Rebel News Podcast - April 18, 2024


EZRA LEVANT ｜ Coutts Three face up to ten years in prison for protesting 'tyrannical government'


Episode Stats

Length

37 minutes

Words per Minute

168.49045

Word Count

6,236

Sentence Count

428

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

The three men charged with mischief for their role in the Coutts' Border Blockade have been convicted. We'll spend the show talking about it with our on-the-scene reporter, Robert Krejcik. That's ahead.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. I received bad news last night. Maybe you got my email about it this morning.
00:00:05.740 The three men charged with mischief for their role in the Coutts border blockade two years ago
00:00:10.340 have been convicted. We'll spend the show talking about it with our on-the-scene reporter,
00:00:16.200 Robert Krajcik. That's ahead, but first let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News
00:00:19.960 Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe,
00:00:25.600 eight bucks a month. You get the video content, which is great, and you also get the satisfaction
00:00:31.080 of knowing that you're supporting Rebel News because we do not take any money from Trudeau,
00:00:34.640 and it shows. All right, here's today's podcast.
00:00:41.460 You're listening to Rebel News Podcast.
00:00:43.800 Tonight, a guilty verdict in the trial of the Coutts three. It's April 17th,
00:00:57.640 and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
00:00:59.120 You're fighting for freedom!
00:01:02.340 Shame on you, you censorious thug!
00:01:13.800 Well, you may have received an email from me this morning. Late last night, we had bad news
00:01:19.980 out of Lethbridge, Alberta. Lethbridge, of course, is where the courthouse is that has been hearing
00:01:24.700 the case of the Crown versus three men called the Coutts three. Alex Van Herc, Marco Van Heugenbos,
00:01:32.500 and George Jansen. The three men were called the leadership group by the prosecutors, the leadership
00:01:39.000 group of the Coutts blockade in 2022, the very momentous blockade at the Alberta-Montana border
00:01:46.460 that set in motion a number of important events, including the resignation of Jason Kenney as
00:01:53.660 Alberta premier, the lifting of COVID restrictions in the same province. It was also used as a Reichstag
00:02:00.920 fire, a kind of pretext by Justin Trudeau to bring in the Emergencies Act, which was a gross
00:02:07.700 overreaction later deemed illegal and unconstitutional by the federal court. And if you look at the
00:02:13.720 polling, that marked, I think, a watershed and people saw what Justin Trudeau was like when
00:02:20.500 the mask slipped. And in fact, if you track the polling from that moment on, Justin Trudeau
00:02:26.200 has become more and more detested by ordinary Canadians. However, all those things said, all
00:02:32.860 those political fruits from the protest. Yesterday was judgment day, and the three men were convicted
00:02:40.080 by a jury of their peers. I was there to see the jury selected, and I cannot doubt that. These were
00:02:47.400 grassroots, ordinary people from southern Alberta. You wouldn't find a more sympathetic jury anywhere
00:02:53.560 in the country. I was startled by this news. Joining us now live on location from outside the
00:03:01.100 Lethbridge Courthouse is our friend, Robert Krejcik, who's been out there reporting on the trial
00:03:05.920 every day. Robert, thank you, and thanks for staying up late last night. What time,
00:03:13.300 mountain time, did the jurors finally render their verdict?
00:03:18.660 I put out a tweet, I think, at 8.34 p.m., and that must have been just moments after the verdict was
00:03:24.200 issued.
00:03:25.460 Got it. So they had been deliberating for, what, about three or four hours, perhaps?
00:03:29.720 About a little bit more than three. I think three to three and a half hours it took them to decide.
00:03:34.900 And what was it like? Were you in the court? Did they call the jury in, and the jury spokesman
00:03:40.460 read out their ruling? I've actually never been in a court when that has happened. What was it like?
00:03:48.540 Well, I've come to know the defendants. I was sort of hanging out with some of them, waiting for this
00:03:53.920 judgment to be issued. We were out just sort of getting a coffee at the mall. I was chatting with
00:03:57.860 some of them. And the way it works is you get a text message, you get a phone call that the jury
00:04:02.640 had, at this point, a question. He had a question for the judge about the instructions. We returned
00:04:06.440 to the courtroom. The question was some sort of particular about how to convict on the charge
00:04:11.620 of mischief. At that moment, there was some sort of, in my mind at least, let's say reprieve. Oh,
00:04:17.460 if you've got a question that indicates uncertainty, I thought. No. And then about 10 minutes later,
00:04:22.480 there was a verdict that was issued. So the jurors all come into the courtroom to your question.
