Julian Dorey Podcast - 😳 #48 - Special Agent Jim DiOrio: Inside The FBI, James Comey & The Hillary Clinton Investigation; Post 9/11 Government Response; Interrogation Techniques & Stories

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Jim DiOrio is a Former FBI Interrogation Expert, Military Veteran, Undercover Operative, and Savage. A member of West Point’s Class of 1986 (along with his roommate and former Secretary of State/Director of The CIA, Mike Pompeo), Jim served overseas as an Army Ranger in the late 80’s and early 90’s before leaving the military and joining the FBI. He went on to spend 10 years as one of the most successful undercover agents in the Bureau’s history––and another 15 as a ferocious Special Agent In-Charge and heralded FBI interrogator around the world. Basically, he was the guy who told Captain Phillips he could have his boat back.    Currently, Jim is the CEO of J3 Global, an international crisis/security firm (or as he explains it: “I’m Ray Donovan with more experience”). In his spare time, he also owns a Jersey Mike’s because why not. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 7:48 - Why Jim’s “The Guy”; Jim’s family tree that features the Army and one outlier in the Mafia; How Jim got recruited to West Point; Jim’s lifelong buddy, former Secretary of State / Director of The CIA, Mike Pompeo 24:46 - Why Jim went full cowboy mode post-FBI; Handshakes with Criminals; Jim tells a story about the first Mobster he put away; Discussing the concept that cops need criminals and criminals need cops; 40:02 - The FBI’s emphasis on accruing assets post 9/11; Former FBI Agent, John O’Neill, & “The Looming Tower”; “Follow the Money”; Reminiscing on former FBI Director, Louis Freeh; FBI / CIA Coordination Pre 9/11; Jim talks about being married to a 9/11 widow 1:01:38 - The forgotten case of the American Airlines Jet that went down in Brooklyn 2 months post 9/11; “Politeness & Familiarity Breed Access” 1:18:22 - Jim tells a funny story about a search warrant that yielded a huge case for the Bureau; Jim tells another funny story about the time he used mirroring to crack a serial bank robber; Jim talks about interrogation techniques 1:33:50 - Julian asks Jim about the potential interrogation techniques have to cause people to admit to things they didn’t do; Jim tells another funny story from an interrogation 1:43:51 - Why every part of the George Floyd murder angered Jim and how he would’ve handled it; The problems with police officer training in America 2:01:46 - The importance of not attaching yourself to results; why Jim’s ability to build relationships with everyone he dealt with––even undercover––was so important 2:11:32 - Jim reflects on his work as an Army Ranger; “Fear is a gift”; Jim tells a harrowing story about a takedown he had on September 15, 2001 related to the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks 2:19:05 - Jim tells a hilarious story involving, Starbucks, a gun, and a Fortune 100 company CEO; Jim tells a story about going undercover at a client’s children’s school 2:25:48 - Jim talks about why his former Boss, Ex-FBI Director James Comey, is a “narcissistic egotist”; Jim discusses the Hillary Clinton Email case that brought heat on the Bureau––and why Comey’s handling of the case was terrible Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now, keep in mind, and I want everybody to know, I prepared the one in the in-the-pants holster, unloaded. I checked it 75 times outside of Starbucks, which is amazing that I didn't get arrested right there. But it is what it is. I know this one's unloaded. I walk through, say hi to his assistant, walk into his office, open up.

He's on the phone, walk up with it, unload it, put it to his head and say, You are dead. We need to do something about this. What's cooking, everybody? I have been waiting on this episode. I have been waiting big time on this episode. In fact, it was supposed to be last

week's episode, but when Moose and I talked about something that I thought might be a little time sensitive, I rushed that one and I held this one an extra week. So I even had to wait a little longer. But I am joined in the bunker today by my very good friend, Mr. Jim DiIorio, formerly known as Special Agent Jim DiIorio. Jim's resume is insane. I'm going to give the very quick bullet points so you understand what we're dealing with, who we're dealing with today. Jim was West Point

class of 86, which is one of their most historical classes in the history of the entire institution. Among his best friends and former roommate is now the former Secretary of State and former head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo. After becoming an Army Ranger and serving overseas and doing some wild shit over there, Jim came home and spent 25 years, I believe, in the FBI, 10 to 15 of which were doing some savage undercover work. A lot of that, unfortunately, he can't talk about. But the other 10 to 15 was doing some serious casework, and also he was a go-to at the Bureau for Domestic and International Issues as an interrogator.

This guy was an expert in the room and being able to get answers from people and figuring out how they're going to make cases, which we talked about today because that has a whole slippery slope to it, obviously, with some of the things we hear in the media. And so Jim, Jim went at that right directly and explained exactly where he comes from and what his goals are and also took you into some wild stories in the room and like how things actually progress. So it's pretty cool. But today's episode, I really wanted to be just all over the place. This was my first time bringing Jim in. I wanted people to get a feel for his personality and for just some of the wild things he's done. So he told a bunch of stories. We talked about a whole bunch of different random parts of his career. It had absolutely no order to it, I would say. And it was amazing. I mean, some of the stories we got were just nuts. And I mean, we even got into, I'm just looking at

some of the bullets here of what we talked about. We even got into like some personal things on 9-11. And that emanated out of talking about how the FBI changed after 9-11. But Jim is also married to a 9-11 widow as well. And he was there in New York that day when when, you know, that whole tragedy happened. So his perspective on the entire thing, especially in the context of the fact that we're coming up on 20 years since then, which is just crazy to me, his perspective is amazing. So that was a nice part to work into the conversation. And then the other thing I did want to mention is that, how do I say this carefully?

We did talk about Comey today and Jim did bring up the Hillary investigation I'm gonna let that area of the podcast speak for itself because I know there will be things in the future that Jim is

okay talking about publicly but he's trying to deduce what's go and what's not with that so he did go pretty deep into it i'll just say that and i've probably already said too much so i'll leave it there but you guys will definitely definitely enjoy that now you heard me do the official announcement last week on the podcast and then also I put it on socials about the new sponsorship from our friends at 8sleep and I got a text right after I announced it on Instagram from one of my childhood

friends Lou who I talked to from time to time and he was like bro you do you use the 8sleep I'm like yeah they just sponsor me he's like dude I bought that months ago I tell everyone I know about it now Lou is an athlete so he values health and sleep and that more than the average person does. And the way he explained it to me is exactly what I said to you guys. It's like adding hours of sleep to your night. If you don't know what I'm talking about because you didn't listen to last week's episode or you didn't see the announcement, 8sleep is essentially a tech mattress company. They create their number one product is the Pod Pro mattress, which starts at around $3,000.

And it is wired into an app, their proprietary app, that measures your sleep throughout the night and reacts to your body temperature interest, to get a little bit scientific on you now, and gives you, therefore, the optimal temperature in your bed, along with some other features for your sleep to go as smoothly as possible throughout the night. And that's what they sell. They sell the idea that you can sleep six hours and feel like you got eight. Now, where I come in is that you can get $100 off the Pod Pro mattress, but also $100 off the Pod Pro cover if you use the code

TRENDIFIER and the link that you will find in the description of this episode or also in my Instagram bio. And you say, what's the cover? Well, the cover is if you like the feel of your current mattress, which a lot of us do. You don't actually have to buy the full mattress, the Pod Pro that Eight Sleep has. You can buy the cover, which does the same thing. You put it right on top of your queen or your king bed, and it's wired into the app just like they already have on their regular Pod Pro mattress, and boom, you get all the tech that Eight Sleep has built here. And not for nothing, the company's been exploding.

And as I said last week, Alex Horowitz, who was on number 17 and 18 in this podcast, is the chief of staff of that company, a longtime friend of mine, and so I have had a front row seat to watching them basically grow off of zero here and to where they are now, and it's pretty nuts. So you will absolutely enjoy that product. I believe it's a life changer for you, and use that code and the link in the description. And I promise you won't be disappointed. Anyway, if you're not subscribed, please subscribe. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. If you're on YouTube right now, hit that subscribe button, hit that bell button, and leave a like and comment on the video if you would, please. To all of you who have been leaving five-star reviews with a comment on Apple Podcasts, thank you. That audience continues to grow every week, and it is not in small thanks, if that's how you even say it,

but it is in large thanks, I think I got that right, to the people who have been kind enough to leave those reviews that allow new listeners to come to the page and get a taste of what they might be listening to before they actually give it a shot. So thank you to everyone who's done that. And if you haven't done that, and you can take a second to do so, I would really, really appreciate it. That said, you know what it is. I'm Julian Dory, and this is Trendify. Let's go. This is one of the great questions in our culture. Where is the nuance? You're giving opinions and calling them facts.

You feel me? Everyone understands this, but few seem to do it. If you don't like the status quo, start asking questions. You know, Jim, for years, I've had to refer to you as my guy, in air quotes. So like when shit hits the fan, people know to text me because Julian's got a guy who's got some guys, but they don't know who the guy is. And the guy did a lot of things that are interesting in the government but we don't really talk about it and so the weird thing about having a podcast is now i bring the guy like you to light i like it you know i like i told your dad uh i'm ray donovan without the killing anymore i have i have said that before i have fully admitted

i'm like you want you watch ray donovan and they're like before i have fully admitted i'm like you want you want trey donovan and they're like yeah i heard that i'm like all right that's jim yeah pretty much but my brother's a little bit more normal than his brothers um i would say but yeah definitely hey this is uh you know this is something i've been um been thinking about like how to define yourself right after you have a career of public service it's not easy how i mean how can you even do that because and we'll talk about it today but you've been you've done so many different things you know yeah it's different things and i think the biggest thing that i struggled with coming out was how do you value kind of how do you value yourself right because

government you know government work no matter how hard you work, and let's face it, it's the two-thirds rule, not as much in the military, but in the government, you know, two out of three do the job. They do the work. They're dedicated to it. And you have the one guy who likes to carry the badge, likes to wear the gun, do the crossword puzzle, and talk about everybody else's successes. So it's a struggle, right struggle right so now no matter how hard you work that guy and other guys who are in the two-thirds make the same paycheck you're maxed out 188 768 and 12 cents when i left i don't know what it is now but people don't i mean you're obviously going to get promotions above that kind of guy, no? Even. Promotion is in title only and responsibility.

The money is the same. It's the same. It's the same money. So now when you get to a level of what they call senior executive service, then you can make a little bit more, but it's not much. The only benefit really is at the end of your career when you're done, they'll move your stuff back to a place that you choose. Well, you spent your entire entire quote-unquote adult life after the army which is a whole another thing with just the fbi right yeah short stint in in corporate america um for what five minutes five minutes um i kind of um i went into it thinking I had to do it for myself so that I could someday not look back and say why the hell didn't I try this and

so did it great company the company's pretty successful now I really don't have any second thoughts about it or regrets honestly this is like 30 years ago something like that yeah probably let probably. Let's see. Probably early, late. Yeah, yeah. Early to mid-90s timeframe. No, it's after that. But mid-90s, let's say. You know, took the position, knew from literally minute one.

I was like, what the hell am I doing? And, you know, went back to my people at the Bureau and said, listen, I'm ready. I'm ready. And we went from there. And, you know, got back in, was happier than I could possibly have ever thought I could be after great experiences in the Army, you know, with great experiences at West Point. Yeah. Now, how'd you end up at West Point? Because I think sometimes we don't

we don't separate the two a little bit and i think that's important to do because not that all service isn't amazing it is you know especially now because it's not a draft people volunteer you know sacrifice your life it's an unbelievable thing but it is a different level when you do that at age 17 sign that letter and go to the most prestigious historical place to do it in west point and you also i guess then you know a lot of those guys come out rangers and stuff like that so it's a little bit of a different level but it it has always seemed to me like west point shaped every single thing you did afterwards and we'll get into the bureau but you know it it seems like

not just the bond and the camaraderie and everything but the the sense of duty that you got from there has carried into everything you do absolutely you know i was brought up in a service-oriented family my dad one of seven uh grew up with nothing uh streets of newark um his brothers aged you know in range from he being the oldest boy, his sister was a little bit older, down to his youngest brother, who's only 10 years older than my brother at this point. So it's interesting. So my dad was a service guy, you know, and he kind of ingrained that in us. I think it was inherent in him. Really didn't, shouldn't have been, to be honest, if you look at his family background. And, you know, interesting. You and I have talked about this story, but I show up at the FBI Academy and one of the professors first couple of weeks says, hey, guys, you really need to kind of do some research on other federal agencies.

You want to understand other federal agencies because there's going to come a time when you're going to have to collaborate with them. They told you that? Yeah. Go take it. Go check it out. Go take a look you can imagine why i'm pretty surprised at that yeah right no absolutely but i mean i think that at that point you know this is this is early to mid 90s um you know things were starting to come

together with regards to the terrorism portion of investigations i mean didn't come together also well um that's why I'm surprised at it. But I remember thinking, well, my dad was an arson investigator, so I think I'm going to go check the ATF out, see what they're about. So I walked down into the old-fashioned Quantico library. I think Hoover had built it and stacked it and coordinated it. And I find this book called, I think it was Very Special Agent, something like that. It was The History of the ATF. So I pull the book, it's paperback, and I'm walking back to my room, and I'm flipping through it.

I'm like, holy shit. I get to the first picture in the book. Frank Slim Diorio. Oh, my God. And underneath it says, the most notorious bootlegger in new jersey history my uncle frank no shit so i i look you know i kind of like holy cow i remember no cell phones no nothing so i walk upstairs to the room we myself and my roommate there great guy from columbia south carolina um see howie i gotta use the phone. Can you step out for a minute?

So I dialed my parents' number. My dad had passed a short time before that. My mother answers and I say, Mom, I'm looking at a book about the ATF. She said, What's that? I said, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. She said, Oh, God,

Uncle Frank. Oh, man. So I said, Mom, did you think it might have been important to tell me about uncle frank they didn't hit that on the background right they didn't hit it so she said well here's my mother typical jimmy we didn't want to make you nervous so now what was the dilemma right What was his full story, though? So straight up bootlegger down in Elizabeth Harrison, Newark, New Jersey. Which family? I'm not really sure.

I never really took a look after that, especially during my time in the Bureau. You know, checking in the seas and those things, not a great thing to do. So I talked to my brother a little bit. in the bureau you know you checking indices and those things not a not a great thing to do so i talked to my brother a little bit we both really didn't have the full story but we figured they were kind of on their own uh i know my grandfather was um an olive oil guy um oh of course he was yeah right so who ran the numbers yep um but at the same time you know we were we were proud of the family everybody was hard working but my dad was the guy who kind of went off in the service direction. Nobody else really did.

You know, military, police, fire department, arson squad, FBI's National Academy as an arson investigator. Probably the first, I think he was the first fireman to ever go through the 10-week program. Oh, wow. At 50. After major heart attack. Wait, he didn't take it up till then he didn't take it up till then the national academy kind of brings in executives from around the country law enforcement so that's why the art you know the fire department was kind of unique um brings those guys in and it kind of teaches the fbi way and it's a perfect if you think about it brilliant it's it's

a Hoover now listen I'm not saying Hoover was brilliant at all but what I'm saying it was a perfect coordination in that he basically sold the FBI to senior law enforcement officials so that at some point when he needed someone whether it be in Kansas City, L.A., or in the Philippines. He would have that person. So my dad went through this program, and I remember sitting at graduation of my dad's graduation. I was a high school sophomore, I think, and thinking to myself, man, I got to tell him. This guy is hustling. He's 50.

He had a massive heart attack. He's out here running three miles a day. I got to get off my ass this isn't about you know hanging out and and having a couple beers and and thinking about you know where i'm gonna play major league baseball by the way that never happened as obviously but so so that's what kind of got me rolling a little bit on the service piece um and i think it just once it got rolling it kind of made sense but that was later though because you a little bit later at quantico yeah i mean that was a quantico

but it got me thinking back to how the west point piece kind of came to be yeah because you fell into that i don't want to say fell into that but they recruited you for baseball so it's like i'm not going to knock on a west point well i did it did. You know, I did. I mean, I can remember my grandmother, who didn't speak the best English, gets a phone call. I'm a high school senior. Now, I'm probably like January of my senior year of high school, and I'm already kind of focused on playing baseball at Seton Hall. I'm going to go play baseball at Seton Hall. Talk to everybody. It looked really

good. I think we were getting a little bit of money. Hometown kid. It was good, right? So that's my focus. So my grandmother tells my father one night at dinner, I got a call from the army. I don't know. I can't remember if she said it in Italian, if she said it, whatever. She showed him the message. And my dad said, oh, really? Well, the message and my dad said oh really well you know my dad said well you know the army now my brother at the time was in the army so my brother was actually getting he actually went through a program where the army paid for his dental school and then he ought i think he owed maybe a year for a year one for one so he was in so we had that going and my dad says i don't know my dad's thinking maybe a recruiter, right?

