Title: #Unity4J
Show: #Unity4J
Date: 2018-12-16
URL: https://youtu.be/LZIMbHr2GNk
Duration: 24:00

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[00:00] I have a show every day on the sputnik connect work with Brian Becker it's called loud and clear and to tell you the truth I'm very proud of it I want to preface this by saying that when I was first interviewed for this this job spudnick approached me they offered it to me and I said well I don't know it's you know it's it's owned by the Russian government I said I if I took this job I would want complete freedom to talk about any issue I wanted and to be able to criticize anybody I wanted

[00:30] including Vladimir Putin and they said done and I said really are you willing to put it in writing they said yes done and they did I've been there for almost a year and a half now no one has ever asked me to say something or to not say something no one has ever asked me to take a certain position I have utter and complete freedom to say anything that I want so with that in mind Ryan and I decided to do a weekly segment for 30

[01:01] minutes every Thursday it runs from 4:30 to 5:00 o'clock Eastern Time every day called criminal and justice in which we look at the criminal justice system across the country we look at things like sentencing reform criminal justice reform and frankly we look a lot at crooked cops and crooked prosecutors and crooked judges and these things are just a part of everyday life is these are a fact of the American justice system well

[01:34] when you know last week the Washington Post publishes an article quite a long article in which it quotes a new study written by - two eggheads from the Center for Strategic and International Studies CSIS one of these people is a former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration and they point out our show in particular by name

[02:04] they mentioned the segment criminal justice injustice by name and their conclusion is that because we are on a Russian state nation and we are criticizing the American judicial system that we are weakening democracy democracy itself we're damaging the American democratic system my initial reaction was to laughs I mean it's laughable it's ridiculous but you know you can't

[02:34] laugh because people are serious about this kind of thing this is how upside down we've become in Washington it's another Red Scare all over again and I have friends who consider themselves to be lifelong progressives who will look at you straight in the eye and say that Russia is the greatest threat to the United States and to the American Way of life today and I don't know whether to laugh or to cry because if they had any idea that they were being propagandized it would be disgusted with themselves but this is a

[03:05] this is what we're up against a Joe you live it every day just like I do Ray McGovern lives it every day I see Ray's joined us as well and so you know I just I wish that we could get the word out to everybody I wish that we could explain to people and educate people as to how preposterous this is and how damaging it is to our way of life if anything is a threat to our democracy it's this neo-fascism that we're getting from what is ostensibly the left and it's extraordinarily disappointing to me

[03:38] I also want to I want to echo something that you said Joe this bone7 situation is is bad and it's bad because Joshua Schulte the CIA officer who's been arrested now remember that for a whistleblower to be a whistleblower the criteria are very clear you'd have to have brought to light any evidence of waste fraud abuse illegality or threats

[04:09] to the public health or public safety motivation is irrelevant we don't know what his motivation was I don't care what his motivation was if he brought to light evidence of waste fraud abuse or illegality the guy's a whistleblower so what was he arrested for he was arrested for possession of child pornography not on espionage charges not in the beginning possession of child pornography now did he have child pornography I have no idea the feds said that Matt to heart had child pornography on his computer when

[04:40] he was arrested after blowing the whistle in the military and in fact there was no such thing on his computer the judge asked to see the evidence of child porn there was zero literally zero evidence of child porn the judge threw that count out and told the government not to ever do something like that again but the reason I'm bringing this up is that this is a this is a pattern what drives the government crazy in whistleblowing cases Joe is when the

[05:11] public pays attention and support for the whistleblower begins to grow and so how do you separate the whistleblower from his natural constituency from those who would automatically support him you charge him with a child sex crime what could possibly be worse than a child sex crime but we know now that they make it up so they charged Matt I'm sorry Josh Schulte with a sex crime now they've

[05:42] added multiple counts of espionage you're right that the new rules and we know this because he wrote a letter to to his judge the new rules dictate that he be taken manacled shackled leg chains a chain around the midsection handcuffs and then the handcuffs are changed to the chains all right this is how they do it he's taken in Chains and manacles to the to

