WEBVTT - A Short-Lived Pardon 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:10.280 Col Zone Media on January twenty sixth, twenty twenty five. 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:17.759 Matthew Huddle died. That much we know for certain. Usually 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.079 I tell you a story that's old enough that the 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.160 ink is not only dry, but it's begun to fade 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:27.400 a little. The reports are in, the motions have been filed, 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:32.560 argued and ruled on. The official story is set in stone. 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.279 That's not the case today. As I'm writing this. There 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:40.400 are still questions left unanswered. There is a state police 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:45.400 investigation into an officer involved shooting still underway. But Matthew 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:50.600 Huddle is dead. That much we know. Just days before 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:54.920 he died, he'd gotten some long awaited good news. His 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.680 uncle Dale was coming home. Both men were among the 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:02.360 nearly sixteen hundred people pardoned by Donald Trump in one 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.760 of his first actions after being sworn in his president. 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.160 Matthew had already served his six month sentence, but when 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.720 the pardons came through, Dale Huddle was just a few 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:13.360 months in to a two and a half year term 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.600 at a prison in Illinois. On the afternoon that he died, 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:22.600 Matthew Huddle was driving somewhere in Jasper County, Indiana. I 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.400 don't know where he was going, but I do know 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.240 he wasn't supposed to be driving, and according to the 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:33.160 Jasper County Sheriff, he was speeding. I can only assume 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.680 that the altercation that allegedly ensued began after the sheriff's 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.560 deputy discovered that Huddle did not have a valid driver's license. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:42.840 The deputy claims Huddle resisted when he tried to place 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.800 him under arrest, and it was during this altercation that 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:47.880 the sheriff says the deputy discovered that Huddle was in 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.760 possession of a firearm, which he was not legally allowed 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:55.560 to have, the final moments of Matthew Huddle's life will 0:01:55.960 --> 0:02:00.600 eventually be settled in some sort of official report. Maybe 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.240 they'll release the deputy's body worn camera footage. Maybe his 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.800 family will file a lawsuit. The final page hasn't been 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.840 written yet. I don't have the answers. All I have 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.440 is a sad story, but a man who believed in 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:21.280 nothing and died on the side of Indiana State Road fourteenth. 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:42.399 I'm Molly Conger in This is Weird, Little Guys. At 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:47.320 noon on January sixth, twenty twenty one, President Donald Trump 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.240 took the stage at the Ellipse, a generally unremarkable patch 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:53.640 of grass between the White House and the Washington Monument. 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:57.840 More than fifty thousand of his supporters had been standing 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.520 out in the cold all morning waiting to hear from him. 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.359 For months, he'd stoked the fires of a growing conspiracy 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:11.760 the election had been stolen. He gave speeches, held rallies, 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:16.799 fired off late night tweets, and filed lawsuits for those 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.639 who wanted to believe. There seemed to be mountains of 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:24.600 evidence of a deep and systemic rot. But the lawsuits 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:29.040 were failing, the votes were counted, and time was running out. 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.000 Today was the day that Congress would have the final 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.839 say in the twenty twenty election, and less than two 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.120 miles away, legislators were taking their seats in the Capitol 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:43.000 Building to certify the election. The crowd at the Ellipse 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.200 had come from all over the country to be a 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.760 part of history, and as their president spoke, many of 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.400 them heard the permission they'd been waiting for. 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.320 And we fight, We fight like hell. 0:03:57.640 --> 0:03:59.760 And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:00.960 to have country anymore. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.400 This profound corruption would have to be excised by force 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.320 before this grave injustice could be done. He'd all but 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.760 confirm that for them, And then, in the final seconds 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.360 of his speech, before he was played off the stage 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.560 by his favorite song, The Village People's Gay Anthem YMCA, 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.080 he gave the crowd their marching orders. 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.320 So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:33.080 I want to thank you all. 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.160 God bless you, and God bless America. 