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Billions of dollars are spent spying on Americans, whether it's NSA or CIA or
00:00:06
the FBI. And to make matters worse, we know that the CIA can take control remotely of a car's computer system in
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order to crash the car, take it off a bridge, or take control of your smart TV and turn a speaker into a microphone,
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>> even though the TV is off and broadcast back to the CIA. >> Can they do that with devices?
00:00:24
>> Absolutely. And I'll tell you how we know. There was a CIA software engineer
00:00:27
who was disgruntled and he downloaded tens of thousands of documents classified above top secret and instead
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of going to the Russians or the Chinese, he went to Wikileaks and they became the
00:00:38
Vault 7 documents. So our whole lives are out there potentially for someone to use against us and every country has
00:00:44
these capabilities. Listen, I spent 15 years in the CIA. I love this country, but one of the most important things in
00:00:50
my life is the issue of ethics, which is why I blew the whistle on the CIA's
00:00:54
torture program. Because my superiors kept repeating that torture worked, but besides being illegal, immoral,
00:01:00
unethical, it just wasn't true. And I would let them send me to prison again
00:01:04
because it was the right thing to do. I mean, we know that they were experimenting on American citizens and
00:01:10
spreading diseases in American cities. >> This is the stuff of movies. >> It is. And because you've been in this
00:01:16
world that the average person really has no idea about, I have to ask you, who do
00:01:20
you think is the real adversary of the West, what are you most concerned about in the world at the moment? And what
00:01:24
about everything that's going on with Trump in Venezuela and Greenland? And then, do you think Jeffrey Epstein was a
00:01:29
spy? >> Yes. >> Who do you think he was working for? >> The Israelis.
00:01:32
>> Why? Listen, my my team gave me a script that they asked me to read, but I'm just
00:01:41
going to ask you um in the nicest way I possibly can. Thank you first and foremost for choosing to subscribe to
00:01:46
this channel. It is um it's been one of the most incredible crazy years of my
00:01:50
life. I never could have imagined. I had so many dreams in my life, but this was
00:01:53
not one of them. And the very fact that these conversations have resonated with you and you've given me so much feedback
00:01:58
is something I will always be appreciative of. And I almost carry away a sort of burden of uh responsibility to
00:02:03
pay you back. And the favor I would like to ask from you today is to subscribe to
00:02:07
the channel if you um would be so obliged. It's completely free to do that. Roughly about 47% of you that
00:02:13
listen to this channel frequently currently don't subscribe to this channel. So if you're one of those
00:02:17
people, please come and join us. Hit the subscribe button. It's the single free
00:02:20
thing you can do to make this channel better. And every subscriber sort of pays into this show and allows us to do
00:02:25
things bigger and better and to push ourselves even more. And I will not let you down if you hit the subscribe
00:02:29
button. I promise you. And if I do, please do unsubscribe, but I promise I won't. Thank you.
00:02:41
John Kuryoku, the world knows your name. Why? Why does the world know your name?
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>> I can give you two answers. One, I'm proud to say that I blew the whistle on the CIA's torture program in
00:03:00
a nationally televised interview with ABC News. The second reason is I blew the whistle a long time ago and
00:03:10
just in the past 18 months, I seem to have hit some sort of YouTube algorithm sweet spot and all of a sudden my
00:03:19
message is getting out there. And you went to prison for blowing the whistle. >> I did and I would do it again tomorrow.
00:03:26
I really would. You know, I was I was giving an interview to the BBC the day after I got out of prison. They were the
00:03:33
first uh outlet to ask for an interview. And so I gladly gave it to them. And the
00:03:39
interviewer said kind of perturbedly, "You're not showing any remorse or
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contrition." And I said, "No, I'm not remorseful. I'm not contrite. I would do
00:03:53
it again. I would let them send me to prison again because it was the right thing to do."
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>> And you were a spy in the CIA. >> Yeah. I was quite an accomplished spy in
00:04:05
the CIA. I spent 15 years in the CIA. The first half of my career was in analysis and uh and I got bored,
00:04:12
frankly. And so I made an unusual at the time change to counterterrorism operations. And then I was the chief of
00:04:20
CIA counterterrorism operations in Pakistan after the 9/11 attacks. >> And if I'd never heard about the CIA
00:04:26
before and I had never heard about your role in the CIA before and I was a 16-year-old,
00:04:33
>> right? >> How would you explain to me what you did there? What your role was and what the
00:04:38
CIA is? >> Sure. The CIA is an intelligence service whose job it is at its most basic level
00:04:48
to recruit spies to steal secrets and to analyze those secrets so that the policymakers can make the best informed
00:04:55
policy. After 9/11, we were expecting an attack, to use Osama bin Laden's words,
00:05:02
that would dwarf 911. And so my job was to infiltrate al-Qaeda by recruiting members of al-Qaeda
00:05:12
to tell us when and where that next attack was going to come so that we could disrupt it. We could
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kill or capture the leadership and destroy the organization. >> And give me a range of the things that
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you did during your time in the CIA just for a very topline range of the types of
00:05:32
things you worked on. Oh, sure. Um, as an analyst, it was actually quite straightforward. Uh, we would write for
00:05:40
the president, the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, and the national security adviser.
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>> And who were the presidents during this that time? >> Uh, when I started, it was George HW
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Bush, the father, and then it was Bill Clinton, then George W. Bush. There are several different publications. There's
00:05:57
the president's daily brief, which is the most important. I covered Iraq the
00:06:02
entire time that I was in analysis from well before most Americans had ever heard of Iraq. I was told actually that
00:06:10
it was a training account because nothing ever happened there. Nothing ever changed. And then
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Iraq invaded Kuwait. The next day I got to the office early. I was 25 years old, 26 years old. And uh my boss
00:06:29
said, "Don't take your jacket off. We're going to the White House." I had never
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been to the White House before except as a tourist. And so we got in a car, went
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to the White House. We're ushered into the Oval Office. It's the president, the
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vice president, the national security adviser, the director of the CIA, my boss, and me. And then we all sit down.
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The president tells us, "Sit down." We sit down and the president says,"Well,
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now what do we do?" And everybody turns and looks at me and it took me a second
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and I said, "Uh, yes." I said, "Mr. President, as you know, Iraqi troops
00:07:07
crossed the border at 2:00 this morning. They the royal family has uh has run away to uh Saudi Arabia. They've named a
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new occupation governor, etc., etc. Do we know who that is?" I said, "Yes,
00:07:19
sir." I gave him the name and I said, "Actually, he uh he's the co-founder of
00:07:24
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine." The vice president shouts,
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"Jesus Christ." And then the president says, "Gentlemen, thank you. Thank you.
00:07:33
We'll take it from here." And I remember saying to myself, "My friends would
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never believe in a thousand years what I was doing right now. They wouldn't even
00:07:42
believe me if I told them." That's what an analyst does. When I switched to
00:07:46
operations again, the the job was very straightforward. It was to recruit spies to steal secrets. But then if you're
00:07:54
involved in counterterrorism operations, there are a lot of extras that you have
00:07:57
to be trained in. So you go through the normal spy training. This is how you ingratiate yourself. It's something
00:08:04
called the asset acquisition cycle. Spot, assess, develop, recruit. I meet you at a cocktail party. You seem like a
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nice guy. I introduce myself. I ask, "Uh, so what do you do for a living?" Well, if you tell me you manage
00:08:20
a shoe store, I'm going to say, "Well, it was very nice meeting you." And I'm
00:08:23
going to go on to the next guy. But if you tell me you work at the port, you work in the Ministry of Defense, you
00:08:31
work in the Chinese embassy, I'm going to invite you to lunch. I've spotted you. I've assessed you. And my
00:08:38
assessment is I'd like to get to know you. Then I begin to develop you. I'll
00:08:42
give you an example. I was in Pakistan. I got a tip that uh that al-Qaeda, a group of mid-level al-Qaeda fighters was
00:08:52
meeting every single day in a coffee shop at 10:00 in the morning. My Arabic was absolutely flawless at the time. And
00:09:01
so I had a bushy beard that I grew for operational reasons. >> Can I hear some of your Arabic?
00:09:06
>> Yeah. Uh, it's nice to meet you. Or Alhamdulillah. Uh, so I uh I bought an Arabic newspaper
00:09:19
and I went to the coffee shop and I just sat there and sure enough at 10:00 the four of them came in. One of them looked
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at me and I looked at him and that was it. We made eye contact. I did that for a week.
00:09:34
The second week I was there drinking my coffee, sitting with my Arabic newspaper, and the one who had looked at
00:09:40
me the week before, he nodded. So I nodded back. That was it. No communication otherwise. The third week,
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I'm a regular now. He recognizes me. So he says to me, I said, "May peace be
00:09:56
upon you." And I say, "And upon you peace." One day he came in alone and I
00:10:02
said, "Please have a seat. Sit with me. No sense in you sitting alone and me
00:10:06
sitting alone." So he sat down. We started talking. And um I asked him how long he had been in Pakistan. He said,
00:10:14
"Oh, I've been here for 5 years. I was in Afghanistan. I was making jihad
00:10:19
against the Americans." And I said, "Oh, that must have been hell on earth." He
00:10:24
said, "Oh." He said that the bombing of Tora Bora was hideous. That was the word
00:10:28
that he used. It was hideous. And I said, "And what about your family? How's
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your family?" He said, "My wife and and son and daughter are in Cairo. I've
00:10:38
never met my son." He was born just after I left to make jihad. I said, "I'm
00:10:43
so sorry." And he said, "Yes, I'm I'm lonely and I I want to go home." And we
00:10:49
continued this relationship. And finally, I said to him, "Let me take you to dinner. let's get out of the
00:10:56
coffee shop. The truth was I didn't want one of his friends to walk in and see
00:11:00
us. So, we went to a restaurant for dinner and I said, "Listen, there's something that I haven't been
00:11:07
truthful with you about. I'm not Lebanese." And I said, "Actually, I'm American.
00:11:17
Are you okay with that?" And he says, "I think so." I said, 'Well, actually,
00:11:24
I'm a CIA officer. And he says, ' Okay.' So, he didn't run screaming from the room or pull a gun or
00:11:34
anything. And he said, "Why do you want me? Why do you want to talk to me?" I said, "Actually, you have
00:11:42
access to something that I want." It was very specific. And I told him what it
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was. And he says, "And what will you do for me?" And I said, "Anything your
00:11:52
heart desires." And he said, "I want to go home." I said, "I can do that." And
00:11:59
>> you wanted information presumably. >> I wanted information, very specific
00:12:02
information, >> which you can't share. >> No. I'll go right back to prison. So,
00:12:08
uh, so um, we got him a passport. I bought him a first class ticket and I took him to the airport, gave him some
00:12:18
cash to get himself started again. And I said, "Before you go, I have to ask you,
00:12:24
why did you agree to give me this information? I mean, presumably I'm the enemy." And he said, "I've been here 5
00:12:32
years, and you're the first person who ever asked me about my family." So I said, "Best of luck. Never saw him
00:12:40
again. That's the job. >> I have to ask you, >> take me on the journey of you being a
00:12:50
young man >> in West Pennsylvania, >> right? >> To becoming a spy. What happened?
