It’s a 21st century horror story: Amazon’s massively dangerous ties with our federal government resulted in the intimidation, terrorization, and near-financial destruction of one innocent family. Amy Nelson’s husband, Carl, was accused of a crime by the tech giant just months before the COIVD pandemic took root throughout the U.S. And through civil asset forfeiture, the Nelsons nearly lost everything they had. But through sheer determination, this family never gave up fighting against tyranny. In this clip, Amy joins Glenn to detail a recent, HUGE WIN over Amazon. Plus, she explains why Amazon and Jeff Bezos are FAR more dangerous than the everyday American may realize…
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Win one, for the good guys. Amy Nelson is here. She is -- she is the founder of the riveter -- riveter.com. She's also been on our show multiple times. She was on our government's completely out of control lookout show.
She was not somebody who -- I'll get it right. Amy, you weren't a fan of me, or anything before. Right?
AMY: It wasn't that I wasn't a fan of you. It's that I had been a Democrat my entire life. And been very active in progressive politics.
GLENN: So you hated me, that's what you're saying.
AMY: I did not.
GLENN: I mean, wanted to throw that in. Because we're strange bedfellows. And I think more and more people need to find themselves with strange bedfellows. Because if we have the Bill of Rights in common, we can be friends with anybody.
That's the way America used to get along.
We believe in individual rights and the Bill of Rights.
So, Amy, your husband was accused by Amazon of -- of a whole bunch of crimes. And the DOJ came into your life, and destroyed your life.
Can you give me like a 30, 40-second rundown of what happened?
AMY: Yeah. My husband works for Amazon Web Services, the cloud competing division of Amazon for eight years. He works sourcing real estate.
A year after he left, Amazon accused him of a crime. And we learned of that, because the FBI knocked on our door. My husband then spent three years, fighting these allegations. The allegations was this esoteric crime called private sector honest services fraud, which is a process crime. Like witness tampering. And over the course of three years, Amazon had the government seize all of our bank accounts. The FBI raided our home.
And then they sued my husband in the eastern district of Virginia.
GLENN: It's funny. Virginia seemed -- isn't Amazon a Seattle-based company, or did they move out to Virginia? Is that why?
AMY: Well, Amazon is a Seattle-based company, and my husband lived and worked in Seattle.
But Amazon chose northern Virginia, as its second headquarters.
You know, Jeff Bezos bought the newspaper there. He is trained by the football team there. And he is very close to the government.
GLENN: So you alleged, when you came on, that none of these things were true.
And we believed you. None of these things were true.
And that Bezos was using the government, to crucify, and prosecute your husband, so they didn't have to pay 100 million-dollar fine, on another unrelated topic, correct?
AMY: Correct.
GLENN: So last time I spoke to you, you said, it was going to -- finally going to trial. But it was a civil suit. Because the Justice Department never brought any charges.
AMY: That is correct. And the civil trial is scheduled to start on May 3rd, just in a few weeks.
GLENN: And what has happened?
AMY: Something really extraordinary happened.
Glenn, last week, the federal judge issued an order, tossing out almost all of Amazon's claims before trial. Essentially saying, these claims aren't even strong enough to warrant a jury trial. We can throw them out today.
The judge said, that my husband didn't even violate Amazon. He said, there was no fraud. He tossed out Amazon's sensational racketeering claim, which was Amazon stepping in with the DOJ and trying to prove a crime. And the federal judge said, ejector strong enough to merit a trial.
GLENN: Wow. That is a huge loss for them.
AMY: Yeah.
GLENN: He tossed out six of the seven. What did he leave?
AMY: He left a claim that is called civil conspiracy to purposefully interfere with the contract. And it's a little bit confusing. Because it's a question of, can Amazon prove that there was a conspiracy for a bunch of people to interfere with my husband's employment contract.
But, again, it's not that my husband didn't violate his employment contract. So we're still trying to kind of work through what that means.
GLENN: Okay.
So there's no jail time.
Maybe there would be a fine.
But this is a huge win, kind of. Because if you have this tossed out of court. How did Amazon get the DOJ to persecute you guys, for what? Two years. Two and a half years.
AMY: Three years. So, you know, Glenn. There's a lot of things at play here. It's a huge win.
And we have to see if Amazon even decides to go trial, to try to prove that last claim.
But I think I've been sitting here for the past few days. Amazon is too big.
They have too much money.
If a company can go and spend billions of dollars, to try to lobby the federal government to bring criminal charges, for civil forfeiture.
To deprive Americans of their bank account. And then to delay and enforce American employees to spend millions of dollars, essentially proving that he didn't break his employment contract. That company is too big. Like, that is not how this is supposed to work. Amazon employs over a million Americans. This is frightening.
