Title: Ex-CIA Officer Epstein Was an Israeli Asset And President Bush Covered It Up
Show: IRONCLAD
Date: 2025-09-03
URL: https://youtu.be/j6O9FnnYdDA
Duration: 41:00

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[00:01] I think that is one step below the worst case scenario. I think they're already doing that. So, we should we should expect to see that develop in the coming years. But the worst case scenario is that they come up with a unified currency and that countries around the world begin to use that currency instead of the dollar, especially with regard to oil sales. The US empire ends the day that that happens.

[00:39] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Change Agents in Ironclad Original presented by Firecracker Farm. Today's episode is going to be a candid conversation about various current issues with a previous guest, John Kiraau. And I'm going to be getting his take as a former intelligence officer. For those of you who haven't heard about John, he is a former CIA officer who gained prominence after he became a whistleblower, revealing information about the CIA's use of torture during interrogations in the post 911 era. He served as a CIA analyst and operations

[01:09] officer specializing in counterterrorism and the Middle East. All right. They gave us a variety of topics because I feel like you and I could talk for about 18 hours. >> Yeah, that's first for me. I I do I'll sit here and talk all, you know, into the night. >> It's already 10:30 here, but it'll be it'll be light until 10 or 11. >> Yeah, but I mean, let's get some meat and potato stuff in just in case the

[01:40] lawyers need it. Um, okay. So, I need you to put your agency hat back on here for a second. I've actually and and I hate this topic, but I'm going to ask you about it. It involves Epstein, right? Of course, there's wild conjecture in every direction, but as somebody who's somebody who knows the intelligence world well. I I'm not um hugely conspiratorial. I do believe that some conspiracies end up being true. And that's actually why some of them can be so sticky because there is an essence of the truth and people can always say, "Well, look at this one or look at that one." I totally get it. But it's

[02:10] interesting to me to see the buildup about Epstein, especially in the current administration's run for office. And then all of a sudden it was if there was a pop of a balloon and everybody is supposed to believe that there was nothing there. But the uh FBI will say there's a 100,000 pages of documents. And again, these are their words, not me. So this is what the FBI has said. Putting your hat on working in the world of intelligence, what would be your best guess as far as who Epstein was and how he was

[02:42] operating? Do you think he was working adjacent to intelligence? Do you think that people knew what he was up to, but if he could provide information, they would almost kind of give him a pass on his behaviors, maybe clear the road in front of him with not actually being directly involved? And as somebody who comes from that intelligence world, would there have been any benefit to using somebody like Epste, say, in the role of a handler? You were at the top of the source network. What could you have done with somebody like him or what would or would you have avoided somebody like that just in general?

[03:13] >> Wow, really great questions. One of those questions is easy for me to answer. One is very difficult. So the easy one is I believe very strongly and I've been public about this. I believe very strongly that Epstein was an Israeli access agent. And what an access agent is, it's not like a normal a normal like recruited asset who's going to infiltrate a group or whatever.

[03:45] It is someone who is someone who has access to the actual targets. For example, if Mossad wants highlevel information, it's it's not going to be able to recruit Bill Clinton or Prince Andrew or Bill Gates. Those people are not recruitable. So, it does the next best thing and it recruits somebody who has access to those people. >> Yep. And then just to make it just to make the relationship a little richer, a little deeper, you throw in underage

[04:17] girls, free private jet, flights to a private island, plenty of alcohol, access to a lot of, you know, interesting people who are also important. And then in the end, and we we know I should add that literally every room in Epstein's houses, including the bathrooms were wired for both audio and video, >> right? So, you're getting a massage from a 15 or 16 year old girl.

