Speaker 1: I think some of what we did waterboarding, for example,
Speaker 1: was questionable, but preventing a second wave, I think follow
Speaker 1: on generations will not fully understand what that took and
Speaker 1: how surprising it was that didn't happen. All it takes
Speaker 1: is three people to take over some public transportation and
Speaker 1: it didn't happen. It's incredible, especially since you know, if
Speaker 1: you look at the three of us, this is the
Speaker 1: crew you have to work with.
Speaker 2: I'm John Ceipher and I'm Jerry o'she I served in
Speaker 2: the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years, living undercover
Speaker 2: all around the.
Speaker 3: World, and in my thirty three years with the CIA,
Speaker 3: I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Speaker 2: Although we don't usually look at it this way, we
Speaker 2: created conspiracies.
Speaker 3: In our operations. We got people to believe things that
Speaker 3: weren't true.
Speaker 2: Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories we see in the
Speaker 2: news almost every day.
Speaker 3: We'll break them down for you to determine whether they
Speaker 3: could be real or whether we're being manipulated.
Speaker 2: Welcome to me Mission implausible.
Speaker 4: Hey guys, I've been thinking what my career might have
Speaker 4: been like if I'd met you when you were active agents,
Speaker 4: and I was an active international correspondent, and you could
Speaker 4: have told me lots of secret things. I know, I
Speaker 4: know you wouldn't have. But I think journalists have this fantasy.
Speaker 4: Usually in a media organization, there's these conspiracies that the
Speaker 4: CIA controls us, which we're going to get into in
Speaker 4: today's show. But the reality is often there is one
Speaker 4: or two journalists who are known to have good CIA sources.
Speaker 4: I don't even know what that means because I've never
Speaker 4: been one of those people. But I think that means
Speaker 4: like people in the office building, not actual field agents,
Speaker 4: like high level you know.
Speaker 3: I think it means they're talking to retired people, or
Speaker 3: they're trading on information, like you're talking to the Office
Speaker 3: of Public Affairs, where they say, if you don't publish
Speaker 3: that story that you somehow got through congressional age of
Speaker 3: something will If you don't publish it, we'll give you
Speaker 3: something else for a while. So I think there may
Speaker 3: be some trading back and forth. From what I've seen,
Speaker 3: most of the leaks, they seem to come from elected officials,
Speaker 3: because we take polygraphs every five years, so if we
Speaker 3: talk to journalists like it'll come out.
Speaker 2: Well, First of all, Adam, welcome back after boguarding us
Speaker 2: for several weeks and not joining us and forcing Jerry
Speaker 2: and I to pull something deep in our soul.
Speaker 1: To speak about.
Speaker 2: But sorry to Jerry's point, I never, never, ever, once
Speaker 2: spoke to a journalist when I worked inside, and I
Speaker 2: don't think people in our part of the business. I'm
Speaker 2: sure there's two occasions as possible, you know, or in
Speaker 2: the old days, people would sit in the bar and
Speaker 2: be rooted in the fifties or whatever and talk with journalists.
Speaker 2: But you know, for us, it's best to stay away
Speaker 2: from journalists. We're not allowed by regulation or law to
Speaker 2: use them as sources, and so we stayed away from them.
Speaker 5: And so I think when you.
Speaker 2: See these people with good CIA sources, it's probably people
Speaker 2: in the administration who are telling them tidbits that they
Speaker 2: pick up on, or retired people like I do talk
Speaker 2: to journals us now. I don't tell them secrets because
Speaker 2: I don't have secrets.
Speaker 3: Although I will say from time to time I think
Speaker 3: I've got a couple of secrets left, really big, juicy
Speaker 3: secrets I'm not telling anybody. And then I open up
Speaker 3: The New York Times of the Washington post and I'm like,
Speaker 3: there's the story, and in fact I read it, I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 3: I was read into this and I didn't know those
Speaker 3: details right, So I mean.
Speaker 2: You know somebody's talking.
Speaker 5: Yeah, somebody's talking. But it's usually like five or six
Speaker 5: years later the assets are gone. But it's like wha,
Speaker 5: Like how did that one get out?
Speaker 3: And then we'll like call somebody up who was involved
Speaker 3: in that, and like, man, it's like they got it
Speaker 3: like eighty percent right, because you never get it quite
Speaker 3: right well.
Speaker 2: And the thing is to understand is there's no one
Speaker 2: in the CIA, for example, who knows all the things
Speaker 2: that are happening. We're compartmented, like if I was working
Speaker 2: on Russia stuff, I didn't know what was happening in China,
Speaker 2: or I might. And it's a large organization with lots
Speaker 2: of people working on lots of sensitive stuff. Even the
Speaker 2: director doesn't know the details of lots of operations and
Speaker 2: things that he needs to be briefed. And he's briefed
Speaker 2: in general unless he's a deeper dive. So if anyone
Speaker 2: is trying to say no, no, it's this way, it's
Speaker 2: that way. Yeah, they might know that in their little
Speaker 2: cylinder we called cylinders of excellence. You really do as
Speaker 2: a joke.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So in our interview, Jerry and I interview an old
Speaker 2: friend and colleague, Phil Mudd, who was a very senior
Speaker 2: officer in the CIA but then went over in a
Speaker 2: senior position in the FBI. He was an analyst but
Speaker 2: worked on counter terrorism issues. And during our interview, one
Speaker 2: of the things we talk about is this view out
Speaker 2: there that the CIA controls things and specifically controls the media.
Speaker 2: And we talked about in our interview our FKA junior
Speaker 2: who believes that the CIA was involved potentially in killing
Speaker 2: his father and he believes the CIA controls the media.
Speaker 2: I know what's interesting and new since we talked to
Speaker 2: him is Robert F. Kennedy joined the Trump campaign and
Speaker 2: there's even talk about his interest in becoming the CIA
Speaker 2: director in a Trump administration. And so it makes our
Speaker 2: interview I think more timely.
Speaker 5: Today. We're fortunate to have Phil Mud on the show.
Speaker 3: Phil is a long time senior CIA officer and CNN commentator. Phil,
Speaker 3: you started at CIA as a South Asia, Mid East analyst,
Speaker 3: and you worked your way up to be a senior
Speaker 3: analyst for CIA's counter terrorism efforts after nine to eleven
Speaker 3: where I got to know you and you were even
Speaker 3: a prime liaison between CIA and the world of intelligence
Speaker 3: and the FBI and the world of law enforcement, which
Speaker 3: is pretty special. And then you were with CNN for
Speaker 3: like almost ten years, right.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, Alex Righter. It was a lot of fun. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Inside the agency, you were known for your insightful, fact
Speaker 3: based analytical skills. You brief presidents and senators and Congress
Speaker 3: and foreign liaison. So, Phil, it's really.
