Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Cia Spy Exposes Fbi Government Corruption

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Starting point is 00:01:54 the case to go to war in Iraq. And the chart was changed. Our chart started the Iraq. I thought I knew why terrorists became terrorists. And boy, was wrong. I mean, I find when I interview people that a lot of times, like, their upbringing will kind of guide their career path. So were your parents in law enforcement or nothing like that? No. No, my upbringing is a little different. So I think like kids these days have a lot of pop culture available to them, right? Like, criminal minds, homeland, like all those shows that I know are really popular. But you know, I grew up in the 70s and 80s and we didn't have any of that. And so I did not really fully understand or know what the CIA was to be totally honest with you. And I think not to be kind of rude, but like why would I?

Starting point is 00:02:50 It wasn't in front of my face like I think it is now to kind of the 30 and under set, if you will. But so no, for me, I never, my dad's college, like I was a college professor. My mom was a banker. So I did not grow up at all wanting to have this career. So if you, if it was in the 70s and 80s, because that's kind of, you know, when I grew up, like, I mean, the Cold War was like Ronald Reagan, you know, in the 80s. Like, I mean, I was at least totally aware of the Cold War. Like I remember one, I remember one time the. the, oh gosh, Time magazine had come out.

Starting point is 00:03:31 And they had an article. And it was showing all of the, like the Soviets had like 10 tanks or there's like six tanks every one of our tanks. They had like two airplanes for every one of ours. They had, you know, there were two men in their military for. And I was like, and I remember going to my dad and being like, this is, look at this. Did you see this? Like, isn't this scary? And my dad said, yeah, but they don't work.

Starting point is 00:03:56 is like you know and you know so but I was I was aware of the Cold War I don't know about the CIA or what they did I think probably I got more interested in the CIA when I started watching James Bond movies so that was the opposite for me it actually had the opposite effect so obviously yes Cold War was like a thing I mean I remember the Burlid Wall coming down trying to get a piece of it I don't know if you remember that at all but like that was like a thing um but for me, it's not that I didn't care about Russia and the Cold War. I definitely did. I don't think it sparked like a passion in me, if that makes any sense. And so at the time, that's what the CIA did. That was their area of focus and area of interest, which obviously makes complete sense. But then you have to

Starting point is 00:04:39 understand, you're a dude, right? I'm not. And so my brother was into James Bond. My dad was into James Bond, but all I saw was this old guy, Sean Conner. Like, I didn't see myself in that. And so it was completely uninteresting to me. So it's interesting how we all perceive it in different ways, depending on like who we are. And so I never thought, why would I join the CIA and like with all these kind of crusty older dudes? Like why would that be something I would do? Right. Because I didn't see myself in it, which is fine. It just wasn't, I don't know. It wasn't something that I had always wanted to do. I thought all they did was work Russia. I thought it was all a bunch of guys. And it just, I don't always say I wrote it off.

Starting point is 00:05:25 I just was like, okay. I mean, I was interested in international affairs. I majored in history, but it didn't. My pivotal moment didn't come until like 1997. And by that point, I was already a freshman or sophomore in college. I don't remember. I was going to say, so you weren't seven years old in front of the class and everybody else wanted to be a ballerina. And you said CIA.

Starting point is 00:05:47 No, I wanted to be a high school history teacher. Really? Okay. that's what I wanted to be. And that's what I went to college to be. I went to the same college. My dad was a professor. I got free tuition. So it was wonderful. I majored in history, joined a sorority, like did all the things. So that's why I'm always very transparent about how I got in because I think for a lot of young folks, they think that they have to have all this background. And that's actually not, in some cases, obviously it helps. But in other cases, it doesn't matter. Right. And so,

Starting point is 00:06:18 I mean, I started interviewing with him when I was 20 and I got in, I mean, I started two weeks after I graduated college. So, uh, friend for, it's funny because, uh, like Andrew Bustamante, I interviewed him and, and he was, you know, he was like approached. Well, he had, I think he had, he filled up. He had taken some kind of a test that wasn't specific to the CIA, but, and then he was approached after taking the test. They came to him and said, look, you might want to talk to these guys over here. And as and then, uh, friend Frock actually, I just like saying his last name, uh, who's, who was also a former CIA. He actually after he actually had met someone at the CIA. He wanted to go CIA and he actually asked him like, what would be a good, what do I need

Starting point is 00:07:08 to make this happen? The guy kind of like, well, military would be good. And then if you got out, you got a degree in, you know, I forget what it was like accounting or a lawyer or something. So he kind of, he aimed for it. How did you agree with all of that to be completely correct with you? And I think it just fuels the gender narrative and why it's so lopsided in terms of males and females at these agencies.

