Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit | John Kiriakou

[Music]

I recruited this guy from scratch. He

had been a member of a bonafide

terrorist group and he had a very

specific telltale crimp.

>> What's a crimp?

>> A crimp is a certain way that you twist

the wires inside a bomb.

>> I heard that the agency is dabbling in

VR and AR type stuff.

>> Oh yeah. What the CIA is doing on

futuristic tech with things like virtual

reality are closer now to what DARPA is

doing and it is

terrifying.

The CIA has developed technologies to

for example remotely take over your car.

Why would the CIA want to take over your

car? To make you drive off a bridge. Now

working with the likes of Palunteer,

Nvidia, all these cutting edge tech

companies. I remember hearing when

Palanteer first came out that people at

the agency didn't like it

>> at all.

>> Do they use it now, you think?

>> Yeah.

>> What would they use it for?

>> Oh, all kinds of stuff. Mostly mo well.

>> Israelis are not like anybody else. They

killed a guy in a hotel room in Dubai

and then after they killed him, they

were somehow able to lock the door from

the inside of the hotel room.

You know, we studied that for a long

time.

>> There was like 26 people that the Dubai

CCTV footage saw it, but none of them

were picked up. No.

>> Weren't the cameras Israeli made?

>> I got a tour of the whole facility and

the cameras were German.

>> What facility?

>> There's an underground.

>> What has been your experience with

ground branch and special activities?

Those guys on loan from Seal Team 6,

they just appeared one day and then they

would vanish for a week at a time. What

they do is so secret. I have a feeling

people would really want me to ask you

about this. This freaks me out. Oh, I

got chills just thinking about it.

>> We have a lot to talk about.

>> Okay.

>> Um, so yeah, dude, thank you for coming

back.

>> No, it's my pleasure. You're a great

interviewer.

>> Thank you. Thank you.

>> You really are.

>> We're getting there, man. Well, yeah.

You just, you know, I'm trying to get a

little better every time and just do my

best and keep my mouth shut. I think

that's

>> that's the key.

>> Yeah. But um but yeah, dude, thank you

so much for for coming back. It's

>> always a pleasure.

>> Wonderful to have you and we'll have to

do it. We'll have to keep doing it for

sure.

>> Definitely. But um so yeah, John, for

people that didn't see the first

interview that we did um and and maybe

aren't familiar with your story, you

spent 15 years at the CIA, spent some

time in analysis, spent some time in

operations as a case officer or a spy

and later as the head of counterter

terrorism in Pakistan for CIA where you

captured Abda. We went through that full

story in the uh the last podcast. Um,

you're also a senior investigator with

the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

under Kerry, which we didn't talk about.

Maybe we will today if we have the time.

>> And you blew the whistle on the enhanced

interrogation program or colloquially

known as the torture program

>> and went to prison for it. So, yeah,

dude. I uh like I was just telling you a

second ago, I watched our last interview

back and there's a lot of threads that I

would have pulled on being that that was

my very first interview that I ever

conducted that uh that I didn't at that

point. and that I will today. So, yeah,

dude. I'm I've been super excited to

have you back. Me, too. And thank you

for coming.

>> It's great to see you.

>> It's great to see you. So, um let's uh

if you could start maybe by kind of

laying out like for again for people

that may not have seen the last one, can

you explain what the role of an

operations officer is because we're

going to be talking about, you know, the

CIA and espionage and tradecraft and all

the fun stuff. You know, that that's

that's a good basic starting point. And

most people don't ask me, but the the

role of a case officer, also called an

operations officer, also called a CATB

officer, is

historically very simple. It is to

recruit spies to steal secrets so that

the CIA can analyze those secrets and

give the analysis to the policy makers,

the president, the vice president, the

secretaries of state and defense, the

national security adviser, so that they

can make the best informed policy. So

really, your job is simply to recruit

spies to steal secrets. That's that's

all that it is. And it's way harder than

it may sound. way harder because look at

it this way too. You have to get people

to commit espionage for you or in some

cases to commit treason for you which in

many countries is a death penalty

offense just cuz they really like being

around you. I mean that's how it starts.

It starts just with the basics of a

relationship and it it morphs into

money, usually money, ideology, revenge,

excitement, stuff like that. But usually

it's because they like being around you

and they know you're going to give them

money.

I would say 94 or 95% of the time that's

the case. M.

>> So yeah, we started talking about that

last time around some of the motivations

for an agent to spy and you kind of

finding that crack in their personality

and working on making it

>> and and for for the vernacular an agent

is not so a lot of people we should

clarify this one because we will be

using it but yeah a lot of people refer

to CIA officers as agents which is

incorrect.

>> Incorrect. Yeah.

The CIA employee is a CIA officer. The

agent is the person that you recruit to

do whatever it is you need to have done.

>> So, so yeah, I I would like to to cover

some things like chronologically because

like I said, when I watched the last

interview back, that's how we did it.

And I was I was thinking I had this guy

uh Scott Payne in. Are you familiar with

him? He's he was an FBI agent

undercover. I know how much you love the

FBI.

>> Yeah, we're we're like this.

>> Yeah. Um Scott's a good dude. But um he

infiltrated the the Outlaws biker gang.

>> Ooh.

>> And he got

>> gig.

>> Yeah. And he got strip searched at

gunpoint in a basement while he was

wearing a wire.

>> Oh my god.

>> Long story short, they ended up not

finding it. It was like sewn in his

clothes. He didn't say. But anyway, what

I'm thinking is for a undercover FBI

agent, that is worst case scenario.

>> Yeah. for a for a CIA officer, you you

recruit an agent for six, nine months

and then you pitch him and he absolutely

freaks out and says, "I'm going to

report to the authorities."

>> Yes.

>> Which happens,

>> right? So, at the farm, was there any

like fun scenarios like that that they

set up that you can tell us about?

>> Yeah. Well, yes and no. I mean, they set

it up so that the recruitment is going

to be successful. In fact, when I

pitched my instructor, he was pretending

to be I forget what

the owner of a chemical company or

something like that. I pitched him and

afterwards we were at the officer's club

having drinks and I said, "Man, I was so

nervous. I know it's just training, but

I was so nervous." And he said, "Oh,

come on." He said, "I practically

recruited myself. You have to act more

quickly and more decisively." And I

said, I said, "Okay, that I would." and

I did in real life. And then I'll tell

you, I ran into one of the other

instructors just weeks after I had made

my very first recruitment. I was back at

headquarters for consultations and I ran

into him in the cafeteria and he said,

"How's how's everything going in

Athens?" And I said, "Oh man, I got to

tell you, I made my first recruitment

and it was exactly like training.

Exactly no differences." And he said,

"Good. That's what we wanted it to be."

Yeah.

>> So when you say like you have to act uh

in that case like more quick and

decisive, how like um how different do

you have to be to each asset?

>> Oh my gosh, that's a great question. So

you have to be able to assess each

potential asset's personality type and

personality traits. I worked with a guy

overseas who was really really good at

assessing other people's personalities

and we got a we got a cable from

headquarters saying look we really

really need a recruitment in this one

unit that this foreign government had.

And so he invited the the boldness of

this was just astounding to me. I

learned a lot from him. He invited

literally everybody in the unit to go

shooting with us. So he's like, "Take

your pick." Right. And so we're shooting

and he was an incredible shot like like

Olympic level where I mean we were

drinking. You're not supposed to drink

on the range, but we're drinking and

then we're daring each other to shoot in

different ways. And we ended up putting

in must have been about 200 bucks worth

of local currency. And he shot a target

with his back turned to it. He put a

piece of bubble gum on the target. He

had his back to the target. The gun was

upside down and he shot it with his he

fired it with his pinky and he hit the

bubble gum. And I go, "No way. No way.

We put hundreds of dollars in." And and

it turned out he was he was on the

Olympic shooting team in 1984. None of

us knew that. But anyway, they went

crazy. The alcohol kind of helped ease

the whole process, too. And then after

we had been doing this about two hours,

I just kind of noticed out of the corner

of my eye that he had his arm around

this guy's shoulder and he was leading

him off to the side. Nobody else had

noticed. And I thought, man, is he good.

I'm still nervous like, who am I going

to pick? He's already making the pitch.

And then we we got back to the embassy

and he's like, done and done. I said,

you're brilliant. I don't know how you

did that.

>> So, you said he was he was good at he

was an operations officer.

>> Who was was he one of the best that you

knew at the agency? That guy.

>> Yeah, he was. And you know, the funny

thing, too, this was his first tour as

an operations officer. He had been in

the agency for 25 years, but he was a

calligrapher and he got bored. And

before he was agrapher, he was a deputy

sheriff in Baltimore.

So, it's not like, you know, he had been

doing this for for decades and it was

second nature. We were both in our first

operational tours. It's just he was it

it was just built in him as part of his

personality to be able to to talk to you

for 10 minutes and figure out if yes,

you're a legitimate target or no, I need

to move on to the next guy. I never saw

anything. I never worked with anybody

else that was such a natural at

assessing personalities like he was.

>> Would you say

would you say for the most part that

it's either you have it or you don't or

that it can be taught?

>> Oh, it can definitely be taught.

Definitely. But you also have to have

that that spark. I'll tell you another

thing. I I sat next to a guy um in um

Arabic training. So we sat next to each

other 11 and a half months, three people

in the class. So, we became really good

friends. And his dad had been the deputy

director for operations, right? And this

guy, goodlooking guy, totally ripped,

constantly working out. And man, did he

have a knack for Arabic. It was a gift.

And I remember telling my wife at the

time, he is a natural case officer.

Natural. It's going to be incredible. So

I went overseas. He went to the very

next neighboring country

and we went at the same time like on the

same day.

