It's A Saturday Morning Bonus Podcast For 06-07-25

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Berry Show.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
We have a duty to keep January sixth alive. President
Trump issued pardons, but that's only the beginning. We have
to make sure it never happens again. One way we
keep it alive is by telling the stories of the
political prisoners, and that's what they were, political prisoners persecuted
by the Biden Department of Justice. We have to find

(00:23):
out who orchestrated it and hold those people accountable. Here
first hand accounts from John Strand and Brandon Straka, two
men who were arrested, jailed, and nearly financially ruined for
simply being at the Capitol on January sixth, twenty twenty one.

(00:45):
They sit down with Prager U CEO Marissa streit It
maybe Street, I hope I'm getting that right to share
why they went to d C, what they witnessed, and
how that day unfortunately changed their lives forever.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Brandon and John, welcome back to Priger.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
You.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
As many of you know, we describe Pegger you as
the clay Pots the truth of what has happened in
American history, and both of you experienced January six in
different ways. And what I would like to do is
to get to the bottom line truth, so that those
of us who have been watching you throughout these last

(01:25):
few years can get some serious answers about what happened
on this historical day in America. So why don't we
start with what brought you to Washington, DC? On January sixth?
To begin with why did you even go there? Brandon?

Speaker 4 (01:43):
I was a scheduled speaker at a permitted event that
was happening on Capitol grounds.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So a lot of people don't know that.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
Originally the plannel along was that President Trump was going
to speak at the Ellipse and there was going to
be a march from the Ellipse to the Capitol, and
that there was a second stage set up on a
lot on Capitol grounds. Dozens of people were scheduled to speak.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
I was one of them.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
So I was on my way to my speaking engagement
when I started getting text messages from people all over
the country, friends and family who were watching on television saying,
we're hearing that there's some sort of disruption at the
Capitol and people are going inside the building. And that's
when my experience began.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
And John, what brought you to DC on January sixth?

Speaker 5 (02:19):
So I'm the creative director at a nonprofit called America's
Frontline Doctors, and the founder was scheduled at the very
same event that Brandon was. So I was in town working.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Who organized this event and what happened to the event?
Did the event just not happened? Why did you go
from an event to the Capitol?

Speaker 4 (02:36):
The event at the Capital didn't happen because while President
Trump was speaking. What happened on January sixth began while
President Trump was still speaking. Which is why it's so
ridiculous that people blame President Trump, because, you know, the
whatever you want to call it, the riot at the
Capitol began while President Trump was still speaking.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Many we did at the Ellipse.

Speaker 4 (02:55):
So President Trump was speaking at the Ellipse, and then
there was which is on my or so from the Capitol, and.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
So there was supposed to be him speaking.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
The march to the Capitol and this second event with
all of these different speakers, and none of us knew this,
of course, because we were sitting outside watching the President speak.
So we just headed to the Capitol to fulfill our
speaking engagement. On the way, at least in my experience,
on the way, I started hearing that something was going on,
there was some sort of disruption at the Capitol. I
don't believe anything that the news says. So my thought was,

(03:27):
I have a large social media following, I've got a
camera in my pocket. If in fact something's happening, I'm
going to film it for myself to put it out
so that people can see whatever it is that I'm
hearing what is actually going on. And so as I
was approaching the Capital from the east side, that's when
I started shooting a video which I shot for eight
and a half minutes or so, and that's the video

(03:47):
that got me arrested.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Okay, so we'll talk more about that, But John, I
want to understand. So you were supposed to be speaking
at a basically a frontline doctor's type of event where
the President was going to speak as well.

Speaker 5 (04:01):
The President spoke at the Ellipse in the morning at
an event that was scheduled far in advance, with a
lot of people participating in it. Then the expectation, and
this was the expectation weeks before the event happened, was
that people would march from the morning event to the
Capitol Building for afternoon events that were closer to the
Capitol Building grounds. So the event that Brandon was scheduled

(04:21):
and that frontline doctors were scheduled to participate in was
that same event. It's called Section eight, was the area
that had a permit and so forth. But before we
even got to the point that you could call a
riot or any other sort of conflict, there was the
capital essentially insurgency, where there's documentation of tactical units in

(04:42):
black and masks and you can't see who they are
who first entered into the Capitol breaking a window to
get inside, and then on opening a door so that
people could walk through, and it devolved from there over
a period of time. But that was while President Trump
was still speaking. So by the time we got that direction,

(05:02):
of course, of several hours later, there were many many
people that had been slowly making their way over towards
the Capitol building, both on the west side and the
east side.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
So both of you were heading towards the Capitol around
the time that others have already made it into the Capitol,
is that correct? From the east side, And Brandon, you
actually have a video of that experience, So maybe we
can just take us through this moment as we watch
the video that you recorded here it is. So you're

(05:32):
walking and this is your camera.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, this is me filming. This is the east side
of the Capitol.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
Now it's important for people to understand the violence and
the destruction and people entering the Capitol had happened on
the west side of the building, the opposite side of
where I was, and it had happened earlier before I
got there. So I'm walking up the east side steps
and this is around two forty pm. So if you
can see right there, those open barricades right there. So

(05:58):
the barricades were open, there were no science, no police officers.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
This illegal. Are you not supposed to cross into here?
There are no there's there are no police.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Officers, correct.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
So I committed my first felony the moment that I
crossed through those open barricades.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Alleged felony.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
I guess well, I was charged. I mean I was
charged with the felony, and the felony was called for
walking through that gate.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
The felony was called knowingly occupying restricted grounds.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
So they claim that I knew by opening walking through
that open barricade, that I was committing a felony offense
of occupying restricted grounds. No one ever explained to me
how I knew it. The government just told me that
I did.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
And so all of these people that are on these
steps of the east Side are.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
All felons, all felons, correct.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well, but there are no police officers around.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
That's correct. That's correct.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
So okay, So you keep walking and and and and
why were you walking in to I guess chronicle as
a journalist.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:59):
Again, I was on my way to my speaking engagement,
and I start getting these messages saying people were saying,
you know, people are going in the buildings.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Something's going on.

Speaker 4 (07:06):
And I thought to myself, as something's going on, I
want to see with my own eyes.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
I don't really trust the media.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Remember this was after about what five six, seven, eight
months of the media telling us that mostly peaceful protests
of black lives matter, as we watch buildings burning to
the ground, I don't believe the media. So I thought
to myself, I have an opportunity to document firsthand with
my own camera, and this is what I saw. So,
I mean, people were making it sound like, you know,
the news was saying something really egregious was happening. I'm

(07:34):
looking around and going fake news because everyone looks very
calm and peaceful as far as I could say, people
riding bicycles. In a moment, you'll see a woman pushing
a baby stroller hardly, you know, attempt to overthrow the government.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
I'm actually looking for police officers, but I don't see
any police officers. Okay, So you keep walking up the steps, right,
and let's look at the next video. As you make
it up the steps getting closer, what was your goal
to go into the building.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, And I'd like to point something out before we
push play on this.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
So right shortly before this moment, I climbed the steps
and at the top of the steps. In my video,
you'll see there's a man there. He's cupping his hands
over his mouth like this, and he's shouting down. They've
opened the doors. They're letting us in. We're going inside,
We're going inside. I repeated word for word what he said,
which I did throughout the video as other people were talking,
because I'm documenting what's happening. And I literally repeated the

(08:27):
words they've opened the doors, we're going in, We're going in,
which is what he had just said. Later, when the
government charged me for January sixth, they removed that context.
And said that I stood outside of the building shouting
we're going in, We're going in, as if it were
my idea, when in fact I went to the top
of the stairs.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
In fact, the doors were open.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
And now you'll see do you know who opened those
doors at the Capitol?

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Would you like to take that? Oh? Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
You also entered through the side the east side.

Speaker 5 (08:56):
They're called the Columbus doors. Now, like I mentioned, the
initial insurgency happened on the west side. Someone broke a window,
hopped in, then opened the door from the inside, et cetera.
But on this side the doors were closed for a
period of time. This is at the point at which
I and my colleague had been a part of the
crowd that kind of made its way up the steps.
It seemed like they were just kind of stand around protesting,

(09:18):
as you can see in that video, was meandering around basically,
but we got kind of squashed in that crowd there
are the steps, and then we were attacked by the police.
Another thing that happened. But a few minutes after that
skirmish was sort of getting more wild. Suddenly the doors
opened from the inside. How did that happen? Well, we
had no idea at the time. Of course, now with

(09:39):
footage we can see that people that had made their
way in, presumably from the west side and come through
the building, had walked up to the inside of the
east Columbus doors and a gentleman, George Tenney, pushed it open.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
So by the time you arrived, those doors were open.
And what was the police instructing you to leave?

Speaker 5 (09:59):
No, there was no at least instructing us of anything.
I was there earlier than Brandon was, so by the
time Brandon got there, the doors had already opened. They
were not opened when I arrived, although the bronze doors were.
So there's two sets of doors on the Columbus entrance,
very ornate, twenty thousand pound bronze doors which had swung open,
and then there's inner doors that are modern and those

(10:21):
were closed with people pressed up against it, essentially wondering
is there something happening in there? Are they going to
open the doors and let us in? That was sort
of the sense you got from the crowd was there
was nothing else to do, because there were supposed to
be speeches and a stage, and none of that was
there when I walked up, So I was a bit confused.
You know, there were Congress people scheduled for that speech,

(10:41):
multiple Congress people, So I was wondering, where are the
Congress people and their security details and the stage that
they're supposed to speak on that I'm supposed to be
participating in. It was not there, but there were a
bunch of people hanging out on the steps, as you
can see that in Brandon's video.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
So, Brandon, did you end up walking in? Let's just
watch this video or quick so we just get a
better sense of sure what the environment was like, I
guess on the west side for both of you, east
side on the east side for both of you.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
Now it's important to remember my camera was fully zoomed
in at this point too. So at this point I'm
actually about thirty five feet away, and in a moment
I zoom out against you can get a proper context
of how far away I actually am. It appeared if
you were to watch this, you might think I was
ten feet away, but I wasn't. I was like thirty five.
I believe that's a police officer right there. It's the
only police officer. Yeah, you'll see, and he, I mean,

(11:33):
does not appear to be particularly resistant to people going inside.
In the plea deal that I signed with the government,
the government said that I witnessed police officers doing their
best to restrain the crowd from going inside the capitol,
but that I charged forward anyway, and did you I
never entered the Capitol on January sixth.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
I never. This is as close as I got to.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Why did you not enter?

