Consent of the Governed: The People's Guide to Holding Government Accountable

Group

Chapter One

PROLOGUE TO INJUSTICE

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

— U.S. Constitution, First Amendment

¹

The people shall have the right peaceably to assemble, to instruct their representatives, and to petition for redress of grievances.

— Florida Constitution, Article 1 Section 5

²

Courtroom A of the Dixie County Courthouse was packed. The seats were filled with new and old friends, many of whom traveled that morning from all across Florida to not only support a man accused of violating some obscure and constitutionally-questionable statute which threatened him with up to seventy years in prison, but in support of the people of Dixie County who once again took a courageous stand for the First Amendment of the Constitution.

While we were happy to make the trip to this rural county, population 15,940, we were stunned at the injustice we had seen to date. Based on the arrest and absurd accusations, we weren’t sure if things could get any worse.

In 2007, a man from North Carolina and member of the ACLU was purportedly considering a move to Dixie County. He filed a suit against the people to have their display of the Ten Commandments removed based on the oftentimes misunderstood and misused concept of separation of church and state.³

The large granite display sits proudly in front of the courthouse and is an obvious sign that the people of Dixie County not only love their religious liberty, they also expect everyone entering their courthouse to acknowledge God’s commands.

In August 2011, after a federal judge ruled that they had to take down their display of the Ten Commandments⁴, 1,500 people attended a rally in Dixie County in defense of the First Amendment and their right to the free exercise of their religion.

While that battle ended in February 2013 as the ACLU dropped their suit, another began the summer of 2014 where residents of Dixie County stood up once again for the First Amendment, this time for the right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for a redress of grievances. They called for and demanded an investigation into local government corruption.

Judge James C. Hankinson, Circuit Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit in Florida, met Terry at his first hearing twenty-four hours after being arrested on September 2, 2014. At that hearing, over closed circuit television, the judge admitted he was appointed by Governor Rick Scott for this specific case.

At 10:00 am sharp on October 9, 2014, Judge Hankinson walked into Courtroom A while most of the people rose to their feet as ordered. Terry and I, however, were busy praying to the very God everyone acknowledged as they walked by the people’s granite display just a few minutes prior.

As we finished with a quiet ‘Amen’ and as the judge gaveled the session to order, the only thing on the docket was Terry’s arraignment.

Terry Trussell is a well-respected and engaged member of the community, a veteran of the Vietnam War and the very man asked to serve as the Foreman of the Dixie County Grand Jury for a six-month term from April to October 2014.

In July of his term he was notified by a member of the community that there may be criminal activity in his county government and not only did he perform his duty as he was instructed, he was proud to stand with the people of Dixie County as they attempted to blow the whistle and shine light on the matter.

Apparently, the powers-that-be didn’t like where the spotlight was shining.

That morning in Courtroom A, oddly enough, Terry found himself facing an upcoming trial accused of several counts of simulating a legal process with a possible seventy-year prison sentence. After proudly serving his country at war and having sworn the oath to protect and defend the Constitution on multiple occasions, he couldn’t believe the battle he was facing here at home.

Judge Hankinson began the session by asking for Terry George Trussell to present himself. Terry, at seventy years of age, rose to his feet and answered, I’m here to speak on that matter.

Are you Mr. Trussell? asked the judge.

What happened next left everyone stunned, to say the least.

As Terry began to reply, Judge Hankinson completely railroaded and steamrolled him after the third word into his response. The judge completely disregarded the very man whom he had met just a few weeks earlier during his first hearing where he admitted he was assigned to the case by the governor.

In a very awkward and uncomfortable scene, the judge asked the courtroom twice more for a Mr. Terry George Trussell while completely ignoring the only person standing in the courtroom gallery and replying to his questions.

For the record, I am here to speak on that matter, Terry, with a noticeable height of 6 feet 4 inches, replied once again in a louder voice, still the only man standing.

Let the record show that Mr. Trussell has not appeared, was the final response. Seconds later, without hesitation, the judge ordered Terry to be arrested for failure to appear.

Terry, in desperation, shouted, I object, your honor. I am here!

The deputies, who know Terry personally, didn’t say a word to the Judge. They didn’t make any attempt to intervene or step in to suggest cooler heads prevail, to make sure that the judge knew the only man standing and responding to his questions was, in fact, Terry George Trussell.

Instead, they just sat back like sheep and let it all happen.

