Speaker 1: By the final day of testimony in the Energy Transfer
Speaker 1: versus Greenpeace trial, it's March thirteenth, and an early spring
Speaker 1: has melted the snow. Kelsey Warren is called as a witness.
Speaker 1: He's Energy Transfer's board chair and largest shareholder, and he
Speaker 1: was CEO when the Dakota Access pipeline was being built.
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer has spent a whole lot of time trying
Speaker 1: to keep Kelsey Warren's testimony out of the courtroom. Their
Speaker 1: lawyers tried to claim that Kelsey didn't have any useful
Speaker 1: information about his own company's famously controversial pipeline. In interviews,
Speaker 1: Kelsey's made it clear that he has strong feelings about
Speaker 1: the standing Rock movement. Here he is on CNBC right
Speaker 1: after the original Greenpeace lawsuit was filed in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: What happened to us was tragic coming that lies were
Speaker 2: being told. Tens of millions of dollars were being raised
Speaker 2: by Greenpeace and others based on these lies.
Speaker 1: Kelsey's a pretty sensitive guy. In addition to his island
Speaker 1: and hunter and his collection of exotic animals, he also
Speaker 1: owns a record label and rates his own tender songs
Speaker 1: on the guitar. Jackson Brown is his idol. Kelsey has
Speaker 1: a reputation for using the legal system to lash out
Speaker 1: when he feels his company is unfairly being attacked, which
Speaker 1: is exactly what he thought was happening with the Standing
Speaker 1: Rock movement. It couldn't have helped that his hero, Jackson Brown,
Speaker 1: publicly denounced Kelsey's company's pipeline. Jackson even gave a benefit
Speaker 1: concert in honor of the water protectors.
Speaker 2: We got to do something. Everybody's afraid of these environmental
Speaker 2: groups and the fear that it may look wrong if
Speaker 2: you fight back with these people. But what they did
Speaker 2: to us is wrong and they're going to pay for.
Speaker 1: At the Morton County Courthouse, Kelsey's face appears on the
Speaker 1: flat screen TVs around the courtroom. It's a pre recorded
Speaker 1: video deposition. He has a shock of white hair and
Speaker 1: his eyebrows are furrowed like he's concerned. The lawyer goes
Speaker 1: over how Donald Trump's executive order in twenty seventeen told
Speaker 1: the Army Corps to approve the Dakota Access pipeline's easement,
Speaker 1: and about midway through his testimony, Kelsey drops his first surprise.
Speaker 1: That executive order that allowed energy transfer to start drilling.
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer actually drafted it. Energy Transfers lawyers turned back
Speaker 1: to the question at the heart of the case. Do
Speaker 1: you have any personal knowledge about anything Greenpeace did at
Speaker 1: all in relation to the protests, a lawyer asks from
Speaker 1: off camera. No, Kelsey replies, But then the lawyer asks
Speaker 1: about a different nonprofit called Earth Justice. It's the public
Speaker 1: interest law organization that represented the Standing Rock tribe in
Speaker 1: the early days of its legal fight to stop the pipeline.
Speaker 1: At the name Earth Justice, Kelsey perks up, and I
Speaker 1: can start to see why Energy Transfer might not have
Speaker 1: wanted him to testify. Scumbags, Kelsey says of Earth Justice.
Speaker 1: To be clear, Earth Justice is not Green Peace. It's
Speaker 1: not the organization this suit is against. Why do you
Speaker 1: say that, sir? The lawyer replies. By way of explanation,
Speaker 1: Kelsey begins to describe a meeting he had in December
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen with the Standing Rock Siue chairman, Dave oar Shambo.
Speaker 1: I went there with the intention of working out a
Speaker 1: financial transaction with the chairman, he says. Kelsey starts talking
Speaker 1: about how he tried to make a deal with the
Speaker 1: Standing Rock Sioux chairman to end the protests. As if
Speaker 1: the tribe, not Green Peace, was the one leading the protests.
Speaker 1: Kelsey goes on, I said, Dave, I'm here to make
Speaker 1: a deal with you. Do you want cash? What do
Speaker 1: you want? I said, we own this land up there.
Speaker 1: Kelsey says he offered the chairman the ranch that the
Speaker 1: pipeline company bought, the one that held the sacred sites
Speaker 1: and the drill pad. We could build you a whole
Speaker 1: new school on your reservation. Let's make a deal. He says.
