Speaker 1: Before we get into it, be advised that this series
Speaker 1: contains bad language and references to violence. It's a sunny
Speaker 1: day in downtown Portland, Oregon, but the air is thick
Speaker 1: with tension. It's August and I am outside of Portland
Speaker 1: Police Headquarters Center, jostling bodies packed the street. There are
Speaker 1: men in black helmets and kevlar vest's openly carrying a
Speaker 1: R fifteens, bikers with MAGA flags draped from their motorcycles,
Speaker 1: Proud boys and oathkeepers and gas masks in bandanas who
Speaker 1: have formed a battle lie. Their wooden shields are painted
Speaker 1: with pro Trump and quan On slogans. I'm here to
Speaker 1: her a far right rally. The Facebook event declared it
Speaker 1: the mother of all Back the Blue rallies. Portland has
Speaker 1: been ground zero for far right street violence over the
Speaker 1: last few months. I'm filming on my phone wearing a
Speaker 1: vest and a helmet labeled PRESS, but I know that
Speaker 1: won't be enough to protect me. Some anti fascist demonstrators
Speaker 1: in Black Lives Matter T shirts start a counter chant
Speaker 1: with drums. They're outnumbered, but they square off with their opponents.
Speaker 1: I'm right in the thick of it. I to eye
Speaker 1: with a bearded proud boy named Alan Swinney who threatens
Speaker 1: to maze me. He's kind of a local celebrity in
Speaker 1: Portland fascist circles. Later today he'll pull a gun on
Speaker 1: a BLM activist. Someone throws a jug of orange juice
Speaker 1: into the crowd and things escalate a back the blue
Speaker 1: supporter hurls smoke bombs and improvised flash bangs into the crowd.
Speaker 1: Four right wingers start beating an unarmed man with baseball bats.
Speaker 1: A line of proud boys charges at the anti fascist protesters.
Speaker 1: People are knocked to the ground, and oath keepers pile in,
Speaker 1: kicking and spraying mace. Out of nowhere, a proud boy
Speaker 1: with a blue shield and blasted with God Bless America
Speaker 1: runs right at me. He smashes the phone out of
Speaker 1: my hands with a police baton. I double over. My
Speaker 1: hand is broken into places. I confront my attacker, holding
Speaker 1: up my bloody hand. He attempts and fails to knock
Speaker 1: me back with his shield. It's a thousand persons street
Speaker 1: fight ten feet in front of Portland police headquarters, but
Speaker 1: no arrests are made. In fact, law enforcement never moved
Speaker 1: in on the crowd. The closest they get to riot
Speaker 1: control is an officer parked outside in nearby Starbucks. He
Speaker 1: tells the protesters to play an ice from inside his car.
Speaker 1: Just over four months later, on January six, many of
Speaker 1: the far right activists who honed their tactics on the
Speaker 1: streets of Portland while police look the other way, will
Speaker 1: make their way to the capital. Last episode, we heard
Speaker 1: the stories of officers who fought tooth and nail against
Speaker 1: the rioters. This time we meet the cops on the
Speaker 1: opposite side of the battle lines. At least twenty current
Speaker 1: or former members of law enforcement have been charged with
Speaker 1: crimes related to the January six insurrection. Even more have
Speaker 1: been suspended, dismissed, or are currently under investigation by their
Speaker 1: local department. Even the Capitol Police themselves, the officers charged
Speaker 1: with defending the building, have placed over thirty five officers
Speaker 1: under investigation and suspended at least six. The vast majority officers,
Speaker 1: like Harry Dunn and Sergeant Gonell fought heroically, but a
Speaker 1: small number put their arms around rioters and posed for selfies.
Speaker 1: Patriots are taking selfeast together with Capitol police inside the
Speaker 1: Capitol or they beckoned the invaders into the Capitol building.
Speaker 1: Urging them on, and the so called patriots loved it.
Speaker 1: Police are doing nothing. They're not even trying to stop.
Speaker 1: At this point, I've seen for myself the way police
Speaker 1: handle far right groups like the Proud Boys and local
Speaker 1: militias is decidedly hands off. The question is why, Because
Speaker 1: there's no doubt about it. This permissiveness of right wing violence,
Speaker 1: which stretches back decades, was a key ingredient in the
Speaker 1: toxic stew that led to January six. So it's time
Speaker 1: to address one of the scariest questions about the riot.
