Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 04/09/2026 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton

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04/09/2026 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton · WCHS Network Podcasts

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Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
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Speaker 1: necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five ad wchs
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Speaker 1: it's employees or WVRC media of Courts.
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Speaker 2: Oh created equal, Well mass, come here in a Kate,
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Speaker 2: I can drops.
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Speaker 3: It upp on.
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Speaker 4: It is twenty two minutes past the hour you're listening to.
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Speaker 4: Well you can put the law on your side this
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Speaker 4: morning with the Peyton Law Firm and in Stadia with
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Speaker 4: us this morning. It's Harvey Peyton from the Peyton Law Firm. Harvey,
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Speaker 4: good morning, how you doing morning? You got the B
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Speaker 4: team today. Tom's been here the last couple of weeks
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Speaker 4: and he's been carrying the loan quite well.
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Speaker 5: Uh. Some beautiful drive in this morning again from Huntdam
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Speaker 5: County and on the radio I heard and kudos go
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Speaker 5: on a shout out to the students, the faculty, the
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Speaker 5: staff at George Washington Middle School for an award of
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Speaker 5: excellence in the English Language Arts area, which is extremely important.
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Speaker 5: You know, reading and writing is so important to students.
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Speaker 5: If you know, students get to the middle school level
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Speaker 5: with without refined reading skills, then you're behind the eight
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Speaker 5: ball and you're not going to be able to claw
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Speaker 5: your way out. But what's happened at GW I mean,
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Speaker 5: absenteeism is down twenty percent. Scores in the language arts
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Speaker 5: were up fifteen eighteen twenty percent, and we should all
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Speaker 5: be happy about that. It's a delightful school, you know.
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Speaker 5: Gw IS or George Washington Middle School, is located in Eleanor,
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Speaker 5: which is, you know, a community that popped up during
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Speaker 5: the Depression as a result of the Rural Redevelopment Resettlement Act,
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Speaker 5: mostly for coal miners from southern West Virginia who were
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Speaker 5: resettled at the Red House Farms with the promise of
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Speaker 5: land and ownership and farmsteads. It's turned into quite a
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Speaker 5: delightful community. It's just north of Winfield, but on the
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Speaker 5: opposite side of the river and about let's say eight
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Speaker 5: ten twelve miles south of what appears to be the
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Speaker 5: site of a data center. I was out of town
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Speaker 5: when that news hit. I really have sort of an
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Speaker 5: interest in the property that was conveyed because some of
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Speaker 5: it is part of my ancestral Oh. My great grandmother
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Speaker 5: was named Gearhart. There was a family of Gearhearts and
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Speaker 5: Sidon Strickers laniers over north of Buffalo. But on that
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Speaker 5: side of the river of farmers, and so when I
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Speaker 5: was a kid, we would go to the family reunions
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Speaker 5: which was on the gave Davy Gearheart's house and Wallace
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Speaker 5: Lanier's farm right there in the middle of this part.
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Speaker 5: The power company bought the property from relatives back in
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Speaker 5: the late sixties with the intention that they bought it
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Speaker 5: the name of Franklin Real Estate, which is the land
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Speaker 5: holding subsidiary of American Electric Power, with the intent at
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Speaker 5: that time John Amos was just being built being finished,
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Speaker 5: huge cooperative between a high power company and Appalachian Power,
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Speaker 5: big output, one of the largest in the country at
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Speaker 5: the time, that two more of those plants were going
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Speaker 5: to be built in the Buffalo area in some of
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Speaker 5: the bottom land, some of the land that's now occupied
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Speaker 5: by Toyota Motor Manufacturing, sort of in the fashion that
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Speaker 5: the power company did there north of Point Pleasant on
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Speaker 5: the Ohio River had the Sporn and they had other
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Speaker 5: mountaineer plants and have a cluster there together that never materialized.
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Speaker 5: The land has been sitting there, mostly farmed. It's all
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Speaker 5: to a farm exemption. A lot of the big time
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Speaker 5: swybean farmers and coin farmers leased the land for farming purposes.
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Speaker 5: Some people lease part of it from the power company
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Speaker 5: for hunt clubs. But you know, obviously American Electric Power
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Speaker 5: if they can get out of the real estate business
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Speaker 5: for land they don't need, they're going to do that.
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Speaker 5: Once the announcement was made, I read of it, and
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Speaker 5: there's some questions of rose folks were looking over at
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Speaker 5: the courthouse for a deed to google the Google by
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Speaker 5: this land. Well, you're not going to find any transfers
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Speaker 5: to Google. But if you know that Franklin Real Estate
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Speaker 5: is the holding company for American Electric Power, you look
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Speaker 5: at Franklin Real Estate and you see that Franklin Real
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Speaker 5: Estate actually sold some fifteen hundred and sixty five acres
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Speaker 5: of land to a company called Cumulus Group LLC for
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Speaker 5: twenty two point eight million dollars. That's real cash. Now
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Speaker 5: that's not all the land. There's another one hundred and
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Speaker 5: forty one acre track that's on the southern end of
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Speaker 5: this parcel that was owned by a company, well, the
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Speaker 5: Carry Foundation, which is a nonprofit North Carolina entity. The
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Speaker 5: name Carry implies and correctly that it's may not an
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Speaker 5: alter ego, but it's an entity that was created by
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Speaker 5: break Herey who was a huge mountaineer success story. When
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Speaker 5: I went to school with Brave, not him for like
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Speaker 5: almost sixty years. Nice guy to my estimation, and made
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Speaker 5: a big lick in the NASCAR, and you know Jefferson
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Speaker 5: Pilot when they first got into the into the football
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Speaker 5: broadcasting business down south. And then you know, I came
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Speaker 5: here to West Virginia, Watson TV stations, radio stations. I
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Speaker 5: don't know what Brave's doing now, but I mean they
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Speaker 5: he sold the foundation sold another one hundred and forty
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Speaker 5: one acres to this Cumulus group for seven million dollars.
