SPECIAL REPORT: THERE IS ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO CHARGE CLARENCE THOMAS ON MONDAY

Ajouté : 2026-05-30

[00:00:12]Hello and welcome to Narrative Live.

[00:00:14]It's good to have Christopher Armmitage back with us. How are you doing, Chris?

[00:00:18]>> I'm fantastic. How about yourself?

[00:00:21]>> I'm fantastic, too. Having conquered all these tech technical issues or maybe haven't conquered them. Look, we're live now. We through the fire of technology we have been united.

[00:00:31]>> I know. I'm very excited about that. Are we actually streaming on your site? Do you know if we are? Because I I can see us on my site. But >> it is now live on my Substack. So >> that is exciting.

[00:00:43]>> Telling me then that's got to be a good sign.

[00:00:45]>> That's that's really you know and what's interesting is you are you're like highly ranked. What category are you in?

[00:00:50]You're in the world news American politics category. People love you Christopher. Every time I mention your name, every time I post anything about you, firstly the women go crazy, but also everybody goes crazy because everyone's got like, you know, you's got a huge fan club. Um, mostly because of the work you're doing has been incredibly detailed, incredibly smart, and also very strategic. Um, and how does that make you feel knowing that you have all these fans?

[00:01:15]>> Relief. I spent four months after the election crying and getting upset at people uh for even mentioning politics to me and I made it through that and I processed and I just started writing and I wrote about you know some of us uh we're the type of people who we want to learn when we're upset and something's causing us pain and we want to understand it because then we can do something about it. anything, even if that anything is just influencing the world to be a little bit better. And so my writing came from that and all of a sudden this community formed of people who were feeling the exact same way. And I think that's really what makes my audience like different from most journalists or activists is it's just I I'm processing this whole situation publicly and now we're all doing this with, you know, 55,000 members. you know, >> it's like a primal scream almost, you know, the way you describe it that, you know, and that's why it's I think it means so much to people the work you're doing because it seems so authentic. It is authentic. Um, and and it really comes from the heart. And I think that's the way a lot of people feel about the crisis America is in right now. And, you know, we don't really call it a crisis.

[00:02:29]We don't think of it as a crisis necessarily, although I I certainly do every day. But this is a existential crisis. Um, as your you know, your newsletter is named. um as a we are in a very difficult spot in America right now and we have um a lot of work to do to get out of it and the work you've been doing has been particularly around the Supreme Court and their justices and the corruption of of the justices on the Supreme Court. We're going to get into some more details about that, but talk to me a little bit about um why you called it the existential republic. Am I saying it correctly? I always get a little bit wrong.

[00:03:06]the list, but that's >> list Republic. Sorry, I will get it right next time. I promise. Um, >> I had a a call with a very this someone who had a lot of money. I didn't really know anything about him, but he said like, "Do you know who I am or whatever on the call?" And I said, "I I don't know, but you must be important if I'm on this call, I guess." And then he was like, "You need to change the title of your publication. Stop being mean about rich people. We hate fascism, too." And I was like, "All right, buddy." Um, >> are you being mean to rich people? I mean for I don't have any sympathy for that.

[00:03:35]>> Only if they whine. Well, that's my problem.

[00:03:38]>> If they whine, but I I think that um you know, the existentialism has been part of my journey through this philosophically. You know, something I I try to remember. I mean, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy, philosophy, these are therapeutic tools for me and they're the lens that I view politics, activism, organizational strategy, public policy. they all go through that same lens. And so while I don't get the opportunity to talk about people like Alber Camu or um you know Jean Pulsard that often they're they're important for me and you know I'm I'm here I'm having fun as much as I can because I you know when I look at my heroes people who are especially in the existentialism world and and one of my biggest heroes you know being Camu um they were fighting fascism they were living their lives and the fact is even in the darkest days of humanity you you have the throness uh of you are where you are. You were born into the life you were born. But my heroes were fighting fascism and that's we are in this moment right now that calls so much of us. And do people deserve it? Do good people deserve all this suffering that's come to them? No.

[00:04:54]But to be human is to suffer. and the journey of trying to pay attention to where you shine the spotlight of your consciousness and what you choose to do with this little flame of life that you're given that is it's a gift and a curse and it informs everything that I do and and it's that holistic view of activism world changing influence and ourselves our our mission our missions in life our purposes the creation you know being meaning isn't I don't believe doesn't exist before essence. It doesn't precede essence. But my life is given so much meaning by the, you know, I'm talking to people every single day. I sit down with with state house representatives. I I talk to, you know, people in indivisible groups and we're trying to make the world a better place.

[00:05:43]What else could you do with your life?

[00:05:45]I'm I'm loving it, you know.

[00:05:46]>> Absolutely. I love that. Very inspiring.

[00:05:48]Uh and it is also speaks to sort of the uh what do they call it? The creative destruction or um I think is what is a term that they use. It happens at times of war and happens at times of great suffering is often you know people humanity achieves its greatness finds its greatness. Um, and in many ways the work you're doing and other people here on Substack are doing and elsewhere in fighting uh this this rise of fascism in America is is just the same as we've you know of all our heroes in the past. You I saw growing up in South Africa the likes of Nelson Mandela who uh you know fought a horrific police state there and won through the most incredible principles. Um and you know I you know you can't you can't help but admire that kind of courage and that kind of um presence in the face of adversity that people like Mandela had.