Starting point is 00:07:31 And I have to be honest, one of the things I hate the most is I always get, oh, well, you just had a desk job. Like to be honest with you, I probably saw more action than most dudes did at the CIA. And it is very frustrating to me when I hear people say, in no disrespect that they were approached or they were in the military. And it's insinuating that there's something special or different. We're all special. We're all different.

Starting point is 00:07:53 And the way that mine was is I literally just walked up to a table at the career fair and gave them my resume. And they called. And I think that that's a really important message for people to hear because I think a lot of times people walk away from these interviews and conversations thinking that they're not good enough. And everyone's good enough. Look at how I got in. It is the most mundane way to get in. And I got in and got it. Why did you even approach him, though?

Starting point is 00:08:18 That's what I was mentioning before about 1997. So I was working out actually in my sorority house. And I was, I think it was, I did not have the channel on another person did. And it was on CNN. And it was Peter Arnett and Peter Bergen. And I've since actually talked with Peter Bergen all about it. We've become friends. He was interviewing Osama bin Laden.

Starting point is 00:08:43 It's the only interview that was ever done. with Osama bin Laden by a Western news station. And so you have to remember growing up for me, my version of terrorism was like the Oklahoma City bombing, Waco. That was my barometer, I guess, of terrorism. And yeah, Al-Qaeda existed. They were formed in 89, but they to me very much existed over there, which is like such a 19-year-old way of thinking, right?

Starting point is 00:09:11 Like if it doesn't impact me here, who cares, right? It's so egotistical. But it was in that interview where bin Laden issued a fatwa or declaration of war against the United States. And so that was in 1997. I was like, well, who is this person? Like, what is this? And that's what got me interested. And so I went to USC great school.

Starting point is 00:09:32 But in 1997, we didn't have like terrorism classes. And like, it just wasn't a thing. Right? This is a pre-9-11 world. We have to remember that. And so I started taking, I took introduction to Islam. I took modern Middle Eastern history. Anything I could to still satisfy my history major, obviously.

Starting point is 00:09:51 But again, I didn't know how to apply that. It wasn't clear that you go to the CIA and work counterterrorism. This was 1997. Like, it just wasn't clear. And so I went to a career fair in either 98 or 99. I truly don't remember the year. And I asked, there was a recruiter there. And I went to him and I said, oh, you're like a foreign, you do foreign stuff.

Starting point is 00:10:12 Do you guys work this like counterterrorism thing? I was just curious, like legitimately curious. And this is in the, so this was like the dot com, though, if you'll remember that. And everyone wanted to work in a dot com. I did not want to work in a dot com, but I went to the career fair just because it was on my way to astronomy class. I gave him my resume and I said, like, look, do you do this counterterrorism thing? And he's like, well, really our hiring focus is Russia and then Latin America. There was just a lot of instability, coup d'etat, drugs stuff going on.

Starting point is 00:10:45 in Latin America. And he said, we're looking for Russian speakers and Spanish speakers. I was like, I don't speak a foreign language at whatever. I don't really care about any of those issues, but like, here's my resume. That's truly all I thought about it. And that's why I feel like it's so important for me to be completely transparent about my story, because I think it makes more accessible to people to think that this is something they can do. And about two weeks later, they called and the rest is history. And they ask you to come in and be, interviewed. I mean, yeah, it's obviously a process. You don't just get hired right away. And I detail a lot of that process in my book because it's a bit of a while ride. But for me, I was so young

Starting point is 00:11:28 because this would have been February, March-ish of my junior year. So I would have been 20 at the time. And so, you know, you go to like a cattle call interview obviously locally. Then they whittle that down. then they fly you out to do more invasive stuff, then they whittle that down, then they bring someone out to do a background check, then they would all that down, and then you get your conditional offer employment. So by November of 99, which was my senior year, I had a conditional offer of employment. It was contingent upon me graduating college, obviously. Where were you stationed? When I was at the CIA. Yeah. I'm unfortunately not allowed to say because I was undercover. The only place I'm allowed to say is Afghanistan.

