Guardians of the Free Republics and Its Aftermath
For several years this was the Guardians of the free Republics website advancing their agenda. Guardians of the Free Republics, active around 2010, was a group based in the U.S. state of Texas regarded as being part of the sovereign citizen movement. Sometime after 2011 the site's domain expired and the site disappeared from the WWW. The site has changed hands several times since then. The current owners has chosen to bring back archived content from the original site feeling that it is relevant considering the emergence of the alt right and the sovereign citizen movement over the past 4 years of Donald Trump's presidency and the G.O.P. embrace of much of its ideology. Some would say that by becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in the past. We shall see. But no matter which direction the G.O.P. go, the alt right and the sovereign citizen movement will remain.
In 2010 CBSNews reported that Governors across the country are receiving letters from a group called Guardians of the free Republics claiming that if they do not leave office within three days, they will be removed, Homeland Security and FBI officials have confirmed to CBS News.
While more than 30 governors have received the letters, officials say they see "no immediate or credible threats of violence connected to the letters," CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports.
Nevertheless, the Homeland Security Department and FBI issued a joint advisory cautioning state and local officials that the group could inspire or provoke violence from others, given that "they (the group) advocate for their views through the use, support, or facilitation of violence or illegal conduct."
One U.S. security official says the advisory was distributed "out of an abundance of caution to ensure that state and local partners have tools they need to recognize behaviors," Orr reports.
Guardians of the free Republics claims on its Web site it wants to "restore America" by peacefully dismantling parts of the government.
First published on April 2, 2010
BY STEPHANIE CONDON
www.cbsnews.com/
FBI Issues Warning About Threat From Yet Another Anti-Government Group With Ties To The Radical Right
LEE FANG APR 2, 2010 / THINK PROGRESS
The Associated Press reports that the FBI has issued an intelligence note warning police that an anti-government group’s call to remove dozens of sitting governors may encourage others to act out violently. The group, “Guardians of the Free Republics,” wants to “restore America” by dismantling parts of the government, according to its website. Governors receiving the threats include Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Jim Doyle (D-WI), Chet Culver (D-IA), Jim Gibbons (R-NV), among others.
While much of the rhetoric from the group resembles the style of patriot extremist organizations, their concerns seem to stem directly from economic anxiety. The group’s broadcasting affiliate, Republic Broadcasting Network, advertises survival kits, gold buying guides, and other hallmarks of a movement in America which believes that the country is heading towards economic collapse. The website also promotes tea party protests, calls for revolution, videos from Glenn Beck, and sympathetic articles about recent right-wing domestic terrorist activities, like the suicide attack on an IRS building in Austin earlier this year.
Guardians of the Free Republics’ call to dismantle the government has gained traction on right-wing tea party websites. The groups’ proclamation is posted on ResistNet, the popular tea party forum, as well as Tree of Liberty, a tea party forum known to have been frequented by users which supported Hutaree, the Christian militia recently arrested in Michigan
Update:
While NYC shut down last year in March as the city was hit hard by the first wave of the Covid 19 pandemic, I spent my daylight hours working from home, thank goodness I could, and the evening FaceTiming with friends and family, watching lots of movies and playing mostly slots at Miami Club Casino which uses uses Wager Gaming Software (WGS) software as its gaming platform. I play mostly at their site from my desktop, but it is also available as a mobile-compatible site playable on Windows, Apple and Android platforms. Interested - click the link. With the lack of a coherent approach to dealing with the pandemic during Trump's administration and with many Republican governors poo pooing the wearing of mask and not pushing to get their citizens vaccinated, conspiracy theorists regarding the pandemic and the vaccines has multiplied to the extreme. Let's face it, the coronavirus pandemic has been fertile ground for conspiracy theorists.
I have a former college classmate who has embraced the alt rights beliefs and has become a fervent Sovereign citizen. We occasionally FaceTime . But since he has declared himself as a “living person” or “natural person”, who is being constrained by the government and must break this oppressive contract and avoid restrictions such as paying taxes, and fines and in particular government rules on mandatory mask-wearing, we don't have much in common any more. The only thing we can discuss without rancor is playing slots. Well, we have some disagreements regarding which are the best slot games to play, but mostly we both are enthusiastic about playing slots online. Since he lives in Australia we no longer play at the same online casino since Miami Club doesn't accept Australian player. But that doesn't dim our enthusiasm for slots.
