HAWAII
Tulsi Gabbard's political career was secretly directed by her guru, Chris Butler, whose Science of Identity Foundation has run a political operation out of Hawaii for decades, deploying disciples to anonymously smear opponents, critics, and journalists.
Thousands of documents and emails from the covert Science of Identity political operation have been independently examined by the Washington Post. The content on this website is attributed solely to the site's author.
"Seymour Bradley," a top political adviser to Tulsi Gabbard since 2012, is a fake name. His real name is Rick Reed, a Chris Butler disciple who has run the same political smear playbook for over forty years under a fake name.
Who is Rick Reed aka Seymour Bradley?
Rick Reed is a longtime Chris Butler disciple who has been a top political adviser to Tulsi Gabbard since 2012. He operates under the pseudonym "Seymour Bradley" on Butler's digital infrastructure (@nineisles.com). His SIF devotee name is Krishna Das.
Reed writes Tulsi's speeches, edits her talking points, and runs political communications through encrypted channels. The forensic database contains 190 emails from his @nineisles.com address. 2
He has never used his real name in any of this work.
He uses a pseudonym because his real name carries a history. In the 1980s, Rick Reed was at the center of one of Hawaii's biggest political scandals. He has been hiding ever since.
Using government access to destroy an opponent
Rick Reed was Special Assistant to Charles Marsland, the Honolulu City Prosecutor, for approximately six years. In 1985, while working in that role, Reed gave a speech to the Kiwanis Club in which he called Larry Mehau, a Big Island cattle rancher, former police officer, and prominent political figure, "the godfather of organized crime in Hawai'i."
Reed used confidential government documents to build that speech: Operation Firebird files from a joint state and federal organized-crime investigation involving the DEA, FBI, IRS, and multiple police departments. Those documents were maintained by the City prosecutor's office where Reed worked. He had no authorization to disclose them publicly. The Hawaii Supreme Court found in Mehau v. Reed (1994):
"Based on the credible evidence, Defendant Reed clearly acted 'knowingly and intentionally' in disclosing personal records of [Mehau]... Defendant Reed's 1985 Kiwanis Club speech is replete with references to the Firebird/FBI documents."
Mehau v. Reed, 869 P.2d 1320 (Haw. 1994) 1
Reed tried to claim he made the speech "during his lunch hour" as a "political candidate." The court granted Mehau a new trial against Reed, finding the jury's verdict was "against the weight of the evidence." A Butler disciple with government access weaponized confidential records to destroy someone, and a court said so.
The Heftel smear
A year later, Reed resigned from Marsland's office to run for the congressional seat being vacated by Cec Heftel, who was leaving Congress to run for governor. Heftel was leading all the polls in the Democratic gubernatorial primary against Lieutenant Governor John Waihee. Then an anonymous smear campaign destroyed him, accusing him of involvement in drugs and sexual relations with "young males and females." The smear material was traced back to a government fax machine in Marsland's office, where Reed had worked.
The report used for the smear was approximately three years old. It had already been dismissed as meritless by Marsland's own office. Reed knew it was worthless. Heftel lost the primary. Reed withdrew from his own congressional race that same month.
Chris Butler vehemently denied involvement. According to confidential sources, Butler and Reed were both behind it, and both lied about it. 6
Reed flees Hawaii
After the Heftel scandal and the Mehau lawsuit, Reed left Hawaii. He adopted the pseudonym "Seymour Bradley" for all subsequent political work, and has used it for over 30 years. Every email, every speech draft, every political communication runs through seymour.bradley@nineisles.com or seymour@researchhq.org. Both are Butler's infrastructure.
The reason for the pseudonym is simple. The name "Rick Reed" is attached to the 1986 smear scandal and the Mehau lawsuit. Using it would immediately connect Butler's current political operation to his decades-old history of anonymous attacks.
Reed's role in Tulsi's campaign
Reed has worked on Tulsi's campaign from the beginning, carrying out Butler's political strategies. The forensic database contains 190 emails from his accounts, dated December 2015 through October 2018, all under the pseudonym "Seymour Bradley." 2
He edited and directed Tulsi's speeches, including the People's Summit speech in June 2016, enforcing Butler's rules: "It's 1657 words, 400 more than TG can deliver effectively in ten minutes. We have to abide by the #1 rule in drafting speeches: don't go beyond 1250 words." 4
He received Butler's transcripts through encrypted PGP channels, edited them, and returned them through the same pipeline. He participated in Butler's social media defense operation alongside Allison Hoen. He was on the full TG Media distribution list alongside Tulsi's private email address, and on Carol Gabbard's political distribution list.
He worked remotely, operating from the mainland United States throughout. IP analysis of his email headers confirms he was never in Hawaii during the operation. 3
The pattern
| Year |
Target |
Method |
| 1977 |
Larry Mehau |
Reed's own Maui tabloid, The Valley Isle, branded Mehau "the godfather" of organized crime 7
|
| 1985 |
Larry Mehau |
Kiwanis Club speech using confidential government documents 1
|
| 1986 |
Cec Heftel |
Anonymous smear traced to a government fax machine |
| 2015–2019 |
Tulsi's critics |
Speechwriting, encrypted comms, social media ops, all under a pseudonym 2
|
Forty years. The same person. The same boss. Anonymous attacks using other people's platforms to destroy targets for Butler's political purposes.
Why this matters now
Rick Reed is part of the same inner circle that has targeted me. He operates within the same infrastructure and answers to the same person. The organization that used Reed to anonymously smear political opponents in the 1980s is the same organization that coordinated my $100,000 arrest in 2025. 5
Butler's smear machine has been running for four decades. The only thing that changed is the technology.
The same tactics that deployed Reed to anonymously smear political opponents in the 1980s are the strategy Butler's Science of Identity insiders used to try to silence me and destroy my life in 2025.