Starting point is 00:12:13 but I can say the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Okay. So, okay, so you, but you definitely, oh, well, you definitely left the U.S. Yes, of course, you have to. It's a foreign intelligence gathering organization. I figure they got to have an office somewhere here, right? There's Langley, right? Like, they're gathering.

Starting point is 00:12:33 There's people that work desks somewhere, probably in the U.S., I'm assuming. But that's not right. Right. So what can you say? where you went? I think more rather than talking about specifically where I went, my book was cleared by the CIA, but one of the things that they did want taken out,

Starting point is 00:12:55 you'll see if you read it, there are redactions in it, is the locational information. And that's because when I was overseas, I was not in this name. And that can compromise sources, methods, assets, all of those kinds of things. So I think that was like their biggest issue in clearing my book through them.

Starting point is 00:13:16 So I think it's better to maybe start with kind of like what I started doing and then like move into. So I was shocked at CIA. You don't like tell them where you want to go. You don't like apply and say, look, I want to look in this division at this. It just doesn't work like that. It's the government, right? They put you wherever they want to put you. And so I was in the directorate of operations, which is this side, whatever.

Starting point is 00:13:40 I knew I wouldn't be in the D.I. or an analyst because most of them have PhDs and language skills, which I don't have. I didn't work in science and technology. No one wants me doing math or science. So I was woefully unqualified for that. So I had a broad liberal arts degree. So that's where I went. And I went to the counterterrorism center. And everyone thought, oh, that's such a bummer. Don't you want to be in the Russia division? And for me, I was so excited because that's like exactly where I wanted to be. But again, this is a pre-9-11 world. And so my job at that time was to, I'm trying to talk around it based on what's in my book. My job was to monitor terrorist training camps. Who's going in, who's going out, what important people are there? Is there an uptick and

Starting point is 00:14:27 activity? Is there a down-tick in activity? Those kinds of things give us a lot of information in terms of, like what we're going to do. And I was sitting at CIA headquarters, actually. Just because you're overseas doesn't mean you stay there all the time. Sometimes you're back at headquarters on September 11th in the counterterrorism center. And so that was quite obviously the experience, if you will. So you're sitting at your desk or at the coffee. Coffee maker, you know, get some.

Starting point is 00:14:59 There's a Starbucks there. Okay. And and somebody says, holy shit and you look up at the TV. So I did not know. So at CIA, you can't bring a cell phone in. You don't have access to an outside line. And so if no one has the TV on, which is so weird, you're not necessarily getting like live stuff, right?

Starting point is 00:15:18 If no one bothered to turn it on yet, which I never, I didn't care. And I was sitting at my desk and my outside line rang. And it was someone in an out building saying turn on the TV. And the interesting thing was I turned it on. to see the second plane hit. And what was interesting is that terrorism is not initially one went through my head. I'm sorry, I turned it. Yeah, I turned it on to see the second plane hit.

Starting point is 00:15:42 I don't know if you remember this, but in August of that year, August of 2000, I was either a Mets player. I can't remember was flying his private plane and he flew it into an apartment building in New York City completely by accident, killed everyone on board. It was a very small plane. that's what went through my mind because it had literally happened three weeks before. I just had remembered seeing it all in the news. But then when the plane obviously hit the Pentagon, we all knew that it was what it was.

Starting point is 00:16:16 Right. Yeah, it's funny because when I actually heard it on the way to work, drove to like a, was it circuit city? I don't even have circuits. It's probably around then. Yeah, it's not now, but yeah. Ran in, grabbed the tea. or I was getting a TV because I was going to bring it back to the office and I was standing in front of a big big screen TV when the second plane hit. And I remember the first one thinking, wow, like how is that even possible?

Starting point is 00:16:45 But went to go grab a TV for the office because somebody had called and said, you know, can you pick up a TV? Like this is, this is wild. And when the second one hit, I remember thinking, oh, that's, that can't be an accident. Like this is something's wrong. Yeah. Like that's this isn't that's not possible like the first one I did kind of think yeah that I don't know what happened but an accident right like yeah like that's not possible like you know the idea that the whole that that whole idea of a suicide bomber or suicide you know using yourself I listen that's so that's so foreign to me as a narcissistic person like I'm not taking myself out there's so many other people that are wrong for me. I think that it's beyond just narcissism. I also think it's just a normal thing to like self-preservation is a normal.

Starting point is 00:17:37 I hear you. But part of personality. For me, I feel I'm on to different levels like, what? It's impossible. So how could deprive the world of me? Anyway. So, yeah. But I remember grabbing the TV and went back and we watched it.

Starting point is 00:17:55 We were just like, oh, my God. Like, you know, the internet had gone down. Yeah. in my office like everything you know and then they landed the planes my parents were stuck in like europe they were in europe they were stuck there for like a week um so what you know what was the you know what were the marching orders after that yeah it was it's really hard because obviously now i have time to process it but congress came down really hard on us right like we were blamed for september 11th and that's a really big load to like carry right like for the rest of your life

Starting point is 00:18:28 And I think, but at the time, no one cared how you felt like about it, which is fine because like we needed to like get to work. But I think it all impacted us obviously at that time. So for me, my marching orders are really different than everyone else is. About a week and a half before September 11th and I have to talk around this. It's in my book, but they won't clear the whole thing. So it's fine. That I was briefed into a more last. classified program. It was myself and two other gentlemen. I guess we were doing a good job. Whatever. I don't know. And they briefed us into this program. And they said it was the very first iteration of the program ever. We were the first ones to do it. And I remember asking the director, tenant at the time, you know, well, we have to actually use this and like kill people. And he's like, not unless there's a big terrorist attack. So I think for me, my brain went, oh shit. right? Like, I don't know how I like feel about this, but I immediately started working that program. It wasn't supposed to have been used until like the spring of 2002, but obviously they moved it up because of what had happened. And so we were in a very small, small room kind of packed together. It was myself, the two other gentlemen, Bush was in there every day, Condoleezza Rice was in there every day, Tenet was in there every day.

Starting point is 00:19:53 We spent Christmas in there, I mean, 24-7, working this. program. And it was in a weird way gratifying because we killed a lot of people. But at the same time, it was weird because like we're killing people. And I don't know that I had like processed all of that yet. We had a lot of successes, but then we had a lot of failures. And so I was on duty. It was December of 2001. And we knew where bin Laden was. He was in a place called Torabora. I don't know if you've heard of that before. We had him. We knew where he was.

Starting point is 00:20:30 We were ready to go. We were ready to kill him. But the problem was, is if you bomb something, guess what people do? If they survive, they run away, right? Like, that's just, again, self-preservation, human nature, narcissism, whatever you want to call it. But they run away. And so we had requested that ground troops come in and pick up anyone that ran away. And the president said no, but told us to continue doing what we were doing.

Starting point is 00:20:54 and Bin Laden escaped that night and on our watch. What? Then they missed them by like a day or so, whether it were a week or something? He was there. Right. He was in the fighting situation that we were in. We had him. He just got away.

Starting point is 00:21:11 He got away because ground troops weren't sent in and he ran away. Okay. Which is frustrating to us. Well, it's a difficult situation. It's hard to make moves from, you know, whatever 10,000 miles away. So, it always makes me think of.

Starting point is 00:21:32 Did you ever, did you ever read Tom Clancy? Not really. Are you serious? Tom Clancy is great. I was like a Nancy Drew kind of girl. Oh my gosh. Well, Tom Clancy,

Starting point is 00:21:43 there's one of the things they're looking at satellite images. Like they're trying to track down a group of, I want to say they're IRA terrorists or something, but trying to track them down. just can't figure out where they are. They're watching all of these camps in Africa. And there's one photo of someone laying out like in the sun. Oh, yeah. I've seen that. Yeah. I mean, I've seen satellite images of, we weren't doing satellite images just to like clarify. That's not what we were doing. But I have seen satellite images of us like checking on Russians

Starting point is 00:22:19 and their weapons. And then they, um, am I allowed to curse on here? Yeah. And then they stamp out, fuck you in the snow so that when the satellite comes over, you see it. Yeah. It's really great. I mean, it's fine. I don't really care. But we weren't doing satellite stuff.

Starting point is 00:22:35 Well, no, I was going to say in this one that the way they tracked them down was that there was a, you know, the group happened to have one woman in it. And they were like, the men wouldn't be laying out. And the woman was laying out. And when they zeroed in, even though it was super grainy, there were boobs. and they were like, that's a woman laying in the sun, that this is our people, this is where they are. And, you know, they send in some people to take out the entire camp and they miss them by like a day or something like that. So, but it's funny, the Tom Clancy thing, he had a book called The Sum of All Fears,

Starting point is 00:23:10 which was written 10 or 15 years prior to 9-11. And there's a Japanese terrorist that crashes his, a plane, and I mean like a 777, you know, like a triple seven, a Boeing triple seven, into Congress when it is a joint session of Congress and takes it out. You know, so it's funny like 10, 15 years later, the similarity. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:40 So what other things were you? Yeah. So after that, I didn't like go off that program because I lost been lauded. It was just that I had. done like 100 missions already by that point. And they're like, all right, this is not a sustainable. I mean, we were literally working 21 hours a day. Like you can't sustain that over a period of time.

Starting point is 00:24:01 And so I was sent to a brand new division that started in the counterterrorism center called CTCWMD. The government loves their like. Anacroids or Alphabet soup crap. And so I went to CTCWMD, which is a brand new division. And I specialized in crude toxins and poisons. And so my target that I was supposed to find was a guy named Zarqawi. And I don't know if you've heard his name, but he's the founder of ISIS.

Starting point is 00:24:27 He's dead now. But at the time, he worked for bin Laden. And bin Laden was real good at like franchising stuff. And he said, yo, Zarqawi, you're my poison dude. Like that's what I want you to do. Exposive poisons, toxins, all of it. And so they sent me to poison school. And I learned how to make all of it.

Starting point is 00:24:45 It's really easy. Shockingly. And then that took me overseas quite a bit, obviously, to meet with assets, find him, get information from other intelligence services, talk to some terrorists, those kinds of things. But that was what I worked, was crude toxins and poisons in the counterterrorism syndrome. How long were you there? About five-ish years, yeah. Does that require undercover missions or just? You're always undercover if you're in the DO for the most part.

Starting point is 00:25:18 Okay. I mean, when I think of undercover, I think that you're pretending to be someone you're not living. It's not how it works. So, you know, I think that's part of the problem. I haven't read the book. I haven't read the book. And it sounds to me like if I did read it, every other page has a bunch of black lines across. You probably should have done that. Did you rewrite those sections? You just leave the black. So my book was quite the process. I actually went head. I got smart, though, about writing my book. At that time, they were denying publications in full to, like, lots of people. And I was like, oh, shit, I want that to be me. So what I did was, I actually read every CIA book that was out there that I knew had been cleared by, like, big guys,

Starting point is 00:26:04 like heads of the CTC, Jose Rodriguez, Hank Crumpton, tenant, like all of them. And then I footnoted every single thing that had been cleared in their book. Right. And not my, right? So it helped. But the problem was they were not undercover. I was. And so that's where we ran into problems was like locational stuff. So I rewrote what you see now in my book is a rewrite of like five times just to get it that way. When I first got it back, eight chapters were completely blacked out, like fully blacked out. And you cannot publish a book like that, obviously. And so by the time we got it to what it looks like now, there are still blackout spots, but it's obviously very intelligible. So yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:48 It's real frustrating. Yeah, I definitely would have left some of the black, blackouts in there. It's in there. It's some people who hate it. There are some people who love it. I don't really care. It is what it is. But yes, some of them are in there because then I just reached a point where I'm like,

Starting point is 00:27:03 I'm definitely done doing all this. You all can read it now. So like this is what we're doing. But yeah, it's very, very frustrating. So you were explaining the difference between what people think undercover work is? Oh, oh, yes. So I think people watch. lot of TV, right? And I think that's wonderful. It always ends up in like I get very frustrated,

Starting point is 00:27:27 especially me, because I get so many people who are like, well, you couldn't have worked for the CIA. Look at what you look like. Like that's really upsetting. And I think a lot of men don't always get that, if that makes sense. And that's very frustrating. Part of it is this whole undercover stuff. It's not about always changing what you look like. Like it's just about changing where you work, right? Like those are two different things. And it's not to say that some of it doesn't involve, I can't talk about it too much, but it's not to say that some of it doesn't involve a little bit of disguise here and there.