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:39.520 Thank you all for being here. This is incredible. Thank 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:40.120 you very much. 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.400 Some in that crowd, perhaps anticipating the instructions he would 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.320 give at the end of his hour long speech, never 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.880 even heard him say that line. They'd already started walking 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.320 the mile and a half to their final destination that day, 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:03.520 the Capitol Building. Most certainly already know how that day ended. 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.159 Even if you live in a cave in the woods 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.360 without access to the internet, you can't possibly have escaped 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.559 this news. Thousands of Trump supporters descended on the United 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:18.560 States Capitol Building. They tore down police barricades, They engaged 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:20.640 in a pitched battle with the Capitol Police on the 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.680 steps outside, and some of them forced their way into 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:31.440 the building. People died. United States Capitol Police officer Brian 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.839 Sicknick passed away on January seventh after suffering a series 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.800 of strokes. His cause of death was eventually ruled to 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.120 be natural causes, though several neurologists have argued that the 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.279 events of the prior day almost certainly contributed to his death. 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.880 Qute On believer Ashley Babbitt was shot as she forced 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:53.640 her way into the building through a broken window. Roseanne 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.880 Boylen was trampled by the stampeding crowd, though her official 0:05:57.920 --> 0:05:59.960 cause of death was ruled to be an amfetamine overdose. 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.359 And Kevin Greeson had a heart attack on the Capitol 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:09.120 grounds this week. As I was combing back through my 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:14.080 own videos of that afternoon, I discovered that I had 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.919 captured the moment that I realized I was watching a 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:18.720 man die. 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:22.080 Over the roar of the crowd. 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.560 You can hear someone next to me say they've been 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:30.040 giving him chest compressions for way too long. And then 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.240 there's my own voice. I know it's my voice, but 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.560 I don't remember saying it from years in the past. 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:41.839 I heard myself say he's going to die, and a 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.000 few minutes after that, I saw his dead body being 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:49.440 carried away. Surely other people saw him too, but no 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:51.520 one seemed to react at all to the sight of 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:56.640 a corpse making its way through the crowd. Over the 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.599 last four years, federal charges were filed against nearly sixteen 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.960 hundred members of that crowd. Nearly thirteen hundred had been convicted, 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.560 with another three hundred cases still open as of the 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.960 four year anniversary of the riot. Those cases will never 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.880 go to trial, though, because last month, hours after being 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.520 sworn in as president for the second time, Donald Trump 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:25.040 issued a blanket pardon, pardoning almost every single one of them, 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.440 with the small exception of a handful of rioters who 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:35.360 only had their sentences commuted. There are those who would 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.600 rewrite the story of that day, people who would tell 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.200 you that it was a peaceful protest, that they were 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.320 patriots and tourists, that they couldn't have known that their 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:49.000 conduct was unlawful. I'm not sure there's anything I can 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.160 do to change anyone's mind. The evidence to the contrary 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:56.920 is readily available, but it's never seemed to matter. I 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.720 could tell you that I saw a man, eyes red 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:04.640 with pepper spray and wide with wild determination, pry a 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.600 metal drain grate out of the ground with the end 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.480 of an American flagpole, before pressing back into the fray 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.320 with his newly acquired weapon. I could tell you I 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.600 saw a man with a literal pitchfork sprinting down the 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:24.440 Capitol lawn. I could spend the next year covering a 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:29.960 different January sixth rider every week, painstakingly tracking their affiliations 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:34.760 with militias and white supremacist street gangs. But I don't 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.480 really want to. There's plenty of media about the men 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.520 who were there that day. Whole books have been written 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.800 about them, Whole podcasts have dedicated themselves to that work. 