WEBVTT - Episode 8: The Digital Dragnet 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.040 Before we get into it, be advised that this series 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:18.600 contains bad language and references to violence. It's around three 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.920 pm on January six. The steps to the Capitol are 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:24.960 a seething mass of people. With every surge of the crowd, 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:30.159 they pushed closer to the doors. At the center of 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:34.840 a knot of bearded men, alone DC Metropolitan Police helmet surfaces. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:41.520 It's officer Michael Finno. I just remember getting violently assaulted 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:46.560 from every direction, two hundred fifty maybe three hundred feet 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:51.680 away from where the other officers were at. I knew 0:00:51.680 --> 0:01:00.640 I was up ship creep without tattling. Usual ELI officer 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.319 Phenone works in plain clothes, but today he left his 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:06.720 desk and put on riot gear for the first time 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:10.520 in his life, self deploying to assist his fellow officers 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:15.160 against the mob. Sam had asked why we ran to 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:18.520 help when we didn't have to. I did that because 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:22.440 I simply could not ignore what was happening. I could 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:30.880 not ignore the calls. Did numerous calls coming from the 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:39.920 Capital Complex for help. Officer Phenone joined the police line, 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:48.640 but was soon dragged away deep into the crowd. The 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.240 audio you're hearing was reported on Officer Phenone's body camp 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:59.200 from that day. We see him completely surrounded by these people. 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:10.120 Phone's helmet dips then resurfaces. He looks like he's fighting 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:14.360 for air. He was being hit with flagpoles. He was 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.839 being eat with everything, and he can't really fall because 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.000 there's so many people around him, but he's slowly going backwards. 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.960 I was risked of being stripped of and killed with 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:30.560 my own firearm. God, as I heard chance of kill 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.960 him with his own gun. I could still hear those 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.080 words in my head today. Another split second and Phenone 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:46.280 is pulled under. He disappears beneath the mass of bodies. 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.800 I'm sure I was screaming, but I don't think I 0:02:50.800 --> 0:03:00.680 could even hear my own voice. When another police officer 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:07.160 finds Venone minutes later, he's limp, his breathing is shallow. 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:16.280 They m on here. The voice you're hearing is Officer 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.560 Phenone's partner, Jimmy Albright, who kneels over the unconscious body 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:28.880 of his friend and colleague. Officer Phenone can't remember the 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.800 faces of the people who beat him with their fists, planks, 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.000 and flagpoles. There were thousands of protesters there that day. 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.840 Hundreds of crimes committed. You might think finding justice would 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:47.000 be hopeless, and he leads lost in the chaos. But 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:51.320 miles away someone was watching. To watch it over a 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:55.840 period of hours and just see it escalate. I was shocked. Actually, 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.720 it's a couple of weeks later businessmen for Wist Rogers 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.280 is pouring over the footage from the Capitol steps. When 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.000 he hits the jackpot. There's something that I called the 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.720 holy Grail of video footage, which is basically four K 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:15.520 sixty frame per second video. A lot of people who 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:23.679 raided the capitol posted jubilant live streams on social media, 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:30.680 but someone brought a really good camera. There were the 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:35.920 stairs to the Capital, the mob, the struggling police, all 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:42.200 captured in crystalline HD. We then took this footage and 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:54.760 single framed it. Forest scrutinizes each frame of the video, 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:06.240 every a second, rozen in time. Just as Officer Phenone 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.560 is about to be swallowed by the crowd, Forest spots something. 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:17.240 We see a right hand going in between the shoulders 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.800 of two individuals. It happened so fast that it would 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.159 have been pretty much invisible to the naked eye. It 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:30.520 probably maybe five or six frames only let's wind that 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:38.000 back and look at those frames one by one. The 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.159 hand is right next to Officer Phenone. Officer Phone has 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:44.000 a lot of tattoos, and so you can see the 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:45.880 left side of the neck. You can see it's dark 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:52.040 because of his tattoo. The crowder surging frozen through each frame, 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:59.400 their faces etched with anger and expectant excitement. Officer Phenone 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:05.320 start to tip backwards. A hand reaches out, turns and 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.920 tazes Officer Phone on his left side of his neck, 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:19.280 and then the hand holds back and then the suspect disappears. 