Title: John Kiriakou on Israeli Spycraft, False Flags, and the CIA
Show: The Bad News Program
Date: 2026-07-05
URL: https://youtu.be/ZqyYHuJsQgM
Duration: 1:22:00

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[00:05] [music] [music] They want to get promoted, too. And if that means setting you up, they're going to set you up. And they're [music] going to make you look like a terrorist. Sheldon Adlesen put him on his private jet, flew him to Tel Aviv. [music] Benjamin Netanyahu was waiting for him. We're from Apac and we want to offer you an all expenses paid trip to the Holy Land and that's how they grab them and then

[00:35] you never see them again and then you find them [music] in pieces scattered around the city. You got to love this system that we've given ourselves, right? It's like so corrupt and we're so proud of it. And he said, "I never had any idea that I would be so good at killing people." His entire political life is based on a lie. >> John Kuryaku, former CIA agent turned whistleblower turned prisoner. Um, thanks for being here with us. >> Thanks for the invitation. Appreciate it. >> So, how long were you in the in the CIA?

[01:07] >> Uh, almost 15 years. >> And I want to get right into it. You've spoken about the way you were recruited. >> Mhm. >> Was a professor. Professor was also working for the CIA, >> right? if you could just tell me how you were recruited by your professor and also like how often do you think there are still professors recruiting people from schools around here? >> That's that's an important question. So the way I was recruited was uh is now illegal technically with passage in 1993 of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. They can't do this anymore, but they very easily got around it. So the way it

[01:37] was for me, I was at George Washington University. I was working on a master's degree in legislative affairs, taking a class called the psychology of leadership and we were assigned to shadow our bosses for a week and then write a psychological profile of our bosses. So I was working at a labor union called the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and um I was working for this mean old school, you know, union organizer. I was actually a

[02:08] little bit afraid of him. Halfway through the week that I was shadowing him, we got into an argument and I called him a racist, which he was. And um and he baldled up his fists and he set a he said a stance and I I put up my hands and I specifically remember thinking, "Ah, dang it. I went too far this time." I put up my hands to protect myself and he goes, "My penis is bigger than yours." And I go, "What?" And so he repeats it. I said, "You know what? you're nuts. And I quit and I walked

[02:38] out. I just quit. So, I went back to my apartment. I wrote the paper. But, as I've mentioned in other podcasts, it it wasn't just John sat down and said he's nuts and he said this terrible thing. >> I had been working on it. And so, I had like dozens of footnotes and psychological citations and >> and I concluded that he was a sociopath with psychopathic and possibly violent tendencies. And so I get the paper back a week later and the professor he had given me an A and he wrote in the in the

[03:09] margin please see me after class. So I said Dr. Post you wanted to see me [laughter] and he said yeah come to my office. It was in the same building. So I went to his office. He closes the door and he said listen I'm not really a professor here. I'm a CIA officer undercover as a professor here and I'm looking for someone who would fit into the CIA's culture. I think you would fit into the culture. Would you like to be a CIA officer? But the truth was I was getting married in six weeks and I didn't have a

[03:41] job. >> And um and I wanted to go into public service and and I wanted to, you know, see the world and I thought, yeah, why not? Why not? So, it's the CIA is not something that they just open the door and you enter and then that's it. It's it's a process. And for me, it was an 18month process because I had so many relatives still living in Greece. My grandmother's cousin was a member of the Plet Bureau of the Communist Party of Greece. It it set me back just just he

[04:11] set me back eight months. And um you know, you have to go through polygraph and background investigation and these crazy medical tests and all kinds of stuff, but but I did it. >> I I know that you said it's um it's now legal. Yeah. >> But like certainly it's the CIA. >> Yeah. They they do it every day. >> How do they do it? >> Okay, so they they came up with this simple yet ingenious idea. They created something called the scholar in residence program. So, let's say you've

[04:44] done your 25 or 30 years, you're getting ready to uh to retire, >> and they say, "Hey, wait a minute. You're from New York. How about you go to NYU or Colombia or wherever you went and you teach a class on, let's say, espionage in Soviet literature." Okay, you're Nobody gives a [ __ ] about espionage in Soviet literature. kind of sounds like it might be a fun course for somebody looking for a blowoff course.

[05:15] But the idea is you want to say, "I am a former CIA officer. I am teaching this class just before I retire hoping knowing that students are going to come up to you after class and say, "Hey, professor, I'd really like to join the CIA." And then so instead of you going after them, they volunteer to you and then it's all legal. So, so there was a phrase that you've used, you you mentioned it here and you used it in the past, psychopathic tendencies. >> Yeah. >> Uh that always they always struck me as

[05:46] as such an interesting way to phrase it that h how do you how do you determine what exactly that means? And have there been examples of that where you find someone that you deem has psychopathic tendencies and then soon after you find out like hold on maybe I was wrong or has that gone arry. [snorts] >> I have to be very careful with my language. >> Um there's a huge huge difference between sociopathic tendencies and

[06:17] psychopathic tendencies. We all have sociopathic tendencies at the agency. And I I'll explain very easily, clearly what that means. The day, literally the day I was going to leave Pakistan in 2002, I was going to go to the airport in 2 hours. I was working half a day and I'm going to go straight from the embassy to the airport. And my then girlfriend, she became my wife, was going to pick me up at Dallasos airport. And then we were going to do a load of laundry and then catch another flight to

[06:47] Santa Fe. and have a vacation. Hadn't been on vacation since before 9/11. I was burned out, tired. 2 hours before I left for the airport, I got a cable from headquarters and said, "Don't come home. Instead, go to this other country and there's a team waiting for you and we want you to break into this person's house and plant cameras and bugs." Okay. Well, a normal person isn't going to go break into somebody's house and

[07:18] plant cameras and bugs. I'm very happy to because I believed that we were the good guys and this must be a bad guy. So, I'm going to go bug his house. That's a sociopathic tendency. A normal person would not do something like that. I'll give you another example. When I was going through the the hiring process, I was with two guys and a woman and the HR guy gave us this, you know, what would you do if question and the

[07:49] question was, you're a CIA officer overseas. You get a cable from headquarters and the cable says, we really, really need the new Indonesian economic figures. Okay. So, you call the Indonesian second secretary for economic affairs and you invite him to lunch and he goes to lunch with you. You hit it off. He's a nice guy. You're a nice guy. Then you go to dinner. Then you introduce your wives

[08:20] and the four of you go to dinner and your kids start playing with each other and they become your best friends. But after 6 months, you realize he's not recruitable. But headquarters comes back and says, "We really, really need those Indonesian economic figures. So what do you do?" And one guy raises his hand and he says, "You just have to double down. Do it another 6 months. Whine them and dine them." The woman says, "Maybe you can work it through the wives. You know, you get the wives even closer." And I'm looking at

[08:52] these guys like, "What?" I raised my hand. I said, "You break into the embassy and you steal it." He says, "That's exactly what you do." But that's a sociopathic tendency. Normal people don't break into foreign embassies and steal documents. >> I [clears throat] would. >> I think it was um Mike Pompeo who like said um >> Yeah. We lie, we cheat, we steal. Yeah. Yeah. >> Which is incredibly truthful. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It was it was an odd moment of truth for him. >> Yeah. I want to talk about um sort of

[09:22] post 911 anti-terror um techniques. Maybe this is more FBI, but I'm sure like in your experience, you have you know what the FBI is doing. The most distinctive and like I guess now it's widely criticized are sort of these entrapment programs. >> Yes. where they're famous for their entrapment programs >> where they sort of have um an FBI agent pose as some sort of terrorist figure, go on the internet, find a, you know, mentally [ __ ] um Muslim American, tell them to do XYZ, go them into doing something in um collaboration with this

[09:54] FBI agent, and then when they're about to do it, they arrest them, and it's all over the news everywhere as a terrored. >> Yeah. Yeah. They're all clowns over there. I mean, it is it's it's a fake terror plot, right? >> Could you explain maybe how these operations work? >> Oh, sure. First of all, I want to I want to give you this premise. >> They don't get promoted by not prosecuting you, >> right? They want to get promoted, too. And if that means setting you up, they're going to set you up, and they're going to make you look like a terrorist.