Speaker 1 (11:58):
I don't know, I honestly don't know.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
In a moment in my later in my video, a
man comes out of the building, gets on a bull
horn and says they've cleared Congress. Everyone left the building,
Move out, move out, And I immediately turned around and
moved out. I have to assume if I look back,
that because I was there to document, I felt that
there was probably nothing more to document. But the truth
is I still could have gone in if I wanted to,
and I made a decision not to.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
Well, it wasn't that easy to get in. As you
can see, there are a ton of people just in
this small, limited shot, but the greater context of the day,
there were a million people wandering around in that city,
so there were tens of thousands just in this little area.
The congestion was crazy. I mean it was not easy
to get in the building necessarily, or it wasn't easy
to get in the building. It also wasn't easy to
get away from the building. I got caught basically on

(12:43):
those steps. There was an incident where the cops started
aggressively assaulting the crowd. Then the doors opened, and that's
why I ended up getting pushed inside because people wanted
to go inside, but people also were trying to get
away from what was behind them, so I had no
way to get down or out of the steps or
from the building. At that point. The only way, the
only safe place to go was forward through the threshold,

(13:03):
which is what happened. But in my trial, they were
asking me, telling the jury, you can't believe this guy.
He could have just turned around and left. And they
even tried to show video clips of look, there's a
spot in the crowd right here, why didn't you use
that to escape? And it wasn't even the spot where
I was located. That's how dishonest and disconnected and ridiculous.

(13:24):
The whole thing was.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Once you got through the doors and you were inside,
what was it like?

Speaker 1 (13:28):
It was basically like that that video that you're seeing.

Speaker 5 (13:31):
It was just people meandering around like, oh, wow, there's
people inside, and I wonder where we go. And it
was as soon as I walked in, I thought, are
there people in here? And I see, yes, there are
people in here. I saw uniform police officers inside the building.
I saw protesters. I saw people that looked like just
employees and uniforms, and I saw sort of people moving

(13:52):
in various directions, but no specific concerted effort to do
or push or move anywhere, and mostly just there was
crazy behind me because of the contested situation I described before.
In front of me, the doors suddenly opened and it
was a lot calmer that way. So we just walked
straight ahead and into the rotunda.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Were there any sort of marching orders from either side?
Is the president or the police officers telling you what
to do, where to go, to storm the capitol or
to leave the capitol? Did you feel like there was
any sort of marching orders?

Speaker 5 (14:27):
Well from the president's perspective, when people say, oh, Trump
told people to go attack the capitol or whatnot. Like
Brandon said earlier, this was established weeks in advance. That'd
be a morning event. Then there'd be a ceremonial march
to the Capitol for afternoon events. So we did that.
We did the morning speech, it was fine. We did
the ceremonial march, it was fine. Then we got to

(14:48):
the afternoon event and there was no stage, and then
the cops finally came and started attacking the crowd and
things went crazy and it was weird. But there was
no marching order from the president other than we're going
to have a speech in the morning, a ceremonial march,
and then afternoon speeches. That That was the order, which
everyone knew and understood and no one had an issue
with that, but there was no order or directive from

(15:10):
police officers. During the course of the day. There were
very few police officers to be found that a million
people and I don't know how many cops were around,
but not nearly enough.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
You couldn't see them. This is where we get to that.

Speaker 5 (15:20):
Point where we wonder why did they decline the ten
thousand National Guard troops that President Trump authorized because he
knew there would be a lot of bodies. So you know,
there was not anywhere near the requisite crowd control that
such an event would necessitate.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
So you were walking in through these doors and there
are just massive amounts of crowds pushing from every direction.
Are you hearing at all? You need to leave? You
need to leave. Is there any sort of police announcement
saying get out of here? You're not supposed to be here?

Speaker 5 (15:52):
And I was looking and listening for it the entire time. Yeah,
did not see or hear that. When I spilled through
the doors initially entering the Capitol, I looked saw cops
with rifles like rifles in hand, just calm, and people
milling around. And I didn't hear any directive. I didn't
see any indication of what to do or I knew
I couldn't leave because, like I said, I was crushed

(16:14):
from behind and the doors opened. There was nothing to
do except fall inside. I got basically shoved. So once
I'm inside, what do I do? There was no directive.
I simply walked straight ahead and then continued through red
velvet ropes, literally which I by and large stayed within
the duration of the time I was in the building.
And all I did at that point with my colleague
was wonder how do we get out of here? So

(16:36):
we wandered around for a while, trying to find a safe,
appropriate public pathway to find an exit we kind of
dead ended in a vestibule, which I had no idea
what it was or where it was, because this place
is enormous and there's no signage. But I now know
with hindsight that I had inadvertently found my way to
the house chamber. So then this was this very dramatic

(16:56):
moment in retrospect that the the DOJ documented and tried
to make this case that myself and others were charging
into the house chamber to whatever they're accusing people doing.
I did not know that. I just knew I was
stuck in a vestibule. Eventually, a police officer made his
way into that contested area, or I suid congested area,
a face mask on, there's people, there's smoke, there's a din.

(17:20):
I can't hear anything. He didn't approach me directly. He
approached some other people that were further up the vestibule
at the house chamber door. But eventually I could see
he's telling them to turn around, like you can't go
in this door. So then as soon as we had
the space to do that, we turned and went the
way we had come.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
So there is a video that keeps playing through my
mind as you're describing the experience of being inside the Capitol,
which I think many of us have found very surprising.
It looks like people are kind of walking through the
capital almost leisurely, with not that many police officers, and
doesn't look like an actual storming. It just looks like

(17:58):
people are a little confused and am almost led through
the hallways. I want to look at that too and
just have you react to that, because it seems a
little different from what we've consumed in the media, and
the language of storming the Capitol and insurrection has led
most of us to think that there is just complete

(18:20):
and utter constant violence on behalf of anybody who walked in.
So take a look at this and let me know
what am I watching.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
Well, that's Jacob Chancelly, who became known as the q
Non Shaman, and he had actually there's footage of him
standing outside of the building kind of reiterating to people
with President Trump and said, you know, go home, be peaceful,
don't like no violence, things like that. I don't actually
know how he ended up inside the building. At some
point he did, and when he got inside he was
kind of guided around by these police officers.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
They led him to the Senate floor. I believe he
went inside, said.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
A prayer, and then left, and because of the way
that he was dressed, all of that context was left
out when the media reported on his involvement in January sixth,
and he kind of became like the face of the
insurrection because you know, people thought that he looked you know,
kookie or whatever enough that they were like, great, we
can paint this guy as this like psychotic weirdo who

(19:15):
was dressed like this, and that this is he led
the insurrection or was a part of it.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Well, I'm counting eight police officers around him. Why aren't
they just walking him out if they don't want him
in there.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
This is what I think is so frustrating about January sixth,
and it really illustrates I think one of the key
differences between the left and the right. Let's pretend for
a moment, like something similar to January six or January
six itself, happened on the left. Let's say it was
a bunch of leftist people who went inside of the Capitol.
If there were in fact people on the left who
committed violence, broke windows, went inside, fought with police officers,

(19:45):
we would all universally condemn that, but if facts emerged
later that said there was a good number of people
on the left who didn't do those things and found
themselves pretty innocently inside of the building, not really realizing
they were doing something terribly wrong. I think that we
on the right would separate those people out and be like, Okay,
it's not fair to lump those people in with what

(20:06):
the other people did who actually caused a very serious problem.
We were not granted that luxury of being looked at
as people who were not involved with violence or right
violence or destruction or anything like that what they wanted
to do. And when I say they, I mean everybody,
I mean the Democrats in office, I mean the left

(20:26):
wing media or the media, and many.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Republicans as horrible.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
But the overwhelming narrative that was coming down was that
if you were anywhere near the Capitol on January sixth,
you were a part of this violent mob that had
this intention to go in and do destruction and you know,
at one point overthrow the government and try to harm
police officers and all this stuff that bears no resemblance
whatsoever to my experience. On January sixth, I got accused

(20:52):
of a lot of things that I didn't do, and
I even confess to things that I didn't do. But
for the vast majority of people, even people who entered
the building, they wentn't with the most innocent of intentions.
Many of them, I would argue, probably didn't even know
they were committing any kind of a crime, even if
that crime is misdemeanor trespassing. And maybe some people did
know that they were committing a crime. But up until

(21:13):
January sixth, entering a building that you weren't allowed to
go in was a fifty dollars citation. Right, we've seen
numerous instances of left wing protesters going in and disrupting
congressional hearings. They get a fifty dollars citation, and they're
dragged out of the building. They're not called insurrectionists, and
they're not stormed by the FBI and have their lives destroyed.

Speaker 5 (21:31):
Right, that fifty dollars citation is handled not in a
district court, so there's no criminal record or anything of
that nature. And that's the standard. That's the well established
precedent for handling protest issues. So they completely departed from
precedent in many many ways. But that starting point is
actually a really important one.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Well, I'm glad you bring up the fact that there
were some things that happened that were clearly not okay
and clearly you know, criminal to some. I mean, there
are videos that I have watched where I was in
shock to see Americans behave that way. It doesn't matter
if they're from the right arm or the left. You
don't get to climb in through a window at the

(22:12):
Capitol and think that's totally fine to do. And I
would like you to react to some of these videos
that I was watching when I was home a week
after January sixth, condemning and saying that I'm really disappointed
to see this kind of behavior, and let you react
to that and possibly tell me whether these are things

(22:33):
that you witnessed while you're there or not. Okay. So
what are we look This looks like the barricade was open,
people charging. It's a compilation by one of the media
companies hammers, people climbing on the walls. So first of all,

(22:59):
did you see any of that when you were there
on January sixth?

