staggering on stage. Breath reeks of vomit. I mean, the funniest thing is he did clarify this in a later interview, and it makes it sound

a lot less heroic, which is that they show up to set, they can't find Jim, and they have to go and, like, knock on his hotel door, and he's just, like, in bed and he's sick with, like, gastroenteritis. Oh, no. Poor guy. Yeah. So he did end up going to the hospital, like, after this, I guess. Yes, but yeah, I don't know. He's just in there with diarrhea. He's puking. I mean, this is the sacrifice you have to make for indie filmmaking, I guess. Yeah, you got a shit in a bucket like halfway through the scene. Yeah, that's commitment, you know. It takes a lot. A lot of people don't have what it takes to make it in Hollywood. You got to cry. You got to vomit. You got a shit.

You got to cry, you got a vomit, you got a shit. So let's examine what exactly Jim Caviesel did to elicit these statements by Monteverde. Well, I'm here to tell you that the famed kovortex is still in full effect. Now, a small reminder for those not familiar, this was originally coined by an anonymous person, one of the three that I spoke to, who worked on set with him for years, and this is what she told me. He's very intense, so he could catch you in what we call the kovortex, whereas just him soft talking about three inches from your face, total stream of consciousness, but not a consciousness that was going in a linear fashion.

I've never had a real conversation with him in years of working together. This is like the kind of guy who, you know, will, like, wander up to you on set and be like, I was waiting at a red light on the way over to set, and I saw, have you, do you, have you ever eaten at the big boy at the big boy diner? You know, that place is owned by a guy. He came over to California in 1942. This was shortly during the war, and I don't know what you know about the war. But a lot of people have a lot of what I would call misunderstood.

standings about Adolf Hitler and, you know, some of his, some of his writings, some of his teachings. And then did you see that they brought the celery sticks? They're already cut up for the craft services. You should go. I think they've even put some peanut butter on and some raisins too. Ants on a log. It's a snack my mother used to make. It is the type of person that makes me really anxious where within like two or three sentences, they've already broken off into so many tangents that you're like, oh my God, are we ever going to make it? back to the main one. And also, this has already taken up a lot of time. Do I want it to go full circle? And so I just start to become alarmed, you know, and just, it's hard to listen.

Yeah. And if you're like a PA or, you know, wardrobe department or something, you have so many things to do, you know, you're constantly, everybody's constantly scrambling, you know, to make sure everything's ready. So meanwhile, you're thinking about like getting yelled at by your boss because, you know, the costume change isn't set up yet. And you're being close talked to by the star who you can't really get out of because you don't want to offend them because they're the star. A small taste, though, of like what Jake as an adult would be like on set. Are you kidding? These ants are on a log?

Are you kidding? Everybody loved me. Are you kidding? Everybody loved me. Place the raisins on the peanut butter in the correct fashion. I'm a big boy. Whenever I left the set, they would be like, hey, man, we really, we should have you back. That was great.

That was the only feedback I ever got, so. My version was comedic. Yours, I guess, continues your image as a good guy, friend of the people. No, it was true. I'm just stating facts. Wow. That's incredible. See, he has no comedy when it comes to his own integrity.

Please do not misunderstand him. Oh, Lord, please don't let Jake be misunderstood. I reviewed multiple interviews with the likes of Steve Bannon, Jordan Peterson, Fox and Friends, Devin Nunes, and some far-right Christian guy just called Jeff Tarp. Oh, come on. Jeff Tarp? Yeah. Talking with Tarp.

Yeah, Talking with Tarp, a new series on Sirius XM. I'll have you know he runs the far-right Christian channel Elijah Streams. Talking with Tarp, where we put a tarp over Jeff. Gotta be careful. I'm waiting into Julian territory, no good. Yeah, yeah, I know. If he gets agitated, his name is Jeff's safety blanket. You've got to put that little shiny blanket over him.

Make sure there's no air bubbles under there. Jeff has unfortunately passed away. The tarp had no holes in it. Please, Lord. Please, Lord, make Jeff Tarp not be misunderstood. I've got some fun highlights for you, friend. But first, let's check in with former future President Donald Trump, who recently spoke at a thing called the Concerned Women for America,

summit or or as it's known as quas and you know jim kevizel who's a big actor he put it very well in the movie sound of freedom god's children are not for sale he said that god's children are not for sale good movie that was a good movie by the way and jim is a wonderful guy of course the french actor jim Kevin Cavazel. He comes from France. They make great movies over there. Great movies from French actor Jim Cavazel. Great guy.

Great movie. Great movie. Great chase scene at the end. Trump must have gotten a note on his pronunciation because this is him later in the same evening speaking at an event called the Prevote Stand Summit, organized by the Family Research Council. I just know he's going to go, Cavizal. Like he's going to make it.

I just know he's going to overcorrect. Let's hear it. What do we got? And as Jim Cavizzo was a great guy, you know who he is, the movie, Sound of Freedom, he said, God's children are not for sale. Very simply. He did. He made like a scowl. Yeah.

You know what? You know what? I think somebody might have flipped the switch on the back of Trump's coattails to 1.5 speed. He sounds a little higher, a little sped up. Oh, man. Both of these events, of course, organized by a quote-unquote. faith leaders. These are moneyed organizations dedicated to imposing their idea of Christianity on the rest of America for our pleasure. So that's why they're concerned. They're concerned

that we're maybe turning satanic. And they want us to, let's see, pray, vote, stand. That sounds like, I mean, breathe, breathe must be the next one, too. It sounds like what you're supposed to do if the plane is crashing, you know, that's what you read on like the little car. The stop, drop, and roll summit? Yeah. So, Camiesel. I really want you to understand the power of the Kvortex listener, and sure, some satanic puppets are willing to play you shortened clips of Jim's appearances on Bannon's War Room to promote his movie, like Travis View. But I want to give you a couple of longer clips so you can truly behold the Kvortex at work.

Keep in mind that through all of these clips, Steve Bannon is just trying to get Kavisel to plug the movie's website so they can get their weird pyramid scheme to work and sell tickets. This is the most powerful movie. Since the passion of the Christ is sound of freedom. And let me tell you, that devil, he does not want you to see this. What does devil mean? It means divider.

Satan, satanels creak root, accuser. If there is a God, why did these things happen? Oh, he's had his fun poking himself at the people that go out and try to do the right thing for God. But that's it. St. Paul says to live as Christ, to die his gain. Well, I'm going to take him as his word. Because if I don't, I got nothing left. And right now we have our Bibles being ripped from us.

We're supposed to go along with the LGBTQ community. Where is our pope? Why is he not speaking out when poor Catholics are being ripped to kingdom come from the FBI? These are the things that are going on. It's like a tentacle, octopus with arms. It's many, many arms. But you've got to go after the head of the octopus in this one. Who is it?

The central banks, the IMF, the UCB, the Private West Central Banks, the Biz, the Ross Child Banks. We have a Rosschild Pope. and there are great Americans out there that are fighting right now, fighting with all their hearts, but they don't have a voice. So I'll be that voice. I saw what John the Baptist did. I think about him all the time in this situation. Would you lose your head for Christ?

Would you? I would, because I love him. I love him. And I know who's Christ in this movie, Tim Ballard. Tim Ballard. And I know you out there that you're going to say, oh, Tim Ballard, Mormon, forget it. Listen to me.

Do you not know the Gospels? Do you know the story about this? Let's pretend there was a Catholic walks by and sees a guy who's beaten up. He does nothing. Walks past him. Say there was a Protestant, evangelical walks by. He sees him. Does nothing. And then a Mormon walks by named Tim Ballard. And he does something. The Bible is alive right now. We're all playing different characters. I got to play Jesus. Some of us are playing Judas. Jesus, I am on your side. Touch me, touch me, Jesus. You know, he says every single line with the desperation of someone trying to talk a suicidal person

off of a ledge. Just this, you know, this, this, uh, this straining, this pain, this, this desperation to communicate something just really important, just constantly in everything he says. It's kind of exhausting to listen to. Yeah, it's a big jumble of like every single conspiracy. And you can see there's a great Calvin and Hobbs line where, uh, he says the, you know, the way, the way his brain is wired, you can almost hear the fuses blowing. And, uh, that, that's, you know, that I think that sort of applies to Jim here. I mean, to me, he sounds like Mel Gibson's character at the end of conspiracy theory, you know, when, you know, he's basically got every single conspiracy that's been uploaded into his brain and, you know, it's just causing him to go mad. After minutes on end

like this, Bannon is finally able to break the Coveortex. When Fox was doing this movie, they didn't want me. I'm not saying all the Fox doesn't want me. I'm saying at the power positions, they would not hire me. And I was one of their main guys. I did a movie called The Thin Red Line, and then suddenly after the passion, I couldn't get a job. The studios wouldn't hire me. But see, they're all controlled by the central banks.

