0:01

two the

0:31

if your hearing this well have a

0:56

constitutional sheriffs are a group of

0:59

law enforcement officials who believe that

1:01

the county sheriff has the ultimate

1:03

authority to interpret and enforce the

1:05

constitution, often placing this local interpretation

1:07

above federal or state laws. They

1:10

assert that their duty includes protecting

1:12

citizens from what they perceive as

1:14

unconstitutional federal mandates and other laws.

1:17

This concept is promoted by groups

1:19

like the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace

1:22

Officers Association or the CSPOA, founded

1:24

by former Sheriff Richard Mack. Proponents

1:27

of this movement argue that the sheriff as

1:29

an elected official directly answerable to the local

1:31

populace has a sovereign duty to act as

1:34

a check on other government layers. Critics,

1:36

however, see the movement as a potential

1:38

threat to the rule of law, arguing

1:40

that it could lead to a selective

1:42

enforcement of laws based on individual sheriffs'

1:44

interpretation of the constitution. This, they

1:47

warn, might undermine established legal precedents

1:49

and disrupt the uniform application of

1:51

justice across different jurisdictions. The CSPOA

1:53

claims on its website that, quote,

1:56

the constitution makes it clear that

1:58

the power of the the sheriff even

2:00

supersedes the powers of the president, a

2:02

theory that legal scholars say has no

2:04

grounding in law. What

2:07

doesn't help their cause is that

2:09

people who self-identify as constitutional sheriffs

2:11

often promote baseless conspiracy theories or

2:13

associate with conspiracy theorists. This was

2:16

seen at the recent CSPOA conference

2:18

in Las Vegas. Their attendees paid

2:20

$49 for a day that

2:23

included 11 hours of lectures, breakfast,

2:25

a box lunch, and a pizza party.

2:30

I hope they got ice cream afterwards. The

2:34

lectures were full of conspiracy theories,

2:36

including those related to immigration, elections,

2:38

and vaccines. One of

2:40

the individuals in attendance of the conference was

2:43

our guest today, David Gilbert. He is reporter

2:45

for Wired, and we previously spoke to him

2:47

about the group Moms for Liberty. His latest

2:49

report for Wired, which we will link to

2:52

in the show notes, his headline, Far Right

2:54

Sheriffs Want a Citizen Army to Stop Illegal

2:56

Immigrant Voters. David, thank you so much for

2:58

speaking with us again today. Glad to

3:00

be here, guys. So, yeah, you went on the

3:03

unusual assignment here in Vegas, but according

3:06

to your own understanding, like what are

3:08

the constitutional sheriffs? Because I was reading

3:10

up on them. It seems like they

3:13

really see themselves as the real-life version

3:15

of Judge Dredd, right? They get to

3:17

decide the law. Yeah, I think that's

3:20

in the kind of ultimate

3:22

ideal of how they see

3:24

themselves is that they are

3:26

the final arbiter of what

3:29

the Constitution, or how to

3:31

interpret the Constitution. They are the

3:33

ones who stand between the people

3:35

and the all-powerful federal government or

3:37

state agencies. They're the ones who

3:39

are standing up for the little

3:41

people effectively, and they'll do anything,

3:43

or they're willing to put their

3:45

lives on the line to protect

3:47

their people. And there's no one

3:49

who has a higher authority than

3:51

them If it comes down

3:53

to it. Yeah, I Mean, that sounds

3:55

pretty bad, because what do we think

3:57

they would say in response to that?

4:00

The arguments. Like you know there are

4:02

other people involved in the legal system

4:04

like judges. You see we have a

4:07

case of law. Yeah, they don't seem

4:09

to have a very high opinion of

4:11

anyone other than sheriff's and they don't

4:13

really have a high opinion of more

4:15

sheriff's because when you talk to the

4:18

constitution says they see you know other

4:20

sheriff's who are not part of their

4:22

movement as we are. you know, just

4:24

stare kowtowing to the to the government

4:27

and just in it for the money

4:29

or whatever. Else it is so I

4:31

think they just want to be kind

4:33

of seen as kind of this old

4:35

fashioned view of what a sheriff is.

4:37

where they are the ones who will

4:39

stand up to the invaders or whoever

4:41

it is that is coming into your

4:43

town to take your cattle. Or could

4:45

actually a couple of the sheriff's who

4:47

I spoke to in Vegas spoke about

4:49

people coming into take away their cattle.

4:51

It was kind of a real throwback

4:53

to want to share of may be

4:55

used to do a loss rather than

4:58

what they're doing. Know bus, yeah, date.

5:00

They seem to very much have this

5:02

old fashioned view of was a law

5:04

man should be. well yeah any any

5:06

time I imagine like as a group

5:08

of sheriff's that are kind of like

5:10

the last line of defense between you

5:12

know, the people and the law. I

5:14

mean I imagine like some kind of

5:16

Kevin Costner fit that yeah like western

5:18

movie and you know what you just

5:20

said about you know be being very

5:22

concerned over cattle being taken. Yeah it

5:24

seems like these guys want to go

5:26

back to the days of saloons, gunfights

5:28

outside of those saloons hanging. Cattle thieves

5:30

you know which I too am

5:32

I say red Dead Redemption to

5:35

exists and know and live that

5:37

life without is sort of endangering

5:39

or spreading harmful propaganda. Yeah I

5:41

don't know if you saw but

5:44

in the latest season the Fargo

5:46

Jon Hamm is he isn't kind

5:48

of named as a constitutional sheriff

5:50

but he is very much acting

5:52

like a constitution sheriff. Were young

5:55

we you know rebuffs any attempt

5:57

by day f B I to

5:59

to. try and stop him doing

6:01

just whatever he wants. Yeah. Yeah.

6:04

I recently watched, actually coincidentally recently

6:06

watched High Noon with Gary Cooper,

6:09

which he plays a sheriff who

6:11

fusily tries to rustle up a

6:13

posse to fend off a criminal

6:15

who's coming to town. And it

6:17

is a very romantic view of

6:19

the sheriff who's driven by duty

6:21

and who is the last really

6:23

lined the defense between these

6:26

innocent weak spineless, basically, townspeople

6:28

and armed criminals. I

6:30

think they really want – they seem to

6:33

view themselves as the Gary Coopers. That's

6:35

absolutely their view of themselves. Unfortunately,

6:37

the reality of it is that

6:40

there weren't many Gary Coopers in

6:42

Las Vegas last week. Which

6:45

is funny too because if I'm

6:47

thinking about the quote unquote weak

6:49

spineless sheriffs that they probably refer

6:51

to, I'm thinking of the guys

6:53

in part of the LAPD who

6:56

drive around in the big SUVs

6:58

with the automatic rifle up front

7:00

and the body armor and all of

7:03

this stuff essentially look like military mercenaries.

7:05

But these are the weak guys. They

7:07

don't have a duster. They don't have

7:09

a six shooter. They don't have a

7:11

length of rope attached to their waist.

7:14

Yeah. Yeah. So

7:16

the CSPOA was founded by Richard Mack,

7:18

who was a former sheriff. I

7:21

previously encountered him in Pennsylvania

7:24

when I went to the Rod

7:26

of Iron Festival that's run by

7:28

that spinoff of the Mooneys Cult.

7:30

But what can you tell me about his background? So

7:33

he was a former sheriff. And

7:36

he was actually – I read

7:38

his book on the plane over to

7:40

Vegas. He sent me one

7:42

of his books before it went. And it

7:44

just kind of outlines how he became kind

7:46

of disillusioned with law enforcement because he was

7:48

involved in – all he was asked to

7:51

do was get more speeding tickets and more

7:53

speeding tickets. And he felt like this was

7:55

kind of being against the citizens that he

7:57

was meant to protect. And he felt –

8:00

that this isn't what law enforcement should

8:02

be. So he quit and he became

8:04

a sheriff and he eventually, I

8:07

think it was in Graham County that he became

8:09

a sheriff for about a decade or so in

8:11

the late 80s and early 90s. And

8:14

he was kind of heavily involved as

8:16

well with the NRA around the time,

8:18

I think. And then he, what kind

8:20

of brought him to national attention was

8:22

he was a plaintiff in a

8:25

lawsuit against the Clinton

8:27

administration over the Brady Handgun Act,

8:29

the Brady Act. And he won

8:31

that, which he will tell you at

8:33

every single opportunity that he gets because

8:35

the Supreme Court ruled that the provisions

8:38

in the Brady Act were unconstitutional. So

8:40

he kind of, after he finished being

8:42

a sheriff, he, I think

8:44

it was in, he was one of the founding

8:46

members of the Oakeepers, which people may have heard

8:48

of the kind of militia group. And he was

8:51

a board member on the Oakeepers for up until

8:53

very, very recently. And then in 2011, he

8:56

founded the CSPOA to kind of,

8:59

I suppose, similar kind of

9:01

idea to the Oakeepers, but to, I

9:03

suppose, maybe radicalized the sheriffs, the

9:05

3000 or so sheriffs that are in the

9:07

country because he felt that sheriffs were no

9:10

longer doing what they should be doing in

9:12

his view that they weren't following the constitution.

9:14

They weren't protecting the citizens. They were instead

9:16

just doing what the government was telling them

9:18

to do. And over the years, he's kind

9:21

of said how many people are involved in

9:23

the CSPOA. I think in 2017, he said

9:25

the number was 4,500 people paying. So

9:29

that's not sheriffs. That's just people who are members who

9:31

are paying a monthly subscription. And then I think in

9:33

2021, he said 300 of the 3000 sheriffs in

9:37

the US were members of the CSPOA,

9:40

which is a pretty big figure, but

9:42

it has been disputed by experts that

9:44

it is not that high. And certainly

9:47

in Vegas last week, there were nowhere

9:49

near 300 sheriffs. There

9:51

were maybe three sheriffs who were

9:53

in Las Vegas last week serving

9:55

sheriffs. And so when I asked

9:57

them straight out what the members

9:59

should be, numbers and how many sheriffs are involved,

10:01

he won't. He won't say. He just kind of

10:03

fudges the answer and says he'll get back to

10:06

you and he never does. The

10:08

thing that's sort of ironic to me is

10:10

that you know in my daily life you

10:12

know driving around Los Angeles the only time

10:14

I ever ever wish that

10:17

there was a police officer around

10:19

is when some guy in like

10:21

a BMW you know whips by

10:23

my car on the freeway like

10:25

115 miles per hour you know

10:27

it's like the only time I'm like where the

10:29

fucking police like as these guys are

10:31

weaving in and out of traffic you

10:34

know barely dodging you know the cars

10:36

in front and behind them and it's

10:38

so funny that he's like no all

10:40

they wanted me to do was like

10:42

give more speeding tickets I'm like yes

10:44

that's where we need you that's where

10:46

we need you we don't need you

10:48

like upending you know people's like homeless

10:50

camps we need you on these freeways

10:52

stopping these goddamn Teslas stopping these BMWs

10:54

like these are the real criminals that

10:56

I witnessed in my day-to-day life. Another

10:58

really interesting story from the book was

11:01

that when he was a police

11:03

officer he went undercover as part

11:05

of the kind of so-called war

11:07

on drugs so he went undercover

11:10

as like a drug user and like oh

11:12

whoa I don't know what he was like

11:14

as a younger man but I could not

11:16

imagine how he would be any good at

11:18

that but he did it for a full

11:20

year and he he was married for

11:23

kids at the time and that I think that

11:25

was the final straw and he kind of came

11:27

away with that thing that the war on drugs

11:29

as well as speeding the war on drugs is

11:31

a bad thing which you know he's

11:33

probably right about sure yeah but he

11:35

just again felt that the government were

11:38

you know penalizing the people you know when they

11:40

caught someone weed or whatever that was that shouldn't

11:42

be happening that they should be targeting the kind

11:44

of the more the organized crime or whatever so

11:46

that was another reason why he gave up being

11:48

a police officer and moved to being a sheriff

11:50

instead he was like I don't want to give

11:52

out these speeding tickets I don't want to you

11:54

know put somebody in jail for smoking a joint

11:56

he's like I want to be a part of

11:58

a posse We

12:01

go around with shotguns, and we're riding on

12:03

horses, and like, yeah, we're – we ride

12:05

into town in front of the saloon. Like,

12:07

that's what I want to be doing. Yeah,

12:09

yeah. That's another one of the situations where

12:11

he seems like he did accurately

12:14

identify ways in which law

12:16

enforcement is abused in order to keep

12:18

people in line, but his solution just

12:20

was not any better. This is why

12:23

we gotta, like, change names of stuff.

12:25

Like, if everybody – if the word

12:27

sheriff connotates, like, you know, a dusty

12:29

mustache and, you know, like a

12:31

flat brim hat and, you know, a

12:34

Smith & Wesson, like, then let's call

12:36

him something different now, because if

12:38

you use the terminology that elicits the view

12:40

of this thing that no longer exists, yeah,

12:42

of course you're gonna have people like this

12:44

guy who are like, no,

12:47

no, no, like, what I'm doing doesn't

12:49

match the title. It doesn't match what

12:52

I've seen in the movies or what I know

12:54

the history of this occupation to be. I've

12:56

got a quote here that I saved from the book if

12:59

you'd like to hear it. Yeah, for sure. Go for

13:01

it. This is from his time reflecting on

13:03

being undercover in the drug squad. It

13:06

was something I so thoroughly hated that

13:08

it defied description. I never used drugs

13:10

growing up and only tasted beer a

13:12

couple of times, and I hated that

13:14

too. Now I have to live in

13:17

the bars, drink, smoke, and act like

13:19

the biggest partying druggie there ever was,

13:21

something totally foreign to my conservative Mormon

13:23

upbringing. So, yeah, you can see why

13:25

he would be maybe disillusioned after spending

13:27

a year as the world's biggest druggie.

13:29

Sounds like he was in danger of having a good

13:31

time. Yeah,

13:34

I did watch him speak

13:36

once, and like, if I was

13:38

a member of the underground and I

13:40

laid eyes on that guy, I would

13:43

be immediately suspicious of him.

13:45

I'll say that. He didn't

13:47

seem like a lifelong degenerate.

13:51

So, you know, the content of

13:53

the conference itself, very long day,

13:55

it seemed like. Very long day.

14:01

And only

14:05

some of it, a small portion of

14:07

it, concerned subject matter do you think

14:09

would be relevant to people who call

14:11

themselves constitutional sheriffs, which is about federal

14:13

overreach and that kind of stuff like

14:16

that. A big chunk of it was

14:18

dedicated to batshit conspiracy theories. There's really

14:20

no other way to put it, it

14:22

seemed like. And some of them are

14:25

genuinely dangerous conspiracy theories. One

14:27

of the speakers was the

14:29

highly energetic conservative political commentator

14:32

and conspiracy theorist Wayne Allen

14:34

Root. So he promoted

14:36

the false claim that the presidential election

14:39

of 2020 was decided

14:41

due to illegal votes from immigrants.

14:43

I said the election was stolen

14:45

in six battleground states that would

14:47

have given Trump a landslide win

14:49

instead of a landslide electoral loss.

14:52

Those six states were decided by

14:54

the votes of illegal aliens who

14:56

came in through our open border.

14:58

That's who's voting that's destroying our

15:00

elections. Obviously not true at all.

15:03

Nothing, nothing even close to true

15:05

about that. Jesus says he just screams a

15:07

lot of bullshit. High energy man, I'll say

15:09

that. He had a lot of energy. He

15:12

woke people up when – because most of

15:14

the speakers before him were pretty dull. If

15:16

nothing else, he had energy. Yeah, I think

15:18

it was maybe the only – he does

15:21

a radio show. I think he was the

15:23

only broadcasting professional who was on that stage.

15:25

So he certainly stood apart from the other,

15:27

perhaps more to date sheriffs and other people.

15:31

Wayne Allen Root, he also promoted

15:33

the Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory, which

15:35

is the claim that the –

15:38

basically the white population of the United

15:40

States is being systematically replaced by immigrants.

15:43

And this usually implies or sometimes stated

15:45

in other variations of this theory that

15:47

this is part of a mastermind plot

15:49

by some sort of Jewish cabal. And

15:51

that was really concerning to me because

15:53

when people ask me, well, like, what's

15:56

the most dangerous conspiracy theory it is,

15:58

it has to be. be

16:00

great replacement because of your theory because

16:02

this one has inspired multiple mass shootings

16:05

in multiple countries. People get extremely radicalized

16:07

when they believe this. I mean, did

16:09

you hear a lot of like great

16:12

replacement stuff at this conference? Oh, yeah,

16:14

it permeated pretty much everything that they

16:16

were talking about. It was kind of

16:18

on, you know, just this underlying factor

16:21

in most of the speeches

16:23

that there was kind of little offhand

16:26

references, even if they're not talking about, you

16:28

know, the threat of immigrants

16:30

coming in to vote for Biden,

16:33

they were talking about they just

16:35

randomly like during this speech, he

16:37

just randomly shouted about Chinese people

16:40

way now and route and not

16:42

not in reference to anything that he

16:45

was actually talking about. And the next

16:47

speaker was a member of the constitutional

16:49

sheriffs who was American Chinese. And he

16:51

he was meant to be saying a

16:53

prayer before lunch, but he actually just

16:55

stood up and had to say, I

16:57

just want to say that not all

16:59

Chinese Americans are the problem. And he

17:02

had to try and explain it in such

17:04

a way that wasn't as if he was

17:06

attacking Wayne Allen Ruth. And it was

17:08

just really horrible to list because he was obviously

17:10

kind of upset by what was said, but he

17:12

couldn't really express it. So I went and I

17:15

asked him afterwards, you know, outside, you know, were

17:17

you upset about that? You know, why did you

17:19

make that comment? And he goes, Oh, yeah, I

17:21

just wanted to point out that all Chinese Americans,

17:23

you know, that a lot of Chinese people are

17:25

here legally and blah, blah, blah. And

17:28

then I said, well, you know, could this guy's

17:30

rhetoric, you know, could it cause real

17:32

problems? And he said, well, maybe, but

17:34

the real problem is the Biden administration.

17:36

And just went on and a big

17:38

rant about the Biden administration. So even

17:40

even him, even he couldn't last longer

17:43

than a couple of sentences of being

17:45

kind of, you know, trying to balance

17:47

the anti-immigrant rhetoric and the great replacement

17:49

stuff that was coming out. you

18:00

sort of toe the party line

18:02

and you have similar ideologies. Proud

18:04

Boys and some of these militia

18:06

groups, stuff like the Boog

18:09

Boys, they contain

18:11

even though the ideology I think is

18:13

rooted in white supremacism, they contain people

18:15

from other cultures. And I know Julian

18:18

has sort of talked about this in

18:20

the past but there's always worry about

18:22

a tipping point when these groups get

18:24

into power and shed the members of

18:27

their group that don't necessarily look like

18:30

they don't match up looks-wise or culturally

18:32

with the ideology and they will be

18:34

shed. And this seems like kind of

18:37

an interesting intersection of that moment where

18:39

here you have somebody who is a

18:41

Chinese American who has to sit on

18:43

stage. In fact, he's speaking next and

18:46

the guy before him is spouting this

18:48

really sort of racist rhetoric and it's

18:50

a good example of that, of what

18:52

happens when you have these kind of

18:55

right-wing groups that include people from other

18:57

cultures and all of a sudden they

19:00

still can't hide their own sort

19:02

of racism and and supremacism and

19:04

yeah, how does that feel and

19:07

how do these people within these groups sort of

19:09

deal with that? And I think it's totally

19:12

fascinating that within seconds he was

19:14

pivoting to, nah, well, you know,

19:16

yes, this was pretty offensive and

19:18

yeah, I definitely had to speak up about it

19:21

but really it's Joe Biden. That's

19:23

what we should focus on. And it's

19:25

like, well, okay, cool, you're still towing

19:27

the party line then, I guess. Yeah,

19:30

it's he just like by speaking up and

19:32

just and all he said was, I just

19:34

want to point out that not all Chinese

19:36

people are, you know, illegal immigrants and lots

19:39

of them are here like me who are

19:41

legal immigrants. But that's it, that's as far

19:43

as he could go. He could not bring

19:45

himself to say yes, what he was saying

19:47

is dangerous. Because he even said, yeah, that's

19:50

a really interesting point but no, it's Biden.

19:52

He's like, I know we all heard them

19:54

clap really loud and cheer after he said

19:56

that thing and then I had to go.

19:58

Like, that's gotta be sh- super weird

20:00

to be like, okay, yeah, I'm going up. All

20:03

right, I'm gonna do my prayer. Then we're all

20:05

gonna get this box lunch, really excited about that.

20:07

Then it's like, oh, what's this guy saying? Oh

20:09

boy, and they're all cheering, huh? Like, I'm

20:12

feeling a little, you know, because

20:14

there's a reason, like you said, there was a

20:16

reason that he went up and felt like he

20:18

had to say something. Yeah, yeah, it's really sad.

20:21

Like you mentioned, there are only a handful

20:23

of like real sheriffs who came up and

20:25

spoke. And one of them was a man

20:28

who goes by the name Bob and

20:31

he is a CSPOA board member and

20:33

the sheriff of a county in Washington

20:35

state. And apparently he talked about, he

20:39

passed around the guy for building

20:41

a posse. Yeah, he, yeah, it

20:43

looks like he's just, he's tiny,

20:45

he's about five foot and he

20:48

looks like he's about 120. He's

20:50

just like a really nice

20:52

old grandpa who is also a

20:55

constitutional sheriff. But he

20:58

was actually quite funny. His speech was quite

21:00

funny. He was kind of making jokes about

21:02

hanging people or media claims that he and

21:05

some other people involved in him were hanging

21:07

people. And it just, it went down really

21:09

well with his audience. Me and the other

21:11

journalists were kind of left a bit, not

21:13

really sure what he was talking about, but

21:16

he was a good speaker, but he's in

21:18

a really small county and

21:20

of I think about 5,000 people. So

21:23

it's not a huge county, but he has a posse,

21:25

his own posse of 150 people in that county, which

21:29

is a big percentage of the county. Yeah, I

21:31

think that's beyond a posse. I mean, if movies

21:33

have taught me one thing, posse is like six

21:35

to 10 guys. Maybe

21:38

they need to come up with a better word

21:40

for us. Their branding isn't good enough here. Yeah,

21:42

and I was just doing podcast bits and joking

21:44

about these guys wanting to travel around with like

21:46

lengths of rope and like a posse in front

21:49

of a saloon. And now

21:51

it's actually, no, that is what they want. And

21:54

in fact, he's got one. And it's not six guys, it's 150

21:56

guys. That's not a

21:58

posse, that's a clan, all right? Well,

22:00

I feel like at some point it

22:02

becomes an officially sanctioned militia more than

22:04

the posse, you know. Yeah, yeah, sure.

22:06

But he, in fairness, he did say

22:09

that he didn't require them to all

22:11

have guns at all times. It was

22:13

up to them. So, you know, go

22:15

around. Guns optional. Guns are optional. Very

22:17

progressive of them. The new age, the

22:19

2024 posse, six shooters, optional.

22:21

But you gotta have the rope and

22:24

you gotta have a

22:26

horse or a property potentially with a

22:28

sturdy tree on it. Yeah. So, yeah,

22:30

he was – he went after his

22:33

speech, he announced that if anyone wanted

22:35

to know how he amassed a posse

22:37

of 150 people, he had a guide

22:39

updated in January 2024 that

22:42

he was handing out – he had some

22:44

paper copies that he was giving people. But

22:46

he also had a thumb drive that he

22:48

was going around saying, you can just copy

22:50

these. So, I got the thumb drive off

22:52

him and I copied them and they're –

22:55

yeah, they're just like – they're very well

22:57

formatted. They have like – I think it's

22:59

– the policies document is 32

23:02

pages long and it

23:04

goes into everything about

23:06

courtesy, public interactions, disciplinary

23:08

actions, grievances, gambling, use

23:10

of intoxicants, harassment, how

23:12

to communicate via radio.

23:15

Like, it's very, very detailed on

23:17

how you run your posse. And

23:20

then there's an application form and

23:22

then there's – he's a document

23:24

that – what does it mean

23:26

to be a posse deputy and

23:29

like how you decide who is

23:31

good or what are the right – who

23:33

are the right people to put into your

23:35

posse? So basically, it's a starter guide for

23:37

anyone who wants to create their own posse.

23:39

By any chance, is the thumb

23:41

drive in the shape of a cowboy hat?

23:44

I was really disappointed that it wasn't. I

23:46

was hoping for a gun. Because I do

23:49

like when these guys turn their thumb drives

23:51

into something like a hat, a big hat,

23:53

magga hat, cowboy hat. I mean, there's a

23:55

lot that you can do in terms of

23:57

thumb drive customization nowadays. Yeah,

24:00

a little disappointing that it's not a big

24:02

duster or bucket hat or anything that would

24:05

resemble the sort of lifestyle that they

24:07

are hoping to lead. So if you

24:09

do make it through the application process,

24:11

you would be invited to a posse

24:14

meeting, you'd be sworn in as a

24:16

posse deputy, you'd be issued with a

24:18

posse shirt, a badge, and a posse

24:20

hat. So there are

24:22

benefits to being in the posse. Yeah. Wait,

24:25

wait, wait. They give you the hat? You don't have to

24:27

supply your own hat? No, they give you the hat. Oh,

24:29

wow. And what kind of hat? Is

24:31

it like one of those LAPD hats, but

24:33

it just says like posse on it? Or

24:36

is it like a special kind of... I

24:38

can't think of the name of the tombstone

24:41

hats, but you guys know what I'm talking

24:43

about. Ten gallon hats? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

24:46

I don't know, I'm afraid. He was wearing one

24:49

of those tombstone hats going around, but I

24:52

think you're going to have to go undercover to

24:54

try to become a part of this posse. No,

24:56

that's what you do. Not me. My

24:59

undercover days, no, long gone, I would be sniffed

25:01

out by that crowd in a hot minute.

