SLAPP’d Episode 6 | The SLAPP Heard ‘Round the World

Alleen: By the final day of testimony in the Energy Transfer vs. Greenpeace trial, it's March 13 and an early spring has melted the snow. Kelcy Warren is called as a witness. He's Energy Transfer's board chair and largest shareholder — and he was CEO when the Dakota Access Pipeline was being built.

Energy Transfer has spent a whole a lot of time trying to keep Kelcy Warren's testimony out of the courtroom. Their lawyers tried to claim that Kelcy didn't have any useful information about his own company's famously controversial pipeline.

In interviews Kelcy's made it clear he has strong feelings about the Standing Rock movement. Here he is on CNBC right after the original Greenpeace lawsuit was filed in 2017.

Kelcy Warren: What happened to us was tragic. I mean, uh, that lies were being told, tens of millions of dollars were being raised by Greenpeace and others based on these lies

Alleen: Kelcy's a pretty sensitive guy.

In addition to his island in Honduras and his collection of exotic animals, he also owns a record label and writes his own tender songs on the guitar. Jackson Browne is his idol

Kelcy has a reputation for using the legal system to lash out when he feels his company is unfairly being attacked. Which is exactly what he thought was happening with the Standing Rock movement. It couldn't have helped that his hero Jackson Browne publicly denounced Kelcy's company's pipeline. Jackson even gave a benefit concert in honor of the water protectors.

Kelcy Warren: We've got to do something. It's, it's, it's, everybody's afraid of these environmental groups and the fear that it may look wrong if you, if you fight back with these people.

But what they did to us is wrong and they're going to pay for it.

Alleen: At the Morton County Courthouse, Kelcy's face appears on the flatscreen tvs around the courtroom. It's a pre-recorded video deposition. He has a shock of white hair and his eyebrows are furrowed, like he's concerned.

The lawyer goes over how Donald Trump's executive order in 2017 told the Army Corps to approve the Dakota Access Pipeline's easement. And about midway through his testimony Kelcy drops his first surprise.

That executive order that allowed Energy Transfer to start drilling: Energy Transfer actually drafted it.

Energy Transfer's lawyers turn back to the question at the heart of the case.

“Do you have any personal knowledge about anything Greenpeace did at all in relation to the protests?” a lawyer asks from off-camera.

“No,” Kelcy replies.

But then the lawyer asks about a different nonprofit called EarthJustice. It's the public interest law organization that represented the Standing Rock tribe in the early days of its legal fight to stop the pipeline. At the name EarthJustice, Kelcy perks up... and I can start to see why Energy Transfer might not have wanted him to testify.

“They're scumbags,” Kelcy says of Earthjustice. To be clear, Earthjustice is not Greenpeace. It's NOT the organization this suit is against.

“Why do you say that, sir?” the lawyer replies.

By way of explanation, Kelcy begins to describe a meeting he had in December 2016, with the Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault [Ar SHAM bow].

“I went there with the intention of working out a financial transaction with the chairman,” he says .

Kelcy starts talking about how he tried to make a deal with the Standing Rock Sioux chairman to end the protests— as if the tribe, not Greenpeace, was the one leading the protests.

Kelcy goes on: “I said, ‘David, I'm here to make a deal with you. Do you want cash? What do you want?’ I said, ‘We own this land up there,’ Kelcy says he offered the chairman the ranch that the pipeline company bought, the one that held the sacred sites and the drill pad. “We could build you a whole new school on your reservation. Let's make a deal,’” he says.

“He made it very clear," Kelcy says of the chairman,"that he could not accept any offer from me that involved them backing down.”

Again  Kelcy is implying that it was the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe – not Greenpeace – that had the power to end the uprising.

And he has a surprising theory about why Chairman Dave Archambault refused. “It was clear to me that he had struck a deal with the devil,” Kelcy says.

“And devil being Earthjustice?” the lawyer replies.

