Week in Review: June 6, 2025 - with Erica Barnett

[00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to get insight into local policy and politics in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work, with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it.

If you missed this week's topical show, I chatted with Jeanie Chunn, candidate for Seattle City Council District 2, about her stance on housing affordability, small business support, and more - as well as significant changes she advocates for to the city's approach to public safety, housing, and budget priorities.

Today, we are continuing our Friday week-in-review shows, where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett. Welcome back!

[00:01:05] Erica Barnett: Thanks, Crystal. Good to be here.

[00:01:07] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you here. Well, this has been a week full of news - starting off with Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore resigning, following withdrawal of her bill to lower ethics standards for City Council people. What happened here? How did we get to this point where Cathy Moore is resigning?

[00:01:30] Erica Barnett: Oh my gosh. Well, as you said, the ethics legislation seems to have been some sort of final straw. She had proposed legislation that - of course, she called just a fairly minor technical fix to the ethics code - that would have rolled back ethics standards for City Councilmembers to allow them to vote on matters where they had a direct financial conflict of interest. This was a wildly unpopular bill. I don't think that there was any - well, certainly not any significant public support - I didn't see any public support for it. And some of the feedback that Cathy Moore and others got on the bill was quite negative. And I'm not just talking about the people who showed up with Kshama Sawant and marched around Council chambers and screamed and said they all had to go. But I'm talking about hundreds and hundreds - perhaps thousands - of emails from the public. And then lots and lots - in fact, a lot more people just showing up from the general public to Council chambers, to ethics meetings to say - We don't want this. Why are you doing this? Please don't roll this back. Cathy Moore, I think consistently throughout her year and a half on the Council, has interpreted negative feedback as hate and as personal attacks. And I know that sometimes the Council does get personal attacks in emails and to some extent in public comment, but there's nothing particularly unusual about it - it is part of the job. But I think Cathy Moore just really didn't like that part of the job - and she resigned. She said she's stepping down on July 7th. And so that means she will have served just about a year and a half of her four-year term.

[00:03:13] Crystal Fincher: I think that is shocking to a lot of people - that it was so short. We did see another recent resignation, but it was in a councilmember's second term and by all accounts, according to them, they seemed to enjoy the work of the job. And the challenge, according to them, was they were no longer permitted to do that work by their colleagues. This, as you just pointed out, seems to be a reaction, or continued reaction - a result of just disliking hearing contrary opinion. And it feels like we got an early taste of this when early on in Cathy Moore's tenure - during public comment, she requested that police be summoned to control a crowd, which I think was surprising to a lot of people because that kind of crowd, reaction, feedback had not been uncommon at Council in the immediate years prior.

[00:04:12] Erica Barnett: Yeah, it is somewhat ironic that this Council got elected saying that they're going to bring in this like era of good feelings because they all are on the same page. It's a less progressive council - they replaced the old Council - and for their first year, most of them spent a lot of time blaming the old Council for everything. But those old Council meetings - Kshama Sawant was on the Council and she could summon hundreds of people if she wanted to, to disrupt meetings and to yell and scream. And now what we're mostly talking about - the reason that particular meeting went off the rails, I think, is because Sara Nelson, as Council President, decided to shut down Council Chambers and had a bunch of people - about, I think, six people - arrested for refusing to leave. So that was something that the Council did to, I would say, provoke an angry response. And Cathy Moore, as people were banging on the wall, having been shut out of the Council Chambers, said that they should all be arrested. And that is not how democracy works. Even Sara Nelson was like - Well, let's calm down the rhetoric a little bit. But yeah, I mean, she got very emotional. She said that she was afraid for her safety, that they were going to break down the wall, and said they were a mob - but implied they were going to storm the Council Chambers and harm the Council themselves, which is not anything there's any kind of historical precedent for. So it just felt like every single time there was negative pushback, she took it extremely personally, got very self-righteous, very angry, said that she was being subjected to hate and that she shouldn't have to put up with that. And it's just part of the job of being a councilmember in the city of Seattle, where people really care about local politics. And sometimes they care loudly.

