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Aug. 20, 2024 - Dinesh D'Souza
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PRISON DIARY Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep900
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Coming up, the Democratic National Convention is underway, and I'll offer my critical review of this freak show.
John Strand, who's a January 6th political prisoner, is with me in studio today.
We're going to do a deep dive into what it's like to go through all that, from the original Going to the Capitol, to the trial, to being in federal prison, the whole scoop.
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The Democratic Convention is underway.
Last night was day number one.
Tonight, Debbie tells me Obama is scheduled to speak.
So I don't know if I can quite sit through Obama.
Going on in his characteristically twisted and deceitful way, but I'll certainly try to pick up some of the things that he says and talk about them on the podcast tomorrow.
Day one appeared to be A fundamentally dishonest and perhaps unintentionally amusing tribute to Joe Biden.
Now, it's really hard to do a tribute to Joe Biden because, I mean, let's think about it.
As president, he has been A massive failure on pretty much every front.
This would be like doing a Democratic Party convention tribute to Jimmy Carter.
What do you say about Jimmy Carter?
Oh yeah, he wrecked the economy, he accelerated inflation, we've got 15% interest rates, and you can't buy a house, and you can't get a job.
He pulled the rug out from the shaw.
That's how we got Khomeini.
And he said he was really surprised when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
He didn't see that one coming, nor does he know what to do about it.
Not to mention the fact that we have hostages in Iran.
So this would be, I mean, I suppose this would be my tribute.
It's not a tribute at all.
It's just one damning fact after another.
And similarly with Joe Biden, the same.
What do you want to praise this man for?
Do you want to praise him for inflation?
Government overspending, the retreat from Afghanistan with our tail between our legs, leaving behind all that ammunition and weaponry, not to mention all those unnecessary deaths.
You want to praise him for the disaster upon disaster in foreign policy?
I mean, Putin invaded Ukraine under Biden's watch.
Iran has become emboldened and energized.
The Middle East is in flames.
So what do you want to praise him for?
What has he done on the foreign policy or the economic or the cultural front that has made the country better?
Can you name a single index, a single thing that is better because of Biden?
And the answer is really no.
You're hard-pressed to do that.
I suppose the only people who can feel better are people who have gotten some sort of a handout.
Oh yeah, he forgave my college loans.
Well yeah, but the Supreme Court said he didn't have the power to do that.
Well yeah, but he did it anyway.
So, this is about the only guy I can think of who would have a modicum of gratitude to Biden.
There's not a whole lot to praise him for.
So, they don't praise him for any of those things.
In fact, they don't even really want to bring them up.
And what they praise him for is simply the fact that he put his country first.
In other words, he set aside his personal ambition, which was obviously to run for president for a second term, as presidents normally do, and to, in a sense, make way for Kamala Harris, for another candidate.
But Biden didn't even do that.
He didn't step aside.
Did Biden say, upon reflection, I've concluded I'm not the best guy for the job?
No, he didn't.
Biden had no intention of going.
And so the Democrats had to start pressuring him.
And they tried various forms of cajoling and arm twisting, and it didn't work.
Uh, Joe Biden, or maybe Jill Biden, decided, no, no, no, it's too much fun being in the Oval Office, and we have no intention of relinquishing this.
And so then they had to sort of, like, club him to the ground.
Not literally, but threaten him.
We'll invoke the 25th amendment.
Apparently Obama made a phone call to Biden and told him that he had Kamala Harris's authorization to invoke the 25th amendment.
So Biden was facing this idea that he would be humiliated by his own party.
Obviously the Republicans would be happy to go along with all this.
And so he acceded to this pressure.
So now think about it.
Are you going to praise a guy for not stepping aside voluntarily?
We kind of had to gang up on him, like club him in a back alley and then drag him out.
But this is the dishonest public spectacle.
In a way, it's a perfect sort of symbol of the entire Democratic National Convention because all of this is artificial.
All of it is staged.
And yet the little details of it, I've mentioned a couple of them.
One of them is just this big abortion truck Authorized by the DNC that's providing, you know, vasectomies.
And I look at some of these epicene, you know, effeminate democratic males, and I'm thinking, you don't, you don't, you look like you already had a vasectomy.
