Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 1/2/25 Leonard Goodman on the Americans Convicted for Opposing the War in Ukraine

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Attorney Leonard Goodman returns to the show to talk about the government’s case against his clients in the Uhuru Movement. These left-wing activists have been tied up in court, fighting ridiculous charges that allege they were working for the Russians when they spoke out against the war in Ukraine shortly after it broke out. The trial wrapped up recently. Goodman updates Scott on the results and the likely next steps in this important legal battle for free speech.  Discussed on the show: Scott’s previous interview with Goodman Leonard Goodman is a criminal defense lawyer, a columnist and an Adjunct Professor of Law at DePaul. Follow him on Twitter @GoodmanLen This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show all right you guys introducing leonard goodman he is a lawyer who uh is representing the uhoo roo movement and we have some important developments in their legal case welcome back to the show how are you doing I'm good. Nice to be back, Scott.

Great to have you here. Really appreciate you joining us. So, I guess the news is your group was convicted but then slapped on the wrist. Can you tell us about this ridiculous case, please? Yes. So they were charged with being agents of Russia. It's a group, the African People Socialist Party, they've been around for 50 years. My client is a 79-year-old lady, Petty Hess. The lead defendant was O'Malley Eschatela, who's 83 years old. And they basically were prosecuted for telling the truth about the Ukraine war.

That's my belief, because they've been around for 50 years. They've had some run-ins with law enforcement. But their views have not changed. They're anti-colonialist. They're a black liberation group. They're on the left. um they're anti-war their anti-nato and their views have not changed in since the 70s um omali yashitella comes out of the SNCC movement and all of a sudden in um in july of

2022 apparently they became a threat uh because they were out there telling the truth about the ukraine war and basically saying what Scott has said and just published a book that this war was not unprovoked. It was provoked. And they talked about NATO expansion and the coup in 2014 and the weaponization of Ukraine and putting weapons on Russia's border. And you weren't supposed to say that in February of 2022 right after the invasion. They were out there holding rallies. And in July of 2022, they were raided by FBI SWAT teams, their homes, their offices, you know, flashbang grenades in their homes. And all of their files were taken, all of their computers.

And, you know, it's been, they have been punished just by being charged in this case. And I think the government didn't expect them to actually take it to trial. So the allegation was that they were agents of Russian. It was based on the fact that O'Malley had taken a trip to Moscow in 2015 and had participated in a seminar headed by a non-governmental organization in Moscow called the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, headed by a man named Ayanov. And so even though they've been saying the same thing for 50 years, now after he took a trip to Moscow, the government alleged that they're saying it for Russia and their agents of Russia. Their case completely fell apart at trial.

And the real problem was there was no evidence of direction or control, which is the definition of agency. So, and I think the judge, I think the judge ended up coming around by the time of sentencing to understand that this case was. bullshit, but I think he was sort of started in the belief that, yeah, well, if you're working with Russians, that's probably, should be a crime. And I think, you know, that's sort of the problem with the case like this. And we, the government, I think they had something like 25 FBI agents working on a case, probably spent $15 million trying to put these three activists in prison. And they, the agents, the three case agents who testified at trial, there were no witnesses, no live witnesses who actually knew our clients. They didn't have one

person that came to court to say, oh, yes, these people are not what they say, or these people are doing the bidding of Russia. They talked to all the people that had left our organization to see if that they would testify against Omali and Penny and couldn't find anyone. So the whole case, it was just a paper trial. They had all our emails, all, you know, we record every single meeting that we have at the organization. So they had audio recordings of all our meetings. And then they had communications between Ayanov and other Russians to show that he had

some connection to the Russian government. So that was their case. And but it became clear and their own case agents admitted that with respect to every single overt act in the indictment, there was no direction of control. We basically would make a decision is this. If, if, so we had a friendship with this guy, Ionov after O'Mali got back from Russia.

We received some trivial amounts of financial support. And this is all perfectly legal. There was no sanctions that we were about, no sanctions law that we were violating. You're allowed, if you're a small group like ours or any group, a non-governmental organization in the United States, you're allowed to seek foreign allies. And it's not all the time, of course. There's lots of groups that are aligned with Israel. That's perfectly fine.

