← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Host
The Trump administration's weaponization fund. Billions of dollars for Trump allies like January six defendants. It's here, it's arrived, it's official, it's announced. And the J6 defendants, the Trump allies, they are already scurrying like crazy to figure out how to get a piece of that sweet, sweet cheddar here to talk about it all, break it all down, break up, break down the infighting that's already taking place. And a lot of other things. Will Summer, our MAGA correspondent, our expert in all things online and Trumpy. There's a lot of that online TRUMPY stuff happening right now, Will, we've already done so much content about this awful, skeevy settlement fund, we can kind of set all that to the side about just how sort of grotesque the whole thing is for the time being and zero in on the sort of human tragicomedy that we're already seeing take place for some of these long suffering MAGA guys. You know, they got their pardon, but they were really hoping for a little bit extra off the top for their, for their loyalty under fire. Now they're maybe getting it and they're kind of fighting over what it's going to look like. Maybe first, walk us through what, what kind of the intervening period has been the long fallow period for these guys where they just weren't hearing very much from the White House. And then where are we today?
- [01:10]
Will Summer
Yeah, so this is a tasty little plum we have to discuss. You know, for people like, like us who are upset about this settlement fund, who think this is crazy, you know, at least this is a little comedy for you. So we don't know who exactly is gonna get money from this fund, but probably the biggest group that's gonna be applying is January 6th. Rioters, defendants. And now for years even, you know, before they were pardoned by Trump last year, they were thinking, we deserve January 6th reparations. Now, this is pretty crazy because they attacked the Capitol, they attacked police officers in many cases. It's crazy. Lucky of them, and another travesty of justice that they were pardoned. And yet they're still like, oh, by the way, I'm gonna need maybe a million or two. Break it. So they have long dreamed of these reparations. Our colleague Tim did a video mentioning that one of the, one of them was recently busted for child molestation and was vowing to bribe one of his victims, allegedly with saying, look, I got the reparations money right around the corner. So the idea of reparations has loomed large in the January 6th world. And so the key figures here to understand are a guy named Peter Tickton, who's sort of a celebrity Trump lawyer, and Mark McCloskey, who people may remember. Yes. Your boy, I guess. Hometown hero, St. Louis Mark McCloskey, who is famous, of course, 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests, he stood outside his mansion with his wife as protesters went through their neighborhood. He had like kind of an assault rifle, AR15 looking thing. And she had a pistol. Yeah. Iconic picture. And then they had some legal issues after that. But last year, ticked in McCloskey, they're both lawyers, they teamed up to get justice for January 6th.
- [02:53]
Host
Yeah, I mean, I have not followed ticked in nearly as closely as I have McCloskey. I mean, McCloskey has been just sort of peripheral figure, not just because, like me, he is a St. Louis boy, but also because he's been just sort of cropping up. I think he ran very briefly for governor of Missouri maybe, or senator. I can't remember what.
- [03:07]
Will Summer
Yeah.
- [03:08]
Host
Last thing was. Yeah. Did not go very far in the primary before transitioning into this new grift. But unfortunately for Mr. Mark McCloskey, his timing on this has been poor. Right. I mean, like that meme of the man digging through the coal mine. Who gives up like right with the diamonds. Right. Right in front. Right. Can you walk us through what his kind of.
- [03:29]
Will Summer
It's exactly, you know, every, every gambler stops right before hitting January six reparations. So, yeah, so these guys, they teamed up and they got, I think it's fair to say, hundreds of January six people to sign on with them. Supposedly there was a. There were contracts signed, you know, like any other lawyer working on specific. Dominic Box, who's one of the January 6th defendants. He said McCloskey wanted 30% of any settlement, which, you know, I guess maybe doesn't seem that unreasonable if you thought you had to sue the government. Right. So these guys get huge amounts of defendants. McCloskey delivers like all these boxes and boxes to the Justice Department. He posed for like a very swag looking picture in a double breasted coat and he's like, you know, here I am in DC making it happen for you guys. And you know, the other thing I would say about Peter Tickton is his claim to fame is that he went to high school with Donald Trump at this military academy and he's been coasting on this ever since. He's like, everything I knew about, about Trump I learned, you know, he was just such a cool guy in high school. So these are Our characters, right. So it looks pretty bleak, though last month, you know, it seemed pretty unlikely. You know, Trump had been in office more than a year. It seems like they're going to get the pardons and told the buzz off. Then McCloskey, he sends a letter to his clients, and they're kind of their mutual clients, and he says, you know, I have these personal issues. He later reveals that it's like a terminal lung disease diagnosis. He says, you know, as a result, I can no longer represent you in our quest for January 6th reparations. I'm gonna have to hand you off to our buddy Peter Tickton, and I, you know, see you later. Unfortunately for him, a month later, of course. So ABC reported last week, I believe, Wednesday, that this reparations fund was going to happen. The day after that, they reported on Thursday. On Friday, Mark McCloskey reemerges and he says, baby, I'm back. I'm better than ever. He says in his letter to his. He has a new letter to his clients. He says, I just got a CT scan. The lungs are killing it, you know. You know, I'm happy for him.