[00:05:59] Crystal Fincher: They really do. And I think what sticks out to a lot of people is that, again, that type of reaction by public commenters, by protesters was fairly common in the terms of her predecessors. And during the campaigns, that seemed to feel justified to her - that there was anger from the public towards decisions that she did not disagree with. However, when she was there and people disagreed with her, then it seemed to be unjustified. So I think the lack of consistency has been what a lot of people have noticed. Now, I do think it's important to mention that one of the things that she cited, as she was announcing this, were some health concerns. And we certainly do not wish anyone poor health. We hope that those are able to be resolved and wish her the best as she moves on.

Now, let's talk about what's next and what timing is involved with the choice of her predecessor. And how her timing of resignation may impact how long that person may be there.

[00:07:09] Erica Barnett: Well, Cathy Moore decided to, began making this decision - she told others, she did not speak to me about this - but she had been thinking about it for a while, clearly. And yet, she waited until after the filing deadline for this year's elections in November, when we might have been able to elect a replacement for whoever gets appointed to this seat. She waited until after that deadline to announce this, which means that we as the voters will not be able to pick a successor to represent her district, North Seattle, until 2026. And so, as a result, there's going to be someone in place for - I'm bad at math, but let's say two years or more, who has not been elected by the people of her district. And I just think we can get into who might be looking to replace her on an interim basis in a sec, but I do want to just point out that is incredibly anti-democratic. It is the process that we have, but to elect somebody - if you're a constituent in District 5, you elected Cathy Moore. Or maybe you didn't - maybe you voted against her. You thought she was going to be in there for at least four years, and she's bowing out after a year and a half. And somebody else picked by this Council, which, by the way, includes another appointed councilmember who was never elected - Mark Solomon. And they're going to pick who represents District 5. It just feels like when we elect people, it would be nice if they would stay in office or if they choose not to - it's not the job for them - that they create every opportunity for their voters to replace them.

[00:08:48] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's fair. Essentially, this is the difference between if this decision would have been made just a month ago. And to be clear, this has actually been rumored and people have been talking about this behind the scenes for quite some time. It wasn't a surprise to many people when she said she had been thinking about this for a while. So waiting until after filing week, which is in mid-May - if she would have done it just a month ago, they would be able to vote for a replacement in this August primary election and November general election, and someone who could take office this year. Waiting just that month sticks District 5 with this appointed, unelected representative for a full additional year. And think about how many-

[00:09:37] Erica Barnett: Thank you for correcting my math.

[00:09:39] Crystal Fincher: No worries. But the amount of decisions that are going to be made. The Comprehensive Plan is supposed to be decided in that amount of time. We have a number of issues. There's going to be an entire additional budget cycle that happens that will be voted on in that time. Major decisions that impact the city of Seattle - the Comprehensive Plan is the plan for the next decade, the budget is going to determine the direction of the city and what gets funded, what the priorities of the city are. And these are now going to be made by an unelected representative for District 5 because of the timing of this announcement. So that is, I think, an unfortunate thing that is not going to be wonderful - well, that many people assume is not going to be wonderful, because of the track record of appointments of this Council that have not turned out, I think, as well as even this Council would say they wanted them to turn out. So now that we look at this, what is the appointment process and who has talked about interest in this?

[00:10:44] Erica Barnett: Boy, I feel like because there have been so many appointments, I've actually gotten pretty good at explaining the appointment process. So the appointment process is - once Cathy Moore steps down, the Council has 20 days to pick a successor. They go through a process that is kind of determined by the Council, but generally has included some public hearings where people get to watch the Council ask questions of whoever applies for the appointment. And then there's a vote, and they pick. And in the last two rounds of this, where Tanya Woo and Mark Solomon got appointed, they chose to pick someone who had lost - actually, in both cases, lost to Tammy Morales, the councilmember who resigned at the beginning of this year. And so, we'll see. The names I've heard include Patience Malaba, who is the head of the Housing Development Consortium. Colleen Echohawk, who is the former head of the Chief Seattle Club, she's now the CEO of Eighth Generation. And Nilu Jenks, who lost to Cathy Moore in last year's election - she actually lost in the primary, but she is apparently going to put her name in the hat. And I'm sure there's going to be lots of others, including people we haven't heard of. But it'll probably be a feisty process, like it has been the last couple of times. Despite Cathy Moore's somewhat understandable distaste for the job - I wouldn't want to sit there and get yelled at either - people are just constantly wanting to throw themselves on the pyre, as somebody put it to me last night. So I think we'll see a lot of applicants for the position.

[00:12:18] Crystal Fincher: I think we'll see a lot of applicants for the position. And, as other people have been joking - wondering if Tanya Woo, whose name seems to pop up because of her own actions in every endorsement process, wondering if she's going to be zooming up to District 5 to figure out a place of residence and to add fuel to that fire. Moderated a forum of citywide council candidates and mayoral candidates last night - which you were also at and covering - and Tanya Woo was also there. So who knows - you know - what it is.

[00:12:54] Erica Barnett: She's everywhere. She was sitting right behind me, apparently.

[00:12:56] Crystal Fincher: She's inevitable, evidently. Just Tanya Woo, everything - death, taxes, and Tanya Woo. But, speaking of people who are perennially around - also this week, Seattle socialist Kshama Sawant announced a run for Congress against Adam Smith in the 9th Congressional District. How did this come about? Why does Kshama say she is running?

[00:13:23] Erica Barnett: Well, she says she's running because she wants to end the genocide in Gaza and implement her socialist policies. And I would say we should note that Kshama Sawant is not a typical socialist. She's always described as a socialist, but she's not in the mainstream of socialism - such as it is. She worked for Jill Stein to defeat Kamala Harris. She is a firebrand, but a very specific type of socialist firebrand in her own kind of little mini-niche - she started her own political party. So she's running - she's not going to win this race. She's going to raise issues - maybe they'll get discussed. That is always a good thing, I think, for longtime incumbents to have opponents. But if you're asking my opinion of why she's actually running, I think she does not like being on the other side - in the activist role - after being a city councilmember for so long, where she had some real power and a real bully pulpit. And even when she was campaigning for other things - she ran for State Legislature - she got attention for herself and for her ideas in a way that showing up to City Council meetings and getting kicked out really doesn't accomplish. And I've just gotten a sense that she does not love being on the other side of the dais at City Council. She's obviously not - she decided not to run for City Council again. But I think she feels more comfortable in this role.

[00:14:53] Crystal Fincher: I really don't know enough to speak to what her personal motivation is. I do think that this is an interesting development. Adam Smith has been obviously the Congress member for a long time, but his support has been softening for a while now - increasingly. And the district has changed post-redistricting - the district moved north a little bit. So you have a district that's a significant slice of kind of central to south Seattle, large persons of Kent, Renton, other places like Federal Way, Normandy Park, Bellevue-

[00:15:33] Erica Barnett: Real socialist enclaves.

[00:15:34] Crystal Fincher: And they are not. But I think that's what makes the dynamic that we've seen in the last several cycles interesting - and I am in the 9th Congressional District. So again, this is an area that still, there are cities here and legislative districts that still elect Republicans. This is an area that's trending a little bit bluer lately, but a lot of this district has been pretty purple, if not red, in some of the eastern and southeastern parts of the district. And so you would think that - okay, kind of centrist-y Democrat Adam Smith would be a great fit, according to the conventional wisdom. And that has not been the case for a while. And the support has been softening in the popular vote - has been so significant that where this area used to very reliably pass through a Democrat and a Republican to the general election, several recent ones have passed through two Democrats, essentially saying that the Democratic vote is going to win this. When you get to, especially when it comes to national-level rhetoric, where issues like reproductive choice, abortion rights, civil rights, health care are involved - this district sides with Democrats on those top line big federal issues. A lot more happens when you get to some of the local issues, but on those big federal issues, they're pretty blue.

