Cool Zone Media.
Hey everybody, and welcome back to you It Could Happen Here show about the ways things are falling apart. Well, welcome back to you the listener. Welcome to me, your guest host. I'm Molly Conger, filling in for James for a few weeks. If you're happy to be hearing my voice, feel free to share that feedback anywhere you post online. If you're upset about the state of affairs, I suggest writing your congressional representative or mailing a cryptic postcard to
your local ATA field office. As your guest host, I'll try to bring you the It could Happen Here content you know and love. Dispatches from the front lines of our dystopia updates on the people trying to unravel society as we know it, and what's being done to stop the rising tide that threatens to swallow us all. Today, I'm joined by a Garrison, and I'm going to tell them a little bit about what's been going on with Patriot Front.
Hello, Patriot Front, fantastic one of the gayer groups of Nazis operating in the United States.
It's just guys being dudes. Garrison, you wouldn't.
Understand, I certainly wouldn't know.
You may remember a Patriot Front from such iconic moments as getting arrested en mass at a gay Pride event and Idaho in twenty twenty two, having their internal calms leaked repeatedly nearly nearly constantly, constantly, including some videos of questionably sensual pad downs, or accidentally giving several members mild carbon monoxide poisoning by forcing them to ride in the back of the U haul truck. You've probably seen their stickers on a trash can in your local downtown, or
maybe you've driven by a racist banner drop. But when all is sudden done, hopefully you'll only remember them as having been sued into the center of the Earth, which is what I want to talk to you about today.
Oh all right, that's I I'm unbelievably excited.
We won't be getting into the sensual pat downs. Unfortunately, this is just court records.
Okay, well, I can always I can always find that on telegram. That's fine.
But before we get into who is suing Patriot Front, let's get a quick refresher on who they are and how they came to be scurrying around and matching windbreakers promoting a white no state because they think their origin story really informs the way they've backed themselves into this corner. Patriot Front came into existence in late twenty seventeen when it splintered off the now defunct neo Nazi group Vanguard America.
The split was months in the making, with a power struggle brewing between Vanguard America leader Dylan Hopper and a young up and coming fascist named Thomas Rousseau, who was at that time barely out of high school. In the months leading up to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August twenty seventeen, Rousseau edged Hopper out of his own organization in what Hopper called a literal coup.
By the time Vanguard America was marching in the streets of Charlottesville, Rousseau was not only in control of the group's internal communications, he was calling the shots on the ground. Hopper didn't even attend, and it was that event they Unite the Right rally that birthed Patriot Front. In those chaotic morning hours of August twelfth, twenty seventeen, a young man named James Alex Fields Junior joined the men under
Russeau's command. He didn't ride with the core group from Texas in their rented van, which they called the hate bus.
Oh my, did they really call it the hate bus?
Rousseau was back then he was sort of Asthmador's protege. I don't know that they'll claim that now, but back then at like this adult alcoholic Nazi was mentoring this fascist team like he was. He had just graduated HIZ.
Many such cases.
Yeah, so they came up in the hate bus. But all right, mcfields drove here alone. He drove overnight from Ohio, but he was wearing the group's uniform, a white polo khaki pants and carrying a shield bearing Vanguard's logo. He joined in with the members of Vanguard America as they loitered around a public park chanting Nazi slogans. Field stood shoulder to shoulder and a line of Vanguard members guarding the entrance to the park where the rally was to
be held, preventing counter protesters from entering. A few hours later, after the rally had been called off by the state police declaring an unlawful assembly, Fields drove his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counter protesters, killing Heather Higher and injuring dozens of others. In later litigation, Dylan Hopper, responding for Vanguard America, was asked about his immediate reaction to hearing about the attack that afternoon. In the group's discord,
Hopper posted, Commi's died. That's good enough for me. This was, of course, before he'd seen the photos of the murderer mingling with his hate group. In a deposition three years later, he didn't disavow that initial reaction. He said Heather Higher's death was a tragedy the same way it would be tragic if a surfer who knowingly entered shark infested waters was killed by a shark, saying it was that woman's
choice to be there. But he maintained that Fields was never a member of the group, that anyone could have put on a white polo and stood near them in the park, that anyone could have handed Fields that shield. His testimony was that Vanguard America didn't actually have membership list, there was no official record who was a member, but he somehow also knew that Fields was not a member.
In that twenty twenty deposition, he claimed that he spoke to Rousseau in the days after the rally, and Rousseau admitted that he had been the one to make the choice to allow Fields to march with them in an attempt to make the group appear larger than it really was, and Fields himself never claimed to be a member of
the organization. In his federal sentencing memo, his defense attorney wrote that he'd never been a member of any organized group, but the damage to Vanguard America was done, and almost every photo of Fields taken that morning, just hours before he committed a hate crime murder that would send him to prison for the rest of his life, he certainly
looks like he's with them. The night after the rally, as Rousseau was still trying to make his way home to Texas, he posted in the Vanguard Discord about the issue with the man who ran into protesters with his car. He was certainly not a member and none of us know him. Our shields were given widely to anyone at the rally, and we had many extras. There is no criminal conspiracy but handing a person a piece of wood
and agreeing on fashion. Legally, we have been in contact with folks with legal experience and we're fine as far as pr Yes, it's bad, but last week they called us evil, white supremacist Nazi killers, and today they're calling us the same thing. Shrug it off. When members complained that they shouldn't be disavowing the actions of the murderer, Rousseau clarified that quote. The statement never said that what he did was wrong, just clarified that he wasn't a member.
People aren't buying it anyway. So neither Russo nor Hopper were willing to say what Fields did should not have happened. They didn't disavow the murder. Hopper's comments seemed genuinely supportive of the murder. They were willing to cheer on the bloodshed, but the way the blood looked on their own hands was going to be a pr problem. Now for me, the whole Nazi thing is kind of a deal breaker from the start branding wise, Like, just from the jump,
there's a branding issue. There's an eagle, there's a fascies, there's the blood and soil thing. It it's not a good look.
Could you briefly explain what a fascianes is?