Seconds later, as the judge slammed the gavel down to close the session, the deputies walked five feet over to Terry and escorted him out of the courtroom and out of the building in handcuffs.

Yes. You read that correctly. Terry Trussell was arrested at his arraignment — for failure to appear!

That morning in Courtroom A on October 9, 2014 will go down in history in Dixie County as one of the strangest things ever seen and one of the most egregious violations of due process any of us had ever encountered.

The worst part of it all is that Terry spent the next twenty-one days, including his seventy-first Birthday, in jail until he was given a second first arraignment.

At Terry’s second arraignment, the Judge didn’t even apologize.

One man captured the events succinctly, saying They’ve got the Ten Commandments sitting outside in front of the courthouse but they’re doing the devil’s work inside.

I’ve included a section at the end of certain chapters throughout the book titled, TWEET THIS! where I invite you to tweet about what you’ve read, participate in a Twitter Poll, or provide some feedback.

My Twitter handle is @JasonWHoyt.

TWEET THIS!

Tweet:

I agree #DixieCounty needs to fight once again for the #FirstAmendment. #ConsentOfTheGoverned by @JasonWHoyt

A man in #DixieCounty was arrested IN the courtroom for #FailureToAppear! #JusticeForTerry #ConsentOfTheGoverned by @JasonWhoyt

Question:

Did you hear about this story in your sources of news?

Tweet me @JasonWHoyt and be sure to include the hashtag #ConsentOfTheGoverned.

www.Twitter.com/JasonWHoyt

__________________

¹ Fifth Amendment. (1789). In United States Constitution. Retrieved from http://constitutionus.com/#x5

² Florida Constitution Article 1 Section 5. (1968). In Online Sunshine. Retrieved from www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/Index.cfm?Mode=Constitution&Submenu=3&Tab=statutes#A1S05

³ Curry, C. (2013, February 14). Ten Commandments stand at Dixie courthouse, after lawsuit is dismissed. The Gainesville Sun. Retrieved from http://www.gainesville.com/article/20130214/ARTICLES/130219767?tc=ar

⁴ Wilmoth, K. M. (2011, July 18). Federal judge orders Ten Commandments removed from Dixie courthouse. The Gainesville Sun. Retrieved from http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110718/ARTICLES/110719637

Chapter Two

WE WERE NEVER MEANT TO LIVE LIKE THIS

The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.

— Author Unknown

Look around. Look at the headlines in the paper and online. Do you feel it in your gut? Do you feel like something is off? Do you just know deep down inside that something is wrong but you can’t quite put your finger on it?

By holding this book in your hand, you’re about to not only put your finger on it, you’re going to be shocked when you realize how far off track we really are and you’re probably going to ask yourself why previous generations, who had the chance to stop this slippery slope, did nothing. You’re going to wonder why they failed at taking a stand.

My goal is to not only inform you of what happened and how, but I will also provide hope and inspiration when you hear what some have courageously done in their communities to turn the tide.

I find it sad that most people won’t actually take a stand and speak out until something affects them directly. Most, in fact, don’t even notice there’s something wrong until it either enters their front door or affects their wallet. By then, as history has shown, it’ll be too late.

Please think about that last paragraph for a moment and do a quick self-analysis. Are you one of those people that doesn’t get involved in issues that don’t affect you personally?

When you hear stories when local governments take someone’s land and sells it to a developer so they can increase tax revenue, do you shrug it off since it doesn’t really affect you directly? Or do you get frustrated, investigate the matter further and tell your family and friends about the theft and injustice?

Do you get upset when you see stories in the news about the IRS stealing over $940,000 from a small business owner’s bank account before ever charging him with a crime? And when the IRS finally sends a letter months later admitting they were wrong while only offering to return a portion of the money, does your blood boil or do you dismiss it feeling relieved it wasn’t you?

The only thing that will save this country is for all of us to get involved in some way. Apathy is what got us here, but action, now more than ever, is needed and we all have a part to play.

As I tell audiences, Preserving Liberty is not a spectator sport. Are you in the game?

As for me, not only does my heart and prayers go out to those that have been wrongly accused of crimes or had their property stolen by the government or had some level of injustice committed against them by an overreaching and seemingly all-powerful government, but I feel the need to get up off the couch and take action in some way.

Even though I know my day will come when the IRS targets me for my political beliefs, I still think its important and worth it to stand up and fight.

Can you believe I just said that? In America. Land of the free.

Breaks my heart, actually.

