CounterIntelligence John Cipher_mixdown.2.mp3 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix

Eric Levai:
Welcome to Counterintelligence. This is Eric Levai. Today's guest is John Sipher a 30 year veteran of the CIA's Clandestine Service and former chief of Russia operations. Without further ado here's John Sipher. John Sipher welcome to counter intelligence.

John Sipher:
My pleasure.

Eric Levai:
Nice to be here John. I know your background very well you're a 30 year veteran of the clandestine service and actually could you just summarize your career for us real quick.

John Sipher:
Oh sure I was in the CIA for almost 30 years. And as you know the CIA is sort of broken up into sort of big tribes if you will a big analytical group a science and technology group. And then what was been called the clandestine service the director Director of Operations which is the espionage side of the organization. So spend most of your time overseas Your job is to spot assess and recruit people to provide intelligence for the United States. We call them sources or assets you might call them spies people despite the United States and our job is to be the sort of collector of last resort that we collect information that the U.S. government can't get any other way whether it be through diplomats or academics or NSA or satellites or what have you.

Right of course I always like to start off with I guess which to me is the most important question. Let's say we're on a sliding scale of one to 10 how our current president. I mean how how much is he looking for the right word here. How bad is the situation with Russia. That's what I'm trying to say.

The situation with Russia is really bad. It's all but the thing is it's always been very bad. They've seen us as the main enemy for much of their time since World War Two. And we as a country have gone back and forth on trying to appease them or hope that they would come into our fold or or during the Cold War obviously looking at them as is our main adversary an enemy too. It's particularly dangerous now because we have a commander in chief who doesn't actually believe the intelligence that he's being told and frankly is not even intelligence that's written in the Mueller Report. It's written in a series of indictments every single Alloa ally of ours is telling us exactly the same things that the Russians are up to. So it's it's pretty troubling. But I think most people who work under Trump are pretty well aware of the threat.

Yeah exactly and in terms of whatever relationships business or otherwise corruption. What do you think of his personal again. It's so hard to pick a word the right word here but a vulnerability right.

Well you know from our Sy my job overseas is to look for people who have access to information that we can't get any other way and then assess them look at them. What is it about them that might make them be willing to spy. Now most people aren't but we're looking for exactly that we're looking for vulnerabilities that we can manipulate to our benefit. So I'm going to try to meet somebody and we'll see what they do what makes them tick what they think about their boss what do they think about their country you know what help do they need. You know it is their family in trouble all I'm looking for ways to slowly build a relationship of trust. And at the same time move them slowly and in a conspiratorial relationship towards working with me and along that process I may determine that they're not the right fit. They may not want to but what Mr. Trump is providing is he's providing a sort of a potpourri of vulnerabilities are things that can be manipulated. Of of ways that he can be taken advantage of. You know for example as simple as running for president while he is doing business in Russia and then lying to the American people about something that the Russians are very clearly aware of to them that's incredible leverage. They know that he's lying and he knows that they know they're lying. That's something that could that an intelligence officer to want to take advantage of.

Yeah it seems like in any other administration or any in any case that would be the thing that puts that would lead to an impeachment or whatever. But it seems like in this case I guess we never factor in on that maybe one party just isn't going to do anything and it just seems like the normal accountability doesn't seem to be happening.

Well what's happened unfortunate is our own politics have become so hyper partisan that there's a large portion of the population to include Mr. Trump who sees the other party as the bigger enemy than our real enemies. So if you believe that Hillary Clinton is the enemy in anything that it takes to to damage her is OK to include working with Russians or Chinese or criminals or what have you. Then you know we're really skewed and we're in a tough place because traditionally yes Democrats and Republicans have battled each other in the partisan arena in the political arena but we understood as a country what were the threats and what were our real real enemies and. And the notion of siding with a foreign intelligence service over somebody another American who just happens to be in a different party is is pretty troubling and I hopefully will come around and realize that the folly of our ways.

Yeah. I was also curious. I don't. I don't know if this is a question you can answer or not but in your time in the CIA especially when you were leading the Russia division did you ever come across Trump's name in any capacity.

No no. I mean for the most part you know I get the end of the day the CIA is about collecting foreign intelligence whereas the FBI is job they do counterintelligence which is trying to stop Russian intelligence from gaining a foothold the United States and so we don't as a rule look at Americans are trying to see what Americans are up to. So if Donald Trump was involved in shady business deals or dirty money that's not the thing that would really come across our our. You know what we're looking at. If we had a source inside the KGB for example who is telling us the Americans they are looking at Donald Trump as one of them. Yes that might come across our screen. I'm not aware I'm not aware of that but at the same time one of the things that we practice inside CIA is is need to know. So if I'm if I'm working on Russia things I may know something but then two years later when I'm living in Manila or Japan or whatever I'm not privy to that kind of information.

So I'm not saying that there is some information about President Trump that we came across through foreign sources but I'm not aware of it of course.

Were there any names in the Mueller report that rang a bell from your career. Anybody came across. Not so much for my career other than the Russian tradecraft as you know 100 percent consistent with.