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.120 There are some weird little guys who ended up there 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:54.360 that day, but I'll get to But I can't bear 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.920 the thought of returning to that well for too many stories, 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.440 because one of those stories are kind of the same. 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.960 While the seditious conspiracy at the heart of the violence 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.360 was cooked up by oathkeepers and proud boys, men with 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.439 an ideological commitment to violence and ties to organized groups 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:19.920 dedicated to carrying it out, most of the crowd was 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.840 made up of men far too ordinary to be considered 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:28.280 a weird little guy. And maybe that in itself is 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:33.640 a subject worth exploring. How could an ordinary man end 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.720 up crawling over broken glass on his way to break 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.600 into a Senator's office. How could a reeltor from the 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.720 suburbs step over a woman's dead body in his haste 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:49.120 to physically confront a member of Congress. How did men 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.719 with back the blue bumper stickers on their brand new 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.840 forward pickup trucks end up fistfighting cops on the steps 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.760 of the Capitol. I don't think I'm equipped to answer 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:04.240 the but I can try to tell you the sad 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:10.840 story of how one of them ended up dead. Matthew 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.880 Huddle did not vote for Donald Trump in the twenty 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:19.880 twenty election. Perhaps he would have, It's impossible to say, 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.560 but he'd lost his right to vote years ago after 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:28.320 his first felony conviction. He struggled with alcohol addiction for 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.000 his entire adult life, racking up charges for driving while 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.679 intoxicated at a pretty alarming rate, and he was back 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.319 in jail for yet another dui in November of twenty 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:43.600 twenty when the election took place. He was fresh off 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.079 this stint in the county jail when his uncle Dale 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.680 asked him for a favor. He needed a ride to Washington, 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.880 d c. The reason given in the court documents is 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.640 that Dale, at sixty nine years old, had poor eyesight 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:04.320 and quote should not drive, especially at night. But I'm 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.360 not sure how to square that with the knowledge that 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.240 Dale was at that time employed as a delivery driver 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.280 at an auto parts store. Nor has any explanation offered 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:17.760 as to why Matthew agreed to drive his uncle seven 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:22.319 hundred miles from Indiana to DC without a valid driver's license. 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.040 In Matthew's own words, though he had nothing better to 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:32.679 do at the time, so he agreed. According to his defense. 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:38.320 Attorney, matt is not a true believer in any political movement. 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.959 He cannot legally vote, and he knows very little about 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.640 politics and does not follow it. He is somewhat distrustful 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.280 of the government in general, but he did not know 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.160 if the twenty twenty election was stolen or. 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:57.160 Not, so he claims he was only there that day 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:01.600 as something to do a favor for his uncle, and 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:03.880 he thought maybe he would be a historic event that 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:08.280 he could document through photos and video, and he did. 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.400 He took quite a bit of video that day, recording 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:14.719 himself as he and his uncle made their way down 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:16.959 the National Mall after listening to Trump's speech at the 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:22.400 Ellipse as the Capitol came into view, Matthew Huddle says, 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.320 allowed to no one in particular. We're going to see 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:30.559 if we can get inside. But moments later he turns 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.320 to his uncle Dale and says he's not sure they're 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:35.560 going to be able to get close because of the 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:41.000 police presence. His uncle replies, quote, I think we ought 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.320 to bum rush the Capitol building arrest them all. We've 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.920 got enough people to do that, and Matthew agrees they 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:53.439 could try to get close. By two pm, they were 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:55.440 deep within the mass of rioters at the base of 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.360 the steps at the west entrance of the Capitol. Police 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.360 on the steps firing flash bangs and tear gas canisters, 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.360 trying to keep the crowd at bay. In his video, 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.640 as described in the court filings, Matthew was surprised by 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:13.720 the flashbangs and asks if the cops are shooting a cannon. 