The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 240 | Should Pardon ALL Jan. 6 Defendants?! | John Strand | The Glenn Beck Podcast

Episode Date: January 11, 2025

“You never forget your first time being on an FBI Most Wanted list,” says January 6 defendant John Strand. “The process is the punishment ... they punish you at every nook and cranny of the bure...aucratic machine.” For what came down to four misdemeanors, John faced a year in prison, including four months in solitary confinement, where he was often denied his time outdoors, phone calls, or even a book to read. “It was so totalitarian,” John says. “I didn’t really expect justice.” He and Glenn discuss the Supreme Court ruling that shortened his 32-month prison sentence, the “uniparty attack on the American populist resistance,” and the aftermath of John’s “digital assassination.” The two consider whether or not government officials like Nancy Pelosi and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser “benefited by creating the conditions” that made January 6 possible. Did at least 26 FBI agents know what was coming that day? What about the pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC headquarters? The main question is what do we do now? John suggests that the January 6 prosecutions are legally “irredeemably tainted.” Will President-elect Donald Trump issue a blanket pardon?  Learn more about Patriot Plea by John Strand here- https://www.johnstrand.com/ Sponsors        Byrna        Byrna is the best alternative to deadly force. Visit https://byrna.com/GLENN for a 10% discount.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:22 Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. And now, a Blaze Media podcast. Are the January 6 defendants, heroes, or villains? Did they all storm the capital with the intent to dismantle democracy? Or were there patriots that were there? These patriots that were caught in a trap laid by their own government? Or is it a little of both?
Starting point is 00:00:51 I'm not sure. The truth is never simple, but the truth is important. Today I have a man with me who spent a year, in prison, including four months in solitary confinement. That is the definition of cruel and unusual punishment. Now, he spent all that time in prison. The Supreme Court is the one that released him for what came down to four nonviolent misdemeanors. Sound fair? I think he's clearly a victim of injustice, but does that make him a patriot? Should we take his plans to restore justice for the January 6 defendants seriously should President Trump.
Starting point is 00:01:33 You will decide in the end. Welcome, the author of the new book, Patriot Plee. January 6th defendant, John Strand. Before we get to John, let me tell you about Berna. I'm a gun owner. I'm a Second Amendment advocate. I've got plenty of guns. Unfortunately, I lost him in a boating accident.
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Starting point is 00:03:49 On Amazon.C.A. John, I want to take you through your story and try to to do it almost chronologically, at least for a while. So where were you January 6th and why were you in Washington? What were you doing? Great question. Thank you so much for having me on Glenn and to allowing me to share this story. It's the story of my life in America. But I've been working my career as an artist in Los Angeles as an actor and a model for a long time. And then 2020, COVID lockdowns,
Starting point is 00:04:39 I could tell the world was changing dramatically and I, for the first time, became sort of politically active at that point in my life. Not because I was looking to get into politics. I just wanted to push back against lockdowns, but that ended up becoming synonymous with the ongoing presidential campaign of President Trump. So I was leading a freedom rally in Los Angeles called the Beverly Hills Freedom Rally. President Trump actually retweeted that, became really well known. We had tens of thousands of people coming into Beverly Hills to support the freedom and liberty movement, as I saw it. And that's how I got to meet Dr. Simone Gold, who founded America's frontline doctors, which rocketed to the stage during the COVID chaos. And that's why I was in Washington, D.C.
Starting point is 00:05:19 I actually would have been leading my own rally in L.A. to support the Stop the Steel effort asking for an audit, a forensic audit of the election. But because of frontline doctors, we were scheduled to be on the East Coast for a whole two-week speaking tour. January 5th and 6th were two dates on that tour. And Dr. Gold had been invited to participate in a rally with a government-approved permit alongside of a number of Congress people and other national figures. And I was her communications director and security guard at that time. So I was there. So when you were there, you obviously attended the rally, stopped to steal rally. When you went into the Capitol, did you go in with the intent of stopping the certification of the votes? Or what was your intent when you went in?
Starting point is 00:06:09 I didn't intend to go in. So once I was in there, my intention was simply to figure out how we got in. And how did you get in there first then? So there was some confusion during the course of the day. This is one of the aspects of January 6th that people often gloss over or have not had a truthful accounting of. It was a very long day. There were over a million people in the city. There were a variety of activities scheduled in advance. There were, I think, over a dozen different permits that had already been secured for various free speech activities that day. Ours was just one of many. So we had attended the morning event at the ellipse where President Trump spoke famously. And then it had been expected in advance that there would be a march, a protest march, as is
Starting point is 00:06:57 very common along Constitution Avenue from the ellipse to the Capitol for afternoon events that would have incorporate speeches and so forth. We traveled that distance and arrived at the Capitol building to find to our confusion that there wasn't a stage where you would assume there would be a well-set-up environment to have Congress people and other national figures delivering speeches. But the audience was there. So the way I described this, this is truly, I think, the best way to understand the reality and the context of what happened on January 6th, particularly in the afternoon as we approach the Capitol building. It would be as if you had purchased tickets planned for a year in advance with travel and arrangements to go to the Super Bowl. And then you pile into the stadium
Starting point is 00:07:41 and literally at game time, an announcement says, so sorry folks, the team didn't make the plane so they're not here to play the game. So we'll just have to schedule it for next year. But you have 100,000 people in a stadium that had planned all year to watch the Super Bowl. what do you expect to happen in that environment? So we had... So I didn't even know this part of the... So there was a planned speech with congressmen coming out and officials coming out and talking to this crowd? Yep.
Starting point is 00:08:13 It's all, this is all well documented. There was no surprise here, planned weeks in advance. Organized by whom? This particular rally, gosh. The permit poll for... I might have been for, I can't remember if it was some health and freedom conference or if it was the, I don't think it was the stop the steel rally group. Okay. They had, I think, a different permit, but there were multiple groups with multiple permits.
Starting point is 00:08:38 I just know that we were part of a group expected to speak alongside of Lauren Bober, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lance Gooden, Paul Gosar. Wow. And the list goes on. Okay. So then you're standing there. There is no event. What goes through your head and how do you end up inside? What went through my head was this does not make any sense.
Starting point is 00:09:02 And I'm not going to just say, oh, well, I guess we'll come back next year. I wanted to give it a few more minutes to determine where are all these people that were committed to coming and doing this event? And what is it exactly that happened? So I didn't see a stage, but I did see a whole bunch of people. And I didn't see anything else concerning. I didn't see violence. I didn't see anything along those lines. but I just saw kind of a lack of organization.
Starting point is 00:09:29 And I was specifically looking for law enforcement and crowd control measures and I saw almost nothing. I think five or six police officers standing up at the top of the steps in front of the Columbus doors, and that was it. So we stood there in the plaza for a few minutes, trying to determine what was happening. It's well reported now that cell phone communication
Starting point is 00:09:53 was almost entirely not for, functional that day for hours and hours and certainly at that moment, we could not get messages in and out or very infrequently. So that was making confusion, increasingly confusion. So the crowd, though, because regardless of cell phones or anything else, they're all just moving from the ellipse to this plaza by the tens and hundreds of thousands. So the crowd was filling up and they moved their way into the plaza and on the stairs. Dr. Gold looked at me at one point and said, I don't know exactly what's happening.