- [05:27]
Host
I'm happy for him, you know, I think it's great. All the best on your personal health journey, Mark. Sorry.
- [05:33]
Will Summer
Yeah, he's huffing and puffing. It's great. He says, together, you and I, with God willing, we're going to get our January 6th money. So Peter Tickton, he's sitting at Tickton Incorporated or whatever the Tickton and Partners, and he's like, wait a minute, I took this thing over. This guy ditched us. So this starts a feud. And Peter says, I don't want anything to do with you, buddy. So they start emailing the January 6th defendants. They're saying, you got to stick with me. So Mark McCloskey emails and he says, look, I'm back. Now, I understand you guys are with Peter Tickton now, but you got to come with me. I note that Peter Tickton is campaigning to be Attorney General to make himself the replacement for Pam Bondi. He's representing the Tiger King. He's representing a member of the Backstreet Boys who was involved in some kind of dispute on a beach where he used a homophobic slur. And he's representing Tina Peters. Now, you know, Tina Peters, the just recently pardoned last week. Frankly, I'd stick with her lawyer because apparently he knows how to get things done. But he says, look, he's too busy. He can't handle January 6th stuff. You guys gotta go with me and by the way, he's been saying some ugly stuff about me and my wife. So let me know if he's talking any more trash on us. And it's a little unclear what that was.
- [06:43]
Host
This has been the most amazing thing to me. So first of all, let me just clarify, these emails that you have your hands on that you were showing me earlier. Are you reporting these? Are these emails out there or.
- [06:52]
Will Summer
No, this required a little sleuthing by me. You know, the sort of, the initial, like, I'm sick, I gotta bow out. That one was public, but I had to do a little digging. This is. This certainly set off a big buzz in the January 6th world. I can't stress enough how much of this is going down on Facebook. It's a lot of like aggrieved defendants and their relatives. And so when this Dominic Box guy, I mentioned this defendant, he posted like, he's like, Whoa, Tickton and McCloskey, they're tearing each other up. And then everyone was like, shut up. You know, don't, don't spill the beans on what's up in January 6th world. And of course, that's when I go, hello.
- [07:28]
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- [08:37]
Host
But I mean, it is just really funny. It really is just these two former business partners who kind of went their separate ways amicably before, but now that there's suddenly all this money at stake, they're both sort of separately emailing their entire J6 client base, right? And basically saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, don't go with him, stick with me. I'm the one who's going to get you through to the promised land. But the weird, I mean, the extra weird thing is, it's all weird, but like, the, the additional, further weird thing here is that it's no longer necessarily that obvious that any of these guys really need lawyers at all. Right? I mean, really, at this point, these guys would be more like lobbyists to the fund on their behalf or something like that. Right? Or, or what? What is the role of these guys anyway?
- [09:18]
Will Summer
It's kind of a tricky thing because in a way it sort of seems like McCluskey and Tickton have essentially been acting less like lawyers and more kind of like lobbyists or advocates. Like they've been trying to convince people to make these payments happen. And so, you know, it seems as though, you know, according to the Justice Department, people are kind of just gonna have to fill out forms. And we know that it seems like Trump wants this money to get out there. You know, I don't think the government is gonna be that, like, have that tight a grip on it if you're a January 6th person. Now they claim, you know, it doesn't. It's a bipartisan, supposedly effort. So I don't know if you said, yeah, I'm antifa and I was prosecuted by the Justice Department. I don't think they'll be handing it over. But I think for MAGA people, they're like, sure, take all you want. And so as result, I think a lot of these people are now saying, you know, I don't need a lawyer. I mean, I include in false flag, I include a lot of examples. Someone says, haha, too late, bitches. You know, these people who are like, I'll be taking all 100% of my payment.
