WEBVTT - American Fart Party 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:06.519 Cool zone Media. 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:11.240 In nineteen ninety five, a middle aged former marine decided 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.120 to go back to school. He'd been out of the 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.120 service for years. He had already had an entire second 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.480 career as a mining engineer, but he was having trouble 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.599 finding a job. On the eve of the dot com boom, 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.360 he saw an opportunity for a new direction. He enrolled 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:33.960 at Arizona State University to study computers. That first semester, 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:39.040 he enrolled in a class called Introduction to Macintosh. Through 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:43.240 the university, he had unlimited access to the World Wide Web, 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.519 accessible twenty four to seven at the school's on campus 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:51.200 computer center. By day, he learned the basics of computer programming, 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.600 but at night, alone in the computer lab, he browsed 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:00.600 the web. It was there that he first discovered websites 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.520 devoted to white nationalism. He devoured the writings of doctor 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.360 William Luther Pierce, the leader of the neo Nazi group 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.280 National Alliance. He created an account on a forum for 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.080 followers of the World Church of the Creator, and within 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.720 months he was invited to meet in person with the 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:24.319 leadership of the local chapters of both organizations. Ralph Brandt 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:28.039 enrolled in computer classes looking for a third act, and 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.520 I guess he got one. I don't know how proficient 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.720 he ever got at computer programming, but in the thirty 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.880 years since he first stumbled upon an online forum for racists, 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.640 he's found purpose. Now, at nearly seventy six years old, 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:47.440 he's the chairman of white nationalist group angling for a Comeback. 0:01:50.840 --> 0:02:12.480 I'm Molly Conger, and this is weird, Little guys. This week, 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:17.079 more than ever, I have felt overwhelmed by the realization 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:21.960 that this show doesn't really have individual episodes. There are 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:27.480 no self contained stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. This 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.200 has all just been one really long story that I'm 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:36.520 telling out of order. The last two main Feed episodes, 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:39.880 I told you a story about Merlin Miller, a failed 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.160 filmmaker who fell down a rabbit hole after nine to eleven, 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.560 became obsessed with conspiracy theories, and ran for president in 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.279 twenty twelve on the ticket of an openly white supremacist, 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.519 fascist eugenicis political party called the American Third Position Party. 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.840 And in that second episode, I hinted that the group 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:02.640 behind his candidacy hasn't really gone away. In the aftermath 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:08.520 of Merlin Miller's disastrous run for president, the party rebranded. Remember, 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:10.920 the group originally formed out of the collapse of a 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.800 California group called the Golden State Party, so named because 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:16.960 it was mostly made up of members of the neo 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.640 Nazi skinhead group, the Golden State Skinheads. So the Golden 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.120 State Party collapsed in two thousand and nine, and they 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.120 regrouped as the American Third Position Party in twenty ten, 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.800 and then the group rebranded again as the American Freedom 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.320 Party in December of twenty twelve. And my plan for 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.680 the next episode, this one, the one you're listening to now, 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.680 was just to speed run through the party's activities over 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.400 the decade that followed, bringing us all the way back 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.040 up to the present day, and then be done with it. 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:52.040 But I think we're going to have to revisit some 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:55.120 parts of this story in more depth some other time, 0:03:55.560 --> 0:04:00.240 maybe not next week. As I was scrounging around and 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:04.360 compiling my notes and collecting filings from failed campaigns, and 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.600 watching grainy old videos of speeches at White Nationalists summits 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.520 held in hotel conference rooms, and listening to Nazi podcasts 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.720 at double speed, just wishing that they would get to 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.400 the point, I started to feel a little bit crazed. 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.440 I mean that's not unusual, to be honest, that happens 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.640 a lot. It's maddening work for a variety of reasons. 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:32.120 But I kept coming across familiar names, familiar organizations, people 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.320 and places and things that I didn't expect to see 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.640 in this story, finding connections to past episodes and to 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:47.880 stories I haven't written yet. There's a psychological phenomenon called apophenia. 