There's lots of groups that are aligned with, with the Gulf states, think tanks, to take millions and millions of dollars. The allegation here was that we accepted contributions to our 501C3 organization amounting to about $7,000 over five years of the relationship with this guy, Ionov. And, you know, so that that was the case, but there was no evidence that we ever took any direction from them,

and their own case agents admitted that. So what happened at trial, we were charged with being agents of Russia. It was clear that the government wasn't going to get a conviction on that. So they focused on a lesser charge, which was a conspiracy charge, which was almost incomprehensible. You know, the government loves conspiracy charges because juries don't really understand them. In this case, it was particularly confusing because a conspiracy, the pattern jury instruction for a conspiracy says it's the type of partnership. Well, how can you have a partnership to be an agent of somebody?

You can't be both a partner and an agent of your co-defendant. So it was incredibly confusing. The government told the jury in closing argument that all they needed to show was that we had a partnership with this guy, Inoff, and that was all they needed to convict on the conspiracy. there was also a bit of a dirty trick at the end of the trial where they put in they told the jury on redirect of one of their agents knowing that we couldn't rebut it because the court the judge did not he had a standing courtroom rule where he did not allow recross examination so during a redirect of their lead case agent on the last day of trial they told the jury that we had worked with the Russians to set up a doxing website. This was during the height of Black Lives Matter

and that we had agreed with Russia to do a doxing website to dox wrote police officers and published personal information about them. This was false. There was an idle conversation that they referred to where Ayanov had offered to help us set up some sort of website. It's unclear exactly what it was.

But it was never pursued, and it was dropped, and the government ended up admitting at sentencing that, in fact, it was not true. There was no, it was just an idle conversation, but they told the jury that it was real, and the jurors, during deliberations, asked, they sent a note out asking to be an anonymous jury because they were worried about being doxed by the defendant. So it was quite damaging. But between that and the misleading arguments about the definition of conspiracy, the jury got, the jury convicted on the lesser charge. We went to sentencing. The prosecution asked for three years for 83-year-old Amali Eschatelah, and two years for my client, Penny Hess. Penny has never even had a traffic ticket in her, I'm sorry, 79-year-old Penny has. never even had a traffic ticket in her life. I think she maybe had one disorderly conduct for

a protest that she'd been involved in. So it was really quite shameful of federal government. But I think they had to justify that this was a major priority in this case, spending some $15 million of taxpayer dollars to put these activists. And they had to try to convince the court that this was real, that there was some real threat here. So that's basically what happened. It was a happy ending, although I'm going to do the appeal and I'm hoping to get these convictions overturned because this is a free speech case and it's quite dangerous. I think we talked about this last time that they were prosecuted for political speech.

And you really won't find any other federal, even during the height of McCarthyism. There were not federal prosecutions of political speech. There was some state cases brought to silence people, but the feds really didn't go after political activists. And so this is quite a dangerous case and would set a horrible precedent. Now, we filed a motion to dismiss before the trial based on the First Amendment. The judge denied it. But at sentencing, he seemed to acknowledge, and he said, and I'm quoting, he said, this is all about political speech. So I think he eventually did come around

And I do appreciate that So I think we'll have a pretty strong argument We're in the 11th Circuit We'll see how it goes But that's That's where we're at And now, so what exactly was the sentence? Oh, no jail time, no fines

No jail time or fines Yeah, I skipped over that Yeah, so they're on probation for two years Oh, probation for two years, okay Yeah. Well, I wanted to, there's so much there, but let's start with one of the last things you said there about the absolute shamelessness of the federal prosecutors and the U.S. attorneys here. These are people who are not in any way acquainted with justice or what average Americans might presume they think their job is. It's really an entirely separate career that they're on. It's really. just persecuting people who the U.S. government disfavors. No different than in some backwards tyranny east of here. It's absolutely right. And, you know, I do a lot of federal work. And the thing that I think people don't really understand, I think, you know, people get called to jury duty in the

federal building. And it's quite impressive. You know, you see these, these grand courtrooms and high ceilings and, you know, the trials are long. And it seems very important. But I think what people don't understand about the federal government, I mean, at least with state prosecutors, there's an arrest, there's an actual crime, there's an arrest, and then the file ends up on a prosecutor's desk. That's not the way it works in federal court. They decide who they're going to target. So, you know, in this case, they decided they're going to target these black activists that, you know, have been around very small organization. Well, they have quite a following. And I think what makes them a little bit threatening is they have their own newspaper.