Speaker 5: Great to have you here.
Speaker 1: Thanks, thanks for having me, Phil.
Speaker 2: So the first question I want to do was sort
Speaker 2: of a crossover between your experience at the agency and
Speaker 2: the FBI and the media. On the campaign trail, Robert F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy Junior has repeatedly stated that the CIA has taken
Speaker 2: over the American press, the US media, all that's our
Speaker 2: run by undercover CIA operatives as part of some secret
Speaker 2: government plot to manipulate American minds. At a recent campaign event,
Speaker 2: he even said that the new head of npr A
Speaker 2: is a CIA agent. Got that wrong and that was
Speaker 2: just the latest selveo. And as you know, the CIA
Speaker 2: is taking over the American press. He stated on Twitter.
Speaker 2: The Other Day that the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR,
Speaker 2: and even the Daily Beast are under the control of
Speaker 2: Intelligence agency operatives.
Speaker 5: Rolling Stone too.
Speaker 2: And journals like Smithsonian National Geographic appear to be compromised
Speaker 2: by the CIA. So, Phil, you worked for quite a
Speaker 2: long time in media after you left the agency. So
Speaker 2: what is your experience about the intelligence community shaping the news.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I have a professional perspective from my years
Speaker 1: as an analyst and a personal perspective. You can laugh
Speaker 1: about this stuff, and it is a little it's a
Speaker 1: little disturbing yourself, so laughable. But I always default initially
Speaker 1: to my old life as an analyst and wish that
Speaker 1: people would actually, even if you don't know anything about intelligence,
Speaker 1: breakdown how this would work if it were true. So
Speaker 1: you'd have to have a broad conspiracy in the CI,
Speaker 1: which would involve hundreds of people, none of whom I
Speaker 1: guess I ever spoken that conspiracy would extend to the
Speaker 1: leadership of many media organizations. So those media people, who
Speaker 1: many of who might not be terribly sympathetic to the CI,
Speaker 1: have agreed to this. Okay, do your multiplication hundreds of
Speaker 1: people of CI, hundreds of people in leadership positions in media.
Speaker 1: A lot of those are public companies, so they have
Speaker 1: to persuade not only their staffs to say, John or
Speaker 1: Jerry or Phillip is coming in to take over a
Speaker 1: position that he's a CIA guy and he's secretly subverting
Speaker 1: the organization. But you'd also have to tell the corporate enterprise,
Speaker 1: the stakeholders, because these are public companies, you'd have to
Speaker 1: sell out the stakeholders. Now you're dealing with thousands of people,
Speaker 1: none of whom has ever spoken. If you do took
Speaker 1: stats class, one of the best things I ever did
Speaker 1: in college as an English major was to take a
Speaker 1: semester of statistics. That's not feasible. But on the personal side,
Speaker 1: I guess, as a ten year CNN commentator, one of
Speaker 1: the most interesting jobs I ever had. You're not going
Speaker 1: to lead this. Let me give you a guess about
Speaker 1: the number of times CIA Public Affairs in ten years
Speaker 1: I was on thousands of times, thousands every show on
Speaker 1: Don Lemon, the morning shows, the afternoon shows, all of them.
Speaker 1: The number of times in ten years of thousands of
Speaker 1: appearances that CIA Public Affairs or any CI official call me.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a guess it's a round figure. I
Speaker 1: guess it's zero zero. I actually was surprised. I thought
Speaker 1: they would actually call it once in a while and say,
Speaker 1: there are some facts you might want to consider in
Speaker 1: my answer to be well, I don't do facts, but
Speaker 1: I left government. I was actually a little surprised about it.
Speaker 1: I think people don't believe that, but I don't know
Speaker 1: what to say. I think the CIA was afraid I'd
Speaker 1: get out and say, you know that the CI is
Speaker 1: trying to influence me or some mean but I was
Speaker 1: one of the national security commentators for CNN, So anybody
Speaker 1: who believes is conspiracy my personal experiences. They never called.
Speaker 1: Never It's like trying to get a Dateton Heights. I
Speaker 1: never got a call back.
Speaker 5: Phil Let me contradict you here.
Speaker 1: Did you call me.
Speaker 5: Because I think you're wrong.
Speaker 3: I can think of certainly one one thing where the
Speaker 3: government did get involved in trying to shape it, and
Speaker 3: this was when it's all in the press, where the
Speaker 3: Trump campaign actually worked with the National inquired David Pecker, right,
Speaker 3: he's admitted this on the stand under. When you're calling
Speaker 3: that journalism, I'm just saying this is a journalistic at
Speaker 3: enterprise where they agreed to make up stories about Ted Cruz.
Speaker 5: They also agreed.
Speaker 3: To make up stories. So this wasn't CIA doing it. No,
Speaker 3: No was the CIA's boss. So there is actually an
Speaker 3: example of this, but it's not the mainstream media.
Speaker 1: The National Choir had a reputation back in the day.
Speaker 1: I think they've declined a bit for breaking some of
Speaker 1: the best Hollywood stories there were. I mean, they were
Speaker 1: quite rigorous about what they did. But what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about is before I joined CNN, which was I don't
Speaker 1: remember in twenty twelve or two thirteen. I did Fox,
Speaker 1: I did Al Jazeera, I did all of them in
Speaker 1: CNN offer a paycheck, So I, being a bright analyst,
Speaker 1: said I'll do that. But I'm not saying it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen anywhere. I'm saying I had a ten year run
Speaker 1: of doing a lot of media, and not only did
Speaker 1: it not happen to me, I never witnessed it. I
Speaker 1: never heard about it. I sat in the green room
Speaker 1: at CNN with everybody from CI directors to senators. I
Speaker 1: was in there a lot with Lindsey Graham back in
Speaker 1: the day, a lot with the former CI director Michael Hayden.
Speaker 1: It just never and again, I know people don't believe this.