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Speaker 5: So you've got a total of near thirty million dollars
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Speaker 5: that's been paid out for this land, which tells me
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Speaker 5: unlike some of the speculative goings on that have been
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Speaker 5: happening in Putnam County over the last year, where jobbers
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Speaker 5: and landmen try to go out and tie up some
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Speaker 5: commitments to sell without any real cash, this is real.
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Speaker 5: I mean, you don't pay thirty million dollars. The folks
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Speaker 5: that operate at this level for the land. They canical
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Speaker 5: where they can walk away from at thirty million dollars.
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Speaker 5: Maybe a dropping the bucket to whoever actually is the
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Speaker 5: manager of Cumulus group. But it would indicate to me
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Speaker 5: that it's a positive go which I think shifts the
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Speaker 5: burdener should shift some of the burdner impetus to our
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Speaker 5: local government there in Putnham County, the County Commission, the
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Speaker 5: Development Authority, you know, the mayors of Hurrice. Well, we
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Speaker 5: we've got Buffalo, Eleanor, Winfield, Hurricane, Bancroft and Nitro all
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Speaker 5: incorporated municipalities. The mayors the Development Authority when it seemed
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Speaker 5: to be incumbent on them. Now to let's let's go
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Speaker 5: out to the people that live here who have expressed
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Speaker 5: a lot of concern. And you can drive out Route
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Speaker 5: sixty two now towards Buffalo and what does the signs say?
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Speaker 5: No data center? Data center with the big slash, and
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Speaker 5: find out what we can find out. You know, I
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Speaker 5: think it was poor public policy by the legislature and
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Speaker 5: the governor when they passed this bill last year that
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Speaker 5: exempts all the information regarding the development of the data
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Speaker 5: centers from Freedom of Information Act requests. Well, decisions made
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Speaker 5: on ignorance are ignorant. You know, people suspect the worst,
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Speaker 5: and they always suspect the worst from government. But there
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Speaker 5: are if there's information that can be given out to
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Speaker 5: the public. I would hope that shortly, since in my mind,
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Speaker 5: with the expenditure of that kind of money on what's
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Speaker 5: a really lovely piece of property for development. It's great farmland.
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Speaker 5: But I tell you it's if you want to see
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Speaker 5: flat land in West Virginia on two tiers, one level,
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Speaker 5: right down by the river and on the plateau that
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Speaker 5: goes back to the hills, look what Toyota has done.
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Speaker 5: It's really good land, and it's on the river. There's
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Speaker 5: a railroad track that goes right through it. There's a
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Speaker 5: seven hundred and sixty thousand volt transmission line nearby it.
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Speaker 5: You know, it's it's perfect, I would think. But and
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Speaker 5: a lot of money's been paid. So let's get some
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Speaker 5: information out to the people in Putnam County and the
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Speaker 5: surrounding area about what we can expect. It's not rocket
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Speaker 5: science if you do to If you want to know
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Speaker 5: what a modern A modern one that was built recently,
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Speaker 5: not an old center maybe that's a dozen years old
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Speaker 5: that has problems with water usage, noise pollution, but a
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Speaker 5: modern center that was built recently. Go to Columbus. You
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Speaker 5: can get take her out thirty five to Chilicoffee, take
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Speaker 5: a right on Route twenty three and head up to Columbus.
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Speaker 5: And if you get just north of the racetrack casino
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Speaker 5: there north of Circleville, you'll see on the right hand
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Speaker 5: side out of the road acres and acres of these
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Speaker 5: sterile white buildings and hilling towers, and that is a
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Speaker 5: Google Data center, which I assume is the Google and
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Speaker 5: build them, I mean they operate them. I mean the
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Speaker 5: company like Cumulus Group that's a littlemited liability company formed
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Speaker 5: recently by an outfit called GDH Holdings. We don't know
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Speaker 5: who they are, but assume it's one of the large
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Speaker 5: like Digital Realty or somebody who builds these centers. They operate,
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Speaker 5: you know, they get paid by Google to provide the center.
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Speaker 5: Google operates them. But you know it's within two hours.
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Speaker 5: Drive up there and see what it's like. Talk to
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Speaker 5: the officials in Franklin County, talk to the city officials
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Speaker 5: in the Circleville and the city officials in the Columbus
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Speaker 5: and the surrounding area, and get some information out to
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Speaker 5: our people so that we don't sit here in the
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Speaker 5: dark fearing the worst. It just seem to me to
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Speaker 5: be basic, but maybe I'm just too basic. Do not
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Speaker 5: stay and on. We don't have to tell you that
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Speaker 5: because the law says we don't. To me, that's just
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Speaker 5: bad public policy. And you're asking for trouble. Now was
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Speaker 5: that going to happen? I don't know. I'm not involved
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Speaker 5: in in county government. Certainly, you know we've got representatives.
