The Dispatch Podcast - Capitol Riot Investigation Pushes Forward

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

Earlier this week marked the six-month anniversary of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, but the criminal investigations are only beginning to hit full stride. Scott MacFarlane, a local investigative reporter at NBC4 Washington, who has reported extensively on the aftermath of January 6, joins Sarah and Steve to discuss the status of the ongoing criminal trials. MacFarlane also talks about the increase in threats against members of Congress. Show Notes: -Scott MacFarlane’s twitter account -New York Times’ video investigation into January 6 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, joined by Steve Hayes. And this week, we are talking to Scott McFarlane from the NBC News 4-I team. Scott has been doing some of the most on the ground, interesting reporting on not only the events on January 6th as they were happening, but also has stayed on the story for the last six months. So we thought for the six-month anniversary, no one better to talk to. He is also a contributor to MSNBC and Sirius Radio. We're thrilled to have him. Let's dive in. Scott, first of all, big picture. Six months later, most people are no longer following this story. Where are the trials, the arrests? give us a lay of the land. Well, first of all, we are quite certain.

We're in the middle of the biggest criminal investigation in U.S. history. So people should stay engaged in this. But it's also quite clear, Sarah, that we're closer to the starting line than the finish line. We have, as of this week, about 520 federally charged defendants. But there are probably hundreds more to come. The FBI director has indicated as much that there are hundreds more investigations underway. We know there were 800 people. illegally inside the Capitol that day.

And there have been people who have been arrested in charge who never made it into the Capitol. They were charged with assaulting police outside. So the ceiling is higher than where we are right now. What's more? We've had just a handful of plea agreements so far and one solitary sentencing against one low-level defendant. There's a lot more to comment.

The interesting thing to me and why I'm so dripping on this story is no one knows where this road ends, with what or more interestingly with whom? Well, and as you've reported, several of the plea agreements, for instance, that you've reported about have been for trespassing nonviolent crimes, but there have been conspiracy charges brought,

including, I believe the one you're referring to is an Oathkeeper's cooperation plea agreement. Can you tell us more about the, you know, what we know about the conspiracy charges and what the prosecutors intend to prove? Yeah, the conspiracy charges are the heart of the action so far. There are three far-right groups so far, accused of conspiracy, of plotting and planning,

of organizing and being ready for action January 6th, not simply taken up by the moment. The oathkeepers are one of them. The three percenters are a second and the proud boys are a third. The three-percenters case is in its infancy. We've just starting to get glimpses of that. The proud boys are accused of particularly violent acts, smashing open the window, grabbing a riot shield, hand-to-hand combat. The oathkeepers are different. The oathkeepers are the largest

case so far, nearly two dozen defendants. They're accused of weeks, if not months of advanced planning, of bringing military gear, encrypted communications, of forming a choreographed military stack to breach that police line, January 6th. And the feds can chalk up some of this as an early victory. They've already secured three plea agreements with oathkeepers, all three of whom are pledging and promising to help the feds with their investigation. They're flipping.

And the provocative question is, who are they flipping on? Because in federal prosecutions, you flip to get bigger fish. And right now, they are the big fish. So we don't know what comes next. Well, and if they're oathkeepers, we can assume that they'll make good on their pledge to help the feds, right? I mean, by definition, they will do that. What, you know, we've had lots of questions. Some of the very early reporting as it relates to the conspiracy question, I'm glad, Scott, you framed it that way.

You know, there were suggestions that members of Congress might have been involved in some of the planning. Congressional staff might have been involved, maybe even opening doors. for some of the attackers or otherwise helping them on tours. Have we gotten much new information in the filings that you've read since then that would suggest any additional level of involvement or prove those early claims? We've read a few thousand court filings. We read for that first every time. We look for that first, everything we open.

Haven't seen it referenced yet, not even cryptically, not even unnamed. nor would the Justice Department be, you know, thinking about showing their cards if they were going to go down that road. So it doesn't preclude that from happening. You know, Congressman Swalwell, one of the impeachment managers, Eric Swalwell, it continues to say he saw people, you know, tore in the Capitol a few days before, and the capitals closed for tours. So he wants to know who opened the doors or who brought the tours in.