[10:24] They do this all the time. You know, one time I was doing a joint operation here in New York with the FBI. We were driving down driving down Yeah. down First Avenue. And one of them pointed at this storefront. He said, he said, "You see that? That's the headquarters of Hisbala terrorist cell." I said, "You are so full of [ __ ] If it's a a headquarters of a Hisbala terror cell, let's bust down the door right now and grab everybody."

[10:54] Or you're just talk. Um, so I'll give you an example. who's a guy I know knew. Have you ever heard of the Route 62 bridge conspiracy? >> No. >> So, Route 62 is this major highway that goes through Cleveland, Ohio. Actually, it goes from Philadelphia like to I forget what, Denver or whatever, but it goes through Cleveland. And there's a major like New Deal era bridge that constitutes part of Route

[11:26] 62. So, there are these three morons sitting in a bar. A fourth [ __ ] comes in and they're all drinking and he says, "You know what we should do? We should blow up the Route 62 bridge." And they're all drunk. And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, let's do that." He says, "I I have access to to explosives. I can get all the explosives." Yeah. Yeah. It would be so much fun. Oh my god. Of course, he's a rat for the FBI. Totally set them up. Gives them inert detonators. They put the detonators on the bridge,

[11:58] the explosives on the bridge. They've got one of those um plungers, and of course, nothing happens. And then the FBI runs out of the bushes, and they're all under arrest. They got like 20, 25, and 30 years in prison. >> And it was it was the FBI agent who originally even came up with the idea. >> The FBI's idea. >> Mhm. >> These guys were just drinking. They weren't they weren't plotting anything. They were just three idiots drinking in a bar. >> Wow. Mhm. Is that I've also read ones where it's a story where like they tell the guy, you know, press star 679 on your cell phone and it will it will

[12:29] cause the explosion. As soon as he presses the buttons, you know, the FBI move in, they arrest him and it's all over the news as a foil terror plot. Um, but then >> that's what they did. >> I guess it was >> when Trump first became president, it's it seemed like it kind of moved from fake plots against Muslim Americans and turned for a little while against, you know, the MAGA people. I think it was Gretchen Whitmore. >> Yes. plot >> where where everyone yeah everyone that was supposed to be kidnapping her and this giant foil terror plot everyone was FBI >> um >> there were there have been examples uh

[13:00] during the Vietnam War you go to an anti-war like coordinating committee committee meeting >> where you're plotting some attack or whatever >> and literally everybody in the meeting is an FBI agent not realizing that everybody else is an FBI agent and then they all go back to their offices and report on each each other. >> So, seriously, it's kind of two-pronged. It's like they want to um inflate their budget, get promoted, and then the other is to kind of manufacture this threat that doesn't even exist, you know, for

[13:31] the public to consume. >> That's exactly right. And like I say, we've seen it all through history. I um during co the at the very start of COVID, I was offered a a job and it was a like a job from heaven. It was the chief operating officer of a small boutique investment firm with two headquarters, one in uh Washington and one in Athens. I speak Greek. I'm a dual US Greek national. And uh they offered me a ton of money and great benefits. It was amazing. So I

[14:03] said yes. So I started going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Greece, Washington, Greece, Washington. And and it's hard during COVID to do this kind of travel. So, I'm there six weeks and I realize this entire thing is a giant moneyaundering operation. So, I call my attorney, great friend of mine, who also happens to have been Ronald Reagan's deputy attorney general, and I said, "This is a giant moneyaundering operation, big enough that I think a foreign government is

[14:35] probably behind it. What do I do?" He said, "Download every document you can and bring it out on thumb drives." So, I downloaded 15,000 pages of of documents proving international moneyaundering. And I believed that that the whole thing was coming from the Iranians. I believed. I couldn't prove that. But I brought it all back and um and I called a guy I know at the FBI and he's like,

[15:05] "You got to call 311." I said, "311? That's the number you call to fill potholes." And he said, "No, I know, but then 311 is going to call the local cops and the local cops are going to interview you and then they'll realize that it's um federal and then they'll call us and then we'll send somebody over." I said, "I'm not calling the pothole number." >> Yeah. >> No, I'm happy to talk to you guys directly, but I'm not calling the 311. >> So, they they didn't care. So, I went online to fbi.gov. It says, "Report a

[15:38] tip." I click on it. You know, espionage, money laundering, report a tip. Foreign government probably involved. Nothing. Just went into the ether. So, I have he's not really a friend so much as a friendly acquaintance who used to be the deputy director of the FBI. So, I called him and I said, you know, this is my situation. I can't get anybody to pay any attention to me. He said, I'll call somebody. So, a day later, this FBI agent calls me and he said, why don't you come into the

[16:09] Washington field office, bring your documents, and we'll see what you have. So my attorney and I go, we sit down at this table and I said, "Okay, listen. Eight weeks ago, I was offered this job." And I start telling him, and he says, "Hold on a second. Hold on a second. I should tell you upfront. If this doesn't have Russia, China, terrorism, or January 6th associated with it, we're not interested."

[16:39] >> And that was it. We got up and walked out. So they're only interested in in these stories if they involve, you know, a US official enemy. >> Yes. >> So if it was um one of our close allies, they don't want to hear about it. Even if it's the worst crimes in the world, >> interested. >> Mhm. >> It's still a miracle to me that Jonathan Pard was ever prosecuted. >> Yeah. He was um Did you see Mike Huckabe talk about meeting with him with Tucker

[17:09] Carlson? Yeah, it's incredible. Mike Hucker Mike Huckabe welcomed this this traitor this enemy. >> If you could actually explain the story to >> Sure. Jonathan Pard was a was an analyst in the department of the Navy for years and years and years. In 1985 he was arrested for selling secrets to the Israeli Mossad. Secrets at the top secret level mostly on Soviet military movements. Why would the Israelis care about Soviet

[17:41] military movements? Because the Israelis then passed the documents to the KGB in exchange for a planeload of Russian Jews allowed to immigrate to Israel. The Secretary of Defense at the time, Casper Weinberger, called Pard one of the most damaging traders in American history. And the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing when they recruited him. They knew they were going to pass the information to the Soviets.

[18:11] So he was prosecuted. He was convicted and given 30 years in in prison in a maximum security penitentiary. He did every day of the 30 years. When he was released, Sheldon Adlesen, the billionaire from Las Vegas who owns all the casinos, Sheldon Adlesen put him on his private jet, flew him to Tel Aviv. Benjamin Netanyahu was waiting for him. When he got off the plane, he kissed the ground. Netanyahu

[18:43] gave him an Israeli passport and Israeli citizenship. And Pard gave a press conference in which he urged young American Jews to initiate terrorist attacks against the United States. And Mike Huckabe welcomed him into the US embassy as a conquering hero. and ushered him in to meet with the ambassador himself. >> So Mike Huckabe, who is our ambassador to Israel,

[19:15] >> celebrated this guy who was telling um American Jews to um commit espionage or um you know against America. That's right. >> Is there any other country that would get a pass like that and be welcomed by us even if they attacked us? >> Absolutely none. No country on earth. I tweeted that morning, Huckabe was an embarrassment to the United States and should resign immediately. Immediately.