Speaker 4 (23:03):
No, Almost everything you're showing now is footage from the
west side of the building, and this was not the
experience of people on the east side of the building,
north north, or of the south. The other thing I
want to point out too, this is very important. People
like to say, you know, well, if you weren't there
with bad intentions, why were people wearing helmets, Why were
people wearing goggles? Why did people have pepper spray? Why

(23:23):
did people have these things? The reason why is because
January sixth was actually the third major march that had
happened in DC since the election. There was a major
march in November, there was a major march in December,
and then this one happened in January. Everyone was almost
the same, hundreds of thousands of people. And at the
march that happened in November and December, Antifa came out

(23:43):
in droves and were beating the hell out of old people,
mothers with young children, I mean literally attacking people in
the streets as they were walking around DC. So by
the third time that we had this event, people had
gotten wise and they were like, I'm gonna wear defensive gearrett.
People wore helmets, they wore off. They didn't bring those
things because they're like, we're gonna overthrow the government. They

(24:04):
brought those things because they thought we're not safe to
do a march in DC because all the police had
been ordered to stand out by Muryo Bowser, the mayor
of DC, and people were being assaulted and attacked. And
so even though I don't know any of these people,
I'm willing to actually go on a limb and say
I'm not going to condemn anyone who may have had

(24:25):
a hammer or something like that, because I don't believe
that they brought a hammer to go hit members of
Congress over the head with. I think they brought a
hammer to defend themselves if they got attacked by Antifa
on the way to the Capitol.

Speaker 5 (24:35):
And that was definitely why a number of militia groups
were present as well. This is well established documented. You
can ask them these militia groups that have been so
defamed and amplified into these villains like the American Shaman,
like these leaders of the insurrection or whatnot. But these
militias were largely there with the intent to provide protection
and security of bystanders.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
What do you mean by militias?

Speaker 5 (24:58):
Well, for example, the Oathkeepers is a well known group
that was one of the most famous entities in the
JA six prosecutions. When I was doing the ceremonial march
from the Ellipse in the morning to the Capitol grounds
for the afternoon speech, we were chaper owned by several
oath keepers, gentlemen in uniform. It said oathkeepers. It probably

(25:19):
said security to help us get through the crowd safely,
just crowd management. And there were other militia groups. There's
many different motia groups throughout the United States, and they
generally have a core value system of upholding constitutional values
and patriotism. So they were supporting the patriotism aspect of

(25:40):
what was going on on January sixth, but they had
an interest in knowing that because of the previous two events.
Brandon mentioned that there was legitimate danger for protesters that
were at risk from counter protesting, which on the left
has often been very violent.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
But I want to address your question though, too, because
I'm certainly not like a violence or destruction apologist. I
absolutely believe that there were people there on January sixth
who made really bad decisions, and I think it's a
combination of I think that some people made bad decisions
in a moment that they normally wouldn't have made, but
they found themselves in sort of a crowd, maybe even

(26:15):
say mob atmosphere, where something started happening with the crowd
and they got swept into that energy of the crowd.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
That is a very real thing.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
But the other side of that coin, too, is that
we just watched a bunch of moments without a lot
of context, and it's very easy to sort of cherry
pick these moments where people are behaving badly. Maybe they're
pushing a barricade into a police officer. But we now
know after looking at a lot of footage, there were
a lot of people that were standing peacefully on the
other side of the barricades and found themselves being flash

(26:43):
banged for no reason by police officers just standing there.
They were shooting rubber bullets. One man had a rubber
bullet shot into his face. People were standing there really
kind of mining their own business, and they became very
agitated by being flash banged and shot and things like that.
And it was after those things started happening the mob
surged forward and moved the barricades. Am I excusing it

(27:05):
or are apologizing for it? I'm not whatsoever, But I'm
saying it's important to understand the context of why a
lot of things happened because so many people made choices
that day that were not good, choices that they wouldn't
have normally made, but a lot of them made those
choices after violence was instigated against them.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
It's such an important point.

Speaker 5 (27:25):
A lot of those choices, even if they were wise
or not, may have been just instinctive and self defensive choices.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
A lot of that was happening. There were certainly some just.

Speaker 5 (27:34):
Bad choices that shouldn't have been made on the part
of protesters and police officers, but there was a lot
of instinct self defense and conflict that was generated by
government actions before and during if people have not seen it.
The real story of jan six is a piece done
by Joshua Philip and Epic Times where they interview a

(27:55):
government expert that his whole job is assessing the use
of force by police forces, and it is not just
a flippant comment or example here or there. Brandon did
a great job listing out some examples, but there is
a staggering amount of evidence to show that the government

(28:15):
operated wildly improperly, violating established use of force protocols, such
that it's clear what was going to happen I'm not
going to assess motives that they wanted that to happen.
I think you can follow those clues yourself. But there's
no doubt with the actions that were taken, the inevitable
result was going to be conflict. They created a riot.

(28:38):
That's definitely what happened.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
Well, they and at the very least they certainly didn't
make good choices to prevent a riot, or put it
that way, because one thing I do know about Trump supporters,
even if it's a Trump supporter who by nature is
maybe a little bit rowdy or raucous and you know,
maybe not the same kind of constitution you and I
may have if at any point anyone had gotten on
a loud speaker or a number of bullhorns and said

(29:03):
you will be arrested if you walk into the building,
or if you walk past that barricade, you are going
to be arrested, at least ninety maybe ninety five percent
of the people would have turned around and left.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
They would have said to Hi, this is not worth it.
I don't want this. That was never said.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Well, this is why I kept asking both of you
that same question. At any point in time, did you
hear law enforcements say to you go home now.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
I never even saw law enforcement.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
I literally never saw law enforcement on the side of
the building I was on.

Speaker 5 (29:32):
Yeah, I had three exchanges with police officers. They didn't
tell me anything the first couple of times other than
general like this way and we went that way. This
is after I'm inside the building. Before I got in
the building, I could not find in any direction from
a police officer. So to answer your question, no, heard
none of that.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
But at the very.

Speaker 5 (29:50):
End, a police officer walked up to me in the rotunda.
This is after we've been in there for forty minutes
or so, and we're just like doctor Gold that already
given her speech. We're just standing there like when can
we get out of here? And how can we get
out here? And a police officer walked up to me
and he said, hey, I think it's calmed down enough
that we're asking people to start making their way back
to the east door to exit. So we're just asking

(30:10):
you to do that. And I said that sounds great,
thank you, sir, and walked out.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
The Rolling Stone published a piece about you, Yes they did.
Now they've written all kinds of things about you, and
we can get into it. But one of the things
that they reported was that you sent a private text
message that says we stormed at the Capitol and it
was insane.

Speaker 5 (30:31):
Yes, yes, I actually loved this question. So it's really
important to understand the context. Right at the time that
this all happened, I was not expecting to be going
inside the building, and then suddenly the doors opened and
people were going inside and we were getting attacked by cops.
That was definitely insane. So just the unexpected nature of

(30:51):
everything to me was encapsulated by the word this is insane,
what's going on? But the storming word. First of all,
I didn't make that word up. I'd heard people say
saying this in the hours after the event happened, So
that text message was sent hours after the event occurring.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
It wasn't while you were there, No, okay.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
No, it was it was hours later.

Speaker 5 (31:10):
My brother checked in, like he starts seeing the things
on the news and he's thinking, I know, my brother
John Strand is there, and I'm worried maybe you got
hurt or like, what's going on. This seems kind of crazy,
And I said, yes, insane, but we stormed the Capitol
because at that by that point we'd already gone inside
then gone out. I kind of assessed what happened, how
did we get in the building. And the storming word,
I'd heard people use it, but in my mind it

(31:31):
was basically like when you are at a football game
for your high school and you know everyone's there, grandparents,
it's just a huge crowd. You've been waiting for this
game all year. You're behind in the fourth quarter, you
think you have no chance to win in and somehow
they they go the length of the field the last
couple of seconds, they score touch and they win, and
you had no idea what was gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
You storm the.

Speaker 5 (31:50):
Field, you're excited. So I just saw these protesters excited
to be here, a little bit confused, like I said,
there's supposed to be species that didn't happen and whatnot. But
the doors opened and people were in the building waving
their flags and like, well, here's our last stand. We're
protesting a stolen election or whatever their complaint was. And

(32:11):
so storming the Capitol was just this recognition that, oh
my god, all at once, all these protesters just showed up,
all at once inside of the building.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
At any point in time did anybody tell you to
storm the Capitol. No, it's very interesting the way you
describe this, because it almost sounds like the media inculcated
into you that language of storming the Capitol. What are
the chances that you will send a text message to
a private text message to your brother using the term
storm the Capitol? And meanwhile the media is building an

(32:42):
entire campaign with that language. It's almost like they got you.

Speaker 5 (32:47):
Yeah, like I said, I would not have used that
term of my own mind. I had heard a bunch
of people in the hours after the event saying that
probably there were already media reports using the terminology. I
would guess, But I just heard people in conversation storming
the Capitol.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Oh, storm the Capitol?

Speaker 5 (33:04):
And I mean I saw a whole bunch of people
suddenly arrive and then suddenly go in when the door's opened,
which I didn't expect the doors to be opened. I
didn't like, why is the crowd going in the building?
But also why isn't the stage here? And where are
the congress people that we were scheduled to speak with.
I had a lot of questions. Can I address that
word storm too?