The fact is, and we all know it deep within our humanity, that we were never meant to live this way. We were never meant to live with a behemoth federal government acting outside the limits imposed upon them by the Constitution.

Politicians were never meant to begin their careers in congress with very limited wealth to their name and retire two decades later worth tens of millions of dollars.

State governments were never meant to just sit back and let the central government dictate and demand how they operate.

Local governments were never meant to take people’s property and give it to for-profit developers to generate more tax revenue.

Your neighbors were never meant to be charged with crimes as their constitutionally-protected rights are trampled upon.

The justice system is supposed to be blind, right? Today, though, it only looks to determine legal versus illegal without regard to right and wrong while it blindly follows unconstitutional statutes and oftentimes helps facilitate evil wealth redistribution schemes.

Congress was never meant to pass laws repugnant to the Constitution and we were never meant to be voiceless, drowning in a sea of bureaucratic red tape requiring us to follow thousands of pages of rules, regulations, dictates and mandates.

We were never meant to abide by a tax code whose very design steers behavior, manipulates businesses, intimidates families, steals and redistributes wealth.

We were never meant to put off starting a business for fear of breaking some statute or misinterpreting some confusing and onerous tax code.

We were never meant to go to jail for collecting rainwater on our own property.

We were never meant to be targeted by federal agencies because of our political beliefs.

We were never meant to allow the government to tell us what to purchase or face jail time.

We were never meant to live like this!

Meanwhile, the powers-that-be of Wisconsin have some explaining to do.

TWEET THIS!

Tweet:

We were never mean to live this way! #ConsentOfTheGoverned by @JasonWHoyt

We were never meant to be targeted by federal agencies because of our political beliefs! #ConsentOfTheGoverned by @JasonWHoyt

Will YOU take a stand?? #ConsentOfTheGoverned by @JasonWHoyt

Tweet me @JasonWHoyt and use the hashtag #ConsentOfTheGoverned.

www.Twitter.com/JasonWHoyt

Chapter Three

WISCONSIN’S SHAME:

I thought it was a home invasion.

— by NATIONAL REVIEW

Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.

— John Basil Barnhill⁵

When I read the following article posted on National Review’s website, I immediately felt sick to my stomach. With a knot in my gut, I knew right away I had to add this chapter to my book. This story makes the case for why I wrote this book and why it’s so important for the people to push back and hold our elected officials accountable.

Time is, of course, of the essence. Lives are being destroyed by all levels of power-hungry governments and while the slippery slope described in this story is atrocious, just imagine where it could lead if we do nothing.

I’m sure the Wisconsin legislators who considered the passage of this legislation that allowed this to occur not only never conceived it could be used like this, I’m quite confident they dismissed the thought and probably ridiculed those that sounded the warning.

That’ll never happen! I’m sure they proclaimed.

Buckle up, folks. You’re about to get upset.

The following excerpts are from an article by David French⁶ in the May 4, 2015 edition of National Review, as published on their website⁷ on April 20, 2015 at 4:00 am.

THEY CAME WITH A BATTERING RAM.

Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking.

She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram.

She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full view of the police. Some yelled at her to grab some clothes, others yelled for her to open the door.

I was so afraid, she says. I did not know what to do. She grabbed some clothes, opened the door, and dressed right in front of the police. The dogs were still frantic. I begged and begged, ‘Please don’t shoot my dogs, please don’t shoot my dogs, just don’t shoot my dogs.’ I couldn’t get them to stop barking, and I couldn’t get them outside quick enough. I saw a gun and barking dogs. I was scared and knew this was a bad mix.

She got the dogs safely out of the house, just as multiple armed agents rushed inside. Some even barged into the bathroom, where her partner was in the shower. The officer or agent in charge demanded that Cindy sit on the couch, but she wanted to get up and get a cup of coffee.

I told him this was my house and I could do what I wanted. Wrong thing to say. This made the agent in charge furious. He towered over me with his finger in my face and yelled like a drill sergeant that I either do it his way or he would handcuff me.

They wouldn’t let her speak to a lawyer. She looked outside and saw a person who appeared to be a reporter. Someone had tipped him off.

The neighbors started to come outside, curious at the commotion, and all the while the police searched her house, making a mess, and — according to Cindy — leaving her dead mother’s belongings strewn across the basement floor in a most disrespectful way.

