Lawfare Daily: 64 Days: A New Documentary Film About Jan. 6, with Director Nick Quested

[Intro]

Nick Quested: I knew I had no journalistic privilege. Sooner or later, my footage is going to come up, and if the federal authorities are asking me about my footage rather than me telling them what happens, that's a very different type of interview to be having with the FBI.

Roger Parloff: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Roger Parloff, Senior Editor at Lawfare, and I'm with Nick Quested, Emmy Award-winning director of the remarkable new documentary film, 64 Days: the Insurrection Playbook.

Nick Quested: We call this film the playbook to the insurrection because you see exactly how they plotted and planned, and the reasons that January 6th happened. Because I was fascinated by, not why six people and how they turned up at the Capitol, which would be the normal documentary way, but why did 60,000 people turn up at the Capitol on January 6th?

Roger Parloff: Today we're talking about Nick's film, how it came about, what's new in it, the challenges of making it and distributing it, and what it can tell us about the 2024 elections.

[Main Podcast]

Our listeners probably know a bit about January 6th. Many of them will have watched at least some of the January 6th committee hearings. What do you hope your film might add to their understanding?

Nick Quested: Well, I think that there's been some confusion about how planned January 6th was. And that's exactly what we set out to demonstrate that this was not a spontaneous event. It wasn't a day of love and that this was, you know, years in conception and months in planning.  And that we, although we didn't include this in the film, it was clear from the summer that the certification of the Electoral College, the joint session, was being targeted. Steve Bannon on The Circus said that's what they were exactly going to do.

And I think the takeaway from this film is that Stop the Steal and the president said exactly what they were going to do if they lost the election last time. And I believe they will do exactly the same thing this time, if not, but in a more efficient way, potentially. He's had four years of legal troubles. He's managed to find himself a couple, you know, many lawyers that are way better than Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani. I mean, many of their cases were just dismissed out of lack of standing in the court, which is just nonsense. You could have hired a lawyer that was admitted at a bar in those states and had standing. It's just amateur.

Roger Parloff: Let me just say, I've seen the film and I gotta say it's the best one-stop shopping 90 minute explanation that I've seen of why January 6th happened and what it looked like when it did happen. And it's all interwoven here. And there's also a lot of video I haven't seen before, even though I watched every January 6th hearing. And I watched the entire first Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial and the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial and a few others. And I know Ryan Reilly of NBC, who's seen more footage than I have says the same thing. So I do recommend it.

First and before I forget, tell readers how they can see this thing if they want to.

Nick Quested: You can at the moment go to our website which is 64daysfilm.com and there's a Vimeo link and you can download it or stream it to whatever device you have. And we will be up on other platforms after the election. It's just been a difficult time for, you know, for what people say is a political product, but it's not.  For me, this isn't a political film. This is a film of journalism. There's very little editorial comment as in fact, there's only one. And it's not substantive to the thesis of the film. And so I think it's a very dangerous place where America's in at the moment, where journalism, which is designed to be fair and balanced is, you know, is criticized as being a political film.

Roger Parloff: I think I'll get back to that in a little bit. I, before I do, I just want readers to get a little background about who you are, because this isn't really your first rodeo. And so, just tell our listeners who you are.

Nick Quested: And I've worked as, I'll just keep in the foreign correspondent world, I've worked as a foreign correspondent with my partner, Sebastian Junger, we've made films all over the world. We started by making a film with our dear friend and colleague, Tim Hetherington, called Restrepo. Where Sebastian and him spent 15 months on a deployment with the 173rd Airborne in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. Potentially the most dangerous place in the American occupation of Afghanistan at the time.

And then since then we've made, Tim was unfortunately killed. He was killed in Libya. We made a film about Tim. We made a film about veterans coming home called The Last Patrol.

And then, Sebastian chose to step back from being a foreign correspondent and I, we swapped roles. So Sebastian was in the edit room doing story and I went and we made films in Syria and Iraq for National Geographic. Another film in Mexico where we followed the caravan from Guatemala to Tijuana and then we followed the drugs from the fields to, you know, the center of Los Angeles, I've stayed with the Cartel de Sinaloa for several months. And I've worked in El Salvador, Venezuela, worked all over the world as a, you know, foreign correspondent.

