Title: Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit
Show: Dalton Fischer Podcast
Date: 2025-08-31
URL: https://youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA
Duration: 4:18:20

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[00:00] [Music] I recruited this guy from scratch. He had been a member of a bonafide terrorist group and he had a very specific telltale crimp. >> What's a crimp? >> A crimp is a certain way that you twist the wires inside a bomb. >> I heard that the agency is dabbling in VR and AR type stuff. >> Oh yeah. What the CIA is doing on futuristic tech with things like virtual reality are closer now to what DARPA is doing and it is

[00:32] terrifying. The CIA has developed technologies to for example remotely take over your car. Why would the CIA want to take over your car? To make you drive off a bridge. Now working with the likes of Palunteer, Nvidia, all these cutting edge tech companies. I remember hearing when Palanteer first came out that people at the agency didn't like it >> at all. >> Do they use it now, you think? >> Yeah. >> What would they use it for? >> Oh, all kinds of stuff. Mostly mo well.

[01:04] >> Israelis are not like anybody else. They killed a guy in a hotel room in Dubai and then after they killed him, they were somehow able to lock the door from the inside of the hotel room. You know, we studied that for a long time. >> There was like 26 people that the Dubai CCTV footage saw it, but none of them were picked up. No. >> Weren't the cameras Israeli made? >> I got a tour of the whole facility and the cameras were German.

[01:35] >> What facility? >> There's an underground. >> What has been your experience with ground branch and special activities? Those guys on loan from Seal Team 6, they just appeared one day and then they would vanish for a week at a time. What they do is so secret. I have a feeling people would really want me to ask you about this. This freaks me out. Oh, I got chills just thinking about it. >> We have a lot to talk about.

[02:05] >> Okay. >> Um, so yeah, dude, thank you for coming back. >> No, it's my pleasure. You're a great interviewer. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> You really are. >> We're getting there, man. Well, yeah. You just, you know, I'm trying to get a little better every time and just do my best and keep my mouth shut. I think that's >> that's the key. >> Yeah. But um but yeah, dude, thank you so much for for coming back. It's >> always a pleasure. >> Wonderful to have you and we'll have to do it. We'll have to keep doing it for sure. >> Definitely. But um so yeah, John, for people that didn't see the first interview that we did um and and maybe

[02:36] aren't familiar with your story, you spent 15 years at the CIA, spent some time in analysis, spent some time in operations as a case officer or a spy and later as the head of counterter terrorism in Pakistan for CIA where you captured Abda. We went through that full story in the uh the last podcast. Um, you're also a senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under Kerry, which we didn't talk about. Maybe we will today if we have the time. >> And you blew the whistle on the enhanced interrogation program or colloquially

[03:07] known as the torture program >> and went to prison for it. So, yeah, dude. I uh like I was just telling you a second ago, I watched our last interview back and there's a lot of threads that I would have pulled on being that that was my very first interview that I ever conducted that uh that I didn't at that point. and that I will today. So, yeah, dude. I'm I've been super excited to have you back. Me, too. And thank you for coming. >> It's great to see you. >> It's great to see you. So, um let's uh if you could start maybe by kind of laying out like for again for people that may not have seen the last one, can

[03:37] you explain what the role of an operations officer is because we're going to be talking about, you know, the CIA and espionage and tradecraft and all the fun stuff. You know, that that's that's a good basic starting point. And most people don't ask me, but the the role of a case officer, also called an operations officer, also called a CATB officer, is historically very simple. It is to recruit spies to steal secrets so that the CIA can analyze those secrets and

[04:08] give the analysis to the policy makers, the president, the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, the national security adviser, so that they can make the best informed policy. So really, your job is simply to recruit spies to steal secrets. That's that's all that it is. And it's way harder than it may sound. way harder because look at it this way too. You have to get people to commit espionage for you or in some cases to commit treason for you which in

[04:40] many countries is a death penalty offense just cuz they really like being around you. I mean that's how it starts. It starts just with the basics of a relationship and it it morphs into money, usually money, ideology, revenge, excitement, stuff like that. But usually it's because they like being around you and they know you're going to give them money. I would say 94 or 95% of the time that's

[05:13] the case. M. >> So yeah, we started talking about that last time around some of the motivations for an agent to spy and you kind of finding that crack in their personality and working on making it >> and and for for the vernacular an agent is not so a lot of people we should clarify this one because we will be using it but yeah a lot of people refer to CIA officers as agents which is incorrect. >> Incorrect. Yeah. The CIA employee is a CIA officer. The

[05:43] agent is the person that you recruit to do whatever it is you need to have done. >> So, so yeah, I I would like to to cover some things like chronologically because like I said, when I watched the last interview back, that's how we did it. And I was I was thinking I had this guy uh Scott Payne in. Are you familiar with him? He's he was an FBI agent undercover. I know how much you love the FBI. >> Yeah, we're we're like this. >> Yeah. Um Scott's a good dude. But um he infiltrated the the Outlaws biker gang. >> Ooh. >> And he got >> gig.

[06:13] >> Yeah. And he got strip searched at gunpoint in a basement while he was wearing a wire. >> Oh my god. >> Long story short, they ended up not finding it. It was like sewn in his clothes. He didn't say. But anyway, what I'm thinking is for a undercover FBI agent, that is worst case scenario. >> Yeah. for a for a CIA officer, you you recruit an agent for six, nine months and then you pitch him and he absolutely freaks out and says, "I'm going to report to the authorities." >> Yes. >> Which happens, >> right? So, at the farm, was there any

[06:45] like fun scenarios like that that they set up that you can tell us about? >> Yeah. Well, yes and no. I mean, they set it up so that the recruitment is going to be successful. In fact, when I pitched my instructor, he was pretending to be I forget what the owner of a chemical company or something like that. I pitched him and afterwards we were at the officer's club having drinks and I said, "Man, I was so nervous. I know it's just training, but I was so nervous." And he said, "Oh,

[07:17] come on." He said, "I practically recruited myself. You have to act more quickly and more decisively." And I said, I said, "Okay, that I would." and I did in real life. And then I'll tell you, I ran into one of the other instructors just weeks after I had made my very first recruitment. I was back at headquarters for consultations and I ran into him in the cafeteria and he said, "How's how's everything going in Athens?" And I said, "Oh man, I got to tell you, I made my first recruitment and it was exactly like training.

[07:49] Exactly no differences." And he said, "Good. That's what we wanted it to be." Yeah. >> So when you say like you have to act uh in that case like more quick and decisive, how like um how different do you have to be to each asset? >> Oh my gosh, that's a great question. So you have to be able to assess each potential asset's personality type and personality traits. I worked with a guy overseas who was really really good at

[08:20] assessing other people's personalities and we got a we got a cable from headquarters saying look we really really need a recruitment in this one unit that this foreign government had. And so he invited the the boldness of this was just astounding to me. I learned a lot from him. He invited literally everybody in the unit to go shooting with us. So he's like, "Take your pick." Right. And so we're shooting and he was an incredible shot like like

[08:52] Olympic level where I mean we were drinking. You're not supposed to drink on the range, but we're drinking and then we're daring each other to shoot in different ways. And we ended up putting in must have been about 200 bucks worth of local currency. And he shot a target with his back turned to it. He put a piece of bubble gum on the target. He had his back to the target. The gun was upside down and he shot it with his he fired it with his pinky and he hit the bubble gum. And I go, "No way. No way.

[09:26] We put hundreds of dollars in." And and it turned out he was he was on the Olympic shooting team in 1984. None of us knew that. But anyway, they went crazy. The alcohol kind of helped ease the whole process, too. And then after we had been doing this about two hours, I just kind of noticed out of the corner of my eye that he had his arm around this guy's shoulder and he was leading him off to the side. Nobody else had noticed. And I thought, man, is he good.

[09:57] I'm still nervous like, who am I going to pick? He's already making the pitch. And then we we got back to the embassy and he's like, done and done. I said, you're brilliant. I don't know how you did that. >> So, you said he was he was good at he was an operations officer. >> Who was was he one of the best that you knew at the agency? That guy. >> Yeah, he was. And you know, the funny thing, too, this was his first tour as an operations officer. He had been in the agency for 25 years, but he was a

[10:29] calligrapher and he got bored. And before he was agrapher, he was a deputy sheriff in Baltimore. So, it's not like, you know, he had been doing this for for decades and it was second nature. We were both in our first operational tours. It's just he was it it was just built in him as part of his personality to be able to to talk to you for 10 minutes and figure out if yes, you're a legitimate target or no, I need

[11:01] to move on to the next guy. I never saw anything. I never worked with anybody else that was such a natural at assessing personalities like he was. >> Would you say would you say for the most part that it's either you have it or you don't or that it can be taught? >> Oh, it can definitely be taught. Definitely. But you also have to have that that spark. I'll tell you another thing. I I sat next to a guy um in um Arabic training. So we sat next to each other 11 and a half months, three people

[11:31] in the class. So, we became really good friends. And his dad had been the deputy director for operations, right? And this guy, goodlooking guy, totally ripped, constantly working out. And man, did he have a knack for Arabic. It was a gift. And I remember telling my wife at the time, he is a natural case officer. Natural. It's going to be incredible. So I went overseas. He went to the very

[12:04] next neighboring country and we went at the same time like on the same day. He calls me about 2 months into it. And um he said, "Any chance you're going to be in uh in my area in the future?" And I said, "I wasn't making any plans to be, but you okay?" He said, "No, I need somebody to talk to." So that weekend I flew to the next country and went to his place and he burst into tears. I I was

[12:36] shocked by it. His girlfriend was there and he said, "This job is not for me." He said, "I can't manipulate people like this." He said, "I only did it cuz I thought my dad would be happy for me to follow in his footsteps." I said, "Man, you're you were a natural in training." He said, "I can't do it. I don't have it in my heart. He ended up resigning from the CIA and becoming a nurse and he has been happy ever since. And that was in like 19

[13:08] my god 1994. He hated it. So you have it or you don't have it. If you have it, you can be taught how to do it successfully. Otherwise, I mean it this job really is not for everybody. And even if you desperately want to do it, almost almost nobody makes it through the training, you know, they'll they'll push you off and say, "Oh, you should you should be a special operations

[13:40] officer," which is just kind of an assistant, or you should be a targeting officer, where you just sit with all this metadata and try to locate somebody, or you should do this, or you should do that. But being a case officer, man, it is hard work. It it it's it's it's it weighs on you, you know, manipulating people, convincing people that not just that you're their friend, but you're their best friend, and then really like not even wanting to be in the same room with them half the

[14:11] time. It's hard. Like, it's hard on you because it it it wears you down. And I would imagine and you have to be on all the time. >> All the time. >> And I would imagine there's a balance between like trust and skepticism with assets. Like they have to trust you, but you have to be skeptical of them. >> I think that's absolutely true. I can give you a couple of examples. >> Um I handled an asset, an agent, uh whom

[14:42] I did not recruit. He had been recruited 15, 20 years earlier. And so I inherited him and he was probably I'm gonna say 40 years older than me. Uh, and I liked him and he liked me and we both had like similar taste in art and and he was always chasing women and I know and I know a lot about Marxism and communism. I'm well read in Marxism and he was a communist and so we would

[15:14] debate what Markx meant about some obscure passage, you know, stuff like that and that was always fun for me. So, I needed to vet him. You have to constantly vet your your agents to make sure that they're doing what they're telling you they're doing. So, I said to him, "Listen, when you come to these meetings, you're doing a surveillance detection route, right?" He goes, "Of course I am. I've been doing this for 20 years. I said, "Okay, I just want to make sure." So, I called a team of Sue,

[15:46] special operations officers. We we had them right there in the um in the station. It was a very large station. And so, I said, "Can you can you guys put a team or two teams on him and just make sure he's doing what he says he's doing?" And they said, "Sure, because then I can write it up and send it to headquarters and say his vetting's good for another year. No problems." This guy, he lived in a northern suburb and the SES called me a couple of times during the surveillance detection route

[16:16] and they said, "This guy is awesome. He he took a cab from his house to this, you know, eight lane highway, got off on the highway. remember he's 70 years old and ran across the eight lanes, leaped over the the concrete jersey barrier, went to the other side of the

[16:46] highway, and then hailed another cab going in the opposite direction. So, he gets to the meeting and I knew like every minute of his route. He gets the meeting and I said, "Did you do a surveillance detection route on the way to the meeting?" He said, "Yeah, it was a good one." And uh I said, 'What'd you do?' And he said, "Just take my word for it. I took care of things." I said, 'Well, what's that supposed to mean? Because I need to know if you actually did it. And then he said, "Yeah." He said, "I got out of the side of the highway and I ran across the highway." I

[17:16] said, "Oh my god, do you know how provocative that is? If somebody was actually watching you, they'd say, "What the [ __ ] is he doing?" >> And he said, "Nobody was watching me." I said, "Okay." Everything he told me was the truth. He never spotted the surveillance, but he I mean there's no way you could you could well I shouldn't I shouldn't say that. So yeah, he he passed the test. And then there was there was another guy too. Um and and this is something getting to your original point about personality

[17:47] that you have to that you have to uh be be cognizant of. So, I recruited this guy from scratch. He had been a member of a bonafide terrorist group. And when I recruited him, he said, "I want to come totally clean." He said, "I I'm the one who planted the bomb at the City Bank branch back in, you know, 19 whatever it was." We had attributed that to the group. Um

[18:20] because he had a he had a very specific telltale crimp. >> What's a crimp? >> A crimp is is a certain way that you twist the wires inside a bomb. He had a very unique way of connecting the wires and twisting them. So we could tell, in fact, we had a name for him based on the style of the crimp. So, I knew that the guy who had blown up the City Bank branch also planted the bomb at the McDonald's, also planted the

[18:50] bomb at the Interamerican Insurance Company. I just didn't know his name until he's sitting in front of me and he says, "Yeah, I I I'm the one who built those bombs." And I said, "Show me how you build the bomb." So, he built one like right in front of me in the next meeting. He brought the supplies and uh and I took it into the office to show them it's it's the crimp that we've been wondering for six years who's building these bombs. It's him. He confessed to me. So, the reason why he agreed to be

[19:21] recruited was cuz he really really needed the money. He had gotten his girlfriend pregnant. They had a daughter. He's a bum. He's broke. He's just a terrorist. You can't make any money from terrorism. So um so I started paying him and I was paying him pretty handsomely too and he was giving me good information like operational information and he wasn't this terrorist group has sort of fallen out of fashion and he became involved with a group of anarchists and what they

[19:53] wanted to do was just blow [ __ ] up for no reason other than to you know shout yay anarchy right so he calls me one night and it was late. It was like 11:00 and he did the uh what we call the protocols. So like he's like I said hello and I knew it was him cuz I had this phone that was just for him. It was a burner and I said hello. He says uh hi uh the the rain in Spain falls mainly in

[20:24] the plane. And so I said, "Oh, Marzy dots and dozy dots and little lambs eat Ivy." and he laughed and I laughed and we hung up and that meant meet me in the parking lot of, you know, the the jumbo toy store at 2 am. So, I go down there and he's like, "I'm I'm desperate. I'm broke." He goes, "My my daughter's sick. We have these unexpected medical uh bills." And he has this paper bag and it's just full of

[20:56] gold jewelry. And I said, "What's this?" He said, "It's all my wife's jewelry." He said, "Can you buy it from me?" And I go, "Dude, I'm not a jeweler. I I don't know what I I I have no idea what this stuff is worth." He said, "I'm desperate." I said, "All right, let's meet tomorrow at midnight behind the church in this northern suburb." And so I go into work the next day and I said, "You know, the the grasshopper

[21:27] called me in the middle of the night and tried to sell me his wife's jewelry." He goes, the station chief says, "Well, how much does he want?" I said, "He needs five grand." He goes, "He's been good. Just give him the five grand. We'll call it a We'll call it an early Christmas bonus." So I met him behind the church. I gave him five grand. He's like, "Oh my god, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. He signs the receipt and he was forever indebted to me. He actually cried when I when I left to return to

[21:57] headquarters. He's like, "I'm not sure I can work with anybody else." I said, "Oh, you're going to be fine. Everybody else has money that's just as green as the money that I carry. You're going to be fine." What's up, guys? What you're about to see here is an intense video of Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen making absolute magic. Brace yourselves. Okay, what you're actually seeing here is my pre-in routine. The same thing

[22:29] every morning. Three organic eggs, low sugar oatmeal, and F FRCC medium roast coffee. But in my day-to-day life, a 12-in pan is pretty much the one thing that I couldn't live without in the kitchen because I either cook or I'd heat up five meals a day on it. So, this is the one I use. It's from Hexclad. I use it because it has both the performance of a stainless steel pan and the convenience of a non-stick pan and I don't have to choose between the two like I normally would. So, if it passes the eggs test without sticking, then we're good to go. They're also toxin-free, dishwasher and oven safe,

[22:59] and they come with a lifetime warranty. It's also just really cool looking. I don't know if this video will do it justice or not. So, here it is. You can now ditch your crusty old pan for a sexy new Hexclad pan at a discounted rate because for a limited time, our listeners are getting 10% off with our exclusive link. So, just head to hexcloud.com/dalton or scan the QR code embedded in this video. That's hex c a d o n. And make sure to support the show

[23:31] and let them know that we sent you. Back to the show. Was that a was that when you were in Greece? >> That was a 17 November guy. >> Mhm. >> He was actually a member of 17 November. >> We were never able to conclusively identify um uh any members of 17 November but three. >> Yeah. So he was one of the many many many peripheral figures that you know had kind of brushed up against 17 November but never were asked to join the group. Well, still, man, even if

[24:02] you're not a card carrying member, he clearly did quite a bit. He's a bad guy. >> Yeah. I've never heard you talk about that one, but um No. >> Okay. So, you mentioned you mentioned a couple things that I want to come back to. The first one, the the guy that ran the outrageous SDR, that was your favorite agent, right? >> Yeah. He was just the sweetest guy. And you know, when I left the agency, um I was going back to Greece. I don't even remember why. I It must have been vacation or something. and you're not supposed to do this because once once you leave, you leave.

[24:33] You're out. And I thought, "Nah, I just want to say hello and see how he's doing." And his son answered the phone. And so I asked him for his dad. I said, "I'm a I'm a distant relative from from America." And he said, "Oh, my my dad died." And I said, "Oh, you're kidding." And he said, "Yeah, he died two years ago." I said, "Damn it. He smoked like a chimney." He did one right off the other. It was ridiculous. He said, "Yeah, yeah, lung cancer got him." Oh, there there's a hilarious story in the last interview. If if people want to

[25:03] check that one out, I recommend they do and it's timestamped in I believe part one of that interview, John's favorite agent, and it's [ __ ] hilarious. But, um, the reason I wanted to bring it up is because you talked about him running an SDR and like running across the highway. But, so, do you have to maybe explain to people what an SDR is? >> Oh, yeah. You're not supposed to. >> You have to have a plausible reason to go from A to B. Correct. >> Exactly. That's the key of an SDR. SDRs are very, very specific. SDR standing for surveillance detection

[25:34] route. They're very specific. So, there are a couple of terms that you need to know. Like a red road is a big major road that has lots of cars. So, if you're on a red road, you can't possibly tell if you're under surveillance. But you and I and everybody else, we drive on red roads every day, right? Then there's a black road which is not well traveled maybe through a neighborhood or whatever. So you start at what's called a kickoff point. It could be your house. It could be your office. It could be whatever

[26:05] wherever you happen to be every day. And you have to make it look like you're running errands. Ersands that are totally normal and legit. So, you get in your car, you get on a red road, and you drive to the dry cleaners, and you either pick up or drop off your dry cleaning. Okay, that's totally normal. Everybody does that. Then you go from that first what's called an SDR stop to the second SDR stop. Now, the second SDR

[26:38] stop, you're not going to get back on that red road because you're from the area. You're familiar with the area. So, you're going to do a cut through. You're going to cut through a residential neighborhood on a black road, and you see if you drag anybody in with you from the red road, and then you go to, let's say, a wine shop because there's this certain bottle of wine that you're looking for. And then you make a note to yourself.

[27:08] Try not to write it down, but the make, model, and color of the car, the license plate, just to see if you see them later. The definition of surveillance is multiple sightings at time and distance. So, you see the car multiple times at different places. Um, multiple sightings at time and distance, different times and different places. Right? So, you stop at the wine store, you buy

[27:38] the bottle of wine, and then you make what's called a provocative move. This is what's called, they call it the provocative phase where you stair step. You you go a block, make a right, go another block, make a left, make a right, make a left, make a right, like you're going up a set of stairs, right? So, normal people don't drive like that. It's very provocative. If you're under

[28:10] surveillance, you're going to notice it then. And then you stop at, you know, the Jo-Ann's Fabrics and you buy, you know, set of buttons or whatever. I don't know. And then you to go from stop three to the meeting location, you do some driving maneuvers that nobody would do. You drive halfway down a block, you pull in somebody's driveway, you pull out, you make a U-turn, then you pull into

[28:41] another driveway and make another U-turn, and you just do all kinds of crazy [ __ ] that just in case the surveillance are so good that you've missed them, that is going to be where you finally get them. And then if you have surveillance, you abort the meeting and you just drive home and you do the whole thing again 24 hours later. That's what surveillance detection is. >> So it's just it's just if you see it

[29:12] just more than once if you see the same car. >> Mhm. >> That's the principle. It's more than once. >> Yes. >> So what were like and you became a surveillance detection instructor at one point in your career, right? >> I did. >> Okay. So if you were either um if you guys were tailing a trainee or um even like let's say like a real a real life opposition force that was tailing you, right? What were some of the What are some of the things that they would do um to stay on your tail? Like switch plates, disguises, what would they do?