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.800 It's a tendency to see patterns where they don't exist, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.040 to find connections between unrelated things, to see meaning in 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:01.760 random stimuli. In its most extreme, it can be a 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.640 symptom of mental illnesses like schizophrenia or obsessive compulsive disorder. 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:08.839 But you also see it on display in the writings 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.400 of conspiracy theorists, and you've definitely seen it at work 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.200 if you know someone with a gambling problem. But it's 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.200 a cognitive bias we all experience from time to time, 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.400 seeing shapes in the clouds, seeing a man in the moon, 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.960 finding meaning, and coincidentally looking at your watch at eleven eleven. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.200 We all get a little apophenia now and then, and 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.920 it's something I try to be really vigilant about. Am 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:41.680 I seeing connections in my research because they're real, or 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.720 am I just getting that rush of recognition because at 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.120 this point I have at least a few pages of 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.320 notes on almost every prominent white supremacist active in the 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.440 United States for the last five decades, and everything just 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:58.480 feels a little familiar. And theirs really is a small world. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.359 Sometimes the same guy pops up in a few seemingly 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:06.200 unrelated places, because there's only so many places for that 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:08.680 guy to be if he's been active in the movement 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.880 over the course of many years. I try to keep 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.640 that pretty front of mind so I don't drive myself 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:21.960 completely mad, you know, But sometimes sometimes it feels like 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:27.520 everything is connected because it is. It's not a coincidence. 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.359 It's not apophenia, it's not conspiratorial thinking. It's not my 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:36.680 mind finally buckling under the weight of the horrors. Sometimes 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.560 if you dig down deep enough, it's the same guy's 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:47.600 name on all the paperwork. Remember earlier this year when 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:51.239 I accidentally spent three months writing about white supremacist terrorism 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:55.200 and apartheid South Africa, if you can remember back that far. 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.880 Those episodes started with vignette about this series of rallies 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.040 held in twenty twelve, organized by Monica Huggett Stone's South 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:08.760 Africa Project. But the main rally, the big one, the 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:14.880 one in Sacramento, Monica wasn't actually there. The actual on 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:19.360 the ground organizers in Sacramento were the Golden State Skinheads, 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.760 the same group that originally approached William Daniel Johnson to 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:28.000 remake their Golden State Party into the American Third Position Party. 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.600 And here's Mike Myers, the leader of the Golden State Skinheads, 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:37.600 whose name is actually Michael SESAMs, taking credit for that 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.200 pro apartheid rally when he gave a speech at the 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.120 American Freedom Party conference a year later. 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.680 We've thrown rallies, filed for in game permits, and dealt 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:53.520 with the logistics of planning many successful protests, like the 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.040 National South Africa Project last year in Sacramento, the NTI 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.440 League Immigration protests in Sacramento this year. And that's a 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:04.040 nation about happy dozen or so other activism related events. 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:05.520 And just as pasture of the law. 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.920 And when I went back and looked at the pictures 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:17.000 of those rallies in twenty twelve, there's William Daniel Johnson 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.200 in photos of the South Africa Project rally held in 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:25.400 Los Angeles in February of twenty twelve. And it's no 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.480 coincidence that William Daniel Johnson was a member of the 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.480 board of directors at the Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas, 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:36.160 a nonprofit founded by white supremacist lawyer Kyle Bristow with 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.280 the goal of being an ACLU for the alt right. 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.439 The foundation raised the money for the series of lawsuits 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.800 that Bristow filed against colleges and universities in twenty seventeen 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.400 to force them to allow Richard Spencer to speak on campus. 