He calls me about 2 months into it. And

um he said, "Any chance you're going to

be in uh in my area in the future?" And

I said, "I wasn't making any plans to

be, but you okay?" He said, "No, I need

somebody to talk to." So that weekend I

flew to the next country and went to his

place and he burst into tears. I I was

shocked by it. His girlfriend was there

and he said, "This job is not for me."

He said, "I can't manipulate people like

this." He said, "I only did it cuz I

thought my dad would be happy for me to

follow in his footsteps." I said, "Man,

you're you were a natural in training."

He said, "I can't do it. I don't have it

in my heart. He ended up resigning from

the CIA and becoming a nurse and he has

been happy ever since. And that was in

like 19

my god 1994.

He hated it. So you have it or you don't

have it. If you have it, you can be

taught how to do it successfully.

Otherwise, I mean it this job really is

not for everybody. And even if you

desperately want to do it,

almost almost nobody makes it through

the training, you know, they'll they'll

push you off and say, "Oh, you should

you should be a special operations

officer," which is just kind of an

assistant, or you should be a targeting

officer, where you just sit with all

this metadata and try to locate

somebody, or you should do this, or you

should do that. But being a case

officer, man, it is hard work. It it

it's it's it's it weighs on you, you

know, manipulating people, convincing

people that not just that you're their

friend, but you're their best friend,

and then really like not even wanting to

be in the same room with them half the

time.

It's hard. Like, it's hard on you

because it it it wears you down. And I

would imagine and you have to be on all

the time.

>> All the time.

>> And I would imagine there's a balance

between like trust and skepticism with

assets. Like they have to trust you, but

you have to be skeptical of them.

>> I think that's absolutely true. I can

give you a couple of examples.

>> Um I handled an asset, an agent, uh whom

I did not recruit. He had been recruited

15, 20 years earlier. And so I inherited

him and he was probably I'm gonna say 40

years older than me. Uh, and I liked him

and he liked me and we both had like

similar taste in art and and he was

always chasing women and

I know and I know a lot about Marxism

and communism. I'm well read in Marxism

and he was a communist and so we would

debate what Markx meant about some

obscure passage, you know, stuff like

that and that was always fun for me. So,

I needed to vet him. You have to

constantly vet your your agents to make

sure that they're doing what they're

telling you they're doing. So, I said to

him, "Listen, when you come to these

meetings, you're doing a surveillance

detection route, right?" He goes, "Of

course I am. I've been doing this for 20

years. I said, "Okay, I just want to

make sure." So, I called a team of Sue,

special operations officers. We we had

them right there in the um in the

station. It was a very large station.

And so, I said, "Can you can you guys

put a team or two teams on him and just

make sure he's doing what he says he's

doing?" And they said, "Sure, because

then I can write it up and send it to

headquarters and say his vetting's good

for another year. No problems." This

guy, he lived in a northern suburb

and the SES called me a couple of times

during the surveillance detection route

and they said, "This guy is awesome.

He he took a cab

from his house

to this, you know, eight lane highway,

got off on the highway. remember he's 70

years old

and ran across the eight lanes,

leaped over the the concrete jersey

barrier, went to the other side of the

highway, and then hailed another cab

going in the opposite direction.

So, he gets to the meeting and I knew

like every minute of his route. He gets

the meeting and I said, "Did you do a

surveillance detection route on the way

to the meeting?" He said, "Yeah, it was

a good one." And uh I said, 'What'd you

do?' And he said, "Just take my word for

it. I took care of things." I said,

'Well, what's that supposed to mean?

Because I need to know if you actually

did it. And then he said, "Yeah." He

said, "I got out of the side of the

highway and I ran across the highway." I

said, "Oh my god, do you know how

provocative that is? If somebody was

actually watching you, they'd say, "What

the [ __ ] is he doing?"

>> And he said, "Nobody was watching me." I

said, "Okay."

Everything he told me was the truth. He

never spotted the surveillance, but he I

mean there's no way you could you could

well I shouldn't I shouldn't say that.

So yeah, he he passed the test. And then

there was there was another guy too. Um

and and this is something getting to

your original point about personality

that you have to that you have to uh be

be

cognizant of.

So, I recruited this guy from scratch.

He had been a member of a bonafide

terrorist group. And when I recruited

him, he said, "I want to come totally

clean." He said, "I I'm the one who

planted the bomb at the City Bank branch

back in, you know, 19 whatever it was."

We had attributed that to the group. Um

because he had a he had a very specific

telltale crimp.

>> What's a crimp?

>> A crimp is is a certain way that you

twist the wires inside a bomb. He had a

very unique way of connecting the wires

and twisting them. So we could tell, in

fact, we had a name for him based on the

style of the crimp.

So, I knew that the guy who had blown up

the City Bank branch also planted the

bomb at the McDonald's, also planted the

bomb at the Interamerican Insurance

Company. I just didn't know his name

until he's sitting in front of me and he

says, "Yeah, I I I'm the one who built

those bombs." And I said, "Show me how

you build the bomb." So, he built one

like right in front of me in the next

meeting. He brought the supplies and uh

and I took it into the office to show

them it's it's the crimp that we've been

wondering for six years who's building

these bombs. It's him. He confessed to

me. So, the reason why he agreed to be

recruited was cuz he really really

needed the money. He had gotten his

girlfriend pregnant. They had a

daughter. He's a bum. He's broke. He's

just a terrorist. You can't make any

money from terrorism.

So um

so I started paying him and I was paying

him pretty handsomely too and he was

giving me good information like

operational information and he wasn't

this terrorist group has sort of fallen

out of fashion and he became involved

with a group of anarchists and what they

wanted to do was just blow [ __ ] up for

no reason other than to you know shout

yay anarchy right

so he calls me one night and it was

late. It was like 11:00

and he did the uh what we call the

protocols. So like he's like I said

hello and I knew it was him cuz I had

this phone that was just for him. It was

a burner and I said hello. He says uh hi

uh the the rain in Spain falls mainly in

the plane. And so I said, "Oh,

Marzy dots and dozy dots and little

lambs eat Ivy." and he laughed and I

laughed and we hung up and that meant

meet me in the parking lot of, you know,

the the jumbo toy store at 2 am.

So, I go down there and he's like, "I'm

I'm desperate. I'm broke." He goes, "My

my daughter's sick. We have these

unexpected medical uh bills." And he has

this paper bag and it's just full of

gold jewelry.

And I said, "What's this?" He said,

"It's all my wife's jewelry." He said,

"Can you buy it from me?" And I go,

"Dude, I'm not a jeweler. I I don't know

what I I I have no idea what this stuff

is worth." He said, "I'm desperate." I

said, "All right, let's meet tomorrow at

midnight behind the church in this

northern suburb."

And so I go into work the next day and I

said, "You know, the the grasshopper

called me in the middle of the night and

tried to sell me his wife's jewelry." He

goes, the station chief says, "Well, how

much does he want?" I said, "He needs

five grand." He goes, "He's been good.

Just give him the five grand. We'll call

it a We'll call it an early Christmas

bonus." So I met him behind the church.

I gave him five grand. He's like, "Oh my

god, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank

you. He signs the receipt and he was

forever indebted to me. He actually

cried when I when I left to return to

headquarters. He's like, "I'm not sure I

can work with anybody else." I said,

"Oh, you're going to be fine. Everybody

else has money that's just as green as

the money that I carry. You're going to

be fine."

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to the show. Was that a was that when

you were in Greece?

>> That was a 17 November guy.

>> Mhm.

>> He was actually a member of 17 November.

>> We were never able to conclusively

identify um uh any members of 17

November but three.

>> Yeah. So he was one of the many many

many peripheral figures that you know

had kind of brushed up against 17

November but never were asked to join

the group. Well, still, man, even if

you're not a card carrying member, he

clearly did quite a bit. He's a bad guy.

>> Yeah. I've never heard you talk about

that one, but um No.

>> Okay. So, you mentioned you mentioned a

couple things that I want to come back

to. The first one, the the guy that ran

the outrageous SDR, that was your

favorite agent, right?

>> Yeah. He was just the sweetest guy. And

you know, when I left the agency,

um I was going back to Greece. I don't

even remember why. I It must have been

vacation or something.

and you're not supposed to do this

because once once you leave, you leave.

You're out. And I thought, "Nah, I just

want to say hello and see how he's

doing." And his son answered the phone.

And so I asked him for his dad. I said,

"I'm a I'm a distant relative from from

America." And he said, "Oh, my my dad

died." And I said, "Oh, you're kidding."

And he said, "Yeah, he died two years

ago." I said, "Damn it. He smoked like a

chimney." He did one right off the

other. It was ridiculous. He said,

"Yeah, yeah, lung cancer got him." Oh,

there there's a hilarious story in the

last interview. If if people want to

check that one out, I recommend they do

and it's timestamped in I believe part

one of that interview, John's favorite

agent, and it's [ __ ] hilarious. But,

um, the reason I wanted to bring it up

is because you talked about him running

an SDR and like running across the

highway. But, so, do you have to maybe

explain to people what an SDR is?

>> Oh, yeah. You're not supposed to.

>> You have to have a plausible reason to

go from A to B. Correct.

>> Exactly. That's the key of an SDR.

SDRs are very, very specific. SDR

standing for surveillance detection

route. They're very specific. So, there

are a couple of terms that you need to

know. Like a red road is a big major

road that has lots of cars. So, if

you're on a red road, you can't possibly

tell if you're under surveillance. But

you and I and everybody else, we drive

on red roads every day, right? Then

there's a black road which is not well

traveled maybe through a neighborhood or

whatever. So

you start at what's called a kickoff

point. It could be your house. It could

be your office. It could be whatever

wherever you happen to be every day. And

you have to make it look like you're

running errands. Ersands that are

totally normal and legit. So, you get in

your car, you get on a red road, and you

drive to the dry cleaners, and you

either pick up or drop off your dry

cleaning. Okay, that's totally normal.