Speaker 1: How comes so many cops were part of the mob.
Speaker 1: From the team's at Cool Zone Media, I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and novel This is the Assault on America Episode seven,
Speaker 1: The Lost Cause m the first Black Lives rally in
Speaker 1: Rocky Mount I was very impressed with the number of
Speaker 1: people that came out that day, children, older people, young
Speaker 1: black people, young white people, older black people, older white people.
Speaker 1: Penny Edwards Blue grew up in Franklin County in the
Speaker 1: foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. She moved back after
Speaker 1: a career in tech and is now the only black
Speaker 1: member of the local school board. She's describing a rally
Speaker 1: that took place in June in Rocky mount a rural
Speaker 1: town in Franklin of about five thousand people. It was
Speaker 1: Rocky Mounts first ever b l M turnout and it
Speaker 1: was a good one. The sun was shining. People out
Speaker 1: with signs. Everyone was very nice to each other. When
Speaker 1: cars passed by and they saw the signs. Most people
Speaker 1: hank and the sheriff spoke and he also had a
Speaker 1: black deputy speak. There was a sense of determination but
Speaker 1: also elation. There was dancing. Do you remember that rash
Speaker 1: of videos in early twenty of cops dancing at b
Speaker 1: l M rally's everybody, Well, it happened here too. As
Speaker 1: they moved on to the next part of the march,
Speaker 1: they did dis dancing. Police officers and protesters did the
Speaker 1: electric slide sidestepping in Unison, next to the Farmer's Market.
Speaker 1: The police department handed out water bottles, and as the
Speaker 1: afternoon wore on, an officer brought the protesters McDonald's Happy
Speaker 1: Meals and pizza. One of the dancing protesters was a
Speaker 1: young hairdresser named Bridget Craighead. Bridget founded the local Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter chapter and asked Penny him mentor her. After
Speaker 1: the protest, Bridget was brimming with optimism about the reception
Speaker 1: they'd had from the cops. She thought she had made
Speaker 1: a breakthrough because these cops were dancing with her. What
Speaker 1: do you have to understand about history is they did
Speaker 1: that during slavery. The master's children played with the slave children.
Speaker 1: Yet when they grew up, they treated them as slaves
Speaker 1: and treated them harshly. Just because someone is dancing with
Speaker 1: you and smiling with you and have on a conversation
Speaker 1: with you does not mean they have your best interest
Speaker 1: at heart. In a photo from the rally, Bridget stands
Speaker 1: side by side with two police officers. Sergeant Thomas T. J.
Speaker 1: Robertson has a wide, clean shaven face. Officer Jacob Fracker
Speaker 1: has dark sunglasses and a goatee. They all hold signs
Speaker 1: painted with slogans just us isn't justice and silence equals violence?
Speaker 1: Police and the People United. Everyone is smiling. Seven months later,
Speaker 1: on January six, a very different image finds its way
Speaker 1: onto the Internet. It's another selfie featuring officers Fracker and Robertson,
Speaker 1: but this time they're not smiling. This time, the two
Speaker 1: cops are glaring down at the camera, they look angry
Speaker 1: and hyped up. Fracker is flipping his middle finger. Behind
Speaker 1: them looms a white marble statue of the revolutionary general
Speaker 1: John Stark. There's only one place they could be, the
Speaker 1: Statuary Hall in the heart of the US Capital. They've
Speaker 1: traveled there from Virginia to join the riot. The picture
Speaker 1: shoots around Rocky Mount, lighting up phones and computer screens
Speaker 1: all around town. Within a week of the riot, it
Speaker 1: all hell breaks loose tonight Tonight to Rocky Mount police
Speaker 1: officers are on administrative leave and are being investigated by
Speaker 1: federal authorities. Protesters going head to head outside the Rocky
Speaker 1: Mount Town Council meeting Monday night on January Frecker and
Speaker 1: Robertson are arrested on federal charges after a public outcry.
Speaker 1: They lose their jobs at Rocky Mount's tiny police department,
Speaker 1: and at the time of recording there awaiting trial. But
Speaker 1: the story doesn't end there because the case of officers
Speaker 1: Frecker and Robertson has split their community right down the middle.
Speaker 1: There are those in Rocky Mount who are a gas
Speaker 1: that two of their officers invaded the US capital, and
Speaker 1: there are many others who think that the Justice Department
Speaker 1: is being over zealous and prosecuting two cops with previously
Speaker 1: spotless records. So who are these police officers who dance
Speaker 1: with BLM one day and attack democracy the next? What
Speaker 1: do they have to say for themselves? It's very rare
Speaker 1: if you're a journalist to have a police officer readily
Speaker 1: answer your questions. This is Mike Allen, a journalist who
Speaker 1: lives near Rocky Mount. He works for The Roanoke Times,
Speaker 1: where he covers politics in Franklin County. Franklin County has
Speaker 1: a kind of colorful reputation. Its nickname is the Moonshine
Speaker 1: Capital of the World. Mike loves the history of Franklin
Speaker 1: County so much that he has quite literally bought the
Speaker 1: T shirt. I'm not wearing it right now though. When
Speaker 1: it came out the two Rocky Mount police officers had
Speaker 1: invaded the capital, Mike was quick to get in touch.
Speaker 1: To his surprise, Sergeant Robertson and Officer Fracker were willing
Speaker 1: to speak. T J. Robertson was very eager to expound
Speaker 1: on his side of the story. Jacob was it first
Speaker 1: a bit more cautious, but later he also communicated with
Speaker 1: me and My impression, for what it is worth, is
Speaker 1: that both of these fellows were absolutely convinced that they
Speaker 1: had done nothing wrong. How could two police officers charged
Speaker 1: with upholding the law failed to understand that storming the
Speaker 1: seat of American democracy is a no no legally speaking?
Speaker 1: The answer, as is so often the case, lies in
Speaker 1: the trail of their social media communications. In November, following
Speaker 1: the presidential election and the rollout of Ali Alexander's Stopped
Speaker 1: the Steel campaign, which we covered an episode two, t J.
Speaker 1: Robertson became increasingly outspoken on Facebook. His words here, as
Speaker 1: laid out in his FBI indictments, are spoken by an
Speaker 1: actor being disenfranchised by fraud is my hardline. I sent
Speaker 1: most of my adult life fighting encountering sir agency. I'm
Speaker 1: about to become part of one, and a very effective one.
Speaker 1: Like his colleague, Officer Fracker, Sergeant T J. Robertson is
Speaker 1: a military veteran who has done tours in both Iraq
Speaker 1: and Afghanistan. When Robertson talks about insurgencies, he's not getting around.
Speaker 1: Civility has left me. I'm tired of always taken the
Speaker 1: high road and being beat by those who cheat, lie,
Speaker 1: and steal the win and then allow their media to
Speaker 1: paint me as the bad guy. I won't be disenfranchised.
Speaker 1: I'll follow the path our founders gave us. Redressed grievances,
Speaker 1: already done civil disobedience here now, and then open armed rebellion.
Speaker 1: I spent the last ten years fighting an insurgency in
Speaker 1: Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm prepared to start one here and
Speaker 1: know a bunch of like minded and rained individuals. On
Speaker 1: Monday January four, two days before the riot, he writes,
Speaker 1: I'll be in d C Wednesday to peacefully protest. The
Speaker 1: day after we shall see. So how did the peaceful
Speaker 1: protests turn out? Jacob Fracker and T. J. Robertson went
Speaker 1: into the capital in about the middle of the time
Speaker 1: of greatest turmoil, though they both told me in interviews
Speaker 1: that they didn't see any violence happening around them. As
Speaker 1: they went in. Fracker would message a friend that he
Speaker 1: was the eighth person inside the capitol. If this is true,
Speaker 1: it would be pretty astounding if he saw no violence
Speaker 1: against police on his way in, But Francker and Robertson
Speaker 1: have always maintained that they weren't involved in any violence.
Speaker 1: They simply walked in and walked out. They really really
Speaker 1: took pains to convey to me as they saw it,
Speaker 1: all they had done was take part in a peaceful protest.
Speaker 1: Anybody who's familiar with the case who hears me say that,
Speaker 1: is immediately going to think about some of the things
Speaker 1: that both of these men posted on social media that
Speaker 1: actually sound very militant and like they are advocating for violence.
Speaker 1: But they swore that they had done nothing wrong, that
Speaker 1: they were just participating in a protest. On January eight,
Speaker 1: Robertson took to Facebook to celebrate his participation in the
Speaker 1: peaceful protest from two days before the next revolution started
Speaker 1: in d C. One six one. The only voice these
Speaker 1: people will now listen to is violence, So respectfully, buckle
Speaker 1: armor or just stay at home. The word violence in
Speaker 1: that post, by the way, is it all caps? And
Speaker 1: there's more. The picture of senators cowering on the floor
Speaker 1: with genuine fear on their faces is the most American
Speaker 1: thing I've seen in my life. Wants for real, you
Speaker 1: people actually realize who you work for. For his part,
Speaker 1: Officer Fracker shared a video with friends on Facebook saying
Speaker 1: that he hadn't been that hyped up since Afghanistan. For
Speaker 1: good measure, he added ship was wild l O l
Speaker 1: I Piston, Nancy ps toilet. T J. Robertson told me
Speaker 1: that those statements were essentially meant to be editorial statements
Speaker 1: or hyperbole or you know, sort of cheering for the team,
Speaker 1: that they weren't supposed to be taken literally. People obviously
Speaker 1: have their own opinions about that, and you'll probably have
Speaker 1: your own opinion about this too. The most recent development,
Speaker 1: which is kind of mind boggling, is that T. J. Robertson,
Speaker 1: after he was released on bond under conditions that he
Speaker 1: not possess any guns, proceeded to buy more than thirty
Speaker 1: guns online and have them shipped to a gun dealer
Speaker 1: essentially in Romano, as well as receipts for thirty four guns.
Speaker 1: The police found a partially constructed pipe bomb in Robertson's home.
Speaker 1: He claims he owned it for police training purposes. Whatever
Speaker 1: the case, his bail has been revoked and he is
Speaker 1: awaiting trial from prison. The Rocky Mount Police force is small,
Speaker 1: about twenty officers strong, and the fact that two of
Speaker 1: them have allegedly been planning an insurgency online and I'm
Speaker 1: asking weapons while out on bail. It's scary stuff. And
Speaker 1: the unavoidable truth is that it's scarier for Black Americans
Speaker 1: than it is for white Americans. Of coy Sarbotica and
Speaker 1: eariler this year, and I put cameras around my house.
Speaker 1: Penny Blue, who was at Rocky Mounts first BLM event,
Speaker 1: sees the Capital riot as a racist event, a largely
Speaker 1: white crowd protesting election results from largely black areas, egged on,
Speaker 1: as she sees it, by an overtly racist president. She
Speaker 1: recognizes the dynamics clearly enough from her own childhood growing
Speaker 1: up in the sixties in Franklin County. Back then, she
Speaker 1: and a couple of other kids were the first black
Speaker 1: students in the newly integrated schools. Certain elements of the
Speaker 1: local community were less than welcoming. The KKK burnt across
Speaker 1: in another family's yard that had sent their children to
Speaker 1: the white school system. So my dad went to visit
Speaker 1: them and talked to him, and then he came back
Speaker 1: and went to the Union Hall store where the guys
Speaker 1: sit around and talk and share news, and he basically
Speaker 1: said he heard it was a cross burning and these
Speaker 1: people's yards last night he said, I just want everybody
Speaker 1: to know if it's some white sheets in my yard
Speaker 1: that's not on Helen's line, they will be full of
Speaker 1: bullet holes. Today, Penny still feels under threat in her
Speaker 1: own community. Remember the BLM rally from earlier. While Penny
Speaker 1: Blue and Rocky Mount residents were peacefully demonstrating, the local
Speaker 1: militia had just out of you, armed and watching. We
Speaker 1: have pictures of the militia that was right down the streets.
Speaker 1: So we had children and grandparents out there that day
Speaker 1: and they had the militia with guns across the street.
Speaker 1: If the militia had been visible at my rally, that
Speaker 1: would have concerned me very much. Militia groups like these
Speaker 1: often claim that they're turning up to keep everyone safe
Speaker 1: and make sure things stay calm, because what's more calming
Speaker 1: than a troop of anonymous white gunman shadowing a BLM protest.
Speaker 1: And the way Penny sees it, these militia groups are
Speaker 1: driven by the same forces that took officers for Racker
Speaker 1: and Robertson to the capital on January six. And I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about online radicalization or the ratcheting power of
Speaker 1: social media, which pushes people towards evermore extreme beliefs. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about something much deeper. Most people need to understand
Speaker 1: their history a little better. If you understood your history
Speaker 1: a little better, then you would understand a lot more
Speaker 1: of what's going on today. A lot of people talk
Speaker 1: about the Confederate flag and it being in the capital
Speaker 1: and that being such a big deal. We're living in
Speaker 1: Franklin County. We see the Confederate flag all the time.
Speaker 1: Penny volunteers at the book Or T. Washington National Monument
Speaker 1: in Franklin County. It's the estate and a farmhouse where
Speaker 1: Booker T. Washington, the educator and author, was born into slavery.
Speaker 1: I have learned that success is to be measured not
Speaker 1: so much by the position that one has reached in
Speaker 1: life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while
Speaker 1: trying to succeed. Penny spends her free time dressed up
Speaker 1: as Washington's mother, giving history lessons to visitors. For her,
Speaker 1: the Capital riot is just the latest iteration of an
Speaker 1: ancient battle that's always been part of the story of America.
Speaker 1: Those who backed the January sixth rioters say the storming
Speaker 1: of the Capitol had nothing to do with racism. Penny
Speaker 1: argues that a casual glance back at the history books
Speaker 1: reveals some striking parallels. It amazed me the number of
Speaker 1: people that tried to tell me that the Civil War
Speaker 1: was not about slavery, and when you have the conversation, oh,
Speaker 1: it was about states rights. Yes, states rights to own slaves.
Speaker 1: The idea that the Civil War wasn't actually about slavery
Speaker 1: is known as the Lost Cause narrative. It paints the
Speaker 1: Confederate States as heroic and erases the horrors of the
Speaker 1: slave trade. According to Lost Cause mythology, enslaved people were
Speaker 1: happy and even grateful to their Antebellum masters. It's basically
Speaker 1: lying about history. I had that to the insurrection because
Speaker 1: they show it on TV in the news almost on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. Yet Congress, people who one day or
Speaker 1: fraid for their lives now are saying it was just
Speaker 1: people that were visiting the capital on January six. I
Speaker 1: never felt threatened. I didn't. Watching the TV footage of
Speaker 1: those who entered the capital and walked through Statuary Hall,
Speaker 1: I knew those are people that love this country. If
Speaker 1: you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.
Speaker 1: Even though we can see it with our own eyes.
Speaker 1: It's trying to rewrite history. It wasn't. It wasn't an
Speaker 1: armed invasion by a brigade of dangerous white supremacists. Those
Speaker 1: are wise. So this is why Penny was unsurprised to
Speaker 1: learn that two local cops would be joining the far
Speaker 1: right throng at the insurrection. To her, it's just the
Speaker 1: natural evolution of the deeply rooted beliefs. A lot of
Speaker 1: people in her community hold Trump did not have to
Speaker 1: radicalize anyone. They learned this from birth. All he did
Speaker 1: was take advantage of what was there. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to speak anything into existence, but just to say,
Speaker 1: I am not surprised that Donald Trump was elected. I
Speaker 1: am not surprised about the insurrection, and I don't know
Speaker 1: what the next things will be. The events in Franklin
Speaker 1: County are a microcosm of modern America. Cops going bad,
Speaker 1: society at each other's throats, and right at the heart
Speaker 1: of it all too competing narratives, not just about the election,
Speaker 1: but about America's history and this kid glove treatment of
Speaker 1: the far right. It doesn't just happen in small town
Speaker 1: p d s or during BLM. Proud boy clashes in
Speaker 1: major cities. It also happens at a policy level, right
Speaker 1: at the very top. Someone who has seen this firsthand
Speaker 1: is a security expert named Darryl Johnson. Like Penny Blue,
Speaker 1: Arroll wasn't remotely surprised by the events of January six.
Speaker 1: He comes from a conservative Mormon family in Utah and
Speaker 1: on paper, has a background that wouldn't have sounded out
Speaker 1: of place at the Capitol on January six. But Darrell
Speaker 1: has dedicated his career to confronting right wing domestic extremism.
Speaker 1: He's a former analyst at the Department for Homeland Security.
Speaker 1: Today he runs a consulting firm called dt Analytics, and
Speaker 1: the reason he no longer works for the DHS is
Speaker 1: quite a story. When I sat down with Darryll, he
Speaker 1: told me that groups like the Franklin County Militia follow
Speaker 1: the pattern he's seen playing out nationally with other far
Speaker 1: right militias like the Oathkeepers. These people are recruited with
Speaker 1: specialized skill sets that they've learned in the military and
Speaker 1: police forces. They have access to investigative information as well as,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe classified information, so it poses a unique threat,
Speaker 1: an insider threat or counterintelligence threat. Just to be clear,
Speaker 1: there's been no implication that Jacob Fracker and t. J.
Speaker 1: Robertson were members of the Oath Keepers, but their rhetoric
Speaker 1: on social media bears a lot of similarities to the
Speaker 1: idea that the militiamen subscribed to. Plus, you know, Robertson
Speaker 1: bought thirty four guns while out on bail and banned
Speaker 1: from owning a firearm. I think a lot of militia
Speaker 1: guys would approve These anti government militia groups are getting
Speaker 1: more agitated and more active and been arming themselves for
Speaker 1: the past couple of decades, and they are definitely the
Speaker 1: most capable of conducting a mass act of violence just
Speaker 1: with the sheer amount of weaponry that they hoard an
Speaker 1: ammunition that they've stockpiled. This is a threat as old
Speaker 1: as America itself. Darryl has seen the far right recruiting
Speaker 1: people with military and law enforcement experience many times across
Speaker 1: his career. Darryl knows as well as anyone what can
Speaker 1: happen when trained soldiers become extremists. Chaos in downtown Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City after what police believed to be a twelve hundred
Speaker 1: pound car bomb ripped through the nine story Federal Building
Speaker 1: in Timothy McVeigh, a decorated U. S. Army teran, murdered
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty eight people when he detonated a
Speaker 1: homemade fertilizer bomb at the Alfred Piemura Federal Building in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City, and in its shadow the exhausted, who for
Speaker 1: a day and a half now have sifted through its
Speaker 1: debris and counted it's dead and seen up close why
Speaker 1: they call it terror. Darrell witnessed the aftermath of that
Speaker 1: terror firsthand when he visited the wreckage soon after. The
Speaker 1: makeshift memorial will still up with the various notes and
Speaker 1: flowers and teddy bears tied to the fencing. The candlelight
Speaker 1: vigils were still laying on the sidewalks, and I made
Speaker 1: a commitment to myself that I would do anything I
Speaker 1: could to try to prevent the next terrorist attack, either
Speaker 1: against the military overseas or here at home. McVeigh was
Speaker 1: a veteran and an anti government white supremacist. The bombing
Speaker 1: triggered a major crackdown on right wing extremists by federal authorities.
Speaker 1: The Department of Justice, the FBI, a t F and
Speaker 1: others disrupted many plots, rounded up key leaders on conspiracy
Speaker 1: and other charges and disrupted these groups and movements, and
Speaker 1: it worked. According to data from bipartisan think tank the
Speaker 1: Center for Strategic and International Studies, in nine there were
Speaker 1: forty three major right wing terrorist attacks and plots in
Speaker 1: the USA, around eight of all terrorist incidents. By two
Speaker 1: thousand two, that felt a fifteen with only four right
Speaker 1: wing plots or attacks, And as the right wing terror
Speaker 1: threat declined, eleven came along. Suddenly the state security apparatus
Speaker 1: was throwing everyone at combating Islamic extremism, everyone apart from
Speaker 1: one guy. When I arrived at Homeland Security, I was
Speaker 1: actually the only person at the Office of Intelligence Analysis
Speaker 1: monitoring this threat that's right in the middle ots. The
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security had just person analyzing far right threats.
Speaker 1: And you know, the crazy thing is the Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: bombing hadn't really been all that long ago. But in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, two things happened that changed everything. Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: forty seven years old, will become the President elect of
Speaker 1: the United States, but now tumbled more than five hundred points.
Speaker 1: After two pillars of the Street tumbled over the weekend.
Speaker 1: Lehman Brothers a one hundred and fifty eight year old
Speaker 1: firm filed for bankruptcy. Barack Obama becomes the first black
Speaker 1: president of the United States, and the financial crash plunges
Speaker 1: the world into an economic crisis. Membership of white supremacists
Speaker 1: and other far right groups begins to surge. I remember
Speaker 1: reading literature by white supremacists years ago talking about when
Speaker 1: the black occupies the white houses be the lowest point
Speaker 1: in America, and here that realization came true. Add the
Speaker 1: financial crash to Obama's presidency and you have the perfect
Speaker 1: storm for far right recruitment. The economic downturn creates fear.
Speaker 1: People want to blame or scapegoat their economic problems. You know,
Speaker 1: jobs going overseas, immigrants coming in taking American jobs. So
Speaker 1: those two main things created this fertile ground for recruitment
Speaker 1: and radicalization among white supremacists and militia groups and sovereign citizens.
Speaker 1: And some of these groups make a point of recruiting
Speaker 1: directly from the police. I called out the linkage between
Speaker 1: returning military veterans and these extremist groups targeting them for
Speaker 1: recruitment to boost their violent capabilities. Based on Darryl sounding
Speaker 1: the alarm, the Department of Homeland Security begins to scale
Speaker 1: up his department. By two thousand nine, his one man
Speaker 1: band has grown to a team of eight, and we
Speaker 1: actually had plans of hiring more people because there was
Speaker 1: so much work to do. In April two tho nine,
Speaker 1: Daryl and his team put everything they've learned into a
Speaker 1: port It's a guide to help law enforcement around the
Speaker 1: country deal with new threats. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: documents like this released every year, and most of the
Speaker 1: time they only reach a niche audience. But this time
Speaker 1: was different. A new report by the Department of Homeland
Speaker 1: Security creating quite a stir. It's entitled quote right Wing Extremism,
Speaker 1: current economic and political climate fueling resurgence and radicalization and recruitment.
Speaker 1: Here it is. The right wing media machine painted the
Speaker 1: report as a partisan attack on the political right. Speak out,
Speaker 1: get shut down. Even just the words right wing extremism
Speaker 1: got denounced as a political tool that was being used
Speaker 1: to demonize ordinary conservatives and good old fashioned patriots. Their
Speaker 1: definition of a right wing extremists sounds awfully close to
Speaker 1: somebody who might simply just disagree with the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: Darryll's analysis of how the fire right targets former soldiers
Speaker 1: because of their military experience, was framed as an attack
Speaker 1: on veterans right wing right wing extremist Act. For example,
Speaker 1: they would define it as people that maybe think we're
Speaker 1: not controlling our borders, people that are pro life pumper
Speaker 1: stickers concerned. This is nothing more than concerned Americans exercising
Speaker 1: their First Amendment rights, and the left and the ovamb
Speaker 1: administration is clearly trying to take it away. Extremist for
Speaker 1: saying in God we trust. Daryl watched the backlash play
Speaker 1: out on his TV. Really, it was actually kind of
Speaker 1: shocking and surreal to sit there and see people spinning
Speaker 1: it politically. We have a Department of Homeland Security equating
Speaker 1: you know, our domestic terrorism with you know, the vets
Speaker 1: coming home from Iraq, taking things out of context and
Speaker 1: just outright making up lies about it. It seems like
Speaker 1: they're more concerned with the threat here at home than
Speaker 1: they are the threat abroad. I was conservative Mormon, third
Speaker 1: generation Republican when I wrote that report, and they were
Speaker 1: trying to say it was some sort of of a
Speaker 1: political insider on the left that was somehow trying to
Speaker 1: demonize the far right and the conservative movement. Despite the
Speaker 1: media fallout, Daryl trusted his bosses to back him. My
Speaker 1: leadership at DHS, they knew the type of analysts I was.
Speaker 1: They knew that I did good work. But days later,
Speaker 1: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made a public apology to
Speaker 1: veterans for the report, and behind the scenes things changed drastically.
Speaker 1: What happened with this political firestorm is they immediately shut
Speaker 1: down all the valuable work that we were doing, training
Speaker 1: that we were giving, all of the intelligence reporting, finished
Speaker 1: intelligence that we were working on came to a stop.
Speaker 1: Darrel was told that it's just a temporary measure until
Speaker 1: the controversy dies down, but that was just a cover
Speaker 1: to reorganize, to dismantle the team, reassigned us to do
Speaker 1: other work. By two thousand and ten, there was nobody
Speaker 1: at the Office of tell his Analysis doing this type
Speaker 1: of work on the level that we were doing earlier.
Speaker 1: Not long after Daryll quit and found a job in
Speaker 1: the private sector, he felt unmoored politically and personally. You know,
Speaker 1: that really caused me to do a lot of self reflection.
Speaker 1: So today I'm a different person than I was, you know,
Speaker 1: ten eleven twelve years ago. Because of that experience, a
Speaker 1: lot more moderate, tolerant, and more independent than I ever been.
Speaker 1: Darryl sounded the alarm for what we saw on January six,
Speaker 1: twelve years early, but he was shouted down. Today, the
Speaker 1: number of right wing plots and attacks have surpassed the
Speaker 1: peak they reached in the mid nineteen nineties. Right Wing
Speaker 1: terrorism accounted for over of all terrorist plots and attacks
Speaker 1: in the United States between January and May, according to
Speaker 1: the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Darrell believes that
Speaker 1: to truly break the side ale of far right radicalization
Speaker 1: in the United States, something significant needs to change. Conservative
Speaker 1: voices need to get on board. If I can call
Speaker 1: out this threat being a conservative, Mormon Republican, why can't
Speaker 1: my fellow Republicans and Congress do the same. And I
Speaker 1: still challenge them to this day to do the right
Speaker 1: thing and to call out this threat and to condemn it,
Speaker 1: because failing to do that has allowed these groups to proliferate,
Speaker 1: and it actually emboldens these people. For Penny seeing the
Speaker 1: violence of the far right play out on the ground,
Speaker 1: and Daryl trying to stop far right attacks as a
Speaker 1: senior member of Law Enforcement in Washington, the Capital Riot
Speaker 1: did not come out of the blue. For Penny, the
Speaker 1: riot and it's subsequent retelling is an eerie echo of
Speaker 1: the Lost Cause narrative that the Civil War was about
Speaker 1: states rights, not upholding slavery. In both cases, violence has
Speaker 1: whitewashed his noble patriot is m For Darryl, the conservative backlash,
Speaker 1: which hampered efforts to tackle right wing domestic terrorism and
Speaker 1: painted his vital report as a left wing attack, laid
Speaker 1: the groundwork for a far right surge on January six.
Speaker 1: In both cases, the truth about oppressive, racist, or otherwise
Speaker 1: radical right forces is obscured by a story that makes
Speaker 1: any attempt to call them out and attack an ordinary,
Speaker 1: well meaning conservatives. In my home of Portland, Oregon, I've
Speaker 1: seen the effects of this first hand. Violent rallies like
Speaker 1: the one we heard at the start of this episode
Speaker 1: where my hand was broken by a proud boy, are
Speaker 1: now a regular occurrence. If you've only caught occasional hazy
Speaker 1: stories from our city on the news, you've likely missed
Speaker 1: a key part of the story, which is that time
Speaker 1: and again Portland police have sat by and allowed proud
Speaker 1: boys to drive through town beating unarmed protesters and shooting
Speaker 1: pedestrians with paintball guns. This permissive attitude made Portland a
Speaker 1: safe place for these groups to get experience and test
Speaker 1: tactics before rioting in places like Washington, d C. On
Speaker 1: December twenty one, armed far right protesters breached the windows
Speaker 1: of the Oregon state capital Salem, roughly an hour from Portland,
Speaker 1: in what would prove an eerie prelude to January six.
Speaker 1: They assaulted journalists, broke windows, and maced police officers and
Speaker 1: their attempt to assault elected leaders. What happened in d
Speaker 1: C on January six was not a surprise to anyone
Speaker 1: who paid attention to the far right in Oregon. These
Speaker 1: people have made their plans and goals clear for quite
Speaker 1: some time. The bravery of individual capital police officers does
Speaker 1: not change the fact that none of this would be
Speaker 1: happening without the acquiescence and active support of law enforcement
Speaker 1: officers around the country. In the next and final episode,
Speaker 1: we meet the army of digital sluits who have risen
Speaker 1: up to identify rioters. This is one of the leaders.
Speaker 1: This is a person who has come here with all
Speaker 1: of this information, who has a plan. In this final installment,
Speaker 1: we go inside the digital dragnet m HM