Starting point is 00:28:03 But it's not what you think. Right. Yeah. I was going to say, Frick, Frick, Frickfrock. Frickfrock was saying that like, he's like, like, he's like, I had a regular job. Of course, he was, he had a, you know, he had a, you know, he had a. regular job, he said, or it appears that you work at a regular job. I have to be honest with you. I'm not obviously like throwing any shade at him, but it's very

Starting point is 00:28:26 unusual that you would be able to talk about that. I just try to be as respectful as possible to the CIA and what I know I'm allowed to talk about and what I'm not allowed to talk about. Obviously, I'm not doubting what he did, but I'm very surprised that he's able to and willing to talk about that. Let's put it that way. Okay. So, So you were in that program, the poison program for five years. Yeah. And then where did you go from there? The FBI.

Starting point is 00:28:57 I became a special agent at the FBI. Okay. So how long were you with the CIA? Hold on. Five and a half-ish years, six years. Okay. And then so why the cross, how did the crossover happen? Oh, I was sick of being overseas.

Starting point is 00:29:17 I was very burned out. You have to remember being in the council. Terrorism Center before, during, and after September 11th. It's rough, obviously. And so I made the decision. I love to see. I have a ton of awards in my offices in my housewood's office. But I'm still friends with people there.

Starting point is 00:29:37 I'm still friends with my old bosses. But honestly, I didn't want a life overseas anymore. I was real tired, real tired. And I decided, well, let's work counterterrorism, but then do that at the FBI. And honestly, I think we were at that point, you know, in the throes of the Iraq war, our office had something that was misused by Colin Powell, which I talk about in my book. Everyone says that the best part of my book. I don't know because it's the least sexy of my book, but I don't know. But yeah. That's what the weapons of mass destruction. No, so we were working the poisons and toxins on the terrorist side, obviously. And we had, contrary to what people say, about stuff, you work sometimes at headquarters in between being overseas. And so a lot of times we called ourselves the poison trio because it was the three of us. We made a chart.

Starting point is 00:30:36 It's like the most unsexy thing in the world. And we had Zarqawi at the top because he's the head. And then we had some of his henchmen that we were also looking for with their phone numbers, geo coordinates, like all of it. It was just easy for us. And it just said Zarqawi Poison Network. It's really like boring title. And a member of the presidential administration came in to our vault where we worked,

Starting point is 00:30:59 saw the chart and said he wanted a chart. Obviously you give them the chart. Like our director came in the chart. And that chart the next day was used by Colin Powell on the floor of the UN to make the case to go to war in Iraq. And the chart was changed. The title was changed. And it said that Zarqawi's terrorist ties to Iraq. rock. We all knew that that was incorrect. Right. And then what happened was, is all those other

Starting point is 00:31:27 targets that we had on there. We had been following them, but they went underground because now they knew that we were following them. And then they blew up trains in Spain. And we couldn't catch them. We couldn't stop it because of all of that damage. Colom Powell has since admitted in his book that he wrote before he passed away, that it was doctored and it was misused. But yeah, our chart started the Iraq war. Yeah. Well, yeah, well, I was going to say, well, help maybe helped, but I mean, I don't think anything was going to stop it. You know what I'm saying? I don't think anything was going to stop it, but I think that chart, because they brought in the war of terrorism, pretty much the general consensus is that chart was the impetus for getting the votes that were

Starting point is 00:32:07 needed, which is very frustrating. Yeah. So when you crossed over to the FBI, like how did that, Like you said you were tired of it? Like what is the process of saying, hey, you know what? I'm going to go to the FBI. I had begun the process. I was like super transparent, you know, with everyone there. I just had a really good relationship. I didn't leave because I hated it.

Starting point is 00:32:29 I just left because their mission is overseas intelligence collection. Like that is what they do. That's not what I wanted to do anymore. So like it's probably time to leave. And so it was like a mature reason, right, to leave. Right. And so I left on a Friday. I started at Quantico on a Monday.

Starting point is 00:32:46 Yeah. What was, so in a completely different. I hated every single minute of it. No, you didn't. Did you? Yeah, it was the worst experience in my life working at the FBI. Really? Organization.

Starting point is 00:32:59 Yes. So what did you do? I talk about it. I'm very transparent. What did you do there? Well, Quantico was awful. Part of the problem is the CIA and the FBI hated each other. And I don't think I realized that.

