By: Donald V. Watkins February 20, 2023 Deloitte & Touche, LLP is the accounting arm of Deloitte, LLP, the United States affiliate of the “Big 4” international accounting firm, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited in London. Deloitte & Touche was retained by the Southern Company as its independent auditor and issued annual reports on Southern’s financial condition for the period of 2011 through 2021. These reports were issued when the Southern Company and its affiliates were engaged in running and paying for an interstate, racketeering enterprise that included acts of conspiracy, bribery, extortion, money laundering, abuse of the legal process, price fixing, and obstruction of justice. In each of the Southern Company’s financial reports for the period of 2011 through 2021, Deloitte & Touche certified that: (a) it had audited these statements in accordance with GAAP and (b) the statements fairly presented the Southern Company's financial condition in conformity with GAAP. Each audit report issued during this period was a “clean opinion”-- an unqualified report that the annual financial statement was fair and accurate in all material respects. This rating is the highest level of audit report that a certified public accounting firm may issue. In none of the Southern Company's annual financial reports for the period of 2011 through 2021 did Deloitte & Touche make any mention of the company’s long-running and ongoing interstate racketeering enterprise. This criminal racketeering enterprise also allowed the Southern company and its affiliates to reap $59.7 billion in operating revenues in 2022. Of this amount, the Southern Company set aside $7.8 billion for dividends to shareholders. The reported operating revenues for 2022 represent a substantial improvement over the company’s operating revenues in 2021. The revenues of Southern Company, itself, were up by 26.7%. Operating revenues at Alabama Power were up by 21.9%. Georgia Power was up by 25.1%, while Mississippi Power was up by 28.1%. Operating revenues at Southern Power were up by 52%. Finally, revenues at Southern Gas Company were up by 36.1%. This remarkable jump in operating revenues from 2021 to 2022 occurred at a time when most of the Southern Company’s nine million customers were struggling to keep their financial heads above water. State public service commissions allowed the Southern Company affiliates to gouge their customers on utility bills. State and federal law enforcement officials in the Southern Company's market territories also turned their heads to the obscene price gouging and entrenched racketeering activities. Could Deloitte & Touche Have Detected the Southern Company’s Racketeering Enterprise? In light of the January 27, 2023, criminal racketeering complaint we filed with the U.S. Department of Justice, legitimate questions have arisen as to: (a) whether Deloitte knew, or should have known, that the Southern Company’s reported financial statements between 2011 and 2021 (which were disseminated to the investing public) may not have been prepared in accordance with GAAP; (b) whether the external audits Deloitte & Touche conducted for the Southern Company were performed in accordance with PCAOB Standards, and (c) whether each of Deloitte & Touche's "unqualified" audit reports for the Southern Company during the racketeering period (from 2011 to 2021) was materially false and misleading. As we first reported on December 26, 2021, the Southern Company and Alabama Power paid Matrix, LLC, a Montgomery, Alabama-based public relations firm, and its owner, Joe Perkins, $2.5 million from January 1, 2018, to July 31, 2019, to carry out a lot of their racketeering activities. During the course of a nearly two-decade racketeering enterprise, Matrix and Perkins were paid tens of millions of dollars, all “without invoicing.” During this period, the Southern Company, Alabama Power Company, and Georgia Power Company used Matrix and Joe Perkins as their special breed of well-fed, zealously protected, vicious, Pit bulls. From time to time, these utility companies would let Matrix and Perkins out of their kennels and direct them to maul critics, political adversaries, and anybody else who posed a real or perceived threat to their (a) monopoly in electrical power generation and (b) longtime suppression of effective regulatory oversight. The major goals of the racketeering enterprise were publicly disclosed for the first time in litigation by former Matrix CEO Jeff Pitts against Joe Perkins in a Florida court. The goals were to: (a) target, influence, compromise, corrupt, control, and/or destroy individuals and entities that posed a perceived or real threat to Alabama Power Company’s monopoly in Alabama as an energy producer and provider, (b) perpetuate Alabama Power’s ironclad control of local, state, and federal elected and appointed officials in Alabama, and (c) protect, expand, and solidify its grip on the political affairs in the state of Alabama. The racketeering goals and implementation activities were later rolled out in Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois, and Virginia. Often, the payments to Matrix/Perkins were spread across multiple Southern Company affiliates to evade detection in an external audit. They were purportedly authorized under secret contracts and special work orders. On many occasions, these payments were laundered through third-party vendors and affiliated industry groups. It does not appear that Deloitte & Touche audited the payments to Matrix/Perkins. As such, the racketeering activities described by Jeff Pitts flourished for many years. The Southern Company Perfected the Audit Evasion Schemes Pioneered By HealthSouth HealthSouth’s $2.7 billion accounting fraud scheme ran undetected for six years in the late 1990s and early 2000s because senior management executives learned Ernst & Young’s auditing system and devised creative ways the evade detection while carrying out their accounting fraud scheme. Ernst & Young eventually paid HealthSouth shareholders $109 million for failing to detect the accounting fraud scheme at the company. Senior management executives at the Southern Company appear to have perfected the auditing evasion schemes that were pioneered by the HealthSouth executives. They were able to avoid detection by (a) using a payment system that did not require invoicing, (b) laundering payments to Matrix/Perkins through third-party vendors and other affiliated parties, and (c) fabricating special work orders as a cover to make payments for racketeering conduct and activities. Payment for legitimate services rendered by qualified and capable vendors do not require these external auditing evasion schemes. Could Deloitte & Touche have discovered the existence of the Southern Company's long running multi-state racketeering enterprise by requiring documentation for Matrix's/Perkins' multi-million dollar contracts? Yes. Did Deloitte & Touche ever match contract "deliverables" to the actual payments Alabama Power/Southern Company/ George Power made to Matrix/Perkins, without invoicing, under their secret contracts? It does not appear that they did. Did Southern Company executives distract Deloitte & Touche auditors from looking into the racketeering payments to Matrix/Perkins that were disguised as payments for special work orders and mega expense reimbursements? It appears so. Did Deloitte & Touche ever report the Southern Company's financial irregularities to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and/or the U.S. Department of Justice? It does not appear that they did.

By: Donald V. Watkins February 21, 2023 An employee or member of a federal regulatory agency who participated personally and substantially in a particular matter involving a specific party (e.g., grants, contracts, licenses, permits, applications, litigation, etc.), may never appear before or communicate on behalf of another with any federal department, agency, or court regarding that same particular matter. See, 18 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1). This is a lifetime restriction. For particular matters involving specific parties under the employee's or agency member’s official responsibility during his/her last year of government service, the employee or member of a federal regulatory agency is restricted for two years after he/she leaves government service from appearing before and/or communicating on behalf of another with any federal department, agency, or court regarding those same particular matters. See, 18 U.S.C. § 207(a)(2). These post-government employment restrictions are commonly known as “revolving door” restrictions. They are designed to prevent influence peddling within federal agencies by management level employees and members of federal regulatory agencies who depart their government positions for high-paying cushy jobs with the very companies they interacted with in their capacity as government officials. These "revolving door" restrictions are embodied within Title 5, Chapter XVI, Subchapter B, Part 2641 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Who is Kristine L. Svinicki? On March 28, 2008, President George W. Bush appointed Ms. Kristine Svinicki as a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). She served as a Commissioner under three U.S. presidents, thereby becoming the NRC’s longest-serving Commissioner. On January 23, 2017, President Donald J. Trump appointed Ms. Svinicki as Chairwoman of the NRC. On January 20, 2021, Ms. Svinicki announced her departure from the NRC on the eve of Joe Biden’s swearing-in as the 46th president of the United States. Ms. Svinicki has decades of public service experience with a distinguished career as a nuclear engineer and policy advisor, working at the state and federal levels of government, and in both the legislative and executive branches. Is Svinicki Involved in Influencing Peddling at the Southern Company? On October 18, 2021, some ten months after she retired from the NRC, Ms. Svinicki was appointed to the board of directors of the Southern Company. According to the Southern Company’s website, Ms. Svinicki’s “leadership skills as the former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and her expertise as a nuclear engineer and policy advisor are valuable to our Board.” In its own words, the Southern Company added Ms. Svinicki to its board of directors, in part, because she was the former Chairwoman of the NRC and a policy advisor on nuclear energy for various federal entities in Washington, DC. Ms. Svinicki's board appointment appears to be a classic example of influence peddling by the parent company of Georgia Power Company and Southern Nuclear Operating Company. These Southern Company affiliates hold NRC-issued licenses as the “owner” and “operator” of the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Waynesboro, Georgia. There are thousands of highly qualified nuclear engineers in America. There are also scores of individuals with nuclear policy advisory experience that is comparable to Ms. Svinicki's. However, there is only one person who served as Chairperson of the NRC from 2017 to 2021. Ms. Svinicki’s compensation as a Southern Company board member has not been made publicly available for 2021 or 2022. However, the published compensation for other board members shows that they earned up to $365,000 in compensation in 2021, as was case for the Southern Company's lead independent board member, Mr. David J. Grain. In 2021, the cash portion of Mr. Grain's compensation was $205,000. His stock award for 2021 was valued at $160,000. The Southern Company board of director's position is a part-time job for Mr. Grain. Ms. Svinicki’s reported base salary as the Chairwoman of the NRC in 2020 was $183,100. NRC Complaints Pending Against the Southern Company On February 3, 2023, several individuals and organizations filed complaints with the NRC against the Southern Company. The complaints challenge the "fitness" of the Southern Company’s affiliates – Southern Nuclear Operating Company and Georgia Power Company -- to hold NRC-issued licenses as the owner and operator of the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant. The complaints allege that the Southern Company and its affiliates have run an interstate criminal racketeering enterprise for many years. The complaints mirror the allegations of related complaints that were filed against the Southern Company with the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division on January 27, 2023. One national organization -- Consejo de Latinos Unidos, Inc. (CDLU) – is demanding the revocation of these NRC licenses. CDLU want a qualified and capable third-party administrator to operate Vogtle. The extent to which Ms. Svinicki may be participating or assisting in the Southern Company’s defense of these NRC-issued licenses is unknown. What is known, however, is that Ms. Svinicki serves on the board of director’s committee for Business Security and Resiliency and Operations, Environmental and Safety. The pending DOJ and NRC complaints fall within the scope of this board committee’s assigned area of responsibility. Burning Questions Against this backdrop, there are several burning questions about Ms. Svinicki’s service on the board of directors: 1. Did Ms. Svinicki’s appointment to the Southern Company’s board of directors on October 18, 2021, violate the federal statutory and Code of Federal Regulations restrictions on “revolving door” business relationships? 2. Has Ms. Svinicki communicated with any NRC Commissioner, NRC employee, or any director or employee of another federal agency on any matter related to the Southern Company since she became a board member on October 18, 2021? 3. Based upon the totality of facts and circumstances, was Ms. Svinicki appointed to the board of directors for the primary purpose of favorably influencing NRC or U.S. Department of Energy decisions involving the Southern Company? 4. Did the business relationship between the Southern Company and Ms. Svinicki constitute a "real" or "apparent" conflict of interest when she was appointed to the company’s board of directors on October 18, 2021? 5. If so, did the designated NRC ethics officer and/or Board of Commissioners waive this "real" or "apparent" conflict of interest prior to Ms. Svinicki's board appointment? Stay tuned! Much more Southern Company transparency is coming your way from independent journalists in the Southeast who are working on this developing story.

By Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on September 24, 2018; Updated on February 21, 2023 Dr. Isaac Scott Hathaway (1872–1967) was an American educator and artist who was best known for creating more than 100 busts and masks of prominent African Americans. My siblings, Levi Watkins, Jr., and Emma Pearl Watkins, met Dr. Hathaway when our family first moved to Montgomery in the early 1950s. Along with their young classmates, Levi, Jr., and Emma Pearl loved interacting with Dr. Hathaway. I met Dr. Hathaway shortly after my father, Dr. Levi Watkins, Sr., became president of Alabama State University in 1962. Dr. Hathaway was the director of ceramics at Alabama State for many years. He also taught art and sculpturing classes at the university and in the Laboratory school. Remarkably, Dr. Hathaway also taught ceramics classes at Auburn University for six weeks during the summer of 1947. He broke the color barrier at Auburn by becoming one of the University's first African-American professors. Dr. Hathaway taught his ceramics class 16 years prior to Auburn’s admission of its first black student ( Dr. Harold Franklin ) in 1964. Dr. Hathaway's Phenomenal Contributions to American History I attended Alabama State’s Laboratory High School on campus. My interest in art brought me into direct contact with Dr. Hathaway on a frequent basis. About a year after Dr. Hathaway retired in 1963, I heard that he designed a coin for the U.S. Mint. I thought this was super cool and I tried to research this matter. However, I could not find anything in my textbooks or in the public library downtown that confirmed this fact. I asked my father whether this fact was true and he told me the full story behind this historical event. Here is the suppressed history of Dr. Hathaway's greatness: In 1945, Dr. Hathaway was selected to design coins honoring two African-Americans, becoming the first African-American to design a coin for the U.S. Mint. The first coin was a half dollar bearing the likeness of Booker T. Washington. It was minted from 1946 to 1951. The second coin was a half dollar bearing the likeness of George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington. It was minted from 1951 to 1954. My father also told me the U.S. Post Office issued a 10¢ stamp in 1940 in Booker T. Washington’s honor. The stamp was affixed to a “First Day of Issue” envelope, dated April 7, 1940, from “Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.” My father also told me the Post Office issued a 3¢ stamp with George Washington Carver’s image on it. The stamp was affixed to a “First Day of Issue” envelope, dated February 12, 1948, from “Booker T. Washington Birthplace, Virginia.” This stamp was issued to celebrate Washington’s journey in life “From slave cabin to Hall of Fame." I was stunned. It seemed surreal in 1964 to confirm that the image of two distinguished African-Americans was actually printed on two sets of U.S. Postal stamps and engraved on two sets of half dollars in national circulation in the 1940s and 1950s. This remarkable achievement occurred many years before the birth of the civil rights era of the mid-1950s and 1960s. Yet, these historical events were completely omitted from the textbooks authorized by the Alabama State Board of Alabama in the 1960s for use in Alabama’s public schools. After I graduated from law school and passed the Alabama Bar exam, I commenced my long search to find and collect these four iconic pieces of American history. It took me nearly 20 years to secure two mint-condition, uncirculated Washington-Carver half dollar coins and two Washington-Carver stamps in a pristine condition and affixed to the “First Day of Issue” commemorative envelopes issued by the Post Office. By way of historical perspective, the Postal Service would not honor another African-American until 1979, when it issued a commemorative stamp honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The image of Rosa Parks would not appear on a U.S. Postal Service stamp until 2013. Words cannot describe the sense of pride and exhilaration I felt when I acquired the last of the four pieces of my Booker T. Washington-George Washington Carver coin and stamp collection. With this event, I reclaimed an important piece of history that had been suppressed in textbooks during my childhood. In the process, I secured tangible proof that white Americans of interracial goodwill thought enough of two American-Americans educators in Tuskegee to place their likeness on coins and stamps that circulated in the general population while racial segregation and Jim Crow racism reigned unchecked in the South. Dr. Hathaway made history by designing these two half dollar coins. Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver made history by achieving greatness in higher education research and services at Tuskegee University. The American government honored Washington and Carver by commissioning these commemorative coins and stamps in the 1940s and 1950s. This unprecedented and positive gesture in American history was intentionally omitted from Alabama public school textbooks for decades. Thankfully, we have been able to reclaim and preserve this important chapter in African-American history. Thanks to the Internet and social media platforms, no politician will ever be able to suppress our history again.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on February 25, 2023 A Special Investigative Report In late 2022, the Atlanta-based law firm of King & Spalding was hired by the Southern Company to conduct an objective and “independent” internal investigation of the massive multi-year, interstate racketeering scheme operated by the Southern Company, Alabama Power Company, Georgia Power Company, Montgomery, Alabama-based public relations firm Matrix, LLC, Joseph Perkins, Jr., and others acting in concert with them. The investigation is part of the Southern Company’s ongoing effort to seek and secure a non-prosecution agreement for itself and its affiliates for their participation in a long-running, interstate, criminal racketeering scheme. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is authorized to grant the Southern Company and its affiliates a prosecutorial “pass” if they meet the criteria set forth in Title 9-28.000 of the DOJ’s Justice Manual (JM). At this juncture, King & Spalding is working to position the Southern Company to climb through the window of “Voluntary Disclosures,” as described in JM, §9-28-900. Paul B. Murphy is a King & Spalding attorney who once served as a former Chief of Staff at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He is a member of King & Spalding's Special Matters and Government Investigations practice. Mr. Murphy is working with a team of King & Spalding lawyers who are conducting an internal investigation of the Southern Company and its racketeering enterprise. David L. Balser is another King & Spalding attorney. He specializes in handling a client's "most sensitive, complex, and enterprise-threatening matters." Mr. Balser is assisting the firm's Special Matters and Government Investigations team in securing the non-prosecution agreement, as well. As discussed below, Balser also handled another sensitive legal matter for the Southern Company. On January 18, 2023, King & Spalding announced that Olivia Radin had joined the firm as a partner on its Special Matters and Government Investigations team. She is based in the firm’s New York office. Ms. Radin assists clients on internal and regulatory investigations that arise from allegations of fraud, bribery, workplace misconduct, accounting and securities fraud, market manipulation, mis-selling and anti-money laundering violations. She has extensive experience defending clients before the DOJ, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, state attorneys general, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and other regulators. It is not known at this time whether Ms. Radin is performing legal work on the Southern Company's quest for a non-prosecution agreement. The Southern Company, Alabama Power Company, and Georgia Power Company are in serious trouble with the DOJ and several regulatory agencies. These companies are facing criminal and regulatory complaints with allegations of extortion, bribery, fraud, witness tampering, money laundering, price-fixing, obstruction of justice, antitrust conduct, and a host of other crimes, all of which arise from a decades-long, interstate racketeering enterprise run by them. In the event there is a DOJ prosecution of the Southern Company and its affiliates based upon their criminal racketeering activities, it will likely be conducted in the Southern District of New York because the Southern Company is registered on the New York Stock Exchange. This potential scenario makes Ms. Radin's area of professional expertise and employment in King & Spalding's New York office relevant for this article. Does King & Spalding Have a Conflict of Interest in Conducting the Southern Company’s JM, §9-28-900 Investigation? According to published media reports, the Southern Company has paid King & Spalding a seven-figure retainer to conduct the internal investigation referenced in JM, §9-28-900. A deep dive into the relationship between King & Spalding and the Southern Company reveals that King & Spalding may have major conflicts of interest that threatens to undermine the objectivity, validity, and credibility of any investigative report the law firm produces to the DOJ for §9-28-900 purposes. For starters, King & Spalding represented the Southern Company in the case of Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia et al. vs. Georgia Power Company, Case No.: 2022-CV-366416, in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia. According to Law 360, King & Spalding attorneys Brandon R. Keel, Peter Starr, and David L. Balser represented the Southern Company in this case. The lawsuit, which was filed in June 2022, grew out of a dispute among the four owners of the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Waynesboro, Georgia over how to allocate the $20 billion in cost overruns that have plagued the plant. Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG), Oglethorpe Power Corp. (OPC), and the city of Dalton, Georgia’s utility company (Dalton Utilities) sued Georgia Power for $695 million in the dispute. Georgia Power has a 45.7% ownership in the Vogtle plant, while OPC owns 30%, MEAG owns 22.7%, and Dalton Utilities owns 1.6% of the facility. On September 30, 2022, Georgia Power announced in a SEC filing that it had reached a settlement with MEAG. Georgia Power said it would pay a portion of MEAG's future construction costs, which are estimated to be as much as $76 million. Georgia Power will also pay 20% of MEAG's construction costs that exceed the project's current, forecasted price tag. In its SEC filing, Georgia Power also announced that the litigation with OPC and Dalton Utilities remains active and that the company's potential financial exposure could be as much as $165 million of further pre-tax charges to its income. Apart from the ongoing litigation with OPC and Dalton Utilities, the Southern Company’s “fitness” to hold a combined “Owner/Operator” license for Vogtle has been challenged in regulatory complaints filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by several victims of the Southern Company’s criminal racketeering enterprise. The complaints, which were filed on February 3, 2023, allege that Section 2133(d) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, prohibits any regulated person or entity that knowingly participated in an ongoing criminal racketeering enterprise from owning and operating nuclear power facilities in the U.S. On January 27, 2023, formal criminal RICO complaints were filed with the DOJ's Criminal Division against the Southern Company and those persons/entities that acted in concert with the company. The complainants are victims of the company’s interstate racketeering enterprise. King & Spalding’s Prior Business Relationship with the Southern Company Calls Into Question the Firm's Objectivity and Independence The Southern Company could have chosen any one of hundreds of truly independent and highly qualified Tier One law firms in the United States to conduct its JM, §9-28-900 investigation. A law firm is considered "independent" if it had no prior business relationship with the client. Instead of choosing an "independent" law firm to conduct its internal investigation, the Southern Company chose King & Spalding. King & Spalding’s prior business relationship with the Southern Company/Georgia Power with respect to the Vogtle litigation, calls into question its objectivity and independence to conduct the JM, §9-28-900 investigation. King & Spalding appears to have a "real" and/or "apparent" conflict of interest in this matter. Additionally, King & Spalding's representation of the Southern Company/Georgia Power in the Vogtle litigation occurred while the racketeering scheme was in full swing. Did King & Spalding become aware of the ongoing racketeering scheme when it was representing the Southern Company/Georgia Power in the Vogtle litigation? If so, did King & Spalding report this racketeering activity to the DOJ and Vogtle co-owners MEAG, OPC, and Dalton Utilities? Based upon confidential and reliable media sources, it appears that the Southern Company kept MEAG, OPC, and Dalton Utilities in the dark about the racketeering activities carried out in Georgia and elsewhere by the Southern Company, Georgia Power, and others acting in concert with them. It now appears that King & Spalding may be guiding the Southern Company through a maze of thorny regulatory and legal issues that have arisen from the racketeering complaints filed with the DOJ and NRC by its victims. What is more, it appears that the Southern Company has NOT terminated its business relationship with Matrix/Perkins, despite (a) Matrix's/ Perkins' substantial involvement in the interstate racketeering activities and (b) the avalanche of legal and public relations problems that Matrix has created for the Southern Company and its affiliates in this regard. Here are four issues that spring from the thicket of King & Spalding's "real" and/or "apparent" conflicts of interest: 1. Whether King & Spalding coached Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning on how to evade a direct question from Angie Storozynski about the link between the negative headlines around Alabama Power Company and the recent management changes at that affiliate during a February 16, 2023, earnings call? Ms. Storozynski is a Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for U.S. utilities and power companies at Seaport Global Holdings, LLC (New York City). When HealthSouth executives gave Wall Street analysts false and misleading information on the financial condition and operations of that company during earnings calls, it produced multiple felony counts in the 2003 HealthSouth criminal case against the company's senior management team. 2. Whether King & Spalding knew at the time, or subsequently learned through its JM, §9-28-900 investigation, that Fanning's answer to Ms. Storozynski’s question was misleading and grossly incomplete? In his answer, Fanning stated that Alabama Power Company CEO Mark Crosswhite departed from the company because “he had some issues he wanted to deal with.” Fanning also said, “[i]t was reasonably clear that [Crosswhite] wasn't a contender as [his] successor.” Fanning’s answer to Ms. Storozynski’s question conflicts with Alabama Power’s official press release in which Crosswhite said, “[a]s I approach my 60th birthday, though, I have come to realize it is time for me to spend more time with my family.” 3. Whether King & Spalding is responsible, in any way, for the Southern Company’s failure and refusal to promptly issue a Form 8-K announcing that: (a) there have been allegations of violations of law by the Southern Company, Alabama Power, and Georgia Power that have the potential to result in fines, penalties, or other sanctions or effects that may cause reputational damage for the Southern Company and its affiliates, and could hamper their effectiveness in interacting with governmental authorities, and (b) the Southern Company’s business and reputation could be adversely affected by allegations that the parent company, along with its affiliates, have violated laws, by any investigations or proceedings that arise from such allegations, or by ultimate determinations of legal violations? On January 25, 2023, Florida Power & Light and its parent company, NextEra Energy, issued such a 8-K statement to inform shareholders about the mounting legal problems emanating from their toxic business relationship with Matrix and Perkins. 4. Whether King & Spalding helped the Southern Company craft a strategy to blame the external auditing firm of Deloitte & Touche, LLP, for not detecting the long-running racketeering scheme? As stated earlier, two of the main participants in the racketeering scheme are Matrix and Joe Perkins. They were paid millions of dollars, without invoicing, to maul critics and political adversaries of the Southern Company and its affiliates. The Southern Company's blame-shifting legal strategy comes straight out of the playbook used by HealthSouth after its $2.7 billion, multi-year accounting fraud scandal was publicly exposed in 2003. In 2009, Ernst & Young, which served as HealthSouth's external auditors, paid $109 million to shareholders to get out of its HealthSouth-related legal nightmare. Because of King & Spalding’s role in the Vogtle project litigation and its role in performing the Southern Company's JM, §9-28-900 investigation, attorneys Brandon R. Keel, Peter Starr, and David L. Balser might reasonably be considered "material witnesses" in the DOJ’s criminal investigation. If so, King & Spalding would be disqualified from conducting the JM, §9-28-900 investigation. Furthermore, any report produced by King & Spalding would be "tainted" and subject to collateral attack by the victims of the Southern Company’s racketeering activities who have formal criminal RICO complaints against the company pending with the DOJ and NRC, as well as OPC and Dalton Utilities. Epilogue In 2022, the Southern Company's racketeering enterprise generated $59.7 billion for the marketplace monopolies operated by its affiliates in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois, and Virginia. Corporate insiders thought they could expand the company's interstate racketeering enterprise into Florida. This move backfired on them and exposed the Southern Company, Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Matrix, Joe Perkins, and others to intense media scrutiny and law enforcement investigations. Today, Southern Company executives feel confident that the company, its affiliates, its senior management executives, and board members are "too big to prosecute." Their perennial ability to compromise state and federal regulators, prosecutors, and judges in Alabama -- for decades -- leads them to believe that nearly all public officials are "for sale" or "for rent." Finally, Southern Company “insiders” believe that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and DOJ Criminal Division chief Kenneth Polite are too weak, too inexperienced, and too distracted by the DOJ's criminal investigation of Donald Trump to hold the nation's second largest public utility company fully accountable for its massive, interstate racketeering scheme.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on February 28, 2023 This is the last day of Black History Month. In the current political climate, the mere celebration of black history in America is under an unrelenting political attack. In a growing number of “Red” states, the act of preserving, teaching, and celebrating black history is considered a form of “wokeness,” which must be condemned, stopped, and outlawed. "Wokeness" is the quality of being alert to and concerned about social injustices and discrimination based upon race, gender, age, religion, and sexual orientation. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) is leading the attack against "wokeness." Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Florida) is leading the attack against African-American studies programs in public schools because they “lack educational value.” Just when we thought it could not get any worse, we learned earlier this month that student leaders at Hillcrest High School in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama were told by an administrator that their planned Black History Month program should steer clear of civil rights era figures like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks. They were also discouraged from focusing on major historical events like slavery and Reconstruction. Ms. Jamiyah Brown, a senior at Hillcrest who helped to plan the Black History Month program, said she was told by a white administrator that the students should include more “current” black figures, “like Beyoncé,” in the program, and that “old stuff” made people feel uncomfortable. The administrator reportedly stated that the school's Black History Month event shouldn’t mention figures before 1970. After Ms. Brown spoke out about the school’s efforts to limit and censure the content of the planned program, school administrators threatened to expel her if she participated in it. The program proceeded, as planned. However, Ms. Brown, who led a student walkout over the administration’s effort to whitewash the black history program, was forced to watch it from the audience. The Power of Our Social Media Platforms I know Facebook and other social media platforms were originally conceived as tools for social media and private networking. To a large extent, they still are. Over the past ten years, however, I have discovered that these platforms have another, perhaps even more important, use. With the ongoing and rapidly spreading political movement to attack “wokeness” in all forms, it is important that we record, tell, and celebrate the history of blacks in