called Burning Spear. It's actually an excellent paper. They have their own radio station, and it's a very low, low wattage station. But the paper is, you know, I don't know what the publication is, but they have quite a large following when they do rallies and Zoom rallies, and they get a lot of people. So I think the government feels like their followers, as, you know, largely black followers belong to the Democratic Party and should not be taken away from them by these groups. And I think that's really, this was a pure political case. Yeah, look, and that's the important point right there is it's not, as we discussed this before, it's not that they are revolutionary communists who are intent and vowed to overthrow the U.S.

government or anything like that. They're leftists. They're to the left of the Democratic. That's maybe to the left of progressives, but that's never been their position over decades here. It's more, as you say, kind of aligning with other black liberation movements around the world and in places where people are suffering even worse tyranny, it seems like, is more their deal. But as you're saying here, and this obviously underlies a lot of political prosecutions in this country on the other side as well, is you are to take your, politics and you are to channel them through one of the two parties or else. And if you're going to go outside of those lines, and especially if you're going to demonstrate that it's really possible to go outside of those lines and make a difference, then they'll come after you. And

like you're saying here, those votes belong to the Democrats. And the kind of activism that these people are doing is exactly the kind of activism to undermine support for the Democratic party among the left and especially among the working poor and that kind of thing, which is their margin of victory. And so, yeah, will they nail a 83-year-old man to the wall in order to make an example for others that they better not mess with the Democratic Party's priorities? Absolutely, they will use the United States government's, you know, a prosecutorial branch in order to make that message clear to others. That's exactly right. And I think, you know, I think one of the problems with this particular prosecution was it was almost impossible to make this into some sort of national security case.

I mean, they tried, you could look at some of the memos that they filed for sentencing and, oh, you know, this was, this did create some sort of, you know, danger to America, but it was laughable. And I don't think that the judge just dismissed it. It was not a credible argument. These people are, you know, they're peaceful protests, protesters. And, you know, they believe in, they believe in, I mean, they're true Americans. I mean, they believe in free speech and they believe in the right to tell the truth and to power and stand up to their government. So, you know, it's exactly right. And now, so there's so many aspects.

Well, let's just focus on. what you said at the beginning there for a minute too, that they were subject to a Waco-style raid here. You know, people always think of the fire, but that was 51 days later. The initial raid was cops storming in like paramilitary soldiers from some right-wing tyranny that the U.S. supports in Latin America

or something like that, like the raid against old, poor old Tuttle in Brazil, you know. And that's how they did these elderly people. I think two of the defendants were younger people from Colorado or something like that, but you're saying you're representing your client was 79 and the other guy's 83 years old and they're doing

a dynamic raid into their homes with flashbang grenades which we know can start fires and maim and even kill people and doing this whole paramilitary SWAT thing because what we're pretending, we want the local TV news to see this as some Russian spies

were found and rounded up somehow or something on this, you know the level of high that they're adding to the reality there. I think they want the community to be afraid of these people. And putting them in danger in order to do so for their public relations stunt, throwing a grenade at an old lady and an old man. Yeah.

And you know, Amali, you know, they probably wouldn't even appreciate me saying this, but I'm going to say it, but, you know, a week before the sentencing, he had like a 24-hour amnesia attack. I forget what the medical term for it was, but it was quite frightening. I think they thought he had a stroke. This is a guy, a really healthy guy, is taking care of himself. I mean, and these are, you know, they're lifelong activists. They basically committed their lives to trying to make the world a better place as they see it.

You know, my client, Penny, she's 79, she's published a book. She earns $31,000 a year, and that's the career she chose. None of them earned a penny out of their relationship with Russia. I mean, the little money that they got was just like any other donor. It went into their programs and their activism. So, you know, it's just so upside down that the federal government, and this is sort of in my experience with the federal government, they go after the lowest level people, you know,

I mean, I'll just give you one other example. During the mortgage fraud crisis, of course, you know, who are the guilty parties in the mortgage fraud crisis? Well, it was Wall Street bankers that sold these phony, that set up these liar loans to encourage people that can't afford homes to purchase homes zero percent down, 100 percent financing. And then they took these loans and packaged them into mortgage-backed securities and sold them to old ladies and pension funds and things like that. I mean, it was a huge scam. None of those people went to prison and Barack Obama made sure of that. None of those people went to prison. In fact, they all got their bonuses and they all got bailed out and they got their bonuses.