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Speaker 5: We've got Senator Grady, Senator tar any number of House members,
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Speaker 5: the five I believe that represent all our parts of
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Speaker 5: Putnam County. So let's get hopefully we'll get the ball rolling.
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Speaker 5: And I think the public if there's some established interest
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Speaker 5: group there, not mean spirited, not accusatory, not operating on
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Speaker 5: the presumption that this is somehow a crooked deal, but
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Speaker 5: that has a real interest in seeing. Since it's going
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Speaker 5: to be here, let's get the best we can get
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Speaker 5: and start having some public proceedings to help shepherd this
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Speaker 5: thing into existence the best we can do, and don't
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Speaker 5: start off with on badfoot with what's somewhat secreted. Now
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Speaker 5: that that's, of course, that's my little soapbox for today
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Speaker 5: about that. I did enough research online about the title
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Speaker 5: of the property to tell me, and I actually posted
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Speaker 5: something about it on Facebook. So I said, look, folks, here,
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Speaker 5: here's who bought it, Here's what they paid for it.
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Speaker 5: And this indicates, you know, if you want to go
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Speaker 5: peeled back the next layer that's iung in to see
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Speaker 5: who GDH Holdings is this Delaware company. Do so. But
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Speaker 5: at the same time, if you're the county commission or
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Speaker 5: the development authority in Putnam County, or our legislative delegation
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Speaker 5: to Charleston, gets get together and have some really informative
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Speaker 5: meetings convocations to let the folks all over the county
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Speaker 5: and particularly in the in the Buffalo area know what's
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Speaker 5: going on, because it's going to happen. It's going to
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Speaker 5: get off the ground with either a bad taste in
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Speaker 5: everybody's mouth. There's always going to be a bad taste
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Speaker 5: in so mouth. If you lived on a farm down
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Speaker 5: in Buffalo, it's a nice, quiet farm community. And there
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Speaker 5: were some people who were opposed to Toyota because it
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Speaker 5: was going to infringe upon that sort of idyllic rural atmosphere.
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Speaker 5: And it's an old it's an old community. I mean
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Speaker 5: you just look at the names, uh, you know, Whittington,
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Speaker 5: cast Jeveta and Spath. I mean there are people Gearhart Lanear,
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Speaker 5: I mean there were there people who have been there
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Speaker 5: for decades. I actually think my ancestors were Hessians. There
12:28
Speaker 5: were Burgundians that just ran away from the Revolutionary War.
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Speaker 5: They were paid German mercenaries who got sick of it
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Speaker 5: and sort of filtered their way down into the Valley
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Speaker 5: of Virginia's and over here to the West Virginia and
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Speaker 5: established farming communities. And that's but that's all going to change.
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Speaker 5: So if some anyone out there has a position of influence,
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Speaker 5: I would encourage you to get a nice open minded attitude,
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Speaker 5: go to your elected representatives and say, hey, let's have
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Speaker 5: something here to get information out, let's talk to people,
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Speaker 5: let's get this thing off on the right foot. Because
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Speaker 5: with a thirty million dollar investment, the chance is that
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Speaker 5: this is going to happen. I'd say you're ninety percent plus.
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Speaker 4: What would you say, yeah, I mean that's obviously where
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Speaker 4: you're putting the money down. The one thing that I
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Speaker 4: found that's interesting about it, and I'm nowhere near an expert,
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Speaker 4: but when these data centers, and even last year, when
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Speaker 4: you know you started, you knew it was coming. It
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Speaker 4: would definitely come to West Virginia. When you started hearing
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Speaker 4: about these things being built, I started doing just some
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Speaker 4: reading on some different ones. And there's different ones all around.
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Speaker 4: Like you said, the newer ones, there's a lot of
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Speaker 4: newer ones that are being putting in. There's older ones
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Speaker 4: that are being managed. Northern Virginia actually, I think is
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Speaker 4: the largest repository of data centers in the world. I
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Speaker 4: think it has tons of them, and it ranges from
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Speaker 4: the ones that were being installed a decade ago to
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Speaker 4: the newer ones. And they manage the whole thing. They
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Speaker 4: do economic reports every year, and they did the whole
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Speaker 4: thing transparently, so like the constituency knew what's going on.
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Speaker 4: They put out reports every year and they're fairly honest
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Speaker 4: about it. They talk about economic benefits were immense, but
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Speaker 4: it was mostly during construction so much once they got
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Speaker 4: the things built up. Nothing wrong with that. It creates
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Speaker 4: a huge talk space for payers that are there that
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Speaker 4: it helps with that. It does affect the environment some
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Speaker 4: and there's some questions about demand of electricity, but right
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Speaker 4: now it's okay. I mean, there's a pretty good report
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Speaker 4: that Virginia does that You can go out the flip
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Speaker 4: side of that I was reading about some stuff that
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Speaker 4: I think Elon Musk put in in Louisiana last year,
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Speaker 4: and it was the complete opposite. It was all done
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Speaker 4: under secrecy. It was all done like like cash grab,
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Speaker 4: build it as quick as you can, and the constituents
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Speaker 4: are all up in arms. There's a lot of noise
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Speaker 4: or pollution, private property being degraded in things along those lines.
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Speaker 4: So doing it the right way looks like it's massively profitable.
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Speaker 5: Indeed, indeed, it could be you know, the second leading
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Speaker 5: area in the world for data centers in the Middle East. Yeah,
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Speaker 5: right right, and I'm on the United Air of Emirates.
