June 24, 2020 • 59 mins
Wondering what's up, legally with Trump's declaration that 'Antifa' is a terrorist group? We talk that, and about the legal realities of activism, with lawyer Moira Meltzer-Cohen.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything, So don't don't what's Auntie my fascis now? No, No,
(00:25):
that sounded good. That was a failure of an introduction. Um,
that was a failure of an introduction and also legally
a call to terrorism. I think now, I think me
saying that makes me and all of you a terrorist
and by definition also spotify a terrorist. I don't know.
That's why today I'm here sans Katie and Cody Um,
(00:46):
who have disappeared for reasons mysterious to talk about. Sophie
is here. Thank you, Sophie, I'm here, UM, you are
were I just wanted to be. We heard Weird the
co host of Worst Year Ever today and we're going
to talk about, um, the government's the president's declaration that
(01:07):
Antifa is a terrorist group. UH with my friend and
lawyer Moira Cohen. Where how are you doing today? I'm
I'm doing okay. Given the givens, are you doing today?
I'm good? Was I accurate in stating that Spotify is
now legally a terrorist? I actually cannot give legal advice
(01:27):
over the radio or on a podcast, so, UM, I
just can't comment on that. I also want to remind
you that this conversation is not privileged. That's good, good
to note, that's good to know. And I'm taking that
as a big maybe on Spotify as a terrorist. So
if you're the c I A, please start sending Spotify arms. Um.
(01:51):
So where we're in a we're in a weird situation,
and you're the person I call whenever scary things happen
in the law because I don't understand the law. Um,
all I understand is to ask a police officer if
I'm being detained. Um, that's a really good start. You're
you're ahead of the gang there, you want to walk
(02:14):
me through. Kind of I'm curious as like as not
just a lawyer of it, as like a movement lawyer,
as somebody who deals with cases that that relate directly
to Um, let's say political activism on a regular basis.
When you wake up in the morning or whatever it was,
when did you when did you hear that the president
had had stared out at our crumbling nation and decided
(02:35):
that Antifa was the blame? Well, you know, I I
don't know if you've noticed this since the pandemic, but
time is now fake. Yeah, it is a flat circle
these days. So I honestly can't tell you what day
that was. What I can tell you is I woke
(02:59):
up to a flurry of panicked text messages from just
about everyone I've ever represented, asking whether they were about
to go to federal prison. Yeah. Yeah, I had that
moment of panic. Yeah, I guess h m hmm. Whatever
day that was was a busy day. Yeah, And it
(03:22):
was also yeah, I don't it's all the I think
in the in the words of Janice Joplin, it's all
the same fucking day, man. Yeah, the answer generally is no,
you're not all about to go to federal prison. I
guess that's the good news. That is good news. I
don't think I would like federal prison. Very few people do. Yeah.
(03:46):
I don't want to like pre judge it, because that's
not that's not okay. Um, but that's my gut feeling. Yeah.
So sometimes I have days, um as an attorney, where
I feel like I'm being gas lit by the higher state.
And that was one of those days where I thought,
did I miss a tremendous change in law while I
(04:10):
was sleeping? Um? Did I just wake up to a
world where the first amendment is utterly meaningless, and it
really it It sort of rattled me and I had
to take a minute and step back and think about
it and do a little analysis and say, no, uh,
this this proclamation is legally for the time being meaningless. Um.
(04:39):
But unfortunately that doesn't mean it's socially or culturally meaningless,
and it doesn't mean that it won't have impacts, uh
in the way the law is enforced or in the
way cases move through the legal system. And there are actually,
(04:59):
like I think one of the things that's important to
understand because this ties into also aspects of why there's
a lot of reasons why the federal government um fell
on its ass in terms of responding to right wing violence,
particularly in the last four years or so. Um. But
one of them is kind of related to the difficulty
of declaring something a domestic terrorist group, Like there's a
(05:22):
lot of restrictions on that. Would you mind give them
like a little overview of like what that actually is? Sure, um,
so I think I'm going to actually zoom out even
a little farther than that. It's okay. So I think
the thing that I want to remind your listeners of
is that the law writ large is not a set
(05:43):
of facts. It's not a static thing. It's always a
set of arguments. So when we talk about what the
law is, UM, that isn't always a stable thing, right
And so UM I think I referred to this a
second ago. Well, it's obviously important to know the substance
(06:06):
of the doctrine that we're dealing with. If we get
too narrowly focused on that doctrine, we might miss the
fact that there's law and there's law enforcement, and and
those can be too radically different things. Right. So, in
terms of what we're talking about with respect to terrorism, uh,
(06:28):
and in particular domestic terrorism. This this matters in terms
of Trump's proclamation about Antifa being a terrorist organization, because
in fact he does not have authority to declare anything
a domestic terrorist organization. The State Department can declare foreign
(06:55):
organizations to be foreign terrorist organizations. And that is a
profound power that they have, UM And it's extremely dangerous
and it's extremely problematic in my opinion. UM. But because
(07:15):
at least for the time being, we do in this
country have UM the freedom of belief and association, it
they're going to run up against problems with um, passing
constitutional muster to the extent that they're trying to declare
(07:38):
a group to be a terrorist, a domestic terrorist organization. UM.
Just especially since and I think like this is the
thing that I think willfully of folks politically on the
right and misunderstand a lot like Anti foot isn't a group,
it's like a set. It's a mix of a set
of tactics and a set of beliefs. And there are
(08:00):
some groups like you know, Rose City Antifa, my own city,
who espouse those beliefs and tactics. But like, fundamentally, what
you'd be saying if you actually did criminalize antifas you
you're criminalizing an ideology which we don't get to do.
Here's that is correct, Um, I think that it's it
is interesting to look at that misapprehension, and it's hard
(08:24):
to tell to what degree it's uh willful and to
what degree it might be just a function of the
fact that the authoritarian right does have membership organizations like
the Clan that do have a clear hierarchy where you
do pay membership dues, where you do have a clear
(08:46):
and coherent set of beliefs that are outlined. Um. It
may just be a little bit beyond them culturally to
understand a movement or a set of tactics that are um,
a little less defined, right. Um, But I think it's
(09:08):
important to understand that law enforcement generally from the slave
patrols through the use of vagrancy laws, to um do
racist policing, to police unsheltered people, to police gender nonconforming people, um,
(09:30):
all of this. All of these laws are laws that
are enforced in terms of policing identity or status. But
because of those constitutional problems that I referred to a
minute ago, Um, they're framed in terms of policing conduct,
even though we know that they're used to police identity. Right.
(09:54):
I think the kind of interesting thing that we're looking
at with Trump's proclamation is that he is making no
bones about the fact that he is trying to police
identity rather than conduct, um, which is a shift. Right. Yeah, Yeah,
that's what sea. Well, I mean, that's where he's going
to have problems. And that's why if we're going to
(10:17):
focus narrowly on what is what he has the legal
authority to do? Does he have the legal authority to
say Antifa, which, even setting aside for the moment, is
not a membership organization. Does he have the authority to
say that this group is unlawful? Well, no he doesn't.
(10:37):
That's that's not a power that he actually has. But
it neither does it matter, right? And I think that's
the thing that we need to to really drill down
on here. Uh And how does this might be a
dumb question, but like how does Twitter interact with all
of this? Because him just announcing things that are legally
(11:00):
not true on Twitter. It's one of those things that
I'm like, Uh, how the funk is this still happening?
And why is he like it's not Is there like
any type of pro text? Like I don't understand how
he can do that. I do feel like there are
a lot of people within the federal government and even
(11:22):
within law enforcement who are trying to figure out what
doesn't mean when the president announces something like this on Twitter.
I wish I if I could tweet and make policy, well,
things would be terrible, Things would be really bad. I
don't recommend there would be weird ship, don't. Yeah, it
couldn't possibly be any weirder than the actual ship that's
(11:46):
going on. That is true, And cocaine would be legal, Um,
is cocaine legal? Mora cocaine is not legal, thank you, Yeah,
no problem. Um. So the president can tweet these kinds
of things for the same reason the rest of us can,
and that is because of the very first Amendment. Yeah,
(12:10):
I'm wondering that, Like, but there's like we're in this
weird there's like this very unsettling thing. And I guess
some of it's just simply the problem that we have
a chief executive in which a great deal of power
is vested, and a huge amount of that power is informal.
