Conspiracy! The Show A Bunch of Questions For the CIA

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Hey everybody.
Welcome to Conspiracy the Show.

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I’m your host, Adam Todd Brown,
joining me as co-host this week.

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Ooh, my favorite co-host of all,
no co-host, but I do have a

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couple of fantastic guests
joining me this week.

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Former CIA agents, current hosts
of the Mission Implausible

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Podcast, Jerry O’Shea and John
Sipher.

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How’s it going?
Good.

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Good.
I wanna start by correcting you

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and, arguing. let’s get this
Donny Brook going.

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I’m into it.
We are CIA officers, not agents.

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Yes.
And we can explain that later.

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And of course you’ve got us
instead of interesting guests,

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but Yes.
Yeah.

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FBI agents are the people who
work at the FBI, the people who

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work at the CIA A are officers
and then our de spies that we

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might run overseas, we call
agents.

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Rookie mistake.
Yeah.

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That makes sense.
So this will be a pretty

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lighthearted episode, just a
sort of q and a thing.

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I have some questions.
We put some questions out to our

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rowdy audience, and they came
back with some stuff.

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I guess I’ll just sort of trade
off I’ll just direct one

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question to Jerry, then a
question to John, then you don’t

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have to fight over who.
No, we like to fight We like to

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fight.
Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah.
Before we get started, John, you

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must hear this all the time, but
John Sipher is the perfect name

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for someone working in
intelligence.

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I suppose so.
I don’t like it.

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Doesn’t it mean cyber means
zero?

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That’s sort of like a, I don’t
know. but isn’t it also you

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know. something or whatever.
All right. for, breaking codes

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and enigmas, your name might as
well be Jimmy The last math

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class I took was like 11th
grade, so I don’t know.

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Yeah.
They, they weren’t gonna let him

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into the agency.
And then somebody looked at his

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name and said how can we not?
Right.

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Exactly.
So with that all out of the way,

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let’s get into some questions.
The first one, this one is from

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me.
In the description of your show,

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it’s mentioned that you were
both part of creating conspiracy

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theories at the CIA.
Can you explain that a little

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bit?
okay, I’ll start.

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So I, again, I’m gonna disagree
with you. it’s not so much we

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created conspiracy theories.
It’s that we dealt in small,

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like small C conspiracies, like
basic things like I’m under, you

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know, you can’t go to a North
Korean and say, hi, I’m in the

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CIA, you wanna talk to you.
You have to say, oh, I’m a.

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You know, I’m a businessman and
would like to talk to you.

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So cover would be a, or, you
know, covering.

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So we don’t say that we’re CIA,
so we’re not killed or

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kidnapped.
So these are small conspiracies.

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And actually the show is to
deconstruct or debunk big

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conspiracy theories, which we
know from doing small

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conspiracies are really hard to
do and, by and large don’t

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really work.
So, some conspiracies, but not

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really conspiracy theories, if
that makes sense.

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Yeah.
Can you gimme an example of

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anything or would you have to.
Would I have to be killed if you

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told me?
You and your audience, yeah.

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You won’t have to be killed. no.
I mean in, in fact, I’m trying

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to think too, like for example,
we sort of use it as a predicate

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for the show, but it isn’t
because I think a lot of the

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public thinks that one of the
things the CIA does is these big

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sort of conspiracies to try to,
but we do use small conspiracy

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in the sense that Jerry said,
for example, cover like, so if

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we’re trying to, you know, get
into what Al-Qaeda is doing and

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there’s no Americans in the
tribal areas of Pakistan where

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Bin Laden was, or where Al-Qaeda
is, we might have to send a CI

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officer with the.
I don’t know, Pakistani

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background or Arab background or
something, pretending to be a

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businessman to, or to be, you
know, go out there to, you know,

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like if you saw the movie Argo,
right?

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So we sent people to Iran
pretending to be there to shoot

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a movie.
So that’s like, you know,

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creating a little mini
conspiracy to fool the people

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that were trying to operate
against.

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And so we, and like Jerry said,
most of these conspiracies that

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we would do would be very small
because, you know, the more

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moving pieces you try to put
together, the more chance of

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failure, the more chance
something will go wrong.

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And so, you know, we’ve learned
that if we’re gonna try to trick

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someone, if you will, the
simpler, the better, you know,

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if I’m gonna use a fake name,
it’s better to use my real first

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name in a fake last name so I
can answer to, to John or

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something like that.
So little things like that.

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Yeah, that makes sense.
Well, speaking of conspiracy

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theories I guess Jerry first,
are there any of the really big

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conspiracy theories that you
believe do you have a pet

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conspiracy theory that is your
favorite, that you think might

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be real?
Might be real that okay.

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So, so, yeah.
But these, I think, I don’t

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think it’s conspiracy theory, if
you believe it’s real, it’s not

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a conspiracy theory, right.
It just that, that it becomes

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just a conspiracy.
So, yeah, I think there’s a lot

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of them.
So for example and I’ll preface

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it by saying.
For years, decades, big tobacco.

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Right?
Was investing in junk science to

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tell you that, you know, it’s
okay to smoke cigarettes.

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Right.
And all the evidence that was

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coming up that cigarettes kill
you and cigarettes killed my

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father.
Right.

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He died of emphysema. there was
a, conspiracy to, throttle that

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information, that health
information.

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And right now I think I would
say that there is a conspiracy

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amongst, now I’d be at a loss to
tell you exactly how it works

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and so forth, but I think
there’s a conspiracy to throttle

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climate science, right?
I mean, 99% of scientists are

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saying, look, manmade climate
change is a real thing.

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And in fact, in this current
administration, they are both

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claiming that because of.
Climate change, we have to have

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Greenland because the polar ice
is melting and ships are going

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through it.
It’s more important.

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But at the same time, they call
it the climate hoax.

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So they’re trying to have it
both ways.

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So it is clearly, clearly a
conspiracy to, avoid the

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science. so yeah, I think
there’s a conspiracy by this

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administration and a number of
big tech bros and others to stop

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the reality of climate science
and climate change.

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So there we go.
Yeah, that is a fantastic

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answer.
John, how about you?

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I got the easy one.
Uh, Yeah I agree with Jerry on

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the climate change thing.
I think the destroying the EPA

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and, you know, business leaders
would tell you that, you know,

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they see their business changing
because of what’s happening and

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with climate change, but the
government wants to pretend like

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it isn’t so they can invest more
and things that hurt the

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climate.
But, yeah, I guess a couple

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would be for me is is there life
outside of the world, right?

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So we talked about a little bit
on our podcast and I would, they

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put that together with religion.
So those two things to me are

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things that I think are sort of
conspiracy.

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Most people talk about ’em in a
conspiratorial way.

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They pretend like they know that
there are aliens that have come

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to earth, or there’s UFOs that
can be explained.

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Jerry and I talk to you about
it.

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Like I don’t see any evidence.
Really of that.

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But I do believe that given just
the massive nature of the

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cosmos, that there is some form
of life out there.

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You know, it would be wrong to
think that us on this little

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teeny dot are the only important
thing going on.

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And it’s the same with religion
to me, in a sense that the

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notion that, you know, some
people in the past decided that

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they know exactly how humans
were made and how our minds work

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and how, you know, there’s a God
and the one God does this.

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And there, the fact that there’s
so many religions, I think know,

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religion in many ways for most
are like a conspiracy theory.

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And, it’s comforting and
important to believe it.

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And some of things that
religions say are really

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important for humanity.
But I think it’s arrogant to

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suggest that I know the right
answer to everything.

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I know what God does and what he
says, and I’m, you know, pushed

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by him.
So I think there is something

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that.
Animates us that we don’t

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understand.
And so I think, like I said,

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aliens and God are two things
that I think in some fashion

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exist, but it’s wrong for us to
pretend like we know.

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And the people who pretend like
we know are conspiracy

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theorists, in my view.
And if, John is struck by a

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lightning bolt in the next few
minutes, I will continue the

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podcast.
So don’t have to worry about Oh,

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the views we would get if that
happened.

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I know exactly. we’re not a
video podcast, but I might pivot

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if it came to that. think it
would.

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I’ve been hit by worse things
than lightning. he has, uh,

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that’s another conspiracy.
That’s a the Russian stuff.

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Yeah.
There we go.

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So along the same lines as the
last question, this is a

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listener question Norm from
Cheers.

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I doubt that’s his real name.
I love Norm.

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I thought he died he wants to
know who really killed JFK.

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I love a lot of these questions
imply that you two are going to

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know everything that has ever
happened with the government.

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Well, luckily my wife is not
around to quickly.

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I was, I was, I was three when
that happened, or four actually.

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Yeah.
So I was in on it.

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Yeah.
Uh.

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We are on the grassy knoll.
Do either of you have any

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suspicions that the JFK
assassination is anything other

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than what the official version
of events are though?

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I don’t, that’s the problem.
The official version of events.

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And I think like any
investigation that’s in a

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politically charged atmosphere,
when a president is killed and

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the Cold War is going on, we’re
attacking the Soviets in Cuba,

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it’s created problems around
that make people worry that

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they’re not getting the whole
answer and that the

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investigation, there’s pieces of
it that are shut off and stuff

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like that.
So I tend to believe that, you

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know, sadly, you wanna believe a
conspiracy here that some little

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jerk shouldn’t be able to kill
the President of the United

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States.
But I think in this case, that’s

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what happened.
But I do think there was so much

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stuff moving around it that it’s
allowed us to create these

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stories, many of which are far
more interesting than probably

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the real story.
And that’s why it continues to

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this day.
Right.

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The thing with conspiracies
having, again, like John having

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done the small is the more
Byzantine it gets, right, the

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more moving pieces, the more
unlikely it’s gonna be.

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So the answer is, I assume it’s
Lee Harvey Oswald.

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The real question is who’s
behind him and the grassy knoll

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and, right.
Okay.

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So, I mean, we did a great
episode with Phil Robinson,

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right?
the writer and producer did

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Field of Dreams and sneakers and
all these things, and, and his,

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he’s like, look, if you’re gonna
create a conspiracy, it’s like

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you’re gonna get a nebbish like.
like Oswald, right?

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Who’s gonna talk if they catch
’em.

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And you know, the plan is to let
the police hold ’em for three or

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four days and then get some
criminal to come in and shoot

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him.
And of course the shot will kill

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him.
And then of course Ruby’s never

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gonna talk.
And of course, you know, mafia

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guys never talk amongst
themselves.

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00:11:53,855 –> 00:11:57,065
They never brag.
And then of course there’s the

216
00:11:57,065 –> 00:12:00,002
ludicrousness of let’s just, and
I’m saying I don’t think it’s

217
00:12:00,002 –> 00:12:02,315
true at all but at least there’s
no evidence.

218
00:12:02,315 –> 00:12:06,687
Let’s put it that way. if people
in CIA were somehow involved,

219
00:12:06,687 –> 00:12:11,105
which I don’t think they were,
they wouldn’t fri write it down,

220
00:12:11,105 –> 00:12:13,535
right?
And put it in, let’s file that

221
00:12:13,535 –> 00:12:15,605
away, that conversation, right?
They wouldn’t do it.

222
00:12:15,845 –> 00:12:19,475
So this thing about, whoa,
there’s gotta be one more file.

223
00:12:19,685 –> 00:12:22,949
It’s like, you know, if you’re
gonna shoot the president of the

224
00:12:22,949 –> 00:12:25,984
United States, I’m just
thinking, you don’t sit down and

225
00:12:25,984 –> 00:12:29,480
say, let’s protocol this and
stick it in the file with the

226
00:12:29,480 –> 00:12:30,670
secretary to type it up.
Right?

227
00:12:31,485 –> 00:12:34,640
So I think it’s, you know, just
like, use your nogging man.

228
00:12:35,655 –> 00:12:36,764
Well, I don’t know, Jerry.
I disagree.

229
00:12:37,605 –> 00:12:40,221
If you are trying to do the
Byzantine, like you were saying,

230
00:12:40,221 –> 00:12:42,835
in fact that’s a really
interesting episode of ours with

231
00:12:42,835 –> 00:12:44,235
Phil Robinson on JFK
assassination.

232
00:12:44,385 –> 00:12:47,102
I would suggest people listen to
that with our mission imp

233
00:12:47,102 –> 00:12:49,513
plausible podcast.
But if you’re going to do all

234
00:12:49,513 –> 00:12:51,705
these things, that is all gonna
work together.

235
00:12:51,705 –> 00:12:54,411
He’s gonna, you know, the, he’s
gonna be able to get there into

236
00:12:54,411 –> 00:12:56,815
the building by himself and get
a gun in there and be able to

237
00:12:56,815 –> 00:12:59,649
buy a gun and be able to get
away and be able to take a bus

238
00:12:59,649 –> 00:13:01,455
and then, you know, He’s gotta
be him.

239
00:13:01,455 –> 00:13:04,339
But all of those things, I think
you’d have to write some of that

240
00:13:04,339 –> 00:13:06,601
down.
You couldn’t have a meeting with

241
00:13:06,601 –> 00:13:08,981
people and be able to, for
everybody to remember every part

242
00:13:08,981 –> 00:13:10,995
to the minute to be able to do
that.

243
00:13:11,235 –> 00:13:13,833
So if there is a conspiracy, I
do think somewhere it was

244
00:13:13,833 –> 00:13:15,555
written down.
Or they burn.

245
00:13:15,555 –> 00:13:16,275
Okay.
Alright.

246
00:13:16,665 –> 00:13:18,885
I’m gonna grant you that, but
then I would burn it.

247
00:13:19,095 –> 00:13:20,497
Yeah.
Well that makes I wouldn’t stick

248
00:13:20,497 –> 00:13:23,472
it in the file, old shredders
weren’t as good as the new

249
00:13:23,472 –> 00:13:25,950
shredders?
I think so, yeah, yeah.

250
00:13:25,950 –> 00:13:28,605
They didn’t have those Watergate
shredders by that point.

251
00:13:29,040 –> 00:13:31,740
And in fact, if you remember
there I brought up the movie

252
00:13:31,740 –> 00:13:35,842
Argo before, but Argo, that was
one of the things that when the

253
00:13:35,842 –> 00:13:38,988
Iranians in 1979 took over our
embassy, which was what led to,

254
00:13:38,988 –> 00:13:42,780
you know, the Argo team going in
to try to get out the hostages.

255
00:13:44,310 –> 00:13:47,730
What happened is the CIA station
there shredded many, or most of

256
00:13:47,730 –> 00:13:51,178
their documents and then fled.
But then the Iranians went in

257
00:13:51,178 –> 00:13:53,010
and those old shredders
essentially just made little

258
00:13:53,010 –> 00:13:56,060
strips of paper and they hired
students to come in and spend

259
00:13:56,060 –> 00:13:59,250
hours and hours and days and
days to re paste it all back

260
00:13:59,250 –> 00:14:00,972
together.
And they were, there’s a, you

261
00:14:00,972 –> 00:14:04,331
could buy a book of all the CIA
cables that had been re-put

262
00:14:04,331 –> 00:14:07,539
together from shredded
documents, get it on the

263
00:14:07,539 –> 00:14:10,299
internet somewhere.
I’ll run with this just a little

264
00:14:10,299 –> 00:14:12,555
bit further and I’m gonna say,
yeah, John is right.

265
00:14:12,555 –> 00:14:16,515
When we do do a conspiracy, a
small conspiracy, like how are

266
00:14:16,515 –> 00:14:19,695
we gonna approach this Iranian
nuclear scientist, right?

267
00:14:19,695 –> 00:14:23,000
Let’s say he’s in Europe and we
wanna approach him in some way

268
00:14:23,000 –> 00:14:29,195
we would to a fairly well.
Think through all the different

269
00:14:29,195 –> 00:14:33,383
scenarios and then we would sit
it up and there would be dozens,

270
00:14:33,383 –> 00:14:35,675
at least dozens of people
involved.