00:04:27.260 They take their seats. There's an attendance asked of them. The court clerk asks the juror. One
00:04:32.180 attendance, two, three, goes on the list until number 12. Actually, 14, then two are dismissed
00:04:36.720 because they only need 12. And they issued their verdict on a defendant-by-defendant basis. How do you
00:04:43.880 find defendant Marco Van Hoogenbos? How do you find on Alex Van Herc? How do you find on George
00:04:48.480 Jansen? At one moment, Michael Johnston, who is still representing Alex Van Herc, asked for all the
00:04:55.460 jurors to sort of state it on their own. There was sort of this individual poll, and they each said
00:04:59.840 guilty, guilty, guilty when asked by their number from the court court to do so. Wow. And I presume,
00:05:06.520 even though it was late at night, by regular court standards, that the courthouse was full.
00:05:13.100 Well, these three men have a lot of family members in town or nearby. I imagine the courtroom was
00:05:19.820 packed. Yeah, it was. The whole day was actually much busier. You just noticed the increased foot
00:05:25.320 traffic, so to speak. The court benches were filled all day. And these men have big families. They're not
00:05:31.500 really typical Canadians in that regard. They've got lots of siblings. They have lots of children.
00:05:36.160 They've got lots of cousins. And I saw probably, let's say, about a few dozen people at a minimum,
00:05:42.220 probably approaching 100 people at total in the courtroom, virtually all supporters of the
00:05:46.200 defendants. And that's not even the entirety of all the families.
00:05:50.600 I mean, because I think with my head, but also with my heart, sometimes I blur what I hope will
00:05:58.500 happen with what I think will happen. And I was hopeful that the men would be acquitted. I thought,
00:06:05.800 based on your live tweets and some of the things I had observed firsthand, that there really wasn't
00:06:13.660 sufficient proof that these guys blocked a road or were malicious. In fact, there was evidence that
00:06:22.460 they were working cooperatively with the police to assure that certain things went as best as possible
00:06:30.420 to keep the temperature down. So I was surprised. In fact, I had a one-word tweet when I saw your
00:06:37.980 news. I just said, wow. What was it like in the courtroom? Were there gasps? Were there sighs or cries?
00:06:47.780 Or were people sort of almost expecting it? What was it like in the courtroom at that moment?
00:06:53.280 Okay. Well, prior to the issuance of the verdict, prior to the jury being brought back into the
00:06:59.500 courtroom, Justice Keith Yamauchi, the presiding judge over the trial, issued a specific instruction
00:07:05.360 to people in the gallery because he knows that the people there are family members who love and care
00:07:10.880 for the defendants. And he said specifically that we must maintain courtroom demeanor. I think the word
00:07:16.080 he was looking at, he said, was decorum. Decorum must be maintained. And he issued a caution,
00:07:20.720 a warning that anyone who would act belligerently or lose composure would be removed from the
00:07:25.800 courtroom. And people adhered to that. There was composure. And also, I'm sitting at the front of
00:07:29.940 this ridiculous media row, as we sort of joked about, you and I before, but together. So I didn't
00:07:34.700 get to observe them until after we exited the courtroom. And a lot of the women, daughters,
00:07:39.900 you could see they were cheery. There was an emotionalism there. But the courtroom itself was,
00:07:45.160 let's say, well-composed. As far as your question about expecting it, I think they were. I'll tell you,
00:07:50.460 I mean, I had almost a certainty about it because you mentioned the lack of evidence as I was
00:07:56.480 reporting on. I actually made, I don't know if this is silly, but I made a bet with Marco Van
00:08:00.400 Hookenbos. I bet him $20 it would be not guilty across the board. Obviously, I lost that bet. He
00:08:05.040 sort of had a confidence that he would be convicted. So he had a better assessment of what was going on
00:08:08.940 than I did. And just a couple of notes about the evidence. There was no specific evidence. There
00:08:14.760 was not one moment of testimony or video in which you actually see any of the defendants
00:08:20.180 obstructing the road. They were not in a vehicle obstructing it. They were not putting objects
00:08:24.940 into the road obstructing it. You can draw an inference that they partook in that blockage
00:08:29.960 because they were there. There's tons of video of them in this smuggler saloon. But there's no actual
00:08:34.620 testimony from any of the witnesses or any video evidence, which again was all Rebel News video,
00:08:40.240 that shows them actually doing the mischief. So, I mean, I can go on and on about that, but
00:08:44.460 that was my assessment.
