Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, and welcome back to you It Could Happen
Speaker 2: Here show about the ways things are falling apart. Well,
Speaker 2: welcome back to you the listener. Welcome to me, your
Speaker 2: guest host. I'm Molly Conger, filling in for James for
Speaker 2: a few weeks. If you're happy to be hearing my voice,
Speaker 2: feel free to share that feedback anywhere you post online.
Speaker 2: If you're upset about the state of affairs, I suggest
Speaker 2: writing your congressional representative or mailing a cryptic postcard to
Speaker 2: your local ATA field office. As your guest host, I'll
Speaker 2: try to bring you the It could Happen Here content
Speaker 2: you know and love. Dispatches from the front lines of
Speaker 2: our dystopia updates on the people trying to unravel society
Speaker 2: as we know it, and what's being done to stop
Speaker 2: the rising tide that threatens to swallow us all. Today,
Speaker 2: I'm joined by a Garrison, and I'm going to tell
Speaker 2: them a little bit about what's been going on with
Speaker 2: Patriot Front.
Speaker 3: Hello, Patriot Front, fantastic one of the gayer groups of
Speaker 3: Nazis operating in the United States.
Speaker 2: It's just guys being dudes. Garrison, you wouldn't.
Speaker 3: Understand, I certainly wouldn't know.
Speaker 2: You may remember a Patriot Front from such iconic moments
Speaker 2: as getting arrested en mass at a gay Pride event
Speaker 2: and Idaho in twenty twenty two, having their internal calms
Speaker 2: leaked repeatedly nearly nearly constantly, constantly, including some videos of
Speaker 2: questionably sensual pad downs, or accidentally giving several members mild
Speaker 2: carbon monoxide poisoning by forcing them to ride in the
Speaker 2: back of the U haul truck. You've probably seen their
Speaker 2: stickers on a trash can in your local downtown, or
Speaker 2: maybe you've driven by a racist banner drop. But when
Speaker 2: all is sudden done, hopefully you'll only remember them as
Speaker 2: having been sued into the center of the Earth, which
Speaker 2: is what I want to talk to you about today.
Speaker 3: Oh all right, that's I I'm unbelievably excited.
Speaker 2: We won't be getting into the sensual pat downs. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: this is just court records.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I can always I can always find that
Speaker 3: on telegram. That's fine.
Speaker 2: But before we get into who is suing Patriot Front,
Speaker 2: let's get a quick refresher on who they are and
Speaker 2: how they came to be scurrying around and matching windbreakers
Speaker 2: promoting a white no state because they think their origin
Speaker 2: story really informs the way they've backed themselves into this corner.
Speaker 2: Patriot Front came into existence in late twenty seventeen when
Speaker 2: it splintered off the now defunct neo Nazi group Vanguard America.
Speaker 2: The split was months in the making, with a power
Speaker 2: struggle brewing between Vanguard America leader Dylan Hopper and a
Speaker 2: young up and coming fascist named Thomas Rousseau, who was
Speaker 2: at that time barely out of high school. In the
Speaker 2: months leading up to the Unite the Right rally in
Speaker 2: Charlottesville in August twenty seventeen, Rousseau edged Hopper out of
Speaker 2: his own organization in what Hopper called a literal coup.
Speaker 2: By the time Vanguard America was marching in the streets
Speaker 2: of Charlottesville, Rousseau was not only in control of the
Speaker 2: group's internal communications, he was calling the shots on the ground.
Speaker 2: Hopper didn't even attend, and it was that event they
Speaker 2: Unite the Right rally that birthed Patriot Front. In those
Speaker 2: chaotic morning hours of August twelfth, twenty seventeen, a young
Speaker 2: man named James Alex Fields Junior joined the men under
Speaker 2: Russeau's command. He didn't ride with the core group from
Speaker 2: Texas in their rented van, which they called the hate bus.
Speaker 3: Oh my, did they really call it the hate bus?
Speaker 2: Rousseau was back then he was sort of Asthmador's protege.
Speaker 2: I don't know that they'll claim that now, but back
Speaker 2: then at like this adult alcoholic Nazi was mentoring this
Speaker 2: fascist team like he was. He had just graduated HIZ.
Speaker 3: Many such cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they came up in the hate bus. But
Speaker 2: all right, mcfields drove here alone. He drove overnight from Ohio,
Speaker 2: but he was wearing the group's uniform, a white polo
Speaker 2: khaki pants and carrying a shield bearing Vanguard's logo. He
Speaker 2: joined in with the members of Vanguard America as they
Speaker 2: loitered around a public park chanting Nazi slogans. Field stood
Speaker 2: shoulder to shoulder and a line of Vanguard members guarding
Speaker 2: the entrance to the park where the rally was to
Speaker 2: be held, preventing counter protesters from entering. A few hours later,
Speaker 2: after the rally had been called off by the state
Speaker 2: police declaring an unlawful assembly, Fields drove his Dodge Challenger
Speaker 2: into a crowd of counter protesters, killing Heather Higher and
Speaker 2: injuring dozens of others. In later litigation, Dylan Hopper, responding
Speaker 2: for Vanguard America, was asked about his immediate reaction to
Speaker 2: hearing about the attack that afternoon. In the group's discord,
Speaker 2: Hopper posted, Commi's died. That's good enough for me. This was,
Speaker 2: of course, before he'd seen the photos of the murderer
Speaker 2: mingling with his hate group. In a deposition three years later,
Speaker 2: he didn't disavow that initial reaction. He said Heather Higher's
Speaker 2: death was a tragedy the same way it would be
Speaker 2: tragic if a surfer who knowingly entered shark infested waters
Speaker 2: was killed by a shark, saying it was that woman's
Speaker 2: choice to be there. But he maintained that Fields was
Speaker 2: never a member of the group, that anyone could have
Speaker 2: put on a white polo and stood near them in
Speaker 2: the park, that anyone could have handed Fields that shield.
Speaker 2: His testimony was that Vanguard America didn't actually have membership list,
Speaker 2: there was no official record who was a member, but
Speaker 2: he somehow also knew that Fields was not a member.
Speaker 2: In that twenty twenty deposition, he claimed that he spoke
Speaker 2: to Rousseau in the days after the rally, and Rousseau
Speaker 2: admitted that he had been the one to make the
Speaker 2: choice to allow Fields to march with them in an
Speaker 2: attempt to make the group appear larger than it really was,
Speaker 2: and Fields himself never claimed to be a member of
Speaker 2: the organization. In his federal sentencing memo, his defense attorney
Speaker 2: wrote that he'd never been a member of any organized group,
Speaker 2: but the damage to Vanguard America was done, and almost
Speaker 2: every photo of Fields taken that morning, just hours before
Speaker 2: he committed a hate crime murder that would send him
Speaker 2: to prison for the rest of his life, he certainly
Speaker 2: looks like he's with them. The night after the rally,
Speaker 2: as Rousseau was still trying to make his way home
Speaker 2: to Texas, he posted in the Vanguard Discord about the
Speaker 2: issue with the man who ran into protesters with his car.
Speaker 2: He was certainly not a member and none of us
Speaker 2: know him. Our shields were given widely to anyone at
Speaker 2: the rally, and we had many extras. There is no
Speaker 2: criminal conspiracy but handing a person a piece of wood
Speaker 2: and agreeing on fashion. Legally, we have been in contact
Speaker 2: with folks with legal experience and we're fine as far
Speaker 2: as pr Yes, it's bad, but last week they called
Speaker 2: us evil, white supremacist Nazi killers, and today they're calling
Speaker 2: us the same thing. Shrug it off. When members complained
Speaker 2: that they shouldn't be disavowing the actions of the murderer,
Speaker 2: Rousseau clarified that quote. The statement never said that what
Speaker 2: he did was wrong, just clarified that he wasn't a member.
Speaker 2: People aren't buying it anyway. So neither Russo nor Hopper
Speaker 2: were willing to say what Fields did should not have happened.
Speaker 2: They didn't disavow the murder. Hopper's comments seemed genuinely supportive
Speaker 2: of the murder. They were willing to cheer on the bloodshed,
Speaker 2: but the way the blood looked on their own hands
Speaker 2: was going to be a pr problem. Now for me,
Speaker 2: the whole Nazi thing is kind of a deal breaker
Speaker 2: from the start branding wise, Like, just from the jump,
Speaker 2: there's a branding issue. There's an eagle, there's a fascies,
Speaker 2: there's the blood and soil thing. It it's not a
Speaker 2: good look.