Yeah. Trying to enlist me into the – Pops was right. Right. So I just – we blow it off, right? Both of us. Ooh. Guy calls back the next day or a couple days later.

You blew off West Point. Not knowing because my grandmother didn't make the translation. So a couple days later, my dad answers the phone. And the guy says, hey, I'm Coach Permikoff. I'm the West Point baseball coach, and we'd really like Jim to come on a visit. So my dad comes back to me and says, Jimmy, you know, I think you should go. I said, no, Dad, it's the Army. I'm not that bad.

We just talked about that yesterday. And he said, no, it was a little different. You know, you don't have to make any decision. You don't have to talk about it now, but let's make the visit. We owe that to them. And so I did. I went up, and the rest is history. I mean, I couldn't get in that year.

It was late. They offered me a spot at West Point's prep school, which gave me an experience i'll never forget i had probably the best baseball coach i've ever had in my life there a guy named eddie mccray still coaching um so eddie and i hit it off so wait you wouldn't have been in the class of 86 then no i would have been an 85 guy so wow how lucky am i to have you know listen i love the 85 guys but um 86 86 is just incredible. What's going on?

And who are some of your guys from that class? Well, you know, I think the timing of today is important to talk about my main man, and that's Terry Finley, who owns West Point Thoroughbreds, right? So Terry won the Derby in 2017 with Always Dreaming, and he's got a horse on Saturday, O. Bezos, coming out of the sixth position. Oh, is that named after Jeff Bezos? I don't think so, but I don't know. I didn't do enough research. Who the hell knows? It's definitely not named after him.

Yeah, I was going to say. That's interesting. But, you know, so Fin is is a guy who's a conducted derby winner right so and and a dear friend and goes back to way way back you know um to the time that he actually signed me up for jazz dance um so what happens at west point is you're supposed to by a certain time you got to back in the day you had to fill out a card you had to bring it up to this place and then they would take and look how many people are in golf, how many people are in tennis.

Now, we were older. We were seniors. So, hey, you want to get golf. You want to get tennis, right? You want to get whatever, putting your feet in the pool, whatever. You don't want to get jazz dance. You really don't want to get jazz dance. You weren't tearing up the floor, Jim?

I wasn't tearing it up. So Terry signs me up, gets my card, brings it up. I'm the only male in a class of probably 25 female cadets, my classmates, and me. Were they hot? No. Well, yes, some of them. I've got to be careful what I say. And here I am, and we're going to perform Cats, the musical Cats. Oh, no.

No, no, no, the rest and the rest just lines itself up right i mean it just doesn't get any worse than that for me so finley um finley fuck you you know i'll tell you that right now for doing that but we've we've stayed remain best friends he's one of the five that i talk about all the time with the texts all day yeah right so so finley's a guy right then who's your roommate so so my beast barracks guy which is the first six weeks at west point is mike pompeo right so guy we know secretary of state former secretary of state former director of cia former congressman from i think it was the first district in kansas um so um you know you know some extra shit i know you're holding back i know you're a great guy you

know mike's a great guy and uh funny dude number one in our class one of those guys that um you know never never really showed that he was working hard but i know i know he was working hard and yeah he had an interesting past path too absolutely totally total interest you know i mean if you i think that i think the common misconception about mike is that everything came easy right and i think that's a problem with a lot of service academy guys in general and i say that and you and i have talked about this before right the problem what we all have in common all of us is that we don't think we're good enough at west point anywhere and it goes back to what you and i just talked about earlier today but you've talked about it in the context i just want to make sure i understand you've talked about that

in the context of like that's a real thing at west point like even these guys who are very very successful it's a real thing that's their number one like weakness. And that's my opinion. You know, I've talked to some buddies that have said and offer that same opinion. But I think that's the issue with value, right? Like we talked about value. Like, you know, I come out, you know, after the FBI had some job offers, right? Had some CSO, some chief security officer, some CISO offers, you know, chief intelligence officers basically. And I looked at them hard.

I really did because I tried to say, how do I squeeze this into what I really want to do? And the money was good. You know, the job position was good. But at the end of the day, I'm like, I can't help people. You know, I just can't. I can't help a company, help one guy, right? I want to be able to continue the impact. You're a cowboy.

I like it. I like the impact. I like the day-to-day, right? I like seeing people go, oh, shit, you just took that off my plate, man. You know, thank you. Even if they don't say it, I know I did. You know, I know that we did something, you know, just stuff that happens every day still. And that's what keeps me kind of pulling myself out of bed in the morning you know it's

like if i went i've still and you know we've talked about this right i've interviewed for a couple jobs since since j3 has been kind of around and i really was fired up about it like holy shit you know this is i'm gonna be the guy i'm gonna be on tv and i'm gonna go and then i thought about it i'm like i i, I would absolutely hate that. I hate it. You know what, though? My takeaway is when I hear the stories, and we're just going to go in a loop today. We'll go all over the place because you're going to be a regular here because you're my guy for a lot of reasons and on a lot of foreign policy things, on a lot of domestic policy things.

There's a lot of stuff you have your there's there's just a there's a lot of stuff you have your ear to the grindstone on that no one else does so it's pretty valuable that i get to have someone like that on the pod but looking at your fbi career to jump around to that for a second when i first was getting to know you right after you left the fbi and retired from there to open j3 global the stories you would always tell were way different types of investigations i mean your background and i don't know how much of the first part you can even get into but you know you spent 15 years undercover in vastly different things like it wasn't like the same character you know you weren't donnie brasco and five different families like that's not really how it was going you were doing one thing here one thing there you know i'll let you decide whether or not to talk about that again but you know after that

you know you were this international interrogator the guy walking on the ship and telling captain phillips he could have it back you were a guy who was running everything from like fraud in you know some of the communities in new york city i'd forget some of them like garment district and stuff like that and then you're running some mafia stuff you're running some terrorism stuff there seemed to be no like set hey this is my role and this is what i do you were constantly moving to some sort of new challenge so when i hear about all these major jobs and i know you can't really say what some of them are, but there are enormous jobs you're getting offered by very, very big places. And if people were just looking at the paycheck, of course you'd take it.

But the reason that strikes me that you're not going after that stuff is because it keeps you in that one-dimensional setting. Even if there are new challenges every day, which there are. In those jobs, there are challenges every single day day they're still in the same family of challenges it's not like whoa that one's cool i want to try that it's almost like you want to touch the coffee until it's hot like all right let's go see what this one's about exactly i mean i think you make a great point and that's what kind of drew me to kind of moving around in the bureau right trying to seek out the best opportunities that the most impactful opportunities and you know i've talked to you about this um at the end of every one of my

cases which i would say probably a couple of hundred um different people that i crossed and touched you know in certain ways some not so good some really good um i only had one person one person in 21 years not shake my hand when it was over on the criminal side think about that right so and do you know to this day it's a thought every day what do you mean not a long thought but like what happened why didn't he you know did i that kind of stuff you know and at the end of the day no i don't follow that so kind of stuff. You know, and at the end of the day, no, I didn't. I don't follow that. So kind of like all the other jobs I did, I felt like I had closure, you know, with the handshake. You know, you're going away for 20 years or you're going away for four years

or you're cooperating with the Bureau. We're going to spend the next six years together, you know, going and making more cases. Okay, D'Orio, you know, you were professional. You made a difference in my life. You helped to get me on some, in some cases, on Team USA or back on Team USA to feel like I was making a difference. These are the criminals telling you this. Yeah, yeah, right?

And there was one guy that told me, after I counseled him in front front of his attorney don't go to trial you're going to get convicted you're going to get convicted he went guess what not only did he get convicted but he had his two children perjured themselves on a witness stand right so when it was over he and his wife looked at me as he was wasn't remanded because the federal program especially white collar you're not going to get remanded to prison right you're gonna have some time to get things in order and as they're walking out of the courtroom the wife turns to me and says i hope you die an awful death and i looked at her and i said is is there any other kind you know and she said so nothing she just walked off you know and so when we showed up

for sentencing he got a pretty significant sentence for a corruption slash white collar case pretty significant normally that stuff a couple years in jail a big fine a lot of restitution probation and a convicted felon right so they go to a country club prison yeah i mean country club or you know there's there's spots where it sucks listen they lock a door behind you yeah you know and that's that right so but it's not florence adx you're not you're not have you're not in danger right right except for yourself you're in danger of yourself right but at the at the end of the day um you know i kind of thought to myself like what the hell happened and now i don't think think about it as much anymore, but is there something I could have done different? But no.

I sat in front of his attorney and told him, don't go to jail. Don't go to trial. You think, it's just very curious. It bothers me. That that kind of guy bothers you, though. Because that's one of your white, I mean, those were big cases, but those were one of your white collar ones. You're dealing with people who don't view themselves in a criminal light whereas when you're when you're going after terrorists when you're going after people in the mafia when you're going after people who are part of major

racketeering type investigations or doing wild shit drugs whatever you're dealing with some stone-cold murderers yeah even some of those guys who shook your hand too. Yeah, I would say. I mean, hey, let's put it this way. Some of the guys that I talk to overseas, they're not shaking your hand. They're basically telling you, I'm going to kill you if I can, right?

And my answer was always, no fucking way, because you're never getting out of here, right? So now, I mean, of course, we've had presidents that have talked about letting them out, but whatever. I don't want to go down that path sorry mike um so you know it's kind of like my thought was always if you're gonna be a bear be a grizzly if you're gonna go against me and i'm gonna go against you because that's what the constitution says we're supposed to do when you commit a crime I'm supposed to collect evidence

that protects the interests of the United States and pass it on to a prosecutor, what Jim Comey didn't do. But at the same time, be a grizzly. If you're going to be a mobster, be a mobster. The first mobster I ever arrested, first I ever arrested pretty laid-back guy who was it you can't say yeah we won't do it right but we get him into the office we get him into the office and there's a processing area so you're printing yep and taking photos you're running his criminal history you're trying to talk to him or talk at him more because

most of them just hey I want to lawyer but doesn't mean when they say they want to lure doesn't mean that you can't talk at them listen I understand I'm not gonna ask any questions but I want you to hear that's how you talked at him I want you to hear what we have I think it's only fair that you hear what we have I don't know if I believe you or not. I'm telling you. Jim, you're the guy in Goodfellas who's like, what, are we baking a fucking cake? We baking a fucking cake, my man? I used to bake that. That's you.

I mean, you still do. No. So anyway, this guy, calm as calm can be, doesn't really, no response. Zero. Just sits there. In comes the special agent in charge. kind of walks by now he's not part of it he he liked the weird dude right he liked the coffee in the processing room better than he was one of the fucking he was the one yes right so he walks by now

funny thing is my dad had always said never trust a man whose hips are wider than his shoulders. Well, this guy's hips were wider than his shoulders. Now, picture the mobster just sitting there. He's kind of sitting there listening, taking it all in, not showing me any sign of comprehension and or, you know, his desire to speak. And he looks over and he says, man, man that dude's hips are wider than his shoulders and my mate my brain racks back to my dad saying I'm like that's got to be a mafia expression and I bet you he heard it from Uncle Frank probably right so that that kind of um i guess mind game against a guy like that against the modern scene at all done it all he's basically in a combat situation but on the streets of newark and patterson and

jersey city um probably a lot sicker than he wants to be and i've got to try to find a way in a short amount of time to get him to understand the case that we have against him without being able to ask him a question. Nothing wrong with that. Listen, there's some defense attorneys out there that are going to say, that's absolutely wrong, DiIorio, but they're fine with it because they knew that we could talk. I'm never going to get pissed off.

It's never personal. I'm not going to be pissed at you know so-and-so defense attorney because he um you know said diorio's an idiot or brought something up at trial about my you know my methods you're not forcing them to say anything absolutely you're not just telling them what you have man if i'm if i arrested you for something wouldn't you want to know what i had on you before you talk to your attorney because you're thinking especially a guy like that, a mobster, he's thinking, oh shit, it could be 150 different things.

Which one do you have, Diorio? Which one did you get? There's a lot to unpack here, because you also said something, you started off that whole thing talking about if you're a grizzly bear, be a grizzly bear. Damn, a bear be a grizzly? You talked about if you're a mobster, be a mobster. Be a mobster.

And it all goes back, because I think about this a lot, of the concept of the cops need the criminals and the criminals need the cops. There's the game there. And working at the FBI, you're at one of the top agencies in the country. And it's a huge step up above being in a police force or something like that but it still operates the same way everything trickles from the top and the top wants numbers the top wants results the top says okay how many convictions do we get how many crimes were committed so they can go report it publicly to the politicians who are responsible for it who got to go win office so and a continuing resolution right to get paid so the budget

oh 100 it's always comes back to the money absolutely so thank you for adding follow the money but you are in there making these cases that oftentimes like they're not oftentimes they're always sent across your desk and the job is and this is what i think about a lot. The job is get a result. You know, like there isn't this thing where the higher-ups, or at least how we see it in pop culture, and correct the record if you can here. But there isn't this thing where the higher-ups put a case across your desk and say, hey, if they're innocent, let's prove it. Let them go. You know, it's always like, oh, what can we do? And so I even think about it with an extreme example like a mobster who very clearly has done a whole bunch of shit like that's not a good example of

like oh is this guy innocent like duh okay he did this stuff but you know you're you're wired to when these guys come in to have to state their case to them and i always think about it from outside the legal system as someone who knows nothing about that just thinking like well if if you have the case isn't it just going to get proven in court like unless you have a shitty lawyer you know so what is even the pressure to have to tell the guy the case i wouldn't you know at least psychologically i would think well tell him nothing and who cares no you make a great point and i think i think the thing that we kind of left out which we're getting to there's two parts right so first off you got to present this case to the united states attorney who has to prosecute it. And we kind of touched on that for a minute. But secondly, you're always, always, always trying to recruit and nurture

cooperators. Always. So the laziest agents, the laziest agents, that one out of that three, is the person who takes information from a very valuable source, does nothing with it, doesn't present it, doesn't kind of go through, analyze, doesn't kind of tear it out and prioritize it. How can I corroborate this independently? This sounds really good. What they do, not all the time,

but what happens often is they don't discuss it with somebody in charge or somebody who's built a reputation for making cases, a case maker, a rainmaker in the Bureau. What they do is they bring it to the U.S. Attorney's Office. They find a pretty liberal, I can't say that. They find a young federal prosecutor and they present the case in a fashion where he or she can only say, well, we're not taking it. It sounds ridiculous. Right? So think about that.

So that's a lazy agent. When I say that, what I'm thinking about is the reason for talking at these people is because you might, in their mind, flip a switch that says, damn, I might be able to get myself out of this mess. And it's changed from even the time I went into the Bureau until now. Well, you were also – you're missing a big piece here too. And maybe you're not but to me like from the outside yeah it seems like an enormous piece as to your mindset there is that you you spent those 15 years undercover your job was to go make friends even like as an actor with people right people around the in and out of that like we talked about not in it all the time right so you're in and out of that situation so you get maybe you get better maybe your your skills are tuned because sometimes it's a matter of life or death right so literally so

i think you're right but i think the key to it there's two different right there's two different kinds of informants there's guys that we pay and that's the motivation because we always talk about following the money yeah but there's guys that are jammed really good so you're telling them what they're jammed about because you're not going to pay some asshole like, you know, whatever, Tony the Cripple, right? You're not going to do that. But what you're going to do is offer him through your thoughts where he can help, where he's got that missing piece.

Kind of what I'm doing for J3 now. Finding the missing piece for people so that we can kind of put this to rest or mitigate so that you as my client have peace of mind so you can do what you're supposed to be doing you're not supposed to be looking about what is is the the problem with your life or your business i'm supposed to do that now i did it for years for 188 718 and 12 cents now i do it for a little bit more, which is nice. Were you FBI or were you CIA? No comment. No comment? I'm not talking about that.

You know that. Okay. All right. Well, that's actually more info than I thought. Because this is from the outside. Listen, we cross over, right? We cross over. And that's the thing.

So you're overseas. After 9-11 especially, right? So you're overseas, you're overseas. You're overseas, you're overseas, right? So think about that. Just by the definition of what we do now, you know, you talk to- Did that change the FBI? That's the question.

100%. 100%. It had to. Their approach to criminals. Had to. Because you just talked about, the reason I asked this is, and then you even mentioned exactly what I wanted to go to. So a little bit of same wavelength there between the two of us.