And then, and then abortion.
So, so all of this is what's going on in Chicago.
And And I just wonder whether the American people are seeing through this charade.
I hope that enough of them are.
A charade that's only just beginning, but we have pretty much the whole week.
So there's quite a bit more to come.
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Guys, I'm very pleased to have in studio John Strand.
He is a January 6th political prisoner.
A little bit about him.
He's a writer, an actor, a model, a musician, a director, so clearly a jack of all trades.
He also led the Beverly Hills Freedom Rally in 2020, which brought tens of thousands of people to LA to fight against the COVID mandates and the COVID crackdowns.
He was security and communications support for Dr. Simone Gold.
You might know Dr. Simone Gold, the founder of America's Frontline Doctors.
That's actually what brought him to Washington, D.C.
on January 6th.
And he has had quite an ordeal, which we're going to go into in some detail.
It's just really good to hear firsthand about how all of this plays out.
By the way, you can follow him on X at John Strand USA, the website johnstrand.com.
John, thank you for being here.
I really appreciate you and Simone stopping by while you're in town.
Talk a little bit about, well, tell a little bit about yourself.
You've traveled all over the world.
In fact, you spent some time in India, and you seem to have done a lot of things with your life in a few short years.
Yeah, I'm making the most of what I have so far.
Dinesh, thank you for having me.
I really appreciate the opportunity, and I'm really just blessed to share this story because it's quite something.
I'm learning a lot through it, and I think it has a lot of implications for what's going on in the world.
As you mentioned, I've done some traveling.
I got my start early in a homeschooling family, God-fearing parents, with a lot of creativity and I really fell in love with the arts.
I've worked as a model, an actor, a musician.
I now work as a creative director for America's Frontline Doctors.
But many of those different experiences brought me to different places in the world and really gave me a deep appreciation for The amazing freedoms and also the amazing constitutional republic that we have to protect those freedoms for our citizens.
I also think, John, you know, when people, people have a stereotype of who went to Washington on January 6th.
Sure.
And they, I think their stereotype is, is some guy from Appalachia who, like, has never traveled, came to D.C.
for the first time, was like a yahoo, just, you know, stomped into the Capitol.
And what I'm getting at is, you don't fit that profile at all.
I don't look like a redneck?
You're very cosmopolitan, you're in the arts, you've lived in India, you know, so, It's important for people to understand that all kinds of people came to Washington on January 6th.
Let's fast forward to that day and talk about what did you see and do on January 6th of 2021?
Right, so this is an important question because in America we're supposed to be judged by our individual conduct, especially in the court of law, right?
Right.
And that is certainly not what happened in January 6th and especially in my case.
The crazy thing is that the government's own video evidence Completely exculpated me it was amazing to watch if you see the 14-minute video that we made using their own video evidence It's only 14 minutes that long on John Strand comm and it walks you through every step of my journey through the capital It was about 48 minutes and I compressed it just for time But you see it all so you can make your own judgment call about what I did or didn't do but quite simply all I did was
I performed my job that day as the security guard.
I was a licensed security guard at that time.
Security protection and assistance for a scheduled speaker at an event right outside the capital that had a government approved permit.
So that's what I was there for and that's what I did.
So Simone, Dr. Gold is there to speak.
Yep.
You're there to accompany her and as protection.
How did you end up inside the Capitol?
Was it the crowd?
Everyone was headed that way.
It seemed normal to go in there.
Now you go inside the Capitol.
It didn't seem normal exactly to go inside the building, but it seemed entirely normal to be protesting on the steps, which is where the bulk of the crowd was at that time.
But then there was a key moment when it shifted from a protest to an assault and the crowd was assaulted by the police out of nowhere flashbangs hit and it sounded like bombs going off the crowd panicked and then shortly after the doors were open from the inside and the crowd spilled in with nowhere else really to go.
So what you're saying in a sense is that the crowd.
It's not that the crowd was rushing into the Capitol to, quote, stop the count.
And I made the point before that the actual proceeding going on was not the certification per se.
It was actually Republicans objecting to the election results.
So it's not something that anybody would have wanted to stop anyway.
Democracy in progress, right?
Democracy in progress.
