Gracie Gato's Speakeasy Podcast

Correction :(Sun, Sept 6, 2016): This episode originally stated Robin Davis was elected Merrimack County Attorney in 2016. She was elected in 2018. It also referred to Gordon MacDonald as "suspended." He is on indefinite medical leave, which is not a disciplinary action. Both corrections have been made to reflect accurate reporting. We regret the errors.Twelve hundred and six votes. That's the whole ballgame.In 2020, Merrimack County Attorney Robin Davis lost her re-election bid by a margin thin enough to walk a tightrope across. On the surface: an incumbent who dismantled her own sexual-assault unit, bled staff within months of taking office, and got sued by her own investigator for hostile work environment. Case closed, right?Not so fast.This episode follows the paper trail — the lawsuit, the workplace investigation, and a bombshell news story that landed in the Concord Patch days before the election — and lines it up against the same recurring cast of institutional names that keep surfacing across New Hampshire's advocacy and prosecutorial networks. Then it hands you the other side too: a competing analysis suggesting this was nothing more than a geographic split, not a scandal at all.Along the way: an eight-month stall on an election-fraud case that only moved once cameras showed up, a soon-to-be Chief Justice on record saying "we need to do better," and a question that refuses to resolve itself neatly — was Robin Davis voted out, or was she pushed?No verdicts here. Just the confirmed record, the unconfirmed hypothesis clearly labeled as such, and the invitation to follow the door that barely closed.Receipts over vibes. Always. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Take two. Because the truth deserves better audio than we gave it the first time.Full disclosure: our first crack at this interview got buried by a soundboard that had other plans — so we’re back, mics dialed in, and doing it right. Some stories are worth the do-over.This time, Jon Raiche sits down with The Gracie Gato Podcast to talk about his run for Merrimack County Attorney. Raiche brings 26 years in criminal justice to the table — public defender work in Miami and Orlando, private practice in South Florida, and now 14 years as a prosecutor here at home. A native Granite Stater raising his own family in Boscawen, he’s making the case that Merrimack County needs a “day one ready” candidate — no learning curve, no on-the-job training, just someone who’s already seen the inside of the system from every angle.We get into what he thinks is broken in the county’s justice system, where he stands on bail and mental health reform, and why he believes accountability starts with the County Attorney’s office being more visible, not less — open-door policies, public forums, the whole transparency pitch.Receipts over vibes, as always — so tune in, and let’s see if the second take does this story justice.Vote Jon Raiche. Sept 8th. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Last week, a polling company got caught lying.Median Strategies had released a poll showing Karen Bass with a twelve-point lead over Nithya Raman in the LA mayor’s race, picking up most of reality TV figure Spencer Pratt’s old support. It spread everywhere, because it was juicy, because it fit a narrative editors wanted to run. Then the company admitted the whole thing was fabricated — a “social experiment,” in their words, designed to test how a fake number could travel through the media ecosystem without anyone bothering to verify it first. The same firm had run an identical stunt in Wisconsin, showing a socialist gubernatorial candidate up twenty points. She lost her primary.It was all fake, and it worked anyway, at least for a news cycle.I keep coming back to that story not because Los Angeles is my beat, but because of what it proves: a fabricated number, dressed up as data, can move real votes if nobody checks it before it runs. New Hampshire likes to think of itself as immune to that kind of thing. We’re “First in the Nation.” We pride ourselves on being first to pass certain laws — including laws tied directly to elections and to how victims are treated inside the criminal justice system.So I went looking for our own version of the Median Strategies story. I found one. It doesn’t involve a fake poll. It involves real phone calls, a real state filing, and an Attorney General’s office that spent a year building the talking points for a bill it was also supposed to be investigating complaints about.The CallsIn the spring of 2018, New Hampshire state legislators started getting phone calls at home about a proposed constitutional amendment called Marsy’s Law — a victims’-rights measure that would eventually go to a House vote as CACR22.State Representative Linda Kenison wrote to her entire caucus on April 25th, 2018. Her constituents, she said, had been called and told to contact her about the bill. The strategy backfired: once she explained what the amendment actually did, her constituents agreed with her position — against it. Her words, not mine: “I am getting increasingly angered by this deceitful practice.”Two days later, that complaint didn’t stay inside the legislature. Amanda Grady Sexton, Director of Public Affairs for the NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence — one of the organizations publicly supporting Marsy’s Law — forwarded Kenison’s entire email thread directly to Jane Young at the Attorney General’s office, asking her to route it to “the appropriate person.” Ten months later, WMUR reported the AG’s office was still investigating.The People Writing the AnswersHere’s what nobody knew while that investigation was supposedly underway: months earlier, in January 2018, Sexton had already looped Jane Young into building the campaign’s public defense. Draft documents, response papers, coordination with Doug Beloof — Marsy’s Law’s own national policy advisor — all moving through the same channel. Beloof’s own cover note on one set of documents specified that the answers to public criticism were, in his words, “most of which were from the AG.”A year later, in January 2019, Gordon MacDonald — then Attorney General, now Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court — was directly copied on an email about legislative strategy for a related victims’-rights bill, House Bill 705. That same email mentioned a national grant program from the National Crime Victim Law Institute, worth up to a million dollars, scored in part on how strong a state’s victims’-rights statutes were. The sender’s own word for it: “an incentive to keep up this important work.”To be precise about what that document shows and what it doesn’t: it isn’t a literal quid pro quo. Nobody wrote “pass this bill and get this check.” What it shows is an Attorney General’s office actively shaping the legislative and public-messaging strategy for victims’-rights law, in the same breath as a grant opportunity explicitly framed as incentive to keep doing exactly that kind of work. Read that however you want. I’m just telling you what’s in the email.The Money, DocumentedThis is the part I don’t have to characterize at all, because the state did it for me.Marsy’s Law for New Hampshire filed its Statement of Receipts and Expenditures with the Secretary of State’s office on June 20th, 2018. Chairperson: Emilio Gonzalez. Treasurer: Andrew Biemer. Total receipts: $430,000.Number of contributors: one.Every dollar came from Henry Nicholas III of Aliso Viejo, California — listed occupation, “Philanthropist, Business Executive.” Five checks between February and May 2018: $50,000, $100,000, $100,000, $130,000, and $50,000. Not one New Hampshire dollar. Not one New Hampshire name on the receipts page. A California donor built this campaign, dollar for dollar, from three thousand miles away.Now look at where the money went. Amanda Grady Sexton — the same Sexton coordinating messaging with the Attorney General’s office — was paid $15,000 in consulting fees on March 14th, $15,000 more on April 30th, and $15,000 more on May 17th. Forty-five thousand dollars in consulting fees alone, inside a single filing period, on top of separate reimbursements for food, travel, online advertising, and videography.And Andrew Biemer — the campaign’s own Treasurer, the man whose signature is on the filing — paid himself $2,500 in consulting fees. Four separate times. Ten thousand dollars, from the account he was personally responsible for overseeing.The PhonesThen there’s the line that made me stop scrolling.June 7th, 2018. Paid to FLS Connect LLC, of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Amount: $49,686.94. Nature of expenditure: “Media - Phones.”FLS Connect isn’t an obscure name if you follow political consulting — it’s a national phone-outreach firm, the kind of vendor campaigns hire when they need to make calls at scale.I want to be exactly as careful here as the document allows me to be. The filing does not say this money paid for the specific calls Linda Kenison and her colleagues complained about. It doesn’t name the recipients, and I’m not going to imply it does. What I can tell you is the timing: in the same election cycle, during the same window state legislators were calling the calls they received “deceitful,” the Marsy’s Law campaign’s own state filing shows nearly fifty thousand dollars paid to a company whose entire business is making phone calls.Maybe that’s coincidence. Maybe it’s the first time anyone’s put the complaint and the receipt in the same room. I’ll let you decide which.Why This Matters NowNone of what’s above is a theory. It’s a signed, dated filing, received by the New Hampshire Department of State, sitting in public records the whole time. Nobody had to leak it. Nobody had to hack anything. It was always there, waiting for someone to actually read it against the legislators’ own emails from the same season.That’s the real lesson from the Median Strategies story, and it’s the same lesson New Hampshire keeps almost teaching itself: institutions don’t self-report, and journalists don’t get credit for asking questions — they get credit for reading the documents nobody else bothered to pull.As a new election season and legislative session come back around, this is exactly the moment to ask who’s calling your house, who’s writing the talking points defending the bill behind those calls, and who’s paying for both. New Hampshire likes to go first. It’s worth checking, every so often, what we’re actually leading on.Receipts over vibes. Omnia Vincit Virtus.Listen to the full episode of the Gracie Gato Podcast, “Behind the Curtain of Electioneering,” wherever you get your podcasts.More RTK’s will be posted. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Jason Gerhard spent twelve years in federal prison. Now he wants to run the county sheriff’s office.That sentence alone should stop you mid-scroll — and that’s the point. On this episode of The Gracie Gato Podcast, I sit down with former State Representative Jason Gerhard, a convicted felon turned lawmaker turned two-time candidate for Merrimack County Sheriff, to talk about what happens when a system spits someone out and they decide to run for the front office instead of walking away.We get into it: the prison sentence, the treatise he wrote behind bars calling out federal overreach, his fight to restore gun rights for people with records like his own, and his controversial vision of what a sheriff’s office could be if it took its independent, constitutional powers seriously. Agree with him or not — and I suspect you’ll land somewhere strong either way — Gerhard is a case study in what happens when “redeemable” runs headlong into “electable.”No spin. No vibes. Just receipts, hard questions, and a conversation about power, punishment, and second acts in New Hampshire politics. Listen now on The Gracie Gato Podcast — where we chase the paper trail, not the applause.More on Jason Gerhard’s campaign: gohardwithgerhard.com Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