But after 9-11, I guess they put more of an emphasis in the FBI on taking assets and actually forming assets, which is what the complaint of the CIA – and that's a whole thing I would love to talk to. Maybe we'll get to it today. Maybe we won't. But the whole build-up to 9-11, if people never watched The Looming Tower, it's a book, it's a great book, and then a brilliant show. John O'Neill, they played it to the

T. Yes. So John O'Neill was an FBI agent who really saw Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda rising and coming, and he couldn't work with the CIA because the CIA basically put up a wall to him because the reputation was that the FBI just likes to run around and get an arrest whereas the CIA did what you're talking about which is form assets get information find people you bring in people who you think are high on the chart and they're not

really high on the chart there's a're not really high on the chart. There's a lot of big sharks above them, so how do we get to the big sharks? We use the little fish like them and get there. Absolutely. That is the key, and I will say that the agents who saw that, and there's guys and girls that saw that well before 9-11, and you know I have a soft spot for it because you know my situation. You know that I married a 9-11 widow, a good guy who just went to work.

Dude went to work and they blew him up, right? And we had information. We had information. We did. And we presented it to one of those one-thirders. Fuck. If I would have got that, well, I'm not saying anything could have happened differently,

but if I would have got that, I think I would have moved it up the chain in a different form. I wouldn't have let, like my dad used to, I wouldn't let him say no. And that was my blessing and my curse in the FBI. I wouldn't let people say no. And I used to say there was this old adage in the Bureau, you know, and you hear it in other portions of life, that guy, you know, is just a complete empty suit. So treat him like a mushroom. Feed him shit, keep him in the dark.

There you go, right? And that's really, that's the danger of people who don't understand people and can't make that determination as to who you need to trust to move stuff up the ladder, right? So 9-11 did change. At least it brought to light two things. First off, the importance of assets and sources. Secondly, the importance of following the money. Because I don't care, with very few exceptions, very, very few exceptions,

mostly, God forbid, these mass shootings, right? You get a nut like that. There's ways to do it. Now, we've talked about ways to do it that I think would definitely help to deter and diminish these kooks, but they're lone wolves, and you're not going to find any money because it doesn't matter because they're not doing it for the money. But everybody else, terrorist finance unit was developed after 9-11. After 9-11, and most of the guys i work with

no short a little bit we used to this is and i'm going to say this and i don't really care right we used to look at the terrorism agents in every office no matter where i was if i was traveling out in la if i was in seattle if i was in el paso if i was in chicago if i was in newark i was in new york and we used to say man you can't find one of those dudes after 2 o'clock. You know why? And it was the place that we sent, it was the, what's that from one of the Christmas specials, the Land of Misfit Toys? Oh, yeah.

Right? They send the jack-in-the-box they can't pop up they sent the dentist the kid the herbie the dentist right that's where we sent these guys because listen nothing's happened nothing's happened what about like when kenya happened in 97 and then the bombings were the first kind of coal the coal those things you know yes you know even even mcveigh right blowing up the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Yeah. Now, was he kind of a lone wolf, though?

No, he had some help, my belief. I don't know that, but I believe he had help. I believe there was another guy that we were kind of looking at during the time that cashed him. In fairness to the argument, though, he wasn't like Al-Qaeda. No. Whereas in the 90s— No, he was a nut. He was a military guy, right?

Al-Qaeda was moving in the 90s. They were moving. So I think there's a lot. Listen, we have so much. There's so much on the bone here for this particular portion. Let's go. Let's do it all. My thought with regards.

What was the last thing we were talking about? Follow the money. Following the money, right? And kind of considering the two – Pull that mic in a little bit. Yeah. Considering the two different ways that – the two opportunities that we have following that money and then also establishing and developing and nurturing assets slash sources. You're going to get some – and knowing how to work with that, knowing what to do with it, a whole bunch of information, what do I do?

We've got to analyze it. We have analysts in the FBI. Right? Mueller, the one good thing Mueller did, and we used to joke it was no longer the Federal Bureau of Investigations. It was the Federal Bureau of Intelligence because he switched us to an intelligence agency. You know what, though? I'm not a problem with it. Because he was right after 9-11.

He was right after it he was right after he was jory yeah right after during it right so um yeah i think louis free was was gone by the way the the best the best person i wish i wish he you know was was able to take the fbi over again one of the greatest men one of the greatest men and greatest patriots in in the country what what made him great as the leader of the FBI? So here's my thought, right? What better for an organization like the FBI than to come up through the ranks of the FBI? Yeah. What better? You know why? And he was an attorney, too.

He was an attorney. He was a federal prosecutor. He took down the Pizza Connection case, the heroin case, and the pizza tins. That's a wild... Think about that. That's a wild fucking case. Dude just destroyed it and wasn't afraid... Can you tell people what that case was? Yeah, that dude just destroyed it and he wasn't afraid what that case was yeah i mean basically it was and i can't remember the group that was doing it but it was it was mob you know mob oriented and they were using pizzerias in order to it was the zips it was it was out of sicily so yeah but i think it was like uh bedalamente and all right yeah i think

they wind up assassinating a an ital judge. Yeah, what's his name? He killed him. Giovanni Falcone. Yes! He's got a monument. Louis Freeh was great friends with him. I forgot that because, yeah, he was tight with Louis and I guess like Rudy Giuliani and all that. Put him on as a monument in Quantico. Yeah. So Louis...

That was crazy. So Louis is just... You know, I miss Director Free. I haven't been able to see him in the last few years. I'm very good friends with his oldest son, who is a chip off the old block. As all boys, all six of Louie's boys, Director Free's boys, are chips off the old block. They're former SEAL team guys. They're Naval Academy grads. They can't have everything right so yeah by the way what do what do every um west pointer

and annapolis graduate have in common nothing they all got into the naval academy leave it at that beat navy okay okay but back back on to the point we were making about following the money yeah when you are making sources as opposed to making arrests those trails don't stop and like one of my obsessions and this is why this topic's great because we're bringing it out of the out of theaeda thing. But one of my obsessions is the rise of al-Qaeda and how that happened. And by the way, how – and this is something I haven't looked at in like the last year. But we never got al-Zaqawi. Doctor's still doing his thing over there.

And one of the best things that ever happened to that guy was when ISIS took all the press off them because you know look these people are sadistic they're it's a terrorist organization any terrorist organization is sadistic doesn't mean they're not smart as shit and some of them some of them I'm sure are very stupid but some of them were smart as shit and Osama bin Laden was pretty fucking smart he was he was a guy who had a sick and twisted view on the world and used it for evil. But what he pulled off, you needed to have people in the 90s, even like the late 80s when there were the first little sparks of it. You needed to have people at all the agencies trying to figure out who they were going to become friends with there, not voluntarily obviously, who were going to be able to get them to a guy like that instead what we tried to do was this hands-off agency versus agency thing where the CIA was saying no we're not giving anything to the feds because the FBI is just going to arrest people the FBI wants to go in and arrest them

and then all these little not little but these attacks start happening and then boom and we had it listen we had we had a sign we had the 93 bombing same guy yeah same guy yeah and they said they wanted to come back and quote i believe the exact quote was we're going to finish don't worry about it we'll get there there's a story about um some agent um that had that guy and was interrogating him and flew him in a chopper from... Over New York. Over New York. And when they passed by the Trade Center,

they said to him, to the pilot circle, and they removed his hood, and they said, quote, they're still standing, motherfucker. And he looked in one of the agent's eyes and said, not for long. Yeah. And we did nothing about it. Did nothing about it.

Nothing. And that's what John O'Neill was so pissed about. Yeah. And we had a guy that wrote a 65-page electronic communication. We call it an EC in the Bureau. It's not an evident, well, now it's evident evidentiary but used to just be kind of a um a status report or a lead to be sent to another field office um we had a guy write a 60 plus page report about individuals who only wanted to learn how to fly the airplane they didn't care about taking off or landing and we presented it to a one-third and guess what happened the fucking towers blew up one of those

guys was one who didn't show up that day he was in jail for life now i forget his name you know who i'm talking about though um that's how they caught him because he's like i'm not interested in landing like he literally said it oh to the s I think so yeah Masawi the 20th guy yeah yeah 20th guy yeah yeah I think that's right so so if you think about the perfect storm and this you know this is emotional for me because um you know I think you and I had talked about Adam Schefter right Adam Schefter the dude who does the NFL um oh Adam Schefter, right? Adam Schefter, the dude who does the NFL. Oh, Adam Schefter. Yeah, ESPN, right? I say it wrong, but he wrote this book,

and it's called The Man I Never Met. And the book is a powerful piece. And Schefter married a woman who was a 9-11 widow whose husband, Joe Mayo, died in the towers at Canter. Probably, honestly, probably feet from Jim Martel. Really? I haven't heard about this book. It changed my life. And one of the greatest quotes in the book is when he talks about the fact that without even knowing,

this guy made a life for me. He made a life for his family without even knowing. And when I think about that, it kind of brings a tear to my eye. And you think about that and the fact that this guy went out and he wanted to meet Jomeo's parents. He wanted to meet Jomeo's siblings. He wanted to meet all of Jomeo's friends and talk to them about why it was so important to memory, the memory in his home of Jomeo, right? And I kind of think about that every day, right? Because one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, and you think about all the things I've done, is being a stepdad, right? Because I've always been in control wherever I was. I'm in the military and I've got a small unit and we're going

on an objective or a mission. I'm in charge. It's not an RSVP. You can't say no. I'm not inviting you to a party we're going right the bureau same thing hey i make a decision that we're going to go and take down this particular group and we have the evidence and we're going to present to the united states attorney on this date i'm not inviting you to do it you're going to do it this though with strong memories of a good man right this jim martello was a good man by all accounts I don't know him I wish I did but like like my stepson Thomas said that would have been really weird um but you know if you think about that challenge of letting someone else set the pace in life

you know I can't now say no we're gonna do it like this no you're gonna you're gonna remember this way you're only gonna do this and you're gonna act like this and here's what Jim Dior you know here's what Jim Dior raised Jennifer and Jimmy Dior oh so I'm gonna come into yeah doesn't work bullshit you know and it shouldn't work that way but it's a challenge right so how do you let kids set the pace well you think about a guy like adam shepard and how he did it i got to read that book i knew i knew nothing it's a wonderful book and you know i take it a little bit further i was was talking to a guy who we worked together years ago, different agencies.

He lost his 20-year-old son at West Point. And the story's been publicized. C.J. Morgan, Christopher Morgan, cadet at West Point. He's a wrestler? Phenomenal wrestler. He was a wrestler. He's a West Orange, New Jersey resident from Chicago. They moved when he was in early stages of high school.

Became an outstanding wrestler at West Orange. Was offered a scholarship. Well, everybody's offered a scholarship, but was offered a spot in the wrestling team. Recruited. Freak accident. A truck rolls over. He's in the wrong seat, period. All 20 others walk out.

Chris CJ is killed, right? So his dad is the most, and his mom, most faithful, inspirational people you can possibly meet. And we were talking a little bit about Adam Schefter and his view on things. And Chris Morgan said something to me that I'll never forget. said I wish I could have known him I wish I could have known CJ because the only time I saw CJ Army Navy wrestling match the year before he died he was in his Army wrestling uniform and I was in the front row watching the match very excited we by the way we pounded Navy and the National Anthem starts different at West Point it's not like anywhere else there's no clapping and oh you, none of that bullshit that I hate. You stand at attention until that thing is over. Put your hand over your heart. There's no clapping for anybody, nothing.

You sing the frigging song, period. And you think about what it means when you stare at that flag. And I hear a voice that's above all other voices. And I look, kind of look over, C.J. Morgan, singing the belt in the national anthem out, top of his lungs. And I remember that. So when he was killed, I kind of said,

was that the kid? And everybody said, yeah, that was C.J., right? So now I kind of tell him the father that, and I said, I wish I could have met him. And he looks at me and he says, Jim, someday we will. He said, but for now, we live our lives and we remember his puck. That's big. And I've tried to do that at the house. I've tried to do that with Jim Martello. For now, I wish I could meet him and I will someday. I believe that. But for now i wish i could meet him and i will someday i believe that yeah but for now we

live our lives and remember his and that's powerful it is a absolutely i don't even know the word but everyone remembers that day who had the ability to remember if you weren't three years old or younger but i was i was young. I think I was like six. But it is ridiculous to think about the fact that there were two buildings that were whatever they were, 2,000 feet, whatever they were. Very tall buildings that within 102 minutes went from being standing in a clear blue sky to being gone. Gone. And I remember, you know, it is something I make sure that I relive that at least once a year. And usually not like around September 11th. It's usually some other time during the year because it was such a, I mean, that was really an event that shifted a lot of things in our world and and has

us here like that butterfly effect you can draw a lot back to september 11th but the craziness of of people who you know these aren't people who were in the army going out and fighting in in in afghanistan or something at the time like they that wasn't their life they were they were here doing a job right and they went to went to work. They had families. They had kids. And all the other people who were there that day and who had to see that or who lived anywhere near that. And the stories I've heard from friends over the years who were right there or in the fucking buildings, which is insane to me. I remember, you know, while it had always hit home, I was sitting. Shit, where were we we we were with a client

i think it was um what's not liberty national what's the other one right there bayonne bayonne yeah bayonne golf club yeah yeah or country club yep yep we're sitting on the back deck with a client and you can see the full this is in in Bayonne, New Jersey, great golf course, by the way. It is. And you can see the full southern Manhattan skyline right in front of you. Like, you could reach out and touch it. It's really, that never gets old for me. Never. I fucking love that.

Likewise. But the guy sitting with us just looked at, like, there was a moment of silence for a minute. And he said, it is fucking crazy that there were two buildings that used to be right there where that blue one is and i don't know why this is 15 years after the fact or something i mean i've relived this over and over and over again not like i was there but you know you know what happened you know what it was you knew people who died there and it's it's like i looked at that and i went holy shit it is this wild wild thing and one of the things i think gets kind of missed in in the story i mean you talk about it

from a very personal level that perhaps the most personal level minus being married to the person who died that that you can have and the the thing is a lot of these agencies whether it be the fbi even the cia you know dea all these different places that suddenly had to whether no matter what happened in the past everyone had to spring into action and respond to that and i would love to talk about some of that with you you already mentioned a little bit but there was such a personal nature to it not just because it's like yo it's our's our job to protect people, and that day we didn't, we failed, but you also knew a lot of people in there. Especially like the field offices, too, like the New York FBI field office, you don't think that that was the most personal thing that's ever happened in the history of that office? It will

never be topped. I mean, I hope to God it never gets topped. Agreed. You know, so there was this whole other level such that when people went overseas, like you were one of the guys who started going overseas after that. Yeah. You're taking that with you. Always. Always. And I mean, it's, you bring up, you know, you bring the emotion back with what you just said. And I think everyone, it's like the day Kennedy got shot, right?

Everybody that was in that generation remembers where they were. It's the same thing. But the thing that makes this so different is that they just were trying to do for their families better themselves. The first responders. Yeah. Those guys, if you see the pictures from the stairwells they didn't know who knew that this nobody knew those buildings were coming down i mean then you think about the pentagon you know the the young officers the which we forget about we do forget about it or those people

in shanksville pa yeah right who died an awful death yeah you know so when i rose though heroes but when i went down fighting went down swinging man right that's went down swinging so when you really think about kind of how much that was put especially us in this area right it was put in our face but it was put in the whole country's face. I can remember teams. We were bringing teams of FBI, what they call evidence response teams, in from different parts of the country to volunteer to do a couple of things, a couple of the worst duties in the world. And if you remember, too, there was that other American Airlines jet that went down in Brooklyn. You were young in November of 2001. What? Wait, two months after?

Yeah, in Brooklyn. Killed a bunch of people on the ground. Killed the whole flight, right. Wait, two months after? Yeah, in Brooklyn. Killed a bunch of people on the ground, killed the whole flight, right? Wait, I know nothing about this. It's a crazy story, but going to the Dominican full flight, think a big, I think a 767 or maybe even something a little bigger, maybe a DC-10, takes off from, I want to say it took off from LaGuardia. I think it was LaGuardia or JFK. I can't remember now. We responded out to the scene shortly after. So it threw a loop into everything we were doing, right?

So I'm not laughing at it. So what happens is the story, the official story, is that the tail wing failed because of a prop blast or a jet stream from a big 747 that took off right in front of it. And supposedly knocked the tail wing off. Come on. Now that's the story. Are you fucking kidding me? What's the real story?

So I don't remember us ever really looking. I know, listen, there's guys on presidential orders that may have looked into that. My belief is you're goddamn right somebody fucked with that plane, right? So in New York City, in Brooklyn, killed people on the ground. So think about these people that came in to help us, these FBI agents who were serving in offices like Omaha, Nebraska, where their worst day was having to deal with rowdy protests outside the College World Series. Not to say that it's a big deal, right?

