Krista Bokhari exposes new info in Charlotte City Council payoff scandal (05-09-2025--Hour3)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Want to welcome to the program. Krista Bakari. She is the wife of former Charlotte City Councilman Tarc Bookary, but she has also thrown her name in the hat and then the hat gets thrown into the ring for appointment to the seat that he has vacated. Although a Facebook post that she put up yesterday I believe might not do her any favors in getting council members support. Krista, Welcome to the show. How are you, thanks pet Thanks for having me. Yes, absolutely so, thank you. Thank you for making time for me. I appreciate that. And I've read through and I was going to cover it today. This is the latest chapter, I guess in this unfolding story of the Charlotte City Council paying out the chief of police for what I have seen referred to and have no other evidence to suggest it's not true hurt feelings that the chief had when he was in a public debate with your husband over the police vests. And we then find out about the text messages, but they were private text messages. And we find out that council voted back in April, but thought that they didn't actually pass it, but then they found out they did pass it when they took that vote to pay out the money, but we don't know for what, and there's been no actual litigation that was ever filed. And you posted on Facebook a very lengthy bullet point sort of synopsis of various issues. We're not gonna have time to go through all of it with you, so what would you say, are say like the top what's the top bullet point here that you identified? So, I mean, I really wanted to break down all of the issues that I was seeing that were unfolding in front of Charlotte Teans. A lot of people had a lot of questions, and I realized that no one was going to say what I was going to say. The whistleblowers who were standing up were being attacked. I put out the truth as I knew it, and I'm really encouraging you all. My call to action is to encourage you all to dig deeper, because I think Charlotteans deserved the truth. There was no legal case here. He had no official lawsuit. We should not be paying out our taxpayers dollars when he wasn't even able to file a lawsuit because he had no grounds. So this is yeah, And so this is one of the limitations that I have had hammering away at this for like three days now four days. And part of the problem is I don't have any information. I don't know what exactly was alleged. What is the you know, what was the targeting? Is there was there something that was in the closed session or in the personnel discussions that we are not privy to and we can't get that information. And so when you say that he had that the chief had no valid legal claim, and you lay it out, I think, very well, there isn't anything other than that the text messages that we that we do know about. Is that right? Correct? Well, he had back in January through February had submitted a ethics complaint through the NAACP. Now he we're not saying he did, but it was orchestrated through two of his top eights. He set that in motion. Okay, now that there was no merit so to the claim, so it was dismissed. So he had absolutely no grounds and he has no right to these tax payer dollars. So if you couldn't, in other words, yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry he has an. Officially fil a lawsuit because the attorney has already said that he had no grounds to do it, and with the ethics complaint, so he knew he would not win in the court of law, so he tried to do this behind the scenes and get it pushed through through a closed session meeting. Right. So, in other words, the only evidence that he had was presented through that ethics complaint. That it looks really clearly to me at least, that that was orchestrated by him and his aids, his top aides to have the NAACP submit the ethics complaint to the city. But the city then looked at it and said this does not have merit, and so they dismissed it. And so therefore there's no other legal grounds that he had for a lawsuit that didn't exist in the complaint exactly. You know, he's saying that, you know, Tark ruined his reputation in the end that complaint and releasing of the text messages, he ruined his own reputation. That was not something that that was. Any fault of Tark, right, And do you mentioned this also in your write up that these were private text messages. Nobody had seen them, and so the release of them and the texts were I guess inadvertently shared or something with WSOCTV. And that's how these things got out. That was Karen mac accidentally sent some email that she was sent by the police Chafe top aage to her to I'm sorry to Joe Bruno by accident, and that's when things really started to unfold. Gotcha. Okay, So these were the emails that coordinated the complaint. Yes, And now what were also is very important in this is this was sent from their personal accounts. So this was I mean, we don't know what else is in there and what else they have been sending, and it's it's just all seems pretty unethical to. Me, well me as well. And you also pointed out that the only grounds that he would have for a lawsuit would be defamation or a hostile work environment. But there was no defamation, not