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Nov. 15, 2023 - Dinesh D'Souza

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AN INNOCENT MAN Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep708

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	Coming up, a special episode.
	I'll reveal how the emerging police state doesn't just target Trump or prominent figures, but also innocent people just going about their daily life.
	One such man, Joseph Bolanos, was featured in the film He joins me to tell his heartbreaking story in further detail.
	Hey, if you're watching on Rumble or listening on Apple, Google, or Spotify, please subscribe to my channel.
	This is the Dinesh D'Souza Show.
	The times are crazy. In a time of confusion, division, and lies, we need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
	This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
	Guys, I'm really thrilled to welcome to the podcast Joseph Balanos.
	Now, if you've seen the film Police State, Joe's segment in the movie is one of, if not the most riveting, the most emotional, and for many people, a real window into the working of the police state.
	Joe is a New York City resident.
	He was targeted by the FBI for January 6th, even though he did not go into the Capitol.
	I wanted people to meet Joe so we could talk in a little more detail about things that aren't even in the movie.
	Joe welcome, great to have you.
	And I gotta say, it was really fun to see you at Mar-a-Lago for the red carpet premiere.
	Did you enjoy it?
	Tell us about the experience from your side.
	First of all, let me thank you and Debbie and Azusa Media for having me and including me in this incredible, masterful project known as Police State.
	The Mar-a-Lago visit or event was a fairy tale to me.
	It really was vindication to the max.
	I mean, everybody that I saw there and all the people, I tell people here in New York, I go, I know what it is to be a celebrity now because strangers come up to you and hug you and smile at you and kiss you and shake your hand and you don't have a clue who they are.
	But just celebrating you.
	And let me tell you, that trip, like I said, was a fairy tale.
	I mean, it was unfortunate that, you know, the president couldn't be there, but it's understood.
	That he has his problems and, you know, we have to make our sacrifices on his behalf.
	But everything was just magical.
	And you know what was really funny is that during the reception, before the movie premiere, I was the guy walking around with the silver cane.
	And, you know, people were looking at me like, okay...
	Who's that guy? So I kept walking around.
	The service was fantastic.
	The people were excited.
	I got to meet Dan Bongino.
	I got to meet so many people.
	And I was just about five feet high off the ground.
	And then after the movie, it's really amazing because when you brought us up on stage afterwards, suddenly there was a rush.
	I mean, I had a couple of beautiful women coming up to me, hugging me, kissing me, and I'm saying, you got the wrong guy.
	Well, I mean, it really shows you the power, I won't say of the movie, I suppose, but of your story and the way that it touched people's hearts.
	Bongino, too, told me when I was on a segment with him promoting the film, he singled out the episode with you and also the episode with Jerry Perna, who lost her nephew, Matt Perna.
	He goes, Paula and I, he goes, we're pretty hard-bitten.
	We've kind of heard it all.
	And we're like, they're like, we were overwhelmed.
	We were like, we burst into tears together.
	Me, too. Meaning Bongino, too.
	I think it was, it's a...
	There's a lot that is in the movie that gets to people, but it's quite obvious that these are two scenes that they remember.
	Yes, indeed. When I approached Dan, I saw him from maybe six, seven feet away.
	And, you know, I don't know him, so I was just looking on his peripheral, and he turns and he sees me and goes, Joe!
	And he pulls me over, and he puts his arm around me and goes, Hey, you're affecting people.
	Your views, apparently there's a story that the trailer was sent to Elon Musk and supposedly 75 million people saw the trailer, which is unbelievable.
	Unbelievable. Oh, no, absolutely.
	Absolutely, Joe. All right.
	Well, let's talk about your story.
	And we'll let's just get started in this segment.
	We'll really pick it up in the next one.
	But you have lived a very interesting life.
	Have you been a New Yorker all your life?
	Talk a little bit about your career.
	Yes, sir. I was born and raised in New York City.
	I grew up here.
	I went to school here.
	And I grew up on the streets of Harlem.
	When my first years, I was on 156th Street and Broadway, which is literally the border of Harlem.
	I'm writing stories now called Remarkable Stories about that phase of my life because I didn't have a father.
	My single mother came legally to the United States and I had to survive like so many kids have to with different influences and by chance, circumstance and opportunity I picked the right forks in the road.
	You know, I never got arrested.
	I was a good kid. I was never a big shot.
