In this episode of Democracy on Fire, Kay Brown is joined by Kim Harth to examine the growing pattern of politically motivated investigations and prosecutions and the chilling effect they can have on free speech, dissent, and civic engagement. They take a closer look at the case against the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the latest targets of what they argue is a campaign of political retribution.

Why is it so incumbent upon Trump and his administration to silence those voices and to further oppress them and to do it through terror?

It's just, I think we have to consider who it is they consider the other.

Welcome to Democracy on Fire.

I'm Kay Brown, and I'm so glad you're here.

Today we'll be getting into Trump's ongoing weaponization of the Department of Justice as he attempts to prosecute his political enemies.

Since Trump returned to the presidency, the Department of Justice has launched numerous investigations and prosecutions against his political opponents.

In many instances, the president himself has made direct public threats against these individuals and groups.

Most of these cases have failed, charges dropped, grand juries declining to indict, judges issuing sharp rebukes.

But notwithstanding the lack of success, the misuse of the Justice Department is really alarming.

In a healthy democracy, the justice system is not used to punish political opponents, chill dissent, and try to achieve political objectives.

Those are the hallmarks of an authoritarian regime, and that's clearly what we see emerging here.

The harm begins long before any verdict.

An investigation drains a person's resources, can threaten their careers, can strip them of security clearance, and most importantly, signals to anyone else that might be inclined to oppose the administration that they could be next.

At the same time, vindictive prosecutions take up bandwidth in the agency and reduce the Justice Department's ability to protect the public from actual crime.

So under Trump, we've seen blatant and virtually unprecedented weaponization of the Department of Justice, and he continues to Trump up flimsy charges against his political enemies.

In this podcast, we'll take a look at the overall situation as well as the case against the Southern Poverty Law center, one of the latest targets of Trump's vengeful prosecutions.

My guest is Kim Harth, a good friend of mine.

We're in a soul circles book group together that's been talking about current events and.

And Kim agreed to come on today with me and chat about this topic in which we both have a keen interest.

Welcome, Kim.

Thanks so much.

It's always good to see you, Kay.

Always good to spend time with you.

So, first, let's get into a little bit of background.

The organization Protect Democracy, which you can find on the [email protected] has, has been tracking these politically motivated prosecutions, and they have about 50 examples on their site of individuals and groups that have been had charges filed against them.

And to mention just a few, we've got a list of individual protesters in Minnesota, a number of members of Congress, including Senators Mark Kelly, Adam Schiff, Alex Padilla, Elisa Slotkin and five members of the U.S. house, Federal Reserve members Jerome Powell and Lisa Cook, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls, the mayors of Minneapolis St. Paul and Newark, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and several public interest groups, including the Ohio Organizing Collective and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

And those are just some of the more prominent ones.

There are a number of others against individuals less known but serving throughout the government and society who have acted in some way that displeased Trump.

You can see details about these cases and their [email protected] As I mentioned, a number of these attempts have failed, but many are still ongoing.

So, Kim, thanks for finding that website that really added to my knowledge of how many there are and the wide variety of them.

What are your thoughts about this situation?

Well, I guess in many ways, I have a cornucopia of emotions and feelings.

I'm stunned, I'm concerned, I'm frustrated.

But I also remain hopeful and passionate and committed.

We do have an election coming up on November 3rd that we all need to get out to.

But in just scanning through this website that I shared with you, protect Democracy, even with the Southern Poverty lawsuit, I'm sure we're going to get into that.

There's so much information here that I think is so valuable to people, and I think you'd be stunned.

I mean, they, they're listing the Minnesota church protesters as a group that's being targeted.

So it's amazing.

It's amazing.

And that, you know, we're not just talking about the impacts on these particular individuals and groups.

This really does impact the broader society.

Some of the ways, I think, is it's, it, it really tends to intimidate people.

And, you know, we had a joke earlier, which is, you know, there's a list and the good news is you're not on it, right?