[04:50] >> They're going to he's going to hold it in reserve just in case he needs to squeeze you a little bit. The Israelis are very, very good at that. So, um, to me that's the easy question. I really believe in my heart he was working for the Israelis. The very difficult question is when he got the sweetheart deal as a convicted pedophile in 2006, >> this was down in Florida, right? >> Florida in in the federal district

[05:20] court. Um he Alex Aosta the US attorney was told to give him that sweetheart deal because quote he's intelligence unquote. Okay. What does that mean? He's American intelligence. He's Israeli intelligence, but the Americans don't want to risk pissing off the Israelis for some reason. or uh he

[05:51] has something over somebody. I you know I saw I saw a commentator the other day make a very good point. The the point the point was that that there were only two people who could order that sweetheart deal. One was the attorney general of the United States who was uh what's his name? Gonzalez or whatever whatever his name was, Bush's second attorney general. Um, the only other

[06:22] person was the president and the attorney general is not going to order a sweetheart deal for a convicted child sex offender without clearing it with the president. So why in the world would George W. Bush order house arrest for somebody who convict who was convicted of a crime that carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years in prison. >> What did he have on George W Bush? >> You know, going with that premise that he was working for MSAD.

[06:54] >> I I mean, I would like to believe that our own intelligence agencies are sharp, right? They're on the leading edge. I I I I can't fathom that they wouldn't have known about that, >> right? >> And so it's just so odd to me that they would let him travel in such circles. Not that they have a charter charter to work obviously inside of the border, right? The agency is supposed to be external, but I feel like mechanisms could maybe that's what I'm saying. There's mechanisms like maybe, hey, here's some information you guys might want to look at. This person is dangerous. >> Yeah. Why wouldn't they do that?

[07:25] >> You know, in any normal circumstance, that that's an important point. In any normal circumstance, the FBI would have called Bill Clinton's chief of staff or Bill Gates's, you know, head of security and said, "Listen, there's a potential problem here. This Epstein guy, your boss should stay away from him." >> That's normally what they were do what they would do. So why didn't they do that in this case? who made that decision that even after a

[07:55] conviction which was in the papers it wasn't a secret even after this conviction not only did did he maintain these relationships he actually strengthened and broadened these relationships how'd that happen why wasn't the yeah warning people >> I and I think that's the pe the part that for me that the gears don't mesh I mean like you said what happened to him in Florida there's actually entire documentaries about that I I mean, a a a sentence where you can actually go

[08:25] wherever you want to during the daytime and you have to come spend nights in an unlocked prison cell. Like, basically, you're sleeping at day camp. Like, what the [ __ ] And how and again, how did that how did I mean, for myself personally, I don't I don't judge how other people want to live their lives. And and I say this often, as long as you're not praying upon people, especially minors, I don't like people have a lot of uh you know, when it comes to Epstein, I would imagine that a lot of what was happening was probably people who were above age as well. Maybe

[08:57] it was prostitution. And again, I that's not my jam. But if people want to do that, I'm not going to judge how they live their life. They can suffer the consequences of those >> Yeah. of those behaviors. But I don't understand how in me in my social circle if I were to find out that somebody was a convicted pedophile. I'm sorry. That's a full stop right there. Period. >> You got it. >> What I would want to do is skin you live with a potato peeler. I'm not going to do that cuz I don't think I would enjoy the federal penitentiary system. Nor do I want to go there. But I can I can

[09:28] manage the distance from that in my own life via proximity and not having them in those social circles. I don't understand how somebody who had that background was rubbing shoulders literally and figuratively with some of the most powerful and influential people in this country. >> Yeah. >> And that's what I don't understand. And then so that leads to well, why won't they release the information? You know, I I personally believe that it probably would have non-flattering information on both sides of the aisle, which is the, you know, the reasoning why I think that neither side really wants to release it.

[09:58] But do you think that there is something in that paperwork that if again going off the premise that he did uh was an agent for MSAD that exposes some level of relationship that would be hard to explain. Do you think there would be something like that in those investigative documents? >> I think it's it's very possible and and I'll I'll add something too w with a little background first. When when you're convicted of a federal sex crime uh against a minor, there is a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years. Okay? It doesn't matter if you're a good guy who

[10:29] made one mistake or you're a bad guy who made many, many mistakes. Mandatory minimum sentence 5 years. >> He did that. He got a what's called a downward departure and a very serious one. Secondly, pedophiles are not permitted in minimum security work camps, right? They have to be in low security prisons. They normally don't go to mediums or highs, maximums, because it's too dangerous for them. So, they're all in low security prisons unless they

