How the Justice System Failed Stormy + A Conversation with Neo Nazi Hunter Kris Goldsmith

Stormy discusses the hypocrisy of the American Justice system and how she can be the star witness for the prosecution of Donald J. Trump in NY DA Alvin Bragg’s “Hush Money Case,” but her own lawsuit against the former president can be thrown out of court. “They made a moral judgment,” she says. “Because I’m a porn star I don’t deserve the same protection under the law.” But Stormy refuses to give up. “I’m a pain in the ass,” she says. Later, Stormy welcomes Kris Goldsmith to the show. The founder of Task Force Butler, Goldsmith is an Iraq veteran who has dedicated his life to hunting NEO NAZIS and helping veterans escape the grasp of right-wing extremism. Its end result, for Goldsmith, of a hard-lived life. Entering the Army as a teenager, he’d quickly risen to the rank of sergeant. But the horrors of the Iraq War left him with crippling, undiagnosed PTSD. A suicide attempt on the eve of being re-deployed in 2007 got Goldsmith booted from the service with a less-than-honorable discharge. Stripped of his rank, community, and G.I. Bill benefits, Goldsmith entered a dark spiral, which included sinking down rabbit holes of online extremism. With his one remaining lifeline — healthcare through the V.A. — Goldsmith clawed his way back to the surface. He became a veterans advocate, earned a degree from Columbia, and (four appeals later) finally got an upgrade to an honorable discharge. Along the way, helped secure congressional reforms in 2017 that enabled thousands of other vets to get medical help and challenge their own “bad paper.” During the Trump years, Goldsmith worked as chief investigator for Vietnam Veterans of America where he exposed a sophisticated Russian op that targeted U.S. veterans on Facebook to sow racial and political division. For Goldsmith, that open-source intelligence expertise soon gave him a leg up in exposing domestic threats, including fascist groups targeting American youth like Patriot Front. In the aftermath of the insurrection of Jan. 6, Goldsmith saw a need to give patriotic veterans a positive mission — uncovering extremists and insurrectionists in our midst. Task Force Butler’s work centers on exposing the inner workings and public wrongdoing of neo-nazi groups through deep-dive intelligence reports that can give prosecutors the evidence they need to go after the hatemongers in court.  The work takes a toll. Goldsmith has been sued, and doxxed by white supremacists. But he refuses to give up.