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.240 I didn't manage to dig up the video evidence filed 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:22.800 in his case, but based on the description of flashbangs 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:27.920 and scattered chants of you say, you say, and it 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:32.800 being shortly after two pm, here's my best guess at 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:57.120 that exact moment being described, Oh yes, that is my 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:59.880 little squeal of surprise at the sound of the flash bangs. 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:06.079 I was having a weird afternoon and it was chaotic. 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.520 At this point, the crowd was starting to press forward 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.840 and engage with the officers. No longer a mere observer 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:19.040 of history, Matthew Huddle joined them. He and his uncle 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:20.880 Dale fought their way to the front of the crowd, 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.200 where rioters were tearing down the bike racks that had 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:25.840 been set out in a feeble attempt to keep people 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.880 off the stairs. As officers struggled to keep the metal 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:31.600 bike racks out of the hands of the men who 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.920 were trying to seize them as weapons, Dale Huddle lunged forward, 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.040 jabbing his wooden flagpole into an officer's stomach, knocking him 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:44.440 off his feet. During the battle on the stairs, Dale 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:48.040 is seen in an officer's body worn camera footage screaming 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.640 at them, saying things like, look back there, there's a 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.320 million of us. You think you can stop us, and 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.080 it's going to get real ugly if you don't let 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.440 us in. Man, it's going to get real U We're 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.000 coming in. And at some point he turns to his 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.440 nephew and points up at the Capitol building and he says, 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:12.880 we're going in the front door. But Dale Huddle never 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.880 did make it inside. The men got separated on the steps. 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:19.920 The officers who'd been trying to hold them at bay 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.520 retreated under attack, giving Matthew Huddle an opening to run 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:27.800 up the stairs, but Dale stayed behind and kept fighting. 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:30.960 Instead of taking his chance to climb the steps and 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:36.200 actually go inside, he followed the retreating officers, continuing the attack. 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.120 Another video shows the old man, red faced with tears 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.680 streaming from his eyes from pepper spray unloaded by a 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:48.160 rioter behind him, and he's charging toward an officer trying 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.480 to rip his gas mask off, and then he tries 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:55.960 to wrench the baton out of another officer's hands. With 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.320 his uncle preferring to stay behind and fight, Matthew followed 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.400 the crowd through the now open doors on the upper 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:07.120 West Terrace. In his own video, he says we're going 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:12.400 in as he crosses the threshold. And for sixteen minutes 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:18.960 he just wandered around in there. He didn't hurt anyone, 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:23.840 he didn't steal anything, he didn't break anything. He really 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:28.640 was just kind of wandering around. It's hard to square 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:33.360 the reality of the situation with his behavior. On one hand, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.600 you have to assume he knew what he was doing 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.440 was wrong. He hadn't actually engaged in any of the 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.920 violence outside, but he knew full well he was only 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.960 standing inside that building because men like his uncle had 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.240 fought their way through a police line to clear the 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:53.880 path to the stairs. But once he's inside, he's trying 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:57.440 to chat up the cops. He sidles up to one 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.200 officer and casually asks him, has this ever happened to 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:06.480 you guys before he briefly joined in with a group 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:12.240 of guys just marching around chanting us say, us say. 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.240 Another rioter asked him if he knew what floor the 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:20.280 legislators were on, and, oddly, considering he claimed to know 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.080 nothing about the situation he'd found himself in that day, 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.879 he answered confidently the third floor. And then he thought 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.520 for a moment and turned to a nearby police officer 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.480 and asked the cop if the legislators had already gone 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.600 down to the basement, and by that point the Senate 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:45.600 chambers had indeed been evacuated through the underground tunnels. And 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.320 as the group piles into the elevator, leaving Huddle behind, 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.800 he turns back to his phone, which is still recording, 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.680 and he narrates into his video, they went up third 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:02.240 floor to the offices. He would later tell the FBI 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.639 that when he told that group of rioters they should 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.320 head up to the third floor, he was actually trying 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.800 to divert them away from members of Congress, who he 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:16.160 assumed were already being evacuated through the underground tunnels. Either way, though, 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.400 that is a curious level of insight into the building's 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.240 floor plans for a man who said he was just 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:28.040 somebody else's ride. After getting maced again, the novelty of 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.359 being inside the building seemed to have been wearing off. 