But they had to prosecute someone. So who gets prosecuted? It's the peons, the people that are taught, the people that are talked into signing their names onto more. mortgage applications and told to fudge their income in order to meet the ratios. Those are the people that were prosecuted by the federal government. I represented at least probably at least 10 people. So that's typical of the federal government. And you look at this case, if you're really going to go after agents of a foreign government,

why not go after the think tanks that take millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates and publish articles. and op-eds to try to get policy that favors those Gulf states. But no, or Israel. None of those people are prosecuted. They prosecute this group because they have to be friends with a nation that we don't like and we want people to hate and we want people to support sending their tax dollars so that weapons can flow to Ukraine.

So that's really, it's a very cynical, sad to have such a cynical view of the federal government. But unfortunately, that's been my experience, practicing law in the federal courts for 30 years. Yeah. Hey, you guys coming up this October 7th through the 11th, join Miguel Thorup, host of the expat money podcast, the heroic Ron Paul, the great Tom Woods, Doug Casey, Mark Faber, Tom Luongo, myself, and many other great speakers for the online expat money summit, 2024. My presentation will be on the subject of my new book, Provoked, how Washington started the new cold. war with Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine, which is not quite out yet, and learn how you can reclaim your freedom by moving abroad, legally reduce your tax bill, and protect your assets. More than 8,000 people attended last year, and it's free.

My guys, Kyle Anzlone and Dave DeCamp from the Institute and Antiwar.com will be joining a panel discussion as well. Just go to 24.xpatmoneysummit.com for all the info. That's 2224. summit.com. Well, I guess it was just a matter of time. I drank so much coffee I turned into some. Hey, guys, check out the Scott Horton Show special blend at Moondoseartisan

coffee.com. It's a blend of organically grown Ethiopian and Sumatran coffee beans. Two very different coffees combined to create a unique blend. Ethiopia is smooth and medium-bodied, Sumatra, rich, heavy-bodied coffee. And it's got caffeine, lots of it, which is good for if you have to drive drunk. or get up in the morning. Click through from the link in the right-hand margin at Scott Horton.org to save 10% on your order. It's the Scott Horton Show Blend from Moondose Artisan Coffee.

Hey guys, I had some wasps in my house. So I shot them to death with my trusty bug assault 3.0 model with the improved salt reservoir and bar safety. I don't have a deal with them, but the show does earn a kickback every time you get a bug of salt or anything else you buy from Amazon.com. by way of the link in the right-hand margin on the front page at scott horton dot org so keep that in mind and don't worry about the mess your wife will clean it up well folks sad to say they lied us into war all of them world war one world war two korea vietnam iraq war one syria afghanistan iraq war two libya syria yemen all of them but now you can get the e-book all the war lies by me

for free. Just sign up the email list at the bottom of the page at Scott Horton.org or go to Scotthorton.org slash subscribe. Get all the war lies by me for free. And then you'll never have to believe them again. And now, so the original charge, was it under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? And that was the- No. They couldn't charge them under the foreign FARA because FARA requires some sort of knowledge that you were supposed to register. So generally in a FARA case, if you're doing lobbying or for a foreign government, you'll get a letter from the State Department saying, we think the work you're doing impacts FARA and you need to register. And then you can have a debate with them about whether you need to register. And if you don't, you might get prosecuted.

But they couldn't do that with these people because it was conceded and there was no dispute that they had no idea that there was any that they were required to register with um the attorney general so they charged them under um it's nine six it's 18 USC 961 it's the um forget the name of the statute but um it's it requires um no there's case law that says that there's no requirement that they know about the registration requirement so that's why they charged them under this it's a more serious statute, it really is supposed to go after people who are acting as agents. So usually it goes to foreign spies. So if you're here gathering, if you're here gathering secrets and sending them to China, that's what this statute is supposed to target, not activists who are political

speech. I mean, all of the... So, wait a... So the FARA law, which is, you know, about, as you said, it's about lobbying and is a less serious offense has more strictures about how it can ever be applied. And so they couldn't apply it here. So instead, they applied a much harsher espionage-style law over what amounted to not even a FARA violation. the first place basically right exactly and now so i don't know how how common is it for a russian NGO to donate money to non-profits in america you mentioned you know the israelis and of course