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Speaker 5: Now you throw that factor in, and so let's suppose
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Speaker 5: that GDH stands for Global Data Hibs. Global Data Hibs
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Speaker 5: is a is a Qatar company, So it's now moved
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Speaker 5: into Canada, and they may want to compete in the
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Speaker 5: United States. So they let people get a whip with
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Speaker 5: the fact that there's a Middle Eastern company that's actually
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Speaker 5: behind this, But we can't tell you who, we can't
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Speaker 5: tell you why. We're not going to talk about it.
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Speaker 5: You talk about conspiracy theories that can originate. Next thing
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Speaker 5: we're going to hear about is it going to be
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Speaker 5: governed by sure real law. Yeah, that's unfortunate. The other
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Speaker 5: unfortunate thing, and the legislature should change this, and I
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Speaker 5: don't you know they're not going to. But the property
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Speaker 5: tax that is generated by these data centers in West Virginia,
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Speaker 5: fifty percent of that money goes into a fund dedicated
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Speaker 5: to reduction of the personal income tax. Well, what is
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Speaker 5: fair about whatever inconvenience is involved with this data center
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Speaker 5: that's inflicted upon the current rural lifestyle residents of the
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Speaker 5: town of Buffalo. About subjecting them to that, but taking
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Speaker 5: half the tax money not for roads and bridges and
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Speaker 5: schools and sidewalks and sewer systems to make Putnam County
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Speaker 5: more of a paired ice, but to go to a
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Speaker 5: fund to reduce the income tax for some land company
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Speaker 5: in Philadelphia that owns fifty thousand acres in Rawley County.
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Speaker 5: I mean, what's fair about that? Nothing? Nothing, And in
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Speaker 5: the legislation that's terrible public policy. In my estimation, the
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Speaker 5: legislature should change it. They won't because the powers that
16:30
Speaker 5: be want a zero income tax, and you know we're
16:34
Speaker 5: going to have to pay for part of that through
16:36
Speaker 5: the inconvenience of our citizens. That's apparently the way it runs.
16:39
Speaker 5: That's why elections make a difference, which segues into my
16:44
Speaker 5: next topic. Hobby and I we know each other. I
16:47
Speaker 5: haven't talked to Hoppy in a long time since he
16:49
Speaker 5: went off the air, but for some reason, the topics
16:55
Speaker 5: that I come up with for Thursdays when I'm on
16:58
Speaker 5: air sort of integrate with his commentary. So his commentary today,
17:05
Speaker 5: which is I'm sure will be somewhat controversial. You cannot
17:09
Speaker 5: comment online anymore on the commentary. I guess there's some
17:14
Speaker 5: some issue with Facebook about whether the comments could be posted.
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Speaker 4: They're not.
17:17
Speaker 5: I always enjoyed reading the comments, but it's about, you know,
17:21
Speaker 5: the Space program, and then the comments of President Trump
17:24
Speaker 5: about the you know, let's civilization will cease to exist
17:30
Speaker 5: and never to be heard from again. You know, most
17:34
Speaker 5: people consider that inappropriate language for the president, leader of
17:37
Speaker 5: the free world. But there's a persistent hum among my
17:44
Speaker 5: liberal colleagues and Democrats. You know, we first thought in
17:47
Speaker 5: the first term of Donald Trump, everybody thought Bob Muller
17:52
Speaker 5: was going to be the Cape Crusader, that oh, the hero,
17:57
Speaker 5: Yeah right, right, But Bob Muller was an eminently ethical
18:03
Speaker 5: and a conscientious man of great public service who rendered
18:07
Speaker 5: a report and objectively reported on the number one, there
18:11
Speaker 5: was a Russian counterespionize program involved in trying to disrupt
18:16
Speaker 5: over all the twenty sixteen election, not coordinated with the
18:20
Speaker 5: Trump campaign. If you want to find out if that's
18:22
Speaker 5: true or not, ask Mike Warner, who was our Secretary
18:25
Speaker 5: of State, who put together about a thirty minute program
18:28
Speaker 5: detailing how that happened. And Mike's his experience in the
18:31
Speaker 5: army as a West Point grad was an intelligence officer.
18:35
Speaker 5: Now he found no relationship that was prosecutable against between
18:39
Speaker 5: the Trump administration and the Russians. And that's that. I mean,
18:42
Speaker 5: it's just not a silver bullet. Now. Of the silver
18:45
Speaker 5: bullet that's led this year is the Epstein files. Well,
18:49
Speaker 5: the Epstein files to me showed nothing but the fact
18:51
Speaker 5: that there are an elite group of really spoiled, really
18:54
Speaker 5: rich baby boomers who travel around the world, completely insulated
19:00
Speaker 5: from the way the rest of us live, and if
19:01
Speaker 5: they have proclivities that are weird or perverted, they engage
19:06
Speaker 5: in them almost with impunity. But that's not going to
19:11
Speaker 5: lead to the downfall of Donald Trump because it's just
19:14
Speaker 5: not now I see it's time to invoke the twenty
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Speaker 5: fifth amendment. How many times have we heard in the
19:23
Speaker 5: last three weeks, particularly this week, let's invote the twenty
19:28
Speaker 5: fifth amendment. Well, what is the twenty fifth amendment? So
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Speaker 5: that was my topic for today, the twenty fifth of men.
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Speaker 4: Well, should we take a break and come back and
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Speaker 4: do it? You just want to do it, Let's do that.