Then they left, carrying with them only a cellphone and a laptop.⁸

That was just the first story of Cindy Archer who defied the order to remain silent. The next couple stories are by whistleblowers still fearful of government retaliation. As of this writing, they remained anonymous.

IT’S A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH.

That was the first thought of Anne (not her real name). Someone was pounding at her front door. It was early in the morning — very early — and it was the kind of heavy pounding that meant someone was either fleeing from — or bringing — trouble.

It was so hard. I’d never heard anything like it. I thought someone was dying outside.

She ran to the door, opened it, and then chaos. People came pouring in. For a second I thought it was a home invasion. It was terrifying. They were yelling and running, into every room in the house. One of the men was in my face, yelling at me over and over and over.

It was indeed a home invasion, but the people who were pouring in were Wisconsin law-enforcement officers. Armed, uniformed police swarmed into the house. Plainclothes investigators cornered her and her newly awakened family. Soon, state officials were seizing the family’s personal property, including each person’s computer and smartphone, filled with the most intimate family information.

Why were the police at Anne’s home? She had no answers. The police were treating them the way they’d seen police treat drug dealers on television.

In fact, TV or movies were their only points of reference, because they weren’t criminals. They were law-abiding. They didn’t buy or sell drugs. They weren’t violent. They weren’t a danger to anyone. Yet there were cops — surrounding their house on the outside, swarming the house on the inside. They even taunted the family as if they were mere perps.

As if the home invasion, the appropriation of private property, and the verbal abuse weren’t enough, next came ominous warnings.

Don’t call your lawyer.

Don’t tell anyone about this raid. Not even your mother, your father, or your closest friends.

The entire neighborhood could see the police around their house, but they had to remain silent. This was not the right to remain silent as uttered by every cop on every legal drama on television — the right against self-incrimination. They couldn’t mount a public defense if they wanted — or even offer an explanation to family and friends.

Yet no one in this family was a perp. Instead, like Cindy, they were American citizens guilty of nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights to support Act 10 and other conservative causes in Wisconsin. Sitting there shocked and terrified, this citizen — who is still too intimidated to speak on the record — kept thinking, Is this America?

That’s the question I keep asking myself. Is this still America? Land of the free, as they say? We see this kind of stuff in movies where it usually takes place is some other country. But America?

THEY FOLLOWED ME TO MY KIDS’ ROOMS.

For the family of Rachel (not her real name), the ordeal began before dawn — with the same loud, insistent knocking. Still in her pajamas, Rachel answered the door and saw uniformed police, poised to enter her home.

When Rachel asked to wake her children herself, the officer insisted on walking into their rooms. The kids woke to an armed officer, standing near their beds.

The entire family was herded into one room, and there they watched as the police carried off their personal possessions, including items that had nothing to do with the subject of the search warrant — even her daughter’s computer.

And, yes, there were the warnings. Don’t call your lawyer. Don’t talk to anyone about this. Don’t tell your friends. The kids watched — alarmed — as the school bus drove by, with the students inside watching the spectacle of uniformed police surrounding the house, carrying out the family’s belongings. Yet they were told they couldn’t tell anyone at school.

They, too, had to remain silent.

The mom watched as her entire life was laid open before the police. Her professional files, her personal files, everything. She knew this was all politics. She knew a rogue prosecutor was targeting her for her political beliefs.

And she realized, Every aspect of my life is in their hands. And they hate me.

Fortunately for her family, the police didn’t taunt her or her children. Some of them seemed embarrassed by what they were doing. At the end of the ordeal, one officer looked at the family, still confined to one room, and said, Some days, I hate my job.

I’m just doing my job is the sheepish reply we often hear when individuals fail to decide for themselves and stand up for what’s right. They just blindly follow orders for fear of losing their paycheck and government pension.

Remember those videos of the holocaust? When reading this story, I recalled the footage of human beings lined up along the edge of the ditch and the officer pulling the trigger as each one fell into the pit.

I bet Hitler’s low-level henchmen, like the officers terrorizing several Wisconsin families, also said, Some days, I hate my job.

For dozens of conservatives, the years since Scott Walker’s first election as governor of Wisconsin transformed the state — known for pro-football championships, good cheese, and a population with a reputation for being unfailingly polite — into a place where conservatives have faced early-morning raids, multi-year secretive criminal investigations, slanderous and selective leaks to sympathetic media, and intrusive electronic snooping.

