Democracy Hangs in the Balance

feelings that I've been having as of late. You know, there will be no doubt every lawmaker, Republican Democrat, over the course of today um manipulating and using Martin Luther King's words and his life to excuse their white suppose I'm as saying, to excuse their lies that they believe that because they provide holidays and pageantry and recognition to black leaders, that they had a hand in assassinating, whether by character or physically, that they can somehow redeem themselves.

And what I have been sitting with over the past couple of years really is the rage that I have, and I talk about this often. I talk about this, you know, often, because it's real, and the rage that I have about the lies that I've been told about this country from its founding to the present time is true. Us living inside of the quote that if you don't understand or learn your history, that you are destined to repeat it. We are living inside the reality of that text.

People don't really understand what Martin Luther King Junior in his thirties, mind you, what he did, what he meant, and what his life meant and his struggle meant to advancing equity and justice in this country. White people love to hold him now after he is dead, as they do many of our leaders who chose nonviolence in the

face of unreal, lenting violence. They applaud it, but they never question why they have allowed the white community to be able to be terrorists, to be able to beat Black people for wanting to be treated with dignity and respect, to pull veterans off of buses following their tours and beat them to blindness. Right, stories that we just learn about over the course of time because they have been buried. They've been buried as a way to justify this systematic

dismantling of black humanity. I'm reflecting now too, on the fact that my rage really is massed grief, that what

I am feeling each and every day. And forgive me, because I may actually get incredibly emotional, but what I've been feeling each and every day over the past couple of years, and I have been projecting as rage is really this profound loss, and what did I lose exactly the sense that collectively is a nation, that we had a desire to be better, that each generation had a shared value in wanting to strive to not only produce more and be more in this capitalistic structure and this

hamster wheel of productivity that we have been duped into, but into the expansiveness of allowing people to show up as they are and respect that just by virtue of

them being. And what I realize, and what becomes crystallized with each and every passing day as we witness the crumbling of our republic, is that what I had believed to be true what guided me into my professional path that has been so entwined with my personal path, because I believe in justice right, and I don't believe that because you may be black or Latin X or Muslim or queer, or a woman, or live at the intersection of multiple identities, that you're undeserving or that you need

to somehow consistently prove your worth, because I feel like that is what white America has always demanded of anyone who was not white, who was not siss, who was not Christian, who was not male, is to prove to me that you are worthy to stand alongside me, to sit at my table, not a table that I made right, but to me your worthiness. And then I get, as white America, to be the judge, jury, and executioner on

whether or not you have made your case. And I think that what I will say that I appreciate most about young people right now is that they are occupying a different set of being that I don't need to prove shit to you right that I am worthy by virtue of my birth. That I don't need to dress like you, speak like you, love like you, assimilate into your confines of what you believe American or Americanism is. And I can't help thinking that and knowing. It's not

even a thinking, it's a knowing. It's a knowing that everything that we are experiencing right now is in is a direct result of a black man and a black family occupying the White House that was built by enslaved Africans, that we as a nation, for one brief moment, believed that we could grow past our foundation, the foundation being white supremacy, being patriarchy, and being violenced that when Barack Obama said that we are not Read States, we are

not Blue States, we are the United States. That I actually believe that, and I believe that at that moment that we were living in what I can only understand now in this divine capsule, not by the creation of this man, but by the creation of the answered dreams and prayers of an enslaved and brutalized people that they could continue to pray and to dream for something that they would never in fact experience, and that their children may never in fact experience, and their grandchildren may never

in fact experience. But they believed in something that was so above and beyond where they were currently stationed. That is divine thinking. And what I realize that has been the fuel of my rage is how just how brief

the experience was. It doesn't mean that the impact wasn't felt, but the experience of that hopefulness, of that light, of the feeling that we did this grand, beautiful thing together, that we moved outside of the initial understanding of the American project into being something bigger and bolder and more expansive. And I realize now just how extraordinary those eight years were.

