July 17, 2025 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
So Michael Verie Show is.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
On the air.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the
world he didn't exist.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You know, the misinformation about vaccines and associating certain people
like myself or Fauci having malign in tenta vaccines. That
was most acute in the United States. But the pandemic,
which you would have thought, wow, global health research to
talking about health being ready for the next pandemic. You know,
(00:40):
when you've got millions of deaths, isn't that You know,
it's sad, it's tragic that, isn't he at least there
are a benefit that health is on the agenda. Sadly,
it's a topic nobody wants to talk about because it
was painful.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You know, it's over. Let's move on from that.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We should have free speech. But if you're inciting violence,
if you're causing people not to take vaccines, you know,
where are those boundaries that even the US should you know,
have rules.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
And then if you have rules.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
You know what is it is there some ai that
encodes those rules because you have billions of activity and
you know, if you catch it.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
A day later the harm is doue.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
The Gates Foundations very involved in vaccines, the invention of
new vaccines, funding vaccines, and we're very proud that through
joint efforts like Bobby, that saved.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Tens of millions of lives.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
So it's someone ironic to have somebody turn around and say, no,
you know, we're using vaccines to kill people or to
make money, or we started the pandemic. Even some strange
things like that, I somehow want to track, you know,
the location of individuals because I'm so deeply desirous to
know where everybody is. I'm not sure what I'm going
(01:57):
to do with that information.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Only gotten three shots total, only been boosted once.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I guess we have immunity for a little while, but
when you decide to get boosted again. Yeah, so an
infection really get a high viral load would be like vaccination,
but you know, to be safe every six months. Now
you're probably going to be vaccinated. As we get more data,
they might even make that.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Shorter for people or you know, say sixty or over
seventy where the duration seems to be a bit lower.
So we're in for ongoing vaccination to stay absolutely safe.
So Lenna and I wondered whether providing new medicines and
keeping children alive would that create more of a population problem.
(02:43):
What we found out is that as health improves, families
choose to have less children. Now eleven billion people still
a lot, but the good news is that the faster
we improve health, the faster family size goes down, and
so we feel great about saving those lives.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
One of the most powerful tools, and a person like
Bill Gates has messaging experts around him, one of the
most powerful tools you can use.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The ultimate gaslight.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Is not to tell someone that what they see in
front of them is not there, but to make a
joke about it. If we see that you, Bill Gates,
are trying to collect every bit of data on us,
including our medical data. If we see that you are
(03:39):
an evil human being, then to a friendly audience, you say, well, since.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I apparently want to know where everybody is at all times,
and the dutiful little audience.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Of people who've shown up for the conference, they chuckle
along because white liberals love to make the rest of
America out to be wackos. And he goes like this, yeah, well,
I mean, I guess Joe Biden is what is is
he demented? Now?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Is is he in such decline that he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Know where he is?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
You crazy, maga people. The minute he's out the door.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Jake Tapper, who's saying that, writes a book which becomes
a best seller to say you were right, In fact,
writes hundreds and hundreds of pages to say you were right.
He just left out three words, you were right. It's
as if this is a revelation. But it's not a revelation,
(04:45):
and it wouldn't be to anyone who's actually objectively watching
what's happening in this country. Now, study after study after
study after study or showing the COVID shot was not
a vaccine, It did not have any of the supposed
benefits of a vaccine, It did not prevent the spread,
it was not an anti contagion. And guess what, it
(05:11):
killed a lot of people. The spike proteins were dangerous.
The mRNA is dangerous. What was approved for use in
the United States as a vaccine is not what was
used in the United States. And by the way, the
boosters were even more dangerous as they told us to
take them. And there you were, you hayseed hillbilly, What
(05:35):
are you having medical opinions about You're not a doctor,
you're not an expert.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Who do you think you are?
Speaker 4 (05:43):
You Middle America breeder telling us the shot doesn't work. Well, now,
of what are we finding out shot didn't work? Telling
us the shot deadly because your sister in law died
from it and your nephew died from it.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Now we're finding out it was deadly.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
The greatest gaslight is not to deny something is happening,
you can't do that when it's out there, but to
ridicule anyone who would believe.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
What is right before your very eyes.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
This is what makes this moment so awkward, that we're
being told all that Jeffrey Epstein stuff out real.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
No, no, that was real. Oh no, no, it was real.
Uh huh, that's all from Obama and Biden.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Well whoa wait what but Pam BONDI said, but what
And now we have a real.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Real moment. Do we just move on and move past.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
What it's like to be you know, a real man.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I have never met someone so wonderful.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I call him Rit the Mark.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
There's a crazy story in politics that when it's not
front page news, you forget about it. But people have
to go on and live those lives. You know, you
probably don't think about January sixth all day every day.
Their people went to prison when we stopped thinking about it,
and they're stuck in prison. Their lives are changed forever. Well,
(07:22):
there's a story about a guy named Doug Mackie. There's
no reason you would know who Douglas Mackey is or
you did once because he's been on our show before.
But he did something that a lot of us do.
He made a joke. He had some fun online. You know,
there's a meme that goes, I'm going to tell my
(07:43):
kids that this is and then you make up the
other one and it's you know, Hillary Clinton, but it's
a picture of Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
It's it's silly things, fun things. The Internet.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
It's a whimsical place, and we all get that it's
a whimsical place, and we don't take it too seriously,
we don't take it literally. Well, there was the case
of a fellow named Douglas Mackie, who's going to be
our guest, who went to prison. The guy went to
(08:13):
prison for the most absurd thing you can imagine. Now,
when I tell you this story, you're gonna say, Michael,
there's more of that story.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
There's no way that.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Really happened, and you would normally be right, except I
know everything about this story, and what happened really happened,
and this should frighten you, this should infuriate you, and
this should call you to action to the kind of
people that we're dealing with. But the good news is
(08:47):
a federal appeals court on Wednesday throughout the conviction. Now
he doesn't get his time back. Of the individual to
whom this happened, Douglas Mackee, with that introduction sufficiently vague
so that you can take the story better than I could,
why don't you tell us what happened in twenty sixteen,
and I guarantee you thirty percent of people aren't going
(09:08):
to believe this really happened.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
Yeah, So in twenty sixteen, you know, I was just
having some fun with the whole Trump movement, sharing memes
and links and all that kind of stuff, and shared
a meme that said you could text your vote to
five nine nine two five for Hillary Clinton, and so
Clinton supporters could avoid the lines stay home. And so
(09:33):
this was obviously just a good natured joke, there was
no actual attempt to get people to, you know, fail
to vote. And four years later, during right after Joe
Biden was inaugurated in twenty twenty one, the FBI came
knocking on my door and arrested me for posting this meme.