Everybody does that. Then you go from

that first what's called an SDR stop to

the second SDR stop. Now, the second SDR

stop, you're not going to get back on

that red road because you're from the

area. You're familiar with the area. So,

you're going to do a cut through. You're

going to cut through a residential

neighborhood on a black road, and you

see if you drag anybody in with you from

the red road, and then you go to, let's

say, a wine shop because there's this

certain bottle of wine that you're

looking for.

And then you make a note to yourself.

Try not to write it down, but the make,

model, and color of the car, the license

plate, just to see if you see them

later. The definition of surveillance is

multiple sightings at time and distance.

So, you see the car multiple times at

different places. Um, multiple sightings

at time and distance, different times

and different places. Right?

So, you stop at the wine store, you buy

the bottle of wine,

and then you

make what's called a provocative move.

This is what's called, they call it the

provocative phase where you stair step.

You you go a block, make a right, go

another block, make a left, make a

right, make a left, make a right, like

you're going up a set of stairs, right?

So,

normal people don't drive like that.

It's very provocative. If you're under

surveillance, you're going to notice it

then.

And then you stop at, you know, the

Jo-Ann's Fabrics and you buy, you know,

set of buttons or whatever. I don't

know.

And then you to go from stop three to

the meeting location, you do some

driving maneuvers that nobody would do.

You drive halfway down a block, you pull

in somebody's driveway, you pull out,

you make a U-turn, then you pull into

another driveway and make another

U-turn, and you just do all kinds of

crazy [ __ ] that

just in case the surveillance are so

good that you've missed them,

that is going to be where you finally

get them. And then if you have

surveillance, you abort the meeting and

you just drive home and you do the whole

thing again 24 hours later.

That's what surveillance detection is.

>> So it's just it's just if you see it

just more than once if you see the same

car.

>> Mhm.

>> That's the principle. It's more than

once.

>> Yes.

>> So what were like and you became a

surveillance detection instructor at one

point in your career, right?

>> I did.

>> Okay. So if you were either um if you

guys were tailing a trainee or um even

like let's say like a real a real life

opposition force that was tailing you,

right? What were some of the What are

some of the things that they would do um

to stay on your tail? Like switch

plates, disguises, what would they do?

>> Oh, yes and yes. They switch plates,

they switch clothes, um they put on

disguises, they'll put on a mustache,

they'll put on a wig or a different hat

or um some will jump out of the car and

start going on foot. And then maybe you

get out of your car and you go on foot

or you go on a bus or you go on the

subway or in high threat areas, we'll go

into a parking garage and switch cars to

a rental car that's been prepositioned

there by another officer. So it gets

very sophisticated. And then in places

like China, Russia, Cuba,

um

you don't do a two or three hour SDR,

you do an eight hour SDR. Yeah, because

then they're using, you know, infrared

cameras looking for body heat and

they're using helicopters and cuz

they're going to catch the guy that

you're trying to meet and they're going

to execute him. So, you have to really

make sure that you're not being

followed.

Another example is once you leave the

red road,

um I I worked with a guy who got a

little bit lazy. He was a good officer,

but he but he got lazy. So, he starts

off at the embassy, which is in the

center of town, and he takes a red road

far north, and he goes to um to a

restaurant. There was like a TGI Friday

up there or something. Disgusting place.

And he stops and has a sandwich. Okay,

that's a legit stop. I wouldn't use it,

but it it's a legit stop. And then he

drives all the way back downtown again.

Okay, you're caught. You're caught. Cuz

nobody would drive an hour to go to a

TGI Friday in Hburg. Nobody. Right. And

then even if you even if you were under

surveillance and knew it, you wouldn't

be able to spot their surveillance going

back into the center of town because

it's another red road. It never made

sense to me. And sure enough,

headquarters dinged him. You have to

write a whenever you meet with a source,

you have to write three separate cables

at least. You have to write a cable that

has the intelligence that he gave you

that you need to have disseminated to

the analysts. You need to write an

accompanying operational cable with all

of the stuff that the analysts don't

have a need to know, but that your desk

officer needs to know. Like, ah, he

asked me for more money. Oh, he's

depressed because his wife left him. Oh,

he just got promoted. Whatever. the

analyst doesn't have a need to know for

any of that stuff. So th those two

cables and then you have to write a very

detailed cable on your surveillance

detection route and that goes to counter

intelligence

and then CI will look at it and say oh

this this is this is bad. He went all

the way up to TGI Friday and then came

all the way back down again and sure

enough they dinged him and they said

don't do that again. if you were being

followed, you just blew everything.

>> This question is like kind of an aside,

but you mentioned uh before trying to

vet what an asset says to make sure that

they they are doing exactly as they say

and of course that the information that

they're giving you is true, if that's

the case. But is there operations

officers that lie about the intelligence

that they get to build a career for

themselves? Oh my god, we spent so much

time on that in in training. The the

answer is yes. Unfortunately,

um that leads to a very quick firing.

Um there are two things that case

officers

there are three things that case

officers sometimes

are caught doing. Sometimes you will

work for a total [ __ ]

who says everybody needs to get five

pieces of finished intelligence or you

don't meet um threshold.

Okay. Well, some months I'm going to get

like 10 or 12. And some months I'm

cultivating new agents and I'm not going

to get any. And they're not saying you

need to average five a month. You need

five a month.

So, what that does is it encourages

people to just make the [ __ ] up and

write it up as intelligence. Maybe

they'll pull it out of some obscure

newspaper,

which happens. Or

you have a meeting with an agent, he

gives you a a a an amazing plethora of

intelligence reports, and you just keep

five in reserve for next month. If it's

not too terribly time-sensitive, you

give them the five that they need right

now, you save the next five for next

month. That's intellectually dishonest.

And another one that people get caught

doing, and this is something I never

ever understood.

Depending on the station chief, you're

allowed to spend like up to five bucks

at a at a cover stop, an SDR cover stop,

all the way up to 20 bucks at each cover

stop. It just depends on who happens to

be the chief.

Well, sometimes people will make up

receipts or they'll save receipts and

then just put the money in their

pockets. So, what would possess you to

try to steal $20 from the CIA? Is that

really Is it worth being fired to steal

$20 from the CIA? I just never

understood it.

>> Well, does that say something about the

personality type? that's recruited for

case officers.

>> Yes.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

You know, we got

I I was in one assignment and and there

was some big like senior senior enemy

leader coming.

We heard he was staying in this hotel.

It was like a boutique hotel. and had a

bar in the in the lobby and he was

bringing this giant contingent of

intelligence officers with him to

protect him. So

our boss said,

you know, if if you want to try to get

in on this, you should go to the bar

because we heard that these guys are

hanging out at the bar.

I'm like, I really don't want to go.

It's not my area of expertise. I don't

speak the language. I don't really care

about this country.

And um and my wife, who was also a CIA

officer, said, "Nah, you really should

go. You know how they are. If you don't

go, they're going to criticize you." So,

I go. The bar was smaller than I

expected it to be. But literally every

seat was taken by a CIA officer.

I was just like, "You guys." I turned

around and walked out. And then the next

day they were all bitching because the

station chief after the fact had found

some obscure

rule that unless you are conducting an

operational meeting,

they won't pay for alcohol.

So people are ordering these $20, you

know,

espresso martinis,

multiple espresso martinis, and

everybody's out of pocket $100 because

that wasn't an operational meeting.

You're just hoping that somebody from

that delegation happens to walk in to

the bar and sit and order a drink and

then you, you know, you all beat each

other up to see who can strike up a

conversation with a guy. Oh man, I was

so glad I didn't stay.

bunch of bums.

>> To be fair, they did tell you to go to

the bar.

>> They did. It was bad leadership is what

it was.

>> And something else you mentioned uh when

you were talking about you used the

example of like running an SDR in China,

like an 8 hour SDR with infrared

cameras. And

>> it just got me thinking like you me you

mentioned this very briefly. We kind of

ran out of time in our last interview

where you said something along the lines

of like, you know, gone are the days of

just being able to cross borders and

alias and do a brush pass because

>> oh my god with with facial recognition

software and AI. I actually posed this

question to a current CIA officer. I

said, "How do you guys cross borders?

How do you get through airports like in

different in different uh names?" And he

said, "We don't know yet."

still struggling. Yeah, the technology

is developing so quickly, they just

can't keep up with it.

>> So, man, that that a lot of things are

run through my head right now, but uh

something I just thought of, I heard

from one of the science of technology

people that gave an interview that the

agency is involved in or dabbling in VR

and AR type stuff.

>> Oh, yeah. She didn't want to. She didn't

say what, but what would you like what

would you imagine that that's about?

>> Oh man. Um, I don't know because I've

been out a long time, but I will tell

you that the DS&T, the sorry, the the

Directorate of Science and Technology,

which is one of the four directorates at

the CIA

when I was there was almost an

afterthought because mostly what it was

responsible for was disguises

and um, you know, briefcases with secret

pockets in them and you know, supporting

operations. Now they are so

sophisticated and so far advanced

working with the likes of Palunteer

and Elon Musk's different companies and

AWS and all these like cutting edge you

know Nvidia all these cutting edge tech

companies they are so far advanced that

instead of doing the silly concealment

devices and disguises is they just pawn

that off to you know to you know

individuals or or makeup companies and

and and they do the big ticket items.

Now I would say what the DS&T is doing

with things like virtual reality are

closer now to what DARPA is doing on

futuristic tech than what they ever did

in the past at the CIA.

So, what would you say as an example?

Like, what would a big ticket item be in

that case?

Man, I you know what? I I couldn't even

venture to say it. I I don't even know.

It's become so sophisticated. I sat next

to a guy for years, awesome guy,

terrific analyst, and he always had a

thing for tech. We used to joke about it

cuz we were all young. We were all in

our 20s. were all techsavvy. Now he's

the CIA's chief technical officer, SIS4.

