Alison Gill (0:00)

MSW Media. Hey, everybody, it's Ag. And welcome to Refried Beans, where we play an episode of the Daily Beans podcast from the same week either one, two or three years ago so we can see how far we've come. So please enjoy this episode from days gone by and note the date in the intro. Refried beans. I like refried beans.

Adam Klassfeld (0:23)

That's why I want to try fried.

Alison Gill (0:24)

Beans, because maybe they're just as good.

Adam Klassfeld (0:26)

And we're wasting time. Jelly beans.

Alison Gill (0:35)

Jelly beans. Jelly beans.

Adam Klassfeld (0:40)

Daily Beans.

Alison Gill (0:45)

Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Monday, June 13, 2022. Today, a Daily Beans exclusive about Enrique Tarrio's phones. The January 6th committee releases the witness list for this morning's hearing. More emails from Jenny Thomas to Arizona lawmakers are released. Rudy Giuliani is hit with ethics charges in D.C. over election fraud claims. 31 white supremacists have been arrested in Idaho and charged with planning a riot at a Pride event. And a bipartisan group of senators reaches a preliminary deal on a framework for gun legislation. I'm your host, Alison Gill. I know, I know, I know. Dana is not back yet. She had to last minute change a bunch of travel plans. So she's going to be back with us Tuesday morning. And she sends her apologies and her love and I look forward to seeing her. I miss her. So you're stuck with me today. I'm going to bring you all of this news. And then later in the show, I'm going to be talking with Adam Klassfeld from Law and Crime, host of the Objections podcast on why Scott Perry might have sought a pardon from the White House, as revealed in Thursday's hearing that we, you know, we all watched. I know we all watched it. So I have a lot of news to get to today. A lot of stuff has happened over the weekend. So let's do it. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right. We're starting off with the January 6th Committee. They kicked off their series of six hearings this month last Thursday, June 9th at 8:00pm Eastern. And it was welcomed by over 20 million viewers. That's just on television. Those are huge ratings, by the way. That is normally like what a Sunday Night Football game would get. That's big. Most congressional hearings get less than a million, and that doesn't account for streaming numbers. I watched the hearings with five other people. It doesn't account for group watching situations. We were up at Kathy Griffin's that night. Thanks so much. Shout out to Kathy for being so hospitable and inviting us up there to watch in her screening room. It was really, truly an historic event. And then I jumped on the Mary Trump show to discuss that. And if you caught that coverage, you would have heard me say the hearing was fit for history and that I was surprised by how well the committee presented their facts. The second hearing takes place at 10:00am Eastern Time today and could be even more explosive than the first. I'll get into that in a minute. But I wanted to go over some of the standout moments for me in the Thursday hearing, you know, as arose from some of the discussions I had with Mary Trump and her group of folks and then, of course, the people I was watching with at Kathy's. And first of all, one of the lines that stood out to me early on came from the chair, Bennie Thompson, his opening comments when he said, quote, January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup. And it took my breath away a little bit that the committee has decided to use the correct language. Right. So many times they fall back on political soft language like attack on the Capitol or riot. He said, make no mistake, January 6th was a culmination of an attempted coup. So important to meet the moment by calling it a coup and not using that softer language. So that was very impressive. Same with Liz Cheney talking about lies. When Donald Trump said he had called out the National Guard. But Nancy Pelosi, you know, put the kibosh on it, quashed it, and Liz Cheney called that a lie. She didn't say he misled us or any kind of New York Times language like that. I think the taped deposition of Bill Barr was very important. It stood out to me. We knew he said that, but to watch him say it was different. Now, we all know Bill Barr is a dickbag that did Trump's dirty work for years. But using his testimony against Donald, someone who was so up his butt, who is and will be Donald, by the way, who is and will be the central focus for these hearings, I think was incredibly effective. So the committee showed Barr testifying. He told Trump there was no voter fraud, no widespread voter fraud, and that his claims about it were bullshit. Use the word bullshit. Then there was a tape testimony of Mark Milley. He's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That stood out to me, too, was a little bit chilling. And it goes back to that thing I was talking about where how Cheney said Trump lied about calling the National Guard. Milley testified the only calls he got from about that were from Mike Pence, and they were persistent and urgent. The only call he got from the White House on Donald's side was from Mark Meadows, who was worried about the political spin. It's very telling. And at one point, in one of the most potentially damaging moments of the videotaped interviews, Donald's son in law, Kushner, is shown dismissing the threats of Pat Cipollone. The White House counsel to resign dismissed them as whining bunch of lawyers whining. I was busy trying to, you know, get pardons set up, corrupt pardons for criminals and. But, you know, Pat Cipollone's there, just whining, just whining. He would always threaten, just whining. And to me, showing that clip, that was for an audience of one, and that audience was Pat Cipollone, who has said he would be willing to testify as to Donald's attempt to oust Acting Attorney General Rosen and replace him with Jeffrey Clark. But that was it. That's