So he's keeping that question alive. The prosecutors are not. That being said, there are elected officials among those charged. Local elected officials, a West Virginia state delegate, a New Mexico County Commissioner. And there are people of prominence in their communities, influencers who are there, but they're not charged with conspiracy. And what have we learned about the oathkeepers beyond what you shared with us, that some prominent oathkeepers have promised to help the federal government as these cases move forward?

What else can you tell us about who the oathkeepers are? I mean, I think this is a group that some of us were familiar with, had read about others. Maybe this is new to them. What can you tell us about the group in general? How did it start? And what do they do? It's a lot of former military, at least among these defendants in the oathkeepers. A lot of people who have histories or, you know, backgrounds in how to do military stacks and coordinated breaches of secured areas.

That's noteworthy. They're diverse in geographically. I see them from Virginia, from Ohio. from Florida. They have different ages. They range in age. The ones charged, you know, some of them knew each other in advance, and the prosecutors have described how. But there's a couple of things that jumped out of me that I hadn't really leaned into in my television reporting. But in one of the cases, the prosecutors alleged that the oathkeepers had what they call a bugout plan, a plan of what to do if all hell breaks loose. They had scoped out, allegedly, some mountainous areas

of Kentucky that were, quote, drone proof where they could hide out and use survivalist skills to wade out whatever they were going to wait out if all things went to hell. Now, things kind of did go to hell, but perhaps not the degree or scope of hell that they were expecting. They're planners. They're plotters. And that really is a contrast to so many other defendants who even the feds will acknowledge they have no evidence that they came ready that day to go search for Mike Pence.

no evidence. They came ready that day to breach the Senate chamber. I'll tell you something else about the oathkeepers. In at least two of the three plea agreements, I heard references during court hearings to witness protection. And that indicates cooperation comes with some level of risk. Certainly we have heard from especially those on the right saying that for those lesser charges, the trespassing, you know, these were people who honestly thought that they were, you know, swept up in the moment, slash allowed there, slash, they didn't really know what was going on. Are prosecutors taking that into mind? Are they seeing something different? How, what do you say to people who say, look,

what you're talking about, fine. But the vast majority of these people who have been charged are, you know, my neighbors. And they thought they were, you know, first, voicing their First Amendment the protected speech, maybe albeit, you know, too close to the Capitol. Yeah, we got a real good sense of that during the first sentencing. The woman's name was Anna Morgan Lloyd. She's from Indiana. She's a grandma. She apologized in open court to the American people and said, in essence, she was caught

up and was horrified by what ended up happening January 6th. She was not charged with any damage of any property, not charged with any assault, was in the Capitol for minutes. And the prosecutors asked the judge, to spare her prison. They recommended three years probation, no prison time. And the judge took the feds up on their offer. He sentenced her to three years probation, no prison time. Is that a barometer of other cases to come? Possibly. Other cases where there's no damage, no assault, an apologetic person with no criminal history? Very possible. I'm watching a different one,

though. There's a sentencing July 19th. This is one to watch. I pledge to you. Guy's name is Paul Hodgkins. He also is not accused of assaulting anyone, not accused of any damage on site. But he was in the Senate chamber. Remember how horrifying those pictures were the first glimpses we had of people in the Senate chamber sitting at the president's desk, sitting there rifling through the desks of members of the Senate. Well, Paul Hodgkins was in the Senate chamber. He's pleaded guilty. It's to a lesser charge. He could get prison time. He's asking to be spared. He's asking for leniency, saying he deserves it, we'll see what the prosecutor's asked for. That could be a better indicator of where some of these punishments are going.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but his ask for leniency was a little bit unusual. This is the guy who made the reference to Lincoln and Grant heading to Appomattox Courthouse and Lincoln talking to Grant about what he saw as the future of reconstruction and leniency. And I believe there's some line in there, you know, the rebels didn't deserve Lincoln's mercy, but they got it. Be like Lincoln and Grant, which I thought was, on the one hand, very telling as to how he saw himself in this process. Maybe a little aggrandizing, frankly. And like, I think January 6 was very serious.