So like the president has his constitutional powers which have
existed for forever, and then he has the powers which
(12:32):
have evolved over time. Um. And many of those powers
that have evolved over time are based on just sort
of like people listen to the president. Um. And it
seems like that's what we're seeing with this Antifa stuff
more than anything else. That's exactly right, Robert. And so
that I think the general point that I want to make,
and if if there's any clarity that I can give
(12:56):
your listeners, it's that there is a difference between lawful
authority and enforcement power, right, And there is a difference
between the lawful authority of the president to make policy
and the ability of the president to broadcast both to
(13:19):
state and non state actors that certain kinds of behavior
against certain kinds of people will be tolerated or encouraged. Right. Yeah,
And so you know, when we talk about does Trump
(13:41):
have the authority to designate quote Antifa, whatever that means,
as a terrorist organization, it does not matter whether or
not he has the authority to do that, because he
has communicated something altogether different that will nevertheless have real
(14:03):
material impacts for how policing happens at every level, for
how prosecutions and investigations, convictions and sentencings happen. Right. Because
the word terrorist is a discursive placeholder that um allows
(14:25):
everyone from police officers to juries two judges granting warrants
to rationalize their decisions UM with respect to this word
terrorist as opposed to the unexamined ideology through which they
(14:46):
are filtering all of these narratives requests for warrants. UM
they're understanding as police officers of who it is they're
looking at. And so to a Antifa, which is not
a real category of person, right, is a terrorist organization
(15:09):
suddenly creates this empty signifier that is malleable enough to
include or exclude just about anyone, right, And it's wild
to me that he so freely can tweet using the
word terrorists when he refuses to use it when there's uh,
(15:33):
white school shooters who have his his belief system and
there's evidence of that and he but but he can
label a entire group that he knows, let's be real,
nothing about something that they're not. I mean, as with
(15:58):
so many problems that we're having with this administration, and
right now, the problem isn't the problem is something that
has existed for forever, because like this is something that
I've heard a lot of comparisons being made between what's
what people are afraid will happen with this antifi declaration
in the Satanic panic of the late eighties I think
early nineties, which was like there's no law against being
(16:21):
a Satanist and also Satanists don't do any of the
things that people were punishing Satanists for doing, um and
none of those crimes actually occurred, but but people still
went to prison for them um. And it I think
it's because of the same thing, Like you're talking about
this fact that like the fact that this this is
(16:41):
in the air. And you know, part of a declaration
by the president gives UM, gives kind of permission for
for judges and for for for prosecutors and stuff too,
go after individuals more stringently. Um. And it there's a
quote from I think it was from the like the
(17:02):
old like what it was, sixties or seventies movie about
like movie series about the Bible, with UM George C.
Scott as Moses. If you ever saw that, I think
that's where this is from. Where and the line is
Moses saying, UM, a man should be ruled by law,
not by the will of other men, um, which is
a nice idea, But I'm curious about where Moses thanks
(17:25):
law comes from or how it is enforced. Well, I
think it was a coked up screenwriter who put those
words in his mouth. UM. But it does seem like
we're being, yeah, I don't know, ruled by um kind
of the idle will of of of those in power,
which I guess we always have been, but usually there's
(17:47):
more of a mask on about it. UM. I am
actually going to disagree with you, Okay, No, I'm glad
to be disagreed with because that's a blique way to
look at things. Yes, disagree with him, please, No, I'm
just I'm just excited. Well, let's see, let's see how
hard we're going to fight about this. So I don't
think this idea that there's a moral panic. Um. You know,
(18:11):
certainly the moral panic over Satanists and is sort of
similar to what's happening with Antifa, But it's by no
means the only or even the most obvious, um precursor
of what we're seeing here right Um Fugitive slave Act
(18:31):
on down. Um. The police have always gone after people
who in any way were even perceived as a threat
to dominance, right and so um, abolitionists, labor movements, women's
(18:52):
rights movements, Puerto Rican independence, the Black Panthers, the Black
Liberation Army, environmental active lists, anarchists, anarchists both in the
nineteenth century and then again in the mid two thousand's
after us right, obviously, the red scare right McCarthy is
m This is by no means a new thing. I
(19:16):
think it is a little um because of the executive
that we happen to be dealing with right now. It
the there is less of a veneer. Yeah, um, I
think he's less sophisticated about the way in which he
expresses these things, and so it might be somewhat more unvarnished. Yeah,
(19:41):
but but it's certainly not um a new tactic. Yeah,
you're absolutely right. This is just the first time it's
happened on Twitter. M M yeah, UM. And you're right.
We were doing this this series on the police right
now in our normal fee um to to give everybody
(20:01):
and talking about a lot of what you're talking about
is how the police have been sort of the term
that's used in one of the texts I read was
designated vigilantes for kind of the the the primary power
UM group in in American culture, whoever that happens to
be and whatever they happen to be afraid of, the
police are used to funk those people up. Um. And Yeah,
(20:22):
you're absolutely right, And I guess that is I think
it does seem like Trump's kind of calling a shot
um with this that he hopes that like I think
that I think that this is the group that enough
of the Americans who have you know, um, money and
power and who vote uh see these people as the
boogeyman of our times that I can going after them
(20:46):
will um will work out politically and be tolerated politically
by me Like, I guess that's what we're and I
guess we don't really know if that will be the case,
but that's the shot he's calling absolutely um and and
certainly he's manufacturing that boogeyman. He's working really hard to
(21:08):
do that. UM. And I think, along with its sort
of twin discourse of the outside agitator UM, he's kind
of creating these mutually reinforcing UM boogeymen, right, Um that
are you know, deeply racist, deeply anti semitic. Um. Both
(21:29):
of these discourses have a long history of UM being
used to erase black radicalism and agency and blame any
kind of mass resistance on a few outsiders with sinister
ulterior motives, right, or who are in some way behind
(21:53):
the scenes, Um, you know, in charge of things. Um.
You know, I'm actually gonna if you give me a second,
I'm gonna take a look at some questions that the
Joint Terrorism Task Force was asking. Well more looks that up.
Why don't we take an ad break? Yeah, speaking of
(22:15):
the Joint Terrorism Task Force, you know who doesn't coordinate
federal agencies fighting terrorism? Yes? More more, who is the
fine products and services that support Robert's programs. That's right,
that's rights, welcome together everything. We are back, and we're
(22:50):
talking about friends of the POD, the Joint Terrorism Task Force. So,
if you recall it, I think at the very big
thing we were talking about the difficulty that the right,
the authoritarian right UM has understanding that Antifa is not
a membership organization with a clear hierarchy that is in
(23:12):
charge of UH. I guess in charge of anti fascists
and protesters UM. And I think there's a one of
the ways in which we see this manifest is in
the way that law enforcement interacts with people that they
perceive as being in some way adjacent to Antifa. And
(23:36):
so over the last couple of weeks of these uprisings
in New York, a number of UM, number of people
who are arrested in the course of their First Amendment
protected activity UH were pulled aside and questioned by members
of the NYPD and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
(23:57):
And some of the questions they were asked, or what
do you know about Antifa? Why did you come to
New York City. So this is an interesting assumption that
the people who have been arrested are not from New
York City? Are you in Antifa? What do you do
(24:18):
to organize protests? Who told you about the protest? Do
you use social media? Do you follow protests related accounts?
Who is in charge of the protests? I think that's
that's that's always the funniest word to be because they're
all they're all like generally speaking, very kind of like
(24:41):
in mention hierarchy, and they have trouble managing that. You
could get three thousand thousands of people into the streets
acting in concert without like a dude, right, those questions
are stupid. I mean, minus the New York Park. It's
like my dogs could be equal of for half of
those Like what I mean? You know, there's a lot
(25:03):
of promise in the social media one. I think it
should media. Yeah, throw us all in prison for using Twitter,
including the president. It's it's my devout hope that whomever
was asked whether they use social media just okay boomer
to that cop. Um, no, no, don't okay boomer Cops. Though,
(25:24):
in all seriousness, if any police officer asks you anything,
uh just say I am going to remain silent and
I want to speak to a lawyer. However, attractive an option.
It might seem to be really snarky. Just don't do it. Yeah,
they can use those tasers for like no reason. That's true.
(25:47):
At least that's one law thing I do know. People
ask me a lot like, um, when can the police
arrest me? Right? And I always say, anyone can be
arrested at any time, for any reason or no reason
at all. Um. The answer is whenever they want to. Um.
(26:12):
That doesn't mean that you're going to end up being
charged you're convicted. UM. But m important important to keep
in the back of your mind that there is there
are some ways that you can almost guarantee your arrest,
but there are really no ways to guarantee that you
will not be arrested. The big takeaway here about Trump, however,
(26:36):
whether he's announcing this on Twitter, whether it's coming in
a press conference, you know it. However this information is
being broadcast. What he's doing is not signaling a change
in law. He's working to cultivate a change in the
culture of law enforcement, and a change in law is
(27:00):
not necessary for the state to get what they want
in this case. Right. And this is especially true if
we consider the fact that the state does not need
to prevail in criminal cases or UM find anything damning
(27:21):
in criminal investigations in order to massively disrupt social movements. Right. Um.
I think everyone is probably familiar with the J twenty
cases where more than two hundred people were cattled and arrested,
and the d C circuit, I think tried to tried
(27:44):
to allege a conspiracy among all those people, and you
know they didn't. They failed spectacularly, as I like to say,
on a technicality, namely that the offendants were innocent. Oh well,
that's unfortunate. Well, I think it's it's critical to think
(28:07):
that through though, because, as I said, this UM effort
to indicate that we're you know that Trump is going
to designate a kind of person rather than a type
of conduct as unlawful is going to get him into
trouble for the same reason that the prosecutors in the
(28:30):
J twenty cases ended up running up against trouble because
the very attributes that they were trying to use as
evidence of a conspiracy, whereas evidence of membership in this
conspiracy or participation in this conspiracy are things like belief,
(28:51):
style of clothing, presence in a place that are protected
by the first Amendment and that still matters. Right, doesn't
mean that it always matters. It doesn't mean that it
matters as much as we might want it to. Um.
But we do still have the First and Fourth Amendments,
and trying to criminalize identity as identity without any other
(29:16):
cover right of of identifying a kind of conduct that
is unlawful is going to end up being hard for them.
But that said, Okay, they don't prevail in those cases
in court, but defending criminal cases, dealing with grand jury
(29:41):
subpoenas um, these are stressful. They take a lot of
energy from movements, they take a lot of resources and
time from movements. They're frightening for people. Um. They create
a lot of mistrust within communities. UM. And the fact
(30:04):
is they really take the wind out of the sales
of movements because once a single arrest is made, the
focus is no longer on the message of that movement.
The focus is no longer on whatever that movement was resisting.