A few weeks ago, I told you about a chief justice who vanished into medical leave without explanation, two days after formal misconduct charges landed against a colleague he was a key witness against. I told you about two sworn statements — months apart — that cannot both be true.This week, New Hampshire’s judiciary said something out loud it hadn’t said before: there’s no forecasted return date for Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald. Not “soon.” Not “under review.” Nothing. And in the same statement, the court admitted something I did not expect — even his fellow justices say they haven’t been told what’s actually wrong.To be clear, and I mean this: he owes no one a diagnosis. That’s his right, full stop. But a right and its optics are different animals, and the optics here are getting harder to explain with a two-paragraph press release.So this is a shorter one. A follow-up. Because the story didn’t end — it just went quiet, and quiet is sometimes the loudest thing in the room.In this episode:— What the court actually said this week, word for word, and what it didn’t say— The wild bit of irony buried in New Hampshire history: MacDonald himself spent eighteen months on the outside of an empty chief justice seat before he ever sat in it— A hard look at whether December’s hearing on Justice Hantz Marconi can mean anything at all when its most consequential witness — Gordon MacDonald — appears once, in one sentence, and is currently unreachable— Real precedent for why a retired judge can still face real discipline— The Dianne Martin question I still can’t let go of: how does an outgoing director get to negotiate the terms of her own exit and her own rehire?I don’t have all the answers here, and I’m not going to pretend I do. What I have is a hearing date, a growing list of unanswered questions, and a habit of writing both down where you can see them.December 7th through 9th, One Granite Place, Concord. Still on the calendar. I’ll be there.Whether Gordon MacDonald will be — that’s the question the whole state should be asking.Receipts over vibes. Always. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

There’s a two-day gap I can’t stop thinking about.On July 29th, the Judicial Conduct Committee quietly filed formal misconduct charges against retired NH Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi. On July 31st, sitting Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald announced — with zero explanation, effective immediately — that he was taking medical leave.Maybe that’s nothing. Institutions have unglamorous, boring reasons for their timing all the time. But I’ve spent the last few weeks in court filings, sworn testimony, and public records, and “nothing” is not the word I’d reach for anymore.Here’s what I found sitting quietly in a legal filing nobody outside a courthouse has read closely: on October 23, 2024, under oath, Hantz Marconi stated she told MacDonald she planned to meet with then-Governor Sununu about her husband’s criminal investigation — and that MacDonald raised no objection. Two months earlier, MacDonald told AG investigators, with his own attorney present, that the meeting was “news to me.”Both statements are sworn. Both are on the record. Both cannot be true.Nobody has ever been asked to reconcile them.That’s the loose thread that pulled this whole episode into being — and once I started pulling, the knot kept getting bigger. A retired justice’s own admissions about a ten-minute meeting with a sitting governor. A $50,000 payout an HR professional of thirty years called, under oath, “basically almost” fraud — right before she was fired for reporting it. A hearing, finally, scheduled for December. And a money trail running from a 2017 ballot campaign straight up to a mysterious communications contract signed the same week the walls started closing in.This is not a story about certainty. I don’t know, definitively, who’s telling the truth in that contradiction — and I’m not going to pretend I do just to give you a satisfying ending. What I do know is that in a state small enough for everyone to sit on the same commissions and answer to the same handful of names, the people meant to police each other rarely do.So I did it instead. Receipts over vibes. Every time.In this episode:— The full, documented timeline behind Justice Hantz Marconi’s formal charges— The sworn contradiction between MacDonald and Hantz Marconi that no one has investigated— Sworn HR testimony on the Dianne Martin payout, quoted directly— The money trail — Marsy’s Law, and a fresh contract worth asking hard questions about— What’s actually on the calendar this December, and why it matters to every person in this state, not just the ones with law degreesThe JCC hearing on Justice Hantz Marconi is set for December 7–9, at One Granite Place in Concord — open to the public. Mark it down. I’ll see you there.As always: everything here is sourced to court filings, sworn testimony, and public records, cited as we go. Where something’s still unconfirmed, I tell you so directly — that’s not a hedge, that’s the whole point of doing this job honestly. Listen to the full episode below. And if you’ve got documents, tips, or a thread you think I should be pulling — you know where to find me. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Is Gordon MacDonald really sick?Is Gordon MacDonald really on medical leave — or is the New Hampshire Supreme Court managing a crisis of its own making?In this episode, we trace a pattern that stretches back to 2002, when an Attorney General named Phil McLaughlin refused to believe a state line could stop a scandal from crossing it. Twenty-four years later, we’re asking the same question about a different institution: New Hampshire’s only forensic lab, and the criminalist the State kept putting on the witness stand for decades — despite a disciplinary file that says exactly why it shouldn’t have.This episode connects the MacDonald leave of absence, the ethics complaint against Jane Young, the structural conflict inside the State Police forensic lab, the 2019 rape kit backlog, and the 2024 Personnel Appeals Board ruling on Kevin McMahon — all under one throughline: institutions don’t self-report. They wait to get caught.Receipts over vibes. Every claim in this episode is backed by public record, on-the-record sourcing, or documented correspondence. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

There’s a version of this story that fits in a headline: state officials asked to alter evidence in an active investigation. That version is true, as far as it goes. But it’s not the interesting part, and it’s definitely not the part that should worry you.The interesting part is the order things happened in.On July 3rd, 2017, Jane Young — then Associate Attorney General and Chief of the Criminal Justice Bureau — emailed a coalition public affairs director about a St. Paul’s School yearbook. She’d spoken with the state forensic lab. They believed they could remove a sticker from a page. Could they try?The next morning, an answer: happy to drop the yearbook off wherever’s convenient.Four days later, Jane Young is quoted publicly confirming a criminal investigation into St. Paul’s School has begun — and the yearbook is part of the story.Nobody, at the time, mentioned that the state’s own lab had already altered it.That gap — between what happened privately on July 3rd and 4th, and what the public was told on July 8th — is the entire story. Not because altering a sticker is inherently sinister. Sometimes evidence needs handling. But because who asked for it, how it was authorized, and what wasn’t said afterward are the kinds of details a defense attorney, a jury, or frankly the public are supposed to get to weigh for themselves. They didn’t get the chance. Not in 2017, and not for years after — because these emails stayed out of public view until a Right-to-Know request pried them loose.That timing gap is now doing real legal work. A formal grievance filed with the Attorney General’s office argues the statute of limitations shouldn’t be read as having started back in 2017, precisely because none of this was discoverable until recently. The same grievance raises a Brady question — whether information that should have reached St. Paul’s School as the subject of a criminal probe, didn’t. Whether either argument holds is not something we’re going to pretend to adjudicate from a podcast studio. That’s the Attorney General’s job now, formally, on the record.What we can tell you is what’s provable: the email chain exists. The statute — RSA 641:6, Falsifying Physical Evidence — exists, and it’s a Class B felony. The grievance exists. And the tangle of conflicts around who is supposed to review any of it — a complaint against Jane Young that her own state’s attorney disciplinary body says it can’t hear because Young sits on the committee that would hear it — also exists, and it’s almost farcical in how neatly it closes the loop.Small state. Smaller room. Same names, different hats — over and over, for years.We laid out the full paper trail, statute language, and grievance details in this week’s episode. Watch/listen below, and if you’ve got documents relevant to this thread or others in our New Hampshire accountability series, you know where to find us. We protect sources, always.Receipts over vibes. Every time. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

