Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the courtroom in Morton County, North Dakota.
Speaker 1: Jury selection wrapped up yesterday and today the Energy Transfer
Speaker 1: versus Greenpeace trial has officially begun. Energy Transfer's lawyer, Trey
Speaker 1: Cox delivers his opening statement. Energy Transfer did everything bright
Speaker 1: as it prepared to build the Dakota Access Pipeline. Trey
Speaker 1: assures the jury there were protests, they were small, they
Speaker 1: were quiet. He says, now enter green Peace. Several photos
Speaker 1: pop up on screens throughout the courtroom. Here they are,
Speaker 1: Trey explains, these are the Green Piece six. Not a
Speaker 1: single one of them lives in this community. These people
Speaker 1: are professionals. They embed in a location, then they escalate.
Speaker 1: They are trained in how to teach people how to protest.
Speaker 1: Trey says he's going to prove that the environmental nonprofit
Speaker 1: secretly planned, organized, and funded a game plan to stop
Speaker 1: construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace attempted to make
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer look like Satan himself, he says. Shame on them.
Speaker 1: He exclaims, they thought they could do it in secret.
Speaker 1: They thought that we wouldn't be smart enough to figure
Speaker 1: out what they did. He concludes. Today starts the day
Speaker 1: of reckoning. I'll admit it. The vibes are fiery, and
Speaker 1: I say let's go. If Energy Transfer is finally about
Speaker 1: to show us the dirt they say they have on
Speaker 1: this huge nonprofit, my pen and notebook are ready. This
Speaker 1: season of Drilled, we bring you Slapped, the story of
Speaker 1: an indigenous nation fighting for its water, an environmental nonprofit
Speaker 1: facing extinction, and an energy giant using the courts to
Speaker 1: punish protesters. I'm Ellen Brown. The idea of Greenpeace as
Speaker 1: a radical boogeyman is something oil companies and their lawyers
Speaker 1: trot out a lot.
Speaker 2: If I were an evil corporate lawyer, I too would
Speaker 2: go after green Peace.
Speaker 1: Frank Zelko is a historian at the University of Hawaii.
Speaker 1: He wrote a big book on green Peace. It's called
Speaker 1: Make It a Green Peace. He says Greenpeace has a
Speaker 1: very particular history. It was founded just as the contemporary
Speaker 1: environmental movement was taking off in the nineteen seventies. They
Speaker 1: started out finding nuclear testing and then moved on to
Speaker 1: protecting marine life. But what set them apart from any
Speaker 1: other environmental organization at the time were these dramatic protest
Speaker 1: actions at sea.
Speaker 2: They were discussing what they would do. Once they found
Speaker 2: some wiling ships in the Pacific, they decided they needed
Speaker 2: to put their bodies on the line in some way.
Speaker 2: That evolved into well, let's like, you know, put ourselves
Speaker 2: between the whales and the harpoon boat.
Speaker 3: They started off conducted a series of very grueling zodiac exercises.
Speaker 1: Sensational direct action became green Piece's brand, and green Peace
Speaker 1: was media savvy. In fact, the original group included journalists.
Speaker 1: These were people that knew how to tell a story. Also,
Speaker 1: they weren't just a North American organization, they were international.
Speaker 2: They became, probably by the eighties, the most well known
Speaker 2: environmental organization in the world. Not the richest or the biggest,
Speaker 2: but certainly the one that grew the most headlines.
Speaker 1: For the purposes of our story, it's also helpful to
Speaker 1: know that green pieces relationships with Indigenous people were spotty.
Speaker 1: Green Piece's efforts to save sea cretures sometimes took aim
Speaker 1: at indigenous practices. For example, an anti seal hunting campaign
Speaker 1: Greenpeace launched in the nineteen seventies destroyed a major income
Speaker 1: stream for Indigenous nations.
Speaker 4: First of all, harvest is the only economic source that
Speaker 4: we have here on Saint Paul, it's the way that
Speaker 4: people earn their money. But I'm not sure that's good
Speaker 4: enough argument anymore with all the environmental that's attacking the
Speaker 4: differicueal harvest.
Speaker 1: But in recent years the nonprofit has really tried to
Speaker 1: make amends. They made working closely with indigenous people a
Speaker 1: big part of their strategy. But one thing Greenpeace has
Speaker 1: done all along is commit to avoiding violence or property damage.
Speaker 2: Early on in Greenpeace's history they made it very clear that,
Speaker 2: you know, nonviolence was key, and they've you know, drown
Speaker 2: the line ever since that we will never endanger people
Speaker 2: in our protests and we won't deliberately destroy property.
Speaker 1: Still, companies and governments began to label their actions as
Speaker 1: eco terrorism.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any credible examples of anything remotely
Speaker 2: like something you could describe as eco terrorism in green
Speaker 2: peaces past, unless you know, you reframe eco terrorism as
Speaker 2: a bunch of people just blocking bulldozers or hanging a
Speaker 2: banner between you know, a couple of chimneys or under
Speaker 2: a bridge or something like that.
Speaker 1: But criminalizing environmental activism has long been a corporate strategy
Speaker 1: to get critics off companies backs, so have lawsuits can
Speaker 1: you kind of just take me back to when you
Speaker 1: first heard about, you know, the federal RICO suit that
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer filed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I remember it well.
Speaker 1: Deepa Padmanaba is a senior legal advisor for Greenpeace. I
Speaker 1: talked with her before the trial began.
Speaker 5: I was about six and a half months pregnant with
Speaker 5: my first child, so my memory is a little hazy
Speaker 5: from that point. This one came at a very big surprise,
Speaker 5: just because the Greenpeace entities had such little involvement with
Speaker 5: anything associated with Standing Rock, from communications to on the
Speaker 5: ground presence. So this one perplexed us.
Speaker 1: But as DIPA tried to figure out why Energy Transfer
Speaker 1: had targeted them, one thing stood out.
Speaker 5: At that time, we were already dealing with another massive
Speaker 5: slapsuit filed in federal court.
Speaker 1: Against slap stance for strategic lawsuit against public participation. Slapsuits
Speaker 1: are about using the court system to silence powerful people's critics.
