Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Russians allegedly set up $10 million conservative YouTube channel

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. I don't know if you saw that curious story out of the United States.

00:00:04.000 Their Department of Justice has indicted two Russians for trying to set up a YouTube network

00:00:12.860 in the United States with about 10 million bucks, hiring some fairly well-known conservative and

00:00:19.240 libertarian YouTubers. And it's very interesting to see who knew where the money was from and who

00:00:26.280 didn't and what their messaging changed or didn't change. I'll take you through it today.

00:00:32.500 I know some of the folks casually, I'm not close with them, but I'll tell you their different

00:00:37.440 reactions to it. Very interesting story. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber

00:00:42.080 to Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com,

00:00:46.780 click subscribe. And, you know, I do the show every weekday, so you get the video version.

00:00:53.740 But more important, you'll support Rebel News because we don't take any money from

00:00:57.300 the Canadian government or the Russian government or any government.

00:01:00.780 So we need your help. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:01:08.960 You're listening to a Rebel News Podcast.

00:01:11.380 Tonight, two Russians are accused of setting up a $10 million YouTube channel featuring conservative

00:01:28.200 talent. It's September 6th, and this is The Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:32.020 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:35.120 Shame on you, you censorious bug! 0.88

00:01:38.380 Oh, hi, everybody. I'm in our Toronto studio, of course. I'm very excited. I'm getting on 0.84

00:01:52.160 a flight at midnight tonight, and I really want to tell you where I'm going, but I don't

00:01:57.040 want to announce it until I land and through customs on the other side, because there's

00:02:02.760 a chance if the people where I'm going know that I'm going as a journalist that I'll be

00:02:09.000 put on the next plane back home. But tomorrow, if I manage to get off the plane and through

00:02:14.500 customs, boy, do we have a big story we're going to be covering in a very faraway place.

00:02:20.660 Believe me, I wish I could tell you more, but I just want to keep it to myself until I am

00:02:25.840 through the customs police on the other side. And then I'm going to be doing videos and tweets

00:02:31.960 all day long. And I hope you tune in for that. If you follow me on Twitter, it's just simply

00:02:37.900 my full name, Ezra Levant. So that's Saturday, September 7th. I will be in the field in an

00:02:44.800 undisclosed location that I will disclose tomorrow morning. We've already filmed a little intro to what

00:02:50.660 we're doing, but we're not going to release that until the minute I am across the border.

00:02:55.880 Hmm. How's that for a puzzler? Don't worry, I won't keep you in suspense for long. But speaking

00:03:01.400 of international intrigues, I saw the most interesting thing a couple days ago. The U.S. Department of

00:03:08.040 Justice and the FBI, which are a little bit compromised, I think most people would agree when it comes to

00:03:13.980 political matters, they indicted, I think is the phrase they use in the States, two Russian nationals.

00:03:20.660 Two members, two citizens of Russia, who are alleged to have worked with the Russian propaganda

00:03:27.880 TV station called RT, or it used to be called Russia Today, to set up a company in the United States

00:03:35.920 that hid all traces of the Russian control and Russian money, to set up this company in Tennessee,

00:03:44.100 run by a fairly well-known conservative YouTube talent, recruiting other conservative YouTube

00:03:51.160 talent. And according to the shocking document released by the Department of Justice, they

00:03:57.720 recruited other talent, paying them up to $100,000 a video. I have to tell you, that's the most

00:04:05.860 astonishing thing of it. The fact that Russia is interested in influencing the U.S. or any 0.51

00:04:12.660 country's debate is not that surprising, although it's always interesting. But the fact that they

00:04:18.100 were paying up to $100,000 a video is the most astonishing thing I've ever heard. You know, $400,000

00:04:25.340 a month, some of these folks were making for four videos. Now, the company is called Tenet,

00:04:31.880 T-E-N-E-T, Media. And they announced yesterday that they're shutting down because of this Department

00:04:39.300 of Justice investigation. Tenet Media was run by a young woman originally from Montreal named

00:04:45.840 Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam, who's since relocated to Tennessee. And I remember when Tenet

00:04:52.040 Media was born, they hired some very interesting people that I would call sort of the dissident

00:04:57.700 right. Tim Poole, who actually started off on a, you know, the Occupy Wall Street type side of

00:05:05.320 things. I think he's one of the smartest guys in the business, by the way, very clever, very thoughtful.