[00:06:35]>> Yeah. Well, we're never going to win.

[00:06:37]You know, the fascists, the authoritarians want us to be crushed, helpless, in pain. The most dangerous sort of opposition is the opposition that is enthused and filled with energy >> through their mission, through their purpose. And even if you told me that we know for a fact we will fail. The bad guys will win. Ending of 1984, the boot on the face forever. That's where we're headed. I'm still here for it because there's nothing else I want to do with my life. And >> what else are you going to do, right?

[00:07:05]You have to you have to do what you got to do. But also, we're not going to end there. It's not going to end there. We know it's not going to end there.

[00:07:11]>> Yeah, we can win. We totally can.

[00:07:13]Absolutely. I just I feel like it's important to make peace with it's not about the outcome. It's uh that's I mean, this is okay. going to be kind of a gym bro thing, but you know, when you're lifting weights, you you know, you do it because it's the daily practice. That's what it is.

[00:07:28]>> And uh your outcome is is is what results from that daily practice. I love being alive. I love humanity. I love, you know, the great things that humans can do. And when you're in love, it's not about the big dramatic gestures.

[00:07:43]It's about showing up every day as best you can.

[00:07:46]>> I love that. We should lift weights sometime. That'll be interesting to see.

[00:07:50]It would be very funny actually. I'm sure you'd be far stronger than I am on most things. But um let's talk about what's going on in your Substack right now because there are two uh great pieces that came out. One was is about the uh this, you know, there's a lot of people who have the Epstein files.

[00:08:06]There's a lot of people who could be acting right now on the Epstein files and doing something about it. Um and they're not doing something about it because they haven't published it. They haven't leaked any of it. They haven't come out with any of this commentary.

[00:08:17]And it's sort of an indicator, I think, from your perspective that the Department of Justice is just not the Department of Justice anymore. That we have gone down many, many rungs of uh of the latter into fascism and and we're we really are no longer have this idea of justice. I I think I saw an article earlier on today where, you know, other than Egene Carol getting prosecuted, you know, Obama's about to get indicted um as part of a grand jury um and and more to come.

[00:08:47]You know, it's now just the president's sort of wish list, but tell us a little bit more about your your concern around justice in America today.

[00:08:55]>> Absolutely. Well, and before I even dig into the state of justice, criminal justice at the federal level, I want to mention that there are even, you know, who has it worse than high-profile political opponents of the regime in power? It's whistleblowers.

[00:09:11]Historically, nobody has it worse than whistleblowers. A lot of times, they're the only ones who end up going to jail for the crimes that they're reporting.

[00:09:18]If you want to do if you want whistleblowers on the Epstein files, you better create some real good protections for them at the state level or something like that because right now it is very we see what happens to them.

[00:09:29]>> Yeah, >> it's not good things. At the federal level, we are at the end stage. We're past the finish line for project 2025's federal criminal justice goals. The goals were first to purge the majority of the staff. In certain ethics offices, you saw seven out of 10 attorneys gone within the first six months of the administration. So, you purge as many employees as you can. You institute loyalty tests to get rid of any that are left. And then the final stage that we have now passed and we've been within for the last year is the complicity stage. So those attorneys, we're talking about hundreds of employees at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are complicit in partisan criminal activity. You don't have to take my word for it. Who do you think was redacting the names of Donald Trump's friends? Who do you think is going after Leticia James? Who's going after Barack Obama and James Comey?

[00:10:25]Who's going after journalists?

[00:10:28]That is the complicity stage.

[00:10:29]>> Yeah. people on the inside are really saying that that that's what it looks like now. That they can't believe how people who used to be principled, people who used to have, you know, the ideals of the just justice department on top of everything they did every day have just realized that the only way to survive, the only way to keep the pension is to is to just give in. Just give in.

[00:10:49]>> We saw it very clear. You know, we did so much research after World War II.

[00:10:53]>> Thousands of interviews with people who helped the Nazi regime do what they were doing. And what shocked a lot of these researchers was that the people they were interviewing were just like them.

[00:11:06]They were just like, I didn't want to get fired and I figured I was, you know, a few stages removed and all of my co-workers were doing it. So the fact is people follow unlawful orders in all of human history if especially if you can get them to do something wrong through you know and um I once upon a time was a law enforcement officer and one of the things they teach you is the cycle of compliance. So let's say you're a corrections officer and you have an inmate who's just you know it's a murderer and they've done you know they're they're angry about something.

[00:11:43]You do a couple things. One, you remove them from their emotional anchor. So, their physical location actually has an emotional grounding for them. So, you say, "Hey, can we talk over here? I I know you're upset. Let's just can we talk over here?" Now, what you do when you move them from that first location to their second, you ask them to do something really small.

[00:12:01]>> Is you start the cycle of compliance.

[00:12:03]>> And cult leaders do this too >> and magicians. They start asking, they start you getting used to saying yes.

