bad for him?

I don't, I'm indifferent to his experience.

I don't feel bad for him.

I'm certainly not going to celebrate it.

But, you know, I mean, listen, first, like I reject the idea that people that are anti-ICE or believe like I do as a 20-year veteran of law enforcement that ICE should be abolished, that there is a need in this country for immigration enforcement.

But this agency has so violated It's responsibility to the American people and to the Constitution that it can no longer function with the trust of the American people.

It needs to be abolished.

But I was like, where was this shit 10 years ago? And where was it now when media companies are trying to make money off mergers and shit? And now, you know what I'm

What is this?

Well, first, I think, you know, it.

There's no strategery behind going after Ilhan Omar.

I think this is personal for Donald Trump.

It would be a feather in his cap if he could take away her citizenship, somehow get her deported.

Simply disparaging her and putting her through this process, I think, is like a close second for for Donald Trump personally.

And, you know, as you know, I feel like I should be interviewing you about this.

That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.

What legal authority do agents need to be able to question someone at home to enter their property or to make an arrest? Where are the boundaries here, Michael?

Well, I think that's actually part of the problem, Don, is that we're in unprecedented, uncharted waters.

And for the average rank and file police officer, unless they've received some clear, specific instructions, which I know from conversations that I have, the vast majority have not, then they don't know what to do.

And then when you talk about, you know, Miles pretty much made all the points that I was gonna make.

And he's certainly doing the Lord's work with going out there and educating people and creating this legal structure that we're gonna need because I believe this is gonna be a fight that plays out in the court system.

But when I was a cop for 20 years, the only time I ever saw a police officer resist making an arrest was when it was of another police officer.

That was the only time I saw an officer stand up to a supervisor and say, no, I'm not going to participate in this.

What is this?

That's the job.

Not in their minds.

I'm representing the police department.

And I think there was – you know, there were a lot of concerns.

Namely, one of them was that this event at that point had already become – politicized and they were concerned about political fallback or political pushback from the Republican party who controls, you know, the, the purse strings in Washington, DC, DC is a federal city.

You have, you know, congressional oversight is still a thing.

And I think they just wanted me to shut up.

do that peacefully, I want to say.

Who approved?

the arrest of this individual in that specific location at that specific time.

Like everybody has been talking about, the mayor came out and said, 4 p.m., this is when school is letting out.

There are multiple schools and daycare centers in the immediate vicinity of this location.

There's children in the area.

It can all be summarized by one thing, Don, before we get into the specifics.

Law enforcement has to balance the safety of the public versus catching the bad guy.

You're agreeing with the liberal mayor.

Can you ex- explain a little bit of that and how you get into that in the book and how your policing career leading up to the point of January 6th sort of, you know, bears that out?

Yeah, I mean, it really, for me, it started in the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting, which I think was in 2015 into early 2016.

You saw the, the advent of the Black Lives Matter organization and then the movement that followed.

And I saw my profession and my fellow officers really demonized and villainized in media, uh, and also by some, and I underline that, some Democrat politicians.

Not all, but some.

And that resulted in violence against police officers.

And we saw a rash of police assassinations in this country, Dallas, Louisiana, York City.

Are your cases done, or do you still have to testify, or are they sort of, you know, wrapped up? Like, where are, where are we at with what's going on with, with the cases that, uh, that you're involved in?

The hypocrisy and all this, as you watched that yesterday, what went through your head? Because you texted me about it.

Yeah, I mean, I...

I don't get embarrassed for these people.

I celebrate their humiliation.

And that was certainly a moment to celebrate.

I saw this article popped up on my feed this morning from the bulwark.

It said Schmidt the bed.

I

It's totally nuts.

It's because Donald Trump and his administration control all of the federal level mechanisms for accountability.

Right.

They control the executive levels of these agencies.

They control the Department of Justice, who would typically investigate and conduct some degree of oversight on officer or agent involved shootings.

And so it's really been left up to the states to conduct investigations.

And it was, as we saw play out in, in Minnesota, the federal government is not cooperating with state, local and municipal law enforcement agencies, even though that is protocol that, that is the precedent that has been, you know, in effect for decades.

After what you've been through, I feel like I should ask you what you think about this prospect that Trump may try to pull a fast one here yet again and try to stop accountability from coming, from stopping an election and its results from taking hold in this country?

Is there a solution here? Yeah,

I mean, U.S. air marshals are They are spread pretty thin.

They prioritize mostly international flights into large hubs like JFK, Dulles, other international airline hubs.

And then they also, they're going to be very specific with the domestic flights that they do.

know that they are uh using their resources for uh they're not there to police unruly uh you know on flights um they're there to protect flights from potential terrorist activity um i mean i do know that they train um you know flight attendants in you know different types of um control techniques that they can utilize against passengers like this.

But at the end of the day, it's very difficult.

You're in confined quarters.

Well, Michael, as someone who was attacked in January 6, do you think it has anything to do with politics? I do think that it does have something to do with politics, unfortunately.

avocadogreenmattress.com Nothing.

Yeah, so first, I mean, for those who don't know, I spent two decades as a police officer, 19 years of that with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C.