But also at the same time, there was something a little concerned. about it. Did he believe that he was trying to overthrow the government truly? Because a lot of these people, I think we've heard, like, no, no, no, we were just voicing our displeasure. But if you were trying to overthrow the government, that is a little bit different. It was a big, long, civil war allegory. That was his filing asking for leniency from the court. I'm no legal experts, so I don't understand the strategy there. Maybe it's wise. Maybe it's wholly unwise. but it's different. The other argument he's making is that like a lot of these defendants, Sarah,

he has no criminal history. And he's leaning into that too. Why he's couching it in talk of Appomatics and Robert Ely and Ulysses Grant. I don't know. But it's striking to me that some of these defendants are choosing to be colorful with federal judges. There's probably not a good track record of that out there. I also want one footnote from that filing that was interesting. He's comparing January 6th to the protesters arrested during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.

Now, he's the second defendant to do that. Another one tried that and got shot down by the court. He did not get his case dismissed when he says that he should be treated like the Kavanaugh protesters who did not get jail time. We'll see if that works with this judge in this case. So our listeners will be surprised to hear me recommending anybody spend more time on Twitter. But if you're interested in these questions at all, I highly recommend that you follow. follow Scott on Twitter. He is at McFarland News on Twitter, M-A-C-F-A-R-L-A-N-E news on Twitter. And his Twitter feed has become must-read for anybody who's even interested in this stuff

in passing. I want to pick up on that question and sort of pull the camera back a little bit. What else are you hearing in terms of what the motivations were for the people who were involved in this? Wide variety of different explanations. as to why they did what they did. What comes up most commonly and what else are you reading as you go through these filings? That's a great question. Three people or three groups of people are talking about motivations. The defense lawyers in some cases are explaining why their clients were motivated.

The prosecutors are explaining what they think the motivations were, and some judges are weighing in on this. So let's start with the defense lawyers. We've had a couple defense lawyers indicate that their clients were brainwashed by politics. You know, one defendant's lawyer said his client had a case of foxitis. He's watching too much Fox News and was consuming a diet of unhealthy political talk and that he had never been a political person before and was possibly motivated by that. We've had a few other defense attorneys scattered in some of these cases saying my client was sold a bill of goods by politicians and he bought all the goods on the list. The prosecutors are getting more and more provocative. with the arguments they're making in some of these cases. I'll focus on one that came down earlier this week. There's one of these defendants who wants to be released from home detention

and have it loosened to a curfew. He wants to be able to leave the house during the day for assorted reasons. The prosecutor's kickback saying, we like him on home detention. This guy's accused of bringing an axe to the Capitol that day. So he came with some forethought. But they also said this. They said,

so long as Donald Trump keeps perpetuating lies about the election and so long as some cable media continue to push that message through with credibility, there's a threat from this defendant and others. That's the prosecutors. They keep upping the ante on the role that they're alleging politicians, including Donald Trump, are playing in this. And we've heard judges say similar things in one case of a Michigan defendant who was ordered held in jail till trial high bar to reach to be held in jail pending trial the judge said that defendant's only seeming source of information is Donald Trump and she didn't feel safe letting him out so long as that's so um so there's your motivations um the defendants aren't speaking to their motivations yet because they're not they're not facing a judge

to admit what they've done or ask for leniency yet. Yeah, I think just picking up on that, you know, if you go back and you watch the various video compilations of what took place that day, the most recent being a terrific one from the New York Times, some 40 minutes, really comprehensive. And I think gives you, even if you've watched the previous ones, gives you the sense of what it was like to be there

and to a certain extent what the motives of the people who were involved were. And you do hear, again, and again and again. I'm here because Donald Trump told me to be here. I'm here because the election was stolen. And this is the United States being taken over by this cabal of left wingers and socialists led by Joe Biden. That does seem to be, and I mean genuine in a literal sense, rather than a positive sense. But a lot of these people genuinely believed that that's what was happening, that they were here at the beginning of a second American revolution, that they were

sort of there to stop the stealing of an election. Does that come through in the filings that you've read? Definitely. With the three percenters in particular, the three percenters who can call themselves three percenters because they work under this myth that only three percent of the colonials fought the British during the American Revolution. That's where the name comes from. And according to prosecutors, when the three percenters were on site, on or near the grounds, January 6th, they were shouting, revolution. 1776. We're here for an American Revolution. I can't tell you how many Gadsden flags are you can be seen in the images. You don't tread on me yellow flags. There's clearly

an allegation of revolutionary spirit among the insurrectionists, those facing charges for being part of the insurrection, but it's not going to move the case at all. It's just color. Scott, you have a beautiful backdrop behind you. Tell us where you are right now. in the Cannon House Office building, which this particular moment is relatively quiet. We've been waiting all week for the fences to be taken down around the complex. And we were told it was going to happen this morning and didn't happen on time. Nobody's terribly surprised by that. With members of Congress, that fence is not popular.