“Yes.”

Kelcy Warren apparently believes that the thing that stopped Standing Rock's chairman Dave Archambault from accepting Energy Transfer’s deal must have been another, competing, deal. With EarthJustice. “I read between the lines, and I believe that they made aI deal, and Archambault couldn't make a deal with me,” he says.

I asked Dave Archambault about this. He told me he did meet to discuss safety with Kelcy Warren, but he said he was not there to negotiate ending the protests.

Back in court, the lawyer asks,“Nothing was said about Greenpeace during that meeting, was it?”

“Not that I recall,” Kelcy replies.

We're at the finale of the trial, and Energy Transfer's board chair has just given us a whole new theory of the case, which completely contradicts his company's lawsuit.

After three and half weeks of testimony, and months of my own reporting, this case is full of holes. To summarize, we've seen that Greenpeace donations and fundraising at Standing Rock only amounted to a small fraction of the millions in donations that poured into the movement from around the world.

Only six employees from Greenpeace Inc visited Standing Rock out of well over ten thousand people who showed up -- and no one from Greenpeace International or Greenpeace Fund ever went.

The whole time this was all going on, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other Indigenous nations were very publicly fighting the pipeline in court. The pipeline company had no ability to drill under the river during the protests, because they had NO permission from the US Army Corps of Engineers to do that.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace's allegedly defamatory statements -- including that police used violence against nonviolent demonstrators, that the pipeline passes through tribal land, and that Energy Transfer deliberately destroyed sacred sites -- are assertions that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and many others stand by to this day.

Now, today, on the last day of testimony, Energy Transfer's own board chair has a whole other story of the movement.

But will this even matter to the jurors?

This season of Drilled we bring you SLAPP’d. The story of an Indigenous nation fighting for its water, an environmental nonprofit facing extinction, and an energy giant using the courts to punish protestors. I'm Alleen Brown.

The Monday after Kelcy Warren's testimony, Energy Transfer's lawyer Trey Cox steps in front of the jury for his closing statement.

Trey tells the jurors that Greenpeace employees are "master manipulators" and "deceptive to the core." The volume on the courtroom drama has been turned way up.

"Think about the Mafia," he suggests. "I got to see a guy about a thing -- did you get the package? Sleeps with the fishes. These are the type of words that people in conspiracies use as code words to communicate other things."

He says that Greenpeace relies on similar code words to trick people. Like

Campfire. Nonviolent. Art tent. Solidarity--.

"Now, solidarity and indigenous leadership, these are some of the most deceptive words that they use. And when they stand up here and they try to use those words, I want you to call them out as code words."

Trey starts to get into the damages -- what Energy Transfer wants Greenpeace to pay them. And he reveals that Energy Transfer isn't JUST looking for the over $266 million the company claims they spent on countering the protests. They want triple that total, including massive "exemplary damages" -- extra money meant to make an example out of Greenpeace.

He tells the jury that ruling in Energy Transfer's favor is about more than just this case.

"It needs to be done for Morton County. It needs to be done for Morton County's law enforcement. And more importantly, [00:09:00] it needs to be done for the next community where Greenpeace exploits an opportunity to push its agenda at any cost. And I don't know whether that's going to be in Louisiana or Texas or Oklahoma or Ohio, but you have the responsibility of protecting those others."

The Greenpeace organizations present their closing statements -- a detailed outline of all the inconsistencies and holes in Energy Transfer's lawsuit. And Judge Gion sends the jury to begin their deliberations.

And now, all there is to do, is wait. A decision could come in a few hours or even a few weeks.

Even at this point, I was not really sure what was going to happen. But I figured the best way to get a sense of how this might go was to talk to some people who are from here.  After all, this case was in the hands of Morton County community members.

As I was driving into Mandan awhile back, I had noticed a digital sign advertising community events. "Testicle Festival,"  at the Moose Lodge, it flashed in neon red. I knew what I had to do.

