02x04 - The Reckoning

[bunniefuu]

-Joseph Biden Jr is on track to
become the 46th president.

-We will never give up.
We will never concede.

-They're trying to steal
the election.

-I was in the room

for the famous
December 18th meeting.

-That night, a group showed up
at the White House,

including retired
Lieutenant General Michael Flynn

and former Overstock.com
CEO Patrick Byrne.

-100 years from now, should be
debating exactly

what was discussed there.

-What they were proposing,

I thought, was nuts.

-This is exactly
what was brought

the president on December 18th.

-I have actually been part
of taking over countries.

-Fight like Flynn!
Fight like Flynn!

-What the hell happened
to Mike Flynn?

-When you talk about Flynn
generating a digital army,

every one of those people
is a potential foot soldier.

You know,
this whole PSYOP thing is

pretty scary right now.

-The president
has far more power

than people understand.

We have all kinds of remedies.

If I'm correct about what's
in those five ballot boxes,

then I'm actually saving,
and it's you guys

who are letting the republic
be destroyed.

-This marriage between this
QAnon narrative,

Trump, Flynn, and January 6,
it's there.

-I'm going to put it
all on the table,

so if there's any seditious
conspiracy charge, it is I.

[ Computer dings ]

-Do you believe the violence
on January 6

was justified morally?

-General Flynn, do you believe
in the peaceful transition

of power in the United States
of America?

♪♪

-We are calling for a great
reawakening of America.

-We're declaring w*r!

-This is spiritual warfare 101.

-This is not politics as usual

because we are
in a time of warfare.

-Last time on
"The Search for Q"...

-If our country was to ever
insurrect, it would be violent.

-There's no America Project
without Michael Flynn

and there's no Patrick Byrne
without Michael Flynn.

These two individuals
are connected in every way.

-I was in the room

for the famous
December 18th meeting.

I sat in a room like this
with the president

right there and Flynn
and Sidney and such.

And it was in that four
and half hour meeting...

-How did we get
these ballots? Like...

-Whoa, whoa, whoa.
I would tell you,

except I don't think I...
I am ready to trust you

for about the five days
it would take me to trust you.

-I ain't got [bleep]
to do for five days.

-Any worse?

-In December 2020,
when Q went dark,

the digital soldiers
closed their browser tabs

and took to the streets...

-All the digital soldiers
out there,

tomorrow we the people
are going to be here,

and we want you to know that
we will not stand for a lie.

- Where we go one...
- We go all!

- storming the Capitol to keep
their dear leader in office.

-Thank you, Q!

-A committee in Congress
was formed to investigate

who's responsible
for the attack.

They've zeroed in on one
meeting specifically

because, within one hour
of it ending,

Trump invited his followers
to come to

a Stop the Steal
rally on January 6.

-On Friday, December 18th,
his team of outside advisers

paid him a surprise visit
in the White House

that would quickly
become the stuff of legend.

-The meeting's attendees were
mostly the usual suspects.

-Martial law has been instituted


-Or maybe I put it another way.
You're a bunch of pussies.

-And then, there was a new guy.

-I never knew who this guy was.

-He did it. He did it.
Lock him up.

- That's Patrick Michael Byrne.
- AKA the Overstock Guy.

-Peace, peace in our time.

-I say Patrick Byrne
is the son of Jack Byrne,

who made a fortune for us
by resuscitating Geico

when it got into trouble
in the mid-'70s.

We paid the Byrne family
more money.

He made us a lot of money.

-Patrick attended Dartmouth,
Cambridge, and Stanford

and founded Overstock.com,

one of America's most successful
e-commerce companies.

- Great job, Patrick.
- Thank you.

-In 2019, Byrne stepped down
from Overstock

after his girlfriend,
Maria Butina,

was arrested
for being a Russian spy.

-Since then, when you follow
the money

behind many of the efforts
to overturn the 2020 election

or other Q 2.0 endeavors,
Byrne covered the tab.

-But what motivates him to spend
his fortune

undoing election results

that have been upheld
by the Supreme Court

and more than 60 federal judges,

many of whom Trump appointed.

-The court found, "Calling
an election unfair

does not make it so."

-As storm clouds rolled
in over Washington,

we boarded Byrne's plane
to learn what his goal is,

and more importantly...

-What kind of impact the country
should brace for with him

and his fortune at the helm
of the Stop the Steal movement.

♪♪

-Oh, my God.
If someone wants to get ahead

of the power curve...

Now, her name is Tore Maras.

I hate to say this because
I think you will misconstrue it,

but she's kind of Q 2.0.

-So I want to unpack what
you mean by Q 2.0.

What does that mean about Q 1.0?

And how is this
an improvement on it?

Have you ever heard of something
called Pizzagate?

-I have, yeah.

-So I can tell you,
in the last two years,

my eyes have been open

to the significance
of human trafficking.