Speaker 3: Could you briefly explain what a fascianes is?
Speaker 2: So it is a bundle of sticks, right, It's an
Speaker 2: old Roman symbol right, right, it comes from you know,
Speaker 2: the Roman Empire. So it's this very you know, return
Speaker 2: to tradition. Mussolini brought it back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you can break one stick pretty easily,
Speaker 3: but if they're all bundled together, then's then and it's
Speaker 3: then it's harder to break apes together.
Speaker 2: Strong. Yeah, sorry, just so the preview for the new
Speaker 2: Planet of the Apes. But that's not the issue for
Speaker 2: them in this twenty seventeen rebrand, Right, it's the Nazi thing,
Speaker 2: not the deal breaker, But it's hard to shake the
Speaker 2: association with a hate crime murder was a member, but
Speaker 2: the pictures of the murderer holding your logo and standing
Speaker 2: right next to you are going to follow you. So
Speaker 2: just three weeks after the rally, Thomas Rousseau announced in
Speaker 2: the Vanguard America Discord that he was launching a full rebrand,
Speaker 2: calling the new group Patriots Front. That s gets dropped later,
Speaker 2: but Patriots Front.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is a way worse name. Yeah, Patriots Front.
Speaker 3: To say that is that it's really hard to say.
Speaker 2: They've not possessive either. There's no apostrophe. It's just like
Speaker 2: Patriots Front.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's weird. They made a good call.
Speaker 2: Drop in that s so they really fine tuned it
Speaker 2: there in the end.
Speaker 3: That was the only the only good thing they've done
Speaker 3: besides just keep getting arrested.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so the message wasn't changed, The ideology is
Speaker 2: not changing. The manifesto got a little fresh polish, but
Speaker 2: the real change was optics. Russeau recognized the need for
Speaker 2: broader appeal, for new recruits and for plausible deniability on
Speaker 2: the group's surface. You can get away with saying a
Speaker 2: lot more Nazi shit if you put an American flag
Speaker 2: on the hats and a founding father on the homepage,
Speaker 2: then you can. If you're sporting a son and rat
Speaker 2: and posting Hitler.
Speaker 3: Memes, Yeah, all of their their kind of outwards visual
Speaker 3: style is all very like American. It is it is,
Speaker 3: it is. It is American. There's a bit of like
Speaker 3: a military kind of kind of a cleanliness to it,
Speaker 3: but it's very much like they're going full Americana.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's it's. It's Americana. It's like Patriot kitch, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's a few ten signs away from being a Fudruckers.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, but it's it's it's very much not
Speaker 3: like German Nazi it's like, right, it's like USA with
Speaker 3: some like US Army signifiers that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But the you know, the sentiment behind it is the same.
Speaker 2: You can take away the black eagle and the fascie like.
Speaker 2: Actually they kept the fascies. It's just red, white and blue.
Speaker 3: Now USA all the way, baby, I mean to be fair.
Speaker 2: It's money to be fair.
Speaker 3: The United States of America also uses a fascie.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I'm not like, you know, crying for the sullying of
Speaker 2: the of the branding of the United States in America.
Speaker 2: But it's clear what the intention was here. Yes, it's
Speaker 2: to sort of hide behind that Americana.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But in the six and a half years since that rebrand,
Speaker 2: Thomas Rousseau has maintained tight personal control over the entire group,
Speaker 2: now called Patriot Front. You can almost read that as
Speaker 2: a reaction to his first major setback as a white
Speaker 2: supremacist organizer. You know, he'd led some smaller rallies in
Speaker 2: Texas before Unite the Right, but that was his first
Speaker 2: big day out commanding the Nazi group, right, and as
Speaker 2: a result of that day, the entire group was tarnished
Speaker 2: by the association of you know, in their telling some
Speaker 2: random guy who was just near them, we.
Speaker 3: Just happened to hang out with people who like doing murders,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: You know, Like it goes like what Hopper was saying
Speaker 2: in his deposition, right, like, well, she was in shark
Speaker 2: infested waters. Like, by your own admission, you are the sharks. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're saying that you are a flesh eating shark. But
Speaker 2: that's not possible anymore now, right, So you can't just
Speaker 2: be some guy who's marching with Patriot Front because their
Speaker 2: events are never announced ahead of time. You have to
Speaker 2: get the official group merch from the group after being
Speaker 2: interviewed and vetted. You can't just show up and march
Speaker 2: with them unless you're a member, because only members know
Speaker 2: when the events are going to be. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 2: chance that some unvetted hangar on is going to be
Speaker 2: standing near them. And that does solve the problem posed
Speaker 2: by someone like James Fields, but it creates a new problem,
Speaker 2: real legal liability. By establishing so clearly and so firmly
Speaker 2: that anybody who's marching with you, wearing your hat and
Speaker 2: your jacket, following your orders through the megaphone, you have
Speaker 2: established that all of those people answer to you, and
Speaker 2: you know them, and you approve that they were there.
Speaker 2: Now you're responsible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you make the classic mistake of having an actual
Speaker 3: official like members.
Speaker 2: List, right, so now you no longer have the option
Speaker 2: of saying, well, that guy wasn't with us, we don't
Speaker 2: know him. And that's where the lawsuits enter the picture.
Speaker 2: So right now there are three active federal lawsuits against
Speaker 2: Patriot Front, one in Virginia, one in Massachusetts, and one
Speaker 2: in North Dakota. And the underlying actions and some of
Speaker 2: the claims vary, but all three lawsuits are making the
Speaker 2: same central claim, a section nineteen eighty five complaint alleging
Speaker 2: a conspiracy by Patriot Front and its members to deprive
Speaker 2: the plaintiffs of their civil rights. And I think it's
Speaker 2: really interesting. This is dry as hell. Maybe that's only
Speaker 2: interesting to me that I think it's really interesting to
Speaker 2: look at the original context of that statute, right that
Speaker 2: code section It comes out of the Enforcement Act of
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy one. Are you familiar with the Enforcement Acts
Speaker 2: going going into deep civil.
Speaker 3: War lore, you know, to reconstruction. I'm Canadian, I don't
Speaker 3: the American legal system is, but something I've been learning
Speaker 3: the past ten years. It is by no means the
Speaker 3: specialty of my research or knowledge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not like a big Civil war guy. You know.
Speaker 2: I have accidentally and against my will, learned a lot
Speaker 2: about the Civil War because we've been arguing about these
Speaker 2: statues for a few years. Sure, but reconstruction, I think
Speaker 2: is really overlooked.
Speaker 3: You.
Speaker 2: In my own education in public school, there was like
Speaker 2: two paragraphs about reconstruction and then we just sort of
Speaker 2: like moved on.
Speaker 3: I had like a semester on it. It is certainly
Speaker 3: one of the more tragic periods of American history. How
Speaker 3: we seem to almost have figured something out and then
Speaker 3: it all went down the drain pretty quill.
Speaker 2: Like we really whiffed it. But the Enforcement Act of
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy one is also called the ku Klux Klan Act.
Speaker 2: Oh oh oh, yeah, these guys, we're getting somewhere. So
Speaker 2: when President Grant signed the KKK Act into law in
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy one, support for reconstruction was starting to falter,
Speaker 2: and there was genuine fear that the eighteen seventy two
Speaker 2: presidential election would bring on a new wave of clan
Speaker 2: violence in the South. And that's starting to sound a
Speaker 2: little familiar, isn't it. You know, people are getting tired,
Speaker 2: getting tired of being asked to address deep rooted, systemic inequalities.
Speaker 2: There's an upcoming and uncertain presidential election. There's growing fear
Speaker 2: of vigilanti violence by roving bands of masked racists. You know,
Speaker 2: like everything old is new again. That sounds like kind
Speaker 2: of like right now, Yeah, that's wild. So you know,
Speaker 2: there have been other enforcement acts. This wasn't the first one,
Speaker 2: but the ku Klux Klan Act was specifically tailored to
Speaker 2: address the question of freelance violence. Right, So, normally, if
Speaker 2: you are suing over a civil rights violation, there are
Speaker 2: only remedies available to you when your rights have been
Speaker 2: violated by a state actor, a cop, a government body,
Speaker 2: the law itself.