271
00:14:35,675 –> 00:14:38,165
And then people would have to
like, okay it, right?

272
00:14:38,165 –> 00:14:41,129
So there’d be all this, there
would be probably be hundreds of

273
00:14:41,129 –> 00:14:42,635
people involved and everything
is Jen, right?

274
00:14:42,985 –> 00:14:45,085
Everything would have to be
typed out.

275
00:14:45,115 –> 00:14:48,358
’cause in ccia a we, you know,
and you have to have approvals

276
00:14:48,358 –> 00:14:51,595
like some, where’s the money
coming from to fly everybody in?

277
00:14:51,595 –> 00:14:55,579
And it’s like, well you know, so
well, okay, you get a BLI

278
00:14:55,579 –> 00:15:00,625
number.
And so yeah. the uncool thing

279
00:15:00,625 –> 00:15:05,355
about cool operations is nobody
ever looks at the logistics of

280
00:15:05,355 –> 00:15:07,717
it.
Like, mission impossible when

281
00:15:07,717 –> 00:15:11,095
they peel off those rubber
masks, right?

282
00:15:11,095 –> 00:15:13,937
You don’t ever have the guy who
like makes the masks or you

283
00:15:13,937 –> 00:15:15,745
know, who’s, how’s gonna pay for
them.

284
00:15:15,745 –> 00:15:18,295
You’re gonna get the upscale
kind or the downscale kind, you

285
00:15:18,295 –> 00:15:21,625
know, it’s like, do you get two?
You know, it’s like all these

286
00:15:21,625 –> 00:15:24,565
decisions are made and they all
gotta be paid for and you’ve got

287
00:15:24,565 –> 00:15:26,845
all these people like, you know,
but you never see that ’cause

288
00:15:26,845 –> 00:15:27,895
you shouldn’t, ’cause it’s
boring.

289
00:15:28,335 –> 00:15:32,377
Yeah.
I’ll tell you my favorite JFK

290
00:15:32,377 –> 00:15:34,739
theory.
There’s a documentary out there

291
00:15:34,739 –> 00:15:38,999
called JFK, the Smoking Gun, and
there was this guy, there’s a

292
00:15:38,999 –> 00:15:43,287
very famous CBS recreation where
they tried to see if anyone

293
00:15:43,287 –> 00:15:45,255
could pull off the number of
shots.

294
00:15:45,255 –> 00:15:48,375
Lee Harvey Oswald pulled off and
there was one guy who was able

295
00:15:48,375 –> 00:15:51,315
to do it, and people point to
that as well.

296
00:15:51,315 –> 00:15:55,657
Look, Lee Harvey Oswald could
have done it, but this guy was a

297
00:15:55,657 –> 00:15:58,335
ballistics expert and a
marksman, I think he was

298
00:15:58,335 –> 00:16:00,491
military.
And he came away from that being

299
00:16:00,491 –> 00:16:02,775
like, no, no, no.
Only I could have done that.

300
00:16:03,105 –> 00:16:05,475
There’s no way most people could
have done that.

301
00:16:05,505 –> 00:16:10,492
And he spent the next 30 years
of his life just examining the

302
00:16:10,492 –> 00:16:13,995
ballistics evidence from the JFK
assassination.

303
00:16:14,115 –> 00:16:17,055
And what he is convinced
happened is.

304
00:16:17,330 –> 00:16:22,930
Lee Harvey Oswald was there, he
was shooting, but that in one of

305
00:16:22,930 –> 00:16:27,786
the motorcade cars behind JFK, a
secret service agent heard those

306
00:16:27,786 –> 00:16:31,286
shots and stood up to start
looking around to see where he

307
00:16:31,286 –> 00:16:34,863
was supposed to shoot.
And at that point the car

308
00:16:34,863 –> 00:16:38,300
accelerated.
He falls and fires accidentally

309
00:16:38,300 –> 00:16:44,600
and Uhoh hits JFK in the head.
And what I love about that

310
00:16:44,600 –> 00:16:48,320
theory is everyone’s right.
Lee Harvey Oswald was there.

311
00:16:48,380 –> 00:16:51,260
He was the only shooter, he was
acting alone.

312
00:16:51,380 –> 00:16:55,615
But yes, the government in
theory killed JFK and of course

313
00:16:55,615 –> 00:17:00,509
they would have reason to cover
it up. it’s such a plausible

314
00:17:00,509 –> 00:17:03,230
idea to me.
I mean sure the like

315
00:17:03,230 –> 00:17:06,269
accidentally hitting JFK with
that bullet, that’s a one in a

316
00:17:06,269 –> 00:17:07,944
million thing.
But it makes more sense than

317
00:17:07,944 –> 00:17:11,210
like his driver shot him with a
shellfish toxin gun.

318
00:17:11,750 –> 00:17:15,478
Or something, which was, I think
one of that was one of the like

319
00:17:15,478 –> 00:17:18,400
OG JFK theories was look, his
driver turns around and shoots

320
00:17:18,400 –> 00:17:21,554
him in the face.
Like he could have just done

321
00:17:21,554 –> 00:17:25,787
that anytime. that’s may maybe
what we saw in Minneapolis,

322
00:17:25,787 –> 00:17:31,896
right. with Pretti. you know,
they, 10 guys wrestle under the

323
00:17:31,896 –> 00:17:34,080
ground, you know, they’re like,
gun gun.

324
00:17:34,080 –> 00:17:39,039
And the one ice thug guy, you
know, pulls the gun away and

325
00:17:39,039 –> 00:17:45,279
then the rest of them open up on
him. and two guys shoot him 10

326
00:17:45,279 –> 00:17:47,250
times.
It was like, but you know, it,

327
00:17:47,250 –> 00:17:50,196
it could have, I mean, I don’t
know, but I watched the, and

328
00:17:50,196 –> 00:17:53,053
there’s your conspiracy that,
you know, he’s a domestic

329
00:17:53,053 –> 00:17:55,645
terrorist.
He started, you know, just like,

330
00:17:55,645 –> 00:17:59,080
don’t believe your eyes, believe
the conspiracy of what, you

331
00:17:59,080 –> 00:18:01,230
know, people in DHS are telling
you.

332
00:18:01,230 –> 00:18:03,120
Right.
It was like, that’s a bad

333
00:18:03,120 –> 00:18:05,580
conspiracy because like you can
just, you don’t need this.

334
00:18:05,760 –> 00:18:09,660
The Z Bruder film from JFK, it’s
just like, there it is, man.

335
00:18:09,660 –> 00:18:12,046
You know?
It’s like Nowadays, there

336
00:18:12,046 –> 00:18:15,720
would’ve been 500 video cameras
from people’s phones on the,

337
00:18:16,140 –> 00:18:17,978
yeah.
If there were video cameras

338
00:18:17,978 –> 00:18:21,069
Yeah, Yeah.
Lee Harvey Oswald would’ve live

339
00:18:21,069 –> 00:18:23,500
streamed it.
That would’ve been, that

340
00:18:23,500 –> 00:18:25,435
would’ve helped.
That would’ve helped a.

341
00:18:26,160 –> 00:18:27,330
Yeah.
But his twi, his previous

342
00:18:27,330 –> 00:18:29,940
Twitter would let us know about
his time in Cuba and Mexico

343
00:18:29,940 –> 00:18:31,560
Right.
That’s right, that’s right.

344
00:18:31,560 –> 00:18:33,666
That’s right.
But if anybody had a reason,

345
00:18:33,666 –> 00:18:36,972
really, I mean, Kennedy didn’t
have a problem with CIA, you

346
00:18:36,972 –> 00:18:39,780
know, his friends ran it.
And that, I think that, you

347
00:18:39,780 –> 00:18:43,068
know, if there was anybody, if I
had to, and I don’t think it’s

348
00:18:43,068 –> 00:18:45,925
true, but if there’s anybody who
really had reason to do it, it

349
00:18:45,925 –> 00:18:48,850
would be Castro because, you
know, Kennedy was trying to bump

350
00:18:48,850 –> 00:18:49,770
him off.
Right.

351
00:18:49,770 –> 00:18:52,830
So, or of course.
But of course they looked into

352
00:18:52,830 –> 00:18:54,330
those things too. yeah, they
have, they have.

353
00:18:54,330 –> 00:18:55,500
Yeah.
I’m not saying that’s true.

354
00:18:55,500 –> 00:18:58,200
I’m just saying that he had a, a
reason to do it.

355
00:18:58,245 –> 00:19:02,344
So let’s switch gears a little
bit and talk about the CIA

356
00:19:02,344 –> 00:19:05,175
itself.
This is a question from Bob

357
00:19:05,175 –> 00:19:07,275
Granville that might be real
name.

358
00:19:07,365 –> 00:19:12,345
How much of what the CIA does
involves human data collection

359
00:19:12,345 –> 00:19:16,440
versus electronic signal Good
question.

360
00:19:16,649 –> 00:19:18,445
Yeah, go ahead Jerry.
Go If you want.

361
00:19:18,900 –> 00:19:25,590
We do. our focus is human
collection, right?

362
00:19:25,590 –> 00:19:30,252
And human sources generally they
are the best because we’re

363
00:19:30,252 –> 00:19:33,810
gathering not just information,
but plans and intentions.

364
00:19:33,810 –> 00:19:34,980
Right?
The most important.

365
00:19:34,980 –> 00:19:39,150
So you can steal a piece of
paper, you can listen into a

366
00:19:39,150 –> 00:19:41,370
telephone call, but you don’t
know if they’re lying to you.

367
00:19:41,370 –> 00:19:43,890
What you really wanna do is you
know, have somebody in the

368
00:19:43,890 –> 00:19:46,766
meeting who says, well I wrote
that, but this is what we’re

369
00:19:46,766 –> 00:19:49,218
gonna do.
So plans, intention, human,

370
00:19:49,218 –> 00:19:52,170
although small is really the
apex.

371
00:19:52,410 –> 00:19:56,294
And then there’s a cotis to
that, which is human enabled

372
00:19:56,294 –> 00:19:58,260
technical collection.
John, you want to cover that?

373
00:19:58,290 –> 00:19:59,640
’cause that’s a really big one
too, right?

374
00:20:00,130 –> 00:20:03,885
Yeah, so, you know, our job in
the CIA, like Jerry says, it’s

375
00:20:03,885 –> 00:20:05,925
the espionage part of the
agency.

376
00:20:05,925 –> 00:20:08,895
And espionage is human to human
running a spy.

377
00:20:09,495 –> 00:20:12,393
But there’s two pieces to that.
There’s one is you can use

378
00:20:12,393 –> 00:20:15,229
technical things to figure out
who might be the best person to

379
00:20:15,229 –> 00:20:18,621
go after ’cause to run a spy.
You want someone who has access

380
00:20:18,621 –> 00:20:21,801
to secrets that you need, and
you have to know something about

381
00:20:21,801 –> 00:20:24,819
’em so that you know what
motivates them and how you might

382
00:20:24,819 –> 00:20:25,965
be able to recruit them as a
spy.

383
00:20:26,175 –> 00:20:29,665
And so we might use technical
collection and big data to try

384
00:20:29,665 –> 00:20:32,535
to figure out who is it, what
does he have access to?

385
00:20:32,535 –> 00:20:33,675
What do we know about this
person?

386
00:20:33,675 –> 00:20:35,614
What do they, what his family,
what do we know about its

387
00:20:35,614 –> 00:20:37,409
beliefs?
And you might use technical

388
00:20:37,409 –> 00:20:40,365
things there.
And separately, one of the best

389
00:20:40,365 –> 00:20:45,795
ways to collect big data to big.
You know, electronics and cyber

390
00:20:45,795 –> 00:20:48,199
attacks and everything is a
human.

391
00:20:48,199 –> 00:20:52,629
So if Jerry can recruit a spy
who works inside the name, your

392
00:20:52,629 –> 00:20:56,019
thing, the Iranian nuclear
program, that SPY might be able

393
00:20:56,019 –> 00:21:00,754
to put something in his computer
system that then allows our much

394
00:21:00,754 –> 00:21:05,057
larger NSA, which in the United
States, that is the organization

395
00:21:05,057 –> 00:21:07,895
that does signals intelligence.
We do human intelligence, they

396
00:21:07,895 –> 00:21:10,877
do signals intelligence.
Their job is to focus on

397
00:21:10,877 –> 00:21:14,756
foreigners and use whatever they
can do to listen to phone calls,

398
00:21:14,756 –> 00:21:17,845
collect.
Information from computers, you

399
00:21:17,845 –> 00:21:21,697
know, massive big data
translate, you know, things that

400
00:21:21,697 –> 00:21:23,595
they get coming on, signals over
the air.

401
00:21:24,045 –> 00:21:27,375
And so what helps that is a
human can help us get into it.

402
00:21:27,375 –> 00:21:31,875
So if the computer system of the
Iranian nuclear program is tight

403
00:21:31,875 –> 00:21:34,412
and held together and there’s no
connection to the outside

404
00:21:34,412 –> 00:21:36,857
internet, maybe this spy that
Jerry’s running can put

405
00:21:36,857 –> 00:21:40,377
something in their computer that
allows the NSA to then extract

406
00:21:40,377 –> 00:21:42,495
that information and get those
things.

407
00:21:42,495 –> 00:21:43,755
So, so these things work
together.

408
00:21:43,755 –> 00:21:47,355
So human intelligence and the
spying, the CI’s actually very

409
00:21:47,355 –> 00:21:49,300
small organization.
There’s only a couple thousand

410
00:21:49,300 –> 00:21:51,255
people worldwide that do that
type of thing.

411
00:21:51,885 –> 00:21:55,023
Then there’s a much larger group
of people who work on technical

412
00:21:55,023 –> 00:21:57,689
things and cyber attacks and
computer and big data analysis

413
00:21:57,689 –> 00:22:01,755
and all of that type of stuff.
So, when it’s works, right?

414
00:22:01,755 –> 00:22:04,420
They work together.
The human spy might help the

415
00:22:04,420 –> 00:22:06,015
technical spy to collect
something.

416
00:22:08,520 –> 00:22:12,570
Along sort of the same lines,
this is a question for me.

417
00:22:12,659 –> 00:22:18,033
How worried should the American
public be that the CIA has a

418
00:22:18,033 –> 00:22:23,511
venture capital wing that is
investing in social media and

419
00:22:23,511 –> 00:22:26,897
various technologies?
I think Google Earth was a big

420
00:22:26,897 –> 00:22:30,450
thing that the CIA had a hand in
at least funding.

421
00:22:30,570 –> 00:22:33,579
Is that a thing people should be
concerned about or is, do you

422
00:22:33,579 –> 00:22:35,580
think it’s all mostly on the up
and up?

423
00:22:35,725 –> 00:22:37,778
And not anymore.
I don’t think it’s actually

424
00:22:37,778 –> 00:22:38,820
doing all that well.
Right.

425
00:22:39,390 –> 00:22:41,010
I don’t, I don’t know.
I’ve been out for a while.

426
00:22:41,160 –> 00:22:44,670
I’m guessing, but I’ve heard
that like it was a thing for a

427
00:22:44,670 –> 00:22:46,344
while.
We were cutting edge, but the

428
00:22:46,344 –> 00:22:48,210
tech bros, they don’t really
need us anymore.

429
00:22:48,270 –> 00:22:49,230
I don’t know.
What do you think, John?

430
00:22:49,305 –> 00:22:51,717
Yeah.
Director Tenet back in the late

431
00:22:51,717 –> 00:22:55,928
nineties, I think started in Q
Tel, which was a piece of the

432
00:22:55,928 –> 00:22:59,051
CIA They would look at
technology, you said Google

433
00:22:59,051 –> 00:23:01,925
Earth for example and they would
look at startups and these type

434
00:23:01,925 –> 00:23:04,815
of thing and they would see, you
know, they had a little bit of

435
00:23:04,815 –> 00:23:07,253
money that they could invest to
sort of support the ones that

436
00:23:07,253 –> 00:23:09,521
might be.
So there might be a gaming

437
00:23:09,521 –> 00:23:13,332
platform that might be useful to
a part of the CIA that was gonna

438
00:23:13,332 –> 00:23:15,615
try to, you know, they were
collecting all this information.

