1
00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:07,280
Speaker 1: Col Zone Media.

2
00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:11,080
Speaker 2: In February of twenty nineteen, a federal prosecutor in Maryland

3
00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:14,880
Speaker 2: made an unusual presentation to a magistrate judge in support

4
00:00:14,920 --> 00:00:18,840
Speaker 2: of pre trialed attention. Christopher Paul Hassen had just been

5
00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:21,520
Speaker 2: arrested on charges of possession of a firearm by an

6
00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:26,759
Speaker 2: unlawful user or addict of a controlled substance. It's kind

7
00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:30,000
Speaker 2: of a technicality. If you've been convicted of drug possession,

8
00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:32,599
Speaker 2: usually you'd have caught a felony and you can't own

9
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:36,640
Speaker 2: a gun anyway. But he hadn't been, and he wasn't

10
00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:40,360
Speaker 2: and he owned those guns legally. Hassen was a fifty

11
00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:42,680
Speaker 2: year old married father of two and a lieutenant in

12
00:00:42,720 --> 00:00:45,400
Speaker 2: the United States Coast Guard with no criminal history to

13
00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:50,080
Speaker 2: speak of. He was also addicted to tramadol, an opioid

14
00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:53,920
Speaker 2: pain medication that he didn't have a prescription for pre

15
00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:57,600
Speaker 2: trial attention In a case like this seems a little excessive.

16
00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:00,760
Speaker 2: You could probably just let him go home home, make

17
00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:03,720
Speaker 2: him turn in his guns, and order weekly drug screenings

18
00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:07,520
Speaker 2: with pre trial services. But there was something else going

19
00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:12,840
Speaker 2: on here. His apartment was packed to the brim with guns, ammunition,

20
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:18,039
Speaker 2: and tactical gear, and on his computer they found mass

21
00:01:18,080 --> 00:01:25,280
Speaker 2: shooter manifestos, terrorism manuals, and a list of names. I'm

22
00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:50,160
Speaker 2: Molly Conger, and this is weird, little guys. I thought

23
00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:52,600
Speaker 2: we could use something a little lighter this week after

24
00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:55,600
Speaker 2: last week's episode. I know it was a pretty dark

25
00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:58,000
Speaker 2: one for me to research and write, and I saw

26
00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,480
Speaker 2: some feedback from listeners who said it ruined their day.

27
00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:05,920
Speaker 2: So fair enough, So nobody dies this week, nobody has

28
00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:09,280
Speaker 2: a hard drive full of child sexual abuse material, nobody

29
00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:13,400
Speaker 2: gets shot or raped. There's barely even any hate crimes.

30
00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:16,320
Speaker 2: It wasn't easy to find a story like that in

31
00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:18,400
Speaker 2: my mental rolodex, but I.

32
00:02:18,320 --> 00:02:19,560
Speaker 1: Thought you guys deserved a break.

33
00:02:20,919 --> 00:02:25,480
Speaker 2: Now, I will admit, upon further reflection, this whole story

34
00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:28,880
Speaker 2: isn't exactly as funny as my spotty memory had me

35
00:02:28,919 --> 00:02:32,160
Speaker 2: thinking when I started. I think my own recollection of

36
00:02:32,200 --> 00:02:35,959
Speaker 2: this being a silly little legal mishap was heavily colored

37
00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:38,799
Speaker 2: by my own mental state back in twenty twenty when

38
00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:41,040
Speaker 2: I drove to Maryland to watch this sentencing hearing.

39
00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:44,000
Speaker 1: When I drove up to the Federal.

40
00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:46,560
Speaker 2: Courthouse in green Belt, Maryland to see Hassen sentencing hearing

41
00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:50,480
Speaker 2: on January thirty first, twenty twenty. It's actually my second

42
00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:54,320
Speaker 2: trip up to that courthouse that month. Just a week earlier,

43
00:02:54,360 --> 00:02:57,240
Speaker 2: i'd been in another courtroom in that massive building for

44
00:02:57,280 --> 00:03:00,920
Speaker 2: a detention hearing in another case, three members of the

45
00:03:00,919 --> 00:03:04,480
Speaker 2: neo Nazi paramilitary group the Base had just been arrested.

46
00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:08,160
Speaker 2: The government alleged they'd been picked up just days before

47
00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:10,639
Speaker 2: they could carry out a plan to open fire into

48
00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:13,720
Speaker 2: a large crowd of heavily armed gun owners in the

49
00:03:13,720 --> 00:03:17,680
Speaker 2: hopes that the chaos would result in mass casualties. The

50
00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:20,600
Speaker 2: event they were targeting was one that I had attended

51
00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:24,720
Speaker 2: as a journalist. It's the annual gun lobby Day in Richmond, Virginia,

52
00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:29,320
Speaker 2: our state capital. The idea that we'd perhaps just by

53
00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:31,800
Speaker 2: the skin of our teeth, avoided being massacred in a

54
00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:34,359
Speaker 2: confused crossfire left.

55
00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:35,920
Speaker 1: Me feeling a little queasy.

56
00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:39,080
Speaker 2: I'm not too proud to admit that I was a

57
00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:42,720
Speaker 2: little on edge at that detention hearing. I dug out

58
00:03:42,760 --> 00:03:45,120
Speaker 2: my old notebook this weekend to try to remember what

59
00:03:45,160 --> 00:03:46,839
Speaker 2: was going on back then, to sort of get back

60
00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:49,600
Speaker 2: into that headspace and remind myself of what was going

61
00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:53,200
Speaker 2: on in these cases. And apparently I did take notes

62
00:03:53,720 --> 00:03:57,480
Speaker 2: pretty good ones. But my only memories of that day

63
00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:01,640
Speaker 2: are how clean the bathrooms were, that I walked out

64
00:04:01,640 --> 00:04:04,200
Speaker 2: of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck in my tights,

65
00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:08,360
Speaker 2: and the look on that FBI agent's face when I

66
00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:13,600
Speaker 2: grabbed his phone. So it was a small courtroom. It

67
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:15,920
Speaker 2: was just a hearing with a magistrate judge on detention,

68
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:19,640
Speaker 2: and normally in court, I try to sit by myself

69
00:04:19,720 --> 00:04:21,560
Speaker 2: because I like to sit with my legs sort of

70
00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:24,039
Speaker 2: fold it up underneath me because my feet don't reach

71
00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:28,120
Speaker 2: the floor. And I have my huge hardcover spiral notebook

72
00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:29,920
Speaker 2: open in my lap and I sort of hunch over

73
00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:31,920
Speaker 2: it like a little gremlin while I take my notes.

74
00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:35,440
Speaker 2: But it was crowded, so I had to sit next

75
00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:38,800
Speaker 2: to some federal agent or another, and he was having

76
00:04:38,839 --> 00:04:41,480
Speaker 2: the damnedest time trying to figure out how to turn

77
00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:45,440
Speaker 2: off his iPhone. He just kept locking and unlocking it,

78
00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:47,560
Speaker 2: locking it and unlocking it, and he couldn't figure out

79
00:04:47,600 --> 00:04:51,520
Speaker 2: why wouldn't turn off? And you know, my general preference

80
00:04:51,560 --> 00:04:53,600
Speaker 2: to never have a conversation with a cop if I

81
00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:57,880
Speaker 2: can help it is apparently trumped by my inability to

82
00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:00,599
Speaker 2: sit idly by while someone is very busy being wrong,

83
00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:05,039
Speaker 2: and I remember sitting there trying to explain to him

84
00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:07,599
Speaker 2: that you have to hold down the volume button and

85
00:05:07,640 --> 00:05:10,760
Speaker 2: the lock button at the same time until it turns off.

86
00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:12,599
Speaker 2: It's not that complicated. I was trying to explain it.

87
00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:14,719
Speaker 2: He just kept locking it, unlocking it, turned the volume

88
00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:16,800
Speaker 2: up and down and locking it, unlocking it, and he.

89
00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:17,680
Speaker 1: Couldn't turn it off.

90
00:05:18,960 --> 00:05:20,920
Speaker 2: So god knows what came over me, But I just

91
00:05:21,080 --> 00:05:25,159
Speaker 2: I reached over and I did it myself, and you

92
00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:26,760
Speaker 2: would have thought I grabbed his gun.

93
00:05:27,240 --> 00:05:27,440
Speaker 1: You know.

94
00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:30,960
Speaker 2: She just looked scandalized. But I was just trying to

95
00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:35,520
Speaker 2: be helpful. You know, I'm a helpful girl. But this

96
00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:39,320
Speaker 2: isn't a story about Patrick Matthews, Brian Lemley, and William Bilbrow.

97
00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:42,560
Speaker 2: Of course, that hearing has nothing really at all to

98
00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:46,120
Speaker 2: do with Christopher Hassen. All that to say, it was

99
00:05:46,200 --> 00:05:49,480
Speaker 2: my second time that month driving the nearly three hours

100
00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:52,240
Speaker 2: to Marilyn to sit on a bench in an unfamiliar courtroom,

101
00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:55,080
Speaker 2: and by the time I was there the second time,

102
00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:59,240
Speaker 2: I was really ruminating on that apparently very nearly successful

103
00:05:59,240 --> 00:06:01,920
Speaker 2: plot that probably would have claimed my own life among

104
00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:04,680
Speaker 2: the thousands would have been shot or trampled if Matthews,

105
00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:07,039
Speaker 2: Lemley and Bilbro had been successful.

106
00:06:07,839 --> 00:06:09,520
Speaker 1: And it had been a busy week in between.

107
00:06:09,720 --> 00:06:13,240
Speaker 2: Overall, I sat through an eight hour city council annual

108
00:06:13,279 --> 00:06:15,880
Speaker 2: retreat and went to a school board budget meeting. You know,

109
00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:19,440
Speaker 2: I just can't resist a municipal government meeting. And the

110
00:06:19,560 --> 00:06:23,000
Speaker 2: pissant Nazi cry baby who'd spent years threatening me finally

111
00:06:23,040 --> 00:06:25,400
Speaker 2: got arrested in a pre dawn raid by the FBI,

112
00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:26,920
Speaker 2: but it was for.

113
00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:28,560
Speaker 1: Something totally unrelated.

114
00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:31,880
Speaker 2: And I'd put damn near a thousand miles on my

115
00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:34,480
Speaker 2: car driving back and forth to this courthouse, even though

116
00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:37,000
Speaker 2: I had no real plan for how he's going to

117
00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:40,640
Speaker 2: afford to replace my tires. I was having a weird week.

118
00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:43,560
Speaker 2: So by the time I was reading this government and

119
00:06:43,560 --> 00:06:46,839
Speaker 2: sentencing memo in the hass in case, I was just

120
00:06:46,880 --> 00:06:49,920
Speaker 2: looking for a recent to laugh, you know, And like

121
00:06:49,960 --> 00:06:52,960
Speaker 2: I said, nobody died, it's safe to giggle a little.

122
00:06:53,640 --> 00:06:55,320
Speaker 2: I'm not saying the whole story as a joke, but

123
00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:58,280
Speaker 2: you have to find levity where you can, and where

124
00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:01,200
Speaker 2: would I even be with a little gallows hue, And

125
00:07:01,680 --> 00:07:04,200
Speaker 2: all the better when the would be hangman is shackled

126
00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:04,880
Speaker 2: at the ankles.