[29:43] >> Oh, yes and yes. They switch plates, they switch clothes, um they put on disguises, they'll put on a mustache, they'll put on a wig or a different hat or um some will jump out of the car and start going on foot. And then maybe you get out of your car and you go on foot or you go on a bus or you go on the subway or in high threat areas, we'll go into a parking garage and switch cars to a rental car that's been prepositioned there by another officer. So it gets

[30:13] very sophisticated. And then in places like China, Russia, Cuba, um you don't do a two or three hour SDR, you do an eight hour SDR. Yeah, because then they're using, you know, infrared cameras looking for body heat and they're using helicopters and cuz they're going to catch the guy that you're trying to meet and they're going to execute him. So, you have to really make sure that you're not being

[30:45] followed. Another example is once you leave the red road, um I I worked with a guy who got a little bit lazy. He was a good officer, but he but he got lazy. So, he starts off at the embassy, which is in the center of town, and he takes a red road far north, and he goes to um to a restaurant. There was like a TGI Friday up there or something. Disgusting place. And he stops and has a sandwich. Okay, that's a legit stop. I wouldn't use it,

[31:16] but it it's a legit stop. And then he drives all the way back downtown again. Okay, you're caught. You're caught. Cuz nobody would drive an hour to go to a TGI Friday in Hburg. Nobody. Right. And then even if you even if you were under surveillance and knew it, you wouldn't be able to spot their surveillance going back into the center of town because it's another red road. It never made sense to me. And sure enough, headquarters dinged him. You have to write a whenever you meet with a source,

[31:47] you have to write three separate cables at least. You have to write a cable that has the intelligence that he gave you that you need to have disseminated to the analysts. You need to write an accompanying operational cable with all of the stuff that the analysts don't have a need to know, but that your desk officer needs to know. Like, ah, he asked me for more money. Oh, he's depressed because his wife left him. Oh, he just got promoted. Whatever. the

[32:18] analyst doesn't have a need to know for any of that stuff. So th those two cables and then you have to write a very detailed cable on your surveillance detection route and that goes to counter intelligence and then CI will look at it and say oh this this is this is bad. He went all the way up to TGI Friday and then came all the way back down again and sure enough they dinged him and they said don't do that again. if you were being followed, you just blew everything. >> This question is like kind of an aside,

[32:50] but you mentioned uh before trying to vet what an asset says to make sure that they they are doing exactly as they say and of course that the information that they're giving you is true, if that's the case. But is there operations officers that lie about the intelligence that they get to build a career for themselves? Oh my god, we spent so much time on that in in training. The the answer is yes. Unfortunately, um that leads to a very quick firing.

[33:21] Um there are two things that case officers there are three things that case officers sometimes are caught doing. Sometimes you will work for a total [ __ ] who says everybody needs to get five pieces of finished intelligence or you don't meet um threshold. Okay. Well, some months I'm going to get like 10 or 12. And some months I'm

[33:51] cultivating new agents and I'm not going to get any. And they're not saying you need to average five a month. You need five a month. So, what that does is it encourages people to just make the [ __ ] up and write it up as intelligence. Maybe they'll pull it out of some obscure newspaper, which happens. Or you have a meeting with an agent, he gives you a a a an amazing plethora of

[34:23] intelligence reports, and you just keep five in reserve for next month. If it's not too terribly time-sensitive, you give them the five that they need right now, you save the next five for next month. That's intellectually dishonest. And another one that people get caught doing, and this is something I never ever understood. Depending on the station chief, you're allowed to spend like up to five bucks at a at a cover stop, an SDR cover stop,

[34:55] all the way up to 20 bucks at each cover stop. It just depends on who happens to be the chief. Well, sometimes people will make up receipts or they'll save receipts and then just put the money in their pockets. So, what would possess you to try to steal $20 from the CIA? Is that really Is it worth being fired to steal $20 from the CIA? I just never understood it. >> Well, does that say something about the

[35:27] personality type? that's recruited for case officers. >> Yes. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. You know, we got I I was in one assignment and and there was some big like senior senior enemy leader coming. We heard he was staying in this hotel. It was like a boutique hotel. and had a bar in the in the lobby and he was bringing this giant contingent of

[35:57] intelligence officers with him to protect him. So our boss said, you know, if if you want to try to get in on this, you should go to the bar because we heard that these guys are hanging out at the bar. I'm like, I really don't want to go. It's not my area of expertise. I don't speak the language. I don't really care about this country. And um and my wife, who was also a CIA officer, said, "Nah, you really should

[36:29] go. You know how they are. If you don't go, they're going to criticize you." So, I go. The bar was smaller than I expected it to be. But literally every seat was taken by a CIA officer. I was just like, "You guys." I turned around and walked out. And then the next day they were all bitching because the station chief after the fact had found some obscure rule that unless you are conducting an

[37:01] operational meeting, they won't pay for alcohol. So people are ordering these $20, you know, espresso martinis, multiple espresso martinis, and everybody's out of pocket $100 because that wasn't an operational meeting. You're just hoping that somebody from that delegation happens to walk in to the bar and sit and order a drink and then you, you know, you all beat each other up to see who can strike up a conversation with a guy. Oh man, I was

[37:32] so glad I didn't stay. bunch of bums. >> To be fair, they did tell you to go to the bar. >> They did. It was bad leadership is what it was. >> And something else you mentioned uh when you were talking about you used the example of like running an SDR in China, like an 8 hour SDR with infrared cameras. And >> it just got me thinking like you me you mentioned this very briefly. We kind of ran out of time in our last interview where you said something along the lines of like, you know, gone are the days of just being able to cross borders and

[38:02] alias and do a brush pass because >> oh my god with with facial recognition software and AI. I actually posed this question to a current CIA officer. I said, "How do you guys cross borders? How do you get through airports like in different in different uh names?" And he said, "We don't know yet." still struggling. Yeah, the technology is developing so quickly, they just can't keep up with it. >> So, man, that that a lot of things are

[38:34] run through my head right now, but uh something I just thought of, I heard from one of the science of technology people that gave an interview that the agency is involved in or dabbling in VR and AR type stuff. >> Oh, yeah. She didn't want to. She didn't say what, but what would you like what would you imagine that that's about? >> Oh man. Um, I don't know because I've been out a long time, but I will tell you that the DS&T, the sorry, the the Directorate of Science and Technology, which is one of the four directorates at

[39:05] the CIA when I was there was almost an afterthought because mostly what it was responsible for was disguises and um, you know, briefcases with secret pockets in them and you know, supporting operations. Now they are so sophisticated and so far advanced working with the likes of Palunteer and Elon Musk's different companies and

[39:38] AWS and all these like cutting edge you know Nvidia all these cutting edge tech companies they are so far advanced that instead of doing the silly concealment devices and disguises is they just pawn that off to you know to you know individuals or or makeup companies and and and they do the big ticket items. Now I would say what the DS&T is doing with things like virtual reality are

[40:12] closer now to what DARPA is doing on futuristic tech than what they ever did in the past at the CIA. So, what would you say as an example? Like, what would a big ticket item be in that case? Man, I you know what? I I couldn't even venture to say it. I I don't even know. It's become so sophisticated. I sat next to a guy for years, awesome guy, terrific analyst, and he always had a

[40:44] thing for tech. We used to joke about it cuz we were all young. We were all in our 20s. were all techsavvy. Now he's the CIA's chief technical officer, SIS4. He could be the director if the president wanted him to be. And I remember saying to a buddy of mine when when our friend was promoted, I was like, man, he really made it like to the very top. And my friend said it was it was the tech, you know, he I'll I'll

[41:15] tell you what he did just as a favor on his day off. Um, he made a computer program to allow our Middle East analysts to make family trees of the royal families in the countries that they cover, right? No such software existed. There was no such thing as, you know, familytree maker or genealogy.com. There was no such thing as.com. I We're talking about pre- internet days. and he

[41:46] took three days off on his own time and made this program, this software that everybody in the office used. And I was like, "Wow, he really knows a lot about tech, huh?" And then two or three years later, they invented the internet or they didn't invent it then, but they they released the internet to the general public and he just jumped right in and really really made something out of himself. So, he's in charge of all this stuff now. Yeah. >> Did you ever have an experience with DARPA? >> Never. I was never cleared to even know

[42:18] what it was they were doing over there. They're so far advanced, >> right? And that's what they say. They say uh they say DARPA's 20 years ahead of what we can see. >> Mhm. >> And so I would think that is the agency. >> Yeah. One of the things I learned early on at the agency though is that it is far cheaper and far easier to just buy something that's already been invented than it is to develop it from scratch.

[42:51] That was before 9/11. Post 911, money is not an issue at all. And so DARPA is doing it. NSA's doing it. CIA's doing it. And then they're with within QEL, they're financing it uh in the public sector. I'm sorry, in the private sector. So, the sky's is the limit, man. It really is. And I can't even imagine the Russians spending that kind of money on

[43:22] tech. Maybe the Chinese do. I don't know. They've got the money. But since 911, we've gone we've gone whole hog in tech development. >> Chinese could always just steal it from us, I guess. >> They steal it from us. Yeah, just like the Israelis do. >> We'll talk about that. We'll talk about Oh, we'll talk about the MSAD, don't worry. Um, >> Incitel is the the it's openly the CIA's venture capital firm, right? >> Correct. >> Yeah. in their I want to say invest they invested in Palunteer or

[43:53] >> they gave Palunteer their first it was like a million and a half to get off the ground very first investment and now look at Palanteer just this year for the first time they have more than a billion dollars in revenue so it's it's a success story >> so Palunteer does commercial stuff now too it's not just um DoD and government contracts >> it's a standalone profitable tech anybody, >> right? So, they're selling to civilians, so to speak. But, um, I remember when I

[44:24] remember hearing when Palanteer first came out that people at the agency didn't like it at all >> and maybe they gave him a trial run or something and they were like, "Fuck this. We don't want to use this." Do they use it now, you think? >> Yeah. >> What is it? What would they use it for? >> Oh, all kinds of stuff. Mostly mo Well, you know what? I probably shouldn't say. I probably shouldn't say. >> Would it be along the lines of targeting? >> Yes. >> Yes. You know, this this metadata has to

[44:56] come from somewhere, right? So, like with Aviseda, and remember, Aviseda was 23 years ago where we're just laying out papers on the ground and trying to connect the dots. It's way more sophisticated now. You can't get away now. You just can't get away. So rather than have analysts pouring over this stuff and you just hoping that your analysts are really, really smart,

[45:28] AI does it all. They do all of it. And it makes it much easier. That's why, you know, that's why in the Obama administration, John Brennan had the Tuesday morning kill list meetings. because the tech got sophisticated enough that you could just write up a list of people that you want to kill that week and you dish out the assignments. The teams go out, they kill everybody that's on the list and then they meet next Tuesday and get that kill

[45:59] list and you just do it week after week. Well, if you're not having to devote armies of targeting analysts uh to to finding these guys, if if your computers can find them just based on their, you know, email messaging, text messaging, whatever, metadata there, your job's easy. You just fire a missile from the drone, or you drop a guy in that does a close-in shot, and then you get back on the helicopter and fly home.

[46:31] I hate to sound cynical like that, but that's just the way it is. >> I think that's uh just calling it how it is. What uh what year or years was that was Brandon doing that Tuesday morning kill list? >> He started in '09 and kept it going. I have no idea if Donald Trump kept it or Joe Biden kept it or revived it, but it was something that they were very proud of in the Obama administration. They

[47:02] were just going out whacking everybody. >> Yeah. Well, nobody nobody dropped more missiles from drones than Obama did. >> No, nobody. Nobody. And you know, somebody said I I naively said, you know, the oversight committees need to be on this. And then a friend of mine said to say what in their re-election campaigns. We need to kill fewer terrorists. If I'm reelected, we'll

[47:36] be a good one. >> America in the 21st century. >> And you and uh you and John Brennan are not the biggest fans of each other, right? >> No, sir. Why not? >> John and I have always hated each other. I never liked him. I never trusted him. I believe that he is the archetypal sociopath. Somebody just by dent of his sociopathy

[48:07] has been able to rise to the top. Yeah. And we go back to 1990. I mean, I've known John for what, what is that now? 35 years. Never liked him, never trusted him, never respected him, but he had a rabbi in George Tennant. And uh and the next thing you know, he's at the top of the heap. It was John Brennan who literally put me in prison. John had a

[48:37] John had a Nixonian obsession with national security leaks except when he was the one doing the leaking and now it's come back to bite him in the ass. Uh and we can get into that if you want but but after I blew the whistle on the torture program um and John became the deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism in Obama's first term. He went on to be CIA director in the second term. John asked the Justice Department to secretly reopen the case

[49:10] against me. The Bush administration said I had not committed a crime. They closed the case. I had no idea that my phones were tapped. My emails were intercepted. FBI guys following me everywhere. And then John wrote a memo to Eric Holder, who was the attorney general at the time, and he said, "Charge him with espionage." And Holder wrote back and said, "My people don't think he committed espionage." And then Brennan wrote back and said,

[49:40] "Charge him anyway and make him defend himself." So they arrested me, charged me with five felonies, three counts of espionage, waited until I went bankrupt, and then dropped the espionage charges. So I ended up taking a plea to a a lesser charge. I did 23 months in prison. And um and it was because I had revealed the CIA's dirty laundry and this illegal, immoral torture program. And now it's John's turn to be on the

[50:10] hot seat. John and all his cronies like Jim Clapper and Jim Comey and Hillary Clinton and all these other ones who thought they were untouchable. Now they're going to have to answer for their actions. So before we come back to that, uh I think it was in 2005, Brennan was appointed CEO of a company called the analysis corporation. >> Mhm.

[50:40] >> Wasn't this the company that was stood up for senior intelligence service officers to use as like a tax pass through before they went to [ __ ] >> It was one of two. Um the analysis company was one it was based in uh in Arlington Virginia and the other was called um Araus Corporation. It's funny because the analysis company was where all the SIS senior intelligence service level analysts would go, the retired analysts and Arais was where the retired

[51:11] ops guys would go and they were legitimately set up just as LLC passroughs, right? So people could go and smoke cigars and drink coffee and tell stories with their friends and hang out all day and then lo and behold they started making money after 9/11. Arais was bought by I think it was IBM for well over a billion dollars. All these guys got not just rich but they got like you know megaillions lotto kind of rich and then

[51:42] and then the the analysis company. It's funny you know everybody It seems like everybody who's left the director of intelligence has tried to do private intelligence either as a singleton or working for one of these these companies and it never succeeds, right? Because pretty much anybody can do analysis if you're an expert enough in in a in a topic. So why would you pay millions of dollars for these CIA cronies to to write you a paper when you

[52:14] can just hire some professor and give him five grand and he can do it for you. He's as much an expert as they are cuz they don't have access to classified information anymore. And even if they did, they couldn't give it to you. So it didn't work. He was also on the board of was like BAE Systems and there were a couple of Beltway Bandits and Defense Contractors, you know, 60,000 here, 100,000 there and you put together a pretty good living. >> Mhm.

[52:45] >> So, can you explain to people what private intelligence is? >> Oh, sure. I actually did it for for several years. Um, private intelligence really is is what it sounds like. You're doing exactly what you did at the CIA, whether it's analysis or operations. You're just not using classified information to do it. And I'll give you an example. Um, I got a call from a criate billionaire one time and he said that

[53:17] he had one daughter, just one daughter, who was going to inherit all of his wealth and she was engaged to this bum, this Greek criate guy who lived in London. And he said, "I don't like this guy. I don't want this guy anywhere near my money or my daughter, and I need for you to find out as much about him as you possibly can. And I said, "Okay, so uh what's my budget?" And he gave me a

[53:48] number. I flew to Cyprus. I I bribed a police captain, uh to to give me all the secret police files. I flew to London. I did surveillance on this guy's building. And finally, it took me about six weeks of of working full-time. And I I got back to the billionaire and I said, "Yeah, he's a bum and he's cheating on

[54:18] her." So I said, "First of all, he's been stealing money from her." And he used the money to buy some warehouse in London. And I had satellite pictures of it from Google Earth or Google. Yeah. Earth. And uh I said he's gone in with with some partners. There's like an Armenian guy and a Turkish guy. And they all went in. They're losing money, but they used your money, I said, to buy the place. He told your daughter it was for

[54:49] something else. And then he just took the money and bought this warehouse. So that money's gone. He's trying to buy a mansion in London because he thinks as soon as he gets married, he's going to live happily ever after. It's all about the money. And I said, "And besides that, he has multiple drug arrests." He's like, "What?" And I said, "Yeah, it was smuggling." He was smuggling drugs from Israel into Cyprus. He got caught, got arrested, paid off some judge, so he was never prosecuted. Um, the Brits think that he's smuggling drugs there.

[55:21] So the old man went to his daughter and he he told her, "You're being scammed." So that's operationally private intelligence. Private analysis is different. It's actually a lot more fun. So I went into business for myself in the years between when I left the Loiton or the year and a half between when I left the LO initution, I went to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and then I picked it up again when I left the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So, one of my big I I had

[55:52] three big clients. I had the ninth largest mutual um sorry, the ninth largest um hedge fund in the world. I had a mutual fund and I had the largest mining company in the world. And then I did I did a contract for an oil company as well. So, they would ask very very specific questions. Who's going to win the Romanian municipal elections in

[56:22] September? I'm like, I don't know anything about Romania. So, where do you go? You go to LinkedIn, right? I'm Orthodox and everybody in Romania is Orthodox. So, I send connection requests to every everybody who looks interesting who happens to be Orthodox in Romania. It's like 60 people. and I say, "Hey, I got this question. You know, one guy gave me private polling data." So, I said to the

[56:52] client, and I said, "It would help me in the in the analysis. It would help me if I knew why you cared who is going to win the municipal election." And they said, "Sure. We're thinking of buying a silver mine. And the silver mine is underneath a village. And to mine the silver, we have to destroy the whole village. So if the socialists win, they're not going to let us do it. >> And if the conservatives win, they'll just relocate everybody and we'll just

[57:24] destroy the thing and take the silver. And I said, "Well, the polls say the conservatives are going to win." And so they bought the mine at the pre-election price. The conservatives win. They move everybody out of the village. The company destroys the village and takes out billions of dollars worth of silver. Another one was this one was kind of funny. Ayay, this company, they buy an oil field um or they they didn't buy it, they lease an oil field, but they lease it

[57:55] for like 99 years in Oman, and it's right on the border with Yemen. And none of them had any idea at the time that al-Qaeda controls the border of Oman and Yemen and you're not going to be able to get anywhere near that oil, not within 50 miles of it. So they they wanted to know um if the Omanis if they approached the Omanis and offered to pay for the Omani military to force al-Qaeda out, would

[58:26] the Omanis do it or should they just walk away from this oil lease? So, I went to Oman. I talked to the minister of oil and the deputy minister of oil. I talked to the deputy uh intelligence service director and I I kind of knew all these guys like we had met. We weren't like buddies or anything, but we had met. So, when I asked for the appointment through the Omani embassy, they said yes, yes, come and come and you know, we'll have a conversation. So, I went back to the company and I said I

[58:58] said, "They're going to gouge you, but they'll push al-Qaeda out of your oil field." And so, they were able to drill for the oil. That's what private intelligence is. >> So, when you tell stories in that context, it just it it makes it seem like you're not makes it seem you're like a high-speed private investigator. >> That's really what it comes down to. Yes. >> Are you familiar with Black Cube? >> No. Nope. don't know that one. >> They're uh they're a private intelligence firm that

[59:30] is staffed by uh they're an Israeli private intelligence firm that is all exad guys. Um >> and they allegedly >> uh I think David Boy is the head attorney on the Epstein. >> Oh, sure. >> Allegedly David Boy used it on someone. See, and the Israelis have no compunction at all about violating any law that gets in their way. And then they say, "What are you going to do about it?"

[1:00:02] >> Yeah. Uh, we'll get there in a second because I want to I want to ask you, so you mentioned um private intelligence. You're not using classified information to do it is what you said, >> right? >> Um, but what about what about when the agency works with private intelligence firms? because I I read um Leon Petta's book who was CIA director in the Obama administration as well as Secretary of Defense, >> but he he mentioned um he starts talking about he's like one of the first things I did was shut down this program that

[1:00:32] was I forget how he described it either controversial or unnecessary or something like that, but he gave no detail and I was like what the hell is he talking about? >> So I look it up and it was the it was a Blackwater assassination program to go after targets globally. And long story short, he ended up outing Eric Prince to uh the House Intelligence Committee by name. Eric Prince was operating I guess as a knock or had a 2011 file. >> That's why Eric Prince lives in Dubai now and not in the United States. >> So I guess my my question to you then is like I had no idea and also Blackwater

[1:01:05] was involved in stealing secrets. >> Like they had a network of spies. When you think about Blackwater, you think about boots on the ground, military contracts. people know that they ran the GRS program for CIA, but like what how how did how would a CIA how would the CIA work with a contractor like that? The first thing you do is the contractor appoints all former CIA people to its board of directors and then you make the former head of the counterterrorism center, Kofheer Black, your vice president. And then you hire all of

[1:01:36] Kofheer's buddies to be the head of your different divisions. So, is it CIA? Not really. It's quasi CIA. Everybody's from the CIA. Everybody's getting rich, right? Because remember, post 911, money was literally not an issue. I I told you in our last conversation that uh I don't know, four, five, six days after 9/11, I went up to Kofheer Black again, the head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, and I said, "Keofheer, I have an idea for an

[1:02:07] operation I wanted to pass by you." and he put up his hands and he says, "Whatever it is, just do it. I have so much money I can't possibly spend it all." And so I did it. So, you know, when when Eric Prince goes to the CIA and says, "Yeah, I'll do all these things for you. We've got assassination squads. We've got interceptors. We've got boots on the ground. We'll do anything you want. I want a billion a half dollars." And then the CIA wires it the next day. Then you can do whatever you want. But the thing is is how do you

[1:02:38] control people who don't actually work for you? You can't. And you risk them going rogue, which of course they do because it's their nature. If you're being if you're being contracted to run an assassination program, you're going to go out there and assassinate people. Well, everybody's human and you make mistakes and you convince yourself that, you know, Ahmed Schmmed is a really bad guy. And actually, nah, it's a cousin with a similar name, but you just put a bullet

[1:03:10] in this guy's head. Okay, you write a check for 100 grand to his widow and just move on. And that's not cool. It's a It's a crime. You can't just go around murdering people because you think they might be a bad guy. And so, Panetta, I never really liked Petta just cuz he's not a nice guy, but um but Panetta was right to shut that down. Okay. So, um, what are the what are the legalities

[1:03:40] then of a Blackwater team going out to hit somebody as if a ground branch team would? It's is it like I think Title 10, Title 50, >> right? >> One's military, one's CIA. I can't remember which was which. >> Actually, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled on this, I'm going to say 3 weeks ago, four weeks ago. Um because that's that's a legitimate legal question that you're asking. What it what are the legalities? It's never been tried before, right? Like the CIA has

[1:04:15] permission through the amended version of Executive Order 1233 to kill anybody in the world who poses a clear and present danger to the United States. Okay? And the CIA is going to decide who's the clear and present danger. And they're not going to tell you because you're not cleared, right? I'm not cleared. We're just gonna have to take their word for it. But they have the legal authority to kill people through 1233.