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Speaker 4: Let's go ahead, take a break, come back with Harvey
19:40
Speaker 4: Payton from the Peyton Law Froom. If you have any
19:42
Speaker 4: questions about what we're talking about or any questions for Harvey,
19:44
Speaker 4: of course you can give him a call. The number
19:47
Speaker 4: here this morning is three zero four, three four five
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Speaker 4: fifty eight fifty eight three four five fifteen fifteen. You
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Speaker 4: can text over your questions as well to three zero
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Speaker 4: four none, three five fives zero zero eight. Threes are
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Speaker 4: four nine three five fives zero zero eight. You can
19:57
Speaker 4: find more about the Paytonlaw for one line. It's Peyton
19:59
Speaker 4: Law from the y t Inn Peyton Lawfirm dot com.
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Speaker 4: And we have a text message we'll get to when
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Speaker 4: we come back, so you can get along one of the
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Speaker 4: text message three or four nine three five five zero
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Speaker 4: zero eight, will take a break and be backright after this.
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Speaker 4: You're listening to ask the lawyer with Harvey Payton from
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Speaker 4: the Payton Law Firm on WHS the Voice of Charleston.
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Speaker 1: Why do people.
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Speaker 3: Trust Peyton Law Firm for personal injury claims in West Virginia? Simple,
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Speaker 3: Tom and Harvey Payton are lifelong West Virginians. They live here,
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Speaker 3: they work here, and they're proud to stand up for
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Speaker 3: their neighbors. If you've been hurt and want no nonsense
20:32
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Speaker 3: Peyton Law Firm dot com to learn more.
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Speaker 1: The attorney's referenced in this ad or lifelong residents and
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Speaker 1: are licensed to practice law in the state of West Virginia.
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Speaker 6: Builders Association of Greater Charleston April tenth, eleventh, and twelfth
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21:27
Speaker 4: You're listening to ask the lawyer faud a NEWCCHS the
21:30
Speaker 4: Voice for Charleston. You can give Harvey a call this
21:32
Speaker 4: morning three zero four three four five fifty to fifty eight.
21:34
Speaker 4: You can text over question three zero four non three
21:36
Speaker 4: five five seers your eight. We got a text lone
21:38
Speaker 4: question from the seven six zero nine hundred. The question
21:42
Speaker 4: is why the affuscation of business names? This is going
21:45
Speaker 4: back to talking about the data center. What we're assuming
21:49
Speaker 4: is the data center land purchase in Putman County, and
21:52
Speaker 4: we were talking about the different the LLCs and different
21:55
Speaker 4: things that were layered with that, and so the text
21:57
Speaker 4: are asked, why the affuscation of business names? What's the
21:59
Speaker 4: benefit of hiding who the main operator is behind multiple
22:03
Speaker 4: different business names.
22:04
Speaker 5: Well, you know that assumes that hiding the operators is
22:08
Speaker 5: the intent. I mean cumulus group. Cumulus is a form
22:12
Speaker 5: of cloud that a nice play on words for a
22:15
Speaker 5: data center is a West Virginia company. It's a limited
22:18
Speaker 5: liability company formed last September by the sole member GDH.
22:25
Speaker 5: You can find out who GDH is because it's a
22:29
Speaker 5: Delaware corporation. I didn't know the extra step because you
22:33
Speaker 5: have to pay for that information in Delaware. I thought, well,
22:36
Speaker 5: I'm not getting paid to look this up, so I'm sorry,
22:38
Speaker 5: not going to pay out just to find that. But
22:41
Speaker 5: that's not at all uncommon to do business with the
22:45
Speaker 5: local entity, and particularly in West Virginia because the law
22:48
Speaker 5: in favor of limited liability companies here is quite clear
22:51
Speaker 5: and quite restrictive about asserting any liability against the principles
22:55
Speaker 5: of that company. So once again, that's one of those
22:58
Speaker 5: things that if we had the county Commission said well
23:02
Speaker 5: let's get some information, you could commission somebody didn't have
23:05
Speaker 5: to be a lawyer, can be an administrator. Look into this.
23:08
Speaker 5: See who this company is. Is it dig Realty, is
23:12
Speaker 5: it Global Data Hubs? What is it? Uh? It do
23:18
Speaker 5: not imply some malevolent intent from the unknown. I think
23:22
Speaker 5: until you find out that there's some reason to be suspicious,
23:28
Speaker 5: I don't think it's a good thing to do. It
23:30
Speaker 5: points you in the wrong direction. So now if we
23:34
Speaker 5: can talk about, Oh, we have a call. I think
23:36
Speaker 5: we have a phone call as well. We have a
23:37
Speaker 5: caller that's called in this morning, I call it. Go ahead,
23:39
Speaker 5: what's your first name?
23:42
Speaker 6: Hello?
23:43
Speaker 4: Hey, what's your first name?
23:45
Speaker 7: Yeah? First name is rick I got a question for
23:47
Speaker 7: Harvey here. Sure, Rickie, my wife and I need to
23:50
Speaker 7: get a will give me like a synopsis or an outline.
23:55
Speaker 7: Just tell me the process that you go through. Go
23:57
Speaker 7: down to your office and then we talk and what
24:00
Speaker 7: happens after that place.
24:01
Speaker 5: Well, what we do is we spend about forty five
24:04
Speaker 5: minutes to an hour talking there in the office initially.
24:06
Speaker 5: So what are your general desires? What do you want
24:10
Speaker 5: to happen once you're both gone? Who are the natural objects?