When we sign off from a FaceTime chat I always tell him to stay safe and I hope he does even though I know he will not wear a mask under any circumstances and will never get vaccinated against Covid.
Aftermath
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Free_Republics
In March 2011, an "elder" of the Guardians of the Free Republics organization named Samuel Lynn Davis pleaded guilty to 31 counts of money laundering in Federal district court in Nevada. Davis was snared in a sting operation after he agreed to launder more than $1.29 million in what he believed to be illicit funds. Davis accepted $73,782 in fees to launder the money, not realizing he was dealing with Federal law enforcement agents. In October 2011, Davis was sentenced to four years and nine months in Federal prison, and was ordered to pay over $95,000 in restitution.As of late July 2012, Davis had been classified as a fugitive, having failed to surrender to authorities to begin his prison sentence in June 2012. On August 7, 2012, Davis was arrested by sheriff's deputies in White Earth, North Dakota. Davis is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution - La Tuna in Anthony, Texas, near El Paso, and is scheduled for release on April 24, 2017
On September 18, 2012, James Timothy ("Tim") Turner, one of the individuals involved in sending the letters to the state governors, was arrested after having been indicted by a federal grand jury in Alabama on one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371 by, among other things, filing a false 300 million dollar bond in an attempt to pay taxes, one count of passing a false 300 million dollar bond, five additional counts of violations of section 514(a)(2) of title 18 of the U.S. Code (relating to fictitious documents), one count of filing false Form 1096 reports with the Internal Revenue Service, one count of willful failure to file a federal income tax return, and one count of giving false testimony in a federal bankruptcy proceeding. On March 22, 2013, Turner was found guilty on all charges. On July 31, 2013, he was sentenced to 18 years in Federal prison.
On December 29, 2012, "Dr. Sam Kennedy," whose real name is Glenn Richard Unger, was arrested after having been indicted on one count of attempting to interfere with the administration of the internal revenue laws under Internal Revenue Code section 7212(a), four counts of filing false claims for tax refunds under 18 USC section 287, one count of tax evasion under Internal Revenue Code section 7201, and one count of uttering a fictitious obligation under 18 USC section 514(a)(2). He was charged with filing more than $36 million in fraudulent federal income tax refund claims. On January 2, 2013, a federal prosecutor asserted in a court hearing for Unger that Unger was a danger to the community and that Unger had stated that he would rather die than become subject to the government. The indictment alleged, among other things, that in June 2011 Unger submitted false documents with the Clerk's Office of Saratoga County, New York, in an attempt to release a $116,410.43 federal tax lien against him, for taxes and penalties for years 2004, 2005, and 2006.The Federal Bureau of Investigation began looking at Unger (alias "Sam Kennedy") in the spring of 2010, after the incident involving the letters sent to the state governors. Prosecutors also charged that Unger filed no valid federal income tax returns between 1999 and 2005. On May 23, 2013, the court ordered a mental competency hearing for Unger after he referred to himself as being "deceased."On August 7, 2013, the Court ruled that Unger was competent to stand trial.After a four-day trial Unger was found guilty of all charges by a jury in Federal court in Albany, New York, on October 21, 2013.On April 21, 2014, Unger was sentenced to eight years in Federal prison.
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The Restore America Plan is a bold achievable strategy for behind-the-scenes peaceful reconstruction of the De Jure institutions of government without controversy, violence or civil war. After consultation with high ranking members of the United States armed forces, the Plan is in the process of assembling the Guardians of the Free Republics and re-inhabiting the De Jure Grand Juries.
Replace corporate government and restore the American republic
… by March 31?
The Guardians of the Free Republics
and the fifty American
De jure Grand Juries
invite you to join our ranks and finally solve your problems.
