Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Charles Bausman, a journalist and January 6 protester, who was forced to leave the United States to escape political repression. The head of the Foundation found out from Bausman the facts proving the involvement of US Intelligence in organizing riots at a protest rally in January 2021. Bausman explained what crimes Democrats can commit to suppress the conservative opposition and why ordinary Americans are afraid to express their opinion.
Mira Terada: Good afternoon, dear Charles! Thank you for agreeing to an interview for the Foundation to Battle Injustice. Please tell our viewers and readers about who you are and what you do?
Charles Bausman: I’m a journalist, and I lived in Russia for many years and became quite well known as somebody who took a very strong pro-Russian position. I started my own publications. One of them is called Russia Insider. The other is called Russian Faith. I’m an Orthodox Christian, and it’s a very important thing in my life. The most important thing, I would say. And so that’s what I do. You need more? Do you want more of a story about why I’m here now? I lived for many years with my family in Russia, and then about three years ago, we went back to the States, and so I was working sort of as a freelance journalist, I would say. I worked with Russian television on various films and news segments and so on. I went to the January 6 demonstration in 2021 not as a journalist, but as a Trump supporter. I thought the elections have been stolen. I wanted to share my displeasure with a bunch of other people. I was working with Russian television at the time on another film. And when I told them, “hey, I’m going to this thing tomorrow”, they said, “Oh, you know, you see anything interesting, take some pictures, shoot some material, maybe we can use it.” And as it turned out, I happened to be right off to the side of the building when all that craziness started. And as I approached the building from the side, I saw that people were going up on a balcony in front of the mall there. And so I went up there. There was no barrier or anything. And when I got to the balcony, I saw that people were entering the building through the door and a broken window. And so I did the same thing. But at that point, I’d put on my journalist hat and said, “Oh, my God. I’ve got the biggest story ever.” And I there were no other journalists. So it was really like just when people started to go in. So I was literally one of the first journalists to be in. And I just walked up and down the place where people were, took a bunch of videos on my phone. I didn’t have anything else. And then I ran back to the nearest hotel, which had Wi-Fi, because the Internet wasn’t really strong enough there to upload a file. And I sent the videos to my colleagues in Moscow, and they were loaded, and they put it on the day news. And they called me, and I gave an interview over the phone explaining what had happened and what I’d seen and everything. I drove home that night the proudest person in the world because I thought I had just gotten like the story of a lifetime and had done some incredible journalism. And over the next coming days, I did more stories about this as an eyewitness for Russian television. Then I started to notice that people were getting arrested for being inside and you know, because of my close association with Russian TV and a pro-Russian position, I thought this is going to end badly. I wrote about and paid a lot of attention to this, so I understood very well how quickly things can escalate. My wife and I decided this would be a good time to come to Russia. And we literally didn’t know, we brought like two small bags, almost no clothes and we really thought, “oh, we’re just going for like, you know, a month to see until things settle down”. And as it turned out, it just got worse and worse and worse and my initial sort of intuition that this wasn’t safe turned out to be right because they just started arresting all kinds of people, much less than what I had done. I didn’t have an official accreditation. They probably could have said, “hey, you were just a citizen, a private citizen in there. You broke the law. You’re in trouble.” And, you know, we’ve been sitting here in Moscow for the last year and eight months. It’s really horrible because, I mean, we have a nice life here. We have an apartment and friends, and Russia is home to us in a way. But we want to live in America. And we’ve got a house there and another property and friends, and all these things. And I’m basically a political refugee again. And what’s happening with these is January 6 detainees, these guys, who are sent to jail because of going into the Capitol building, such an outrage. And at every opportunity I vote against it.
M.T.: Is it true that law enforcement officers let everyone enter into the Capitol building?
C.B.: Yes, that is correct.
M.T.: Have you noticed any provocateurs among the American patriots who used their right to a peaceful event? In your opinion, were they connected with the special services?
C.B.: Absolutely. I can’t say that I saw them myself. I mean, because it was also chaotic, and it was happening so fast, and you can’t tell who’s fake. But as a journalist after the fact, I wrote a lot about this. I made stories about this. I investigated it. And I read a lot of the analysis that came out over the following month. And there’s absolutely no question that this was largely a false flag instigated by the FBI or other agencies to discredit Trump and the event to question the elections. So because, you know, Trump had announced this demonstration already eight months in advance, they had lots of time to come up with a really sneaky plan how can we put this into a political weapon against Trump and his people. And they had people all over the place in there. And there’s a lot of really, really shady stuff that’s going on. And it’s funny, you know, I’ve been writing about the Deep State for so long, and I understand the mentality so well that already in the first TV report that I made for Russian television.