So I'm assuming it's safe to say you didn't vandalize the Capitol, you didn't do anything like that.
Of course not.
Let me ask you this.
What did you do and what did they say you did?
So, what I did was simply guard my colleague through a crowd.
That is literally the only thing I did inside the building, and it's really the only thing I did the duration of January 6th.
I guided her from the morning speech at the Ellipse, which was without incident, to the Capitol Grounds.
Then an incident occurred, as I described.
We were pushed inside.
It was confusing.
I did not know how to go around in the building.
I certainly had no idea what anyone was doing inside the building because that was not part of my itinerary for that day.
But once we were in, we realized this was an unplanned event, essentially, and just calmly meandered through red velvet ropes looking for an appropriate public way to exit.
When that was finally indicated to us by law enforcement, of course we complied, and then I just guided my colleague safely out of the building and we went home.
And that was it.
One of the striking things to me was when they say that there was this insurrection, this invasion of the Capitol.
I never saw a single video of any policeman with like a bullhorn or a microphone saying, everybody evacuate this building.
None of you are authorized to be here.
You must all leave now.
I mean, isn't that sort of a dog that didn't bark?
We never heard that.
That too.
In fact, you see videos of the opposite.
Cops are like high-fiving guys, leading them through here and there.
So there's an eerie Disconnect between the narrative and what you see with your eyes when you watch any of these videos, and there are a lot of them.
Yeah, there's a lot of evidence to show many different inconsistencies.
There's video evidence showing police malfeasance and violating use-of-force protocols.
That's detailed explicitly with government expert corroboration.
So there are many, many questions and not nearly enough honest answers on January 6th, that's for sure.
Do you think when you, just looking at the fact, A, that the police are the ones who initiate the assault on the crowd, B, we now know, although we don't know the exact number, there's a lot of undercover infiltration.
Hundreds.
And guys who are in Trump hats, but they're actually undercover.
Congressman Clay Higgin has given evidence that there were hundreds of informants.
And so, and presumably those guys are playing the role of MAGA loyalists, which is, let's go, let's go inside.
In other words, they're egging the event on.
Now, with a little bit of hindsight, do you think that this was an orchestrated event from the beginning?
Or do you think it was?
Without question.
So they wanted it to happen this way so that they could then turn around They actually wanted more blood to be spilled inside.
That's what they really wanted.
And they didn't get it.
The only blood spilled were four innocent protesters who were killed by the police.
So the good behavior of the Trumpsters, in a way, foiled their plan.
Yes, to a certain extent.
Because they probably were expecting more of a riot.
That's what they set up.
That's what they set up.
That's fascinating.
All right.
Now, you go home after January 6th.
Did you have a lot of alarm bells?
Because I mean, already the media was all over the event.
And what did you think and feel in the immediate aftermath?
There was a lot of consternation, as you said.
However, because we were actually there, and so we experienced what actually happened, it didn't match up to the hysteria.
So in the first couple of days, we didn't quite realize where this was going, because We knew what actually happened, so we thought that would level out.
And instead, it just accelerated from an attack on the capital to the next thing you know, they're equating this to Pearl Harbor.
I mean, literally and repeatedly.
So, I mean, that's – I don't even know.
Hyperbole doesn't even cover that.
I mean, that's just absurd and shameful.
So that's – very clearly intentional, that it's completely disconnected from the reality. And then the select committee production with Hollywood producers creating this master horror movie narrative that they pounded on primetime for the next two years. I mean...
I mean, here to me is a reason to think all of this was very well thought out.
They came up with a phrase almost immediately, and that phrase was insurrection.
It happens to be the exact word in the 14th amendment.
It's in the constitution, that word.
And it is a reason to take a presidential candidate or a candidate for any other office off the ballot if they create an insurrection, right?
So it's almost as if Even though there was a certain absurdity in calling what actually happened an insurrection, legally it was necessary.
Of course.
Because how else could they then take a Colorado case to the Supreme Court and go, this guy did an insurrection.
He can't run for president again.
Right.
Right.
So that to me suggests a lot of really very diabolical forethought.
Absolutely.