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.920 When that foundation fell apart, one of its other board members, 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.840 a man whose name you've heard before, Augustus solen Victus, 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.440 tried to start something similar, and he called it the 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:08.560 Conservative Legal Defense Fund. That too, is now defunct, But 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.640 the incorporation paperwork for that group shows that American Freedom 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:17.000 Party board members Jamie Kelso and William Daniel Johnson were 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.880 not only involved, but they were using Johnson's law office 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:26.400 as the mailing address. And it's no coincidence that Nathan 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.280 Dimigo was invited to speak at the party's conference earlier 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:33.760 this year. He actually got his start in organized racism 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:38.800 a decade ago as a member of the American Freedom Party. 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.199 Before he founded Identity Europa in twenty sixteen, he was 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.880 leading the American Freedom Party's short lived youth division, a 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:53.080 group called National Youth Front. Identity Europa didn't publicly maintain 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:57.000 ties to the American Freedom Party, but it does appear 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.680 to have originally just been a rebranding of National Youth 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:04.400 Front after a similarly named but not racist group threatened 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.880 to sue over the use of the name. And here's 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:12.160 Nathan Dimigo in December of twenty fifteen talking to Richard 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:16.559 Spencer about the upcoming launch of a renamed National Youth Front. 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.439 This is just three months before he re emerged as 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:21.920 the leader of Identity Europa. 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.040 We're going to be looking at relaunching in a few 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.520 months from now, and it's going to be, in a 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:29.200 way a much. 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:30.640 More mature organization. 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:35.679 It's going to be a European rights organization explicitly. 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.520 Nathan Dimigo's reappearance at this year's American Freedom Party conference 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.840 was a little bit of a surprise to me. He'd 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.199 mostly stepped back from active organizing since the twenty seventeen 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.880 United the Right rally. He filed for bankruptcy to try 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:57.000 to get out from under a lawsuit filed against him 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:00.400 and the other organizers of that deadly rally, but he 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.560 lost the lawsuit in twenty twenty one, and a bankruptcy 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:07.240 court ruled just last week that the judgment is not 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:12.360 dischargeable in his bankruptcy case. He is currently appealing that 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:17.160 decision with the help of movement lawyer Glen Allen. Glen Allen, 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.360 you may recall from the last episode, was the Nazi 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.600 lawyer who helped Merlin Miller start his American Eagle Party 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:28.840 after he left the American Freedom Party. And Nathan Dimigo 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:32.199 isn't the only Identity Europa member to resurface in connection 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:36.440 with the American Freedom Party. After Identity Europa collapsed for 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.200 good in twenty twenty, some former members were turned to 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:45.240 the group that spawneded, joining the American Freedom Party. Notably, 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.319 the party's current executive director is a former Identity Europa 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:54.240 member who calls himself John Fassbender. So there are a 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.400 lot of threads to pull here, and there's no way 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:02.240 to unravel the whole ball of yarn today. So I 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.360 suppose we should start with what the American Freedom Party 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:10.200 even is, or rather what it is not. 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:17.800 These views are not. They're not weird, they're not bad, right, 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.400 and they're held by totally normal people. 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.640 Okay, we're off to a bad start. That's the party's 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:34.720 executive director, John Fasspender, very unconvincingly claiming that they're not weird. 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.800 I don't buy it. But that's not the only lie 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:45.280 he tells on podcasts. The American Freedom Party is not 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:52.800 a duly registered national political party, and that's a very 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:57.680 specific claim that he makes in almost every interview. It 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.440 just isn't, but Fastpender is quite adamant that it is. 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.400 Here he is boasting about it to Macedonian nationalist podcaster 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:09.680 Nick Gilvie in late twenty twenty three. 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:18.040 In fact, we are currently the only registered political party 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:22.120 that expeuses pro wide views in the United States right now. 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.880 There are plenty of provide organizations, but they do not 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:29.000 have say, valid access, the ability to run candidates and 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.360 so on and so forth. So we take great pride 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.280 in that it is something we work tirelessly to maintain. 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.480 And when he went on Jilvi's show again in April 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:44.000 of twenty twenty four, he made the same claim. 