Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Crown prosecutors have nothing on Tamara Lich

00:00:00.960 Tonight, the final days in Tamera Leach's trial, and I gotta tell you, the prosecution has nothing.

00:00:07.680 It's August 20th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:10.840 You're fighting for freedom!

00:00:13.780 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:00:16.900 Ezra LeVant here. I am back in Ottawa, back at the courthouse, back for another day of the trial of Tamera Leach, the leader of the truckers, and her co-accused, Chris Barber.

00:00:39.320 I think this is like day 43 or something. It is by far the longest-running mischief trial in Canadian history, and indeed, the entire Commonwealth.

00:00:50.680 It's not that complicated a case. Mischief is the most minor crime in the criminal code.

00:00:56.140 It's the kind of thing typically used for vandalism, where kids messing around.

00:01:00.360 Usually a judge just says, don't you do that again! I don't want to see you in my court again! And it's over.

00:01:06.180 But, you see, it's just the pretense of a trial. This is actually the punishment itself. The process is the punishment.

00:01:14.200 The government is so determined to destroy the reputation of the leader of the truckers that they've thrown the book at her.

00:01:21.620 This is literally the second team of prosecutors they've deployed against her.

00:01:26.860 The first team was led by Moise Karimji, an out-of-control, vendetta-driven, Liberal Party donor.

00:01:34.600 That is bad to have as a prosecutor, bad for justice, and it turned out bad for the government itself.

00:01:41.640 They replaced the prosecutor on the eve of trial because he was just so damn irritating, even the judge was sick of him.

00:01:49.080 So you have the B team in there now, and when I say the B team, part of me is sympathetic because they were handed this case that just makes no sense.

00:01:58.540 You don't prosecute a mischief trial with millions of dollars of resources.

00:02:03.340 Last time I was here last week, I asked Lawrence Greenspawn, the leader of the three defense lawyers for Tamara Leach,

00:02:12.460 I asked him to estimate how much money the government has spent going after Tamara Leach.

00:02:18.340 And between the prosecutors, the court system, and the police, he said it was between $5 and $10 million.

00:02:26.540 So obviously the decision is being made at a higher level.

00:02:30.720 No prosecutor would say, yeah, I'm going to put aside assault cases, robberies, rapes,

00:02:36.640 and focus on a mischief case from two and a half years ago.

00:02:40.580 So that's a political decision, not a legal decision, and in that way it's obviously an abuse of process.

00:02:48.760 It's a shame.

00:02:49.500 And by the way, although it was Justin Trudeau's Emergencies Act,

00:02:55.020 it's Doug Ford's provincial attorney general that's calling the shots behind this prosecution,

00:03:00.580 so shame on them as well.

00:03:02.640 Anyhow, here's what I'm going to be doing.

00:03:04.420 I'm going to be live tweeting from the courtroom today.

00:03:07.880 I've done this before.

00:03:09.500 Other colleagues at Rebel News have done this the whole time.

00:03:12.580 We also have the Democracy Fund has a lawyer here live tweeting.

00:03:17.460 His name is Mark Joseph, senior counsel.

00:03:19.960 Between him and the rest of the Democracy Fund, they've been live tweeting this entire trial as well.

00:03:25.340 One of the reasons for that is the Democracy Fund, a registered civil liberties charity,

00:03:30.500 is crowdfunding the legal defense.

00:03:32.400 I told you that the government is spending between $5 and $10 million going after Tamara Leach.

00:03:38.960 It won't surprise you to learn that to defend against that much resources, manpower, police, informants, etc.,

00:03:46.680 you need a good legal team.

00:03:49.320 And Lawrence Greenspawn and his two deputies are excellent lawyers.

00:03:53.740 Not cheap, though.

00:03:54.680 In fact, I don't think that anyone would be in a position to fight against that much government.

00:04:00.500 If you were a person of ordinary means, there's no way you could muster the half a million dollars it would take

00:04:06.980 to hire a three-man top criminal defense team.