[06:12] the skiff now the skiff is in the Justice Department's building in New York he's only allowed to go there from 9:00 to 5:00 now the Justice Department prosecutors can work 24 hours a day and believe me they do he can only be there with his lawyer from 9:00 to 5:00 not only is he strip searched on the way in and on the way out but he has to be changed to an eyebolt in the floor so he can't move his lawyer has to be searched going in

[06:42] and going out that's unprecedented and then on top of that they have CCTV cameras inside the vault to watch him at all times now the purportedly there is no listening device but we don't know there's also an FBI agent that has to be in the vault with him at all times but the FBI agent is on his honor not to report back to the prosecutors what he and his attorney are talking about now this isn't justice I'm going to tell you

[07:14] something that my attorney told me I had judge Leonie brinkema in my case judge brinkema is the same judge that Trillian would have if he were to be returned to the United States and I pray to God he's not but with judge brinkema the fixes in she was a longtime federal prosecutor before coming to the bench she was a reagan appointee and then she was elevated in the clinton administration but only at the request of john warner it was a republican conservative republican senator so she has just she

[07:47] has prosecution in her soul there's nothing friendly about her especially in a national security case well judge brinkema in my case scheduled a hearing for us we made 70 separate motions at one point to declassify 70 documents that were necessary for my defense and we blocked off three days in order to argue these 70 motions we walked into the courtroom and she said I'm gonna make everybody's job very easy I'm going

[08:19] to deny all 70 of these motions she said to me I don't think you need a single one of these documents to defend yourself well these documents were the only defense that I had so instead of three days we were out of court in five minutes and as we were leaving the courtroom I said to my lawyer my lead attorney what just happened in there and he certainly he turned to me and he said we just lost the case that's what happened and I said so what do we do now and he said now we negotiate a plea I

[08:50] said I'm not gonna go because I didn't do anything wrong I'm gonna go to trial and he stopped me and he said you know what your problem is your problem is that you think this is about justice this isn't about justice this is about mitigating damaged and he was exactly right and that wasn't true just of me that's true of all of us whether it's whether it's Reema govern getting arrested for exercising his constitutional right to freedom of

[09:20] speech or Julian Assange brought blowing the whistle on on war crimes and crimes against humanity or Josh Schulte posting classified purportedly classified documents in the public interest it's not about justice there is no justice not in this system it's about mitigating damage and in a system like that we can't win were you ever shackled in that way you describe it as if you had been oh yes I was multiple times I broke my finger in

[09:53] prison at one point and um and they wouldn't treat it and so my arm was swollen all the way up to my my elbows swollen like I couldn't bend my fingers I couldn't move my hand and then finally after 16 days they decided to take me out for an x-ray and and so they shackled me like that and and worse than that it's not just the shackling it's they strip you naked they do a body cavity search and then they put you in a uniform made out of paper so it's it's

[10:25] barely on you right and then over the paper uniform that's when they put all the chains and the shackles and the manacles around your ankles and they take you out like that it was the dead of winter right this was the first week of February that they took me out like this it's snow and ice everywhere I don't have a coat because I'm not allowed to have a coat because I could I guess hide something in the coat I supposed so I'm in this paper uniform naked underneath shackled they take me to the doctor the

[10:57] doctor does an x-ray he said you know your fingers broken your hand is broken normally I would set it but you broke it so long ago it's already begun to heal itself so he said sorry buddy and I still can't I still can't bend my finger it won't it won't Bend but I mean that's that was minor compared to what some of these other guys are going through but this is what Josh Schulte has to go through every time he wants to see his attorneys every single time and he's not been

[11:28] convicted of anything yet yeah and that's why I like treating him what could Julian Assange Allah proto if he should ever get into the hands of these people literally nothing good I can tell you what my first day was like I turned myself in to the FBI on a Monday morning the FBI actually tried to arrest me on a Thursday and they do that on purpose they try to make their arrests on Thursdays because federal courts don't arraign anybody on Fridays

[11:59] and so if you're arrested on Thursday you have to spend Thursday night Friday night Saturday night and Sunday night in the DC jail where you're gonna get softened up a little bit by a couple of the guys in there because you're wearing a suit you're a white middle-class guy middle-aged guy and so you're gonna have a tough four days that's exactly what they want they want you to be beaten they want you to be humiliated so that you're more likely to take a quick plea deal just to get out of that situation