[1:04:46] Then they hire these contractors like, well, we have GRS, we have we have ground branch and marine branch and air branch, and we have all these these teams that are out there killing, kidnapping, blowing up, you know, whatever. but they're not agency personnel. They just work for these private companies like Blackwater. So, is that legal? And the the Ninth Circuit Court of

[1:05:16] Appeals said yes, it's legal. So long as they have a written contract, they are acting on behalf of the CIA and the CIA has presidential authority to carry out these operations. Mhm. That was just decided. And actually, I got a call from one of the attorneys in the case and he said, "I have no idea why nobody in the media gives a [ __ ] about this decision." And so I I told him I would write something, but there's nothing out there. Nobody paid any

[1:05:46] attention to this decision. And it it the reason I paid attention was because um it was Abu Zuba who was the plaintiff in the case. Abu Zubeda said, "These guys tortured me and I want to sue them. And the court was like, "Yeah, sorry. You got tortured, but they were acting on behalf of the CIA." And the CIA was legally permitted to torture people, so you're [ __ ] out of luck. Oh, wow. Uh, okay. There's a lot of places to go there. Uh, first of you,

[1:06:18] you you you mentioned that you went to Kofheer with an idea for an operation. Can you say what that was? >> It was dumb. um our our orders after 9/11. I mean, in in the days after 9/11, literally everybody was working on al-Qaeda. Everybody in the counterterrorism center, I'm talking thousands and thousands of people. And then once we got our bearings, I'm going to say a couple of weeks after 9/11, we got our bearings and

[1:06:51] authorities were divided up. I went back to my home base which was you know 17 November. And so our standing orders from the White House were to destroy every terrorist group in the world that meant Americans harm. And so we started going back through, you know, 35 year old files looking for leads. And I found a couple in the unlikeliest places like

[1:07:23] Switzerland and Milan. You know, terrorists get old and retire, too. As crazy as it sounds. I told you the story about Bruno, the Sasha Baron Cohen film. People get old and they're like, I'm tired of this terrorism stuff. I'm just going to retire. >> You didn't tell the story about Bruno. You told the story. What what I thought of is when you went to that old man who had who was working in a bank at the time. He was the one that witnessed the murder. But you didn't tell the story about uh Bruno. >> I didn't. >> I don't think so.

[1:07:54] >> I got a call from Sasha Baron Cohen one night >> and he says, "Hey, I don't know if you know my characters, but I said, oh yeah." I said, "Listen, Borat." I said, "I almost pissed myself in. It's still the funniest movie I've ever seen in my life." So he said, "Well, I've got this character Bruno." I said, "Yeah, yeah, the the gay Austrian fashion correspondent." He said, "Yeah." So, he made me sign a non-disclosure agreement and um he said literally nobody's in on the gag except

[1:08:24] um Pam Anderson. Literally no one else in the film was in on the gag. Well, except uh that was in Borat except Borat's assistant. So anyway, um he said, "We can't let anybody know that it's me and that I'm in character." And I said, "Okay, so what can I do for you?" And he said, "We're going to go to the Middle East. I want to get in front of bonafide

[1:08:56] terrorists." He said, "I'm thinking Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda, and I want to show them Polaroids of men having anal sex, like hardcore anal sex, and I want to ask them if this is a form of torture, and should these men be sent to Guantanamo?" >> Oh my god. So, I said, I go, "Oh, that's a that's a bad idea."

[1:09:26] Yeah. And I said, 'You know, just as a general rule, you really shouldn't mess with the religious types. I go, they'll kill you. They'll kill your crew. They'll go out onto the street and kill people who remind them of you. And he said, "Well, I've got to make it totally believable." So, so we met a couple of days later, and I said, "I have an idea. Well, before that, he said he wanted to

[1:09:58] he wanted to film it in Syria. And I go, "Yeah, that's that's not a good idea either." And um I said, "I know I know the Libyan ambassador in Washington, and the Libyans are trying really hard." This is a year before Gaddafi was killed. I said, "The Libyans are trying really hard to sort of, you know, integrate and get with the program with the West." and they're always asking if we know of any films that might want to film in in Libya. He said, "Can't do

[1:10:30] it." He said, "As a Jew," he said, "I just I would fear for my safety in Libya. I can't do it." And I said, "Well," I said, "Syria really we shouldn't mess with, and Lebanon you can't do." I said, "We could do Morocco. That's easy. There are all kinds of films in Morocco or even Algeria." And he's like, "No, I I kind of have my heart set on on Syria." And I said, 'Well, I know the Syrian ambassador, so let me just raise it kind of off the record and see what his

[1:11:01] reaction is. He goes, "No, no. There's a Syrian consulate in Newport Beach, and I'm going to go down there next week." I I go, "No, no. Let me do what you're paying me to do, and I'll take care of it." Couple nights later, I'm laying in bed. I'm reading a book. It's late, like 11:30, and the phone rings and I look, I said to my wife, "It's Sasha Baron Cohen at 11:30 at night." So I said, "Sasha, how are you?" And he says with that thick British accent he has, he goes, "I

[1:11:32] think I [ __ ] up, mate." And I said, "Oh, don't tell me you went to that Syrian consulate." He goes, "Yeah, he went to the Syrian consulate." He goes in the the first door. He goes, the consular officer sees him, comes out from behind the bulletproof glass and says, "I know who you are. I know what you do, and you are not welcome in Syria." I said, "Damn it." Okay. I said, "We have to figure something else out." So then I went to meet with him. So I

[1:12:03] said, when I got there, I have an idea. I said, 'I think strongly that we should stay away from the religious types, but there are bonafide terrorists, almost all of whom are in Damascus, who have retired, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, PFLP, General Command, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Nidal organization. I said, "These guys were bad guys." Like hijacking airplanes and blowing up airplanes and shooting up

[1:12:34] airports and working with Carlos the Jackal. I mean, these were bad guys. And he said, "Well, how do you get a get a hold of them?" And I said, "I'm going to guess that they're listed in the Damascus Telephone Book." So, I went to the Library of Congress. Of course, the Damascus telephone book is in Arabic. I go to the Library of Congress. They have a copy of the Damascus telephone book. And I find four of these guys. They're all like in their

[1:13:06] 70s and they don't do anything anymore. They just they're just retired. They drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and pass the day. So I called them and I said, "We're doing a documentary about the Middle East peace process and about the role of, you know, freedom fighters and activists." And I made all this [ __ ] up and they said, "Yeah, that they would be interested in appearing in a documentary like that." So I called Sasha and I said, "Bingo, we got four of them." And he said, "Okay, well now we

[1:13:37] have to find a place to film." He said, "How about Aman?" I said, "Aman's a great idea, but I said, 'The Jordanian intelligence service is one of the best in the world, and they're going to be on you like white on rice, so we have to bring the Jordanians in on the gag." He said, "Absolutely not. The Jordanians can't know that it's him and that it's a comedy. They have to believe that this is a legitimate documentary being done by an Austrian journalist." I said, "Man, this is a bad idea." I said,

[1:14:10] "Sasha, look at it this way. If the Jordanian intelligence service sees four bonafide terrorists all flying to Aman on the same day to go to your hotel room, you're done." And he said, "I'm going to have to risk it. Nobody can be in on the gag." So he and a cameraman flew to Aman the day before I did and

[1:14:41] he told me the next day when I arrived they land and they get off the plane and they're walking out like to get a cab and there's a guy standing there with a sign and it says Sasha Baron Cohen and and so he says I'm Sasha Baron Cohen and the guy says oh the car is waiting for you. So he goes out and there's this limo and they get in the car and he says to the cameraman, "John got us a limo."

[1:15:11] I'm not a freaking secretary. I didn't get him a limo. So they're driving through Aman. And he said it occurred to him that maybe John didn't get him a limo. So he says to the driver, "Where are we going?" And the driver says, "The Royal Palace, his majesty is a huge fan." And he said, "These enormous iron gates open up and they pull into the royal palace grounds." And here's the king. And he's

[1:15:42] standing with the director of the Jordanian Intelligence Service. So he gets out of the car and the king says, "Sasha Baron Cohen, I am your biggest fan." He said, "Borat, genius. I didn't think I could make it through. He said, "Anything that you need while you're in Jordan, you talk to this man. He's the head of the Jordanian Intelligence Service. He'll take care of anything you want." And I said, "I told you you hadn't even

[1:16:13] landed in the country and they knew that you were doing this. That's how good they are." So they were blown. The cover was blown. Then they go to the hotel. So, the plan was to get these guys into a room, show them the Polaroids, and he wanted them to lunge across the table to strangle him, to beat him. So, I'm sitting behind the camera.

[1:16:48] He's at the table interviewing these guys and he's very effeminite in this character. So he pulls out the the polaroids and again these are like hardcore gay, you know, anal polaroids and he lays them out and uh he says, "Is this torture? The these men, they're torturing each other. Should they be sent to Guantanamo?" And these guys are old, so they're like they have

[1:17:18] their their tri focals on and they're like one of them picks it up and he goes like this. He goes, "Oh, not good. This haram, not good." And the other one, he hands it the other one. Oh, no, no, no. This not good. and they just set it down and they just look at him like, "Damn it, nothing's happening." So, I'm waiting and the cameraman told

[1:17:49] me beforehand, "If they react and they lunge at him, don't move cuz we want the fight on camera." And then they're like, you know, looking around, light up another cigarette. He brings out more pictures. They were like, "This not Islam, not good." And then that was it. So, we finished the scene and the guys leave. He paid them, I think he gave them like a $100 each. And um and I

[1:18:21] said, "Well, that was a bust." And he goes, "Yeah, they didn't they didn't give a shit." I said, "No, cut the entire Jordan part out of the movie, the entire thing." And then, ironically, they went to Jerusalem. I flew home. It was in Jerusalem that Yeshiva students beat the [ __ ] out of him. And it was the only time in filming that he dropped character. He went to the to the Western Wall, you know, like the holiest site in all of

[1:18:53] Judaism, and he was wearing a leather vest with no shirt, and he's hairy like a gorilla, right? So, he's got this leather vest with no shirt. He has pink hot pants, like ladies hot pants and leather boots that come up over his knee. And he goes to the Western Wall like this. And this rabbi saw him and then the yeshiva students were just on him. They beat the [ __ ] out of him. He had black eyes. His face was swollen. They had to stop filming for a week for the for the

[1:19:23] swelling to go down. And he's on the ground. They're kicking him. They're stomping him. And he he was saying, "I'm an actor. I'm an actor. It's just a joke. We're filming a movie." They didn't care. They didn't care if it was a joke. And he was an actor. No. You mess around in certain parts of the world. And >> it was daring and gutsy. And I've said in in previous interviews, I concluded that the guy was a genius. And I don't use the term lightly. He was a genius. A comic genius. First of all, who would

[1:19:55] think of something like this? Even if it didn't work in Jordan, who would even think of something like this? And then, you know, you go back to Borat and it really holds its comedy. It really who would think to do that where there are governments issuing condemnations of of a movie. You know, he's driving past the the embassy of Usbekistan. He's like, "Fuck you, Beckistan." And they take out a full page ad in the Washington

[1:20:27] Washington Post. They say, "We condemn this film. We're proud people of Usbekistan." Come on, genius. >> You can't not laugh. >> No way. >> So, what makes the Jordanians so good? >> Uh, the ne the necessity to survive. Fully 50% of the population of Jordan is Palestinian. They are Palestinian refugees and the descendants of refugees. And we know that because if you're Jordanian, your passport is green. And if you're Palestinian, your passport is black. And never the two

[1:20:58] shall meet. So in 1968, there was a Palestinian uh terrorist group called Black September. And their goal was to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy and make Jordan the new Palestine. They were fighting literally on the steps of the palace. That's how close they got. And the Jordanians were able to beat them back. And the Jordanians don't want any more trouble. And so

[1:21:29] they had to develop arguably the best or second best intelligence service in the Middle East just to protect themselves. We train them, Mossad trains them, the Saudis train them. And I mean they're they're great. Truly great. Yeah. >> Is there anything that stands out that they're really good at as far as like are they really good at ops or analysis or are they just wellrounded? >> Ops. They don't even so much care about

[1:22:00] the analysis. It's all about ops. You know, look at it this way. They've got they've got all these factions, all these Palestinian factions on top of having the the PA, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas with representatives there and every other Palestinian group with representatives there, you know, the Kudz force and, you know, this one and that one and Islamic Jihad and everybody's there. and they have to allow a simmer

[1:22:30] because everybody's going to be bitching about the Israelis, but they can't let that simmer turn into a boil that actually presents a threat to their own stability. So, it's a constant balancing act. And the only way that you're able to pull off a balancing act like that is to infiltrate every one of these groups. And then you really need the economy to be good enough so that hungry people don't get angry. >> Interesting. Did you ever Does the CIA

[1:23:02] do joint ops with the Jordanians? >> That's that's a question that I'm not permitted to answer. I will say I was at a facility once a facility once with the Jordanians and um it was in a very very rural area of the United States and uh I'm standing with there was a captain from the Jordanian intelligence service and a and a deer walked by and he says to me gazelle is

[1:23:34] that a gazelle and and the funny thing is they only have gazels in in the Middle East. So any kind of deer is a gazelle in Arabic. So I said, "Yeah, it's a it's a gazelle." I said, "We have millions of them here. Too many." He says, "Uh, it's tasty." I said, "Oh, yeah. Makes a nice makes a nice stew." So I mentioned to the to the lead guy, I said, "I I think maybe we should shoot one of these deer."

[1:24:05] I said, "I think these I think the the Jordanians want to want to eat one." And he goes, "Cool." Five minutes later, you hear And we had a pot. I mean, I'm not exaggerating when I say they made a pot of venison stew like this and these guys ate until they practically burst. Oh my god, that's great. >> Like, I didn't think I was going to be skinning a beer today as part of work. >> Oh man. >> Was that uh you and you said that was in a rural part of the United States? Yeah. >> Was it near Virginia?

[1:24:36] >> No. >> No. It was out in the sticks. >> So, one could assume that maybe some training operations were going on. One could make that assumption. You know what was so funny to me? We had a break. We had a break in. It was part of it was classroom instruction. So, we had a break. So, I go into the men's room. A whole bunch of guys went to the men's room. Was all men. And it was one the toilets, the urinals were these ones that flush

[1:25:07] themselves. So, you know, you take a leak, you walk away, it flushes itself, you wash your hands. The Jordanians are standing there. They're all done. And they're like pressing the pipe and tapping the pipe and then they're punching the pipe because they couldn't figure out how to flush it. And they hadn't like like they're still hanging out. They're just standing there with their things hanging out like trying to and I'm trying to explain to them you can walk away. It it flushes

[1:25:40] itself. They just couldn't. And then finally the the one it was the colonel. He's like you Americans, you're so advanced. How do you have these things? How does it know that you're not there anymore? I said it's got a little thing in there. I don't know. I don't know. I said we've had these for a little while that it just knows. It knows when you're when you're all done. >> That's great. So, um, what, uh, not specific, you don't have to say specific intelligence agency, but is there any like joint training that

[1:26:11] stands out? Like what kind of stuff would you guys do with other friendly intelligence services? >> It depends on the service cuz some are really good at some stuff and really bad at others. Um the first job that I had that I came back where I when I came back from Athens but before 9/11 was I uh I was in an instructor in a group that that trained intelligence services around the world in counterterrorism operations. So because of my Arabic and my field experience in the Middle East, I handled all the Middle East, but that

[1:26:43] was specifically counterterrorism operations. you know, busting down doors or if you can't bust down the door, you put a charge on the door and blow it open. And we spent weeks weeks doing surveillance and counter surveillance. So, everybody, I mean, just as a rule of thumb, the CIA will work with with any country that's friendly and even some that aren't friendly so long as you have joint interests. You know, I've always

[1:27:14] maintained, for example, that there are areas that we can work with the Russians on right now, even in a state of war, >> such as >> counterterrorism, counter narcotics, counterprint. Definitely. Definitely. So, yeah, we started talking about started talking about ground branch um a little bit before. So, I guess just to kind of start start off there, like

[1:27:45] what what is what has been your experience with ground branch and special activities and whatever they're calling it now? >> Honestly, my experience with all of those special activities groups was seeing them in the in the office and saying, "Hope you had a good weekend." Those guys, first of all, almost none of them are career CIA officers. They had long successful careers in special forces of some sort, the Navy Seals, the Army Rangers, you know, whatever, Delta

[1:28:16] Force. And at first, post 911, they were secunded to the CIA for, you know, quick strike operations. And then as the years went by, the agency decided to make many of them official. So you put them under global services or special activities division or counterterrorism center and um and they are actually CIA employees. Others have retired from the military and are

[1:28:49] at CIA as contractors. So it's a much more efficient way of of bringing them on board. But what they do is so secret. I mean, the the nuts and bolts of it is so secret that they just don't talk about that stuff. You know what they're doing. I know what they're doing. Everybody in the office knows what they're doing. Nobody mentions it. >> Can you explain like what it is that they actually do to people? >> Yeah. The job is to

[1:29:22] kill or kidnap uh and render anybody who might be a threat to the United States, to an American citizen or to an American installation. Now, at the top of the food chain, yeah, we we want those guys to be out there killing the Osama bin Ladens and the Imanis of the world. We want them dead. On the other hand,

[1:29:52] you know, mistakes get made and you've got people being snatched off the street and rendered to third countries and then tortured in those third countries only then to have that country's intelligence service come back to the CIA and say, "Look, this is the wrong guy." And here you've been torturing him mercilessly for the last nine months, which has happened repeatedly. So on the one hand it's it's great like you know who was it that said it was it was Jose Rodriguez the former deputy

[1:30:23] director for operations that you need somebody who's willing to um who's willing to take these tough decisions right on the other hand as as American government officials we live by the rule of law and by the constitution. And so you als

[1:31:02] when I think about ground branch or special activities division, I think about like you said all those retired special operations guys, ex Delta Force guys, ex SEAL team 6 guys that basically go there to do the same exact [ __ ] that they were doing, >> you know, a special operations mission set like put, like you said before, put a charge on a door, blow it open, shoot people in the face, and leave. But then you hear about things like, >> we'll get into the MSAD, but that, you know, they uh that one, it was Khaled Mashal, the attempted uh assassination

[1:31:33] in Jordan >> where they sprayed him with poison. But like, so my question is at the CIA, is it how is special activity structured? Do they have like specialized units? >> There are two different special activities components. One is its own division within the CIA's director of operations called the special activities division before 9/11. That's that was that that were the that was the only one, right? And they would go do things in the cover

[1:32:05] of darkness that nobody talked about. Then after 9/11, the counterterrorism center created its own special activities group. So these were guys that were on loan to CTC who would go out and specifically target terrorists, people who were planning operations against us. I left before they could really figure out who was going to do what over the long term. So, I don't know how it's

[1:32:38] structured. I do know that both organizations still exist and a lot of what the special activities guys do in CTC is not assassinations, it's kidnappings. So, you know, it's it's parachuting in somewhere, stealing a van, and snatching somebody off the street. and then you meet the helicopter at the at the uh departure point and then just fly the guy to wherever it is you're

[1:33:09] going to fly him. It's very dangerous, very very dangerous work cuz you're you're not snatching people off the street in Dubai or Abu Dhabi for example. You're snatch them off the street in Benghazi or Kartum or you know Karachi or something. So, a lot of moving parts, very, very dangerous. And if CIA people are being killed, we wouldn't even know it because they get their star on the wall of honor and there's no name attached to the star.