Speaker 1: He made it very clear. Kelsey says of the chairman
Speaker 1: that he could not accept any offer for me that
Speaker 1: involved them backing down again. Kelsey is applying that it
Speaker 1: was the Standing Rocks Sioux tribe, not Green Peace, that
Speaker 1: had the power to end the uprising, and he has
Speaker 1: a surprising theory about why Chairman Davar Shambo refused. It
Speaker 1: was clear to me that he had struck a deal
Speaker 1: with the devil, Kelsey says, and the devil being Earth Justice.
Speaker 1: The lawyer replies, yes. Kelsey. Warren apparently believes that the
Speaker 1: thing that stopped Standing Rocks Chairman Davar Shambo from accepting
Speaker 1: energy transfers deal must have been another competing deal with
Speaker 1: Earth Justice. I read between the lines, and I believe
Speaker 1: that they made a deal and our shambo couldn't make
Speaker 1: a deal with me. He says. I asked Dave oar
Speaker 1: Shambo about this. He told me he did mean to
Speaker 1: discuss safety with Kelsey Warren, but he said he was
Speaker 1: not there to negotiate ending the protests. Back in court,
Speaker 1: the lawyer asks, nothing was said about Greenpeace during that meeting?
Speaker 1: Was it not that I recall? Kelsey replies, we're at
Speaker 1: the finale of the trial. An Energy Transfer's board chair
Speaker 1: has just given us a whole new theory of the
Speaker 1: case which completely contradicts his company's lawsuit. After three and
Speaker 1: a half weeks of testimony and months of my own reporting,
Speaker 1: this case is full of holes. To summarize, we've seen
Speaker 1: that Greenpeace donations in fundraising at Standing Rock only amounted
Speaker 1: to a small fraction of the millions in donations that
Speaker 1: poured into the movement from around the world. Only six
Speaker 1: employees from Greenpeace Inc. Visited Standing Rock out of well
Speaker 1: over ten thousand people who show, and no one from
Speaker 1: Greenpeace International or green Peace Fund ever went the whole
Speaker 1: time this was all going on. The Standing Rock Sioux
Speaker 1: Tribe and other indigenous nations were very publicly fighting the
Speaker 1: pipeline in court. The pipeline company had no ability to
Speaker 1: drill under the river during the protests because they had
Speaker 1: no permission from the US Army Corps of Engineers to
Speaker 1: do that. Meanwhile, Greenpeace's allegedly defamatory statements, including that police
Speaker 1: used violence against nonviolent demonstrators, that the pipeline passes through
Speaker 1: tribal land, and that Energy Transfer deliberately desecrated sacred sites,
Speaker 1: are assertions that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and many
Speaker 1: others stand by to this day. Now today, on the
Speaker 1: last day of testimony, Energy Transfer's own board chair has
Speaker 1: a whole nother story of the movement. But will this
Speaker 1: even matter to the jurors? This season of Drilled, we
Speaker 1: bring you slapped the story of an indigenous nation fighting
Speaker 1: for its water, an environmental nonprofit facing extinction, and an
Speaker 1: energy giant using the courts to punish protesters. I'm Alan Brown.
Speaker 1: The Monday after Kelsey Warren's testimony, Energy Transfers lawyer Trey
Speaker 1: Cox steps in front of the jury for his closing statement.
Speaker 1: Trey tells the jurors that Greenpeace employees are master manipulators,
Speaker 1: and deceptive to the core volume on the courtroom drama
Speaker 1: has been turned way up. Think about the mafia, He suggests,
Speaker 1: I got to see a guy about a thing. Did
Speaker 1: you get the package? Sleeps with the fishes? These are
Speaker 1: the type of words that people in conspiracies use as
Speaker 1: words to communicate other things. He says that Green Piece
Speaker 1: relies on similar code words to trick people, like campfire, nonviolent, art, tent, solidarity, out, solidarity,
Speaker 1: and indigenous leadership. These are some of the most deceptive
Speaker 1: words that they use. And when they stand up here
Speaker 1: and they try to use those words, I want you
Speaker 1: to call them out as code words. Tray starts to
Speaker 1: get into the damages what Energy Transfer wants Greenpeace to
Speaker 1: pay them, and he reveals that Energy Transfer isn't just
Speaker 1: looking for the over two hundred and sixty six million
Speaker 1: dollars the company claims they spent on countering the protests.
