MILLERSVILLE, TENNESSEE - On September 23, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Mark Finchem, former candidate for Arizona Secretary of State, and Craig Sawyer, who runs a lucrative child sex anti-trafficking nonprofit with no evidence of ever having saved a single child, sat next to Millersville Assistant Police Chief Shawn Taylor at an event that they called a press conference.
Only there was no actual press - only podcasters like Mindy Robinson and Scott McKay, who are closely associated with General Mike Flynn and the leader of his ReAwaken Tour events, Clay Clark.
The purpose of the event was to address the recent raids by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) on Taylor’s home and the police station. Taylor claims that the raids were in response to his investigation into a multinational crime syndicate that he claims includes as perpetrators the TBI, judges, politicians and law enforcement in 15 states, and even foreign nation states.
Taylor alleges the organized crime syndicate engages in mortgage fraud, child sex trafficking, and election fraud. Taylor said at the event, “We have located many different facets of corruption within the municipalities, counties, state and federal government that’s affecting our elections. It’s affecting our housing.”
Taylor even went so far as to claim that the corruption he has uncovered - not Democrats’ failed far left fiscal and political policies - is responsible for inflation and even the breakdown of American families. He said, “It’s making it so that a single mother cannot take care of her children. It’s making it so that a father cannot see his children because he’s having to work two or three jobs. It’s not OK. It’s not acceptable. That’s not the American dream.”
He further claimed that his investigative work will change all that. “It’s time that we have accountability and that we pull this veil back and show this corruption for what it is so that people can have the American dream.”
Throughout the event, which lasted nearly an hour, not a single suspect’s name or piece of evidence to support his claims was ever mentioned. Craig Sawyer, who runs his own podcast and is a prolific guest on other podcasts that are affiliated with General Flynn, sat strangely silent, scowling fiercely in the middle, flanked by Taylor and Mark Finchem.
Craig “Sawman” Sawyer
Craig “Sawman” Sawyer is a Marine veteran, former member of Navy SEAL Team SIX and sniper. He provided security detail for both Hillary Clinton and John McCain and now runs a lucrative nonprofit called Veterans 4 Child Rescue (V4CR), which employs Sawyer and now his daughter, Aspen Sawyer, who apparently is an aspiring actress.
Investigative journalist Timothy Helmseth has done a series of investigative reports on Sawyer, including two whistleblowers who both alleged that they were victims of severe sexual abuse by Sawyer when they were children. Sawyer denied the claims and sued Helmseth, winning a financial judgment.
Sawyer’s daughter, Aspen, seems to have made similar allegations publicly on since-deleted social media posts:
Helmseth also provided screenshots of 20 death threats allegedly posted by Sawyer and his associates, including timestamps and IP addresses. Several of them are quite graphic and include threats against Helmseth’s daughter.
The most fascinating threat that Helmseth shared was from Vice Admiral Charles W. Moore, who says he is a personal friend of the President, General Milley, and General Flynn.
Vice Admiral (ret) Moore was on the board of advisors for V4CR:
The purpose and effectiveness of V4CR is questionable, although it does appear to provide Sawyer and his daughter with significant financial benefit. According to his podcasts, most of his work seems to be focused on sexual predator stings, which, when done lawfully and in coordination with law enforcement, can put perverts with the intent to cause harm to minors behind bars. They also provide Sawyer with marketing materials that he uses liberally in his fundraising efforts.
In Millersville, however, video evidence suggests Sawyer may have caused the Millersville Police Department (MPD) to break state laws that require that only police officers be involved in child predator sting operations. Local News Channel 5 reporting shows that Sawyer and Taylor organized a deputized citizen militia-like group calling themselves “Team Mongoose” where citizens were caught on camera trying to entrap potential sexual predators online. Hidden camera videos of the operation were leaked to Channel 5, which ultimately led to the TBI raiding the police department and Sawyer’s home.
Mark Finchem
After the raid, Mark Finchem mysteriously became involved, apparently helping Taylor with his publicity efforts. Finchem’s efforts here mirror his tactics after the 2020 election, where he became a prominent mouthpiece for the Flynn Network election fraud narratives. Bigger Truth has reported extensively on the focus of these narratives to promote the machine fraud narrative that has been used effectively to disenfranchise Republican voters.
After the failed Arizona audit, for which Finchem also engaged in PR, he ran for Arizona Secretary of State. He was a prominent participant in Juan O. Savin’s consortium of secretary of state candidates that included Kristina Karamo, Dorothy Moon, Keith Blandford, Tina Peters - all of whom have been the subject of past investigative work by Bigger Truth for their destructive influence on their state GOPs.
