Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, it's Jess.
And Ryan.
Before we kick off today's episode, we have a fun announcement to make. We are doing a live show again.
We love doing our live show in New York so much that we decided to take it on the road. This time we'll be in Los Angeles at the El Rey Theater on Tuesday, April 28th.
And just like last time, we're going to have special guests. And since we'll be in LA, you can prepare for a night of money, business, and power conversations about Hollywood. And after the show, Ryan and I will stick around to meet you all.
Tickets go on sale this Wednesday, March 25th at 10 a.m. Pacific. You can find the link in our show notes.
And again, the show is going to be at the El Rey Theater in L.A. on Tuesday, April 28th. Tickets go on sale this Wednesday, March 25th.
Hope to see you there!
A word of warning. This episode contains strong language, including unbleaped curse words. Please be advised.
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Chapter 2: How is the Department of Homeland Security targeting American citizens?
Other federal agents come up to assist. There's ICE agents, there's also an FBI agent, and they arrest her.
Mind your own business. That's all you have to do. Mind your own business.
Reid was surrounded by several federal law enforcement officials. One of them was an FBI agent wearing a face covering and an FBI vest. Two others were ICE officers dressed in plain clothes, plaid shirts and khaki pants. Reid was handcuffed, and she was told she was being arrested for interfering with her operation. Although videos reviewed by Hannah and her team cast doubt on agents' claims.
Reid was placed in a government vehicle and transferred to federal custody. Meanwhile, her phone kept recording audio. Like many American citizens who wind up in the crosshairs of DHS, she was accused of assault.
One of the key aspects of what the government alleges is that she assaulted an FBI agent because the FBI agent has scrapes on her hands. And we see that those scrapes on her hands, you know, it's something that happens in the process of putting handcuffs on Reed.
The government later filed to charge Reed with felony assault of a federal official, a charge punishable with up to 20 years in prison.
It's a serious federal charge, and it is being applied far more broadly now than it has been in recent history.
Hannah and her team found that the push to charge more people for assaulting federal officers, like what happened to Reid, is an administration-wide strategy. A Trump administration spokesperson says federal officers face daily threats. Attorney General Pam Bondi and her Department of Justice have pledged to prosecute these cases aggressively.
You can run, you can't hide. We are coming after you federally.
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Chapter 3: What evidence did the Wall Street Journal investigation uncover?
Good and Preddy were the U.S. citizens killed by DHS agents in Minnesota earlier this year. Here's Vice President J.D. Vance talking about Good's death.
I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it's a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe, against our law enforcement officers.
And here's then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Alex Preddy.
This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That's the facts.
It just felt that this was something we really wanted to look into. You know, how often are people being called deranged leftists, as Goode was called, or a person who tried to murder federal law enforcement like Preddy was called? And what is the impact of these kinds of public labels on everyday U.S. citizens?
In the case of Renee Good, she was in her car when she was killed. Hannah said drivers came up a lot in her team's investigation. They found that in posts on X, federal government officials have accused 32 U.S. citizens of intentionally using their vehicles as weapons.
DHS considers a vehicle when weaponized to be a deadly weapon. It justifies the use of force. And we saw again and again in videos and in these claims that... The government was alleging that people were trying to ram them.
The Wall Street Journal investigation found that of those 32 drivers, only one pleaded guilty to an assault charge. Three had their cases dismissed. And the rest were never charged. This came up again and again in Hannah's reporting. The Trump administration goes online and accuses a U.S. citizen of assault. But the cases don't hold up. That's after the break.
When Hannah and her team looked into the case of Sydney Laurie Reed, the D.C. woman you heard about earlier, they had a rare amount of audio and video footage available.
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Chapter 4: What was the case of Sydney Laurie Reed about?
The Wall Street Journal investigation found that in most cases where citizens were accused by the government, the outcome was similar to Reed's story. 181 citizens were accused by the government on X of attacking federal officers, but close to half of them were never even charged at all. As for the rest?
We pored over court files and we found that when people were charged with this, more often than not, those cases fell apart. Either they were acquitted or found not guilty at trial.
There were a handful of cases where the government was successful in getting a conviction. Fifteen people mentioned in government posts pleaded guilty before going to trial. Ten of those people pleaded guilty for lesser offenses than what the government initially charged them with.
Since Hannah and her team published their investigation, one person has been found guilty at trial of attempted murder of an officer who was assisting federal law enforcement. What has the DHS said about the fact that many of these cases don't bear out in court?
We approached DHS about our investigation and our findings, and they said they're taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law. They're protecting officers from dangerous rioters. You know, the White House has said, look, we're defending heroic law enforcement officers who are trying to keep American communities safe.
When the courts decide that these folks are not guilty or the charges are dismissed, I mean, does the government go back online and kind of address that?
We found that the government is silent after these cases resolve and the person is exonerated.
Whether or not these accusations made their way to court, video has often played a big role in contradicting the government's case. Over and over again, videos that Hannah's team reviewed showed interactions with immigration agents that cast doubt on the way that federal officials had initially talked about them.
So oftentimes, protesters are called violent rioters, professional agitators, and they're accused of making physical contact in some way with agents. But sometimes we found that video footage, you know, showed that immigration agents would at times lay their hands on demonstrators first.
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