	I was never a bully. But I learned a lot of things from people around me, my environment.
	And so I was attacked one time.
	I was mugged and my bicycle was stolen.
	I was 15 years old.
	And that's when my mother said, we're moving.
	We're going to move somewhere else.
	And we did. We moved to Washington Heights.
	And my life from then changed also because now I was all of a sudden surrounded by middle class as compared to lower class in Harlem.
	And the learning experience was exponential every day.
	So... You know, things led up to other things.
	When I was a little boy, I was recruited at 10 years old, and I became a choir boy at St.
	Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue.
	And that's a series of stories alone.
	But I kept growing up.
	I went to a Catholic school.
	And eventually, as I got older...
	I just started to see when I was in my 20s, I realized that my life had been so selfish.
	As many as 20 years old, you know, you're out partying.
	And then all of a sudden, I started realizing that community really meant something.
	So, let's see.
	1980, I intervened.
	I was in the security business.
	I got into the security business.
	And yes, for most of my adult life, I carried a licensed handgun in New York City, which is almost impossible to do as a civilian.
	And that privilege alone saved lives.
	I mean, on one occasion in 1980, there was a woman who was being attacked by a By a bad actor on the Upper West Side where I live.
	And so I gave Chase and he pulled her purse off her arm.
	I caught up to him about maybe five, six blocks.
	And he turned and he was walking toward me with an exposed knife, like a 10 inch knife.
	So I stepped off the curb and I pulled my handgun out and I said, drop the knife.
	And he didn't react like somebody scared.
	He was deliberating whether he was going to lunge because he was about eight feet away from me or if he was going to drop the knife.
	Finally, he dropped a knife and a crowd came around and they pinned him against the wall.
	Anyway, the victim was someone from Connecticut, a young lady from Connecticut who always heard that New Yorkers never got involved.
	And so what happened was that we testified against this guy.
	This guy was a seriously bad actor.
	He had a long rap sheet and he had been arrested for rape, robbery and manslaughter.
	Manslaughter, he had fell through the cracks of the judicial system and he was released after three years.
	So this guy had no intention of dropping the knife when he was looking at me.
	Long story short, he got convicted.
	We went to trial. He got 19 years without parole.
	Joe, let's take a pause.
	We'll be right back with Joe Bellano.
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	I'm back with New Yorker Joe Bolanos, featured in the film Police State.
	Joe, one of the things that really strikes me about you is that you see the importance of civic involvement, of being part of a community.
	And that's probably not that typical for New York, because we think at least the stereotype of New York is everybody has kind of got their head down, they're going about living their own life.
	So talk about all that.
	Yes, as time went by, what happens is as far as community involvement, you'll find, or I found, that the people that are involved are usually for self-serving purposes.
	They want to be in the limelight.
	They want to elbow with politicians.
	That's not my purpose at all.
	My purpose is just to simply help people.
	Not with any fringes, not with any, you know, blowback or anything.
	So when it came to, for example, I had, in 1998, Mayor Giuliani, during the Serbian crisis in Eastern Europe, I remember seeing a television shot of a bunch of Croatians migrating with only the clothes on their back and their suitcases.
	And Mayor Giuliani told people, you know, collect some food, For these people and drop it off at your local firehouse.
	So what I did was simple.
	I rented a van, I made a sign, and I basically parked in front of my local supermarket and agreed with them that people would be coming in for baby food, diapers, what have you.
	Well, the first Saturday, People were coming up, what are you doing?
	Food for Kosovo. That first Saturday, I collected over $2,500 worth of baby food, diapers, water, and just a simple idea.
	So I brought it back to the firehouse.
	They couldn't believe because they only had maybe four cans and a shopping bag, and here I was pulling up with a van.
	And I did a second Saturday, that was about $2,600.
	So in two Saturdays to raise $5,000 worth of food, baby food, diapers, by one person, it's not something that you have to, the sun shines through the skies, it's a simple idea with major results.
	And again, I didn't get any press, I didn't do anything, because that wasn't my purpose.
	And so people, one lady came up from Kosovo.
	She tried to give me $100. I said, sorry, I can't take cash.
	And she said, what is this for?
	And when I explained it, she broke down and just cried for like 20 minutes.
	But anyway, that was my Giuliani connection with Kosovo.
	You know, as time went by, I'm in the security business.
	And my entire business did not spend one dime on advertising.
	It was all word of mouth.