There’s a pattern in New Hampshire, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it: the people closest to the truth are the ones most afraid to speak it.This episode follows the crisis at the Sununu Youth Services Center — the resignations, the involvement of the Attorney General’s office, and a juvenile justice veteran with two decades on the job who still, even now, won’t put their name to what they saw. We ask why. And we ask what it costs a state when institutional self-protection works exactly as designed: silence the insiders, discredit the outsiders, wait for the story to die of exhaustion instead of disproof.NH Supreme Court rejects lawsuit challenging child protection systemThe New Hampshire Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a former state employee who accused the Department of Health and Human Services of failing to protect children from abuse and neglect.www.wmur.comJul 21, 2021https://www.wmur.com/article/new-hampshire-supreme-court-rejects-child-protection-system-lawsuit/37089571https://www.nhpr.org/health/2020-02-13/dhhs-employee-files-whistleblower-lawsuit-over-child-protection-serviceshttps://www.concordmonitor.com/2019/09/30/st-pauls-school-concord-nh-grand-jury-report-remain-confidential-28809670/https://indepthnh.org/2020/02/02/spaulding-bewildered-by-ags-request-to-probe-hilliard-for-laurie-list/Built on public record, on-the-record sourcing, and a standard I don’t budge on: receipts over vibes. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know law promises that government records belong to the public. This episode is what happens when you actually try to collect.Over two weeks, our research team filed records requests with the State of New Hampshire and the City of Concord — about the state forensic laboratory, a criminalist named Kevin McMahon, an internal affairs policy, and a grant check the city signed with its own hand. What came back wasn’t transparency. It was technique.In this episode, I break down four moves — by name, with the actual letters on screen — so you’ll recognize them the next time your government throws one at you:* The Hot Potato — your concern gets quietly forwarded to the very agency it’s about* The Empty Drawer — the wrong office truthfully says it has nothing, and doesn’t tell you where the right one is* The Slow Clock — nobody says no, the answer just arrives after it stops mattering (mark your calendar: September 25, 2026)* The Preemptive Maybe — the exemption gets floated before anyone’s even searchedAnd underneath all four moves sits a real question with a paper trail: sworn 2014 testimony about DNA contamination and a 2011 suspension, a 2024 disciplinary ruling that never mentions either — and a decade of trials in between where a jury may never have heard the difference.Every request is filed. Every deadline is written down. This show will be here when they come due.Receipts over vibes — always.🎙️ New episode of The Gracie Gato Podcast is live. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Skip the Butter: The Forensic Analyst New Hampshire Kept Putting on the StandFor 43 years, a New Hampshire State Police forensic analyst kept getting walked up to the witness stand — sworn, trusted, in the most serious cases this state has ever tried. This is what his own employer's records say about him. And what the public was never shown.This week on The Gracie Gato Podcast we trace the documented record of Kevin G. McMahon, a longtime criminalist at the NH State Police Forensic Laboratory: a man his own employer formally warned, sent to harassment training at least five times, and ultimately suspended — and who admitted under oath that his own DNA kept turning up on the evidence he was testing. We follow what's in the public file, what's missing from it, and the Right-to-Know request now ticking on a five-business-day clock.No spin. No mob. A citizen, a statute, a deadline, and a paper trail. Receipts first — vibes never.In this episode:The Personnel Appeals Board decision the State signed off on (Docket #2024-D-010)The contamination history he admitted on cross-examination — that prosecutors never raisedState v. Owen Labrie: the case where the system's backstop held, and why that's the scariest partState v. Adam Montgomery: how the pattern completesColorado, Massachusetts, New York — the national crime-lab reckoning McMahon is part ofThe RSA 91-A request that asks the State for the whole file — and starts the clockChapters (adjust to final cut):00:00 — Cold Open: Skip the Butter01:00 — Meet Kevin05:30 — The Contamination File10:00 — The Net Held (State v. Labrie)15:00 — The Pattern Completes (State v. Montgomery)20:00 — Not Just Here: A National Pattern23:00 — The RequestSources & public records:NH Personnel Appeals Board, Appeal of Kevin McMahon, Docket #2024-D-010 (decided March 20, 2024)State of New Hampshire v. Owen Labrie — trial transcript (2015)Nashua Telegraph reporting, State v. Harvey Martel (June 2014)State of New Hampshire v. Adam Montgomery — trial coverage (February 2024)Colorado (Yvonne "Missy" Woods / CBI) and Massachusetts (Annie Dookhan, Sonja Farak) crime-lab casesNH RSA 91-A (Right-to-Know Law)For 43 years, a New Hampshire State Police forensic analyst kept getting walked up to the witness stand — sworn, trusted, in the most serious cases this state has ever tried. This is what his own employer’s records say about him. And what the public was never shown.This week on The Gracie Gato Podcast, we trace the documented record of Kevin G. McMahon, a longtime criminalist at the NH State Police Forensic Laboratory: a man his own employer formally warned, sent to harassment training at least five times, and ultimately suspended — and who admitted under oath that his own DNA kept turning up on the evidence he was testing. We follow what’s in the public file, what’s missing from it, and the Right-to-Know request now ticking on a five-business-day clock.No spin. No mob. A citizen, a statute, a deadline, and a paper trail. Receipts first — vibes never.In this episode:* The Personnel Appeals Board decision the State signed off on (Docket #2024-D-010)* The contamination history he admitted on cross-examination — that prosecutors never raised* State v. Owen Labrie: the case where the system’s backstop held, and why that’s the scariest part* State v. Adam Montgomery: how the pattern completes* Colorado, Massachusetts, New York — the national crime-lab reckoning McMahon is part of* The RSA 91-A request that asks the State for the whole file — and starts the clockChapters (adjust to final cut):00:00 — Cold Open: Skip the Butter01:00 — Meet Kevin05:30 — The Contamination File10:00 — The Net Held (State v. Labrie)15:00 — The Pattern Completes (State v. Montgomery)20:00 — Not Just Here: A National Pattern23:00 — The RequestSources & public records:* NH Personnel Appeals Board, Appeal of Kevin McMahon, Docket #2024-D-010 (decided March 20, 2024)* State of New Hampshire v. Owen Labrie — trial transcript (2015)* Nashua Telegraph reporting, State v. Harvey Martel (June 2014)* State of New Hampshire v. Adam Montgomery — trial coverage (February 2024)* Colorado (Yvonne “Missy” Woods / CBI) and Massachusetts (Annie Dookhan, Sonja Farak) crime-lab cases* NH RSA 91-A (Right-to-Know Law)The Owen Labrie Transcripts. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

“Welcome back to the Gracie Gato Podcast. Pour something, settle in.Here’s a riddle for you. What do you call a man running for Congress who won’t take money from corporations, won’t take money from PACs, won’t take a dime from the wealthy — and won’t even take five bucks from you*, the voter who likes him? You call him Matthew Emerson. And you call him my guest tonight.*Nine Democrats are clawing each other for Chris Pappas’s old seat. The Shaheens are circling, the consultants are billing, the lawn signs are breeding like rabbits. And way up in Conway, there’s a guy running the whole thing on less than the cost of a used Subaru, calling the entire field ‘insulated and tone deaf’ to their faces.Now — is that prophecy, or is that a man making a virtue out of an empty wallet? That’s what we’re here to find out. Because around here, we don’t do press releases. We do questions. So Matthew — welcome. Don’t get comfortable. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

