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A small crowd of people gathered on the side of North Dakota Highway eighteen oh six, just north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. A line of highway patrol officers were standing between them and a construction site. Cody Hall, a member of the Shian River Sioux tribe, was in the crowd.
Those bulldozers were up and running, and we saw them moving the earth.
If those bulldozers were allowed to continue, a massive drill would soon bow a hole underneath the Missouri River to make way for the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The tension was so thick that something was going to happen physically, and I remember thinking, I was like, oh gosh, people are really at their bowing point. I'm sitting there, you know, kind of pacing back and forth. I happen to look over to my right and I saw the women and they were singing their death song. And in our culture, when you sing your death song, that means you were obviously not afraid to die. And then all of a sudden, a group of women went and jumped the barb war fence.
Nobody had planned this. The fence marked the edge of the area where police were allowing protests. Beyond it lay the construction site and open grasslands.
I was like, hey, hey, you know, I stop. You know, I was like, just we don't know what's going to happen, and they might shoot you, right, And I remember one of the ladies said she didn't care. She said she doesn't fear a bullet, she doesn't fear death. And when I saw her take off, and I remember looking back at friends and people were like, whoa, you know, stop, stop, hey, come back, come back. And then I said forget this. I said, every man available, jump the fence and then
stand behind him. Let's go help. You know, these women defend, defend our lives.
They ran onto the construction site, halting the work.
We do this to stop the des secretion of Ujimaka. We do this for the next seven generations. We do this for the unborn children that are coming through this world. We're protecting the water. Our water is life.
The momentum was there. The people's energy was something I never felt before in a big group.
We stand or land in our water.
We had that feeling that we were going to defeat this. This energy company.
You probably already know. The Dakota Access Pipeline was eventually built, but before it was tens of thousands of people arrived on the prairie just outside the Standing Rock Reservation and attempted to stop it. Standing Rock became the largest indigenous uprising in the US in the last half century, and it was happening in opposition to an oil pipeline company. Maybe that's why the company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer, did what it did next. In twenty seventeen, after the
oil was flowing. After police force the huge encampments of pipeline opponents and water protectors to go home, Energy Transfer filed a lawsuit, a really big one. The company claimed that the whole Standing Rock movement, the massive effort to stop the Decode Access pipeline in twenty sixteen, was actually a conspiracy driven by green Peace to save the whales GUIs.
According to the pipeline company, it wasn't the Standing Rock Zoo tribe or other indigenous people who led the movement, despite what numerous media reports, eye witnesses, and public officials will tell you. It was a giant environmental nonprofit conspiring to take down the fossil fuel industry. I'm an environmental reporter focused on the criminalization of environmental defenders. I've been covering Standing Rock since the early days of the movement
and energy transfers. Allegations against Greenpeace defied both what I'd seen with my own eyes at the protests and what I learned over years of reporting on the Standing Rock movement. The story the lawsuit told was so different from what I'd heard from Cody and others. Source after source had told me. Indigenous people and nations made their own decisions to stand up against a company that threatened their water and the rights to land, regardless of how ridiculous this
lawsuit seemed. In twenty twenty five, it made it to trial, and in March I found myself sitting in a courtroom in Mandan, North Dakota, listening to a court clerk revealed the verdict. After three and a half weeks, the jury decided overwhelmingly in favor of the pipeline company's story. The total damages over six hundred and sixty six million dollars, a number that threatened to bankrupt Greenpeace in the US. I'd spent nearly a decade reporting on what happened with
the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Standing Rock movement. I sat through the lawsuits nearly month long trial in that same room with those nine jurors. The evidence I heard was thin, and yet the jury delivered almost precisely what Energy Transfers lawyers asked for. How the hell did this happen? And if an oil company could push its version of events so successfully here, then what did that mean? Beyond
this courthouse? This season of Drilled, we bring you slapped the story of an indigenous nation fighting for its water, an environmental nonprofit facing extinction, and an energy giant using the courts to punish protesters. I'm Aline Brown. To understand what happened in the Energy Transfer versus Greenpeace case, we have to start at the beginning with Cody Hall, who you heard from early. He was actually at the center of Energy Transfers lawsuit until he wasn't from.
