Militia group, the oath keepers is currently under fire because
nine of their members are facing seditious conspiracy charges for
their role in the January 6th coup or attempted coup.
And I think we all knew that but
we didn't know that their defense lawyers are taking a very interesting new tech.
So check this out.
Jurors are going to be told when the trial begins that the far right extremists
believed President Donald Trump would invoke the insurrection act.
As they gathered at the capitol hundreds strong in their camo colored
tactical gear and turn them into his own ultra loyal federal militia.
Now that sounds nuts.
But effectively the argument is if they become
the president's militia then you can't touch them.
This is what they thought they were going to do.
I don't know if it's gonna work on this jury.
But it makes sense that the head of the oath keepers,
which by the way you guys didn't know is made up of current and
former US military personnel from all different aspects of US military.
So that is who they recruit.
That is who they continue to recruit.
But Elmer Rose, who's the head of it said that day, do not concede,
do not wait until January 20th 2021 inauguration day strike now.
And he urged that in an open letter to Trump on December 14th,
2020, quote, you must call us up and command us.
Now mind you, this is a week where we're finding out that Trump did
wanna go command the oath keepers and others from the capital itself.
But okay, let's look at this legal strategy.
So James lee bright, the lawyer for roads acknowledge that most people will be
shocked to learn the Oath Keepers thought they'd become federal militia.
They believed what bright imagine people thinking these guys are effing crazy.
So that's a lawyer for the head of the Oath Keepers trying to sort
of like soften the blow that I think most people and will have and
most the reaction that we will have, which is what they thought that.
But I wanted to turn it over to you guys.
Is this going to work on the jury?
>> Yeah.
So guys, I actually there's a couple of different issues here.
One is the one Francesca mention about whether it's going to work.
Is it a good legal defense?
And the other is did they actually believe it?
Because even their own lawyer says it sounds nuts.
So I wanna tackle one at a time in terms of whether they actually
believed it absolutely is my answer.
And I think it's hard for a lot of people that live in the rational
world that we live in to understand that and to believe it.
They think no, they didn't really think that trump was going to come and go,
you are now the militia and you might go and grab your guns and
they literally thought this and they admit this.
You can now go get your guns that were stashed, not just the spears and
the bear spray and all and the nooses that you already have those weapons
that's gonna come into the second part of the conversation.
Go get more weapons and now start to kill the democrats and
people think there's no way they actually thought that no they did.
They absolutely positively did think that it's in the recordings,
they talk amongst each other.
He's gonna do the insurrection act and to be quote unquote fair to them.
Trump has said on several occasions when during his presidency that he would use
the insurrection act in different context.
and not necessarily to kill political opponents but that he would use it, for
example, to put down the George Floyd protests.
So before we go on to whether it's going to work as a legal defense.
Do we all agree to that that they these guys were genuinely nuts and
actually believe this stuff.
>> Yeah, I wanted to give a little bit more context for
that Jordan before I let you jump in, let's just because because I think
is right and I think that the proof the evidence bears it out.
And so they have a little bit more to stand on other than like we thought maybe
he would, I don't know.
Okay, so this is also from insider reason one they were invited security force for
rally planners and participants on January 6th including Roger stone Ali Alexander.
Remember, he was one of the main organizers, Latinos for
trump Virginia women for Trump's reason to they were awaiting Trump's orders.
That feels a little more vague to me, but the first one feels concrete.
And the insurrection act,
as we mentioned This is graphic six is actually pretty broadly written,
so it's so broadly written that leaving words like insurrection militia.
Militias of the state without clear definition trump actually could have
federalized the Oath Keepers.
Rhodes lawyers will tell jurors it's so farfetched and yet
it's legal at least until the court decides otherwise.
Again, that is the lawyer for the Oath Keepers,
but he might not be wrong in this case.
>> I don't want to make any predictions about how this case is going to go because
especially the past couple of weeks.
It just really underscores how bad our judicial system is in this country.
So I'm just gonna hope and pray that it's, we don't have the worst possible outcome.
But what this really represents is just how close trump and
his administration was too just some of the most fringe aspects of our country.
The groups, they were closely linked to the communication between a lot of these
intermediaries, these kind of fringe figures like you mentioned, Ali Alexander.
And of course, James O'keefe,
which we just saw this week from Jason Leopold from Buzzfeed.
He obtained documents that showed Mark Meadows was sharing James O'Keefe tweets
with other members of Trump administration, the Trump administration.
So totally all in, on some of the worst actors in the conspiracy space.
So it's not really a surprise that these people might have thought he could have
activated them or were following his orders.
And it really is another dark reminder as we've seen throughout all of these
hearings, just how close we were to things getting much more violent.
We're, very lucky, it wasn't a lot worse.
And a lot of people have said this is a trial balloon and
as we'll get to later in the show.
There are things that really showed that this could happen again and
be much more effective and much more violent.
>> Yeah, so now as we transition to, could this legal defense actually work?
That's a different question.
But in that bridge, I wanna tell you what legal experts are right about wrong about.
They're right that the wording of that statute is very vague.
It's from 1792, got updated in some ways in 1956 and
that the updates say that the president can't do that.
And if you just declare some people militia, what are the rules,
do they have to follow the same military code?
Do they not have to follow military code, but
one of the experts Joseph known from the booking center, which is, I'm sorry,
the Brandon center, which is very legitimate place.
But he said quote, there's no world in which it's remotely likely where
the President of the United States would invoke the insurrection act.
And call on what is fundamentally just a social club of guys who have firearms.
Joseph, none is incorrect, not even remotely true.
Trump definitely would have done that was considering doing that.
Okay, so now having said that, can you just go into court and say, well,
I thought trump was gonna turn me into a violent mob that got to murder people?