[00:12:09]So, now you've walked over here. Now, they say, "Would you take sit down in this chair?" Now, let me tell you, the CIA, FBI, all sorts of intelligence agencies, they've done >> in in-depth research on just how far the cycle of compliance can go. And we're talking getting people, if you if you work that cycle well enough, to >> commit murders or to, you know, commit human rights abuses. And so we are living through the institutional version where someone who might be a lot like you and me >> or the people watching this they've just been doing their job their whole career and all of a sudden they find themselves uh you know they'll justify it easify but you know I don't know if I would I've actually been in those situations people have asked me to do things and I haven't done them and I and I think there are people in this world that that don't that don't fall into that trap but you know you sort of have to have very little to lose.

[00:13:00]Um because you know if you're worried about your kids, if you're worried about your mortgage, if you're worried about all these things that you got to do in life, >> you know, you might be willing to sacrifice um you know, your morals, your ethics, your your some of this because you just want to pay the mortgage, make sure your kids can have a college education and on sideline by society.

[00:13:22]>> Yeah. I think the road to tyranny is paved with rational decisions.

[00:13:26]>> Completely rational decisions that ultimately lead to our demise. I agree with you, by the way, that plenty of us, you know, how you make sure that you're the person who doesn't comply in those situations. You can actually guarantee it with 100% certainty. You just think about it in advance.

[00:13:40]>> Yeah.

[00:13:41]>> That's why we give our our military members all these briefings about not following unlawful orders. And, you know, as someone who's been a first responder, they tell you to think through the scenarios in your head >> and think about how you want to react.

[00:13:54]And so, if you work for the federal government, great message for you, actually. what's your red line? Or even if you're a governor or anybody, what's your line in the sand that if they ask me to do X, Y, or Z, what am I going to do in that moment?

[00:14:08]>> You know, and it's it's harder decisions because there are a lot of people in the government right now who are choosing to do the wrong thing for plenty rational and good reasons, but that is those are the reasons that lead to our destruction, our existential death. Mhm.

[00:14:25]Now, it's interesting to watch the DOJ sort of become this Robert Stamp for whatever the president wants. Uh but the the judiciary is not mostly I mean mostly the the courts in this in this land have held up pretty well I think in this in this you know torrent to stuff that's come out of the White House and elsewhere but not the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is sort of of all the places you'd want there to be sort of rational, ethical, morality and all those other things you've been uncovering in your incredible work at your Substack that you know things are not good in that in in in um in Scotas land every one of these justices seems to be not everyone many of them are compromised quite severely and you've done incredible research we did went through this with John Roberts uh the last time um and and tonight I really want to hear your thoughts about Clarence Thomas because there is so much corruption swirling in in Clarence Thomas' history that it's mindboggling that this man remains on the courts at all.

[00:15:30]>> Yeah, he's Clarence Thomas. You know, the Roberts court is has created the another end stage for us of judicial capture and corruption at the federal level. And it's someone like Justice Thomas has been um buoied. I think that's part of why he's so confident being openly partisan now is because you just >> these people feel like nobody can do anything about what they're doing.

[00:15:55]>> And if you're following the old structure, then that is how it is. Yeah, there was a deferment. People like Clarence Thomas who, you know, under state statutes has committed tax fraud could be wrapped up in RICO charges. Let me ask you, if you have a judge, if there's a judge in Virginia and he's getting taken out all the time on lavish trips by people who regularly appear before his court, that's corruption, right? I love common sense.

[00:16:25]>> Corruption. Total corruption.

[00:16:27]>> Exactly.

[00:16:28]>> And in this case, Clarence Thomas has been taken off on on, you know, more than just the one lavish trip. He's got like decades of history of flying private jets and and sailing on yachts and going to luxury vacations. And >> they bought his mom a house. They sent one of his kids to college. They bought him over an RV worth over 100,000. That was one that got a lot of attention.

[00:16:48]They, you know, but it's it's >> millionaires that he wouldn't necessarily be hanging out with on a regular basis if he wasn't a justice in the Supreme Court, I don't think. But here he is being celebrated as this, you know, as lifelong friends of all these guys who are, by the way, sometimes very racist and and anti-Semitic and all these other things, but it seems to be okay for for the good justice and his wife. Now, you've just said something there that, you know, if you were an ordinary judge, you'd be put up in front of of another judge and you'd be, you know, probably go to jail for for what?

[00:17:20]For tax fraud.

[00:17:22]>> It has tax fraud. I think, you know, RICO charges organized crime. Trump didn't invent this playbook. It's just organized crime playbook. He's a New Jersey, New York guy. He was an Atlantic City. He was the guy who just would take money from anybody. And the mob loved that. And so these are triedand-true tactics. It's just what happened was if you leave the New Jersey, New York, Virginia court system, the judges that are in your pocket, suddenly they're on the Supreme Court. And apparently we have a much lower bar for the conduct now. But John Roberts has interpreted the law increasingly narrowly so that it's nearly it's it's it is very easy to avoid fraud or corruption or bribery statutes at the federal level. Now they could pass different laws, but here's the thing, states have their own laws, too. Mhm.

[00:18:16]>> And when the when you know the department of justice came out of uh and the AG's net uh justice department.

[00:18:24]Yeah. And and AGs they they largely were created to deal with places in the United States where because of the KKK and racism they were having trouble to handling uh criminal justice in those areas fairly. So the federal government said we're going to step in and we're going to fill that need because you're just not doing your jobs there. And now we need to move that in the other direction. And our founders were really brilliant to create an additional check on power because not only do we have the legislature and the judicial branch and the executive branch at the federal level, we have thousands of other governments within our government.

