The NPR Politics Podcast - A Good Guy: Under Oath

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Today, the second of a two-part investigation from NPR's Embedded.All Marines take an oath to defend the Constitution. After Sgt. Joshua Abate participated in the events on January 6, the Corps has to decide if he is a Marine worth keeping. Did he break his oath when he entered the Capitol that day? And what does his case say about the changing narrative around January 6?As the 2024 presidential election approaches, January 6 casts a long shadow. NPR's Tom Bowman and Lauren Hodges follow the military's efforts to address extremism in the ranks, and the political hurdles it has faced along the way.LEARN MORE:- View the Report on Countering Extremist Activity Within the Department of Defense, from the Countering Extremist Activity Working Group (CEAWG) at the Department of Defense. - Read this investigative piece from the AP about radicalization in the military.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autographcollection.com. Hey there, it's the MPR Politics podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And we're back with the second and final episode of A Good Guy. If you missed the first one, it's yesterday's episode of this podcast. In our previous episode, a Marine ended up in federal court for what he did on January 6th. The judge in this case told him he had made her

a better judge. She could have given him six months in prison, but she decided on community service instead. And now in this episode, we're going to talk about the Marines. They have to figure out if this Marine is worth keeping. And let me just say that process is going to be a little different than what he got in court. Here's Tom Bowman and Lauren Hodges. This Administrator discharge board will come to order. The reporter will note the time and date for the record. It's December, 2023. Joshua Bates' military career, it's on the line. He's at the Quantico

Marine Base in this nondescript government conference room. This is an administrative separation proceeding. And what this essentially decides is, should Sergeant Bate remain in the United States Marine Court? He needs to sit through what the Marines call a retention hearing. Here they have to decide, do we keep Josh Bate in the Marines? Or do we kick him out, the Marines call it separating him, for his actions at the Capitol?

The purpose of this administrative discharging board is to give the respondent a full and impartial hearing. Josh's lawyer actually gave us the audio from this retention hearing. Now, it's not like a court marshal with legal consequences, but it kind of looks in some ways like a court because there's someone arguing in Josh's defense. Sergeant Abate is a third generation and exceptional Marine. And there's something like a jury. We'll call them a panel.

Three Marines randomly drawn. Two officers and a sergeant. The members are cautioned not to make any decisions until after hearing all the evidence, final argument and instructions on deliberation. And there are military lawyers arguing as prosecutors. They come down pretty hard on Josh. And defense is going to argue that he was remorseful, he did accept responsibility, he didn't injure anyone, and that's largely true.

But when they make that argument, I want you to focus on his personal conduct that day. The prosecutor has seen the same CCTV footage that we watched and starts to describe it out loud. He took selfies. He took videos. The prosecutor says Josh was chanting, carrying a flag, standing firm in the crowd as police tried to push everyone out. He placed a red MAGA hat on a statue of Martin Luther King Jr.

Putting that MAGA hat on the statue of MLK. Holding signs such as stop the steal. The prosecutor says that all of these actions actually violate an agreement Josh signed when he joined the Marines, what every Marine signs, that explicitly forbids participation in extremist activities. He knew he had an obligation to not be a part of it. The prosecutors say he doesn't deserve to be a Marine. As Marines, we take oaths to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

He violated that oath that day. And the prosecution makes it clear what they think Josh's consequences should be. He was a willing and active participant in a violent model. Gentlemen, it's for these reasons you should separate Sergeant Bate from the Marine Corps and you should characterize his service as other honorable. Every Marine who's discharged from the Corps wants an honorable discharge. Other than honorable is a black mark for veterans. Future employers could say,

I'm not going to touch this guy. Right. And in fact, the Marines were already worried about how this case made not only Josh Look, but the entire Marine Corps. Three active-duty U.S. Marines under arrest for their roles on January 6th. Police say all of them. After all, it had become national news. All three Marines worked in military intelligence.

If you don't separate, it does send the message that the United States Marine Corps condones its activities. The prosecution says Josh has embarrassed them. And those actions have damaged the reputation of the Marine Corps. It's a reputation the Marines have been building for decades. I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden. We don't promise you a rose garden.

So if you just want to be one of the boys, stick with the boys. There's a reason the Marines have always been considered an elite fighting force. We've kept our standards high and our ranks small. Today we're still a tough club to join, a tough team to make. They often tell prospective recruits, I don't think you have what it takes. One of the few and one of the finest. The Marines are looking for a few good men.

This Marine Corps image is everything to them. Absolutely. But post-January 6, they're having to deal with an outsized group of their own people who were out there that day. And of course, Josh, he was one of them. And the Marines need to decide if they're going to kick him out. Could this be an opportunity for the Marine Corps to take a hard look at its own high standards?

And you know, will they? Will they determine that Josh's actions are something the Marines are willing to brush aside? Or are they a symptom of a much larger problem? Well before Josh faced a separation hearing, officials high up in the Pentagon were concerned about the number of active duty military and veterans who participated in January 6th. And they start asking themselves is there extremism in the ranks and is it spreading?

That's coming up on A Good Guy from NPR's Embedded after the break. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com, T's and C's apply. A couple of weeks after January 6th, the military had a new boss. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was sworn in at the White House by Vice President Kamala Harris after becoming the first black defense secretary.

At his confirmation hearing, Lloyd Austin did not mention the assault on the Capitol directly, but he said he was concerned about internal threats. The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies. But we can't do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks. And one of the first things he did

was to remind everyone in uniform about their oath. So Austin came up with a plan. It started with something called a stand down and a stand down in military speak is okay, we're going to stop what we're doing. We're just going to have a training day to remind service members about what they can't do while on active duty, dissident activities, overtly political activities, extremist activities kind of thing. Josh says he didn't speak out about participating in January 6th because it didn't even come up. He said the whole thing was just sort of forgettable. And Josh isn't the only one to say that. The reactions coming out of these training sessions and from senior officials, they were kind of mixed. What we were hearing on the ground from units was that there was just a lot of confusion.

Many service members didn't understand what extremism even means. Well, you know, what is extremism? My extremism may not be your extremism. That's Bishop Garrison, a West Point grad, an Iraq Army vet, and a lawyer. Austin tapped him to answer this huge question for the military. How do you define extremism? I'd love to actually get your personal opinion or definition of extremism. You and all the Joint Chiefs would love to have a clean definition of it.

And the problem is, the definition is, it depends. It's one of those things where you kind of know it when you see it. Garrison quickly became the guy that the defense secretary was counting on to figure out just how big of a problem extremism in the ranks really is. And the reason we want to tell you his story is because it runs parallel to Josh's story. Josh says he's not an extremist and his time in the Capitol does not constitute extremist behavior. Bishop Garrison's work is about to challenge that. Garrison worked a really long time to come up with a definition.

One of the most thorough efforts I've ever been a part of. He talked to so many lawyers, experts. It went to OGC, at DOD, and then it went across... A whole alphabet soup, if you will, of government agencies and offices. Went through a thousand pages of iteration. By the way, this was an ethical landmine. It had to be something that was not going to infringe on a single constitutional right or issue.

And as complicated as the work was, it ultimately led him to a pretty simple two-part test. It almost has to be like a rubric. You can't make for every instance of what may or may not be extremist activity. It really depends on the situation of the individual. One, does the person advocate for extremist activity. It really depends on the situation of the individual. 1. Does the person advocate for extremist ideology? It couldn't just be that you went and read a thing because you could be a historian. You're reading Mein Kauf because you want to know more about World War II and Hitler. 2. Did they act upon that ideology? You have an activity that may not in and of itself be prohibited or be criminal, but it leans

in that direction. It gives the commander an opportunity to say, wait, wait, wait, what is this about? So this isn't about your political views. It's all about your actions. It's inciting violence. It's taking part in violence. Unlawful stuff, discriminatory stuff. Raising money for groups that are anti-immigrant,