She filed for Congress yesterday. Today she’s in the Speakeasy. Carleigh Beriont is a Harvard-educated union organizer, mom, Marshall Islands teacher, and Hampton Select Board Chair who looked at New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District — packed with establishment money and dynasty names — and said: not today. No AIPAC. No social media. No apologies. Just Medicare for All, a ban on Congressional stock trading, and the audacity to show up anyway. This is what a people-first campaign sounds like before the consultants get to it. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Starting today, Gracie Gato’s Speakeasy has a new recurring segment.Every week, Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown sits down with me to give you a direct, unfiltered report on what is happening inside Concord City Hall — the votes, the budget decisions, the things that get approved quietly and the things that get cut loudly. No spin. No press releases. Just a city councilor with a stack of documents and nowhere to be except honest.We’re calling it The Concord Report.And we are starting with a story that made me put down my coffee.Beaver Meadow Golf Course is a city-owned municipal course off Sewall’s Falls Road. It has been part of Concord’s civic landscape since 1897, when Scottish golf architect Willie Campbell designed its original nine holes. For decades, the city operated it as a self-sustaining enterprise. In fact, the official mission statement — adopted in 1994 — explicitly committed that the course would operate “without the need to supplement revenues with tax dollars.”That language was removed in 2008. Quietly. Without public fanfare. Nine months into Jim Bouley’s first term as mayor.What followed was thirteen years of General Fund transfers — your property taxes flowing into golf operations, year after year, sometimes tens of thousands more than the city publicly budgeted. The golf fund accumulated debt the city approved in increments: $138,000 in FY2018, $310,000 in FY2019, $310,000 in FY2020. When you add interest and obligations through the present day, the total debt exposure tied to Beaver Meadow exceeds $11 million.Now here is where it gets personal.In the most recent budget cycle, the Concord City Council needed to cut spending to reduce the tax rate. Here is some of what got cut:• Hoopla — the public library’s digital audiobook service — $38,000• Bagged leaf pickup service (spring and fall curbside collection) — $99,225• A UNH graduate student contracted to do a city tree inventory — $4,000• The city’s ICLEI sustainability membership — $1,200Here is what did not get cut at the golf course:• $92,000 for grounds and horticulture — including $55,600 in chemicals and $3,000 for flowers and shrubs• $8,630 in professional development — including $3,200 in tournament entry fees for the course’s two golf pros and $3,000 for “continuing education”And here is what was added to the golf course budget:• $5,000 for a new ball picker• $20,000 in temporary labor increases• $10,000 in additional overtime wages• $46,140 in total new golf course requestsThe library lost its audiobooks. Your leaves will sit at the curb. The golf pros are entering tournaments on the city’s dime.—Stacey Brown has been documenting all of this — budget document by budget document, fiscal year by fiscal year, going back to 2013. She attended the Golf Course Advisory Committee meeting in February 2025 and presented evidence — from a published reference book, The Architects of Golf by Geoffrey S. Cornish and Ronald E. Whitten — that Beaver Meadow has been falsely marketed as the oldest golf course in New Hampshire. (It isn’t. Waumbek Golf Course opened in 1896. Beaver Meadow opened in 1897.) The room’s response was to call her an attacker and suggest the golf course hire a public relations person.She kept going anyway.That is the kind of city councilor Stacey Brown is. And that is why The Concord Report exists.—This episode is the first installment of what will be a weekly conversation. Every week, Stacey brings me what she is watching — the votes coming up, the budget lines worth questioning, the decisions being made in your name with your money. If you live in Concord, this is your city. You deserve to know what is happening in it.All source documents referenced in this episode are linked below. I encourage you to read them.📄 SOURCE DOCUMENTS• Beaver Meadow Golf Course Mission Statements, 1994 and 2008• Golf Fund Budget Documents, FY2013–FY2021 (City of Concord Operating Budgets)• Council-approved debt: FY2018 ($138,000), FY2019 ($310,000), FY2020 ($310,000)• Irrigation and Clubhouse Debt Service documents, FY2018–FY2026• Golf Course Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes, February 20, 2025• Concord Finance Committee Budget Adjustment Document, June 4, 2026• The Architects of Golf — Geoffrey S. Cornish & Ronald E. Whitten (HarperCollins)Listen to the full episode above.Tips and documents: [email protected] Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

FOUR BEDS AND A BOARDROOM — EPISODE 2: THE FAMILY TREE Last week, we followed the money.This week, we follow the people.One city councilor with two jobs and zero recusals. One lawyer with six hats and one sealed grand jury report. One professional network stretching from the New Hampshire Supreme Court to a $12,500 line item in a municipal budget — and somehow, every thread leads back to the same zip code, the same law firm, the same coalition.Tonight on the Gracie Gato Podcast: the day job Amanda Grady Sexton doesn’t mention at the dais. The conflict of interest David Vicinanzo was warned about — in writing, twice — and kept going anyway. The Deputy AG who sent the warning, then hired his son. The grand jury report that nobody outside the parties has read. The bill that would have protected survivors like Marisol Fuentes. And why it died.Pour something neat. This one we take slowly.The paper is real. The emails are public. The family tree is yours now. Listen. Then ask your city councilor if they’ve heard of any of this. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

SPECIAL EDITION: “She Begged Them”The Marisol Fuentes Story — and the institutions still not answering for itMarisol Fuentes went to court.She begged them to protect her from her husband.They didn’t.On July 6th, 2025, he killed her in Berlin, New Hampshire.What happened next is a masterclass in how powerful institutions manage catastrophe — not by fixing it, not by owning it, but by going quiet in exactly the right places, at exactly the right time.In this special edition of The Gracie Gato Podcast, I’m pulling the thread on a story that has more layers than a New Hampshire winter:A brand-new magistrate who set bail, watched a woman die, and then resigned — leaving a very interesting legal question about who’s now exposed without her umbrella of protection.A Right to Know request that Executive Councilor Janet Stevens has been pursuing for months — and that Berlin Police Department is blocking, citing privacy concerns for a woman who is no longer alive to need them.A press release from the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence calling for more training — issued by the very organization that runs the training the police were supposed to have completed.A judicial selection commission that approved the magistrate who resigned. A commission that included, among its members, NHCADSV Executive Director Lyn Schollett.And one question that nobody — not the police department, not the coalition, not the crisis center — has answered:Was a victim’s advocate present when Marisol Fuentes went to court and begged for her life?The silence around that question is not nothing. It’s everything.This episode connects the dots between Berlin PD’s stonewalling, the sovereign immunity doctrine that may have just lost its roof, the NHCADSV’s conspicuous PR pivot, and the funding structures that give powerful nonprofit institutions every incentive to manage optics over accountability.I want to be clear: this is journalism, not prosecution. We don’t have all the answers. But we have the questions — and we have the names.Marisol Fuentes deserved better.So does the next woman standing in a courtroom somewhere in New Hampshire, asking the system to protect her.New Hampshire courts have extended this protection to nonprofits before. There’s precedent from a case involving CASA NH — Court Appointed Special Advocates — where a judge ruled that because CASA volunteers function as an arm of the court, they get the same immunity protections as a judge.Here’s why that matters in Berlin.RESPONSE, the local crisis center, provides advocates to attend court hearings with victims. That’s literally on their website. Victim advocacy in court settings is their *job.*If RESPONSE had an advocate present — or was supposed to have one present — in Marisol’s case, their liability exposure is significant. *Unless* they can claim sovereign immunity.*But.* Sovereign immunity in these cases flows through the judge — or in this case, the magistrate.Stephanie Johnson *resigned.*When a magistrate resigns in disgrace after a catastrophic failure, does the sovereign immunity umbrella she could have extended to nonprofits working under her court... disappear with her?That is a legal question I am not qualified to definitively answer. But I can tell you this: it’s a question that *someone* in a law office is asking right now. And the answer to that question may have a lot to do with why Berlin Police are stonewalling a Right to Know request.Think about it. If both the PD and RESPONSE dropped the ball — and the magistrate who could legally shield RESPONSE is gone — you’ve got a situation where a crisis center under the NHCADSV umbrella is potentially exposed.And if RESPONSE is exposed, NHCADSV is exposed.And if NHCADSV is exposed...Funding. Federal funding. State grants. Millions of dollars that flow through that organization annually.Now the wall makes a little more sense, doesn’t it?Listen. Share. And if you know something — you know how to find me. Listen now — available on all major podcast platforms and right here on Substack.Sources with relevant documents are always welcome. I protect sources. That’s not a tagline. It’s a promise. Leave a comment, share this post, or upgrade your subscription to support independent journalism that doesn’t look away.Gracie Gato’s Speakeasy — because the truth doesn’t need a spin cycle. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Part 1 of 2: Four Beds and a BoardroomFor ten straight years, the City of Concord wrote the exact same check — twelve thousand, five hundred dollars — to the same domestic violence nonprofit.No contract. No fee schedule. No public accounting of where the money went or what services it bought.The city’s police department helped staff the nonprofit’s annual fundraiser. Without a contract. Without an invoice. Without anyone in the city explaining how that squared with the 2008 resolution requiring nonprofits to pay for police labor on a fee basis.The city’s own website promoted the nonprofit as the primary public resource for domestic violence survivors — without disclosing that the nonprofit was, at the time, chaired by the Mayor’s wife, treasured by a sitting City Councilor, and sponsored at its annual fundraiser by the former Mayor’s own private lobbying firm.And in 2020 — quietly, with no press release and no public discussion — the City Manager stopped using the nonprofit’s name on the budget line.The check is still $12,500. The recipient is still the same. But somewhere along the way, somebody decided that the specificity of the original line item had become a problem.Tonight on the Speakeasy, we ask why.In this episode:* The 1978 nonprofit that became something else in 2014* The 2008 resolution that built the legal architecture for everything that followed* The 9-Month Status Report in which the Concord Police Department admitted, in writing on the city’s own website, that it had been providing uncompensated services to a private nonprofit* The annual fundraiser that grossed $51,816 and netted $2,288 — a 4.4% margin* The Wedge Sponsor on the 2016 flyer whose name nobody in Concord wants to talk about* The HUD-funded offices with a sign on the door that says they don’t have staff* Two campaign-finance receipts from the fall of 2017 that should not have appeared in a Concord City Council race* And the day job nobody has told you about yet Next week: we follow the money out of Concord. We follow it to the State House. We follow it to a 2018 settlement, a 2019 court order, and a grand jury report that — to this day — is sealed in a Merrimack County file cabinet. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