by the by the legal standard at least, and there was no creation of a hostile work environment. And you spell out why, and so why would an attorney, Why would any attorney advise the city to pay out the money that when the complaint system found no merit to begin with? Why would you even pay that money out? That? Yeah, I mean that's the concern we feel like. I mean, I certainly feel like there is an agenda there. Charlotteans feel like they're not getting the full story. How can you in February say that there's no merit to his plane and then just this past week, not even if you're in closed session and hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money is on the table, How are you not presenting all the facts? How did he not present that fact to our council members? Right, that's an agenda there, and I believe it was to get our our police chief paid out. And I don't understand why, and I'd like somebody to get to the bottom of it. Well, And so this is a new piece of information I think to me at least, which is that council members did not have all of the information back on April twenty eighth. They did not know about the complaint being dismissed. Basically, this ethics complaint that was found to have no merit by the very city management that is now advising them to settle the lawsuit, so that was withheld from them. Absolutely, the mayor, the city manager, and the city attorney all knew about the ethics complaint against her, So I mean they did not present any of that to the council members. Tia commented on my Tijuana commented on my post. I saw that any of it. She said, thank you for sharing Christa. As a current sitting council member, I was not aware of any of this. That is scary and we need to be digging into that. And the Charlatans should be enraged that we would even consider giving a dime. Yeah, and the reputational harm that the chief is now suffering because of his own actions is far greater than internal private text messages he and your husband exchanged, which don't even prove that there was reputational harm. There was another aspect I wanted to ask you about real quickly, which is the ignoring clear workplace retaliation instances. There's the issue of the FOP, which we've covered that where they basically suspended and then reassigned the FOP president Daniel Redford because he took an opposing view on the vests. And then but there is also this there's like sort of this threat of retaliation against the council members, threatening them with criminal charges if they talk about stuff from a closed session. Yes, I mean how it's scary, it's scary to think about. I mean, you also have Sandy who's suing for defamation. This is it is unbelievable. A city attorney is also lying and saying that you know that nothing can be shared from closed sessions and that you can be criminally charged. It's not true. It is unbelievable that this is what's happening in our city hall right now. Yeah. Now, I've never seen anything like I've been covering Charlotte city politics for twenty years. I've never seen anything like this before. And you know, but for that email getting sent to Joe Bruno, we probably would not know any of this stuff, or at least know the depths of it. But as you write in your post that it's censure would be the that would be the punishment would be censure. And there isn't even anything of a personnel nature that has been leaked, right, They're now going to go on this leak hunt and there isn't anything you lead legal that about the leaks or the information that was contained in It's not covered under the personnel law. Exactly, all right, again misleading and it is none of it is okay. Yeah, and so you do recognize this is going to jeopardize your your chances probably of being named to the council. I mean it could maybe maybe not. I hope that the council members will see that I'm here to get to the truth. I think some of them on the on that on that board are also wanting the truth. It might be scared, they might be scared of what they're the mechdims are going to do to them come November. So they might need a voice like mine to be able to be willing to step up and say the things that they might be too scared to. One of the things I had said, whenever you have a party, a single party controlling you know this, uh, this large portion of a government body that all of the fights that they have start going internal because they're all in the same party and so they're trying to protect the party brand. So they have these fights internally and the public never sees it, Whereas when you have a body that's more evenly divided, they'll have these fights out in public and at least then everybody knows what the arguments are over and how things are getting resolved versus you know, behind closed doors. Well, I mean, if you've watched, if you watch the council meetings like I do, there's a good amount of fighting. Yes, that is true. That is true. That is fair. Christa Bokari. I do appreciate your time. Thank you for putting this out. We're going to go in depth. I know you've got to run, but we're going to go over much of what you've written here and posted up on your Facebook page for all to see. Thank you, Thank you. Keep digging all right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so i press