The Shine River Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
The Chyenne River Reservation where Cody lived is immediately south of Standing Rock. Both reservations are home to the Ochechi Shakoine people, also known as the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. The people who live there aren't just neighbors, they're relatives. Cody helped start the Native Lives Matter movement there, so it was natural that he would be asked to join the fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.
I was approached by an elder group in Eagle Butte there on my home reservation, that said, there are people gathering in Standing Rock. Can you go up and just get an assessment of what's going on? Cody.
Cody arrived at a protest encampment on the Standing Rock Reservation in early August of twenty sixteen.
I went up there with just a backpack of I think three days of close you know, and then ended up being there months.
Energy Transfer had originally considered putting the Dakota Access pipeline upstream of the city of Bismarck, which is mostly white, but the Federal Army Corps engineers rejected that route, in part because it could have harmed the city's drinking water supply. The new approved route crossed the river just north of the Standing Rock Reservation and its drinking water intake. To Cody and others, this was a case of environmental racism.
People had begun to travel from all around the country to defend the Standing Rock Sioux tribes, drinking water, sacred sites, and land rights. They called themselves water Protectors. Facebook Live had launched that spring and many pipeline opponents were using it.
This is the main camp. There are still other camps like Sacred Stone which was up there, and Eagle's Nest, and there's also the new Chayenne River Camp which is further down that way.
In late summer, people began to set up additional tents and teepees on federal land near the pipeline crossing. This new encampment, called the Ochechi Shacoine Camp, was on land officially possessed by the Army Corps of Engineers, but that people from Standing Rock still considered theirs.
It felt home. It took your spirit back to a much loving time period of our people. I thought, you know what, Yeah, there's nothing wrong with taking back land right.
The camp was established on unseated territory, an official designation that means that Ochechi Shacoine people never agreed to give it up. The area where energy Transfer was building was also unseated territory. For the water Protectors, the pipeline fight
was a matter of indigenous sovereignty. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is a nation, and they argued that Army Corps shouldn't allow the pipeline to pass under the river or over culturally significant areas without substantial government to government consultation. Soon after Cody arrived, he was approached by Deb white Plume, a member of the Ogolalla Sioux tribe.
I knew of Deb and knew what she was doing, long before any pipeline came about in our territories.
Deb died in twenty twenty one, but she lived a life dedicated to defending Lakota people. In the nineteen seventies, she joined the American Indian Movement and deb led a resistance group that protested against the Keystone Excel pipeline, which was set to be built through her nation's territory in South Dakota. Now she was bringing a version of that group to Standing Rock. They were called Red Warrior Camp.
I remember she asked me. She said, Cody, you speak so eloquent, Maitan. She said, I would like for you to be a spokesperson for my resistance camp. She talked about how people chain themselves to block the proceedings of whatever it may be. You know, and I thought, okay, especially it being non violent. I said, wow, that's kind of what I've been speaking about.
After giving it a couple of days thought, Cody agreed to be spokesperson for Red Warrior Camp. Around the campfire with other members of the group, he laid down some ground rules.
But I said, I don't want to know what you're doing, what you're planning. If you tell me what you were doing and I get picked up, let's say, you know, and they questioned me on, then you start breaking down the chain of resistance. So don't tell me. I don't want to know.
He also told them that he was only interested in supporting nonviolent actions.
Hi, my name's Cody Hall, media correspondence for the Red Warrior Camp and today up here in Manning.
Cody's job was to film short videos and live streams that he posted to Red Warrior Camp's Facebook page. Some were filmed from within construction sites where people were locked down to machinery. He wasn't planning the actions, but he became the public face of Red Warrior.
As you can see behind me, one of our warriors put himself on the machinery to stop today's construction. They are very near the camp.