00:12:58
Because I'll be I'll be honest. You know, I don't really know what my
00:13:01
perception of spies is, but it's not you. >> That's good. >> That's good. See, because I kind of work
00:13:08
under the radar. M so that's really interesting is I there's there's so many
00:13:14
um once you learn about spies as a podcast like so if you go back a couple of years and someone had told me about
00:13:20
spies I wouldn't have believed them I wouldn't have believed that these things
00:13:22
actually happened >> you know you hear about people going undercover >> and going to other countries and getting
00:13:29
secrets and and all of these things >> and it's not until you meet the people
00:13:34
that said yes that's me I used to do that that you're sort you have this paradigm shift
00:13:40
in your mind and you go, "Oh my god, what else might be going on?" >> Right?
00:13:42
>> Because I lived in this world probably up until the age of, I don't know, 30
00:13:45
years old where I kind of just assume things are what they are >> like as I see them. And then, you know,
00:13:51
you start to discover that there's layers of secrecy. Nations are against each other. They're doing all of these
00:13:56
covert operations. And even like as a podcaster now, I have moments where I go like, "How do I know that you're not
00:14:06
you're not here to steal secrets from me?" >> Right? So, you know what's funny? When I
00:14:09
had Andre Bustamante on the show, the comment sections are always the same. They're always like, "Once a CIA spy,
00:14:15
always a CIA spy." >> I hate when people say that. It's so intellectually lazy.
00:14:19
>> But I just I do wonder and I go, "Okay, here's a super conspiracy theory. What
00:14:23
if the CIA have made spies do really well in the YouTube algorithm so that all of us as long form podcasters invite
00:14:32
them on and then they >> You know what? I would agree with that. I would have agreed with that a year ago
00:14:38
because Andrew Bamante has really made a handsome living out of selling his experience and he's on every podcast.
00:14:46
>> Yeah. >> But I am the most anti-CIA former CIA person that's out there.
00:14:54
>> But wouldn't that be the perfect CIA agent? >> I mean, if if I weren't constantly
00:14:59
criticizing the CIA as a as a an organization that's just out of control. Do you think the CIA are have a strategy
00:15:07
for podcasters and for podcasting? >> I think yes, now they do. It took them a
00:15:11
little while to to get current, but just like they over time developed a strategy
00:15:18
with Hollywood, sure they're developing a strategy with podcasters. You know, it was only in the
00:15:24
last 10 years that the CIA opened a branch within the Office of Public Affairs whose job it is solely to liers
00:15:32
with Hollywood studios. The FBI's been doing this since the since the 40s. And
00:15:38
the goal is that everything that comes out of Hollywood should be pro-CIA. And you know, we end up with with Zero
00:15:46
Dark 30 and you know, the recruit and the CIA, Argo, the CIA is always the hero in these movies. If you were still
00:15:54
at the CIA now and your job was to in infiltrate and uh use creators or podcasters as an
00:16:03
asset for the CIA's objectives, how might you design that plan? If we were just hypothesizing,
00:16:11
you would have to have a goal that would be specific enough that you could actually track the progress to it.
00:16:20
So, you can't just say, "Well, I'm going to pay this podcaster x amount of money,
00:16:25
and we're going to we're going to we're going to do something with the algorithm
00:16:29
to make him vastly popular among men, you know, 18 to 30, let's say. There's got to be more to it than that.
00:16:39
It has to be a message. You've got to be able to get a specific, well-honed message out there. And the message can
00:16:48
be anything. It could be, you know, love the CIA, we're the good guys. It could be support
00:16:55
the overthrow of the Iranian government. It could be, you know, any criticism of
00:17:01
Benjamin Netanyahu is anti-semitism. It could be anything you want it to be. You just have to make sure that it's
00:17:07
repeated enough. See, this was the danger with the torture program. This is one of the very important reasons that I
00:17:12
went public when I did because my colleagues, my superiors at the CIA kept repeating this lie over and over and
00:17:22
over again that torture worked and that torture got us information that saved American lives. And that was just simply
00:17:29
not true. It was a lie. Besides being illegal, immoral, unethical, it just wasn't true. And so I decided before we
00:17:40
go down this road anymore, I'm going to go public. >> So can you take me back then? We got a
00:17:45
little bit sidetracked there, but >> Sure. >> John, how did you come to be a CIA spy?
00:17:51
>> When I was 9 years old, I told my parents that I wanted to be a spy when I
00:17:56
grew up. it came time to apply for college and I only applied at one university, George Washington University
00:18:04
in Washington because it was two blocks from the White House and it was one of only three schools in America that
00:18:11
offered a Middle Eastern studies program. I was one of only four people in that brand new Middle Eastern studies
00:18:18
program. I stayed for a master's degree in legislative affairs with a focus on
00:18:24
foreign policy analysis. I was taking a class in that program called the psychology of leadership. It was taught
00:18:32
by an eminent psychiatrist named Dr. Gerald Post and he gave us an assignment one uh one day where we had to shadow
00:18:41
our bosses. We had to just follow our bosses for a week. >> Your bosses? >> Yeah. I worked at a labor union called
00:18:48
the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. And so we were just supposed to follow our boss around for a week and
00:18:54
then write a psychological profile. I used dozens of, you know, footnotes from psychological, you know, psychology
00:19:02
texts. And I ended up saying that he was a sociopath with psychopathic and possibly violent tendencies. And, you
00:19:10
know, I had these citations. I passed the paper in. Dr. Post gives it back to me a week later, gave me an A,
00:19:17
and then he wrote, "Please see me after class." So I went up to him after the
00:19:21
class and I said, "Dr. Post, you wanted to see me." He says, "Come to my
00:19:24
office." So we went down there. He closed the door and he says, "Listen,
00:19:30
I'm not really a professor here. I'm a CIA officer undercover as a professor
00:19:36
here, and I'm looking for people who would fit into the CIA's culture. I
00:19:42
think you would fit into the CIA's culture. Would you like to be a spy?"
00:19:47
And I said, "Yes, I would." He picked up the phone and called the number and he said, "Bob,
00:19:57
this is Jerry. I've got a good one for you. Do you have some time?" And he
00:20:02
said, "Sure." He writes an address on a scrap of paper. And he says, "Be at this
00:20:06
address in 20 minutes." It was only one subway stop away. So I jumped on the
00:20:11
metro. I went to Rosland, Virginia, just across the river. I had to buzz to be led in. And a woman opens the door. She
00:20:17
says, "Are you here for Bob?" And I said, "Yes." She says, "Come on in."
00:20:23
I'm sitting there for a moment and then this like 6 foot6, 350 lb giant barrels
00:20:30
out of his office and he says, "John Bob, how the hell are you? I want you to
00:20:35
be at the George Washington University Medical School Saturday morning at 8:00. We've got some tests for you." I said,
00:20:42
"Okay." And then we shook hands and I left. So, Saturday morning, I went to
00:20:47
the GW Medical School auditorium. There were like, I don't know, 200 people there and they hand us a test. My wife
00:20:56
picked me up. She said, "How did you do?" I said, "I have no idea."
00:21:00
>> Does your wife at this point know that you were applying for the CIA? >> Yes. And that was going to be pretty
00:21:05
much the extent of what she ended up knowing cuz once I got in, >> but you were allowed to tell her.
00:21:12
>> I was not allowed to tell her. No. So, you told her anyway? >> Yeah. When I first applied, they said,
00:21:18
"Listen, don't tell anybody because you may go undercover. You may go under deep
00:21:23
cover, and we can't have people out there who know that you're a CIA officer."
00:21:29
>> Presumably, the CIA are smart enough to be able to check if you've told her.
00:21:33
>> Yeah. And they ask you on the polygraph, "Did you tell her?" Really?
00:21:37
>> And I said, "Yeah, I told her. She's my wife. What am I going to do?" You know,
00:21:41
but it got to the point where I'd get home from a day where, you know, I broke
00:21:45
into some guy's house and and planted a camera on a bug and I'd get home and
00:21:49
she'd say, "How was your day?" I'd say, "Great. What'd you do?" Not a darn
00:21:54
thing. And then my phone would ring at, you know, midnight and a guy would say, "The rain in Spain falls mainly in the
00:22:01
plane." And I'd say, "Uh, Marzy Oats and Dozy Oats and Little Lambs Ivy." And
00:22:06
that means meet me at the yacht club parking lot in three hours. And then I'd leave. She's she would say,
00:22:13
"Where where are you going? It's midnight. I got to work." So I'd leave.
00:22:18
I'd do my meeting. I'd come home 6:00 in the morning just in time to shower and
00:22:23
shave and get dressed to go to work. And she would say, "What was her name?"
00:22:28
And I I remember this one terrible time. That's what she said to me. What was her
00:22:33
name? The truth is, I had been sitting in a garbage dumpster waiting for a guy to drive by down the alley and throw a
00:22:40
bag of documents in. And I stunk of garbage and I said to her, "Do I seriously smell to you like I've been
00:22:48
with a woman?" Seriously. So, we ended up getting a divorce. >> So, you do the assessment presumably.
00:23:01
you get in and then you do training. >> He He called me like two weeks later,
00:23:06
Bob did, and he said, "You blew the doors off those tests." I said, "Oh,
00:23:11
great. Okay." So, a month later, they summoned me to headquarters, and uh I was interviewed by the Office
00:23:18
of Neareastern Operations, the Office of Near Eastern Analysis, and the Office of
00:23:25
Leadership Analysis. I was offered the analysis job on the Iraq desk. And what is the sum total of the training you
00:23:33
were given in the variety of different roles that you had? Like how do they train?
00:23:37
>> Good question. That's a good question and the answer is vastly different
00:23:42
depending on where you start your career. >> So because I started mine in analysis,
00:23:47
the immediate training was in mastering the CIA's writing style. So the most
00:23:54
important product that the CIA writes every day is the PDB, the president's daily brief,
00:24:01
>> and it tells the president what >> what you think he needs to know.
00:24:05
>> Okay? >> So for example, when the Iraqis began moving to the to the Kuwaiti border,
00:24:12
we had this big debate. Are they going to are they going to cross the border? Yes or no? So I said, "Listen, why don't
00:24:20
I call the American defense attaches in Baghdad and I'll just ask him to drive
00:24:25
down there and look and tell us what he sees?" He drives down there, drives
00:24:30
back, he calls me, and he says, "Literally, the entire Iraqi military is on its way to the Kuwaiti border." So we
00:24:38
wrote a thing for the president saying Iraq is going to invade Kuwait and it's
00:24:42
probably going to happen in the next 48 hours. And when when did the president see that particular briefing?