00:08:46.220 Isn't that interesting? Now, in terms of next steps, I understand that there will be a sentencing
00:08:52.500 hearing in July. So, I mean, we've seen this before, for example, in the case of Arthur Pawlowski,
00:08:58.880 who was convicted in the same court for giving a sermon to these men. The different sides look to
00:09:06.920 case law for precedence. What do other mischief convictions, what have they yielded in the past?
00:09:14.240 And of course, the debate is, well, that case is different because of that. And that case we should
00:09:20.020 rely on because it's more factually aligned. So, that's the haggling. And the judge has to
00:09:27.680 look to what the precedents are and also look to these particular defendants. I want to play some
00:09:34.260 clips that you recorded in your conversations with the men last night. I won't play too much,
00:09:40.000 but I'm going to let it roll for a few minutes. I want to show Alex Van Herc and Marco Van
00:09:45.160 Hugenbos talking about would they do it again? And I think it's a fascinating insight into their
00:09:54.700 hearts and minds. And Alex Van Herc in particular, I think has taken it to heart that his peers have
00:10:00.980 found him guilty. And none of these men are scofflaws. None of these men mock the justice system. I think
00:10:06.820 they actually are listening to the jury of their peers, but I don't think that has convinced them that
00:10:13.820 what they did was morally wrong. And these men have been talking for, I mean, they talked their way through the
00:10:22.760 protest. And then for the last two years, they've been talking. It'll be interesting to see how the judge
00:10:29.640 processes these public statements that the men have made to you and to others. Because, you know, although they're
00:10:37.880 chastened by the fact that their peers have said, what you did was against the law, I think they
00:10:44.780 believe deeply that what they did was moral and that what they did helped save the country. And Alex
00:10:51.620 Van Herc's comments about that are particularly poignant. Let me play a couple of minutes for Marco
00:10:56.580 Van Hugenbos and then Alex Van Herc, because I found these very touching, very authentic, very heartfelt
00:11:02.980 comments. But they're not comments of people saying, sorry, I'll never do that again. You know, I touched
00:11:10.300 the flame once and it's too hot. I mean, these are men who are saying, I stand by my convictions.
00:11:16.400 I'm willing to suffer the penalty. I'm willing to accept the justice meted out to me. Sort of like
00:11:22.940 Gandhi. When Gandhi had his passive resistance, he accepted the punishment. He didn't try and squirm out of
00:11:30.760 it. But he didn't deny that what he did was moral. Enough talk from me. Here's without preamble. Here
00:11:37.100 is Marco Van Hugenbos. Take a look. Well, I'm thankful that this chapter has just turned the last page.
00:11:46.420 I expected this. The evidence was significant and substantial against me. And again, I don't think
00:11:57.260 it did any favors to my co-accused by being co-accused with me and some of this evidence, even though
00:12:05.100 they were there as well. They participated. I'm human. I'm human. And this is a decision that will
00:12:14.500 set in. But I've made my peace with it. And that goes back to the fact that there is a difference
00:12:21.100 between the legality of what we did and the reason why we did it, which ties into the morality
00:12:30.020 of it. The guardrails, the charge that the justice issued was detailed, but it brought the guardrails
00:12:43.020 closer together in relation to the letter of the law. What isn't taken into account in this court,
00:12:52.860 but is the reason why we were there, is the fact that a oppressive and tyrannical government
00:13:00.420 needed to be reined in. And that's why this is not the decision we're looking for.
00:13:06.160 There's a lot of questions that people could ask in relation to appeal, things like that. We're not
00:13:12.720 there yet. Those things will be determined once censusing has commenced. But what I want to leave
00:13:22.020 people with is the fact, is the reasons why we were at COOTS. We were there for our children. We were
00:13:28.840 there for our seniors. We were there for the veterans. We were there for Albertans and Canadians.
00:13:33.640 At that time, little did we know the impact and the information we now know in relation to
00:13:41.860 unlawful, unconstitutional mandates and COVID restrictions. We were there as conscientious
00:13:55.960 objectors to a brutal, tyrannical, multiple levels of government. And that doesn't change anything for
00:14:08.240 me. The question is asked, would you do it again? I hope I never have to. But the reality of this world
00:14:15.280 will force somebody to at a given time. And I'll say this, if I had to do it again, in the context of
00:14:25.140 this, I would say yes, without a thought. I'd do it better. We made mistakes.