[1:33:40] So, we we don't really know what's going on with these groups. >> So, you said what um people were on loan to CTC from special activities? >> No, from the military. Oh. >> Mhm. >> Would that be like um I forget what it was called? The Omega program. Do Do you Does that ring a bell? >> I think that was uh >> You've been after my time. >> So that was when the CIA worked with uh JOC components. So I think it was I think it was mainly Seal Team 6. I want to say it wasn't

[1:34:11] >> uh Delta Force, but JC and >> the CIA worked together. You know, I will tell you in CTC at the time post 911. Picture picture picture this. It's a big bullpen. Got 150 people all in cubicles. So many people I've said this before that we had to name the aisles, right? So there's like Bin Laden Boulevard. Seriously, Hezbollah Highway. So you could tell people, "Oh, I I sit at the intersection of whatever." Um, and then

[1:34:43] around the perimeter of that big bullpen are all the private offices. You have the chief CTC, deputy chief for ops, deputy chief for analysis, deputy chief for military affairs, and then the group chiefs, and all the big mucky mucks have their own small private offices. Once those guys on loan from say Seal Team Six came to the office, they never interacted with any of us. I mean, not even so much as a good morning. And so, I mean, we we kind of

[1:35:16] knew what these guys were there to do. We knew who they were. They just appeared one day, you know, in the weeks after 9/11 and then they would vanish for a week at a time or two weeks at a time and then come back whispering to each other and not interacting with you. So, it was pretty easy to figure out who they were and what they were up to. I want to talk to you about CTC specifically, but not related to CTC necessarily. Was there a point when you were at the agency after 9/11 where you

[1:35:48] saw it turning into a paramilitary organization? >> The day after 911. Seriously, the day after 9/11, Kofheer Black, an hour after the attacks began, Kofer Black stood on a chair right outside of his office. And it was dead silent. There were hundreds of us, silence. And he said, "Today, we're at war and we're all going to have to fight. Not all of us are going to

[1:36:20] come home." So if you want to walk out now, walk out and no one will think less of you. One woman walked out and then her branch went to went to the deputy director for analysis and said, "We don't have confidence in her leadership." And so she was removed. But uh I mean everybody volunteered. It was literally within 24 hours that we began this transition into a

[1:36:51] paramilitary force. There was no more um focus on recruiting spies to steal secrets, right? It was just about destroying al-Qaeda, destroying it permanently. And to tell you the truth, among core al-Qaeda, that that core of al-Qaeda that was based in Afghanistan, they were destroyed by Christmas, right? The Senate Foreign Relations Committee um

[1:37:24] years before I joined it, of course, came out with a with a study that probably should have been classified and wasn't. And they said that by the end of 2001, there were 25 active al-Qaeda members still in Afghanistan. 25. It had been destroyed. And everybody else who had made their way across the border into Pakistan, we were capturing. So it was done. Now, of course, there was al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. There was al-Qaeda in the Islamic

[1:37:56] Levant. There was al-Qaeda in North Africa. They were all in al-Qaeda inspired. but but weren't coordinating operations and and also of course we hadn't yet killed either Bin Laden or Zawahi but in terms of al-Qaeda as a fighting force it was done by Christmas of01 did you did you happen to see um do you happen to see the bin Laden documentary >> on Netflix yes >> dude I uh I I can't tell you how many

[1:38:27] people reach out to me and like go did you see this did you see this and I was like no I didn't me And then I watched it and it was cool. It wasn't necessarily any new information except for one thing talking about CTC. I didn't know that uh the Kofheer quote, the flies on eyeballs thing was at Camp David >> and that's how he got the nod over Rumsfeld in the DoD. That is I didn't know that. That's a pretty cool story. >> That is a cool story and everybody picked it up at the time. Kofheer I always had deep respect for

[1:38:59] Kofheer. We can certainly have disagreements on policy, but man, what a patriot. Um, Kofheer meant he was going to see flies on Bin Laden's eyeballs when he was done. And um, you know, you have to you have to remember too that this was the greatest intelligence failure in American history. 3,000 Americans died because we didn't do our jobs. And so there was a deep desire for

[1:39:31] revenge after 9/11 which I understood fully and that's why like everybody else in the building I kept volunteering over and over to go to Afghanistan and do whatever was required of me anything. And so in the end, you know, we all we all had our roles, but Kofheer, I was glad that Kofheer uh headed the effort rather than Rumsfeld because if if Rumsfeld had headed it, it would have

[1:40:01] been a completely different landscape in Afghanistan. >> Yeah. >> There's a couple things that are in my head right now, but I have a feeling people would really want me to ask you about this. Did you Did you happen to see Shawn Ryan on Tucker? >> You did. Okay. So, for people that maybe haven't, he he talks about um he interviewed this guy that was a CIA and FBI agent that is an asset. Sean had him on his show. And I didn't I didn't watch the full episode, but just for context,

[1:40:32] let's say this guy was um his story and his credentials were I don't know, al-Qaeda. Let's say that, right? And let's say that he's Middle Eastern based and that's where his story lives. And at one point he says something to Shawn about it was either the Russians trying to proliferate nuclear material or bring nuclear material somewhere and it was something alarming related to Russia. And Sean talks on Tucker about he's like well I looked at the guy and I asked him

[1:41:03] immediately. I was like when is the last time that you had contact with the agency? And apparently this guy's story was that he got burned by the agency. The agency [ __ ] him. That's what he claims. So he says, "Well, no, it was, you know, when they screwed me. That was the very last time." And Shawn goes, "Well, I'll tell you what I'm thinking. If the CIA found out that you were going to come on this podcast, obviously the Shawn Ryan show has quite a bit of reach and he's a uh I think there's a difference between a show having a lot of reach and the show's host being reputable, which in my opinion, Shawn is. He's very reputable."

[1:41:34] Yes. Um >> Yeah. He's the He's the real McCoy. >> Yes. I Dude, I modeled this whole show off of him. I respect him a lot. I think he's the goat. Anyway, um he asked the guy, "When's the last time you had contact with the agency?" Because, >> good question. >> He seemed he felt like he just threw that Russia thing in there and it was totally out of place. And the theory would be like if the agency said, "Okay, you're going on this podcast. Say whatever you want, just work in this one thing." And that got the wheels turning in my head. >> That's insightful.

[1:42:05] >> I just hadn't thought about it that way. Like you would think there people claim other famous CIA officers are plants. I won't say who uh we don't need to go there, but just that one nugget. >> Mhm. >> What do you think about that? I think that's a brilliant insight and I could absolutely see it. 100% absolutely see it. Yes. Yes. You know, people talk about

[1:42:35] Operation Mockingbird and and the the CIA's influence over the media. They don't need to recruit media figures anymore because the American media just will gladly take whatever the the CIA gives them and they'll run with it. They'll just gist a a CIA press release and call it call it news. So, yeah. You know, a friend of mine, Jason Leupold, I don't know if you know Jason. He's a he's an investigative

[1:43:05] journalist with Bloomberg. He started off at the LA Times. He went to Vice and a couple of other different places. This guy is absolutely brilliant. He's a gifted writer. He's a dogged investigator and breaks big stories. He's the one who broke the Hillary Clinton email server story. And the way he did it, the way he does it every time is he files these gigantic Freedom of Information Act requests knowing that the agency is never going to respond within the 60

[1:43:37] days or 90 days or whatever it is. And so he sues them every time and he wins every time. And so he filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for all correspondence between the CIA's Office of Public Affairs and all American journalists, period, from this date to that date. And they didn't respond. And he sued and the judge ruled

[1:44:08] in his favor and they had to just turn over everything. and he found such interesting information. He found first there was a um a reporter who wrote a story that was a little bit anti-CIA. And so the CIA emailed them and said, "You better not publish this. If you publish this, so help me God. You will never be invited to the Christmas party ever again and we will not comment on

[1:44:38] any of your stories." And so he withdrew. They don't need to recruit the guy to kill the story. They just threaten him. Another thing that he found was Ken Delaneian, who is the chief national security correspondent at NBC News and MSNBC. He was writing articles about the agency and then he was sending the articles to the agency for clearance before he sent them to his own editor. That is absolutely unacceptable.

[1:45:10] So, they don't need to recruit anybody in the media, they already own everybody in the media. And if you're anti- agency and you're not working for a well-unded media outlet, you're screwed cuz you're just not going to be able to get your message out there. That's why we're so fortunate to have people like Matt Taibbe, for example, who's able to get his message out thanks to Substack. You know, we need we need a thousand Matt Taibbe, not these weaklings who are

[1:45:40] just going to take whatever the CIA gives them and gist it and put their name on the by line and then we find ourselves propagandized by the agency. >> I mean, that's the thing, man. Now that I'm thinking about it, if you're an independent podcaster and like me, I am my team. I don't have a team. I don't have a team of producers like Tucker to try to verify >> That's right. prior. So, first of all, I would say the onus is on people, individuals that listen to what they listen to to decide what they

[1:46:11] want to believe. That needs to be number one. >> And let me interrupt you on that point cuz that's a very very important point that I hope everybody takes to heart. >> You can't trust anybody. And so, you have to trust yourself. And the only way you can trust yourself is to consume everything. You know, I get up in the morning, people, friends of mine accuse me of being too mainstream, and I'm actually not mainstream. But you have to know

[1:46:42] what the mainstream is saying so that you can refute it. So, as soon as I wake up in the morning, I read the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, and then I go to CNN, Fox, The Guardian, a couple of others. I read the Greek papers just because I'm Greek and I have an interest in it. And then I go to the blogs and the substacks and stuff like that. You have to consume everything and have confidence in your own intellect. So you can read something and say, "Ah, that's

[1:47:13] [ __ ] That's just not true." And then you read something else, you say, "That's plausible. That makes sense. I'm going to watch that issue." Because who you going to believe? You going to believe Kendallian, right? I'm not. You gonna believe the Washington Post? I like uh Ella Nakushima and Joby Warick, but then that's pretty much it. There maybe are one or two people at the New York Times. Nobody at the LA Times anymore. So, you you've got to be confident in

[1:47:44] your own ability to discern what's true or what's not true or you just get overwhelmed with what is likely to turn out to be propaganda. >> Yeah. Yeah, dude. I mean, shoot. I don't I don't know how to uh you know, I think guest selection as a podcast host is an important one. You can't just platform anybody. But at the same time, >> isn't that the truth? >> There is an argument to be made that again, I think, you know, each individual draws the line as you do. You

[1:48:14] have a show. >> Um, and you know, it's for you or I to say where that line is. But at the end of the day, you know, information is out there. Make up your mind on your own. >> Yeah, that's it. like like uh we talked about Scott Horton a minute ago. Um I've become something of a like a semi-regular on the Pierce Morgan uh show and uh the last time I was on it was like a last minute thing cuz somebody dropped out. So they said, "Can you come on in 15 minutes?" I said, "Sure." So I I log on and I see Scott

[1:48:46] and I was like, "Oh, thank God Scott's here." Okay. So this is going to be a serious discussion. Yeah. So, he wasn't scheduled to be like he's like a fill in, you mean? Or >> Yeah, he and I were both fillins. But, as soon as I saw Scott Horton, I thought, "Okay, this is going to be a serious intellectual conversation." >> Do you know anything? I think it was Scott that mentioned this. Um, it might have been Scott or Daryl Cooper, actually. I Which Okay, I don't I don't know what Daryl Cooper has been for. I'll say that. I I listen to a lot of Tucker. I I like Tucker's podcast.

[1:49:17] >> I like Tucker a lot. >> It was one of the >> He goes deep, too. >> Yeah. Say what you want about Tucker. I don't give a [ __ ] I'm just telling you I listen to his podcast sometimes and these two guys, one of them said something about the National Endowment for Democracy. >> Do you know anything about that? >> I and I believe the context was that it was a proxy for the CIA. >> Yeah, it is. >> What does that mean? >> The National Endowment for Democracy has taken many millions of dollars from the CIA to promote American propaganda.

[1:49:49] uh mainstream American government propaganda. So when it talks about things like nation building, it's not really talking about nation building. It's talking about encouraging the development of leaders in foreign countries that are going to be knee-jerk supporters of the US and US foreign policy. So it's mainly a propaganda scop sort of machine for lack of better term. It's not like actual boots on the ground type operations.

[1:50:20] >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not not at all boots on the ground. Okay. Not at all. >> No. >> You know, when we liberated Kuwait in 1991, I I've told you in the past, I went in with the Marines on Liberation Day. It was very, very exciting. One of the highlights of my life, my adult life. And then within days of Kuwait being liberated, these Americans just kind of show up and they came to the embassy to register and then we would bump into each other at events.

[1:50:52] Remember the country is literally on fire. The Iraqis had blown up all the oil wells and there are these giant, you know, 100 foot high flames gushing out of the ground. It turned out these people were from the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee. I'm like, 'What are you doing here? And they said, 'Well, oh, we're here to help them transition to democracy. Well, it's a it's a monarchy. It's not going to be they have this little elected, you know, melwatan and national assembly, but it's not going to

[1:51:22] ever be democratic. Well, I was in my 20s then, not really savvy enough to know that this is all part of the plan. You use the National Endowment for Democracy. You use, you know, NPR, you use the DNC and the RNC, and you all smile and get along and go to cocktail parties, and it's all just to promote American propaganda. I I worked with a guy briefly, John Rendan, God bless him,

[1:51:53] awesome guy, and I asked him one time, this is before he hired me to do a contract. I asked him what he did. He said, "Oh, I'm a professional propagandist." I said, "What does that mean?" And he said, 'Well, you were in Kuwait on liberation day.' And I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'You remember when the American tanks are rolling down the the main street, the Cornesh? I said, ' And he said, and a million people are out there waving little American flags. I said, yeah. He said, where the hell do you think those flags came from? The country's destroyed. It's It's

[1:52:26] Liberation Day, but everybody has American flag, and they're all waving their little flags. And I was like, you know what? I never even thought of it. >> Mhm. It's a good living in propaganda. >> What What was the contract that he asked you to do? When was this? >> Oh, he hired me in 2008. Uh I'm I'm not I'm not proud of this. He hired me in 2008 to work with Carl Rove of all people.

[1:52:56] Carl Rove, who had run the George W. Bush campaigns, both of them, to work on a presidential campaign in Indonesia. So, it was a guy named General Jooko Widodo. That was his name. And I was the good cop cuz I'm always the good cop. And Carl was the bad cop. So, we fly into Singapore and then we helicopter over to uh Jakarta. You can

[1:53:27] see Indonesia. It's right across the water. So, this guy owns a chain of Holiday Inn. He's a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Indonesia. And um and Carl's like, "Yeah, you know, we can do this and we can do that. We've got TV commercials and radio commercials." And I said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a I said, 'General, with all due respect, there's video of you on YouTube stabbing

[1:53:59] six peaceful protesters in the heart. How do we get past that? You're You murdered six college students because they participated in a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration. I said, you're banned from the United States for human rights reasons. We can't just pretend it didn't happen. And so I know, right? So the job was um that I was going to write these op-eds saying, "Oh, he's misunderstood." And so

[1:54:30] I wrote these op-eds. No one would publish them. >> You did this. >> I That's what he paid me to do. And he paid me very handsomely. >> So I wrote these op-eds. We sent them to like the Wall Street Journal, the LA Times, the New York Times. and people were like, "No, we're not touching this." So, nothing ever came of it. He ended up he was running for president and we we needed to rehabilitate his reputation. He's a murderer and um in the end he dropped out of the

[1:55:01] race and got himself elected vice president, but the ban the the American ban on his travel was never lifted. He was never welcomed in the United States again. Yeah. He lined these guys up. It was six college students. He li he lined them up and one by one stabbed each of them in the heart. Yeah. Not good. >> I guess they didn't have a a plethora of wonderful candidates if that was the guy that they wanted to choose.

[1:55:31] >> Indonesia is a tough gig and it has a lot of people. >> Good god, man. >> Yeah. >> Well, I respect the fact that you shared that. And to to our point about nonsense, you know, if you were sticking to a narrative, >> then you probably wouldn't have. So, I appreciate that you did and that speaks to me about >> I'm not proud of it. But I had just blown the whistle on the torture program. I lost my job. I had five kids. I had four kids at the time and I really, really needed an income. And so this opportunity comes, you know, hey,

[1:56:03] would you take 25 grand to write four op-eds? And I said, yes, definitely. Um, going back to Tucker again, when you were on Tucker, I think it was you mentioned that there is agency psychologists that you can take with you on ops >> to again going back to what we were talking about before, find that crack and make it wider. >> Yes. >> What like what would they help you with? >> I have to tell you the the one operation that I did with a with an agency psychologist was the most fun I have

[1:56:34] ever had in a single operation. We had a walk-in. We had a walk A walk-in is somebody who literally walks in to an to an American embassy off the street and says, "I have intelligence I want to pass to the CIA." 95% of them are lunatics. the the other 5% are intelligence peddlers who just want you to give them a couple hundred dollars and then they go to the British embassy and the Russian embassy and the French embassy

[1:57:04] and the Israeli embassy and they just do the same thing and then that's a month's salary, right? Um some are uh probes from terrorist groups or enemy countries. They're just looking to see where the cameras are, how thick the doors are, who's armed or not armed, how far into the embassy they can get before they're stopped. But most of them are just lunatics. And then there's 1% that's the real

[1:57:35] deal. If you look historically by reading Cold War era memoirs, the best recruits the CIA has ever had were walk-ins because you don't know who this Russian KGB colonel is. You're never going to encounter him. But then one day he just walks into an embassy somewhere and says, "I'm a KGB colonel and I want to give you everything I have and I want a million dollars." And you say, "I'll get the giant sack of money." you start

[1:58:06] writing. You know, I'm being facitious, of course, but not too much. So, we had a walk-in who said that he had seen an assassination. He he said that he's driving down this highway and he has to take a leak. And so, he pulls off an exit and there's this old abandoned church there and he parks his car behind this big banyan tree and he takes he's taking a leak. And while he's taking a leak,

[1:58:37] a van pulls up. A bunch of guys get out of the back of the van. The source sees two motorcycles in the back of the van. And here's one of the guys say, "Does he still live?" And the other one says, "He should be dead by now." So he says, "I think this was this terrorist group that you guys are after." And we said, "Will you sit with a sketch artist?" He said, "Yes."

[1:59:11] And he did the sketches and they were really, really close to photographs we had of people that we suspected were in this terrorist group. So, we turned him over to the FBI and the FBI interviewed him and they said, "He's full of [ __ ] He's nuts. We're done. Well, we just took him back and we said,

[1:59:42] "How about if we fly to London, we have a nice dinner, everybody's relaxed, we're all friends, and we talk about this in more detail." He said, "Great." So, we fly him to London. He was so poor, the poor guy. I remember this. He flew to London. was freezing and he didn't own a coat. So, I went out and bought him a coat uh just so he wouldn't, you know, be frozen solid by the end of the the 3 or 4 days. So, I

[2:00:13] flew out to London with two psychologists, but one of the psychologists was a licensed hypnotist and um and I flew out there with another case officer. So, we both spoke the language and so we're going to act as translators for the hypnotist. It's hard work being a translator. And let me tell you, and you have to be like speaking like this. We're going to count

[2:00:44] backwards. 10 9 8. It's very hard. So the night before we go out to some bookstore, we go to a nice restaurant without the guy. The guy hasn't arrived yet. So just the agency people. We went out. This is going to be our plan. We're going to, you know, have all the lights off. We're going to be in the darkened hotel room. Speak very softly. We're going to put them under. And I said, "Come on." I said, I said,

[2:01:15] "Hypnosis isn't really a thing, right? It always just seemed like [ __ ] to me." And he said, "No, no, no." He said, "We're going to we're going to really put them under." And he said, 'You know, the funny thing is that smart people go under much more quickly than stupid people do, which I still don't fully understand. But he said, "We're going to we're going to ask him all these questions." I said, "Well, how long does this last?" He said, "If if we get them under quickly, we could do this for two and a half or three hours." I'm like, "Okay, this is

[2:01:46] going to be tough being the translator." So the guy arrives and you know welcome this is Dr. So and so this is the other doctor so and so and you know my colleague and so you know get comfortable you need a drink or you've used the bathroom we're going to we're going to hypnotize you to help you remember some of the things that you saw that day. So,

[2:02:17] this is one of the wackiest things that ever I ever witnessed at the agency. So, I was the first translator and I told him, "We're going to count backwards from 10 and just relax and think about the numbers." Right? So, we start and he said, "I want you to raise your hand like this." And it wasn't propped. It was up in the air like this. And he said, "Don't put your hand down until I

[2:02:47] tell you to." He held his arm there for 3 hours. It was inhuman. A conscious person couldn't do it. So, the guy is out before we get to zero, counting back from 10. So, I start asking him questions. Okay, you pull off the exit. You drive to the church. The church is right off to the side of the road. You go behind the

[2:03:18] banyan tree. Then what are you doing? He said, "I'm peeing." And then what happens? A van pulls up. What does the van look like? It's painted red and it has some rust spots over the the rear wheels. Then what do you see? The back doors open. I see two motorcycles and two men inside. I said, "Can you see a license plate?" This freaks me out. Oh, I got chills just

[2:03:49] thinking about it. I said, "Can you see a license plate?" He says, "Yes." And his he's like this with his eyes closed. I said, "What does the license plate say?" And he goes, and then he reads off the plate. So, I write it down. I hand it to my colleague. He goes into the other room and he calls headquarters. He says, "We need to run a plate ASAP." So, headquarters sends an immediate cable out to the field. Call liaison. Run this plate right now. And the plate

[2:04:19] comes back stolen. I couldn't [ __ ] believe it. I couldn't believe it. And he's like this the whole time. So, I said, "Are the men talking?" "Yes." "What are they saying? Does he still live? He should be dead by now. And then what happens? And he says, "They see me." I said, "They see you. Did they approach you?" He said, "Yes." And one punches me in the face.

[2:04:50] And then what? He said, "I'm bleeding." And I told them, "I didn't hear anything." And he went on like this. It was this long, elaborate three-hour long story. So I took notes, like ridiculous, you know, filled a notebook full of notes. I called my boss at headquarters. I said, "This is the craziest thing I've ever seen." And my boss says, "I'm freaking out over the stolen license plate." He goes, "This may be the real deal." I I write all the notes. I go back to

[2:05:21] the station in London. I I write all the notes and I send it back out into the field and they're like, "Oh my god, the details incredible. Okay, we're going to try to get with him when he returns to country." So, a couple of weeks pass and then he triggers a meeting and so my colleague who I'd been with in London flies out to meet with him and the guy says, "They know who I am. They kidnapped me and they took me to a house

[2:05:52] and they beat me." And we're like, "Okay, where where was the house? When did this happen? How many of them were there? What did they look like? Were this were they the same guys you saw at the church? He answered all these questions. And I said to my colleague, I said, "This doesn't make sense because the only way they would know who he was is if they were, you know, with us. We knew where he lived, but there's no

[2:06:23] way that they would know. It just didn't make any sense." So, I go to the FBI and it there's this one agent. She's actually big mucky muck now in the FBI. And she goes, "You CIA people, you all have your heads up your asses," she said. And I said, "No, you FBI people." I said, "You think everybody's lying to you." I said, "We're going to get medals when we crack this case." And she goes, "Ah, you people." So, she wasn't helpful to me.

[2:06:55] Then he calls a second time and he says um that they kidnapped him again, but he had a tape recorder on him and the tape recorder was in his pocket and he recorded the whole encounter. We're like, "Okay, that's way too good to be true, but let's listen to the tape." So, we play the tape and he's like, it's his voice and he says, "Hey, I know you.