25:03

I would ask one question about Kevin Costner and

25:05

they would know for sure that I wasn't on

25:09

their side. I would be escorted out. Travis

25:11

would somehow remain because he's got beautiful long

25:13

mane of hair, nice beard going on, probably

25:16

some kind of gingham shirt. Yeah, me? No,

25:19

no, no. Yeah, I mean, you know what?

25:21

I bet I could assemble a posse. I

25:23

would target underemployed young men and retirees, people

25:25

who have a lot of time on their

25:27

hands feeling aimless because one thing we learned

25:29

from QAnon, there's just a lot

25:31

of people who feel aimless and crave

25:33

purpose, crave to be part of something

25:36

bigger, so much that they become part

25:38

of this online military larp. All of

25:40

a sudden, they're digital soldiers who are

25:43

fighting this great war. Now this is

25:45

the same principle, but instead of being

25:47

an online military larp, it's an IRL

25:49

old west larp. It's the same principle.

25:52

All of a sudden, you're not just

25:55

a guy who's struggling to get a job. You're

25:57

not just a guy who's retired anymore. You're part

25:59

of a posse. And they've been

26:01

trying to get off the internet like since

26:03

the early days I mean remember at that

26:05

queue conference we went to in Tampa Travis

26:08

So you got handed a pamphlet that was

26:10

encouraging you to get you know get off

26:12

the computer and join a militia Yeah, yeah,

26:14

but that is a very interesting with that

26:17

guide eagerly received Whether like you mentioned there

26:19

are only a couple real sheriffs there Yeah

26:22

I think most sheriffs probably have it already

26:24

But I think he was just kind of

26:26

promoting the fact that he had a really

26:28

big posse That is a big posse after

26:30

the play I was like yeah like 10 guys

26:32

has decent numbers but 150 Imagine

26:34

the music video he could make with that

26:37

size crew So

26:39

I couldn't find a recording of this.

26:41

I don't think it was included in

26:43

the Frank TV feed That

26:45

I watched apparently during the break

26:48

someone performed a cover of the

26:50

Bob Marley song I shot

26:52

the sheriff except they changed the lyrics to

26:54

I back the sheriff. Is

26:56

this true? This is very true because

26:58

I was I was away Not

27:01

paying attention to the stage at this stage I

27:03

was over looking at the med beds or

27:05

the hats or the t-shirts or something that

27:08

was you know here to tantalize and

27:10

the American chain when I came back

27:12

and Obviously, I was

27:14

you know, the siren song of this guy

27:16

singing there called Keith Kenneth Hall I think

27:18

is his name and he I was chatting

27:20

to Randy Zadrasi from NBC who is also

27:22

there with me We were trying to figure

27:25

out what the lyric we couldn't really figure

27:27

out what the lyrics were because they were

27:29

we knew they'd been changed We didn't know

27:31

what they were changed too So she went

27:33

up afterwards and she asked them what were

27:35

you actually singing and he confirmed that that

27:37

word they were lyrics So I can't I

27:39

can't confirm that they actually happened Yeah, you

27:41

can do a lot when you change one

27:43

word of a song You know, imagine I

27:45

imagine at another conference. They're gonna be singing,

27:47

you know, good boys good boys. What you

27:50

gonna do? Yeah,

27:53

you know, I think I think the

27:55

problem they run into was that there's

27:57

not a lot of pro law enforcement

28:00

Songs popular songs that are pro law

28:02

enforcement so they have to work with what they

28:04

got You know not you say so they have

28:06

to say you know respect the police or something

28:10

But yeah, it did happen. No no one

28:12

was paying attention to him except for Brandi

28:15

what did he do for the but

28:17

I didn't shoot the deputy lyric It

28:19

was like I backed the sheriff and

28:22

I also backed the deputy or like

28:24

the deputy is weak Spineless not one

28:26

of us like no, I think that

28:29

I also backed the deputy sounds very familiar. I

28:31

think I

28:33

get it. I'm getting flashbacks when you sing it like

28:35

that Also

28:38

in attendance I perhaps unsurprising

28:41

was the former general Michael

28:43

Flynn and He

28:45

was there to promote his movie Flynn

28:48

Which is a documentary which portrays Flynn

28:50

as this brave truth-teller who faced unjust

28:52

persecution by the deep state Of course,

28:54

this is just total self-promotion nonsense He

28:57

was fired from a physician as national

28:59

security advisor after lying to the FBI

29:01

about the content of his call with

29:04

the Russian diplomat so Flynn had this

29:06

very rambling speech which I listened to

29:08

and he opened with a tirade

29:10

against the media where's all the media that's

29:12

Snaking around here. You can come right up

29:14

here get all the media right up here

29:17

all the all the fake news media

29:19

that are Out there because there's some there's one right

29:21

here. Come on. Okay. I

29:23

mean be careful Cuz they're all snaking around I just

29:25

noticed a couple of me They wear their

29:27

little microphones in their packets and they're looking

29:29

for you to say something really Nasty about

29:32

somebody or something so they can go back

29:34

and report it on whatever major news network.

29:36

They have okay We're in a we're in

29:38

a different we're in a different period of

29:40

time it then they you know and some

29:43

of them They were they won't they won't

29:45

identify themselves That's really terrible

29:47

when the media is afraid to identify

29:49

themselves in a in a conference like

29:51

this Oh, it's not the fact that

29:54

you know a journalist have

29:56

been like harassed and and even

29:58

assaulted when trying to cover right wing

30:00

of that scene. Yeah, oh, of course. Yeah,

30:02

they're gonna come right out in the open

30:04

and tell you. Also, by the way, Mike

30:07

Flynn's jacket looks like it is made out

30:09

of a sleeping bag. I

30:12

mean, this is how he opened his

30:14

talk, just boiling with rage at the

30:16

media. Great into it. Yeah,

30:18

there was no preamble. It was just,

30:21

and he was just looking straight. There was

30:23

only three of us there. And he was

30:25

just looking straight at us and just shouting

30:27

at us. And it

30:29

was just really like, it was funny, because when

30:31

he'd come in first, he was a photographer there

30:34

with NBC. And he had been taking photos of

30:36

Flynn and Flynn asked him who he was with.

30:38

And he said NBC and Flynn just started shouting

30:40

at him and screaming at him. And that kind

30:43

of, I think that's what set him off. And

30:45

he just continued when he got onto the stage.

30:47

And I don't know who he's, what he was

30:49

talking about with, you know, he was saying about

30:52

hiding microphones in his pocket. I don't know what

30:54

that's about. I think he might be just be

30:56

paranoia, just general paranoia. I feel like being recorded.

30:58

He was, he was super, super paranoid. He

31:00

would not, like, no matter who was coming

31:03

up to him, his two bodyguards or with

31:05

him all the time were constantly putting themselves

31:07

in the way of anyone who was around.

31:09

And the guy, his main bodyguard, while he

31:12

was on stage, was just constantly back and

31:14

forth, like the terminator, scanning the room for

31:16

potential threats. So yeah, I mean, the incident

31:18

as it was reported by Brad Neeson and

31:21

Drosney on NBC news is that Flynn

31:24

identified the NBC news photographer, and then

31:26

Flynn asked who he worked for. And

31:28

then the photographer identified himself, and then

31:31

Flynn got mad and yelled, you're

31:33

a liar. And then he went

31:35

on stage about how these reporters

31:37

aren't identifying themselves. This is,

31:39

this is like incoherent. You would think that

31:41

at least on a PR level that, you

31:43

know, it's like, obviously, journalists are going to

31:45

be there, they're going to cover it, you

31:47

know, like, what's the harm in treating them

31:50

with like, like, you're killing them with kindness,

31:52

you know what I mean? And just being

31:54

like, Oh, yeah, well, yeah, if you're here,

31:56

but this aggressive sort of like, you know,

31:58

pointing them out in the room. and

32:00

signaling them out and calling them snakes and

32:02

all of this stuff, it's like, oh man,

32:04

I mean, you're not really doing the best

32:07

to get your kinda point across. Like, theoretically,

32:09

if what you have to say is so,

32:11

you know, packed with truth and revelation, you

32:13

would want your message to go out to

32:15

as many people as possible. So that some,

32:17

you know, somebody watching NBC, you know, oh,

32:19

well maybe, maybe, you know, once they hear

32:22

what I actually have to say, like, they'll

32:24

get pilled too because they'll see it my

32:26

way or they'll see it the right way

32:28

or whatever. So yeah,

32:30

just on a purely sort of like

32:32

PR level, like, I don't understand this

32:34

hostility other than that it's just coded

32:37

into their beliefs, and that's part of

32:39

the fun, right, is to go look

32:41

at all these snakes here, look at

32:43

all these infiltrators, you know, they're gonna

32:45

lie about us, they're gonna do this.