00:14:31.660 And it's not about the mistakes. It's about the successes of the blockade.
00:14:40.000 I hope to write a book. And people, I hope you hold me to this, to tell the real story of COOTS,
00:14:48.220 and those brave men and women, and the people that supported us across this great province,
00:14:53.380 and this country, in sync with heroes such as Chris Barber, Tamara Lish, and others.
00:15:00.060 So here we are, not the decision we wanted, but I'm at peace. Thank you, Robert. I really appreciate
00:15:09.640 you being here. All right, here's Alex Van Herc, the second of the three defendants. Listen to him.
00:15:15.560 Well, I guess I'm somewhat shocked, I guess, after hearing that verdict. I felt what we did was right
00:15:21.840 down in COOTS, along with thousands of others that participated. We are participants in it,
00:15:27.780 and I guess the jury deemed us as leaders. They come to that conclusion, and we have to accept
00:15:33.080 that verdict. I mean, if that's what they deem us to be guilty of, then I guess I'm proud of it,
00:15:39.100 because I feel what was happening in our country at that time was wrong, and we needed to stand up,
00:15:44.960 and we weren't alone. There was 35 kilometers of traffic that was going down the COOTS that agreed
00:15:51.320 with what was, or didn't agree with what was happening in our country, that wanted to change.
00:15:57.120 And I think of the thousands that came down there that supported us in the financial support,
00:16:03.960 in the food, everything that happened down at COOTS. Good things happened in COOTS,
00:16:09.720 and I have no regrets of going down the COOTS. I hope that there will be accountability
00:16:17.060 to those that forced us to go down the COOTS, forced good citizens, you know, thousands of good
00:16:25.580 citizens go down the COOTS, and I hope the ones that were in charge leading our country, you know,
00:16:31.380 with these illegal mandates, these wrong things that were happening, that there's accountability
00:16:37.100 to them one day. We got held to account for the mischief that they deemed us that we created in COOTS,
00:16:43.360 and I'll accept that as my accountability, because I feel we saved lots of lives. We've changed the
00:16:51.180 dynamics of what's happening in this world. We sparked, I feel, other countries to rise up against
00:16:59.540 their tyrannical governments across the world, and I feel proud of that. So if that's what I have to do,
00:17:08.740 that's, and our sentencing, I guess, will be at a later date, and I hope that the judge may have
00:17:13.800 some, I guess, how do you want to word it, some passion on us, I guess, to... Compassion or discernment?
00:17:20.620 Yeah, discernment, to realize why we went there, and what we went there for, and understand,
00:17:26.920 and you know what, we might get house arrest. We don't know yet what the outcome is,
00:17:31.760 but whatever the outcome, I'll accept it, but I hope and pray that everybody may get involved
00:17:38.860 and hold their politicians to account, and continue to do so, because if it doesn't,
00:17:44.360 then our world is going to continue the way it's going, and it's not going in the right direction.
00:17:48.320 I'm actually touched by what those two men say, especially Alex Van Herc, the way he talks about
00:17:53.680 it. I know he's got a large family, I forget, I think seven or eight kids or something, and he's got,
00:17:57.720 everyone in the court is a Van Herc, or a Van Huguenbos when I was down there.
00:18:05.320 I don't know, I think they believe that they lived up to the, that they were a fit for the time and
00:18:12.000 place, that it was a historic moment, and they had a role to play, and that they had to do it,
00:18:17.680 and if that meant getting convicted of mischief, and even paying a price, I think these men accept
00:18:25.760 that. That's what I'm hearing from them. Yeah, I've actually been hearing that from them for a
00:18:31.540 while. They were sort of ready to face the music, so to speak, if they were found guilty. Now,
00:18:36.120 you used two terms in the past few minutes. You mentioned morality, and you also mentioned
00:18:42.620 legality, and of course, we need to make a distinction between the two, because they're
00:18:47.140 not synonymous, and they're not always one and the same. I'll go even further, that sometimes you can
00:18:51.780 have laws that are passed, or orders, or edicts that are immoral, and there's an impulse, there's a
00:18:58.480 need for justice to oppose them, and I think that's where peaceable assembly and civil disobedience comes
00:19:03.700 in, and like you said, these men were not reading these sort of contrived, disingenuous statements
00:19:09.180 of, oh, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again. They stand by, as you put it, their convictions,
00:19:14.380 their men of principle. Now, maybe this is me disclosing my bias, but I've come to get to know
00:19:18.820 these men over time, and I actually very much admire them. They are men of principle, and they're
00:19:23.740 men of courage. I think courage is a character trait much lacking. It's probably the rarest,
00:19:28.700 but most important character trait out there, and they demonstrated that, and of course, they were
00:19:32.840 not belligerent, or condescending, or acrimonious towards the jurors, or the system itself. They're not
00:19:38.820 speaking obnoxiously. They accept the consequences, and at the same time, they still told me and others
00:19:46.540 that they do not have regrets about what they did because they believed and continue to believe
00:19:51.760 that it was a moral endeavor, moral imperative to oppose, you know, all of these so-called public
00:19:57.120 health mandates and orders and edicts issued by our ostensibly benevolent government.
