Judging Freedom - QAnon Shaman injustice _ Sabotaged Pipeline _ Missouri gun law

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, March 9th, 2023. It's about 8.55 in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States. My friend and former colleague at Fox News, Tucker Carlson, who of course has been in the news quite a bit lately, ran clips on his show last night from among the 40,000 hours of tapes taken by various security cameras in and around the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. of the events of January 6th. So a little bit of background. Kevin McCarthy, who's the Speaker of the House of Representatives and who really has custody of everything in that building, except things on the Senate side,

somehow had custody of all these tapes. And for some reason, he gave them to Tucker Carlson, I say somehow and for some reason, because them to Tucker Carlson, I say somehow and for some reason because he shouldn't have had custody of them. These tapes are both evidence of criminal behavior and what we call exculpatory evidence, evidence that exonerates a defendant or weakens the government's case. So these tapes should have been subpoenaed by the government and the government should have had custody of them. They should have been taken away from Kevin McCarthy, which is what happens in a criminal case. Unfortunately, sometimes this happens to totally innocent people. The government seizes property because it's evidence.

The government keeps that property until the purpose for which it is evidence has been completed. I don't know if the tapes that Kevin McCarthy gave to Tucker Carlson are the original tapes or copies, meaning I don't know if the government has these tapes or not. But I do know from having watched some of them that Tucker and his producers, and I know many of these producers from having worked with them. I'm smiling because they're young, intelligent, aggressive people who know their work. They're the best producers in the business. Fox has notoriously hired the best producers in the business. Some Fox producers have become Fox celebrities.

Jesse Waters started out as a producer for Bill O'Reilly. Now Jesse's one of the kings of the hill over there. Another story for another time. These producers extracted from the 40,000 hours of tapes, exculpatory tapes, tapes that purport to exonerate the so-called shaman, the so-called QAnon shaman, Jacob Chansley. Mr. Chansley is a former U.S. Navy, has some mental disabilities, but walked through the Capitol building, you're going to see in a few seconds, escorted by the police, not resisted by them, not them chasing him, not him attacking them, but escorted by them. You'll then see at the very, very end of this tape, him making a statement on the floor of the Senate, which of course is a place where it's illegal for him to be. Did he break the law? Yes, he did. Should he have pleaded guilty? No,

he should not have pleaded guilty. His lawyers should have had a copy of these tapes because, again, they are both incriminating, showing him in places where it is unlawful for him to be, where it is a crime for him to be, and they are exculpatory, showing him believing that what he was doing was lawful because he's escorted by the police. So we're going to run the tape now. It's a little over a minute. You'll hear Tucker Carlson narrating the tape. And then it ends with Mr. Chumley's, Chansley, sorry, Chansley's statement on the floor of the Senate. And then I'll explain the law.

Here we go. To this day, there is dispute over how Chansley got into the Capitol building. But according to our review of the internal surveillance video, it is very clear what happened once he got inside. Virtually every moment of his time inside the Capitol was caught on tape. The tapes show that Capitol Police never stopped Jacob Chansley. They helped him. They acted as his tour guides. Here's video of Chansley in They helped him. They acted as his tour guides. Here's video of Chansley in the Senate chamber. Capitol Police officers take him to multiple entrances and even try to open locked doors for him. We counted at least nine officers who were within touching

distance of unarmed Jacob Chansley. Not one of them even tried to slow him down. Chansley understood that Capitol Police were his allies. Video shows him giving thanks for them in a prayer on the floor of the Senate. Watch. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for paying the inspiration needed to these police officers to allow us in this building. All right, so being on the floor of the Senate, of course, is a crime. But his defense would be that the police escorted him there. And that's a valid, legitimate defense because it's a crime of intent. And if he thought he was lawfully present, he didn't have the intent to break the law.

Here's the bottom line. I don't know who had those tapes and I don't know why Kevin McCarthy had them. They should have been in the custody of the U.S. attorney and that's the prosecuting federal prosecuting authority there. And they should have been turned over to Chancelley's lawyers and to all the lawyers in the case so that they can do what Tucker Carlson's producers did, which is go through the tapes and look for that which is exculpatory. Why these tapes are coming out just now is a travesty of justice. Chansley's serving a four-year term. He did commit some crimes, but there are defenses to those crimes of which his own lawyers were apparently unaware. Chansley, as I indicated to you, according to his lawyers, has some mental deficiencies. He may not have even been aware of the fact that there were tapes of him being escorted by the police

throughout the building that you just saw. The flip side of this is there's 40,000 hours of those tapes. And my friends and former colleagues at Fox obviously extracted the hours that are going to support the narrative that January 6th was not an insurrection, that it was a peaceful demonstration, that people like Chansley thought they had the right to be there. Well, somebody's got to go through the 40,000 hours and look at the other tapes that were there. That's why it was wrong for Kevin McCarthy to give them just to Tucker Carlson. He should have made them available to everybody. As I said, he shouldn't have had them. The government should have them. The government should share exculpatory.