with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. We'll go over to the phones and talk to Linda. Hello, Linda, Welcome to the show. Him didn't really care for the answer there. Yeah, I'm okay though, okay, good good. Uh. Without due respect to whom Bacary, your husband started all of this when he usurped the chief's authority and bought the best. The Chief had said, no, your husband started all of this, miss lady. So wait a minute, all right, so hang on, So is it your your position? Right? So well, he first he first put the the request in as part of the budget, and then it did not have enough support among his colleagues, and so he said, well, I will raise the money for the vests privately. He then did so, right, He then did so and then donated them. Now, the Chief could have continued to say no, right. The Chief could have continued to block the vests, but he then said, if if any of the officers want the vests and ask for them, then they will receive them. So regardless, I know, regard, but that's not regardless. I mean, that's you're talking. You're talking over there, Yes. I am talking over there. Yeah, No I am, I said, yes, I am, yeah. Yeah, you do this all the time. Yes, But let me finish. Her husband started all of this. He already says he. Barely got he barely got elected, and he started. He's been doing this ever since he's been on the council. So I'm not surprised. That does. She wants to get elected fined. Linda, None of this is, Linda, None of that is relevant to the material facts of this case. It is, it is, it isn't it is? How how so it is. Even if Bakari started it all, even if he started it all. How do you justify the city council hiding how do you okay talk over me? No, I was asking you a question. How do you justify the city attorney to denying the ethics complaint but then using that same information to get the council to approve a three hundred thousand dollars payout and hide that from council members when they voted. Every knows that a black person cannot sue anybody in this city. I've tried. I fail. I got hurt. The city did nothing for me because I'm not a famous person. I got hurt. You cannot sue if you're a black person in this city and this state and get paid. That's in the mus story. So the Chief, as I understand it, is, Oh, yes, that's the uh. That's the search for truth right there and enlightenment in full effect. No, So the chief who my understanding is the chief is black, and the city council, I believe is entirely black except for Ed Drakes, the city manager is also black. And you're telling me that you can't sue and you couldn't be the chief couldn't sue, which he then threatened to sue and still got paid, so he didn't even have to go through the litigation in order to get his payout. So I'm not sure your argument gold's water there, which is probably why you didn't stay on the line to actually defend it. All right, So spring is here a time of renewal and celebrations. You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries, and the special days for mom and dad. 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Linda's call there is a really good example of why Krista Bakari's effort and coming forward with these details is so brave, because that's the kind of stuff that she will now be subjected to because she has told an uncomfortable truth. She is giving answers to questions that people have had me included. She is providing answers about this unfolding scandal at the city government about a three hundred thousand dollars payoff to the police chief who got his feelings hurt, and then by all of the evidence I have seen so far, it appears that he and two of his aides ordinated an ethics complaint to be filed against Tark Bakari while he was the city councilman. He is now up in the Trump administration, they coordinated to get an ethics complaint filed against Tark that was dismissed for lack of evidence and it it didn't rise to any offense. The dismissal of that was then hidden from council members. When the threat of a lawsuit by the chief was presented to the council and the city attorney and the mayor knew that the complaint had been dismissed, meaning there was no grounds for it. If there's no grounds for a simple ethics complaint, then there would not be grounds for a defamation case in a court of law. But they didn't tell the council that. I said from the beginning, when I first started seeing the details of this stuff coming out, I said, this smacks of a shakedown. Now I don't know who all was you know, party and understood what was going on. I don't know who, Like I don't know who all the perpetrators were. I don't know who all the victims are. Because some of the council members were victims of this, they were kept in the dark when they voted, and then they were prevented from changing their vote because the rules don't allow that to occur at another meeting, at a different meeting, Jordan Peterson, the uh uh well, former clinical psychologist and now you know YouTube star Republic intellectual. He uses a phrase and when you hear it, and you'll start seeing this same thing play out in various stories, which is unguarded storehouses of value will be ravaged by parasites, unguarded heart storehouses of value. That could be money, right, obviously it could be food, but