They said it was part of a grand conspiracy to
(09:54):
steal votes. And so this is a battle I've been fighting.
I was convicted in twenty twenty three, and like I said,
a week ago Wednesday, the appeals court throughout the conviction,
recognizing that this was there, that there was no grand conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So let's go back.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
This happens during the twenty sixteen election cycle, right exactly,
and you, I chuckled. I mean, all these years later,
I still think it's funny. And so you post a
meme and tell exactly what that meme said. Again, I'm
gonna ask you to repeat some things because some folks
may be driving and they're not looking at it. So
tell exactly what the meme said.
Speaker 6 (10:35):
Absolutely, it said, avoid the line, skip the line, avoid
the line, stay home, and text your vote for Hillary
Clinton to five nine nine two five.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Okay, how did you come up with that number?
Speaker 6 (10:46):
So actually the funny thing is, and this is part
of the reason why the conviction was tossed out. This
was a meme that was floating around the internet. I
just saw it on a website and shared it over
on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
So I didn't even make the meme.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Oh wow, did we ever find out who made the meme?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
No, we don't even know.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
So you find a meme which I still find so funny.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
You know one of the jokes we tell every year.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Listeners will send this to me every year, and let's
say election day is November fourth, and they'll say, Michael,
don't forget to tell the Democrats to vote on election
day November fifth.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
Ha.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Ha, That's basically what you just did.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Exactly exactly Age All jug Republicans vote on Tuesday, Democrats
vote on Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah, and Republicans vote once and Democrats vote from the graveyard.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
So that happens. Do you have any reason.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
To believe that any problem is going to occur that
happens in the fall of twenty sixteen. Is there anything
that comes to your attention that says, oh, well, they're
taking this out of context.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
So I had no idea at all that they were
going to come knocking on the door for these memes.
It's funny enough. In twenty eighteen, I did get a
visit from the FBI. They asked me if I knew
about a guy who I used to help on his
congressional campaign, and that's but I had no idea that
two years later they were going to come over this meme.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I had no clue.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
So tell me a little more about who those people
are and how that came to the attention of the FEDS.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
So, you know, the Democrats, they just couldn't believe that
Hillary Clinton could possibly lose an election fair and square.
So they had this idea that Russia acted the election, which.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Was complete nonsense.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
And so Senator Amy Klobuchar blew this meme up on
a big poster board, put it on the floor of
the Senate Committee or whatever, and she was looking at
it and saying, this is a selony, this is a
cry this was Russia or Russia did this. So they
actually had it in their minds that this was some
sort of some uh, this was part of some greater
(13:09):
Russian conspiracy to hack the election. This mean that very
few people even saw and nobody got tricked by.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
How do we know nobody was tricked by it. Not
that anyone being tricked makes what you did a criminal offense.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
But how do we know that?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Oh? Good question.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
So the FBI actually went around the district where they
charged me with the crime knocking on people's doors who
had texted the number, because they had a record of
everybody who texted the number, and they couldn't find a
single person. So if that person exists that actually got
tricked by the meme, we have no idea if they're
(13:49):
even out there. There's no evidence that anyone got fooled
by the meme. And there were over four thousand, almost
five thousand people texted the number, but that was mostly
after the meme got shared on CNN and BuzzFeed and saying,
oh look what these evil Republicans are doing.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
They're trying to track voters.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
So they actually went to the FBI tried to find
somebody who could could testify on a witness standard. They
were fooled, couldn't find a single soul.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
And what efforts did they make I'm assuming you used
this in your defense. What efforts did they make to
find those.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah, they actually hold on right there. So Douglas Mackie
hold on right there. The reason we're talking to Douglas
is that this conviction, after these years, has now been
thrown out.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So there is in that sense a good result. He
doesn't get all.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
That time hassling money back, but we'll continue our conversation
with him. You know, this is intended to frighten people
away from political activity.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
That's what this is intended to do. Coming back.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And listen to the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Good not.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Douglas. Maxi is our guest.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Here's a guy just going about his business in twenty
sixteen who, like a lot of other people, I'd say it,
like a lot of other young men, but we all
do it is goofing around. You know, hey, election day
is and you give the day after the election. A
lot of people do this. Humor is how we get
by the day. It's how we avoid the drudgery. It's
(15:27):
how we connect with each other. What was intended to
be a funny meme, whether it was taken as a
funny meme or not, Hey, skip the lines.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You don't have to go on election day.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Just cast your vote at and here's the number pound
five nine, nine to five or whatever it is. And
so then they come and they start harassing this guy.
So this occurs during the Trump presidency. This week his
conviction has been thrown out, finally after all these years.
So then that's twenty eighteen. Do you ever hear from
the Feds again after that?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Douglas? In between then and twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So yeah, in twenty eighteen, they came knocking on my door.
Asked them if I.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
Knew about a congressional candidate.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
But it had nothing to do with that, and I don't.
I don't make a habit of talking to him anyway,
so I didn't even talk to him.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
So how did they come? They came and knocked on
your door, They called you, they emailed you.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
What did they do?
Speaker 6 (16:25):
Yeah, they knocked on my door at seven am in
the morning, before I.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Went to work, So you just stayed inside and didn't bother.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
So I talked to him and I said, you know,
you're gonna have to talk to my attorney. And then,
well I didn't have an attorney, but I found someone
that would talk to him, and then nothing ever came
of that.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
You're a good bluffer. I like your style.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
I really like you, said, well, it was a real attorney.