He could be the director if the

president wanted him to be. And I

remember saying to a buddy of mine when

when our friend was promoted, I was

like, man, he really made it like to the

very top. And my friend said it was it

was the tech, you know, he I'll I'll

tell you what he did just as a favor on

his day off. Um, he made a computer

program

to allow our

Middle East analysts

to make family trees of the royal

families in the countries that they

cover, right? No such software existed.

There was no such thing as, you know,

familytree maker or genealogy.com. There

was no such thing as.com. I We're

talking about pre- internet days. and he

took three days off on his own time and

made this program, this software that

everybody in the office used. And I was

like, "Wow, he really knows a lot about

tech, huh?" And then two or three years

later, they invented the internet or

they didn't invent it then, but they

they released the internet to the

general public and he just jumped right

in and really really made something out

of himself. So, he's in charge of all

this stuff now. Yeah.

>> Did you ever have an experience with

DARPA?

>> Never. I was never cleared to even know

what it was they were doing over there.

They're so far advanced,

>> right? And that's what they say. They

say uh they say DARPA's

20 years ahead of what we can see.

>> Mhm.

>> And so I would think that

is the agency.

>> Yeah.

One of the things I learned early on at

the agency though is that it is far

cheaper and far easier to just buy

something that's already been invented

than it is to develop it from scratch.

That was before 9/11. Post 911, money is

not an issue at all. And so DARPA is

doing it. NSA's doing it. CIA's doing

it. And then they're with within QEL,

they're financing it uh in the public

sector. I'm sorry, in the private

sector.

So, the sky's is the limit, man. It

really is. And I can't even imagine the

Russians spending that kind of money on

tech. Maybe the Chinese do. I don't

know. They've got the money. But since

911, we've gone we've gone whole hog in

tech development.

>> Chinese could always just steal it from

us, I guess.

>> They steal it from us. Yeah, just like

the Israelis do.

>> We'll talk about that. We'll talk about

Oh, we'll talk about the MSAD, don't

worry. Um,

>> Incitel is the the it's openly the CIA's

venture capital firm, right?

>> Correct.

>> Yeah.

in their I want to say invest they

invested in Palunteer or

>> they gave Palunteer their first it was

like a million and a half to get off the

ground very first investment and now

look at Palanteer just this year for the

first time they have more than a billion

dollars in revenue so it's it's a

success story

>> so Palunteer does commercial stuff now

too it's not just um DoD and government

contracts

>> it's a standalone profitable tech

anybody,

>> right? So, they're selling to civilians,

so to speak. But, um, I remember when I

remember hearing when Palanteer first

came out that people at the agency

didn't like it at all

>> and maybe they gave him a trial run or

something and they were like, "Fuck

this. We don't want to use this." Do

they use it now, you think?

>> Yeah.

>> What is it? What would they use it for?

>> Oh, all kinds of stuff. Mostly mo Well,

you know what? I probably shouldn't say.

I probably shouldn't say.

>> Would it be along the lines of

targeting?

>> Yes.

>> Yes. You know, this this metadata has to

come from somewhere, right? So, like

with Aviseda, and remember, Aviseda was

23

years ago

where we're just laying out papers on

the ground and trying to connect the

dots. It's way more sophisticated now.

You can't get away now. You just can't

get away. So

rather than have analysts pouring over

this stuff and you just hoping that your

analysts are really, really smart,

AI does it all. They do all of it.

And it makes it much easier. That's why,

you know, that's why in the Obama

administration, John Brennan had the

Tuesday morning kill list meetings.

because the tech got sophisticated

enough that you could just write up a

list of people that you want to kill

that week and you dish out the

assignments. The teams go out, they kill

everybody that's on the list and then

they meet next Tuesday and get that kill

list and you just do it week after week.

Well, if you're not having to devote

armies of targeting analysts uh to to

finding these guys, if if your computers

can find them just based on their, you

know, email messaging, text messaging,

whatever, metadata

there, your job's easy. You just fire a

missile from the drone, or you drop a

guy in that does a close-in shot, and

then you get back on the helicopter and

fly home.

I hate to sound cynical like that, but

that's just the way it is.

>> I think that's uh just calling it how it

is.

What uh what year or years was that was

Brandon doing that Tuesday morning kill

list?

>> He started in '09 and kept it going. I

have no idea if Donald Trump kept it or

Joe Biden kept it or revived it, but it

was something that they were very proud

of in the Obama administration. They

were just going out whacking everybody.

>> Yeah. Well, nobody nobody dropped more

missiles from drones than Obama did.

>> No, nobody. Nobody. And you know,

somebody said I I naively said, you

know, the oversight committees need to

be on this. And then a friend of mine

said

to say what in their re-election

campaigns. We need to kill fewer

terrorists.

If I'm reelected, we'll

be a good one.

>> America in the 21st century.

>> And you and uh you and John Brennan are

not the biggest fans of each other,

right?

>> No, sir. Why not?

>> John and I have always hated each other.

I never liked him. I never trusted him.

I believe that he is the archetypal

sociopath.

Somebody just by dent of his sociopathy

has been able to rise to the top.

Yeah.

And we go back to 1990. I mean, I've

known John for what, what is that now?

35 years. Never liked him, never trusted

him, never respected him, but he had a

rabbi in George Tennant. And uh and the

next thing you know, he's at the top of

the heap. It was John Brennan who

literally put me in prison.

John had a

John had a Nixonian obsession with

national security leaks except when he

was the one doing the leaking

and now it's come back to bite him in

the ass. Uh and we can get into that if

you want but but

after I blew the whistle on the torture

program um and John became the deputy

national security adviser for

counterterrorism in Obama's first term.

He went on to be CIA director in the

second term. John asked the Justice

Department to secretly reopen the case

against me. The Bush administration said

I had not committed a crime. They closed

the case. I had no idea that my phones

were tapped. My emails were intercepted.

FBI guys following me everywhere. And

then John wrote a memo to Eric Holder,

who was the attorney general at the

time, and he said, "Charge him with

espionage."

And Holder wrote back and said, "My

people don't think he committed

espionage."

And then Brennan wrote back and said,

"Charge him anyway and make him defend

himself." So they arrested me, charged

me with five felonies, three counts of

espionage, waited until I went bankrupt,

and then dropped the espionage charges.

So I ended up taking a plea to a a

lesser charge. I did 23 months in

prison. And um and it was because I had

revealed the CIA's dirty laundry and

this illegal, immoral torture program.

And now it's John's turn to be on the

hot seat. John and all his cronies like

Jim Clapper and Jim Comey and Hillary

Clinton

and all these other ones who thought

they were untouchable.

Now they're going to have to answer for

their actions.

So before we come back to that, uh I

think it was in 2005,

Brennan was appointed CEO of a company

called the analysis corporation.

>> Mhm.

>> Wasn't this the company that was stood

up for senior intelligence service

officers to use as like a tax pass

through before they went to [ __ ]

>> It was one of two. Um the analysis

company was one it was based in uh in

Arlington Virginia and the other was

called um Araus Corporation. It's funny

because the analysis company was where

all the SIS senior intelligence service

level analysts would go, the retired

analysts and Arais was where the retired

ops guys would go and they were

legitimately set up just as LLC

passroughs, right? So people could go

and smoke cigars and drink coffee and

tell stories with their friends and hang

out all day and then lo and behold they

started making money after 9/11. Arais

was bought by I think it was IBM for

well over a billion dollars. All these

guys got not just rich but they got like

you know megaillions lotto kind of rich

and then

and then the the analysis company. It's

funny you know everybody

It seems like everybody who's left the

director of intelligence has tried to do

private intelligence either as a

singleton or working for one of these

these companies and it never succeeds,

right? Because pretty much anybody can

do analysis if you're an expert enough

in in a in a topic. So why would you pay

millions of dollars for these CIA

cronies to to write you a paper when you

can just hire some professor and give

him five grand and he can do it for you.

He's as much an expert as they are cuz

they don't have access to classified

information anymore. And even if they

did, they couldn't give it to you.

So it didn't work. He was also on the

board of was like BAE Systems and there

were a couple of Beltway Bandits and

Defense Contractors,

you know, 60,000 here, 100,000 there and

you put together a pretty good living.

>> Mhm.

>> So, can you explain to people what

private intelligence is?

>> Oh, sure. I actually did it for for

several years. Um,

private intelligence really is is what

it sounds like. You're doing exactly

what you did at the CIA, whether it's

analysis or operations. You're just not

using classified information to do it.

And I'll give you an example. Um, I got

a call from a criate billionaire one

time and he said that

he had one daughter, just one daughter,

who was going to inherit all of his

wealth and she was engaged to this bum,

this Greek criate guy who lived in

London.

And he said, "I don't like this guy. I

don't want this guy anywhere near my

money or my daughter, and I need for you

to find out as much about him as you

possibly can. And I said, "Okay, so uh

what's my budget?" And he gave me a

number. I flew to Cyprus. I I bribed a

police captain,

uh to to give me all the secret police

files.

I flew to London. I did surveillance on

this guy's building.

And finally, it took me about six weeks

of of working full-time. And I I got

back to the billionaire and I said,

"Yeah, he's a bum and he's cheating on

her." So I said, "First of all, he's

been stealing money from her." And he

used the money to buy some warehouse in

London. And I had satellite pictures of

it from Google Earth or Google. Yeah.

Earth. And uh I said he's gone in with

with some partners. There's like an

Armenian guy and a Turkish guy. And they

all went in. They're losing money, but

they used your money, I said, to buy the

place. He told your daughter it was for

something else. And then he just took

the money and bought this warehouse. So

that money's gone. He's trying to buy a

mansion in London because he thinks as

soon as he gets married, he's going to

live happily ever after. It's all about

the money. And I said, "And besides

that, he has multiple drug arrests."