What's exculpatory? Exculpatory is evidence that comes into the government's possession that helps the defendant or hurts the government. Federal law is crystal clear. Prosecutors have an affirmative obligation, whether it's asked for or not, to provide exculpatory evidence to the lawyers for defendants or to the defendants themselves if they don't have lawyers in criminal cases. Why this was not provided to Chansley's lawyers and lawyers for others,

I don't know. Why this was in the custody of Kevin McCarthy, who's the Speaker of the House, he's in the legislative branch, he's not the prosecutor, he's not in the executive branch. Why he had evidence of crimes and exculpatory evidence, I don't know. That's a head scratcher. So there's more here that we need to know. But one thing is for sure, Chansley's lawyers should be moving today to vacate his prison sentence and vacate his guilty plea because of newly discovered evidence. Whose fault it is that this evidence was newly discovered? Whose fault it is that this evidence was not provided before Chansley pleaded guilty will be resolved by the court. But it is clear that there is newly discovered evidence, and it's clear that Chansley should be able to exploit this evidence to exonerate himself. Now, Chansley's just one. There are 700 people that

were arrested and about 275 to 300 who have been prosecuted, a dozen or so guilty verdicts, the vast majority guilty pleas. All of these people are entitled to look at these tapes to see did not turn exculpatory evidence over to the defendants and why the speaker of the House of Representatives had in his possession is government property, to one Fox personality, a friend of mine, a guy I worked with, a guy I like. But still should have been shared, if it's for having three sources for all of his investigative work. Cy Hirsch as a single investigative reporter operating out of his home big-footed the billionaire, the billion-dollar mainstream media, one of which I've just been talking about, Fox News. And I'm not critical of Fox on this at all because they're in the same category as other mainstream media when it comes to investigating the explosions at the Nord Stream pipeline. Cy Hirsch demonstrated conclusively in a 19-page article. You can Google it. Cy Hirsch Nord Stream. And you'll see the article. It's easy to read. It's written in plain English. There are some technical terms in there, but you can follow it. And he demonstrates conclusively that

Joe Biden, President Biden, after debates in the Oval Office and among his intelligence, security, and military personnel, decided to dispatch CIA divers and Navy divers to pack explosives on the Nord Stream pipeline. That's the pipeline from Russia to Germany through which Russia sells and Germany receives, had been selling and had been receiving, inexpensive natural gas. Last June, June of 22, the pipeline, excuse me, two Junes ago, June of 21, the pipeline is packed with explosives. September of 21, this was before the war, the president orders the pipelines to be exploded. So it was a two-step process, loaded with explosives, three months later, exploded. So it was a two-step process, load it with explosives, three months later, exploded. When it happened, the White House blamed the Russians. President Putin said,

what are you, crazy? We make a fortune on this. Why would we destroy our own property? I have been harshly critical of the government for doing this. This is the government of the United States of America attacking an ally, Germany. This is a violation of the NATO treaty. It's a violation of the UN charter. It's a violation of federal law. It's all of those things. Joe Biden, of course, denies this and tried to get you to believe that the Russians destroyed their own pipeline. Nobody picked this story up in the mainstream media, but there was so much discussion of it by good folks like you listening to me now, like our libertarian and even progressive colleagues on various podcasts throughout the country, that the story was bubbling up,

bubbling up, bubbling up. And somebody in the White House must have said to somebody in the intelligence community, look, you've got to come up with an alternate explanation here as to what happened. Because this story by Cy Hirsch is credible. And even though the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal and Fox News and MSNBC and CNN haven't carried it yet. Too many people are talking about it. At the same time that that happened, Chancellor Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany, flew to the United States and met with President Biden alone for an hour. No translators, no assistants with them,

just the two of them alone in the Oval Office. The snarky side of me says that's dangerous because Biden probably will not remember what they talked about. The analytical side of me says, what did they talk about? Well, Chancellor Scholz was humiliated when the Hirsch story came out. Here is the Chancellor of Germany, and he didn't hear from the United States that it attacked his property. He heard about it from an investigative reporter, and his government is in danger of being toppled because they couldn't protect their own real estate from an attack by a foreign government, in this case, a so-called friendly foreign government. So I surmise that this is what

Joe and Gerhard talked about in the Oval Office without the press, without a translator, Schultz speaks perfect English, and without assistance there. This was last Friday. Today is Thursday, three days ago, three days after this secret private meeting. The New York Times comes out with a report, oh, the CIA says that it was probably pro-Ukrainian activists that blew up the pipeline. Yes, it was pro-Ukrainian activists called Navy SEALs and CIA. This project could not have been done by anyone other than a government. That's not me. That's Denmark and Norway, whose military divers examined the explosion. What's Denmark and