Yeah.

But who knows who's going to be on it next because they keep adding people to it.

And, you know, one of the things that really came home to us this week was the indictment of a person in our community here in Palm Springs that we know, and Heidi Byrick, who is a former employee of the Southern Poverty Law center, and she was recently added to the case and charged with some criminal charges.

And it made it seem very close and very real that a person with such a distinguished career who continues to work in this field had actually been charged by the administration.

It's an attempt to limit all of our free speech rights.

That is something that is just.

We really need to be pushing back against that, because these.

These tactics go far beyond just the impacts they're having on the lives of the affected people.

Well, as you're saying, I mean, the intimidation and the accusations that they're making against Heidi for paying informants, I mean, we look at the history of the FBI, and all law enforcement agencies have always had paid informants and how they go about.

I mean, if you Google it, it's not like they're employees of the police station or the FBI, where they get a payroll check or a direct deposit.

Thank you for your service.

I think there's always a way of having to pay their informants, which I'm not aware of how they're paid, but they're accusing her of some pretty heinous things that it seems that our own federal government does at the same time.

Yeah.

Looking into just really the history of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

It's been around for about 55 years and is well known for its investigations of white supremacist groups and has a long history of cooperation with law enforcement at all levels, feeding them the intelligence that they've gained.

And as you mentioned, the tactics that they're using are similar to the ones law enforcement itself has used to try to gather information about these extremist groups and some of the crimes that they have attempted to commit against citizens in our country.

So the little bit of the history here.

The suit against the Southern Poverty Law center was filed in April of this year, but really, the whole thing started way back under Trump's first administration.

They, at that time, looked into the similar or the very same charges, and the IRS itself found that these were without merit, and they did not bring any cases at that time.

And then under Biden, the whole thing was dismissed.

But it got reignited, I guess, late last year because the Southern Poverty Law center had published a hate map.

And one of the groups that was mentioned on that map wrote a letter to Stephen Miller, who sent it on to the FBI and got them all stirred up about it.

And they then have come out.

Cash.

Patel, the FBI director, has made a number of public statements about specifically the splc, calling them a partisan smear machine and saying that the FBI was no longer going to work with them or use their intelligence or data.

And this is after many years of our law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, relying on this information as a way to train FBI agents.

So they basically were, you know, started distancing themselves from it.

And this was after the SPLC had come out criticizing Trump for ending the funding for hate crime prevention within the administration.

And they have been focusing on reverse discrimination and doing, you know, really turning things on its head within the agency.

In December, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas had a House Judiciary hearing on this and brought up a bunch of charges against the the Southern Poverty Law center similarly objecting to what they had done.

And Trump himself, in an what's listed as an unaired video clip filmed for 60 minutes, accused them, the SPLC, of financing the Ku Klux Klan and lots of others, radical, terrible groups, and alleged that this was all done to make him look bad.

And so there's a, there's a.

In the SPLC's indictment, when they responded to the indictment, they list dozens of examples of where Trump and other members of the administration have attacked them publicly.

So it's pretty clear that they are enemies and opponents and that they've made a lot of information about them public or made a lot of accusations.

One of the most troubling things I thought was just how our new Attorney General, Todd Blanche has been right in the middle of all this and has made false claims.

He claimed that there was no sharing of information between the Southern Poverty Law center and law enforcement.

And then he had to walk that back.

And it's unclear whether or not that misinformation, wrong information was in fact transmitted to the grand jury that brought these most recent charges.

And the motion they made to try to get that released publicly was denied.

So it's not known to the public what exactly the grand jury based their charges on.

But the SPLC has charged that a lot of wrongful information was transmitted and that that's part of what's going on here and really appears to be selective and vengeful and singling out this group.

Now, did you see any of the America's brief that was filed?

It was filed by, from what I read, a conservative and a libertarian group saying that this is way out of line.