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.760 Yes, we are a political party. We have gone through 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:50.440 the process we have registered. 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.960 We have obtained the necessary signatures to obtain valid access 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:59.800 in various states across the country. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.800 Here's Fastbender telling Nazi podcaster Nick Gregory about it in 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:05.280 November of twenty twenty four. 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.320 The American Freedom Party is the only duly registered political 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.680 party in the United States that is with the ability 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.800 to run candidates that is to say, which represents pro 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:28.160 white ideals, that is to say, American nationalist principles, white identitarian ideals. 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:32.640 Back in twenty twenty two, a member of the party's 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:37.400 board told Ryan Sanchez, a Groper aligned Nazi podcaster who 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.520 calls himself the Culture War Criminal, that their status as 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:46.120 a federal political party did come with some downsides, like 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:54.160 an inability to accept large anonymous cryptocurrency donations, and as. 0:14:54.000 --> 0:15:02.080 A registered political party with the Feral Elections Commission. 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:02.000 We. 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.760 Have some issues with crypto as well, in terms of 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:11.280 how much crypto we can take. So crypto is not 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:17.840 something we're doing right now directly through the party. 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:22.400 I know that's an important point. There are some pretty 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:28.240 specific rules, regulations, and laws about how a political party 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:32.320 handles money. I won't claim to know or understand all 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:37.480 of them. You can get pretty confusing, but surely the 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:41.480 guy running a political party would have a passing familiarity 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.320 with at least the broad strokes of how that sort 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:45.120 of thing works. 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:50.760 Right there. One question was what does it take to 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.920 register as a political party? Is the process complicated? And 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:59.280 then another person pointed out that part of the reason 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:04.080 of the LCD is that donations to parties are public record. 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:06.800 Do you have any comments on that, because I know 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:08.960 that's something that people talk about all the time. There 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.360 is the op SEC issue of like if I send 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:16.360 you the fifty dollars for the year membership, right, is 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:17.560 that publicly known? 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:18.440 Sure? 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.400 Well, I'll say this as far as you know the 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.640 accounting aspect of it, and as far as you know 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.800 how information is, what information is public record and what 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:32.040 information isn't. I couldn't give in accurate answer because it's 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:36.520 just not my my level of understanding on that end 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.080 of things in the party. Definitely, when it comes to 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:44.040 finances and so on, I'm pretty pretty much ignorant. That 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.120 being said, as far as you know sending in donations 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.600 and how it is to register as a political party, 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:51.320 first of all, it is there. 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:51.760 It is. 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.160 It is a bit complicated, you know, it does require 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:55.120 a lot of you. 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:59.320 Know, basically a lot of paperwork filing. 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:07.680 Oh dear. In May of twenty twenty three, the party's 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:12.640 executive director had no idea if membership dues are being 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:17.240 reported as donations to a political party. It doesn't sound 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:21.000 like he knows what, if any reporting is being done 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:25.240 at all, But he does know that, despite the immense 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:30.040 complexity of the paperwork, somebody definitely filed that paperwork that 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:34.120 makes them a real political party. And just one more, 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:40.199 This one is both very specific and extremely recent. Fassbender 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.520 was interviewed by a Canadian white nationalist and aspiring musician, 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.840 Steve Hansen, just a few weeks ago. There's no wiggle 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.960 room here, Fassbender clearly says, the organization is a federally 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:54.080 recognized political party. 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:04.719 Yeah, and you know this is a federal political party, correct, Correct? 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:11.000 But like I said, no, they're not. I'll admit to 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.600 you right now, I don't know how to run a 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.720 political party either, but I didn't put my face on 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.399 a website claiming to, so I think we can all 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:25.919 agree to cut me some slack on the subject. To 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.640 be recognized as a political party, you have to register 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:33.880 for state and local elections that may just be at 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.840 the state level, and the rules in every state are different. 