[00:19:01]>> It's dual sovereigns.

[00:19:03]>> That doctrine has been affirmed over and over again throughout US history and as recently as 2019 and the Snyder decision. And it says states are allowed to enforce their own laws. So, if I say that the state of Virginia should start pursuing fraud, uh, organized crime, bribery, corruption charges on Justice Thomas because there's sufficient evidence in the public domain. People start to say, "Well, I don't know. That's that's Are they allowed to do that? Do they have, you know, but >> that's true. I mean, you wouldn't expect them to. You'd expect the Supreme Court to be governed by only federal laws and and and why would the states be able to do that except they're just people?

[00:19:42]They're just people. And if Justice Thomas got a DUI in Virginia, would you call the FBI or the Department of Justice? No. You'd call the sheriff.

[00:19:50]>> Obviously, that's who would handle the whole thing. that you will not find. If I was a if I had a million dollars, I'd offer somebody a million dollars if they could if they could find the statute or the the ruling by the Supreme Court or the constitutional amendment that exists somewhere that says that the laws get applied differently based on who your employer is or that we have to defer to the federal government. Dual sovereignty doctrine. These states have their own laws. And if I say he got a DUI, nobody questions the state can go after him.

[00:20:23]And the only reason we're treating corruption differently, it's just because, yeah, they want it to be a rich person crime. They want it to be a powerful person crime. They want to be able to drag it out for years.

[00:20:32]>> Well, because it's all so endemic. I mean, the problem is there's so much corruption all the way to the very top of the American power system that everybody's so corrupt. Chances of you actually getting, you know, whatever you're expecting through is very limited. In fact, what you may get is $1.8 million billion dollars being spent on January the 6, you know, insurrectionists for doing criminal activity. They get rewarded now for the criminal activity and the corruption. So why would anyone do anything about it if that's what the system is that they've set up?

[00:21:06]>> Well, it's all carrots and sticks.

[00:21:08]>> You know, it's all incentives and disincentives. And right now, everybody who stood up to Trump, they the it didn't stop him from getting reelected.

[00:21:20]>> And he uh everybody who helped him do bad things, he got them out of trouble and is now getting them rewards. I mean, that's I don't think he's smart, but I do think that there's an intuitive understanding of give good things to the people who do what I want and hurt the people who do what I don't want. And that has succeeded for 11 years in such a dramatic way. We lost our democracy as it existed >> as soon as he regained power and now he's able to weaponize the system. Why would any AG You'd have to be crazy, but we need that. We need some crazy. We need crazy wonder.

[00:22:01]>> Sorry to interrupt you, but you know is do the Democrats offer an alternative that is incentivizing their their supporters or you know are we just saying the Democrats are saying well we're going to return to something that was what we had before kind of similar. We don't have a counter incentive plan to the GOP.

[00:22:25]>> Yeah. And that's those are the questions we need to be asking, right? Is how do we because every that's humans are just all, you know, we're biological beings.

[00:22:32]We're moving away from the things that hurt us and towards the things that like us. And I talk about that with law enforcement reform a lot too is like if you want better cops, you need to create a better system for policing and how we manage expectations, incentives, and disinceptives for officers. And it's the same with our politicians. The Democrats don't have a unified plan. I, you know, I've had people come to me and ask me to do, you know, some like, uh, project 2026 for, you know, Democrat style, that kind of thing. And, and the problem is is the Democratic Party has an abysmal approval rating. The Democratic Party has a lower approval rating than Donald Trump right now.

[00:23:08]>> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. The Democratic Party's, I think, actually quite hated by everybody because they're not really of being effective opposition. And yet, you know, is it them? Is it the system that's being muzzling them? Is it the system that's breaking them down? Or is there something there um that they should be doing differently? Because it's not really breaking through. I don't think they're they're, you know, I'm worried about November, not because it's going to be rigged. Of course, they're going to rig it. Of course, they're going to get uh, you know, only some people are going to get their ballots. Of course, it's going to be difficult to get access to voting stations. But it's also there's going to be kind of a a demotivated electorate out there. He's not going to be sure the Democrats can pull it off even if they won.

[00:23:52]>> Yeah. Well, they can't. I'm I'm gonna call it right now. I think in the work that we do, predictions are a bad idea, but I'm going to make a prediction.

[00:24:00]>> Careful. I'm recording this.

[00:24:02]>> No. No. Bring it. I'm here for it. Bring it. I want it.

[00:24:06]>> Give you a prediction.

[00:24:08]>> And we will. And this is part of existentialism. Okay. We're going to be disappointed.

[00:24:12]>> Yeah, we are. That's okay. Um, every single Republican state, just to look at the situation honestly, and if I'm wrong, I love being wrong, okay? But I think that every Republican state is fully on board with influencing, cheating, uh, you know, suppressing votes, throwing out ballots.

[00:24:34]>> Mhm.

[00:24:34]>> Literally just taking ballots from Democratic areas and throwing them in the trash. And there are less resources than ever before to stop them from doing that or hold them accountable and more incentives for them to do it.

[00:24:48]>> So even, you know, Donald Trump's approval rating is still at 34%.

[00:24:53]>> 31 31 31 >> is trending towards Nixon territory.