What we've seen. Decade after decade and from the inside and when we've had sources inside the Kremlin. So there is no surprises in what they've done and what they've tried to do and what we've seen. You know the individuals. I don't you know I never heard of Paul Manafort until all this stuff came up but he certainly fits exactly the kind of sleazy person that the Russians are looking to do business with. Carter Page never heard of him either. That would be clear the FBI had heard of him because they were tracking Russian intelligence officers in New York and came across their relationship with Carter Page. And so you know this is as much a counterintelligence issue as an intelligence issue.

Some of the notes are some of the I guess it would be the from the Russian side their notes about Carter Page were hilarious. I mean just like I'm sure you'll relate as a fellow you know as although they were on the other side. I guess they were saying the guy this guy's I'm just paraphrasing like he's too dumb but maybe we'll just keep him in a back pocket.

Well I was just before you came on was reading an article just came on political by Zach Dorfman about Adam Schiff who was obviously a head of the Intel Committee in the House representatives who used to be a prosecutor in Los Angeles and sort of made his chops as an early prosecutor prosecuting an FBI special agent who was spying for the Russians by name of Miller. And when you read that article you read exactly what the Russians are looking for and funny as I read that I was just also read rereading a book about Clayton Lone Tree who was a Marine Corps security guard in the embassy in Moscow who ended up spying for the Russians and in both cases Lone Tree.

And this guy Miller they were just stay where they were he sort of idiots and fools and you know didn't fit in were sort of malcontents within Sy inside even their own organizations and the Russians were able to sniff it out and make contact with them and manipulate them into becoming spies. And from what I've seen publicly about Carter Page he's exactly the kind of person the Russians would love to go I'm on to because there's not even today and as you know seemingly desire for anybody to become his friend is somebody the Russians would like to take advantage of.

Yeah I mean it's like a you know basically work in the entertainment industry and it's I mean it's just the last couple of years have been like a like a bad Charlie Sheen spy movie. I mean it or maybe it is the world of of spy craft actually more funny than any of us knew.

Yeah it's definitely more funny. Did anyone know in part of the thing is you know you are looking at when you're looking for someone to to report to you or spy for you if you will.

Yeah you're looking for someone with a certain set of vulnerabilities but you're also looking for someone who's not so dopey that they're going to get themselves caught or get in trouble. So the best spies at least on our side are ones that have you know a strong desire either they want to move to the states or they hate their system or they hate their boss or something that we can use going after a sort of weak and sort of. Dimwitted people may get you in the door and may get you a little bit but that's not really why you want where you want to build sort of long term success at least on the U.S. side. The Russians you know they're glad to do this because if it falls apart it still does damage to the United States because you know we start tearing into each other. You know that you know if the FBI arrest one of their own it makes them look bad if the Marines some of the Marines is arrested it makes them look bad so it benefits the Russians to go for people like that.

Yeah I think I read it in one of your articles that the the as you said you know it's funny it's interesting that you said that it sounds like the Russians part of their aim is chaos.

And that sounds like somebody else I know the White House there's some kind of parallel there a chaos agent or Yeah they do it for different reasons obviously I think and that's one of the things we need to really understand and focus on is you know we learned from 2016 from the intelligence reports and everything that the Russians supported Donald Trump.

And I think Donald Trump believes they supported him because you know they like him and think he's special and can do a good job. But frankly the Russians have been very consistent over time.

They see us as the enemy they're trying to do damage the United States chaos here is meant to make us weaker. So they they like Donald Trump sure but they like Donald Trump because he was the chaos candidate. Right. They know that he makes us turn on each other and it makes us weaker. And that's one of the reasons they support him and they you know they don't care really about Donald Trump when Donald Trump eventually becomes of no use to them. They'll find ways to use leverage and use that information that they have on him to continue that's making us weak and they'll turn on him whenever it suits them.

Do you think they ever might. I don't know. Hypothetically just drop all that information on the Internet or some video or something.

See that's the thing. By giving him by giving the Russians as leverage by lying and letting the Russians have information that the American public doesn't have that gives them you know that makes Trump sort of complicit in a problem with them. And so it a lot. It gives them a weapon they can use it anytime they choose. So sure this is something that you know the Russians are in the catbird seat. They have more information about things than we do. And therefore they can dribble armada drop them or cause pain sort of whenever they choose.

Do you think this was the greatest intelligence operation in history or is there anything else that is comparable.

Well you know it was the greatest intelligence in history because there's been you know tricking the Nazis as we're going into Normandy. You know there's an interesting one that sort of is a parallel and well I read a little bit about it the British in the lead up to World War Two had a large office out of the Rockefeller Plaza in New York City and they were essentially doing disinformation and trying to get us to join them in the war and they were doing all kinds of stuff they were buying time on TV and radio shows they were trying to buy congressmen to support them. They were trying to get the United States to join the Allies in the war and it was actually quite effective. Now of course we don't remember because they became our allies and they you know at the end of the day they do it. They were trying to do what ended up being the right thing. But they were using an intelligence service to try to undermine is not the right word but to influence the United States and they were quite successful in that sort of a big picture question for you. I would I I think I've asked many people have come on this show or the prior version of the show before we joined up with forensic news and we we have this I guess the greatest military and I'm sure intelligence agent season in the world yet.

How did this happen. How did how did this is individual.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I can't say no. How did this happen.