I had a Virginia congressman, Don Beyer, who Democrat represents the 8th District of Virginia near D.C., said the fence makes the capital like a third world. country. And we can't have that. We have to find other ways to secure our capital. And Sarah, the sergeant alarms has told members of Congress in a memo that I read that if there's a new threat, a new scare, they'll re-erect a barrier. They'll be, they'll have that capability. But there's a lot of questions. Where was your capability on January 6th with all those warnings? Do you have better capabilities now than you have then? Yeah, what is the conversation happening in terms of looking to the future and potential threats. You know, January 6th, you have a real divide in Congress about whether

there should be a commission even, for instance, how serious the threat was that day looking back on it, although it certainly felt like most of them thought there was a real threat while it was going on. And at the same time, you know, months later, we then had someone drive into the barrier at the Capitol, killing a Capitol police officer. Do they think that there is still an ongoing threat, as you said, while former President Trump says that he will be reinstated as president, and what, yeah, what is the attitude of members of Congress, but also their staff when you talk to them? I think there's genuine concern about August from the rank and file staffers about, is there going to be a new attempt in August to come after someone or some way?

Congress is in recess in August, so it's a little different, a little asymmetrical to what was happening in January. But that's not the big thing I see, and that's not the big thing I hear, Sarah. What I hear, and had heard before January 6th and continue to hear, is the threat, the vulnerability really is outside the shield. It's when these members of Congress are flying back and forth, when they're in their hometown offices. If you go to the district office of a member of Congress, and a lot of cases you're in a strip mall next to a subway and a paycheck location.

I mean, they're not reinforced with moats and armed guards. when they're in their districts, when they're doing town halls, when they're doing district visits, check presentations. And that's always been a concern. And Capitol Police this week announced they're going to open some field offices, which is a unique concept for that agency, opening up field offices in Florida and California to better protect the diplomats, better protect the members of Congress when they're out in the public and not in Washington, D.C. That's an idea of time has come. The real concern among members of Congress is, am I safe when I'm not here? I have this, I don't know what to call it.

So recently, they changed the rule that you could use money from your campaign account for private security. On the one hand, we have events like Gabby Gifford's shooting, which, you know, still to this day, I think are really shaking to think about. You have the shooting at the Capitol baseball practice that was horrific. I absolutely remember where I was as that news came in when we did not know whether anyone had been killed, how many congressmen had been killed that morning. At the same time, part of the history of being a member of Congress is that people do walk up to you at the local Little League game, at the grocery store, and you're not flanked by security. separate. You are part of your community the same as everyone else. Maybe that is quaint at this

point of me to feel like that is a tradition worth carrying on. What do they think? That's the whole point of Congress. It's the people's house. I mean, you have to be accessible to the constituent, accessible to the citizen in the way the courts and the president are not. So it's not quaint. It's necessary. And now they're struggling with that. One of the things that the ticks people off the most that work here and that, you know, live around here is the capital still not open for tours. That's COVID-related. I mean, the security incidents may have infused a little more energy into the Keep the Capitol Close campaign, but there's no tours allowed. By the way, Scott, I saw in your background that you were a congressional staffer at one point.

I'm going to assume that this was in your early days and you were a junior congressional staffer as I was. And giving tours was the best part of my job. in part because the other parts weren't fun. But it was so much fun to give tours of the Capitol. I had the whole tour memorize, Sarah. I knew how to do it from soup to nuts. And let me tell you, I had to do that thing

three or four times a day. You really get a nice routine, a little vaudeville thing going after a while, too. But that was democracy at its purest. If you call, we will show you the Capitol, the people's house. Tours are closed. They're still closed.

