What Jim Bob Duggar Told the Prosecutor When She Asked About Josh

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is History's Hidden Killers. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:09)
Michelle Duggar wrote a letter to a federal judge about her son Josh. Josh had just been convicted on federal charges involving illegal material depicting minors. Material so severe that prosecutors described it as among the worst they'd ever encountered, involving very, very young people. And Michelle's letter called him tender-hearted.
She described him as compassionate towards others.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:37)
She wrote, he was a good provider for his family working diligently and thinking of creative ways to support and take care of his wife and children.

**Tony Brueski** (0:48)
She asked the court to consider reuniting the family soon. The judge gave him 12 and a half years.
This is the third episode in our series about families that stand behind the accused and the Duggar case is fundamentally different from the two that came before because the loyalty here is not just personal, it's institutional. The Duggar family's support for Josh has built on a theological framework that makes abandoning him not just emotionally difficult but doctrinally unthinkable. The faith is the infrastructure. Everything else flows from it. And as we go through this, your thoughts on the comment section on Substack and YouTube. Be sure to press subscribe. Josh Duggar was convicted in December of 21 on federal charges related to receiving and possessing CSAM. Illegal material involving. Yeah, he was sentenced to 12 and a half years in federal prison. This was not the first time his conduct had surfaced. Back in 2015, it was revealed that years earlier, he had allegedly been involved in an appropriate contact with minors, including his own sisters. TLC canceled the family show The Duggars, publicly stood by Josh then, and they stood by him again. The family's religious framework is key. Jim Bob and Michelle follow the teachings of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. A batshit crazy, a system that emphasizes male headship, family loyalty as a covenant obligation, and the belief that God can restore anyone through repentance and faith.
Within that system, abandoning a family member to secular judgment is a failure of faith. Forgiveness is not optional. It's doctrine. And the Duggars applied it with the same rigor they apply to every other aspect of their belief system or cult. After the conviction, the family's public statement centered on God, on prayer and trust in a divine plan.
This entire ordeal has been very grievous, they wrote.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:07)
Our hearts and prayers are with anyone who has ever been harmed through CSAM.

**Tony Brueski** (3:12)
In the days ahead, we will do all we can to surround our daughter-in-law, Anna, and their children with love and support. As parents, we will never stop praying for Joshua and loving him.
As we do all our children in each of life's circumstances, you know, normalizing and pulling it down. This is what people who can't deal with reality do. Something horrible over here.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:38)
Well, it's part of the plan, it's part of this.

**Tony Brueski** (3:42)
No, it's not. You normalizing it in that sentence says everything.
As we do with all of our children. Oh, yeah. Well, either a lot of your other kids are doing some pretty horrible shit and you're normalizing it or he's a one-off and you're refusing to accept it. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question because, well, a crystal ball into the future has shown us that, well, there's another one and he's been charged. And it does make you wonder if there's more. I'm not saying there is. I have no evidence to say that, so I am not saying that. But when you get too out of the system, it starts to become a pattern.
The children harmed by Josh, that material that he had, they received that one line.

**SPEAKER_3** (4:57)
In each of life's circumstances, we place our trust in God.

**Tony Brueski** (5:02)
Josh received the family's full apparatus of spiritual support and public advocacy. Jim Bob's behavior on the witness stand tells you how far the protective instinct reaches. At a pretrial hearing in November of 21, he was called to testify about Josh's earlier acknowledged conduct with kids. Conduct Jim Bob himself had reported to authorities years before, when forced to, on the stand. Jim Bob claimed he couldn't remember the details. Refused to answer questions directly, he called the prosecutor unprofessional. He called them unprofessional and he's on the stand refusing to answer questions.
The judge had to intervene and instruct him to respond. Jim Bob eventually acknowledged that Josh had come to him in 2002 and admitted to inappropriately touching girls in the family while they were sleeping. Oh, it just came back to you, Jim Bob, on the stand. Whoa, it's a miracle. It's a Festivus miracle. The judge later described him as apparently reluctant to testify against his son, a father with first-hand knowledge of a documented pattern, sat in a federal courtroom, and fought to keep that pattern out of the record. Because you know, that's what Jesus would do. That's not just parental love. That's a man protecting the system.