The fight against the pipeline seemed to be taking off, but really it was only getting started. Energy Transfer didn't have an easement from the Army Corps yet which would allow them to drill under the river, but there was nothing stopping the pipeline company from building on private land. Standing Rock had filed a lawsuit in July to stop that construction, but while they waited for a judge to rule, Energy Transfer kept on bulldozing.
In North Dakota, security guards working for the Dakota Access Pipeline Company attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray as they resisted the three point eight billion dollar pipelines construction. Criminal by the criminal, We'll get your money somewhere out Okay. Protesters advance as far as a small wooden bridge. Security unleashes one of the dogs, which attacked two of the Native Americans horses. Security has some kind of gas. People are being pepper sprayed.
On Labor Day weekend, water protectors spotted bulldozers working right where the Standing Rock Sooo tribe had just identified sacred sites only the day before. Several people rushed onto the construction site attempt to stop them. Democracy now captured security dogs attacking the pipeline opponents, and the movement went viral.
With that dog, I was like walking through it on me straight, even without any warning.
You don't look at this, Look at this dog.
The dog did it?
You know?
Look at this.
Man, your doctor, protester, you're.
Protester.
Are you telling the dogs to bite the protesters? Exactly? The dog has blood and its nose in its mouth.
It's still.
It opened the floodgates. And when those gates were opened, craziness.
And soon.
People from around the world poured into the pipeline resistance camps, from members of indigenous nations who saw this fight is their own, to everyday people moved by water protectors, social media feeds, to longtime environmental activists felt a responsibility to show solidarity. Churches, community groups and individuals donated supplies to keep the camps afloat. A school opened for families with children.
Several kitchens served meals throughout the day. By now, nonprofits had joined the fight too, like three fifty dot Org, Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor the Earth, Bold Alliance, and Yes Green Peace. It was a powerful moment, but when protests get the sort of international media attention. Standing rock got it doesn't just attract the people who are committed to
the costs. Also arriving were crystal chasers, cult members, grifters, and even professional infiltrators looking to get information about the resistance to share with the pipeline company or police. Things started to spin beyond anyone's control. Tens of thousands of people traveled in and out of the prairie encampments with their egos and their agendas, which sometimes aligned with those
of the tribe and sometimes sat directly in opposition. Millions of dollars also began pouring into hundreds of GoFundMe pages. Sometimes the projects people promised were built, and sometimes they weren't. At the same time, the governor of North Dakota called in the National Guard, which joined law enforcement officers from
around the country to try and disperse the protests. They brought military grade armored vehicles, surveillance drones, and surfaced to air missiles, and word began to spread that the pipeline company had hired a mercenary security firm fresh from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As far as the water protectors were concerned, the line between police and private security was a blur overhead. Helicopters and little Sesna planes flown
by police and private security buzzed at all hours. In between the steady beat of protests, a feeling had seeped in that Cody was being targeted. Then, as he was driving to drop someone off at the airport, a law enforcement officer waved Cody to the side of the road. He was under arrest for trespassing.
So when I turned around and the state patrolman is handcuffing me, first thing I did was count how many they were. Eighteen they had helmets on, the goggles, face masks, body armor. And then they had their ar fifteen's pointed at me. And then they brought me into the vehicle. They put me in the back seat, and I met with cheers. Right, wait, we got you, you motherfucker. Over and over again, I said, whoa guys, Isaac Like I said, man, you guys, take it, take it too far.
At the station, Cody says he was stripped, naked and searched. Two FBI agents attempted to interview him, but he refused to tell them anything. At night, cold air was blasted into his cell and every couple hours, an officer would enter and tower over him. Ultimately, he was bailed out. As he left, a young officer told him the FBI had been watching him on cameras the whole time. I asked Jacob O'Connell, the FBI supervisor at the time for the western half of North Dakota, if he remembered this.
He said he didn't and that it wasn't something the FBI will have done. The Morton County Sheriff's office declined an interview request and didn't respond to a list of questions. When Cody returned to camp, he says the feeling of being watched was more intense than ever.