Speaker 3: The irs. You can really.
Speaker 2: Only seek legal remedy when your rights are violated by
Speaker 2: the state. This one's a little different because during reconstruction,
Speaker 2: a lot of that violence, the intimidation, the actions being
Speaker 2: taken to deprive Black Americans of their newly granted rights,
Speaker 2: was being undertaken by private actors organizing together. Again, it's
Speaker 2: starting to feel familiar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like there could be groups of armed
Speaker 3: extremists uttering voting sites, trying to scare people away from
Speaker 3: from voting in an election that could never happen.
Speaker 2: Now we've learned no lessons, right, So groups of white
Speaker 2: men organizing themselves wearing matching outfits, conspiring to undertake actions
Speaker 2: to intimidate, harass, and harm the people they believe that
Speaker 2: are standing between them and the white America they were
Speaker 2: born to run, right. Yeah, So the statute originally provided
Speaker 2: for both civil and criminal liability for these conspiracies. Interesting,
Speaker 2: and that first year Grant went hard in the paint
Speaker 2: with it. Oh like, he went full hog like. As
Speaker 2: soon as he signed this into law, he was red
Speaker 2: d So in that first year or two after he
Speaker 2: signed the act, he broke the back of the Klan.
Speaker 2: Hundreds of klansmen were prosecuted in South Carolina alone. They
Speaker 2: were arresting so many clansmen so quickly that hundreds of
Speaker 2: them just went to their local courthouse and turned themselves
Speaker 2: in because they knew it was coming.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it killed the Klan. Wow.
Speaker 2: But even before the Supreme Court decided twelve years later
Speaker 2: that I mean, when it comes to the crime part
Speaker 2: of this, maybe we should let the States handle it right, Ah,
Speaker 2: so it no longer has a criminal liability component, so
Speaker 2: that's just the civil liability left under that law. But
Speaker 2: even before the Supreme Court made that ruling in eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty three, the Klan Act prosecutions pretty much ended when
Speaker 2: reconstruction died, right. It was this brief moment in time
Speaker 2: when there was any appetite to do anything about this, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it faded out pretty quickly. So today it's up
Speaker 2: to the victim to seek their own civil remedy when
Speaker 2: they're terrorized by the sons of the clansmen.
Speaker 3: We couldn't reconstruct, well, do you know what we should construct, Molly?
Speaker 2: Oh god, Yeah. Robert told me that if I don't
Speaker 2: come up with a cool way to throw to ads,
Speaker 2: he's going to put me in a dog kennel and
Speaker 2: air drop me onto an island where successful podcasters hunt
Speaker 2: people like me for sports.
Speaker 3: So that does sound like something he would say. But
Speaker 3: we could construct a compelling ad transition.
Speaker 2: Let's take it to the ads, all right, and we
Speaker 2: are back Garrison, and I'm going to tell you what's
Speaker 2: in these lawsuits.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to hear about Patriot Front having to
Speaker 3: read a niche law.
Speaker 2: Well, the problem is they're pretending they don't have to.
Speaker 3: Oh well, that is also what I would do. I
Speaker 3: would be like, no, no way, I am not reading that.
Speaker 3: Fuck you.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll get to that in a second. So the
Speaker 2: first case filed was in Richmond, Virginia, so right here
Speaker 2: in my backyard.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: So, thanks to repeated leaks of Patriot Front's internal communications
Speaker 2: and documents, we actually have video of them doing what's
Speaker 2: being alleged in this lawsuit.
Speaker 3: Which is inconvenient for them.
Speaker 2: It's not great. So the suit alleges and the video
Speaker 2: literally shows that. In October twenty twenty one, a couple
Speaker 2: of Patriot Front members vandalized a mural in a public
Speaker 2: park in Richmond. The mural celebrated American tennis legend Arthur Ash.
Speaker 2: Ash was born and raised in Richmond and started playing
Speaker 2: tennis as a child in Brookfield Park, which in the
Speaker 2: fifties when Ash was a child, was one of the
Speaker 2: few public parks opened to black residents. It was also
Speaker 2: the park that his father was the caretaker of. Right,
Speaker 2: So Arthur ash Richmond public parks like this is a
Speaker 2: relationship from his childhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a very important place.
Speaker 2: He's you know, one of the best tennis players in
Speaker 2: American history. And he grew up his father worked for
Speaker 2: the park. He learned to play tennis at that park.
Speaker 2: That park, Brookfield Park, actually no longer exists, but the
Speaker 2: park where the mural was installed is in a predominantly
Speaker 2: black neighborhood.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: In the video they filmed of the vandalism, one Patriot
Speaker 2: Front member supportively tells two others to quote, get the
Speaker 2: fucking N word. They say it, I'm not yea, but
Speaker 2: the N words face as they're covering it up with
Speaker 2: spray paint and then play. So they filmed this themselves, right,
Speaker 2: They filmed this themselves and used it in later promotional.
Speaker 3: Video videotaping this Cribs Free was the best idea we
Speaker 3: ever had. This is so funny that they just can't
Speaker 3: stop filming them doing crimes.
Speaker 2: Like they're not just taking notes on the conspiracy, they're
Speaker 2: filming themselves enthusiastically participating in it.
Speaker 3: Right, It's so funny.
Speaker 2: You know, in the promotional videos there's no sound, but
Speaker 2: in the leaked documents it's the original uncut video like.
Speaker 3: Once you have like discovery or something. Also, all all
Speaker 3: all that audio exists, that is, it is the privilege
Speaker 3: of the court to be able to listen to that.
Speaker 2: Well, we have so you know when they cut their promos,
Speaker 2: you know they're playing like cool music over it. But
Speaker 2: in the leaked version that we got from I think
Speaker 2: it was in the Rocket Chat leaks, was in the
Speaker 2: second big leak. Okay, you can hear them saying like,
Speaker 2: you don't get the fucking N words face as they're
Speaker 2: spray painting over Arthur Ash's face and then stenciling over
Speaker 2: that with their logo.
Speaker 3: Sure, like they're just like, hey, it was us. They're
Speaker 3: just like leaping it fair.
Speaker 2: And just just just we're super clear about this. This
Speaker 2: is racially motivated. Put that on the tape, like.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah yeah. And so this is.
Speaker 2: Probably the weaker of the three cases, right, The plaintiffs
Speaker 2: in this suit are basing their nineteen eighty five claim
Speaker 2: that this is a racially motivated conspiracy to interfere with
Speaker 2: the right of black residents to enjoy a place of
Speaker 2: public accommodation right that a place of public accommodation is
Speaker 2: sort of the legal structure for places where you're not
Speaker 2: allowed to fuck with my rights. In this case, it's
Speaker 2: a public park. The suit makes a similar and separate
Speaker 2: claim under Virginia's civil conspiracy law for racial, religious, and
Speaker 2: ethnic harassment, and unlike the other two suits, this complaint
Speaker 2: is pretty specific about who the defendants are, because they
Speaker 2: recorded the planning meeting and the act of vandalism, and
Speaker 2: because anti fascist researchers have identified many of the real
Speaker 2: names behind the pseudonyms. Ah, so these plaintiffs' name not
Speaker 2: just the organization itself and Thomas Rousseau, but seven individual
Speaker 2: members who were involved. And they hope to identify nineteen
Speaker 2: John Doe defendants in discovery. And so the most recent suit,
Speaker 2: the third one to be filed. We'll get back to
Speaker 2: the second one in a second. Is similar to the
Speaker 2: Richmond suit because it all who arises out of an
Speaker 2: instance of vandalism. But this one looks a little stronger.
Speaker 2: I think I should be clear. I'm not a lawyer.
Speaker 2: I just an enthusiastic consumer of the law.
Speaker 3: Yes, you spend a lot of time reading what I
Speaker 3: would call extremely boring documents.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love my document. I pay thousands of dollars
Speaker 2: a year to look at these documents. Oh it's that
Speaker 2: drill post. Like please, someone please help me someone who's
Speaker 2: good at budgeting.
Speaker 3: We will do our best to give you as many
Speaker 3: documents as you want, Molly.
Speaker 2: These documents cost ten cents a page. I'm a single
Speaker 2: issue voter on free access to federal court documents.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all my homies hate Pacer.
