February 16, 2017

Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings Brief Initial Response

In response to multiple media inquiries this morning outlining allegations:

I have been informed that yet again today the Salt Lake County District Attorney's
Office, via Fred Burmester, makes false allegations against someone.
At an appropriate time, after the John Swallow trial, I will respond with documents
and evidence.

For some time now, the Salt Lake County DA's Office and federal government have
wanted me to ignore both the scope and duties of my appointment as a Special
Assistant Utah Attorney General, including a mandate to make determinations on
immunity. The granting of immunity, or not, is in the very first paragraph of the
Special Appointment from the Utah Attorney General. The DA's Office clearly prefers
I not take that appointment and corresponding duties seriously. To the DA, I should
have hidden this from Jeremy Johnson's counsel after multiple reporters contacted me
yesterday asking for a comment / response to Mr. Johnson invoking the 5th
Amendment during trial. To Mr. Burmester, I should have concealed from Mr.
Johnson's counsel, and thereby the court, that they need to consider the ramifications
of the authority and responsibility granted in the Special Appointment mandate as it
relates to Mr. Johnson, who is a key figure and witness in the larger scope of potential
criminality they have asked me to forget about it. It appears they continue to prefer I
ignore evidence. It seems clear they prefer I not care about constitutional issues such
as due process, speedy trial, the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses based
on all required Brady-Giglio evidence and the right to meaningful assistance of
counsel. They want me to ignore the fact that to this day, over 3 TB of evidence still
cannot be reviewed by the State of Utah or provided to defendant Shurtleff before his
trial date came and went due to a massive screw up by the FBI and DA's Office in
inexplicably co-mingling tainted material related to communications between John
Swallow and his defense counsel, ending up in the Shurtleff and Lawson discovery. In
their world, none of that seems to matter. Nor does it matter that a plethora of other
evidence, such as UTA / Whitewater VII material was not turned over to the State of
Utah or defendant Shurtleff [absolutely stunning given Marc Jenson's testimony], nor
was the SDNY Poker indictment case that clearly and directly relates to another key
witness (Jeremy Johnson himself). In addition to other key categories of material not
provided to defendant Shurtleff, we have recently learned of yet another serious
example not provided - 848 pages of agent notes related to interviews of key witnesses.
Yet the DOJ took the position in pleadings to the Third District Court that they had
provided everything, hundreds of thousands of pages. The DA's Office did not dispute
that characterization and was frustrated at my pursuit of evidence.

If not hiding things from defendants and witnesses, caring about fulfilling my duties
as a Special Assistant Attorney General (including with respect to immunity
determinations with key figures) and most importantly my oath to the Constitutions of
Utah and the United States makes me a Tasmanian Devi to their agenda, so be it.

Troy Rawlings