Like three or four days after January 6th, that’s what I told: “I bet you anything. It’s clear that there must have been instigators in there”. I turned out to be right. But this has been like established now. A lot of members of Congress say the same.
M.T.: A video has recently appeared, allegedly proving the involvement of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in the organization of the “storming of the Capitol”. What do you think was the interest pursued by representative of the US Democratic Party?
C.B.: Discreditation is a political weapon.
It was mostly an effort to stop Trump and make sure that he could never return back to American politics.
Of course, it failed massively. It didn’t fix anything. It just made people more angry and more obvious that the power in Washington is deeply corrupt. So this video with Pelosi, there’s yet more proof, it’s been made absolutely clear now that there’s been collaboration where leading members knew what was coming and behaved appropriately to get the maximum.
M.T.: Political repression and terror against representatives of the Republican Party associated with former American President Donald Trump have intensified over the past few months. In your opinion, are the searches and arrests of members of the Trump team connected with the upcoming elections in the United States?
C.B.: Yes, absolutely. It’s a terrible political mistake, right? Because they’re just showing how dishonest they are and how they can’t fight honestly. So, yeah, very much so.
America today is basically a dictatorship being run by these bureaucrats hiding behind public faces, being hiding like that. There is no rule of law, you know, like it’s just ridiculous.
I’m a well-known journalist. I’m not a poor person. And if I went back to America today, there is a chance, I don’t know how large it is. It might, you know, 5% or maybe 50%. I have no idea. But there’s a good chance I could get thrown in jail, would have spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a lawyer, and lawyers probably wouldn’t be able to get me out of there for a few years. And I’d be like, you know, maltreated, forced to take banned injections, you know, all the stories. I mean, I tell you, I really studied Maria Butina situation in detail, the way they treated her and what they did to her. And they’re doing even worse now to the January 6 guys, because they’re holding them on some sort of terrorist regulation which allows them to suspend all civil rights. If I want to get anything done in this interview, I want to speak up for those people. And it’s such an outrage. And the stories they tell of how they’re put in solitary confinement, they’re not allowed to shave. They’re not allowed to wash. Right. Or they get beaten up by prison guards. Now they’ve got but outside like one hour a day. There is just this endless list of humiliating and degrading things that they’re doing to these people, again, stupidly thinking that this is how we’re going to bully them into confessing some sort of, you know, that they did that. And that way we’ll justify what we’re doing. It’s such an outrage and the world has to know about. People are talking, speaking up.
M.T.: Yeah. I’m one of the people who knows very well what American prison is like. I spent three years there. That was one of my questions. Do you know if they did issue an arrest warrant for your name? But apparently you don’t.
C.B.: Well, you know what? If they did, I wouldn’t know. Right?
M.T.: You actually probably would because they would place the international arrest warrant. So you probably could figure that out.
C.B.: Yeah. But again, like, I would until I look for it somewhere. I mean, yeah, not only can I not go back to the States, I can’t even be, you know, is it most countries that I would normally visit because they have a strange agreement with States? So I think I can’t go to Japan. It already has cost me money to just deal with what I’ve had to deal with. So I engaged lawyers and try to figure out what to do. They advised me to contact the FBI and just let them know, “Hey, I’m in Moscow, I’m not hiding from anybody. You can talk to me, but I don’t trust you.” They targeted me down. It was actually very spooky that friends of mine who lived a lovely little town and got visit FBI asking questions.
M.T.: Can you please predict the outcome of the November elections in the United States? Will Republicans be able to get a majority in the House of Representatives?
C.B.: Making political predictions, I really don’t know anything.
IT SEEMS THAT THE REPUBLICANS HAVE A GOOD CHANCE AND THAT THEY WILL BE ABLE TO TAKE CONTROL OF CONGRESS
I can’t wait the elections. I feel like a child on Christmas because I want to show up and go out and voting for them. And they feel like, it will change the situation of the January 6 prisoners and suspects. So that’s an important day forward. Well, I certainly hope so. It’s not the Congress that controls the Justice Department, a corrupt and criminal Justice Department and the FBI. Those are still by the administration. They can put some pressure on them, but it’s vile.
