12th Annual Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival Celebrates Truth-Tellers and Showcases Impactful Film

The following is a guest column by Michael McCray, a leading public interest advocate for civil and human rights. An attorney and CPA, he co-founded and co-hosted with fellow whistleblower Marcel Reid the annual Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival, which concluded on Sunday, Aug. 4, after nearly two weeks of documentary films and program events in its 12th annual conference in Washington, DC.

McCray, right, author of the breakthrough book Race, Power & Politics: Memoirs of an ACORN whistleblower with Reid, also launched his latest book, Community Capital: Race, Equity and the Credit Union Movement, co-authored with Clifford N. Rosenthal.

The Justice Integrity Project each year serves on the Summit and Film Festival host committee, and this year recommended for inclusion a documentary film tribute by John Barbour and Len Osanic, A Tribute to William Pepper: The Greatest Piece of Investigative Journalism in 75 Years. The film, winner of the Audience Choice Award at the festival, recognized the courageous research and advocacy of the late author and attorney Dr. William F. Pepper to find the hidden truths behind the assassinations of his 1960s colleagues, The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a close friend, and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.

– Andrew Kreig / Justice Integrity Project Editor

12th Annual Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival Celebrates Truth-Tellers and Showcases Impactful Film

By Michael McCray, J.D., C.P.A.

The 12th Annual Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival concluded with resounding success, showcasing the vital role of whistleblowers in society and honoring those who speak truth to power.

• This year’s event, co-hosted by ACORN 8 and American University, expanded its reach through live-streaming and new partnerships with Free Speech TV and the Martha Mitchell House & Whistleblower Museum in Arkansas. The Summit featured engaging panel discussions on critical topics, including working with Congress and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, along with lessons learned on guardianship and law enforcement challenges.

  Highlights of the summit included:

• National Whistleblower Appreciation Day at American University, featuring sessions on community whistleblowing and intelligence community insights.
• A world premiere of A Film Tribute to William F. Pepper by five-time Emmy Award-winner John Barbour and Len Osanic, exploring in depth the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
• An interview with global environmentalist Allan Savory, President of the Savory Institute.
• Screening of impactful films, including If It Could Happen to Me..” addressing homelessness.
• Book launches of Community Capitol: Race, Equity, and the Credit Union Movement and The Complete Annotated Durham ‘Russiagate’ Report (2nd Edition).

“This year’s summit and film festival have once again demonstrated the crucial role whistleblowers play in maintaining transparency and accountability in our society,” said Marcel Reid, Festival Director. “We’re proud to provide a platform that celebrates these brave individuals and the filmmakers who tell their stories.”

The film festival, running through August 4, showcased outstanding works across various categories. Please see next page for a list notable winners.

 

Notable Winners in the Film Festival Included:

• Best Feature: “Kemba” directed by Kelley Kali
• Best Documentary: “The Nine O’clock Whistle” directed by Willa Cofield and Karen Riley
• Impact Award: “If It Could Happen to Me, It Could Happen to You” directed by Gwendolyn G. Cassady
• Audience Choice: “A Tribute to William Pepper” directed by John Barbour and Len Osanic

The summit also honored distinguished individuals with Pillar Awards, recognizing their contributions to whistleblowing and truth-telling:

• Martha Mitchell Award: Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), right, (posthumous)
• Shaw-Marvin Award: Blurred Lines – IDF Soldiers
• Frank Wills Award: John Kiriakou, Intelligence Community Whistleblower
• Grace Lee Boggs Award: Lily Greenberg Call, White House Whistleblower on Gaza
• Journalism Award: Kevin Gostozla, Journalist

  For those who missed the live events, an encore presentation will be available during International Fraud Awareness Week (November 17-23). But it’s not too late to watch all of our award-nominated films online (see below) at https://www.whistleblowersummit.com/film-festival-screenings.