People have to, do you really think Biden is the president of the United States? Do you really think he's running our country? Please, who above him? Who are the puppeteers? Here's how you'll know. Everything I've said is the truth. When they come out and they just blast me, they have to.

They have no choice because the devil has no choice. in this matter, God is coming for him. And I'm talking about the Christ, Jesus God. That is the one that's coming after him. And there's a big storm coming, and they know it. So they have to go and threaten you with everything from Q, Anon, or whatever they want to say. Do you know what Q really means? Means question. That's what one of these people told me. And I said, well, that that seems like a good thing. Anon question, right? Anon's then go out and research it to see if it's true. Because we've been fed, fed their lies. Think about Monday. What happened? A Durham report was dropped. The FBI the CIA, all of these guys are involved.

Now, I know it's not all of them. The lower guys are probably just crying. But I'm asking you warriors to come out and tell the truth. If we would just unite. You know, I love that scene from Mel Gibson. I love that movie when he runs out. And where are you going? I'm going to pick a fight.

Well, I'm here to pick one right now because I'll do it for my children. I'll do it for your children. Because if you understand. Go ahead. Hang on one second. We're going to go to commercial break by one of my make sure everybody can get to what we're trying to accomplish here. Can I just say that he's actually, he's not being entirely truthful here.

The Passion of the Christ came out, I think, around 2004. Yeah. He fucking was hired on person of interest for years. And TV is where the real money is, honestly, because not only are you getting paid, you know, 30, 40,000 per episode, and that's on the lower end, you're also getting residuals. If he became a producer eventually on the show, you're collecting on that as well. So, you know, he had a great job, you know, for many years. I mean, person of interest ran from like, I don't know, 2011 to like 2016 or something.

I mean, it was a long-running show. So, I don't know. I don't know about not being able to get a job. Yeah, it's just simply not true. He was literally hired by like a liberal Hollywood elite right after this for years on a TV show that was popular. Yeah, Warner Brothers, my God. I ran budgets for that show when I worked for Warner Brothers. You know, he had a job.

Yep, he was doing fine. Oh, it's such a shame, too, because I really, I loved that movie, The Thin Red Line. I loved it, and I loved Caviesel in it. I thought he was so good and so dynamic. And, yeah, it's kind of sad, kind of sad to see him in this state, to be honest. Funny, but also a little sad. I mean, he's a kind of evil man. I mean, it's like, and the judge.

damn LGBTQ. I mean, if you take away his acting chops and his weepiness, like he is a Fox News grandpa full of hatred. Yeah, totally, totally. Just an awful man. I mean, yeah, he basically said that the Catholic Church is controlled by the Jews. I mean, yeah. The Jews were like, we don't want it. The funny thing with this appearance is that Bannon just keeps having him on the war room after this. In June of 2023, Kavisel's a guest again, this time ranting about the quote and quote, adrenachrome empire, calling it, quote, an elite drug that they've used for many years. It's 10 times more potent than heroin,

and it has some mystical qualities as far as making you look younger. So that's not true. Steve Bannon, during that appearance, tried to walk Jim back from the ledge by bringing up fear and loathing in Las Vegas. But Kavisel refused to back down and claim that just like with the Hunter Biden laptop, people who believe in adrenochrome as some sort of satanic elixir extracted from children would be vindicated. A month later, when Trump organized a private viewing of Sound of Freedom, Steve had Jim on again.

Jim wore a Navy SEAL training long sleeve, which we know he loves that from our episode about his actions on the person of interest set. And he borderline like thinks of himself as a Navy SEAL. So in this one, he had a little rant reserved for the politicians who are pro-choice. You are the vermin of the highest disorder for what you've done to my Lord and Savior, to my Father in heaven, to my Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. and the blessed mother who bore that beautiful child, you are going to have something hell to pay for for what you've done. Media, I'm not afraid of you at all. You Satan, that's right.

You three-letter agencies that have gone along with this wickedness that have torn these children from our mother's wombs. Like, he's like a toddler. He's like, and media, I am not afraid of you. You Satan. Yeah, he's like, it's like when I try to do an accent, that I have no idea what it sounds like. It's the same with him, but he's trying to speak as if he's a character in the Bible.

Yeah. You know, trying to use this kind of biblical style delivery and language. It's very weird. Yeah, yeah. He thinks he is. Yeah. Like, you know, I mean, I think he, when he was quoted as saying on person of interest was technically I am Jesus.

In all fairness, if I was playing Jesus and I got struck by lightning while I was on the cross during the scene, I probably would think the same thing. if you were playing Jesus, God would rain brimstone down on us and end this planet. Why? Jesus was a Jew? This would be, this was, you know, that would be fine, I think. Probably not tall. I probably don't have the hair for it, to be honest. Yeah, that's why. Nothing to do with you being chewed. You know what? I would popularize the image of Jesus in a ball cap. The man who got famous for popularizing working class Jesus.

Oh, that would be huge. I better, nobody, this episode better not fall into the wrong hands. You want to see what it looks like? If he's a real carpenter, yeah, yeah, he's a little stouter. Yeah, he's not on the treadmill every day. Yeah, look, look, he's decent at 2K. He's working on his jump shot, okay? I don't think God incarnate suffers from an anxiety disorder.

I would, I mean, think about all that stuff. You got to look after who's been good. who's been bad, you know. You'd wander into the temple and say, hey, money lenders, could you, like, not a little bit? I want to make this a big thing. We can get along, but you could just, like, ski that a little bit. Soon, Kvizel is out of control again, claiming that people are aborting babies after

they're born to harvest their organs, and things get worse from there until he's addressing the pope himself. The organ harvesting, you don't want me to talk about, or the adrenachrome, you elite, you elite leaders in this world and understand America, there are leaders that you don't even know about that are controlling this whole world system. Those guys that I'm talking to right now. My Lord and Savior is coming after you, and I'm not afraid of you. I remember this to the people out there. Don't be afraid of those that can kill you. Be terrified of those that can steal your soul. I'm just one screaming out from the desert here that God put me in this situation.

Yeah, you could find a guy better to speak. I'm concerned in a world what we're doing right now. God has allowed this movie to come out, a gift. He gave me a gift. It's not my gift. God gave this gift to me. It was from something that was when he spoke to me in a movie theater, you know, will you do this? Will you do this for me?

I took that upon myself because I was like, man, this God loves me so much. and that he would do this for me, that he gave me a purpose, and I'm begging you. I'm begging you, church leaders. I'm begging you, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. What are you doing? Why are you staying silent? Why won't you speak out? Men see you, and you're supposed to be the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and you stayed silent.

Don't you fear the Father in heaven? Don't you fear the Holy Spirit? Why won't you go back to Argentina? Why will they not accept you there? You are Rothschild, Pope, answer that. So, just addressing the Pope. Wow. Screaming at him.

God, God loved me so much. He gave me Peter Vankman, Ray Stance, Winston Zedemore, Egon Spangler. He gave me these movies. How? How did this become about that? He gave me Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael. What is that happening? He gave me splinter.

How, how, how, Dick, how, why? Why? He gave me. All right, all right. I love this idea, though, that God gives you movies. This is great. This is a great idea. God wants you to just eat your popcorn, sit for two hours, be entertained.

God, God gave me this 2K. He gives it to me every year and charges more for it. I'm so blessed. Oh, God has put in the most predatory microtransactions yet. Oh, thank you, God. God has turned all of my friends against. me they do not want to buy the game and play with me i play alone i walk alone yeah yeah i mean he is so incoherent you can really see it here how like not very communicative he is unless he like

maybe memorizes something and we know he's not very good at that if you remember he had put a post-it note once on his the person he was acting with his face just to kind of remember his lines but i love he's like and yeah maybe speak me no good god maybe me best not speech but gift Pope Rothschild bad Yeah it just it sounds like he's always doing a monologue Yeah trying to at least Yeah he feels that he's most effective

When he's in a scene of some sort Everything is delivered in the same intensity You know he's just one of those guys That just like can't turn it off Yeah and like turn this into a whisper And make him three inches from your face And you understand what these people went through for years God. Oh, God. I hope he had good breath. That's...

Yeah. Because that would make it worse, right? If you had bad tuna breath or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I was thinking about that, too. Like garlic, garlic or something. You know, he's a big, big garlic guy. Yeah. What if it smelled like garlic, too? To be clear, nobody is aborting babies 28 days after they're born, which is what he was claiming here. That would be murder. And he basically just has Facebook poisoning. This all started by, like, people posting bullshit on Facebook. I looked it up. And the Pope, obviously, not a Rothschild because he's Catholic and unrelated to the banking family.

