Title: Politics Done Right
Show: Politics Done Right
Date: 2015-08-18
URL: https://youtu.be/NOqRvWc5_AA
Duration: 56:00

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[00:04] foreign [Music] from the studios of kpft in Houston welcome to this week's edition of the

[00:34] monitor my name is Mark badawi my co-host is Emily Becker and we have a guest guest and co-host I guess I was going to say guest co-host but you're both egberto Willis is joining us we're going to be talking to him first instead of the news headlines but let me just give you a quick rundown of this week's show because it's a little bit unusual normally in the beginning we would be doing news headlines but instead we're going to be talking to Alberto so welcome first of all well thank you for having me sir how you doing today I'm I'm good great I'm here um we have two guests after that so uh

[01:05] the usual format once the first segment is over the first guest is John cariaku he's a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he's now a columnist for a website called other words and we have a link to his website and his latest column which we'll be discussing with him on the show this week it is called let's talk about torture in which John takes aim I think fairly squarely at Bush era CIA directors George tenant Peter Porter Goss and Michael Hayden and several of their underlings who have

[01:36] recently announced a plan to release a book predictably perhaps justifying torture so we'll see what John thinks of that I have an idea he might not like it our second guest after the break uh will be Steve horn he's the editor of D smog blog and he recently wrote a piece called Hillary Clinton State Department emails Mexico energy reform and the revolving door Steve will be our final guest for the show so normally at this point we'd be getting into news headlines and I'd be reminding people to

[02:07] go take a look at the website which they still can do obviously and that is the monitor.wordpress.com you can also go to facebook.com monitor radio you can follow me on Twitter at Market Valley you can also follow all three of our guests our first guest is egberto Willis his Twitter handle is predictably Willis egberto um I had this idea that uh probably somewhat similar to my experience with kpft people have specific times of the day or the week where they listen and they may not be exposed to other shows and they may not even know that your

[02:38] show exists I suspect that there are people who listen to your show that don't know this show exists and so I'm trying to cross-pollinate a little bit so tell people about your show it's Thursdays at three and it's called politics done right what is what people expect if they tune in if you too my show is called politics done right and it's on Thursdays at 3 P.M and what I do is I try to engage the community it's a and I don't and it's not only a local show but it's a national show where we actually try to get uh the the average person in the body politics to engage most people think that they cannot be a

[03:09] part of politics I mean your show is is excellent in in what I like to call the Academia of politics what we try to do at politics Done Right is bring it closer to uh to folks who think they don't have the ability or they were with all to be a part of the body politics we try to get them to engage and we also try to get them to actually put their voices out there and get their voices on air because what I find is a lot of times people have a lot to say but they don't think they have the right to say it or the Worth to say it it's a place

[03:39] to say it or the place to say it exactly exactly so what we're trying to do is tell folks that you're part of America and just like you can watch TV and see all those pundits on you get your opportunity to do that as well on politics then right so it's a little bit like a C-SPAN call-in show in that sense there's a topic I guess for the week and you have uh ideas that you want to get through but you solicit opinion and people call in right what I do is I I generally start the show with something I call the blog of the week and the blog of the week is is some something that that I research for quite a bit you know

[04:10] most of the times it's something that's happening and then we have a discussion on the blog of the week now the thing about it is what I call the show as well as a people's show what that means is if I may have an idea of what I want the blog of the week to be but something may be happening that people want to talk about something else so we get we get the meat of the blog of the week out of the way and we either discuss it or folks may call in and actually have the subject change but it's their show so they get the ability to they have the ability to do that and it's it's every

[04:41] Thursday and it's 3 P.M right every Thursday at 3 P.M for one hour for one hour okay so I guess one of the questions I have with it being a call-in show is do you have uh people who call in all the time or do you have people who you don't recognize like is it a mixture yeah it is a great mixture because what you find is you have your your you have your groupies right the folks that will always call you every time that they can but what I'm starting to find is that the Surfers the radio Surfers are

[05:12] starting to call as well and then they're they're listeners that have been that have been listening for quite a while who hadn't had the courage to call and they're suddenly with with the constant trying to get people involved they're getting up to speed or they're getting the courage and they're calling there's an interesting thing that happened last time last Thursday everybody who called were males and I said look it's almost done with the show and we haven't heard from a woman yet and at that point there were there's one

[05:44] call on the line as soon as I said that the whole thing lit up so it was it was great because you felt that engagement with the people that were you know were actually listening to your show you know uh before I started hosting this show I used to do the boards the engineering for uh saeed's show Arab voices and there were people who would call in every week right and there was also a fairly short list of people who it seemed would call in every every college right and I was always a little bit hesitant as to where they might take the show or how they might derail the topic because that show also had a guest right

[06:14] so your show you don't have a guess it's you and the listeners it's me and listeners now every so often I bring guests like uh going forward especially since it's the election season I likely have a whole lot of politicians in here it in the studio but the idea is not going to be the politician using the show for a propaganda machine it's going to be I'll talk to the politician for a little bit and then let the people talk to the politician and you know for me it's going to be always the folks out there and that's going to be leading the show so this brings up