Like a case, just to kind of give you an idea, a case that I would get in york or newark would be just me working on it the whole office of omaha would work that case i had 10 of them at a time yeah right but these people are coming in to help and they're going to do a couple of things they're going to log evidence it's a culture you know what i mean but it's same fbi it is that that's what's surprising about fbi but it shows you that still Even within something like the FBI There's still the 50 states out there There's levels and it's baptism by fire So they're coming in and they're doing a bunch of different things

So they're asked to do cataloging of evidence They're asked to pick up Live cell phones That are beeping They're asked to pick up jewelry that has information, wedding rings that talk about wedding date and who they're married to. We're picking up fireman's bibs, the garment that goes underneath the fire

retardant garment that goes underneath with nobody in it. With no evidence nothing this disintegrate right picking up fire helmets nobody right so we're bringing them from zero that's ground zero yeah but and then later at the landfill yeah but at the same time all of a sudden this jet goes down right and everybody's like huh what and now i never heard about these same people it's interesting dude check it out yeah i have it behind you a little bit but i gotta read through it it's thousands of words so now we're asking those same agents now a guy like me you know 20 of us maybe in the bureau with experience overseas in different capacities and different agencies and different organizations, you learn to just do the job.

Now, it hits you later. Hit me after my mother and John died, right? We'll talk about that. But ultimately, I'm sitting in a morgue and I'm responsible for first-class passengers' identification in that jet that went down here, right? And at the time, it's just, matter of fact, got a document, got a print if we can, got to get DNA portions,

got to identify any clothing, any jewelry, any tattoos, any marks. But later, when you think about it how the how this person who is a father a grandfather a brother a friend a husband how do you turn that off it's impossible right i mean but you do but clearly it's not because and i get it you have a job to do yeah you're in charge you're in charge clearly it's not because, and I get it. You have a job to do. You're in charge. You're in charge. Like it's all terrible to put it this way, but it's all evidence.

It's all part of a case that that is what it is. And so your job is like, all right, how many, how many wedding rings did we recover? Okay. Well, we recovered that. You know what I mean? And book it, seal it, get back to it later when you got to build it. But to your point, there's the emotional side of it that you can come to grips with later and maybe have like a catatonic breakdown about it which i wouldn't blame anyone for having but how do you not have that when you're seeing it i'm always amazed and i don't know if amazed is the word but it blows my mind that guys like you have the

ability to kind of almost like great athletes in a totally different setting right where when they step between the lines that thing happens and they're a different person you know what i mean like is it very similar kind of the same i think it's similar and i think the other the only other part that kind of adds to it is that what we talked about earlier right that that service piece that duty piece that's ingrained in you whether by your parents inherently it doesn't mean you have to go to the service academy to get it there's plenty of us out here to do it but it's doing what you're supposed to do when nobody's looking yeah right so if you were to think and really if you were to sit and think on it you're like what the fuck am i doing this for

right there's no case here like what does it matter does matter for a couple reasons because if you're the daughter or the son or the husband or the wife you want to know yeah so i'm helping you to close same shit i do now that's why i couldn't last in corporate america what am i doing what am i doing in corporate america what is it who gives a shit about certain things but when i can make your peace of mind, you know, better, then I'm happy. And I'm hoping you're happy too. You know, and that's my value. And when I finally thought about that in that fashion, what was the value in sifting through, bringing teams out, looking at stuff? The value was we're bringing in some form or fashion, we're bringing

peace of mind. And as I've gotten older and I've gotten, you know, the guidance from my wife, who's incredible with what she does and how she does it, you know, she has shown how important closure is, how important ceremony is in order to kind of grieve properly and to move forward in your life so that you can live a life like like chris morgan senior said for now we remember his yeah but we live ours right yeah that's the scene kind of it's hard to do it's hard to do so i think that was that's what kind i don't know if i was thinking that way at the time i'm going to be honest with you i don't know if i was thinking that way but now in order to heal that PTS, right, in order to kind of heal from several areas of my life, I've looked at it that way. I've kind of looked at it as I added value.

I made a breath, their last breath, or if there was a person that I was with when they had surgery to remove a limb. Sad, yeah, but who am I to fucking be like, oh, it affected me. Now, I'm not taking anything away from veterans because you know how much I do for veterans and how much I'm in the middle of that. But I'm saying that's my impact. That's my value. And so money, that's why I have so much trouble saying, oh, that's going to cost you $15,000. But what I do know is –

You never had to do that. No, but what I do know is I guarantee you now, the only way you know as a civilian what value is is cash. It's the only way you know it. You don't know it my way. Now, I'm hoping to educate you as a civilian what value is is cash it's the only way you know it you don't know it my way now i'm hoping to educate you as a client and say look there's some other things man like you're better at that you're better at that yeah i'm better at it like i would always have to i would call you with the craziest shit like yo jim i got something in cyber right now and you'd be like you know what we'll get to the bottom of this and then sometimes it'd be like well i gotta give that to my guy it's gonna take five days so he'll have to bill like 10 grand and then i'd be like

okay well that prices me out but i'm imagining all the people calling you up yeah who like it doesn't price them out and stuff and you're still just like all right let's just get them taken care of yeah and you're not thinking like all right well what's my value here how to like what do i charge because i mean no one else is doing it's a hard thought right right yeah it's a hard thought and it's it's not a normal thought for me. It's never been. But now it's kind of like I'm seeing that I'm adding that value through a monetary transaction. So I'm more excited about it, right?

And it's taken a while to build, but now I kind of get it. So I'm going, yeah, this is good. This is going to work. yeah this is good you know this is gonna work um you know i i just think it's an important it's important for all of us to think about those that we meet on the street who look like they're suffering and who you know and we all see them you know day to day week to week month to month to just to just reach out you know if you can you know and i know it's it's a hard time right this country's going through some awful shit yeah um but at the same time it doesn't mean that you can't add your value whatever that value is and you know what it is and mine is the ability to kind of ease ease some pain whether it be physically whether it be mentally whether it be um you know things that are keeping you up at night right

things that are just like hold the one thing we all have it and and i think back on my time in the bureau and i and you're talking by the way i just want to make sure we're clear here yeah because the context of this was talking about you know dealing with people who just you're a part of a case but they experience loss and everything but you're talking well beyond that you're talking about where when you do some jobs like ray donovan or something like that where it's like leverage it's these are people coming to you who run major, major corporations or have international issues. And there is that thing that keeps them up at night that has them in cold sweats. And so it's a part of like, you use the same mentality

of easing mind in the grieving process where you had to do that to easing mind and how you do the job saying, hey, that thing, I got it. Absolutely. And you and I have talked in detail. I mean, listen, I shared with you a lot of detail about things I've done, right? And you see that link, right? That little piece that kind of helps ease your mind, you know, puts it to bed for a minute. And same thing we do with our families, same thing we do with our kids. You'll see at some point in life, you know, you do anything to ease, you know, their kind of burden while letting them grow, right? So it's

the same kind of deal. So in a way, if you think about developing and nurturing sources and informants and assets, kind of the same thing, right? So when you're, unless you're a fucking sociopath, psychopath, which we have, don't get me wrong. I've dealt with a few of those too. But unless you're that way, you're always in the back of your mind thinking, fuck, what if I get caught with that one thing? And then the day comes. And I always tell them this is the worst day because tomorrow we could start over. You could start rebuilding and I'm going to help you. Now, who in God's name wouldn't take that and say, hey, there's an FBI guy who's going to help me out.

He's going to guide me through the process. And in the meantime, I know – I don't attach myself to the outcome, but I know what the fucking outcome is. But the thing is, it's not like – there are people out there who I guess are like and this isn't working on some of the stuff you're working on but they'll be like a private investigator yeah lower lower level things and you deal with but it's like it's on them you know they have some sources at the the police stations and things like that they have some guys like in some places but like with you it's it's like hey jim we got an issue in saudi and you're like all right i got so and so on the line and so and so is you know a step below the president or your your buddy from west point or somebody you did a case with in in

2002 who now is in charge of crazy nsa shit that they'll never tell us about so it's like the access that you have and the relationships you have there and also understanding who's competent and who's not yep i've never met someone like you i don't rule out meeting someone like you somewhere down the line but you got to know a lot of fucking people to get to a guy like you because there are not many in this country well i mean listen and there's still thing i appreciate that and there's still things that kind of oh you know i get yeah shit am i gonna be able to do that but just happened before we came on. I had a phone call from somebody who, you know, fellow West Pointer, and we were looking at something real, real dicey,

real dicey all over the place in the news, right? And the break came. You know, and it's just because. What do you mean the break came? You know, the info that we thought we were going to struggle to get we got and we got it in a way that is unexpected but yet powerful yet impactful so it allows several people today or tomorrow whenever i wind up talking they don't even know it yet but um whenever i wind up talking to them to say oh wow guy means what he says says what he he means. Yeah. You know, and follow through, follow through on things, you know, to get it done.

So I think that goes back to kind of the way my dad was teaching us always to kind of look at every single person you meet as somebody of value, somebody that you should treat the way you would want to be treated because no matter who they are doesn't matter the way he always explained it is like a bank account and i remember i would walk with him to the local bank and when they had bass books you put in your five bucks or you put in your christmas money or my grandma used to give me like a dollar a week when she'd see me whatever i go walk over put it in he'd say see this this is important you know he was teaching a lesson but i didn't get it until years later and i asked him i said was that what you were teaching and he would say like hey look you're putting money in here someday you might not need it tomorrow or today or next week

but someday you're going to need it and if you don't have anything in here there's not going to be anything to take out what was that old quote you had? Familiarity and politeness. Politeness breeds access. Yeah. Yeah. That's so spot on because what you're talking about right now is, and you've talked about it this entire time, it's been a consistent theme.

Like even talking with some of the sitting across, as Leo would say, sitting across from some of the craziest, hardest motherfucking criminals. You're sitting next to these guys and you're not thinking about it like that. You're not thinking about like, oh, this is the sociopath who did this. This is the mobster who did that. You're kind of like, all right, what can I get from this guy? How can I get this guy to trust me? And I'll reciprocate. It's not like you're just doing – and this is interesting because it's an interesting psychology to it.

But when you're trying to get that is interesting because it's an interesting psychology to it but when you're trying to get that from the mobster example you used yeah you're talking about giving him like oh we're going to go lighter on you we're going to make a deal because you're going to help us out so it's not like you're saying oh how can i this guy no right yeah i mean obviously you want to get more out of it it's then, because the investigation, the journey is much more powerful than the destination. You know, so it's kind of like, you know, and the other thing, like, there's

general public when they watch a TV show, especially a law enforcement based show, and they see, like, oh, look at that, the FBI's making deals or whatever. You know, you gotta remember, you gotta go through the U.S. Attorney's Office, they have to make the deal, which, you know, our director fucking forgot. But anyway, you know got to go through the U.S. Attorney's Office. They have to make the deal, which our director fucking forgot. But anyway, so—

Call me? Yeah. So my thought— Talk about him. Yeah, my thought is always this, right? My thought is kind of like along the way, I kind of ease my extreme—my mother would never let me say hate—extreme dislike for the person i'm actually taking a look at as and it's funny it's counterintuitive because as the evidence becomes stronger i become less pissed off at you i don't hate you as much as i thought i did then when you

finally meet the person you've kind of let that all go so now it's like now who could this dude get me to who could this guy get me to because Because I've already kind of washed it in my mind. I think we started with this somewhere earlier in the conversation, and then you said some deep shit, and we went with it. But is there a game to it? One million percent. Okay. Minimization.

Let's talk about this. Minimization. Let's talk about this. That's the game. And I think the exact line i used because i think about it a lot is cop needs criminal criminal needs the cop world goes round yep i look at these things without as much emotion or leaving as much emotion to the side as i can and what i mean by that is i look at the world and there's seven and a half billion people in it or whatever and it's like

yeah do i want all of them to be great do i want everyone to sing kumbaya and have a great life absolutely i understand there's evil in the world though and guess what you know it's not 10 people it's it's more than that unfortunately this is just the law of large numbers and the law of averages and so i realized okay well evil's gonna evil's gonna do some evil and there's gonna be some bad shit and then it's got to get handled but when you see the the the law you know whether it be the police or the fbi or the cia and they're going after people who are bad it is a job to do but there's and we also touched on this but there is a job of like okay well you have to get the result so how much of it when you're going into this do you think you can sometimes be

blinded to, oh, this guy must have just done everything wrong, even if you think you're building a case against him and not consider like, wait a second, is it this guy or is it somebody else? Like, do you get lost in that because you're trying, you're like, yo, we got to get a result here or we're not getting the next promotion. We get fired. You know, that's a great, that's a great question. And I think it's something you ponder. I won't say day to day, but you ponder it in your career over the course of a cycle, right? You think about what's really important. And then you have these great leaders that show up in the FBI, like the guy who's managing New York right now, Bill Sweeney, right? You've got guys like that who look at the impact more importantly than the

stat, right? Because I can write, listen, I can take a case, an ambulance fraud case, let's say, where they're using, you know, they're billing for services not rendered. And I can stat the living shit out of that for you know 50 bucks a pop yeah what fucking impact have i made yeah nothing but i can also take a look at that mobster that terrorist that white collar wall streeter who now i have convinced because i've let go of my anger during the journey i can now convince amen you and me we're teamed up and by the way

and here's the key the minimization part that we talked about yeah and the best example i'll give you in a minute but by the way man if i had all that fucking money at my ass i'd fucking take it too i'm gonna be honest with you i need it do you mean that no yeah but like my buddy said one time yeah and you know you could have been a great actor. You know my buddy, right? You know my buddy. We won't say his name. Friend with the what?

Our friend with the toupee? No. The one with the jelly rolls? No, he's up. I don't even want to. But I called him on my way back from arguably my most surprising and impactful search warrant execution on a public corruption case in my career. We knew the guy, elected official. We knew the guy was taking cash bribes. And it's publicized. It's publicized, right told me about publicized right publicized out in the paper I mean took the biggest cash bribe in the history of New Jersey

and probably are you allowed to say his name I assume I mean I won't because he's suffering right now so okay but ultimately so I we think that he took, in our investigation, we found about $465,000 that we believe he took over the course of 18 months in a small town in Monmouth County in order to provide zoning slash planning board approvals, right? So that's what we believe the amount was. Yeah. So we walk into this guy's house and we start executing the search warrant. And he looks at us and he says, right out of the box,

first thing he says, tell him, hey, not under arrest, but you can leave if you want to, but today your house is ours. And we said to him, if you want to just sit down and behave, you can stay, but if you start acting up, we're going to boot you out of here. We're not going to arrest you

because we have nothing to arrest you on right now. So he looks at me, and the first and only thing he says, you know, the search warrant doesn't include my garage. So I said, fantastic. I said, so the money's in the garage and he looks at me and says you can't so i said hold on why why would he ever say that because his lawyer told them hey it's a detached garage so if they come in and they only have a search warrant for the residence you can't go in there it's for the whole property so i i immediately get his lawyer on the line, you know, dial him up. I dial up the

attorney, let them talk for a minute, come back. And I say, Hey, bad news. We're going in the fucking garage. Now, do you want to make it easy? And do you want to allow me, you know, the, I guess, the courtesy to not destroy any of your locked cabinets, you know, which we'll put back to where they're as best we can. Or do you want to just tell me where the money is? He says, I want to tell you. I said, okay. I said, let me just ask you this. What do you think, just amount, because I've got guys that have to count it here. What do you think you have in the cabinet? And so he says, well, my wife, by the way, a younger wife who was a stripper, who was another gift from the people that were bribing him. Yeah, nice.

Well, my wife spends it as fast as I get it. All right. How much do you think? Can't have more than $300,000 in there. Okay. So we open the cabinets and we're all like, holy shit. Just picture like a garage, your typical garage, three-tiered cabinet, locked doors, each tier holding, being able to hold cases of soda. Think about that, right? Packed. Packed with cash hundreds 50s hundreds very few 20s no tens or five no singles which

is ironic she was a dancer but anyway so not anymore we we take and we count and we have our guys there and they go through the whole process they got the bank machines and we count and we have our guys there and they go through the whole process. They got the bank machines and they count everything out. And I said, what's the number? Three. Come here. Sir. Boss, come here.

1.6. 1.6 million dollars? And she spends as fast as he gets it. So I said, holy shit. Okay. So we get it all. know we do everything we're supposed to do every and now the point of the story was i call so it was really 1.7 you guys walked out well no i called my buddy and i said you're not going to believe this and i tell him

the story and he says just like this in his typical little mobster way jimmy you should have called me he would have had 300 000 in there oh my god so which i said dude never you know shut up but that's but that's you can never fully trust them but that that shock think about where i had been leading up to that case in my life and that shocked the shit out of me yeah holy shit and that's a peaceful know that's one guy that's like a white collar accountant you know this white milk toast idiot who got caught up in the world of go-go joints yeah and here we are so you know and his life has unraveled because he never came on board fully you know we had some meetings with him and we kind of sat with him, and he promised to tell, and never did.

