Latest / The Nation Podcasts / Trump is Using Terrorist Charges to Wage Political War w/ Josh Kovensky | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

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Trump is Using Terrorist Charges to Wage Political War w/ Josh Kovensky | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The old world is dying, the new world struggles to reborn, now is the time of monsters.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: With those words from Gramsci, I welcome you to the time of monsters podcast.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is sponsored by the Nation Magazine and is available on all podcasting platforms.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm G.T.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: here right here for the Nation.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So today I want to talk about the broadening
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: anti-terrorism laws by the Trump administration, which are taking laws that were designed and sometimes even misapplied in earlier administrations to foreign terrorist organizations and certain types of organized domestic groups, which are now being more broadly used against political protests of all sorts as part of the Trump administration's war on the left.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a really important story.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: He hasn't been getting his wet detention as it should.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: The journalist can clip and steam who we've had down before has been covering it.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now there's actually a really terrific piece in talking points memo from today's guest, Josh Kovinsky, which really like lays out what is happening and why it's important.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So first of all, Josh, welcome to the program.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me, Angie.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's gonna be here.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so so your piece as I mentioned it's in talking points memo and we'll link to it, but do you want to like basically just start off by telling us like what the main argument here is?
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, sure.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So look, as you mentioned a few months ago at the Trump administration issued a number of directives to law enforcement, basically telling them to look for domestic terrorists and they told FBI and DOJ and local law enforcement, local kind of anti-terrorism squads.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: to look specifically for people who express anti-Americanism, anti-Christianity, anti-capitalist beliefs, or who express extremism on gender and other quote is extremism on race.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Basically, these vague, big descriptors that tend to be associated with lettering causes.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so what the story looks at is how that's now being operationalized in anti-terrorism prosecutions across the country.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: So what we found is that in several cases there were incidents of things that went wrong at pro-different protests.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was one Black Lives Matter protests in Birmingham, Alabama, for example, where somebody kind of wandered off allegedly on one to a Walmart, later shopping cart and fire.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that person is now not only facing a federal arts and charge, but facing a charge of material support for terrorism.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so the only link that anybody can kind of find to understand why that might be a crime of terrorism is if you think the Black Lives Matter qualifies as a domestic terrorist organization.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or if you're, you know, if you commit a crime associated with a Black Lives Matter protest, then you've done something terroristic.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in that case, you know, the guy was arrested also with Silent Siden.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, so this is like happening now, but I mean, I think there's a sort of like a longer history of this and in your piece you go into some of this now you should be mentioned there's been sort of like longstanding civil liberties concerns about the federal government going after political protest in a politicized way, you'll famously in the sort of 1960s FBI control program.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the more recent history is starting the 1990s with the Radon Waco and the bombing of the World Trade Center in the 1993 one.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: There had been a sort of like strengthening of anti-terrorism laws.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want to talk about that period leading into like 9-11?
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was going on with the laws then?
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you had the 93 World Trade Center bombing wake out Oklahoma City federal building bombing and a company like along we said all of that in the 90s there was just this big crime scare.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mean that dominated politics and the Clinton administration kind of leaned into that right.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: They I mean.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: wanted to be seen as being tough on crime, kind of as a way to moderate.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So in the mid-90s, Congress passed a sweeping piece of anti-crym legislation, which included what at the time was basically overlooked, but it was a provision that criminalized material support for terrorism.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so until then, you could be charged, let's say, as an accomplice, if you get a somebody a gun, and that person committed a terrorist attack with a gun, but there wasn't a specific crime with associated penalties for, you know, materially supporting some terrorist at cause.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's interesting about it, because if you look at the conversation at the time, one of the first groups to push for prosecutions under it was the anti-deformation league immediately demanding that the DOJ and the 90s go after supposed supporters of Hamas.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: with this material support law.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: That didn't happen.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: It took the initial prosecutions under it.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was one of these guys in West Virginia called the Mountain Year militia.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: They were white nationalists.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was another prosecution brought under it of a IRA member in Florida who was trafficking, who was gun-running arms from Florida to Ireland for the IRA.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it was really, basically before 911, the law was very rarely used.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it was also hard to bring cases under it because even now, both then and now for this specific law, the intent requirements are really high.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: The government has to show that you, in the, in the, in the like a lot, it's like knowingly intended, but they have to show that you had a really specific knowledge of what you were doing by supporting this alleged crowd of terrorism.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but these laws were also then later strengthened like after 9-11, and I think that then you did sort of see a sort of like ramping up of use of anti-terrorism laws against domestic groups.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you did, totally.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think 9-11 completely changed the game, right?