[06:46] another question and it's something that I wrestle with every election season and that is that the Federal Election Commission has rules about uh so-called fair play or equal air time or you know which on TV was a doctrine that was undone by Reagan Reagan yes um so how do you deal with elections and either expressing or not expressing your own opinion and and staying within the rules but also being honest with your audience well my audience know that I am a left-wing liberal I tell them that almost every single session I also tell

[07:17] folks that the intent of my show is not to listen to only left-wing liberals I want everybody on my show so I encourage Republicans anarchists Communists socialists libertarian Libertarians right everybody to come on the show and you know what sometimes I get them so I mean the idea is that um I am not shy about what my political affiliation is I'm not shy about where I stand from a political standpoint but what I try to do is say this is community radio and I want to hear you know everybody's point

[07:47] of view and I really don't have a you know a problem to have folks call in and talk because I'm with another group called The Coffee Party USA and one of the things that we try to do is introduce dialogue into um into our system because there's too much as you know if you the rush limbaughs and the Hannity so my show is nothing like that I don't care where you come from you'd always first of all as the host I'm always extremely respectful to anybody who calls in no matter what tone they use when they call in and generally even those that call in very wild with a wild

[08:18] tone ready to have my head on a platter by the time the conversation ends you know whether we agree or disagree we have a conversation well that's important and Emily I don't want to hog the conversation so jump jump in if you have if you have questions as well um so I guess the the other the other concern that I have about Collins and I sort of alluded to it is that sometimes people can call in and completely change subject yes with this show sometimes when you know technical issues have led to guests not being available or phone

[08:49] phone lines have had a problem or something we'll open the lines but I've always been very impressed with the quality of phone calls that we get and I don't know if if okay sort of I guess in some way undermines an assumption that a lot of media has that topics are too complicated that we can't really get into this that you know people don't understand I think that it does and I don't know if you would just would agree with you know I know uh Royal Muhammad for example says the people are smarter than you think it's too I think it's two

[09:19] answers right one is here the people are smarter than we think many times but the second one is you the quality of your show determines a lot of times your listenership okay so I mean if you have a good quality show of which you have like I tell folks all the time I like I'm an engineer by training okay so and there are scientists in the broadcast type business somebody like yourself and Emily who are in the school system and the the university system and the PHD levels and all that kind of stuff you

[09:50] are the scientists of the of the media you know of the media domain there are others in the media domain that they are the the populist I consider myself the populist in the in the media domain and you need I think you need both sides so whereas some programs do well to have people calling or would be best based on people calling in I don't think all of them should be that way because as an example when I talk about your show when I'm coming into the to the show before and listening to your show one of the things that I like is the level of

[10:22] complexity that you can get out of a a guess then somebody like me the engineer who is the populist can actually break that down in in a certain way to the people at law large so I think both of them are needed you know I think both both styles are actually needed for for that type of interaction with the public at large okay well I I have tuned in and I encourage people to do so the show is called politics Done Right the host is egberto Willis he's joining us this weekend is actually going to be staying

[10:52] with us for the remainder of the show so you might hear him piping with questions for either of our guests uh John kariaku up next and Steve horn second guest uh Thursdays at three egbertoni any final closing sentiments for people before we uh sort of let you go although you're staying right yeah please I tune into the show and call into the show and actually make sure to go kpft has a whole lot of good talk shows interspace with the other good programming that we have look them up and and and listen to them all and I

[11:23] should point out that this show is carried by several other stations around the country at different times of the week and so people might be listening in not on a Monday and wondering if they can hear your show and call in as well and they can you can listen to kpft streaming on the internet right from anywhere in the world obviously and if you're willing to pay for the long distance phone call then you can call the Station during Alberto's show and that number is the usual number that everyone in kpft land knows 713-526-5738 of course and now you can call in and have your say so we encourage you to do that thank you very much well our engineer Robert Gartner

[11:54] has our first guest on hold already so I think we'll go to a very short musical break and uh we'll be right back with John cariako stay tuned foreign

[12:41] welcome back to the monitor my name is Mark bavali my co-host is Emily Becker and our guest and guest co-host is egberto Willis who's joining us just for this week's show our first guest uh I guess second guess really would be John cariankou John welcome back thanks for having me again it's good to have you back on uh John is um no stranger to this show I think Johnny did the first interview after the restrictions were placed on You by the Department of Justice after you are finally able to speak so it was a pleasure and a privilege to have you on for that thank you for people who haven't heard of you John is a former

[13:12] CIA accounts terrorism officer a former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the only person um in what I think is a travesty really to serve any jail time in anything connected with torture and and not because John was involved in the torture but because he blew the whistle on it John is now columnist with other words and we have a link to his latest piece on there called let's talk about torture uh John you take a pretty Square aim at several of the Bush era CA directors