00:05:11.080 I had the pleasure of being on a show once. Benny Johnson, who you might know from the States,

00:05:16.180 he's sort of a Trump supporter who sometimes goes out into the field. Dave Rubin, who used to be a

00:05:23.400 comedian, used to be a man in the left. Then he went on tour with Jordan Peterson, thoughtful

00:05:28.360 YouTuber. Lauren Southern, one of our long ago alumni who we parted ways with, I don't know,

00:05:36.220 about seven or eight years ago now. So these were some recognizable names, a couple names I didn't

00:05:40.320 know. And I was just blown away when I heard how much money they were being paid. And I checked my

00:05:47.920 notes and I wrote to one of my friends. I said, who's behind this? Like in what possible universe

00:05:55.260 can you build a company paying people $100,000 a video? Now there are some YouTubers who are so huge

00:06:02.840 that yes, they will make $100,000 per video in ads. I don't know if you've heard of the YouTuber

00:06:08.560 MrBeast, or I suppose some pop music. If you're getting a hundred million views, sure, you'll make

00:06:15.540 $100,000 or even more. But this $100,000 per video were for videos that were getting

00:06:21.500 50 or $100,000 views, excuse me, which maybe would be worth $1,000 or $2,000 in the YouTube market. So

00:06:30.460 I thought something was very strange. I didn't quite understand it, but I didn't put a lot of thought to

00:06:35.060 it. But boy, does it look different now that I see this Department of Justice memo. I mean, here,

00:06:42.180 let me quote from it, a key member identified as commentator number one was to be paid $400,000

00:06:47.580 per month, plus $100,000 signing bonus, while commentator two's contract was for $100,000 per

00:06:54.140 video. Just astonishing. So you'll see in the Department of Justice document, they don't

00:06:58.000 actually name anyone other than the two Russian nationals who are facing charges. So Lauren Chen and

00:07:04.980 her husband and these contributors, as far as we know, have not been charged with anything. Although I find

00:07:10.220 it hard to imagine that Lauren Chen wouldn't be charged. Some of the people I've mentioned,

00:07:15.240 such as Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin have put out statements on Twitter saying they had no

00:07:20.900 idea that the money was from Russia. They were told when they asked that it was from an investor named

00:07:26.100 Edward Gregorian. And frankly, if someone offered you $100,000 a video, maybe you wouldn't ask too many

00:07:33.600 questions, especially according to Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and Dave Rubin and their statements online,

00:07:39.880 especially if there was no editorial control. I mean, I suppose if someone ever said to me,

00:07:45.060 Ezra, you're making videos every day, give us one of them and we'll put it on our YouTube channel

00:07:50.900 and pay you $100,000 a pop. You keep doing your thing. You keep choosing your content.

00:07:56.360 We won't have any say in it. I mean, that just sounds so fantastical and unrealistic. I hesitate

00:08:05.120 even to think about it because that's just such a fantasy scenario. It would be like being asked,

00:08:09.900 what happens if you win the lottery? I suppose if I could be totally certain that I was in complete

00:08:15.840 control of what I said, why wouldn't I take $100,000 a video? And if I said, well, who's behind it?

00:08:22.640 And I was told some mysterious European was behind it. My spider senses might be tingling,

00:08:27.720 but on the other hand, there would be a pile of money. I don't know. So I do accept that Tim Pool,

00:08:32.240 Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin had no idea where the money came from, but I'll notice that Lauren

00:08:37.120 Southern and Lauren Chen are being completely silenced since the Department of Justice made

00:08:41.880 their announcement. It tells me that perhaps they weren't caught off guard. So I watched Tenet with

00:08:48.900 some eagerness because I saw, wow, they're assembling sort of this league of superheroes

00:08:53.740 from conservative or dissident YouTube. And I thought it was interesting. And I was sort of waiting for

00:08:59.940 the action. And the first real thing that I viewed as a Tenet media production

00:09:06.980 was this bizarre moment when an anti-Semitic alt-right, I don't know, bomb thrower, jokester,