I worked my whole career in proactive units.

I participated in more than 2,500 arrests over the course of my career, and that's probably a conservative number.

And I used force literally hundreds of times to affect compliance and to affect arrests.

That being said, I think first you address the individual officer's actions in that moment.

And I'm just talking about the officer that encountered the rear passenger, the gentleman with the dreadlocks.

You know what I'm saying?

What were you gonna say?

Yeah, no, I mean, first of all, I know Gayle King is a colleague of yours, but she's a professional.

She's been doing this for a long time.

I think she certainly is capable of overriding a producer that might be chirping in her ear.

And she knew what the direction and the line of questioning was.

And this is the first time that I'm seeing this.

And I mean, it's, you know, again, it's pure politics.

What do you think when you look at that video? And there's no update on the officer, whether he is still on the job, not on the job, being investigated, suspended, on leave, nothing.

fact.

But I'm not exactly sure.

And he also was found guilty in federal court for donating twenty thousand dollars to a U.S. Senate campaign, which was deemed to be an illegal campaign contribution.

So he's a convicted felon to boot.

I mean.

Listen, I I've seen that she has been involved in pushing a lot of propaganda surrounding the 2020 election and saying that the election had been stolen.

OAN is not a credible news outlet.

Yeah, I mean, it's...

It's pretty sick.

Yeah, I, I mean, I, I've said all along ever since this, um, you know, immigration enforcement effort began that ICE is unaccountable to the American people, uh, that they carry out this enforcement, um, inhumanely, uh, and in many cases, uh, in direct violation of the courts and of the American Constitution.

Um, this agency needs to be disbanded, uh, and there needs to be a, a full-scale investigation as to the conduct of the individual agents involved, uh, in the immigration enforcement, uh, and also the supervisors and the individuals that, um, you know, that, that sent them, uh, to these places to carry out the, uh, you know, that type of enforcement.

It, uh, it, it literally goes, it goes against everything that American law enforcement officers, um, are, are taught, uh, to protect and to serve their communities.

This is not protecting their community.

You know, we've seen so many times, um, in American streets, uh, violent confrontation between American citizens who are appalled at the behavior of these agents, who are there filming them, protesting them, um, trying to hold them accountable.

Uh, and the reaction from these agents, I mean, to say it's aggressive is the understatement, uh, you know, of the year.

Yeah

Michael Fanone, uh, you wanna talk about the investigation, or do you wanna respond to the lawyers?

Uh, I mean, I'll, I, I, I think it's easy to respond to the lawyers.

I agree with, with everything, uh, that, that the both of you have said.

This was a horrible idea, uh, to do this interview to begin with.

Um, I mean, the only, the only winning scenario is to go and do an interview and be completely transparent and honest and open about everything that happened.

And again, they came across as, um, skewing the narrative to benefit their clients, which is an attorney's job, I get it, but why that would be... y- you would think that that would be a winning PR strategy is, is insane to me.

Uh, and so, you know, I, I think it... obviously it's, it's hurt them tremendously and it's hurt the investigation.

Um, Michael?

Mm-hmm.

You know, like I, I described it as like a medieval battle scene.

I mean, you were just, you were using your body weight to try to re- repel these people from the tunnel.

Um, and it was them versus us in this kind of heave-ho exchange that, that seemed to last forever.

Um, and somehow, you know, the, the 50 some odd of us managed to, uh, to gain ground and, and push these guys out of, uh, out of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, being in the front of that, you know, that train didn't exactly stop on a dime, and I ended up getting pushed out through the mouth of the tunnel.

And at one point, there was a guy, Albuquerque Cosperhead, uh, from Tennessee, um, he was one of the rioters who, uh, put me in a headlock and pulled me off the police line out into the crowd.

But what do you make of where we are in the relationship to all that? And what is is there what's in the stew in all of this? Is masculinity a part of this? Is there, you know, hyper what do you make of all this?

Do you think it's abnormal?

Yeah, and I, I mean, normal people think that it's abnormal, Joy.

This is...

You know, we, and we talked about it the last time you and I had a conversation.

A lot of it is about access.

Your former, uh, colleagues who, who wanna maintain access.

Um, a lot of it is, you know, the social, social structure of Washington, DC.

Give us worst-case scenario and what you think we should be planning to do about it.

Yeah

... it's not just the, the, the warmth, uh, the, the temperature of the planet, but the rate at which it is changing, the rate at which it's warming, which exceeds anything that has happened in the past.

That means that it challenges our adaptive capacity.

It, it challenges the adaptive capacity of other living things.

And we've got, you know, 8 billion people on this planet who are gonna be struggling to make do with less food, less drinkable water, and less space because of the impacts of climate change.

And here, uh, they are denying- What is, you know, possibly the greatest, uh, challenge that we face as a civilization.

And, and, and here, you know, Zeldin i- is, uh, literally rejecting, um, the conclusions of the US National Academy of Sciences, which I would remind people was actually founded by Republican President Abraham Lincoln.

Mm

How did, How did that go down?

So so I ended up my partner and I, we drive up to the Capitol.

If you're familiar with the U.S. Capitol, you know that there's like a perimeter around the Capitol.