[13:42] notably Georgetown Porter Goss and Michael Hayden who are planning now to release a book tell people what this book is going to be about and what your issues are with those people and what's going to be in their book yes these these three former CIA directors that you mentioned George Tenet Porter Goss and Michael Hayden and five other Bush era senior Cia officers everybody from from Mike Morrell and John McLaughlin to Jose Rodriguez and Philip Mudd a former general counsel of the CIA John Rizzo

[14:12] they they all wrote this book together that takes aim at the Senate torch report and really to make a long story short it it tries to justify the torture program it tries to argue that torture worked that torture was moral and that it saved American lives and I thought there was no sense in pulling any punches the big lie that they have tried to uh to uh portrait and to perpetuate since they

[14:43] left office I was going to call it what it was and I wrote this column for otherwords.org and so for people who haven't had a chance to to read that and we met we went over some of these arguments before and I've discussed them at length with various people in the intelligence Community uh and and the legal Community about the efficacy and legality or illegality of torture just uh from your experience in the CIA and in the intelligence world tell people what the issues are with torture I mean we we see uh TV shows like uh 24 and various other things that

[15:15] seem to show that uh you know if you if you lean on someone hard enough they'll tell you exactly what you need to know and it'll be reliable and dependable and truthful so simple the the truth is and psychiatrists and psychologists have argued this for many many years torture doesn't work torture never works the person being tortured simply will tell his torturer what he thinks that person wants to hear just to make the torture stop one thing that many Americans forget is that the documents that the that the

[15:47] Senate select committee on intelligence used to write the torture report were primary source documents these were contemporaneously written CIA documents from the field to CIA headquarters as the torture program was taking place so we know firsthand that the torture did not work that the torture did not result in any actionable intelligence no attacks were disrupted and no American lives were saved then you're comfortable stating that

[16:18] categorically categorically there is absolutely no truth to this contention by George Tennant and the others that torture worked never mind the argument that it was illegal you know the United States is signatory to a number of international treaties and conventions most specifically the United Nations uh convention Against torture which specifically for uh that the CIA was using in its secret prisons overseas

[16:49] it's so distressing to me uh and I you know I hesitate to say this while you're on the air with us because in a way you're the only person who paid the most direct price other than of course the people who are tortured but you're the only uh intelligence uh analyst official CIA employee or contractor who's served time in prison for torture but not for actually torturing I mean what what sort of response did you get when you were still in the CIA and when you tried to blow the whistle internally about this what did people in official them say to

[17:19] you uh are you were you just a troublemaker or did they try and argue the points with you or what was that one senior officer that I had to put that I had displayed what he called a shocking lack of commitment to counter-terrorism that was the first time anybody criticized me on this issue it was a shocking lack of commitment to counterterrorism and then I I sort of became known as the human rights guy and uh and people stopped asking me things related to torture to interrogation nobody asked my opinion after a while and that was perfectly

[17:50] fine but one of the things that that was very disappointing to me was that no one else came forward not after I went on ABC News in 2007 and said that the CIA was torturing its prisoners not after the Senate torture report was released so we know now from that torture report that there were CIA officers in the field who were writing back to headquarters and saying this is wrong it's torture I don't want to have any any role in it but they've never gone public and they've never said anything

[18:20] about what led to their decision to walk away from the torture program and do you very disappointing how many of those people do you think had the opportunity to come forward before you you went public and then we can talk about why they might not have done after you went public because the lesson's there for them I think are pretty pretty obvious 2002 to 2005. so we're talking about at least two or two and a half years where someone could have come forward and

[18:52] could have said something and we knew that there was torture taking place because there had been leaks to Human Rights Watch there's been leaks to Amnesty International and even the international Committee of the Red Cross had written an internal report saying the CIA was torturing its prisoners so we we know that that somebody was talking at some point but not not to the media necessarily no not to the media okay so I mean I guess after you came forward and people saw what happened to you the way the administration went after you and this didn't just end obviously with the Bush Administration the Obama Administration continued the

[19:23] same fight um what is your take on I mean I guess the obvious motivation for these uh CIA directors and their underlings as you put it uh trying to justify torture and claiming not only that they had the legal Authority but that it was effective they're obvious political motivations for that uh what are the other motivations absolutely I think this is when it comes right down to it the torture program is their legacy when

[19:55] their obituaries are written it's going to mention that they were the creators and the implementers of the torture program and they want to repeat this lie that torture worked over and over and over again American people are so stupid it's really about their their place in history and their personal legacies and there's also the issue of patriotism right I mean uh the idea that if you question anything the administration

[20:26] does whatever the administration might be uh to use George Bush's words that you're either with us or you're against us so any dissent means you're on the side of terrorism yes um you know this is something that I've argued since I was a teenager progressives are progressives are patriots too you don't have to to out Hawk the hawk in order to prove your patriotism it's patriotic to Stand Up Against torture it's patriotic to want our country to uh to respect its

[20:56] International uh agreements and and treaties so you said that you were accused of uh lack of commitment to counter-terrorism uh one of the things that I've said on this show multiple times uh various opportunities that I've had when this topic comes up is the torture along with uh you know the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Drone program actually creates cancer creates terrorism uh did you ever have a response to these people that actually were creating more terrorism with this torture yeah the agency including several senior