He's like, "What?" And I said, "Yeah, it

was smuggling." He was smuggling drugs

from Israel into Cyprus. He got caught,

got arrested, paid off some judge, so he

was never prosecuted. Um, the Brits

think that he's smuggling drugs there.

So the old man went to his daughter and

he he told her, "You're being scammed."

So that's operationally private

intelligence.

Private analysis is different. It's

actually a lot more fun. So I went into

business for myself

in the years between when I left the

Loiton or the year and a half between

when I left the LO initution, I went to

the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

and then I picked it up again when I

left the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee. So, one of my big I I had

three big clients. I had the ninth

largest mutual um sorry, the ninth

largest um hedge fund in the world. I

had a mutual fund and I had the largest

mining company in the world. And then I

did I did a contract for an oil company

as well. So, they would ask very very

specific questions. Who's going to win

the Romanian municipal elections in

September? I'm like,

I don't know anything about Romania. So,

where do you go? You go to LinkedIn,

right? I'm Orthodox

and everybody in Romania is Orthodox.

So, I send connection requests to every

everybody who looks interesting who

happens to be Orthodox in Romania. It's

like 60 people. and I say, "Hey, I got

this question. You know, one guy gave me

private polling data." So, I said to the

client, and I said, "It would help me in

the in the analysis. It would help me if

I knew why you cared who is going to win

the municipal election." And they said,

"Sure.

We're thinking of buying a silver mine.

And the silver mine is underneath a

village. And to mine the silver, we have

to destroy the whole village.

So if the socialists win, they're not

going to let us do it.

>> And if the conservatives win, they'll

just relocate everybody and we'll just

destroy the thing and take the silver.

And I said, "Well, the polls say the

conservatives are going to win." And so

they bought the mine at the pre-election

price. The conservatives win. They move

everybody out of the village. The

company destroys the village and takes

out billions of dollars worth of silver.

Another one was this one was kind of

funny.

Ayay, this company, they buy an oil

field

um or they they didn't buy it, they

lease an oil field, but they lease it

for like 99 years in Oman, and it's

right on the border with Yemen.

And none of them had any idea at the

time that al-Qaeda controls the border

of Oman and Yemen and you're not going

to be able to get anywhere near that

oil, not within 50 miles of it. So they

they wanted to know

um if the Omanis if they approached the

Omanis and offered to pay for the Omani

military to force al-Qaeda out, would

the Omanis do it or should they just

walk away from this oil lease? So, I

went to Oman. I talked to the minister

of oil and the deputy minister of oil. I

talked to the deputy uh intelligence

service director and I I kind of knew

all these guys like we had met. We

weren't like buddies or anything, but we

had met. So, when I asked for the

appointment through the Omani embassy,

they said yes, yes, come and come and

you know, we'll have a conversation. So,

I went back to the company and I said I

said, "They're going to gouge you, but

they'll push al-Qaeda out of your oil

field." And so, they were able to drill

for the oil. That's what private

intelligence is.

>> So, when you tell stories in that

context, it just it it makes it seem

like you're not makes it seem you're

like a high-speed private investigator.

>> That's really what it comes down to.

Yes.

>> Are you familiar with Black Cube?

>> No. Nope. don't know that one.

>> They're uh

they're a private intelligence firm that

is staffed by uh they're an Israeli

private intelligence firm that is all

exad guys. Um

>> and they allegedly

>> uh I think David Boy is the head

attorney on the Epstein.

>> Oh, sure.

>> Allegedly David Boy used it on someone.

See, and the Israelis have no

compunction at all about violating any

law that gets in their way. And then

they say, "What are you going to do

about it?"

>> Yeah. Uh, we'll get there in a second

because I want to I want to ask you, so

you mentioned um private intelligence.

You're not using classified information

to do it is what you said,

>> right?

>> Um, but what about what about when the

agency

works with private intelligence firms?

because I I read um Leon Petta's book

who was CIA director in the Obama

administration as well as Secretary of

Defense,

>> but he he mentioned um he starts talking

about he's like one of the first things

I did was shut down this program that

was I forget how he described it either

controversial or unnecessary or

something like that, but he gave no

detail and I was like what the hell is

he talking about?

>> So I look it up and it was the it was a

Blackwater assassination program to go

after targets globally. And long story

short, he ended up outing Eric Prince to

uh the House Intelligence Committee by

name. Eric Prince was operating I guess

as a knock or had a 2011 file.

>> That's why Eric Prince lives in Dubai

now and not in the United States.

>> So I guess my my question to you then is

like I had no idea and also Blackwater

was involved in stealing secrets.

>> Like they had a network of spies. When

you think about Blackwater, you think

about boots on the ground, military

contracts. people know that they ran the

GRS program for CIA, but like what how

how did how would a CIA how would the

CIA work with a contractor like that?

The first thing you do is the contractor

appoints all former CIA people to its

board of directors and then you make the

former head of the counterterrorism

center, Kofheer Black, your vice

president. And then you hire all of

Kofheer's buddies to be the head of your

different divisions. So,

is it CIA? Not really. It's quasi CIA.

Everybody's from the CIA. Everybody's

getting rich, right? Because remember,

post 911, money was literally not an

issue. I I told you in our last

conversation that uh I don't know, four,

five, six days after 9/11, I went up to

Kofheer Black again, the head of the

CIA's counterterrorism center, and I

said, "Keofheer, I have an idea for an

operation I wanted to pass by you." and

he put up his hands and he says,

"Whatever it is, just do it. I have so

much money I can't possibly spend it

all." And so I did it. So, you know,

when when Eric Prince goes to the CIA

and says, "Yeah, I'll do all these

things for you. We've got assassination

squads. We've got interceptors. We've

got boots on the ground. We'll do

anything you want. I want a billion a

half dollars." And then the CIA wires it

the next day. Then you can do whatever

you want. But the thing is is how do you

control people who don't actually work

for you? You can't. And you risk them

going rogue, which of course they do

because it's their nature. If you're

being if you're being contracted to run

an assassination program,

you're going to go out there and

assassinate people. Well, everybody's

human and you make mistakes and you

convince yourself that, you know, Ahmed

Schmmed is a really bad guy. And

actually, nah, it's a cousin with a

similar name, but you just put a bullet

in this guy's head. Okay, you write a

check for 100 grand to his widow and

just move on. And that's not cool. It's

a It's a crime. You can't just go around

murdering people because you think they

might be a bad guy. And so, Panetta, I

never really liked Petta just cuz he's

not a nice guy, but um but Panetta was

right to shut that down.

Okay. So, um,

what are the what are the legalities

then of a

Blackwater team going out to hit

somebody as if a ground branch team

would? It's is it like I think Title 10,

Title 50,

>> right?

>> One's military, one's CIA. I can't

remember which was which.

>> Actually, the Ninth Circuit Court of

Appeals just ruled on this, I'm going to

say 3 weeks ago, four weeks ago. Um

because that's that's a legitimate legal

question that you're asking. What it

what are the legalities? It's never been

tried before, right? Like the CIA has

permission through the amended version

of Executive Order 1233

to kill anybody in the world who poses a

clear and present danger to the United

States. Okay?

And the CIA is going to decide who's the

clear and present danger. And they're

not going to tell you because you're not

cleared, right? I'm not cleared.

We're just gonna have to take their word

for it. But they have the legal

authority to kill people through 1233.

Then they hire these contractors like,

well, we have GRS, we have we have

ground branch and marine branch and air

branch, and we have all these these

teams that are out there killing,

kidnapping, blowing up, you know,

whatever.

but they're not agency personnel.

They just work for these private

companies like Blackwater.

So, is that legal?

And the the Ninth Circuit Court of

Appeals said yes, it's legal. So long as

they have a written contract, they are

acting on behalf of the CIA and the CIA

has presidential authority to carry out

these operations.

Mhm.

That was just decided. And actually, I

got a call from one of the attorneys in

the case and he said, "I have no idea

why nobody in the media gives a [ __ ]

about this decision." And so I I told

him I would write something, but there's

nothing out there. Nobody paid any

attention to this decision.

And it it the reason I paid attention

was because um it was Abu Zuba who was

the plaintiff in the case. Abu Zubeda

said, "These guys tortured me and I want

to sue them.

And the court was like, "Yeah, sorry.

You got tortured, but they were acting

on behalf of the CIA." And the CIA was

legally permitted to torture people, so

you're [ __ ] out of luck.

Oh, wow. Uh, okay. There's a lot of

places to go there. Uh, first of you,

you you you mentioned that you went to

Kofheer with an idea for an operation.

Can you say what that was?

>> It was dumb. um

our our orders after 9/11. I mean, in in

the days after 9/11, literally everybody

was working on al-Qaeda. Everybody in

the counterterrorism center, I'm talking

thousands and thousands of people. And

then once we got our bearings, I'm going

to say

a couple of weeks after 9/11, we got our

bearings and

authorities were divided up. I went back

to my home base which was you know 17

November. And so our standing orders

from the White House were to destroy

every terrorist group in the world that

meant Americans harm. And so we started

going back through, you know, 35 year

old files looking for leads. And I found

a couple in the unlikeliest places like

Switzerland

and Milan.

You know, terrorists get old and retire,

too. As crazy as it sounds. I told you

the story about Bruno, the Sasha Baron

Cohen film. People get old and they're

like, I'm tired of this terrorism stuff.

I'm just going to retire.

>> You didn't tell the story about Bruno.

You told the story. What what I thought

of is when you went to that old man who

had who was working in a bank at the

time. He was the one that witnessed the

murder. But you didn't tell the story

about uh Bruno.

>> I didn't.

>> I don't think so.