[2:07:27] Don't hurt me." And then also his voice, "I am the minister of public order and I demand that you tell me about the CIA people that you're meeting with." And I was like, "Motherfucker, you made the whole [ __ ] thing up, didn't you? So, we decided to fly him back out to London. Oh, let me finish the first part first. So, he's got his arm like this. And the hypnotist says, "I'm going to

[2:07:59] count backwards to five and then you're going to wake up." And he goes 5 4 3 2 1. And he wakes up and his arm falls and he looks around and he says, "What happened?" And then he goes and then vomits all over himself. So he runs into the bathroom in the hotel room to clean himself up. And the hypnotist who was like 110 years old, he goes, "You know, I've read about this in the

[2:08:30] literature, but I've never seen it happen." I said, "I can't believe he held his arm up like that for 3 hours. It was nuts." So anyway, we fly him back out to London. We said, "No more [ __ ] You made this up." "No, no, it was the Minister of Public Order. He's with the terrorists." We're like, "No, we we ran a spectros a spectroscope on this. It's it's you with your hand over your mouth to try to make a different voice." And he's like, "Oh, well, my wife has cancer

[2:09:02] and I I was hoping that if you believed me that you would pay for her cancer treatment and I wanted her to go to the Mayo Clinic." And we're like, "Doesn't work that way." And then the FBI just says, "I told you, you [ __ ] idiots. I told you three months ago it was a lie." So I was like, "Yeah, okay. Well, you win this one." But the hypnosis part was actually that was real >> that that he saw something at the church that day. It probably wasn't the

[2:09:35] terrorists, but it was something unourred. It was probably a bunch of guys that stole two motorcycles. >> That is spooky, dude. And like you hear about um >> you hear the a about the agency taking a crack at like this remote viewing stuff, >> right? Since the 50s. >> Yeah. I uh I've kind of not looked into it, but like I've heard a couple people talk about it in interviews. Um I don't really know what to make of it, but as

[2:10:05] far as like spooky [ __ ] like that, like what what do you make of it? It was kind of the craze in the 1950s, you know, ESP and UFOs and astral projection and moving items with your mind. And and the CIA had a an endless budget. There was no such thing as an oversight committee to say, "Hey, this is a waste of the taxpayers's money." And I I'll tell you what really was the was the motivator for the CIA is is the

[2:10:37] Chinese were successful in planting disinformation in the CIA that the Russians were developing the same technology. So we were like, "Oh my god, we recruited this Chinese intelligence guy and he said the KGB is already doing it. We have to catch up to the KGB wasn't doing anything. They had never heard of this stuff." And then the Manurion candidate came out and freaked everybody out in the mid50s. So the CIA spent millions and millions

[2:11:07] of dollars experimenting with everything from remote viewing to to you know UFOs and all this crap just lumped into one thing and nothing ever came of it. I mean that this is how MK Ultra was created where okay let's start with LSD. There's this new thing called LSD that this Swiss scientist accidentally invented and you can see crazy [ __ ] when you take it and

[2:11:38] maybe we can micro dose it to make people do what we want them to do like under hypnosis but without them realizing that they're doing it and then we can double them back against the KGB. And then people are jumping out of hotel windows and they're killing their families and losing their minds. And and then as part of MK Ultra, there was like MK Chickwit and MK Seesaw and there was a whole bunch of them, like a half a dozen of them under MK Ultra where, you know, we we created

[2:12:10] a germ in a lab and we just blew it into the atmosphere in San Francisco just to see if anybody would get sick. And lots of people got sick. 11 of them were sick enough that they happened to be to need hospitalization. And it turned out that they all suffered from the same rare respiratory infection. And the doctors are like, "Where the heck did this come from?" Well, the CIA had it in a big tube and they were shooting it into the fog. And

[2:12:42] they did it in San Francisco because the fog is heavy and they knew that the fog would keep the germ close to the ground where people are breathing it in. And then the CIA said, "You know what we should do? We should hire a whole bunch of prostitutes and rent a rent a cat house, a safe house, and we get these prostitutes to bring John's back to the back to the cat house. And then we dose them with LSD and see if we can control their minds. These are American citizens. You can't just dose somebody

[2:13:12] with LSD." And oh, let's see. Is he going to go crazy? Is he going to kill himself? Is he going to confess to, you know, his deepest, darkest secrets? Like, what the [ __ ] wrong with people? But we did that from 1952 to 1975. And then in 75, when the Church Committee realized that this program had been going on for more than two decades, Senator Frank Church ordered the CIA, "Do not destroy the documents."

[2:13:43] And so they immediately destroyed the documents. There were about 20% of the documents that had been misplaced and were found later. So what we know about MK Ultra today is just from the 20% that survived. Everything else was destroyed. And then they were like, "Yeah, well, they're destroyed. What are you going to do about it?" >> That's the insane part is it's such a fraction of the available information and there's all of this stuff and you think about stuff like the psychic driving stuff is so gnarly, >> right? Well, now com now compare psychic

[2:14:16] driving with the technologies that we have and you've created a monster. You know, when the when the vault 7 uh documents were released back in what was it 2017? >> What are those? Um, there was a uh a CIA computer engineer who named Joshua Schulty who swears that he's innocent, but is now serving a sentence of 40 years for espionage. He was apparently allegedly a disgruntled engineer. He

[2:14:47] didn't like his boss. He didn't like his co-workers. They didn't like him. So he just downloaded the crown jewels of the director of science and technology and sent it all to Wikileaks in 2017. Google Vault 7. Vault 7 documents. Vault 7 revelations. It will knock your socks off. Um thousands and thousands of pages. It makes what Chelsea Manning leaked look

[2:15:18] like, you know, scrawl from a sixth grader. So, he revealed that the CIA has developed technologies to, for example, remotely take over your car by hacking into the chip, right? Why would the CIA want to take over your car? To make you drive off a bridge, maybe? To make you drive into a tree and kill yourself? to make you drive into an abutment and make sure that there's no way you can survive because they've got the thing going 140

[2:15:50] miles an hour and you can't control it. They develop technology to to reverse your smart TV to make the speaker into a microphone with the TV still appearing to be off so you don't know that it's broadcasting everything that's being said in your house to CIA headquarters. you know, they were able to they were able to hack into other count's um most sensitive technological systems and to

[2:16:21] leave little scraps of code, but the scraps of code are written in Russian or in Persian, in Farsy. So people say, "Oh, the [ __ ] Russians hacked into us or the Chinese or the Iranians." And actually, no, it it was us, but you'll never know it. I mean, there's almost too much in Vault 7 to even go into. It's incred. I'm going to give a talk about it at at a hacker conference this coming weekend.

[2:16:52] So, um, you know, couple what the CIA was trying to do in the 50s with MK Ultra and its subcomponents compared to what it is technologically able to do today. And it is terrifying. Terrifying. >> Damn, dude. Yeah, that is uh that is gnarly. Um going back to the the psychologist, what

[2:17:25] what kind of psychological pro Okay, let me let me frame it up before they ask the question. Let's say you recruit me as an asset. I work in, you know, the Iranian embassy somewhere and you meet me at a cocktail party and I say, "Oh, John, this this guy is he's he's a wonderful guy. I'm going to get to know him a little bit." >> Yeah. >> And we become best friends, as you say, over 6, nine months, whatever the period is. >> Y >> and you pitch me one day. >> Mhm. >> And

[2:17:56] what I'm getting at is what is the psychological process that an asset goes through? like what kind of crisis goes on as this happens? >> Yeah, that's a great question. There's a there's a little dance that's happening here. I I asked one of my instructors when I first went into the operational training, what percentage of people that you have pitched in your career said yes. He said 100%. He said, "If you are not 100% certain

[2:18:26] that this guy's going to say yes, run for the hills because he's going to out you. You're going to get arrested. You're going to get expelled from the country. He's going to report you to his own intelligence service and then you're not going to be able to travel to half the countries in the world." That happened to a colleague of mine where you we we all read each other's cables and we're like, "Dude, keep up the good work, man. You're going to get them. next meeting you're going to get him right. So I'm reading my colleagueu's cables and it's it couldn't be going any

[2:18:57] better and he asks headquarters permission. You have to get permission to make the actual pitch. It's very paperwork heavy. So headquarters says go for it. Go with God. And he makes the pitch. And the guy literally runs screaming from the room. And next thing you know, his ambassador calls our ambassador and his government lodges a formal diplomatic complaint with our government. What are you going to do? You're going to say, "Yeah, my guy's an undercover CIA guy, so you

[2:19:29] can't say that." So you say, "No, no, no, no, no. This is just a misunderstanding. It was a language thing. Our guy doesn't really speak your language very well, and your guy doesn't speak English very well." This was just an innocent misunderstanding. But we understand if you're upset, so we're going to instruct our guy not to ever talk to your guy again. That's uncomfortable. Besides the fact that you look like an idiot at headquarters because you've been telling us for 9 months how well

[2:19:59] things are going and in fact the guy never had any intention of allowing you to recruit him. Like what have you been doing all this time? You're supposed to be whining him and dining him and showing him the better, finer things in life so that he says, "Hey, you know, I'm kind of liking I make $500 a month. This guy's ordering $200 bottles of wine and he paid for us to go on vacation and he bought me a Rolex. I'm going to say yes to this." And in fact, he says not just no, but oh hell no.

[2:20:30] So what you're looking for is a vulnerability. This is this is a very important word in the what's called the the asset acquisition cycle. The asset acquisition cycle is spot, assess, develop, recruit. I spot you at a diplomatic cocktail party. I assess that you have access to information that I that I want. I develop you by creating this friendship and then I recruit you. Now, by the time I recruit you, you know

[2:21:02] exactly what's going on. You're not an idiot. And why am I spending all this money on you? You know, where am I getting all this money? Rolexes and you know, fancy vacations and what's up? So, you're not an idiot. You know what's happening here. And so, you do it very gently. And I say, "Dalton, listen. You know how I feel about you. You're my best friend.

[2:21:32] I love you. I love your wife. My wife loves you. My wife loves your wife. Our kids are friends. We're going to be friends forever. But I haven't been 100% honest with you. And I hope you're not going to be upset, but I'm actually a CIA officer undercover. That's called breaking cover. And I I hope you're okay with that. I know you're going to be okay with that because you know exactly where this is

[2:22:03] going. I've already identified your vulnerability. Maybe your kid is sick and needs medical treatment in the United States. Maybe your kid wants to go to school in the United States. I can get your kid accepted to literally any university in America and I'll pay for it. any university in America 100% paid so long as you keep giving me and my you know colleagues who replace

[2:22:34] me and replace each other what they ask for. Um so I take you off to the side and I say listen just for your protection we can't be seen as friends anymore. our relationship has to become clandestine from this point on. >> And so we're going to meet once a month at a predetermined site at a predetermined time and date and then

[2:23:05] we'll carry on from there. Now, if you're from an enemy country, I don't want you to defect. That's the last thing I want because if you defect, your value ends today because you lose your access. Well, I don't care what was happening yesterday. I want to know what your country's going to do tomorrow. Right? So, the goal is let's say you and I are stationed in uh you know, Bogotaa.

[2:23:37] I want you to go back to Iran or Russia or China or Cuba and you're going to take with you a bedroom a bedroom set that I give you, right? And the dresser is going to have a a transmitting device embedded in the back of it. And so

[2:24:08] you're going to type your reports onto a chip. You put the chip in the device. You hit a button that's hidden in the back of the drawer and it does a burst transmission that lasts about a half of a second or a tenth of a second. And it's going to send your report back to CIA headquarters. And because the burst only lasts for a tenth of a second, nobody's going to be able to intercept it. They're going to say, "Oh, there was just a transmission. It lasted a tenth of a second. We have no idea where it

[2:24:40] came from." Because once you get back to Iran or Cuba or Russia or China or whatever, I want you to tell me what's going on every single day in your office. And then I want you to try to get a promotion and then get transferred to the Office of American Affairs. And I want the names of everybody in that office. I want to know the names of their sources inside the United States so the FBI can start arresting them. And

[2:25:10] then we take it from there. And then I can pay you in any way you want. You know, we can open an account at the CIA credit union, which we're very happy to do, or we can give it to you in gold or diamonds or Bitcoin or, you know, however you want to handle it. We'll give it to you. How many of them h Okay, so I'm just thinking like an asset they a lot of them are probably very prideful, right? I know a big a big vulnerability is I'm

[2:25:43] the smartest guy in the room. I'm >> I got passed over for promotion and I'm going to show them. >> So they fancy themselves as smart people. Oh yeah. Shrewd perceptive. >> Very much so. >> And yet they didn't see this coming. >> Yeah. So internalizing that, how many of them want to know if it was a setup from the start and like do they ask you for like a face saving thing? You know what I mean? >> None of them want to know that that they were duped into this or that they walked right into it, right? So what you do in

[2:26:16] every single meeting is you tell them how important they are. your information is so important it's going directly to the president of the United States. I made a a guy cry once in a meeting. So he gave me some information and it was good. It was the the analysts were happy with it. It helped fill in a couple of gaps. He thought it was the greatest information that's ever been passed to the American government. So I said, "Listen," I go, "Buddy, your information

[2:26:47] went directly to the president of the United States." He said, "You're kidding me." I said, "No, directly to the president." I said, "I wrote the report. I sent it to the White House." He looked at the report. What did he say? I said, "The president read the report and he said, "You're kidding me." He goes like this. Oh my god. So I I write this up. I said, "Oh, I told him it went to the president." My boss says, "You want to have some fun?" He goes, "Dummy up a uh an award

[2:27:19] certificate, put the CIA seal on it." So, I said, "Oh, that would be fun." So, I did a I did a in in just in word, you know, and clip art. So, I did this, you know, Central Intelligence Agency, United States of America. I had the guy's name, uh, certificate of whatever. You put the CIA seal on it, and then I just forged the director's name because how's he going to know what the director's signature looks like? So, I

[2:27:51] go to the meeting the next month, and I said, "I told you last month that your information went directly to the president of the United States." And he said, "Yes." I said, "I have something for you from the director of the Central Intelligence Agency." And I give him this phony certificate. He looks at it and he bursts into tears and I said, "Congratulations, my friend." I said, "But listen, you know, I have to take this back and keep it in the safe because you can't be seen with

[2:28:23] this. You'll be killed." He goes, "Of course. Of course." I can't believe it. Oh my god. Oh man. I had him hooked. He was ready to name his kids after me. That's how successful it was. But you just play on their egos and they eat it up. They eat it up because they're all narcissists anyway. Not all, but you know, most of them are narcissists. They need to be stroked. So after you after you assess what the

[2:28:54] vulnerability is, right, you like, you know, actually let me ask that first. is how much of how much of the work is done on the front end by analysts and targeting officers versus you in the field asking discovery questions? >> None of it. None of it's done by them. No, none of it. Um I shouldn't say none. 99% of it is is not done by them. When I was an analyst,

[2:29:29] I have to be very careful with my language here. When I was an analyst, NSA sent us a series of intercepts. And being the analyst, I'm the only one really in the building who's paying close close attention to everything that's happening. They call it all source intelligence with these

[2:30:02] players. I went to my boss and I said, "I'm going to go out on a limb and I think these two guys are planning to defect to the United States." And he said, "Okay, based on what?" and I built my case. I had never done this before. And he said, "You need to write a top secret eyes only cable to the near east operational division

[2:30:32] chief." I said, "I don't even know what that format looks like." So he gave me an exemplar. So I started writing top secret cover sheet on it, the most sensitive document that an analyst can write. And I said, I think these two guys are planning to defect, and I think if we can get to them before their defection, we can double them back and make them double agents.

[2:31:03] So, I just cuz I was an idiot and I was young and I didn't know any better, I just stuck it in an inner office mail envelope and sent it to the director of Near East Operations. Sure enough, the next day he calls me. Are you the analyst who wrote this? And I said, 'Yes. He said, 'Come and see me. So I go up there, and this is one of those guys that's serious enough and senior enough that you know, I called him sir. So I go up there and he said, lay this out for me and start from the beginning. So I

[2:31:34] did. These were not people that his people were watching. They were a little bit too lowle. So I laid it out. I said, "If if you pitch them, I think you can double them back. If we wait too much longer, like another couple of months, I think it's going to be too late." So he convened this task force

[2:32:05] of officers and they went out and just cold pitched them both. One of them immediately agreed. The other one defected to Canada. And my boss is like, "That's that was actionable analysis." And I said, 'You know, I I read these guys transcripts day after day after day and they're bitching about this and bitching about that and I thought they don't want to go home.

[2:32:37] And so we we got them. Well, we got one and the Canadians got one. Yeah. But that was very very unusual. It's it's 99% of the time it's the case officer in the field, but case officers in the field would never have encountered either one of these guys. >> So why did you choose your words so carefully with that one? Just because it was NSA related >> and it's sources and methods. >> Okay. Okay. So similar question to being in

[2:33:08] the field then you've let's let's say you've identified that somebody's got you know they have a sick child or whatever whatever the vulnerability is. Is there like is there intangibles that how do you how do you smell blood so to speak with who's recruitable and who isn't? >> Oh man it can be just a single off-handed comment. I'll give you one example. I was talking to this guy who had access that I wanted and I'm

[2:33:41] thinking this guy's not recruitable. He's given me nothing. And then he said he was cheating on his wife and how expensive it was. I was like, "Okay, done. Done and done." Yeah. I offered him a certain amount of money. He asked for double because he wanted to get her an apartment and there were associated expenses and that way he

[2:34:13] wouldn't be out of pocket 1 cent. So at Cabled Headquarters they said just give it to him. So I gave it to him. That was it. I I recruited a guy once. I met this guy at a at a Oh my god. I I I never turned down an invitation. I'm going to like the engineers ball and you know the newspaper society uh you know Halloween event [ __ ] that would bore you senseless

[2:34:44] because you just never know who you're going to meet at these things. So I'm at one of these it actually was the engineers ball. you know, engineers are all introverts and they're all just kind of standing there, you know, looking at their shoes and walking up to the buffet table. And so I go up to this guy, I said, "Hi, how are you?" John Kiryaku from the American Embassy. Hi, how are you? We exchange cards. I said, "Oh, you work in the port. How interesting." Oh, no. It's

[2:35:16] very boring. I said, "No, no, ships coming and going all the time and stuff from all over the world." Well, I said, "That's very exciting." And he's like, "No, it's it's not." Well, I'm very interested in what's coming. >> Yes. >> And I said, "Your English is so good. Where'd you learn how to speak English? Uh, it's it's accentless American English." He said, "Oh, I went to school in Chicago. I went as a foreign exchange student uh with uh AFS, American Field

[2:35:51] Service, I think is what it's called. And then he said I I stayed uh for college at I forget where it was like the University of University of Illinois Champagne or Bana. Is that is that what it's called? >> I said, "Oh, that's great." I said, "I love Chicago. it's such a great, you know, metropolitan area and some of the best food and you just have to just roll with it, right? And he says, "I became obsessed with the Chicago Bulls." I said, "Oh,

[2:36:21] yeah. Well, Jordan, I mean, we're we're in like the middle of of Jordan's uh career at this point." I said, "Jordan, the guy's a god. It's like, you know, he the the heavens opened and Jordan came down to play basketball and he said, you know, he never had the money to go to uh to go to a Chicago Bulls game and that he'll wake up, you know, in the middle of the night just to try to get a a Chicago Bulls game on shortwave radio or whatever it was.

[2:36:52] I couldn't get back to the embassy fast enough to send a cable to headquarters saying, "Please, please, please go buy me a basketball autographed by Michael Jordan in a in a lucite case." So they did and then they sent it in the diplomatic pouch. So I'm taking the guy to lunch. I'm taking the guy to dinner. I'm like, "What do you exactly do at the port? Like I mean, do you just sit in an office all day?" He said, "No, I'm the director of the port, so I, you know,

[2:37:23] it's the bills of lading and the manifests and, you know, sometimes a ship will come and it it it has a Filipino flag, but really it's North Korean." And I'm like, "Yes, yes, this is exactly what I want." And we got friendly enough that I was able to go one Saturday morning, just drop in on him and say, "I have a present for you." And I gave him the basketball. He couldn't agree to the pitch fast

[2:37:55] enough. I didn't even pay him. It was just the basketball. He didn't need the money. He was making plenty of money. And I don't even remember him being married, so there was no like vulnerability there. But basketball, basketball. I said, "Listen, come to the United States and I'll introduce you to Michael Jordan." Yeah, we can arrange that with two phone calls. >> So, okay, you're talking to the guy at the port before you've before you've pitched him formally.

[2:38:27] >> How often when you target someone and you start you start working the cycle with them? >> Yeah. >> How often are you asking questions and probing and getting actionable intelligence before you actually have to make the pitch? like do they realize when they're crossing the line? >> Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question, too. It's different with every person, actually. You're going to probably have four, five, six meetings, developmental

[2:38:58] meetings, where you're not going to come out with any intelligence cuz you don't want to push too hard and and frighten him away. Um, but then once you get to the point where you assume he knows what it is you're doing, you're going to want to write up something formally. When I was in my last tour, I worked with a woman who went to some of the best universities in America, and she was a terrible case officer. She was

[2:39:29] just terrible. She just couldn't she just couldn't, you know, pull the what do you call this thing on a mo on a lawn mower? You know, pull the cord. She just couldn't pull it. It's like, ask the question. He's ready to go. So, the station chief asked me if I would go with her to her next meeting because she would come from these meetings and she'd say, "He just didn't give me any operational intelligence." And I said to her, you know, just

[2:40:00] between you and me, and I'm telling you this as a friend, if you carry out an operational meeting and you don't collect intelligence, you have failed. That's a failure. So either either terminate the guy, which just means fire him and say, "Look, this just isn't working out. Here's a termination bonus. It was nice knowing you, and that's the end of the relationship." or the problem is yours that you're just not recognizing what the intelligence

[2:40:31] is. So the station chief asked me to go with her to the next meeting. And I went and I said, you know, that I was I was a visiting case officer and this is my area of expertise and so I thought I'd ask you a couple of questions. I got five intelligence reports out of that meeting. And when we came out, I said to her, "How many reports do you think we got in that meeting?" She said, "None really. There may have been one." And I said, "Incorrect.

