Big Burning Dumpster Fire

Journalist Jen Bendery has been reporting on Leonard Peltier’s case for the Huffington Post for the last two years. In this one-on-one interview we chat with Jen about the Biden administration’s strides for Native Americans, missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW), and how a reporter’s routine request for a status update from the Office of the Pardon Attorney put her on the FBI’s radar.

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• 17:06 (Cont.) Big Burning Dumpster Fire

Transcript

LEONARD: POLITICAL PRISONER
Season 2, Episode 7:  Big Burning Dumpster Fire

Jen Bendery
It’s just insane. It's still tough for me to like properly encapsulate the story that is Leonard Peltier, because it's just so rich with things that are so unjust and, and like, so infuriating and yet it still stands.


VO
That’s reporter Jen Bendery with the Huffington Post. For the last year she’s been covering the Biden clemency push and doing an incredible job at it, helping almost single-handedly to bring Leonard’s story back into the mainstream media.

Jen Bendery
It's like this big burning dumpster fire in plain sight. And people just kind of walking by it casually <laugh>, you know. And it doesn't seem to be getting a ton of attention. I don't understand why this is like still okay. So I just keep writing about Leonard Peltier being in prison and how insane it is. And hopefully something starts to gain some traction because, in the end, I think Leonard is simply going to die in prison, or he's going to go home, and it's not gonna be that much longer for one of those to have to happen.

VO
You’re listening to LEONARD—a podcast series about Leonard Peltier, one of America’s longest-serving political prisoners. I’m Rory Owen Delaney. 

And I’m Andrew Fuller. We’ve spent the last four years working to share Leonard’s story with a new generation of people: who he is, how he ended up behind bars, and why we believe he deserves to go free.

This is Season 2, Episode 7, Big Burning Dumpster Fire. In this chapter we chat with journalist Jen Bendery about her work on the political frontlines in Washington, DC. 

Recently, Ms. Bendery had the chance to interview Leonard over the phone, a rare occurrence in recent years. We asked Jen about the process.

Jen Bendery
I put in a request to interview Leonard in the fall. And when you wanna interview someone in a maximum security federal prison, you have to make an official request through this form. You have to figure out the prisoner’s like ID number. You have to do all these like bureaucratic steps. So I did all that. Um, and then I was like emailing with the Bureau of Prisons to follow up and say, okay, I did it. You know, now what? It took months. I don't know why. I think they just ignored it for a little while. For months being a little while. So that was probably like October, November when I put in the request. And then I got an email in like January saying that like, your request has been approved.

Jen Bendery
And I said, great, this is great, but then nothing. And so I was emailing with these people saying, hi, you said it was approved. Can we please set up a time and day and like ASAP? And I got nothing. And then I think in, like, I wanna say in like March, I saw that an NBC reporter wrote a piece and they had just talked to Leonard on the phone. And I was like, what? What is that about? Like why did they just give them a phone interview with Leonard when they're not even like, reporting on him at all? Like what the hell? But then I thought, okay, well, I'm gonna chalk that up as a win, because look, like, NBC News is now paying attention, suddenly, out of nowhere. Um, and they're NBC News.

Jen Bendery
So maybe, maybe the Bureau of Prisons was like, oh, a major television, you know, news network wants to talk to one of our inmates. So then I wrote back to the Bureau of Prisons and I said, hi, remember how I emailed you in like October about doing this. And then you said, I got it, and then nothing happened. Well, I see that you, you just granted an interview to NBC News. Um, so where's mine. Um, and suddenly they were like, okay, yeah, we can do it. How about we do it next week or something? So, so then that suddenly like came to fruition very quickly. Um, I don't know why that played out like that, but it took me like four or five months to make a phone call happen. It was just a phone call.

Jen Bendery 
And, and I guess in their defense during the pandemic there had been prison lockdowns because of, for COVID precautions. And during the lockdowns you're not allowed to talk on the phone. So I know that Leonard's prison for one had a number of back to back lockdowns, which means they were like pretty much isolated in their cells for sometimes days, weeks at a time, which is its own separate issue. You know, there's some serious like isolation and mental health issues that can develop from being all alone like that in the middle of a pandemic in a cell. But I do think giving the, the Bureau of Prisons, the benefit of the doubt, I think that that was the reason for some of the delays, but I think that they also just didn't wanna do it.