And I think about it in the way that posts the Civil War, that the brief experience of Reconstruction, the election of black officials, the ability at that time for black men to then be able to vote. Like I think about these brief moments, and then what would follow the audaciousness of Reconstruction, which only lasted for about twelve years, would be one hundred years of Jim Crow. And in recognizing that truth, what follows the eight years of the

Obama era? Will it be a hundred years of Trumpism? Will it be a hundred years of darkness? One hundred years? A friend of mine posted a performance by the bassist and jazz musician Esperanza Spalding at the White House during the Obama years for Barack Obama's Poetry Slam where he had the rapper and actor common I believe that he was like the host that evening and so many amazing,

amazing artists of color performed. And my friend just recently posted Esperanza Spalding's performance and it was her cover of Lauren Hills Tell Me, Tell Him. And I pulled it up and I was watching it and it's a three and a half minute clip and it is quiet. It is nothing but the base and the majesty of her voice in this White House, and I burst into tears.

I burst into tears listening to it, because it was when I had the aha moment that they were able to rip away everything, to erase everything, and in its place put something so vapid, so hateful, so gross, in its place, to remind us that we are undeserving, unworthy of being in command of the people's house, of being

in leadership of this country. So the rage that I have is truly masked grief that I haven't really grieved the loss of not the Obamas as people, but what that moment in time symbolized, not only to the country but to the world, progress, hope, a brighter future, all of which is gone now and every day is like groundhogs, a day of hell, of anxiety, of fear, of hopelessness,

of darkness. So on this Martin Luther King Holiday, I think it's not only important to reflect on how we got to where we are right now, but to also light candles, say prayers, meditate on the death of possibility, because I need to be able to mourn what we have lost in a very real and definitive way in order to be able to even imagine what comes next, Because right now I feel like we are trapped inside of the eye of a hurricane and everything around us

is being torn to shreds, and it is slow moving, and it is hover and it shows no sign of releasing us from its grasps. And so in order for us to even imagine, dream and turn those dreams into plans and steps, I think that today, for me anyway, is going to be a day of mourning what was, so that I can settle my soul, put it to rest, and figure out what the purpose is going forward, what the work is right? Because we always say keep fighting, keep fighting, don't give up. But what are exactly are

we fighting for? Who exactly are we fighting? Because these people that are currently destroying our country are the spawn of those who have always sought to destroy our country. They aren't aging out and dying, they are reincardinating. So with the acknowledgement of that, where do we go? What do we do? And so for today, instead of planning, instead of plotting, instead of screaming, I'm going to sit still, I'm going to shed tears. I'm going to be quiet

and see what comes. And I wish that for all of you as well. Coming up next is my conversation with our friend Glenn Kirshner on the latest that is unfolding at the Justice Department, the latest that is unfolding in our quests for justice, and whether or not that is actually going to happen. I wish you well, friends, folks.

You know that I'm always very excited when we have our friend, the host of Justice Matters and MSNBC legal analyst, Glenn Kirshner join us each and every week here on woke f to help guide us through what is becoming an increasingly just treacherous road that I believe that America is on when it pertains to seeking justice at all.

You know, Glenn, I just want to jump right into the biggest news right which is the arrest by the FBI, the indictment of Stuart Rhodes, who is the leader of the oath Keepers, who has been in conservative Republican spaces for over a decade. As as we've been learning more about him. He is a former Army paratrooper who has

a law degree from Yale. And I say all these things not as if to pump him up, but for us to recognize, like I said on previous shows, that we have been fooling ourselves, Glenn, I think in thinking that the people that we are dealing with are dumb, thinking that the people that we are dealing with are under educated, right, are easily duped by Trump and Trumpism, and are just kind of along for the ride like puppets.

That's not who Stuart Rhodes is. Is he? No? But I don't know that he took any constitutional law classes at Yale when he was endeavoring to get his JD. So, you know, anybody who is fooled by Donald Trump's rhetoric or persuaded by Donald Trump's nonsense. I don't like to use the word dumb, but you know, you're not a critical thinker. You can't assess for yourself what's going on.