It becomes focused now on the criminality of protesters or
(30:26):
the criminality of the people who are seeking a change.
It becomes focused on individuals within that movement rather than
a mass movement or a social movement. Or a set
of ideals, which makes it much more difficult for people
who don't already identify with that movement to see themselves
in it. Right, And so it's not a bad tactic
(30:50):
for Trump to um really foment this fear of Antifa,
whether or not it has any legal impact. At the
end of the day, we're still going to go through
potentially years of criminal cases, of investigations of media that
(31:16):
totally undermine the capacity of large, broad based movements to
focus narrowly on whatever it is that you know, in
this case on racial justice. Right, how much does this
so like one thing that I keep thinking of when
what I'm thinking about, like the worst case scenario for
all this is the Green scare right where you had
(31:39):
this this kind of burgeoning environmental I don't know what
you wanna call environmental justice movement that was heavily criminalized
people who are trying to take direct action in order
to stop the some of the stuff that we're all
seeing the consequences of now. Um and the government went
after these people and through a lot of them in
prison for I mean for a lot of them was
(32:01):
the rest of their lives. A ton of them committed
suicide in prison and stuff is terrible, terrible story. Um,
and it kind of it's part of why, at least
I have some friends who were, you know, activists during
that period of time and who will credit as kind
of why things in a lot of ways started from
zero when occupy hit again, because like so much kind
of institutional memory within our our national protest infrastructure, whatever
(32:25):
you wanna call it, was wiped out by that. UM.
I don't know. I'm just interested in your thoughts on
the matter, because I'm sure you're you're you know more
about what happened than than I do. Uh yeah, I'm uh.
One of my closest friends was incarcerated as a result
of degree and scare, and I one of my clients,
Marius Mason UM was convicted of some offenses that, had
(32:49):
they not been deemed to be politically motivated, Marius would
have gotten I think seven to ten years. Uh. And
because the judge included a terrorism enhancement UM or enhanced
the sentence as a result of his perception that these
(33:09):
these um offenses were politically motivated. Um, he's now doing
I think seven years, right, Um, it might have been
twenty two. I'm sorry. I don't remember right now, but um,
but he's still in prison um as a result of
of the terrorism enhancement, right, and so that word terrorism
(33:32):
really does have a devastating impact. Um. Yeah, I think that. Um.
You know, when we look at state repression of movements,
it goes well beyond just our individual clients, um or
(33:55):
the individuals who are being charged criminally charged in that
moment um. The impacts of that sort of echo, right,
and it does function to chill even lawful speech. Yeah,
that's kind of what I'm that's I'm afraid of. I'm
(34:16):
I'm afraid that I'm angry because it's this you mentioned
gas lighting. I think a little bit earlier feeling that
way by the state, and I feel that way by
the state and the media when I just look at
how certain things are being covered right now. Like I
think I spent a lot of the time in the
field with anti fascist activists, and I've i have known
and seen a number of people do things like chuck
a bottle or two with the police. I've definitely seen
(34:38):
a lot of windows broken. But the number one thing,
like the number one activity that like the number one
activity I think I've seen from from anti fascist activists
has been either handing out free food or what acting
as a protest medic right like that that those are
those are like the two things that I've seen done
the most um. And I've also had actual real life
(34:59):
terror try to kill me with guns and explosives. Um.
And the conflation of those two things, and the fact
that so many people in the in national media are
willing to and I'm not just talking about the Fox
News crowd, Like the Fox News crowd kind of enthusiastically
does it, but so many people outside of Fox News
and what is supposed to be our credible media, um
(35:21):
at least pay lip service to the fact that these
might be the same things. And it makes me feel
like I'm taking crazy pills. Yeah. Well, and it's also Robert,
I want to I want to speak to that because
it does have really serious implications down the road, um legally,
because one of the things that happens is that the
(35:44):
we see this mainstream buy in to this discourse about
antifa or the false equivalency between you know, anti fascist
protesters and the Charlottesville you know, unite the Right people.
So part of the danger of this mainstream buy in
to this discourse about anti fascism and all of the
(36:05):
pearl clushing and horror that are being expressed, I suspect
are way for them to feel like they are preserving
their First Amendment rights and their their ability to protest
in their particular correct, um you know, non violent way, right,
(36:27):
and they're leveraging that discourse of the anti fascist terrorists
or the outside agitator in order to protect their hegemonic
dominance right. But ultimately what they're actually functioning to do
is to provide cover and authority too for law enforcement
(36:50):
to degrade the Bill of Rights as it applies to
all people, um, not just antifa, but two any form
of protest. So I think it's actually extremely dangerous that
we have so much mainstream buy in an attempt to
(37:15):
differentiate the good protester from the bad protester, because ultimately
that is going to come back to bite all of
us in the ass. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a fan of
the thing that's been going around the the graffiti statement
that I've seen at a couple like the chairs, and
(37:36):
then I think in Nashville when they try to set
up an a ton of the zone, they put it
up to um, no bad protesters, no good cops. UM.
I do think there's a big misunderstanding from people when
they talk about a diversity of tactics UM, which kind
of came out of I think St. Paul right, UM.
And it's based on this idea that like, UM, you
(38:00):
a variety of different things are needed UM at a protest,
like not just peaceful protest. And I think everyone's more
or less than the same, but about non violent protests.
But that's not the same as peaceful protests. And that's
a distinction I do see people trying to make. But
I also see a lot of people chanting peaceful protests
UM and and blaming anyone who takes direct action on
(38:20):
quote unquote white anarchists UM. Which yeah, And I don't
really know how it's all going to shake out, like
we're in this one of the problems with having a
movement like is currently UM building in the nation where
you suddenly have more people engaged in activism than I've
ever been doing it in in my lifetime certainly UM
maybe like real damn briefly before the Iraq war, UM,
(38:44):
but that was much more geographically sort of contained. Is
there's this incredible potential for grifters too, and those grifters
are always going to wind up more or less on
the side of the state because the police love working
with the right kind of protesters. Local government loves working
with the right kind of protesters because that neutralizes a
(39:05):
movement that can be dangerous to it. Yeah. Absolutely, Um,
I think it's very dangerous for people to characterize property
damage as violence. There. I mean legally and morally. I
understand it may be a little easier for people are
(39:26):
more obvious or intuitive for people to recognize that, Um,
property damage does not morally justify police violence. I think
the thing that I would like to make very clear
is property damage does not legally justify police of violence. UM.
(39:47):
And I think that that is a point that maybe
has been lost a little bit. Yeah. I think a
lot about continuing force and what justifies violence, UM. Because
I always have a gun on me, UM, and we're,
for example, somebody to cut the fence in my front
yard and and grab, um, you know, a set of
(40:08):
solar panels or something and try to run away with them.
And I were to shoot that person, I would go
to prison. And I would unless I were maybe in
the state of Texas. Then it's a little bit. There's
some I I know there are some times where people
in Texas have gotten off with some crazy bullshit shooting
people in the back in their front lawns, but um,
not in most of the country, right, Like, well, it
(40:32):
depends on who you are. I would like to remind
you about Trayvon Martin. Yes, but you know, it didn't
a lot of a lot of um what's his name
is the terrible painter? Um who murdered him? George Zimmerman
didn't a lot of he made that painting. We all
just forget about the time he tried to become a
painter like George W. Bush. I'm sorry, it's just I
(40:57):
know him as a guy who signed skittle bags and
sold them on the internet. Yeah, that's probably the worst.
Not the guy that sold hit the gun he used
on the internet for two I I do remember, though,
when I was looking at sort of like the media,
how people, particularly in the right wing media, justified what
Zimmerman had done. They all focused on the fact that
(41:18):
there was a struggle, right that, like he was in
fear of his life quote unquote. Um, yeah, so the
engagement started over you know, I guess the fear that
Trayvon Martin was robbing things. But Zimmerman's justification was, you
know he was he was in fear of his life, right, Um,
which I guess is I don't know, Like the police
(41:41):
in my town have said that, like we'll only use
tear gas, you know, in life threatening situations. But like
yesterday they determined like some kids put a bike lock
on a door, um, and they were like, this is
threatening the lives of everybody in the building. And it
was like, guys, it's a bike lock and there's like
four hundred of you outside the building, Like it'll be okay.
(42:03):
I don't know, Sorry, I'm ranting. I mean that usually
means it's time for an ad break, welcome together, everything,
don so, Um, we're back in terms of like I
(42:30):
since I think we've covered everything at least I had
to say about the Antifa matter, I wanted to talk
a little bit about, um, some some police related stuff,
since I think a lot of folks listening to this
will continue to be engaging in protests and I think
we'll probably have another big, real big flare up in
protests probably around August. Um. That's just my my gut feeling. Robert,
(42:51):
Are you in charge of Antifa and the protests. Well,
I'm the ombudsman, um so, I actually I am in
charge of like, uh kind of internal complain points. Um
so yeah. If you if you have an issue with
your local ANTIFA representative or you're not getting your George
Soros checks, you can drop me a line and I
can can help straighten that out. Good to know. Um,
(43:12):
I'm curious about the you know, you seem to have
some inside information about when the protests are, when the
uprisings will dries up, when it's warm, and when everybody's
unemployment runs out, and when eviction protections expire. That's kind
of my that's my inside intel based on looking at
(43:37):
what's obviously going to happen. Um yeah, story, yeah, yeah,
I'll have a fun conversation with the FBI about that,
I'm sure. Um So, there's like a bunch of questionable
police activities, and I think it is important to note
to people, like what you said, they can arrest you
for any reason. There's no such thing really as them
(43:58):
um arrest you, like not being able to legally arrest you.