So I'm not sure this is worth debunking because his stuff is so crazy and he's just like chaining together incoherent sentences. But you can kind of, if you look into it, you can figure out what blurry JPEG he looked at that day on Facebook. So that's a little update on where Jim has been at and why the director of Sound of Freedom is basically muttering, Never go full Q and on under his breath over and over in various interviews about this movie, which, by the way, the movie sucks and Monteverde sucks and glorifies Tim Ballard, who is nobody to glorify. I mean, this kind of takes away from the fact that the movie doesn't have a good message, an accurate message, or an interesting message about child trafficking,

and it's misleading at the very least. But, you know, when you have someone screaming about adrenachrome and the Ross Child Pope, I guess you look sane in comparison, so yeah. But I would say that this makes me hope Kavisel directs a movie someday, or at least like puts together some community college actors to film a couple of extra scenes and releases a Sound of Freedom main actors cut where he gets to put in the Rothschild Pope, the CIA is involved. I mean, Ballard was ex-CIA, which I don't know.

There's so much here that you could do. But of course, we have to, you know, be fed madness. Yeah, you know, I hope one day, you know what, I hope Cavisiel start. to direct movies because I feel like he's being constrained by directors who try to get, you know, one or two takes out of him in between his puke and shit sessions. He needs to, you know, really let his creative brain fly. I want to see the Rothschildtrial Pope Adrenachrome movie. Yes, I totally agree.

That would be amazing. Unfortunately, by August of this year, Kavisel stopped doing interviews and Monteverde publicly admitted that the actor had heard his movie, not in the box. office, of course, which the ranting undoubtedly helped, but like in his heart and stuff. By the end of the month, he dropped a truly devastating and extremely bitchy piece of information in interview with the Associated Press. So here is Monteverde. After nine actors passed on this film, so nine actors, nine, say no to me. No, no, no. And at that time, there was not politics involved. It was no because they didn't know who I was,

number one. It was an independent film. And it was not a very much. about a film, so I'm sure a lot of their team was like, ah, this is not for you. I don't even know if they, I don't know how things work, but I fought for the film to nine other people. And I think, you know, if you ask me, would you cast Jim again? I would say, absolutely, absolutely. He, well, he was able to, you know, do his eyes,

the expression and the pain that team was telling me that was happening, you know, that year, it was, it happened. happen like it's worth the baggage and all it's worth yeah yeah so nine people passed on it which is it's like as a director dropping that about your actor is like very very very bitchy yeah but uh what's really funny is he's like yeah i mean this guy was like almost crying all the time and sometimes he was crying and like that really communicates the pain inside that uh tim ballard told me he went through and by the way yeah like if you look at tim ballard talking about this stuff there's no tears like He is like the weird, glassy-eyed psycho that we'll be finding out about a little bit later in the episode.

In a recent interview with newspaper El Paiz, Monteverde plays extremely dumb about the Q&on connection. So, the interviewer says, give me an example of a ridiculous label. That this film is a conspiracy orchestrated by QAnon. It's as if accusing us of getting financing from aliens. I thought this was going to go away, but it hasn't. People say that this group finance the film. Whoever says this hasn't seen the movie, because at the end of the film, the credit show, who did? And these aren't normal names. These are some of the richest people in the world.

So, what? Like, he's like, no, the elites, the elites finance this. The elites finance this. Of course, that's where independent film comes from. If your producer or your talent, you know, isn't putting up money themselves, you go out to a third party investor who, you know, wants to dabble in the film industry, you know, and, you know, shelling out a couple million is like nothing to them. This is funny because, you know, the message of, like, Angel Studios who distributed the film was like, oh, this was crowdsourced and people who were believe in this message came together to finance it. But Monteverdi here is like, no, no, no, not this filthy rabble made this movie. Elites, rich people, rich people gave me money to make this movie. I'm sick of being accused of these Q&ON poor morons financing in a movie. Never happened. Monteverdi also basically blames the hiring of Cavizel on Tim Ballard. in what I found to be a very funny part of the interview.

So here's what he said. People who worked on the film are very passionate about expressing their opinions and when they did, they took away my work. I offered the film to several actors. The reason I hadn't thought of Jim Cavizal is because he's tall with dark hair and Tim is blonde and not that tall.

One day, Tim told me that he hadn't been asked about who he'd like to have play him on screen. He told me that he wanted Jim. He told me that Jim was a man of faith. Think about how, when agents find child pornography and take it to court, they can't play it because it becomes a crime. So Tim's job was to watch the videos and describe them step by step, and that broke his soul.

That's why most people who work on crimes against children last only one or two years, because psychologically it destroys you. And Tim told me that the only way he could survive that was through his faith. So now I have to imagine Tim Ballard looking through child pornography, scene by scene, and being like, God is helping me do this. And that's a good thing. That's good.

That is so fucked up. Yeah, I just... Well, you can't feed the video to an AI or a program and it tells you what happened? I don't know. This is so weird that there's like a dirty man who has to, you know, watch, watch all of this, you know, horrific content. Well, it hasn't stopped him from having an appetite of his own, as the way I'll put it, based on what we'll be hearing soon. So, at least Monteverde can rely on the subject of his movie, right? Tim Ballard, to remain a good, upstanding citizen?

One would hope. To discuss the latest revelations about Tim Ballard and Sound of Freedom, we are again joined by Anna Merlin and Tim Marchman. They have been reporting on Operation Underground Railroad for years and quite recently published several stories with a lot of explosive information. So thanks again for joining us. Pleasure. So you guys have had a very busy week.

Really, really fantastic reporting. You can sort of see it on the citations. You dug into lots of public records, which I'm sure must have been very time-consuming. You have a lot of sources close to Operation Underground Railroad. So there's a lot to cover the multiple stories you publish. But I think the big one that people are talking about is the reason why Tim Ballard was ousted from Operation Underground Railroad. So his ousting wasn't made public until Vice News broke the story, and this was months after Ballard actually left, oh, you are. But the grounds for his removal was basically secret.

And you reported that he was the subject of an investigation into claims of sexual misconduct involving seven women. But you spoke to sources who indicated that there's good reason to believe that the number of women subjected to the alleged misconduct is higher than seven. So, I mean, really shocking. But could you help us understand exactly what he's been accused of? Right. So it's important to point out that the first person who broke the news that had been due to sexual misconduct was actually Utah journalist named Lynn Packer, who's really great. He's old school. He's been writing about OUR for 10 years and I think has been doing journalism longer than I've been alive.

We reported in July that he had left OUR following an internal investigation. And it wasn't until this month that we felt comfortable reporting that the internal investigation was in. into allegations of sexual misconduct. And we basically heard from a few different sources that the misconduct involved allegations about how he behaved on missions with women who had been sort of tasked with playing his wife while he was undercover in these various locales. Yeah. The whole pretend to be my wife on my spy mission routine.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, very, very, very strange. Now, you talk about your reporting. So these allegations have been circulating for several months in the Utah Philanthropic community. Yeah. So what happened was not actually sure when the letter got around. We became aware of it in, I believe, July. We reported on it in July.

We were made aware that donors to anti-trafficking causes in Utah had had an anonymous letter sent to them. And it accused Ballard of grooming and coercion and said that, He had left the organization after an investigation into that. So we still haven't been able to talk to the people who sent the letter or the person who sent the letter. But it's been pretty widely circulating for a few months and we were able to independently corroborate the claims made in it. So you guys are journalists. So obviously you can't perhaps use crude, plain words. But basically what's happening here is this guy is going out on his little missions with volunteers that,

are playing his wife and then he's like how far you want to go as my wife uh you know uh if you want to really save these children i could uh do with a little relief over here uh i wouldn't say that's exactly it what what we've heard is that the allegation is basically that he claimed women would have to sleep in the same bed with him shower with him because it was necessary to fool traffickers that if they didn't do that, their gambit as being people who were not husband and wife could be exposed. I think a few people, a few people have brought up that this raises the logical question, if nothing else, of whether the most effective way to conduct private, paramilitary undercover

anti-trafficking operations is to go to another country with someone who is purported to be your wife so that you can pose as a couple who's looking for underage girls or children. Well, this is a very Mormon way of thinking of it, right? It's like, well, yeah, I'm a pedophile who traffics children, but I got a wife. I don't think there's any accusations that anybody's a pedophile here. No, no, no. I'm just saying he's posing as essentially someone who buys children, which, you know, I'm not actually accusing him of being a pedophile. I just love the idea that in his imaginary world where these kind of like mastermind, uh, child, traffickers are traveling the world, they still have a nice wife.