[21:28] level officers I think that it's a it's a proven fact that some of these programs create new terrorists I I've interviewed or interrogated myself uh young Al-Qaeda fighters who had no problem with the United States had no intention of taking up arms until a drone flew over their Village and killed their you know cousin or brother or fill in the blank with a family member um it's it's these it's these attacks that anger whole you know segments of

[22:00] the populace and uh and that that really bucked people up who uh decide then to go to Afghanistan or to Iraq or to wherever to make Jihad against the Americans so uh how do you convince people who and I'm one of them who would think that uh you know the CIA torture program which I guess officially existed from 2002 and and we're told is now officially over that in fact it still goes on that Renditions probably still has happened that black sites still exist that there are still people in

[22:32] Guantanamo and other places who are likely being mistreated what what do you say to to that to rather cynical position I would say that I would not bet money that the that the torture program has gone away uh look nobody has said anything about banning Renditions right the Renditions can be an absolutely horrible thing that lead to torture but even the Senate torture report hasn't uh addressed Renditions so I would guess that Renditions are still taking place now the CIA lies about just about everything well that wouldn't that

[23:03] shouldn't surprise anybody right right it shouldn't surprise anybody they lied to the Senate investigators they they tapped the Senate investigators phones and um and uh uh spied on the on the um sorry my son just walked down the steps and I lost my train of thought but anyway over the years had they interferred with the computers as well right overstay committees I mean how do we know that there are no

[23:34] more black sites what about the new prison that was built at Bagram air base is that ours or is it the Afghans who's being held in it and do they have access to the Red Cross I don't think those those questions have been answered right egberto I think wants to jump in yeah I have a question and it goes as follows first you said that torture does not work do you think these guys believe that it works or do you think there's some ulterior motive that they're actually uh still with the torture program or still you know doing

[24:04] Renditions Etc reputation that it doesn't work but I think that they think that they made a decision they have to stick with that decision they have to justify the decision and they're going to go to their graves uh arguing for it so I think again it's it's a legacy issue I wanted to is it that or do you

[24:36] think it could be more Sinister that what we really need to ensure is that we in fact have conflict throughout the world at all the time well that I I agree with you with you know if there's no conflict if there's no war then the military-industrial uh complex makes no money there's no work for this gigantic bureaucracy that the CIA and NSA and Associated agencies have become what do you do with all those people those people only work and only prosper and

[25:07] only Thrive when there's a war to fight exactly that's I mean that's it gets that gets to the heart of of one of the sort of ongoing themes of this show and that is uh you know trying to solve problems by following the same failed methods uh should not surprise anyone that continues to produce the same outcomes uh someone at some point said that was the definition of insanity Insanity um May I add something yeah please do we should be just as angry with the Congressional oversight committees as we are with anybody else that's involved in this because these

[25:37] oversight committees not only are briefed fully briefed on all of these programs but they're the ones who go to the Appropriations Committee and argue for their funding and you know the the Frank churches of the world are gone it seems like there you can only choose for a committee membership between neoconservatives and neoliberals and they're both going to get us into the same mess and there's there's really no adult supervision on Capitol Hill so so John when you joined the CIA what was your

[26:07] motivation initially what did you discover when you spent time there and what would you say to someone today who might be thinking about that kind of career path I've I've forbidden my children I have five children I have forbidden them from ever applying to the CIA to the FBI or to the NSA um I joined the CIA in January of 1990. I was recruited in graduate school to work in the cia's directorate of intelligence that's the analytic arm and that was a period of time a period

[26:37] that lasted from from the church committee hearings in 1976 until really until September 11th where there was a there was a hard and fast rule that the CIA whether it liked it or not had to respect human rights and as a result on the operations side uh our operators were not allowed to recruit any potential sources who had human rights abuses in their own past now I thought that was laudable as Ezra we didn't get a lot of the we otherwise

[27:10] so I was very idealistic I came from an immigrant household and my grandfather kept a picture of Franklin Roosevelt on the top of the television all my life and he instilled in my brother and sister in me the idea that the country was so kind to us to let us in when we needed help the most at the height of the Great Depression that we needed to do something across the generations to pay back that hospitality and that thing was public service he always urged me to go into public

[27:41] service and so when I was in grad school and uh and my graduate school advisor approached me about working for the CIA I thought wow great not only what will it be interesting and I'll get to see the world but I'll get to pay that back to the country that's been so good to us and so I I gladly went into the CIA it was only I'm gonna say eight years later when I told my boss that I was going to switch over to operations and he pulled me

[28:11] aside and he said you know they kill people over there and I said oh come on you watch too many movies he said no I'm serious they kill people over there and I said well that's you know that's not me I'm not it's not my thing and it wasn't really until September 11th that I realized they really do kill a lot of people over there and over there you mean the operations side instead of the operating the analytical side correct so I guess if you're if you're still driven I don't mean you individually but anyone who