But that blue has split and is kind of split with Adam Smith and something further left. And Adam Smith has been helped by the fact that the Democratic Party itself has largely been unwilling to say - Okay, this guy's popularity is softening. Maybe we're going to throw our support behind an alternative. I think there have been different elements of willingness there, kind of in the beginning, and then maybe not being in love with some of the candidates they saw willing to step up. But also a number of candidates saying - We don't see the support of Democratic Party, the allies, especially like major unions, stepping in and giving Adam Smith's war chest - financial war chest - that makes a huge difference in getting elected. I'm going to need massive resources to do that. I'm not going to be able to put that together if I don't get the Democratic Party behind me. On the ground, legislative districts have been endorsing against Adam Smith. They endorsed his essentially non-funded, very outsider opponent this past time. And you saw his opponent get a significant percentage of the vote, get through to the general election - which many people were not expecting. And then siphon a lot of his vote. So his support has been softening.

[00:18:23] Erica Barnett: But he still got 67% of the vote, which is major supermajority.

[00:18:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. But I do think that primary vote was pretty telling in that - when there were more choices there, there were a lot more who did move there. And that does not mean that those people who voted for another Democrat or who were just very dissatisfied with Adam Smith overall are going to be comfortable voting for someone with a Socialist next to their name. That is something that Seattle voters are used to now and they don't have much of a problem with - they feel pretty comfortable with that. I would not say that's the case - at this point in time - with the rest of the district. But Kshama is known for being a turnout machine, assembling an army of supporters who gets a reach into areas and voters who don't often turn out for other elections and getting them to turn out. And Kshama's saying her platform is end the genocide in Gaza. No military aid, no occupation, free health care for all, tax the rich. We need rent control, make corporate landlords pay. That is from Kshama's website. And so those are issues that have been gaining traction in the 9th Congressional District and essentially got an unfunded, unknown opponent into the general election. Now, that opponent had a D by their name and not a socialist brand. But I think Kshama is going to be someone who can't be ignored in this race. I think Kshama can put together significant resources on a national basis - she's shown the ability to do that before.

[00:19:58] Erica Barnett: Although she doesn't have a national party anymore. And not that Socialist Alternative was a huge party, but I believe what she'll have by her name now is Workers Strike Back, which is the political party she started. I could be incorrect - maybe it will just say Socialist. But I think that she has narrowed her own base of support in some ways by saying that she has ideological differences with Socialist Alternative, which is already kind of a fringe party within the broader socialist movement, with Democratic Socialists of America being the biggest party. So not to get into all the nuances, but I think that she has, in some ways, marginalized herself more by saying that she has this separate party. And also, frankly, by working against Kamala Harris with Jill Stein. Locally, I think a lot of lefties kind of poo-poo that and say - Oh, well, it was just about this one issue, about warmongering and spending money on Israel. But it's a pretty good talking point for Adam Smith - I'll just say that.

[00:20:51] Crystal Fincher: And I absolutely agree with you there. I actually think that just that one issue - campaigning against Kamala Harris - is almost more than anything else going to be something that sours a lot of voters, who may even have been so dissatisfied with Adam Smith that they're willing to lend an ear to someone to his left, that that is going to be something that most voters who are Democrats, find to be unforgivable. But we will see. We're just talking. But I do think that Kshama is going to be someone who is going to be part of the conversation in this race, and we'll see what happens from there.

Also want to talk about King County Assessor John Wilson having allegations - new allegations - there were previous allegations. These are new stalking allegations surface against him, which brought a number of calls for his resignation from Democratic officials across the state. What are these allegations, and who's calling for him to leave?

