Remains the best foundation for stability and prosperity. The west african nations are kindly, under the rule of a Transitional Government following up to back in 2020 elections had been planned for february this year, but well postponed indefinitely for the technical reasons that quoted out for age limit the opposition. However, im only in the political and was told us here at all, sees of the country right now has other priorities to focus on when one of the country is not going to have the someone us o groups, our son would have to go back. Hes trying to Say Something different to the wait. There may be running a breeding we are in the critical moment. We are in the district of the moment listening, the call to the country is facing to is fixed up the country is fighting against the enemys enemies. From the interior and it base from the exterior and the main part of the booth. And it means is did you have these groups involving in the 2 or 2 of monday . Thats why, at why the governments fighting against most enemies inside the money is not the moment to talk about what it is, what they want to talk to about democracy is look the woman to talk about, prove that the key because we have to be like one person to get. Busy to fight against those enemy to speak to the country 1st and when, because it would be secure and would be about to talk about it because it is on the phone. What did the files including them . Uh, the families, democracy and the next im going from we come also with that car just a quick heads up as a wrap up this House Program here on out to you international according to the latest analyser from us intelligence. They are saying that iran is going to strive to israel sunday morning. Its currently just off to 11 pm saturday night. And so ron, because our guests that are correspondence all across the region will keep you posted. If this does fire off, this is all to international. The imagine the you are a hard working, idealistic, young deputy with the u. S. Marshal service. Youre doing hard dangerous work and youre succeeding at it. You like this where it gets difficult, but youre making a real contribution to the security of the american people. And besides, you enjoy it. Youre optimistic about the future. But then much to your surprise, your past over for promotion. Youre not chosen for interesting new assignments and then you learn that this is all happening for the simple reason that you just happen to be black. Im john kerry onto welcome to the whistle blowers the the. 2 2 2 2 2 2 dr matthew fog is one of those rare individuals who is utterly relentless, but that relentlessness comes with incredible patience when he realized that he was a victim of Racial Discrimination within the federal government. He file a lawsuit. But lets start at the beginning, matthew fogg joined. The Marshal Service in 1978 and quickly became a highly decorated officer. He was cross designated as a supervisory special agent in charge of a Us Drug Enforcement Administration joint drug and gun introduction task force. He was later promoted to the position of inspector in charge of the Marshal Service unit for the International Criminal police organization. And he receives multiple awards for tracking down more than 300. 00 of americas most wanted and most dangerous criminals. As you can see, there was no legitimate reason to pass this man over for promotion or to deny him new assignments. It was all about race. He won that case, any one big. But the Marshal Service and by extension, the broader American Government didnt make any of the necessary changes to ensure that this didnt happen again, that racism didnt play a role in personnel decisions. And so matthew led a Class Action Lawsuit that included more than 700. 00 current and former black deputy marshals and detention enforcement officers, plus thousands of black applicants who are not hired in the 1st place. That case was stuck in legal limbo for almost 30 years. You heard that right 30 years, the case was dismissed, it was reinstated, and it was expanded over the course of those 3 decades. But lee, last year, matthew and his fellow plaintiffs finally won that case. It wasnt a huge, devastating when they had hoped for, but it was a when none the less. And it seems that the by an administration wanted to actually fix the problem. Matthew fogg joins us today. Matthew, thank you so much for being with us to pleasure to have you. Its good to be with you and we do have to go and make some corrections on something. You just say we didnt, when the case case hasnt been one yet, its just been a proposed settlement, which were not in agreement with. Uh well, thats a much more important point. Yeah. Okay, so lets, lets get to that. I want to start then back in the mid 19 eighties. Youre going gang busters at the Marshal Service in just 7 short years. You made quite an impressive career for yourself. You. Youre highly decorated at that point. What happened to make you think that, wait a minute, somethings not exactly right here, as well as it started, and what and 85, i found my individual complaint once i got on the mazda and, you know, being a black person and coming into an, an environment such as a command and control environment, Law Enforcement. I saw the racism across the board of just what do you keep your mouth shut when you open them when you say so, i mean, you see it all, you see it and everything youre doing. So found at some point we had a particular manager that was targeting it, its due to African Americans peoples most likely to succeed. And he came up to me and once he did, i entered for back a lot of people didnt want me to. Didnt want to meet this out except it is a little wait until you become the director will go to the top and youll be okay. But it seems like anybody else in up with my son on my door, id want somebody to step up to the, to them and step up in and the speak up for them. And if, if the system is wrong, the problem is, and our system is, is a big machine. Once you stop speaking out against something thats in a command and control environment, they circle the wagons on you and they try to discredit you. And thats the whole battle that i begin to fight all the way through to that im one that big lawsuit in 98, finally made it to 12 and 98. Garrett came back and found the whole United States mazda. It would be a race. Will house down a drum, it for all African American w. S. Markers, or they didnt pay me for me in order to make me a g. S 15, oregon to go back and fix the system. But then it just to bomb it turned around and took a 10 year before he paid me they they bought that bread. It put 10 whole years. Oh my god, 1800 reduced the 10000000 down 2300000. 0 my god. So its a, its, its, its, its a constant battle and a 60 arris on me by withholding all of the taxes and withhold is that they took out of the judgement. They stuck in on a slice one and the iris thought i had it and came out to me for 77 more years. Gone and see my paycheck and everything. When it got me, it popped up later said, whoops, we had the money we didnt realize we had. Now my tax to this day is all messed up. So it just like constant battle. And then on top of that, the class action, all the stuff that you look at, the history of this transaction and the number of people that it has affected. And it just blows my mind that nobody on capitol hill use. All of that is, has been written on was mess grassley. Everybodys spoken out against the, the, the problems in the margins of i got a website up big gets with badges right behind us, right. Your pros rates 97. So its not like nobody knows by the Washington Post. Cbs news, every brad is done. Stories on it, but yet no one is fix it and no president is unbelievable. You know, just listening to that little bit of your story makes me think that thats the same story ive heard at the c, i a at the f, b i n minus a d o j at the state department. Its the same exact story and youre right to about what the very 1st thing that you said the government is a great, big, slow, lumbering bureaucracy. And they know that they have years, decades that they can use to for you and to ruin you. If they have to thats so true and the problem is, see if we got e o c and got the last change where to say ok if the government is going to use out to expand dollars the price us, then the government should pay us the price down is app, yes, the dollars we as a complainant and youtube and you got a problem, a place a case of discrimination, then the government should pay your legal fees. Thats right. Them back. Thats right. Dont take out at a disadvantage. And then on top of that, the government does a lot of illegal things. The, remember, we gotta understand the governors just, matt is youre obviously it is that, but i mean, it just is not some type of inanimate object. Its people, a lot of races, individuals who dont believe that pretty much blacks African Americans should be in the government or used to be happened. You got a job, you should that be on the left. Busy and so you got a lot of people in the app places and always when you got a command, a controlled environment is the same as on the street. Model commander is a big what a badge. And he expects me to treat people badly. And i dont do it, he can come on right around inside me. And the next day you read the rock c as against me. So i got to do what he wants. And thats the way the system works. I want to hear more about your lawsuit and im going to preface this by saying, i believe it was along the sea ice torture program in december of 2007. And i knew that i had done the right thing. But wouldnt you know, for the very 1st time in my life, the iris audited me in 2008, 2009201011121314 and 15. And i wasnt making any money. But this is one of those mechanisms that they use to beat up the you. So you ended up learning that lawsuit and you want it a little on paper. It looked like you wanted handsomely, but right, that was just the beginning. So youve got this lawsuit on the one hand that you know, it looks like you want it, but then there is a class action suit. On the other hand, can you tell us about how that happened . Are you a part of both suits . Yes. What happened was the personal lawsuit i had that started the 85 and network is way all way around the 2008. In the meantime, the same things that was happening to me and of course, to continue wasting the retaliation. And that continued happening to me after about the other complaint which made new new issues arise may. And so by turns weve got new said, look, bob, this is happens all asked and he said you got a big case here. Youve proven now discrimination. What is but. Busy even what the court, but in 94 we filed, we filed the Class Action Lawsuit number my individual statements. We are running it so yes, there we go. That route in the drink come back. And the do you notice on the british going to do is said, do you find us these monster, itd be a racial hostile environment for African American deputies before 1991 and after 1991. Yes, i checked both spreads. So we were, we had a good farm, appraised case, then we got a firm law firm, Different Law Firm steps, and it takes the class action, which thats the case as running. Now in the meantime, my personal case ran its course. They was, what do you call it . Appealing it, but getting oh he is in 2008 when a valley paid me it was so messed up with what they had done to me. And then holding again, holding the withholding, holding the payment that they were supposed to get be they dont report it to the arrows in iris since i got money and come up to me for a whole years. Oh my, just my taxes and my state taxes mess everything up kept me from getting my drivers license off my top being registered. It just so many things that occurred didnt change the difference in the salary that i would have gotten while i was out of work discrepancies. And it was so many things they kept doing it to me that you know, you just gotta say it again. These are individuals that somebody could pick up the phone just like in your case, somebody says, well, call the iris and tell me the audit this mean thats right. And then you guys know record it. Yeah. You cant protect yourself from Something Like that because you dont have any idea that it happened. Right. I want to ask you to about this class action usually when there is a class action suit, there are hundreds, sometimes thousands of victims that yeah, that was the case here. But also the most class action suits the accused is so guilty, and that guilt is so well documented that they try to settle the suit as quickly as possible. We see that all the time with big companies. The government however, responded in exactly the opposite way and they drag this suit out for 30 years. Tell us about that. What were the negotiations like over the course of those decades . Or is it that there were no negotiations because the government was just trying to stall you the word and the be honest, but do the whole time the class is going. The only thing that made that adjusted my room, and that is the Us Department of justice, that supervisor, do you, as mazda service, the only thing that made them come to the table was the Washington Post article that came out in 22. That basically said that there was a lawsuit and that is possibility that this thing has been going on for 30 years of possibility of maybe going to drown. They can run into the table and they said, we want to settle. The problem is our attorneys went in and started doing stuff that we didnt want them out. So now we had a, a problem with the priority. Uh, now we know theres a lot of stuff goes on behind closed or we dont know whats happening. But the bottom line with the amount of money youve got 10000. 00 right now for the dental up additional 10000. 00 individuals claims and we come up with 15000000. 00, which is a joke. I mean, you, i said that in worship row, as i said, but john decline is get us started at the apple, samsung product, you got 5 minutes to try to spread out with 10000 people. You got gift cards at montgomery. Yeah, so this is, this is what were saying. You possibly fighting discrimination even when youre talking about legally fighting these people. Its always something going on. Its out of this thread of this class and cut it down. Dr. Matthew fogg, stay with us. Were going to take a short commercial break and when we come back were going to continue our conversation with matthew fox about the current situation. That minority employees face in government say to the. 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 the russian states never as tight as im sort of the most sense Community Best most ill send send the send the 65 it the keys on that is to progress busy when else calls question about this. Even though we will then in the european union, the kremlin mission, the state on the russia to day and split the ortiz full neck, even our video agency, roughly all the band on youtube. The said this was the question, did you say a request, which is the, is a wise its can be cited by lawrence, please can be expanded by a true importance of we can never be of a station. So that transparency is extraordinary. John mystic patrice then just succeeded in finding documents that existed in making them available to the public. I mean, what could be more moving back by publishing information and sharing information with the public. He was exercising the right to free speech. He did so in the public interest, wants to so long realize tends to me uh and endlessly, to relate to seriously, i know why advice may assume that no one who is the guy that illegal anymore wisely ought to just turn to be on box weighing a 175 used to go through the sentence. All were going to let that stay the welcome back to the whistle blows. 2 and john 3 onto were speak with United StatesMarshal Service whistleblower matthew fogg. About discrimination in the Marshal Service and in the broader us government. Dr. Fod good to have you with us. Thanks for staying. Thank you. Thank you. One of the things that bothers me very much about this case, and there are actually several things that bother me is that it is dragged on for so long it dragged on through the administrations of 5 president s that is in this rateable to me. Why is it that no Marshal Service director wanted to settle this thing and just make it go away . Why didnt word never come down from the white house just as just to settle it. A i think is when youre dealing with racism in the United States, department of justice, you talk about the premium Law Enforcement agency in the world. I mean, you get like right behind the big gets with badges dot com that so you can go to my website and read about it. But that was on the front page of the New York Post and 1997 that you would have thought the fall out from that. We had congressional hearings, Maxine Waters and big hearing an adult at that time or it code. A black Deputy Attorney general was a black with the Deputy Attorney general. And we had these narratives. We laid it all out at the one why deputy who showed up a big old rap. They gave him because he testified against the government because of his black pod now who was sitting next to me at the table. Now that man got killed later, somebody ran his top, the road broke his neck. You know we, we very suspicious of that, my god. But the reality of it is that i think when youre dealing with racism in the Us Department of justice, they wanted to dig in and say of. And the judge said that it much router courtney, as my attorney said, you telling me the just brahman doug. Its use it on his e, okay. And he was basically saying, yes, i mean, bottom line is where we all look all the years. Its taking us to resolve this matter. So i think what happens is somebody over there in the d o j, they just dont want to be seen as the culprits of the things that theyre supposed to be going around the country to go guess other Police Departments and organizations so be holding them accountable yeah, can you hold somebody accountable when you yourself have been found guilty of it in a federal court most of the time, theres not, its around most of the time does a settlement and you know and settlements. They always say we didnt do anything wrong. In my case, more with the drought, we got a judgement. So there is a wrong doing a wrong finding now with a glass faxes. Yes, you get people over there saying that we, we dont want to deal with racism. We rather do with anything other than that, accepting the fact that were agreeing that somehow we are racially wrong. Weve done the legal things. Now youve got drag note operations went on to the us box, it was responsible for around the country and you got people being shot in the back. And then after america is big disproportionately locked up. Targeted all it is bodies, us motion, drag net operations will state and local industry locals dont do what we do. They dont follow us. Whatever we, whatever we allow them to get away what they want to do. Why do you think that change your . Let me rephrase that. Why do you think that has begun to change with at least this proposed settlement . Here . I again, i dont see it is changing it. See because the proposed settlement is so low. Yes, that is making operate a system. I mean, to be honest with you, this settlement would set a precedent for anybody who decides to fight the institution transport. Do we have 10000 things . If you have 10000 folks that have a leg discrimination over 30 years, and you want though, 15000000 of them come on. The same attorneys said back in 2008 when they took a portion of this case a, a case had coincided with this one same us monitors in the federal court. The same attorney said the case was worth 300000000. And now we are at that time, 700. 00 people. Now today we got 2000 and we dropped down to 15000000 suttons the matter with that. Yes, theres a problem going on behind the curtains. Another thing that bothers me about this case is, as you just said, the thousands of plaintiffs involved are offering this, this 15000000. 00. At 1st glance, that sounds like a great deal of money. Its not, not at all. Here in the United States, the law firms that handle class action suit to take the bulk of the money for their work, their expenses. Ill give you an example. Ive been a plaintiff in 3 class action suits in the past year. And my portion of this settlement has been 7 dollars, 20 dollars and a 100. 00. What, what youre talking about here, lets say there are 10000. 00 plaintiffs and a 15000000. 00 settlement. The. Busy law firm at the very least is going to take 5000000. 00. Youre talking about a 1000. 00 a piece for each of these, you know, you cant do anything. Its going to be less than the 30 for 30 years of discrimination. So why is it . Why is it that the plaintiffs attorneys seem to have dropped the ball on this . Why the government not . They go ahead limits what i, what i think it. And youve got to remember where it, the e o c were not in federal court. Now this is the e l c. So we is called administratively and weve been in federal court, i think is what have been resolved long time ago at the attorney that the lead attorney that was handling the case for the same law firm. He passed away a couple of years ago. Ah, when he pass everything changed, right. I think the be now i always wanted with them and i can tell you this always told them that we need to take this thing in front of what i was saying that long, long time ago. But it never happened. And i think what happened was we thought they thought that maybe the pipe would get bigger and bigger and everybody would be better off. It didnt turn out to be that way. Its turned out to be that it turned out to be the opposite. And it turned out to be where the product gets smaller, right. And, and the distribution is got to be spread out with all of these people, which is absurd. It makes no sense at all. So yeah, i think right now were in a, were in a very difficult situation, but we still administratively, if we pull this thing in the front of port is gonna be a lot of media behind it. Because i believe that at that point now the world everybodys thoughts are here. Whats been going on and thought that this thing was, these are the brand that it was you have had a front row seat for Racial Discrimination. The Marshal Service for almost 40 years, has it has anything improved over that period of time understanding that its a never ending fight . Is it at least better than it was . Or is this the, you know, i with jumped. It brought it literally before the General Assembly about the same thing about a particular building and one opposite 1. 1 of the legislators asked that same for us. Huh. And i looked around us and yeah, things have improved. Thats it. The technology and i showed up my camera. I said we were talking about please the tally and all the words i said before, nobody headed on jeremy was beat them down and doing whatever the song. Yeah. I said, so thats what it is. People on social media, more people are hearing about this stuff now. Yes, thats whats in. As far as the attitudes of them a job man, im telling you, i can tell you here and down at the 40 is it blows me a way that how this stuff actually youre talking about taking back america is one bath, which yeah, is going back with the race stuff that weve talked about here, a Law Enforcement, the police, the lady on the street and everything that was saying, why would it be any different if were riding bigots with badges working right next to us . Why would i expect them to treat somebody in the street . Definitely, no. You dont stand a chance. Ill be on that street one against one of these big it sort of beds. And thats why i was so glad when at new york pro said its a weird said it in 97 isnt related, not just to be. They did a comprehensive report on the us mazda service. Anybody go to and read all about it, and all of this, sabrina stories is one of the Law Enforcement stories. So that there was a culture in place, a call to read the difference. That was really something you would number would have thought would have been in the Us Department of justice. I regret that we are even having to, to have this conversation in 2024. You know, like so Many Americans think that this, this nonsense was dispensed with. 40 years ago, and thats just not the case. Its, its an ongoing fight. It is and, and, and is so sad because, you know, being a black person and having see is one thing to say, okay, you know, you, you file a complaint to get it fixed, and you might have a few individuals that all have some, you know, a home a big uh, ideas and thoughts. But when you get into a system and you see that the system project itself at all costs good and then it shows me how thats what i tell about command and control environments. Why do you want to stay in a command and control environment operates . If you come into the system and you happen to have a boss as a racist or whatever years, dont like blacks or whatever. But hes a boss. Hes got a lot of power at that point and it does something to you got to just turn, youll hear the same way that gap with his knee on the neck of the doors fluid. Yes. And we did kill them. I guarantee you want them opposite or jumped up. It points them opposite. Man, thats too much force and do it more. It is a bad. They would have bought that all the supplement jobs without interfering with the names of these duties without the type of problem that youre dealing with in the whole Law Enforcement neck in those dr. Matthew fox. Thank you for joining us. Not too far. One because he was on the side of righteousness and because he was patient, winston churchill, one said that success is not final and failure is not fatal. It is courage to continue that counts. He was right. Just ask matthew fog. I want to thank our guests, matthew fogg for joining us and for the courage and selflessness that he has displayed to out of his adult life and things to our viewers for joining us for another episode of the whistle blowers, im john q. Yahoo and we will see you next time the. 2 the, the headlines here, what are the International Aid is breaking news this out as reports are saying, iran has launched dozens on the drones of israel, the idea of such as on high or low, but the threats of a potential attack. Iran, israel and jordan are closing their aspects of the program, the rest of the bombs getting by them in the dont boss with most of those troops taking the key village a part of a moist by an estimate dont answer a couple of times. We just went under water and no one knows when well eat and there we continue reporting from a central rupture where boss evaluations continue in the city of already but due to a record breaking flux