	And one day I got a call from a supplier of mine and said, look, we got a call from somebody that needs somebody of your caliber.
	And I said, what?
	As it turned out, it turned out to be somebody representing David Copperfield, the magician, the illusionist.
	And so there began a relationship.
	And I got to tell you, I can't explain how it is to meet him for the first time.
	And you say, This guy and me, I'm sitting there going, I'm laughing.
	And I'll tell you a small smidge of a great part of this footnote of the story.
	He met me the first time for 10 minutes.
	Can you do this? Can you do that?
	What's your background? I said, yes, yes, yes.
	So he says, okay, we'll be in touch.
	Six months went by.
	They called me back.
	I went back to meet him. The first thing he says when he answers the door, new glasses, new watch.
	I went, what? I had had a new watch and new glasses.
	She only met me for 10 minutes the first time.
	Let me tell you, that was so disarming that I said, I have to work here.
	I have to do something here.
	And it turned out to be a very good relationship for a few years.
	That's amazing. Joe, let's talk about the events of January 6th.
	You made a decision.
	You weren't really a hardcore political activist per se.
	You were intrigued by Trump.
	You knew that there was this big rally planned for Washington, D.C. What was your motivation for going down to Washington, D.C.? Why'd you go?
	This is the root cause of why I went that nobody seems to listen to.
	A neighbor of mine, an ex-neighbor of mine who lives out in Sonoma, California, she's like a sister to me.
	We had talked about four or five days before J6, she was going to Washington sightsee and she was going to go see for the certification.
	And I said, wow, what a great opportunity for you to be on the East Coast and we can get together.
	Excuse me. And I was excited.
	So I booked a flight.
	I think that Amtrak that Sunday before J6. Went down there.
	Same day I arrived Wednesday.
	And I hooked up with her and a friend of hers later on during the day.
	But our sole purpose was to see the certification.
	Of VP Pence sending it back to the states.
	Or so that was the rumor.
	I wasn't expecting a rally.
	I wasn't expecting that type of aha, you know, celebration.
	I've never been to a Trump rally.
	But I did expect history to be made.
	And what happened was that while I was shooting at the Washington Monument, there was a point where the settled crowd around me, thousands, people started to stir.
	They started to leave.
	You could hear expletives about VP Pence and people were mad.
	They were enraged. And I later found out that the intention of VP Pence not to send it back to the States was leaked out before he put it in writing.
	Oh, interesting.
	Yeah. And so as far as I believe, That change in mood of that crowd, if ever there was, was because of that moment.
	I can't begin to tell you how many expletives.
	People were enraged by it.
	And some left to go to the Capitol and some left to leave.
	Joe, let's take a pause.
	We'll be right back with Joe Bellanos.
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	I'm back with New Yorker Joe Balanos. We're talking about January 6th. Joe, you're describing the scene at the at the rally and at the Washington Monument and you see people, some of them left and some of them you said were going toward the Capitol. You walked toward the Capitol but at some point you made a decision, I'm not going in.
	Talk about that and why you made that decision.
	It was very cold that day and so I hadn't hooked up with my friend and her friend yet.
	So we agreed to go to their hotel room, warm up a little bit, have some snacks.
	And then we decided to go to the Capitol, walk to the Capitol.
	We were walking with thousands of people around us until we finally got to a part of the Capitol.
	We're in the background.
	You could see some Some creeps climbing the walls of the perimeter of the Capitol.
	And I said to the two friends, I said, this is where we're stopping right here.
	We're not going any further.
	And so we stopped.
	And then suddenly our phones went off, all the phones in the area that Mayor Bowser had just activated or was announcing the activation of the National Guard.
	And at that point, I said to the two ladies, I don't know about you, but...
	I'm not a fan of tear gas and rubber bullets.
	I said, let's get out of here.
	And so we turned and we went back to the hotel.
	Never near the entrance to the Capitol.
	Never in the Capitol. As a matter of fact, I have video as we were walking toward the back of the Capitol.
	There were no signs.
	There was no signage.
	There was no police presence.
	There was one, only one bicycle barrier that had been knocked down that was about five foot wide that some people were walking over.
	And on video, I said, I'm not doing that.
	And I went off to the side.
	But there was no understanding that A, you were on the grounds of the Capitol, and B, that you were trespassed.
	You were following the crowd.
	So that's important.
	Joe, you get back to New York and you round up your buddies and you're showing them.