the entire gcc gang um down there uh and financing all these think tanks in the united states but uh how common is it for the russians to donate to this or that activist group do you know And, well, for that matter, and you're the lawyer, too, so you can make the case if you want. Does this NGO that donated to them count as the Russians, truly, or no? Yeah, it's a little complicated. So the answer to your first question is, I don't really know. And, you know, I'm not familiar with what Russian organizations contribute. But what I'll tell you is that the State Department, according to the State Department website,

you are allowed to take, if you're an NGO, which these people technically are an NGO, they're not-for-profit, you're allowed to take, don't accept donations directly from a foreign government. So if they were getting it directly from the Kremlin, they're allowed to. The only time it becomes a crime is if you are taking direction and if you're under the direction or control, which they weren't. So I don't know the answer to that, but then you're, you're second question, remind me your second question. It was their friend there that they had made who had invited them there.

How was he connected? So here's... Well, and by the way, let me remind people what you said earlier that they were invited there in 2015. Correct. And then seven years later, when they had something to say about the war breaking out, the Department of Justice, they call it, pretended to retcon this whole thing into a conspiracy to represent Russian interests that they hadn't brought up for the previous

seven years leading up to that according to the indictment they became agents of russia in 2015 you know they basically the indictment says that by the time they the amali came back from russia he had agreed to act as agents of russia which is so laughable because the guy you know he's been a lifelong activist black liberation activist so all of a sudden he's going to come back uh to the united states and say we're now working for russia um it makes no sense at all And why? Why would you do it? It's not like they were offering him any money. You know, over the course of their relationship, they made some small donations, but certainly not. I mean, even if these people were for sale and their own, the government's own case agents admitted, you know, from all the evidence, it's clear that these people are not for sale.

You know, there were lots of things that the Russians said, hey, why don't you protest this or do that? And they said no. So in every, you know, whatever relationship they have with any donor, if there's a suggestion and the donor says we'd like you to publish this article or would you do the, or maybe you guys could protest this activity in the United States. They debate it, they talk about it. Does it align with our core issues? Will it advance our core issues? And if the answer is yes, then they'll agree to do it. But, you know, there's. There's no evidence that they were taking orders from Russia. So what is the connection to the Russian government? It turns out, so this guy, Ayanov, he sort of looks like a traditional Russian lefty. If you look at all the emails, he's very concerned with the plight of black people in the United States.

He's very concerned about police killings during the Black Lives Matter. years and lots of conversations with my client by text or Skype are all about oh there's another person you know black person shot dead in in Alabama can you believe this so he he appeared to be their friend and according to the one Russian case agent that I cross-examined she said that she thinks he probably did believe that he probably was a true lefty and there is a long history of black radicals in the U.S. and Russians, even during the communist era, I'm sure you're probably familiar with that. And I learned quite a bit about that, you know, about those relationships. So, but it turned out, at least according to the government's evidence, that this guy,

Ionov had at some point become a confidential informant for the FSB. So without secretly, without telling our clients, obviously, because he's informing on our clients and giving information, and not just our clients, but other black groups. For some reason, he was targeting black groups. Now, one thing that's very interesting, why was the Russian government targeting black groups and trying to get information and try to destroy these black groups in the United States. Well, we learned that one of the people that Ayanov was reporting to, a guy named Sakadoloff or something, sorry about the dog.

He had made a trip to the United States in, God, I want to say sometime, maybe 2020 or something. He had a visa to meet with the FBI, this guy's Sakadola. But this is one of the guys that's directing Ayanoff and telling them to go after these groups and get information and see if they'll do actions. So this guy had some relationship, his handler had some relationship with the FBI, which is quite odd. Why would an FSB agent be coming to the United States to meet with the FBI? And I think, you know, there was a case, you know, this whole case with Russia today where they were being paid to sponsor some activists. I don't know if you remember this case that came to light like six months ago. Sure.