127
00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:06,680
Speaker 1: But like I.

128
00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:10,240
Speaker 2: Said, this is a story about Christopher Hassen, not me,

129
00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:14,280
Speaker 2: and Christopher Hassen may never have been caught at all

130
00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:20,239
Speaker 2: if he just kept his extracurricular interests at home. Evidence

131
00:07:20,280 --> 00:07:23,640
Speaker 2: produced in this case includes hundreds of pages of logs

132
00:07:23,640 --> 00:07:28,160
Speaker 2: of his computer activity, mostly computer activity he was engaged

133
00:07:28,160 --> 00:07:33,120
Speaker 2: in network. Generally speaking, I'm opposed to the idea of

134
00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:36,960
Speaker 2: your employer monitoring your Internet history. If you're getting your

135
00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:38,760
Speaker 2: work done, what difference does it make if you take

136
00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:41,400
Speaker 2: some breaks during the day to look at Reddit or

137
00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:45,800
Speaker 2: do a little online shopping, you know. But Hassen worked

138
00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:49,360
Speaker 2: for the government. He was using a government computer on

139
00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:54,280
Speaker 2: a government Internet connection to look at extremist content online.

140
00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:57,240
Speaker 2: And honestly, I have no idea what his day to

141
00:07:57,320 --> 00:08:01,840
Speaker 2: day workplace responsibilities could possibly have been, because based on

142
00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:06,240
Speaker 2: these Internet history logs, he was spending hours and hours

143
00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:11,920
Speaker 2: almost every day looking at things that weren't work And again,

144
00:08:11,960 --> 00:08:15,760
Speaker 2: in another context, I support time theft, especially from the government,

145
00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:19,480
Speaker 2: you know, rock on, but he wasn't scrolling social media.

146
00:08:21,560 --> 00:08:26,360
Speaker 2: The investigation began in November of twenty eighteen. Something he

147
00:08:26,400 --> 00:08:29,400
Speaker 2: did on his work computers set off an internal flag.

148
00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:32,880
Speaker 2: They never say exactly what it was that ended up

149
00:08:32,880 --> 00:08:37,400
Speaker 2: getting him flagged. The Coastguard's Internal Threat Assessment report covers

150
00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:40,200
Speaker 2: his Internet activity from July of twenty sixteen through his

151
00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:44,920
Speaker 2: arrest in February twenty nineteen, but that report was created retroactively.

152
00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:49,560
Speaker 2: They didn't actually start monitoring him until something happened in

153
00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:51,080
Speaker 2: November twenty eighteen.

154
00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:56,520
Speaker 1: And looking at this report, I.

155
00:08:55,640 --> 00:08:58,360
Speaker 2: Can't explain why nothing's set off an alarm in the

156
00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:03,000
Speaker 2: IT office before that, but that's what it says, so

157
00:09:03,559 --> 00:09:05,080
Speaker 2: I guess we just have to take it as written.

158
00:09:06,880 --> 00:09:08,600
Speaker 1: Throughout the report, you can see that.

159
00:09:08,559 --> 00:09:12,920
Speaker 2: He was emailing links and PDFs to himself between his

160
00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:17,320
Speaker 2: personal and work email addresses. I don't know why he

161
00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:20,079
Speaker 2: was doing that. I wonder if maybe he couldn't access

162
00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:22,240
Speaker 2: his personal email at work, and he couldn't access his

163
00:09:22,280 --> 00:09:24,600
Speaker 2: work email at home, and he wanted to be able

164
00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:28,000
Speaker 2: to pick up where he left off in either location. So,

165
00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:31,040
Speaker 2: for example, in the late evening hours of June seventh,

166
00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:35,640
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, he sent himself five emails from his personal

167
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:40,000
Speaker 2: email address to his work email address, and each email

168
00:09:40,080 --> 00:09:44,480
Speaker 2: had an attachment. He was checking out the Anarchist Cookbook,

169
00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:48,400
Speaker 2: you know, a classic. He sent himself a PDF called

170
00:09:48,920 --> 00:09:54,600
Speaker 2: US Army Improvised Munition's Handbook and these next three well,

171
00:09:54,640 --> 00:09:57,520
Speaker 2: I think you will get why I'm confused. He didn't

172
00:09:57,559 --> 00:10:00,520
Speaker 2: get flagged until a year later, because does he emailed

173
00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:05,240
Speaker 2: himself PDFs called emailing a non how to make semtechs

174
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:11,640
Speaker 2: in one called home Workshop Explosives by Uncle Fester, and

175
00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:16,920
Speaker 2: a document just called the Terrorist's Handbook, which is mostly

176
00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:20,880
Speaker 2: instructions on how to make IEDs. I guess he was

177
00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:24,640
Speaker 2: smart enough to understand that he shouldn't download these at work,

178
00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:28,280
Speaker 2: so he emailed them to himself so he could read

179
00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:33,160
Speaker 2: them there. Semtex is a plastic explosive originally developed by

180
00:10:33,160 --> 00:10:36,359
Speaker 2: the Czech military that has become quite popular with terrorists.

181
00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:40,360
Speaker 2: And Uncle Fester is a seventy five year old man

182
00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:44,760
Speaker 2: named Stephen Preisler who was arrested last year in Wisconsin

183
00:10:45,240 --> 00:10:50,120
Speaker 2: for making meth. In case you were wondering, I spent

184
00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:54,720
Speaker 2: hours combing through these reports trying to make some sense

185
00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:57,320
Speaker 2: of them. And the only thing I can figure that

186
00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:01,120
Speaker 2: really changed in November of twenty eighteen that may have

187
00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:03,920
Speaker 2: triggered his employer to start looking at his computer activity

188
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:10,040
Speaker 2: was a sudden intensification of his interest in Russia, and

189
00:11:10,080 --> 00:11:12,760
Speaker 2: this wasn't entirely new. The report shows activity going back

190
00:11:12,760 --> 00:11:16,560
Speaker 2: to early twenty seventeen for searches like Russian far right

191
00:11:16,760 --> 00:11:20,880
Speaker 2: Russian Nationalists immigrate to Russia. In June of twenty seventeen,

192
00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:23,920
Speaker 2: he spent an entire workday accessing what the report calls

193
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:28,840
Speaker 2: quote extensive pro Russian and neo fascist content end quote.

194
00:11:29,679 --> 00:11:34,160
Speaker 2: He searched for things like national Bolshevism and Fourth Political Theory,

195
00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:37,240
Speaker 2: which is the title of a book by Alexander Dugan

196
00:11:37,320 --> 00:11:40,200
Speaker 2: that was a favorite of American neo Nazi Matthew Heinbach.

197
00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:43,720
Speaker 2: In March of twenty eighteen, he spent another full workday

198
00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:46,960
Speaker 2: clicking around websites with pro Russian neo fascist content, but

199
00:11:47,640 --> 00:11:50,240
Speaker 2: none of that triggered any kind of internal alarm on

200
00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:55,200
Speaker 2: his account. The activity logs for November twenty eighteen, though,

201
00:11:55,880 --> 00:12:00,600
Speaker 2: show his first searches for and visits to sput News

202
00:12:00,679 --> 00:12:05,200
Speaker 2: and RT, which are Russian state run media sites. This

203
00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:07,319
Speaker 2: is another one of those questions we're just not going

204
00:12:07,360 --> 00:12:10,160
Speaker 2: to get an answer to. But my gut reaction to

205
00:12:10,200 --> 00:12:13,520
Speaker 2: the way those things coincide is that maybe there was

206
00:12:13,559 --> 00:12:18,120
Speaker 2: an automatic flag placed on some particular website, and maybe

207
00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:22,320
Speaker 2: it was a website that is Russian state on media,

208
00:12:22,559 --> 00:12:25,280
Speaker 2: or maybe somebody at work just saw him dicking around

209
00:12:25,320 --> 00:12:29,760
Speaker 2: at his desk and reported him. We'll never know, but

210
00:12:29,880 --> 00:12:33,520
Speaker 2: apparently there is no internal monitoring system that automatically reports

211
00:12:33,559 --> 00:12:35,800
Speaker 2: you to the Coastguard for being on Reddit all day,

212
00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:40,800
Speaker 2: every day, so browse away, I guess. The Coastguard's one

213
00:12:40,880 --> 00:12:44,120
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty page internal Threat Assessment report outlining the

214
00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:46,680
Speaker 2: concerning computer activity over that two and a half year period,

215
00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:50,400
Speaker 2: starts out with a summary of his findings, which includes

216
00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:52,479
Speaker 2: this incredible paragraph.

217
00:12:54,679 --> 00:12:58,320
Speaker 3: Subject's most frequently visited website from twenty seventeen to twenty

218
00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:02,719
Speaker 3: nineteen was the men Going their Own Way migtoe subreddit

219
00:13:02,760 --> 00:13:06,640
Speaker 3: at www dot reddit dot com, to which subject made

220
00:13:06,720 --> 00:13:09,439
Speaker 3: tens of thousands of total URL visits over a two

221
00:13:09,559 --> 00:13:12,920
Speaker 3: plus year period. Will at the MiG toast subreddit, subject

222
00:13:13,040 --> 00:13:17,319
Speaker 3: routinely access gender based extremist content that promoted discrimination of

223
00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:20,520
Speaker 3: women or hatred towards women on a daily basis. Due

224
00:13:20,520 --> 00:13:23,880
Speaker 3: to the persistence of the behavior, subject's routine daily activity

225
00:13:23,880 --> 00:13:26,360
Speaker 3: in browsing the MiG toast subreddit is not included in

226
00:13:26,400 --> 00:13:27,960
Speaker 3: this chronology of activity.

227
00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:33,360
Speaker 2: So we don't know why they started looking, but they did.

228
00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:37,480
Speaker 2: Starting in November of twenty eighteen, the Coastguard started monitoring

229
00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:41,920
Speaker 2: his workplace computer activity in real time. They were logging

230
00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:42,920
Speaker 2: his keystrokes.

231
00:13:43,480 --> 00:13:44,640
Speaker 1: They set up a hidden.

232
00:13:44,320 --> 00:13:46,680
Speaker 2: Camera near his desk to record him during the day,

233
00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:50,199
Speaker 2: and then they started reporting their findings to the FBI,

234
00:13:51,559 --> 00:13:56,080
Speaker 2: and by January the FBI was worried too. They got

235
00:13:56,080 --> 00:13:58,840
Speaker 2: warrants for his email accounts, a warrant for his historical

236
00:13:58,880 --> 00:14:03,079
Speaker 2: cell location data, and placed a GPS tracker on his car.