  Best Feature: Kemba, Directed by Kelley Kali
  Finalist Best Feature: Thank You, Amelia Earhart, Directed by Al Mertens
  Semi-finalist Best Feature: Countably Uncommon, Directed by Rich Dow

  Best Documentary: The Nine O’clock Whistle, Directed by Willa Cofield, Karen Riley
  Finalist Best Documentary: It Isn’t JUST Politics, Directed by Liza Asner
  Semi-finalist Best Documentary: Manufacturing The Threat, Directed by Amy Miller

  Impact Award: If It Could Happen to Me, It Could Happen to You, Directed by Gwendolyn G. Cassady
  Finalist Impact Award: Uprooted, Directed by Brandi Kellam
  Semi-finalist Impact Award: We Will Not Be Silenced, Directed by Luis Solarat

  Audience Choice: A Tribute to William Pepper: The Greatest Piece of Investigative Journalism in 75 Years, Produced by John Barbour and Len Osanic. The film may be viewed at no charge here.

  Best Short: Call Them Athletes, Directed by Torin Jade Ives
  Finalist Best Short: More Than Brothers, Directed by Andrea von Siebenthal
  Semi-finalist Best Short: A Clean Slate, Directed by Tran Hoang Calvin

  Best Screenplay: The Reconstruction of Huck Finn (Over Mark Twain’s Dead Body!), Written by Tim Plaehn
  Finalist Best Screenplay: Everybody Knows, Written by Rangeley Wallace
  Semi-finalist Best Screenplay: Gun Shop, Written by Dominic Benson Landes

  For more information about the Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival and to access recorded sessions, please visit (www.WhistleblowerSummit.com).

Contact the Editor Andrew Kreig

Related News About Summit & Film Festival Co-Founders

Michael McCray and Marcel Reid ACFE Ant-Fraud Keynote Speakers (Image by Association of Certified Fraud Examiners).

OpEdNews, ACORN 8 Whistleblowers Honored with Cliff Robertson Sentinel Award at the Largest Anti-Fraud Conference, June 28, 2021. Marcel Reid and Michael McCray, two of the ACORN 8 whistleblowers, addressed more than 5,000 anti-fraud professionals at the virtual 32nd Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference on June 21-23, 2021.

Attendees also heard from cybersecurity expert Robert Herjavec and former U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, shown at left in an official photo. In addition to hearing from these keynote speakers, attendees chose from more than 90 sessions taught by leaders in the anti-fraud field. The conference was emceed by Kate Snow, anchor of NBC Nightly News Sunday and an award-winning senior national correspondent for NBC News.

Reid and McCray received the Cliff Robertson Sentinel Award on behalf of the ACORN 8. The Sentinel was first awarded to Oscar-Winning actor Cliff Robertson in 2003, the ACFE’s Sentinel Award carries the inscription “For Choosing Truth Over Self.” This award is bestowed annually on a person who, without regard to personal or professional consequences, has publicly disclosed wrongdoing in business or government.

ACORN 8 discovered a multi-million-dollar embezzlement at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and ignited a media firestorm that engulfed the venerable association in 2008. A boogie man of the right, numerous detractors engaged the non-profit. Some were disgruntled, others fought for political or partisan advantage, only the ACORN 8 stood the test of time as credible whistleblowers.

“Without the A8 whistleblowers creed: Truth, Transparency & Accountability democracy cannot survive and justice is unattainable. I am deeply honored to receive the Cliff Robertson Sentinel Award because it perfectly describes what the A8 did–we told the truth” states Marcel Reid, ACORN 8. “I am proud to be associated with his memory.”

Cliff Robertson was a frequent critic of the movie industry. He once said he went to Hollywood only to work and never to live. He went on to blow the whistle on David Begelman, the president of Columbia Pictures, in 1977 after he discovered that Begelman had forged his name to a $10,000 studio check.  Begelman was subsequently accused of embezzling more than $61,000 from the studio. Robertson pressed his complaint against the advice of many in Hollywood who did not want Begelman to become a liability to the movie industry. Begelman pleaded no contest to charges of grand theft and was fined $5,000 and sentenced to three years’ probation. He was first suspended by Columbia Pictures and then fired.