But also felt like that I might be being used as a scapegoat.
Soon after his release, Cody attended a rally at the Morton County Courthouse to support other water protectors who had been arrested. He noticed something that seemed off.
This individual kept kailing me, and I thought, well, let me just let me walk around right like, not where everybody is speaking, but just let me walk around and see if this person is still going to follow me. And sure enough, this this individual was so I thought, oh crap. The group of people came up and said, hey, Cody, you got to ride back to camp and I said, no, I don't.
When Cody realized who the driver was, he hesitated. It was that same guy who seemed to be following him around, but his friends reassured him that the guy was vetted and had been staying at the camp.
I just remember there was like thirteen of us that packed into this van when he asked me to sit with him up upfront, and I thought, oh shit. So we get back to camp. I opened the door up and he said, hey, hold on one second, Cody. He's like, can I have a word with you? And then he started to reach on his left pocket of his jacket inside and then he kind of he showed an envelope. He didn't open it him. He just pulled his envelope out and he said, I got money for you. And
I said, well, what do you mean. He said, we had Green Peas pile up all this money, and because we watched one of your videos looking for support, so we gathered up supplies and we have monetary donations here, so I want to give it to you.
I asked s Greenpeace about this, and they said they're so careful about money that this isn't something they would have done. Cody said, the man offered him over two hundred thousand dollars.
And I said, no, no, I don't. I said, I'm not I'm not taking anything man. And I remember my instinct said get the hell out of there, get out of this guy's vehicle. And I walked away, walking backwards, looking at this guy. He drove away, and I just remember telling security they watched that individual some sketchy.
Cody didn't mention the details of what happened to anyone. It was another bizarre incident amongst the mountain of them piling up every passing week, But the envelope man incident would come to take on greater meaning later. By the end of October twenty sixteen, Cody was clashing with members of Red Warrior Camp.
People were being shot with rubber bullets and so called non violent in the law enforcement area right in their point of view. But so Red Warrior people were like eye for an eye and it started to turn the They intercre them just you know, just hated everybody, including myself, more myself. They didn't like the narrative that I was speaking of non violent and just take it right, just take it, take it taken. So they were frustrated and then took their frustration out of me. I just said,
I'm done with you guys. That's the way you want, and that's what you want. I said, then I'm done with y'all. And they were like, well, we're done with you. And I was like, all right, mutual agreement. I'm not your spokespresson anymore. That's luck to you.
Cody wasn't the only one who had problems with Red Warrior Camp. They'd become controversial at Standing Rock for using aggressive tactics. On the day after Halloween, the Standing Rock Tribal Council voted Red Warrior Camp out. Cody had already made his decision. He left Red Warrior Camp for good, driving south until he got back home to the Cheyenne River Reservation. I actually arrived at Standing Rock a couple weeks after Cody left. I was there an assignment for
the Intercept, an investigative news outlet. Part of the reason I was interested in these protests was because they were coming at a time when the fossil fuel industry was especially vulnerable. People were really beginning to recognize the impacts of the climate crisis and fossil fuel companies role in it. These corporations weren't just facing a single blockade of activists at Standing Rock as the climate crisis got worse, they
were facing the possibility of escalating protests. The road into camp was lined by flags from all the indigenous nations that had visited. Seemingly hundreds of teepees, tents, yurts, and trailers were set up in the middle of the prairie. The sky felt bigger here and closer to the ground. A lot of what was happening at camp was the daily work of surviving in the November cold. Respected elders from Standing Rock sat on folding chairs under blankets near
a sacred fire that was always burning. Lakota and Dakota people I talked to told me that what was happening here was spiritual for them. When I asked for interviews, some people jokingly asked me if I worked for the pipeline company. Water protectors knew there were spies among them. There was a feeling in the air that something rare and important was happening, but that it could go off the rail at any moment. I saw the helicopters and
little planes flying overhead all the time. I followed a caravan of protesters to a spot where people were blocking construction. The planes shadowed us as we drove. At night, a row of lights beamed eerily from up on a hill along where the pipeline was being built and next to the camp. Police and private security had erected concrete barriers and barbed wire across Highway eighteen oh six. Two burnt
out trucks served as an additional boundary. Right after I left, water protectors attempted to tow away the burnt out trucks, and during the protests that followed, police used hoses to spray icy water at people in sub freezing weather. Medics on the ground told me they treated one hundred and sixty eight people for hypothermia. Here's from a Facebook live video filmed as the hoses were fired, so that you're.