00:09:18.580 comedian, I don't even know how he would be described. He's very racist, very anti-Semitic. 0.98

00:09:23.560 His name is Nick Fuentes. He had some sort of a counter rally against a conservative rally, 0.95

00:09:30.940 and Tenet media covered it like it was a serious, credible, political event. I was astonished by

00:09:38.960 this, that something which had the formidable names I mentioned before would be giving so much 0.92

00:09:45.060 attention to a fringe, bizarre, clownish, anti-Semitic character. I didn't get it. I mean, normally, 0.78

00:09:53.820 if someone is that extreme, a racist, they don't have access to significant investors. They're sort of

00:09:59.980 on their own citizen dissident. I thought something was funny. And I didn't pay a lot more attention

00:10:06.740 to Tenet after that. But in the wake of the DOJ Department of Justice announcement a couple days

00:10:11.300 ago, I've gone back and I've seen some of the things that Lauren Chen, the boss of Tenet,

00:10:17.200 were saying. And they definitely took a turn when Tenet media started towards anti-Semitism,

00:10:24.040 which is weird, and towards being anti-Trump from the right. And what I mean by that is,

00:10:32.680 you know, Lauren Chen and others in that circle, it would not be credible if they were to attack Trump

00:10:42.180 from the left, because the names I mentioned are pretty much all pro-Trump. But Lauren Chen,

00:10:48.120 in particular, was saying things like, well, Trump is not pro-life enough. I'm out. To sort of cause

00:10:55.980 some dissonance and dissonance on the right. And now that these charges, these accusations of Russian

00:11:04.640 money, it starts to make some sense. It runs counter to the traditional narrative that Putin wants Trump

00:11:13.380 to win. Putin is supporting Russia. If you look at what the money was paid for based on Lauren Chen's

00:11:19.800 own posts, it was to attack Trump to make him seem iffy, which suggests they want, you know, the more

00:11:27.600 malleable Kamala Harris to win. I didn't really know Lauren Chen that well. I saw her out of the corner of 1.00

00:11:35.160 my eye over the years, and I invited her to work with Rebel News at the time. But she was working with

00:11:40.580 RT even back then. And of course, we couldn't have someone who was an RT personality also doing

00:11:47.540 videos for us. And there was a strange phenomenon where she started attacking people who were pro-Israel.

00:11:55.000 And generally, if you're pro-Israel, you're pro-America. I really don't know one without the 0.52

00:11:59.060 other. Accusing people of taking shekels, that's Israeli money, or Jewish money. If you were pro-Israel,

00:12:08.500 it's because you were taking shekels from a foreign paymaster. That's sort of an anti-Semitic

00:12:16.100 slur, sort of a light anti-Semitic slur. But now that you see that Lauren Chen herself was the funnel 0.81

00:12:23.680 for almost $10 million, it's even more ironic. The commentator Will Chamberlain saw this and made a

00:12:32.460 point which I think is right. He says that there is no such thing as authentic anti-Semitism or 0.84

00:12:40.060 anti-Zionism amongst American conservatives, or for that matter, I think Western European

00:12:45.660 conservatives. And I think he's dead right. And I say this as someone, I'm 52, and I think I've been

00:12:51.560 political since I was in my teens. And I literally have been to 9 out of 10 provinces. I've been all over

00:12:59.240 the West where rednecks are supposed to be. In my entire life, I promise you, hand to God, 1.00

00:13:06.200 I have never seen anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, anti-Israel extremism on the right. I just haven't

00:13:13.800 seen it. I've seen a lot of it on the progressive left, the coalition between Islamists and woke,

00:13:20.680 critical race theory, Marxist cultural activists who say that Israel is the oppressor. So I think that 0.98

00:13:27.600 when you see people like Lauren Chen and others, perhaps like Andrew Tate online, taking a hard

00:13:34.560 line, anti-Semitic stand, now that we know that Lauren Chen was taking Russian money, I think it's 0.93

00:13:40.040 worth asking, is that what caused that? Now, look, I don't think that there's anything on the face of

00:13:48.520 it that's illegal about taking money from a secret investor to have a certain political point of view.

00:13:54.480 I think it's perhaps unethical to not disclose that you're actually a propagandist or a salesman

00:14:00.340 when you're pretending to be a business person. But I think what the criminal matter may be

00:14:07.160 is that if they were working for a foreign government, doing errands for a foreign government

00:14:13.940 in the United States, and not registering as a foreign agent, that could be what gets them in

00:14:20.680 trouble. Unfortunately, we don't have that law in Canada, which is why Canada is overrun with foreign 1.00

00:14:27.200 agents. Like I say, the Department of Justice accused Lauren Chen and her husband of funneling 0.99

00:14:33.200 about $10 million into this little company over the last year. And holy cow, did some of those guys get

00:14:40.380 paid? But $10 million, even real US dollars, let's call that $13 million Canadian, it is a sliver of a

00:14:49.380 fraction of what state broadcasters get away with in Canada. I mean, I see that CBC is feasting on this

00:14:58.740 story, because Lauren Chen, like I say, is originally from Montreal, and Lauren Southern, one of the talent,

00:15:04.360 was from Vancouver. And fair enough, those two, I think, were amongst the ringleaders. But it's a

00:15:10.620 little bit much for the CBC, which is a state broadcaster, to criticize Russia today, another

00:15:17.560 state broadcaster, as if the CBC is morally superior. I mean, I suppose they're more open about

00:15:24.900 that they're a state broadcaster, whereas Lauren Chen's little Russian team was secretive about it. So

00:15:30.980 I suppose in that sense, the CBC is more ethical. But it's a bit of chutzpah for Canada's state

00:15:37.040 broadcaster to be really mad at Russia's state broadcaster. I mean, you guys are all state

00:15:43.360 broadcasters. None of you are real journalists. You're government journalists, which is something

00:15:47.840 very different. I saw the usual suspects like Andrew Coyne retweeting that story with Glee, but

00:15:55.160 Andrew Coyne is on the dole also. The CBC is owned by the government. But journalists in the private

00:16:03.480 sector, like Andrew Coyne, are rented by the government. They get their annual subsidy, and in

00:16:08.620 some ways, they're worse, because they have to show Trudeau every year that they deserve the money.

00:16:13.880 The average Canadian newsroom gets about $30,000 per reporter from Justin Trudeau.

00:16:21.740 And sure, you and I know that, but when was the last time that was disclosed on TV? You have

00:16:28.020 reporters, and I'm not just talking about the CBC. I'm talking about every print reporter in this

00:16:32.100 country. They're doing a story about Justin Trudeau, which, without disclosing, they're getting paid by

00:16:36.340 Justin Trudeau. That's pretty much exactly what Lauren Chen and her little Russian slush fund did. 1.00

00:16:42.580 I mean, yeah, Vladimir Putin is a darker character than Justin Trudeau, but they're both governments.

00:16:47.680 Now, we should also beware that the Department of Justice is a highly political organization and has been

00:16:56.640 for some years. They've rung the alarm about Russia, Russia, Russia before, claiming that Donald Trump was

00:17:03.500 in collusion. As you may remember, more than five years ago, there was an extremely expensive, exhaustive

00:17:13.180 inquiry by Robert Mueller into the question of whether or not Donald Trump had engaged in collusion.

00:17:18.820 And by the way, it was a Democrat-run inquiry that was completely exhaustive, and they found there was

00:17:24.460 nothing to it. The Department of Justice and the FBI have lied before. They lied claiming that the

00:17:30.960 Hunter Biden laptop was a fake story. So they lie with positive—they create stories that they lie with,

00:17:39.020 but they also lie to kill stories like Hunter Biden's laptop. This story about Lauren Chen rings true. I 1.00

00:17:46.360 mean, I tell you, when I spoke to two of the people involved and I said, where is all the money coming

00:17:51.960 from? They were—I mean, the one fellow I spoke with said he, you know, European investors, but it—I mean,

00:17:59.060 just an astonishing amount of dough. There's no way that that made business sense. It was obviously a

00:18:04.680 political operation. I see here that it was very quick for Canada's Homeland Security Minister to put

00:18:12.540 out a press release saying how serious he's taking this whole matter, and if any Canadians are engaging

00:18:18.180 in illegal activity, they'll face the full extent of the law. Like I say, I don't know what that illegal

00:18:23.020 activity would be because Canada doesn't have a foreign agent registry. The Liberals have been holding

00:18:29.240 that up. So whereas—so I just don't know what law would be broken in Canada if someone took Russian

00:18:35.520 money to be a Russian propagandist. But like I say, the amount of money involved here is a trifle.