Speaker 2: So in the Richmond case, we have black residence in
Speaker 2: a black neighborhood alleging a racial intimidation at a place
Speaker 2: of public accommodation in a public park. But in North Dakota,
Speaker 2: the suit is brought by the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition,
Speaker 2: the Immigrant Development Center, and an unnamed plaintiff who works
Speaker 2: at the Immigrant Development Center. I mean it arises out
Speaker 2: of two acts of vandalism at the International Market Plaza
Speaker 2: and Fargo North to The International Market Plaza is run
Speaker 2: by the Immigrant Development Center. It's a large indoor market
Speaker 2: space that supports immigrant run small businesses and has community
Speaker 2: spaces for the immigrant community.
Speaker 3: Sounds cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's shops and restaurants and after school programs for
Speaker 2: kids and business development classes.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's great food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems nice. They seem like good people. In
Speaker 2: September of twenty twenty two, Patriot Front trustpassed onto the
Speaker 2: nonprofits property and spray painted the windows with their logo.
Speaker 2: And so this was not an isolated incident, right, Patriot
Speaker 2: Front had targeted other businesses in the Fargo area and
Speaker 2: the months leading up to this, including a queer worker
Speaker 2: owned coffee shop. So the tenants at the marketplace knew
Speaker 2: who Patriot Front was and what the message is in
Speaker 2: the windows meant, and they were understandably frightened to have
Speaker 2: been targeted and fearful that this could escalate, and it did.
Speaker 2: Two days later, Patriot Front came back to the marketplace
Speaker 2: and destroyed a mural celebrating multiculturalism, including placing Patriot Front
Speaker 2: logos over the faces of women in hit jobs in
Speaker 2: one panel of the mural.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had to call up shops businesses after they've
Speaker 3: been targeted or I've like seen I've like seen on
Speaker 3: telegram like oh, this thing's happening in this area, and
Speaker 3: be like explained to like this poor this like poor employee,
Speaker 3: like who who this is and why it's happening, and
Speaker 3: like what to do because they're often very like confused,
Speaker 3: they don't know what's going on. Yeah, it sucks to
Speaker 3: how much they try to like involve just regular people
Speaker 3: trying to like make just like live out their day,
Speaker 3: but also like specifically targeting people of color, targeting the
Speaker 3: LGBTQ community. And yeah, it is, it is. It is
Speaker 3: a fortunately very common occurrence because a lot of Patriot
Speaker 3: Front's activity, when they're not marching around getting beat up
Speaker 3: in Philadelphia, are just putting up like stickers and doing
Speaker 3: graffiti like that. That is kind of most of what
Speaker 3: they do. Sometimes they'll do like a banner drop or something.
Speaker 2: What do you think about the stickers is? I don't
Speaker 2: know if everyone is deep in lore, but it's required,
Speaker 2: you're it's that's what they call their activism, right.
Speaker 3: In order to be a member, you have to post
Speaker 3: pictures of you putting up stickers.
Speaker 2: Like there are like spreadsheets and documents, and your network
Speaker 2: director is keeping tabs, and you have to report in
Speaker 2: every week about what activism you've engaged in, and you
Speaker 2: have to provide video and photo proof of you doing
Speaker 2: these acts of vandalism, which.
Speaker 3: Is pretty smart on Patriot Front's part because they also
Speaker 3: sell their stickers. So it's it's it's a great pyramid scheme.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got MLM energy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, Uh, Robert Rundo and the Patriot Front
Speaker 3: guy were like working together on a sticker manufacturing business
Speaker 3: for a while. I don't think that's working out super
Speaker 3: well for Rundo, but uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's some currently awaiting trial in prison, right I believe.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, after fleeing to what is it like Romania.
Speaker 2: For like Belgrade, Yes, yes, Serbia that that's that's where
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah rough.
Speaker 2: But so in this case, you know, it's this is
Speaker 2: not just stickers, right, the stickers that you can peel off.
Speaker 2: You know, you're uncomfortable, you're scared, but you can peel
Speaker 2: those stickers off and move on with your day. They
Speaker 2: spray painted over a mural that cost forty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Oh so well, this is this is interesting because I'm
Speaker 3: not a law expert, but they may be financially liable
Speaker 3: for that extremely high cost.
Speaker 2: Right. So unlike in the Arthur ash murle, which was
Speaker 2: property of the City of Richmond. You know, so the
Speaker 2: plaintiffs in that suit don't own that mural. They just
Speaker 2: feel that they've been infringed upon because now they're afraid
Speaker 2: to go to the public park. In this case, the
Speaker 2: plaintiff has been financially damaged to a significant degree. This
Speaker 2: mural was they got a grant, they had community input,
Speaker 2: it was made by local artists, and now it is destroyed.
Speaker 2: It is a thing of value, It is their property,
Speaker 2: and the law really cares about property. Oh yeah, now
Speaker 2: we have quantifiable damage to property belonging to the plaintiff.
Speaker 2: And after these two incidents, individual shopkeepers had to buy
Speaker 2: their own security cameras, They shortened their hours because they
Speaker 2: were scared to be thereafter dark, and the marketplace as
Speaker 2: a whole actually still operates on reduced hours due to
Speaker 2: safety concerns. The executive director of the nonprofit had to
Speaker 2: buy a security system for her home and doesn't like
Speaker 2: to go to work unaccompanied. I mean, there's genuine fear
Speaker 2: in this place. Now.
Speaker 3: That's the other thing is that these sorts of acts
Speaker 3: of vandalism come with like an implicit threat of violence
Speaker 3: that we can get together a crew of five guys
Speaker 3: wearing masks and show up at this place of work,
Speaker 3: or we could already be there when you arrive.
Speaker 2: Well, there was the actually in the lawsuit. One of
Speaker 2: the progress in the suits is you know that the
Speaker 2: day after this happened because the day in between the
Speaker 2: two separate acts, a couple of white guys acting sketchy
Speaker 2: were wandering around the marketplace taking pictures of people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I bet people are scared. The marketplaces. Immigrant shopkeepers and
Speaker 2: customers absolutely understood the intent of this vandalism. And it
Speaker 2: was the same message that they chanted here in Charlottesville.
Speaker 2: You will not replace us, right loud and clear in
Speaker 2: those in that spray paint. And so their ability to
Speaker 2: transact business, to use a place of public accommodation, to
Speaker 2: feel safe in public was taken from them in an organized,
Speaker 2: pre planned act, arising out of discrept minatory animus. And
Speaker 2: again that that sort of discriminatory animus clause is important
Speaker 2: in application of this statue. Right. So in the North
Speaker 2: Dakota suit, they're suing Patriot Front, the organization Thomas Rousseau
Speaker 2: as its leader, and the regional network director for that area,
Speaker 2: Trevor Vellescu. And they're also seeking to identify ten John
Speaker 2: Does in discovery. So they don't know who all of
Speaker 2: these guys are that are getting sued, but they're gonna
Speaker 2: find out. And the third suit, Boston lawsuit, is really
Speaker 2: the most straightforward. A black man got assaulted. There's video.
Speaker 2: The video is actually taken by a member of Patriot
Speaker 2: Front from it gets worse, it gets worse. So the
Speaker 2: video was taken by the member from inside the ranks
Speaker 2: of the march, and it shows members making physical contact
Speaker 2: with Charles Morrell on a public sidewalk in Boston. So
Speaker 2: they were up there. It was just before fourth of July.
Speaker 2: They were marching on Boston's Freedom Trail.
Speaker 3: I think I remember this one, yeah.
Speaker 2: And Charles Morrell was outside the Public Library. He was
Speaker 2: a busker, was playing music outside the library on the sidewalk.
Speaker 2: And this video didn't get leaked. This video they posted themselves.
Speaker 2: They used it proudly on their telegram channel, yep, and
Speaker 2: they posted it on their telegram channel the day the
Speaker 2: lawsuit was filed.
Speaker 3: Genius genius move. Once again, the galaxy of brain folks
Speaker 3: over at Patriot Front just cannot stop putting pretty dog
Speaker 3: shit electronic music over videos of them doing crimes.
Speaker 2: And so even though I would say, if thirteen months
Speaker 2: after this incident occurred, I'm just randomly posting a video
Speaker 2: of this happening, that's so weird, I would say it's
Speaker 2: probably because you know that you're being sued, but there
Speaker 2: are a few. They have not acknowledged this lawsuit. They
Speaker 2: don't acknowledge that the suit exists.