237
00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:07,520
Speaker 2: They installed a pole camera outside his home, They searched

238
00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:11,840
Speaker 2: his desk at work, and on February fifteenth, twenty nineteen,

239
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:14,800
Speaker 2: they arrested him in the parking garage outside of Coast

240
00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:19,920
Speaker 2: Guard headquarters in Washington, d C. When he appeared in

241
00:14:19,920 --> 00:14:22,840
Speaker 2: front of a magistrate judge a week later, the government

242
00:14:22,920 --> 00:14:26,120
Speaker 2: was really only talking about these charges for possession of

243
00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:28,600
Speaker 2: the tramadol that they found in his desk and the

244
00:14:28,680 --> 00:14:31,880
Speaker 2: charge for possessing the firearm while being an unlawful user

245
00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:36,000
Speaker 2: of a controlled substance. That is, as the judge noted,

246
00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:40,600
Speaker 2: a pretty unremarkable charge. That's not really the kind of

247
00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:44,880
Speaker 2: crime that warrants real time surveillance, secret cameras, parking lot

248
00:14:44,880 --> 00:14:49,800
Speaker 2: ambush arrests, and pre trialed attention. But with that real

249
00:14:49,840 --> 00:14:53,800
Speaker 2: time access to his computer activity at work, the investigators

250
00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:58,760
Speaker 2: saw what they interpreted as a shift. He'd spent years

251
00:14:58,800 --> 00:15:05,120
Speaker 2: accumulating knowledge and supplies, reading manifestos, buying guns, and now

252
00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:10,920
Speaker 2: it seemed like he was preparing for something. So when

253
00:15:10,920 --> 00:15:13,560
Speaker 2: an FBI agent writes out an affidavit in support of

254
00:15:13,560 --> 00:15:16,600
Speaker 2: a search warrant, he has to tell the judge what

255
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:21,040
Speaker 2: he's looking for and why he needs probable cause.

256
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:22,440
Speaker 1: Obviously you know that one.

257
00:15:23,640 --> 00:15:27,480
Speaker 2: But what makes probable cause depends on what you're investigating.

258
00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:30,600
Speaker 2: What crime do you think you're going to find evidence

259
00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:32,480
Speaker 2: of and why do you think you're going to find

260
00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:36,400
Speaker 2: it there? Well, Hassena was charged with having a gun

261
00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:39,640
Speaker 2: and a pill problem, So maybe that's what they wrote

262
00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:42,080
Speaker 2: down on the affidavit, right, something about.

263
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:44,280
Speaker 1: The drugs now.

264
00:15:45,360 --> 00:15:48,320
Speaker 2: According to a defense motion to suppress the evidence sees

265
00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:54,160
Speaker 2: pursuant to those searches, which was unsuccessful. Quote Agent Harrison

266
00:15:54,240 --> 00:15:57,000
Speaker 2: asserted he had probable cause to believe the warrants would

267
00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:00,800
Speaker 2: produce evidence of violations of eighteen usc V. Section one

268
00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:04,840
Speaker 2: one one one murder in federal jurisdictions one one one

269
00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:08,400
Speaker 2: four murder or attempted murder of officers or employees of

270
00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:13,440
Speaker 2: the United States, three five to one, assassination of Cabinet secretaries,

271
00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:17,680
Speaker 2: members of Congress, or Supreme Court justices, and three seven

272
00:16:17,680 --> 00:16:23,440
Speaker 2: to one conspiracy to commit the foregoing crimes. That is

273
00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:27,400
Speaker 2: not what he was charged with. The government's motion for

274
00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:30,800
Speaker 2: detention calls the charges that they actually filed that drug

275
00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:35,480
Speaker 2: stuff quote the tip of the iceberg. And they opened

276
00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:40,440
Speaker 2: their memo with a pretty bold statement, writing, the defendant

277
00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:44,680
Speaker 2: is a domestic terrorist bent on committing acts dangerous to

278
00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:49,480
Speaker 2: human life that are intended to affect government conduct. And

279
00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:51,800
Speaker 2: so instead of sending the defendant on his way with

280
00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:55,760
Speaker 2: court orders to behave himself until his trial, the government

281
00:16:55,800 --> 00:16:58,960
Speaker 2: said there is absolutely no way to assure the safety

282
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:02,720
Speaker 2: of the community except to keep him in custody. And

283
00:17:03,160 --> 00:17:05,800
Speaker 2: this is where it becomes clear that this case was

284
00:17:05,920 --> 00:17:11,320
Speaker 2: never about pain pills. On June second, twenty seventeen, Christopher

285
00:17:11,320 --> 00:17:16,240
Speaker 2: Hassen wrote, then deleted an email draft. He never sent

286
00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:20,359
Speaker 2: this to anyone. It just stayed there in his recoverable

287
00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:23,520
Speaker 2: deleted drafts folder for a year and a half.

288
00:17:26,400 --> 00:17:30,280
Speaker 3: Dear friends, maybe that's a bit of a misnomer. Acquaintance

289
00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:33,239
Speaker 3: is more likely. Hope this finds you well. I am

290
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:36,000
Speaker 3: dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person

291
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:39,040
Speaker 3: on the earth. I think a plague would be most successful.

292
00:17:39,040 --> 00:17:42,880
Speaker 3: But how do I acquire the needed Spanish flu, bachulism, anthrax?

293
00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:46,600
Speaker 3: Not sure yet, but we'll find something interesting. Idea the

294
00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:49,840
Speaker 3: other day. Start with biological attacks followed by attack on

295
00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:53,520
Speaker 3: food supply. Have to research this. Two pronged attacks seems

296
00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:57,120
Speaker 3: it might be more successful. Institute a bombing sniper campaign.

297
00:17:57,800 --> 00:18:00,800
Speaker 3: What can I do? I will not do. Nothing seems

298
00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:03,400
Speaker 3: inevitable that we are doomed. I don't think I can

299
00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:06,720
Speaker 3: cause complete destruction on my own. However, if I could

300
00:18:06,840 --> 00:18:09,960
Speaker 3: enlist the unwitting help of another power, country would be best?

301
00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:11,719
Speaker 3: Who and how to provoke?

302
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,119
Speaker 2: The letter continues, outlining a plan to purchase land in

303
00:18:18,160 --> 00:18:21,040
Speaker 2: a remote area, noting that he needs to get off

304
00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:24,359
Speaker 2: drugs to clear his mind to plan this attack, and

305
00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:27,639
Speaker 2: he needs to start stockpiling food and supplies at multiple

306
00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:29,000
Speaker 2: hidden locations.

307
00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:31,640
Speaker 1: He writes that he needs to quote.

308
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:35,480
Speaker 2: Have a serious look end quote at what kinds of

309
00:18:35,480 --> 00:18:41,640
Speaker 2: targets would be most effective, speculating that doctors, professors, politicians, judges,

310
00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:44,200
Speaker 2: and leftists in general would be a great place to start.

311
00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:48,399
Speaker 2: He wants to provoke unrest and then target both sides

312
00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:52,520
Speaker 2: of it to exacerbate tension and maximize casualties, to provoke

313
00:18:52,560 --> 00:18:56,400
Speaker 2: the government to overreact to escalate the violence, and once

314
00:18:56,480 --> 00:18:59,439
Speaker 2: major unrest is underway, he plans to dress as a

315
00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:04,399
Speaker 2: cop and execute looters. Please send me your violence that

316
00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:08,000
Speaker 2: I may unleash it onto their heads. Guide my hate

317
00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:10,240
Speaker 2: to make a lasting impression on this world.

318
00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:13,199
Speaker 1: So be it, he writes.

319
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:20,400
Speaker 2: The email is signed very respectfully, Lieutenant Christopher P. Hassen,

320
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:25,919
Speaker 2: National Security Cutter Acquisition. Three months later, in September of

321
00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:31,320
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, drafted another letter. This one has a clear recipient,

322
00:19:31,480 --> 00:19:34,040
Speaker 2: although there is no concrete proof he ever mailed it.

323
00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:38,640
Speaker 2: On September fifth, he did a little online shopping at work.

324
00:19:39,359 --> 00:19:42,800
Speaker 2: He purchased eleven books from Amazon, mostly those by Life

325
00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:48,400
Speaker 2: Long neo Nazi activist Harold Covington. Covington is a man

326
00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:52,159
Speaker 2: who deserves his own episode. He was a member of

327
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:54,560
Speaker 2: the American Nazi Party in his youth and was discharged

328
00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:56,879
Speaker 2: from the US Army in nineteen seventy three after just

329
00:19:56,920 --> 00:20:01,760
Speaker 2: two years. Accounts very a little bit here. One nineteen

330
00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:05,560
Speaker 2: to eighty New York Times article says he quote accepted

331
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:09,359
Speaker 2: an early honorable discharge after getting into a tavern brawl

332
00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:14,240
Speaker 2: with blacks end quote. I didn't realize we were still

333
00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:16,840
Speaker 2: saying that in nineteen eighty. I don't really care for

334
00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:20,399
Speaker 2: that New York Times. But the real problem here is

335
00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:23,560
Speaker 2: that the paper was accepting Covington's own account of things.

336
00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:26,359
Speaker 2: That was his version of why he wasn't in the

337
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:29,040
Speaker 2: army anymore. He was actually pushed out of the army

338
00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:32,000
Speaker 2: because of his habit of handing out neo Nazi pamphlets

339
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:35,679
Speaker 2: to his fellow soldiers. He also has the distinction of

340
00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:38,800
Speaker 2: being the only man I've ever heard of who was

341
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:40,600
Speaker 2: deported from Rhodesia for.

342
00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:44,119
Speaker 1: Being too racist.

343
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:47,280
Speaker 2: Our guy, Frank Sweeney from a few weeks ago, was

344
00:20:47,320 --> 00:20:50,480
Speaker 2: deported from Rhodesia for stabbing a guy, but there was

345
00:20:50,480 --> 00:20:52,919
Speaker 2: no indication they had any problem with the Nazi stuff.

346
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:56,680
Speaker 2: I don't want to spoil too much now. We will

347
00:20:56,840 --> 00:21:00,200
Speaker 2: definitely have to cover Harold Covington eventually. I want to

348
00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:03,040
Speaker 2: at least make it clear why it's a little troubling

349
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:07,120
Speaker 2: to be filling your bookshelves with his work. So it's

350
00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:11,040
Speaker 2: September twenty seventeen. Hassen is buying a bunch of Covington's novels.

351
00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:14,879
Speaker 2: He saves a copy of Covington's Northwest Front Handbook to

352
00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:17,960
Speaker 2: his Google Drive account, and he's spending some time on

353
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 2: Covington's website learning about his idea for the Northwest Territorial Imperative.

354
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,720
Speaker 2: This is the idea that American white supremacists should all

355
00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:31,760
Speaker 2: move out to the Northwest and settle in Washington, Oregon, Idaho,

356
00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:36,160
Speaker 2: and Montana and start taking control of local governments, eventually

357
00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:40,560
Speaker 2: turning the entire region into a white ethno state. Covington

358
00:21:40,560 --> 00:21:43,159
Speaker 2: didn't invent the idea, of course, but he was one

359
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:46,479
Speaker 2: of its biggest boosters. He founded the Northwest Front and

360
00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:48,760
Speaker 2: wrote a bunch of books about the topic to try

361
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:52,360
Speaker 2: and make it a reality. After reading up on Covington

362
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:55,760
Speaker 2: and the Northwest Imperative, Hassen looked at some areas in

363
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:59,439
Speaker 2: Washington and Idaho on Google Maps. Then he did a

364
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:05,880
Speaker 2: bing so for is Harold Covington. FBI informant has since

365
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,080
Speaker 2: spent most of the next work day browsing Reddit and

366
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:10,760
Speaker 2: as he did every day, and doing a little research

367
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:16,119
Speaker 2: on Christian identity. It's a twisted theology that has really

368
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,920
Speaker 2: almost nothing to do with the Christianity you're familiar with.