That's just something they get to choose to do. Like
they can't always charge you. They can't always jail you,
but they can always take you into custody. In terms
of like like like like, we all have our like
our list of of advice for how to deal with
the police if you're stopped in a car or whatever, right, Like,
(44:18):
there's a lot of videos on that. In terms of
if you are I'm wondering what your advice is to
people who are interacting with the police at protests and
situations were like you're being kettled or they're trying to
push a group out of something, and like a riot
line is advancing on you. If there's like kind of general,
generally applicable best practices in your head, I'm curious as
(44:39):
to what you might say on that. Sure, so I
guess I cannot give legal advice, but I should give information,
And what I would say is, um, do your best
to stay calm. Realize that the police are using arrest
as a form of crowd control, and if you get
detained or arrested, you will be searched incident to arrest,
(45:04):
So think about that before you go to a protest.
There is always a chance that you are going to
be swept up, at which point you will be arrested,
at which point you will be searched. And that means
you probably should not bring anything to a protest that
you don't want police officers to look at. And that
doesn't just mean handguns and and drugs. It means maybe
(45:29):
your phone, right, anything that's private you might also want
to shield from view. UM. So I would advise people
to encrypt their phone and to not use facial recognition
or a fingerprint to unlock your phone. Encrypt your phone
and use a passphrase. There are some really great UM
(45:53):
digital security tutorials on the e f F Electronic Frontier
Foundation website. UM. There's a lot of good resources at
mutant Legal dot info. UM. And then if you are arrested,
(46:14):
you know say very loudly, I am not resisting yea,
and then uh, let police officers know, you know, whatever
sort of what we call pedigree information, your name and address. UM,
they're going to find out eventually, and UM say if
(46:34):
they try to question you, I am going to remain silent,
and I want to speak to a lawyer because you
do have a Fifth Amendment right against compelled self incrimination,
which means you don't have any obligation to speak to
law enforcement whatever they tell you. You You have no obligation
to cooperate in a law enforcement investigation, and it is
(46:58):
much much safer for you not to speak to police
officers or federal agents without an attorney present. And you
do have a right to counsel as well. So once
you invoke those rights by saying I am going to
remain silent and I want to speak to a lawyer.
(47:19):
Once you invoke those rights, you have to then remain silent.
That's that's the key there. They'll take advantage of the
natural when someone's friendly to you and nice, even an
intense situation, particularly actually intense situation, there's a desire to reciprocate.
You have to not fall for that ship. The friendly
cops will come out once you're being hauled in, UM,
(47:42):
and they are trying to get you to talk because
everything you said, yeah, yeah, that's correct. The other thing is, UM,
you should not be talking about anything in the moments
leading up to your arrest or anything about planning an
action while you are in custody with any of the
people you've been arrested with on social media to the press.
(48:05):
Do not talk about this stuff to anyone but your
lawyer or your doctor or therapist, because ultimately, anything you
say cannon will be used against you. And that doesn't
just mean things that you say directly to police. It
means things that police can find out. So anything that
you say publicly, you might as well be saying to
(48:26):
a police officer. Yeah. Yeah. UM. So I know that
there's a a sort of pis or it didn't happen mentality.
This is not one of those situations. UM. I want
to also tell people, if you need medical attention while
(48:48):
you're in custody, or someone else needs medical attention while
you're in custody, please advocate for yourself or advocate for
the person who needs medical care. Um. Police have an
obligation to render medical care to get you to medical
care if you need it. Um. What we often hear
is that police will say, oh, it'll take you longer
(49:08):
to get out of custody, don't worry about it. If
you need medical care, get medical care. That both because
both because you deserve medical care and also because you
need to document your injuries. Yeah. That is the only
thing you ever say other than I'm you know, not
(49:29):
going to speak until my lawyer's president or whatever to
a police officer. Yeah, The other thing I would point out,
just based on some stuff I've seen recently in Portlands
during some actions that could interactions that could have gone badly,
is when you are face to face having a any
sort of direct interaction with a police officer, never ever,
ever put your hands in your pockets, not your jacket pockets,
(49:50):
not your pants pockets, hands visible the entire time, for
the love of God, don't put your hands in your pockets.
Don't get anything out of your pocket, like, don't do that.
I think one of the things that I would say
as well is I think it's widely understood now that um,
we have the right to film police officers in the
course of their employment. Right, and that's a really important right. Um.
(50:14):
But you basically have the right to do this within
a reasonable distance, and the people in charge of the
definition of reasonable our police officers. So you know, if
they ask you to back up, I think it's not
only you know, do you sort of back up as
little as possible, but narrate what you are doing. Right,
(50:35):
You can say I'm taking a step back. Anything that
you're doing in front of a police officer, it may
be worth considering. Can I narrate what I am currently
doing UM, so that first of all, so that there
is a record of it, and also because it it
may be soothing UM, and and explain to police officers
(50:57):
that you aren't not a threat because, as UM, I
think you recently did a podcast about UM, the way
in which police officers are educated to feel embattled and threatened.
Being able to UM make clear to law enforcement that
you are not a threat to them UM can be
(51:18):
an important step to take. UM. The other thing that
I would say is, in the same way that we
don't want you to make public statements UM that are
basically discoverable by by law enforcement that could be used
as evidence against you, I would really caution people UM
(51:39):
to be very circumspect about discussing any unlawful behavior in
which they themselves have engaged or even that they witnessed,
because depending on what it is, UM, anyone who ends
up having knowledge, or even someone who is believed, however incorrectly,
(52:06):
to have knowledge of a federal offense, can be summoned
to give testimony before a federal grand jury. And there
are a bunch of uh absolutely lawful grounds for refusing
to give testimony before a federal grand jury. UM but
(52:28):
it requires a great deal of litigation, and that litigation
is almost always unsuccessful. And the consequence for refusing to
give UM immunized testimony before a federal grand jury is
that you can be held in civil or criminal contempt
(52:49):
and confined in prison. UM. So grand jury subpoenas can
be extremely disruptive to movements, even and especially if nobody
collaborates with the grand jury investigation. And you know, I
(53:09):
know that's a very abbreviated explanation of this. And there
are a lot of resources about what a grand jury
is UM and how they work online and some of
them are at that site that I mentioned before, mutant
Legal dot info UM, and it's really worth looking into
(53:30):
those and educating yourself about what a grand jury is
UM and and how they operate UM. But suffice it
to say, one of the ways that UM you can
protect yourself in your community is by not boasting or
uh speculating about unlawful conduct that that you heard about
(53:55):
or saw or engaged in, because it puts you at risk,
and it puts frankly, your entire community at risk. And
I think that's a pretty good note to end on.
So please UM listen to the information that Moira has
provided because I think it's important. UM. And please, UH,
(54:19):
don't talk to cops as a rule, UM, but if
you ever are questioned by an FBI agent, don't lie,
because that is a felony. UM. It is an independent offense. Please.
One of the reasons that I always tell people, and
that we always tell people it's much better not to
(54:39):
speak to federal agents is that if you have a
constitutional right not to speak to a federal agent, lying
to a federal agent, even unintentionally, is a federal offense.
Shower is Where is there anything that you would like
(55:01):
to plug for you? There is actually, UM. The first
thing that I would like to plug is the concept
of not talking to law enforcement. The second thing I
would like to plug is, uh the concept of only
using water to get pepper spray and tear gas out
(55:21):
of your eyes. I would also learn from the people
in the BOH. I would also like to plug the
National Lawyers Guild New York City Chapter Twitter account which
is n LG n y C News and the National
Lawyers Guild New York City Chapter Instagram account, UH, where
(55:47):
there are lots of very beautiful UH informational tiles. UM.
Written by attorneys and designed by amazing black artists and
graphic designers that you can look at and share. And
the Twitter handle for that is at n l G
(56:11):
as in National Lawyers Guild Underscore NYC as in New
York City. Awesome, thank you for sharing all of that
with us. Alright, anything you would like to plug before
give our social meds? No, I've never done anything but
this exact podcast being recorded right now, Sofie, So I'm
not sure what I'd even plug. This is the entirety
(56:34):
of my body of work. Uh well, um, that's fake news.
But uh. You can follow this podcast at Worst your
Pod on Twitter and Instagram. You can follow Robert at
I Right okay on Twitter not Instagram. Robert has a
new series called Behind the Police, which you can listen
(56:54):
to in the Behind the Bastards feed where you can
or we talk about how fucking awful police have been
since the very very very very very very beginning. And
h you can follow Katie Stole who's not here at
Katie Still. You can follow Cody at dr Mr Cody
and um, you can follow me on Twitter at why
(57:18):
Underscore Sophie Underscore, Why that was weird and didn't like that,
but go ahead and follow your heart, yes, out into
the streets and right once again, don't talk to com
(57:39):
everything I tried. Dan. Okay, So during this afternoon's recording,
I managed to say that the clan had a coherent
set of beliefs, when what in fact I should have
said is that the clan has a unitary and authoritative
(58:05):
set of beliefs. I misnamed the jurisdiction in which the
j twenty prosecutions occurred. I said it was prosecuted in
the d C circuit. Um. I think what I was
trying to say was that, um, the U. S. Attorney's
(58:25):
Office for the District of Columbia prosecuted those cases. So um, again,
what it should say is that prosecutors from the U. S.
Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia ran up against
problems trying to make a case for conspiracy. I think.