So it is a bundle of sticks, right, It's an old Roman symbol right, right, it comes from you know, the Roman Empire. So it's this very you know, return to tradition. Mussolini brought it back.
Yeah, and like you can break one stick pretty easily, but if they're all bundled together, then's then and it's then it's harder to break apes together.
Strong. Yeah, sorry, just so the preview for the new Planet of the Apes. But that's not the issue for them in this twenty seventeen rebrand, Right, it's the Nazi thing, not the deal breaker, But it's hard to shake the association with a hate crime murder was a member, but the pictures of the murderer holding your logo and standing
right next to you are going to follow you. So just three weeks after the rally, Thomas Rousseau announced in the Vanguard America Discord that he was launching a full rebrand, calling the new group Patriots Front. That s gets dropped later, but Patriots Front.
Yeah, that is a way worse name. Yeah, Patriots Front. To say that is that it's really hard to say.
They've not possessive either. There's no apostrophe. It's just like Patriots Front.
Oh yeah, that's weird. They made a good call.
Drop in that s so they really fine tuned it there in the end.
That was the only the only good thing they've done besides just keep getting arrested.
But yeah, so the message wasn't changed, The ideology is not changing. The manifesto got a little fresh polish, but the real change was optics. Russeau recognized the need for broader appeal, for new recruits and for plausible deniability on the group's surface. You can get away with saying a lot more Nazi shit if you put an American flag on the hats and a founding father on the homepage, then you can. If you're sporting a son and rat and posting Hitler.
Memes, Yeah, all of their their kind of outwards visual style is all very like American. It is it is, it is. It is American. There's a bit of like a military kind of kind of a cleanliness to it, but it's very much like they're going full Americana.
Oh yeah, it's it's. It's Americana. It's like Patriot kitch, right, Like it's a few ten signs away from being a Fudruckers.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but it's it's it's very much not like German Nazi it's like, right, it's like USA with some like US Army signifiers that kind of stuff.
But the you know, the sentiment behind it is the same. You can take away the black eagle and the fascie like. Actually they kept the fascies. It's just red, white and blue.
Now USA all the way, baby, I mean to be fair.
It's money to be fair.
The United States of America also uses a fascie.
Right.
I'm not like, you know, crying for the sullying of the of the branding of the United States in America. But it's clear what the intention was here. Yes, it's to sort of hide behind that Americana.
Yeah.
But in the six and a half years since that rebrand, Thomas Rousseau has maintained tight personal control over the entire group, now called Patriot Front. You can almost read that as a reaction to his first major setback as a white
supremacist organizer. You know, he'd led some smaller rallies in Texas before Unite the Right, but that was his first big day out commanding the Nazi group, right, and as a result of that day, the entire group was tarnished by the association of you know, in their telling some random guy who was just near them, we.
Just happened to hang out with people who like doing murders, you know.
You know, Like it goes like what Hopper was saying in his deposition, right, like, well, she was in shark infested waters. Like, by your own admission, you are the sharks. Yeah, you're saying that you are a flesh eating shark. But that's not possible anymore now, right, So you can't just be some guy who's marching with Patriot Front because their events are never announced ahead of time. You have to get the official group merch from the group after being
interviewed and vetted. You can't just show up and march with them unless you're a member, because only members know when the events are going to be. Yeah, there's no chance that some unvetted hangar on is going to be standing near them. And that does solve the problem posed by someone like James Fields, but it creates a new problem,
real legal liability. By establishing so clearly and so firmly that anybody who's marching with you, wearing your hat and your jacket, following your orders through the megaphone, you have established that all of those people answer to you, and you know them, and you approve that they were there. Now you're responsible.
Yeah, you make the classic mistake of having an actual official like members.
List, right, so now you no longer have the option of saying, well, that guy wasn't with us, we don't know him. And that's where the lawsuits enter the picture. So right now there are three active federal lawsuits against Patriot Front, one in Virginia, one in Massachusetts, and one
in North Dakota. And the underlying actions and some of the claims vary, but all three lawsuits are making the same central claim, a section nineteen eighty five complaint alleging a conspiracy by Patriot Front and its members to deprive the plaintiffs of their civil rights. And I think it's
really interesting. This is dry as hell. Maybe that's only interesting to me that I think it's really interesting to look at the original context of that statute, right that code section It comes out of the Enforcement Act of eighteen seventy one. Are you familiar with the Enforcement Acts going going into deep civil.
War lore, you know, to reconstruction. I'm Canadian, I don't the American legal system is, but something I've been learning the past ten years. It is by no means the specialty of my research or knowledge.
Yeah, I'm not like a big Civil war guy. You know. I have accidentally and against my will, learned a lot about the Civil War because we've been arguing about these statues for a few years. Sure, but reconstruction, I think is really overlooked.
You.
In my own education in public school, there was like two paragraphs about reconstruction and then we just sort of like moved on.
I had like a semester on it. It is certainly one of the more tragic periods of American history. How we seem to almost have figured something out and then it all went down the drain pretty quill.
Like we really whiffed it. But the Enforcement Act of eighteen seventy one is also called the ku Klux Klan Act. Oh oh oh, yeah, these guys, we're getting somewhere. So when President Grant signed the KKK Act into law in eighteen seventy one, support for reconstruction was starting to falter, and there was genuine fear that the eighteen seventy two presidential election would bring on a new wave of clan violence in the South. And that's starting to sound a
little familiar, isn't it. You know, people are getting tired, getting tired of being asked to address deep rooted, systemic inequalities. There's an upcoming and uncertain presidential election. There's growing fear of vigilanti violence by roving bands of masked racists. You know, like everything old is new again. That sounds like kind of like right now, Yeah, that's wild. So you know,
there have been other enforcement acts. This wasn't the first one, but the ku Klux Klan Act was specifically tailored to address the question of freelance violence. Right, So, normally, if you are suing over a civil rights violation, there are only remedies available to you when your rights have been violated by a state actor, a cop, a government body, the law itself.
The irs. You can really.