America, using these readily available social media platforms. Social media can be the ultimate tool for blacks wanting to write, publish and distribute articles about issues of importance to us. Never before have blacks had the means to get important socio-economic messages out to the world at-large. Social media is the only vehicle that is readily available to those of us who want to be heard on an unfiltered and uncensored basis. Today, blacks in America can paint a true self-portrait through articles and stories authored by us and published for the world to read and appreciate. In the past, we had no voice to address the insensitive and often demeaning portrayal of blacks by the mainstream media. Even when we spoke, our voices were rarely heard by the masses. When we were heard, the writers and journalists who saw our plight through the lens of their racially different and often more privileged life experiences were usually the ones telling our stories. Like the school administrators at Hillcrest High School, the white-controlled media, in large part, often determined what was reported about us, how it was reported, and what they deemed to be the truth. The emergence of social media has changed that paradigm. Now, we can present the black experience in America to the world on an uncensored, realistic, and real-time basis. We can also publish and share the stories that impact us the most and do so in our own words. There are no page limits for our social media articles. There is no need for us to plead with insensitive reporters or biased editors to tell our story correctly. There are no geographic limits with respect to the distribution or circulation of our articles and stories. There is no need to seek sponsors or advertisers to cover the costs of writing, publishing, and distributing our stories because everything is online and free. Finally, there is no longer a need for us to depend upon traditional media outlets to paint an accurate picture of black life in America; we can do this for ourselves on social media. At last, we have a voice, and it is a powerful one at that. Nobody -- not even the Ron DeSantises and Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world -- can ever silence our voices again. Social media is our version of the free press. We should use it wisely, often, and responsibly.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on March 3, 2023 HealthSouth operated a $2.7 billion accounting fraud scheme from 1996 to 2002. HealthSouth was exposed for "cooking its financial books and records" only after a former chief financial officer of the company became a "whistleblower" who reported the fraud to federal authorities in 2002. Five different HealthSouth chief financial officers committed accounting fraud by following a simple three-step plan: HealthSouth officials compared their actual financial statements to the expectations of Wall Street analysts and investors. These CFOs instructed subordinate employees to manipulate the financial books and records of the company to achieve the desired results. HealthSouth generated fake documents to backfill the holes in the company’s false financial statements. Ernst & Young (E&Y), the company that audited HealthSouth's financial records, was in a position to detect the fraud, but it did not do so. In 2009, E&Y paid dearly for this mistake by forking over $109 million to HealthSouth shareholders to settle their lawsuit against E&Y. The Southern Company's Fraud and Racketeering Schemes Were Brazen The Southern Company and its affiliates ran an interstate racketeering enterprise for many years. This racketeering scheme included acts of bribery, extortion, money laundering, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and antitrust conduct. What is more, an article in the Journal of Forensic and Investigative Accounting (Vol. 15: Issue 1, January-June 2023) by Amanda M. Grossman, Steven D. Grossman, and D. Larry Crumbley describes a multibillion dollar Southern Company fraud scheme that was perpetrated by the utility giant in connection with the construction of and cost overruns associated with its Kemper County, Mississippi "clean coal" power plant. This article is well-written and riveting. The Southern Company's long-running racketeering enterprise was brazen. It was exposed for the first time in criminal complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Criminal Division on January 27, 2023 by several victims of the racketeering activities. It appears that the racketeering enterprise and fraud schemes were successful because the auditing firm of Deloitte & Touche, LLP, permitted the Southern Company and its affiliates to pay participants in the scheme like Alabama-based Matrix, LLC, and its owner, Joe Perkins, tens of millions of dollars “without invoicing.” Often, these payments were spread across multiple Southern Company affiliates to avoid detection. On many occasions, these payments were subsumed within the artificially inflated invoices submitted by the company’s law firms and other major vendors. Funds for bribing public officials were usually laundered through fake charities and third-party vendor payments. These payments were routinely handed out much like a drug dealer supplies his/her junkies. The fraud and racketeering schemes used by the Southern Company should have been detected by Deloitte & Touche during the audit process. The responsibility for assessing whether these illegal activities were "material" also fell on Deloitte. Both the Southern Company and Deloitte should have disclosed this illegal activity in the Southern Company's 10-Q and 10-K filings over the course of the last ten years. In assessing "materiality," several factors come into play. Chief among them is the intentional misstatement or concealment of unlawful transactions. Like HealthSouth's accounting fraud scheme, the Southern Company's racketeering enterprise, fraud scheme, and illicit payments to key participants were concealed from scrutiny through a litany of billing, accounting, and money laundering tricks. By any definition, the brazen act of running an interstate fraud scheme and racketeering enterprise is “material” and should have been disclosed by Deloitte to Southern Company shareholders, investors, and state and federal securities regulators . This disclosure requirement is the reason why Florida Power & Light and NextEra Energy came clean in their January 25, 2023, Form 8-K filing about their shady business dealings with Matrix and Perkins in Florida. As of this date, the Southern Company has not come clean about its multibillion fraudulent conduct with the Kemper project or the racketeering activities that have forced the company to seek a non-prosecution agreement with DOJ. Southern Company’s Code of Ethics is Worthless The Southern Company's payments to participants in the long-running, multistate racketeering scheme violated a written Code of Ethics, that states: “All business records and accounts will be complete, accurate and based on proper accounting principles...... Any attempt to conceal, omit or make false entries in the records will not be tolerated. We maintain appropriate internal controls to prevent and detect fraud. We will make full, fair, correct and timely disclosures in financial reports and other public communications.” Despite this Code provision, vendor payments “without invoicing” and money laundering activities became the basic tools for implementing and concealing the company’s fraud and racketeering schemes. How did Deloitte audit tens of millions of dollars paid by the Southern Company, Alabama Power Company, and Georgia Power Company to vendors like Matrix and Perkins for clandestine work that did not require invoicing? What did Deloitte rely upon to determine whether the documentation for these payments was complete, accurate and based on proper accounting principles? Where are the deliverables that supported the highly-questionable payments to Matrix and Perkins during Deloitte's auditing process? The Code of Ethics further states that: “We do not offer or provide gifts or entertainment of any type, including meals and transportation, to any government employee or public official in the United States or internationally unless doing so is appropriate and legal. We never offer bribes or kickbacks.” Despite this anti-bribery provision, records show that Alabama Power Company contributed $30,000 of the $360,000 used to bribe former state representative Oliver Robinson in the 2018 in what is known in Alabama as the "North Birmingham Bribery Case." Alabama Power's law firm, Balch & Bingham, contributed to the bribery fund, as well. Alabama Power Company officials also made the company's fleet of private jets available to a host of greedy public officials for impressionable joy-riding with their girlfriends, mistresses, and/or lovers. Additionally, the company paid key vendors to pick up the tab for out-of-town partying.for many of these public officials. Alabama Power also financed an illicit love affair between former Alabama governor Robert Bentley and his married mistress, Rebekah Caldwell Mason. Lastly, the Code of Ethics describes a duty to act whenever an employee learns of unethical behavior within the company. Here is the Code provision: “All employees have a duty to act. We must promptly report any suspected violation of this Code, company policies or any applicable laws or regulations.” Yet, when Brett Wingo, a company employee and "whistleblower," reported a multibillion dollar fraud scheme at the Kemper project to CEO Tom Fanning and others within the Southern Company, he was unlawfully fired from his job. Wingo had been warned by Southern Company executives that he was “digging a hole for his career and not to become a martyr.” Epilogue As was the case with HealthSouth, the crime spree at the Southern Company was out-of-control. It flourished for over a past decade. Deloitte could have detected this crime spree by simply following the auditing standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). Under these standards, Deloitte was required to perform audit procedures to obtain a “reasonable assurance” as to whether Southern’s financial statements were free from material misstatement, whether caused by error or fraud (PCAOB AS 1001.02: General Principles and Responsibilities). It appears that the blatant disregard of the proper accounting techniques in composing the Southern Company's financial statements over the past decade led to the complicity of Deloitte in perpetrating a multibillion dollar fraud scheme and an interstate racketeering enterprise that ran amok. Finally, President George W. Bush's Department of Justice came down hard on the perpetrators of the fraud scheme in the HealthSouth case. President Joe Biden's Department of Justice appears to be coddling the perpetrators of the fraud and racketeering scheme at the Southern Company. Biden's DOJ exhibits a "softness" on Wall Street criminals who run multibillion dollar fraud and racketeering schemes that is unprecedented in the 21st century. Why?