00:20:01.320 You know, it reminds me, listening to them reminds me of the phrase, render unto Caesar that which is
00:20:08.700 Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's, which is a Christian way of saying you're a citizen
00:20:15.220 in a country in this world, follow the laws and do what the Caesar says. But while you're in this
00:20:21.880 world, you're also, you know, God has dominion over you, and you've got to, and I think most people
00:20:29.060 in modern times don't have that second part. Most people just render unto Caesar. Most people
00:20:34.900 are either atheists or not particularly religiously observant. They don't think about religion a lot.
00:20:41.820 And I don't think it's a coincidence that so many religious people were defiant dissidents
00:20:50.600 during the COVID lockdowns. I think of Arthur Pawlowski. I think of the Hildebrands in Ontario.
00:20:55.980 I think of Grace Life Church up in Edmonton. So many of the people who engaged in peaceful resistance
00:21:02.240 said, all right, I'm willing to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, but Caesar is not my God,
00:21:08.420 and I have a higher authority. And just because Caesar, Justin Trudeau, Jason Kenney, Teresa Tam,
00:21:15.840 is saying you can't visit your family, you can't, you know, go out without a jab, I mean,
00:21:21.820 that doesn't make it right. And I think what's so interesting is, and I think it was the same way
00:21:27.280 in other authoritarian times, under the Nazis, under the communists, it was often religious leaders who
00:21:34.540 were the dissidents, because they believed in something higher than the state. That's one of
00:21:38.980 the reasons why Marxists try and destroy religion, because they don't want a higher authority than
00:21:44.360 communism. Mao's Little Red Book. The Bibles in communist China are not the same as the Bibles
00:21:50.320 that you and I would know, because they're censored and they're altered, and they're subject to the
00:21:57.100 Communist Party. I say all that because the three defendants in this case, Marco van Heugenbaas, Alex
00:22:03.700 van Heerck, and George Jansen, are each Christian men. And I think that motivated, or at least informed,
00:22:11.540 their willingness to stand up to tyranny in civic form. And I think it also makes them accept
00:22:19.420 the judgment of Caesar, accept this jury's denunciation without quarrel. This, yeah, okay,
00:22:27.120 you're right. I did it. You say what we did is wrong legally, fair point. But we still hold to our
00:22:33.920 belief that what we did was morally right. I think it's very interesting. And I think the fact that all
00:22:38.440 three of them are Christian men is not a coincidence. I think that's where they found their courage to
00:22:44.340 take a stand morally, as you say, even if it's against the legalities of the day.
00:22:50.900 Yeah, I agree with everything you said except one point. You hedged twice. You said, I don't think
00:22:56.260 it's a coincidence. I'll go further. I know to a certainty it's not a coincidence. And that very
00:23:01.680 feature of these men, the Christian ethos, that religious conviction is not an accidental component
00:23:08.720 of their conviction in opposition to these abusive, coercive, extractive mandates marketed as public
00:23:15.100 health. It's absolutely fundamental to the recipe of their character that drove them and continues to
00:23:21.100 drive them in opposition to these immoral, yet perhaps legal, orders, edicts, laws, regulations,
00:23:27.940 whatever you want to call them. I actually asked that exact question of those men the other day. It was
00:23:32.840 in one of the reports. And all of them acknowledged that religious conviction is a part of why they are
00:23:38.720 the way they are. And you're actually touching on what I think is a massive theme, a massive issue in
00:23:44.920 the modern era that I'm sure many Rebel News audience members have contemplated or researched.