369
00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:22,960
Speaker 2: It preaches that white Europeans are God's true chosen people.

370
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:27,359
Speaker 2: Racial purity is valued above all else. Racial mixing is

371
00:22:27,359 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 2: a violation of God's law. Christian identity believers yearn for

372
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:34,480
Speaker 2: a white Ethno state, and some of them are willing

373
00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 2: to kill for it. It was Richard Butler's devotion to

374
00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:41,160
Speaker 2: Christian identity that led him to found the Aryan Nations

375
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 2: and establish a large Nazi compound outside of Kurdalene, Idaho.

376
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 2: Butler's dedication to establishing a sovereign Aryan territory in the

377
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:52,320
Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest is what inspired Harold Covington to name the

378
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:56,280
Speaker 2: plan outlined in his Northwest Front Handbook after him calling

379
00:22:56,320 --> 00:23:00,680
Speaker 2: it the Butler Plan. That's something Hassen probably learned when

380
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:03,399
Speaker 2: he conducted a being search at his work computer for

381
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 2: the Butler Plan after spending all afternoon reading about Christian identity.

382
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 1: He must not have.

383
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 2: Been totally sold on Christian identity, though, because records show

384
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,880
Speaker 2: he also sent an email that same week to someone

385
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:19,960
Speaker 2: at the Asatru foc Assembly. Far from the harmless, if

386
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:24,000
Speaker 2: sometimes questionable practice of paganism by people of European heritage

387
00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:26,720
Speaker 2: who are trying to connect with their ancestral ways of

388
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:30,360
Speaker 2: life or whatever they believe that might be. The Assatru

389
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 2: Focussembly is an explicitly white nationalist organization, and they get

390
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 2: heavy criticism from their fellow Pagans for the racial hatred

391
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 2: that's built into its founding doctrines. But Hassen wrote to

392
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 2: someone at the FOCU assembly asking if they had any

393
00:23:44,119 --> 00:23:47,440
Speaker 2: members in his local area, and he expressed a willingness

394
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,280
Speaker 2: to drive up to two hundred miles to participate in

395
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:54,680
Speaker 2: group meetings. He ends the email, signing off not by

396
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:58,879
Speaker 2: saying you know sincerely, or best wishes or thank you,

397
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 2: or some normal way of ending an email, but instead

398
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 2: he writes fourteen words Chris Hassen. The fourteen words refers

399
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 2: to the slogan coined by David Lane, the neo Nazi

400
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 2: domestic terrorist who died in prison for his role in

401
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:20,920
Speaker 2: the assassination of Jewish broadcaster Alan Bergh. It's commonly used

402
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 2: in a wide variety of Nazi spaces. It's one of

403
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 2: the few things most white nationalists seem to agree on.

404
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 2: They love the fourteen words, and this isn't actually the

405
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 2: first time I've seen it used as the closing of

406
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 2: a letter. For the record, if we must, the fourteen

407
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 2: words are we must secure the existence of our people

408
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 2: and a future for white children. And then there's sort

409
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 2: of a second fourteen words, and you can use them both,

410
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 2: you know, if you're super into it. The latter half

411
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 2: is because the beauty of the white Aryan woman must

412
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 2: not perish from the earth, So that's really beautiful stuff.

413
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 1: David Lane was quite the wordsmith. But back to Chris Hassen.

414
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,640
Speaker 2: After spending a few days on his research into Harold Covington,

415
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 2: he did another being search. He searched for formal introduction letter, example,

416
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 2: and he read an article about how to write a letter,

417
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 2: and then he drafted a letter to Harold Covington himself.

418
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 3: Mister Covington, I am writing you regards to your ideas

419
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,919
Speaker 3: behind Northwest migration to date, I have read most of

420
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:31,399
Speaker 3: your books and briefly looked at your website. I am

421
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,680
Speaker 3: a longtime white nationalist, having been a skinhead thirty plus

422
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:39,880
Speaker 3: years ago. Before my time in the military, a.

423
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,199
Speaker 2: Longtime white nationalist and a former skinhead.

424
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 4: That's quite a revelation. We'll get to that. The letter continues,

425
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 4: My plans are upon retirement to move to the Northwest,

426
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 4: most likely Idaho. While I fully support the idea of

427
00:25:57,119 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 4: a white homeland, my friends who are still playing it

428
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 4: being a skinhead at forty plus years old, say that

429
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 4: you are an informant. That isn't neither here nor there.

430
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 4: It is not an accusation. The person who told me

431
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 4: this served a twelve year prison sentence and never rated

432
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 4: me out, so I will not dispute him, nor will

433
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 4: I accuse you.

434
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 2: So that explains his multiple searches for Is Harold Covington

435
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 2: an FBI informant? Someone had told him that, but he

436
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 2: decided to write to Covington anyway, it seems. Hassen's attorney

437
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 2: emphasizes that this was only an email draft. He wrote

438
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 2: this on his computer, but he never actually sent this

439
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 2: as an email. Harold Covington died in twenty eighteen, so

440
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 2: he's sign around anymore to ask if he ever got

441
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 2: a letter in the mail, But his mailing address is

442
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 2: printed right there on the cover of the Northwest Front Handbook.

443
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:50,439
Speaker 2: So Hassen may have drafted the letter in his email

444
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 2: and then printed it out at home or handwritten the

445
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 2: final version and sent it in the mail.

446
00:26:57,359 --> 00:26:57,919
Speaker 1: We'll never know.

447
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,879
Speaker 2: And in the letter, Hassen says he's reluctant to start

448
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 2: or join any kind of movement because he's concerned that

449
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:08,439
Speaker 2: they're all just absolutely infested with informants, and he sees

450
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 2: no value in public protests, writing.

451
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 3: I never saw a reason for mass protests or wearing uniforms,

452
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 3: marching around provoking people with swast, because et cetera. I

453
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 3: was and am a man of action. You cannot change

454
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 3: minds protesting like that. However, you can make change with

455
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:27,360
Speaker 3: a little focused violence.

456
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 2: His Internet activity does show a casual interest in real

457
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:37,360
Speaker 2: estate in remote areas, looking on several occasions at listings

458
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 2: for cabins in the mountains of North Carolina or Alaska,

459
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 2: as well as looking at properties for sale in Montana, Oregon,

460
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:48,479
Speaker 2: and Idaho, but these searches were relatively few and far between.

461
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 2: They seemed to interest him only sporadically. He would sort

462
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,919
Speaker 2: of check in on the idea every couple of months,

463
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:59,120
Speaker 2: compared to his daily obsession with in cell ideology, buying guns,

464
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:04,639
Speaker 2: studying mass murder, unders Brave's manifesto, and eventually building his

465
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 2: target list. But before we move on, I want to

466
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 2: revisit something he said in that letter, not the stuff

467
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 2: about the White homeland. That's pretty straightforward. He said he

468
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 2: hesitated to reach out to Covington because someone told him

469
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 2: that Harold Covington was a snitch, and whoever told him

470
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,919
Speaker 2: this was someone he considered incredibly trustworthy, because apparently this

471
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 2: guy did twelve years behind bars and never read it

472
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:34,880
Speaker 2: him out. The government alludes to this person and this

473
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 2: underlying incident that put him in prison a couple of times,

474
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 2: but it's all either terribly oblique or heavily redacted. And

475
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 2: when I see a government reaction over something that I

476
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 2: would like to read, I consider that a personal challenge.

477
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 2: Someone has thrown down the gauntlet. I mean, ultimately, whatever

478
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 2: happened one night in Hampton, Virginia in nineteen ninety five

479
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 2: doesn't necessary have any bearing.

480
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: On this case.

481
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 2: I could have just moved on, but they blacked out

482
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 2: those details, and I wanted them, and I couldn't let

483
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 2: it go, so I figured it out anyway. On February eleventh,

484
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, there was an incident. There's a little

485
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 2: bit of a Raschamon situation going on here, with sort

486
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,959
Speaker 2: of competing and conflicting accounts. There's you know, self serving

487
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 2: half truths, spotty reporting, faded memories.

488
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: It's not a crystal clear picture, but.

489
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 2: We do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that

490
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 2: a skinhead named Stephen Casey Jones went to prison. He

491
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 2: was convicted by a jury in Hampton, Virginia in September

492
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety five on two counts of the use

493
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 2: of a firearm in the commission of a felony, attempted

494
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 2: murder and maiming. He spent over a decade behind bars,

495
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 2: serving at least part of his time just down the

496
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 2: road from where I'm writing this now. Of course I

497
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 2: can't find a thirty year old inmate roster. That's not possible.

498
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:05,920
Speaker 2: But I do have a Buckingham County record of a

499
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 2: marriage license issued in two thousand and two and a

500
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 2: photo of the happy couple.

501
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: No one is smiling.

502
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 2: He has one arm slung over the woman's shoulders and

503
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 2: his other arm is supporting a little girl.

504
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: She's sort of sitting in the crook.

505
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 2: Of his elbow and the way that his hand is

506
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 2: situated sort of pressing her into his chest to study her.

507
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 2: You can read his knuckle tattoos, Her little pigtails and

508
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 2: cute plaid romper seem so at odds with the letters

509
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 2: h a te spread out over her torso on his fingers.

510
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 2: It's hard to tell in this photo, but I don't

511
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 2: think he had that big swastika tattoo on the side

512
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 2: of his neck back then. But the question I set

513
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 2: out to answer, and I'm getting to it, is how

514
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 2: did this guy from out of state end up here?

515
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 2: And how does stir her Hassen factor into this? Turning

516
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 2: to the newspaper archives, we can start to lay out

517
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 2: the story. That night in February of nineteen ninety five,

518
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 2: a couple of skinheads rolled up to a house in

519
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 2: buck Row Beach.

520
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: It's a neighborhood in Hampton.

521
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 2: They were looking for the homeowner's seventeen year old daughter,

522
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 2: but it was her father who met them in the

523
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 2: front yard. He told them to leave. They refused, and

524
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 2: then they argued. Stephen Casey Jones reached into his jacket

525
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 2: and pulled out a gun. He pointed the pistol at

526
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 2: the girl's father, putting it right in his face and

527
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 2: pulled the trigger, but it didn't fire, by the grace

528
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 2: of God or pure luck, or because it was a cheap,

529
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 2: poorly maintained weapons stored inside the sweaty pocket of a

530
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 2: skinhead swastika covered jacket, the gun didn't fire, so instead

531
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 2: he beat the man around the head with the gun,

532
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 2: leaving him concussed, her really damaging his hearing and cutting

533
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 2: open his head pretty bad. He needed ten stitches, and

534
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 2: the police report says that Christopher Hassen was standing right

535
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 2: there next to Jones when all of this went down.