Speaker 1: It didn't happen. They CEI didn't call people, didn't try
Speaker 1: to influence this, and I never heard about this in
Speaker 1: backroom conversations over cocktails, and believe me, I will drink
Speaker 1: a cocktail that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: You hear people say often once an intelligence official, always
Speaker 2: an intelligence official, or something like that. Essentially, once you retire,
Speaker 2: the ant wants nothing to do with you. They want
Speaker 2: nothing to do For several years, I would try to
Speaker 2: write in if I met somebody interesting or I got something,
Speaker 2: and I've written a lot of pieces and I've gone
Speaker 2: TV two.
Speaker 5: They don't care.
Speaker 2: There's almost no back and forth.
Speaker 1: I was assigned as Deputy Director National Security Brands at
Speaker 1: the FBI in two thousand and five. So I was
Speaker 1: deputy director of counter Terrorism at CIA, and then when
Speaker 1: the FBI was under a lot of pressure to do
Speaker 1: better on domestic intelligence, that is, make sure the next
Speaker 1: attack doesn't happen. When I moved over to the FBI,
Speaker 1: almost instantaneously people at the CI head coders were like,
Speaker 1: you don't work here. I tried to do some joint
Speaker 1: training between the FBI agents and the CIA. The response
Speaker 1: I won't name the officer whom you both know, but
Speaker 1: was basically not only no, but FU were not doing
Speaker 1: this in that case. I was talking about doing interrogation training,
Speaker 1: which I learned a lot at the FED. The FBI
Speaker 1: is very good at interrogations, not the things that were
Speaker 1: done at our black sites, but they are very good.
Speaker 1: So I thought, why don't we do some of this jointly?
Speaker 1: And the answer I got again was FU. So to
Speaker 1: support your point, people think that there's a closed society
Speaker 1: and that when you leave there's a secret circle. It
Speaker 1: was almost the reverse. Get the hell out of here,
Speaker 1: don't call us, and don't let the door hit you
Speaker 1: on the way out. If I could just a great
Speaker 1: story about that. I quit when I was forty eight.
Speaker 1: I did not resign, which cost me a life lot
Speaker 1: of retirement money and not maybe not the smartest move
Speaker 1: I ever made. But I went to hand in my
Speaker 1: badge at CI, and I had told Director Moller, the
Speaker 1: FBI director whom I worked for in the CIA, I'm
Speaker 1: not doing any events. I want out. I'm out, So
Speaker 1: I wanted to you got to hand in your badge
Speaker 1: and you sign a bunch of documents saying I agree.
Speaker 1: I'll never speak to podcasts about the secret things I
Speaker 1: learned about. But I double parked going in because at
Speaker 1: that point there was a lot of hiring and the
Speaker 1: CI parking lot was so full. So I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: going to take twenty minutes. I go out. There's a SPO,
Speaker 1: a security protective officer, a CI cop at my car.
Speaker 1: He's like, you're double parked. I gotta give a ticket.
Speaker 1: Where's your badge? On my twenty four years it's the
Speaker 1: only day on the headquarters compound. I thought he was
Speaker 1: going to put me in a handcuffs. I don't have
Speaker 1: a badge. I just I didn't resign turn it in.
Speaker 1: I resigned. So he said, thank you, get out of
Speaker 1: here and don't go back here.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break.
Speaker 5: We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: And Rebecca phil I'm going to return to this thing
Speaker 3: because the question really is about what I think to
Speaker 3: be respectable mainstream media people, journalists who don't come at
Speaker 3: things with quite so much of a of a bias,
Speaker 3: and you know, New York Times, Washington Post.
Speaker 5: Maybe some small bias, but they are real journalists.
Speaker 1: I also would say there's a difference between a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory and what I witnessed the media. The media wants
Speaker 1: to make a story. So it's your responsibility, as a reader,
Speaker 1: a listener, a watcher to say, I'm going to look
Speaker 1: at I mean to every day I look at the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, I look at BBC, I look at
Speaker 1: the New York Times, I look at whatever else shows
Speaker 1: up on my feed to try to get a constellation
Speaker 1: of perspectives. Because even if you trust a journalist, and
Speaker 1: I have done a million New York Times interviews in
Speaker 1: my life, like all of us, a journalist is going
Speaker 1: to have a perspective. Sure they like President Trump, they
Speaker 1: don't like President Trump. All of us have biases. That's
Speaker 1: different than going in saying actually the World Trade Center
Speaker 1: was an inside hit job, which would require an epic
Speaker 1: belief that tens of thousands of people knew that and
Speaker 1: none of them ever went to CNN or NBC or
Speaker 1: Fox and spilled it. I mean, I had biases when
Speaker 1: I was on CNN, I knew him. I Mike, you're
Speaker 1: paying me to comment, But again, you shouldn't watch me alone.
Speaker 1: You should, you probably should, but maybe you should watch
Speaker 1: some Fox people. Make sure you read the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1: It's very well written. Read the New York Times. BBC
Speaker 1: is great because they give you a European perspective. Al
Speaker 1: Jazeera is interesting. Read it and sort through yourself.
Speaker 2: So, Phil, you're one of the few people who worked
Speaker 2: in senior positions at both CIA and FBI. What perceptions
Speaker 2: and misperceptions did you find those organizations have about each other?
Speaker 2: And then you know then the same questions of the media,
Speaker 2: like what are the perceptions miss perceptions amongst those various organizations.
Speaker 1: I was at the senior levels like Director Moller, Robert Mueller,
Speaker 1: who was obviously known for the rest of investigation, but
Speaker 1: was the director when I was at the FBI. I
Speaker 1: was his intelligence advisor. I saw him as often as
Speaker 1: four times a day at that level. Relationship with the
Speaker 1: CI is excellent. He and George Tennant were great friends.
Speaker 1: They used to go out to dinner all the time.
Speaker 1: At that point. It's called Mahogany row at the FBI.
Speaker 1: When you're on your Mahogany row, your job is to
Speaker 1: make things work the further you move down into junior ranks,
Speaker 1: and I suspect this is the same in corporate America.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of consulting. You can get me
Speaker 1: on Philip mud at gmail dot com. But the further
Speaker 1: you go down, the more prejudice you see. FBI. That
Speaker 1: guy I'm talking to the CI, he's using a fake name.
Speaker 1: I can't trust him. He's a liar, he's a cheat.
Speaker 1: His job is to flip people. CI. That guy's basically
Speaker 1: a reform copy. Doesn't know anything about the world. He
Speaker 1: doesn't know anything about anything sophisticated beyond putting handcuffs on people.