Speaker 1: They want triple that total, including massive exemplary damages, extra
Speaker 1: money meant to make an example out of green Pieace.
Speaker 1: He tells the jury that ruling an Energy Transfer's favor
Speaker 1: is about more than just this case. It needs to
Speaker 1: be done for Morton County. It needs to be done
Speaker 1: for Morton County's law enforcement, and more importantly, it needs
Speaker 1: to be done for the next community where Greenpeace exploits
Speaker 1: an opportunity to push its agenda at any cost. And
Speaker 1: I don't know whether that's going to be in Louisiana
Speaker 1: or Texas, or Oklahoma or Ohio, but you have the
Speaker 1: responsibility of protecting those others. The Greenpeace organizations present their
Speaker 1: closing statements, a detailed outline of all the inconsistencies and
Speaker 1: holes in energy transfers lawsuit, and Judge gian sends the
Speaker 1: jury to begin their deliberations. And now all there has
Speaker 1: to do is wait. A decision could come in a
Speaker 1: few hours or even a few weeks. Even at this
Speaker 1: point I was not really sure what was going to happen,
Speaker 1: but I figured the best way to get a sense
Speaker 1: of how this might go was to talk to some
Speaker 1: people who are from here. After all, this piece was
Speaker 1: in the hands of Morton County community members. As I
Speaker 1: was driving into Mandan a while back, I had noticed
Speaker 1: a digital sign advertising community Events Testicle Festival at the
Speaker 1: Moose Lodge. It flashed in Neon Red I knew what
Speaker 1: I had to do.
Speaker 3: These are rocky mountain oys juices. Do I need to
Speaker 3: tell who Jim what they're actually made out of? Well, okay,
Speaker 3: well mature bulls, you know, hoof with Danngus whatever you
Speaker 3: want to call it a new big nuts.
Speaker 1: He just made the shape like bigger than his head.
Speaker 3: Well not quite that big, but anyways, Dennis slice them
Speaker 3: and a little.
Speaker 4: That's a lot of.
Speaker 1: Man. Dan's Moose Lodge is packed. The space is half
Speaker 1: dive bar, half events hall, and tonight there's a line
Speaker 1: of people waiting to order Bisenbergers and Rocky Mountain oysters.
Speaker 1: A bunch of tables and chairs are set up for
Speaker 1: people to eat. Dale, who doesn't want to use his
Speaker 1: last name, is a retired rancher. Alongside oil and gas, cattle,
Speaker 1: ranching is one of Morton County's biggest industries, and the
Speaker 1: Testicle Festival takes place every year during calving season.
Speaker 4: I mean it's not terrible. It tastes like a fried thing,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: I want to know what people here thought about the
Speaker 1: protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. So I'm working my
Speaker 1: way around the room. I start chatting with Helena Reel
Speaker 1: and Betty Thompson. Both of them grew up on farms.
Speaker 1: I got my first bite of a Rocky Mountain oyster.
Speaker 5: I'm lucky you and you're from where I'm from the
Speaker 5: Twin Cities.
Speaker 1: Originally I grew up in Saint Paul and now I'm
Speaker 1: based in Brooklyn. I asked her about Mandan, North Dakota.
Speaker 4: Man, it's good man. It's a small community that sticks
Speaker 4: up for its fellow Man. I mean, that's what we do.
Speaker 1: What is it like when those protests were going on
Speaker 1: for this community.
Speaker 4: We didn't like it, No, plain and simple, we didn't
Speaker 4: like it. That's all the protesting. And then then they
Speaker 4: closed the roads. You couldn't go anywhere. Then they come
Speaker 4: to Manden, they're marching down main street with dead pigs. Really,
Speaker 4: who does that?
Speaker 1: Wondering what Betty and Helena think about Greenpeace's argument that
Speaker 1: people from here are too biased to be neutral jurors.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason I want to talk to people
Speaker 1: in Mandan is because one of the things they're trying
Speaker 1: to argue is that the trial should not be held
Speaker 1: here because there's it would be impossible to find someone
Speaker 1: who's totally unbiased on the subject.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree, agree, Lena.
Speaker 1: Says, there's another guy I should talk to. She introduces
Speaker 1: me to a rancher named Jim, who also doesn't want
Speaker 1: to use his last name. His family has a ranch
Speaker 1: not far from where the anti pipeline camps were located,
Speaker 1: and he says he and his neighbors felt unsafe.