Speaker 4 (33:23):
Because it's such an important point that you're making like
the words that we used and the information that we
had at the time that we used them, which we
didn't have any way of knowing later what the narrative
would become and how the words we were using were
going to be misinterpreted on purpose. But I also used
the word storm in a tweet that I had put
out that day. I said something about patriots stormed the Capitol.

(33:44):
I think I said patriots stormed the Capitol from all sides.
I will never forget why I said this. So I
was on the east side of the building. I walked
to the southeast corner, and I walked to the northeast corner.
And when I walked to the southeast corner, I saw
that there were people on the south of the building.
And then I went to the northeast corner, and I
saw that there were people in the north of the building.
And I thought to myself, Wow, there are people on
all sides of this building.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Like I remember thinking that, and in.

Speaker 4 (34:07):
My mind, I thought to myself, wow, patriots stormed. Like
to me, the word stormed with synonymous was surrounded. They
surrounded the capitol. Because people are they want to be heard,
they want to be seen. They want to be recognized.
They stormed the building, and I wrote, patriots stormed the
Capitol from all sides. I literally meant people had there
were so many people there that they had surrounded the building.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
That's what I met when I said stormed the building.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
But it was used against me in court too, and
they said, oh, Strock said, you know, the Patriots stormed
the Capitol, And I didn't have any idea at that
point that I had written that what had happened on
the other side of the building.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah, it's interesting where that word came from.

Speaker 5 (34:44):
In all of you, but I think it was a
media plant word and a part of the narrative building
that was going on. But at the moment when it
happened again, when you rush the football field, the word
to describe that is storming. It simply means everyone's excited
and arrives all at the same time. That's what it means.
The reason that it gets misused here, and they're using

(35:06):
it on purpose, is because storming, when there are no
weapons and there is no ill intent, that kind of
storming is simply excitement. It's a crowd storming as used
by the left wing narrative about January sixth, is that
this was a violent event with weapons to commit an
act of war or aggression. But I'm sorry, flagpoles and

(35:26):
a random hammer are not weapons of war. Like, we
need to be real about this.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
This was a.

Speaker 5 (35:32):
Political protest of excited people that suddenly rushed in the door.
You could say that storming in the sense of storming
the football field.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
That's fine. That's what I texted my brother.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
At what point did you know that you're in trouble
for being at the US Capital?

Speaker 5 (35:45):
Probably when I found myself on the FBI's most wanted list.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
When was that? When did you know that you're in trouble?
The day after the day of when you are walking
out of the Capitol, did you know you did something wrong?

Speaker 5 (35:56):
No, definitely not when I walked out. I can tell
you how I know. I didn't think I did anything
wrong because I just stood there on the steps for
another forty five minutes chatting about it. So normally, yeah, normally,
when when you do something and you know what's wrong,
you don't hang around.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
You leave the scene.

Speaker 5 (36:12):
So we chatted for almost an hour on the steps again,
that's probably when I started hearing the storm phrasing in
different things. That's when I heard a report that Ashley
Babbitt him been shot and killed. I was standing on
the steps after I had after walked out. Famous piece
of video for my trial where some cops walk out
of the building, you know, they had finished up and
were leaving. This is I'm standing on the steps. This

(36:32):
is an hour after I'd gotten out, and I'm clapping
and saying thank you, thank you back to Blue, thank you,
thank you. I'm applauding them. I appreciate them. I knew
that had a crazy, you know, tiresome day. I didn't
know the full extent of what had happened at that point,
but I knew it was chaos, and they used that
to try to show the jury. They froze it at

(36:54):
one point where I was doing a fist pump, like
because I do that when I'm excited, and they're like,
look at this guy. He's angry and insulting the cops
and et cetera, et cetera. They completely lied about all
of this, but I was standing there just talking about it.
So no, I had no idea that I had done
I did not do anything wrong.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Actually, So what did you find out, Brandon that you
were in trouble.

Speaker 4 (37:12):
So that video that I shot, I immediately uploaded it
to Twitter that day, like very shortly after I filmed it,
and then I went back to my hotel room.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
A couple of hours later.

Speaker 4 (37:21):
When it got back to my hotel room, I turn
on my television and that's when, for the first time
I started to see what had happened on the west
side of the building. I had no idea until I
saw it on my television in my hotel. I became
very confused by what I was seeing because I didn't
know if it was something that was happening live like this,
this conflict had broken out after I left, or what
it was. And my hand to God, I never in

(37:43):
a million years dreamed or thought that I had done
something wrong.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
I wasn't worried about that in the least.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
I was worried that my followers would be concerned about
me because I had uploaded this video and they might
be like, Oh, is he there in the middle of
some sort of scuffle.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Is he okay?

Speaker 4 (37:56):
I was like, I don't know what's going on, so
I'm just going to take the video down. I took
the video down, but it had already been copied by
left wing Twitter trolls, who then began posting it every
day repeatedly on Twitter and tagging the FBI and the
DOJ and saying Brandon Strock was there, he was a
part of the insurrection. You have to come and get him.
People kept asking me for weeks, are you worried?

Speaker 1 (38:16):
And I said no.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
I said I don't like this kind of attention, But
I said I didn't break the law.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
So I don't have anything to be worried about.

Speaker 4 (38:22):
I had no heads up anything was going to happen
to me until the morning of Monday, January twenty fifth.
I woke up at dawn two and a half weeks
after January sixth, to a team of FBI agents and
tactical gears storming my apartment at dawn, storming my apartment
at don getting me out of bed, putting me in handcuffs,
the weaponars, and telling me that I was facing multiple

(38:42):
felony charges for what I had done on January sixth,
And they began stripping my apartment of my computers, my iPads,
hard drives, phones, thumb drives, camera equipment, clothing, taking my things,
sealing them in bags, cuffing my hands behind my back
and taking.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Me to jail.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
And then what happened, Well, I.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
Spent two and half days in jail, twenty four hour lockdown,
and then I was released from jail. And when I
was released from jail, the first thing I did the
next morning. I was released in the middle of the night.
The next morning, I went to have a meeting with
my attorney that my work team had found for me
while I was in jail, and he began to explain
to me the situation.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
I said, what the hell is going on?

Speaker 4 (39:19):
And he said to me, well, you're currently being charged
with two felony charges and a misdemeanor. And I said,
what are the felonies And he said to me, well,
felony number one, knowingly occupying restricted grounds.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
In other words, that.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Was when you walk through that open gate.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Through the open barricades.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yes, so, in other words, trespassing on capitol grounds. But
I was being given a felony for that felony number two,
impeding law enforcement. And my eyes bugged out and I said,
what are you talking about. There are no police officers.
There were literally no police officers on the east side
of the building. And my attorney said to me, have
you watched your video? And I said no. I was like,

(39:55):
I've actually never seen it. I shot it, I uploaded
it to Twitter, I deleted it, but I've never and
he said, well, you need to watch it, because he said,
there's one moment in your video where one officer is
walking through the crowd on his way into the Capitol
and he's carrying a plastic shield above his head as
he's walking through.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
And these guys.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
One of these guys grabs the shield out of his
hand and they start passing it around for about thirty seconds.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Then they give it back to him.

Speaker 4 (40:17):
And while that's happening, you hear several voices in the
crowd summer shouting, take it, take it, take this shield.
I didn't even notice any of this was happening because
I was holding my camera above my head like this,
you know, and there were hundreds of people around talking.
It's you know, I'm going like this, but my camera
caught it. So the FBI said, well, that's you. You're
the one shouting to take the shield. That I was
leading the charge to do this, and so they charged

(40:39):
me with a felony called impeding law enforcement, and then
they charged me with a misdemeanor of disorderly conduct with
an intent to disrupt a hearing before Congress. But one
more point I want to make really quickly because John
said earlier normally I don't remember, but you said something
about like, normally people don't want people to see the
crime they're committing.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Or whatever, you know, sing around at the scene. Ap
there you go.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
Yeah, So I want people to really think about this because,
by the way, I took a misdemeanor plea deal, and
I as a part of my misdemeanor plea deal, I
had to say I did those things. They wouldn't offer
me a plea deal unless I confess to doing them,
which I one hundred percent unequivocally did not do.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Didn't do it.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
But yeah, I was like, so, you know, I've had
this amazing career in politics that I never thought was
going to happen, and this career is fueled by the
support of my conservative audience. Without the loyalty and support
of my conservative audience, I would have no political career,
which I love. If there's one thing I know about
my audience, they don't want to see police officers being attacked.

(41:37):
Their law and order kind of people The idea that
I would go to the Capitol, film myself telling people
to take a shield from an officer, and then intentionally
upload that video to Twitter so that my conservative audience
could watch me doing it is so stupid. I'm simply
not that dumb. But what they wanted was to create
the story that the Walkway campaign founder was a violent

(42:00):
anarchist who went to the Capitol toencourage people to assault
officers and encourage people to storm the building.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
That's the story they wanted, So that's the story they created.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
Brandon, what happened once you took the plead deal, which
you say you're not guilty of but you took the deal,
then what were you able to walk away?

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Well?

Speaker 4 (42:20):
No, so I pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge about
ten months after I was arrested. And when you plead
guilty to you take a plea deal with the government.
You also have to sign what's called their statement of offense.
So the statement of offense is essentially the confession that
the government writes on your behalf. Now it's called a
plea deal, But there was no deal to be made
if there was anything in your statement of offense that

(42:42):
you objected to the response that all of us got was, well,
then you're welcome to go to trial. And going to
trial means you go before a DC judge and a
DC jury, because they wouldn't release jurisdiction of any of
these cases. This is a district that voted ninety three
percent against Donald Trump. I say against Donald Trump because
nobody voted for Joe Biden only voted against Donald Trump.
They hate Donald Trump, they hate his supporters, they hate

(43:04):
guys like us. Nobody stood a chance going to trial
in DC, which is why they've gotten one hundred percent
conviction rate on trial for January six cases. So I
signed their completely bogus statement of offense. I got a
misdemeanor plead deal. I was sentenced to three months of
house arrest, three years of probation, fines, fees, community service,

(43:25):
and court ordered mental health services because I voted for
Donald Trump. So obviously I'm insane. But in addition to that,
and we don't have to get into it, when I
signed their false statement of offense, I was then sued
once I confessed to having said the words it take
it to encourage the crowd to take a shield from
an officer a Soros funded nonprofit law firm called Lawyer's

(43:47):
Committee for Civil Rights under Law out of Washington, d C.
This is a non profit law firm that compulsively sues
conservatives and Republicans alleging civil rights violations and racist on
behalf of conservatives.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
They sued me under the KKK Act.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
They went and they found eight Capitol police officers who
are black and brown to be the plaintiffs in their
case and alleged that I am a white supremacist who
went to the Capitol to encourage the mob to attack
black and brown police officers and deprive them of their
civil rights.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
And that's something else I had to go through for
two and a half years.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
What did all of that cost you all?

Speaker 1 (44:20):
In?

Speaker 4 (44:21):
I spent over three hundred thousand dollars defending myself between
my criminal case that civil case, and I was also
subpoened and deposed by the January sixth Committee, so I
had to hire lawyers to go through all of the
discovery and the depositions of the j six Committee.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
Wow. John, Wow, I mean Brandon's story sounds really horrible
until you actually hear John Stony.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
So that's bad.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
Yeah, yeah, if you think that's bad. So John, when
did you find out that you were in trouble? And
what was that like?

Speaker 5 (44:51):
Oh man, that was Martin Luther King Day, January eighteenth,
of twenty twenty one. I was in Beverly Hills working
and the front door was obliterated with a battering ram.
I was assaulted with twenty tactical soldiers in a SWAT
unit with red laser dot sites on my chests. And
I mean I could smell the sweat from the adrenaline

(45:13):
of these officers who were in fight or flight mode
thinking that they might get killed because apparently they were
informed I was a violent, you know, terrorist that they
were attacking. Meanwhile, they were I saw photos at Trial
and Discovery guys in the bushes with surveillance cameras in
the bushes and Beverly Hills surveilling me at home for
a week prior. Wow. But they never gave me a

(45:36):
phone call to say, Hey, can you come down to
the office so we can talk about this now. They
just assaulted us and demolished our front door and disappeared me.
Disappeared me in jail for four years, four days without
a phone call for four days. My mother, my family,
and my attorney. No one knew if.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
I was alive or where I was, so that's illegal.

Speaker 5 (45:55):
They finally found my colleague hired a PI to figure
out where I was the issue to get me bonded out,
So then, of course I knew I was in trouble.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
What were you charged for?

Speaker 5 (46:05):
I was charged with five counts. The felony was fifteen
twelve C two, along with the four misdemeanors that Brandon
described at pretty much everyone.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
And what specifically did they say that you did?

Speaker 5 (46:16):
They specifically said that I was always at the front
leading the charge of this insurrection and framed me as
you know, the Magazinelander.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
General because you were a speaker there.

Speaker 5 (46:28):
I mean I was. I'm the creative director of America's
frontline doctor, so I was with a scheduled speaker and
I was there doing my job that day. The case
that the government made, though, was more related to the
general narrative of a violent insurrection to take over the government.
And you know, my entry into this whole world. I

(46:50):
have been a lifelong actor, fashion model working here in
Hollywood for many many years, was not political, because you
can't be if you're conservative. But in twenty twenty with
the lockdowns to go public in resistance against what I
understood to be tyranny, and that quickly coincided with supporting
the twenty twenty campaign for reelection for Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
So they sent you to jail. Yeah, so just can
you just describe to us how that went down? I mean,
you got three years in prison and four months in
solitary confinement. Is that right?

Speaker 5 (47:20):
Well, they didn't sentence me to that exactly, not to
the solitary confinement, but I diverged from most January sixth
stories at the point where I refused to take the
plea deal. So Brandon's talked about the plea a lot.
We don't have enough time to get into all the
details because what they did with these pleas was very

(47:42):
very evil and very very specific and strategic in what
they did and how they did it in order to
accelerate the pace at which everyone just said I'm guilty,
to accelerate the intensity of those forced false confessions that
Brandon has detailed very nicely. So they built the whole

(48:05):
narrative of many people they're saying I confessed. I knew
in advance I was breaking the law. I knew in advance.
I had the intent to overtake the government, et cetera,
et cetera. This was the story they're building, and they
got a bunch of people with a proverbial gun to
their head to say, yeah, I did this. So I
understood before. Shortly after the event happened, a few weeks

(48:25):
after it happened, I got arrested, I was disappeared four days,
settled down, kind of figured out what is going on here,
and then I got the plea deal presented to me
by the government, and I realized where this is going.
I read that fine print, I read that statement of offense,
and I said, hell no, there's not a chance in
the world that I am going to publicly swear that
I did these things, that I'm going to publicly affirm

(48:48):
the weaponized Department of Justice in what it is doing
to the American people. There is no chance I'm going
to bend the knee to this clear advent of tyranny.
So I told my attorneys and my family and my
colleagues and Brandon, I said, I'm not taking this plea deal.
And everyone's basically said, that's insane.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
What did it cost you to not take the plea deal.

Speaker 5 (49:10):
I mean, I had a golden parachute plea deal in
this case. And this is also pretty unusual. In January
sixth most people, some people had a plea deal that
involved a single misdemeanor and they took it. Some people
had a plea deal that still involved felonies and multiple
years of prison. So a few people went to trial,
not that many, but those who went to trial typically

(49:32):
were facing felonies in years and years of prison either way.
In my case, I was facing twenty three years of
potential prison and a half million dollars in fines with
this felony and the other charges, or I could have
a single misdemeanor.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
Over twenty years in prison.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
I was facing thirty five with much I.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
Mean, they shouldn't. These numbers just sound so massive they're insane.

Speaker 5 (49:52):
Some people had multiple felonies that would have racked up
to fifty, sixty, seventy eighty years of potential maximum prison time.
But I was facing a max potential twenty three years.
But that was the weight of the charges that were
brought against me. Massive, totally insane, and a single misdemeanor
at that point would have more or less been a
slap on the wrist and the whole thing would have
been done in twenty twenty one, like I would have

(50:14):
had my life back for the last two or three years.
So it cost me everything. That was the answer to
your question. It cost me everything I possibly could have
had to give. I knew I was going to be
convicted at trial. It's completely obvious, the numbers bear it out.
But I also just understood again what part of the
movie we were in here. This was not just some

(50:35):
random conflict at a protest. This was a strategized conflict,
and a strategized series of events, and a strategized narrative
storm in the Capitol, all these things that we've been
talking about, these terms that you're hearing, this is part
of a plan. This is part of a story, and unfortunately,
the left is very good at telling stories that advanced

(50:56):
their causes and put Americans in danger.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Going to prison. Yeah, can you just describe that?

Speaker 5 (51:05):
What was prison like? I describe It's very dirty, it's
very depressing, it's soul crushing, it's extremely physically uncomfortable, but
the psychological pain is far worse.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
How long were you in prison?

Speaker 5 (51:20):
I was sentenced to almost three years. I was given
a thirty two month sentence plus thirty six months of
supervise release. I did not take the plea, though, so
I appealed the convictions immediately and pressed my case while
I'm in prison to the Supreme Court, and I won.
And because I did not plead guilty and I won
at the Supreme Court, I was then released after having

(51:41):
served a year three hundred and sixty six days.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
Why did you end up in solitary confinement for four months?

Speaker 5 (51:48):
Essentially because I refused to shut up what I had
been very vocal for the whole two year period before
the trial. So January six happens, but I don't go
to try For almost two years later, I was continue
to remain vocal after having been convicted of by a
DC jury, speaking publicly doing interviews, saying it was fraudulent.

(52:09):
JA six was a setup, and in my case, particularly
all the video shows I did nothing wrong. I pled
not guilty because I am innocent. I knew the jury
would convict me in advance anyway, because it's DC. I
said that publicly in advance.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
I was proven right.

Speaker 5 (52:22):
I continued to castigate a fraudulent system and a dishonest
and very partisan judicial process. A weaponized government. I continued
to expose and highlight this for eight months after trial
before I was sentenced. That's insane. Any attorney will tell
you once you're convicted and you have not yet been sentenced, Zip,

(52:44):
it doesn't matter how what is it you are, don't
urge the judge to hurt you any more than he
has to. But I didn't do that because it wasn't
about me or the sentence. It was about the truth
and how Americans were being sabotaged by their government. So
when I finally got to sentence, the judge was furious.
He said it from the bench that I'm sending a
message that this can never happen again. People cannot basically

(53:07):
do what I had done, which was to speak publicly
and criticize the government.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
They made an example out of you.

Speaker 5 (53:13):
Yeah, that's the textbook definition of fascism. The government said
from the bench, he said, I'm going to send a message.
If you criticize the Washington DC court system, you go
to prison for years.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Is what happens.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
What was it like in solitary confinement.

Speaker 5 (53:30):
That's a really hard question to answer, at least in
a brief moment.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
It was terrible it.

Speaker 5 (53:38):
Would be very easy to despair and find yourself not
believing you could survive that. People commit suicide in those
circumstances quite frequently. It was horrific. It was kind of
like imagine if you were on a submarine. So you're
in a very tight, condensed environments, all metal. It's harsh,

(54:00):
it's uncomfortable, it's kind of nerve racking, and you are
in some hallway and somebody kind of knocks or trips
you into this door and suddenly the door shuts and
you realize it's locked from the outside. And you're in
this closet on a submarine, and you're banging on the door,
like what happened? Let me out of here? No response,
no answer, and then suddenly you hear this sound. Suddenly

(54:21):
you realize the submarine is sinking, it's submerging, and then
it hits the bottom.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
That's what it felt like emotionally and mentally.

