What's up you beautiful bastards hope you're having a fantastic Thursday
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is wow
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow, this Jesse Smollett situation and to start things off. I'm gonna kind of do a tldr to the updates
We're gonna talk about today if you want a more detailed version
I highly recommend you watch a previous videos on the slide that said as you might remember at the end of January Jesse small an
Actor on the TV show Empire claimed he was assaulted in a hate crime by two men in Chicago
But as we discuss there were initial weird things with the reporting
There were also later reports that allege that
Smollett may have staged the attack himself since some of the evidence really wasn't adding up
His story was also changing also regarding who did this the police took two suspects into questioning
But then released them without charges and that led to Wednesday where Chicago Police announced that smile
It was actually a suspect in a criminal
investigation as to whether or not he filed a false police report and
Staged that attack later that day a grand jury heard evidence on smollett stage in the event and prosecutors charged him with a felony count
of disorderly conduct which brought us to five o'clock in the morning today where Smollett turned himself in to authorities and he is currently in
The custody of detectives a massive note here
Felony disorderly conduct were falsifying a police report is a class four felony in Illinois
That could result in one to three years in prison for smaller
and actually that's along with possible restitution to the police force to repay what it cost to do the
investigation which
Sounds like kind of a side thing but money may have been a major factor here and I say that because of what came out
This morning when Chicago police gave a press briefing about this incident and the arrest in that briefing Chicago police superintendent
EDT Johnson said that Smollett paid two men thirty five hundred dollars to stage the attack with another five hundred
dollars upon return
They also said that while a staged attack did actually happen most of the injuries that they saw on small its face were likely
Self-inflicted also it was really interesting from this is how they said they figured all of this hell is that they watched footage from thirty
Five cameras set up by the city as well as twenty private security cameras to follow the movements of the two attackers to figure out
Their identity they managed to track their movements just before the attack where they had gotten into a cab from a rideshare
vehicle tracking down that vehicle led to them getting the attackers identities and from there things moved forward also because apparently this story didn't already
seem like a
TV cop show they explained that after detaining the two men they refused to speak without a lawyer their lawyer then spoke to them then
Authorities and finally, they confess details of the entire plot at the 47th hour of detention
Which is the last hour police could hold them in custody?
without charge Johnson also added that Smollett had initially sent a fake racially charged letter to himself a letter that had a white powder that
Caused the set of Empire to be shut down and a hazmat team sent in which on that note the US Post Office an FBI
Are currently investigating that and smell it could be facing even more serious charges in the future with long prison term
And as far as the why, you know
Why do this there were some initial?
Reports saying that he might have been getting kicked off of his show and then the show said no
there's no truth to that police say they believe he staged the attack because he was
Unsatisfied with his salary on Empire and hope the publicity would boost his profile and kind of around this
I think it's important to just listen to superintendent
Johnson talking about these claims and the effect that it had on the city of Chicago and more this announcement today
recognizes that Empire actor justice Millette took advantage of the pain and anger of
Racism to promote his career. How can an individual who's been embraced by the city of Chicago?
Turn around and slap everyone in this city in the face by making these false claims
Bogus police reports
calls real harm
they do harm to every legitimate victim who's in need of support by police and and
Investigators as well as the citizens of this city along with him talking about being pissed off his words with Jesse's small it's motive
he also criticized the spreading of false rumors and also talked about the impact it had on the
Investigation so we gave him the benefit of doubt up into that 47th hour
But we discovered the actual motive quite frankly it pissed everybody off, you know
Because we have to invest valuable resources
A lot of the what? I want you all to really understand is when you all put things out there
Into the universe that's not actual facts, then it causes us to have to chase all that stuff down
Those are resources in time spent that we'll never get back and the latest update as we were finishing this video
We found out that smollett's bond has been set at $100,000 and that he will be asked to surrender his passport
You know following us news. We've seen massive massive reactions all over the place
I mean even before today when we start seeing reports
there was a massive shift to the story the likes of cardi B chiming in saying
Smollett messed up History Month last night. You had Don Lemon saying if Jesse's story isn't true
He squandered a lot of goodwill adding he even
Lied to a lot of people if it's not true
including me and
That's not cool. This is playing out every single moment in
cable news
Sean Hannity is gonna eat justly small. Let's lunch. Every single second Tucker. Carlson is going to eat justly small
That's lunch every single second right send up. The President of the United States's are going to eat as lunch
And who does the president United States watch every night?