32:48

I mean, it's very, very much

32:50

resembling something else from history that

32:53

was bad. Yeah,

32:56

but I do think it's just part of his character, his default position. Like,

32:59

there's no point. I went up and I just introduced

33:01

myself and I said, I'm from word, can I talk

33:03

to you? And he kind of didn't answer me, but

33:05

then told his PR people there

33:08

to kind of get my details and said

33:10

that maybe do an interview, but ultimately didn't

33:12

do any interviews. And

33:14

the other reason maybe that he

33:16

was kind of extra tense was

33:18

the presence of CNN potentially and

33:20

his family and CNN are involved

33:22

in legal issues at the moment

33:24

over your solvents report and one

33:26

of those lawsuits in New York

33:28

got thrown out yesterday, but

33:30

one in Florida remains. So

33:33

I don't know, that potentially kind of triggered him. Yeah,

33:36

I think it's just his shtick. He

33:38

just plays up to his crowd who

33:40

want him to say these things about

33:42

the media and he just does. Well,

33:44

what was the deal with that blazer?

33:46

It had like, it was like a

33:48

Hawaiian blazer that was made out of,

33:50

it literally looked like the, you know,

33:52

like when you unpack a sleeping bag

33:54

and it's all wrinkled. Yeah, it was

33:56

kind of iridescent. Yeah,

33:58

it's almost shimmery. interesting choice

34:01

for a guy with his kind

34:03

of rhetoric. Right

34:05

after Michael Flynn spoke came Boone

34:07

Cutler and Boone Cutler is an

34:10

author veteran former psychological operations team

34:12

sergeant and music video director. Quite

34:15

a resume. He authored a book

34:17

with Flynn called The Citizen's Guide

34:19

to Fifth Generation Warfare. So

34:22

during his talk Boone Cutler

34:24

claimed basically that immigrants who

34:26

come into the United States

34:28

were merely camouflaged for centralized

34:30

groups that will commit terrorism.

34:33

Now which centralized groups that you know consistent

34:35

with conspiracy theorists and how they operate he

34:37

didn't specify just sort of this vague conspiracy

34:39

theory but he also said that law enforcement

34:41

like the law enforcement in that room should

34:44

be ready for it. This is what is

34:46

coming to our country all these people that

34:48

are showing up here are camouflaged

34:50

for centralized groups that are going to

34:52

conduct covert operations within the United States

34:54

and terrorism. Law enforcement is going to

34:56

be faced with this and we're out

34:59

there there's people out here especially and

35:01

the media is complicit to it saying defund the

35:03

police defund the police defund the police. I

35:06

say no fund the police don't militarize them

35:08

fund them and one of the things you

35:10

need to do to fund them is to

35:12

get them training in a regular warfare because

35:15

this is the operational environment we are currently

35:17

in. My man they are already funded they

35:19

are already militarized you already have what you

35:21

want. I mean this is quite a take

35:23

that the that the current police force

35:26

is insufficiently militarized I mean but

35:28

this is sort of part of

35:31

his of his shtick because he

35:33

claimed without providing any details that

35:35

he would be providing a regular

35:37

warfare training to CSPOA officers ahead

35:39

of the election that's a bizarre

35:41

thing to say do you know

35:43

what the hell he's talking about

35:45

there? I don't so he

35:47

came off stage and I heard this and I was

35:49

like I need to know more about this so I

35:51

went over and I as he was coming off stage

35:54

Shikistan introduced myself and I said I'd love to hear

35:56

more about this training that you're doing and

35:58

he goes he is part

36:00

of the Flynn movie premiere tour

36:02

bus that's traveling the country so

36:04

he said he had to leave

36:06

immediately and he said hit him

36:08

up on Instagram and he

36:10

would you know get back to me and

36:13

tell me more about us so I've hit

36:15

him up on Instagram several times and I

36:17

still haven't heard from Boone about what this

36:19

entails I then

36:21

went to last Richard Mack about what this

36:23

is about you know what the plan is

36:25

and he said who when I asked him

36:27

about Boone Cuthler and I had to show

36:29

him the program and I said this

36:31

you know Boone he said you know CSPO training

36:33

partnership it's written on the program and he goes

36:35

I've never heard of this guy before I don't

36:38

know what he's talking about so I

36:40

don't know what to tell you but

36:42

apparently it's happening but no one seems

36:44

to know anything about it well yeah

36:46

according to himself I have to say

36:48

based upon how you describe your experiences

36:50

Richard Mack is a lot more media

36:52

friendly than than the Michael Oh

36:55

absolutely we walked in and

36:57

he was like so happy to see us

36:59

and he was like you can go

37:01

anywhere talk to anyone do anything you

37:03

want you can speak on stage you

37:06

can you know welcome my only grievance

37:08

with him throughout the whole day was

37:10

he kept referring to me as the

37:12

UK media and as someone from Ireland

37:15

that's deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply offensive yeah

37:17

oh yeah but you know it's a

37:19

little thing and I'll get over it

37:21

yeah I mean that was very weird

37:23

but I also just found his paranoid

37:26

rhetoric about immigration troubling because it's not

37:28

just an abstract threat so sheriffs who

37:30

subscribe to the constitutional sheriff

37:33

ideology have been accused of

37:35

mistreating immigration detainees for example

37:37

in 2021 the Bristol

37:40

County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson in Massachusetts

37:42

came under fire after an investigative

37:44

report from the Massachusetts Attorney General

37:47

accused the sheriff's office of violating

37:49

the civil rights of federal immigration

37:51

detainees by unlawfully and deliberately using

37:54

dogs and excessive pepper spray on

37:56

them while they may have been

37:58

infected with Covid So going

38:01

back earlier than that, the

38:03

former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe

38:05

Arpaio, who supports the constitutional

38:07

sheriff movement, was accused of

38:09

numerous types of police misconduct,

38:11

including abuse of power, misuse

38:13

of funds, failure to investigate

38:15

sex crimes, criminal negligence, abuse

38:17

of suspects in custody, improper

38:19

clearance of cases, unlawful enforcement

38:21

of immigration laws, and election

38:23

law violations. In

38:25

2013, a federal court found

38:28

that Arpaio relied on racial

38:30

profiling and illegal detentions to target

38:32

Latinos. And given that track record, there

38:34

aren't a whole lot of constitutional sheriffs,

38:36

but like a few of them have

38:38

done some bad shit. The combination of

38:41

sheriffs who fancy themselves as like the

38:43

ultimate arbiters of the law and this

38:45

paranoid view that immigrants are not just

38:47

here unlawfully, but rather enemy combatants, seems

38:49

like a recipe for even worse abuses.

38:51

Yeah, it absolutely does. Yeah, as you

38:54

said, there wasn't many sheriffs at this

38:56

time, but one of them that was

38:58

there was Darlaif, who was the sheriff

39:00

in Barry County in Michigan. And I

39:02

spoke to him about this kind of

39:04

at length. And he agreed

39:07

with Mack that immigrants come into this

39:09

country are the biggest threat to the

39:11

election, illegal immigrants coming into this country.

39:14

And he just described like, you know,

39:16

what if a van load of people

39:18

who are not from my neighborhood, you

39:20

know, drove up on election day and,

39:22

you know, wanted to vote, I'm going

39:24

to do something about it. And just

39:27

the way he talked about how he

39:29

is thinking about threats to the election,

39:31

you know, was deeply troubling because he

39:33

already has it in his mind that

39:35

this is going to happen. And if

39:37

he sees someone, the way he described

39:39

it is not from my neighborhood, but

39:41

it just seems like coded language for

39:43

people who don't look like me. And

39:45

it just seems that he is kind

39:47

of ready and waiting. And all of

39:49

his deputies will be the same looking

39:51

for people who they don't, you know,

39:53

maybe they've never seen before, but they

39:55

think they're from outside their neighborhood coming

39:57

into, I don't know, stuff ballots or

39:59

whatever. I think these people are going

40:01

to do. So I think it could

40:04

potentially to major issues come election day

40:06

if they've been primed like this to

40:08

believe that there's going to be this

40:10

influx of illegal migrants trying to sway

40:13

the votes in favor of Biden. These

40:15

guys are going to be so focused

40:17

on any panel van that they see

40:19

driving around on election day that they're

40:21

going to forget to vote themselves. And

40:24

it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy because these

40:26

guys will be so

40:28

busy watching the hen house that

40:30

they'll forget to cast their own votes and

40:33

Biden will win again. Darlif though, he's just

40:35

he's not sitting back. He by the way,

40:37

he's a sheriff who is

40:39

still investigating the 2020 election.

