Title: 10-2-19 Nicole Sandler Show - The Public Trust with John K
Show: Nicole Sandler
Date: 2019-10-02
URL: https://youtu.be/q3IkX9p5LqA
Duration: 1:00:00

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[00:06] The following program contains graphic material, including offensive language. Viewer discretion is advised.

[00:40] Oh boy, and the crazies are out today. Um, actually forget the plural. Just one, one crazy, and he is occupying the Oval Office and oh my God. So, uh, sorry, I'm about a minute late coming on the air for our live show at three o'clock. Um, but I was watching the press conference, the lying liar who, um, and I just tweeted thank goodness or thank dog, I think I wrote.

[01:13] My live show starts in two minutes, so I need, I have a legitimate excuse to turn off this rambling lying mess. And apparently right when I clicked off, Donald Trump once again referred to himself as a stable genius. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. The nonsense coming out of his mouth is just so absurd. It is, it is a meltdown, but we've been watching this meltdown, this sort of slow motion meltdown now for, uh, going on three years. Well, it was really over three years

[01:46] because it started before he ever won the election. Well, won the electoral college. It's a good time to remember that he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes and he lost it to the worst candidate the Democrats ever ran. All right, let's say that. All right, things are going nuts. There's so much to get to today. So without any further ado, ado, uh, let's, let's get our little comedy bit out of the way because I don't know about you,

[02:18] but after that meltdown, after that travesty, after that tantrum, which has been going on since before the sun rose this morning, I could use a laugh. So take it away. Lauren mayor. Hello boys and girls. Today we're going to learn all about quid pro quo. Quid pro quo doesn't need to be explicit. If you allude to doing something illicit implying favors for what you solicit, that's a clearly impeachable offense.

[02:50] Yeah, we thought Trump's team couldn't go lower, but when they heard from this brave whistleblower, they did all they could to make discovery slower by trying to hide the evidence. We knew no one in the White House had skills for a crisis like this to handle. Plus it sounds like an old joke from the cat skills, a comedian and a failed reality star walked into a scandal trying to intimidate or threaten a witness proves their utter lack of decency or

[03:24] fitness as well as showing everyone that they're scared less as Trump's making even less sense. And I realized the bar's pretty low. If it was all above board, then why the cover up? They just prove there's more we need to go see. Plus there's others like Pence that this will hover up, then we'll end up with President Pelosi. So now that the impeachment drums are beating and Trump is frantically panic tweeting, this basic lesson bears repeating you don't

[03:57] need explicit quid pro quo by Donnie to show his actions are like a mafia. So con, he's vetted by Bill Barnwood and Giuliani, whose grip on sanity is really rather scrawny. Anyway, now you know, so you don't need to Google quid pro quo. Lauren Mayer, she is quite the genius and find her on everywhere on YouTube for her videos. Lauren Mayer, Lauren's comedy, she's the best. All right. Now that we got that out of the way.

[04:33] Donald Trump is showing off his vocabulary prowess. Bullshit. Yeah, you know, I tend to curse. This is how I speak. I have a potty mouth, but I'm not the President of the United States. We'll get to that. There's so much going on today. I've got a lot of news to share with you. We've got a couple of interviews to share as well. So we've got a lot to jam into this hour, and then it'll spill over because once again, I'm filling in for Brad Friedman on the

[05:07] Bradcast today, which you can get at bradblog.com or of course on the Progressive Voices Network. My show airs on Progressive Voices at Five Eastern to Pacific. Brad's airs at Eight Eastern, Five Pacific. So there's a lot to cover. There'll be a little bit of overlap, not much. So the big news today, sorry, Donald Trump, it's not you. I was recording with actually our friend Harvey JK for Brad's show for this afternoon this morning when I got a news alert. Bernie Sanders

[05:43] experienced chest discomfort during a campaign event yesterday, and he was taken to the hospital. He had two stents inserted to address a blockage in an artery. His advisor said in a statement, Senator Sanders is conversing and in good spirits. He will be resting up over the next few days. We are canceling his events and appearances until further notice, and we will continue to provide appropriate updates. So do whatever you do, whether it's prayers or good thoughts or healing, whatever. Send your well wishes to Bernie Sanders. I have no doubt he'll

[06:16] be like Mick Jagger and up and strutting across the stage in no time at all. I hope. Yeah, and we can save further comment for another day, and just know Twitter is, yeah, there are people on both sides in case you're wondering. I didn't say good people, I just said people. I guess I should start with the rest of the news, right? All right, Donald Trump is continuing his Twitter temper tantrum. This morning, he went profane.

[06:49] And again, now it's one thing to hear me curse. I do it frequently. But as I said before, I'm not the president of the United States. Donald Trump this morning tweeted something that I can't read, for instance, on Brad's show this afternoon, because it's the public airwaves. And by doing so, I would be probably find over $300,000. I'm not kidding. And I'd put the license of the stations airing it in jeopardy. Now my show, we're not on any terrestrial stations, so I can say bullshit or anything else I want to. But I mind my language

[07:23] when I am broadcasting over the air, because those are the rules. So Donald Trump this morning tweeted among a litany of other tweets, the do nothing Democrats should be focused on building up our country, not wasting everyone's time and energy on bullshit, all capitalized for effect, in case you're wondering, which is what they have been doing ever since I got overwhelmingly elected in 2016, 223 to 306. Actually, it was 232. Hillary Clinton got 232 electoral college votes,

[08:00] but Lion Donnie always says 223 because he's a fucking moron and a liar. And then he says, get a better candidate this time. You need it. Oh, and by the way, he capitalized the word country, Don. The word country shouldn't be capitalized. This is far from bullshit. And again, Hillary Clinton got 232 electoral college votes. Be prepared for cable hosts and pundits to get all flustered over the word. Bullshit. Right. As they did with shithole countries.