00:18:43.180 We've learned through parliamentary hearings and from ordinary Chinese Canadians that there's an

00:18:48.840 astonishing amount of Chinese money sloshing around Canada, including in Chinese language 0.91

00:18:55.100 Canadian media. When I say Chinese money, I mean money from the People's Liberation or the People's

00:19:00.780 Republic of China. So it's quite something when you look at all the foreign actors doing, especially

00:19:09.440 ethnic politics in Canada, whether it's Iran bankrolling the Hamas protests or some of the Sikh

00:19:17.120 Khalistan protests or the Chinese movements to get critical MPs out of parliament. There's much more

00:19:27.160 than $10 million a foot. And it's strange to me that the only matter about which this government puts

00:19:32.920 out a press release is the one involving conservatives who were swept up by this operation. So yeah, there's

00:19:41.480 a ton of government money in our journalism. In fact, I think government money is one of the largest

00:19:46.580 sources of journalistic revenues. I'm not sure it's any better if it's oligarchs like Jeffrey Bezos of

00:19:54.340 Amazon.com. He owns the Washington Post. He uses it as a political play thing. Carlos Slim, the richest man in

00:20:01.320 Mexico, owns the New York Times. You can buy a yacht, you can buy a private jet, and those things are lovely

00:20:08.620 luxuries. But if you want to feel important and have a seat at the table and influence things, you buy

00:20:13.560 newspapers. Canada's richest man, do you know his name? It's David Thompson. He's tens of billions of

00:20:22.160 dollars. He owns the Globe and Mail. Do you think he's really interested in the news business? He might be.

00:20:27.600 I mean, that's where his family money came from in the first place several generations ago. But no, I think

00:20:32.440 it's more he likes to control the narrative in the country. So you have big money control the narratives,

00:20:38.500 either oligarchs or governments. But even that pales in comparison to the largest foreign source

00:20:46.280 of money sloshing around our country and in the United States too. That's the tiny oil-rich country

00:20:52.380 of Qatar, who made a decision about 20 years ago that if they were going to buy any Americans, sure,

00:21:00.500 you could buy journalists. But if you buy the universities, if you buy MIT and Harvard and

00:21:09.100 Ivy League universities by pouring money into think tanks into the universities, you can control a much

00:21:16.780 larger narrative. And if you're wondering why places like Columbia, Harvard, MIT, and University of

00:21:23.160 Pennsylvania had the anti-Semitic pro-Hamas takeovers that they did, I think the Qatari money 0.99

00:21:29.620 is part of the answer. Let me close by telling you what you already know. Rebel News doesn't take

00:21:36.240 any money from any government, by the way. I would like to think that if someone approached me and said,

00:21:42.160 I'll pay you $100,000 per video you're doing anyways, that I would ask a few questions. I'm sure my

00:21:48.200 missus would say, take the dough. We, you know, we need a retirement plan. But I would hope that

00:21:53.760 alarm bells would go off for me. And I would say, this doesn't make sense. It is not a genuine

00:21:58.500 financial payment. It's for something else. I don't know. But lucky enough, I've never been faced

00:22:04.760 with that bizarre temptation. Rebel News lives off the avails of our viewers. The average gift to our

00:22:10.960 company is $58. And that's a much more honest way to make a living rather than taking the money from

00:22:16.620 the Russian government or the Canadian government. Stay with us for more.