(58:46):
I also managed to refer to the Instagram handle of
the Analog Underscore NYC account as the Twitter handle, so
again that should be The Instagram handle is at n
l G Underscore NYC. Worst Year Ever is a production
(59:09):
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything, So don't don't what's Auntie my fascis now? No, No,
(00:25):
that sounded good. That was a failure of an introduction. Um,
that was a failure of an introduction and also legally
a call to terrorism. I think now, I think me
saying that makes me and all of you a terrorist
and by definition also spotify a terrorist. I don't know.
That's why today I'm here sans Katie and Cody Um,
(00:46):
who have disappeared for reasons mysterious to talk about. Sophie
is here. Thank you, Sophie, I'm here, UM, you are
were I just wanted to be. We heard Weird the
co host of Worst Year Ever today and we're going
to talk about, um, the government's the president's declaration that
(01:07):
Antifa is a terrorist group. UH with my friend and
lawyer Moira Cohen. Where how are you doing today? I'm
I'm doing okay. Given the givens, are you doing today?
I'm good? Was I accurate in stating that Spotify is
now legally a terrorist? I actually cannot give legal advice
(01:27):
over the radio or on a podcast, so, UM, I
just can't comment on that. I also want to remind
you that this conversation is not privileged. That's good, good
to note, that's good to know. And I'm taking that
as a big maybe on Spotify as a terrorist. So
if you're the c I A, please start sending Spotify arms. Um.
(01:51):
So where we're in a we're in a weird situation,
and you're the person I call whenever scary things happen
in the law because I don't understand the law. Um,
all I understand is to ask a police officer if
I'm being detained. Um, that's a really good start. You're
you're ahead of the gang there, you want to walk
(02:14):
me through. Kind of I'm curious as like as not
just a lawyer of it, as like a movement lawyer,
as somebody who deals with cases that that relate directly
to Um, let's say political activism on a regular basis.
When you wake up in the morning or whatever it was,
when did you when did you hear that the president
had had stared out at our crumbling nation and decided
(02:35):
that Antifa was the blame? Well, you know, I I
don't know if you've noticed this since the pandemic, but
time is now fake. Yeah, it is a flat circle
these days. So I honestly can't tell you what day
that was. What I can tell you is I woke
(02:59):
up to a flurry of panicked text messages from just
about everyone I've ever represented, asking whether they were about
to go to federal prison. Yeah. Yeah, I had that
moment of panic. Yeah, I guess h m hmm. Whatever
day that was was a busy day. Yeah, And it
(03:22):
was also yeah, I don't it's all the I think
in the in the words of Janice Joplin, it's all
the same fucking day, man. Yeah, the answer generally is no,
you're not all about to go to federal prison. I
guess that's the good news. That is good news. I
don't think I would like federal prison. Very few people do. Yeah.
(03:46):
I don't want to like pre judge it, because that's
not that's not okay. Um, but that's my gut feeling. Yeah.
So sometimes I have days, um as an attorney, where
I feel like I'm being gas lit by the higher state.
And that was one of those days where I thought,
did I miss a tremendous change in law while I
(04:10):
was sleeping? Um? Did I just wake up to a
world where the first amendment is utterly meaningless, and it
really it It sort of rattled me and I had
to take a minute and step back and think about
it and do a little analysis and say, no, uh,
this this proclamation is legally for the time being meaningless. Um.
(04:39):
But unfortunately that doesn't mean it's socially or culturally meaningless,
and it doesn't mean that it won't have impacts, uh
in the way the law is enforced or in the
way cases move through the legal system. And there are actually,
(04:59):
like I think one of the things that's important to
understand because this ties into also aspects of why there's
a lot of reasons why the federal government um fell
on its ass in terms of responding to right wing violence,
particularly in the last four years or so. Um. But
one of them is kind of related to the difficulty
of declaring something a domestic terrorist group, Like there's a
(05:22):
lot of restrictions on that. Would you mind give them
like a little overview of like what that actually is? Sure, um,
so I think I'm going to actually zoom out even
a little farther than that. It's okay. So I think
the thing that I want to remind your listeners of
is that the law writ large is not a set
(05:43):
of facts. It's not a static thing. It's always a
set of arguments. So when we talk about what the
law is, UM, that isn't always a stable thing, right
And so UM I think I referred to this a
second ago. Well, it's obviously important to know the substance
(06:06):
of the doctrine that we're dealing with. If we get
too narrowly focused on that doctrine, we might miss the
fact that there's law and there's law enforcement, and and
those can be too radically different things. Right. So, in
terms of what we're talking about with respect to terrorism, uh,
(06:28):
and in particular domestic terrorism. This this matters in terms
of Trump's proclamation about Antifa being a terrorist organization, because
in fact he does not have authority to declare anything
a domestic terrorist organization. The State Department can declare foreign
(06:55):
organizations to be foreign terrorist organizations. And that is a
profound power that they have, UM And it's extremely dangerous
and it's extremely problematic in my opinion. UM. But because
(07:15):
at least for the time being, we do in this
country have UM the freedom of belief and association, it
they're going to run up against problems with um, passing
constitutional muster to the extent that they're trying to declare
(07:38):
a group to be a terrorist, a domestic terrorist organization. UM.
Just especially since and I think like this is the
thing that I think willfully of folks politically on the
right and misunderstand a lot like Anti foot isn't a group,
it's like a set. It's a mix of a set
of tactics and a set of beliefs. And there are
(08:00):
some groups like you know, Rose City Antifa, my own city,
who espouse those beliefs and tactics. But like, fundamentally, what
you'd be saying if you actually did criminalize antifas you
you're criminalizing an ideology which we don't get to do.
Here's that is correct, Um, I think that it's it
is interesting to look at that misapprehension, and it's hard
(08:24):
to tell to what degree it's uh willful and to
what degree it might be just a function of the
fact that the authoritarian right does have membership organizations like
the Clan that do have a clear hierarchy where you
do pay membership dues, where you do have a clear
(08:46):
and coherent set of beliefs that are outlined. Um. It
may just be a little bit beyond them culturally to
understand a movement or a set of tactics that are um,
a little less defined, right. Um, But I think it's
(09:08):
important to understand that law enforcement generally from the slave
patrols through the use of vagrancy laws, to um do
racist policing, to police unsheltered people, to police gender nonconforming people, um,
(09:30):
all of this. All of these laws are laws that
are enforced in terms of policing identity or status. But
because of those constitutional problems that I referred to a
minute ago, Um, they're framed in terms of policing conduct,
even though we know that they're used to police identity. Right.
(09:54):
I think the kind of interesting thing that we're looking
at with Trump's proclamation is that he is making no
bones about the fact that he is trying to police
identity rather than conduct, um, which is a shift. Right. Yeah, Yeah,
that's what sea. Well, I mean, that's where he's going
to have problems. And that's why if we're going to
(10:17):
focus narrowly on what is what he has the legal
authority to do? Does he have the legal authority to
say Antifa, which, even setting aside for the moment, is
not a membership organization. Does he have the authority to
say that this group is unlawful? Well, no he doesn't.
(10:37):
That's that's not a power that he actually has. But
it neither does it matter, right? And I think that's
the thing that we need to to really drill down
on here. Uh And how does this might be a
dumb question, but like how does Twitter interact with all
of this? Because him just announcing things that are legally
(11:00):
not true on Twitter. It's one of those things that
I'm like, Uh, how the funk is this still happening?
And why is he like it's not Is there like
any type of pro text? Like I don't understand how
he can do that. I do feel like there are
a lot of people within the federal government and even
(11:22):
within law enforcement who are trying to figure out what
doesn't mean when the president announces something like this on Twitter.
I wish I if I could tweet and make policy, well,
things would be terrible, Things would be really bad. I
don't recommend there would be weird ship, don't. Yeah, it
couldn't possibly be any weirder than the actual ship that's
(11:46):
going on. That is true, And cocaine would be legal, Um,
is cocaine legal? Mora cocaine is not legal, thank you, Yeah,
no problem. Um. So the president can tweet these kinds
of things for the same reason the rest of us can,
and that is because of the very first Amendment. Yeah,
(12:10):
I'm wondering that, Like, but there's like we're in this
weird there's like this very unsettling thing. And I guess
some of it's just simply the problem that we have
a chief executive in which a great deal of power
is vested, and a huge amount of that power is informal.
So like the president has his constitutional powers which have
existed for forever, and then he has the powers which
(12:32):
have evolved over time. Um. And many of those powers
that have evolved over time are based on just sort
of like people listen to the president. Um. And it
seems like that's what we're seeing with this Antifa stuff
more than anything else. That's exactly right, Robert. And so
that I think the general point that I want to make,
and if if there's any clarity that I can give
(12:56):
your listeners, it's that there is a difference between lawful
authority and enforcement power, right, And there is a difference
between the lawful authority of the president to make policy
and the ability of the president to broadcast both to
(13:19):
state and non state actors that certain kinds of behavior
against certain kinds of people will be tolerated or encouraged. Right. Yeah,
And so you know, when we talk about does Trump
(13:41):
have the authority to designate quote Antifa, whatever that means,
as a terrorist organization, it does not matter whether or
not he has the authority to do that, because he
has communicated something altogether different that will nevertheless have real
(14:03):
material impacts for how policing happens at every level, for
how prosecutions and investigations, convictions and sentencings happen. Right. Because
the word terrorist is a discursive placeholder that um allows
(14:25):
everyone from police officers to juries two judges granting warrants
to rationalize their decisions UM with respect to this word
terrorist as opposed to the unexamined ideology through which they
(14:46):
are filtering all of these narratives requests for warrants. UM
they're understanding as police officers of who it is they're
looking at. And so to a Antifa, which is not
a real category of person, right, is a terrorist organization
(15:09):
suddenly creates this empty signifier that is malleable enough to
include or exclude just about anyone, right, And it's wild
to me that he so freely can tweet using the
word terrorists when he refuses to use it when there's uh,
(15:33):
white school shooters who have his his belief system and
there's evidence of that and he but but he can
label a entire group that he knows, let's be real,
nothing about something that they're not. I mean, as with
(15:58):
so many problems that we're having with this administration, and
right now, the problem isn't the problem is something that
has existed for forever, because like this is something that
I've heard a lot of comparisons being made between what's
what people are afraid will happen with this antifi declaration
in the Satanic panic of the late eighties I think
early nineties, which was like there's no law against being
(16:21):
a Satanist and also Satanists don't do any of the
things that people were punishing Satanists for doing, um and
none of those crimes actually occurred, but but people still
went to prison for them um. And it I think
it's because of the same thing, Like you're talking about
this fact that like the fact that this this is
(16:41):
in the air. And you know, part of a declaration
by the president gives UM, gives kind of permission for
for judges and for for for prosecutors and stuff too,
go after individuals more stringently. Um. And it there's a
quote from I think it was from the like the
(17:02):
old like what it was, sixties or seventies movie about
like movie series about the Bible, with UM George C.