[11:01] killed the child, too. So, how in the world was he able just to walk out when he woke up in the morning, go about his normal business, and then go back to some, you know, Beverly Hills Police Department style uh uh luxury jail cell to spend the night. I mean, that that had to come directly from the top. Now, with that said, I think the reason why we haven't seen most of these 100,000 pages, in

[11:35] addition to the fact that people on both sides of the aisle are likely to be very embarrassed and important people are going to have their reputations ruined, I think that we don't want to embarrass the Israelis. >> You know, I I'll give you another example. Buddy of mine, I'll give you two examples. buddy of mine wrote a book uh after but he he was my first boss at the CIA. Prolific writer writes the most fascinating books about the most obscure

[12:05] 20th century foreign policy and intelligence issues. Wonderful. Great readings like who you would think I don't care about you know US foreign policy toward India during the Kennedy administration and then you start reading it and you can't put it down. That kind of book. >> Wow. >> Right. All right. >> None of them are like that. He told me, as we're all supposed to do, he sends his books into the publications review board for clearance. And the only thing that they have ever

[12:36] redacted were the words Israeli nuclear program. Okay. The Israeli government has never admitted that it has it has a nuclear bomb. >> Interesting. >> Everybody in the world knows that the nuclear bomb. So why is it incumbent upon us to protect Israel's policy of not admitting to its possession of a bomb? I I didn't sign a secrecy agreement to protect

[13:06] Israeli classified information. Um I I wrote a book on surveillance and um I was writing about the history of NSA and I said NSA has cooperation with 33 countries um including blah blah blah blah blah which is like on their website and only one word was redacted Israel. Why why is it >> that's odd?

[13:37] >> Yeah. I I I've never signed a secrecy agreement saying I'm going to protect Israel. >> So, you know, I'm wondering if a lot of this withholding of evidence and withholding of documents is very simply to protect the Israeli intelligence apparatus. Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard me talk about Firecracker Farm and their hot soul. You probably heard other people talk about it as well. If you haven't tried it yet, let me just tell you, you're missing out on some serious

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[15:42] sides of the aisle who are just sickened by this whole case that they're going to force release. And you know the law is that any member of Congress can release the information on the floor of the House or the Senate, right? There is some bipartisan movement towards this. There's, you know, the Congress is in recess right now, but they're going to have an interesting September because there are >> both sides. I mean, I think actually September 3rd, which is, wow, tomorrow before this comes out. >> But yeah, they're going to actually have some Epstein victim testimony that is

[16:14] released and the effort to try to bridge the gap to the right hand side of the aisle because I think they need six signatures from the Republicans, then they can force it. See, so if I I want to believe that there's one person out of the 535 on Capitol Hill who has the guts to stand up and release this stuff. And deep down, having served on both the House side and the Senate side, I know that there is no such brave person. I hope

[16:45] that there would be, but I think we are going to have to wait for that mandatory declassification 35 years, >> 50 years. >> Nobody wants to, you know, nobody wants to be found dead of the suicide with two bullet holes in the back of their head, >> right? >> Like Frank Nitty, you know the story of Frank? >> No, but there's so many of these ridiculous stories that it's like, come on, I'm not that dumb. >> Frank Nitty is is not an intelligence figure. He was the under boss of the Chicago syndicate under um Al Capone.

[17:18] And when Al Capone was convicted of income tax uh evasion and sent to prison, Niti became the boss. He never wanted to be the boss. One of the things about Niti is that he was deeply in love with his wife and they had just adopted a baby boy and she got breast cancer and died. So, here he's he's left grieving, mourning with a 2-year-old. So, he got really really drunk one day, went down to the train

[17:49] tracks, put a gun up to his head, pulled the trigger, the bullet went through his hat, so he decided to point it at his face, fired a second time, it went through his hat again. >> Oh my god. Finally, he just sat down and put it on his chest and fired a third bullet and finally committed suicide. And he's he's buried about 50 feet from Capone in Chicago. >> Man, man,