[28:42] might be still be driven by uh this this idea of public service and of repaying the country for whatever they think the country has done for them and you're telling people that you wouldn't tell you would forbid explicitly forbid your children from joining the CIA what other alternatives are there well you know there are things like this is going to sound maybe like a little bit of a cliche but but there's the Peace Corps and there's the Foreign Service uh you know the U.S information service there's a lot that you can you can do you know serve your country and promote

[29:14] American ideals that we all like to think we have um but I think that our intelligence services are out of control and that's not one of them now I used to believe that um the only way to change the CIA was from the inside that the CIA is a permanent permanent organization a permanent structure bureaucratic structure and the only way to change it is from the inside I I'm not sure I believe that anymore you know Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a book in 1976 in which he advocated for the for the

[29:44] breakup of the CIA and and people mocked him you know on Capitol Hill and off but we know now also that John Kennedy wanted to break up the CIA and I think that uh you know this is probably something we should be debating and it's not uh it's nice it's not even a conversation is there a reason for a seat called defense Human Services uh certainly analysis can be done either at

[30:16] DIA or at the state Department's Bureau of intelligence and research the cia's Science and Technology directorate can be spread over a number of you know more than a dozen government agencies so do we really need a CIA I think no not anymore seems like that what we're looking at is as governments sort of Feed in on itself you know I I don't know that a president has the courage or any president would have the courage to actually shut down the CIA or any one of those organizations especially in these times where most Americans are freaked out

[30:48] about this great terrorist nun threat that we actually are looking at I think you're right and that's the problem well so so John uh and this might be the last question we have because we're going to run out of time here in a few minutes but given the current situation in Iraq and Syria and the rise of Isis or isil or daesh or whatever you want to whatever name you want to give that group what is the role of intelligence and if you had the ear of either this president or whoever the incoming

[31:18] president was going to be what would you suggest would be an appropriate policy to to deal with the crisis over there I know that's a huge question which is why I'm giving you I'm giving you a few minutes the first thing I would do literally the first thing I would do would be to cut off arm sales to the entire region because the arms always end up in either the wrong hands or they corrupt the people with the right hands and you know you look at these you look at the weapons that Isis has and they're American weapons and they're the same weapons that the Iraqi government had

[31:49] before uh at the same time let's let's face the facts the United States created Isis in a backhanded way certainly you know by by allowing by allowing these human rights abuses to fester in places like Abu ghraib or arasheed in Iraq uh but we know that isis's leaders came out of an American Military prison in central Iraq so cut off the arms respect human rights close down these prisons no matter where they

[32:21] are start treating people with uh with dignity and how much of this would translate into the a post-cold war framework that I feel like a lot of policy makers and intelligence people haven't quite grasped yet it used to be the case during the Cold War that there was a belief not only in the state department but in the intelligence Community as well that it was kind of a zero-sum game and whatever means you had at your disposal you would follow so that the Soviet Union wouldn't capture the influence of whatever that Regional country or or you know system might be well now the Cold War is Over right at

[32:52] least so we're told but we haven't really changed uh the the positioning of anything it doesn't so we haven't and you know I still have a lot of friends in the CIA with whom I speak and um all they talk about these days is Russia Russia Russia Russia is the enemy Russia is the big problem we have to be worried about the Russians and I disagree with that completely I really do I think we've dropped the ball on relations with the Russians I'm no Vladimir Putin fan certainly uh he's a former KGB Colonel but uh I think that

[33:24] we have more we have more Avenues on which we can work with the Russians then we do problems with the Russians and if we could settle our differences with the Russians I think it would make the rest of the world an awful lot easier and there would be that peace dividend that we never got there would be you know I remember complaining plane worked so hard to not exercise diplomacy as George W Bush's state department and Barack Obama for all his

[33:56] faults and believe me I'm no Barack Obama fan with Iran and he's done the right thing with Cuba and uh we need the right thing to be done with the Russians as well but is he is he doing the right thing with uh the Iraq Syria situation I I don't think so no I mean just sending sending arms to you know a group of doctors and engineers and and people who we don't even really know they are is not going to settle the case the truth is we have two bad choices we have Bashar al-assad and we have Isis we're going to have to

[34:27] figure it out we're gonna have to work with the Iranians you know on the one hand and uh and work with the Iraqis on the other well one another perspective John would be that we shouldn't really feel like we have a choice we should just get out of it and let the locals handle it for themselves no yes well you know I I would hate to just abandon so many Innocents there the Kurds desperately need some help even if it's just medicine and food Aid the yazidis are still being just tormented mercilessly by ISIS so for human rights

[34:58] reasons I I would like to at least have a humanitarian presence yeah I don't think I disagree with that I don't think that food Aid or you know shelter or even a no-fly zone that doesn't drop bombs on Villages I don't have a problem with that either but you know expanding drone strikes and sending weaponry and and funds and that's that's not going to work no that's not going to work it's never worked in the past there's no reason to think it would work now well um John I'm afraid about that time but I really appreciate you being with us and I really encourage people to read your new column at other words it's called