439
00:23:15,615 –> 00:23:18,371
Maybe we can use this gaming
system to try to figure out if

440
00:23:18,371 –> 00:23:21,249
we put it together, what options
might be in the future that, so

441
00:23:21,249 –> 00:23:24,160
that we can tell our policy
makers what’s happening or, you

442
00:23:24,160 –> 00:23:27,405
know, let’s try to help some of
these private sector companies

443
00:23:27,405 –> 00:23:30,105
that are doing some of this
research that we can then use.

444
00:23:30,435 –> 00:23:33,225
I think Palantir might have been
one of those, I’m not a hundred

445
00:23:33,225 –> 00:23:35,775
percent sure. where they gave
money to this and that.

446
00:23:36,199 –> 00:23:40,064
Technology proved to be very
useful to the CIA and FBI and

447
00:23:40,064 –> 00:23:42,626
others to help.
You know, when we were going

448
00:23:42,626 –> 00:23:45,115
after Al-Qaeda and terrorist
networks, it was able, we

449
00:23:45,115 –> 00:23:47,929
started to collect data from
terrorists that we caught and

450
00:23:47,929 –> 00:23:50,858
their computers and things.
It allowed us to put together,

451
00:23:50,858 –> 00:23:54,217
you know, very large data sets
that would connect and help tell

452
00:23:54,217 –> 00:23:56,959
us who were the more key players
and who to go after and where

453
00:23:56,959 –> 00:23:58,310
they were and all those type of
things.

454
00:23:58,669 –> 00:24:00,290
So that technology actually
really helped.

455
00:24:01,005 –> 00:24:02,265
I, but I think that was the
point.

456
00:24:02,985 –> 00:24:06,457
It was to find technologies that
the CIA could use inside, you

457
00:24:06,457 –> 00:24:11,523
know to make our systems work
better or to be, to help us, you

458
00:24:11,523 –> 00:24:15,183
know, spy better.
I don’t think it’s, you know the

459
00:24:15,183 –> 00:24:17,355
CIA is a foreign intelligence
agency.

460
00:24:17,355 –> 00:24:22,323
It doesn’t collect on American
citizens. and we’re quite

461
00:24:22,323 –> 00:24:24,495
careful about that.
That’s why I worry about this

462
00:24:24,495 –> 00:24:27,755
new administration is, you know,
they tend to want to weaponize

463
00:24:27,755 –> 00:24:31,045
these very powerful intelligence
agencies that are foreign facing

464
00:24:31,045 –> 00:24:34,538
to maybe for their own purposes,
go after American citizens.

465
00:24:35,392 –> 00:24:39,045
So like Jerry, I don’t know if
they’re still doing that,

466
00:24:39,105 –> 00:24:42,273
supporting the technology.
There’s a, seems to me that

467
00:24:42,273 –> 00:24:45,174
there’s enough money in the AI
world and all these big people

468
00:24:45,174 –> 00:24:47,625
in Silicon Valley that they
don’t need, you know, small bits

469
00:24:47,625 –> 00:24:49,005
of money from the CIA to help
them.

470
00:24:50,840 –> 00:24:52,639
I wanna underline what John
said.

471
00:24:52,700 –> 00:24:54,380
’cause I think it’s really
important.

472
00:24:54,710 –> 00:24:58,340
It’s not, you know, there’s like
the CIA, you know, this or that.

473
00:24:58,520 –> 00:25:01,280
It’s really not the CIA, it’s
who runs it.

474
00:25:01,280 –> 00:25:04,602
It’s like the administration.
Who’s in charge of it and what

475
00:25:04,602 –> 00:25:08,450
is it, you know, CIA, is it just
like Department of Defense or

476
00:25:08,450 –> 00:25:11,030
NSA?
These are just simply tools.

477
00:25:11,300 –> 00:25:15,610
So it’s really like.
How are these tools being used?

478
00:25:15,790 –> 00:25:19,488
Right?
They can be used for, so like,

479
00:25:19,488 –> 00:25:23,557
you know, famously DARPA
defense, I’m not gonna call it

480
00:25:23,557 –> 00:25:26,050
Department of War, but a
Department of Defense element.

481
00:25:26,560 –> 00:25:28,780
You know, got the internet
started, right?

482
00:25:28,780 –> 00:25:31,330
I mean, it was, you know, so, so
is the internet good or big?

483
00:25:31,330 –> 00:25:33,670
Well, it depends on how you use
it, right?

484
00:25:33,969 –> 00:25:37,818
And so things like, and I’ll
start a conspiracy here. cause I

485
00:25:37,818 –> 00:25:40,330
have no information, but I don’t
like the look of it.

486
00:25:40,780 –> 00:25:45,100
What is Tulsi Gabbard, DNI,
right head of for, you know,

487
00:25:45,100 –> 00:25:48,874
foreign Foreign intelligence?
Nothing to do with the ex.

488
00:25:48,874 –> 00:25:53,068
What is she doing when the FBI
is seizing voter records in

489
00:25:53,068 –> 00:25:55,120
Georgia yesterday?
What the fuck is it?

490
00:25:55,270 –> 00:25:59,050
What the fuck is the foreign
intelligence person skulking

491
00:25:59,050 –> 00:26:02,290
around the building for
something that is internal?

492
00:26:03,040 –> 00:26:05,889
What explains that?
Why is she there?

493
00:26:06,130 –> 00:26:08,731
So it’s like.
You know, she supposedly, she’s

494
00:26:08,731 –> 00:26:12,175
not in charge, but she has great
influence over the CIA.

495
00:26:12,205 –> 00:26:18,741
So what’s her role there and why
is she like sneaking around on a

496
00:26:18,741 –> 00:26:21,115
telephone?
So, you know, the d and i’s

497
00:26:21,115 –> 00:26:25,178
office I think can be benign or
good, or you know, it could be

498
00:26:25,178 –> 00:26:27,150
bad.
What the fuck is she doing

499
00:26:27,150 –> 00:26:29,541
there?
I think that’s a conspiracy that

500
00:26:29,541 –> 00:26:33,294
I would like to run with, right?
Well, and then many of the

501
00:26:33,294 –> 00:26:36,615
people, you know who believe the
CCIA is sort of all powerful.

502
00:26:36,615 –> 00:26:38,715
And we were talking about the
JFK assassination and the

503
00:26:38,715 –> 00:26:42,123
potential CIA role a while ago.
Talk about a lot of the things

504
00:26:42,123 –> 00:26:45,435
that happened in the early years
of the cia when presidents.

505
00:26:46,005 –> 00:26:47,505
It was sort of their secret
weapon.

506
00:26:47,505 –> 00:26:50,003
There wasn’t oversight, there
wasn’t congressional oversight,

507
00:26:50,003 –> 00:26:52,455
there wasn’t legal means by
which the CIA works.

508
00:26:52,455 –> 00:26:54,375
So it was sort of free to do
what it wanted to do.

509
00:26:54,375 –> 00:26:57,727
And so if President Eisenhower
would say, you know, I’m sort

510
00:26:57,727 –> 00:27:01,752
of, I’m frustrated with that guy
down in Guatemala, you know, I

511
00:27:01,752 –> 00:27:04,895
have a friend who has a business
down there, and the President

512
00:27:04,895 –> 00:27:06,975
Guatemala is, you know,
threatening to take over his

513
00:27:06,975 –> 00:27:08,415
business.
CI see what you can do.

514
00:27:08,415 –> 00:27:11,232
And then we overthrow the
government of Guatemala, or, and

515
00:27:11,232 –> 00:27:14,775
so in the early years, the CI
was, again, like Jerry said, you

516
00:27:14,775 –> 00:27:17,655
know, it would do what the
president told it to do.

517
00:27:17,745 –> 00:27:20,916
And then in the 1970s, there was
a series of reforms, you know,

518
00:27:20,916 –> 00:27:24,162
often based on things that CIA
had done or had been threatened

519
00:27:24,162 –> 00:27:28,110
to do that did seem, even to me
who worked there like bad, you

520
00:27:28,110 –> 00:27:31,671
know, trying to kill Castro or
overthrowing some of these

521
00:27:31,671 –> 00:27:35,800
governments things.
There were reforms put in After

522
00:27:35,800 –> 00:27:39,953
the church and Pike Committees
and the Senate and the Congress

523
00:27:39,953 –> 00:27:42,905
and the Rockefeller Commission
looked at the CIA a and said,

524
00:27:42,905 –> 00:27:45,785
you know, there needs to be
rules around what the Ccia A

525
00:27:45,785 –> 00:27:47,849
does.
The, there needs to be

526
00:27:47,849 –> 00:27:49,715
congressional oversight of the
intelligence community.

527
00:27:49,715 –> 00:27:52,715
There needs to be, if the
president is gonna ask the CIA

528
00:27:52,715 –> 00:27:55,525
to take action, that overthrow
government, for example, it

529
00:27:55,525 –> 00:27:59,044
needs to be clearly in writing
and sent to the Congress.

530
00:27:59,044 –> 00:28:01,218
And so this is something, it’s
not, we’re not winging it

531
00:28:01,218 –> 00:28:01,774
anymore.
And so.

532
00:28:02,310 –> 00:28:04,578
You know, a lot of times what
people like you and others talk

533
00:28:04,578 –> 00:28:06,690
to us about what the CI’s power
and what it’s done.

534
00:28:06,690 –> 00:28:10,702
A lot of it is that period of
time before the reforms when

535
00:28:10,702 –> 00:28:13,820
presidents would just use it as,
you know rather than going

536
00:28:13,820 –> 00:28:16,740
through the hard work of trying
to work with the American people

537
00:28:16,740 –> 00:28:20,178
and build a policy that, you
know, to try to decide whether

538
00:28:20,178 –> 00:28:22,260
we’re gonna invade Chile or
something.

539
00:28:22,470 –> 00:28:24,810
He would just secretly send the
CIA to do it.

540
00:28:24,940 –> 00:28:28,900
And those days are largely over.
But this new administration, I’m

541
00:28:28,900 –> 00:28:32,098
worried that they don’t seem to
care about those legal

542
00:28:32,098 –> 00:28:35,582
restrictions and the things that
we built up to try to make our

543
00:28:35,582 –> 00:28:38,562
intelligence services that are
very powerful, focused overseas

544
00:28:38,562 –> 00:28:40,469
and following strict regulations
Right.

545
00:28:40,589 –> 00:28:42,191
Right.
And there’s one more thing I

546
00:28:42,191 –> 00:28:44,627
just wanna throw in for their
listeners in thinking about

547
00:28:44,627 –> 00:28:47,549
conspiracy theories and
conspiracies is, okay, so CIA

548
00:28:48,329 –> 00:28:51,449
roughly has three functions,
right?

549
00:28:52,259 –> 00:28:54,899
It collects foreign
intelligence, you know,

550
00:28:54,899 –> 00:28:57,659
generally through recruiting
agents and like John and I

551
00:28:57,659 –> 00:29:00,089
driving around in our Austin
Martins with machine guns on

552
00:29:00,089 –> 00:29:04,260
this side, on the sides, right?
It’s like, as we do, you know,

553
00:29:04,260 –> 00:29:07,429
actually mine was for ev,
everybody out there for the most

554
00:29:07,429 –> 00:29:11,685
part when I was like a CA, so I
drove a Toyota minivan with car

555
00:29:11,685 –> 00:29:14,909
seats in the back and with like
fruit loops on the floor, right?

556
00:29:14,909 –> 00:29:16,919
I mean that’s, that was the spy
way.

557
00:29:17,669 –> 00:29:20,645
But so we collect that, we do
covert action and sort of talk

558
00:29:20,645 –> 00:29:22,949
about that sort of things that
are deniable, that the.

559
00:29:23,669 –> 00:29:27,211
The third thing.
And in a lot of ways, the most

560
00:29:27,211 –> 00:29:29,639
important thing weirdly, is
we’re the whipping boy.

561
00:29:29,939 –> 00:29:33,179
When shit goes wrong, we get
blamed.

562
00:29:33,179 –> 00:29:39,683
So, you know, the president he
says, we are gonna invade Iraq,

563
00:29:39,683 –> 00:29:43,529
tell the CIA to get me the, you
know, the reason.

564
00:29:43,769 –> 00:29:45,539
Right.
I don’t give a shit what it is.

565
00:29:45,569 –> 00:29:46,859
’cause they were working on it
as well.

566
00:29:47,189 –> 00:29:51,479
So no one says, you know I don’t
wanna get down this rabbit hole.

567
00:29:51,479 –> 00:29:56,272
But with you know, the torture
tactics as people sometimes call

568
00:29:56,272 –> 00:29:58,342
them, right?
Oh, it’s the CI.

569
00:29:58,662 –> 00:30:01,332
Well who the fuck put those
together?

570
00:30:01,692 –> 00:30:04,122
Who a agreed to this?
Who made it legal?

571
00:30:04,122 –> 00:30:06,702
Who said this was okay?
It was the president.

572
00:30:06,702 –> 00:30:09,293
In fact, for like waterboarding,
the president of the United

573
00:30:09,293 –> 00:30:12,626
States has to okay it, but it’s
not like, oh, the president did

574
00:30:12,626 –> 00:30:18,248
that. cause everybody knows,
we’ll just blame the CIA And I

575
00:30:18,248 –> 00:30:20,472
don’t actually think we did
engage in torture.

576
00:30:20,472 –> 00:30:23,362
That’s another question.
But our job is to basically, if

577
00:30:23,362 –> 00:30:25,842
things go bad, is to take the
blame.

578
00:30:25,942 –> 00:30:29,247
Yeah.
I feel like CIA has kind of

579
00:30:29,247 –> 00:30:34,317
become a term like Kleenex a
little bit, where it’s just,

580
00:30:34,317 –> 00:30:37,674
yeah.
It’s, it’s just a catchall for

581
00:30:37,674 –> 00:30:40,432
intelligence agencies.
My thought is always, well,

582
00:30:40,432 –> 00:30:42,622
yeah, the CIA just operates
overseas.

583
00:30:42,952 –> 00:30:44,692
We don’t need them to operate
here.

584
00:30:44,692 –> 00:30:49,212
We have 16 other intelligence
agencies, It is illegal.

585
00:30:49,522 –> 00:30:51,532
Yeah.
What are they doing right?

586
00:30:51,757 –> 00:30:56,154
And CI is actually pretty small
compared to, you know the 80% of

587
00:30:56,154 –> 00:30:57,741
the intelligence community
belongs to the defense

588
00:30:57,741 –> 00:31:00,967
department.
So, you know, NSA is a joint

589
00:31:00,967 –> 00:31:03,067
intelligence community Defense
Department organization.

590
00:31:03,307 –> 00:31:06,690
And then the Army, Navy, air
Force, Marines all have an

591
00:31:06,690 –> 00:31:08,281
intelligence.
And there’s the Defense

592
00:31:08,281 –> 00:31:11,227
Intelligence Agency and there’s
the NRO that does satellites,

593
00:31:11,227 –> 00:31:13,267
which is largely run by
military.

594
00:31:13,517 –> 00:31:15,107
As well as intelligent community
people.