[08:37] Yeah, I think Donald Trump has shit for brains. Anyway, his Twitter tirade turned into an oval office meltdown during a press pool spray with the president of Finland looking on in horror. What he says in front of these foreign leaders is just embarrassing. I feel sorry for these people who have to sit there and listen to this nonsense. So Trump ended his rant in the oval office with the president of Finland sitting right next to him saying, you have corrupt media in this country and it truly is the enemy of the people. Oh my God. And then he's out 30

[09:16] minutes later or 30 minutes ago for a regular press conference with the president of Finland who again looked mortified to be standing next to him. Now, you're lucky. I recorded all of that Donald Trump nonsense. I'm not going to play any of it. Sorry. You want to hear it? Go watch Fox or go watch CNN because I'm sure they'll be airing it ad nauseam. I've got enough. Now,

[09:47] you know, he's melting down because of all the information that's coming out. Yamiche Alcindor just moments ago tweeted something about, you know, there's a story coming up. I'll get to it that the State Department or the intelligence community's Inspector General who made an urgent request. You know what? Let me hear the Inspector General of the State Department. That's who it is. His name is Steve Linux. He reached out to a group of congressional committees with what they described as an urgent request to brief the committee staff

[10:21] about documents related to the State Department and Ukraine. It's a bipartisan briefing expected sometime today in a classified setting. It'll include staff from the House and Senate committees including intelligence, foreign relations, oversight and appropriations, right? So, you know, Trump is freaking out about this. And just moments ago, Yamiche Alcindor from the New York Times tweeted, confirmed a source familiar tells me the State Department Inspector General briefing on the Hill is about retaliation against State Department officials who are

[10:56] trying to cooperate with House Democrats. I'm letting that just marinate for a second. This is the shit hitting the fan. This is the sound of the shit hitting the fan. You got Donald Trump going, it's a witch hunt. It's a hoax. It's the only words he knows. So, okay, there's all this other stuff going on. You know what? You've heard what's news today. Again, I told you we've got a busy show. I want to, let's see, I'm looking at timing.

[11:29] We've got time for a little bit of news. All right. You know what I'll do? Is let's get to, I'm going to play you the recorded what's news. I think I gave you everything that broke since I recorded what's news this morning. Then let me tell you who we're going to talk to today. Since we're so ingrained in the story of a whistleblower, I wanted to go to a whistleblower. And hopefully you've heard of John Curiacco. Maybe you've heard him on this show because he was on with me a couple of years ago upon publication of his third book,

[12:01] which we do briefly mention in the interview. I taped it this morning. And so when he tells you what it takes, what you go through as a whistleblower, you'll wonder why anybody ever puts themselves out in that situation, but why we're so thankful they do. And then later on, we're going to look into the wounded warrior project. Do you remember that charity? Do you remember the big controversy they were embroiled in? I thought they were now a former organization. Apparently

[12:34] that's not the case. It's all about the public trust. That's what today's show is under the heading of the public trust. So all right, so we'll do what's news and then come back and we'll hear the interview with John Curiacco and then talk about when the media goes on sort of vendetta against an organization. It's a slippery slope, as they say. So we'll get to all that on a very, very busy Wednesday on The Nicole Sandler Show. It's time for Nicole Sandler's What's News

[13:11] from NicoleSandler.com and the Progressive Voices Network. The Inspector General of the State Department, Steve Lenick, has reached out to a group of congressional committees with what they describe as an urgent request to brief committee staff about documents related to the State Department and Ukraine. The bipartisan briefing is expected to be delivered sometime Wednesday in a classified setting. It'll include staff from House and Senate committees, including intelligence, foreign relations, oversight, and appropriations. Now, in response to the

[13:44] Democratic subpoenas for five current and former State Department officials for interviews and depositions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent a letter accusing Democrats of attempting to intimidate and bully them, writing, quote, let me be clear, I will not tolerate such tactics. I will use all means at my disposal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedicated professionals whom I am proud to lead and serve alongside at the State Department. Therefore, the five officials subject to your letter may not attend any interview or deposition

[14:19] without counsel from the Executive Branch present to ensure that the Executive Branch's constitutional authority to control the disclosure of confidential information, including deliberative matters and diplomatic communications, is not impaired. It went on from there, but that gives you the general gist of the letter. Well, the response from Chairman Engel, Schiff, and Cummings was only seven sentences long, but it packed a punch, quote. Secretary Pompeo was reportedly on the call when the president pressed Ukraine to smear

[14:51] his political opponent. If true, Secretary Pompeo is now a fact witness in the House impeachment inquiry. He should immediately seize intimidating department witnesses in order to protect himself and the president. Any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from talking with Congress, including State Department employees, is illegal and will constitute evidence of obstruction of the impeachment inquiry. In response, Congress may infer from this obstruction that any withheld documents and testimony would reveal information that

