[00:00] [Music] hey welcome back to the joe walsh so we start with an important and serious question our intelligence community when is it appropriate to criticize them and how do we go about doing that we'll get an insider's view answer to that question in a moment then great news a British baby is alive thanks to America
[00:32] and as always we close with our gallery of the stupid San Francisco in London man they stand out today this issue of our intelligence community the men and women of the FBI and all the other agents who are pledged to help keep us safe in this country and around the world it's become a big issue ever since the election of Donald Trump it's become
[01:02] a big issue because the election of 2016 made clear a very hotly contested election made clear a couple truths that we now know Russia interfered and there are certainly questions about how our very own FBI and our very own Justice Department behaved during that campaign questions that demand answers questions that demand an investigation and like a
[01:34] broken record I've said from the very beginning look into both drill down on exactly what a foreign government did to impact our election so that that will never happen again but don't stop there find out exactly what our FBI did was their bias at the FBI bias among how many individuals bias that actually might have impacted the election result that needs to be looked into as well now
[02:08] unfortunately 18 months later there's a divide in the country we've got one investigation going really strong the Muller investigation looking into what Rush she did and looking into the possibility only the possibility of any American assisting Russia but you know what the issue of what did our own people do were our own people biased against Donald
[02:38] Trump it's clear right it's clear that Russia was more favorably disposed to the president but were folks in our government were folks in our FBI and our Justice Department did they wait the scales toward Hillary Clinton and against President Trump and unfortunately that that question has not brought forth its own Special Counsel and it should and it should we've had
[03:10] the Inspector General look into how the FBI behaved when it came to Hillary's email server problem we have the FBI's IG looking into how they handled their role in the Russia investigation in the Russia interference but no it's a big enough deal this issue of what our own people did of what our intelligence community did I've said from the start to help heal a divided country it
[03:43] demands its own special standalone investigation the FBI needs to be looked at by an outside party the CIA the Justice Department our entire intelligence community needs a thorough outside investigation because here's what's going to happen you and I know what's gonna happen Bob Muller is going to come down with his results his findings maybe tomorrow maybe three or four months from now maybe nine months from now who knows when but eventually
[04:15] Robert Muller's findings on what Russia did and did any American assist Russia they're going to be out there for the entire country to see and if we've only got that story if we've only got that part of the story and not a clear understanding of what our and intelligence community did this country is going to remain very very divided let's talk about our intelligence community I'm very happy to be joined by John Keary Cao John I hope
[04:46] I got your last name right a former CIA whistleblower start with where are I let off the entire issue John of our intelligence community it seems to me like we need a thorough investigation into their behavior wouldn't you agree without any question I think you are absolutely correct and this is a big problem in Congress on Capitol Hill we have these
[05:16] oversight committees that really don't oversee anything they act more as cheerleaders for the intelligence community than they do as overseers and when when you've got you know two peas in the same pod you end up with an intelligence community that literally does anything it wants to do with impunity and we've seen them try to do exactly that for the last 18 months so John from your very unique perspective and we've got Americans all over the country listening to you and I right now watching us what is the
[05:49] biggest problem that you see right now inside our intelligence community it's politicization to tell you the truth Barack Obama politicized the intelligence community unlike any other president in in modern American history when I first joined the CIA I genuinely didn't know the political affiliation of any of my colleagues because politics never came up we never discussed it it was never important we were there to serve the country and that was it when Barack Obama became president and then
[06:20] especially when John Brennan became the director of the CIA it became a very very political organization and now you have a situation where not just John Brennan but three and four levels of people below him have left the agency and they've gone on to the to the networks to be talking heads I mean how political is that that's just unprecedented it never happened in the past and so it's going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of congressional over site to go back to that nonpartisan organization that it used to be John
[06:54] most Americans want to believe look there's bias everywhere everybody in government has bias but like you all the other professionals at the CIA and the FBI they put their bias away when they go to work every day but how true is that you know it used to be true it used to be the status quo and now it's different the problem is there are so many people at the CIA in the senior intelligence service that's the leadership level the executive level of the CIA who have been there for twenty
[07:26] twenty-five thirty years maybe more and they know that if they don't like a president or his politics they can wait that President out they did it with Jimmy Carter they did it with with Bill Clinton and if they don't like Donald Trump they think that they can wait him out because presidents come and go and they're always there and I think that's really what the strategy is for a lot of the people in the mid to higher levels of CIA leadership this is John this is scary stuff how how do you even begin to
[07:58] fix this what Ronald Reagan did was he fired a lot of people and I think that there has to be a housecleaning at the CIA again Congress should have been on this like white on rice and they haven't been and so what we need really is an outside director someone who has close personal ties with the president but not close personal ties with the CIA leadership to go in and clean house it's happened a couple of times in the last
[08:30] generation or two and it needs to happen again the current director Gina Hoffs bill clearly that's not that's not gonna be her role at all correct no not at all Gina's a longtime 32-year CIA veteran she's very very popular among the rank-and-file she was a terrific officer I worked directly for her when I was in the sent the counterterrorism center but Gina's not the kind of person is going to make waves not at all what's what John what's the more
[09:01] if you had to guess and maybe it's more of a guess what's the morale like among the rank and file in our CIA well post 9/11 morale was higher than it had been in in recorded memory at the CIA that's changed and it's because I think that so many CIA officers at the senior level have found that they can't control Donald Trump they're so used to being able to go into an oval office meeting and tell the president what they
[09:32] want him to do and they couch it in such a way that they offer it up as analysis so they suggest to the president what they want him to do visa vie a policy that's not the way Donald Trump does business and so I think that it's it's been very difficult for them to get used to that to get used to his his leadership style and the fact that he is not easily ordered around and as a result morale has dropped interesting hey John I really appreciate your time very interesting perspective thank you
[10:04] so much for joining me a socialized medicine kills thank God for America I'll explain next [Music]