My name is Gracie Gato and my only talents are media!!!! So, here I am, covering New Hampshire politics whether Concord likes it or not. 🎙️We're making some big changes to the podcast. Late night format. Political guests. Gen X edge. Real conversations about what's actually happening in this state.Free subscribers get the show.Paid subscribers get the bonus footage.Everyone gets the truth.Like the page. Subscribe to the Substack. And please tell your friends !!!! Mama's gotta pay the bills. 😂❤️ These lawyer fees are no joke!!!!https://substack.com/@graciegato#graciegato #nhpolitics #podcast #NewHampshire #speakeasy Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when the man who built his career defending white collar criminals and sex abuse cases becomes the go-to counsel for the organizations claiming to protect survivors? What happens when the ethics committee watchdog is caught whispering strategy to the very people targeting a sitting councilor — while technically recused? What happens when a victim reportedly recruited to serve the Diocese ends up hired by the state’s premier survivor advocacy organization, housed in their building, and deployed to write Op Eds against the legislation that would investigate them?This is not a conspiracy theory. This is Concord, New Hampshire. And this week on the Speakeasy, we’re following the architecture — from the 2003 Diocese of Manchester investigation all the way to last night’s ethics committee vote — and asking the question nobody in that building wants you to ask: who does any of this actually serve?Buckle up. We have receipts. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

In 1999, New Hampshire State Representative Sherman Packard filed a bill — not to close a loophole in child protection law, but to explicitly legalize photographers manufacturing nude images of teenagers with parental consent.That man is now the Speaker of the New Hampshire House.Under his gavel: Rep. Ellen Read was banished from the chamber for saying one word during a survivors’ rights hearing. Rep. Wendy Thomas lost her leadership position for having a “bad attitude.” Rep. Travis Corcoran invoked Nazi genocide language publicly and faced almost no consequence.And in Concord City Hall, Councilor Stacey Brown — who got more votes than the mayor — has been stripped of her committees, silenced, and barred from doing her job for asking too many questions about taxpayer money.Same pattern. Different buildings. One constant.This is the public record of the State of New Hampshire. All of it documented. All of it verifiable.I’m Gracie Gato. This is the Speakeasy. And I’m not going anywhere.🎙️ Subscribe to Gracie Gato’s Speakeasy on all major podcast platforms. Read the full story at graciegato.substack.com Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Some people write letters to their representatives. Ellen Read became one — and then got on a boat.She sailed with the Freedom Flotilla toward Gaza. She got sick. She fought to stay aboard. The IDF intercepted the ship before it ever arrived.Ellen Read didn’t make it to Gaza. But she showed up in a way most people never will — and she hasn’t stopped since.Gracie Gato’s Speakeasy. Because the truth deserves a witness.DONATE HERE Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

She's 13. She's from Concord. And She's Already Paying More Attention Than Half the Legislature.Meet Esther — Gracie Gato's Podcast newest Junior Political Correspondent and certified Agent of Chaos. A young woman of color growing up in New Hampshire, Esther represents something this state doesn't always make room for: the next generation of voters, watching right now, taking it all in — and not staying quiet about it.She hasn't cast her first ballot yet. But she's already asking the questions that matter.In this episode, Gracie and Esther sit down for a conversation about politics, power, and what it looks like when a young woman decides the future is too important to leave to the adults.Spoiler: it looks like this. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Watch Rep. Ellen Read of Newmarket. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

On April 17, 2026, New Hampshire State Representative Ellen Read of Rockingham District 10 became the first Representative in state history to be formally banned from the chamber, gallery, and anteroom of the State House on non-session days.Her offense? A single word — f**k — spoken in a public hallway while she watched sexual assault survivors be given three minutes apiece to testify on her own bill, HB 1633, while paid lobbyists from a single opposing organization were given twenty minutes and a second turn at the end.Rep. Read is herself a survivor. Four years ago, she walked out of a New Hampshire hospital after her own assault, never having been told of her legal right to evidence collection. HB 1633 is the bill she wrote in response — a bill that would simply require hospitals, police, and prosecutors to hand survivors a palm card listing the rights they already have under state law. The NH House has passed it three times. Most recently, 340 to 1. The Senate just killed it.Below, you’ll find Rep. Read’s full video statement on her banishment, and her written op-ed as published in InDepthNH on April 16, 2026. Both are her own words, unedited by me. I publish them here as a matter of public record, because the people running this state have made abundantly clear they would rather she not be heard at all.Read them. Watch. Share.Because a right kept secret is not a right. And a representative kept silent is not silent — she is being silenced. There is a verb there. There is a choice somebody is making.Let’s make them make it in the daylight. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