- [10:10]
Host
Yeah, yeah. I do wonder, I don't understand really what the, what the financial structure of these agreements was before for McCloskey and Tickton, the way they were getting paid by some by these January 6th defendants. Was it always structured as like, if you get a settlement, we'll get a chunk of that and that's it, or were they like actually squeezing a little bit of money out of these people while they sort of strung them along that something like this was possible in the first place.
- [10:33]
Will Summer
That's a good question. And I mean, I think we're talking about hundreds of people here, so I can't really, like, speak to every individual one, but it does seem like most of this was on spec, like they were saying. And I think it was also kind of like batch work, right? I mean, they're just like, here, sign your name, you know, fill out what happened to you, and we're going to mail it off. So it seems as though they were saying, you know, we're going to get this flat cut of. Some people are saying 20%, 25%, 30%, and then we'll represent you all the way through that. But it kind of seems like particularly this, this big dispute, you know, because they're saying, oh, sign with me. You know, ticked in, has to say, well, maybe you can go with McCluskey if you want. The thing I'd say about ticked, it is he's said very explicitly, he said, wow, did you get that email from McCluskey? You know, he doesn't even bother to spell his name right. And he says, he says, I can't believe this guy. Essentially he says, look, when the going got tough, you know, when we January six gang, we thought we'd never get our reparations. You know, McCluskey, he bailed on you. But I always stood strong. And so, you know, this is the, this is the big fight. But as we discussed, a lot of these people are saying, I don't need a lawyer. Why am I going to give any of these people a cut?
- [11:32]
Host
Yeah, that might be. That might not be smart. I don't know. I think, I think these people might be underestimating just how important it is still going to be to have somebody on the inside with this Trump commission of goodies dispensers in order to get. In order to get yours. We'll see how that all goes. The thing that's really coming home to me talking all this through with you is just how much of a Wild west open season sort of situation this fund at least looks like it's going to be. And it seems like the, the January six defendants sort of feel that way too, in the sense that like a lot of these previous Justice Department settlements that were sort of dispersed from this same fund, it's pretty clear who the money's going to, how much is going out, because it's the people who've been suing at some class action group that's been suing the government. There's some adversarial process between them and the government's lawyers where they hash out a settlement deal over a long period of time. Some judge blesses it and then it's okay. It's this amount of money distributed between this many plaintiffs or members of the class or what have you. And this is just so far the opposite. It's not. These guys were not part of this lawsuit to begin with. The amount of money seems to have just been like grabbed out of a hat because it's a patriotic number. $1.776 billion. And it's a completely open ended group of potential beneficiaries. Just anybody who has some plausible claim can make to this commission that they, they were, you know, had the government weaponized against them by the, by the Justice Department, I assume. You know, all of this infighting aside, the, the baseline sort of Facebook vibe right now is just sort of like jubilation, is that fair to say? Or is, is, is the infighting already kind of like poisoning that to a degree?
- [13:06]
Will Summer
Well, you know, look, this is a group of very fractious people. These are people who I have always tried to find a way into. You know, there's so many stories and kind of like elevate. There was a point where like someone took over like an old folks home, like this giant old folks home in Virginia. They were gonna turn it into like the January 6th compound, especially once the reparations money came in. I mean, there's all these crazy stories that have emerged from that world and these people, like they often hate each other. I mean, there are figures there. It's a wide variety of people. Right. I mean, these are. Some are like suburban MAGA people who kind of wandered in. Some are like crazy QAnon people. Some are people like Jake Lang, this kind of anti Muslim white activist. This guy's burning Korans all over the place and attacking Jewish people, you know, criticizing them. So a lot of these people don't like each other to begin with. And so there is this sense of like, how's the money going to be doled out? I mean, that's going to be decided by, you know, I hate to say it, that there's like, I guess it's going to go forward. It's going to be a five member commission appointed by the Attorney general, one of which is in consultation with Congress. It seems kind of like a pointless compromise.
- [14:07]
Host
Trump can fire any of them. Yeah.