[2:41:02] There are five separate intelligence reports we got out of that meeting." And I told her it was this, that, this, this, and the other one. She's like, "Man, I just I just don't have an eye for So I wrote them up and I said, "Write down everything he says." Even if you have to go back to the station directly from the meeting, you know, do your SDR, of course, but rather than go home and say, "Ah, I'll write it up tomorrow morning when I get to the when I get to the office." Go directly back to the station while it's still fresh

[2:41:33] and write every single word that he said. Then you'll be able to do it. So, you may be able to get actionable intelligence in your very first encounter with a guy. That happened to me a couple of times. Or it may take a year before he feels comfortable enough to sort of begin to open up to you. When people begin to [ __ ] about their bosses, >> then you know you're you're headed in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. I had

[2:42:06] one ambassador. I was at some international event and he says I think that my I think that my foreign minister has lost his mind and I was like tell me more and I went straight back to the office and said the ambassador thinks the foreign minister has lost his mind. >> Yeah, you just never know. Let's move into the MSAD a little bit. I know that uh you've talked about in in interviews that uh you know that the Israelis are ranked

[2:42:38] critical threat for counter intelligence a little bit about our relationship with them. But something that I'm really interested in is the MSAD operationally because I think again correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like you'd be hardressed to argue with the fact that they are really really good >> best in the world. >> So yeah I guess broad question like what has been your experience while at the agency talking to other case officers working with the Israelis what stands

[2:43:09] out? My experience is universally negative. Universally negative. I've never had a positive encounter with Mossad. I have never met a CIA officer who has had a positive encounter with Mossad. Because the MSAD doesn't give two shits what you think or what you are trying to focus on in your job. They care only about Israel. And if that means shoving their fists up your ass or trying to recruit you or telling you to

[2:43:40] go [ __ ] yourself while they try to recruit, you know, the guy sitting next to you or the guy in the defense contractor's office, they don't care what you think of them because for them it's an issue of survival. They they have nowhere to go if they if they don't survive. The thing is they have a real problem balancing intelligence collection with political influence. You know, over the last couple of weeks, for

[2:44:10] example, uh a myriad of Western countries have begun recognizing Palestine diplomatically. The British, the French, the Irish, the Spanish, the Canadians, the Australians. Next week it's going to be the New Zealanders. If you look at a map now, the United States is the only Western country that doesn't recognize Palestine. That says a lot. Um, but we've allowed the Israelis to put us in a in a corner

[2:44:41] where we're either with them or we're against them and there's nothing in between. And that's just simply not true. We should have as our goals US national interests. Period. I don't give a [ __ ] what Israel's national goals are. My job as a CIA officer was to protect the United States and American interests and American citizens. If the Israelis need to protect their people, God bless. That's on the

[2:45:12] Israelis. But never ever should we place ourselves second to any other country ever under any circumstances. You know there's a famous saying that there's no such thing as permanent friendships only permanent interests. And we live that with every country in the world except Israel. We always put Israel's interests first. You know what? How is it on in our

[2:45:42] interest to allow a genocide in Gaza, for example? It's not. If we're this shining beacon of of hope for human rights and civil rights and civil liberties, then let's be the shining beacon. Let's not pretend that there's not a genocide taking place in in Gaza. There is. And this isn't John's definition of genocide. This is the United Nations. So, I appreciate that the Israelis have a job to do and they believe that it's a nearly impossible job,

[2:46:14] but that's not my problem and it shouldn't be the problem of the CIA or the United States government at large. So, let's go there then. I mean, why do you think that uh Netanyahu has asked every president to bomb Iran? >> Yeah. and none of them have done it besides Trump. Why do you think that is? >> The Israelis always want us to do their dirty work for them. Calculating that if we do it,

[2:46:44] there probably will not be retaliation. And if there is retaliation, of course, it'll be against us. And we're more equipped to absorb Iranian retaliation than the Israelis are. But president after president after president has said, "No, we're not going to bomb Iran for you." Until Donald Trump said, "Yes, we will bomb Iran for you." So again, here's a president who wants desperately to win the Nobel Peace Prize and my god is doing really well, right? peace between

[2:47:17] freaking Cambodia and Thailand, between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, between Pakistan and India. It's I'm flabbergasted at the success that Donald Trump has had in these hot spots around the world. but on Gaza, which is arguably the most horrific thing happening in the world right now, he just conceds to the Israelis. So

[2:47:49] if if you're Donald Trump and you strongarm the Iranians into going back to the negotiating t table on the nuclear program after they swore they would never do it, but they did it because you demanded it. But then you bomb them with the biggest bomb that humankind has ever seen. Well, then what's the incentive for them to do what you want a second time?

[2:48:20] Why why would they trust you? They shouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't trust you. And that Nobel Peace Prize, forget it because we're going to we're going to head into a longer term war now. Uh Tita Parsey published a piece uh we're in we're in early August. He just published a piece on the 10th of August um predicting that there would be an Israeli Iranian war by the end of August. Trari is one of the greatest Iran scholars on the planet. And he lays

[2:48:52] this out. It's in it's in Foreign Affairs magazine. He lays it out in very logical fashion. And so if if the United States can't be an honest broker and can't get the two sides apart while the diplomats do the job that they're trained to do, then why would they listen to us on any issue? It doesn't make sense. So that's something that I think about. I agree with you. I don't I don't want

[2:49:22] America to be the world police. No, >> I don't. nor do I >> I don't really care if there's something perceived to be wrong with saying I care about America over any other country's interests. >> Where I do wonder and have I guess wishful thinking is it's easy for people to, you know, people that don't have access to classified information to sit there and Monday morning quarterback it and say, "Oh my god, you guys armed the mujaheden when the Soviets were in Afghanistan. Look what you did." Mhm.

[2:49:54] >> But there's obviously more moving pieces and back doors and there's there's intelligence that the average American who reads a newspaper isn't privy to. >> So I would like to think that for example Donald Trump being a certain way to the Israelis is for a reason. But what reason? >> The reason is Apac has him by the balls. I hate to say it. Trump. >> Yeah.

[2:50:26] And not just Trump, but pretty much every member of Congress. Ape is the American Israel uh public affairs committee. It's the Israel lobby. Now, they somehow have convinced the government that they are just a group of Americans who really loves Israel, which of course is utter complete total horshit. Uh it's a it should be registered as a foreign lobbying group, and it's not. But if you are an elected official in the United States and you are not 100% pro-Israel, they will

[2:50:59] primary you and they have great success in defeating incumbents who express even the vaguest support for Palestinian human rights. Um, I'll tell you another thing the Israelis are successful at is cultivating Jewish leaders here in the United States. Josh Shapiro, for example, I'm from Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro is the governor of Pennsylvania. He happens to be Jewish. Cool. No problem with that. But he also happens to be a veteran of the IDF, the Israel

[2:51:31] Defense Force. He went and did his um time on an Israeli kabutz when he was 18 years old. And he loved loved loved Israel so much that he joined the Israeli military. Okay. Now, you're the governor of Pennsylvania and you're one of the front runners for the Democratic nomination for president. But where do your loyalties lie? You have served the Israeli government. I can't trust you to keep the United States first. In your mind, you haven't served the American government, but you

[2:52:04] serve the Israeli government. That bothers me immensely. There were a couple of uh Congress people who were members of the so-called squad who gave speeches on the floor of the House that you know this wholesale massacre of Palestinian civilians and women and children, it's just wrong. They were immediately primar. Cory Bush, for example, in St. Louis, they threw her out on her ass. Uh Jamal Bowman in uh New York out.

[2:52:37] Why? Because they said, you know, maybe the Israelis shouldn't be massacring all these women and children. Oh, how dare you. You must be anti-Semitic and they throw them out. This is a very dangerous development for a for a a foreign organization or an organization that supports a foreign government to have this kind of strangle hold on our government. So, I mean, somebody's got to say something. Somebody's got to stand up to these people.

[2:53:09] And I think we're getting there. You know, the rest of the world sees it and they're all they're all recognizing Palestine, if only to put diplomatic pressure on the Israelis. And we're just not there yet. And and we're standing alone. You know, we used to have this joke at the agency. Every time there was a a vote in the United Nations uh General Assembly, the vote was like 194 to four, right? Uh and the four was always the US, Israel,

[2:53:40] uh Costa Rica, and Tuvalu, right? And then the whole world, the rest of the world was on the other side. Why Why do we isolate ourselves like that? Why do we have to protect the Israelis and pretend that they're not committing war crimes or crimes against humanity? What's in it for us? Remember, there are no permanent relations, just permanent interests, and it's not in our interest to isolate ourselves.

[2:54:11] Yeah, man. I uh I haven't touched the what's going on in Gaza on this show yet just because I'm not I don't I don't know if I'm educated enough to give an opinion on it on camera. But what I will say I'm educated enough to say is it'sing horrific. >> It is. >> Gaza's leveled. There's there's thousands of innocent people dying and starving and it'sing terrible. And I'm not >> and we don't know how many bodies are in the rubble yet. So, the official death

[2:54:41] toll is is approaching 70,000, but but people are afraid that there are many as or as many as 200,000 bodies still in the rubble that haven't been accounted for. And let me add one other thing again back going back to Pierce Morgan. Pierce Morgan is an avowed Zionist, right? That's cool. That's your position. God bless. Um but he asked a couple of weeks ago, it was four of us on the panel, Jack Pobiac and and two um progressive uh

[2:55:12] podcasters, and he asked uh he asked what our positions were on Gaza. And um I was the last one to speak, but all three other guys said, "The Israelis have gone too far." And Pierce says, "John, what about you? you haven't really said anything about Gaza. Do you believe Hamas is a terrorist group and do you believe Israel has the right to exist? I said, "Of course I believe Israel has the right to exist and yes indeed Hamas is a terrorist group, but

[2:55:44] that doesn't mean that the Israeli government can massacre wholesale women, children, the elderly. There used to be seven functioning hospitals in Gaza. Now there are none. Before the war started, Gaza had 5 hours of electricity and 2 hours of clean water every day. Now there is nothing. People are starving to death in Gaza with more frequency than they're starving to death in Ethiopia and we're allowing this to happen. Enough is enough. I said, "Sure, Israel

[2:56:15] has a right to exist, but the Israelis have to stop murdering people." And then he said, "This is the first time we've ever talked about Israel on this show where all four guests have agreed." So they've lost us, the Israelis. They've lost public opinion. They've got to stop. And I'll tell you what I'm thinking about. So I had a uh I had a guy in here who was a Delta Force operator and he was he was an officer. So he was a tactician and you know, not necessarily

[2:56:46] a door kicker the entire time, but he planned operations. And what he talked about in here was they have a matrix or a calculus so to speak about the acceptable number of civilian casualties when they drop a building or hit it with a drone. >> Mh. >> And I guess again that what prompted me thinking about that is seeing entire buildings drop in Gaza to hit one person. >> That's the Israeli policy.

[2:57:18] They did it in Iran, too, when they during the 12-day war. They will take out the entire city block if there's one target in one of those apartment buildings that they want to get. >> So, what about the CIA? Do they have um like when they plan a drone strike, is there an acceptable number? It does it depend on who the target is? >> It does depend on who the target is. Um but but the standing orders are the fewest civilian casualties as humanly possible. That could mean a lot of

[2:57:49] different things. Of course. >> Yeah. In some cases, you you take out an entire family of a dozen people if if you think your target is there and this is your only opportunity to get him. But um but for there to be a half a dozen people killed in a in a drone attack, that's unusual. >> A half a dozen is unusual. >> Yeah. You know what the what the agency normally likes to do if it has the opportunity is a a close-in hit. They'll parachute guys in and they do the hit and then xfill as quickly as possible.

[2:58:19] The Israelis that they don't give a [ __ ] that they'll literally take out the entire block. You know, the Israelis, this was covered in the Washington Post um uh just a couple days after the 12-day war started. And what the Israelis did is that they have a lot of Farsy speaking Jews in Israel. These are Iranians who are Jewish and who immigrated to Israel and a lot of them work from Wasad in Shinbet. And what the Israelis did was they got the cell phone numbers of literally

[2:58:50] every uh Iranian nuclear scientist. And they had these Israeli Jews, I'm sorry, these Iranian Jews call on their cell phones, call the scientists and say, "Listen, you're going to die tomorrow, right? We're going to kill you tomorrow. You have no hope. You're going to die. Just ac accept it. Or you can defect to us right now." And they're like, "Ah, [ __ ] you." and they hang up the phone. Then they call the wives and say, "Listen, we're going to kill your husband tomorrow. So tell

[2:59:21] them this is his only chance. He's going to die tomorrow." And what they ended up doing is just taking out the entire the entire block of apartment buildings. They killed 14 nuclear scientists. That devastates the entire program and um and uh and family members as well. They wiped out entire families. And now they're gathering intelligence on the next generation of Israeli scientists and they're going to start killing them.

[2:59:54] The the US would never have a policy like that. We'll try to do, you know, some pin prick thing or or, you know, do it in person, but never just, you know, kill. They killed 300 people in in um southern Lebanon when they went after Hassan Nalla, the former head of uh Hezbollah, just blew up the entire complex. It decapitated Hezbala. It was also a war crime.

[3:00:25] I mean to be fair, the MSAD does do the close-in stuff too. >> Yeah, they do. >> Um like the like the Michelle one in Jordan. And then what about that one uh in Dubai? Do you remember that? >> Classic. You know, we studied that for a long time. They killed a guy in a hotel room in Dubai and then after they killed him, they were somehow able to lock the door from the inside of the hotel room. And we tried like magnets and different

[3:00:56] ways. We couldn't figure out how they did it. >> Like a latched door. >> It was they did the latch and the this one >> and the guy's in there dead and the hotel couldn't even get it open. Yeah. They ended up sending somebody in from the balcony. And how do they do that? It's very impressive. Wasn't there also something? Okay, first of all, the Israelis never officially claimed responsibility for that. >> Mhm. >> But there was um there was like 26 people that the Dubai CCTV footage

[3:01:30] picked up. >> Right. >> And Right. And and in Dubai, they have the most CCTV coverage in the world, more than the Chinese. >> But none of them were picked up. >> No. >> And number one, people speculate disguises, but I also I don't know if this is true, but weren't the cameras Israeli made? >> Oh, I wouldn't be surprised. When I was in Dubai, I got a tour of the whole facility, and the cameras were German. >> What facility? >> There's an underground

[3:02:00] [Music] They have this very sophisticated. Maybe we should clip that. Are you sure? I'd like to keep it in. >> Okay. Okay. I'm going to be serious. There's an underground facility that the government of Dubai has that completely created by Seammens, the big German company. It's like walking into an IMAX theater, but instead of one

[3:02:32] fivetory uh screen, it's five stories of TV monitors. So, you have hundreds of TV monitors that cover every inch of Dubai. Every inch. So, we're watching these. They gave us a tour. We're watching these and we see um a taxi driver looking at his phone while he's driving and he crashes into a telephone pole and they were like, "Uh, there's a taxi accident at the intersection of this and that and the taxi driver's rattled and

[3:03:03] he gets out of the out of the cab and he's trying to gain his, you know, composure and somebody runs up to him and we're watching all this on the screen. somebody runs up to him and then they call, you know, I think it's 115 is their version of of 911 and um well, the ambulance is already on the way because we we watched it happen in real time. So the operator is like, "Yes, yes, the ambulance is on the way. The whole country is covered." Now, you can't do that in a country like the United States, but you can do it in other

[3:03:35] places and then you can intercept what's happening in those other places. Was that while you were in? >> No, I was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee then. And it's funny. I was talking I I went to Dubai to talk about halalas. You know what a halala is? >> Isn't that the the money transfer thing? Yeah. Explain to people. >> Yeah. So, one of the way that one of the ways that terrorist groups launder money is through something called a hala. And it's a it's a time-tested, you know, old school way to transfer money. And so

[3:04:07] what you do is you go in to see, you know, Omar the tent maker and you say to Omar, "Hey, listen. I want to transfer uh $50 to my my friend Mahmood in Cairo." And uh you give him $55. He sends an email to some guy in Cairo and they generate a 16-digit number and they'll say, you know, Mahmood's going to come in and when he comes in, give him his $50 and then Omar the tent maker and Mahmood split the $5 fee. So, it's

[3:04:42] untraceable, utterly untraceable, and it happens every day all across the Middle East and parts of Africa. So I went to see the chief of police of D of Dubai and I said how do you how do you follow what's happening here and I they they follow it. So just to just to test it um I sent myself 50 bucks. I said uh I want to send something to um to myself. I live in Washington DC. They

[3:05:14] said okay uh it'll be $55. Gave them the 55. They gave me 16-digit number and they told me to go to this Arabic uh bakery in Bethesda, Maryland. So, I flew home a few days later. I take the subway up to Bethesda. I went in with my 16-digit number. The guy looks in his little ledger that he has and he gives me my $50. No record. There's no trace of it. Completely anonymous. You don't have to show any ID or

[3:05:45] anything. So, that's how they transfer drug money. That's how terrorist groups finance themselves. But the Dubian have a have a beat on it. >> So that's you were there to educate them on that. >> No, I was there to ask them how the heck do you do this? >> Oh, >> yeah. And they were like, well, there are a lot of threats that take place at the same time. Yeah. Like we can beat you on the soles of your feet with a baseball bat

[3:06:16] or you can give us copies of your ledger every day at the end of the workday. The Middle East. Your choice. Your choice. That's right. So the U had the US sorted out the Hala problem at this time because I would assume that terrorists were using it in the US >> and they continue to use it. The the US hoalas are easy enough to infiltrate.

[3:06:47] Um, any FBI agent can go to this Arabic bakery and and they probably already have gone to the Arabic bakery in Bethesda, Maryland, and said, "Look, you know, we're going to [ __ ] you up or you're going to give us access to your books." It's the US government is far more worried about uh cryptocurrency. >> Yeah. That's why, you know, doing my taxes this most recent uh iteration, they asked me, Quicken asked me three different times if I had bought or sold crypto. Like how many? Why three times?

[3:07:20] It's because they're so worried about terrorist financing and money laundering. Like, have you bought or sold crypto? Are you sure you haven't bought or sold crypto? Maybe you forgot. You want to think about it a minute? Have you bought or sold crypto? I'm like, no, I don't have any crypto. But they're very worried about it. Well, what I was going to ask is because the way the way the blockchain and I don't know much about it, but the way it's written, so to speak, they don't they don't have any ends. They don't legitimately they do not have any ends.

[3:07:52] No. And that's why the likes of Coinbase just open their books to the to the government because they don't want to be implicated in terrorist financing and money laundering. >> Mhm. So, um, to come back to the MSAD, >> I told this for for people that listen to the I had a historian, Rick Rick Spence. He's a Oh, you know Rick? >> Yeah, sure. >> Um, so for people that heard me tell the story on that podcast, sorry about that, but I want to get John's take on it and you'll hear why. >> So, um, there was a

[3:08:25] this was a a documentary that was that came out of Israel. So, it was all on the up and up. And there was a MSAD officer that told a story about um they recruited an asset who let's say he was like some sort of you know goat herder or something in I believe let's I think it was Syria and so they recruit the guy and eventually the Palestinians come to the guy and they wanted to recruit him because his he was in close proximity to the Israeli border. >> Sure. >> Um again I don't know if it was Syria

[3:08:56] but whatever let's just say there was. So the Palestinians come to him and then he goes and tells uh the MSAD and they're like, "Hey, I got approached by these guys. They want to know about some either border setup or movement of the IDF." And what the MSAD said is, "Okay, give them the information because let's just assume what you can see they can see and it's all out there. Build a relationship. Give them the information." Gives it to him. >> So then they come back to him and they say, "Okay, we want you to find a spot in the border wall for us to cross into

[3:09:26] Israel." >> Oh boy. So he goes to the MSAD and he tells him this and they say, "Okay, let's let's go find a spot in the border wall together and then when they come through there'll be a warm welcome waiting for him." So they pick the spot, he goes and tells the Palestinians and they say, "Okay, great. Thanks." The night before the operation, they tell him, they say, "Oh yeah, and by the way, as an insurance policy, you're coming with us." >> Oh [ __ ] Yeah. >> So he tells this and they said, "Well, if you if you say no, they'll get spooked and they'll either you'll blow

[3:09:58] your cover or they'll kill you." >> Mhm. >> So go with them and when you cross the border, hit the deck and we have ways to make sure that you don't get shot. And essentially that was all [ __ ] And the way that the MSAD officer described it was sacrificing a a pawn off the chessboard. And so I don't say that to illustrate the fact that oh my god the MSAD is so bad. Like intelligence is is a dirty game. I think we're all well aware of that. But the point what I got from that is

[3:10:30] >> why the hell would they be saying this? Number one to to speak to the ruthlessness of MSAD. Sure. The mystique. I think that that is beneficial to an intelligence agency. But >> you're a Palestinian. >> That's what I'm saying. Why would you want to work with any agency? >> Volunteer. Yeah. >> Do they burn assets like that? Oh, I'm sure that they do. I'm sure that they do. But I'll tell you, no no no other no other intelligence service would would send somebody send a recruited asset to his death like that. That doesn't make any sense. But the Israelis are not like

[3:11:01] anybody else. They're not. It's just another Palestinian to them. >> So, what's an example operationally like that that you can think of when you're like, the Israelis are different? you know, almost everything that the Israelis do. When I was the first time I went on Pierce Morgan, I debated a former director of the Mossad and the guy just couldn't stop chuckling all through the I mean, it was

[3:11:32] ridiculous. I said things like the Israeli spy on the United States. Oh, no. No, not since Jonathan Pard. And I said, well, Jonathan Pard was caught in 1985 and you were spying on the United States in 1998, you know, or 2004. No comment. It's like, what what is that? We would never we're not permitted

[3:12:04] to spy on the Israelis. We're not permitted. The the potential for blowback is is outrageous. Can you imagine if we spied on the Israelis and got caught? Every member of Congress would be demanding the CIA director's head. >> Do you think that we really don't spy on the Israelis? >> That was verboten when I was there. >> I was surprised to hear you say that in that interview because I figured it's this gentleman's game, so to speak. Mm-m. With most other places post 911, you

[3:12:35] know, we develop the five eyes and we don't spy on each other in the five eyes. Uh the five eyes being US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. You know, we literally sit next to each other in each other's headquarters. I remember when George Tennant ordered us to open the files, he said, and he meant literally open the files. And so, we've had this Five Eyes relationship ever since. And of course, we have very, very close relationships with other countries. Not a ton, but a lot. But the

[3:13:05] Israelis are special. Yeah. We do not spy on the Israelis. What about the Brits? Like I don't know why do they have a reputation of being I don't want to not ruthless necessarily, but what what was your experience with the Brits? >> The the Brits are very good at what they do. And the one of the reasons why they're very good, well, there are several reasons. One, because they're everywhere, right? Most of these countries were colonies of the UK at one time or another, but they're also very good because they have only a fraction

[3:13:36] of the bureaucracy that we do. If we have an idea for an operation or for a covert action program, we have to go through six months and a dozen layers of permissions, you know, lawyers from this office and lawyers from that office. The Brits want to do something. and they just say, "Hey, we're going to do this." And then they go out and do it. I remember a boss of mine in in counterterrorism just saying I I was on my way out to London. We were doing a joint operation and he said, "Boy, I I wish we were like the

[3:14:07] Brits. If they want to do something a week later, they're doing it." And I mentioned that to the Brits one time and my counterpart said, "Yeah, but we wish we had your budget." >> And I said, "Yeah, you guys can never touch our budget. Nobody can. >> Um, this is completely unrelated, but I don't know why I thought of this. Didn't you do an op uh with Billy Wall? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the Emirates.