What the bill actually doesHB 1633 is the simplest bill you will ever read.It requires hospitals, police departments, crisis centers, and prosecutors’ offices to hand a sexual assault survivor a palm card. A wallet-sized card. On the card is a list of the rights that survivor already has under existing New Hampshire law.Rights that are already on the books. Rights the legislature already passed. Rights that, in forty-four other states, somebody figured out how to put on a card.That’s it. That’s the whole bill. A card.Now here’s the number that should end every conversation: according to the NH Department of Justice itself, about one thousand New Hampshire residents a year go to a hospital after an assault and leave with zero evidence collected — not because they didn’t qualify, not because they didn’t want it, but because nobody told them they could have it.A thousand. A year. In a state of 1.4 million.HB 1633 has passed the full New Hampshire House three times. The most recent vote was 340 to 1.The lone “no”? The former chair of the only organization that has ever opposed this bill — the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. The NHCADSV. Remember that name. We are going to use it.The lie that killed itIn her own op-ed in InDepthNH this week, Rep. Read reports that before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, senators were told — repeatedly, by NHCADSV lobbyists — that HB 1633 was a bill to let survivors take rape kits home from the hospital.Let me say that again with my indoor voice so we can all savor it.They told grown, elected state senators that this bill was about letting assault survivors walk out of an ER with a biohazard box of their own forensic evidence tucked under one arm like a Costco rotisserie chicken.That is not in the bill. It has never been in the bill. There is no good-faith reading of this legislation that gets you there.And yet that is what the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee — a man with a gavel and a staff and presumably reading glasses — believed he was hearing testimony about. Ellen met with him the next day. He confirmed it.So let’s line the receipts up at the bar, shall we.* Four sexual assault survivors got three minutes apiece to testify. Twelve minutes total.* The opposition — NHCADSV, its affiliates, and a representative of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office — got twenty minutes. Plus a second bite at the end.* The lobbyists were telling senators the bill did something it does not do.* The one House vote against the bill belongs to the former chair of that same organization.Ten times the airtime of actual survivors. For people spreading a lie.Banned for a wordAfter the hearing, Ellen — herself a sexual assault survivor, a fact she disclosed publicly this week with more courage than most men in this state muster in a lifetime — stood in a hallway and said one word.F**k.For that one word, the Speaker of the New Hampshire House has made her the first Representative in state history to be formally banned from the chamber, the gallery, and her own office anteroom on non-session days.The Revolution happened in this state. The Civil War happened. Prohibition. Every scandal, every affair, every hot-mic moment, every inappropriate handshake in a statehouse bathroom in Concord since 1776.No representative has ever been banished from the building. Until Ellen. For a word.The person who reported her? A lobbyist named Jodi Grimbilas, associated with NHCADSV. The same organization running the disinformation campaign. The same organization whose former chair cast the only “no” in the House.Thirty minutes before any of this happened, I texted the Agents of Chaos chat:“They want you to be emotional to frame you as crazy.”Ellen thumbs-upped it. Then the Speaker proved it.New words for hysterical woman. Same old play.Follow the moneyNow pour a second drink. Because this is where the tragedy becomes a documented corruption story.I have in my possession a draft letter dated April 17, 2026, addressed to New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella. It is written in Rep. Ellen Read’s voice, prepared with accountability researcher Claire Best, and copied to Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown and to me.Here is what that letter lays out.One. A senior member of the NH Attorney General’s office — the draft letter names Jeffrey Strelzin — personally testified against HB 1633 before the Senate. His cited reason? That the bill might cause “unintended consequences.” The unintended consequence, Mr. Strelzin, is that a survivor might know her rights.Two. According to public Secretary of State campaign finance records cited in the draft letter, Jodi Grimbilas made campaign donations in 2023 and 2024 to members of the same State Senate voting on the bill her organization opposes.Three. NHCADSV is a 501(c)(3). Under federal law, a 501(c)(3) is categorically prohibited from using state and federal funds to lobby on legislation. NHCADSV receives substantial public funding. Straw donations — personal contributions made on behalf of an entity that can’t legally donate itself — are illegal. The draft letter raises the question of whether these donations require scrutiny on both fronts.Four — and this is the one that stops my breath — NHCADSV lobbied to pass the original survivors’ rights law in 2016. They wrote it. They pushed it. They cheered when it passed.And then they spent three years fighting the bill that would actually tell survivors those rights exist.They secured rights they did not want anyone to know about.If you ever wanted gatekeeping distilled into a single sentence — that’s it.The patternThis is not one bill. This is a pattern.It goes like this. A woman in New Hampshire civic life speaks plainly. She refuses to play ball — to borrow Ellen’s phrase. She has the wrong manners, the wrong friends, the wrong questions.She is called erratic. Unhinged. Inappropriate. Emotional. Hysterical. Chaotic.None of those words are ever about the bill. None of them are ever about the merits. None of them are ever about the evidence.They are, every time, about the woman.And the machine funded to protect her is the same machine now working to shut her up.What we do nowYou are not the kind of reader who finishes a piece like this and goes back to doomscrolling. So:One. Read Ellen’s op-ed at InDepthNH.org. Share it. Two. Call your state senator. Ask whether they were told HB 1633 was about “take-home rape kits.” Ask who told them. Send me the answer.Three. Look up Jodi Grimbilas on the NH Secretary of State campaign finance database. The donations are public. See who received her money. Ask those senators, in writing, how they voted on NHCADSV-opposed legislation without disclosing the conflict.Four. Ask AG John Formella’s office why Jeffrey Strelzin testified against a survivors’ rights bill on behalf of a private nonprofit. Ask in writing. Demand a written answer.Five. The IRS has a form for reporting suspected 501(c)(3) lobbying violations. It’s Form 13909. Google it. File it. The legal scrutiny of NHCADSV’s practices will not happen unless citizens with standing do the paperwork.Six. And if you are a person who has ever walked out of a New Hampshire hospital wondering why nobody told you what you were entitled to — I see you. Ellen sees you. The 340 representatives who voted yes three times see you.The ones who killed it? The organization that fought it? The prosecutor who warned of “unintended consequences”? The Speaker who banned the woman who fought for you?They don’t see you. Yet.A right kept secretEllen ended her op-ed with eight words that I cannot stop turning over in my mouth.“A right kept secret is not a right.”A law kept secret is not a law.A donation kept secret is not a donation.A woman kept silent is not silent — she is being silenced, and there is a verb there, and a perpetrator there, and a choice somebody is making every day to keep her from speaking.So we speak. Even when it’s one word. Even when it’s in a hallway. Even when the group chat is called Agents of Chaos and the state has it out for us and our hands are shaking at 1:58 on a Thursday afternoon.We speak.F**k.Until there are no more secrets. The full episode is above. Hit play, pour something, and bring a notebook.The Speakeasy is published by NHCEA Inc. — the New Hampshire Coalition for Ethics and Accountability. Independent journalism with a spine. If you want more of it, become a paid subscriber. That’s how mama keeps the lights on, keeps her son fed, and keeps the statehouse nervous.The door is always open. The tab is always running. And the truth — the truth is on the house. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

It was supposed to be a routine week at the New Hampshire State House.It wasn’t.In 2021, the Speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives called a female colleague a b*tch — on a hot mic — in chambers. In his official capacity. With a gavel in his hand.He apologized. He kept his job. He kept his gavel.Fast forward to 2026. Rep. Ellen Read — a survivor, a legislator, a woman who spent three years writing a bill to protect rape victims — was told she shouldn’t even be in the room when her own bill was being debated. She stepped into a hallway. She expressed her frustration. She said the F-word — not at anyone, not into a microphone, not in a chamber.She was overheard by a lobbyist.She was censured. She was banned from the chambers where laws are made.Same building. Different rules.But here’s the thing about threads — once you start pulling them, the whole sweater comes apart.Because that lobbyist? She has documented ties to the NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence — the same organization that spent three years lobbying to kill Ellen Read’s survivors’ rights bill. The same organization that receives 98% of its funding from your tax dollars while fighting every attempt at public transparency. The same organization whose Director of Public Affairs is married to WMUR’s political director — the network that covered the very hearing where Read’s bill was being debated.And the Speaker who censured Ellen Read? His campaign financing is under scrutiny for the exact period when donations were allegedly being funneled through that same lobbyist.Straw donations, for the uninitiated, are illegal.Meanwhile in Concord — Mayor Brian Champlin used the F-word against City Councilor Stacey Brown in a public meeting. Councilor Fred Keach used the F-word against her too, standing over her, pointing his finger down at her while she sat. Another councilor had to physically intervene.Keach was not reprimanded. Champlin was not reprimanded. Stacey Brown was called an “Agent of Chaos” — and local media ran with it.The woman who was sworn at became the story. The men who swore became the background.And when the dust settled, the public paid for a security detail — not for Stacey Brown, but for the councilor whose organization was allegedly making straw donations to the very officials now protecting her.This is not a conspiracy theory. These are documented relationships. Named people. Public records. A real letter, sent April 11th, 2026, addressed to Speaker Sherman Packard and Mayor Brian Champlin — CC’d to legislators, journalists, and advocates across New Hampshire.I was CC’d too. I read it. And I thought: this needs to be said out loud. Clearly. For the record.So that is exactly what we did.In this episode, we trace every thread. We name every name. We read every receipt. We talk about power, and speech, and who gets punished for what words in what rooms — and why, in this state, the answer almost always comes back to gender.There is a pattern of women in New Hampshire — legislators, journalists, advocates, civilians — who ask inconvenient questions and find themselves censured, smeared, or silenced.I am one of those women. Rep. Ellen Read is one of those women. Councilor Stacey Brown is one of those women.And we are not going anywhere.This story is not over. This story is, in fact, just beginning.Pull up a chair. Pour something stiff.Today — we read the receipts.Gracie Gato’s Speakeasy | NH Politics. No spin. No fluff. No mercy. Subscribe so you don’t miss what comes next — because there is absolutely more coming. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

It was my birthday dinner.Ellen Read was at my table. So was Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown. We were having a normal human evening when my phone lit up with a Facebook post from a Concord city councilor — and NHCADSV ally — accusing Rep. Ellen Read of illegally parking in a handicap space at CVS on Hall Street without a placard.The post included photos.In those photos, hanging from the rearview mirror of the car in question, clear as day:A New Hampshire Disabled Parking placard.Issued for her disabled husband.Ellen wasn’t even at CVS anymore. She was sitting across from me eating dinner. Stacey Brown confirmed it. I told the councilor she needed to knock it off.This happened the night before the New Hampshire Senate Judiciary Committee was set to hear House Bill 1633 — the bill Ellen Read has been fighting to pass for three years.Here’s what HB 1633 does.It requires hospitals, law enforcement, and first responders to tell sexual assault survivors their rights. Not build a new system. Not mandate new protocols. Just — tell them what they’re legally entitled to ask for.Rep. Ellen Read introduced this bill because of what happened to her. She was assaulted at a party. She went to the ER the next morning and asked to be tested for date rape drugs. The doctor said he didn’t have access to those tests. Then he tested her for cocaine and meth instead.She came in as a victim. She left feeling like a suspect.Three years later, the New Hampshire House passed her bill 340 to 1.The one NO vote? Rep. Eileen Kelly — a Democrat who previously served on the board of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. The same organization that spent three years lobbying to kill this bill. The same organization that receives 98% of its funding from your tax dollars and has fought every attempt at public transparency.This episode has everything.A survivor who became a legislator. A nonprofit that profits from the problem it was built to solve. A former board member casting the lone vote against a survivors’ rights bill. A false Facebook accusation that collapsed under the weight of its own photos. And a birthday dinner that turned into the most NH politics thing that has ever happened to me personally.This is what the playbook looks like when you’re a well-funded organization and someone finally starts holding you accountable.This is the Gracie Gato Podcast. NH politics for Gen X. No spin. No fluff.Hit play.HB 1633 is currently before the New Hampshire Senate Judiciary Committee. If you want to submit testimony or attend the hearing, go to gencourt.state.nh.us.Share this with someone in New Hampshire who needs to hear it. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