Jen Bendery
I have to believe that because it shouldn't take five months to, to get a 30 minute phone call, but in the end I got it. 

VO
The Huffington Post published Jen’s interview with Leonard from behind bars in Coleman Federal Prison on May 7th, 2022. Follow her on twitter @jbendery to read all of her stories as soon as they go live. 

Jen Bendery
He sounds just like someone's grandpa. You know, he was like talking about how he likes to bullshit in the yard with his buddies and just hang out. He told a lot of stories from his younger years, you know, those kinds of things. So I just like listened to him talk. But I did have some very specific things I wanted to ask him. And one of the things I asked him was, um, what would he say to President Biden if he had five minutes alone with him?

Jen Bendery
He said that he would tell him that he would thank him for actually making some headway on some of the issues around justice for Native Americans that Leonard himself was fighting for in the seventies when he was part of AIM, which was the American Indian Movement that was like the civil rights group fighting for indigenous people's rights. So I thought that was interesting. His first response was that he would thank Biden as he's sitting in prison, but then he said he would also tell him that, um, I'm innocent. 

Jen Bendery
And this is almost a direct quote. He said, I didn't, I didn't kill anyone. I didn't. I'm innocent. And I would, I would really like to go home to see my family. That was what he would like to tell Biden. Um, and so then I <laugh>, I asked him what he would say if he had five minutes alone with the FBI director. And he said that he would, he didn't even hesitate when I – I could barely finish that question. He was like, oh, I would tell the FBI director to stop killing my people. I was like, okay. <laugh> um, and I, honestly, wasn't quite sure what he meant by that. Like, I know what that means in the seventies era of the FBI, but I, I'm not sure what that means today, but he clearly, um, has some strong feelings about what the FBI has done to Native people, which I think those are some justified feelings. 

VO
Back in the 70s on Pine Ridge the Feds backed tribal president Dick Wilson and his Goons versus the Oglala traditionals in a bloody civil war that is said to have claimed the lives of over six dozen AIM supporters during a period of time known as the Reign of Terror.

Jen Bendery
Mostly I wanted to let him talk because I just wanted him to have a chance to talk about what was on his mind and how life has been for him lately in prison. And just the things he's been thinking about lately, how his health is, things like that. I asked him if he thought he was going to die in prison. He said he just didn’t know. And he got real quiet and said I shouldn’t be in here in the first place.

Jen Bendery
And so that was that. And so like suddenly our call was done and he had to go. Um, but you know, he's a talker. He talked a lot, and he likes to tell stories and, um, you know, he's a painter. So he talked about – he's actually a very good painter. He talked about how the – there's an art room in the prison that has been closed throughout the pandemic, but he talked about how he heard it was gonna open again for the first time in like two or three years and how that was like very exciting. It was a mostly one way conversation for him to just talk a little bit and then me to throw in a couple questions at the end. Um, but it was good. He was a, he's a good conversationalist, like he's a good interview.

Rory
Yeah. He called me one time a couple years ago. So I got about 10 or 15 minutes, but...

Jen Bendery
Mm-hmm.

Rory
Like you said, he just sounds like, uh, you know, somebody's grandpa or your uncle...

Jen Bendery
He did.

Rory
Yeah. He just sounds like a pretty regular guy.

Jen Bendery
He does. It was kind of striking because I mean he's got, he's got children of his own, he's got grandkids, granted he's been in prison like the whole fucking time that like he's had them, but he's got a fairly sizable family, I think. And you can tell that he’s like, in his way, like tried to help raise them. Like he mentioned a couple times, like the things he's said to his kids and his grandkids about like, you know, how to his, his advice in certain situations. And, um, he mentioned that his daughter reached out to him for his blessing, basically, to go to New York City right after 9-11 to help.