24:15
Speaker 5: Who is your affection? Are there any particular reasons we
24:17
Speaker 5: need to restrict any particular beneficiary? They just sort of
24:23
Speaker 5: get to know each other, I mean people. We have
24:26
Speaker 5: to make a lot of inquiry now, you know, sometimes
24:28
Speaker 5: there may be drug issues in a family, there may
24:30
Speaker 5: be familial issues. Then we start to talk about, well,
24:34
Speaker 5: what do you have, Let's take a look at your
24:36
Speaker 5: retirement things. What do you need to do as far
24:38
Speaker 5: as beneficiaries get accurate information? And we prepare what we
24:44
Speaker 5: recommends documents for you and send them to you by
24:47
Speaker 5: email or by mail if you don't have email. You
24:50
Speaker 5: look them over if you have any questions, and come back.
24:53
Speaker 5: It takes about another forty five minutes to an hour
24:56
Speaker 5: to come in and discuss the final documents, get them executed,
25:01
Speaker 5: and then we scan them into our system digitally, so
25:03
Speaker 5: there's always a you know, a duplicate original. Now that's
25:07
Speaker 5: not good for a will, it's it certainly is good
25:10
Speaker 5: for powers of attorney and uh right, and then we
25:13
Speaker 5: give you we send you an invoice at the same
25:15
Speaker 5: time we send you the copy so you know what
25:17
Speaker 5: financially is involved before we come back in for the
25:20
Speaker 5: final visit and then you're good to go.
25:23
Speaker 7: Right, Okay, If my oldest daughter is going to be
25:26
Speaker 7: the executor, my other two kids live out of state,
25:28
Speaker 7: does she does she have to show up noon or anything?
25:33
Speaker 5: No, no, she does not. The only people who need
25:35
Speaker 5: to be there in personal course of those who are
25:37
Speaker 5: going to actually sign the documents. And we honestly some
25:40
Speaker 5: people come in, uh folks who maybe don't drive, they
25:43
Speaker 5: don't have a lot of mobility, they'll bring a child.
25:46
Speaker 5: But our our procedure always is that we need to
25:48
Speaker 5: speak to the people in private without whoever accompanies them,
25:54
Speaker 5: just to make sure in our minds that there's not
25:56
Speaker 5: some undue influence or shenanigan going on. So no, only
26:00
Speaker 5: you and your wife for who we need to talk to.
26:02
Speaker 5: If we think there's somebody else we need to talk
26:04
Speaker 5: to that will get the information from you and make
26:07
Speaker 5: the contact ourselves. How's that all right?
26:09
Speaker 7: One lasts question. I live across LANs, so call make
26:12
Speaker 7: an appointment. So do the initial consultation or just show up?
26:16
Speaker 7: Or how do we do this?
26:17
Speaker 3: Call?
26:17
Speaker 5: Make an appointment?
26:19
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, okay, you answered it. Appreciate it.
26:23
Speaker 5: Thank you pretty painless.
26:24
Speaker 4: Appreciate your call. Thanks a lot, and that phone number
26:26
Speaker 4: two if you want to make your appointment is threes
26:28
Speaker 4: are a four seven five five fifty five fifty six
26:30
Speaker 4: three zero four seven five five fifty five fifty six.
26:32
Speaker 4: One last time, threes are A four fifty five fifty six.
26:35
Speaker 4: If you need to call and make that, make that appointment.
26:38
Speaker 5: Okay. So the twenty fifth Amendment. I remember, I'm one
26:43
Speaker 5: of those people who are alive on Earth today. Remember
26:45
Speaker 5: that terrible Friday afternoon in November nineteen sixty three, when
26:49
Speaker 5: John Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas. You know, at
26:53
Speaker 5: that time the murder of a president was not a
26:56
Speaker 5: federal offense. Imagine that upon his based upon the succession
27:03
Speaker 5: set forth in the United States Constitution, Lyndon Johnson became president. Well,
27:07
Speaker 5: Lindon Johnson had suffered a severe, almost debilitating heart attack,
27:13
Speaker 5: and I think nineteen fifty seven almost killed him, and
27:15
Speaker 5: eventually his heart attack did kill him. But fifteen years later,
27:19
Speaker 5: so here we've got no vice president. That had happened
27:22
Speaker 5: any number of times before, I know, we've had I
27:27
Speaker 5: think at the time Kennedy was murdered that he was
27:30
Speaker 5: the eighth He was certainly the fourth American president assassinated
27:34
Speaker 5: within the span of ninety eight years. Think about that.
27:37
Speaker 5: That doesn't really put us much above the Balkan countries.
27:41
Speaker 5: But we had had eight separate circumstances where we did
27:44
Speaker 5: not have a vice president, either because the vice president
27:47
Speaker 5: died in office or the president died in office has succeeded.
27:52
Speaker 5: So what do we do and what do you do
27:55
Speaker 5: then about? Well, look, we've got London here who's had
27:58
Speaker 5: a heart attack. What if he has another heart attack.
28:00
Speaker 5: Dwight Eisenhoer had a severe heart attack while he was
28:03
Speaker 5: in office. Who's going to run the country. We'd had
28:06
Speaker 5: the experience of James Garfield who was shot. Most people
28:09
Speaker 5: believe that his wife, Lucretia, who was quite bright, ran
28:14
Speaker 5: the country for the summer. That Garfield's languished almost comatose,
28:18
Speaker 5: victim of a gunshot wound. And there's no question that
28:21
Speaker 5: Edith Wilson ran the show after Woodrow Wilson had a
28:24
Speaker 5: severe stroke and think either twenty or nineteen seventeen or eighteen,
28:30
Speaker 5: probably was not capable of exercising the duties of the office.