[35:29] let's talk about torture we have a link to it from our website but you can also go to otherwords.org let's talk about torture John cariaku former CIA Council terrorism officer former senior investigator for the sound Foreign Relations Committee thanks so much for joining us thanks for having me great to be with you thank you uh we'll take a brief break and we'll be right back with Steve horn stay tuned [Music]

[36:40] welcome back to the monitor my name is Mark Ravalli my co-host is Emily Becker and our guest and guest host is egberto Willis joining us for this final segment of the show our guest for the remainder of the show is Steve horn Steve welcome good to be here thanks for having me it's good to have you on Steve is the editor of uh D smog blog he recently wrote a piece we have a link to from our website called exclusive Hillary Clinton State Department emails Mexico energy reform and the revolving door uh Steve it's your first time on the show so I know you you may not be familiar with the format but uh the aim of the show

[37:12] really is for me to ask one question and get out of the way and give you as much time as possible to explain the story so tell people who haven't read your column yet what it is you found what connects the state department emails with Mexico energy reform and what is this revolving door absolutely well you know this story came about it was something I was working for a while so it wasn't something that only came from the Hillary Clinton emails the Hillary Clinton emails himself so she gave me um sort of a a good news hook for it let's say because those are already

[37:43] pretty controversial thing uh because of the basis of the emails that is that there were emails stored on her own uh private server and her own private email address so she was doing the State Department business on which I think a lot of critics think you know first of all applies in the face of the Freedom of Information Act second of all uh flies in the face of national uh archives acts in terms of terms of uh you know what we'll have to the emails when she's done the state department so these emails have slowly come out after

[38:14] a lawsuit that was filed by Jason Leopold at Vice news who's an investigative reporter there and the state department is now putting these out once a month at the end of every month so a listeners can expect another a patch to come out at the end of August but so in both batches there have been some really interesting little tidbits and details about something that I followed closely for a long time as well and that is uh the International Energy coordinator positioning at the state department and what that International

[38:45] Energy coordinator was tasked with and one of the things that I've been following also is something called the global Shale gas initiative it's now called the unconventional gas technical engagement program and basically um the the role of this the person that was doing this job the first person ever to do it was David Goldwin I'll talk about a little bit uh soon and this is Steve sorry this is a state department position right correct okay State Department's position that was actually originally created under President uh George W bush but it was

[39:16] only really active at that time as far as I could find in my research on stuff pertaining to biofuels in Brazil and so it wasn't very active on the oil and gas issues didn't become very active on those issues until Hillary Clinton's State Department during the first term of President Obama and still active in those areas today so much so that they've even created a whole Bureau in the state department called The Bureau of energy resources and so that's sort of the big picture here and so in those emails you can see

[39:47] that um a little bit of detail about uh how that position was created and who was first hired and also a description of that position and with one caveat and the caveat is that the entire job description this was the basis for another article I wrote is redacted so we don't know how the state department was actually describing the person that would show his position to potential applicants but a long story short there is that David Goldwyn assumed the position and you could see some chatter about that in the Hillary Clinton emails

[40:19] in the second batch that basically my article is about and so going to that and that gets into the revolving door story um you can see that in the emails one of the main things that David Goldman would be working on is energy reform in Mexico when my when I say reform I mean the privatization of Mexico's energy sector especially in oil gas and electricity I don't really know how much coal Mexico has but I think that most of the stuff I've been reading shows this is

[40:50] pertaining to oil and gas and electricity and so this is interesting uh before we get to some of the details it's interesting that reform quite often takes on that meaning you know when the IMF is restructuring loans when the World Bank is is tying strings to their loans they quite often discuss reform and invariably what that means is privatization it doesn't tend to mean almost anything else as far as I can tell right and so I use the term reform America just because that's what powers the peacock it is privatization of the entire sector so that came about in

[41:22] December 2013 and what wasn't really there wasn't really well understood is the role of the United States government played what what does these emails show and then further research uh into looking at the Wikileaks cables um it's very clear that the United States government in particular um David Goldwyn who was International Energy coordinator and also uh the the ambassador of the Mexico uh under Hillary Clinton uh early on in her 10-year Carlos basketball those two were

[41:53] very active on this issue between 2009 and 2013 and so sort of halfway between Hillary Clinton's tenure at the state department David Goldwyn steps down from the International engine Clinic position and Carlos Pascual who was the U.S ambassador in Mexico he becomes the International Energy coordinator but what's sort of what state what remains is that both of them were pushing behind and I said behind the scenes because this was if you look at the Wikileaks

[42:24] cables you can see that they purposely kept this behind the scenes definitely in Mexico and probably even in the United States because there's a lot of opposition to fracking a lot of opposition too uh is this new technology on both sides of the board I didn't want to be known the United States was involved so in the weekly cables they said you know we need to be involved in this is very important but we cannot be linked to it at all has to be completely off the books and so you know what the cable shows they were very involved in

[42:55] it and um I guess the revolving door part of it you know to get to that part is that um Baldwin and um basketball neither of them work at the state department anymore they both left after Hillary Clinton's tenure at the state department gold went halfway through Pascual a little bit in to carry senior but he hasn't really worked much under John Kerry they both left and went to the private sector and both of them are now doing work pertaining to Mexico or work at firms that do stuff

[43:26] pertaining to Mexico so in the case of Pasquale he uh works at a firm called IHS Inc which has an entire portfolio connected to energy in Mexico and they're a consulting firm that does studies and that sort of thing that are basically entirely funded by the oil and gas industry and often these are part of the kind of the think tank Echo chamber interestingly they're probably actually a for-profit consultancy on like the firms that Goldwyn affiliate is affiliated with like Atlantic Council like Brookings

[43:58] institution and like I mean he also has a for-profit consulting firm called Golden Global strategies so Goldwyn is author of lots of these types of reports that are pro privatization of Mexico's energy sector and one interesting note about Goldwyn um there's days literally like a week after uh Mexico's energy privatization passed in Mexico's um legislature and then when the president after the president signed it into law Pena Nieto uh just about a week

[44:28] after that through the Atlanta Council he released a report talking about he knew like all the details of the legislation he and wrote a long report about it which just to me that wasn't actually part of my article but uh to me that kind of shows that he definitely had a lot quite a bit of behind the scenes knowledge of intimate details of the policy and shows that he you know he was he's been a key actor on this for a long time and then and then you're referring to here is Godwin or Pasqual Goldwyn okay yeah so gold one here I mean if and there'll be one more figure

[45:01] I want to talk about his name is Neil Brown but Baldwin to talk about him for a second um first of all I think golden is probably the most important figure in the story of the Three that I covered in terms of evolving door in terms of and that that's because he's a guy who's been into and out of the revolving door private sector public sector you know a couple times he used to actually work for the original Clinton administration doing energy related stuff then he went back then he went to his uh consulting firm he's also affiliated with a law

[45:31] firm um called Sutherland which does uh legal stuff pertaining to these same issues and so he sells council at that firm the Goldman's also uh I just want to highlight he's a key he's a protagonist in the book by Ken Silverstein called The Secret World of Royal and in that book by 10 Silverstein refers to him as quote unquote a fixer so what what Golden's done through his basically his entire career Mexico is just one example he's been a guy who goes into countries with tough situations and attempts to

[46:03] open up basically open up markets for uh you know internet and basically U.S oil and gas firms like Chevron like Exxon Mobil and so he's had a whole career of this and that's highlighted pretty extensive income silver scenes but I would say that Mexico is one of the latest chapters of things that he's done but he's he's not a well-known figure per se but he's a very powerful figure in Washington DC and so so before we get to uh before we get to Neil Brown um I just want to spell out some of these details here because I think that it's possibly some listeners may have

[46:36] missed some of the big plot which is the the state-owned oil and gas company in Mexico pemex I I don't know if I'm saying that right um they they were broken up essentially through a law passed in Mexico and signed by president pininato and you're and you're saying in your story that uh Goldwyn and Pasqual and and Neil Brown to some extent as well were heavily involved in creating that law correct at least in terms of the influence of things that they did create

[47:07] an atmosphere in which uh the passage of this reform was possible so so when when Chemex was broken up what who who bought which chunks of it and and what happened now to Mexico's oil and gas former State Monopoly yeah that's a good question mostly what happens now is that Timex can more easily do joint ventures with other companies for exploration and production and Drilling and so and many of these companies presumably would be foreign owned including American

[47:38] correct yeah and so you can already see it in the first uh there's there's been one bit so far there weren't as many bids as uh observers thought there would be but uh you know there's been some shallow water uh deeper uh offshore drilling it's uh and uh you know the companies are from the United States and so so I guess the reason I bring that up is that uh you know some people would say but possibly and you know if you don't know enough about this story or some of the other stories like you know private medical health insurance or a big farmer or whatever you might say

[48:10] well you know people like Neil Brown and Pasquale and David Goldwyn well they know the industry they know how things run and it's perfectly okay for them to go from private to public sector like this because they they know how to make things happen right uh what's what's your response to that well you know I I would I would say that I'd have two responses one is that this is a particular industry oil and gas industry that um you know it's not you know I wouldn't say it's akin to other Industries in that maybe in some ways it is but I think that uh you know the actions of it are leading to catastrophic climate

[48:43] change there's no denial that the the consumption and production and and all that all the stuff I was doing fossil fuels that are leading to climate change so their actions are actually hurting the entire planet first of all but second of all there's just a stuff that's fracking itself and all the documented stuff that has to do with water contamination and air pollution in communities and so they're at you know they they very they do know this area very well and actually their studies are

[49:13] um sometimes interesting this may have well documented but their actions are actually leading to extreme harms and so I think that that's important detail to keep in mind and then it's also I think it's just yes they do know the area well but it's it's very clear that they traded a their government access the private sector let me ask you something though isn't this also a theft on the Mexican people in general the mere fact that we're talking about the privatization of a company

[49:45] that was once under the domain of the public sector introduce yourself I mean the bigger picture here is that it's of course it's not just oil and gas it's lots of things that were once public are becoming have become private and Mexico under something called el pacto de mejito or the pacto Mexico and so we're talking about sectors wholesale sectors are being sold off to private sector and in this case um the stuff with pemex or petroleos the