Scott as Moses. If you ever saw that, I think
that's where this is from. Where and the line is
Moses saying, UM, a man should be ruled by law,
not by the will of other men, um, which is
a nice idea, But I'm curious about where Moses thanks
(17:25):
law comes from or how it is enforced. Well, I
think it was a coked up screenwriter who put those
words in his mouth. UM. But it does seem like
we're being, yeah, I don't know, ruled by um kind
of the idle will of of of those in power,
which I guess we always have been, but usually there's
(17:47):
more of a mask on about it. UM. I am
actually going to disagree with you, Okay, No, I'm glad
to be disagreed with because that's a blique way to
look at things. Yes, disagree with him, please, No, I'm
just I'm just excited. Well, let's see, let's see how
hard we're going to fight about this. So I don't
think this idea that there's a moral panic. Um. You know,
(18:11):
certainly the moral panic over Satanists and is sort of
similar to what's happening with Antifa, But it's by no
means the only or even the most obvious, um precursor
of what we're seeing here right Um Fugitive slave Act
(18:31):
on down. Um. The police have always gone after people
who in any way were even perceived as a threat
to dominance, right and so um, abolitionists, labor movements, women's
(18:52):
rights movements, Puerto Rican independence, the Black Panthers, the Black
Liberation Army, environmental active lists, anarchists, anarchists both in the
nineteenth century and then again in the mid two thousand's
after us right, obviously, the red scare right McCarthy is
m This is by no means a new thing. I
(19:16):
think it is a little um because of the executive
that we happen to be dealing with right now. It
the there is less of a veneer. Yeah, um, I
think he's less sophisticated about the way in which he
expresses these things, and so it might be somewhat more unvarnished. Yeah,
(19:41):
but but it's certainly not um a new tactic. Yeah,
you're absolutely right. This is just the first time it's
happened on Twitter. M M yeah, UM. And you're right.
We were doing this this series on the police right
now in our normal fee um to to give everybody
(20:01):
and talking about a lot of what you're talking about
is how the police have been sort of the term
that's used in one of the texts I read was
designated vigilantes for kind of the the the primary power
UM group in in American culture, whoever that happens to
be and whatever they happen to be afraid of, the
police are used to funk those people up. Um. And Yeah,
(20:22):
you're absolutely right, And I guess that is I think
it does seem like Trump's kind of calling a shot
um with this that he hopes that like I think
that I think that this is the group that enough
of the Americans who have you know, um, money and
power and who vote uh see these people as the
boogeyman of our times that I can going after them
(20:46):
will um will work out politically and be tolerated politically
by me Like, I guess that's what we're and I
guess we don't really know if that will be the case,
but that's the shot he's calling absolutely um and and
certainly he's manufacturing that boogeyman. He's working really hard to
(21:08):
do that. UM. And I think, along with its sort
of twin discourse of the outside agitator UM, he's kind
of creating these mutually reinforcing UM boogeymen, right, Um that
are you know, deeply racist, deeply anti semitic. Um. Both
(21:29):
of these discourses have a long history of UM being
used to erase black radicalism and agency and blame any
kind of mass resistance on a few outsiders with sinister
ulterior motives, right, or who are in some way behind
(21:53):
the scenes, Um, you know, in charge of things. Um.
You know, I'm actually gonna if you give me a second,
I'm gonna take a look at some questions that the
Joint Terrorism Task Force was asking. Well more looks that up.
Why don't we take an ad break? Yeah, speaking of
(22:15):
the Joint Terrorism Task Force, you know who doesn't coordinate
federal agencies fighting terrorism? Yes? More more, who is the
fine products and services that support Robert's programs. That's right,
that's rights, welcome together everything. We are back, and we're
(22:50):
talking about friends of the POD, the Joint Terrorism Task Force. So,
if you recall it, I think at the very big
thing we were talking about the difficulty that the right,
the authoritarian right UM has understanding that Antifa is not
a membership organization with a clear hierarchy that is in
(23:12):
charge of UH. I guess in charge of anti fascists
and protesters UM. And I think there's a one of
the ways in which we see this manifest is in
the way that law enforcement interacts with people that they
perceive as being in some way adjacent to Antifa. And
(23:36):
so over the last couple of weeks of these uprisings
in New York, a number of UM, number of people
who are arrested in the course of their First Amendment
protected activity UH were pulled aside and questioned by members
of the NYPD and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
(23:57):
And some of the questions they were asked, or what
do you know about Antifa? Why did you come to
New York City. So this is an interesting assumption that
the people who have been arrested are not from New
York City? Are you in Antifa? What do you do
(24:18):
to organize protests? Who told you about the protest? Do
you use social media? Do you follow protests related accounts?
Who is in charge of the protests? I think that's
that's that's always the funniest word to be because they're
all they're all like generally speaking, very kind of like
(24:41):
in mention hierarchy, and they have trouble managing that. You
could get three thousand thousands of people into the streets
acting in concert without like a dude, right, those questions
are stupid. I mean, minus the New York Park. It's
like my dogs could be equal of for half of
those Like what I mean? You know, there's a lot
(25:03):
of promise in the social media one. I think it
should media. Yeah, throw us all in prison for using Twitter,
including the president. It's it's my devout hope that whomever
was asked whether they use social media just okay boomer
to that cop. Um, no, no, don't okay boomer Cops. Though,
(25:24):
in all seriousness, if any police officer asks you anything,
uh just say I am going to remain silent and
I want to speak to a lawyer. However, attractive an option.
It might seem to be really snarky. Just don't do it. Yeah,
they can use those tasers for like no reason. That's true.
(25:47):
At least that's one law thing I do know. People
ask me a lot like, um, when can the police
arrest me? Right? And I always say, anyone can be
arrested at any time, for any reason or no reason
at all. Um. The answer is whenever they want to. Um.
(26:12):
That doesn't mean that you're going to end up being
charged you're convicted. UM. But m important important to keep
in the back of your mind that there is there
are some ways that you can almost guarantee your arrest,
but there are really no ways to guarantee that you
will not be arrested. The big takeaway here about Trump, however,
(26:36):
whether he's announcing this on Twitter, whether it's coming in
a press conference, you know it. However this information is
being broadcast. What he's doing is not signaling a change
in law. He's working to cultivate a change in the
culture of law enforcement, and a change in law is
(27:00):
not necessary for the state to get what they want
in this case. Right. And this is especially true if
we consider the fact that the state does not need
to prevail in criminal cases or UM find anything damning
(27:21):
in criminal investigations in order to massively disrupt social movements. Right. Um.
I think everyone is probably familiar with the J twenty
cases where more than two hundred people were cattled and arrested,
and the d C circuit, I think tried to tried
(27:44):
to allege a conspiracy among all those people, and you
know they didn't. They failed spectacularly, as I like to say,
on a technicality, namely that the offendants were innocent. Oh well,
that's unfortunate. Well, I think it's it's critical to think
(28:07):
that through though, because, as I said, this UM effort
to indicate that we're you know that Trump is going
to designate a kind of person rather than a type
of conduct as unlawful is going to get him into
trouble for the same reason that the prosecutors in the
(28:30):
J twenty cases ended up running up against trouble because
the very attributes that they were trying to use as
evidence of a conspiracy, whereas evidence of membership in this
conspiracy or participation in this conspiracy are things like belief,
(28:51):
style of clothing, presence in a place that are protected
by the first Amendment and that still matters. Right, doesn't
mean that it always matters. It doesn't mean that it
matters as much as we might want it to. Um.
But we do still have the First and Fourth Amendments,
and trying to criminalize identity as identity without any other
(29:16):
cover right of of identifying a kind of conduct that
is unlawful is going to end up being hard for them.
But that said, Okay, they don't prevail in those cases
in court, but defending criminal cases, dealing with grand jury
(29:41):
subpoenas um, these are stressful. They take a lot of
energy from movements, they take a lot of resources and
time from movements. They're frightening for people. Um. They create
a lot of mistrust within communities. UM. And the fact
(30:04):
is they really take the wind out of the sales
of movements because once a single arrest is made, the
focus is no longer on the message of that movement.
The focus is no longer on whatever that movement was resisting.
It becomes focused now on the criminality of protesters or
(30:26):
the criminality of the people who are seeking a change.