Finchem’s involvement in this saga is puzzling. He is running a campaign for state senate in Arizona. Sources in Arizona have told Bigger Truth that he is engaged to be married. His fiance, who would be Finchem’s fifth wife, lives with her daughter in Maricopa County - outside of his senate district - and sources in AZGOP have told Bigger Truth it is widely speculated he will not be frequently present in his district. His northern Arizona district is a deep red district and he is expected to win his election easily.
Finchem’s background is also interesting, having been involved with the John Birch Society, Oathkeepers, and a close friendship with Lyle Rapacki, who described his own role in the standoff against federal agents at the Ammon Bundy ranch as akin to military leadership. Some participants in that standoff were imprisoned and charged with crimes. Rapacki and Finchem, who were both physically at the ranch at that time, were never charged.
Finchem has already been an effective promoter for Taylor - at least among Flynn’s followers. Several of Taylor’s videos have gone viral on social media. Taylor and Finchem were featured on at least one episode of Flynn sycophant Scott McKay’s podcast, where McKay called for “verbal” violence against the TBI and Millersville District Attorney.
McKay said, “It’s see something, beat the sh-t out of them on patriot streetfighter. That’s how we do it here.”
Finchem smiled, “I can’t advocate violence, OK?”
McKay responded, “No I mean beat the sh-t out of them verbally…”
Finchem laughed, “OK verbally! Have at it, man!”
It’s hard to imagine how this might help Taylor’s investigation or his defense against potential upcoming indictments.
If Taylor has any hope at success in his investigation it would hinge on having a productive relationship with his DA so that indictments could be brought and prosecuted. McKay’s and Finchem’s efforts to dox the DA’s contact info and encourage listeners to engage in verbal abuse of the DA will certainly cement an adversarial relationship there.
The involvement of Finchem and the Flynn Network has already ensured that there will be exactly zero chance at the investigation succeeding at putting anyone in prison.
Just a day or two after Finchem’s press conference at which only Flynn-adjacent podcasters appear to have been invited, Finchem issued a press release to announce three fundraising events in his state senate district in Prescott, Arizona - all featuring General Michael Flynn as the key guest.
One of these events will cost $250 per person to attend with hors d’oeuvres, beer and wine. There is also a screening of the Flynn movie for $25-200 per person.
Bigger Truth spoke to a source in Prescott who is active in the Republican Party and local politics, who said that Finchem’s election is all but guaranteed as it is a deep red district in Yavapai County. He has done no meaningful campaigning since the primary election and his campaign has no known need for financial resources in order to win the general election.
Bigger Truth texted Finchem for comment and he responded that he might be available to speak next week. This report will be updated if that conversation happens.
Conversation with MPD Chief Bryan Morris
During Thursday’s podcast, I questioned whether the police chief had any knowledge of what was going on, wondered why his assistant chief was going all over the Flynn Network interwebs and whether the chief supported what he was doing.
Friday morning I was able to reach Chief Bryan Morris over the phone. Morris was hired in January 2024 and hired Shawn Taylor in February. Morris confirmed that he was hired on an interim basis in January and is now the official full time MPD Chief. Taylor is also currently employed by the department with Morris’ support. Chief Morris told me Taylor and two investigators that Morris hired for the purpose of the investigation have been working on this investigation since March.
Chief Morris said that he agreed “to an extent” with Taylor that the raids by the TBI were in retaliation for their investigation of the TBI, the DA, and the judge who signed the warrant for the raid. Morris also confirmed that while the TBI confiscated their computers, phones and other devices they did not take the servers, which hold backups of most of their evidence.
Morris admitted that he is not directly involved in the investigation. “I haven’t dug as deeply in this as he [Taylor] has. I’m not an investigator, I haven’t investigated any of it. I’ve seen some of the things they’ve worked on and, like you, it sounded too big. But I sat him down and said, ‘Show me.’ And he showed me just the tip of the iceberg. I can tell you that it’s there. It’s there”
When asked why they got into such a large investigation that Shawn Taylor now claims involves a trillion dollar mortgage fraud and child sex trafficking ring in 15 states and how that came about in just six months, Morris said, “It started out as a small local investigation. Then it branched out and we said, ‘Hmm, this is interesting,’ and it just kinda grew from there.”