Speaker 5 (54:29):
Yeah, you keep hanging on the door, No one answers,
You're trying to windows. You have basically that books. I
did get a few books that was life saving.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah. I made sure I got a Bible.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
What did you read when you're in solitary confinement.

Speaker 5 (54:44):
I read the psalms a lot. Yeah, I say the
psalms felt three dimensional as I read them.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Did your family know you're in there? Were you able
to connect?

Speaker 4 (54:55):
I had no idea. I knew nothing about anything. We
didn't know, nobody knew. We tried for months. We just
didn't hear from him.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
We just didn't know what was going on, and then we.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Couldn't get answers. No one would answer. I knew nothing.

Speaker 5 (55:06):
I knew absolutely nothing except I had done an interview
with Grant Stinchfield, who has been a stalwart supporter from
the beginning, just saying what happened to you?

Speaker 1 (55:14):
What's going on?

Speaker 5 (55:16):
So I had done an interview from in prison, just
on the phone, as far as I understood, it was legal.
I had registered that contact according to the prison procedure.
So I just made a normal phone call, had an
interview thrown into solitary shortly after.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
Oh, that was the punishment that you spoke to the
public while you were in there. Was that illegal to
do or No?

Speaker 5 (55:37):
The prison will claim that there's a process by which
you have to ask their permission or whatever, and that
I didn't follow the process. They didn't tell me what
the process was, they didn't tell me anything.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
So speaking to the media from prison is what sent
you into solitary constructly what got me there? Yeah, did
you have a sense of time in solitary confinement? Did
you know you're there for four months? Did you know
how long you'll stay there?

Speaker 5 (55:58):
I mean I found a piece of paper and a
prison pen which is like this and scratched off scratch
marks day by day.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Could I say something on your behalf?

Speaker 4 (56:08):
He and I have talked about his experience in solitary confinement,
and I don't know, maybe there's things you just don't
even want to think about or talk about. But I
mean John's described screaming all night long, like a screaming
from around you that never ever stops, and the being
on the brink of losing your sanity because you can't
have a There's not a moment of quiet. There's not

(56:29):
a moment where people And forgive me for saying this,
but I mean he's described like the people around him,
like like he was in a cage surrounded by animals.
I mean, like like just the shrieking and screaming of
animals that doesn't stop for four months. I mean, I
don't know how you wouldn't lose your mind the prison?

Speaker 3 (56:45):
Did you not lose your mind?

Speaker 5 (56:46):
The prison guards or despair. There's a group of guards
called the Sis. It's there invest It's like the swat
team in prison basically. And these guys threw me in
an interrogation room and were interrogating me. This is like
a scene out of a movie. Asking you what they
were not asking. They were accusing me of crimes. They
were accusing me of planning additional criminal activity in citing violence.

(57:10):
It was insane. And they said, we're throwing you in
the hole. And if you think prison has been bad,
just wait until you have a few weeks in the shoe.
They're like taunting me, They're bragging about how they're going
to abuse me in there. They told me, this is
the worst shoe in the country. This is MIAMIFCI since
the worst solitary unit in the country. The people in

(57:31):
there are like animals. They're all competing about who can
be the worst piece of garbage. And they never stopped screaming.
And he wasn't lying. They never stopped screaming in there.
It was animalistic, it was savage, it was demented. I
felt like a corner of hell in your imagination and
you couldn't get out.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Why do you think they punished you that way? Were
you targeted in particular for this January sixth? Is why you?
And why so severe?

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Two things?

Speaker 5 (58:06):
Number one J six ers were targeted in general, many
different examples of this. The way that they transported us
was overly harsh. The assignment of the prison was improper
and overly harsh. BOP policy is extremely well documented. Exactly
who goes where and why I was rated for a camp.
Actually I actually requested that specific camp in Pensacola because

(58:29):
I now reside in Florida, so that was the territory.
The judge said, yes, put that on the record. That's fine.
But they didn't put me in that prison. They put
me in a much more dangerous, violent, terrible prison than
that camp. Why why to persecute me, to abuse me?
They did this to many J sixers, but in my case,
particularly in that terrible prison, they made it far worse
by putting me in this isolation environment. But it's because

(58:51):
I continued legally, peacefully appropriately to say I won't back down,
I won't sense silence myself, I will not sell censor
I still have constitutional rights. I'm an innocent American, wrongfully accused,
unjustly imprisoned, but I am respecting due process. I self

(59:12):
surrendered myself to that prison. They didn't drag me in there.
I walked up in a suit and said, here I am.
But I had an appeal which I continue to litigate
with my attorneys while I'm in prison. So I continued
to speak and to represent my values and to do
my part to stand up for this country. And they
didn't like that. That was not part of the JA

(59:34):
six program. The point of JA six was to destroy
and demonize people like Brandon that are champions for constitutional
rights and American values. It is to silence Americans who
in their heart know what they believe, they know it's right,
and they want to stand up for that, or they
at least want to share their opinion about it, and
they feel endangered. That's what JAY six was about, was

(59:55):
fear and silence and endangerment of Americans who who truly
believe in preserving constitutional governance in America.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
Who gave you hope, if at all, that the nightmare
will end.

Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
That was definitely God and God alone. Solitary particularly was
it was truly horrific. As an artist, I've struggled at
various times in my life with depression and other forms
of just wrestling with who I am and with where
God is and how to deal with difficult situations. I

(01:00:32):
felt some of those things resurge while I was in solitary.
I felt very vulnerable. I felt very endangered by the
trauma I was experiencing and what it could trigger and
unleash to put myself in a very dangerous situation.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
So I prayed, and.

Speaker 5 (01:00:50):
I just begged God to do what only God can.
Just protect me when no one else can protect me,
keep me hopeful when I am losing hope day by day.
There is a cumulative effect to this time. A day
in solitary is not the same thing as a week
in solitary, and a week in solitary is not the

(01:01:11):
same thing as a month in solitary. It's every day
that goes by is infinitely worse than the last day.
Another thing, I don't know if I told you, but
they violated their own rules so many times.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
The BOP.

Speaker 5 (01:01:25):
The BOP is the Federal Bureau of Prisons, so it's
federal management of the prison system for federal crimes in
solitary per BOP rules, you were required for every inmate
to have a phone call at a minimum of every
seven days. It doesn't sound like a lot, and when
you're in such miserable conditions, you need anything that you
can get in terms of humanity and just having hope

(01:01:48):
to survive. But when you're in solitary confinement, that phone
call seven days later is the difference between life and death.
You would scratch somebody's eyes out to get that phone call.
By the time at day six, you'd scratch your own
eyes out to have that phone call. It's the only
thing that matters. They would never let me have that
phone call. So as the days grew into weeks, and

(01:02:10):
I didn't hear from anyone, and I had no idea
if I'd be in this hole for three years. I
had no idea if my parents were still alive. I
had I knew nothing. I had no access to information,
just despair and pain and trauma and anger and terror.
So I prayed a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
Did your attorneys continue to work for you. I know
that we never stopped hearing from Matt Gates about your case. Yes,
she was very active in doing what's right by you, Yes,
how did that unfold while you're in there.

Speaker 5 (01:02:46):
I'm deeply indebted to Congressman Matt Gates and very proud
of the work that he's done as an American and
as a Congressman. Very grateful and proud of the courage
and the hard work of my attorney, which included doctor
Gold who's an attorney, as well as a number of
other attorneys that have worked with me throughout the course
of this saga. They worked relentlessly during this period. I

(01:03:10):
had testified along with Brandon at a congressional hearing on
J six weaponization that Congressman Gates hosted, so he was
aware of some details, and my legal team reached out
to him, as well as Congressman Clay Higgins, who's also
been really strong on this issue. And I was later
in a Louisiana prison, which is in his district. But
at this time, Congressman Matt Gates really went to the

(01:03:33):
mat for me. When I was vanished, no one heard
from me, like Brandon said, like what happened to him?
So he Congressman Gates actually spent his entire five minutes
at a secondary hearing that happened later where they forced
the director of the Bop call at Peters to come
in an answer for what was going on. He spent
that entire time asking what happened to John strand where
is he? What's going on in that place? So he

(01:03:55):
scheduled a meeting to go make sure I was okay
and actually visit me, And then they whisked me out
of the middle of the night right before he got
there to avoid accountability. Is essentially what they did, of course,
which was disgusting and very rude to the congressman. But
he forced the issue and got me out of that hole.
It saved my sanity.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
I'm very grateful, and Brandon, I know that there are
many people who have continuously supported you throughout the years.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
Yeah, well, it's important to remember I think that, you know,
part of the reason why January six turned into what
it turned into is because we lost control of the
media narrative, and we allowed the left to completely dominate
the narrative. And there were a lot of people on
the right who, despite the fact that they loved having
me on their shows and their networks or whatever prior
to January six, cut me off entirely after that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
But I want to really pay homage.

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
I think and honor the people who didn't do that,
and that's people like Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson, Laura Trump,
Laura Ingram, Mike Huckabee, Eric Metaxis. I mean, I'm sure
I'm leaving out a good number of people, but these
are people who, without hesitation, said no, we want to
give you a platform to share your story and what

(01:05:04):
you went through mattered. And please don't think if I
didn't say your name that I don't include you in
that list. But off the top of my head, those
are some pretty high profile people who had, I think,
a lot to lose by associating with people associated with
JA six early on, but didn't turn their backs and
offered a platform to get the truth out.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
And I will love them and respect them forever for
doing that.

Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
Yeah, Eric Matexas was a real hero.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
Eric Matexas is definitely one of the good guys.

Speaker 5 (01:05:31):
Yeah, he stood up for me too, and he's been
he's been preaching the truth on JA six from the
beginning without apology.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
Brandon, how's it been since the pardon?