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:37.240 Officers were relatively futilely trying to convince people to leave, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.359 trying to direct them down a hallway and towards an exit, 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:43.840 and Huddle says into his video that he has a 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:47.719 bad feeling about that that might be a trap, so 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:52.159 he found his way to a different exit. Outside, he 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:54.439 found his uncle Dale again, and the two men just 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.040 hung around outside on the Capitol grounds for a few hours. 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:00.400 Went home. 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.600 In the days after the Huddles returned home to Indiana, 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:21.840 the FBI set to work identifying the rioters. Those who 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:26.200 assaulted federal officers were understandably a high priority, and the 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.280 bureau released images of those suspects, each identified by the 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:34.320 letters AFO for assault on a Federal Officer and given 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:39.440 a unique number. Just three months after the riot, photos 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.639 of AFO two nine to nine went up on the 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:47.600 FBI's website. Over the next few months, more than a 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:51.639 dozen tips came in about AFO two nine nine, but 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.800 none of them were right. It sounds like it was 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:59.120 facial recognition that Gotdale Huddle. The charging documents just say 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:03.440 that law enforcement databases were used to match the images 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:08.640 to his passport photos, and by August, FBI agents were 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.560 watching Dale Huddle. They surveilled him at his home and 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:16.679 his workplace several times in late twenty twenty one. In 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.920 March of twenty twenty two, they approached his boss, who 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.480 identified Dale in several photos from the riot and provided 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.080 records showing he'd taken off work the week of January sixth, 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.920 twenty twenty one. Both Matthew and Dale Huddle were eventually 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:35.600 charged and arrested. In November of twenty twenty two. Dale 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:37.160 was picked up in the parking lot on his way 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:41.159 into work one morning, and Matthew was for reasons not 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:46.840 entirely clear to me arrested in Boise, Idaho, and both 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.840 men would eventually take plea agreements, just like over one 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.480 thousand others of the approximately thirteen hundred January sixth defendants 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:59.639 who'd been convicted before those blanket pardons. Matthew pled guilty 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.280 to a scene misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.840 a restricted building and was sentenced to six months. He 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.480 finished serving that sentence in July of twenty twenty four. 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.040 Dale bled guilty to a single felony account of assaulting 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.720 an officer with a dangerous weapon, specifically for jabbing that 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.360 officer with his flagpole during the struggle on the stairs. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.119 He was sentenced to thirty months in July of twenty 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.000 twenty four, meaning he was one of about two hundred 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.080 January sixth defendants who were actually still in federal custody 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.879 at the time of the pardons. And like I said, 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:40.399 almost everyone who is convicted led guilty, actually going to 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:44.240 trial in a federal criminal case is pretty rare, a 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:47.960 fact we've talked about before in other episodes. It's not 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.200 really a good system. There is a lot of pressure 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:53.679 to take a plea deal, and that may not always 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:58.440 be fair. In Dale's case, though, I think the plea 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:03.679 was absolutely the right call. A few days after his arrest, 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.119 after he'd been released on bond, a CBS News reporter 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:11.080 from Chicago, knocked on his door in a conversation that 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.960 lasted more than seven minutes, much to his attorney's dismay. 