Jen Bendery
I think she's a paramedic. And she wanted to go to New York to help when it was like, you know, at the height of chaos and devastation. And she asked him, I think for permission to go. And he was like, of course you can go like, you know, do what you need to do to thrive. But he seemed to think that was like a really key moment, like as a dad, that she asked his opinion on that. And, he did, he did sound just kinda like a regular guy, you know, with his family and his hobbies of painting and, um, making art. But it's just that he's, he's sitting in a prison cell, and if you know the backstory to it, it's just, it's just insane.

Andrew
And the fact that he’s still alive. And yeah how many people don’t know about it–

Jen Bendery
I think the fact, honestly, that a lot of people don't know who he is still is a problem. I mean, and it's understandable, but I think if anything's gonna get him out of prison, it's public sentiment that is just piling on to the President. And he does seem to have a very, very strong group of supporters. And there's celebrities who have a big platform on social media who have, you know, used it to call for him to be, you know, let to go home, um, and like human rights leaders, indigenous leaders, and with social media, people just have more of a platform to amplify these kinds of things, which they didn't have in 1977. So it's a different time for someone like him. He's sort of a holdover to me from a different era of criminal justice and righting of wrongs. And I don’t know – I can see how a younger generation could latch onto this and, and get pissed, and sign on to like this effort to get him out, which is sort of crazy to me because it's from so long ago, but people who were not even born yet and who still weren't born yet decades later – today, I could see it. I could see how everything that he has come to represent matches so much of where a young, progressive movement of people is today. It just weirdly lines up in my mind.

Rory
Yeah, we're with you on that one. That was one of our whole things was, was that if there's ever gonna be a time where it would make sense for there to be a social movement it would seem to be now. But I saw that Leonard had spoken about Bill Janklow and that Jacinta Eagle Deer thing. It's a story that I know Andrew and I are fascinated by.

VO
We were interested to hear Jen’s take on Jacinta Eagle Deer, a young Native American woman who in the late 60s alleged she was sexually assaulted by a white man, a lawyer who would later become one of the most powerful players in South Dakota political history: William “Bill” Janklow. 

Jen Bendery
I was asking Leonard if he saw a full circle moment with where we are today compared to what he was doing with AIM in the seventies, which again, it feels sort of incredible to me that I see it. And one thing I brought up was, you know, much more national attention on missing and murdered indigenous women. And that has been a decades, if not centuries, old crisis, like a legitimate crisis of native women just disappearing and being murdered. And it's a thing. It's a real thing that's been happening all over the place. And it just doesn't get very much attention because it's Native American women, and traditionally national media doesn't pay attention to them, local media doesn't pay a ton of attention to them. Our law enforcement system doesn't pay attention to them. It's a whole multi-layered problem here.

VO
Murder is the third leading cause of death for indigenous women per the CDC with native women being killed at a rate 10 times higher than all other ethnicities in the United States. 
The Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women movement – MMIW – advocates for the end of violence against native women.

Jen Bendery
But I mentioned this with Leonard because I'm like, it's actually like starting to get some real attention now with, with Deb Haaland at Interior, creating a whole commission to like examine this and dig up old cases. And the Justice Department is actually working with the Interior Department to do this too. And President Biden talks about it, which the fact that a president is talking about this at all is a big deal. And I mentioned this to Leonard as like a possible example of something that he's like trying to raise attention about in the seventies. And he said, oh yeah, like it was happening all the time. Like native women all the time were just being like raped and treated like shit by white men in positions of power. And that's when he brought up this case of, is it Janklow, um – I had never heard of this case before Leonard mentioned it, but this guy who was like a very powerful white man who basically like was known in the community for, for raping young indigenous women.

Jen Bendery
Um, and this one woman in particular, who he apparently raped and like cast aside somewhere, and AIM members got involved. I think they approached local law enforcement, said like, this woman has been raped. And I, I can't remember the chronology. I don't wanna mess this up, but she turned up dead. 

VO
On January 14th, 1967, a 15 year old student at an Indian boarding school on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota alleges she’s been raped by the director of the tribe’s Legal Services program: William Janklow. 