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.920 Phenone slumps back into the crowd. The electric shock has 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.760 given him a heart attack. We then single framed it 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:37.760 back again. Forest reverses the video, hunting for a clearer 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.279 view of the person with the taser. We've found photos 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:46.440 of this individual there. He is captured in profile a 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:52.000 few moments earlier, a goatee, glasses with thick black frames, 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:57.200 and a red maga hat decorated with pins. Then they 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:06.240 spot him in another video and another We found him 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.240 in other areas where he's also holding the taser in 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.600 his hand, or, as the journalists like to say, a 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:18.800 taser looking object. We originally called him hashtag taser prick 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.840 because we felt it was an appropriate name for him. 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.800 Forest shares a compilation of the footage online and more 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:34.560 sightings of hashtag taser prick fled in one video in particular, 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:41.040 helps crack taser pricks identity. He has a like a 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.000 wooden rod and he's beating the windows. He's breaking down 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.200 the windows. He's causing all this trouble, and he was 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:52.680 identified in that video. Someone said that is Danny Rodriguez. 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.880 Danny Rodriguez, a thirty eight year old Trump fanatic all 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:09.600 the way from California. Rodriguez was arrested on federal charges 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.000 on March one, nearly three months after he triggered Officer 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.720 Finone's heart attack. The video evidence identified by these amateur 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:21.160 salutes was cited in Rodriguez's indictment. Turns out the anonymity 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.240 of the crowd didn't last long for hashtag taser brick. 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.800 From Cool's own media, I Heart Radio and novel This 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:36.480 is the Assault on America Episode eight, the Digital Dragnet, 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.040 The Justice Department and the FBI have a team of 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.720 thousands working on the prosecutions. From January six, you might 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.040 expect Forest Rogers to be one of them. But Forest 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.040 isn't a special agent or even a cop. He's just 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.640 an ordinary guy with time on his hands and Twitter account. 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:16.800 In the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, people 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.440 like him have played a crucial role in tracking down 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.040 the key suspects. I've said before that this was one 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:27.640 of the most well documented crimes in history. Thousands upon 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:32.640 thousands of camera phones were filming. Not to mention news 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:39.600 channels have ever seen anything like this. Streamers and left 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:45.920 wing activists who had infiltrated the Maga mob. You'd think 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.760 the volume of evidence would make it easier for the authorities, 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.640 but it's also kind of like having tens of thousands 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.800 of witnesses all shouting their testimony act you at once. 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:07.200 It's hard to make sense of the noise. That's where 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:11.880 people like Forest come in. We've spent a lot of 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.920 this series talking about the darker parts of the online world, 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:20.400 the fever swamps of disinformation and manufactured outrage, but it's 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:25.480 not all darkness. In this final episode, we're going to 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:27.720 find out how the attack on the Capitol was the 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:32.960 catalyst for an online community of citizens sluts from their 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.160 bedrooms and home offices across the United States and the world. 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.520 They've shown a light onto the events of January six 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:44.480 to understand how these amateur investigators became so important. I 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:49.040 want to kick off with Forest. Forest has gone back 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.680 and forth between the United States and Germany during his 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.920 career working in economic development. No, I wasn't the corporate 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:58.880 spive of my friends all think I was. He's basically 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.079 a businessman. He held companies, broker deals about which factories 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.680 get the where. But on January six, Forest isn't thinking 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.719 about wheeling and dealing. He's compulsively scrolling on Twitter. It 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.520 was like watching a car crash and slow motion, and 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.840 Twitter became the hub for gathering all of this information. 