all. He was going to testify to Jeffrey Clark, by the way. The committee made sure to refer to him as an environmental lawyer, which I thought was a nice dig. But if the committee could get testimony from Cipollone on other things Trump did and said or didn't do that day, he was there, that would be important also. I mean, his, his testimony about the Rosen stuff is important, but that would be really important. And I think the committee was baiting him with that Jared clip. We'll see what happens. Then there was a part where Liz Cheney said in her opening statement that while Donald was watching the violence and heard about the chance of hang Mike Pence, he said, maybe our supporters have the right idea and that Mike Pence deserved it or deserves it. That was. We knew about that, but just to hear them say it in that setting was pretty shocking. And of course, there was the harrowing testimony of Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, absolute hero. One of the first officers or the first officer injured in the line of duty. She suffered traumatic brain injury, concussion. She had that bike rack pushed up on her, fell backwards, hit her chin on the railing, and then clipped her head on the concrete stairs. Another thing I didn't know was the number of proud boys headed to the Capitol before Donald even finished his speech. And that number was 250 to 300, far more than I'd previously thought. It just shows the coordination. Another big moment was when Cheney said Rep. Scott Perry had called the White House to ask for a pardon for his participation, which Scott has called a soulless lie. But the committee would not have made that accusation if they did not have the ironclad proof. I'LL be speaking with Adam Klasveld later in the show about why Perry wanted and needed that pardon. One of the most surprising things to me, though, the committee says it has proof that the violence at the Capitol is connected to the White House. And I'm very much looking forward to the committee making that connection. All in all, a really powerful presentation with new video footage that we hadn't seen before, including that really stunning overlay of a Trump speech where he said that there was nothing but love pouring out of these people. Look at how peaceful and wonderful people as we're watching the violence in front of us. And I think that really resonated with people, whether they're steeped in the details or not. Right. Whether they're wonks like me and you or whether they're, you know, just average Americans who've never heard of, you know, a lot of these folks. So the second hearing airs today, 10am Eastern. It's set to include testimony from Bill Stepien, that's former Trump campaign manager, who assisted with the plot to pressure Pence to throw out electors or delay the count. He seems to be very cooperative. That's very interesting. And he also is the guy who replaced Brad Parscale. Remember when Brad Parscale was tackled holding a beer outside of his house by the cops? Yeah. He replaced that fine person. Then we will also have Chris Stirewald, that's a FOX News guy who called the Arizona race for Biden earlier than at first and than any other networks did and was unceremoniously fired for it by Fox. Fired him. Benjamin Ginsburg, Ben Ginsburg, conservative election attorney. And his testimony is going to be extremely important to prove intent. You're going to want to watch that closely. Then there's BJ Pack. He's a former U.S. attorney from Georgia who resigned shortly after that call to Raffensperger went public. And it was before the attack on the Capitol. I think it was January 4th. I've been waiting for answers on his resignation since it happened. So I'm very much looking forward to the BJ Pack's testimony. And Al Schmidt, former city commissioner for Philadelphia. I'll be live tweeting some of the hearing, so I'm sure we'll all be tuned in for that. Now, next up, I have a little Daily Beans exclusive. According to sources, Enrique Tarrio actually used photographer and girlfriend Amy Harris's phone that night in the parking garage when Tarrio was meeting with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and others. And then afterwards, at about 8:30pm Tarrio bought a new phone after returning to Baltimore, presumably the one he used to communicate with the MoSD, the Ministry of Self Defense chat group on January 6. His phone had been confiscated by law enforcement on the 4th. So we were all sort of wondering on Twitter, like, what the fuck phone was he using? He ended up having a text exchange on the night of 16 with person one, who we now know as Proud Boy Bertino, who we saw in a video deposition, by the way, during the committee hearing last Thursday, leading me to believe Bertino is cooperating. He was raided the same day Tarrio was arrested, along with another proud boy in Pennsylvania named Stewart. His last name is Stewart. I think he's cooperating with the doj, and perhaps that's where they got the signal chat for the group called the mosd. Now, this reporting about Amy Harris that I have shows that she was more involved than previously known. She had sued to prevent the committee from getting her phone records, but I don't know whether the committee already has them. I'm sure we'll learn more in the weeks to come. In her lawsuit trying to prevent the committee from getting her phone records from Verizon, she says, yeah, I lost my phone that day and the chaos and the violence, and I picked it up at a hotel desk where it had been turned in by a proud boy. What a fucking lucky coincidence and something that likely won't come up in the hearings. Jenny Thomas emailed 27 more Arizona lawmakers than previously known. We knew about the two, now there's 27 more. And she did that to pressure them to put forth their own slate of fraudulent Trump electors. Thomas sent the messages using freeroutes, which is an online platform intended to make it easy to send pre written emails to multiple elected officials at once. New