First of all the one thing is yes I do think we have the most powerful military in the history of the world. We also have incredibly successful intelligence community. And remember the other the human intel side of it. The part that I represent is a small piece of what we're trying to do it's just that like I said the collector of last resort. But for the Russians the intelligence services are much more central to what they do. We have a president who is in the KGB Vladimir Putin and he sort of grew up with a sword and shield being the most important institution in it in the last year in the Soviet Union and certainly in modern day Russia. So. So using the tools of subversion and agitation and disinformation and fake news and espionage and all these things they do is much more central to them. So and and they're laser focused on us. Whereas we. So what were the things that made 2016 successful. Now I did posit they've been doing this forever. These kind of active measures. Why was 2016 so successful when in the past it wasn't successful because they've done a lot of these things in the past year a number of things that make it different. I think one is the ability to weaponize social media something that's new. They used to have to go recruit a source in a newspaper somewhere in India to put out a false story and then take that news report and try to move it through the media food chain to eventually make its way to the west.

For example you know the story that the Pentagon created the AIDS virus there was a US invention to keep the Third World Down was a Russian disinformation effort which was successful but it took years and it sort of pushed its way through. Now you can pump that right into Facebook you can you can push get trolls to put it push it through Twitter you can weaponize that really quickly. So there's one piece another piece is we were so laser focused on terrorism for so Simpsons 9/11 we in some ways both the Clinton menstruation and the Bush administration the Obama administration all sort of believed that the Russians would come around that they must see radical Islamic terrorism as the main threat and therefore if we just sort of worked with them they would figure that out. Well they didn't figure it out. They see us as the main threat. So we weren't really paying attention like we used to pay attention to the Cold War to what the Russians and things were up to. Thirdly I think what Putin is his his personality is a key thing here. He hated Hillary Clinton. He actually blamed Hillary Clinton in the State Department for trying to in 2012 meddle in his election to become president where there was actually people on the streets protesting against him when he thought he had complete control.

He took that personally. The Panama Papers if you remember were a thing that came out and embarrassed him and showed it showed where his millions of dollars are. And it showed like how he was using personal friends to store his billions. He took that as a personal attack by the United States. And he thinks the CIA did that. I have no knowledge or I don't know if they did or not but he took it personally so so later Putin was probably willing to take greater risks than he was in the past. And you know at the end of the day the biggest thing that made this more successful is our hyper partisanship. We were so ready to hate each other then it only took a little match to throw into the thing and turn us against each other. And so the Russians you know again they're laser focused on us. They have a good understanding of our system and they know where to push buttons so they know they were they were trying to push into communities that don't usually vote to stay home and you know black lives matter and also that kind of stuff they're pushing at the same time they are pushing outrage into some of these right wing groups that don't usually vote to go out and vote for the chaos candidate. So so yes it was incredibly successful but a lot of things came together to make it different this time.

And so if I understand you correctly basically the we were so focused on counterterrorism that this just someone I know who I trust said that the government is it's kind of like a slow moving ship and to redirect it is it's it's no it's no criticism it's just it's very difficult once we're on that course. Does that sound familiar.

Yeah that's very right. And you know you look at the FBI and you know it's so we ask the F excuse me the FBI to do so much. They're supposed to do counterintelligence just what's to pay attention to what the Chinese are trying to do here and the Russians they're trying to go after fraud and tax fraud and bank fraud. They're looking at they're trying to stop every terrorism. If someone comes in with a crazy threat that they're gonna blow up the Brooklyn Bridge the FBI has to run that run that down. And so lots of FBI officers are taken off the counterintelligence target to go after terrorism certainly saw it in the CIA you know the day after 9/11 people who were working on Russia the next day had placards up saying you're now on the counterterrorism task. You know the United States you know reacts to you know big issues and sometimes sort of falls itself into thinking you know everything that we're focused on the rest of the world is. And so you know I think over time we can pretty effective at counterterrorism. But you know the Russians weren't looking at things the same way we were.

It's yeah I mean it's like it's not funny but it's just so comical that they're it's a weapon. I think they spent one hundred thousand dollars on Facebook ads according to the Mueller Report. I mean some hundred thousand dollar investment and some guy who's willing to forge credit cards in Northern California and here we are.

Well look at think about this way then too is you know now we're starting to look and see what the Russians were up to. And we you know we haven't put in the resources to stop it. But I worry now that we're so focused on the Russians that we won't realize that you know China is a far bigger threat. You know Russia is a country with an economy the size of Portugal has less less money than the city of New York. They're very good at creating causing havoc and doing pain but they're but these are asymmetric tools there. This is the warfare of a weaker state against a stronger state. China on the other hand literally has a 50 year vision of overtaking the United States becoming the most. the biggest economic power in the world and then and also continuing to have intelligence and military support to that as well. And so you know I worry that you know the United States has a lot of responsibilities we're focused on what's happening North Korea what's happening Iran what's happening with China with Russia. All we have to handle all of these things and we have to keep all those balls in the air. We can't get overly focused on one and right now we're more focused internally because the president has sort of doesn't understand the damage he's doing to our institutions and our allies. And it's gonna be quite dangerous to take on this vast amount of challenges if we if our allies are not with us.

I'm sure there's all kinds of plans in let's say in the CIA for I know everyone's watching everyone and at any moment you can be hauled back there to be polygraphed or for any reason there is a suspicion was there any was there ever any plan for what would happen if a presidential candidate was co-opted or his team no plan no plan.

