To get the copcams, does it really matter if Nick said it explicitely or not?
What do we know of what Nick has said?
-He has said that he has talked to numerous people in private.
-After the fact, several of those people have claimed that there is a police conspiracy.
-In addition, one of the people he has talked to publicly (Chrissie), after hearing Nick speak, asked if he was saying the police planted drugs in his home, to which he states he didn't say that.
-In his stream leaking the messages from Null, he states he explicitly avoided saying the police were trying to plant drugs in his home, which is an odd thing to go out of your way to mention, unless you're speaking too much.
The question, therefore, is why would he say that? And my answer is very simple. Nick, with his legal training, is going out of his way to suggest conspiracy to his friends without saying it is conspiracy, because if he overtly states it is conspiracy, those statements can be used to justify releasing the bodycam footage, and those statements have more weight when the person being charged (himself) states it, not just his friends.
It has happened multiple times, with people who have spoken in private, and at least one person in public. A reasonable person hears Nick speak and understands his implications, and his "I didn't say that" cope doesn't work when multiple different people all come to the exact same conclusion. If reasonable people all hear Nick's words and then see him say he's explicitly not saying something, but people keep coming to the same conclusion, you can't make the defense you didn't at the very minimum suggest something because it's obvious you didn't want to say it overtly. You going out of your way to mention you did not say something but coming to a specific conclusion leads an average person to understand you are trying your fucking best to suggest a particular conclusion without saying it out loud so that you as a person with legal training can state (accurately, but disingenuously) that you didn't say something, and it sounds like shitty lawyer word games when you do it...and it's because it is shitty lawyer word games.
"You were found with cocaine in your house."
"It's not mine."
"So how did it get there?"
"Do you know what the police bring into your home?"
If you read the above conversation (probably eerily close to what Nick has stated in private to his friends), you get the immediate assumption that if he's telling the truth, then his explanation for the events is that police brought cocaine into his house, because he wouldn't go out of the way to bring it up unless he wants to plant the idea. If he's telling the truth and he is being framed, it deserves to be investigated, and if he isn't (he's not), it deserves to be investigated.
I don't think Nick has to say it for it to matter. I think it's possible that Nick trying to talk to other people to get them to say it could be enough. At least he isn't an obnoxious asshole that has been going out of the way to be as difficult as possible to deal with while driving away damn near everyone in his life so there's no incentive for his local government to agree that maybe the footage should be released, after all.
Because that shit would be embarrassing.