In 2010, ACORN filed for bankruptcy to thwart public calls for transparency and accountability. “After the fall of ACORN, Wade Rathke dismissively asked ‘how are the A8 going to stay relevant?’ said McCray of ACORN 8. “I want to thank the ACFE for this award because it answers Rathke’s question — the truth will always be relevant. A8 is a group of the best community organizers in the association. Consequently, we organized the most unlikely community of all — whistleblowers.”

About the ACFE Conference and ACORN 8 Awardees

ACORN 8 (“A*”) remains a grassroots watchdog organization but their most enduring contribution is the A8 hosts the Annual Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival, which is an award-winning festival and the largest gathering of whistleblowers in the county.

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Inc., is the world’s largest anti-fraud organization and premier provider of anti-fraud training and education. Together with nearly 90,000 members, the ACFE is reducing business fraud worldwide and inspiring public confidence in the integrity and objectivity within the profession.

New Books Presented at 2024 Whistleblower Summit Include:

Community Capital

Community Capital: Race, Equity and the Credit Union Movement, by Clifford N. Rosenthal and Michael R. McCray (American Banner Books, 2024.) 

What does it take to bring financial justice to communities of color?

Cliff Rosenthal, shaped by the movements of the 1960s, fought for decades against government indifference and systemic bias—finally seeing change come after the death of George Floyd. Michael McCray, a renowned whistle-blower, led an unprecedented court challenge to the unjust federal termination of his fraternity’s Kappa Alpha Psi Federal Credit Union. Here for the first time you’ll find the inside story of the landmark KAPFCU v NCUA federal court case. These stories will inspire all those working to fulfill the promise of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the financial system.

About the Authors

Cliff Rosenthal, right, shaped by the movements of the 1960s, fought for decades against government indifference and systemic bias—finally seeing change come after the death of George Floyd. Michael McCray, a renowned whistle-blower, led an unprecedented court challenge to the unjust federal termination of his fraternity’s Kappa Alpha Psi Federal Credit Union. Here for the first time you’ll find the inside story of the landmark KAPFCU v NCUA federal court case. These stories will inspire all those working to fulfill the promise of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the financial system.

After receiving his master’s degree in Russian history at Columbia University, Clifford Rosenthal worked as a freelance translator while organizing food cooperatives in New York City and Connecticut. He brought his skills to successive nonprofit jobs for a statewide Indigenous organization and a national farmworker advocacy organization. He joined the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions in 1980, becoming its executive director in 1983. Under his leadership, the federation became the credit union industry’s leading voice on issues affecting low-income and minority communities. To bring resources to the federation’s member credit unions, he launched its Capitalization Program, raising more than $100 million from faith-based and social investors, foundations, banks, and government. He cofounded and co-led the coalition that successfully advocated for the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. He personally assisted the organizing of nearly a dozen credit unions around the country and wrote Organizing Credit Unions: A Manual.

After leaving the federation (now known as Inclusiv) in 2012, he headed the Office of Financial Empowerment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In 2018 he published the groundbreaking volume, Democratizing Finance: Origins of the Community Development Financial Institutions Movement. He served on the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board and the advisory board of the New York City Office of Financial Empowerment. Rosenthal was honored with the highest awards of the National Credit Union Foundation, the Opportunity Finance Network, the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, and the Lawyers Alliance of New York City. Recognizing his aid after Hurricane Katrina, in 2009 the ASI Federal Credit Union in New Orleans named its community center after him. In 2019, he was inducted into the African-American Credit Union Coalition’s Hall of Fame.

Michael McCray was an advisor and official of the Kappa Alpha Psi Federal Credit Union. A public policy expert on community and economic development finance and grassroots organizing, Michael participated in KAPFCU’s rare, almost unprecedented battle to save the credit union, bringing its case to the second highest court in the land.