Dale: These are, uh, uh, Rocky Mountain oysters. Mm-hmm. Do I need to tell herJim, what they're actually made out of? Yeah. Do. Mm-hmm. Well, I already know, but tell me anyway.

Okay. Well, they, they're, they're, uh, uh, mature bulls. Mm-hmm. You know, herford, Angus, whatever you want to call it. And they're big nuts.

Alleen: he just made the, uh, shape like bigger than his head.

Dale: Well, not quite that big, but anyways, then they slice 'em all right in a little, alright, I need some sauce.

Alleen: That's a lot of information,

Dale: you know, it's just beef.

Alleen: Mandan's Moose Lodge is packed. The space is half dive bar, half events hall. And tonight, there's a line of people waiting to order bison burgers and Rocky Mountain oysters. A bunch of tables and chairs are set up for people to eat.

Dale, who doesn't want to use his last name, is a retired rancher. Alongside oil and gas, cattle ranching is one of Morton County's biggest industries. And the testicle festival takes place every year during calving season. After the bull calves are castrated, their balls are breaded and deep fried. These ones come from adult bulls, so they're not traditional.

Alleen: I mean, it's not terrible. It tastes like, um, like a fried thing, you know?

Alleen: I want to know what people here thought about the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. So I'm working my way around the room. I start chatting with Helena Riehl and Betty Thompson. Both of them grew up on farms.

Alleen:  I got my first bite of a rocky Mountain oyster.

Helena: Lucky you. And you're from where?

Alleen: Uh, I'm from the Twin Cities originally. I grew up in St. Paul and now I'm, I'm based in Brooklyn, .

Alleen: I ask her about Mandan, North Dakota.

Helena: Mandan’s good. Mandans a small community that, um, sticks up for it's fellow man. I mean, that's what we do, right?

Alleen: what was it like when those protests were going on for this community?

Helena: We didn't like it. No.

Betty: Plain and simple. We didn't like it.

Alleen: That's Betty.

Betty: All the protesting and then, then they closed the roads. You couldn't go anywhere. Then they come to Manan, they're marching down Main Street with dead pigs. Really? Who does that?

Alleen : I'm wondering what Betty and Helena think about Greenpeace's argument that people from here are too biased to be neutral jurors.

Alleen: Part of the reason I want to talk to people in Mandan is because one of the things they're trying to argue is that the trial should not be held here because there, it's, it would be impossible to find someone who's totally unbiased on the subject I agree with.

Helena: Yeah. I would. I agree.

Alleen: You agree.

Alleen: Helena says there's another guy I should talk to. She introduces me to a rancher named Jim, who also doesn't want to use his last name. His family has a ranch, not far from where the anti-pipeline camps were located. And he says he and his neighbors felt unsafe.

Jim: I was repeatedly, I. Threatened, chased up and down the highway. They'd follow me from our ranch, 30 miles south all the way to town, follow me around town until I would stop to confront 'em.

Then they'd take off. They would, I was spied on, threatened in the middle of the night, they'd be in our yard..and I'd catch 'em

Alleen: Jim says he's convinced that what he experienced didn't come from people from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Jim: When they say it was outsiders, stirring things up, that was our view of it, because there was never, we never had issues with anybody that we knew locally when you had issues.

And when I got, you know, you'd catch people in my yard sneaking in there, it was always people from Where are you from? Oh, I come up from Nebraska. Or I, you know, it was never local people.

Alleen: Dale is listening in. He shares who he thinks those outsiders were.

Dale: They, Greenpeace was behind it. You know, they always take that anonymous thing, you know, right across the world. Right. Jim? They take that anonymous, they always stand in the backgrounds and they, and they agitate is what they do.

Alleen: What, I mean, what did you, what makes you think that?

What did you hear about them?

Dale: Well, because they, their name came up many times during the protest. Greenpeace did. It came up right? Oh yeah. Yeah. That's why I believe they were behind it, but they were behind a lot of protests.