That's what's unusual about the Trump people is they're doing things sometimes times say well whatever they did was wasn't illegal. Well because we didn't think we had to make laws about some of this stuff. You figured that you know someone running for the president the United States would actually believe their oath or be patriotic they wouldn't try to do damage to their own institutions or they might listen to the people in their own government. And so there's a lot of things that are happening that we're not prepared for because we would never expect a president United States to behave this way.

I was reading Greg Miller's The Apprentice in the opening where I guess Trump was speaking at the CIA. That that first day and there's just a chilling part where I guess they call it I guess this was where you worked Russia House was that the informal name. Yeah. And where there is they're saying there's no way we're bringing him or anyone or even close to here. I mean that's a bone chilling statement is that was that would actually was happening.

Yeah I read the book is a good book I can't remember specifically but but they are you know people in CIA don't work for one party or another. You know I spent 20 years with buddies like all around the world and hardship places day in and day out. You know all kinds of things. No idea what their political views are. Nor have I ever been in a meeting ever in my 28 years in CIA. We talked where we talked about.

Democrats Republicans are supporting this candidate or that candidate or or anything whereas President Trump tends to think that somehow the CIA and others were conspiring against a potential presidential campaign or what have you. No no. Our focus is overseas on threats to the United States. Russia has handles very very sensitive information you know. Now you see that the attorney general supposedly is trying to go back and look at what sources CIA might have had to make the assessments that they did that the Russians were working against us in 2016. You know we take. We protect those sources and secrets you know incredibly well. Usually even the director of CIA doesn't know the names of our sources. So it's it's chilling that the notion that somebody like the president or the attorney general want to want to look deep into our institutions and find scapegoats or people that they can sort of blame for their own political troubles. You know we saw him do it the FBI. There's names of mid-level people like Peter Struck and Lisa Paige and Bruce or and these others that have become sort of political whipping boys for the right. And that's really hurtful and dangerous and I worry about them trying to do the same. Because it what it does is it kicked people outside don't understand how these institutions work. So when the president I think says these things that confuses them and scares them and makes them think that their institutions are working against them. And that's just simply not true.

Right. They're going to it seems like the playbook is they're going to it's this is. Yeah. I mean they're they're like super buggy men do a job.

Right. They're looking to blame somebody and say hey this horrible person was working against us you know and there's people out there that you know want to believe that. And it's just it's nuts.

Is there any plan or I don't know if you would even call it civil disobedience. I mean if the threat is coming from inside the house can they. Can the CIA or the FBI. I mean can we stop this. Can we not hand over the intelligence.

Oh that's a really good question. You know again it's not set up.

To work that way because you expect you know the people above you to be on the same page. There's not a plan to sort of. Now to working against that or anything.

It's I mean I think there's a lot of public servants that are looking to do their job. And I think the Muller report's a good a good source for this. If you read the Muller report closely President Trump was asking people to do all kinds of nutty and illegal things. And essentially he was saved because people in the institutions just didn't do it and the people who worked for him said no to him or just. thought what he was suggesting was so off they didn't do it. And so I do think are our institutions that people will continue to follow the law and if the president is trying to sort of do things that that push against the law they will they will push back. But at the end of the day you can't expect that to be our savior. We can't have you know mid level low level people trying to resist the president states as the thing that is going to save us. We need Congress to step up and realize as a coequal branch of government that it needs to really look at this president and push back against where he is where he's misbehaving if you will.

Yeah. And they seem to have there's that's a whole other thing. I don't know what the problem is there but I have an idea. But did you have a favorite post in your time as is there anything you could favorite Paula.

I type. I worked I really loved everywhere I was and really benefited from I. Russia was fascinating to me but it wasn't it wasn't nice and it wasn't comfortable. It wasn't fun I used to tell people was almost like a like a heroin addiction. It's like you're addicted to it because it was so fascinating. You're followed everywhere your house was bugged. Well everything you did was sort of under the microscope. Did work. You know when you succeeded was so fulfilling but the danger that you could take could risk the lives of one of your assets at any moment by making a little mistake was something the pressure was quite good so I really enjoyed it professionally and and benefit a lot from it but there's other places I work I work in the Balkans during the Balkan wars in Southeast Asia going against the al-Qaeda presence out in Southeast Asia.

I was in Pakistan and wars and terrorism stuff and so and I was in Europe all of them I love. I have to say it's a great it's a great job.

Did you find any similarities with the various I assume you worked under various dictators. Was there any similarities you noticed with those people.

Interesting yeah in some ways it's interesting to see for example like during the Yugoslav wars Milosevic how he was able he was the Yugoslav and then Serbian sort of dictator about how you could spin how you control the press and spin up nationalism in a way where you see that some of the United States and sort of the bad part of our politics is a way of making yourself the victim. So the Serbs in what was then the former Yugoslavia report plurality they were the largest ethnic group. And so you know other ethnic groups were worried that Serbia because they were the most powerful could be the most dangerous if things turned. But what he did is he told the Serbs that they were the victims. Oh my God your victims they're doing are looking against you. The problem is when you start to stir up the most powerful group and make them feel like they're victims so therefore they can do whatever they want. It ends up causing chaos and scaring the hell out of the rest of us. It sounds so familiar. Well it's the thing here if you tell white Christians that they're you know that they are under assault and you know Christianity is going to go under and the other white people are gonna lose out when in fact they're the majority and the most powerful group you force you force someone on the fringes of those people to really believe they're victims and think that they are righteous and being able to attack others. And you know when when a when a majority is attacking a minority it's a really scary thing. I've seen that in my time overseas. Let's hope it doesn't really go any further here.