By: Donald V. Watkins March 5, 2023; Update at 11:04 a.m. PST EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS--- Despite all of the law enforcement and negative media coverage that Alabama “dirty trick” operative Joe Perkins has brought to the Southern Company (which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SO”), Alabama Power Company, Georgia Power Company, Mississippi Power Company, Florida Power & Light (“FPL”), and NextEra Energy (“NEE”) in 2022, the Southern Company has NOT terminated Perkins' multimillion dollar contracts to provide shady clandestine services “without invoicing” to the Southern Company and its affiliates. In 2022, FPL and NEE distanced themselves from Perkins and his public relations firm, Matrix, LLC. On January 25, 2023, FPL and NEE issued a Form 8-K to alert its shareholders and investors about the mess Perkins and Matrix created for them in Florida. The Southern Company has failed to issue a Form 8-K on the matters discussed in this article, even though they have been known about, discussed, and concealed these matters since April 6, 2017. Likewise, these sensitive and material matters are not expressly disclosed in the company's annual 10-K filing for 2022, which was filed on February 15, 2023. The Southern Company Cannot Divorce Itself from Joe Perkins/Matrix, LLC At this juncture, the Southern Company cannot terminate its business relationship with Joe Perkins. Why? Perkins has a mountain of documented “dirt” on Southern Company senior management executives which could result in criminal charges and jail time for many of them. For example, the "Homewood Notes" Joe Perkins made during an April 6, 2017, meeting with a top Southern Company executive and others document part of a sophisticated, multi-state accounting fraud scheme and ongoing racketeering enterprise that engaged in the following nefarious conduct: 1. The Southern Company skimmed billions of dollars from its affiliates by using Southern Company Services (SCS) and funneled this money to the Southern Company to “prop up bad decisions by SO.” SCS is the shared services division of the Southern Company. SCS provides administrative and operational services to all of Southern Company's operating divisions. In 2017, the company also provided engineering services to Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, and Mississippi Power. It is a cash cow in the non-regulated part of the Southern Company. 2. Participants in the meeting devised a plan to attack Southern Company board member “Johnny Johns” (whose real name is John D. Johns) for “Audit Board performance,” while specifically mentioning the “clean coal” plant construction project in Kemper, Mississippi and the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant construction project for Units 3 and 4 in Waynesboro, Georgia. Currently, the Kemper project has $4 billion in cost overruns, while the Vogtle project is experiencing $21 billion in cost overruns. In 2017, Johnny Johns served on the board’s finance committee, which oversaw the internal and external auditing of the Southern Company’s financial books and records for both projects. Johns is a Senior Advisor for Blackstone, Inc. and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Protective Life Corporation 3. Perkins' notes suggested that Nancy Sykes, then-Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Southern Company Services, James Gravie, then-Senior Vice President in Human Resources for Total Rewards and Technology, and Jeff Peoples, then-Executive Vice President of Customer and Employee Services at Alabama Power Company, could submit an “anonymous complaint” to the Southern Company board of directors that “would require an investigation” into the matters discussed during the April 6th meeting. According to the plan that was pitched during the meeting, they would "mention [Mark] Crosswhite in the complaint." On November 21, 2022, Crosswhite was ousted as CEO, effective on December 31, 2022. In a February 16, 2023, Fanning misled Wall Street analyst Angie Storozynski when he falsely claimed that (a) there was no linkage between Crosswhite’s ouster and the negative media headlines around Alabama Power in 2022, and (b) Crosswhite voluntarily departed Alabama Power because “he had some issues he wanted to deal with.” In truth, Crosswhite was forced out by Fanning at a time when Alabama Power was engulfed in the flames of corrupt business practices. 4. Matrix used a private investigator named "Derreck (sic)" (meaning, Derek Uman) to do "research"on Kim Tananka (sic), Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning’s then-girlfriend (whose correct name is Kim Tanaka). The participants believed the anonymous complaint “need[ed] more intel” on Ms. Tanaka. Interestingly, Ms. Tanaka was an innocent party who held no position in any Southern Company business entity at the time she was targeted for clandestine surveillance activities. 5. The meeting participants discussed on a “state by state basis [,] the money that [was] going back to [Southern Company headquarters in] Atlanta.” In other words, the Southern Company was sweeping money out of its affiliates and channeling it back to Atlanta to cover Kemper and Vogtle cost overruns. The company's "cooked" financial books and records concealed the true amount of these cost overruns from utility regulators, investors, and the Southern Company's business partners in these projects. In 2022, Georgia Power's partners in Vogtle sued the company over the allocation of the cost overruns. It does not appear that Georgia Power's three Vogtle business partners knew about the accounting fraud scheme at the time they filed their lawsuits. 6. The meeting notes identified the Southern Company's issues with “Airplanes, Accounting, Personnel Services, Engineering, Innovation Centers, [and] Law firm payments." The company's external auditors, Deloitte & Touche, apparently failed to detect this accounting fraud. After the Aril 6th meeting, Jeff Peoples became a member of an Alabama Power Company-sponsored “innovation” program called Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator. Interestingly, Peoples' name was removed from the Bronze Valley website on November 28, 2022 -- one week after Crosswhite was ousted as CEO of Alabama Power. Despite the reference to Peoples' involvement in the planned "anonymous complaint" about inflated law firm payments (for money laundering purposes), inappropriate corporate airplane usage (to compromise and corrupt politicians), personnel services (to bilk billions of dollars out of affiliates), shoddy engineering work on the Kemper and Vogtle construction projects (that resulted in $25 billion in cost overruns for these two projects, alone), and questionable accounting practices (across-the-board), Peoples never filed any such complaint with the Southern Company board of directors, or with anyone else. Instead, the Southern Company elevated Jeff Peoples to the position of CEO of Alabama Power on January 5, 2023. 7. Participants in the meeting questioned, “what voices can raise this issue?” Despite the Southern Company's Code of Ethics, no Southern Company executive or vendor in attendance at the meeting raised the issue of accounting fraud, money laundering, bribery, extortion, or racketeering activities with any Southern Company ethics officer or outside law enforcement agency. 8. Participants in the meeting considered involving “Troutman Sanders-Channel" in their scheme. Troutman Sanders is a large, independent, Atlanta-based law firm. The idea was to post a copy of the "anonymous complaint" on the law firm's website. For whatever reason, this event did not happen. Furthermore, it does not appear that Troutman Sanders participated in the accounting fraud or racketeering activities discussed in Perkins' notes. The typed agenda of the April 6, 2017, meeting was prepared by Matrix. The handwritten notations on the printed agenda were made by Perkins during the meeting. Perkins noted that the Southern Company was shipping “jobs to China” and jobs were "going back" to Atlanta. This was true in 2017 and it was a politically sensitive issue. Perkins’ notes designated the Southern Company’s "enemies," as of April 6, 2017. These “natural enemies” were identified as: 1. GASP, which is the Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution. 2. AARP, which is the American Association of Retired Persons. 3. "Curvaii (sic)," who we have learned is Eddie Curran, a former reporter for the Mobile Press Register. Mr. Curran has been very critical of Alabama Power Company on environmental issues. 4. Debbie Dooley, a well-known Buford, Georgia advocate for green energy and energy choice. Donald V. Watkins was added to the enemies list in October of 2017. Perkins developed a handwritten plan for Watkins' destruction. His notes may be viewed here. As was the case with Ernst & Young in the 2003 HealthSouth accounting fraud scandal, Deloitte & Touche never discovered the Southern Company's accounting fraud and racketeering activities evidenced in Perkins’ notes. Since 2022, Deloitte has come under fire for its questionable work in auditing the Southern Company’s financial books and records over the past decade. “Consolidation in Atlanta” Perkins' notes discussed a “Consolidation in Atlanta.” In the world of business “mergers and acquisitions” (M&A), this notation suggests a possible restructuring of the Southern Company. Such a restructuring would typically combine the regulated Southern Company entities into one company and the non-regulated entities into another company, with separate CEOs for each company. This particular notation is straight out of the HealthSouth accounting fraud playbook. Using this play, the accounting fraud and bad conduct could be moved out of the regulated entities (i.e., Southern Company, Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Mississippi Power, Southern Power, Southern Company Gas) and into the non-regulated entities (i.e., Southern Services Company, Southern Nuclear, Power Secure, Southern Telecom, and Southern Link) to evade detection by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Wall Street analysts, and large institutional investors like The Vanguard Group, Inc. (which owns 8.7% of Southern Company’s stock) and BlackRock, Inc. (which owns 7% of the company’s stock), as of November 28, 2022. Institutional investors own 63% of the Southern Company. Yet, Perkins' notes are devoid of any mention of presenting evidence of the accounting fraud scheme and cost overruns issues to the attention of the company's largest institutional shareholders. Confidential news sources tell our news platform, www.donaldwatkins.com, that the Southern Company may be in the midst of an M&A transaction right now to (a) cleanse its financial books and records of the existing accounting fraud and (b) pump up the company's stock prices as Tom Fanning departs the company at the end of March. The company's February 15, 2023, 10-K filing discloses the possibility of M&A transactions in vague terms in several sections of the financial report. These sections are "fig-leaf" provisions to provide cover for an M&A transaction, should one occur. Under an M&A scenario, if and when the stock prices plummet due to accounting fraud and/or restated financial statements, the stock will tank under incoming CEO Chris Womack's tenure at the helm. At this juncture, it does not appear that state and federal regulators and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigators are aware of the nature and scope of the Southern Company's multi-year accounting fraud scheme. However, the company's racketeering activities were reported to the DOJ's Criminal Division on January 27, 2023 by two groups of victims. Epilogue Joe Perkins has thoroughly documented his dealings with the Southern Company and its top executives. They apparently cannot divorce themselves from him because his files can totally destroy the company and a host of culpable senior management executives. What is worse, the Southern Company believes it has successfully hoodwinked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and his handpicked Criminal Division Chief, Kenneth Polite, into signing off on a non-prosecution agreement for the Southern Company and its affiliates without their awareness of the massive accounting fraud scheme or the Perkins notes that evidence it. The Southern Company has hired powerful Washington lawyers with strong political ties to the Joe Biden White House and DOJ to help the company and its affiliates escape criminal liability for their accounting fraud scheme and racketeering activities. Big legal fees are flowing in Atlanta and Washington toward this goal, and the Southern Company's lawyers and lobbyists are lapping it up like honey. Stay tuned! This is a rapidly developing story.

