Speaker 1: Call Zone Media.
Speaker 2: When we left off last week, Walter Francis Fitzpatrick I
Speaker 2: had been taken into custody outside the Monroe County Courthouse
Speaker 2: in Madisonville, Tennessee, on April first, twenty ten. Fitzpatrick barged
Speaker 2: into a closed grand jury proceeding and attempted to place
Speaker 2: Monroe County grand Jury Foreman Gary Petway under citizen's arrest.
Speaker 2: Fitzpatrick had written up his own arrest warrant, charging Petway
Speaker 2: with obstruction of justice for his refusal to issue an
Speaker 2: indictment against Barack Obama for treason. Walter Fitzpatrick did not
Speaker 2: have the authority to draw up his own arrest warrants
Speaker 2: any more than a county court in hour south of
Speaker 2: Knoxville had the authority to indict the president on a
Speaker 2: federal crime. But none of that really mattered to the
Speaker 2: small crowd of supporters outside, who were sure that they
Speaker 2: were closer than ever to arresting the president. Darren Huff,
Speaker 2: an oathkeeper from Georgia, was among those supporters. He was
Speaker 2: standing by with his video camera, hoping to capture Fitzpatrick's
Speaker 2: victory against the corrupt county grand jury.
Speaker 3: You have been notified you've been told mister Petway has
Speaker 3: just been placed under citizens arrest.
Speaker 4: My name is Walter Fitzpatrick.
Speaker 3: I have just placed mister Petway under citizens arrest.
Speaker 2: But when the doors opened again, it was not Gary
Speaker 2: Petway who was being escorted out by the Sheriff's deputies.
Speaker 2: It was Walter Fitzpatrick.
Speaker 5: They were leaving those or why because you just interrupted
Speaker 5: a court proceeding.
Speaker 4: The rest of us would get arrested for that. However,
Speaker 4: all of you, thank you're special.
Speaker 5: So now we're leaving the courthouse and then what then
Speaker 5: you're free to go Otherwise you're going to get arrested
Speaker 5: to afree to come back in No.
Speaker 1: Sir, and he could have just left.
Speaker 2: As the deputy points out, he's kind of being treated
Speaker 2: with kid gloves here. He's already broken the law, but
Speaker 2: nobody really wants to deal with this old crank and
Speaker 2: his fan club.
Speaker 1: But instead of leaving, Fitzpatrick pivoted.
Speaker 2: Now he's placing the sheriff himself under arrest. In the
Speaker 2: audio recording, you can hear the deputy sigh dramatically as
Speaker 2: Fitzpatrick begins reading the officers their rights and they realize
Speaker 2: that the only way Fitzpatrick is leaving the building is
Speaker 2: in handcuffs.
Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick was charged.
Speaker 2: With interfering with a grand jury, resisting arrest, and inciting
Speaker 2: a riot. He was held in the county jail over
Speaker 2: the weekend, during which time he reportedly refused to eat
Speaker 2: or drink, and was offered a fifteen hundred dollars bond
Speaker 2: on the condition that he undergo a psychiatric evaluation. On
Speaker 2: April seven, the day after Fitzpatrick was released, Darren Huff
Speaker 2: made the drive from his home in Georgia back up
Speaker 2: to Madisonville. In a text message Huff sent a friend
Speaker 2: on his way home that night, he said he'd spent
Speaker 2: the day meeting with Fitzpatrick going over the plan. They
Speaker 2: were coordinating with multiple groups to show up for what
Speaker 2: Huff called Phase two. When Walter Fitzpatrick appeared for his
Speaker 2: court date on April twentieth, he wasn't going to be alone.
Speaker 2: I'm Molly Conger and this is weird, little guys. This
Speaker 2: episode is about Darren Huff. I mean, the last episode
Speaker 2: was supposed to be about Darren Huff. Was the story
Speaker 2: I sat down to write in the first place, But
Speaker 2: my vague recollection of the story of some oathkeeper with
Speaker 2: a hair brain scheme to citizens arrest and entire county
Speaker 2: court turned up something a little more complicated that keeps happening.
Speaker 2: It turns out history is always a little messy. No
Speaker 2: one is really the sole protagonist in their own story.
Speaker 2: Life doesn't really work that way. But if you listened
Speaker 2: to last week's episode, now you have some contexts for
Speaker 2: the baffling confidence Walter Fitzpatrick and Darren Huff seemed to
Speaker 2: have in their plan. They'd both been completely swept up
Speaker 2: in this nationwide right wing mania of Birtherism, the conspiracy
Speaker 2: theory that Barack Obama was ineligible to serve as the
Speaker 2: president of the United States because he had been born
Speaker 2: in Kenya. Walter Fitzpatrick as bizarre and disconnected from reality
Speaker 2: as his ideas sound. Was far from the only American
Speaker 2: who was barging in to a court clerk's office every
Speaker 2: week to demand something be done about the president's acts
Speaker 2: of treason.
Speaker 1: It was everywhere.
Speaker 2: Everyone from Chuck Norris to Donald Trump was asking is
Speaker 2: Barack Obama a natural born citizen of.
Speaker 1: The United States.
Speaker 2: Politicians like Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich flirted
Speaker 2: with the idea, walking right up to the line and
Speaker 2: then claiming they'd misspoken or been misunderstood. Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle
Speaker 2: Bachmann said she would proudly produce her own birth certificate.
Speaker 2: Alabama Senator Richard Shelby denied that he'd told a newspaper
Speaker 2: that he'd like to see Barack Obama's birth certificate. Missouri
Speaker 2: Congressman Roy Blunt said he'd been taken out of context
Speaker 2: after telling a reporter that there was no legitimate reason
Speaker 2: for the president not to produce his birth certificate. This
Speaker 2: wasn't something that existed only at the nic fringe of
Speaker 2: political discourse. Mainstream politicians and celebrities were just asking questions,
Speaker 2: never mind the kinds of things their supporters might do
Speaker 2: to try to get answers. So, after an entire year
Speaker 2: of unsuccessfully petitioning his local county grand jury to bring
Speaker 2: charges against Barack Obama, Walter Fitzpatrick was frustrated, and when
Speaker 2: he barged into that courtroom on April first, twenty ten,
Speaker 2: both Keeper Darren Huff and Sovereign Citizen Carl Swenson were
Speaker 2: among those waiting just outside, and after the tables were
Speaker 2: turned that day with this citizen's arrest turning into just
Speaker 2: a citizen getting arrested. Darren Huff and Carl Swenson vowed
Speaker 2: to return not just to support their friend at his
Speaker 2: next court date, but to carry out a bigger, better
Speaker 2: version of the plan.
Speaker 6: You who have been on the fence must get off
Speaker 6: of that fence. Please go to the courthouse in mass
Speaker 6: and demand justice. He is honoring his oath. To all
Speaker 6: of you out there who have taken that oath, I
Speaker 6: ask you right now to honor yours. Get down there,
Speaker 6: get him out of jail, and make sure that justice
Speaker 6: has served. My name is CARLS. Winston.
Speaker 1: The call was put out.
Speaker 2: If you believe in the cause, if you believe in
Speaker 2: the constitution, you must stand with Walter Fitzpatrick against the
Speaker 2: Monroe County courts. He was scheduled to appear on April twentieth,
Speaker 2: and true patriots had an obligation to be there. Between
Speaker 2: Fitzpatrick's release on the sixth and his court date on
Speaker 2: the twentieth, they had just two weeks to prepare, according
Speaker 2: to the court records. Darren Huff appeared in several videos
Speaker 2: about the events in Madisonville that were posted on Carl
Speaker 2: Swinson's website Rise Upfroamerica dot com. Archived pages of that
Speaker 2: site do still exist, and I can read the text
Speaker 2: on those pages, but the videos were all embedded with
Speaker 2: flash Player. So Darren's calls to action maybe lost to
Speaker 2: the sands of time. But we have some pretty solid
Speaker 2: sources that can give us an idea of what was
Speaker 2: on Darren's mind during those two weeks, because Darren Huff
Speaker 2: has never once in his life shut his goddamn mouth.
