Speaker 1: Coning, Why Minieway coning, Why Minieway coning Why.
Speaker 2: A small crowd of people gathered on the side of
Speaker 2: North Dakota Highway eighteen oh six, just north of the
Speaker 2: Standing Rock Indian Reservation. A line of highway patrol officers
Speaker 2: were standing between them and a construction site. Cody Hall,
Speaker 2: a member of the Shian River Sioux tribe, was in
Speaker 2: the crowd.
Speaker 1: Those bulldozers were up and running, and we saw them
Speaker 1: moving the earth.
Speaker 2: If those bulldozers were allowed to continue, a massive drill
Speaker 2: would soon bow a hole underneath the Missouri River to
Speaker 2: make way for the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Speaker 1: The tension was so thick that something was going to
Speaker 1: happen physically, and I remember thinking, I was like, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: people are really at their bowing point. I'm sitting there,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of pacing back and forth. I happen
Speaker 1: to look over to my right and I saw the
Speaker 1: women and they were singing their death song. And in
Speaker 1: our culture, when you sing your death song, that means
Speaker 1: you were obviously not afraid to die. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, a group of women went and jumped
Speaker 1: the barb war fence.
Speaker 2: Nobody had planned this. The fence marked the edge of
Speaker 2: the area where police were allowing protests. Beyond it lay
Speaker 2: the construction site and open grasslands.
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, hey, you know, I stop. You know,
Speaker 1: I was like, just we don't know what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: and they might shoot you, right, And I remember one
Speaker 1: of the ladies said she didn't care. She said she
Speaker 1: doesn't fear a bullet, she doesn't fear death. And when
Speaker 1: I saw her take off, and I remember looking back
Speaker 1: at friends and people were like, whoa, you know, stop, stop, hey,
Speaker 1: come back, come back. And then I said forget this.
Speaker 1: I said, every man available, jump the fence and then
Speaker 1: stand behind him. Let's go help. You know, these women defend,
Speaker 1: defend our lives.
Speaker 2: They ran onto the construction site, halting the work.
Speaker 3: We do this to stop the des secretion of Ujimaka.
Speaker 3: We do this for the next seven generations. We do
Speaker 3: this for the unborn children that are coming through this world.
Speaker 3: We're protecting the water. Our water is life.
Speaker 1: The momentum was there. The people's energy was something I
Speaker 1: never felt before in a big group.
Speaker 2: We stand or land in our water.
Speaker 1: We had that feeling that we were going to defeat this.
Speaker 1: This energy company.
Speaker 2: You probably already know. The Dakota Access Pipeline was eventually built,
Speaker 2: but before it was tens of thousands of people arrived
Speaker 2: on the prairie just outside the Standing Rock Reservation and
Speaker 2: attempted to stop it. Standing Rock became the largest indigenous
Speaker 2: uprising in the US in the last half century, and
Speaker 2: it was happening in opposition to an oil pipeline company.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why the company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer,
Speaker 2: did what it did next. In twenty seventeen, after the
Speaker 2: oil was flowing. After police force the huge encampments of
Speaker 2: pipeline opponents and water protectors to go home, Energy Transfer
Speaker 2: filed a lawsuit, a really big one. The company claimed
Speaker 2: that the whole Standing Rock movement, the massive effort to
Speaker 2: stop the Decode Access pipeline in twenty sixteen, was actually
Speaker 2: a conspiracy driven by green Peace to save the whales GUIs.
Speaker 2: According to the pipeline company, it wasn't the Standing Rock
Speaker 2: Zoo tribe or other indigenous people who led the movement,
Speaker 2: despite what numerous media reports, eye witnesses, and public officials
Speaker 2: will tell you. It was a giant environmental nonprofit conspiring
Speaker 2: to take down the fossil fuel industry. I'm an environmental
Speaker 2: reporter focused on the criminalization of environmental defenders. I've been
Speaker 2: covering Standing Rock since the early days of the movement
Speaker 2: and energy transfers. Allegations against Greenpeace defied both what I'd
Speaker 2: seen with my own eyes at the protests and what
Speaker 2: I learned over years of reporting on the Standing Rock movement.
Speaker 2: The story the lawsuit told was so different from what
Speaker 2: I'd heard from Cody and others. Source after source had
Speaker 2: told me. Indigenous people and nations made their own decisions
Speaker 2: to stand up against a company that threatened their water
Speaker 2: and the rights to land, regardless of how ridiculous this
Speaker 2: lawsuit seemed. In twenty twenty five, it made it to trial,
Speaker 2: and in March I found myself sitting in a courtroom
Speaker 2: in Mandan, North Dakota, listening to a court clerk revealed
Speaker 2: the verdict. After three and a half weeks, the jury
Speaker 2: decided overwhelmingly in favor of the pipeline company's story. The
Speaker 2: total damages over six hundred and sixty six million dollars,
Speaker 2: a number that threatened to bankrupt Greenpeace in the US.
Speaker 2: I'd spent nearly a decade reporting on what happened with
Speaker 2: the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Standing Rock movement. I
Speaker 2: sat through the lawsuits nearly month long trial in that
Speaker 2: same room with those nine jurors. The evidence I heard
Speaker 2: was thin, and yet the jury delivered almost precisely what
Speaker 2: Energy Transfers lawyers asked for. How the hell did this happen?
Speaker 2: And if an oil company could push its version of
Speaker 2: events so successfully here, then what did that mean? Beyond
Speaker 2: this courthouse? This season of Drilled, we bring you slapped
Speaker 2: the story of an indigenous nation fighting for its water,
Speaker 2: an environmental nonprofit facing extinction, and an energy giant using
Speaker 2: the courts to punish protesters. I'm Aline Brown. To understand
Speaker 2: what happened in the Energy Transfer versus Greenpeace case, we
Speaker 2: have to start at the beginning with Cody Hall, who
Speaker 2: you heard from early. He was actually at the center
Speaker 2: of Energy Transfers lawsuit until he wasn't from.
Speaker 1: The Shine River Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Speaker 2: The Chyenne River Reservation where Cody lived is immediately south
Speaker 2: of Standing Rock. Both reservations are home to the Ochechi
Speaker 2: Shakoine people, also known as the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota.
Speaker 2: The people who live there aren't just neighbors, they're relatives.
Speaker 2: Cody helped start the Native Lives Matter movement there, so
Speaker 2: it was natural that he would be asked to join
Speaker 2: the fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Speaker 1: I was approached by an elder group in Eagle Butte
Speaker 1: there on my home reservation, that said, there are people
Speaker 1: gathering in Standing Rock. Can you go up and just
Speaker 1: get an assessment of what's going on? Cody.
Speaker 2: Cody arrived at a protest encampment on the Standing Rock
Speaker 2: Reservation in early August of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: I went up there with just a backpack of I
Speaker 1: think three days of close you know, and then ended
Speaker 1: up being there months.
Speaker 2: Energy Transfer had originally considered putting the Dakota Access pipeline
Speaker 2: upstream of the city of Bismarck, which is mostly white,
Speaker 2: but the Federal Army Corps engineers rejected that route, in
Speaker 2: part because it could have harmed the city's drinking water supply.
Speaker 2: The new approved route crossed the river just north of
Speaker 2: the Standing Rock Reservation and its drinking water intake. To
Speaker 2: Cody and others, this was a case of environmental racism.
Speaker 2: People had begun to travel from all around the country
Speaker 2: to defend the Standing Rock Sioux tribes, drinking water, sacred sites,
Speaker 2: and land rights. They called themselves water Protectors. Facebook Live
Speaker 2: had launched that spring and many pipeline opponents were using it.
Speaker 4: This is the main camp. There are still other camps
Speaker 4: like Sacred Stone which was up there, and Eagle's Nest,
Speaker 4: and there's also the new Chayenne River Camp which is
Speaker 4: further down that way.
Speaker 2: In late summer, people began to set up additional tents
Speaker 2: and teepees on federal land near the pipeline crossing. This
Speaker 2: new encampment, called the Ochechi Shacoine Camp, was on land
Speaker 2: officially possessed by the Army Corps of Engineers, but that
Speaker 2: people from Standing Rock still considered theirs.
Speaker 1: It felt home. It took your spirit back to a
Speaker 1: much loving time period of our people. I thought, you
Speaker 1: know what, Yeah, there's nothing wrong with taking back land right.
Speaker 2: The camp was established on unseated territory, an official designation
Speaker 2: that means that Ochechi Shacoine people never agreed to give
Speaker 2: it up. The area where energy Transfer was building was
Speaker 2: also unseated territory. For the water Protectors, the pipeline fight
Speaker 2: was a matter of indigenous sovereignty. The Standing Rock Sioux
Speaker 2: Tribe is a nation, and they argued that Army Corps
Speaker 2: shouldn't allow the pipeline to pass under the river or
Speaker 2: over culturally significant areas without substantial government to government consultation.
Speaker 2: Soon after Cody arrived, he was approached by Deb white Plume,
Speaker 2: a member of the Ogolalla Sioux tribe.
Speaker 1: I knew of Deb and knew what she was doing,
Speaker 1: long before any pipeline came about in our territories.
Speaker 2: Deb died in twenty twenty one, but she lived a
Speaker 2: life dedicated to defending Lakota people. In the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: she joined the American Indian Movement and deb led a
Speaker 2: resistance group that protested against the Keystone Excel pipeline, which
Speaker 2: was set to be built through her nation's territory in
Speaker 2: South Dakota. Now she was bringing a version of that
Speaker 2: group to Standing Rock. They were called Red Warrior Camp.
Speaker 1: I remember she asked me. She said, Cody, you speak
Speaker 1: so eloquent, Maitan. She said, I would like for you
Speaker 1: to be a spokesperson for my resistance camp. She talked
Speaker 1: about how people chain themselves to block the proceedings of
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. You know, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: especially it being non violent. I said, wow, that's kind
Speaker 1: of what I've been speaking about.
Speaker 2: After giving it a couple of days thought, Cody agreed
Speaker 2: to be spokesperson for Red Warrior Camp. Around the campfire
Speaker 2: with other members of the group, he laid down some
Speaker 2: ground rules.
Speaker 1: But I said, I don't want to know what you're doing,
Speaker 1: what you're planning. If you tell me what you were
Speaker 1: doing and I get picked up, let's say, you know,
Speaker 1: and they questioned me on, then you start breaking down
Speaker 1: the chain of resistance. So don't tell me. I don't
Speaker 1: want to know.
Speaker 2: He also told them that he was only interested in
Speaker 2: supporting nonviolent actions.
Speaker 1: Hi, my name's Cody Hall, media correspondence for the Red
Speaker 1: Warrior Camp and today up here in Manning.
Speaker 2: Cody's job was to film short videos and live streams
Speaker 2: that he posted to Red Warrior Camp's Facebook page. Some
Speaker 2: were filmed from within construction sites where people were locked
Speaker 2: down to machinery. He wasn't planning the actions, but he
Speaker 2: became the public face of Red Warrior.
Speaker 1: As you can see behind me, one of our warriors
Speaker 1: put himself on the machinery to stop today's construction. They
Speaker 1: are very near the camp.
Speaker 2: The fight against the pipeline seemed to be taking off,
Speaker 2: but really it was only getting started. Energy Transfer didn't
Speaker 2: have an easement from the Army Corps yet which would
Speaker 2: allow them to drill under the river, but there was
Speaker 2: nothing stopping the pipeline company from building on private land.
Speaker 2: Standing Rock had filed a lawsuit in July to stop
Speaker 2: that construction, but while they waited for a judge to rule,
Speaker 2: Energy Transfer kept on bulldozing.
Speaker 5: In North Dakota, security guards working for the Dakota Access
Speaker 5: Pipeline Company attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray
Speaker 5: as they resisted the three point eight billion dollar pipelines construction.
Speaker 5: Criminal by the criminal, We'll get your money somewhere out Okay.
Speaker 5: Protesters advance as far as a small wooden bridge. Security
Speaker 5: unleashes one of the dogs, which attacked two of the
Speaker 5: Native Americans horses. Security has some kind of gas. People
Speaker 5: are being pepper sprayed.
Speaker 2: On Labor Day weekend, water protectors spotted bulldozers working right
Speaker 2: where the Standing Rock Sooo tribe had just identified sacred
Speaker 2: sites only the day before. Several people rushed onto the
Speaker 2: construction site attempt to stop them. Democracy now captured security
Speaker 2: dogs attacking the pipeline opponents, and the movement went viral.
Speaker 1: With that dog, I was like walking through it on
Speaker 1: me straight, even without any warning.
Speaker 2: You don't look at this, Look at this dog.
Speaker 1: The dog did it?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 3: Look at this.
Speaker 5: Man, your doctor, protester, you're.
Speaker 6: Protester.
Speaker 5: Are you telling the dogs to bite the protesters? Exactly?
Speaker 5: The dog has blood and its nose in its mouth.
Speaker 3: It's still.
Speaker 1: It opened the floodgates. And when those gates were opened, craziness.
Speaker 7: And soon.
Speaker 2: People from around the world poured into the pipeline resistance camps,
Speaker 2: from members of indigenous nations who saw this fight is
Speaker 2: their own, to everyday people moved by water protectors, social
Speaker 2: media feeds, to longtime environmental activists felt a responsibility to
Speaker 2: show solidarity. Churches, community groups and individuals donated supplies to
Speaker 2: keep the camps afloat. A school opened for families with children.
Speaker 2: Several kitchens served meals throughout the day. By now, nonprofits
Speaker 2: had joined the fight too, like three fifty dot Org,
Speaker 2: Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor the Earth, Bold Alliance, and Yes
Speaker 2: Green Peace. It was a powerful moment, but when protests
Speaker 2: get the sort of international media attention. Standing rock got
Speaker 2: it doesn't just attract the people who are committed to
Speaker 2: the costs. Also arriving were crystal chasers, cult members, grifters,
Speaker 2: and even professional infiltrators looking to get information about the
Speaker 2: resistance to share with the pipeline company or police. Things
Speaker 2: started to spin beyond anyone's control. Tens of thousands of
Speaker 2: people traveled in and out of the prairie encampments with
Speaker 2: their egos and their agendas, which sometimes aligned with those
Speaker 2: of the tribe and sometimes sat directly in opposition. Millions
Speaker 2: of dollars also began pouring into hundreds of GoFundMe pages.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the projects people promised were built, and sometimes they weren't.
Speaker 2: At the same time, the governor of North Dakota called
Speaker 2: in the National Guard, which joined law enforcement officers from
Speaker 2: around the country to try and disperse the protests. They
Speaker 2: brought military grade armored vehicles, surveillance drones, and surfaced to
Speaker 2: air missiles, and word began to spread that the pipeline
Speaker 2: company had hired a mercenary security firm fresh from the
Speaker 2: wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As far as the water
Speaker 2: protectors were concerned, the line between police and private security
Speaker 2: was a blur overhead. Helicopters and little Sesna planes flown
Speaker 2: by police and private security buzzed at all hours. In
Speaker 2: between the steady beat of protests, a feeling had seeped
Speaker 2: in that Cody was being targeted. Then, as he was
Speaker 2: driving to drop someone off at the airport, a law
Speaker 2: enforcement officer waved Cody to the side of the road.
Speaker 2: He was under arrest for trespassing.
Speaker 1: So when I turned around and the state patrolman is
Speaker 1: handcuffing me, first thing I did was count how many
Speaker 1: they were. Eighteen they had helmets on, the goggles, face masks,
Speaker 1: body armor. And then they had their ar fifteen's pointed
Speaker 1: at me. And then they brought me into the vehicle.
Speaker 1: They put me in the back seat, and I met
Speaker 1: with cheers. Right, wait, we got you, you motherfucker. Over
Speaker 1: and over again, I said, whoa guys, Isaac Like I said, man,
Speaker 1: you guys, take it, take it too far.
Speaker 2: At the station, Cody says he was stripped, naked and searched.
Speaker 2: Two FBI agents attempted to interview him, but he refused
Speaker 2: to tell them anything. At night, cold air was blasted
Speaker 2: into his cell and every couple hours, an officer would
Speaker 2: enter and tower over him. Ultimately, he was bailed out.
Speaker 2: As he left, a young officer told him the FBI
Speaker 2: had been watching him on cameras the whole time. I
Speaker 2: asked Jacob O'Connell, the FBI supervisor at the time for
Speaker 2: the western half of North Dakota, if he remembered this.
Speaker 2: He said he didn't and that it wasn't something the
Speaker 2: FBI will have done. The Morton County Sheriff's office declined
Speaker 2: an interview request and didn't respond to a list of questions.
Speaker 2: When Cody returned to camp, he says the feeling of
Speaker 2: being watched was more intense than ever.
Speaker 1: But also felt like that I might be being used
Speaker 1: as a scapegoat.
Speaker 2: Soon after his release, Cody attended a rally at the
Speaker 2: Morton County Courthouse to support other water protectors who had
Speaker 2: been arrested. He noticed something that seemed off.
Speaker 1: This individual kept kailing me, and I thought, well, let
Speaker 1: me just let me walk around right like, not where
Speaker 1: everybody is speaking, but just let me walk around and
Speaker 1: see if this person is still going to follow me.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, this this individual was so I thought,
Speaker 1: oh crap. The group of people came up and said, hey, Cody,
Speaker 1: you got to ride back to camp and I said, no,
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: When Cody realized who the driver was, he hesitated. It
Speaker 2: was that same guy who seemed to be following him around,
Speaker 2: but his friends reassured him that the guy was vetted
Speaker 2: and had been staying at the camp.
Speaker 1: I just remember there was like thirteen of us that
Speaker 1: packed into this van when he asked me to sit
Speaker 1: with him up upfront, and I thought, oh shit. So
Speaker 1: we get back to camp. I opened the door up
Speaker 1: and he said, hey, hold on one second, Cody. He's like,
Speaker 1: can I have a word with you? And then he
Speaker 1: started to reach on his left pocket of his jacket
Speaker 1: inside and then he kind of he showed an envelope.
Speaker 1: He didn't open it him. He just pulled his envelope
Speaker 1: out and he said, I got money for you. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, what do you mean. He said, we
Speaker 1: had Green Peas pile up all this money, and because
Speaker 1: we watched one of your videos looking for support, so
Speaker 1: we gathered up supplies and we have monetary donations here,
Speaker 1: so I want to give it to you.
Speaker 2: I asked s Greenpeace about this, and they said they're
Speaker 2: so careful about money that this isn't something they would
Speaker 2: have done. Cody said, the man offered him over two
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And I said, no, no, I don't. I said, I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not taking anything man. And I remember my
Speaker 1: instinct said get the hell out of there, get out
Speaker 1: of this guy's vehicle. And I walked away, walking backwards,
Speaker 1: looking at this guy. He drove away, and I just
Speaker 1: remember telling security they watched that individual some sketchy.
Speaker 2: Cody didn't mention the details of what happened to anyone.
Speaker 2: It was another bizarre incident amongst the mountain of them
Speaker 2: piling up every passing week, But the envelope man incident
Speaker 2: would come to take on greater meaning later. By the
Speaker 2: end of October twenty sixteen, Cody was clashing with members
Speaker 2: of Red Warrior Camp.
Speaker 1: People were being shot with rubber bullets and so called
Speaker 1: non violent in the law enforcement area right in their
Speaker 1: point of view. But so Red Warrior people were like
Speaker 1: eye for an eye and it started to turn the
Speaker 1: They intercre them just you know, just hated everybody, including myself,
Speaker 1: more myself. They didn't like the narrative that I was
Speaker 1: speaking of non violent and just take it right, just
Speaker 1: take it, take it taken. So they were frustrated and
Speaker 1: then took their frustration out of me. I just said,
Speaker 1: I'm done with you guys. That's the way you want,
Speaker 1: and that's what you want. I said, then I'm done
Speaker 1: with y'all. And they were like, well, we're done with you.
Speaker 1: And I was like, all right, mutual agreement. I'm not
Speaker 1: your spokespresson anymore. That's luck to you.
Speaker 2: Cody wasn't the only one who had problems with Red
Speaker 2: Warrior Camp. They'd become controversial at Standing Rock for using
Speaker 2: aggressive tactics. On the day after Halloween, the Standing Rock
Speaker 2: Tribal Council voted Red Warrior Camp out. Cody had already
Speaker 2: made his decision. He left Red Warrior Camp for good,
Speaker 2: driving south until he got back home to the Cheyenne
Speaker 2: River Reservation. I actually arrived at Standing Rock a couple
Speaker 2: weeks after Cody left. I was there an assignment for
Speaker 2: the Intercept, an investigative news outlet. Part of the reason
Speaker 2: I was interested in these protests was because they were
Speaker 2: coming at a time when the fossil fuel industry was
Speaker 2: especially vulnerable. People were really beginning to recognize the impacts
Speaker 2: of the climate crisis and fossil fuel companies role in it.
Speaker 2: These corporations weren't just facing a single blockade of activists
Speaker 2: at Standing Rock as the climate crisis got worse, they
Speaker 2: were facing the possibility of escalating protests. The road into
Speaker 2: camp was lined by flags from all the indigenous nations
Speaker 2: that had visited. Seemingly hundreds of teepees, tents, yurts, and
Speaker 2: trailers were set up in the middle of the prairie.
Speaker 2: The sky felt bigger here and closer to the ground.
Speaker 2: A lot of what was happening at camp was the
Speaker 2: daily work of surviving in the November cold. Respected elders
Speaker 2: from Standing Rock sat on folding chairs under blankets near
Speaker 2: a sacred fire that was always burning. Lakota and Dakota
Speaker 2: people I talked to told me that what was happening
Speaker 2: here was spiritual for them. When I asked for interviews,
Speaker 2: some people jokingly asked me if I worked for the
Speaker 2: pipeline company. Water protectors knew there were spies among them.
Speaker 2: There was a feeling in the air that something rare
Speaker 2: and important was happening, but that it could go off
Speaker 2: the rail at any moment. I saw the helicopters and
Speaker 2: little planes flying overhead all the time. I followed a
Speaker 2: caravan of protesters to a spot where people were blocking construction.
Speaker 2: The planes shadowed us as we drove. At night, a
Speaker 2: row of lights beamed eerily from up on a hill
Speaker 2: along where the pipeline was being built and next to
Speaker 2: the camp. Police and private security had erected concrete barriers
Speaker 2: and barbed wire across Highway eighteen oh six. Two burnt
Speaker 2: out trucks served as an additional boundary. Right after I left,
Speaker 2: water protectors attempted to tow away the burnt out trucks,
Speaker 2: and during the protests that followed, police used hoses to
Speaker 2: spray icy water at people in sub freezing weather. Medics
Speaker 2: on the ground told me they treated one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty eight people for hypothermia. Here's from a Facebook live
Speaker 2: video filmed as the hoses were fired, so that you're.
Speaker 6: Looking on those just joining now. Yes, this is sub
Speaker 6: zero weather. That's the bridge on eighteen six, just north
Speaker 6: of camp. What you're watching right now is military police
Speaker 6: and national gods firing on unarmed citizens, prayerful, peaceful, unarmed citizens.
Speaker 2: As winter set in, anxiety over surveillance and infiltration was
Speaker 2: causing conflict as people whispered about who might be working
Speaker 2: as a spy for the pipeline company or the government.
Speaker 2: For Cody, weird stuff related to money had continued to
Speaker 2: happen back on Chian River. He says a guy he'd
Speaker 2: never met showed up in his hometown and attempted to
Speaker 2: hand him a duffel bag full of cash. Cody sent
Speaker 2: him away. He suspected these incidents where attempts to set
Speaker 2: him up. Meanwhile, local journalists had begun to raise questions
Speaker 2: about where the millions of dollars and go fundme donations
Speaker 2: actually ended up. Even Cody had run an online fundraiser
Speaker 2: for Red Warrior Camp that raised over one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars from over two thousand individual donations. He said he
Speaker 2: donated what was left to an organization that supported indigenous sovereignty.
Speaker 2: In January twenty seventeen, just after Donald Trump's first presidential inauguration,
Speaker 2: the Army Corps gave the green light for energy transfer
Speaker 2: to drill That February, police kicked out the remaining water
Speaker 2: protectors camped at Standing Rock and a giant drill board
Speaker 2: a hole underneath the wide Missouri River before the pipeline
Speaker 2: was pushed through, Cody began to move on. He moved
Speaker 2: to Kansas City to join a woman he'd met at
Speaker 2: Standing Rock. She had kids, and he found himself stepping
Speaker 2: into a role as a father. He started driving for
Speaker 2: a limo service, but his sense of normalcy wouldn't last.
Speaker 2: In August twenty eighteen, Cody Hall got a strange message
Speaker 2: that he didn't expect.
Speaker 1: I remember getting ready for work and a college friend
Speaker 1: of mine that was working legal fund or legal thing
Speaker 1: up in North Dakota messes me on Facebook and said, hey, Cody,
Speaker 1: have you heard the latest news about you? And I thought,
Speaker 1: oh shit, here we go.
Speaker 6: What is it?
Speaker 1: So I said no, I didn't, well what's going on?
Speaker 1: And so she said she sent me a link and
Speaker 1: I opened link and there it was. It was all
Speaker 1: the documents from court. When I read it and I
Speaker 1: was like, holy crap. And she said, hey, if I
Speaker 1: was you, I would you reach out and get a
Speaker 1: lawyer because it's pretty serious.
Speaker 2: Energy transfer. The company that built the pipeline was suing
Speaker 2: Cody Hall in federal court for hundreds of millions of
Speaker 2: dollars in damages. The charges were defamation, trespassing, tortuous interference
Speaker 2: with business and racketeering activities that included drug dealing, wire fraud,
Speaker 2: and violations of the Patriot Act. In other words, terrorism.
Speaker 2: Energy Transfer filed the claims using the Racketeer Influenced and
Speaker 2: Corrupt Organizations Act, the RICO Act, a law originally written
Speaker 2: to go after the mafia. Every RICO case first has
Speaker 2: to define what they call the enterprise, the network of
Speaker 2: people working together to commit crimes. In this one, Energy
Speaker 2: Transfer claimed that the network was Cody not for profits
Speaker 2: and a group of rogue eco terrorists, and that it
Speaker 2: was not led by indigenous people but by the environmental
Speaker 2: nonprofit green Peace. In the pipeline companies telling Red Warrior
Speaker 2: Camp was a front group for Greenpeace. They were the
Speaker 2: primary perpetrators of disorder and violence, and Cody was their leader.
Speaker 1: Never I never created Red Warrior was a resistance camp
Speaker 1: founded by dev Weiplum.
Speaker 2: Cody says he didn't lead Red Warrior Camp either, He
Speaker 2: was simply their spokesperson, and he says he never took
Speaker 2: money from Greenpeace. Cody waited for something to happen. When
Speaker 2: you get sued, the person suing you, the plaintiff is
Speaker 2: supposed to make sure you get notice of the suit,
Speaker 2: but Cody never got served. Then six months later the
Speaker 2: suit was dismissed. The judge wrote, this is far short
Speaker 2: of what is needed to establish a rico enterprise.
Speaker 1: I thought, hey, we actually got somebody that's working in
Speaker 1: the legal system that says this is ridiculous. Great. I
Speaker 1: was like, ah, relief. And then here later that day,
Speaker 1: you know, my friend messaged and said, well that wasn't
Speaker 1: lived too long. They filed in state court. They just
Speaker 1: used lesser words and made more false claims. Jeez, and
Speaker 1: I thought, oh shit, we're still at.
Speaker 2: The energy transfers. New version of the story of Standing
Speaker 2: Rock filed in a North Dakota state court. Cody, Greenpeace,
Speaker 2: Red Warrior Society, and another indigenous pipeline opponent, ined Crystal
Speaker 2: Two Bowls, conspired to launch a coordinated campaign to stop
Speaker 2: the pipeline in July twenty sixteen, before Cody even arrived
Speaker 2: for the legal walks out there. The lawsuit actually accused
Speaker 2: three separate greenpeace organizations of being involved. They include US
Speaker 2: based green Peace Inc. And green Peace Fund, and Amsterdam
Speaker 2: based green Peace International. But even though Cody had had
Speaker 2: that strange encounter with the man who said he worked
Speaker 2: for Greenpeace. Cody didn't believe that the nonprofit was running
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 1: No, green Peace wasn't running anything. I think green Peace
Speaker 1: is being targeted because well they've they've been all over
Speaker 1: the world to stop actions from climate change to you know,
Speaker 1: save dolphins. They were merely an organization that was there
Speaker 1: as allies.
Speaker 2: Again, Cody waited for a knock at his door, but
Speaker 2: again it didn't come, and legal filings, Energy Transfer said
Speaker 2: they'd attempted to serve Cody at a home in South Dakota,
Speaker 2: where his parents had lived briefly a decade ago.
Speaker 1: I called up and I said, Hey, said, did you
Speaker 1: guys say you can't serve me? I said, I'm sitting
Speaker 1: here at home, serve my ass. That's what the hell
Speaker 1: is his bullshit.
Speaker 2: A receptionist for Energy Transfer took his number, but he
Speaker 2: never heard back. For Cody, this lawsuit and not being
Speaker 2: served meant that creeping feeling of being targeted never really subsided.
Speaker 1: It's always a dark cloud that hangs over you. You know.
Speaker 2: I had been following all of this as a reporter
Speaker 2: from AFAR, but I was off getting twisted up in
Speaker 2: a different set of standing rock conspiracy theories. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: months after my visit to Standing Rock, someone intriguing leaked
Speaker 2: a bunch of internal records to us at the intercept.
Speaker 2: This person had been a contractor for a mercenary private
Speaker 2: security firm, Tireswan Energy Transfer, had hired them to lead
Speaker 2: their security operation. Tigerswan was started in the middle of
Speaker 2: the global War on Terror. The people working there were
Speaker 2: mostly military veterans, a lot of special ops guys. The
Speaker 2: leaked Tiger Swan records I got included daily situation reports
Speaker 2: that they wrote for the pipeline company. They described the
Speaker 2: security contractor's efforts to spy on and disrupt the Standing
Speaker 2: Rock movement. Here's an example of the kind of analysis
Speaker 2: Tigers One was providing.
Speaker 7: What the anti Dakota Access pipeline protesters have called an
Speaker 7: indigenous decolonization movement was essentially and externally supported, ideologically driven
Speaker 7: insurgency with a strong religious component.
Speaker 2: Tigers One compared the pipeline opponents to jihadists. Over the years,
Speaker 2: I kept tugging at threads, uncovering bit by bit just
Speaker 2: what it was Tiger Swan was doing at Standing Rock.
Speaker 2: And what I saw was that Tiger Swan wasn't just
Speaker 2: providing physical security like armed guards, but they were conducting
Speaker 2: intelligence operations. Storytelling and deception had become a key part
Speaker 2: of energy transfers to CODA access pipeline strategy. I had
Speaker 2: talked to so many activists and water protectors who suspected
Speaker 2: the pipeline company was infiltrating their movement, and it turns
Speaker 2: out they were. In twenty twenty four, became clear that
Speaker 2: the conspiracy lawsuit against Cody Hall the other pipeline opponents
Speaker 2: in Greenpeace might actually go to trial. I knew that
Speaker 2: a court battle would inevitably uncover even more facets of
Speaker 2: energy transfers real conspiracy to crush the anti pipeline movement,
Speaker 2: I had to keep following the paper trail. This is
Speaker 2: when I tracked down Cody's number and gave him a call.
Speaker 2: I was surprised when I found out Cody had never
Speaker 2: been served, and to be honest, I wasn't quite sure
Speaker 2: what to do with his story about the guy with
Speaker 2: the envelope. I couldn't verify it. What if he was
Speaker 2: misremembering some of the details.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even.
Speaker 2: Sure how two hundred thousand dollars would fit in an envelope,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't ignore the story either. Searching for answers
Speaker 2: wherever I could, I looked up Cody's name in my
Speaker 2: cash of internal Tigreswan records. Something surprising caught my eye.
Speaker 2: It was one of the daily situation reports and the
Speaker 2: date matched the protest where Cody met the envelope man.
Speaker 2: I called Cody and read.
Speaker 1: It to him.
Speaker 2: It says we did have embeds at the protest, one
Speaker 2: of which was invited to the camp by an associate
Speaker 2: of Cody Hall, one of the primary antagonists. This document
Speaker 2: seemed to be saying that there were infiltrators embedded in
Speaker 2: the crowd at the courthouse protests that Cody attended in September.
Speaker 2: It says, at the inclusion of the protest, Cody Hall,
Speaker 2: an affiliate of the Red Warriors, invited several individuals, including
Speaker 2: a member of the security team, to return to the
Speaker 2: Spirit camp with him, where the Red Warriors have their
Speaker 2: own separate camp. Again, this was saying that Cody invited
Speaker 2: an undercover member of the Pipeline security team to go
Speaker 2: back to the Pipeline resistance camps from this courthouse protest.
Speaker 2: And then it says next twenty four hours. Conducting atmospherics
Speaker 2: inside the camp continue. Social media and atmospheric gathering continue
Speaker 2: to gather information regarding potential militants in the area of
Speaker 2: protest camps. I guess what I'm wondering is if it's
Speaker 2: possible that this protest that this is describing is the
Speaker 2: same one that you were describing where the Greenpeace guy
Speaker 2: offered you money.
Speaker 5: Has to be.
Speaker 2: This private security infiltrate was with Cody on the same
Speaker 2: day that Cody met the envelope man who claimed to
Speaker 2: be with Greenpeace. I mean, do you think it's possible
Speaker 2: that the guy that offered this money was actually working
Speaker 2: for Tiger Swan?
Speaker 6: Quite possibly?
Speaker 2: Both Energy Transfer and Tiger Swan declined to comment on this.
Speaker 2: I messaged a source who had worked for Tiger Swan
Speaker 2: on their intelligence operation. The source that they didn't know
Speaker 2: about anyone at Tiger Swan offering up an envelope of money,
Speaker 2: but they also found it hard to imagine that a
Speaker 2: giant nonprofit like green Peace would operate that way. They
Speaker 2: wrote over text. Tired ass legend like green Peace handing
Speaker 2: out cash. It might have been when one of the
Speaker 2: FEDS or narks tried to infiltrate and failed by nark.
Speaker 2: The source means someone working on drug enforcement for police
Speaker 2: or a federal agency. They figured Envelope Man was someone
Speaker 2: operating undercover for law enforcement, meaning the Feds could have
Speaker 2: been t trying to frame Cody by getting him to
Speaker 2: take money. It wasn't totally out of the question. I'd
Speaker 2: learned in my years of reporting that it wasn't just
Speaker 2: Tiger Swan that was using infiltrators. The FBI had its
Speaker 2: own network of up to ten informants. FBI agents were
Speaker 2: entering the camp daily in plane clothes. But when I
Speaker 2: asked Jacob O'Connell, the FBI supervisor, about this, he told
Speaker 2: me that it didn't sound like a plausible FBI activity.
Speaker 2: He said it would have been a big deal for
Speaker 2: the agency to empower someone to walk around with two
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars, and he didn't remember that happening. I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure what to think. I imagined that the trial
Speaker 2: might provide some answers to my questions, But as time
Speaker 2: went on, it started to become clear that Cody had
Speaker 2: been disappeared from this lawsuit. Energy Transfer only wanted green
Speaker 2: Peace on trial. The court date crept closer, and Cody
Speaker 2: still wasn't served. The other indigenous pipeline opponent, Crystal Tooboles,
Speaker 2: hadn't been either. Cody had lived for nearly seven years
Speaker 2: with this multi million dollar lawsuit hanging over his head,
Speaker 2: but somewhere along the line he had fallen out of
Speaker 2: Energy Transfer's legal theory. They just never bothered to tell anybody.
Speaker 2: Envelope Man seemed destined to remain a ghost. In fact,
Speaker 2: I'll jump out of order here and tell you that
Speaker 2: Energy Transfer never brought him up or his mysterious two
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars during trial. He's important mostly just because
Speaker 2: he represents Cody's only big memory of interacting with Greenpeace,
Speaker 2: even though he might have been an impostor. And I
Speaker 2: think Envelope Man also reveals something about what Energy Transfer
Speaker 2: was working with as they crafted their lawsuit. Every conspiracy
Speaker 2: theory contains a grain of truth. In this case, a
Speaker 2: lot of money was pouring into Standing Rock, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't always clear from where. At the same time, the
Speaker 2: chaos and intensity of Standing Rock provided fertile ground for
Speaker 2: twisting and manipulating information. There was one thing I knew
Speaker 2: for sure. If Energy Transfer's conspiracy lawsuit is a bold
Speaker 2: attempt to rewrite the story of Standing Rock. Then private
Speaker 2: security infiltrators creeping around on its behalf wasn't a part
Speaker 2: of the story they meant to tell, but there they
Speaker 2: were present during the one instance when Cody says he
Speaker 2: actually might have had contact with the supposed co conspirator
Speaker 2: Green Piece. As I prepared to fly to North Dakota
Speaker 2: for the trial in the depths of February, I wondered
Speaker 2: what I was walking into. I knew that Energy Transfer's
Speaker 2: contractors had used deception in the past, but I also
Speaker 2: knew the real story of Standing Rock is complicated. Had
Speaker 2: Energy Transfer's law firm discovered something I didn't already know
Speaker 2: about green Peace? Or was this lawsuit just another deceptive
Speaker 2: trick from the pipeline company That's next time on Drilled.
Speaker 2: Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. This season was
Speaker 2: reported and written by me Allen Brown. Our senior editor
Speaker 2: is Audrey Quinn. Additional editing by Tristan attone E grist.
Speaker 2: Our producer and sound designer is Ray Pang. Mixing and
Speaker 2: mastering by Martin Saltz, Austwick and Peter Duff. Fact checking
Speaker 2: by Shilpa Jindia. Our First Amendment Attorney is James Wheaton.
Speaker 2: Our Impact Producer is Lindsay Crowder. Marketing by Maggie Taylor.
Speaker 2: Original artwork for this season was created by Victor Pascual
Speaker 2: of Digital Navajo. Our theme music is by Dear Lady.
Speaker 2: The show was created and executive produced by Amy Westervelt.
Speaker 2: The Center for Median Democracy supported document review for the season.
Speaker 2: For related stories and to support our work, check out
Speaker 2: Drilled dot Media. To follow my work, check out my
Speaker 2: newsletter Eco files at Allen Brown dot ghost dot io.
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