00:24:47
>> At 7:00 a.m. the next morning. >> Okay. And is there ever situations where
00:24:51
the president would get it? In the middle of the night. >> Yes. >> Yeah.
00:24:54
>> And be told in the middle of the night that >> Yes. There there are these levels of
00:24:59
immediacy. There's routine which is like who cares? And then there is um priority which
00:25:07
means ah I'll get to it sometime today. Then there's immediate which means you
00:25:11
should probably read it first. But then there's flash, which means, "Oh my god, something
00:25:19
terrible just happened. You should probably wake the president." And then there's critic, which means they're
00:25:26
coming over the embassy walls. We're at war. Wake up the president. Scramble the
00:25:32
jets. >> 911. >> 911. >> That's a critic. >> So going back to this question of your
00:25:40
training. >> Yeah. What is it that the CIA teach you about human nature and how
00:25:47
to use human nature to your advantage that could be transferable to other disciplines in life like business or
00:25:55
well this is going to sound not very nice but it's it's real life it's
00:26:02
everyday life especially in in business the CIA actively seeks to hire people who have what they call sociopathic
00:26:11
tendencies. Not sociopaths. Sociopaths have no conscience. They'll just blow right
00:26:19
through a polygraph exam, but they're impossible to corral. They're impossible
00:26:25
to to, you know, keep under rain. Uh, and it's because they're not able, their brains won't allow them
00:26:35
to feel regret or remorse. Now, in business, most CEOs are sociopaths. Most, not all, but most. Especially in
00:26:44
big companies, because they claw their way to the top, usually on the backs of the people around them. They don't feel
00:26:51
bad screwing the next guy to get that next promotion. The CIA wants people like that because
00:26:59
those are the people who are going to break into a foreign embassy. A normal person would not advocate breaking into
00:27:06
a foreign embassy. It's sovereign territory of a foreign country. I would I'd be glad to do it.
00:27:12
>> Why? >> Because we're the good guys. >> So, do you have sociopathic tendencies?
00:27:17
>> Absolutely. >> And what are your sociopathic tendencies? >> My sociopathic tendency was to operate
00:27:25
in legal, moral, and ethical gray areas. Specifically, that's what it was. I'm
00:27:34
really curious about what we can learn about human nature from someone whose job was to meet strangers and to get
00:27:40
them to basically sometimes to turn against their own country. >> Like I'm really interested in and I
00:27:46
think I think it's informative because so many of us, you know, when we think
00:27:50
about what good leadership is or what good sales man or womanship is, >> um, it seems like there's transferables.
00:27:59
I guess for some people it's family. I guess for some people it's something
00:28:02
else. that that that hook that you're talking about, that thing that gets them.
00:28:06
>> And the word that they use at the CIA for the hook is a vulnerability. And
00:28:11
it's not really a vulnerability in every case. Now, 95% studies have been done about this
00:28:20
internally at the CIA. 95% of the people who agree to become spies for us do it for the money. Right? It's it's a simple
00:28:29
cash transaction. You give me money, I'll give you secrets. 95%. >> So you telling me that you think human
00:28:37
motivation is 95% driven by money? >> Yes. >> Really? >> Yes. The rest was love and family,
00:28:46
um, ideology, revenge, and excitement. You're going to get a handful of people
00:28:54
who are hooked on James Bond movies, and they will do it. I mean, you're going to
00:28:58
pay them anyway, but they will do it just for the adrenaline rush. >> It's interesting because when I look at
00:29:04
this list of things and I compare it to business, it I would say it's slightly different
00:29:11
from my experience of hiring people, specifically of hiring people. >> I tend to think that, you know, you
00:29:18
could one would ask themselves like why would someone leave a company right now like, I don't know, Open AI and go work
00:29:24
at a startup. They're going to get paid way more at OpenAI. You've got these
00:29:28
this equity and these grants, but people are on mass doing that. And even when I
00:29:31
think about the early days of Google, people left the big conglomerates that would pay them more. And they went and
00:29:36
worked for Larry and Sergey um getting paid way less, right? but to be involved in something small, scrappy, exciting,
00:29:44
>> and and so I and this is what what I think about when I sit, you know, probably I've had thousands of people in
00:29:49
my life now across my businesses, and money is a factor, but it doesn't tend
00:29:54
to be the biggest factor. Mhm. >> It tends to be, in my experience, there's a particular hero's journey in
00:30:04
their mind that they want to be seen through. They want to complete. >> Uhhuh.
00:30:08
>> You know, there's a particular way that they see themselves and they want to
00:30:12
fulfill that. >> Oh, I could get that. I I work with a with a very very tiny startup right now
00:30:19
called Ivy Cyber and uh it focuses on privacy software. You know, things like, you know, scrambling your data so it
00:30:26
can't be intercepted. that that sort of thing. And I've participated in a couple of pitches
00:30:32
to uh to angel investors and they all say exactly the same thing that you did. >> And this is why I was confused when I
00:30:40
heard that money was 95%. Because I I just think especially in the work that I don't
00:30:48
know, especially in the work that you do, I would assume >> but look at it this way. I think this
00:30:52
would explain the discrepancy. um you're comparing people who are making a life
00:30:58
>> versus people who are betraying their country. >> True. And what's interesting as well is
00:31:04
in those examples that you've given, money is actually a proxy to be able to
00:31:10
take care of my family. >> Mhm. >> And to be able to, you know, fulfill my
00:31:15
ideology and maybe to get excitement and revenge. Do you know what I'm saying? So
00:31:19
even that guy that wanted the plane ticket so he could fly home. Yeah. He could he could have the money could have
00:31:24
got him home if you just given him >> the reason why he wanted to go home was
00:31:28
because his family >> his family that was it. >> What's the extent of the things that the
00:31:33
CIA can get as a incentive for someone to turn against their nation to give secrets?
00:31:40
>> Quite literally anything you can imagine. >> Even if it's against the law.
00:31:44
>> Well, they're not going to get like drugs or you know child prostitutes or
00:31:49
no not stuff like that. What if someone said, "I want you to um get me a a green card."
00:32:00
>> Oh, yeah, sure. >> What if they said, >> "If the information is good enough, not
00:32:04
a problem." >> What if they said, "I want you to I've got this tax bill. I want you to make
00:32:10
the tax bill go away." >> Okay. Give me Give me the plans to that Russian tank. We'll make it happen.
00:32:15
>> What if it was an American? Would they speak to the IRS here and just get rid
00:32:18
of it? >> Oh, if it was an American citizen, you mean? Yeah. >> Uh, no.
00:32:24
>> But why? >> No. We normally don't recruit American citizens. By law, the CIA can't operate
00:32:32
domestically. Although they have offices all over the country. Those offices are
00:32:37
generally to to debrief business leaders, seauite officers who travel to denied areas. For example, if if you
00:32:47
take a trip to North Korea, let's say, I'm going to call you and I'm going to
00:32:52
say, "You don't know me, but I'm from the CIA and I understand you just went
00:32:57
to North Korea and I was wondering if I could come over to your office for an hour and just ask you about your trip."
00:33:03
99.99% are going to say yes because they're patriots. So, I go to your office, I
00:33:08
give you my business card, and we just chat about, you know, your impressions of the place and that kind of thing.
00:33:17
>> Just to close off on this point, are there any skills that the CIA taught you
00:33:21
or trained you in that you think are transferable for business that we haven't talked about?
00:33:28
>> They they trained us also in lying and lie detection. That was actually quite
00:33:34
important. You know, you at the CIA, you're you're a trained liar. And this
00:33:39
is why the divorce rate is so high. It's the highest divorce rate of any uh entity in in the US government. It's
00:33:45
it's upwards of 80%. >> Trained to lie. How do they train you to lie? >> Hi, my name is Dave Phillips. Um I work
00:33:53
for an import export company. >> But do they teach you the art of lying? >> Oh yeah.
00:33:57
>> And what is the art? >> You know, it's it's hard to like it's
00:34:01
hard to pin down. You just sort of have to have it. You have to have that ability. But the hard part is you have
00:34:07
to keep the lies straight. I'll give you another example. I've never told this
00:34:12
story before. I was asked by headquarters. I was overseas in the Middle East and I was
00:34:19
asked by headquarters to target one specific officer of this foreign country. >> Target?
00:34:26
>> Yeah. Hi, how are you? Oh, we've never met. I'm John. So nice to meet you.
00:34:32
>> Let me take you to lunch. he had access to to information that we really needed. Uh so they told me to
00:34:40
accidentally bump into him. So I surveiled him for a week and he was single and on Saturday morning he went
00:34:48
to a coffee shop. So I go into the coffee shop and I'm looking at him and he's looking at me and I said, "I know
00:34:55
you, Ministry of Foreign Affairs." He said, "Yes. Do I know you?" I said, "I
00:34:59
am John from the American Embassy." "Oh, nice to nice to see you." I said, 'Hey,
00:35:03
good to see you, too. You live in the area? Yes, I do. I said, 'Oh, so do I. I
00:35:06
didn't. I lived like across town. Oh, fancy meeting you here at this coffee shop. I come here all the time. Do you?
00:35:12
Yeah, he says. I come here all the time. Why don't you have a seat? He says. So,
00:35:15
I sit down. At the end of the conversation, I go back to the embassy and I read a cable and I said, he's gay.
00:35:22
I'm 100% sure he's gay. So, then we started this conversation, headquarters
00:35:26
and I, how can we use that to our benefit? >> Did he have a wife? >> No. He was single,
00:35:31
>> which was unusual at his age. >> How did you know he was gay? >> Oh, I I just It was a vibe.
00:35:39
>> Okay. >> So, headquarters says, "We want you to pretend that you're
00:35:46
gay." I said, "Oh, come on, you guys. No, we really need the information. You
00:35:51
got to pretend that you're gay." I said, "Okay, I'll do it. I'll do it for Uncle
00:35:56
Sam." So, I call him and I said, "Hey, I have two tickets to this show and I was
00:36:04
hoping maybe you'd be free. Maybe we'll grab some sushi afterwards."
00:36:10
He said, "Yeah, I'd love to." So, we go to the show. He thoroughly enjoyed it.
00:36:15
And we go for sushi afterwards. And then we go out again and he says, "Why don't you come over to my place
00:36:22
some night and I'll I'll make dinner." I said, "Great." So, I go over to his
00:36:25
place. made a lovely dinner and then I thought, well, I have to invite him to my place. So, I told my wife, you're
00:36:30
going to have to like get out. So, she left. I made dinner. I removed all the pictures of us together. And we had just
00:36:38
gotten married. So, we had like our wedding picture up and everything. At the dinner,
00:36:45
he leaned in to kiss me and I instinctively backed off and he said, "Oh my god, I'm sorry. I thought you're
00:36:51
gay." And I said, "Oh, no. I I am gay. I'm I'm I'm not into hairy guys.