I mean, to me, it seems identical to Alan Bragg hijacking misdemeanors that are beyond the statute of limitations, faking a felony that's not even legal, and then, you know, saying, I got him convicted.
And the next thing you know, at the DNC, which is happening right now, we're running against a convicted felon.
Like, you connect the dots, you see where it goes, right?
It's the same tactic.
Yeah, I mean, I think their strategy there was the shotgun strategy, which is, if we hit him with one indictment, he could escape.
Even five, he's a very resourceful character, he could escape.
But if we have 91, it's like firing a shotgun at a clay pigeon.
One of the bullets is going to land.
Well, that's exactly what happened with J6.
There was massive vertical overcharging and horizontal overcharging by the DOJ.
Let's take a pause.
We'll be right back.
We're going to discuss vertical and horizontal overcharging.
We're going to discuss your trial and what happened after that.
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It's D-I-N-E-S-H Dinesh.
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I'd love to have you along for this great ride.
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I'm back with J6 political prisoner John Strand.
Follow him on X at JohnStrandUSA, the website.
And by the way, good place to go to watch this 14-minute video that he mentioned.
It'll give you a sort of Almost an insider look at what happened on the day of January 6th.
Johnstrand.com.
John, let's talk about when you first heard from the DOJ and from the government that you were... On their FBI's Most Wanted poster?
Were you on their FBI Most Wanted?
What?
Yeah, you never forget your first time on an FBI Most Wanted poster.
Oh, should I?
You know, I was hoping to make it myself.
I did get into a scuffle with the law, but see the thing is I feel a little bit of an inferiority complex because I got the confinement center like you got federal prison, you know?
I don't even have a mugshot.
People think that people spread my mugshot.
My mugshot was taken like by Debbie.
It's like a home.
We took it ourselves for one of our movies.
You got the rap without all the schwag.
Yeah, and now because I got the presidential pardon, I'm in this rather weird category of being an ex-felon.
You don't have the street cred of being a felon.
I'm an ex-felon.
I'm in that limbo.
Well, I'm about to join you because we won at the Supreme Court.
That is actually very important.
Okay, so what were you charged with?
I was fired.
Okay, so vertical and horizontal overcharging.
So the vertical is a charge much greater than what the facts support for their accusation of what you did.
I was charged with a 20-year prison felony, 1512c2.
That was the... Obstruction of an official proceeding with a maximum penalty of 20 years.
Wow.
But so the audience understands the title of this 1512c2 subsection specifically is tampering with a witness, informant, or evidence.
None of which you even remotely did.
Or it was remotely germane to us being there that day at a congressional building.
Everything that I just mentioned relates to a criminal trial in a courtroom.
Right.
It's not even the right branch of government.
It's completely the wrong law.
This comes from the Chevron case where the... as the whole thing was... No, sorry.
Sarbanes-Oxley from the Enron scandal is 1512.
I'm sorry, I said Chevron.
I actually meant, of course, Enron.
Yes.
It had to do with executives destroying documents and trying to prevent an ongoing investigation.
So that's why the law was passed.
And critically, when it was signed into law by the president at the time, George Bush, he said at the signing, it is critical to understand this should never be used against American citizens who are politically protesting.
Because if it was turned in that direction, it would essentially outlaw lobbying.
And it's been used thousands of times as intended for corporate fraud related activity until January 6th when it was used against political protesters.
So what you're really saying is that the government became very creative in a bad sense.
Where they said, look, this doesn't really fit, but let's make it fit.
Now, when you do that, normally, if you're a DOJ, you have to worry that a judge is gonna go, this is ridiculous.
Right.
Right?
But it seems that in this case, they had a pretty good feeling that the judges were in their back pocket, which by which I mean, the judges were part of the same swamp that they're trying to protect.
So it's like, we can count on the judges to Sign off on this.
And then we can count on a sympathetic DC jury to teach these people a lesson.
So let's talk about how that went forward.
Describe it.
Absolutely.
So there's a lot of detail.
Just to start, I want to say everyone should read the book that I wrote while I was in prison.
It's called Patriot Plea.
You can pre-order it now at johnstrand.com.
But I It is going to be worth your read.
I detail everything that happened.
I share all the transcripts so you can take it from their mouths and not just my account.