[00:24:57]He's like in that zone.

[00:24:59]>> You know, 25% is Nixon. And >> and yet I still think he's going to get a good election here.

[00:25:05]>> Well, here's my You know what? I'll make my prediction. I'm going to make it even worse for myself. If I'm going to make my prediction specific, okay, we're not going to have a veto proof majority.

[00:25:13]>> We're not going to have enough seats in the House and Senate to send uh to to convict on impeachment.

[00:25:22]>> And so what does stopping Donald Trump look like when you just have a majority, a simple majority, he can veto anything he wants and you can't remove anyone from their office? Yeah, that's two more years of of unadulterated Donald Trump.

[00:25:39]>> It does give you some things. A house majority gives you investigation power.

[00:25:44]It gives you committee power. It gives you opportunity to, you know, put people in front of committee, ask tough questions, investigate them more thoroughly um and stop some of what he's doing because you can't give the votes, right? You can't get him the the policy votes.

[00:25:58]>> So, we had this before, though. We've already played this exact scenario in its first term, except now we're in the revenge tour where the Supreme Court has gone even further, saying he's above the law and giving him the power of the purse. And the the executive has never been more powerful and has never had more capabilities for illegally rewarding their supporters, protecting them from any con negative consequences and politically motivated attacks on the opposition. But we did this in from 2018 to 2020 and we're just running the exact same playbook.

[00:26:34]>> It's exact same playbook. We're doing it again and it may be even tougher than we think. It may we may not even get the majority at the end of the day. We may not even get it. Um and that's going to be even worse. But that doesn't change the scenario. I mean the the scenario is still we got to get rid of a of a presidency um and a system that is now being corrupted from the top down. And just getting back to Thomas here, you know, what you're saying about Thomas is that if I'm if I'm hearing you correctly, and I don't want to I don't want to put words in your mouth, what you're saying is that the state AGs should be acting right now against Clarence Thomas for the things that he has done over the last 20 years and accepting all his bribes and corruption.

[00:27:15]>> Yeah. Gift uh to me when I look at case law of influence peddling schemes M and uh you know that that's what it looks like. This is what it looks like when you have judges who should be recusing themselves and the ethics laws and the corruption laws are very clear. States, many states have much more clear uh anti-corruption laws, anti-influence peddling laws than the federal government.

[00:27:46]>> And those states can all be pursuing that. In Virginia, Thomas calls it uh he calls it gifts. I call it income that he's earning through illegal operations.

[00:27:56]And what when I say that, I'm telling you that we can find case law that is identical, materially identical. It's it's the same circumstances and it resulted in incarceration at the maximum and disbarment and removal from the bench at the minimum.

[00:28:12]>> So, you've seen it before. It's happened to other people. It's happened to judges. Why isn't it happening to Clarence Thomas? And which this is a chart uh compiled of your article that you put out there, but it's basically saying that over $20 million of free gifts, $20 million, it's astonishing amount of money that no justice should ever be earning on the side, but from compromised people, uh you know, you include here documented and unreported gifts, $10 million worth, and then estimated non-documented gifts about 11.8 million. And he and these are some of the places he got it from. I mean, we're talking and you know, he's on yachts. He's on the fancy trips all the time. Nothing has ever happened to him in the past except we know if I'm not mistaken, this is this other chart here is that he reported this kind of stuff before in the past.

[00:29:03]>> He's aware that it's not right.

[00:29:06]>> Yes. And I, you know, I guess we should all ask ourselves, what's more likely that Clarence Thomas receives undue enrichment, criminal, criminally liable uh enrichment in the tens of millions for his role as a Supreme Court justice and to impact how he uh how he votes in the Supreme Court and never recuses himself when his buddies and their financial interests appear before his court. Is it more likely that that's happening or that Clarence Thomas is just so much fun that all these conservative billionaires want to hang out with him?

[00:29:43]>> I don't think it's that much fun. Um and and so he in the first when he first joined the court, he say he did not uh you know there was a law that said that you can't report large gifts as taxable income, right? And so he used to report that and then he didn't he stopped doing that in recent years, meaning he knows that he's hiding these things. And then what is this? Um 2.25 two 511 citations and keep specific 58.1 and 34848 citations. What is that? Do you know what that is? Or maybe I >> I'm having trouble seeing it on my screen, but what I'll tell you also is that >> we can see it for you.

[00:30:19]>> Well, you know, one of the important things for people to realize when we share this information, this is what's in the public record. I don't have the ability to call people for depositions.

[00:30:28]I don't have the ability to call for discovery. I can't demand that he hand over documents. I can't uh bring him in to ask questions.

[00:30:37]>> And you got to wonder, you know, this is what you're seeing is sufficient justification for an investigation.

[00:30:45]>> Mhm.

[00:30:45]>> And what do we find if that's what we're seeing? I think that's really something people want to sit with. And your attorneys general, your county prosecutors, especially in Virginia, they have the ability. They have the authority. They can do it. And then when you if you email them about it, they're going to tell you about all the civil suits that they're doing. But we don't want civil suits. We want handcuffs. And if the Democrats are ready to start calling for that, they might have a higher approval rating than Donald Trump at some point.