[19:45] And he hasn't. And he's utterly unapologetic. Tucker Carlson interviewed him and he's like, "What are you going to do about it?" >> Why do you think that is? >> You know, Huckabe in that Tucker Carlson interview would frequently use the word we when describing Israeli policy. We think >> it's like who's we? >> Yeah. >> Because the United States doesn't think that. >> Yeah. He needs to go. >> So what you're saying is like that there

[20:15] are these people like Mike Mike Huckabe who uses the word we which >> assumes that he considers himself, you know, loyal to >> Oh yeah. Israel to Israel. And that's a very common feeling among uh American evangelicals. American evangelicals have this ridiculous belief that's not grounded in gospel that they can help all of the Jews in the world move to Israel to hasten the coming of Christ. Like it's up to these guys like Mike

[20:48] Huckabe sitting around in Arkansas thinking, "Well, how do we get all the Jews to go to Israel? I'm going to do my part. I want to be ambassador Israel." You can't. If you if this is what you believe that this is what God's plan is, you can't force God's hand by, you know, buying tickets for all the world's Jews to go to Israel, it's outrageous. It's not it's not a a belief even in mainstream Protestant Protestantism. >> No, it's like religious fanaticism at the highest like highest part of a

[21:18] government. Like when the Iran negotiations fell apart, um the Guardian was quoted as saying that there's diplomats at the talks that see Kushner as they use the exact phrase quote Israeli asset. >> And there's New York Times reportings from 2017 that said when >> um Netanyahu used to come to the States, he would stay at the Kushner family home. And more than that, he would sleep in Kushner Jared Kushner's bed and Jared would move to the basement when whenever Netanyahu would stay. And these are the people that we have negotiating on behalf of America. >> Yeah. Like I don't think it's it's not

[21:49] even a question whether or not they they have other um you know loyalties. >> Yeah. >> Have you seen anything like that when you were um an officer? >> I saw it more when I was on Capitol Hill. I was the senior investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when John Kerry was the uh was the chairman. You know, I'd been on the job a couple of days and these guys just walked into my office like they own the place. Didn't knock on the door or anything. Just walked right in. Hi, welcome to Capitol Hill. I'm like, thanks. I've I've worked on Capitol Hill

[22:22] before. We're from Apac and we want to offer you an all expenses paid trip to the Holy Land. They don't say Israel. >> To the Holy Land. I said, "Thanks, guys. I can pay for my own uh vacations. I appreciate it." "Well, all your colleagues are going." I said, "Well, that that's on them. I'm not going, but thank you. You know, like you can leave now. But they just park themselves in every office. They try to participate in

[22:52] constituent meetings. Like can you imagine there's this, you know, let's say 22, 23 year old kid and every single day, 5 days a week, he just sits on the couch in the outer office and when a constituent comes in and says, "Hi, I'm from Peoria. I'm one of the constituents." The kid jumps up and says, "What's your position on Israel? Israel loves America." It's like, "Get the [ __ ] out of the the office. What's wrong with you people?" But they do that in every office. There are some members of Congress,

[23:23] >> Senator Tom Cotton, Senator Lindsey Graham, uh, Congressman, what's his first name? Fine. >> Randy Fine. >> Randy Fine. They have Israeli flags at the entrance to their offices. What is that? If I were in government, I would demand that the FBI investigate them. >> And you you had what's his name? Um the guy without his legs? Um I'm forgetting his name. >> Without his legs. Uh >> he lost his he lost >> Senator uh the senator from Georgia. Yeah. Yeah. Senator Max Cleveland.

[23:54] >> Um he well he was wearing the Israeli military uniform uh on Capitol Hill. >> No, no, no. That was a different one. That was a congressman also from Florida. Yeah. Hey, he wore an IDF uniform on the floor of the house. >> A uniform? >> Yeah, >> idiot. Yeah, an Israeli military uniform. >> And then and then you have Benjamin Netanyahu's son who's hiding out during the course of the war in Miami Beach. >> Yeah. Let Let me ask Let's just let's just zoom out. Correct me if I'm wrong. We are told CIA has been told there's no

[24:27] spying on Israel. >> None. >> None. [clears throat] >> None. >> Seemingly >> stonewritten policy. seemingly they're not reciprocating correct that rule. But regardless of that >> in your time are are it just it's so silly to me. It doesn't it are there are other other countries where that is uh is is written in stone as a rule like >> oh well yeah the five eyes we don't we don't do any spying on the five eyes on the contrary everything we do is jointly with them not not jointly it's the

[24:58] information is freely available to them. You've spoken in the past about um open the books. >> Open the books, the British, the Canadians, >> the Australians, the New Zealanders, but that's a special relationship. We don't have that kind of relationship with the Israelis. They wish we did, >> but we've never opened the books for the Israelis. Is there is there a are there subtle differences psychologically you dealing with uh French intelligence

[25:28] versus German intelligence uh when it comes to discussing foreign affairs or I I would imagine there there are psychological differences. >> That's a good question. Um there are psychological differences when you're dealing with the five eyes. You can just speak freely. whatever pops into your head, you can you can say it doesn't matter how highly classified stuff is, unless it's compartmentalized and you've signed a non-disclosure agreement or a secrecy agreement, you're going to keep that to yourself. But in terms of >> confidential secret, top secret, special

[25:59] intelligence, we call it SITK gamma, special intelligence talent keyhole, gamma compartments. You can go all the way up to gamma with the five eyes. Um, with the French and the Germans, you're going to tell them, you know, 90 95% of everything. Maybe they're not cleared for literally everything like the the five eyes are. With the Israelis, you have to be very, very careful because they're not embarrassed to just say, "Wait a minute. What about this? Tell me

[26:30] about this. Tell me about that. What's your sourcing on that? What's the source's name?" And you're like, "Get the [ __ ] out of here. I'm not going to tell you the source's name. but they come right out and ask. How common is it for you to be having a conversation with someone where you may know certain information that they have that you're trying to get out of them? They presumably may be doing that exactly to you as well. >> Yeah, that's normal. >> That's a normal word. >> Yeah, I would imagine that's common. That's what a what a headache that

[27:01] likeful that like you guys all are respectfully incredibly intelligent and if you're speaking with anyone of like a foreign intelligent agency, they're also going to be incredibly intelligent and so you guys can shake hands and have a big smile on your face. Well, >> but you know, you guys are playing each other a little I say all the time that in the scenes in the James Bond movies, in every James Bond movie where James bumps into a CIA officer, it's because in real life that happens every single day where you go to some event, MI6 is

[27:32] there, you know, the Germans are there, the French are there, the Russians are there. So like there was one time where I went to an event in the Middle East and I walked in and I'm looking around and I hear this voice say, "Hello, John." And I [snorts] looked and I was like, "Fuck." I said, "Hello, Nigel." And then I said, "Stay away from Professor Russia, Nigel." [laughter] And he's like, "I've been working on him for a year." I said, "No, I've been working on him for a year. Stay away." >> Are there like when I was um in DC, I was working at the RT offices and I

[28:03] remember right after um the um the Bosch robbery of Seth Rich. >> Yeah. Um, someone in my office at the RT office was working on a story about it because, you know, he was people thought that he gave the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Um, they didn't know what happened and then he was shot in the back. >> Botch robbery. They didn't take his watch. They didn't take his wallet. Um, >> so people were interested in who this guy was. I remember Wikileaks at the time um maybe hinted that he was their source. I can't remember. Um, but in in

[28:33] in the office there was someone working on it and they went to the train to go home that day and someone who they went to college with sat down next to them on the train on the metro home from the office and this person's an FBI agent. Sat down next to them, exchanged pleasantries and said, you know, tell Christina I said hello. That's his wife's name. And he said I never told him his wife my wife's his wife's name. And so he was like it was like a veiled threat. It felt, you know, coming from the Russian media office in DC like it seems like this is actually not that crazy. But like working in DC, how often

[29:03] are people um is there spycraft happening in Washington? Spies walking around? >> Constantly. There are more spies in Washington than there are anywhere else on the face of the planet. Um I've I've seen estimates of 10,000 spies in Washington, which is the size of a town. >> Um yeah, that's normal. I flew out to Yemen one time to um I was doing a study on terrorism for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and I made an

[29:34] appointment to see the FBI legal attache. So I go in, I said, "Hi, I'm John Kuryaku." And he said, "Oh yeah, I know." He goes like this. John Kuryaku, born August 9th, 1964, Sharon, Pennsylvania. Graduated from Newcastle High School, 1982. attended George Washington University, bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern affairs, master's degree in legislative. I'm like, "Yeah, very funny." >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I said, "What do you want?" He said,

[30:07] "You're going to get me funding for two more slots here." I said, "Yeah, what do I get out of it?" He said, "What do you want?" And I told him what I wanted. It was classified. And he goes, "I'll do that." And so then I sat down and we traded. It's all a big game. >> I I've been working in Lebanon on and off since October 7th, actually. And it seems like such an interesting place. The US just built that giant embassy there that's like bigger than the White House. >> Um >> and you know, you have the Christians,