it could also be reputation, right, the prestige of say a college. It has built up this name for itself. All of these people have created all of this great work, provided these great services, but left unguarded that value, that storehouse of value will be ravaged by parasites because they recognize the value that's there, and then they go and they feed off it. And that's what I see this as there's a and to Linda's call there like it's just fine by her to pay out the chief, no matter the reason that's parasitical. It doesn't matter what the merits of the case are or are not to her. The only thing that mattered, apparently was his race. That's it, and her hatred of Tarkbacari and his wife. I guess that's it. She has internalized victimhood. And you heard her say, I tried to sue, I got hurt. I tried to sue. And so therefore anybody who sues and the reason you lost is only because of your race, and it just doesn't make any sense anymore. I did say that all of the council members in Charlotte are black except for Ed Drags. I forgot dimple Ashmeira, she is Indian, so every other one on the council, though, like, you cannot make this argument when all of the leadership posts are of the race that you say is being victimized. But this is the power of the interpersonal victimhood mentality. Once you start thinking that you're the victim in this stuff, in anything, you start thinking you're the victim in everything, and it is so difficult to break out of that. People who are victims of crime, for example, they go through a lot of therapy to try to not see themselves as victims any longer. It is very difficult. And this happens at a societal scale as well. I think Linda is a pretty good example of it. Let me start on some of these bullet points here that Krista Bucari has outlined. So first up is the withholding of critical information from January tenth through February nineteenth. She says, the mayor, the city manager, and the city attorney were intimately aware of the submission, review and ultimate ruling of dismissal due to lack of merit of that ethics complaint that was submitted by the NAACP President Karin mac accusing Councilman Bukari of inappropriately attacking Chief Jennings. These three people, the Mayor, city manager, and city attorney, they were also aware of the Freedom of Information Act request that was made made by the NAACB president previously with specific keyword parameters that would ultimately scope in the text messages between Chief Jennings and Councilman Bookari. So you understand what that means. When you file an FIA request, you say like, I want all correspondents that include these terms or all emails to and from Jennings to Bakari or from Bakari to Jennings. When in text messages emails and you get real specific, but you give them in your application. You give keywords and what she's saying here is that there were specific keyword parameters that went right to those text messages. In other words, she knew what she was looking for. She knew the language to put into the complaints or to put into the foyer request in order to get the thing that she was seeking as evidence in the complaint she was about to file. And then after the foyer request three months later, the identical, nearly identical claim was brought to City Council in closed session April twenty eighth, with the threat of litigation and a request for the settlement of over three hundred thousand dollars, which is a year's salary plus payout of vacation time. The city attorney then reversed course and advised the council to approve the settlement. Okay, so initially they said no with the complaint, but now when it's before council with a three hundred thousand dollars price tag attached, now yes, we have to do this settlement. But the attorney, nor neither the attorney, nor the mayor nor the manager ever told the other council members that they had already reviewed and dismissed the very same claims that were brought through the ethics complaint process. Why wouldn't you tell the council that, because that would help them decide whether or not this is a strong case or not. And if you the attorney telling me right now to settle, you dismissed the complaint, I might take that as a material fact when weighing whether or not I should pay out me Personally, I would say no is a if you didn't think it was worthy of even an ethics complaint violation, let him sue. It's not gonna be good, But let him sue, because I don't think we should pay. If you couldn't even get an ethics complaint and you yourself ruled that, so this is not good, it just gets worse and worse. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. 