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because it, I mean, okay, I mean, we all can remember what happened after that, right?
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was this huge push.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, everybody was terrified.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like push administration stoked that that fear, and there was a big push to use these laws against international.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: is on my terrorism.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what happened.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the DRJ just kind of really beefed up in the section of prosecutors that were devoted to this and the Patriot Act passed and along with other laws.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so what those laws did in the name of fighting terror was dramatically expand the kinds of things that could qualify as so-called material support.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if before, it had to be something pretty physical and pretty concrete.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: like giving some of you a gun or, you know, explosive materials after the Patriot Act, you could provide what was called intangible support.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that meant like a device or certain forms of training.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it meant that like the range of things that could qualify as supporting terrorism became much broader.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: In addition to that, they made a lot easier to bring cases under what is this like kind of like sister crime, which is also material support that basically means that it became easier to say that if you gave money, let's say 50 bucks to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's say Hamas, straw kaita, whatever it is, then that's a crime regardless of whether or not you thought that money was just going to go to, you know, buy a loaf of bread or a gun whatever it was just the act of giving money to those organizations is a crime.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that, in turn, led to a wave of prosecutions in the United States against people who allegedly were supporting Hamas, supporting Akhaida, whatever it was, a lot of what were people who were associated with kind of Islamic charities in the United States, and maybe didn't know exactly what the weather part of the money was going, but they were caught up in prosecutions.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's still like a big debate over who knew what, but I mean, what basically happened was, the government, the Bush administration wanted to be seen to be going aggressively after the people who might have
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: could have been potentially connected to being responsible for 9-11, and so they went really aggressively after the Islamic community in a way that was incredibly repressive.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: The domestic piece doesn't really, with these laws, doesn't really come until there.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: It hasn't, you know, mostly they were used against like white nationalists.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, in those cases, you know, it's guys who,
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're like plotting to, you know, because some guys know how putting a blow up a mask, we kind of high wants a blow up a bridge.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a whole wave of prosecutions against people who like thought they were bringing about the end who thought they were gonna try to like start a race war by blowing up power plants.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like kind of like losers who drive round like that, like thinking that, you know, they're all that stuff.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And again, like, those plots were all fairly well developed.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you had people sitting around, like, scheming, getting explosives together, spending weeks or months trying to, you know, affect something.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: One interesting case, for example, was this guy in, uh, this was in 2019, this is a little after this time period.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: But he was like an online accelerationist.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: He basically, like, self-rather allies, and became, like, an online, like Neo Nazi, and he was in, he was in the army.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was a soldier.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he went into a chat room with these accelerationists and tried to make contact with somebody in Alkhaida to like invite an attack on his own army unit and Basically thinking that that was going to help bring about with the end of the American like America and he was prosecuting under a material support because in that You know case the idea was well he was giving away the details of where his unit was going to be stationed at the Middle East
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: how many people were going to be there, what equipment they would have, and he was trying to give that to basically cause an attack.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's the kind of planning at the government, but typically show to prosecute you on these charges.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I mean look, there was always this concern that it could be abuse, right?
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think from the early days after 9-11, and even the 90s you could go back and find conversation about this, there was serious concern that this could be manipulated for partisan purposes.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: The government could apply this against domestic political enemies, but because of that,
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: there was at least an effort within the Justice Department to like evolve these barriers or guardrails that would stop that from happening.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what we're seeing now is that any semblance of those have just been completely bulldozed.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you can correct me at home wrong about this, but in some of those cases, at least when they went to Jerry with the Islamic charities, like there was some reluctance on the part of Jerry's to fully go along with this,
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were cases also where Jerry's felt that there was like a level of FBI entrapment that was happening, like I don't think the government was always fully successful in those cases as well, right?