536
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 2: Newspaper accounts name only two of the men who were

537
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 2: there that night, and they don't actually specify exactly how

538
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 2: many of them there were, just that it was several

539
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 2: or a group, you know, a group of skinheads. Stephen

540
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 2: Casey Jones was there. Of course he was arrested, but

541
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 2: there's no mention in the newspaper at all of Christopher Hassen. Now,

542
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 2: I thought I knew the Hassen case pretty well topped

543
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 2: to bottom from following it when it happened, But I'd

544
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 2: never explored this aspect of the story before. And I

545
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 2: tell you, when I found a thirty year old newspaper

546
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 2: article naming the third man who is there that night

547
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five.

548
00:32:58,680 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: Who's the highlight of my wheat?

549
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 3: Oh?

550
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 2: I squealed. I was so excited. I love a crossover event.

551
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 2: I just couldn't believe these two paths had crossed so

552
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 2: many years ago, because when I read that name, I

553
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 2: didn't need to look him up. I already know exactly

554
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 2: who Ryan Maziarka is. In twenty nineteen, the FBI paid

555
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 2: Ryan Maziarka a visit. They wanted to get his version

556
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 2: of events about this incident in nineteen ninety five. He

557
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 2: confirmed to them that yes, Hassen had been a skinhead

558
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 2: back then, but he didn't know him really very well.

559
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 2: He said, on the day in question, he was hanging

560
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 2: out with Jones and Hassen, and the three of them

561
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 2: were drinking, and a few hours in they were pretty

562
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 2: drunk and they.

563
00:33:57,680 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: Ran out of alcohol.

564
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 2: In his of events, someone suggested that they should go

565
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 2: over to that girl's house because they knew there was

566
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 2: alcohol there and she could.

567
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: Get it for them.

568
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 2: This doesn't quite match up with the accounts provided in

569
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,839
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen by the girl in question. Who is now

570
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 2: a grown woman and her mother, And it's very different

571
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 2: from the story that was in the newspaper back when

572
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:21,600
Speaker 2: it happened.

573
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:24,240
Speaker 1: You see, Ryan.

574
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 2: Maziarka has a history, and that history starts a few

575
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,759
Speaker 2: months before that night, in February of nineteen ninety five.

576
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 2: The summer before that, in nineteen ninety four, I and

577
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 2: a couple of his teenage skinhead pals had defaced a

578
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 2: black church. They spray painted white power, you know, leave

579
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 2: or else, and die n words in fluorescent paint all

580
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 2: across the exterior walls of this church. One of the

581
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 2: boys was still a minor, so he got a slap

582
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 2: on the wrist. A second boy, Ricky Hunt, was initially charged,

583
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:03,280
Speaker 2: but his charges ended up getting dropped. It's not clear why.

584
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 2: And in February of nineteen ninety five, Ryan Maziarka had

585
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 2: just been convicted and he was facing the possibility of

586
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,240
Speaker 2: some real jail time under a new hate crime statute

587
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 2: here in Virginia. They weren't looking for Booze that night.

588
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 2: They were looking for Ricky. The teenage girl they were

589
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 2: there to question was Ricky's girlfriend. In her statement to

590
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 2: the FBI in twenty nineteen, she said they believed they

591
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 2: were looking for Ricky that night, quote because they wanted

592
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 2: to cause trouble end quote. Newspaper articles from the time

593
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 2: stayed outright that Maziarka was looking for Ricky because he

594
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:48,320
Speaker 2: wanted to fight him. Maziarka ended up getting two years

595
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 2: for the church vandalism. He caught a conviction that same

596
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 2: year for having a sawed off shotgun, but for some reason,

597
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,399
Speaker 2: they let him slide on that one. He didn't get

598
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 2: any additional jail time for it. And in nineteen ninety

599
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 2: seven he shows up in the local paper again. So

600
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 2: he's fresh out of jail and he needed to register

601
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 2: his car. You know, there's a lot of errands you

602
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 2: just can't run when you're locked up, and going to

603
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:14,240
Speaker 2: the DMV as one of them. So it's nineteen ninety

604
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 2: seven and he's getting a new license plate. Vanity plates

605
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 2: are huge in Virginia. I'm not really sure why, but

606
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 2: we have more of them than any other state. I

607
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 2: think it's because they're like a little cheaper here than

608
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:27,800
Speaker 2: they are in some other states. I think some states

609
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 2: charge a lot of money for it, and it's a

610
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:33,919
Speaker 2: pretty nominal fee here, but we just love to pay

611
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 2: the DMV a little extra money to put some kind

612
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 2: of personal message in the back of our cars, and

613
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 2: Ryan Maziarka the personal message he wanted to drive around

614
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 2: town with was zyklon B. He told the newspaper that

615
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 2: he enjoyed the attention the plate got, saying, quote, I

616
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 2: want people to ask me what it is to tell

617
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 2: them it's a big lie.

618
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:56,320
Speaker 1: End quote.

619
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 2: Zyklon B is, of course, the side gas used in

620
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 2: the Nazi death camps during the Holocaust, an event Maziarka

621
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 2: says he does not believe happened. After a decision by

622
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,360
Speaker 2: the State Department of Motor Vehicles to pull the plate

623
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 2: for offensive content, Maziarka said.

624
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 3: When I see displays of black pride or black power,

625
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 3: I don't go running to my senator, But as soon

626
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,320
Speaker 3: as I get something that represents my race's dominating spirit,

627
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 3: I get put down for it. Apparently I lost all

628
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:33,399
Speaker 3: civil rights in this community.

629
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,040
Speaker 2: He was ultimately unable to return the plates to the DMV.

630
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 2: Somebody stole them off the back of his car while

631
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 2: he was at work, and the FBI interview with the

632
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 2: wife of the man who was pistol whipped back in

633
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five reveals the presence of a fourth person

634
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 2: who was there that night. She too confirmed that Christopher

635
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:59,280
Speaker 2: Hassen and Stephen Jones were skinheads, but in her interview

636
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen she mentions the presence of a woman,

637
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 2: the girlfriend of someone whose name is redacted. These reports

638
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 2: are all heavily redacted, but they are typed in monospace font,

639
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 2: which means every character has an identical width. So when

640
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 2: you're typing on your computer, you're almost certainly using a

641
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 2: variable width font. So the letter I, for example, takes

642
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 2: up less width on the page than the letter M,

643
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 2: so different letters have different widths. But in a monospace font,

644
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 2: every character takes up the same amount of space, so

645
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 2: you can more or less tell how many characters are

646
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,840
Speaker 2: being obscured by a redaction. And so in this instance,

647
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 2: the reaction here is too long to say Jones and

648
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:49,880
Speaker 2: too short for it to say Stephen Jones, and Hassen's

649
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 2: name isn't redacted in the documents, his name is just there,

650
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 2: so that just leaves masi arca. So maybe the woman

651
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:04,479
Speaker 2: in the van was Ryan's girlfriend, whoever she was, though

652
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 2: she seemed to be calling the shots, according to what

653
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,920
Speaker 2: the victim's wife told the FBI years later, when the

654
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 2: woman in the van demanded they all get back in

655
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:19,240
Speaker 2: the vehicle to leave, hasn't obeyed. The witness recalled hearing

656
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 2: him say yes, ma'am as he climbed back in. It's

657
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 2: hard to pin down exactly if Maziarka was already dating

658
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 2: back then the woman who has been his common law

659
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:34,400
Speaker 2: wife for decades now, but by two thousand they were

660
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 2: both contributors to Resistance. The quarterly magazine for Resistance records

661
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:42,239
Speaker 2: a white power music label, and by two thousand the

662
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 2: company had been acquired by National Alliance under William Luther Pierce,

663
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 2: and the magazine's staff and most of its guest contributors

664
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 2: were affiliated with the group. Shortly after William Luther Piers

665
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 2: died in two thousand and two. Corporate pilings reflect a

666
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 2: series of changes to the Neo Nazi organization's leadership structure.

667
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:01,840
Speaker 2: I got into a little bit of that period of

668
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 2: power struggle in the episode about Kevin Alfred Strom. In

669
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,280
Speaker 2: paperwork filed with the Virginia Corporation Commission in two thousand

670
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 2: and three, Ryan Maziarka is listed as National Alliance's treasurer,

671
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 2: and he remained on the board until he was pushed

672
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:19,800
Speaker 2: out in a lawsuit in twenty fourteen. His wife, Angela Forbes,

673
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 2: had been handling orders for the skinhead street wear you

674
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 2: could buy from an ad in Resistance magazine since two

675
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 2: thousand and By two thousand and two, the ad copy

676
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 2: directed the buyer to make out the money orders to

677
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:36,399
Speaker 2: her personally, not to National Alliance. I guess what I'm

678
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:38,800
Speaker 2: getting at here is I don't think he was telling

679
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 2: the truth.

680
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: When the FBI stopped by in twenty.

681
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:44,319
Speaker 2: Nineteen, he admitted to hanging out with Hassen a bit

682
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 2: back in the mid nineties, but he said it was

683
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 2: only ever about their shared love of skinhead music. He

684
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 2: says Hassen was always going on about Hitler, but he

685
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 2: personally didn't really get into that fascist stuff. I know,

686
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 2: it probably seems weird to spend this much time trying

687
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 2: to dissect this incident from nineteen ninety five. That's not

688
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 2: what Christopher Hassen is charged with. It was thirty years ago.

689
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 2: A lot of you probably weren't even born then. But

690
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 2: the FBI was really interested in it. They sent agents

691
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 2: out to talk to a lot of people about this,

692
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what happened that night, a month

693
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 2: after Hassen was arrested, and agent spoke with the assailant himself,

694
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 2: Stephen Casey Jones. And immediately after that interview, Jones contacted

695
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 2: a member of Hassen's family to say he'd been visited

696
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:38,360
Speaker 2: by an agent. And we know this because that unnamed

697
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 2: family member in turn called Hassen immediately to tell him

698
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 2: about the phone call they had gotten from Stephen Casey Jones,

699
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 2: and jail phone calls are recorded. When Hassen heard that

700
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:55,319
Speaker 2: the FBI had spoken to Jones about him, his reply was,

701
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 2: oh shit. Hassen was very concerned that Jones would think

702
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 2: that he'd been talking, but.

703
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 1: He doesn't say about what.

704
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:08,919
Speaker 2: He was worried the government would offer him a deal

705
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 2: in exchange for information, saying he thought the FBI quote

706
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 2: would try to get me to inform. I wouldn't do that,

707
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 2: but I'm just saying I got this thing in my

708
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:20,760
Speaker 2: head where they'd offer me. But he doesn't finish the thought.

709
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 2: The person on the other end of the line interrupted

710
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,439
Speaker 2: him before he could finish, saying, quote, there's nothing there

711
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 2: to inform and they could never prove anything, and I

712
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 2: kind of doubt that anyone was worried the FBI was

713
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,319
Speaker 2: interested in this thirty year old closed case involving non

714
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,240
Speaker 2: life threatening injuries to a victim who has since passed

715
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 2: away of unrelated causes. Right, they're not talking about this

716
00:42:46,239 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 2: thing from nineteen ninety five. Stephen Jones was convicted and

717
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 2: he served his time. He can't be tried for that again.

718
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 2: It's over. That can't be what Hassen was worried they'd

719
00:42:56,600 --> 00:43:00,399
Speaker 2: make him talk about. So this raises there's a lot

720
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:02,280
Speaker 2: more questions than it answers.