And so you can't just I mean, you could drive up like Independence Avenue, Constitution Avenue through the Capitol complex.

But those were completely blocked off by police vehicles.

I mean, there was just.

tons of police vehicles parked there.

What happened then? What was that part like?

And what's your take on that? And like, what would you do if you were working at the DOJ under these circumstances?

Well, I would quit my job immediately.

I would have quit my job the day that Donald Trump was sworn into office.

That being said, I mean, from the few people that I still talk to, I mean, I know within the Department of Justice, like the US Attorney's Office in Washington, DC, the Washington office itself has been hemorrhaging career attorneys.

They are budgeted for around 260 to 265 attorneys, assistant U.S. attorneys, and they are well below 100 at this point.

And so, and that's from the Trump administration purging attorneys, firing attorneys.

It's from, you know, prosecutors taking early retirements and then some just leaving the Department of Justice, you know, altogether.

But I'm curious how you feel about it compared to folks you served with, some of these newer people that they've brought on board.

What say you to these comments by the president? He clearly has not changed his view, no matter what they like to say in the press release.

Yeah, I mean, it's insane, it's outrageous, but it's also expected.

I mean, Donald Trump has hailed the violent insurrectionists of January 6, 2021, as patriots, great patriots, great Americans, and the heroes of the day.

He's painted law enforcement, those officers that I fought alongside of, as the villains.

And so, you know, while this is not surprising to me, I am surprised by, you know, the average Americans surprised that this is actually happening because he has promised this all along, along with the presidential pardons, which he delivered on the first day that that he assumed office.

How do you and your work help people understand the value of what you're doing against what this president is doing relative to these J6ers out there?

Well, first, I mean, part of what I'm doing is trying to convey to the American people the message that this conveys to convicted criminals.

I'm a law and order guy.

What's your message to lawmakers when it comes to fighting not just the fund itself, but this other coziness with January 6ers, even hiring of January 6ers?

I mean, I don't think it should come as any surprise to any lawmakers, and quite frankly, I don't think it does.

There just doesn't seem to be a willingness on both sides of the political aisle to prevent this from happening and doing what it actually takes to prevent these individuals.

I mean, we saw Jared Wise, the disgraced former FBI agent, become a part of an investigator for and a consultant to the weaponization committee within the Department of Justice, which was... to say the least, but this was an individual that directed other violent insurrectionists to kill cops.

Those were his words, kill cops.

I think that it should be obvious to everyone that Donald Trump sees these individuals as heroes.

He absolved them of all criminal culpability through his blanketed pardons to include those that assaulted law enforcement officers.

Can you dig into that a little bit for me, Michael? If these people are able to get money from the federal government, from taxpayers, what do you believe they're going to do with those funds?

That is how crazy this is.

Yeah, I mean, um, it, it's outrageous.

It's insane.

Um, I do wanna say something first though.

You know, Joy, I wanna take a moment to, uh, to thank Harry Dunn and to thank Danny Hodges for once again, uh, standing in the breach between this lawless, unconstitutional, insurrectionist government that we currently are, uh, forced to live under in this country.

Uh, and you know, I hope that the American people recognize that this lawsuit is not just on their behalf or on my behalf or on the officers' behalf, it's on the American people's behalf.

They're protecting the American people from what inevitably, uh, with this payoff of these violent insurrectionists would result in more acts of political violence, uh, in the future.

In November, when they lose to Democrats in these House elections, th- they're paying people effectively to do the same thing again.

Michael, for people who have forgotten, including and especially this administration, can you remind us of what happened to you on January 6th?

Yeah.

So first, um, a little background on my law enforcement career.

I began my career with the United States Capitol Police, uh, immediately after 9/11.

Like many Americans, I was inspired to serve.

I served with US Capitol Police for one year, from 2001 to 2002.

I loved the career, hated the job.

Has it ever crossed your mind?

Not the same Donald Trump, that's for sure, yeah.

Well, he's reading a script.

And, and let's not forget that in Trump 1.0, there were actual guardrails, uh, to the presidency.

And, you know, I'm quite certain that there were individuals that were in that room that were watching him film that, that had scripted that to the T, because they themselves did not want to be held criminally culpable for anything that took place on January 6th, 2021.

That doesn't exist anymore.

Now we've got Todd Blanche, and Kash Patel, and, you know, uh, Dr. Oz, and, and th- this whole cast of buffoons and clowns, who themselves have committed crimes on Donald Trump's behalf.

And so it's like, you know, it's that old adage of, um, if you, uh, you know, you, if you commit a crime in, in, with another person, that now you guys are kind of linked together.

Yeah.

He set off running like a sprinter.

Yeah, I've lost, um...

I, I don't know, I think adjectives have lost meaning in describing, uh, the, the actions of this administration.

Um, I, I guess there's a, a combination of two that, that come to mind, and it's fucking disgraceful, um, that taxpayer money would be used to compensate violent insurrectionists.

And let's make no mistake about what this fund is gonna be used for.

Uh, this fund is gonna be used to pay violent criminals for committing violent crimes on behalf of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.

Um, and that's it.

What do you think the private messages that don't match the public, um, cowardice signal?