00:23:50.020 And it's how the decline of religiosity in the West, particularly Christianity to a lesser extent,
00:23:54.680 Judaism, perhaps Judeo-Christianity, if people prefer that term. And yet people still have an innate
00:24:00.940 need. Pardon me while I just speak about the human condition for a moment. People have a need for
00:24:06.620 transcendence and purpose and meaning. And in the absence of traditional structures through which
00:24:12.540 that meaning is provided, typically the Christian or Jewish religious observance, as that goes down
00:24:19.000 into, let's say, secularism, people will find some substitute for that. And that substitute can be,
00:24:24.160 in my view, a sort of fake or synthetic endeavor, like so-called environmentalism, or being obsessed with
00:24:29.700 getting injections and wearing masks, or pretending that there's this boogeyman of racism under every
00:24:35.820 rock. So people will find a way to fill that void one way or the other. And I think we should all be
00:24:40.580 very careful that we fill that void with something legitimate, something meaningful. And yeah, this is a
00:24:47.000 big topic that we're touching on.
00:24:48.620 Well, as they say, nature abhors a vacuum. So if you drive Christianity out of the public square,
00:24:54.820 something will replace it. Maybe you'll have a false child prophet like Greta Thunberg.
00:25:02.200 I haven't had a chance to talk to the man. I had a very brief text exchange with one of them.
00:25:09.260 We know that in 90 days, there will be this sentencing hearing. And I have to say, I have no
00:25:16.560 idea how it's going to go. But it would not shock me if there was a brief custodial sentence,
00:25:21.860 as in some jail, even though it's a first offense. I don't know. I don't know. It'll be
00:25:28.040 interesting. And again, the fact that these men say, I do not think I did something morally wrong.
00:25:33.080 I broke the law and I'm ready to pay the penalty. But morally, you have not convinced me,
00:25:37.800 your honor, that I was wrong in my heart. Some judges will say, all right, well, thank you for
00:25:43.060 saying that. Others will say, no, you have not submitted to the law. You're still defiant.
00:25:48.840 You're remorseless. You caused this whole trial. You caused this whole thing. And they'll go harder
00:25:55.400 on a man. And of course, that's very appropriate if it's an immoral crime, a murder, God forbid,
00:26:05.040 a robbery. And if someone is a remorseless killer, of course, it should redound to their discredit.
00:26:11.840 But in a peaceful, victimless, nonviolent offense, politically motivated, if a man says,
00:26:21.560 I do not show remorse, it'll be interesting to see how punitive the judge is. We'll find out in 90
00:26:27.800 days. Rebel News has been interested in this file for two years. We sent a lawyer down
00:26:32.600 while it was happening to give the men advice in real time to negotiate with the police. Rebel News
00:26:40.340 has crowdfunded the lawyers for this trial. There were four lawyers in the courtroom. Rebel News will
00:26:48.380 crowdfund the lawyers at the sentencing hearing. And I understand that actually today, you switched
00:26:55.360 over to cover a different Coutts trial. Is the trial of the so-called Coutts IV underway?
00:27:03.940 Yeah, it is. So the two remaining men of the Coutts IV, Chris Carbert, Anthony Olenek,
00:27:09.920 they're in the courtroom right now. Their pretrial hearing is continuing today and also tomorrow.
00:27:15.760 So there's a publication ban there. Just for those that need a reminder, the publication ban is to
00:27:19.960 prevent the public disclosure of information or evidence that may either be unlawfully obtained
00:27:26.280 and therefore illegitimate in the trial or perhaps lacking veracity. And you don't want to have that
00:27:31.440 information communicated via publications through a news media outlet like Rebel News that could
00:27:36.420 potentially contaminate the jury pool from which jurors will be selected. But I can share some general
00:27:42.380 info with you that doesn't violate that. It's just some interesting things that take place are the
00:27:47.000 disputes between the Crown and defense attorneys over the legitimacy or admissibility of evidence.
00:27:53.340 They may contest the accuracy of the evidence. They may contest the ways through which that evidence was
00:27:58.360 obtained or procured. They may also even dispute the legitimacy of particular experts that are sought to be
00:28:07.100 introduced as witnesses by the Crown. Now, we can't talk about these things now. At some point, we can't. And by the way,
00:28:12.920 there's actually one thing. If we can just go back to the coups three for one moment, because Ezra, you were here with me when this issue came up and it was so interesting.
00:28:20.700 And I think now that the trial is sort of over, at least in terms of the verdict, it's so cool to remark upon.
00:28:25.700 The defense attorney for Alex Van Herc is a man named Michael Johnston. I don't know. Maybe you even want to speak to him on the Ezra Levant show.