I found an attorney. Let's just put it that way, okay.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
But when you tell them from outside the door, when
you're inside, you'll have to talk to my attorney. If
they had said, can we get that person's name, you
don't have one.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
No, I took down their business card and said I'd
put him in touch with them. So I took the
business card, gave it to this attorney that I was
referred to, and he called them up, and like I said, yeah,
we never even met with them.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
All right, So then do you figure the issue is dead?
Speaker 6 (17:24):
So yeah, I figured the issue was dead. But the
only problem is when we're talking about federal law, there's
a book called three Felonies a Day. So once they
came knocking in twenty twenty one and arrested me, I
just know how they can manufacture stuff out of thin air,
so you know, but I had no idea it was
going to be over this one meme that kind of
(17:45):
forgot about to be quite.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Honest, and so tell me about the day they come
and arrest you. Where are you, Where are you in life?
Were you physically?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
How does it go down?
Speaker 6 (17:57):
So I had moved down to Florida because I originally
from Vermont, lived in New York City for some years
and I moved down to Florida in twenty eighteen. So
they showed up and knocked on the door. We got
an arrest, We got an arrest warrant. You're under arrest.
The first words out of my mouth were for what.
(18:18):
There were the two FBI agents working on the case.
There were two local ones coming along to actually make
the arrest. Something about jurisdic shod And they bring along
a couple of local police too.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
So here we are.
Speaker 6 (18:32):
We got a I don't know eight to ten law
enforcement officers all over this. Meame and they put me
in the They put me in the cuffs and in
the you know, the police suv there and there I
am going to the West Palm Beach County West Palm
Beach Federal Courthouse.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Did they cuff you in front of you or behind you?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
So?
Speaker 6 (18:54):
Yeah, they cuffed me in the behind. And then once
they they put me in the car, they let me
switch the cuffs to the front.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
People that don't know, it's very uncomfortable to be cuffed
behind you. My brother was a law enforcementster for over
thirty years, and he said, you know the way you
treat a person when they've been arrested says a lot
about whether you think they're guilty, whether you know if
you if you arrest Osama bin Laden, you're putting his
(19:27):
hands behind his back and you're putting it pretty tight
because you're pissed off at him. But if you're arresting
Donald Trump for what you think is a political crime,
you're putting the cuffs real loose and in front of him,
so it's maximum comfort.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So you're thrown in jail and then.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
What so, Yeah, I was thrown in the holding song.
It's funny you mentioned that the local guys, the local
left guy, it's that weren't working the case. They took
pretty good care of me. They let me switch the
cuffs to the front and you know, give me some
water in the car, and I was once I got
to the to the courthouse.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
What they do is they turn you over to the
custody of US marshals.
Speaker 6 (20:05):
They take the cuffs off your wrists, and they put
you in leg irons. I was put into a holding
cell and it took a little bit longer than usual
because the COVID protocols that they had, so you know,
they put you in a mask.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
And all this stuff.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
So I was sitting in that holding cell for an
hour or two waiting on my arraignment. And instead of
going before a judge, you know, you go, you go
before a judge on a.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Zoom call during COVID.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And then.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
And then so they said here's your charges. They let
me out on a signature bond where all you have
to do is sign a signature, and they and then
when they took the.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Leg irons off me, they slapped the criminal complaint in
my hand.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
That was the first inkling I had gotten that this
was all about a meme that was posted, like I said,
in twenty sixteen, and I couldn't believe it. Thirty page
criminal complaint that I'm reading and a completely just fabricated,
concocted like the way that they had basically assembled the evidence.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
I mean, it was complete, fartical.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
And the energy they're putting into prosecuting you when so
many other things aren't prosecuted. It's a fake case. It
takes a lot of energy.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Do you what happens? Do you plead? Do you go
to trial? What happens?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:29):
So I fought the charges. I was lucky enough to
do some fundraising, because God knows, I had no money
at the time, so I put all the money I
could into hire a lawyer, and then we fundraised a
lot of it because people saw this case for what
it was, so we were able to raise quite a
bit of money, and I was one of the first
political prisoners.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Of the Biden regime.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
In addition to the Jay six ers. But unlike the
J sixers, they were working on my investigation long before
J six So I fought the case. We went to trial,
and we argued time and time again a number of
things that they brought the case in the wrong jurisdiction.
They didn't have any evidence of intent, that this was
(22:13):
actually intended to fool voters, and we argued that there
was no evidence that I agreed with any of the
people that they were calling my co conspirators who were
in chat groups making these memes that I wasn't even
involved with. And so we argued that and then the jury,
believe it or not, took four and a half days
to come to a verdict over a single count. They
(22:36):
deadlocked twice, and the judge read them something called an
allen charge, which is basically like all right, go back
in there. Please come up with a vertict. Please do
your best. You know, we spend a lot of time
and energy here. They finally came back with a conviction
right after lunch on Friday, which I think is a
typical And that.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Year, which was twenty twenty three.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
Later on that year, October twenty twenty three, I was
back in New York for sentencing.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
My wife went.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
Into emergency c section, so I did miss the birth
of my first son, and I was sentenced to seven
months in federal prison.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Oh, Douglas, I've been through the ringer.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I'm struggling to process this. Can you hold with me
for just one more segment? Yes, sir, I think it's
important for people to understand you weren't just wrongfully charged
and wrongfully convicted of thing. It's important for people to
understand the real human toll.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Something like this takes Jackie. Where's Jackie?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
A crash that killed Congresswoman jackiell Or Smoker.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Here, Douglas Matthew as our guest, and he just ruined
my day.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
He was.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Goofing around like we all do.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
Twenty sixteen, he makes a meme, Hey, Democrats, skip the
line to vote for Hillary Clinton. This is Clinton versus
Donald Trump the first time. Just text your vote to
this number star. It's a joke. Only an idiot would
be fooled by that, and nobody was, as we find
out later in court. Then in twenty eighteen, the Deep
State comes to his door and they are trying to
(24:30):
intimidate him. He refuses to talk to him. Then in
twenty twenty one they show up. They arrest him for
a meme in twenty sixteen, that's a joke. Nobody was hurt.
Then they take it to trial. You know, he said
earlier that the reason that they got a verdict on
Friday afternoon, before the weekend, that's typical. The reason that's
(24:52):
typical is the jury doesn't want to hang around, They
don't want to be back on Monday, so they go
ahead and agree when they wouldn't. So you get people
to capitulate. Now you're in trouble. So he's going to
prison for seven months, misses the birth of his child.
Good grief, the cruelty. All right, so you go to
(25:15):
prison for seven months. Tell me how that was.
Speaker 6 (25:18):
So Actually, I got I was fortunate that the Second
Circuit Court saw through the case right from the beginning
because the judge sentenced me to seven months federal prison
in October twenty three.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Now she thought she was being nice.
Speaker 6 (25:36):
She said, all right, you can report after the holidays
January eighteenth, twenty twenty four. And what happened was, because
of the strength of the appeal, we appealed her decision
to not give bond. We moved for bond for bond
pending appeal because obviously I'm not a flight risk, I'm
not in danger to the community, and we have a
(25:56):
very strong appeal. So it's not like in in the
Second Circuit, at least, bond pending appeal is not.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
At the discretion of the judge.
Speaker 6 (26:04):
If you meet one of four different criteria, then you
are you are granted bond penning appeal. You are entitled
to it. And she messed up as well as well
as all the other stuff she messed up at the trial,
which I could talk to you all day about. And
so the Second Circuit granted the bond. So I've been
out on bond since October. I've been out on bond
(26:28):
the whole time, actually, but I was out on an
appeal bond ever since the sentencing.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
So you didn't you didn't end up going to prison.
You've been waiting to go to prison exactly exactly, and
then you live your life. Nobody wants to hire you.
You can't start a business. You don't know if at
some point you're going to be you're in a purgatory.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, you're in purgatory.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
I was fortunate that I already had a business self employed,
so I was very fortunate in that respect that I
didn't need help paying living expenses. But you know, we
were fundraised for everything else, and it was very difficult.
Like I said to my wife, we talk about being compredatory.
So we got engaged and then we said, you know,
(27:18):
we can't keep waiting forever because who knows how long
this process is going to take. So we went ahead
and got married before the trial. And then I found
out my wife was pregnant during the trial after we
got married, So you can imagine what it was like
for my wife, for my parents and everybody else. And
(27:39):
people see you get arrested by the FBI, to think,
my god, like what have you done? What could you
possibly done? And people were shocked that I was arrested
by the FBI. But as time went on, more and
more people looked at the facts and the evidence, they
realized this was not a real case and that I
was completely not guilty. I was, well, it was more
than not guilty. I was completely innocent. So it was
(28:01):
just nerve wracking.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I got to say.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
It was a big weight off the shoulders when Donald
Trump was elected, because we felt like we would have
a good shot with Trump and the White House rather
than Joe Biden. And so just waiting down the days,
ticking down the days. Some people said, why didn't you
ask for a pardon? Why didn't you ask for pardon?
And if time were on, you know, it gets stressful
to the whole waiting game and everything. Also, fortunately the
(28:26):
decision ultimately paid off.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
We got the ultimate vindication.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And how did you find out that was the case?
A phone call?
Speaker 6 (28:35):
So yeah, So I was on vacation, first day of
vacation and my attorney texts me and he says, congratulations.
I said, well, what happened? And so I called him
up and he said, you got total and complete vindication.
He let me know that they overturned the conviction three
zero unanimous Republicans and Democrats appointed judges on and they
(29:01):
didn't have the evidence. The evidence was deemed insufficient that
no rational jury could have convicted me.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
So I'm a little unclear.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
What did you do in between twenty twenty one and
this past week when you find out that your conviction
has been thrown out and you can finally go back
to living your life nine years later.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Well, it's very difficult. For instance, I can't travel. I
wasn't allowed to travel outside of the Southern District of
Florida without permission. Obviously, they took my passport, so I
can't travel abroad, and I got to check in with
the probation once a week, which fortunately is just a
phone call. But it was very stressful. And I'm just
(29:44):
lucky that I was self employed and that I was
able to keep making a living.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
So very lucky in that respect.
Speaker 6 (29:51):
But like I said, life has to go on somehow.
So I got engaged, I got married, and we had
our first child because we said we can't just keep waiting.
We're going to be old by the time this thing's done.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Of course, of course, and the quote unquote unquote wheels
of justice.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Do not move quickly. It's your life, not theirs.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
They're going on vacations, they're living there lot as they're
traveling beyond the southern district of Florida.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, what did you do to celebrate?
Speaker 6 (30:18):
So, yeah, I was fortunate to be on vacation in
my family, Like I said, so we got a bottle
of champagne and just a great way to start off
the vacation get, you know, swimming in a lake and
all the sunshine. So very fortunate that happened.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Well, Douglas, as a fellow American, I am responsible for
the system that wronged you, and I feel some sense
of shame that a system that I am supposed to
be a part of, just like every other person in
this country, did not work as it was supposed to.
It usually does, but clearer than in this case, it didn't.
I will just ask you to conclude by what do
(30:54):
you take away from this? How are you a better person?
I always try to find a silver lining from this
if anyway.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Well, the silver lining is this will make a man
out of you, and this will harden you and toughen
you up. And that's what happened with me. And it's
made me a lot tougher, a lot stronger. And I
think that life's bumps, and you know, seem a little
bit smaller on the road of life, so to speak.
So it's been It gives you perspective in that respect,
(31:23):
and I am extremely grateful for my wife, my attorneys,
everybody who raised the money we had. We had thousands
of people praying for this case, We had thousands of
people donating, sending messages of encouragement, and so very grateful
for all these people and our friends in the media
who took this case on very early recognizing what was
(31:44):
going on. The foremost among them would be Tucker Carlton.
So I'm very lucky in that respect.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
I remember when we had you on before, I had
so many people who felt like there had to be
more details to there's no way this could really happen
in our times because we don't want to believe it.
Douglas Mackie, thank you for staying the course and thank
you for sharing your story.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Thank you, sir.