And it's shocking.
But as you mentioned, the vertical overcharge with that 20-year felony, which had nothing to do with what was happening.
And yes, they knew that the judges would accept it.
They knew that the entire... It was a machine.
It was well-oiled.
It was ready to go.
When I actually went to trial, it was clear it was completely a rigged show trial.
Very Stalin-esque.
Everything about this was...
Similar to the lawfare you're seeing against President Trump, it's all according to their plan.
So, that was evident all the way.
But I mean, we've reached quite a stage in this country, which I would not have thought we would have reached, where you have all the drapery of law, right?
If someone's looking at it from the outside, they go, I see a court, I see a judge, I see judicial robes, objections sustained, I see all the paraphernalia of law, but what's going on there is totally lawless.
Yeah, constitutional camouflage.
And these 20-year sentences, I mean, even if they don't get 20 years on someone, I mean, there are January 6th defendants who have committed suicide because you're facing the absolute annihilation of your life.
Perfectly stated.
And so, in my case, for all the January 6th hostages, and I refer to them that way on purpose, of course, all of them have had their lives really destroyed.
And these are innocent people, patriots that really cared about their country, that were set up and entrapped by a malicious government operation.
So people need to understand that.
In my case, particularly, with the plea But this was a part of their machination, part of their strategy the whole way, was to overcharge with that 20-year felony that doesn't apply, was to overcharge horizontally with stacked charges on all kinds of redundancies, just to scare people to death, so that they would instantly take the plea deals offered.
And this makes the government look like the government is telling the truth, that they have captured bad people that had a criminal intent.
And that was the narrative that they were trumpeting, that they wanted me to accept a plea deal to support that narrative.
Now, in my case, the plea deal was shocking because I was facing five counts that totaled to 23 years of potential prison and a half million dollars of fines.
That's what's hanging over my head.
And they gave me a golden parachute plea deal of one single misdemeanor.
So if I had complied with their lies and bend the knee to government tyranny to sign that plea deal, I would have gone home and had my life back several years ago and all this had been behind me.
I'd be back to normal, so to speak.
But the price for that was to support the government's fraudulent narrative and to destroy my own integrity because I know I'm innocent and I know the government is lying.
So that's the choice I had to make, and I refused that plea.
I went to trial knowing I'd be convicted because it was coordinated and rigged, as you mentioned, and that was obvious.
And I was sentenced to go to prison, and I took that on as a deployment in service of my country because I understood the necessity of exposing government corruption and standing on a platform of when you know something's true, you have to stand by it.
I mean, this is pretty astounding, John, because let's put this plea business into slow motion, because this, by the way, is not unique to January 6th.
This is a standard government tactic, right?
An ambitious prosecutor will go and charge a doctor, for example, with illegally prescribing pain medicine.
Right.
I had an inmate that did that.
Oh, okay.
And so what happens then, I met guys like this in the confinement zone.
They say all the government has to do is find a couple of witnesses who, and of course they can cajole them and coach them into this.
Oh yeah, he was constantly prescribing this.
And of course, there's an argument about whether or not this is, the pain was, you could always dispute whether this was a required medication.
So they act like you, and then they tell the doctor, listen, you could face, you know, three years in prison, the loss of your license, your life is destroyed, it will cost you half a million dollars, or you plead guilty.
You pay a $25,000 fine and you agree not to practice again in the state.
Well, think about it.
Even if you're completely innocent, you're like, okay, I'll take the plea because what are my options?
Right.
So, there's an incentive throughout our criminal justice system for innocent people to plead guilty.
And then, of course, like you say, the worst part, the moment you do, aha!
Right.
You admitted you did it.
Right.
Even though you're facing, this was under duress, I mean you have a legal gun to your head.
Absolutely.
That's what you're saying, you had a legal gun to your head, but you still didn't take the plea.
Yeah, I was facing 23 years and a half million dollars in fines, so any heavier than that, I wouldn't know what to say about it.
And what did you get?
So I went to trial.
For six months after trial, I was vocal in continuing to speak publicly about the fact that the trial was rigged and dishonest, that DC Swamp is controlling everything, as you mentioned.
But I mean, I was accurate and specific about my criticisms.