Michael is an alumnus of Georgetown Law, Howard University, American University, and Florida A&M University. His diverse educational and professional background includes Fortune 500 experience in marketing at Johnson & Johnson, Personal Products Company; accounting at Honeywell Information Systems; and investment banking at SunTrust Bank.

He began his career in community development finance when he worked for the Federal Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Communities (EZ/EC) Program, a White House Economic Development Initiative of the Clinton Administration. Michael also taught community development finance for the Graduate Community Development Program at Prairie View A&M University. He received statewide recognition from the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology, which in 2008 honored him as an Arkansas Peace and Justice Hero. In 2011, he published the breakthrough volume, Race, Power, andPolitics: Memoirs of an ACORN Whistleblower.

Most recently, McCray is a 2021 recipient of the Cliff Robertson Sentinel Award for his advocacy with the ACORN 8 from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). Eight courageous low-income board members fought back against the 400,000-member association and internal corruption following the embezzlement. Dubbed the ACORN 8, Michael McCray led the fight first as a national spokesman and then as a breakthrough author. His gripping memoir gives an insider’s account of ACORN at a crossroads and the rise and fall of the Rathke family empire. Tom Devine, leader of the Washington-based Government Accountability Project (GAP), called this story “one of the most important corporate whistleblower stories in twenty-five years.” It is the story of systematic waste, fraud, and abuse at a powerful nonprofit organization.

New Book: The Complete Annotated Durham ‘Russiagate’ Report: A Corrupt, Cruel Fraud by Andrew Kreig (Eagle View Books, 2024, 2nd Edition).

As a preview of the launch later this month of an updated second edition, the Summit audience hear from author and Whistleblower Summit co-host Andrew Kreig, including at the Summit Opening Plenary at the U.S. House Rayburn Building, at American University and during an insider’s tour of the National Press Club before the Summit Awards dinner at the club. Here is a preview of his book:

A timely new book exposes Justice Department Special Counsel John Durham and his 2023 report as a Trump-friendly probe that weaponized law enforcement against Trump’s opponents and absolved Trump supporters from their collusion with Russia to tilt the 2016 U.S. presidential election their way.

As Trump pursues a 2024 campaign to win back the presidency and inflict further revenge on his opponents using federal personnel as his tools, The Complete Annotated Durham ‘Russiagate’ Report examines how that pattern worked via Durham in his collaboration with Trump’s U.S. Attorney General William Barr, leading to the history-changing Supreme Court decisions July 1, 2024, granting wide immunity to Trump for “official” actions. Durham’s official report is presented along with exclusive, devastating critiques of his record and those of colleagues in partisan frame-ups.

The research begun 14 years ago is updated to include news from 2024 on other misleading findings by special counsels David Weiss and Robert Hur targeting the Biden Family. The book’s second edition reveals current Russian threats using spies, hackers and payoffs to advance deadly goals against U.S. targets and U.S.-allied targets, including Great Britain, France, Sweden, Ukraine, multiple West African nations and allegedly Israel.

The main case study, Durham’s report, shows that his zeal to protect his Trump patrons led him and like-minded colleagues to scapegoat targets who could not be convicted. Worse, he cherry-picked evidence to avoid documenting serious threats to U.S. elections from Russians and their nefarious U.S. allies. Revealed here is that four federal judges have vacated —- on grounds of prosecution misconduct —- convictions that had been won by Durham and his close colleagues.

About the Author.

Author Andrew Kreig, a Washington insider and investigator, relentlessly followed up a tip in 2010 about federal prosecutor John Durham to report this chilling tale — and to provide new hope for civic reformers and national security experts of all political viewpoints. The updated edition cites local news cutbacks as a factor in abuses. Kreig is an investigative reporter, attorney, author, radio host and non-profit executive based in Washington, DC. He leads the Justice Integrity Project, a non-partisan legal reform group. He earned law degrees from Yale Law School and the University of Chicago and covered the U.S. Justice Department full-time for five years as a Hartford Courant reporter based in Connecticut.