721
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: And it turns out it's pretty.

722
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 2: Hard to track down the exact identity of a guy

723
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 2: named Steve Jones who was either twenty or twenty one

724
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five and was from either Tulsa or Atlanta,

725
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 2: depending on the newspaper you're reading, but it can be.

726
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 1: Done in these days.

727
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:24,720
Speaker 2: Stephen Jones is living in Missouri and is a member

728
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 2: of an outlaw motorcycle gang called the Sons of Silence.

729
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 2: Normally I would couch something like that and allegedly or ostensibly,

730
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 2: but I know Stephen Jones is in the Sons of

731
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 2: Silence because the Missouri chapter of the Sons of Silence

732
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 2: has a clubhouse in Saint Louis, and that clubhouse is

733
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 2: owned by a corporate entity that the state of Missouri

734
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:48,799
Speaker 2: dissolved in twenty twenty two because they didn't keep up

735
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 2: with their annual paperwork. But the last time they did

736
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 2: file paperwork, that corporate entity, Bad Influence, Inc. Listed A

737
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 2: Stephen Casey Jones as it's president. Photos of Jones taken

738
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 2: more recently than the decades old picture of him in

739
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 2: his Virginia prison jumpsuit show an older Stephen Jones, bearded

740
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:14,319
Speaker 2: now and heavy set. He's usually wearing his leather motorcycle

741
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 2: vest with a regional enforcer patch just above his one

742
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:23,399
Speaker 2: percenter patch, a designation used by motorcycle clubs that embrace criminality.

743
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 2: The line work is blown out now. It's faded and

744
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:31,719
Speaker 2: muddied by the years, but you can still just make

745
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 2: out hate spelled across his knuckles. The Department of Justice

746
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 2: has listed these Sons of Silence as a criminal organization

747
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 2: for at least twenty years. The group's official logo is

748
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 2: a bald eagle on top of a stylized letter A,

749
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 2: which looks remarkably like the Ennheuser Busch A. But I

750
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 2: don't know if the beer company's ever considered suing over it.

751
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:59,320
Speaker 2: But you also see a different logo sometimes SS bolts

752
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:04,800
Speaker 2: with sp LSOs written down the lightning bolts that stands

753
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 2: for support your local Sons of Silence. One recent photo

754
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 2: of Jones with his wife shows her sporting some Sons

755
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:15,360
Speaker 2: of Silence merchandise. It's a gray T shirt with the

756
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 2: outline of the state of Missouri with s y l

757
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 2: SOOS written inside and next to the image in this

758
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 2: sort of Germanic looking antique style font The shirt reads

759
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 2: mine eira heist troya. My honor is loyalty. That was

760
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:35,760
Speaker 2: the slogan of the SS.

761
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 1: But whatever it was.

762
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 2: That Hassen was worried the government was going to ask

763
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 2: him about, he clearly wasn't willing or able to parlay

764
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 2: it into a deal. He ultimately put to two counts

765
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 2: of owning unregistered silencers, one count of possession of a

766
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 2: firearm while unlawfully using controlled substances, and one count of

767
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 2: possession of a controlled substance, and because he pled out

768
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 2: rather than take the case to trial, everything we know

769
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:17,440
Speaker 2: about the case against Christopher Hassen comes from those initial

770
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 2: detention hearings and the sentencing memos filed after the plea.

771
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 2: There is this myth that the courts are some kind

772
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 2: of final arbiter of the truth. What the court determines

773
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 2: to be fact simply is now legally true. Right, if

774
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 2: someone is acquitted of a crime, it can be slanderous

775
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 2: and defamatory to say otherwise, even if you were the

776
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:44,399
Speaker 2: victim of that crime and your own recollection is at

777
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:48,800
Speaker 2: odds with the verdict. But there's a difference, I think,

778
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 2: between arriving at the truth and decreeing it, And I

779
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 2: would argue that the courts are not really equipped to

780
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:02,760
Speaker 2: locate the truth a just rule on which version presented

781
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:06,399
Speaker 2: to them is going to be legally true from now on.

782
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 2: So at this stage in the case, both the defense

783
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 2: and the prosecution right these long memos explaining to the

784
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 2: judge why the defendant deserves a particular sentence. He's legally guilty.

785
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 2: Now the court accepted his plea, so that's the truth.

786
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:26,800
Speaker 2: He's guilty, But what kind of punishment he deserves requires

787
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 2: the court to consider these competing truths. Was he a

788
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 2: loving family man who left his youthful indiscretions in the

789
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 2: past decades ago, a responsible gun owner, who just had

790
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,280
Speaker 2: a little trouble with pills. Or was he an avowed,

791
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 2: lifelong white supremacist who, after years of study and stockpiling weapons,

792
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 2: was in the early stages of preparing for a massive

793
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 2: terrorist attack. Is there room for something in between? The

794
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 2: Defense paints Hassen as the former. Obviously, the memo begins

795
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 2: with a bit of biography. Hassen served in the Marine

796
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 2: Corps from nineteen eighty eight to nineteen ninety four, when

797
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 2: he was honorably discharged after several overseas deployments during the

798
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:10,600
Speaker 2: First Gulf War. He struggled to adapt to civilian life

799
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 2: and enlisted in the Army National Guard in Virginia barely

800
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 2: six months after leaving the Marines. But this memo skips

801
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 2: right to his enlistment in the Coast Guard in nineteen

802
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 2: ninety six, and it leaves out the fact that he

803
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 2: transferred from the Virginia National Guard to Arizona in nineteen

804
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 2: ninety five. He told the psychologists who examine him in

805
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 2: this case that he moved to Arizona in nineteen ninety

806
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 2: five so he couldn't be made to testify against Stephen

807
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 2: Casey Jones. The Defense memo and many of the letters

808
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 2: written by his friends and family mentioned that he had

809
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:48,240
Speaker 2: no issues working with colleagues of all races, and mentioning

810
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 2: a particular black coworker he befriended in two thousand and one.

811
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 2: The memo waxes poetic for an entire page about his

812
00:48:55,520 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 2: loving and supportive relationship with his children, both grown by

813
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:02,240
Speaker 2: now and with military careers their own. His children shared

814
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 2: anecdotes about fond childhood memories of their father's love and

815
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 2: care for them buried deep in the report prepared by

816
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 2: the defensive psychologists, though there is a passing mention that

817
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 2: his daughter's decision to marry in secret caused immense strain

818
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 2: in the family. In her letter, his daughter writes that

819
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 2: Hassen met his grandson for the first time when she

820
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 2: brought the boy to the jail for a visit. There's

821
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:31,839
Speaker 2: no mention in this memo, but the man his daughter

822
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 2: married in secret is not white. Was this on his

823
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 2: mind when he typed best N word killing gun into

824
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 2: a search engine? What was he thinking about when he

825
00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:48,080
Speaker 2: googled I think my wife is an N word lover.

826
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 2: The defense says that Hassen's abuse of tramadol got out

827
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 2: of hand after he moved to Maryland in twenty sixteen,

828
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 2: he'd gotten a promotion and moved from North Carolina to

829
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 2: accept a position in D at Coast Guard Headquarters. He

830
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 2: and his wife are going through a little bit of

831
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 2: a rocky period, having trouble adjusting to their kids leaving home,

832
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 2: and they separated for a while. She didn't join him

833
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 2: in DC right away, and they reconciled after about a year,

834
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 2: but they spent that first year he was in DC apart.

835
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 2: The memo says he was lonely. He was having a

836
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 2: hard time adjusting to city life, and he hated commuting.

837
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:26,400
Speaker 2: He hated sitting at a desk all day, and so

838
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:29,360
Speaker 2: he became increasingly dependent on a drug he'd been abusing

839
00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 2: since twenty twelve. His wife had a prescription for tramadol

840
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 2: for a chronic pain condition, but now he was turning

841
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 2: to illegal online pharmacies to buy hundreds of pills at

842
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:43,120
Speaker 2: a time. The defense hired a medical doctor who diagnosed

843
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 2: Hassen with opioid use disorder and offered an expert opinion

844
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:50,880
Speaker 2: that such a condition can cause serious mood disturbances, which

845
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 2: is true right But in the memo, the attorney stops

846
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 2: just short of outright claiming that being addicted to opiates

847
00:50:59,560 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 2: makes you google where do most Senators live while you're

848
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:08,400
Speaker 2: shopping for rifle scopes. They do make some valid points

849
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 2: about the fact that it isn't that weird to own

850
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 2: a ton of guns.

851
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:13,240
Speaker 1: A lot of people do.

852
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:16,680
Speaker 2: And a thousand bullets might sound like a lot of

853
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 2: bullets if you're not a gun owner, but a serious

854
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:22,320
Speaker 2: hobbyist could blow through that in a day at the range.

855
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 2: But overall, the defense sentencing memo rests heavily on this

856
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 2: very narrow angle of the truth. Friends and relatives and

857
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:34,279
Speaker 2: neighbors and co workers sent letters of support saying that's

858
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 2: just not the Chris Hassen I know. One coworker wrote,

859
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 2: unless the definition of white nationalists has changed, Christopher Hassen

860
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:45,160
Speaker 2: is not one, noting that he had worked successfully with

861
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 2: black and Hispanic colleagues for years. There was even a

862
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:50,800
Speaker 2: letter submitted that was written by a man who'd shared

863
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:52,440
Speaker 2: a cell block with Hassen while he was in pre

864
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 2: trial attention. The handwritten letter said he'd gotten to know

865
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 2: Hassen over the last few months and he had no

866
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:01,880
Speaker 2: issues with anyone on their quad, but they played chess together,

867
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,080
Speaker 2: work out and share food, and the man adds helpfully

868
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:07,399
Speaker 2: that as a black person, he'd never felt that Chris

869
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 2: was prejudiced in any way. There were multiple letters from

870
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:13,800
Speaker 2: priests and lay ministers who'd been meeting with Hassen in jail.

871
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 2: Apparently he was Catholic again, despite his exploration of Christian

872
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 2: identity Asatru and a couple of months where he was

873
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:26,560
Speaker 2: really seriously considering converting to Russian Orthodoxy, but in jail

874
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 2: he's Catholic again. He confessed and received communion, and a

875
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 2: priest wrote to the judge that they'd been meeting weekly

876
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:38,239
Speaker 2: and found Hassen's contrition to be genuine. The defense asked

877
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 2: for a sentence of time served, immediate release in three

878
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:44,799
Speaker 2: years of supervision. He just needs treatment. He was never

879
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 2: going to hurt anyone. The government did something very different.

880
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 2: In mind, the bulk of the material produced in this

881
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:58,440
Speaker 2: case outlining his online activity was filed alongside this sentencing memorandum,

882
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:02,240
Speaker 2: and with everything on the table, a very different picture

883
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 2: starts to form. In early twenty seventeen, Hassen began obsessively

884
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 2: studying unders Bravi's manifesto. It's a sprawling fifteen hundred pages,

885
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 2: part diary, part manual. There's big chunks of plagiarized content

886
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 2: from other sources.

887
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 1: It's not great. I mean it's not.

888
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:24,800
Speaker 2: Great for a lot of reasons. Unders Bravic did murder

889
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 2: seventy seven people, and most of them were children. But

890
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:32,320
Speaker 2: the Manifesto was also just kind of bad. But Hassen

891
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:35,919
Speaker 2: would spend hours at a time, some days reading and

892
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,840
Speaker 2: rereading passages of the Manifesto, and then he'd get online

893
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 2: and research topics related to those passages. And while the

894
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 2: defense was telling the truth and they argued that he'd

895
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 2: always been a gun enthusiast, his purchasing history shows a

896
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:55,400
Speaker 2: distinct change in his spending habits after he became obsessed

897
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 2: with the Manifesto.

898
00:53:58,080 --> 00:53:59,399
Speaker 1: In just two years, he.

899
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 2: Spent over twelve thousand dollars on holsters, knives, magazines, ammunition, handguards,

900
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 2: camping supplies, survival foods, steel body armour plates, plate carriers,

901
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:12,800
Speaker 2: tactical vests and pouches, firearm repair kits, a firearm barrel,

902
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:18,839
Speaker 2: firing pins, and a thirteen hundred dollars rifle scope. And

903
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:21,360
Speaker 2: that twelve thousand dollars does not include the money he

904
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:26,480
Speaker 2: spent on guns themselves. This was accessories, and As was

905
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:30,720
Speaker 2: already a proficient marksman, but now he's developing an interest

906
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:36,480
Speaker 2: in long range shooting. He bought a sniper rifle. He

907
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 2: took it to the shooting range and recorded the rifle's

908
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 2: performance in a little notebook after he read online that

909
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:45,720
Speaker 2: snipers use a paper log called a sniper data book

910
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 2: to document the performance of a particular rifle under different conditions,

911
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 2: things like temperature, wind, elevation, and anything else that would

912
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:57,600
Speaker 2: affect the external ballistics of a bullet. He searched for

913
00:54:57,640 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 2: information on subsonic rounds, ammunition that doesn't break the sound barrier.

914
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:06,160
Speaker 2: Sometimes snipers use it because it makes it more difficult

915
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 2: to determine where the shots are coming from. He searched

916
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:14,799
Speaker 2: for information about frangible rounds, ammunition that breaks apart on

917
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:18,120
Speaker 2: impact that can make it impossible for law enforcement to

918
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 2: learn anything about the gun it was fired from. And

919
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:24,640
Speaker 2: he bought all the materials he would need to make

920
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 2: silencers at home, and then he did. And all this

921
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 2: time he's obsessively searching for things like how to rid

922
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:36,839
Speaker 2: the US of Jews, how can whites rise up? How

923
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 2: to bring down US government? And he's reading the unibomber's Manifesto,

924
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:44,840
Speaker 2: and he's reading the book written by Eric Rudolph. You

925
00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 2: probably know Eric Rudolph as the nineteen ninety six Olympics bomber,

926
00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:51,560
Speaker 2: but he was also a Christian identity extremist who bombed

927
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:53,840
Speaker 2: two abortion clinics and a lesbian bar.

928
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 3: I.

929
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Hassen is going deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole.

930
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:01,760
Speaker 2: He's taking more and more more tramadol and buying more

931
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:04,920
Speaker 2: and more guns, and he knows he needs to get

932
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 2: off the drugs. Not for his family or for his

933
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:12,120
Speaker 2: job or his health. No, he's buying fake urine online

934
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:14,080
Speaker 2: to beat the PIS tests at work. He doesn't care

935
00:56:14,120 --> 00:56:16,919
Speaker 2: about that, And I don't know. Maybe he was thinking

936
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 2: about his family, but that's not what's on his computer.

937
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:23,759
Speaker 2: On his computer, it's clear that he wanted to get

938
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,799
Speaker 2: off the drugs to clear his mind so he could

939
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 2: focus on preparing his attack, And in January of twenty nineteen,

940
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:34,720
Speaker 2: it was starting to look like he might be working

941
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:38,799
Speaker 2: up to it. He'd been reading unders Braby's Manifesto like

942
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 2: it was the Bible for years now. Analysis of his

943
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:45,160
Speaker 2: computer activity showed that he returned to it often and

944
00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:48,320
Speaker 2: would supplement his reading with additional research on the topics

945
00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:53,040
Speaker 2: it contained. And on January third, twenty nineteen, he opened

946
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:56,680
Speaker 2: the Manifesto on his computer and he searched the text

947
00:56:56,719 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 2: for the term category A to read about passage where

948
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 2: Brewick lays out the three categories of what he calls traders,

949
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:08,800
Speaker 2: with Category A being the most influential and highest profile targets.

950
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 1: Now I've got.

951
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:13,400
Speaker 2: My own copy of the Manifesto and I searched for

952
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:17,880
Speaker 2: Category A. There are at least ninety pages spread across

953
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 2: this fifteen hundred page document in which Brewick expounds on

954
00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:24,920
Speaker 2: his theories about category A, B, and C traders to

955
00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 2: the white race or whatever. But to be honest, I'm

956
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 2: not a pilled out white supremacist, so it's just not

957
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:36,040
Speaker 2: interesting to me. But Hassen seemed persuaded by Breveck's rambling,

958
00:57:36,080 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 2: and he started making a spreadsheet, and, consistent with Brevieck's

959
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:46,440
Speaker 2: advice to target politicians, journalists, Marxists, and nonprofit leaders, he

960
00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:50,360
Speaker 2: filled in names on his Excel spreadsheet. He lists some

961
00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:55,040
Speaker 2: journalists and political commentators MSNBC's Chris Hayes and Ari Melber,

962
00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:59,400
Speaker 2: CNN's Don Lemon and Van Jones. One cell just says

963
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 2: Joey in all caps, but based on corresponding Internet activity,

964
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:09,919
Speaker 2: he'd been googling Joe Scarborough and then he searched for

965
00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:14,640
Speaker 2: where is morning Joe filmed? And then he found Joe

966
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:17,640
Speaker 2: Scarborough's home address, and then he spent about thirty five

967
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:21,520
Speaker 2: seconds just sort of zooming in and out on the

968
00:58:21,560 --> 00:58:27,080
Speaker 2: satellite image of the house in Google Maps. For politicians,

969
00:58:27,080 --> 00:58:30,800
Speaker 2: he selected a wide variety of senators and congressional representatives.

970
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 2: He wrote down Helosi and Schumer, though he spelled it wrong.

971
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 2: Some targets just got crude nicknames, like Senator Bloomin Jew,

972
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 2: which seems to refer to Senator Richard Blumenthal. He was

973
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:50,400
Speaker 2: also considering targets like ilan Omar, Alexandria Casio Cortez, Kamala Harris,

974
00:58:50,440 --> 00:58:55,800
Speaker 2: Maxine Waters, Kristin Gillibrand, and DSA like he just wrote

975
00:58:56,040 --> 00:59:00,280
Speaker 2: the acronym, presumably referring to the organization Democratic Socialist of America.

976
00:59:01,600 --> 00:59:04,920
Speaker 2: He would later find personal information for two female members

977
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:10,080
Speaker 2: of the organization's national political Committee, and that same week

978
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:13,680
Speaker 2: he queried the Brevic Manifesto again, this time for the

979
00:59:13,720 --> 00:59:19,720
Speaker 2: word steroids. Hassen's computer records show he made quite a

980
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 2: few online purchases for steroids, human growth hormone, and testosterone,

981
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:28,440
Speaker 2: and they found a lot of human growth hormone in

982
00:59:28,480 --> 00:59:32,240
Speaker 2: his apartment. A blood test performed when he was arrested, though,

983
00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:37,560
Speaker 2: showed no trace of anything except the tramadol. In Brevick's manifesto,

984
00:59:37,760 --> 00:59:41,480
Speaker 2: he recommends beginning a six week steroid cycle once you've

985
00:59:41,480 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 2: got all your supplies together and you're finished planning your

986
00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 2: attack and you're entering.

987
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: The preparation phase.

988
00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:51,760
Speaker 2: The idea is to ensure that you are maximally aggressive

989
00:59:52,400 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 2: when it's time to strike.

990
00:59:55,240 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 1: But he never did. Did he Hassen didn't.

991
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 2: He was arrested, charged and convicted of a crime that

992
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:09,680
Speaker 2: really just kind of feels like a technicality. It's legal

993
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:13,160
Speaker 2: to have a silencer in most states. He just didn't

994
01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:18,480
Speaker 2: do the paperwork. He owned those guns legally, He just

995
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:23,040
Speaker 2: lied on a form about his drug use. Ordering thousands

996
01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:25,800
Speaker 2: of prescription pain pills from a Mexican pharmacy over the

997
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 2: internet is definitely illegal, no argument there. But if that's

998
01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 2: all that was going on, then he needs rehab prison.

999
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:37,600
Speaker 2: And if this case had gone to trial, they almost

1000
01:00:37,840 --> 01:00:40,640
Speaker 2: certainly would not have been allowed to admit most of

1001
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:45,920
Speaker 2: this material. It's inflammatory and prejudicial and not directly germane

1002
01:00:45,920 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 2: to the actual criminal charges here. The defense was right

1003
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:53,200
Speaker 2: about that. Legally speaking, a jury would not have seen

1004
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:57,000
Speaker 2: all of this, but a judge is allowed to consider

1005
01:00:57,160 --> 01:01:01,720
Speaker 2: uncharged conduct at sentencing. In that sentencing, the government did

1006
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 2: something a little unusual. Hassen is obviously not charged with

1007
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 2: any crime of terrorism. You didn't derail a train or

1008
01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:14,600
Speaker 2: join isis or you know, terrorist stuff. But there's something

1009
01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:17,840
Speaker 2: called a terrorism sentencing enhancement.

1010
01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:19,680
Speaker 1: So this is not a criminal charge.

1011
01:01:19,760 --> 01:01:22,440
Speaker 2: This is just something you sort of put on top

1012
01:01:22,520 --> 01:01:24,920
Speaker 2: of the sentencing. You know, it sprinkles on top of

1013
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:28,240
Speaker 2: your federal sentence. And typically you see this used in

1014
01:01:28,320 --> 01:01:33,240
Speaker 2: cases that actually include a charge of terrorism related crime.

1015
01:01:33,560 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 2: That makes sense, but in this case, the prosecutor argued

1016
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:42,440
Speaker 2: that terrorism isn't really as well defined in the code

1017
01:01:42,480 --> 01:01:45,680
Speaker 2: as you might think, writing that there is actually no

1018
01:01:45,840 --> 01:01:49,680
Speaker 2: requirement that the defendant have committed a federal crime of terrorism,

1019
01:01:50,480 --> 01:01:53,520
Speaker 2: just that the conduct was calculated to influence or affect

1020
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:56,520
Speaker 2: the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to

1021
01:01:56,560 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 2: retaliate against governmental conduct.

1022
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 1: All that is required is that the crime of conviction

1023
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:06,040
Speaker 1: or relevant conduct involved.

1024
01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:08,320
Speaker 2: Or was intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism.