Speaker 3: Which which the government loves. When people don't acknowledge lawsuits
Speaker 3: that are happening to them.
Speaker 2: You can't just like la la la la la your
Speaker 2: way out of a lawsuit.
Speaker 3: ID you can try to go into hiding like forever
Speaker 3: and yeah, we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 2: And so, just a few weeks ago, when Patriot Front
Speaker 2: was like wandering around in the snow at the March
Speaker 2: for Life in DC, a reporter asked Russeau about the
Speaker 2: incident in Boston. He didn't bring up the lawsuit. I
Speaker 2: wish he had, would love to get him on tape
Speaker 2: on that one. But he asked him about the incident
Speaker 2: in Boston, and Russeau continues to claim that, like, look,
Speaker 2: we've posted the video and it exonerates us.
Speaker 3: I'm sure, oh, I'm sure it does, buddy.
Speaker 2: When I watched the video, I mostly just see a
Speaker 2: masked gang of fascist using their custom made and branded
Speaker 2: metal shields to beat a black man who's using a
Speaker 2: public sidewalk, forcing him into the street and slamming his
Speaker 2: head into the pole and he had to get stitches.
Speaker 2: But I guess it's like it's up for the courts
Speaker 2: to decide if him being in their way was the
Speaker 2: real crime here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they was. I mean it's funny because like
Speaker 3: it's it's it's not funny. But I have I have,
Speaker 3: I have seen cops before used the exact same justification. Yes,
Speaker 3: it is different because cops are special little boys because
Speaker 3: you can't sue. Yeah, but no, it is funny how
Speaker 3: much Patriot Front are just trying to act like want
Speaker 3: to be cops who do graffiti.
Speaker 2: Right, Like if you wanted to be a riot cop,
Speaker 2: like most cities are hiring.
Speaker 3: Be a riot cop. That's not that hard.
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of guys doing it that I
Speaker 2: don't think are capable of much else. Yeah, So in this,
Speaker 2: in the Boston lawsuit, the name defendants are just Thomas
Speaker 2: Russo and Patriot Front, but they are hoping to identify
Speaker 2: John doe'es one through ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Well, I only wish them good luck.
Speaker 2: So, Garrison, you were saying, you know you can't just
Speaker 2: hide forever, right, I usually not. Well, you could try,
Speaker 2: you can certainly that. Look, you can always try. There
Speaker 2: are certain people Hidig, who I wish only the best.
Speaker 2: There are many others Hidig who I think are probably
Speaker 2: bad people. And it's not like I enjoy the violence
Speaker 2: of the state. But if someone happens to stumble into
Speaker 2: experien experiencing the violence of the state will also wanting
Speaker 2: to wish violence upon me and my friends. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna stop that from happening. So these lawsuits, right, they
Speaker 2: got filed, But filing a lawsuit just means you paid
Speaker 2: a fee to give it to the court clerk. When
Speaker 2: you're suing someone, you have to serve them with papers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to serve them with papers, you have to find them.
Speaker 2: You have to track them down. And normally that's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: People have homes, they have jobs, they have routines, they
Speaker 2: have friends and family. There's places they go, there's places
Speaker 2: they shop. You can find most people because most people
Speaker 2: aren't hiding, and most people aren't good at hiding. But
Speaker 2: Thomas Rousseau does not seem to want to be found. Now.
Speaker 2: The first suit filed, the Virginia suit, they did manage
Speaker 2: to serve Rousseau at that house in grape Vine, Texas
Speaker 2: that his father was had owned no longer owns, but
Speaker 2: he and some other Patriot Front members were living in
Speaker 2: that house yep. But not long after those papers were
Speaker 2: served to him there, that house was sold in a
Speaker 2: foreclosure sale.
Speaker 3: God, I'm sure that house smelled awful. Oh imagine, Oh.
Speaker 2: It's like never, it's never. Gotta feel bad for the
Speaker 2: foreclosure sale guy. It's like a gym locker in there.
Speaker 2: Imagine staving to stage that house for sale.
Speaker 3: The only only worst smell is inside the Patriot in
Speaker 3: front you hauls, because oh wow, driving six hours in
Speaker 3: the Idaho the Idaho summer with like thirty other guys
Speaker 3: in the back of that truck, it must be awful.
Speaker 2: Do you remember. I think he was in the first leak.
Speaker 2: Some of the guys were complaining about how when they
Speaker 2: had to ride in the back of the U haul
Speaker 2: they were getting sick and like passing out and be like.
Speaker 3: Oh, you're walked in there throwing up, having to smell
Speaker 3: everyone else's vomits.
Speaker 2: But also like there's carbon monoxide and it's hot, like
Speaker 2: you're there.
Speaker 3: It's so funny.
Speaker 2: But the advice that the advice that Russo gave them
Speaker 2: when they were saying like, hey, like we were getting sick,
Speaker 2: back there like it's it's not safe, like we were
Speaker 2: barfing and passing out. He recommended that they practice overheating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gett just get better, Just get like like endurance tested.
Speaker 3: Just start hanging out in the back of U hauls
Speaker 3: for fun. That's actually not how heatstroke works. But no,
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure you could just think your way through heatstroke.
Speaker 3: I look, I guess I think a chat alpha male
Speaker 3: should be able to sit in a packed truck for
Speaker 3: seventeen hours be totally fine.
Speaker 2: So the house, the stinky house, sold foreclosed. So by
Speaker 2: the time the Boston lawsuit process server came to find
Speaker 2: him there, it was already for sale. Yeah, no nobody
Speaker 2: to serve. So they hired a legal research firm. They
Speaker 2: sent process servers to addresses all over Texas and they
Speaker 2: came up empty. So what do you do when a
Speaker 2: guy who knows process servers are looking for him can't
Speaker 2: be found.
Speaker 3: Should have served him at that march in Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: Honestly, why were they not mobilized for that? I could
Speaker 2: have told you they were going to be there.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that would require some collaboration with
Speaker 3: like anti fascist researchers who like know when these things
Speaker 3: are happening so like that. I think that's probably why.
Speaker 3: That's just a little bit tricky. But if they're we're
Speaker 3: more willingness for collaboration, I think that probably could be successful.
Speaker 2: You can find him. Right. So, if I were two,
Speaker 2: for example, file a lawsuit against you today.
Speaker 3: Well, and I just what if I di I'm so innocent.
Speaker 2: If I just never if I just filed my lawsuit,
Speaker 2: pay the fee to file it, but I just never
Speaker 2: served you, that's on me. That's my fault. I don't
Speaker 2: take the necessary steps, my suit's gonna get dismissed. But
Speaker 2: if I'm really trying, I'm hiring investigators, I'm knocking on
Speaker 2: neighbors doors to ask if they've seen you. I'm looking
Speaker 2: under every rock for any sign of where you might be.
Speaker 2: That's different. That's not on me anymore. That's on you.
Speaker 2: And there's ample precedent for this right. And the law
Speaker 2: is pretty clear. You can't escape being sued by playing
Speaker 2: cat and mouse.
Speaker 3: The old Tom and Jerry method.
Speaker 2: And I feel like once I start saying things like
Speaker 2: the federal rules of civil procedure, people are going to
Speaker 2: turn the podcast all turn that off.
Speaker 3: That doesn't for us today folks, that it could happen here.
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2: But so in federal court, the rules allow alternative service
Speaker 2: by me that are allowable in that state. Right, So,
Speaker 2: even though they're in federal court in North Dakota, they
Speaker 2: can use methods available in North Dakota courts to serve
Speaker 2: their defendants. And so in North Dakota, if you've tried
Speaker 2: your best, you've exhausted the normal means conducted a diligent search,
Speaker 2: you can do what's called service by publication, which means
Speaker 2: you just publish a notice in the newspaper.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, oh that's I didn't know that. That's interesting.
Speaker 2: And you have to you have to try really hard first, right,
Speaker 2: they really did try. They hired investigators, they haired servers
Speaker 2: like they did, they did their due diligence. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so the judge said, okay, you tried your best. Put
Speaker 2: it in the paper that they got mad. Put it
Speaker 2: in the paper that they got sued. And so they did.
Speaker 2: They published the notification in a Cass County, North Dakota
Speaker 2: newspaper for a few months in a row. And so
Speaker 2: now as far as that court is concerned, they've been served.
Speaker 3: All right, And it worked.