And that's detailed in the book as well.
So I'm not just throwing out angry words.
But the judge was incensed by the fact that I was criticizing the DC court system, and he acknowledged from the bench at sentencing that he sentenced me more harshly because I criticized the government.
So I was thrown in prison because I complained against the government, which is the textbook definition of fascism.
Literally.
And that's what happens now in the United States.
And I've noticed that also, you're not alone in this.
I've seen from reports by Julie Kelly and by others, commentary by these judges, they're indignant that a person facing these kinds of extreme charges and penalties would go, I'm being treated unjustly.
They act like you have no right to say that.
Right.
Right.
I mean, in America, you're supposed to have a right to say anything that you believe.
But you could also have the right to say the facts.
For instance, it's a fact that Washington DC voted 95% for Biden over Trump.
Right.
That's somewhat relevant to what we're talking about.
So right, you know, there's opinions and facts, but either way, you're supposed to be allowed to say them.
Let's take a pause.
When we come back, we want to discuss the life in prison, what that was like, and some afterthoughts.
I'm with January 6th political prisoner, John Strand.
His website, johnstrand.com.
By the way, you can pre-order the book Patriot plea which goes into all this stuff in great and illuminating detail.
You can follow John on X at John Strand USA.
John, talk about what you got as a penalty, and then describe... That whole process, to me, is very fascinating.
I mean, in my case, I was facing, for a campaign finance violation, prison time.
I didn't get prison time, but I got some exposure to the inside of the system.
You know, you have a probation officer, you have to deal with the Bureau of Prisons, the so-called, you know...
And so let's talk about that because this is also alien to most people who are outside the system.
It's almost surreal, but lay out how it goes down step by step.
To summarize off the top, I would say most people can relate to the pain of the DMV.
So this is like the DMV on steroids with weapons.
So, if you can imagine that incompetence, that disrespect, but it's far worse and it's far more of your life that's at stake.
And I think one of the things I noticed in my own campaign finance trial, they dehumanize you from the beginning.
So, for example, they like to put the handcuffs on you even though you're inside a building and you've turned yourself in.
Handcuffs are necessary, right?
I noticed the other thing is that when the prosecutor comes up, she would shake hands with my lawyer, but not speak to me in any way, as if, like, I'm an object.
I don't need it.
And then when she gets up in court, and this I found downright comic, and I had to, like, restrain myself from chuckling, she calls herself the government.
Yes.
Your Honor, the government objects to that.
The government will prove, and I'm thinking, Who made you the government?
Yeah.
You know, who elected you to anything?
Yeah.
How can you arrogate the full authority of the United States of America?
But that's what it is.
It's the United States of America against John Strand.
Yeah.
All right, keep going.
Well, when you see that for the first time, it's very disturbing as an American citizen who loves his country and who has done everything in his power to serve his country, to see that USA versus John Strand.
But I understand that we're at a phase where we are in the divided states of America, as I described it in the book.
What you're saying, I think, is that you have to do something which is not normal to do, is you have to patriotically separate the country, on the one hand, from the government.
Otherwise, you just lose your patriotism altogether.
Absolutely.
And I think that's really key.
So at sentencing, I was sentenced to almost three years in prison plus three years probation.
I was then persecuted specifically by the DOJ connected to the BOP in putting me in the wrong prison, a harsher classification of prison than I am properly rated for per the government's own rules.
So they started right off on the wrong foot there.
I was self-surrendered to Miami FCI.
And after a couple of weeks of getting settled in, I was thrown into terrible conditions in solitary confinement.
The pretext was because I gave a media interview.
Okay, we need to focus in on this a little bit, because while this is something I know about, and in fact, even in my imagination, it is a little horrifying to contemplate.
In other words, you are alone in a room.
Yeah.
And so let's talk about it.
First of all, the pretext was that you had given an interview from prison?
Yes, from prison on the monitored phone with a contact that I had submitted for approval and was approved.
So I had walked the line as they had asked me to as best as I understood.
And I simply gave a respectful interview about my appeal and my civil rights fight and my stand to expose J6 lies.
I was not criticizing the prison.
made a point not to talk about the prison just to respect their security concerns.