I was asked to go down
and help some people in Texas

who were working
for law enforcement.

This very serious,
very sober fellow about my age.

And he tuned me into so many
things about COVID were wrong

and the response to COVID
were not based on science.

And he turned me into that.
One was Phil Waldron.

-Former Army Colonel
Phil Waldron is a top expert

in psychological warfare

and served with Flynn for many
years in Afghanistan and Iraq.

-Within days
of the 2020 election,

Waldron emerged
with a PowerPoint alleging

Dominion Voting Systems rigged
the election for Joe Biden.

Though false,
Trump embraced the claims.

-And he had some cyber people
around him.

A couple of them in particular

had this interest
in election fraud

and were starting to tell me,
sort of whisper to me

on the side
about doing their own research.

And I saw the operating manuals
and sales literature

for one of the machines.

From one... I don't want
to name the brand

because I won't
make troubles for you.

But...
- I think we can take a guess.

-It rhymes with "Schmominion."

-Actually, it was
a complicated operation,

and it was either done
by a hacker

who was especially good
at covering his tracks,

or there was some script
buried within the computer

that woke up and ex*cuted this.

-Let's say the software woke up,
did these things, right?

-Yeah.

-But that's why there is
a redundancy in the system.

The elements of this
have to meet the burden

that not just
the machine malfunction,

but there's also
the corresponding votes

and the tabulations that are
all created to have redundancy.

-I see it as a soft coup.

I see it as a rigged election,
a soft coup.

And the agents behind it

are both national
and international in scope.

- What if you're wrong?
- What if I'm right?

-Well, that's the supposition
that they got us here.

So, now, what if you're wrong?

-Oh, that would be bad.
That would be a bad thing to do.

-What is a world look like
where everything goes your way?

-I think what's needed
in American politics

is what's called an "oresteia."

What really happened... Sorry.

What really happened,
in my view,

the negative consequences
for society

through an endless cycle
of revenge

and the need for society
to move, is not understanding

of the social value
of... of forgiveness

rather than just being
stuck in revenge.

-Patrick is describing
the "Oresteia,"

the classic Greek
trilogy of tragedies

written in the 5th century BC.

-The moral of the bloody dramas
is that citizens

shouldn't take justice
into their own hands,

but instead resolve
their conflicts

through law and trials.

-My dream
life would be on a beach

with cats and other animals.

I just want to live
with as few humans as possible.

-Me, too. I want a bunch
of animals, too.

-I want a petting zoo.
Thank you. Nice landing.

- Thank you so much.
- Thank you so much.

-Bit of a carrier landing,
if you don't mind me saying.

♪♪

It looks like we're going
to be travel buddies

for two more days,
if you can stand it, Marley.

You're going to poke my eyes out

as a right wing
white nationalist supremacist.

-I didn't ever think you were
white nationalist... are you?

-I haven't met any yet.

I've been in and around these
people for almost two years.

I haven't heard a single
r*cist comment.

- Well.
- Except for one.

-You're doing better
than we are.

-Well, of course, you youngsters

have your different
definition of racism, right?

-He also has a very different
definition

of election integrity.

-Byrne's behind a new wave
of efforts spurring

activism and legislation rooted

in debunked claims
about the 2020 election.

These efforts have
made it difficult

for election officials,

like Colorado
Secretary of State Jena Griswold

to do their jobs.

-Yes, hello.
We were just sitting here

watching you
certify massive voter fraud.

You guys are in danger

of getting dragged
out of your offices physically.

-When did this start for you?

-Colorado has the gold standard
of bipartisan audits.

We have something called
bipartisan risk limiting audit,

which shows, to a statistical
degree of certainty,

that our election results
are correct.

So when folks were coming in
and actually threatening

the lives of even
Republican county clerks,

I prohibited fake audits
in the state of Colorado.

So that started to kick up dust.

That was followed
by the nation's

first insider threat
in Mesa County.

-And what does that mean?

-That means someone elected
to oversee elections,

to uphold
the will of the people,

actually compromised
voting equipment

and breached election security
to try to prove conspiracies.

-What do they do physically?

-Well, they stole someone's
identity,

sent an e-mail and said,
"Hey, turn off all the cameras."

They then took copies
of the voting equipment

and also stole passwords
to the motherboard.

-The Mesa County Clerk
Tina Peters

is facing felony charges

for tampering
with election equipment.

-She didn't act alone, though.

Shortly after it happened,
Patrick Byrne did a live stream

where he seemingly confessed
to overseeing the heist.

-They gave him some county
credentials or something,

and he dressed up
like a little nerd.

And he went in and he...
And he took an image.

Message to Dominion and Colorado
Secretary of State...

That guy with "Billy"
on his name tag next to you,

he was actually one of ours.
He was filming you [bleep].