I ask Dale and his friend what they think of the damage claims.

Alleen: They're trying to get Greenpeace to pay for everything, and

Jim: they should to the point where they're broke.

They had no business here? No.

Alleen: The people I'm talking to are convinced that outsiders drove these protests, but it's also clear that what happened continues to impact relationships among people who are from here. For example, Dale says he doesn't go to Standing Rock's Prairie Knights Casino anymore.

That tension is still there, eight years later — especially between white and Native people, according to Dale.

Dale: It's just right under the surface right now, you know?

Alleen: Our conversation meanders. And we start talking about what Morton County is like. I ask Dale about the oil boom that began in the mid 2000s.

Dale: When the boom happened? Oh yeah.

Alleen: What was it like?

Dale: Oh man, it was crazy. I mean, they came from all over. I mean, I'd never seen hookers walking on the street before.

Alleen: In Mandan?

Dale: Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

Alleen: Wow.

Dale: It was crazy.

I couldn't believe it gives me goosebumps just talking about it right now. Yeah. It was just nuts in town. The crime way just went straight up

Alleen: here in Manden?

Dale: Yes. when the oil boom hit, it, it affected socially too. You know, all the towns from here, west Dickinson.

Alleen: Huh? How so?

Dale: Uh, well, all these folks came in, all these, I shouldn't say ose, but I mean, it brought in the riff-raff is what it did.

Alleen: Right, right.

Dale: Yeah. The hookers and the, and the dealers. Yeah. All the towns were affected, especially man, new West Dickinson, all the small towns meth labs were popping up all over the place. Yes. Yeah. Oh yeah. The drugs was just crazy. Yeah.

Alleen: Dale says law enforcement eventually got a handle on it, and things calmed down. I asked if there were good things that came out of the boom.

Dale: Oh yeah. The money. You know, the money, it's always about the money, you know? Oh, yeah. Now, ev all the cities get money, like Morton counties, I think they were impacted by the oil, so they get money out of that.

Alleen: Dale's story about the oil boom makes me think. During the Standing Rock movement, a camp of 10,000 people popped up suddenly in the middle of the prairie. It was a different kind of boom town. And it kind of makes sense that that would result in some chaos for the existing community. And at the end of this boom, the people of Morton County didn't get rewarded with the kind of money that came with the oil boom.

It's making more and more sense to me why people from here feel so negatively toward the Standing Rock movement.

But I am fully aware the testicle festival folks aren't the only ones with a perspective -- on both the oil boom and protests. So I meet up with another local, outside the courthouse.

Kandi Mossett White works for the Indigenous Environmental Network - her boss is that guy Tom Goldtooth, who was talking to Greenpeace about the settlement. She spent months at the anti-pipeline camps, and she sat in on some of the trial.

Alleen:  I'm just curious, um, how long you've lived here and, and what this place is like

Kandi Mossett: I was born and raised in North Dakota.

Alleen: Kandi is a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribe -- specifically she's Mandan, part of the Indigenous nation that this town was named after. Now she lives in Bismarck, but she grew up on the Fort Berthold reservation, northwest of here.

Kandi Mossett: That's in the heart of the Bakken and where the oil is coming from that flows through the pipeline.

Alleen: She has another view of what an oil boom can do.

Kandi Mossett: I myself am a cancer survivor. For some reason, I survived a stage four sarcoma tumor when I was like 20. and a lot of my people are my relatives.

Our people back home didn't win that battle, and there's so many cancers, everybody's sick, every single kind of cancer that you can imagine.

Alleen: Kandi blames a lot of this on the oil and gas industry.

Bismarck is home for Kandi, but she says it's not always an easy place.