[18:19] you know, we got other topics other than Epstein. I'm curious though again putting your putting your intelligence hat back on if you were if he was if Epste was there for access and placement and you do get compromising information on these individuals or an individual of any kind. How does it actually go? I'm sure there's a variety of ways to do it, but do you just hard confront these people that you now have information against and literally pull open a manila

[18:49] envelope like they do in the movies and you're flipping through pictures? Is it more subtle? Does it depend on the person? Because at some point, you're probably going to want something from them. How do you inform them that you have the leverage that it is in their best interest to do so? >> Well, if it was you or me, it wouldn't be settled at all. It'd be like an iron fist, >> like right on the nose. >> Yeah. But if you're Bill Clinton or Bill Gates or Prince Andrew or any of the other, you know, Alan Dersawitz, whomever, >> um, yeah, it's going to be a very light

[19:20] touch. You know, you put your arm around it the guy around his shoulder and you tell him what great friends you are and we know how much you love Israel and and we love you and so we we need for you to answer a couple of questions for us. >> Interesting. >> You know, this is one >> Yeah. I I learned early on at the agency too, the soft touch is so much more successful than than the the baldup

[19:51] fist. >> Yeah. >> You know, >> well, I think if you with the right approach, you know, I probably the most powerful way to do it is to basically allow people to think it was their decision in the first place. >> Exactly. Right. >> They may not even realize that they're being leveraged. >> A a good case officer would do exactly that. Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, when people are trying to sleep at night staring at the ceiling fan, they know what kind of kinky [ __ ] they're into. You know what I mean? They can connect the dots on their own. >> Even in training, even in training, they

[20:23] they taught us not to make the actual pitch until you were absolutely certain that the target would say yes. And I remember one of the instructors telling me, you want the guy to recruit himself, right? Because after a while, six months, nine, 12 months, he's gonna be pretty certain you're not who you initially said you were. >> But if he keeps up the relationship and it's there's a benefit to him, 95% of the time being financial, he's going to

[20:54] essentially recruit himself. If you are into quality gear and you are not subscribed to Tacpack, well, then you're missing out. Tacpack is a monthly subscription box loaded with professional-grade tactical gear from trusted brands like Battle Arms Development Neline 511 Tactical. You have two options. You have the Tac Pack Standard, which is a $59.95 shipped with a value that usually lands between 90 and 120 bucks. Or you have the Tac Pack Plus, which is $139.95 shipped, packed with about $240 to $300 worth of gear.

[21:58] what's the move there? Because doesn't that expose the person that was kind of pitching them or having that relationship? Yeah. >> I in in all my years at the agency, I only saw it go wrong twice. Thank God. It never happened to me. It happened. >> I feel like it'd be a nightmare. >> Oh, yeah. It happened once to a guy that I was working with overseas. And, you know, we we all read each other's cables, right? And so we're we're giving each other, you know, attab boys and you know, go for it, man. When you meet with AB butterfly on Friday night, we know

[22:28] he's going to say yes, do it, dude. You're going to get promoted. And then the guy not only says no, but reports you to his ambassador. >> Oh boy. And then the prime minister calls in the American ambassador and this [ __ ] hits the fan. I saw it happen once and even headquarters wrote back and said, "Wow, we we're shocked by this. We thought he was going to say yes." So if it's It depends on the country

[22:59] that you're in. If you're in a third country, ah, you just say, "No, no, no, no. I'm not a CIA officer." There's just a misunderstanding. How could you think I'm a CIA officer? >> What's the matter with you? >> So, you just don't see each other anymore. You don't socialize together anymore. If you're in the country where the guy, you know, is a citizen of where maybe he's in the foreign ministry or the defense ministry, they're probably going to expel you and and you have to

[23:29] go back to headquarters and sit in a penalty box for six or 12 months. Um, if it's a hostile country, um, it could become like a serious international incident where they'll expel you and maybe the station chief and then we have to expel two of their guys and then it's this tit for tat and it's all played out in the press and everybody's going to get screwed in the end. >> Yeah, that that sounds like an absolute nightmare. Yeah, people are going to have some unscheduled moves. the moving