>> I got a call from Sasha Baron Cohen one

night

>> and he says, "Hey, I don't know if you

know my characters, but I said, oh

yeah." I said, "Listen, Borat." I said,

"I almost pissed myself in. It's still

the funniest movie I've ever seen in my

life." So he said, "Well, I've got this

character Bruno." I said, "Yeah, yeah,

the the gay Austrian fashion

correspondent." He said, "Yeah." So, he

made me sign a non-disclosure agreement

and um he said literally nobody's in on

the gag except

um Pam Anderson. Literally no one else

in the film was in on the gag. Well,

except

uh

that was in Borat except Borat's

assistant. So anyway, um he said, "We

can't let anybody know that it's me and

that I'm in character." And I said,

"Okay, so what can I do for you?" And he

said, "We're going to go to the Middle

East.

I want to get in front of bonafide

terrorists." He said, "I'm thinking

Hezbollah

or Al-Qaeda, and I want to show them

Polaroids of men having anal sex, like

hardcore anal sex,

and I want to ask them if this is a form

of torture, and should these men be sent

to Guantanamo?"

>> Oh my god.

So, I said, I go, "Oh,

that's a that's a bad idea."

Yeah. And I said, 'You know, just as a

general rule, you really shouldn't mess

with the religious types. I go, they'll

kill you. They'll kill your crew.

They'll go out onto the street and kill

people who remind them of you.

And he said, "Well, I've got to make it

totally believable."

So,

so we met a couple of days later, and I

said, "I have an idea.

Well, before that, he said he wanted to

he wanted to film it in Syria. And I go,

"Yeah, that's that's not a good idea

either." And um I said, "I know I know

the Libyan ambassador in Washington, and

the Libyans are trying really hard."

This is a year before Gaddafi was

killed. I said, "The Libyans are trying

really hard to sort of, you know,

integrate and get with the program with

the West." and they're always asking if

we know of any films that might want to

film in in Libya. He said, "Can't do

it." He said, "As a Jew," he said, "I

just I would fear for my safety in

Libya. I can't do it."

And I said, "Well,"

I said, "Syria really we shouldn't mess

with, and Lebanon you can't do." I said,

"We could do Morocco. That's easy. There

are all kinds of films in Morocco or

even Algeria." And he's like, "No, I I

kind of have my heart set on on Syria."

And I said, 'Well, I know the Syrian

ambassador, so let me just raise it kind

of off the record and see what his

reaction is. He goes, "No, no. There's a

Syrian consulate in Newport Beach, and

I'm going to go down there next week." I

I go, "No, no. Let me do what you're

paying me to do, and I'll take care of

it."

Couple nights later, I'm laying in bed.

I'm reading a book. It's late, like

11:30, and the phone rings and I look, I

said to my wife, "It's Sasha Baron Cohen

at 11:30 at night." So I said, "Sasha,

how are you?" And he says with that

thick British accent he has, he goes, "I

think I [ __ ] up, mate."

And I said, "Oh, don't tell me you went

to that Syrian consulate." He goes,

"Yeah, he went to the Syrian consulate."

He goes in the the first door. He goes,

the consular officer sees him, comes out

from behind the bulletproof glass and

says, "I know who you are. I know what

you do, and you are not welcome in

Syria." I said, "Damn it." Okay. I said,

"We have to figure something else out."

So then I went to meet with him. So I

said, when I got there, I have an idea.

I said, 'I think strongly that we should

stay away from the religious types, but

there are bonafide terrorists,

almost all of whom are in Damascus, who

have retired, Popular Front for the

Liberation of Palestine, PFLP, General

Command, Democratic Front for the

Liberation of Palestine, Abu Nidal

organization. I said, "These guys were

bad guys." Like hijacking airplanes and

blowing up airplanes and shooting up

airports and working with Carlos the

Jackal. I mean, these were bad guys.

And he said, "Well, how do you get a get

a hold of them?" And I said,

"I'm going to guess that they're listed

in the Damascus Telephone Book."

So, I went to the Library of Congress.

Of course, the Damascus telephone book

is in Arabic. I go to the Library of

Congress. They have a copy of the

Damascus telephone book. And I find four

of these guys. They're all like in their

70s and they don't do anything anymore.

They just they're just retired. They

drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and

pass the day. So I called them

and I said, "We're doing a documentary

about the Middle East peace process and

about the role of, you know, freedom

fighters and activists." And I made all

this [ __ ] up and they said, "Yeah, that

they would be interested in appearing in

a documentary like that." So I called

Sasha and I said, "Bingo, we got four of

them." And he said, "Okay, well now we

have to find a place to film." He said,

"How about Aman?" I said, "Aman's a

great idea, but I said, 'The Jordanian

intelligence service is one of the best

in the world, and they're going to be on

you like white on rice, so we have to

bring the Jordanians in on the gag." He

said, "Absolutely not. The Jordanians

can't know that it's him and that it's a

comedy. They have to believe that this

is a legitimate documentary being done

by an Austrian journalist." I said,

"Man, this is a bad idea." I said,

"Sasha, look at it this way.

If the Jordanian intelligence service

sees four bonafide terrorists

all flying to Aman on the same day to go

to your hotel room, you're done." And he

said, "I'm going to have to risk it.

Nobody can be in on the gag."

So he and a cameraman flew to Aman the

day before I did and

he told me the next day when I arrived

they land and they get off the plane and

they're walking out like to get a cab

and there's a guy standing there with a

sign and it says Sasha Baron Cohen and

and so he says I'm Sasha Baron Cohen and

the guy says oh the car is waiting for

you. So he goes out and there's this

limo and they get in the car and he says

to the cameraman, "John got us a limo."

I'm not a freaking secretary. I didn't

get him a limo.

So

they're driving through Aman. And he

said it occurred to him that maybe John

didn't get him a limo. So he says to the

driver, "Where are we going?" And the

driver says, "The Royal Palace, his

majesty is a huge fan." And he said,

"These enormous iron gates open up and

they pull into the royal palace

grounds." And here's the king. And he's

standing with the director of the

Jordanian Intelligence Service. So he

gets out of the car and the king says,

"Sasha Baron Cohen, I am your biggest

fan." He said, "Borat,

genius. I didn't think I could make it

through. He said, "Anything that you

need while you're in Jordan,

you talk to this man. He's the head of

the Jordanian Intelligence Service.

He'll take care of anything you want."

And I said, "I told you you hadn't even

landed in the country and they knew that

you were doing this. That's how good

they are." So they were blown. The cover

was blown. Then they go to the hotel.

So,

the plan was

to get these guys into a room,

show them the Polaroids,

and he wanted them to lunge across the

table to strangle him, to beat him.

So, I'm sitting behind the camera.

He's at the table interviewing these

guys

and he's very effeminite in this

character. So he pulls out the the

polaroids and again these are like

hardcore gay, you know, anal

polaroids and he lays them out and uh he

says, "Is this torture? The these men,

they're torturing each other. Should

they be sent to Guantanamo?" And these

guys are old, so they're like they have

their their tri focals on and they're

like one of them picks it up and he goes

like this. He goes,

"Oh, not good. This haram, not good."

And the other one, he hands it the other

one. Oh, no, no, no. This not good. and

they just set it down

and they just look at him like, "Damn

it, nothing's happening."

So, I'm waiting and the cameraman told

me beforehand, "If they react and they

lunge at him, don't move cuz we want the

fight on camera." And then they're like,

you know, looking around, light up

another cigarette. He brings out more

pictures. They were like,

"This not Islam, not good."

And then that was it.

So, we finished the scene and the guys

leave. He paid them, I think he gave

them like a $100 each. And um and I

said, "Well, that was a bust." And he

goes, "Yeah, they didn't they didn't

give a shit." I said, "No, cut the

entire Jordan part out of the movie, the

entire thing." And then, ironically,

they went to Jerusalem. I flew home. It

was in Jerusalem

that Yeshiva students beat the [ __ ] out

of him. And it was the only time in

filming that he dropped character. He

went to the to the Western Wall, you

know, like the holiest site in all of

Judaism,

and he was wearing a leather vest with

no shirt, and he's hairy like a gorilla,

right? So, he's got this leather vest

with no shirt. He has pink hot pants,

like ladies hot pants and leather boots

that come up over his knee. And he goes

to the Western Wall like this. And this

rabbi saw him and then the yeshiva

students were just on him. They beat the

[ __ ] out of him. He had black eyes. His

face was swollen. They had to stop

filming for a week for the for the

swelling to go down. And he's on the

ground. They're kicking him. They're

stomping him. And he he was saying, "I'm

an actor. I'm an actor. It's just a

joke. We're filming a movie." They

didn't care. They didn't care if it was

a joke. And he was an actor. No. You

mess around in certain parts of the

world. And

>> it was daring and gutsy. And I've said

in in previous interviews, I concluded

that the guy was a genius. And I don't

use the term lightly. He was a genius. A

comic genius. First of all, who would

think of something like this? Even if it

didn't work in Jordan, who would even

think of something like this? And then,

you know, you go back to Borat and it

really holds its comedy. It really who

would think to do that

where there are governments issuing

condemnations

of of a movie.

You know, he's driving past the

the embassy of Usbekistan. He's like,

"Fuck you, Beckistan." And they take out

a full page ad in the Washington

Washington Post. They say, "We condemn

this film. We're proud people of

Usbekistan." Come on, genius.

>> You can't not laugh.

>> No way.

>> So, what makes the Jordanians so good?

>> Uh, the ne the necessity to survive.

Fully 50% of the population of Jordan is

Palestinian. They are Palestinian

refugees and the descendants of

refugees. And we know that because if

you're Jordanian, your passport is

green. And if you're Palestinian, your

passport is black. And never the two

shall meet. So in 1968,

there was a Palestinian uh terrorist

group called Black September. And their

goal was to overthrow the Jordanian

monarchy and make Jordan the new

Palestine.

They were fighting literally on the

steps of the palace.

That's how close they got. And the

Jordanians were able to beat them back.

And the Jordanians don't want any more

trouble. And so

they had to develop

arguably the best or second best

intelligence service in the Middle East

just to protect themselves.