The school principal escorts Jancita Eagle Deer to the hospital, where records suggest that an attack has occurred. The incident is then assigned to a BIA investigator, who files a report recommending that Mr. Janklow be prosecuted.

The BIA’s recommendation triggers an investigation by the FBI, who holds federal jurisdiction over major crimes committed on reservations. But the Bureau closes the case just six weeks later after concluding the allegations were unfounded.

In response, Jancita’s step-mom swears she’ll prove Janklow raped her daughter, but she never does. On December 6th, 1972, Delphine Eagle Deer was found dead in a barren winter field after a beating by the BIA police. 

Two years later, in 1974, William Janklow receives the Republican nomination to become South Dakota’s next Attorney General. 

To discredit him, the American Indian Movement seeks to resuscitate the Jancita Eagle Deer rape investigation, but the organization runs into a brick wall when they are unable to locate Jancita, the BIA investigator, or any supporting documents. That is, until Douglass Durham gets involved. 

Yes, that Douglass Durham. The notorious FBI informant who infiltrated AIM after being discharged from the Des Moines police over suspicions that he killed his first wife. 

Remember it’s 1974 still and Durham won’t be exposed as a Fed until the following year in 1975, so at this juncture he’s still playing double agent.

While Durham can’t find any of the official records, he locates Jancita Eagle Deer and pushes for AIM to use her story to derail Janklow’s campaign for State Attorney General. 

But leadership wants hard evidence before going public, so Dennis Banks petitions to have Janklow disbarred in Rosebud Reservation Tribal Court in an effort to obtain the BIA reports needed to substantiate Eagle Deer’s allegations. 

However, Janklow knows tribal law inside out from his years working on the res and refuses to answer his summons i.e. no-shows. In his absence, Tribal Court Judge Mario Gonzales charges Janklow with assault with intent to commit rape, and carnal knowledge of a female under 16. But all the court can really do is revoke his tribal law license since he is not subject to tribal jurisdiction as a white man.

Meanwhile, Douglass Durham makes Eagle Deer his girlfriend and gets her to repeat her accusations on Sioux Falls television. But Janklow dismisses the rape charge as a crude smear campaign and leans on his record as a public servant to quell any outrage. 

In concert with the anti-AIM sentiment sweeping the state in the aftermath of Wounded Knee, the spin job propels Janklow to a landslide victory that makes him the top lawyer and law enforcement official in South Dakota: the Attorney General. 

In January 1975, Janklow assumes office, and in March, Douglass Durham confesses to being an FBI informant at an AIM press conference in Chicago. Afterward, he and Jancita Eagle Deer disappear from the scene. 

One of the last people to see Jancita alive is her brother. On April 4th, 1975, at about one pm, Alfred Eagle Deer recalls a dark-haired man in a blue Chevy picking up his sister from his house near Valentine, Nebraska, just south of the Rosebud Reservation. 

230 miles away, on a deserted stretch of road outside Aurora, Nebraska, Jancita would be struck down and killed by a fast moving car, seemingly trying to flag down the vehicle that took her life. 

According to the pursuant AIM investigation, the coroner indicated Jancita might have been previously beaten or injured by jumping from a moving car but explained it would be impossible to determine for sure due to the extreme nature of her injuries.

The celebrated poet, musician, actor and AIM activist, John Trudell, was convinced Durham played a role in Jancita’s death, telling author Peter Mathiessen – quote – “I know he did it. He brought her in and used her to seal a permanent enmity between Janklow and AIM, but she had evidence against him, and he got rid of her.”

So Durham skated in the end. And so did the State AG, William Janklow, who cultivated a public image as an Indian fighter to win even higher political offices in the years to come.

Jen Bendery
Then he went on to like run for governor and he won. And he basically his career just like ascended, you know, he just carried on with his life and prospered. But back at the community level, native people who knew him and knew what he had been doing were just like, this is awful. This is like everything wrong here with this guy. And when I was talking to Leonard about it, and learning about this case from him, he was like, you know, Jen, this happened all the time. It wasn't like this one Janklow guy was like this case we were just all mad about. It was all the time. It was young indigenous women just being treated like objects, just being cast aside as trash, being picked up on the side of the road, beaten, raped, and killed, and life just moved on without law enforcement doing anything.

Jen Bendery
And so I could feel it even when Leonard was talking on the phone, like how, I mean, there are just so many stories behind that one story that he knew, and it was so commonplace that it just wasn't outrageous to people in positions of power at the time, it's just accepted. And you know, this is also a time when, you know, indigenous people weren't allowed into certain restaurants or bars, and there would be a sign out front that said, no Indians, no dogs. This is not that long ago. So that was the era in which Leonard was operating, in the era in which he was part of AIM, which was trying to form a United group of native people to fight back against native women being raped and discarded all the time by white men, and to fight back against their land being taken away and treaty obligations not being upheld, and to fight back against children being stolen from their families and put into boarding schools, and to fight back – I mean, it's just like one thing after another, after another. So all this to say, yes, the story of Janklow that Leonard brought up was was an example of the kinds of things that, that Leonard was very animated by in the seventies. And, and even today in 2022, he was clearly like, still, he was still angry, you know, and, and rightfully so, it was pretty terrible stuff. And here he sits in prison.

VO
After the break, Jen details the growing political support for Leonard in Washington DC and identifies the biggest obstacle in his path to freedom: the FBI.

SUNNY SINGH BREAK


Jen Bendery
To me, as a political reporter, it's a really fascinating time to talk about him because it's like an open wound that many indigenous people still feel with him being in prison. And I'm watching very closely to see if that's something that this administration sees as sort of a low hanging fruit, like something they can do. Biden can unilaterally do this if he feels it's important and it matters to a constituency of Americans. So this could be a very unique window for Leonard to go home.

Jen Bendery
The Biden administration really prides itself on, on the kinds of progressive reforms that they've been talking about. They've made real gains for Native American communities. They've done a lot already to lift up tribal governments, to strengthen tribal sovereignty, to try to right some wrongs that the US government has done against native communities for centuries. I mean, they've really stepped up all kinds of things that you know, that for Biden's administration, they are proud to talk about. They've, you know, they've lifted up the issue of, of addressing decades of missing and murdered indigenous women. They have put a spotlight on the horrible history in this country of Indian boarding schools. And they've deployed people to go to former boarding schools to unearth the remains of children who were killed and died at these boarding schools who had already been stolen from their families by the US government and forced into these white, you know, conversion schools. They're actually making an effort to put attention on that because they wanna try to right these wrongs. And they’re really proud that they do that.

Jen Bendery
There's other things I can list off that this administration has already done to show that they want to make a difference on issues that are really important to Native American people. And the fact that Leonard Peltier is still hanging out there, still in prison with all these decades of ugly issues wrapped up in it. And with that all coming to a head today with this old man in prison who shouldn't be there, it just seems like this could be a really unique moment. A unique and perhaps last final moment for Leonard to get clemency. The times have sort of caught up with what he represents and the views of this administration are actually fairly aligned with the push for releasing someone like Leonard.

Rory
Can you speak a little bit about some of the allies Leonard has in Congress? 

Jen Bendery
Yes, Senator Leahy and Senator Schatz have both publicly put out letters and statements saying that they think it's time for Leonard to go home. And their argument is Leonard Peltier has been in prison for almost 50 years. He is not a threat to, to society. He's an old man, who's a painter and, um, just wants to go home before he dies. And he's got some health issues and this is a compassionate release issue. So that is the argument being made by Senator Schatz, who is the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and Patrick Leahy, who is the Senator Pro Temps, he's the longest serving person in the Senate right now, so he's seen a lot of American history, and a lot in, um, the criminal justice system in his time in the Senate.