Speaker 1: I was actually quite disappointed with the CIA when I
Speaker 1: left at some of what I saw. But they both
Speaker 1: had great strengths and great weaknesses. The CIA is very agile,
Speaker 1: They move fast. They are huge risk takers. Partly remember
Speaker 1: they're dealing in an environment where they don't have to
Speaker 1: go in front of a court of law. So you
Speaker 1: can break laws, you can steal a laptop, you can
Speaker 1: lie to somebody which is I'm a CI officer. That's
Speaker 1: fine in terms of agilly, fast moving, and you'll look
Speaker 1: at how quickly they were into Afghanistan after nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: Great talent. There are some smart fing people there. The
Speaker 1: FBI is slower moving, but far more consistent about guidelines.
Speaker 1: They have to go in front of a quart of
Speaker 1: Wall much more management oriented in a good way. How
Speaker 1: do you put a process into place to make sure
Speaker 1: you do this properly? We did not do process at
Speaker 1: the CIA. Much better training, I thought at the FBI.
Speaker 1: I thought in terms of talent, they also had quite
Speaker 1: good talent at the senior levels, but stultified CI agility
Speaker 1: meant that it was difficult to manage. People would tell
Speaker 1: the director, knowing that sometimes they shouldn't have. The FBI
Speaker 1: was the reverse. I would joke around with Director Malo, which,
Speaker 1: let me tell you, was not the easiest thing to do.
Speaker 1: People treated him like he was made of marble. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen at the CIA. You do not walk into
Speaker 1: the CI director and say yes, or you say no,
Speaker 1: we're not doing that. That's wrong. You don't do that.
Speaker 1: The FBI said both had great strikes and great weaknesses.
Speaker 1: I'd close by saying I wish they could have learned
Speaker 1: more from each other, because they certainly could have.
Speaker 3: Considering per Robert F. Kennedy Junior, we control the media.
Speaker 3: I have to say, in my thirty three years at
Speaker 3: the agency, I never not once talked to a journalist.
Speaker 1: John.
Speaker 3: I don't think you have either, Phil did you ever have.
Speaker 3: Did you have any media experience, any exposure to the
Speaker 3: media when you.
Speaker 2: Were an anrest For Pete's sake, Dre, they're out there
Speaker 2: on that time.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually, George Tennant was a big personality, the former CI director.
Speaker 1: He had his head of public Affairs, Bill Harlotte, wanted
Speaker 1: the agency CI to have a voice. After nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: the story of the CIA became the story of des Moines.
Speaker 1: What the CIA did wasn't just secret stuff. It affected
Speaker 1: whether what happened with getting on an airplane in Iowa,
Speaker 1: it happened with alerts in California. So I think there
Speaker 1: was a sense, and maybe I'm being too apologetic, that
Speaker 1: we had a responsibility to speak to more people across
Speaker 1: America about what we did, because countering al Qaiedo was America.
Speaker 1: So Bill Harlowe said, you got to talk to the
Speaker 1: New York Times, Washington Post, and then my first on
Speaker 1: camera interview it was Tom Brokaw, and I was so scared.
Speaker 1: He was so nice, but I was petrified. But yeah,
Speaker 1: CEI wanted to put itself out and then when I
Speaker 1: got to the FBI, they did the same. We want
Speaker 1: to show that we're entering the intelligence world. So we're
Speaker 1: going to make you go talk to BBC and everybody else.
Speaker 1: Funny story. I did this through public affairs and a
Speaker 1: really aggressive producer. This really pissed me off from I
Speaker 1: forget NBCCBSAB one of them, a really aggressive producer, came
Speaker 1: in with public affairs to do an interview that they
Speaker 1: had requested through public affairs. So we're going out from
Speaker 1: my office again on Mahogany Road, the seventh floor, the
Speaker 1: Director's floor at the FBI, and this lady I could
Speaker 1: if I were signed, we'd have an issue today. I
Speaker 1: never talked to her again after this said I forgot
Speaker 1: my purse in your office. I said, okay, I'll take
Speaker 1: you back there, you pick up, we get back there.
Speaker 1: I didn't forget my purse. This going through public affairs
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. You need to talk to me directly, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you cannot be serious. So you just lied
Speaker 1: to me in an effort to make me do something
Speaker 1: that not only violates the ethics of the FBI and
Speaker 1: the CI, but also could get me fired. I don't
Speaker 1: want to pretend like I'm holier than now, but she
Speaker 1: really pissed me off because we're taught in those environments.
Speaker 1: You don't do that right, So long answer, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I did a lot of media, which is how I
Speaker 1: got into CNN after I left, But it was all
Speaker 1: through public affairs, and believe me, that was enough.
Speaker 2: To turn it back to RFK stuff Again. He talked
Speaker 2: about the CIA controlling the media, but he's also talked
Speaker 2: a lot about a thing he calls Operation mocking Bird.
Speaker 2: And I know if you're familiar with that or not,
Speaker 2: it's a conspiracy theory. And he says for years, through
Speaker 2: Operation mocking Bird, the CIA secretly recruited journalists to help
Speaker 2: brainwash Americans. And he said Operation Mockingbird is alive and
Speaker 2: well today and their job is to propagandize the American people.
Speaker 5: So, Phil, we want to know what you were recruited
Speaker 5: into Operation.
Speaker 1: I was twenty four. CNN recruited me. Yes, you know
Speaker 1: again going back to I always go back to my
Speaker 1: analysts hat and ask people to do your mathematics. If
Speaker 1: that's true, that means that there are thousands of people
Speaker 1: who are aware of this over the years. Those thousands
Speaker 1: of people, not a single one of whom has ever
Speaker 1: told their story. I can see how people who are
Speaker 1: having a beer say yeah, see I recruit. It's also illegal,
Speaker 1: which means the Inspector General is to see and as
Speaker 1: we all know around this table, the Inspector General is
Speaker 1: to brutal, brutal, they will kick your ass and then
Speaker 1: say how about now I take a bat to your head.
Speaker 1: So they never inspected that. The Congress never looked at
Speaker 1: that after they found and that Congress is perfectly happy
Speaker 1: also to kick your ass. And the thousands of people
Speaker 1: in the media, none of them has ever come out
Speaker 1: with data about this, which would be a terrific story.
Speaker 3: And it would be people's their financial wellbeing and their reputation.