[15:24] corroborates the whistleblower complaint. The committees are operating pursuant to our long-established authorities as well as the impeachment inquiry. We're committed to protecting witnesses from harassment and intimidation, and we expect their full compliance and that of the Department of State, end quote. While former ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovich, was scheduled to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, she's now confirmed to appear on October 11th. The State Department's former special envoy

[15:57] for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, will appear as originally scheduled on Thursday. It'll be behind closed doors, and it's unknown whether a transcript of the deposition will be released to the public. Stay tuned. So it looks like there's need for a schoolhouse rock revival to teach the clueless president about the Constitution. Donald Trump on Tuesday escalated his already hyperbolic Twitter attacks on impeachment efforts, this time referring to the inquiry as a coup, tweeting, quote. As I learn more and more each day, I'm coming to the conclusion

[16:33] that what is taking place is not an impeachment. It is a coup. Well, a coup, or coup d'etat, is known as a rapid and often violent seizure of power from a government. That's not what's currently occurring. Impeachment is the legal procedure of removing a president from office as outlined in the Constitution. Meanwhile, the president and his acolytes continue to smear and attempt to unmask the unidentified whistleblower at the heart of the impeachment probe. Thankfully, cracks are forming in the armor. Senator Chuck Grassley,

[17:06] breaking with his Republican party and the president, stepped up to defend the whistleblower after repeated attacks from the president. In a statement, Grassley said, This person appears to have followed the whistleblower protection laws and ought to be heard out and protected. We should always work to respect whistleblower's requests for confidentiality. Chuck Grassley is the head of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Believe it or not, there's other news happening. Seriously, the Secure and Fair

[17:37] Enforcement or Safe Banking Act that would allow the financial sector to finally serve cannabis businesses could make it to Trump's desk by the end of the year. Last week, the House passed it with bipartisan support in a 321-103 vote. Nearly half of the Republican caucus joined all Democrats, with the exception of Alabama's Terry Sewell, who voted against it. An unusual coalition of financial sector lobbyists, progressives, federal government skeptics and law enforcement officials backed the bill. It's now up to Mitch McConnell,

[18:09] who gets to decide whether or not it'll get a vote in the Senate. And a new book coming out next week from New York Times reporters Michael Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis titled Border Wars, Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration, is already making headlines. An excerpt in Wednesday's New York Times explains how Trump talked about shooting migrants in the legs in order to slow them down after they crossed the southern border. He was told that's not allowed. From the story, quote, privately,

[18:40] the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. And he raged at his aides for making him, quote, look like an idiot, in other words weak on immigration. Across the pond, Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday plans to unveil his final Brexit offer to the European Union and make it clear that if Brussels doesn't

[19:13] engage with the proposal, Britain will not negotiate and will depart without a deal on October 31. So with less than a month until Britain is due to leave the EU, the future of the country's biggest trade and foreign policy shift in more than 40 years is uncertain. Britain could leave with a deal, without one, or not exit at all. Stay tuned. Moving to North Korea, the Trump administration and Pyongyang have agreed to resume working-level

[19:43] nuclear negotiations on Friday and Saturday following months of jockeying over international economic sanctions still in place as well as North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. Trump and Kim Jong-un last met in June. But in advance of talks, North Korea early Wednesday morning fired a ballistic missile, possibly from a submarine. If confirmed, it would be the most provocative test by North Korea since it began talks with the United States in 2018. The State Department called on North Korea to, quote, refrain from provocations.

[20:15] Ooh, that was strong. And finally, in Hong Kong, office workers and high school students turned out Wednesday to denounce a policeman for shooting and wounding a teenager on Tuesday during the most violent clashes in nearly four months of unrest. More than 70 people were sent to the hospital. 25 police were wounded. And that's just a bit of what's news for now. I'm sure it'll change soon. I'm Nicole Sandler. If you appreciate these reports in the Nicole Sandler show, I hope you'll consider making a contribution. My work is 100% listener

[20:49] supported, and I can't do it without your help. Find out more at NicoleSandler.com. Please click on that donate button. Just to reiterate what I just said, yeah, I do survive on your donations. That's what pays my salary, such as it is. So if you can afford it, if you enjoy the show and you can afford it, please donate what you can when you can. Okay, so let's move on, because like I said, there's a lot going on today. I wanted to speak with a whistleblower because all we're hearing about is the

[21:21] whistleblower. We understand this president is making really serious threats trying to out this person. So whistleblower time it is. Joining us on the line now is John Kiriakou. He's a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act, a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a

[21:55] result of his attempts to oppose and expose the Bush administration's torture program. He's written three amazing books about his experience, I'll fill you in later, but he's got a new article out for consortium news about the current whistleblower revelations and, well, the entire case. It's titled, What Was This CIA Officer Thinking? So John, you've got a unique perspective on what's being called now the whistleblower case. In your article, a consortium news is interesting because one of the first things you bring up in

[22:29] the piece is if this CIA officer is indeed an actual real whistleblower, what do you mean by that? Well, there are a couple of things about the whistleblower's report that bother me. One is it doesn't read like a whistleblower report, it reads like something that was written by committee. And I know how the CIA works, I spent 15 years at the CIA. What they do is they put everything literally everything through the chain of command.