00:22:28.420 Ezra Levant here. I'm in Ottawa with our billboard truck. We're taking it around town with our messages

00:22:34.100 against Trudeau's undemocratic appointments to the Senate. But how could I come to Ottawa

00:22:39.820 without popping by the leading criminal lawyer in Ontario, Lawrence Greenspawn, who, as you know,

00:22:46.700 has been the lead lawyer with his team defending Tamara Leach in this very long mischief trial? I

00:22:52.900 thought I'd pop by, visit him in his natural habitat, which I suppose I've seen him at the

00:22:57.660 courthouse a dozen times, and just get a bit of an update in the final stretch. Lawrence, great to see

00:23:01.640 you. Thanks for meeting with us. Sure. Sure thing. Yeah, this is actually the building that

00:23:07.120 William Lane Mackenzie King lived in for a period of some 10 years burnt to the ground. So when they

00:23:16.900 rebuilt it, they kept the heritage style. And this was the building where we do our thing. We've been

00:23:26.980 here for, I don't know, five, six years now. And it's a good location. In terms of the Freedom Convoy,

00:23:34.520 we're, we're down to the last hurrah for the Crown. On September 13th, they've got another half day of

00:23:43.060 reply, in addition to the already six days of oral submissions, and the 140 pages of written submissions by

00:23:51.800 the Crown, and the 100 pages by us, and the 100 pages by Chris Barber's counsel. So it's going to end on

00:24:02.620 September 13th. And then the matter, whole thing will be put over to, to her honor. And she's got

00:24:08.000 a mountain, a mountain of evidence to go through and come up with her decision. You know, I, I don't

00:24:15.280 know this judge at all. You obviously appear in the Ottawa courts regularly. What struck me about her was

00:24:20.760 how attentive she was, even like, this is the longest running mischief trial in Canadian history,

00:24:26.120 possibly in the whole Commonwealth. Yet she's very engaged and attentive. In fact, she's, I saw her

00:24:31.540 constantly giving feedback, challenging, questioning. To have that kind of attention span, you need it for

00:24:37.980 a lengthy trial like this. Absolutely. And, and that's been, that's been her way, not only on this trial,

00:24:45.320 but on everything. You know, we're, we're very fortunate with the bench that we have in the

00:24:51.660 Ontario Court of Justice in Ottawa in the criminal division. And this judge has, has been, you know,

00:25:00.140 on this for, I think we're up to 46 days of trial now. And she doesn't sit unless she's listening and,

00:25:08.720 and taking it all in and making notes. And, and she's been very, very involved in it. And I expect

00:25:15.280 she's going to need a large amount of time in order to get through it all and come up with her decision.

00:25:20.240 I mean, I sense that she wants to write a judgment. This is my sense as an amateur observer that is

00:25:28.820 appeal proof as in, I mean, listen, I suppose every judge wants to write a, wants to get it right.

00:25:34.780 But it felt to me, she was giving every benefit of the doubt procedurally to the crown. And I thought,

00:25:42.220 why is she doing that? Why is she allowing crown witnesses to go on for a full day who admit they

00:25:47.240 never saw, spoke to, or interacted with Tamara Leach or Chris Barber? And I thought the only way this

00:25:51.700 makes sense is if the judge is leaning over backwards. So the crown can't say, you didn't

00:25:56.540 let us bring our witnesses. That's my only amateur theory. I don't know if you even want to comment

00:26:01.240 on that. Well, I mean, she's, she's run a, uh, an incredibly long trial. As you point out,

00:26:08.760 uh, the crown has had every opportunity to call all the witnesses that they called. As you know,

00:26:14.800 we didn't call any evidence. So we, we feel we've made our case out through cross-examination of the

00:26:20.580 crown's witnesses. And, uh, you know, that's, uh, it's a tough call to make not to call any evidence,

00:26:27.160 but there's, you know, it's pretty clear, uh, from the, the witnesses that have testified,

00:26:34.100 it's pretty clear what happened here. I think everybody knows what happened here,

00:26:37.700 how long it lasted. And what's also clear is that, uh, none of the, uh, freedom convoy

00:26:44.720 demonstrators were charged with anything, even as much as a parking ticket, uh, until, you know,

00:26:51.800 a few days after, uh, uh, uh, uh, Justin Trudeau declared the, uh, the emergency measures act. So

00:26:57.900 it's, uh, you know, the judge has got it all. It's taken an incredibly long time,

00:27:03.720 but, uh, certainly I don't think the crown would, would ever be, uh, able to say that they weren't

00:27:09.560 given every opportunity to make their case. I want to ask you about something I saw when I was

00:27:14.420 here about a week ago or so. Um, I didn't quite understand it because I haven't been here every

00:27:19.780 single day. So, uh, your team, I think it was Mr. Granger was his name, showed five social media

00:27:26.940 clips in which Tamara Leach was a parent. And I didn't understand them because she was just there

00:27:32.860 and she was bantering. Like there was a lot of loitering and milling around and sort of the,

00:27:37.860 the call and reply was hold the line, hold the line. Like it was just sort of a, a phrase.