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:42.119 There are certain activities and fundraising thresholds where a state 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.600 level party committee may have to register with the Federal 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.280 Election Commission, but honestly I don't care enough to find 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:52.199 out more about that. And of course, to be a 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.879 political party at the national level, well, you've got a 0:18:55.920 --> 0:19:02.440 file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission and they did try. 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.880 I mean, anyone can fill out a form and send 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.600 in a piece of paper. That doesn't mean it worked. 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.320 Someone filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission last month 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:18.679 to form the American Fart Party, along with paperwork for 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.680 a Fart Party candidate committee running for Senate in Iowa. 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.560 That doesn't mean that the Fart Party is real. It 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:34.119 just means technically somebody committed a federal crime, although it's 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:40.240 extremely unlikely to be prosecuted. The Fart Party was obviously 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:45.040 someone's idea of a joke that's actually really common. The 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:50.840 FEC receives mountains of prank filings every year. They revised 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:52.920 the rules in twenty sixteen just to make it a 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.440 little bit easier to throw away the ones that were 0:19:55.520 --> 0:20:00.800 obviously and intentionally fictitious. They're a wreck high number of 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:05.520 fake filings that election cycle. A teenager in Iowa who 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:10.080 filed a statement of candidacy for D's Nuts told ABC 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:14.240 News in twenty sixteen, one of the main reasons that 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.760 I ultimately filed was because I found out they had 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.159 little staff, resources or authority, and we're supposed to trust 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.439 these guys with our elections. I have made it public 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.199 that I've withdrawn from the race, but I do not 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:30.840 apologize for what I did. The FEC is vastly underfunded, 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.000 and while it seems like I have a burning hatred 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:37.640 of the FEC, I actually support the FAC getting additional funding. 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:57.399 Thank you, dse Nuts. And like I said, it is 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.119 technically against the law to knowingly file paperwork with the 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:06.280 Federal Election Commission that contains false or fictitious information, but 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:11.720 enforcement is vanishingly rare. Investigations tend to be limited to 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:16.200 high profile incidents involving real people, like fake paperwork filed 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:20.879 in twenty twenty claiming to be authorized by Kanye West. So, 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.639 whether it's an obvious joke like the Fart Party, or 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.919 someone who just honestly doesn't know what they're doing, like 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:32.280 the American Freedom Party. Someone at the Federal Election Commission 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:38.160 is reading every piece of paperwork that gets filed. They're understaffed, underfunded, 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:42.080 under resourced in every way imaginable. But they process the 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:46.840 paperwork and when the paperwork is inadequate, they send back 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:52.720 something called a Request for Additional Information an RFAI. It's 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.879 a form letter. It's not really personalized, but there's a 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:59.560 little bit of text in there explaining exactly what was 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:04.000 in SIFIA about your filing. Maybe the committee treasurer forgot 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:06.760 to sign it. Maybe the number at the bottom of 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:10.720 a column of dollar amounts isn't the correct sum. Maybe 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.359 they just don't think your name is really Jesus Christ 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:18.000 or Forrest Gump, whatever it is. You'll get the RFAI 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.640 and then you have a chance to file a corrected form. 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.639 Back in twenty twelve, when Merlin Miller was running for 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:29.200 president on the party's ticket, they did file some paperwork. 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:33.440 In April of that year, party chairman William Daniel Johnson 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:38.400 filled out FEC Form one, the form for a statement 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:43.080 of organization for a committee. Now remember back then they 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:45.639 were called the American Third Position Party, So he's filling 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:51.679 out this form as the American third position National Committee, 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:56.639 things started to go arrived. By page two, there are 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:00.639 checkboxes for different types of committees. Is this a party committee, 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:03.919 a candidate committee. If it's a candidate committee, is it 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:09.520 the candidate's principal fundraising committee? Is it a political action committee. 