00:04:10.640 But if you were very wealthy, you wouldn't do it either.

00:04:13.120 If you spent your entire life building up a life savings of a million dollars or more,

00:04:18.920 you would not blow it all on a defense of a mischief file.

00:04:22.640 You would just plead guilty, take the rap on your knuckles.

00:04:25.960 I mean, Tamara Leach has already done 49 days in jail. 1.00

00:04:29.240 There's no way the penalty, if she's convicted, will be more than that.

00:04:32.760 So if you're poor or regular, you would never be able to hire a top defense team.

00:04:39.080 And if you're wealthy, you never would choose to do so,

00:04:42.060 only through the phenomenon of crowdfunding is it possible.

00:04:45.440 And that's what the Democracy Fund has done.

00:04:47.660 We have asked thousands of people who watch Rebel News to chip in $10, $100, whatever,

00:04:54.320 and go to helptamara.com.

00:04:57.720 That's actually a donation to the Democracy Fund, so you get a charitable tax receipt.

00:05:01.820 And together, enough people do that, we can hire this top-notch team.

00:05:06.420 Hopefully, we'll be able to scrum the legal team either during the lunch break or after trial today.

00:05:11.940 Lawrence Greenspond isn't just a great lawyer.

00:05:13.660 He's a natural teacher, and one of the things I like best about this trial

00:05:18.380 is how he has won over people from the media, even people, for example, at the CBC

00:05:23.780 or Canadian press who would not normally be sympathetic to Tamara Leach and the truckers.

00:05:29.240 They can see in Lawrence Greenspond one of Canada's leading criminal defense minds.

00:05:34.140 And when he says something, they know he's not saying it for partisan reasons.

00:05:37.860 I assume he's a liberal, as most people in the criminal defense bar are,

00:05:43.560 but he's an honest expert, and I think he really has won the respect

00:05:47.940 not just of the gallery and the media, but of the judge as well.

00:05:51.600 When I was here last week, there was some argument between the judge and the prosecutors

00:05:56.220 over a particular case from 14 years ago and what it meant.

00:06:01.240 And Lawrence Greenspond, Tamara Leach's lawyer, piped up and said,

00:06:04.020 Your Honor, that was my case that I ran as a lawyer.

00:06:06.720 So he truly is an expert.

00:06:08.880 He has a good rapport with this judge.

00:06:11.600 I think he has the respect of the judge.

00:06:14.280 Based on what I saw last week, I think the judge is losing patience with the prosecution.

00:06:18.460 But you don't want to read too much into just the judge's demeanor,

00:06:22.400 because, of course, in the end, they make the decision based on facts and law.

00:06:26.740 This judge, Perkins McVeigh is her name, is 15 years at the bench, so she's a seasoned judge.

00:06:34.500 She's not a neophyte, and neither is she so old that maybe she's having Joe Biden moments.

00:06:39.400 I think she's at the top of her profession.

00:06:41.620 I'm hopeful, as I've mentioned to you before,

00:06:43.780 this is the same judge that presided over the trial of Vice Admiral Mark Norman,

00:06:49.160 which was abandoned when the prosecution revealed it had engaged in prosecutorial misconduct,

00:06:54.660 not handing over key files to the defense.

00:06:57.020 So this judge, of all the judges in Ottawa,

00:06:59.920 knows that prosecutions and governments can lie, can abuse the system,

00:07:06.240 and that is so useful to have in the trial of Tamara Leach.

00:07:09.960 Anyways, enough from me.

00:07:11.760 I'm going to go into the court.

00:07:12.860 I'm actually going to wait for Tamara Leach to arrive, and her lawyers,

00:07:16.340 they typically come in, I don't know, about 20 minutes before the trial begins.

00:07:20.240 Then I'll be in the trial live-tweeting on my Twitter feed,

00:07:23.260 which is simply my name, Ezra Levant.

00:07:25.800 During the lunch break, I'll film a little video update, and I'll do so afterwards.

00:07:29.900 I'll be here all day.