So on page 20 of the Americas brief, it's very interesting, they cite that they really don't think the Department of Justice has a leg to stand on, that it is not with merit.

But again, this is Friends of the Court, who are conservative groups, libertarians, saying that they feel this action by the Department of Justice against the Southern Paul Verde Law center is not viable.

Yeah.

And even though not viable, it certainly does have implications.

And a lot of these cases, I know the David Hearn prosecution was an interesting one.

The person who stuck his hand in the reflecting Pool.

You know, it just goes on and on.

I was really surprised reading this long list of just how many different officers of the United States have gotten crosswise with Trump and found themselves being indicted or under investigation.

I guess in addition to these ones that are actually indicted, there's a much longer list of people that are being investigated where charges haven't yet been brought or may never be brought, but still, you know, just really trying to ramp it up and make people very skittish about speaking up and speaking out, which, of course, is one of the important tactics that we have right now, now, in fighting this administration, is that we can't be silent.

We have to educate people and make people aware of the threats that are unfolding, because it's easy to lose track of it.

And, you know, there's so much chatter and I know, I know.

We know friends that just tune it out.

They just have had it, you know, they're up to here with it, and they just say too much.

I just can't deal with it.

I'm.

I'm just not going to pay attention anymore.

And we got to get people back, you know, paying attention here as we come down the next few months, which are so crucial.

I agree.

And, and I think.

And also looking, I was checking out some other things of Trump's recent pardons and the impact that has on everyday citizens who were victims of these people and who no longer are going to benefit from any type of restitution.

So, on one hand, they're going after David Hearn for dipping his hand in the reflecting pool.

And Judge Jeanine dropped the case.

There's no merit here.

It was a defect of installation.

But Trump is now wanting to prosecute him again, saying, no, no, no, no.

It's, it's.

This is making me look bad.

He's got to be guilty to save my ego.

But at the same time, he pardons people after giving $3.5 million to his campaign to Maga, somebody giving $2 million to his.

For Trevor Milton, the founder of Nikola, donated $2 million to his reelection campaign and was then pardoned.

So it's like if you have millions and millions of dollars and can give it to Trump, you're going to be okay.

But if you're an everyday Joe who they can intimidate, who don't have the resources, that's what's keeping people home, I think.

I think people are questioning, do I want to be on the street while we still have a democracy?

And as fragile as it is, it requires our active participation, our engagement, our vote to keep the oxygen alive and keep it in democracy.

So now more than ever, we can't be turned away from the polls.

We got to use the power of our vote to reinstate, to re.

Engage and restore our power as citizens.

Yeah,.

Well, it's distressing that the administration continues to pursue these petty vendettas.

And, you know, he's just turning the whole weaponization accusation completely upside down.

Biden did it, and so he's justified in pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists who he's made into victims that were treated unfairly.

He's become a master deflector, constantly accusing others of what he himself is doing.

He just telegraphs what's coming.

So the Southern Poverty Law center case is the latest example of vindictive prosecutions against Trump's political enemies, which jeopardize all of our free speech rights.

And they're suing to silence and harass people even when they don't have the facts or the law on their side.

The Southern Poverty Law center is known for its fight against racism.

It's a respected player in the field, and it has a long history of successful work assisting law enforcement in exposing racist extremism and hate and thwarting criminal activity.

And they're now being vindictively prosecuted because of political speech.

So, yeah, because.

And if we look at it, k. Who is the Southern Poverty Law center protecting?

Who is the Anti Defamation League protecting?

Who are these groups?

Who is the ACLU protecting?

Why is it so incumbent upon Trump and his administration to silence those voices and to further oppress them and to do it through terror?

It's just, I think we have to consider who it is they consider.

The other.

Democracy absolutely is on fire.

And these cases we've been discussing are yet more examples of our free speech rights being under attack.

But the good news is that we the people have the power to change things in the crucial upcoming midterms.

So let's do it.

73 Days.

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