	You're a video guy. You took a bunch of footage.
	We've seen it. It's really good stuff.
	And you were showing your footage to your friends and presumably telling them about what happened.
	And then, I don't know if this guy was a neighbor.
	Somebody spotted this and turned you into the FBI. Who did that and did you know the guy before?
	Yes, he's a neighbor.
	And what happened was I didn't know what he had done until I was actually in the hospital after I got the stroke from the raids in February.
	What happens is this guy, he misheard because I was talking about my photography.
	He called the FBI tip line and claimed that I was in the Capitol.
	In fact, you see him in police state and you see him.
	This is a guy who was a neighbor when I used to have an annual dinner with neighbors at a local restaurant.
	I invited him.
	I included him.
	Never a problem with him.
	But for some reason, he decided, because he was bragging about it when I was in the hospital that first night.
	He was telling neighbors, Oh, I called, you know, part of me tells me that he was just wanted to pay him.
	Maybe a couple of other people wanted to dethrone me as president of the black association.
	because they were very envious of the things that I did.
	But regardless, In 1938, Germany, thousands of Jewish families were picked up in the middle of the night and transported to their untimely death by neighbors who would drop a call and say, Juden, next door, and the Gestapo would pick them up the next night.
	This is what we're living in now, where one neighbor can mobilize the entire FBI to To issue search warrants to two locations.
	I mean, what's the cost of that alone?
	And not to mention, Joe, it doesn't seem like the FBI made any independent effort to confirm that you, in fact, were inside the Capitol because had they done that, they would have seen right away that tip or no tip.
	You know, they get tips all the time.
	Yeah, you're looking for this bad guy.
	I think it's my neighbor down the street.
	But you think the FBI would check to make sure, and if it's not the right guy, they'd be like, okay, well, that tip didn't pan out.
	But in this case, as you say, they mobilized two raids, one on your apartment and another one at your mother's apartment where you were looking after her.
	I guess she was in a rehab center.
	Now... Let's start with the raid at your mother's apartment.
	Did that one occur first, or did the two of them occur simultaneously?
	Pretty much simultaneously, because the timestamps on the video at my apartment was exactly the time that they had me in custody.
	Oh, so they had two separate kind of units, one going to your apartment, another one going to your mom's apartment.
	And let's take a pause because we're at the end of our segment.
	I want to start a new segment going into the raids themselves and the experience of them.
	So we'll be right back with Joe Balanas.
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	Get 35% off your first preferred order by using discount code AMERICA. I'm back with New Yorker Joe Bolanos, who's featured in the film Police Date.
	Joe, describe the raid as it occurred at your mom's place, because that's where you were, right?
	You were at that location when the raid occurred.
	What happened? Well, I was staying at my mother's apartment because there was a chance that she might be leaving rehab and returning home.
	So I was at her apartment trying to make...
	Access for wheelchair access in the apartment, you know, moving furniture and what have you.
	So, on the morning of the raids, I was sleeping on her couch.
	She was not home.
	And all of a sudden, at about 6 a.m., I hear boom, boom, boom, boom.
	FBI, open the door, we'll knock it down.
	So I get up, half asleep.
	I walk over to the front door of the apartment.
	I open the front door and there are about eight military-garbed JTTF, Joint Terrorist Task Force soldiers, in front of me and one of them is aiming an actual automatic rifle at my head which I'm sure might be part of their training but if you're at the receiving end of it it's a very sobering moment at which point they said step out turn around and they handcuffed me and I said what's this for because these individuals two of the individuals not military the two plainclothes people had been at my mother's apartment A week before,
	I gave him copies of video.
	I told him I wasn't in the Capitol.
	I told him the truth and these two people were still there and I said, what's this about?
	Search warrant. They didn't show it.
	They just made me step out, handcuff me.
	They got me a pair of pants and boots and then they escorted me down the steps to a federal vehicle and I was not allowed to go back in the apartment And so they interrogated me for about four hours, because this was probably 6.20 by then.
	And at 11 is, I believe, when the ambulance showed up.
	Because after the interview, I started feeling sick.
	And that's when I had my first stroke.
	I mean, Joe, what were they interviewing you about for four hours?
	It seems to me that in five minutes they could have easily determined that you're a guy who went to D.C., but you didn't go in the Capitol.
	Sorry, Joe, we've had the wrong guy.
	We really apologize for this awful trauma we've put you through.