Speaker 1: Just before the Standing Rock movement took off in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: a law firm called casswitzpenceon Torres had filed a separate
Speaker 1: RICO suit against Greenpeace. It's a firm that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is higher. Repeatedly this RICO suit was on behalf of
Speaker 1: a timber company called Resolute Forest Products. They claimed that
Speaker 1: green Peace Canada's anti logging campaign, which targeted Resolute, amounted
Speaker 1: to racketeering, defamation, and tortuous interference, which is just what
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer would accuse Greenpeace of. About a year later, and.
Speaker 5: As we forward to August of twenty seventeen, the complaints
Speaker 5: looked very similar. It was the same attorneys, it was
Speaker 5: the same allegations of a RICO conspiracy, and it was
Speaker 5: the same attempt to just scare us into silence and bankrupt.
Speaker 1: Us energy transfers. Arguments seemed to be cut from a
Speaker 1: pattern created by Cassowits. The Gibson dun firm was involved
Speaker 1: in developing the lawsuit early on and then took over
Speaker 1: the suit again years later. These two firms, with histories
Speaker 1: of using RICO to go after environmental defenders, apparently tag
Speaker 1: teamed the lawsuit against green Peace. Cassowitz spokesperson Email Drilled
Speaker 1: a statement. It read, the firm spearheaded energy transfer suits
Speaker 1: against those who wrongfully targeted these projects, and we are
Speaker 1: gratified that energy Transfer ultimately achieved such a successful result.
Speaker 1: I tried to get energy Transfer in their lawyers at
Speaker 1: Gibson done on the phone to talk me through their
Speaker 1: legal fight. They all said no to multiple interview requests.
Speaker 1: So deepa walk me through the claims in detail. Remember,
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer's initial federal RICO suit against Greenpeace was dismissed
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen because the pipeline company didn't have the
Speaker 1: evidence to prove racketeering. The case was refiled in North
Speaker 1: Dakota State court. This new case alleged a conspiracy rather
Speaker 1: than RICO. North Dakota is a major oil and gas state,
Speaker 1: experienced some of the Standing Rock protests firsthand, and happens
Speaker 1: to be one of the fifteen states in the country
Speaker 1: that does not have an anti slap law on the books.
Speaker 5: The claims in that lawsuit fall into three what I
Speaker 5: called three major buckets. So one is a set of
Speaker 5: defamation claims, you know, claims that they said, we spread
Speaker 5: these false statements that cause them harm.
Speaker 1: Energy transfers as green Peace committed defamation by accusing them
Speaker 1: of deliberately desecrating sacred sites, by accusing them of putting
Speaker 1: the pipeline on the Standing Rocks tribe's land, and by
Speaker 1: accusing police and private security of being violent toward nonviolent protesters.
Speaker 1: I can tell you these statements have been repeated far
Speaker 1: and wide over the past decade, and no evidence I've
Speaker 1: seen indicates they originated with green Peace. But Energy Transfer
Speaker 1: is saying that green Peace used these statements to convince
Speaker 1: people to go to Standing Rock and protest the pipeline.
Speaker 5: The second big bucket are tortious interference claims.
Speaker 1: This is a money thing. The Standing Rock movement included
Speaker 1: a big effort to get banks that were funding the
Speaker 1: Dakota Access Pipeline to divest.
Speaker 5: So they claimed we made all these statements to banks,
Speaker 5: and those statements cause banks to either pull out of
Speaker 5: the decode Access pipeline project, cause them you know, refine
Speaker 5: it huge refinancing costs, things like that. And then the
Speaker 5: third bucket of claims are on the ground claim So
Speaker 5: those are things like conversion and trespass where they allege
Speaker 5: huge amounts of damages for delays and for you know,
Speaker 5: direct damages related to construction equipment and things like that.
Speaker 1: The Standing Rock movement is best known for protests that
Speaker 1: attempted to physically block construction. Energy Transfer is arguing in
Speaker 1: that those actions were orchestrated by Greenpeace. The conspiracy charges
Speaker 1: tiele this together. To prove a conspiracy, you need people
Speaker 1: or groups to be plotting together to do something unlawful.
Speaker 1: It's boring but important to understand that Green Piece is
Speaker 1: actually a network of independently run organizations based around the world.
Speaker 1: I'm going to spare you all the details, but you
Speaker 1: should know that the green Peace organizations and Transfer is
Speaker 1: targeting are green Peace International, which coordinates some of the
Speaker 1: things green Peace national and regional organizations do, green Peace Inc.
Speaker 1: Which does activism in the US, and green Peace Fund,
Speaker 1: also based in the US, but exists to fund certain
Speaker 1: green Peace activities. Energy Transfer by now already dropped half
Speaker 1: of the supposed conspirators from the case. That's Cody Hall,
Speaker 1: Crystal Tubles, and Red Warrior Society. The conspiracy theory they're
Speaker 1: going with at this point involved just the different green
Speaker 1: Peace organizations conspiring with each other. Energy Transfer calls their
Speaker 1: first witness and Lucky me. He is a celebrity of
Speaker 1: my imagination, Mike Futch. This dude's name has come up
Speaker 1: about a bazillion times as I've investigated the pipeline company's
Speaker 1: activities during the Standing Rock movement. He's a towering bald
Speaker 1: man with broad shoulders and an American flag pin on
Speaker 1: the lapel of his suit. Mike was the project manager
Speaker 1: for the north the CODA section of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Speaker 1: Remember that incident where the private security dogs attacked water protectors.
Speaker 6: Man protester.
Speaker 7: Protesters.
Speaker 6: Are you telling the dogs to bite the protester?
Speaker 1: Mike says it was the protesters, not private security in
Speaker 1: their dogs, that were violent. The only violence was when
Speaker 1: protesters came on to private property and attacked us. We
Speaker 1: were always in retreat, he says. He counts property damage
Speaker 1: as part of that violence. He talks about how the
Speaker 1: pipeline opponents cut hydraulicoses, booby trapped equipment, filled gas tanks
Speaker 1: with sand and gravel, spray painted cabin windows, and busted
Speaker 1: up equipment gages. And in the trial days that follow
Speaker 1: five law enforcement officers take the stand and back him up.