When the question was asked, I simply said they're being professional and I'm safe and that was about it.
So I made a good faith effort, but I was exercising my First Amendment rights even from in prison and I continued my mission which is to speak the truth and expose lies that I'm aware of and people heard it on the outside. It made an impact and I was retaliated against because of that.
And once you're in that kind of setting, I mean you have no rights, right?
I mean, there's no one to protest to.
It's hard enough getting time to meet with your own lawyer.
He can go file a motion, but that then goes to a judge.
The whole process is stretched out.
The prison operates, I mean, you kind of have to see the Shawshank Redemption to get a glimpse of what that is like, isn't it?
Now, talk about the solitary.
What's that like?
How did you even endure that?
Wow, so it's really hard to explain what that's like and how terrible it is.
As you said, when you're in prison, you have no rights, you have no recourse.
When they throw you in solitary, it's even worse.
You literally have no physical recourse to even attempt to get any help.
In my case, they threw me in without any legitimate explanation and any word on when I would get out.
And it's so much worse when you don't understand why, and especially when you don't know when it might end.
And it's hour upon hour.
What did you have in the solitary?
What did you have at all?
Very little.
It's like a concrete shoebox in a bunker with a tiny little six-inch plate glass window at a giant steel door, which you can't see anything out that window.
There's a wall in front of it.
So you're locked in a box.
What's in the box?
There's a metal bunk with a metal pan to sleep on with a piece of plastic, which is incredibly uncomfortable.
After a day, you're in pain, but I was there much longer, and over time, you... Do you have a pen, paper, books, anything like that?
You're supposed to have a few books.
You're supposed to have pen and paper.
They would take the pens away from me.
They took the pens away, restricted my... Security?
Yes.
Nonsense.
That's kind of nonsense, yeah.
You're supposed to have access to at least over-the-counter medications.
They restricted... Most people in solitary have certain minimal rights.
Access to Overcount of the Medication books, at least one phone call per week, and obviously access to your mail and your attorney, which is never, ever acceptable to block under any circumstances ever.
Hannibal Lecter has an absolute right to contact his attorney.
I was blocked from all of that for weeks and weeks and weeks.
With no legal rationale given?
I mean, they don't have to explain to anybody, certainly not to you.
Absolutely nothing, yeah.
And how long was the solitary?
I was in solitary for four straight months.
This is insane.
I mean, I'm a little surprised you've got your head screwed on.
Because that's, I mean, it takes a lot of inner strength to just survive that.
It does.
It was It was absolutely the worst thing I have ever faced in my life.
I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
It would destroy many innocent good people's hearts and minds.
It's just soul-sucking.
And I want to emphasize that this, I think, is its intent.
In other words, it's not as if this is a process and You know, it happens to break people, but the government is... because we often think of our government as a bungling, inefficient institution, and to many degrees it is.
As you say, these bureaucrats are like little robots.
I experienced it myself.
They have absolutely no intellectual flexibility at all.
Yes.
Um, you know, I remember I would show up at the end of this, um, I checked in at night.
I was in only overnight confinement.
Right.
And some days I had to teach a class, part of my community service.
Right.
Other days I didn't.
So if I didn't have my class, I'd show up early.
And they'd be like, you're supposed to check in at 9 p.m.
I go, yeah, but I don't have a class because it's a summer.
The classes aren't in session there.
Come back at 9 p.m.
They had no capacity to grasp.
OK, well, it's a summer.
There are no classes.
All right.
Why don't you check in at the normal time?
No, it says here it's 9 p.m.
You've got to show up at 9 p.m.
So I'd go sit at Starbucks.
I call it policy worship.
Yeah, so there is this kind of almost, you know, stupidity going on, but there's nothing dumb about what they do when they torture you like this.
That is premeditated.
And nefarious.
And nefarious.
I actually have on paper from the BOP Bureau of Prisons official paperwork that lists the FBI and the AUSA, Assistant United States Attorney's Office, as the reason for influencing the way I was tormented and abused in this situation.
So this is an important point because a lot of people think, and this is the way it should be, right?
Your trial's over, you now have a sentence, and it's the Bureau of Prisons.
What people don't realize is that the prosecutors and the DOJ are still in constant contact with the prison and coaching them about how to torture you.