You know this, this is a really consequential indictment. I think we've only indicted a seditious conspiracy charge something like half a dozen times, dating back to the nineteen thirties. Sometimes we have some success with him in court, sometimes we don't. This is an important charge and when you read the forty eight page indictment signed by the current US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matt Graves, who

has been in the job since November fifth. You know, it's it's block busters stuff because you know, there there were four cooperating witnesses from the oathkeepers who flipped, and once that happened, you know, there was a lot of work that needed to be done by the FBI and the prosecutors to take all of the information they provided, not only sort of through their testimony before the grand jury, which I'm sure they did, but all of the electronic

information and investigate it. And you know, anytime you get a huge dump of electronic information, you have to go about the hard work of subpoenaing dozens of electronic service providers, whether it's social media or cell phone providers or cell site information to figure out where each cell phone was at the moment it was communicating with other cell phones. So these things take a long time, you know, and in an investigation like this, you don't want it to

take a long time. Cause we saw the crimes on video, and that's why we're so darn frustrated. We know the crimes were committed, we know the crimes were inspired and incited by Donald Trump. That's reinforced in this forty eight page indictment, by the way, so we're like, when are you going to take down the middle level criminal players,

never mind the upper echelon. Because as important as this indictment is, and yes, I want to embrace it, I want to celebrate it, but and I don't want to begin to complain about the fact that they're not working their way up. But the Department of Justice, by returning this indictment indicted the lower level criminal fish for more

consequential criminal charges. The next step, Danielle, has got to be, in my estimation, moving your way up to at least the middle level criminal fish, the Bannons, the Giuliani's, the don Juniors, the Eastman's, the clarks and the politicians. Right, they have been complicit in some of what was going on. I understand how long and difficult and challenging and involved these investigations are investigated, gang cases, reco cases, conspiracy cases.

They take a long time, they're work intensive, but democracy still hangs in the balance. So I think we need to begin working our way up to the middle level and ultimately the upper echelon of the criminal fish. You know, one of the things that has been standing out to me with regard to what is being uncovered in this indictment is first of all, Stuart Roads and it's been all over cable news, so I know that you have either talked about it or watched it. A tweet that

he not a tweet. Excuse me, I keep saying that a signal text that he sent out on December eleventh, right weeks ahead of January sixth, where he said that if Joe Biden and I'm paraphrasing Joe Biden is certified as president of the United States, it's going to be bloody, right, and that people need to get prepared. These people, these oath keepers, they are not just quote unquote regular joes like mainstream media has decided with regard to these as

they refer to them MAGA tourists, right. These are people who are former and current military law enforcement first responders. They had heavy artillery that was hanging out in Virginia but a couple of miles away from the Capitol building. Oh, they're posting this, Glenn. They posted right on social media. So again I ask, and you know, because I have to tell like the honest truth, because I said, let this let Stuart Rhodes had been black let Stuart Rhodes had been in Latin X. Let him have been a

Muslim American. Do you think that the Justice Department would be waiting to dot all of their eyes and cross all of their tees before they haul him in. And so it isn't just about how much work it takes to put together these cases, but it's about the urgency behind it, right, and about recognizing a threat when a

threat is actually present. So again I say, you know, how is it that all of this information was hanging out in the open for anybody at the FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department to have seen and we're here over three hundred and sixty five days later. You know, it's funny, Danielle, because you just put your finger on the part of the indictment that made my heart sink, and that was the fact that they had an arsenal in a motel

just across the river from the Capitol. And when I read this indictment, I thought to myself, how can it be that there are so many people in the oathkeepers who are involved in this incredibly dangerous operation and all of our law enforcement agencies missed it? Because what in

a perfect world or even a competent world. What should have happened was this plot should have been discovered and there should have been search warrants prepared to be executed on the motel rooms where they were storing their arsenals of weapons. And yet none of that happened. How can that be? That's problematic. And the other thing is you

mentioned how these efforts are still ongoing. And if you look at the very end of the factual part of the indictment, starting on page thirty there is a section labeled co conspirators can in you plotting after the January sixth attack on the Capitol. And here is how the

factual recitation ends in the indictment. On page thirty thirty two, it says, on inauguration Day, January twenty twenty one, James messaged other individuals quote after this, if nothing happens, it's war civil war two point zero and Rhodes messages to other others to organize local militias to oppose President Biden's administration. This war is ongoing. And if DJ doesn't recognize the