Starting point is 00:10:26 And before I just go home and give up, I want to at least try to address the people that are here. I have an important message. And whoever will listen to me, I will shout and just try to be heard. Because that was her obligation, her mission. She was dedicated to it for especially at that time, the urgency of the COVID lives were really pressing on her mind. Right. So, you know, I had this internal calculation in the book, Patriot Plee. I tell this story.
Starting point is 00:10:50 And I explain, you know, I have security guard instincts and experience that told me, we should have a recalibration and sort of check what happened and why. But Dr. Gold said, look, I just got to go to the crowd because they're here. They're forming and that something needs to happen. And I thought, well, if she starts calmly addressing them, that at least gives a focal point for what should happen. That could be a good thing potentially. There was nothing else really to do other than just leave. But she didn't leave and I had to make sure that she was safe. So I stayed with her. She just walked up the steps, lots of people milling around. We tried to get a balcony position over to one side where maybe she could have a vantage point where people could hear her. But the crowd was
Starting point is 00:11:26 so thick up there that we couldn't quite get into that spot and we kind of got funneled into between the balcony and the East Columbus doors. We were on the right side of the doors, but not too far from them. And over the course of another 10 minutes, again, the crowd is still building and filling as people walk over. And we got pressed towards the top of the steps. Kind of squashed like in a mosh pit at a concert. It was kind of exciting, but also sort of weird, like, what are we doing here? But I continue to monitor the energy around me, the activity, and I did not see still anything at this point violent, criminal, or even really angry. I mean, certainly there were people generally upset about the election issue.
Starting point is 00:12:04 But the tenor of the crowd, the tone of things was still very First Amendment, America First, were here to be who we are, express our opinions, and potentially listen to some important people speak about it. And that all changed, Glenn. In a singular moment, I remember it seared into my memory when just a, hey, boom, sounded like a bomb went off, and the crowd panicked. Now, the crowd was already packedly tight, tightly packed. But that flashbang, which sounded like a grenade, and then several ensued and then smoke filled the air, turned the tenor instantly. And there was panic.
Starting point is 00:12:43 There was, there were shouts and screams. I understood we were under assault generally, just instinctively, but I couldn't actually see it. Too many people pressed around me. And then I basically just tried to keep Dr. Gold from getting stampeded or crushed in that moment until, you know, maybe five, eight minutes later, uh, the doors in front of us opened from the inside. And we standing which by the way, this is, we, I don't want to go up, just brush past that. The Columbus doors are are metal, big, heavy metal doors that don't open up. 10,000 pounds. Yeah. Right. Uh, they don't open up without, uh, somebody opening a, um, from the other side and it's electronically opened at this point.
Starting point is 00:13:29 You know, it's held together. You're not storming those gates. Those gates should have never been opened. We still don't have an answer, as I understand it, on who did open those gates, but someone with authority did open those gates. And you say that was part of this turning point? Well, it was a turning point. I will be accurate with you about the specifics as I understand them, though.
Starting point is 00:13:52 Okay. It's actually a non-government. citizen who was prosecuted by the, by the Biden DOJ, I believe his name is George Tenney, who opened the doors from the inside by using the emergency release mechanism because there are two sets of doors. The 10,000 pound bronze outer doors called the Columbus doors are supposed to be locked with a padlock, but they were unlocked and swung open. I don't have a good answer as to why that happened. And that's no small detail because those outer doors being swung open, visually give an obvious invitation to enter the doors.
Starting point is 00:14:29 That's a ceremonial entrance. You don't swing them open unless there's a reason. And in that protest moment, many people and myself included thought perhaps they're allowing people to come up to the doors or even walk through the Capitol, particularly when there were so many people, not a stage, no other crowd control measures. Where are these people supposed to go? What are they supposed to do? So over the course of time, it seemed that, okay, either they're going to have more police come and say,
Starting point is 00:15:00 please leave and go this way, or they'll open the doors and have people walk through, which is what ended up happening. Now, they're saying that they didn't allow that and all the other things they're saying. But of course, you know, that's not the honest reality of the situation. But in the moment, that turning point, I'm crushed up against the doors, the crowd around me. I'm simply trying to keep Dr. Gold upright and safe and praying, literally, praying and hoping, okay, cops are going to come and disseminate the crowd in an appropriate manner. And instead, they attacked the crowd, whipped them into a frenzy, and then allowed the doors to become open inside.
Starting point is 00:15:33 The crowd flushed through. And I was pushed inside. I mean, I could not have just stayed there. There was a avalanche of people behind me pouring in those doors. Dr. Gold actually stumbled over the threshold. There's video showing that I keep her from actually being trampled, pick her up, move her straight forward away from that melee. And then what happened next?
Starting point is 00:15:51 I mean, you see two uniformed officers go right. past us, they could have said, hey, go this way or that way. They went right past us to other people. We just proceeded calmly straight ahead, found ourselves in the rotunda with red velvet ropes, and then we stayed within the red velvet ropes, essentially for the rest of the time we were in the building, just wondering how do we appropriately get out of here. So when you talked afterwards, Rolling Stone said you sent a private text message after January 6 that said, we stormed the capital. It was insane. Did you mean by that? Yeah, they love that text message. That was at trial. Thanks to Rolling Stone for crowning me
Starting point is 00:16:39 Magazoolander. That was the best marketing campaign I could have asked for. I love it. So consider them friends. But yeah, I mean, that was just naturally what was in my mind. But I'll explain why I said the words. First of all, the analogy about the Super Bowl is the exact same idea here. So I always ask people, when you get excited that your high school or college football team, wasn't it, they're an underdog and somehow they had an unbelievable fourth quarter comeback in the last 10 seconds. They score the last touchdown and they win the game that they never should have won. What happens? You storm the field. Is storming a violent act? Of course, not that kind of storming. Obviously, we didn't mean we stormed the Capitol like our troops stormed Normandy.
Starting point is 00:17:27 They had guns and they intended to kill people with them. That's a violent storming. When you storm the field in excitement, it's not violence, it's exuberance and it's a celebration. So the storming term really was more appropriate in that sense of things. No one had guns, no one was intending to assault anyone or certainly overtake the building or the government because that's just ridiculous. But to say you stormed in all at once in a crowd moment of excitement is what ended up happening. And I mean, it was insane.
Starting point is 00:17:59 Right. Hang on just a second. Because I'm trying to put these two storylines together. Before you write this, you are in the Capitol. You just told me you were kind of pushed in. You were just trying to get out. And it sounded like an insane situation. Totally.
