that to sustain a conviction the government was required to prove that mr by and intended his messages to the congress people to be threatening the government has accepted this burden that's not an issue in this case in the jurors were accordingly properly instructed quote the defendant must have made the statement intending it to be a threat or with knowledge that the statement will be viewed as a threat the pretrial proceedings suggest during the st half of the trial suggests there was a real possibility that the jurors in this case could have surmised that mr brian was frustrated and lacking the ability to moderate himself the jersey easily could have decided that when he left the messages he was having a very very bad lapse in judgment and that the messages reflected his inability to appropriately convey hat he was able to carry out brett but the whole argument on behalf of the defendant was this is just the guy blowing off steam he didn't mean any harm by saying things and meanwhile he's got  finer point on it it's not relevant because it's probably devalue you know in order to be relevant it has to be probative it's probative value certainly not all nine team titles doesn't in the data before placing the quote you would concede that would be admissible then right yes i think that would be a much closer case the puzzle here really is what do you make of the fact that someone is in possession of of books i would imagine that the storage unit right had a storage unit where you had a woman a powder which matches one of the books and it's not the books one divorced from any other in the case you know connected to i mean you think you're challenging the ability of the storage materials to come from him correct we that's right but the materials in the storage unit hard materially different than the books for what's the difference between having the aluminum absolutely nothing even to do with the government's entirely speculative theory that he would carry through on these threats you know it isn't your problem that the more remote and irrelevant the books are the less prejudicial they are i mean the to the extent that if the jury seeing a book about making a bomb out of aluminum or possessed by a man who is making threats to members of congress and that comes in the jury is going to be deeply prejudiced because  assessment and i'm wondering which is there will proper way to analyze this evidence i mean if i have a case in which i was considering a case in which someone has a book about how to make meth in his home and at the same proper way to think about this and if it can be clark or be or forestry they both weed in our minds to the same conclusion which is it just is this is evidence that is of only marginally probative value certainly if you look at it under four or b we know that evidence of general criminal activity propensity towards criminal activity is not admissible and that's a b unless it satisfies that sort of chain of of things like motive opportunity preparation eccentric all of those were taken completely out of the equation by virtue of the fact that mr bio never denied leaving these from the judgment because the district court acted well wasn't discretion when it allowed the introduction of those books that were found and mr brown's apartment the only element of the as mr ion notes on appeal here that was truly contested at trial was his intent when he made those phone calls and the books when viewed in light of the him or another base components for homemade explosives that were in his possession this all went straight to the heart of the intent issue the government use of books carefully no one read portions of the books allowed during trial there were no propensity arguments and importantly the books were not just sent back with the jury wholesale and i don't believe that the jury even requested to see them during their don't look deliberations apart from that you know why what do you that may have been says any time anywhere he deliberately left it almost frightening they begun that in that particular sense any time anywhere so the fact that he has these kinds of things that would allow him to come to follow through on his threat  anytime anywhere were certainly relevant now the way that the jury would have assigned each particular thought it was up to the jury of the defense counsel did cross on you know do we know if these were purchased do we know if he read them recently  value versus prejudicial effect evaluation and determined that on reflection even though they just report recognised there could be some prejudicial value to the books on balance the program value outweighed that  even if it abused its discretion here and admitting as mr bryan argues almightiness the books the evidence of guilt in this case was truly overwhelming i mean just recordings themselves on their own and we have the recordings if it is the panel would like to  hear the tone of his voice the fact that the messages were almost verbatim the same shows that they were clearly scripted they were designed to instill fear it will messages eye for an eye tooth for tooth and he noted in his own opening statement that he included that biblical message because he knew quote that's going to scare them and quote that's right out appendix page sixty five you also said in his opening statement that you have to make threats according to your position in life and explains that's why he did it  and that's before we even get to the physical evidence that was found for example in the storage locker multiple cans the two cans of crest like aluminum powder five gallons of mass of all dozens of rounds of ammunition and i actually  would note that mr bryant kind of argues that there were no corresponding shotguns for the shells but that's actually quite significant especially when wilson testified the part the component parts of a shotgun shell include gunpowder which the new and improved c for both titles he says again by he i mean that defense counsel me those things just seem like they're the kinds of things that are designed to a more established propensity then going to what we were talking about here i believe that threatening of course he proceeded pro se here but the thing he consistently argued and attempted to make clear to the jurors is that he left these messages of his frustration with what he believed was the policy of separating women and children at the border and that he left these messages as a way to prompt the politician to re evaluate the policy so he he knows the government correctly