And I came back to America in 2020 because, you know, because of COVID. And I started to look at America through the same lens that I'd looked at, you know, other cultures and other countries around the world. You know, primarily those countries had descended into, you know, open conflicts and I was seeing the same indications of rhetoric and messaging that I'd seen, you know, in the Middle East, during the American occupation of Iraq and the colonialization of Syria by the Islamic State.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. So returning to 64 Days, you're really a character in this film, as well as the director, times you narrate. And one of the unique things about it is it's not just a retrospective. You're interviewing, for instance, Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys, months before this happens, and days before this happens, and hours after it happens. I mean, we're inside this. Tell us how this came about.

Nick Quested: Well, over the summer we, as I said, we came back to look at, you know, division in America through the lens of a foreign correspondent, and we were spending time with both the far-left and the far-right. And when the president name-checked the Proud Boys in the debate, I felt that the chances of political violence had increased enormously. And that the Proud Boys, although I'd seen the Proud Boys ran, I felt that they were absolutely now front and center of the election effort and—

Roger Parloff: And just for our readers you mean when—

Nick Quested: When he said, stand back and stand by.

Roger Parloff: Yeah, in late September 2020

Nick Quested: Yeah, in September the 29th debate. So, I called Enrique Tarrio. I got his number from a friend. I got his answerphone a couple of times and he had Roger Stone on his answer phone going, if Enrique's not here, he's out kicking asses and saving America. And which I, at the time, thought was quite amusing. I was literally in my office here and we play it again, listen to this dude.

And then Enrique said, come down, and, you know, we always wonder why he was so willing to have us there at that time. But, you know, if you believe that you're in the right and you're going to win, you probably want the best guys down there to document yourself. I mean, how far away from success were they? You know, it's a very different conversation we're having now, because if they had succeeded, there'd have been no sedition trial, and I would be in the same basket as Leni Riefenstahl.

Roger Parloff: Yeah.

Nick Quested: Although I am not a Proud Boy and she was a Nazi.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. And for this film, you did a number of original interviews, obviously, maybe, a number with Enrique. But also you also weave in other interviews, the January 6th interviews and other sources. But you also spoke to the conspiracy theorist, Patrick Byrne, who was there at that wacky December 18th meeting in the White House about seizing voting machines.

And then I think you spoke to Brad Raffensperger and a number of others, but one that really—

Nick Quested: And Cleta Mitchell.

Roger Parloff: Cleta Mitchell. Yes. One that stuck out for me was the Rus Bowers one, who's actually sculpting as you speak to him. Tell me a little about that interview.

Nick Quested: So Rusty is the Speaker of the House of Representatives for Arizona. And he was enormously pressured by the president to become both a fake elector and to look further into potential voting irregularities in Arizona.

So I was aware of Mr. Bowers through the committee and also through the Arizona, the Sentinel, I think. So we felt that Mr. Bowers was the, you know, the best way to tell, you know, to be the personification of this huge effort to influence elected officials because he's a Republican and he's a very honest Republican. He believes what he believes and he believes in the truth and to do things that he believes are legal, according to the Constitution, which he thinks is a divine, you know, a divine document, right? There's divine inspiration amongst, in the Constitution.

And I can respect that. Because we're in a fact based world with Mr. Bowers. And he was, you know, tormented by protesters, you know, in his house and in his driveway, when his daughter was, you know, gravely ill. And I think he epitomized the struggle of many elected officials throughout the country. I mean, there's multiple examples of this, whether it be Jocelyn Benson in Michigan, Governor Whitmer in Michigan, Brad Raffensperger in Georgia. I mean, the list goes on and on and on, of the attempts to find votes after the fact.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. I, and you, just for the listeners, there's video you have of the protesters outside his home screaming that he's a pedophile and protesters who are wearing guns. You know, this is pretty frightening pressure.

Nick Quested: It is, but you know, you have to take into context that Arizona is an absolutist to a open carry state. So, no one's doing anything technically illegal, except for when they enter his property they are technically trespassing. But it's just, is that how you want to argue your cases for an election? Is that how you resolve disputes is by going to confront people, when you're armed? I don't think that's a great dispute resolution technique.

Roger Parloff:  Yeah.

Nick Quested: And what is the function of government in the end, in this country?

Roger Parloff: Yeah. And actually one of the things you mentioned also that is striking is that his Christianity sort of strengthens him as it did Vice President Pence, apparently. Because, you know, there's a lot of Christianity among the January 6th protesters too, a different kind of Christianity. But here, here it really helped out, gave them strength to resist.

As for Tarrio, for the readers to know, he's the head of the Proud Boys during this period. And he organizes this special chapter right after Trump sends out the December 19th tweet, the will be wild tweet, come to January 6th. He organizes a special chapter called the Ministry of Self Defense. But he's not present for January 6th itself. And I'll let Nick explain why that is and I have a follow up question about that.

Nick Quested: Enrique Tarrio was arrested on January the 4th, subsequent to the burning of the BLM flag that was seized from the AME Church in Washington, D.C. He accepted responsibility for that, or claimed responsibility for that, even though he was clearly seen to be observing the burning of that banner, which I filmed.

He came to D.C. with two extended Proud Boy-emblazoned large capacity magazines for an AR-15 and entered the District from Reagan. He was arrested in the tunnel as he entered D.C., by a large force of police officers. He was known, and he knew he was being tailed for two reasons: he'd spotted the tail, in the airport when he went to the bathroom and two, he'd been in extensive communications with a MPD intelligence officer called Shane Lamont, which we also captured on film, him discussing, well, I knew, I was tipped off. I knew.

Roger Parloff: Lamont, by the way, has been subsequently indicted for obstruction.

Nick Quested: Yeah, Lamont has been indicted. And his trial is scheduled for, I think after the election, but before the inauguration. So maybe he'll be on the long list of pardons that the president is threatening to issue on day one.

So I believe Tarrio accepted responsibility for the BLM flag on December the 17th. The December the 19th was the “will be wild” tweet, but I believe that knowing the focus of the rally and the attention that they were giving towards the joint session, that Tarrio was attempting to take himself off the battlefield because he knew that he didn't want to lead the Proud Boys on that day when chaos could ensue.

Roger Parloff: So you think he got arrested intentionally to, as sort of an ally for a while?

 Nick Quested: I think he thought he was going to be held for a little bit longer than that and would have been out of the mix for even during January 6th.

Roger Parloff: And of course, as it happened, he was granted bail, but he was required to leave.

Nick Quested: Yeah, he had a restraining order to leave the District. And so we followed, Tarrio got into my truck and we drove him to pick up his property from the property department in Enfant. And then we returned to the Felix Hotel to get some more of his property, where we encountered the Oath Keepers, where they had a meeting in a garage in a block from the Capitol, basically. With the Oath Keepers, the other militia or proto-militia that has been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Roger Parloff: And during the garage meeting, the now-famous garage meeting, the most damning statement that occurs actually never got into the trial because it wasn't clear who was saying it. It's in your movie. It's somebody whispering something about, do you remember the exact words? 

Nick Quested: We've got to do it fast. We've got to do it hard. We've got to stay together.

Roger Parloff: Yeah.

Nick Quested: It was what, he's known as hashtag Pads, OK for Oath Keepers. So, there's a group called the Sedition Hunters. They gave everyone who was on the steps of the Capitol, or inside the Capitol, a hashtag for them to be able to identify them and they subsequently have been instrumental in hundreds of convictions by identifying the people behind, of the hashtags.

Roger Parloff: And, by the way, Ryan Reilly of NBC that I mentioned earlier, he wrote a book called Sedition Hunters, which is the best way to learn about them. As Tarrio is released, you have some video of him saying: we're going to keep pressing forward. I don't need to be in D.C. to keep the fight going. And I don't remember that coming in at trial either.