Starting point is 00:18:16 You're also, by explaining storming, you're also saying you were excited. and it was a victory. So what was the victory? What was the excitement that you were feeling? The excitement and the victory was really what I understood before I even got there. When Dr. Gold was first booked to be a speaker at this event and she said, should I do it? And we knew that there would be a large crowd assembling because her mission wasn't political. It actually was nonpartisan advocating for medical freedom and not wanting to get into the politics. But because of censorship, we had to go where people collected in person to hear. otherwise we were silenced. So we said, absolutely, we're going to go. But I knew in the back of my
Starting point is 00:18:57 mind that this was a historic moment forming. I had no idea what was actually going to happen with January 6th as we now see it, of course. I couldn't have known that. But instinctively, I knew it was historic. And of course, I was proven right even beyond my wildest imaginations. As all of this insanity was happening, confusion, weirdness, walking through the rotunda and all of that history and it just you're in awe of the 250 year experiment of America and realizing because again the context here is the illicit election that is no small detail and a really serious part of this story and of our history we were aware of that and the million people that showed up that day whether they made it inside the building or not they had to take time and expense of their own
Starting point is 00:19:43 when it was really unpopular to do so to push back because no one wanted to you you were considered an idiot and a radical and a lunatic if you challenge the election. Now we can see that's actually what happened. But it wasn't popular or credible, so speak, to do that at the time. And I understood the history of the moment in the sense of a million people showing up being brave enough to do that. And that's what I thought was the victory that they stood firm in their convictions and they exercised their First Amendment. So at what point did you feel like this could be trouble? I could be trouble here that I could face prosecution. Did that happen at all on January 6th? When you were in the Capitol, do you have any feeling that this could become a problem? No, not in the sense of I personally
Starting point is 00:20:31 being prosecuted, not on January 6th. Maybe the next day, but even the next day, my, basically, my instinct or my frame of reference is the fake, we call them fake news for a reason, right? They're constantly distorting and lambasting and hyperbalizing and just, it's insane. So the next day I'm thinking, okay, they're trying to make this sound like a terrorism event or whatever they're calling an insurrection. What does that even mean? But it just didn't sound credible because I was there, Glenn. I was in the crowd. I saw and felt it so it didn't make sense to me. Because you were on the other side of the Capitol with the Columbus doors, you also wouldn't have seen the people that were breaking the windows and
Starting point is 00:21:17 and fighting on the stairs. So you had a different vantage point. When did you realize that stuff was happening? I started to see those vignettes the next day and probably by January 8th. Yeah, probably by because the first day, cells were still down. It was hard to get much content. I was just sort of debriefing with my immediate team that was around me. But the next two days, then you started to get a sense that, wow, okay, there were some more
Starting point is 00:21:44 violent moments that happened that I was unaware of. Of course, now I understand how those actually occurred, and I firmly believe the evidence clearly shows that... Wait, hang on, hang on just a second. I want to come back to that. I want to get to that, okay? I just want to take it first chronologically, and then we're going to take it apart in what we've learned since. When you were little, you've been braced some have braced in the course of recreat, Always in trying to negotiate and to make these exchanges. The apply negotiates-titre
Starting point is 00:22:12 you permit to renoue with this instinct with without operation gratuite, no amount of minimum and no free
Starting point is 00:22:19 mensuel. You're made for negotiate, and the TD is there for you're there to you, when did they
Starting point is 00:22:28 come to arrest you, how did that happen, when did you, when did you know, okay, this is something that involves me now. I could go to jail.
Starting point is 00:22:38 So I didn't have any sense of it the day of, like I said. The next couple of days we realized this was being portrayed at least as much more. I had people, actually the next day, they sent me an FBI Most Wanted List poster. And I was in the top row, Glenn. Wow. You never forget your first time being on an FBI Most Wanted List. I bet you don't. I hope not to find myself there, but I bet you don't.
Starting point is 00:23:07 Do you have it framed? I hope as well. Hope as well. It's still framed at the top of the FBI's Twitter profile, Glenn. Oh, my gosh. Four years later, my mugshot is a cell phone camera of me and my trademark Maverick aviators and black leather gloves, you know, standing by Dr. Gold as she's trying to preach the message of truth and medical freedom to the world that will listen in the rotunda.
Starting point is 00:23:34 But that picture is still pinned to the top of the FBI. Washington field office X profile. It's insane. So a couple of days, I got that picture and I got the sense that, okay, they're clearly working this up into something much, much bigger. But again, because I was there, I saw what I saw and because I know who I am and what I did and what I didn't do, I know I didn't do anything unlawful. I know I had no criminal intent. I know I was scheduled and invited to be present and I was doing my job in my official capacity. And that's the only thing I did. I had a rock solid alibi, regardless of what anyone else may have intended to do or otherwise. I knew I was completely innocent. So I had no intention of saying or proceeding otherwise.
Starting point is 00:24:18 But we did have advice like, you should probably get out of D.C. We just stuck to our travel schedule. We were there another couple days and then back to Florida for other speaking events and then back to Los Angeles. So 12 days later, January 18th, the irony is not lost that it was Martin Luther King Day. And on a Monday morning on MLK Day, in a quiet two-bedroom apartment in Beverly Hills, where we had a headquarters for the organization at that time, we were on a conference call with several colleagues and our lives were forever shattered by blood-curdling, screaming yells so loud that my head literally vibrated, as did the walls. We could barely register the shock and wonder, are we under attack by criminals when our door was pulverized by a
Starting point is 00:25:03 battering ram, literally, and flooded into our apartment, 20 off armed officers and black tactical gear and machine guns and red laser sights bobbing on your chest, like a Jason born action movie. It was terrorizing. It was abhorrent now that I think about it. Even in the moment shortly after the shock wears off, I realized this is the U.S. government assaulting peaceful citizens in a major city in the U.S. as if we were terrorists.
Starting point is 00:25:35 This is backwards. This is so wrong. And, you know, I've only since then been able to contemplate and really measure the impact of that trauma, not just to myself, but hundreds and hundreds of J6 Americans have had this, have had this assault. So did they call you at all and say, hey, you could come in for an interview? Hey, here's this wanted poster. We know where you are.
Starting point is 00:25:59 You know where we are. Can we just talk? There was no communication. And did you think about reaching out and saying, hey, I'm on your wanted FBI most wanted poster? I mean, should I come in? Dr. Gold actually had the Washington Post reach out a few days before our arrest and say, would you do an interview?
Starting point is 00:26:20 And she wanted to be forthcoming about what happened. So she said, well, sure, why not? And yeah, I was there. I was invited to be there. I gave my speech. That's what happened. I did nothing wrong. So I don't really have anything else to say about that.
Starting point is 00:26:31 And that was days before. But no, the FBI, the U.S. government did not advise us or request a meeting or say, come turn yourselves in or anything. They just broke our door down on a Monday morning and clearly intended to terrorize us, demoralize us, silence us, and really send a chilling message throughout the community and throughout the country that the U.S. government is in charge. Yeah, and we'll get into this later. I think they were trying to send the message that it's not necessarily even the outcome.
Starting point is 00:27:05 It's the whole process that we'll put you through that should scare you and everybody else. So what was the process like? They pick you up. They take you to jail. You get an attorney. What are you charged with? What do they say? Man, so your point is exactly right, Glenn.
Starting point is 00:27:24 The process is the punishment, and they plan to punish you. I mean, at every juncture, at every possible nook and cranny of the bureaucratic machinery, they will weaponize it. And I mean, that goes down to the last detail. Like, for example, first of all, I explained the raid and the assault, which was just egregious. People can die from those misused tools of violence. And I was disappeared for four days without a phone call. I mean, that's so outrageous. Dr. Gold had to hire a private investigator to find out what had happened to me and to force the government to allow the bond process to happen to bail me out of jail.
