Gracie Gato's Speakeasy Podcast

NEW EPISODE: Robbie Mahrou, Independent for NH-02 A CANDID CONVERSATION ABOUT THE ESTABLISHMENT and what needs to change. We talk about the election, what it really means to run as an independent, and what Robbie is blasting in the car on the way to and from rallies (yes, we asked).No party script. No spin. Just a real conversation with a candidate who’s willing to say it out loud. Get full access...

NEW EPISODE: Robbie Mahrou, Independent for NH-02 A CANDID CONVERSATION ABOUT THE ESTABLISHMENT and what needs to change. We talk about the election, what it really means to run as an independent, and what Robbie is blasting in the car on the way to and from rallies (yes, we asked).No party script. No spin. Just a real conversation with a candidate who’s willing to say it out loud. Get full access...

$430,000. One out-of-state donor. A bill the House already voted down, 284 to 51, that came back anyway. Marsy’s Law, Revisited follows the filings, the consulting payments, and the emails with Gordon MacDonald and Jane Young on the other end. Funder. Template. Friendly insider who gets paid to carry it. Dealt with the NHCADSV or Amanda Grady Sexton and were told help came with conditions? I want...

WHERE THE F IS MIKE GILL? Mike Gill is the O.G. whistleblower in the State of New Hampshire. It costed him everything. Let's talk, pal. It's time to get out of retirement. We got work to do. You were right about everything. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe

On September 15th, New Hampshire’s Chief Justice resigned, effective immediately. Gordon MacDonald admitted violating three provisions of the Code of Judicial Conduct, after an unexplained medical leave that began in late July. And through it all, one name kept showing up beside his: his lawyer, Jane Young. The same Jane Young who served as his Deputy AG, later became U.S. Attorney, and is now Vic...

A formal ethics complaint just landed on the desk of New Hampshire’s Attorney General — and it names names. This week: an anonymous source’s sworn complaint alleging conflicts of interest, missing paper trails, and a “club” of officials who allegedly protect each other across the AG’s office, the Supreme Court, and the Attorney Discipline Office. We walk through the allegations one at a time — the...

A formal ethics complaint just landed on the desk of New Hampshire’s Attorney General — and it names names. This week: an anonymous source’s sworn complaint alleging conflicts of interest, missing paper trails, and a “club” of officials who allegedly protect each other across the AG’s office, the Supreme Court, and the Attorney Discipline Office. We walk through the allegations one at a time — the...

When New Hampshire’s Chief Justice came under investigation, the Supreme Court hired a lawyer to help. That same lawyer also happens to be legal counsel to the state Senate — the body that would handle removing a justice, if it ever came to that. We trace the retainer from the Attorney General’s inquiry into the Dianne Martin payout, through the fight to keep the Judicial Conduct Committee’s inves...

Rep. Joseph Barton (R) joins Gracie Gato for a candid conversation on public corruption, institutional accountability, and where anti-corruption reform actually has bipartisan footing in New Hampshire. Recorded on the record, no green room spin — because accountability doesn't check party registration at the door. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subsc...

It started as whispers inside New Hampshire’s highest court back in 2021: that Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald and attorney Dianne Martin were more than colleagues. MacDonald denies it. Martin denies it. But by MacDonald’s own written account, he spent years fighting a rumor he says traces back to a conversation Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi had with her husband at a Governor and Council meeti...

Correction :(Sun, Sept 6, 2016): This episode originally stated Robin Davis was elected Merrimack County Attorney in 2016. She was elected in 2018. It also referred to Gordon MacDonald as "suspended." He is on indefinite medical leave, which is not a disciplinary action. Both corrections have been made to reflect accurate reporting. We regret the errors. Twelve hundred and six votes. That's the wh...

Take two. Because the truth deserves better audio than we gave it the first time. Full disclosure: our first crack at this interview got buried by a soundboard that had other plans — so we’re back, mics dialed in, and doing it right. Some stories are worth the do-over. This time, Jon Raiche sits down with The Gracie Gato Podcast to talk about his run for Merrimack County Attorney. Raiche brings 26...

Last week, a polling company got caught lying. Median Strategies had released a poll showing Karen Bass with a twelve-point lead over Nithya Raman in the LA mayor’s race, picking up most of reality TV figure Spencer Pratt’s old support. It spread everywhere, because it was juicy, because it fit a narrative editors wanted to run. Then the company admitted the whole thing was fabricated — a “social...

Jason Gerhard spent twelve years in federal prison. Now he wants to run the county sheriff’s office. That sentence alone should stop you mid-scroll — and that’s the point. On this episode of The Gracie Gato Podcast , I sit down with former State Representative Jason Gerhard, a convicted felon turned lawmaker turned two-time candidate for Merrimack County Sheriff, to talk about what happens when a...

A few weeks ago, I told you about a chief justice who vanished into medical leave without explanation, two days after formal misconduct charges landed against a colleague he was a key witness against. I told you about two sworn statements — months apart — that cannot both be true. This week, New Hampshire’s judiciary said something out loud it hadn’t said before: there’s no forecasted return date...

There’s a two-day gap I can’t stop thinking about. On July 29th, the Judicial Conduct Committee quietly filed formal misconduct charges against retired NH Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi. On July 31st, sitting Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald announced — with zero explanation, effective immediately — that he was taking medical leave. Maybe that’s nothing. Institutions have unglamoro...

Is Gordon MacDonald really sick? Is Gordon MacDonald really on medical leave — or is the New Hampshire Supreme Court managing a crisis of its own making? In this episode, we trace a pattern that stretches back to 2002, when an Attorney General named Phil McLaughlin refused to believe a state line could stop a scandal from crossing it. Twenty-four years later, we’re asking the same question about a...

There’s a version of this story that fits in a headline: state officials asked to alter evidence in an active investigation. That version is true, as far as it goes. But it’s not the interesting part, and it’s definitely not the part that should worry you. The interesting part is the order things happened in. On July 3rd, 2017, Jane Young — then Associate Attorney General and Chief of the Criminal...

There’s a pattern in New Hampshire, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it: the people closest to the truth are the ones most afraid to speak it. This episode follows the crisis at the Sununu Youth Services Center — the resignations, the involvement of the Attorney General’s office, and a juvenile justice veteran with two decades on the job who still, even now, won’t put their name to what they s...

New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know law promises that government records belong to the public. This episode is what happens when you actually try to collect. Over two weeks, our research team filed records requests with the State of New Hampshire and the City of Concord — about the state forensic laboratory, a criminalist named Kevin McMahon, an internal affairs policy, and a grant check the city signed...

Skip the Butter: The Forensic Analyst New Hampshire Kept Putting on the Stand For 43 years, a New Hampshire State Police forensic analyst kept getting walked up to the witness stand — sworn, trusted, in the most serious cases this state has ever tried. This is what his own employer's records say about him. And what the public was never shown. This week on The Gracie Gato Podcast we trace the docum...

“Welcome back to the Gracie Gato Podcast. Pour something, settle in. Here’s a riddle for you. What do you call a man running for Congress who won’t take money from corporations, won’t take money from PACs, won’t take a dime from the wealthy — and won’t even take five bucks from you*, the voter who likes him? You call him Matthew Emerson. And you call him my guest tonight.* Nine Democrats are clawi...

She filed for Congress yesterday. Today she’s in the Speakeasy. Carleigh Beriont is a Harvard-educated union organizer, mom, Marshall Islands teacher, and Hampton Select Board Chair who looked at New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District — packed with establishment money and dynasty names — and said: not today. No AIPAC. No social media. No apologies. Just Medicare for All, a ban on Congressional...

Starting today, Gracie Gato’s Speakeasy has a new recurring segment. Every week, Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown sits down with me to give you a direct, unfiltered report on what is happening inside Concord City Hall — the votes, the budget decisions, the things that get approved quietly and the things that get cut loudly. No spin. No press releases. Just a city councilor with a stack of docum...

FOUR BEDS AND A BOARDROOM — EPISODE 2: THE FAMILY TREE Last week, we followed the money. This week, we follow the people. One city councilor with two jobs and zero recusals. One lawyer with six hats and one sealed grand jury report. One professional network stretching from the New Hampshire Supreme Court to a $12,500 line item in a municipal budget — and somehow, every thread leads back to the sam...