[23:01] So where a whistleblower should write a report and send it to the inspector general, it appears to me that what this whistleblower did is he wrote his report, put it through his chain of command and then the chain of command go over and they sent it through their chains of command and they sent it to the attorneys and they sent it to the CIA leadership. So on the end, it looks like it was written by 20 different people, most of whom were attorneys, and I'm not sure that it conveys really the information or exactly the information that the whistleblower wanted to have conveyed. Wow, because as a layman, as a layperson,

[23:37] I read it and thought, wow, this is pretty damning stuff. So you're suggesting that it could perhaps be that the whistleblower, I'm putting doing air quotes for those who can't see, is perhaps a CIA plant whose task it is to take down the president. And I guess that's possible, yes. I struggle with this kind of thing, but the easy answer to your question is yes, it's possible. And I've seen CIA perfidy first hand.

[24:12] I see how they plot against people, even presidents. Historically, they did it against Jimmy Carter, they did it against Bill Clinton, now they're doing it against Donald Trump. And I think another point repeatedly, and I want to say it again and forgive me if I sound like a broken record, but the CIA is led by a cadre of people called the Senior Intelligence Service, SIS officers. And those officers have been there for 20 and 30 and 35 years. Many of them came of

[24:43] age, I would say at this point, a majority of them came of age during the Obama administration, and they know that presidents come and go, and they're going to be there forever. You can call it the deep state, you can call it the federal bureaucracy, you can call it the government, you can call it whatever you want. The truth of the matter is that these unelected people run the intelligence community and they don't care what the president wants. Okay. Well, let me play devil's advocate for a moment. As someone, a citizen of the

[25:14] United States who's been mortified by this president, who sees the upending of not only norms, but laws and common decency, human compassion. I mean, everything about him not only disgusts me, but also terrifies me. I was of the mind that I was hoping there was somebody in the White House who would blow the whistle on this guy. Is it possible that this unnamed whistleblower was just acting out of a conscience? Patriotism, yes. Sure. You get no argument from

[25:50] me on your points. I agree with you completely in that respect. We want whistleblowers to act out of conscience and out of patriotism, but I fear that what happened is this whistleblower who meant well, most likely meant well, I think that his complaint and the whole process has been taken over by the CIA leadership and that's what frightens me. Wow. Now, what do you think? We're speaking, we're recording this early on Wednesday morning, October 10th. At some point today, the intelligence community's inspector general will be briefing members of the House

[26:25] of Representatives on what they're saying is an urgent matter relating to this Ukraine situation. Do you have any idea what this could be about? I don't, but if you look at the whistleblower protection law and specifically the intelligence community whistleblower protection law, it defines whistleblowing as bringing to light any evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, illegality, or threats to the public health or public safety. So if the IC inspector general says he has urgent information that he needs to convey

[26:58] to Congress, it has to be related to illegality or fraud or some such thing because the law compels him to report that to Congress. So my best guess is that's what that's what it is. It's at least something that the inspector general believes to be a crime. Right. Now, this is the same inspector general, I believe, who was given this whistleblower report, such as it is, by the whistleblower, who then found it to be credible

[27:28] and urgent in nature, turned it over to the acting DNI, who by law was supposed to turn it over to Congress. Instead, the acting DNI gave it to the White House, who was the subject of the report. This is... Absolutely scandalous. Yes. Just scandalous. The law is very, very clear, Nicole. The information has to go to the oversight committees. Just because you don't like the chairman of the oversight committee or you don't like the party that happens to be in control of that House of Congress doesn't mean that you could just pretend that the law doesn't

[28:02] exist and not turn the information over. This is how the system breaks down. This is exactly why we have a law so that there is a way to convey this information to the oversight committee. I complain frequently in radio and television interviews that we generally don't have oversight committees. We have cheerleading committees. We have committees that happily endorsed and financed the torture program, the illegal rendition program, the secret prisons program. We have

[28:32] an oversight committee at least on the Senate side that did nothing when the CIA broke into its computer system and hacked its computers during the writing of the torture report. It just seems to me that they've been powerless or they've chosen to be powerless until now. Now, the CIA doesn't really like this. The inspector general, at least the DNI inspector general, decided, well, I don't like that oversight committee on the House side. I'm just not going to pass the information. That's a criminal violation.

[29:06] Right. It's not only the Trump administration who has treated whistleblowers in this manner. You're a prime example, and you will also write in this consortium news article that I'll link both from BradBlog.com and NicoleSandler.com, the case of Thomas Drake. You want to tell us a little bit about what happened to Thomas Drake when he tried to blow the whistle on warrantless wiretapping? You bet. Tom Drake was a senior intelligence officer at NSA, one of the most highly respected officers in NSA, and frankly,

[29:38] one of the country's leading thinkers on the issue of internet privacy. Tom was in a senior position on September 11th, and within days of the September 11th attacks, he saw that without any congressional approval, without any legal authority, NSA began its warrantless wiretapping program on American citizens, and they started this mass surveillance and mass collection of American phone calls, text messages, and emails. He knew that this was illegal, patently illegal, and so he went to his inspector general at NSA.

[30:16] His inspector general didn't know what he was talking about, because the inspector general hadn't been read into the program. So Tom went to the general counsel. The general counsel told him to mind his own business. Just as he was taught to do, he went through the chain of command, and he went to the Pentagon inspector general. The Pentagon IG actually destroyed the evidence that Tom had brought out with him, and the inspector general is now under criminal investigation at DOD. So when he didn't get any satisfaction there, he went to the House Oversight

[30:47] Committee. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence entered his trouble. He got 10 felony indictments, including five counts of espionage. Now, of course, he hadn't committed espionage, and he hadn't committed espionage, and finally the case fell apart and all those charges were dismissed. But not until he went bankrupt, not until he lost his security clearance and his job, not until his wife left him. She was also an NSA senior officer. He literally lost

[31:17] everything. So here we are all these years later, and one of the country's leading thinkers on Internet privacy issues works at the Apple Store in Bethesda, Maryland. That's what happens to whistleblowers. Oh my goodness. Now, you write that in your own case, you blew the whistle on the CIA's torture program, and you couldn't go through the chain of command because the chain of command is who created the torture program. Right. That's the irony. So I couldn't go through my chain of command. I worked in the CIA's counterterrorism center, and it was in the

[31:50] counterterrorism center that my leadership conceived of and implemented the torture program. I couldn't go to the inspector general or the general counsel because they had worked with the DOJ inspector general and general counsel to stand on their heads and legally formalize the torture program, if you remember the U by B memos. And so I couldn't go to the oversight committees because they were the ones that approved and financed the torture program.

[32:21] So I elected to go to the media. It was a risk, and it was a risk that resulted in 23 months in a federal prison. But sometimes the only place to go is to the media. When the government is corrupt, you have to go where the information will be disseminated. Right. And look, I know a lot of our listeners look back on the Obama years as saying, oh, it was normal times. And compared to what we're living through now, perhaps it was. But we should mention that, as I did at the outset, under the Obama administration,

[32:56] six whistleblowers, including you, were indicted under eight under the espionage. Oh, you were the sixth of eight. I was the sixth. As crazy as it sounds. I don't preface this by saying, I believe in the whole hope and change thing. I volunteered on the campaign. I took my kids to the inauguration. I went to work for John Kerry on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after Obama was elected. So I believed in the whole thing. But as it turned out, it was Barack Obama who indicted me and seven other whistleblowers

[33:29] under the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act, Nicole was written in 1917 to combat German saboteurs during the First World War. It's only been updated once, and that was in 1955. And between 1917 and 2009, three Americans were charged with espionage for talking to the media. Just during Barack Obama's presidency, he charged eight people with espionage for

[34:00] talking to the media. It had this incredible chilling effect on national security whistleblowing and one New York Times reporter wrote on the day that I left for prison that on the day of my arrest, every single one of the New York Times national security sources went silent. And that was exactly what the point was to silence potential whistleblowers. Wow. Again, we are speaking with John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer

[34:30] who was a whistleblower. He blew the whistle on the Bush administration's torture program. And for that, he served 23 months in prison after being prosecuted under the Espionage Act by the Obama administration. John, you've written three great books on the subject, The Reluctant Spy, My Secret Life and the CIA's War on Terror in 2010, The Convenient Terrorist, Abu Zabida and the Weird Wonderland of America's Secret Wars in 2017. And the first time we spoke was after your third book was

[35:01] published Doing Time Like a Spy, How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison, which is a fascinating memoir about your time in prison and how you navigated it and the lessons you've learned. What, if you could send a message to this CIA whistleblower, who may or may not be an actual whistleblower, what would you say to this person? It's a little bit on the technical side. And I say this in the Consortium news piece that I wrote, Nicole. I think that this whistleblower made a grave mistake

[35:33] in his choice of attorneys. He chose an attorney who has a track record of, frankly, of ratting out his clients to the FBI and to the CIA. I would run screaming from the room away from that attorney and hire one of Washington's A-List national security defense attorneys. Washington's a very unusual place in that we have specialties like this. We have attorneys, and I mean like $1,000 an hour top flight internationally recognized attorneys

[36:05] who specialize in national security and national security defense. We even have psychiatrists in the Washington area who specialize in screwed up former CIA officer PTSD. So it's an actual cottage industry. So I would tell this guy, lawyer up, keep your mouth shut, and don't open it unless your lawyer is sitting next to you. Wow. Okay. So we still don't, there's so much we don't know. What we do know is the president

[36:36] is one talking smack about this person, putting him in danger, him or her in danger, and saying that they are actively trying to unmask the identity. How dangerous is this for this person going forward? Oh, I think this is really, really critical. In the days after I blew the whistle, I got hundreds, maybe more than hundreds of pieces of hate mail and email. And then the FBI called me at one point about a week after I blew the whistle and said that they had three

[37:09] credible threats against my life and that maybe I should leave town until they could get things wrapped up. And so that's what I did. I took my wife and my children to Mexico for a week. And then the FBI called and said that they had made these arrests and we could come back. So we did. The president is actively trying to out this whistleblower. I can't even imagine or fathom anything more irresponsible than trying to out the identity of this whistleblower. If he's successful,

[37:42] I would say, and I don't think I'm overstating this, I would say that the whistleblower's life would be in danger and he would have to be protected. This is incredibly irresponsible. Wow. I hope people understand the severity of this and whether or not, you know, maybe I'm naive. I believe what I read. I think this person had a attack of conscience and said, I can't let this go. But even if it was a concerted effort to expose this guy for all of his wrongdoing, I say good on him and we need to do everything

[38:15] possible to protect this person. There are whistleblower laws on the books, but obviously they're not effective. They're not effective. And this is not a partisan issue. You know, the biggest champion of whistleblowers in Congress is Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican of Iowa. And then on the House side, there are a couple of Democrats who have been friendly to the notion of whistleblowers. This is not partisan in any way. I think the problem is, and I'll