[ Laughing ]

-She has the support
of Mike Lindell,

who says he's already
spent $800,000

just in her legal defense,

and was just endorsed
by Michael Flynn.

-Peters ran for Secretary
of State in 2022,

but lost in the primary
with only 28% of the vote,

which, of course,
she claimed was due to fraud.

-So that was the first
insider threat in the nation.

Subsequently, we've seen,
I believe,

two in Michigan,
one in Ohio, one in Idaho,

a second one
in the state of Colorado.

So this is an increasing threat
to American democracy.

-Imagine how taxing that must be
to just carry that.

-I would say any
reasonable person

who finds themself in the middle
of a QAnon conspiracy,

who is repeatedly
being told about

how people want to come
to their house to...

To hang you, to make sure
that you can't walk the streets

by yourself, would be concerned.

But it's not really about me.

We are seeing these threats
being used as a political tool

to destabilize
American elections.

They're targeting me.

They've targeted the Arizona
secretary of state,

the Michigan secretary of state,

who, by the way,
were all younger women.

-You are women.

You are the worst creatures
on the face of the Earth.

We have a Second Amendment.
We're coming for you.

-Across the country, one sixth
of election workers

have been directly threatened.

One sixth say they're afraid
to do their job.

Pennsylvania, I believe,
has already lost 30% plus

of its election administrators.

-What goes through your mind
when you're watching that?

-These threats, they're being
used to try to stop us,

to get us to think twice.

But, you know, they actually
have the opposite effect on me.

It cements my resolve
to do everything I can

to protect the right to vote
and to safeguard our elections.

-They are heroes
saving this country from a coup

on which the secretary of state
of Colorado is involved.

-It's a very strange story
that they're trying to promote,

but it distracts people, right?

It's sort of like, "Don't look
at what's really happening."

-Ooh. I would like a coconut
for me.

♪♪

-I have mixed feelings
about Hemingway.

-Maybe your journey has been a
bit "Old Man and the Sea" -esque.

-It's not the years,
it's the miles.

The idea is literally
trying to carve the definition

of a domestic extremist to be
someone who doubts the election,

someone who doubts the narrative
of the party line on COVID,

and someone who has other
information about Russia

other than the party line
narrative.

And is 6'5"
and has blue eyes and...

-Like... Likes cats.

-Doesn't dress...
And likes cats.

-At any point, did it kind of
come into your mind that, like,

"Hey, what I'm doing is becoming
such a threat

to the American way of life

that the government
has to protect itself"?

-A man will do anything for his
convictions except examine them.

If I'm correct about what's
in those five ballot boxes,

then I'm actually saving
and it's you guys

who are letting
the republic be destroyed.

-But what I still
don't understand is,

let's say we live
in your perfect world.

Like, what does that look like?
How do we...

-So if we open those
and we discover, for example...

- Yeah. Let's... Let's...
- what was discovered

in Mesa, Colorado, I would say,

let's turn everything over
the Supreme Court

and let the Supreme Court
decide what to do.

-They've weighed in on this.
They have weighed in

on your claims, right?
So the Supreme Court's

weighed in, the states
are doing their thing.

-They've weighed in on...
That's just a straw man

argument, Marley.

They weighed in on
not my claims, on some things

that some lawyers
slopped together

in 20 days after an election.
No...

- Lawyers that you hired.
- I didn't hire any of them.

I had nothing to do with that.

Well, I got them... I fed them

a copy of the data
that was coming up.

-The data that you submitted,
though, to the Supreme Court.

-No, no, no, no, no.

I'm not associate
with those cases.

It should be treated
exactly like

the civil rights
voter suppression.

A whistleblower has come forward
and explained he is done.

It's all done. When somebody
submits 4,500 ballots,

that's the same
as standing there

with 4,500 deputies keeping


You just canceled


You should be as shocked
as you were from the pictures

from Montgomery, Alabama, 1956.

- Wait, 1960s civil rights...
- May I finish my sentence?

The same as what's going on now.
- With a hypothetical

situation where people
are stuffing ballots?

-Hypothetical for which
there is a...

-Like, I understand the point
of connecting it emotionally

for us to that
Civil Rights Movement...

-In what way are those...

From the point of view
of voter suppression,

in what way are those
two cases different?

-Sometimes, when Byrne gets
triggered, he starts filming us,

which, of course, as filmmakers,
we support his right to do.

-We've been together for over


and I'm still trying to
understand what the solution is.

You haven't clearly articulated
to me a better way.

-What we really want is the law.

Make sure that the law
is followed.

If the state legislature
or the Constitution says X,

then that's... You know,
if you want to play Monopoly,

read the top of the box.

If you don't like that,
change the law.

I'm okay. Change the law.

-So change the on Colorado
because

what you guys are doing
is against the law in Colorado.

-No, it's not that. The law says
that the county recorder

has the right to make a backup.