Starting point is 00:28:08 They should have bailed me out within hours, obviously, but they chose not to for whatever excuses they love to pull because they can do whatever they want to the government. I vanished. No family member, no lawyer, no one knew where I was for four days until we pressed the issue there. Then when I get out, then I'm, you know, given a public defender and arraigned and explained, this is what we're charging you with. And it was, I could hardly understand what they were even saying, obstruction of an official proceeding. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Starting point is 00:28:36 When you got in there, you know you have a right to a phone call. Did they deny you your right to a phone call? Yeah. The first, so they dragged me into a jail, processed me through me in a concrete cell, ignored me until the next day. didn't answer a single question or give me a chance to talk about anything, dragged me into a car, drove me across town to another jail, then processed me in this little like two foot by two foot room with the screen, COVID rules,
Starting point is 00:29:08 so that I could see the magistrate, who then said whatever he said, I was so disoriented, I could hardly understand. He said, I'm not letting you bail out. Then I got dragged away into an isolation unit in the MDC, that's the FBI's federal facility,
Starting point is 00:29:24 in Los Angeles. Banging on the door, can I have a phone call? Banging on the door can I have a phone call for three straight days. No, no help, no response, no phone call, no nothing. Four days later, Strand, pack up your crap, get out on, you know, get out of here. And they dumped me on the street. And then, thank God, I found where the public defender's office was walked there and said, could you please help me?
Starting point is 00:29:48 I have nothing to my name. And then someone found me and picked me up off the street four days later. Wow. Okay. So I wouldn't want a public defender with all of this going on. You have a public defender. How long did it take it from this point to the trial? And did you have a sense, like, you know, Alfred Hitchcock is one of my favorite movie makers, filmmakers, because it's always the innocent guy who's like, wait, I can't believe this is happening. what you just described happened in North by Northwest, his movie. And you have to believe, as his characters always do, okay, this is just a mistake. This is going to work itself out. Justice is, I'm going to get to somebody reasonable.
Starting point is 00:30:41 Did you have that feeling and did it ever go away or when did it go away? I mean, in this opening week or so after the January 6th event and the arrest, it was so fascistic. I really don't think there's a better word to describe it. It was it was fascism. Weaponized government pointed at a citizen for a politicized purpose. And you know, after the first few days of the shock of January 6th war off in terms of the narrative that they're selling about it, it was obvious to me, of course this is political, of course this has to do with Trump and the election and and the uniparty attack on American populist resistance. That's what this is. came down to. So I've understood that ever since then. In those opening couple of weeks,
Starting point is 00:31:30 it was so tyrannical. It was so totalitarian that I didn't really expect justice or reasonability at all because I couldn't even get anyone to answer my basic question about how can I have a phone call to reach my mom or my attorney. And after a few days of that being completely ignored, you start to lose hope that reason has any part of this equation. Once I got bailed out and took maybe a few weeks or so to, you know, get rid of the public defender and find an appropriate attorney, convened with my co-defendant now, who's my colleague, Dr. Gold, and the whole organization, the nonprofit we work for in our team, and then absorb what was actually going on. Then you realize, okay, this is a whole new ballgame in America. We are squared up against the entire might of the federal government currently weaponized and control. by the Biden administration generally.
Starting point is 00:32:28 And, you know, your question became a recurring theme. Will we ever find reasonability? Will we ever find the rule of law still functioning? And at every turn, Glenn, at every turn, we found it completely hijacked, completely inverted, and utilized in a two-tiered system where they continue to mouth the message of rule of law. Nobody is above the law, they say, perched prominently above you as they swing down a sledgehammer. Right.
Starting point is 00:33:03 As a, I mean, I'm not a journalist, but I mean, I work with journalists. And as we were trying to find out what was happening, we couldn't find out anything. I mean, I called congressmen. I called senators. Where are these people being held? How can we talk to their attorneys? as members of the press, we couldn't break this wall of silence. As members of Congress and the Senate, they couldn't break the wall of silence.
Starting point is 00:33:33 At the beginning, this was, it, what you did, you were just almost in a China-like way, disappeared. Yeah, our families and our attorneys couldn't break the wall of silence. If your direct attorney cannot reach his client, what country are we in? Correct. Correct. Okay, so let's go to the trial now. They're charging you with obstruction of, or jury tampering or obstruction of justice, whether both of those? Well, so everyone calls it obstruction of justice colloquially. And they use that term obstruction of justice to basically say, you're obstructing what duly should happen and blocking the government from performing its duty. So in that general sense, it sounds like, well, that's not good. We shouldn't allow citizens to do that. But the exact title of the parent statute, obstruction of an official proceeding, right, is what they say.
Starting point is 00:34:35 But I was charged specifically with Title 18, U.S. Code 1512C2. And 1512, the title of that statute is tampering with a witness, evidence, or informant. witness, evidence, or informant. Okay. Now, that sounds like a trial. Also, if you go back to where the law came from, and this matters, because in our system, legislative intent actually matters. It's not acceptable to just take English and, you know, scrabble it into a weapon to your
Starting point is 00:35:15 fashion and your liking. Right. What the legislators intended matters. When the legislature passed 15, 12, into law, and you know this because the president at the time, George Bush, said this when he signed it. He said this should never be mistakenly used against political protesters. He actually said that. It's on record. Wow. Wow. And the purpose of the law, clearly, was to close a accounting loophole that ensued
Starting point is 00:35:43 from the Enron Energy Corporation scandal. And they basically said, oh, it was our attorneys that shredded documents that tampered with witness or evidence. So you can't prosecute us for it. So they close that loophole and said if you delegate your tampering of a witness evidence or informant to a third party, the third party can be liable. What does that have to do with protesters that are complaining about illicit election and gathering at their house of government to redress, you know, ask for redress of grievances per the First Amendment? What does that have to obviously, as nothing to do with it. Which, which is how the Supreme Court ruled, which, you know, got you out of prison after only a year in prison. Let me, yeah, let me go, let me go now to, they charged you,
Starting point is 00:36:36 they convicted you. What, what, what is it like standing as a, an innocent man? And even, even at your worst, if you would say, okay, well, I was in the Capitol and I can, you know, this parading thing, I can understand how you give me a ticket, maybe, maybe, okay? You give me a ticket for something or I get a slap on the wrist. When they came at you and said guilty and the judge said prison, what was that like? I mean, it was serious, Glenn. I'm not going to, say otherwise that that's that is a sledgehammer prison is a sledgehammer um i i describe it in my book as uh watching a freight train in reverse like in slow motion that's coming at you because i knew this was coming before it happened but i'm i'm kind of slowly moving ahead towards it uh the
Starting point is 00:37:42 from the arrest to the trial was over a year and a half it's a long time a lot a lot of A lot of stuff happened during that period of time. Terrible stuff. Civil rights abuses, persecution, exhaustion, defamation, a constant assault from the media, betrayal from friends and my family. I was digitally assassinated for my entire career that I had really spent my life and put my life, or I'd taken a lot of risk in my life to do what I've done, putting myself out there to be an actor and a model in these things that are very difficult to try to achieve.
Starting point is 00:38:19 And I had, all of that was, I was digitally assassinated in a heartbeat on January 7th. None of that existed anymore. And then suddenly I was propped up by Rolling Stone and everyone else as this target, come and destroy this guy. And they spent a year and a half destroying me before I even got to court. That's pretty amazing. And of course, I've lived some of that. It's, it's remarkable.
Starting point is 00:38:42 Remarkable. It really is. And so there's more to that story, details in the book that people really should dig into. and that we should really talk about in our country as far as being honest with ourselves, what is happening, what we've allowed to happen, and how we get guardrails back on. Because the guardrails have become swords in the hands of an enemy that is stabbing us with them. So before we get to those solutions, let's pause here for a second. And before we get to what they did to you in prison, talk about anything that you feel needs to be addressed here on that.
