Welcome back to the Homefront. I'm your host, Reid Galen. Today, I'm joined by Brian Schott,

author of Utah Political Watch. Brian is an award-winning journalist who has been covering Utah

politics for over 25 years and has worked for several outlets, including the Salt Lake Tribune,

Utah Policy.com, KSL Radio, and KU-E-R radio. His work was cited in the final report from the select

committee to investigate the January 6th attacks on the Capitol, and he is out with a

blockbuster report on Utah Senate President Stuart Adams. Brian, welcome to the show.

Always nice to join you, Reed. And one thing, my reporting just builds on reporting that came from the Salt Lake Tribune and Robert Gergergerke.

He did the initial report, but I also have dug into it and added to that.

Okay.

So before we get to the story that you added to and the Tribune, the Tribune talk about,

let's talk a little bit about Utah. Now, a lot of the listeners know that you added to and the Tribune the Tribune talked about let's talk a little bit

about Utah now a lot of the listeners know that I live here in Utah but they don't actually

hear me talk about it that often so from your perch almost three decades into reporting what have

you seen I mean look Utah's always been a conservative state, but what have you seen speed up?

And I would say the last decade, I know that they pulled your press credential.

They have given you a hard time about even covering the legislature.

So give us a little sense of how we got to this moment in Utah politics.

I think that the thing that's really accelerated in Utah politics is the circling of the wagons

around the legislature to control the flow of information. Same thing with the governor. And

our current governor, Spencer Cox, he's in his second term. He is extremely controlling about

the information that comes out about his administration. For example, or by contrast,

his predecessor, Gary Herbert, during the legislative session, would meet with reporters once a week

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