documents show Thomas indeed used that platform to reach many lawmakers all at once. On November 9, this was November 9, she sent identical emails to 20 members of the Arizona House and seven to Arizona State senators. That represents more than half of the Republican members of the state legislature at that time. The message, just days after media organizations called the race for Biden two days. Her messages urged lawmakers to, quote, stand strong in the face of political and media pressure. They claimed that the responsibility to choose electors was yours and yours alone. They had, quote, power to fight back against fraud and ensure that a clean slate of electors is chosen, she said in her email. Among the lawmakers, by the way, who received that email was then Rep. Anthony Kern, a Stop the Steal supporter who lost his reelection bid in November 2020 and then joined U.S. rep. Louie Gohmert and others as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Pence that was a last ditch effort to overturn Biden's victory. Kern was photographed outside the Capitol during the riot on January 6, but is said he did not enter the building. That puts Ginnie on Team Sidney Powell. Just weeks before Sidney Powell was ousted from the crack and strike force by Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani because Jenna and Rudy did not want to challenge the Electoral Count act in court for fear that the courts would rule that Pence couldn't throw out electors. That would sink the entire Eastman plot. And we learned about that from an email that has been described as falling under the crime fraud exception in Judge Carter's court ruling on the second batch of Eastman emails has to be handed over to the committee. But Powell forged ahead with Rep. Louie Gohmert and that Arizona fraudulent elector Kern to sue Pence in court. Now the case was thrown out on standing and the court never ruled on the merits of the Electoral Count act being unconstitutional or not. Speaking of Rudy, the attorney discipline arm of the DC Bar has brought a case against Rudy Giuliani for pushing unsubstantiated election fraud accusations in Pennsylvania federal court on behalf of Donald Trump after the 2020 election. The disciplinary office filing called a charge ethics charge further puts Giuliani's status as a lawyer in jeopardy. Giuliani had already been suspended from practicing law by the New York bar as that office also investigates his election fraud efforts on behalf of Trump in court. And in the new Filing from the D.C. bar, Giuliani is accused of violating Pennsylvania's rules of professional conduct. He did so, the filing said in that he, quote, brought a proceeding and asserted issues therein without a non frivolous basis in law and fact for doing so and quote, engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. Cnn, who's reporting this story, reached out to Giuliani's attorney but did not receive a response to its inquiry about the ethics charges. And Andrew Torres and I are going to go over this in detail on this Wednesday's cleanup on aisle 45 podcast. That's right, he is back. Andrew is back. He's feeling better. All right, next up from the Washington Post, police In Idaho arrested 31 people who had face coverings, white supremacist insignia, shields and an operations plan to riot near an LGBTQ pride event on Saturday afternoon. Police say they were affiliated with Patriot Front, a white supremacist group whose founder was among those arrested. Bummer. Authorities received a tip about a Little army loading into a U Haul truck at a hotel Saturday afternoon. That's according to Lee White, the police chief in Coeur d' Alene, Idaho, a city of about 50,000 near the border with Washington. Local and state law enforcement pulled over the truck about 10 minutes later. Many of those arrested were wearing logos representing Patriot Front, which rebranded after one of its members plowed his car into a crowd of people protesting a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of that's them. The group's founder, Thomas Ryan Rousseau, or Rousseau, was among those arrested. Like the others, Rousseau was arrested on a charge of criminal conspiracy to riot, which is a misdemeanor. The arrestees were held on $300 bail. Some of the other men arrested also have been linked to the group in photos and video posted on social media. A group of men dressed in hats, sunglasses, Patriot Front signature khaki pants, of course, were seen kneeling on the ground with their hands zip tied behind their backs as police officers kept watch. An onlooker taunted the group, yelling, losers. White said the people were headed to City park, which was hosting a Pride in the park event advertised as a family friendly community event celebrating diversity and building a stronger, more unified community for all. Organizers did not immediately respond to telephone and email requests for comment from the Washington Post, who's written this story on Saturday evening, but they wrote in a post to the group's Facebook page that it was a successful event. The group, North Idaho Pride alliance, urged people to stay aware of your surroundings this afternoon and evening. In the city, authorities had been aware of online threats leading up to the weekend, according to White, so police had increased their presence in cities downtown. Two SWAT teams and officers from the city, county and state assisted in the arrests. The Panhandle Patriots, a local motorcycle club, had planned a Gundelane like Coeur d' Alene, but Gundelane event the same day as Pride in the park to, quote, go head to head with these people, an organizer said in April during an appearance with state Rep. Heather Scott, Republican. The organizer was not identified by name in a video, but wore a vest bearing the alias Mad Dog and the insignia of the Panhandle Patriots group. He lamented that the Pride gatherings would be, quote, allowed to parade through all of Coeur d' Alene, saying that a line must be drawn in the sand against