sense of urgency there, um, we're in trouble. You know again, you know, I tie this back to Florida Governor Ronda Santis a couple of months ago saying at a press conference that he wanted to institute his own Florida Army Right that would only listen to him, be beholden to him, be funded by the state of Florida, and there would be no federal oversight. Are we not connecting the dots here? For everything that is being said out loud? Do you

think that there is the caution? And I don't know what else to call it, Glenn right, because I'm using euphemisms because there are lots of other words that I want to use. But do you think that this slow walking right is it going to be to our ultimate detriment? Because they are telling us out loud what they're doing. They want a civil war. Not only do they want one, they're prepared for it. They're armed, they have folks in every apparatus of law enforcement, of military right. They enter

the Capitol building. One of the things that stood out for me a military stack right. This was and just taurists that were lost or people that were quote unquote swept up, they were organized in their formation. How How are we not wrapping our arms around this and picking up these people? Every single day and bringing not just seditious conspiracy, Glenn, but terrorism charges. And I ask you that what is the difference between these things and what

is the heaviest weight that could be pushed at these people. So, first of all, there is no criminal charge of domestic terrorism. There are enhancements, sentencing enhancements for terrorists inspired violence, but that's something I think that should be addressed with legislation. But anytime I hear myself saying we need more legislation, I mean, when you look at how many laws we have on the books that go unenforced, it's laughable. So more laws are not necessarily the be all and end

all of addressing this problem. But my real concern right now is we're going after the foot soldiers of the insurrection. Maybe not quickly enough, maybe we're not getting enough of them charged as we would like. But they're only the foot soldiers of the insurrection. If you leave the command structure of the insurrection intact, the politicians from Trump on down, many of the politicians who are still active members of Congress, guess what, they just recruit another batch of foot soldiers.

So taking the foot soldiers out is important, has to be done. But it only accomplishes so much. In the long run. It's like putting a band aid on a gaping chess wound. You've got to take the command structure out. And that is Trump, that's any member of Congress who may have given reconnaissance tours to these people who ended

up attacking the capital. And let's remember there were members of Congress giving capital tours on January fifth, at a time when the COVID prohibitions said nobody can come into the capital unless you're there on official congressional business. And you have members of Congress giving constituent tours and violation of those rules, well, those seem to be reconnaissance tours. Those people have to be held accountable or you're just

enabling insurrection, you know I, Because here's the thing. The next insurrection is occurring right like it's in the works. We thought initially and was said that one six was address rehearsal. And I fully believe that, right. I fully believe that there are other plans that our current law enforcement, our current systems of justice are not paying attention to. You tweeted out that Steve Bannon should be on the lookout.

What are the charges outside of seditious conspiracy that we can be looking at for these the mid level people that you were talking about, and to me, they're kind of mid high right when you're when you're leading a war room, right with Juliani and Steve Bannon. Then then you got the coordination of Steve Rhodes on the ground with the foot soldiers coordinating like a tactical attack and having a quick force task like this was an operation, right, Like I just what are what are the other charges?

What are we looking at? And how long? If it took us over a year to get here sadly to say, we're pushing up against midterms, right, like, how is this getting done? So? Yeah, the reason I felt like Bannon might be in the crosshairs now after we saw the details released in yesterday's indictment is because everything Bannon described in advance of January sixth, it's going to be swift, it's going to be moving, it's going to be devastating. It's going to be like something we've never seen before

come to DC. That is basically foreshadowing of exactly what the oathkeepers did on January six So here's the good news, you know, courtesy of the four oathkeepers who have flipped and are cooperating with the FBI and the federal prosecutors. And this indictment, I predict, will cause even more oathkeepers to flip. And there's a lot of talk in the indictment about encrypted apps being used to communicate securely. Well,

that's great. It sounds high speed and safe and secure until people begin to flip and tell the FBI and the prosecutors what those communications were on those encrypted apps.