Jen Bendery
So those are some pretty – those are two very powerful voices to have in there publicly urging the president to grant clemency to Leonard. There's at least 10 or 12 house Democrats who have publicly also written letters, and said, Mr. President, please grant clemency to Leonard Peltier. It's time for him to go home. And I know from my own reporting that there are other Senators who it appears are ready to start talking about it publicly. The question is what difference is it gonna make? Is it gonna really affect Biden to hear one more Senator saying something? Maybe? I don't know. s someone who's trying to put a spotlight on this, I try to get anybody to talk about it in there. I don't know what's in Biden's head about it right now. I don't know if it's in his head at all. Um, I know, I don't know if you guys saw this, but during a Senate hearing a few weeks ago, Senator Schatz asked Attorney General Merrick Garland about this, which was sort of a curve ball question at the end of a hearing about a budget issue, and basically, Senator Schatz said, you know, what do you make of Leonard Peltier's imprisonment? Because the attorney general has some authority here to move, you know, move forward with a clemency request. 

Senator Schatz (00:53:28):
Final question, easy one, what is your position on clemency for Leonard Peltier?

Honorable Merrick Garland (00:53:37):
So this is a matter that goes into applications that go to the Pardon Attorney. Pardon Attorney makes recommendations through the Deputy Attorney General to the President, and so I'm not going to comment on that now.

VO
That’s Attorney General Merrick Garland being pressed by Brian Schatz, a Democratic Senator from the great state of Hawaii, who is carrying the mantle of former Hawaii Senator and outspoken Peltier supporter, Robert Inyouhe, may he rest in peace.

Senator Schatz (00:53:48):
Can you comment on where we are in the process?

Honorable Merrick Garland (00:53:52):
I don’t – I assume but don't know that an application has been made. I mean, I've read about this in the press, so I don't know anything more about it than what I've read in the press.

Senator Schatz (00:54:02):
And this doesn't cross your desk?

Honorable Merrick Garland (00:54:05):
Uh. Certainly not as an initial or even secondary matter. This goes to the Pardon Attorney and then the Deputy Attorney General. I'm not saying I wouldn't be involved, but it certainly has not crossed my desk.

Jen Bendery
Garland basically said he didn't know much about the case. And that he really only knew what he's read about it in the news. So that was pretty surprising to me because that tells me a.) The attorney general doesn't seem to be aware of this clemency petition. Okay. And b.) The only information the attorney general does know about this is from what he reads in the news, which I'm like, well, I'm the only person writing about Leonard Peltier, you know, in DC right now.

Jen Bendery
So does that mean that the Attorney General's sitting around reading the Huffington Post? Like, I don't know, because I don't know where else he'd be reading anything. So I was like, okay, that was an interesting response. So really, I don't know, I don't know what's going on in the heads of the people who truly have the authority to grant clemency to Leonard. I don't know. I just know that there are people in Congress who are starting to pay more attention to this. I do think that you're gonna start seeing more Senators speaking up about it. And I think that you can't miss that if you're the President. And if you're the Attorney General when members of your own party, who are US Senators, are publicly talking about the need to grant clemency to somebody again and again and again. Like you just at a certain point, that's gotta get their attention. So we'll see.

Andrew
Well, and real quick, I know – I know you had spoken directly with Leahy and he said he was planning to actually confront Biden face to face about Leonard. Do you know if that ever happened?

Jen Bendery
So I don’t know if I would say confront, but just to be clear, he said that he was going to bring it up with Biden in one of their upcoming meetings, of which he had two meetings that were coming soon with the President about unrelated issues. So I don't think he was going to confront him. I think he was going to just ask him about it. And I have not seen him in person since we had that conversation. So that is definitely on my radar to ask him about it when I see him again. But I do believe that he brought it up with him because Leahy is a very influential Senator and he and Biden and have known each other for decades. I mean, they've worked together for so long. I mean,they talk very frankly, I would imagine.

Jen Bendery
I think the consensus as to why Leonard Peltier is still in prison is pretty simple. I think it's because the FBI wants him to be in prison and I don't think that they ever want him to get out of prison. That's about it. I mean, there's a lot beneath that, clearly, but I think that is the main obstacle to him still being in prison like 46, 47 years later. 

Rory
I know recently you had the FBI contact you after they had previously declined to comment on Leonard's case. 

