Texas governor seeks to pardon man found guilty of murdering Black Lives Matter protester

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• Amna Nawaz:

  A politically charged murder conviction in Texas is testing Governor Greg Abbott's pardon power.

  A man convicted of killing an armed protester during the 2020 George Floyd protests requested a retrial today, but, in the meantime, a state board is looking into whether to recommend a pardon, at the request of the governor.

  Laura Barrón-López walks us through the case, and the political implications.

• Man:

  We, the jury, find the defendant, Daniel Perry, guilty.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  A man convicted of murder in Texas may now be pardoned before he's even sentenced.

  On Friday, a jury found Army Sergeant Daniel Perry guilty of shooting and killing 28-year-old Garrett Foster in July 2020. But Republican Governor Greg Abbott condemned the verdict, and said he'd work as swiftly as Texas law allows towards a pardon, adding that: "Texas has one of the strongest stand your ground laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury."

  Foster was marching in a Black Lives Matter demonstration, when Perry ran a red light and turned drove into the crowd in downtown Austin. Both men were armed. Protesters surrounded Perry's car, and he fired five shots, killing Foster. Perry's attorneys argued he shot in self-defense after Foster pointed his gun first, a claim eyewitnesses disputed in court.

  In the weeks leading up to the violence, Perry had expressed opposition to the nationwide protests. He texted a friend — quote — "I might have to kill a few people on my way to work. They are rioting outside my apartment complex."

• Tucker Carlson, FOX News Anchor:

  This is a legal atrocity. It's so obviously unjust.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Immediately after the conviction, FOX host Tucker Carlson has championed Perry's case on his prime-time program and pressured Abbott to intervene.

• Tucker Carlson:

  We wanted to ask if he was considering a pardon for Daniel Perry. But, for some reason, Governor Abbott's office told us he just can't make it.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Hours later, the governor announced his request for an expedited review and pardon recommendation by the state pardon and parole board.

  Today, the county's district attorney asked to present evidence to the Texas Board of Pardons as it considers Abbott's request. Extremism experts warn that Abbott's push to pardon Daniel Perry is part of a larger pattern within the GOP to normalize violence.

  Joining to discuss is Jeff Sharlet, author of "The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War." He covers the growth of right-wing extremism.

  Jeff, thanks for joining us.

  You have covered Republicans and the right for a very long time. What is your reaction to Abbott saying that he supports a pardon for Daniel Perry?

  Jeff Sharlet, Author, "The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War": I think what we're seeing here — and I see Abbott's actions on continuing with the actions of the Tennessee state legislators, some of the actions taken by Ron DeSantis.

  We're seeing a kind of institutionalization of the far right violence that some thought came to a peak on January 6. Instead, it's being pursued by law. And it's now entering into a period in this right-wing movement where it's almost sort of like a mythological age of martyrs, a creation of martyrs, Ashli Babbitt most famously I suppose.

  But now the martyr doesn't even need to have been killed. They simply need to have been persecuted, like the January 6 prisoners or Kyle Rittenhouse or now Daniel Perry.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  And I want to get to Rittenhouse and Babbitt.

  But, first, Daniel Perry was very active online. He responded to a tweet that same summer from then-President Donald Trump in 2020 that made thinly veiled threats of violence toward protesters. Perry responded saying — quote — "Send them to Texas."

  That's just one example of Trump and his supporters normalizing violence, using violent rhetoric. We saw that a lot with January 6.

  What is the impact of Trump condoning violence like that?

• Jeff Sharlet:

  I would say it's more than condoning violence, and it's more than normalizing violence.

  I think what we have seen emerge in the United States is a political formation for which we can use legitimately, with historical reference, the F-word, fascism, which is to say, it's a kind of celebration of violence. It's more than condoning, but that one finds one true self in violence. An, That we see how many there was, I think 72, 73 car ramming attacks on protests in that summer of 2020.

  We see that in Daniel Perry's almost sort of boasting and what I'm going to do and I'm going to make this attack, in the same way that Trump has for so long spoken of violence not as a — not as something he regrets, but sees as necessary — that would be bad enough — but as something that is almost joyful and perversely pleasurable.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  And, last night, Tucker Carlson on FOX had Kyle Rittenhouse on his program to defend Perry. Rittenhouse fatally shot two protesters during George Floyd protests in Wisconsin in 2020.

  But he was acquitted. It's a difference with Perry. Rittenhouse, though, has become a folk hero on the right. Do you think that Republicans and base voters are going to do the same for Daniel Perry?

• Jeff Sharlet:

  I think it's already happened. We have seen Daniel Perry celebrated not just on "Tucker Carlson" and by Kyle Rittenhouse, but by Alex Jones and other leading right-wing figures.

  We have seen leading QAnon figures embracing Daniel Perry and almost sort of inserting him in, again, to this sort of — this martyr myth, this almost religious feeling of the figures who they imagine as sort of like Old West heroes, standing their ground, even though — and we don't — I mean, he's already been found guilty, so we don't have to revisit that.

  But the fact is, Perry himself said right to the police right after the event: I wanted to stop him before he aimed.

  This wasn't — this wasn't an Old West quick draw. He shot him. There was no aiming. And that, too, I think, is part of the violence that's being celebrated now, to kill a Black Lives Matter protester, a white man who — but, as a Black Lives Matter protester, I think, in a way is read on the right as part of this threat that they perceive of Blackness.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  And you have traveled the country, Jeff, talking to Republican voters.

  Why do you think that they are martyrizing, as you said, people like Kyle Rittenhouse, like Ashli Babbitt, the insurrectionist who stormed the Capitol and was killed by a police officer there, and potentially Perry?

• Jeff Sharlet:

  It's — it is a stage — it's a stage in what — Trumpism, which has sort of gravitated from a kind of a prosperity gospel, winning and getting rich to a kind of conspiracy religion, and now to, you need victims, not just the broad victimization of white grievance, but you need specific characters, stories that become central icons around which you can organize and imagine in whose stories — into whose stories followers of the movement can project themselves.

  They can imagine, what would I do if I was in that situation, just as Daniel Perry was, in a sense, picking up on the actions of those before them. And, meanwhile, these — because — I really think we want to connect him to the January 6, those who are still in prison. We saw, in Waco, that recent Trump rally, where it opened not with the national anthem, but with the January 6 choir.

  So, we're replacing political figures with martyr figures. We're replacing traditional rituals with new rituals designed for this new movement. We're replacing the rule of law with this kind of radical states rights.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Jeff Sharlet, we got to leave it there. But thank you so much for your time.

• Jeff Sharlet:

  Thank you, Laura.

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