And I have to tell you if there are people like Steve Bannon, if there are members of Congress, if there are staff members of members of Congress who communicated in any way encrypted apps, cell phones, text messages, social media, DMS, or otherwise with any of these oath keepers, they will not be sleeping soundly after they see this indictment that came down because they're gonna get got. It's a matter

of time. It's taking too long. The closer we get to the midterms, I think the more problematic it becomes. I'm not one of those people who thinks it's a foregone conclusion that the Republicans will take the House. They may. If they do, we are in real trouble because the first thing they'll do, and my estimation is start issuing tons of frivolous subpoenas. They will be drafting up articles of impeachment for Biden, vice President Harris, for Merrick Garland,

for you name the government official. They will probably be drafting up bogus, baseless articles of impeachment just to gum up the works and try to bring everything to a screeching halt. Of course, the one thing they can't do, Danielle, is they cannot impact the prosecutions that are up and running, and they shouldn't be able to impact the investigations that

are on the verge of becoming prosecutions. Congress can't put a stop to that, but they can make it much more difficult for DOJ to do its work because they can have frivolous oversight hearings and investigations, and they can try to slow things down, but they can't put a stop to it. So but listen, if they take control of the House in twenty twenty two, we are in

even more trouble than we're in presently. I mean, if they take control of the House, And unlike you, you know, I'm not an optimist, so I see the writing on the wall, particularly when we have nothing as a as a party to offer the American people in terms of legislation that they stood out in a pandemic to vote for. But that being said, the Department of Justice is supposed to operate independently, right and so, and pay attention to the road that is ahead of them and not you know,

the politics. But do you think that they are dismissing just how Republicans will be after retribution and will be working to gum up the works in a way that everything that has been leading up to these moments will grind to a halt. Do are they aware of the of the politics of this moment or is it just business as usual? That's the thing that I'm trying to

figure out. They're aware of it, but they're not supposed to let it impact the nature of their work, the pace of their work, the people that they are investigating for possible indictments. It's not supposed to impact that work. The reality of it is, who knows, you know, how much of this is really landing at the Department of Justice and what sense of urgency do they feel as

a result. But you know, the Department of Justice I've described it as this enormous, you know, steamership that moves very slowly in one direction, and it takes an act of God to get it to move even a few degrees in a different direction. That's why we keep hearing you know. Well, you know, we do a bottom up investigation and we flip people, and we follow the evidence. I get all that, and in the ordinary criminal investortigation and prosecution, that's wonderful because it works well and it's

been time tested. This is not the ordinary criminal investigation. Democracy hangs in the balance. So shouldn't you think outside the box and say, maybe we should lock up the mid level criminal fish, even the upper echelon criminal fish to send a signal. Now we have to do it based on evidence, but to send a signal that we are here to protect democracy. And you cannot continue to get away with the big lie, with poisoning the well of public opinion, with fooling the gullible into believing that

the only remedy is a civil war. Two point though, maybe we need to think outside the box and treat this differently than we generally treat criminal investigations. But you know the other thing that I don't know if we're going to talk about but fit, Fanny Willis, we are always looking for here and heroes won't save us. But it really seems like there are three important data points that we learned recently that give me extreme hope that Georgia will be the first jurisdiction out of the gate

with a criminal indictment of Donald Trump. And I believe that Danielle will change the narrative. Once the man is facing felony charges, it's going to be more difficult for at least the politicians to say, that's my man, Donald. I'm going to do whatever he says. I'm going to worship at the author of Donald Trump because the three data points. One, Fanny Willis said I will have a charging decision in the first half of twenty twenty two. Well, we're in the first half of twenty twenty two now,

so I'm going to take her at her word. The second data point is that we learned that Donald Trump's defense lawyers met with the Fulton County prosecutors. That's so important because I've had these meetings many times over as a former career prosecutor. They happen in public corruption cases, broad cases, white collar cases, they don't really happen in

violent crime cases. But we invite the defense attorneys in as the last step before we take that last journey into the grand jury and ask them to indict, and we say to the defense team, this is your time to present us any exculpatory information, any evidence you have that would make it seem like Donald Trump is innocent, like Donald Trump didn't commit the dozens of election crimes that he appears to have committed under Georgia state law.