00:28:31.240 I think it could be a great tutorial on what I'll just touch on very briefly. He discussed the issue of jury nullification, and I came to learn that jury nullification is sort of a circumstance in which jurors may acknowledge the illegality of a particular act that they are convinced was committed by a defendant or defendants, but they don't accept the morality of it.
00:28:52.440 And in so doing, they issue a not guilty verdict. So what they end up doing de facto is rendering illegitimate a law or unenforceable a law.
00:29:01.900 So why am I bringing this up? Because during the pretrial deliberations, Johnston requested permission to advise the jurors of this capability.
00:29:11.940 Because remember, the audience must know this. If you're ever selected as a juror, no one can go in there into the jury room to police your mind.
00:29:17.920 You're in there. You're your own man. You're your own woman. No one can then say, well, you came up with the wrong reason because it doesn't work like that.
00:29:24.700 You've sort of got final authority. And if something is immoral to you and unacceptable to you, you can still come up with a decision that you want.
00:29:32.220 You're not bound by anything but your own conscience. And the fact that the judge did not allow Michael Johnston to inform the jurors of this, and indeed, this sort of information is not provided to jurors at all.
00:29:42.960 By the way, if Johnston would have convinced this judge of that, that would have been sort of a breakthrough moment that would potentially change criminal proceedings across the country forever going forward.
00:29:52.100 And I thought that was an interesting thing that got mentioned, that now we can finally talk about, given that the verdict was rendered.
00:29:57.360 The fact that jury nullification is a real thing, and jurors have that power, but they're not advised of it.
00:30:02.340 If anything, they're sort of conditioned to believing they don't have that. They're sort of bound by these parameters in their minds.
00:30:09.900 Mm-hmm. Interesting stuff. Well, we'll let you get back to covering the remainder of the COOTS IV hearings.
00:30:19.680 And I understand you're going to be out there for the duration of that.
00:30:23.560 Let me sum up for our viewers what Rebel News is doing.
00:30:26.840 As I mentioned before, Rebel News has crowdfunded for the legal defense of the so-called COOTS III.
00:30:32.420 That's what we've been talking about in the main. That was the verdict that came out last night.
00:30:35.960 And donations to cover the lawyers there are eligible for a charitable tax receipt from the Democracy Fund, which is a registered CRA charity.
00:30:46.560 So if you go to coots3.com, you can contribute to the lawyers.
00:30:51.860 If you want to help the COOTS IV, we have a special website set up for one of them called helpchris.ca.
00:31:01.000 And his name is Chris Carbert, and he's on trial right now.
00:31:05.700 And Robert, who's been doing a great job out there in Lethbridge, he's actually from Ottawa.
00:31:11.480 You may know that because he's been covering the Tamara Leach trial out there.
00:31:15.360 That trial is on a hiatus. It's not done.
00:31:18.720 So Robert had agreed, which I thought was great.
00:31:21.960 I mean, he uprooted his life. He moved to Lethbridge.
00:31:24.940 He's been down in Lethbridge for weeks, and he's going to continue covering things.
00:31:28.120 If you want to help us cover the cost of his economy class, airfare, car rental, Airbnb, you can do that at truckertrials.com.
00:31:36.540 So that's a bunch of websites.
00:31:38.080 But I just wanted to show you the many ways that Rebel News is involved with these stories, not just reporting on them, but helping them.
00:31:45.440 Robert, great to see you.
00:31:46.260 Thanks for spending so much time with us.
00:31:48.240 And I'm really glad that you got to know the defendants.
00:31:51.720 And the story's not over yet.
00:31:53.040 Yeah, it's not.
00:31:55.200 Like you said, there's going to be a sentencing hearing scheduled tentatively for July 22nd.
00:31:59.940 The story is not yet finished.
00:32:01.720 And, of course, the sentencing for a guilty verdict of mischief over $5,000 can be very broad.
00:32:09.060 It can range from something like a fine to probation, also including incarceration, I think, up to two years.
00:32:15.820 And just to repeat what you were saying earlier, I definitely want to thank Rebel News and the Rebel News contributors, the donors, even though, yeah, it's not easy to come off from your home.
00:32:24.080 I've actually had a very good time here.
00:32:25.380 I've been treated very well.
00:32:26.920 I've made some good friends here.
00:32:28.560 And it's really been an amazing, interesting project to be a part of.
00:32:32.020 And I'm actually very grateful to be a part of it.
00:32:33.820 Well, I tell you, you're in Albertan at heart.