00:07:30.820 I'm going to try and nab Mark Joseph for a little interview,

00:07:33.660 and same with Lawrence Greenspon, if he's available.

00:07:36.720 I would like you to help Tamara Leach, though, 0.71

00:07:39.460 because it is atrocious that she has been put through this extraordinarily long prosecution,

00:07:45.460 and you can help her at helptamara.com.

00:07:49.360 Thanks.

00:08:02.240 Well, we're on a lunch break.

00:08:03.760 We're here at the trial of Tamara Leach.

00:08:06.220 I think it's day 43, closing arguments by the defense.

00:08:11.560 And joining us now to talk about what we saw today is Mark Joseph,

00:08:14.960 senior litigation lawyer at the Democracy Fund,

00:08:19.320 the charity that is crowdfunding the lawyers for Tamara Leach.

00:08:23.240 Mark, how are you doing today?

00:08:24.580 Good.

00:08:24.940 Good.

00:08:25.140 Thanks for having me.

00:08:25.820 Well, of course, and you've been here for the long haul between you and your colleague,

00:08:29.740 Adam Blake Gallup.

00:08:30.560 Oh, I think you've covered literally every single day.

00:08:33.980 That's the first thing I want to talk about.

00:08:35.660 This is exhausting.

00:08:36.860 And you and I are just observers, let alone being the lawyers at Standing Up or Tamara Leach

00:08:42.120 herself.

00:08:42.960 Give me a thought about the fact that we're in such an extraordinarily long trial.

00:08:48.400 Sure.

00:08:48.740 Well, I mean, it's day 43, I think.

00:08:50.440 TDF has been here every day doing live coverage.

00:08:53.360 So as you've mentioned, I don't know if there's been another mischief trial that's gone 43 days,

00:08:59.480 but certainly a significant amount of judicial resources have been devoted to this trial.

00:09:03.360 And, you know, I wonder who's making that decision.

00:09:06.640 But that's that's not my that's my call.

00:09:09.560 You know, there's a comment made by I think it was Eric Granger, one of the three lawyers

00:09:14.260 for Tamara Leach, who said that not a single witness for the prosecution, and there was a

00:09:20.160 lot of them, had any evidence of Tamara Leach in terms of observing her, having communication

00:09:28.360 with her, having any interaction with her.

00:09:31.700 I thought that was an astonishing thing to say.

00:09:33.840 There was no objection from the Crown Prosecutors or the judge.

00:09:36.880 This is, you know, here we are 43 days into a trial.

00:09:40.200 And there wasn't one single person who said, I saw her do something bad.

00:09:44.520 I saw her do this.

00:09:45.960 I heard her.

00:09:47.000 She told me it was caught on surveillance camera.

00:09:49.980 In fact, the only video footage they have is when she turned herself in peacefully when

00:09:54.660 they were arresting her, she turned around and left them handcuff her. 1.00

00:09:57.120 I find it shocking that there's no evidence.

00:10:01.100 You have a trial of this length and there was no evidence other than trying to divine some,

00:10:06.400 you know, cryptic meanings in her Facebook posts when she says, hold the line.

00:10:11.640 Right.

00:10:12.140 So it's a difficult burden the Crown has to meet.

00:10:15.000 They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the requisite mens rea and the actus reis,

00:10:19.220 the subjective intent of the accused and the actual conduct.

00:10:22.680 And that's where the rubber hits the road on all of these charges.

00:10:26.760 And so Mr. Granger rightly pointed out that that there is no evidence before the court

00:10:31.620 with sufficient specificity about those legal elements.

00:10:37.280 And all of those have to be established before a conviction can be rendered.

00:10:41.200 So I think the Crown probably will return to that reply.

00:10:44.640 They have to have something to say.

00:10:45.580 You know, I was here for a day last week when the Crown prosecutors were putting their final

00:10:53.600 arguments and it was quite noticeable to me how often the judge was interrupting the prosecutors.