[38:47] actually give you an example. When I got out of prison, I was hired by the Greek government to help them write a new whistleblower protection law. And so I went to Greece. My Greek is excellent. And I went to meet with the Minister of Justice. And so we're sitting there in this meeting and I'm explaining what a draft law might look like. There's no Greek word for whistleblower. And so I kept saying the word in English. And finally he says to me, what exactly does this word mean, whistleblower? And so I explained it and he said, oh, you mean

[39:21] like a rat or a snitch. And I said, no, not at all like a rat or a snitch. And I explained to him why whistleblowers were so important. And so we ended up coming up with our own word, which translates as sentinel of the public trust. And that's really what this is. And that's something that our political figures don't understand. They're still in that mindset of rat or snitch. And that's just wrong. I like that sentinel of the public trust. We need more of them. More of you. We do indeed. John Kiriaco, in addition to your books,

[39:55] telling all about your experience, you also host a radio show yourself. Tell us where we can hear it and when. I do. It's called Loud and Clear. And it's in the Washington, D.C. area, but it's also on all of the various podcast platforms. iHeartRadio, iTunes, Spreaker and Spotify. Every day it's two hours loud and clear. Awesome. John Kiriaco, thank you so much for spending some time with us this morning and for being so open and accessible about your experience. People need to understand the risks

[40:28] that this person... One last thing before I let you go. You say that regardless of the outcome, this person's future is over as a CIA officer. What is the attitude towards whistleblowers inside the CIA? Oh, it's actively hostile. And I say in this article that the conventional wisdom inside the CIA is going to be, you rat it out, the president of the United States. What's to keep you from ratting out me or ratting out the director? I think that although this person

[41:02] clearly did the right thing, I think that his career is essentially over. Well, sometimes you make sacrifices for the greater good. I guess we'll see what happens. But oh boy, I know there is a GoFundMe account set up to help this whistleblower. It's set up by whistleblower aid. Apparently all your donations to this fund are tax deductible. URL to get directly to that page is helpthewistleblower.org and they suggest using the hashtag

[41:33] I am the whistleblower. This person, whoever it is, really is acting in our best interests and we need to have his or her back. John Kiriakou, thank you so, so much for everything you've done and what you continue to do. Really appreciate your time. Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for your kindness and for having me on the show. He's just awesome. Such an impressive man. His books are wonderful. I'll link to them. I'll link to his website JohnKiriakou.com and that consortium news article we discussed as well from my blog at NicoleSantler.com.

[42:07] All right, we're going to take a turn. I told you there's so much going on today, but I had a guest booked for a while now and this is not having to do with today's breaking news, but it is an important, it is sort of related. So let me bring on our guest. His name is Doug White. Hi, Doug. I see you're with us there. Hello, and it's good to be with you. Good to have you here. Sorry, it's a really, really busy day. Doug White is the author of a new book called Wounded Charity,

[42:38] Lessons from the Wounded Warrior Project Crisis. Now, I remember being a TV addict that I am seeing tons of, well, they were in commercials, public service announcements for the Wounded Warrior Project years ago, and then I do remember hearing that there were some controversy surrounding them over where the funds raised were going. Well, I put them out of my mind. I hadn't heard about them in a few years out of sight, out of mind,

[43:09] right? Then I get this book in the mail and it turns out the author, Doug White, our guest, is a longtime leader in our country's philanthropic community. He's a teacher, advisor, and an author. He's co-chair of the Full Proof Foundation's Walter Cronkite Project Committee, a governing board member of the Secular Coalition of America. You've dealt with, it seems like your whole life, dealing with nonprofits and fundraising organizations where you work with them on ethics and fundraising and things like that. Do I have

[43:40] your background kind of right? You said it pretty well and pretty briefly and that's perfect. Cool. Well, so in September from reading some of your book, in September of 2016, you completed a review of the allegations against the Wounded Warrior Project, and that is the basis of this book that you've just published. It was released officially yesterday, again, called Wounded Charity, Lessons from the Wounded Warrior Project Crisis. Were you involved with the Wounded Warrior Project, or as an observer,

[44:11] you saw that something was going on and wanted to figure out what happened? As an observer, I did want to figure out what happened. The news reports were startling, and at the time, it was funny because most of the work that I had been doing was about taking down or trying to expose charities that were really behaving badly. So when I heard the report first, I thought, yeah, there's probably a real big, bad story in here, but I got called by a volunteer, Peter Honorkamp, at Wounded Warrior Project, and he said, this is not the

[44:43] organization I know. Would you please call the CEO and the COO and see if they'll talk to you about this because another side of the story needs to come out. So, Nicole, I had nothing to do with the Wounded Warrior Project crisis until Peter's phone called to me, and then when I talked to the CEO and the COO, they asked me, look, when I come down and do a complete evaluation of the organization after the allegations were made, and I said, I couldn't at that point because I was

[45:14] working full-time at Columbia running the nonprofit program, but let's talk later. And he said, well, that's great because they're going to do a financial audit. And at the end of that month, let's talk. He said it'd take about a month or so. The problem is at the end of that month and at the end of the financial audit, those two were both fired. And Peter Honorkamp, the volunteer, called back and said this is making no sense at all. And what made no sense to me, aside from that phone call, was in the press release that the Wounded Warrior Project board put out. It said that all of the activities that they were doing were fine, that the press