[50:16] econos is extremely unpopular relationships with the public polling I think that about 70 of the Mexican public is against this and of course this has been something that's been public for you know I guess stay down at least for about a century since 1917 I believe so yeah that's definitely the broader picture uh for sure um I want to go back to the to the emails uh because I know that's been in the news a lot and and you know uh the Democrats and then the Clinton backers are saying that the Republicans are

[50:47] making uh you know bipartisan hay with this and it's really there's really nothing to see here uh but the way some of the things you've come across through reading these emails which are now being released as you said because of Jason Leopold's uh lawsuit and we had Jason on the show many years back I should probably get him back on um you found something interesting which uh I I saw on Facebook about something that Hillary asked to borrow uh just just tell people what that is because it sounded too ridiculous to to even be true I've done some backlash for posting that on Facebook from some but basically it

[51:19] was a a book an e-book I think about uh at least it was an ebook yeah it was an e-book about proper maintenance of email and one of the chapters uh in terms of like a how-to of how to manage email one of the chapters in the book was about uh deleting emails and stuff and then you know another part of that same chapter was you know potential repercussions uh legal repercussions of deleting emails so it was like the fine

[51:49] line of how many emails can one delete without also potentially being uh you know legally liable and so the backlash I've gotten is that well this is a big book about email maintenance and management and one chapter and it was about that topic but it it was you know it's one of those situations where it's like well what was the reason why she was so interested in this book and also uh you know uh I just you know I think it just adds it was there's a story that that said uh CBS News picked up and it

[52:20] is interesting that that was in there I'm not really sure if that was the reason why she was interested in it but it is clear that she finds this stuff with email to be I don't I don't think that it's it's definitely not any sort of conspiracy and obviously the right wing he's interested in it for their own partisan purposes but sure for those yeah for those who care about transparency and who care about integrity of the freedom information act and who care about these sorts of issues it's definitely uh very troubling what she did of course there were we've already seen that there's

[52:50] been uh you know newsworthy things in these emails like stuff with International Energy coordinator position and Other Stories that'll come out of it that clearly she didn't want out there and so anything that stuff with email was is a public relations problem from her campaign but um I might be asking you to speculate here a little bit and let us know what journalists are supposed to do but uh what do you think is the reason that she was using a private server and a non-state department email account in the first place I it has to it begs the

[53:20] question I think that um it gets what I was saying I think that she uh she wants to manage Her Image she wants to keep a certain image of herself out in the public that is not reflected at all in the emails themselves and so I think that her and her team thought that if if she was managing the emails and the server that they could uh store things in a certain way and uh you know I don't think there's a chapter

[53:52] in the book I think that that's sort of a coincidence but I think that that coincidence does sort of ring true in a way I think that this was the entire purpose behind that private server and the private email address and it's she's definitely not the only person to ever have done it but it doesn't mean that it's less troubling to she she did it no I think uh I mean the Obama Administration which uh and I've mentioned this on the air a couple of times in the past as well one won an award for transparency uh where where the award was given at a ceremony that was closed to the public

[54:23] it just it begs uh it begs a lot of questions uh and Steve we're out of time I'm afraid but I really want to thank you for for being on the show for writing this piece and I encourage people to go to a dsmog Blog which we have a link to on our website that is dsmogablog.com and we also have a link to your article uh you're editor there and I know you're going to keep working on this and I'm now on your distribution list so keep me posted as things develop so we'll do thanks a lot for having me I appreciate it thank you that was uh Steve horn before him we had John karianka who's a columnist with other words uh before that he was uh CIA

[54:55] counterterrorism officer and Senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and of course before John we had egberto Willis who's still with us in the studio Roberto thanks for listening and joining and participating and being part of the show it was fun it was a pleasure it was honor uh we have about two minutes or so left which is uh hopefully plenty of time to tell you to tune in every week of course and don't forget to check Roberto's show out on Thursdays at kpft at 3 pm for one hour if you're listening uh in Internet land and you want to join the conversation

[55:27] for Alberto's show you can dial the phone number for the station 713-526-5738 at any time uh between three and four I guess you do you have a specific window like 10 minutes in to five minutes before the end or something right and as soon as we but within seven to ten minutes call-ins are probably ready okay all right well the music in the background lets us know that we are pretty much out of time uh Emily thanks for being here yeah two people had two people hogging the mics instead of just me this time uh of course uh uh Robert

[55:58] our engineer thanks for um rolling with the punches and and dealing with a slightly unusual format this week um want to encourage you all of course to go to our website the monitor.wordpress.com you can also go to facebook.com monitor radio and you can follow egberto on Twitter at egberto Willis and you can also follow John cariakou and Steve horn and me on Twitter all of those links are on our website and you can send an email to the show anytime you like the email is the monitor at journalist.com I think that's all the time we've got so uh goodbye and we'll see you next week

[56:30] thanks for listening foreign [Music] [Applause]