such LGBTQ displays. Scott did not immediately respond to a quest for comment from the Washington Post late Saturday. In a news release posted on the group's website, the Panhandle Patriots, encouraged the community to take a stand against the LGBTQ agenda. It also suggested, without evidence that, quote, extremist groups were just trying to hijack the event to provoke violence, and said the group would change its event name to North Idaho Day of Prayer in response. Okay, so Mad Dog changed his gun delane to the North Idaho Day of Prayer event. Mm. Reached by phone late Saturday, a representative for the Panhandle Patriots declined to comment, telling the Post, we aren't answering questions right now. Yeah, I bet. White, the police chief, did not mention a connection between the Panhandle Patriots and events in the arrests, and he said those arrested had come from several states to riot downtown with riot gear, at least one smoke grenade, and documents similar to an operations plan that police or military group would put together for an event. He did not see firearms at the scene of the arrest, he said, but emphasis on the situation was, quote, very fresh. However, firearms were present in the vicinity of the park. Police had been in contact with the FBI all day, he said. White noted that the authorities understanding of the situation was still developing and said at the news conference that law enforcement had not yet interviewed those arrested. Representatives for Patriot Front were unable to be reached for comment. More charges are possible. They'll likely make their first court appearance sometime today. So that's very interesting. We don't know what weapons they had, where they were. We just know about a smoke grenade and shields. But they were first picked up on misdemeanor charges. And by the way, this came from a tip a citizen. Why we got to keep doing all the work. Finally, a bipartisan group of senators announced Sunday it had reached a tentative agreement on legislation that would pair modest new gun restrictions with significant new mental health and school security investments. A deal that could put Congress on a path to enacting the most significant national response in decades to acts of mass gun violence. 20 senators, 10 Dems, and 10 Republicans signed a statement announcing the framework of a deal. The move indicated that the agreement could have enough GOP support to defeat a filibuster, which is, as we know, the Senate super majority rule that has impeded previous gun legislation and pretty much anything else that would help Americans, quote, families are sacred. It's our duty to come together and get something done that will help restore their sense of safety and security in their communities. That's what a statement read, in part. Most importantly, it says our plan saves lives while also protecting the constitutional rights of law abiding Americans. Under the tentative deal, a federal grant program would encourage states to implement red flag laws that allow authorities to keep guns away from people found by a judge to represent a potential threat to themselves or others. While federal criminal background checks for gun buyers from 18 to 21 would include a mandatory search of juvenile justice and mental health records for the first time. So it's enhanced background check. It's not universal, though. Other provisions would prevent gun sales to domestic violence offenders other than spouses, closing what is called the boyfriend loophole to clarify which gun sellers are required to register as federal firearms dealers. That's something else it does. And thus run background checks on customers and establish new federal offenses related to gun trafficking. The agreement does not include a provision supported by Biden, congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans and me that would raise the minimum age for the purchase of long guns from 18 to 21. Senator Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator, said in an interview Sunday that the compromise would have detractors on both the right and the left, but that it would ultimately make meaningful differences in combating gun violence. Quote, this is also the moment where we break the log jam. This is the important part, right? He says this is the moment where the 30 year impasse is broken. I think folks are really anxious about the state of violence in this country and I think they really want Washington to show it can deliver. Other provisions in the framework would funnel billions of new federal dollars into mental health care and school security programs, funding behavioral intervention programs, new campus infrastructure and armed officers. One cornerstone of the deal is legislation sponsored by Senators Roy Blunt and Debbie Stabenow to establish a nationwide network of community behavioral health clinics, though the framework does not yet include an agreed funding level for that program or some of the others. So no, this bill does not go far enough. But what it does do, as Chris Murphy said, is opens the door to more legislation down the road now that Republicans have conceded effectively that the Second Amendment is not absolute. They did this back in 2004. They're doing it again now. David Hogg, Shannon Watts, Fred Gutenberg, they're all optimistic. So so am I. This is how things go in a democracy. You do not get everything you want all at once. You can only get that in an autocracy. So this bill once again shows the world that democracy can work. Another very important message. All right. I'll be right back with Adam Klassfeld to discuss the bomb Liz Cheney dropped on the committee last week when she said Rep. Scott Perry called the White House seeking a pardon for his role in the attempted coup. Stay with us after these messages. We'll be right back, everybody. Welcome back. I'm happy to be joined today by my friend, host of the Objections podcast and writer for Law and Crime and editor at large, I believe. Please welcome Adam Klasveld.