It says nothing about
any form of the backup.

-You cannot take that backup.

You can't steal
American voter data.

-Any normal
investigative journalists

would applaud that act.
They discovered a cover-up.

They documented a cover-up.
- No, they didn't.

They showed that they create
redundancies

and that there's updates

to the system
and that issues are hacked.

-You're listening to
some Microsoft...

-No, I'm reading the Colorado
election law.

-They are heroes saving
this country from a coup

on which the secretary of state
of Colorado is involved.

And this was an entrepreneurial
government official

who did the right thing,
took her duty seriously.

If she had not done that, that
data would be gone forever.

Unusual circumstance...
- No, it wouldn't be.

It would be saved for 25 months.
- What do you make of

the October 23rd appearance
of a new election database

for which nobody can explain?

-I'll tell you who's got
a good explanation.

- Hmm?
- The secretary of state.

-In Colorado,
we upgrade the system

before every election and patch
any known vulnerabilities.

So what we have seen
is the imaging happening

after that has happened.

But it is a... a tool
for hackers to look at.

-Why do you think
there's so much

focus on accessing
these election systems?

You give over our machines
for a forensic audit.

I am a hunter and I think
you should be hunted.

-Like, what strategically does
that provide

that we might be overlooking?

-It allows folks,
before the election, to have

a blueprint of the system,
which increases vulnerability.

But I think the most
likely of scenarios

is that it's just a way
to push disinformation.

♪♪

-Patrick Byrne's involvement in
Stop the Steal narratives

is undeniable, but it's not
clear if he understands

that most of the theories he's
pushing have risen out of QAnon.

-So we wanted to ask him about Q

and its connections to his
business partner, Mike Flynn.

-The obsession with Q.
I wouldn't know Q from Adam.

N-None of us do.

-It's hard to say that, like,
you don't know anything about

Q because, like...
- Okay.

- you know something,
enough to at least say, like,

"Tore is Q 2.0," and know that
we'll probably use that.

-I'm afraid to think what Q is,

is an example of this technique
called "twinning."

And it's... In a revolutionary
movement or in a coup movement,

you create a Q which...
Which has some truth in it,

gets, draws
some kind of following,

and then you start telling
people, "Be... Keep passive.

Don't... Don't worry.
Prepare for the storm.

The... The storm is coming,"
all that kind of stuff.

It's a technique
in military espionage,

a technique of regime change.
So, everybody does this.

-As we went to search for Q,

we went to what was known
as 8kun.

If you're looking for Q,
that's where you head.

All of the literature,

all of the donate here,
all of those things,

the beneficiary of it
is the Mike Flynn Defense Fund.

During this process
is when he takes this oath.

-It wasn't like a family
Flynn Christmas moment?

- Yes, yes.
- Yes, he did say that.

But word for word, 10 days
after, Q dropped the...

That same oath with the words,
"Where we go one, we go all."

Mike Flynn posts the same thing
with the same words.

- Where we go one, we go all.
- I'm sure that's a troll.

He knows it's going to wind up

with the mainstream
media, like not...

-You know what else it wound
up, turns out? QAnon.

-Do you know what QAnon people
call themselves?

- What?
- Digital soldiers.

Do you know what reference
that has to Mike Flynn?

-I know that he speaks
of digital warriors, right?

- Digital soldiers.
- Digital soldiers.

-All the digital
soldiers out there.

-I... I don't like speaking
for General Flynn.

But at the extremes,
I'm happy to.

He's absolutely not attached,
does not endorse, whatever.

-It's hard to look at
the breadth of evidence,

financially included,

and say that Flynn knows
nothing about Q.

-Yeah.

-You're suggesting
he's doing this

to make a dime or something.
- I don't think it's about money,

but I think it's hard to start
a revolution when you're broke.

-There's all kinds of people
in that community who back me

and endorse me and are helping
us raise money, too, and such.

-Did you trademark the word

that they use
to call themselves?

-What are you talking about?

-He's trademarked
"digital soldiers."

-Well, that's... that's an
expression he's been using...

- Since 2016, right?
- I don't know. I thought it...

He... No. I understand him
to have figured out,

in the days of fighting
over in the Middle East,

the value of the digital,
the social.

-But you're asking
the American people to believe

that the person
who benefited the most

versus kind of a more
abstract idea

that the news could then use it
to troll a bunch of people.

Which one seems more likely?

♪♪

-What do you think
Mike Flynn's next move is?

-Trying to get a bid
for vice-presidency.

-You think it's just vice?

-[ Chuckles ] No.

-Candace Rondeaux is the
director of Future Frontlines.

As a "Washington Post" w*r
correspondent, she spent

a lot of time interviewing
Mike Flynn in Afghanistan

and had a lot of respect
for him.

In the time since,
she's been shocked

to see the general devolve
into this.