And it frustrates people who want to come bring their kids for a tour. It frustrates the staffers who did like that as a nice change of pace, Sarah, as part of their day. It also employs any number of people in the Washington, D.C. region who will rely on those tours for their income. But I'll tell you this, a little scoop here. I know they're going to open up a tour August 14th at 1 p.m. But that's only for defense lawyers in the capital insurrection. They're going to get a one-time tour from the Capitol police throughout the ground so they can ready their defenses. The Capitol Police are doing it because they have to by court order. And that's going to be one of the more awkward moments in American history.

That might have some different spots on it than you and I were stopping at. I really liked stopping at John Quincy Adams' desk where you could hear the echo from the other side of the chamber and, you know, whether true or false, the idea was he would pretend to sleep at his desk and be able to listen to what his opponents were talking about. So many, I mean, I, I love, I love U.S. history. I love our monuments. It's when I talk about working at the Department of Justice, the building of the Department of Justice, and I used to give tours of that building, too. But the U.S. Capitol is sacred in our Constitution and in our history. That is the people's house, as you said. Steve? Well, I mean, I think it's a really interesting conversation. If you think back to the discussion that we had here with Liz Cheney,

pretty early in this process. She told us one of the reasons that people voted the way that they did on the impeachment question, which in many cases I think differed from the way that they were talking about privately, was that they were physically afraid for voting to impeach Donald Trump. And that has not diminished. I mean, in many respects, I think you have some, certainly have some Republicans who are downplaying what happened on January 6th and minimizing the significance of it making the argument as as sarah alluded to earlier that this was really just a handful of people bad actors others were swept up in it they didn't they weren't part of it they didn't plan to be part of a siege on the capital they weren't it this was not an insurrection

and i think that is true of of some number of people who ended up in the capital they just sort of went with the crowd didn't know what was what was happening but there is this other element And the other element is not, I think is certainly not something that's gone away. You talk to intelligence and law enforcement professionals about this. And they will tell you that one of the reasons that they see sort of diminished activity among these groups like oathkeepers and three percenters and others is because the leaders are currently involved in these prosecutions or are worried that their communications are being monitored by federal law enforcement because they may have had some connection to these things. But that doesn't mean that the threat goes away because it's temporarily lower than it might otherwise be. And I'm pretty sympathetic. I mean, I'm with you both that part of what makes us unique and makes our experiment in self-government successful is the willingness of members of Congress, the requirement really that they be part of their districts, even if it's become.

a little unwieldy, but if it's a direct threat to their physical safety, I'm pretty sympathetic that they don't want to go to the local town hall. It's one thing to get yelled at by a constituent. It's something entirely different if you think that you're going to be assaulted as you walk back to your car at the end of an event. Oh, Steve, I don't know why people take the job at this point. I really don't. I mean, just as a reporter, as this little lone reporter filing some updates on January 6th, I can't tell you how many death threats I've gotten. in the last few months or nasty grams or hate mail or things referencing my family. I'm just reporting court filings.

I'm not taking a standard issuing an opinion here. Members of Congress, I can't believe what they deal with, especially if you go out in public. And actually, I suspect perhaps some of the worst stuff comes, you know, electronically, not in public. I don't know why they want the job. I applaud them for doing it because you're not just catching political grief. You're catching real threats right now.

And one interesting thing we reported in April, threats against members of Congress are up 107% year to year. That's a chart you can't even picture in your mind's eye. A 107% increase in one year have to believe that's getting worse post-insurrection because the toxicity of our politics hasn't eased. Steve, I don't know why they want the job. I mean, I never knew why they wanted the job. It was never going to be a job that appealed to me, but I'm with you.

And, you know, we get these, we get similar threats. I'm sure most reporters who cover politics or any of these kinds of debates today do. And it's hard even in our capacity to figure out what to take seriously and what to dismiss. Because some of it is just somebody sitting on a keyboard who might be taking a pot shot at somebody else on Twitter and the next minute sending you an email. And it's not, it's never going to, going to mop to anything. But we've seen both in terms of, you know, attacks on reports. supporters, but also especially attacks or threats on members of Congress, that these things can be serious.

And the one you don't take seriously that becomes serious, that's the one that's the problem. I think it's been an underplayed storyline, Steve and Sarah. And the Justice Department has done a good job in the last week or two amplifying it. But there were a series of attacks on journalists at the Capitol that day as well. They've charged a good half dozen people specifically with that in just the past week. and they're amplifying those charges with press releases. There's one particular account, I want to tell you, there was a New York Times photographer who, according to the feds,

got cornered by some men in the Capitol. They asked her who she worked for, she wouldn't tell them. They grabbed her credential from her neck, looked at it, saw New York Times, and the prosecutors say they knocked her down, grabbed her camera, ran off, and that others in the crowd called her traitor

and taunted her after she hit the ground. That's where we are. And it's not the same as erecting Gallo, or trying to hang Mike Pence. It's not the same as, you know, breaking open the windows of the House Speaker's lobby, but it's violence and it's targeted at media. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security

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Protect your family with life insurance from ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's ethos.com slash dispatch. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Scott, I want to talk a little bit about your job and how it differs from maybe some of the other people that we interview. You are a local news reporter. You're based in D.C., which is the nation's capital, but you're an investigative reporter for the local NBC affiliate here.

And you've done lots of other investigative reporting that has won lots and lots of awards, by the way. I'm curious how you talk about your job, explain how your job's different than what people normally see on cable news, for instance, or the nightly national news that they watch and how you explain what being a local reporter is like because it is probably the job that other reporters respect the most and probably the job that. that most people at their home know the least about. Yeah, I explain this a lot, Sarah, because I'm being booked on cable news a lot because people are craving some updates on this insurrection case. And I explain that, you know, as a reporter, I don't have political opinions to offer you.

I don't have, I can't talk to you about the political impact of this. I can't tell you what this means to the Republicans or Democrats, what this means to the White House, because that's not my expertise. My expertise is finding, is tracking the criminal case because we local reporters, we cover a little bit of crime day to day. This happened to be uniquely at an intersection of two things of which I'm a specialist. As a former congressional staffer turned reporter, I have got some good contacts here in Congress.

But as a reporter, I was a specialist in the federal courts. And this is a congressional incursion, the insurrection that's going through the federal courthouse I cover. So it's right in my wheelhouse. And my editors, my bosses, thought it wise to assign a, full-time reporter to this, in part, to avoid the whitewashing, the revisionist history, or the minimization of what happened January 6th. If somebody is doggedly chasing every update, we can keep everything in proper perspective and find out all the new revelations of what actually

happened that day so that we're not fighting against misinformation. Yet here we are, fighting against misinformation anyhow. Well, we're incredibly grateful for the work that you're doing on this for exactly all the reasons that you said. This, however, is going to go on a really long time. We're going to have, as you said, yes, many of those 500, and that number could grow, will plead out. I would bet that a lot won't. Are you planning to travel to these trials? Do you have a sense of which case might go to trial first and whether that will be sort of a larger test case? I'm going to travel to all these trial, Sarah. I'm going to go far and wide because it turns out all of them are happening right

here in the D.C. federal court. Everybody's being shipped in here for trial, which may be a burden for them, but that's what happens when you get arrested. Yeah, we'll cover all of them. I think I pledged I'm going to cover it to the last case closes because it's a moment in American history that deserves that level of granular detail. The trials, if there are trials in the federal system, tend to happen and less than 5%, definitely less than 10% of the cases. You'd know that better than me, Sarah. We haven't worked for the Justice Department. Very few go to trial, but when they do, it's a show.

I mean, there's going to be exhibits. There's going to be testimony, cross-examination, and witnesses, and we can get what we crave so much, non-choreographed information, you know, information that isn't curated for us and released on, you know, the federal government's terms. So in trials, we might find things that are exculpatory, things that we don't know just yet,

that we might find things that better illustrate motivation. So we're kind of craving trials because at this point, all we're hearing is the back and forth of court filings. Trials, though, not until 2022 at the soonest. Not a real, needy trial. I'll be interested, by the way, when we get to the trial motions practice phase of this, where I assure you we will get motions to move trials out of D.C.