This has sort of come up and people who have talked to us about this, they've been like, why would this have made sense to say, like, why would there need to be a wife character there at all? What's more interesting to me is that people who seem to be talking to people in Mr. Ballard's camp have started being like, oh yeah, it's the couple's ruse. You have to use the couples ruse when you're undercover. So I've heard the past couple weeks started hearing the phrase couples ruse and we were listening to this kind of like right wing Mormon podcast where some of the hosts seem to have a

relationship or be talking to people in Mr. Ballard's camp. And they're like, well, you know, what you don't understand about this is the couple's ruse. And I was like, oh, wow, this is, this is the thing we're hearing. I would like to stress, I would like to stress that actual undercover investigators for federal agencies we've talked to who go undercover to, you know, expose, collect evidence against and eventually arrest child traffickers have also never heard of this. don't understand how it would make sense. Well, and even in the movies, if, you know, if you're doing the, the quote-unquote couples ruse, it's with another agent, you know, not a volunteer who, you know, wants to be

a part of the action or somebody that you've convinced to go along. I also think it's funny that, you know, for the stuff that you did say, you know, about sleeping in the same bed and showering together, I mean, what is he saying? Like, oh, these traffickers, they're watching us at all moments. They're watching us sleep. They're watching us shower. We've got to be doing this together. I mean, that to me is, is pretty insane in it of itself.

So that's the question if that was what was being relayed to these women. And I hope we find more out about that soon because that would, that would seemingly be the only way that you could have persuaded someone that this was a good idea. So, you know, common sense would dictate. But, you know, who knows, we could, we could be surprised. And there's a chance that in our reporting, we find out some reason why it was absolutely. necessary to behave in this way. But we have not found that so far. Yeah. And just to close the loop on kind of the description of why there might be more women. So the best of our knowledge, our sources believed there were there were seven women who were employees of OUR who came up in the investigation,

which was led by OUR's HR department. But we're aware of other women with whom Ballard behaved either this way or in ways consistent with this way, if that makes sense, who would not have been among the seventh. So the number is we're confident saying higher than the number who are at the center of the HR investigation, if that makes sense. These would be volunteers. And there are a variety of types of people who could be implicated here, like volunteers for going on mission. They're also contractors who have worked with HR. Like, it's not necessarily just W-2 employees who would necessarily be the ones who would come up in an HR inquiry. Wow. So you're saving the children by systematically convincing women to potentially, allegedly, maybe sleep with

you so they can pretend to be your wife, which is super needed out there in the field when you're doing like, you know, I mean, if you see the movie, in the movie, it's not like women play a huge role in it. But you also, like, have Tim Ballard calling his wife constantly in the movie. And it's like, oh, yeah, I miss you, sweetie. I'm raising all of our big Mormon boys back here at home. I guess you're out there saving the children. And he's like, yeah, you want to save the children?

We're going to have to shower together. I mean, this is Tim Ballard going to go ahead and say, seems like a fucking scumbag. You seem like Bill Paxson and true lies. Well, you might say that. Yeah, that's not journalistic. I didn't say that. I'm going to stick within the four corners of what we've reported on vice.com,

but others are free to read our reporting and draw the conclusions they want to draw, whether positive or negative about him. Baby, baby, you want to save the children tonight again? You want to save the children again tonight? Or was it just, you didn't, was it not good for you last time? Oh, my God. The day that we're recording this, actually, Mr. Ballard's wife is supposed to go on a local, like, talk radio show in Utah in a few hours. So I'm super curious, which she has to say, because I have never heard her perspective on any of these issues.

I haven't talked to anybody who's talked to her. So I'm so curious to hear what she has to say. I'm going to go ahead and say that if it was just, even if it was just sharing a bed and showering, which both I would consider already insanely inappropriate, but even if it was just those two things that OUR and the Mormon-R. church would probably go to bat for this guy. They've covered up worse. So I'm going to go ahead and say this guy successfully convinced, in my opinion, successfully convinced women using this couple's ruse to, you know, he rused his way into, let's just say they were inducted into the ballard zone. And it's obviously not funny that he's convincing these women to do this. But it is very funny when you consider how he portrays himself as this like amazing child saving miracle

who was told by God to, like, go out and save the kids in this way that is, you know, obviously, like, unverifiably sometimes effective, questionably effective. Then played by Jim Caviesel, an absolute nut, which we've explored in the earlier part of this episode. But the whole thing, just what a house of cards. I mean, if this turned out to be true, it would represent an interesting tension between the ways that he's portrayed himself in public and the ways that he was behaving in private. Yeah, we, one of the things we've reported in the last week is that according to investigative files we obtained through a public records request from a joint FBI, local criminal investigation into Ballard and OUR, someone who was very high up in OUR, very close to him, a former Navy SEAL who led the OUR ops team and oversaw its operations in Haiti was very clear that Ballard presented himself as and believed himself to be a Mormon Messiah. And that a variety of evidence we've reported on represents him telling people close to him in private that the rescue missions that have been so publicized that were the subject of sound of freedom were basically just sizzle to lure in the public and that the stake was leading people to the Mormon faith, converting them. He called it, bringing them to the covenant. So, yeah, there is a very big contrast.

Yeah, it was sizzle. It was sizzled to lure in, quote, unquote, the donors, the people giving money. But I think he's also luring in a couple other things here, it seems, with his sizzle. My God, I mean, I wish you could make this shit up because it is too perfect, too perfect with his little dyed, blonde frosty tips. Oh, my God. It's almost like maybe we could find out that he drinks, too, and drinks caffeine and does all kinds of shit the Mormons aren't supposed to. I was really surprised to hear about this at all. because this just hadn't come up for us in the first three years that we reported on this.

I had no idea if you had told me six months ago, I would have found it very unlikely because it's so central to the way that he portrays himself. You know, I mean, he's a very devout Mormon. He has a huge family. He's been married for a long time. Like, I just, it was, maybe it's naive of me, but I just didn't see it. I'd agree with that. We've talked to a lot of people who know him well, who've worked closely with them.

And generally, until these allegations surfaced, you know, evidently internally and then made their way out to the public and now have made their way out to a broader public through our reporting and Lynn Packer's reporting, people would say, whatever you know, whatever you make of him, whatever you make of his politics, whatever you make of the effectiveness of OUR, he's a family man. He really, you know, he really believes this stuff, et cetera, et cetera. And certainly his public image was a Captain America type, but also, you know, people who didn't even like him and had reasons to speak badly of him, you know, would talk about, you know, he's a very faithful guys, you know, a very strong family man. And, you know, it's kind of trying his best. And that's people with reasons to say, you know, horrible things about him. So yeah, it's, it's been surprising. Maybe we just don't understand the Meisner method, you know? Maybe this is just a form of method acting, you know? You got to really live the life. But again, not sure why this trafficker needs to have a wife every single time. Very, very suspect that he needed a wife every single time. Like, yeah, okay, we got to hire a wife again. I'm going back. out into the field. We need another wife.

Yeah, we got to, we got to go into the background casting tent and pick, pick me out a wife again. Just to give a little more context, too, here, you know, I know if maybe the only thing you know about OUR, Tim Ballard is having watched Sound of Freedom, you might have the completely false impression that he does things like swim into the jungle, go into, you know, like a drug cartels camp in fart controlled territory, and kill traffickers with his bare hands. But the actual way the majority of these missions work, and, you know, we've reported on this pretty extensively, is that a group of, you know, guys from Utah, like real estate agents, just like normal guys, will go to a resort town in, like, Mexico or Thailand, and they'll just go to strip clubs or brothels and flash money around and say, like, hey, you know, we want younger women. I mean, we did a whole story on this on this weekend, the executive producer of Sound of Freedom, where we got a lot of transcripts from investigators of footage of them. doing this. It's basically going to traffickers and traffickers are offering women who appear

to be of age, maybe showing photos on their phone, maybe the women are there in person and telling these people, no, no, no, I want younger girls. And the guy saying, I don't, you know, I don't have younger girls and saying, no, no, get me something. So the whole ruse involving the wife would involve going to, you know, as far as we understand, in the majority of cases, it would involve just going to like random strip clubs or brothels with your wife and just saying, we're look at a party. We want some children, which I have a lot of questions about that as an investigative tactic. Yeah, like, please, oh, you're not doing any child trafficking? Well, could you do some so that I could, me and my wife are here. Otherwise, we're just partying at a strip club

in Thailand, okay? Yeah, if we don't actually do any good, it's just a bunch of Mormon real estate agents going to party, you know, overseas. Personally, I love the movie Sound of Shower. I mean, part of what confuses me about it, too, is if this all played out the way that folks are telling us it did, wouldn't it have made them way more noticeable, identifiable, memorable, like a group of American guys going to a strip club in Mexico or Costa Rica, the DR, and then, you know, asking for something extra, you know, probably is pretty common, but having a woman be there, just to me, I'm like, that cannot be very common. I have never heard it to be very common. So we're super, we're super curious about that. Yeah, it seems way more plausible that, you know, your cover could be blown not by a trafficker peeping through the window of your hotel and checking to see if you're showering together, but you and your alleged wife being uncomfortable with one another out in public at a strip club. You know, if any of these women are, you know, are already maybe regretting their decision to volunteer for something like this, given Tim's, you know, sort of alleged behavior, you know, to me, that would be much easier to spot, right? that, you know, oh, well, they don't seem like a real couple or she seems uncomfortable or, you know, that's out in the open. I think that's, to me, that seems way more obvious than being caught in a hotel room sleeping in separate beds. Oh, you don't trust us? You won't sell us the kid? Well, how about we take off our clothes and shower right in front of you?

How about that? I love the idea also that you're like going undercover as like a pedophile as like a pedophile, but you're like, I keep getting pulled in. And if I go too deep, I might become a pedophile. I need to go back to the house. house with you, sweetie, and you're going to have to remind me how I'm into adult women, actually. And, uh, I mean, this man wants his cake and to eat it to and to be famous. $200 million this movie has made. And, you know, Travis was pointing out to me earlier that this is like the worst year of this guy's life. Like, he is a biopic subject.

It should be the peak. And of course, why would you make yourself so visible if you know you're doing this stuff? Even your church now is going to turn on you. Your church, your organization, I mean. Yeah, like, why would a follower of Joseph Smith get the idea that you can preach a holy mission while doing perverted stuff in private? What do you mean? What was he doing with those plates, Travis?

Did Joseph Smith do stuff? No, that's a deep, that's a deep Mormon cut joke from Travis. I got, I got it. Do you? Does Joseph Smith have, like, he, like, married, like, a 14-year-old and, like, other teenagers. Yeah, well, that's the other thing, too. If you want multiple wives, the Mormons literally allow that. Motherfucker.

Well, no, they don't, right? that's been subject to like a huge schism. Yeah, plural, plural marriage is absolutely not, not part of the LDS. Yeah, haven't you seen Big Love Julian starring Bill Paxton, the late great Bill Jackson? Another Bill Paxton appearance. Why is he keep being brought up? Poor guy.

What I didn't know until we started doing this work, actually, is that LDS people take sexual fidelity, especially very seriously. When you get married in the temple, they are real clear in your marriage vows that you are not just sort of vaguely threatened, like, promising to be faithful to one another. You are specifically taking vows of sexual fidelity. And so it's a super, super, super, super serious matter for Mormon people. You know, one of our folks that we talk to regularly is no longer Mormon. I said, well, you know, would you still feel this way about infidelity? And he was like, yeah, I got married in the temple. Like, I, you know, I said it in that context.

And so I really meant it. I don't think I'm going to get struck down by lightning, but like, it's a complete no-go for me. So I think it's just kind of important to recognize. And also just because this has been coming up a bunch. One of the things that Mr. Ballard has been sort of suggesting is that we're doing this work and writing about this because we are somehow enemies of Mormonism or hate Mormons and it's just not true. I mean, most of our sources are or were LDS. So just the idea that somehow we're doing this because we are out to get Mormonism as a faith is, it's just not true. I know he might think that, but it just isn't. So some of these women that are that are kind of sources of these allegations of sexual misconduct are Mormons or were Mormons?

That's our understanding, but without having talked to them firsthand, we can't say for sure. But yeah, that is our understanding. Yeah, our understanding is that's true. And generally that the women at the center of this investigation would have been specifically coming from the employee pool of OUR, which is heavily, heavily Mormon. So this guy is logging into his employee roster. And it's like he's ordering a wife out of a catalog, a bit. Like, um, I mean, it's, it's like everything is projection, it seems. Everything.

It's insane. Now, speaking of Mormonism, now Tim Ballard, like you mentioned, he's a very devout member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And the fact that he indicated that he wants to, you know, use this anti-trafficking cause to, uh, you know, bring Americans to the Mormon faith. However, a spokesperson for the church recently denounced Tim Ballard. And this was an unprecedented, very surprising move. Um, so what, spurred all of that? So we contacted, Tim contacted, um, sorry, Tim Marchman. There are too many Tims involved in here. There are one too many Tims and it gets very confusing. Marchman contacted the church for comment earlier this month about, you know, our ongoing reporting and to our

surprise, this is what we got back. So basically, we obtained a big tranche of the investigative files I've mentioned. And among them were a lot of documents. that showed evidence of either business dealings between Tim Ballard and President M. Russell Ballard, who's the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which is the second highest leadership body in the LDS Church, evidence of business dealings between them. There were text messages, for instance,

in which an associate of Tim Ballard's was attempting to strong arm a third party into investing in a slave stealers that would oversee the nonprofit group, O-U-R, as well as other Tim Ballard organizations, some nonprofit, some not, bring them all together into a web and use them to allow Tim Ballard to monetize his notoriety and build his personal brand. And in those messages, this associate of Tim Ballard was saying, you know, we can bring your business partner together with Elder Ballard, if necessary, to make this happen.

It was basically a representation of this very, very senior and revered figure in the LDS church as a silent partner of Tim Ballard's and an accomplice in his seemingly sketchy schemes to make money off his notoriety. So this guy's not the same family, just the same last name. No, no, no, they are absolutely not related. I want to make that very clear. They're not related. The church also made this clear. He's like, yeah, I'm totally related to that big famous ballard. I mean, this guy is a crook in every possible fucking way.

It's astounding. Yeah, so as a very, very routine matter, we needed to contact Elder Ballard just to make them aware of the information of the files, see if you had any more information, context, perspective, if you wanted to add, we're not going to go on the basis of investigative files and say that, you know, elder in the church was carrying out illicit schemes with Tim Ballard. You know, want to know more about it. So we asked her comment, and they said they'd get back to us. said they'd get back to us and, you know, we'd check in and they'd say, you know, we're still

looking at it and we were expecting to get a kind of no comment or a very anodyne statement. And instead we got back a quite startling statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I just want to read part of it. For many months, President Ballard has had no contact with the founder of Operation Underground Railroad. The nature of that relationship was always in support of vulnerable children being abused, trafficked and otherwise neglected. Once it became clear Tim Ballard had betrayed their friendship with the unauthorized use of President Ballard's name for Tim Ballard's personal advantage, an activity regarded as morally unacceptable. President Ballard withdrew his association.

President Ballard never authorized his name or the name of the church to be used for Tim's personal or financial interests. So this was a quite startling and near unprecedented condemnation from a major world religion, this major world religion, of an individual member of the church. And to our eye, the substance of it was that it was pretty extraordinary, but also that it was a pretty routine interaction. We had information. We sought comment from someone.

They gave us comment. And once we had our story together, we published it. But it's been a very weird thing because the fact that the statement was given to us and the fact that the statement was not directly published to the church website, which there's no reason it would be, has set off a great deal of discussion in various circles about whether the statement is authentic. And in fact, Tim Ballard for most of the last week has been in public referring to it as an alleged statement, intimating, suggesting, or otherwise stating that he doesn't believe it was actually a statement from the church or that if it was, it didn't actually

represent the church's opinions, which culminated yesterday as we're recording in the governor of Utah during a press conference in which he was asked about this. stating that he had personally looked into whether it was an authentic statement and he had satisfied himself that it had it was wow i mean yeah i mean there's a combination of i mean strange things like why would a major religion issue a statement you know through a news outlet and then not public yeah it was all very confusing and in fact even the governor of utah got involved in this matter yeah so the governor of utah um was asked about it during like a just routine press conference that he does, you know, every week, I think, with local journalists and journalists from Fox 13 said,

you know, what do you think about this statement? He said, oh, yeah, I reached out to the church to make sure that it was legitimate and was assured that it had been, forget exactly the wording he used, but like, had had gone through all normal procedures to be issued. So again, the, the governor is LDS himself, and he is a Republican. So, again, he doesn't have any particular reason to back us up on this, but I think it got to such a point of conspiracy theorizing and sort of weird alternate suggestions about what the statement meant and where it had come from that he decided to confirm that it was real which I have never in my life had first of all I've never had a major world religion issue a denunciation by emailing us and I have definitely never had

the governor of a state especially not a Republican governor be like oh yeah vice vice is reporting was right like just the everything about it is so strange and so on some level the super conservative Mormon folks who are like just this can't be real. I understand why they feel that way. Like, I would probably feel that way, too. It just seems like Ballard is so exceptionally shitty. And there's enough potential proof, at least in their eyes, uh, you know, that you guys obviously are, are kind of being very journalistic about. But it seems like things have gotten so bad that, you know, big organizations that are essentially like the fabric of this man's life are just like, no, he is trash. This man is bad.