00:11:01.680 Sometimes it was sort of nitpicky.

00:11:03.440 Other times it was larger objections.

00:11:05.600 She was correcting them.

00:11:07.120 Sometimes she knew the case law better than them and she would say so.

00:11:10.100 And I thought, boy, she's interrupting a lot.

00:11:12.900 Maybe she's just that's just her style. 1.00

00:11:15.720 And the answer is, it seems to be because today the judge was interrupting the defense lawyers a lot.

00:11:21.020 But here's the key difference.

00:11:22.420 When I was here last week, every interruption of the Crown was to correct, to criticize, to object, to distinguish.

00:11:30.440 But today, every interruption that I can think of was to agree, to emphasize, to add her own ammunition to it.

00:11:42.520 Like, repeatedly, for example, the judge said, it's not against the law to go to Ottawa.

00:11:48.980 It's not against the law to call for the end of COVID mandates.

00:11:51.940 It's not against the law to be on Parliament Hill.

00:11:53.860 Like, the judge didn't need to say any of that, but she was chiming in, chiming in, chiming in.

00:11:58.320 I know you can't read too much into these things, but holy smokes, seemed pretty apparent, the difference to me.

00:12:07.200 Look, you're probably right, but I've tried to read the tea leaves before on judges' comments and I've been wrong.

00:12:14.960 So I think it's a lawyer's loathe to do that.

00:12:20.080 But you could be right.

00:12:20.900 She did seem to be, she's always engaged.

00:12:23.460 First off, that's her, that's her M.O. 1.00

00:12:25.500 But she seemed to agree with Mr. Granger more than perhaps she did with, with the Crown.

00:12:32.460 But again, I could be wrong.

00:12:34.780 It's true.

00:12:35.260 I mean, I have not been here for an enormous amount of time like you have.

00:12:39.240 So these things are maybe more striking to me.

00:12:41.940 Maybe it's how the judge is an active listener.

00:12:44.020 She's always, you know, some people take notes.

00:12:45.880 The fact that she's chatting with the lawyers shows, like you say, very attentive.

00:12:50.160 But it was just remarkable to me how different she was in her interactions.

00:12:54.680 Here is something that I thought was a very illuminating moment.

00:12:57.760 And I don't want to get too technical.

00:12:59.660 But what the prosecution is clearly trying to do is hang around Tamara Leach's neck and also her co-accused, Chris Barber,

00:13:07.240 the sins of every single person who was in Ottawa that day.

00:13:10.220 Like, even though clearly there was the Freedom Convoy 2022, like it was actually a legal incorporation.

00:13:17.340 They had lawyers and they had like a staff.

00:13:20.340 They were trying to hang around Tamara Leach's neck, any sin committed in Ottawa.

00:13:25.000 And, you know, they were saying, well, when she said we, Tamara Leach would sometimes make a Facebook video and say,

00:13:31.780 we are going to hold the line.

00:13:32.940 We, we, we hold the line.

00:13:34.780 She wants to know what my response would be if I get arrested.

00:13:37.360 What's the response?

00:13:39.140 Hold the line.

00:13:39.900 Hold the line.

00:13:41.020 And the prosecution is trying to stretch that to say, well, that covers everything.

00:13:45.420 The judge chimed in and said, if I say to the clerk, we're going upstairs, we can meet something very small.

00:13:50.960 Again, I think she was sort of illuminating the problem of if you don't have any direct evidence,

00:13:56.960 trying to look into some hidden meaning when someone says, hold the line or we this, we that.

00:14:03.520 Boy, that's a, if that's all they got, that feels weak.

00:14:07.580 Right.

00:14:08.020 So I think one of the problems for the Crown, just from outside looking in, is, is the Crown doesn't have the smoking gun here about what Miss Leach was thinking or was, was doing.

00:14:21.420 So she wasn't, I don't think around physically the protest much.

00:14:25.960 She wasn't actually blocked, physically blocked.

00:14:27.820 She didn't have her truck, for example. 1.00

00:14:29.320 How could she block a road?