Looking on those just joining now. Yes, this is sub zero weather. That's the bridge on eighteen six, just north of camp. What you're watching right now is military police and national gods firing on unarmed citizens, prayerful, peaceful, unarmed citizens.
As winter set in, anxiety over surveillance and infiltration was causing conflict as people whispered about who might be working as a spy for the pipeline company or the government. For Cody, weird stuff related to money had continued to happen back on Chian River. He says a guy he'd never met showed up in his hometown and attempted to hand him a duffel bag full of cash. Cody sent him away. He suspected these incidents where attempts to set
him up. Meanwhile, local journalists had begun to raise questions about where the millions of dollars and go fundme donations actually ended up. Even Cody had run an online fundraiser for Red Warrior Camp that raised over one hundred thousand dollars from over two thousand individual donations. He said he donated what was left to an organization that supported indigenous sovereignty.
In January twenty seventeen, just after Donald Trump's first presidential inauguration, the Army Corps gave the green light for energy transfer to drill That February, police kicked out the remaining water protectors camped at Standing Rock and a giant drill board a hole underneath the wide Missouri River before the pipeline was pushed through, Cody began to move on. He moved to Kansas City to join a woman he'd met at Standing Rock. She had kids, and he found himself stepping
into a role as a father. He started driving for a limo service, but his sense of normalcy wouldn't last. In August twenty eighteen, Cody Hall got a strange message that he didn't expect.
I remember getting ready for work and a college friend of mine that was working legal fund or legal thing up in North Dakota messes me on Facebook and said, hey, Cody, have you heard the latest news about you? And I thought, oh shit, here we go.
What is it?
So I said no, I didn't, well what's going on? And so she said she sent me a link and I opened link and there it was. It was all the documents from court. When I read it and I was like, holy crap. And she said, hey, if I was you, I would you reach out and get a lawyer because it's pretty serious.
Energy transfer. The company that built the pipeline was suing Cody Hall in federal court for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The charges were defamation, trespassing, tortuous interference with business and racketeering activities that included drug dealing, wire fraud, and violations of the Patriot Act. In other words, terrorism. Energy Transfer filed the claims using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the RICO Act, a law originally written
to go after the mafia. Every RICO case first has to define what they call the enterprise, the network of people working together to commit crimes. In this one, Energy Transfer claimed that the network was Cody not for profits and a group of rogue eco terrorists, and that it was not led by indigenous people but by the environmental nonprofit green Peace. In the pipeline companies telling Red Warrior
Camp was a front group for Greenpeace. They were the primary perpetrators of disorder and violence, and Cody was their leader.
Never I never created Red Warrior was a resistance camp founded by dev Weiplum.
Cody says he didn't lead Red Warrior Camp either, He was simply their spokesperson, and he says he never took money from Greenpeace. Cody waited for something to happen. When you get sued, the person suing you, the plaintiff is supposed to make sure you get notice of the suit, but Cody never got served. Then six months later the suit was dismissed. The judge wrote, this is far short of what is needed to establish a rico enterprise.
I thought, hey, we actually got somebody that's working in the legal system that says this is ridiculous. Great. I was like, ah, relief. And then here later that day, you know, my friend messaged and said, well that wasn't lived too long. They filed in state court. They just used lesser words and made more false claims. Jeez, and I thought, oh shit, we're still at.