Speaker 6: I was repeatedly threatened, chased up and down the highway.
Speaker 6: They'd follow me from our rams thirty miles south all
Speaker 6: the way to town, follow me around town until I
Speaker 6: would stop to confronting. Then they'd take off. The I
Speaker 6: was spied on, threatened. In the middle of the night,
Speaker 6: they'd be in our yard. I'd catch him. I mean.
Speaker 1: Jim says he's convinced that what he experienced didn't come
Speaker 1: from people from the standing rocks.
Speaker 6: You tried and they say it was outside or string
Speaker 6: things up. That was our view of it, because there
Speaker 6: was never We never had issues with anybody that we
Speaker 6: knew locally. When you had issues and when I got
Speaker 6: you know, you'd catch people in my yard sneaking in there.
Speaker 6: It was always people from where are you from? Oh,
Speaker 6: I come up from Nebraska or I you know. It
Speaker 6: was never local people.
Speaker 1: Right Dale is listening in he shares who he thinks
Speaker 1: those outsiders were.
Speaker 3: Greenpeace was behind it. You know, they always take that
Speaker 3: anonymous thing, you know across the world, right, Jim, they
Speaker 3: take that honest. They always stand in the backgrounds and
Speaker 3: they agitate, is what they do.
Speaker 1: What I mean, what makes you think that? What did
Speaker 1: you hear about them?
Speaker 3: Well, because their name came up many times during the protests, Greenpeace,
Speaker 3: Did it came up?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's why I believe they were behind it.
Speaker 3: But they were behind a lot of protests.
Speaker 1: I asked Dale and his friend what they think of
Speaker 1: the damage. Claims we're trying to get green Peace to
Speaker 1: pay for everything, and they should.
Speaker 6: I'm the point where they broke They had no business here.
Speaker 1: No people I'm talking to are convinced that outsiders drove
Speaker 1: these protests. But it's also clear that what happened continues
Speaker 1: to impact relationships among people who are from here. For example,
Speaker 1: Dale says he doesn't go to Standing Rocks Prairie Night's
Speaker 1: Casino anymore. That tension is still there eight years later,
Speaker 1: especially between white and Native people. According to Dale.
Speaker 3: He's just right under the surface right now.
Speaker 1: You know, our conversation meanders and we start talking about
Speaker 1: what Morton County is like. I asked Dale about the
Speaker 1: oil boom that began in the mid two thousands.
Speaker 3: When the boom happened, Oh yeah, oh man, it was crazy.
Speaker 3: I mean they came from all over. I mean I'd
Speaker 3: never seen hooko's walking on the street before. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 3: it was crazy. I couldn't believe. It gives me goosebump
Speaker 3: just talking about it right now. The crime weight just
Speaker 3: went straight up. Yes, I mean, it brought in the
Speaker 3: riff raft, is what it did. All the towns were affected.
Speaker 3: Meth labs were popping up all over the place. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: oh yeah. The drugs were just crazy.
Speaker 1: Dale says. Law enforcement eventually got a handle on it
Speaker 1: and things calmed down. I asked if there was good
Speaker 1: things that came out of the boom.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the money, you know, the money. It's always
Speaker 3: about the money, you know.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Now all the cities get money, like Multon counties. I
Speaker 3: think you will impacted by the oil, so they get
Speaker 3: money out of that.
Speaker 1: Dale's story about the boom makes me think during the
Speaker 1: Standing Rock Movement, a camp of ten thousand people popped
Speaker 1: up suddenly in the middle of the prairie. It was
Speaker 1: a different kind of boom town, and it kind of
Speaker 1: makes sense that that would result in some chaos for
Speaker 1: the existing community. And at the end of this boom,
Speaker 1: the people of Morton County didn't get rewarded with the
Speaker 1: kind of money that came with the oil boom. It's
Speaker 1: making more and more sense to me why people from
Speaker 1: here feel so negatively towards the Standing Rock movement. But
Speaker 1: I am fully aware that the testicle festival folks aren't
Speaker 1: the only ones with a perspective on both the oil
Speaker 1: boom and protests. So I meet up with another local
Speaker 1: outside the courthouse. Candy moss at White works for the
Speaker 1: Indigenous Environmental Network. Her boss is that guy Tom Goldtooth
Speaker 1: who was talking to Green Peace about the settlement. You
Speaker 1: spent months at the anti pipeline camps and she sat
Speaker 1: in on some of the trial. I'm just curious how
Speaker 1: long you've lived here and what this place is like.