00:14:30.340 She did not have a truck.

00:14:31.760 That's right.

00:14:32.340 That was a point that Mr. Granger made.

00:14:33.880 So there's no big moment where Miss Leach necessarily physically interfered or even, even counseled a lot of, you know, violent or obstructing conduct. 0.92

00:14:49.100 So what the Crown has to do then is, is build their case circumstantially.

00:14:53.020 So I have to revert to little pieces of evidence.

00:14:54.940 And so one of those pieces of evidence they refer to as the use of pronouns, we, they say that connects her with the actions of the protesters.

00:15:02.100 And there was some pushback from the court, I think.

00:15:04.380 And Mr. Granger pointed out that, that there's different interpretations for the use of we.

00:15:07.840 That's an obvious point to make.

00:15:09.280 And I think the Crown's going to have to do more than that in the reply to address it.

00:15:13.700 Yeah, for sure.

00:15:14.380 There's one more thing I want to mention.

00:15:15.900 I was in Lethbridge, Alberta, for a few days of the hearings in the Coutts 3 case and the Coutts 4 case.

00:15:24.540 These are the truckers and farmers who blocked the road between Alberta and Montana, and they're facing charges.

00:15:31.000 In the case of the Coutts 4, some very serious charges, conspiracy to commit murder.

00:15:35.640 Now, the jury has acquitted on that most senior charge.

00:15:38.540 But conspiracy just means a plan to commit murder is the awful crime.

00:15:46.160 So it's unlawful.

00:15:48.020 It's a crime to have a conspiracy to commit a crime.

00:15:51.600 But here's what they chatted about just before the lunch break today is conspiracy to come to Ottawa, conspiracy to have trucks in Ottawa, conspiracy to protest, conspiracy to stay on Parliament Hill.

00:16:04.080 Well, conspiracy, yeah, it means a plan that they're trying to organize, but none of those underlying things were a crime.

00:16:11.940 And so the judge asked the defense lawyer, lawyer, are you aware of any other case where someone is charged with an offense like this, where the means of doing something was the crime, but the actual purpose itself was not?

00:16:28.240 As in, is it even a crime if you conspire together to do something lawful and no one could think of such a case before?

00:16:37.980 I just thought that was such a clever point.

00:16:40.360 And again, the judge is chiming in.

00:16:41.900 What do you think of that moment?

00:16:42.760 I don't know if I explained it very well, but basically the word was, if you have a secret plan to do something totally legal, what are we doing here in court?

00:16:52.220 Right.

00:16:52.420 No, I think you've done a great job explaining it, Ezra.

00:16:54.840 The problem for the Crown is that the common, the purpose here wasn't unlawful.

00:17:02.360 It was to get together to pressure the government to end the mandates.

00:17:06.480 Usually in a conspiracy case, as a judge noted, it's like murder or sort of a mob drug conspiracy or something like that.

00:17:13.100 So obviously the purpose there is unlawful and then the means follow that unlawful purpose.

00:17:19.280 The problem, as you say, is, is the purpose was perfectly fine.

00:17:25.600 You can petition your government to do things all you like as long as you protest peacefully and lawfully.

00:17:30.780 So I think the shocking part for me was when the court just asked straight out, is there any case law on this point?

00:17:40.160 And the answer from Mr. Granger was I've not been able to find any.

00:17:44.780 And certainly the Crown, they would have led with that case if it existed.

00:17:49.100 So I never like to be in a position as a lawyer where I don't have case law that helps my case.

00:17:56.120 That's always a problem because then you're making new law and making new law is very difficult, as you probably know.

00:18:02.300 Yeah, judges want to follow the precedent.

00:18:04.680 That's really the basis of our system.

00:18:06.160 There's one last thing I want to run by you and it's related.

00:18:08.380 During the convoy itself, you sometimes heard politicians, like Trudeau did this a lot, and what I call the regime media, calling it an illegal convoy, an illegal protest, an illegal occupation.

00:18:23.180 They always said the word illegal.

00:18:24.860 Families and small businesses have been enduring illegal obstruction of their neighborhoods.

00:18:30.020 But those things are not illegal just because someone says they are.

00:18:34.240 They have to be determined illegal through a court or I suppose under the Riot Act, a police can determine a certain manifestation illegal for that moment if you don't skedaddle.

00:18:43.960 I think there might be some extreme cases where a policeman can declare some, like a riot, an unlawful gathering.

00:18:50.300 That didn't happen here.

00:18:51.300 My point is, every single time you hear Trudeau or the CBC saying illegal occupation, illegal protest, illegal convoy, that's just not true.

00:19:00.020 And my theory is this, and again, I'm just engaging in some speculation.

00:19:03.580 If you've got the political and media class, the CBC liberal industrial complex, calling this trucker gathering illegal a million times, and then you say to the prosecutors, hey guys, go prosecute them for their illegal stuff.

00:19:17.200 And the prosecutors say, well, yeah, you've been saying they're illegal, but as we've just discussed, it's not illegal to protest.

00:19:23.960 It's not even illegal to honk.

00:19:25.120 I think that the rhetoric of the politicians was so overheated, and these prosecutors were given the unhappy task of catching up to the overheated rhetoric, but there's nothing there.

00:19:37.760 I think these prosecutors, I don't know them at all, obviously, but I got to think that they would rather be doing something else, something that's more in the public interest, something that gives them a greater likelihood of conviction.

00:19:49.440 There are some very serious crimes that are being let go because of delay, because court resources are limited.

00:19:55.620 I think that Trudeau sort of tried to speak into effect, this is an illegal gathering.

00:20:03.000 And what we're finding out in this hearing is, no, it ain't, even if you say it is, you've got to prove it's illegal, and that hasn't happened.

00:20:11.420 Right.

00:20:12.000 Look, it's hard for me to speculate as to the motives behind the prosecution or what the Crown would rather do.

00:20:19.720 I do agree that some cases should be prioritized over others.

00:20:23.320 This is more serious stuff like sex assaults, aggravated assaults, and murders obviously should be at the top of that hierarchy.

00:20:30.400 But I will say that the narrative spin that politicians put on something is different than the words used by the Crown in a criminal trial.

00:20:42.460 And I think there was some pushback early on in this case where the Crown started to use words like illegal occupation, illegal protest, and the defence rightly pushed back on that and said,

00:20:54.980 there's been no evidence of that before the court at this point, and we're here to prove or defend against specific charges.

00:21:03.160 That language isn't appropriate.

00:21:04.580 And I think, if I can recall, Justice Perkins McPay admonished the Crown that they're not to use inflammatory language, and they haven't.

00:21:11.040 Well, I don't want to let my hopes get too high.

00:21:14.820 I don't want to read too much into the tea leaves about, you know, Kremlinology.

00:21:19.900 Oh, the judge said this.

00:21:21.100 The judge smiled here.

00:21:22.100 The judge frowned there.

00:21:23.220 You don't want to get too caught up in that.

00:21:24.880 It's what the law says.

00:21:25.960 It's how the judge weighs the evidence, puts it into all the boxes in the law.

00:21:30.200 This is a very senior judge, 15 years a judge.

00:21:33.120 So I think she's at the top of her profession.

00:21:36.680 Clearly smart.

00:21:37.560 She manages to keep her attention up, despite the fact it's going on so long.

00:21:41.340 I don't want to let my hopes get too high, because whenever I do, I wind up being disappointed.

00:21:47.060 But I feel good about this.

00:21:49.400 I feel great about the legal team.

00:21:51.340 I love to see them in action.

00:21:52.820 I feel like Lawrence Green, Spahn, and I think Granger, I think his first name is Ed Granger.

00:21:59.020 I'm not sure his first name.

00:22:00.260 The number two, and then there's a third.

00:22:01.580 I feel like they're really good criminal lawyers, and I just have a good feeling.