The energy transfers. New version of the story of Standing Rock filed in a North Dakota state court. Cody, Greenpeace, Red Warrior Society, and another indigenous pipeline opponent, ined Crystal Two Bowls, conspired to launch a coordinated campaign to stop the pipeline in July twenty sixteen, before Cody even arrived for the legal walks out there. The lawsuit actually accused
three separate greenpeace organizations of being involved. They include US based green Peace Inc. And green Peace Fund, and Amsterdam based green Peace International. But even though Cody had had that strange encounter with the man who said he worked for Greenpeace. Cody didn't believe that the nonprofit was running the show.
No, green Peace wasn't running anything. I think green Peace is being targeted because well they've they've been all over the world to stop actions from climate change to you know, save dolphins. They were merely an organization that was there as allies.
Again, Cody waited for a knock at his door, but again it didn't come, and legal filings, Energy Transfer said they'd attempted to serve Cody at a home in South Dakota, where his parents had lived briefly a decade ago.
I called up and I said, Hey, said, did you guys say you can't serve me? I said, I'm sitting here at home, serve my ass. That's what the hell is his bullshit.
A receptionist for Energy Transfer took his number, but he never heard back. For Cody, this lawsuit and not being served meant that creeping feeling of being targeted never really subsided.
It's always a dark cloud that hangs over you. You know.
I had been following all of this as a reporter from AFAR, but I was off getting twisted up in a different set of standing rock conspiracy theories. In twenty seventeen, months after my visit to Standing Rock, someone intriguing leaked a bunch of internal records to us at the intercept. This person had been a contractor for a mercenary private security firm, Tireswan Energy Transfer, had hired them to lead their security operation. Tigerswan was started in the middle of
the global War on Terror. The people working there were mostly military veterans, a lot of special ops guys. The leaked Tiger Swan records I got included daily situation reports that they wrote for the pipeline company. They described the security contractor's efforts to spy on and disrupt the Standing Rock movement. Here's an example of the kind of analysis Tigers One was providing.
What the anti Dakota Access pipeline protesters have called an indigenous decolonization movement was essentially and externally supported, ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component.
Tigers One compared the pipeline opponents to jihadists. Over the years, I kept tugging at threads, uncovering bit by bit just what it was Tiger Swan was doing at Standing Rock. And what I saw was that Tiger Swan wasn't just providing physical security like armed guards, but they were conducting intelligence operations. Storytelling and deception had become a key part
of energy transfers to CODA access pipeline strategy. I had talked to so many activists and water protectors who suspected the pipeline company was infiltrating their movement, and it turns out they were. In twenty twenty four, became clear that the conspiracy lawsuit against Cody Hall the other pipeline opponents in Greenpeace might actually go to trial. I knew that a court battle would inevitably uncover even more facets of energy transfers real conspiracy to crush the anti pipeline movement,
I had to keep following the paper trail. This is when I tracked down Cody's number and gave him a call. I was surprised when I found out Cody had never been served, and to be honest, I wasn't quite sure what to do with his story about the guy with the envelope. I couldn't verify it. What if he was misremembering some of the details.
I wasn't even.
Sure how two hundred thousand dollars would fit in an envelope, but I couldn't ignore the story either. Searching for answers wherever I could, I looked up Cody's name in my cash of internal Tigreswan records. Something surprising caught my eye. It was one of the daily situation reports and the date matched the protest where Cody met the envelope man. I called Cody and read.
It to him.
It says we did have embeds at the protest, one of which was invited to the camp by an associate of Cody Hall, one of the primary antagonists. This document seemed to be saying that there were infiltrators embedded in the crowd at the courthouse protests that Cody attended in September.
It says, at the inclusion of the protest, Cody Hall, an affiliate of the Red Warriors, invited several individuals, including a member of the security team, to return to the Spirit camp with him, where the Red Warriors have their own separate camp. Again, this was saying that Cody invited an undercover member of the Pipeline security team to go back to the Pipeline resistance camps from this courthouse protest. And then it says next twenty four hours. Conducting atmospherics
inside the camp continue. Social media and atmospheric gathering continue to gather information regarding potential militants in the area of protest camps. I guess what I'm wondering is if it's possible that this protest that this is describing is the same one that you were describing where the Greenpeace guy offered you money.