595
00:31:15,107 –> 00:31:19,643
So I mean, it’s a big community
that all sort of does pieces of

596
00:31:19,643 –> 00:31:21,915
this and works together.
And let me just add one thing

597
00:31:21,915 –> 00:31:24,275
that Jerry said, what the CIA
does, he, one thing he didn’t

598
00:31:24,275 –> 00:31:26,979
say, which is I think also one
of the most important things is

599
00:31:26,979 –> 00:31:30,195
it does all source analysis.
It’s where the bi, the big

600
00:31:30,195 –> 00:31:33,033
brains that are, that collect
when all of this intelligence

601
00:31:33,033 –> 00:31:35,657
comes together from the
satellites and from the NSA and

602
00:31:35,657 –> 00:31:39,309
from the CIA and from our spies
and from diplomats, you know,

603
00:31:39,309 –> 00:31:42,397
there’s an analyst who’s an
expert on whatever that, you

604
00:31:42,397 –> 00:31:46,149
know, on Egypt or on South
Africa or China or whatever, who

605
00:31:46,149 –> 00:31:49,877
then puts it all together and
either briefs or sends it to

606
00:31:49,877 –> 00:31:51,999
Secretary of State.
The president, people who need

607
00:31:51,999 –> 00:31:55,540
that information.
Yeah, that reminds me of a story

608
00:31:55,540 –> 00:32:00,484
I bring up all the time.
The only outlet that covered it

609
00:32:00,484 –> 00:32:05,144
was Newsweek to this day, I feel
like that’s the only place I’ve

610
00:32:05,144 –> 00:32:08,322
seen it covered.
But it was a story about how for

611
00:32:08,322 –> 00:32:12,568
the past 10 years or so, the
Department of Defense has been

612
00:32:12,568 –> 00:32:17,311
building a network of American
intelligence agents whose whole

613
00:32:17,311 –> 00:32:21,352
role is to just go out into
like, I’m an LA comedian.

614
00:32:21,352 –> 00:32:25,012
I guarantee one of them is in
the LA comedy community.

615
00:32:25,072 –> 00:32:28,513
That’s what they do.
They just go out and sort of

616
00:32:28,513 –> 00:32:30,922
infiltrate communities and
movement like what we heard.

617
00:32:31,162 –> 00:32:35,740
You know, Cohen Telpro was with
the FBI and according to this

618
00:32:35,740 –> 00:32:38,907
report, there’s something like
40 or 50,000 of them, and it

619
00:32:38,907 –> 00:32:42,772
said in this story, that’s more
than there are undercover CIA

620
00:32:42,982 –> 00:32:46,198
agents.
If that’s true by a lot. the

621
00:32:46,198 –> 00:32:48,712
Defense Department is massive
and it’s got so many different

622
00:32:48,712 –> 00:32:52,480
pieces and things going.
I hope that that’s not true, but

623
00:32:52,480 –> 00:32:54,646
I hope that the Defense
Department shouldn’t be going

624
00:32:54,646 –> 00:32:57,262
into American communities doing
anything unless they’re trying

625
00:32:57,262 –> 00:33:00,947
to work with companies to help
them make better things for

626
00:33:00,947 –> 00:33:02,722
government.
And the FBI does have that role.

627
00:33:02,722 –> 00:33:05,290
The FBI’s role is a law
enforcement and

628
00:33:05,290 –> 00:33:08,076
counterintelligence role, and
they’re the ones that can deal

629
00:33:08,076 –> 00:33:11,032
with American citizens and look
into American citizens if they

630
00:33:11,032 –> 00:33:13,792
have a legal predicate that goes
through a judge and all that

631
00:33:13,792 –> 00:33:15,972
type of stuff.
That’s why this thing that Jerry

632
00:33:15,972 –> 00:33:18,652
brought up about going after
voter roll in Georgia is scary.

633
00:33:18,652 –> 00:33:21,747
I don’t know how the FBI may
maybe we’ll learn that that’s

634
00:33:21,747 –> 00:33:25,502
not as awful sounding as it is,
but if it is what we think it

635
00:33:25,502 –> 00:33:27,472
is, that’s really, we’re in a
dangerous place.

636
00:33:27,892 –> 00:33:30,762
Right.
And also I mean, I don’t know

637
00:33:30,762 –> 00:33:35,974
the answer to what you said, but
I would gently push back on that

638
00:33:35,974 –> 00:33:39,187
only in so far as Murphy, you
know.

639
00:33:39,872 –> 00:33:42,452
People, you know, John and I, we
were in a people business.

640
00:33:42,752 –> 00:33:46,297
People are fuck ups, like
including us sometimes, right?

641
00:33:48,992 –> 00:33:52,482
one of the biggest problems with
running an agent is they always

642
00:33:52,482 –> 00:33:55,220
gotta tell somebody, they gotta
tell their wife, they gotta tell

643
00:33:55,220 –> 00:33:57,932
their best friend they drink,
they tell somebody else.

644
00:33:58,262 –> 00:34:00,542
Nobody can fucking keep a
secret, right?

645
00:34:00,542 –> 00:34:04,585
So if there’s 40,000 people
spying on people in the United

646
00:34:04,585 –> 00:34:10,132
States, I guarantee you three
four of them, are sitting in a

647
00:34:10,132 –> 00:34:13,292
bar and they’re gonna be like,
no shit man.

648
00:34:13,322 –> 00:34:14,882
You know, the benefits are
great.

649
00:34:14,882 –> 00:34:19,202
I get dental and I get to do
this cool shit, you know?

650
00:34:21,092 –> 00:34:23,502
I, and then there’s just like,
how do you report that on your

651
00:34:23,502 –> 00:34:25,775
taxes to the IRS?
You know, like, oh, I’m a secret

652
00:34:25,775 –> 00:34:28,504
spy and shit.
So I’m not saying it’s not true,

653
00:34:28,504 –> 00:34:30,362
but I’m saying like, you know,
shit.

654
00:34:30,362 –> 00:34:33,931
So shit like that is really,
really difficult to do, which is

655
00:34:33,931 –> 00:34:36,931
why big conspiracy theory, CIA,
just doesn’t do it right?

656
00:34:36,962 –> 00:34:40,452
’cause we can’t.
Yeah. you mentioned the benefits

657
00:34:40,452 –> 00:34:44,527
at the.
Another listener question.

658
00:34:44,527 –> 00:34:47,077
This one’s probably coming a
little outta left field.

659
00:34:47,347 –> 00:34:48,902
What’s the catering at Langley
like?

660
00:34:49,717 –> 00:34:53,482
Oh, that’s a good Yeah, it’s
over our time.

661
00:34:53,482 –> 00:34:56,188
It changed quite a bit.
When I first started, you’d go

662
00:34:56,188 –> 00:34:58,775
in, they had a, you know,
typical government cafeteria,

663
00:34:58,775 –> 00:35:03,140
which had kind of crappy food.
And when you went down to your

664
00:35:03,140 –> 00:35:04,882
training center, the same kind
of thing.

665
00:35:05,272 –> 00:35:09,172
By the time we left, there was a
Dunking Donuts and a Starbucks.

666
00:35:09,577 –> 00:35:12,772
And then there was a food court
with a bunch of like pizza

667
00:35:12,772 –> 00:35:15,843
places and someplace and Chinese
and you know, middle Eastern

668
00:35:15,843 –> 00:35:19,181
kind of food as well as a
actually pretty nice central

669
00:35:19,181 –> 00:35:22,625
cafeteria that had, you know,
salad bars and all of this kind

670
00:35:22,625 –> 00:35:24,007
of thing.
So much better.

671
00:35:24,007 –> 00:35:26,659
Used to be there was sort of a
crappy cafeteria and in the

672
00:35:26,659 –> 00:35:29,182
basement there was a hot dog
machine that actually right.

673
00:35:30,702 –> 00:35:34,147
Hot hot dog machine.
Sounds terrifying. yeah.

674
00:35:34,477 –> 00:35:36,787
It’s sort of like seven 11.
You know that hotdog that rolls

675
00:35:36,787 –> 00:35:39,667
around in there and gets like,
becomes like leather was like

676
00:35:39,667 –> 00:35:41,869
one of those kind of things.
And so yeah, food’s pretty good

677
00:35:41,869 –> 00:35:42,757
now, I think.
Yeah.

678
00:35:42,817 –> 00:35:46,971
But the word catering, it is
like all those places the Middle

679
00:35:46,971 –> 00:35:48,787
East place, the pizza place, you
pay.

680
00:35:48,787 –> 00:35:50,117
Right.
You get in line and they get,

681
00:35:50,117 –> 00:35:53,419
you know, they give you a slam,
a pizza and you know, the people

682
00:35:53,419 –> 00:35:57,547
who work in there, I don’t know.
It was like, you know the

683
00:35:57,547 –> 00:36:00,466
baristas are not CIA officers.
They’re like just regular but

684
00:36:00,466 –> 00:36:02,497
they have to get, they do have
to get cleared.

685
00:36:02,497 –> 00:36:05,107
They have some sort of clearance
to go into the CIA.

686
00:36:06,007 –> 00:36:08,524
And, then there’s also a
separate seventh floor is what

687
00:36:08,524 –> 00:36:11,407
we call where the director and
the top people sit.

688
00:36:11,407 –> 00:36:14,251
The seventh floor.
There’s also a sort of a little

689
00:36:14,251 –> 00:36:18,115
restaurant for the seventh floor
people that if some big shot was

690
00:36:18,115 –> 00:36:21,389
coming over, I dunno, the
president of Paraguay was coming

691
00:36:21,389 –> 00:36:23,857
to talk to the director.
There’s a little restaurant

692
00:36:23,857 –> 00:36:26,311
there where they all can eat
with nice windows looking over

693
00:36:26,311 –> 00:36:29,062
the river.
And we always have little

694
00:36:29,062 –> 00:36:31,492
parties like somebody’s leaving
or a birthday.

695
00:36:31,762 –> 00:36:35,883
And so you could almost graze,
you can walk into a place like

696
00:36:35,883 –> 00:36:39,598
at one o’clock into one of the
big rooms and there’ll still be

697
00:36:39,598 –> 00:36:41,846
leftover bagels and shit.
And you could like just walk in

698
00:36:41,846 –> 00:36:44,404
and like, Dunking Donuts, those,
what are those little donut

699
00:36:44,404 –> 00:36:45,757
holes?
Those are like in every office.

700
00:36:45,757 –> 00:36:49,767
Those, those donut holes.
And then in every office

701
00:36:49,767 –> 00:36:51,517
there’s, you know, a coffee
maker.

702
00:36:51,517 –> 00:36:53,302
So you had just regular right.
right.

703
00:36:53,512 –> 00:36:57,060
And not only is there a coffee
maker, there is the guy who puts

704
00:36:57,060 –> 00:37:00,142
his fish in the microwave, right
in the kitchen, right.

705
00:37:00,322 –> 00:37:04,144
Like we’ve got those two.
Most people, I think, bring

706
00:37:04,144 –> 00:37:07,614
their lunches, right?
I mean we’re not so in the, you

707
00:37:07,614 –> 00:37:13,000
know the big money at CIA, so I
think the deal you get when you

708
00:37:13,000 –> 00:37:16,492
join is you take a massive pay
cut, right?

709
00:37:17,415 –> 00:37:20,149
Compared to what you could
probably make in the outside

710
00:37:20,149 –> 00:37:23,290
world.
So my brother Steve, he has the

711
00:37:23,290 –> 00:37:25,642
exact same education as I do,
right?

712
00:37:25,642 –> 00:37:28,822
He went to the same grad school,
international business school

713
00:37:28,822 –> 00:37:33,112
that I did, and he probably
makes twice, if not more than I

714
00:37:33,112 –> 00:37:38,395
do as a banker, an agricultural
banker, But what you get in

715
00:37:38,395 –> 00:37:42,378
return is you get a, you know,
you get a 401k, you get some,

716
00:37:42,378 –> 00:37:44,992
you know, generally you’re not
gonna get fired up until this

717
00:37:44,992 –> 00:37:49,029
administration, unless you
really fuck up and you get to do

718
00:37:49,029 –> 00:37:52,066
cool shit.
So, you know, for people who

719
00:37:52,066 –> 00:37:55,756
demonize the ccia a.
By and large, these people are

720
00:37:55,756 –> 00:37:59,089
taking a, a big pay cut to what
they could be getting on the

721
00:37:59,089 –> 00:38:02,729
outside because they wanna serve
and they wanna do interesting

722
00:38:02,729 –> 00:38:04,385
information.
They want a mission, they wanna

723
00:38:04,385 –> 00:38:09,537
make a difference in the world.
you know, but you also get like

724
00:38:09,537 –> 00:38:12,347
benefits, like not being there
for when your kids are born.

725
00:38:12,347 –> 00:38:14,603
Right.
Or being sent away from your

726
00:38:14,603 –> 00:38:18,642
family because like you do a
year in Iraq, you do a year in

727
00:38:18,642 –> 00:38:21,211
Afghanistan, you go to like
really shitty places, or you

728
00:38:21,211 –> 00:38:24,776
bring your families to like
Bangladesh where they can like

729
00:38:24,776 –> 00:38:27,497
breathe unhealthy air and worry
about cobras in the garden.

730
00:38:27,557 –> 00:38:31,178
Right.
It was like, so, know I loved it

731
00:38:31,178 –> 00:38:36,037
but it is not, you know, we’re
not like, you know, people are

732
00:38:36,037 –> 00:38:39,062
like, oh these, the deep state
guys, you know, they were.

733
00:38:39,457 –> 00:38:41,437
Like, what the fuck are you
talking about?

734
00:38:41,767 –> 00:38:44,437
We take real risks with
ourselves and our families.

735
00:38:44,437 –> 00:38:47,857
Not for a huge amount of money,
but because we actually believe

736
00:38:47,857 –> 00:38:49,837
in the fucking constitution.
Right.

737
00:38:50,257 –> 00:38:52,987
And we’re willing to serve.
I know there’s my, I’m get off

738
00:38:52,987 –> 00:38:54,960
my fucking soapbox.
I’m mad now, but John, what do

739
00:38:54,960 –> 00:38:59,938
you think you, I mean, you got,
It is the donut holes that I

740
00:38:59,938 –> 00:39:03,462
like.
Yeah. like hearing you describe

741
00:39:03,462 –> 00:39:07,942
Langley as, it almost sounds
like just any office environment

742
00:39:07,942 –> 00:39:11,728
in that way.
It reminds me, I, about 10, 12

743
00:39:11,728 –> 00:39:16,098
years ago, got a job working for
Playboy, and at one point they

744
00:39:16,098 –> 00:39:19,150
sold all of their digital
properties to this huge porn

745
00:39:19,150 –> 00:39:24,088
company called Manwin. huh?
And they flew me out to Manwin

746
00:39:24,088 –> 00:39:28,813
to tour the offices and things.
And at one point I am walking

747
00:39:28,813 –> 00:39:32,662
through all the cubicles and
there’s a column in the middle

748
00:39:32,662 –> 00:39:36,562
of this aisle and it’s just
plastered with kids’ artwork

749
00:39:36,562 –> 00:39:42,076
from school Exactly. and then to
the left, it’s just people

750
00:39:42,076 –> 00:39:46,582
editing breasts and butts and
it’s like so normal.

751
00:39:46,882 –> 00:39:51,937
I like old women just editing
boob. that’s what CI is like.

752
00:39:52,147 –> 00:39:54,363
What’s interesting is yeah, so
if you wanted to come there and

753
00:39:54,363 –> 00:39:58,255
show something this cool, there
really isn’t very much that,

754
00:39:58,255 –> 00:40:00,836
that’s cool.
But the, when they created in

755
00:40:00,836 –> 00:40:04,312
2004, after the, all the stuff
with nine 11, they created the

756
00:40:04,312 –> 00:40:05,737
director of National
Intelligence, right?

757
00:40:05,737 –> 00:40:08,797
And the idea was to coordinate
the budgets and everything of

758
00:40:08,797 –> 00:40:11,471
all the intelligence community.
So used to be the director of

759
00:40:11,471 –> 00:40:13,397
CIA coordinated.
All the community.