00:22:07.700 Even if there's an acquittal, though, boy, they turned the process into the punishment.

00:22:12.340 I bet you it's Merrill Leach.

00:22:13.660 She's looking forward to having this whole thing in the rearview mirror.

00:22:18.180 Look, I think everyone involved in the process is a bit tired.

00:22:21.100 And like you, I remain optimistic.

00:22:25.000 She has an excellent legal team.

00:22:26.980 Eric Granger, Lawrence Green, Spahn, and their clerks and their support staff have been on the ball.

00:22:34.460 No point has been missed.

00:22:36.300 They've made relevant submissions.

00:22:38.260 So I can say I'm optimistic, but we have to be realistic that the Crown has unlimited resources,

00:22:43.540 and they've thrown everything at this case.

00:22:45.300 We're day 43.

00:22:46.760 Hopefully we'll be finished soon, but you never know.

00:22:49.260 So, yeah, we'll see.

00:22:50.320 Yeah, thanks very much.

00:22:51.520 I think it's Eric Granger, the name of the number, too.

00:22:53.340 I just forgot it for a moment.

00:22:54.600 Well, there you have it, Mark Joseph, the senior litigation lawyer at the Democracy Fund,

00:22:58.440 who has been live tweeting and observing this trial since the beginning,

00:23:02.900 trading off with Adam Blake Gallupo, another lawyer for the Democracy Fund.

00:23:07.340 By the way, Adam is the lawyer covering the Amish case,

00:23:11.520 which I mentioned the other day on Rebel News,

00:23:15.440 and I encourage you to check that out at helptheamish.com.

00:23:19.180 But for today, we're here to talk about Tamara Leach.

00:23:21.820 And if you want to help cover the three wonderful lawyers for Tamara, you can go to helptamara.com.

00:23:27.000 I say again, over the last few years, I've gotten to know literally dozens of lawyers in this country from coast to coast.

00:23:33.600 As you know, through the Democracy Fund and Rebel News, we've hired so many lawyers,

00:23:37.280 whether it's Arthur Pavlovsky or the Coutts 4, the Coutts, or the Coutts 3, rather, churches across the country.

00:23:45.000 We have dealt with so many lawyers.

00:23:46.920 And I have to say, I actually told this to Lawrence Greenspan.

00:23:50.340 I said, if I'm ever arrested, God forbid, I want him to be my lawyer.

00:23:54.500 He's that good.

00:23:55.820 Of all the lawyers I met, I would want him on the file.

00:23:58.380 He's on Tamara Leach's case.

00:23:59.900 I'm optimistic.

00:24:02.100 If you can help us out, go to helptamara.com.

00:24:04.960 I'll have more for you.

00:24:05.980 I'll be back live tweeting the afternoon.

00:24:07.780 Well, it's 4.30, and the court is done for the day.

00:24:21.900 It's such a long trial that it actually interferes with other trials.

00:24:26.620 So there's going to be a two-day hiatus.

00:24:29.600 Everyone will be back here on Friday.

00:24:31.420 That's when Lawrence Greenspan, the senior of the three defense counsel for Tamara Leach, is expected to make his presentation.

00:24:40.120 But I have to say, the judge herself said she is still holding open some dates in September for possibly extending the trial then, if time is needed.

00:24:49.580 Just astonishing.

00:24:51.000 But I suppose nothing should be surprising anymore.

00:24:54.000 There was an interesting moment there.

00:24:56.120 I mean, I have not been here every day.

00:24:57.780 We've had other rebels covering it every day.

00:24:59.940 But the prosecution played five short social media clips in which Tamara Leach was present.

00:25:07.540 In some of them, she was only present for 15 seconds or so.

00:25:12.320 And they were all very banal.

00:25:14.480 In fact, I didn't quite understand the point of them until the defense counsel who played them summed it up.

00:25:21.020 Like, it was just her standing amongst other people saying it was like Canada Day on steroids, I think.