	But none of that. They keep interrogating you.
	What on earth were they asking you?
	I think what they were I think they were following orders to the point where you have a target now let's justify what he did in other words I think somebody mentioned this in the in the movie where you pick a target and then you find out what they did versus what used to be the old fbi where you get the facts do the surveillance get indictments and then make an arrest that wasn't the case here in fact Speaking of why they targeted me,
	they could have done a cell phone check of me in D.C. knowing that I never went into the Capitol.
	And Chris Ray ducked that during one of the hearings.
	But anyway, so for four hours, what they did was it was a female and a male, and they kept pressing the issue.
	When I said, why...
	What did I do? I didn't do anything.
	And they said, you trespassed on government grounds.
	I said, what are you kidding?
	I said, I know a little bit about trespassing in my previous security experience.
	I said, there was no signage.
	There was no police.
	There was nothing to tell us that we were on the grounds.
	And then they shut up automatically.
	They stopped that.
	That flow of thought.
	So they kept me there for four hours until I felt sick and they started to freak out.
	I mean, they literally the two agents in the car were like, we can't call an ambulance, but you can.
	We'll have somebody check you.
	And, you know, one of the guys, I think the guy that had the original assault rifle came down and took my, with an oximeter, took my oxygen levels, and they were okay, but I was falling apart.
	And that's when they called an ambulance and I was transported to a local hospital.
	Joe, one of the things that justifiably really freaked you out was the fact that you spotted an NBC reporter, a camera that was there.
	And as it turns out, there was no CBS, there was no ABC, there was just NBC. And of course, any normal person would be like, whoa, am I going to be on TV? Are they going to portray me as some kind of domestic terrorist?
	Is this what went through your head when you saw the NBC camera?
	Yes, sir. Completely.
	I saw it. And even though it was unmarked, the fact that it was a broadcast camera, I said, because in the car, they got a text or something that somebody had shown up.
	So they were looking for the camera guy.
	And all of a sudden, he was outside my mother's building.
	So I said to myself...
	Where is this going? I mean, I haven't done anything.
	I'm innocent. And the fact that they would broadcast it put another dark cloud above my head where I was really, you know, my system was falling apart.
	Let's take a pause. We'll be right back with Joe Bolanos.
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	I'm back with New Yorker Joe Bolanos.
	We're talking about January 6th and the aftermath of January 6th.
	A raid, Joe, on your mom's apartment.
	You're in the FBI van.
	You see NBC. And, you know, you and I both know what's going on.
	The Fed's Talk a little bit about...
	You said at the time you didn't know.
	You were just horrified at what was going to be said on the news.
	In Police State, we actually showed a news clip that was broadcast on the news.
	But later you got to thinking, how did this really occur?
	And you have some thoughts about that.
	Tell us what those are. Yes.
	The day of the raids, I was taken to the hospital.
	I had no idea of any broadcast or anything, but I needed a phone.
	So I called a neighbor on Saturday and said, look, I'll pay you.
	Just get me a phone because they took everything.
	He goes, well...
	You know, I have to tell you, because he was a little hesitant, he goes, you were on television on Thursday night, and I don't know if I really can...
	I said, look, I'm going to pay you, get me a phone.
	It wasn't until that Saturday that he showed up with a phone that he showed me the clip.
	Of the NBC piece by this Jonathan Dienst, who is like their crime local reporter.
	And what happened was that I'm watching the entire clip that he said.
	And at the end, he says, my sources tell me that charges will be brought against Polanos once his devices have been checked.
	Charges? For what?
	And this is their number one guy.
	Well, eventually, I did a little research because I wanted to find out.
	There were other pieces that were coming on online by NBC claiming that certain people had been arrested, that a community member, a community leader, me, had been arrested.
	And I said, this is...
	I was never arrested.
	And so what happened was, I did my homework and it appears that NBC Local...
	Who is kind of a co-reporter with this Jonathan Deans is a guy named Joe Valliquet.
	Joe Valliquet works for NBC and he used to be the public relations man for the FBI. Oh, I see.
	So this becomes a very, not just possible, but maybe even likely, connection between the FBI that's launching the raid and NBC. I mean, it helps us to understand how this—because, you know, we're talking about a public agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and private media— And very often, it is some personal connection that they happen to know.
	Let me call a friend of mine.
	We went to college together, or we were roommates together, and then boom, this is kind of how this all works.