28:33
Speaker 5: But his wife simply isolated him from everyone else and said, well,
28:37
Speaker 5: here's what the president said today. So Congress thought, all
28:41
Speaker 5: right here, and now we've got to come to grips
28:43
Speaker 5: with this. And in nineteen sixty five, the twenty fifth
28:46
Speaker 5: Amendment was proposed to the States. It was ratified in
28:50
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty seven. It is a four part amendment. The
28:55
Speaker 5: first section, of course, just clears up that in case
28:58
Speaker 5: of the removal, death, or resignation of the President, the
29:02
Speaker 5: vice president shall become president. That a matter of some
29:04
Speaker 5: mannis there was always a question it was largely academic.
29:09
Speaker 5: Whether the vice president was the acting president for the
29:12
Speaker 5: resident of the term, or actually became the president upon
29:16
Speaker 5: the death or resignation, then it provides. Whenever there's a
29:19
Speaker 5: vacancy in the office of vice president, which has happened
29:23
Speaker 5: a number of times. You know, it's happened twice since
29:26
Speaker 5: the twenty fifth Amendment was adopted, the president nominates a
29:31
Speaker 5: vice president and that person has to subject themselves to
29:35
Speaker 5: confirmation by a majority vote of both houses of Congress.
29:39
Speaker 5: So Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace. He was Nixon's vice president.
29:44
Speaker 5: He was charged with and convicted of a crime of
29:47
Speaker 5: bribery during his time as governor of Maryland. He resigned
29:50
Speaker 5: the office Nixon. Richard Dixon nominated Gerald Ford, who was
29:56
Speaker 5: at that time of quite popular member of the House
29:58
Speaker 5: of Representatives. Ford was thereupon confirmed by Congress. Well shortly
30:05
Speaker 5: thereafter President Nixon resigned, and there so now we have
30:09
Speaker 5: President Ford. He nominated Nelson Rockfellow, the Nelson Rockefeller for
30:16
Speaker 5: the balance of Ford's term. He wasn't the candidate for
30:21
Speaker 5: vice president. I think Bill Miller was. When Gerald Ford
30:26
Speaker 5: ran for re election and lost to Jimmy Carter, So
30:28
Speaker 5: that's been applied twice. And then Section three we've also
30:34
Speaker 5: seen that applied. If the President himself feels that he'll
30:37
Speaker 5: be unable to carry out his duties, he can notify
30:40
Speaker 5: the Speaker of the House and the President pro Tem
30:44
Speaker 5: of the Senate. That's not John Thun. The President pro
30:47
Speaker 5: Tem of the Senate is an honorary position selected by
30:50
Speaker 5: the senators. Right now, it's Charles Grassley, generally the senior
30:54
Speaker 5: person of the Majority party. Reagan, Remember, Reagan had plon cancer.
31:00
Speaker 5: I had to have some polyps removed. So he turned
31:04
Speaker 5: over his responsibilities to George H. W. Bush while he
31:07
Speaker 5: was undergoing the surgical procedure for under general anesthetic, and
31:13
Speaker 5: then George W. Bush twice during his term. He's you know,
31:16
Speaker 5: he turned sixty and he had regular colonoscopies which required
31:21
Speaker 5: him to undergo a period of either general anesthesia or
31:24
Speaker 5: like twilight sleep, and so he turned the reins over
31:28
Speaker 5: temporarily to extinct to Cheney. Sure, that's so, that's been
31:34
Speaker 5: used a couple of occasions. But what we're talking about
31:37
Speaker 5: when people talk throw around, you know, I've seen this
31:40
Speaker 5: the logo now twenty five forty seven, which implies, let's vote. Well,
31:46
Speaker 5: that's section four of the twenty fifth Amendment, which has
31:50
Speaker 5: never been used. And here's what's required whenever the Vice
31:55
Speaker 5: president now today, that would be JD. Vance and a
31:59
Speaker 5: majority of the principal officers of executive departments. That means
32:04
Speaker 5: a majority of the cabinet appointed cabinet appointed cabinet appointed
32:09
Speaker 5: by the President, right and confirmed by the Senate. So
32:12
Speaker 5: you've got to get the vice president and a majority
32:15
Speaker 5: of the cabinet to transmit to Charles Grassley and Mike
32:19
Speaker 5: Johnson a written declaration that the president is unable to
32:23
Speaker 5: discharge the powers and duties of his office. Now, once
32:26
Speaker 5: that written declaration is sent over, which is practically impossible,
32:32
Speaker 5: stop talking about this. It's not going to happen.
32:36
Speaker 4: The other I heard another clever thing about this as
32:39
Speaker 4: far as from the administrator standpoint, this isn't going to
32:41
Speaker 4: happen anyway. But I heard another caveat to this whole thing.
32:44
Speaker 4: There's a lot of acting people acting in roles that
32:47
Speaker 4: that that that haven't been approved in the roles people
32:50
Speaker 4: that are that aren't actual cabinet appointments that it would
32:55
Speaker 4: be hard to get the majority of cabinet appointments because
32:57
Speaker 4: there's not the actual approved cabinet. Could there's been so
33:00
Speaker 4: much crossing over of things. Well that might have been
33:02
Speaker 4: mostly during his last term, but that was one of
33:04
Speaker 4: the ways that they insulated themselves.