If you are tired of being subjected to a corporation posing as a legitimate government that would arrest you for refusing to pray to corporate courts or give up your land or pay taxes to the Rothschilds or exhibit a state-issued confession of subject-class citizenship, then we invite you to take a moment to read the one page
The unanimous Declaration of the sovereign People of the united States of America
to restore and re-inhabit the free American republics
attached hereto. This is YOUR chance to finally end the economic siege, the foreclosures, tax and criminal cases which lack an injured party, the assaults and terror under color of law by lawfully, expediently and peacefully restoring the de jure (original) institutions of the fifty state republics and the United States of America. And yes…all to be accomplished by
March 31, 2010.
After a year of face-to-face negotiations with high-ranking members of the armed forces of the united States of America, the leaders of the freedom movement have joined together to bring you a four step comprehensive remedy—the Restore America Plan—whereby the military has agreed to follow the orders of the legitimate de jure government upon proper restoration and execution.
To be clear, this is not a typical patriot “remedy.” The four step Restore America Plan was proposed by high-ranking members of the military who are tired of taking orders from a corporate CEO, and who recognize the People as the last chance to avoid a third world war. In fulfilling the call to action, the Guardian Elders who wrote the Declaration and designed the implementation plan are prepared, with your assistance, to
restore the one true sovereign authority on the land
once and for all, as the only lawful government of the United States of America in truth and in the eyes of the military commanders. As you will see when you read the one page Declaration and the Warrants and
Orders attached thereto, the remedy is already won, even before it begins. By its very nature, the mere act of re-inhabiting the de jure institutions of law creates the victory we have all been seeking. Actors throughout the United States Federal Corporation understand they must ultimately defer to the de jure authority. The remedy is self-actualizing.
JOINING THE GUARDIANS
If you elect to join the Guardians of the Free Republics, you will be part of the lawful solution instead of a perpetual victim. Your future and the future of your children will finally be in your hands. There will be no more excuses or anyone else to blame. The future will be yours to create.
By joining, you agree to take a covenant of office and occupy the office of juror of the De jure Grand Jurieswhich are instantly assembled under the Creator in each of the fifty (50) free republics for the purpose of reinhabiting the de jure institutions of lawful government, eliminating de facto institutions, and peacefully restoring the People’s wealth. Indeed, the power will rest with you.
You will also be taking a covenant to join the Guardians of the Free Republics, the well-regulated volunteer defenders of the free Republics and the unanimous Declaration (see below).
THE RESTORE AMERICA PLAN
Have you ever wondered why every attempt to restore the American republic has failed miserably? Could it be that attempting to change the minds of a population that has suffered four generations of cultural amnesia is doomed to fail, and worse, likely to incite violence against you?
But have you ever wondered how the bankers were able to replace de jure government around the world in 1933 without a hint of protest? How they stole our law and our money with little or no resistance? Clearly, their strategy of back room politics was brilliant, if sinister, allowing them to rewrite the rules without even token resistance. Well isn’t it time to apply the same principles to salvaging the Law from wickedness?
The Restore America Plan is a war college restoration strategy for regaining control quietly, efficiently and quickly without provoking controversy, ridicule, violence or civil war. In fact, the need for expediency eliminates any thought of making public proclamations. Restoration will occur behind the scenes in a manner designed to get results, not glory. We will NOT utter public statements which make us feel good but provoke ridicule and conflict. We will NOT attempt to re-educate an unconscious population that was raised on corporate slavery.
If you become a Guardian, you will be agreeing to avoid such public proclamations. You will be required to divest ego and desire in favor of committing yourself to a strategy of reconciliation that places the Guardians in charge of the institutions that were once the source of persecution. As you will see by the Warrants and Orders, the De jure Grand Juries will work behind the scenes, methodically dismantling the satanic institutions and rituals of 1933 and 1865.
For example, instead of marching grand juries patriot-style into local courtrooms to dismiss cases (and scare the locals to death), district judges who have been reabsorbed into the district court of the United States will issue a simple writ of mandamus terminating the local prosecution expediently. In this way, the events of 1933 will be reversed as they were instituted, by controlling the institutions of power behind the scenes. Wouldn’t you like to be in control for a change? Notwithstanding, the grand juries are not waiving such direct authority if it ever proves necessary.
And in the event the process should ever fall under public scrutiny, the unanimous Declaration was written to be a shining beacon of reason, history and forgiveness. It even looks like, sounds like, and cites the original Declaration of Independence as its authority so that condemnation of the Restoration is also condemnation of the original Revolution. The Restore America Plan is protected by the very Declaration of Independence upon which it was modeled.