By: Donald V. Watkins March 4, 2023 The man who desegregated the University of Alabama (UA) School of Law was Dr. Lucius H. Pitts, Sr. In the Spring of 1969 and Summer of 1970, Dr. Pitts recruited the black college students who would enter UA as freshman law students in the fall of 1969 and 1970. To be clear, no University of Alabama official ever tried to recruit a black student to the law school in 1969 or 1970. UA's recruitment of black students did not start until Thomas Christopher became dean of the law school in 1971. Dr. Pitts, who was president of Miles College from 1961 to 1971, personally recruited Michael Figures at Stillman College (Tuscaloosa), Booker T. Forte at the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa), Ronald Jackson at Miles (Birmingham) to desegregate UA's law school in 1969. He also arranged scholarships for each of these law students. Dr. Pitts also recruited George Jones, another Miles College student, and me to attend the law school in the fall of 1970. Dr. Pitts also arranged scholarships for each of us. I attended Southern Illinois University from 1966 to 1970. I was going to attend Howard University’s law school and had moved to Washington to do so. My father, Dr. Levi Watkins, was president of Alabama State University from 1962 to 1981. Dr. Pitts and my father were very close friends. Both men had gotten their colleges accredited in the 1960s. My father got ASU accredited in 1966. Dr. Pitts got Miles College accredited in 1969. They had tremendous respect for each other. In the Summer of 1970, Dr. Pitts persuaded my father to encourage me to join Michael. Figures, Booker Forte, Ronald Jackson, and George Jones in desegregating UA’s law school, which my father did. My father sent for me to fly home from Washington one summer day. When I arrived at ASU's president's mansion, Dr. Pitts was there with my mother and father. Dr. Pitts explained the importance of: (a) desegregating the law school, (b) passing the Bar exam on the first attempt, and (c) using law to restructure the social, educational, economic, and political landscape of Alabama. He impressed upon me that failure in this mission was NOT an option. After we talked, I understood Dr. Pitts' dedication to civil rights and the mission he was asking me to undertake at UA’s law school. I agreed to undertake that mission. Within a matter of days, I switched from Howard University to UA’s law school. I attended the three-year UA law school program on a Herbert Lehman Scholarship awarded by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York City that had been arranged by Dr. Pitts. Lehman Scholarships were awarded to African-American students in the early 1970s who demonstrated an interest in advancing the cause of civil rights and/or serving the public interest. We did not know it at the time, but Dr. Lucius Pitts had also placed us under the watch-care and tutelage of Mr. Ramus Rhodes, the black custodian at the law school. Mr. Rhodes was a Stillman College graduate with a teaching degree. After graduating from Stillman, Mr. Rhodes could not find a teaching position in Tuscaloosa's "colored" schools. As such, Mr. Rhodes worked as a janitor at the law school for decades to financial support his family. In law school, Mr. Rhodes was our real “professor.” Mr. Rhodes loved us, and he made the difference between our success or failure. We are literally “Rhodes Scholars.” Dr. Pitts Had a Lifelong Committed to Education and Civil Rights After working as head of a private high school in Cordele, Georgia in the 1940s, Dr. Pitts became the executive secretary of the Georgia Teachers and Education Association in the 1950s, representing 11,000 black teachers. In 1961, Dr. Pitts was appointed president of Miles College. He led the college to a doubling of enrollment and a tenfold increase in its annual operating budget. Dr. Pitts recruited alumnus Dr. Richard Arrington Jr to return to Miles as acting dean and director of the college's summer school. He quickly promoted Dr. Arrington to chair the Natural Sciences Department. Dr. Arrington went on to become the first black mayor of Birmingham in 1979. In 1970, Dr. Pitts brought national attention to Miles College when he convinced Harvard dean John Munro to leave Cambridge for Birmingham to serve as Miles' director of freshman studies. Dr. Pitts left Miles to accept the presidency of Paine College in 1971. He died in his office at age 59. Dr. Pitts served on the board of the Southern Regional Council in Atlanta, and on a Commission on Cooperation and Council between The United Methodist and The Christian Methodist Episcopal Churches. Dr. Pitts was a staunch advocate for civil rights and he never stopped fighting for it. He was a real man with unbelievable courage. During Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 Birmingham Campaign, Dr. Pitts was a member of the Central Committee that planned the Campaign. He also organized the Salute to Freedom '63 concert at Miles to raise funds for the planned "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." Dr. Pitts was later elected co-chair of the Community Affairs Committee for Operation New Birmingham, tasked with improving race relations following the Birmingham Truce. In my book, Dr. Pitts is a civil rights icon who deserves to have his story told and who is entitled to take his rightful place in the annals of American history.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on March 7, 2023 An Editorial Opinion Institutional investors own 63% of the Southern Company. The two largest institutional investors in the Southern Company are: (a) The Vanguard Group, Inc., is an American registered investment advisor based in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Vanguard is headed by CEO Tim Buckley. In 2022, Vanguard had $8.1 trillion in assets under management. Vanguard owns 8.7% of Southern Company’s stock. (b) BlackRock, Inc., is a New York-based multi-national investment company. BlackRock is headed by CEO Larry Fink. Black Rock has $10 trillion in assets under management. As of November 28, 2022, BlackRock owned 7% of the Southern Company’s stock. Since January 27, 2023, we have published an exclusive series of articles exposing the Southern Company's operation of an interstate racketeering enterprise and accounting fraud scheme for at least the last ten years. A lot of the fraud and racketeering has been documented in the handwritten notes of a Southern Company vendor named Matrix, LLC, which is owned by Tuscaloosa, Alabama “dirty tricks” operator, Joe Perkins. The accounting fraud component of the racketeering enterprise includes acts of bribery, extortion, public corruption, price-fixing, money laundering, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and anticompetitive market conduct. Tens of Billions of Dollars in Construction Cost Overruns Drove the Accounting Fraud Scheme Using the $2.7 billion accounting fraud scheme at HealthSouth (from 1966 to 2002) as a yardstick for measurement, the Southern Company’s multi-year accounting fraud scheme is ten times bigger than HealthSouth’s. What is more, the scheme borrowed heavily from HealthSouth’s accounting fraud playbook of artful deception, material omissions, and old-fashion hoodwinking. As the lead defense attorney who successfully defended former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy on all 85 felony counts related to his accounting fraud criminal case, I am intimately familiar with litany of schemes, strategies, and techniques used by major Wall Street corporations to implement and conceal massive accounting fraud schemes. The accounting fraud aspect of the Southern Company’s racketeering enterprise arose from massive cost overruns associated with two construction projects: (a) the “clean coal” plant in Kemper, Mississippi, which was $4.5 billion over budget, and (b) the ongoing construction of Units 3 and 4 at the Vogtle Nuclear Plant in Waynesboro, Georgia, which are $21 billion over budget. The Southern Company and Georgia Power Company successfully concealed the accounting fraud scheme from three co-owners (i.e., the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, Oglethorpe Power Company, and City of Dalton Utilities) of the Vogtle plant. The Southern Company and Mississippi Power hid the accounting fraud from oversight entities associated with the Kemper project. In furtherance of the accounting fraud scheme, the Southern Company developed and implemented sophisticated techniques to siphon money out of its regulated affiliates (e.g., Alabama Power Company, George Power, Mississippi, etc.) and funnel this money through non-regulated entities (e.g., Southern Company Services, Southern Nuclear Operating Company, etc.) back to the Southern Company to fill the financial “hole” caused by the cost overruns at Kemper and Vogtle. The schemes, strategies, and techniques for backfilling this multibillion financial “hole” evaded detection by the Southern Company’s outside auditors, Deloitte & Touche, LLP, the entire time Deloitte audited the company's “cooked” financial books and records. In 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had an opportunity to detect the Southern Company’s accounting fraud scheme while investigating cost overruns at the Kemper project. The Commission’s Atlanta Regional Office failed to detect this fraud because it was too busy pursuing minor cases and targeting “political” adversaries of the Southern Company and its affiliates for investigation. The officials in charge investigations and civil enforcement proceedings in the SEC’s Atlanta office during the Southern Company’s accounting fraud period were thoroughly discredited by one federal judge in 2003. The Effective Use of M&A Transactions as a Fraud Concealment Tool Confidential news sources tell my news team that the Southern Company may be in the midst of another merger and acquisition (M&A) transaction right now to (a) cleanse its financial books and records of the existing accounting fraud, to the extent possible, and (b) pump up the company's stock prices as Tom Fanning departs the company at the end of March. The company's February 15, 2023, 10-K filing discloses the possibility of M&A transactions in the vaguest terms in several sections of the financial report. These sections are lawyer-written "fig-leaf" provisions that are designed to provide pretextual "cover" for an M&A transaction, should one or more of them occur. Often, M&A transactions provide attractive and effective opportunities to conceal accounting fraud. This technique is taken straight out of the HealthSouth accounting fraud playbook. Using this technique, the accounting fraud and bad conduct can be moved out of the SEC registrant entities (i.e., Southern Company, Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Mississippi Power, Southern Power, Southern Company Gas) and placed in the Southern Company’s non-regulated entities (i.e., Southern Services Company, Southern Nuclear, Power Secure, Southern Telecom, and Southern Link) to evade detection by the Vanguard Group, BlackRock, other large institutional investors, Wall Street analysts, and a potentially reawakened SEC. If and when the stock prices plummet due to (a) a subsequent discovery of the accounting fraud scheme by law enforcement officials, or (b) the Southern Company’s issuance of restated 10-K financial statements, the stock will most likely tank under incoming CEO Chris Womack's tenure at the helm. Additionally, each chief executive officer and chief financial officer of a Southern Company registrant who signed a 10-Q and 10-K financial statement during the accounting fraud and racketeering enterprise period may have individual criminal exposure under Sarbanes-Oxley -- the accounting fraud statute that sent over 18 HealthSouth top executives to jail. This is particularly true for the CEOs of the Southern Company, Mississippi Power Company, and Georgia Power Company who presided over the cost overruns and backfilling of the financial "hole" associated with them. What is more, the Southern Company/ Mississippi Power received $270 million in federal funds for its Kemper plant during the accounting fraud period. Based upon an in-depth review of the Southern Company’s 10-Qs, 10-K s, and other documents during the fraud period, it appears that much of this money was used in a failed attempt to conceal the fraud. Ironically, in 2021, the Southern Company demolished this “clean coal” construction project that had ballooned from $3 billion to $7.5 billion. It turned out to be a big waste of money. Finally, Georgia Power, which owns 45.7% of Vogtle, secured federal loan guarantees of $3.46 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy for the construction of Vogtle's nuclear power Units 3 and 4. The loan guarantee application documents omit any reference to the ongoing accounting fraud scheme. This omission may subject the signatory officials to federal wire and mail fraud charges. What’s Next? I am preparing an annotated investor guide to the Southern Company’s accounting fraud scheme and racketeering enterprise for delivery to the Vanguard Group and BlackRock. I expect the CEOs of these regulated investment companies to promptly report the accounting fraud schemes and racketeering activity contained therein to the SEC, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. Vanguard and BlackRock may have a greater interest in protecting shareholder value in the Southern Company than the utility company's senior management executives, the SEC, or the Department of Justice. The executives at the Southern Company are conflicted and compromised. The SEC’s integrity and adherence to the law was judicially assessed by a federal judge in 2003 and found to be sorely lacking. The Department of Justice appears to be weak, ill-equipped to prosecute massive accounting fraud by a New York Stock Exchange Company the size of the Southern Company, and weaponized to go after January 6th insurrectionists and small-time street criminals. Instead of prosecuting major Wall Street crooks, the Department of Justice simply allows them to pay fines and penalties, as they continue on with their business activities and crimes sprees. These companies avoid criminal prosecutions because they are “too big to prosecute.”