So his life, and that's my point is you can get to the level with a guy by just being able to minimize, right? And he never took to that. So I'll give you examples of, like, great minimizations, like especially the guys who do it best. We had a serial bank robber who was getting more and more violent who we caught. And the guy was good. He was like Mission Impossible good, right?

And they're going at him pretty good. And it reminded me of the scene like Vic Mackey in The Shield, like the opening scene, if you remember that from The Shield. I never really got into that show. It kind of gives a really bad – you should watch it. It it kind of looks like you yeah so vick and i are similar right but not not really so the scene in that is guys are going at this this guy who molested a kid right and they're trying all these minimization tactics like hey she looked you know she looked pretty good you know if i'd be able to whatever and it's not working right because he knows because

he's a guy who's a i think he was a i think he was like a child psychologist or something right so oh great they come out and they say to mackie you know hey we're having trouble and he says let me give let me give it a shot and so he goes in the room and he just methodically starts pulling down you know blinds and closing things and he goes over to the camera and he kind of puts a rag over the camera and he turns around and the guy goes, oh, he goes, you must be bad cop. And Mackie just looks at him and he goes, you know, it's funny. He goes, good cop and bad cop, they went home for the evening. He said, I'm a different kind of cop. And then he proceeds to just whack him in the back of the head.

And he comes out two seconds later. He goes, he's ready to talk. Now, that's just bullshit. It never happens. That never happens. It never happens except overseas. But it never happens. Whoa.

Right? So it does happen. We're going to come back to that. It does happen. All right. Finish the story. We're going to come back to that. Long story short is you now have a situation where you've got this pretty stoic African-American bank robber, serial bank robber, getting progressively more violent along the way.

So I kind of watch what's going on and nothing against my boys. I love, you know, many, many local county state detectives who are great guys who make great cases. But I kind of always had this style that my dad kind of – I guess it's inherent from my dad because I never saw him. He was dead before I could talk to him about interrogation technique. But when I watched some old videos of his arson interrogations in the late 60s in Newark, same style. Yeah. Same style. There were a few fires in Newark back then.

Yeah, exactly. Just mirroring and minimizing and, you know, going, which is a powerful tool, mirroring, right? And by the way, side note here, because the FBI and these agencies, there's so many people in them and they're all siloed off and everything. So sometimes like there's some really famous guys I'll bring up and you know them. Do you know that guy, Chris Voss? Yeah, of course. I mean, I don't know you were you were basically he trained he was the

hostage side he's a hostage guy you were doing the interrogation side for like terrorists and correct and we we just missed each other you know during our powerful times but good guy great book uh i think it's getting to but no what is it never give a never give never split the difference never split the difference right so great book and great guy and does a great job. So ultimately this guy, you know, they're going at him like crazy and he's just. Nothing. This is what he's doing. Yeah. So they came out and they said, well, we're frustrated, whatever. And I said, I'll go sit with him for a little bit, you know,. And not blowing my own horn, but I kind of just knew that if I could build a relationship or any kind of rapport through mirroring,

which is a really powerful piece. So whatever you're doing right now, I'm doing. If you do this, and it's amazing what happens. It's verbal and physical. Yeah, people start to respond. Perfect example, I'm in Atlantic City. You know the Borgata where you kind of pull in for valet, and there's that one piece coming in and you're coming up so no the

boy is driving so Sheila's driving and nobody's letting her in right and so a guy has to stop up here cuz they stopped in the valley stops and he's got his arm out the window right so we could see him face got his arm up one I said chill roll the window down and put your arm out. I said, why? Just do it. Oh, no. Arm out. Fuck I am. Let's go. He waves you forward.

Let's go. Yeah. Right? It's very powerful. So mirroring 101. It's very powerful. So I say, let me just go in and sit with him for 10 minutes. You know, I sit with him.

So I walk in there, and this guy's good for, he's got 18 jobs. He did. We know it's him, but we have nothing. When I say nothing, nothing. Nothing. Not even similarity on the jobs. He did. We know it's him, but we have nothing. When I say nothing, nothing. Nothing. Not even similarity on the jobs. Do you think he knew that? I don't think he knew.

I just think he figured, hey, I've been there, done that before. He's a career criminal, but getting better. Getting better. Right? So let me just go and sit. So we go in and sit. First, he only asked me one question. Are you a lawyer?

I said no. Does it? Didn't offer anything more. So he sits back like you are i just you go start doing that and so you do that yeah so then he goes i go 15 minutes silence silence finally he goes what do you want what do you want so he came i go nothing i'm just pull that mic in a little bit yeah nothing just sitting with you i'm just here to sit with you i really you know look at him is this it this is a full this is a fully dark room well it's like

it's like this i mean it's a little light. It's got the handcuffed bar, so he's cuffed to the bar over here, the side. Fifteen more minutes. Everything he does. Just about to bank robberies. I'm just sitting here, bro. This is the shit duty I get for fucking being here. Can I help you out?

What? No, I don't want any help. Okay, 15 more minutes. Going through the same thing. Finally, he goes, what the fuck do you want? I say, I want you to fucking write down the bank robberbers because i want to go home i'll give you three done done that so an hour so i walk out and there's a couple of my buddy my buddies from um a monmouth county police department and they're just like you are fucking insane what did you do i go you saw me you watched it just did him i just did i i totally mirrored and minimized and after the three i just said damn

these guys these guys thought you were like a serial bank robber you only did three what the yeah i wouldn't invest anybody for three you know that's you're nobody you're the same as the guy we had last week tied the fake grenade around his neck you know and he goes like he couldn't but he could no i did i did everything now minimization i think i i can't remember i i want to say it was number 42 with miles matthews yeah i mentioned i didn't say your name but i said you were going to be coming on at some point because we were talking about i watched a piece of that interrogate okay so maybe maybe you saw this part maybe it didn't but i think it was like an hour 40 into the convo something like that but we talked about interrogation techniques and how they can be again for the same theme like for that result and get people to say things that

they didn't do and so again you are going in there you and in this it sounds like an example like this you knew this fucking guy did this this wasn't and that's the bureau let me tell you the fbi when we come knocking at your door you're fucked all right and that's the trust me it's what we go through in order to get what people think i could just listen to your phone bullshit okay but let's bullshit but so yeah it's like anything else in life because i agree with you and once it gets to the fbi it's like all right there's some kind of big case here right yeah but there's still the one percent there's still the case where it's like, well, no, we're actually, we know something happened, but like, oh, it turns out it wasn't this guy or something.

And so, and I know it's probably rare. It still happens though. And I think about this because we have seen, you know, in the criminal justice system, which a lot of people talk about these days with some of the things that are wrong with it. Obviously, look, I look at this thing pretty high level. I've talked with a bunch of people about this. I can say on one hand that we probably have the best criminal justice system in the world, and then also say it needs some massive improvements and things. Agreed. And fuck if I know how to do that. Agreed. 100%. So one of the things that I think needs massive improvement is that I've seen far too many cases where great interrogators who their job is to get a result. I get that. But that's that gamification thing I talk about where they go into the room being like this motherfucker. I need to walk out

of there and basically have the crumpled up piece of paper and and Mike drop it on the desk and say case closed. And so some people we've seen famous cases with this they admit to things they never did and then maybe they go on death row about it and shit so i think about this because you just gave one of the best examples you could have ever given in a story because that was one of the purest psychological mind fucks you could have ever done you just physically and people who were listening and not watching that go watch that portion go look at the time stamps you're at and go watch what jim just did jim was just physically and people who were listening and not watching that go watch that portion go look at the time stamps you're at and go watch what jim just did jim was just physically monitoring and then repeating and in your words mirroring which is what it is every single thing

this guy did and maybe it took a half hour maybe it took 60 minutes 90 minutes whatever it was eventually this dark closed room where he's just sitting there with the guy something unlocks in his brain to want to be honest about things. And so the same kinds of things can unlock in somebody's brain to want to just say something in that scenario to be able to help out the person across from them who clearly is on the same wavelength. I get it. So do you ever think about, like, hey, sometimes when we go in there, you know, we're going for that result in the interrogation itself, and maybe someone will say shit that they didn't do. Yeah, and I think you make a great point, and that happens. Listen, it happens. It doesn't happen in my world, and I'll tell you why,

because when I go in, I know what I need to hear from you, and I know the buttons that you're going to either try to push or I'm going to try to push, right? It's a game, but it's also a game that comes with highly corroborated independent information, which I have access to. So before I ask you a question, I better know exactly what happened and I better have six, seven, 10, 15 forms of that proof right now. Think about some of the things that have happened to the FBI in the last, since I left, no, you know. Yeah. No coincidence. Yeah. No.

But if you think about not being prepared, not understanding everything about the case better than they understand it. I got to understand what you did better than you do. It's the same way a defense attorney works. A great defense attorney becomes an expert on every piece of his client's life yes because he needs to talk about that and i can tell you one guy and i'll mention his name he's getting a little older now but he's the best in the world as far as i if something happens to me this is what i'm showing i'm on this guy's door michael critchley

michael critchley in west orange okay critchley every i i've gone against him three or four times Okay. of each fact that I knew was in place. After his opening statements, which were usually an hour, most guys go three or four hours at a time, I would look at the people, the federal prosecutors that I worked with and say, fuck, maybe the guy didn't do it. That's powerful shit. He was that good. He was that good, right? So if you think about taking that back to how you work a case and how you prepare a lot of that what you talked about and i i don't mean this against

anyone in particular or any type of detective whatever is laziness so i'm gonna try to make you say what i don't already know that's that's not what it's supposed to be it's not what it's supposed to be i come in to talk to you or interrogate you about things now i may find out a few things that i might not have known but i guarantee i thought about before i came in that room you're confident about i guarantee i thought about it right now but by the way if you say something that's not true i'm gonna fucking know it no you didn't do that to be clear you're also a ridiculous example to talk to about this and that's why it's hard like i wanted to bring it up as i said on the previous podcast but it's kind of

hard to do it with you because you were one of the three to five leading interrogators at the entire bureau like you were one of the best in the world i felt i was pretty good at it and i felt my my strength was in my preparation my strength so if you did say something that you didn't do i also have to know that you didn't do that because if i'm not prepared and i'm maybe not doing my job as best i can i might accept that which now we're going down a whole different path if you give up something that i don't know that you didn't do, and you're saying you did it just to maybe either get the fuck out of the room because you're sick of dealing with me, take a hit for someone else, whatever the MO, whatever the motivation is

behind that, I have to know so that I can be able to put it right back at you. Listen, Julian, I appreciate i appreciate it man but you did you and i both know you didn't do that and here's why because at that particular time you were remember you told me you were here and you did that and i kind of know like this yeah and here's the video here's the video of you at that time there's one is this exactly yeah just no and and the other the other big thing that i i kind of on before, right? My dad, as an interrogator, never raised his voice, even as a dad, right? And what he would do is when you got to a point where you would start to deny something he knew you did, he'd go, hey, don't say no.

Let's get away from no, right? Because we both know that's not true, right? So don't say no. Let's get away from no, right? Because we both know that's not true, right? So don't say no. Well, I never knew that. I watch Ocean County Prosecutor Joe Coronado comes on the job a few years back, calls me up and says, I don't know if you remember me. I said, Joe, I remember you used to come to our house in Belmar,

sit on the porch, play cards with my dad. He he goes your dad basically developed me as a young prosecutor you know and he says i have some old tapes of your dad's interrogations would you like them i like them yeah quickly right i watched those crying because i'm like that's me yeah that's what i do because it wasn't any different at all, as you're pointing out. Yeah. Like, you know. Jimmy, don't say no. You did that, right? Exactly.

But I took that to that level, right? I took that to a professional capacity. So I think that's the difference is we have to get better. They have to get better because I'm no longer there, right? But they have to get better at preparing and not just cowboying and not just, hey, I hope this works out. I'm going to throw this at them and see what happens. There's very rare instances where that should be utilized or that works. And I have once in my career, and we were at wit's end. We knew knew he did it but this guy was good and we basically said we went outside we talked to the prosecutor and we said prosecutor who's now federal judge great

dude and we said we're gonna try this and he said do it see what happens so i walked in the room walked behind the guy and just said you took 300 $300,000. He turned and said, no, I didn't. I took $400,000. What? And the lawyer says, that's it. Why did he say that? We don't know. You said one thing.

This is after six and seven hours of him saying, nah, I never even knew that guy. You took fucking, and there's name to it. You took $300,000 from the family. No, I didn't. I took $400,000. You can't use that in the prosecutors we absolutely can bro of course you can he lied to me the whole time it's proffer right so you're you're king for a day and it's and it's lying to an fbi agent correct but but you know you say in the proffer agreement you sign anything that's being used unless you lie to me we can't use so if you tell us everything we can't use any of it unless we

prove it differently or we prove that you lied fucking lied the whole time so we had it we used it we convicted him on it went to jail 72 years old went to jail for eight years came out he's still living but um but ultimately i think that's what law enforcement can work and do better and we've all seen opportunities right recently in the news what law enforcement can work and do better. And we've all seen opportunities, right, recently in the news, what law enforcement can do better. Just common sense, not cowboying. Somebody asked me a while ago, Jim, if you were a uniformed police officer,

and you know many of them and you respect many of them, and the scenario had occurred, what happened with Georgeorge floyd regardless of the fact that he was stoned he was whatever he was this that right how would you have handled it differently and it's very simple for me i would have simply said mr floyd you got a minute can you just can you just step in the car for a minute you know which he would have complied to just just take a seat in the back seat i want to work some things out done over quick question just from like a yeah from a and i know that's controversial across because no no my enforcement guys are gonna be like what the fuck you don't know i do you don't know i do know i ran

the civil rights unit for the fbi for a year and a half i do know yeah and it's simple right here's my here's you don't ever want it getting anywhere near that point. No. Here's my greater kind of disappointment and absolute horror. Horror. Why did not one other Minneapolis police officer turn and say, Derek, what the fuck are you doing? We don't do that here. We don't do that. Always the way we were trained in combat situations there's another day and these shitums will show up i'm not saying he was a shitum i'm saying these shitums will show up at a different time at a different place and this is this is in

the army it's not law enforcement who's a shitum you, guys that are basically bad guys out in combat situations, right? You're in Iraq. You're in Afghanistan. You're in South America. You're in Africa, right? So they'll show up at another time because they're career shit-ems, right? And you'll have another chance to address this. Why go deeper now when you don't have to?

And it's the same thing. Something should be such common sense, though, Jim. It should be. I mean, how do you not get off his fucking neck how do you not do that you know and i my heart was palpitating and i honestly like i've always paid attention in public cases and like i care but i'm not you know it's not life and death to me and it's not like this one was life and death to me but i'm just thinking to myself like before that vertical was coming in i'm like please tell me they're not going to this up please don't because there

are just some things in life that are absolutely common sense and i love that you bring up that none of the other cops said something because one honestly i have just as much of a problem with them as i do with him because the the guy at that point was on you know he was he was on the ground cuffed and and you sit on his neck with exhaust blowing out of your exhaust pipe with it into his face i don't even think anyone said that but that yeah exactly like that's just another layer another piece nine and a half minutes i can imagine and it's not like you're a cop you're you did frankly a lot more than that but as someone who worked in any form of law enforcement you got to be looking at that going are you fucking kidding me i mean it's just listen and i can't tell you julian how many times sitting in that desk in the civil rights unit in washington dc a day

not not a month not a year a day stuff like that comes in on police officers right and and my whole sense of this is it's all about starting them out at the academy with a training yes kind of you know scenario slash curriculum and you know three of my classmates we we actually got together bobby lockett billy noble uh myself and a guy named john poncy great friends great buddies great buddies. Johnny Ponce. Johnny Ponce and then Noble and Lockett, African-American guys, some of my best friends. My mother used to feed them during Beast Barracks with Pompeo and Antonetti and all those guys. We just sit and eat. We should make Italian food. Bobby Lockett swears it's where he fell in love with any form of Parmesan. So it's great. But we have talked about kind of moving a curriculum into the police academies. They need it.

Because here's what happens, right? If you think about it. Now, no fault of these young guys to be trained the way they're being trained, but what's important to a good young cop? The hands. That's what makes you stand out. You box. You wrestle. Do you know how many hours a year they're required right now to train?

Absolutely. In a lot of places? Yeah. Like an hour. I know. A year. But they never get that kind of training where I put you through a scenario. Yeah.