760
00:40:13,487 –> 00:40:16,182
And then after 2004, they
rewrote the law and decided they

761
00:40:16,182 –> 00:40:18,641
were gonna create this new job,
director of National

762
00:40:18,641 –> 00:40:20,549
Intelligence.
So they built a new building

763
00:40:20,549 –> 00:40:23,267
that’s not too far from where
the CIA building is.

764
00:40:23,387 –> 00:40:26,859
And they decided, and maybe they
needed to have one place that

765
00:40:26,859 –> 00:40:28,932
was cool.
So where the counter-terrorism,

766
00:40:28,932 –> 00:40:31,997
their version of the
Counter-Terrorism center, NCTC

767
00:40:31,997 –> 00:40:35,135
was created.
They actually went to Disney and

768
00:40:35,135 –> 00:40:39,077
said, we wanna create this space
where there’s like big TVs and

769
00:40:39,077 –> 00:40:40,863
things.
So like people could sit like a,

770
00:40:40,863 –> 00:40:43,547
that you see in NASA and look at
stuff and whatever, whatever.

771
00:40:44,027 –> 00:40:46,686
So like if someone’s coming and
they were trying to impress ’em,

772
00:40:46,686 –> 00:40:49,271
they take ’em over to NCTC and
they show ’em, like this big

773
00:40:49,271 –> 00:40:51,377
room with it looks like what
it’s supposed to on tv.

774
00:40:51,887 –> 00:40:53,207
But if we go over to ci, it’s
the same thing.

775
00:40:53,207 –> 00:40:56,887
There’s kids pictures on the
walls and you know, coffee mugs

776
00:40:56,887 –> 00:40:58,601
dirty.
But it’s true.

777
00:40:58,661 –> 00:41:01,934
We joke about at DNI that this
big office, they created all

778
00:41:01,934 –> 00:41:07,471
this kind of stuff and a lot of
us are very frustrated that

779
00:41:07,471 –> 00:41:09,674
they’ve it’s just almost
bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s

780
00:41:09,674 –> 00:41:12,926
sake. they’ve got this really
cool looking room and all they

781
00:41:12,926 –> 00:41:16,569
do there, if you actually ask
’em is wow, the CIA’s doing

782
00:41:16,569 –> 00:41:18,650
this, or the FBI
counterintelligence is doing

783
00:41:18,650 –> 00:41:20,794
this, the NSA is doing this.
Well, what do you do?

784
00:41:21,214 –> 00:41:23,614
We got a cool room where we talk
about what other people do.

785
00:41:23,614 –> 00:41:25,774
Right.
I don’t do Jack shit.

786
00:41:26,074 –> 00:41:27,850
I’m sorry.
I don’t think the d and i should

787
00:41:27,850 –> 00:41:30,178
even exist.
Or if it is, it should be like

788
00:41:30,178 –> 00:41:31,774
three dozen people.
But yeah.

789
00:41:31,889 –> 00:41:37,126
I’m with you. started the d.
Well, like for a lot of things,

790
00:41:37,126 –> 00:41:40,412
for political reasons.
So after nine 11 and after the

791
00:41:40,412 –> 00:41:45,844
WMD sort of fiasco, there was a
lot of pressure on President

792
00:41:45,844 –> 00:41:51,022
Bush. there was a big report and
the WMD report came out and had

793
00:41:51,022 –> 00:41:52,289
these recommendations from all
these experts and.

794
00:41:53,161 –> 00:41:55,647
Politicians and stuff.
And it said, you know, you

795
00:41:55,647 –> 00:41:57,069
should do a, you should do all
these things.

796
00:41:57,069 –> 00:42:00,421
And one of ’em is create a
larger group to make sure that,

797
00:42:00,421 –> 00:42:03,615
you know, one of the ideas of
nine 11 was the FBI and CI

798
00:42:03,615 –> 00:42:06,294
aren’t talking enough together.
Now, I worked with the FBIA lot

799
00:42:06,294 –> 00:42:08,589
before nine 11, so I don’t
necessarily buy that.

800
00:42:09,069 –> 00:42:11,499
But that became sort of the
talking point is like, these

801
00:42:11,499 –> 00:42:13,059
organizations are working, but
they’re not talking to each

802
00:42:13,059 –> 00:42:14,277
other.
Let’s create an organization

803
00:42:14,277 –> 00:42:16,869
that forces them to work
together and talk to each other.

804
00:42:17,439 –> 00:42:22,983
And then if you remember in the
lead up, the 2004 election John

805
00:42:22,983 –> 00:42:26,003
Kerry was running and once that
report came out, literally the

806
00:42:26,003 –> 00:42:28,419
next day, like he couldn’t even
have read it the next day.

807
00:42:28,419 –> 00:42:31,687
He said, if I’m president, I’m
gonna make all of these things

808
00:42:31,687 –> 00:42:33,819
happen.
You know and so then Bush said,

809
00:42:33,819 –> 00:42:35,979
had to say, for political
reasons, I’m in charge.

810
00:42:36,009 –> 00:42:37,659
I’m gonna have all these things
happen.

811
00:42:37,659 –> 00:42:40,155
And so quickly they went over to
the Congress and said, write up

812
00:42:40,155 –> 00:42:42,039
a law saying we’re gonna make
this new thing.

813
00:42:42,459 –> 00:42:44,912
And literally would within weeks
or just a couple months, they

814
00:42:44,912 –> 00:42:47,739
put together a pretty slap dash
law to create this thing.

815
00:42:47,739 –> 00:42:50,429
So for political reasons, they
were essentially saying, I have

816
00:42:50,429 –> 00:42:53,465
now solved the problem of.
Nine 11 Now these places have to

817
00:42:53,465 –> 00:42:55,544
talk together ’cause they’ve
created this new organization.

818
00:42:55,964 –> 00:42:58,019
Now of course they didn’t
really, a new organization just

819
00:42:58,019 –> 00:43:00,704
would, they would take like a,
the office from the CIA and

820
00:43:00,704 –> 00:43:02,856
Office from Defense Department
and they would stick ’em in this

821
00:43:02,856 –> 00:43:04,214
new building.
It was the same people.

822
00:43:04,304 –> 00:43:06,944
And then over time they’ve added
new people and responsibilities

823
00:43:06,979 –> 00:43:09,924
Right. political reasons Yeah.
They’re not talking to each

824
00:43:09,924 –> 00:43:12,031
other ’cause of bureaucratic
reasons, so let’s just create

825
00:43:12,031 –> 00:43:14,509
more bureaucracy.
Let’s hire another. like that’ll

826
00:43:14,509 –> 00:43:21,394
fix it. responsive Another
listener question from Perso.

827
00:43:21,514 –> 00:43:29,270
How much of what we see in terms
of the CIA in Hollywood is a

828
00:43:29,270 –> 00:43:32,788
natural development of Hollywood
wanting to glorify the

829
00:43:32,788 –> 00:43:37,606
profession, and how much of it
is specifically pitched by

830
00:43:37,606 –> 00:43:40,594
vested interests?
Like at the CIA?

831
00:43:40,594 –> 00:43:45,754
’cause the CIA has a Hollywood
liaison sort of office, right.

832
00:43:46,729 –> 00:43:49,729
interesting. so I’ll let, I’ll
go quick and then let Jerry go.

833
00:43:49,729 –> 00:43:52,766
So, so Jerry and I actually have
a company that’s when we both

834
00:43:52,766 –> 00:43:55,111
retired and we got together, we
created a company called

835
00:43:55,111 –> 00:43:57,245
Spycraft Entertainment.
And our idea was we were gonna

836
00:43:57,245 –> 00:43:59,818
try to take content stories,
real stories that we knew and

837
00:43:59,818 –> 00:44:02,485
try to work with Hollywood to
make better TV shows and movies

838
00:44:02,485 –> 00:44:05,119
that are more realistic, you
know, more authentic.

839
00:44:05,649 –> 00:44:08,161
And so we’ve been doing that now
for almost, what, eight or eight

840
00:44:08,161 –> 00:44:09,499
years or more.
It’s crazy.

841
00:44:09,499 –> 00:44:11,689
It takes forever in Hollywood to
make shows.

842
00:44:12,379 –> 00:44:14,865
And of course, so we meet and
probably after this meeting,

843
00:44:14,865 –> 00:44:17,802
we’re gonna be meeting with
producers and writers and things

844
00:44:17,802 –> 00:44:21,163
in Hollywood to talk about shows
and people talk to us about, you

845
00:44:21,163 –> 00:44:22,789
know, which shows are realistic
and which aren’t.

846
00:44:22,999 –> 00:44:26,443
So the CIA a does have a public
affairs section and they’re

847
00:44:26,443 –> 00:44:29,769
supposed to sort of.
Pay attention to what’s out

848
00:44:29,769 –> 00:44:33,529
there publicly and they think
they should support a show or

849
00:44:33,529 –> 00:44:35,479
movie.
I think reported like Zero, dark

850
00:44:35,479 –> 00:44:39,889
30, the CIA sort of helped them
with it, but it’s a pretty small

851
00:44:39,889 –> 00:44:43,105
group of people that aren’t
incredibly integrated into the

852
00:44:43,105 –> 00:44:46,081
work that CIA does.
We’ve done some work with them

853
00:44:46,081 –> 00:44:48,436
and they’re nice people, but
they’re not coming out and

854
00:44:48,436 –> 00:44:50,239
saying, Hey, we want you to do
this, we want you to do that.

855
00:44:50,389 –> 00:44:52,429
I don’t think they would even
know how to do that.

856
00:44:52,429 –> 00:44:55,515
I think the Defense Department
has a bigger role in those kind

857
00:44:55,515 –> 00:44:57,595
of things.
You know, there’s a big office

858
00:44:57,595 –> 00:45:00,028
that like makes sure there’s
flyovers of football games and

859
00:45:00,028 –> 00:45:02,549
all this type of stuff.
I think they, you know, work

860
00:45:02,549 –> 00:45:05,059
with Top Gun and make sure that,
you know, give.

861
00:45:05,704 –> 00:45:07,984
Equipment so they can use ’em in
the movies and stuff like that.

862
00:45:07,984 –> 00:45:11,520
Ca doesn’t have that kind of
role, but I think they would be

863
00:45:11,520 –> 00:45:14,854
mildly supportive if a movie
looked positive about the cia.

864
00:45:14,854 –> 00:45:17,344
A they would try to find a way
to mildly help.

865
00:45:18,604 –> 00:45:22,400
And so, yeah, Hollywood. one of
the hardest things that Jerry

866
00:45:22,400 –> 00:45:26,144
and I do is we work with, we
spend a lot of time working with

867
00:45:26,144 –> 00:45:28,904
producers, working with writers
about coming up with ideas and

868
00:45:28,904 –> 00:45:30,454
concepts.
And oftentimes the writers, they

869
00:45:30,454 –> 00:45:32,734
just fall back on what they’ve
seen on TV before.

870
00:45:32,734 –> 00:45:36,217
So like the view of Hollywood
is, you know, that we, yeah, we

871
00:45:36,217 –> 00:45:39,968
drove fast cars and we have guns
and you know, we go rogue and

872
00:45:39,968 –> 00:45:42,168
we’re hiding from, and there’s
an evil bureaucrat and there’s

873
00:45:42,168 –> 00:45:45,108
all that kind of stuff.
And know, we keep saying, no,

874
00:45:45,108 –> 00:45:47,644
no, no, no, no let’s scale that
back.

875
00:45:47,644 –> 00:45:50,884
That’s not how it works.
But Hollywood loves that stuff.

876
00:45:51,124 –> 00:45:52,984
Yeah, I think they just ignore
us.

877
00:45:53,194 –> 00:45:55,560
I mean, we sit with writers and
it’s not exactly like this, and

878
00:45:55,560 –> 00:45:58,988
most of ’em are really nice, but
they’re selling a product,

879
00:45:58,988 –> 00:46:02,330
Hollywood, right?
so it’s like, well, what sells

880
00:46:02,330 –> 00:46:05,038
sex action?
So you sit down and, this

881
00:46:05,038 –> 00:46:07,918
conversation’s never actually
happened, but it’s like, so John

882
00:46:07,918 –> 00:46:10,793
and I, it’s like, so tell us
about all the times you’ve been

883
00:46:10,793 –> 00:46:12,379
chased.
You know, I’ve been in a car

884
00:46:12,379 –> 00:46:13,744
chase.
Uh, never.

885
00:46:14,044 –> 00:46:16,744
Uh, tell us about the times
you’ve karate chop people.

886
00:46:17,074 –> 00:46:20,237
Uh, never, you know, tell us
about, you know, your gun

887
00:46:20,237 –> 00:46:22,339
collection.
I don’t own one, you know, it’s

888
00:46:22,339 –> 00:46:25,474
like, tell us all the, you know,
the, you know, it is like the

889
00:46:25,474 –> 00:46:27,769
times you walk into your bedroom
and there’s some, you know,

890
00:46:27,769 –> 00:46:30,864
beautiful woman laying in bed
with a foreign accent, which is

891
00:46:30,864 –> 00:46:34,594
actually true in my case because
my wife is British, right.

892
00:46:34,594 –> 00:46:36,733
You know, but I got three kids.
I’ve been married to 40 years,

893
00:46:36,733 –> 00:46:39,326
right?
So it’s not, it’s not much, you

894
00:46:39,326 –> 00:46:42,874
know, it’s like, oh fuck, this
isn’t, instead of taking the

895
00:46:42,874 –> 00:46:45,734
cool stuff that we do, which is
actually pretty cool, sometimes

896
00:46:45,734 –> 00:46:48,678
they’re like, yeah, let’s just
have a car chase scene with guns

897
00:46:48,678 –> 00:46:50,941
and sex and explosions.
’cause they think that’s what

898
00:46:50,941 –> 00:46:53,176
the audience wants.
And maybe the audience kind of

899
00:46:53,176 –> 00:46:56,446
does want that to a certain
extent, but I think they,

900
00:46:56,446 –> 00:46:59,194
audiences would be really
interested in the human

901
00:46:59,194 –> 00:47:00,724
dimension of what we do the
drama.

902
00:47:00,724 –> 00:47:04,834
But it’s pretty rare.
Drunken Donut along those same

903
00:47:04,999 –> 00:47:09,874
Oh, I, I support that. says can
you enjoy watching any of the

904
00:47:09,874 –> 00:47:13,189
bond films or does your personal
experience make you criticize

905
00:47:13,189 –> 00:47:16,039
every part of the story?
I just flew back.

906
00:47:16,039 –> 00:47:18,889
I was just with my family in
Scotland and I make, on the way

907
00:47:18,889 –> 00:47:21,299
back I watched two bond films.
I watched Skyfall ’cause it has

908
00:47:21,299 –> 00:47:22,849
a Scotland scene and stuff.
Yeah.

909
00:47:22,849 –> 00:47:25,067
I love the Bond films and I
love, I like the born films and

910
00:47:25,067 –> 00:47:27,771
I like all those kind of things,
but not because they’re

911
00:47:27,771 –> 00:47:30,691
realistic or anything, but I
think the British like them

912
00:47:30,691 –> 00:47:32,959
because people then think that
the British Intelligence

913
00:47:32,959 –> 00:47:36,185
Services, you know, S-I-S-M-I
six, that they’re sort of like

914
00:47:36,185 –> 00:47:38,029
James Bond and so they sort of
live off that.

915
00:47:38,029 –> 00:47:39,679
So when they’re out in the
field, they, you know, people

916
00:47:39,679 –> 00:47:41,419
are like, oh, the British, they
know spying.

917
00:47:41,449 –> 00:47:45,117
Let’s go talk to the British.
And so yeah, know we like those

918
00:47:45,117 –> 00:47:48,943
movies too.
Slow Horses is a good one about

919
00:47:48,943 –> 00:47:51,349
less successful British spies
and things like that.

920
00:47:51,349 –> 00:47:53,659
But yeah, so I like the bond
films.