It becomes focused on individuals within that movement rather than
a mass movement or a social movement. Or a set
of ideals, which makes it much more difficult for people
who don't already identify with that movement to see themselves
in it. Right, And so it's not a bad tactic
(30:50):
for Trump to um really foment this fear of Antifa,
whether or not it has any legal impact. At the
end of the day, we're still going to go through
potentially years of criminal cases, of investigations of media that
(31:16):
totally undermine the capacity of large, broad based movements to
focus narrowly on whatever it is that you know, in
this case on racial justice. Right, how much does this
so like one thing that I keep thinking of when
what I'm thinking about, like the worst case scenario for
all this is the Green scare right where you had
(31:39):
this this kind of burgeoning environmental I don't know what
you wanna call environmental justice movement that was heavily criminalized
people who are trying to take direct action in order
to stop the some of the stuff that we're all
seeing the consequences of now. Um and the government went
after these people and through a lot of them in
prison for I mean for a lot of them was
(32:01):
the rest of their lives. A ton of them committed
suicide in prison and stuff is terrible, terrible story. Um,
and it kind of it's part of why, at least
I have some friends who were, you know, activists during
that period of time and who will credit as kind
of why things in a lot of ways started from
zero when occupy hit again, because like so much kind
of institutional memory within our our national protest infrastructure, whatever
(32:25):
you wanna call it, was wiped out by that. UM.
I don't know. I'm just interested in your thoughts on
the matter, because I'm sure you're you're you know more
about what happened than than I do. Uh yeah, I'm uh.
One of my closest friends was incarcerated as a result
of degree and scare, and I one of my clients,
Marius Mason UM was convicted of some offenses that, had
(32:49):
they not been deemed to be politically motivated, Marius would
have gotten I think seven to ten years. Uh. And
because the judge included a terrorism enhancement UM or enhanced
the sentence as a result of his perception that these
(33:09):
these um offenses were politically motivated. Um, he's now doing
I think seven years, right, Um, it might have been
twenty two. I'm sorry. I don't remember right now, but um,
but he's still in prison um as a result of
of the terrorism enhancement, right, and so that word terrorism
(33:32):
really does have a devastating impact. Um. Yeah, I think that. Um.
You know, when we look at state repression of movements,
it goes well beyond just our individual clients, um or
(33:55):
the individuals who are being charged criminally charged in that
moment um. The impacts of that sort of echo, right,
and it does function to chill even lawful speech. Yeah,
that's kind of what I'm that's I'm afraid of. I'm
(34:16):
I'm afraid that I'm angry because it's this you mentioned
gas lighting. I think a little bit earlier feeling that
way by the state, and I feel that way by
the state and the media when I just look at
how certain things are being covered right now. Like I
think I spent a lot of the time in the
field with anti fascist activists, and I've i have known
and seen a number of people do things like chuck
a bottle or two with the police. I've definitely seen
(34:38):
a lot of windows broken. But the number one thing,
like the number one activity that like the number one
activity I think I've seen from from anti fascist activists
has been either handing out free food or what acting
as a protest medic right like that that those are
those are like the two things that I've seen done
the most um. And I've also had actual real life
(34:59):
terror try to kill me with guns and explosives. Um.
And the conflation of those two things, and the fact
that so many people in the in national media are
willing to and I'm not just talking about the Fox
News crowd, Like the Fox News crowd kind of enthusiastically
does it, but so many people outside of Fox News
and what is supposed to be our credible media, um
(35:21):
at least pay lip service to the fact that these
might be the same things. And it makes me feel
like I'm taking crazy pills. Yeah. Well, and it's also Robert,
I want to I want to speak to that because
it does have really serious implications down the road, um legally,
because one of the things that happens is that the
(35:44):
we see this mainstream buy in to this discourse about
antifa or the false equivalency between you know, anti fascist
protesters and the Charlottesville you know, unite the Right people.
So part of the danger of this mainstream buy in
to this discourse about anti fascism and all of the
(36:05):
pearl clushing and horror that are being expressed, I suspect
are way for them to feel like they are preserving
their First Amendment rights and their their ability to protest
in their particular correct, um you know, non violent way, right,
(36:27):
and they're leveraging that discourse of the anti fascist terrorists
or the outside agitator in order to protect their hegemonic
dominance right. But ultimately what they're actually functioning to do
is to provide cover and authority too for law enforcement
(36:50):
to degrade the Bill of Rights as it applies to
all people, um, not just antifa, but two any form
of protest. So I think it's actually extremely dangerous that
we have so much mainstream buy in an attempt to
(37:15):
differentiate the good protester from the bad protester, because ultimately
that is going to come back to bite all of
us in the ass. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a fan of
the thing that's been going around the the graffiti statement
that I've seen at a couple like the chairs, and
(37:36):
then I think in Nashville when they try to set
up an a ton of the zone, they put it
up to um, no bad protesters, no good cops. UM.
I do think there's a big misunderstanding from people when
they talk about a diversity of tactics UM, which kind
of came out of I think St. Paul right, UM.
And it's based on this idea that like, UM, you
(38:00):
a variety of different things are needed UM at a protest,
like not just peaceful protest. And I think everyone's more
or less than the same, but about non violent protests.
But that's not the same as peaceful protests. And that's
a distinction I do see people trying to make. But
I also see a lot of people chanting peaceful protests
UM and and blaming anyone who takes direct action on
(38:20):
quote unquote white anarchists UM. Which yeah, And I don't
really know how it's all going to shake out, like
we're in this one of the problems with having a
movement like is currently UM building in the nation where
you suddenly have more people engaged in activism than I've
ever been doing it in in my lifetime certainly UM
maybe like real damn briefly before the Iraq war, UM,
(38:44):
but that was much more geographically sort of contained. Is
there's this incredible potential for grifters too, and those grifters
are always going to wind up more or less on
the side of the state because the police love working
with the right kind of protesters. Local government loves working
with the right kind of protesters because that neutralizes a
(39:05):
movement that can be dangerous to it. Yeah. Absolutely, Um,
I think it's very dangerous for people to characterize property
damage as violence. There. I mean legally and morally. I
understand it may be a little easier for people are
(39:26):
more obvious or intuitive for people to recognize that, Um,
property damage does not morally justify police violence. I think
the thing that I would like to make very clear
is property damage does not legally justify police of violence. UM.
(39:47):
And I think that that is a point that maybe
has been lost a little bit. Yeah. I think a
lot about continuing force and what justifies violence, UM. Because
I always have a gun on me, UM, and we're,
for example, somebody to cut the fence in my front
yard and and grab, um, you know, a set of
(40:08):
solar panels or something and try to run away with them.
And I were to shoot that person, I would go
to prison. And I would unless I were maybe in
the state of Texas. Then it's a little bit. There's
some I I know there are some times where people
in Texas have gotten off with some crazy bullshit shooting
people in the back in their front lawns, but um,
not in most of the country, right, Like, well, it
(40:32):
depends on who you are. I would like to remind
you about Trayvon Martin. Yes, but you know, it didn't
a lot of a lot of um what's his name
is the terrible painter? Um who murdered him? George Zimmerman
didn't a lot of he made that painting. We all
just forget about the time he tried to become a
painter like George W. Bush. I'm sorry, it's just I
(40:57):
know him as a guy who signed skittle bags and
sold them on the internet. Yeah, that's probably the worst.
Not the guy that sold hit the gun he used
on the internet for two I I do remember, though,
when I was looking at sort of like the media,
how people, particularly in the right wing media, justified what
Zimmerman had done. They all focused on the fact that
(41:18):
there was a struggle, right that, like he was in
fear of his life quote unquote. Um, yeah, so the
engagement started over you know, I guess the fear that
Trayvon Martin was robbing things. But Zimmerman's justification was, you
know he was he was in fear of his life, right, Um,
which I guess is I don't know, Like the police
(41:41):
in my town have said that, like we'll only use
tear gas, you know, in life threatening situations. But like
yesterday they determined like some kids put a bike lock
on a door, um, and they were like, this is
threatening the lives of everybody in the building. And it
was like, guys, it's a bike lock and there's like
four hundred of you outside the building, Like it'll be okay.
(42:03):
I don't know, Sorry, I'm ranting. I mean that usually
means it's time for an ad break, welcome together, everything,
don so, Um, we're back in terms of like I
(42:30):
since I think we've covered everything at least I had
to say about the Antifa matter, I wanted to talk
a little bit about, um, some some police related stuff,
since I think a lot of folks listening to this
will continue to be engaging in protests and I think
we'll probably have another big, real big flare up in
protests probably around August. Um. That's just my my gut feeling. Robert,
(42:51):
Are you in charge of Antifa and the protests. Well,
I'm the ombudsman, um so, I actually I am in
charge of like, uh kind of internal complain points. Um
so yeah. If you if you have an issue with
your local ANTIFA representative or you're not getting your George
Soros checks, you can drop me a line and I
can can help straighten that out. Good to know. Um,
(43:12):
I'm curious about the you know, you seem to have
some inside information about when the protests are, when the
uprisings will dries up, when it's warm, and when everybody's
unemployment runs out, and when eviction protections expire. That's kind
of my that's my inside intel based on looking at
(43:37):
what's obviously going to happen. Um yeah, story, yeah, yeah,
I'll have a fun conversation with the FBI about that,
I'm sure. Um So, there's like a bunch of questionable
police activities, and I think it is important to note
to people, like what you said, they can arrest you
for any reason. There's no such thing really as them
(43:58):
um arrest you, like not being able to legally arrest you.
