[00:00] let's turn to National Security advisor HR McMaster speaking yesterday he shares information in a way that is wholly appropriate and I should just make I should just make maybe this the statement here that that the president wasn't even aware you know of where this information came from he wasn't briefed on the source of method of the information either so that's National Security adviser HR McMaster who had to come out yesterday after speaking the day before um uh saying that none of the New York Times report
[00:32] The Washington Post report was true um that and yet uh you have um president Trump himself contradicting this I wanted to ask you about the release of this classified information which you point out the president can do um and compare it to your own case where you released unclassified information John would you give give us just a thumbnail um history of what happened to you after
[01:05] you spent what 14 years at the CIA as an analyst and a case officer sure I blew the whistle on the cia's torture program in December of 2007 the FBI investigated me for a full year and then determined that I had not committed a crime and they closed the case against me but when President Obama was inaugurated the CIA asked him to secretly reopen the case against me and I was investigated for another three years I had no idea I was under investigation finally I was charged with five felonies including three counts of Espionage and those
[01:37] Espionage charges resulted from the passage of an unclassified business card uh to a journalist from The New York Times and one from ABC News and the fact that I had told a reporter that a CIA former CIA colleague of mine who had never been undercover uh had worked in the Osama Bin Laden unit which I hadn't done in the first place the New York Times came to me with that information but that was good enough for three counts of Espionage and mind you those names were never made public the the
[02:08] names of the people I was accused of of outing but still I I faced 45 years in prison and ended up doing uh 23 months so compare what's happened with President Trump right now um right this is this is really a serious issue the fact that he's president aside and that he's allowed to declassify information there's a process that you go through to declassify that information you can't just blur it out to the Russian foreign minister and the
[02:39] Russian Ambassador what happens is the information uh goes back to the CIA to the originating office the CIA will pull the relevant information out of the report put it on a a new blank sheet of paper and then type at the top secret releasable to Russia that way nobody gets inou trouble no sources and methods are revealed everybody's happy and we can establish something of a liaison relationship to the Russians that's not what the president did now General McMaster said something very important
[03:11] yesterday he said that the president was not aware of the source well if that's true then shame on General McMaster because that's his job to make sure that the president is informed now if he briefed the president on this information and didn't tell him the source or didn't convey to the president the the clandestinity of this Source then maybe we should be talking today about General McMaster resigning uh John kiraku the New York Times uh has a remarkable paragraph um
[03:45] they write in private three Administration officials conceded they could not publicly articulate uh their most compelling and honest defense of the president for divulging classified intell to the Russians that Mr Trump a hasty and indifferent reader of his briefing materials simply did not possess the interest or the knowledge of the granular details of intelligence gathering to leak specific sources and methods of intelligence a gathering that
[04:16] would harm American Allies can you respond to that again a quote from the New York Times yeah I I've never heard I've never heard a White House staff say that the president was St too stupid or too ill-informed to have broken the law and that's really what it comes down to the truth is he leaked highly classified information that he shouldn't have leaked it's one thing to say hey I'm the president nobody can punish me for that it's another thing entirely to just deny that he did it we know that he did it
[04:47] and he really ought to own up to it where I'm disappointed is in the reaction of Republicans on Capitol Hill I understand Party Loyalty this is Washington after all but my God you have to think about what's good for the Country and this is certainly bad for the country um can you talk about Trump reportedly urging then FBI director Comey um to consider jailing reporters for publishing classified
[05:17] information I I say this in all cander I think the president very simply has never read a copy of the Constitution I think that that that's true he's just never bothered to read the Constitution and he just has no understanding appreciation of the first amendment's protections um for freedom of speech with that said there was a very dangerous precedent that was Set uh during the Obama Administration when James ryzen refused to testify in the in the trial of Jeffrey Sterling another CIA whistleblower and um James ryzen the
[05:48] New York Times Reporter James ryzen the New York Times Reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner uh he refused to testify the uh the prosecution in the eastern district of Virginia appealed to the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the fourth circuit held that ryzen did have to testify that case then went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said the same thing that ryzen had had to testify he didn't testify in the end and attorney general holder didn't prosecute him for uh not testifying but still the precedent was set and so I think that
[06:18] that the problem here is is a bigger one that than Jim ryzen not testifying or than Donald Trump saying that we should Jail uh reporters the the bigger issue is is this incremental whittling away of our constitutional rights our most important constitutional rights including freedom of speech this is something that we really have to put our foot down on and we have to fight it at every step of the way can you talk about what your colleagues um at the CIA another
[06:49] intelligence agency are saying about what's happening right now are saying about President Trump and the Trump Administration I have a friend uh in the CIA who called me recently from overseas and he asked if I had been following the news and I said oh of course I have I've been following every detail and he said do the American people realize how bad this is and I said I think they do I think Congress is pretending that it's not bad but I think the American people
[07:19] realize that this President so early in his in his term is just simply out of control he doesn't understand intelligence he doesn't understand the purpose or use of intelligence he doesn't like or trust the CIA and the CIA for a little while wasn't sure how to respond to this I think in the end the CIA is going to slow roll this President and what I mean is they know they can wait him out most senior officers in the CIA have been in the organization for 20 25 even 30 years
[07:50] they've waited out other presidents and I think that they believe they can wait out this one that he won't be around for long can you predict what you think will happen I mean there is noise on Capitol Hill among Democrats and some talk among Republicans of the possibility of impeachment do you think that's possible John I think it's possible I don't yet think that it's probable I think what we need in the absence of a of a special prosecutor law which lapsed I believe in
[08:21] 1999 or 1997 uh we need a a special councel we need a prosecutor who is able to really do an in-depth investigation and just see where the where the evidence leads us uh I think that the evidence will lead us to several different crimes that have been committed by uh people around president Trump and who knows perhaps there are crimes having been committed by President Trump so I think we ought to really look at the Republicans on
[08:51] Capitol Hill and gauge their support for this President they reluctantly went along with him when he finally came out of the Republican primaries there's not a whole lot of loyalty there and I think that if even the Republicans on Capitol Hill smell blood in the water they'll begin to turn the first time a republican member of Congress starts talking about impeachment I think it's a slippery slope from there John you spent 14 years at the CIA as an analyst and a case officer you exposed a bush era um
[09:25] torture and I was wondering if you can talk about that uh the information that you talk to a reporter about though the reporter didn't talk reveal any uh name of any agent uh in your from your conversation with him you ultimately were jailed talk about the substance of the information you were trying to get out I said three things in the initial interview that I did with ABC News in
[09:55] December of 2007 I said that the CIA was torturing its prison I said that torture was official US government policy it was not the result of a rogue CIA officer as President Bush had intimated and I said that the torture program had been personally approved by the president himself but that's not specifically why I was jailed remember the the FBI determined that what I had said was not a crime and so they began digging and digging and digging until they finally were able to put something together and what it was
[10:26] was a reporter for ABC News um had written to me asking for help uh in writing a book on the cia's rendition program I told him I didn't know anything about rendition and I didn't know anyone involved he sent me a list of a dozen names I didn't know anybody he sent me a second list of a dozen names and I told him you obviously know this issue so much better than I do I really can't help you and he finally said well in your first book what about a guy that you um met in Pakistan on the tarmac of uh of an airport and I said oh
[10:58] you're talking about John Doe I don't know what ever happened to him he's probably retired and living in Virginia somewhere that was a felony because I had confirmed the name of John Doe now that happens in Washington every single day if you pick up a copy of the New York Times or the Washington Post you're going to see classified information and indeed former CIA director David Petraeus gave the names of 10 covert officers to his adulterous girlfriend and was not prosecuted uh in my case
[11:29] there was another CIA officer a disgruntled former CIA officer Who provided this reporter with the names of seven covert officers he was not uh prosecuted because he didn't blow the whistle on the torture program well John kako thank you so much for joining us um I want to spend more time with you at another point to really go into uh your book John Kaku spent 14 years at the CIA as an analyst and case officer exposing the bush aor torture program becoming the only official
[12:01] jailed in connection with it his Memoir has just been published it's called doing time like a spy how the CIA taught me to survive and thrive in prison this is democracy now we're broadcasting from San Diego stay with us