Yeah I mean I'm I'm a pretty calm guy. I definitely are prone to overstatements but this thing just the last week with the intelligence and bar and I just I don't get what the holdup is with Congress and I don't know if that's part because they're. I mean I actually do think I know it is I think I think they're afraid. I think it's just pure fear. And like Roosevelt said I mean you know you gotta you gotta get over that fear.

Yeah I mean the people you know people are so interested in keeping their jobs. I mean there's a lot of Republican senators and others that understand how out of bounds President Trump is but they don't want to say anything publicly because they fear they're going to lose their job or someone further to the right is going to beat them out in a primary or they're going to.

And you know at the end of the day your job is less important than sort of doing the right thing. Their job is to represent the people and their job is also to educate the people and so. So even if the people under them and the people who vote for them don't understand things it's their job to try to do their best to both educate them and if they can't do so losing the election is not the worst thing that can happen to somebody.

Can you tell us about the day to day life of a when you were you know in the field.

Well it wasn't like for the most part. I worked in embassies overseas. There's a variety of different ways of sort of doing the espionage mission and so you know I had much much like I had my family with me. So you get the kids and stuff off to school and and the wife of the job and then your job is to sort of go into the embassy and manage a group of people whose job is to collect intelligence and so there's a variety of ways to do that.

You know you have to keep up on you want to play the person learn the language of the place you're at. You want to understand their culture so that you can be effective there. You want to understand the political and historical issues there. So it's a lot of reading it's a lot of writing. It's a lot of making relationships and contacts both with you know allies who are doing the same kind of thing that can sort of help you. as you move up in the senior levels you're also working with the local police and security service. You know if we're trying to stop terrorism in Vietnam for example you might want to work with the Vietnamese people services who understand their their societies to find ways to leverage and help them uncover things and give us information they can help us be more effective and use our global reach to succeed. So it's a wonderful job. You know every two three years you're coming back and learning a new culture a new history. It's like getting a master's degree every two or three years to go somewhere else and then sort of immerse yourself in another country you go to Japan and might go to India. I go to Pakistan. We'll have you and it's it's really quite fun I think.

How is the intelligence community dealing with the what's going on now in this country I mean how are they. Did it just go to work every day today is it like what's the inner workings for.

As time goes by it probably gets more troubling for people and I don't want to speak for them because one of the things you do is when you leave. The government you know you were working on classified and sensitive materials and so you don't want to look like you're reaching in and trying to.

Look into things like I said need to know like once you're out you don't need to know the specifics of what's happening in each sort of case. But one day I can tell you for example in the CIA usually the only person that's a political appointee is the director. Everybody else moves up through the ranks whereas in Commerce Department a good you know two thirds of the people who work with senior people managers are from the outside and new administration comes in and they put people in senior positions and CIA is unlike that. So everybody who works there is focused on the mission and our mission is to work overseas collect intelligence. And so it's very easy to just put your head down and focus on what you're doing. You know if things seem messed up in Washington you know then OK go to India for two years a focus on Indian issues and collect things and if things are messed up again and then go off to Russia and focus on Russian things. And when I say when things are messed up it was like if you know if I'm missing an inside the building or whatever. But now it's sort of the same thing. There's probably a lot of people at least in the early years that sometimes saying I don't understand this. He seems to not respect us. But but you know I can focus all I can do is focus on my work. I'm going to go. I'm going to go overseas I'm going to focus on my job. And you know hope for the best. But as time goes. As time goes on you've got to worry about you know he still doesn't get it the fact that you know the president states is not listening to reason or is not supporting his law enforcement Justice Department or intelligence sources you probably get quite troubled by that especially the more senior you are in in the agencies.

We know that just by the way I want to thank again I know you're being very generous with your time. So I just want to thank you. I think like Scott and I were talking about this how we don't like to be critical of media because that's jumping on a dangerous bandwagon. But there's there's such a disappointment at times that our big institutions. That's why we started doing this. We want we want other voices to be heard like ours. So again I just want to thank you for taking time out to you know we're not MSNBC.

No problem.

Well it doesn't mean I'm amazed that my dogs and kids have been walking by and really quiet. So we're glad they haven't they haven't caused you any problem. But yeah I mean this is one of the things that we sort of want to get across to. Yes our institutions should be held accountable. People in these large assertions of lots of people that mistakes will be made. People should be held accountable. People who break the law should should go to jail. All of those things but for the vast majority of people in those places they're public servants are trying to do the best they can they care about the country they're following the law and they're working on behalf of the U.S. people.

So we know that from the New York Times that a large it's just hard to even say this stuff a large amount of people in the White House were given security clearances. We shouldn't have them. Why did they want those clearances and what was the worst case scenario for what's happening with that information.

Yeah that's a real that's a real problem and I think that's that's the kind of thing that resonates through the NASA security stuff.