00:37:00
And he's like, "Oh, okay." I said, "I'm sorry. I think you're great, but I'm I'm not feeling
00:37:08
it." >> You didn't kiss him? >> No. So, we remained friends and in the end,
00:37:15
he gave me the information because we were friends. And then he he opened up. He's like, "I can't tell anybody I'm
00:37:22
gay. They suspect I am." and they passed me over for promotion. And my boss asked
00:37:26
me, "Is there something in your personal life that you're not telling me? He
00:37:29
knows I'm gay." I said, "Listen, your culture is backwards. Don't tell them
00:37:34
you're gay. Just say that you've just never met the right woman." And
00:37:38
inshallah, the right woman is coming, you know, in your life at some point. And I actually Googled him a couple of
00:37:44
years ago, and he did become an ambassador finally. >> And he's still working in that country
00:37:49
now. >> Mhm. Does that kind of stuff happen a lot in the CIA where you have to take
00:37:53
one for the team? >> Yes. >> Have you ever taken one for the team? >> No. You
00:37:58
>> I'm not sure you're telling the truth. >> Well, I it came close.
00:38:01
>> When did it come close? >> So, I was overseas. I was a brand new operations officer
00:38:07
and there was a woman in this foreign intelligence service who was the ugliest woman I've ever seen in my life.
00:38:19
like you want to avert your eyes like she came off the side of Notradam. She was a, you know, a stone gargoyle
00:38:26
with a giant mole right here with a giant hair coming out of it. That kind of ugly.
00:38:32
So, so I took her to lunch and she was very nice. And then I thought I did something
00:38:39
kind of gutsy by C CIA standards because it was early on in our relationship. I invited her to go to lunch on a
00:38:46
Saturday. Now, as a rule, the people in this country were not allowed to socialize with us privately. It had to
00:38:54
be like their whole office, you know, or several of them together. So, I asked her just to meet me privately for lunch
00:39:03
on Saturday. Don't tell anybody. >> So, she was someone from the Middle
00:39:06
East. >> Yes. And she agreed. And I was like, "Oh my god, she said yes." And I ran back to
00:39:12
the office. I was like, she said yes to a lunch on Saturday alone. And my boss says, "Okay, here's what I want you to
00:39:19
do. I want you to [ __ ] her." And I said, "What?" I said, "Have you ever seen
00:39:25
her?" And he said, "I know, but we're the good guys and you're going to have
00:39:31
to take one for the team." And I go, "Oh my god." I said, I go, "Okay, I'll do it." And he says, "No,
00:39:40
you're not going to [ __ ] We don't do that." I said, "I don't know. Oh, I just
00:39:46
started this. I've never been an operations guy before. How am I supposed to know? He said, "Come on." He said,
00:39:52
"Just develop her like a normal person. You don't have to [ __ ] her." I said, "Oh
00:39:56
my god, you almost gave me a heart attack." >> But they they might not be mad if you
00:40:01
did. >> So long as I reported it and I got the recruitment out of him. >> It wasn't illegal to act, you know,
00:40:07
sleep with assets. >> Yeah, you're not supposed to sleep with assets. It has happened to a couple
00:40:12
people I know and um they end up being pulled back to the United States. You have to sit in the penalty box if you do
00:40:18
that. You're not supposed to do that. But yeah, it happens sometime. >> So sextortion isn't a real thing.
00:40:23
>> It can be. We don't. When I first got hired, one of the old-timers told me the story of about an
00:40:32
ayatollah that they were trying to recruit. And they set this ayatollah up with a prostitute. And it was he had sex
00:40:39
with this prostitute in a room where they had cameras everywhere. And so they bumped him afterwards. They bumped into
00:40:46
him and said, "Hey, we have all these pictures." And they laid out the
00:40:49
pictures of him, you know, butt naked with this prostitute. And he said, "Yeah,
00:40:54
give me that one, an 8 by10. Give me two 5x7s of that one. How about some wallet
00:41:00
size for this?" He's like, "Get out of here." and he said, "You know, after
00:41:05
that, we just stop doing that. It doesn't work. When you recruit somebody, you really do need the relationship to
00:41:12
be based on mutual trust, >> not coercion or pressure. >> Threatening somebody, it's it's not
00:41:18
going to result in a productive relationship. The Russians do it, the Israelis do it, but most intelligence
00:41:25
services around the world don't." because you've been in this world,
00:41:29
what is it that you know about the nature of the reality that we all live in that the average person really has no
00:41:37
idea about? >> Do you know what I mean? >> Yeah. >> Because, you know, going back to what I
00:41:42
said earlier, 3 years ago, before I started doing all this podcast stuff and started interviewing people that had
00:41:47
been involved in spy work and the CIA and all this, I was kind of like naive to the way that the world worked. I
00:41:53
thought I thought if I have a password on my device, my device is secure. And I thought that you know,
00:41:59
>> right? All these kind of just simple things, but what is it that you know
00:42:03
about the nature of reality that most people don't? >> Well, I I guess it's a couple of things.
00:42:10
You know, John Kennedy called the CIA the best and the brightest, and we're not. We're just average
00:42:18
people, and we're not as smart as we think we are. We're not as worldly as we think we
00:42:24
are. We've pretty much missed every major global development since 1947. From the, you know, the rise of the
00:42:31
Berlin Wall to the fall of the Berlin Wall to the fall of the Soviet Union to the Suez crisis and the Iran hostage
00:42:37
crisis and 9/11 and everything else. We missed it. We're really good at day-to-day, you
00:42:44
know, updates for the president. We're really good at recruiting minor hangers
00:42:49
on around terrorist groups, but the the big picture items were just not good at it. Number one. Number two,
00:42:58
until 9/11, it was against the law, like in stone, to spy on Americans. And now billions of dollars are spent
00:43:09
spying on Americans. Whether it's NSA or CIA or FBI or intelligence community
00:43:17
contractors, nothing is secret. Nothing. And to make matters worse, let's say maybe you did do something
00:43:28
that law enforcement might be interested in. They don't need a warrant anymore.
00:43:32
They don't need to go to a judge and say, "Well, we have reason to believe,
00:43:35
you know, blah, blah, blah." All they have to do is just buy your metadata because it's for sale. Just go to the go
00:43:41
to the carrier. Just buy it. They don't need a judge's order to do that. It's
00:43:46
all out there. We've made all we've made ourselves vulnerable. All of our lives
00:43:50
are out there, whether it's on Facebook or X or Insta or whatever. If they really want to get you, they're
00:43:59
going to get you. Which reminds me of a book written by Dr. Harvey Silverglate. He's a professor of law at Harvard and
00:44:06
it's called Three Felonies a Day. And he argues in this book that we are so overcriminalized,
00:44:13
so overregulated in this country that the average American on the average day going about his or her normal business
00:44:20
commits three felonies every day. You may not mean to, but you do. Every day. So if they decide they want you,
00:44:31
they don't like your politics, they can get your metadata, they can go through
00:44:36
that metadata, find crimes that they can charge you with and ruin your life. And
00:44:42
there's nothing you can do to protect yourself. >> To some extent, they did that to you.
00:44:48
>> Yeah, they did. They did that to me >> because you spoke out about a torture
00:44:52
program >> that was happening in the CIA. >> Yeah. John Brennan wrote a letter to
00:44:56
Eric Holder and said, "Charge him with espionage and Holder wrote back." Eric Holder was
00:45:04
the attorney general. Holder wrote back and said, "My people don't think he
00:45:07
committed espionage." And John Brennan wrote back to Holder and said, "Charge
00:45:11
him anyway and make him defend himself." So they arrested me, charged me with
00:45:16
five felonies, including three counts of espionage. Espionage can be a death penalty case. Charged me with espionage.
00:45:24
They waited until I went bankrupt 10 months later with $2 million in legal fees and then they dropped the espionage
00:45:32
charges and they said, "We can read the espionage charges or you can take a plea
00:45:38
to this lesser charge." What are you going to do? Roll the dice knowing that the
00:45:44
government wins 98.2% of its cases according to ProPublica or do you just take the deal and make it
00:45:50
go away? And that's what I did. And you got roughly two years in jail. >> Yeah. I uh ended up doing 23 months.
00:45:57
>> Mhm. >> And for anyone that doesn't know, this was because at some point in your
00:46:02
career, you spoke out about torture programs that were happening in Guantanamo Bay and and elsewhere.
00:46:08
>> Yeah. And at secret prisons that the CIA had set up around the world, right?
00:46:13
>> And going back up to the top of my question here, I I'm really trying to
00:46:17
speak to Jane Dave who's listening to this right now. Sure. They have a normal
00:46:21
life. Yep. >> They're not really aware that spies exist and the extent of the work they
00:46:24
do. They kind of assume that everything they see and people they interact with are normal and they think their devices
00:46:30
and everything else is secure. What message do you have for them? A word of warning or caution about the reality?
00:46:35
>> Yeah, that's a good question. Elliot Spitzer, the former um governor of New
00:46:41
York, when he was attorney general of New York, he said, "Don't nod when you can motion.
00:46:52
Don't speak when you can nod, and don't ever put anything in a text message."
00:47:01
At the CIA on our very first day, they told us not to ever say or do anything that we would be ashamed to see on the
00:47:10
front page of the Washington Post. I took that seriously. The truth of the matter is because of technology the way
00:47:17
it is today, our whole lives are out there potentially for someone to see, for someone to use against us.
00:47:26
So be careful what you say, be careful what you write. even ingest because it can be taken out of context to target
00:47:35
you. >> And what about digital security? You talked about the fact that it's possible
00:47:43
for these these forces and not just the US, but other countries to be able to hack and crack your devices and see
00:47:50
anything on your devices. I think we all go around assuming that our devices are
00:47:53
secure. >> They're not secure at all. At all. It's not just, you know, NSA, CIA, FBI that
00:47:59
you have to worry about. It's the British, the French, the Germans, the Canadians, the Australians, the New
00:48:06
Zealanders, the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis, the Iranians. I mean, everybody has these
00:48:13
capabilities. Everybody. So, you've got to be very, very careful. >> Capabilities to do what?
00:48:19
>> To intercept communications. >> I've heard you say that they can hack
00:48:24
car systems. They could so they could theoretically hack into my car. >> Yes, we know that from uh Wikileaks.
00:48:31
There was something in 2017 called the Vault 7 revelations. there was a a CIA software engineer who was disgruntled
00:48:40
and instead of going to the Russians or the Chinese, he went to Wikileaks and he downloaded
00:48:48
thousands, tens of thousands of pages of documents classified above top secret and they became what Wikileaks called
00:48:58
the Vault 7 documents. So they included things like the CIA for example will hack into let's say the Iranian Ministry
00:49:09
of Interior computer system but they'll leave little electronic clues all written in cerillic.
00:49:17
>> Cerillic as well. >> The cerillic is the is the alphabet the Russian alphabet. Okay. Yep.