You know, it's exactly what I do. It's that crisis mitigation. Like, think about what Chauvin did for the law enforcement community, right? He gave us an opportunity to heal by doing what he did. Well, they're not passing that test. But what I'm saying is, right, you got to go back. I agree. But you got to go back to kind of what, you know, I have a belief that I've kind of fostered over time and nurtured with Sheila, which is called radical forgiveness. You and I have talked about this before. So radical forgiveness is the same shit's going to keep happening in your life with that that reflects and pushes and triggers your core negative belief

yeah right and things will happen in the world that will allow opportunities to heal that's an opportunity so when when people come out and say they don't understand why jordan why are we failing because jim it's been we are it's been a year this is my i know because so and and that's why like and i get it i get the anger on the sides i get it when people and and i well there's some shit that goes over the top let's be honest it's bullshit you know oh my god and i can't stand that opportunistic view of let's get what we can fuck that absolutely there's always bullshit agreed i understand that like i i just had ashton larold in here a couple weeks ago and he's got very strong opinions on

that i'm sure because it's like you know for him he's just i he he gave an exact line that i hope people listen to because i don't want to take it out of context like he said it and explained it he was like when i say this unfortunately when i say fuck cops, I mean every fucking cop. And then he explained, and he goes, now I know, I know that they're not all bad. But he's like, there's this old phrase that's been messed up in America because it's not what it originally was, where they say, like, all cops are bastards. And he's like, that's not what it was. It emanated from outside of America, and it was, I think the the exact line was the police something something has become like the police force has become bastardized and he said that's my point you have he i love this

one too he's like people talk about like the bad apples and he goes the thing about apples is they can't talk to each other and they can't tell on the other apples right and he goes so when i say fuck all cops it's because the ones i see that are bad are not getting reported and so the guys who aren't reporting them are just as bad and he's like until they sit worse until they sit here and actually acknowledge it and you had a chance for three guys on camera who had a chance on camera with someone rolling camera to acknowledge that and they didn't when i understand when people see that and then the anger comes out like fuck all cops and look i sit at it from the angle of like i feel bad for a lot of cops because I know there are a lot of good ones out there. Many, many.

But there are more bad ones than we think. And we're not like everything you've mentioned even just early on here. I agree with. Like it's simple shit. Number one, the training. Number two, more psychological evaluation to figure out who the hell you're letting in there very true because i i got a strong feeling based on what we know about derrick chauvin's past now and like some of the little patterns he had he probably wasn't exactly right just like a school shooter yes yes so not just like that was terrible but you same

kind of evaluation right no i understand what you're saying you're saying it's a psychological thing to be able to say do you check this box profile that yes let's make sure in a good way and and so i i'm happy to hear you say that that's what we got to do because i agree i just want to see people do it and that's why like i'll never get by and i understand the anger with it but like that's why the defund the police thing is so stupid because that that's gonna do the opposite now you're gonna have no training you know so you you have to you gotta unfortunately in society you gotta pay for it like you know so you you have to you got to unfortunately in society you got to pay for it like you get what you pay for absolutely so it you know it's it's it's it's a it's a hot button issue we've talked about on this podcast we talked about it with people on different ends of the

spectrum with it we'll continue to talk about it but i think you sit in a unique chair because that's not your seat you were a lot of rungs above that but you still understand like okay well this is what they face every day and this is what they should be doing and this is what they shouldn't and here's what the job actually calls for and so when you see it bad and like you said it and i'm almost surprised i shouldn't be surprised to hear you say that but when you were the head of the civil rights unit in the fbi and you're getting cases like that every day think about that think about all that and i think ashton said this too he's like think about all the ones we don't see. That's what pisses people off. 2%, you see.

Yeah. But then, like, take it, let's be fair to the other side, right? You look at this young officer in Columbus, Ohio. Oh, God, yeah, 100%. And the whole LeBron bullshit, you're next, right? That, when I tell you from my training and experience, not only in the world of the U.S. Army, but in the world of the u.s army but in the world of law enforcement when i tell you that is a absolute textbook job by that young officer yep a textbook now textbook now i will can you get people the context just so that you just so that they know it was makia

yeah i forget her name i forget her name but you know is... He whirls up on a scene that is already a mess. There's people being thrown on... It's quick. I think it's 13 seconds. It was fast. Right? So somebody's getting thrown on the ground. Somebody's yelling,

I'm going to stab that bitch, is what you kind of hear. And then she proceeds to pull a knife and said, I'm going to stab this bitch in the head. And he comes out, draws his weapon. And again, what you'll hear and the stupidity of the press, asking questions like, well, why couldn't you just wound or throw a couple of warning shots? We are not trained to do that.

They are not trained to do that. I cannot tell you how many times. How do you put out a warning shot with someone with a knife at someone's head? And you shouldn't because we're trained to shoot to kill so that we can protect that person who's an innocent victim. Now, I'll give you the other side of numbers, but from my own count, what I've seen and witnessed, I'd say 80% of the time when there's a police officer who's gunned down, all right, and did not have the ability to fire his own weapon, 80% of the time there is some type of training, some of breakdown between his training yep and the actual

incident here's what i mean yeah when we train with handguns now we train with rifles we train with a whole bunch of different we train hand to hand we train with weapons other weapons we train with personal weapons right but when we train with handguns in the military especially in the community that i kind of was part of and you were an army ranger well more on the civil rights side that's what i'm talking civil affairs side i'm sorry which is intel okay it's intel for the special operations command more on that side okay okay so when we train for that we train one very important piece with a handgun when you expire your last round what happens is right we all know there's a lockback. And you have to remove that magazine before you reload forward and get back in the fight.

What happens from what we used to just destroy you, at least in that side of my life, when you reached and got the magazine and put it in your pocket before you reloaded now why does that happen because you're lazy right i don't want to drop that thing have to bend down and pick it up later it's a pain in the ass to do it i'd rather just 80 of police shootings my opinion where the officer didn't fire his gun the magazine was pulled out

put on the ground before he reloaded and you know what it's all back to the training like you were talking about the hand-to-hand training you're going to go back to what you learned when we tried to put a little bit of pressure on you. And then when it happens, there's a couple times in my life when I felt like that. A couple of times out in another place at another time.

But I can remember thinking about what's it going to be like when I report to West Point all these stories. You watch movies about it. You read books. What is that going to be like when I show up and they start the first time somebody yells at me you know and it wasn't half as bad as what it was shown to be prior to me getting there why because i prepared myself it's the same thing what's it going to be like for that soldier the first time you hear a bullet whizzing by your head or that police officer when you walk into a room or the fbi agent when you're on a search warrant for a child porn person and you walk in and that person won't won't allow will not remove their hands from under the sheets and it's going

what do you do in some way and and you know what the thing i have to admit is that you can prepare the hell out of a lot of things right and you can be the best at it like you there are still some things that you can't prepare for. You can't prepare for. But if you train properly, it's the same kind of thing that I'm bringing to the typical client these days. Let's talk about it. You and I have talked about this. We've talked about professional athletes who don't ever think about what would happen if someone accused me of something I didn't do.

What would be the first thing I would do? What would happen if a police officer approached my car and was treating me the way they were not supposed to treat me? What would happen if I was accused of something in the press that I didn't do? What would be your first move? Now, the time to do it is not when it happens. The time to talk about it is before, just like we prepare. Hey, listen, guys. Here's the

thing, right? It's all well and good if somebody's attacking you and you need to kind of put them under control. You do what you have to do to get them under control. It's not good. It's not good once you've secured the person and you're able to talk to the person to continue on escalating that level that brings no good and that it's only harmful to not only you, the person, but nowadays, the country. Completely. And you got an idiot like LeBron James, you know, making statements about a cop who did a good job. He's up. That wasn't good. Listen, not enough bad things can happen to that fucking guy.

Honestly. Look, and I talk about him. Actually, we talked about this with Miles as well. up that wasn't listen not not enough bad things can happen to that fucking guy look i i and i i talk about him i actually we talked about this in miles as well i've i've a love hate relationship with lebron james because there are a lot of good things he does yes agreed there are a lot of good things paying for colleges and different i agree yeah it's just when something when he does something wrong like that he's got such a big platform that it's hard to not get pissed off and like look i will say this obviously he did no homework and he said that on on that scenario and you can't do that because then he docks the guy i mean that's that's a fucking problem yep but the really sad thing about it goes back 360 to the training point is that that was the

first time even in other videos i've watched and I'd have to think of some examples, where the cop wasn't at fault, right? Yeah. It wasn't one of those. Yeah, it was a good job. That was the first time, though, where I saw one where the cop clearly did the right thing, but also looked like he was trained. Absolutely. Like, that was clinical. Absolutely.

Whereas when you saw the Jacob Blake one. Right. That was a donut patrolman. Absolutely. That guy had never held a gun. I mean, I'm sure he'd held a gun in his life. He was like, so,'m sure he held a gun in his life he was like no fucking clue what he was doing absolutely so it got to a situation it should have never gotten to but this one it's like you look at it and at least you have one finally where it's like okay i mean that sucks that that had to happen the girl was

16 or whatever but you can't swing look you can't swing a knife at someone's head you can't do it unfortunately like that's just a law of life that's it you can't do a knife at someone's head. You can't do it. Unfortunately, that's just a law of life. That's it. You can't do it. You cannot do it. And I couldn't agree with you more. It's a pure training issue. And it's a paradigm shift.

Making young law enforcement officers understand that they're better off here than they are here. You know, I think about I never, never had to do anything in my law enforcement career in the United States of America

that didn't come from preparedness and the ability to communicate. That's it. The FBI, when young people ask me, what do I need to be? An accountant, a lawyer, a military guy to be an FBI agent? No. You know what you need to be able to do? Talk to people. Practice that. Practice talking to people. Because the whole job, I used to kick my agents out of the office if they were sitting behind the computer. Get out.

Knock on the door. Get out and knock on the door. Go talk to them. Hey, you know, I was thinking, hey, anything, you know, I'm Jim DiIorio. I'm working this area. You know, I was thinking about things, and I understand you had a little incident. It's amazing what happens. It's amazing. You know, I was thinking about things, and I understand you had a little incident. It's amazing what happens. It's amazing. You know, I didn't have to do that.

I do have some information, right? That's it. And see, this goes back to the same old quote about the access and familiarity, or politeness and familiarity breeds access. And you're talking about using the head and going there. And I wish they would teach this more at every level. Yeah. It needs to be. Yeah.

That's how you form assets and things like that, like you've been talking about. But you've made this point a couple times, and I said we'd get back to it, where you keep on saying accept overseas. And this is interesting to me because obviously the stakes on the things you're referring to are on a whole nother level because you're also talking specifically about like dealing with like al-qaeda and and some of the serious shit but what do you mean this is what i want to know first what do you mean when you say that because technically we're supposed to still apply the laws of like rights over there and i think it's just comes down to my knowledge and my relationships with individuals who are serving on presidential orders.

Right? So, you know, what that means is that they report to one person and one person only. Right? So if you think about that, think about that for a minute. You're reporting to the most, you know, what's supposed to be the leader in a free world, right? Yep. So, you know, that's just my thought from conversations

and from relationships and from understanding of things we've had to do under presidential orders, things they've had to do under presidential orders, things they've had to do under presidential orders that have kind of produced that same nurturing of assets. But you're beating the shit out of people, though. No, I mean, no, no, no, not at all. I mean, I think it's still here. Look, I, and look, I have a nuanced view on that. I believe in slippery slopes, and I think it's still here. Look, I have a nuanced view on that.

I believe in slippery slopes, and I think there's issues, right? So, like, the worst things you see are some of the things that came out with when they were doing all the shit. I forget, like the Gitmo or whatever. Yeah, the Gitmo. Yeah. Whatever the prison was. Like, that shit's wrong. The prison, too.

Yeah, and the people who got in trouble with that. Have a grave. Yeah, exactly. Should have, and I'll put that link in the show notes. I don't disagree with that yeah because i don't think that's again that goes back to an understanding of so so you got to separate you got to separate the outcome from the nurturing of continuous information right so results are an outcome you got outcome. You can't attach yourself to that. And that's

what law enforcement, I hate to, not all law enforcement, but many law enforcement officers slash bosses, management, they attach themselves to results because results basically means promotion and promotion in their world means money. Sometimes it means the ability to keep a department alive, right, because you're reporting to an administration. And you don't think on your end there was as much of an attachment to results? In the Bureau? No. Not personally. You know why? Because I was a guy, if you were to ask, if you were to ask right now, if you were to call anybody that was in my time in the Bureau that was with me or around me or knew me, they're going to tell you that.

I wasn't a guy that was what they call a blue flamer. I wasn't looking to rise to the top. I was looking to nurture relationships i was looking to have longevity in my source base i don't i don't know if you said this earlier yeah i just want to make clarify here to make sure but did that happen that was something you always had even pre-9-11 yes okay yes Okay. Yes. More important to me was always the relationships. Like, you even talk to West Point buddies. They're going to tell you it was more important for me. And this stems directly from my dad.

Directly from my dad. Yeah, yeah. Because I can remember when I was a plebe, I said to him, I'm struggling, man. When I was a plebe, it's a freshman at West Point. It's the hardest year, right? So you're getting abused in every way. So I said to him, I am struggling. You know, I'm getting killed. I don't want to be here. I hate this place, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And he said, do me a favor. Every day for 10 minutes,

just get up from whatever you're doing, your studies, your PT, you're shining your shoes, walking the area, delivering mail, delivering laundry, learning your knowledge, memorizing the front page of the New York Times. Get up for 10 minutes. Go help somebody in your class. It doesn't have to be a lot. Like, hey, man, you know, I noticed, like, I noticed your garbage is getting full, you know, because we had empty our own garbage and do all this stuff. Can I get it? And watch what happens.

He was right. Yeah. He was right. So I tried to carry that over, i think i did into the fbi right like instead of being a guy that just focused in on this sucks this guy's an idiot this guy's new boss is an asshole which happens all the time i used to say look give it two months because it'll change again it's the fbi right So I think that's kind of what I say. I wasn't attached as much to the results.

Like we got to drive forward. We got to make this case. We got to shove a square, you know, peg into a round hole and president. No. And this is what I pressed you on earlier. Yeah. And it's kind of coming full circle again.

Nurture the relationships. Nurture the relationships, not only within the Bureau, but your source base, your assets. And you'd be surprised at how many times that will come back to help not only you, but society. And I always often, when I was kind of lecturing, there was a time how when you see, for instance, you see, hey, there's a shooter that's escaped and we don't quite know where he is. And then all of a sudden, like a day later, he's caught. How do you think that happens?

And a lot of times the answer would be money. Just pay fucking people until they find them. Okay. You know, you're not totally wrong. But how it happens is because guys like me, guys like Lieutenant Scott Sammis from the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office, who I worked with for years, who's now retired, living someplace else. I won't say where he is but um because at some point you moved you did handle there were a few years there where you handled all the big cases in like new jersey yeah yeah so we always built our source base to the point we're not saying that that goes back to that deposits and withdrawals right yeah

so not saying that we needed them right at the time, but we took care of them. So when something like when a kidnapping happened, when Anna Cardelfi disappeared, she was right after 9-11, she was kidnapped on her lawn in Spring Lake, New Jersey. Right? How do we find her? Think about that.

It's like a needle in a haystack. Right? Well, how we find her is because we had spent so much time developing sources, developing, nurturing assets, treating them like family, literally. Now, a lot of times, I mean, I still get messages. I still get cards from old sources saying, I hope you're doing okay. I miss our time together. You always treated me so professionally. Thank you for everything. These are guys that spent time in jail and you also though right and and i mentioned this at some point but we haven't really gone into it because i also don't know what you're allowed to say there so don't go into details that obviously you can't

that are confidential and classified but those years undercover too where you're out on an island for a job right you and sometimes you're you're next to some stone cold killers on some of these things could be yeah you had you had to be able to do that for survival you had to know all these other i mean undercover training is simply you know putting you under a little bit of pressure so that you can rely on yourself for the first time and only time in your life right so and that's it's like everything else how do you rely on yourself how do you build a safety net around yourself in any circumstance well you gotta you gotta get along with people you gotta know what makes people tick right like the blessing and the curse to that

for me blessing is i can do that with about anybody the curse is when i hate you you fucking know i hate you period really i would think it'd be the opposite that's the blessing and the curse of it well because you because i know so much about you you had to pretend you liked people though correct didn't like correct but at this point what i'm saying now oh after it's over i often would say got it i can't wait till there comes a day when I meet somebody and shake their hand and don't know anything about them. Yeah, I think about that a lot. You know? And that, to me, is kind of peace.

That's my peace of mind. I say I offer others peace of mind in my business. That's my peace of mind. Yeah. To just meet somebody and say, wow. I haven't run a flow chart on you six six ways to sunday right and i really think i just want to hear what you have to say to judge not judged but to kind of build our relationship i want to know you for this i don't want to know

you because i looked and said oh jesus you know holy shit you know what i mean like i don't want any more holy shits in my life and i can choose that at 57 you know i i often say clients it's so nice to be able to say nope to me now i don't say it to them like hey i was thinking about it i think there's another guy that can handle this a little bit better yeah right you want to handle what you want to handle and it's nice to be able to do that have that that first right of refusal. I've never had that before. Because like all my bosses in the FBI, here's a case. And you start to say no. And they say, like I said before, not a party invitation.