Only seek legal remedy when your rights are violated by the state. This one's a little different because during reconstruction, a lot of that violence, the intimidation, the actions being taken to deprive Black Americans of their newly granted rights, was being undertaken by private actors organizing together. Again, it's starting to feel familiar.
Yeah, it's not like there could be groups of armed extremists uttering voting sites, trying to scare people away from from voting in an election that could never happen.
Now we've learned no lessons, right, So groups of white men organizing themselves wearing matching outfits, conspiring to undertake actions to intimidate, harass, and harm the people they believe that are standing between them and the white America they were born to run, right. Yeah, So the statute originally provided for both civil and criminal liability for these conspiracies. Interesting, and that first year Grant went hard in the paint
with it. Oh like, he went full hog like. As soon as he signed this into law, he was red d So in that first year or two after he signed the act, he broke the back of the Klan. Hundreds of klansmen were prosecuted in South Carolina alone. They were arresting so many clansmen so quickly that hundreds of them just went to their local courthouse and turned themselves in because they knew it was coming.
Oh my god, it killed the Klan. Wow.
But even before the Supreme Court decided twelve years later that I mean, when it comes to the crime part of this, maybe we should let the States handle it right, Ah, so it no longer has a criminal liability component, so that's just the civil liability left under that law. But even before the Supreme Court made that ruling in eighteen eighty three, the Klan Act prosecutions pretty much ended when
reconstruction died, right. It was this brief moment in time when there was any appetite to do anything about this, Yeah, and it faded out pretty quickly. So today it's up to the victim to seek their own civil remedy when they're terrorized by the sons of the clansmen.
We couldn't reconstruct, well, do you know what we should construct, Molly?
Oh god, Yeah. Robert told me that if I don't come up with a cool way to throw to ads, he's going to put me in a dog kennel and air drop me onto an island where successful podcasters hunt people like me for sports.
So that does sound like something he would say. But we could construct a compelling ad transition.
Let's take it to the ads, all right, and we are back Garrison, and I'm going to tell you what's in these lawsuits.
I'm so excited to hear about Patriot Front having to read a niche law.
Well, the problem is they're pretending they don't have to.
Oh well, that is also what I would do. I would be like, no, no way, I am not reading that. Fuck you.
Well, we'll get to that in a second. So the first case filed was in Richmond, Virginia, so right here in my backyard.
All right.
So, thanks to repeated leaks of Patriot Front's internal communications and documents, we actually have video of them doing what's being alleged in this lawsuit.
Which is inconvenient for them.
It's not great. So the suit alleges and the video literally shows that. In October twenty twenty one, a couple of Patriot Front members vandalized a mural in a public park in Richmond. The mural celebrated American tennis legend Arthur Ash. Ash was born and raised in Richmond and started playing tennis as a child in Brookfield Park, which in the fifties when Ash was a child, was one of the few public parks opened to black residents. It was also
the park that his father was the caretaker of. Right, So Arthur ash Richmond public parks like this is a relationship from his childhood.
Yeah, it's like a very important place.
He's you know, one of the best tennis players in American history. And he grew up his father worked for the park. He learned to play tennis at that park. That park, Brookfield Park, actually no longer exists, but the park where the mural was installed is in a predominantly black neighborhood.
Okay.
In the video they filmed of the vandalism, one Patriot Front member supportively tells two others to quote, get the fucking N word. They say it, I'm not yea, but the N words face as they're covering it up with spray paint and then play. So they filmed this themselves, right, They filmed this themselves and used it in later promotional.
Video videotaping this Cribs Free was the best idea we ever had. This is so funny that they just can't stop filming them doing crimes.
Like they're not just taking notes on the conspiracy, they're filming themselves enthusiastically participating in it.
Right, It's so funny.
You know, in the promotional videos there's no sound, but in the leaked documents it's the original uncut video like.
Once you have like discovery or something. Also, all all all that audio exists, that is, it is the privilege of the court to be able to listen to that.
Well, we have so you know when they cut their promos, you know they're playing like cool music over it. But in the leaked version that we got from I think it was in the Rocket Chat leaks, was in the second big leak. Okay, you can hear them saying like, you don't get the fucking N words face as they're spray painting over Arthur Ash's face and then stenciling over that with their logo.
Sure, like they're just like, hey, it was us. They're just like leaping it fair.
And just just just we're super clear about this. This is racially motivated. Put that on the tape, like.
Uh yeah yeah. And so this is.
Probably the weaker of the three cases, right, The plaintiffs in this suit are basing their nineteen eighty five claim that this is a racially motivated conspiracy to interfere with the right of black residents to enjoy a place of public accommodation right that a place of public accommodation is sort of the legal structure for places where you're not allowed to fuck with my rights. In this case, it's
a public park. The suit makes a similar and separate claim under Virginia's civil conspiracy law for racial, religious, and ethnic harassment, and unlike the other two suits, this complaint is pretty specific about who the defendants are, because they recorded the planning meeting and the act of vandalism, and because anti fascist researchers have identified many of the real
names behind the pseudonyms. Ah, so these plaintiffs' name not just the organization itself and Thomas Rousseau, but seven individual members who were involved. And they hope to identify nineteen John Doe defendants in discovery. And so the most recent suit, the third one to be filed. We'll get back to the second one in a second. Is similar to the Richmond suit because it all who arises out of an instance of vandalism. But this one looks a little stronger.
I think I should be clear. I'm not a lawyer. I just an enthusiastic consumer of the law.
Yes, you spend a lot of time reading what I would call extremely boring documents.
Oh, I love my document. I pay thousands of dollars a year to look at these documents. Oh it's that drill post. Like please, someone please help me someone who's good at budgeting.
We will do our best to give you as many documents as you want, Molly.
These documents cost ten cents a page. I'm a single issue voter on free access to federal court documents.
Yeah, all my homies hate Pacer.