[45:49] reports were essentially wrong and that this was verified by a third party, but that we wanted to get rid of our two top guys. And so that became the basis for my curiosity going forward. Gotcha. Well, let's go back to why they even called on you. It was, I'm looking at right now, a report from January of 2016 from CBS, and I guess CBS was the main finger pointer here. The headline reads, Wounded Warrior Project accused of wasting donation

[46:22] money. And it goes on to talk about how they spend donations compared to other long-respected charities. And it says, this report says, disabled American veterans charitable trust spends 96% of its budget on vets. Fisher House devotes 91%, but according to public records reported by Charity Navigator, the Wounded Warrior Project spends 60% on vets. And then there were reports of elaborate conferences and conferences and just Mariachi bands and

[46:58] Maracas with the Wounded Warrior Project logo on it and misuse of funds. Are you saying that none of that happened or that they did spend more than 60% of the money they took in on the veterans? Pretty much that's what I'm saying. First of all, the 60% number is an incorrect number. That's because Charity Navigator was using the wrong data and they were doing so willfully. There's that. But on top of that, the organization was not misspending money. Let's just be

[47:30] clear. This is how things get started. And I like CBS News and I like the New York Times. I have a high regard for both of those as journalistic enterprises, but this particular story, they got completely wrong. And where they got it wrong was then you just read the headline, there was no misappropriation of money. There wasn't a dime of misappropriation of money. In fact, the audit that was done during that month showed that not one dime over over a six or seven year period was misspent. No money was spent on alcoholic conferences. In fact,

[48:03] that allegation was particularly hurtful to the CEO and the COO because one of the core missions of Wounded Warrior Project, and there are several, but this one core mission is that there's a great big rate of suicide among veterans. And a large part of that is alcoholism. And so Wounded Warrior Project is on record and in practice does not spend money on alcohol for anything. Now, that isn't to say that individuals can't buy their own drinks or whatever,

[48:34] but they went through thousands of receipts for years and found two drinks over that entire period of time. I don't know if I'm remembering this accurately, but out of thousands and thousands of drinks, I think those two were for board members. So the story just did not add up and it was based on basically some former employees who were very disgruntled. You know, it's interesting because we've got two chat rooms going during the show. This is a live interview. And somebody said when I brought up a Wounded Warrior Project,

[49:06] wasn't that the charity that Donald Trump was allegedly going to give money to? Now, this is a problem where people conflate one organization with another. There was, if you remember, I guess, when Donald Trump decided not to participate in one of the debates and instead said he was going to do an event for the veterans and made a big show of he was giving a check and we learned that that was nonsense. There was no charity. There was no check. He didn't do anything. That was not the Wounded Warrior Project. That was some other fly-by-night,

[49:38] ostensibly veterans charity. Do you know anything about that one? Yeah, no, I don't know anything about that one, except to say that that was not the Wounded Warrior Project. Right. Well, but the point I'm getting at is there are so many. Now Wounded Warriors has been around for a while. It was easy to take them down with this smear. I don't know what happened after the CBS reporting between then and your book. I will find out in a moment. But there are many charities who go out, who are out there in the public sphere who are not legitimate players, who don't do what they purport

[50:15] to do with the money that they raise. How does somebody who wants to support, say, a veterans group, how do they decide? How do they figure out who's legit and who isn't? Well, the answer to that is that the donor or the potential donor ought to go kick the tires. Look at the website. Look at the 990. That's the information return that is sent to the IRS. That's information that the donor can use. But then on top of that, get to know the people there either by phone or by email. Find out things about the board, how long the board

[50:47] has been around, as far as how many people have been there for how long, and that sort of a thing. And get a sense of the credibility. Find out if there are any news stories about it now. In this particular case, a search for that would show that Wounded Warrior behaved badly. So there's that caveat. And that's what this book is trying to correct. Realistically, somebody watching, as I mentioned earlier, watching late night TV and they see a PSA for the Wounded Warrior project and say, well, that sounds great. I want to help. They're not going to take the time to open a conversation with the board of directors and find out who's doing what. They want to send 20

[51:21] bucks. How do you know, right? How do you know who you can trust? There is no way to know. That's, I think, the big problem. And my feeling is that there needs to be a better way to know. And organizations like Charity Navigator are not the way to go about knowing more. So the reason I say that just, I don't want to just throw that out and leave it, they're not good at evaluating charities because the only thing they evaluate are numbers on that information return. And that can be very subjective. And there are no real standards for how much should be spent on what.

[51:57] It is my view. Yes, charity should be very efficient. But it's more important that charities make an impact or have an impact on their communities. However, that's defined. And it might take 60 cents or 40 cents, I should say, on the dollar to do that administratively. That is not a red flag. Now, that's not the number that really was true for Wounded Warrior Project. But the point is that you have to look more than just at the numbers. I gotcha. You want to see what good the group is doing. So before the CBS report in 2016 on the Wounded Warrior Project, as far as I know,

[52:32] you know, there weren't red flags. So was it just the CBS investigation and the report and then the New York Times piled on? And what effect did it have? Well, I wouldn't really characterize the CBS report as an investigation. It's their word. What they did was not an investigation. Right. That's what they called it. They just do a bunch of disgruntled employees and took their word for it and went for it. And they don't know much about charities. That's the other thing.