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
Well, the best part for me about the pardon has
been that it nullified my plea deal. So you know,
one of the really difficult things for me was having
to confess to things that I didn't do and not
to be able to even publicly say that these things
are not true. Thankfully, most conservatives and ninety nine percent
plus are very intelligent and know what the media is,

(01:06:07):
know what the government is, know what the Democrats are.
So I had very few people believe the statement that
I had signed, But that doesn't take away the fact
that that I have been taunted relentlessly by the left
for taking for the statement that I sign. And by
the way, most of the people on the left also
know that it's not true. But they the same people

(01:06:27):
who are crying Donald Trump's a fashit and Donald Trump's
a dictator, absolutely love that Joe Biden's DOJ forced people
to confess to things that they didn't do and rub
in their face that the government made you say that
you did things that you didn't do. So I've been
kind of going through that for like four years, not
to mention all the trouble it caused me being sued,
being permanently banned by PayPal, Venmo, Stripe, email services, donor

(01:06:50):
portals banks. I mean, all of us were really unpersoned
in just about every way that a person can be
unpersoned in the digital age, not to mention ostracized by
our communities.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
We have five.

Speaker 4 (01:07:01):
January sixth defendants who committed suicide rather than continue to
go through the torment of what people have.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
Had to go through.

Speaker 4 (01:07:08):
But what the pardon did for me was took off
the table the risk or the threat that by coming
out publicly and saying unconditionally I did not do the
things that I confessed to doing on January sixth, that
I couldn't be further prosecuted or putting myself in danger.
My judge, Judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington, d C. I

(01:07:29):
would like to see all of these judges unseated. I
hope that they all get what's the word peached?

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
Thank you? Why do I always forget that word? They
definitely I hope that they all get impeached.

Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
But Dabney Friedrich called me into court many many months
after I had already served my sentence and done my
plea deal because I began speaking out in the media.
I didn't overtly say that my plea deal was a lie,
but I was saying things like please watch my video
and ask yourselves. Does that sound like my voice saying
take and take it just a fair question. Called me

(01:08:00):
into re courtroom and said, I'm getting disturbing reports that
you're doing media interviews that could be construed making statements
that are could be construed as contradictory to your plea deal.
And if you don't want to be facing more felony
charges of one thousand and one lying to official to investigators,
federal investigators, you better stop making these statements, which, by

(01:08:20):
the way, was extremely chilling and terrifying. And I did
kind of go through a period of time where I
was like, should I continue speaking out about this? But
I did continue. But now I can unequivocally say these
things are not true. I didn't do these things, and
that is extremely liberating. I mean, even though I didn't
go to prison, go to solitary confinement, whatever, I feel
like everything I experienced would have been appropriate if I

(01:08:41):
was being accused of manslaughter or something, you know, like
if I hit somebody with my car and killed them
to be criminally charged civilly sued go through all this
like that would make sense standing outside the building for
eight minutes and shooting a video like or.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
What you described to me, sounds like a punishment for
somebody who entered the Capitol with a gun.

Speaker 5 (01:09:02):
In their hands.

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
Then I would say, wow, you know you need to
be locked up, But to go there and just speak
and then be chaperoned in and out.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
And I was.

Speaker 5 (01:09:13):
Literally there doing my job, Like you know, I wasn't
even there to be a protester. I was a director
and a you know, a chaperone of a scheduled speaker.

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
So with a permit, Yeah, you had a permit to
go there.

Speaker 5 (01:09:27):
I told my lawyers and everyone if they if they
were going to even make a pretense that this was fair,
they would have found the one guy that they would say, oh,
he's not actually guilty. That would have been me.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Yeah, Like what more?

Speaker 5 (01:09:44):
They could have placated their leftist base.

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
What happened to say, like you actually jumped through the
window because there were people on the west side, I.

Speaker 5 (01:09:52):
Think those are I think those are government operatives. I
don't think they were charged. They weren't identified people that
broke through the windows in the side. Early on.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
There is a video that I was watching where you
see people people from the west side of the Capitol
tackle gear going in through the window. What happened to those.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Speeds an organized military insurgeon unit.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
That was from earlier in the day. That's what you believe.
You believe that it was organized because those where are
those people? They would have been pardoned right now and
we could be talking to them. Correct, So these people
who walked in through the window are nowhere to be found.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:10:26):
I know a girl, I think that was on the
east side of the building and she entered the Capitol
through a broken window.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Sorry I'm laughing, but you know, I mean you kind
of have to laugh right after it was broken. She
broke it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:37):
But I guess the point is, like it just shows
again the disparity of how nothing makes any sense because
this girl actually went into the building. She entered the
building by crawling into a broken window. And she was
sentenced to two months of probation. That was her total sentence,
two months of probation. He goes to prison for almost
three years. You know, I get cross her and rest
and you know, all this other stuff are not even

(01:10:58):
entering the building. And I'm glad by the I don't
wish she had it worse, Like I don't wish that.
But she walked into she went into the Capitol through
a broken window.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
And the more famous you are, yes, the worst punishment.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
And they said that out loud.

Speaker 4 (01:11:11):
It's not even speculation. I mean they were punishing people
who had influence. Basically, they said, if you had influence
and you were anywhere near this thing, you should have
known better. And we're going to teach you an extra
deterrent because there's a responsibility for having influence.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
And you, you know, you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:26):
You broke the trust of that responsibility or however they
want to view that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:11:30):
But again, the judge literally said, I'm sending a message
because you have been running around the country telling people
that the DC court system is corrupt and unfair, which
it is.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
And Exhibit A was my trial.

Speaker 5 (01:11:41):
So he said, I am going to punish you more
harshly for the crime of criticizing the government.

Speaker 3 (01:11:48):
That really sounds like communist China.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
That's what it is.

Speaker 5 (01:11:52):
It's it's communism, bascism, all of these you know, totalitarian
concentrations of power in a single source that says do
what I say or I'll crush you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:12:02):
And so, as an American citizen, I didn't do anything wrong.
I'm supposedly supposed to have due process. During the course
of time, I continue to articulate with free speech, the
First Amendment right that I have, that I am innocent,
the government's guilty, they're corrupt. There's evidence here, check it out.
See what you think. That's all legal, that's all appropriate.
But then that was that was used as evidence that I'm,

(01:12:24):
you know, a worse criminal than anyone else.

Speaker 4 (01:12:28):
And every single one of us were punished for speech
like I didn't know that many J six people before
j six, now after I know dozens and dozens.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
I've heard all of their stories.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
I know we all share this common experience that we
were in court with these judges. And I'm not even
paraphrasing this is literally, like word for word, what the
judges said in nearly every case. We're not going to
punish mister Strand or mister Strock for his speech. He
has First Amendment rights. However, mister Strock said, you know,

(01:12:58):
patriots stormed the Capitol from all sides, and mister Strock
said blah blah blah blah, and these statements indicate that
mister Strock doesn't take the events of January sixth seriously,
and therefore we're going to teach him a deterrent. So
it started with you're not gonna be punished for your speech,
but you said this, and that's why we're gonna punish you.

Speaker 5 (01:13:14):
The gas lighting was insane, insane black robe gaslighting, and
it was over and over and over again every one
of these trials. You can go through the transcripts, you
can see what was said, and they said, this isn't
about political Judge Cooper, my judge, this ain't about free speech.

Speaker 6 (01:13:31):
But you said this, and you said this, but then
the entire thing was based on tweets and private text messages.
My judge admitted, there is no evidence of you actually
doing anything because I didn't do anything. He said, it's
kind of tough to prove criminal intent. He said that,
like in the book, I go through transcript lines and
it's unbelievable what he admitted on the record. And yet

(01:13:56):
but I'm going to put you in prison for almost
three years.

Speaker 4 (01:14:02):
Well that's why I think the community that we kind
of found with each other after the fact is so important,
because we do sometime like if I were just sitting
around talking with people who didn't know much about January second,
probably wouldn't be laughing but when we're around each other,
we will laugh about the most horrible things that happened
to us because we all experienced it.

Speaker 5 (01:14:16):
And we didn't get a chance to say this earlier,
but Brandon and I met each other in the course
of that crazy year of twenty twenty, with the lockdowns
and the re election campaign for Trump. I was leading
a freedom rally in Beverly Hills that grew to tens
of thousands of people right here in LA you probably
saw this, and so we walk away did an event
in Los Angeles, so we combined and had thousands of people.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
It was Oh, yes, I know which one it was.

Speaker 5 (01:14:40):
It was amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
It's huge.

Speaker 5 (01:14:42):
And so we met that damn person. I'd known him
from Afar, really loved the work he was doing, and
but we just we clicked. And then we went through
this war period of all these things that happened, and
then after the January sixth arrests and we're figuring out
what's going on, there was some space and then we
kind of reconnected, and then we've really helped just support
each other through the endurance of all these things. So,

(01:15:05):
you know, figuring out how to go to trial and
figuring out what's going on with all these media attacks
and the judge leaked documents that caused even more negative
effects for Brandon and then I go to prison. I'm disappeared.
Like it has been, it's been insane, But I mean,

(01:15:25):
I'm so glad that we have each other and that
we've been able to to support each other.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
And just experience has been everything. Yeah, the.

Speaker 5 (01:15:33):
Battle tested friendship that we have and the relationships that
we've developed with other J sixers is it's forged and fire, truly,
and it's a really special bond and connection and opportunity
that we have to.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
Aside from the pardon, which is obviously very significant, probably
everything is the White House doing anything else? Is there? Like?

Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
So yeah, we hope that we hope that the White
House will.

Speaker 5 (01:15:58):
Reach out and really honor the Jase have an event
of some kind. Like I said, I think we need
to have some memorialization. I think there should be a
memorial in the Capitol building establishing a history. Now we
need more of the truth to come out. This is
where we get back to the Cash Hotel and Nambongino conversation.
They need to really get their sleeves rolled up and
get to work I believe they will. We will be
helping to support and push that charge in the court

(01:16:22):
of public opinion and building public support for that. The
RJ six movement is really important to help establish the
need and the truth and public demand for restorative justice,
which includes victim recovery, but a government accountability.