So in the Richmond case, we have black residence in a black neighborhood alleging a racial intimidation at a place of public accommodation in a public park. But in North Dakota, the suit is brought by the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition, the Immigrant Development Center, and an unnamed plaintiff who works at the Immigrant Development Center. I mean it arises out of two acts of vandalism at the International Market Plaza and Fargo North to The International Market Plaza is run
by the Immigrant Development Center. It's a large indoor market space that supports immigrant run small businesses and has community spaces for the immigrant community.
Sounds cool.
Yeah, there's shops and restaurants and after school programs for kids and business development classes.
I'm sure there's great food.
Yeah, it seems nice. They seem like good people. In September of twenty twenty two, Patriot Front trustpassed onto the nonprofits property and spray painted the windows with their logo. And so this was not an isolated incident, right, Patriot Front had targeted other businesses in the Fargo area and the months leading up to this, including a queer worker
owned coffee shop. So the tenants at the marketplace knew who Patriot Front was and what the message is in the windows meant, and they were understandably frightened to have been targeted and fearful that this could escalate, and it did. Two days later, Patriot Front came back to the marketplace and destroyed a mural celebrating multiculturalism, including placing Patriot Front logos over the faces of women in hit jobs in one panel of the mural.
Yeah, I've had to call up shops businesses after they've been targeted or I've like seen I've like seen on telegram like oh, this thing's happening in this area, and be like explained to like this poor this like poor employee, like who who this is and why it's happening, and like what to do because they're often very like confused,
they don't know what's going on. Yeah, it sucks to how much they try to like involve just regular people trying to like make just like live out their day, but also like specifically targeting people of color, targeting the LGBTQ community. And yeah, it is, it is. It is a fortunately very common occurrence because a lot of Patriot Front's activity, when they're not marching around getting beat up in Philadelphia, are just putting up like stickers and doing
graffiti like that. That is kind of most of what they do. Sometimes they'll do like a banner drop or something.
What do you think about the stickers is? I don't know if everyone is deep in lore, but it's required, you're it's that's what they call their activism, right.
In order to be a member, you have to post pictures of you putting up stickers.
Like there are like spreadsheets and documents, and your network director is keeping tabs, and you have to report in every week about what activism you've engaged in, and you have to provide video and photo proof of you doing these acts of vandalism, which.
Is pretty smart on Patriot Front's part because they also sell their stickers. So it's it's it's a great pyramid scheme.
Yeah, it's got MLM energy.
Yeah, I know, Uh, Robert Rundo and the Patriot Front guy were like working together on a sticker manufacturing business for a while. I don't think that's working out super well for Rundo, but uh.
Yeah, he's some currently awaiting trial in prison, right I believe.
So, yeah, after fleeing to what is it like Romania.
For like Belgrade, Yes, yes, Serbia that that's that's where it was.
Yeah yeah, yeah rough.
But so in this case, you know, it's this is not just stickers, right, the stickers that you can peel off. You know, you're uncomfortable, you're scared, but you can peel those stickers off and move on with your day. They spray painted over a mural that cost forty five thousand dollars.
Oh so well, this is this is interesting because I'm not a law expert, but they may be financially liable for that extremely high cost.
Right. So unlike in the Arthur ash murle, which was property of the City of Richmond. You know, so the plaintiffs in that suit don't own that mural. They just feel that they've been infringed upon because now they're afraid to go to the public park. In this case, the plaintiff has been financially damaged to a significant degree. This mural was they got a grant, they had community input, it was made by local artists, and now it is destroyed. It is a thing of value, It is their property,
and the law really cares about property. Oh yeah, now we have quantifiable damage to property belonging to the plaintiff. And after these two incidents, individual shopkeepers had to buy their own security cameras, They shortened their hours because they were scared to be thereafter dark, and the marketplace as a whole actually still operates on reduced hours due to safety concerns. The executive director of the nonprofit had to buy a security system for her home and doesn't like
to go to work unaccompanied. I mean, there's genuine fear in this place. Now.
That's the other thing is that these sorts of acts of vandalism come with like an implicit threat of violence that we can get together a crew of five guys wearing masks and show up at this place of work, or we could already be there when you arrive.
Well, there was the actually in the lawsuit. One of the progress in the suits is you know that the day after this happened because the day in between the two separate acts, a couple of white guys acting sketchy were wandering around the marketplace taking pictures of people. Yeah, I bet people are scared. The marketplaces. Immigrant shopkeepers and customers absolutely understood the intent of this vandalism. And it was the same message that they chanted here in Charlottesville.
You will not replace us, right loud and clear in those in that spray paint. And so their ability to transact business, to use a place of public accommodation, to feel safe in public was taken from them in an organized, pre planned act, arising out of discrept minatory animus. And again that that sort of discriminatory animus clause is important
in application of this statue. Right. So in the North Dakota suit, they're suing Patriot Front, the organization Thomas Rousseau as its leader, and the regional network director for that area, Trevor Vellescu. And they're also seeking to identify ten John Does in discovery. So they don't know who all of these guys are that are getting sued, but they're gonna find out. And the third suit, Boston lawsuit, is really the most straightforward. A black man got assaulted. There's video.
The video is actually taken by a member of Patriot Front from it gets worse, it gets worse. So the video was taken by the member from inside the ranks of the march, and it shows members making physical contact with Charles Morrell on a public sidewalk in Boston. So they were up there. It was just before fourth of July. They were marching on Boston's Freedom Trail.
I think I remember this one, yeah.
And Charles Morrell was outside the Public Library. He was a busker, was playing music outside the library on the sidewalk. And this video didn't get leaked. This video they posted themselves. They used it proudly on their telegram channel, yep, and they posted it on their telegram channel the day the lawsuit was filed.
Genius genius move. Once again, the galaxy of brain folks over at Patriot Front just cannot stop putting pretty dog shit electronic music over videos of them doing crimes.
And so even though I would say, if thirteen months after this incident occurred, I'm just randomly posting a video of this happening, that's so weird, I would say it's probably because you know that you're being sued, but there are a few. They have not acknowledged this lawsuit. They don't acknowledge that the suit exists.
Which which the government loves. When people don't acknowledge lawsuits that are happening to them.
You can't just like la la la la la your way out of a lawsuit.