So I guess if people see I may not want to follow the politics too closely because they're working on their own issues but they understand that every year they have to put in they have to tell the U.S. government everything you know who they're dating who what you know where their money is where what loans they have. You know you have to go through debt. You have to go through a polygraph. You have to go through background checks. You know if you make any of the mistakes that people have made in the White House you would lose your job and lose your clearance. And so it just it just elemental fairness they're probably saying this is crazy. I have to do this for my mid-level job. You know with very little pay those people in the White House are the most important jobs in the country. Often many of them making tons of money on the outside don't have to follow the same rules. And that probably causes a lot of pain. Now the reason they want and need those clearances is because a great majority of the big issues of the day you need to have highest level clearance so someone like the president's son in law.

He if he's claiming to work on Israel in Israeli Palestinian peace. The information we receive from the Israelis for example at the highest level is of the highest security nature. You cannot be effective with a low level just secret clearance because you'll show up to to manage meetings of people all who all of whom have more information than you do. because you have claimed it so I understand why they want the clearance. But by breaking those rules it's really making it hard for others in the system to realize hey why am I being held to a certain account why would I lose my job in certain circumstances when people above me don't. And that's the kind of thing where we live in foreign countries when you live in Russia and you realize the Russians look at their people in the Kremlin and realize they're all billionaires and you realize the corruption it makes you you know dislike your country and maybe be willing to help and work for the United States. And so I worry that people in our system see that the unfairness and the corruption and they're going to lash out in ways that are unhealthy.

Jared Kushner asked for a. He asked. I think one of the Russians it's in the Mueller Report. If they could use a secret room inside the Russian Embassy I mean like really what's so nuts that the Russians said no.

Yes that's right.

That's the I'm sure I had a point there. Maybe I'm just still just shaking my hand all right. You should shake your head. I mean now some of this.

And like if you were again if you read the Mueller report closely I'm sure you did. I think they got away with thumb because they were just so stupid like so that I think they looked at President Trump's son with the meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 and almost even though they understood that you know.

The unpatriotic unethical immoral and just ridiculous nature of him agreeing to that meeting without telling the proper people or the FBI.

They essentially gave him a pass because he was so naive and immature and dumb that you know they couldn't prove you know corrupt or criminal intent. And so a lot of people sort of got off because they just were so ignorant of the system and was just so used to sort of running sort of in sleazy areas that you couldn't prove prove them as criminals.

But but others on the other hand like Manafort definitely understood what the Russians were up to and had had long experience in places like that. So understood what the Russians would be trying trying to do.

And what's interesting about him is he lied from the beginning was able willing to take a prison sentence on other things and so you know someone who might have been critical and had real knowledge of collusion or conspiracy if you will. He's the one that lied from all the way through.

I believe you said in one of your articles that if one if you were to pick one person who's an actual agent like of Russia it would be Manafort that did a good thing right.

Well I think that's right. I mean I want to be careful to say just like I know I have. Of course since. But he made millions in that dirty pond. Ukraine Russia and other he dealt. He understood. If you live in Russia and you make money in Russia you understand that there is that there is an overlap there is mafia there's regular business there's the state in the Kremlin there's the intelligence services and there's crime and mafia groups and they all interact. So Americans if you're a businessman you assume if you're involved in business relationships you don't worry that the state might be involved or intelligence agencies might be involved or a crime might be involved but the Russians can use even regular businessmen they can they can twist them and use them to their advantage. So so money coming out of Russia can be dirty money that can be used to sort of corrupt people and make them complicit. For example look at this guy that just talked about the Mueller Report Yevgeny precaution. He is the guy he was a he made millions and essentially billions off of you know restaurants and and becoming an oligarch close to Trump. So so quote unquote unquote he's a businessman but the Kremlin then goes home and says hey we need help in Syria. And therefore he this businessman who runs restaurants is now running paramilitary groups in Syria. They say hey we need help influencing the US elections. So this guy you are a guinea pig Ghosn who's a restaurant tour runs owns the troll factories that were running the all of the efforts through Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and everything against us. And so. you know you've got a person who's just a business man but he's working on behalf of the state on behalf of the intelligence service on behalf of paramilitary groups. These things all interact. And so someone like Manafort he knows that you know if you're dealing with a Russian business man you also have to be aware that that person that may have ties to the Kremlin and to the intelligence services and criminal groups.

One thing that I think is a little frustrating for the public is that we see these things happening. And except for I know that we did some kind of cyber attack on I think on the Internet Research Agency on the day of the midterm election. But what I'm trying to say is do we have a parallel operations do we troll them. Do we. What are our operations against people.

Ok. So yeah. So we have an incredibly effective and good cyber if you will that's for lack of a better word capability. But we've never quite come to terms of what's the best way to use that weapon.

We use our intelligence services for them. The great majority CIA NSA is out to collect intelligence. Our job is to collect intelligence put it through an analytical process to support policymakers.

And then there's a smaller part where presidents with congressional oversight can ask for covert action for our intelligence to take action which is what you're suggesting. Hey can we use the NSA in some of these capabilities to strike back. That's called covert action in our world. The Russians on the other hand. you know for historical purposes of how their intelligence services developed from the days of the Bolshevik revolutions to keep their leadership in power and had a strong internal repression sort of mechanism as well. They do their their services develop. So yes they have an espionage and collection piece to. But the great majority what they do is this. What we saw in 2016 active measures which is disinformation subversion deception fake news assassination cyber attacks and so their intelligence services are more focused on this sowing chaos creating problems keeping their enemies off balance trying to manage perceptions overseas you know to do these things and so they so they do more of that stuff than we do. We definitely have the capability to but oftentimes we have hesitated to use that weapon for fear of hey if we use our NSA and our cyber attacks to sort of shut down Russia shut down all the traffic lights or turn off all the computers in Russia we worry that we're in a glass house if we start that game. No country is more reliant on computer systems and satellite systems nice things in the United States and so.