Speaker 8: So, first of all, I was born and raised in
Speaker 8: North Dakota.
Speaker 1: Candy is a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and a
Speaker 1: Ricara tribe. Specifically, she's a Mandan, part of the indigenous
Speaker 1: nation that this town was named after. Now she lives
Speaker 1: in Bismarck, but she grew up on the Fort Bertold
Speaker 1: Reservation northwest of here.
Speaker 8: Well, that's in the heart of the backan where the
Speaker 8: oil is coming from that flows through the pipeline.
Speaker 1: She has another view of what an oil boom can do.
Speaker 8: I'm myself am a cancer survivor for some reason. I
Speaker 8: survived a stage four s Orkoma tumor when I was
Speaker 8: like twenty and a lot of my people, are my relatives,
Speaker 8: are people back home, didn't win that battle, And there's
Speaker 8: so many cancers. Everybody's sick, every single kind of cancer
Speaker 8: that you can imagine.
Speaker 1: Candy blames a lot of this on the oil and
Speaker 1: gas industry. Bismarck is home for Candy, but she says
Speaker 1: it's not always an easy place.
Speaker 8: There's racism here. There's a mentality that, oh, those natives,
Speaker 8: there's those drunks, and there's no I shouldn't say there's no.
Speaker 8: But there's a lack of understanding of boarding schools and
Speaker 8: what had happened and how we had a whole lost
Speaker 8: generation of elders who were hurting very very very bad.
Speaker 1: Candy's referencing how the US government used to take Indigenous
Speaker 1: children from their families and send them to far away
Speaker 1: schools to strip them of their culture. Overall, this community
Speaker 1: was fertile ground for the pipeline company's divisive strategies.
Speaker 8: What this industry sought to do was divide and conquer
Speaker 8: even us as tribes, to pit us against each other
Speaker 8: as nations, and to pit definitely white people against Native people,
Speaker 8: because when they do that, they control the narrative. When
Speaker 8: they control the narrative, they win.
Speaker 1: Despite all that, Candy is holding onto hope that maybe
Speaker 1: the jury saw what she saw, that the evidence didn't
Speaker 1: support energy transfers, claims, I'm.
Speaker 8: Trying not to be pessimistic about things. I'm really trying
Speaker 8: really hard. I want to be there for one of
Speaker 8: those times in history where the correct, accurate, and right
Speaker 8: decision was made and there was a wind for humanity.
Speaker 1: On Wednesday, March nineteenth, just two days after closing statements,
Speaker 1: there's a rumor that the jury might be about to
Speaker 1: deliver a verdict. The Green Piece people say can hang
Speaker 1: out at their workspace, a storefront a couple blocks from
Speaker 1: the courthouse so that I'll know right when the verdict
Speaker 1: comes in. They send me into an empty echoing room
Speaker 1: that they're not using, so that they can't listen in
Speaker 1: on their legal strategy. From my solo folding table and chair,
Speaker 1: I can see into the other part of the office
Speaker 1: through a window. Occasionally someone comes and visits me. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I keep every time I see someone like walking quickly,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's going on right exactly? Candy pops in.
Speaker 1: She starts theorizing that maybe the jurors are in there
Speaker 1: fighting with each other. Maybe there's one person who's holding
Speaker 1: out hung jury, she says, putting it out there. Both
Speaker 1: of our heads flip to our right. Through the window,
Speaker 1: there's a rush of people moving in the other room.
Speaker 1: Candy dashes out. It's time. The courthouse is right there,
Speaker 1: I think. Inside the courtroom, there's a swish of clothing
Speaker 1: as everyone rises for Judge Gian. The court has received
Speaker 1: word that the jury has reached a verdict, he says.
Speaker 1: The jurors file in. One woman has a spark of
Speaker 1: excitement in her eyes. Another looks kind of miserable. The
Speaker 1: court clerk stands up to read their decision. Did defendants
Speaker 1: trespass on energy transfers land Green Pieace Fund, no, Greenpeace International,
Speaker 1: no Green Pieace Ink. Yes? How much do you award
Speaker 1: to energy transfer in compensatory damages for trespace to land.
Speaker 1: Over the next ten or so minutes, there's a blur
Speaker 1: of numbers, and all of them have million at the end.