That they can't find an unbiased jury pool. We saw this in the Boston bombings, for instance. And including on appeal then, where they said, of fine, our motion was denied on the front end. But on the back end, it shouldn't have been denied. And therefore, we want a fresh trial now outside. So there will be so much. Actually, we've actually already gotten one of those. We've gotten a motion to move case. One of the defendants, it said that the DC jury pool is anti-Trump. The DC jury pool is monolithic. High brow was I think one of the phrases he used, not fair. The dubiousness of that argument is that that defendant's from

suburban Virginia. I mean, dude, you live like you. Give it a try, though. Steve? So it's become clear in the last few weeks that we are not going to get anything approaching an impartial comprehensive look from members of Congress or from a select committee at what happened on January 6th. I blame both Republicans for blocking it at the end of the process and Nancy Pelosi for being partisan about it at the beginning of the process. Do you have any sense that will ever, will the sort of accumulation of facts and information that comes out of this trials yield that kind of impartial, if people aren't following this on a day-to-day basis as you are, but want to find out in six months or in 12 months or in 18 months,

what happened that day? Is that coming? Have you thought about writing a book about any of this, given all your reporting? You're going to get half a loaf, Stephen. You get half a loaf of what through the Justice Department's investigation. You're going to get great detail longitudinally about the crimes and the criminals. What the bipartisan commission was to be was a more holistic review.

And so you have some of these members of Congress saying, we don't need a commission, we have the Justice Department. That's dubious because the Justice Department's trying to get you from soup to nuts on each individual defendant, not what was the trigger. What was the broader motivation or context of all this? Will a select committee that has a majority and a majority political rule gets you that? I don't know. I've followed some of the select committees in the past.

on Benghazi, on climate change, on the pandemic. And I see a lot of vitriolic stuff come out of those select committees. And a lot of press releases that slam the other party. And I don't know that this American moment needs that. Scott, we're just so grateful to have you on the podcast today. This has been incredibly informative. I do want to end with a really important question for Father's Day on the NBC4 News team website, a video was posted of all of the dads in the news team telling their best

dad jokes. And I got to say, if this is the best y'all have to offer, well, frankly, it was pretty good. I was curious if you would tell our audience your dad joke. And if you had any runners up, feel free to throw them in if it was a real close call there at the end. But I think that this is important to share because we have a lot of folks who I think really appreciate dad humor. I am one of them. Let me be clear. Anybody giving dad jokes a platform is an American hero. So Steve and Sarah, count yourself among them. And I also want to say before I give you this joke, I've got a seven-year-old and ten-year-old who have stopped laughing at my jokes a year ago. And my wife, who I've known since 1994, stopped laughing at my jokes in the 90s. And that was during the

recording process. So I'm not sure it was genuine. I threw this out there. I said, I told the kids and I told the viewers on Father's Day, I know all the letters of the alphabet, all of them, but I don't know why. So good. Well, here's, here's something you can hope for. I don't know, I don't know how old your kids are. I know Sarah's is just one, but there, there comes a time potentially, where your kids start to appreciate your dad jokes. And I have some kids who actually seem to like the dad jokes and the tell it. I told you. Well, I can't remember the actual dad joke I had, but I was driving around with my son,

who's 14. And, you know, just in the course of conversation dropped some bad pun or some dad joke. And he gives you the eye roll that you have to give if you're the kids. but also, you know, sort of a slight chuckle, which sends the message to me, like, I get it, I appreciate it. That was pretty good. But the real victory was, I think it was a day or two later, he had a bunch of his friends around, and they all knew about my dad joke and said it, you know, sort of like, King of the Dad Jokes here. And I thought, well, if he's telling them about my dad jokes when I'm not around, it's just a clear victory. It's a clear win. It sounds

to me like some third dimensional chess next level stuff around allowance time that he's fine but it sounds like it's working. I thought you were just going to say yeah I'm raising my kids right like they appreciate those things you know that's that's the victory. Well Scott I was at a bar the other day and my husband who's also named Scott he'd gone to the bathroom and a mushroom walked up to me and asked me to dance and I was like oh you know no I can't he goes what I'm a fun guy. Oh wow wow Sarah I think Scott should have delivered that one Is that a mom joke? Yeah, wow.

That's like, breaking the rules here. Wow. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. Please feel free to send Declan all of your dad jokes. And Scott, again, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate all the reporting you're doing. We're going to keep following this story.

When these cases start going to trial, I know we're going to be coming back to you looking for all of the information on what's going on. Thank you, Sarah. And Steve, I love the show. You know, During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures.

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