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:13.840 You have to choose, and you can only choose one. 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:18.359 Johnson checked too many boxes. It took the FEC about 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:20.080 two months to get back to him, but the letter 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:23.880 offered some helpful clarification about which boxes you might check 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:27.159 in different circumstances and explain that you can't check all 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:30.240 of them, and it also referred him to the relevant 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:35.880 federal regulations. Johnson then filed a corrected form indicating that yes, 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:40.560 he was trying to form a national party committee. So 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:43.600 that's it, right, he did it. He filled it out right, 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:49.880 not quite. Now that the form is properly filled out, 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:53.959 it can actually be evaluated on the merits. And it 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:57.640 turns out you can't just get a party started by 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:02.960 filling out a form. The fart party's paperwork was filed, 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:07.479 but it's going to get thrown out. Filling out a 0:24:07.560 --> 0:24:11.399 form isn't a golden ticket to party recognition, and the 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:14.280 Federal Election Commission makes the final call on whether an 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:19.680 organization has done enough political party stuff to be considered 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:24.240 a political party, things like do they engage in voter 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:28.040 registration drives? Do they have a national headquarters and state 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:32.080 party committees? Do they hold a national convention? Are they 0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:38.320 actively seeking and successfully getting ballot access in multiple states 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:45.680 for multiple candidates for office other than just the presidency. 0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:49.119 There's no room for any of that on the form, obviously, 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:53.840 So in order to be recognized as a national party committee, 0:24:54.400 --> 0:24:58.080 you have to formally request something called an advisory opinion 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:03.880 from the Federal Election Commission. According to the FEC, quote, 0:25:04.560 --> 0:25:08.880 advisory opinions are official commission responses to questions about how 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:15.600 federal campaign finance law applies to specific factual situations. From 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:20.080 the web page about the advisory opinion process quote. Anyone 0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:23.359 may request an advisory opinion as long as the request 0:25:23.560 --> 0:25:26.919 is affected by the question he or she presents a 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:30.560 requestor cannot ask for an advisory opinion about someone else's activities, 0:25:30.800 --> 0:25:36.240 hypothetical situations, or general questions of law. Advisory opinion requests 0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:40.159 must be in writing. The request must include a complete 0:25:40.200 --> 0:25:47.400 description of all facts relevant to the specific transaction or activity, 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:51.760 and they're all a public record. The FEC's website has 0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:55.800 a searchable database of every advisory opinion since nineteen seventy five. 0:25:58.200 --> 0:26:00.880 The Commission informed the American Free and Party in July 0:26:01.000 --> 0:26:03.679 of twenty twelve that they would need to get an 0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:08.639 advisory opinion before calling themselves a national party committee, and 0:26:08.680 --> 0:26:12.040 William Daniel Johnson wrote back in September of twenty twelve 0:26:13.000 --> 0:26:16.040 that he had requested one and he was just waiting 0:26:16.040 --> 0:26:21.320 for a decision. But there's no official record that any 0:26:21.400 --> 0:26:27.119 opinion was ever sought by anyone involved. I searched every 0:26:27.160 --> 0:26:31.600 combination of words and names. I downloaded a spreadsheet that 0:26:31.640 --> 0:26:34.960 almost crashed my computer. I looked at every request filed 0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:39.600 since twenty ten, just to be safe. It's not there. 0:26:41.760 --> 0:26:46.120 It's possible Johnson made some kind of attempt, like maybe 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:50.200 he did write a letter saying make me a party. 0:26:51.840 --> 0:26:55.840 But again, the request must include a complete description of 0:26:55.880 --> 0:27:00.679 all facts relevant to the specific transaction or activity, and 0:27:00.720 --> 0:27:04.800 the database doesn't include requests that were insufficient for consideration. 0:27:06.720 --> 0:27:09.280 So maybe he thinks he asked for an advisory opinion, 0:27:09.400 --> 0:27:13.119 but according to the official record, no, he did not. 0:27:16.359 --> 0:27:19.320 But like I said, the FEC doesn't really have the 0:27:19.359 --> 0:27:22.960 resources to chase down every piece of non compliant paperwork. 0:27:23.920 --> 0:27:27.320 The American Freedom Party continued to file as though they 0:27:27.359 --> 0:27:31.320 were a national party committee, but they weren't actually raising 0:27:31.359 --> 0:27:35.879 any money at least not that they really reported. And 0:27:35.920 --> 0:27:40.399 they were kind of halfheartedly running candidates for president in 0:27:40.440 --> 0:27:44.639 twenty sixteen, but their paperwork was a mess, and they 0:27:44.680 --> 0:27:48.480 weren't doing the work to actually get those candidates on ballots. 0:27:49.800 --> 0:27:53.520 I mean, forget trying to convince the voters. The party 0:27:53.560 --> 0:27:56.480 couldn't even convince their own candidates to stay in the 0:27:56.600 --> 0:28:01.479 race or the party. Their initial nominee was a man 0:28:01.560 --> 0:28:04.679 named Ken Givedden, but he dropped out in July of 0:28:04.680 --> 0:28:08.520 twenty fifteen, just a few months after being nominated. The 0:28:08.560 --> 0:28:12.199 man they'd picked as his VP, Bob Whittaker, stepped up 0:28:12.200 --> 0:28:15.879 to take the presidential nomination, but he quit too in 0:28:15.920 --> 0:28:19.240 April of twenty sixteen. He was mad that the party 0:28:19.320 --> 0:28:22.520 was pouring money into a political action committee to pay 0:28:22.560 --> 0:28:28.960 for racist robocalls supporting Donald Trump. Bob Whitaker also died 0:28:29.080 --> 0:28:31.960 at age seventy six not long after this, so maybe 0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:35.960