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, they weren't at all.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the track record just makes, they weren't always fully successful.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I also think like it's worth thinking about this in terms of how the process itself can be the punishment.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, yeah, like maybe these people charge over their involvement, so it was like charity, maybe they get off.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, it's just like a hugely funnishing, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, and like the label is being called a terrorist is so damaging too.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, but I mean, just to like sort of like flesh out the picture of what's happening.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually, I do think that the sort of jury reluctance is kind of like important for like pushing out the idea that, you know, there's always been some level of systematic abuse.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But as you suggested, within the government itself, at least the main, there was a concern about partisan use of these laws and guardrails were put into place.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this also, can you actually define what some of these card layouts might have been?
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean a lot of it was just like, you know, you have like prosecutors around the country working out of these different offices and the idea was that they would have to I mean it really still is kind of on the books list internally within the Justice Department all that people aren't seemingly paying attention to it But the idea is that before they do anything significant in one of these like domestic terrorism investigation or in bringing domestic terrorism like charge They have to check with leadership in DC
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that goes all the way up the chain to like the head of the National Security Division and like senior leadership in Washington, including like, you know, the Attorney General, but we're not like now those people are, you know, it's like the kind of charges National Security Division, I think like worked with like Devon Union, and some weird plot in like 2017 and like there's Pam Bondi.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even if they are checking with those people, it's not as if these are like, you know, supposedly sober adults.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, no, no, and I mean, it's actually interesting that like in the first Trump administration some of the rhetoric or ideas were already there like Trump was talking about antifa and BLM as sort of domestic threats, but the legal infrastructure wasn't there like there's this kind of like a notable change from the first Trump administration to the second one, did you want to like it might be good to kind of like track out
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: How does that change happen?
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this a matter of personality or is it easier like more actual theory that's involved with us?
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, it's totally both.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like I think the big thing is just tracking rhetorically.
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like during the first term, the Trump was talking a lot about antifa, and that's now evolved into something, into being part of this legal architecture of the field, right?
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And for them, like, antifa is like, it's sort of like the weather underground in the 70s, times 90s crime scare, plus ISIS, like, if you combine all those, that is what, like, the MAGA, the Trumpian right wing vision of what?
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: the men that sent you foes supposedly presents is.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: In reality, it's like not even clear how many people put you ever in a country where you even describe themselves as anti-fog.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are a lot of people who would say they're anti-fascists.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are people who do black-block tactics, which means they all dress in black and maybe break windows or commit like property crime as part of a demonstration.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it really just is not like anywhere close.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, for example, had in the 70s, which was pipe bombings all over the place.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, genuinely committed like revolutionary
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the Trump administration is trying to conjure that into reality and so after the killing of Charlie Kirk they kind of jumped on that and used it as justification to issue a few directives to law enforcement.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: The big one is I'm sure you had Ken Onges talk about this as NSPM7 and that's the one I mentioned earlier where they're telling law enforcement.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: around the country to look at certain beliefs as a potential addition of domestic terrorism.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so what's interesting about it is that it's directing law enforcement to do the opposite of what we wanted to do.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Typically, you want there to be evidence of a crime or evidence that a crime is going to be committed and then the cops go and investigate that and hold somebody accountable for some crime of violence, right?
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: A murderer, for example.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, they're telling people what they're doing with this is reversing that.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're basically saying, okay, here are potential perpetrators.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: They believe in these things, anti-Americanism, anti-Christianity, anti-capitalism, go find crimes and vestutaryism that are associated with that.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it just flips the whole system on its head.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're starting off with an ideology, they're starting off with potential perpetrators, and then it's telling a lot of forcemen to find crimes that might be associated with the ideology.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know, that's right.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that gets, I think, the heart of the real danger here.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: which is that you are creating a class of thought crimes that, you know, if you have this ideology and even more threateningly, like a very and more first idea of what even ideology means.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you could be like a slogan or ownership of a zine and is the defined as sort of like a membership of a group.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I think that the concrete examples really help flesh out the kind of dangers.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'd mention the sort of Alabama
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Walmart case.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to like talk about that one and some of the other cases that are add to shoe here?
