The Rob Rundown

Molly and Garrison talk about the many arrests of Rob Rundo, the founder of the nazi fight club rise above movement.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome back to it could happen here. I
am once again you're a guest host, Molly Conger, and
joining me today is our friend Garrison.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Hello. Excited to get the Robert Rundo run down.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
So you already know what we are talking about today.
It is a guy that you probably already know more
about than you ever wanted to. It is Rob Rundo,
the founder of the Nazi fight club the Rise Above movement.
You and Robert did a great two part Behind the
Bastards on RAM back in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Which is shockingly three years ago, which does not sound right,
but I guess is the case.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
It's been a long three years for you, but an
even stranger one for Rob.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, he's been really a country hopic a lot the
past few years.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Huh, he's been busy. So when you recorded that episode
back in January of twenty twenty one, Rundo's federal charges
had been dismissed by Judge corn mat Karney in twenty nineteen.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision in
March twenty twenty one, right around the time the episode
came out. I think at the end of the second
episode you had a PostScript, like an adendum you recorded afterwards,

(01:12):
because before it came out, the Ninth Circuit ruling had
been issued. Okay, okay, But in an almost comical turn
of events, Judge Carney has once again dismissed those charges
two weeks ago.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Now, so three years later, a few countries later, hopping
from from Serbia to the United States to probably other
places around Europe.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, and we're sort of back in the same position
you were in when you talked about him three years ago.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Times that's circle.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
But before we get into one of the sort of
strangest legal slap fights I've ever read, let's back up
for a second. Who is Rob Rundo and what was
he charged with? Yeah, So, if you want a more
robust look at the early days of the Rise Above movement,
recommend going back and listening to that Behind the Bastards
two parter on the Rise Above Movement. It originally aired
in March twenty twenty one, So like, really scroll back

(02:08):
in your podcast app but we'll do a quick recap
here because it's not I can't assign the listener homework.
So so the Rise Above movement first emerged in early
twenty seventeen, after a brief period of being called the
DIY Division both stupid dames. I don't know which one's better,
but RAM, We're just gonna call them RAM. In twenty

(02:30):
seventeen was a big year for political violence. It was
it was really hot that year. The group was, on
its surface, a mixed martial arts club for white men.
They trained together and bonded over their shared and abhorrent
political views. In their own words, they are fighting against
the modern world corrupted by the destructive cultural influences of liberals, Jews, Muslims,

(02:51):
and immigrants, you know, and gay people and gay people. Yeah,
I'm just pretty much pretty much everybody except you know
themselves down.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Essentially, if you were not a member of the Nazi
Fight Club, you are a victim of the Nazi fight club.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
That's the first rule of Nazi fight sure.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Whatever.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
The first rule of Nazi fight Club was not don't
talk about Nazi fight club.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
And I think that's because they shut it. They cannot
stop talking.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Like if they had just followed the first rule of
fight club, they might not be in this position. But
RAM quickly became a staple at rallies in southern California
that year. In the spring and summer of twenty seventeen,
they kept showing up and kept throwing punches. In March,
members assaulted journalists and counter protesters at a MAGA rally
in Huntington Beach. In April, they assaulted numerous counter protesters

(03:40):
at a rally in Berkeley. In August, RAM members attended
Unite the Right in Charlottesville and assaulted counter protesters in
the streets. Again. And you know, they're not just going
to these events and getting in fights, right, They're not
just like showing up and just like it just happens.
They're going to these events planning on committing these assaults
and then bragging about the assaults publicly and privately. They're
using these acts of violence as propaganda and recruitment tools,

(04:02):
right like they're making little videos they're posting about it.
It's not just about committing the assault. So the violence
is not just about physically hurting people. It's part of
a larger strategy to incite others to join them in
this project. And that's I mean, you already know this.
You covered that in your episode three years ago. This
is for everybody else.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
And there, and they're still going. Unfortunately, these these they're
now often called active clubs, are more popular than what
they were three years ago. They've they've become a very
a very big staple of white supremacist organizing across the
United States and Canada, mirroring a lot of organizational styles
in Eastern Europe. There's probably one in your area that

(04:41):
you might not know about. They are active on telegram,
they're actively recruiting. They recruit from high schools. Is a
big increasing problem. As Patriot Front becomes more and more
like fed jacketed between their owned Nazi ranks, we have
see more people plugging into these these active clubs.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right RAM did not go away. It's just sort of morphed.
And so back in twenty seventeen, you know, they said
they had a lot of members. They probably had like
twenty But now these active clubs just they do genuinely
have chapters all over the country. Yeah, but back in
the past, right so, after Unite the Right RAM members
decided to lay off the rallies a little bit, you know,
being seen on camera beating a woman into the pavement

(05:22):
at a rally that ended in a hate crime murder
invited some bad press, and they weren't looking to get
door knocks at that particular moment, so they backed off
a little bit at the end of twenty seventeen, but
they'd spent most of that year attending rallies and getting
into physical altercations. It wasn't until over a year after
Unite the Right in October of twenty eighteen, that there
was any attempt to do anything about this very obvious problem.

(05:47):
You know, the criminal complaint itself even says that some
of these assaults were committed in plain view of cops
who just stood there and did nothing while these guys
beat the shit out of people in the streets. You know,
they're in each other's dms, bragging about kicking a woman
in the head while she's lying on the ground, but
nobody lifted a finger to stop them. But in October
of twenty eighteen, two cases were filed. One in the

(06:09):
Western District of Virginia, charges were filed against Ben Dalley,
Cole White, Thomas Gillen, and Michael Miscelis, And a few
weeks later, in the Central District of California, charges were
filed against Rob Rundo, Robert Bowman, Tyler Loub and Aaron Eeson,
So all eight of them, four in each district. All
eight of them were charged under the Federal Riot Act
and conspiracy to riot. I think it was Robert who

(06:31):
said in the original RAM episode, you know, like if
at any point early on, like if at any point
in those first few months of this happening, there had
been any kind of intervention, if anyone had been arrested
in the act, maybe this could have been nipped in
the butt and a lot of what happens later wouldn't
have happened.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Or even if they were like beaten up, like if
like if a group of like Eddie Fastists like beat
them up, that would disidentifize them from going to future
events to try to beat other people. Right, Like, violence
is actually very good at doing this specific thing. And
if you feel like you're going to go somewhere to
get beat up, you probably don't want to go there.
And even like divorce from the actions of the state

(07:11):
like that is that is a demotivating factor which has
been effective against Proud Boys in Portland. Now, obviously some
of these guys, especially the RAM crew, go there with
the express interest of getting into fights so that's something
you should definitely consider. But yeah, like if as long
as they have a bad time, it makes them not
want to come to these things. But when they're able

(07:31):
to just beat up anyone they want to without any pushback,
it's like, yeah, it becomes like a fun thing. It
becomes like a large amount of incentive is gained for
going to a rally, whether that's in Huntington Beach or
halfway across the country.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
I mean, they were having a great time and there
was no there was no movement to stop this, and
it's hard to know why it took over a year
for any charges to get brought. I think you speculated
in that ram episode a few years ago that it
was public pressure after that end up reporting came out
of mainstream press. But going back over the timeline and
that pro public apiece came out in October twenty seventeen,
that was just two months after Unite the Right and

(08:06):
a whole year before those charges were filed, it's not
really possible to know why they waited so long unless
some you know, young US attorney wants to level with
us about it.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
But I don't foresee that, but probably not.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Just you know, what's going on behind the scenes. But
I do have one sort of interesting little anecdote. A
couple months ago, I was at an event here in Charlesville.
It was a panel discussion, and one of the speakers
was the US Attorney for the Western District of Virginia,
Chris Cavanaugh. He was speaking to a group of people
about the work that he does, and he's talking about
the work that he did on some of these sort
of extremism cases after Unite the Right. Back in twenty eighteen,

(08:42):
he was the assistant US attorney here. He's been promoted
since then, but he worked on the James Fields case,
and he worked on the RAM case that was filed
here in Virginia, and he said something really interesting that
I hadn't thought about before. So right after Unite the
Right in August twenty seventeen, a bunch of FBI agents
were assigned to, you know, check out what how here
at this mass casualty event. Right, they had the resources

(09:03):
to investigate and try to develop cases. You know, I
love my documents. I spent a lot of time in
the documents, so I've actually seen you know, they got
some federal search warrants. It was actually an FBI agent
who dug the round that Richard Preston fired at Corey
Long out of the mulch In Market Street Park. You know,
they got search warrants for social media for a couple
of guys who ended up prosecuted locally, Alex Ramos, Richard Preston,

(09:24):
and New Borton. So it looks like they were trying
to develop hate crime cases, right, Like that federal warrant
they got for Richard Preston's Twitter account said that they
were developing a hate crime case and they never did so,
Like right after Unite the Right, they're getting these warrants,
they're developing these cases. But back to that event that
I was at with Chris Kavanaugh, the US Attorney, He said,

(09:46):
when the Las Vegas shooting happened in October of twenty seventeen,
they lost their task force. They had this huge volume
of agents working trying to develop Unite the Right cases.
When that shooting happened two months later, they all got reassigned.
He was left like a skeleton crew, and they just
didn't have the resources to develop these cases. Like, I
don't know how the FBI is managing their resources internally

(10:07):
so badly. That they can only handle one mass casualty
event at a time, or why the Washington Field office
was so heavily impacted by a shooting in Nevada. But
that is what he said, So take that as you will.
And I think that theory is at least in part
supported by the fact that the federal charges against James
Fields didn't get brought until June of twenty eighteen. Right

(10:29):
he'd been charged locally for the car attack that killed
how they higher, but the federal charges didn't pop up
until June of twenty eighteen, So I don't know if
maybe something shifted in terms of resources in their office
that summer, I don't know. It's interesting to think about.
But then so in you know, back to October of
twenty eighteen, right when these two different RAM cases get filed.
Virginia's case was actually filed first. It was filed a

(10:51):
few weeks before the case in California, So I don't know.
I assumed they were in communication about that, but I
don't have any special insight into what their federal prosecute
was doing. But it's also possible that it just takes
the government a whole ass year to do anything. No
matter what right. In a recent filing in the Rundo case,
the government's talking about how this investigation was developed, and

(11:13):
it says, you're gonna shit a break Garrison. It says
that the FBI investigation into RAM only started when a
bartender in La called the FBI a few weeks after
Unite the Right because he overheard a patron Ben Day
quote gleefully bragging about having caused havoc during the riots. Amazing,

(11:36):
and he also quote bragged about hitting a guy and
punching a girl in the face during protests in Berkeley.
So that first comment was about Charlesville. He had just
come home from Charlesville. He was talking about how he
caused havoc. He's bragging about punching people in Berkeley, and
the bartender's like, hmm, that's kind of that's suspicious, suspicious.
This unnamed complainant also told the FBI that Daily and

(11:58):
other RAM members had come to the bar often and
sometimes used it for recruitment. They were recruiting the patrons
at this bar, and based on what he overheard, he
told the FBI that the group quote did not care
about the issues regarding the statues in Charlottesville. But rather
a quote enjoyed going to protests just to raise havoc,
cause trouble and fight. So it wasn't until a bartender

(12:22):
called the FBI to be like, Hey, this guy's talking
about like doing a lot of gang violence. I don't
know if you guys know about this. And according to
that same court filing, the FBI took until January of
twenty eighteen, so a few weeks after Unite the Right
and maybe we're looking at September. It took them three
or four more months until January of twenty eighteen to
discover in the course of their investigation that RAM was

(12:42):
based in southern California.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Great work, great work, everybody, fantastic stuff.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
They're on it now, Garrison. And so at this point,
the LA Field Office opens an investigation into members in
the area. Now I kind of hope this isn't true, right,
Like I hope that this is not a correct summary
of the of these events, because if it really took
someone calling the FBI to say, like, hey, I heard

(13:08):
a guy bragging about doing crime in sem.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
That definitely happed. No, that is definitely how this went down.
Absolutely that makes so much sense.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
But then it took three months of investigating to figure
out that the guys who recruit for their Nazi gang
at a bar in LA probably live in La.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that is This is kind of
how the FBI investigates white supremasist groups.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
But like.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
They have they're too busy investigating teenagers in black hoodies.
They can't they can't bother to spare the manpower for this.
There's Antifa out there.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
By the time they got this tip from the bartender,
that Pro Publica article was already out. Why did it
take them three months to find out that the guys
whose names were already in the newspaper lived in California.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
I don't trust anyone who lives in Virginia.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
So it took them a few months, Right, it took
some time. I hope that's not true, but it is
what the government has put on the record as the truth.
So anyway, that's how this case starts. Right, So, these
eight members of RAM are charged for in Virginia for
in California with rioting and conspiracy to riot. Just for
efficiency's sake, I'll just say that the cases in Virginia
are fully resolved. Daily Miss Eliskillen, and White all pleaded guilty.

(14:25):
There were some later unsuccessful appeals where when they after
they saw what happened in the California cases, they were like, ooh,
actually us too, can we But that didn't work and
their convictions stood. And that's all over.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Where is daily now? Is he out again? There he's out.
The he's out? Yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
White didn't get any additional time after his plea because
he was so cooperative, and the other three all got
less than three years.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so they're out.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
But these California cases where Roundo is charged, they have
been a mess from day one, so the charge October
twenty eighteen. In twenty nineteen, Judge Corn Matt Carney dismissed
the charges in California, saying that the Riot Act was
unconstitutionally overbroad and its application violated the defendant's First Amendment rights.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
So true, First Amendment defender here, that's right, travel across
state lines to riot endorsed by this judge.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
That's free speech. Garrison like love it or leave it,
go back to Canada. So the prosecutor appealed that ruling
because it was hawk garbage. And the ninth Circuit agreed
it takes a long time for things to get appealed.
It's like slower than watching grass grow. So the Ninth
Circuit reversed that ruling in March of twenty twenty one,

(15:37):
reinstating the indictments. Things move really so, so you know, it
took two years for them to reverse it and then
another year to enter the order. So it wasn't until
February of twenty twenty two that the case was formally reopened.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
In which case, around this time, Rondo's trying to like
hide in Eastern Europe and eventually get sent back to
the United States. Curiously, around the same time that Andrew Tate.
Does God imagine an Andrew tape Rob Rundo fight. Oh okay,
I wouldn't pay money because I don't want to support them,

(16:09):
but I would love to watch that.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Actually send them both back to Romania and let them fight.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
So, by the time that the California ram defendants are
re indicted on the original charges, it's January of twenty
twenty three, and only three of them get re indicted
because Aaron Eeson has died.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
So sad.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
It doesn't say much.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
More than that a tragic loss of life.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
I don't know. I don't want to I guess I
don't want to speculate because it doesn't say on the record,
and I was unable to determine. I can't find anything
other than the court record dismissing his charges because he
was dead. I can't find any record of his death.
It must have just been, you know, private. But you know,
you were talking about that RAM episode a couple of
years ago about how you know they're all about clean
living and fighting.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
They're all straight edge, except for all of the ones
who do trucks.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
A lot of them have really serious drug problems. And
I don't know for a fact what was going on
with Aaron Eesan, but I know Robert Bowman had some
trouble staying out on bond due to a very severe
meth addiction. Yes, yes, so I don't know what happened
to Aaron Easton, but very very pure.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
You gotta keep the blood line pure.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
So the reindicted January twenty twenty three, And as you
guys talked about back in twenty twenty one, Rondo had
been living in Serbia for most of this time. He
is overseas making friends doing fight club, doing Nazi stuff.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
Hang out, making bad T shirts, doing bad graffiti, mostly
opening up T shirt factories. It's really what he spent
a lot of time.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
SERI really about the merch. You have to merchandise.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
That's the Hey, if you took away one thing from
Revolt against the Modern World, it's that Ovola loved merch.
That's the biggest through line in that works. You got
to sell those stickers, man.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
You have to. It's a sort of a pointy shaped operation. Right,
the guys will the bottom have to keep selling the
stickers to the guys, and he has to make new bottoms. Right,
There's there's no bottom. It is a pyramid scheme. Patriot
Runt is a pyramid scheme.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
Well, and Patriot Front and Rondo had the same sticker
manufacturer for quite a while. Their websites, well, their merch
websites were identical.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Look, I mean, how many webmasters can these Nazi groups have.
It's got to be one guy. Yeah, they do not
have a graphic designer. So anyway, so he's in Serbia
in twenty twenty one, Serbia made a big show of
saying like, oh, like he's not welcome here, He's deported
to Bosnia. He was still in Serbia. I think Bell
and Kat has some great articles tracking exactly where in
Belgrade Rondo was hanging out. But Serbia was like, no,

(18:45):
he's not here, we can't he's not welcome here. He's
in Bosnia and Boni he was like, he's not fucking here.
He was in Serbia.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
He kept trying to lie to He tried to like
like make people think he was somewhere else, but he
just couldn't stop posting. And if you ever post anything
outside or really even inside you you can be found.
So like, he couldn't stop posting in every single time
he'd be like, haha, the CIA assets a belly cat
think I'm here when in fact I'm actually over there,

(19:14):
and you're like, no, you're actually right here. It's really
easy to find out where you are. You posted yourself
standing next to this tree. There's only one type of
this tree in this area. It's obvious you're right here,
and it's.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Like you can post all you like. If you have
terminal posting disease, you can keep posting, which is like,
don't post photographs of yourself in a place.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
He can't, he can't stop. He can't stop, won't stop.
My favorite old Rundo laur is that he had this
YouTube series called Tea Time with Robert Rundo that I
still think about about once a week where he would
give his Nazi followers advice on how to flee the
country if they have a felony while sitting at like
a European cafe, filming on his iPhone. It's the most

(19:53):
it's the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
In the same world. Evidence like that would make a
judge say, I don't think we should let you back
out if you.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Let it tail, considering you made instructions.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
So finally, in March of twenty twenty three, he's freshly reindicted.
In January twenty twenty three. March of twenty twenty three,
the Romanian police are like, we fucking found him, got
he's here in Romania. So he's arrested in Romania and
it takes a few months to sort out all the
paperwork and get him extradited back to the US in
August of twenty twenty three. You know what won't get

(20:28):
you indicted on federal felony charges that result in you
being extradited from a Romanian prison.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Listening to these ads as long as we declare them
as my FTC training today taught me how to do. So. Yes,
these are all paid advertisements. We're not allowed to call
them promoted content. We have to call them ads. These
are advertised I believe that was part of my training today.
So to make sure I don't go to prison enjoy
these paid advertisements.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Well, I hope you enjoyed those paid advertisement.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Paid ads. This is weird. We're only airing them because
they're paying us money. These are not our sincere belief. Way.
We can't say that either. There's really no way to win.
There's no way to win here anyway.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
I'm going to the war against the FTC.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
So so true.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
So that more or less gets us up to the
current controversy. So we get Rundo back August twenty twenty three,
and then February twenty twenty four, about ten days ago,
Judge Carney dismisses the case again. So back in twenty nineteen,
Carney said, no, there's no crime here. This is just
protective for some m activities. You can't use the Riot Act.
That's unconstitutional, right, And he dismisses the case and the

(21:50):
Ninth Circuit says, no, no, I don't think so that's
not how we're reading this. You got to take the
case back. So it gets remanded back to the same judge.
It goes back to Judge Karney, but of course Rendo's
missing now. It takes a while to get him back.
And so he finally gets his defendant back from his
Nazi layer in Eastern Europe, he has to come up
with a new reason why a Nazi street fighting gang

(22:11):
shouldn't be charged with a crime. Okay, So, like it's obvious,
he just doesn't want to fucking try this case. So
he has to come up with a new reason. And honestly,
I think no shade to the federal public defender, right,
Rendo has a public defender. It is their job to
throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. They're
providing zealous defense to their clients. So they write up
what I would say, in my personal opinion, was an

(22:33):
absolute dogshit motion, and I think maybe they knew that too.
I don't know, they're just doing their jobs. I think
Judge Karney would have agreed with whatever they put on paper.
He gets this motion and he's like, yes, for sure,
dismissed again. So true, and this time it's selective prosecution.
That if the government wants to charge Ram with riding,
they would have had to charge Antifa too, because otherwise

(22:53):
it's not fair. What should they do all the fucking time?
It's just not fair.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
I mean this case does actually like showcase like selective prosecution,
the fact that you are super willing to drop charges
against a white sutrematist but will send like quote unquote
Antifa gay gay teenagers to prison for going to going
to a BLM protest. Like, yeah, that actually does showactly
exactly how these cases are very selectively prosecuted.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Right, Like these guys are playing on easy mode and
as soon as they draw the wrong card, it's like, well,
this deck is stacked, this deck is stacked, right, and
so not. I'm like, we talked about this before a Garrison.
I'm not a lawyer, we know this, but I am
an enthusiastic consumer of the law, and I did read
a bunch of law review articles today. Okay, selective prosecution

(23:44):
sounds like the kind of thing that could work, right, Like, oh,
it's not constitutional to selectively prosecute based on maybe a
protected characteristic right like if you're only prosecuting black people
for a crime, like, of course that's wrong. But here's
the thing. It doesn't work. It never works. This is
not an argument that is effective. I want't say it

(24:04):
never works. It is generally not an effective argument, even
when a layperson could look at it and say, oh, yeah,
that is kind fucked up. It just doesn't work. You
can't just walk into court and say, you know, well,
your honor, I was speeding, but so is everybody else
on the interstate. It's unconstitutional to give me a ticket
unless everyone gets a ticket, right that. It's not how
it works.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
They're picking on me.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
It's yeah, you can't just say, you know, other people
did what I did, but I'm the only one standing here,
so it's not fair. You have to there's an actual
structure to this. Oh Jay got away with it. That
means I should too, right, right, We're not catching every murderer,
so like, yeah, I should get a freebee.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
So you have to show not only that there was
a particular other individual who engaged in the same conduct
who was not charged, but also that quote a federal
prosecutorial policy had a discriminatory effect, and it was motivated
by a discriminate tory purpose. So in the speeding ticket analogy, right,
you'd have to say, you know, I was doing eighty

(25:05):
in the school zone, but so were these three other
particular women like John, Jane and Gina were all doing
it too, and we all got pulled over. But the
cop only gave me a ticket because he hates men
or something, right, Like, you would have to.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
Show that based miss andres cop.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Right, So you'd have to show that other people did
the exact same thing you did, and it was possible
for them to have gotten in trouble too, yeah, but
they didn't because of a particular form of discrimination.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
So in order to make a valid claim of selective prosecution,
Rondo's lawyers would have to say, Look, here's Joe Antifa,
a real guy who exists, and here is a materially
similar set of circumstances in which Joe Antifa ran an
organized group that got into fights on purpose, provoked confrontations,
chase people to their cars, beat women in the streets,
and then use that footage to recruit people to his gang.
Right Like, here's Joe Antifa bragging online about targeting members

(25:58):
of a particular minority group. Brutal gang assaults at political rallies.
Here's his group actively planning and organizing to travel to
different cities in other states across the country with the
explicit and stated goal of provoking and attacking people. Right,
you can't just say, well, Antifa didn't get charged. You
have to present an actual person who did what you did,

(26:19):
not just some other guy who did something you don't
like or somebody else who maybe did kind of a crime.
You have to say, this is a specific person and
he did what I did in a materially similar way
to the same degree that I did it, and with
just as much evidence to support that.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
And in the Ram case, there's so much evidence because
they couldn't stop fucking posting, So they can't produce evidence
that Antifa, to whatever degree that's a meaningful term here,
engaged in similar behavior to what the evidence shows Ram did. Right,
It's not just other people were fighting. And in this
case that's kind of preposterous because the evidence does show

(26:57):
that they specifically bragged, Like there's a text that was
produced from Ben Daley bragging about how they were first
through the barricades at Berkeley. So you're acknowledging that you
know there was this big riot and that you started it.
Sure other people were fighting in the riot that you
started on purpose, So no one else can be similarly

(27:19):
situated to you, Because even if they were fighting you
started it. There has to be a real, actual, other
person who is similarly situated. That's an actual legal term
that encompasses a set of criteria. Is there a similar
amount of evidence against this other person? Would it take
a similar amount of state resources to investigate, arrest, and

(27:39):
convict this person. We just don't have an organized, militant
street gang of Antifa that sold branded apparel and bragged
about crimes online. There is no similarly situated, uncharged actor
on the other side of this. That person doesn't exist.
But it's even more than that. Even if we did

(27:59):
have Joe Antifa, the gang leader who's bragging online about
doing this kind of stuff, even if he existed, Even then,
even then there is what's called prosecutorial discretion. There may
be reasons that we just aren't entitled to know about
as to why a prosecutor made the decisions they did
about who gets charged. For a selective prosecution argument to work,
you have to show that this decision was made for

(28:20):
a discriminatory purpose, and that's really hard to do because
they're not going to tell you that, right. You know,
in an ideal world, selective prosecution would be an argument raised,
you know, about racial bias, because we do know that
there is racial bias and who is investigated, arrested, charged,
and convicted for crimes, like at every step along the way,

(28:40):
there's a thumb on the scale against people of color.
And even then, even when it is so obvious, even
when you have, you know, a prosecutor who is a
member of the fucking clan, even then these arguments don't
tend to work. This should not have worked. But Judge
Carney clearly just doesn't want this case prosecuted, right. I

(29:02):
think it's it's very obvious that he just like thinks
Rob Rundo is a nice boy who shouldn't have to
go to jail for this. He is also, i think, notably,
about to retire. He hits he hits the minimum retirement
age in May, and he is going to retire the
day that he can. I think Megan Cuniff, who has

(29:24):
a great blog, Legal Affairs, she's been covering this case.
She noted in a tweet, a few weeks ago that
she knows that he intends to retire because he in
rescheduling some hearings, said that that was the only day
he could go to the retirement benefits class that he
needs to go to to make sure he can retire
the day he's eligible in May. So he just doesn't
he just doesn't want to deal with this. Right that

(29:45):
this was scheduled to go to trial in March and
he's retiring in May. He just doesn't want to do it.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
What's the even the point anymore? What's what? I just
it's like, why, well, why are they even trying here?
Like it just just just like kick the can down
to someone else if you don't want to like deal
with this. I don't know, it's turning this whole like
I don't know. I've read other things from this judge
how he's like he's like very much into like this

(30:13):
big like Antifa conspiracy theory, and.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
He's a little bit racist, Like there was an issue
he's oh, I'm shocked. He was chief judge of the
circuit briefly, but he had to step down, so he's
still a judge in the Central District of California. But
he's not the chief judge anymore because he made a
racist comment to the Clerk of Court. So he's I mean,
I think there's some stuff going on with Judge Carney,
So I think he knows when he made this ruling

(30:36):
that like the Ninth Circuit's gonna send it back, but
that's not gonna be his problem anymore because he's out
of here in May. So you heard this like absolute
dog shit argument and he was like, so true, King,
this is not fair. You are free to go go ahead,
and he let him out same day, Like he heard
this argument. He was like, absolutely, that's the one. Go

(30:57):
on home. And he let him out that day. If
he was attorney made a motion for an emergency stay,
saying like, okay, well, let's just let's not get ahead
of ourselves. Why don't we just hang on to him
till we can talk to the Ninth Circuit about this,
because I don't know. And that's pretty normal. That would
be normal for the judge to say, let's give it
a day. I mean, I want him release, but we'll
give it a day. We'll let you get your paperwork

(31:18):
in order. No, he just let him out, just let
him out right that day and considering his history of
fleeing the country, not the call I would have made.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
It is quite the choice.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
So the very next day, the Ninth Circuit was like,
hold on, let's get him back in custity while we
think about this. And it makes no sense for CARNEI
to deny the emergency stay. That would be really normal
to stay the decision until we have a chance to
sort of think this through. Right, even if he truly
believed with his whole heart that there's no way that
this would ever get kicked back by the Ninth Circuit,

(31:50):
that the case would stay dismissed and Rundo would be
free to go, it would not be unusual to say,
you know, well, this has been pretty contentious. The defendant
has fled the country multiple time, so let's just hang
on to him for twenty four forty eight hours while
we go through the motions of getting that emergency hearing.
But that's not what happened, because Robert Rundo is the
definition of a flight risk.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yes he is. Like he's the platonic ideal form of
a flight risk.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
I've sat through a lot of bond hearings and I
know we are definitely not all using the same dictionary
here when it comes to what is a flight risk.
But you really can't find a guy who has done
more to demonstrate than he absolutely can and will flee
the country to avoid going back to court. He does
not want to go to court. So back in twenty eighteen,
when those two prosecutions were initially filed, right, the Virginia

(32:41):
case was filed first, So when Ben Daley was arrested,
the charges hadn't actually been filed yet against rob Rundo.
But I guess when they came to get Ben on
October second, so eighteen days before the charges were filed
against rob Rundo himself, they came to get Ben in
La and he's like, mm, time to get out of dodge.
So I think that was the moment he was like

(33:02):
I gotta go. You know, he knew they might be
coming for him next. So first he tries going to Ukraine,
which is a great place for a militant right wing
extremists to go hang out with friends, right, And unfortunately
for him, his flight had a layover in London. I
don't know if it like didn't occur to him that
maybe when they look at your passport, like maybe maybe

(33:25):
the US government like anticipated that you would do this,
but so he throw looks at his at his passport.
It was like mm, the US government says, do not
pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, do not
proceed to Nazi asylum. And they turn him back. Now
mind you, he's not arrested yet, right, They just won't
let him go to Ukraine.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Interesting, so he he doesn't. He doesn't get to London though.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
I think he gets to London and they were like, no,
you can't, you can't go.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
I don't know how he got that far. Yeah, yeah,
that is that is intriguing.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
So back in California he walked to Mexico.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, which is which is part of his tea tie
with Robert Rundo advice.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Right, So like he literally went on foot over the
US Mexico border to avoid passport control and then he
travel over land through Mexico into l Salvador, YEP, where
he presumably intended to try getting on a plane. Again.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
You need you need to get far enough south so
that when you fly you don't cross over American airspace.
Other people in ram have tried this and have not
gone far south enough and their plane crosses over like
the tip of US airsplace around Florida, and then they
get flagged so that when they land they get they
get like arrested or turned back.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
See that's so tricky, Like I be playing funny. I've
got a plane ticket recently for vacation. I'm not fleeing
the country or anything.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Molly's flying.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Everyone actually don't even have a passport. But when you
buy a plane ticket, they do not provide for you
a sort of schematic of the flight path. So I
don't know how they're figuring this out. I guess they're not.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
If it's not a rundo. I think typically tries to
get far enough south that he he just gets a
direct flight to somewhere in like the Middle East or
eastern Europe.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Well, I don't know if it would have worked, because
when he got to l Salvador, the plane that he
got on was not headed to Ukraine. It was headed
back to lax in the company of some FBI agents hope,
So they brought him back and he was formally arrested
in the La airport when they brought him back. Very
funny because in the weeks that he had spent trying

(35:26):
to get away, the indictment against him had come back
and he was also being charged. So after Judge Carnie
dropped the charges the first time back in twenty nineteen,

(35:46):
Rondo got his passport back and immediately left the country again,
traveling to Europe visiting other fascist fight clubs. And so,
you know, in this time period, the US Attorney is
appealing the dismissal of the charges, like they they want
to bring this case. They're you know, they're waiting for
the Ninth Circuit to hear them, but they're watching him
cavorting around Eastern Europe and they're like they're filing motions

(36:06):
saying like, we really got to get him back, Like
he's at a Nazi rally in Hungary. He's he's got
a podcast. He's got a podcast where he's telling people
how to evade capture by getting foreign passports, Like we
got to get him back. And so when the charges
were finally reinstated by the Ninth Circuit in twenty twenty one,
he'd been formally expelled from Serbia, where he'd been living,

(36:27):
and he was eventually arrested in and extradited from Romania.
And then when Judge Corney dismissed the charges again two
weeks ago, and the Ninth Circuit was like, we got
to get him back. Do you know where they found him?
The Mexican border. Oh curious, who could have predicted?

Speaker 1 (36:43):
Huh?

Speaker 2 (36:43):
So, like he really loves leaving the country.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Time is a flat circle.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Right, So Karnie lets him out. He tries to leave
the country again. Immediately the Ninth Circuit says, hold on,
let's bring him back. And because this system works just
the most like insane imaginable ways, Like I guess when
they wrote how this was gonna work, they just assumed
everyone would act in good faith and they didn't put
anything in for when that's not what happens.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
You know, I'm pretty sure that's in the Constitution. You
have to assume good faith intentions. I believe the sixty
ninth Amendment. You have to assume good faith.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Everyone's gonna be normal about this. We don't need to
build in any contingencies here. So every time the Ninth
Circuit is like, ooh, Judge Carney, that's nuts, they just
have to send it back to him. They it doesn't
get sent to a different judge. It's just they just
keep sending it back to the guy who is bound
and determined to ruin this right. So it gets sent
back to Judge Carney. This case is still in front

(37:39):
of Judge Carney. So the Ninth Circuit they put him
back in and Judge Charney's like, I'm a limb back out,
and the Ninth Circuit's like, no, you really really can't
do that. You really can't do that. And he's being
kind of a pissy little baby about this right. Like,
the Ninth Circuit issues an order saying, like, no one
can let him out but us. If he gets let out,

(38:02):
it will because we said so no one can let
him out, you can't do it. The Ninth Circuit said,
So we're up here on top.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Of one side. This is fascism, this is tyranny. This
is fascist of but the but the bad kind, the
kind I don't like Robert Rundo.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
So Carney's on the bench and he's like, well, I
really want to though, and so he issues an order
saying like he's released, but I'm going to stay my
own order. I mean, like, you know, I'm gonna enter
this order saying he's released, but like it won't go
into effect because technically I'm not allowed.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
It's such a just such a door key of like
pissed baby tantramoved from a judge.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Like you're beating a real baby Cormac, And he says, quote,
I would like to be in a position to release
him right now and let him walk out the door.
Well you can't. You can't. So it gets like stupid
messy here, right, So the ninth Circuit put him back
in and it comes back to Carney, and Carney's like, well,
this arrest wasn't even legal. I should let him out

(38:58):
because this you can't even you couldn't put him back.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
You can't arrest someone without there being cause for a crime.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Well, it is a little bit messy here, right, So
Carney argues that Roundo's rearrest wasn't legal because he dismissed
the case. So technically, when Rundo was arrested again, there
was no charge against him. There is currently because the
indictment was dismissed. You know, the prosecutors appealing that that dismissal.

(39:26):
Maybe it'll get reinstated like it did last time. But
like right now, he is not charged with the crime.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Which is which is ridiculous because there's so many other
things you could charge.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Him with, right, just like find a different crime.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
Like there's like between all of his between all of
his passport stuff, between all of his crossing the border, like,
there's there's so much other there's so many other things
that you could you could decide to charge him with.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Surely some FBI agent has been sort of keeping tabs
on his activities and they could come up with something.
But as it stands, when he was re arrested, there
was no charge, right, Yeah, So the Ninth Circuit does
have the authority to stay the release order. So Carney
issued a release order saying let him out of jail, right,
And so the prosecutor was like, we need an emergency

(40:11):
hearing in front of the Ninth Circuit on that release order.
So Carney issues the release order. The prosecutor goes to
the Ninth Circuit and say, we need you to push
the pause button on the implementation of this order. That's
really normal, that should have been what happened. But because
he was released immediately, you know, before they had a
chance to get heard by the Ninth Circuit, Carney's argument,

(40:34):
which I think may maybe true here, right, is that
by the time the Ninth Circuit heard the motion to
stay the release order. It was moot. They can't hear
argument on a motion that doesn't mean anything. You can't
stay an order that's already been implemented. So once the
release order was carried out and Rondo was no longer
physically in custody, there was no order to stay. So

(40:58):
the Ninth Circuit had nothing to rule on, so they
they rearrested him, saying like, we're staying the release order,
but the order of operations there is kind of key.
At the next hearing, Carney said, I must tell you
from the little things I've read, I'm quite concerned. I
feel mister Rundo is being unconstitutionally detained, and it's it's messy,

(41:21):
and I don't know what the right answer is here, right, Like,
it's not unusual for someone to stay in custody pending appeal,
especially if they have repeatedly attempted and succeeded at fleeing
the country. Yeah, and Carney's refusal to stay the release
order kind of makes you wonder if he didn't create
this procedural nightmare intentionally.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Sure, he kind of created this legal dilemma that now
puts Rundo's incarceration in actually like a point of question.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Right, Like he had to know that when the Ninth
Circuit did hear this motion, they would probably reverse him.
He had to know that, and he absolutely knew Rondo
would flee the country before that could happen. And he's
not wrong that it looks a little a little questionable
to issue it arrest warrant when there is no live
charge or the end result that Rondo is in custody

(42:10):
pending some kind of further ruling from the Ninth Circuit.
That's not weird, that's really normal. But everything that happened
in between is a mess. I don't know what the
answer to that is. I mean, I mean, as nuts
as Carney is behaving like, he is probably right that
you can't make a ruling on a moot motion and

(42:33):
you can't arrest someone who's not charged with a crime,
like those things are true. But I don't know what
the answer is here, and I think it's his fault, yeap.
So at this point, right the government is appealing Carney's
dismissal of the charges, just like they did back in
twenty nineteen. Remember that it took almost two years from
the original dismissal to the Ninth Circuit ruling reversing and

(42:53):
remanding the case in twenty twenty one, so this could
take a while. At this point, what the government is
asking for a stay of the release order to keep
him in custody while they work through this appeals process
because they are appealing the dismissal of the indictment. I
don't expect a lot of movement on that this week.
I think the docket shows that the appellance brief is
due on the twelfth today as we're recording this as

(43:16):
the fourth, so they'll file that brief. They may file
more sort of emergency petitions for his release. I'm not
sure the Ninth Circuit will do that, but is anybody's
guess at this point, because it's kind of a big mess.
The only thing that is clear is that only the
Ninth Circuit can let Rob Rundo out.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Well what a what A? What an enticing Rundo down
have the legal events of this case. Don't want to
be in that position.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
You know, Garrison. I'm not sure that you'll ever be
in this position. I hope not, at least not in
this exact one, unless you're running a secret Nazi gang
that I do not know about, in which case, disavow, disavow.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Okay, that's good, that's good. Yeah you should, that's probably
the right move.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
But so it'll take some time.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what else there
is to say.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
This is like sort of inciting a lot of active
club activity. You were saying earlier that the you know
ram doesn't exist anymore. It's morphed into these active clubs.
There's these cells all over the country and they are
fired up about this. So I think this has the
potential to incite more political violence, or at the very.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Least, incite more T shirt sales, which would be just
as horrified to see those things out in the.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Wild, already marketing free rundo merch. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
I bet, yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
I guess even Nazis have constitutional rights.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
I guess they do. Although it does feel again slightly
uh insidious at the selective non enforcement of some of
these things where there's many, many people who are being held,
especially like in Atlanta, it's been many people being helped
with out bail because they've been deemed a flight risk
for a long long time for crimes.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Not because they hold like a Serbian passport. No, no,
just because they intended a music festival, right. I Mean
it's hard to get like super fired up about rob
Rundo's constitutional rights in terms of this sort of like
procedural quagmire when it's like people are actively and intentionally
violating everyone else's constitutional rights constantly.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah, Like, the only thing I left to think of
is how this whole system of law does not seem
to work very much, and especially we often point out
how a whole bunch of laws get put in place
and are like ostensibly framed like combat white supremacist terrorism
or whatever, and in actuality really only get used against
people fighting for like the rights of black people, people

(45:58):
fighting for getting trans people not to be murdered. Like
that's that's really what all these laws get targeted against,
and they faced so so much more harsh punishment because
we have we have a judge who's treating rob Rundo
like a little a little baby, who's this innocent little creature. Meanwhile,
people can get constantly locked up for completely bullshit charges

(46:20):
in other parts of the country for engaging in like
actually like pretty pretty valid acts of protest not even
related to any like alleged violence. Like there's it's it's
it's quite it's quite frustrating to to to look at. Yes,
there is actually a decent case of selective enforcement here, and.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
It's the other way around.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Yeah, it is not in fact that they're letting Antifa
run wild and burn down cities. In fact, these these
these Nazis get treated like little little innocent First Amendment
defenders as they purposely like talk about and brag about
their claims of traveling across the country to assault peace
people and start riots. Anyway, Well, that's that's not great.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Things are not good.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
I hope only the worst for Rundo, regardless of whatever
legal thing happens, just like in general, like I like,
I I wish him bad, just like in life, you know,
like I hope you like trips and falls down the stairs,
you know, just like in general, like stub is Toe
really bad gets.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
About this situation, Like there are a million outcomes here
that are the dumbest possible ending to this story. So
I'm not holding my breath for you know, some brilliant
prosecutor to save the day here. But I do hope
that that Rob Rundo continues to have a bad day regardless.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
Yeah, well, thank you for this lovely piece of legal research, Molly.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Now I have to close eighty seven tabs.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
That is always the joy of wrapping up one of
these episodes. It's closing the ridiculous amount of tabs that
are open, because at at any moment in my research process,
any of my friends looks at my computer, they are
horrified by the stress that I'm putting my own ram
through different ram, the other ram than the Yeah it
is computer computer ram not.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Also under considerable strain at this time.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
Yeah, exactly. Well, right, I feel like that's that's as
bad enough a joke to end it on as anything
else where. Can people find you online? Way?

Speaker 2 (48:22):
Oh gosh? Yeah, I am online at Socialist dog Mom
on Twitter, on my newsletter on ghost the Devil's Advocates,
and I don't know my dogs have an Instagram that
I haven't updated lately. It's auto m Buck does it
for me? How about you, Garrison?

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Oh, you can find me documenting my process of slowly
turning my entire apartment into the Black Lodge on Twitter
at Hungry Bowtie. All right, wow, you you can actually
see a little bit of it behind me. It's kind
of dark, but you can see a glimmer of red curtains.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yes, spooky back there, It.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Is quite spooky back there. Wait until I turn Wait
until I turn on the strobe light.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
All right, thank you for joining me today, Garrison.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
All right, thank you, Molly.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.