00:27:42.940 She wants to know what my response would be if I get arrested.

00:27:45.700 What's the response? Hold the line.

00:27:48.300 Hold the line.

00:27:49.140 And I watched these five clips and Tamara Leach was only speaking for a few seconds in them 0.98

00:27:54.300 and nothing was happening. Like people were just milling around. There were some cops in

00:27:58.320 the background and I thought, why are they showing this? I didn't understand it until he said,

00:28:03.020 your honor, that's the only evidence whatsoever of what Tamara Leach actually did in her entire 1.00

00:28:09.040 time in Ottawa, that those five nothings, those vignettes, those cameos. And I, and then I thought,

00:28:16.120 aha, I was thinking, what's the point of these videos? Well, that's the thing. There is no point.

00:28:20.280 And that's all the government has.

00:28:21.280 Well, I mean, that was the sum total of what they had of Tamara actually on the streets of Ottawa. And,

00:28:28.240 and I think that, you know, the crown is well aware from the beginning that they've got nothing

00:28:35.280 on Tamara as far as, you know, her actual involvement on the streets. And which is why,

00:28:42.900 as I said, the next day that they have to resort to talking about metaphorical shoulder to shoulder and,

00:28:51.440 and metaphorical megaphones, because there were no actual megaphones and there was no actual shoulder

00:28:58.660 shoulder to shoulder in the sense that we, we commonly know it. So, I mean, the case really

00:29:04.420 against Tamara is not for whatever little she did on the street. It's whether her messaging was such

00:29:12.660 as to encourage others to, to act unlawfully. And from what I can see, her messaging was exactly the

00:29:20.620 opposite all the way through. It was always peaceful, lawful, demonstrate, come to Ottawa,

00:29:25.700 stay in Ottawa, peaceful, lawful, demonstrate. So, you know, that's, that's really the basis of the

00:29:32.480 defense. And, you know, we'll see how the judge deals with it. It, there was even one moment where

00:29:37.260 the judge herself remarked that the phrase, hold the line could mean many things, including when the

00:29:42.100 police say it, she noted. I thought that was very interesting. There was, there was clearly some

00:29:45.940 evidence on the, I think it was the 18th or the 19th of February, where in front of the

00:29:52.400 Chatelier, where the police were yelling, hold the line and the demonstrators were yelling, hold the

00:29:57.580 line back.

00:29:58.200 Everyone was holding lines.

00:29:59.220 Yeah. It's, uh, you know, the fact is that, uh, up till the time that, uh, uh, that Tamara was 0.99

00:30:06.000 arrested on the 17th of February, there was no line to hold.

00:30:10.800 It wasn't a line. It was, uh, it was just walking. It felt like a festival.

00:30:14.020 Yeah. It's, it was, uh, you know, it was street party. Very, very, very well. Uh, you know, there,

00:30:20.440 there wasn't any, any violence. There was a lot of camaraderie as between the police and the

00:30:25.300 demonstrators. Um, you know, that's, it's, it's, it's what it was. And, uh, you know, that nevertheless,

00:30:34.260 the, the crown has put all of that evidence before the court and the court's going to have

00:30:38.100 to deal with it.

00:30:38.920 Got one last question. And thanks for letting me interrupt your day to give us an update.

00:30:42.560 I just thought we're in Ottawa. We got to say, hi, you've taken some very serious court cases

00:30:48.080 before you're a criminal lawyer, which means you've dealt with even terrorism cases, complex,

00:30:54.820 serious cases where a person's Liberty is at stake. They could go away for many years.

00:31:00.540 Have you ever run a trial, even for a murderer, even for a gang member, even for a terrorist

00:31:05.960 that has taken 46 or 37 days? What's the longest trial you've ever had in your life?

00:31:11.180 Or is this Tamera Leach trial it?

00:31:14.420 I'm trying, I'm thinking of course, of the, uh, various murder trials that I've done. And I,

00:31:18.660 I can't recall any of them taking up 46 days of trial. I just, I just, I don't think it's,

00:31:24.640 I don't think it's not in my career anyway.

00:31:27.220 Astonishing. Lawrence Greenspon, thank you so much for your work. I really enjoy watching you and

00:31:31.260 your team in court. And I look forward as I'm sure you do to what I hope will be a happy

00:31:36.120 conclusion here.

00:31:36.840 All right. There you have it. Lawrence Greenspon folks, by the way, if you want to chip in to help

00:31:42.040 cover the legal costs for Tamera Leach in what is the longest trial for mischief in Commonwealth

00:31:48.460 history, go to help Tamera.com. And by the way, you'll actually get a charitable tax receipt

00:31:54.580 for that gift from the democracy fund. That's help Tamera.com.

00:32:09.480 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Calvin Arndt says, Hey Ezra, I'll go with you to England

00:32:14.260 for the Atherstone event, except we're not watching it. We have to participate in it and I'll buy you a

00:32:19.420 pine at the local watering hole afterwards too. You're talking about that crazy game,

00:32:23.620 the Atherstone ball game. And I don't know why I spent so much time on that other than

00:32:28.300 it's got to be the strangest thing I've ever seen. And it actually does sort of feel medieval. And

00:32:32.900 when I first saw those videos, I thought this can't be real, but then I saw sort of the marshals with

00:32:38.220 their high vis vests and that this was obviously, you know, done with the consent of the town. I don't

00:32:43.580 know. That just seems like something that if you saw it, you would remember it for the rest of your

00:32:47.680 life. Joe Boudreau says, Ezra, your final topic with David Atherton was Islamophobia. I thought

00:32:53.800 Mark Stein once expressed it the best. Genuine Islam, right from the Quran, actually promotes 1.00

00:32:59.140 hatred and the killing of infidels. So do their hadiths. That's scary. So Stein is right to say we 1.00

00:33:04.460 should fear Islam, but now it's a crime to fear something real. Well, a phobia, I mean, if you look 0.99

00:33:11.240 at the Greek root of the word, it's sort of a fear or a loathing or a terror of something, which is

00:33:18.800 largely an emotion, isn't it? And I don't know how you can criminalize an emotion. Either you feel it

00:33:24.940 or you don't. It's sort of like hate or love. You can't pass a law to direct someone to love you.

00:33:31.280 I mean, in every genie movie, you know, like Aladdin, you know, one of the rules, you can't

00:33:39.360 make people fall in love. It's the thing about love and hate. You just cannot legislate it. And

00:33:43.700 even genies won't give it to you as a wish. So I don't think you can just tell someone you're not

00:33:49.900 allowed to fear this doctrine of Islam, or even more than the doctrine, the way that it plays out 0.97

00:33:56.960 with jihads or other social manifestations. I think the world is afraid of Islam. And I think

00:34:07.560 a lot of Muslims are too. I think that Islam needs a reformation in the way that Christianity 1.00

00:34:13.560 changed, evolved, sometimes revolutionarily over the years. You know, I think it's different to be

00:34:22.220 afraid or to criticize a philosophy and ideology, a set of ideas called Islam, versus how you treat

00:34:28.860 an ordinary Muslim person. I don't believe in discriminating against a person because they're

00:34:34.280 Muslim. I think we should treat people based on the content of their character, as Martin Luther King 0.64

00:34:40.040 would say. But I just don't think that you are, I don't think it's coherent to say you're not allowed

00:34:46.040 to feel fear or negative emotions about a religion. And you'll even notice that when the question was

00:34:52.500 put to the labor cabinet minister, she had no idea how to define it. And that's part of the beauty of

00:34:58.100 it from the other side is it's so malleable, it's so vague, you can basically swallow off any criticism

00:35:03.600 and say, that's Islamophobia. Well, that's our show for today. Boy, I wish I could tell you now where I'm

00:35:09.860 going to be tomorrow. I can't, though, until I'm safely in that country. But tune in tomorrow. I'll be in

00:35:15.000 the field all day long, tweeting up a storm with lots of videos. Until then, on behalf of us here

00:35:22.480 at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night. And keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - September 06, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Russians allegedly set up $10 million conservative YouTube channel

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