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the Alabama case, I think is really telling.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's not the one Texas much in later, but you know, Alabama and Birmingham over the summer there had been a police killing of an unarmed black team.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It led to Black Lives Matter protests, and so at one of these protests, a man named Rekudio Southal, who himself is a very well-known local Black Lives Matter activist, if you're in Birmingham, you kind of might know him as just like a local BLM guy.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: He allegedly leaves the protest, goes to a Walmart that's down the road from where the protest is taking place.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had to be careful here because it's all just basically all of these just allegations from variants like law enforcement.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, listen, I should always put like a ledge before we're all these activities because I, I believe he's also like played not guilty to like what was character.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, he's leading not guilty.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not so important, but he, but you know, I think the underlying contact here, contact here is endless contact here is interesting because you allegedly fills the shopping cart the Walmart, you know, full of care scene, like toilet paper,
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then he's caught by local cops a couple days later.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: They charge him with arson.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: They charge him with possession of a silciban, because that's like possessing shrumes.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: OK, that's all basically kind of what huge expect in the case like this.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a final Walmart, allegedly, caused by somebody who is arrested for that, whatever.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: A random month later, the feds come in, charge him with federal arson.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: OK, we're still relatively in the realm of what would typically happen in the case like this.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then a month later, they come in and charge him in another person with material support for terrorism, with the arson being the crime of terrorism, that he and the other person were materialy supporting.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think one thing that's important to keep in mind here is that if you think about the rhetoric around antifa and black lives matter and the supposedly like riots and havoc they've reached around the country if you just kind of exist with solely within like the maga cinematic universe that they're going around calling at least people to mess with terrorists right but if you look at the actual allegation for what the domestic terrorism in this instance was supposed to be it just doesn't live up to that
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's hard to imagine that this guy leaves Black Lives Matter protests, allegedly sets a shopping cart on fire, that is anywhere near.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: What would qualify as materials for fraternism?
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just in the past, again, like I mentioned, it's been applied to these plots to blow up the power grid.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Army, this is called Soldier Inviting Attackers on Unit.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: The leadership of Amos was charged with, by the, under this crime, during the Biden administration over October 7th.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it really has tended to be used for large scale plots.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in this case, it's being applied
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: to think that really I think only qualifies as terrorism if you think that being associated with Black Lives Matter somehow is terroristic.
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's another case in Texas that's interesting.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: What happened there was there was a protest on July 4th outside an ice detention facility, and what the government alleges happened is kind of like the opening of one battle after another.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like these protesters allegedly shot fireworks at this ice detention facility,
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: they were allegedly vandalizing things.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the government has tried to make it seem like the government's called it an ambush.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: They tried to make it seem like they were trying to basically attack the facility and break in kind of like any opening scene of that movie.
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: As far as I can tell, that's just not what happened.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was a noise demonstration.
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: These people were some of them were trans.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of them were anarchists.
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: They were all wearing black-block.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: They were definitely kind of committed.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would say leftists and people who were opposed to ICE and opposed to these mass deportations and mass tensions of the administrations conducting.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: and the greater kind of Dallas Fort Worth area.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they decide to stage this demonstration.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: They bring guns, a number of them remembers of the Socialist Rifle Association, and law enforcement officer responds, one of them allegedly shoots the cop, the cops revives, returns fire, everybody there gets arrested.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so initially again,
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: The charges are riot, there's an investigation, and take conspiracy, and property damage.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're limited charges around the shooting of the cop.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then a couple months later, in October, after the killing of Charlie Kirk, and after the administration issues these directives to law enforcement, describing what they want out of these domestic terrorism cases.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: The DOJ comes in and charges over a dozen people with material support for terrorism.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: With, again, the terrorist that gacked allegedly being the crimes committed outside the science attention facility.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: where that gets really hairy is, okay, you have this one guy who allegedly brought the gun, he allegedly talked in a signal chat about bringing the gun and then allegedly shot the cop, right?
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there you do, the government is saying that there is some planning on his part, but you have other people who were there, who, for example, this one woman, who the government is not alleging, was in any kind of planning chat beforehand, the only link they have that they've said so far is that she was dressed in black,
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: and she was involved in the production and distribution of a prosecutors have described as insurrectionary materials known as zines, supposedly like antifazines and insurrectionary zines.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like, you know, if you, so the connection is ideological, allegedly, and then like based on Garb, like dressed in black.