[30:38] you have the Sunnis, you have the Shia, you have all these different types of people. There's um conflicts there. You know, some people, you know, think of Hezbollah as the government, some people think of the actual government as the government. And um with that embassy, I'm sure that that place is just crawling with American intelligence and British intelligence. If you can tell me about Lebanon. >> It's got to be. I mean, Lebanon, it it's funny. You can never really judge the import of a country by its size or even by its, you know, stability, the size of its army. Lebanon's a failed state for

[31:09] all intents and purposes, but it's critically important to foreign policy. And going back to the, you know, 70s, we've had to the early 70s, we've had a major presence there, um, it's a site of multiple terrorist attacks, multiple times against the embassy, against the Marine Corps barracks in 1983. Uh, various ambassadors, CI station chiefs have been assassinated, kidnapped, embassy employees assassinated,

[31:40] you know, the Israelis bombing it all the time. than the Palestinians getting on a ferry and going to Tunisia to save themselves. It's got a long and kind of difficult storied history. I was a little surprised when we announced that we were building that giant embassy because the world has changed since the 80s and we don't I I don't mean to sound harsh, but we don't really have any national interests in in Lebanon anymore. Just like the first time I ever

[32:11] went to Yemen, I went to see the uh American ambassador was a sweet old guy, professional diplomat, career diplomat, >> and I said to him, "Ambassador, may I ask a naive question? What national interests do we have here?" And he goes like this. He goes, "None, we [snorts] have no national interests here." like for a minute we did with the Babel Manddev where where the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula almost meet at 16 miles across and you know

[32:44] piracy >> for a minute but otherwise we don't have any national interest in Yemen. We've gotten to the point in Lebanon where we really don't have any national interest there now. >> One of our close allies has very serious interests in both Yemen and Lebanon. >> Yes. Yes, indeed. But it's also a beautiful place for a spy to be stationed because it's it's right on the Mediterranean. It's a brave root of a great city. >> Yeah, >> it's great. And all the bad guys are there. >> Because it's a beautiful place to be. Like, do people in the CI say like, you know, let let me go to Lebanon. Yeah.

[33:15] That so >> 100%. 100%. That's been the downfall of some of them because they're like, oh, you know, it's it's so beautiful and everybody's so nice to me. I'm going to go out carpet shopping. And then they go carpet shopping. This actually happened. They go carpet shopping and the carpet guy says, "Oh, you know what? These aren't even the good carpets. If you come back Tuesday, I'll have the really, really good carpets and I'm going to give you a great price." And then he calls, you know, Egyptian, not Egyptian,

[33:46] but uh Islamic jihad, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the pige and says, "These American embassy people are coming back Tuesday at 7:00." And that's how they grab them. And then you never see them again. And then you find them in pieces scattered around the city. >> So we have one thing in common. We were both arrested by um relatively powerful states and accused of of espionage. I was a you America. I was in Israel and they took me from um a um checkpoint [clears throat] outside of Nablus and they blindfolded

[34:18] me, shackled me, handcuffed me, put me in the back of a Humvey, brought me to um a West Bank compound and a few hours later, a lawyer called me on the phone and told me that I was being charged with aiding the enemy during wartime [snorts] for I'm an American journalist for a for a report I filed a few days prior. Jeez. They said that I um by publishing some of the places where um Iran sent ballistic missiles um it was in one of my reports. I was giving information to the enemy during war time and they can use it to make their next attacks more accurate. It was just a

[34:48] news report um and the um the charges carried um life in prison to execution. >> And so I was this is this is a two years ago um and I was kept in solitary confinement. They didn't really feed me. Three hearings. Um, they were trying to keep me in prison longer. The judges were saying, "Let this guy go. He didn't do anything wrong." Um, eventually I was let out after, you know, hours and hours and hours of interrogations. Like the main takeaway was that the American

[35:18] government never did anything. No one from the embassy ever checked on me. They came to my first hearing, didn't say anything, didn't offer any help, left. when this happened to the the journalists in Russia the day he was arrested you know the president was talking about it Jake Tapper was wearing a pin with his name on it was front page news um but in Israel no one said anything so I'm wondering like as someone who's spent time in Washington working for the government what are the chances that the state department you know the embassy in Jerusalem different

[35:49] embassies the white house even knew what was going on with me but decide not to say anything >> oh I think the chances are quite good quite high there are Americans American American citizens who were killed by the Israelis with regularity and the American government doesn't care at all. There was an American citizen who was killed in the West Bank just a week ago by settlers. The embassy hasn't lifted a finger to do anything. And there are no calls for the settler to be prosecuted. They don't care. They don't care at the State Department. They don't care at the

[36:19] White House. They don't care at the Defense Department. There was a a press briefing, a state department press briefing like the day I was the day I left Israel and a journalist said like you know the journalist Jeremy Lefredo um what's going on with him and they said Mr. Lefredo has left the country. This is an hour after I left. So like they >> so they knew >> they they knew at least at the end keeping track >> um >> but there's if this was like you know any other country would are they getting you know different treatment if you know the French or the Germans or especially the Russians arrest an American I feel like the would be a diplomatic crisis.

[36:51] So listen, when I was assigned to the state department in Bahrain, it was a very small embassy. And so when when the consular officer would go on vacation, I'd have to fill in or take turn, we take turns filling in or everybody has um consular duty, weekend duty, right? Like every 6 weeks, seven weeks, it was my duty. And I practically had to camp out at either the airport or the or the jail because Americans are constantly getting arrested and you have to be

[37:22] there to make sure that their rights are protected. I practically moved into the jail worried about people >> not in Israel. I don't I don't want to speak for you, but but please talk about the thing with uh with that you're that you the conversation you had with your lawyer. Oh, so during one of the first um hearings, I was so scared they just dragged me. I was wearing shackles from solitary confinement into a courtroom that was attached to the prison and I just like I did not want to go back to the prison. I did not want to go back to the cell. So I told my lawyer like tell

[37:52] the judge that I don't mind being deported. I just want to go home. I I will go home. I'll never come back. She didn't say that. She never said it. And I looked at the translator that I had and I said, "Tell her that I want to go home and to tell the judge that I'm ready to go home. I just I'll never come back. I'm sorry." And she looked at me. She said, "I can't say that because as a as a Jewish person, my mother's Jewish, if the judge hears that you're willing to leave Israel and never come back, he'll think of you as a bad Jew. They'll they'll they won't like to hear that from you. So, like you you can't say that you want to leave because if

[38:22] you want to leave, that makes you a a bad Jew." And so, I had to go back to the prison. I had to do this for a few days and stay there for a few weeks. Um, but I wanted to get out of there and they said, "You can't even say you want to leave because if you want to leave, they'll they'll really hate that." Um, >> they're the bad Jews. >> Yeah. I mean, that's a >> But I was wondering like when you were having your, you know, hearings and trials, were there things that your lawyer advised you against saying even though if it made the most, you know, sense [snorts] I made a comment once they told me, "Don't speak publicly, right?" And I

[38:54] couldn't stop myself. >> And so a buddy of mine's a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He said, "Would you come up and give a talk?" I said, "Yes." And in that talk, I said that that I should have shouted from the rooftops about the CIA's torture program. I shouldn't have let so much time pass waiting for somebody else to say something. And he told me that I I had probably just bought myself 10 years in prison for saying that. >> And I said, you know what? I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to fight them. I'm

[39:27] willing to go on the stand and and explain why I did what I did. And I might accidentally we this was a very difficult conversation we had. I said I might accidentally talk about some of the hideous war crimes and crimes against humanity that I witnessed in 15 years at the CIA. And then later on when we were negotiating with the Justice Department, they were stuck at

[39:57] 45 years. 45 40 45 every conversation he's got to do 45 years. 45 years. Then they came down to 10 from 45 to 10 in one meeting and then eight and then five and then three and a half. [snorts] And I said no. And that's when they said to the Justice Department, "He's going to testify and he's going to speak freely." And then they were like, "Okay, okay, okay." 23 months. >> It's like a used card salesman. Yeah.

[40:27] >> I'm just making up any any any number. >> One of the things that I learned and and this was the probably the single most important thing in that whole experience is that literally everything is negotiable. something that the if correct me if I'm wrong that the judge said to you during all of that was that >> when it came to the term espionage yeah that they were referencing that >> you may be under the pretense of committing espionage without knowing yeah >> which is and my lawyer said that your honor are you saying that a person can

[40:59] commit espionage accidentally and she said that's exactly what I'm saying and she said I'm also saying that I will not respect any precedent set in another district. >> Mhm. >> Cuz the Tom Drake case had just finished and they threw out all the espionage charges because there was no >> there was no mena. There was no you know >> Yeah. For it to be espionage there needs to be intent. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Because ironically that's what they that's what they said about you. >> Is that you? >> Yeah. They told me that I was committing espionage because I published a news

[41:30] report. >> Um you know during the interrogations you know do you have any relationship with IRGC? Do you have any relationship with Hisbullah? No. No. No. So eventually it was like, "Okay, well, it's still espionage even if you don't have a relationship with them, even if you're not talking to them. Even if you didn't mean to share these this information, you know, it's espionage if our enemies are reading the news." >> Oh my god. The Espionage Act in the United States was written in 1917 to combat German saboturs during the First World War. It has never been meaningfully updated. Never. It doesn't even mention the words classified

[42:01] information because the classification system wasn't invented until the 50s. >> It just says national defense information, but then it doesn't define what national defense information is. Well, the judge in my case said that she would decide what national defense information was. >> So, I was doomed. So, a thing I' I've been dying to ask. after time spent in jail, you get out of jail. John McCain, >> his team had reached out.

[42:32] [clears throat] >> They had mentioned uh what could we do for you and you had mentioned about your pension and they suggested slipping something into some sort of bill. >> Yeah. >> And >> it was brilliant. >> So, if you could talk a little bit about that, but more so, how common is that for a literally a personal favor Yeah. >> to be kind of slipped into like they're not going to they're not >> It's called a private party bill. M >> yeah a private party bill is a bill that affects only one American u it happens quite frequently so what you're talking about yeah this is you got to love this

[43:04] system that we've given ourselves right >> it's like so corrupt and we're so proud of it >> so I get out of prison I'm out of prison for like 4 days and um John McCain's legislative director calls me nice guy I had worked with him very briefly before I went to prison. [cough] Excuse me. And um he said, "Senator McCain says, "Welcome home." And he wants to know what he can do to be helpful. McCain I I knew McCain going

[43:37] back to '07. He was always the sweetest guy to me. Like genuinely, he was a genuinely nice guy. He would go out of his way to say hi and shake my hand and just a really sweet guy. So I said, "Well, he can help me get my pension back." I said, "These these bastards in the Obama administration, they took my pension. 20 years of proud government service, I had $700,000 saved in that pension. They just took it. So,

[44:09] um, so he calls me back a couple of days later and says, "Why don't you come up to the office? we'll have a conversation. I said, "Yeah, can I bring my lawyer?" He said, "Yes." So, my lawyer and I went up and we're strategizing. And my lawyer's done this a number of times with different people. He said, "What about a private party bill?" You know, rather than apply for a pardon, it's you're never going to get it, especially with Obama and the White House. And McCain said, "Yeah." He said, "A private party bill would work." So, a

[44:39] private party bill is a bill that that only benefits one American. So, my lawyer wrote this thing. He first wrote it as an amendment. And then McCain said, "No, no, because an amendment requires a separate vote. So, let's just write it as a private party bill and we're going to slip it into the National Defense Authorization Act." He said, "Those things are like 3,000 pages long. Nobody reads them. So, we'll slip it in like page 1850." And it was one sentence.

[45:10] It said, "Every American convicted of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act between October 1st and October 31st, 2012 shall hereby have his federal pension reinstated." >> Simple as that. >> The only person >> I'm the only person in the world. >> Might be the only great thing that John McCain did at the >> I know, right? >> Right. Um, >> and so I said, "But Senator," I said, "What about the uh the conference committee?" Do you know what a conference committee is? So you write a

[45:43] bill in the House and you write a bill in the Senate. So you get the National Defense Authorization Act in the in the House and the National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate. And they're completely different because some senators are putting their own thing in this one, congressmen are putting their own thing in that one. And so it passes the Senate, it passes the House, and then it goes to what's called a conference committee. So you're going to have like eight senators appointed by the leadership and eight House members appointed by their leadership. And then they go line by line by line to make

[46:15] sure that the two versions of the bill are exactly the same. So if there's something in the one bill that's not in the other, they'll either just throw it out or they'll incorporate it into both versions of the bill. So I said, 'What about conference committee? The House is never going to go for this. They're going to recognize it as a private party bill. And he said, 'I'll get myself named to the conference committee and I'll push it through. I was like, uh, God bless you, right? And then he got cancer, brain cancer, >> and he just couldn't it it was so

[46:47] aggressive. It was a glyobblasto. It was so aggressive that he just couldn't he couldn't get it done. So that is common that that it's it's a common thing. >> Wow. >> It's common. >> I mean >> it's crazy. >> It's surprising that John McCain was so sympathetic to your cause. No, cuz I mean I know he's cause he called Assange a terrorist, you know. He's a very I mean he's a national security hawk. >> Oh, big time. >> When it came to you, he >> it was all about the torture. >> All about torture.

[47:17] >> He had spent what seven years being tortured by the North Vietnamese. >> Mhm. >> Mercilessly. never recovered the use of his arms. You know, when he would talk, he would he would do this with his arms because he couldn't lift them any higher. >> Wow. >> They had so tortured him. >> Yeah. In fact, Carrie said to me one time, we were coming out of Car's office. There was a vote and Car's office and McCain's office were in the same hall. So, the bells rang. Carrie and McCain both come out and McCain says, "John." And I said, "Hey, Senator,

[47:48] how are you?" Shake hands. Nice to see you again, Senator. Always good to see you. And uh Carrie says, "Why don't you and McCain get a room or something?" He said, 'Always, the two of you always. I said, 'N no, it's it's it's legit. It's because of the torture issue. Like, he's he really means it. >> Carrie didn't like that. Carrie had this weird lovehate relationship with McCain. >> I never quite understood. What do you think about John Kerry Bush and this

[48:19] whole this whole like liberal um sort to speak new page in you know in American history post you know Iraq war like you were being prosecuted at that time y >> how much of it was window dressing and how much was it was it actually like a liberal revolution >> it was window dressing there's a great book by John Hleman and Mark Halper and they did two books they did one on the 2008 election And then they did a follow on called Double Down on the 2012 election. And there there

[48:50] are two quotes in that book from Barack Obama that are that are shocking and should send chills up the spine of every progressive Democrat in America. In one, he said very matterof factly, "I never said I was a liberal." Which is true. We thought he was. We assumed he was. He's a community organizer. He's African-American. He must be progressive. No, he's not at all. And the the second quote, he was talking about the drone program. And he

[49:20] said, "I never had any idea that I would be so good at killing people." That's not a brag. You're you're a murderer, a mass murderer. >> And if Trump said that, >> oh, it really would be >> they would jump all over the course. >> And he probably has said some some stuff similar to that, but it's just to highlight the hypocrisy. Yeah. Um >> I mean, two wars to seven the deportations were more than Oh, yeah. Yeah, the three administrations um combined >> combined drone strikes on American citizens bailed out the >> Barack Obama is no one we should be proud of. >> No, absolutely not. Um you know, John

[49:51] Kerry, do I have a minute to talk about this? Okay. John Kerry called me in January of 2009 and said that he was going to become the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and he was going to reconstitute the committee's investigative function which had been phased out in 1974 and would I like to be the lead investigator. I said love it. He said why don't you come up to the office we'll have a cup of coffee and a

[50:22] conversation. I said great. So, you may have heard this story before, part part of it. Anyway, I go up to the office. He's in the Russell Senate office building, which is where everybody wants to be because it's historic and old and has 15t ceilings and it's very exciting, right? So, you go into his private office and literally from the floor to the ceiling, there are pictures of him with everybody