You people knew well cable news
And in fact, we did see president Trump chimed in this morning with a tweet writing at jesse smaller
what about Magga and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments, but also
I mean you had people talking about the real impact. This is going to have people like British actress and Natalie Emmanuel tweeting
Jesse's smile at man. You have hurt so many people with this line
mostly the real victims of racial and homophobic slash transphobic attacks
You give people who want to silence the stories of marginalized communities license to disbelief and dismiss them
You should be ashamed as far as my reaction to all of this. Obviously, you know, we live in America
We're supposed to presume innocence until proven guilty, but everything coming out now seems incredibly damning and it's hard not to just be completely
Outraged and disgusted that someone would do this
You would have someone that would take advantage of it and really
Weaponize people's desire to protect people that are part of vulnerable group as a way to self promote to get what you want
Money-wise to become a bigger deal in a different Avenue, you know, here's a question
What if there hadn't been?
Enough cameras or there were some cameras that happened to have two or three white guys and Magga hats nearby
Jesse have said yeah
I think that might be them was he willing to demonize through a false story not only a group in general
But what he have what helped put innocent people behind bars is just it's all just a ridiculous situation
But all of that said, of course I passed the question off to you
What are your thoughts around this story from that I want to share some stuff
I loved today and today and awesome brought to you by SeatGeek
If you didn't know Asik is the fantastic ticket app that takes confusion out of buying tickets for all kinds of live events from concerts
To comedy shows to sporting events if at all the tickets in one place, they give them 0 to 100 scores
So, you know if you're getting a good deal or not
I have the app on my phone and it is by far the easiest
Way to shop for tickets to whatever whether it be something down the road or my personal specialty which is the last minute
Oh my god, what am I supposed to do ideal?
it has saved many a boring weekend with my kids as well as some date nights with my wife but enough about my inability to
Schedule things in my life so much
So that anything I do outside of this office is pretty much a surprise
best of all for all of you beautiful bastards
If you go to see geek Phil calm or just click the link in the description down below and you download the app
Make sure you enter in code Phil to get $20 off your first ticket purchase
Yeah
I highly recommend you check it out and the first bit of Awesome today is actually kind of a two piece one if you didn't
See today is extra morning news deep dive. I highly recommend it. It's it's really fascinating
We cover a topic I wasn't even aware of a few weeks ago
But of course that's one of the several goals we have with those videos
We want to cover things that really aren't getting as much attention as they probably should until we talked with YouTube and we figured out
Why people did not get their notifications for the Tuesday PDF turns out there's a very specific
behind-the-scenes setting for notification essentially to simplify it if you post three things on YouTube in a
24 hour period the notification should go out for those three things
But if you post more than three things in a 24 hour period that fourth thing it's not going to pop up in
Notification and so what happened is on Monday the show was incredibly late so we thought hey
Let's do a live stream one notification
Then the extremely late Monday PDS went out second notification
Then Tuesday people got an extra morning bonus video and then the Tuesday PDS got screwed. It's getting a handle
It's being fixed, but it was also such an outlier situation
but I
wanted to clear that up as I and I think a lot of other people were really concerned that it had to do with the
Content of the video let's know what that said. That doesn't explain
The other issues that people have on other videos there really seemed on Tuesday that it was a blatant problem
But now we have an answer man
We got trailer goodness with the Angry Birds movie - the official trailer for Rocket Man and we had deesis and marrow on hot ones
and I just gotta say I'm so
Excited not not even just for this video and then seeing them more cuz they're doing a media cycle right now
I have missed their Vice shows so much
I'm excited to see whatever the hell they do with the Showtime show and we have Nina Dobrev making an in-flight safety video we had
david dobrik trying 9 things
He's never done before and if you want to see the full versions of everything
I just shared the secret link of the day really anything at all
links as always are in the description down below and then let's talk about this just
Absolutely horrifying story
some of you may have heard the news last week surrounding the Coast Guard officer who was arrested and
Details are coming out now and they're the just this seriously, chill
So for those who don't know Christopher Paul Henson is a 49 year old man from Silver Spring, Maryland, who is a u.s
Coast Guard lieutenant who has been working at the US Coast Guard headquarters in Washington since 2016
He also served in the US Marine Corps from 1988 to 1993
And in the Army National Guard for about two years in the mid 90s according to court documents
But then we fast forward to see that On February 15th
He was arrested on gun and drug charges and for allegedly wanting to conduct a mass killing according to court documents
He was a self-identified white nationalist who wanted to kill Democrats and journalists Coast Guard chief warrant officer Barry Lane
who was a
spokesperson for the US Coast Guard headquarters said in a statement that the arrest was actually part of an
investigation led by the Coast Guard in
cooperation with the FBI and the Justice Department so had federal prosecutors saying that Henson had acquired a cache of weapons that he
Stockpiled to launch this widespread terrorist attack furtively when law enforcement searched his home
They found 15 guns and more than a thousand rounds of ammunition in the first page of the court documents
They really don't mince words first page reads the current charges
however are the proverbial tip of the iceberg defendant is a
Domestic terrorist vent on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to effect governmental Conda into adding the defendant intends to murder innocent
Civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country and also for that reason prosecutors asked the court to detain him while he awaits trial
And the further you get into the details of this case
The the more horrifying mail according to court documents Hassan has had extremist views for a year
They found a draft email dated back in June of 2017
Saying I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth
I think a plague would be most successful
But how do I acquire the needed Spanish flu botulism anthrax?
