WEBVTT - Arrested Democracy, Pt .1 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:10.160 Col Zone Media. On April first, twenty ten, retired Navy 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:14.600 Lieutenant Commander Walter Francis Fitzpatrick the Third walked into the 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:19.279 Monroe County Courthouse in Madisonville, Tennessee. That was no surprise 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.479 to anyone in Madisonville. Fitzpatrick had become a frequent visitor 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:25.840 to this courthouse in a small town in the foothills 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:29.319 of the Great Smoky Mountains. A year earlier, in March 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:31.880 of two thousand and nine, he asked a Monroe County 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:36.320 grand jury to indict President Barack Obama on charges of treason. 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:41.479 The grand jury declined to do so. In the year 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:43.839 that followed, he had been a regular fixture in the 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.840 County Court Clerk's office, demanding information about the county's jury 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:52.199 selection process. After the grand jury's refusal to accept his 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.240 presentation of evidence against Barack Obama, he could only conclude 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:01.520 that the process itself was deeply corrupt and sinister forces 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.679 were conspiring against him to suppress the truth that Barack 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.880 Hussein Obama was not the rightful president of the United States, 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:13.319 that he was born in Kenya, that he had rigged 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:16.240 the two thousand and eight election, and he was guilty 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:21.920 of high treason. Walter Fitzpatrick was more than prepared to 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.520 put Barack Obama on trial, but now he believed the 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.760 whole damn system was guilty and he wasn't going to 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.759 let them get away with it. He just needed some backup. 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:54.280 I'm Molly Konger, and this is where the LA guys 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.200 as in writing this. It's a few days after the 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:05.440 twenty twenty four presidential election. Every election has winners and losers, 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.919 and not everybody is happy with the results. It's probably 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.480 no surprise to you that I count myself among those 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.720 of us who aren't thrilled with the results this time around. 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:24.760 But sometimes disappointment, dread, and dissatisfaction aren't enough. For some people, 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:31.200 an undesirable election outcome is simply unacceptable. Literally, they can't 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.040 accept it, it can't be true, and it can't be 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:39.040 allowed to stand. As with my Halloween episode, I'm a 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.639 little behind the curve here in terms of seasonal content. 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:45.920 At this rate, I'll be doing a Christmas special on 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:50.560 Groundhog's Day. But elections and weird little guys go together 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:56.160 like peanut butter and jelly. Well, no, no, that's not true. 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.480 You do find them together often, but they don't usually 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.160 mix well, so maybe it's more like oil and water. 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.600 Neither of those analogies are really giving me what I want. 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:14.120 In my personal experience, right wing extremists and election results 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.480 go together like blue gatorade and raw onions. When I 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:20.720 covered the January sixth riot at the Capitol in twenty 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.800 twenty one, those were the two things I saw people 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.400 pulling out of their backpacks the most. I think some 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.000 right wing influencer convinced a lot of people who'd never 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.480 been to a riot before that you should carry a raw, 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:39.280 white onion cut in half in a ziploc baggie because 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.560 rubbing it on your face is a homeopathic remedy for 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:48.600 tear gas. Just a heads up that is not true. 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.040 Do not do that. Do not rub a raw onion 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:56.120 on your eyeballs at any time, and definitely don't do 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.920 it after exposure to a chemical irritant. And if you 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:01.800 you can only pack one thing to drink in a 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.800 situation like that, make it water or else you'll be 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.000 washing pepper spray and onion juice out of your eyes 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.160 with gatorade, which doctors do not recommend. That's just some 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.640 free advice for you, but I thought it would make 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.719 perfect sense to do some kind of election themed weird 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:25.080 little guy, And to be honest, I'm bored of January 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.840 sixth stories. I'm sure I'll get to some of them 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.279 on this show eventually. And there were some guys there 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.440 who were very strange guys even before they were trying 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.040 to stop the steal. And if the guy they were 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.719 fighting for that day follows through on his promise to 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.920 pardon them all, some of them will make their way 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.520 back into the news one way or another, whether that's 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:56.120 running for office or building a bomb. But right now today, 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.040 I'm sick of thinking about the twenty twenty election results, 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:03.080 because I'm sick thinking about the twenty twenty four election results. 