00:49:22
uh or they can take control of your smart TV remotely and they can make the speaker turn into a a microphone. So
00:49:33
even though the TV is off, it can still hear everything that's being said in the room and broadcast
00:49:40
back to the CIA. >> Can they do that with devices? Do they >> Oh, they could do that. When I first got
00:49:46
hired, they were able to do that. >> So they could be doing that right now
00:49:49
with my >> Oh, totally. My opinion. >> Absolutely. Yes, that's old technology.
00:49:53
And then the thing about the car, this was revoly. They can take control again remotely of a car's computer system in
00:50:03
order to well, I mean, in order to to kill you, >> crash the car. >> Crash the car. Take it off a bridge.
00:50:12
Take it into a tree. Sure. >> Do you know something I've noticed? Most
00:50:17
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00:50:21
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daretodream.stan.store. >> I've heard you talk about sleeper agents before.
00:52:09
>> Yes. >> What is the What is a sleeper agent? Yeah, the Russians are very good with
00:52:15
sleeper agents. We Americans don't have no no other country that we know of uses
00:52:21
sleeper agents. A sleeper agent is someone who is taken virtually from birth and trained to be of another
00:52:31
nationality. For example, let's say you're born in Russia and from the age of, you know, two, they
00:52:40
take you from your family with your family's acquiescence and they take you to an Americanstyle town that they've
00:52:49
built out in the hinterland in Russia. And they teach you to speak English with an American accent. You watch American
00:52:58
TV shows. You watch American movies. You eat American food. You get an American style education.
00:53:05
So, I have no idea that you're not American. You speak English just like I do. You know, all the same, you know,
00:53:13
social references that I make. You follow the Philadelphia Eagles, you know, or or the, you know, San Francisco
00:53:21
49ers or whatever. and then they send you to the United States on a on a fake with a fake ID.
00:53:29
What they'll do is they'll go through I was born in 1964. So, they'll go through
00:53:35
death records from 1964 and they'll look for for deaths where the person was only
00:53:40
a day or two old and they'll take that name and the birth date and they'll get a social security
00:53:47
card with the birth date and then they'll use the social security card to get you a passport, an American
00:53:54
passport. So, you come here on your American passport, everything's legit. Now, your name is, you know, Bob Smith,
00:54:00
which was really that baby's name that died. and you get a job, let's say, as a
00:54:07
travel agent, and you may work as a travel agent for 20 years and never hear from them,
00:54:17
but then they'll activate you and they'll say, "We want you to go take
00:54:21
care of this target over here. >> Kill him." >> Yeah. Or, "We want you to get a job at
00:54:27
the defense department and give us everything that you that you can steal."
00:54:32
Whatever. There's a woman in my neighborhood who was outed as a sleeper about a year ago. She was an elementary
00:54:38
school teacher and they grabbed her and they ended up trading her back to the Russians for two Americans. So, they're
00:54:46
they're out there. I I interviewed a a sleeper, a former sleeper on my own podcast a couple of weeks ago. He was
00:54:54
from the East German Intelligence Service and he was raised as an American and sent to New York.
00:55:03
He got a job, I forget, doing what, like restaurant supply company or something like that. And he got married and he had
00:55:13
a daughter. and he told me, "As soon as I looked at her face the day she was
00:55:19
born, I realized this life wasn't for me anymore." So they sent him an activation. What they do is
00:55:28
they'll send you a radio message and he didn't respond to it. And he told me he
00:55:33
was on the subway one day. He's just standing there holding the strap and this guy came up to him and the guy
00:55:39
grabs the strap next to him and whispers in his ear, "If you don't report back, I
00:55:45
have to kill you." And so he ran straight to the FBI field office in New York and he said, "I'm an
00:55:53
East German sleeper and I want to turn myself in." And he became a prolific
00:55:58
source for the FBI. >> So he was taken as a young person. >> Yes. What was his story?
00:56:05
>> Yeah. Taken as a young person, sent to Russia to become American. >> They set him up with this phony
00:56:12
identity. >> And then after he had gone through all the training, he came over here young.
00:56:17
He was like 20 or 22. And uh and did this for 25 years. And then he said as soon as his daughter
00:56:27
was born, he was like, "Wow, this is what life is for, not being a sleeper."
00:56:33
Do you think the average person listening to this conversation right now is interacting in their life at this
00:56:39
exact moment in time with someone who is involved in espionage, spying, the CIA or some international
00:56:49
equivalent? Probably not because they're mostly focused. Foreign intelligence officers are going to be
00:56:59
spread out all over America. If if if a listener of this podcast is working in a
00:57:07
defense company, a defense contractor anywhere in America, then my answer is yes. Yes, you're probably encountering
00:57:17
espionage of some sort or somebody committing espionage, whether it's Russian, Chinese, or Israeli. They're
00:57:23
the three biggest ones that go after us. um in Washington. I mean, foreign spies there there could
00:57:34
be as many as 10,000 in Washington. I remember my first wife um she was teaching ballet at a small private
00:57:42
school and one of the uh the students there, they were all like four, five, and six years old. One of the students
00:57:49
there, her father was a Belgian diplomat. And so we would sit and talk and oh, aren't the kids talented? And
00:57:56
oh, this is so much fun. They look so cute in their little tutus. And then I went to work one day and as I was
00:58:01
walking in, he was walking in and I said, "Oh, come on, Peter." And he's
00:58:06
like, "You know, I thought you were a spy." And I said, "I actually didn't
00:58:11
think you were a spy." He was just going for a liaison meeting. We had a good chuckle about it. And I
00:58:18
said, "Listen, don't tell anybody." Right. Right. Right. Right. Sorry.
00:58:26
So, I'm trying to figure out how many how many spies do you think there are in
00:58:30
the United States? If you think about >> foreign spies, >> foreign spies, domestic spies, people
00:58:36
that are basically undercover, >> including Americans, you mean? >> Including Americans.
00:58:40
>> The number of CIA employees is classified. The number of CIA employees undercover is actually even more highly
00:58:47
classified. I can give you a guesstimate >> but also you know Russia, China.
00:58:52
>> Yeah. 50 to 60,000 altogether. >> 50 to 60,000 in the United States.
00:58:58
>> Mhm. >> So by a couple of degrees of separation if you know 100 people.
00:59:03
>> Yeah. You're probably going to know one. >> Sure. >> You said there's probably about 50,000
00:59:10
in the United States. So, I've just done some quick math on my notepad here,
00:59:15
which means that in order to know one, you'd need to meet 6,600 people. >> Okay.
00:59:23
>> Because the US population is roughly 330 million people. >> That's right.
00:59:26
>> And I and then I did some other maths and did some research and I asked um the
00:59:30
question I was trying to figure out is how many people does the average person meet a year?
00:59:33
>> And it's roughly about 3 to 10,000 people. So theoretically, >> so the chances are good
00:59:41
>> every year statistically, according to my napkin math, you're meeting one of these undercover spies.
00:59:52
One a year. >> There it is. >> Now, that number I gave you is I'm
00:59:59
lumping like all CIA people and all foreign intelligence officers in the United States.
01:00:06
>> Interesting. But again, if you work for an American defense company, Northrup,
01:00:12
Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, any of them, your chances of encountering a foreign intelligence officer are even
01:00:21
money. >> Can't you, as a spy with the United States, ask the United States to give
01:00:26
you loads of money? Like, can't you say, "You really want me to go do that? Can I
01:00:29
have a million dollars?" >> Because you're giving you're potentially
01:00:33
giving away a lot of money to other >> Oh my god. giving away like unlimited
01:00:36
amounts of money >> cuz your budget when you were a spy. How much was it >> after 911? It was unlimited.
01:00:41
>> What does that mean? It means you can basically give away as much money as you
01:00:44
need to. >> If I approach somebody and he says I can give you this terrorist. I want 10 million. I'm
01:00:53
like done. >> What was the most you ever gave in? >> 10 million. >> You gave someone 10 million for what?
01:01:00
>> Abu Zabeda. >> Who's Abu Zabeda? We believed that Abu Zuba was the number three in al-Qaeda.
01:01:07
He wasn't the number three, but he was a very bad guy. I led the raids that captured Abu Zuba in Pakistan, Fisalabad
01:01:14
Pakistan in March of 2002. And um the State Department had a $10 million reward. We ended up giving the 10
01:01:23
million to the Pakistani intelligence service. It wasn't >> a person >> a person. It was just really great
01:01:29
analysis that led us to him. But there were others in the so-called war on terror
01:01:40
who got more than 10 million and got it like within 24 hours. >> Individuals.
01:01:50
>> Individuals. >> How much? >> One got 25 million. >> Just a person.
01:01:56
>> Uh-huh. And the thing is, you know, there's a lot of danger there. If you're
01:02:00
a if you're a, you know, a shepherd or a tea boy and you make $40 a month and all
01:02:09
of a sudden you have $25 million, something's up. >> And what was the 25 million for?
01:02:17
>> It was for a very high ranking foreign terrorist who was brought to justice. I I can't I can't say because
01:02:29
it was never publicly disclosed. But what we would have to do in a a situation like that is
01:02:37
we would have to tell the the source, you can't live here anymore. Pick a country and that's going to be home from
01:02:45
now on. And then we go to that country and say, hey, can you do us a solid? We've got this guy who, you know, he
01:02:50
really came through and he's not going to be a burden on your economy >> cuz he's got $25 million.
01:02:57
>> Which country did he pick? >> Oh, I can't I can't tell you that.
01:03:02
>> He wanted He wanted to stay in the region. He He wasn't willing to move to
01:03:06
the United States, for example, >> cuz we're happy to take him. You're
01:03:10
welcome to come to the United States. He's like, absolutely not. >> You went to Dubai.
01:03:14
>> I would. >> Yeah. With the tax code. Interesting. H I think I'm I think I'm Yeah, you can
01:03:25
tell my bias from the questions that I ask about the things that fascinate me about espionage and spies is just it's
01:03:31
the un their understanding of human nature and what motivates us and the psychology of humans that you can learn
01:03:37
from um spies and the nature of human beings I guess. >> Right. And also, I guess the other thing
01:03:43
that really fascinates me is just I've had so many mind mind-blowing moments where I've learned just how
01:03:51
fragile the reality that I believe is. Like I thought things were secure and I thought they were as they are, but
01:03:57
>> right, >> it just doesn't appear to be that way. There appears to be lots of secrets.
01:04:00
>> And you know, conspiracy theorists get a hard time, but actually the more I've
01:04:05
done this as a job, the more I go, hm, conspiracy theorists are right more than I expected. See, and that's an important
01:04:12
point. I I hate conspiracy theories that run a muck, but you know, the the the a former
01:04:22
CIA director is the one who came up with the term conspiracy theory. >> And it was it was a way for the CIA to
01:04:29
discredit people by making them sound like crazy people when in fact there was such a thing called MK Ultra. There was
01:04:37
such a thing called, you know, operation grasshopper or or MK Chickwit or, you know, the CIA did crazy crazy stuff from
01:04:47
roughly 1952 to 1975. For example, they um experimented with a a virus that they
01:04:59
that they released in San Francisco. They waited for an unusually foggy, like heavily foggy day. They released it into
01:05:07
the atmosphere just to see if it would make people sick. And 11 people went to the emergency room with this rare upper
01:05:15
respiratory infection. And then they were like, you know, high fives. Yeah, it works. And then they they started
01:05:21
experimenting with LSD. LSD was a big thing at the CIA in the early days. We were convinced. See, and this this is
01:05:30
this is where counter intelligence is important. The Chinese told us in like 1951
01:05:41
that the Russians were using LSD to try to engineer it to be used as a mind control drug.