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:19.880 Forest begins deem ng back and forth with some of 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.160 the most vocal people in the information gathering effort, and 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.199 before long they joined forces. We started a Twitter account 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:29.400 called it deep State Dogs because all of these people 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.920 who were storming the Capitol tend to think the deep 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.280 state is involved in everything. And dogs because we all 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.559 like dogs, the Scooby Doos of online activism. You could 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.600 say we started out with three people, then he went 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:43.959 to five, and then he went to seven, and now 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.280 we're at about a dozen we are like a family. 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.200 In this case, it's not just the villains who hide 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:54.200 their identities. Forest is the spokesperson of Deep State Dogs. 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:58.560 The other members are all anonymous. In the online investigation world, 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.480 people stay anonymous for a number of reasons. When you 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.280 spend your free time exposing insurrectionists, you can piss off 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.960 some pretty dangerous people. The Deep State Dogs take anonymity 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.240 so seriously that they don't even know each other's names. 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:17.240 You imagine what this person looks like. You think maybe 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.320 that person is a female, and so now you have 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.720 a vision of this person sitting at their kitchen table 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.760 or in their corporate office. You have to have a vision, otherwise, 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.720 if it were just total anonymity, it would be difficult 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.920 to sustain. In the week that follows the riot, Forest 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.360 spends more and more time hunting for images of possible suspects. 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.080 By mid January, he's glued to his laptop for ten 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:43.040 plus hours a day trawling through footage of the riot, 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.079 hunting for clues that can identify any of the participants. 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.320 Chewing over leads with the other Deep State Dogs, but 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:57.679 it's tough going. Then around January, he notices a hashtag 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:02.160 doing the rounds on Twitter. B horn Lady a new target. 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:08.480 The deep state dogs are on the scent. There were 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.360 all these people who were trying to find this one 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:15.400 individual who was wearing a pink beanie. These searchs for 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.760 a woman in a pink hat wanted in connection with 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.720 the U. S Capital riots. The FBI still trying to 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.560 confirm her identity. Pink Hat Lady a k a. Bullhorn 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.400 Lady is a middle aged white woman with curly brown hair. 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.800 In footage from January six, her face is partly hidden 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.920 by a pair of white linen sunglasses, and she's carrying 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.000 a bullhorn, hence the hashtag. She wouldn't look out of 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.440 place among the moms at a local school football game 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:42.720 if it weren't for the fact that she's running amuck 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:50.000 in the heart of a mob. Bullhorn Lady first appears 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:54.680 and crowds outside the Capital. She's shouting and taking photos. 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.280 She and the other protesters forced their way up the 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:04.800 Capitol steps. She looks on as a police officer is 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:10.440 dragged past her. At one point, she grabs hold of 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:17.160 a huge battering ram and repeatedly smashes it against one 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:23.360 of the Capitol windows. What really gets Twitter riled up. 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:25.960 Is that throughout at all she shouts encouragement through the 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:35.960 bullhorn instructions. Even she was telling them, you need to 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:38.760 go through this door, you need to take a ride, 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:46.280 you need to break through that glass forest. Rodgers is 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:50.920 determined to track her down. This is one of the leaders. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.280 This is a person who is I'm the are with 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:59.360 all of this information who has a plan to the 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.760 Deep State dogs. Bullhorn Lady looks a lot like a ringleader, 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.120 but between the sunglasses and the beanie, it's impossible to 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.920 get a good look at her face. As well as 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.920 curly brown hair, she has slightly asymmetrical nostrils, but the 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.320 detail isn't enough to find a match on its own, 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.240 so the dogs start to forensically dissect the rest of 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:23.680 the outfit. We started saying, Okay, these are the boots 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.440 she's wearing, this is the brand of flunglasses she's wearing. 