Speaker 1: All of them seemed to agree that the protesters were
Speaker 1: the violent ones. But some of the things that they're
Speaker 1: describing don't totally seem like violence to me. Here's Jason's
Speaker 1: google Meyer, Deputy chief of the Bismarck Police Department.
Speaker 8: It's not peaceful when you block a Highway whenever you
Speaker 8: want and without warning, and they did that all the time.
Speaker 1: Jason declined my request for an interview, but he spoke
Speaker 1: with Rob Rice, that propaganda guy hired by Energy Transfers
Speaker 1: private security contractor Tiger Swan. The interview was included in
Speaker 1: a documentary they posted on Facebook back when the protests
Speaker 1: were still going on.
Speaker 8: We didn't even want to rest anybody that day. We
Speaker 8: just got in a line and systematically just pushed forward
Speaker 8: and tried to be as nice as we could about it.
Speaker 8: Then it turned into they started burning vehicles in our way.
Speaker 8: They started throwing all top cocktails at us, that were
Speaker 8: throwing logs, rocks, whatever they could at us. We had
Speaker 8: no option other than to move forward, and we did
Speaker 8: have to use some amount of force, but opinion there
Speaker 8: was a minimum mode of force.
Speaker 1: Jason and the other police officers did share some first
Speaker 1: hand accounts of what I think falls under a more
Speaker 1: typical definition of violence. Jason testifies that he and his
Speaker 1: family received threats from pipeline opponents. They feared for their
Speaker 1: lives and left their home for a few days at
Speaker 1: the FBI's suggestion. Another officer, Lieutenant Brian Steele, says that
Speaker 1: during one protest he got hit in the back with
Speaker 1: a big rock. Cy Wagner was one of the Greenpeace
Speaker 1: staffers who went to Standing Rock. He was called to
Speaker 1: testify too, and her testimony from Energy Transfers public relations
Speaker 1: executive who said she also dealt with threats during the
Speaker 1: protests and.
Speaker 9: It was powerful that they received threats. It's a real thing.
Speaker 9: There were harm in this way.
Speaker 1: He was sympathetic, but he felt the testimony was missing
Speaker 1: a big part of the story, the tactics and tools
Speaker 1: used against water Protectors, like rubber bullets.
Speaker 9: We didn't even talk about the the dog bites, the
Speaker 9: bullets that people took to the face. People all started
Speaker 9: hearing from all the equipment that was brought, the military
Speaker 9: equipment that was brought to there, and people were sprayed
Speaker 9: in freezing temperatures, Like the trauma that people felt in
Speaker 9: that space. We didn't talk about that. We didn't talk
Speaker 9: about the harm that was done on people who were
Speaker 9: there on the front line non violently.
Speaker 1: After that night where police sprayed water hoses, at least
Speaker 1: twenty six people were hospitalized, with dozens more injured. According
Speaker 1: to the Water Protectors Medic Group. Multiple journalists were hit
Speaker 1: with rubber bullets throughout the protests, and on a lot
Speaker 1: of days police had guns loaded and ready to fire
Speaker 1: on demonstrators.
Speaker 7: They're all holding batons and guns, as you can tell.
Speaker 10: And they started they stopped us up at the top
Speaker 10: up there and started spraying and beating everybody on the
Speaker 10: front line.
Speaker 1: And that's what I remember. Energy Transfer says they're going
Speaker 1: to prove that it was defamation for Greenpeace to say
Speaker 1: that police in privates ccurity used violence against nonviolent protesters.
Speaker 1: But I'm not seeing proof that no nonviolent people got
Speaker 1: hurt by dogs, rubber bullets, or water hoses. Another Gibson
Speaker 1: dun lawyer, whose name also happens to be Cox, comes
Speaker 1: up to question Mike Footge and Cox number two carries
Speaker 1: to the stand stack after stack of brown accordion folders.
Speaker 1: Mike Fuotch confirms that each of these stacks are invoices
Speaker 1: from a different security contractor. At one point, Cox number
Speaker 1: two struggles to carry over one of the teetering piles.
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer wants Greenpeace to pay them back for all
Speaker 1: these invoices. When they tally it up later, it will
Speaker 1: be over fifty million dollars. Some of the date to
Speaker 1: early August, before Greenpeace employees arrived at Standing Rock, and
Speaker 1: others date to twenty eighteen, literally years after they left.
Speaker 1: With all this paper stacking up, There's something I'm wondering.
Speaker 1: I'd looked through Energy transfers daily private security reports from
Speaker 1: Standing Rock, where they were gathering intel on the movement's leaders.
Speaker 1: Green Peace was hardly mentioned in those at all.
Speaker 7: What you'll see, your honor, is those situational reports, which
Speaker 7: were done every single day, do not reference green Peace
Speaker 7: involved in any activity at or around the protest sites
Speaker 7: at all.
Speaker 1: This is Greenpeace's lawyer, Everett Jack.
Speaker 10: No.
Speaker 1: I didn't secretly record him in the trial, but he
Speaker 1: did say basically the same thing during a pre trial
Speaker 1: hearing that I was actually allowed to record.
Speaker 7: The only place where those reports reference green Peace is
Speaker 7: that they also tracked what was happening online and traffic online.
Speaker 1: Here in the courtroom, none of the people on the
Speaker 1: stands seem to know much about Greenpeace being involved at
Speaker 1: Standing Rock, which seems like a huge problem for Energy
Speaker 1: Transfer's case against them. Everett Jack brings that up again
Speaker 1: when he cross examines Energy Transfer's project manager Mike Butch.
Speaker 1: He says, for any of the security reports that you
Speaker 1: saw or had access to. None of them had any
Speaker 1: reference to any of the Greenpeace entities being on the
Speaker 1: ground in North Dakota and running the show in the
Speaker 1: main camp. Do they? I don't recall seeing that, Mike replies,
Speaker 1: and if I told you that none of those reports
Speaker 1: from any of those contractors said that, you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: any reason to dispute that, would you? Everrett Jack asks,
Speaker 1: as I sit here right now today.
Speaker 10: No.
Speaker 1: He also says that it wasn't his job to keep
Speaker 1: up with the daily reports. If Greenpeace was actually the
Speaker 1: mastermind of Standing Rock, wouldn't security have been tracking them.
Speaker 1: Here's Everett Jack again from the pre trial hearing.
Speaker 7: They were filming and reporting, taking pictures of everything that
Speaker 7: was going on, if there was something going on there
Speaker 7: the tastimony of their witness They looked at web postings,
Speaker 7: they looked at movements of people activities in the camp,
Speaker 7: and that was doable in part because people were infiltrating
Speaker 7: the camp to find out what was going on.
Speaker 1: None of the police officers who testify seem to remember
Speaker 1: much about Greenpeace either. Energy Transfer's lawyer Cox number two
Speaker 1: is able to point to a single police record that
Speaker 1: describes a group from Greenpeace headed to stage of protest
Speaker 1: with gas masks, but Sheriff Kyle Kirkmeyer says he doesn't
Speaker 1: remember it. Sheriff Kirkmeyer does remember the reasons he believed
Speaker 1: thousands of people were showing up to protest. He says
Speaker 1: it was because the Standing Rocks two Tribes chairman invited
Speaker 1: them there, and because of the dog attacks and the
Speaker 1: explosion of social media at the time. The sheriff says
Speaker 1: people came because of the controversial nature of the pipeline itself,
Speaker 1: and because they believed the area was the tribe's unseated territory.
Speaker 1: It's part of the treaty, the sheriff says, makes no
Speaker 1: mention of a green Peace campaign. The next witnesses energy
Speaker 1: transfers lawyers call up are Greenpieace people who couldn't be
Speaker 1: at the trial in person. They're pre taped video depositions.
Speaker 1: It's from them that we finally hear what Greenpeace actually
Speaker 1: did do it. Standing Rock first is a green Peace
Speaker 1: employee named Davy Cory. He's thin, with whitish hair and
Speaker 1: icy blue eyes. Davey drove a trailer called the Rolling
Speaker 1: Sunlight from Greenpiece's headquarters to Standing Rock. The Rolling Sunlight
Speaker 1: was equipped with solar panels to provide electricity for media
Speaker 1: and legal people. Davy says he spent many hours on
Speaker 1: back roads in the country following the right of way
Speaker 1: of the pipeline. He was scouting, he says, collecting information
Speaker 1: about what was happening with construction and passing it along
Speaker 1: to indigenous activists in the camp.
Speaker 11: He then sent all of that information the diagram of
Speaker 11: exactly along with a plan of how we could blockade.
Speaker 1: That's energy transfers lawyer tray Cox. Again not a recording
Speaker 1: from the trial, just the pre trial.
Speaker 11: How we could blockade and attack and vandalize these toys, airplanes, bulldozers,
Speaker 11: equipment to disrupt and prevent energy transfer from conducting the
Speaker 11: Dapple pipeline.
Speaker 1: He was referencing emails Davi sent, including one that now
Speaker 1: flashes on the screen. It's from Davy to another Green
Speaker 1: Pieace employee, dated October twenty sixteen. The company has a
Speaker 1: place where all their toys are stored near the Bismarck area,
Speaker 1: he writes. He suggests a protest strategy. If the entrances
Speaker 1: were blocked, it would be very hard for them to
Speaker 1: get to the job sites. Another Green Piace employee replies,
Speaker 1: I just sent thirty straight boxes down, meaning lock boxes
Speaker 1: plumbing pipes that protesters can use to lock themselves to
Speaker 1: each other. As the video deposition plays, the jurors are
Speaker 1: watching intently. Two of them have a hand to their mouths.
Speaker 1: I imagine what they must be thinking. That this is
Speaker 1: the guy, this is the outside agitator, the professional protester.
Speaker 1: Trey Cox again from the pre trial hearing.
Speaker 11: He was paid by green Peace to travel to Standing Rock.
Speaker 11: He was not on vacation. He received his salary, green
Speaker 11: Peace reimbursed him for all of his expenses.
Speaker 1: Greenpeace lawyers point out that there's no evidence that this
Speaker 1: protest Davy suggested ever, even happened, and Davy later told
Speaker 1: me of her text that he did not supply a
Speaker 1: diagram of how water protectors could do a blockade. He
Speaker 1: also denied sharing ideas about how to attack and vandalize equipment.
Speaker 1: He said doing so would not fit into a nonviolent campaign.
Speaker 1: We learned that in total, six Green Piace employees visited
Speaker 1: Standing Rock, some for a few days, others for a
Speaker 1: few weeks. These are the guys trey Cox calls the
Speaker 1: Green p.
Speaker 4: Six.
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, they all worked for Greenpeace, Inc.
Speaker 1: No one from Greenfeace's fund or Greenpeace International visited Standing Rock.
Speaker 1: Greenpeace Inc. Also donated some supplies. They provided about fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to a group called Indigenous People's Power Project
Speaker 1: or IP three, and some of the six Greenpeace employees
Speaker 1: helped IP three run nonviolent direct action trainings. Nonviolent direct
Speaker 1: action is basically civil disobedience protest actions meant to disrupt
Speaker 1: an activity that the demonstrators view as unjust. At times,
Speaker 1: those actions involved trespassing or disregarding police orders. But Energy
Speaker 1: Transfer is saying that those training supported actions that caused
Speaker 1: expensive construction delays and property damage. They're basing this in
Speaker 1: part on internal emails where Greenpeace employees congratulate each other
Speaker 1: for their role in the movement. Here's one of Energy
Speaker 1: Transfer's lawyers at a pre trial hearing describing a green
Speaker 1: Piece email also displayed during the trial.
Speaker 12: So, then, what Miss Lambert says is these trainings reached
Speaker 12: thousands of people and the peaceful and prayerful direct actions
Speaker 12: that resulted in them were crucial for.
Speaker 7: The Army Corps of Engineers to reach.
Speaker 12: To deny the permit to cod access to cross the
Speaker 12: Missouri at Lagwai.
Speaker 1: Green Pieces Everet Jack said in the pre trial hearings
Speaker 1: and in the trial that emails like this are not
Speaker 1: solid evidence.
Speaker 7: If I put on my game Jersey and my team wins,
Speaker 7: and I said, geez, I put on my game Jersey.
Speaker 10: And my team won, that must be why they won.
Speaker 10: That is not the reason why they won.
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer lawyers say that Green pieces total funding for
Speaker 1: Standing Rock amounted to fifty five thousand dollars, though it
Speaker 1: isn't clear how they got that number. They also show
Speaker 1: that Green Pieces executive director at the time convinced several
Speaker 1: foundations to donate a total of ninety thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: the Standing Rock movement. It's not nothing, but the Tiger
Speaker 1: Swan spreadsheets I'd previously reviewed showed that over eight million
Speaker 1: dollars had come into the camps from crowdfunding alone. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Greenpeace definitely contributed money to Standing Rock, but not much
Speaker 1: compared to all the cash flowing it. And yes, they
Speaker 1: sent six employees, but that's compared to a movement that
Speaker 1: included tens of thousands of people. But let's put money
Speaker 1: and people aside. Energy Transfer is also saying that Greenpeace
Speaker 1: launched a communications campaign that was full of lies, and
Speaker 1: those lies got people to show up and also got
Speaker 1: banks to back away from the pipeline company. Except that
Speaker 1: the very first infammatory statement Energy Transfer claims Greenpeace made
Speaker 1: didn't happen until two months after those dog attacks went viral. Honestly,
Speaker 1: green Piece's post about Standing Rock never crossed my radar.
Speaker 1: There were just so many other social media posts from
Speaker 1: people who were there. The thing that is blowing my
Speaker 1: mind is the scale of what Energy Transfer wants green
Speaker 1: Peace to pay for. Here's green Piece's ever at Jack
Speaker 1: from a pre trial hearing.
Speaker 7: What planeifs want to do is attribute the actions of
Speaker 7: every single one of them to green Piece. That is
Speaker 7: not supportive by the law.
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer doesn't just want green Peace to pay for
Speaker 1: its security expenses. Trey Cox sells the jurors that the
Speaker 1: pipeline company had to spend seven million dollars on pr
Speaker 1: firms to deal with the protests. They spent eight and
Speaker 1: a half million on the ranch that the most controversial
Speaker 1: part of the pipeline passed through. They paid contractors fourteen
Speaker 1: and a half million extra due to changes in construction plans,
Speaker 1: and they lost almost one hundred million when they had
Speaker 1: to delay the refinancing of their loan. They want green
Speaker 1: Peace to pay back what looks like nearly every penny
Speaker 1: they spent to respond to the protests, as if green
Speaker 1: Piece was alone in making all of this happen. As
Speaker 1: the days tick by and we get into weeks two
Speaker 1: of the trial, I'm still sort of waiting for the
Speaker 1: smoking gun. It's clear that some of the Greenpeace people
Speaker 1: participated in a few protests, but Energy Transfer hasn't shown
Speaker 1: evidence connecting green Peace trainings or funding to the waves
Speaker 1: of protests that were happening almost every day, nor has
Speaker 1: it really tied green Peace to any major property destruction.
Speaker 1: The math is not adding up for me, and I
Speaker 1: start to wonder if energy Transfer actually might lose. But
Speaker 1: then something happens that makes me question my sense of reality.
Speaker 1: I've started to figure out who all the people in
Speaker 1: the room are, especially those of us working in media.
Speaker 1: The first few days I meet reporters from national outlets
Speaker 1: like The Guardian and the New York Times, and even
Speaker 1: an international reporter from the Financial Times. But by week
Speaker 1: two it's down to me and a local reporter from
Speaker 1: the North Dakota Monitor. And then there are the people
Speaker 1: that I thought were reporters but aren't. There's Will Fewer.
Speaker 1: He's young and very formally dressed in a blue suit.
Speaker 1: When I chat him up, he's a little vague about
Speaker 1: what he's actually doing here. I google him later and
Speaker 1: realize that he works for DCI, a notorious public relations
Speaker 1: firm and one that has worked for Energy Transfer for
Speaker 1: a long time. And then there's another DCI guy, Craig Stevens.
Speaker 1: He's been sitting in a corner of the courtroom reading
Speaker 1: a copy of the Age of Innocence when things get dull.
Speaker 1: He serves as a spokesperson for a group called Grow
Speaker 1: American Infrastructure Now, which advertises itself as a coalition of
Speaker 1: businesses and labor leaders who want pipelines to be built.
Speaker 1: But it's been paid for by Energy Transfer. Legal filings
Speaker 1: I reviewed before coming here confirmed that as of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, Energy Transfer was paying the pr firm around
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars per month to keep Grow American
Speaker 1: Infrastructure Now going. And then there's Evan Herman. He's nondescript.
Speaker 1: He wears fitted sweaters, sometimes over a button up shirt,
Speaker 1: and he's here every day scribbling down notes. Evan tells
Speaker 1: me he is working for journalists with an outlet called
Speaker 1: Legal Newsline, and at first I don't think anything of it,
Speaker 1: but when I look up Legal news Line, I realize
Speaker 1: it's connected to Central North Dakota News, those weird newspapers
Speaker 1: that showed up with the homes of Morton County residents.
Speaker 1: Central North Dakota News and Legal News Line are part
Speaker 1: of a murky network of news like outlets that are
Speaker 1: really fueled by right wing interests. Seriously, a New York
Speaker 1: Times investigation found that some outlets in this network were
Speaker 1: allowing corporate executives and Republican political operatives to order up articles.
Speaker 1: The Times called it a pay to play network. Sites
Speaker 1: like the Central North Dakota News are replacing serious journalism
Speaker 1: in a lot of communities, and that seems to be
Speaker 1: playing out in this courtroom. I figure i'd better invite
Speaker 1: Evan to lunch and see what he'll tell me. And
Speaker 1: at a certain point I start recording our conversation on
Speaker 1: my phone. Evan calls himself a freelance investigative journalist on
Speaker 1: his LinkedIn page, but at lunch, he admits to me
Speaker 1: that he's not really here doing journalism.
Speaker 3: I hardly call what I do journalism that facilitating articles.
Speaker 1: He tells me. His first job for the network involved
Speaker 1: talking to regular people from cities in the organization's coverage area.
Speaker 1: He got them to comment on political topics of the day.
Speaker 1: In one case, he says, that meant interviewing a local
Speaker 1: person from Mandan about their experience with the Standing Rock protests.
Speaker 13: The stories I heard of like, right, like, nothing to
Speaker 13: do with greenbes, but the yeah, my daughter was traumatized
Speaker 13: and they brought a pig's head and work they Yeah.
Speaker 1: Evan is talking about this Thanksgiving protest in Mandan where
Speaker 1: someone decided to carry around a pig's head on a stick.
Speaker 1: It comes up all the time when I talk to
Speaker 1: local residents about how they feel about the protests. Evan says.
Speaker 1: One of his interviews was published in the Central North
Speaker 1: Dakota News.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think one went in there.
Speaker 1: Oh right, nothing to do with that, Evan says. For
Speaker 1: this trial, he's simply sitting in the courtroom and taking notes.
Speaker 1: He hands them over to his bosses and they turn
Speaker 1: the notes into articles for Legal Newsline, which run without
Speaker 1: a byeline. Sometimes I notice Central North Dakota news cross posts,
Speaker 1: the legal news line pieces. Hevin acknowledges that the outlets
Speaker 1: he works for are backed by Dick U Line, the
Speaker 1: billionaire behind the box company.
Speaker 13: He is very privately the biggest conservative and Republican causes
Speaker 13: in the country.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, so he's kind of guided by his politics.
Speaker 10: Yeah, in funding the.
Speaker 1: It's definitely true that you Line is a big political donor,
Speaker 1: and past reporters have connected the dots between him and
Speaker 1: these weird media outs. But I think what was most
Speaker 1: fascinating about talking with Evan was realizing that his sense
Speaker 1: of how this trial was going was totally different from mine.
Speaker 4: No, they're making a great case, cos I think is really.
Speaker 13: Like look forget everything else, like to make it real
Speaker 13: self for you look at their emails and that's what
Speaker 13: made it hit, Like the openings.
Speaker 5: Hey, he's kind of delivering on that.
Speaker 13: So what I suggested the title for the next article
Speaker 13: is a nexus is started coming again.
Speaker 1: To me, this case is a mess, but for Evan,
Speaker 1: the story is becoming clear, so that like, here's the nexus.
Speaker 3: It's always been violence, physical damage, defamation.
Speaker 1: So now but after a second lunch with Evan a
Speaker 1: few days later, our conversation takes a turn. You're you
Speaker 1: don't totally believe that human's God's high a change. No,
Speaker 1: he tells me that the earth, like our bodies, has
Speaker 1: a self healing mechanism, and I can't help but start
Speaker 1: to argue with him.
Speaker 7: Just like our.
Speaker 3: Bodies, like we take you an alcohol, I believe the
Speaker 3: earth is kind of like an organism and just like
Speaker 3: you know, hey, we drink too much, and like we
Speaker 3: have our liver and little talks and it's straighted out.
Speaker 3: I think, I think, I think there is an earth
Speaker 3: by self healing records.
Speaker 1: But what about people who die of alcohol?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 10: No, well exactly.
Speaker 1: But it's not just that he's wrong that bothers me.
Speaker 1: It's that he feels so comfortable saying this to me,
Speaker 1: like it's normal to not believe in the climate crisis,
Speaker 1: and hearing this come from someone who's positioning himself as
Speaker 1: a journalist feels dangerous. When I keeps trying to fight
Speaker 1: with him, Evan starts to get suspicious. He asks if
Speaker 1: I'm working for green Peace.
Speaker 5: I'm not talking to Greenpeace, all right, green piece.
Speaker 1: No, I'm here as a reporter. But what I should
Speaker 1: have said is, of course, I'm talking to green Peace
Speaker 1: because I'm a reporter. Regardless, Evan helps me realize that
Speaker 1: my understanding of this trial is not shared by everyone
Speaker 1: in that court room, and those jurors might be closer
Speaker 1: in perspective to Evan Herman, the right wing article facilitator,
Speaker 1: than to me. It's becoming clear that Energy Transfer is
Speaker 1: about to wind down their side of the case. A
Speaker 1: few days early, one of the last video depositions they
Speaker 1: pull up is Nick Tilson. Nick runs an organization called
Speaker 1: Indian Collective. He's a citizen of the Oglalla Lakota Nation.
Speaker 1: In fact, he's the first Oceti shit Cooin person that
Speaker 1: we hear from since this trial began. He's a founding
Speaker 1: member of the group that Greenpeace worked with at Standing Rock,
Speaker 1: Indigenous People's Power Project. Up until this point, it's felt
Speaker 1: like we're talking around what really happened at Standing Rock.
Speaker 1: But when Greenpeace presents its cross examination of Nick, the
Speaker 1: dots start to connect for me. I talked to Nick
Speaker 1: on the phone afterward.
Speaker 10: The story of Standing Rock and what happened at Standing
Speaker 10: Rock is a thousand times more compelled then the bullshit lawsuit.
Speaker 1: He says during his testimony that The first nonviolent direct
Speaker 1: action training he ever participated in was when he was
Speaker 1: nine years old, and it came from the American Indian Movement.
Speaker 1: He received another forty or fifty nonviolent direct action training
Speaker 1: since then. He adds none from Greenpeace, and he was
Speaker 1: involved with establishing protest strategies at Standing Rock.
Speaker 10: We made a conscious, deliberate decision and prayed on those
Speaker 10: decisions that this was going to be non violent, and
Speaker 10: I'll say we maintained that throughout this entire process, and
Speaker 10: the ones who had the guns on the front line
Speaker 10: was the police and the military, not us.
Speaker 1: Nick and the Indigenous People's Power Project worked with the
Speaker 1: Standing Rock Zuo Tribal Council to develop nonviolent direct action principles.
Speaker 1: They were handwritten on a big sign and hung in
Speaker 1: the middle of camp. Among them, we are not violent. Also,
Speaker 1: property damage does not get us closer to our goal.
Speaker 10: The only reason green Peace and any allies are there
Speaker 10: is that they're there upon invitation. Why some of us
Speaker 10: even and felt comfortable inviting Greenpeace in the first place
Speaker 10: is that some of our comrades and relatives worked in
Speaker 10: that organization, and we trusted those individual people.
Speaker 1: Nick was one of the people who invited Greenpeace to
Speaker 1: come to Standing Rock. He was close with that green
Speaker 1: Peace guy, Cy Wagner, who was also an Indigenous People's
Speaker 1: Power Project member. Another Greenpeace employee was also a member.
Speaker 10: We asked them to help us with scouting. We asked
Speaker 10: them to train people.
Speaker 1: I asked him why would nonviolent direct action training be important.
Speaker 10: The training that we're talking about is not some crazy trainings.
Speaker 10: Some people think that martinather King and Rosa Parks just
Speaker 10: one day sat on a bus and launched a movement
Speaker 10: with the reality is they went through training, you know,
Speaker 10: and that training helped them be disciplined and help them
Speaker 10: be effective and help them change the course of history.
Speaker 1: It's true. Rosa Parks attended a two week workshop on
Speaker 1: putting desegregation into action at the high Lander Research and
Speaker 1: Education Center soon before she refused to get up from
Speaker 1: her bus seat. Nick sees the protest to stop pipeline
Speaker 1: construction as an extension of the civil rights tradition. What
Speaker 1: really strikes me about next deposition as it's playing in
Speaker 1: the courtroom is how frank and direct he is. He
Speaker 1: tells the lawyers that the Indigenous People's Power Project trained
Speaker 1: five to ten thousand people at Standing Rock and says
Speaker 1: he himself participated in dozens of actions to stop construction.
Speaker 10: I was arrested in Standing Rock for you know, running
Speaker 10: in front of machinery and locking down to machinery. And
Speaker 10: on those days we want we chased off those pipeline workers.
Speaker 10: They went, they were running away from us. Those were
Speaker 10: days of a victory for our people because on those days,
Speaker 10: you know, we were able to stop destruction happening at
Speaker 10: the point of construction.
Speaker 1: I asked Nick about his decision to be so straightforward
Speaker 1: in his testimony.
Speaker 10: We don't regret anything we didn't standing wrong. We don't
Speaker 10: regret resisting to fight for Mother Earth, to fight for
Speaker 10: sacred water, to fight for human rights and indigenous rights,
Speaker 10: to fight a corporation that was contributing to climate change
Speaker 10: that will, you know, has the potential to impact all
Speaker 10: human beings in the world, like we know what we
Speaker 10: were doing there.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, he sees energy transfers attempt to frame Greenpeace as
Speaker 1: the orchestrators of the movement as part of a racist legacy.
Speaker 10: I'll be honest, like when I read more into the
Speaker 10: lawsuit and the bullshit that was written into there, in
Speaker 10: all of that was like this continued pattern of erasure
Speaker 10: and this continued treatment of Indigenous people actually that that
Speaker 10: we're not capable, that we don't come from these sophisticated
Speaker 10: nations that have the unique relationships with the federal government.
Speaker 10: It had to have been this NGO. If anybody knows
Speaker 10: anything about the Indigenous resistance movement, the last thing we
Speaker 10: need is in Whte Ngo to come into our into
Speaker 10: our movement to quote unquote save us, you know, because
Speaker 10: those days of you know, quote unquote saving the Indian
Speaker 10: are over.
Speaker 1: On day ten of the trial, Energy Transfer plays its
Speaker 1: last video deposition and Green Peace begins to present its defense.
Speaker 1: We begin to hear from actual people on the stand
Speaker 1: who worked at Greenpeace during Standing Rock. Cy Wagner is
Speaker 1: denay In, an artist, and he worked for green Peace
Speaker 1: for seven years. He wears his shoulder length hair swept back.
Speaker 1: He has a turquoise necklace in earrings, and wears black
Speaker 1: rimmed glasses. I talk with him after he takes the stand.
Speaker 1: He said he went to Standing Rock because other Indigenous
Speaker 1: leaders invited him there. It wasn't because of his employer,
Speaker 1: Green Piece, which SI sometimes refers to as GP.
Speaker 9: Regardless if GP is going to pay for it or not.
Speaker 9: I was going to find a way. He wasn't find
Speaker 9: resources and make my way there.
Speaker 1: CI put together a proposal and a budget request, and
Speaker 1: Green Peace did approve it. Fifteen thousand dollars would pay
Speaker 1: for five people from the Indigenous People's Power Project to
Speaker 1: go to Standing Rock. This is where Energy Transfer gets
Speaker 1: their idea of the paid protesters. This amount came to
Speaker 1: about one hundred and twenty five dollars per day per
Speaker 1: Indigenous People's Power Project member, less expenses. It was a
Speaker 1: stipend because people had to be away from their jobs
Speaker 1: to be there. CI was there on his usual Green salary.
Speaker 9: When I first arrived. Our goals was to set up
Speaker 9: trainings in the intro to a nonviolent direct action where
Speaker 9: we talk a little about history theory, we talk about
Speaker 9: safety de escalation, and we met with a complete unorganized situation.
Speaker 9: No one was talking, people had their own agendas.
Speaker 1: It was chaotic. There were various groups planning protests and
Speaker 1: even some others holding trainings. For example, SI said he
Speaker 1: met folks from Red Warrior Camp, but they never worked together.
Speaker 1: What's I really looked forward to was the Knights.
Speaker 9: It was so peaceful. It was Tea Schert whether still
Speaker 9: you could go out in the night and see the
Speaker 9: stars and see the moon come up, and you would
Speaker 9: just go to your neighbor and there there would be
Speaker 9: a circle around a fire, and they're most likely singing
Speaker 9: the song in their language. And some of them I
Speaker 9: knew are familiar with, and then some I just never heard.
Speaker 9: Four in my life. I can't remember the last time
Speaker 9: that indigenous people in the US have converged like that
Speaker 9: and shared shared knowledge and wisdom and songs, unorganized, unannounced.
Speaker 9: You could smell like the wood that they brought from
Speaker 9: their regions. It was just overwhelming physical, emotional, spiritual experience.
Speaker 1: In court, he tells the jury that he mostly worked
Speaker 1: to set up an area for building art for protests.
Speaker 1: He did help support two protests on the ground. One
Speaker 1: was an action where members of Indigenous People's Power Project
Speaker 1: lockdown to machinery. Another was a march in downtown Bismarck.
Speaker 1: I asked him about the nickname Energy Transfer gave him
Speaker 1: and his colleagues. I don't know if you even heard this.
Speaker 14: Maybe you did, but they're like throwing around this term
Speaker 14: the Green Peace six, and.
Speaker 7: You're one of them.
Speaker 14: So I guess I'm just curious how it feels to
Speaker 14: be one of the green Peace six.
Speaker 9: Who's the other five? I guess, you know, like I mean,
Speaker 9: I mean, call them any things, but I don't think
Speaker 9: that's a bad thing.
Speaker 1: S I says Greenpeace hasn't always been good at following
Speaker 1: the lead of Indigenous people, but he's seen things shift.
Speaker 9: Since Greenpeace has been around in since the seventies. They
Speaker 9: have burned some bridges and rebuild some bridges with some
Speaker 9: Indigenous communities. I think they've been learning a lot in
Speaker 9: that process of how to show up in those spaces
Speaker 9: because they made those mistakes. Within my seven years of employment,
Speaker 9: I saw some changes. I saw the massive green Piece
Speaker 9: ship make those turns.
Speaker 1: Greenpeace calls their former executive director, Annie Leonard to testify.
Speaker 1: She says that green Pieces past missteps where it came
Speaker 1: to Indigenous people led them to establish a detailed Indigenous
Speaker 1: people's policy, and that policy means that they would never
Speaker 1: come to an indigenous nation and struggle and take over.
Speaker 6: Greenpeace's policy is that we don't engage in indigenous led
Speaker 6: campaigns from indigenous territories unless we're asked.
Speaker 1: We chat outside after she's done.
Speaker 14: These various documents we've seen say that Greenpeace supported training,
Speaker 14: you know, maybe a few thousand people in nonviolent direct action.
Speaker 14: Why shouldn't Greenpeace have to pay damages for that?
Speaker 6: So a big part of Greenpeace's nonviolent direct action training
Speaker 6: is in embodying nonviolence. It's de escalation. And I've gone
Speaker 6: through these trainings, and boy do I find it helpful.
Speaker 6: I found it helpful on that stand today.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, in her testimony, Annie repeated
Speaker 1: a version of Nick Tilson's argument that civil disobedience is
Speaker 1: a crucial tactic for American democracy. Trey Cox challenges her,
Speaker 1: Rosa Parks didn't trespass on other people's property, did she?
Speaker 1: Annie replies, Rosa Parks was trespassing because she was order
Speaker 1: to vacate that seat, and the law in Montgomery at
Speaker 1: the time said she must vacate that seat. Trey hits
Speaker 1: back again, Rosa Parks didn't send a whole work crew
Speaker 1: home for a day when she sat in that seat,
Speaker 1: did she? Annie replies? She kickstarted the Montgomery bus boycott,
Speaker 1: where for over a year people boycotted buses. A lot
Speaker 1: of bus people were put out of work because hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds and hundreds of people chose to walk every
Speaker 1: single day to boycott the segregated bus line. Tray seems
Speaker 1: to have hit his limits. I don't want to fuss
Speaker 1: with you on that anymore, Miss Leonard. The more of
Speaker 1: this trial I see, the more I realize there's a
Speaker 1: lot of really important information that's not going to make
Speaker 1: it into the court room. Early every morning, the lawyers
Speaker 1: show up before the jurors get there to argue over
Speaker 1: what information can and can't be mentioned in the upcoming
Speaker 1: court sessions. And in the middle of Greenpeace presenting its defense,
Speaker 1: Judge Gian makes a big decision. He rules that key
Speaker 1: details of a pipeline's safety report will be kept out
Speaker 1: of the trial, even though the possibility of a leak
Speaker 1: is at the heart of why the organization got involved
Speaker 1: at Standing Rock in the first place. Also, we still
Speaker 1: haven't heard anything from any member of the Standing Rock
Speaker 1: Sioux tribe, and it dawns on me that maybe we won't.
Speaker 1: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has its own litigation still
Speaker 1: going against the pipeline company. I could imagine all kinds
Speaker 1: of reasons tribal leaders wouldn't want to be on that
Speaker 1: stand and if green Peace is serious about their Indigenous
Speaker 1: people's policy, then they'd abide by what the tribe wanted.
Speaker 1: But the funny thing about a lawsuit like this is
Speaker 1: that sometimes it shakes loose information that isn't part of
Speaker 1: the plaintiff's plan. You see. I started monitoring this lawsuit
Speaker 1: months ago, and as Energy Transfer in Greenpeace exchanged legal
Speaker 1: filings are over what this trial would look like, new
Speaker 1: details began to bubble up about what happened behind closed
Speaker 1: doors as energy Transfer built this pipeline. Some of those
Speaker 1: details aren't going to be allowed in the courtroom, and
Speaker 1: some of the people who really know the truth behind
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer's claims aren't going to be called to testify.
Speaker 1: But I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have to
Speaker 1: stay inside the Morton County courthouse. The judge in this
Speaker 1: case might have kept pollution out of the courtroom, But
Speaker 1: by following this lawsuit, I'm finding myself pulled back into
Speaker 1: the heart of what this story was originally about. The
Speaker 1: Water Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. This season
Speaker 1: was reported and written by me Allen Brown. Our senior
Speaker 1: editor is Audrey Quinn. Additional editing by Tristan Attone Eckrist.
Speaker 1: Our producer and sound designer is Ray Pang. Mix and
Speaker 1: mastering by Martin Saltz, Austwick and Peter Duff. Fact checking
Speaker 1: by Shilpa Jindia. Our First Amendment Attorney is James Wheaton.
Speaker 1: Our Impact producer is Lindsay Crowder. Marketing by Maggie Taylor.
Speaker 1: Original artwork for this season was created by Victor Puskwal
Speaker 1: of Digital Navajo. Our theme music is by Dear Lady.
Speaker 1: The show was created and executive produced by Amy Westervelt.
Speaker 1: The Center for Media and Democracy supported document review for
Speaker 1: the season. For related stories and to support our work,
Speaker 1: check out drilled dot Media. To follow my work, check
Speaker 1: out my newsletter eco files at Allen Brown Dot ghost
Speaker 1: dot Io.
Speaker 15: No chew cheerio, no che che che now chew cheer
Speaker 15: chet really one, non chovu really one.
Speaker 7: No Joe, no cho