Speaker 2: A few weeks later, they got a lawyer.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, okay, this is this is the this is
Speaker 3: news to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, things are moving, Things are moving. From the North
Speaker 2: Dakota lawsuit, the two named individual defendants, Thomas Russeau and
Speaker 2: network director Trevor Bileescu. They got a lawyer, and his
Speaker 2: name it's gonna sound familiar to you because it is
Speaker 2: Jason Lee Van Dyke.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, well, I you gotta love dikes. I mean, like,
Speaker 3: what's not to love?
Speaker 2: What a good kind? Not a good kind?
Speaker 3: Oh wait, wait, I'm receiving some special intel. This is
Speaker 3: not not what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, if his name does sound familiar to you, it
Speaker 2: might be because for thirty six hours towards the end
Speaker 2: of twenty eighteen, he was the national chairman of the
Speaker 2: Proud Boys. But then actually he quit instead.
Speaker 3: Honestly, what are this? What are the smarter moves?
Speaker 2: So he'd represented Proud Boys in various legal actions over
Speaker 2: the years. He was a member for several years, but
Speaker 2: as his LinkedIn currently and rather aggressively notes, he is
Speaker 2: not a Proud Boy anymore.
Speaker 3: A lot of a lot of people are asking questions
Speaker 3: about my shirt already saying I'm not a proud boy. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I feel like I actually, I actually, I am familiar
Speaker 3: with this guy. He was involved in a suit with
Speaker 3: the group I was looking into a few years back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's done a little bit of movement lawyering, so
Speaker 2: this isn't his first rodeo. And he denies that he
Speaker 2: is a member of Patriot Front, though he has spoken
Speaker 2: to the press on numerous occasions claiming to represent various
Speaker 2: members of Patriot He's not a member.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I mean sure, I like.
Speaker 2: He has specifically denied allegations that he is Patriot Front
Speaker 2: user John Texas in the leaked.
Speaker 3: Chats, although oh, okay, well, he says.
Speaker 2: That he is not John Texas has a lot in
Speaker 2: common with Jason leevend But okay, Jason le Vandyke denies
Speaker 2: that he is John Texas.
Speaker 3: Okay, well I'm sure. I look, I have no reason
Speaker 3: to not trust a dyke, So yeah, I'm sure that's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's interesting. So he lives in North Texas
Speaker 2: right where you know, Oh, he does home base for
Speaker 2: these Patriot Front boys. Yeah, he's never practiced in North
Speaker 2: Dakota before. He's not barred in North Dakota. Wait what inexplicably?
Speaker 2: So you know, you have to take the bar exam
Speaker 2: to be in a state bar normally. Normally to get
Speaker 2: admitted to a federal court, you have to be barred
Speaker 2: in that state. North Dakota doesn't require that. You just
Speaker 2: have to pay a fee. Okay, So it's a little
Speaker 2: it's strange. He applied to be admitted to the federal
Speaker 2: court in North Dakota right around the time this lawsuit
Speaker 2: got filed.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: But then he didn't actually enter an appearance until the
Speaker 2: judge said, yeah, they've been served. You can't hide. So
Speaker 2: he did know about it, Yeah, he was just yes,
Speaker 2: guess it seems like it seems like he knew he
Speaker 2: was just working with Patriot Front to make it harder
Speaker 2: to be served. Is again, that's not that's not a
Speaker 2: legal claim I'm making. I'm just just making a guess.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying he has never practiced in North Dakota before.
Speaker 2: But he did apply to be admitted to the court
Speaker 2: around the time the lawsuit was file. That's a interesting
Speaker 2: The boss and case is a little wilder, right, So
Speaker 2: it's twenty twenty four, we're all online, and it's not
Speaker 2: actually unheard of to get permission from the court to
Speaker 2: serve someone electronically if you've tried everything else. Yeah, I've
Speaker 2: heard of cases where someone got served by a Facebook messenger,
Speaker 2: which just feels demeaning. Wow, that's that's so depressing. Imagine
Speaker 2: you can send a minion sticker with it. Oh God,
Speaker 2: horrible vibes. But I need to do a little more
Speaker 2: research to figure out if this is the first time
Speaker 2: a federal judge has had to decide whether a gab
Speaker 2: DM is legally.
Speaker 3: Notice that you know your joke. There's no way, no,
Speaker 3: absolutely not. Yeah, yeah, okay, well we will we will
Speaker 3: learn what GAB is after I take a break. I
Speaker 3: need to like walk around for a few minutes and
Speaker 3: just process that for a second. One you guys, yea,
Speaker 3: here's here's some ads. I'm just I'm just going to
Speaker 3: process that for a while while all right, we are
Speaker 3: back get Molly. I hope that a lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of our listeners don't know what GAB is.
Speaker 2: They should hold on there.
Speaker 3: But that means that you have to explain what GAB is,
Speaker 3: which isn't that hard. It's just kind of annoying.
Speaker 2: It's just sort of like a less functional Facebook for Nazis.
Speaker 3: Well, I think originally it was Twitter for Nazis, but
Speaker 3: now Twitter is Twitter for Nazis, but it.
Speaker 2: Has more of a sort of Facebook interface. To me,
Speaker 2: oh I I always I always.
Speaker 3: Thought of it as having a way more of like
Speaker 3: a like an older Twitter uter Fate yet.
Speaker 2: Because it has it has like groups and a marketplace,
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 3: Does have groups of market But I think it started
Speaker 3: as a Twitter clone that started to add Facebook features.
Speaker 3: That's mostly it's like sort.
Speaker 2: Of like the evolutionary thing where everything turns into crabs
Speaker 2: boomers turn everything into Facebook.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, exactly. It is the Facebook evocation of all
Speaker 3: social media. I think those changes were made to like
Speaker 3: to support more like a collaboration between users, because they
Speaker 3: wanted it to be like a place where Nazis could
Speaker 3: like also organize. But yeah, it very much started and
Speaker 3: like what a year it was like twenty eighteen ish,
Speaker 3: I want.
Speaker 2: To say twenty sixteen. Oh, I could pull the incorporation documents.
Speaker 2: I think I think it's a little older than that.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't popular until I.
Speaker 3: Didn't get a Gap account until twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: It was in the news a lot on twenty eighteen. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: mass shooters were using it and then their accounts were
Speaker 2: in the court documents. But it was already, you know,
Speaker 2: popular among certain sets.
Speaker 3: It was certainly around for a while. Their logo is
Speaker 3: a frog. I'm sure there's nothing I'm sure that's completely normal,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it started off as just a social media
Speaker 3: app for Nazis, almost exclusively used by white supremacists.
Speaker 2: It's a free speech platform.
Speaker 3: It is a free speech platform. It was kind of
Speaker 3: it was I like Parlor came a few years later,
Speaker 3: which was more like a maga ish version, like Gab
Speaker 3: was for like actual Nazis, right, Whereas Parlor you could
Speaker 3: find like, you know, like like anyone from like mega people,
Speaker 3: conservative politicians, you could you found a lot of like
Speaker 3: Proud Boy chapters. But Gab was like, no, you were
Speaker 3: like explicitly white supremacists.
Speaker 2: There's not a lot of plausible deniability in a GAB
Speaker 2: account the way there was maybe with Parlor. A little bit.
Speaker 3: Now a Gab is still a thing. I think I
Speaker 3: mostly use it to watch the GDL, who posts a
Speaker 3: lot on GAB, But I think a lot of unfortunately,
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of people who were on gab are
Speaker 3: just now back on actual Twitter.
Speaker 2: Or in prison.
Speaker 3: And you know, some would say that those two things
Speaker 3: and a lot of govin which is not actually true
Speaker 3: because prison is way worth the.
Speaker 2: Same The same posts kind of got them to both places,
Speaker 2: just different.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, anyway, so okay, but that's yeah. I did
Speaker 3: not know that a future of GAB could be serving
Speaker 3: could be serving some lawsuit papers. That is something I
Speaker 3: did not know.
Speaker 2: Well, it turns out you can't attach a PDF to
Speaker 2: a gab DM, so we didn't run into some trouble.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, this is so dumb.
Speaker 2: So Charles Morrell's lawyers were given permission to serve Patriot
Speaker 2: Front and Thomas Rousseau via several online means. Right, so
Speaker 2: in this motion for this this permission for alternate service,
Speaker 2: they identified two email addresses and social media accounts regularly
Speaker 2: used by the group on Telegram, Odyssey, bitshoot and GAB.