00:25:27.220 And then another time someone said, hold the line, and she said, hold the line.

00:25:30.500 I was thinking, why are they playing these five video clips?

00:25:33.640 And the answer is, that is the totality of evidence this trial has seen about what Tamara Leach actually did during the time of the convoy.

00:25:45.020 She had some video comments that she made on social media calling for people to be peaceful and calling for donations.

00:25:53.040 She would have those famous viral Facebook videos.

00:25:56.860 But they were often filmed in a nondescript location.

00:26:00.420 The only evidence before the court about what Tamara Leach actually did in this city through the whole period of time were those five little clips, not even taken by her.

00:26:10.820 They were just, she shows up in the background of another clip.

00:26:14.260 And it was a nothing burger.

00:26:15.980 There was nothing there.

00:26:17.580 All of her work that was in the name of the convoy was crowdfunding.

00:26:22.400 And, of course, she did that very well.

00:26:24.280 She did some logistics work.

00:26:25.780 She talked about staying peaceful, none of which is a crime in any way.

00:26:30.940 And that was a point that the defense hammered home, is that there's no evidence of any wrongdoing.

00:26:35.680 And simply saying, hold the line, is so far from a crime that it's such an obvious stretch.

00:26:41.740 And I think that's the obvious point here.

00:26:44.200 There's no evidence on Tamara Leach.

00:26:46.420 They've had months of trials.

00:26:48.320 They have no evidence.

00:26:49.340 They had five little social media clips.

00:26:50.920 They have no evidence.

00:26:51.940 And yet they pursued it nonetheless.

00:26:53.360 There's no way that makes sense from a legal point of view.

00:26:57.200 It's not in the public interest.

00:26:58.800 I do not believe that there will be a likelihood of conviction.

00:27:01.820 This is purely a punishment tactic to punish her for daring to defy the establishment and to defame her and through her to defame the trucker convoy. 0.99

00:27:11.680 They thought there would be such a mania in Ottawa that all the judges would go along with convictions.

00:27:17.100 You know what?

00:27:17.840 Maybe that would have happened back in 2022.

00:27:19.840 But it's almost 2025, and I think people have sobered up from the madness of the lockdowns.

00:27:25.520 And we're starting to see the insanity that was done over the years during the lockdowns and realizing that the government got carried away.

00:27:34.340 But the prosecutors in this case are still getting carried away.

00:27:37.660 They're still insisting on going through this.

00:27:39.740 I just simply don't understand how they can put away so many more important legal matters, criminal matters, aggravated assault, sexual assault.

00:27:49.420 So many other cases are taking a backseat while these prosecutors and this judge break over what little there is about Tamera Leach.

00:27:57.340 I find it astonishing.

00:27:58.860 Anyways, unfortunately, I can't be back here on Friday for that day.

00:28:03.340 So we'll try and get another rebel here.

00:28:05.200 Of course, our friend Mark Joseph from the Democracy Fund, he or others from the Democracy Fund are live tweeting it, too.

00:28:12.200 So we are covering this because we really have a lot at stake here, too.

00:28:15.940 We have crowdfunded the legal defense for Tamera Leach.

00:28:18.720 We published her book.

00:28:19.640 We're fans of hers.

00:28:20.460 We even went on tour with her.

00:28:22.180 And we believe that she is important for the same reason that Justin Trudeau thinks she is important.

00:28:28.180 She personified the best of Canada.

00:28:30.360 She was the chief newsmaker in the chief news moment of the year of 2022, and I dare say of the generation,

00:28:38.540 calling millions of Canadians to rally peacefully against a tyrannical government.

00:28:43.880 Sort of amazing, which is why Trudeau wants to knock her out and why we want to protect her. 0.88

00:28:48.680 That's it for today.

00:28:49.940 Until next time, on behalf of us at Rebel News, to you at home, goodbye and keep fighting for freedom.

00:29:00.360 We'll see you next time.

Rebel News Podcast - August 20, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Crown prosecutors have nothing on Tamara Lich

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