[12:30] so the only thing that saved me is on that Thursday afternoon I said I want to see my attorneys and I want to see them right now that was the only thing that saved me because they had to let me see my attorneys so I turned myself in on Monday they handcuffed me in the lobby of the FBI Washington field office they walked me 30 feet and then uncuffed me I took mug shots and fingerprints and then me they chained me to a bench to a metal bench i sat there for three hours

[13:02] and it was I was changes with cuffs so I had to sit like this cuff to the foot of the bench I couldn't sit up straight for three hours like this then they put me in a Anna's an SUV cuffed behind my back so that I couldn't sit back I had to sit leaning forward while they're peeling through the streets of Washington and and I'm being tossed all over the back of the SUV which I learned later they also do on purpose and then they took me

[13:33] into the basement of the Federal Building in our in Alexandria Virginia this is where Julian would be charged and then they turn you over to the marshals so I have never worked with the marshals before I I don't know any marshals I had never had any professional interaction with the March with the marshals so I walked him I walked in and I'm in a suit tie everything cuffed behind my back and this marshal who could not possibly have

[14:05] been more than 20 years old shouts up against the wall [ __ ] and he pushes me throws me up against the wall so I I hit I slammed into the wall and I said oh so this is how it's gonna be huh tough guy and that just made him angrier or Foe angrier whatever it was and I decided you know if he's gonna be a dick to me I'm gonna be a dick to him so I kept calling him kid which just enraged him and then my punishment was they chained me to the

[14:38] bench again in the holding cell there were four of us in this holding cell I was the only one who was chained and of the other three guys two were child molesters who had been caught at the Iwo Jima you know laying in the bushes for children and and one was a Chinese drug smuggler so I was the only one chained at one point I said listen I'm diabetic I've been in here for like six hours I'm starting to get the shakes

[15:09] I gotta have carbs I have to have something to get my blood sugar up and they threw a bologna sandwich at me which you know came apart in the air and was on the floor and one of the child molesters picked it up and gave it to me and then finally they put me in a single cell again still cuffed I was able to talk to one of my attorneys through like a little confessional window but little tiny bars in it and then they took my tie and my shoestrings after the

[15:39] fact after all this was over so I went into court with no tie and no shoe strings and then the last thing and let this be a lesson to Julian too because these guys they think they're so smart and they're not I was arraigned I pled not guilty and then they said you need to go to the marshal's office they need for you to sign some papers before you leave well yeah what's it take five seconds ten seconds maybe to assign some

[16:11] papers but what they do is they make you sit there for hours so that the media that's waiting for you outside after they they interview the prosecutors who walk out of the courtroom they get tired of waiting for you and they pack up and they go home so when you finally leave three hours later there's nobody out there to get your side of the story well my lawyers were smart enough to know this so they said to me look they're gonna make you sit here for the rest of the afternoon let's go outside now there's nothing to keep you in here

[16:42] we'll go outside now we're gonna tell every reporter in Washington with our side of the story is and then we'll come back and sign the papers well the marshals saw us leaving we had only been in that office for five minutes the marshal saw sleeping and said hey you can't leave and one of my attorneys turned around and said you show me the statute that says we can't leave go ahead and look it up because we're gonna be back in a half an hour so we left I gave an interview to you know everybody in Washington was out there waiting and then I went back in they made me sit for

[17:14] another hour and then I signed my documents and left I fear that Julian will not have the luxury of leaving they'll probably lock him up and keep him locked up and you know I hope Julian is watching this or I guess he can't because he doesn't have internet access but I hope he hears about it because I'm gonna repeat I'm gonna repeat advice that I've tried to convey to him in other venues if there's anything that you can do to stay out of

[17:44] the Eastern District of Virginia do it because you will not get a fair trial here the deck is stacked I was I was so I was so panicked about being wronged in the Eastern District that I hired a jury consultant and mystery consultant happened to be the uncle of my best friend's wife and so his $10,000 a day fee cut he cut it to zero he did it out of the goodness of his heart this guy was OJ Simpson's jury a jury

[18:16] consultant he was William Kennedy Smith story consult me was George Zimmerman's jury consultant so this is the real deal so he came up to Washington he lives in Dallas and we got him a security clearance so he could read the background of my case and then we all got together now I was not allowed to see my attorneys anywhere except in the Justice Department's classified conference room this is this is what what Josh Schulte is going through and