01:05:51
That wasn't true. That was disinformation. The truth was the Russians had no LSD program. The Chinese
01:06:00
did. So they tried to throw us off the off the scent by blaming the Russians. We panicked and by 1952 we started this
01:06:11
program called MK Ultra which began by using LSD um experimentally. What the CIA did was they they started
01:06:21
by dosing their own employees without telling them. Um, several committed suicide. One
01:06:28
jumped out of a hotel window >> with the hope that >> yeah, we'll just see what happens. See
01:06:32
what they say. See how it feels, you know, see if we can control them. See if we can plant memories that didn't
01:06:38
actually happen. And then they decided, no, it's not a good idea to dose our own
01:06:43
people. Let's just dose strangers out in public. So they went to San Francisco.
01:06:49
They rented a safe house and they hired prostitutes to go out on the street, pick up John's, bring them back to the
01:06:59
safe house. >> John's >> John's people who hire prostitutes, men
01:07:03
who hire prostitutes, dose the John's with uh LSD and just see what happens.
01:07:12
But I mean these are like serious crimes you're committing against people. >> Just reading about it here. It says
01:07:19
under Operation Midnight Climax. >> Interesting name. Operation Midnight Climax. The CIA paid sex workers to lure
01:07:28
men to safe houses where agents drugged them and then watched them through oneway mirrors and recorded their
01:07:35
behavior. >> Exactly. >> They tried to erase their personality. Nice, huh?
01:07:42
>> The goal was often to break and rebuild the human mind. In 1973, the CIA
01:07:48
director ordered mass destruction of the MK Ultra files, what we know comes from
01:07:53
accidentally surviving documents, meaning this is a sanitized version. >> That day, he testified before the church
01:08:01
committee. The church committee specifically told him, "Do not destroy any documents." He went back that
01:08:10
afternoon to the CIA and said, "Destroy everything." Why? >> Because it it was damning. They were
01:08:18
experimenting on American citizens. They were they were experimenting by spreading diseases in American cities.
01:08:28
And so he was held in contempt of Congress. He was fined like $150 and um about 15% of the documents were
01:08:41
overlooked and survived. We'll never know exactly what happened under MK Ultra.
01:08:49
As we sit here now, there's people on the streets of Iran that are protesting
01:08:55
the leadership there. And the CI the CIA are often associated with some of the coups going back to the 1950s. Yes. And
01:09:03
other countries toppling elected leaders to protect US interests. >> Yes. >> Do you think the CIA are involved in
01:09:11
Iran at the moment? >> Probably. I think the Israelis are heavily involved in Iran at the moment.
01:09:16
I'll tell you why. for a couple of reasons, more than a couple. Number one, in the so-called 12-day war that we saw
01:09:22
last year, the Israelis were absolutely masterful in the way they went after the
01:09:29
Iranian leadership. What they did was they focused on recruiting Afghan refugees.
01:09:39
Iran was home to more than 2 million Afghan refugees. And as essentially illegal aliens, they could not avail
01:09:49
themselves of medical care, the welfare system. They're starving, right? They only eat if they can beg for
01:09:58
enough to to buy food. And so the Israelis went to these people very discreetly and said, "Hey, you know,
01:10:03
we'll give you $200 a month if you tell us where the generals live. In which
01:10:10
apartments do the generals live? Where do the nuclear scientists live?" The Israelis killed the top 12 generals
01:10:19
across the entire Iranian military and killed almost every Iranian nuclear scientist because what they were able to
01:10:26
do was to recruit these Afghans to not just tell them where they were living, where the generals and the scientists
01:10:32
were living, but what their cell phone numbers were. And so the Israelis were able to geollocate the cell phones and
01:10:41
then that's where you fire the missile. They killed all of them. And then after
01:10:46
the Iranians finally realized it's the cell phones, they ordered that no senior military officials and no
01:10:54
scientists could carry cell phones. But it never dawned on them to tell the bodyguards not to carry cell phones. And
01:11:02
so the Israelis started rocketing the bodyguards and just killed everybody else.
01:11:06
>> Have you ever killed anybody? >> No, thank God. My children asked me
01:11:10
that. And I told them very proudly that I have never taken any action that resulted in the death of another human
01:11:16
being. There's one kind of half exception. And I think about this all the time.
01:11:23
In 1993, I guess it was. I was sitting in the morning meeting. I told you earlier that every unit meets
01:11:35
every day at 9:00 and you just talk about what happened in the country that you cover overnight. Was in the morning
01:11:42
meeting and the secretary came in and she said, "John, General Powell is on
01:11:47
the phone for you. Call him Powell." I said, "General Powell? How does he know
01:11:51
who I am?" and she said, 'I don't know, but he asked for you by name.
01:11:56
My boss is like,"Well, go answer the phone." So, I went to my desk and I
01:12:00
said, 'Good morning, General Powell. This is John Kiryaku. And he says, "John, if the Iraqis were going to kill
01:12:06
the president, who would actually be in charge of that operation?" And I said, "Well, if you're talking
01:12:12
about the attempt to kill President Bush, George HW Bush, he had been visiting Kuwait." I said
01:12:20
Kuwait operations are run from the Iraqi intelligence services Basra station but
01:12:26
Basra station is headed by um Sabra Abduliz Adori the director of the Iraqi intelligence service he says
01:12:35
where does he sit I said Baghdad where exactly in Baghdad I said if you hold on a second I'll look up the address so I
01:12:42
looked it up I gave him the address he says thank you and he hangs up the phone I go back in the
01:12:49
They were like, "What did he want?" I said, "He wanted to know about Sabradori
01:12:54
and the attempt to kill President Bush." Like, "Okay." Eight hours later, we fired 47 cruise
01:13:01
missiles into Iraqi intelligence service headquarters. But by then, it was the middle of the night in Baghdad and we
01:13:07
killed the janitor. So the next day, I said to my boss, "I killed that janitor." And he said, "I
01:13:15
knew you were gonna say that. You didn't kill the janitor. You had no idea what
01:13:19
Pal was going to do with him with the information. I said, I know, but I still feel guilty
01:13:24
about it. Other than that, thank God I never had to do it. I'm not sure how I would sleep
01:13:32
at night. >> Do the US still assassinate people by the CIA? >> Absolutely. Yes. When Barack Obama was
01:13:41
president, John Brennan uh in the first term was the deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and he
01:13:48
started something called the Tuesday morning kill list meeting. So it would be Brennan, it would be the National
01:13:55
Security Council attorney, somebody from the CIA uh general counsel's office and
01:14:02
a representative of the director of the counterterrorism center. And every Tuesday morning they would meet at the
01:14:07
White House, come up with a list of people to kill that week. The teams would fan out around the world, kill
01:14:13
their targets, and then go back and meet next Tuesday morning. >> And are these world leaders or are they
01:14:18
normal? >> No, these are these are ground level terrorists. >> Okay. So, it could be
01:14:26
someone that appears to be a normal civilian, but is doing something that they don't like.
01:14:30
>> The law is pretty clear on this. it it's supposed to be somebody who poses a
01:14:37
clear and present danger to the United States, to an American citizen, or to an American installation,
01:14:45
>> which can be quite a vague. >> See, that's the thing. It sounds like
01:14:50
it's clear. It's actually not at all clear. And when they get back from these
01:14:56
missions, we just have to take their word for it. Which um spy force around the world did
01:15:01
you think was the most impressive? >> Oh, the Israelis. >> Really? >> Yeah. The Israelis have no rules.
01:15:11
They'll kill anybody. Uh what was it 3 years ago? This uh this pager operation.
01:15:20
>> Oh, it was so fascinating. >> Good lord. It was it was a work of genius.
01:15:24
>> It is genius. It is. >> It was totally illegal. >> Totally illegal. But it was genius. The
01:15:30
the moving parts. >> I I didn't believe it was real. I had to like re I was like, there's no way that
01:15:36
this is real. This is the stuff of movies. >> It is. >> For anyone that doesn't know, what was
01:15:41
the story? >> Ah, yeah. Okay. So, the Israelis knew that Hezbollah, the terrorist group
01:15:49
Hezbollah from Lebanon, was communicating using pagers. They didn't want to use cell phones cuz they didn't
01:15:55
want the Israelis to intercept their phone calls. And they thought, "Oh, pagers, th those are safe." So the
01:16:01
Israelis bought a company in like Hungary, I think it was, that made pagers and they got Hezbollah to order the
01:16:13
pagers from this company. They were able to insert explosives in the pagers. And the pagers went to like
01:16:21
Taiwan and from Taiwan to Thailand and then from Thailand to I forget where, Syria, I guess. And then from Syria to
01:16:29
Lebanon. And so what the Israelis did was they were able to activate the explosives in
01:16:37
all the pagers simultaneously, >> killing people. >> They killed everybody of any import.
01:16:46
They essentially decapitated Hezbollah. And then the ones they didn't kill in
01:16:50
that operation, they bombed the apartment buildings where they lived. See, this is the
01:16:55
thing, too, about the Israelis. If they want to kill you, they won't they won't like just do a close-in hit.
01:17:03
They'll blow up the entire city block where you live. They'll kill a thousand
01:17:09
people just to get you. And they don't care. And then then they say, "What are
01:17:14
you going to do about it? You going to go to the International Court of Justice? Do they do they really do this?
01:17:20
>> Yeah. >> Uhhuh. >> Did Did you ever interact with them? >> Yes.
01:17:24
>> And how did you find them to be >> miserable? My very first briefing that I ever gave
01:17:31
as a junior analyst was to the Israelis. My boss said, "Okay." He says, "You're
01:17:36
going to give your first classified liaison briefing." So, it's going to be
01:17:41
the Israelis and there are a couple things you should know. I said, "Okay."
01:17:45
He said, 'We don't allow the Israelis into the building ever.' I said, 'Why not?' He said, '
01:17:51
Because they spy on us.' Not only do they spy on us, they would always bring
01:17:55
gifts like, "Oh, we brought this wonderful gift for you and you every every time somebody tries to bring
01:18:01
something in, you have to x-ray it and it's got like listening devices and it's
01:18:05
packed with two years worth of batteries." We're like, "You guys, you
01:18:09
have to stop doing this. Every time you come here, you try to bug our conference
01:18:12
rooms. You got It's bad form. you have to stop doing it. And then they're like,
01:18:16
"Oh, okay. Okay. We knew you would find it. We're just kidding. Come on." So, we
01:18:23
have to meet them miles away from headquarters in a place that we rent. So, he said, "Nothing over the secret level.