ID you can try to go into hiding like forever and yeah, we'll see how that goes.
And so, just a few weeks ago, when Patriot Front was like wandering around in the snow at the March for Life in DC, a reporter asked Russeau about the incident in Boston. He didn't bring up the lawsuit. I wish he had, would love to get him on tape on that one. But he asked him about the incident in Boston, and Russeau continues to claim that, like, look, we've posted the video and it exonerates us.
I'm sure, oh, I'm sure it does, buddy.
When I watched the video, I mostly just see a masked gang of fascist using their custom made and branded metal shields to beat a black man who's using a public sidewalk, forcing him into the street and slamming his head into the pole and he had to get stitches. But I guess it's like it's up for the courts to decide if him being in their way was the real crime here.
Yeah, yeah, they was. I mean it's funny because like it's it's it's not funny. But I have I have, I have seen cops before used the exact same justification. Yes, it is different because cops are special little boys because you can't sue. Yeah, but no, it is funny how much Patriot Front are just trying to act like want to be cops who do graffiti.
Right, Like if you wanted to be a riot cop, like most cities are hiring.
Be a riot cop. That's not that hard.
I've seen a lot of guys doing it that I don't think are capable of much else. Yeah, So in this, in the Boston lawsuit, the name defendants are just Thomas Russo and Patriot Front, but they are hoping to identify John doe'es one through ninety nine.
Well, I only wish them good luck.
So, Garrison, you were saying, you know you can't just hide forever, right, I usually not. Well, you could try, you can certainly that. Look, you can always try. There are certain people Hidig, who I wish only the best. There are many others Hidig who I think are probably bad people. And it's not like I enjoy the violence of the state. But if someone happens to stumble into experien experiencing the violence of the state will also wanting to wish violence upon me and my friends. I'm not
gonna stop that from happening. So these lawsuits, right, they got filed, But filing a lawsuit just means you paid a fee to give it to the court clerk. When you're suing someone, you have to serve them with papers. Yeah, to serve them with papers, you have to find them. You have to track them down. And normally that's pretty straightforward.
Right.
People have homes, they have jobs, they have routines, they have friends and family. There's places they go, there's places they shop. You can find most people because most people aren't hiding, and most people aren't good at hiding. But Thomas Rousseau does not seem to want to be found. Now.
The first suit filed, the Virginia suit, they did manage to serve Rousseau at that house in grape Vine, Texas that his father was had owned no longer owns, but he and some other Patriot Front members were living in that house yep. But not long after those papers were served to him there, that house was sold in a foreclosure sale.
God, I'm sure that house smelled awful. Oh imagine, Oh.
It's like never, it's never. Gotta feel bad for the foreclosure sale guy. It's like a gym locker in there. Imagine staving to stage that house for sale.
The only only worst smell is inside the Patriot in front you hauls, because oh wow, driving six hours in the Idaho the Idaho summer with like thirty other guys in the back of that truck, it must be awful.
Do you remember. I think he was in the first leak. Some of the guys were complaining about how when they had to ride in the back of the U haul they were getting sick and like passing out and be like.
Oh, you're walked in there throwing up, having to smell everyone else's vomits.
But also like there's carbon monoxide and it's hot, like you're there.
It's so funny.
But the advice that the advice that Russo gave them when they were saying like, hey, like we were getting sick, back there like it's it's not safe, like we were barfing and passing out. He recommended that they practice overheating.
Yeah, gett just get better, Just get like like endurance tested. Just start hanging out in the back of U hauls for fun. That's actually not how heatstroke works. But no, I'm pretty sure you could just think your way through heatstroke. I look, I guess I think a chat alpha male should be able to sit in a packed truck for seventeen hours be totally fine.
So the house, the stinky house, sold foreclosed. So by the time the Boston lawsuit process server came to find him there, it was already for sale. Yeah, no nobody to serve. So they hired a legal research firm. They sent process servers to addresses all over Texas and they came up empty. So what do you do when a guy who knows process servers are looking for him can't be found.
Should have served him at that march in Washington, DC.
Honestly, why were they not mobilized for that? I could have told you they were going to be there.
I mean, I think that would require some collaboration with like anti fascist researchers who like know when these things are happening so like that. I think that's probably why. That's just a little bit tricky. But if they're we're more willingness for collaboration, I think that probably could be successful.
You can find him. Right. So, if I were two, for example, file a lawsuit against you today.
Well, and I just what if I di I'm so innocent.
If I just never if I just filed my lawsuit, pay the fee to file it, but I just never served you, that's on me. That's my fault. I don't take the necessary steps, my suit's gonna get dismissed. But if I'm really trying, I'm hiring investigators, I'm knocking on neighbors doors to ask if they've seen you. I'm looking under every rock for any sign of where you might be. That's different. That's not on me anymore. That's on you. And there's ample precedent for this right. And the law
is pretty clear. You can't escape being sued by playing cat and mouse.
The old Tom and Jerry method.
And I feel like once I start saying things like the federal rules of civil procedure, people are going to turn the podcast all turn that off.
That doesn't for us today folks, that it could happen here. Thank you for listening.
But so in federal court, the rules allow alternative service by me that are allowable in that state. Right, So, even though they're in federal court in North Dakota, they can use methods available in North Dakota courts to serve their defendants. And so in North Dakota, if you've tried your best, you've exhausted the normal means conducted a diligent search, you can do what's called service by publication, which means you just publish a notice in the newspaper.
Really, yeah, oh that's I didn't know that. That's interesting.
And you have to you have to try really hard first, right, they really did try. They hired investigators, they haired servers like they did, they did their due diligence. Yeah, and so the judge said, okay, you tried your best. Put it in the paper that they got mad. Put it in the paper that they got sued. And so they did. They published the notification in a Cass County, North Dakota newspaper for a few months in a row. And so now as far as that court is concerned, they've been served.
All right, And it worked.
A few weeks later, they got a lawyer.
Oh oh, okay, this is this is the this is news to me.