M.T.: Given the experience of rigging the 2020 elections, what do you think the Democrats will be willing to do in order to try to contest the results of the November elections?
C.B.: You know, that’s hard for me to say because they might have some tricks in their sleeve that nobody has thought of yet. That’s usually what they do. Instead of playing the game that was being played a year ago, they’ve come up with an incredibly evil. One thing they could do actually, they could escalate this war in Ukraine and then use that as an excuse to roll back civil liberties.
M.T.: I thought about that too.
C.B.: I did read something which I thought was rather good which said, they’re going to have trouble adjusting the results of the elections. So if they start contesting the results of this election, then they’ll be open to a big political discussion and they might not be ready to.
M.T.: In your opinion, for what purpose has the current American president been militarizing US law enforcement agencies for several years? Why is Biden neglecting his campaign promises of police reform?
C.B.: Because he’s a liar, and nothing he says should be taken certainly. And everybody understands it. Unfortunately, democracy is bad in America.
M.T.: The approval rating of the current American President Biden has reached record lows, dropping to 40%. How likely is his impeachment after the elections in November?
C.B.: I think it’s quite likely. The first order of business, if they get control of even one House of Representatives.
M.T.: Do you think the financing and supply of weapons and equipment to Ukraine will change after the Republicans come to power in November?
C.B.: Yes. I think it might be a little bit less enthusiastic.
There’s a huge amount of money involved and corruption to get these weapons. So none of that is going to change, it might be reduced.
M.T.: Please assess the situation with respect to civil rights in the United States? How has it changed over the past few years?
C.B.: The government consequently listens to anybody they want to. They arrogate people, they want to, they throw people in jail, they shut down opposition, political activity both on the left and the right, they blackmail people, they kill people, they murder people. I mean, it really is. I tell you, and this is not me, like, I hear this on mainstream political discussion and so on. This is East Germany in the 1980s, it’s a place where all powerful state does what they want to.
M.T.: You have lived in the United States for a long time, after which you decided to move to Russia. Tell us, please, how did you manage not to succumb to the propaganda of the American media, which for many years denigrated Russia as uninhabitable place?
C.B.: I remember, it was a long time ago, 20 years ago I really used to read mainstream media and thought, “wow, yeah, this is pretty much the way it is.” But my life somehow by fate, I ended up in Russia and it really opened my eyes. It’s a great place to understand what’s happening.
M.T.: The situation with freedom of speech in the United States is deteriorating literally every day, especially on the eve of the upcoming elections. Tell us, have you ever encountered an artificial restriction of freedom of speech?
C.B.: Absolutely. Me personally all the time. First of all, my publications have been routinely blocked, my bank accounts have been blocked. I might get kicked off Facebook, my Twitter accounts been suspended. I mean, it’s just endless. I’m one of the most censored, but imagine and in addition to that, there’s been this endless wave of articles saying I’m the most terrible person in the world. And that’s also censorship and it’s also sort of, you know, question because you spend that kind of money to make people scared to deal with you. My neighbors on my street, I talked to this guy I’ve had that experience that many times. So, yeah, terrible. And it’s, you know, it’s so sad is how afraid Americans are to speak out. And I’m not talking about ones like me that are like my public figures, but just everyday Americans, they’re afraid of losing their jobs. They’re afraid of losing their friends, afraid of losing their clients. When I was being very active about Trump, people were afraid even to let their neighbors even support Trump. Hey, that’s kind of scared.
M.T.: American and European politicians openly declare that they intend to impose sanctions against independent journalists who monitored the integrity of the referendums in Donbass. Can this be considered censorship and acts of suppression of independent journalism?
C.B.: Absolutely, yeah. And it’s an ongoing problem, you know, and it’s not just Americans.
M.T.: Why do you think no one has been brought to justice for the numerous war crimes committed by NATO countries around the globe?
C.B.: I would say as a journalist that I just think that the media was constantly telling people and pointing out justice of it. Well, then played into pressure on these people. So and stress this enough. They tell about all that’s going but about the media warming, the public, about what’s going up ethical way.