  Related News Coverage: Profile of Filmmaker and Author John Barbour

About the “Greatest Piece of Investigative Journalism in 75 Years: Barbour & Osanic’s Tribute to William F. Pepper”

This video, Greatest Piece of Investigative Journalism in 75 Years: Barbour & Osanic’s Tribute to William F. Pepper, available via YouTube, chronicles how the late human rights lawyer Dr. William F. Pepper became so convinced that convicted killers James Earl Ray, shown below at left, and Sirhan Sirhan could not possibly have killed MLK and RFK, respectively, that Pepper undertook an investigation to assess their innocence.

Only after being convinced of innocence did Pepper then represent Ray and Sirhan, arguing that they had been patsies who could not possibly have been the actual killers of the iconic 1960s civil rights leaders, both of them friends of Pepper’s.

Pepper, until his death a board member of the Justice Integrity Project founded by District Insiders co-host Andrew Kreig in 2010, published three books on the topic of MLK’s death, most recently The Plot To Kill King (2016). Also, Pepper won a civil trial in Memphis in 1999 obtaining a jury verdict naming a different killer than Ray, shown at left in a 1955 mug shot, who had died in 1998. Pepper argued that Ray had been a small-time criminal groomed by powerful King enemies to travel to King’s locale in Memphis at the time of the shooting but had not himself done it and had been pressured by his initial defense attorney to plead no contest to charges to avoid threats of a death penalty.

• Justice Integrity Project, Legacy Endures For Injustice Fighter William Pepper After April Death, Andrew Kreig, May 11, 2024. Dr. William (Bill) F. Pepper, an international civil and human rights attorney best known for defending the innocence of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s accused assassin, James Earl Ray, died at age 86 in New York City on April 7 after a long series of illnesses. Pepper had become a friend and close collaborator of King before King’s 1968 assassination and then undertook Ray’s defense post-conviction at the request of King Family members.

John Barbour Interview On ‘District Insiders’ About William Pepper

By Wayne Madsen and Andrew Kreig 

In the world of television, cinema, investigative reporting, storytelling, and comedy there is no greater a polymath than the multiple Emmy Award-winning John Barbour. Spanning some 75 years, Barbour’s career includes having hosted what many consider was television’s first reality show, Real People, which aired on NBC from 1979 to 1984. Instead of celebrities, the program featured regular folks having unusual jobs, talents, or hobbies.

District Insiders, co-hosted by Andrew Kreig and Wayne Madsen, interviewed Barbour, right, about his impressive and storied career, including hismost recent major work, a powerful and affectionate documentary about the recently deceased human rights attorney William F. Pepper, right. Pepper devoted decades to documenting shocking revelations challenging conventional court findings and media narratives about the deaths of his close colleagues Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) and Robert F. Kennedy (RFK).

Barbour’s video interview, boldly entitled Greatest Piece of Investigative Journalism in 75 Years: Barbour & Osanic’s Tribute to Wm. F. Pepper, below. It compiled with historically powerful photos and videos by Black Op radio host Len Osanic and chronicles how Pepper became so convinced that convicted killers James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan could not possibly have killed MLK and RFK, respectively, that Pepper decided to represent Ray and Sirhan in their separate appeals.

Recognizing the challenge that such a fight entailed, particularly when Pepper knew and loved the assassination victims MLK and RFK, Barbour describes in his District Insiders interview how Pepper on his deathbed this spring was able to savor the film’s ending whereby Barbour imagines that a National Mall monument to America’s greatest lawyers includes Pepper at the side of Abraham Lincoln.

It is a fact, however, that Dr. Bernice King, CEO of the King Center in Atlanta and youngest daughter of MLK and Coretta Scott King, wrote a letter read at Pepper’s Memorial Service in Harlem on April 27 describing Pepper as one of the nation’s greatest attorneys, as illustrated by his unique courage and expertise in pursuing justice in the assassination of her father.    