921
00:47:53,839 –> 00:47:56,426
Yeah, I mean, I like Star Trek
too, and superhero movies, but

922
00:47:56,426 –> 00:48:00,229
it doesn’t mean I, you suspend
disbelief in watching ’em.

923
00:48:00,229 –> 00:48:02,439
So yeah, bond is great.
Everybody should watch it, but

924
00:48:02,439 –> 00:48:07,678
it’s not the way it is. spooks
Weaver says well, you just

925
00:48:07,678 –> 00:48:12,140
mentioned, MI six and them
wanting to look more suave by

926
00:48:12,140 –> 00:48:15,272
way of James Bond.
So this makes for a good follow

927
00:48:15,272 –> 00:48:18,184
up question, which other nation
has the most boring agents

928
00:48:18,184 –> 00:48:22,069
you’ve interacted with?
boring.

929
00:48:22,069 –> 00:48:26,135
That’s a hard one.
It feels like it would be hard

930
00:48:26,135 –> 00:48:30,034
to be an intelligence agent and
be boring Jerry’s got a lot of

931
00:48:30,034 –> 00:48:33,784
experience in Germany and so
that’s probably, I’m sorry.

932
00:48:33,784 –> 00:48:36,724
The B and d love the Germans,
but yeah, they’re pretty dull.

933
00:48:36,724 –> 00:48:41,569
Yeah.
Maybe a professional, but dull.

934
00:48:41,569 –> 00:48:43,384
Yeah.
There’s not a lot of

935
00:48:43,384 –> 00:48:45,679
organizations that have a
worldwide presence like we do.

936
00:48:45,679 –> 00:48:48,429
So essentially the, you know,
the United States has interests

937
00:48:48,429 –> 00:48:51,619
around the world, and so we have
people in Africa and Asia and

938
00:48:51,619 –> 00:48:56,098
Europe and all over the place.
And the British do, but to a

939
00:48:56,098 –> 00:48:59,020
lesser extent the Russians and
Chinese certainly do, I mean,

940
00:48:59,020 –> 00:49:00,990
Russia’s actually, you know, an
economy the size of Portugal,

941
00:49:00,990 –> 00:49:04,920
but they have spies everywhere
because they rely on their

942
00:49:04,920 –> 00:49:08,222
intelligence security services
for not just collecting

943
00:49:08,222 –> 00:49:11,617
information like ours does, but
also for creating havoc and

944
00:49:11,617 –> 00:49:14,156
chaos and disinformation
listings we’ve seen, seen

945
00:49:14,156 –> 00:49:18,562
against our country even. but
other places have, you know,

946
00:49:18,562 –> 00:49:21,524
regional interests like, so the
Israelis are really good, you

947
00:49:21,524 –> 00:49:26,821
know, at Iran and in their area,
maybe less so on things that are

948
00:49:26,821 –> 00:49:29,724
far away from Israel.
But, you know Egyptians have

949
00:49:29,724 –> 00:49:32,068
intelligence service and the
French have an intelligence

950
00:49:32,068 –> 00:49:35,242
service in the Italians.
They all have you know, and

951
00:49:35,242 –> 00:49:37,720
Malaysians and everybody else
have oftentimes internal

952
00:49:37,720 –> 00:49:41,312
services and external services
may be smaller than ours, all

953
00:49:41,312 –> 00:49:44,884
the Australians we work with,
but yeah, most of ’em are nice.

954
00:49:45,184 –> 00:49:48,256
They’re trying to do, you know,
their job to support their

955
00:49:48,256 –> 00:49:51,120
policy makers.
Yeah, except I would tip that

956
00:49:51,120 –> 00:49:56,209
question on its head. there are
intelligence services and these

957
00:49:56,209 –> 00:50:00,634
are basically like, we think of
the MI six or the B and DCIA.

958
00:50:01,024 –> 00:50:02,434
Our job is to collect
intelligence.

959
00:50:02,434 –> 00:50:05,264
But then there are security
services, which you can’t say

960
00:50:05,264 –> 00:50:08,724
the, so like the North Koreans,
the Iranians even the Russians,

961
00:50:08,724 –> 00:50:12,904
you know, they have a different
job and their job is to, you

962
00:50:12,904 –> 00:50:16,495
know, is to support the state.
And they deal in, you know

963
00:50:16,495 –> 00:50:21,004
they’re very different.
You know, the GRU, the Russian,

964
00:50:21,004 –> 00:50:23,242
military intelligence.
I mean, these guys are like,

965
00:50:23,242 –> 00:50:25,864
yeah, we kill people.
We go after dissidents.

966
00:50:26,074 –> 00:50:28,779
We don’t do that.
And you can kind of tell which

967
00:50:28,779 –> 00:50:31,024
is which by whether they’re
afraid of their own governments.

968
00:50:31,674 –> 00:50:35,038
If you ever get the chance to
sit down with a North Korean

969
00:50:35,038 –> 00:50:38,314
right intelligence officer, they
are scared shitless.

970
00:50:38,494 –> 00:50:40,954
They’re gonna say the wrong
thing because like.

971
00:50:42,154 –> 00:50:45,127
You get called back or Russians,
you know, they’re worried

972
00:50:45,127 –> 00:50:47,280
they’re gonna say something
against Putin and they’re gonna

973
00:50:47,280 –> 00:50:49,346
get called back.
And up until this

974
00:50:49,346 –> 00:50:52,722
administration, you know, if you
wanted to, you could, you know,

975
00:50:52,722 –> 00:50:55,319
not as part of your official
duties, you could say you know,

976
00:50:55,319 –> 00:50:58,104
fuck Obama or Funk Clinton.
And nothing’s gonna happen to

977
00:50:58,104 –> 00:51:00,704
you because we have a democracy
and you’re allowed to say

978
00:51:00,704 –> 00:51:02,584
things.
But people in security services

979
00:51:02,584 –> 00:51:06,382
aren’t allowed to do that.
By and large, they, you know,

980
00:51:06,382 –> 00:51:09,924
Chinese, one instance of, I know
of a Chinese intelligence

981
00:51:09,924 –> 00:51:12,124
officer, he’s like, fuck, I went
to church.

982
00:51:12,304 –> 00:51:15,240
If I get caught because I went
into a church, they’re gonna

983
00:51:15,240 –> 00:51:21,826
pull me home and fire me.
I could go to jail that’s a

984
00:51:21,826 –> 00:51:24,674
security service, right?
He’s there for the Chinese

985
00:51:24,674 –> 00:51:27,730
Communist Party.
Not to just collect

986
00:51:27,730 –> 00:51:31,609
intelligence.
The way I look at it is those

987
00:51:31,609 –> 00:51:34,175
kind of countries, western
countries, their intelligence

988
00:51:34,175 –> 00:51:36,649
services are about national
security, right?

989
00:51:36,649 –> 00:51:39,439
They’re about securing, keeping
the American citizens safe.

990
00:51:39,769 –> 00:51:42,897
Whereas countries like China,
Russia, North Korea, those, it’s

991
00:51:42,897 –> 00:51:44,935
about regime security.
It’s about keeping the

992
00:51:44,935 –> 00:51:46,339
leadership in power at all
costs.

993
00:51:46,339 –> 00:51:48,409
So that’s why they have a big
domestic role.

994
00:51:48,409 –> 00:51:50,329
Like they don’t want any
political opposition.

995
00:51:50,779 –> 00:51:53,629
So Putin’s security services,
their main role is making sure

996
00:51:53,629 –> 00:51:57,187
no one, there’s no political
threat to Putin inside that, you

997
00:51:57,187 –> 00:51:59,971
know, they arrest the people
they need to, and then overseas

998
00:51:59,971 –> 00:52:01,699
they’re sort of the weapon of
the state.

999
00:52:01,699 –> 00:52:04,339
And so it’s regime security
versus national security is how

1000
00:52:04,354 –> 00:52:07,369
that’s a good point.
You just mentioned Russia.

1001
00:52:07,549 –> 00:52:10,489
We have a, I think, a good
listener question about Russia

1002
00:52:10,729 –> 00:52:15,433
from a listener named Bar Lock.
Do you believe that Russia has

1003
00:52:15,433 –> 00:52:17,329
compromising information on
Trump?

1004
00:52:17,704 –> 00:52:21,839
Oh, that’s a good one.
So yeah I served in Moscow I

1005
00:52:21,839 –> 00:52:25,876
speak Russian and I worked on,
you know, at our headquarters on

1006
00:52:25,876 –> 00:52:29,127
worldwide Russia issues.
I write on Russia and those type

1007
00:52:29,127 –> 00:52:31,252
of things.
I’ve even written an article on,

1008
00:52:31,252 –> 00:52:34,552
is Donald Trump a Russian spy?
If you wanna read it, I think

1009
00:52:34,552 –> 00:52:36,978
it’s in, just security, which is
a platform that writes about

1010
00:52:36,978 –> 00:52:39,244
those kind of things.
So that’s a very complicated

1011
00:52:39,244 –> 00:52:42,604
thing that I could talk about
for quite a long time.

1012
00:52:42,604 –> 00:52:47,071
So the Russians, yeah.
So Jerry and I, like we were

1013
00:52:47,071 –> 00:52:50,364
saying, we would try to recruit
a source that can give us the

1014
00:52:50,364 –> 00:52:51,724
secrets that our policymakers
need.

1015
00:52:51,724 –> 00:52:56,377
So if our policymakers need to
know what the Iranian regime is

1016
00:52:56,377 –> 00:52:59,898
thinking, you know, we got
academics, we got satellites, we

1017
00:52:59,898 –> 00:53:02,850
got diplomats, we all, and if
they’re not getting that answer,

1018
00:53:02,850 –> 00:53:05,669
then they want us to try to find
someone that can steal that

1019
00:53:05,669 –> 00:53:08,818
information, that can tell us
those thoughts and intentions of

1020
00:53:08,818 –> 00:53:11,335
the leadership.
But the Russian intelligence

1021
00:53:11,335 –> 00:53:14,098
services, you know, they’re
looking to collect information,

1022
00:53:14,098 –> 00:53:19,672
but they’re also looking to take
active measures create chaos, to

1023
00:53:19,672 –> 00:53:24,904
support radical groups, to
spread disinformation, to spread

1024
00:53:24,904 –> 00:53:26,344
subversion, these type of
things.

1025
00:53:27,544 –> 00:53:30,004
And so yeah, Donald Trump
traveled.

1026
00:53:30,179 –> 00:53:32,579
In the seventies and things to
Russia.

1027
00:53:32,579 –> 00:53:34,934
He’s always had sort of this
fascination and interest in

1028
00:53:34,934 –> 00:53:37,079
Russia, maybe for business
reasons or what have you.

1029
00:53:38,309 –> 00:53:41,597
The notion that they did not pay
attention to him, they paid

1030
00:53:41,597 –> 00:53:44,069
attention to someone senior like
that when they visited Russia.

1031
00:53:44,159 –> 00:53:45,964
I think they probably did.
It’s almost.

1032
00:53:46,389 –> 00:53:49,314
Any American official or
businessman who travels to

1033
00:53:49,314 –> 00:53:53,343
Russia, they’re gonna maybe have
cameras in your hotel, maybe

1034
00:53:53,343 –> 00:53:57,029
question everybody you talk to,
maybe try to, you know, put

1035
00:53:57,029 –> 00:54:00,327
someone in touch with you to try
to, you know, we’ve seen them

1036
00:54:00,327 –> 00:54:03,391
use what they call swallows
women to try to like, have

1037
00:54:03,391 –> 00:54:05,630
relationships with foreigners so
that they can report on them and

1038
00:54:05,630 –> 00:54:08,931
these type of things.
So the Russians have always been

1039
00:54:08,931 –> 00:54:11,849
interested, I think, in Donald
Trump now, had they recruited

1040
00:54:11,849 –> 00:54:15,564
him as a spy in the sense that
Jerry and I are talking about

1041
00:54:15,564 –> 00:54:18,324
developing a relationship with
someone, seeing what their

1042
00:54:18,324 –> 00:54:21,069
motivations are, you know,
getting them to agree to.

1043
00:54:21,359 –> 00:54:24,179
Spy secretly for the United
States government to give us

1044
00:54:24,179 –> 00:54:26,286
information and keep themselves
secret and follow our

1045
00:54:26,286 –> 00:54:28,373
directions.
I don’t think Donald Trump could

1046
00:54:28,373 –> 00:54:30,219
do that.
I don’t think he’s disciplined

1047
00:54:30,219 –> 00:54:33,167
enough to meet secretly with
anybody or to keep his mouth

1048
00:54:33,167 –> 00:54:36,329
shut or to, you know, we need to
meet you on the corner of

1049
00:54:36,329 –> 00:54:39,359
whatever, wherever it’s this
time.

1050
00:54:39,509 –> 00:54:42,607
And I want you to debrief on
these specific topics that

1051
00:54:42,607 –> 00:54:45,017
you’ve had.
Like he would be a complete

1052
00:54:45,017 –> 00:54:47,789
nightmare for an intelligence
service to try to run.

1053
00:54:48,179 –> 00:54:51,938
But the Russians also understand
that, and they might not run him

1054
00:54:51,938 –> 00:54:55,047
as a spy, like the way.
We’re thinking of, Jerry and I

1055
00:54:55,047 –> 00:54:58,095
are thinking about in our work,
but they might be able to

1056
00:54:58,095 –> 00:55:00,219
realize, hey, this guy is a
loose cannon.

1057
00:55:00,549 –> 00:55:03,129
He seems to like us.
He seems to spout his mouth off.

1058
00:55:03,339 –> 00:55:05,859
He seems to believe the last
thing that he’s heard.

1059
00:55:05,859 –> 00:55:09,219
So let’s find a way to put
information in front of him.

1060
00:55:09,219 –> 00:55:12,549
Let’s try to get information
that’s useful to us, to him.

1061
00:55:12,549 –> 00:55:15,741
Let’s put people you know around
him and to meet him from time to

1062
00:55:15,741 –> 00:55:17,901
time.
They’re gonna sort of push the

1063
00:55:17,901 –> 00:55:21,105
pro-Russian view or to give bad
information about, you know,

1064
00:55:21,105 –> 00:55:24,097
Americans that are causing us
problems or, you know, tell ’em

1065
00:55:24,097 –> 00:55:25,995
that.
CIA and the State Department are

1066
00:55:25,995 –> 00:55:28,981
evil things.
And so I think he is, it depends

1067
00:55:28,981 –> 00:55:32,771
on the word you’re, he’s an
asset to the Russian state,

1068
00:55:32,771 –> 00:55:35,669
meaning he helps Russian
interest, Russian state.

1069
00:55:35,939 –> 00:55:38,309
He supports and says Russian
talking points.

1070
00:55:39,359 –> 00:55:42,539
He refuses to see the terrible
things that Russians are doing.

1071
00:55:42,539 –> 00:55:46,011
So he is of use to the Russians,
and I think they manipulate him

1072
00:55:46,011 –> 00:55:49,589
in the way that they can.
Is he a spy for Russia?

1073
00:55:49,589 –> 00:55:51,269
I don’t believe that to be the
case.

1074
00:55:51,269 –> 00:55:54,279
And so I tried to lay that out
in my article, and I’ll put it,

1075
00:55:54,279 –> 00:55:55,289
I’ll send it to you here when
we’re.

1076
00:55:55,424 –> 00:55:58,604
Yeah, we’ll link to it But the
specific question let me give

1077
00:55:58,604 –> 00:56:02,289
you an instance and then you can
decide your audience can decide.

1078
00:56:02,289 –> 00:56:08,139
So in 2016, Donald Trump said
very specifically, I do not have

1079
00:56:08,259 –> 00:56:11,409
any business interest in Russia.
I don’t, but he did.

