Ben (58:27)
Thank you to all of our sponsors, once again, description. The discount codes are in the description below for those sponsors. My younger brother Jordy works hard with Popoc and others to bring you good discount codes. And those sponsors support our show. So support those sponsors and great products, great stuff. So just go and check it out. All right, let's talk about, you know, this, this arrest of Don Lemon, especially in the context of Donald Trump's assault on the First Amendment, his assault on independent media, his assault on reporters who he doesn't like. Full disclosure, Don Lemon's a close personal friend of mine. He was at my wedding when he stepped into the independent journalist space. There was a time where I was speaking with Don Lemon maybe twice a day or three times a day. When he comes out to California, I was probably going to hang out with him, you know, again the next few days. He got arrested. But in the past, when he's come out to California, I meet up with him. You know, Popak was at my wedding. Lemons, these are my friends. You know, Lemon's also someone who I've admired throughout his career. I always thought he was someone who spoke truth to power. I think, you know, he would even be forced to admit, if he's allowed to admit it or not. I don't know that, you know, being in corporate news had its limitations and held back what you can say. But obviously with his independent platform, he's been able to, you know, truly speak his mind. But he was always someone who was able to speak his mind thoughtfully before. But now it's been, you know, certainly at a scale that, that I think certainly meets the moment even more than it did before. And we all know the story. He showed up in Minneapolis, in St. Paul. He was chronicling the protest and what was taking place. He learned of a protest at a St. Paul church. He shows up as a reporter. There are other reporters there, including Georgia Fort. He identifies himself as a member of the press while he's videotaping a protest at this church. And the, the reason why there was a protest at the church is that it was believed that a church official was a ICE leader or was supporting the ICE raids that was terrorizing the communities. And the Trump regime said that it was a violation of something called the Face Act, F A C E, which was originally created to help women, protect women from getting violently assaulted and beaten and attacked when they were getting reproductive health care, go abortion clinics. And, you know, you'd have these right wing extremists attack them physically, intimidate, threaten, hurt, inflict violence and So a law needed to be created to prevent that from happening in order to make the law on a bipartisan basis. There was another provision that said also, you can't physically intimidate and physically harass or threaten or use force against people who are praying at a church. That was lumped together in a bill that became the Face act, basically. And so what we saw happen was protesters started chanting. I didn't even see the protesters engage in any physical force and intimidation. If I'm trying to, you know, see any potential argument out there, could one argue the protest was disorderly conduct? That's not the face Act. You know, being loud and rowdy. I don't even think it meets the definition of a misdemeanor disorderly conduct, state level, you know, charge. Let's be clear. I represented Colin Kaepernick, you know, who took a knee and protest. And everyone's saying, why are you protesting during the games? We don't want to see that. Protests make people feel uncomfortable. That's the point of a protest. You know what's more uncomfortable than seeing a protest? Seeing somebody get shot in the face. You want to know what's more uncomfortable than seeing somebody getting shot in the face? Getting shot in the face. Okay, Alex Pretty and Renee Nicole Goode, the people who have died at detention centers, the Americans and others in this country who have been killed, who have been sprayed with gaseous substances in their face, who have been attacked, who have been shot with pepper spray. That's more uncomfortable, okay, than having people protest to bring attention to the terror and torture that's taking place. But in any event, if you want to say, hey, there's some sort of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. It's a private space, even though I then argue churches should be open to everybody. You know, whatever. But Face act, the federal law says physical threats, physical violence, physical intimidation, not utilizing your first amendment right as protesters, even if your protest is loud, even if your protest is disruptive. There's a difference between disruptive conduct and physical intimidation and physical attacks, which is in there. But Don Lemonade, Lemon wasn't even protesting. So I just want to make that distinction too, because I don't think the protesters engaged in any crimes yet alone. The federal Face act crime. Lemon said, I'm a reporter. I'm here videotaping. That's all I'm doing. When someone at the church touched Lemon, Lemon said, please don't touch me. I'm just here to report. And Lemon repeatedly said on the live stream over, I'm not with them. I'm here to report. Like he said it multiple times out loud. So with all of that Trump and Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dhillon and all of the people in this Trump regime wanted Don Lemon arrested, though, because the right wing base on Twitter now arrest Don Lemon. Arrest Don Lemon. You need to arrest him. And I guess they figured that's a good issue for their base, which is post Constitution, anti Constitution, you know, but they then go, Don Lemon, they try to get a magistrate judge to sign off on a criminal complaint against Don Lemon, that fails. They go to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeal, that fails. Pop in a bit, you'll talk about this Judge Schiltz, who had to even send a letter to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. And this same judge is a George W. Bush appointee who's this past week said that this Trump ICE has violated hundreds of court orders already in January alone, more than agencies have violated in their entire existence. That's what ICE has done. And he's never seen anything like this before. So the getting a magistrate judge to sign a criminal complaint, that fails. Then they go for this indictment. They somehow get an indictment, which we'll learn more about. Remember, they got indictments of Comey and Letitia James. Okay. And yes, you can indict a ham sandwich, but there were grand juries that didn't indict Letitia James after that first indictment succeeded. But then Lindsey Halligan, we learned, did all of this misconduct in the grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia, gave the grand jury incorrect legal rules, didn't show them evidence, brought somebody who stole attorney client information, you know, and engaged in all of this, you know, misconduct. So one of the things we'll see and I'll flag, I'll turn it over to you, Popak, though, is we don't know what went down in the grand jury room. I doubt the Trump regime's lawyers, who they sent in there, who apparently are not Minnesota or not lawyers from Los Angeles. I mean, that these are lawyers they brought in just for this. I doubt those lawyers showed the full video or showed the full evidence. My gut is they brought in a single FBI agent. The FBI agent who's a Trump regime lackey. I'm just giving you my guess because this is what we've seen before. I'm hypothesizing, based on past experience of this Trump regime, gave a hearsay story because you can do that in grand juries. Yes. Did you physically intimidate? Yes, he did. What do you see him do? I Saw him got in front of the door, and the evidence shows he pushed back. Anything else you saw? No. Does that constitute physical intimidation, Mr. FBI officer? Yes, it does. All right, grand jury, physical intimidation. You heard the FBI officer. So if you believe physical intimidation, you have to sign this. That's my gut. When we find the grand jury transcript, what's actually what actually went down. But in any event, they then arrest Don Lemon in Los Angeles with federal agents. Also Georgia Ford, another reporter who was doing the same thing Lemon was doing, who was videotaping it. They sent like DEA dressed as SWAT teams to her house and basically scared her to death and scared her family. And what you're supposed to do in a situations like this is, you know, one, not do this in the first place, but you would get a warrant, you would reach out to the person, like a Don Lemon or a Georgia Ford. You would say, show up. You've been criminally indicted. You would negotiate a surrender, and that's what happens. But. But the Trump regime wanted the theatrics. They wanted perp walks. They wanted to inflict fear and pain, and that's what they're doing. Popak, take it from there and maybe connect Judge Schiltz's order.