The Restore America Plan is designed to turn back the clock and remove the corporate state from the lives of the sovereign People, while most of the population continues to go about their business unaware and unafraid. Please do not attempt to join our ranks if your intentions differ even slightly with this approach. If you seek glory or retribution, the Restore America Plan is not for you.
ABSOLUTION
To preserve spiritual purity, the Restore America Plan features forgiveness. At its core, it is peaceful and non-violent. Having so ensured our dominion over all the earth, actors who repent their crimes against mankind will be forgiven. With forgiveness as our hallmark, we do not waive our legitimate and necessary right as lawful authority to arrest, try and sentence those incorrigibles who use de facto power to impair de jure authority, or otherwise attempt to hijack the lawful de jure office. And we will use the very public institutions that once prosecuted us to execute those orders as needed.
ORDERS TO THE GOVERNORS AND THE MILITARY
The Declaration is a mere one page, and has been written to stand alone among history’s milestones. It is followed by Warrants and Orders of the De jure Grand Juries, each meticulously planned to solve your problems and issues (travel, diplomatic status, foreclosure, taxes, unlawful prosecutions) through cooperation rather than resistance. We are mindful that initiating a financial crisis, violence, or banker’s retaliation could be fatal to the cause. So every step has been debated and crafted with outcome in mind.
ADDITIONAL PHASES
Phase 2 is waiting in the wings. Shortly after the Declaration is presented, the De jure Grand Juries will re-absorb USDC, the Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court into their de facto counterparts, the
district court of the United States
circuit court of the United States
one supreme Court of the United States
In subsequent phases, we will also be:
- globally re-absorbing the corporate institutions into the de jure venue
- re-absorbing de facto policy enforcement officers into the People’s service, in particular the U.S. Marshals Service
- restoring the People’s wealth without triggering economic catastrophe.
THE POWER AND DUTIES OF THE DE JURE GRAND JURIES
As mentioned, re-inhabitation is self-actualizing. If needed, the De jure Grand Juries, as the one lawful authority on the land, operating IN the republics, protected by the Constitution for the United States of America, c. 1787, will commandeer those de facto institutions which fail to obey our lawful orders, remove corporate imposters, and lawfully appoint marshals to serve the district court of the United States and the De jure Grand Juries. Interestingly, Section 27 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 (http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/judiciary_1789.htm) does not provide for U.S. Marshals nor specify who is to appoint the district court marshals that are created by the Act.
Members of the Guardians of the Free Republics may also be called upon from time to time to appear in sufficient numbers professionally to emphasize our authority as the supreme lawful de jure institutions on the land. It is inherent upon the sovereign People to finally accept responsibility to ensure the posterity.
HOW TO JOIN
Joining is simple. Please:
1. Read the Declaration, Warrants, Orders to the Governors and General Orders to the military to better understand your obligations and commitment.
2. Consider this decision prayerfully. Do not consider joining if you are not prepared to fulfill the obligations of your offices, and stand in appropriate numbers when called upon.
3. Take the Covenant of office in front of a regional or state coordinators.
4. Subscribe two original copies of the covenant of office document with your signature and seal (red right thumb print).
5. Affix your signature to five (5) separate signature pages in blue ink only. The authors functioning as Guardian Elders will be compiling these pages into four original documents (and one backup), and certifying the signatures with our own.
6. Thereafter, keep your phone and email address active, and remain on alert.
Whether you decide to join the Guardians and right the evils all around us, or simply observe, the Guardian Elders thank you for your interest in the Restore America Plan and wish you the Lord’s blessings and abundance.