More generally regarding Barbour’s impressive career, there are very few other figures from the golden age of television and cinema who are able to bear witness to the transition of the media from its apex to the situation in which it finds itself today. Barbour was the nation’s first TV news film critic as KNBC’s Critic-at-Large. Also, he spent ten years as the film critic for Los Angeles Magazine. He served also as the host of KNXT’s (later KCBS) morning show AM Los Angeles, which was followed by a stint as co-host of AM Chicago on the Windy City’s flagship station, WLS.

Barbour, like many Hollywood talents, including William Shatner, Lorne Greene, Dan Akroyd, Leslie Nielsen, and John Candy, was born in Canada but made his mark in television in the United States. Barbour became known to television audiences by doing comedy stand-up on such programs as The Tonight Show, The Merv Griffin Show, and The Dean Martin Show. His 1965 comedy album, It’s Tough to Be White, spotlighted the state of race relations in the United States during a time when the subject was treated by network executives as a sensitive subject, even in a comedy setting.

Continuing to tackle sensitive subjects, Barbour directed and wrote the 1992 documentary, The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes, which featured Barbour’s in-depth interview with New Orleans District Attorney General Jim Garrison on his investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That was followed by his 2017 follow-up documentary, The American Media and The Second Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, right, which revealed the lengths to which the news media covered up not only Garrison’s findings but the entire conspiracy surrounding the 1963 coup d’état against Kennedy.

Other Summit Festival Films and Finalists Include:

The documentary It Isn’t Just Politics, finalist in the category of Best Documentary, is based on a theatrical comedy God Help Us that toured for three years, which starred Edward Asner. During Covid, Director/Writer Liza Asner takes the theme of political polarization to film. Asner flew throughout the country interviewing politicians, educators and community leaders to gain insight on how we got where we are and where we go from here. The media has contributed greatly to political polarization.

Synopsis of “It Isn’t Just Politics”

Political polarization is a central theme in a theatrical comedy that starred Edward Asner as the Almighty. He brings a divorced couple (a liberal and conservative) back together to debate key issues of the day and winds up switching them in the end so that they can walk in each other’s shoes as a possible solution to their great political divide.

The play God Help Us was entering its third year touring when Covid hit and live theatre came to a screeching halt. The producer, Liza Asner, decided to take this central theme to film because of the continued political division throughout our nation and seek answers to how we got here and where we go from here if we aren’t willing to walk in each other’s shoes.

The producer and cameraman traveled all over the country during 2020 interviewing politicians, educators and community leaders and gained valuable insight on factors leading to elevated political polarization and possible solutions on what to focus on in order to curb this division. Interviews range from Governor Insley of Washington, David Hickton of PITT, Former Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Former Governor of Oregon John Kitzhaber, Andrew Bacevich of the Quincy Institute, to US Representative Charlie Dent, and much more. This is a political, historical and educational film.

The film Beyond Babi Yar focuses on seldom-reported aspects of the World War II Jewish Holocaust. According to a summary of the film provided by Executive Producer John Pollick, who attended this year’s Whistleblower Summit and Film Festival:

Nearly half of all Jewish Holocaust victims died not in concentration or death camps but in mass shootings in Eastern Europe. They were shot into thousands of mass graves, primarily in Ukraine, graves which, to this day, remain largely unmarked, unprotected and, like the shooting victims themselves, neglected. This film is the story of the so-called Holocaust by Bullets — the “Forgotten Holocaust” — how it happened, why it has been ignored for so long and its tragic consequences for the victims, their families and humanity.

Filmed in Ukraine prior to the 2022 Russian invasion, it also shows the changing attitudes of Ukrainians toward remembrance of the Holocaust, including scenes of recent dedications of memorials at Jewish execution sites, attended by Ukrainians of all ages and religions.

Crowd at Dedication, Barashi, Ukraine (September 2019). Film credits include: Producer/Director/Cinematographer Eli Adler and Film Editor Theron Yeager.

Source: https://www.justice-integrity.org/2064-12th-annual-whistleblower-summit-film-festival-celebrates-truth-tellers-and-showcases-impactful-film