-Yeah, that's right.
Lock her up.

-In June 2021,

she published an investigation
in "The Intercept"

that lays out how Flynn nurtured
and profited from Q

since the very beginning.

-I think there's a pretty clear
evidentiary trail that shows

that here's a guy
who just kept investing

and leaning into the QAnon
narrative.

At the same time,
he was also fighting

this legal battle
to clear his name.

-Do you believe that Flynn
was involved

in the origination of Q?
- Yes, I think we understand

it was a collectively
managed enterprise, for sure.

-Last season, we looked at
a company called OSY Technology

that trademarked a Q.

What do you make of that?
I mean, is that a smoking g*n?

Is that... How do we put
that together

in this kind of story of Q?

-You know, how is it that Flynn,

who's an advisory, you know,
board member

who starts to rally around you,

how is it that all of
these connections are there?

Honestly, I don't know if...
I don't know. Smoking g*n?

Smoking g*n is difficult.

-But a g*n. We should probably
check it for fingerprints.

-Absolutely.
[ Laughs ]

And then also check
the ballistic type.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

-When he is elevated

to the National Security Advisor
position,

it's within days of, of course,
the election.

He gives a speech
at the Trump Hotel

where he famously then declares
that the digital soldiers

are responsible
for Trump's victory.

-We have an army
of digital soldiers.

-That becomes his mantra.
But nobody seems to notice

that it's also
his business enterprise, right?

When he gets fired,
you start to see progressively

there's more and more collateral
that he's trying to acquire.

For me,
the most significant piece

was the trademarking effort
of "digital soldiers," right?

To try and trademark that phrase
and then turn it into something

you could put on a T-shirt
or a cup or...

He sort of succeeds for a while.

He lets it go,
seems very distracted by it.

But to monetize just a phrase
like that was...

I thought
that was quite interesting.

Next is
MikeFlynnLegalDefenseFund.org.

-That was sort of the thing
that led us to Mike Flynn

initially, it was everywhere.

-Well, it's raised a lot of
money, hasn't it?

It was expensive.

The first lawyers were saying,

"You owe us five million bucks,"
or something like that, right?

And he was unable to pay it.

And, so, he sold his house
in Alexandria.

And that seems to be
the first motivation

is to raise money
to pay those folks.

The design becomes
more and more obvious

the more collateral he starts
to accumulate,

and you start to see,

oh, this must be
some sort of strategy.

We're just going to try
and keep this alive,

this kind of crazy story
about a democratic cabal.

In the QAnon narrative,
he figures, obviously,

very prominently
as this great hero.

He may be one of the generals
that helped pick Trump, right,

tapped him on the shoulder for
his... his destiny and future.

-The next president of the
United States, Donald J. Trump.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Narrative and psychological
warfare is something we don't

really talk about a lot
when it comes to QAnon.

- No, that's right.
- I think we're very satisfied

in thinking that it was a prank.
I don't want to think

about maybe more of
the sophisticated methods

that were part of bringing it
to the forefront.

-Oh, yeah. I mean, these are the
core tenets of disinformation.

I mean, this is...
This is the doctrine.

Satire, parody, right?

Decontextualization.

All of these are the tools and
methodologies of disinformation.

It's a scaffolding
that you build.

It's sort of like, "Don't look
at what's really happening.

All the stories that
you're hearing about Mike Flynn.

No, no, no, no. That's not true.

Look over here. He's a hero."

That's what QAnon's built for.
That's my belief.

-And it certainly fits
within that timeline, right?

The posts themselves are only
happening really from the time

he starts his conversations
with the Mueller team

to the time he's pardoned.

-This is honestly the most
important part of understanding

Mike Flynn's psychological
operations background.

Intellectually, he's a person
that I think certainly reflected

on the power of narrative
in counterinsurgency.

I think he did not succeed
in the Middle East

because it was just
too big a problem

without understanding
the culture and the language.

But here he's actually
built a movement.

-Fight like Flynn!
Fight like Flynn!

-He's just trying
different things

in the beginning, it seems like.
It's just, you know,

these little experiments,
like the digital soldiers.

Just chum out in the water.

And then, QAnon
becomes pretty real.

Sort of like this,
you know, pulsing entity.

To what degree
was that manufactured, designed?

You know, what was the intent?
Who financed it?

These are questions
that really need to be asked

and answered to understand
how QAnon

morphed into
something much more dangerous.

-What do you think
the end game is now?

We've seen him shift into these
ReAwaken America tours,

a lot of the Stop the Steal
things.

-There's a lot of
intentionality, you know,

about, like, "We're going to
have these conferences,

and we're going to kind of like
muster these forces of QAnon."

It seems to be like
a priming of the pump.

-What do you think Mike Flynn's
next move is?

-Oh, boy. I mean,
he seems to be very committed

to trying to get a bid
for vice-presidency.