The Gracie Gato Podcast | Agents of ChaosWhat happens when advocacy, lobbying, and public funding start to overlap?In this episode, we take the next step—away from headlines and into the financial and political connections shaping influence in New Hampshire.We follow the trail through Grimbilas LLC, lobbying activity, and the funding pipeline connected to the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV).Because when policy, money, and messaging intersect…that’s where real power lives.IN THIS EPISODE:* The role of Grimbilas Strategic Solutions LLC in political and lobbying activity* How lobbying intersects with nonprofit advocacy* The relationship between public funding and influence* Questions surrounding financial pathways connected to NHCADSV* Why following the money tells a different story than following headlines Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

What if the most important part of the Owen Labrie case… wasn’t what happened—but what it changed?In this episode, we step away from headlines and into something far more unsettling:A legal precedent that quietly reshaped how cases like this can be charged—and remembered.While the public narrative focused on outrage, one editorial raised a warning that few people heard:“Charging someone with a misdemeanor for rape and a felony for computer solicitation sets a dangerous precedent.”And even more chilling:“Any date arranged electronically that leads to sex when one party is under age 16 could conceivably result in a felony charge and sex offender status… That’s not what legislatures intended or society needs.”This isn’t about relitigating a case.It’s about asking a harder question:What happens when communication becomes the crime? When legal outcomes don’t match public perception?And when precedent quietly outlives the story itself?This episode examines the gap between verdict and narrative—and why that gap matters more than ever. In this episode:* The overlooked Concord Monitor editorial that challenged the charges* The legal distinction between conduct vs. communication* How a felony charge can hinge on a message, not an act* Why this case may have set a broader precedent for future prosecutionsListen if you care about:* Due process* Media influence on high-profile cases* How legal precedent actually forms* The long shadow of a single case Important NoteThis episode is based on publicly available reporting and editorial commentary. It does not seek to retry the case, but to explore its legal and societal implications. Subscribe for the full seriesThis is part of an ongoing investigative podcast examining media narratives, advocacy, and the ripple effects of high-profile cases. Join the conversationDo you think this case set a dangerous precedent?Or was the outcome justified given the circumstances? Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when the people telling the story… become part of the story?In Episode 1, Gracie Gato pulls back the curtain on New Hampshire’s media and political ecosystem—where power, relationships, and narratives collide in a state small enough that everyone knows everyone… and stories don’t always travel far.This episode introduces the key players, the connections between media, politics, and advocacy, and the patterns behind how certain stories are told—and others are ignored.From firsthand experience to documented interactions with local media, Gracie breaks down:The “New England sewing circle” and how narratives spreadA real example of a corruption lead that never became a storyThe role of gatekeepers in shaping public perceptionThe lifecycle of media manipulation—how stories are seeded, amplified, and locked inWhy “Sunshine Week” raises bigger questions than answersThis isn’t just about one article.It’s about a system.And once you see it… you can’t unsee it.DISCLAIMER:This podcast reflects personal experiences, documented communications, and ongoing investigative research. Viewers are encouraged to review source materials and form their own conclusions. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of the Gracie Gato Podcast, Grace Gato sits down with Claire Best, Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown, and State Representative Ellen Read for a candid conversation about transparency, power, and accountability in New Hampshire.The discussion centers on the influence of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV) in state politics and the controversy surrounding HB 1675, a proposed bill that would have expanded New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know law to organizations receiving significant public funding while also shaping legislation.Supporters of the coalition argue that confidentiality protections are essential to protect survivors. Critics say that when organizations receive millions in public funding and influence public policy, transparency should follow.The conversation also explores the role advocacy organizations play in shaping legislation, the Marsy’s Law campaign in New Hampshire, and the broader question of how political influence operates in a small state.This episode is part personal story, part investigative discussion, and part civic debate about who holds power in the Granite State—and who is watching the watchdogs.Join us for a raw and honest conversation about survivor advocacy, public accountability, and the future of transparency in New Hampshire politics. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Source list:https://ncnewsline.com/briefs/irony-alert-billionaire-behind-marsys-law-victims-rights-amendment-becomes-criminal-defendant/https://abcnews.com/US/law-billionaires-bedroom/story?id=3399289https://nh.marsyslaw.us/latest-news/amanda_grady_sexton Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Episode DescriptionIn this episode of The Gracie Gato Podcast, Gracie breaks down New Hampshire’s rape kit rights bill, HB1633, and asks a simple question: why is transparency around evidence still controversial?Forty-six states already have rape kit tracking or survivor notification laws. New Hampshire is still debating whether victims should have automatic rights to information about evidence collected in their name. Gracie contrasts the current bill with testimony from the 2023 version of the legislation (HB378), where confusion around definitions, survivor rights, and the role of evidence exposed a deeper tension: is the justice system centered on truth, or on protecting institutional control?State Representative Ellen Read joins the conversation as a key voice advocating for survivor access, accountability, and transparency. The episode explores how rape kit evidence should function in a justice system committed to both protecting victims and preserving due process — including the reality that evidence must serve truth, even when it complicates narratives.This episode sets the stage for a deeper investigation in the next installment, where Gracie follows the money, influence, and policy pipeline behind New Hampshire’s domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy ecosystem.Because evidence shouldn’t belong to institutions.It belongs to the truth. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

This week on The Gracie Gato Podcast, we’re talking about Gaza—and we’re not doing it in the cowardly, sanitized, “both-sides” way Americans have been trained to accept.Because this isn’t a Democrat issue. This isn’t a Republican issue.This is a human rights issue.In this episode, Gracie breaks down how mass suffering gets rebranded as “complicated,” why Americans are already involved whether they admit it or not, and how political silence—especially from so-called leaders—becomes policy. We also connect the dots between Gaza, money in politics, and the pipeline of militarized enforcement at home… including the death of ICU nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti.Say his name.This episode is a call to stay awake, stay human, and stop accepting a world where empathy depends on who’s dying.Subscribe to Gracie’s Substack for independent reporting with receipts and a backbone: gracieformermrsgato.substack.comThe images shown are courtesy of Al Jazeera and activists from all over the world. Thank you to the Freedom Advocacy Network, Salman in particular for his leadership and wisdom. The Jewish Voices for Peace and NH Peace Action for all they do. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Concord —NH Politics isn’t “boring local government.” It’s a pressure cooker with a smile.In this episode, I’m joined by Stacey Brown of Concord, New Hampshire—a woman who stepped into public service expecting debates, budgets, and basic accountability… and instead found herself staring down the darker side of small-city power.We talk about what happens when you ask the wrong questions in a town that runs on polite silence, insider loyalty, and reputational warfare. Stacey breaks down the culture of Concord politics, the ethics and transparency issues that most residents never hear about, and the cost of refusing to back down once you realize something is off.Because here’s the thing: it’s never just one incident.It’s patterns. It’s networks. It’s the quiet punishment for not playing along.This interview is about more than Concord.It’s about what New Hampshire becomes when accountability is treated like a personal attack. In this interview, we cover:* Who Stacey Brown is and what brought her into civic leadership* How local politics turns into an “insider protection system”* How ethics complaints and procedure can be used as weapons* What retaliation looks like when it’s dressed up as professionalism* What citizens can do when the people in power don’t want questions askedIf you’ve ever felt like something about New Hampshire politics feels off—but you can’t quite name it—this conversation will put words to it. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

I interviewed Jon Kiper, Democratic candidate for Governor of New Hampshire, for a candid conversation about the future of the state and the direction of the Democratic Party. We covered affordability, housing, coalition-building, and why Kiper believes New Hampshire needs different leadership—inside and outside the party structure.Check out the podcast!www.votekiper.org Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

2026 NH Governor Race Watch: Jon Kiper is running for Governor of New Hampshire — and I’m tracking what that could actually mean for this state.In this episode, I’m joined by Stacey Brown of Concord, NH, for a real conversation about what’s happening on the ground in New Hampshire politics: transparency, ethics, retaliation, and what people face when they challenge insiders in local government.Because if New Hampshire wants a better future, we need leaders who can handle sunlight… not just slogans. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