[3:14:40] >> Can you say what that was? >> I cannot unfortunately. It was It was We did two things. We were there to do some training classes, but we were there for a sensitive electronic kind of thing, but Billy was Billy was a bonafide American hero. Truly a real hero. Yeah. I mean, for people aren't that aren't familiar, he was uh he was former I mean, [ __ ] man. He was

[3:15:10] one of the uh the Vietnam SF guys. He was a Green Beret and then he was he served at the CIA for like 40 years or something. Yeah, he was in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and to the best of my recollection had 17 Purple Hearts. He had a he had a personalized license plate that said 17 hits. And I said, "Billy, that's that's a joke, right?" And he said, "No, it's not a joke. I got 17 purple hearts." I said, "That has to be like Guinness Book of

[3:15:41] World Records kind of thing." And he says, he had a terrible, terrible, filthy mouth. And he's like, "No, there's some sorry ass son of a [ __ ] from North Carolina got 18." But he used to he used to tell stories, too. Like he told me this story once about about being shot down behind North Korean lines. And he would forget that he had told me the story. And so he would tell it over and over and over. And then the final time that he that he told me the story,

[3:16:13] he was naked. first of all. Secondly, um he he came upon a cow in a pasture and he slit the cow's uh artery and drank the blood um for nourishment because he was starving. I go, "That was in Apocalypse Now. That wasn't you. That was from Apocalypse Now." And he's like, "Ah, it still makes for a good story." Oh, that's great. He was a good guy.

[3:16:44] >> Was Was he uh Did they even have Ground Branch back then or was he just a contractor? >> Yeah, he was just a contractor. He was a contractor and he was fearless. And I mean when I knew him, he was already well into his 70s and you know died in his 90s, never had children. His he was deeply in love with his wife, but she had died of cancer. So he was alone. And then 9/11 hit and what else is there to live for? He's got no kids. bought a house in it was like uh yeah, friendly friendly

[3:17:18] town or Sunshineville or it had some stupid madeup name in Florida. Um I can't remember the name of it. And he had a niece who lived in Las Vegas and she she ghost wrote his autobiography. And I was glad somebody did because his stories, whether or not they were a little embellished, his stories are an important part of modern American history and there really needed to be a written record of them.

[3:17:50] >> Yeah. Niceville. >> Niceville. >> That's something American. >> Yeah. Niceville, Florida. >> Were you at the agency when they stood up the GRS program? >> No, I had already gone. I had already gone, but I was dating a woman at the time whose soontobe ex-husband was in GRS. And she said, my husband's a GRS officer. I said, "What's GRS?" She looked at me kind of funny and she told me, and I said, "Oh [ __ ] they've made it official." >> So, what was it before they made it

[3:18:20] official? >> It was just like, "Hey, uh, you doing anything for the next week? We're going to need for you to do this thing. Don't tell anybody." Yeah. And now it's an office. >> But wasn't it wasn't it stood up to be like security for case officers? >> Security for leaders more than case Well, no, that's not true. Security for case officers. Yes. Especially as it related to operating in the green zone in Baghdad. That That's where most of them were doing their work cuz the green

[3:18:50] zone was easily infiltrated. Yeah. Moving from point A to point B, it took your life into your hands every time. those guys. I mean, you have to be a brave son of a gun to to do a job like that. I mean, you can say about a lot of different agency jobs, oh, that job's not for everybody. That job, you really have to be fearless. You really do. Cuz your your job is literally to throw your body

[3:19:21] in front of the other guy so the other guy doesn't get killed and can complete the meeting. Yeah, thankless. >> I can't remember who it was. It was somebody who was in GRS was talking about Yemen and how Yemen was like a spycraft playground. >> Oh my god. I've been to Yemen five times >> in your prior life. >> Mhm. >> In what context? >> Each time was for a different thing. Um the first time I went, it was kind of

[3:19:51] funny. Um the first time I went, there were two Yemens, right? There was the Republic of Yemen, North Yemen, and then the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, which was a Soviet satellite state. And um things were looking really good. The first time I went, the two Yemens were in the process of merging and becoming one unified Yemen. People were literally dancing in the streets. Uh I I went that first time from Jedha. I was I was in Jedha, Saudi

[3:20:22] Arabia. and uh two friends of mine were stationed in in Sana. And so they said, "Hey, you know, the prophet's birthday is Monday, so it's a 3-day weekend. You want to come down to to Yemen? We'll hang out." And I said, "Yeah, I'd never been to Yemen." So I just flew down. We had a great time. Second time I went, this one unified Yemen thing, it's not working out the way they thought it was. And so there weren't really any benefits. And the North Yemenes were trying to dominate the South Yemenes. and it just

[3:20:53] wasn't good. The third time I went, they're launching Scud missiles at each other, right? And then it was the first civil war and then the North defeated the south and then the vice president um Ali Albid uh he was a South Yemen, he fled to or fled to Oman to save himself. And the fourth time I went, it was it was grim where it wasn't safe to stay anywhere

[3:21:25] except the Marriott, which had 30 foot blast walls all around it. The last time I went, I was with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and we were just getting ready to close the embassy and evacuate everybody. So, I go there. I'm staying at the Marriott and security is crazy heavy. It's actually kind of funny. I I alluded to this in a Senate report that I wrote. Um, but I

[3:21:55] had never seen security like this anywhere. And there are these guys right outside the lobby of the hotel and they've got machine guns like obviously like you know Mac 9ines, Mac 10s and they're speaking English, American English. And I said to the to the bobb, the the doorman, I said, "Uh, mana, who who's here?" And

[3:22:25] he goes, "VIP." Like that. I said, "VIP? Who? Mrs. Clinton?" He goes, "No, it's a man." I said, "Uh, is it uh Mr. Cheney?" Or, "No, it wasn't Cheney. It was Biden was vice president at the time." uh Biden. And he says, "No." I said, "Who is it?" He goes, "I don't know." So then I hear um the package is moving. The package is moving. So I'm just standing there and then here comes the

[3:22:57] VV VIP and he looks at me and he goes, "Hello, John." And I said, "Hello, Steve Kappus, the deputy director of the CIA." >> And he gets in his limo and I go, "What? No ride for me?" and he drives away like a sixcar convoy. I had to wait for my, you know, one poorly armored 10-year-old Volkswagen to come and pick me up. It was so rude. Anyway, I was on the CIA [ __ ] list by then. >> Yeah. So,

[3:23:30] um, the reason why it was so bad, just a couple of days before I arrived, a group of, well, about a week before I arrived, a group of of six South Korean diplomats had arrived to talk to the Yemen government about a development project. And on the road from the airport to the hotel, they were ambushed by al-Qaeda. And they were all assassinated. And so a few days after that, the South Korean government sent a group of South Korean intelligence officers to investigate the terrorist attack and

[3:24:02] they were ambushed on the road to the hotel and they were all assassinated. The Koreans just shut the embassy down and evacuated everybody. It's it's grim. It really is. And there's no hope in sight. >> Yeah. Yeah, I remember hearing about there was a I mean obviously a lot of terror going on in Yemen, but wasn't there um I want to say it was some I think it was the Saudi intelligence head that almost got killed by the guy with the bomb up his ass. >> Yeah, that was uh the sha that was Prince Muhammad bin Naif.

[3:24:34] >> But wasn't that directed by uh the American guy in Yemen alli or whatever the hell his name was? >> That was the rumor. I never believed that to be the case because Olaki was more of a propagandist than he wasn't operational in any way. You know, I met him. Yeah. In fact, I was the only CIA officer. Well, here here's what happened. I'm in Arabic training in 1993

[3:25:05] and our in the CIA language school and the the instructor says we're going to go out on a field trip today. We're going to go to Falls Church, Virginia and that's where all the Arabs live. So, we're going to go to um the Quran store. There's a there's a store in the strip mall in false church that just sells Qurans. And apparently they do perfectly fine for themselves. So, we're going to go to the Quran store. Then, we're going to go to the Arabic grocery store, and then we're going to go to the shish kebab restaurant, but you can't speak

[3:25:37] English. And then after lunch, we're going to go to the mosque. There's a gigantic mosque on uh Route 7 in false church. We're going to go to the mosque and we're going to talk about Islam, but you can't speak English. We're like, cool. And we had done this a couple times. We went to the zoo to learn the names of the animals in English. And then we had, you know, we did all different kinds of field trips. So we go go do this thing and we learn the the word for, you know, fava beans

[3:26:08] and we learn the word for newspaper and we're trying to talk to the shopkeepers. We order lunch in Arabic and then we go to the the mosque. Well, Anoir Alaki was the imam of the mosque. And 8 years later, that's where the 9/11 hijackers prayed the night before 9/11. Anoir Olaki was born in um New Mexico. He was Yemen. His father was the Yemeni

[3:26:39] ambassador to the United States who went back to Yemen to become the Minister of Agriculture. Solidly pro-American. Anoir was born in New Mexico, raised as an American, spoke English without any kind of accent, just spoke English like you and I speak English, but self-radicalized during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and then joined al-Qaeda before 9/11 in like 98 or 99.

[3:27:12] So after 9/11, I just I mentioned off-handedly one day. Oh, Alaki, I met him. People were like, "What?" I said, "Yeah, in in my Arabic class, we went to the mosque and he gave us a tour of the mosque and we had a Q&A and then he gave us tea and next thing I know, security's down. It's like, we need to go over this from the beginning because everybody else had left the agency by then. All the other students

[3:27:43] had moved on to other careers and the the instructor had retired and I was the only one left who had actually met Alaki. I'm like guys it was one afternoon. I don't know what I can tell you that's going to be of any operational value. But then I did go to Yemen and um funny thing you know I have this relationship with the FBI right? So I go I go to Yemen and nobody in the CIA would speak to me. I was with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

[3:28:15] So I go to see the FBI, the legal the legal attaches. So I walk in and I I knock on the door and I said, "Hey." And the guy says, "Ah, John Kiryaku, born August 9th, 1964, Sharon, Pennsylvania. Graduated from Newcastle High School, Newcastle, Pennsylvania. bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern Studies, Masters in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University. I go, "Very funny. Very funny." He says, "You're going to do me a favor." And I said, "Really? What favor is that?"

[3:28:46] He said, "You're going to go back to your congressional committee and you're going to get me funding for two more slots out here." And I said, "Really? What's in it for me?" He says, "I'll give you a classified briefing." I said, 'Okay, I'll take that deal. So, I I did get him slots for two more FBI agents, but in the course of that conversation, I said, "So, what do you do? Sit here and play with your balls or you out looking for Anoir Alaki?" And he said, "Alacki? I know when Alaki blows a

[3:29:19] fart." He says, he said, "I know Alaki's location to within three feet 24 hours a day. And I said, 'Why don't you take him out?' He said, 'Well, that's that's the other side of the hall's job. And then sure enough, couple months later, they blow him to a thousand pieces. Uh, what was classified briefing on? >> How lackey. >> Oh, okay.

[3:29:49] >> Yeah, >> I don't know. Uh well actually speaking of uh like the Saudis, uh didn't we didn't cover this last time, but didn't Abu Zaba's diary have the names and phone numbers of three of them? >> Three princes. >> But then something weird happened to them. >> We went to the Saudis and we said, "Look, there are there are three princes in Abu Zabeta's address book with their personal cell phone numbers. You need to take care of this or we're

[3:30:19] going to take care of it and you're not going to like the way we do it. Next thing you know, like magic, one of them dies on the operating table while getting beriatric bypass surgery. One is killed in a onecar accident on the Riad to Jedha Highway. And one of them goes camping in the desert and dies of thirst. Mhm. And then they said, "Listen, you know, we wanted to help you out with those three princes, but they they don't exist anymore."

[3:30:52] >> So, are the Saudis friends? >> In that context, I would argue that they weren't because that means that none of those guys are available for interrogation. Ah, it was better to murder their own relatives than to allow them to be interrogated by the CIA. >> Probably because they had information up there that the Saudis didn't want the CIA to find out. >> Mhm.

[3:31:23] I've been in relatively close touch recently with Abu Zuba's attorneys. Um, I asked one if he would agree to sit for my podcast and he immediately said yes. So, we had a long conversation about Abu Zuba. And at the end of it, we had stopped recording and I said, "Would you do me a favor? Would you tell Abu Zuba?" They don't call him Abu Zuba. They call him Zay. Zay Alabadin Muhammad Hussein is his actual name. I just by force of

[3:31:53] habit, I call him Abu Zuba. So I said, "Would you tell him that I send my best? I'm sorry for what our country did to him. I know that he's innocent and that he should be released and I hope he is someday." And the attorney says, "Actually, he has a message for you. I told him I was going to talk to you today." He goes, he says, "First, his recollection of the night you caught him is different from yours." I said undoubtedly it is different.

[3:32:26] Um but that's okay. His recollection is probably I stood up and I told them, you know. Anyway, um he says, uh the night that you blew the whistle on the torture program, a friendly guard at Guantanamo went to his cell and said a CIA man went public today about what happened to you. And he said it was the first time he had experienced a sensation of hope. That was December 2007. And he says he wanted

[3:32:58] me to tell you he hopes that the two of you can have dinner someday as free men. I said, "Tell him I send my best and I'll pray for that." >> Wouldn't hold my breath on that one. >> No. You know, one of the sad things about that as a postcript is he was weeks from being released at the end of the Biden administration. They had they had made the decision to release him. They were in negotiations with different

[3:33:28] countries to take him. They couldn't find a country that would agree to take him. And then Trump won. And so he's not going anywhere. >> All right. So did uh so I'll just I'll made some notes uh throughout that we can come back to. So, um I forget what it was when did they ever teach you? Oh, right. Worst case, uh as a CIA officer, right, you pitch a you

[3:33:59] pitch an agent, he flips a table over and says I'm going to report you. Other worst case is, you know, you're operating abroad. You are brought in by the authorities of that country or, you know, god forbid, a terrorist organization or something. Did they teach you guys um counter interrogation or SEIR? not sear but counter interrogation techniques. Yeah. And we even have coffee mugs with uh admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations. Uh if you're if you're overseas and you're under official

[3:34:30] cover, all you have to say is look, diplomatic immunity, call the American embassy. That's it. Done. I'm not saying another word. Call the American Embassy. If you're kidnapped by a terrorist organization, that's an entirely different issue. You know, Bill Buckley, the CIA learned so many lessons, painful, terrible lessons with the kidnapping of Bill Buckley in 1984. Bill Buckley was the uh CIA station chief in Beirut and was was kidnapped by um

[3:35:02] elements of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They kidnapped him in the parking garage of his apartment building. And um they knew that he had a tracker, a tracking device in his belt buckle. So the first thing they did is they just took the belt off of him and threw it out the car window. And so we didn't have any idea where he was. About a month later, the American embassy in Athens receives a VHS tape showing Buckley being tortured and he's begging

[3:35:33] the agency to help him. And then um another like six months pass or 4 months, whatever it is, it's out there uh in in the media. Uh the American embassy in Rome receives a videotape and he's like just hanging from a hook and there's snot coming out of his mouth and he's mumbling something that you can't understand. And then we had a source tell us that they just executed him after a while. And um we were able to

[3:36:04] get his body back. And then the people who kidnapped him from from Pidge, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, no longer exist. So we took care of them and then got the body back. And he's buried at Arlington Cemetery. Now I go every once in a while. I live walking distance from Arlington Cemetery. So I go see the CIA station chief from Athens and go see Buckley and um Mike Span and people like that. So uh we learned a lot of lessons

[3:36:36] there. >> Yeah. >> Did you know Mike Span? >> Yeah, sure. >> Wasn't he one of the Ground Branch guys that was uh immediately in in Jawbreaker on the ground? >> Yeah. We we worked 10 feet away from each other. We were in the same that bullpen area. Yeah. Good guy. Nice guy. Good family man. Yeah. Looking back at what happened to him, I can only imagine the panic that must have set in. He was at Lashkar. Uh I'm

[3:37:09] sorry. Um he was at uh oh [ __ ] I forget the name of the fort in northern Afghanistan. We had just caught um John Walker Lind, the American Talib, and uh the name's going to come to me. And there was an uprising among all these Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners we had caught. And Mike and a couple of other

[3:37:39] guys were were soon overwhelmed. They ended up just opening fire on these guys and they ran out of bullets. And then he was stomped to death. That's how he died. They stomped him to death. Mhm. >> Like deliberately by >> Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I can only imagine the panic. What was the name of that fort? I I can't remember anymore. But he he

[3:38:09] died a hero's death, >> man. The absolute balls on those guys. >> Mhm. >> And that was what before the end of September, right? Or the very beginning of October. the very beginning I think of October. No, that's not right because the uprising was to the best of my recollection on the on the 30th of November maybe. I think it was the 30th of November 2001.

[3:38:41] Yeah. And so, um, again, another thing we didn't talk about is, uh, your we didn't really get into your time with with Carrie, but I think there was one funny story that you didn't tell here that involved the CIA and well, funny is maybe the wrong word choice, but the with the whole Dashi thing. Dash dele. Yeah. So on November 30th and December 1st of

[3:39:12] 2001, 2,000 Taliban soldiers gave up on Mas to the Northern Alliance at Dashleia in northern Afghanistan. And the Northern Alliance came to us and said, "We can't hold 2,000 prisoners. What should we do?" And we told them to put them in trucks, truck them out into the desert, and let's just hold them there out in the desert until we can divide them up and

[3:39:43] send them to jails around the country. So, General Abdul Rashid Dostam, who's like the greatest traitor in the history of of Afghanistan, he's he's with the Northern Alliance, then he's with the Taliban, then he's with the Northern Alliance again, he's with the Taliban again, and he's just a just a traitor of the of the worst ilk. And um he was in charge of these prisoners. So

[3:40:15] they trucked these 2,000 people jammed into containers out into the desert. And one of the 16 survivors told us that when they opened the trucks, the bodies fell out like sardines from a can because nobody had punched air holes in the trucks and there was no food or water. And so almost all 2,000 of them suffocated. We always believed Dostam did it on

[3:40:46] purpose because he was that kind of a psychopath. So Barack Obama promised during the 2008 campaign to investigate the what's what's now called the dashle massacre. And he said, you know, if I'm elected president, I'm going to order the National Security Council to begin this investigation. Blah blah blah. never happened because the agency got to him right away. Anyway, in 2009, I find myself as the senior investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a

[3:41:16] human rights activist, quite a prominent, important, well-known human rights activist, calls me and says he needs to see me privately, like secretly. So, we meet in a darkened, unused classroom at John's Hopkins University. I go, I say, "What's up?" And he says, 'You know the Dash Ley massacre? I said, 'Of course. He said, I've got a a witness who has just come forward. He was 12 at the time, but he was behind a

[3:41:49] rock when they were opening the trucks. We used to call it the box up. So, he he had witnessed the sort of unveiling of the of the containers. And there were two guys there wearing blue jeans and black shirts and speaking English. And I said, "Well, I mean, who's in dashi, Afghanistan on December the 1st, 2001, wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans and

[3:42:19] speaking English?" So this kid had become an American citizen. He had held this inside all these years. approached him and said, "Look, I don't know if this is important, but this is what I saw." So, I went to Carrie and I said I met with this human rights activist whom he knew and uh I said, "You know, the president did say he was going to reopen the case and get to the bottom of Dashley." Carrie says, "Okay, write a

[3:42:50] letter to the agency. Ask if there were agency personnel on the ground." So I write a letter and uh we autopen it you know John Kerry chairman like six weeks pass and a colleague of mine walks in and he says hey uh you got a response from the agency to your letter. I said I just checked my mail an hour ago. I didn't see any response from the agency. He said they classified it top secret so it's downstairs in the vault. And at the time I only had a secret clearance. I

[3:43:20] said well what did it say? and he said uh says go [ __ ] yourself. I was like oh okay. So that's how they want to play it. So I was going to go guns blazing, right? Call the Washington Post, tell the story. And then Carrie calls me. He's like, "Stop. Stop." I said, "Come on now." I said, "The president specifically said he wanted us to get to the bottom of dashy." And Carrie says, "Yeah." And now

[3:43:50] he doesn't. >> So, did the agency know that it was you on his staff? >> Absolutely. 100% yes. >> Go [ __ ] yourself. It's like, "All right. All right. I can call the post, too." [Music] >> Yeah. Um, anything else stand out from your time with Kerry that you don't typically talk about? >> I was so excited to work for John Kerry

[3:44:21] and he turned out to be a coward. Just a mainstream nobody. All he ever talked about was how desperately he wanted to be Secretary of State and how he got ripped off and Hillary Clinton stole his job from him. There were only two times when I ever gave John Ky unsolicited advice. once. It's a little bit of a story. We have time, >> of course. Yeah. >> So, he asked me to write him a speech. He had a speech writer, but on stuff

[3:44:51] that was like really specific to the Middle East, I did it. So, he's going to give a speech at like the Smithsonian Institution or Council on Foreign Relations, something. I I don't remember anymore. This is 2009. Let me back up actually. So in in 2008 I had my own little business and M. McCclardy who had been

[3:45:23] Bill Clinton's chief of staff at the White House. Mack very generously offered me an office and a part-time secretary in McClardy Associates. Back then it was Kissinger McCclardy. I I was very I was very indebted to him. He was very kind to me. So, one of the guys on the board of directors of McCclardy was Governor Bill Richardson, Congressman Bill Richardson, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, Ambassador of the United Nations Bill Richardson. And Bill and I loved each

[3:45:53] other. I even voted for him for president in 2008 after he quit the race. And I told him, "Bill, I still voted for you." Anyway, anyway, um we really got along and so he he comes into my office. Let me think of the date. It was like January of 2008. January December 2007, something like that.