Kandi Mossett: There's racism here. There's a mentality that, oh, those natives, there's those drunks and there's no, I shouldn't say there's no, but there's a lack of hi understanding of, um, boarding schools and what happened and how we had a whole lost generation of elders who were hurting very, very, very bad

Alleen: Kandi's referencing how the US government used to take Indigenous children from their families and send them to faraway schools to strip them of their culture.

Overall, this community was fertile ground for the pipeline company's divisive strategies.

Kandi Mossett: What this industry sought to do is divide and conquer even us as tribes to pit us against each other as nations and to pit definitely white people against native people.

Because when they do that, they control the narrative. When they control the narrative, they win.

Alleen: Despite all that, Kandi is holding onto hope that maybe the jury saw what she saw -- that the evidence didn't support Energy Transfer's claims.

Kandi Mossett: I've started to, I'm trying not to be pessimistic about things. I'm really trying really hard.

I want to be there for one of those times in history where the correct, accurate, and right. A decision was made and there was a win for humanity.

Alleen: On Wednesday March 19, just two days after the closing statements, there's rumors that the jury might be about to deliver a verdict. The Greenpeace people say I can hang out at their work space -- a storefront a couple blocks from the courthouse -- so [00:23:00] that I'll know right when the verdict comes in. They send me into an empty echoing room that they're not using so that I can't listen in on their legal strategy. From my solo folding table and chair I can see into the other part of the office through a window. Occasionally someone comes and visits me.

Alleen: Sorry, I keep, every time I see someone like walking quickly, I'm like, what's going on?

Waniya: Team won't move. When they move, we gotta move.

Alleen: Kandi pops in. She starts theorizing that maybe the jurors are in there fighting with each other. Maybe there's one person who's holding out. "'Hung jury?'" she says. "Putting it out there."

Both of our heads flip to our right. Through the window, there's a rush of people moving in the other room. Kandi dashes out. It's time.

Sushma Raman: So I, I think it's a verdict …

The courthouse is right there, I think. Oh, sorry.

Alleen: Hey,

Sushma Raman: it's chilly going.

Alleen: Yeah.

Chatter around the courthouse:

So apparently the jury is in, I'm gonna drive right over there.

I am rushing to the courthouse.

Okay. There might be a verdict. I'm gonna go in and find out.

See you in there. I just got verdicts coming in. Yeah, that's what it sounds like.

Oh my gosh. Seriously.

Alleen: Inside the courtroom, there's a swish of clothing as everyone rises for Judge Gion. "The court has received word that the jury has reached a verdict," he says. The jurors file in. One woman has a spark of excitement in her eyes; another looks kind of miserable.

The court clerk stands up to read their decision.

Did defendants trespass on Energy Transfer's land? Greenpeace Fund "No." Greenpeace International "No." Greenpeace Inc. "Yes."

How much do you award to Energy Transfer in compensatory damages for trespass to land?

Over the next ten or so minutes there's a blur of numbers, and all of them have "million" at the end. Each is a blow to Greenpeace. Someone in the room is quietly crying.

When it’s over, not even the lawyers have done the math to determine the exact total – but what’s clear is that Greenpeace has lost, badly.

Outside the courtroom Energy Transfer’s attorney Trey Cox poses with a huddle of lawyers from his firm, Gibson Dunn and Crutcher. He has an American flag pinned to the lapel of his suit. His colleagues look satisfied in their sunglasses, as Trey delivers his victory speech.

Trey Cox: Today the jury has delivered a resounding verdict declaring greenpeace's actions, wrongful, unlawful, and unacceptable by societal standards.

Greenpeace maliciously misrepresented events within this community. In an unrelenting attempt to stop by any means possible, the construction of a pipeline. That had already obtained all of the necessary legal approvals. These are the facts, not the fake news of the Greenpeace propaganda machine.

This is a resounding win for the people of Bismarck. The people of Manden and Morton County, as well as law enforcement officers who across this state diligently worked and risked their lives to maintain order in increasing chaos. This verdict serves as a powerful affirmation of the First amendment.