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.120 And the twenty twenty election was not the first time 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:12.800 right wing extremists couldn't accept the results. So come with 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:18.520 me to the distant past. Two thousand and eight. I 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.120 voted for president for the first time that year, making 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.960 me one of nearly seventy million Americans who cast a 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:28.440 ballot for Barack Obama. He won handily, beating John McCain 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:31.320 by more than seven percent in the popular vote and 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.279 pulling in three hundred and sixty five electoral votes to 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:39.480 McCain's one hundred and seventy three. Barack Obama was promising hope, 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:44.599 change and healthcare. John McCain was burdened by George W. 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:48.159 Bush's rock bottom approval ratings and his support for Bush's 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:52.800 now increasingly unpopular war in Iraq. It seemed like a 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.120 new day had dawned. We were all going to get healthcare, 0:05:56.200 --> 0:06:01.159 and we had finally elected our first black president. Of course, 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.200 not everyone was on board. We'd had more than two 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:10.120 centuries of white men named James, John, William, and George. Literally, 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.120 of the forty two presidents before Obama, eighteen of them 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.880 were named James, John William, or George. About forty percent 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:22.200 of the total presidential time until two thousand and eight 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.440 was under a guy with one of those four names. 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:31.360 We elected two different guys named Franklin. We hadn't really 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.880 been getting a lot of variety conspiracy theories about Barack 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:40.760 Obama's race, religion, and place of birth are creatures of racism, 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:45.680 pure and simple. There's no talking your way around that fact. 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.599 He has a foreign sounding name and he is not white. 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.480 There was a lot of anxiety that someone who didn't 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.680 look like the American presidents we'd had before couldn't possibly 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:02.960 have the same American values. During the primary, Mark Penn, 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.799 a senior campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton, wrote a memo 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.440 suggesting that they should highlight the fact that Obama spent 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:16.280 some of his childhood in Indonesia while emphasizing Clinton's Midwest roots, writing. 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.200 His roots in basic American values and culture are at 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.880 best limited. I cannot imagine electing a president during a 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.640 time of war who was not, at his center fundamentally 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.080 American in his thinking and in his values. 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.960 The Clinton campaign didn't end up going with this strategy, 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:40.200 but the memo got out, and this idea that Barack 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:45.160 Obama was an American bled into a conspiracy theory that 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:49.800 he was not American at all and had in fact 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.600 been born in Kenya. During the two thousand and eight 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.800 election season, surveys showed that as many as a third 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.760 of Republican voters believe there may be some truth to 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.320 the idea that Barack Obama was born outside of the 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:08.480 United States. An analysis published in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:13.280 and Politics in twenty nineteen acknowledge that yes, the best 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.120 predictor of believing in any conspiracy theory is a pre 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:21.600 existing belief in any other conspiracy theory. People who are 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:28.280 prone to believing unsubstantiated claims often believe many of them. 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.200 But while there are certainly people of all political orientations 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.400 who are willing to entertain the theory, the study found 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:39.160 that belief in this particular conspiracy theory was uniquely correlated 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:44.520 to the believer's own race, party affiliation, and most importantly, 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:51.280 their level of racial resentment toward African Americans. So to 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.760 be clear, there are multiple studies published in journals across 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.560 a range of disciplines over the course of nearly twenty 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:02.760 years that have found measurable correlations. Here, the people who 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:07.959 trafficked in Birtherism were white Republicans with a measurable level 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:13.360 of racial animus. This was never about getting to the truth. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:20.480 It was an intense fear of a black president. In 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.000 June of two thousand and eight, just days after Hillary 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:27.199 Clinton conceded the primary and Obama was the presumptive nominee, 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.960 his campaign released a copy of his birth certificate showing 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:35.360 he had in fact been born in Hawaii. But you 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:40.520 can't kill a conspiracy with facts. That's never worked and 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.840 confronted with what should have been the final answer to 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:48.920 the question, Berthers just doubled down. The birth certificate was 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:54.080 simply fake. This only fueled the fire, and in August 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:58.120 of two thousand and eight, the first of countless lawsuits 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:03.800 was filed. And oddly enough, we've already talked about this 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:08.200 particular lawsuit on this show in the first episode about 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:13.720 the Pennsylvania clansman Berry Black. Philip Burg's lawsuit alleged that 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.920 Obama had been born in Kenya, and this relied on 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.720 a sworn affidavit written by Ron McCray about a phone 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:24.559 call that he had had with Barack Obama's father's stepmother 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:30.440 through a translator. Ron McCrae was the homophobic street preacher 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.720 who spent years harassing the owners of the Casanova Lounge, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.280 a gay bar in Somerset County, Pennsylvania that was located 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.920 across the street from a farm owned by some klansmen. 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.560 Burg's lawsuit was dismissed and the judge called it frivolous 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:51.160 and not worthy of discussion, which is true, but that 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:56.560 became the playbook. Berths around the country filed frivolous and 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:02.280 baffling lawsuits. They filed them in federal court houses, county 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.400 circuit courts, state supreme courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:11.000 state boards of election, state administrative courts. They filed complaints 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.280 and requests for injunctions and petitions anywhere they could find 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.960 a bureaucrat sitting in a desk. For just the years 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.600 two thousand and eight through twenty twelve, I found over 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:28.320 two hundred complaints in various forms, filed with every kind 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:32.280 of court you can imagine, and some kinds of courts 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:39.560 I've never heard of, and they lost every single one. 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:43.040 They seemed convinced that they could find the right collection 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.760 of words, the right legal incantation, that, if presented to 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.480 the right judge and the right jury, would wake America 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:56.760 from this national nightmare of an Obama presidency. But the 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:01.520 lawsuits weren't working. Judge after judge judge sent them packing. 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.360 In most cases they didn't even get a hearing. They 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.760 were submitting complaints that had absolutely no legal basis to proceed, 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.720 no basis in reality even and in the cases that 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:17.959 did get a foot in the door, they were submitting 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:24.160 forged documents and relying on already debunked claims. Lawyers were 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:29.080 sanctioned fines were levied, and suit after suit was dismissed. 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:36.000 But undeterred, the Birthers found a new way forward. If 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.920 they couldn't get justice through civil suits, they would simply 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.920 have to have the President of the United States arrested. 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:48.760 In June of two thousand and nine, one hundred and 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:54.760 seventy two extremely devoted conspiracy theorists convened. They called themselves 0:12:55.520 --> 0:13:01.480 the super American grand Jury. Now that's not a real thing. 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.600 Grand juries are real, of course. We don't need to 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.400 get bogged down in the specifics because they vary from 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:13.000 state to state. But generally speaking, a grand jury is 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:17.080 a group of citizens convened by a court and tasked 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:22.439 with issuing indictments. So a prosecutor will briefly summarize a case. 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.239 They'll put on a little bit of evidence, maybe some witnesses, 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.800 and the grand jurors will decide if there's probable cause 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:32.160 to believe a crime has been committed by the individual 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.240 the prosecutor is seeking to indict. They aren't deciding if 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.640 anyone is innocent or guilty. They're not trying the case. 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:44.160 It's a much lower standard here. They're just deciding, is 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.240 this something that should proceed as a case at all. 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.040 You've probably heard the saying you can get a grand 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.240 jury to indict a ham sandwich. It's a pretty low 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:58.280 bar to clear at this stage. But we're not here 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.319 to talk about real grand juries because that barely factors 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.920 into the story at all. I just want to be 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:10.000 clear that grand juris are real, they do exist, and 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:14.720 this was not one. A grand jury is made up 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:18.319 of grand jurors who have received an official summons from 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:22.320 a real court, and they are presented real potential cases 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.360 by a real prosecutor, and they make real determinations about 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.760 which cases get indictments. There are six states that allow 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:36.800 citizen initiated grand juries in Oklahoma, Nevada, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.880 and North Dakota. There is a process through which you 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.120 can collect enough signatures on a petition to force a 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.400 judge to convene a grand jury to investigate an alleged crime. 