Speaker 1: Each is a blow to Greenpeace. Someone in the room
Speaker 1: is quietly crying when it's over. Not even the lawyers
Speaker 1: have done the math to determine the exact total. But
Speaker 1: what's clear is that Greenpeace has lost badly. Outside the courtroom,
Speaker 1: Energy Transfers lawyer Trey Cox poses with a huddle of
Speaker 1: lawyers from his firm, Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher. He has
Speaker 1: an American flagpin to the lapel of his suit. His
Speaker 1: colleagues look satisfied in their sunglasses as Trey delivers his
Speaker 1: victory speech.
Speaker 7: Today, the jury has delivered a resounding verdict declaring green
Speaker 7: Piece's actions wrongful, unlawful, and unacceptable by societal standards. Green
Speaker 7: Peace maliciously misrepresented events within this unity in an unrelenting
Speaker 7: attempt to stop, by any means possible, the construction of
Speaker 7: a pipeline that had already obtained all of the necessary
Speaker 7: legal approvals. These are the facts, not the fake news
Speaker 7: of the Greenpeace propaganda machine. This is a resounding win
Speaker 7: for the people of Bismarck, the people of Manden and
Speaker 7: Morton County, as well as law enforcement officers who across
Speaker 7: this state diligently worked and risked their lives to maintain
Speaker 7: order in increasing chaos. This verdict serves as a powerful
Speaker 7: affirmation of the First Amendment. Peaceful protest is an inherent
Speaker 7: American right. However, violent and destructive protest is unlawful and unacceptable.
Speaker 7: This verdict clearly conveys.
Speaker 1: That the jury found Greenpeace Inc. Was liable for all
Speaker 1: of energy transfers on the ground damage claims, Green Pieace Ink,
Speaker 1: and Greenpeace International were guilty of conspiracy, and they said
Speaker 1: all three green Peace organizations committed tortious interference as well
Speaker 1: as defamation when they made their statements on police violence,
Speaker 1: tribal territory, and desecration of sacred sites. But we still
Speaker 1: don't know the dollar total of the damages, And another
Speaker 1: reporter asks.
Speaker 9: Thank you, mister Cox, you have what's total number?
Speaker 8: It's close to seven hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: I kind of can't believe my ears. Wait did he say,
Speaker 1: I mean I recorded it? Did he say sex seven
Speaker 1: hundred million?
Speaker 8: Okay, yeah, over twice the amount of the actual lawsuit.
Speaker 1: That's Candy mossit white again. Can you share your reaction
Speaker 1: to all of this.
Speaker 8: It's absolutely bullshit one hundred percent. None of these people
Speaker 8: that are leaving are from here for one thing.
Speaker 10: They're all going back to Texas, Louisiana.
Speaker 4: I'm from here.
Speaker 10: Nobody asked us times what we wanted to do.
Speaker 1: This is absolutely bullshit.
Speaker 11: This verdict was absolutely biased one hundred percent. And yes,
Speaker 11: I'm emotional because my kids go to school here, because
Speaker 11: I'm from here and I have to deal with the
Speaker 11: after effects.
Speaker 4: I know some of those people.
Speaker 11: I've seen them around bismark Mannon before. That is our
Speaker 11: historic lands that were destroyed, and this company got money
Speaker 11: for defamation for Greenpeace or for other peoples allegedly saying
Speaker 11: that they destroyed sacred sites.
Speaker 4: They did. I was there.
Speaker 11: I just don't understand how.
Speaker 9: They can get away with it, other than North Dakota's
Speaker 9: a huge fossil fuel state. It's just really really upsetting
Speaker 9: to me that these people get to leave and go
Speaker 9: back to their respective states and not have to deal
Speaker 9: with everything we have to continue to deal with as.
Speaker 11: A result of these kinds of industries like energy transfer.
Speaker 9: They stood here in front of the press and said
Speaker 9: they had all the permits necessary and they didn't.
Speaker 11: They didn't have the easement to go under LAKEWA.
Speaker 1: That had nothing to do with green Peace, nothing.
Speaker 10: And now they're getting thrown into the bus for something
Speaker 10: they didn't even do. And they're treating us a Native
Speaker 10: people like we're not competent enough to organize and strategize
Speaker 10: something to protect our airlines and water. It's sick.
Speaker 1: Green Peace takes its turn to speak to the press.
Speaker 1: They look like they're at a funeral. Deepa Pedmanaba, green
Speaker 1: Peace's senior legal advisor, addresses the crowd.
Speaker 12: We should all be concerned about the attacks on our
Speaker 12: First Amendment and lawsuits like this that really threaten our
Speaker 12: rights to peaceful protest and free speech. The work of
Speaker 12: green Peace is never going to stop. That's the really
Speaker 12: important message today. And we're just walking out and we're
Speaker 12: going to get together and figure out what our next
Speaker 12: steps are.
Speaker 1: No one lingers long. We all get into our cars
Speaker 1: and drive away. After the trial wrapped up, I headed
Speaker 1: back home to New York, and in the weeks after,
Speaker 1: I kept thinking back to when I first started covering
Speaker 1: the Standing Rock movement back in twenty sixteen, just as
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was elected to his first term, Standing Rock
Speaker 1: provided the opening scenes for a new era of repression
Speaker 1: against protest. In the years that followed, we saw anti
Speaker 1: protest laws spread across the US and around the world,
Speaker 1: especially targeting environmental movements. The laws were developed and spread
Speaker 1: by industry, initially in response to Standing Rock. At the
Speaker 1: same time, after uprisings like the George Floyd movement popped off,
Speaker 1: a kind of storytelling took cold that started to erase
Speaker 1: what we'd been taught in school, that protests are a
Speaker 1: noble tool of democracy that afforced some of the most
Speaker 1: important changes in US history. A new story replaced that one,
Speaker 1: and it said that protest is bad and maybe changes
Speaker 1: bad two. Now, the energy transfer versus Greenpeace verdict is
Speaker 1: landing at the beginning of a shitty sequel. In Trump's
Speaker 1: second term, the same strategies used against the Standing Rock
Speaker 1: movement are being put into practice at a much bigger scale.
Speaker 1: We're seeing the National Guard brought in against anti deportation protesters,
Speaker 1: this time called by the President himself. The head of
Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Security has said the IRS is
Speaker 1: looking into protest funding and Republican members of Congress have
Speaker 1: launched an investigation. I'd wager that if Standing Rock had
Speaker 1: happened today, the FBI, rather than Tiger Swan, would have
Speaker 1: been investigating the movement's funding. With Trump back in office,
Speaker 1: we've also entered a whole new era of bad deal making.
Speaker 1: Media outlets, universities, and law firms are being presented with
Speaker 1: deals from the Trump administration that demand they either reel
Speaker 1: back challenges to the president and abandon the most vulnerable people,
Speaker 1: among them immigrants or trans people or Palestinians, or face
Speaker 1: the possibility that their institution will be drained of resources
Speaker 1: and destroyed. This round, it's not a law firm or
Speaker 1: a CEO working for a private company that's making the offers.
Speaker 1: It's government attorneys working for the president, although to be clear,
Speaker 1: many of them come from the private sector. Former lawyers
Speaker 1: for both Gibson Dunn and Energy Transfer have been appointed
Speaker 1: to high level positions in the Trump administration. Here's deepa
Speaker 1: Greenpeace Incs Senior legal advisor.
Speaker 5: You know, the verdicts came at a time when we
Speaker 5: have just been seeing institutions crumbling, where rather than fighting
Speaker 5: head on people, individuals, law firms, universities, they're all crumbling.
Speaker 1: Greenpeace has become one of the institutions that is fighting
Speaker 1: back and is finding out how severe the blowback can be.
Speaker 1: By the end of July, Greenpeace have offered us stuff
Speaker 1: voluntary buyouts. The organizations lost twenty percent of their employees.
Speaker 1: Was it worth it to not accept the deal given
Speaker 1: how huge the verdict is?
Speaker 5: Listen, there was no choice.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Is our existence our ultimate mission just the existence of
Speaker 5: an entity? Or is there something in our mission that's
Speaker 5: bigger than that?
Speaker 1: I asked the Standing Rocks to tribe's current chair, Janet
Speaker 1: al Kayer, what she thought of the verdict. Will this
Speaker 1: verdict impact Standing Rock and if so, how.
Speaker 13: I'm thinking definitely it will impact because it's there for
Speaker 13: the record.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 13: What I'm hopeful about is that Greenpeace it doesn't end there,
Speaker 13: that they're going to move this beyond and fight it.