It's a very strange setup and one I think you guys would appreciate if you went into the weeds on it as we have been forced to over the last week is on the one hand you have these like, I don't even know how to describe it. You have this faction of like hip young Mormons who are basically like baking statements and coming up with fanfic about our reporting. Oh. You know, they're like, well, if you, you know, if you read it in the light of the third moon, this is what this really could mean and really what could be going on here when it's a very straightforward and boring interaction between a news outlet and, an institution, you know, they're contacting for comment. Yeah, one thing that happened is that the spokesperson didn't put his name on the statement. Initially, when he gave it to us, he asked it just to be attributed to a spokesperson because, you know, he's speaking institutionally.

He's not speaking on behalf of himself. So that, too, became the subject of all this, like, well, maybe Vice thought they were talking to a spokesperson within the Mormon church, but actually it was just some guy who, you know, issued a rogue statement and is about to get fired. He actually got, like, kind of one step below doxed on Twitter where people were kind of passing around his resume and going through it and being like, well, you know, the things that he's liked on LinkedIn are suspicious. And it like, it got real weird for him, I imagine. Yeah. When you're pouring through somebody's LinkedIn likes, you know, no good can come of this.

And I have to imagine that Tim Ballard, you know, upon hearing this, is like pulling his hair out, you know, being like, why, these people were my friends. I thought they were my friends. You know, it's like when you find out on Facebook that your girlfriend has been cheating on you and she, she posts, you know, in a relationship with somebody else or whatever. What we're talking about here is, is the church itself issuing a statement and OUR itself issuing statements. You know, obviously we had information from many, many, many highly credible sources about the investigation that preceded Ballard's departure from OUR, but we went to OUR and we went

to Ballard for comment, as we always go to all-involved parties to see what they have to say, see if our, you know, see if our reporting is wrong. And OUR did not deny it. They issued a very rightly, we're talking about an HR investigation here, lawyerly statement, not disputing our reporting, just saying, you know, there was an investigation, you know, Ballard resigned. Ballard is permanently separated from the organization and we're not going to say anything more about it out of, you know, concern for the privacy of all affected parties, which is a very normal thing to say. But yeah, you really have these organizations that have been at the center of Bellard's life, the church itself, OUR itself, issuing these. statements that are, you know, either outright or, you know, maybe a little bit more implicitly condemnatory and are certainly not disputing any of our reporting. And then you have this kind

of weird faction of, you know, people who just refuse to believe any of it, which goes along with what he's saying in public, which is like, everything is a lie. Don't believe any of it. Nothing is true. And, you know, logically, you're in the position of, so we shouldn't believe, you know, vice, which, why would you? But you also shouldn't believe, you know, the church, you shouldn't believe oh, you are. It kind of led me the conclusion that the only person you should listen to is Tim Ballard, which is, you know, interesting. Well, you see that, you see that a lot in, you know, people that are sort of elbow deep

in the conspiracy world, either via belief or, you know, a influencer or a disseminator of conspiracy theories is eventually what you get down to, you know, if you become visible enough that facts start coming out or, you know, information contrary to what you've said starts coming out. You pigeonhole yourself into, well, you can't trust anybody. You know, you can't trust anybody. Everybody else is lying but me. And anything you see that doesn't come from me, you should be, you know, suspicious of. Yeah. You know, I cover the anti-vaccine movement, and that's where it ends up typically, right? Because at first you choose not to believe whatever, what your pediatrician is telling you about shots. And then eventually, you have to end up all the way at the CDC,

the United Nations, the, you know, world governments are all lying to you because you can't, it doesn't really stop where you want it to because you have to incorporate more and more kind of mythology into it. So I don't know. At some point, Mr. Ballard might have a different take. Like, as of the last statement he issued, he was suggesting that maybe the statement was fake, but he might come to a different conclusion at some point. Man, I mean, Tim, you talked about the weeds and you guys have clearly been, you know, deep looking into this stuff. I'm willing to go even deeper, to go undercover and get to the bottom of this. But Jake, I need you to come with me. And we are going to have to shower together, and we are going to have to sleep in the same bed.

I don't understand. Why can't we have a separate hotel room? We can still be married, but maybe our marriage is going through a little bit of trouble right now. You know, maybe we pretend to get into a fight in the hotel room, and then I storm out and get my own hotel room and sleep, and the traffickers can go, oh, trouble in paradise. I'm uncut. This is a real couple here. I'm uncut. You're coming with me.

So another shocking report that came out very recently relates to an executive producer of Sound of Free. named Paul Hutchinson, and he touched the naked breasts of an apparently underage trafficking victim. And this is according to a description of a video of the incident, which was written by an investigator with the Davis County Attorney's Office. And this is something else you discover through your, you know, fantastic public records request. So, I mean, this is pretty mind-blowing. So this is part of an investigation that is now closed, correct? So how, I mean, what was this and how'd we learn about it? Yeah.

So this is something that candidly we'd, you know, heard quite a lot about in the course of our reporting over the previous few years. And we weren't expecting to find information about it in the documents we received under our public records request. There was video taken during an OUR operation in Cabo, San Lucas, Mexico, in, I believe, 2016, where OUR had some videography who were working with them, and they went to this resort town at the far south of, you know,

the western peninsula, and they were looking to find traffickers and expose them or whatever. So according to the investigator's descriptions of the video, which Hutchinson, the executive producer in question affirmed, although he has an important disputation we'll get to in a second. The OUR operatives went to a sex club, a girl who appeared to be 16, named down a staircase and Hutchinson grabbed her naked breasts. She pushed his hands away and pulled her shirt down. And then immediately afterwards, the operatives left the club and they started talking about how she appeared real young.

A voice that was described by the investigator in the file said, you know, something to the effect of, you know, they felt 16. There was discussion of whether it was a good idea to have grabbed the trafficking victims, naked breasts, and, you know, they went from there. And then there was another discussion that was captured on Fiddeo that was acquired by the investigators where Hutchinson and a man named Matt Osborne, who's an OUR operator and is currently the president and C.O. The organization discussed how it wasn't a good idea to bring it to Homeland Security Investigations or the American embassy, but that, you know, it wasn't a concern with Mexican authorities. So they're

They're role-playing pedophiles, but they're just doing the thing then now at this point. It's no longer... Well, I want to make one very important clarification here, which is that we obviously contacted Hutchinson for comment, and he said that he had zero regrets about this, zero regrets about the work he'd done undercover or his behavior there, but that the Mexican federal police had conducted an investigation and concluded that she was at least 18, and then he had an affidavit to support this. We asked him many, many times to provide her.

us with a copy of this affidavit. He hasn't done so, but that is his assertion. And OUR has also backed this up and said that they turned the material over to authorities. They conducted investigation and concluded that she wasn't 16. So. But what does that matter? If he's out in the field and he thinks she's 16 and he's doing this stuff. Like, what the fuck does that say about him and their whole way of conducting this stuff? I'm sorry, but like, you know, as Jim Cavizal once said, never trusted pedophile. I certainly think, you know, it's the significant fact there is that every bit of available evidence they had was that she was not of age and that regardless of her age, she was a trafficking victim. And so, you know, OUR certainly isn't

defending it. I forget the exact term they is, but I think they, you know, they broadly described as unacceptable whether or not she was, she was 18. I just do want to throw that out as, you know, an element of the story. Regardless of her actual age, I feel like this incident really is validating of a lot of criticism that OUR has received about their tactics in, allegedly trying to help trafficking victims. Yeah, I mean, OUR sent us a statement after publication that said, you know, that they had flagged it to the federal police, that the police investigated the incident, that they didn't press charges, but they also said, Mr. Hutchinson has never been employed by OUR in an official capacity. OUR ceased any affiliation with him shortly thereafter. The actions by Mr. Hutchinson do not represent OUR's standard operating procedure and were inappropriate regardless if the woman was an adult or not.

So this actually seems to be a rare situation where everyone involved agrees that it happened is telling us that it happened, but have sort of different interpretations of it that would, you know, change how they feel about it. For instance, Mr. Hutchinson essentially is telling us, like, you know, that he did what he had to do when he was undercover. That seems to be the rationale. I mean, what is OUR then? Tim fucking founded it.