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.360 That's not what this was either. They didn't have a 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:52.560 petition they submitted to a court. They didn't do it 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.960 in any of those states. I'm just saying. Avenues do exist, 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.160 and in some states, like California, you can submit a 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.960 written complaint to request a grand jury investigation into a 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.560 criminal allegation, but they're under no obligation to follow up. 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.600 And in Tennessee, the fact that is about to become 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:17.200 very relevant. State law allows any citizen to apply to 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.200 testify before a county grand jury about an alleged offense 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:26.400 that is prosecutable in that county. But the idea of 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.200 a citizen's grand jury, like the super American grand jury, 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:36.440 is not something these particular extremists invented in their modern iteration. 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:40.440 Most of these citizens grand jury groups were trying to 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.640 arrest Barack Obama for various invented crimes, but they also 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.880 popped up in the early two thousands among nine to 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:51.240 eleven truthers who wanted to arrest George Bush during the 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.320 Malhair National Wildlife Refuge occupation. A few years back, militia 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.840 members who supported the Bundy family convened fake grand juries 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.480 to indict local officials and even some reporters whose coverage 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:07.040 they found lacking conspiracy theory. Frequent flier Larry Clayman has 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.920 not only indicted Joe Biden with a fate grand jury, 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:15.160 he even convicted him. But according to Daniel Levatas the 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.960 author of The Terrorist next Door, a two thousand and 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.960 four book on the American militia movement. These citizen grand 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.920 juries actually date back to the nineteen seventies with Christian 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:31.240 identity extremists. Christian identity has come up before. We talked 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.200 about it briefly in the episode about Christopher Hassen, the 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.800 Coastguard lieutenant who was stockpiling guns and planning to assassinate 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.960 the Supreme Court, but was too addicted to opiates to 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:45.400 make much progress. He'd spent some time researching Christian identity 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:49.000 online before writing to a longtime white nationalist leader named 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:53.680 Harold Covington about his plans to make changes to society 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:59.920 with quote a little focused violence and Christian identity kind 0:16:59.920 --> 0:17:05.080 of sounds like it might mean someone whose identity is Christian, Right, 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.720 It's just someone who considers themselves to be a Christian. 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:14.040 But that's not what it means at all. It refers 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.520 to a specific set of extremist beliefs that white Europeans 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.919 are God's true chosen people. It is a deeply anti 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.920 Semitic belief system, and one whose followers are often very 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:31.520 willing to engage in violence. The earliest example levatas sites 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.520 of a written threat to bring a citizen's grand jury 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:39.080 indictment is a tax protester in Michigan in nineteen seventy 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.399 two who threatened to indict local authorities trying to enforce 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:47.000 a core order. And in nineteen seventy five, Richard Butler, 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.480 another weird little guy's recurring character, led a group of 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.000 fifty followers to try to arrest a policeman in Kurdalene, 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.960 Idaho before the officer could testify against a member of 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.560 the group who'd been charged with assault with a day weapon. 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.679 Richard Butler wasn't leading the Aryan Nations yet at that point, 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:22.760 but he was already a prominent figure within Christian identity. 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:29.639 So the super American Grand Jury had deep roots in 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.679 dark places, and it was not so super and not 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.719 a grand jury at all. It was just a collection 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.240 of conspiracists who wrote their own indictment against the president, 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.160 and then they went to a federal courthouse in Washington, 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:52.200 d c. And filed it. Judge Royce Lambert promptly dismissed them. 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.480 I guess maybe dismiss is a tricky word to use here, 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:00.359 because a real indictment can be dismissed by a judge, 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.479 and that's not what happened here, because this was not 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:08.000 a real indictment. What Judge Lamberth actually did was issue 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.320 in order denying them permission to have even filed it 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:16.879 at all, writing, any self styled indictment or presentment issued 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.200 by such a group has no force under the Constitution 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:25.399 or laws of the United States. Judge Lamberth took senior 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:29.080 status in twenty thirteen, meaning he's kind of retired but 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.720 still working. So he is actually still a federal judge 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.600 in DC today and has presided over quite a few 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.040 of the January six cases, most notably the trial of 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:44.240 the QAnon shaman Jacob Chansley in twenty twenty three, fourteen 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.760 years after he kicked those Birthers out of his court 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.320 for trying to arrest the president. He was dismayed to 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:54.159 see Republican politicians trafficking in rhetoric that downplayed the events 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.280 of January sixth, writing in a court filing in one 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:01.960 of those cases, the court. 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.520 Is accustomed to defendants who refuse to accept that they 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.480 did anything wrong, But in my thirty seven years on 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.560 the bench, I cannot recall a time when such meritless 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.640 justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream. I have been 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.879 dismayed to see distortions in outright falsehood seep into the 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.479 public consciousness. I've been shocked to watch some public figures 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.080 try to rewrite history cleming rioters behaved in an orderly 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.760 fashion like ordinary tourists, or mortyrrizing convicted January sixth defendants 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:35.760 as political prisoners or even incredibly hostages. That is all preposterous. 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:40.320 The court fears that such destructive, misguided rhetoric could pressage 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.080 further danger to our country. 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:49.119 So the Super American grand Jury's first indictment didn't work, 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.240 but that didn't stop them. That's sort of a theme here. 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:58.439 Nothing really seems to deter them. One of those Super 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:04.280 American grandeurors was a Georgia man named Carl Swenson. Swenson 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.760 is a very special kind of conspiracy theorist called a 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:13.280 sovereign citizen. It's a strange and complicated set of beliefs 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:15.320 that I can't really do justice in the time we 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.439 have for this story, but it's a kind of legal 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:23.080 magical thinking. There's a lot of crossover between sovereign citizens 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:27.360 and other kinds of conspiratorial belief and a not insignificant 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:32.159 amount of sovereign citizen belief within the militia movement, and 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:37.240 sovereign citizens generally believe that there are certain secret procedural 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:40.399 loopholes that they can use to avoid being subject to 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:46.119 the law, anything from traffic stops to income taxes. To 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:50.360 be honest, it's almost always traffic stops and income taxes. 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.000 You've probably heard jokes about a guy in a courtroom 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.800 proclaiming that the judge has no authority over him because 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.119 there's gold fringe on the flag in the courtroom and 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.399 that means that Admirals law is in effect. Or maybe 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.080 you've heard of someone being pulled over and refusing to 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:08.320 produce a driver's license, arguing with the cop that they 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.879 don't need a driver's license because they're not driving. They're 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:17.000 traveling and it's different. I've only seen one in court 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:19.880 in real life, and it was a young woman appealing 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.920 a conviction for driving without a license. She just kept 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.600 yelling at the judge, I do not contract with the 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:31.720 Department of Motor Vehicles. It did not work. She was 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:38.000 unsuccessful in that appeal. A month after Judge Lamberth told 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:41.520 the Super American Grand jury that they couldn't just make 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.840 their own grand jury. Carl Swinson and a few of 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:48.639 the others submitted a new case to the court. If 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:51.440 they couldn't be their own grand jury, then the court 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:56.800 should convene one for them. Judge Lamberth once again declined, 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:01.920 explaining that a general grievance about the government doesn't give 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:06.360 them standing to file this complaint. There was some kind 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:10.160 of procedural mishap in the court clerk's office, though, and 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:14.440 the docket was left open by accident. This normally wouldn't 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:18.240 matter at all. No lawyer would keep filing motions at 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:22.560 a closed case. But they did not have lawyers, and 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:27.480 one of Swinson's co petitioners, Penny Kelso, filed a bizarre 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:32.000 seven page document four years later, demanding that the judge 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:36.240 take action. It has a lot of prayers in it 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:41.360 and links to blogs and random excerpts from the Constitution, 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:46.919 and the last page is just illegible handwritten notes, and 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:51.359 I can kind of make out something about Benghazi. And 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:59.199 she signed this whole thing penny Kelso DVM, which is 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:04.720 technical true. Penny Kelso does have a doctorate of veterinary medicine, 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:09.200 but the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners has suspended 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:13.320 her license half a dozen times for things like watching 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:17.639 a C section on someone's dog, duct taping bandages to 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:22.440 animals in a way that caused harm, improperly confining animals 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:27.320 in a kennel, and falsifying records related to mandatory continuing 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:32.840 education hours. Penny doesn't actually come up again in this story. 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:36.719 She's not really relevant here. I just wanted to make 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:39.919 sure you know that at least one person involved in 0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:47.439 this whole situation has killed a puppy. So they couldn't 0:24:47.440 --> 0:24:51.280 sue the president, They couldn't issue their own federal indictment, 0:24:52.320 --> 0:24:55.920 they couldn't make a judge convene a federal grand jury. 0:24:56.480 --> 0:25:00.800 But they had incontrovertible proof that Baraco Obama could not 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:04.800 be the president, and it was their duty as Americans 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:10.400 to have him arrested. If this false president's collaborators in Washington, 0:25:10.480 --> 0:25:14.480 d C. Wouldn't heed their demands, maybe a grand Jerry 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:20.919 foreman in a small town in rural Tennessee would. Sweetwater, 0:25:20.960 --> 0:25:24.680 Tennessee is a small town straddling the line between McMinn 0:25:24.720 --> 0:25:28.840 and Monroe Counties. A bit of geography that explains why 0:25:28.920 --> 0:25:32.960 Sweetwater resident Walter Fitzpatrick would eventually go to jail for 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:37.600 trying to perform citizens arrests on courthouse employees in both counties. 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:41.360 In March of two thousand and nine, he drafted his 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:45.280 own indictment against Barack Obama. He went down to the 0:25:45.320 --> 0:25:48.480 county courthouse and notarized the following letter. 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:55.600 I have observed and extensively recorded treacherous attacks by military 0:25:55.640 --> 0:26:00.600 political aristocrats against the United States Constitution for twenty years now, 0:26:00.760 --> 0:26:03.640 and yet another betrayal, you have broken in and entered 0:26:03.640 --> 0:26:07.480 the White House by force of contrivance, concealment, conceit, dissembling, 0:26:07.520 --> 0:26:11.200 and deceit, posing as an imposter President and Commander in Chief, 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:14.840 who have stripped civilian command and control over the military establishment. 0:26:15.520 --> 0:26:19.320 Known military criminal actors command racketeers are now free in 0:26:19.359 --> 0:26:23.040 the exercise of military government, intent upon destruction of America's 0:26:23.080 --> 0:26:28.520 constitutional government, free from constitutional restraint, and following your criminal example, 0:26:28.840 --> 0:26:33.160 military commanders deployed US Army active duty combat troops into 0:26:33.200 --> 0:26:36.439 the small civilian community of Samson, Alabama, last week in 0:26:36.480 --> 0:26:41.399 a demonstration of their newly received despotic domestic police power. 0:26:42.000 --> 0:26:45.280 We come now to this reckoning. I accuse you and 0:26:45.400 --> 0:26:49.640 your military political criminal assistance of treason. I name you 0:26:49.680 --> 0:26:54.400 and your military criminal associates as traitors. Your criminal ascension 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:58.639 manifests this clear and present danger. You fundamentally changed our 0:26:58.680 --> 0:27:02.840 form of government. Constitution no longer works confident holding your 0:27:02.880 --> 0:27:06.639 silent agreement and admission. I identify you as a foreign born, 0:27:06.720 --> 0:27:10.760 domestic enemy. My sworn duty, mister Obama, is to stand 0:27:10.800 --> 0:27:14.040 against what you stand for. You're not my president, you're 0:27:14.119 --> 0:27:17.159 not my commander in chief. Obedient to the constitution and 0:27:17.200 --> 0:27:20.960 submission of this criminal accusation, I remain stepfast and born fighting. 0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:27.680 Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, the third, there's. 0:27:27.520 --> 0:27:32.360 A lot going on there. You probably have some questions 0:27:32.400 --> 0:27:35.680 about Walter's claims. Will take him one at a time. 0:27:37.119 --> 0:27:41.000 The twenty years of experience fighting the treacherous attacks on 0:27:41.040 --> 0:27:45.840 the constitution by the military political aristocrats, well that's about 0:27:45.880 --> 0:27:49.600 how long he's been writing a blog. He started his blog, 0:27:49.880 --> 0:27:52.879 Jag Hunters, after he was pushed out of the Navy. 0:27:54.840 --> 0:27:57.879 Fitzpatrick was allowed to serve out his nineteen and a 0:27:57.920 --> 0:28:01.080 half years, rounding up to twenty so he could receive 0:28:01.119 --> 0:28:04.560 his pension, but his last four years in the Navy 0:28:04.640 --> 0:28:09.240 were humiliating. He was convicted in a court martial in 0:28:09.320 --> 0:28:12.960 nineteen ninety for improperly accounting for the morale, welfare and 0:28:13.000 --> 0:28:17.399 recreation funds for the sailors aboard the USS Mars of 0:28:17.440 --> 0:28:21.600 which he was the executive officer at the time. He 0:28:21.720 --> 0:28:24.800 was found not guilty on charges of stealing twenty eight 0:28:24.880 --> 0:28:30.639 hundred dollars, misappropriating another ten four hundred dollars, and improper 0:28:30.760 --> 0:28:34.879 use of a government vehicle, and his only sentence was 0:28:35.280 --> 0:28:40.040 a reprimand all things considered, it could have been worse. 0:28:41.120 --> 0:28:45.840 He was basically convicted of bad record keeping and given 0:28:45.840 --> 0:28:48.960 a talking to. He didn't have to go to the 0:28:49.000 --> 0:28:53.000