[00:21:59] Erica Barnett: Well, as you said, there were allegations before - this is by his ex-domestic partner, who is a prominent local public affairs consultant, Lee Keller. And she is alleging - and I think John Arthur Wilson, the assessor, is not denying this behavior - that he essentially would not leave her alone after she told him that they were done. She has a restraining order against him that includes a lot of text messages and communications that show that he is saying things like - I will never leave you alone. And basically, you know, harassing her and refusing to leave her alone. He has in the past shown up at her house, followed her around, allegedly tracked her. And so it's just kind of - I hate to say typical stalker behavior - but if you have ever been in this position, a lot of this stuff will be quite familiar. And Wilson is claiming - I think not very credibly - that he and Keller are doing just fine, they're still together, she's lifted the restraining order. She says that's not true and they aren't together, and she's not lifted the restraining order - which is what court records currently support. But people should go to PubliCola.com, where I broke this story last week, and just look at some of the stuff that is in the restraining order. It is very disturbing. I would say it is disqualifying for a public official. And so, as you mentioned, Crystal, a lot of people have been asking or have been demanding that he resign, including several members of the King County Council - two of his opponents for the County Executive race, Girmay Zahilay and Claudia Balducci, as well as Rod Dembowski, Teresa Mosqueda, Jorge Barón. King County Executive Shannon Braddock, the King County Democrats - I mean, it's pretty universal. And he said to a couple of other reporters that he has no plans to step down. So that kind of leaves - because he's an elected official, the only way to remove him is for there to be a countywide recall vote, which seems somewhat unlikely at this point, but we shall see.

[00:24:06] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Another added dimension here is that John Wilson is currently a candidate for King County Executive. So in addition to being someone who holds countywide elected office right now, he's also running to be the executive, which - and this has not gone unnoticed - if he were to be successful, which looks very unlikely, but if he were to be, he would be put in charge. He would be the boss of the people who are running this investigation, ultimately. He would be in control of the people and resources that are involved in this court case, and investigating his actions, and potentially overseeing and being some of the methods of accountability if wrongdoing were officially to be found.

Now, to your point, he's not denying that he has essentially continued to communicate with this woman without consent. Pretty conclusive text that you show on PubliCola, where she's saying - LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!! And he just responds, like - Never. And keeps going and keeps texting. And this is in-line with what he had done before. And like you said, to have been in situations where people will not accept no - will not stop despite what you say, despite your wishes - is just a horrible situation to be in. And just - he doesn't seem to have a problem with it. He doesn't seem to recognize that this is any kind of a problem. And everyone else who does - he's just ignoring and saying, essentially, they're haters. And, oh, this is just the two people running against me and it's a campaign tactic - ignoring the fact that it is so many more people, down to Bruce Harrell, calling for this man's resignation.

[00:26:00] Erica Barnett: I forgot about Bruce. Yeah, yeah, he got in on that. I will say, too, in the previous petition - which Lee Keller did drop, and I don't think that we should consider that just positive of anything - people go back to abusive relationships all the time, for all kinds of reasons. And I think that the more compelling evidence is that he does not deny doing all these things. And one of the things that he does not deny doing is - he called the employer of somebody that she had dated briefly when they were not together and tried to get him fired by making false allegations of sexual assault against this man. And there are text messages about that as well. And so this is just like, appalling behavior. This man is not going to be a King County Executive - he's polling in a distant third. It's, I think, a sign of - well, I don't know what it's a sign of - certainly ego, that he will not drop out of this race and stop wasting people's time by putting himself out there on the campaign stage. But I also think that most - maybe not most elected officials - but most people would consider it a problem if basically every elected official in the county where they are an elected official, was calling on them to resign. And he just seems that - his public face, anyway, has been fairly blithe about it - I'm not going to resign, I've done nothing wrong. And I think that is just kind of chilling, personally.

[00:27:31] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, very chilling. And essentially - We're back together again, that makes it okay. And essentially, that was his defense to the prior round of allegations - We're back together, that makes it okay - without any kind of examination or accountability for his actual behavior.

One last thing I just have to say here. This is why it is so important to pay attention when these people are running for office and to plug into local politics - because there was a glaring red flag when he was running. And that was the fact that he hired a campaign consultant who himself had significant allegations of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, in addition to a lot of other types of misconduct. And the County Democrats, several people raised the flag when John Wilson was running - and essentially, this person has been blacklisted because of their behavior from Democratic politics. It had been reported quite a lot - they were ousted from positions, Bailey Stober's ouster from the King County Democrats was covered by PubliCola and a lot of what led up to it. And the fact that John Wilson didn't have any problem with hiring this person, having him as one of his closest advisors - despite warnings, despite penalties - was, to me, a glaring red flag. If you don't have that kind of issue with behavior of people inside your inner circle, that's a signal you don't have a problem with that behavior for yourself.

[00:29:06] Erica Barnett: And not just that, but Bailey Stober was one of John Arthur Wilson's top staff at the assessor's office during, when all that was going on. And I wrote about that on PubliCola - Bailey was accused of sexually harassing a employee of his at the Democrats and Wilson stood by him at the time. And I thought that was telling.

[00:29:28] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So when you see things like that in local politics and there are people raising flags - there is an issue similar to this happening in King County right now, in a legislative seat - that you pay attention and that you take these warnings seriously. Because not having a problem with this kind of behavior is itself a red flag.

So - now, speaking about red flag behavior, challenging behavior, people being ousted - also news this week that you wrote about in PubliCola, more insight into the ouster of former Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz and controversy surrounding - allegations of a forged note. So please enlighten us - and you covered this in detail - what is the latest here? What did we learn?

[00:30:20] Erica Barnett: Well, there's not a new investigation report or anything like that. What we received this week - and by we, I mean myself and some other reporters who've been waiting on this records request for a while - is the investigation documents. So all of the interviews, transcripts, recordings of interviews, notes into this investigation that former chief Diaz was involved in a relationship with Jamie Tompkins and that he selected her, created a job for her, and promoted her as his chief of staff. And then, subsequently - this would be a separate piece of misconduct - lied about it to investigators, as allegedly did she. So, one of many pieces of evidence - and I'm including many interviews with SPD staff, including all of Adrian Diaz's security detail - one of the other pieces of evidence is this note that allegedly Jamie Tompkins wrote to Adrian Diaz that was found by one of his security guards. It's a love note on an Ewok card - probably everybody listening to this is aware of it. And there's a handwriting analysis that found that it was overwhelmingly likely that she wrote it. And the analysis used, among other things, a note that Jamie Tompkins wrote that was turned over as part of evidence - and it basically found that the handwriting was extremely similar. And you can see the note and some of Jamie Tompkins' handwriting samples on PubliCola - I published a bunch of them. I understand there's also been allegations from Jamie Tompkins that this note was forged and that this is all part of an elaborate conspiracy.

[00:32:03] Crystal Fincher: Well, it had been previously reported that Tompkins believed that she was collateral damage in a conspiracy to remove Adrian Diaz. I will link an article by Kelly Hatmaker in Fox 13 News, where this is detailed. She said that there was a Star Wars-themed birthday card, which ended both of their careers, and said that was a forgery. Essentially, that there were a number of people involved with fabricating allegations and various nefarious actions to take down Adrian Diaz - they saw her as a tool and orchestrated this ouster and that evidence.

[00:32:44] Erica Barnett: Yeah. And I will just say there is - on the handwriting analysis, which was among the evidence, but it was not maybe the smoking gun that it has been portrayed to be - but the handwriting that is on this card and handwriting samples that they included in the analysis from all kinds of documents, including her mortgage, just to compare the signatures. And you can look at it - it's the same handwriting. And they also found that - in a secondary handwriting analysis that she did, she had to provide two samples. The second sample, they found she tried to disguise her handwriting. And I also have images of that. And it just is one of those, like zebra-horse questions. To believe that there is a conspiracy to remove Adrian Diaz, you have to believe that all three of his security detail, whose stories were remarkably consistent - and not just consistent, but like, consistent in ways that suggest a reality as opposed to telling a story that's the same, like recounting different parts of the same conversation. So you'd have to believe that they all conspired to lie. That Brian Maxey, the chief operating officer of the police department, was also in some ways dishonest. That they had a motivation to do so, which is totally unclear. And that there were other forgeries of Jamie Tompkins' writing. It would have to be extraordinarily elaborate.

I do really encourage people to listen to the interviews if you have time - I posted a couple of them on PubliCola.com. I, having looked at now thousands of pages of evidence and listened to these interviews - it just, it looks like a horse to me, not a zebra. It looks like there was an affair, there was a cover-up. And I'm not saying that I know this. I'm just saying my personal opinion, based on reading thousands of pages of this stuff and covering this for so long, is that it seems more likely to me than not that this investigation is accurate. And most of the people, interestingly, that were interviewed about this said a couple of things. One was - We don't care if he had an affair. Like, that's not great, but that doesn't matter to being police chief. And that the issue was lying, and the issue was promoting someone and creating a job for someone that didn't exist based on a personal relationship like this. And the second thing they said - because Adrian Diaz did come out as gay on a right-wing radio show last year and suggested that this meant that he couldn't have had an affair with a woman. And what almost everyone said was - Okay, he's gay. That doesn't mean he couldn't have had an affair with a woman. And you see these like police department guys saying stuff about like, you know, fluidity and sexual orientation changing over time and pretty progressive-y sounding stuff about that. And so I don't think that "I'm gay." was perceived as a sort of credible defense by most people in the police department, because a lot of them said - Well, both things can be true. You're married to a woman and you have kids. So both things could be true.

[00:36:02] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, yeah - I think a lot of people saw it that way. So we will continue to follow along with this - as and if more information comes out. But certainly an interesting twist of events there.

Just a couple of other final notes. This week - just yesterday, actually, Wednesday, June 4th - was the Pride flag raising at the state Capitol during an event with the state's LGBTQ Commission. And it was interrupted by the Washington State Patrol marching through that ceremony as a trans person was speaking. The Washington State Patrol eventually apologized for it, but weirdly, it was not shown on the livestream - someone sent me a video of it. But how do you see this one? Does this seem super innocent to you? Does this seem just, you know, like - this was so - they gave what sounded kind of a profuse apology, saying that they didn't intend any harm. But the optics were horrible here.

[00:37:11] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I mean, I've watched this video that you posted - and the optics are horrible. I could see it being an innocent mistake, certainly, as opposed to a nefarious attempt to disrupt this event. I don't have an opinion on it because I wasn't there. But clearly, in this video, it doesn't seem like it's that many people. It seems like it would have been quite easy for them to go around like a sane person would have done. So I'm not discounting nefarious motives, either. It was just bizarre.

[00:37:42] Crystal Fincher: It was bizarre. And it really is like, there's a person speaking at a podium, there's a crowd listening to them. And the State Patrol troopers march directly between the podium and the crowd. Dozens of them are in the video doing that. Evidently, they were on their way to a graduation ceremony, it was part of the graduation ceremony. But especially given how under attack the trans community is, how many attacks on just their ability to live, to do everyday things that other people are doing, the legislation and hate speech that we're seeing against them - you could certainly understand how that would feed into a lot of fear. And that those feelings of fear are real, very real.

[00:38:28] Erica Barnett: Well, yeah - I mean, watching a bunch of sort of militarized people march in lockstep through a gay Pride or an LGBTQ Pride event - it seems like it would have been potentially quite scary to be there live, participating in this event, and see these troopers march through. The State Patrol said that there - it was a cascade of errors that led to this, which, okay, again, seems like you could have just marched your little butts around it instead of right through the event. You have eyes. You're supposed to have some sort of ability to determine appropriate conduct as state troopers, right? I don't know. It's just - "cascade of errors" - seems like there was one error and it was to not go around this event that was obviously happening in your way.

[00:39:14] Crystal Fincher: Yep, definitely. Finally, just wanted to mention that we have some new legislators, following the passing of Senator Bill Ramos in April. The King County Council has appointed Victoria Hunt to the Senate seat to replace Bill Ramos. She was a former representative - just prior to this was a representative. And so that left her House seat vacant, and they appointed Zach Hall to fill that House seat. He was formerly on the Issaquah City Council, so now there is a vacancy on the Issaquah City Council. But just wanted to make sure we all know that we have a new representative and a new senator - both Democrats - and to be on the lookout for that Issaquah City Council appointment.

And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, June 6th, 2025. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng - and she's amazing. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett. You definitely want to check out PubliCola this week because it is full of the news and lots of details that we didn't even cover here today. You can find Erica on Bluesky at @ericacbarnett - that's two Ts at the end - and PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Bluesky at @HacksAndWonks. You can follow me on Bluesky at @finchfrii, that's F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com.

Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.