Jen Bendery
Yeah, that was a surprise. I emailed the office of the pardon attorney, which for anyone who listens to your podcast, if they don't know what that is, it's simply the federal office that decides who should get pardons, who should get clemency. They make the recommendation in this office. They review cases. They make recommendations to the deputy attorney general, and then that deputy attorney general forwards it along to the president. So that's the pretty simple process for anyone who's appealing for clemency. That's what you do. So I just emailed the office of the pardon attorney and said, hi, I'm someone who's a reporter. I've been following Leonard Peltier's imprisonment. And I'm just curious if you can give me a status update on his clemency petition, that's it. It was a pretty boring question, really, for the pardon attorney office, because I didn't ask anything about the case, I just wanted to know the status of his clemency petition, which was filed last summer. And in response the FBI emailed and said, "Hi, Jen, here's our statement on why we oppose Leonard Peltier's release from prison." And there was a provided two paragraph statement. So that was weird. And then they wrote back again right after they sent that email, and they said, “oh, if you have any more questions, you should contact the office of the pardon attorney.” So after I took a minute or two and just sat there with like, what is happening, I read their statement to see what their argument was. And it was just full of nonsense. It was like clearly an outdated, ill-thought-through statement on why they want him to remain in prison. 

VO
Here’s the FBI’s unsolicited statement to Jen Bendery verbatim.


FBI
The FBI remains resolute against the commutation of Leonard Peltier’s sentence for murdering FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams at South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. We must never forget or put aside that Peltier intentionally and mercilessly murdered these two young men and has never expressed remorse for his ruthless actions. 

FBI
Peltier’s conviction, rightly and fairly obtained, still stands, and has withstood numerous appeals to multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. No amount of prison time changes the facts surrounding Coler and Williams’ deaths, and commuting Peltier’s sentence now would only serve to diminish the brutality of his crime, and the suffering of their surviving families, and the FBI family.

Jen Bendery
The argument that the FBI officially gave me literally every sentence of it was full of holes. And I wrote an article after I got that email from the FBI. I was like, well, I might as well just like let people know this happened. And talk about why their statement is so bad. I mean, it wasn't even like a compelling argument. It was something to the effect of, um, you know, we at the FBI, you know, firmly believe that a man who murdered two FBI agents in cold blood should remain in prison forever. Something like that was the first sentence. And I was like, okay, that's a pretty like over the top, you know, um, graphic first sentence to get your attention, but there was never evidence that Leonard Peltier um, murdered these two FBI agents, nevermind in cold blood at point blank zero, all the details that they put in their statement. So they're starting from a flawed premise in their argument to me in their statement as to why they're opposing him being in prison. 

Jen Bendery
They glossed over the fact that there was never evidence that he murdered anybody. You know, they made the case in their statement that, you know, multiple courts have upheld his imprisonment. Again, it's like classic spin. If you actually understand what happened in this case, it's like, okay, yeah, multiple courts did uphold this case. That's because a.) The Supreme court never heard the case. And, and one of their arguments was even the Supreme court upheld this case. And it's like, no, they actually never heard the case. They turned it down because they turned down like gazillions of petitions to take on cases every year. And this is just one of them. So that's not really a fair argument. And it, it is true that an appeals court upheld the, uh, a parole board's decision to keep him in prison. But that was because of a changed standard for what it means for someone to stay in prison after evidence has come out after someone's been put in prison that exonerates them. 

Jen Bendery
And this FBI statement just glossed over the fact that, you know, since, since Leonard was put in prison, it was shown that the government lied. They straight up lied. They got people to lie. They, the FBI, threatened people to lie on, on their behalf. Now there’s evidence that has come out that shows that they hid proof that it wasn't Leonard's weapon. So then it's like, okay, that's a pretty big deal. And if that happened today that would certainly nullify the trial. But the standard back then was different. 

Jen Bendery
I don't know how much your listeners know about all the details of this case. And I don't wanna bore anybody with all the different things that have come up in like 45 years, but all this to say, bringing it back to the present, the FBI statement that unexpectedly landed in my inbox seemed to have either ignored or been unaware – probably ignored – all the damning details that have come out in the last few decades that simply like undermine everything about the statement the FBI sent. 