- [14:09]
Will Summer
And he could fire any of them at any moment. So it seems like, you know, how is it going to happen? I could see I mean, you can think about people like Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, other people, Carter Page, all these characters who have faced prosecution, you could imagine, just like, are they going to be like, well, we like you, Steve Bannon. You know, you get 100 million, but I've never heard of you. January 6Guy, let's give you 50K. You know, I mean, I think that's very conceivable. Are people. But I guess to get back to my point, there's a lot of, like, bad blood because, you know, some people took guilty pleas, some people fought the charges, and so they have additional legal bills. Some people cooperated with prosecutors. Are they going to get them, I mean, supposedly the Deep State that betrayed the MAGA movement.
- [14:47]
Host
Yeah.
- [14:47]
Will Summer
Like, are they going to get $1 million? You know, and I think there's. It is. Look, it's 1.7.
- [14:52]
Host
When we. When we held firm, when we stuck to our guns and supported the president. Come on. Like that. Yeah, I'd be mad, too.
- [14:58]
Will Summer
And then, you know, some of these people are supposedly Asian provocateurs. I mean, they believe that, you know, some of these people were like, you know, working for the Deep State the whole time. So, you know, 1.776 billion is obviously a lot of money, but I think people have done the math and they've said, well, let's say there's like 1500 January six people, you know, potentially. And, you know, who else is getting in? I mean, suddenly my. My slice of this pie is rapidly shrinking.
- [15:19]
Host
I mean, a cool million just for. Just for showing up one day and wandering into the Capitol. That's the other. That's the other good thing about this. I mean, like, I've heard so many arguments over the years from, you know, these. These ridiculous lawmakers or whatever. Like, the DOJ arrested grandmas just for walking past a rope line. You know, like, I mean, maybe I'm curious whether grandma who walked past a rope line, and in theory her prosecution was more unjust, should get more or less than someone who, you know, stole Nancy Pelosi's lectern like that.
- [15:47]
Will Summer
Like, well, you committed sedition and you had this militia group that you went in with. Right. Is it. Was it a little more fair to prosecute you? You know, I would.
- [15:55]
Host
Or. Or were you. Were you really showing up for the president in the way some grandma just wandered in off the street and, you know, why should. Why should she get. You know, her faith was not as was. It didn't burn as brightly as mine did. I. I, like, kicked in. I Don't know. Hakeem Jeffries, like, front door of his office or something like that, Right?
- [16:12]
Will Summer
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. It is. I think a lot still remains to be seen. And again, these people shouldn't be getting a million. We have to keep this in mind. Like, we can talk about the intricacies. They should, like, have to pay a million dollars or something. I mean, these guys did something really bad, and now the fight is over. Like. Well, how richly will they be compensated?
- [16:28]
Host
Yeah, I mean, it is just. I've done a couple. Like, this is, like, my third video touching on this topic already the last couple days. It's astonishing. It's astounding. I really. I still can't really get my mind around it. Okay, we can. We can probably leave it there. I guess my last word would be to. To the January 6th defendants out there, you know, have a heart. Cut. My boy Mark McCloskey back in. Seems like he worked pretty hard for you for a while. My guy, he needs a new. He needs a new pink polo. He needs a new AR15. He needs to buy a couple pairs of shoes. You know, have. Have a heart.
- [16:56]
Will Summer
Have a heart.
- [16:57]
Host
Let him back. Let him back in there to suckle off the teat of this reparations fund. My God, this whole thing sucks. It is insane.
- [17:04]
Will Summer
It really does. It really does.
- [17:06]
Host
Do you have anything else, Will, before we let you go?
- [17:08]
Will Summer
No, I'm just glad to have you here with me as we. As we try to muddle through this
- [17:11]
Host
exciting new slush fund better together. Yeah, well, we're gonna keep covering it. Thanks, Will, for coming on. I mean, I will say I have had basically no fun reading any content around this just because it sucks so much. And your False Flag newsletter was the first thing that gave me a little bit of a funny side to all this. So I am constantly appreciative to you for that part of it. And I'll say thanks to you, and I'll say thanks to all the people out there watching and following along. Hopefully you got a little bit of a kick out of this part. They're not necessarily happy either, I guess, is the bottom line. They remain trapped in their own vices and their own and frauds and all these sorts of things, even as this money rains down from the government upon them. So we'll leave it there. We'll keep following it along. Thanks for watching. Hope you'll subscribe to the channel. Go to the bulwark.com and subscribe to Will's excellent False Flag newsletter for so much more. Bullshit like this. I mean, it's just. It's constant. It's insane, the stuff he digs up. Thanks, and we'll see you all next time.