40:42

He tried and failed to seize voting machines

40:44

after the 2020 vote and

40:46

he is his his investigation is

40:48

still proceeding nearly four years later.

40:52

But he is also – he's

40:54

very busy – he is also

40:56

producing a guide for sheriffs across

40:58

the country on how to police

41:00

elections, which I'm sure is going to be

41:02

very interesting reading, and he's promised to send it to

41:04

me once it's complete. So if he's outlining the kind

41:06

of things that he was talking about in Vegas, then

41:08

that's going to be troubling. It's

41:11

interesting to me that you have these groups of

41:13

people that are still so focused on the 2020

41:16

election, especially when there is

41:18

another election that's basically just

41:20

around the corner. I

41:23

always think what's going to happen

41:25

if by some chance Donald

41:27

Trump wins the election and all of a sudden they're

41:29

going to have to say, oh, well, then

41:31

there was no interfering in this election. I

41:34

guess all of the illegal aliens stayed out

41:36

of this. I mean, once you

41:38

go down this path that an

41:40

election was stolen or whatever, when

41:42

your guy does eventually win, if

41:45

they do, all of a sudden

41:47

that election wasn't tampered with, I

41:49

mean I guess I

41:51

know as well as everybody else that they'll just say, oh,

41:53

well, the good guys prevailed this time. All the work that

41:55

we've been doing actually secured the safety of this election, so

41:57

we got to keep it up. We got to continue. that's

42:00

exactly what they're gonna do. They're just

42:02

gonna turn around and go, well, we

42:04

did it. High five, guys. We secured

42:07

the elections for everyone, even though absolutely

42:09

nothing has changed, really, quickly in the

42:11

four years. I wonder if Donald Trump

42:13

wins the 2024 election, if people will

42:15

still be debating the 2020 election, or

42:19

if they'll go, you know what, we're back,

42:21

baby, like, water under the bridge, let's focus

42:23

on something new. Although I have a feeling

42:25

that there will be a group that says,

42:27

oh, well, now that Trump is in office,

42:29

he can prosecute, you know, the people

42:31

who rigged the 2020 election. And it'll

42:34

be yet another secret sort of investigation

42:36

going on behind the doors, that now

42:38

that Trump is back in office, he's

42:41

going to finally punish those, you

42:43

know, who stole the 2020 election away

42:45

from him. I mean, of course, that's gonna

42:47

happen. And I know it will. Yeah. Because

42:50

there's a group of electioners who aren't who

42:52

tried to separate themselves

42:54

from the bigger group as being

42:56

more intellectual, the kind of like

42:58

David Clements and Seth Keshall, who's

43:00

actually in Vegas as well. And these

43:02

guys are kind of portrayed themselves as

43:04

deep thinkers about elections and election interference.

43:06

And they will kind of say, oh,

43:08

yeah, okay, Trump won, but we're all

43:10

about the elections. We're not about who

43:12

wins. And they'll, because it's a massive,

43:14

massive grift for them. And they're making

43:16

a lot of money at the moment

43:18

on the sub-stack and on their speaking

43:21

tours. And they'll want that to continue.

43:23

So they'll just keep on trucking. Right.

43:25

This is the same ideology that they're

43:27

sort of gifted by Alex Garland in

43:29

Civil War, which you wrote

43:31

a review about, which is that, you

43:33

know, the lore is that both California

43:35

and Texas, you know, were so disgusted

43:38

that a true fascist had taken power,

43:40

that they put aside their political differences

43:42

and came together to join the Western

43:44

forces, which is a similar thing that

43:46

these guys are, that they pretend that

43:48

they believe, which is that like, hey,

43:50

we don't care if it's Biden or

43:52

Trump. We just want the election to

43:54

be fair. And Hey, if you know,

43:56

if Biden won fairly and they stole

43:58

the election from him. You know, we would

44:00

be equally as upset even though we don't agree

44:03

politically, which couldn't be further from the truth. Yeah,

44:05

but they gotta make that money. Yeah.

44:08

Now, listening to the talks, it

44:10

seems like, you know, as the day went

44:12

on, the talks, I mean, they were all

44:15

pretty bonkers, but they kept getting crazier and

44:17

crazier. Because also speaking

44:19

at this conference was the

44:21

former Colorado County Clerk Tina

44:23

Peters, and she wasn't

44:25

dided for a breach of Mesa County's

44:27

election system. She's actually the first election

44:30

official in the U.S. to face criminal

44:32

charges related to conspiracy

44:34

theories, stolen election conspiracy theories surrounding

44:36

the 2020 election. She

44:38

went on stage wearing a Hawaiian

44:41

lei, and her primary topic wasn't

44:43

related to matters of elections or

44:46

even anything related to policing. Rather,

44:48

she talked about the tragic wildfires that

44:50

broke out on the island of Maui

44:53

in 2023. And

44:55

she repeated the baseless conspiracy theory that

44:57

the fires were caused by laser weapons.

45:00

This is the famous Jewish

45:02

space lasers conspiracy theory, and that

45:05

somehow the structures that were colored

45:07

blue did not catch fire,

45:09

according to her. And she said that

45:11

this is why Oprah painted her roof

45:14

blue. Obviously, none of this is true.

45:16

It is just – it is pure,

45:18

I think, TikTok nonsense. It's bullshit.

45:21

Oh my God. This is like a retelling

45:23

of, like, you know, the Ten Commandments, where

45:26

if you put the blood on the door,

45:28

you know, the hand of death will pass

45:30

over your house. Except this time, it's a

45:32

fucking space laser that's gonna catch your house

45:35

– oh, you paint your house blue, and

45:37

the laser of death, the laser of fire

45:39

will miss your home and take out the next

45:41

one. All right, here's the clip. This

45:44

is the outside of one of the buildings. So,

45:46

from what I understand by a

45:49

good friend and an expert in

45:51

this, in weapons, there's – it's

45:53

a microwave weapon that's in a tube

45:55

of a laser. So, the laser – so, if you look

45:57

at this picture – They,

46:00

this is the inside of the building. Look

46:02

at the outside of the building, the inside

46:04

of the building. It just demolished the building.

46:06

And look, it just happens to be blue.

46:08

People ask, they say, well, you know,

46:10

is the, is it true

46:12

that the Tommy Bahama umbrellas,

46:14

the blue umbrellas out front, that

46:17

nothing happened to him? That's true.

46:19

Things, and, and there's reports that

46:21

Oprah Winfrey painted her roof blue

46:23

a few days before this event.

46:26

Now, I was listening to this.

46:28

I was wondering, what the hell does this

46:30

have to do with the topic of the

46:32

conference? It seems like this is literally just,

46:35

just bottom of the barrel internet conspiracy theories.

46:37

Well, yeah. And it's like that building is

46:39

still destroyed inside. You know, it's like, she's

46:41

like, this building was spared. It's

46:44

like an interior photograph of it.

46:46

Just, it's totally demolished. It's okay.

46:48

Maybe the structure was left standing,

46:51

but it's not like, it's not

46:53

like this area was spared somehow

46:55

from destruction in any way. Also the

46:57

photos that she shared were just absolutely

46:59

terrible. Like just really bad. Didn't know,

47:01

like no one at the conference knew

47:03

anything about what she was talking about,

47:05

because she didn't really set it up

47:07

or establish what she was talking about.

47:09

She just kind of went into this

47:11

Rambo and then halfway through, she goes,

47:13

I never prepare anything when I walk

47:15

up on stage. I just, you know,

47:17

I just three wheel it and everyone

47:20

was like, and it was, it was,

47:22

I think it was at this point in the day, my

47:24

spirit broke. And I was like, I

47:26

don't, because it was just

47:28

so completely unrelated to anything that had

47:31

come before it or came after it.