Peaceful protest is an inherent American right, however, violent and destructive protest is unlawful and unacceptable. This verdict clearly conveys that.

Alleen: The jury found Greenpeace Inc. was liable for all of Energy Transfer's on-the-ground damage claims. Greenpeace Inc. and Greenpeace International were guilty of conspiracy. And they said all three Greenpeace organizations committed tortious interference, as well as defamation when they made their statements on police violence, tribal territory, and desecration of sacred sites.

But we still don't know the dollar total of the damages, and another reporter asks.

Mary Steurer: Mr. Cox, do you have a total number?

Trey Cox: it's close to $700 million.

Alleen: I kind of can't believe my ears.

Alleen: Close to 700 million. Wow.

Wait, did he say, I mean, I recorded it. Did he say seven?

Mary Steurer: He said close to 700 million.

Alleen: Close to 700 million. Okay. All right.

Kandi Mossett: Yeah, over twice the amount of the actual lawsuit.

Alleen: That's Kandi Mossett White again.

Alleen : Can you share your reaction to all of this?

Kandi Mossett: It's absolutely bullshit, 100%. None of these people that are leaving are from here. For one thing. They're all going back to Texas, Louisiana.

I'm from here. Nobody asked us natives what we wanted to do. This is absolutely bullshit. This verdict was absolutely biased. 100%. And yes, I'm emotional because my kids go to school here because I'm from here and I have to deal with the after effects. I know some of those people, I've seen them around Bismark, Manden before.

That is our historic lands that were destroyed, and this company got money for defamation.

For Greenpeace or for other people's allegedly saying that they destroyed sacred sites. They did. I was there. I just don't understand how they can get away with it other than North Dakota's a huge fossil fuel state.

it's just really. Really upsetting to me that these people get to leave and go back to their respective states and not have to deal with everything we have to continue to deal with as a result of these kinds of industries like Energy Transfer

He stood here in front of the press and said they had all the permits necessary and they didn't. They didn't have the easement to go under Lake Hawaii. that had nothing to do with Greenpeace, nothing. now they're getting thrown under the bus for something they didn't even do. And they're treating us native people like we're not.

Competent enough to organize and strategize something to protect our airline and water. It's sick,

Alleen: Greenpeace takes its turn to speak to the press. They look like they're at a funeral. Deepa Padmanhaba, Greenpeace's senior legal advisor, addresses the crowd.

Deepa: We should all be concerned about the attacks on our First amendment.

And Lawsuits like this that really threaten our rights to peaceful protest and free speech

The work of Greenpeace is never gonna stop. That's the really important message today, and we're just walking out and we're gonna get together and figure out what our next steps are.

No one lingers long. We all get into our cars and drive away.

After the trial wrapped up, I headed back home to New York. And in the weeks after, I kept thinking back to when I first started covering the Standing Rock movement, back in 2016 -- just as Donald Trump was elected to his first term. Standing Rock provided the opening scenes for a new era of repression against protest. In the years that followed, we saw anti-protest laws spread across the U.S. and around the world -- especially targeting environmental movements. The laws were developed and spread by industry, initially in response to Standing Rock.

At the same time, after uprisings like the George Floyd movement popped off, a kind of story-telling took hold that started to erase what we had been taught in school -- that protests are a noble tool of democracy that have forced some of most important changes in U.S. history. A new story replaced that one and it said that protest is bad, and maybe change is bad, too.

Now, the Energy Transfer vs. Greenpeace verdict is landing at the beginning of a shitty sequel. In Trump's second term, the same strategies used against the Standing Rock movement are being put into practice at a much bigger scale. We're seeing the national guard brought in against anti-deportation protestors, this time called by the president himself. The head of the Department of Homeland Security has said the IRS is looking into protest funding and Republican members of Congress have launched an investigation. I'd wager that if Standing Rock had happened today, the FBI rather than TigerSwan would have been investigating the movement's funding.

With Trump back in office, we've also entered a whole new era of bad deal-making.  Media outlets, universities, and law firms are being presented with deals from the Trump administration that demand they either reel back challenges to the president and abandon the most vulnerable people among them -- like immigrants or trans people or Palestinians -- or face the possibility that their institution will be drained of resources and destroyed.

This round, it's not a law firm or a CEO working for a private company that's making the offers. It's government attorneys, working for the president. Although to be clear, many of them come from the private sector. Former lawyers for both Gibson Dunn and Energy Transfer have been appointed to high level positions in the Trump administration.

Here's Deepa, Greenpeace Inc's senior legal advisor.

Deepa: You know, The verdicts came at a time when we have just been seeing institutions crumbling where rather than fighting head on, people, individuals, law firms, universities, they're all crumbling.

Alleen: Greenpeace has become one of the institutions that is fighting back and is finding out how severe the blowback can be. By the end of July, Greenpeace had offered US staff voluntary buyouts. The US organizations lost 20 percent of their employees

Alleen: Um, you know, was it worth it to, to not accept the deal given how huge the verdict is.

Deepa: Listen there, you know, as I've said before, there was no choice.

Is, is our existence, our ultimate mission?

Just the existence of an entity or. Is there something in our mission that's bigger than that?

Alleen: I asked the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's current chair, Janet Alkire, what she thought of the verdict.

Alleen: Will this verdict impact, um, standing Rock, and if so, how?

Janet: I'm thinking definitely it will impact because it's there for the record. Right. What I'm hopeful about is that Greenpeace doesn't, it doesn't end there, that they're gonna move this beyond and fight it

Alleen: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe knows way more than any environmental organization about standing up to bad deals. It's woven into their entire history. That lawsuit they filed against the Army Corps was dismissed a few weeks after the Greenpeace verdict. And they've already filed an appeal. To Janet, regardless of the odds, the fight for the Oceti Sakowin people's water is too important to give up.

Janet: Even if we do not win in, in, in court, what history will say about us is more important.

What our, what our children will say is more important. Yeah. That we. Always stood up for them because if we just give up, then of course they win. So I'm hoping down the road that, I can, I can. Be at peace knowing that I tried. Um, I think I couldn't, I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try.

Alleen: The Greenpeace organizations are getting ready to appeal the verdict in the North Dakota Supreme Court, and I've heard mixed predictions from legal experts I've talked to.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace International is leaning on the European Union's anti-SLAPP law to strike back at Energy Transfer in a court in the Netherlands. They're hoping to recover the money they spent dealing with the lawsuit.

But the US has no federal anti-SLAPP law.

Neither Energy Transfer nor Gibson Dunn and Crutcher answered a detailed list of questions. However they repeatedly shared a statement: "We are very pleased that Greenpeace has been held accountable for its actions against Energy Transfer."

And in the months since the trial,  lawyer Trey Cox has said that other companies are already expressing interest in repeating what Energy Transfer did to Greenpeace. He told the Daily Caller, “I’m getting calls from the oil and gas industry, and I’m getting calls from any number of other industries that have been similarly affected.”

Still, where it comes to the fight for the Oceti Sakowin’s water, there’s not a clear winner. While the company Kelcy Warren co-founded may have gotten its day of reckoning in court, and they may have even imprinted a new story of Standing Rock in the minds of many Americans, there’s some things that can’t be erased. Standing Rock activated a whole generation of Indigenous organizers, who went home and continue to fight to protect their own communities.

I talked to Cody, who was originally named in the lawsuit, one last time.

Alleen: Was it worth it?

Cody: yeah, it was. It was, because we needed it. Not just as indigenous people, but just people as a whole. My, my grandfather spoke of it best, you know, when he said, everything was for the people. Remember that.

I guess we endured a lot for the people. We did a lot for the people, not just indigenous people, but everybody, you know. So it was, it was worth it.