racist, misogynist. We're not here to be thought police in any way, shape or form. And Garrison thought, all right, we nailed this. Extremist activity, active participation, two things go together. So we wanted to know, based on the definition he was working on, whether Josh's actions in the Capitol qualified as extremist activity. He was up in the crowd chanting the police were pushing him back and he refusing to move. Those last two things you mentioned would both be activities. That is something that is prohibited. I would even argue it's always been prohibited. Garrison's goal was to give Secretary Austin a report with recommendations on countering

extremism in the ranks. He knew from the beginning that anything related to extremism could get politicized real quick. And the trouble actually began before he even got to put out his report. Back when Garrison was hired to do this work, he was given a title. Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Human Capital and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Also known as DEI. And that title was typed out in a memo, a memo which the Pentagon released in the spring of 2021.

It's standard stuff, three pages long, announcing that Garrison was forming this team to counter extremism in the ranks. Then... May 6th, I'll never forget the day, his phone started lighting up. He's becoming a target of attacks by the right wing. We uncovered the ideological veteran chief for the United States military, and that's Bishop Garrison. Suddenly his name was all over Fox News, the Daily Caller, Steve Bannon's podcast. So who is the Pentagon's newly-minted,

MAGA purge man? Just spend five minutes googling Bishop Garrison. This is an extremist, Black Lives Matter sympathizer type guy. They're calling him the Pentagon's hatchet man. A man who believes all, all Trump supporters are racists and extremists. Because his job is to purge patriots from the ranks.

They're using January 6th as the ultimate justification. He's a lunatic. Pay attention to this guy. Keep your head on a swivel. I don't think he's up to any good. In Garrison, he starts getting these messages on social media. And that included everything from threats against my career, my livelihood, to threats of personal violence. And he was really worried about his wife and baby back home.

My wife truly was afraid of like someone is going to show up on our doorstep with a long guy. Good morning. We have our full committee hearing this morning. It didn't take long for all this criticism to move from Fox News to Capitol Hill. We are honored this morning to be joined by the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and by Mike McCord. About a month later, Secretary Austin appears before the House Armed Services Committee.

You know, it's a budget hearing. Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz brings up something else. And it is particularly concerning to me that you have hired a critical race theorist to give you advice on personnel matters and that person is Bishop Garrison. And I would particularly observe that on July 27, 2019, Bishop Garrison tweeted regarding former President Trump, he's dragging a lot of bad actors out into the sunlight, normalizing their actions. Gates is talking about a series of old tweets that Bishop Garrison wrote back in 2019, before

he joined the DOD. In one of them, he calls Trump a racist. In another, he says supporting Trump is supporting his racist beliefs. Then he replies to his own tweet with what seems to be a very ethno-nationalist hashtag, hashtag Black 44. Could you enlighten us as to... Black 44 is a reference to President Obama, the 44th president. So here we have Gates, a white congressman, talking to a black defense secretary about his black advisor referring to a black former president using terms like ethno-nationalism

And are you concerned that while you testify publicly to our committee that the department doesn't embrace critical race theory You have hired someone who is precisely a critical race theorist This is the first I've ever heard race theorist. This is the first I've ever heard Mr. Garrison be described as a critical race theorist. So this is new. At the time, I had no idea what critical race theory is, like much of America. And just trying to understand, like, you know, why these attacks are being lobbed. Did you review his tweets before you hired him personally?

Did you review his tweets before you hired him? I did not personally review his tweets. So here we have Austin defending Bishop Garrison and kind of pushing back in Congressman Gates. Is there anything you can share in just these final seconds regarding any advice he's given you? Let me just share one other thing that you brought up, Congressman, about the input that comes to me. You know, I trust my leadership from top to bottom that they will give me fair and balanced and unvarnished input. And for you to say that people are telling me

what I want to hear, I get it, but I'm smart enough to know that- That does happen. Yeah, you know, maybe they're telling you what you want to hear. Well, I don't know that they even know what I want to hear. The government's time has expired. But despite Secretary Austin's defense, Garrison, you know, he started to feel pretty alone.

That's because he says the military was shrugging off these attacks against him. As one very senior official relayed to me, you know, these types of things like quicksand. You say like, he's a good guy, next question, and that will go away because if you fight against it, you're going to get pulled more into it. I think not pushing back harder and not fighting for it, just let it breathe more, let it breathe longer. And that's what we're even, I think to some degree today, still seeing the remnants of that. In December 2021, Garrison's report was finally done. But by that time, the urgency at the Pentagon was gone.

It would take about two years for the military to issue new rules regarding extremism in the ranks. And by the time the Marine Corps had to decide whether to retain or separate Joshua Bate, the horror of the Capitol attack had seemed to kind of fade among politicians, in the electorate, and despite Bishop Garrison's best efforts, even in the ranks. And I'm going through my head right now trying to decide if you're one of the Marines I want to leave in the Marine Corps. That's after the break.

The record will reflect that this board is properly convening. At Josh's retention hearing, the oath he took as a Marine was at the center of the prosecution's argument. The defense... You'll see people in and out of the gallery back here. Had a different strategy. Right now we have Ashley Abates, so Sergeant Abates' wife. They begin by pointing out Josh's wife Ashley, who's in the room. She's holding their six month old baby. Bringing them in here is not some sort of defense ploy

to tug on heartstrings and look for some sympathetic, you know, piece to this case. They are here to support, moral support for Sergeant Bate during this process. Josh's defense is a military lawyer, Major Justin Bradshaw, who the Marines have assigned to him and also his civilian attorney, Dave Dishley, who's also a veteran. This case is about the totality of Sergeant Bates' calling and career as a Marine. It's about this institution that he loves. And on January 6th, 2021, Sergeant Bate made a bad call.

So at this point in the hearing, we see the choice before the panel is crystal clear. Sure, it's a hearing to decide whether or not Joshua Bate stays in the Marine Corps, but it's also a hearing about how much Joshua Bate belongs in the Marine Corps. To understand who he is as a Marine, to consider him as a person, beyond what happened almost three years ago.

So they bring out these uniform character witnesses, other Marines who've worked with Josh. These are people that know him, that can talk about his leadership. They can talk about his dedication and love for the Marine Corps. You're going to hear that he impressed the hard to impress. The respondent calls Colonel Todd Manix. Step Sergeant James Alexander. John Burns, Goss III. And just like all those character letters from the civilian trial, these five current and former Marines paint this sterling portrait of Josh.

I would say that his initiative is top notch, sir. By far the most outstanding professional Marine I've ever encountered. I signed off and approved an accommodation medal for him. That's a pretty high bar for me to make. And then, after each testimony, it's the prosecutor's turn to lay out what Josh actually did on January 6th. Have you seen security camera footage from January 6th of Sergeant of Eight? No, sir.

All these details proving that Josh was not only in the Capitol, but an active participant. Do you know that while still in their atanda, a line of police formed and had to push protesters out of their atanda, one of those being Sergeant of Eight, did you know that? I did not know that, sir. And the prosecutors ask each witness. Give an opinion about whether he should be separated or retained in the Marine Corps. The witnesses, who together total more than 80 years

in the U.S. Marine Corps, say. Gentlemen, I wouldn't be here if somebody didn't give me a second chance. A chance to clear their name. Probably feel bad about what he did. Probably has a chance to clear their name. Probably feel bad about what he did. Probably has a chance to rethink it. It's truly sorry for what he did. If he can pull off what I know he is capable of

as a man, as a Marine, as a father, he will show that growth can occur and that he can overcome even something as trivial as this. overcome even something as trivial as this. Trivial? Was that really all they thought of Josh Abate's actions on January 6th? At the end of the hearing, just before closing statements, one of the panelists speaks up. This is one of the three Marines deciding Josh's fate, Master Gunnery Sergeant Stephen Glue. I have about two, two and a half weeks left in the Marine Corps. And I could have easily told my command, no, I ain't coming up here. But my goal before I get out is to make sure

I'm leaving the Marine Corps in good hands. Here Glue is sort of interrupting the proceedings in order to speak directly to Josh. And I'm going through my head right now and trying to decide if you're one of the Marines I want to leave in the Marine Corps. Your judgment on this day failed you. And I hope this works out in your favor," he said. We reached out to all three of the panelists, and Glue was the only one who agreed to talk to us. We wanted to ask him why. After all the evidence he heard,

he still went out of his way to tell Josh and the whole room before the hearing was even over that he was planning to side with him. I'd just seen a lot of him in me. And then, you know, just seeing his family there, his baby there, just made me think, you know, Jacina's family there, his baby there, just made me think about my family and what they would have been going through if I was in Josh's position. Anything else, John?

Yes, sir. So the board is closed for deliberation at 1605 on 6 December. After closing statements, the three Marine panel deciding Josh's fate is dismissed to deliberate. An hour later, they come back to read their decision. On 6 December, I will announce the findings and recommendations of the board by reading from the worksheet. Vinerence, preponderance of the evidence proves all acts or admissions alleged in the notification.

The board acknowledges that Josh was responsible for everything the Marine Corps was accusing him of doing, a quote-un unquote, serious offense of misconduct. And you would think that means a discharge for Josh, maybe even one that's other than honorable, but... By majority vote, the board recommends retention in the Marine Corps. They vote to keep him. The board adjourned at 1715, 6th of December. Thanks.

Here. The same thing happened with Dodge, Hellenon and Micah Coomer, the two other Marines who went inside the Capitol that day with Josh. They both went through their own separation hearings and in all three cases, the officers decided to retain them. When we first learned that the panel voted to retain Joshua Bate, we assumed it was mostly

Joshua's character witnesses that swayed them in his favor. And then we obtained the entire audio recording of the proceedings and listened to all four and a half hours. We were stunned when we heard something else in this recording. It's something we haven't played for you yet. It reminded us of the roadblocks the military faced as it tried to define extremism. Is your portrayal of the events of January 6th positive, negative,

or are you indifferent about it? At the beginning of the hearing, Josh's civilian lawyer asked all three of the Marines deciding his case, how do you feel about January 6th? Depending on what news source you look at, you get a different narrative, different perception. That's Lieutenant Colonel Sean Foley, a mid-level officer and the highest-rank ranking one on the panel.

He said, well, I'm kind of indifferent to it because, you know, it kind of depends which TV station you're watching. It was kind of a tale of two cities. It's actually a tale of two cities. And at this point, I'm, to be honest, tired of hearing that three years later. You know what? It was three years ago, so I don't think it's that much of a big deal. Sir, I wasn't there. I can't say I know exactly what happened there. That's Master Gunnery Sergeant Stephen Glue. He's the one who addressed Josh during the hearing. He said he was also indifferent to January 6. Well, I'm indifferent about what happened that day.

Now, the captain, Spencer Morris, a mid-level officer, he had a different take. I'll be honest and say that the video footage I've seen of the day specifically focused on some of the more violent parts of the January 6 definitely gives me a negative perception of how things transpired. But still, two out of the three panelists say that they're indifferent to the attack on the Capitol. And Josh says he gets it. It's been pounded and pounded and pounded for three years at that point.

That I think people just got numb to it at a certain point. They just stopped caring about it. Are you tired of hearing about it? at a certain point, they just stop caring about it. Are you tired of hearing about it? I would say I'm tired of... No, I can't say that I'm tired about hearing about it. It's because I know there are people like me out there who should get their story out too, and they're not extremists,

they just got caught up in the moment and now they're in aists, they just got caught up in the moment and now they're in a similar situation to me. So I think I'll be tired of hearing about it once everyone has had the chance to show their side of the story if they're a similar boat to me. Josh's case is now at the desk of the Navy secretary, Carlos del Toro, where it's been sitting for about 10 months. He will ultimately decide whether Josh stays or goes. For now, Josh is kind of stuck in Marine purgatory doing some standard office work, awaiting

his fate. He's the only one of his friends left. Even though the Marine panel decided to keep Corporal Micah Kumher and Sergeant Dodge Hellinen in the Marine Corps, a top general didn't agree. He later kicked Coomer out for his actions. Hellinen? He ran out as enlistment. We last talked to Josh around the time when it was becoming pretty clear Trump was going to win the Republican primaries. Trump himself still refuses to accept the last election results and he won't commit to accepting the results of this one either. So I had to know, could Donald Trump still get Josh's vote?

Remember, Josh told the court that Trump's lies are incredibly harmful to our democracy and our unity as a nation. What are your thoughts about him now? Um, I still like Trump. There's no bad taste in my mouth about Trump. I think I care more so about other things now than just voting for Trump to get a pardon, you know? So, I don't know, I might vote for Trump, I might not. It just depends. Once it's time for the election,

I'll have to actually sit down and make my decision, but right now I'm still open. Since that conversation with Josh, Trump has doubled down on his defense of January 6th. Three weeks before the election, he called it a day of love. We reach back out to Josh to ask one final time who he was going to vote for. But through his lawyer, Josh declined any more interviews with us. You know, I talked to some pretty high level sources in the military, anonymously, both active duty and retired about the election. And they're worried about political violence happening

again, no matter who wins in November, but particularly if Trump loses. Lyle Ornstein Bishop Garrison left the department in 2022. But as he looks back on all the work he did, he's still really worried about the ongoing threat of extremism in the military. My biggest fear is that it's going to take some type of major or massive incident in which people get hurt, if not worse, for the department to actually stop and take action on us. But isn't that exactly what January 6th was? As far as we can tell, the military still doesn't know if they have an extremism problem.

They just don't have the data. Now, there are recent efforts to try to curb extremist behavior. The Army and Navy posted new guidelines earlier this year. The Marines did too. In September, the Marine Corps outlined some new reporting instructions. If a Marine suspects a fellow Marine of extremist activity, they must report it within one to three days to a senior officer, and that might trigger an investigation. I caught up with the top Marine officer, General Eric Smith, just a few weeks ago.

General, Tom Bowman with NPR. The election is about a month ago. He said it's a minuscule percentage of the Marines who engage in inappropriate behavior. What I don't want to do is hit a fly with a sledgehammer and accuse all Marines of doing something untoward because that's just not the case. I also asked him about the lopsided number of Marines, active duty and veteran, who took part in the Capitol attack. Those individuals who participated in the January 6th events, those weren't Marines.

They were individuals who were masquerading as Marines. And he called the attack on the Capitol an anomaly. That was something we'd heard before. The events of January 6th were an anomaly. This is Josh's defense lawyer talking in his Marine Separation hearing. The odds that another event like January 6 is going to occur in this country, in the next 100 years in this country, I think is very slim. I think we can all agree to that.

The odds that Sergeant Bate would be a part of that, less than a fraction of a percent. If you ask the judge who sentenced Josh, the Marines who spoke up for him, even the officers who decided to keep him in the Corps, they'd say he learned his lesson. But has he? Almost four years after January 6, there was still some unanswered questions like, did the military miss a chance to hold some of its own people accountable for what happened that day? And, if it happens again, are we just going to let them convince us that, deep down, they're actually all good guys.

A Good Guy from Embedded is a collaboration with NPR's national security team. This series was reported by me and Lauren Hodges. It was edited by Luis Treyes and Andrew Sussman. It was produced by Adelina Lansianese. Additional reporting and production from Steve Walsh, Raina Cohen, and Rachel Faulkner-White. Gilly Moon mastered the episode, Fact Checking by Will Chase,

Episode Art by Luke Medina. Leona Simstrom is our supervising senior producer, Katie Simon is our supervising editor, and Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting. The embedded team also includes Dan Gurma, Ariana Leigh, Andrew Mambo, and Abby Wendel. Thanks to our managing editor of Standards and Practices, Tony Kavan, and to Nina Polchowski, Johannes Durgi, and Micah Ratner for legal support.

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