Speaker 2: On April fifteenth, Darren Huff stopped at the Chase Bank
Speaker 2: in Hiram, Georgia.
Speaker 1: He ran a.
Speaker 2: Small business doing outdoor lighting, so he stopped by often
Speaker 2: to deposit checks. According to Erica, the bank teller who
Speaker 2: testified at his trial, most of the employees at the
Speaker 2: branch knew him well enough to make friendly conversation, but
Speaker 2: if she was working, he would wait in her line
Speaker 2: even if another teller was free. But that evening he
Speaker 2: wasn't making his usual jokes.
Speaker 1: He was deadly serious.
Speaker 2: Erica testified that Huff just launched right into telling her
Speaker 2: about Walter Fitzpatrick and his upcoming trial in Madisonville, Tennessee,
Speaker 2: a situation she had no context, for she'd never heard
Speaker 2: of Walter Fitzpatrick, and she'd never been to Madisonville, Tennessee.
Speaker 2: She was the only teller at the counter. The bank
Speaker 2: was about to close for the night, and suddenly this
Speaker 2: normally friendly customer is leaning over the counter telling her
Speaker 2: that he was going to be spending this weekend mounting
Speaker 2: an anti aircraft gun to the back of his pickup
Speaker 2: truck because he and his militia were going to take
Speaker 2: over a small town in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: On Tuesday.
Speaker 2: A conversation got so intense that another employee went to
Speaker 2: go get the manager, Shane. In his testimony at trial,
Speaker 2: Shane too said that Huff was a regular customer at
Speaker 2: the bank, and over the years he'd gotten to know
Speaker 2: him a bit. Sometime in two thousand and nine, Huff
Speaker 2: got really political, and when he made small talk with
Speaker 2: the bank tellers, it was usually about his anti government
Speaker 2: beliefs and various conspiracy theories. So when another employee came
Speaker 2: to get him that night because Huff was making Erica uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: he probably wasn't surprised. He tried guiding the conversation back
Speaker 2: to safer territory, asking Huff if he'd be taking his
Speaker 2: video camera with him again on this trip, but the
Speaker 2: response was an alarming one. Huff told him it would
Speaker 2: be kind of hard to hold the camera because he
Speaker 2: planned to be quote on the front line with two
Speaker 2: Ak forty sevens. He told the bank employees that they'd
Speaker 2: probably see him on the news next week, and as
Speaker 2: he was leaving, he told Erica, it was nice knowing you.
Speaker 2: If I never see you again. Not to get ahead
Speaker 2: of myself, but do you want to jump ahead here
Speaker 2: and say Darren Huff would later accuse those two bank
Speaker 2: employees of lying under oath. Obviously, there's no proving what
Speaker 2: was or wasn't said at the bank that evening, But
Speaker 2: within hours of that interaction, Erica was on the phone
Speaker 2: with Madisonville, Tennessee, Police Chief Greg Breeden, and he recorded
Speaker 2: that phone call, so we have a fairly contemporaneous recollection
Speaker 2: of what was said. She related to Chief Breeden that
Speaker 2: Huff told her that he was intending to travel to Madisonville, Tennessee,
Speaker 2: on April twentieth for Walter Fitzpatrick's court hearing, that he
Speaker 2: would be armed with AK forty seven's and an anti
Speaker 2: aircraft gun, that he would be with other militia members,
Speaker 2: and that the group intended to carry out citizens arrests
Speaker 2: of various local officials and seize control of the courthouse.
Speaker 2: And Darren Huff was found to be in possession of
Speaker 2: printed copies of those citizens arrest warrants, and he would
Speaker 2: later admit under oath that at that time he was
Speaker 2: in possession of an anti aircraft gun and a pedestal
Speaker 2: mount that could be installed in the bed of his truck.
Speaker 1: She would have had no way.
Speaker 2: Of knowing any of that at the time if he
Speaker 2: hadn't told her himself, and she's on tape reporting it
Speaker 2: to the police long before she could have read anything
Speaker 2: in the news or been coached by an FBI agent
Speaker 2: to say these things. Both Shane and Erica were understandably
Speaker 2: deeply unsettled by that interaction. Immediately after leaving work that evening,
Speaker 2: Erica called a friend who worked in local government, who
Speaker 2: helped her find the phone number for the Madisonville, Tennessee
Speaker 2: Police Department. Jane's wife urged him to call their own
Speaker 2: sheriff in Paulding County, Georgia, and by the end of
Speaker 2: the night, both bank employees had shared their concerns with
Speaker 2: the police and by Monday they'd met with FBI agents.
Speaker 2: And it was on Monday, April nineteenth, the day before
Speaker 2: the planned occupation of Madisonville, Tennessee, that an FBI agent
Speaker 2: knocked on Darren Huff's front door. Supervisory Special Agent Charles Reid,
Speaker 2: accompanied by a couple of deputies from the Paulding County
Speaker 2: Sheriff's Office, just wanted to have a word with him,
Speaker 2: and Darren Huff voluntarily stepped out onto his front porch
Speaker 2: and he chatted with the agent for about as long
Speaker 2: as it took him to finish a cigarette. It was
Speaker 2: a brief conversation. Agent Reid recalls that Huff was pretty
Speaker 2: open about his plan to drive to Tennessee in the morning.
Speaker 2: He said he'd have his CULT forty five on his
Speaker 2: hip and his AK forty seven was in the truck.
Speaker 2: He freely volunteered to the agent that he was a
Speaker 2: member of both the Oath Keepers and the Georgia Militia.
Speaker 2: He said that the plan was to execute citizens, arrest warrants,
Speaker 2: and quote take back Madisonville, but that the group would
Speaker 2: not resort to violence unless they were provoked. When Darren
Speaker 2: Huff took the stand at his own trial. He recalled,
Speaker 2: telling Agent Read that evening that he'd love it if
Speaker 2: the FBI would be there in Madisonville. Again, remember last
Speaker 2: week that letter that Walter Fitzpatrick sent the police chief
Speaker 2: of Madisonville before all of this got started. He wasn't
Speaker 2: making threats. He was inviting the police to be part
Speaker 2: of his plan. And that's the same mindset Darren has here.
Speaker 2: He even gave the FBI agent his business card. I
Speaker 2: had to double check here because Darren's business cards do
Speaker 2: come up again later, but it sounds like the business
Speaker 2: card he gave Agent Read the night before the big
Speaker 2: day was just a normal business card, a real one
Speaker 2: for his outdoor lighting business. It wasn't until after he
Speaker 2: was arrested that he got new business cards printed that
Speaker 2: said Darren Huff, right wing extremist and potential domestic terrorist.
Speaker 2: But when he finished his cigarette, the conversation was over.
Speaker 2: Agent Reid had no reason to arrest him. Huff had
Speaker 2: expressed to him a plan to commit a federal crime,
Speaker 2: the one he would eventually be arrested for, but he
Speaker 2: hadn't actually done it yet. There was no federal crime
Speaker 2: here until Darren Huff put his guns in the truck
Speaker 2: and drove across the state line from Georgia into Tennessee
Speaker 2: with the intent to engage in a little civil disorder.
Speaker 2: So Agent Reid left, but another agent stayed nearby all night,
Speaker 2: watching and waiting for the truck to pull out of
Speaker 2: the driveway. Darren Huff was under FBI surveillance when he
Speaker 2: hit the road just before dawn on April twentieth, twenty ten,
Speaker 2: fifteen am, he was observed crossing the state line, and
Speaker 2: just after seven am, Tennessee State Trooper Michael Wilson followed
Speaker 2: Huff's truck as he took Exit sixty off I seventy
Speaker 2: five towards Madisonville. Whether or not Huff rolled through the
Speaker 2: stop sign at the bottom of the exit ramp is
Speaker 2: a matter of some debate, but Trooper Wilson flashed his
Speaker 2: blue lights and pulled him over. This traffic stop ends
Speaker 2: up being central to Huff's case on appeal, but it
Speaker 2: isn't where he got arrested. He actually didn't even get
Speaker 2: a ticket, but Trooper Wilson and Darren Huff spent over
Speaker 2: an hour together there on the shoulder of Tennessee Highway
Speaker 2: sixty eight. When Huff was asked to step out of
Speaker 2: the vehicle. He had his CULT forty five on his hip.
Speaker 2: The officer unholstered the weapon, removed the magazine, checked the chamber,
Speaker 2: and put the weapon in his patrol car for safekeeping.
Speaker 2: Darren Huff produced a valid Georgia driver's license, but he
Speaker 2: didn't have his truck's registration on him. He assured the
Speaker 2: officer that the gun was legal and handed him a
Speaker 2: piece of paper that he said was a gun carry permit.
Speaker 2: In his testimony, the troopers said the document looked quote,
Speaker 2: very unprofessional, and he was concerned it might not be real.
Speaker 2: He spent an hour going back and forth with Dispatch
Speaker 2: about this strange document and was never able to verify
Speaker 2: whether Huff actually had a valid carry permit for that gun.
Speaker 2: And during that hour, while they were trying to sort
Speaker 2: it out, Darren Huff talked. He talked a lot, He
Speaker 2: ran his mouth the entire time, and the entire conversation
Speaker 2: was recorded on the officer's dash cam, which was connected
Speaker 2: to a microphone on his uniform. And in their conversation,
Speaker 2: Darren explained his whole plan. They had arrest warrants for
Speaker 2: the Grand jury reforman the district attorney, the sheriff, the judge,
Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi, et cetera. He recommended some YouTube videos the
Speaker 2: officers should watch to learn more about Barack Obama's crimes,
Speaker 2: and he told them they needed to be reading Walter
Speaker 2: Fitzpatrick's blog. In the portions of this audio that I
Speaker 2: could find, the officers seem to be playing along. They're
Speaker 2: mostly just letting him talk without interruption, but occasionally they
Speaker 2: asked some questions about how exactly the plan is going
Speaker 2: to work, and Darren's happy to explain because he's actually
Speaker 2: going to need their help.
Speaker 5: And then at that point they would be placed in
Speaker 5: the custody and you know, turn this man over you.
Speaker 5: I don't have handcuffs, right, you know, somebody we would
Speaker 5: need somebody like you guys there. And I can't tell
Speaker 5: you how much I appreciate you guys listening.
Speaker 2: Again, this is exactly like Fitzpatrick's letter to the police chief.
Speaker 2: He's telling the cops what they plan to do and
Speaker 2: trying to get them to be a part of it.
Speaker 2: The audio is a little fuzzy because they're standing on
Speaker 2: the side of the highway in the rain, but he
Speaker 2: wants the officers to agree to receive these prisoners once
Speaker 2: they've been citizens arrested. But that wasn't all. He was
Speaker 2: worried about a lot more than just the corrupt government
Speaker 2: in Monroe County, Tennessee. He shared his concerns about the
Speaker 2: Affordable Care Act, which had just been signed into law.
Speaker 1: A few weeks earlier.
Speaker 2: Of course, he was upset that this was communism, obviously,
Speaker 2: but more importantly, he was very worried because this law
Speaker 2: requires that all Americans be implanted with the mark of
Speaker 2: the Beast. As foretold in Revelations.
Speaker 7: Liek.
Speaker 5: Ten eighteen, Jesus said, and I beheld Satan as lightning
Speaker 5: fall from heaven. The Greek translation from lightning is barock.
Speaker 5: Now jess didn't speak Greek. He spoke Hebrew, so you
Speaker 5: can look it up into Hebrew. Still barack lat and
Speaker 5: heaven translates from Hebrew. Who or oh bomber? So Jesus said,
Speaker 5: out of his own lips, I saw Satan as work bomb.
Speaker 2: He went on to explain that he was opposed to
Speaker 2: the war in the Middle East, though he notes that
Speaker 2: he does think quote Muslims suck end quote, but also
Speaker 2: nine to eleven was an inside job. He tells the officers,
Speaker 2: that they who are all white men, are God's true
Speaker 2: chosen people, that Caucasians are the real Israelites, and biblical
Speaker 2: prophecy foretold the re establishment of Israel in seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 2: Remember last week when we touched briefly on Christian identity,
Speaker 2: That's what this is. Darren Huff is a self proclaimed
Speaker 2: pastor in the Christian identity movement. He's standing there on
Speaker 2: the side of the highway, surrounded by cops, preaching Christian
Speaker 2: identity and trying to recruit them to.
Speaker 1: The oath Keepers.
Speaker 2: It remains very unclear to me why the trooper gave
Speaker 2: Huff his gun back, but he did. At eight thirteen am.
Speaker 2: He handed Darren Huff a written warning, returned his COLT
Speaker 2: forty five, and told him he was free to go.
Speaker 2: The men shook hands and Huff thanked the officer and
Speaker 2: he took a few steps back toward his truck before
Speaker 2: he stopped turned around and said, let me pre warn you,
Speaker 2: if enough of us show up today, we are going
Speaker 2: to proceed forward in this citizen's arrest. That's why I
Speaker 2: have my forty five. Ain't no government official going peacefully?
Speaker 2: And then he slid his Colt forty five back into
Speaker 2: his holster, climbed into his pickup truck that said oath
Speaker 2: keepers all down one side, and drove the last few
Speaker 2: miles into Madisonville, Tennessee. At five o'clock that morning, more
Speaker 2: than fifty police officers from multiple jurisdictions in and around
Speaker 2: Monroe County, Tennessee, gathered for a briefing. There were FBI
Speaker 2: agents from the Joint Terrace and Task Force and at
Speaker 2: least one representative from the Department of Homeland Security. They'd
Speaker 2: been monitoring the online chatter about Walter Fitzpatrick's hearing at
Speaker 2: the courthouse at nine am, and they were worried. The
Speaker 2: intelligence they had was that as many as six hundred
Speaker 2: people might be on their way to Madisonville, Tennessee. They
Speaker 2: had undercovers stationed in nearby businesses and snipers on rooftops.
Speaker 2: One of those undercover officers was Mike Hall, the director
Speaker 2: of a regional violent crime task force in Tennessee. In
Speaker 2: plain clothes, he got a table at Donna's in Cafe,
Speaker 2: a block from City Hall, where Fitzpatrick's supporters would be
Speaker 2: meeting for breakfast. And maybe the police should have known
Speaker 2: that They probably weren't expecting six hundred armed militiamen if
Speaker 2: they knew that they had booked tables at Donna's cafe.
Speaker 2: But that's neither here nor there, And by the time
Speaker 2: breakfast was over, barely twenty supporters were packed into the
Speaker 2: dining room, finishing their biscuits and coffee as Darren Huff
Speaker 2: gave a rousing speech about taking his AK forty seven
Speaker 2: down to the courthouse. Carl Swinson's dead website isn't exactly
Speaker 2: easy to navigate, so maybe the whole speech was there
Speaker 2: at some point, but I was only able to dig
Speaker 2: up an audio file of the first six minutes or so,
Speaker 2: and it's pretty inspiring stuff.
Speaker 3: So as a Christians, as lieutenant commander said, I'm chaplain
Speaker 3: for the Georgia Militia, so I look at things a
Speaker 3: little bit differently, and I look at them basically, And
Speaker 3: I told these guys, and I tell everybody, I'm not
Speaker 3: a very smart guy. In fact, the only thing that
Speaker 3: I know about the Constitution are the first few amendments.
Speaker 5: Those leave me the hell alone ones.
Speaker 7: That's what I know, and I know them well enough
Speaker 7: to say you're wrong.
Speaker 5: You can't do this.
Speaker 2: Over the sound of clinking forks on plates the Christian
Speaker 2: Identity militia. Chaplin explains that they are preparing for spiritual war,
Speaker 2: that we were already in the end times, as we're
Speaker 2: told in Revelations see the founding of the United States
Speaker 2: was biblical prophecy. God knew that in seventeen seventy six
Speaker 2: the thirteen tribes of Israel would be called back together
Speaker 2: as the thirteen Colonies.
Speaker 1: Yes, at thirteen, I know.
Speaker 2: It's twelve, twelve tribes of Israel.
Speaker 1: You know it's twelve.
Speaker 2: But Darren is counting Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manassa separately,
Speaker 2: and that's why he thinks it's thirteen. And I know
Speaker 2: that because he mentions Joseph's sons specifically, because otherwise I
Speaker 2: might have assumed he was talking about something different. We
Speaker 2: don't need to get into the specifics here. But adherents
Speaker 2: of Christian identity believe that they are the real Israelites,
Speaker 2: so they have to explain the existence of actual Jews
Speaker 2: some other way, and that usually boils down to a
Speaker 2: theory that Ashkenazi Jews are actually descended from a Turkic
Speaker 2: race called the Kasars. Christian identity guys really love this
Speaker 2: book from the seventies called The Thirteenth Tribe, which makes
Speaker 2: the case for this theory. Honestly, please don't make me
Speaker 2: explain the Kazar hypothesis every time I see a guy
Speaker 2: posting about Kasar's I'm just.
Speaker 1: Not having a good time.
Speaker 2: But what Darren was saying might actually be weirder.
Speaker 5: Jacob went like this, he blessed them the way God
Speaker 5: intended him to bless them. That crossing of the arms.
Speaker 3: Is on that flag.
Speaker 6: That's where that.
Speaker 7: Cross comes from.
Speaker 3: It has nothing to do with rednecks. It has nothing
Speaker 3: to do with the Confederacy.
Speaker 5: It has everything to do with God's shows people.
Speaker 2: Now this was a new one for me. I've never
Speaker 2: heard this one before. What he's saying here is that
Speaker 2: the Confederate flag symbolizes Jacob's blessing of Joseph's sons. I
Speaker 2: don't know what the aid to be to see here is,
Speaker 2: but I guess the Confederacy was the thirteenth Tribe of Israel. Honestly,
Speaker 2: I don't want to know. I don't want to know.
Speaker 2: That way lies madness. So after his big speech, Darren
Speaker 2: Huff steps outside Mike Hall, our undercover officer testified that
Speaker 2: he overheard Huff's conversation with a man that he doesn't name,
Speaker 2: but who, like Huff, was visibly armed, and Huff laments
Speaker 2: to this man that he wishes they had more people,
Speaker 2: saying quote, today would be a good day to do
Speaker 2: it because it's raining and the police wouldn't expect them
Speaker 2: to make a move in the rain. And Darren Huff
Speaker 2: wasn't the only one who excused himself from the table
Speaker 2: after this speech. Carl Swenson, our sovereign citizen and the
Speaker 2: primary instigator of the online uproar calling people to Madisonville,
Speaker 2: got a phone call to make.
Speaker 8: All right, ladies and gentlemen. I'm here with my special
Speaker 8: guest lieuten of Colonel Terry Lagan and his toorney Paul Jensen.
Speaker 8: Colonel Lincoln is the army officer who has challenged the
Speaker 8: legitimacy of Barack Obama to act as commander in chief.
Speaker 8: Also with me is doctor Jerome Corsy and going to
Speaker 8: Tennessee and Carl, Carl, you're on the air.
Speaker 2: That's right, It's Carl and Tennessee And he was live
Speaker 2: on air with g. Gordon Liddy and Jerome Corcy. I
Speaker 2: have to admit I spent the better part of an
Speaker 2: afternoon chasing down this fifteen year old episode of morning
Speaker 2: Talk radio, so I am going to tell you about it.
Speaker 2: On April twelfth, twenty ten, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Terry
Speaker 2: Laken did not report for duty at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Instead,
Speaker 2: he drove to the Pentagon in Washington, d C. Where
Speaker 2: he was read his rights by his commanding officer, Colonel
Speaker 2: Gordon Ray.
Speaker 1: Roberts.
Speaker 2: Unit deployed to Afghanistan that week without him. The eighteen
Speaker 2: year veteran wasn't afraid to return to Afghanistan. This deployment
Speaker 2: would have been the seventh of his career and his
Speaker 2: second to Afghanistan. In two thousand and four, he was
Speaker 2: the Army's Flight Surgeon of the year. He'd been awarded
Speaker 2: a Meritorious Service Medal and a Bronze Star. He was
Speaker 2: on track to be promoted to full colonel within the
Speaker 2: next year. But he had come to realize that his
Speaker 2: deployment orders were unlawful, not on ideological grounds. He wasn't
Speaker 2: protesting the war. He hadn't suddenly become a peace activist
Speaker 2: after seeing the horrors of war firsthand.
Speaker 1: No no, the doctor.
Speaker 2: Was refusing to deploy unless he could see the president's
Speaker 2: birth certificate.
Speaker 4: I will disobey my orders to deploy it because I
Speaker 4: and I believe all servicemen and women and the American
Speaker 4: people deserve the truth about President Obama's cont pituitional eligibility
Speaker 4: to the Office of the Presidency and the commander in Chief.
Speaker 2: A week after disobeying his orders, Lieutenant Colonel Laken appeared
Speaker 2: as a guest on The G. Gordon Liddy Show. Decades
Speaker 2: after dabbling it being an FBI agent doing dirty tricks
Speaker 2: for Richard Dixon and spending a little time in prison
Speaker 2: for his role in the Watergate scandal, Lyddy really hit
Speaker 2: his stride as an extremely right wing talk radio host
Speaker 2: who regularly encouraged listeners to do things like shoot federal
Speaker 2: agents in the head. Robert Evans put out a taggering
Speaker 2: six part series of episodes on G. Gordon Liddy on
Speaker 2: Behind the Bastards last year. So if you're interested in
Speaker 2: hearing some outrageously racist clips of Liddy's radio show, I
Speaker 2: believe those are in part six. But today we're just
Speaker 2: talking about one episode of The G. Gordon Liddy Show,
Speaker 2: the one that aired on April twentieth, twenty ten, because
Speaker 2: that's the episode Carl Swenson called into during the second hour.
Speaker 2: In the first hour of the show, Lyddy interviewed Colonel
Speaker 2: Laken and Lacln's attorney, a California personal injury lawyer named
Speaker 2: Paul Jensen. You might be wondering why an army officer
Speaker 2: facing a court martial would hire a civilian personal injury lawyer,
Speaker 2: And that's a great question. The answer is unclear. In
Speaker 2: my experience, conspiracy theorists and extremists tend to hire attorneys
Speaker 2: who share their beliefs rather than ones who have, say,
Speaker 2: relevant experience in a particular area of law. But in
Speaker 2: this case, it seems very worth mentioning that Paul Jensen
Speaker 2: was a longtime associate of friend to and occasional attorney
Speaker 2: for Roger Stone. In two thousand and seven, it was
Speaker 2: Paul Jensen, acting as Stone's attorney, who publicly released a
Speaker 2: copy of a left the pair claimed they had sent
Speaker 2: to the FBI about Elliot Spitzer's alleged habit of wearing
Speaker 2: nothing but long black socks during his liaisons with sex workers.
Speaker 1: And Jensen represented.
Speaker 2: Stone in twenty sixteen when he was sued over allegations
Speaker 2: that he had been involved in a coordinated campaign of
Speaker 2: voter intimidation. It was Jensen who drafted the paperwork to
Speaker 2: incorporate Stop the Steel in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: So after this interview, G.
Speaker 2: Gordon Liddy opened the phones to hear from listeners on
Speaker 2: the subject of Barack Obama's birth certificate. Caller after caller
Speaker 2: thanked Colonel Laken for his courage and shared their own
Speaker 2: theories about how they could finally get to the truth
Speaker 2: of Barack Obama's birth. And then, after an advertisement for
Speaker 2: gold coins, another berther called into the show, but this
Speaker 2: one wasn't just sitting idly by while Barack Obama pretended
Speaker 2: to be the president.
Speaker 7: Lieutenant Colonel, I want to thank you for everything you're
Speaker 7: doing and I want to give you some encouragement. Here.
Speaker 7: I'm in the city of Madisonville, Tennessee right now in
Speaker 7: Monroe County, where they've had this area on lockdown with FBI, TDI,
Speaker 7: local police and troopers all because of Lieutenant Commander Walter
Speaker 7: Fitzpatrick and his attempts to affect arrest using a criminal
Speaker 7: complaint against Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. And in this case,
Speaker 7: the grand jury members here in the town of Madison, Tennessee.
Speaker 7: People are gathering now, but it is a tenuous situation
Speaker 7: at best.
Speaker 2: Carl closed the call by saying things were getting pretty
Speaker 2: heated out there in Tennessee, and everything they were doing
Speaker 2: was quote indirect support of the message being pushed by
Speaker 2: Colonel Laken and Lyddy himself. G Gordon lyly asked Carl
Speaker 2: to email the show's producer the video of Darren Huff's
Speaker 2: traffic stop so they could get that up on the
Speaker 2: website within the hour. The next caller, Julian Texas, was
Speaker 2: very worried about her sons. They were active duty soldiers
Speaker 2: deployd overseas. She wasn't worried about them being in the war.
Speaker 2: She was worried that because their deployment orders had been
Speaker 2: issued by a false president, that they could ultimately be
Speaker 2: liable for war crimes. I didn't listen to the rest
Speaker 2: of the episode. I don't know if they resolved that,
Speaker 2: but after Darren's rousing speech to the assembled supporters and
Speaker 2: Carl's bold statements on a national radio show, they both
Speaker 2: had to admit that nothing was going to happen that day.
Speaker 2: Their little crowd of twenty was outnumbered three to one
Speaker 2: by a very visible police presence, and according to Walter
Speaker 2: Fitzpatrick's blog, a fair number of those supporters who turned
Speaker 2: up were middle aged women, one of whom brought several
Speaker 2: mo her children with her. Darren had a truck full
Speaker 2: of guns and was bragging about how he had four
Speaker 2: hundred rounds for his AK forty seven, but they just
Speaker 2: didn't have the numbers to do anything that day. The
Speaker 2: only time anybody actually got close to the courthouse was
Speaker 2: when Darren huffed took a bag of biscuits over to
Speaker 2: a detective on the courthouse steps. By the time Fitzpatrick's
Speaker 2: hearing was over, Darren was bored, he was tired, and
Speaker 2: he's ready to go home. So everybody just left. Nothing happened,
Speaker 2: Nobody got arrested.
Speaker 1: That night.
Speaker 2: Oath Keepers founder Stuart Rhodes saw the video Carl Swinson
Speaker 2: posted online of Darren getting pulled over on his way
Speaker 2: to Madisonville. The truck says oath Keepers all down one
Speaker 2: side and huge letters. You really can't miss it. It's
Speaker 2: the official logo of the Oath Keepers, and Rhodes called
Speaker 2: Swinson immediately and demand did he take the video down.
Speaker 2: It was embarrassing, and within days Rhodes himself showed up
Speaker 2: to speak with Darren Huff in person.
Speaker 1: He was furious.
Speaker 2: He demanded to know why Huff was so intent on
Speaker 2: making Madisonville the flash point. Now, Rhodes isn't the kind
Speaker 2: of guy who's actually concerned about their.
Speaker 1: Being a flash point. He wants one.
Speaker 2: That's the whole idea, right, Eventually the militia will come
Speaker 2: into some kind of conflict. But this wasn't the one
Speaker 2: he wanted because he thought Darren's ideas were foolish and embarrassing,
Speaker 2: and he revoked Darren's Oathkeeper's membership undeterred though Darren Huff
Speaker 2: returned to Tennessee a week later. He had a paper
Speaker 2: map of the state of Tennessee, and he'd circled the
Speaker 2: location of the sheriff's offices in every county within a
Speaker 2: two hour drive of Madisonville. It's not clear how many
Speaker 2: sheriffs he actually managed to speak with, but when he
Speaker 2: pulled into a parking lot at a county office building
Speaker 2: in Lenore City, Tennessee, he happened to come across Louden
Speaker 2: County Sheriff Tim Geider and Cumberland County Sheriff Butch Burgess
Speaker 2: as they were getting out of their cars. They relate
Speaker 2: for a meeting, so this conversation was short. But Huff
Speaker 2: asked Sheriff Geiter if he'd be willing to arrest a
Speaker 2: fellow sheriff.
Speaker 1: At trial.
Speaker 2: Sheriff Guiter couldn't really remember much about this brief interaction,
Speaker 2: but he said he probably told this stranger in a
Speaker 2: parking lot that he'd need to know more about a
Speaker 2: situation like that in order to make a determination. But yes,
Speaker 2: hypothetically he did have the authority to arrest another sheriff.
Speaker 1: Darren.
Speaker 2: Huff was trying to recruit law enforcement officers to assist
Speaker 2: with the plan. He wasn't giving up, but he was
Speaker 2: running out of time. Fitzpatrick's next hearing was scheduled for
Speaker 2: May fourth, and he needed to find a sheriff who
Speaker 2: would be there to take his prisoners into custody. He
Speaker 2: must not have had much success on the twenty eighth, though,
Speaker 2: because two days later, on April thirtieth, he was back
Speaker 2: at it, driving around Tennessee looking for sheriffs who believed
Speaker 2: in the constitution. He was up near Knoxville, when he
Speaker 2: got pulled over. This time around, there's no debate about
Speaker 2: whether or not he ran a stop sign.
Speaker 1: This wasn't a traffic stop. There was a federal.
Speaker 2: Warrant for his arrest. Darren Huff was charged with violating
Speaker 2: Title eighteen, Section two thirty one sub section A two.
Speaker 2: And that's interesting. You probably don't believe me, but hang
Speaker 2: on a second. Section two thirty one is civil disorders,
Speaker 2: and it covers three separate crimes that don't really go together.
Speaker 2: A one makes it a crime to teach someone else
Speaker 2: how to make or use a gun or a bomb
Speaker 2: if you know or have reason to know that they'll
Speaker 2: use that information in furtherance of a civil disorder. A two,
Speaker 2: which was Darren's crime, makes it illegal to transport a
Speaker 2: firearm or a bomb across state lines if you know
Speaker 2: or have reason to know that the gun or explosive
Speaker 2: device is going to be used in a civil disorder.
Speaker 2: And A three makes it illegal to be in a
Speaker 2: cops way during a civil disorder. So that one doesn't
Speaker 2: really belong right. The first two are about guns and bombs,
Speaker 2: and the third one is just about annoying. But that's
Speaker 2: the one that's really gotten to work out in the
Speaker 2: last couple of years because it was used in hundreds
Speaker 2: of January six cases. But eighteen USC. Two thirty one
Speaker 2: A two is uncommon. I mean, people get charged for
Speaker 2: doing this kind of thing, but usually they get charged
Speaker 2: with conspiracy to do whatever it was they were going
Speaker 2: to do when they got where they were going, and
Speaker 2: then maybe they'll tack on some kind of gun crime.
Speaker 2: And Subsection A one just doesn't make any sense at all.
Speaker 2: There's already a whole separate law that makes it a
Speaker 2: crime to distribute information about bombmaking, and that one has
Speaker 2: a harsher penalty than this, So I don't know why
Speaker 2: we need this one at all. So I was confused
Speaker 2: by this choice of statute, and I couldn't think of
Speaker 2: any place I'd ever seen this statute before. And it
Speaker 2: turns out that's because I hadn't seen it before, and
Speaker 2: I still haven't even after looking pretty hard. When Darren
Speaker 2: Huff appealed his conviction, it was noted in the appellate
Speaker 2: record that this particular statute had actually never been construed
Speaker 2: by an appellate court before, so this was the first
Speaker 2: time a court of appeals was examining this statute. But
Speaker 2: Just because people don't get charged with this very often
Speaker 2: doesn't make it any less.
Speaker 1: Of a real law.
Speaker 2: And it does pretty well describe what he did because
Speaker 2: he didn't really do anything, did he, But they were
Speaker 2: really worried that he might, or at least they were
Speaker 2: worried that he would continue to create situations where someone
Speaker 2: else might because if you get enough anxious people with
Speaker 2: guns together enough times, eventually something is going to go
Speaker 2: wrong in a way that escalates pretty quickly. So some
Speaker 2: federal agent or prosecutor got creative and they found a
Speaker 2: crime because technically, yeah, he put guns in his truck
Speaker 2: and he drove to another state. And when he was
Speaker 2: doing it, the plan that he had in his mind
Speaker 2: was that he was going to have that gun around
Speaker 2: in case the county judge didn't appreciate him barging into
Speaker 2: her courtroom. So the intent is pretty clear. He told
Speaker 2: anyone within earshot for two weeks what he was going
Speaker 2: to do. He wanted to lead an armed mom onto
Speaker 2: the courthouse. He made videos about it, He told his
Speaker 2: bank teller, he told a bunch of state troopers, he
Speaker 2: gave a speech, And you don't actually have to end
Speaker 2: up carrying out the plan. To be guilty of showing
Speaker 2: up to the plan with a gun, and in the end,
Speaker 2: a jury agreed. They found Darren Huff guilty of interstate
Speaker 2: transportation of a firearm with the intention to use it
Speaker 2: unlawfully in furtherance of a civil disorder. The Sixth Circuit
Speaker 2: Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, and Darren had already
Speaker 2: completed his four year sentence by the time the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court declined to hear the case in twenty sixteen. Now,
Speaker 2: normally that's all I would really have to say about
Speaker 2: a criminal case. We already talked all the way through
Speaker 2: the actual timeline of events, so you already know what happened,
Speaker 2: and I just told you how the trial ended. He
Speaker 2: was convicted by a jury, appealed unsuccessfully, and served a sentence.
Speaker 2: But this trial is really just so special. I mean,
Speaker 2: first of all, it went to trial. That's pretty rare.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, just two point three percent of
Speaker 2: people charged with federal crimes actually went to trial.
Speaker 1: But it's so much more than that.
Speaker 2: Darren Huff really really wanted to be in the driver's
Speaker 2: seat when it came to his criminal defense. One thing
Speaker 2: you have to remember about Darren huff is that he's
Speaker 2: got a little sovereign citizen in him. He seems at
Speaker 2: times to take issue with that label. But when he
Speaker 2: was asked how he felt about the gold fringe on
Speaker 2: the flag at his trial, he was very evasive, And
Speaker 2: in the year and a half between his arrest and
Speaker 2: his trial, he kept insisting that his public defenders file
Speaker 2: motions based on legal arguments that he had invented, and
Speaker 2: when they refused to file some of the more bizarre ones,
Speaker 2: he fired them releast he tried to. In March of
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, his public defender was begging him to consider
Speaker 2: the plea deal they were being offered, explaining over and
Speaker 2: over again that it was the best deal he was
Speaker 2: going to get, and the motions he was drafting on
Speaker 2: his own just don't have any basis in the law,
Speaker 2: and they have no legal merit, and they really seemed
Speaker 2: to trying to explain to him that you can't just
Speaker 2: file how you feel. There has to be case law,
Speaker 2: It has to be based in something. And after months
Speaker 2: of bitter emails back and forth about you know, we
Speaker 2: can't file stuff that you made up, and Darren's accusing
Speaker 2: them of working against him, and the original public defenders
Speaker 2: file a motion to withdraw, saying that the relationship has
Speaker 2: soured irreparably and they can't continue. And during this brief
Speaker 2: period of time before a new public defender could be appointed,
Speaker 2: Darren files some of those motions he wanted, the ones
Speaker 2: he wrote, including one that just reads comes the defendant
Speaker 2: in the above entitled action, Darren Wesley huff And moves
Speaker 2: the court to clarify its position on the Second Amendment
Speaker 2: US Constitution. And when his second public defender was assigned,
Speaker 2: a man named Scott Green, there were just three months
Speaker 2: to go before trial, and in those three months he
Speaker 2: did his job. He filed motions to suppress the statements
Speaker 2: Darren made during the traffic stop, motions to prevent the
Speaker 2: prosecution from bringing up his extremist beliefs, the kinds of
Speaker 2: things you'd expect to see. And he seemed to be
Speaker 2: humoring his client when it came to some of his
Speaker 2: unique ideas about the law. But like the attorneys before him,
Speaker 2: he wasn't willing to put his name on nonsense. And
Speaker 2: after another round of these emails back and forth, where
Speaker 2: this exasperated attorney is trying to explain to him, that
Speaker 2: motions have to be based on the law. Darren threatened
Speaker 2: to fire him, writing if you do not have the
Speaker 2: courage or kahunahs necessary to represent me, then please let
Speaker 2: me know. I think that's supposed to say kahones, but
Speaker 2: it says kah u ANDAs cohunas. Maybe that's a regional variation.
Speaker 1: He meets balls.
Speaker 2: And then email is included in this bizarre fifteen page
Speaker 2: document that he submitted to the court complaining about and
Speaker 2: trying to fire his lawyer. But he ends the document
Speaker 2: by saying, quote, is the Second Amendment part of the Constitution?
Speaker 1: Yes or no?
Speaker 2: Wherefore Darren Wesley Huff moves this court to dismiss the
Speaker 2: indictment against him. I don't really know where to start
Speaker 2: with that. That's really not how it works. And this
Speaker 2: lawyer tried to withdraw from the case, saying, you know,
Speaker 2: he doesn't want me to be his lawyer anymore. This
Speaker 2: is not working out. He can't do this, and the
Speaker 2: judge said no, they were too close to trial. They
Speaker 2: would just have to work it out because they're going
Speaker 2: to trial together. And Green really does seem to have
Speaker 2: done his best here. On the eve of the trial,
Speaker 2: he filed five separate documents, each one called mister Huff's
Speaker 2: special request, and they were sort of fanciful jury instructions.
Speaker 2: It probably will not surprise you that mister Green declined
Speaker 2: to continue working with Darren on his appeal, and Darren's
Speaker 2: attitude did not improve once he was in federal prison.
Speaker 2: One email he sent his new lawyer, mister Gully during
Speaker 2: the appeal starts off by accusing Gully of withholding the
Speaker 2: trial transcripts. But they just hadn't been made yet. It
Speaker 2: takes a long time to produce those, but he writes
Speaker 2: to his lawyer, I am thus left to wonder whether
Speaker 2: you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or
Speaker 2: if you possibly received your degree from a remedial online school,
Speaker 2: or that you simply take me for a fool. You, sir,
Speaker 2: have made a mockery of the system that purports to
Speaker 2: provide me with effective assistance of counsel. Later, in the
Speaker 2: same email, he explains to his lawyer that the government
Speaker 2: can't charge him with a gun crime because he exists
Speaker 2: outside of the federal government's jurisdiction on such matters, and
Speaker 2: then he threatens to have his attorney indicted, disbarred, and institutionalized.
Speaker 2: Mister Gully's response to this letter doesn't seem to be
Speaker 2: in the appellate record, but from what I can see,
Speaker 2: he did the best he could with a losing case.
Speaker 2: We'd be doing episodes about Walter Fitzpatrick and his entourage
Speaker 2: for weeks if I told you every weird thing that
Speaker 2: I found. But I can't resist just a few more,
Speaker 2: if you'll indulge me. When Fitzpatrick finally did get arraigned
Speaker 2: in Monroe County for that original April first attempt to
Speaker 2: arrest the grand jury foreman, it did not go well.
Speaker 2: The judge that he'd accused of treason was presiding, and
Speaker 2: as she's flipping through the exhibits, sort of glancing over
Speaker 2: the paperwork and the citizens erect Warrens, she noted that
Speaker 2: the court clerk, miss Cook, was accused by Fitzpatrick of
Speaker 2: some pretty serious crimes. And so the judge turns to
Speaker 2: the clerk who's there in the courtroom, and says, miss Cook,
Speaker 2: have you been levying war against the United States? And
Speaker 2: the clerk says, I don't think so, your honor, And
Speaker 2: I wish that I had an audio recording of this.
Speaker 2: I just have the transcript but Fitzpatrick is having a
Speaker 2: lot of outbursts during this hearing, and at this point
Speaker 2: he says, are you making fun of me? Is that
Speaker 2: what's going on here? Am I being mocked? And they
Speaker 2: just ignore him and continue the proceeding. I would have
Speaker 2: loved to have seen it, and I wish the officer
Speaker 2: who testified at a Huff's trial had been more specific
Speaker 2: about exactly who it was that he overheard Darren Huff
Speaker 2: talking to. In the morning of April twentieth, outside Donna's Cafe,
Speaker 2: Huff had a quiet conversation with someone about calling off
Speaker 2: the operation that day. The officer did mention that Huff
Speaker 2: was speaking to a man with a revolver on his hip,
Speaker 2: and that the man had gotten out of a pt
Speaker 2: cruiser with Georgia license plates.
Speaker 1: Carl Swenson's from Georgia.
Speaker 2: But I know Carl Swenson was driving a two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine Honda Civic Hybrid that day, trust me, I checked.
Speaker 2: I have got a state trooper on tape calling in
Speaker 2: his plates when they saw him on the highway. And
Speaker 2: in his blog, Walter Fitzpatrick thanked by name most of
Speaker 2: the people who showed up there that day and most
Speaker 2: of them were women, and very few of them were
Speaker 2: from Georgia. But we do know for sure that Bill Luhman,
Speaker 2: a Marine Corps veteran and crane operator from Waco, Georgia,
Speaker 2: was there that day. And you'd be a fool to
Speaker 2: believe Bill Lowman would walk as far as his own
Speaker 2: mailbox without a gun. So if I had to put
Speaker 2: money on it, I think the person Darren Huff was
Speaker 2: making tactical decisions with was the same man who'd accompanied
Speaker 2: him to Walter's house two weeks earlier when they put
Speaker 2: this whole plan together, a fellow member of the Georgia
Speaker 2: Militia and the Oathkeepers. Now, my main wheelhouse is not
Speaker 2: the Militia movement, so I can't say I'm surprised. I'd
Speaker 2: never heard of Bill Luhman before, and I didn't have
Speaker 2: any real prior knowledge about the Georgia Militia. But in
Speaker 2: some old blog posts Luhman is referred to as a
Speaker 2: leader in the Georgia Militia. That may have just been
Speaker 2: his local chapter. There were at least a dozen units
Speaker 2: around the state of this larger group calling itself the
Speaker 2: Georgia Militia, and his name does not appear in the
Speaker 2: court record for the four members of the Georgia Militia
Speaker 2: who were arrested in twenty eleven for a plot that
Speaker 2: included plans to blow up the Federal building in Atlanta
Speaker 2: and maybe murder government officials with Risin. And just a
Speaker 2: side note, if you do try to google Georgia white
Speaker 2: supremacist rice In attack, the more recent result you'll get
Speaker 2: is for an unrelated white supremacist plot to carry out
Speaker 2: a biological terrorist attack. In that case, in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: a neo Nazi had actually successfully created the deadly poison,
Speaker 2: but he accidentally exposed himself to it, so he showed
Speaker 2: up at the emergency room before he could actually hurt
Speaker 2: anybody else. But this is not that one. This is
Speaker 2: the one from twenty eleven. But again, Bill Luhman nothing
Speaker 2: to do with the rice In attacks, just the same militia.
Speaker 2: And I found an old event for a tea party
Speaker 2: picnic in North Carolina in twenty thirteen that list. Luman
Speaker 2: is a speaker and his title in the program is
Speaker 2: Constitutionalist icon from Georgia, and he appeared on stage with
Speaker 2: such heroes of the patriot movement as James Renwick. Manship
Speaker 2: that name is not familiar to you, I'm sure, but
Speaker 2: you might remember the photo of the guy in the
Speaker 2: George Washington costume wading into the reflecting pool at the
Speaker 2: Capitol during the January sixth riot as a sort of
Speaker 2: symbolic crossing the Delaware moment. But my favorite Manship moment
Speaker 2: is the time he showed up at my local library
Speaker 2: dressed as Thomas Jefferson and refused to break character as
Speaker 2: he ranted in the first person about how he never
Speaker 2: had sexual relations with enslaved women. And Bill Luman is
Speaker 2: very much still around and active in the same kinds
Speaker 2: of conspiracy spaces. He posts, give or take one hundred
Speaker 2: times a day every day on Trump's Truth social platform,
Speaker 2: and all of his posts are in all caps. He
Speaker 2: starts every day by posting this message, good morning patriots
Speaker 2: and grassroots warriors that are standing up for our constitution
Speaker 2: and precious way of life. Good morning to all veterans
Speaker 2: that serve honorably sempify my fellow marines. May America bless
Speaker 2: God again into our nation, our homes, and our heart's
Speaker 2: heart emoji. Seriously, he posts that every morning. He's very
Speaker 2: committed and he still thinks Barack Obama is a Kenyan
Speaker 2: born Muslim. He still posts a lot about hanging people
Speaker 2: for treason, but the reasons have shifted, you know, COVID, Ukraine,
Speaker 2: election fraud whatever. As I'm writing this right now, he's
Speaker 2: still posting. He posted a picture of a marine shaking
Speaker 2: hands with the dog, and there was a post this
Speaker 2: evening that was a screenshot from Braveheart with the text
Speaker 2: confirm Matt Gates or else written over mel Gibson's face.
Speaker 2: His last post was a thread documenting the progress of
Speaker 2: his homemade banana upbread. At the time of recording, I
Speaker 2: can report that he added cream cheese icing to it
Speaker 2: and it was quote stellar. He's pretty popular over their
Speaker 2: own truth social He was even retruthed last year by
Speaker 2: Donald Trump himself after posting some incoherent theory about stolen
Speaker 2: votes from the twenty twenty election. Well, he wasn't retruthed,
Speaker 2: he was quote truthed.
Speaker 1: Whatever.
Speaker 2: The truth social equivalent of a quote tweet is Lumann
Speaker 2: had suggested that the people responsible for the dominion voting
Speaker 2: machines should be tried for treason, and Trump quoted the post,
Speaker 2: adding a lot has been made of this lately.
Speaker 1: What do you think.
Speaker 2: And that must have been a huge day for Bill.
Speaker 2: The post went pretty viral, a lot of the keyboard
Speaker 2: warriors out here posting seventeen memes a day about January six.
Speaker 2: Political prisoners absolutely still believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya,
Speaker 2: and Walter Fitzpatrick went on to try his whole citizens
Speaker 2: arrest thing in neighboring McMinn County too. He was eventually
Speaker 2: convicted of perjury and extortion there, as well as getting
Speaker 2: some more charges in Monroe County after he stole the
Speaker 2: grand jury roles. Those stolen documents were located by the
Speaker 2: FBI in the Connecticut home of Sharon Rondeau, the conspiracy
Speaker 2: theory blogger whose commitment to questioning the citizenship of politicians
Speaker 2: has remained strong over the years. She is still asking
Speaker 2: questions about Ilhan Omar and Kamala Harris. Fitzpatrick published a
Speaker 2: memoir last year about his quest for justice in his
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four Marshall. I didn't read it. It's like
Speaker 2: four hundred pages long. He's in his seventies now and
Speaker 2: he still occasionally updates his blog, jag Hunters. The most
Speaker 2: recent post is just a link to someone else's video
Speaker 2: and it's just like a mind numbing thirty minute mashup
Speaker 2: of clips.
Speaker 1: I can't even really explain it.
Speaker 2: It's like actual footage of Trump rallies mixed in with
Speaker 2: like myplow commercials, a TikTok video of someone doing the macarena,
Speaker 2: but the lyrics have been changed to be about Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I tapped out when it got.
Speaker 2: To a clip of Russell Brand praying with Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 2: I guess what I'm getting at here is these guys
Speaker 2: don't go away. The cause of the day changes, whether
Speaker 2: it's nine to eleven truth, eartherism, COVID, denial, q Andon,
Speaker 2: stop the Steal. But it's a lot of the same
Speaker 2: core ideas, and it's a lot of the same individual guise.
Speaker 2: In one newspaper photo of Walter Fitzpatrick outside of the
Speaker 2: courthouse after a hearing in McMinn County in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: the man standing next to him is Field McConnell. And
Speaker 2: Field McConnell is a former commercial airline pilot who retired
Speaker 2: in two thousand and six after refusing to submit to
Speaker 2: a neurological exam. He had become obsessed with the idea
Speaker 2: that nine to eleven was an inside job, and was
Speaker 2: convinced that Boeing had rigged all of their planes with
Speaker 2: explosives and they were planning an upcoming nine to eleven
Speaker 2: style attack. In twenty nineteen, he got really into QAnon.
Speaker 2: An attorney in Florida who represents the family of a
Speaker 2: missing child had to get a restraining order against him
Speaker 2: after he made a series of YouTube videos threatening to
Speaker 2: kill her and accusing her of having trafficked the missing child.
Speaker 2: The day I'm recording this, he was a guest on
Speaker 2: a podcast hosted by a small scale QAnon influencer. I
Speaker 2: would tell you what they talked about, but it kind
Speaker 2: of sounded like he was calling in from the bottom
Speaker 2: of the ocean.
Speaker 1: This episode took.
Speaker 2: Me days longer to write than it should have, because
Speaker 2: every new name I turned up in the comments on
Speaker 2: a fifteen year old blog post took me on some long,
Speaker 2: strange path that some character in this story had taken
Speaker 2: in the year. Since there are no lone wolves, no
Speaker 2: one is self radicalizing in a vacuum. People don't just
Speaker 2: wake up one day and drive three hours with a
Speaker 2: camcorder and a truck full of guns for no reason
Speaker 2: at all. And with each passing week, as I immerse
Speaker 2: myself in the archives, piecing together one weird little guy's
Speaker 2: story at a time, the clearer the connective tissue between
Speaker 2: them becomes. But for all the weird twists, and in
Speaker 2: this strange tale of the Birther militia trying to take
Speaker 2: over a small town in Tennessee, the best thing I
Speaker 2: found buried in all of these documents was this moment
Speaker 2: from the trial when Darren Huff took the stand himself.
Speaker 2: The prosecutor had asked him about some business cards that
Speaker 2: he made after his arrest. On the front, it said
Speaker 2: Darren Huff, right wing extremist and potential domestic terrorist, and
Speaker 2: on the back there was a picture of a gun.
Speaker 2: So on cross examination, Huff's defense attorney was trying to
Speaker 2: elicit testimony that would show the jury that those business
Speaker 2: cards were obviously a joke, that this was just his
Speaker 2: sense of humor. So he asked Darren about some shirts,
Speaker 2: and Darren gave the following answer. I had a friend
Speaker 2: who had a T shirt shop, and I said, can
Speaker 2: you make me a couple of shirts, because apparently this
Speaker 2: government wants to label me. The first one that he
Speaker 2: had made me said, I am the god fearing, gun toting,
Speaker 2: flag waving right wing extremists the government warned you about.
Speaker 2: And the other one said, I finally made homeland Securities
Speaker 2: potential domestic terrorists, watched list, and all I got was
Speaker 2: this lousy T shirt. Obviously the point behind them was
Speaker 2: for humor, and they have been received as such. Another
Speaker 2: one that was one of my initial shirts said, patriotism
Speaker 2: is not a spectator sport. And then there's something that
Speaker 2: I have never seen an official federal court transcript before,
Speaker 2: as this big bearded militia man is describing his funny
Speaker 2: terrorism shirts. The court reporter types in parentheses witness crying.
Speaker 1: She put it on the record that he cried.
Speaker 2: Weird Little Guys is a production of Cool Zone Media
Speaker 2: and iHeartRadio. It's researched, written and recorded by me, Molly Conger.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. The
Speaker 2: show is edited by the wildly talented Rory Gagan. The
Speaker 2: theme music was composed by Brad Dickert. You can email
Speaker 2: me at Weird Little Guys Podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: I will definitely read it, but I almost certainly will
Speaker 2: not answer it. You can exchange conspiracy theories about the
Speaker 2: show with other listeners on the Weird Little Guys subreddit.
Speaker 2: Just don't post anything that's going to make you one
Speaker 2: of my Weird Little Guys