By: Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on March 8, 2023 Lillian Bernice Varnado Watkins, the matriarch of the Watkins family, was the epitome of motherhood, love for humanity, respect for mankind, dignity, and the acceptance of personal responsibility for one's actions. She and my father, Levi Watkins, Sr., were my real-life heroes. Together, they formed the yardstick by which I have measured the character and class of everyone I have met in life. I am the fifth of six Watkins children. Lillian and Levi instilled in each of their children a burning desire to elevate humanity and make a positive difference in the world. They taught us to believe in each other and in the triumph of the human spirit. To them, unconditional love for mankind was the universal food of life, and all things were possible through God’s grace. Lillian was the granddaughter of a beautiful “mulatto” girl in Mississippi named Olivia Williamson, who was born on April 20, 1847. Olivia met and fell in love with William Carmichael, who was born on December 5, 1838. William was one of five sons of Dougald Carmichael and his wife Katheryn. The Carmichaels, who were white, migrated from Scotland to America in the early 1800s. Olivia and William married in Crawford Station, Mississippi, on March 25, 1865 – about two weeks before General Robert E. Lee surrendered his 28,000 confederate troops to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. This young interracial couple began a family of twelve children. One of these children was Lillian’s mother, Oda Etta Carmichael, who was born on January 12, 1890. As a young adult, Etta met an astonishing young minister named Willie L. Varnado, whom she married on February 21, 1912. Etta became a mother to his young daughter (Pearl), who was born during Willie Varnado’s marriage to his first wife. Etta and Willie also became the parents of four children of their own. One of those children was my mother Lillian, who was born on March 13, 1917. Lillian’s childhood years were spent in Canton with her siblings. Later, the family moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where Reverend Varnado secured a bigger and more prestigious ministry. It was there that Lillian and her siblings finished high school at the laboratory school associated with Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. Lillian and her siblings went on to receive their college educations at either Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, or Jackson State University. All five of the Varnado children enjoyed highly successful careers in education, government, and business. All of them cherished and practiced the highest moral, ethical and professional standards, which they passed down to their children. In 1939, Lillian met and fell in love with Levi Watkins, Sr., while teaching at Burt High School in Clarksville, Tennessee. Levi was also a teacher at the high school. The couple married in 1940 and had six children. Levi and Lillian moved to Parsons, Kansas, where Levi became the principal of Douglas Junior High School for “colored” students and Lillian went about the business of raising the Watkins children. All of their children, except for my younger brother James, were born in Parsons. In 1949, Levi and Lillian moved our family to Montgomery, Alabama, where Levi took a job as the administrative assistant to the president at Alabama State College for Negroes (“ASC”). Lillian worked hard to make our tiny home a warm and pleasant place to live. Our family struggled financially, but thrived in other ways as Lillian molded her six children on the path to becoming successful adults. She learned quickly how to stretch a dollar, create delicious inexpensive meals, make our clothes, and teach us from second-hand books. In 1954, Levi and Lillian moved our family to Memphis, Tennessee, where Levi became the founder and president of S.A. Owen Junior College. Through much sacrifice and perseverance by Levi, Lillian and their children, Levi able to get this start-up junior college accredited in four years. He was also able to quietly assemble a racially integrated faculty and staff for the college’s all-black student body in a city where racial segregation was strictly enforced. In 1959, Levi and Lillian moved our family back to Montgomery where Levi worked first as a veteran affairs administrator and later as the business manager at ASC. The family lived in a small three-bedroom home on Faculty Circle. Lillian was once again determined to make this home comfortable and life as easy as possible for her husband and children. When the longtime president of ASC fell ill, Levi was offered the permanent position and became the next ASC president in 1962. He served as president for 19 years. Again, Levi took an unaccredited and neglected college for “Negroes” to a fully accredited status in record time. Next, he elevated ASC from a small segregated teachers college to the major, racially integrated, doctoral degree granting university known today as Alabama State University (“ASU”). The ASU years were very difficult for Lillian and Levi. There was professional jealous and hatred from fellow ASU colleagues, a full-blown civil rights movement in Montgomery, student unrest on campus, friendships lost, life-threatening situations, and the never-ending battle for equitable funding for ASU. Lillian gave Levi all of her love and strength, while at the same time quietly raising six children. Her faith and belief in God carried the family through these dark and difficult days. Lillian was Levi’s rock, his sounding board, a shoulder upon which to lean, and he loved her so. For his entire presidency, Lillian was solidly behind Levi, quietly being his biggest cheerleader. As was the case with Kathryn and Dougald Carmichael, Olivia and William Carmichael, and Etta and Willie Varnado, Lillian and Levi Watkins stressed educational excellence and leadership with courage as core family values. Lillian and Levi sent all six of their children to college, and saw each of them earn postgraduate degrees. Four of the six children earned terminal degrees in their respective fields of study. My oldest sister Marie has a PhD in mathematics from the University of California at Berkley. Her pioneering mathematical algorithms and inventions for Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies paved the way for the modern era of telecommunications and the electronic transmission of data around the world. My sister Pearl, who died in 2009, became a nationally known concert pianist and popular music teacher. My brother Levi, Jr., who died in 2015, became a world-renowned heart surgeon who co-developed the implantable cardioverter defibrillator keeps more than 3 million hearts worldwide beating in a regular rhythm. My sister Doristine became a highly successful educator and school principal. My brother James became a well-respected surgeon/wound care physician in Charlotte. I became a lawyer, banker, entrepreneur, and online journalist. During Women's History Month, my surviving siblings and I have chosen to pay a tribute the family history and legacy of Lillian and Levi Watkins. Both of them are in Heaven now. We salute them during this special month set aside for Lillian's amazing achievements. God could not have given us greater parents. What Lillian and Levi accomplished in their lifetime with so few resources and so many odds stacked against them was simply amazing. As their surviving children, we did not realize the magnitude of their personal history and legacy until we looked back at their lives after Lillian departed for Heaven in 2013. All of it was nothing short of a miracle. Throughout the course of life, one document has guided us on our journey. It means more to us than anything else in our possession. It is titled, “Certificate of Birth”, and it lists Lillian and Levi Watkins as our parents. There are only six of these certificates in the world and I hold one of them. No matter where I go or what I do in life, I will always be Lillian and Levi Watkins’ ambassador to the larger world, and I will always strive to represent them well.

By: Donald V. Watkins March 12, 2023 EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS--- As part of their sweeping racketeering scheme, the Southern Company and its affiliates used a variety of bribery and money laundering schemes to capture and control utility regulators, state and federal lawmakers, and a host of other public officials. One of these schemes involved the bribery of former Alabama state Representative Oliver Robinson in 2015 and 2016. On September 7, 2017, Robinson pled guilty to receiving $360,000 in bribes. This particular bribery scheme is embedded in an email exchange between Steve McKinney, a former partner at Balch & Bingham, LLP, in Birmingham, and Matthew Bowden, Alabama Power’s then-general counsel on May 17-18, 2015. The entity that was established in 2015 to fund the bribery of Oliver Robinson was called the "Alliance for Jobs and the Economy" (AJE). It was an Alabama Power Company-inspired creation. McKinney explained to Bowden that AJE was the entity that former Alabama Power CEO Mark Crosswhite "preferred" to deal with the company's North Birmingham Superfund cleanup problem in 2015. In his March 18, 2015 email, McKinney told Bowden that AJE is the “special purpose 501-c-6 entity Mark [Crosswhite] preferred over having BBA [Birmingham Business Alliance] respond to EPA’s expanded Superfund theories and GASP’s Toxic City campaign. The Alliance for Jobs and the Economy.” In other words, bribing Oliver Robinson, who is black and who was willing to sell out the black residents of North Birmingham, was Alabama Power's preferred solution for defeating an initiative by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to designate this black neighborhood as a Superfund clean-up site. The Superfund designation would have forced the industrial polluters who poisoned the air, ground, and water in this poor black neighborhood to clean it up at their corporate expense. The polluters were longtime networking partners and political allies of Alabama Power Company. Matthew Bowden’s email address at the time was MWBOWDEN@southernco.com. The Southern Company headquarters in Atlanta monitored the email traffic of its affiliates, especially emails dealing with environmental matters. Bowden died unexpectedly on October 11, 2017, following his hospitalization for a minor aliment. Mike Godfrey, Alabama Power’s general manager for environmental affairs, was copied on McKinney's March 17 and 18, 2015 emails. He, too, had a Southern Company email address. McKinny's reference to "GASP" is an acronym for “Great-Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution.” This organization fought hard and smart against Alabama Power's unrelenting and toxic air pollution in the state. On April 6, 2017, handwritten notes made by the Southern Company's retained crisis management firm, Matrix, LLC, and its owner, Joe Perkins, designated GASP as one of four “natural enemies” of the Southern Company and Alabama Power. The other designated “natural enemies" of these publicly traded utility companies are: (a) the American Association of Retired Persons, (b) former Mobile (Alabama) Press Register reporter Eddie Curran, a critic of Alabama Power, and (c) Debbie Dooley, a well-known Buford, Georgia advocate for green energy and energy choice. Contributors to the Oliver Robinson Bribery Fund Alabama Power contributed $30,000 of the $360,000 in cash that was used to bribe Oliver Robinson. It also paid Balch & Bingham, the Southern Company's principal law firm, to set up the bribery fund. McKinney’s March 17, 2015, email named eight "core group" companies that would contribute the money needed to bribe Oliver Robinson and denoted the status of their contributions. They were: 1. Drummond Company.... Committed 2. Thompson Tractor ......... Committed 3. ACIPCO........................... Committed 4. U.S. Steel......................... Firmly expected 5. Alabama Power............... Firmly expected 6. Nucor Steel..................... Expected 7. Protective Life Corp....... Firmly expected 8. Regions Bank.................. Expected In March of 2015, Protective Life Corporation was led by John D. Johns, who was also elected to the Southern Company's board of directors that year. Johns still serves as a Southern Company board member. Several Balch & Bingham attorneys also contributed money to the AJE fund. The law firm reportedly recaptured this money when Alabama Power paid Balch & Bingham’s inflated invoices. Joe Perkins' April 6, 2017, handwritten notes highlighted a lot of the fraud schemes within the Southern Company, including inflated law firm payments (for money laundering purposes), inappropriate corporate airplane usage (to compromise and corrupt politicians), personnel services (to bilk billions of dollars out of affiliates), shoddy engineering work on the Kemper, Mississippi and Vogtle construction projects (that resulted in $25 billion in cost overruns for these two projects, alone), and questionable accounting practices (across-the-board). Was the North Birmingham Bribery Investigation and Related Trial "Fixed"? In 2018, Judge Abdul K. Kallon presided over the North Birmingham Bribery Trial in which Balch & Bingham law partner Joel I. Gilbert and Drummond Company executive David Roberson were charged with bribing Oliver Robinson. Steve McKinney was indicted in the case, but criminal charges against him were dismissed by Judge Kallon during the trial after an FBI agent testified she may have misled the grand jury by implying that McKinney personally met with Oliver Robinson. Such an in-person meeting never happened. As mentioned earlier, Oliver Robinson pled guilty early in the case and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors to develop evidence against other co-conspirators. The criminal investigation in this case was supervised by Jay Town, then-U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, and Town's handpicked First Assistant U.S. Attorney, Lloyd Peeples. Both men are known “hustlers” who have checkered backgrounds. Before Town gave him the First Assistant's job, Lloyd Peeples was a failed "Your Pie" pizza restaurant franchisee/operator in Homewood, Alabama. Peeples' restaurant operated for only 11 months before he closed its doors due to underperforming pizza sales. During the trial of Joel I. Gilbert and David Roberson, Judge Kallon reportedly instructed defense counsel to avoid any mention of Alabama Power Company and its role in the bribery scheme without first clearing it with Alabama Power's criminal attorney, who monitored the trial daily for his client. This judicial instruction was bizarre, particularly in light of the fact that Alabama Power provided $30,000 of the $360,000 that was used to bribe Oliver Robinson. Jay Town refused to charge Alabama Power or any of its top executives as co-conspirators in the case, despite substantial evidence that established their willingness to participate in the bribery and money laundering scheme. Drummond's general counsel, Blake Andrews, and at least 21 Balch & Bingham attorneys played a key role in the bribery scheme. Yet, Jay Town refused to charge these individuals as co-conspirators in the case. Balch & Bingham is Alabama Power's main law firm. At one time, Mark Crosswhite was a partner in Balch & Bingham. Jay Town actively steered the investigation away from Alabama Power, Crosswhite, and the other entities listed in McKinney’s March 17, 2015 email. On June 5, 2020, Balch & Bingham began its representation of Southern Nuclear Operating Company in regulatory proceedings before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The law firm is tasked with the job of getting Units 3 and 4 at the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Waynesboro, Georgia commissioned and operational from a regulatory compliance standpoint. At no time since the Southern Company received its NRC license for Units 3 and 4 at Vogtle on February 10, 2012, has the company or any affiliate entity come clean with the NRC about the racketeering enterprise and accounting fraud schemes they have run for over a decade. The reasons for concealing this criminal activity from the NRC is simple. The licenses for Units 3 and 4 contain this NRC agency finding: "The issuance of this license will not be inimical to the common defense and security or to the health and safety of the public." The NRC would likely rescind its license for Vogtle if the Commission subsequently determined that the Southern Company operated a racketeering enterprise and various accounting fraud schemes. This is especially true in light of the fact that the Southern Company's accounting fraud schemes emanated, in large part, from the $21 billion in cost overruns associated with the construction of Vogtle Units 3 and 4. Drummond is Alabama Power's longtime coal supplier. Evidence in the Gilbert and Roberson bribery case showed that Drummond CEO Mike Tracy personally approved payments to two ethically-conflicted consultants who lobbied the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to officially oppose the EPA cleanup initiative in North Birmingham. Yet, Jay Town refused to charge Drummond Company or Mike Tracy as co-conspirators in the case. In 2018, Jay Town met with Mark Crosswhite at an obscure lounge where the two men chugged down cocktails amid mounting evidence that some of the companies listed on McKinney’s March 17, 2015 email, as well as their top executives, knowingly and willingly participated in the scheme to bribe Oliver Robinson. After his meeting with Crosswhite, Jay Town decided to (a) portray Roberson and Gilbert as "lone wolves" in the bribery scheme, and (b) close the investigation, over the objections of career law enforcement officials. Abrupt Resignations, an Early Retirement, and a Suicide After a surprise photograph surfaced in 2020 of Jay Town having cocktails with Mark Crosswhite in a festive celebration of Town's agreement to shield Alabama Power, Crosswhite, Drummond, Mike Tracy, Balch & Bingham, Blake Andrews, and the other corporate contributors on McKinney’s list from criminal charges in the case, Town abruptly resigned as U.S. Attorney. Then-U.S. Senator Richard Shelby arranged a high paying general counsel's job for Town with Huntsville-based defense contractor Gray Analytics. Shelby was the longtime beneficiary of major campaign contributions from political action committees affiliated with the companies on McKinney’s list. Shelby is also the "hunting buddy" of Joe Perkins and Scott Coogler, the Chief U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Alabama. Mike Tracy took a sudden and unexpected early "retirement" from the Drummond Company, effective on October 31, 2019. In April 2022, Balch & Bingham attorney William Dice Lineberry committed suicide. Lineberry helped set up the money laundering entity (AJE) that was used to: (a) receive corporate donations from Alabama Power and other willing participants in the bribery scheme and (b) funnel over $360,000 in bribery money to Oliver Robinson. On April 7, 2022, two assistant U.S. Attorneys with reported connections to the Office's investigation of the North Birmingham Bribery Scheme reportedly resigned. Judge Adbul Kallon resigned his lifetime federal judgeship on August 31, 2022, and moved to Seattle, Washington to practice law at the Perkins Cole law firm. His resignation was sudden and unexpected. On October 18, 2022, former Balch & Bingham partner Chase T. Espy pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. On March 8, 2023, Espy was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Mark Crosswhite was ousted as CEO of Alabama Power on November 21, 2022, effective on December 31, 2022. During a February 16, 2023 earnings call, Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning artfully misled Wall Street analysts about the true reason for Crosswhite's ouster from the company. As of March 11, 2023, Jay Town is serving as a legal commentator for the Alabama Media Group. This local media organization, which publishes the Huntsville Times, Birmingham News, and Mobile Press Register online, receives laundered money from an Alabama Power Company-funded entity in exchange for favorable media coverage and/or the suppression of negative news about the Southern Company and its affiliates. This cozy, but publicly undisclosed financial arrangement, has helped the Southern Company’s racketeering enterprise and accounting fraud schemes to flourish in Alabama (and beyond). Meanwhile, Southern Company executives privately believe they have successfully hoodwinked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and his handpicked Criminal Division Chief, Kenneth Polite, into signing off on a non-prosecution agreement for the Southern Company and its affiliates without the Department of Justice's awareness of the massive multi-year accounting fraud schemes referenced in Perkins' April 6, 2017 notes. [Author's Note: My news media group at www.donaldwatkins.com has gained access to a treasure trove of documents and photographs that establish and detail the nature and scope of the Southern Company's racketeering enterprise and accounting fraud schemes. These documents and photos will be published in connection with upcoming articles, to the extent necessary.]

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on March 13, 2023 On Sunday, March 12, 2023, I gave another exclusive interview on the David "The Meck" Meckley Podcast show. David Meckley and I have been close personal friends for two decades. He is a true and loyal friend. David also served as a publicist for another one of my close friends, Attorney Johnnie Cochran. Johnnie and I trusted David with our lives and business reputations, and David never betrayed our friendship or our trust. Yesterday's interview with David may be accessed here: THE MECK PODCAST EXCLUSIVE: DONALD WATKINS UnPlugged - Accuses Southern Company of Massive $27B Accounting Fraud Plus Bribery Schemes - March 12, 2023 David's podcast is audio only. David is one of the last seasoned, fiercely independent, and credible journalists left in Alabama. The others, particularly those affiliated with the Alabama Media Group, sold out to Alabama Power Company many years ago. David's audience reaches more than three million people nationwide. My first interview with David occurred on February 18, 2023 in two parts. They can be accessed here: THE MECK PODCAST EXCLUSIVE (Part 1): DONALD WATKINS Unplugged on Southern Company, Alabama Power Company, Matrix, LLC, Joe Perkins, and Richard Shelby - Feb. 18, 2023 THE MECK PODCAST EXCLUSIVE (Part 2): DONALD WATKINS Unplugged on His Racketeering Complaint With the DOJ Against Southern Company - Plus How Southern Company Misled a Wall Street Analyst - Feb. 18, 2023. I always enjoy being a guest on David's show. Yesterday's exclusive interview was raw, candid, and wide open. I hope my listening audience enjoys this interview, as well. For more articles and podcast by David Meckley, go to: TheMeckReport.com, and TheMeck.BlogSpot.com.