IMMEDIATE GOALS OF THE RESTORE AMERICA PLAN
- Ending foreclosure and bank collection actions immediately (our first and seventh directives)
- Ending tax prosecutions immediately (second and sixth directives)
- Ending invasions, prosecutions and detentions for fictitious crimes against the state that lack an injured party other than insurrection, treason and frauds against the United States (third and eighth directives)
- Ending molestation on the byways (fourth and ninth directives)
- Production of sovereign identification and passports that do not proclaim subject-class citizenship (fourth and ninth directives)
- Restoration of the trappings of proper de jure governance (fifth and tenth directives)
- Restoration of the common law of the Land (third and eighth directives)
reigning in of the admiralty color-of-law venue to the high seas (third and eighth directives) - Restoration of the proper de jure judicial institutions such as the district court of the United States and the one supreme Court as constructed and restrained in the Constitution for the United States of America, c. 1787 (Phase 2, thirteenth through fifteenth directives)
- Re-absorption of the de facto judicial aberrations such as USDC into the de jure institutions (Phase 2, thirteenth through fifteenth directives)
a PERMANENT TERMINATION OF TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT OUTSIDE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS beginning with voiding of the Downes v. Bidwell monstrosity (Phase 2, eighteenth directive) - Arrest and shackling of the District Court of the District of Columbia (Phase 2, sixteenth directive)
- Recognition of sovereign status in the police databanks of the land (fourth and ninth directives) and a lawful and orderly removal of the corporate state as the ruler of every aspect of your life.
And we will accomplish all of that – with your help – BEHIND THE SCENES, lawfully, peacefully, without violence and without risking civil war.
Phase 2: RESTORATION OF THE PEOPLE’S COMMON LAW OF THE LAND
With restoration of the de jure judicial institutions in Phase 2, we are also enacting the: Bill of Rights of Law to prevent once and for all the “legal” franchise perversions of law into at-law, territorial, admiralty/military aberrations.
There will be no such entity as a non-Article III court, even when administering the admiralty law venue for genuine issues of the high seas and international commerce.
The Bill of Rights of Law has been authored to address the perversions of law through statutes, Rules of Evidence, and Rules of Civil Procedure which have hijacked the law of the Land for the bar associations and converted the common law grand juries into prosecutorial kingdoms and slandered them as “runaway juries” instead of the fourth branch of government historically charged with OVERSEEING GOVERNMENT and PROTECTING AGAINST TYRANNY BY GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS .
LAW ENFORCEMENT
Even the insidious law enforcement agencies that have become interwoven in the tiniest issues of our lives will see the benefits of a return to the land where they can once again devote their skills to enforcing law, forever spared the risks of acting as agents for tyranny and the tragedies of assaulting the women and children of the sovereign People, their own mothers, sisters, daughters and granddaughters.
RATIONALE
For those who are concerned about opening the door to satanic forces, permit me to reassure you. The Guardian Elders deliberated with great sobriety the wisdom of sitting on our hands while the march to World War III continues. We asked ourselves if we could continue, in good conscience, to do nothing while so many of our friends and colleagues are suffering hardship. We asked ourselves if we are enjoined by the Book of Revelation from acting on behalf of freedom and mankind. After much prayer and soul-searching, we concluded unanimously that the need for action was self-evident. We are called to action.
We debated how best to accomplish our goals. Could we reasonably expect to restore Biblical law to a devoutly secular population that cherishes television, promiscuity, physical debasement and electronic devices with religious fervor, and that suffers the warped belief that advertisements for personal hygiene products and Viagra in our homes does not debase our children? Could we re-educate millions of Americans who have been programmed to believe that the ban against government interference in matters of worship somehow excludes piety in government? Could we convey consciousness regarding matters of Law to a society that breaths “Cops” and “Law & Order” and worships the bar associations “legal” system franchise where once the law of the Land reigned supreme? Eventually we concluded that “agreeing with thine enemy” was the ONLY prayerful way to bring the Lord to the people. The Restore America Plan capitalizes on THEIR belief system as a vehicle for relieving corporate tyranny. In due time, the higher goal of salvaging the souls of mankind can be addressed.
The one common belief that ties the American population together is faith in the Constitution. Many Americans are willing to fight and die in its defense even as they blindly trade notes of debt issued by a foreign bank. We decided that restoring, in principle, the Constitutional institutions through December 19, 1860 was the approach MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED (and that's the bottom line, failure being unacceptable). We rejected restoration to 1933, the Articles of Confederation or ancient times as being insufficient (1933) or unworkable, at least in terms of achieving our goals rather than proclaiming our patriot knowledge of history. Of course we recognize that the Constitution was the method for imposing on the States the obligations rejected by the colonies to pay the Revolutionary War debts to the Bank of England. Notwithstanding, we can relieve the suffering of the sovereign People by agreeing with those who choose to glorify a man-made document.