[18:46] this is how it's going to be for for Julian as well you cannot speak to your attorneys in their office because the government's gonna argue that everything that you have to say is classified and so you have to talk to them in the Justice Department's conference room which of course is bugged of course they have access to the computer that you're working on of course they know what your strategy is so you can't win in that respect so so anyway these traditions of

[19:18] Virginia I forget exactly don't forget what I'm saying Joe I keep going off on these tangents and now I forget that's fine no no tell me what was my point well they were saying that you would hope they're drilling asunder then they kind of stay out of it yes so so oh the jury consultant so yeah comes up and he reviews the case we have 15,000 pages of classified documents and finally he says to me listen if we were in any other district in America we'd

[19:52] win this thing he said haven't done anything wrong you haven't broken the law but the Eastern District of Virginia they don't call it the espionage court for nothing no national security defendant has ever won a case ever in the Eastern District of Virginia I said so what are you telling me to do he said I'm telling you to take the deal and so I I had to take the deal now the only reason that I was as lucky as I was is because my lawyers were geniuses the

[20:23] the Washington Post called my attorneys legal Titans they said that they were the best white-collar criminal defense attorneys in Washington that says a lot and so they negotiated something for me called an 11 C 1 C plea this is another thing that I want to convey to Julianne an 11 C 1 C plea is an agreement between the prosecution and the defense that's written in stone it cannot be changed it could be rejected but it cannot be changed and so rather than face 45 years

[20:55] or realistically as my attorney said 18 years my writer has negotiated two and a half years of which I would do 23 months that was an 11 C 1 C and it went to the judge as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition so when she received it she read it right there up at the bench and she looked at me she told me to stand and she said I have been a judge since 1986 this is the first 11 C 1 C plea I

[21:27] have ever had she said I don't like it I don't like it one bit and if it were up to me I would give you the maximum and I thought to myself what it actually is up to you because if you weren't all talk you could reject it and I could go to trial and I could talk about the hideous [ __ ] that I saw at the CIA in the 15 years that I was there the last 7 being in counterterrorism operations we and you could imagine how filthy those are

[21:59] so I just stood there and I thought to myself so if you don't like it then reject it and she says but my hands are tied and I'm four to accept it and she accepted it so instead of the government asking for 45 years and me doing 18 years and probably dying it in prison I ended up getting 2 and a half I did 23 months and I came home if Julian has any opportunity whatsoever to negotiate an 11 C 1 C plea he's got

[22:30] to do it it'll be the only thing that saves him you don't think that's realistic that he'll be able to do that do you well you know I think it is realistic because I think there's one thing that Julian has on his side that the government can't do a doggone thing about and that's the notion of jury nullification you know there are enough right-thinking people out there especially in a well-educated well informed area like the Washington area where they're gonna be people called for jury selection who are gonna say this is nonsense this guy did a public service

[23:01] this guy exposed war crimes and crimes against humanity just because the government doesn't like him doesn't mean he belongs in prison so I think the government ought to be worried about prospective jurors thinking wait a minute this Assange guy is a hero he's not a criminal and no matter what the government has to say we're not gonna vote to convict I think that's a real possibility if though if they say that during jury selection they won't get selected there may be themselves to the truck that's right during notification

[23:33] is of course when when the government can prove that the suspect broke the law but the jury decides the law is unjust it's the closest we have to a public defense a public interest defense that doesn't exist in the US but does in the UK where you could say yes he leaked the classified information and that's technically against the law but it was in the public interest can't mount that defense in the US but that's the only thing we might be able to rely on is jury nullification I just wanted to say John when you were talking about how you were treated that day it did the irony

[24:06] of it to these guys treating it like it didn't dawn on them that you were there because you had exposed torture and that's how they were treating you so it's really extraordinary one point I was sitting in his chair before they put me in the in the cage I was sitting in this chair and one of the mercial said how do you spell your last name and just instinctively I stood up to answer him and he shouts at me [ __ ] if you stand up one more time I'm gonna break your legs and I said my god man does this make you

[24:37] feel manly talking to people like what's the matter with you Terry I sat back down it's like okay so this is how it's gonna be