You can't RSVP, no. Yep. Yep. Now, what about when you were a ranger, too? Because I'm curious about that. Because you guys, like where did you serve? Because you were overseas. Yeah, I was overseas.

I mean, so most of my time when we say that, it's I want to like separate it to civil affairs, right? So let me break that down a little bit. Civil affairs is the intel side of the Special Operations Command. So what do we do, right? What kind of, what attracted me prior to the do right what kind of what attracted me prior to the bureau what kind of attracted me to that it was just what we just talked about kind of running everything out about a region a country a person a group that's what i was going to ask about right right and then getting to the point where you were able to pass on information

that was impactful for the operational side now did, did we, did we serve in the operational side? Yes. You know, yes, not all the time, but occasionally, you know, we would be, especially in my army days. Right. And then later on, you definitely were in the middle of kind of showing, here's what we think, you know, here's a method guys of counter surveillance like like stuff that stuff that people don't think about or especially people look at it and say that doesn't happen sure that doesn't happen in you know gloucester county new jersey yeah i'm gonna bet because i pick it up from time to time still because my brain still works that way and be like this fucking dude you know like that'll

happen to me and i'm i'm rarely wrong because if the hair on the back of your neck well not much hair goes up on me but if the hair on the back of the neck goes up guess what it's that whole thing that you and i have talked about situational awareness the gift of fear right fear is a gift if you're walking down the street in new york city or in philadelphia and you're you see somebody and your hair on the back of and that goes up guess what that's a gift get away absolutely it does absolutely not as often but I think the last time it happened and you know this was my health my health issue had I not been yeah that's that's a personal one yeah you know what I mean but but it goes back to times it happened in situations if I didn't have that and pay attention to what had happened in another

world at another time i might not have recognized i was in trouble that's interesting you know what it all ties together it ties together yeah i was sitting like this you know and all of a sudden they talk about that feeling of doom i said to sheila we got we have to go to the hospital okay so separating that out though yeah because i mean that's as personal as it gets it's like yeah like am i gonna live but i would but but there were other times that i had similar type feelings pain that i didn't go because i knew the hair on the back of my neck hadn't gone up yeah isn't that weird it's no but there's times that it happens still to like there will be a time it's a weird thing in your head absolutely and one of the times personally I could talk about September 15

2001 four days after now so I spent a bunch of time um I was on, as you know, I was on site when that building came down. Right. So we were going over. Wait, wait. We were on a boat. Wait a second. Yeah. I did not know that.

Okay. So we're, so basically we have a meeting that morning, 6 a.m. meeting. September 11th. September 11th, 6 o'clock meeting to discuss with New Jersey State Police Maritime Unit and the Coast Guard on Governor's Island, what would we do? This is crazy. What would we do if something were to happen?

How would we build out a command post? So we show up at New York Maritime Bay State Police, good friends of mine. Sit down, we're having coffee, right? Talking about it. Now, we probably 6.30 turns into 7.30, turns into 7.58. Yeah. And one of the guys comes in and says, you know, it looks like one of the guys is weird. Or it was 8.48.

Or whatever. No, I think it was like, whatever time it hit. I can't remember. It's a blur. I think it was 8.48. It's a blur. It went down at like, the last one went down maybe at like 10, 10-something, right? 10.30, something like that.

So long story short, as he comes in, hey, there's something going on. One thing leads to another. Hey, this is after Tower 1, I think after the North Tower, right? North Tower was hit first. Went down second, but was hit first. So we, do you mind, he says, do you mind if we take it over to Governor's Island now? My dad works over there. I just want to see what's going on and see if I can get close.

No, wait a moment. We're in Hudson Bay as My dad works over there. I just want to see what's going on and see if I can get close. No, we don't want to. We're in Hudson Bay as... You're right there. It comes over our head. Number two comes over our head. So now it's on, right? So a couple of Secret Service guys, we pull out from under a car. Like a whole bunch of shit happens, right?

What was the Secret Service doing there? They have an office space in World Trade 7. So now I'm in the basement of the Burger King on Church Street. So wait, I misunderstood that. You said you were at Newark Bay? Well, it starts out in Newark. We go over through Hudson Bay, right, into, you know, right heading towards Governor's Island. Not Governor's Island.

So you're driving over there? No, on a boat. Oh, my God. You were on the boat on the second plane. Yes. Coast Guard has a Coast Guard. Because then those boats got people out of the city. Yes.

You were on one of those boats coming in. Not only those boats, but like Staten Island Ferry, C Street, street all that stuff we were on a state police boat holy going over so it turned into a whatever turned into what it turned into but um i had i had a lot of that well i had the hair going up on the back of my neck for the i i said to somebody we're at war and those buildings are coming down what what it came down i don't know. What was September 15th? All right, so 15, take it forward, right? So if you remember, there was a lot going on, right? There was the information with regards to people filming.

There was information. There was a white van that was filming. It was being searched on Route 46 up in, like, Morris County. They were staying in Patterson. All stuff going on. The hotel. We're searching the hotel. Whatever. So we get a lead my specialized team gets a lead that there is a group in an ocean county area that

could be a cell yeah of some sort i'm trying not to say too much because I don't ever want to be questioned. So if you're listening, the committee that's going to evaluate me in a couple years, I know nothing about this. But anyway, that probably was the wrong thing to say. But ultimately, we go to the door of this place. It's a small apartment on a back street you know in an ocean county town popular town and we knock on the door soon as we knock on the door here movement there on the back man it goes and it was right. Who were they? Oh.

So, that is an example of how I still feel that, and I credit that sense. And I also have it when I see shit like people kneeling on people's necks when they don't have to. I'm like, what are you doing? You know? Or I've sensed it out, you know, of helping with that that whole gift of fear piece like helping people hey i wouldn't i would think about you know whatever being able to talk through that so i find that that translates so it's kind of something that i'm able to find my value in being able to be that person for others without like to work at Lord Abbott as the CSO.

Right? Who the fuck wants to do that? Right? Honestly. I love the guy that's doing it, but who wants to do that? Yeah. Oh, you know what? We have to make sure that the electrical panel

has an extra set of breakers because if the fuck... Fuck. Are you fucking kidding me? Like, somebody's got to do it, right? And there's a nice Starbucks right next door and you're on Hudson Street and you've got a bunch of assholes walking in and out, but at the end of the day, that ain't me.

What I like to do at a place like that, as you know the story, is test their security. Can you tell that story? Tell that story. That's an all-timer. We want to know how well they're insulated and protected. And, of course, the one security, the only guy handling security is a guy who, whatever, right?

So he tells me, assures me, everything's good. Everything is good. You'll never, nobody, ever. Now, most people would say, well, you know, I kind of trust him. He's, you know, a former law enforcement guy. And this is a Fortune 100 company. Big time company. And you're talking about their corporate headquarters.

Big, big, big, big. big manages hundreds of billions of dollars right so most guys would just say i like i'm just noticing that picture of post um great guy that's your boy that's my boy so um that's a challenge for me right it's not like i'm gonna trust it's nothing about trust like i, I don't trust a cop. I do trust this guy, former law enforcement. No, it's just a challenge. Let me see how good it is. So I put on my, I have a, Sheila bought me a Tumi backpack, got a nice suit on. And, you know, I purposely take, I put one on my ankle, my gun on my ankle, put one on inside the pants holster.

I just thought of another story i know you can't tell but yeah i put two others yeah we definitely can't tell right now someday someday when we're running that show down there but um i put two more loaded in my backpack put it on my back walk up and here goes back to what we talk about, right? Politeness and familiarity breed access. I walk up. This is the front desk. Front desk. This is good to go.

Supposed to show your driver's license. Supposed to get checked. Supposed to check through your stuff. I walk up and first thing I say is, how you been? And the person looks at me and goes, a little bit confused. Good.

Yeah. What a beautiful day. Man, this is the best cappuccino I've had. That Starbucks does a great job, whatever. I'm just going up. You know where I'm going. Yeah. Yes, of course.

Walk through the turnstile. No issue. So I'm through step one, right? Hit the elevator button. Up. I can't remember what floor it was. It might have been 11 that you had to get off and see a receptionist, right? Same floor CEO and the entire C-suite is on, by the way, unprotected with staircase that goes both or whatever but um we straighten that out but um walk up and there's

a young lady sitting at the desk and she looks up a little bit and i say how are the bagels i brought in last week they were delicious it's a new place she goes they were really good i said i'm just going in to see him you know whatever now keep in mind and i want everybody to know i prepared the one in the in the pants-pants holster, unloaded. I checked it 75 times outside of Starbucks, which is amazing that I didn't get arrested right there. But it is what it is. I know this one's unloaded. I walk through, say hi to his assistant, walk into his office, open up.

He's on the phone. Walk up with it. Unload it. Put it to his head and say, you are dead. We need to do something about this. And that triggered a pretty, about a six-week engagement. That was fantastic. How many minutes was that, front desk to desk? Less than five, five, seven.

I don't even know. And that, including drinking most of my cappuccino. So before I went in. But just, you know, just just that is and i was told that was prepared that was they were good no issues now the other side what we did in a similar case is access again again your politeness and familiarity breed the access. I was able to get inside a private prep school in northern New Jersey and take a picture with a big-time executive's two kids. And I asked purposely when it came back,

oh, we're going to have, I'm on the board of that school, I'm going to have them fired. No, no, no. Not his fault. Your fault. For not putting it it in place something in place there so now we're gonna change it right and all that was was walking up to the security guy and saying putting on a little fake southern accent hey man you know i'm just moving up from charleston south carolina i want my kids to go to this particular school because i hear it's well i got dressed real nice basically told money is no object my parents left me a ton it's old money I haven't worked for it but that's why I feel like

this is the right spot because I want my kids to work a little bit and he said I really can't let you I'm not supposed to I just want to take a look around man it'd be 15 minutes at most and you can walk with me and he's he's looking he's like you could just you could go found the kids took took selfies they were that agreeableness, man. Yeah, that's it. People want to agree. You know, went back and said, this is not good. And then same thing, you know, kind of shown counter surveillance, watching the pattern.

Where do you go? What do you do? What times do you do it? You know, like if you ever watch the show, and you should if you haven't, NYPD Blue, one of the best shows. Never really got into it. Fantastic. Andy Sipowicz, my hero. And he's telling his son.

Basically, his son wants to become a police officer. So he's telling his son what's important about being a police officer. And he tells a story about Christmas Eve. And there was a guy that was coming out of, worked at this toy factory, was coming out of the toy factory and had a toy gun. And he put it in his pocket pocket he was taking it home to give to his kid and he said had i not known the things that cops are supposed to know with their beat i would have killed him he said but good cops know a few things they know people they know their people they know their places they know the things they. And they know the times they do them.

And that is the key. That is the key to everything about what I do for people. People, their places, the things they do, and the times they do them. That's the shit that will get you jeopardy. But it comes back to the whole preparedness point that you're talking about. And there's another thing in there, though, that I haven't mentioned that I think is really important. And it comes from your west point background and that is the process and then even to more detail the chain of command of things yeah and you talked about how some guys didn't understand or didn't do well the whole you have to give it to the special attorney and make the

case yada yada yada and i wonder if that had to drive you nuts working at a place as important as the FBI, doing what – you did a whole bunch of things there. So whatever you were doing, it doesn't matter. Like, it all – there's supposed to be a process to all this stuff. There's supposed to be a way of doing it. And, you know, I think you hit on Comey a little bit. And Comey doesn't have a – he wasn't in the military, right? Like, he wasn't a guy like – He was a U.S. attorney in San Francisco.

Exactly. In the Ninth Circuit. And I'm not talking shit on that. I'm just saying, like – Ninth Circuit. He doesn't in the military, right? Like, he wasn't a guy like... He was a U.S. attorney in San Francisco. Exactly. In the Ninth Circuit. And I'm not talking shit on that. I'm just saying, like... Ninth Circuit. He doesn't... Every bad decision in this country is... Okay.

Well, anyway. Didn't know that, but okay. But he then becomes the head of the FBI. And did you... I already know that was an issue with, you know, some of the process he was following. But did you see it as a scenario where like he he just didn't understand that i don't know how i want to say this i'm very confused how to say this but essentially you're like there's a way we're supposed to do things here that get

the desired results and make us have complete deniability of doing anything wrong because we do it correctly and he wasn't following any of that is that slightly along the yeah i think you hit you know you you hit very close to the issue my thought is this right my thought is jim comey in my opinion was a narcissistic and is a narcissistic egotist you know that's what he is so when you bring him on board, everything, his world is different. So it's going to look different. It's going to look different to the people that work there. It's going to look different to the people he deals with, either that are his superior, his subordinates, people in other agencies. he could make a statement regarding prosecution as opposed to just making a statement regarding his pass along his ability to discuss with if you remember at the time attorney general was loretta

lynch you're talking about the hillary clinton investigation i am i am right so now can i ask a question quickly just for context sure and if you can't answer this are you allowed to talk about you okay no so um maybe at some point but not right now okay so um he is supposed to take the evidence that we that the bureau collected he is supposed to pass that along in some type of liaison based meeting to indicate here's the different things we found, here's kind of our opinion, and we'd like to get your opinion on whether or not you feel it is chargeable. She, along with her first assistant and her staff, Loretta, makes a decision as to what they're going to do, if they're going to charge it.

Now, they owe nothing to the public to say whether or not it's going to be charged, whether it's not. Many times, in most cases, the person who is under investigation, who is not charged, either it's never brought to the grand jury, or the grand jury finds what they call a no bill doesn't prosecute doesn't choose to indict many times that person that target that subject never finds out it just kind of goes away but the media got a hold of this one well but why though because jim comey stood up no before that i'm saying like remember when she was i mean you definitely remember but she was put mean you definitely remember but she was put under investigation i think this was summer 2015 and it came out that like she's under investigation she's somebody that that's but but doesn't mean she's indicted right it just

means that happens often but you know how that looks well it doesn't matter because as long as you many people are under the cloud per se but if there's an indictment that doesn't move forward that's a private piece the fbi director should not be getting out there making statements with regard to factual evidence and findings it's none of his responsibility or quite frankly it's not in his job description his only job is to go ahead and make that recommendation. He can make, he can, listen, we recommend all the time. I used to go and fight with young U.S. attorneys and federal prosecutors and say, why the hell are you not prosecuting this? I worked this long.

I did this. This is what I think. Here's what you should do. And at the end of the day, we came up with a solution. You know, we came up with, hey, either, Jim, I don't care what you say. We're not charging this. It doesn't rise to the level or jim if you go back and get me this this this and this and you solidify it which for me was never the case because it was always all there but i'd say okay no problem take the 24-hour rule

come back figure out what we're going to do next always worked always worked right so he what he decided to do is take on that would be like me getting out there instead of saying I went and – saying nothing, but me getting out there and saying I just brought a case to the United States Attorney's Office and I feel like here's the strong points and we're not going to prosecute it because here's the weak points. That's not my job description. The FBI collects evidence in cases against the united states of america they don't prosecute let me play some devil's advocate yeah what if he hadn't said anything though yeah how does that look because she look she was she would she was running for the highest office in the land make her do her job make loretta lynch do her job that's how it looks what does that mean make her make her the u.s attorney should stand do her job that's how it looks what does that mean make her make her the u.s attorney should stand up and say we've we obtained the statements from the fbi

and we decided to do x y or z and and that's really still that's still her discretion she doesn't have to do that she could just let it go and it kind of fizzles out and the news picks up on you know the latest whatever yeah honestly like that's her job her job is to to take it evaluate it and she can get out there and say look we we looked at this this this and there was like four or five different points that they were looking at of course they only publicized you know a few things right but but make that decision don't you agree though that it doesn't look and this is not loretta lynch's fault this, but Loretta Lynch was the Attorney General for an administration that had just employed Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. So no matter

what she does, and not her fault, people from the other side are going to say, oh, she's just covering for her, regardless of what the result of the investigation is. I think that's correct, but I also think it's not Jim Comey's responsibility and or discretion to do what he did that's that people are going to think what they're going to think but they don't need to hear it from that boob that's as simple as i can say it that big lanky you know dope did anyone at the fbi like no he started out first couple months he started out and we were like, maybe. He was calling agents on their cell phone, thanking them for casework. That was good. Then it just fell apart.