He's not OUR. Whoops. Because he did all this stuff. And then this guy's not OUR. I mean, explain to me exactly what OUR is, except for a fucking. spring break for these Mormons who want to either fondle underage girls or have like a fake wife out in the field. What the fuck? I mean, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's been, so some of the criticism has been broadly that, okay, if OUR can't figure out how to go on these missions without,

you know, say, perpetrating acts of assault against, you know, women that they come into contact with, like, that's not, that's not a great sort of testament to what was going on. I think people have started telling us recently that they view OUR as separate from Mr. Ballard and sort of his friends and are trying to suggest that they're kind of two halves of the organization that were kind of at odds. We've heard that a few times now. So we're kind of looking into that. But yeah, I mean, the other thing too is that obviously like since Mr. Ballard left, OUR is trying to sort of present themselves as like saying that they're on to OUR 2.0 now. We watched a very sweaty press conference with Matt Osborne, who's the current president and CEO and some other people.

They managed to, and I would personally not have recommended this, they managed to make it only men at this press conference on Zoom, which again, like, I would have, I would have found a lady, just one. But yeah, basically we're talking about like, you know, OUR 2.0 is very committed to the sort of mission that we set out on. And, you know, when somebody asked, you know, why Mr. Ballard had left, they sort of didn't answer the question. And then when somebody asked why there were no women on the call, they said, you know, we do have women working for us, they were just not available today. Yeah, I mean, we don't need a 2.0.

We don't need a 2.0. We want it 0.0. We want a beta. We're going back before the beta. We're undoing OUR. It's over. It gets back to this point about whether people are doing what it takes, which is the substance of Hutchinson's comments to us.

And, you know, to many comments we've seen from internet users defending this behavior about, you know, you've got to do what it takes when you're undercover. And just the very basic and central point that these are not law enforcement officers of any description. They're not people who are operating under color of law in any description. You know, I have family members who have been undercover law enforcement officers. And the movie scenario of like you have to snort the biggest line of cocaine that you can cut out with a knife to prove you're not a cop is not reality. And the idea that you have to feel the naked breasts of a girl who appears to be and who you

believe to be underage and whose age wouldn't matter if she's a trafficking victim that you have to do this while on a private paramilitary action is just like it's absurd it doesn't add up if to defend that you have to go against every known canon of investigative work and law enforcement work that I'm aware of no more sending Mormon bros into strip clubs like we can't just have Mormon bros going down to Mexico to go to save the children anymore it's not I mean I would go broader than that. I think just American Australian and British men, just no more. No more.

No more. They go away. Because when we talked to for a story previously I talked to a sex workers union in Thailand and they were like, we've never heard of OUR, but we can tell you about 20 groups just like them. And they are all, you know, white men from the U.S., the UK and Australia. And they all do this.

They all come to, you know, the strip clubs and the brothels and say that they're saving us. It's always the same thing. So, you know, one could suggest that the market is saturated and that it doesn't have like a super strong sort of track record of discernible success and maybe they should try something else yeah that's what i'm saying i feel like this is new zealand duration oh yeah was it new zealand too yeah i've only heard australia i have not heard new zeal i have i have heard yeah i have heard new zeal let's throw in the belgians let's throw in the french

let's throw in fucking luxembourg i don't know it seems like it's mostly english speaking countries and again i don't know why like what's up with us god it's the weirdest thing isn't it i can't figure out. Maybe someone can do a dissertation. Well, anyone who speaks English is a sex tourist, basically. But, I mean, Tim, you brought up a point that I was, I've been, you know, bubbling to make, which is every, everything that we've been talking about and everything that's in, uh, your guys is reporting, it really highlights this idea that a lot of this seems like it can be, and I'm just, you know, I'm just sort of freestyling here, but it seems like it can be boiled down to the fact that you have people who are not professionals in this. You know, if you go under, if you're

an undercover officer and law enforcement, there is extensive training that you have to go through, whereas, you know, these guys seem like they're going along for the ride, they're rich, they're bored, you know, they want to be able to tell their, you know, their buddies in the cigar lounge that they spent the weekend, you know, saving children. But they're going into these, you know, they're going into these things. They're getting too into character, you know, it's like a video of an extra that's, you know, really hoping to get seen by the director so they can, you know, get bumped up to a speaking part, and you're just putting them in these situations where they're getting so caught up in it that they're actually potentially doing the very thing that

they set out to sort of prevent. If not, like, signing up for it, God, like, what is the, this is literally, it's like they're creating the perfect cover for people who want to do this and still get away with it. It's like, yeah, oh, just get me near the children. I'll save them. I swear to God. Yeah, and it's like, I don't want to, you know, make an appeal to authority on the base of our anonymous law enforcement sources. But I will say that there is just a fundamental and profound difference between a private actor and someone working in law enforcement, someone who is theoretically accountable in addition to being trained. Yeah, I mean, in fairness, this has been raised as an issue with, you know, vice squads, for instance, is the fact that, you know,

sometimes police officers who are tasked with doing this can also be sexually inappropriate with the women that they're supposed to be saving or helping. But as Tim points out, there is an accountability process if you are a law enforcement or a sheriff's deputy or whatever and you are sexually inappropriate and it comes out. Whereas with OUR and with similar organizations that practice what's called the raid and rescue model, it's not clear to me how that, how that accountability would take place. And so there's a reason why a bunch of organizations who pioneered this work before OUR, like in the 90s, stopped doing it because they got a ton of criticism, both because it was you know, potentially traumatic to the people they were trying to save and because, you know,

it could be quite dangerous. And also, yeah, because, you know, because of issues like what we're discussing here, like there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a pretty obvious issue to sort of anybody who looks at it even a little bit in terms of, yeah, accountability if somebody on a mission does something inappropriate. Finally, I wanted to ask you about another report. You, you reported more details regarding Operation Underground Railroad's use of a psychic medium. So you, You report all the way back in 2021, that OUR relied upon the supposed psychic powers of a woman from Utah in order to attempt to find the location of a missing Haitian boy. And you dug up more details, including some photos of what really went on. So how was the psychic medium used exactly?

Yeah. So in these public records that we got, there was more detail about this woman whose name is Janet Russon. And basically what is contained in the documents, which kind of. comports with what we already reported is that Ms. Russon was sort of hired to provide psychic intelligence to help OUR decide where to look for missing children, including this Haitian boy you referenced whose name is Gartie Mardi. And Garty, finding Garty has been like a central kind of storyline for OUR. He's never been found, but they've continued looking for him. So Ms. Russon, according to the documents, was getting paid, you know, to, yeah, to provide

sort of what they described as like operational intelligence, I think, or what was described in the documents as operational intelligence, which means psychic visions. Yeah, she was specifically communicating with dead figures from Mormon history, including the prophet Nephi, who is said to have died 600 years before Christ. And what she was doing was telling, oh, you are where, you know, specific missing or traffic children could be found. and at least, you know, this one case we've reported on accompanying operators on a paramilitary mission and telling the father of a missing child that he was about to be found and that she was

communicating with his, the father's dead mother and sister. So it's quite, quite bizarre. And this was an ongoing and central force in OUR. The county attorney who was doing the investigation emailed the Attorney General of Utah and the records we have saying that he had 10,000 pages of her readings, which we don't have access to. Of course, we would dearly love to have access to and have tried to get access to. But this was not a kind of weird one-off. This was how in many cases they were identifying where the children were to be found at the same time that they were promoting to their donors and the public that they had sophisticated intelligence operations, that they were working Navy SEALs, former members of Special Forces, ex-CIA, to get the intelligence that the government

couldn't or was too lazy or indifferent or even compromised to get. Yeah, bewildering stuff. And I mean, you've reported on so much, but I really get the sense that we're only scratching the surface of what happened because they're, you know, they're generally seems like a pretty tight-knit and sort of contained organization that doesn't like. like to leak these kinds of things. So I'm sure whatever the hell is going on is a lot worse than what we've been told. So really thanks a lot for your very diligent and thorough reporting and trying to, you know, unpack what the hell is going on with this weird

organization. Yeah. Thank you guys. I feel like we keep saying, we keep thinking we've come to like the last thing that we can possibly find out. And then we get a phone call or we get an email or we get a tip and there's another thing. And it's like peeling just an endless nightmare onion. So I would love to think that we're at the end of the onion, but I don't think we are. Yeah, I'd agree with that. And the layers are just starting to become rotten, right? You know, with the green root starting to, you know, starting to peel out of it. You've now gotten to a psychic, soon, you know, unmarked burial ground, ghosts, goblins. I mean, who knows? Who knows? I mean, hopefully, that would be, that would be exciting. Yeah, I mean, like, it's like,

the one thing I would say here is that we're being obviously super lighthearted, but if the, if the tips that we're getting are accurate, like the women involved who are now accusing Mr. Ballard of sexual misconduct are, according to people we've talked to, said to be super traumatized. Absolutely. Yeah. And have, you know, expressed feeling very, like, very betrayed. So we'll see if that turns out to be true. But if it is, you can understand why they would feel that way. Yeah. And I would also, I would also say this isn't entirely theoretical. We're still, you know, we're still working off the cash of public records we've received. We have, you know, stories that we're still still doing some reporting on, but that are, you know, distressing.