Please provide us that exonerating information and make your best argument as to why you think we're wrong, why we shouldn't proceed toward an indictment. I've been in those meetings, including in death penalty cases, and sometimes what the defense attorneys present has an impact and it causes us to rethink the direction of our investigation. All right, are they doing this in front of a judge? I'm just I'm just no. The defense behind closed doors, and usually information

of it doesn't leak out. But I think Rachel Maddow broke the story two nights ago, a couple of nights ago. So um, Usually that does not alter the trajectory of our investigation, because we've done a pretty thorough invest investigation, and this is the last stage. We do it one as a courtesy and two as kind of an important

check on the work we're doing. Because every once in a while, Danielle, I had a defense attorney come to me and say, Glenn, you know, I think I have some important evidence that militates against the guilt of my client. I would say, please bring it to me, let me investigate it. I've dismissed cases, Danielle after defense attorneys were brave enough to do that, because there's a calculation. Sometimes the defense attorneys will say, you know what, prosecutor are

going to listen to anything I say. They just want to get my client. They want to notch in the belt, they want a conviction, And I say, bs, any prosecutor who acts that way, then other prosecutors need to drum their butts out of the job. I've had defense attorneys trust me enough to bring me exculpatory information, and on more than one occasion I ended up dismissing a case because it was evidence I didn't know existed. Right, I investigated it, I drilled down and it had an impact.

Now that's in the extreme minority of the cases. But the fact that Donald Trump's defense team had this meeting with prosecutors, and here's the third data point. Two days later, what is Donald Trump send this unhinged statement saying, Oh my god, district attorneys just want to lock everybody up and ruin lives. The meeting didn't go so good. It tells me he's going to get indicted in Georgia. I would bet a buck that's my betting limit. I'm not

a high roller. I would bet a Georgia will be the first one out of the blocks with a criminal indictment of Donald and the criminal indictment will be solely around the twenty twenty election. It starts with that phone call to Brad Rappensburger, just find me enough votes to

corrupt and corruptly declare me the winner. And if you look at the Brookings Institute deep dive analysis, one hundred plus pages, they took all of the available evidence and they set out that I think it was a dozen or more than a dozen crimes, both felonies and misdemeanors under the Georgia state election laws that Donald Trump committed. He's going to get indicted in Georgia, probably before he gets indicted in New York and certainly before he gets

indicted federally by the Department of It. I mean, and you've said it before, You've been saying it on this show and on others, that you believe that when the first indictment comes down for Donald Trump, that it will open up the floodgates because then every prosecutor will want to be the second one to indict Donald Trump, because then the pressures on them, you know, because Okay, everybody is focusing on the first jurisdiction to indict Donald Trump.

The white hot glare of media and world attention is on that prosecution. But you know what, Donald Trump committed crimes in my jurisdiction too, so I now would look bad if I didn't try to hold him accountable. You're gonna see the Domino's fall. It's coming again. I'd bet a buck. And if it doesn't come, Danielle, we're done.

We're done. If Donald Trump is not indicted. If Donald Trump is not indicted, he will run on the platform that the Department of Justice and every state in the Union has co signed my innocence because if I had committed crimes, the Department of Justice in every State of the Union would have in the Union would have prosecuted me. They didn't, which means they're vouching for my innocence and it reinforces the whole damn thing was a witch hunt. We have to indict Donald Trump. Oh, Glenn, you know,

I pray that you are right. I hope that by the time that we get to warmer months, that these indictments are flowing like cool water, because if we don't, on top of everything else, I'm like, I just don't think we survive. I don't think that we make it

to November without real violence. And frankly, I will be honest too, you know in closing, is that one of the fears that I have is that when Donald Trump is indicted, because I believe that he will be right, it's just it's when it's when I keep throwing up my hands to the world, that that will be the read alone, that will be the alarm to the oath keepers, the boogoaloo boys, all of these you know, operations to just go loose on the public. That's my biggest concern.

And I pray you know that the FBI and others are are prepared, unlike how they were not prepared. On January sixth, Glenn, as always, thank you so much for making the time to join us on woke F. We appreciate you so so very much. And I am a betting person, but I only play the penny slots, but I'll up it to a dollar with you as well. All Right, all right, I think we're gonna win that bet. That is it for me today on woke F Daily.

As always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.