Norway's interest? They were receiving natural gas being resold to them by the German utilities. That's how cheap it was, and that's how beneficial it was to Germany. Russia to Germany, Germany to the German people, Germany to public utilities in Norway and Denmark. Norway and Denmark governments send their government divers down to the bottom of the Baltic. They look at this thing and they say, my God, no private entity could have done this. Only a government could have done this. CIA to New York Times was anti-Russian, pro-Ukrainian activists. Who do you believe? Sometimes I think everything the government has, it is stolen,

and everything the government says is a lie. The federal judge in Missouri two days ago invalidated a fabulous, fabulous Missouri statute. So the state of Missouri, through its legislature and its governor, enacts a statute saying federal laws that interfere with the right to keep and bear arms in Missouri are invalid, and Missouri law enforcement, local, regional, county, and state will not help the feds to enforce them. Why are they invalid? Because the Supreme Court has said the right to keep and bear arms, this is the Heller decision, Justice Scalia 2008, says the right to keep and bear arms is a natural, personal, individual right. It is the modern day extension of the ancient right to self-defense using the same mechanical means of self-defense as the bad guys use and as the government uses. That's not me. That's an accurate paraphrase of Justice Scalia's language in the Heller decision.

After Heller is Bruin, that's Justice Thomas. That decision is just nine months old. That decision says it's not only the natural right to keep arms, it's the natural right to bear arms. And every state in the union is a shall issue state, meaning the presumption is that every adult is entitled to a license to carry a gun and the government should have to prove why that person is not entitled. In places like New Jersey and New York and California, and even Washington, D.C., the presumption was the other way around. The presumption was that you're not entitled, and you had to prove why you should be able to carry one. Well, as of last June, that presumption is flipped, according to the Supreme Court and according to history, in accordance with the way guns have been treated throughout our history, which is the presumption is that law-abiding adults can own them and law-abiding adults can carry them.

That's the history of guns in the United States. And every state in the union, including the District of Columbia, are now required to abide by that. Along comes Missouri and says, well, there are federal statutes that interfere with the right to own and the right to carry. And we're not going to have anything to do with those federal statutes in Missouri. That Missouri law was found unconstitutional two days ago by a federal judge who wrote an opinion that is so poorly written. If he were one of my students in the three law schools on which I was a faculty, I would have flunked him because he missed the important case. And the important case is called PRINZ versus the United States. And it has to do with commandeering. What's commandeering? Commandeering is where

the federal government says to state and local officials, you're going to enforce federal law. You're going to stop enforcing state and local law. You're going to enforce federal law at your own expense because we, the feds, don't have the money to put enough federal agents around here to enforce federal law. That is the federal government commandeering state and local law enforcement authorities. Absolutely prohibited by the Supreme Court. Is it mentioned? Is it discussed in this judge's opinion? No, it's not.

Look, this sometimes happens. Judges rely on their law clerks to do research for them. He missed the most important case. It is clear that the feds can't say to the state of Missouri or the state of New Jersey or the state of Texas or Florida or any state in the union, your law enforcement will enforce our laws. Absolutely not. That is a discretionary decision by the locals. If New Jersey wants the state police to enforce federal laws, the governor wants to do it. It's up to the governor. If the governor of Missouri does not want the state police in Missouri or the local police in St. Louis to enforce federal laws. The feds can't force them to do it. This wacky federal judge, I don't want to get personal about this, maybe a wonderful person, he may be otherwise intelligent and utterly qualified to be a federal

judge, but this particular federal judge is turning federalism on its head by claiming that the feds can commandeer the police in Missouri and force them against Missouri law to enforce federal law and to do so in an area involving a fundamental right, a right that doesn't come from the government. It comes from our humanity. That's the Heller decision written by Justice Scalia. This will soon be reversed by a federal appeals court. But in the interim, if you're a St. Louis cop or a Jefferson City cop or a county police officer or a state trooper in Missouri and the feds tell you to enforce federal law, you'll have to do so. That's a waste of Missouri tax dollars. It's an assault on the sovereignty of the state of Missouri. It's a wrong decision. It should be reversed quickly. And it's especially, especially harmful because it involves a fundamental natural right, your right to keep and bear arms, which is your modern day natural right to self-defense. More as we get it. Later today at two o'clock this afternoon, Eastern, Colonel Douglas McGregor. 3.30 this afternoon, Eastern,

Larry Johnson, one of that great cadre of ex-CIA agents now willing to spill the beans on the monstrosity that the CIA has become. More as we get it for all of you. I hope you enjoy all this as much as I do. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.