VO
One of the most insane things about Leonard’s case is what happened during his appeal for a new trial back in 1984 at the 8th circuit court of appeals in St. Louis. There, exculpatory ballistics evidence was uncovered, forcing the government to admit that it didn’t know who had killed the two FBI agents. So the Feds dropped their contention that Leonard had committed murder in the first degree and went with an aiding and abetting theory in replacement. 

Jen Bendery
Then the question is like, well, who was he aiding and abetting? Because they still don't know who did this <laugh>. So it's a pretty questionable claim but they decided to argue that Leonard had aided and abetted whoever did it because he was present that day. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not sure how they settled on that as their legal reasoning, but it's a pretty weak argument to look at. And I, I think I would refer to James Reynolds, who is a former US attorney, who, as you guys know, was involved in helping to keep Leonard in prison, who has since turned around and said, “Actually we were wrong. We never had any evidence and he needs to go home.” Which is pretty extraordinary in its own right.

VO
James Reynolds, the former US attorney in Iowa, arranged for his predecessor, who handled the original prosecution of Peltier, to fight Leonard's appeal in St. Louis.

Jen Bendery
A comparison that James Reynolds has made to me about that aiding and abetting conviction is like, you know, if that's the standard that we're using to put someone in prison for life that they were present during a shootout, um, what does that mean for the people who are present on January 6th outside of the US Capitol building? There was a mass gathering of people there. People were attacked. Some people died. Um, there was 140 capitol police officers injured. You know, it was a horrible day of violence, and there were hundreds and hundreds of people there. Does that mean that because they were all present that they were all aiding and abetting the Capitol attack that day? And this is an example that James Reynolds suggested to me as to why it's so ludicrous that they could even get Leonard on the, on the grounds of aiding and abetting in a murder. So it's like, you know, there's just many pieces to this, again, as I don't wanna keep saying again and again, but those are some pretty key parts to this that are, are why this case is particularly frustrating to, to see that, you know, it's stuck all these years, despite this, despite this, despite this, despite this, he is still in prison.

Jen Bendery
So here we are in 2022. And I believe it's the same reason. Fundamentally, it is the FBI saying we're never letting him out because they will say because he murdered these two people in cold blood at point blank range, which is not true. There's no proof of that at least. There is no evidence that he did this. Leonard himself has maintained his innocence. But the bigger issue is that presidents, one after another, even when it looked like they were on the verge of granting clemency to Leonard Peltier, that they did not. And for different reasons, I'm gonna put it out there again, it goes back to the FBI. And now it's the Biden era, and the question is, now, does Biden have it in him to let Leonard go home? And the answer is I don't know. 

NEWS AND NOTES

Now we can officially add Senator Mazie Hirono to the list of Leonard’s supporters in the Senate. On May 31st, Jen Bendery reported that Senator Hirono sent a letter to President Biden urging him to free Leonard Peltier.

"It is clear that our criminal justice system failed Mr. Peltier," the Democrat from Hawaii said.

And on June 23rd, Senator Bernie Sanders became the 4th US senator in recent months to advocate on behalf of one of America’s longest serving political prisoners.

“Leonard Peltier has spent over 40 years of his life in prison despite the fact that the government has admitted they do not know who is responsible for the crime he was convicted of. For this reason, I have and will continue to strongly support petitions for Leonard Peltier’s release,” Sanders said. 

CREDITS

This podcast is produced, written, and edited on Tongva land by Rory-Owen Delaney and Andrew Fuller. Kevin McKiernan serves as our consulting producer. 

Thanks to Wendy Weiner for dramatizing the FBI’s statement. Thanks to Bobby Halvorson for the original music we’re using throughout this series. And thanks to Mike Cazentini at the Network Studios for his engineering assistance, and to Peter Lauridsen and Sycamore Sound for their audio mixing. 

Special thanks to Jen Bendery for her reporting in the Huffington Post. And thanks, most of all, to Leonard Peltier.

To get involved and help Leonard, go to whoisleonardpeltier.info or find us on social media @leonard_pod on Twitter and Instagram, or facebook.com/leonardpodcast.


This podcast is a production of Man Bites Dog Films LLC. Free Leonard Peltier!