Starting point is 00:39:15 So we have to reclaim the essence of innocent until proven guilty. Right? We just had Daniel Penny sacrificed on the altar of DEI and BLM garbage insanity. And it's going to take a lot of reverse engineering to sort of give him a reasonable life back. And people like that. I don't think you ever do. People don't understand. And this is a baby comparison to you.
Starting point is 00:39:49 But, you know, for 10 years, the media and powerful people came after me with all their guns of blazon and did everything they could to destroy me and paint me. And I will never get that opportunity with maybe 40% of the country to ever be anything other than that. And that's a big deal. You know, when, you know, you don't, you don't notice when you have that. Everybody has that, you know, the opportunity to just be somebody and, and have people address you and take you for who you are as long as you, as long as you are displaying that. You don't understand what it's like to walk in where lies have been spread about you and you have 40% of the room who will hate you forever. no matter what you say. Yeah, and it's a new era.
Starting point is 00:40:48 You cannot unring that bell. Absolutely, Glenn. That is true. Of course, I can tell that you understand this. You empathize because you've experienced it yourself. So anyone that does personally experience it, it will be a lot more real. But this new era with technology and the speed of lies
Starting point is 00:41:06 and just the incendiary nature that they just catch on fire and burn your life to the ground. in an instant and you can never have that life back. It is a huge thing. So the loss, you know what it is, is the loss of honest people and honest questioning. You know, I've always believed in the system of justice we have here because I've always believed that an innocent person could be caught up in something, but there would always be
Starting point is 00:41:35 someone in the system that would go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. you got to give them the chance to be heard and we don't just we don't have kangaroo courts. This was a kangaroo court. And when you lose the ability as a society to find honest people who may disagree with you, but wait a minute, hang on just a second. I disagree with him, but he has this right. We have to do it the right way. When you lose that, you have nothing left.
Starting point is 00:42:09 That's right. Yeah, disagreement does not mean dishonesty. Right? Yeah. Disaggment doesn't mean, because we disagree, it doesn't mean you lose your rights. You're still a human being as valuable as I am. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. So you're convicted. You're sentenced to prison. What is the sentence you're given? 32 months. So almost three years of my life in a prison facility, along with three years of supervised release and continued government abuse after that. So another six years of my life on the hook to be annihilated beyond the two plus years at that point that had already been chewed up in the government blender. And what we failed to talk about was you get this sentence because they
Starting point is 00:43:03 try to make a deal with you and say, look, we can make all of this go away. That's right. You know, we'll stop destroying your life if you just admit. I mean, this is very 1984. Just two plus two equals four. And you wouldn't admit when you're standing there and you realize I've had three years in prison, uh, did you ever have a second where you went, oh my gosh, what have I done? I should have taken the plea deal.
Starting point is 00:43:33 not one second it was so clear to me glen at the very you realize how odd that is right i do and and and that was somewhat the point that was kind of the point i mean fundamentally glen the real point like i said is that we have to have clarity on what right and wrong is we have to have it it is our duty and it is it is essential in order to preserve our future and preserve the integrity of our system, which without integrity, it will devolve and destruct like you mentioned. So to preserve that integrity, we have to have total clarity on what is good and evil and what is right and wrong. So some things are not moral.
Starting point is 00:44:21 Some decisions, there's not an obvious right answer, but sometimes there are. And when there's an obvious right and wrong answer, and particularly when it's, really uncomfortable to make the right choice, that's when it's so important to do so. Yeah. So when you get to prison, you know, you think of prison as a couple of things. In America, you think, okay, you might have got shafted by the system originally, but the prison system is a completely different system, and now it's got its own problems. You know, you've got the violence in prison, you've got all of that. But you don't expect the, you wouldn't expect the same kind of punishment for the same reasons to be happening in prison.
Starting point is 00:45:08 Do you know what I mean? I do. Unless it's a fascistic country, you don't expect the prison to take out political vengeance on you. But that's not what you found, is it? No, I found precisely the opposite. I found that the prison system has been hijacked like every other part of our government. And all these institutions have been bent and fashioned into weapons to serve the violent will of those in power who demand that they keep it. So, I mean, man, the trial, like you said, so many lies, so many in your face distortions and manipulations and just violence.
Starting point is 00:45:55 and just violations of their ethical and legal duty, for one thing, it was very clear that the jury was going to convict me because they're from D.C. They're Washington, D.C. residents, 95% voted with full open hatred against President Trump. Obviously, they're going to, not just convict me, they were looking to crucify me and it was, you know, and it was enjoyable for them. So the prosecutor didn't have to openly lie about evidence. He could have just said he was there.
Starting point is 00:46:25 and he's one of them and, you know, take it from here. But no, they spend all this energy lying, manipulating evidence. My website and book shows all of this in great detail. It's shocking, actually. And it's something we really need to dig into. It didn't just happen to me. And it's part of that kangaroo court. When we say kangaroo court, Glenn, we're not exaggerating.
Starting point is 00:46:45 It is fully, truly that. I know. And then in prison. Especially in Washington, D.C. Yeah, especially in D.C. In prison, and I was not in a D.C. prison. I was in a federal facility starting in Florida. But I have paperwork from the BOP that acknowledges that the reason that some of their rules were rearranged in order to clearly torture me psychologically
Starting point is 00:47:17 and in horrendous physical conditions and in super isolation, meaning totally cut off from all contact with my family and attorneys for an extended period of time, that was happening because of the fascist fingers of the Department of Justice, specifically the FBI and the AUSA assistant U.S. Attorney's Office, which I believe traces back to Mr. Jason Manning, the actual federal prosecutor who prosecuted me at trial and put me into that prison in the first place. So what rules did they rearrange for you? What happened to you? In prison, I was pulled aside in this office with no one in it, with a gentleman who worked for the security division of the prison, who basically said, do you know who I am?
Starting point is 00:48:11 Because I know who you are, and I'm watching you. I said, I don't know who you are. I'm not surprised that you know who I am, because that's become pretty well known at this point. And he said, well, let me. let me break this down for you, you know. I know you are all big on constitutional rights and talking a big First Amendment game and this and that. But this is, this is my kingdom. And I rule here. So you better get that straight real fast. And clear intimidation, but I was, sorry, the Constitution applies to prisoners as well, sir, but go ahead. Oh, it's supposed to. But,
Starting point is 00:48:43 you know, our founding father is called the Constitution a parchment barrier. And there's a reason they use that terminology. It's only going to hold so far as the men holding that parchment have the integrity to understand what it means and how it's supposed to be applied. Yeah. So he threatens, basically he threatens you. Oh, absolutely. Well, I told him, I said, sir, I am not looking to cause trouble.
Starting point is 00:49:13 I know you're in charge here and I want to abide by whatever your rules are. Please just explain them to me. but I do have a First Amendment and I plan to continue exercising it. I don't have a bone to pick at this point with the prison. I wasn't there to complain about prison. I was there to continue highlighting the fraud of January 6th, the corruption of the D.C. court system. And the fact that I'm innocent and so are many other J-6ers who I need to continue to advocate for.