We train them, Mossad trains them, the

Saudis train them. And I mean they're

they're great. Truly great.

Yeah.

>> Is there anything that stands out that

they're really good at as far as like

are they really good at ops or analysis

or are they just wellrounded?

>> Ops. They don't even so much care about

the analysis. It's all about ops. You

know, look at it this way. They've got

they've got all these factions, all

these Palestinian factions on top of

having the the PA, the Palestinian

Authority, and Hamas with

representatives there and every other

Palestinian group with representatives

there, you know, the Kudz force and, you

know, this one and that one and Islamic

Jihad and everybody's there. and they

have to allow a simmer

because everybody's going to be bitching

about the Israelis,

but they can't let that simmer turn into

a boil that actually presents a threat

to their own stability. So, it's a

constant balancing act. And the only way

that you're able to pull off a balancing

act like that is to infiltrate every one

of these groups.

And then you really need the economy to

be good enough

so that

hungry people don't get angry.

>> Interesting. Did you ever Does the CIA

do joint ops with the Jordanians?

>> That's that's a question that I'm not

permitted to answer.

I will say I was at a facility once

a facility once with the Jordanians and

um

it was in a very very rural area of the

United States and uh I'm standing with

there was a captain from the Jordanian

intelligence service and a and a deer

walked by and he says to me gazelle is

that a gazelle

and and the funny thing is they only

have gazels in in the Middle East. So

any kind of deer is a gazelle in Arabic.

So I said, "Yeah, it's a it's a

gazelle." I said, "We have millions of

them here. Too many." He says, "Uh,

it's tasty."

I said, "Oh, yeah. Makes a nice makes a

nice stew." So I mentioned to the to the

lead guy, I said, "I I think maybe we

should shoot one of these deer."

I said, "I think these I think the the

Jordanians want to want to eat one." And

he goes, "Cool." Five minutes later, you

hear

And we had a pot. I mean, I'm not

exaggerating when I say they made a pot

of venison stew like this and these guys

ate until they practically burst. Oh my

god, that's great.

>> Like, I didn't think I was going to be

skinning a beer today as part of work.

>> Oh man.

>> Was that uh you and you said that was in

a rural part of the United States? Yeah.

>> Was it near Virginia?

>> No.

>> No.

>> No. It was out in the sticks.

>> So, one could assume that maybe some

training operations were going on.

One could make that assumption.

You know what was so funny to me?

We had a break. We had a break in. It

was part of it was classroom

instruction. So, we had a break. So, I

go into the men's room. A whole bunch of

guys went to the men's room. Was all

men. And it was one the toilets, the

urinals were these ones that flush

themselves.

So, you know, you take a leak, you walk

away, it flushes itself, you wash your

hands. The Jordanians are standing

there. They're all done.

And they're like pressing the pipe and

tapping the pipe and then they're

punching the pipe because they couldn't

figure out how to flush it.

And they hadn't like like they're still

hanging out. They're just standing there

with their things hanging out like

trying to and I'm trying to explain to

them you can walk away. It it flushes

itself. They just couldn't. And then

finally the the one it was the colonel.

He's like you Americans, you're so

advanced. How do you have these things?

How does it know that you're not there

anymore? I said it's got a little thing

in there. I don't know. I don't know. I

said we've had these for a little while

that it just knows. It knows when you're

when you're all done.

>> That's great.

So, um, what, uh,

not specific, you don't have to say

specific intelligence agency, but is

there any like joint training that

stands out? Like what kind of stuff

would you guys do with other friendly

intelligence services?

>> It depends on the service cuz some are

really good at some stuff and really bad

at others. Um the first job that I had

that I came back where I when I came

back from Athens but before 9/11 was I

uh I was in an instructor in a group

that that trained intelligence services

around the world in counterterrorism

operations. So because of my Arabic and

my field experience in the Middle East,

I handled all the Middle East, but that

was specifically

counterterrorism operations. you know,

busting down doors or if you can't bust

down the door, you put a charge on the

door and blow it open. And we spent

weeks weeks doing surveillance and

counter surveillance.

So, everybody,

I mean, just as a rule of thumb, the CIA

will work with with any country that's

friendly and even some that aren't

friendly so long as you have joint

interests. You know, I've always

maintained, for example,

that there are areas that we can work

with the Russians on right now, even in

a state of war,

>> such as

>> counterterrorism, counter narcotics,

counterprint.

Definitely. Definitely.

So, yeah, we started talking about

started talking about ground branch

um a little bit before. So, I guess just

to kind of start start off there, like

what what is what has been your

experience with ground branch and

special activities and whatever they're

calling it now?

>> Honestly, my experience with all of

those special activities groups was

seeing them in the in the office and

saying, "Hope you had a good weekend."

Those guys, first of all, almost none of

them are career CIA officers. They had

long successful careers in special

forces of some sort, the Navy Seals, the

Army Rangers, you know, whatever, Delta

Force.

And at first, post 911, they were

secunded to the CIA for, you know, quick

strike operations.

And then as the years went by, the

agency decided to make many of them

official. So you put them under global

services or special activities division

or counterterrorism center and um and

they are actually CIA employees. Others

have retired from the military and are

at CIA as contractors.

So it's a much more efficient way of of

bringing them on board. But what they do

is so secret.

I mean, the the nuts and bolts of it is

so secret that they just don't talk

about that stuff. You know what they're

doing. I know what they're doing.

Everybody in the office knows what

they're doing. Nobody mentions it.

>> Can you explain like what it is that

they actually do to people?

>> Yeah. The job is to

kill or kidnap

uh and render anybody who might be a

threat to the United States, to an

American citizen or to an American

installation.

Now, at the top of the food chain, yeah,

we we want those guys to be out there

killing the Osama bin Ladens and the

Imanis of the world. We want them dead.

On the other hand,

you know, mistakes get made

and you've got people being snatched off

the street and rendered to third

countries and then tortured in those

third countries only then to have that

country's intelligence service come back

to the CIA and say, "Look, this is the

wrong guy." And here you've been

torturing him mercilessly for the last

nine months, which has happened

repeatedly.

So on the one hand it's it's great like

you know who was it that said it was it

was Jose Rodriguez the former deputy

director for operations that you need

somebody who's willing to um

who's willing to take these tough

decisions right on the other hand

as as American government officials

we live by the rule of law and by the

constitution.

And so you als

when I think about ground branch or

special activities division, I think

about like you said all those retired

special operations guys, ex Delta Force

guys, ex SEAL team 6 guys that basically

go there to do the same exact [ __ ] that

they were doing,

>> you know, a special operations mission

set like put, like you said before, put

a charge on a door, blow it open, shoot

people in the face, and leave. But then

you hear about things like,

>> we'll get into the MSAD, but that, you

know, they uh that one, it was Khaled

Mashal, the attempted uh assassination

in Jordan

>> where they sprayed him with poison. But

like, so my question is at the CIA, is

it how is special activity structured?

Do they have like specialized units?

>> There are two different special

activities

components.

One is its own division within the CIA's

director of operations called the

special activities division

before 9/11. That's that was that that

were the that was the only one, right?

And they would go do things in the cover

of darkness that nobody talked about.

Then after 9/11, the counterterrorism

center created its own special

activities group. So these were guys

that were on loan to CTC

who would go out and specifically target

terrorists, people who were planning

operations against us.

I left before they could really figure

out who was going to do what over the

long term. So, I don't know how it's

structured. I do know that both

organizations still exist and a lot of

what the special activities guys do in

CTC is not assassinations, it's

kidnappings.

So,

you know, it's it's parachuting in

somewhere,

stealing a van,

and snatching somebody off the street.

and then you meet the helicopter at the

at the uh departure point and then just

fly the guy to wherever it is you're

going to fly him. It's very dangerous,

very very dangerous work cuz you're

you're not snatching people off the

street in Dubai or Abu Dhabi for

example. You're snatch them off the

street in Benghazi or Kartum or you know

Karachi or something. So, a lot of

moving parts, very, very dangerous. And

if CIA people are being killed, we

wouldn't even know it because they get

their star on the wall of honor and

there's no name attached to the star.

So, we we don't really know what's going

on with these groups.

>> So, you said what um people were on loan

to CTC from special activities?

>> No, from the military. Oh.

>> Mhm.

>> Would that be like um I forget what it

was called? The Omega program. Do Do you

Does that ring a bell?

>> I think that was uh

>> You've been after my time.

>> So that was when the CIA worked with uh

JOC components. So I think it was I

think it was mainly Seal Team 6. I want

to say it wasn't

>> uh Delta Force, but JC and

>> the CIA worked together. You know, I

will tell you in CTC at the time post

911.

Picture picture picture this. It's a big

bullpen. Got 150 people all in cubicles.

So many people I've said this before

that we had to name the aisles, right?

So there's like Bin Laden Boulevard.

Seriously, Hezbollah Highway. So you

could tell people, "Oh, I I sit at the

intersection of whatever." Um, and then

around the perimeter of that big bullpen

are all the private offices. You have

the chief CTC, deputy chief for ops,

deputy chief for analysis, deputy chief

for military affairs, and then the group

chiefs, and all the big mucky mucks have

their own small private offices.

Once those guys on loan from say Seal

Team Six came to the office, they never

interacted with any of us.

I mean, not even so much as a good

morning. And so, I mean, we we kind of

knew what these guys were there to do.

We knew who they were. They just

appeared one day, you know, in the weeks

after 9/11 and then they would vanish

for a week at a time or two weeks at a

time and then come back whispering to

each other and not interacting with you.

So, it was pretty easy to figure out who

they were and what they were up to.

I want to talk to you about CTC

specifically, but not related to CTC

necessarily. Was there a point when you

were at the agency after 9/11 where you

saw it turning into a paramilitary

organization?