And finally, we constructed “The unanimous Declaration of the sovereign People of the united States of America to restore and reinhabit the free American Republics” to be a shining covenant with the Creator. His charging the People with dominion over all the earth in the Book of Genesis is declared in the very first paragraph as the foundation for the restoration. In so doing, the Declaration is established in history as a genuine covenant with the Creator in honor of the Law.
Thus, once the process was grounded in the original law venue, the need to introduce the ethereal concepts of counties, districts and “tens” was circumvented, all of those entities being derived from Scripture. Why introduce concepts that are likely to generate resistance? At every step, The Restore America Plan is mindful of our goals. Is our goal to relieve oppression or re-educate America to patriot doctrine?
WE HAVE THE HIGHEST REGARD FOR THOSE OF YOU TRYING TO CARVE OUT SUCH LIVES ON THE county, but we believe that most patriots will be well served by a simultaneous restoration of their sovereign rights rather than fighting the battles town by town, county by county, and state by state. And so we welcome each and every one of you to join us
EVEN WHOLE ASSEMBLIES AND JURIES.
We also believe that if the American Founders had email, Twitter, texting, video conferencing and fax machines, they would have used them to approve the founding documents in weeks rather than years. So we are not addicted to scribes and other signs of deference to the methods of others. Rather, we follow a simple formula:
WE DECLARE – UNDER GOD – IT IS SO – WE ARE BACK
exactly the same formula used by the original declaration of 1776. That’s what we mean by “understanding who we are.
You Are Not Alone
To my friends, colleagues and the many thousands who have contacted the Guardian Elders by email and telephone:
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Today I have the pleasure of reporting that thousands upon thousands of you have already joined the march to freedom by expressing your support for The Restore American Plan.
Moreover, the United States Federal Corporation is well aware. A number of my sources have confirmed their heightened state of attention to the freedom march that has swept across the land since Sunday night’s broadcast of TAKE NO PRISONERS clogged internet communications. That broadcast was akin to the battle of Bunker Hill in 1776. We lost the network for a few days, but everyone knows we're back. They understand the power AND AUTHORITY of the sovereign People when we choose, en masse, to reject the admiralty/territorial D.C. circuit for the Law of the Land. They understand that the only element that can prevent the reinhabitation of the de jure free American republics is fractionalization, ego, fatigue or selfishness. Those are the corporations best friends when confronted with truth. So we remain vigilant against the evil of our own imaginations, egos, anger and pessimism.
With thousands of you consumed with vision and hope, most of those who have contacted us thus far WILL NOT NEED TO TAKE FURTHER ACTION AT THIS TIME. You can literally sit back and await the changes that are coming, and be ready if we should contact you. There is NO need to resend your email. NO need for further education, information and training. NO need for seminars. NO need to study DVDs. NO need for assemblies to engage U.S. Inc. in thousands of separate battles. NO need to sit by the phone hoping for scraps from the table.
Better to enjoy your families and engage in prayerful contemplation of the future. Yes, some among you will bemoan the loss of the enslavement privileges, the loss of day to day control, even the loss of WHFITs!? But perhaps this is a good time to open the heart to the beauty of a reversal of the double-dealings of 1933 and the Warburg brothers, and NOT having to spend every waking moment in contemplation of battle with U.S. Inc. The changes WILL be forthcoming as described. There is only the need to enjoy the fruits of your own labor as de jure governance is re-inhabited by the very same officials in many cases who are now your oppressors. Just as judges and politicians accepted the elimination of law, money and morality in 1933 without a hint of public protest, we expect the reversal will be equally as quiet, and significant with respect to our daily lives.
The Restore America Plan is the strategic mechanism for restoring the lawful institutions of earthly government across the land lawfully, peacefully and honorably, in a manner that reflects the desire of the sovereign People to be governed by consent, according to contract, and without hypothecation of their God-given labor to money vultures, war profiteers and the world's secret banking cartels.
On behalf of the Guardian Elders, I thank you for reading, and ask if you would kindly circulate this email far and wide. Folks, the time for remedy is now.
God bless,
Sam Kennedy
______________
Dr. Sam Kennedy
Host: TAKE NO PRISONERS
Republic Broadcasting network
The Save America Crusade
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY - NOT LEGAL ADVICE.
PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS. MOST PROBLEMS ARE SELF-CREATED.
James Timothy Turner
www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/james-timothy-turner
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2013/end-times
2013
The antigovernment “sovereign citizens” movement is chock-full of homemade prophets and half-baked historians who traffic in alleged theories about conspiracies against the Constitution. And then there’s James Timothy Turner.
The future of the ‘sovereign’ Republic for the united States of America is in doubt following the indictment of its leader
The nation's largest and most organized antigovernment “sovereign citizens” group — one that claimed to be forming a government-in-waiting to take over America when the current, “unlawfully established” federal government crumbles — is now in danger of falling apart as its enigmatic leader sits in jail awaiting trial on tax fraud charges.
It has been two years since James Timothy Turner, a former commercial fisherman who lives in rural south Alabama, founded and became president of the group he called the Republic for the united States of America (RuSA). Turner told supporters he was backed by well-placed officials in the military and the CIA, as well as foreign investors who were willing to prop up his shadow government.
But Turner’s supposed support apparently didn’t include the U.S. Justice Department or the Internal Revenue Service. On Sept. 12, a federal grand jury indicted him on 10 counts of tax fraud. According to federal prosecutors, in the years before Turner started RuSA in 2010, he had brazenly tried to pay his taxes with a fictitious $300 million bond, then helped others do the same with similar bogus securities. He was arrested a day after the indictment and was denied bail after a judge deemed him a flight risk.
What is clear, though, is that federal law enforcement agencies have trained their sights on RuSA, the most prominent organization in a fast-growing sector of the radical right that has been characterized by the FBI as a “domestic terrorist” movement.
Though the group’s underlying premise — that it is forming a government to supplant what it considers an illegal “corporation” now running the country — suggests treasonous intent, there have been no politically motivated acts of violence linked to RuSA. And the group’s website states that it plans a “peaceful reconstruction” of the government “without controversy, violence or civil war.”
However, a number of its members have been charged with the kind of tax and financial crimes common among adherents of the sovereign citizens movement. In addition, one member in Arizona was killed in an altercation with police who responded to a domestic dispute and another in West Virginia died in a suspected murder-suicide in which his 9-year-old son was shot to death.
Now, sources within the FBI have told the Intelligence Report that RuSA engineered the 2010 disappearance of fugitives John and Julieanne Dimitrion, a wealthy couple in Hawaii who pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud but were spirited away aboard a private jet three days before they were to be sentenced (see story, p. 14). The Dimitrions are now on the FBI’s “Most Wanted List.”
Though RuSA has previously reached moments when dissolution seemed all but certain, the tumult brought on by Turner’s arrest and the increasing law enforcement scrutiny has undoubtedly created its biggest crisis yet.
Has the end finally come? And if so, will its members simply form another, perhaps more militant group?
“We as a Republic look very, very, very bad with our president sitting in jail,” RuSA spokesman Kelby Smith, one of Turner’s most vocal supporters, told followers during a conference call last October. “Either the president gets out of jail, or the Republic is going to be split.”
A Republic Divided
If the wild stories Turner told his followers were true, his arrest and incarceration should have been a mere hiccup for one of the most influential and colorful sovereign citizens in the movement, whose adherents generally believe they are immune to most tax and criminal laws. According to the mythology he peddled to his troops, there wasn’t a court in the land he didn’t hold the keys to, not a debt he couldn’t avoid. He boasted that he once escaped federal assassins sent to kill him and even that he cured leukemia.
He was, at least in his own mind, untouchable. Now, some of his supporters regard Turner as a “political prisoner.”
“What they’re trying to do is instill fear and discouragement into the people of the Republic — because those are really the only weapons they have,” James Geiger, who assumed the mantle of acting president, told RuSA members on a conference call. He was sure that it was only a matter of time before Turner would be free.
Turner’s followers put together plans to raise $5 million for a legal defense, only to abandon the effort a month later after collecting just $100. Infighting ensued as RuSA struggled to plan an election to find a successor, and soon members began fleeing the group. Those who made their resignation public used the same bombast with which they had joined. One member in South Carolina, for instance, wrote: “Let it be known to all human beings of real flesh and blood, that the undersigned, flesh and blood man” does “dissociate from all actions and decisions made by … pseudo executive members and representatives of the ‘Republic for the united States of America.’”
The crisis grew as the departures reached into the upper echelons of the group’s leadership. C.W. Wright, Turner’s vice president, stopped reporting for RuSA conference calls and appears to have left the movement. Faced with cries that he was a “dictator” for trying to organize elections to find Turner’s successor, Mark Lounsbury, RuSA’s “speaker of the house,” also left. Some believed that federal agents had infiltrated the group, and Nathan Peachy, RuSA’s “chief justice,” began calling for a mass exodus.
“I believe it is in the best interest of the people to free themselves of the Republic,” Peachy said. From his jail cell, though, Turner refused to accept the mounting consequences of his arrest and dismissed the federal charges against him as “saber rattling.” He encouraged followers to “cowboy up.”
On Oct. 15, in a handwritten letter penned from his cell, Turner announced he would seek to be re-elected so that he could lead RuSA from jail. In the meantime, he beseeched followers to pray “that God will crumble the foundations and break the power and strength” of the federal government. “I am praying daily that God will cut off all financial, military, political and spiritual support for the municipal corporate government in Washington, D.C.,” he wrote.
In Every War, a Casualty
At the core of RuSA’s ideology is the belief that the federal government is an illegal “corporation” formed in 1871 when Congress passed a law establishing a single municipal government for the District of Columbia. This corporation, working in the service of international bankers, has stolen the wealth and property of its citizens — its “economic slaves” — to use as collateral against the federal debt, RuSA says.
In RuSA, many in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement felt they had found a final solution to what they regard as an overreaching federal government. This new government would, for example, end “tax prosecutions for resisting the transfer of private wealth to such as I.R.S.” and stop “the use of covert contracts such as Form 1040, car registrations, birth certificate applications, and bank signature cards.”
Now, as RuSA’s true believers stare at the possibility that their cause is lost and that their president faces a lengthy prison term if convicted, there is reason to worry.
Some sovereign citizens in the past have reacted with violence when confronted by law enforcement and — some might say — reality. Jerry and Joe Kane, a father-son team of sovereigns, killed two police officers during a traffic stop in West Memphis, Ark., in 2010. And in August 2012, men believed to be sovereigns were arrested after they allegedly ambushed and killed two officers and wounded two more in LaPlace, La.
RuSA has, itself, attracted members with a propensity for violence.
Last year, William Foust, a prominent businessman in Page, Ariz., and a RuSA “ambassador,” was shot and killed by a police officer responding to a domestic violence complaint when Foust lunged for an officer’s Taser. Within the echo chamber of the sovereign underground, Foust was the first victim in the coming confrontation with Washington.
Similar suspicions of government involvement were aroused among RuSA members when David Hutzler, a one-time RuSA “congressman,” was found dead with his 9-year-old son in the burned remains of a trailer home in Glengary, W.Va. Both had been shot in the head, and police found accelerants used to start the fire. Hutzler had been unhappy about RuSA’s lack of action against the government. Just days before his death, he posted a rant on a popular antigovernment Web forum in which he said it wouldn’t be long before liberty-loving citizens had no choice but insurrection.
As outlandish as his views and pronouncements appear, Turner has been the one who has kept RuSA members from acting on their rage against the government as their rhetoric has turned increasingly confrontational. After Foust was killed, for example, he spent weeks trying to pacify angry RuSA members and quell suggestions of revenge. But when he was arrested, even he showed signs of a shift.
Sheriff’s deputies working with U.S. marshals in Dale County, Ala., were concerned that if Turner knew what was coming, there was a possibility of violence. So Turner was summoned to the Dale County Sheriff’s Department on the pretense of discussing a matter concerning RuSA, only to be surprised by deputies who read him his Miranda rights.
After his arrest, Turner told the officers something that may spell out just how RuSA has come to see its relationship to the federal government. “In every war, there has to be a casualty,” Turner said, according to several present in the room. “And if I have to be a casualty, so be it.”