Speaker 6 (32:10):
And let me just ask everybody to check out Patriotfreedomproject
dot com because there's a lot of cases like mine
and I'm going to be helping them out in identifying
those cases and trying to get jotted for Americans that
have been wronged by the federal criminal system.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Use this story for good brother Amen
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
So Michael Verie Show is.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
On the air.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the
world he didn't exist.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You know, the misinformation about vaccines and associating certain people
like myself or Fauci having malign in tenta vaccines. That
was most acute in the United States. But the pandemic,
which you would have thought, wow, global health research to
talking about health being ready for the next pandemic. You know,
(00:40):
when you've got millions of deaths, isn't that You know,
it's sad, it's tragic that, isn't he at least there
are a benefit that health is on the agenda. Sadly,
it's a topic nobody wants to talk about because it
was painful.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You know, it's over. Let's move on from that.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We should have free speech. But if you're inciting violence,
if you're causing people not to take vaccines, you know,
where are those boundaries that even the US should you know,
have rules.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
And then if you have rules.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
You know what is it is there some ai that
encodes those rules because you have billions of activity and
you know, if you catch it.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
A day later the harm is doue.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
The Gates Foundations very involved in vaccines, the invention of
new vaccines, funding vaccines, and we're very proud that through
joint efforts like Bobby, that saved.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Tens of millions of lives.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
So it's someone ironic to have somebody turn around and say, no,
you know, we're using vaccines to kill people or to
make money, or we started the pandemic. Even some strange
things like that, I somehow want to track, you know,
the location of individuals because I'm so deeply desirous to
know where everybody is. I'm not sure what I'm going
(01:57):
to do with that information.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Only gotten three shots total, only been boosted once.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I guess we have immunity for a little while, but
when you decide to get boosted again. Yeah, so an
infection really get a high viral load would be like vaccination,
but you know, to be safe every six months. Now
you're probably going to be vaccinated. As we get more data,
they might even make that.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Shorter for people or you know, say sixty or over
seventy where the duration seems to be a bit lower.
So we're in for ongoing vaccination to stay absolutely safe.
So Lenna and I wondered whether providing new medicines and
keeping children alive would that create more of a population problem.
(02:43):
What we found out is that as health improves, families
choose to have less children. Now eleven billion people still
a lot, but the good news is that the faster
we improve health, the faster family size goes down, and
so we feel great about saving those lives.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
One of the most powerful tools, and a person like
Bill Gates has messaging experts around him, one of the
most powerful tools you can use.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The ultimate gaslight.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Is not to tell someone that what they see in
front of them is not there, but to make a
joke about it. If we see that you, Bill Gates,
are trying to collect every bit of data on us,
including our medical data. If we see that you are
(03:39):
an evil human being, then to a friendly audience, you say, well, since.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I apparently want to know where everybody is at all times,
and the dutiful little audience.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Of people who've shown up for the conference, they chuckle
along because white liberals love to make the rest of
America out to be wackos. And he goes like this, yeah, well,
I mean, I guess Joe Biden is what is is
he demented? Now?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Is is he in such decline that he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Know where he is?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
You crazy, maga people. The minute he's out the door.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Jake Tapper, who's saying that, writes a book which becomes
a best seller to say you were right, In fact,
writes hundreds and hundreds of pages to say you were right.
He just left out three words, you were right. It's
as if this is a revelation. But it's not a revelation,
(04:45):
and it wouldn't be to anyone who's actually objectively watching
what's happening in this country. Now, study after study after
study after study or showing the COVID shot was not
a vaccine, It did not have any of the supposed
benefits of a vaccine, It did not prevent the spread,
it was not an anti contagion. And guess what, it
(05:11):
killed a lot of people. The spike proteins were dangerous.
The mRNA is dangerous. What was approved for use in
the United States as a vaccine is not what was
used in the United States. And by the way, the
boosters were even more dangerous as they told us to
take them. And there you were, you hayseed hillbilly, What
(05:35):
are you having medical opinions about You're not a doctor,
you're not an expert.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Who do you think you are?
Speaker 4 (05:43):
You Middle America breeder telling us the shot doesn't work. Well, now,
of what are we finding out shot didn't work? Telling
us the shot deadly because your sister in law died
from it and your nephew died from it.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Now we're finding out it was deadly.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
The greatest gaslight is not to deny something is happening,
you can't do that when it's out there, but to
ridicule anyone who would believe.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
What is right before your very eyes.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
This is what makes this moment so awkward, that we're
being told all that Jeffrey Epstein stuff out real.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
No, no, that was real. Oh no, no, it was real.
Uh huh, that's all from Obama and Biden.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Well whoa wait what but Pam BONDI said, but what
And now we have a real.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Real moment. Do we just move on and move past.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
What it's like to be you know, a real man.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I have never met someone so wonderful.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I call him Rit the Mark.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
There's a crazy story in politics that when it's not
front page news, you forget about it. But people have
to go on and live those lives. You know, you
probably don't think about January sixth all day every day.
Their people went to prison when we stopped thinking about it,
and they're stuck in prison. Their lives are changed forever. Well,
(07:22):
there's a story about a guy named Doug Mackie. There's
no reason you would know who Douglas Mackey is or
you did once because he's been on our show before.
But he did something that a lot of us do.
He made a joke. He had some fun online. You know,
there's a meme that goes, I'm going to tell my
(07:43):
kids that this is and then you make up the
other one and it's you know, Hillary Clinton, but it's
a picture of Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
It's it's silly things, fun things. The Internet.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
It's a whimsical place, and we all get that it's
a whimsical place, and we don't take it too seriously,
we don't take it literally. Well, there was the case
of a fellow named Douglas Mackie, who's going to be
our guest, who went to prison. The guy went to
(08:13):
prison for the most absurd thing you can imagine. Now,
when I tell you this story, you're gonna say, Michael,
there's more of that story.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
There's no way that.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Really happened, and you would normally be right, except I
know everything about this story, and what happened really happened,
and this should frighten you, this should infuriate you, and
this should call you to action to the kind of
people that we're dealing with. But the good news is
(08:47):
a federal appeals court on Wednesday throughout the conviction. Now
he doesn't get his time back. Of the individual to
whom this happened, Douglas Mackee, with that introduction sufficiently vague
so that you can take the story better than I could,
why don't you tell us what happened in twenty sixteen,
and I guarantee you thirty percent of people aren't going
(09:08):
to believe this really happened.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
Yeah, So in twenty sixteen, you know, I was just
having some fun with the whole Trump movement, sharing memes
and links and all that kind of stuff, and shared
a meme that said you could text your vote to
five nine nine two five for Hillary Clinton, and so
Clinton supporters could avoid the lines stay home. And so
(09:33):
this was obviously just a good natured joke, there was
no actual attempt to get people to, you know, fail
to vote. And four years later, during right after Joe
Biden was inaugurated in twenty twenty one, the FBI came
knocking on my door and arrested me for posting this meme.
They said it was part of a grand conspiracy to
(09:54):
steal votes. And so this is a battle I've been fighting.
I was convicted in twenty twenty three, and like I said,
a week ago Wednesday, the appeals court throughout the conviction,
recognizing that this was there, that there was no grand conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So let's go back.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
This happens during the twenty sixteen election cycle, right exactly,
and you, I chuckled. I mean, all these years later,
I still think it's funny. And so you post a
meme and tell exactly what that meme said. Again, I'm
gonna ask you to repeat some things because some folks
may be driving and they're not looking at it. So
tell exactly what the meme said.
Speaker 6 (10:35):
Absolutely, it said, avoid the line, skip the line, avoid
the line, stay home, and text your vote for Hillary
Clinton to five nine nine two five.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Okay, how did you come up with that number?
Speaker 6 (10:46):
So actually the funny thing is, and this is part
of the reason why the conviction was tossed out. This
was a meme that was floating around the internet. I
just saw it on a website and shared it over
on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
So I didn't even make the meme.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Oh wow, did we ever find out who made the meme?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
No, we don't even know.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
So you find a meme which I still find so funny.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
You know one of the jokes we tell every year.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Listeners will send this to me every year, and let's
say election day is November fourth, and they'll say, Michael,
don't forget to tell the Democrats to vote on election
day November fifth.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
Ha.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Ha, That's basically what you just did.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Exactly exactly Age All jug Republicans vote on Tuesday, Democrats
vote on Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah, and Republicans vote once and Democrats vote from the graveyard.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
So that happens. Do you have any reason.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
To believe that any problem is going to occur that
happens in the fall of twenty sixteen. Is there anything
that comes to your attention that says, oh, well, they're
taking this out of context.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
So I had no idea at all that they were
going to come knocking on the door for these memes.
It's funny enough. In twenty eighteen, I did get a
visit from the FBI. They asked me if I knew
about a guy who I used to help on his
congressional campaign, and that's but I had no idea that
two years later they were going to come over this meme.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I had no clue.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
So tell me a little more about who those people
are and how that came to the attention of the FEDS.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
So, you know, the Democrats, they just couldn't believe that
Hillary Clinton could possibly lose an election fair and square.
So they had this idea that Russia acted the election, which.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Was complete nonsense.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
And so Senator Amy Klobuchar blew this meme up on
a big poster board, put it on the floor of
the Senate Committee or whatever, and she was looking at
it and saying, this is a selony, this is a
cry this was Russia or Russia did this. So they
actually had it in their minds that this was some
sort of some uh, this was part of some greater
(13:09):
Russian conspiracy to hack the election. This mean that very
few people even saw and nobody got tricked by.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
How do we know nobody was tricked by it. Not
that anyone being tricked makes what you did a criminal offense.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
But how do we know that?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Oh? Good question.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
So the FBI actually went around the district where they
charged me with the crime knocking on people's doors who
had texted the number, because they had a record of
everybody who texted the number, and they couldn't find a
single person. So if that person exists that actually got
tricked by the meme, we have no idea if they're
(13:49):
even out there. There's no evidence that anyone got fooled
by the meme. And there were over four thousand, almost
five thousand people texted the number, but that was mostly
after the meme got shared on CNN and BuzzFeed and saying,
oh look what these evil Republicans are doing.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
They're trying to track voters.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
So they actually went to the FBI tried to find
somebody who could could testify on a witness standard. They
were fooled, couldn't find a single soul.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
And what efforts did they make I'm assuming you used
this in your defense. What efforts did they make to
find those.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah, they actually hold on right there. So Douglas Mackie
hold on right there. The reason we're talking to Douglas
is that this conviction, after these years, has now been
thrown out.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So there is in that sense a good result. He
doesn't get all.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
That time hassling money back, but we'll continue our conversation
with him. You know, this is intended to frighten people
away from political activity.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
That's what this is intended to do. Coming back.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And listen to the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Good not.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Douglas. Maxi is our guest.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Here's a guy just going about his business in twenty
sixteen who, like a lot of other people, I'd say it,
like a lot of other young men, but we all
do it is goofing around. You know, hey, election day
is and you give the day after the election. A
lot of people do this. Humor is how we get
by the day. It's how we avoid the drudgery. It's
(15:27):
how we connect with each other. What was intended to
be a funny meme, whether it was taken as a
funny meme or not, Hey, skip the lines.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You don't have to go on election day.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Just cast your vote at and here's the number pound
five nine, nine to five or whatever it is. And
so then they come and they start harassing this guy.
So this occurs during the Trump presidency. This week his
conviction has been thrown out, finally after all these years.
So then that's twenty eighteen. Do you ever hear from
the Feds again after that?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Douglas? In between then and twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So yeah, in twenty eighteen, they came knocking on my door.
Asked them if I.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
Knew about a congressional candidate.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
But it had nothing to do with that, and I don't.
I don't make a habit of talking to him anyway,
so I didn't even talk to him.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
So how did they come? They came and knocked on
your door, They called you, they emailed you.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
What did they do?
Speaker 6 (16:25):
Yeah, they knocked on my door at seven am in
the morning, before I.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Went to work, So you just stayed inside and didn't bother.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
So I talked to him and I said, you know,
you're gonna have to talk to my attorney. And then,
well I didn't have an attorney, but I found someone
that would talk to him, and then nothing ever came
of that.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
You're a good bluffer. I like your style.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
I really like you, said, well, it was a real attorney.