[50:52] in the world who matters. from the pope, the last three popes to Gorbachev and the Daly Lama and like everybody in the world, Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, everybody. But when you walk in, there's a credenza right here on the left hand side. It had three things on it. First, there was a framed picture of him with John Lennon and they're like in an embrace and they're giving each other noogies, right? Very funny, very cool. Who

[51:23] wouldn't want to have his picture like goofing with John Lennon, right? Very cool. >> On the other side was a picture of Carrie with Peter Paul and Mary, the folk group. >> They were very close friends. They used to come to the office a lot. And when Mary Travers died, Carrie was uh he gave the the eulogy at her funeral. But in the center of the pictures was a shadow box. And in the shadow box were two bronze stars, a silver star, and a purple heart. Now, he famously

[51:54] threw those medals over the White House fence in 1972 to protest the Vietnam War. That's what made him famous. He ran for Congress. He ran for Lieutenant Governor. He ran for Congress again. He ran for the Senate because he was this great Vietnam protester. He threw the medals over the White House fence. So, I do the meeting. He offers me the job. I accept the job. I walk back out. The chief of staff says, "How'd the meeting go?" I said, 'It went great. He offered me the job. I accepted it. But I have a

[52:26] question. I said, "The shadow box with with the medals." I said, "What's up with that?" Like, everybody in America knows he threw the medals over the White House fence. And he goes, "Those medals are the most important things in his life." He went to the PX that morning and bought copies and threw the copies over the White House fence. I said, "His entire political life is based on a lie." And he's like, "What

[52:58] are you going to do?" So that spoke more about John Kerry than anything that John Ky ever showed me or told me. Oh, I have all kinds of stories about John Ky. And then I get arrested. I go through the whole process. Couple of nights before I leave for prison, I send him an email to his private email account. And I said, "Senator, please, I'm begging you. I have five kids at home. Can you ask the president to commute my sentence? The

[53:28] conviction would stand, but I could stay home and and make money for my family." And he writes back and he just says, "Please do not ever attempt to contact me again. That is John Kerry. >> John Kerry is a coward. There's nothing special. There's nothing to emulate in John Kerry. When I was when I was on his staff, he bought he bought this like $6 million yacht. And to save a couple of bucks, he

[54:00] licenses the the yacht in Rhode Island. And some cuz so he didn't want he didn't want to pay the Massachusetts tax. So, some reporter from the Boston Globe found out and did this big story and it became a big story. The guy's worth $750 million and you don't want to pay $400,000 for the tax on your on your luxury yacht. So, we were having we would have these senior staff meetings and um

[54:32] he wasn't there. It was always like the chief of staff and the staff director and this guy and that guy. >> And we're talking about the yacht. Like, what's he going to do about the yacht? What's he going to do about the yacht? And I And I said, cuz I had nothing to lose. I was only going to be there two years anyway. Just pay the [ __ ] tax. It's a bad look. >> Mhm. >> You're worth $750 million and you're trying to begrudge the state of Massachusetts money that they're going to spend to educate poor people. That's the the story that you want in

[55:04] the press. Or money that they would spend on food stamps for hungry children. You would rather put that in your pocket. And then he moved the boat to Massachusetts and paid the tax. >> It's not even a matter of morality. It's like for a senator, it's just a bad look. >> It's a bad look. >> You're a senator for heaven's sake. He got us he got everybody in the office a Christmas gift one year [laughter] and it was a bottle of wine. and I went to the Christmas party

[55:34] and he was just moving table to table and I said, "Hey, thank you uh so much for the for the wine." He's like, "It's my favorite wine. I keep it in my own cellar." And I'm thinking, "Bullshit." >> Yeah. >> Listen, I'm a 25y yearong subscriber to Wine Spectator magazine. I love it. Mike's wife and I built like a climate controlled state-of-the-art wine seller in our house when we built our house. There are very few things in life I splurge on. One of them is wine.

[56:04] So this woman next to me, she was from the personal office. She says, she said, "The wine's [ __ ] right?" And I said, "Oh yeah." I said, "As soon as he leaves, I'm going to Google it." So I Googled it like discreetly and I showed it to her. It was 10 bucks at Costco. >> It's his favorite. >> He keeps it in his own cellar. He's like, "Yeah, sure you do." >> Yeah. >> Uhhuh. [clears throat] So much of Washington, these personalities that we see on the television we read about are just kind of fake. Um >> Oh, may I may I interrupt you?

[56:35] >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Carrie had a Christmas party at his house the next year. He lived in this rare single family home in Georgetown. He sold it a couple years later. He got 8 million bucks for it. Nice house. Built in like 1790. and it had an entire lot, empty lot as as his sideyard. He didn't want any of us inside the actual house, which was kind of rude. It's like

[57:06] December 19th. It's freaking 15°, so we're all in the sidey yard in our coats, and he had these these gas heaters around because he didn't want anybody going inside, like not even to use the bathroom, which was really poor form. But anyway, that's okay. So Joe Biden shows up. He was vice president at the time. And Biden when he had his faculties, he was a he was a good old guy. So he stands at the top of the steps. It's three steps to go down into the sideyard. He stands at the top

[57:37] of the steps. HE GOES, "HEY." LIKE THIS, "Merry Christmas." And people are like, "Hey, Mr. Vice President." So he starts going person to person. I happen to be standing with the guy who was doing Afghanistan with the foreign relations committee. So he comes to me and he says, "I remember you." And I said, "Yes, sir. I'm John Kyako. I'm from Newcastle, Pennsylvania." He said, "That's right. You're Angelo Sands friend." And I said, "That's right. You have a good memory." So, um, he looks at my colleague and he goes, "I see you're

[58:09] still slithering around." And he goes, "Yes, I am. And I'm proud of it." And then Biden goes on to the next guy and I go I go, "What the [ __ ] was that?" That's the vice president of the United States. And he addresses you. I see you're still slithering around. He said I had the nerve to tell him that we should withdraw from Afghanistan and he never forgave me. >> And I go, "Seriously, all that because you said we should withdraw from

[58:40] Afghanistan." And it was it was Biden who who then withdrew from >> It was Biden who withdrew from Afghanistan. Oh my god, these guys. Who do they think they are? >> Oh my god. Wait, so so this seems like you you've spoken in the past about uh the CIA's relationship directly with the president at the time. >> Yeah. you've described the the the role of being at the CIA for again correct me if I'm wrong stealing secrets uh for the

[59:13] help of the US to to directly give to the president. Mhm. Have there been instances where you may be careful with uh holding some information to give to the president whether altogether or maybe let's wait a few weeks until so and so is what are what are the rules like you can you play God a little bit? What are the what what h how does that work? >> I I think I think nobody would have the balls to do something that and I'll tell you why. Because

[59:46] you're not going to be the only person with access to that information. Even the most tightly closely held compartmented information, half a dozen people are going to have access to it. >> And [clears throat] you can't run the risk of one of the other six telling the president, "By the way, what did you think about this?" And then he comes back to you and says, "Why didn't you tell me? You're fired." Yeah, that's a that's a tough one. But there is a there is an institutional problem though. Um and it is with the construct of the

[1:00:18] directorate of uh of intelligence, the analytic side of the CIA, the PDB staff, the president's daily brief. They're the ones that that coalate and and prepare the PDB every night for the president. So if you're an analyst, okay, I was an analyst. Excuse me. I was an analyst. Something comes in and I say, "Ooh, that's interesting." So, in my 9:00 morning meeting, I say, "I want to

[1:00:49] propose an article for the PDB for tomorrow morning." I say, "Uh, the oil minister of Saudi Arabia resigned." Okay, what does that mean? Why should the president care about that? And I give my pitch and they say, "Okay, write it up." So, I write it up. I send it to my uh front office and then they send it to the PDB staff and the PDB staff either says nobody gives a [ __ ] if there's a new you know we we can just