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, and yet she's facing this material swore for terrorism charge, she had a couple others in so much situation, which, you know, she has, if you have no prior criminal conduct,
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: gets you a guidelines minimum sentence of 17 and a half years blind bars.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a severe pen.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a potentially severe penalty and it's not clear that she was involved in anything the government is alleging was the problem.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean that's a very sort of the face of it, a very clear cut case of an ideological crime.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even an ideological crime in a very vague way, like sort of
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: and having the earmarks of blinding to a group.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there, do you have some sense of how defense attorneys are going to be taking these cases forward?
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because as I mentioned, even after 911, there were some reluctance on the part of Juries to fully buy into sort of like government narratives.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there any thinking on the part of legal defense as to how these things could play out?
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few, so I think one thing that's important to note is that these cases we're talking about have been brought in like the deep south, right?
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's Dallas and it's Birmingham and those are also in judicial circuits with the upper of the pelicorts are just seen as being pretty favorable to the government in these cases.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's gonna stack, I mean, the lawyers are talking to, see all seem to think that that's gonna make it harder for them.
• 21:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I should mention that the case that I was thinking about where the government suffered setbacks after 9-11, where like in place like Chicago, right, where you would have a very different profile both in terms of the jury pool and the judges and even the prosecutors.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, and even more recently, like with, and this isn't terrorism cases, but like in Chicago, many Apple has all the cases that have been brought with like the H.S.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: uh, the unions of the cities, like, you know, I mean, those were failing because the juries aren't, like the juries and the judges and the prosecutors just aren't into it.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, in the deep south, I think that maybe in these locations that might not be the case in these areas.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like, that being said, so, you know, for example, let's like talk about like the Alabama case, around a month ago, there was an alleged arson in Mississippi, in Jackson, of a synagogue there, and the feds have only charged that as arson.
• 21:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: They haven't charged that as material sport terrorism.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: You might say that's because there's only one person who was involved to generally need more than one person for there to be the material support charge, but still, you know, I think some of the attorneys there might look at that.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: and see, well, is this not an example of selective prosecution, but the selective prosecution bar, that's one thing they could argue, it's gonna be hard to clear that, you know, I think that there haven't already been pleas, because the government's coming so aggressively, at least in Texas, a lot of it is going to come down to,
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how they can impute the evidence.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think one case, one interesting thing is coming out in Texas, I think, is telling about how weak the government's case is there.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: For a lot of these cases, they'll call on experts who will be some guy who has a PhD in, like, the Middle East or the history of left politics in America to tell the jury about what's happening.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the person that the prosecution is calling for the antifa case in Texas with what
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: is a former Claremont Institute fellow and like long time like DC activist guy who has like initially in the 2010s he spent all his time talking about how al Qaeda and an ISIS where these like existential threats and then at some point in the first Trump term pivoted to doing the same thing about antifa.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's never had any like background in like scholarly training or done real research, but he is like the government's expert with us on what antifa supposedly is so I know that the defense attorneys are really interested in going after the case is on that on that level just pointing out that the depiction of the cell the terrorist cell these people supposedly belong to is non-sensical because as far as we understand there isn't like you know There just isn't antifa in the same way that like there was maybe with whether on the ground or like there has been with the bright wing militia
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think for a lot of them, it's just going to be going to the underlying reality of what is and isn't happening in America, but I think it's going to be an uphill battle.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I know.
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can sort of see, as you guys heard, like describing it, some of the difficulties the offensive will face.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's also, I guess, the issue of this sort of like, critical ramifications, or, no, I know, like the previous guest we've had to talk with is Ken Clip and seeing was talking a bit about
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: how reluctant the Democrats were initially to like talk about these issues and to to go after that.
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it may have been some change since then or do you want to talk about like how this is cleaned up politically?
• 24:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there like any possibility of, you know, survey congressional backlash?
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: There might be, I mean, I think just like let's rewind a little bit about the history of this case is, you know, they were first developed on the Bush administration, but Obama continued these prosecutions of material support for
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's not like, they add that.
• 24:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is a bipartisan continuity, yeah.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it's exactly.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a bipartisan continuity.
• 24:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's true that the Trump to the guardrails are gone.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are just using it explicitly.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: In this ideological way, domestically, that hasn't been number four, but it's also true that the fact is that the architecture for this was built by partisan way for the past 25 years since I love it.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's just an incongrucial to keep in mind.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: In terms of how Democrats and Congress are reacting right now, I think it is starting to gain more attention, but I think it's still running into the same.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like, look, there's just been this really sclerotic lack of, like, unbullying this with the past year to recognize the situation of the countries and to kind of grapple with the ambition of the Trump administration, you know, which is to crack down the left with the full force a lot and go beyond the bounds of a lot to do that.
• 25:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I see some willingness, but I don't see a ton, and again, I think part of it is also unfortunately jurisdictional, like these are, this is a deep south, these are red states, and they are just, it's just harder to get people to get that interested in matters that aren't effecting their district.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think part of what's been successful in Minneapolis is that it's a blue state of the representatives in Congress who can push back and get information from the government, but you just don't have that in Birmingham, Alabama right now.
• 25:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, no, that kind of makes sense is it like anyone in Congress who's like taking on these issues like just as a broader political mandate or, you know, like not necessarily like these are people in my district, but you know, this is like a broader political threat like is there like any possibly organizing along those lines?
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's definitely a lot of staff and there's a lot of staff in Congress who are upset about this.
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think there are members of the judiciary community for sure in the Senate who are aware, but I
• 26:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: My impression then, and now is that most high profile Democrats were still trying to play dead and pretend that's something.
• 26:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which is, yeah.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I just don't see a lot of like pushback on everybody.
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, no, no, no, no, this is a sort of like a grim situation, so it's good to like, you know, try to be accurate about it.
• 26:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be the other extra question I have is like, is the Department of Justice like fully on board with this stuff because I mean, I think there are other situations where we are kind of seeing like,
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: as again, like it is kind of like in blue states, but whatever, you know, like some just dissension within the ranks, some resignations, people like, you know, like not not being fully on board.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there like anything within the system itself that could serve as a check?
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.
• 27:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think, again, one thing to keep in mind here is that like,
• 27:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: with all the rhetoric and all the directors from the senior like DJ leadership, this is what they have been able to get, like, which is, you know, the guy in Alabama, these people on Texas, like, it really, again, like, like, the fact of these cases is just do not match the rhetoric.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so there's also something it's not like funny, but you have to look at it that way.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: which is like, you know, come on, guys.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, you're describing this like, global, this like, you know, national domestic terrorist and conspiracy, and at the end of the day, all you have is the Walmart with the shopping cart of fire and, you know, fireworks, like an injured cop outside the detention center of the city, and it's like fourth, like it just, it just does not match that.
• 27:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Look, I, with from within the DOJ, yeah, I mean, all the reporting suggests that people are really to moralize, that they're completely overwhelmed.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this also is just not what, like,
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are a lot of problems with what they do for real, I think we can talk about the systemic problems, but the difference here is that they're trying to kind of shift the system towards something that's not.
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: been designed to do and so that I think causes that seems to be causing a lot of set disaster action.
• 28:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: But that being said, what these directives are designed to do from the top is just shift the whole infrastructure of law enforcement towards these political priorities, right?
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that I think could run, that could run really deep.
• 28:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, there's this
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: these things called joint terrorism task forces and those are like mixes of federal and local law enforcement around the country and there's like everywhere.
• 28:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so one thing that these memos are directing them to do is to prioritize these initiatives and asset terrorism when they're
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: bring these cases.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's not just going to federal, that's also going to like local cops who are assigned to these units.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's going deep.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean it's going to call it as a lot of scrutiny.
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: The other thing that Bondi has done is direct the FBI and D.R.J.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: to like look for antifa related intelligence over the like past like five or ten years of case files.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: to potentially bring new cases.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think there are one thing I've also come to understand through reporting is that there are a lot of cases that were not indicted in 2020, and also during the pro Palestine protests that began after October 7th, which for every reason those cases were not brought, there might have been investigations, there might have been limited investigations that may now be interpreted.
• 29:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's partly again, because of the material support statute, it doesn't give the thing about it is that it has
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's going back to 2018, 2018, right, 2017.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there's that concern as well.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: That being said, again, these cases, typically, if you look at the past, not the ones that are currently being brought, they take huge amounts of effort, they take a huge amount of investigative work, that requires a lot of people, or requires a lot of smart people, and diligent people.
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you are a honest, smart, diligent prosecutor, like why would you, you're probably going to go into prior practice and make a ton of money.
• 30:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: and not, you know, be like work for Caspatel, I think we see people making that decision all of the country right now.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I guess this sort of broader political question, I am left with.
• 30:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've sort of jestered at this, but it might be good to articulate this, is
• 30:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: the whole problem with the sort of war on terrorism framework and obviously Trump has radicalized it, you know, taken it into this like new territory, which is like a very scary, but I mean, there's this broader issue, like as long as we have this, like you know, sort of category of terrorism and are like also willing to, you know, apply it, not just for like direct terrorist acts, but, you know, like this sort of,
• 30:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: umbrella of activities that's around it that might surround it or allegedly surround it like that's that's going to be a problem.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to say something about that?
• 31:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a huge problem and I think it's not like it's on accident.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: The other big political crisis happening now is due to the HS, which was the big, you know, department created after 911 as part of the war on terror, right?
• 31:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean that was the thing that the Bush that Democrats initially demanded in like 2001, 2002, and the Bush administration then agreed to create
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: As the agency, those can provide internal security and prevent future terrorist attacks, right?
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's not a coincidence that we see these prosecutions happening now using these expanded authorities that were created after the war and terror at the same time as we have these huge scandals around the HS, you know, now killing people in the streets of Minneapolis,
• 31:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: surveilling people who disagree with the government, it and we're willing to go out and you know, oppose it like they're in their own lives.
• 31:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I look, I don't think it's an accident that these things are all coming together.
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think every now and then when I see commentary around this and there's a suggestion that it's like the chickens coming home to roost, but it's also important to keep in mind that these material support charges are being brought against people who are opposing the government.
• 32:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not like Carl Rove is getting charged with material support for terrorism, or some architect of the global war in terror and to those people.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: The people who are facing these are the ones who are going out and posing it and might get caught up in something that might get caught up in an act of criminality that gets recassist terrorism.
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that it's certainly true that we're seeing the kind of
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: After effects of things that happen 25 years ago, 25 years ago, and that if you go back and read the kind of conversation in like 2003, 2004, around all this, it's eerie because the civil liberties concerns that we're discussed then are not kind of a really, really being born out.
• 32:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's also important to recognize that it's not as if any of the people who are responsible for creating the system are the ones being held accountable by it.
• 32:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: the Democrats to ignore and neglect.
• 33:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this kind of parallel activities with what Tulsi Gabbard is doing in Georgia.
• 33:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, using these laws or systems set into place for international threats and using it for what is clearly seems to be domestic partisan way.
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, at some level, maybe I'm being naive, but at some level, I have to think Democrats have to have some awareness.
• 33:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: that, you know, like if they go after these groups, they could be used against us as well.
• 33:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, or is there no awareness of this?
• 33:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that the precedent being said is very dangerous.
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I think there's definitely awareness of that.
• 33:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's hard, just that they, you know, I mean, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this strategy, but it's really seems like they're more focused on, on basically treating these civil liberties concerns as exotic and things for the base of the Democratic Party.
• 34:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: and treating people who are not paying super, super plugged in, who aren't paying close attention to politics, as mostly caring about cost-loving, inflation, affordability, ready to walk all it, and try to win that way.
• 34:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm not gonna pretend to like know but the answer is the question, because I don't know the answer, actually.
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I look, I can tell you, it was like a journalist who's covering this, I think it's incredibly important, and that everybody should be talking about it all the time.
• 34:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So,
• 34:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, absolutely.
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, as I said at the start, like I think this is actually been a very undercovered story And I think your piece in particular does a very good job of laying out like how we got here and why it's important So perhaps I think that's a good book to maybe like end this on yeah, you great everyone to read Josh's article which we'll be linked to so thanks for being on the program.
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, dude.
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really appreciate it.
• 35:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's good talking