-You think it's just vice?

-[ Chuckles ] No.

We'll have to see if 2022
becomes

this kind of test case
for all these different

QAnon candidates.

At that level,
really low level, right,

if we see that the midterms
become a sort of contentious

kind of area around counting,

we should certainly expect
to see those people pop up.

But that would just be
the dress rehearsal for 2024.

And that's the coup
that he has in mind.

♪♪

-When you talk about Flynn
generating a digital army,

every one of those people
is a potential foot soldier.

-I would be first in line in the
draft Michael Flynn movement.

-Candace Rondeaux laid out
a pretty strong case

about General Mike Flynn's
connections to Q.

So we sent her "Intercept" piece
to Patrick Byrne,

and we're hoping to have

a reasonable conversation
with him about it.

-Did you read the article
that I sent you that...

- Yeah.
- You did?

- You did?
- Yeah, well, I skimmed...

-No, no, no.
Tell us about it.

No. Let's talk about it.

What parts of it did you think
were interesting?

-The first assumption
is that we're the insurrection,

that we want to overturn
the election.

We want the... the fairer...

-There's no assumption
about this in there.

-We want an election rig
to be exposed.

So that's an assumption.

-That has absolutely nothing
to do with this.

-But you asked what the false
assumptions in the article.

That's the first one.

The whole article
is written from that paradigm.

His logic was so loosey-goosey.
You're trying to associate...

-The filings and money trails
and demonstrations

of how Flynn has profited from
QAnon for several years.

-This is all nuts.

Give me 17 seconds
to think this through.

-You're the guy who can
draw [bleep] lines to dots...

-Well, there are
other things going on.

- that, honestly, the
constellations couldn't imagine.

-But you understand that...
First thing I saw.

Well, no. First thing I saw
was you keep acting like

that Flynn followed QAnon.
QAnon followed Flynn.

- Right, it's just to get the...
- Well, you got to remember,

I'm unique in this case in that
I know that there's a coup.

I was part of it. I started,
I worked it, I worked for...

- Yeah!
- We agree on that.

-We agree on that much!

-I don't want to be doing this.

General Flynn doesn't
want to be doing this.

We feel our country has been
hijacked in an ill*gal election

that may have
foreign overtones to it.

-What if General Flynn is lying
to you about that?

-[ Scoffs ] I was the guy
who showed him.

I certainly wasn't a mastermind.

I was on the inside
of everything that was happening

and I certainly
saw some mischief.

- What do you mean by that?
- January 4th,

there was a meeting.
This has been written about.

There is a meeting,
and the goal was to say

Mike Pence called
for a one-week break,

and in that week, Mike Pence
then would say,

as the president
of this meeting,

"I have the power to suspend
this meeting for a week.

I want all the states
to go in with all...

And all the evidence that's
accumulated since December 13th

and recommit
your electoral votes."

-Right, but, so, the thing
you're asking them to do

is to delay the certification
of the presidency, right?

- The 13th or the 16th.
- Yeah, sure. Which I'm sure

you would be super cool about
if Joe Biden did, by the way.

-We didn't create
this historically

unprecedented situation.
And there was all kinds

of information that
was bubbling up.

And then brought in a guy
named Ali Akbar Alexander.

And Ali Akbar,
he's the joker in the deck.

I think that guy's
connected to Mike Pence.

I think that it all leads back
to Mike Pence.

And then, super importantly,

on January 5th, everything
about what happened

on January 6th changed.

What January 6
was supposed to be

was a very sober presentation

by some scientists
that was needed.

- Aw, they what?
- Come on.

- Come on.
- That was the last...

- We just talked about it.
- That was my advice.

-Honestly, you're...

-That was the last thing
that was needed.

It was not supposed to be
a Trump pep rally.

It all got converted,

and this all happened due to
some people around Mike Pence,

and it all got flipped
into being a Trump pep rally.

-Why on Earth would Mike Pence
do that?

-Assemble people who would rally
and chant to hang Mike Pence.

- "Hang Mike Pence."

-Hang Mike Pence!
Hang Mike Pence!

-So you feel like you
and Mike Flynn

kind of got the rug pulled out
from under you?

-I can't speak for Mike Flynn,
but in the event that...

President Trump chose
not to run,

I would be first in line in the
draft Michael Flynn movement.

-Would you have a position
in his government?

-I'll... I'll tell you one thing
that was said between us once.

I said to him, "Sir, if...
If President...

I know you would never run
against Donald Trump.

But if President Trump
doesn't want...

I don't... You know, why don't
you run and I'll back you?"

He said, "I don't want to run.

How about you run
and I'll back you."

I said, "No, no. You're going to
run, and I'm gonna back"...

-Do you ever worry that maybe
you've been taking advantage

of a little bit?
- Look, I think

that this is a soft coup
against the United States.

I regret that I have but one
fortune to give for my country.

To quote our favorite guy,

"It's not what you don't know
that kills you.

It's what you think
you know for sure

that just ain't so."

-I hope that we can reach across
whatever weird river

between us we might have and
continue to have conversations.

-I know you won't end up
in a FEMA camp,

if I have any say in the matter.

- Me, too. Deal, deal, deal.
- And you...

- Yeah.
- You have no...

Yeah, but you can't promise it.
- When we throw down the FEMA

camps, yeah, oh, big time.
- No gulags.

-What made this guy go from
a respected soldier to a nut?

I guess the big deal is that
there was a half hour

that Pat Cipollone
can't talk about.

-Mark? Patrick Byrne.

-Before leaving Key West,

we got a chance to speak
with Major General Paul Eaton.

-General Eaton recently
co-authored an op-ed

in "The Washington Post"
with two other generals

that warned the public about
a scenario in the 2024 election

that could result
in a civil w*r.

-Major General Paul Eaton.
I am married to an Army veteran.

Three children, all soldiers.

-Wow. It's a very impressive
military family.

- A true patriotic man.
- Yeah.

-So we had been talking
about the op-ed,

and you had described
what it looks like for there

to be a breakdown
in the chain of command.

What do you see as the potential
for that happening?

-There's a phrase...
Low probability, high impact.

Okay.
I think it's low probability,

but the impact is very,
very high.


who were involved

in the insurrection on January 6

were either military active,

which is bizarre, and veterans.

What if that bleeds over
in substantial numbers

into the US military,
federal police, FBI?

There are a lot of cats
with g*ns out there

who have a chain of command,

and if they have a question
in their mind

on the validity of the election,
that's an issue.

-Tell us about the risk
that you see associated

with the 2024
presidential election.

-My concern is where you go
from a mob

to a paramilitary organization
that is man trained,

equipped to cause real damage.

And not just in Washington, DC,

but pressure points
throughout the United States.

What happens if you have
a... a spate of attacks

that are very connected in real
time command and control?

People who would do harm
to our election process,

they've gone to school
on what did not go well for them

in the last
presidential election.

-What role do you see
QAnon playing in January 6?

-This propagation of conspiracy
theories that they pushed out,

they were able
to get a following.

They were able to... to create
a cult-like following,

not unlike what Mr. Trump
was able to pull off.

They're not all mindless,
uneducated people.

They are people who have bought
into a Jonestown kind of cult

with this guy,
which makes absolutely no sense.

When you have Americans
who have given up their identity

and wrapped themselves around
with the Trump flag

as they march up the steps
of the Capitol building,

what kind of American does that?
- Yeah.

You use the word "cult-like"
in describing QAnon.

Another word
we hear quite a bit is PSYOP,

which is a military term.
Can you tell us what that means?

-Whenever you have an op plan,
you have a PSYOP component

to it and information warfare.

A PSYOP campaign
used to be dropping leaflets

behind the lines
during World w*r I.

Now it's the Internet and all
the tools available to it.

So this whole PSYOP thing
is being developed to a degree

that is pretty scary right now.

-I think I couldn't think of
someone better to help us

interpret what we've seen over
the last few months.

Are you familiar
with the ReAwaken Tour

that's happening
across America right now?

- Scary stuff.
- General Flynn gets on stage,

reminds everybody that they are
part of his digital insurgency,

but they are now
spiritual warriors.

We are now engaged
in spiritual warfare.

What do you make of that?
- It's dangerous.

When you're talking about
reinforcing function

of a big tent revival,
ReAwaken, call it what you will,

that is a re-indoctrinating
event.

When you talk about Flynn
generating a digital army,

every one of those people
is a potential foot soldier

available to General...
Ex... Flynn.

That's the scary part
of all this.

Mike Flynn, at one time, was a
very respected general officer.

You know, what the hell
happened to Mike Flynn?

Did he have something
organic happen to him?

What... What made this guy go
from a respected soldier

to a... a... a nut?

-Do you think there could be
an element of him

having been PSYOP'd?

-I mean, he sat down to
break bread with Vladimir Putin.

So there were
plenty of opportunities.

But the question that you pose
should be posed

to the secretary of defense.

What are you doing

about this renegade
retired lieutenant general?

That is a great mystery
to all of us.

Mr. Flynn should be brought back
on active duty

and given a trial for offenses
that I believe he has committed.

-What we show in this season is

how a movement starts
from the fringes of the Internet

and has now rooted itself

within all three branches
of our government.

All of these conspiracies
that we've been following

are now
becoming institutionalized.

They're being legislated around,

and we're seeing them influence
the direction of the country.

-It's not an anomaly.
It's not new.

It is a version of history
which is very dangerous

and has been recycled

and upgraded and evolved
into what we're seeing today.