[1:01:22] brief them the the secretary of energy the president doesn't care if there's a new oil oil minister or they say oh the oil minister was the friend of the president we should tell him and then you sit there until 11:00 12:00 at night until they finally get around to editing it, even in the final edit. Now, the book is always, always, always 16 pages, right? If it doesn't fit in the 16 pages, it comes out. And so, it may or may not make it into the book

[1:01:52] that night. But that decision rests at the end of the day with one guy, the director of the president's daily brief. So this one guy who may know nothing about the area that you're covering, he gets to decide what the president sees and what the president doesn't see. >> Yeah. >> Isn't there couldn't you say that during the first Trump administration like the intelligence agencies were certainly withholding information from

[1:02:24] from Donald Trump. I mean they were accusing him of being, you know, a Russian asset. So, like why would they they certainly weren't telling him everything. >> I think they probably weren't telling him everything. Um, which of course is criminal, >> right? At the very least, it's grounds for for removal, dismissal, but yeah, I think they probably weren't telling him everything and that's why he named Mike Pompeo. >> And they were actively trying to remove him from office. >> Um, >> yeah. >> So, it's impossible to actively try to

[1:02:54] remove him from office using all 18 intelligence agencies. And then also at the same time telling him everything. >> Yeah, >> I call that a coup attempt. >> Yeah, head should have rolled and they didn't actually. >> I'm cautiously optimistic that John Brennan is actually going to be charged with crimes related to that. You know, I was on the Matt Gates show the other day and uh we were talking about the statute of limitations. Officially, the statute of limitations on everything that happened in the 2016 election expired

[1:03:24] long ago, 2021. But I think an an argument can be made whereby the denial that any such thing took place automatically resets the statute of limitations for conspiracy, right? Because that that means the conspiracy is ongoing. >> Still happening. >> I think John Brennan would have been smart to say, "Yeah, we tried to block him. We failed, but we tried." >> Okay. Then that means there's no conspiracy. He came clean. Yeah.

[1:03:56] >> Yeah. He should have been uh arrested and charged with a crime between 2016 and 2021. He wasn't. The fact that he still denies that any such thing ever happened, I think, is deserving of prosecution. But it seems like now this this new Trump administration, all these people who were originally trying to subvert his powers >> are are kind of allies with him. >> Yeah. So, like I wouldn't even expect heads to roll because those heads are now pretty comfortable with a Trump

[1:04:28] administration in power. >> I think that's right. It just gives you an idea of how completely screwed our politics are. >> You know, like nobody's really loyal to anything >> or to anyone except themselves and their own careers. Do you think I know that the word gets thrown around and the word is sort of um people shake their heads at this word but is there a deep state? >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Of course. Of course there is. You don't have to call it the deep state.

[1:04:58] >> You can call it the federal bureaucracy. But yeah, of course there is. When when there are senior intelligence service officers who are in their positions for 25, 30, 35 years, in one case 42 years, a guy that I worked with, and they see presidents just come and go every four years, every eight years, um that's a deep state. If the president says, "I want you to do X." And they say, "Sure." And then they just don't and they figure

[1:05:30] we'll just slow roll him. We'll wait until he's not president anymore. That's a deep state >> because these people who are um in power much longer than a president have have some sort of agenda. >> Yeah, they do. >> Two to two to two whether it be, you know, US hijgemony or corporate interest or something X Y or Z and maybe a president has a different agenda. So they they have to >> That's right. That's right. I went on CNN one time years ago. It was uh Donald Trump had just gotten elected. So, it

[1:06:01] was like January of 17 and um Chuck Schumer had made a statement that um you can't mess with the intelligence agencies because they have nine ways from Sunday to screw you. That's what he said. And so CNN asked me to come on and explain what exactly that meant. I said, "Well, it doesn't mean a repeat of November 22nd, 1963. What it means is if they don't like the

[1:06:31] president or the president's policies, they just ignore him and they just slow roll these operations. The president says, "I want to reestablish relations with, you know, Cuba." They say, "Sure. Okay. Yeah, we're going to get right on that." And then nothing ever happens. >> That's what he's talking about. They will they will force your administration to fail by just ignoring you. That's what they did to Jimmy Carter, you know, they did it to Trump

[1:07:02] >> in that in that era 2016 election. There were so many um people called them sort of CIA Democrats who ran for Senate ran for Congress and it was pe there were Democrats who popped up with an intelligence background or a military background um who also sort of opposed Trump >> from the right on Russia. >> Yes. Um, so you had all these liberals and Democrats running saying that, you know, the problem is that Trump's too close with Russia. And so these are Democrats, but running to the right of Trump on Russia.

[1:07:32] >> Outrageous. >> And do you think that some of these people like I think Slotkin, the the governor of um >> senator from Michigan. >> Yeah. >> She's she was a CIA officer. >> Oh, yeah. Um, do you think some of these people um they just know how to get power in Washington and and what's popular amongst the media or do you think some of them are actually still working in one way or another with the the the agency? >> Sure. I I think they are not officially

[1:08:04] >> officially if they were doing that officially it would cause no end of trouble for them. But but yeah, I mean, look at look at Abby Spamberger, for example. She just got herself elected governor of Virginia. That's a that's a one-term job. We don't allow governors to run for reelection in Virginia. So, why would she want a job that she's going to be out of in four years? >> Because she wants to run for president or vice president. Um, Alyssa Slotkin

[1:08:35] >> uh went from the director of intelligence to Congress to the Senate. She would love to be president, too. And she can easily run for president from the Senate. Even on the Republican side, Will Herd, I like Will Herd a lot. I was Will Herd's mentor at the CIA and uh he was a gifted officer. Smart. Funny thing, he's half black, half white, and decided to run for election in a Supreme Courtmandated majority Hispanic district and he won three

[1:09:08] times. There's nothing Hispanic about Will, but he's really smart. He's really honest. His problem was that he loved loved loved the CIA. And so the CIA knows that they can instill loyalty in all these people and then encourage them as they begin their careers in politics, whether they're Democrats or Republicans. >> Then you sort of have this this generation of elected officials who are loyal not to any particular party or or

[1:09:39] constituency, but to the national security apparatus. >> Yeah. Right. >> And on both sides. >> That's right. >> Um and there's nothing really progressive about that >> at all. Nothing progressive. Nothing. Another thing too, committee chairman in both the House and the Senate are elected by the members of the majority party. Right? So if you're a congressman and your party has the majority in Congress, you say, "Hey, I

[1:10:11] want to be the chairman of the Armed Services Committee." And then everybody votes and then you get it. Not the intelligence committees. The intelligence committees are appointed by the leadership. So the speaker of the house names all the members of the intelligence committee and the majority and minority leaders in the senate name all the the members of the intelligence committee. So what do they just pull names out of a hat? Of course not. They call the CIA and say, "Who do you want on the intelligence committees?"

[1:10:44] >> That's not the American way. That's not oversight. I know it's probably it's not allowed. It's it's illegal. But to what extent do you think the CIA um is keeping a tab on or you know has you know the invisible hand that's guiding certain people within Congress or within the Senate um to achieve their you know whatever particular polic how much is the CIA involved in you know legislative policym? >> Yeah, I'm confident that they're that they're very uh involved. there's an

[1:11:15] office of congressional affairs uh at the CIA that is very very senior. I remember saying to my boss when I was a brand new analyst. I said, "Hey, there's an office of congressional affairs. I have a master's degree in legislative affairs. I'd love to work there." And he laughed. He's like, "You got to be at least a GS14 to do that." So, you get hired as a as an eight or a nine. You get promoted to 10. A year later, 11. Couple of years later, 12. Five years later, 13. 10 years later, 14.

[1:11:45] >> So, yeah, you gotta you can't just walk into the Office of Congressional Affairs. And it's because it's all about the the give and take, the deal making that's going on. You can't have some kid, you know, running around the office of congressional affairs with what happened with uh Iran. You you've mentioned that it seem seemed like this was a direct example of the US not acting on in our best interest. Yeah. >> Uh, could you think of a another time

[1:12:16] that that may have happened that the US are seemingly not acting in our best interest and in someone else's interest? >> Well, I mean, we can go through history. I mean, invading Iraq in 2003 was certainly not in our best interests. Um, the French begged us to go into Vietnam in 1959 when they lost to DNBNFU. That was not in our national interests. I'll give you another example. Have you guys ever heard of the United Fruit Company? >> Of course. >> Yeah. So, yeah, you would.