1080
00:56:11,589 –> 00:56:13,795
Right?
I mean, he had the letter of

1081
00:56:13,795 –> 00:56:17,109
intent signed by Rudy Giuliani
has said this publicly that, so

1082
00:56:17,109 –> 00:56:19,989
he was negotiating a Trump Tower
in Moscow.

1083
00:56:20,169 –> 00:56:23,289
It did not come to pass.
So he had an active.

1084
00:56:23,524 –> 00:56:28,714
Business negotiation going on,
and the Russians knew about it.

1085
00:56:28,774 –> 00:56:32,074
Now, Donald Trump knew about it.
The Russians knew about it.

1086
00:56:32,314 –> 00:56:34,714
So the Russians had something
over him.

1087
00:56:34,864 –> 00:56:38,464
The people who didn’t know that
he had an act of business

1088
00:56:38,464 –> 00:56:41,059
negotiation, they had this
letter of intent to build, was

1089
00:56:41,059 –> 00:56:43,327
the American people.
And the Russians kept their

1090
00:56:43,327 –> 00:56:46,980
mouths shut, didn’t they?
They didn’t say they had a piece

1091
00:56:46,980 –> 00:56:50,965
of paper they could hold up and
sink Donald Trump to show him to

1092
00:56:50,965 –> 00:56:54,454
be a liar.
In 2016, they didn’t use it.

1093
00:56:54,544 –> 00:56:56,959
So they, in this one particular
instance.

1094
00:56:57,629 –> 00:57:01,908
Yeah, I would say that is proof
that they had something on

1095
00:57:01,908 –> 00:57:04,559
Donald Trump, that he was a
inveterate liar on this

1096
00:57:04,559 –> 00:57:06,983
particular point.
Now you could argue, well, a

1097
00:57:06,983 –> 00:57:08,999
letter of intent that’s not
negotiated bullshit.

1098
00:57:09,029 –> 00:57:11,129
He said, no, I have no, no
business.

1099
00:57:11,249 –> 00:57:13,199
You know, no business
relationship with Russia.

1100
00:57:13,199 –> 00:57:18,569
All that was clearly false.
So do they have anything now?

1101
00:57:19,154 –> 00:57:23,444
And it’s, the question is do
they or did they or what I

1102
00:57:23,444 –> 00:57:26,715
believe and what I can prove.
I can’t prove it except for that

1103
00:57:26,715 –> 00:57:28,934
one point, maybe some other
smaller ones.

1104
00:57:28,994 –> 00:57:33,264
But one last thing your
listeners should think is why

1105
00:57:33,264 –> 00:57:38,904
would Paul Manafort, why was,
again, 2016, why was his

1106
00:57:38,904 –> 00:57:43,621
campaign manager meeting
secretly with a Russian agent

1107
00:57:43,621 –> 00:57:47,607
and handing him over internal
campaign documents, polling,

1108
00:57:47,607 –> 00:57:51,734
like being observed by the FBI?
I can’t think of any reason.

1109
00:57:51,734 –> 00:57:55,964
And because that campaign
manager, he was deeply in debt

1110
00:57:55,964 –> 00:57:59,769
to a pro Putin oligarch.
So, you know, people can put two

1111
00:57:59,769 –> 00:58:03,053
and two together and get six, or
they can get four or what I

1112
00:58:03,053 –> 00:58:05,595
believe or what they believe.
But, you know, I mean, and then

1113
00:58:05,595 –> 00:58:06,974
there’s a whole host of other
things.

1114
00:58:06,974 –> 00:58:10,004
So Russia, Russia, Russia, hoax
I don’t know.

1115
00:58:10,004 –> 00:58:12,854
You explain those things to me,
why they’re hoaxes and I’ll, you

1116
00:58:12,854 –> 00:58:15,674
know, then I’ll, you know, I’ll
be fine with that but I can’t.

1117
00:58:16,154 –> 00:58:19,394
Yeah, that reminds me of a thing
that happened recently that I

1118
00:58:19,394 –> 00:58:22,214
feel like hasn’t gotten enough
attention.

1119
00:58:22,214 –> 00:58:25,574
There was that, I guess, rumor
that went around.

1120
00:58:25,574 –> 00:58:31,706
I guess it came from the Epstein
files, that there is an image of

1121
00:58:31,706 –> 00:58:36,860
Trump blowing Bubba, and people
immediately went to, oh, that’s

1122
00:58:36,860 –> 00:58:39,314
Bill Clinton.
That’s Bill Clinton’s nickname.

1123
00:58:39,434 –> 00:58:43,301
But the actual speculation is, I
don’t remember the guy’s name,

1124
00:58:43,301 –> 00:58:47,684
but he is some billionaire who
lives in Texas.

1125
00:58:47,744 –> 00:58:50,396
The speculation is, it’s
actually that guy, his nickname

1126
00:58:50,396 –> 00:58:54,299
is Bubba.
About a week before that

1127
00:58:54,299 –> 00:59:00,472
information was made, public
Cash Patel took a personal trip

1128
00:59:00,472 –> 00:59:06,500
to the ranch owned by the Bubba.
In question and no one I feel

1129
00:59:06,500 –> 00:59:11,093
like is asking, well, why did
the director of the FBI go to

1130
00:59:11,093 –> 00:59:14,450
that guy’s ranch right before
this information about Trump

1131
00:59:14,450 –> 00:59:16,934
came out?
Seems like a question worth

1132
00:59:16,934 –> 00:59:21,989
asking. the Trump Russia stuff
is really scary stuff.

1133
00:59:21,989 –> 00:59:27,089
Like he has been consistently
supporting of Russia in Ukraine.

1134
00:59:27,209 –> 00:59:31,865
Clearly the Russians, you know,
invaded Ukraine, murdering

1135
00:59:31,865 –> 00:59:35,999
Ukrainians, but he refuses to
see the reality of that.

1136
00:59:36,449 –> 00:59:39,995
And then he can completely
attacks anybody who talks about

1137
00:59:39,995 –> 00:59:41,633
Russia.
So there’s an incredible amount

1138
00:59:41,633 –> 00:59:44,439
of information, like what Jerry
was talking about in the 2016

1139
00:59:44,439 –> 00:59:46,909
campaign and others, that the
Russians were trying to actively

1140
00:59:46,909 –> 00:59:49,319
help his campaign and other
things, but he goes against it.

1141
00:59:49,649 –> 00:59:52,904
But one thing that he could
solve this he screams about

1142
00:59:52,904 –> 00:59:55,421
Russia, Russia, Russia.
But he could solve the problem

1143
00:59:55,421 –> 00:59:58,254
if, just explain why.
Why have you consistently been

1144
00:59:58,254 –> 01:00:00,389
pro-Russian?
Why do you support Vladi Putin?

1145
01:00:00,689 –> 01:00:03,719
Why do you support, continue to
say Russian talking points?

1146
01:00:03,809 –> 01:00:06,869
Why when you’re running for
election in 2015?

1147
01:00:07,599 –> 01:00:11,847
In places like Iowa, does your
campaign to be in touch with

1148
01:00:11,847 –> 01:00:14,313
like 140 Russians?
What is the benefit if you’re

1149
01:00:14,313 –> 01:00:16,179
running for election, to have
all these Russians?

1150
01:00:17,349 –> 01:00:20,109
What’s happened is he’s attacked
and attacked and attacked, but

1151
01:00:20,109 –> 01:00:24,179
not once has he ever just tried
to say, here’s why I here’s why

1152
01:00:24,179 –> 01:00:25,659
I am in touch with all these
Russians.

1153
01:00:25,659 –> 01:00:26,979
Here’s why I wanna do business
with Russia.

1154
01:00:27,069 –> 01:00:29,289
Here’s what, why all my people
in touch with Russians, here’s

1155
01:00:29,289 –> 01:00:30,549
why I support Russia.
Never.

1156
01:00:30,849 –> 01:00:33,973
If you could just explain that
maybe he wouldn’t get attacked

1157
01:00:33,973 –> 01:00:35,099
so much.
Right.

1158
01:00:35,099 –> 01:00:39,269
It was a plank in the Republican
Party platform in 2015 that they

1159
01:00:39,269 –> 01:00:42,736
would strongly support Ukraine
right against Russian and

1160
01:00:42,736 –> 01:00:44,999
Gresham.
Trump wins the nomination.

1161
01:00:45,329 –> 01:00:48,029
And that plank is quietly
dropped.

1162
01:00:48,089 –> 01:00:49,949
Why?
Who ordered that?

1163
01:00:49,979 –> 01:00:52,579
How did that happen?
The entire party, everybody in

1164
01:00:52,579 –> 01:00:54,959
the party was, we are gonna
support Ukraine.

1165
01:00:55,139 –> 01:00:57,149
He becomes in and then that’s
dropped.

1166
01:00:57,239 –> 01:00:58,829
Why?
Where’s the paperwork on there?

1167
01:00:58,829 –> 01:01:05,824
Where’s the meetings conspiracy?
I don’t know, but as CIA

1168
01:01:05,824 –> 01:01:09,376
officers, we don’t, we deal in
probabilities often.

1169
01:01:09,376 –> 01:01:11,174
Right.
It’s more likely than not the

1170
01:01:11,174 –> 01:01:14,446
FBI, when they bring a case to
court, they have to prove

1171
01:01:14,446 –> 01:01:17,146
something, you know, beyond a
shadow of a doubt.

1172
01:01:17,146 –> 01:01:19,996
They’ve gotta convince jurors
and they have to have it exactly

1173
01:01:19,996 –> 01:01:23,356
right in CIA, we can say.
You know what?

1174
01:01:23,506 –> 01:01:28,594
I’m 70% convinced of this the,
the evidence that it’s true

1175
01:01:28,594 –> 01:01:31,621
strongly outweighs the evidence
that it isn’t true or this

1176
01:01:31,621 –> 01:01:35,896
doesn’t smell right.
So as case officers in the ccia,

1177
01:01:35,896 –> 01:01:40,868
you know, we’re not about
building it’s not our job to

1178
01:01:40,868 –> 01:01:42,466
build Yeah.
Legal cases.

1179
01:01:42,766 –> 01:01:46,505
So, so, you know, we can engage
in this kind of like

1180
01:01:46,505 –> 01:01:48,221
speculation.
You create a hypothesis, you

1181
01:01:48,221 –> 01:01:50,974
gather information, and you
change your hypothesis as the

1182
01:01:50,974 –> 01:01:54,531
information, you know, the
details flow in the facts, but,

1183
01:01:54,531 –> 01:01:56,776
you know, these things are still
unexplained.

1184
01:01:56,776 –> 01:02:00,321
So, I mean, that’s why, you
know, you asked in the very

1185
01:02:00,321 –> 01:02:03,784
beginning, sort of coming full
circle, like, what, what

1186
01:02:03,784 –> 01:02:06,016
conspiracies conspiracy theories
do we believe in?

1187
01:02:06,946 –> 01:02:08,982
I don’t know if these are
conspiracies or conspiracy

1188
01:02:08,982 –> 01:02:12,218
theories, but these are really
counterintelligence red flags is

1189
01:02:12,218 –> 01:02:17,896
what we call ’em in the CIA that
are still unexplained and make

1190
01:02:17,896 –> 01:02:20,056
me very uneasy.
It should make a lot of people.

1191
01:02:20,116 –> 01:02:22,336
you would never get hired for a
junior position.

1192
01:02:22,336 –> 01:02:25,306
Like with Donald Trump’s
background and the people around

1193
01:02:25,306 –> 01:02:27,376
him, they would not get security
clearances.

1194
01:02:27,376 –> 01:02:29,879
They wouldn’t get hired for the
most junior jobs in the

1195
01:02:29,879 –> 01:02:32,311
intelligence committee, and
they’re now in charge of the

1196
01:02:32,311 –> 01:02:34,636
world’s largest and most math
intelligence community.

1197
01:02:34,771 –> 01:02:36,566
Yeah.
That’s terrifying.

1198
01:02:37,441 –> 01:02:38,911
There’s a conspiracy for you.
Yeah.

1199
01:02:39,541 –> 01:02:42,006
Forget Kennedy, man.
What’s going on with this?

1200
01:02:43,666 –> 01:02:45,166
okay.
We just have two more questions.

1201
01:02:45,166 –> 01:02:46,846
I appreciate you taking so much
time.

1202
01:02:48,286 –> 01:02:50,596
This last one is this is a me
question.

1203
01:02:50,686 –> 01:02:56,884
What do you think of the claims
or rumors that there are

1204
01:02:56,884 –> 01:03:00,958
intelligence connections to
Jeffrey Epstein and that he was

1205
01:03:00,958 –> 01:03:04,976
perhaps running some sort of
blackmail operation on behalf of

1206
01:03:04,976 –> 01:03:08,116
a government?
And even if you don’t think he

1207
01:03:08,116 –> 01:03:11,086
was, do you think that kind of
thing happens?

1208
01:03:12,031 –> 01:03:15,041
It’s interesting, so we, Jerry
and I just did a podcast with

1209
01:03:15,041 –> 01:03:18,161
Tara Ary, who does a lot of
research on the Epstein stuff,

1210
01:03:18,161 –> 01:03:21,871
and I actually did her podcast
to talk about exactly that.

1211
01:03:21,871 –> 01:03:23,731
What are the connections with
intelligence and stuff?

1212
01:03:25,141 –> 01:03:28,915
Just the way we do business.
I cannot imagine Jeffrey Epstein

1213
01:03:28,915 –> 01:03:32,161
being of any value or interest
to the US intelligence

1214
01:03:32,161 –> 01:03:34,136
community.
At least a foreign intelligence

1215
01:03:34,136 –> 01:03:38,586
part of it, ever talking to him.
Now, he does have through

1216
01:03:38,586 –> 01:03:42,529
Ghislaine Maxwell’s family.
Her father is a huge influence

1217
01:03:42,529 –> 01:03:45,451
person in Britain and in Israel
and stuff like that.

1218
01:03:45,751 –> 01:03:48,856
There’s certainly a possibility.
When you’re playing with those

1219
01:03:48,856 –> 01:03:51,616
big players at big money, that
there’s some, there’s security

1220
01:03:51,616 –> 01:03:54,206
services, intelligence services
sort of following him.

1221
01:03:54,206 –> 01:03:56,632
And there might have some
connections at a high level,

1222
01:03:56,632 –> 01:04:00,010
probably more with politicians
than people who in the

1223
01:04:00,010 –> 01:04:03,130
intelligence communities.
But I can’t see any value why

1224
01:04:03,130 –> 01:04:07,721
the ca would ever talk to him or
talk to his people. he has no

1225
01:04:07,721 –> 01:04:10,838
foreign intelligence to pass on.
He might, because of connections

1226
01:04:10,838 –> 01:04:13,484
in Israel and stuff, wanna talk
to some of our senior

1227
01:04:13,484 –> 01:04:16,286
politicians and one of ’em might
say, oh, this is very important,

1228
01:04:16,286 –> 01:04:18,890
Jeffrey, maybe you should tell
the FBI or tell the CI or

1229
01:04:18,890 –> 01:04:20,486
something.
So that’s certainly possible.

1230
01:04:20,486 –> 01:04:25,088
But the sense that he would be
like a, a source doesn’t make

1231
01:04:25,088 –> 01:04:27,926
any sense.
But you know, like I said, those

1232
01:04:27,926 –> 01:04:30,488
big players and big money people
have connections around the

1233
01:04:30,488 –> 01:04:34,476
world and it’s the kind of thing
that organizations at some level

1234
01:04:34,476 –> 01:04:37,699
might touch.
Yeah, I think, or you know,

1235
01:04:37,699 –> 01:04:40,551
organizations like MI six
Mossad, CIA might be interested

1236
01:04:40,551 –> 01:04:43,141
in what he has to say from time
to time.

1237
01:04:43,141 –> 01:04:46,361
I’m not sure we would go out and
you know, we certainly would not

1238
01:04:46,361 –> 01:04:47,521
recruit.
How could we recruit him?