47:33

And it like, it was just, obviously

47:35

she didn't want to talk about her

47:37

court case where, you know, she's facing

47:39

jail time in August, but you know,

47:41

she could have talked about elections because

47:43

she was there technically on the, on

47:45

the schedule, it was an election integrity

47:47

update from Colorado was what she was

47:49

meant to provide. And instead she just

47:51

provided this meandering Ramble

47:53

from Hawaii and like

47:55

just wearing those flowers

47:57

under like just, yeah. It

48:00

was amazing. And

48:02

this was late in the day. This was like

48:04

10 hours from today already. So

48:06

this is a weird left turn

48:08

for this supposed Constitutional Sheriff Conference. Yeah,

48:11

I think at this point we just

48:13

realized that this is just not going—because

48:15

I think I went there initially thinking

48:17

that this is going to be very,

48:20

very focused on Constitutional Sheriffs. But we

48:22

had Mike Flynn talking about the media

48:24

for 15 minutes or whatever

48:26

and how terrible the media was. And now

48:28

we're having Tina Peters talking about space lasers,

48:30

and it was just kind of, okay, this isn't

48:33

going to go the way we thought it was

48:35

going to go. It's like she went to her

48:37

lawyers, and she was like, okay, she goes, can

48:39

I talk about the election being stolen? And they're

48:41

like, no, you can't talk about

48:43

that. She's like, okay, can I talk

48:45

about how I'm innocent and being railroaded

48:47

by the deep state? Can I name

48:49

the judge, maybe some of their family

48:51

members? And they're like, no, you shouldn't

48:53

really talk about that. She's like, I've

48:55

got a handful of pictures of burnt-out

48:57

buildings. Do you think that I could

48:59

maybe show those to me? They said,

49:01

you know what, that's okay. So

49:05

another attendee of this conference

49:07

was my pillow CEO, Mike

49:09

Lindell. Now, I

49:11

checked in on how he's doing, and

49:14

he is not at his peak in

49:16

life. I'll say that. He is paid

49:18

dearly for his commitment to Donald Trump

49:20

and election denialism. His business reportedly lost

49:22

$100 million in

49:24

revenue after it was dropped by

49:27

shopping networks and retailers, had its

49:29

credit limit downsized by American Express,

49:31

and he had to auction off

49:33

thousands of pieces of equipment. His business

49:36

is also currently facing a court-ordered eviction

49:38

after Lindell failed to pay $217,000 in

49:40

rent at one of his two warehouses

49:42

in Minnesota. So

49:47

has he allowed the complete destruction

49:49

of his life's work to stop

49:51

him? No, because he took to

49:53

the stage to recount the story of how

49:56

he demanded a meeting with President Trump during

49:58

the final days of his presidency. They

50:00

bring me back downstairs and said, yeah, we're not going to

50:02

have time to meet with you today. And I go, oh,

50:04

yeah, you are. I said, I'm not leaving until

50:06

that man tells me I'm leaving. Well, in

50:08

the meantime, I went out backside of the White

50:11

House and you all seen that famous picture. They

50:13

had gave that envelope back and it was open.

50:15

And it says, martial law written on the envelope.

50:17

Remember that? They took it from a Washington

50:19

Post guy. They took it from a quarter mile away. And

50:22

well, that started the biggest attacks that

50:24

I've had at that time

50:27

in history. The media just attacked. Box

50:29

stores canceled my pillow. You

50:32

name it, it happened to my pillow. Shopping

50:34

channels. And in the meantime,

50:36

all these attack groups, I'm going, did

50:39

you know China broke into our election? We got

50:41

to get rid of the machines. And I'm just

50:43

going on and on. I mean,

50:45

like for what? He had everything.

50:47

It's just this is, I mean, I feel like

50:49

once everything's settled, I think his life arc, his

50:51

real life arc will

50:53

be really interesting. Yeah. I

50:56

spoke to him at length after this, because

50:58

unlike Flynn, who is ultra angry

51:00

and paranoid about

51:02

the media, will not talk to anyone. Michael

51:04

Lindell is the embodiment of Kill Them With

51:06

Kindness. He will talk to anyone

51:09

for any length of time that you want. Have

51:11

you ever tried to call him on the phone?

51:13

He never fails to pick up. He

51:15

will just talk to everyone. And he

51:17

said he's personally lost. It's costing the

51:19

election denial stuff that he's funded. It

51:21

has cost him $40 million, as well

51:24

as all the problems that his

51:26

company has faced. And you can

51:28

just tell he's not well. And

51:30

he's just putting, you know, but he puts

51:32

a very brave face on us. I

51:35

was listening to, while I was waiting to talk to

51:37

him, there was a couple of people coming up, and

51:40

they were just talking about machines in

51:42

this tiny county in the middle of nowhere,

51:45

who were like, you know, just saying that this

51:47

happened on this day. Can you look into this?

51:49

And he is going, yeah, I look into that.

51:52

And he must just get that, you know, 10,

51:54

100 times a day. But he's still out there.

51:56

He's still traveling the country doing this. And

51:58

I genuinely... don't know how he

52:01

is still standing because he just the day

52:03

after the CSPOA event, he was hosting another

52:05

event in Las Vegas, a roundtable with more

52:07

experts who are finally going to show us

52:09

all the evidence of blah, blah, blah, you

52:12

know, the same thing he's been saying for

52:14

the last four years. And he just keeps

52:16

going and keeps going and keeps going. And

52:18

I don't know how I think I

52:20

think he just can't he can't figure out how

52:22

to stop now because it's just been going on

52:24

for too long and stopping would be just, you

52:27

know, would kind of kill him, I think. Well,

52:29

and I would imagine that when your

52:31

your business has totally tanked,

52:33

you know, you've become a

52:35

persona non grata in, you

52:38

know, this this sort of

52:40

commercial mattress, I community,

52:42

I don't know, it feels good

52:44

to be around a lot of people who agree

52:46

with you. And when it's, you

52:48

know, you've when it seems like he's kind

52:51

of lost everything else, you know, maybe going

52:53

to all of these places where people are

52:55

coming up and and treating him as an

52:57

expert and saying, Hey, you know, hey, can

53:00

you look into this? Or can you do

53:02

that thing? Or I believe you are? I'm

53:04

so sorry that this happened to you. And

53:06

you know, they you know, it's not right.

53:08

It's a crime what they did, you know,

53:10

the deep state is out to get you.

53:12

I imagine that that's probably the only thing

53:14

that feels good. Because when you get home

53:16

at night, and there's nobody to talk to,

53:18

except maybe your family or your creditors or

53:20

your lawyers, that can be pretty lonely and

53:22

pretty sad. So you know, I imagine

53:25

and I'm just I'm just sort of,

53:27

you know, hypothesizing that being around people

53:29

who believe him, you know,

53:31

or champion him feels good. I mean,

53:34

we see this happen to a lot

53:36

of people in this space where you

53:38

know, their ideas get so crazy that

53:40

all they're left with are the most

53:42

kind of radical, you know, supporters, you're

53:44

sort of left with the bottom the

53:46

bottom barrel of fans. And what do

53:48

you what do you do? Well, you

53:50

have to cater to those fans, you

53:52

know, in a certain way, because that

53:54

is potentially your only customer left. Yeah,

53:56

I agree. I think I think he

53:59

had people commit. saying, I just want

54:01

to thank you for all that you're doing. And

54:03

you know, that's, you can see, you know, he

54:05

was happy to hear that. But yeah, I generally

54:07

think he's lonely. Like he's just moving from one

54:10

of these crazy events to another, just

54:12

so he can feel wanted. Like, I

54:14

don't know what his family situation is.

54:17

But I can't imagine they're very happy

54:19

about him blowing all the money on

54:21

something that's, you know, just never going

54:23

to pan out. So yeah,

54:25

like, I just I'm fascinated by

54:28

how he's still going at this point

54:30

and how he still has the enthusiasm for it.

54:32

But yeah, he does. Now, you

54:35

mentioned earlier that, you know, there's

54:37

some, it wasn't just talks, there

54:39

were some boos at this conference

54:41

and someone was offering medbed sessions.

54:43

And it was an outfit called

54:45

Quantum Health Global. Now, we've talked

54:47

about medbeds in a recent episode,

54:49

it's essentially a scam that exploits

54:51

the hopes of sick people by

54:53

telling them that their diseases can

54:55

be cured through some hyper advanced

54:57

technology that does not exist in

54:59

real life. This is another instance where

55:01

I was a little bit kind of

55:03

asking what the hell does this have

55:05

to do with constitutional sheriffs? Because it

55:08

seems a little out of place except

55:10

besides the fact that there's some intersection

55:12

between this sort of conspiracist worldview and

55:14

this belief in alternate medicine. So, David,

55:16

did you enjoy one of the complimentary

55:19

medbed sessions? Unfortunately,

55:21

I didn't. I

55:24

went to try and sign up but they

55:26

didn't have any slots left. So, it was

55:28

a really, every time I went to the

55:30

to the boot, the two medbeds

55:32

over there were occupied and

55:35

they were, obviously, the people who knew what

55:37

they were doing had gone there early and,

55:39

you know, scheduled their appointment way before me,

55:41

a mere novice, which is this kind of

55:43

thing. So, unfortunately, I wasn't able to fix

55:47

my body. So, pro tip, you know,

55:49

schedule your medbed session early in the

55:51

day. Of course.

55:54

Of course, it was all sold out. Yeah.

55:56

The same. When we went to the alien

55:58

conference in Travis, all

56:01

of the, you know, alien spiritual and

56:03

aura readings and stuff, slots were just

56:05

gone. That, ice baths, I mean, anything

56:08

where you get into some kind of

56:10

tub, whether it's, uh, you know, a

56:12

metaphysical one, or actually just like a

56:15

big, rubber-made tub, um, these things tend

56:17

to sell out really quick, so, yeah,

56:19

maybe you gotta book the prepackage or

56:22

something like that to get yourself a

56:24

nice slot, and, uh, I'm, I am

56:26

sorry, David, that all of your ailments

56:29

will continue to afflict you. Next time.