Starting point is 00:49:38 And I'll do that from prison. It doesn't matter. I'm here to do a job. So I explained to him that me being in prison from my point of view was deployment in service of my country as a political prisoner. And he was maybe agnostic on that, but basically said, I'm in charge. But he seemed to indicate like, okay, we can manage that. But he wasn't honest with me. And I was basically entrapped into supposedly breaking their rules about some technicality about the phone system, even though they broke their own rules by failing to give me the written rulebook
Starting point is 00:50:09 that explains all of these details. And then later said, well, you broke this rule from page such and such in the rule book. And I said, what rule book? They said, well, Didn't we give you that on day one? Because the policy stipulates we must do that. Nope, no rule book. I had no idea about this rule. The rule you told me was you have to submit the people you want to talk to on the prison communication systems controlled and monitored.
Starting point is 00:50:32 Of course, I understood that. Submit those people. And if we approve it, then you can talk to them. Well, I did that. I talked to them. And then they said, you broke the rules. You're going in the hole. And then long story short, they disappeared me for four straight months of all.
Starting point is 00:50:47 horrific isolation abuse. I can barely explain. I heard about you at this point. I mean, what you were going through. I heard that you were in solitary for four months. And again, we tried to get senators and congressmen to give us any details what's happening. And they were blocked at every corner as well. What is solitary confinement like?
Starting point is 00:51:20 I mean, it's terrible. Physically speaking, it's very suffocating. It's just very harsh. And it's very desolate. So I think maybe that's a good word to describe that in addition to being very uncomfortable and very intimidating, there is this element of total despair that creeps in very quickly. but continues to gradually build, and you realize you're being strangulated
Starting point is 00:51:56 by this sense of despair that you can't quite see or identify, but there's no remedy for it. You have nowhere to turn, you have no one to talk to, you have no honesty or logic or rationality in an explanation of anything. Most of the people there ignore you or are rude to you. So it's like being in a, I describe it as, Imagine you were on a submarine, Glenn.
Starting point is 00:52:22 So, you know, like I said, I'm on deployment. So this is a military mission. I'm trying to take it seriously. But I know I'm in a war and there's people that are against me or whatever. I'm on a submarine and suddenly someone trips me and I fall into this closet. The door swings behind me. I jump up, but the door's already locked. I'm banging on the door.
Starting point is 00:52:38 And then I suddenly hear this sound as this submarine I can tell is dropping to the bottom of the ocean. And then it hits the bottom. No one is coming. You keep banging on the door. No one is answering. And then after a few minutes, you realize I am stuck in this concrete closet in the bottom of the ocean. And I don't know if anyone knows or cares that I'm here and if they'll ever come and get me. And then another day goes by.
Starting point is 00:53:04 And then another day goes by. And physically, you are miserable and that pain is compounding with every day. So everything is compounding by the hour, by the day, by the week. You're supposed to have a phone call. You have a window? Can you see time pass? One sliver of a window. So yeah, I could see daylight in the day, well, at least in one solitary unit. In another solitary unit, it was so dark and the window was so slim that actually I couldn't see day. So different solitary units have different conditions. The one I was in that I spent the most amount of time in was a concrete square hut with various isolation.
Starting point is 00:53:48 units. I couldn't see these people, but the inmates were savage, like animals screaming, yelling, constantly, almost never stopped throughout the course of the day. At night, they would be exhausted and fall asleep. But during the day, it picked up again, I hyperventilated at one point because I just couldn't get away from this cacophony that sounded like the dark corners of hell. I mean, it was hellish in that sense, very literally. Did you get to go outside at all? Did you, because I've, you know, they have to, you have to have an hour or something outside, right? So the policy says you must have an hour of recreation per day.
Starting point is 00:54:39 And when people hear recreation, they think you get to stand outside, you get to dig your toes in the grass, you are human on a planet. No. No. First of all, they ignore that rule half the time. So I was in a concrete shoebox for about 164 hours a week. But for the two or three hours that I might actually get the wreck time, they just dragged me to a different part of that concrete building
Starting point is 00:55:05 where they had taken the ceiling off with a cage above it. So you could see the sky through the cage. You're in a dog cage inside of a concrete building where you can see a piece of the sky. That was their recreation. Four months. Four months. Like that. And they're supposed to give you, they're supposed to give you a phone call, Glenn. Even in isolation, the rules stipulate a phone call at a minimum every seven days. And when you are in those isolation conditions, that phone call is the difference between life or death. You will scratch their eyes out to get that phone call. I was ready to scratch my own eyes out just to hear the voice of my mom or my girlfriend
Starting point is 00:55:57 or my attorney or someone. Tell me, we're still here and we're going to get you out of this hell. They violated that. You didn't get it every week? Nope. It took almost three months before a lawyer got through a call. And it took four months before I was finally taken out of solitary. And that was only because of Congressman Matt gates, bringing the fire in Congress and bringing the weight down on the BOP to realize they better start changing some things. So they whisked me out of the middle of the night to spite him because he was going to come and visit on site. Middle of the night whisked me away before he could get there to take me to a different facility and I was finally taken out of solitary.
Starting point is 00:56:47 You were put in general pop? In a different prison. Yes, I was finally put in general population in Oakdale in Louisiana. And that's where I wrote the book. Was that a Martha Stewart kind of prison? No. No, definitely not a Martha Stewart prison. Slightly less terrible than Miami, still a terrible place. I detail that in the book as well because I had six months there to kind of learn how, quote-unquote, normal prison works. And I had at least the opportunity to have a shower every day.
Starting point is 00:57:25 I had the opportunity to kind of structure some of my own time to process what I had just gone through the previous six months and to wrestle with a lot of questions with God and with myself and with what I believed my country to be before this happened. And so I wrestled through those questions. I read some books and then I wrote my own book while I was there in general population. But I— When you're in solitary, could you read books? Did you have access or is it just you and your thoughts? There's a lot of you and your thoughts, but I did get some books. Again, the rules stipulate they're supposed to provide books to you.
Starting point is 00:58:07 They did at times. They don't always follow those rules either, but I did get some books, and I had a few guards that were nicer than others. So I had a few guards that tried to make sure I had a book and a Bible. They blocked my U.S. mail, wildly illegal. It's just not acceptable. in this country, there's no, there's no law that allows that to happen. That is against the law to block U.S. mail from a U.S. citizen. But they blocked most of my mail for most of those entire four months. But I did have a couple guards that would sneak some letters into me.
Starting point is 00:58:42 Okay. So let's talk here about, I mean, there's so much more, but you can get it in your book, but you're fascinating to talk to. Let me start with where I am. And tell me, where we differ. Okay. I have a problem with people who were violent, and that is the police and
Starting point is 00:59:12 people who were in the masks, breaking windows and, you know, fighting, but it's hard to tell who was a good guy defending themselves and a bad guy, you know, wishing intent on the cops. and I think at this point
Starting point is 00:59:29 everybody would have spent their time in prison if this was a normal case everybody would have already served enough time and I don't think it's fair to you know Donald Trump says we have to take a case by case and I understand that thinking
Starting point is 00:59:47 but when you know that something has been wrong with a prosecutor you don't just let the one guy that you know for sure has been wrongly prosecuted, if that pattern appears in other cases, you've got to let everybody go. Right. Fruit of the poison is tree. Yes, you know something's wrong.
Starting point is 01:00:11 So just based on that concept and that law, every single person should be released because you can't go back and say, well, this guy, you know, this guy wasn't as bad because you don't know. It was the same people involved that did you. And we know that was wrong. So how do we do anything other than, say, everybody out? Everybody's out. 100%. Time served. 100%. Right. You are correct, Len. You are absolutely right. And I don't think there's a credible argument against what you said. It is absolutely fundamentally clear that this process was totally corrupted. It was irredeemably tainted. But legally speaking. Square knows that in hospitality, efficiency is everything.
Starting point is 01:01:02 That's why their system lets you take payments. Track sales, handle inventory, manage staff, send invoices, and keep up with finances all in one place. Fly through orders with zero mistakes. Get the data you need and keep everything working together. So you're ready for whatever's next. Learn more about their customizable plans at squareup.com. Correct. And people, I guess, would argue and say, well, but the violent.
Starting point is 01:01:27 But that's not the way it works. We have this. We have this for a reason. I'm not making up something new. I'm not asking for something that hasn't been done before. This is our rule of law, is it not? Exactly. That's the term I wanted to say. When we say the rule of law, what does it mean? It means there is a pre-established rule by which we comport our behavior, by which we comport our review and investigation, by which we comport our administration of justice. And that rule says that rule says that if the government is shown to be nefarious or corrupt or even just derelict, you must throw it out. And it's very simple. Why, Glenn? It's very simple why. The founders told us, I believe George Washington,
Starting point is 01:02:20 when the people fear the government, there's tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty. And George Washington also said, government is not eloquence. It is force. It's a fire that will burn things to the ground if you don't keep the guardails. So Thomas Jefferson said we must speak no more about the good intentions of man, but we must bind them down by the chains of the Constitution. Correct. Now, here's the thing on this, is when this rule has ever been enacted before, you don't get mad at the person, the judge or whomever that says, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. All of this has to be thrown out.
Starting point is 01:03:05 You're supposed to get mad at the prosecutors. You're supposed to say, you morons have done this in a legal way. You've let bad guys go and you've persecuted good guys now. It's not the judge, or in this case, not Trump, that is making this judgment. This is the way it's supposed to be because you screwed up. And without that slap on the face,
Starting point is 01:03:34 not on the wrist, but on the face of the prosecution, you'll never change anything. 100% agree with you. And I wouldn't call them morons. I would call them knaves and scoundrels because they weren't stupid. They knew what they were doing.
Starting point is 01:03:49 This was political, of course, and ultimately it was evil. It was highly unethical. It was wrong. It was an egregious abuse of their prosecutorial power and of their government-issued positions of authority. It was immoral. It was wrong.
Starting point is 01:04:03 And it was gravely evil and has caused an incredible amount of destruction and even death. So that's not an exaggeration at all. But, you know, Glenn, we want to go ahead. Don't forget the, before we get to the prosecutors, the first step was not the prosecutors, but elements of the government that facilitated. instigated this. There's a lot of evidence of pre-planning, for example, the FBI operation, the Whitmer Fednapping hoax, well documented, no really argument against this. The FBI field director, Steve Dan Twono of the Detroit field office oversaw that operation and then was reassigned
Starting point is 01:04:43 to D.C. right before January 6th. Yes. So a lot of interesting, credible evidence, but we'll put that aside. We'll say for the sake of argument, without assigning negative intent or criminal intent to the government, we can see with our own eyes clearly what they physically did that was a egregious violation of their duty and their protocols. So that created the conditions and accelerated. When you said you are upset about violence committed by people in black gear breaking windows, so am I. But those people aren't in jail. Correct. I am not aware. please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of the military style tactical units, all dressed in black, which of course you can't identify them,
Starting point is 01:05:26 who were the insurgents that first broke the windows to gain the initial access to the building that then allowed people to blunder in and then open the doors for me and I stumbled in. Well, I just know that I've never seen conservatives dressed like that before. I've seen Antifa dressed like that. I've seen the government dress like that. but I don't generally see conservative stress like that, or act that way.
Starting point is 01:05:51 But that doesn't mean they couldn't have been, but we don't know who they were because it doesn't seem to be any effort to get those guys. My view on this whole thing is, you know, we find out that there's 26 informants, FBI informants that are there. And those aren't necessarily good guys,
Starting point is 01:06:09 you know what I mean? They're informants. They, you know, but at the very least, that would lead one to to the understanding, not to believe, to the understanding of the truth. The FBI had 26 informants
Starting point is 01:06:27 that were there on the ground. That means, yeah, at least. That means at least 26 FBI agents knew what was coming if it was planned. Okay? If it was planned by these, you know, this grassroots, you know, vigilante group, that means 20,
Starting point is 01:06:45 26 FBI agents knew that was coming. So then explain to me how the National Guard wasn't there. Explain to me how the police weren't alerted. If you had the FBI knowing this is the most innocuous charge I could possibly bring on the FBI is, okay, so you weren't involved, but you knew it was coming and you did nothing. That's the best scenario. What do you think happened? I think we know for certain that Nancy Pelosi and Muriel Bowser are and are officially entrusted with the responsibility to protect that building. They openly denied the 10,000 National Guard troops that President Trump had duly authorized and done his part to make a possible.
Starting point is 01:07:43 Right. So there's a handoff. What, right, what do you attribute that to? Just incompetence, hating of Trump, what? No, I attribute it to. I mean, it's just not reasonable to think that these people are that dumb. It's just, they didn't get to the positions of power that they are being dumb. They're not dumb.
Starting point is 01:08:04 They're smart. They're just very, very unethical and immoral. And I think evil is really the accurate term. Okay. So clearly, clearly Pelosi and many other people, people benefited by creating the conditions for a violent event of conflict, which they could then misrepresent and distort and exploit in myriad of ways. This isn't a grand conspiracy theory like they had the map of the whole thing from the
Starting point is 01:08:28 beginning necessarily, right? But they've game planned and wargamed these things, as we've noted. And they very clearly denied 10,000 troops that obviously should have been there. Remember, my first thought when I walked up the building was, I don't see the stage and why aren't there cops or crowd control here? Because there's a million people coming to see a speech. It's just objectively insane. So, you know, the optics that they complained about were really the optics of making them look
Starting point is 01:08:53 completely derelict as government officials. But because they have the bully pulpit, the microphone, and all the government weapons pointed at us, they can just shout their story. They can parade the January 6th, unselect committee show trial, literally a show trial, for a year and a half on primetime television, gaslighting us all to death. So that's how they get away with it. But if you're calm and reasonable and a show trial, objective and you go through the evidence and you're not taking Nancy Pelosi's side or President
Starting point is 01:09:19 Trump's side or anyone else, just what actually happened here. It's not that hard to figure out what happened and it's not that hard to, you could say, speculate, but we could speculate that Pelosi and company clearly had motives and they had an objective. They had an agenda to advance and they had an opportunity to exploit by facilitating the conditions for an event of violence to occur that never should have happened. And without the government's involvement, it would not have happened like that. Right. So even with you, you are saying they allowed the conditions.
Starting point is 01:09:57 They maybe even encouraged the conditions a little bit. But it doesn't explain. We have cops on video taking fence down. Yeah, right. Yeah. That doesn't explain like the pipe bomb. or anything like that, which clearly, that was, that was, what was that. I mean, that just seems planted by people who did have a master plan.
Starting point is 01:10:25 They may not have said, oh, this is the way it's going to happen at the Capitol, but they wanted to make sure that something happened. And those pipe bombs were put in with somebody with an agenda. the vice president was moved to where one of those pipe bombs was for a reason. And it seems to me they just didn't need that reason anymore. And so just brush it aside. Right. Does that seem reasonable to you?
