# Transcript: Shut It Down  ## Metadata - Author:: [[About]] - Full Title:: Transcript: Shut It Down - Category: #articles - URL: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra/transcript-shut-it-down-n1300316 ## Highlights > The source told Dillard Stokes that a man who lived in an apartment a few blocks away from the White House had just been served a federal grand jury subpoena. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433572)) > The guy had been served the subpoena on a Thursday night, but it said he had to appear before the grand jury the very next day, on Friday. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433574)) > two men dragging heavy bags out onto the street. The bags had been inside an apartment that was the address on the subpoena ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433577)) > into a truck ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433578)) > Cab driver, follow that vehicle!” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433584)) > He didn't necessarily know what this federal grand jury subpoena was all about, or why it was so urgent. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433587)) > truck carrying the bags out of that apartment had started to make its stops in downtown D.C – when it made its first stop at the U.S. Capitol ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433589)) > unloaded about half of those big bags into part of the capitol complex that houses offices for members of the House. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433591)) > someone from the America First Committee started to haul those big, overstuffed, heavy bags out into the alley behind the building. They started emptying out the bags, taking whatever it was that was inside them and putting that stuff into big metal trash cans in the alley. And then they set it all on fire. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433595)) > They really were trucking off the evidence into a dark alley and setting it on fire. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433598)) > Representative Hamilton Fish: I have no patience with those Americans who tremble every time Hitler sneezes or get jittery every time he opens his mouth. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433599)) > A federal grand jury here returned an indictment today against George Hill, who is secretary to Representative Hamilton Fish of New York. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433602)) > The congressman in question, the congressman whose office was apparently running this coverup, he is a congressman with a name you will not soon forget. His name was Hamilton Fish ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433614)) > n addition to his fire-and-brimstone hatred for FDR, Hamilton Fish was part of the America First movement. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433616)) > In 1933, just after Hitler became chancellor in Germany, Congressman Hamilton Fish had contributed to a book about how Hitler and the Nazis had had saved Germany from Communism. How Hitler and the Nazis had done the world a big favor. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433620)) > Fish rented one of his apartments in New York City to a Nazi government official, a nice place on East 77th Street. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433621)) > In 1938, Congressman Fish headlined a big pro-Germany rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. They played the Nazi anthem, there were swastika flags, the crowd did the Hitler salute, and Republican Congressman Ham Fish was the honored guest and main speaker. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433622)) > The year after that, in 1939, Congressman Fish flew to Germany. He met with senior officials from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The Nazi foreign minister, von Ribbentrop, loaned Congressman Fish his official government plane, in which the congressman then flew around to different countries in Europe, basically urging them to accommodate Hitler and Germany, and not fight them. When Congressman Fish was on that trip in 1939, he spoke with reporters from Berlin. He told them, quote, "Germany's cause is just." ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433627)) > Nazi leaders on trial for war crimes after the war would later explain that Congressman Fish had given them great advice on that trip he took to Germany. Great advice for what sort of strategy the Nazis should take toward the United States. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433631)) > On the Senate side of the U.S. capitol, the Nazi agent Viereck had set up shop in the offices of Senator Ernest Lundeen. On the House side of the Capitol, he set up shop with Congressman Hamilton Fish. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433634)) > Hamilton Fish's office becomes the center around which Viereck builds actually the more insidious part of his operation, where he asks Hamilton Fish's staff to help him mail out millions of speeches of this sort of laundered Nazi propaganda material. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433639)) > But with these serving members of Congress, like Ernest Lundeen and Hamilton Fish, Viereck had figured out a way to effectively super-charge that effort. Because members of Congress had this one great perk: They had the right to mail out anything they wanted, in any quantity, at government expense. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433642)) > George Hill is quite the man about D.C. in this period. He has multiple girlfriends. He's a, a big spender and, and routinely spends beyond what his congressional salary can provide for him. One way that Viereck sort of gets to him, apparently, is by offering him some sort of kickback or financial incentive to grab, for instance, hundreds of thousands of franked envelopes, or to facilitate these copies of speeches from the Congressional Record. So, George Hill is profiting personally from this. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433651)) > front page of the Washington Post. "Fish's Office Helped Remove Data Wanted in Nazi-Agent Inquiry." ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433657)) > When Hamilton Fish’s name started turning up in headlines like that – his congressional office facilitating the removal of evidence being sought by a federal grand jury investigating an alleged Nazi plot in Congress – when that went public, Congressman Fish went ballistic. > He told the Associated Press the reporting was “fake,” and a “complete frame-up.” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433660)) > But George Hill was ultimately put on trial for corrupt perjury. Prosecutor William Maloney made his case to the jury. And George Hill was quickly convicted on all counts. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433669)) > But after his conviction, things suddenly and unexpectedly got worse for the members of Congress who had been wrapped up in this conspiracy. Because after he was convicted, George Hill had an attack of conscience. He told prosecutors he was ready to tell the truth. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433670)) > Maloney also indicted George Sylvester Viereck himself, the top Nazi propaganda agent in the United States, the mastermind behind this audacious plan to run a industrial-scale Nazi propaganda scheme through the U.S. Congress. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433675)) > Viereck was convicted on all counts, just like George Hill was. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433679)) > Among the uncomfortable public revelations from the Laura Ingalls trial was that her handler, who was the head of the Gestapo in this country, he told Laura Ingalls specifically that her being a speaker for the America First Committee would be, quote, “the best thing you can do for our cause.” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433684)) > All at once, William Power Maloney indicted nearly 30 people and charged them all with sedition, with scheming to subvert democracy and overthrow the government of the United States. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433690)) > Maloney’s federal grand jury indicted: ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433695)) > William Dudley Pelley, the head of the Silver Shirts ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433697)) > William Maloney’s prosecutors visited Leon Lewis and his agents out in Los Angeles, and they just hoovered-up the information that Lewis had been collecting all those years. > Ross: People from the FBI, Army intelligence, Military intelligence, immigration, Treasury Department, every major government department coming into their offices in L.A. because very few of them had ever accumulated any information. And so, they were providing not just witnesses, but they were providing all of the paperwork and spy reports dating back to August 1933, when Lewis first began the spy operation. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433703)) > Burton K. Wheeler, ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433826)) > Wheeler had been involved in the propaganda scheme on Capitol Hill. He was also a leading light, one of the most prominent figures in the America First movement. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433828)) > There is a famous photo of Senator Burton Wheeler at an America First event in May 1941. He’s standing next to Charles Lindbergh and other America First worthies who are all giving these enthusiastic Hitler salutes. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433829)) > Senator Wheeler’s congressional frank had been used by George Viereck to distribute Nazi propaganda across the country. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433832)) > In the middle of his investigation, William Maloney was removed as prosecutor because of pressure from members of Congress who themselves were implicated in his investigation. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433839)) > The federal grand jury has indicted again 28 men and women on charges that they have conspired to establish a Nazi government in the United States. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433844)) # Transcript: Shut It Down  ## Metadata - Author:: [[About]] - Full Title:: Transcript: Shut It Down - Category: #articles - URL: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra/transcript-shut-it-down-n1300316 ## Highlights > The source told Dillard Stokes that a man who lived in an apartment a few blocks away from the White House had just been served a federal grand jury subpoena. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433572)) > The guy had been served the subpoena on a Thursday night, but it said he had to appear before the grand jury the very next day, on Friday. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433574)) > two men dragging heavy bags out onto the street. The bags had been inside an apartment that was the address on the subpoena ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433577)) > into a truck ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433578)) > Cab driver, follow that vehicle!” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433584)) > He didn't necessarily know what this federal grand jury subpoena was all about, or why it was so urgent. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433587)) > truck carrying the bags out of that apartment had started to make its stops in downtown D.C – when it made its first stop at the U.S. Capitol ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433589)) > unloaded about half of those big bags into part of the capitol complex that houses offices for members of the House. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433591)) > someone from the America First Committee started to haul those big, overstuffed, heavy bags out into the alley behind the building. They started emptying out the bags, taking whatever it was that was inside them and putting that stuff into big metal trash cans in the alley. And then they set it all on fire. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433595)) > They really were trucking off the evidence into a dark alley and setting it on fire. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433598)) > Representative Hamilton Fish: I have no patience with those Americans who tremble every time Hitler sneezes or get jittery every time he opens his mouth. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433599)) > A federal grand jury here returned an indictment today against George Hill, who is secretary to Representative Hamilton Fish of New York. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433602)) > The congressman in question, the congressman whose office was apparently running this coverup, he is a congressman with a name you will not soon forget. His name was Hamilton Fish ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433614)) > n addition to his fire-and-brimstone hatred for FDR, Hamilton Fish was part of the America First movement. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433616)) > In 1933, just after Hitler became chancellor in Germany, Congressman Hamilton Fish had contributed to a book about how Hitler and the Nazis had had saved Germany from Communism. How Hitler and the Nazis had done the world a big favor. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433620)) > Fish rented one of his apartments in New York City to a Nazi government official, a nice place on East 77th Street. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433621)) > In 1938, Congressman Fish headlined a big pro-Germany rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. They played the Nazi anthem, there were swastika flags, the crowd did the Hitler salute, and Republican Congressman Ham Fish was the honored guest and main speaker. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433622)) > The year after that, in 1939, Congressman Fish flew to Germany. He met with senior officials from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The Nazi foreign minister, von Ribbentrop, loaned Congressman Fish his official government plane, in which the congressman then flew around to different countries in Europe, basically urging them to accommodate Hitler and Germany, and not fight them. When Congressman Fish was on that trip in 1939, he spoke with reporters from Berlin. He told them, quote, "Germany's cause is just." ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433627)) > Nazi leaders on trial for war crimes after the war would later explain that Congressman Fish had given them great advice on that trip he took to Germany. Great advice for what sort of strategy the Nazis should take toward the United States. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433631)) > On the Senate side of the U.S. capitol, the Nazi agent Viereck had set up shop in the offices of Senator Ernest Lundeen. On the House side of the Capitol, he set up shop with Congressman Hamilton Fish. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433634)) > Hamilton Fish's office becomes the center around which Viereck builds actually the more insidious part of his operation, where he asks Hamilton Fish's staff to help him mail out millions of speeches of this sort of laundered Nazi propaganda material. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433639)) > But with these serving members of Congress, like Ernest Lundeen and Hamilton Fish, Viereck had figured out a way to effectively super-charge that effort. Because members of Congress had this one great perk: They had the right to mail out anything they wanted, in any quantity, at government expense. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433642)) > George Hill is quite the man about D.C. in this period. He has multiple girlfriends. He's a, a big spender and, and routinely spends beyond what his congressional salary can provide for him. One way that Viereck sort of gets to him, apparently, is by offering him some sort of kickback or financial incentive to grab, for instance, hundreds of thousands of franked envelopes, or to facilitate these copies of speeches from the Congressional Record. So, George Hill is profiting personally from this. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433651)) > front page of the Washington Post. "Fish's Office Helped Remove Data Wanted in Nazi-Agent Inquiry." ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433657)) > When Hamilton Fish’s name started turning up in headlines like that – his congressional office facilitating the removal of evidence being sought by a federal grand jury investigating an alleged Nazi plot in Congress – when that went public, Congressman Fish went ballistic. > He told the Associated Press the reporting was “fake,” and a “complete frame-up.” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433660)) > But George Hill was ultimately put on trial for corrupt perjury. Prosecutor William Maloney made his case to the jury. And George Hill was quickly convicted on all counts. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433669)) > But after his conviction, things suddenly and unexpectedly got worse for the members of Congress who had been wrapped up in this conspiracy. Because after he was convicted, George Hill had an attack of conscience. He told prosecutors he was ready to tell the truth. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433670)) > Maloney also indicted George Sylvester Viereck himself, the top Nazi propaganda agent in the United States, the mastermind behind this audacious plan to run a industrial-scale Nazi propaganda scheme through the U.S. Congress. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433675)) > Viereck was convicted on all counts, just like George Hill was. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433679)) > Among the uncomfortable public revelations from the Laura Ingalls trial was that her handler, who was the head of the Gestapo in this country, he told Laura Ingalls specifically that her being a speaker for the America First Committee would be, quote, “the best thing you can do for our cause.” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433684)) > All at once, William Power Maloney indicted nearly 30 people and charged them all with sedition, with scheming to subvert democracy and overthrow the government of the United States. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433690)) > Maloney’s federal grand jury indicted: ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433695)) > William Dudley Pelley, the head of the Silver Shirts ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433697)) > William Maloney’s prosecutors visited Leon Lewis and his agents out in Los Angeles, and they just hoovered-up the information that Lewis had been collecting all those years. > Ross: People from the FBI, Army intelligence, Military intelligence, immigration, Treasury Department, every major government department coming into their offices in L.A. because very few of them had ever accumulated any information. And so, they were providing not just witnesses, but they were providing all of the paperwork and spy reports dating back to August 1933, when Lewis first began the spy operation. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433703)) > Burton K. Wheeler, ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433826)) > Wheeler had been involved in the propaganda scheme on Capitol Hill. He was also a leading light, one of the most prominent figures in the America First movement. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433828)) > There is a famous photo of Senator Burton Wheeler at an America First event in May 1941. He’s standing next to Charles Lindbergh and other America First worthies who are all giving these enthusiastic Hitler salutes. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433829)) > Senator Wheeler’s congressional frank had been used by George Viereck to distribute Nazi propaganda across the country. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433832)) > In the middle of his investigation, William Maloney was removed as prosecutor because of pressure from members of Congress who themselves were implicated in his investigation. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433839)) > The federal grand jury has indicted again 28 men and women on charges that they have conspired to establish a Nazi government in the United States. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558262479/21433844))