Coaching's a nice word.
Coaching is a nice word.
And the Bureau of Prisons takes instructions from these guys because the Bureau of Prisons is under that apparatus.
Correct.
So this is, all right, so you... Continued weaponization.
Continued weaponization.
How long did you end up serving?
So I had almost a three-year sentence, and because of our victory at the Supreme Court, which vindicated me on June 28th in the Fisher decision, my attorney was part of that litigation, I was able to be released, thanks be to God, I'm grateful, exactly one year after I was entered into this prison system.
And in a sense, I mean, you're grateful to be released, but the truth of it is, what the Supreme Court basically said is that this was the most serious charge was bogus from the beginning.
Correct.
And that means you should never have been charged with that at all.
So you didn't get less time, you actually did more time than you should have, because this should not have been on your charge sheet from the outset.
Right, which means there only would have been misdemeanors, and before January 6, we don't put people in prison for misdemeanors.
So I shouldn't have gone to prison at all.
Essentially, none of the J6 hostages should have ever approached prison doors, particularly when you understand, as we do now, that it was a government-contrived entrapment event, which that implicates the government as the guilty party, and that supersedes any guilt by any J6 hostage.
What do you think as we close out here, John, with regard to, I mean, it seems to me like this is the kind of thing that demands some ultimate accountability, because if you don't have it, they'll keep doing it, you know?
And I say they because in some ways, if Democrats do it, And by do it, I mean use the weaponry of the state against their political opponents.
Republicans come in and don't do it, abstain from it.
The Democrats go, well, it's a risk-free strategy for us because the other side won't do it to us.
So we can keep doing it to them.
And even if we fail, we'll try again.
Because this is a disproportionate type of political warfare.
So offer some kind of closing thoughts about where we are as a country and what do you think, how do you think we stop this?
So I think that issue here is a false dichotomy that's used to distract and deceive us and that is Republicans versus Democrats.
So in my book I speak about this and I describe the real paradigm that exists is between the power and the people.
So we need to shift our thinking and understand we, the people, this is our country.
It is our government.
They work for us.
And in this instance, there absolutely needs to be accountability.
And I fully intend to dedicate myself to bringing it in whatever capacity God will allow me.
Let me ask you a question, Dinesh.
What is your, and you know this better than most people, because you have dealt with the prison system and you've had your freedom restricted.
What is your freedom worth to you?
Well, I mean, it's your whole life, right?
It's worth everything.
It's priceless, right?
Yeah, it's priceless.
Okay, but in this case, I might settle for a billion dollars.
Yeah, which is... I was thrown in prison.
My life has been destroyed for multiple years because, remember, this is four years in and it's still going.
The devastation to people's lives, as you mentioned, is really incalculable and I'm an innocent man.
I've sometimes had this conversation because I'll hear people, people that I respect and so on saying, well, you know, we've got to distinguish between the violent and the nonviolent January 6th.
And, you know, we need to have some pardons.
And I say to myself, when you have a mass scale orchestrated operation and the systematic violation of people's civil rights and civil liberties, I would pardon everybody.
And that would be the starting point.
Just the starting point.
That's the starting point.
Because this is such an outrage.
It would be, you know, it would be, the culpable ones here are the government, the DOJ, The January 6th Committee.
I mean, talk about a Goebbels-style propaganda operation.
Right.
And it's to me very disheartening because, I mean, when I was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, you know, my neighbor was Dick Cheney.
Right.
He was very complimentary to me.
Dinesh, I can't wait to read your book.
And I mean, so to see that family and Liz Cheney become like the poster of this Propagandistic operation, very, and that is a further corroboration of the fact that you're not dealing with just the Republicans versus Democrats.
Right.
You've got at least some Republicans who are very much in it with the Democrats in this kind of an operation.
Well, John, you're a very brave man.
I want to thank you very much for stopping by.
Guys, I've been talking to Jon Strand.
Follow him on X, JonStrandUSA.
Go to the website, JonStrand.com, order his book.
Watch that video that's on there, just 14 minutes long.
Jon, always a pleasure.
Great to have you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Thank you, Dinesh.
The honor is mine.
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