	Joe, they also trashed your mom's apartment.
	We show it in the movie.
	It looked, I mean, to me, it looks like Gaza.
	You know, it's just everything is...
	It's leveled.
	And you, I mean, you left it the way it is, which is the only reason we were able to shoot the footage, because had you cleaned up the place and had it all restored, we would never have an actual, you know, kind of real-life visual of what that looked like.
	Yes, when I got out of the hospital about 10 days to 12 days later, I had to get a locksmith because they had locked my mother's door and I didn't have a key for it, so I hired a locksmith.
	Being at my security background, I know you want to keep A scene.
	So the first thing I did while he was changing the lock is I used my iPhone.
	I walked through the apartment and I captured the total disarray of the apartment because I said down the road, whether it's for a lawsuit or what have you, this is evidence and I don't want to touch it.
	And so I did and you did a perfect job of capturing it because I had preserved it exactly the way it was.
	And again, the apartment wasn't Martha Stewart ready, but it's not how you found it.
	It's how you left it.
	And that's really so important because all of that speaks of some rage.
	These people were animals.
	These people, they broke things.
	There are things that are missing.
	This is our government doing this to us.
	And that was the hardest thing for me to process, was the fact that not only did I not do anything, but they didn't care what they did.
	I mean, this is so eye-opening, right?
	Because I think that, Joe, for so many Americans, they have difficulty coming to terms with the fact that this is going on in America.
	I mean, I myself, if you had told me this 10 years ago, I would have said, well, you know, by and large, the government might be heavy-handed and maybe even brutish, but they're only doing it to the really bad guys who have done something wrong.
	And the idea that they could be targeting people because, as you say, they get a random tip, Obviously, they've been told politically that this is important.
	They need to go after every single person connected with January 6th.
	They've probably been told to be as heavy-handed as possible.
	And so, to that degree, they're carrying out orders.
	I mean, do you think sometimes that until it happens to you, the full depravity of it is not obvious?
	You have a little trouble believing it could happen.
	Dinesh, When 9-11 happened, I volunteered for the Red Cross, and the first night that I was in Ground Zero, I looked at the damage and they were still smoldering and I swore.
	I said, I will never forgive and I will never forget.
	And here I am 20 years later looking at domestic terrorism in my mother's apartment.
	I mean, I was so conflicted because I had seen what foreign terrorists did and here I am Getting the end result of this by the government?
	I mean, you can't imagine how just terrible it feels that you're paying taxes and you're paying for this on one phone call?
	Unbelievable. We'll be right back with Joe Bolanos.
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	It's D-I-N-E-S-H Dinesh.
	I'm back with New Yorker Joseph Bolanos.
	We're talking about FBI raids on his mom's apartment.
	But Joe, there was also...
	your apartment. Now, you weren't there, you were at your mom's apartment.
	Yes.
	And, but what I think great is that you were able to get camera footage of the actual FBI raid on your apartment.
	Now, you didn't get it because the FBI wanted you to get it.
	In fact, in the footage itself, you see these FBI guys coming running up your stairs.
	You see them take a cut a piece of tape or some kind of...
	And then they cover up the ring camera.
	Let's talk about why that is significant.
	Because they obviously didn't want to leave any...
	or what they were about to do.
	And right there, there's a question of what they're doing is all kosher, if it's all legal, if it's all by the book, why would they want to hide a record of it?
	Yes, exactly.
	They did the same thing in Mar-a-Lago when they raid it and they told them to turn off the security system and the lawyer said no.
	I mean, I mentioned this in the movie that if you're doing a legal process and you're entering a private property, What do you have to hide?
	If anything, having cameras is better because it relieves them of any accusations that can be brought up during the raid.
	But not in this case.
	In this case, they made an attempt to cover the...
	And when I was in the car...
	Being interrogated, they were in communication with the people at my apartment saying, what other cameras do you have?
	Where are they? And they disconnected them.
	Later, I found them to be disconnected when I got out of the hospital.
	But yeah, it was interesting because here they thought they had covered the camera and it hadn't been.
	The secondary camera captured everything.
	Well, this is the point. You outwitted them and, you know, you and I were chuckling about the fact that when this is revealed in the movie that you had another camera they didn't know about, the peephole itself was a camera.
	And, I mean, for me as a filmmaker, this was actually great because, as you know, we have some recreations in the movie and we try to do those with, you know, clinical accuracy.