1025
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:11,080
Speaker 2: So what he's saying here is that you don't actually

1026
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:15,160
Speaker 2: have to charge or convict someone on a terrorism related

1027
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:20,960
Speaker 2: crime to use the terrorism sentencing enhancement. All that is

1028
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:26,080
Speaker 2: required is that some relevant conduct here was intended to

1029
01:02:26,240 --> 01:02:30,479
Speaker 2: promote a crime of terrorism. And that feels so thin

1030
01:02:30,600 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 2: to me. That feels so tangential. It doesn't feel good.

1031
01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:38,360
Speaker 2: But they argue that the conviction on the counts related

1032
01:02:38,360 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 2: to those illegal silencers are inextricably linked to his searches

1033
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:46,640
Speaker 2: for things like most liberal senator? Where do most senators

1034
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:50,440
Speaker 2: live in DC? Do senators have Secret Service protection? Are

1035
01:02:50,480 --> 01:02:55,280
Speaker 2: Supreme Court justices protected? All while he's training to use

1036
01:02:55,320 --> 01:02:59,040
Speaker 2: a sniper rifle and making his own silencers. So they're

1037
01:02:59,080 --> 01:03:02,480
Speaker 2: saying that that that is relevant conduct here. That's not

1038
01:03:02,520 --> 01:03:04,040
Speaker 2: what he was charged with, that's not what he was

1039
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:10,400
Speaker 2: convicted of, But there's relevant conduct here that has terrorism vibes.

1040
01:03:10,520 --> 01:03:15,680
Speaker 2: This is a vibes based enhancement. Ultimately, Judge Hazel was

1041
01:03:16,160 --> 01:03:20,680
Speaker 2: unmoved by the four hours of testimony from a psychologist

1042
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 2: hired by the defense to opine that Hassen was never

1043
01:03:23,920 --> 01:03:27,960
Speaker 2: really going to hurt anybody. Hazel said from the bench

1044
01:03:28,040 --> 01:03:31,160
Speaker 2: that zooming in and out on a satellite image of

1045
01:03:31,200 --> 01:03:34,640
Speaker 2: someone's house feels like pretty convincing evidence that you are

1046
01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:38,920
Speaker 2: targeting particular individuals, and said that quote, there is little

1047
01:03:38,960 --> 01:03:41,840
Speaker 2: doubt in the court's mind that the defendant was planning

1048
01:03:41,840 --> 01:03:45,720
Speaker 2: to carry out a mass casualty assault in furtherance of

1049
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:50,920
Speaker 2: his white nationalist views. Now forgive me, but I couldn't

1050
01:03:50,920 --> 01:03:53,880
Speaker 2: stomach the thirty dollars price tag for the official transcript

1051
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:56,600
Speaker 2: of that sentencing hearing, so I'm relying on my own

1052
01:03:56,640 --> 01:04:01,120
Speaker 2: handwritten notes here. But before Judge Hazel denounced Hassen's thirteen

1053
01:04:01,200 --> 01:04:04,400
Speaker 2: year sentence, he made it clear that he was quote

1054
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:09,040
Speaker 2: not seeking to protect the public from his views end quote,

1055
01:04:09,680 --> 01:04:14,400
Speaker 2: but from his actions, adding that the defendant is not

1056
01:04:14,560 --> 01:04:19,080
Speaker 2: alone in those views, that white supremacist ideology is deeply

1057
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:21,640
Speaker 2: embedded in the soul of this country.

1058
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:23,760
Speaker 1: Quote. The seeds were.

1059
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:27,160
Speaker 2: Planted in sixteen nineteen, and those seeds have grown and

1060
01:04:27,240 --> 01:04:31,040
Speaker 2: produced dangerous fruit. Mister Hassen is but one leaf that

1061
01:04:31,120 --> 01:04:34,400
Speaker 2: has fallen from that tree. Maybe one day, we as

1062
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 2: a nation will do the hard work of digging up

1063
01:04:36,360 --> 01:04:39,720
Speaker 2: the roots of that tree. This sentence is in no

1064
01:04:39,800 --> 01:04:42,840
Speaker 2: way intended to be an attempt at that work. It

1065
01:04:42,920 --> 01:04:49,200
Speaker 2: simply addresses the conduct of one man end quote. What

1066
01:04:49,440 --> 01:04:53,800
Speaker 2: makes me so uneasy in this case is that do

1067
01:04:53,840 --> 01:04:57,280
Speaker 2: I think that Christopher Hassen belongs in jail to the

1068
01:04:57,320 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 2: extent that anyone belongs in jail? Like as sort of

1069
01:04:59,600 --> 01:05:02,560
Speaker 2: my own views on prison abolition aside that you know,

1070
01:05:02,720 --> 01:05:07,200
Speaker 2: if anyone belongs in jail, then yeah, he seemed like

1071
01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:10,480
Speaker 2: he was planning something, right, But the government was clearly

1072
01:05:10,520 --> 01:05:14,280
Speaker 2: asking the judge to sentence Hasten for something they didn't

1073
01:05:14,280 --> 01:05:17,320
Speaker 2: think they could actually charge him for because.

1074
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:18,920
Speaker 1: They didn't try.

1075
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:23,760
Speaker 2: And if I'm being really honest with myself, that's not

1076
01:05:23,800 --> 01:05:28,200
Speaker 2: how it's supposed to work. Technically, he was convicted and

1077
01:05:28,320 --> 01:05:32,040
Speaker 2: sentenced for these concrete criminal actions and given sentences that

1078
01:05:32,680 --> 01:05:36,800
Speaker 2: technically fall within the guideline range for those crimes, although

1079
01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:42,240
Speaker 2: with this dubious terrorism enhancement tacked on, they didn't actually

1080
01:05:42,800 --> 01:05:47,840
Speaker 2: charge convict or sentence him for his thoughts and ideas

1081
01:05:47,880 --> 01:05:49,440
Speaker 2: and beliefs, right.

1082
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:56,160
Speaker 1: But they kind of did. And how are you supposed

1083
01:05:56,200 --> 01:05:56,880
Speaker 1: to feel about that?

1084
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:03,440
Speaker 2: I don't know, you have to sit with that, because

1085
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:08,000
Speaker 2: the alternative was waiting right, keep that pole camera up

1086
01:06:08,040 --> 01:06:11,320
Speaker 2: outside his house, keep logging his keystrokes at work, put

1087
01:06:11,320 --> 01:06:13,000
Speaker 2: a flag on his name so you know if he

1088
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:16,120
Speaker 2: buys an airline ticket or gets pulled over, just watch

1089
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:19,840
Speaker 2: and wait and hope that you're watching close enough that

1090
01:06:19,880 --> 01:06:23,200
Speaker 2: you can intercept him sometime after he sets up the

1091
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:26,920
Speaker 2: sniper's nest, but before he opens fire.

1092
01:06:28,280 --> 01:06:31,440
Speaker 1: And is that good enough? Can we find peace.

1093
01:06:31,200 --> 01:06:34,280
Speaker 2: With the idea that technically he went away on a

1094
01:06:34,320 --> 01:06:37,560
Speaker 2: technicality because they couldn't charge him with what they really

1095
01:06:37,600 --> 01:06:38,600
Speaker 2: thought he was doing.

1096
01:06:40,280 --> 01:06:42,240
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know.

1097
01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:47,120
Speaker 2: I know I promised you something a little lighter instead,

1098
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:50,200
Speaker 2: I've left you with this ethical quandary about the nature

1099
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:53,280
Speaker 2: and purpose of our justice system. But I think I

1100
01:06:53,320 --> 01:06:56,720
Speaker 2: remember this case being funny because I just thought it

1101
01:06:56,760 --> 01:07:00,720
Speaker 2: was outrageously silly, how specific the documentation was that he

1102
01:07:00,800 --> 01:07:03,720
Speaker 2: was using bing to search for information on how to

1103
01:07:03,720 --> 01:07:08,280
Speaker 2: make IEDs and also how to write a letter? Does

1104
01:07:08,320 --> 01:07:13,840
Speaker 2: anyone use bing? But my favorite Christopher Hassen case fact

1105
01:07:14,600 --> 01:07:17,720
Speaker 2: has got to be this one. It's a callback to

1106
01:07:17,760 --> 01:07:21,320
Speaker 2: the first episode of this show. Actually on the spreadsheet

1107
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:24,680
Speaker 2: where he was tracking hysteroid cycles. He had the top

1108
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:28,439
Speaker 2: row of the spreadsheet merged into one continuous cell all

1109
01:07:28,480 --> 01:07:31,280
Speaker 2: across the top of the sheet, So underneath it's all

1110
01:07:31,320 --> 01:07:35,360
Speaker 2: this technical nonsense about dosages and timing and things like

1111
01:07:35,400 --> 01:07:39,720
Speaker 2: a reminder to take a shotgun of one thousand units

1112
01:07:39,760 --> 01:07:42,000
Speaker 2: of E three D in the last three weeks of

1113
01:07:42,080 --> 01:07:46,280
Speaker 2: cycle to prep your testes. I don't know what you're

1114
01:07:46,320 --> 01:07:49,480
Speaker 2: preparing your testicles for. That's not my business. But at

1115
01:07:49,480 --> 01:07:54,160
Speaker 2: the top of the spreadsheet it says, quote to learn

1116
01:07:54,280 --> 01:07:58,320
Speaker 2: who rules over you, simply find out who you were

1117
01:07:58,360 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 2: not allowed to criticize. And that is the only place

1118
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:05,800
Speaker 2: I have ever found that quote in a federal court filing,

1119
01:08:06,040 --> 01:08:08,720
Speaker 2: and I spent some time looking, you know, I did.

1120
01:08:09,400 --> 01:08:12,479
Speaker 2: I can't find this in any other federal criminal case.

1121
01:08:13,520 --> 01:08:16,760
Speaker 2: It's not clear if Hassen knew who really said that,

1122
01:08:16,960 --> 01:08:19,519
Speaker 2: or if he was suffering from the common but mistaken

1123
01:08:19,560 --> 01:08:24,080
Speaker 2: idea that it was Voltaire. But given his other online activity,

1124
01:08:24,240 --> 01:08:26,880
Speaker 2: I think he probably knew it was a Nazi pedophile.

1125
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:31,559
Speaker 2: And that's all I have for you about Christopher Hassen.

1126
01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:35,680
Speaker 2: But our journey through his life and internet history did

1127
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 2: introduce some exciting new characters. In the Weird Little Guy's

1128
01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:42,559
Speaker 2: extended universe. I hope you'll stick around to find out

1129
01:08:42,600 --> 01:08:45,200
Speaker 2: more about the man who was too racist for Rhodesha,

1130
01:08:46,000 --> 01:08:48,360
Speaker 2: or the teenage skinhead who ended up in charge of

1131
01:08:48,400 --> 01:08:50,880
Speaker 2: the black metal label that funded a Nazi hate group

1132
01:08:51,479 --> 01:08:52,080
Speaker 2: for years.

1133
01:08:56,640 --> 01:08:59,559
Speaker 1: Weird Little Guys ziproduction of cool Zone Media. For more

1134
01:08:59,560 --> 01:09:00,400
Speaker 1: from quot Zone

1135
01:09:00,400 --> 01:09:04,200
Speaker 2: Media, visit our website polezonmedia dot com, or check us

1136
01:09:04,200 --> 01:09:07,880
Speaker 2: out on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.