1239
01:04:47,521 –> 01:04:48,770
Right?
I mean, we, you know, he’s,

1240
01:04:48,770 –> 01:04:51,421
we’re for money for what, but he
might wanna like pass things on.

1241
01:04:51,421 –> 01:04:54,385
I mean, just recently it came
out, for example, that he was

1242
01:04:54,385 –> 01:04:56,866
talking to Larry Summers,
Clinton’s former, treasury

1243
01:04:56,866 –> 01:05:01,067
secretary, where he was talking
about, he was talking to Anato

1244
01:05:01,067 –> 01:05:06,583
Chikin, who was the Russian
ambassador to the United States

1245
01:05:06,583 –> 01:05:10,306
and an intelligence officer.
And he was saying, Hey, I wanna

1246
01:05:10,306 –> 01:05:12,301
talk to the Russians about
Donald Trump.

1247
01:05:12,301 –> 01:05:12,991
Right.
I wanna.

1248
01:05:13,011 –> 01:05:15,501
Passed to, to the Russian
foreign minister.

1249
01:05:15,501 –> 01:05:18,861
I wanna talk to him about Donald
Trump.

1250
01:05:18,981 –> 01:05:21,634
And so, you know, okay.
That gets him into, you know, I

1251
01:05:21,634 –> 01:05:24,656
could see him then going to ccia
a and said, oh, I, you know, I

1252
01:05:24,656 –> 01:05:26,091
talked to the Russian foreign
minister, Ivanov.

1253
01:05:26,091 –> 01:05:27,231
Do you wanna know what he had to
say?

1254
01:05:27,411 –> 01:05:31,093
And we would probably say, yeah,
but there’s a big difference

1255
01:05:31,093 –> 01:05:34,121
between sure, we’ll send a, you
know, we’ll send an analyst to

1256
01:05:34,121 –> 01:05:37,226
like, take notes where you tell
us about, you know, your meeting

1257
01:05:37,226 –> 01:05:38,601
with senior Russians or
whatever.

1258
01:05:38,601 –> 01:05:40,581
And the Israelis might do the
same or something like that.

1259
01:05:40,821 –> 01:05:43,401
But that’s not, you know, he’s
not part of the cia.

1260
01:05:43,401 –> 01:05:45,561
He’s a guy with it, maybe with
some informa.

1261
01:05:45,591 –> 01:05:48,015
I don’t even know if he did
that, but I’m saying I wouldn’t

1262
01:05:48,015 –> 01:05:51,581
be surprised if he tried to, you
know, if he tried to get into

1263
01:05:51,581 –> 01:05:53,571
that world.
Now I’m running.

1264
01:05:53,901 –> 01:05:58,671
Like the sex operations, you
know the Russians do that.

1265
01:05:58,731 –> 01:06:03,201
I mean they do CIA doesn’t, you
know, listeners in Hollywood are

1266
01:06:03,201 –> 01:06:04,431
gonna be really sorry to hear
this.

1267
01:06:04,431 –> 01:06:07,971
We just don’t use sex.
Right. it doesn’t work.

1268
01:06:07,971 –> 01:06:10,791
It’s a, you know you know the
people who do this.

1269
01:06:10,791 –> 01:06:13,785
You got families.
You know, we’re, we have to

1270
01:06:13,785 –> 01:06:18,321
abide by US laws and CIA, you
know we’re normal people.

1271
01:06:18,321 –> 01:06:20,571
We’re not gonna be doing this to
us citizens.

1272
01:06:20,871 –> 01:06:23,121
And lastly, it just doesn’t
work.

1273
01:06:23,331 –> 01:06:27,038
Sex is not something by and
large that, ’cause we’re looking

1274
01:06:27,038 –> 01:06:29,776
for agents who are gonna be
around for the next 20 years who

1275
01:06:29,776 –> 01:06:32,649
want to work with us.
And if you’ve blackmailed a guy

1276
01:06:32,649 –> 01:06:35,431
because you’ve got pictures of
him with some hooker, he’s a

1277
01:06:35,431 –> 01:06:37,311
probably not gonna be telling
you the truth.

1278
01:06:37,341 –> 01:06:39,889
B, he’s gonna be looking to
betray you, or he is gonna be

1279
01:06:39,889 –> 01:06:41,661
looking to stick a shiv between
your ribs.

1280
01:06:41,661 –> 01:06:44,523
First chance he gets right.
Those are not the kind of agents

1281
01:06:44,523 –> 01:06:47,241
we wanna be running.
John, you wanna makes sense.

1282
01:06:47,711 –> 01:06:49,846
Yeah.
Okay, last question.

1283
01:06:49,846 –> 01:06:51,886
This is from a listener, Chris
Murphy.

1284
01:06:51,946 –> 01:06:54,326
What are the odds?
I’m on a federal watch list for

1285
01:06:54,326 –> 01:06:57,046
sharing or posting things
critical of the US government.

1286
01:06:57,856 –> 01:07:00,916
Are most people being monitored
or is it just the people who

1287
01:07:00,916 –> 01:07:02,836
open call?
Things like assassination?

1288
01:07:03,706 –> 01:07:06,370
If Chris is on that list, Jerry
and I are on the list too, just

1289
01:07:06,370 –> 01:07:08,926
so you, just because I was on
Twitter for a long time.

1290
01:07:08,926 –> 01:07:10,912
I finally got off.
’cause I just can’t stand Elon

1291
01:07:10,912 –> 01:07:12,676
Musk and I had a lot of
followers.

1292
01:07:12,676 –> 01:07:15,114
I, and I was pretty critical.
The government, now I’m on Blue

1293
01:07:15,114 –> 01:07:17,771
sky and I’m still very critical
and, you know, we have first

1294
01:07:17,771 –> 01:07:19,466
Amendment rights where
Americans, we can say what the

1295
01:07:19,466 –> 01:07:21,912
hell we want and we should
criticize our government when

1296
01:07:21,912 –> 01:07:23,566
it’s doing the things that it’s
doing now.

1297
01:07:23,656 –> 01:07:25,966
And especially based on our
experience and what we learned

1298
01:07:25,966 –> 01:07:27,076
from working inside the
government.

1299
01:07:27,076 –> 01:07:30,916
We, I see real dangers, real,
you know, the president’s really

1300
01:07:30,916 –> 01:07:34,330
helping China really hurt,
helping our adversaries and

1301
01:07:34,330 –> 01:07:36,535
really.
Hurting our allies and our

1302
01:07:36,535 –> 01:07:40,057
allies are incredibly powerful
and help us in so many ways in

1303
01:07:40,057 –> 01:07:42,341
wars and intelligence and all
these type of things.

1304
01:07:42,731 –> 01:07:47,367
So yeah, watch list The Secret
service and the FBI, their job

1305
01:07:47,367 –> 01:07:50,351
is to make sure there are not
threats to the government.

1306
01:07:50,351 –> 01:07:52,359
So yeah.
So if Chris gets on and says

1307
01:07:52,359 –> 01:07:55,436
that I want to kill Trump, there
may be someone who’s gonna watch

1308
01:07:55,436 –> 01:07:57,791
that and reach out to him and
say, what’s that about?

1309
01:07:57,791 –> 01:08:00,191
Or put him on some sort of, I
have a list, I guess is what you

1310
01:08:00,191 –> 01:08:01,841
say.
We’ve seen this in Minneapolis.

1311
01:08:01,841 –> 01:08:04,361
They’re talking about ICE guys
with the guy Preti was shot.

1312
01:08:04,361 –> 01:08:08,715
He was on some list of theirs.
So law enforcement

1313
01:08:08,715 –> 01:08:11,454
organizations, not intelligence
organiz, but law enforcement or

1314
01:08:11,454 –> 01:08:14,891
organizations or probably people
that they think are some sort of

1315
01:08:15,551 –> 01:08:19,357
physical threat or threat
certainly may, you know, collect

1316
01:08:19,357 –> 01:08:21,710
on Americans.
And nowadays it’s pretty easy

1317
01:08:21,710 –> 01:08:24,118
’cause we’re all online, in
terms of like.

1318
01:08:25,036 –> 01:08:28,479
If you’re just critical of the
government, you know, at least

1319
01:08:28,479 –> 01:08:31,966
prior to this administration,
this time, absolutely not.

1320
01:08:32,145 –> 01:08:35,707
But Trump, you know, sees, he
doesn’t see the Chinese and

1321
01:08:35,707 –> 01:08:37,890
Russians as enemies.
He sees Americans that don’t

1322
01:08:37,890 –> 01:08:40,944
support him as the enemies and
therefore he wants, he’s using

1323
01:08:40,944 –> 01:08:44,661
his Department of Justice and,
under that, the FBI and,

1324
01:08:44,661 –> 01:08:48,310
Department of Homeland Security
to do these things that are

1325
01:08:48,310 –> 01:08:50,236
pretty, pretty radical and
pretty scary.

1326
01:08:50,640 –> 01:08:54,497
Yeah, there’s, talk and you
know, in the next week or so, I

1327
01:08:54,497 –> 01:08:57,466
think we’ll sort of see what
this is, but there’s, you know,

1328
01:08:57,466 –> 01:09:01,426
Holman is talking about the guy
who took $50,000 in cash in a

1329
01:09:01,426 –> 01:09:04,305
frigging bag, right?
And a plastic, and in a paper

1330
01:09:04,305 –> 01:09:05,685
bag.
And he won’t tell you what he

1331
01:09:05,685 –> 01:09:07,171
did with it, whether he paid
taxes on it.

1332
01:09:07,501 –> 01:09:08,850
This is the guy you’re gonna
trust.

1333
01:09:08,850 –> 01:09:17,328
But he said, we are collecting
signal group chats where people

1334
01:09:17,328 –> 01:09:21,443
are organizing to protest ice.
You know, that’s a first

1335
01:09:21,443 –> 01:09:23,225
Amendment right.
Not just to express your

1336
01:09:23,225 –> 01:09:24,991
opinion, but to organize, to do
that.

1337
01:09:24,991 –> 01:09:27,661
Right.
So, I don’t see, unless people

1338
01:09:27,661 –> 01:09:31,591
are organizing to like, kill
people organizing to, you know,

1339
01:09:31,591 –> 01:09:35,100
keeping lists of people who
organize to protest government

1340
01:09:35,100 –> 01:09:37,261
actions, that’s something pretty
scary.

1341
01:09:37,261 –> 01:09:41,220
So I think, you know, yeah, John
is exactly right.

1342
01:09:41,251 –> 01:09:42,871
Up until now, it’s never been a
problem.

1343
01:09:42,871 –> 01:09:44,640
But thing, things are changing,
man.

1344
01:09:44,731 –> 01:09:47,218
Like the FBI, if they wanted to,
if they say Adam, so for

1345
01:09:47,218 –> 01:09:50,149
example, if they wanted to, they
saw something about you, they

1346
01:09:50,149 –> 01:09:53,131
thought was threatening the FB,
I can go to a judge and get a

1347
01:09:53,131 –> 01:09:55,866
warrant to like, look at your
phone or look at your computer

1348
01:09:55,866 –> 01:10:00,737
stuff. they have to in a long
written, you know, justify

1349
01:10:00,737 –> 01:10:02,411
here’s why.
Here’s what we think, here’s why

1350
01:10:02,411 –> 01:10:04,912
you think he’s a threat.
That judge has to look at that

1351
01:10:04,912 –> 01:10:06,949
and say, we agree.
And then the judge oftentimes

1352
01:10:06,949 –> 01:10:10,747
will give them a specific thing.
They’ll say, okay, you have, you

1353
01:10:10,747 –> 01:10:13,006
know.
One week to collect his things,

1354
01:10:13,006 –> 01:10:14,626
to see if there’s something
there.

1355
01:10:14,626 –> 01:10:16,456
And then you have to turn off
that collection.

1356
01:10:16,576 –> 01:10:19,568
And if you want it to continue,
you have to come back to me, the

1357
01:10:19,568 –> 01:10:21,561
judge and show that you’ve
collected information that shows

1358
01:10:21,561 –> 01:10:25,180
that Adam is a threat.
And so there’s very strong, you

1359
01:10:25,180 –> 01:10:27,850
know, regulations around what
you can do and how you can do

1360
01:10:27,850 –> 01:10:29,236
it.
You can’t just say, you know,

1361
01:10:29,236 –> 01:10:32,110
I’m in the FBI, I think I’m just
gonna look at what Adam is

1362
01:10:32,110 –> 01:10:35,645
writing and what he is doing.
And now this is very structured,

1363
01:10:35,645 –> 01:10:40,562
has to be predicated written
legal fi warrant, you know, and

1364
01:10:40,562 –> 01:10:44,455
then they, and then you turn off
that collection as soon as you

1365
01:10:44,455 –> 01:10:47,953
realize it’s, there’s Right, but
those are the rules and the

1366
01:10:47,953 –> 01:10:50,919
regulations and the laws.
But if the people don’t enforce

1367
01:10:50,919 –> 01:10:54,049
them or just push them aside,
then it doesn’t fucking matter

1368
01:10:54,049 –> 01:10:55,041
anymore.
Right. true.

1369
01:10:55,271 –> 01:10:57,451
It’s true.
What a, great job that would be

1370
01:10:57,451 –> 01:10:59,941
if you were in the FBI.
You just get assigned to listen.

1371
01:11:01,071 –> 01:11:06,031
Yeah.
Good day of work Yeah. work.

1372
01:11:06,036 –> 01:11:08,956
So, John, Jerry, thank you both
so much for doing the pod.

1373
01:11:08,956 –> 01:11:10,516
I really appreciate it.
This was great.

1374
01:11:10,801 –> 01:11:14,910
Our pleasure. where can people
listen to your podcast and check

1375
01:11:14,910 –> 01:11:18,551
out your other work?
So our podcast on conspiracy

1376
01:11:18,551 –> 01:11:22,449
theories not as good as yours,
but it’s called Mission

1377
01:11:22,449 –> 01:11:24,975
Implausible.
It’s with Jerry and I and Adam

1378
01:11:24,975 –> 01:11:28,291
Davidson, who is a writer for
the New Yorker and NPR and a

1379
01:11:28,291 –> 01:11:30,571
number of other places.
Do that.

1380
01:11:30,931 –> 01:11:35,065
I put stuff on Blue Sky since I
left Twitter, and I write

1381
01:11:35,065 –> 01:11:38,539
sometimes for different you
know, New York Times and watch

1382
01:11:38,539 –> 01:11:41,461
posts and places like that.
Mostly on Russia things.

1383
01:11:41,461 –> 01:11:43,981
But that’s, and then Jerry and I
are both working for this

1384
01:11:43,981 –> 01:11:47,611
company, spycraft that in the
effort to make good espionage TV

1385
01:11:48,526 –> 01:11:50,386
Nice.
Jerry, anything you wanna add?

1386
01:11:50,596 –> 01:11:53,461
No, I think John said it well.
stays away from social media.

1387
01:11:53,461 –> 01:11:55,996
He’s wise.
I, that’s, that’s very smart.

1388
01:11:56,326 –> 01:11:58,636
Very smart.
Well, again, thank you both.

1389
01:11:58,936 –> 01:12:02,230
I appreciate it.
And thank you to everyone who

1390
01:12:02,230 –> 01:12:05,326
listened to the pod.
We appreciate you also.

1391
01:12:05,536 –> 01:12:08,356
And goodbye everybody.
We yeah. yeah.

1392
01:12:08,536 –> 01:12:11,416
And Adam, we’re gonna keep your
secret that you’re our agent.

1393
01:12:11,416 –> 01:12:13,244
You know, we’re not gonna let
the audience, hopefully the

1394
01:12:13,244 –> 01:12:15,205
audience isn’t picking this up,
but yeah, yeah, we’re not

1395
01:12:15,205 –> 01:12:15,981
recording anymore.
It’s fine.