After World War Two with nuclear weapons we eventually determine what deterrence was how could we defend ourselves and deter others from taking nuclear action against us.

We haven't quite figured out what's the best balance between defense deterrence and offense in the cyber realm yet. And so yes we have incredible capability.

But we tend to use it to spy to collect. Not for these other things because I don't think we've figured out how to use that weapon effectively.

I hope at some point we did get a little more of a handle on that only because it's a void.

Well I tend to think we think that others must understand our power and therefore not be willing to push us. Now the Russians know us well enough that they know hey you know the Americans we can push them an awful long way before they strike back. And now they also know that the president states is going to be the one that's going to really hesitate to strike back. And so they fought for a much smaller and weaker country. They should take advantage of us and push really far because they know we're not likely to strike back in a way that really hurts them.

What do you think the odds are that I just sometimes think about this. Maybe it's just the comedian to me this whole thing ends with just Trump taking off on a plane from Moscow with a bag of cash.

I'd be fine with me.

Yeah I'd. I wrote an article. You know it's in a small in just security is Trump or Russian agent. And I looked at it essentially in the sense of how as an intelligence officer we look at that term agent someone who's an asset or an agent. And my view was essentially that he may well be an asset in the sense that the Russians are manipulating and using him through the Cold War.

They have these things called useful idiots people that would do their bidding maybe wittingly maybe semi wittingly but essentially they would serve their purposes but they weren't out in out controlled spies that that met them in a dark alley and exchanged money and did exactly everything the Russians wanted him to do. And so Trump doesn't fit the he doesn't fit the parameters of an agent or asset in a sense that we use it. He would be a terrible agent because he would never follow directions. He can't remember anything. He would just blurt out stuff and get himself in trouble if I was trying to recruit him as a source. I would I would determine I'd say no because he's going to he's going to screw it up he's going to get himself caught. You know what we want with agents is someone who is going to willingly work with us for a bigger picture and keep that relationship secret that they haven't something internal to them that makes them realize they're working on a on a bigger thing on their behalf. Trump can't do that. He's like a manchild baby who has to brag about things he does you know doesn't listen to others and so.

In the sense that I think about the CIA running a spy Trump would be a horrible spy even if it even if he's got all the vulnerabilities to take advantage of him he's uncontrollable Russia. The brushes. That doesn't mean the Russians can't manipulate doesn't mean the Russians can't use him and put information to his head and sort of you know take advantage of him corrupt him. And I think that's more likely what we see here than someone who is like you know a Manchurian candidate who's going to run off to Moscow.

What do you think the mood was election night.

I mean over in in Putin's Palace or where I think they were shocked hotel and I think Trump was shocked too. Oh yeah yeah sure. You know I was shocked. Sure yes. I don't think I think in there world causing chaos causing havoc.

Supporting Trump was still beneficial to them if Hillary Clinton won because then they could still push this system the system. Trump would still be a free agent out there saying all kinds of crazy stuff and pushing for Hillary Clinton's impeachment and Russians can push talking points to him on all these other kind of things. I don't think they thought he was going to win.

Yeah there must have been. Maybe I think like one hundred years from now that we'll get the files from Russia and we'll find out.

I hope so.

I know how hard it is to get those far you know trying to get an agent in the right place who can get this kind of stuff. It does happen but it isn't isn't just because we.

Because we want it badly we're gonna have success. It's a it's it's getting lucky breaks and the right people in the right place. And I'm sure the U.S. government knows more than we certainly in the public know about what the Russians are up to and what they know and what they thought.

And those type of things. But I certainly hope that. There is some sort of break so that we understand you know what sources the Russians spies.

The Russians were using inside the system because we saw a lot in 2016 we saw cyber attacks we saw these troll factories we saw assassinations in Britain we saw the GDR you tried to do cyber hacks and all its good stuff. The one thing we haven't seen at all is the SVR. That's their intelligence service. They was part of their doctrine and is part of what they say throughout history underpins all of these actions we've talked about this deception disinformation subversion. Are human spies run by their espionage service the SVR. You've seen nothing about that. So I guarantee the Russians have spies and they're running spies that have helped them aim. Help them understand where to put money where to put resources where to put hard information and we don't have any of that yet. And I'm confident at some point pieces that will come out and we'll have a much better sense of what happened.

It's simply two more questions I just thought of this now. Trump from the news reports talks on a unsecured cell phone. How many hypothetically how many intelligence agencies might be listening.

It's incredibly easy to and so essentially everybody that can't like the one thing we have to remember is we're the number one target in the world where the biggest most powerful country in the world and everything we do impacts policy everywhere else but commercially certainly economically foreign policy wise military wise and so the ability to break into cell networks and that type of thing is not tremendously hard. And I'm so I'm sure that at least the major powers are listening to that and maybe plenty of others to. You know the one thing though is OK. Whether he's speaking about specifically sensitive stuff he probably is. But if they're using him to understand him and get a bead on what makes Trump tick and how they can manipulate him at this point you hardly need more of a cell phone because we see it every day. We see in his tweets. We see it in his crazy behavior. He is not hard to figure out. You know you look at what he did the right with North Korea. What you need to do is you know.