Speaker 3: Is No, I'm going to turn down this pulletzer and
Speaker 3: this huge promotion I can get by saying yes to
Speaker 3: this CIA guy who's offered me three hundred bucks a month, right, manipulating.
Speaker 1: How do you come up with all these people who
Speaker 1: might have declined those approaches. None of them ever spoke.
Speaker 1: They're scared, really, after how many times the CI's been
Speaker 1: crushing the media, they're scared.
Speaker 2: Jarry and I were texting before the show and he
Speaker 2: put it really well. He says, you know we have
Speaker 2: the aides there always be accused of running so many
Speaker 2: confluent and contradictory conspiracies that I don't know when we'd
Speaker 2: have time to go to the ground floor Starbucks, the
Speaker 2: ten staff meetings, do performance review or gasp, even conduct
Speaker 2: espionage related activity against iss North Korea.
Speaker 1: To the comment, especially back early after nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: people would talk about their phones being listened to. I'm like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: there is three hundred and thirty million Americans who's talking
Speaker 1: about cheating on their wife going to McDonald's, who's listening.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry to make your life seem less and significant,
Speaker 1: but if you're banging your secretary, nobody cares. Your wife cares.
Speaker 1: But that's about it.
Speaker 3: So, Phil, I'm going to ask you to cast your
Speaker 3: mind back and see if I'm the only one that
Speaker 3: remembers this. So this is twenty ten, twenty eleven, and
Speaker 3: there was a guy by the name of Michael.
Speaker 5: Furlong and he was not an agency guy.
Speaker 1: He was Doddia.
Speaker 3: He came to the agency and I was in this
Speaker 3: meeting and I think you were in CTC at the time,
Speaker 3: and he says, I got this great idea. We're running
Speaker 3: with this former CIA guy, Dewey Clarice, who's an agent's
Speaker 3: infamous agency guy, and he says, to get garner intelligence
Speaker 3: in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are going out and we
Speaker 3: are basically recruiting journalists and stringers and people who helped journalists,
Speaker 3: and we've hired all these guys and so like when
Speaker 3: a New York Times journalist comes out, he's got to
Speaker 3: get a fixer and a guy who, like you can
Speaker 3: translate for him. And we're hiring those guys. And he said,
Speaker 3: Peter Bergen can co talk to been lied and next
Speaker 3: time he does that, we're going to kill him. And
Speaker 3: I remember sitting in this meeting going we're not allowed to.
Speaker 1: Do this with illegal This isn't illegal.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and so this went up the this went
Speaker 3: up the chain and reported this meeting, and Furulong went up.
Speaker 3: Not only was he fired for this idea but DD
Speaker 3: but he went up on charges.
Speaker 5: I don't know if he was ever found guilty.
Speaker 3: People don't realize the incredible like partition between the world
Speaker 3: of journalism and the world of intelligence that we maintained.
Speaker 5: But that really underlined for me just how serious.
Speaker 2: Philly you served really in the middle of the counter
Speaker 2: terrorism fight. Both at CIA and FBI, Like, looking back
Speaker 2: at it, how do you think we, the US government
Speaker 2: or we either the CI FBI did in retrospect.
Speaker 5: Over those years.
Speaker 1: Look, there's a lot of noise. Did we treat prisoners appropriately?
Speaker 1: Were there questions about American values? I've got those. I
Speaker 1: wrote a few books when I've gone on tour their
Speaker 1: appropriate questions. These are questions about American values. If you
Speaker 1: had gone out on September eleventh in two thousand and
Speaker 1: one and said, after the attacks, there will not be
Speaker 1: another one of these events, you're going to get fewer
Speaker 1: than ten percent of Americans who would say that. The
Speaker 1: Fact is that nobody believed in an open society a
Speaker 1: second attack could be stopped, and as we know from
Speaker 1: the intelligence collection, it was planning for a second attack,
Speaker 1: what we call the second wave, and it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of kids who have parents and a
Speaker 1: lot of parents who have kids today because of aggressive
Speaker 1: and maybe sometimes I would agree with this hyper aggressive
Speaker 1: counter terrorism operations, but the second wave never happened. I
Speaker 1: think some of what we did waterboarding, for example, was questionable,
Speaker 1: but preventing a second wave, I think follow on generations
Speaker 1: will not fully understand what that took and how surprising
Speaker 1: it was that didn't happen. All it takes is three
Speaker 1: people to take over some public transportation and it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: It's incredible, especially since you know, if you look at
Speaker 1: the three of us, this is the crew you have
Speaker 1: to work with.
Speaker 5: That's a miracle.
Speaker 3: Then, oh my god, when you go into town and
Speaker 3: you're at the piggled Wiggledy. How do you see people
Speaker 3: thinking of mainstream media as like a singular organism, as
Speaker 3: opposed to can of worms compeding worms.
Speaker 5: What's your sense of it.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I'm going to We've been joking
Speaker 1: a lot, but I'm going to give you a serious answer.
Speaker 1: I'm a little surprised in the age of fragmented media
Speaker 1: and people's ability to find whatever they want on the
Speaker 1: Internet about how much leadership matters. If you tell people
Speaker 1: you can't trust media, if you tell them you can't
Speaker 1: trust the church, if you tell them you can't trust
Speaker 1: the police, if you say it a thousand times, they
Speaker 1: will believe it from people that they believe in. I
Speaker 1: don't talk about what I did here with CNN because
Speaker 1: partly because it's boring, but also I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people would not like it. Where I live now,
Speaker 1: the conversations that I have, and I've been out here
Speaker 1: almost a quarter century, avoid that. We talk about the other,
Speaker 1: about how your tomatoes are doing, about how the cows
Speaker 1: are doing. There's a lot of conversation out here about prices,
Speaker 1: about cost of living, and I think most of them
Speaker 1: know what my background is. I've had a few people
Speaker 1: just drive up randomly and park and ask me about life,
Speaker 1: but we avoid it and try to stick with every
Speaker 1: day all American stuff. It's not fake though, It's not
Speaker 1: like purposely, It's more like, what's important here is we
Speaker 1: haven't had rain in a while. That's a problem where
Speaker 1: I live. What's important here is what are you doing
Speaker 1: for the town fair? The town fair is coming up
Speaker 1: in a few weeks. People are interested in that. I
Speaker 1: think the problem is really basic, and that is Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan taught people to say there's a shining city on
Speaker 1: a hill, and part of my interpretation to that is
Speaker 1: a politicians' responsibility is to say we can do better.
Speaker 1: That's a vote leader. I'm going to lead people to
Speaker 1: a better place. We have vote followers who will say
Speaker 1: if the followers want a conspiracy theory and that gets
Speaker 1: me elected. I will go lower. Look at the terms
Speaker 1: of office for congressmen and senators over the last two
Speaker 1: hundred years. We used to have citizen politicians. We now
Speaker 1: have politicians citizens politicians who have never had a job
Speaker 1: and they can't afford to lose an election. So I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of vote followers and not a
Speaker 1: lot of vote leaders. Ron Rayrio, I thought was a
Speaker 1: vote leader. I used to like Lindsay Graham. He's a
Speaker 1: vote follower. He's a smart guy, he's actually, behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: a nice guy. He's a vote follower.
Speaker 2: There's a public perception there's a lot of a text
Speaker 2: at the FBI out there now that the FBI is
Speaker 2: up to no good and they're deeply involved in politics.
Speaker 2: How do you process that?
Speaker 1: I find it interesting, going back to as an analysis,
Speaker 1: just I do facts. As you look at most of
Speaker 1: what the FBI does, especially things like white collar crime,
Speaker 1: gang violence, human trafficking. They do some drug work, a
Speaker 1: lot of counter terrorism work, obviously counterintelligence work. The sliver
Speaker 1: that America sees with a political hat on is like minuscule.
Speaker 1: When I was at the Bureau, we'd get in at
Speaker 1: like six thirty in the morning. The first briefing was
Speaker 1: with the director Malreate. I think it was seven fifteen, so
Speaker 1: that was counter terrors and briefing. Then you go down
Speaker 1: and talk to the attorney general. I was there with
Speaker 1: three attorneys general, one Republican and two Democrats. And then
Speaker 1: you go up to the staff meeting. So there's like
Speaker 1: a two and a half hours where I'm watching the
Speaker 1: inner workings of the FBI. As a CIA guy, the
Speaker 1: political stuff, like political investigations were just minuscule. So I
Speaker 1: go back to people and say, when you're thinking about
Speaker 1: white collar crime like Enron back in the day, or
Speaker 1: people cheating on stock dealing in Manhattan today, or you're
Speaker 1: thinking about drug trafficking, human trafficking, if you're thinking about
Speaker 1: political corruption in the sense of somebody at a city
Speaker 1: council getting paid off for a contract, do you not
Speaker 1: want that to happen? And what percentage of what the
Speaker 1: FBI does do you think is hitting your inbox? That's
Speaker 1: one tenth of one percent. The FBI people I dealt
Speaker 1: with like, we wear blue suits and white shirts and
Speaker 1: blue ties, and we want to make sure America is
Speaker 1: better because we got two kids, and we live in Peoria.
Speaker 1: They were great. I just it's again, leadership has allowed
Speaker 1: people to believe that your institutions are corrupt. It's just
Speaker 1: not what I saw.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's take a break from the craziness just for
Speaker 3: a minute.
Speaker 1: Or two, and we're back.
Speaker 3: Phil touching on that and looking into the future maybe
Speaker 3: just a bit. We have seen a lot in the
Speaker 3: press about now people on one side of the aisle saying,
Speaker 3: either civilly or criminally, we are coming after civil servants
Speaker 3: or particular people. You've got Jim Jordan, You've got Steve Bannon.
Speaker 3: They're naming names, and they're not saying they've done anything wrong.
Speaker 3: They're simply saying, we're coming for you, and without a
Speaker 3: predicate right, without a reason, we are gonna do this.
Speaker 3: And of course, with the Supreme Court recently saying that
Speaker 3: the Executive can now talk to the DOJ and it's
Speaker 3: protected right, which whereas before if the White House said
Speaker 3: I want you to go prosecute that guy, certainly, at
Speaker 3: least since the KNDy administration, you couldn't do that. What's
Speaker 3: your sense of the institution of the FBI and DOJ.
Speaker 3: How would that look if we went down that road.
Speaker 1: My first question is who's the leader of that agency.
Speaker 1: Is that agency more beholden to the White House or
Speaker 1: to the workforce. This will be a time when presidential
Speaker 1: nominations of Secretary of Defense, secretary or State ci director,
Speaker 1: FBI director are really important because if there's pressure, those
Speaker 1: people have to absorb the pressure. I can say this
Speaker 1: may be too personal, but years ago President Trump got
Speaker 1: on his Twitter feed and suggested that he would remove
Speaker 1: my security clearance.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you whether it's a Democrat or Republican.
Speaker 1: If you have somebody of that authority attacking at that
Speaker 1: point a private citizen, that citizen has to pay attention
Speaker 1: to his security. I had to think about my father
Speaker 1: was agent, whether to move him out of my house
Speaker 1: because of the hate mail is getting At a personal level,
Speaker 1: I don't think American citizens recognize when the government comes
Speaker 1: after people what it does. I'm not saying this is
Speaker 1: Republicans are bad or Democrats. I'm saying there is a
Speaker 1: one to one percent fringe that will take that and
Speaker 1: say you need to fucking die. I did. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I've ever said this publicly. Pursue One case
Speaker 1: of a death threat and he's pled guilty. The guy
Speaker 1: said he wanted to kill me, and my answer was off,
Speaker 1: I'm going to court. And his lawyer was pissed off
Speaker 1: because I said I'm not doing it anymore. I got
Speaker 1: a lot of hate mail. But my point is, I
Speaker 1: don't think people recognize that there's a fringe of America
Speaker 1: that doesn't react like them, that says I'm taking that personally.
Speaker 1: And when the government comes after Jim or John or
Speaker 1: Joe or Mary, that person says I'm going after him too.
Speaker 1: That the hate in this country what I witnessed when
Speaker 1: I was at CNN was incredible. People will say anything
Speaker 1: on email. Hope you die of cancer, I hope your
Speaker 1: family dies of cancer.
Speaker 2: When you talk about the leadership protecting the people under them,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of talk now after the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court immunity decision that, for example, if you give the
Speaker 2: military illegal orders, people will refuse that illegal order. I
Speaker 2: worry that we can't count on honorable people refusing illegal orders.
Speaker 2: We've seen for Judge Bork in the Saturday Night masker
Speaker 2: under Nixon, or Justin Clark in the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 2: If you Phil mutter an honorable guy, and you refuse
Speaker 2: an order, they'll just go to the next guy and
Speaker 2: he'll refuse the order. If someone is going to do
Speaker 2: the illegal.
Speaker 1: Ad I think that's right. I thought that Supreme Court
Speaker 1: allowed a tremendous amount of latitude. I went back to
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties and campus unrest. If you order police
Speaker 1: to shoot on campus protesters who are nonviolent. As a
Speaker 1: non lawyer, it's not clear to me that someone would
Speaker 1: say that's a presidential order, go shoot on protesters as
Speaker 1: they did in the nineteen sixties, Go shoot on protesters
Speaker 1: at Kent State and that's covered, is it really? Or
Speaker 1: would you say that's actually an illegitimate order so therefore
Speaker 1: it's don't I don't know.
Speaker 3: People probably wouldn't give a direct order, although apparently Trump
Speaker 3: tried to like to go shoot protesters, just shoot him
Speaker 3: in the leg right, I think it would be much
Speaker 3: more likely and in our world have rid me of
Speaker 3: this troublesome priest right right now, you know, So I
Speaker 3: do want it to just touch on. I think the
Speaker 3: press will be if we go Downnate Avenue, which I'm
Speaker 3: really hopeful that we don't. The press, the media that
Speaker 3: we're talking about is going to be one of the
Speaker 3: really important things. Right, If people start getting prosecuted without
Speaker 3: a real predicate, we're really going to need the press.
Speaker 3: And I want to come back where we started off
Speaker 3: real briefly to RFK. So, Phil, you said that conspiracy
Speaker 3: theories often contain a kernel of truth, and that's that's
Speaker 3: almost always the best one. Yeah, right, And so RFK
Speaker 3: his Operation mocking Bird, and I invite the audience to
Speaker 3: take a look. There really was an Operation mocking Bird
Speaker 3: in the US, and it involved illegal orders. This is
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty two, right, So this is sixty friggin
Speaker 3: years ago, President Kennedy. So, RFK Junior's uncle ordered CIA,
Speaker 3: and I think illegally and shameful, to monitor two US
Speaker 3: journalists who were publishing classified information that they were getting
Speaker 3: from leakers, and his own father, RFK approved this order,
Speaker 3: and for less than a year, CIA bugged to journalists
Speaker 3: and it went into the Crown Jewels, right. It was
Speaker 3: the Crown Jewels being like the great mistakes that the
Speaker 3: CIA have made that come out in the seventies at
Speaker 3: the Church Commission, and it became one of the great
Speaker 3: shameful things that the CIA has done, and Apparently Operation
Speaker 3: Mockingberg was very successful because Kennedy was able to find
Speaker 3: out who was feeding these two journalists. It was like
Speaker 3: mostly politicians. It was senators and congressmen.
Speaker 2: I think there's an assumption on some of these things
Speaker 2: that leaking is coming from the intelligence community. That's my
Speaker 2: guess is ninety percent of leaks are coming from inside
Speaker 2: the administration or the Congress. People who are interested in
Speaker 2: a specific policy outcome leak things.
Speaker 1: You leak things because you have an interest in a policy.
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of personal I don't like that guy.
Speaker 5: Scor Settlee. People may not realize it.
Speaker 3: I think we need to put out there as agency
Speaker 3: officers in the Intelligence Committee, every five years we take
Speaker 3: a polygraph and that's one of the things they ask us, like,
Speaker 3: we get fired with do that unlike congressmen and others.
Speaker 1: Yes, I did. Thankfully I'm out of that business because
Speaker 1: I think the President Trump, if he comes back, I
Speaker 1: can't take away my security clearance because I don't think
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think he's threatened to talk to Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: A guy who couldn't get a security clearance on his
Speaker 2: own is claiming to take away ours.
Speaker 3: So Phil, why do you think a lot of people
Speaker 3: are inclined to believe that an organization like the CIA
Speaker 3: controls the liberal media or the mainstream media. I mean,
Speaker 3: what is it about CIA or the liberal media that
Speaker 3: makes this of interest to them? And why do you
Speaker 3: think they believe it?
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple basic things. Number one, black box,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the CIA is, and so there's
Speaker 1: an interesting conspiracy theory out there the CI is involved,
Speaker 1: those people are not real Americans. There's spies in Istanbul,
Speaker 1: or Tehran or or Mosque. Also, yeah, I can conceive
Speaker 1: of them doing that because the only thing I've ever
Speaker 1: seen is James Bond. So I think a lot of people,
Speaker 1: in other words, are saying the media must be parroting this,
Speaker 1: not because they believe it. Who the hell would believe that,
Speaker 1: but because somebody told them or sold them to believe that.
Speaker 1: But the black Box piece. People like conspiracies, People like
Speaker 1: stories that are more interesting than real life. People like aliens.
Speaker 1: You know, Area of fifty seven, fifty eight, fifty fifty one,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. I've never been there. I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are aliens there.
Speaker 2: But for the people who believe this conspiracy, what do
Speaker 2: you think they believe the CIA is agenda is why
Speaker 2: CIA power.
Speaker 1: If you look at what motivates people, it's power, money,
Speaker 1: and sex. I think anybody looking to c I would say,
Speaker 1: of course, they want to control Washington. So if you
Speaker 1: want to control Washington, you have to control the media.
Speaker 1: I think there's also a sense that the CIA tries
Speaker 1: to control governments overseas. That's what they do. They try
Speaker 1: to influence. Of course, they would try to influence events
Speaker 1: in Washington, that's what they do overseas. I think the
Speaker 1: fundamental piece of what I learned about the CIA is first,
Speaker 1: their brand is great, like they don't need to improve.
Speaker 1: You want to go recruit to college campus, say you're
Speaker 1: recruiting for CI, some people might protest. And I did
Speaker 1: a little recruiting there. There's a lot of twenty three
Speaker 1: year olds. You'll be like, that is too fricking cool.
Speaker 1: So if you think they want power to increase the brand,
Speaker 1: not so much. The other thing I'd say is when
Speaker 1: I was there, we were driven by I want to
Speaker 1: be the smartest guy in the room. You want to
Speaker 1: know what's happening in Iran. You want to know what's
Speaker 1: happening in Russia. You want to know what's happening in
Speaker 1: North Korea. You talk to US. I once had I
Speaker 1: won't drop a name, but the National Security Advisor of
Speaker 1: the United States look at me and say, why do
Speaker 1: you work there? You guys do information, you don't do decisions.
Speaker 1: And I realized I like to know how stuff works,
Speaker 1: and I like to I was actually I was raised
Speaker 1: by my mother as a writer. I like to write,
Speaker 1: and I later learned I like to speak, which I
Speaker 1: did on CNN. But the CIA is actually interested in
Speaker 1: and explained to people how the world works. And that's
Speaker 1: that was really motivating. Really like it's interesting to go
Speaker 1: into the White House and say this is what's going
Speaker 1: on with al Qaieda. I did that with President Bush
Speaker 1: and he asked me once whether or not to cancel.
Speaker 1: I've never said this. July fourth celebrations me in Washington.
Speaker 3: Really interesting up until you let did it matter to
Speaker 3: you at all? Whether you served a Republican or a
Speaker 3: Democratic administration?
Speaker 1: It mattered about the people because some of them were
Speaker 1: tremendous pain in the ass. Bill Clinton had some people
Speaker 1: on the National Streety staff who asked a billion. They
Speaker 1: were a pain in the ass. I'd go back to
Speaker 1: President Bush, Don Rumsfeld's staff, Doug Fight's pain in the ass.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't really political. It was like it was
Speaker 1: harder with the Bush people on a rock because they
Speaker 1: really wanted a story, and they if you gave them
Speaker 1: an answer they didn't like, they'd ask the question a
Speaker 1: different way, then a different way, than a different way,
Speaker 1: and so we were believe it or not. Eventually told
Speaker 1: when you're getting a similar question, you are not allowed
Speaker 1: to recraft the answer because if you use the wrong words,
Speaker 1: they'll twist the words and say, why did you change
Speaker 1: that word? It was ridiculous and that was some of
Speaker 1: the Clinton staff and some of the Bush staff, and
Speaker 1: my recollection. It was people who were just trying to
Speaker 1: take our information and abuse it.
Speaker 2: So, Phil, I do you mentioned that you resigned instead
Speaker 2: of retiring, And it's a big deal in government. If
Speaker 2: you spend twenty years in or whatever it is, you
Speaker 2: can retire with some version of a pension or so
Speaker 2: why did you leave when you did?
Speaker 1: Let me be clear about how significant this was for me.
Speaker 1: I was forty eight years old when I made the decision.
Speaker 1: You can retire in my world at fifty five, so
Speaker 1: that's seven years out. If you quit at forty eight,
Speaker 1: you take a seven year penalty. So that means, and
Speaker 1: I just turned sixty two this year, that means you
Speaker 1: take you go from fifty f five to sixty two,
Speaker 1: you don't get any money till you're sixty two. So
Speaker 1: when I'm forty eight, I'm saying, if I leave, I
Speaker 1: don't see a dime for fourteen years, and I don't
Speaker 1: know how to make a living. So that's a different story.
Speaker 1: Ani made a living, But I was nominated by President
Speaker 1: Obama to be the head of intelligence at Homeland Security
Speaker 1: and as when you enter as a GS nine twenty
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars a year analyst, to be nominated for
Speaker 1: a Senate confirmed position by the president is big fucking deal.
Speaker 1: I didn't know President Obama. I think I knew who
Speaker 1: teed me up, but that requires Senate confirmation, which is
Speaker 1: an open hearing. At that point, going into the hearing process,
Speaker 1: I was the only CIA official who was going to
Speaker 1: go into an open hearing for a job. The Democrat said,
Speaker 1: we're going to crush him for torture. The Republican said,
Speaker 1: we're going to have him explain why the CIA was
Speaker 1: great in terms of dealing with al Qaeda in black sites.
Speaker 1: We're going to use this as a It had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the job I was assigned to. That
Speaker 1: was fine. I'm perfectly happy as you guys known to
Speaker 1: take on a fight. You want to brawl, I will brawl.
Speaker 1: Two other things happened. Members of the committee I think
Speaker 1: I know who they are, started calling media saying you
Speaker 1: should show up to this because it's going to be
Speaker 1: a blood bath. And then the worst part is when
Speaker 1: the White House was doing nose counting for the confirmation,
Speaker 1: that sense was Democrats might not support denomination, which unless
Speaker 1: you don't pay your maid because she's Guatemala, and that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, you do not get turned down by the
Speaker 1: So I realized that this was going to be a
Speaker 1: clown show and a clown. I was happy with the
Speaker 1: clown show, but that more than likely after the clown show,
Speaker 1: I would be turned down. And I knew I did
Speaker 1: not have a future at the age of forty eight.
Speaker 1: The CIA thought you'd been gone for four and a
Speaker 1: half years of the FBI. We don't give a shit.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a future at the FBI. So I
Speaker 1: remember literally looking in the mirror one day, saying if
Speaker 1: you had any courage, you'd leave. And I remember realizing,
Speaker 1: if you do that, you can't pay the mortgage. And
Speaker 1: so I chose not paying the mortgage over being told
Speaker 1: by the Senate that you're a fool.
Speaker 2: You could have I would have taken you could have
Speaker 2: hidden an overseas station for a couple of years.
Speaker 5: Today you got to Paris. I said, I said you
Speaker 5: to lose Soka.
Speaker 1: Man, yeah, no, So I it worked out fine. I
Speaker 1: thank god. I was really scared because I was having
Speaker 1: a trouble at that point literally paying my mortgage. I
Speaker 1: was behind a few times with the bank, and man
Speaker 1: was I scared.
Speaker 5: But so much for power, sex and money.
Speaker 1: A little bit of California cabernet that'll get you through it?
Speaker 5: Is that what you're drinking?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 5: What are you drinking now?
Speaker 1: One of the local Virginia grapes is Petit Verdau in
Speaker 1: the local vineyard Starn Valley does a terrific petite for dough.
Speaker 1: It's a velvety, smooth. The owners are friends of mine,
Speaker 1: so I tried to patronize Virginia wines and this is
Speaker 1: a really good star in the valley. Petit for dou
Speaker 1: really good.
Speaker 5: Well, come to Hawaii and I'll make you my tie.
Speaker 5: How's that?
Speaker 1: It's good to see you, guys. I don't do this
Speaker 1: much anymore. I just grow tomatoes and play with the dog.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for bearing with us. We'll be back
Speaker 2: again next week with another episode of Mission Implausible.
Speaker 6: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Seipher,
Speaker 6: and Jonathan Sterner.
Speaker 5: The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 6: Mission Implausible is a production of honorable mention and abominable
Speaker 6: pictures for iHeart Podcasts.