That's just something they get to choose to do. Like
they can't always charge you. They can't always jail you,
but they can always take you into custody. In terms
of like like like like, we all have our like
our list of of advice for how to deal with
the police if you're stopped in a car or whatever, right, Like,
(44:18):
there's a lot of videos on that. In terms of
if you are I'm wondering what your advice is to
people who are interacting with the police at protests and
situations were like you're being kettled or they're trying to
push a group out of something, and like a riot
line is advancing on you. If there's like kind of general,
generally applicable best practices in your head, I'm curious as
(44:39):
to what you might say on that. Sure, so I
guess I cannot give legal advice, but I should give information,
And what I would say is, um, do your best
to stay calm. Realize that the police are using arrest
as a form of crowd control, and if you get
detained or arrested, you will be searched incident to arrest,
(45:04):
So think about that before you go to a protest.
There is always a chance that you are going to
be swept up, at which point you will be arrested,
at which point you will be searched. And that means
you probably should not bring anything to a protest that
you don't want police officers to look at. And that
doesn't just mean handguns and and drugs. It means maybe
(45:29):
your phone, right, anything that's private you might also want
to shield from view. UM. So I would advise people
to encrypt their phone and to not use facial recognition
or a fingerprint to unlock your phone. Encrypt your phone
and use a passphrase. There are some really great UM
(45:53):
digital security tutorials on the e f F Electronic Frontier
Foundation website. UM. There's a lot of good resources at
mutant Legal dot info. UM. And then if you are arrested,
(46:14):
you know say very loudly, I am not resisting yea,
and then uh, let police officers know, you know, whatever
sort of what we call pedigree information, your name and address. UM,
they're going to find out eventually, and UM say if
(46:34):
they try to question you, I am going to remain silent,
and I want to speak to a lawyer because you
do have a Fifth Amendment right against compelled self incrimination,
which means you don't have any obligation to speak to
law enforcement whatever they tell you. You You have no obligation
to cooperate in a law enforcement investigation, and it is
(46:58):
much much safer for you not to speak to police
officers or federal agents without an attorney present. And you
do have a right to counsel as well. So once
you invoke those rights by saying I am going to
remain silent and I want to speak to a lawyer.
(47:19):
Once you invoke those rights, you have to then remain silent.
That's that's the key there. They'll take advantage of the
natural when someone's friendly to you and nice, even an
intense situation, particularly actually intense situation, there's a desire to reciprocate.
You have to not fall for that ship. The friendly
cops will come out once you're being hauled in, UM,
(47:42):
and they are trying to get you to talk because
everything you said, yeah, yeah, that's correct. The other thing is, UM,
you should not be talking about anything in the moments
leading up to your arrest or anything about planning an
action while you are in custody with any of the
people you've been arrested with on social media to the press.
(48:05):
Do not talk about this stuff to anyone but your
lawyer or your doctor or therapist, because ultimately, anything you
say cannon will be used against you. And that doesn't
just mean things that you say directly to police. It
means things that police can find out. So anything that
you say publicly, you might as well be saying to
(48:26):
a police officer. Yeah. Yeah. UM. So I know that
there's a a sort of pis or it didn't happen mentality.
This is not one of those situations. UM. I want
to also tell people, if you need medical attention while
(48:48):
you're in custody, or someone else needs medical attention while
you're in custody, please advocate for yourself or advocate for
the person who needs medical care. Um. Police have an
obligation to render medical care to get you to medical
care if you need it. Um. What we often hear
is that police will say, oh, it'll take you longer
(49:08):
to get out of custody, don't worry about it. If
you need medical care, get medical care. That both because
both because you deserve medical care and also because you
need to document your injuries. Yeah. That is the only
thing you ever say other than I'm you know, not
(49:29):
going to speak until my lawyer's president or whatever to
a police officer. Yeah, The other thing I would point out,
just based on some stuff I've seen recently in Portlands
during some actions that could interactions that could have gone badly,
is when you are face to face having a any
sort of direct interaction with a police officer, never ever,
ever put your hands in your pockets, not your jacket pockets,
(49:50):
not your pants pockets, hands visible the entire time, for
the love of God, don't put your hands in your pockets.
Don't get anything out of your pocket, like, don't do that.
I think one of the things that I would say
as well is I think it's widely understood now that um,
we have the right to film police officers in the
course of their employment. Right, and that's a really important right. Um.
(50:14):
But you basically have the right to do this within
a reasonable distance, and the people in charge of the
definition of reasonable our police officers. So you know, if
they ask you to back up, I think it's not
only you know, do you sort of back up as
little as possible, but narrate what you are doing. Right,
(50:35):
You can say I'm taking a step back. Anything that
you're doing in front of a police officer, it may
be worth considering. Can I narrate what I am currently
doing UM, so that first of all, so that there
is a record of it, and also because it it
may be soothing UM, and and explain to police officers
(50:57):
that you aren't not a threat because, as UM, I
think you recently did a podcast about UM, the way
in which police officers are educated to feel embattled and threatened.
Being able to UM make clear to law enforcement that
you are not a threat to them UM can be
(51:18):
an important step to take. UM. The other thing that
I would say is, in the same way that we
don't want you to make public statements UM that are
basically discoverable by by law enforcement that could be used
as evidence against you, I would really caution people UM
(51:39):
to be very circumspect about discussing any unlawful behavior in
which they themselves have engaged or even that they witnessed,
because depending on what it is, UM, anyone who ends
up having knowledge, or even someone who is believed, however incorrectly,
(52:06):
to have knowledge of a federal offense, can be summoned
to give testimony before a federal grand jury. And there
are a bunch of uh absolutely lawful grounds for refusing
to give testimony before a federal grand jury. UM but
(52:28):
it requires a great deal of litigation, and that litigation
is almost always unsuccessful. And the consequence for refusing to
give UM immunized testimony before a federal grand jury is
that you can be held in civil or criminal contempt
(52:49):
and confined in prison. UM. So grand jury subpoenas can
be extremely disruptive to movements, even and especially if nobody
collaborates with the grand jury investigation. And you know, I
(53:09):
know that's a very abbreviated explanation of this. And there
are a lot of resources about what a grand jury
is UM and how they work online and some of
them are at that site that I mentioned before, mutant
Legal dot info UM, and it's really worth looking into
(53:30):
those and educating yourself about what a grand jury is
UM and and how they operate UM. But suffice it
to say, one of the ways that UM you can
protect yourself in your community is by not boasting or
uh speculating about unlawful conduct that that you heard about
(53:55):
or saw or engaged in, because it puts you at risk,
and it puts frankly, your entire community at risk. And
I think that's a pretty good note to end on.
So please UM listen to the information that Moira has
provided because I think it's important. UM. And please, UH,
(54:19):
don't talk to cops as a rule, UM, but if
you ever are questioned by an FBI agent, don't lie,
because that is a felony. UM. It is an independent offense. Please.
One of the reasons that I always tell people, and
that we always tell people it's much better not to
(54:39):
speak to federal agents is that if you have a
constitutional right not to speak to a federal agent, lying
to a federal agent, even unintentionally, is a federal offense.
Shower is Where is there anything that you would like
(55:01):
to plug for you? There is actually, UM. The first
thing that I would like to plug is the concept
of not talking to law enforcement. The second thing I
would like to plug is, uh the concept of only
using water to get pepper spray and tear gas out
(55:21):
of your eyes. I would also learn from the people
in the BOH. I would also like to plug the
National Lawyers Guild New York City Chapter Twitter account which
is n LG n y C News and the National
Lawyers Guild New York City Chapter Instagram account, UH, where
(55:47):
there are lots of very beautiful UH informational tiles. UM.
Written by attorneys and designed by amazing black artists and
graphic designers that you can look at and share. And
the Twitter handle for that is at n l G
(56:11):
as in National Lawyers Guild Underscore NYC as in New
York City. Awesome, thank you for sharing all of that
with us. Alright, anything you would like to plug before
give our social meds? No, I've never done anything but
this exact podcast being recorded right now, Sofie, So I'm
not sure what I'd even plug. This is the entirety
(56:34):
of my body of work. Uh well, um, that's fake news.
But uh. You can follow this podcast at Worst your
Pod on Twitter and Instagram. You can follow Robert at
I Right okay on Twitter not Instagram. Robert has a
new series called Behind the Police, which you can listen
(56:54):
to in the Behind the Bastards feed where you can
or we talk about how fucking awful police have been
since the very very very very very very beginning. And
h you can follow Katie Stole who's not here at
Katie Still. You can follow Cody at dr Mr Cody
and um, you can follow me on Twitter at why
(57:18):
Underscore Sophie Underscore, Why that was weird and didn't like that,
but go ahead and follow your heart, yes, out into
the streets and right once again, don't talk to com
(57:39):
everything I tried. Dan. Okay, So during this afternoon's recording,
I managed to say that the clan had a coherent
set of beliefs, when what in fact I should have
said is that the clan has a unitary and authoritative
(58:05):
set of beliefs. I misnamed the jurisdiction in which the
j twenty prosecutions occurred. I said it was prosecuted in
the d C circuit. Um. I think what I was
trying to say was that, um, the U. S. Attorney's
(58:25):
Office for the District of Columbia prosecuted those cases. So um, again,
what it should say is that prosecutors from the U. S.
Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia ran up against
problems trying to make a case for conspiracy. I think.
(58:46):
I also managed to refer to the Instagram handle of
the Analog Underscore NYC account as the Twitter handle, so
again that should be The Instagram handle is at n
l G Underscore NYC. Worst Year Ever is a production
(59:09):
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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