[00:31:09]>> That's a really good point because you this this is kind of obvious. There are many states where state AGs are capable right now today. They're able to to investigate and to lay charges and then the Democratic machines in each of those states are saying no. So what you're saying is don't only pressure the federal Democrats, but pressure the state Democrats to be doing stuff that the pressure needs to be on on all levels of government. Call your city councelor if you need to, but pressure everybody up and down the system to take action against these justices. So something is done. At least you can at least bring attention to the story. even if you don't end up um you know prosecuting them completely, you might be able to at least the cases themselves might bring enough attention and maybe they'll stop other people from being as corrupt down the line.

[00:31:56]>> Well, that's one thing that's really important for people to realize is when you're waiting like we did in the first Trump administration, people like Leticia James um who who Leticia James is a courageous person. I'm very grateful for her work. But what a lot of these folks did was they waited for criminal prosecutions until Trump was no longer president. Or they played political gamesmanship like, "Hey, if some people say if we don't pursue we should wait to pursue criminal charges or impeachment on Scotas's justices until Donald Trump isn't appointing their replacements, >> right?

[00:32:33]>> You don't fix a broken criminal justice system by playing political games with it. We need to show these people that we will aggressively pursue justice always, relentlessly. Guess what? If Clarence Thomas starts getting investigated for fraud, I promise you, every one of those conservative justices is going to start taking a much more careful look about their conduct. If one of them gets removed from the bench or sent to jail, whoever replaces them is going to be paying much more attention because now they know that there's a disincentive that we are watching and we want justice and we will pursue it relentlessly. Even if if we are told if if John Roberts wants to say that what he's doing isn't illegal, his court rules that everything he does is fine. Well, I got news for you. I if I got a if it's county dog catchers or city council or something, we're going to keep looking for tools and all these these methods that I'm sharing with you. I didn't invent them.

[00:33:29]I got them all from the right-wing >> and it worked. That's how they got over Roie. Wade overturned. That's how in schools across America, they are putting uh they're they're teaching Christian curriculum. Well, that's not that's not allowed. That's unconstitutional, right?

[00:33:47]They do it and then they say, "All right, let's bring the cases." They did it with abortion. Roie Wade was had broad bipartisan support and they waged a 50-year campaign to overturn it. They said, "We're going to take the long shot cases. We're going to do what we think is right, and I I believe in a woman's right to choose, but we can ethically apply those tactics. We can effectively apply the tactics. We can say that worked. Let's do it for good."

[00:34:11]The alternative is watching our society continue to descend into uh into chaos. I mean, we're not going to see, you know, it's not going to maybe feel like chaos, but it's going to it's going to be chaotic because the more fascism encroaches in everybody's life and the more we get used to that kind of system, I know I've lived in a police state, you've seen it happen in other police states, the more dire the situation becomes cuz behind the scenes, they're stealing everything you have.

[00:34:40]They're stealing your rights. They're stealing your treasury. They're stealing absolutely everything you possess, your ch your children's futures, your children. they'll they'll just keep going after it. So, what might seem impossible today because you don't want to go up against, you know, an angry president or you don't want to go up against a judicial system that's going to be pushing back on you is is, you know, if you can trans, you know, transport yourself to 10 years from now in that in that world, then you're in a much more dire situation than we are now.

[00:35:08]>> Yeah. And you picked up on a point a few minutes ago that I think was really really valuable that we should turn we can turn our attention towards state level representatives, your county prosecutors, your DAs, your state house members. If you know the name of your state house rener, you are remember you are in an elite tier. And in a lot of places, you can just con you can email your state house representative or your city council member and you can ask to get coffee and you can talk their ear off about this stuff and you are influencing them. And let me tell you, state house members, they can be convinced with logic very often. You're not going to get that from I've sat down with senators. I've sat down with governors.

[00:35:48]>> They they love they love my ideas, >> but they don't do it. And and that's fine. That's okay. Fine. You know, but the state house members, there's laws that the existentialist republic's written that are going to be brought to the floors of state houses in the next year. And it just because not just me, by the way, readers of the existentialist republic schedule these meetings and have the sitdowns and are advocating for better public policy and taking power where we have it. Who where you can.

[00:36:16]>> Sorry, say that again. What's the last one?

[00:36:18]>> Who where you can? Coup.

[00:36:20]>> Okay. What?

[00:36:20]>> Yeah. any uh you know like take over take over take power where you can get it. If you >> Yeah. Go get on the school board and use that as a tool to fight fascism. Go get on the city council and use it. Go be the county dog catcher and tell let's figure out how we can fight fascism from that role.

[00:36:37]>> You know, I love all that so much. And I think what you've got here is a real um guideline for everybody. if they read your your uh latest post about Clarence Thomas, there are real details of what you can do right now in terms of calling your state assembly member or your city council or whomever and say these are the problems we're facing with the Supreme Court and it's going to get worse. And these why these particular things, we got them here on the chart here. These are chargeable things that could be charged on Monday as you put it on your in your piece. Uh the clock has not run out on them. They're serious um you know things that he's done. We can absolutely use in this case the Virginia code to to prosecute Thomas today. And you know if you tell your state assembly person that and hundreds more tell their state assembly persons that that creates a movement and that movement can ultimately change the whole trajectory of America. So, you know, everyone should read the existentialist republic because uh Chris is doing a fantastic job and his readers are doing a fantastic job in showing you exactly the steps you can take to get some action done um to save our democracy. Chris, tell us a little bit more about what people can do uh by by following you.