Not sure yet, but we'll find something interesting idea the other day start with biological attacks followed by attack on food supply
They also found another draft letter
He had sent to himself in September where he identified himself as a white nationalist for over 30 years and advocated for focused violence
Which the prosecution says is in order to establish a white homeland this also based on the timing would have been just after Charlottesville
Virginia in August of 2017. They also found Hanson's internet searches which included most liberal senators
Where do most senators live in DC senators have SS Secret Service protection and our Supreme Court?
Justices protected additionally also search for Joe Scarborough
And where is Morning Joe film this referring to his morning show after viewing a headline claiming that Scarborough referred to trump as the worst
Ever a federal investigator said that hasn't created a spreadsheet on his computer
People that he would target and they include Joey most likely Joe Scarborough Chris Hayes send bloomin Jew, which is presumably senator Blumenthal
Hello, see senator cane Chuck Schumer. Don Lemon polka warren, presumably senator Elizabeth Warren Cortez
Which is believed to be a OSI Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Cory Booker, Kamala, Harris and more
Also, according to reports Hanson made thousands of visits to websites that sell firearms and tactical gear
there's also a record of his firearm equipment purchases over the last two years and if all of these tactics sound familiar
It's because it's actually similar to something that we and so many others have talked about in the past
Specifically the Norwegian domestic terrorist attack that killed 77 people in 2011 has been referred to that as a martyrdom
Operation that instance the attacker spent three years prior to the incident producing a detailed manifesto where he attacked multiculturalism and Muslims
Which he saw as the greatest threat to Western culture and according to the court documents hasn't found
inspiration for his plan in the manifesto which provided planning and
Preparation prior to the attacks and actually according to court documents that was intended to serve as a blueprint for future single cell or lone
Wolf terrorist operation and adding that from early 2017 up until the day of Hassan's arrest
He routinely followed instructions in the manifesto that said to amass appropriate firearms food disguises and survival supplies
and so as far as the details there that is what we know as far as hasson himself if you're in federal court today and
A federal judge ordered that he be detained for 14 days and that's time that the prosecutors will use to gather
Evidence to support their much larger charges according to reports as far as Haasan's
Defense his attorney weirdly accused the FBI of going after Hasson to show quote
It is not just targeting Muslims though said the government arguing Hassan was using his work computer to plot attacks against politicians and media figures
Which the defense said it's quote not a crime to think negative things. But ultimately that is where we are right now
Given the next two weeks. We're probably gonna find out a lot more just man
I know that we only talked about two stories today, but
the world's crazy horrifying ridiculous place where I would personally want and this story's a big
thank you and show of appreciation to the people in the coast guard the FBI the
DOJ who prevented this caught this who worked on it who acted on it?
It's my personal opinion based off of the information we have at hand right now that there are going to be people alive
That wouldn't have been if they had not acted. So, thank you
And of course also like we end every story I'd love to your thoughts around this one both on the story in general
but also and maybe this will change what it feels like this story which is which is far more horrifying is being kind of
Downplayed to to other news right now and that's where I'm going to end today's show
Remember, if you like this video you like these dives into the news. Let us know hit that like button
Also, if you new here you want more of these daily dives hit subscribe, make sure to ring that bell to turn on notifications
I also highly recommend you follow me on Twitter in addition to getting notified when I post a new video
I also sometimes say things that aren't completely stupid
Also, if you missed this morning's extra morning news deep dive or yesterday's philip
Defranco show you want to catch up you can click or tap right there to watch those slots with that said of course as always
My name's Philip Defranco. You've just been phill'd Xin laughs yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow