Title: John Kiriakou and Lee Stranahan discuss ...
Show: #Unity4J
Date: 2018-10-22
URL: https://youtu.be/AkSQ1O2wFsM
Duration: 41:00

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[00:00] there can you hear me now there is there good hi Susie hi thank you so much gallon your amazing thing I just had to say that and then I'll leave this got so and hi John how are you happy to do it anything for Julian are you wearing John are you wearing a red striped shirt I am and I am wearing a red stripe shirt it was either that or the John Lennon shirt but I think I wore that last time I'm not knocking it I could see the very top of the shirt and I know my Jamaican beers but maybe not

[00:31] that well but I just don't laugh I ask for that's great how you doing I'm okay thanks you can tell behind me I just moved into a new house day before yesterday so it's chaos so I apologize in advance I don't have a I don't have a professional background like you do yours looks good you got the antique there's a wall so wait by the way I don't want to startle you but there's someone behind you I don't want I thought I don't I don't want to scare you hey how's it going nice to see you good

[01:05] I just I'm glad you know John's John's ex-cia you know I should warn him so uh so let's let's talk about that John so I get to interview you which is exciting but people should know that you and I know each other because we both host co-host shows and radio Sputnik I host fault lines of Nixon Stranahan with Garland Acheson was just on you co-hosts loud and clear with Brian Becker and you and I also I'll say this John I like you I like you I always yeah so I think John

[01:38] and I is it fair to say we're we're friends I think we're friends you know work friends yes we don't go fishing together not yet but no yeah I don't fish I'm not angleton and I'm single again so I I have plenty of time to fish now really okay good good yeah well do the happy hours but but so it's been fascinating for me getting to know you over the past few months because I do generally first off

[02:09] I you know I like you as a guy and I always like talking to you but it's it's rare to be able to talk to somebody who is a ex-cia right that's unusual right and who also took a stand when you took your stand against let's so just briefly briefly give that little bit of your bio for people who might not know it because I think it it's neat but people don't you're an ex-cia officer head of counterterrorism in Pakistan in

[02:41] 2002 among other things and then what happened just tell that story real briefly you know it started I usually say it started in 2007 it actually didn't start in 2007 it started in 2002 after the capture of Abu Zubaydah who we believed at the time was the number three in al-qaeda we caught up as a beta at the end of March 2002 and then I returned to CIA headquarters in May of 2002 I only been home a couple of days and a senior officer asked me if I wanted to be his words trained in the

[03:13] use of enhanced interrogation techniques I had never heard the term before again mid 2002 he explained to me what it was I said that's a torture program you can use whatever euphemism you want it's a torture program I don't want any part of it I didn't realize at the time that I became known as the human rights guy at the CIA which is not career enhancing but I took it very seriously you know I I took my oath to the Constitution seriously I took respect for international law and human rights very

[03:45] seriously and so I was the only person out of fourteen who were approached who declined to be trained in the torture program I resigned from the CIA two years later went into the private sector I kept waiting for somebody to come forward to essentially blow the whistle on the torture program which I believed then and I believe now was both illegal and immoral well and unethical as well so nobody came forward and I waited

[04:16] three more years three and a half more years and finally in December of 2007 I went on ABC News and I said that the CIA was torturing its prisoners I said the torture was official US government policy and I said that the policy had been personally approved by the president so as you might imagine the CIA referred me to the FBI as having committed a grave national security crime the FBI investigated me from December of 2007 to

[04:47] December of 2008 and then determined that I had not committed a crime and closed the case a month later Barack Obama becomes president and brings John Brennan on board as the deputy national security adviser John and I go way back into the late 80s we have not liked each other since the late 80s and John secretly asked the Justice Department to reopen the case against me I had no idea that I

[05:17] was under investigation again and so for the next three years until January of 2012 the FBI tapped my phones they intercepted my emails they had periodic teams of physical surveillance following me and then in January of 2012 I was charged with five felonies coming out of that ABC News interview including three counts of espionage of course I hadn't committed espionage and the charges were eventually dropped but not until I I

[05:50] took a plea to a lesser charge I was already over a million dollars in debt to my lawyers and so to make the thing go away I took a plea to a lesser charge I did 23 months in a federal prison never apologizing because I still believed in my heart I did nothing wrong it's the government that did the wrong and got out in February of 2015 and sort of took my place among those of us who are now activists for human rights and

[06:23] civil liberties and and civil rights and activists against government overreach and for government transparency and WikiLeaks falls squarely in that category well and so so well I think one of the reasons I wanted you to tell that story actually is because for for me and almost everybody else doing this unity thing the Julian Assange situation is obviously disturbing awful but it's academic in

[06:54] the sense that you spent I'm gonna say this again 23 months in prison yeah and how many people who are doing I'm just saying there's nothing I'm not knocking anybody I'm knocking me too I've never spent six months in prison much less 23 so what I'm saying is for you I'm very curious for you with your experience this shit's real with Julian right I mean well how does I mean does how does your prison experience affect how you

[07:26] view knowing what that experience dude you see the question I'm asking bout adout and and that's when I say when I tell people I know from firsthand experience what Julian is going through I mean that I literally know yes first-hand experience what Julian's going through because you know people could say Oh Julian's in an embassy and he has access to television and he has whatever he used to have internet and

[07:56] visitors Julian's in solitary confinement I mean the UN has even said that Julian's in solitary confinement if you are in a position where you you literally do not even have access to sunlight that is solitary confinement there are prisoners in in maximum security u.s. Penitentiary's who have more day-to-day freedoms than Julian Assange does and that's what people have to understand that it's not that that he's living the good life he's living

[08:28] high off the hog in some plush foreign embassy that's just not the case I mean if you don't have access to sunlight if you don't have access to to exercise it's gonna take a toll on your health and it's gonna shorten your life and that's exactly the same kind of thing that we see in solitary confinement in prisons across the United State well and you you also you know you you you raised a very interesting point peripherally when you said you you've

[09:00] been cleared Obama gets in office and then not Obama says hey John Brennan let's look into this Kuryakin guy but Brennan I'm trying to show who driving who's driving the bus okay that's a great question too if I could interrupt you for one second young and by no stretch of the imagination of fan or supporter of Donald Trump but I will tell you that John Brennan who has been harassing Donald Trump since the man became president was the person who

[09:32] targeted me for the reopening of the investigation I can tell you that Robert Muller the special counsel who has been investigating Donald Trump and those around him for the last whatever it is 18 months set up the John Kiriakou task force when he was head of the FBI and that's what it was called the John Kuryakin task force so I know what Trump is going through there and it was Peter stroke the FBI agent who arrested me on January the 12th 2012 so I know exactly

[10:04] what Donald Trump at all are going through and you know it seems to me that in part that's one of the reasons why we have heard Trump more than once joke or maybe not joke about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and it's because they actually have something in common we all do right we all know what government overreach is we all know what happens when you are targeted by someone targeted by a government that has unlimited resources unlimited manpower and dedicates itself

[10:37] not just to ruining you I mean ruining is easy but dedicates itself to making sure that you die in prison and that's what their goal is with Julian Assange and why why is that their goalie because it's Julian that has been exposing the crimes committed by governments and other sovereign entities around the world well so okay so let me let me try a theory out on you I'm going to the theory and view as a four CIA

[11:08] officer student of CIA history let me try this on you one of the things I'm trying to do when I think about what American propaganda looks like that people believe if I had to say what's the one of the big lies is we're taught from childhood in school that our government has three branches the executive the legislative and the judicial branch right that's a lie it's a lie I would argue that in fact since about World War two with the funding you know

[11:38] when after the CIA was set up in 47 goes into operation 48 right interfering the Italian election just saying that since then effectively Truman tried to warn us Eisenhower tried to warn us that in fact we have an unelected fourth branch of government you can call it the deep state or the military-industrial complex you can call it the some of the intelligence community the CIA doing not just advising the president which was

[12:09] their original purpose but doing operations and that in fact if you think the government is actually three branches with checks and balances you're not you're just wrong it's this fourth branch that actually runs things what I mean by that is not that there's not some wiggle room because if they completely ran things it would be chaos but I mean it would be it would be much more of a police state than it is now so these other branches still sort of act a little as a check and balance on them but that broadly speaking I feel I

[12:41] forget whether you like Donald Trump I hate and we have the alike Obama or hate him they're not as in charge as everyone would like to pretend that they are and so what do you think of this this theory that one of the big lies is just the weak we don't live in that system that we're taught in civics class in third grade at all I wouldn't even call that a theory I would call that fact right yeah that's fact when you've got when you've

[13:12] got three consecutive presidents in Harry Truman Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy who all warned us about the military industrial complex who warned us about the CIA and about unelected bureaucrats running government we should have taken heed and we didn't and now especially since the 9/11 attacks it's too late at least it's too late without some sort of a counterbalance which I believe WikiLeaks is or at least should be

[13:44] because you've got these unelected officials who know that they can outweigh any president look the CIA hated Jimmy Carter but they knew that because presidents come and go that they can wait out Jimmy Carter and they did they weren't crazy about Bill Clinton either and Clinton finally left they hate Donald Trump but they know Donald Trump's gonna go one of these days and they're still gonna be there we're talking about people at the CIA the FBI NSA dia and these other

[14:14] three-letter agencies who are there for 20 25 30 in some cases 40 years these guys are entrenched in these intelligence service bureaucracies while presidents come and go and these guys know that they really run the day-to-day operations of the government so when Donald Trump says God bless WikiLeaks on the campaign trail these guys at the CIA and the FBI they chuckle to themselves because it doesn't matter what Donald Trump thinks about WikiLeaks it only

[14:45] matters what they think about WikiLeaks because they know that once these presidents go they're still going to be there and I will say the one thing that that that whoever's presidents got going for them is that they have the bully pulpit in a way that no other American has there's not a senator on the hill who if they do a press conference guaranteed every cameras going to show up does that make sense even Grassley had it had it right McConnell head of the Senate they might not cover it

[15:17] Donald Trump walks into the White House press room every camera in the world is gonna be on him and whoever's president every camera in the world and that's that bully pulpit and that's why and I think the thing they're so scared of with Trump is if he figures out that he's not really in charge they're doing a good job Pompeyo former you know was Pompeo knows how to play him see here's the thing as a CIA guy you know how to play people how hard is Donald Trump to figure out

[15:47] for you that what how does Donald Trump know of course how does Donald Trump react when you criticize him publicly and the way you control Donald Trump is you it helped inflate his ego pump him up and then you get what you want and that's exactly what Mike Pompeo has done my my yeah Mike Pompeo was a nobody Mike Pompeo was a three-term congressman from Kansas he was a member of the Intelligence Committee big deal and next

[16:18] thing you know he's the director of the CIA and the next thing you know after that he's the Secretary of State the guys in overhead now he's a smart guy he's West Point grad he graduated from Harvard Law is a very smart smart guy but more important than being smart is he knows how to play Donald Trump and so where we've seen this this personnel bloodbath elsewhere in the administration Pompeyo has proven to be a survivor because he knows exactly how this game is played as has a Bolton yes came in

[16:49] and as said people like Stephen Miller for instance whoo-hoo-hoo I know Steve Miller from before when he's an administration something that was a guy like banning couldn't hang he couldn't hang because he didn't know at the end of the day he's just gotta think I think he just got sick of he's used to being CEO so I just think he got sick of playing that role with Trump but this is why they're so dangerous and again I try to say this to people because what happens is people's political biases they go

[17:19] I hate Trump and I hate him because and there's a lot of valid reasons to hate Trump as I think there are valid reasons to hate almost any politician I can think of now but what I what I try to explain to people is given the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump hands down Donald Trump if you're trying to smash this state apparatus was the bet was the better choice in that election at least

[17:49] there was the apparatus right yes I mean whether you like politics or dislike her politics Hillary Clinton was the deep state I mean she was a part of she's been around forever she said your job every important important job in foreign policy she was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when she was on Capitol Hill Secretary of State she was first lady and had foreign policy duties as first lady so yeah she's part of this this state that we're rallying against that's that's right and and she's also

[18:20] the one who called for Julian Assange to be what drone ders I would say with every eight the exact phrase but yeah but she told her to be drone so so her she's she would have been wet I'll put like this she would have been worse in an ideal world we would have had Sanders let's say versus Trump and that would have been better and a lot of people wanted that but again Hillary kept that from happening in WikiLeaks exposed it and that's why I think that it's very

[18:52] interesting to me that people who were perceived and actual enemies of the DNC who know things Paul Manafort whether you approve of his lobbying activities which I don't actually I think I don't like lobbying but but that being said he was the only guy for instance in the Trump our meeting who knew what was going on you can tell that from his notes immediately when they arrested man afford they put a gag order on him

[19:22] because he's one of the few people who actually understands what's going on and could say you know I wasn't actually supporting Russia with the Party of Regions I was suggesting they go with the EU which they in his trial they had to admit the government had to admit that he was actually telling Yanukovych to go away from Russia but with with Manta Ford and Julian Assange not many people compare those two but I think part of putting both of them behind bars was just to shut them up and

[19:54] about the same things actually because the stock mana for nose would have demolished this Russia gate narrative and the stuff Assange knows crushes the Russia gate in air if he literally knows where they who gave him the material and he said it's not non-state actor let me add something to that Trump knows that and I Trump asked Bill Binney who's a friend of ours to go to the Oval Office six or eight months

[20:25] ago and to explain to him the science behind the DNC information release I don't want to call it a hack because it was but the DNC information release and Bill Binney was able to explain and I'm gonna say this as a layman because that's all I am and I don't understand the science of it either but Bill beany explained that the information that came from the DNC judging by the speed of the upload could only have been an upload to a thumb drive it could not have been

[20:56] done remotely which confirms what julian has been saying all along that the information that came from the DNC those DNC emails were the result of a whistleblower not the result of a remote hack and true so so by the way I will just tell you and I we I've had Benny on the show too i person i will say this and move on I personally disagree with that theory based on the search that I've done but it's a complex technical

[21:27] matter but the fact that Trump was open to Benny being there and then got trashed by Pompeo the other story I will tell you about that I'd like your feedback on I don't think we've actually talked about this is that in Woodward's new book something very interesting comes out i've been covering this ukraine DNC story for a long time and I've been talking to a guy named Andre tell chenko he was the whistleblower who worked he's anti-russian he's Ukrainian he was part of the Madonn and he was the guy who worked at the Embassy and we become

[21:57] friends now and he knows I worked for Sputnik and he's like thrilled with that but okay right he's an honest guy he's a whistleblower mcmaster it comes out in Woodward's new book told trump that the idea that there was DN c-- ukrainian collusion was russian propaganda and andres one who told me about it because they've never interviewed him nobody's ever interviewed him they know who he is he

[22:28] sent letters to them he said I will testify under oath about exactly what happened furthermore what he's going to testify to has already been affirmed by Alexander chalupa the DNC operative who was was she in Politico in January 2017 Ken Vogel and David Stern wrote an article she admits it all to them write and tell the Cinque O's in that article so think about this McMaster without any and Woodward says parts of the IC as well had all said oh that DNC Ukraine

[23:00] thing Russian propaganda and they never talked never even tried to talk telly chenko he comes to the he was at McCain's funeral he was invited let me put this this is a guy who was invited to John McCain's funeral so that tells you who this guy is he's not a Russian bot right and and but but he's an honest guy who when they said to him don't coordinate with Trump and we're good we want you to dig up dirt for the DNC which is what he was told and I've