Speaker 4 (01:16:36):
You know, and there has to be some sort of
like financial restoration first of all, just from a practical standpoint,
because a lot of these people that even though they
were treated like terrorists and classified as terrorists, were people
in their sixties and seventies, you know, with no prior
criminal record.

Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
They'll never recover from this.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
People who they lost their life savings, their homes, their cars,
everything that they had, and they're old like they can't recover.
So from a practical standpoint, it has to be done.
But you know, all of us kept hearing for years,
you know, we need to be taught a deterrent.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
We need to be taught a deterrent.

Speaker 4 (01:17:09):
I believe the government needs to be taught a deterrent
to never do this to anyone ever again. And if
that means, you know, hitting them hard with some sort
of compensation package that they need to offer the people
that they did this to I think that's the deterrent
that our government should be taught to make sure that
they never do this to people again.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
And also for the public to recognize. Right.

Speaker 5 (01:17:29):
I think we have to have a national reckoning with
January sixth, you know, start to finish. We need to
get completely to the bottom of everything that happened, how
and why it happened. It's really critical because you can't
have a country built on lies, and we've been operating
in this wartime environment with this issue about attack on
democracy and all of these inversions that are the opposite
of what's going on, you know, and we see Elon

(01:17:52):
Musk pulling the curtain back on the government how it's
been operating, and we realized for decades the government has
been stealing all our money and then running all these
scams with NGOs and shell game to basically hollow out
the middle class and keep an entrenched bureaucracy rich and
in control. So we have to have a national reckoning
with these things. January sixth has been a big part
of that attack, and I think we need to, you know,

(01:18:13):
to come to terms with that as a nation.

Speaker 3 (01:18:15):
Will be interesting to see what comes out.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
Yeah, and they need to have a Republican Select Committee.
I believe they said they were going to do that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):
And I have to believe that Donald Trump himself has
enough skin in the game to want to see that happen,
since he was basically blamed for the entire thing.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
Right, But.

Speaker 4 (01:18:31):
Yeah, I mean there's still who's the pipe bomber? Right,
Who's the J SX pipe bomber? Like do we ever
get to find that out?

Speaker 5 (01:18:36):
Like this and this Pelosi's fixer guy, I want to
learn more about that. I mean, we know Pelosi declined
the ten thousand National Guard troops. We know she and
Mark Milly essentially conspired to set up the ground for
this to occur. So how are we not talking about that?
Why are we not demanding accountability for officials in the

(01:18:59):
highest positions of power and leadership that are supposed to
literally safeguard our country and clearly acted in a way
to cause this kind of thing to happen. Liz Cheney,
get this, Liz Cheney, this is not my opinion. This
has proven. Congressman Ludermilk says, I have the receipts. It's
open and shutcase. She violated the exact twenty year felony

(01:19:23):
statute that they put me in prison for. It's fifteen
twelve c. Two that they put me in prison for
that fifteen twelve. The title of the statute is tampering
with a witness, victim or informant. She tampered with a
witness and destroyed evidence, two different counts of fifteen twelve
that Liz Cheney violated.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
That's a good point. Yeah, she should be facing forty years.

Speaker 3 (01:19:43):
How So what did she specifically do.

Speaker 5 (01:19:45):
She tampered with a witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, and she destroyed evidence,
altered and or destroy It's gone, it's destroyed.

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
So Tassie Hutchinson is the witness to claim that she
knew that had tried to attack his driver on the
way to the Capitol and that whole story about trying
to crawl for it. But we now know that Liz
Cheney had contacted her in advance of her deposition before
the January sixth committee and that they had have private conversations,
which is completely unethical and not supposed to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
And then yeah, they it's.

Speaker 5 (01:20:19):
An explicit example of tampering with a witness, which is
a violation of that twenty year felony statute.

Speaker 4 (01:20:26):
And one thing I'd like to say too, which is
really interesting. When John was trying to decide what he
was going, well, he knew, he always knew he was
going to trial. He never wavered from that. I went
out of my way to try to talk him out
of it, and he knew. He's not a stupid guy,
He's incredibly smart. He knew he was going to be convicted,
he knew he was going to be found guilty, and
he knew what was the road in front of him.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
He could not take a bleed deal.

Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
He couldn't lie, as he kept saying, bare false witness
to say that he did these things that he didn't do.
But what's really interesting is we're two people of a
very similar nature who took various different paths in this journey.
And I think that we both look at what the
outcome was like for each other and don't regret our choices.

(01:21:09):
I look at I could have gone to trial, I
could have experienced what he experienced. I'm glad I didn't.
I'm glad that what happened to him didn't happen to me.
And I think that vice versa. He looks at what
it's done to me to confess to things that I
didn't do, and I'll never be the same person I
was again. I mean, it's the toll it takes on
a person mentally, spiritually, and in every way to say
that you did something you didn't do. You can't really

(01:21:30):
recover from that. And I think that as horrible as
the hell that he went through was, I think he would.
I think he still probably feels like, You're glad you
didn't take a plea deal.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
Really, John, you don't regret it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
Not for a single second.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
Ever, What if you could go back to January fourth
and never be in DC during that time?

Speaker 5 (01:21:47):
So, I mean, the Bible says that we should be wise, right,
So if you have advanced intel to avoid a potentially
dangerous situation, it's definitely worth considering if you should make
a wise choice or whatnot. So I'm not saying I
would just dive in because I love all the insanity
of it or whatnot, but assuming that I had no
way to know that, which no one did. Of course,
I'm very grateful for and very proud of everything I

(01:22:10):
did that week, that day, and and then and my
choices thereafter.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
Do you have more faith in the FBI and our
justice system now that no things have changed, have things
changed at all?

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):
I have?

Speaker 5 (01:22:24):
I have no faith that is not earned from the government,
and the government has.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Been incredibly what's the word, what is the The.

Speaker 5 (01:22:36):
Government has been an unbelievable failure, disappointment, and a danger
to its own citizens. I am exhibit A literally, So
I'm not saying that I don't have optimism and hope.
I certainly do. I support President Trump as strongly as
anyone in this country. I went to prison for him.
I would do it again. I believe strongly in his

(01:22:58):
cabinet that he has chosen and the picks that is selected,
in particular Cash Betel and Dan Bongino. I think that's
very very good sign. So I'm hopeful, But no, do
I currently view the FBI as a terrorist organization. I
have said that publicly many times, and I mean it,
and so I'm hopeful that that changes quickly, but it
needs to. But that's, you know, that's the honest answer

(01:23:19):
of where I stand now.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
What does the next chapter in your life look like?

Speaker 5 (01:23:23):
Mine could be all kinds of things. I'm very excited about.
I'm very excited about the book that I wrote in prison,
which is called Patriot Plea. You can pre order it
now at Johnstrand dot com. And I really hope, Marissa
that you will read this book. It will blow your mind.
I spare no expense on the details, and it's just

(01:23:44):
an insane story of kind of where God has brought
me to this point and then what happened with January sixth,
then everything after. It's also a really interesting call to
courage and call to patriotism for you know, people of
my generation. It's time to really step up to the
plate of what it really means to be an American.
And that's why I have hope about reforming the FBI

(01:24:06):
and reforming the government, because I believe that there are
people like Brandon and myself that have what it takes,
and that have a calling and have a responsibility and
a duty as a citizen that we are totally capable
of taking. So I'm excited about sharing that message and
really to continue to advocate for the restorative justice that

(01:24:28):
needs to happen for our nation overall. Related to January sixth,
certainly victim recovery for people that have had their lives destroyed.
There are over fifteen hundred people that were arrested. Their
lives have been devastated beyond comprehension. Brand and I are
both working on a project right now called we arejsix
dot com that is doing a lot of work to

(01:24:48):
help expose the false narrative, educate the public about what
really happened. Share with the public who we are, who
are J six ers, We are J six That's Brandon Struck,
it's John's Strand, it's doctor Gold, it's various people. But
we're Americans. Were your coworkers and neighbors and brothers and sisters,
and so we need the public to understand that. So

(01:25:09):
we're going to bring those stories as well as advocate
for financial restitution, which is really necessary for these people.

Speaker 3 (01:25:15):
Brandon, you started the organization walk Away many years ago.
Can you just explain what it is real quick?

Speaker 4 (01:25:20):
Walk Away is still I think very much an important
and necessary movement that's happening in this country. And in fact,
I would argue that the twenty twenty four election was
the walk away election. I mean Donald Trump incorporated into
his team Elon Musk, Tulca Gabbard, Rfk Junior, so many
people who were once Democrats and now walking away.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
And I think, you.

Speaker 4 (01:25:42):
Know, as terrible as the last four years were for
everybody in this country one way or another, it did
offer us the opportunity to see what life was like
four years of Trump, four years of Biden, and now
we have an opportunity once again to write the ship.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
And I think that you know what really pushed Donald
Trump over the.

Speaker 4 (01:26:01):
Top, where that so many black people, Hispanic people, LGBT people,
Jewish people made the decision to walk away from the
monolith that they've been voting for the Democrats in these
large voting blocks and say, I'm going to we have
to try something different. This is not the America that
we want, this is not what We're better than this,
I think, And so you know, I'm going to continue

(01:26:23):
to do the work that I've been doing for seven years,
traveling the country, doing colleges, doing minority focused down halls, marches, rallies,
educational videos, and getting as many people to walk away.
And if people believe in that mission, they can go
to Walkway campaign dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:26:36):
John and Brandon, thank you for coming in. I'm just
going to continue praying for you. I've been praying for
you for years, and I'm going to continue to do it,
and I want to invite everybody who's listening to continue
to pray for you because you have been through hell
and back and you know only God, only God. I
think there's been a lot of God recently and we
should be incredibly grateful for how how the Almighty puts

(01:26:59):
his in our country.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):
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(01:27:24):
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(01:27:49):
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(01:28:11):
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(01:28:37):
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