33:05
Speaker 5: I would think that from a legal standpoint, it would
33:07
Speaker 5: be those the majority of those executive officers who are
33:11
Speaker 5: that are appointed and confirmed by the Senate never want
33:15
Speaker 5: to happen now that once that written petition is filed
33:18
Speaker 5: with the President pro Tem and the Speaker, then the
33:20
Speaker 5: Vice president immediately assumes the powers. Oh that's straightforward. If
33:25
Speaker 5: we just convinced JD. Vance and Pete had Seth and Mark,
33:31
Speaker 5: Wayne Mullen and the others to turn on Donald Trump,
33:34
Speaker 5: we could just JD. Can just assume the Irish acting president.
33:38
Speaker 5: But no, no, no. Thereafter, the president can submit his
33:44
Speaker 5: own written declaration to the President ProTem of the Senate
33:49
Speaker 5: and the Speaker of the House saying hey, I'm not disabled,
33:52
Speaker 5: there is no disability. And then then it's up to
33:59
Speaker 5: the Vice president and a majority within four days of
34:02
Speaker 5: that declaration to submit another declaration saying that the president's
34:07
Speaker 5: unable to carry out his duties. And if that happens,
34:10
Speaker 5: then Congress must be reconvened within twenty four hours, and
34:13
Speaker 5: I have twenty one days to decide the issue. Well,
34:16
Speaker 5: is the president right when he says he can do
34:18
Speaker 5: his job or is the vice president majority of the
34:22
Speaker 5: of the cabinet correct? And Congress has to decide that.
34:25
Speaker 5: And unless two thirds of both houses of Congress find
34:29
Speaker 5: the president unable to carry out his duties, he resumes
34:32
Speaker 5: the full duties of his office. That is a stronger
34:36
Speaker 5: majority than this is required to impeach a president. So
34:40
Speaker 5: it's just not going to happen. And it is a
34:45
Speaker 5: very complex, very high burden, as it should be.
34:51
Speaker 4: The thing that strikes me about it is Congress must
34:54
Speaker 4: reconvene in order to put that. Why don't Congress just
34:56
Speaker 4: get together anyway and then we can actually do their job.
35:00
Speaker 4: They don't have to worry about the twenty fifth Amendment.
35:01
Speaker 4: Just legislate. They're supposed to be coequal branches.
35:05
Speaker 5: Certainly, and the answer is not to whine about the
35:11
Speaker 5: twenty fifth Amendment, which is never going to be.
35:14
Speaker 4: That's like one line in probaby.
35:16
Speaker 5: Stuff is just more and more things that people volunteer
35:21
Speaker 5: to get mad about, you know.
35:24
Speaker 4: And they feel better meaning it or whatever. They share
35:26
Speaker 4: their little picture or whatever. They've done their job for
35:28
Speaker 4: the day.
35:29
Speaker 5: Elections matter. Donald Trump was elected President of the United
35:34
Speaker 5: States in November twenty twenty four. He is going to
35:39
Speaker 5: serve hopefully, I mean, I don't want the man to
35:42
Speaker 5: die or become disabled. He will serve out his term
35:45
Speaker 5: and leave office in January twenty twenty nine. And that's
35:51
Speaker 5: what's going to happen. So what matters are elections, like
35:55
Speaker 5: the midterm election, like local elections, and not things like
35:59
Speaker 5: Bob Muller's going to be the magic bullet, whether there's
36:03
Speaker 5: something hidden in the Epstein files that's going to save
36:05
Speaker 5: us all from ourselves, or that somehow JD. Vance and
36:09
Speaker 5: and a rogue cabinet is going to remove and that
36:14
Speaker 5: two thirds of the House and two thirds of the
36:17
Speaker 5: Senate are going to stand by the not gonna happen.
36:19
Speaker 5: So PET Law Firm, Night Fair, West, Virginia, Peytonlawfirm dot Com.
36:24
Speaker 5: If you have suffered a loss or an injury, you
36:27
Speaker 5: need a lawyer who's confident, knowledgeable, and hard working to
36:31
Speaker 5: help you, and who lives here and works here for
36:34
Speaker 5: like a cumulative of eighty years between my son and
36:38
Speaker 5: I called the PET Law Firm. We're here to help people, okay.
36:44
Speaker 4: Peyton Law Firm three zero four seven five five fifty
36:46
Speaker 4: five fifty six seven five five fifty five fifty six
36:49
Speaker 4: three zer of four seven five five fifty five fifty
36:51
Speaker 4: six at NIRO West Virginia, Payton Law Firm dot com.
36:53
Speaker 4: P E Y t O N. Payton Lawfirm dot Com
36:55
Speaker 4: for more information. Every Thursday right here on five ad
36:58
Speaker 4: W CHS. Harvey will see you are Tom.
37:00
Speaker 5: Next week, well one of us will be here the
37:01
Speaker 5: either the eight team with Thom or the B team
37:03
Speaker 5: with me.
37:04
Speaker 4: Havergerd Day Everyone Day Balance up next. I'll be back
37:06
Speaker 4: this afternoon at three oh six with Dave Weekly. Have
37:09
Speaker 4: a great day listening to five adw CHS. We are
37:11
Speaker 4: your voice for.
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