[3:46:25] And he says to me, it was J. It was No, it wasn't. It was February of 2008. He says, "Hey, you have a minute?" I said, "Of course." He said, "Something crazy happened over the weekend." He said, "I invited Obama to my house to watch the Super Bowl." Super Bowl is like first Sunday in February now. And um he said at halftime we went for a walk, put his arm around me. And he said, "Bill,

[3:46:55] if you can endorse me and you bring the Hispanic vote, Secretary of State." I said, "You going to do it?" He goes, "Of course I'm going to do it." I said, "Awesome." He goes, "I want you to be my deputy chief of staff." I said, "Done. I'll take it." He his chief of staff from when he was governor, really sweet guy. He was going to be chief of staff. I said, "I'm in. I'll take it." So, we're the months are passing like, "Oh my god, I can't believe and Obama's gonna win and Richardson's going to be

[3:47:27] going to be Secretary of State and I'm going to be ambassador to Greece or, you know, it's going to be awesome. November comes, Obama wins." So, the day after the election, I go into the office and I said, I go like this. I go, "Mr. Secretary, congratulations." He goes, "Man, I am so excited. I can't even sleep. I'm so excited." Couple of weeks later, I'm in the shower and I had a radio in my in my, you know, bathroom

[3:47:58] sitting on the on the sink and I'm listening to the news station in DC, WTO, and they said, "Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson uh has been tapped by President-ele Elect Obama to be Secretary of Commerce." And I was like, "What?" So, I get dressed. I go into the office and I go, "Mr. Secretary, congratulations." He goes like this. He goes, "What the [ __ ] do I know about commerce? Tell me, what the [ __ ] do I

[3:48:28] know about commerce?" And I said, "No, no, no. We can make something out of this." I go, "There's the foreign commercial service." I said, "There's the international trade representative. We can turn this into something. You do it for the first term and then Secretary of State in the second term. He goes, "I'm so mad I could explode." Couple of more weeks pass. Same thing. I'm in the shower. I got the news on and they said, "Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has

[3:49:00] withdrawn his nomination to be Secretary of Commerce." I was like, "Fuck." So, I go in the office and he said, "I just I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it." He said, "I honestly have zero interest in trade. Nothing." I said, 'N no, that's cool. I'll figure something out. Then I get hired by Carrie. So I write this speech with him. One of the things about Carrie I always hated is he thinks he's smarter than everybody else in the room. And so you've got this

[3:49:31] very carefully scripted speech for him to write and he'll just start winging it and meandering all over the place. And his sentences have no verbs in them. and you don't know what the heck he's talking about or what the point is. And then he can't remember where he left off and he's like looking at the different sheets of paper. I hated would do that. So I think it was at the Smithsonian we must have been. And he's reading the speech. He's giving the speech, you know, the Middle East and the peace process and all this stuff. And then he

[3:50:02] says, you know, I was supposed to be the Secretary of State and I thought, oh no. Oh no. and he says,"I invited uh President Obama to my house for Christmas." So, this is like four, five weeks before Richardson. And he said, uh, they're sitting there having a having a little drink and Obama says, "John, if you endorse me and you can bring the

[3:50:33] Kennedy family along, Secretary of State." So Carrie, nobody remembers this, Carrie was the first senator to endorse Obama. And a week later, the whole Kennedy family endorses Obama. It was a big deal because Carrie was close to the to the Clintons and both Carrie and and Hillary were on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee together. And he says, "But uh you know that's Washington politics. I got screwed." So afterwards, I said, "Senator, you can't

[3:51:06] say in public that you you were supposed to be Secretary of State." I said, "Bill Richardson tells exactly the same story." I said, "Obama promised half a dozen people in Washington that they would be Secretary of State. He promised uh what's his face that that died at the at the State Department? I forget his name now. The special negotiator for Yugoslavia." Anyway, he's promising everybody they're going to be Secretary of State. That was the one time. He goes, "I know. I'm still bitter. I can't help it." The

[3:51:38] other time, I get a call from the Lebanese ambassador and he's like, "What's your boss's problem?" I said, "Well, now what did he do?" He says, "He gave an interview and he keeps calling Bashar al-Assad." My dear friend, Bashar al-Assad. I said, "Uh, I'll talk to him." So, I said, "Senator," I said, "The Lebanese ambassador called me and you have to stop calling Bashar al-Assad my dear friend." And he's like,

[3:52:10] "Well, he is my dear friend." And I said, "Be that as it may, he's a genocidal maniac who just wipes out entire swaths of his population." And he goes, "Well, you know, we rode motorcycles together down to the Golan Heights." And and we exchanged, you know, kind of a a relationship. Uh I said, "I I I get it. He's probably a lovely guy, but he's he's a genocidal dictator." He's like, "All right, all right. Tell the Lebanese get off my

[3:52:41] back." So, it's like, "Dude, what are you doing?" Another thing about Carrie, I I've said this a couple times, but I think it's important enough to repeat. When he first called me to offer me this job, I didn't know this job existed. So, he calls me and he says, and I had never met him, but I was friendly with people who actually I won't I won't give names, but I was friendly with two guys that he served in Vietnam with, and they both

[3:53:11] said, "Hey, you should talk to John Kiryaku." So he called me and he said, "The Senate Foreign Relations Committee used to have an investigative function, but it was it was zeroed out in 1972 and I'm going to bring it back and I want to do hard-hitting investigations." And I said, "That sounds like my sweet spot." So he said, "Why don't you come up? We'll have a chat. We can see if we're a fit for one another." I said, "Great." I put on a suit. I go up to his office. You walk into his office. He was in the

[3:53:42] uh the Russell Senate office building, the historic office building with the 15t ceilings. Literally from the floor to the ceiling were framed pictures of him with every world leader who matters from Gorbachev to the Daly Lama to the Pope to everybody. It's like, okay, kind of narcissistic, but all right. He's a senator and a presidential candidate and, you know, big war hero.

[3:54:13] I didn't even care about that. But you walk into the office and immediately next to the door there was a small credenza. It had three things on it. First, it had a framed picture of him with John Lennon and they're like in this weird embrace making funny faces and like doing noogies, right? Very cool. John Lennon, right? Beetle. Very cool. On the other side of the credenza was a picture of him with Peter Paul and Mary, the the folk group from the 60s. And he was close to them. He gave the eulogy at Mary Travers funeral. I get

[3:54:45] it. They're all from Massachusetts. But in the middle was a shadow box and in it had his silver star, um his bronze stars and his purple heart. Well, in 1972, he famously threw his medals over the White House fence to protest the Vietnam War. It was national news that this hero just came back from Vietnam, testified

[3:55:16] before the Senate Armed Services Committee, and in an act of defiance threw his medals at Richard Nixon, you know, over the White House fence. So, we agree I'm going to do the job. It's going to be fun. He wants me to investigate this, that, and the other thing. I walk out. The the staff director at Foreign Relations Committee was a member of the Kennedy family. So, we're walking out and that was really my connection. I

[3:55:47] knew him. And uh he said, "So, it went well." And I said, "Yeah, it went well. I'm I'm gonna take the job. But I said, I got to ask you, what's up with the medals? I mean, everybody in America knows he threw his medals over the White House fence. He goes, "The medals?" He didn't throw the medals over the White House fence. He went to the PX and bought copies of the medals and threw the copies over the White House fence. He goes, "Those medals are the most important thing in his life."

[3:56:19] He would never have thrown those medals over the fence. I said, 'The entire John Ky mystique is based on that one act of defiance. He goes, "Yeah, well, welcome to Washington." >> You would think maybe you'd leave the medals at home in a shadow box. >> You think exactly >> not in the office for everyone to see? >> You know, he he was really very cold in a in a patrician Yankee New England kind

[3:56:50] of way. He had a Christmas party at his house that year. That was Christmas of '09. He lived in this rare single family home in Georgetown that he later sold for 12.5 million. Georgetown doesn't have more than a small handful of single family homes. But he wouldn't allow anybody in the house. It's December in Washington. It's 20°. So, it has a sideyard surrounded by a brick wall. Um, and he just rented

[3:57:24] these these propane heaters. So, we're all standing out there and um and he says, "Well, we have a special guest that's going to come to the party tonight. We're all like, you know, this trying to keep warm because these heaters aren't doing the trick." And then and then Joe Biden comes. He was vice president at the time. So Biden comes and Biden was exactly the opposite of

[3:57:55] Carrie. Biden's standing at the at the entrance to the backyard or to the sidey yard. He goes, "Hey." Like this. Everybody's like, "Hey, Mr. Vice President. Good to see you." So he comes down and um starts shaking hands with everybody one at a time. great eye contact. Uh, hi Joe Biden. Tell me your name again. You know, that kind of thing. I said, "Mr. Vice President, we've met a number of times. You probably don't remember me. I'm from Newcastle, Pennsylvania, and my dad was best friends with Angelo Sans." He goes,

[3:58:26] "Angelo Sans from seventh grade?" And I said, "Yeah, you're best friend from seventh grade." He says, "I do remember you. We talked about Angelo's a taxi driver in Las Vegas now." I said, "That's right. He is a taxi driver. Great memory." I said, "That conversation was 15 years ago. And then he says to the guy next to me, "I remember you. I don't like you." And he looks at Carrie and he Carrie just like like I don't like him either. And they walk away. I said to the guy, "What the fuck?"

[3:58:58] He said, "Biden has hated me since I told him in a memo that we should pull out of Afghanistan." And I said, "Sweethearts these guys are." And he's like, "Yeah, well, what are you going to do?" Washington DC. Every man for himself. Harry Truman once said, "If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog." There it is. Did you have any other occurrences? We talked about we talked

[3:59:28] about your um uh your meeting with Bill Clinton, but Biden, did you have any other like funny occurrences like that with any like prominent world leaders or Oh, yeah. A couple. Yeah. The prime minister of the prime minister of Bahrain did not like me. Not even a little bit. So I was the human rights officer for the embassy and I took him to the woodshed and you know I mean in a

[4:00:00] perfect world it would have jeopardized arm sales unless they would clean up their act. So he had like surveillance on me. I found a bug in my house. It was bad. So, Admiral Crowe, who who had been the um chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes to Bahrain and they drew my name out of the hat. So, I was going to be Admiral Crow's control officer. Control officer arranges all the meetings, arranges the transportation,

[4:00:31] serves as the notetaker in the meetings. So, we go to see his majesty the Amir. And the Amir was just the sweetest, sweetest old guy you could ever encounter. and we finish the meeting and um and we get up to walk out of the Amir's Dwan, his his meeting room. And as we get to the elevator, it's a private elevator that goes straight from the Amir's garage into the Dwan. The elevator opens and the prime minister

[4:01:02] walks out with the minister of interior. Now, the minister of interior is the guy I'm actually taking to the woodshed. The minister of interior was also a prince who was the prime minister's son-in-law, right? So, so I said, "Oh, I said, Admiral Cra, this is his highness, uh, Amir, I'm sorry, uh, Prince Khalifal Khalifa. He's the the prime minister." And, uh, this

[4:01:33] is his highness, you know, minister. I forget what the minister's name was. He was married to the prime minister's daughter and uh the prime minister shakes his hand and then I said as I always said it's such a pleasure to see you again your highness and I shook his hand and he wouldn't let my hand go and he's smiling at me and the handshake becomes more like deliberate like he will not let my hand go and so we're just standing there looking at each other and he says I have my eye

[4:02:06] on you, Kuryaku. And I said, "Yes, your highness. I would expect nothing less." And then I took my hand back. We got in the elevator and Admiral Crowd looks at me and the ambassador says, "What the hell was that all about?" And I said, "Last week they beat to death a 15year-old boy for marching in a pro-democrac democracy demonstration." And I've been talking to human rights attorneys and saying, "I'm going to write this up for the Human Rights Report." and they don't like it. And I'm

[4:02:36] bitching about it at parties and they have my house bugged and they're listening to me [ __ ] about it at my wife or to my wife and I think that they just think that that somehow is intimidating. It's not. Well, when I left the country a year later, the Amir and the prime minister would always give gifts to to the officers leaving. We can never accept the gifts. So, it's usually a Rolex. Usually when the ambassador left, they they gave him a cigar box and it he was like, "Oh,

[4:03:08] cigars." And he opened it up in front. We always had to open the gifts in in the presence of a witness, right? Cuz then you have to send the whole thing in the diplomatic pouch to the Treasury Department because you can't keep anything worth more than $25. So he opens the box and it's $50,000 in cash. And the ambassador's like, "I'm not touching it." So the uh the DCM, the deputy chief of mission and the head of public affairs counted it like with the w the rest of us as witnesses and then

[4:03:38] we just boxed it back up and sent it to treasury. So I was the only one the only one who didn't get a Rolex when I left. >> I thought you would have gotten to keep it anyway. >> Yeah, I couldn't have kept it anyway, but you know. >> So yeah, let's let's end it on a little bit of a different note. So, uh, one of the main comments on any YouTube video that you are a part of is like how good of a storyteller you are. >> Oh, thank you. >> Uh, rack on rackonour is the word that a lot of people use. But >> let's see if I can monetize that.

[4:04:09] >> Yeah. Right. Um, but anyway, so what how would you how would you recommend to people to become more articulate, become a better storyteller, and just like speak well in general? How can people get better at that? >> That's a great question. Um, I'll answer it by beginning with a story. My brother, my brother and I went out one time. We were like in college, I guess. We went out. Something happened. I don't remember what. And we got home. My mom said, "Oh, so how was it? How was

[4:04:41] your afternoon?" I said, "Oh, listen to this." And I told her what happened. My brother goes, "That's not what happened." I said, "That's exactly what happened." He goes, "Yeah, but it wasn't as interesting as that. And I said, "It's not my fault that you can't tell an interesting story." Um, I had a station chief. Well, he wasn't my station chief. He was a buddy of mine who was a station chief, and he asked me to do an operation on his behalf because

[4:05:12] it was too dangerous for him. And I didn't live in that country, so I would just go back and forth to do the operation. And then I would go directly from the meeting to the airport and fly back to the United States. So I would do the reporting cables from headquarters and send them out to the field to him. And he called me one day and he said, "I so love your cables because I feel when I'm reading them like I'm standing in the room watching it go down." And I said, "Man, that's the biggest compliment anybody's ever paid me.

[4:05:45] I I just enjoy telling stories. I think everybody has great stories. And this is why I've written this most recent series of books. I I have the series of books coming out soon on on cemeteries and historic graves. I have one on the mafia graves of New York City, for example, because everybody's got a story to tell. You don't have to be famous. You don't have to be, you know, special in any way. Everybody has a story. And so I enjoy telling those stories.

[4:06:16] There's no real trick to it to tell you the truth. Just recount it as you recall it. I try to be linear. I try to do it I try to recount the story in the order in which it happened. I I find that to be helpful, but there's otherwise no real trick to it. So it sounds like storytelling is is kind of like innate, but as far as uh it is one thing to be articulate in my position when I ask a a quick and

[4:06:48] ideally direct question, but when you're talking for 6 hours >> and there's there's no ums, there's no h. I say like a lot, which is bad. There's none of that. >> They say you know, >> yeah, but that one I feel is acceptable. So that specifically, is there something like it is it reading? Is it like is it doing the speaking as far as repetitions? Like how can people build that up? >> I had a uh speech teacher in 10th grade, Doc uh Dr. Scarell. He was my dad's best

[4:07:21] friend growing up. In fact, he had a glass eye. He and my dad when they were 9 years old went hunting for squirrels in Frell, Pennsylvania. and Dr. Scarell tripped on a log and dropped the the BB gun and it went off and it shot his eye out. And so my dad like carried him to the nearest house. So when I went to the class, he's like, "Are you Chris Kuryaku's son?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "You know, he was my best friend growing up.

[4:07:51] He was one of the toughest teachers I ever had." And it was just speech and debate. And so we started off with little things like reading passages from a book. And I knew I won him over. I still think about this sometimes. He says, "Find a fiveinut passage from a book and present it as a talk." Right? You can read it. You don't have to memorize it, but present it to get us into the habit of not saying, "Um, uh, well, uh,

[4:08:25] so all these girls went before us, the boys, and they're like, "This book is about love. This book is about family." And it's like, "Ayay." I read a passage from um from Midnight Express, the book Midnight Express about being beaten in a Turkish prison. The whole thing was about this beating that uh I forget his name now uh

[4:08:57] got at the hands of these Turkish jailers. And he stood up and just started doing this slow clap like this. and he's like that that is what I wanted to hear. Brad Davis. So, um that that class that year taught me not to stumble over my words. If you need a filler, allow silence to be the filler. There's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to say, "Uh,

[4:09:31] well, um, let me see. uh people hate that. So just let silence fill the fill the time. It doesn't it's not going to harm you in any way. And then he's the one who encouraged me to go into competitive debate. And I ended up doing really well in that. That's where you have to think it. Mine was contemporaneous debate. So you had to think quickly on your feet. like you you pull a topic out of a hat, you have five minutes to prepare and then you go

[4:10:01] on and just start fighting. So that got me used to answering questions without any real preparation. And that lasted all through high school. I I really credit him with uh making me a speaker that I became. >> Well, yeah, dude. That'll do it. you know, if you're it's like if you're they say uh one one of the guys that I I watch about um like how to get better at shooting. >> And uh basically they the the premise is

[4:10:33] like you you push it as hard as you can in training and like everybody wants to leave the range with a fist-sized group, but you don't learn anything from that. You just know that that's how good you can shoot. So it's like how do you you want to learn how to drive 130 mph? What do you do? You drive 200 miles an hour so that you're comfortable in a podcast when you've been in debates already. That is exactly right. >> Anything today that I didn't ask you about that uh that you've thought of or is top of mind or that you want to talk to people about? >> Dude, you have great questions all the

[4:11:03] time. All the time. That's why I so enjoy coming on this show. It's a great conversation. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> If you'll let me too uh uh pitch a couple things that I have going on. >> Oh yeah. >> I'm very proud to have two podcasts. One is called Deprogram. It's with Ted Raw and John Kuryaku. Uh we're going every day starting next week at five o'clock on YouTube and uh it's it's far more of a of a news show, but it's light at the

[4:11:34] same time. Ted is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist um editorial cartoonist. And then I have another one called Deep Focus with John Kuryaku. It's much more in the weeds, in-depth news stuff. I have great guests. I've been very fortunate so far. I have um see and I'm doing it saying um I have Roger Waters next week from Pink Floyd. Roger's been one of the most outspoken supporters of Palestinian human rights and I'm proud to call the man a friend. You know,

[4:12:06] little secret about Roger Waters. He anonymously paid off my second mortgage when I went to prison. Anonymously. It was years before I found out that Roger did it. Like magic, we get this letter from the bank saying somebody had paid off our second mortgage. So my wife and kids didn't lose the house. Wow. >> Mhm. Yeah. One of the founders of Pink Floyd and a giant in my mind. Mhm. Talk about

[4:12:38] generous. I had never met the man, but he followed my case, thought I did the right thing, and put his money where his mouth was. >> All right, so Deep Program, Deep Focus, and then the books as well. >> A lot of books. Uh, I've written eight books. The eighth is supposed to The eighth was supposed to be out weeks ago. I'm yelling at my publisher right now. Uh, but I've got Well, some the first the first one is out of print now. It was

[4:13:11] what was the name of my first book? >> Uh, The Reluctant Spy. >> The Reluctant Spy. Thank you. The Reluctant Spy, My Secret Life in the CIA war. I can bang these. I don't sleep very much, so I bang these things out. The Reluctant Spy, My Secret Life in the in the CIA's War and Terror. I I actually made number five on the New York Times bestsellers list with that. >> It's a really good book. >> Thank you. Thank you. And the second one was Doing Time Like a Spy. How the CIA taught me to survive and thrive in prison. I won two literary awards for that book. >> Really?

[4:13:41] >> I won the pen first amendment award uh which is one of the big four with the pen falner, the Pulitzer and the Edgar Alan Poe. And I won the forward reviews memoir of the year. And then I did the convenient terrorist uh Abuza and the weird wonderland of America's secret prisons. Then I got a whole bunch of books commissioned. I did the CIA Insiders Guide to the Iran Crisis, the CIA Insiders Guide to

[4:14:12] Surveillance and Surveillance Detection, The CIA Insiders Guide to Lying and Lie Detection, and The CIA Insiders Guide to Disappearing and Living Off the Grid. And then I decided to start writing books for myself. So, I wrote one called Remains of the Day, the the the Remains of the Day, the definitive guide to Washington, DC's historic cemeteries, which was supposed to be out weeks ago. It's coming soon, but the editorial board liked it so much they commissioned four more. They wanted

[4:14:44] the next one I'm halfway done with. It's called Whispers in the Dirt. Um, the definitive guide to New York City's mob graves. Then the historic cemeteries of Chicago, the country western graves of Nashville, and the graves of America's most notorious serial killers, so I'm trying to pump them out as fast as I can. >> Nice. I love it, dude. I know. Uh, >> thank you. >> I know the Reluctant Spy. I've seen a

[4:15:15] lot of my comments that it's tough for people to get. >> Yeah. I don't know why Random House doesn't just do a second run. It >> sucks because that's a really good one, too. >> You know, it's funny, too. The first two books were translated into both Spanish and Greek. They made number one, both of them, on the Athens bestsellers list. And then just two weeks ago, I got another check from the Greek publisher that it's going to a second printing. So, they're still buying it in Greek. I don't know why nobody cares in the

[4:15:45] United States. You can't even find it on eBay anymore. It's like a $100, $200. It's nuts. >> Just keep your eyes peeled for it, folks. Maybe you might find one. But, uh, >> [ __ ] dude. This is, uh, God. Every time I I get to see you, I have so much fun. And like, me, too. I always have a blast. >> And I know people enjoy it. So, dude, like I could sit here and talk to you for six hours. >> I appreciate it. >> We'll have to have you back. But, um, >> love it. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and I just want to say I wasn't planning on it, but we were talking about a bit about it off camera and I just feel like speaking to your

[4:16:15] character because um like dude, you you changed my life like with that very first interview. >> And I'll I'll keep this short, but dude, like when when you and I met, I didn't have a following. I didn't have a podcast. I didn't even have a [ __ ] YouTube channel. Nothing. And what did you do? But you drove here four hours from DC. You sat with me for seven hours and drove four back without so much as asking like, "Hey, what's your following? What's your exposure?" >> Yeah. >> I'm like, "Dude, >> I met you at the Danny Jones podcast in Tampa and we had such a good

[4:16:48] conversation, especially at the airport on the way back." >> Yeah. >> That when you asked me, I said, "I'd be delighted to do it." And then actually you changed my life because that interview that you and I did was so long and so extensive that it came to the attention of a speakers bureau in London that then signed me for an around the world speaking tour that we're going to pick up again in January. So good for us,

[4:17:21] >> dude. You deserve it. >> Yes you. You deserve success. >> Thank you. And again, man, like I had I had no following and almost we're coming up on two years later. We're we're coming up on 300,000 subscribers on the channel and like things have been incredible. So, and again, this show would be nothing without the guest. >> But dude, just just thank you. I felt the need to say that on >> Pleasure is all mine. Thanks. >> You're the man. Um I'll see you again soon. >> I'm looking forward to it. >> What's up, guys? Thank you so much for

[4:17:51] taking the time to watch the interview. If you got anything out of this video at all, please like the video, leave me a comment, tell me what you thought of the video. Uh, tell me who you'd like to see on the show. I really appreciate the support. It goes a long way on these platforms as you guys know. Most importantly, I have some excellent interviews coming up in the future that I'm really, really excited about. So, please subscribe to the channel so you don't miss any of them. But that's it. Thank you for your support. I really appreciate it and hope to see you again soon.