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:30.840 In one video, Bullhorn Lady pulls out her phone and 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.320 takes a panoramic picture, and as she does so, her 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.040 phone case is clearly visible. It wasn't a standard black 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.760 case or red case. It was a very unique case 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:46.560 at an interesting floral design on it. A Kate spade, 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:51.080 Hollyhock floral iPhone eleven case. To be precise, it doesn't 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:55.680 take Forest long to find the match online. Forest in 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.960 the Deep State dogs watch Trump rallies. Next year will 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:07.240 be the greater economic year, Mega protests, more years, militia 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:12.240 meet ups, a large before black any event where a 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:18.040 budding capital insurgeon might rear their head. Then a crowd 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:23.040 of patriots surrounded him, and we found some footage at Gettysburg. 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:28.120 Ju was Homeland Security there and there was police there. 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.960 Supposedly Antifa was going to go there and rip down 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.760 Confederate statues or something, which gave everybody, of course the 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.080 chance to dress up in all their militia and go 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.600 there and protect the monuments. Tearing down a monuments really 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.080 need to stop. And so that's why I drove out here. 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.760 They're halfway through a YouTube video of interviews with people 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:48.920 defending the monuments. Is a woman wearing a black shirt 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:53.080 and a camouflage bag. She has curly brown hair. We 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.720 even find out her name and where she might live. Right, So, Rachel, 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:58.200 why don't you tell me how far did you come? 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:03.520 Four hours? Oh my god, Mercer County. One of my 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.239 team members saw the video and immediately send it out 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:10.120 and says, we found her. We have found Bullhorn Lady 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:16.200 Mercer County. There's the same curly brown hair, the same 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:21.280 asymmetrical nose, even the same earrings as Bullhorn Lady. But 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.359 Forrest wants to be completely certain. We don't want to 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.440 Dock's an innocent person before we submit it to the FBI. 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.960 We have to connect her to the capitol event. The 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.280 Deep State Dogs trawl the Facebook profiles of every Rachel 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.439 and Mercer County. One jumps out right away, Rachel Powell, 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:42.760 and there was an image of her, and believe it 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.560 or not, she was holding a bullhorn. Rachel Powell just 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:49.520 loves a bullhorn. Guys, we had a name. Now the 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.040 dogs have a name. All they need is a smoking gun. 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.400 And in the Gettysburg footage, Forest finds one. We see 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:01.000 her in the background and she reaches into her back pocket, 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.840 pulls out her iPhone to take a picture and it 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:11.640 is the same iPhone and the same iPhone case. Boom, gotcha. 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.679 The Deep State Dogs tip off the FBI. On the 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.760 twenty six of January, the dogs advised the other Twitter 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.679 sleuths to call off their hunt for Bullhorn lady. On 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.920 February four, Rachel Powell is taken into police custody indicted 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.840 on federal charges. This particular who done it is solved. 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.480 Deep State dogs move on to other suspects with other 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:42.320 excellent hashtags hashtag scallops, hashtag maser in black, and my 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:47.640 personal favorite hashtag Mr Extra creepy. But Forest is left 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:53.000 with questions, what flipped this person? What was in them? 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.480 What type of trauma did someone like this have to 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:00.320 have in their life? Or what type of entitlement does 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:05.400 this person think they have? This is her indictment, eight counts. 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:10.240 It's serious business. We're looking at twenty years to lose 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:14.639 everything for that, for the big lawe. What triggered it? 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.920 What triggered Rachel Powell's evolution into mob cheerleader. That's a 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.240 question I'm interested in too. I've watched the footage, I've 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.840 seen her in action, But who is Rachel Powell really? 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.120 And what drove her across state lines with a bullhorn 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:39.800 and a battering ram. On January six, she calls me 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:41.840 one day and she says, hey, do you have any 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:47.560 logs in your forest? So she came over with a 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:52.320 chainsaw and she cut up trees and we drilled holes 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.080 in all the logs and we plugged them with mushroom plugs. 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:02.040 That's Jennifer Horseman, a homeschool mom Western Pennsylvania, and so 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.160 that was a really fun thing that we did together, 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:09.560 is made ourselves a whole bunch of mushrooms. Her friend 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.320 with the chainsaw, that's Rachel Powell. They first met long 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.560 before Rachel was battering in the capital windows embarking orders 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:22.679 at fellow insurrectionists. We met probably ten years ago when 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.680 Rachel was doing a co op for vegetables and fruit 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:31.760 and organic produce, and she would go and pick up 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.520 the produce and pack it into boxes for everybody, and 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.040 that was kind of how she made a little bit 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.840 of money and got some food for her family and 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:44.920 supplied the local moms with good organic food for their families. 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.760 Jennifer and Rachel are closed, so obviously she's not an 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.080 impartial witness here, but the picture she paints is pretty 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.119 different from the militant ringleader Forest Rogers and the dogs 0:20:55.160 --> 0:21:02.119 thought they were chasing down. Rachel is a mother of eight, 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:06.480 and according to Jennifer, she's community minded. I guess from 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:11.119 the standpoint of most quote normal people I guess you 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.600 would say we're kind of hippies. Yes, they were butchering chickens. 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.480 Today they both rear their own animals from meat sharp knife, 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.959 it's the best thing to do, and then put their 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:23.760 throat and it leads out to the bucket. It's not 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:26.160 unusual to see all kinds of rare chickens and other 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:30.439 fowl running around their yards. This past summer, we pulled 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:35.240 our resources together and um butchered all of our own 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:39.080 chickens together, and we did over five chickens this summer. 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.200 And then afterwards we sat around and did some canning 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:46.600 and you know, canned some of the meat and prepared 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.600 it to eat. It was several days worth of work 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:52.600 all day. There was a lot of work, but a 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:56.639 lot of fun, right and in all those hours of 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.680 chicken canning and log drilling. Politics was never at the 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:04.600 top of conversation. She wasn't ever into politics. It wasn't 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:08.360 her thing. If she was into politics, it was mostly 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.560 you know, making sure that it was someone that was 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.760 going to protect the earth. I was never into politics either, 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.359 So we just never discussed politics. Before all of this 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:23.720 stuff started happening with the pandemic and all that stuff. 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:26.600 The pandemic came up a lot when I was talking 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:29.600 to people for this series. It's turned life upside down 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.960 for everyone to a greater or lesser extent. For Forrest 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.280 Rogers and the other citizens sluths, lockdowns and working from 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:38.440 home meant they had time on their hands to put 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:42.800 towards information gathering. But for Rachel Powell, the lockdown pushed 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:46.600 her in the opposite direction. She is a single mom 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:50.280 of eight kids, you know. So if you can imagine 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:55.359 being a single mom of eight kids trying to feed 0:22:55.400 --> 0:23:00.800 your kids, and then you take a pandemic which wasn't 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:04.720 affecting our area very much, you know, we don't see 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:08.480 the effects that maybe a big city would see. And 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:14.320 so um, she had her livelihood taken away, and so 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:18.840 she couldn't make a living to do what she needed 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:23.000 to deal for her kids, you know. And I think 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.960 that it was the injustice of all of that. I mean, 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:29.320 we live in the middle of the country. There's no 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:34.840 COVID flying amongst the forest. It's not fair to say 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:38.040 that Mercer County hasn't been affected by COVID. According to 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:40.400 the New York Times Statistics, the rate of COVID nineteen 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:43.240 cases per hundred thousand people in the county has been 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:46.000 pretty much in line with the Pennsylvania average over the 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:50.040 pandemic as a whole. As of auguste, the COVID death 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:52.360 rate in Mercer County to date is higher than both 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:55.679 the state and the national average. But at the same time, 0:23:55.720 --> 0:23:57.760 the fact that the pandemic was a turning point for 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:00.720 Rachel is still important. The re search is only just 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:04.280 emerging on how COVID nineteen has affected radicalization across the 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:07.400 United States, but we know that people are more vulnerable 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:11.280 to disinformation in times of crisis. Of course, plenty of 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:14.159 folks had a rough time in without taking a battering 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:16.880 ram to the capital. But it seems that Rachel fell 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:20.000 victim to a mix of right wing conspiracy theories being 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:23.000 shared in places like Facebook and right wing thought leaders 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:26.560 like Alex Jones and the Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani. This 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:28.879 all hit her at a time when she was vulnerable. 