[00:37:49]>> Yeah, that's so that's you mentioned up top about how the readers for the existentialist are probably like the activist members, effective activists. I have a lot of terms. I like making up terms, but uh they they seem to be really enthusiastic in their like support and engagement. And I think it's because from the very beginning, I I I'm not interested in being a leader. What I want to do is hand people tools.

[00:38:14]>> And everybody who reads the Existentialist Republic, everything's available for free. Even the books I write, like fulllength 65,000word books, we have available for free. And I I just want to hand people the tools so that they don't need me. They don't need a leader. They don't need a 501c3. They don't need to get a a bank account and elect a board of directors. They can actually effectively influence the world towards justice. And I'll tell you, we see we spend so much time in the political world getting told by Democrats especially that, oh, I just can't do anything about that.

[00:38:52]>> You're going to need to go to somebody else. I just I can't do that. M and uh we don't need to accept that answer. And when you like that's that's an empowering feeling, right? We want to I mean it's that's we we want to feel like we can actually do something about >> right and that's what's missing. I mean that's what's missing in America right now is that sort of the fire that the people matter and the people still matter. This is still you know technically a democracy and there is a lot of ways to imp uh impact change and I hope people uh do this for the state assembly members. I also want to talk to you about tomorrow Pam Bondi is testifying just to get very granular here in front of the Epstein oversight committee. Um she's it's a real test case to see what she is going to say. My guess is very little but you know when people encounter what she's going to say which is you know continued cover up of the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. I'm quite sure she's not going to say anything negative about the president or anything like that. Nor is she going to tell them that the president ordered the cover up. you know, there's going to be that sense of of disappointment that you um pointed to earlier. What can people do in that instance um to to react against what happens with Pam Bondi tomorrow?

[00:39:59]>> I would I so I usually my calls to action are focused on state and local, but occasionally I do go federal. What I would say is get a hold of every member who is going to be asking her questions and tell them to mention that what she says is under oath and they will be making sure that if she lies under oath that they will fa that she will face consequences for that criminal consequences that is what we will be pursued. We have a united front that if she lies in front of Congress she misleads purposefully she will be held to account. Call her a liar. Do it.

[00:40:36]That's what Tell that to your representatives. Tell them what you want them to be saying. That's, you know, you don't have to repeat my words.

[00:40:42]>> There's this game that's played especially by people in the legal profession and most politicians are lawyers. And it's the I know better than you do. Don't tell, you know, I'm I have to handle it XYZ. No. Ted Lou is a really good example of somebody who just calls it like it is. He called Donald Trump a pedophile on national tv >> and you every single representative you can take that with your time too. Every single representative can start off tell them hey um you know the president's a pedophile and he's in the Epstein files and I want every single Democrat to start their questioning with that phrase.

[00:41:16]>> That'll be interesting. And certainly they come out you know there's so much that can be done tomorrow and I hope people don't they'll be dismayed a little bit about Pam Bondie's testimony but we know what she's going to say. We know we can also, as you point out, plan for reacting to that. And we should be vocal and uh and very determined to say that we are going to get to the bottom of the of the of the of the truth. We're going to get to the truth and we got to do it now. We're going to do it when we take over, but it's going to happen. Uh and at the end of the day, Pam Bond is going to pay a price what you did uh in covering up the Epstein files. Um Chris, tell people how they can find you.

[00:41:50]You're in tons of places. You've got so much great work. Where do they start?

[00:41:55]And and if you want to become an activist in Chris's army, how do they how do you become one?

[00:42:00]>> Uh the Existentialist Republic on Substack. If you just search the Existentialist, just Google the Existentialist Republic. Actually, forget Google. Um use uh what's a better search engine? Uh >> it Yeah, Substack Search, too. Yeah, just the Existentialist Republic. We're the only one. It's it's a big network and it's it's you know, it's an army of leaders, though. It's it's everybody's a a general, you know, and I just I hope you'll show up cuz it's all free and got a ton of booklets and books and some of the booklets are like 20 pages or sorry, like a 20-minute read. The policies that pass booklet talks about laws that you can pass at the city and state level that you know like might just improve the lives of residents and create more of a financial resilience against federal corruption. That's a really non-confrontational way right now to fight back is it's not just about putting, you know, Donald Trump in jail.

[00:43:02]It's also about making sure that you don't have home nobody's homeless or hungry in your community. great way to fight fascism and so the existentialist republic if you just you know Google that that'll get your substack you could do that on >> you also talk about the soft secessionism I guess is what you so tell people what that is a little bit that's interesting too >> yeah so I I'm I have academic work that I do previously I'd done that in the criminal justice space but now I'm doing that in the constitutional law space and normally when you make an academ you work on something academically you write it and then you share it the public soft secession moved in the opposite direction. Uh it really is has been crafted and sort of the peer review has been with the public and the existentialist or public readers. It started with me a while ago sharing some re some information on two from 2009.

[00:43:56]Heather Girkin published a paper on uncooperative federalism because I was just trying to research what are things that we can do to fight back. And so her paper on uncooperative federalism talked about how we don't have to comply with federal government activities that we disagree with. And that's an existing posture throughout US history. From there I've just started to create a structure that now is 125page working paper. So, if you go to ssrn.com, you'll find my actual academic research.

