Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis and
Speaker 2: joined with James Stout. We planned a more silly intro
Speaker 2: and then decided not to do it due to the
Speaker 2: intense nature of the topic today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so today we're going to discuss the assassinations of
Speaker 3: the Minnesota Democrat farm labor leader Melissa Hortman and her
Speaker 3: husband Mark, and the attempted murder of Minnesota State Senator
Speaker 3: John Hoffman and his wife effect. So, if you don't
Speaker 3: prefer to listen to topics like that, now will be
Speaker 3: the time to gep this one. If you're not familiar
Speaker 3: with this topic, I guess the news cycle has been
Speaker 3: pretty hectic, but no.
Speaker 2: This one's been memory hold really quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, considering we had just a straight up political assassination,
Speaker 3: but that is what this was, and it was less
Speaker 3: than a month ago. I don't really see people talking
Speaker 3: about it. I don't see it being reported on that much.
Speaker 3: I understand that the news cycle has been insane, but
Speaker 3: so is this. So we're going to talk about it.
Speaker 3: So just to give you if this has somehow passed
Speaker 3: you by or you've forgotten about it. In the very
Speaker 3: early morning of the fourteenth of June, Minnesota DFL Democrat
Speaker 3: Party in Minnesota is called the Democrat Farm Labor Party.
Speaker 3: You can interchange it with Democrat, be bluffed and do so.
Speaker 3: Minnesota DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were
Speaker 3: fatally shot along with their dog shortly before State Senator
Speaker 3: John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, had also been shot,
Speaker 3: with a vet protecting her daughter from the bullets by
Speaker 3: diving on top of her. According to one account, a
Speaker 3: man called Vance Belter it pronounced Belter. I've watched a
Speaker 3: video of him saying his name, but it's spelled b
Speaker 3: o e l t e er. If you're a searching
Speaker 3: about this online, had banged on their door, impersonating a
Speaker 3: cop and then asked if there were guns in the house.
Speaker 3: When they opened the door, he claimed a shooting had
Speaker 3: been reported at their residence. At that point, if Vett
Speaker 3: noticed that he was wearing a silicone mask he had
Speaker 3: which referred to in the affidavit I read as a
Speaker 3: hyperrealistic silicon mask, and they confronted him about this, saying
Speaker 3: you're not a cop, and at that point he began
Speaker 3: shooting at them. It appears that he shot both of
Speaker 3: them eight or nine times with a nine milimeters pistol
Speaker 3: and then fled the scene in his Ford Escape suv,
Speaker 3: which he had made up to look like a cop car. Right,
Speaker 3: He had a police looking a light bar in there.
Speaker 3: He had bought some supplies apparently at a fleet farm
Speaker 3: to change the license plate to make it look like
Speaker 3: the license plate said police. After that, he left the
Speaker 3: scene of at first shooting and they said it his
Speaker 3: daughter called nine one one. That was the first time
Speaker 3: the police were alerted. So he went garrison, you were
Speaker 3: telling me. He went to another public officials house who
Speaker 3: was on vcation. Is that right?
Speaker 2: He went to two people's houses in between the next
Speaker 2: actual shooting. Yeah, one of them. He stopped at the
Speaker 2: house of a local state representative who was on vacation.
Speaker 2: He then moved on to another person's house where he
Speaker 2: was confronted by a police officer.
Speaker 3: And he during this time that the police officer noticed
Speaker 3: a white man and what they assume as a squad car.
Speaker 3: And this person wouldn't talk to the cop, just kept
Speaker 3: looking straight ahead and not.
Speaker 2: Speaking like a normal human.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a very normal I don't know how cops interact
Speaker 3: with each other, but that doesn't seem normal to me anyway.
Speaker 3: This cop then proceeded to move towards this second of
Speaker 3: public officials house and ignore the guy in a cop
Speaker 3: car in a silicon mask who wouldn't say a word.
Speaker 3: I guess that prevented that second public official from being targeted, correct,
Speaker 3: And that's when Bolt moved on to the Hortman home.
Speaker 3: It seems like local cops, when they heard that there
Speaker 3: had been shooting at the Hoffman residence, went to check
Speaker 3: on other DFL politicians. This includes that incident that I
Speaker 3: just related to you, but also at the Hortman home.
Speaker 3: When the cops arrived at a Hortman home, they found
Speaker 3: a police looking suv in the driveway with red and
Speaker 3: blue lights on, and what looked like a cop in
Speaker 3: the doorway of the house. They confronted him. He seems
Speaker 3: to have fired through the door. I'm a little unclear
Speaker 3: on the exact timeline in the next minute of this,
Speaker 3: but at some point they confront him. At some point
Speaker 3: he shoots through the door. He then enters the house
Speaker 3: and kills both the people inside as well as their dog.
Speaker 3: The police engage him and he flees through the back
Speaker 3: of the house. The police then enter the house and
Speaker 3: drag out Mark Cortman, who had been shot through the door,
Speaker 3: and they attempted to do CPR, but they were unable
Speaker 3: to save him. They then and established a perimeter and
Speaker 3: entered a house with a drone and that it just
Speaker 3: a drone that finds Melissa Hortman's remains. She's also dead.
Speaker 3: In the vehicle that he abandoned, they found several AK
Speaker 3: pattern rifles, a notebook with other targets, and also in
Speaker 3: the notebook he'd written the online search tools he'd used
Speaker 3: to find these addresses, the different like online people searches,
Speaker 3: data brokeer websites, data brokers away. I'm like, oh, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: He remained on the run throughout that day and the next.
Speaker 3: During that time, he purchased an e bike and an
Speaker 3: old buick with cash from his bank account, which he
Speaker 3: emptied on Sunday, So the next day, authorities found the
Speaker 3: car in the afternoon. In the car, he had left
Speaker 3: a letter addressed to the FBI admitting his crimes. He
Speaker 3: was then spotted by somebody on a game camera or
Speaker 3: a trail camera, and shortly after that he was located
Speaker 3: by a drone and then he was arrested in a field.
Speaker 2: The day before the shooting, he'd turned off his phone
Speaker 2: and left it in a home depot. Employees the day
Speaker 2: after the shooting found the phone turned it on. Police
Speaker 2: tried to raid the home depots. They assumed that he
Speaker 2: was in the home depot on his phone, and then
Speaker 2: they realized it was just a phone. I think it
Speaker 2: was in like an suv or like it was in
Speaker 2: like a truck bed or a vehicle outside the home depot.
Speaker 3: Okay, he just dumped his phone. Yeah. They did also
Speaker 3: find the location of his wife based on her cell phone. Right,
Speaker 3: let's just explain a little bit about who this guy is.
Speaker 3: I guess when we get on to his wife. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Belter was fifty seven years old. Is fifty seven years old.
Speaker 3: He's a father of five. As I said, his vehicle,
Speaker 3: we're going to get into this a bit later, contained
Speaker 3: another list of targets and included Democrat politicians and abortion providers.
Speaker 3: His roommates confirmed that he was a Trump supporter, but
Speaker 3: they were still very shocked that he did this. In
Speaker 3: all the interviews I've seen, one of his roommates, David Carlson, said, quote,
Speaker 3: he kept things inside. He's being kind of down. He
Speaker 3: was not as upbeat he usually is. He had it
Speaker 3: seems like a couple of residences, like he would stay
Speaker 3: somewhere closer to work some of the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was renting a room in one of his
Speaker 2: friend's houses. Yeah, and then he had a larger house
Speaker 2: outside of town that he was trying to like keep
Speaker 2: up with payments on.
Speaker 3: Yep. And he gave three months of rent in advance
Speaker 3: to the friend whose room he was renting. And he'll
Speaker 3: send a messaging baie to his friends. He and his
Speaker 3: wife were both preppers, and it seems that he sent
Speaker 3: a text message to his wife that read quote, dad
Speaker 3: went to war last night. So there was some other
Speaker 3: stuff in it tube. I thought that part was relevant.
Speaker 3: She was detained shortly after he began murdering people. In
Speaker 3: her vehicle. There was a revolver in a semi automatic handgun.
Speaker 3: The handgun was in a cooler. I don't know why.
Speaker 3: She also had ten grand in cash passports, and she
Speaker 3: seemed to be following their sort of bug out plan, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had a quote unquote a bailout plan for
Speaker 2: like this, like apocalypse prepper scenario that his wife was
Speaker 2: instructed to carry out shortly after he did the shooting,
Speaker 2: and he warned his wife that men with guns might
Speaker 2: be coming to the house soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his wife has been released.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: There seems to be no suggestion that his wife was She.
Speaker 2: Didn't seem to be aware of his plans to do this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does seem a strange thing to just text
Speaker 3: someone that men with guns might become at your house
Speaker 3: and then you immediately leave the house with ten large
Speaker 3: in cash, your passports, and two hangguns. But who am
Speaker 3: I to judge?
Speaker 2: I guess sometimes preppers are just like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right, if you have spent your entire life
Speaker 3: preparing for the moment when the big bag government's going
Speaker 3: to come to your house, and I guess you know
Speaker 3: you've been working up to this for a while. We're
Speaker 3: in a different mindset. Yeah, talking of mindset, Garrison, I'm
Speaker 3: in the mindset to buy some things. So let's hear
Speaker 3: some advertisements.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a much happier mindset than the past
Speaker 2: ten minutes.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, we are back, and I wanted to
Speaker 3: have a little chat about some of Belta's professional background,
Speaker 3: because I think some of this has probably been overplayed.
Speaker 2: It's certainly confusing because he seemingly had a lot of
Speaker 2: jobs over the course of his career, some of which
Speaker 2: were real, some of which were kind of not real,
Speaker 2: but he tried to make real. Yeah, he's had what
Speaker 2: they've called, i quote unquote varied career.
Speaker 3: Yes, what we're seeing is like LinkedIn manifesting. Right, this
Speaker 3: is a thing that middle aged guys especially do. Right,
Speaker 3: but I've seen it from all kinds of folks, like
Speaker 3: posting on LinkedIn like you're some kind of C suite
Speaker 3: executive what you're struggling to make rind Definitely, yeah, And
Speaker 3: I think LinkedIn is often the first thing that pops
Speaker 3: up on Google when you startain one's name, and so
Speaker 3: sometimes these things can be overplayed and are understanding of
Speaker 3: someone's background, especially when something there's some people who might
Speaker 3: not have ocented a lot are trying to ocinth something
Speaker 3: in the moments after the name of a shooter comes out.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about his LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, he is listed
Speaker 3: as the director of security Patrols for a company called
Speaker 3: Pratorian Guard Security Services. If you afteing a security company,
Speaker 3: don't call it that because there are so many of them,
Speaker 3: and many of them I think have been getting unwelcome
Speaker 3: attention as they're confused for his company. I did a
Speaker 3: company search on the Minnesota Registry of Companies there for
Speaker 3: Pretorian Guard Security Services, and I found it was established
Speaker 3: in his wife's name in twenty eighteen. On the website
Speaker 3: says quote once has been involved with security situations in
Speaker 3: Eastern Europe, Africa, North America, in the Middle East, including
Speaker 3: the West Bank, Southern Lebanon, and the guards A Strip.
Speaker 3: He brings a great security aspect forged by both many
Speaker 3: on the ground experiences combined with training punctuation. It's just
Speaker 3: not happening here by both private security firms and people
Speaker 3: in the US military. He worked for the largest US
Speaker 3: oil finding company, the world's largest food company based in
Speaker 3: Switzerland No Comma, and the world's largest convenience retailer based
Speaker 3: in Japan. First of all, very difficult to read that
Speaker 3: series of sentences aloud. But involved with security situations is
Speaker 3: an incredibly vague term.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, yeah, he's just listing a number of
Speaker 2: places that he's been or maybe not even been, right
Speaker 2: like texting someone because he has been to I think
Speaker 2: most of these places, Okay, I can find him in
Speaker 2: Gaza is there. There's yes, No, he has been, and
Speaker 2: I'll get to that in a second. So he's certainly
Speaker 2: been to these places. He has not necessarily worked security
Speaker 2: in all these places, right, And he has worked with
Speaker 2: companies that he's alluding to here. He may be kind
Speaker 2: of exaggerating or talking about them in a grand jaz fashion,
Speaker 2: but he has worked for a lot of food industry
Speaker 2: companies over the course of his career, which we'll get
Speaker 2: to in a sec He also started an earlier security
Speaker 2: company in nineteen ninety nine that shut down around two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine. Similarly did not seem to like really
Speaker 2: do very well, and it was kind of more of
Speaker 2: like a side hustle. Yeah, as he was working at
Speaker 2: these different food companies. So this wasn't the first kind
Speaker 2: of like sort of fake security company that he started,
Speaker 2: nor was it the last a fake security company that
Speaker 2: he started.
Speaker 3: So I was cruising the Portraying Guide website which someone
Speaker 3: had archived, and so there are like four tiers of membership,
Speaker 3: so membership based.
Speaker 2: Model, subscription service security.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Iron, Bronze, Silver, and gold with options maybe the platinum.
Speaker 3: I don't recall. He uses his PhD, which we can
Speaker 3: get onto at some point. But what was more interesting
Speaker 3: to me was that they have a series of quote
Speaker 3: unquote red lines on the website, things that customers cannot
Speaker 3: expect him to change or compromise write their integral day's business,
Speaker 3: and part of that was quote we offer armed security.
Speaker 3: If you're looking for unarmed guards, please work with another
Speaker 3: service to meet your needs better.
Speaker 2: He only works with the arms theecurity, no unarmed security.
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, if I'm not carrying guns, I'm not doing it,
Speaker 3: which kind of seem he wants to pretend to be
Speaker 3: a cop. We drive the same make and model of
Speaker 3: vehicles at many police departments due to the US Currently
Speaker 3: we drive Ford Explorer utility vehicles. He also has a
Speaker 3: big thing about how they wear the most up to
Speaker 3: date body armor and they won't not wear body armor.
Speaker 2: ACAB includes the Ford Explorer once again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this stuff really kind of illustrates I think what
Speaker 3: he was in it for, which is to dress up
Speaker 3: like a cop and do cop shit. The website Coffee
Speaker 3: is incredibly generic and very poorly written. The photos are
Speaker 3: like we're talking MS paint tier photoshopping on here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, he just loved making websites. I've looked through maybe
Speaker 2: like five of this guy's websites. He specifically, I know
Speaker 2: previously in the twenty like Ronto is and eleven, he
Speaker 2: specifically paid a website designer in Jerusalem to be in
Speaker 2: support of Israel, to design a number of his websites.
Speaker 2: And by twenty twenty three, Praetorian Guard Security Services had
Speaker 2: yet to secure any clients at all in its entire
Speaker 2: history as a company, which his wife blamed COVID for,
Speaker 2: saying that they were just trying to get this business
Speaker 2: up and running and then COVID hit and then it
Speaker 2: kind of all fell apart.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you, there has never been a place
Speaker 3: in human history where there was more demand for private
Speaker 3: security services than Minnesota.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: I have seen outrageous day rates paid to private security
Speaker 3: consultants in Minneapolis in twenty twenty. I had a whole
Speaker 3: article that that we never ended up publishing about this.
Speaker 3: But I think it's fair to say that if you
Speaker 3: couldn't start it up there, then you ain't started it
Speaker 3: up anywhere. The lowest rate, just for reference, was six
Speaker 3: to ninety five a month.
Speaker 2: Iron membership six one hundred and ninety five dollars a
Speaker 2: month for the lowest membership.
Speaker 3: They'll like pop round your house a couple of times
Speaker 3: a month. Was was basically what you got for that,
Speaker 3: and then you had access to upgrade your protection level
Speaker 3: if civil and occurred.
Speaker 2: Basically, oh thank goodness.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this guy was kind of like a crank, and
Speaker 2: as we'll see, he's like he's both like a cop
Speaker 2: LARPer a bit of a crank and a Pentecostal evangelical. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's much to put all these pieces together. You
Speaker 2: can immediately identify what type of guy this is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like one of the things I do just sort
Speaker 3: of periodically is check in on like right prepper culture, right.
Speaker 2: Like God's holiest warrior here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely people who have like a
Speaker 3: a print of a picture of a crusader somewhere in
Speaker 3: the home or perhaps a statuette. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He literally called it the Praetorian Guard, Like, yeah, no.
Speaker 3: Is this guy probably uh maybe he might own an
Speaker 3: actual Gladius. It's a decent chance. So, yeah, this is
Speaker 3: a type of guy, and we'll continue to build that
Speaker 3: profile for you here. David Carson, his roommate, said of
Speaker 3: the company quote, it wasn't a reality. It was like
Speaker 3: a goal he had, but it was never realized. He
Speaker 3: bought a couple of cars and maybe some uniforms. It
Speaker 3: was never a real company. There's some more documents I'm
Speaker 3: going to order from the Minnesota REDI story of companies,
Speaker 3: just just to scope amount. But I think this was
Speaker 3: basically another failed business venture, right. He from twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three to twenty twenty five was working for a funery
Speaker 3: services provider. He posted a video it seems to be
Speaker 3: an introduction for some kind of business class. I believe
Speaker 3: he was enrolled in some community college classes.
Speaker 2: He took a few like online mortuary science classes as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's what he was doing. Right. So, he's
Speaker 3: working full time at Wolf Funery Home and then also
Speaker 3: at something called Metro First Call, which was another funeral
Speaker 3: services provider. He does mention in some detail that he
Speaker 3: works with police in that video of Dooks about how
Speaker 3: he works with police when he's removing the remains of
Speaker 3: deceased people. Right, it might be someone who just died
Speaker 3: or their death may have been violent. The second security
Speaker 3: company that he claimed to be the CEO of listed
Speaker 3: on his LinkedIn again was called the Red Lion Group
Speaker 3: along with a dead URL.
Speaker 2: Which is more than just security company too. I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: it did fishing. Actually kind of was trying to be
Speaker 2: a sort of humanitarian company or like, yeah, nonprofit charity.
Speaker 2: I'll get to it more later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in a model of the old the Gaza model,
Speaker 3: I guess kind of yeah, actually yeah, yeah, no, I
Speaker 3: mean yeah. The URL was registered for Redline in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three. According to who is lookup, I did while
Speaker 3: he was working for the Funery Company. Right, he appears
Speaker 3: to have done a few things or given a few
Speaker 3: accounts of what he was doing in Africa. A local
Speaker 3: farmer he had told he was relaying modern farming techniques
Speaker 3: to people in Congo. I've spent a decent about my
Speaker 3: life in agriculture, Like, farming is quite different in Congo
Speaker 3: and Minnesota. Actually, unless I guess there's something they could learn.
Speaker 3: He also talked about helping with food supply systems. He
Speaker 3: talked about running this company s Garrison is going to
Speaker 3: cover in more detail. He also did some evangelical preaching
Speaker 3: a Presbyterian who's a Presbyterian?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Quick correction.
Speaker 2: In the first copy of this eppisode, we incorrectly called
Speaker 2: him a Presbyterian. He is in fact a Pentecostal. I
Speaker 2: mixed up my Christian pa words. John Calvin will still pay,
Speaker 2: but yes, this is a Pentecostal evangelical.
Speaker 3: He says in his video that he and his wife
Speaker 3: first went to Congo alone without employee support to help
Speaker 3: with food services. On his LinkedIn page, he wrote, I
Speaker 3: have been doing projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Speaker 3: in Central Africa for the last three years with Red
Speaker 3: Lion Group. Just to be clear, he wasn't located in
Speaker 3: DRC for all of that time, but he seems to
Speaker 3: have taken several trips there, maybe on his time off
Speaker 3: and working at a funery home. He seems to have
Speaker 3: taken some mission trips in twenty eighteen to twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three timeframe. From what I can work out, it.
Speaker 2: Seems like most of his trips there were mostly for
Speaker 2: missionary work, and specifically he picked up these jobs at
Speaker 2: the funeral homes to pay for this while also trying
Speaker 2: to get this company off the ground in the Congo.
Speaker 2: In archive version of the Redline website states that they
Speaker 2: specialize in food production and that they are quote working
Speaker 2: on building the first modular oil refinery in the Democratic
Speaker 2: Republic of Congo, developing a logging company, and have one
Speaker 2: of the only glass manufacturing facilities in the entire country. Unquote.
Speaker 2: They later say, quote, job creation is our number one goal.
Speaker 2: Profits are important, but that has always been and always
Speaker 2: will be our number two goal. But even if profit
Speaker 2: isn't there in the end for Red Lion, but if
Speaker 2: we were able to create good jobs that can be
Speaker 2: self sustained by the project, where people can support themselves
Speaker 2: and their families, then that is good enough for us. Unquote.
Speaker 2: He has an interesting way of saying words there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't need a high level criminologist to find
Speaker 3: out what this guy wrote, like, it'd be pretty obvious,
Speaker 3: pretty obvious if he wrote his own manifesto, etc.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's a company that was trying to do
Speaker 2: everything and actually kind of did nothing.
Speaker 3: I'm aware of a Red Lion group operation in that area,
Speaker 3: but it's not linked to his name. There are US
Speaker 3: probably people as part of private security companies doing private
Speaker 3: security work in the DRC, mostly around mind right, So
Speaker 3: we're protecting infrastructure and employees and a lot of Israelis
Speaker 3: kicking around as well in that area.
Speaker 2: Many such cases.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there will be front groups right that allow.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of the like straked up mercenary
Speaker 3: fighters who you're finding Congo are from Romania. People remember
Speaker 3: a bunch of them were captured in Kiva recently. And
Speaker 3: like there will sometimes be American or other global North
Speaker 3: companies that are essentially passed throughs for those No.
Speaker 2: I'm sure this like former like middle manager at food
Speaker 2: like industry companies was not doing PMSC work in the Congo. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's just not true.
Speaker 3: He was. They're like preaching, Yeah, exactly, And I think
Speaker 3: he yet again, right, he aspired to do cool guy gunshit,
Speaker 3: and this was an attempt to do cool guy gunshit
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five. He went to the DC earlier
Speaker 3: this year apparently again to try and get this business going,
Speaker 3: when he had purchased a fishing boat again like a diversification. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he failed. I guess some arm groups will exercise and
Speaker 3: control of the area he wanted to presumably fishing. Not surprising,
Speaker 3: feels like he's not really engaging with this as an expert.
Speaker 3: Might The failure of this seems to have had a
Speaker 3: negative impact on his mental health. And then just just
Speaker 3: to I guess wrap up on his mental well being,
Speaker 3: and then where he's at right now. Since his arrest,
Speaker 3: Belta has complained several times about jail conditions. He says
Speaker 3: lights around twenty four hours a day, he's constantly working
Speaker 3: by loud noises. He doesn't have a pillow. A court appearance,
Speaker 3: he said he had slept in nearly two weeks, which
Speaker 3: obviously is not good for the human body. I think
Speaker 3: it's a lot of called. Sheriff detaining him said that, like,
Speaker 3: it's disgusting that he's made himself the victim here. So
Speaker 3: he's been charged federally, right, and the federal charges will
Speaker 3: come first, and then any state charges will come. The
Speaker 3: DOJS was the interesting in getting involved here because of
Speaker 3: the imitation of a police officer, because these are clearly
Speaker 3: politically motivated assassinations, right, and they can see the death
Speaker 3: penalty federally. I don't know if they will, but I
Speaker 3: don't know if they can do that in Minnesota. Since
Speaker 3: his arrest, he has also waived at attention hearing, saying
Speaker 3: that he wanted to get to court faster to quote
Speaker 3: from him here, that gets us to court faster where
Speaker 3: the truth can come out. Quote. I think Minnesotans want
Speaker 3: to know what's going on, Yes, they do. His court
Speaker 3: appearance could be interesting. Yeah, should we, Garrison, talking of interesting,
Speaker 3: take a break to hear about some interesting products and
Speaker 3: services that people might like to avail themselves off.
Speaker 2: I think we shall. All right, we're back. Let's talk
Speaker 2: a little bit at least briefly mentioned some of the
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories regarding this fella, and then we'll get into
Speaker 2: some of his religious background and kind of fill in
Speaker 2: the gaps from these many different business ventures he's tried
Speaker 2: to get up and running. So, James, what kind of
Speaker 2: theories do people have out in the world about what's
Speaker 2: really going on here?
Speaker 3: There have been a few, Garrison. One of their tweld
Speaker 3: ones was said he was a Democrat, which is not
Speaker 3: a page to be true, to have any evidence of that.
Speaker 2: No, he did not politically register to parties for the
Speaker 2: past eight years, but had supported Trump and wrote in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen that the upcoming election was the most important
Speaker 2: one of their lifetimes, which, to be fair, many people
Speaker 2: also said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and have said for every election since.
Speaker 2: But he has a conservative Christian evangelical who has supported
Speaker 2: Trump seemingly his main political motivating factor was abortion. Yeah,
Speaker 2: as we will get into more shortly. No, not a Democrat,
Speaker 2: not a Democrat, but he works for Tim Waltz. This
Speaker 2: is not Tim Wall's the strongest soldier. I'm sorry, Fellows,
Speaker 2: it's not true.
Speaker 3: The reason the Democrat theory, one of the reasons behind
Speaker 3: the Democrat theory continuing to spread is that US Senator
Speaker 3: Might Lee shared.
Speaker 2: It right, Yeah, in an unhinged rant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe I'll to pull out that tweet really quick.
Speaker 3: Lee has since taken down his tweet his seat, but
Speaker 3: in the seat he posted they're on Wall Street with
Speaker 3: the picture of Belt.
Speaker 2: Another Lee post, and that's Walls the street. To clarify
Speaker 2: for those who do not speak British.
Speaker 3: Esp functionally, Garrison there from Canada where they understand both
Speaker 3: British and American English.
Speaker 2: Well, actually we speak in native Minnesotan.
Speaker 3: I think you are. You are uniquely equipped. Lee also
Speaker 3: posted quote, this is what happened when Mark's don't get
Speaker 3: their way, with another picture of Belter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sitting US senator calling this guy like Mike Walls,
Speaker 2: like Marxist super soldier. None of this is true. Now,
Speaker 2: Belter had been appointed to serve on a State Economic
Speaker 2: Board back in twenty sixteen by then Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton,
Speaker 2: one of the surviving victims of the shooting. S Senator
Speaker 2: John Hoffman also served on this board. But this board
Speaker 2: had forty one members. It's unclear if the two actually
Speaker 2: ever interacted or knew each other. It seems unlikely. They
Speaker 2: only met a few times a year as a group,
Speaker 2: and most of that's been online the past few years,
Speaker 2: so you're basically just joining a zoom call. We do
Speaker 2: not think that Vance Belter and Senator John Hoffman actually
Speaker 2: interacted on this board. Now, Tim Walls later reappointed Belter
Speaker 2: because he just served on the board already for four years,
Speaker 2: so it's not like this was a big political appointee.
Speaker 2: This was an economic advisory board because Belter had worked
Speaker 2: for a lot of different corporations, So this is really
Speaker 2: not a real connection. Walls did not know this guy,
Speaker 2: and certainly this guy was not a Marxist, nor was
Speaker 2: it carrying out orders from a future Lieutenant Commander of
Speaker 2: the Midwest, Tim Walls and the People's the People's Army
Speaker 2: of the Midwest Western America. What's actually going on here
Speaker 2: is that instead of being a Marxist, this guy is
Speaker 2: a pretty bog standard evangelical. Bilter got a diploma in
Speaker 2: quote Practical theology in Leadership and Pastoral from the Christ
Speaker 2: for the Nation's Institute in Dallas back in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: who was ordained in nineteen ninety three. Instead of security
Speaker 2: consulting work, it seems most of his overseas travel was
Speaker 2: actually missionary work. Starting nineteen ninety three, Bolter and his
Speaker 2: wife ran a Christian nonprofit called The Reformation Ministries. According
Speaker 2: to Federal tax records version of this ministry's website archive
Speaker 2: from twenty eleven says that Bolter travels to Gaza and
Speaker 2: the West Bank during the Second Intifada, where he quote
Speaker 2: sought out militant Islamists in order to share the Gospel
Speaker 2: and tell them that violence wasn't the answer unquote. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of things to unpack there. Evidently this guy
Speaker 2: eventually determined that violence was the answer.
Speaker 3: So right, yeah, it's some simile hypocritical.
Speaker 2: Certainly actually took a took a note from the militants.
Speaker 2: In the end, it does seem like he was traveling
Speaker 2: in the Middle East in the nineties. This does seem to
Speaker 2: be true. In twenty and six, he self published a
Speaker 2: Christian book called original Ability Can man Obey God? Unfortunately
Speaker 2: I have not been able to locate a copy of
Speaker 2: this book. It seems to not really exist online. Many
Speaker 2: such cases as a self published Christian book from twos
Speaker 2: and six that this was before you could use like
Speaker 2: you know, Amazon publishing as readily as you do now
Speaker 2: now all of the Crank book I can easily buy
Speaker 2: on Amazon the day after shooting. Not the case for
Speaker 2: this now. Bolter did work in the food industry. It
Speaker 2: worked for Johnsonville Sausage Gerber seven to eleven, and this
Speaker 2: was what he did for most of his career. CNN
Speaker 2: claims that in twenty twenty one, he quit his job
Speaker 2: and started traveling to the Democratic Republic of Congo more
Speaker 2: frequently to do missionary work and with the express interest
Speaker 2: in solving hunger. Friends say that after quitting his job,
Speaker 2: he started putting more of his money into these bizarre
Speaker 2: startup businesses like security work and this fishing company in
Speaker 2: the Congo. A friend who asked to remain anonymous told
Speaker 2: CNN quote, I was more on the side of, hey, buddy,
Speaker 2: this doesn't sound right. It's irresponsible to quit your job
Speaker 2: and now you're burning through cash. It just made no
Speaker 2: sense to me. Unquote.
Speaker 3: I guess we should addressed the name of that company
Speaker 3: as a conspiracy that I'd forgotten Garrison.
Speaker 2: Oh good, Oh, another conspiracy just dropped in.
Speaker 3: Some of the herald reassociated with the non existent state
Speaker 3: of Rhodesia are red lions. I don't see any particular
Speaker 3: evidence that is where he got his red line from.
Speaker 3: I think from the Crusades and the heraldry associated with
Speaker 3: that is much more likely given what you've just outlined. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that makes sense to me as well. He doesn't strike
Speaker 3: me as like I'm sure this person probably wasn't like woke,
Speaker 3: but like his whole thing is not racist.
Speaker 2: Evidently not. Actually we can say for certain this guy
Speaker 2: that work.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, not woke confirmed, But he's not like
Speaker 3: a massive racist, Like he's not no, like that's not
Speaker 3: his main motivating factor here. Yes, No, he's not the
Speaker 3: next last Rhodesion.
Speaker 2: He's he's racist in the way that all Christian missionaries
Speaker 2: who go to countries full of not white people are racist,
Speaker 2: but not in like the neo Nazi Rhodesian way.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, his friend and roommate to David Carlson told scene
Speaker 2: end quote the problem is he quit all his jobs
Speaker 2: to go down there. Then he comes back and tries
Speaker 2: to find new jobs. Wasn't working out too good? Quote
Speaker 2: that's saying mildly. Yeah. As recently it's twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: Belter was still preaching evangelical sermons in the Congo. In
Speaker 2: one sermon uploaded to YouTube, he attacked game trans people,
Speaker 2: saying quote, the enemy has gotten so far into their
Speaker 2: mind and their soul. In another sermon, he preached against
Speaker 2: churches that affirmed a woman's right to choose and said quote,
Speaker 2: God will raise an apostle or prophet to correct their course.
Speaker 2: God is going to raise apostles and prophets in America
Speaker 2: to correct his church. Unquote interesting, which might sound a
Speaker 2: little weird or violent if you're unfamiliar with this style
Speaker 2: of preaching. But this is frankly very common. This is
Speaker 2: the common all across this country or like America. Like,
Speaker 2: this is a very normal style of preaching. That's not good, right,
Speaker 2: that's not saying it's good, But that's that's why so
Speaker 2: much of you know, the megabased and Republicans are like that.
Speaker 2: It's because this is what they go to listen to
Speaker 2: every Sunday. Yeah tired found in his now deleted Facebook
Speaker 2: that he liked and followed several other evangelical and pentecostal
Speaker 2: missionary organizations that target countries in Africa, as well as
Speaker 2: the anti abortion ANTILGBTQ legal advocacy group the ADF the
Speaker 2: Alliance Defending Freedom Now. As horrifying as what happened on
Speaker 2: the Saturday of the shooting, this was just a little
Speaker 2: bit of what he had planned. In his vehicle. There
Speaker 2: was a list of over seventy named political targets, like
Speaker 2: Minnesota politicians Tim Walls and Elana mar This list included
Speaker 2: other Democratic politicians from Wisconsin and Ohio, one from Texas.
Speaker 2: The list also included abortion rights activists as well as
Speaker 2: current and former Minnesota Planned Parenthood staff. This was primarily
Speaker 2: a shooting directed at people and organizations that he saw
Speaker 2: as being pro abortion. This is the main motivating factor
Speaker 2: that we can tell so far. This is the thing
Speaker 2: that links all of these people together.
Speaker 3: I think he failed into that model of anti abortion
Speaker 3: terrorism quite neatly. Yeah, just like the Olympic bombing. Now
Speaker 3: flyers with information on the No King's protests later that
Speaker 3: day were also found in the car, with those rallies
Speaker 3: being another possible target for violence. Things did not go
Speaker 3: that way because he was intercepted by police, probably earlier
Speaker 3: than he expected.
Speaker 2: Now. In the home that he was renting, police found
Speaker 2: more notebooks and handwritten lists of names and home addresses
Speaker 2: of quote, numerous in Minnesota public officials. This includes Portman's home,
Speaker 2: which he wrote has a quote big house off golf course,
Speaker 2: two ways in unquote. So he was making notes on
Speaker 2: the homes of targets, how to get in them, the
Speaker 2: surrounding area. He was familiar with these areas.
Speaker 3: Concerning to me actually that like these people, I did
Speaker 3: notice that the California Assembly has recently tried to authorize
Speaker 3: spending of more campaign funds on private security for legislators.
Speaker 3: But like some of these people are relatively high up
Speaker 3: in the Minnesota DFL, others working for Planned parenthood. The
Speaker 3: person that was killed was the top state Democrats. Yeah,
Speaker 3: an extremely serious person in state politics. Yeah, that their
Speaker 3: addresses is that easily searchable is scary. Uh, I'm worried
Speaker 3: for them. I'm sure that this will provoke a change
Speaker 3: of people's security practices.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we've been warning that things like this
Speaker 2: were down the pipe for years, and.
Speaker 3: For abortion providers, like this has been the case for
Speaker 3: decades exactly.
Speaker 2: This has already been a This has already been something
Speaker 2: that you can threat models reality. And as for targeting
Speaker 2: democratic politicians, there's hundreds and hundreds of posts of Republicans
Speaker 2: and conservatives frothing at the mouth that the idea of
Speaker 2: killing democratic politicians, Yeah, that's what they wanted to do
Speaker 2: on January sixth. This isn't like an unforeseen event.
Speaker 3: It's kind of a logical conclusion to the way we've
Speaker 3: been traveling for a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is an extremely predictable aspect of our politics now,
Speaker 2: and at least for Belter, Like it's pretty clear now
Speaker 2: to investigators that he was researching targets and planning this
Speaker 2: for months. Yeah, like this this wasn't like a snap
Speaker 2: of the moment decision, like he just like went crazy
Speaker 2: one night, Like he was wanting to do something like
Speaker 2: this for a long time and had put months of
Speaker 2: planning on work into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he had a series of silicon masks, right, he
Speaker 3: ditched them. After he ditched his first mask, after the
Speaker 3: first shooting, he disassembled his handgun and ditched that in
Speaker 3: various parts after the first shooting, he had a series
Speaker 3: of weapons he was planning on moving along to. He
Speaker 3: had a police vest, he had a taser to appear
Speaker 3: more like a cop.
Speaker 2: Police badge, Yep, a.
Speaker 3: Badge to appear more like a cop. I heard a
Speaker 3: press conference where I think it's probably the chief of
Speaker 3: police said, if he was standing with us, you would
Speaker 3: assume he was another cop. Right, Like, he'd got a
Speaker 3: long way, yeah, into planning this and clearly as a
Speaker 3: model a threat that the police had modeled too. Right,
Speaker 3: because they immediately responded to other Democrat politicians' homes or
Speaker 3: quickly responded to the politicians' homes.
Speaker 2: How quick the police response was to other people's homes
Speaker 2: who were not like immediately evident were the ones under
Speaker 2: attack is pretty notable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is notable, and like it probably saved more
Speaker 3: people's lives. Yeah, because this guy he had a GPS
Speaker 3: device a garment like an old school you know, there's
Speaker 3: little GPS's used to garrison. This may not have occurred
Speaker 3: in your lived experience. Used to be able to buy
Speaker 3: a GPS that you'll put on the dashboard of your vehicle. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you can put addresses into there. I'm getting I've used,
Speaker 3: I've used. Okay, okay, yeah, Garrison, old Garrison, get in
Speaker 3: the get in the replies. If you are Jen Alpha
Speaker 3: and you don't know what that is, would make Garrison
Speaker 3: feel old.
Speaker 2: Oh no, we do have Gen Alpha listeners now, damn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah we do. Yeah, carrying them to the jungle buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but no, he was. He was playing this for
Speaker 2: a while. Like in his main home outside the city,
Speaker 2: police found forty seven guns and twenty thousand dollars in cash.
Speaker 3: Why I didn't take his cash?
Speaker 2: Well, I think this is like a prepper type thing.
Speaker 2: He was arrested near his home, so he was probably
Speaker 2: honest way back there to grab shit and then like
Speaker 2: get out, continue to buy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he bought that e bike, Like I think
Speaker 3: that's probably how his fangs travel. I think he used
Speaker 3: the GPS right, because it's not traceable like a phone is.
Speaker 3: He drained his bank account and met someone at a
Speaker 3: bus stop and bought the e bike off them, and
Speaker 3: then found out he had a car and went took
Speaker 3: the bus back and bought that car. Like he was
Speaker 3: trying to get a car that wasn't traceable to him.
Speaker 3: Is what he's trying to do, right, and he's trying
Speaker 3: to get the e bike, which is a vehicle that
Speaker 3: allows him to travel kind of off road and not
Speaker 3: be detectable. He really thought this out and like it
Speaker 3: could have been a lot worse.
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, this is this is all I had
Speaker 2: on here. I guess The last thing we will want
Speaker 2: to talk about before we closed is just like how
Speaker 2: really how it relates to like the general political temperature
Speaker 2: at that moment. Yeah, we've had like a series of
Speaker 2: assassinations or targeted assassinations, attempted assassinations in the past year,
Speaker 2: Like the Trump assassination attempt was less than a year ago. Yeah, obviously,
Speaker 2: Luigi Mangioni.
Speaker 3: With the second Trumpet assassination attempt, yep.
Speaker 2: You had the man who tried to burn down Joshapiro's home, someone.
Speaker 3: Tried to burn down Nathan Fletcher's home in San Diego.
Speaker 2: Like this is just something that happens now. You can
Speaker 2: even look at things like the shooting of the two
Speaker 2: Israel embassy staffers like, ye, this style of assassination kind
Speaker 2: of went away for a while, and then I think
Speaker 2: really around shinzo Abe, you started to see this spread
Speaker 2: throughout the world and now America as a strategy that
Speaker 2: siphons away people who maybe would have done a mass
Speaker 2: shooting are now doing stuff like this, But it's also
Speaker 2: attracting a whole new base of people, people who would
Speaker 2: actually never do a mass shooting. Instead can direct a
Speaker 2: level of animosity in this direction. Yeah, it's people who
Speaker 2: think they are the good guys in this way. The
Speaker 2: people doing mass shootings, I think tend not to think
Speaker 2: they're the good guys. They just kind of you know that.
Speaker 2: We don't need to dive into the motivation to mass
Speaker 2: shooters here. Yeah, but there's like rejecting society and nihilistic
Speaker 2: display vihilism, Yeah, exactly, Whereas this is not that this
Speaker 2: is someone who thinks that they're striking a blow for
Speaker 2: good and against evil. Now this is ideological. This is
Speaker 2: like spiritual warfare.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to keep tracking what he says in
Speaker 3: court because I think that will tell us a lot
Speaker 3: more about this. We'll find out like what I assume
Speaker 3: he wants to use his like use the court as
Speaker 3: a pulpit right from which ways to preach, which to
Speaker 3: share his views, because he's admitted to doing this in
Speaker 3: this letter to the FBI, and it was very obviously him,
Speaker 3: So that will be very telling. It will be a
Speaker 3: while before we see this guy in court. Nearly all
Speaker 3: federal prosecutions and implea deals. If they I don't know
Speaker 3: if they will pushure the death penalty, but he might
Speaker 3: be able to pleat that down to life in prison,
Speaker 3: So he might end up doing that. But at this
Speaker 3: point seems determined to have a trial, and so we
Speaker 3: will probably see a grand jury indictment and then a trial,
Speaker 3: right So, I think part of the reason there have
Speaker 3: been so many conspiracy theories about his particularly his pre
Speaker 3: security consulting, particularly in the DRC, is that for so
Speaker 3: many Americans, to include people who go there to preach,
Speaker 3: often Africa in general and the DRC in particular, they
Speaker 3: see it through the same lens as Joseph contracted as
Speaker 3: this heart of darkness, this place where things are two
Speaker 3: hundred years behind and everyone is quote unquote. I'm using
Speaker 3: these terms because these people would use them because I
Speaker 3: believe they are true. Many friends from Congo, like Congolese people,
Speaker 3: that they think people there are primitive and backwards that
Speaker 3: need to be like uplifted, civilized and Christianized right, and
Speaker 3: that is reflected in our media, where you cannot write
Speaker 3: about Africa other than from an extremely condescending perspective. In
Speaker 3: this country. Is someone who covers conflict as someone who's
Speaker 3: covered terrorism. You know, the Islamic State is a life
Speaker 3: and well in Africa, but you wouldn't know it if
Speaker 3: you even if you read front to back cover of
Speaker 3: most of the major dailies every day, because Africa is
Speaker 3: seen as a country, not a continent by far too
Speaker 3: many people, including in the media in this country. And
Speaker 3: I think that is what has led to some of
Speaker 3: these kind of spiraling conspiracies about his work there. And
Speaker 3: it's something we in the media need to address because
Speaker 3: it will only become more relevant on the global stage,
Speaker 3: I think in the next few years.
Speaker 2: Oh that doesn't for us today. It could happen here,
Speaker 2: It's happening.
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