0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:32.480 This combination of factors brought Rachel Powell from being a 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:35.560 nature loving she's seller from rural Pennsylvania to being a 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:42.280 capital insurgent in the space of a year. She's really 0:24:42.320 --> 0:24:47.919 just a normal mom. I mean, she sells. She's at 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:50.760 a farmer's market. That's literally what she did for a living. 0:24:51.400 --> 0:24:56.159 She's just very free spirited, and my personal opinion as 0:24:56.240 --> 0:25:01.680 that it is so far beyond what she should be facing. 0:25:02.440 --> 0:25:05.480 People who rape and murder people get less time in 0:25:05.560 --> 0:25:08.920 jail than what she's facing. I mean, forty seven years, 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:13.640 that's a long time. That's a lifetime. You heard that right. 0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:16.680 If convicted, Rachel Powell is currently looking at a maximum 0:25:16.720 --> 0:25:20.600 sentence of forty seven years. It's hardly surprising that Rachel's 0:25:20.600 --> 0:25:24.000 friend thinks she's been screwed over. Obviously, if people attempt 0:25:24.000 --> 0:25:26.359 to carry out a fascist coup and get slapped on 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:29.600 the wrist, they'll keep right on trying until they succeed. 0:25:29.960 --> 0:25:32.200 But that doesn't make the reality of her case any 0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:36.360 less grim. Her youngest daughter is only five years old. 0:25:37.600 --> 0:25:40.320 It's a bleak reminder of just how much people were 0:25:40.359 --> 0:25:45.760 convinced to gamble on stopping the steel. I asked Jennifer 0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:48.920 whether people in her hometown still believe the election was stolen. 0:25:50.160 --> 0:25:53.960 Within my circle and my friends, yes, definitely. Um So, 0:25:54.080 --> 0:25:57.600 as far as I see in my view, I see 0:25:59.560 --> 0:26:03.960 most way people that do feel that way, that it 0:26:04.119 --> 0:26:06.159 might not have been a fair election, or that there 0:26:06.240 --> 0:26:10.960 might have been some not so honest things going on there. 0:26:11.880 --> 0:26:14.560 With her battering ram and her bullhorn, Rachel took her 0:26:14.600 --> 0:26:17.320 belief in the big lie to an extreme. But for 0:26:17.359 --> 0:26:20.280 every person who turned up at the Capitol on January six, 0:26:20.560 --> 0:26:23.399 there are a lot more people like Jennifer who share 0:26:23.440 --> 0:26:25.560 many of the same beliefs that moved their friends or 0:26:25.600 --> 0:26:30.520 family to violence. And that's actually what makes Rachel's story 0:26:30.600 --> 0:26:33.080 so important. There were a lot of people at the 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:36.199 Capitol like her, pretty normal Americans who had only been 0:26:36.240 --> 0:26:40.360 occasionally political before COVID and had been radicalized largely on 0:26:40.400 --> 0:26:43.520 Facebook through things like groups and viral memes spread by 0:26:43.520 --> 0:26:56.360 friends and communities. Darryl Johnson is a former lead domestic 0:26:56.480 --> 0:26:59.640 terrorism analyst at the Department of Homeland Security. We heard 0:26:59.640 --> 0:27:02.399 from him last episode, and what shocked him most about 0:27:02.400 --> 0:27:06.040 the Capital riot was how many previously a political people 0:27:06.200 --> 0:27:08.760 like Rachel Powell, we're willing to throw their lot in 0:27:08.880 --> 0:27:11.880 with the armed militias and other fringe and far right groups. 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:17.320 It just wasn't extremists. There were other people there who 0:27:17.520 --> 0:27:20.679 typically they don't belong to these groups. They're just you know, 0:27:21.040 --> 0:27:27.120 ordinary Americans. Influenced by conspiracy theories as well as disinformation 0:27:27.520 --> 0:27:31.479 and these false allegations by the President himself of a 0:27:31.480 --> 0:27:35.480 regular election. Last episode, we looked at how a backlash 0:27:35.520 --> 0:27:38.919 from the conservative media turned right wing extremism into a 0:27:38.960 --> 0:27:43.080 political hot potato and led to Homeland Securities Domestic Terrorism 0:27:43.080 --> 0:27:47.240 Department getting gutted for Darryl The Rachel Powells of January 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:50.399 six are a direct consequence of that failure to tackle 0:27:50.480 --> 0:27:54.960 the problem head on. Far right extremism, for the most part, 0:27:55.160 --> 0:27:58.280 is something that happens on a regular basis. A lot 0:27:58.320 --> 0:28:01.199 of times it's dismissed in the media or you know, 0:28:01.280 --> 0:28:04.480 even by government officials as other types of crime rather 0:28:04.520 --> 0:28:08.040 than terrorist attacks. If you don't crack down on far 0:28:08.119 --> 0:28:10.359 right extremism and call it out for what it is, 0:28:10.680 --> 0:28:13.840 then it starts to bleed into the mainstream. When we 0:28:13.920 --> 0:28:19.120 have violence that's ideologically motivated and it's meant to instill 0:28:19.240 --> 0:28:22.800 fear in a certain population or want to change government policy, 0:28:23.080 --> 0:28:25.439 it meets the definition of terrorism and we need to 0:28:25.560 --> 0:28:32.959 label it such. The thousands of ordinary citizens swept up 0:28:32.960 --> 0:28:35.480 in the insurrection are a symptom of what happens when 0:28:35.520 --> 0:28:38.400 you don't the sheer scale of it then creates a 0:28:38.480 --> 0:28:43.040 new challenge for all of us. In the past, you know, 0:28:43.080 --> 0:28:46.560 they've had major investigations, but they haven't been focused on 0:28:46.840 --> 0:28:50.640 this larger a range of suspects. Ryan Riley is a 0:28:50.680 --> 0:28:53.920 reporter with Huffington's Post. It's fair to say he's seen 0:28:53.960 --> 0:28:57.800 his share of Justice Department investigations. Essentially, I've been covering 0:28:57.800 --> 0:29:02.080 the Justice Department for my entire career, but he's never 0:29:02.120 --> 0:29:05.960 reported on an investigation quite like this. Even really big 0:29:06.000 --> 0:29:09.720 investigations like the Oklahoma City bombings or nine eleven only 0:29:09.720 --> 0:29:12.240