[23:32] interviewed him about this he just said I'm not gonna do this cuz it's gonna work it could backfire what if she doesn't win and he's a loyal Ukrainian it was like this isn't gonna work out well but I I think it's a clear example to me that the people around Trump like McMaster are feeding him lies that they didn't even try to investigate so from your experience is there anything like illegal about I know you're not a lawyer but like like it aren't you supposed to

[24:03] investigate like so much say it was illegal as much as I would say it's institutionalized incompetence you know you've got these guys like McMaster who are a part of the problem they're a part of the deep state I mean masters been in the military for what thirty years thirty two years didn't get those three or four shiny stars on his shoulder by by being the outlier and and making trouble for people he knows exactly what he's doing and this is kind of this is kind of a mistake that Trump has made where he has

[24:36] surrounded himself with people who you and I would consider to be representative of the deep state now I understand that really because this is a new president he's never been in politics before he's never held elective office before and he needs some insiders advising him just so he knows what's going on on a day-to-day basis with that said you know he turned to the people who I think could cause him the most harm the likes of McMaster and and John Kelly and and Jim mattis and all these

[25:09] other people who have made made a life for themselves in the military-industrial complex yeah and and appointed me because I try you know again I worked for Steve a netbright but I tried to tell Bannen about this when he was in the White House and say look let me explain this Ukraine story to you probably didn't want to hear it but he didn't want to hear it but but but I honestly don't maybe I'm naive see I'm not like people have lots of motivations I don't think was like political I think was just more he's arrogant you know and it didn't

[25:43] it's and just whatever he didn't want to hear it but hey I guess I'm seeing I think it's time to move on right okay so wait hang on one second I'm just reading the chat window forgive me everybody I'm very bad eyesight but but yeah I mean I just you know I let's let's let's finish is this because we're waiting for Joe Laurie the great jewelery to come on by the way once again I mean Joe from consortium news helped organize these

[26:14] things done an amazing job and also I think both you and I appreciate the work Susie and everybody else has done putting this together yeah me too no no John what do you think the best thing people could do going forward to more light to this issue is thinking strategically with the state of play as it is right now do you have any ideas on

[26:45] effective activism that you think would work or maybe it's effective working through the legislature or something what do you think would work well there are a couple of things you know I've learned a lot of lessons since this this whole thing started one of those lessons is that activism works if you're patient with it and I'll give you an example I've got a group of friends in North Carolina they're all retirees they're all senior citizens and and they discovered that their local airport was the staging ground for CIA rendition

[27:16] flights around the world it's just a little tiny Municipal Airport in rural North Carolina and so they went to the owner of this Airport I told the story in this in this venue before but I'm gonna repeat it they went to the owner of the airport and they said listen we know that that the CIA is staging its rendition flights here we want you to cancel that contract he told him to get the heck off this property so then they started protesting in front of the entrance the airport carrying signs and banners and marching back and forth people ignored them then they started

[27:49] laying down in the in the highway and blocking traffic and they made themselves such pains and this guy's ass that he canceled his contract with the CIA now the CIA likely just moved on to another airport but I mean if we all do that if we all work toward that end if we all maintain our activism our excitement over activism we can really get things done one of the things that's really important to me in the last few days Lee in this in this fight against

[28:19] Brett Kavanaugh the likes of of code pink and any number of groups that have opposed the Kavanagh nomination is that even when it became clear to them that Cavanaugh was going to win this vote and and assume a seat on the Supreme Court they kept up their activism and it made the news the mainstream news and when that happens you reach more people and you influence more people now you and I talked about this these issues on our own shows I

[28:49] about this all the time for either consortium news or for reader supported news sometimes for truth din ik a couple of times for The Washington Post in the Los Angeles Times but we all have to keep this up we all have to be be public and forceful with our activism because over a period of time we really do convince people that we're right and you know now now it's crunch time if we're to believe if we're to believe what former president correa has been

[29:21] saying the last couple of days that Julian's in trouble we need to stand up to protect him and we need to do literally everything that that's in our power to protect him not to think about it and ponder the issue and you know post something on Facebook I'm with Julian we need to be out there marching shutting down Senate offices maybe getting arrested writing publishing speaking talking on radio and television programs we need to do everything that

[29:53] we can to make sure that the country understands what our position is on this and that we're with Julian that's really what it comes down to you know one of the things I'll just throw out there since one of the things that these unity 4je things end up being almost in a weird way especially since Susie's on and listening is it's like a big meeting of the minds of okay so what do we do about this you know what I mean and one of the things I will say I'll just throw this out there I think one of the things

[30:25] that's needed and it's very easy to forget this the absolute basics for people who sort of kind of know who Julian Assange is and there's a lot of people in that category my wife who is not hugely political but certainly follows me she was like okay so what's going on he's in where is he again and she's not dumb and she's not she's people she's my wife is most people most people have sort of heard the name

[30:56] Julian Assange and right now if I were to say to somebody let's go where's the basics where's just the okay was put in here this time here's what the you know like the basics in a nice graphic way or something like that that makes it easy step 1 step 2 step 3 oh I get it now why is he in the embassy because it's a weird thing if you think about it Bob my wife's because it's like so wait a minute is he in prison or Z because I hear about an embassy it's

[31:26] easy for us to forget that most people don't know that it's easy for everybody on these calls to forget that most people probably don't even know Julian Assange right if you took a poll probably 51% don't know they you know who is that an actor I don't know is that the guy who played Sherlock Holmes or whatever and and and so I'm just gonna throw that out there I think one form of activism is also not because the

[31:57] kind of activism everyone's talking about is great and needed but it's also preaching to the choir does that make sense we've got to get to the mainstream media you're right it's I mean these events are great and I really enjoy them and I actually reward them but but we're all in agreement here and this is speaking to the choir we need to get to the people who disagree with us or more importantly as you're pointing out right now to the people who really don't know what's going on yeah that's it's a

[32:27] winning issue one up a bottle like this once people understand it they'll go yeah that's messed up right but it's a matter of getting people there and also as anyone who understands political or you know here's another thing I'll just throw this out - it's interesting I see Joe so I don't I don't want to keep Joe but this is absolutely fascinating conversation for me to listen to about how we can evolve this into a greater and bigger movement in

[32:58] terms of anti-war efforts also what John was just saying is something that I've been really concerned about which is that we just speak to the same audience and I think that the unity platform allows us to speak to a different audience and allows us to draw in different audiences because I know certainly you know in Berlin I had intestines billon I learned a ton working with the world's best privacy activists for nearly a year but of the European conference circuit is very much like a year-long holiday that everybody just hops from event to event to event year

[33:29] in year out and I don't know that we were actually pushing into that new territory or enlarging the audience and I certainly hope that with this I just want to say something to you guys really quickly because Joe made reference earlier to their having been some attacks on unity as a concept of course that was always going to happen I predicted that right from the outset of movement as standard for any movement what was a little bit different with this as nobody fell for it so and from

[33:59] what they know movement so we have 70 I think now 80 for all participants we had about 70 participants at the point last month where an organization well it just actually seems to be one random guy but whatever started writing nasty blog post about us started taking the links to those blog posts and emailing them to all our participants and to asking them to make public statements against us in to decry our platform to undermine a platform then taking all our movement supported them

[34:29] anyone who tweet on a hashtag I'm on Twitter message it private this you can look on Facebook just totally coordinated comprehensive smear campaign against unity and I just want to say that two days not one single one of our participants has withdrawn or their support or written a statement against movement or anything like that and this is not sick that one day that might not ever happen I'm pretty amazed to see that even with that type of social pressure even with those type of tactics

[35:01] being used and especially words like racist fascist white supremacists are being invoked even though they completely unfounded but they really highly charged words the words that come with significant peer and stigma and still everybody has has held strong and the other thing like this and so it seems like this can go the course and for every one person who has detracted from this movement from the public sphere there has easily been 100 easily 100 to 1 saying

[35:34] this is necessary we need this we've been waiting for this it's like once you give people the license to interact with each other again they grab onto it and don't want to let it go is this the key is what I'm really asking to overcome not you know to overcome the divide and conquer I feel like when we go to school we go to school with people who believe all different things when we go and get a job we have to work with people who believe different things we can't be like oh you know if you're not a liberal

[36:05] you're not a conservative then and I'm not going to work with you it's trucking company or wherever you work um why is it in the active business fear that we've been so siloed and can we less this public over the first it looks like an experiment of finally overcoming the divide can we push that out wider into the into the public so who you are anybody and everyone carry a John's just paying his moving guy I'll be back in a minute

[36:36] what are your thoughts well so one of the things is interesting about the American political scene I'll just use that is that we have the Democrats the Republicans the Democrats have a dysfunctional election system in other words clearly WikiLeaks exposed corruption that helped Hillary Clinton win right but they've got a very functional activism system and you could see that with the Cavanaugh hearings where the activism end of it on the other hand the Republicans have a completely broken activism system they

[37:06] suck at activism but at least candidates can make it through the gauntlet in a way they can't on the DNC side and I think this works to the deep states advantage by the way that that both these systems are broken in different ways but I think what's interesting about the unity Forge a movement is people on the Left clearly understand organizing and activism on a great on out on in a way because there's constant training and stuff like that that people who are more on the right I've been on

[37:38] both have been on the left and the right and so I know a little bit more than most all right but I think the thing is if you look at the people who are participating in unity for J you have so much institutional knowledge and the strength of it is from a diverse range of people and ideas from a John Kiriakou with CIA experience who can take that training and go well you know I think

[38:09] here's how the CIA does propaganda maybe we should use that to people like Joe Lauria with you know mainstream media experience yeah Roger I was gonna say a great deal you see what you see what I'm getting at is think of the huge diversity of people that we have that can really be a strength here I think but if we find a way to harness it so that's that's my thought on that God you know we need we need a steering committee we need it we need a steering

[38:41] committee because right now what we have is a massive amount of human resource we're calling them the wiki bees and three days a week we all get together and we do these live streams of us actually working to progress the movement and it's like literally soccer moms and grandparents and you know even like teenagers and people with you know three jobs are still taking couple hours to do it but we need to it's a very task-oriented it's very technical what we need is a steering committee that can provide strategies and like meet once a month and get our view for

[39:12] this is what we want to achieve this month so that I can take that back to the wiki base and be like okay his iTaste breakdown will go to achieve let's go and I'll say I love the idea we're kind of doing this with these unity 4j interviews but maybe it could be more formalized I love the idea that of course the problem nobody likes committees because everybody's been on them and they know how it goes but if you could do a the planning community ring committee and make it transparent and open and public that's a very wikileaks approach right - and it would

[39:45] alleviate some of the problems which is I'm pissed at John because he put took my parking space and then that Devon you know lots of these committee meetings behind closed doors everybody knows it gets into the stupidest bullsh in the world and it derails whatever activism people are doing because all this you can't do that publicly because everybody in the audience is gonna go wait even can you guys just take this outside let's talk about the Julian issue cuz that's all we should be so I don't know I'm just gonna throw that out there but anyway look I appreciate again now Joanne and Susan

[40:19] you're on John and I both said it thanks so much for the work you guys are doing thanks so much for the tireless work you're doing and and and thanks for for a my and allowing me to be part of this thank you you know I'm just gonna say these people who were targeted for smears for month in this campaign are people who have given me zero drama zero and cause for concern who have never created any problem for us and who have given freely of their time and been a

[40:50] hundred percent committed to Julian in toluca leagues and that data I put more credibility and stock in that than I ever will and what someone else some random person says about them so it's just want to point that out you have been tireless in your support okay I'm gonna bow out as well because here we have one of the most brilliant minds and gentlemen the most experienced minds and journalism Joe Lauria and we have one of the world's foremost whistleblowers and I would love to say this they're being close with a conversation between you two and I will

[41:21] have a think on the steering committee stuff when we might see what we can put together over the next month though thank you guys thank you John so much and thank you Joe okay