Has to be.
This private security infiltrate was with Cody on the same day that Cody met the envelope man who claimed to be with Greenpeace. I mean, do you think it's possible that the guy that offered this money was actually working for Tiger Swan?
Quite possibly?
Both Energy Transfer and Tiger Swan declined to comment on this. I messaged a source who had worked for Tiger Swan on their intelligence operation. The source that they didn't know about anyone at Tiger Swan offering up an envelope of money, but they also found it hard to imagine that a giant nonprofit like green Peace would operate that way. They wrote over text. Tired ass legend like green Peace handing
out cash. It might have been when one of the FEDS or narks tried to infiltrate and failed by nark. The source means someone working on drug enforcement for police or a federal agency. They figured Envelope Man was someone operating undercover for law enforcement, meaning the Feds could have been t trying to frame Cody by getting him to take money. It wasn't totally out of the question. I'd learned in my years of reporting that it wasn't just
Tiger Swan that was using infiltrators. The FBI had its own network of up to ten informants. FBI agents were entering the camp daily in plane clothes. But when I asked Jacob O'Connell, the FBI supervisor, about this, he told me that it didn't sound like a plausible FBI activity. He said it would have been a big deal for the agency to empower someone to walk around with two hundred thousand dollars, and he didn't remember that happening. I
wasn't sure what to think. I imagined that the trial might provide some answers to my questions, But as time went on, it started to become clear that Cody had been disappeared from this lawsuit. Energy Transfer only wanted green Peace on trial. The court date crept closer, and Cody still wasn't served. The other indigenous pipeline opponent, Crystal Tooboles,
hadn't been either. Cody had lived for nearly seven years with this multi million dollar lawsuit hanging over his head, but somewhere along the line he had fallen out of Energy Transfer's legal theory. They just never bothered to tell anybody. Envelope Man seemed destined to remain a ghost. In fact, I'll jump out of order here and tell you that Energy Transfer never brought him up or his mysterious two
hundred thousand dollars during trial. He's important mostly just because he represents Cody's only big memory of interacting with Greenpeace, even though he might have been an impostor. And I think Envelope Man also reveals something about what Energy Transfer was working with as they crafted their lawsuit. Every conspiracy theory contains a grain of truth. In this case, a lot of money was pouring into Standing Rock, and it
wasn't always clear from where. At the same time, the chaos and intensity of Standing Rock provided fertile ground for twisting and manipulating information. There was one thing I knew for sure. If Energy Transfer's conspiracy lawsuit is a bold
attempt to rewrite the story of Standing Rock. Then private security infiltrators creeping around on its behalf wasn't a part of the story they meant to tell, but there they were present during the one instance when Cody says he actually might have had contact with the supposed co conspirator Green Piece. As I prepared to fly to North Dakota for the trial in the depths of February, I wondered
what I was walking into. I knew that Energy Transfer's contractors had used deception in the past, but I also knew the real story of Standing Rock is complicated. Had Energy Transfer's law firm discovered something I didn't already know about green Peace? Or was this lawsuit just another deceptive trick from the pipeline company That's next time on Drilled. Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. This season was reported and written by me Allen Brown. Our senior editor
is Audrey Quinn. Additional editing by Tristan attone E grist. Our producer and sound designer is Ray Pang. Mixing and mastering by Martin Saltz, Austwick and Peter Duff. Fact checking by Shilpa Jindia. Our First Amendment Attorney is James Wheaton. Our Impact Producer is Lindsay Crowder. Marketing by Maggie Taylor. Original artwork for this season was created by Victor Pascual of Digital Navajo. Our theme music is by Dear Lady. The show was created and executive produced by Amy Westervelt.
The Center for Median Democracy supported document review for the season. For related stories and to support our work, check out Drilled dot Media. To follow my work, check out my newsletter Eco files at Allen Brown dot ghost dot io. They won no Cho Want really want not, givant want no Jean
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