	But there's no substitute for...
	This is the actual FBI and the guy you see is a real FBI agent.
	You can see his face on the camera and you can see what he's doing and you can see them pull a battering ram and they all get behind it and then they go smashing through your door.
	I mean, for me, viewing the movie, it's really fascinating because it's almost like I'm inside your apartment.
	And from inside your apartment, I can see, I have sort of this kind of x-ray vision.
	I can see through the door what they're doing, then I can see them come through the door.
	So it's wonderful.
	I mean, it brings the audience right into the scene itself.
	I mean, this is a terrible violation of you and with no cause whatsoever.
	I mean, they don't have probable cause.
	They have nothing except this kind of snitch who calls them.
	I mean, it would seem that you should have some kind of recourse, some ability to challenge them, to sue them.
	Now, you say in the movie, like, you know, I'm an ordinary citizen.
	Like, how can I go up against the U.S. government?
	Talk a little bit about that.
	Well, what happened was the first year after the raids happened, I was really concerned about my health.
	I really wasn't thinking legal-wise or making any decisions.
	But from the first year onwards, afterwards, I started to look up attorneys in New York, federal attorneys, people who had experience, and they either wanted a quarter of a million dollars I'm still in a position.
	I had hoped that I would meet somebody in Mar-a-Lago.
	But, you know, there were a couple of leads, but they haven't panned out.
	But, you know, I just have to be patient.
	There's got to be a seven-year statute of limitations.
	So if this happened in 2021, I have till 2028 to probably find some legal representation because I'll never run again.
	You know, to put my pants on takes sometimes 10 minutes.
	I use a cane.
	I live in a five-floor walk-up.
	Sometimes it takes me 15 minutes to get downstairs.
	My life has been changed and destroyed by what happened.
	Somebody should be accountable.
	And do you know that when I was trying to get my property back...
	I couldn't even get the name of the prosecuting US attorney.
	I mean, don't I have the right to face the person who issued the search warrant?
	I mean, it is so upside down that I really think that I'm living in some...
	In some third world country where I don't have any rights.
	I mean, where is my right to a free assembly, peaceful assembly, freedom of speech?
	I mean, this was such a warp.
	I don't know where to find somebody that has, you know, the courage to stand up for me.
	Because you always hear about guilty people that get representation.
	What about the innocent people?
	You know, who do they go to?
	I mean, Joe, interestingly, the guilty people don't seem to have any trouble.
	I mean, think, for example, you mentioned 9-11.
	Think about all those guys who have been apprehended in the aftermath of 9-11.
	These are Al-Qaeda guys.
	And guess what? Top New York law firms are representing them.
	Their situations in Guantanamo, they've got top-notch attorneys arguing on the basis of civil liberties.
	Credential. Free dental, all kinds of, right, amenities.
	And here you are trying to find a lawyer.
	You also mentioned, well, let's take a pause.
	When we come back, I'll ask you about this in our final segment with Joe Bolanos.
	I'm back with New Yorker Joe Bolanos, who's featured in Police State.
	Joe, you mention in the movie something you haven't mentioned here, which is, you know, a kind of PTSD that you get from this kind of an event.
	It's really traumatic, not only in its immediacy, but in the aftermath.
	And you talk, for example, about, like, pipes rattling in your apartment and the impact that that has on your time.
	Talk about that. Yes, after I got out of the hospital and I finally changed the locks at my mom's house and I finally went to my apartment.
	It was so difficult because, first of all, it was difficult sleeping since the incidents.
	But more importantly, when I was finally fast asleep, I live in an 1890s Brownstone, which is a five-floor like a townhouse.
	And it's got old pipes, plumbing, and what have you.
	And sometimes in the middle of the night, the pipes would start banging.
	And I would break out of a deep sleep saying, they're back.
	I was listening to everything.
	I went to my door.
	I looked at the peephole.
	I looked at, you know, the camera.
	And this happened probably about over a dozen times within like a month.
	And so I was actually considering just sleeping up at my mom's house, which I did a couple of nights just to get away from that.
	So yes, it did have a lasting traumatic physical and emotional effect on me.
	Joe, I just got the feeling, and I think you've confirmed it today, that the movie has meant a lot to you because it's kind of like, at least my story is out there.
	In other words, at least people know this happened to me.
	At least people can see that I wasn't doing anything atrocious.