…And New Hampshire deserves the full payout list.New Hampshire was sold Marsy’s Law like it was a warm blanket.“Victims’ rights.”“Building trust.”“Finding solutions.”And let me be very clear before anyone starts clutching their pearls: every normal human being wants victims protected. No one is arguing against that.But I don’t do politics by slogan.I do it by paperwork.Because the paperwork never lies.People do.So I pulled the Marsy’s Law filings. And what they show is not a spontaneous grassroots uprising of compassion.It’s a paid operation.A national network.And a money trail that runs straight through Concord.Start with the New Hampshire filingA New Hampshire Secretary of State political committee report lists:Committee name: Marsy’s Law for New HampshireAddress: 149 Rumford Street, Concord, NH 03301Chairperson: Emilio GonzalezTreasurer: Andrew BiemerThe committee reports:* $430,000 in receipts* $367,336.40 in expendituresThat is a lot of “victims’ rights” for something marketed like a community bake sale.One donor funded the whole thingHere’s what the receipts show:The itemized receipts list Henry Nicholas III, from Aliso Viejo, CA, as the contributor — with multiple contributions totaling $430,000.Not ten thousand small donors.Not a statewide swell of civic virtue.One donor. One bankroll.And when one person funds the whole “movement,” it’s not a movement.It’s a purchase.Now flip the page: the payoutsThe filing includes itemized expenditures — meaning it includes who got paid and for what.And yes: the names show up. Repeatedly.There are payments and reimbursements for:* consulting fees* printing and copies* online services* food and travel* postage, office supplies* event tickets* media and advertising* staffing and phone operationsThis is not “awareness.”This is professional political infrastructure.Examples straight from the report:The itemized expenditure pages include payouts and reimbursements to:* Amanda Sexton — including consulting fees and reimbursements for travel, printing, online services, and more* Andrew Biemer — consulting fees* Sara Persechino — reimbursed for printing, travel, office supplies, postage, phone charges* Marina Altschiller — reimbursed for printing, travel, copies, event tickets* Brooke English-Barss — reimbursed for office supplies, travel, food* Lyn Schollett — reimbursed for collateral printing, food, and related expensesAnd then come the vendor payments — the kind that power messaging campaigns:* Elevare Communications LLC (consulting + media buys / newspaper ads)* The Strategy Group for Media / Media Placement Services (media + online advertising)* Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell (consulting fees)* Demers, Blasdel & Prasol Inc (consulting fees)* FLS Connect LLC (media/phones)So if anyone tells you Marsy’s Law in New Hampshire was simply neighbors caring about neighbors…Ask them why it came with a payroll.“Building trust,” huh?This is where it gets interesting.Because local profiles and public relations framing around these figures often emphasize themes like leadership and trust-building and solution-oriented governance.But the filings show something else: a paid ballot-question campaign with money moving through the same local orbit.And I’m not saying that to be cute.I’m saying it because when you’re rewriting how justice functions, the public deserves to know whether advocacy is coming from lived experience and public need……or whether it’s coming from a funded political machine.Marsy’s Law wasn’t just “New Hampshire.” It’s national.Now here’s the part that changes the scale of the story.A ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer listing shows Marsy’s Law For All Foundation — Form 990, Schedule R, with connected entities across multiple states — including Marsy’s Law For New Hampshire LLC, tied to an address in Aliso Viejo, California.And ProPublica itself notes these are electronic tax filings (generally 2014 forward), meaning it’s a valuable window — but not the full universe of disclosures.Translation:New Hampshire didn’t invent Marsy’s Law.New Hampshire got a rollout.Like a franchise.Like a template.Like a product.And when something is packaged, deployed across states, and financed at scale, voters have every right to ask:Who wrote it?Who profits?Who gets shielded?And what happens to due process when it’s installed?Because “victims’ rights” is a beautiful phrase.But the Constitution is not a brand partnership.Due process is not a vibeMarsy’s Law is marketed like a moral no-brainer. A test of decency.But the mechanics matter.Critics have raised serious concerns that these frameworks can collide with due process — shifting court procedure in ways that create conflicts between:* victims’ participation rights* defense constitutional rights* prosecution obligations* evidence and discovery rules* trial fairness and timingJustice doesn’t run on intention.It runs on procedure.And when you change procedure, you change outcomes.Especially for people without money, status, or political insulation.Qualified immunity and accountability: the quiet partAnother criticism is what these frameworks can do to accountability.When the state is given more power, more procedural leverage, and more protection — especially under emotional branding — it can become harder to challenge misconduct and harder to demand transparency.New Hampshire already has enough problems with:* evidence gatekeeping* institutional self-protection* insiders controlling narrative power* the public being told “trust us” while the paperwork stays buriedThe last thing we need is more immunity and less accountability.The donor’s politics matter — especially when the state wants the death penaltyNow let’s talk about what makes this even scarier.Henry T. Nicholas III didn’t just fund a “victims’ rights” campaign.He also funds pro–death penalty politics.And that combination should terrify anyone who still believes the justice system should be:fair, restrained, constitutional, and accountable.Because Marsy’s Law + the death penalty is not “tough on crime.”It’s a system that becomes more dangerous to everyone.It’s the state gaining sharper teeth.And state power never grows evenly.It grows toward the people who already have less protection.And yes — isn’t it weird?Here’s a question I’m allowed to ask as a voter and a journalist:Isn’t it weird that the sole funder of this committee — the same committee that took in $430,000 from one donor — is a billionaire whose public record includes widely reported allegations about an underground “hideaway” built for drugs and sex parties?I’m not asking that because I’m scandal-hunting.I’m asking it because it’s a credibility test.If someone bankrolls a constitutional campaign that reshapes justice in your state, you don’t get to pretend their background is irrelevant.The public deserves context about who’s writing the checks behind “victims’ rights” branding.This is why the NHCADSV audit mattersNow here’s why I’m connecting this directly to the current legislative battlefield in New Hampshire.If an organization presents itself as “the voice of victims” while:* pushing certain bills* blocking others* shaping the narrative around evidence, procedure, and court access* and operating in proximity to a paid political network……then the public has a right to ask:Are they serving victims?Or are they serving another master?Because if the money, messaging, and policy priorities all line up in ways that reduce due process and restrict evidence access…That’s not advocacy.That’s control.So yes — I want the listThere has been discussion of $345,000 in payouts to Concord officials and community members connected to Marsy’s Law efforts.This filing alone shows $367,336.40 in expenditures for the reporting period.So the obvious question is simple:Who got paid? How much? For what? Across all reporting periods?If it’s all above board, perfect.Then the complete payout list should be easy to obtain through the Secretary of State filings and related disclosures.And if it’s not easy?That’s the story too.Because transparency isn’t optional when you’re rewriting justice.It’s the bare minimum.Final thoughtMarsy’s Law in New Hampshire was not just a feel-good civics lesson.It was a funded campaign.With professional operators.With a national structure.With a single donor bankroll.And with payout trails New Hampshire voters deserve to see in full.I’m not here to debate feelings.I’m here to read the receipts.And the receipts say:follow the money.Sources* NH Secretary of State — Marsy’s Law for New Hampshire political committee filing (receipts, expenditures, itemized payments)* Patch (Concord, NH) — “Biemer: Grady Sexton Knows Leadership Is About Building Trust, Finding Solutions”* ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer — Marsy’s Law For All Foundation filings / connected entities* The Marshall Project — “Broadcom’s Henry Nicholas is Spending Millions to Pass Marsy’s Law”* New York Post (2008) — “Rockin’ the coked-out orgy cave” (additional public reporting) https://nypost.com/2008/06/15/rockin-the-coked-out-orgy-cave/ Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

The Pipeline: An Investigative Series on NHCADSV and New Hampshire’s Power NetworkThis is a continuing investigative series examining the relationship between the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV), the New Hampshire Department of Justice, prosecutor-facing policy environments, and the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that shapes “victims’ rights” legislation and public messaging in the Granite State.This is not partisan. This is not personal. This is not a targeted attack.It’s a public accountability project.I will be publishing documentation as it comes through the wire, including emails, meeting agendas, policy coordination records, and national context that connects New Hampshire’s reforms to broader movements and funding structures.Key themes in the series include: • Marsy’s Law: coalition-convened meetings and DOJ participation in early rollout discussions • Prosecutor/media coordination: communications practices and statewide protocol environments • St. Paul’s School: crisis response, institutional power, and policy momentum • Evidence policy: rape kit tracking, crime lab concerns, and procedural gatekeeping • Narrative power: who controls the public story when the stakes are highIf you have documentation, tips, or direct experience relevant to these topics, you may contact me confidentially.New Hampshire runs on whisper networks.This series is going to run on receipts. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe