Tyler McBrien is the managing editor of Lawfare. He previously worked as an editor with the Council on Foreign Relations and a Princeton in Africa Fellow in South Africa. He is joining us to discuss his recent article in Lawfare, "The Justice Department Erases History; Lawfare Restores It"
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast
the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop
Weekly Studios. I am your host, Ramsey's jot in the Saddle,
and we got one more special guest in store for you.
Tyler McBrien, the managing editor of Lawfare, is going to
be joining us discussing the Justice Department deleting press releases. So,
without further Ado, let's get to the chat. Tyler McBrien
(00:23):
is the managing editor of Lawfair. He previously worked as
an editor with the Council on Foreign Relations and a
Princeton and Africa Fellow in South Africa. He is joining
us to discuss his recent article in Lawfair, the Justice
Department erasist history. Lawfair restores it. All right, Tyler, welcome
to the show man. How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm doing all right. Ramses, thank you so much for
the invitation. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Absolutely, we got a lot to talk about. And you know,
this administration erasing things that don't paint the administration. It's
for the country, and a light that the administration deems
flattering is sort of part for the course. Now, this
(01:07):
is certainly true when it comes to black history. This
is something that Q and I have paid particular attention
to on this show. But you know, you're covering some
things that are equally as alarming, and I think equally
is important. And so just so that you can bring
all of our listeners to the table with this conversation,
(01:28):
remind our audience of what has happened at the US
Capitol in Washington, d C. On January sixth, twenty twenty one,
and then we'll go from there.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Absolutely and.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Absolutely, and I'm glad you framed it that way because
I just want to give the caveat that a lot
of what I'm talking about is not happening in isolation.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Obviously. It's this erase.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
This erasure is connected to erasing parts of our racist history,
parts of ore, you know, history of climate change and
so on. So to set things up, if your listeners
will recall, back on January sixth, twenty twenty one, a
(02:12):
large group.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Of people stormed the Capitol. They broke in.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
They were supporters of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement,
having just listened to a speech of his in which
sounded like he sort of whipped them into a bit
of a frenzy. Following an election which he had lost
the presidential election to Joe Biden. To this day he
denies the results of that fair election. And it was
(02:41):
quite a violent and chaotic scene that unfolded at the
Capitol that day. Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters carrying flags,
other weapons, batons of sort, broken, often breaking windows, overtaking
Capital police and other law enforcement, even resulting in the
(03:03):
deaths of some essentially ran roughshot over over them and
the Capital h for for several hours and and sort
of stampeded through the halls of Congress. A lot of
members of Congress had to hide, had to evacuate, and
it was it was a mess. And and because of
the scale of it, which I'm sure we'll talk about,
(03:25):
a huge investigation was undertaken to find these perpetrators and
to prosecute them.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Okay, well, you know, obviously those of us that are
in the know and you know it's been well documented,
are aware of that. But you might be able to
give a little bit more insight here. So what was
law enforcement's response, because that that has to feel super weird,
because you know, this is these are folks that typically
(03:55):
are you know, the back the blue sorts. You know,
there's those of us on this side that have done
our best to kind of point out the inconsistencies and
the shortcomings in so far as policing are concerned. There's
been a problematic relationship with police and black communities since.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Slave patrols, and you know, this community.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It's odd that they would then turn their ire at
police who are protecting Capitol and doing their jobs. And
so I'm curious what the law enforcement's response was and
how the results of those or rather the results of
the efforts and the convictions, like, talk us through that
(04:45):
lens and give us some insight into that aperture.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think it was a confusing
period for many people. The usual battle lines that have
been drawn or usual suristics of of sides got a
little muddy there. I mean, especially if you think about
the timing of this was right on the heels of
(05:09):
the massive protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder
in twenty twenty, when there was finally, at least there
seemed to be some sort of reckoning around the excesses.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And the abuse and the.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Brutal tactics that police have visited on mostly people of color.
And now they sort of were this interesting inversion in
the culture of They were now sort of part of
the resistance against the Trump administration in the MAGA movement.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So there was this interesting, you know, strange reversal here.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
But I think that's all because of the images that
people saw on their TVs as it was happening on
January sixth of Capitol police trying to just I guess,
control this crowd, this frenzy, and then many of them
suffering injuries themselves at crowds that, like you said, I
(06:07):
think many of them, at least rhetorically would say that
they are back the blue types or they support law
enforcement and yet completely but that was not on display.
I think it's January sixth, But so many people will
be familiar with those images seeing it on TV. People
may be less familiar though, with what happened after, you know,
(06:29):
the day after which the aftermathis long tail. It's what
basically happened was the largest investigation and series of prosecutions
in the Department of Justice's history.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
This is a This was an effort that was so.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Wide and the scale was such that the Department of
Justice was actually running twenty four to seven to identify
January six perpetrators. There were many members of the public,
just citizens, who are helping identify people who were there.
I don't know if you're familiar with some of the
stories of people would go on dating apps and see
a photo of someone in January sixth and then report
(07:07):
that to the FBI, and it resulted in hundreds of
successful convictions and prosecutions, jail time, and so this was
a this was a massive, massive effort by the FBI
and the dj to find these people and to in
many cases put them in prison for the crimes of
(07:30):
January sixth, and so it was it was this interesting, Yeah,
this sort of reversal of roles in a way. But
I think I think the important thing is that the
while the MAGA cohort that was there kind of paid
lip service to this back the blue sort of language,
in practice it's it's really much more complicated.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah, it's it's conditional.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
It's back the blue as long as they started the
interests that I deem appropriate in this moment in.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
My life exactly against me and mine.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
So, yeah, it's if it's rams this and his, then
it's of course, let's support our police officers, and you're
all anarchists, so you know, if i'm you can you
can correct me if I'm wrong. But something like sixteen
hundred over sixteen hundred convictions with the DOJ at the time,
(08:28):
in so far as January sixth, insurrectionists are concerned. And
as somebody that kind of watched it happen, I'm sure,
what do you think of Donald Trump's pardoning or commuting
all those sentences for all the people involved?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
How that hit you?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I think at this point it's hard to be surprised
by anything that the trum administration does. But one of
the reasons that I've been so stunned by the January
sixth saga and how it's played out is is I think,
let's take a good example of this erasure of these documents.
So the Trump administration in the past few months has
(09:10):
been deleting off of government websites instant the press releases
about January sixth, about anything about the prosecutions, about the convictions, etc.
And the Washington Post reporter who pointed out said in
her tweet that they were doing it this quietly, and
the DOJ on an official Twitter account turned around and
(09:32):
said everything you're saying is right, except we're not doing
it quietly.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
We're doing it loudly and proudly.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And I think that is very indicative of the It's
not only that the Trump administration is trying to downplay
or erase parts of its history that it sees as
parts of US history that it sees as problematic. It's
also trying to do this reversal here where it's this
like uno reverse card of these prosecutions are are not
(10:00):
are are wrong because they they themselves are political.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
What we're doing is not political.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's we're correcting the political excesses of the past administration.
You see this also with the so called Anti Weaponization
Fund that the Trump administration tried to set up to
not only uh, you know, they're not only pardoning these
people for crimes they committed now they want to compensate
them for their troubles. So it's this this martyrization of
(10:26):
the January sixth insurrectionists and this elevation of of their
needs and their status above everyone else in the country,
despite the you know, their actions that day. So it's
this this brazenness that I think has has really struck me.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The actually the act itself is less surprising to me
than the messaging around it and this this yeah, this
sort of like Judo move that they're trying to do
of of uh, you know, turning these very this very
political act into it, yeah, into something that that that
is not only pardonable but also commendable and worth this martyrdom.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, there's this thing that I heard recently. Democratic socialist
friend of mine said it best that they have to
be the heroes and the victims at the same time,
and they have to kind of reconcile all of these optics.
They have to be weak and strong at the same time.
(11:28):
And so I think that that kind of gives some
insight into again how these optics are shifting in real
time in front of us, and like, well, we saw
what happened.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
You can light it in, but you can't lie to me.
I saw it, you know.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So So how about this, you know, we're here to
talk about this administration scrubbing the historical records. So what
does that mean, Like, how does that look in the
real world? How would people know it, I guess or
not know? What would be missing from people's lives and
what steps is the government taking to again erase this.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah, it's a great question, because I would understand if
people look at this and shrug their shoulders. You know,
everyone remembers we saw it on TV. There's this concept
of digital permanence. We're actually I'm nervous of things on
the Internet about myself that will never go away despite
my best efforts to delete it all, you know. And
(12:29):
so there's this idea that if it's out there, it's
always out there. But in reality, things disappear from the
Internet all the time. And these are really important historical
documents for researchers, for journalists there are. If not for
the efforts of organizations like the Internet Archive, of which
(12:50):
we rely on heavily for our efforts to archive these
January sixth documents, they would be gone. Many of these
documents don't exist in physical form there, they're digital, and
so once they're they're deleted, they're often gone if unless
they're archived. It also just makes things difficult to find.
Not many people know about things like the Internet Archive,
(13:12):
and so if they go to the Justice Department website
to try to find something and it's gone, they may
not know that it was archived by us or by
someone else.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
When you say law fair right right, sorry.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeh, so so US as in lawfair and and as
I said at the at the top of the conversation,
this is not unique or specific to January sixth or
even rule of law and criminal justice topics. This is
happening in climate research, which which the US government at
one point was one of the biggest contributors in the
(13:47):
world to climate change research. It's very these very foundational
studies that the US government is now just avowing and
deleting it. It's happening, of course in our National park arcs,
in our museums of especially artifacts and documents related to
(14:07):
our racist history and our history of slavery, and so
it's it's part of a wider campaign. And so so there,
like I said, you know that there is on the
one hand, people are archiving and and that's great, and
there are these these other projects known as data rescue
or data refuge. But these projects exist because the government
(14:28):
is deleting these these very very important documents, which some
people go so far as to use the term as
part of our data heritage as a as a as
a country. And and if if if we don't say
these things, if other organizations don't either.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
They could just be lost.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
To history and and and the narrative that the Trump
administration is pushing may become the dominant one. And I
think that's a deeply troubling one because of its lack
of a grasp on actual reality and what actually happened,
but because I think it also would accompany a much
just a darker society, to be honest, and there's no
(15:09):
way to move forward unless we actually grapple.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
With what the reality of our circumstances and what happened.
Sure sure, Tyler McBrien is with us today. He's the
managing editor of law Fare, and we're discussing the erasure
of the digital record, and I could imagine some other
records as well of the January sixth insurrection.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Now, you mentioned the kind.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Of the wide scope of these efforts to erase you know,
these I guess unflattering images and accounts and whatnot, But
I think the wide ranging portion of your description, I
(15:59):
think we can bring some life into that.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
And I learned this from you.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Talk to our listeners about the staff, the DOJ staff
that were forced to resign or retire due to the
fact that they were connected with their January sixth work
in trying to secure convictions.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Exactly right, And listeners may be familiar with DOGE for example,
of this agency that was set up within the government
that led to the mass firing of many, many federal workers.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But specifically at DOJ.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
One of the Trump administration's first acts, the second Trump administration,
so we're talking back in January twenty twenty five, was
to fire dozens of prosecutors at DOJ who worked on
January six cases. So that was an initial purge, and
that has since been followed up by subsequent purges of
essentially anyone who touched a January sixth prosecution or investigation,
(17:04):
regardless of whether it resulted in a conviction or even
an arrest, have been fired.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And that doesn't even take into.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Account the many, many, many prosecutors at the DOJ and
investigators at the FBI who have left quasi voluntarily. So
there's an organization called Justice Connection that's set up by
former DOJ officials who I'm just looking at a press
release that they put out a few days ago that
(17:34):
since March fifth, twenty twenty five, which is when Deputy
Attorney General Todd Blanche was confirmed, who is now is
being nominated for the.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Attorney General post. Sixteen, more than sixteen thousand DJ employees
have left the department, including a quarter of its attorneys. Again,
that includes people who have left or were pushed out
for other reasons, but it really speaks to the scale
of this hollowing out of the department, many of whom
I think can be said, we're we're fairly non partisan.
(18:05):
I mean they they they.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Were therefore for many in many situations there for decades
across several administrations, both Democratic and Republican. And uh, and
this this was a a pretty I think bald faced
retaliatory measure. I mean it was there were many junior
staff members who are pulled onto a January sixth case
who didn't do much at all, and we're still fired.
(18:30):
So it's it's a it's a very one to one retaliation,
at least in my view.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, And and I want to make sure that I
mentioned this while we're here, that it's not uh, that
effort that maneuver I was not exclusive to the d
o J. That was something that we saw at the FBI.
We saw that with in a number of agencies. When
the new administration kind of secured, you know, you know,
(19:02):
these new directors and whatnot. We saw a lot of
these maneuvers, and this was straight out of Project twenty
twenty five. At least the spirit, if not the actual execution.
The spirit of it was definitely present within Project twenty
twenty five. But yes, people who have found themselves somewhat sympathetic, understanding,
(19:25):
willing to converse with folks who had a differing political opinion,
people who protested, people who pushed back on the idea
that Black Lives Matter was a terrorist group or Antifa
was a terrorist group. All those people got dismissed, you know.
And of course it's very tough to witness that and
(19:52):
not see the fascist tendencies in the maneuvering of this administration.
So I'm glad that you were able to kind of
paint that picture for our listeners. Any any thoughts here
before we move on.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, I'm sorry to jump in Ramsey's I was also
going to say it. I mean to be clear, the
FBI and the dj themselves have very dark periods in
their own history of surveillance of co Intel pro and
and I'm sure listeners will be familiar with a lot
of that history, and to me, this is these latest
efforts to purge any anyone deemed a political enemy within
(20:29):
these agencies is a return to that dark history rather
than like you know, a cleaning house and a professionalization
of any kind. It's to me, it's it's this really,
really dangerous regression to weaponize the powerful instruments of the
federal government against people, which is exactly what was happening
in these dark periods like co intel pro.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, you know, my.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I guess hope is the only word that I can
use here is that you know, when the day comes
when this country can shake this cancer that is kind
of eating away at intellectualism, data driven discussions, facts, and
(21:28):
you know, when morality is kind of the narrative that
we espouse once again in this country.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
And you know, we have an elected.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Or I guess the president and other elected officials who
reflect those I guess sentiments. Then it's the work that
you've done that will allow us to reinsert these facts
into public consciousness formally, so that we know and learn
(22:06):
from what it is we've done in the past and
we don't repeat those lessons. And you know, when you
study the rise and fall of empires, throughout the ages
on this planet. You see that what we're doing right now,
certainly this is kind of the thing that precedes the fall.
And so, you know, I salute you for the work
that you've done and that you continue to do at
(22:27):
law Fair. I do want to ask you about this too.
You interviewed an author of a recently published book on
US military education, and I know that that.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Has to matter too. So what did you take away
from that discussion? Please share with our listeners here.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, I know, and thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And before I jump into that, I also want to
give a big shout out to I mean all my
colleagues at law Fair, but similar organizations. I gave a
shout out earlier to the Internet Archive. They've for years now,
not only just in this latest administration. They've have a
project called the End of Term Archive that they always
endeavor to archive presidential administration records. You would think that
(23:07):
that's the task of the presidential libraries, but those are
often there to preserve the reputation of the president, the namesake,
and so it's it's not the sexiest job out there,
that of the archivist, but I think it is a
very important one. So I really appreciate the kind words.
But to answer your question, I was it was a
(23:29):
great interview. I encourage everyone to go and read the book.
It's called God Forgives, Brothers Don't by Jasper Craven, and
he really traces the history of military education from the
beginning of the United States, and it really maps on
perfectly to the history of the military industrial complex in general.
You know, I kind of had this false notion that, Okay,
(23:49):
if there's West Point, there's a naval academy, there's a
handful of people who go there, but the civilian military
divide is very strong. But in reality, you think about
all of the ROTC members, you think about how the
military bleeds into our culture, and it just it's it's
a mirror image of what I see as as some
of the most nefarious parts of the elite ruling class,
(24:13):
which is a secrecy, a sort of disdain for the
common man and the public, this protecting your own tribe,
this this reflexiveness toward aggression, and especially in terms of masculinity.
(24:33):
And I think the biggest takeaway that I had from
that conversation and from reading the book was that these
things are not innate they're taught. You know, if they were,
if they were innate, we would have no need for
these very rugged, unforgiving military institutions. You know, they have
to be taught, They have to be it has to
be indoctrinated, and that there are alternatives out there for
(24:58):
positive models of masculinity.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
You look at the peace movement, you look at other activists.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
These can you know, I think, scratch the itch of
adventurism or other things that can be recast toward positive
ends for I think especially for men and boys, of
which this was a big, big topic. Of course, you know,
there's there's a there's a long history of women and
and non binary people even in the military, but the
(25:25):
focus was on on masculinity and men and boys and
its corrosive effects on the people themselves and then also
on society at large.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Well, I appreciate that, and again I admire this, this
work that you're doing, because again, as a person that
recognizes the ripple effect of the erasure of history, I
was a person that knew my history, and yet and
(25:55):
still I found myself when I first went to the
National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC,
feeling the weight of all of it and recognizing that
I was a piece.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Of a I was a.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Thread in a tapestry, right, And you know, you don't
really think because you think history, history class, what of it?
Speaker 4 (26:23):
I have to go to work today?
Speaker 1 (26:24):
But it actually really is important, the good, the bad,
the ugly, everything in between. And again, the fact that
you are going to these efforts to preserve this history
for the sake of teachers, for the sake of historians,
for the sake of journalists, I think that that's magnificent.
So for the teachers and the journalists and the historians
(26:45):
that listen to our show, do us a favor. Make
sure that you leave all your social media's, websites, everything
like that so people can keep up with you and
the other work that you do, because again I think
people need to know where the resource because under this administration,
there's no guarantee that you're going to have the information,
(27:07):
and if you do have the information, there's no guarantee
it to be accurate.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
So please share with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yes, and I think that's extremely well said, because this
is our history.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
This is all of our history.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
It's not dictated by what the Trump administration says. Things happened,
We document them, we preserve them, we archive them ours.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
It's ours to learn about and share.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
So for anyone who wants to learn more, Lawfair's website
is lawfairmedia dot org.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
That's law fare.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Media dot org. You'll see the January sixth archive is
this particular project. There's also an email address. This is
a work in progress, and we know that we've missed
some things. We've probably made some mistakes, so please get
in touch. If you see anything missing, if you think
there's another body of documents that are disappearing that we
(27:58):
should preserve, especially related to to our democracy, please get
in touch. The email address you can reach out to
is press at lawfaremedia dot org. And I just I
really appreciate the opportunity. I really appreciate conversations like this,
and like you said, a big shout out to the
other teachers, historians, journalists, researchers who are doing this work
(28:18):
as well.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
It's yeah, it's our heritage, it's our history. Sure, I
love that, And again I appreciate you coming on. Please
come back and share more as you uncover things that
we need to know about around here. It's people like
you that keep us, keep us honest and keep us
in the loop. And those are two things that we
need particularly in this capacity. So once again, ladies and gentlemen,
(28:41):
Tyler McBrien, the managing editor of Lawfare, thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So much, brother, Thank you so much, Ramseys, and that's
going to do it for us today.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
If you have any thoughts you'd like to share, ask
a question, to share some encouragement, visit civiccipher dot com
or find us on all social media at Civic Cipher.
Until next time, y'all, peace,
Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast
the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop
Weekly Studios. I am your host, Ramsey's jot in the Saddle,
and we got one more special guest in store for you.
Tyler McBrien, the managing editor of Lawfare, is going to
be joining us discussing the Justice Department deleting press releases. So,
without further Ado, let's get to the chat. Tyler McBrien
(00:23):
is the managing editor of Lawfair. He previously worked as
an editor with the Council on Foreign Relations and a
Princeton and Africa Fellow in South Africa. He is joining
us to discuss his recent article in Lawfair, the Justice
Department erasist history. Lawfair restores it. All right, Tyler, welcome
to the show man. How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm doing all right. Ramses, thank you so much for
the invitation. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Absolutely, we got a lot to talk about. And you know,
this administration erasing things that don't paint the administration. It's
for the country, and a light that the administration deems
flattering is sort of part for the course. Now, this
(01:07):
is certainly true when it comes to black history. This
is something that Q and I have paid particular attention
to on this show. But you know, you're covering some
things that are equally as alarming, and I think equally
is important. And so just so that you can bring
all of our listeners to the table with this conversation,
(01:28):
remind our audience of what has happened at the US
Capitol in Washington, d C. On January sixth, twenty twenty one,
and then we'll go from there.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Absolutely and.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Absolutely, and I'm glad you framed it that way because
I just want to give the caveat that a lot
of what I'm talking about is not happening in isolation.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Obviously. It's this erase.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
This erasure is connected to erasing parts of our racist history,
parts of ore, you know, history of climate change and
so on. So to set things up, if your listeners
will recall, back on January sixth, twenty twenty one, a
(02:12):
large group.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Of people stormed the Capitol. They broke in.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
They were supporters of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement,
having just listened to a speech of his in which
sounded like he sort of whipped them into a bit
of a frenzy. Following an election which he had lost
the presidential election to Joe Biden. To this day he
denies the results of that fair election. And it was
(02:41):
quite a violent and chaotic scene that unfolded at the
Capitol that day. Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters carrying flags,
other weapons, batons of sort, broken, often breaking windows, overtaking
Capital police and other law enforcement, even resulting in the
(03:03):
deaths of some essentially ran roughshot over over them and
the Capital h for for several hours and and sort
of stampeded through the halls of Congress. A lot of
members of Congress had to hide, had to evacuate, and
it was it was a mess. And and because of
the scale of it, which I'm sure we'll talk about,
(03:25):
a huge investigation was undertaken to find these perpetrators and
to prosecute them.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Okay, well, you know, obviously those of us that are
in the know and you know it's been well documented,
are aware of that. But you might be able to
give a little bit more insight here. So what was
law enforcement's response, because that that has to feel super weird,
because you know, this is these are folks that typically
(03:55):
are you know, the back the blue sorts. You know,
there's those of us on this side that have done
our best to kind of point out the inconsistencies and
the shortcomings in so far as policing are concerned. There's
been a problematic relationship with police and black communities since.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Slave patrols, and you know, this community.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It's odd that they would then turn their ire at
police who are protecting Capitol and doing their jobs. And
so I'm curious what the law enforcement's response was and
how the results of those or rather the results of
the efforts and the convictions, like, talk us through that
(04:45):
lens and give us some insight into that aperture.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think it was a confusing
period for many people. The usual battle lines that have
been drawn or usual suristics of of sides got a
little muddy there. I mean, especially if you think about
the timing of this was right on the heels of
(05:09):
the massive protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder
in twenty twenty, when there was finally, at least there
seemed to be some sort of reckoning around the excesses.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And the abuse and the.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Brutal tactics that police have visited on mostly people of color.
And now they sort of were this interesting inversion in
the culture of They were now sort of part of
the resistance against the Trump administration in the MAGA movement.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So there was this interesting, you know, strange reversal here.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
But I think that's all because of the images that
people saw on their TVs as it was happening on
January sixth of Capitol police trying to just I guess,
control this crowd, this frenzy, and then many of them
suffering injuries themselves at crowds that, like you said, I
(06:07):
think many of them, at least rhetorically would say that
they are back the blue types or they support law
enforcement and yet completely but that was not on display.
I think it's January sixth, But so many people will
be familiar with those images seeing it on TV. People
may be less familiar though, with what happened after, you know,
(06:29):
the day after which the aftermathis long tail. It's what
basically happened was the largest investigation and series of prosecutions
in the Department of Justice's history.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
This is a This was an effort that was so.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Wide and the scale was such that the Department of
Justice was actually running twenty four to seven to identify
January six perpetrators. There were many members of the public,
just citizens, who are helping identify people who were there.
I don't know if you're familiar with some of the
stories of people would go on dating apps and see
a photo of someone in January sixth and then report
(07:07):
that to the FBI, and it resulted in hundreds of
successful convictions and prosecutions, jail time, and so this was
a this was a massive, massive effort by the FBI
and the dj to find these people and to in
many cases put them in prison for the crimes of
(07:30):
January sixth, and so it was it was this interesting, Yeah,
this sort of reversal of roles in a way. But
I think I think the important thing is that the
while the MAGA cohort that was there kind of paid
lip service to this back the blue sort of language,
in practice it's it's really much more complicated.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah, it's it's conditional.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
It's back the blue as long as they started the
interests that I deem appropriate in this moment in.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
My life exactly against me and mine.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
So, yeah, it's if it's rams this and his, then
it's of course, let's support our police officers, and you're
all anarchists, so you know, if i'm you can you
can correct me if I'm wrong. But something like sixteen
hundred over sixteen hundred convictions with the DOJ at the time,
(08:28):
in so far as January sixth, insurrectionists are concerned. And
as somebody that kind of watched it happen, I'm sure,
what do you think of Donald Trump's pardoning or commuting
all those sentences for all the people involved?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
How that hit you?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I think at this point it's hard to be surprised
by anything that the trum administration does. But one of
the reasons that I've been so stunned by the January
sixth saga and how it's played out is is I think,
let's take a good example of this erasure of these documents.
So the Trump administration in the past few months has
(09:10):
been deleting off of government websites instant the press releases
about January sixth, about anything about the prosecutions, about the convictions, etc.
And the Washington Post reporter who pointed out said in
her tweet that they were doing it this quietly, and
the DOJ on an official Twitter account turned around and
(09:32):
said everything you're saying is right, except we're not doing
it quietly.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
We're doing it loudly and proudly.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And I think that is very indicative of the It's
not only that the Trump administration is trying to downplay
or erase parts of its history that it sees as
parts of US history that it sees as problematic. It's
also trying to do this reversal here where it's this
like uno reverse card of these prosecutions are are not
(10:00):
are are wrong because they they themselves are political.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
What we're doing is not political.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's we're correcting the political excesses of the past administration.
You see this also with the so called Anti Weaponization
Fund that the Trump administration tried to set up to
not only uh, you know, they're not only pardoning these
people for crimes they committed now they want to compensate
them for their troubles. So it's this this martyrization of
(10:26):
the January sixth insurrectionists and this elevation of of their
needs and their status above everyone else in the country,
despite the you know, their actions that day. So it's
this this brazenness that I think has has really struck me.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The actually the act itself is less surprising to me
than the messaging around it and this this yeah, this
sort of like Judo move that they're trying to do
of of uh, you know, turning these very this very
political act into it, yeah, into something that that that
is not only pardonable but also commendable and worth this martyrdom.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, there's this thing that I heard recently. Democratic socialist
friend of mine said it best that they have to
be the heroes and the victims at the same time,
and they have to kind of reconcile all of these optics.
They have to be weak and strong at the same time.
(11:28):
And so I think that that kind of gives some
insight into again how these optics are shifting in real
time in front of us, and like, well, we saw
what happened.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
You can light it in, but you can't lie to me.
I saw it, you know.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So So how about this, you know, we're here to
talk about this administration scrubbing the historical records. So what
does that mean, Like, how does that look in the
real world? How would people know it, I guess or
not know? What would be missing from people's lives and
what steps is the government taking to again erase this.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah, it's a great question, because I would understand if
people look at this and shrug their shoulders. You know,
everyone remembers we saw it on TV. There's this concept
of digital permanence. We're actually I'm nervous of things on
the Internet about myself that will never go away despite
my best efforts to delete it all, you know. And
(12:29):
so there's this idea that if it's out there, it's
always out there. But in reality, things disappear from the
Internet all the time. And these are really important historical
documents for researchers, for journalists there are. If not for
the efforts of organizations like the Internet Archive, of which
(12:50):
we rely on heavily for our efforts to archive these
January sixth documents, they would be gone. Many of these
documents don't exist in physical form there, they're digital, and
so once they're they're deleted, they're often gone if unless
they're archived. It also just makes things difficult to find.
Not many people know about things like the Internet Archive,
(13:12):
and so if they go to the Justice Department website
to try to find something and it's gone, they may
not know that it was archived by us or by
someone else.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
When you say law fair right right, sorry.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeh, so so US as in lawfair and and as
I said at the at the top of the conversation,
this is not unique or specific to January sixth or
even rule of law and criminal justice topics. This is
happening in climate research, which which the US government at
one point was one of the biggest contributors in the
(13:47):
world to climate change research. It's very these very foundational
studies that the US government is now just avowing and
deleting it. It's happening, of course in our National park arcs,
in our museums of especially artifacts and documents related to
(14:07):
our racist history and our history of slavery, and so
it's it's part of a wider campaign. And so so there,
like I said, you know that there is on the
one hand, people are archiving and and that's great, and
there are these these other projects known as data rescue
or data refuge. But these projects exist because the government
(14:28):
is deleting these these very very important documents, which some
people go so far as to use the term as
part of our data heritage as a as a as
a country. And and if if if we don't say
these things, if other organizations don't either.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
They could just be lost.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
To history and and and the narrative that the Trump
administration is pushing may become the dominant one. And I
think that's a deeply troubling one because of its lack
of a grasp on actual reality and what actually happened,
but because I think it also would accompany a much
just a darker society, to be honest, and there's no
(15:09):
way to move forward unless we actually grapple.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
With what the reality of our circumstances and what happened.
Sure sure, Tyler McBrien is with us today. He's the
managing editor of law Fare, and we're discussing the erasure
of the digital record, and I could imagine some other
records as well of the January sixth insurrection.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Now, you mentioned the kind.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Of the wide scope of these efforts to erase you know,
these I guess unflattering images and accounts and whatnot, But
I think the wide ranging portion of your description, I
(15:59):
think we can bring some life into that.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
And I learned this from you.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Talk to our listeners about the staff, the DOJ staff
that were forced to resign or retire due to the
fact that they were connected with their January sixth work
in trying to secure convictions.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Exactly right, And listeners may be familiar with DOGE for example,
of this agency that was set up within the government
that led to the mass firing of many, many federal workers.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But specifically at DOJ.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
One of the Trump administration's first acts, the second Trump administration,
so we're talking back in January twenty twenty five, was
to fire dozens of prosecutors at DOJ who worked on
January six cases. So that was an initial purge, and
that has since been followed up by subsequent purges of
essentially anyone who touched a January sixth prosecution or investigation,
(17:04):
regardless of whether it resulted in a conviction or even
an arrest, have been fired.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And that doesn't even take into.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Account the many, many, many prosecutors at the DOJ and
investigators at the FBI who have left quasi voluntarily. So
there's an organization called Justice Connection that's set up by
former DOJ officials who I'm just looking at a press
release that they put out a few days ago that
(17:34):
since March fifth, twenty twenty five, which is when Deputy
Attorney General Todd Blanche was confirmed, who is now is
being nominated for the.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Attorney General post. Sixteen, more than sixteen thousand DJ employees
have left the department, including a quarter of its attorneys. Again,
that includes people who have left or were pushed out
for other reasons, but it really speaks to the scale
of this hollowing out of the department, many of whom
I think can be said, we're we're fairly non partisan.
(18:05):
I mean they they they.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Were therefore for many in many situations there for decades
across several administrations, both Democratic and Republican. And uh, and
this this was a a pretty I think bald faced
retaliatory measure. I mean it was there were many junior
staff members who are pulled onto a January sixth case
who didn't do much at all, and we're still fired.
(18:30):
So it's it's a it's a very one to one retaliation,
at least in my view.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, And and I want to make sure that I
mentioned this while we're here, that it's not uh, that
effort that maneuver I was not exclusive to the d
o J. That was something that we saw at the FBI.
We saw that with in a number of agencies. When
the new administration kind of secured, you know, you know,
(19:02):
these new directors and whatnot. We saw a lot of
these maneuvers, and this was straight out of Project twenty
twenty five. At least the spirit, if not the actual execution.
The spirit of it was definitely present within Project twenty
twenty five. But yes, people who have found themselves somewhat sympathetic, understanding,
(19:25):
willing to converse with folks who had a differing political opinion,
people who protested, people who pushed back on the idea
that Black Lives Matter was a terrorist group or Antifa
was a terrorist group. All those people got dismissed, you know.
And of course it's very tough to witness that and
(19:52):
not see the fascist tendencies in the maneuvering of this administration.
So I'm glad that you were able to kind of
paint that picture for our listeners. Any any thoughts here
before we move on.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, I'm sorry to jump in Ramsey's I was also
going to say it. I mean to be clear, the
FBI and the dj themselves have very dark periods in
their own history of surveillance of co Intel pro and
and I'm sure listeners will be familiar with a lot
of that history, and to me, this is these latest
efforts to purge any anyone deemed a political enemy within
(20:29):
these agencies is a return to that dark history rather
than like you know, a cleaning house and a professionalization
of any kind. It's to me, it's it's this really,
really dangerous regression to weaponize the powerful instruments of the
federal government against people, which is exactly what was happening
in these dark periods like co intel pro.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, you know, my.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I guess hope is the only word that I can
use here is that you know, when the day comes
when this country can shake this cancer that is kind
of eating away at intellectualism, data driven discussions, facts, and
(21:28):
you know, when morality is kind of the narrative that
we espouse once again in this country.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
And you know, we have an elected.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Or I guess the president and other elected officials who
reflect those I guess sentiments. Then it's the work that
you've done that will allow us to reinsert these facts
into public consciousness formally, so that we know and learn
(22:06):
from what it is we've done in the past and
we don't repeat those lessons. And you know, when you
study the rise and fall of empires, throughout the ages
on this planet. You see that what we're doing right now,
certainly this is kind of the thing that precedes the fall.
And so, you know, I salute you for the work
that you've done and that you continue to do at
(22:27):
law Fair. I do want to ask you about this too.
You interviewed an author of a recently published book on
US military education, and I know that that.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Has to matter too. So what did you take away
from that discussion? Please share with our listeners here.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, I know, and thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And before I jump into that, I also want to
give a big shout out to I mean all my
colleagues at law Fair, but similar organizations. I gave a
shout out earlier to the Internet Archive. They've for years now,
not only just in this latest administration. They've have a
project called the End of Term Archive that they always
endeavor to archive presidential administration records. You would think that
(23:07):
that's the task of the presidential libraries, but those are
often there to preserve the reputation of the president, the namesake,
and so it's it's not the sexiest job out there,
that of the archivist, but I think it is a
very important one. So I really appreciate the kind words.
But to answer your question, I was it was a
(23:29):
great interview. I encourage everyone to go and read the book.
It's called God Forgives, Brothers Don't by Jasper Craven, and
he really traces the history of military education from the
beginning of the United States, and it really maps on
perfectly to the history of the military industrial complex in general.
You know, I kind of had this false notion that, Okay,
(23:49):
if there's West Point, there's a naval academy, there's a
handful of people who go there, but the civilian military
divide is very strong. But in reality, you think about
all of the ROTC members, you think about how the
military bleeds into our culture, and it just it's it's
a mirror image of what I see as as some
of the most nefarious parts of the elite ruling class,
(24:13):
which is a secrecy, a sort of disdain for the
common man and the public, this protecting your own tribe,
this this reflexiveness toward aggression, and especially in terms of masculinity.
(24:33):
And I think the biggest takeaway that I had from
that conversation and from reading the book was that these
things are not innate they're taught. You know, if they were,
if they were innate, we would have no need for
these very rugged, unforgiving military institutions. You know, they have
to be taught, They have to be it has to
be indoctrinated, and that there are alternatives out there for
(24:58):
positive models of masculinity.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
You look at the peace movement, you look at other activists.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
These can you know, I think, scratch the itch of
adventurism or other things that can be recast toward positive
ends for I think especially for men and boys, of
which this was a big, big topic. Of course, you know,
there's there's a there's a long history of women and
and non binary people even in the military, but the
(25:25):
focus was on on masculinity and men and boys and
its corrosive effects on the people themselves and then also
on society at large.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Well, I appreciate that, and again I admire this, this
work that you're doing, because again, as a person that
recognizes the ripple effect of the erasure of history, I
was a person that knew my history, and yet and
(25:55):
still I found myself when I first went to the
National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC,
feeling the weight of all of it and recognizing that
I was a piece.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Of a I was a.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Thread in a tapestry, right, And you know, you don't
really think because you think history, history class, what of it?
Speaker 4 (26:23):
I have to go to work today?
Speaker 1 (26:24):
But it actually really is important, the good, the bad,
the ugly, everything in between. And again, the fact that
you are going to these efforts to preserve this history
for the sake of teachers, for the sake of historians,
for the sake of journalists, I think that that's magnificent.
So for the teachers and the journalists and the historians
(26:45):
that listen to our show, do us a favor. Make
sure that you leave all your social media's, websites, everything
like that so people can keep up with you and
the other work that you do, because again I think
people need to know where the resource because under this administration,
there's no guarantee that you're going to have the information,
(27:07):
and if you do have the information, there's no guarantee
it to be accurate.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
So please share with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yes, and I think that's extremely well said, because this
is our history.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
This is all of our history.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
It's not dictated by what the Trump administration says. Things happened,
We document them, we preserve them, we archive them ours.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
It's ours to learn about and share.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
So for anyone who wants to learn more, Lawfair's website
is lawfairmedia dot org.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
That's law fare.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Media dot org. You'll see the January sixth archive is
this particular project. There's also an email address. This is
a work in progress, and we know that we've missed
some things. We've probably made some mistakes, so please get
in touch. If you see anything missing, if you think
there's another body of documents that are disappearing that we
(27:58):
should preserve, especially related to to our democracy, please get
in touch. The email address you can reach out to
is press at lawfaremedia dot org. And I just I
really appreciate the opportunity. I really appreciate conversations like this,
and like you said, a big shout out to the
other teachers, historians, journalists, researchers who are doing this work
(28:18):
as well.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
It's yeah, it's our heritage, it's our history. Sure, I
love that, And again I appreciate you coming on. Please
come back and share more as you uncover things that
we need to know about around here. It's people like
you that keep us, keep us honest and keep us
in the loop. And those are two things that we
need particularly in this capacity. So once again, ladies and gentlemen,
(28:41):
Tyler McBrien, the managing editor of Lawfare, thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So much, brother, Thank you so much, Ramseys, and that's
going to do it for us today.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
If you have any thoughts you'd like to share, ask
a question, to share some encouragement, visit civiccipher dot com
or find us on all social media at Civic Cipher.
Until next time, y'all, peace,
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