So it's quite possible. And I don't know the answer because we weren't, we never got to know why Sakadolov was meeting with the FBI. But it's quite possible that he was a stooge for the FBI and that he basically was getting money from the United States government to try and to get Russia involved in U.S. politics as part of Russia gate. So that would be my guess as to this whole weird relationship. But anyway, that's the connection. That's how they made the case that we were. connected, that Ayanov was actually connected to the Russian government because he was confidential informant and because they had some emails, but inter-office emails and between

our clients, where we're saying it seems like he has, you know, a Russian agenda. So they made the case to the jury that he was, that we knew he was connected to the Russian government. Yeah. Well, how important was it to you guys to have Tucker Carlson come out in favor of what you're doing. I mean, I guess I was surprised that he even got word of this story. It wasn't that big of a national news story. I was not surprised, but I was pleased to see that he didn't care at all how black or leftist your clients are. His whole thing is the U.S. Constitution and particularly Amendment number one here. And who do these people think they are, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I think we talked about this before.

it's so sad that we don't have a political party that believes in free speech anymore you know it used to be i always thought growing up that the democrats were all about free speech um and those days are gone yeah it was quite important i mean it was really important to have any media attention um it's it's really greatly appreciated and it was so important um and i you know tucker obviously has a large audience um but you know we had uh the gray zone um covered the case and And you covered the case and a couple other people on the left, but, but you're right, Tucker Carlson's not on the left. And, but he believes in free speech and saw, saw this for what it was. And it was quite, you know, quite important, you know, I'm a big believer and, you know, sunshine is the best disinfectant.

And the more people, more people learn about these cases, the better off will be. You know, the other thing that I would mention is just the attempt by the federal government to demonize these people really didn't work in St. Petersburg. That's their sort of home base for 50 years. And the people in St. Petersburg, Tampa, I don't think bought that these people are dangerous criminals because they've been in the community for 50 years and they do great work. in St. Petersburg, and then there are other headquarters is in St. Louis, Missouri. They've pretty much revitalized the north side of St. Louis. They set up farmers' markets. They have educational programs, doula programs.

They have black enterprises where they sell pies and furniture. So, you know, they've done a lot of good for the community. They've helped the community. And I think people that actually live in these communities appreciate that and don't really accept that these people are dangerous agents of Russia. Yeah. All right. Well, I guess I just wanted to end with giving you a chance to reiterate your point about

the years in prison that the federal prosecutors were seeking here. It goes back to what we're saying about the shamelessness thing before. But after they got you on this technicality barely here in this trial, they went and tried. to give what very well could amount to a life sentence to your client and and her co-defendant here yeah i don't want to say life sentence because uh you know there are strong healthy people and i think they would have survived it but thank god um the judge did not buy it uh they wanted three years in prison and you know there's no parole in the federal system so he would have to do 85% of that, to 83-year-old O'Malley Ashatela, and two years for 79-year-old Penny Hess.

I wonder if they have a grudge against him and her going back decades, like even Jagger Hoover hated them back in the day, but never got a swing at them, and now they finally got their chance or something, you know? Yeah, and I'm sure O'Malley would agree with you on that. You know, I can't speak to that, but they have had their run-ins. with the FBI over the years. Well, I bet. And, you know, but thank God, they're not going to do any time.

And I think it's going to be really important to win this appeal because, you know, and I made this argument in the motion to dismiss, I mean, just the fact of prosecuting these people and having them have to get lawyers and lawyer up and raise money to defend themselves. And they've lost bank accounts and business opportunities. these, I mean, for their not-for-profit, because people, they get letters. My client, Penny, got a letter saying her bank accounts been closed because they've been made, I don't remember if it was Citibank or Wells Fargo, has been made aware that she's an agent

of Russia. So, you know, it has real consequences. And I think people, other activists, just the fact that they had to defend themselves at a trial, other activists would say, well, maybe I don't really. Maybe I want to watch what I say because I don't want to end up losing everything or possibly going to prison. And so I think it's going to be really important to get the appellate court to see what this case for what it is, political speech. With the judge admitted at the sentencing. Yeah, it is political speech.

But that should be open and shut then. It sounds like he should have dismissed the charges if that's what he thinks. Yeah, I don't know. I guess better late than never, you know. That's the way I look at it. But, yeah, it would have been nice if he had acknowledged that back when he ruled on the motion to dismiss and denied it. Right. At least the court reporter was typing away while he said it.

Yeah. All right. Well, listen, good luck to you. First of all, congratulations and thank you. I mean, I know you didn't quite get the acquittal that you were going for, but at least you spared them any worse punishment than the process that has already been inflicted upon these poor people. And best of luck with your appeal. And keep me in the loop here. And we'll make sure and keep sure.

Well, Scott. And thanks for covering the case. We really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks again. All right. Okay, buddy. Bye.

All right, you guys. That is Leonard Goodman. Attorney Law. The Scott Horton show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on K-PFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com,

Scott Horton.org, and Libertarian Institute.