Nick Quested: Oh, I thought that did come in at trial.

Roger Parloff: Oh, did it?

Nick Quested: Yeah, that did come in. I missed a lot of the trial cause they kept asking me to leave.

Roger Parloff: Oh yes, as a witness, you're not allowed to, because you became a witness, you couldn't be there, to, except for your testimony

Nick Quested: And they seemed to be upset with some of the, there was a lot of objections, you know. It felt like I was, you know, playing musical chairs half the time, of unsubstantiated objections. And then they have this husher thing that just like, you know, blocks out the courtroom. But you can read the court stenographer's notes from the witness stand if you're-

Roger Parloff: Yeah. There was another line of his, from much earlier, I think maybe from November, when he says, Tarrio says, they'll call it an insurrection because I am going to go in there and fuck shit up. I don't think that came in either. 

Nick Quested: No, I didn't, because I didn't, when they subpoenaed my footage, they were very specific to the subpoena. Aand I didn't feel that my other work product was germane to what they were asking for, so I didn't give it to them.

Roger Parloff: Oh, I see. Well, so tell us about that. You did become a witness for both the January 6th Committee and the prosecution called you as a witness. Tell me about those experiences.

Nick Quested: I was subpoenaed to appear as a witness in front of the committee and for the seditious conspiracy trial for the Proud Boys, indeed. The committee is actually much less stressful, I'm much shorter. I, basically my job, they asked me to do is just to tell the my experience on the morning of January 6 with the Proud Boys, you know, up until when the barriers came down.So, you know, I filmed it. It's very easy. They use my video to, you know, as they say in this worl, I have the receipts.

But a sedition trial, a federal trial in Prettyman Courthouse is a very different scenario. There's the fate of five men who are being charged with these crimes, which is an enormous gravitas. There were all sorts of threats to witnesses at that time. The marshals were very concerned. There was a very elevated sense of tension there.

And, you know, you have the direct, which is, you know, the prosecution walking through what they want you to say. And then you, I had three and a bit days of cross examination by the, you know, the five defense counsels, who are there basically to try and find any substantive, not even substantive, any like trivial difference in your testimony. I mean, I mean, at one point we were arguing about adjectives. You said there were a lot of Proud Boys, but this one, you said there was quite a lot of Proud Boys. I mean, we're equivocating over an adjective, I'm like, dude.

But after a while I sort of understood I wasn't really there to argue with them. And so I managed to relax a little bit more. And so, you know, I ended up just, you know, providing, you know, color and, you know, and just explaining what, you know, what happened without, you know, I was a little naive with the Committee because I took a deposition with the committee without a lawyer.

So I have a six to eight hour deposition, with no counsel, because I want, you know, I didn't feel I was subject to investigation. I felt that this was, you know, I didn't think I was going to be instrumental in anything that was going to go on later. So I just told them, I answered their questions. And they just had a lot of questions and they didn't really stop. And I sort of know that from a, as a journalist, like once you've got someone and it's good, you just keep on going. But at a certain point it sort of runs out of steam.

But, you know, when you've had such a long deposition, it's red meat for defense counsel. So, you know, they looked, you know, and I've been on record. I've been with the Committee. And so I testified under cross examination for three days. They tried everything they possibly could to find some, you know, difference in my testimony. And I don't believe they did. I remain an unimpeached witness.

Roger Parloff: So on January 6th, you were with the Proud Boys, filming, and so you get to the Peace Circle, Peace Monument at 12:53, and you're there right on the barricade, the bike rack barriers. And the five, Ryan Samsel and four others topple those first barriers and you're there. And of course you have a choice what you do then. And as a journalist, you follow the rioters as they proceed. What did the prosecutors think about that?

Nick Quested: Well, I have, as they say, prima facie evidence of their involvement and their location at that very moment. So, in terms of providing, you know, a clear and uncontested account of not uncontested, I mean, some of them contested my account, but like, I don't think they were very effective. You know, it's very useful for a prosecution.

Roger Parloff: But you entered the restricted zone.

Nick Quested: I did.

Roger Parloff: Did that become a problem?

Nick Quested: Oh, yeah, absolutely, it became a problem for me. I knew that there had been crimes committed on January 6th. I'd seen, between me and my team, we'd seen Rosanne Boyland die, we've seen Ashley Babbitt die. We've seen all sorts of assaults on police officers, I’d been attacked, police officers have been attacked, all sorts of craziness that day.

So I called a friend of mine, who's a U.S. Attorney. I said, I need to give you my footage of January 6th because I don't know what has happened. I mean, I know, I sort of know what's happened, but like you need to know what's happened. So I'd immediately, you know, just on the January 6th footage, but it's not my January 5th footage and not my interviews with Tarrio. But just the footage on the steps of the Capitol, because I knew I had no journalistic privilege. Sooner or later, my footage is going to come up and if the federal authorities are asking me about my footage rather than me telling them what happens, that's a very different type of interview to be having with the FBI.

Roger Parloff: Yeah.

Nick Quested: So literally, I talked to my two colleagues and we decided to be out front of what was going to happen. But I still got caught up because the FBI investigation became so huge that I talked to the head of criminal at MPD. I talked to a special agent. But like we suddenly, I suddenly was having FBI officers visiting my house in the Hudson Valley. And I had, in the end, I had four interviews, my Trusted Traveler was removed, my Global Entry was removed, you know, my visa was questioned.

All sorts of things that I found to be very heavy-handed for someone that is of, you know, they questioned whether I was actually a journalist. And I had to sort of recount my resumé and then they were like, but why didn't you have a press pass? And I was like, dude, if I'd had a press pass, I'd have been at the rally and we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.

It actually, that came up. Did you read the FBI have a secure messaging system that they have. I think it's called Saber or something?

Roger Parloff: The FBI's own system?

Nick Quested: Yeah. And that was actually, they sent some testimony to the defense and the defense managed to unpick the entire internal communications of the FBI. And in fact they challenged my, the reason for my testimony and said, I had done a deal to preserve my immigration status.

Roger Parloff: Yeah, yeah. I remember.

Nick Quested: Cause they saw my lawyer in the court. And I was like, no, my lawyer is actually a friendly friend working pro bono. And she deals with constitutional issues and criminality, not immigration. So that one didn't go very far for them.

Roger Parloff: One thing that comes across from the film, and of course this had sort of come across anyway, from, you know, it's frustrating. You see the hugely important role that Roger Stone and Ali Alexander and Alex Jones and Cleta Mitchell play, and yet they all know not to go into the restricted zone, except for Alex Jones goes in, but he's, he covers himself, he says, you know, obey the police and so on.

Nick Quested: Yeah, but he tried to deescalate by screaming, Stop the Steal.

Roger Parloff: Right. I mean, and obviously we're not even discussing Trump, who may go scot-free as well. But, it's one of the frustrating aspects of the film. If you have any comment, I guess that's it.

Nick Quested: Well, I'm astounded that, I mean, I read Ali's deposition to the committee and I found many inconsistencies with the truth, which I thought were perjurous.

Roger Parloff: And I'll emphasize that's your opinion.

Nick Quested: That's my opinion. Absolutely. I, let me just say I can't speak, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak to whether that is perjurous, but there were many inconsistencies with the truth. Let's just leave it at that. Right?

Roger Parloff: In your opinion.

Nick Quested: In my opinion. So there was a lot of discussion amongst the committee about how to frame the work of the committee, whether to target, you know, make the case against Trump and ultimately provide a criminal referral to the Justice Department, or to look at Stop the Steal as a bigger election denial movement and to potentially decide on the criminality of the operators, of Stone, of Ali, of many of these influences and operators for Stop the Steal. Ultimately, they chose to simplify the thesis of the committee and chose to present a case against Donald Trump.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. Let me ask you about this. You know, I heard about this film from word of mouth, a friend of mine happened to go to a private screening in rural Virginia a couple of weeks ago and told me about it. But you've been, as you mentioned, you've been doing documentaries for a long time. You've won Emmys, too. And what's it been like trying, you alluded to it, what's it been like trying to distribute this film?