Yes, Wisconsin, the cradle of the progressive movement and home of the Wisconsin idea — the marriage of state governments and state universities to govern through technocratic reform — was giving birth to a new progressive idea, the use of law enforcement as a political instrument, as a weapon to attempt to undo election results, shame opponents, and ruin lives.

Most Americans have never heard of these raids, or of the lengthy criminal investigations of Wisconsin conservatives. For good reason. Bound by comprehensive secrecy orders, conservatives were left to suffer in silence as leaks ruined their reputations, as neighbors, looking through windows and dismayed at the massive police presence, the lights shining down on targets’ homes, wondered, no doubt, What on earth did that family do?

This was the on-the-ground reality of the so-called John Doe investigations, expansive and secret criminal proceedings that directly targeted Wisconsin residents because of their relationship to Scott Walker, their support for Act 10, and their advocacy of conservative reform.

It all began innocently enough. In 2009, officials from the office of the Milwaukee County executive contacted the office of the Milwaukee district attorney, headed by John Chisholm, to investigate the disappearance of $11,242.24 from the Milwaukee chapter of the Order of the Purple Heart. The matter was routine, with witnesses willing and able to testify against the principal suspect, a man named Kevin Kavanaugh.

What followed, however, was anything but routine. Chisholm failed to act promptly on the report, and when he did act, he refused to conduct a conventional criminal investigation but instead petitioned, in May 2010, to open a John Doe investigation, a proceeding under Wisconsin law that permits Wisconsin officials to conduct extensive investigations while keeping the target’s identity secret (hence the designation John Doe).

John Doe investigations alter typical criminal procedure in two important ways: First, they remove grand juries from the investigative process, replacing the ordinary citizens of a grand jury with a supervising judge.

This, my friends, is red flag number one. I will show in this book why it is crucial your state require these types of alleged crimes to go before a grand jury for approval.

For select conservative families across five counties, this was the terrifying moment — the moment they felt at the mercy of a truly malevolent state.

Speaking both on and off the record, targets reflected on how many layers of Wisconsin government failed their fundamental constitutional duties — the prosecutors who launched the rogue investigations, the judge who gave the abuse judicial sanction, investigators who chose to taunt and intimidate during the raids, and those police who ultimately approved and executed aggressive search tactics on law-abiding, peaceful citizens.

For some of the families, the trauma of the raids, combined with the stress and anxiety of lengthy criminal investigations, has led to serious emotional repercussions. Devastating is how Anne describes the impact on her family. Life-changing, she says. All in terrible ways.

O’Keefe, who has been in contact with multiple targeted families, says, Every family I know of that endured a home raid has been shaken to its core, and the fate of marriages and families still hangs in the balance in some cases.

Anne also describes a new fear of the police: I used to support the police, to believe they were here to protect us. Now, when I see an officer, I’ll cross the street. I’m afraid of them. I know what they’re capable of.

Cindy says, I lock my doors and I close my shades. I don’t answer the door unless I am expecting someone. My heart races when I see a police car sitting in front of my house or following me in the car. The raid was so public. I’ve been harassed. My house has been vandalized. [She did not identify suspects.] I no longer feel safe, and I don’t think I ever will.

Rachel talks about the effect on her children. I tried to create a home where the kids always feel safe. Now they know they’re not. They know men with guns can come in their house, and there’s nothing we can do. Every knock on the door brings anxiety. Every call to the house is screened. In the back of her mind is a single, unsettling thought: These people will never stop.

Victims of trauma — and every person I spoke with described the armed raids as traumatic — often need to talk, to share their experiences and seek solace in the company of a loving family and supportive friends. The investigators denied them that privilege, and it compounded their pain and fear.

The investigation not only damaged families, it also shut down their free speech. In many cases, the investigations halted conservative groups in their tracks. O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth described the effect in court filings:

O’Keefe’s associates began canceling meetings with him and declining to take his calls, reasonably fearful that merely associating with him could make them targets of the investigation. O’Keefe was forced to abandon fundraising for the Club because he could no longer guarantee to donors that their identities would remain confidential, could not (due to the Secrecy Order) explain to potential donors the nature of the investigation, could not assuage donors’ fears that they might become targets themselves, and could not assure donors that their money would go to fund advocacy rather than legal expenses. The Club was also paralyzed. Its officials could not associate with its key supporters, and its funds were depleted. It could not engage in issue advocacy for fear of criminal sanction.

These raids and subpoenas were often based not on traditional notions of probable cause but on mere suspicion, untethered to the law or