SAVANAH HERNANDEZ EXCLUSIVE: Utah governor attempts to force out America first AG using extortion: multiple whistleblowers

Brown has a long history of legal work in the Utah Republican Party, more recently working as a lobbyist for many of the companies and industries currently being challenged or sued by Utah’s Attorneys General Office, which could lay the ground for conflicts of interest in the Utah attorney general’s office. The sources say Brown has a reputation of selling himself to the highest bidder and would constantly flip-flop on policy and take soft, “safe” stances on issues important to conservatives.

The whistleblower alleges that Reyes’ decision not to run for re-election as Attorney General is due to Governor Cox using his political power to try and install Brown as Attorney General, utilizing extortion, overreaching audits and local media to tarnish Reyes’ reputation and force him into endorsing Cox’s chosen candidate.

Gov. Cox allegedly used Reyes’ friendship with Tim Ballard, who is currently being investigated over allegations of sexual assaults in connection to his former position as CEO of Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), to tarnish Reyes’ reputation and stop him from running for re-election as AG, according to the sources.

“The Governor’s office coordinated with OUR victims and their attorney to get them to attack Reyes and lay blame at his feet,” the sources alleged. One of the whistleblowers said that they were a witness to personal calls in which “Reyes would openly resist helping Ballard who was under active investigation.” The sources also allege that Cox threatened intrusive internal audits on Reyes and his staff if Reyes refused to endorse Brown.

In early fall of 2023, when Ballard was considering a run for Senate along with many others in the race after Romney announced he would not seek reelection, Reyes announced his support for Ballard’s run. After Ballard was “accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women,” Reyes withdrew his support of Ballard and announced that the AG’s office would be launching a criminal investigation into the allegations.

Lawyers with alleged OUR victims have reportedly been trying to broker a deal behind the scenes with Cox’s team and made the invitation to Reyes to meet with the victims to avoid naming him in the lawsuit, according to the whistleblower.

Allegedly, Cox, Reyes' chief of staff Rick Cantrell, Brown, and Reyes all met in a room in downtown Salt Lake City, where the deal was brokered and it was agreed upon that unless Reyes did not seek reelection that the OUR lawsuit, local media and investigators would continually target Reyes, his family, associates and colleagues at the Utah State Capitol. In exchange for his cooperation in not running, Cox and others would celebrate him on his way out.

Reyes at one time told the source, “If I don’t do it, they’re going to destroy me,” and would often repeat this to many family and friends.

“Gov. Cox along with previous Gov. Gary Herbert and Mike Leavitt along with Senator Mitt Romney have a machine here that allows local political operatives and press to bully/bulldoze any and all opposition,” the sources explained.

Cox has also previously expressed that he wanted the AG position to be “appointed” in October of 2023. Sen. Mike McKell, who the whistleblower shares is the brother-in-law of Governor Cox, proposed changing the AG’s position “from an elected office to an appointed one,” right after Reyes was named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit, “alleging he attempted to silence a critic of Ballard’s organization,” per the Salt Lake Tribune.

The sources also shared that Cox would make personal phone calls to Reyes asking him if he “really wanted to run for Attorney General again” while behind the scenes coordinating with the attorney and plaintiffs of the OUR lawsuit through proxies.

“After months of holding Reyes’ forced support in his back pocket, Derek Brown is now trying to squeeze Reyes to officially endorse him — as he recently pushed his old associate Senator Mike Lee to do — as well as make Reyes influence the rest of the Republican AGs to fall in line as the Chairman of [the Republican Attorneys General Association],” one of the sources disclosed.

This, allegedly, was a direct result of Brown’s main competitor Rachel Terry receiving a glowing endorsement from Reyes’ longtime friend and colleague, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The audits into Reyes have intensified since AG Ken Paxton endorsed Terry, who currently serves as Director of Utah Division of Risk Management.

The sources allege that Cox has abused the power in his position to reach into the personal lives of staff with intrusive audits, to the point where staffers in Reyes’ office have been hit with obstruction charges for not divulging personal emails and text messages. According to an outside advisor to Reyes and his office, Reyes is “still trying to resist every effort to support such interfering efforts to help Cox and Brown in their election engineering campaign."

One state official whistleblower says that Cox and Reyes have always been on “opposite ends politically, since Cox is a staunch moderate and well-known Never-Trumper,” and that Gov. Cox would only support Reyes publicly when it was politically convenient for him. “It’s the establishment, it’s the good ol’ boys club,” he shared, highlighting the “devious and conniving behavior” of Utah politicians behind the scenes. “Reyes was one of the few politicians here that was truly a man of the people. There’s a certain level of silent outrage that they orchestrated with such precision and duplicity his takedown. Many of us are silent no more.”

Governor Cox himself came out in recent weeks stating Republicans would be making “a huge mistake” if they nominated former President Trump, throwing support behind Nikki Haley. At the time of publishing this article, Brown, like Cox, has still withheld his official endorsement of party leader Donald Trump for President — one of the only left in his race to do so.