[24:00] truck's going to show up to your apartment and go ahead and pack your stuff for you, >> which happens. >> I I bet it does. >> You know, shifting gears. >> When I was first when I was married, my first wife, she was from Warren, Ohio, and um we went back to the Greek festival at St. Demetrius Greek Orthodox Church in Warren, biggest Greek festival east of the Mississippi River. So, it was a big deal like for the whole region. So, we would go back every year and we're back there. It was like 1993,

[24:32] I guess. And I see this woman like in the in the line for a suaki or something. And I recognize her from headquarters. So I walk up to her and I go, "Hey." And she looks at me, she goes, "I know you." I said, "Yeah, I know you too from uh DC." >> The place. >> Yeah, that place on the near side of the river. So, we shake hands and she said, "What division are you in?" I said, "I'm in uh in the DI at the time, director of

[25:03] intelligence. How about you?" She said, "Oh, I'm in um whatever it was called then." She's like, "I'm I'm getting transferred to Moscow." I said, "Oh, good for you. First tour overseas." She said, "Yeah, I'm really excited." Well, we didn't know that Aldra James had already committed treason and had blown her cover. >> So, she gets to Moscow. She has very heavy surveillance. And then in the end, she and like six other case officers are expelled. It's in all the papers. Her name, her

[25:35] picture, like going out to meet with a source. It was a It was a disaster. She gets expelled, comes back to the US. We have to expel six Russians, which was ugly. And then we cap we catch Aldra James. He gets life without parole. We have all these sources in in Russia that are being executed. She ended up just resigning and going to like Meil Lynch or something. She's like, "This this is [ __ ] I'm not doing this anymore." >> Well, how could she continue to do

[26:06] anything covert anyway? I mean, if your picture and true name is out there, I mean, you're cooked. >> Well, this is what happened to another friend of mine, Mark Mark Polymoropoulos. Mark and I were in the DI together and then he switched over to operations and specialized in um in uh Eastern Europe and and I guess the Soviet Union had just collapsed and Ames blew him. So he had to return from Moscow. Um they they call it bringing them in from the cold. So he

[26:37] came in from the cold, has all these liaison jobs all over where you have to be declared to every service because the Russians have already blown your identity to everybody anyway. And then just to stick our thumb in the eye of the Russians, we sent him back as the station chief in Moscow and just said, "Fuck you guys." I guess that's one approach. [Music] >> You don't want to back away from that. I fight on always. Scene 101 A, take three.

[27:10] >> If you're prepared for the worst case scenarios, those worst case scenarios are going to be manageable. >> I got out because we weren't at war. We're at war. I'm going back. >> I want to quit like anybody else. I just have the mentality I don't. >> I thought I knew what the pain was up until that moment. Accuracy is by far the most important thing. >> This community aided in who I am. It gave me family. No fail is it's everything. It's a way of life.

[27:43] All right. Action. [Music] Well, I mean, on Okay, Russia. This laterals me over to what else I wanted to talk to you about as well. I'm not an expert in geopolitics by any stretch. I'm I'm a victim of the information I consume. What's going on in Ukraine between Russia and Ukraine and Trump's role in that meeting with Putin in

[28:14] Alaska? Then you know Zalinski comes over to the United States and then I was just reading so Putin Xi Jinping and North Korea's Kim Jong-un are now all going to gather in Beijing for this major military event. >> Yes. What do you what do you make of what is going I mean are is everybody playing every single side? Is this all theater? What what do you make of what's going on here? >> No, I think this is actually quite serious. Um, I I think the overall the

[28:45] overall picture is actually dark for the United States in that we have used sanctions as a weapon on so many countries over so many years that these countries like Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, you know, even Pakistan and North Korea, South Africa,

[29:15] they've all decided to work together in part as what are now called the BRICS countries plus all the new ones >> um to come up with I would call it even a a a parallel global economy to the one that is more or less headed by the United States. I'll give you an example. Um, I have a lot of friends who go to Iran. Some of them are Iranian, some of them are I