Yeah, things are moving, Things are moving. From the North Dakota lawsuit, the two named individual defendants, Thomas Russeau and network director Trevor Bileescu. They got a lawyer, and his name it's gonna sound familiar to you because it is Jason Lee Van Dyke.
Oh oh, well, I you gotta love dikes. I mean, like, what's not to love?
What a good kind? Not a good kind?
Oh wait, wait, I'm receiving some special intel. This is not not what I was thinking.
No.
Unfortunately, if his name does sound familiar to you, it might be because for thirty six hours towards the end of twenty eighteen, he was the national chairman of the Proud Boys. But then actually he quit instead.
Honestly, what are this? What are the smarter moves?
So he'd represented Proud Boys in various legal actions over the years. He was a member for several years, but as his LinkedIn currently and rather aggressively notes, he is not a Proud Boy anymore.
A lot of a lot of people are asking questions about my shirt already saying I'm not a proud boy. Interesting. Yeah, I feel like I actually, I actually, I am familiar with this guy. He was involved in a suit with the group I was looking into a few years back.
Yeah, he's done a little bit of movement lawyering, so this isn't his first rodeo. And he denies that he is a member of Patriot Front, though he has spoken to the press on numerous occasions claiming to represent various members of Patriot He's not a member.
Yeah, I mean, I mean sure, I like.
He has specifically denied allegations that he is Patriot Front user John Texas in the leaked.
Chats, although oh, okay, well, he says.
That he is not John Texas has a lot in common with Jason leevend But okay, Jason le Vandyke denies that he is John Texas.
Okay, well I'm sure. I look, I have no reason to not trust a dyke, So yeah, I'm sure that's fine.
Yeah, And it's interesting. So he lives in North Texas right where you know, Oh, he does home base for these Patriot Front boys. Yeah, he's never practiced in North Dakota before. He's not barred in North Dakota. Wait what inexplicably? So you know, you have to take the bar exam to be in a state bar normally. Normally to get admitted to a federal court, you have to be barred in that state. North Dakota doesn't require that. You just have to pay a fee. Okay, So it's a little
it's strange. He applied to be admitted to the federal court in North Dakota right around the time this lawsuit got filed.
Huh.
But then he didn't actually enter an appearance until the judge said, yeah, they've been served. You can't hide. So he did know about it, Yeah, he was just yes, guess it seems like it seems like he knew he was just working with Patriot Front to make it harder to be served. Is again, that's not that's not a legal claim I'm making. I'm just just making a guess. I'm just saying he has never practiced in North Dakota before. But he did apply to be admitted to the court
around the time the lawsuit was file. That's a interesting The boss and case is a little wilder, right, So it's twenty twenty four, we're all online, and it's not actually unheard of to get permission from the court to serve someone electronically if you've tried everything else. Yeah, I've heard of cases where someone got served by a Facebook messenger, which just feels demeaning. Wow, that's that's so depressing. Imagine you can send a minion sticker with it. Oh God,
horrible vibes. But I need to do a little more research to figure out if this is the first time a federal judge has had to decide whether a gab DM is legally.
Notice that you know your joke. There's no way, no, absolutely not. Yeah, yeah, okay, well we will we will learn what GAB is after I take a break. I need to like walk around for a few minutes and just process that for a second. One you guys, yea, here's here's some ads. I'm just I'm just going to process that for a while while all right, we are back get Molly. I hope that a lot of a lot of our listeners don't know what GAB is.
They should hold on there.
But that means that you have to explain what GAB is, which isn't that hard. It's just kind of annoying.
It's just sort of like a less functional Facebook for Nazis.
Well, I think originally it was Twitter for Nazis, but now Twitter is Twitter for Nazis, but it.
Has more of a sort of Facebook interface. To me, oh I I always I always.
Thought of it as having a way more of like a like an older Twitter uter Fate yet.
Because it has it has like groups and a marketplace, like it.
Does have groups of market But I think it started as a Twitter clone that started to add Facebook features. That's mostly it's like sort.
Of like the evolutionary thing where everything turns into crabs boomers turn everything into Facebook.
Yes, yes, exactly. It is the Facebook evocation of all social media. I think those changes were made to like to support more like a collaboration between users, because they wanted it to be like a place where Nazis could like also organize. But yeah, it very much started and like what a year it was like twenty eighteen ish, I want.
To say twenty sixteen. Oh, I could pull the incorporation documents. I think I think it's a little older than that. But it wasn't popular until I.
Didn't get a Gap account until twenty eighteen.
It was in the news a lot on twenty eighteen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, mass shooters were using it and then their accounts were in the court documents. But it was already, you know, popular among certain sets.
It was certainly around for a while. Their logo is a frog. I'm sure there's nothing I'm sure that's completely normal, but yeah, it started off as just a social media app for Nazis, almost exclusively used by white supremacists.
It's a free speech platform.
It is a free speech platform. It was kind of it was I like Parlor came a few years later, which was more like a maga ish version, like Gab was for like actual Nazis, right, Whereas Parlor you could find like, you know, like like anyone from like mega people, conservative politicians, you could you found a lot of like Proud Boy chapters. But Gab was like, no, you were like explicitly white supremacists.
There's not a lot of plausible deniability in a GAB account the way there was maybe with Parlor. A little bit.
Now a Gab is still a thing. I think I mostly use it to watch the GDL, who posts a lot on GAB, But I think a lot of unfortunately, a whole bunch of people who were on gab are just now back on actual Twitter.
Or in prison.
And you know, some would say that those two things and a lot of govin which is not actually true because prison is way worth the.
Same The same posts kind of got them to both places, just different.
Yes, yes, anyway, so okay, but that's yeah. I did not know that a future of GAB could be serving could be serving some lawsuit papers. That is something I did not know.
Well, it turns out you can't attach a PDF to a gab DM, so we didn't run into some trouble.
Oh my god, this is so dumb.
So Charles Morrell's lawyers were given permission to serve Patriot Front and Thomas Rousseau via several online means. Right, so in this motion for this this permission for alternate service, they identified two email addresses and social media accounts regularly used by the group on Telegram, Odyssey, bitshoot and GAB.