[1:12:46] >> So, the United Fruit Company. Do you know the United >> No, I have not. >> Company. So, in in the 1880s, there's this wealthy American industrialist from Boston and he wanted to build a railroad from the capital of uh Guatemala, Guatemala City to the coast. And um so he hires all these locals and they're laying track and it's through dense jungle and he goes down there to oversee the construction of the railroad

[1:13:17] and he sees that every day when the workers take a break they're picking these fruits off of a tree and they're eating them. And he said, "What is that fruit that they're eating?" And he was told that that's called a banana. He had never heard of this fruit before. Nobody in America had. So he asked to try one and it was delicious and it was sweet and he was like, "These things just grow." Yeah, they grow all over the place. And he decided that he's going to buy all the land on the two sides of the railroad tracks all the way from the

[1:13:47] capital city to the coast and he's going to take these bananas and ship them to the United States. He's so successful that he changes the name of the company to the United Fruit Company based in Boston. It's now called Chikita Banana. So this became so profitable. He was making so much money that the workers started to say, "Hey, you know what about us? We get what, a nickel a

[1:14:18] day? We should be making some money." >> Mhm. >> Years pass. By the time we get to the 1950s, Guatemalan politicians are saying, you know, the Americans have been taking these bananas for 70 years. This isn't fair. There are bananas. Maybe we should nationalize the bananas. Well, the board of directors of the United Fruit Company included John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, Alan Dulles, the director of the CIA,

[1:14:50] and President Eisenhower's Secretary's brother, and the next thing you know, we overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala. We install a military dictatorship that lasted into the early 1990s. and we killed hundreds of thousands of people. That wasn't in in our national interests. >> You know, the overthrow of the Mossadic government in Iran was absolutely not in our national interest. It was in the

[1:15:21] UK's national interests, but I mean, you can point to most of our interventions over the years and say, "What what were we thinking?" Like, what did we get out of these interventions? Who was I talking to yesterday? and he was bragging about uh it was a was a former CIA director. A [laughter] friend of mine had spoken to a former CIA director. Oh, no, no, it wasn't a CIA director. It was Admiral uh James Torres, who I'm ashamed to say is a fellow Greek American, but he was bragging about the great success of the

[1:15:51] Libya operation. It's like, are you kidding? Have you not read a newspaper? There are open air slave markets in in Libya. Gaddafi's gone, isn't he? And what threat was Gaddafi to us that we needed to overthrow him and replace him with chaos? Literally, it's chaos. >> Well, that that like that responsibility to protect like we need to protect X population from their from their Y dictator. And so we intervene on behalf

[1:16:22] of, you know, the the human rights of the people who live there. >> That's right. Um that's kind of that was originally the the um script that we were getting from Iran because there was protest in Iran. They were upset about the economic situation in Iran and then out of nowhere >> the protesters had guns. >> The protesters were killing cops. The protesters um >> seemingly the Israelis later took credit for >> they this is the thing about the Israelis. They cannot help but to brag to the Israeli media like oh we did

[1:16:53] that. That was pretty cool right? We did that. We gave guns to the mujah mujahulk. We gave guns to the Kurds. We set fire to all these mosques. But then we set fire to the to the uh fire trucks so they couldn't put out the fires at the mosques. Isn't that clever? And then you know we get these numbers. They've killed 30,000 50,000 90,000 protesters. Oh, says who? Says these two human rights groups in London and Washington that are funded by the Israeli government. Yeah. And I saw one

[1:17:24] of those um organizations had shares a zip code with the Pentagon, >> you know. So, it's it's just like they're not they're not really covering their tracks well, but they don't need to because they they're like they're they're lawless and no one's going to hold them to account. But, um >> when you see like some of these protests though, >> they got, you know, all these Starling terminals so they could, you know, form this parallel communications network that the government doesn't have control over. They get guns from from the US. they get, you know, starlinks from, you know, Musk and the DoD or what have you. Um, so it's a protest, whatever. Maybe

[1:17:56] it was legitimate in the beginning because they had economic grievances with with their situation, but it became very much a, you know, an astroturfed protest, um, pushed by the CIA and the MSAD. Um, how often do you think there are protest movements in countries that the US would consider an enemy state where the maybe the goal maybe they're asking for human rights, maybe they're asking for democracy. Um, but how often are those protests actually covertly funded and organized by by the US

[1:18:27] intelligence >> regularly? >> What's that look like? >> Oh, at the very least it's the distribution of cash. Um, sometimes you can place a a press, you know, announcement or something. Sometimes it's flyers. Sometimes it's cell phones or satones. Often times it's it's satones. Um, anything you can do to sort of encourage or facilitate communication, that's what that's what you do. And then in an

[1:18:59] extreme example, it's weapons. And that's what the US and the Israelis did in northern Iran. But then look at a place like like Myanmar, Burma. Myanmar is the only country on earth that has been continuously at war since World War II. It's not had one day of peace since World War II. It's the only country in the in the world. Um, so why don't we why don't we invade Burma and overthrow

[1:19:30] the military dictatorship there? We could probably do it in a couple of days because we don't have any national interest there. They're full of rubies and emeralds and diamonds. They don't have any oil. They're not particularly strategically located. So, we don't care. >> And in the extreme cases, there are military dictatorships that are directly serving our interests. So, we're protecting them. Absolutely. So it has it's it's this idea that we're um you know getting into these fights over democracy. >> Yeah. Well, people used to say all the time, we're we're overthrowing

[1:20:00] governments for democracy. Why don't we overthrow the Saudi government? That's the least democratic government on the planet because if there were elections, we used to say this all the time, if there were elections in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden would be the president. And then what do we do? >> Yeah. Democracy, human rights. Come on. None of that's true. We pretend that it is, but it's not true. >> I mean, that's a great the Osama bin would be that's a great way to make sure to to justify not allowing them to have

[1:20:32] elections. >> Yeah, sure. Exactly. >> When people say I mean, I think you even mentioned it before, the um the idea that once a spy always a spy, once an agent, always an agent. >> I freaking hate that. There's like very little in my life that I hate more than that >> than that saying. I mean on the on the internet and corners of the internet that I frequent, you know, the parapolitics people, the people who think, you know, everyone's, you know, a Fed or um, you know, controlled opposition >> retards. >> Um, these are people who just can't think. You have to feel sorry for them

[1:21:03] really because they're just incapable of of analytic thinking. >> Yeah. And I I've said a couple times, I'll be sure to tell Ed Snowden and Ray McGovern and the sons of Philip AG that you think that they're still CIA officers. Congratulations. And you came up with that all on your own. Yeah. You determined that they're still still in the CIA because once CIA, always CIA, [ __ ] [ __ ] I mean, it's terrible because like people like Slotkin, people like I mean, these people who have

[1:21:35] intelligence backgrounds that are now um not in the CIA, but definitely in office and forwarding the CIA's interests, national security interests. It you look at that and you're like, "Yeah, once a spy is a spy." Like, you could just kind of say that because it's they are still doing the work of intelligence agencies. But then when someone says that to you, >> retards. >> What? Yeah. What What do you What do you think about that? >> Yeah. I I think very little. Yeah. very little because people who say that are not people to be taken seriously. They they just don't have the intellectual

[1:22:06] capacity to be taken seriously. Anybody can throw out a cliche and then say, "What do you what do you respond to that?" Yeah, I don't because you're too stupid to warrant a response. And also the the amount of financial hardships and professional hardships that the agency put you through. It would also assume that that all of that was >> Yeah. My cover >> fake. Yeah. >> My cover is uh two divorces. I [clears throat] lost my five kids. Lost my pension. Lost my freedom for two

[1:22:38] years. I'm unemployable. Lost my gun rights and my voting rights. But it's because I love the agency. [ __ ] idiots. >> That's funny. All right. Perfect. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Really appreciate it. See you. Yeah.