00:32:37.020 And I know you've enjoyed being in southern Alberta, which is a very different place than Ottawa.
00:32:42.040 And you've also, when you're out there, you've taken the time to go to the carbon tax protest west of Calgary on the highway.
00:32:49.320 I visited that a few weeks ago.
00:32:50.580 I thought it was very interesting.
00:32:52.300 Robert, keep up the great work.
00:32:53.260 Thanks for your help.
00:32:55.320 Thank you.
00:32:55.880 Bye.
00:32:56.060 All right.
00:32:56.820 There you have Robert Krejcik reporting live from outside the Lethbridge Courthouse.
00:33:01.940 Again, the headline, The Coutts Three Convicted by a Jury of Mischief for the Role in the 2022 Blockade.
00:33:11.180 Stay with us.
00:33:11.860 More ahead.
00:33:23.880 Hey, welcome back.
00:33:24.840 Your Letters to Me.
00:33:25.540 Philippians 2 says there seems to be very little about this on the mainstream media.
00:33:30.240 Now, you're talking about the attempt by Australia's government to censor one of our journalists, Ian Miles Chong, from showing the video of the Muslim extremists attacking a Christian priest, Catholic priest, I think he was Catholic, or Orthodox priest, with a knife in Australia.
00:33:50.840 And I think one of the key facts I heard was that Ian marked the video sensitive.
00:33:58.220 So if you were a kid or if you weren't expecting it, you wouldn't be shocked with that dramatic imagery.
00:34:04.100 Why would Australia's government want to censor that?
00:34:09.720 I think it's because it's because it violates the narrative, and it embarrasses radical Islam, I think.
00:34:16.980 And I think that that's the Australian government being selective in their censorship, being political in their censorship.
00:34:27.480 In the past, I'm sure that Twitter would have gone along with it.
00:34:30.500 Not this time.
00:34:31.220 Dave Cassero says, that type of censorship is both potentially dangerous, but it is grossly offensive.
00:34:41.720 I think it's both.
00:34:43.120 I mean, one of the things that I've had to get used to is the shocking imagery on Twitter, but the world is shocking.
00:34:49.260 What's happening in Israel, what's happening in Gaza, to be candid, to what's happening in Russia, the shooters there.
00:34:57.560 I don't know if you remember a few weeks ago, the shooters at that concert.
00:35:01.460 The world is a shocking place.
00:35:03.940 And if you don't want to see it, that's fine.
00:35:06.480 Don't surf Twitter or put your settings so you don't see dramatic things.
00:35:10.860 But I guess I've made a personal decision, not for reasons of titillation or excitement, but because I really want to know what's going on in the world, and I don't want to delegate that judgment to someone else.
00:35:22.520 I don't want to outsource my own political judgment to someone else, because there's really almost no one else in the world I would trust to read the news for me and make up their mind for me about what I ought to be able to see or not.
00:35:35.580 Now, I'm sure there's other people who don't feel that way.
00:35:37.760 They're not very political.
00:35:38.840 They don't really care.
00:35:39.540 And they say, yeah, just tell me if something's important.
00:35:42.180 But those people are trusting a middleman.
00:35:45.040 I don't.
00:35:46.240 In fact, the whole point of Rebel News is I don't have to trust a middleman anymore.
00:35:50.760 Another comment from Life4Dummies.
00:35:56.020 It's time for Australia to step up and ban all semi-automatic knives.
00:36:00.800 Yeah, I mean, you can kill someone with anything.
00:36:03.420 You can kill them with a rock.
00:36:05.200 You can kill them with a brick.
00:36:06.140 You can kill them by throwing them off a roof, which is the preferred style in Gaza when they find someone who's gay, by the way.
00:36:14.060 The problem, of course, is not with the tool.
00:36:16.840 We all use knives to eat, to cook.
00:36:20.320 The problem is not with the tool.
00:36:21.240 The problem is with the wielder of the knife.
00:36:24.140 And if it isn't a knife, it would be something else, even a car, for example.
00:36:28.860 I think we have a crisis.
00:36:30.140 I think that the whole action by the Australian government is to cover up the nature of the crisis, which is we have many people in the West who do not subscribe to our culture of life and nonviolence.
00:36:43.400 They believe in violence and religious supremacy and violent solutions to problems and the inequality of people.
00:36:51.220 And I think it's very dangerous.
00:36:53.500 That's the show for today.
00:36:55.180 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.
00:36:59.600 And keep fighting for freedom.
00:37:00.600 Thank you.