I mean, I certainly would have gone for Telegram Odyssey and bit shoot are like YouTube and Twitch clones for nazis. In case the listener is curious, don't go there. Don't not worry, do not go there. My god, I be I have been on there way too much this week, and I have seen some of the worst hit.
It's not good on there. No, it's a process server, right. This person who normally just like waits outside your work to serve you with papers is like now on gab right. So the process server contacted all of the identified accounts. And so when I was researching this, you know, I was trying to get an idea of how common this is, what the usual means are, And so I was looking through the cited case law and the motion, and one of the cases they cited kind of caught my eye. It's halish V. Bin Laden.
Oh no, him, that name sounds familiar. Was was he the one that did that thing around like twenty twenty three ish years ago?
Was it born then? How old I was?
I was not?
Oh no, I was kidding, Jesus, I was just ribbing you. Oh my god. Unfortunately. Yeah, Well it is that bin Laden, right, it is it is they.
It is the guy.
Okay, it's the one, the one you're thinking of. So that's a lawsuit that was brought by families of people who died at nine to eleven. So last year, a federal judge in New York gave those plaintiffs permission to serve legal notice to the Taliban via Twitter DM like the Taliban, what a time to be alive? What a time to be alive?
I mean, yes, I the Taliban Twitter account is certainly fascinating. They're trying to hold the Taliban responsible for nine to eleven. Huh.
I do want to get like deep into the weeds about this particular case. But there's something seized. So like judgments have been awarded, there are seized funds sitting somewhere in the released they want they want this money, right, and so they needed to serve notice to the Taliban that they want this money. And so as wild as that sounds, there's actually a lot of similarities in the
underlying legal logic here. So in both of these cases, the court is pretty specific that they're not just saying like, yeah, just like DM whoever and it's good enough.
Right.
So in both of these cases, the account identified as being appropriate for service is pretty clear that it belongs to the person who's supposed to be served, and that that particular account has been used to make statements that indicate the individual already knows about the lawsuit. So this DMS the service by a DMK's going to be a surprise, right, This isn't going to be the first time you're hearing
about this. Like the court knows that you know, okay, which I just need to see the red receipt that you know.
Aha, got it.
So in the case of the Taliban, the court notes that the accounts had previously published press releases related to the funds at issue in the underlying litigation. So it's like they they're posting about it. They know they're certainly posting the talent. The Taliban is posting about the funds, okay. So in this case, it's Russeau's bravado biting you in the ass, right, and she.
Loves and he loves posting. My god.
And the judge specifically refers to the fact that they posted the video of the incident the day the suit was filed, which indicates actual knowledge.
Yes, which is also a very interesting legal move on the part of Russo.
Like, the judge is reading your posts and he doesn't think they're good.
Oh my god. Uh, nothing more scary than having to read out your posts to a federal judge.
Jesus Christ post every day, like a judge is gonna read them over your shoulder, right, Yes, so they're just like randomly and for totally unrelated reasons, losting this thirteen month old video the day the lawsuit gets filed.
The judgesn't buy that fast. Again, a fascinating legal move.
And so back to the Richmond case, right, we're still talking about service. So the Richmond Keys, because it was filed first, maybe they weren't expecting to get sued, And because more of those plaintiffs were actually identified by anti fascist researchers, they actually did manage to serve most of their defendants. They found Thomas Dale, Nathan Noyce, aident Tradinnick, and Daniel Cherecci at their homes. A private investigator tracks Jacob Brown down hiding at a home owned by his
mother in like upstate New York. William Ring was.
Actually, sorry, Moll, God, what a bunch of losers.
But William Ring was actually the easiest defendant to find. His papers were actually handed to someone to give to him. But this person was authorized to receive those papers because they were a corrections officer at the Fayette County Prison in Pennsylvania. Ah Ring was a guest up there, serving a sentence for beating a man over the head with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.
HM. Curious it was.
An altercation over refrigerator. It's very unclear.
Oh, that's so sad. I thought it was gonna be like some horrible racist assault, and there could be an element of racism in this. I'm not familiar with the case.
No, don't worry, Garrison. He was there for a second defense that occurred around the same time, but separately separate counties, even where he punched a child in the face after telling her to go back to Mexico.
Okay, see that is what I That's what I was expecting.
All right, Yeah, that sounds about right.
Man. It does suck that sending Nazis to prison also has so many negative consequences. Fix. The furthering of the White Premaces project is really reliant on there being Nazis in prison, and it sucks that that is such an organizational hub of them, because these people should not be around other people. Ah Man. Yeah.
Just as an interesting aside in both of those criminal cases, he hired a guy I've seen before, very interesting. His name is Josh Smith. He was the lawyer that Matt Heinbach hired to represent him in this Kesler case a few years ago. Man, he's interesting to see an old friend again.
Man with the most real name, Josh Smith.
Oh, it's because it's not his real name.
That's well, there we go.
He was he was born Daniel Nussbaum.
Of course, of course he was. I I clocked that immediately. Wow. Good, good for me. Yeah.
No, he was raised Jewish. But now he's a Holocaust and I an.
Oh, what this is so sad? Oh my god, he joined to not see gay.
Yeah, what the fuck?
Oh god, he's like, I have to pick a wider name. Josh Smith. Wow, what a loser.
He's not a very good lawyer either. His performance, his performance in the science case with some of the strangest courtroom behavior I've I've ever seen, Like the judge had to keep reminding him of like you can't like that's not the law, Like you can't just say stuff.
I love a courtroom behavior being described as strange.
Like when the judge has to repeatedly remind you like how the law works, like how making motions works, Like you can't just yell stuff. It was the rough trial for him. His client does oh millions of dollars.
He's the reverse Saul Goodman. Oh my gosh, Jesus Christ.
Someone having hired him for his criminal cases and is in prison. Oh, he didn't hire him to represent him in this lawsuit because he didn't get a lawyer and he defaulted. And so if you default on a case, it means you're not allowed to participate anymore. And so the case is going to keep going and maybe you get found liable, but like, you don't get to participate anymore. So when it's over, if you're liable, like.