Speaker 3: I mean, I certainly would have gone for Telegram Odyssey
Speaker 3: and bit shoot are like YouTube and Twitch clones for nazis.
Speaker 3: In case the listener is curious, don't go there. Don't
Speaker 3: not worry, do not go there. My god, I be
Speaker 3: I have been on there way too much this week,
Speaker 3: and I have seen some of the worst hit.
Speaker 2: It's not good on there. No, it's a process server, right.
Speaker 2: This person who normally just like waits outside your work
Speaker 2: to serve you with papers is like now on gab right.
Speaker 2: So the process server contacted all of the identified accounts.
Speaker 2: And so when I was researching this, you know, I was
Speaker 2: trying to get an idea of how common this is,
Speaker 2: what the usual means are, And so I was looking
Speaker 2: through the cited case law and the motion, and one
Speaker 2: of the cases they cited kind of caught my eye.
Speaker 2: It's halish V. Bin Laden.
Speaker 3: Oh no, him, that name sounds familiar. Was was he
Speaker 3: the one that did that thing around like twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three ish years ago?
Speaker 2: Was it born then? How old I was?
Speaker 3: I was not?
Speaker 2: Oh no, I was kidding, Jesus, I was just ribbing you.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Unfortunately. Yeah, Well it is that bin Laden, right,
Speaker 2: it is it is they.
Speaker 3: It is the guy.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's the one, the one you're thinking of. So
Speaker 2: that's a lawsuit that was brought by families of people
Speaker 2: who died at nine to eleven. So last year, a
Speaker 2: federal judge in New York gave those plaintiffs permission to
Speaker 2: serve legal notice to the Taliban via Twitter DM like
Speaker 2: the Taliban, what a time to be alive? What a
Speaker 2: time to be alive?
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, I the Taliban Twitter account is certainly fascinating.
Speaker 3: They're trying to hold the Taliban responsible for nine to eleven. Huh.
Speaker 2: I do want to get like deep into the weeds
Speaker 2: about this particular case. But there's something seized. So like
Speaker 2: judgments have been awarded, there are seized funds sitting somewhere
Speaker 2: in the released they want they want this money, right,
Speaker 2: and so they needed to serve notice to the Taliban
Speaker 2: that they want this money. And so as wild as
Speaker 2: that sounds, there's actually a lot of similarities in the
Speaker 2: underlying legal logic here. So in both of these cases,
Speaker 2: the court is pretty specific that they're not just saying like, yeah,
Speaker 2: just like DM whoever and it's good enough.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So in both of these cases, the account identified as
Speaker 2: being appropriate for service is pretty clear that it belongs
Speaker 2: to the person who's supposed to be served, and that
Speaker 2: that particular account has been used to make statements that
Speaker 2: indicate the individual already knows about the lawsuit. So this
Speaker 2: DMS the service by a DMK's going to be a surprise, right,
Speaker 2: This isn't going to be the first time you're hearing
Speaker 2: about this. Like the court knows that you know, okay,
Speaker 2: which I just need to see the red receipt that
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Aha, got it.
Speaker 2: So in the case of the Taliban, the court notes
Speaker 2: that the accounts had previously published press releases related to
Speaker 2: the funds at issue in the underlying litigation. So it's
Speaker 2: like they they're posting about it. They know they're certainly
Speaker 2: posting the talent. The Taliban is posting about the funds, okay.
Speaker 2: So in this case, it's Russeau's bravado biting you in
Speaker 2: the ass, right, and she.
Speaker 3: Loves and he loves posting. My god.
Speaker 2: And the judge specifically refers to the fact that they
Speaker 2: posted the video of the incident the day the suit
Speaker 2: was filed, which indicates actual knowledge.
Speaker 3: Yes, which is also a very interesting legal move on
Speaker 3: the part of Russo.
Speaker 2: Like, the judge is reading your posts and he doesn't
Speaker 2: think they're good.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Uh, nothing more scary than having to
Speaker 3: read out your posts to a federal judge.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ post every day, like a judge is gonna
Speaker 2: read them over your shoulder, right, Yes, so they're just
Speaker 2: like randomly and for totally unrelated reasons, losting this thirteen
Speaker 2: month old video the day the lawsuit gets filed.
Speaker 3: The judgesn't buy that fast. Again, a fascinating legal move.
Speaker 2: And so back to the Richmond case, right, we're still
Speaker 2: talking about service. So the Richmond Keys, because it was
Speaker 2: filed first, maybe they weren't expecting to get sued, And
Speaker 2: because more of those plaintiffs were actually identified by anti
Speaker 2: fascist researchers, they actually did manage to serve most of
Speaker 2: their defendants. They found Thomas Dale, Nathan Noyce, aident Tradinnick,
Speaker 2: and Daniel Cherecci at their homes. A private investigator tracks
Speaker 2: Jacob Brown down hiding at a home owned by his
Speaker 2: mother in like upstate New York. William Ring was.
Speaker 3: Actually, sorry, Moll, God, what a bunch of losers.
Speaker 2: But William Ring was actually the easiest defendant to find.
Speaker 2: His papers were actually handed to someone to give to him.
Speaker 2: But this person was authorized to receive those papers because
Speaker 2: they were a corrections officer at the Fayette County Prison
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. Ah Ring was a guest up there, serving
Speaker 2: a sentence for beating a man over the head with
Speaker 2: a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.
Speaker 3: HM. Curious it was.
Speaker 2: An altercation over refrigerator. It's very unclear.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's so sad. I thought it was gonna be
Speaker 3: like some horrible racist assault, and there could be an
Speaker 3: element of racism in this. I'm not familiar with the case.
Speaker 2: No, don't worry, Garrison. He was there for a second
Speaker 2: defense that occurred around the same time, but separately separate counties,
Speaker 2: even where he punched a child in the face after
Speaker 2: telling her to go back to Mexico.
Speaker 3: Okay, see that is what I That's what I was expecting.
Speaker 2: All right, Yeah, that sounds about right.
Speaker 3: Man. It does suck that sending Nazis to prison also
Speaker 3: has so many negative consequences. Fix. The furthering of the
Speaker 3: White Premaces project is really reliant on there being Nazis
Speaker 3: in prison, and it sucks that that is such an
Speaker 3: organizational hub of them, because these people should not be
Speaker 3: around other people. Ah Man. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just as an interesting aside in both of those criminal cases,
Speaker 2: he hired a guy I've seen before, very interesting. His
Speaker 2: name is Josh Smith. He was the lawyer that Matt
Speaker 2: Heinbach hired to represent him in this Kesler case a
Speaker 2: few years ago. Man, he's interesting to see an old
Speaker 2: friend again.
Speaker 3: Man with the most real name, Josh Smith.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's because it's not his real name.
Speaker 3: That's well, there we go.
Speaker 2: He was he was born Daniel Nussbaum.
Speaker 3: Of course, of course he was. I I clocked that immediately. Wow. Good,
Speaker 3: good for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, he was raised Jewish. But now he's a Holocaust
Speaker 2: and I an.
Speaker 3: Oh, what this is so sad? Oh my god, he
Speaker 3: joined to not see gay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Oh god, he's like, I have to pick a wider name.
Speaker 3: Josh Smith. Wow, what a loser.
Speaker 2: He's not a very good lawyer either. His performance, his
Speaker 2: performance in the science case with some of the strangest
Speaker 2: courtroom behavior I've I've ever seen, Like the judge had
Speaker 2: to keep reminding him of like you can't like that's
Speaker 2: not the law, Like you can't just say stuff.
Speaker 3: I love a courtroom behavior being described as strange.
Speaker 2: Like when the judge has to repeatedly remind you like
Speaker 2: how the law works, like how making motions works, Like
Speaker 2: you can't just yell stuff. It was the rough trial
Speaker 2: for him. His client does oh millions of dollars.
Speaker 3: He's the reverse Saul Goodman. Oh my gosh, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Someone having hired him for his criminal cases and is
Speaker 2: in prison. Oh, he didn't hire him to represent him
Speaker 2: in this lawsuit because he didn't get a lawyer and
Speaker 2: he defaulted. And so if you default on a case,
Speaker 2: it means you're not allowed to participate anymore. And so
Speaker 2: the case is going to keep going and maybe you
Speaker 2: get found liable, but like, you don't get to participate anymore.