And it's because he tried to put a stamp on it. That's what I think. The narcissistic behavior just bothered me. His own universe. I mean, there was shit in the book. I'm not going to go page by page, but there was stuff in his book that it was just false material so you know substantively and materialistically wrong well what about because not factual that was and and i know there's some stuff we we can't go to but from what the public knows on things i'll go there that case had a lot of other messy things

to it i don't remember what the hell were their names like the striok and who was the female agent lisa page and lisa page yeah now but that that stuff is just that's that's listen uh you know that's just that guy's an asshole peter Peter Strzok. Period. Andy McCabe, good guy. So you have both sides. McCabe was the glasses guy whose wife was... Yeah, Terry McAuliffe, money, whatever. But at the end of the day, Strzok was

banging that woman. He got caught. And he acted like a complete asshole. But what they were doing on the way, though. Well, yeah. I mean, texting about what they were going to do and how they were going to do it nonsense no place for it but you know there's there's no there's absolutely no excuse for that and i won't provide an excuse what what i'll say is when you have a director that's doing that on a level what do you mean doing that i mean he's doing the same thing he's out there giving his opinion on what should happen, right? So not doing, you know, who the hell knows?

He's a boob. But that's just my thought on, my whole thought is narcissists struggle with the inability to be part of the front. And you also know that well because generally speaking, I'm generalizing here, but I'm sure most of the people you work cases against were massive narcissists 100 yeah and it was it was i would love when i would see that yeah because they're going to tell you what you don't know because they can't help themselves like like the guy's like no i took 400 because it's like competition thank you and i guess that was towards the very end of your fbi career where comey was in charge and fired and everything. But the thing I think about a lot because the FBI has a critical role in this country. They are – they're basically the chief police, right?

Like they are the chief case makers. If it involves like bringing something to court – The premier law enforcement agency in the world. You're going to the fbi and we now had and there were too many things like this where the rhetoric turned into a a knife fight and gunfight in public of oh are you team fbi are you anti fbi like the fbi is this shill fucking political arm deep state organization or no the fbi is the fbi and i think comey has a lot of responsibility for that because whether it be just that action or frankly many other things and things he's done

since that have taken away some trust in the organization but now being on the outside and i know how you feel about the fbi and a lot of guys you worked with how do you deal with that you know public backlash and say to people like no no you can still trust the FBI. This deep state shit, look, there's a level of corruption in anything, any big organization, but that is the exception and not the rule here. Look, I often say the rank and file was never bothered by it, right? We just did our job, honestly. Now, I got the chance to see behind the curtain a little bit, and quite frankly, here's my view, simply. My view is many of those in management positions rose too quickly and didn't take the time to learn the job. And when you do

that in anything, in any part of life, you're going to make mistakes. If you're a plumber's apprentice and you don't know how to solder, you've got a problem because shit's going to blow up. But you want to be the top guy and get your card and be at the union hall every day. You don't know how to do the job. Yeah. How the fuck are you going to do that? So it's the same thing. So my thought is rank and file, man, we just cranked.

It never even stopped us. Maybe for a minute or two, we'd look at each other and say, Jesus, because you'd get some of that. You go out and show your creds. You show your badge and say, hey, man, FBI, I need to talk to you for a couple minutes. And they look at you like, we never had that before. And then you're like, look, I don't know, you know, why you're doing that, but here's what we have. And you start talking and you show them your knowledge. You show them your professionalism and your impact.

And next thing you know, they're like, gotcha. You know, and they're appreciative of, hey, I didn't know, you know, you guys are, wow, you guys are still on it. You know, yeah, of course. Of course. You know, it's are still on it. Yeah, of course. Of course. It's like the press can turn anything, right? I said, and I hate to say that you use this, but 9-11, think about 9-11. The summer before 9-11, all the press reported was these massive shark attacks. Oh, yeah.

Summer of the shark. Summer of the shark. Yep. Right? And then, God forbid, God rest his soul, Jim Martello and John Salamone and those guys, Doug Gurian. But that happens, and all of a sudden, the sharks just stop biting. They were like, you know what? This country's been through a lot.

We're not going to bite any swimmers anymore. It's narratives. And there's narratives. There's narratives on everything. And so I try to sit up here, right, right thirty thousand feet in the air and be like okay I just like when you're admitting there's evil in the world right of course There's some things are bad do I think there's probably some bad people work at the FBI sure do I want to believe that whatever it Is thirty thousand people work there don't want to believe the fucking twenty thousand of them are bad absolutely not and that's what the media

Will will have you thinking sometimes they'll have you their whole point is to sow chaos and so distrust because that's what makes you fucking get angry in itself 100 but you look at other narratives that have been created and there's this line between transparency in 2021 and with the internet and how everyone has a goddamn opinion on everything and also the government having to legitimately do their job which sometimes is frankly it needs to be based on secrecy that's why we have classification and stuff like that so when you see some of these things and like some of the main symbols of them are just symbols and they're one part of a bigger issue here but when you see things like snowed in or snowed in uncovered that they were i mean let's call it what it is they were going around the u.s constitution and taking people's rights and you see things like that come to light or you see

the fact that people want to hear about so-called rumors and rumblings that have been happening inside the nsa or the cia and you also know being having been in government that like no there's a level to which we can't fucking talk about this. How do you even solve that in the modern day when you just have a ravenous eating media all the time that is going to simply continue to pound away at those things until you give in and do what you can't in that way? I think that's a great point. And, you know, at all. To not comment, to not think about it, to not opine on any issue. However, however, we're all human beings and there comes a point when our actions or our words are lending themselves to something that's bigger than ourselves. But I think the respect level comes in when we do show, you know, our professionalism, our trust, you can trust me,

you know, our honesty, our ability to do things that people just don't want to think about, but know that they need to be done. What happens, and we've seen it in the special operations community, right? When guys start to kind of branch off and write books. Yeah. What happens to those guys? It's one and done. Yeah. Right?

It's one and done. Because they talk about too much. They talk about too much. They give away things that are done in other places around the world and other times. And I often think about that. You know, I look at the guys that are doing a great job with it, Jocko, right, David Goggins. They're not telling you a lot.

They're just telling you. They're telling you. High level. High level, you know, 40,000-foot view of why it's important to always be prepared, why it's important to struggle through challenges so that you come out the other side and be a better person and the world needs that right now it needs guys like that what it doesn't need is throwing out either dis or misinformation that is really a narcissist who wants to be in the know if that makes sense well also you and should i know i i

just don't feel like i would i don't feel there's any value to me saying it like stuff i really know because it's only going to have implications you know for others right now i mean i can i like to think about how we can make an impact, how we can do things better. My experience lends itself to problems with police training. I'd love to be involved with being able to teach young recruits. This podcast should be true for that. Yeah. I'd love to be able to do things to kind of give peace of mind to that middle-of-the-road

American who's not making billions but he's in the 5 to 25 million dollar range right and he needs help and you know like you and i have talked about i kind of look and a lot goes back to my december 2nd 2019 experience with the stents right in the almost passing thank god i didn't have a heart attack but still took a toll and it made me think about my mortality and i think about the fact that I stopped taking prescription drugs the summer of 2018 because I felt like I was physically on top of the world. Honestly, I was in great shape, doing anything I wanted to do, running, lifting at 54 years old, 55 years old. And the doc said, you got to take Lipitor. And I said, fuck it.

Take Lipitor. Nothing's happened. Nothing's happened to me. What do you want to do, doc? You want to do push-ups? You know, you want to go for a run? Nothing's happened to me. Which goes completely against what made you great at so many things you did.

Right. That's funny. So I say, I don't need Lipitor, bro. You know, I'm good because nothing's happened. Well, that kind of resonates with me all the time when I meet a new client because the first thing they say when we start talking security, when we start talking situational awareness, cybersecurity, physical security, building security, travel policy,

Jim, listen, thanks. I really respect everything you've done, but nothing's happened. It's not going to happen to me. Nothing's going to happen to me. And I tell them the story and I say, if you don't take the Oreo someday, something's going to happen. So I'm your Lipitor. Clients. You're going to take them.

You better take it. Yeah. Because we don't want to be in a reactive position like we're in now where I'm scrambling to get your ass out of the well we want to be in a proactive position so that we can assess your risks and vulnerabilities and your threats and we can talk about them why not bring it to the forefront i got i got to ask about this and this is right on the detail because you and i talked right before we got on camera about this but you just mentioned a couple minutes ago going going into that tangent about misinformation disinformation on the internet which the ultimate tool now is information via

technology because it can be used for bad and and good but it's used for bad all the time by people that don't like america and you know whatever and our obviously we use it on other countries as well but you are with j3 you've always done a lot of work in cyber, but now you are officially partnering up, if I understand, with one of your guys. With a West Point classmate who's an amazing dude. So we are in the assessment business, man. I mean, you know, I used to be in a position where I still wanted to stay in the game, and I will, because I love internal investigations. That'll never go away from my portion of this piece. But what I want to do is take a look at your life, you know, and everything that goes about your life. And it's

kind of like an executive, as opposed to an executive health, you know, or executive wellness, it's an executive security program, right? So there's two things that are going to kill you. You know, if you look at health, cancer and heart disease are going to kill you right so let's work on those and there's companies out there my buddy is doing that doing a great job with just putting it together but on my side on security wellness it's your physical security and your cyber security that will kill you that will kill you in every way so what we're going to do is we're going to show you where you're where you're at we're going to scare might shake're going to show you where you're at. We're going to shake you up a little bit because you think you got it all.

Nothing's happened. I've seen you catch some of this shit in like two seconds before it blows my mind. So let's figure it out and do these assessments and then at that point we can sit down and we can talk about, here's your problems, man. It's a long process. And then at the end of the day, we get you perfect. We get you tight. We bulletproof you.

People even at the highest levels don't think it's going to happen to them. But, I mean, you've talked about it before, the Bezos thing. When Bezos' phone got hacked by MBS in Saudi, it's like – Absolutely. Dude, people – even him, who's probably got all the resources – does have all the resources in the world. He was missing on a very basic thing. And so the damage that can be done through cyber now i mean think about it it's at the click of a button halfway around the world or touch of a

screen halfway around the world it's not like the old days all the time every second of the day i love that you're like deep they're kind of getting you down yeah and i love having you know norm's a great dude and he's a smart guy and you know together we've kind of put the whole program together and we have strategic partners that can do any and all right so we find out we we tell you what's wrong and then we work through it to make sure we got the perfect guy like today i was on the on the phone with a dude who's private aviation guy right he's air force academy guy flew for special ops we flew together years ago you know probably gave me a bunch of rides along the way and he runs his own business at albuquerque new mexico so as opposed to you having to jump on a commercial flight and be exposed to all the shit that's going on there, health, security, safety, right?

All the shit that goes on. We can either take your plane. He can take your plane and fly it for you and make sure you get there and make sure you get picked up by the right guys and take it and transport it. Or, you know, he's got planes that he can fly in. Time. Time, man. Giving people time and convenience. And not only that, but guaranteed that you're going to be safe.

Guaranteed it's the safest you'll ever be in the air in your life. So that's the kind of things, you know, J3 and West Point Security are kind of bringing together. It's wild. It's good stuff. It's important stuff. Yeah. Like I said, I've already seen you handle it where it's like stuff it's um it's important stuff yeah like i said i've already seen you handle it yeah where it's like oh i can do that now it's like yo it's it's in the middle of what we do absolutely you know and it's it's better it's kind of the whole reason that goes back to the fact why i didn't take a job for one company yeah right because i said to myself well

i can help a bunch of people why not do it for a bunch of people? Well, now, with these assessments, I could do it for way more than a lot of people. And get your stuff together. We've already pretty much engaged our first three assessment-only clients. We got a professional athlete. It's a perfect mix that we're going to do it for we've got a um extremely talented and well-known doc um fantastic guy who we're going to do it for and then we've got it for your typical high net worth um self-made guy who wants to see where he's exposed and you'll do some of these corporations i guess too yeah i mean well that lends itself you know we get listen you you get a professional athlete and he says we've talked about this before

right he says holy shit you should see what this guy did for me and then what happens his buddy who may play for the same team or somewhere else how many guys i gotta ask you this though yeah how many guys are is like on top of their shit nobody is is, though. Because he's next level. He's not even. I'm telling you. Think about it. You're 25 or younger, and you're getting ready to sign something for multi-million dollar, hundreds of million dollar money. Right?

And like people have said to me, there's two things if you could figure out. You'd be a billionaire. Get rid of the hangers on yeah in that world which we can do because the due diligence I do is beyond to scare the out of you and then the second piece of that is kind of take take care of the footprint on social media and we you and I have talked about this right and I finally found the people that could do it special operations guys not only could they get rid of it they could find out who did it oh so i got some work for you right right so i might need a little favor jim yep so my that's from my standpoint that's kind of where we're going on that front and at the same time each of those guys investments you know you get a pro athlete who's involved in sponsorships involved in charities involved in different

investments we're going to handle all that for that person now he turns and says wait a minute who's involved in sponsorships, involved in charities, involved in different investments. We're going to handle all that for that person. Now he turns and says, wait a minute, I got this guy or I got this guy. And it's an interesting world, right? And so we can bring everything from, I've got event security guys, I've got executive protection guys, I've got dudes that can do hard ass internal investigations you know on independent i've got guys that there's nothing that j3 slash west point security we don't want to show what we're going to call it but i gotta get you out of here in a minute and so we're

we're going to close up because we would i would take what you just said right there and we'd talk for like an hour and a half i feel you but we But we're going to – you're going to be a regular here as you and I have talked about. And I wanted to just give people a taste of you today. So we went – this was like cocaine all over the place, and that's great. What I really want to focus on in the future is especially like things going on. So foreign policy stuff going on, things going on with the alphabet agencies and stuff like that and get some specific like, okay, here's what's really happening. Here's what I know that I can talk about. Here's how I would handle it. Here's what we need to focus on and give people really, I mean, you're going to be

my guy with that. So I'm very, very excited about that. And we'll do a bunch of that. And I was even just thinking about the garment district story when you went up and said, I know, and you can tell that in the future, you don't have to tell it right now but that just describes you so perfectly because you you really if people aren't getting it out of this i've said it a few times today but you're you're such a cowboy in this way like you just you want to roll baby and and there's that you just want to do cool shit needs to be done man which is awesome but the one thing i did want to say before we go because it's just hilarious but also great is that on top of all this you're opening up jersey mics like what how the fuck does that happen it's the best i mean we've been we've

been wanting to do this so so my oldest um i shouldn't say my actually the oldest boy in the family but my youngest so we're a blended family shale and i have five kids and um we he's been bothering us for a while to open the jersey mics because he worked at jersey mics through high school through college uh in corporate selling franchises and he was like dad we could do this and so uh it happened and we opened in december of 2020 right in the middle of the pandemic pretty much and uh we're we're local in gloucester county and um that's hilarious that you came down it came down here and we are crushing it people love it we came to hoagie land and are selling subs so i think that's that tells you what kind of um your kind of job that they've done and you

got you got chatsman and and his offensive and defensive absolutely i got chatsman's entire team running it we've got some wrestlers we've got. We're filled with Township kids, and we love it. And it's just been doing great. We're hoping that this is going to be the first of many franchises. Jersey Mike's is just a service-oriented company. I mean, when I looked at other opportunities, I said, hey, man, the way these guys run the company. Your son's killing it, too. He's doing it.

He loves it. He's doing great. So you can just be that passive, like, all right, you ready for another one? I come down once in a while. I work a lunch. My wife comes down. She'll organize and work a lunch. We've got one of our other kids who's now become extremely interested in the business,

and we think he'll be a guy that can take us to the next door and the next door and the next door. So we're fired up. I love it. And that's over in Washington Township. It's over in Washington Town township it's over in in washington township right across from the turnersville auto mall that's not like commercial that's um but jersey mike's come see us ask for jim uh ask for jim diorio and uh he'll take care

of you we're called the golden hammer family group and if i got two seconds i want to tell you why right so um in in italian diorio is of gold and an Italian Martello is hammer. So Jim Martello who died in the towers is really our kind of inspiration for this because, you know, he has given us the ability both spiritually and, you know, bringing us together kind of to take this on. And it's been a wonderful bonding. It's like a family. As I talked about before, right? Being a stepdad right this has really been here and on the golf course we find our we find our way and so um it has been a blessing and i know this guy thank you jimmy i mean i know that this has really been um a big

kind of um springboard for our success not only as a business more importantly as a family and for that i'm grateful that's that's awesome there's no better place it's like it's like you picked up this nice hobby now where it's also like your family gets to be part of it and it's fun it's exactly community business that's awesome it's the best well jim we'd be in here all night we'll definitely do this i'd probably i want to do this pretty soon like maybe three four months down the line when some more shit's happening we can talk about it and get into it. But yeah, you're my guy. You were my guy.

Now you're my guy here. And now you're everybody's guy that listens to Trendify with Julian Dory. Love it. Jim, thank you, sir. Thank you. We'll do it again. Appreciate it. Looking forward to it.

Everybody else, give it a thought. Get back to it. Peace. you