Aaron Smith-Levin

So they will, even though I'm not aware of anyone on the Clearwater PD who's actually a Scientologist, they basically end up with, they would call them allies or safe points, right?

People who like will literally operate as Scientology spies.

If someone comes in and follows a report about some child sex case, someone in the Clearwater PD is calling Sarah Heller at the Office of Special Affairs at the Flying Aladdin base to let her know, hey, heads up, we got a thing coming in.

And then Scientology can run around and go talk to all the Scientologists who have knowledge about this and either get them out of Clearwater.

Yeah, I call it soft corruption.

So another example, you have the mayor of Clearwater, Frank Hibbard.

Well, he used to, when he won his recent election, he stepped down from some of these nonprofits that he served on.

But the nonprofits that he served on also gets millions of dollars of donations from some of Scientology's richest Clearwater members, right?

You have one of the mayor's best friends, Joe Burdett, literally a paid lobbyist for Scientology.

So that creates a chilling effect on anyone who's going to be talking smack about Scientology because...

His friends are on their damn payroll.

So I call it soft corruption.

It's not illegal.

It's not illegal.

But it's how Scientology wields influence.

And what's ironic is that a lot of these people who work on Scientology's behalf actually secretly hate Scientology.

No.

I think it's one of those things that once you've seen behind the curtain and you see the Wizard of Oz, it's just a silly man.

You just don't have any fear.

Now, it's one of these things like people say, oh, you're so brave.