Speaker 2: So when it's over, if you're liable, like.
Speaker 3: That's kind of fucking fuck you. Huh.
Speaker 2: And so Thomas Rousseau, Jacob Brown, and Patriot Front are
Speaker 2: also defaulted in that lawsuit. But the other guys, the
Speaker 2: other guys got a lawyer. They hired another guy we've
Speaker 2: seen before. His name is Glenn Allen. He's a Maryland
Speaker 2: based attorney who lost his job as council for the
Speaker 2: Baltimore Police Department after the SPLC identified him as a
Speaker 2: longtime member of the old school neo Nazi group National Alliance.
Speaker 3: Wow, huh. Curious that that the police would have a
Speaker 3: Nazi lawyer. That's weird. Surely there's nothing to interrogate, There.
Speaker 2: No there's nothing weird going on in Baltimore at the
Speaker 2: police department at all.
Speaker 3: It is certainly funny that they desired the old police
Speaker 3: Nazi lawyer for their Nazi club, A lawyer who's someone
Speaker 3: who's been fighting from the police from being a Nazi.
Speaker 2: So he's been keeping pretty busy the last few years.
Speaker 2: He spent a couple of years trying to sue the
Speaker 2: SPLC for saying true stuff about him being a member
Speaker 2: of National Alliance. It didn't work out. Didn't work out,
Speaker 2: and he currently represents Warren Baylong in a doomed appeal
Speaker 2: of a previously dismiss lawsuit against the City of Charlottesville,
Speaker 2: who're failing to protect his right to have a good
Speaker 2: time at Unite the Right. Well, it's sort of I
Speaker 2: don't know, it's like feels a little slapstick right, Like
Speaker 2: we're just like throwing characters in there. We've got We've
Speaker 2: got the formerly Jewish Holocaust deny are Nazi. We've got
Speaker 2: the guy in prison for punching a little girl. Oh,
Speaker 2: the girl he told to go back to Mexico is
Speaker 2: Puerto Rican. I don't know that that matters to him.
Speaker 2: But she she can't she can't go back to Mexico.
Speaker 3: Not being racist. Challenge level impossible.
Speaker 2: We're just like throwing characters in here.
Speaker 3: We got to know, is it is very curtoonish. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but here we are at the end.
Speaker 2: Right, I've taken up a lot of your time to
Speaker 2: take care of us and telling you my little story.
Speaker 2: But what happens now? Right, there's three live cases they're starting,
Speaker 2: They're starting to crawl forward now that the judges agreed
Speaker 2: that you can serve them. I'm so excited for discovery.
Speaker 2: My god, it's gonna be a treat. It's for me anyway.
Speaker 2: I'm getting the documents now. Obviously, the plaintiff's goal here
Speaker 2: is recovery of damages. That's what the law allows for.
Speaker 2: They can they sue because they want to recover damages,
Speaker 2: and I wish them well in that. But I'm not
Speaker 2: holding my breath. I think we can get some idea
Speaker 2: of what to expect here by looking back at the
Speaker 2: Science by Kessler lawsuit against the United the Right organizers.
Speaker 2: It took four years to get to trial. Discovery was
Speaker 2: stymied by guys dropping their phones in toilets.
Speaker 3: We're just not showing up. I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 3: what these lawyers are doing are collaborating with defendants to
Speaker 3: make as a little come out in discovery as possible,
Speaker 3: because that is beyond the actual court case. The thing
Speaker 3: that could actually be most damaging to them is discovery,
Speaker 3: Like that is the actual thing. So I'm sure they're
Speaker 3: using all this extra time when they're avoiding recognizing the
Speaker 3: lawsuit to try to tidy up any dirty laundry they
Speaker 3: may have in a semi legal fashion.
Speaker 2: Well, they can't do that, and so I'm not going
Speaker 2: to accuse anyone of a crime. Right, destruction of evidence
Speaker 2: is not allowed. It's called spoliation. Right, So once you
Speaker 2: have actual knowledge that you're being sued, you are no
Speaker 2: longer allowed to destroy anything that might be discoverable'll do it?
Speaker 3: Sure do they always kick cot?
Speaker 2: No? Am I implying that anyone is committing a crime
Speaker 2: at this juncture legally?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Well we'll see. But you know, looking back at science,
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody's gonna squeeze a few million out
Speaker 2: of any of those guys, right, Like they were found liable,
Speaker 2: but they're not gonna pay. Right, And Thomas Russeau started
Speaker 2: running his fascist club for friendless boys, right, out of
Speaker 2: high school. He doesn't have a job, he doesn't have assets,
Speaker 2: he's not gonna pay anybody any money. But what it
Speaker 2: can do is slow them down. They have to get lawyers,
Speaker 2: they have to show up in court, they have to
Speaker 2: participate in discovery. We've already seen plenty of leaked coms
Speaker 2: and internal planning documents, but now those documents and more
Speaker 2: will be entered into the court record.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So you know researchers like you and I, we put
Speaker 2: out information all the time and people see it and
Speaker 2: it makes a difference. But when something comes in with
Speaker 2: sort of the impromature of the court's legitimacy, Like once
Speaker 2: you put a bait's number on that bad boy, they
Speaker 2: could put it on the news, the real news were
Speaker 2: normal people.
Speaker 3: Right, yes, not your like niche, not your niche like
Speaker 3: no blogs the site that like twelve people check it.
Speaker 2: On, right, So like your mom watching Matt Out is
Speaker 2: going to see this, where like she's not reading Unicorn Riot.
Speaker 2: So this will put this information in front of more people,
Speaker 2: will have more legitimacy. But I think the biggest impact
Speaker 2: this is going to have is on the willingness of
Speaker 2: potential members and current members to participate, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes things way more risky for people wanting
Speaker 3: to do this sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Like, maybe you're gonna think twice about your group mandated
Speaker 2: racial intimidation now that you know you might have to
Speaker 2: pay for that. Yeah, you know, maybe joining looks a
Speaker 2: little less appealing. You know, it's hard to be optimistic
Speaker 2: about relying on the courts to meaningfully undermine white supremacist organizing. Sure,
Speaker 2: but it's worth a shot to gum up the works
Speaker 2: with whatever tools you have.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I may not believe in like the law system
Speaker 3: TM as this as this like universally good thing, or
Speaker 3: even like a like a like a valid thing, but
Speaker 3: I'm certainly willing to have it severely, uh, inconvenience my
Speaker 3: ontological enemies.
Speaker 2: Like is it the best solution?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Is it a solution? Maybe not at all. It's worth
Speaker 2: a shot, it'll be you know, I'm gonna enjoy reading
Speaker 2: the documents either way.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, No, that is. I am extremely intrigued to see
Speaker 3: what will come out, uh in discovery, and I wish
Speaker 3: these people only the worst. So well, Molly, that was
Speaker 3: that was fantastic. That was extremely informative. You know, I
Speaker 3: always think it's impossible to find new ways to laugh
Speaker 3: at Patriot Front. Yet here here we.
Speaker 2: Are imagine opening that DM. I wish they had record
Speaker 2: they record everything. I wish they'd been recording that.
Speaker 3: God, it'd be funny. Yeah, imagine getting served via GAB.
Speaker 3: I would just get you know, I I shouldn't say
Speaker 3: that anyway. Well, where can people find you online, Molly?
Speaker 3: Besides on our show?
Speaker 2: Now I know, I'm very excited to be here. You
Speaker 2: can find me on Twitter at Socialist dog Mom, my
Speaker 2: name I chose as a little joke before I realized
Speaker 2: it was going to be my job.
Speaker 3: That is mean, that is the same. That is the
Speaker 3: same thing with my Twitter presence. So we are we
Speaker 3: are in the same boat there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mostly just find me on Twitter. You can
Speaker 2: find me on my my ghost newsletter. It's like substack,
Speaker 2: but there's less Nazis there. It's called the Devil's Advocates.
Speaker 2: There's a link to it on my Twitter. I post
Speaker 2: about what happens when you take white supremacy to court.
Speaker 3: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Molly. We we will
Speaker 3: we will talk again soon to learn about I'm sure
Speaker 3: even even new and more more ridiculous things that you
Speaker 3: have stumbled across by reading those documents, I am too
Speaker 3: adhd to look.
Speaker 2: At it only ever gets worse. Garrison.
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