And we're also hearing from more people. It's, you know, there's a little bit of a snowball effect. As more information comes out, more people feel comfortable talking. So, you know, I, you know, I unfortunately do think there's more to this. And it's, it's good to know people are interested in this because I hate the cliche, but at the end of the day, Ballard is, as far as we can tell on the verse. verge of announcing a Senate run. He certainly was before we ran off this front of stories over the last week. And every public statement he's made suggests dogged determination to mirror Lincoln in the

days before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation and push his advisors to one side, do what needs to be done. And we've seen the, you know, we've seen the political dynamics in this country and the idea that with this kind of information out there and these kind of allegations against him, he could forge forward, gain significant power, not just despite, but in some ways because of all of this, is a very real prospect. And, you know, it's not my job to say that shouldn't happen. But it would be very interesting if it did, despite what we now know about this figure and his associates. If I could say one last thing really quick, Anna, you made me think about this, talking about the trauma of these women. And one thing that I didn't really think about that I think is worth pointing out is

that if these allegations are true, this isn't something that's happening, you know, on American soil in, you know, in a weird hotel or whatever, you have somebody you can call. This is, you are in another country completely dependent on this person, Tim Ballard, and people on the team for your safety. You know that you are possibly getting involved with, you know, people in that country, criminals in that country who are extremely dangerous. So to be taken advantage of or, you know, potentially coerced into these completely inappropriate situations, I think is exponentially scarier given the circumstances where, you know, where are you going to go? If you are in Thailand or you are in, you know, in some other country and essentially your lifeline is this, also this person

who is somewhat of a predator as well, I think that that's worth just imagining to put ourselves in the perspective of just how awful this situation, you know, could be. Yeah, and it's worth noting that that is the situation that trafficking victims have described to us, like being taken to another country and being dependent on someone who is forcing you into sex acts. Like, I would not say that, you know, we are at this point accusing Mr. Ballard of that, but that is certainly how people have described their experiences in trafficking situations. Sorry, Tim, or am I going to get sued? No, I think that's totally fair. I said it first. Yeah, true. But yeah, I mean, this is something we've been talking about a lot, is just what it would be like to have this happen, especially

somebody who you trusted and viewed as like a real moral authority. And you're not like a trained agent. You don't have resources on your own. You're there as a volunteer. You know, you are a, like you said, maybe a W-2 employee of O-U-R, and now you're in Honduras, you know, or somewhere

and you're feeling unsafe already and now the person that you are relying on for safety is also an unsafe person. I mean, it is absolutely a total nightmare scenario. Yeah, it's not great. It's one of the central questions that's been driving our reporting all through this is just, while they're kind of technical and boring

questions, the ones we've really tried to get answers to, in the sense that when American citizens are in another country, the State Department has obligations to them. And the State Department and the CIA and other government agencies have kind of obligations to be aware of as regards what U.S. citizens are doing there. And so we've gotten some, you know, we've gotten some very interesting answers to this. We wrote a whole story that was largely about the complications of the visa process, what with OUR having claimed to bring women from a foreign country into the U.S. and permanently settle them by routing around the visa process, which isn't what happened. But while these can sound like, you know, very academic questions when

set next to the moral urgency of saving the children, they're very important ones. And they raise, you know, a big question at the end of this, which is, does the U.S. government have more of an obligation to be monitoring the activities of, you know, what people are doing abroad and perhaps preventing them in some cases. I don't think the U.S. government has turned a blind eye to it, but we've clearly seen that citizens of the U.S., as well as of England and Australia and New Zealand and other countries are doing these raid and rescue missions and operating, you know, in some sense, with the idea that the government has their back. It raises a bunch of very, have very tricky questions and the one you're pointing up is, is one to think about, is

would someone in the situations at the center of these allegations, you know, feel comfortable going to the embassy and saying this is what's happening to me and can I get myself out of this situation? And how does that parallel the experiences of trafficking victims? These are kind of the questions ultimately at the heart of a lot of us. Well, and I'll tell you this. If I went out, if I, you know, left this interview and went out to the street and put on a police uniform and started pulling people over, I think they would be on me very quick. Yeah. I don't know, Jake.

I think you should just try it. If I dressed up in a Navy SEAL, a Navy SEAL Halloween costume and got an airsoft rifle and started, you know, pulling raids on people's out, I think I would probably be picked up pretty quick. So you would think, you know. Not that I'm not going to do that for anybody listening who's worried. I'm not going to. I don't even own a police.

anything I think you should you should so Anna and Tim where can people go and find your work as you continue to peel back the layers of the onion um you can find us on vice.com under our names Anna merlin or Tim Marchman and we're also on we're both still on Twitter for now under those names until it becomes untenable to do so that is where we'll continue to be and we're both on blue sky now but I'm just using blue sky for you know like photos of what I'm baking and stuff I'm you know have fully committed to it as a work platform yet thank you so much thank you guys thank you for listening to another episode of the qaaa podcast you can go to patreon.com slash qanonanonymous and subscribe for five bucks a month to get a whole second episode every week plus access to our

entire archive of premium episodes and all of our mini series we've got 10 episodes of trickle down with Travis view we've got 10 episodes of man clan with myself and annie and we have an ongoing series called the Spectral Voyager with Jake Rockatansky and Brad Abraham's. And Travis, I hear that Trickle Down Season 2 might be brewing somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As soon as Jake wraps up, it's really excellent Spectral Voyager series, we're going to do some more Trickle Down stuff. I found some really crazy things about how Gatorade influenced the science of hydration.

and be talking about some of the more ludicrous exploits in the history of forensic science. So, yeah, it'll just be a parade of disastrous incompetence from people who ought to know what they're talking about, but don't. And I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but I'm also preparing a little something something, maybe with one Liv Agar for the next little 10 episode run. And let's just say, it's a little perverted. Yeah, it's a little perverted. Yeah, I wonder what the two most melted minds of the QAA crew are going to set their sights on. I'm sure it's going to be totally wholesome and not going to break my brain. Yeah, I'm ordering books to properly research breaking your brain.

Uh-oh, uh-oh, he's got books, he's got books, people, he's got a Barnes & Noble account. I just want people to know that I'm literate. I can read. Thank you. For everything else, we have a website, QAnonanonymous.com. Listener. No. No. Hey, listener.

No. No, people aren't going to like that. Until next week, may the deep dish bless you and keep you. You don't think they'll like it? No, bizarre. Bizarre. Great. It's not a conspiracy.

It's fact. And now, today's auto. Can you make the situation involving Tim Ballard? What do I make of it? Well, I make of it what I've read in the media. You know, I don't know Tim Ballard. I think I met him passing through an airport once. The, I know he was terminated from OUR, which I thought was very interesting that the organization that he created was the face of, was the, you know, the hero of that they would, they would terminate him and remove themselves from him.

And so I wondered, like everybody else, what was happening. There had to be something out there. And then, of course, to have the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issue a statement like that, a very strong statement, very rare that they do something like that. I know there was a lot of pushback, like, did this really come from the church? Did it come from a rogue spokesperson? I reached out to the church personally and was assured that that did come from the church, that it had been vetted through all the normal church processes.

And so, and then to have, again, allegations. Everybody is due their day in court, and we believe in a system where people are innocent until proven guilty. The allegations, though, of several different women are incredibly disturbing and just awful. And if true, just unconscionable. And so that's, what do I make of it? It's very disturbing. And I hope they're not true. I truly hope that those allegations aren't But it would seem like now we have multiple organizations that are speaking out and that's that's deeply troubling. Do you have any concerns with his relationship with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes? Tim said that they're like this. Well, again, I'll let Attorney General Reyes respond to those questions. I don't know. I know that from the very beginning of his time as Attorney General,

that Sean has cared deeply about preventing human trafficking. And that's, to me, the troubling part of this is that human trafficking is real, and it's, it's just, it's awful. And we should be doing everything possible as a state, as a nation, as a community to prevent that, to prevent human trafficking. And so I hope that no one person is, is bigger than that cause. And I'm grateful for the attorney general's commitment to preventing that from happening. And, you know, again, I don't know that much about their relationship and other than, I know Sean had said that he had someone who was considering running for the Senate, that he would be supporting. And I think everybody assumed that that was Tim Ballard. I don't know if he's, if that's changed in light of what's come forward.

Thank you.