Starting point is 01:10:55 Absolutely. Contingencies, right? Again, these people aren't stupid. And also, as we mentioned, there isn't one single quarterback of everything. I mean, I don't think generally that you can say, the grand conspiracy ends up with this person calling all the shots. It doesn't quite work like that. So there's overlap and there's disarray to things.
Starting point is 01:11:17 But yeah, there was, there's just a lot of evidence. And all aspects of it should be investigated honestly and completely by the incoming, you know, administration. We have to have answers to this. I had a meeting. I didn't have a meeting, but one of my guys who was working for me at the the time he was kind of a right-hand guy. He had a meeting that was asked for by the Soros organization. And so my right-hand man met with the right-hand man of Soros.
Starting point is 01:11:51 And we interpreted as clearly as a threat because it started with, your boss is going to stop saying these things about my boss. And it only went downhill from there. And I talked to somebody right after who knew George Soros, who had worked with George Soros, and I said, what do you make of this? And he said, that was clearly a threat. He said, now, Glenn, here's what you have to understand. George Soros is not going to give the order to go kill you or disrupt your life. He said he doesn't need to.
Starting point is 01:12:31 There are enough people that want his attention, want to be in his circle. that will take it on their own and they would be willing to do something and then let it be known in that inner circle that, you know, I was the guy who took care of that problem for you. There are so many, there are so many interests that you don't have to have a central committee, planning. This stuff can happen organically on its own if, like you say, you allow the conditions to be right for it. So we don't need to have a star chamber planning all of this. Right. And it's because of the reality of human nature, right? I always tell people that the genius of the founding fathers was to recognize one singular concept with total
Starting point is 01:13:19 clarity. And that is the fundamental, inescapable, unchanging reality of human nature. It devolves towards evil and it collects power in one place in a totalitarian manner. Power always collects in one place. and people always seek it. So that's why I keep saying guardrails. That constitution is guardrails to channel human nature in a productive direction and counterbalance it against itself. Yes.
Starting point is 01:13:45 All right. Let me ask you a couple final questions here. If you could go back and speak to yourself on January 5th, 2021, what would you say to yourself? Man, it's an interesting question framed that way. I can't imagine on January 5th that I would tell myself, go. go to the capital grounds on January 6th. That would be, yeah. I mean, God never calls us to do something painful on purpose for the sake of being
Starting point is 01:14:14 painful. That would be sadism and foolishness. So God calls us to be wise. I believe firmly and honestly, I can tell you this from my heart, that I was as prepared and wise in the moment as I was able to be at that time. So I'm proud of what I did and how I did it and I conducted myself on. I will answer to God for that, and I am satisfied there. But if you had told me on January 5th and I knew ahead of time,
Starting point is 01:14:41 I would have adjusted, you know, based on that information, of course. The last question, you know, I know many of the players that are going to go into power here soon. I know Cash Patel very well. And I have a lot of respect for Cash. and Cash and I have had conversations on air long before he thought he was going to be in charge about things like the Epstein list, the Diddy Problem, this particular problem. And we are looking at, and people don't really understand this, and I think you do, we talked about Hitchcock. People don't understand movies are not totally made up.
Starting point is 01:15:29 They do reflect real life. And I've had times, and I know you have, had times where you're like, I'm in a movie. It's weird. I can't believe I'm in a Jason Bourne movie all of a sudden. Right. Those movies would tell us when you have this much power, this much money, this many famous people with so much at stake, these things are never really fixed. They're never. they never, the Epstein list will not be released.
Starting point is 01:16:05 The P. Diddy, he might go to prison, but what about all the people that were there? Will we ever know them? Are you optimistic over the next four years that this next administration with Donald Trump is serious enough, knows what they're facing, and brave enough to do this and to take this all on and expose it? So I love that question because it brings me right back to the book that I wrote while I was in prison. I'm in prison going through all of this insanity and abuse and even despair and I realized, you know, this comes down to me in this moment and what I choose to do at the moment. This comes down to the choices I make on how to respond to suffering and pain.
Starting point is 01:16:53 And I believe that our country is amazing because it calls us to remember the sacred the sacred truth of the human spirit and individual sovereignty. America is all about you and me as individuals. So I am optimistic
Starting point is 01:17:12 because it isn't just about President Trump and his administration. Now I love President Trump. I'm very proud of him and a valiant supporter will continue to be. But President Trump,
Starting point is 01:17:21 by and large, also understands the reality that this is about you, the American. And so if we remember that, if we reclaim that, and that's why I love to talk about a red pill revolution, revolution is the overthrow
Starting point is 01:17:36 of an existing system. Now, we don't want to overthrow our constitutional system. We want to reclaim and revive it. But we do have to overthrow the spirit of evil, the spirit of corruption, the spirit of selfish, self-seeking centralized power and the lies that they use as weapons. We have to overthrow that system so that we can reclaim the American constitutional republic for ourselves as American citizens. And if each one of us commits to doing that, there is no weapon formed against us that will stand. I will tell you that that is exactly the answer I have come to. I just wrote predictions on 2025. And I talked about Epstein and this kind of case and said, I don't think it will happen this year.
Starting point is 01:18:24 But it doesn't mean that it won't happen. the only thing standing in the way of it's happening is apathy. If we realize how much power we actually have and we stand up and say, no, our children are being raped. They are bringing children in for pleasure. This system is corrupt.
Starting point is 01:18:52 I want to know who is part of that corruption. I want this. I want this judge, the prosecutors, the FBI, the DOJ, I want all of it. And I want the bad guys in a fair
Starting point is 01:19:09 trial, I want the bad guys to go to jail. I want this to be clean. And if we all stand up, it's the only thing that will because nobody is, you know, Donald Trump has already risked his life. How many people are really truly
Starting point is 01:19:25 willing to to risk their life, to expose this stuff, not as many as you would hope. I mean, look at the number of FBI agents that stay quiet, even though they know what's happening is wrong. We have to be the ones that demand it. And that is, it's been great to talk to you. Yeah, go ahead. That is my patriot plea, man. The Patriot plea, right?
Starting point is 01:19:51 That's my call is that we need to raise up a remnant. It won't ever be everyone. But the American Revolution, this country, the United States of America, formed in 1776 with 3% of the colonists participating in that effort. 3% was the remnant. And I tell a story in the book about Gideon, a Jew that God found in a wine press and said, you, mighty man, are going to save the nation of Israel from the hordes of Midianite marauders. And he's like, me?
Starting point is 01:20:19 Like, I don't have anything going on here. God said, it's not about you. It's about me and your obedience to the call, raise up those who are willing to exercise uncomfortable courage. And it was, he had 32,000 Israelites that initially answered and God said, that's too many. I want the remnant. I want those who are really willing to stay strong when the going gets tough, who when the government says, I'll give you a golden parachute plea deal.
Starting point is 01:20:44 And you know that plea deal is a lie that's being used to crucify thousands of your American citizens and to propel totalitarian government forward. And you say, no. God wants that remnant. But it's 3% or whatever percent it is. It's a minority. But it's the tireless minority that Sam Adams spoke, lighting fire, brush fires in the minds of men with truth and the opportunity of courage. We just have to exercise it.
Starting point is 01:21:11 John Strand, the name of the book is Patriot Plee. You can find it by going to john strand.com, john strand.com. John, as always, thank you. God bless you. No, thank you, Glenn. Honor is mine. And God bless you. country. Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this
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