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:20.159 I'm sure the reporter pulled out a printed copy of 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:26.199 the criminal complaint. You know, they're saying that this is that, 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.159 this is you, that you know you have a flag 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.040 pole and that you're assaulting an officer. 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:34.520 Well, you know they were trying to take the pole 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:36.520 from me, the flag from me. As you can see, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.440 they're bent over backwards trying to get the pole away. 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:43.560 That's what looks like an attack. It was not that thought. Okay. 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:47.359 So you're saying in court you'd like to see video. Absolutely, 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.000 I will see testimony and body camps as well. But 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:55.000 you you agree this is you? Absolutely, Okay. I'm not 0:22:55.080 --> 0:23:00.520 ashamed of being there. It was our duty as patriots. 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:05.399 First of all, never admit to a crime on camera, 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:08.120 even if you don't think you're guilty of it. Don't 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:11.760 say you did it, don't talk to the reporter. And 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.080 second of all, I'm not sure they were trying to 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:20.160 take my flag is a great defense given the context here. 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.600 Even if this picture did show an officer trying to 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:28.560 take Dale's flagpole away from him, it's not like he 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:32.800 was taking candy from a baby. Dale Huddle was not 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:35.280 the only man out there that day using his American 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:40.520 flag as a deeply ironic weapon. A link the criminal 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:42.480 complaint in the show notes, and you can see the 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:46.440 picture they're talking about on the second page. The officer 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:50.800 is leaning back, almost as if he could be engaging 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:53.000 in a sort of tug of war over the flagpole. 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:58.080 But Dale's right about one thing. Pictures can be deceiving. 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:05.359 The officer isn't leaning back, he's falling down because an 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:07.439 old man poked him hard on the torso with a 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:12.120 big stick. And while Matthew's lawyers had argued that their 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:14.560 client had no real opinion on the twenty twenty election 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:17.720 one way or the other, that he simply found himself there, 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:21.639 Dale's lawyers did have to concede that he was a 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:25.919 true believer in that on camera interview right after his arrest, 0:24:26.720 --> 0:24:29.480 he told the reporter that he still believed the election 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:32.119 had been stolen, and he believed he'd been following a 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:33.680 lawful order from his president. 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:38.560 And do you believe that Trump invited you there and 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:43.879 that he wanted you to overthrow, invite us to go 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:47.719 down there? Issues seen out film, let your voices be heard? Okay, 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:52.800 But do you think he encouraged violence? Well, I just 0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:56.080 sat there or stood there with half a million people 0:24:56.200 --> 0:25:01.080 listening to a speech. And in that speech, both Juliani 0:25:01.160 --> 0:25:03.080 and hisself said we were going to have to fight 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:09.000 like hell to save our country. Okay. Now, rather it 0:25:09.000 --> 0:25:13.000 was a figure of speech or not, it wasn't taken 0:25:13.040 --> 0:25:16.320 that way, right, You didn't take it as a figure 0:25:16.359 --> 0:25:16.800 of speech. 0:25:17.520 --> 0:25:22.880 No, So they couldn't really say that he didn't mean it, 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:28.240 and instead they argued that he'd been tricked. He was 0:25:28.280 --> 0:25:30.600 seventy years old in twenty twenty one. He was a 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:34.840 blue collar worker who didn't even own a computer. From 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:39.240 the defense sentencing memo, he is. 0:25:39.160 --> 0:25:42.439 Not knowledgeable about the Internet. He was not aware that 0:25:42.520 --> 0:25:47.120 Facebook and other social media platforms use machine learning algorithms 0:25:47.119 --> 0:25:51.360 to individualize ads and to dictate content based on previous cliques. 0:25:52.280 --> 0:25:55.119 Mister Huddle believed that the news he was reading was 0:25:55.200 --> 0:25:58.399 covering the general scope of mainstream media, and that it 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:02.359 was a representation of current events from his viewpoint. The 0:26:02.440 --> 0:26:05.680 vast majority of the media agreed that the democratic process 0:26:05.680 --> 0:26:12.440 had been undermined by fraud. 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:14.560 And I don't doubt that he and many men just 0:26:14.720 --> 0:26:19.919 like him have absolutely rotted their brains on Facebook, clickbait 0:26:20.000 --> 0:26:23.679 right wing news. I have no trouble believing that he 0:26:23.800 --> 0:26:26.720 was trapped in a cycle of seeing nothing but memes 0:26:26.760 --> 0:26:29.240 where a minion in a maga hat is spreading election 0:26:29.320 --> 0:26:34.919 misinformation or links to stories on sites called patriot windnews 0:26:35.000 --> 0:26:39.680 dot biz with headlines like deep state destroyed, new election lawsuit, 0:26:39.720 --> 0:26:43.959 bombshell rocks DC swamp. I have a separate email account 0:26:43.960 --> 0:26:46.240 where I get one hundred emails that look like that 0:26:46.560 --> 0:26:49.480 every single day. I know exactly what his Facebook feed 0:26:49.520 --> 0:26:55.199 looked like, so that part's probably true. But I wish 0:26:55.560 --> 0:27:00.360 that the government, with their vast investigative resources, had dug 0:27:00.400 --> 0:27:05.520 into a curious incident in Dale's past, because I don't 0:27:05.520 --> 0:27:08.480