Speaker 1: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe knows way more than any
Speaker 1: environmental organization about standing up to bad deals. It's woven
Speaker 1: into their entire history. That lawsuit they filed against the
Speaker 1: Army Corps was dismissed a few weeks after the green
Speaker 1: Peace verdict, and they've already filed an appeal to Janet.
Speaker 1: Regardless of the odds, the fight for the Ochetti Chakoine
Speaker 1: people's water is too important to give up.
Speaker 13: Even if we do not win in court. What history
Speaker 13: will say about us is more important. Are what our
Speaker 13: children will say is more important that we always stood
Speaker 13: up for them, because if we just give up, then
Speaker 13: of course they win. So I'm hoping down the road
Speaker 13: that I can I can be at peace knowing that
Speaker 13: I tried. I think I couldn't. I couldn't live with
Speaker 13: myself if I didn't try. The Green Peace organizations are
Speaker 13: getting ready to appeal the verdict in the North Dakota
Speaker 13: Supreme Court, and I've heard mixed predictions from legal experts
Speaker 13: I've talked to. Meanwhile, Greenpeace International is leaning on the
Speaker 13: European Union's anti slap law to strike back at Energy
Speaker 13: Transfer in a court in the Netherlands. They're hoping to
Speaker 13: recover the money they spent dealing with the lawsuit, but
Speaker 13: the US has no federal anti slap law, neither energy
Speaker 13: Transfer nor Gibson Dunn Krutcher answered a detailed list of questions. However,
Speaker 13: they repeatedly shared a statement, we are very pleased that
Speaker 13: Greenpeace has been held accountable for its actions against energy Transfer,
Speaker 13: and in the months since the trial, lawyer Trey Cox
Speaker 13: has said that other companies are already expressing interest in
Speaker 13: repeating what Energy transferred it to green Peace.
Speaker 1: He told the Daily Caller, I'm getting calls from the
Speaker 1: oil and gas industry. I'm getting calls from any number
Speaker 1: of other industries that have been similarly affected. Still, where
Speaker 1: it comes to the fight for the Ochechi Chakoyne's water,
Speaker 1: there's not a clear winner. Will the company Kelsey Warren
Speaker 1: co founded may have gotten its day of reckoning in court,
Speaker 1: and they may have even imprinted a new story of
Speaker 1: Standing Rock in the minds of many Americans. There's some
Speaker 1: things that can't be erased. Standing Rock activated a whole
Speaker 1: generation of Indigenous organizers who went home and continued to
Speaker 1: fight to protect their own communities. I talked to Cody,
Speaker 1: who was originally named in the lawsuit one last time.
Speaker 4: Was it worth it?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 14: It was because we needed it, not just as Indigenous people,
Speaker 14: but just people as a whole. Grandfather spoke of it best,
Speaker 14: you know when he said everything was for the people.
Speaker 1: Remember that.
Speaker 14: I guess we endured a lot for the people. We
Speaker 14: did a lot for the people, not just indigenous people,
Speaker 14: but everybody you know, so it was it was worth it.
Speaker 1: Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. This season was
Speaker 1: reported and written by me Allen Brown. Our senior editor
Speaker 1: is Audrey Quinn. Additional editing by Tristan Attone at Grist.
Speaker 1: Our producer and sound designer is Ray Pang. Mixing and
Speaker 1: mastering by Martin Saltz Austwich and Peter Duff. Fact checking
Speaker 1: by Sarah Sneath. Our First Amendment attorney is James Wheedon
Speaker 1: of the First Amendment Project. We're also a member of
Speaker 1: Reporters Shield. Our impact producer is Lindsay Crowder. Marketing by
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor. Original artwork for this season was created by
Speaker 1: Victor Pasqual of Digital Navajo. Our theme music is by
Speaker 1: Dear Lady. The show was created and executive produced by
Speaker 1: Amy Westervelt. The Center for Media and Democracy supported document
Speaker 1: review for the season. You can find a companion feature
Speaker 1: story to this season at Chris dot org. For related
Speaker 1: stories and to support our work, check out Drill dot Media.
Speaker 1: To follow my work, check out my newsletter eco files
Speaker 1: at Ellen Brown dot ghost dot Iote.
Speaker 4: No chew.
Speaker 1: No Chew.
Speaker 2: No chill.
Speaker 3: No chew.
Speaker 1: Chew, no chill
Speaker 5: Y