>> The day after 911.

Seriously, the day after 9/11, Kofheer

Black,

an hour after the attacks began, Kofer

Black stood on a chair right outside of

his office. And

it was dead silent. There were hundreds

of us, silence. And he said, "Today,

we're at war and we're all going to have

to fight. Not all of us are going to

come home."

So if you want to walk out now, walk out

and no one will think less of you.

One woman walked out and then her branch

went to went to the deputy director for

analysis and said, "We don't have

confidence in her leadership." And so

she was removed.

But uh I mean everybody volunteered. It

was literally within 24 hours

that we began this transition into a

paramilitary force. There was no more um

focus on recruiting spies to steal

secrets, right? It was just about

destroying al-Qaeda,

destroying it permanently.

And to tell you the truth, among core

al-Qaeda, that that core of al-Qaeda

that was based in Afghanistan, they were

destroyed by Christmas, right? The

Senate Foreign Relations Committee um

years before I joined it, of course,

came out with a with a study that

probably should have been classified and

wasn't. And they said that by the end of

2001, there were 25 active al-Qaeda

members still in Afghanistan. 25.

It had been destroyed. And everybody

else who had made their way across the

border into Pakistan, we were capturing.

So it was done. Now, of course, there

was al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

There was al-Qaeda in the Islamic

Levant. There was al-Qaeda in North

Africa.

They were all in al-Qaeda inspired. but

but weren't coordinating operations and

and also of course we hadn't yet killed

either Bin Laden or Zawahi but in terms

of al-Qaeda as a fighting force it was

done by Christmas of01

did you did you happen to see um do you

happen to see the bin Laden documentary

>> on Netflix yes

>> dude I uh I I can't tell you how many

people reach out to me and like go did

you see this did you see this and I was

like no I didn't me And then I watched

it and it was cool. It wasn't

necessarily any new information except

for one thing talking about CTC. I

didn't know that uh the Kofheer quote,

the flies on eyeballs thing was at Camp

David

>> and that's how he got the nod over

Rumsfeld in the DoD. That is I didn't

know that. That's a pretty cool story.

>> That is a cool story and everybody

picked it up at the time.

Kofheer I always had deep respect for

Kofheer. We can certainly have

disagreements on policy, but man, what a

patriot.

Um,

Kofheer meant

he was going to see flies on Bin Laden's

eyeballs when he was done.

And um,

you know, you have to you have to

remember too that this was the greatest

intelligence failure in American

history. 3,000 Americans died because we

didn't do our jobs.

And so there was a deep desire for

revenge

after 9/11 which I understood fully and

that's why like everybody else in the

building I kept volunteering over and

over to go to Afghanistan and do

whatever was required of me anything.

And so in the end, you know, we all we

all had our roles, but Kofheer,

I was glad that Kofheer uh headed the

effort rather than Rumsfeld because if

if Rumsfeld had headed it, it would have

been a completely different landscape in

Afghanistan.

>> Yeah.

>> There's a couple things that are in my

head right now, but I have a feeling

people would really want me to ask you

about this. Did you Did you happen to

see Shawn Ryan on Tucker?

>> You did. Okay. So, for people that maybe

haven't, he he talks about um he

interviewed this guy that was a CIA and

FBI agent that is an asset. Sean had him

on his show. And I didn't I didn't watch

the full episode, but just for context,

let's say this guy was um his story and

his credentials were I don't know,

al-Qaeda. Let's say that, right? And

let's say that he's Middle Eastern based

and that's where his story lives. And at

one point he says something to Shawn

about it was either the Russians trying

to proliferate nuclear material or bring

nuclear material somewhere and it was

something alarming related to Russia.

And Sean talks on Tucker about he's like

well I looked at the guy and I asked him

immediately. I was like when is the last

time that you had contact with the

agency? And apparently this guy's story

was that he got burned by the agency.

The agency [ __ ] him. That's what he

claims. So he says, "Well, no, it was,

you know, when they screwed me. That was

the very last time." And Shawn goes,

"Well, I'll tell you what I'm thinking.

If the CIA found out that you were going

to come on this podcast, obviously the

Shawn Ryan show has quite a bit of reach

and he's a uh

I think there's a difference between a

show having a lot of reach and the

show's host being reputable, which in my

opinion, Shawn is. He's very reputable."

Yes. Um

>> Yeah. He's the He's the real McCoy.

>> Yes. I Dude, I modeled this whole show

off of him. I respect him a lot. I think

he's the goat. Anyway, um he asked the

guy, "When's the last time you had

contact with the agency?" Because,

>> good question.

>> He seemed he felt like he just threw

that Russia thing in there and it was

totally out of place. And the theory

would be like if the agency said, "Okay,

you're going on this podcast. Say

whatever you want, just work in this one

thing." And that got the wheels turning

in my head.

>> That's insightful.

>> I just hadn't thought about it that way.

Like you would think there people claim

other famous CIA officers are plants. I

won't say who

uh we don't need to go there, but just

that one nugget.

>> Mhm.

>> What do you think about that? I think

that's a brilliant insight

and I could absolutely see it. 100%

absolutely see it. Yes.

Yes. You know, people talk about

Operation Mockingbird and and the the

CIA's influence over the media.

They don't need to recruit media figures

anymore because the American media just

will gladly take whatever the the CIA

gives them and they'll run with it.

They'll just gist a a CIA press release

and call it call it news.

So, yeah. You know, a friend of mine,

Jason Leupold, I don't know if you know

Jason. He's a he's an investigative

journalist with Bloomberg. He started

off at the LA Times. He went to Vice and

a couple of other different places. This

guy is absolutely brilliant. He's a

gifted writer. He's a dogged

investigator

and breaks big stories. He's the one who

broke the Hillary Clinton email server

story. And the way he did it, the way he

does it every time is he files these

gigantic Freedom of Information Act

requests knowing that the agency is

never going to respond within the 60

days or 90 days or whatever it is. And

so he sues them every time and he wins

every time.

And so

he filed a Freedom of Information Act

request asking for

all correspondence between the CIA's

Office of Public Affairs and

all American journalists, period, from

this date to that date. And they didn't

respond. And he sued and the judge ruled

in his favor and they had to just turn

over everything. and he found such

interesting information. He found

first there was a um a reporter who

wrote a story that was a little bit

anti-CIA.

And so the CIA emailed them and said,

"You better not publish this. If you

publish this, so help me God. You will

never be invited to the Christmas party

ever again and we will not comment on

any of your stories." And so he

withdrew.

They don't need to recruit the guy to

kill the story. They just threaten him.

Another thing that he found was Ken

Delaneian, who is the chief national

security correspondent at NBC News and

MSNBC.

He was writing articles about the agency

and then he was sending the articles to

the agency for clearance before he sent

them to his own editor.

That is absolutely unacceptable.

So, they don't need to recruit anybody

in the media, they already own everybody

in the media. And if you're anti- agency

and you're not working for a well-unded

media outlet, you're screwed cuz you're

just not going to be able to get your

message out there. That's why we're so

fortunate to have people like Matt

Taibbe, for example, who's able to get

his message out thanks to Substack.

You know, we need we need a thousand

Matt Taibbe, not these weaklings who are

just going to take whatever the CIA

gives them and gist it and put their

name on the by line and then we find

ourselves propagandized by the agency.

>> I mean, that's the thing, man. Now that

I'm thinking about it, if you're an

independent podcaster and like me, I am

my team. I don't have a team. I don't

have a team of producers like Tucker to

try to verify

>> That's right. prior.

So, first of all, I would say the onus

is on people, individuals that listen to

what they listen to to decide what they

want to believe. That needs to be number

one.

>> And let me interrupt you on that point

cuz that's a very very important point

that I hope everybody takes to heart.

>> You can't trust anybody. And so, you

have to trust yourself. And the only way

you can trust yourself is to consume

everything.

You know, I get up in the morning,

people, friends of mine accuse me of

being too mainstream, and I'm actually

not mainstream. But you have to know

what the mainstream is saying so that

you can refute it. So, as soon as I wake

up in the morning, I read the Washington

Post, the New York Times, the LA Times,

the Wall Street Journal, and then I go

to CNN, Fox, The Guardian, a couple of

others. I read the Greek papers just

because I'm Greek and I have an interest

in it. And then I go to the blogs and

the substacks and stuff like that. You

have to consume everything and have

confidence in your own intellect. So you

can read something and say, "Ah, that's

[ __ ] That's just not true." And

then you read something else, you say,

"That's plausible. That makes sense. I'm

going to watch that issue." Because who

you going to believe? You going to

believe Kendallian,

right? I'm not. You gonna believe the

Washington Post? I like uh Ella

Nakushima and Joby Warick, but then

that's pretty much it. There maybe are

one or two people at the New York Times.

Nobody at the LA Times anymore.

So, you you've got to be confident in

your own ability to discern what's true

or what's not true or you just get

overwhelmed

with what is likely to turn out to be

propaganda.

>> Yeah.

Yeah, dude. I mean, shoot. I don't I

don't know how to uh you know, I think

guest selection as a podcast host is an

important one. You can't just platform

anybody. But at the same time,

>> isn't that the truth?

>> There is an argument to be made that

again, I think, you know, each

individual draws the line as you do. You

have a show.

>> Um, and you know, it's for you or I to

say where that line is. But at the end

of the day, you know, information is out

there. Make up your mind on your own.

>> Yeah, that's it. like like uh we talked

about Scott Horton a minute ago. Um I've

become something of a like a

semi-regular on the Pierce Morgan uh

show and uh the last time I was on it

was like a last minute thing cuz

somebody dropped out. So they said, "Can

you come on in 15 minutes?" I said,

"Sure." So I I log on and I see Scott

and I was like, "Oh, thank God Scott's

here." Okay. So this is going to be a

serious discussion.

Yeah. So, he wasn't scheduled to be like