	You must feel, just from the public perspective, That they're portraying you as some kind of awful person who is a domestic terrorist of some sort.
	And you made this point in our interview, our conversation.
	It actually wasn't in the final cut of the movie where you go, they're portraying me as a domestic terrorist, but from my point of view, they're the terrorists.
	Because they're terrorizing you.
	How else to describe what they did to you?
	Exactly. Exactly.
	The thing about seeing, first of all, to see your face on a big screen is kind of overwhelming.
	I have a bunch of wannabe actors in my neighborhood who are mad at me because I finally made the big screen and they've been studying for 20 years.
	So I had to kind of duck that criticism.
	But yes, the fact is that Two years ago, when I was telling people the FBI is wrong, NBC local is wrong, they were laughing at me.
	FBI is never wrong.
	They're the premier law enforcement, blah, blah, blah of the world.
	NBC can't be wrong because it's news.
	And so I was fighting all of these standards that these people were throwing at me.
	And I'm saying to myself, you don't understand.
	They're really wrong.
	And so to finally see my story on the big screen or even streaming...
	It's a redemptive feeling and some vindication, actually all vindication, of the fact that I was right.
	The truth was right.
	And even now, I still get people in my building.
	They shun me.
	People on the block, they shun me.
	Because it's not the truth that they don't believe.
	It's that they believe what they want to believe.
	And that's the big difference.
	I mean, that's the key.
	I was watching very carefully in that news segment about you, where they talk to a couple of neighbors.
	And, you know, one guy goes, well, I didn't really know that he had those views, you know?
	And I was thinking, wow.
	This is a guy who has completely, like, swallowed the Kool-Aid, you know?
	In other words, this is the kind of guy, I'm assuming, that in 1933 Germany would be like, Oh, yeah, somebody tried to burn the German parliament.
	We need to give Hitler all these powers, because how else are we going to feel safe?
	I mean, it's not that the guy's a bad guy, but he just...
	He uncritically digests what he's been told.
	He is not willing to match it up against, you know, I've lived here a long time.
	I've run into Joe.
	Joe's always a courteous, nice guy.
	It's a little hard for me to believe that Joe is this guy he's being portrayed to be.
	It's like people don't do that.
	They just go with the narrative.
	Well, it's funny you mentioned, because his wife was also on the clip, the blonde lady.
	These are two people I helped about 15 years ago, when there was a flasher in front of their daughter's window.
	And I said, call the cops, but the cops don't show up on time.
	So on a Labor Day, they called me.
	They said, he's here, he's here.
	I chased the guy for about...
	Nine blocks. I held them for the police for like almost an hour because the police were drained away from other assignments.
	Do you think they could have said thank you or they could have offered me a cup of tea?
	Nothing. And here they are.
	Wow, I'm so incredibly shocked that he would be involved.
	These people have no soul.
	They don't have virtue.
	They don't have a God.
	These people are all, like I say, the revolving door of self.
	Okay? And it showed in the movie.
	We are... Really scary stuff because I think one of the things I struggled with in the film was not everybody who's doing bad things or is part of this kind of police state infrastructure could be a villain.
	There've got to be some guys who are not inherently bad guys, but how do they get suckered into the scheme?
	How do they become part of it?
	And I think the movie helps to answer that question. They somehow are carried by the tide, they want to seem virtuous, they want to seem like they're on the side of the authorities, they go with the narrative, they don't have the moral courage to defend you when your back is up against the wall.
	Exactly. Joe, I want to thank you.
	Thank you for being on the podcast.
	Thank you for sharing your story with us.
	I think it greatly strengthened our film to have you in it, and we're honored and delighted to have been able to share your story with the world.
	Thank you very much. You're very welcome, and I can't begin to thank you and Debbie enough and D'Souza Media for putting me in the movie and actually...
	Offering the public the vindication that I needed because nobody would have done it.
	So I am indebted to you forever.
	It was a great movie.
	It is a great movie.
	And you did a masterful job of putting all these different factors and aspects of the police state together.
	It really is unbelievable.
	So thank you and thank Debbie and thank Azusa Media.
	The people that worked with you were great.
	Great. Just absolutely, the crew was fantastic.
	How you got that beautiful lighting in the church is beyond me.
	And I'm a photo guy.
	It was absolutely great.
	So thank you, and thank you very much.
	Absolutely, Joe.
	Thank you very much. Great.

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