I found an attorney. Let's just put it that way, okay.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
But when you tell them from outside the door, when
you're inside, you'll have to talk to my attorney. If
they had said, can we get that person's name, you
don't have one.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
No, I took down their business card and said I'd
put him in touch with them. So I took the
business card, gave it to this attorney that I was
referred to, and he called them up, and like I said, yeah,
we never even met with them.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
All right, So then do you figure the issue is dead?
Speaker 6 (17:24):
So yeah, I figured the issue was dead. But the
only problem is when we're talking about federal law, there's
a book called three Felonies a Day. So once they
came knocking in twenty twenty one and arrested me, I
just know how they can manufacture stuff out of thin air,
so you know, but I had no idea it was
going to be over this one meme that kind of
(17:45):
forgot about to be quite.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Honest, and so tell me about the day they come
and arrest you. Where are you, Where are you in life?
Were you physically?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
How does it go down?
Speaker 6 (17:57):
So I had moved down to Florida because I originally
from Vermont, lived in New York City for some years
and I moved down to Florida in twenty eighteen. So
they showed up and knocked on the door. We got
an arrest, We got an arrest warrant. You're under arrest.
The first words out of my mouth were for what.
(18:18):
There were the two FBI agents working on the case.
There were two local ones coming along to actually make
the arrest. Something about jurisdic shod And they bring along
a couple of local police too.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
So here we are.
Speaker 6 (18:32):
We got a I don't know eight to ten law
enforcement officers all over this. Meame and they put me
in the They put me in the cuffs and in
the you know, the police suv there and there I
am going to the West Palm Beach County West Palm
Beach Federal Courthouse.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Did they cuff you in front of you or behind you?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
So?
Speaker 6 (18:54):
Yeah, they cuffed me in the behind. And then once
they they put me in the car, they let me
switch the cuffs to the front.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
People that don't know, it's very uncomfortable to be cuffed
behind you. My brother was a law enforcementster for over
thirty years, and he said, you know the way you
treat a person when they've been arrested says a lot
about whether you think they're guilty, whether you know if
you if you arrest Osama bin Laden, you're putting his
(19:27):
hands behind his back and you're putting it pretty tight
because you're pissed off at him. But if you're arresting
Donald Trump for what you think is a political crime,
you're putting the cuffs real loose and in front of him,
so it's maximum comfort.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So you're thrown in jail and then.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
What so, Yeah, I was thrown in the holding song.
It's funny you mentioned that the local guys, the local
left guy, it's that weren't working the case. They took
pretty good care of me. They let me switch the
cuffs to the front and you know, give me some
water in the car, and I was once I got
to the to the courthouse.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
What they do is they turn you over to the
custody of US marshals.
Speaker 6 (20:05):
They take the cuffs off your wrists, and they put
you in leg irons. I was put into a holding
cell and it took a little bit longer than usual
because the COVID protocols that they had, so you know,
they put you in a mask.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
And all this stuff.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
So I was sitting in that holding cell for an
hour or two waiting on my arraignment. And instead of
going before a judge, you know, you go, you go
before a judge on a.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Zoom call during COVID.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And then.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
And then so they said here's your charges. They let
me out on a signature bond where all you have
to do is sign a signature, and they and then
when they took the.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Leg irons off me, they slapped the criminal complaint in
my hand.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
That was the first inkling I had gotten that this
was all about a meme that was posted, like I said,
in twenty sixteen, and I couldn't believe it. Thirty page
criminal complaint that I'm reading and a completely just fabricated,
concocted like the way that they had basically assembled the evidence.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
I mean, it was complete, fartical.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
And the energy they're putting into prosecuting you when so
many other things aren't prosecuted. It's a fake case. It
takes a lot of energy.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Do you what happens? Do you plead? Do you go
to trial? What happens?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:29):
So I fought the charges. I was lucky enough to
do some fundraising, because God knows, I had no money
at the time, so I put all the money I
could into hire a lawyer, and then we fundraised a
lot of it because people saw this case for what
it was, so we were able to raise quite a
bit of money, and I was one of the first
political prisoners.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Of the Biden regime.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
In addition to the Jay six ers. But unlike the
J sixers, they were working on my investigation long before
J six So I fought the case. We went to trial,
and we argued time and time again a number of
things that they brought the case in the wrong jurisdiction.
They didn't have any evidence of intent, that this was
(22:13):
actually intended to fool voters, and we argued that there
was no evidence that I agreed with any of the
people that they were calling my co conspirators who were
in chat groups making these memes that I wasn't even
involved with. And so we argued that and then the jury,
believe it or not, took four and a half days
to come to a verdict over a single count. They
(22:36):
deadlocked twice, and the judge read them something called an
allen charge, which is basically like all right, go back
in there. Please come up with a vertict. Please do
your best. You know, we spend a lot of time
and energy here. They finally came back with a conviction
right after lunch on Friday, which I think is a
typical And that.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Year, which was twenty twenty three.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
Later on that year, October twenty twenty three, I was
back in New York for sentencing.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
My wife went.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
Into emergency c section, so I did miss the birth
of my first son, and I was sentenced to seven
months in federal prison.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Oh, Douglas, I've been through the ringer.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I'm struggling to process this. Can you hold with me
for just one more segment? Yes, sir, I think it's
important for people to understand you weren't just wrongfully charged
and wrongfully convicted of thing. It's important for people to
understand the real human toll.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Something like this takes Jackie. Where's Jackie?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
A crash that killed Congresswoman jackiell Or Smoker.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Here, Douglas Matthew as our guest, and he just ruined
my day.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
He was.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Goofing around like we all do.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
Twenty sixteen, he makes a meme, Hey, Democrats, skip the
line to vote for Hillary Clinton. This is Clinton versus
Donald Trump the first time. Just text your vote to
this number star. It's a joke. Only an idiot would
be fooled by that, and nobody was, as we find
out later in court. Then in twenty eighteen, the Deep
State comes to his door and they are trying to
(24:30):
intimidate him. He refuses to talk to him. Then in
twenty twenty one they show up. They arrest him for
a meme in twenty sixteen, that's a joke. Nobody was hurt.