Nick Quested: It's been very frustrating. We've been trying to sell a version of this film, various versions of this film ever since I was called by the Committee. And we had some, a lot of meetings with a lot of broadcasters, but ultimately they either chose to make their own ones based on, I would say, based on the treatment that we had given or they've made, you know, apologias.

I believe the Stopping the Steal film on HBO now is a travesty of journalism and filmmaking. I think it's a revisionist history by the lawyers and the White House staffers that are trying to portray themselves as resisting the president, when they are actually all in all, by all accounts, assisting the president.

Roger Parloff: And were the distributors, what was their concern? Was it retaliation if Trump is elected or was it something-?

Nick Quested: So I think there is a, as Representative Raskin says, I think there's a collective cowardice to address the, to want to engage in the truth. You know, after the Fair Doctrine was abandoned, where news was meant to be a fair and balanced, where you saw an equal amount of both sides, you started to see new segmented, so each of the channels makes news for a certain demographic.

Roger Parloff: Let me ask you this: as your research went on in 2020, I mean, did a point come where you were pretty sure that violence was going to come out of this?

Nick Quested: Did I think there was going to be violence before January 6th?

Roger Parloff: Yeah.

Nick Quested: Yeah, I mean, when the president said, stand back and stand by, I was like, there's going to be fighting, right? These guys were energized. Their recruitment went through the roof. And, you know, the difference, you know, November the 14th was the first, you know, first scuffle. December the 12th, you know, there was, you know, probably a couple of thousand Proud Boys on that day. That started to feel like a movement, not a drinking club.

And then on January 6th, there were less Proud Boys on January 6th, but they were very somber. I didn't think that they were going to storm the Capitol. But I did think that they were going to be fighting that day. I thought they would be fighting in the evening, but there was no counter-protest. There'd been a concerted action by BLM and Antifa to not engage with the Proud Boys. Because as I say in the film, no one protests an election they've won.

Roger Parloff: And let me just, when was this film completed?

Nick Quested: I mean, the film was essentially ready in the summer of this year. And we went and we pitched it to every channel we possibly could and everyone decided that they would pass, at that point. We still have subsequently having, you know, recently we've seen an uptick in interest. But only the conversations will happen after the election.

Roger Parloff: I see.

Nick Quested: And we call this film the playbook to the insurrection, because you see exactly how they plotted and planned and the reasons that January 6th happened, because I was fascinated by not why six people and how they turned up at the Capitol, which would be the normal documentary way, but why did 60,000 people turn up, at the Capitol on January 6th?

So I believe that in this election cycle if President Trump were to lose, we will again see intense pressure on elected and election officials. We will see a flurry of spurious lawsuits based on poll workers' spurious recollections of election fraud. We're already seeing ballots being targeted in mail-in ballot boxes by, and arson attacks. We're seeing the president saying how unreliable this election is already. We're starting to see influences emerge like Donald Jr. or Ivan Raiklin or Laura Loomer that will then coordinate the messaging.

X is a much more effective way of disseminating memes and information than Parler, Rumble, and thedonald.win ever was. Now the thinking is in plain sight. We've been struggling on social media as well. We can't get any traction on Instagram or on X, because we basically been, what they call shadowbanned. So we can post our stuff but, you know, the amount of people that see it has been massively reduced and we can't boost it.

I actually posted a black square, just a plain black square. And I couldn't, you know, I couldn't share that beyond my, you know, my few hundred friends.

Roger Parloff: Well, I think we're gonna have to leave it there, but thank you so much, Nick, for your time. The film is called “64 Days: the Insurrection Playbook.” And you can find out more about it at 64 daysfilm.com, about how to see it. Thank you again.

Nick Quested: Thank you, Roger, and thank you for all your hard work. It's you know, I love to listen to, you know, watch your live tweets throughout those trials. It was, you know, you felt like you were really in the room at some points and it's much better to be reading it on your phone than being in that room. I can promise you.

Roger Parloff: Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

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