01:18:36
No top secret information. Just up to secret." I'm like, "Okay." So, I go with
01:18:40
like a dozen analysts. And because I'm the junior most analyst, I've only been
01:18:45
on the job at this point, I'm going to say six weeks or so, I went last. So,
01:18:51
the first analyst says, "I'm the chief analyst, and this is my briefing." And
01:18:55
then the next guy says, "I'm the political analyst, and I'm the econalist, and I'm the military analyst,
01:18:59
and I'm the oil analyst, and you know, the tech analyst, and it comes to me."
01:19:04
So I said, because I was overt at the time, I was not undercover. I said, "My
01:19:11
name is John Kiryaku, and I'm going to brief you on Saddam Hussein's psychological state of mind."
01:19:17
Well, there were two Israelis there. One was from Mossad, and one was from Shinbet. Shinbet is the FBI of Israel,
01:19:25
and Mossad is the CIA of Israel. So the Shinbet guy, he has his glasses down like this, and he he he goes like this.
01:19:33
He says, "Spell your name." So I spell it K I R. I spell it. And he goes, "You are
01:19:43
Jewish." I said, "Don't you dare. I am not recruitable. Don't you dare even try
01:19:50
it." I was furious. We went out of the briefing. I was going to explode. Everybody started laughing at me.
01:19:57
They're like, "They do that to every one of us. every one of us. >> They try and recruit you.
01:20:04
>> Yeah. >> To turn against the United States. >> Yeah. On my very first day at the CIA, we got
01:20:11
a briefing from the CIA's director of security and he said that all of us have
01:20:16
to have in the very front of our minds the concept of counter inelligence. For example, he said there's a steakhouse
01:20:25
right down the road on Route 123. It's the it's the nearest restaurant to the
01:20:30
CIA. He goes, "Don't ever eat there." Why? Because the KGB thinks we all eat
01:20:38
there. So all the customers are KGB officers waiting for CIA people to walk in and start talking about work. Don't
01:20:46
ever eat there. I've never eaten there to this day >> because they're potentially all Russian
01:20:50
spies. H. So he said, "Our Israeli friends have two officers in their embassy, one from Mossad, one from
01:21:00
Shinbet. The FBI has identified 187 undeclared Israeli intelligence officers spread all across the United
01:21:12
States, mostly at defense contractors trying to steal our secrets." Now, we
01:21:18
give the Israelis 95% of our defense secrets. You want the F-35? Done. Here's the F-35. You want
01:21:26
this advanced missile? Here you go. It's on us. So, they steal the remaining 5%.
01:21:34
>> Do you think Jeffrey Epstein was a spy? >> I believe very strongly he was a spy.
01:21:40
Yes. >> And who do you think he was working for? >> The Israelis. I'm confident it was the
01:21:45
Israelis. Why Jeffrey Epstein is kind of the stereotypical example that they give you in training for
01:21:56
what's called an access agent. This is a different kind of recruit. So, for example, if you're a foreign
01:22:04
intelligence service and you want information like close-in information from a former president,
01:22:12
from the CEO of the biggest company in the world, from a member of the British royal family, you're not going to
01:22:19
recruit these guys. You're not going to recruit Bill Clinton or Bill Gates or
01:22:23
Prince Andrew. So, you do the next best thing. You recruit somebody who has regular access to them. And that person
01:22:31
that you recruit is going to need to make these people feel comfortable and appreciated.
01:22:37
And so you give him plenty of money. So he has this house on an island or he has
01:22:43
the whole island. And maybe you bring in young girls, you get them in compromising positions just in case you
01:22:51
need to use what's called compromat compromising pictures. We know we know now that Jeffrey
01:23:00
Epstein's house on the island had video cameras, hidden video cameras in literally every
01:23:09
room, including the bathrooms. Why Why would he care what was going on unless it was to use that information
01:23:20
against people? As I said, only the Israelis and the Russians use extortion as a motivator.
01:23:33
>> So, would they have made Jeffrey Epstein rich? >> Yeah. >> In order to give him that access?
01:23:38
>> How could they have done that? >> Oh, that's easy. I mean, you you do I
01:23:44
mean, governments are the only ones really that can money that can launder money unfettered. And you can also do it
01:23:50
through real estate, through fine art, and through horses. Those are the three easiest ways to launder money today.
01:23:58
Fine art, real estate, and raceh horses. >> But presumably, he would have spoken out at some point,
01:24:06
no, he would have said something or >> no, but it would explain why he got a
01:24:10
sweetheart deal in 2006. I mean, this is a guy that's been convicted of child sex
01:24:16
crimes and he gets 6 months of house arrest with an ankle bracelet. We have mandatory minimums in this country.
01:24:23
That's a 5-year mandatory minimum of first offense. >> He definitely had some interesting
01:24:27
power, didn't he? >> Mhm. And Alex Aosta, who was the prosecuting attorney at the time and then later
01:24:36
became Secretary of Labor under Trump, Trump won. Alex Aosta said that he was ordered by the attorney general to give
01:24:47
Epstein the sweetheart deal. Well, who's the only person that can order the attorney general to do something? It's
01:24:52
the president. So, was it because >> Epstein was was working on Clinton? Most
01:25:03
of the people down there were Democrats. I mean, what what was the reason? Maybe
01:25:08
he was working for the US government. >> It's possible that he could have been
01:25:12
doubled against the Israelis or others. Sure. Sure, that's possible. >> If you had to bet
01:25:19
>> Mhm. >> what would you say if you had to bet everything you have on either him being a spy or not a spy?
01:25:27
>> Yeah. >> What would you bet on? >> He was a spy. I feel very confident in
01:25:32
that assessment. I debated Alan Dersowitz about this on the Pierce Morgan show one time. It was
01:25:39
it was Scott Horton and me who said that he was an Israeli spy and it was Alan Dersowitz and General Danny Ayalon, the
01:25:48
former head of Mossad. Ayalon was kind of into it in terms of having a fun time. He was just having a
01:25:56
fun time with the conversation. He wasn't going to admit to anything. Durowitz was Epstein's attorney.
01:26:04
So, I said that that I believed Epstein was an Israeli spy. And Duritz interrupts me like attorneys do. And he
01:26:13
says, "That is outrageous. If he had been a spy, he would have told me because I was his attorney and I could
01:26:21
have gone to the White House and I could have gotten him a better sentence." And
01:26:24
I said, "Wait a minute. You could have gone to the White House to say, "Go easy
01:26:29
on Jeffrey Epstein because he's an Israeli spy collecting information from American politicians. If I were the
01:26:37
president, I would have hung him from a tree." And then Piers Morgan said, "General I
01:26:43
Allen, was he a spy?" And he goes, "Who knows? >> Who knows?"
01:26:52
>> It's like, come on, man. Who do you think is the real adversary of the West?
01:26:58
Because we often talk about it being Russia or >> I think it's China. >> Why? What is it that we don't realize
01:27:03
about China and their agenda? >> Oh, wow. So much. The Chinese are so good at what they do. And the Chinese
01:27:11
are so patient. You know, in the United States, we we don't have long-term timelines for for anything. When we want
01:27:20
something, we want it now. Is that in part because we have this four-year election cycle?
01:27:24
>> Yes, I believe that it is. The Chinese will plan for something 25 years down
01:27:29
the road >> because they all still be in power then. >> Yeah. And so, you know, they're really
01:27:36
good at stealing technology. There are more Chinese PhD students in the hard hard sciences here in the
01:27:43
United States than you can shake a stick at. They're everywhere. They're they're
01:27:47
at every major university and they're really really smart. And then often times they'll say, "Oh,
01:27:53
you know, I've had such a great experience here. I'd like to stay in the
01:27:56
United States." Yeah, I bet you would. I bet you would. So you can spy for China.
01:28:02
>> Do you think that's happening? >> Every single day. >> You think that Chinese students are in
01:28:09
America spying on behalf of China? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> How could you be so sure?
01:28:15
>> I'm 1,000% sure. >> How could you be so sure? because we frequently arrest them and then trade
01:28:21
them for Americans who are in Chinese prisons. >> Yeah. >> And they're masquerading as students.
01:28:31
>> Mhm. PhD candidates always in the hard sciences. Always. >> So, China are the long-term adversary.
01:28:39
And what is it that China China want? What is it they're doing? >> And what is the outcome?
01:28:44
>> I think they want a couple of things. I think that on a more immediate basis they want
01:28:49
reunification with Taiwan. It's going to happen someday. Even the Taiwanese will
01:28:53
tell you, "Yes, we're a part of China, but we're kind of not a part of China.
01:28:59
We're not really independent, but we are kind of independent." Even American policy is that Taiwan is a
01:29:05
part of China, and eventually someday they'll be reunited. Do you think with
01:29:11
everything that's going on at the moment with Trump in Venezuela and Greenland,
01:29:14
this is going to create cover for >> Oh, I was hoping you would ask me a question like that. I think that's very
01:29:20
that's a very important issue that that the media really aren't talking about.
01:29:26
So, let's put it in the context of what happened last week in Venezuela because
01:29:32
they're all moving parts of the same of the same policy. So, we we sent a Delta Force squad into
01:29:44
Venezuela a week ago and we snatched President Maduro and he faces international narcotics trafficking
01:29:50
charges in New York. Okay. Some people are for that, some people are against it. Whether you're for it or against it,
01:29:57
it's happened. There's nothing we can do about it now. But that operation may have inadvertently
01:30:06
given the green light to something that both the Russians and the Chinese have long sought. The United States really is
01:30:11
the only true superpower in the world. You know, the Chinese have a lot more people. They have lots of nuclear
01:30:18
missiles, but they have one aircraft carrier. We have 12, soon to be 14. We have way more long-distance bombers. We
01:30:26
have way more fighters. The Russians are bogged down in a war in in Ukraine. They're winning the war, but they're
01:30:32
bogged down nonetheless. So, did this did this reinstitution of the Monroe Doctrine saying that, you know,
01:30:42
from 1814 that that the Western Hemisphere is the is the territory of the United States, it's up to us to
01:30:50
protect it from foreign powers. Well, in 1814, that meant the British Navy. We don't really need a Monroe Doctrine and
01:30:58
it's not up to us whether the Argentines want to have good relations with China
01:31:03
for example. We invoked the Monroe Doctrine in this operation to snatch Maduro. So does that
01:31:11
mean then that if we have a sphere of influence that is the Western Hemisphere that the Chinese have a sphere of
01:31:18
influence that includes Taiwan that the Russians have a sphere of influence that
01:31:23
includes Ukraine? because that's kind of what it seems. It looks like we've given
01:31:27
the green light to both of those countries and that we're conceding the fact that it's a unipolar world right
01:31:35
now in favor of a multipolar world. Now, personally, I think a multipolar world is safer.