[53:04] If you're going to evaluate or do a story like this, you should know what you're talking about. And that's part of the problem because there's so much going on there. For example, the conference that made the headlines, that's the kind of conference any large organization would have. And they went out and they actually did a survey to find out how many dollars they'd have to spend. And they got it very inefficiently. And it's not uncommon for that kind of a conference to take place and to increase morale. And so that criticism was totally unfounded. So what I think is what, well, what I know is that the New York

[53:38] Times actually was doing a story about this. And I know this because they had called me some weeks earlier, about a month and a half earlier. And the tenor of what we talked about had nothing to do with what ended up happening on their front page. They got wind, excuse me, CBS got wind of this story and then kind of edged themselves into it and made it as if it was some breaking news story. You'll look at the news on that story and there was nothing breaking about it. So the question is why did CBS kind of come into it? And to make

[54:10] a long story short, and this is where the book goes into detail, there is a board member, Richard Jones, who was on the board of Wounded Warrior Project overseeing the area where CBS News was criticizing the most. Well, this person was and is a senior executive at CBS Corporation. So there was a huge conflict of interest going on when that story broke and afterwards. So I have a thought, I've outlined it in the book, I feel very strongly,

[54:41] this is the case, that person had ties to a couple of other organizations that did not like Wounded Warrior Project. Now, the fact that Wounded Warrior Project had nothing wrong with it doesn't mean they didn't get a lot of criticism. A lot of that criticism came from organizations that felt that they were raising too much money and that was sucking out money from other organizations. That's not true, but that's how they felt. And so I feel like there was some bad blood, if you will, among the charitable community members. And this is partly what was going on there. I think that there was an effort to take down or at least neuter

[55:16] Wounded Warrior Project. Right. So it didn't work. I mean, I know, as I said, I guess in 2016 or before, they were everywhere. It was everywhere. And now we don't hear much about them anymore. Are they still in existence? Oh, yes, they're still in existence. And I would go so far to say they're still a good organization. They did, however, over the three years after Steve and Al were fired, lose over $640 million over that three year period because of this crisis and because of

[55:48] the inability of the board and the new leadership to really take over that vision. I have to tell you, the vision for Wounded Warrior Project was huge. What they did, unlike most organizations, they said, and I'm going to borrow a phrase that you are using with your last guest, John, they are a sentinel of public trust. Charities are. And this is really how we have to look at it. And they are a sentinel of the public trust. And so when they saw what their job was, that is to

[56:19] take care of veterans who are coming back after the Afghan and the 11th, they said that this is going to take a lot of money. And they wanted to put a trust together that would have about a billion dollars in it. They looked like they were going to go there and they defined the problem, knew what the cost would be, and raised to that goal. Now the vision is a little bit less expansive. They stopped that long-term trust. And so it's shrunk, but it's still a good charity.

[56:52] Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with the charity. It's just that it's a different place now. And I feel like it's a lesser place in some ways than what it was when the old guard was there. But still, it's a very worthy charity. Right. That's good to hear because everything I heard about them until this CBS story was positive. But like someone in the chat room just said, I always wondered about the Wounded Warriors project. I think it's when a charity gets so big and is almost omnipotent, it's everywhere, you wonder about it. And then a story

[57:27] like this certainly doesn't help. So what does a non-profit organization, a charity like this, who does great work helping our injured warriors returning from battle, how do they fight back against a smear campaign like this? Well, I have to tell you, the board blew it in that particular case. They did not fight back. They muzzled Steve and Al. That's Steve, Nardisi and Al Giordano, the former CEO and COO. And so there was no response. And I think you know, based on what I've heard in your own programs, I think you've got a really good instinct on this,

[58:00] you don't sit there and take it. You don't get water. You don't get swift-boated is what I was going to say, like John Kerry did back in the day. You'd take it head on. And Steve Nardisi knew this, but he was not allowed to go out and talk about it. So one of one of the recommendations I would make and do make to charities is that you have to have a crisis plan in ready to go because you never know when you're going to need it. And you can't let everybody else define the narrative for you. That just doesn't work. Let me just also just say one other

[58:32] thing too, because one of the reasons this bad feeling took place, the Department of Defense did not like those ads. The ads you were referring to earlier, because they were too realistic, they felt that there was too much negative imagery in those ads and that's right, you know, like go off to warden. Some people come back injured, golly. Well, the thing is those people who were in the ads wanted to be in the ads. They didn't feel like they were being used. And the Department of Defense was saying this is just a travesty. And Steve stood his ground

[59:07] against the chief of staff at the time and said, we're not going to change the ads. And you don't have any say over what we do. You're the government. We're nonprofits. And we don't take any money from you guys anyway in the government period. So those ads and the tension that was generated by the Department of Defense created more of that negative tension that I think led to some people not wanting Wounded Warrior Project to succeed. Wow. Well, it's a cautionary tale. Wounded

[59:40] charity lessons from the Wounded Warrior Project crisis. Doug White is the author. It is out now, as of yesterday. Thank you for doing this. And on behalf of veterans who could use the extra support because God knows our government doesn't take care of them. They could use it too. So thanks for shining a light on this. Thanks for joining us today, Doug. And thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. With that, we're done. Don't forget, I'm in for Brad Friedman on the Bradcast today as well. So I'll see you over there, 8 Eastern, 5 Pacific on the Progressive

[1:00:13] Voices Network. Until next time, thanks, everyone. Keep the faith, whatever that means. I don't even know anymore. I'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.
