Anaheist: Decoding Sidhu’s 2022 Self-Exoneration Letter

[Greg here. This is a draft that I (maybe with Vern’s assistance) created shortly after May 24, 2022, when Harry Sidhu resigned as Anaheim’s Mayor and his attorney (then and now) Paul Meyer sent out a self-exoneration letter for him. (I think it was me, because as Vern knows I leave a whole lot of drafts lying around unfinished — as this one is, which is why it had remained a draft.) I found it while going through some old tabs I wanted to prune down from my computer (another bad habit of mine) and I thought it would be interesting to see observations and predictions from almost three years ago. I’m changing the date of this to March 26 because because I don’t want to bump back Vern’s latest posts with something this weird, but it is actually appearing at about 5:00 pm on March 29. I haven’t even reread the whole thing, but I figure that opening a time capsule like this may be somewhat enlightening. Sadly, I think the question asked below the photo above is that they are the ones who will have laughed last, unfortunately, presuming that Sidhu doesn’t get shanked or Arte expelled by other owners, neither of which I expect.]

Mayor Harry Sidhu is now just plain old Target of FBI Investigation Sidhu, allegedly smart businessman, after resigning today with the protestations of innocence and unjust persecution that we’ve already seen from Melahat Rafiei. (And it’s not likely the last we’ve seen of that maneuver before the dust settles from this scourging.)

Here’s the letter sent out by Sidhu’s attorney, Paul Meyer:

Thanks to Voice of OC for being our go-to source for documents! But you don’t come here (usually) for breaking news; you come here for analysis. My analysis is: the man up there on the left isn’t laughing anymore today, and the man on the right may not be laughing either. Let me read this using my lawyer lenses — and, for the record, I don’t think that most of these arguments would have a chance in hell, and the others probably not a chance in heck.

A. “A fair and thorough investigation will prove that Harry Sidhu did not leak secret information in the hopes of a later campaign contribution.”

What are some of the ways that that might be literally true — lawyers aren’t supposed to flat-out lie, although to be fair he doesn’t have to look too deeply into the veracity of his source, Sidhu himself, as he’s essentially there to be Sidhu’s prosthetic smart-speaking mouth — but still misleading as hell? This is not to say that they are misleading — I’m just going by a FBI-produced transcript and the fact of his resignation itself — but simply how could they be misleading without a lawyer staying with the bounds of legal ethics? Here are some possibilities.

1. He could claim that there is no possibility of a “fair” investigation, so the whole sentence becomes inoperative.
2. Similarly, perhaps no investigation could at this point be “thorough,” because of missing documents, sources, etc.
3. In either case, the word “will” is an issue — who exactly is going to conduct this “fair and thorough investigation” that he asserts will clear Sidhu? — but that can be dismissed as a prediction from which on can back off later.
4. “Harry Sidhu did not leak information” leaves open the possibility that information was leaked, but by an intermediary or other source.
5. It could also suggest a legal argument by which what you or I might see as a leak is not actually a leak at all, but just part of a smart negotiating posture, because humma humma humma.
6. How could the information could not be “secret”? Well, how about if it had already been leaked!
7. He could argue that, when embedded in an offer or demand, the information was not “information” itself but part of something larger.
8. He could have leaked the information, but not in the “hopes” of a later contribution. This could literally be true if the circumstances at the time of the leak already made such a contribution a certainty.
9. Similarly, the campaign contribution could have already occurred, meaning that it wasn’t “later.”
10. It could have involved some recompence to him that wasn’t for his campaign?
    
    But I don’t buy any of those. Here’s the good one.
    
11. He wasn’t asking for a “contribution”; he was asking for a (behested) independent expenditure!

In other words, the statement above could be true, while “A fair and thorough investigation will prove that Harry Sidhu did not leak secret information in the hopes of a later independent expenditure in support of his campaign” would be false.

B. His unwavering goal from the start has been to keep the Angels in Anaheim so that the this [sic] vibrant social and economic relationship would continue.

1. The use of the singular “goal” is telling: this and re-election probably were Sidhu’s unwavering goals, and the best way to do that is obviously to give them everything they wanted, including Anaheim’s other assets in the bankruptcy sale. But while it might be a vibrant “social” relationship, it’s not a vibrant economic one given the sheer scope of giveaways to owner of the Angels, of which this would have been the largest and most heinous. But hey, at least this sentence seems relatively honest admission, except that …
2. This overlooks the fact that the Angels were never going to leave, especially with such a compliant City Council, which has repeatedly given them concessions to give them the opportunity to leave, obviating the benefits of a long-term lease. (This, of course, allowed the Council members to emerge as “Saviors of the Angels!” sooner and more often.)

C. Mayor Sidhu was appointed as a member of the City’s negotiating group to help reach a mutually beneficial agreement between Anaheim and the Angels.

1. Gee … yes, he was appointed by the City Council, but at his own behest, and — having been chosen to comply with the Mayor’s wishes — the Council duly complied. And this leaves out that the Mayor later dumped everyone else from the negotiating group, because I just he just liked his privacy that much! (And they’re probably relieved at that right now!)
2. But seriously: “mutually beneficial”? This seems to term on the presumption noted just above, that what was good for Anaheim was fully and simply what was good for the Angels(‘ owner) — except of course for the portions carved out for fealty to the Disney Resort. As I’ve noted before, when you have a relationship where one party wants what it wants and the other party wants that party to have all that it wants, and perhaps more than it would dare ask of a less supine body, I think there’s a good chance that it becomes illegal if that second party is a city, and is expected to continue to exist longer than Mayor Sidhu is.

D. A Superior Court Judge ruled that the negotiating group did not violate the Brown Act.

1. Should I be nice and call this “gutsy” — or less nice and call it “gall”? Let go with “effrontery”: the judge made that ruling because, as seems pretty clear now, Sidhu and others lied to him, leading him to reject the testimony of both Councilmember Jose Moreno and former City Manager Chris Zapata. After the Anaheist appeared, my understanding is that an appeal is in the works — although if a motion for reconsideration is still timely then perhaps Judge Hoffer would be inclined to take a mulligan and accept the both Special Agent’s declaration and the indictment as public documents.
2. And while this is the state of the case at this point, the lack of context here is pretty breathtaking!

E. The negotiations followed accepted lawful practices followed in all major business negotiations.

[And that is where it ended. Nice to know what Paul Meyer considered “accepted lawful practices followed in all major business negotiations.” Is he still saying that today?]