GLENN: Well, it's not just a million Americans. They have all kinds of people from the Department of Justice.
And other three-letter agencies. That truly frightening.
Because they're providing the cloud servers for the US government. And for all of these agencies.
That's -- that's a lot of power.
AMY: Yeah. I think most Americans don't understand, that Amazon stores the secrets of the FBI, the NSA, CIA, everybody.
So, Of course, when they go to these agencies, and ask for something. The biases of agencies will delete them.
They want to, right?
We entrust them. We entrust Jeff Bezos with our national secrets, full stop. That's pretty terrifying, particularly when -- Glenn, I don't know how to frame it otherwise.
But it seems like this a modern day robber barons. He's out there using the courts to try to imprison his employees when they're not even liable for breaching the employment contract.
And also, what bothers me in this story, is the use of civil asset forfeiture. When the government can come in and just take people's assets. Remember, it was Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan Chase. That last week, in his shareholder meeting, said, we need to start seizing farms, because we need to rapidly grow wind and solar energy. And we can't get enough farmland
So we just need to start seizing it. Ford is seize all of these farms down south, they announced over the weekend.
The civil asset forfeiture. When they can just take things. And they don't have to return it, even.
If you're not guilty, they don't have to do anything. Did you ever get an apology for any of that?
AMY: No, Glenn. In fact, we had to agree not to sue the government in order to get our money back.
GLENN: That's crazy. That is just crazy.
AMY: Glenn, they can do it secretly. Like, we've still never seen the affidavit, that were the basis of seizing our money.
Like, we don't even know what Amazon told the government to get them to take that money.
But I do know the federal judge and the lawsuit, that he just tossed out all these cases, said that Amazon had misrepresented there were damages. There were no damages.
Misrepresented their code of conduct. And what it said.
They made all these misrepresentations. So did the government take our money based on those misrepresentations? And who gets held accountable for all of this?
GLENN: Nobody.
AMY: Nobody. Right.
And they will go and start taking American's farmlands, because they want to, they'll just find a way. Right? I think powerful people. Powerful entities. Powerful corporations and banks can really manipulate the law, the way they want to.
GLENN: So you walk away, at this point, pretty happy.
AMY: I mean, I do. But I have to say, I'm still afraid, that Amazon and its CEO, Andy Jassy might go back to the DOJ and say, please go do what we couldn't do. Get these people.
GLENN: But how?
On what?
AMY: I don't know. But, Glenn, they're -- how did they do this for the past two years?
Right. Just, I don't know.
GLENN: This is no way. This is no way for an American to live.
When you were afraid of the government, when you have done no wrong.
Because they're in bed with a corporation, that needs the -- you know, needs the trouble pinned on somebody else.
That is terrifying. That's not America.
AMY: It really is not. And I'm still afraid the FBI will knock on my door, and try to take my husband and our four daughters. And it -- there's so many things about this, right?
Glenn, your point at the beginning, you have the Bill of Rights. That's what should unite us.
And to think we're in a constant fight, between Democrats and Republicans about smaller issues. When if you look up, when you look up, corporations are really -- because many reasons, able to direct politicians of all stripes and all colors, right? Of what to do. And how to act.
And I think it's truly terrifying to me, somehow progressives are these massive supporters of the FBI.
GLENN: It's -- yeah. Go ahead.
AMY: Yeah. We look back, five, ten, 15 years ago. The Democrats are out there screaming about the FBI's overreach.
And spying on citizens.
And now I think because Democrats feel like the FBI will go after Trump for them.
That they're the good guys.
GLENN: It's really amazing to me. That I was listening to you talk about these big businesses.
And the FBI, right before you -- you brought this up.
And I thought, you know. Ten years ago, 15 years ago.
I would have been thinking right now, oh, jeez.
This is not going to fly well with the audience.
Because you'll sound too progressive.
Now, you don't sound like a progressive at all.
You sound like a conservative. It's so bizarre.
AMY: It's a strange world. And I find myself out there talking to my progressive friends about this all the time now. And I really feel like Americans of all political persuasions are being distracted to forget our freedoms, to forget our freedoms.
Right?
And it's terrifying. Because our freedoms really matter. They really do.
GLENN: Amy, thank you so much.
Tell us what happens. Keep us up to speed, when you -- when you get that last one, cleared up.
And my best to you and your family and the kids.
AMY: I know.
Thanks for telling our story, Glenn.
GLENN: You bet. Amy Nelson. She's from TheRiveter.com.
It's an amazing American horror story.
