Sunlight is The Best Disinfectant: A Preview of The Case I Wish I Could Unsee

I read a court case today that broke my heart.

Not about the corruption. Not about estate fraud. Not about gambling.

About someone I loved and looked up to my entire life.

It was short. It was direct. It was brutal. It was devastating. And it still is.

When I started this work, I made myself a promise: absolute transparency. No matter what ugly thing we unearthed, no matter how uncomfortable it made me, I would share it. The truth doesn't get to hide just because it's inconvenient or embarrassing or complicated.

And then today I found something so ugly, so disturbing, that I'm sitting here questioning everything I thought I knew about someone who helped shape who I am.

I will share it. I promised transparency, and I meant it.

But not today.

Not because I'm protecting anyone. Not because I'm cherry-picking what truths matter. But because I need time to sit with what it means to love someone while also acknowledging the brutality they were capable of, and how it may have shaped my family.

I am taking time to determine how this document intersects with ongoing legal matters, not whether it should be disclosed.

I need to figure out how to transmit this story in a way that honors the humanity of a real victim, while processing the duality that somebody can be both your beloved grandfather who was the only one looking out for you, and the man who did something so unforgivable that the thought of glorifying his story in a movie or book is dead on arrival. That family history isn't just the warm memories we choose to keep, but also the dark truths that lived in the same house.

Transparency means you get to know what I know. But it doesn't mean you get it before I've processed it myself. It might take me a minute, and after you read it, it might take you a minute too.

I'll share the document. I'll tell you what it says. I'll walk through what it means and what questions it raises and how it changes my relationship to my grandfather.

When I'm ready.

But right now I'm just... sitting with it. Trying to figure out how to hold two contradictory truths at the same time. Trying to remember that committing to honesty doesn't mean I don't get to be human about it first.

I’m a firm believer that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and although there's not a lot of sunshine in the story I have the regrettable task of telling, public interest demands that it be told in broad daylight.

More to come.

Just not today.

-Mike Portney