-It really comes down to the
three stages of an insurgency.

We've been able to show
the first phase,

which was the organization
around a set of grievances

and learning how to articulate
those grievances.

That was QAnon.
And from that campaign

came the three main grievances
that we now see

Anons organizing around,
being Save Our Children,

Stop the Steal,
and COVID Conspiracy.

-There are plenty of grievances
that the American people

can have with our government.

There's corruption
that can be addressed.

There is real child trafficking
issues that can be addressed.

But none of the things
that QAnon is doing

or actually working
to fix any of those.

-The second stage of that
insurgency is armed groups

actively recruiting
from ex-military.

And not only have we seen that,
but we're seeing radicalization

take root
inside the military itself.

-I think it's important
that we tell these stories.

By not talking
about these things,

we are allowing them
to normalize.

We're allowing them
to mainstream.

And if we don't look at them
and confront them head on

and let people know what it is
that they're looking at,

and these ideologies,
these hateful,

hateful ideologies
will continue to spread.

And we will see the third stage
of this insurgency.

We will see more
and more attacks.

Barbara said that,
in all of the countries

where she's visited
after a civil w*r,

the one thing they all have
in common

is that none of them knew
until it was too late.

-So I think one of the takeaways
from this conversation

and how we can interact with
Anons

moving forward or people
who have fallen down

this conspiratorial
rabbit hole is faith.

We've spent a lot of time
talking about the role

that faith has played in this
and seen how it's been used

to weaponize people
against each other.

What we need to be able to do is
co-opt that same sense of faith

and restore trust in
institutions using that faith.

♪♪

-A former CEO of Overstock

is going to meet
with the committee in person.

-I may put it all on the table.

-On June 24th, 2022,

the day the Supreme Court
overturned Roe v. Wade,

someone with access
to Q's login credentials

returned to 8kun
and created a new post.

It read, "Shall we play
a game once more?"

It was signed, "Q."

Shortly after,
the January 6th Committee

held a hearing
that began to address

Mike Flynn's role
in the insurrection,

releasing this video
of his testimony.

-Do you believe the violence
on January 6

was justified morally?

-General Flynn,
do you believe in

the peaceful transition of power
in the United States of America?

-And then, this happened.

-We just got in some
breaking news

on the January 6th Committee.

The former CEO of Overstock,
Patrick Byrne,

is going to meet
with the committee in person.

- Hey, hey, hey.
- What up?

-Good morning, sir.

-This is exactly what was
brought the president

on December 18th.
- Did you discuss January 6

at all with the president
that night.

-The only mention to January 6,
the only mention was I said,

"Sir, if we don't do this now,
just so you're aware,

that if we get to January 6
and it doesn't go your way,

and then you want to do this,
that's not...

That's like sore losers."

And I guess the big deal
is that there was a half hour

that Pat Cipollone can't talk
about, so they all want to know

what happened in the half hour.


should be debating exactly
what was discussed there,

and it's perfectly reasonable

why don't I just come in
and tell you.

Whatever the truth is,
whatever was discussed,

I'm the guy who put it all
on the table.

I'm the guy who put it all
on the table,

so if there's any seditious
conspiracy charges, it is I.

-Shortly after Byrne, Flynn,
and Powell left the White House

on December 18th, Trump tweeted,
inviting his followers

to come to Washington
on January 6th,

adding, "It would be wild."

So you can see why Byrne's
account of the meeting

would be of interest
to the January 6th Committee.

You ready?

-I was born ready.

-Okay. Solid.

♪♪

-Look happy for once.
Look happy.

-I'm as happy as I ever get.

-See, I have resting happy face.

- Uh...
- Or the DOJ?

-Uh...

No comment.

♪♪

- Mark. Patrick Byrne.
- Mark? Patrick Byrne.

- Nice to see you.
- Nice to see you, too.

Amanda.

Okay.

[ Radio chatter ]

-Oh.

-The forces ignited by QAnon
have not disappeared.

Conspiracies continue
to localize and take root

from the centers of power

to cities and towns
across America.

-The fear takes different forms.

Christian nationalism,
armed private militias,

conspiracies about everything
from vaccines to pedophilia.

And there are people in power
right now who believe all of it

and are taking action
to make it harder to vote.

-We stand now as a nation
staring into a widening abyss

we still don't recognize
as our own backyard.

The once-friendly faces
of our neighbors

have morphed into strangers
by political tribalism.

-America, in the months
and years ahead,

we have an opportunity.

The most patriotic thing
we can do right now

is to show the world
that our similarities

are stronger
than our differences.

We must not fall victim
to the ideological dogmas

that only propel
the cycle of radicalization.

-Without a desire to reach
those we perceive

as different from ourselves,

the clamoring sounds
from the elephant in the room

could soon be replaced by
the echo of firing in our hills.

♪♪