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Yes, I've been wanting to abind with you about this dangum chief. We've gotten Charlotte. I want to start just by saying it ain't my fault. Chief Jennings is just a freaking hustler. The man's actions since he put on the chief stars has just done nothing for the Charlotte Police Department being the nineteenth and the nation is a growing city. Nothing's no metric is better under this man. I would like to follow it up with he is the chief of freaking police at political position, he should be taking darts on a regular basis. But this cat shut down the media. All right, you can't go and talk to the police department and get an opinion from anybody unless the chief approves it, and then what you do get there is nothing. So he does not like the fact that a council member said, I question your ability on bulletproof vests purchases, and he then turns around and files a complaint. It's like change your decision making skills. Stink does kind to get sued? Yeah, what other department has I mean council and also council capitulating to this garbage. Well, and I talked about this the other day, John, where this is a city manager form of government, council manager form of government and the council members when they come in and they're new, they rely on staff to get them up to speed and to keep them informed and tell them the historical nature of a particular issue and such. So they rely on staff, and it's very easy to let staff drive everything, and all you have to do is kind of show up and vote for something. Because you have to rely on staff for so much, that staff ends up driving a lot of this stuff. And then it creates this situation where the Board of Directors doesn't actually police their agencies. You know, they just let the agencies run themselves. Pete, let me jump in there if I may, Buddy, Oh my god, I'm a city council member for Sarlotte and I have to have a staff to tell me what the hell to do. Yes, they do. Well, No, it's john like they're not. I mean, when you walk in the door as a council member, you're not an expert on like BMPs, in development, like best management practice. Understand that people, they need to understand that. I really do. I really do. But come on, and if I may police, if I may, they they're only as good as the strength of their their their solicitor. All right, I had. I had an attorney that absolutely would not take a case on anything, and the few that he did do for our municipal, he wanted to outsource it because he was too So when when when we're looking at the three hundred thousand dollars figure, you know, I would actually sit down with with my peer group when I used to do this and I would go all right, well, instead of doing it in house, he's going to cost me six hundred dollars an hour because he's going to hire outside council because he's too busy doing the dockets. And it was just it was just a pain in the rear end. But that this, I mean the water department superintendent's going to come forward now with a lawsuit. I mean, anybody who does not like the way a council member offends them can now go in and get a baseless lawsuit payout toart because my feelings were hurt peek. Yeah, without even hurt, without even drafting the actual lawsuit. That's the thing that kills me on this. There's no there's there's no outline. And until Christa Bacari wrote up her piece on Facebook here like I was because I don't know if there was actually any kind of an outline of the case that was presented to the council for them to review, to say, okay, like, what is the alleging, what is the strength of this lawsuit? And it like, I'm not even I'm not aware that any of that has ever been provided that is different than what was in the ethics complaint that the city itself dismissed. I don't understand how you dismiss it. When you when the complaint comes forward and you say, sorry, not enough evidence, and then turn around and say, yeah, but enough that we need to pay this guy out. It smacks of it just smacks of corruption and a payout to a political ally or friend. Absolutely, and also as a political figure. I was not well. And this is where I this is where back in my day when I did this, Somewhere else was libel of slander, right I had. I had some knucklehead that would drag me through the dirt every durn day and it was lible a slander. And the reason I say that was because I was not an elected official. I was an appointee, all right, So therefore I did not run for election. You all came to me and said we would like you to do X, and I agreed to do that. But my favorite little city attorney is like, no, you can't do you can't do libel and slander. Well, John A, your chief eight my fault is a political figure. Well he would know he's a point. Well he's appointed like you were, and I would agree with Actually, your attorney is that once you are in a when you are a public figure. I know this very well. The standard for libel and slander is much higher. It's very difficult to bring a case on libel or slander grounds. But the key is that you have to know something is not true and then publicize it and do so with the intention of harming the individual. Right, it's a very high standard. The chief judgment on provest was wrong. There's no slander. Exactly, and that is why truth is the defense. So when a person comes forward and says this is my opinion, that's all it was, and it happens to be true, and that's it. That's the end of a defamation or a libel claim. That's it. And that's why he wouldn't have won. If that's all the information we have is just the private text messages, Well they were private nobody knew about this. No one knew anything in the private text messages, but even if they were public during the debate over the vest, it still wouldn't have risen to that level. John, I appreciate the call. Have a great weekend. I appreciate it. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.