Then they take it to trial. You know, he said
earlier that the reason that they got a verdict on
Friday afternoon, before the weekend, that's typical. The reason that's
(24:52):
typical is the jury doesn't want to hang around, They
don't want to be back on Monday, so they go
ahead and agree when they wouldn't. So you get people
to capitulate. Now you're in trouble. So he's going to
prison for seven months, misses the birth of his child.
Good grief, the cruelty. All right, so you go to
(25:15):
prison for seven months. Tell me how that was.
Speaker 6 (25:18):
So Actually, I got I was fortunate that the Second
Circuit Court saw through the case right from the beginning
because the judge sentenced me to seven months federal prison
in October twenty three.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Now she thought she was being nice.
Speaker 6 (25:36):
She said, all right, you can report after the holidays
January eighteenth, twenty twenty four. And what happened was, because
of the strength of the appeal, we appealed her decision
to not give bond. We moved for bond for bond
pending appeal because obviously I'm not a flight risk, I'm
not in danger to the community, and we have a
(25:56):
very strong appeal. So it's not like in in the
Second Circuit, at least, bond pending appeal is not.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
At the discretion of the judge.
Speaker 6 (26:04):
If you meet one of four different criteria, then you
are you are granted bond penning appeal. You are entitled
to it. And she messed up as well as well
as all the other stuff she messed up at the trial,
which I could talk to you all day about. And
so the Second Circuit granted the bond. So I've been
out on bond since October. I've been out on bond
(26:28):
the whole time, actually, but I was out on an
appeal bond ever since the sentencing.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
So you didn't you didn't end up going to prison.
You've been waiting to go to prison exactly exactly, and
then you live your life. Nobody wants to hire you.
You can't start a business. You don't know if at
some point you're going to be you're in a purgatory.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, you're in purgatory.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
I was fortunate that I already had a business self employed,
so I was very fortunate in that respect that I
didn't need help paying living expenses. But you know, we
were fundraised for everything else, and it was very difficult.
Like I said to my wife, we talk about being compredatory.
So we got engaged and then we said, you know,
(27:18):
we can't keep waiting forever because who knows how long
this process is going to take. So we went ahead
and got married before the trial. And then I found
out my wife was pregnant during the trial after we
got married, So you can imagine what it was like
for my wife, for my parents and everybody else. And
(27:39):
people see you get arrested by the FBI, to think,
my god, like what have you done? What could you
possibly done? And people were shocked that I was arrested
by the FBI. But as time went on, more and
more people looked at the facts and the evidence, they
realized this was not a real case and that I
was completely not guilty. I was, well, it was more
than not guilty. I was completely innocent. So it was
(28:01):
just nerve wracking.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I got to say.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
It was a big weight off the shoulders when Donald
Trump was elected, because we felt like we would have
a good shot with Trump and the White House rather
than Joe Biden. And so just waiting down the days,
ticking down the days. Some people said, why didn't you
ask for a pardon? Why didn't you ask for pardon?
And if time were on, you know, it gets stressful
to the whole waiting game and everything. Also, fortunately the
(28:26):
decision ultimately paid off.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
We got the ultimate vindication.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And how did you find out that was the case?
A phone call?
Speaker 6 (28:35):
So yeah, So I was on vacation, first day of
vacation and my attorney texts me and he says, congratulations.
I said, well, what happened? And so I called him
up and he said, you got total and complete vindication.
He let me know that they overturned the conviction three
zero unanimous Republicans and Democrats appointed judges on and they
(29:01):
didn't have the evidence. The evidence was deemed insufficient that
no rational jury could have convicted me.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
So I'm a little unclear.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
What did you do in between twenty twenty one and
this past week when you find out that your conviction
has been thrown out and you can finally go back
to living your life nine years later.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Well, it's very difficult. For instance, I can't travel. I
wasn't allowed to travel outside of the Southern District of
Florida without permission. Obviously, they took my passport, so I
can't travel abroad, and I got to check in with
the probation once a week, which fortunately is just a
phone call. But it was very stressful. And I'm just
(29:44):
lucky that I was self employed and that I was
able to keep making a living.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
So very lucky in that respect.
Speaker 6 (29:51):
But like I said, life has to go on somehow.
So I got engaged, I got married, and we had
our first child because we said we can't just keep waiting.
We're going to be old by the time this thing's done.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Of course, of course, and the quote unquote unquote wheels
of justice.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Do not move quickly. It's your life, not theirs.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
They're going on vacations, they're living there lot as they're
traveling beyond the southern district of Florida.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, what did you do to celebrate?
Speaker 6 (30:18):
So, yeah, I was fortunate to be on vacation in
my family, Like I said, so we got a bottle
of champagne and just a great way to start off
the vacation get, you know, swimming in a lake and
all the sunshine. So very fortunate that happened.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Well, Douglas, as a fellow American, I am responsible for
the system that wronged you, and I feel some sense
of shame that a system that I am supposed to
be a part of, just like every other person in
this country, did not work as it was supposed to.
It usually does, but clearer than in this case, it didn't.
I will just ask you to conclude by what do
(30:54):
you take away from this? How are you a better person?
I always try to find a silver lining from this
if anyway.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Well, the silver lining is this will make a man
out of you, and this will harden you and toughen
you up. And that's what happened with me. And it's
made me a lot tougher, a lot stronger. And I
think that life's bumps, and you know, seem a little
bit smaller on the road of life, so to speak.
So it's been It gives you perspective in that respect,
(31:23):
and I am extremely grateful for my wife, my attorneys,
everybody who raised the money we had. We had thousands
of people praying for this case, We had thousands of
people donating, sending messages of encouragement, and so very grateful
for all these people and our friends in the media
who took this case on very early recognizing what was
(31:44):
going on. The foremost among them would be Tucker Carlton.
So I'm very lucky in that respect.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
I remember when we had you on before, I had
so many people who felt like there had to be
more details to there's no way this could really happen
in our times because we don't want to believe it.
Douglas Mackie, thank you for staying the course and thank
you for sharing your story.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Thank you, sir.
Speaker 6 (32:10):
And let me just ask everybody to check out Patriotfreedomproject
dot com because there's a lot of cases like mine
and I'm going to be helping them out in identifying
those cases and trying to get jotted for Americans that
have been wronged by the federal criminal system.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Use this story for good brother Amen
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