[29:45] mean Iranian-American. Some of them are, you know, left-wing journalists who are curious and they all come back and say the same thing. The Iranians lack for nothing. Our sanctions haven't worked. And you see these these numbum skull analyses from the likes of the Henry Jackson Scoop Jackson Foundation in London saying Iran's on the brink of collapse. No, it's not. It's doing just fine. Um, I'll give you

[30:16] another example. I went to China last year and I was struck by how difficult it was for me to use my Visa card, but everybody took this thing called the octopus card. And so I asked one of the shopkeepers. I was like, "What is this octopus card?" He said, "Oh, it's it's the Chinese credit card." I said, "Why don't you just use a Visa card?" He said, "Ah, because your credit card transactions go through New York, which subject us to sanctions. The Octopus card goes through Shanghai, so we're not

[30:47] in the hold of the Americans." And I was like, "Right, I get it. I get it." So you go to these countries like China, even Russia, you know, the Russians were were stung at first by the quickness of our imposition of sanctions and then they just turned to the Chinese, the Indians, the other BICRICS countries. They don't lack for anything. American sanctions don't have any impact on the Chinese on the on the Russians.

[31:17] So I think that we put ourselves in a corner. >> What do you where >> Yeah. No, go ahead. >> Well, I was going to say, so what do you make of Putin, you know, not that it's necessarily out of his way to come to up in Alaska and meet with Trump. Do you think he's just Is he just wasting the guy's time knowing that some I mean, I'm assuming they didn't just put together this meeting in uh Beijing. You know, he probably knew he was going to go to that before he even went and met with Trump. Is it just a just to waste the guy's

[31:48] time? Why do you think he even bothers to meet with him? Oh, I don't think it was to waste his time. I think that they genuinely wanted to feel each other out to see if there was any wiggle room to come to a deal. Remember, Trump is is, you know, all about the art of the deal. And I will say that during both the George W. Bush and the Obama administrations and frankly the Biden administration, we used to marvel at how hard these administrations worked

[32:21] to not talk to our enemies, right? Let the diplomats do what you're paying them to do, to carry out diplomacy. Why in the world would we not talk to our enemies when talking and these open lines of communication can only help? So, one thing about Trump, he doesn't care who he talks to. If he thinks there's a deal at at hand, he's going to talk. And I think that's what every president should do regardless of

[32:52] political party. So, I think that Trump, you know, wanted to see if there was a possibility to come to some sort of deal. That's why he that's why he, you know, softened up Zalinski in that very well pre-planned humiliation in the Oval Office a couple of months earlier. Uh, >> you think that was pre-planned? >> Oh, absolutely yes. 100% yes. >> Do you think Zilinsky knew it was pre-planned? >> Uh, absolutely not. being blocked, right? >> Wanted to do an ambush.

[33:24] >> And it was because Trump believed that it was Zilinski blocking a deal and then learned in Anchorage that it actually wasn't Zilinski. >> It's Putin blocking the deal. But at least we know that now. It's important to know that. So, it was worth talking. >> That's fair. And I totally agree with you about being able to sit down and talk with anybody about anything. I wish people in our own country would actually take that advice. I am so tired of

[33:55] watching people >> I can't talk to my family anymore. I can't go to holidays and this that I'm like are you kidding me? Like this is your family and you're letting a political belief and the the metric I go back to and I try to remind people like let's say [ __ ] does hit the fan. say that there's this unholy alliance of Russia and China and North Korea and whatever they do whatever your power goes out for 96 hours which uh and I always forget who the quotes associated with but essentially you know chaos is nine meals away and you're going to need

[34:26] the guy across the street to help you. You're going to need your neighbors to rely upon and they might have had a an election sign that was of a different color than you may like but they're still your neighbor. And if we can't get and like, you know, it's it's the same level just extrapolated to a geopolitical level. Like, you need to be able to talk to everybody. I talk with a bunch of people that I don't agree with on a bunch of things. And at the end of the day, I leave hopefully with a better understanding of why they believe what they believe. It doesn't mean I have to get on board, but at least I understand where they're coming from.

[34:57] I I couldn't agree more. I think you're exactly right. What uh what do you think would be worst case if Putin, Xiinping and Kim Jong-un? Would it be they create an alliance and economy that rivals what is as you mentioned largely led by the US at this point and that grows to a size, scope and scale that competes with and then overtakes and then we find oursel behind. >> I think that is one step below the worst

[35:28] case scenario. I think they're already doing that. So we should we should expect to see that develop in the coming years. >> But the worst case scenario is that they come up with a unified currency and that countries around the world begin to use that currency instead of the dollar, especially with regard to oil sales. >> The US empire ends the day that that happens. >> Yeah, I had not even considered that.

[35:58] Okay. What uh how do you think the Ukraine Russia conflict plays itself out? It's it's fascinating. They'll talk about having a ceasefire and then about five minutes afterwards a missile or a drone strike occurs and like why are we even doing this anymore at this point? Just keep blowing the [ __ ] out of each other. >> Yeah, I know, right? I I've been saying the same thing for a long time and I've been proven wrong so far, but I'm going to double down and I'm going to say that the way this ends is the way we've been saying it was going to end since it began. And that is with the Ukrainians

[36:29] conceding territory, the Donbass, Crimea, as well as extracting a promise that Ukraine will never join NATO, but then allowing or not objecting to Ukraine being fasttracked for European Union membership and then a declaration from the United States that Ukraine will be treated as what's called of a major non-NATO ally like Japan, Australia,

[37:02] Saudi Arabia, Israel. So, you essentially get the same protections uh that that a NATO membership would give you, but you're not in NATO. >> What do you think? Who do you think is next in the wing after Putin moves along? >> You know, I don't think anybody knows the answer to that. the the Russians had uh Dimmitri Mediev for what is it four years, six years and um he and Putin just sort of they traded offices for one term and then they traded him back again.

[37:32] >> So I I don't think there's any one person waiting in the wings. I've I've never heard that he has a protege, for example, that he's grooming and and frankly every time his term is up, um he has the constitution amended to allow him to run again, >> of which he of course wins unanimously. It's odd how that works out. >> Yeah. Life is good,

[38:03] >> man. What do you think will happen? What whatever. I mean, you know, medical things happen. If he were to drop dead tomorrow, what do you do you think that that would be a very tumultuous time in Russia or do you think there'd be somebody who would hop in and take it over at lockstep? >> I think it would probably be a military person who jumps in and tries to keep things as calm as possible. Um, Russian friends of mine tell me that most Russians support Putin just because

[38:33] it's a time of war, but that deep down he's not really that popular. >> U, that wouldn't be terribly different from what we see here in the United States when we're involved in conflict in one part of the world or another. So were he to depart the scene, I think I think there would probably be some kind of quick early consensus and then a transition into a democratic election. >> Do you think it would change the the future and trajectory of Russia or do

[39:04] you think the status quo would largely live on? >> No, I think it's the status quo. >> Interesting. Well, John, I want to be respectful of your time. So, I got two more questions for you and you can get back to your joyous lawsuit because they're so much fun and these are broader and again this is with your intelligence hat on or just your experience throughout the world. What is it that keeps you up at night if you were to existentially worry a little bit about what's going on in the world for somebody like yourself who is in the know about a lot of things that most

[39:34] people don't have access to or experience with? What uh what keeps you staring at your ceiling fan? You know, I think there are a couple of things. I I've got a cousin that I'm very very close to, and he said something to me one time that I just have no memory of. He said that in 2002, he asked me the same question. And that I said, a global pandemic. And I said, "Did I really say that?" And he said, "Yeah, and you talked about

[40:05] SARS." I said, "Man, I don't remember that at all." and he said, "Yeah, well you turn >> fortuitous." >> Yeah. >> So that's one of the things that I worried that I worry about and I worry about it actually more now because now we know that it's actually possible to have a global pandemic. And we are more divided about how we should respond to it now than we were in March of 2020.

[40:38] Hope you enjoyed today's show. If you want to learn more about John's work, please check out his show CIA Declassified. Thank you again for listening to Change Agents and Ironclad Original presented by Firecracker Farm. See you all next week with an all new episode and an all new guest. See you then.