56:32

So, to finish us up, I want

56:35

to transition to discussing the abuse of

56:37

police powers of the more officially sanctioned

56:39

variety, because I want to talk to

56:41

you about a story you published just

56:43

a few hours before we started talking

56:46

today. It concerns, uh, protests at Columbia

56:48

University against Israel's genocidal war in Gaza,

56:50

which has killed more than 34,000 people,

56:54

about two-thirds of those being women

56:56

and children, according to Palestinian health

56:58

authorities. This protest has inspired similar

57:00

protests and encampments across the U.S.,

57:02

including at, uh, the University of

57:04

California, Berkeley, USC, Yale, Emerson, George

57:07

Washington University, uh, University of Texas,

57:09

Austin, and the University of Michigan.

57:11

This has led to a widespread

57:13

crackdown in which police have arrested

57:15

hundreds of protesting students. I'm sure

57:17

there will be more developments in

57:19

the story by the time this

57:21

episode is published, but some people

57:24

have attempted to discredit these protests

57:26

through a tried-and-true conspiracy smear, which

57:28

is that the protests are being

57:30

aided and funded by some powerful,

57:32

nefarious entity, possibly the Hungarian-American billionaire,

57:35

George Soros. So you actually investigated

57:37

this. So the headlines of the

57:39

story about your examination of this

57:41

claim is, no, a shadowy figure

57:44

is not buying tents for Columbia

57:46

student protesters. Now, first of all,

57:48

what exactly are the accusations being

57:50

made, and who is making these

57:53

accusations? So, I suppose the accusations

57:55

come from—there was the encampment at

57:57

Columbia University. There was a picture.

58:00

taken and if you look at these

58:02

accusations it's the same picture being used

58:04

repeatedly and in the picture whatever way

58:06

they've captured the tents that were in

58:08

the encampment all the tents look identical

58:10

and they're the same color and they're

58:12

green and you know so this kind

58:14

of led to people going because this

58:16

is kind of just what people think

58:18

now in 2024 is that that's weird

58:20

it must

58:23

be George Soros or you know that's ultimately

58:25

what they came to but I think what's

58:27

interesting about this is that it seems as

58:30

far as I can see that well

58:32

obviously people on the internet probably taught

58:34

this the conspiracy didn't really take hold

58:36

until the deputy commissioner of operations for

58:38

the NYPD just you know voiced this

58:41

on fox five new york um I

58:43

think he said if you look at

58:45

the tents where did they all get

58:47

them from the same place the same

58:49

person somebody is behind this and we've

58:51

got to find out who it is

58:53

so like that was on Tuesday then

58:56

the New York mayor Eric Adams repeated

58:58

it said that there's a well-constarted organizing

59:00

effort what's the goal of organizing question

59:02

you know need to be asking ourselves

59:04

these questions um fox news Brett Baer

59:06

repeated the allegations and on news nations

59:08

um New York Rep Virginia Fox said

59:10

it's obvious that someone is funding them

59:13

so that's how it kind of took

59:15

hold on Wednesday obviously then once the

59:17

internet got involved and particularly on twitter

59:19

on x whatever you want to call

59:21

it the people there just kind of

59:23

used that one photo and just went

59:25

wild with it and began you know

59:27

there's there's kind of within an

59:29

hour or two hours of this starting to

59:31

spread the name George ours has to appear

59:34

somewhere that took hold and you know baselessly

59:36

with no absolutely no evidence to

59:39

back it up claim that he

59:41

was behind funding buying tents for

59:43

students so that they could hold

59:45

pro-palestinian or pro-gaza protest on university

59:47

campuses yeah these claims are based

59:50

upon it's really flimsy evidence which

59:52

is that they seem to all

59:54

be able to afford tents and

59:56

they they all they all had

59:58

so similar color or

1:00:00

something like that? Yeah, so they were

1:00:02

all buying the same tent. And

1:00:05

instead of kind of using Arkham's

1:00:07

Razor and coming to the logical conclusion that

1:00:09

their students, they need to buy a tent

1:00:11

that they don't have. What are they going

1:00:13

to do? They're going to look on Amazon.

1:00:15

Let's see what the cheapest tent in Amazon

1:00:18

is. Oh, it's the tent that they're staying

1:00:20

in right now in the encampment. Instead of

1:00:22

doing that, they went straight to the billionaire

1:00:24

George Soros is funding it. It just, yeah,

1:00:26

it just speaks to the kind of mindset

1:00:28

that's, you know, it's but as I

1:00:31

said, it's not just people on

1:00:33

the internet. It's the NYPD's deputy

1:00:35

commissioner of operations. It's the New

1:00:37

York mayor. It's like these people

1:00:39

are saying this out close on

1:00:41

television. And it's just incredible that

1:00:43

without any evidence whatsoever, they're just

1:00:45

making these wild allegations with nothing

1:00:47

to back it up. Well, awful

1:00:49

stuff. Yeah, David, thank

1:00:52

you so much for your reporting and bearing

1:00:54

that that very, very long

1:00:57

13 hour day in Las

1:00:59

Vegas for on the ground learning

1:01:01

about what these batshit self-described constitutional sheriffs

1:01:03

are talking about. So yeah, so please

1:01:06

go check out David's reporting at Wired.

1:01:08

We're going to put a link in

1:01:10

the description. Where else can people find

1:01:13

you, David? Mostly on Twitter. I hate

1:01:15

myself. All right, then. Yeah. Thanks

1:01:19

for listening to another episode of the

1:01:21

QAA podcast. You can go to patreon.com/QAA

1:01:23

and subscribe for five bucks a month

1:01:25

to get a whole second episode every

1:01:28

single week plus access to our entire

1:01:30

archive of premium episodes and mini series.

1:01:32

For everything else, we've got a website

1:01:34

at QAA podcast.com. Listener

1:01:37

until next week. May the deep dish

1:01:39

bless you and keep you. We

1:01:44

have all take heed content based

1:01:47

on your preferences. The state

1:01:49

will no longer give officers training credit

1:01:51

for attending conferences held by a conservative

1:01:53

law enforcement group. Jay Avila has the

1:01:56

result of a state investigation into the

1:01:58

constitutional sheriffs and peace officers. Association.

1:02:01

On Friday, the Texas Commission

1:02:03

on Law Enforcement, which certifies

1:02:05

peace officers, sent this letter

1:02:07

to the Constitutional Sheriff's Group.

1:02:10

It says their conferences contain

1:02:13

political discourse, not law enforcement

1:02:15

instruction. And the Constitution is

1:02:17

the supreme law of the land. As

1:02:20

we explained in our first report, the

1:02:22

Constitution, the Sheriff's and Peace Officers Association,

1:02:25

holds conferences around the country discussing

1:02:27

how to push back against federal

1:02:29

and state laws they believe are

1:02:32

unconstitutional. The group was founded by

1:02:34

former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack. That's

1:02:36

our job. It isn't to go

1:02:39

along with bureaucrats. It isn't

1:02:41

to go along with government criminals. It

1:02:44

is to uphold and defend

1:02:46

the Constitution and defend the

1:02:48

American people's liberties. It's been

1:02:50

very rewarding. Some Texas law

1:02:52

enforcement officers received continuing education

1:02:55

credit for attending the events.

1:02:57

After receiving a complaint in 2021, the

1:03:00

Texas Commission on Law Enforcement

1:03:03

investigated but found the conference's

1:03:05

Met Training Guidelines. Then

1:03:08

last year, after receiving media requests

1:03:10

for the curriculum, G-Col investigated a

1:03:12

second time and determined

1:03:15

the Constitutional Sheriff's and

1:03:17

Peace Officers Association material

1:03:19

reviewed is best

1:03:21

categorized as political discourse,

1:03:23

which lacks sufficient instruction

1:03:25

or information constituting any

1:03:27

meaningful relation to a

1:03:29

Texas law enforcement license.

1:03:32

Sheriff Mack did not respond to our call

1:03:34

for his reaction. Earlier this

1:03:37

year, we interviewed Mack and Houston

1:03:39

County Sheriff Randy Hargrove, who say

1:03:41

the conferences teach that sheriffs in

1:03:44

particular have authority to investigate

1:03:46

election irregularities and to oppose

1:03:49

mask mandates and gun laws.

1:04:00

you come in and taking everybody's none. We're

1:04:03

not going to let you have it.

1:04:05

We're not going to let it happen.

1:04:07

The investigation states that officers who previously

1:04:09

attended the events will be allowed to

1:04:11

retain their continuing education credit.