Take his threats realize he doesn't mean and realize he has no way out. And then he's gonna try to do a deal and try to like soften you up and act like you know and then and so manipulating him and playing him is kind of easy.

Yeah. The dealmaker thing is funny because really for my knowledge of of what you did at the CIA I mean just in general that's really a sort of a form of dealmaking how getting someone to put their own life at risk just to to help the United States. That's dealmaking. And when I do interviewing people that's also a form of dealmaking in a way. I don't know what he does. But being born in a money that's not I feel like you as a 30 year veteran the CIA you know way more about dealmaking than than he would.

Well I don't think he's made any effective deal. Like you know he's he believes that if you if you threaten people and then.

Be nice to him. You're gonna somehow get something. But we we're no better off with North Korea really than we were. We're worse off with Iran than we were worse off with with Russia you know trying to push China on economic and trade things might have been. In fact I would argue it's probably probably was long overdue and we needed to do something but the way he's doing it. You just don't trust that he's gonna give in at the right time or he's gonna do the right thing. He's not using the resources at his control and the US government and the US private sector to the extent he can. He's all basing his own personality and thinking that somehow he's the stable genius that's gonna be able to police things often there's no evidence that that's ever worked in his entire life.

What are our allies. Do we already know the case where he gave away what I read was called code word intelligence where that probably got somebody killed to the Russians. What do they do now. If they need to tell us something.

What would you do. I mean well you mean like our allies or something.

Yeah they have a piece of it but they know that you might get somewhere else.

That's an excellent question and it's a serious question. If you're the British services or you're the Germans or Japanese or some you know day in and day out and let's put this way in CIA the majority of our intelligence came from other security services from our allies giving us the secrets that they have because they trusted us to keep them secret and to use that information to support policymakers and presidents if they think. The the vulnerability is the present United States blurting out that information giving it away or even attacking those allies.

They're going to stop giving it and so I guarantee that there's meetings now at the top of the British security services and Nash security where they are saying okay we have we had this lucky break we got a guy in the top of the Iranian government who's giving us this information do we give it to the Americans. Maybe what we do is we take a little bit of this information and try to work with certain people we know in CIA and the State Department. So they sort of understand that. But but they're gonna be giving us the last because they worry about that we can't be trusted anymore. And that's a big deal.

Joe my last question is might be considered classified I don't know. But did you last name. I always like setting up my own punch line. Did your last name give you an edge in the CIA. Yeah I don't like my lesson that much. It's funny you know. No because essentially then.

But once you're in the CIA they give you a alias a fake but you have aliases and you have pseudonyms so they give you a pseudonym so everybody who knows you in CIA every time I write a cable I read an email. It uses my pseudo my fake name and so probably more people know me by that name than news I real name anyway. Yeah. So they don't.

So if you if you were to get you know say Attorney General Barr says I want to know the secrets. Declassify your intelligence reports and cable reports to see what was happening. He's not going to you'll understand reading anyway and the names in those things are fake names or pseudonyms so you know if they're gonna go try to attack the next Peter Struck they're gonna find themselves attacking a fake name because they won't understand where it comes from.

So the name was only known by your I guess your boss or that kind of thing.

Yeah I mean inside we knew each other's names we were there was fine. But essentially in all correspondence and traffic so if I'm living I'm living in Russia and I'm writing back to people and all these different things and different they don't know me personally they don't know my real name. They know my Sudo.

Did you ever use the name John Burns. John. Yeah. You want to know if anybody did use that for alias.

Yeah yeah. That's the whole. Yeah yeah. I guess the one thing that he and you have in common. You know you've been incredibly generous. How do people I know you. You've got the cipher brief and how did people reach you first speak speaking the cipher brief isn't as funny a lot of people even like to call it a cipher brief.

They do. That's really cool. You've done it. No it's this woman Kelly who used to work at CNN who sort of created that and built a really impressive network of people. When I came out of CIA I met her and I started writing some for them. I haven't much of late I've sort of moved on I write for a little bit the Atlantic and just security some and political in New York Times little bit and stuff. But don't stop me not. I worked with him and I go to their events. Thanks.

Well I just want to thank you again for you know bringing your very unique life experience and perspective and you know we'd love to have you back on some time and you know if you ever want to talk.

Appreciate it. All right hopefully next. Yes. All right well you take care okay.

I'm afraid there are going to be lots of more stuff to talk about so I don't think I don't think we're out of our national nightmare quite yet.

You it's it's great for what I do and it's probably in some ways good for what you do but yeah you and I are going to have a lot to talk about.

All right. Well thanks so much. Have a great Memorial Day. Yeah you too sir.

And you have a great Memorial Day. Thank you very much for listening. If you'd like to support the podcast we're on patron at forensic news. The podcast itself is on Twitter at Intel pod. You can also follow forensic news on Twitter at forensic NEWSNIGHT. My name is Eric Levy. And if you want to follow me it's at EIC Ellie VII. Thank you so much for supporting forensic news and the counterintelligence podcast.

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