01:31:41
>> What's a multipolar world? >> Multipolar world is where there's not
01:31:44
just one superpower. There are three or more. So in terms of policy, this simple act
01:31:54
of just sending a team in to grab Maduro has turned international diplomacy on its head.
01:32:02
What do we do if the Chinese invade Taiwan? Do we really want to send American soldiers to, you know, to fight
01:32:09
and die for Taiwan? >> What do you think would happen if China tomorrow said, "You know what? We're
01:32:14
going to take Taiwan." >> You know what? Honest to God, I think nothing would happen.
01:32:21
I think we would rush to protect Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand. We'd rush to
01:32:29
protect them. >> Why? >> Because they're they're major non-NATO
01:32:32
allies. They're good friends, close friends. But in terms of going to Taiwan
01:32:36
to fight Chinese soldiers, I can't imagine it. >> Trump told the New York Times that
01:32:42
whether China moves on Taiwan is ultimately up to Chinese President Xi Jonging. not the USA. Adding that he's
01:32:50
told he would be very unhappy if China changed the status quo. He claimed he doesn't think Xi will act while he's
01:32:58
president. >> See, and that is actually what the long-term policy is. The long-term
01:33:03
policy is sure someday to be determined later you guys can unify. >> Just don't do it while I'm here.
01:33:11
>> Yeah. Don't do it today. >> Maybe when Trump goes. >> God forbid.
01:33:17
So going back to this point, you said they want Taiwan. What else do you think China want?
01:33:22
>> Well, do they want to see the US fall? >> Yes, sure. >> And are they actively doing things to
01:33:31
encourage that? >> Yes, but not the things that that you would expect. Instead of running around the world, you
01:33:40
know, overthrowing governments, invading countries, which is what we do, they go to countries and say, "Hey, you
01:33:50
need a new highway system, we'll pay for it. You need a new airport, no problem.
01:33:55
You need a new hospital electrical grid, we have plenty of money from our gigantic trade surplus. We'll pay for
01:34:01
it. We just want to have really good, friendly relations with you." And that's
01:34:06
what they do. The Chinese essentially own Africa right now. >> What are you most concerned about in the
01:34:12
world at the moment? What what does actually keep you up at night? What frightens me the most is that the US
01:34:21
government over the last well really over the last 50 years or 55 years has so inflated its
01:34:34
military budget that what we spend on the Pentagon is now more than the next eight largest
01:34:44
countries combined. mind. Right. Donald Trump right now spends a a trillion dollars a year on the Pentagon
01:34:53
budget. He's asking for next year to be a trillion and a half. We can't afford it. Our interest on the
01:35:01
national debt is now the third largest expenditure in government between the Pentagon and Social Security and then
01:35:09
the the interest on the debt. >> And why does this bother you? >> Because we're going bankrupt. And all
01:35:14
the while, the China, the Chinese are letting us spend ourselves into oblivion. The Chinese don't spend that
01:35:20
kind of money. How come I can't have a bullet train that goes 400 miles an hour? How come I can't get to Chicago in
01:35:27
3 hours by train? You know, how come the airports in my country look like [ __ ]
01:35:34
And you go to Chinese airports and they're pristine with like the most amazing services and the best
01:35:41
restaurants. How come Chinese roads don't have potholes? And in my town, it's like driving across Bosnia.
01:35:51
It's because they decided not to spend their money on weapons. They spend it on
01:35:56
infrastructure. >> Do you think that's likely that the US could go bankrupt effectively?
01:36:02
>> I do. Yeah, I do. We can't keep up this pace. It's not possible. We're going to have
01:36:09
to we're going to have to raise taxes and cut the budget. >> What's the most important thing that we
01:36:16
didn't talk about that we should have talked about, John? >> Oh, that's a good question.
01:36:22
One of the most important things in my life to tell you the truth, uh, is the issue of ethics. I love this country
01:36:28
more than anything else in the world, and I wanted to do the right thing. We're a country of laws and we have to
01:36:37
obey our laws, which is why I blew the whistle on the torture program. >> Who's not obeying the laws?
01:36:43
>> Our government. >> In what way? >> We've gotten to the point, and it
01:36:48
started around the year 2000 or 2001. We got to the point where if we want to do
01:36:56
something, we just do it. >> Like what? In 1946, we passed something called the Federal
01:37:04
Torture Act, which banned torture. Okay. Also in 1946, we executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded
01:37:16
American prisoners of war. That was a death penalty offense to waterboard someone. All right. In 1968, on January
01:37:25
the 11th, 1968, the Washington Post ran a front page photograph of an American soldier
01:37:33
waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner. When the when the picture ran, the Secretary of Defense, Robert
01:37:39
McNamera, ordered an immediate investigation. That soldier was arrested. He was charged with torture
01:37:46
and he was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor at Levvenworth. And then in 2002,
01:37:55
it's legal. We can do it. We can do it because we're the good guys. The law never changed. We changed. And
01:38:04
my point was always either we're going to be the good guys or we're not. Either
01:38:09
we're going to be what Ronald Reagan called a shining city on a hill or we're
01:38:14
not. It when I was when I was stationed in Bahrain, I was the human rights officer. So, I had to write the human
01:38:20
rights report every year that we sent to Congress. Well, imagine if John goes in to see the Minister of
01:38:27
Interior. And I say, "Your Highness, you cannot pick up a 15-year-old kid for
01:38:35
marching in a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration and then murder him, beat him to death in the in the police
01:38:43
station, and call his parents to come and pick up the body." You can't do
01:38:46
that. I have to report that to Congress and you're going to lose your your rights to buy American military
01:38:52
hardware. But then the CIA station chief goes in an hour later and says, "Don't
01:38:59
pay any attention to the human rights guy. I'll give you $10 million. If you
01:39:04
set up a secret prison here, we're going to send you some prisoners. You torture
01:39:09
them and then you give us a write up of everything they say during torture."
01:39:13
Who's he going to listen to? Is he going to listen to me? >> Did that happen? Yes.
01:39:20
He's not going to listen to me. If all of a sudden torture is legal just cuz we say it is and then Congress is
01:39:28
like, "Oh, we don't know anything because it's a secret program, so we
01:39:32
can't talk about it." >> Do we still torture people? >> No.
01:39:35
I am very proud to say that when the McCain Feinstein anti-torrture amendment was passed into law in
01:39:46
December of 2014, John McCain got up on the floor of the Senate and said it was because of me, because of my
01:39:52
revelations. He said, "If I had not told the American people that the CIA was
01:39:58
torturing prisoners in their name, we would never have known." That's why I say it was worth it.
01:40:09
>> Do you think you should be pardoned by by President Trump? >> I do.
01:40:13
>> Have you written him? I've I've be careful with my language here. I
01:40:24
applied. My name is in the system. I have very very high level supporters who have approached him personally
01:40:38
and I'm hopeful that it happens. John, we have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the
01:40:47
next not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for. And the question left
01:40:50
for you is, what's something you stopped doing that improved your life more than
01:40:55
anything you started? feeling sorry for myself. I I'll be honest with you. I have
01:41:07
struggled with depression my entire life. And after my second divorce, I went through this period where I was
01:41:16
just I couldn't pull myself out of bed in the morning because I felt so sorry
01:41:23
for myself. because of the divorce or because of your life or because >> the whole thing. I I believed I was just
01:41:30
a loser. I was in my 50s, unemployable, convicted felon, barely able to make ends meet, worried about where my rent
01:41:41
was coming from one month to the next. And then I thought, "Fuck you. What's
01:41:49
wrong with you? You don't have to answer to anybody." And I I told myself no more feeling
01:41:57
sorry for myself. I was going to go make a career on my own. And so I knew I would never work for government again. I
01:42:04
knew I would never work in corporate America again. After I left the CIA, I was the head of the competitive
01:42:09
intelligence practice at Deote and Touch spying on Ernstston Young and PWC and IBM. And it was great fun. I'll never
01:42:17
work in in the corporate world again. So I decided I'm going to do what I'm good
01:42:22
at. and I'm a I'm a terrific writer and I'm told that I'm a gifted storyteller. So,
01:42:30
I'm going to write books. I have two syndicated newspaper columns that run in
01:42:36
212 small town papers around the country. I'm on TV all the time. I have three podcasts, Drogram, every day on on
01:42:45
both YouTube and Rumble. Thanks for letting me plug them by the way. >> Go ahead.
01:42:49
>> Uh Deep Focus on YouTube and on Apple Podcast. John Kuryaku's Dead Drop, which
01:42:54
is just story after story after story. And now I make a perfectly great living. I I'm in a long-term relationship with
01:43:01
the woman I'm crazy about, and life is good. >> And it all started with that decision to
01:43:06
stop feeling sorry for yourself. >> Yes. If people around me keep saying, "You've done nothing wrong. You're a
01:43:13
hero for what you did." And deep down, I would do it again, then why am I feeling
01:43:18
sorry for myself? I'm right. They're wrong. They're criminals. So, I'm just
01:43:24
going to go on with my life. And that snapped me out of it. So, don't feel sorry for yourself.
01:43:34
Do something about it. Act. >> John, you are someone that is very good at storytelling. You are. You've written
01:43:42
many books. I'm going to link all the books below. So many incredible books.
01:43:45
I've got some of them here with me on the floor. Um, I could go through all of
01:43:48
them, but we need another couple of days. Um, John, thank you. >> Thank you.
01:43:54
>> Thank you so much for your incredible storytelling, your wisdom, but also just
01:43:57
giving us a window into a world that most of us know nothing about because there's so many lessons that I think are
01:44:01
pertinent to all of our lives riddled amongst there. And I think, you know, I hope you do get pardoned.
01:44:08
>> Thank you. I hope so. I've got my fingers crossed. >> And when you do, hopefully we can come
01:44:12
back again and have another conversation. >> I look forward to that. It's been such a
01:44:15
pleasure. >> Pleasure is mine. Thanks for the invitation. >> This is something that I've made for
01:44:23
you. I realize that the direio audience are striv goals that we want to accomplish. And
01:44:30
one of the things I've learned is that when you aim at the big big big goal, it
01:44:35
can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable because it's kind of like being stood at the foot of Mount Everest
01:44:41
and looking upwards. The way to accomplish your goals is by breaking them down into tiny small steps. And we
01:44:48
call this in our team the 1%. And actually this philosophy is highly responsible for much of our success
01:44:53
here. So what we've done so that you at home can accomplish any big goal that
01:44:57
you have is we've made these 1% diaries and we released these last year and they
01:45:02
all sold out. So I asked my team over and over again to bring the diaries back but also to introduce some new colors
01:45:08
and to make some minor tweaks to the diary. So now we have a better range for you. So if you have a big goal in mind
01:45:16
and you need a framework and a process and some motivation, then I highly recommend you get one of these diaries
01:45:22
before they all sell out once again. And you can get yours now at the diary.com where you can get 20% off our Black
01:45:28
Friday bundle. And if you want the link, the link is in the description below. Heat. Heat. N.