[00:44:30]I can't submit it to the Yale Law Review for two months because they don't open up for another two months. I'm submitting it to the Yale Law Review because that's where Heather Gerkin is the dean, >> the dean of Y Law. So, I since her paper was kind of the seed that created my work around soft secession, that's where I want to submit it. But you can view the full 125page working paper. But what it covers is I've identified the five different postures of state state activity towards the federal government.

[00:44:57]Tier zero is cooperative federalism.

[00:44:59]That's just saying we get along, we agree, we work together. Tier tier one is uncooperative federalism. That was Heather Gerkin's contribution to the field or one of her contributions because she's had a lot of them. Uh and it says we don't have to help you. Tier two is soft secession. That's saying we don't need you. We're going to become, you know, plenty Washington state has a bigger economy than plenty of of European countries that manage to have robust social safety nets. We can do that here. Your city can do that. Your your your city could have a a health care plan, a public option healthare plan. You can get a lot more ambitious with it. And we're going to need to do that because they're trying to get rid of social security. So, we need things like a state level alternative to social security. Even multiple states could get in on it. That is some soft secession.

[00:45:45]It's quiet quitting for government. Uh harm reduction. Tier three is uh is uh oppositional federalism. Oppositional federalism, you know, I I came I I came to soft secession because I said we need that harm reduction. And then I came to uh oppositional federalism because I said we got to hold these people accountable.

[00:46:06]>> We have to.

[00:46:07]>> And so that is using state criminal law to hold everyone accountable. You know, Tom Holman took a $50,000 bribe. That happened in Texas. If Texas had Democratic leadership, people who valued law and order, he could just be charged for that in Texas. He took a budge of money in exchange for influence.

[00:46:31]>> It's a crime.

[00:46:31]>> That's a crime. If it's a DUI or it's a bribe, it's a crime. That's tier Z. Tier three, sorry. Uh, uh, oppositional federalism. And then tier four is constitutional non-compliance. that is more comparable to um you know actively intervening uh and and trying to stop things like if there's literal concentration camps and the governor says well they're going to have me in the H if I don't do something about it so you send in you know the national guard or whomever and also I'll say every single one of those you don't just enter one tier you don't have to do one and then do the other um cannabis uh decriminalization is a really good example so it's you know some states just said we're not going to enforce drug laws because we don't agree with them. That's uncooperative uh federalism. Some states said we're going to create an industry around it >> and we're going to use it to generate revenue that funds other things. That's tier three and tier 2 conduct. And that doesn't mean the state isn't every policy exists within those tiers. And even in a very confrontational posture, a state is largely in tier zero because there is still cooperation on things that that aren't, you know, really, you know, necessary to engage with and to keep, you know, the wheels running wherever possible. But, um, you know, some states said, "We're going to generate revenue with this." That's your tier 2, your soft secession that funds other things that create resilience against economic issues. And then also saying that we're you're saying this is illegal. we're gonna let it happen and we're gonna permit it and we're gonna uh you know do inspections and that's where you get into that even a little bit of tier four posture where you're like make come and stop us come and even though you're saying it's illegal because there's 50 states you know >> this this president will come at us you know I mean if you do all that stuff but it's still it's what we have to do you know it is what we have to do >> if it's one person doing it if it's one Leticia James yet the whole government the whole federal government verse her but As soon as you have two and we saw with cannabis legalization especially, somebody had to do it first and they did it and then more states started doing it and at a certain point they can't effectively stop everybody. They don't have that many resources and as soon as you have two people standing up to this administration with their whatever their positions are of power. Now the federal government is dividing their resources in two.

[00:48:54]>> Now throw in a third instate. like it it it really pulls their their resources.

[00:48:58]>> When you really think about where the economic power of America is, it's in blue states. It doesn't come from the red states. And so if you add all the blue states together, I don't know what the total economic output of those blue states would be, but you know, more than more than Europe potentially. I don't know, a lot. Um >> to first economy, it'd be second to first biggest economy on Earth. Probably second for sure. Actually, definitely second now. a year and a half ago, arguably the largest economy on earth would be the blue state coalition, >> which is why the crypto challenge that uh Trump is bringing from the right and from foreign sovereign funds and but they're doing on the on through crypto is and this is happening this week the the crypto uh house uh law that really needs to not be passed but is going to be passed. Uh but you know we'll talk about crypto next time because we're out of time but uh and I do have a lot of ideas around that but maybe there's something that we can work on together for for states AGS and others to work on. Um Christopher Armitage thank you so much for being here. Thank you at home for watching or wherever you are on your phones. We appreciate you all. We appreciate your activism. Say hi to the cats. Who's this one? This >> Princess Nandor. Yes I have >> Chris is also a cat dude by the way.

[00:50:11]>> Cat dude.

[00:50:12]>> Yeah and proud of it. He's happy to be a cat dude. Um, Chris, thanks so much.

[00:50:17]Always a pleasure to talk to you. People do love you for good reason because you're so passionate and excited about what you do. It comes through in everything you're doing. And good luck with the rest of it and we'll see you again next time.

[00:50:26]>> Hey, thanks so much for having me, S. It was really a great chat. So, take care.

[00:50:30]>> Cheers. Byebye.