That's kind of fucking fuck you. Huh.
And so Thomas Rousseau, Jacob Brown, and Patriot Front are also defaulted in that lawsuit. But the other guys, the other guys got a lawyer. They hired another guy we've seen before. His name is Glenn Allen. He's a Maryland based attorney who lost his job as council for the Baltimore Police Department after the SPLC identified him as a longtime member of the old school neo Nazi group National Alliance.
Wow, huh. Curious that that the police would have a Nazi lawyer. That's weird. Surely there's nothing to interrogate, There.
No there's nothing weird going on in Baltimore at the police department at all.
It is certainly funny that they desired the old police Nazi lawyer for their Nazi club, A lawyer who's someone who's been fighting from the police from being a Nazi.
So he's been keeping pretty busy the last few years. He spent a couple of years trying to sue the SPLC for saying true stuff about him being a member of National Alliance. It didn't work out. Didn't work out, and he currently represents Warren Baylong in a doomed appeal of a previously dismiss lawsuit against the City of Charlottesville, who're failing to protect his right to have a good time at Unite the Right. Well, it's sort of I don't know, it's like feels a little slapstick right, Like
we're just like throwing characters in there. We've got We've got the formerly Jewish Holocaust deny are Nazi. We've got the guy in prison for punching a little girl. Oh, the girl he told to go back to Mexico is Puerto Rican. I don't know that that matters to him. But she she can't she can't go back to Mexico.
Not being racist. Challenge level impossible.
We're just like throwing characters in here.
We got to know, is it is very curtoonish. Yeah, but here we are at the end.
Right, I've taken up a lot of your time to take care of us and telling you my little story. But what happens now? Right, there's three live cases they're starting, They're starting to crawl forward now that the judges agreed that you can serve them. I'm so excited for discovery. My god, it's gonna be a treat. It's for me anyway. I'm getting the documents now. Obviously, the plaintiff's goal here is recovery of damages. That's what the law allows for.
They can they sue because they want to recover damages, and I wish them well in that. But I'm not holding my breath. I think we can get some idea of what to expect here by looking back at the Science by Kessler lawsuit against the United the Right organizers. It took four years to get to trial. Discovery was stymied by guys dropping their phones in toilets.
We're just not showing up. I'm sure a lot of what these lawyers are doing are collaborating with defendants to make as a little come out in discovery as possible, because that is beyond the actual court case. The thing that could actually be most damaging to them is discovery, Like that is the actual thing. So I'm sure they're using all this extra time when they're avoiding recognizing the lawsuit to try to tidy up any dirty laundry they may have in a semi legal fashion.
Well, they can't do that, and so I'm not going to accuse anyone of a crime. Right, destruction of evidence is not allowed. It's called spoliation. Right, So once you have actual knowledge that you're being sued, you are no longer allowed to destroy anything that might be discoverable'll do it?
Sure do they always kick cot?
No? Am I implying that anyone is committing a crime at this juncture legally?
No?
Well we'll see. But you know, looking back at science, I don't think anybody's gonna squeeze a few million out of any of those guys, right, Like they were found liable, but they're not gonna pay. Right, And Thomas Russeau started running his fascist club for friendless boys, right, out of high school. He doesn't have a job, he doesn't have assets, he's not gonna pay anybody any money. But what it can do is slow them down. They have to get lawyers, they have to show up in court, they have to
participate in discovery. We've already seen plenty of leaked coms and internal planning documents, but now those documents and more will be entered into the court record.
Right.
So you know researchers like you and I, we put out information all the time and people see it and it makes a difference. But when something comes in with sort of the impromature of the court's legitimacy, Like once you put a bait's number on that bad boy, they could put it on the news, the real news were normal people.
Right, yes, not your like niche, not your niche like no blogs the site that like twelve people check it.
On, right, So like your mom watching Matt Out is going to see this, where like she's not reading Unicorn Riot. So this will put this information in front of more people, will have more legitimacy. But I think the biggest impact this is going to have is on the willingness of potential members and current members to participate, right.
Yeah, it makes things way more risky for people wanting to do this sort of stuff.
Like, maybe you're gonna think twice about your group mandated racial intimidation now that you know you might have to pay for that. Yeah, you know, maybe joining looks a little less appealing. You know, it's hard to be optimistic about relying on the courts to meaningfully undermine white supremacist organizing. Sure, but it's worth a shot to gum up the works with whatever tools you have.
Absolutely, I may not believe in like the law system TM as this as this like universally good thing, or even like a like a like a valid thing, but I'm certainly willing to have it severely, uh, inconvenience my ontological enemies.
Like is it the best solution?
No?
Is it a solution? Maybe not at all. It's worth a shot, it'll be you know, I'm gonna enjoy reading the documents either way.
Absolutely, No, that is. I am extremely intrigued to see what will come out, uh in discovery, and I wish these people only the worst. So well, Molly, that was that was fantastic. That was extremely informative. You know, I always think it's impossible to find new ways to laugh at Patriot Front. Yet here here we.
Are imagine opening that DM. I wish they had record they record everything. I wish they'd been recording that.
God, it'd be funny. Yeah, imagine getting served via GAB. I would just get you know, I I shouldn't say that anyway. Well, where can people find you online, Molly? Besides on our show?
Now I know, I'm very excited to be here. You can find me on Twitter at Socialist dog Mom, my name I chose as a little joke before I realized it was going to be my job.
That is mean, that is the same. That is the same thing with my Twitter presence. So we are we are in the same boat there.
Yeah, you mostly just find me on Twitter. You can find me on my my ghost newsletter. It's like substack, but there's less Nazis there. It's called the Devil's Advocates. There's a link to it on my Twitter. I post about what happens when you take white supremacy to court.
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Molly. We we will we will talk again soon to learn about I'm sure even even new and more more ridiculous things that you have stumbled across by reading those documents, I am too adhd to look.
At it only ever gets worse. Garrison.
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,