I asked Chief Morris if they are working with the FBI or law enforcement in other states. “Well, that’s been our problem,” Morris said, “We reached out to the DA first. They weren’t very interested. The DA reached out to the TBI in May to ask them to start looking into us. They told the TBI, ‘Hey, they brought us all this stuff so you should start looking into them,’ meaning us, which is shocking. We sent the TBI numerous emails and made phone calls before and after then, telling them what we found and asking them to look into it and we got nothing. We called the FBI numerous times. They took our information and we haven’t heard anything.”
When asked if he thought Taylor would be charged with a crime, Morris said, “I don’t think he’s done anything he can be charged with. But, as I’ve seen here recently, stranger things happen.”
While the TBI has not disclosed any details about the nature of their investigation, it appears to be centered around two issues - first, the citizen sting operation described above, involving Craig Sawyer’s Team Mongoose; and second, the illegal use of police investigation tools that trace financial transactions and other personal information.
Chief Morris said multiple times when we talked that they “did nothing wrong.” He insisted that his department followed the law in using these tracing tools. “We’ve all been doing this in law enforcement for 20 years, some of us 30 years, and we all know what we’re not supposed to do when we use these systems and who we can’t run [searches on]. I can tell you that everyone we used these systems on was for a valid reason, a law enforcement reason.”
Morris continued, “I don’t see how anyone could be charged, because what they’re looking into is getting information illegally, which we did not do… TBI is investigating me now, and I’m fine with that. I don’t have a problem with it, because I know I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Conclusion: what follows includes my opinion
The parallels to Tina Peters’ story are uncanny. I did two in-depth podcasts on her situation during and after her trial: Part one. Part two. The similarities include:
Operatives connected to General Flynn developed such strong bonds with the subject that the operative was in a position of tremendous influence. For Tina Peters it was Sheronna Bishop. Taylor’s handler is Craig Sawyer.
The subject in both cases was convinced by their handler that they were going to save the world. Tina Peters thought she was going to expose all the election fraud and save the country by fixing our election systems. Taylor actually said at his press conference that his investigation will bring down a trillion dollar crime ring and restore the American dream. Incidentally, Staci Burk told me her Flynn-linked handlers were using the exact same methods with her.
The handlers in both cases appear to have deliberately convinced the subject to break the law. Bishop persuaded Peters to use Gerald Wood’s identity to get Flynn’s ASOG guy, surfer Conan Hayes, into the Dominion trusted build. Sawyer appears to have helped set up the Team Mongoose citizen sting operation. Was Sawyer involved in leaking the hidden camera videos to Channel 5?
The Flynn podcaster network promoted both subjects in unified ways to cause the stories to go viral on social media and through the Flynn/Clay Clark “independent” media networks.
In both cases, one of the objectives of the operation appears to be to discredit what started out as a sincere and legitimate local investigation into a bigger problem. Tina Peters began with the sincerest of intentions but eventually, through her involvement in the Flynn Network circus of radicals and the Mike Lindell Cyber Symposium epic failure, she and the entire election integrity movement lost all credibility to everyone but the far right that has been brainwashed into the cult of the far right media. In the same way, it appears Sawyer’s and Finchem’s involvement is destined to discredit any current and future investigation into actual systemic child sex trafficking - including the P Diddy investigation.
The subjects’ stories were very useful in promoting narratives aligned with Flynn network goals. In Peters’ case, the machine fraud psyop narrative benefited tremendously. In Taylor’s case, a new, parallel narrative is being promoted: corruption on the local, state, and national level is so complete that the law enforcement, judicial and political systems are corrupt beyond hope. Since they also promote the idea that the elections are rigged beyond hope, the only hope therefore is to grab your guns and engage in rebellion and vigilante law enforcement and vigilante justice.
And that is the end game of all of this, as I have been working to sound the alarm since May: the Flynn Network is running psychological warfare using methods developed and deployed by our own military against Trump and the conservative populist movement with the ultimate end game of not just our destruction, but a “black flag” domestic terrorist event so terrible, massive in scale, and deadly that it justifies the communist left taking complete and perpetual control and confiscating all of our guns.
And the final, tragic similarity:
In both cases, the subject is completely expendable to the Flynn Network. It appears to me that they actually want the subject to go to prison, as it makes them a martyr that can be used by the network to further indoctrinate their base towards violent conflict.
With all that in mind, I tried desperately to warn Chief Morris to immediately sever all ties with Finchem and Sawyer. He said he doesn’t have much contact with them but he would ask Taylor to call me. I’m eagerly waiting for that call.
Ep. 6: Something Fishy in Millersville, Tennessee