And the simple answer is no, you can't say that.
Okay, hey, I thought the vaguely worded statute allowed
me to do political murder of the president told me to, it's not gonna work.
First of all, the president didn't tell you to do it.
To be fair to trump as far as we know at this moment,
he certainly didn't order it on that day, and he might have considered it.
And if he did, then that is very bad news for
him because that he was planning a seditious conspiracy.
But as far as we know, there was no orders given by Trump.
You are now militia go murder people, right?
So the orders were not given.
So they, I mean that blows their defense completely.
But the the second line of their defense is, well, that's why we didn't go and
get our guns and start killing everybody.
That's why we only use the smaller weapons that we had.
No, that's not a defense either, okay?
I remember my friends,
I've told the story before to the members in a bonus episode, but my friends
had gotten attacked by a bunch of guys in our hometown when we were younger.
They actually went to court for assault charges and
the guy who attacked him said no that's not true your honor.
I didn't punch him in the face, I punched him in the stomach.
No that's still assault and you're still in a lot of trouble.
And so saying I plan to do the seditious conspiracy even though Trump didn't order
but I thought he was gonna order it.
And I just speared the cops and then smashed their heads against the wall.
But I didn't actually you know use my AR15, is not a great defense.
>> No, and whether or not it absolves anyone,
if anything it further impugns them.
And it definitely shows that the president even another piece of evidence
that he knew there was gonna be violence.
He knew there were armed people.
And if you needed a reminder, let's just briefly take a look again at what this
week revealed from the January 6th hearings.
Cassidy Hutchinson top aide to Mark Meadows,
the chief of staff who testified that trump knew there was gonna be violence and
then, yeah, he knew the names of these militias.
Take a look.
>> The president apparently wanted all attendees inside the official
rally space and repeatedly said quote, they're not here to hurt me.
And just to be clear.
So he was told again in that conversation or
was he told again in that conversation that people couldn't
come through the mags because they had weapons andm that people.
And his response was to say they can march to the capital from the ellipse.
>> Something, take the, I think bags away,
they're not here to hurt me, let them in, let my people in.
They can march the capital after the rally is over, they can march from the ellipse.
>> Take the effing bags away, then they can march the capital.
Right, and I wanna follow that up immediately with this showing that Trump
did know the kinds of militias who were there that day.
>> Although MS Hutchinson has no detailed knowledge of any planning involving
the proud boys for January 6th.
She did note this.
>> I recall hearing the word Oath Keepers and
hearing the word proud boys closer to the planning of
the January 6th rally when Mr Giuliani would be around.
>> I mean if we needed more evidence that this presidency colluded very,
very intimately with these far right extremist militias.
There you go, it was effectively his security squad on that day.
So I don't know if that's gonna exonerate them.
It seems pretty weak but
it also just shows you the delusion under which they were operating on that day.
>> Yeah, so look I think rather than exonerating them it implicates Trump.
>> It's remember the charges seditious conspiracy,
did they conspire together work on a plan to commit sedition?
And the Oath Keepers are saying in essence, yes we did.
That's why we had our heavy weaponry stashed away in Arlington Virginia.
We were in our hotels, we're gonna go grab them and come back.
We had our light weapons on us.
We were planning to be declared a militia.
We thought that would make it legal, but you think that might make it legal but
your actions are still violent and illegal.
And so if Trump said yeah get ready to do that.
That doesn't mean that the oath keepers are innocent.
It means Trump is guilty because he was part of that seditious conspiracy.
And and so and guys, I will leave you on these two horrifying thoughts though.
One of our members wrote in looby and
we'd love to do the show with you guys TYT.com slash join to become a member.
Luby wrote in this will go to the Supreme Court where all notions of reason or
consistency go to die.
And I was like, no Luby's makes a really good point.
I mean, they'll lose in the lower courts, even their lawyer says.
I mean I know it sounds nuts.
When they ask him about the details of the of the law,
he's like I have to get back to you on that.
We need a deep dive on that, if you will.
[LAUGH] And but what if it goes to the Supreme Court and
the Supreme Court's like, yeah, sounds pretty good to me.
Insurrection act anytime the president wants says,
those Randall's over there, go kill the Democrats.
>> Yeah. >> Okay, I mean it's unlikely,
but it's now in this horrifying hellscape.
We live in not impossible.
Speaking of which that leads me to my last number here, a poll just came out today.
The question was it may be necessary at some point soon for
citizens to take up arms against the government.
So how many people agree to that?
36% of Republicans say yes,
it may soon be necessary to take up arms against the government.
But it's not just as you look at that graphic there,
it's not just 36% of Republicans.
At the end, you states, 35% of independents and 20% of Democrats
agreeing among Americans who have guns in their homes, 37% agreed.
So here we are waiting for a ticking time bomb where everyone or
at least a third of the country feels like yeah.
I might have the right to go and let's finish the thought,
what is taking up arms against the government?
I might have to go the right to go and kill government officials,
whether they're cops, they're military or their politicians.
We have a third of the country planning to murder government officials as we speak.
This is not going to end well.
This is an absolute epic disaster in the making.
>> That's just something that's been on my mind a lot, Jenks.
So it's really frustrating to think that this is, a sentiment that a lot of,
especially Republicans, but some people across the board are exploiting.
Sometimes for personal or political expediency,
but it's just really horrifying to think what that looks like in 5 to 10 years.
The distrust of institutions, the crumbling infrastructure,
the systemic problems that continue to keep people in bleak material conditions.
What does that look like?
And it's really devastating if you think about it, so that we're already there,
we've got a third Republican saying that this is coming soon.
I think that spells disaster