Starting point is 00:33:11 We had FBI agents who were detailed to us in the counterterrorism center. And they were wonderful. I had such a great relationship with him. So I just assumed everyone there would be the same. So I think I had that strike against me. So when everyone goes around and introduces themselves, you know, they're saying I was this, this, this, whatever their jobs were, which is great. I said, you know, I came from CIA.

Starting point is 00:33:36 And the director of the FBI of Quantico at that time called me into his office and then very publicly said that I was lying about where I worked, even though. the FBI had to come to CIA headquarters to conduct my background investigation. Clearly I wasn't lying. Like they had all. He just hated the CIA. And as a result, hated me. And so every single thing at Quantico was a problem. Like one of the first modules that you do is interview techniques. It's like the most mundane. So that's like the first thing you do. And you have to wear a suit instead of your uniform, fine, whatever.

Starting point is 00:34:16 go in, do my interview. Same suit I wore to like break the Saudis, like back in and CIA never had an issue. I get called in. You need to apologize to your instructor because your suit makes him uncomfortable. So I made the decision right or wrong to apologize. And then I went and bought like sized suits that were like four sizes to pick. And then there. There's, would make me the point person on like every difficult thing in Hogan's Alley, which is part of your training. They just wanted me to fail, like in every way, shape, or form. And I did it. And I think it really pissed them off. We had two gentlemen in my class that accidentally shot themselves during firearms training. They were lauded. Everyone loved them.

Starting point is 00:35:07 I just kept to me, if you shoot yourself during firearms training, that is an automatic. You're fired. You cannot be an FBI agent because you cannot safely handle a weapon. Like, period full stop the end. Nope. It was so messed up on so many different levels. It was awful. And my mom always asked like, why didn't you quit? But I think I thought it would end. Right. Like Quantico is a finite. At that time, it was 17 weeks. So it's the finite period of time, right? You graduate and then you move along and it will stop. But my, the head of my Quantico at the time was also mad that I didn't get put in a big field office. I was put in a resident agent. Like, every petty thing that you can imagine, I dealt with. So, well, I mean, and that never stopped?

Starting point is 00:35:55 Never stopped the entire time I was there. Because then what had happened was that it is the most gossipy, dysfunctional organization. And I'm, I'm very open about it. And they have a massive sexual harassment problem that for some reason hasn't been addressed why I have no idea. But the problem was the head of Quantico at the time then felt it necessary to call everyone in my office that I was incoming to and tell him how much he didn't like me. Okay. It's the most high school thing I've ever seen in my life. Okay.

Starting point is 00:36:36 So, well, so, so when you, I was, when you, well, I mean, eventually you would have been transferred out of that, you were transferred out of that office, right, out of Quantico. So. Well, you graduate. Everybody graduates. So you're not really around him anymore. Are you still? Yeah, but it followed me to my new office that I was sent to because he felt it necessary to pass that along. Hey, by the way, there's an issue. I have an issue with this. I just don't like her. Even though I literally passed everything. There's nothing. they could do to make me not graduate. So I did. Right. Honestly, if I was that bad, then they would have kicked me out of Quantico, like a long time. They just felt it necessary to make my life difficult. So when you, when you were moved, you weren't moved to your, it wasn't a field office. What did you just call it?

Starting point is 00:37:24 So it's a few. So all field offices, like especially LA. So I was out of the LA field office. But when you have a rural big field office like that, New York, LA, San Francisco, Dallas, you are put in what's called resident agencies or smaller ones. And so I was in the Santa Ana resident agency. Okay. And the case I worked was super cool.

Starting point is 00:37:45 But so what was the case? The environment sucked. What did you end up working? So weirdly, they didn't put me working counterterrorism. Don't. Whatever reason. I think what happened was at the time FBI agents did not have to take a lifestyle polygraph to be FBI agents. CIA officers have to take a lifestyle polygraph.

Starting point is 00:38:08 What does that mean? Lifestyle polygraph. Yeah, so that sucks. It is that I do detail that in my book because it was a wow ride for me. It's like eight hours long and they go into every part of your lifestyle. And all it is, the bottom line is not to determine whether you're lying. It's to determine whether or not you're susceptible to blackmail and being recruited by a foreign entity. Okay. That's all it is. But you have to have that to get what's called a SCI or sensitive compartmented information clearance. A lot of people have top secret clearances, but it's the SCI. That's more difficult. And so everyone at CIA does the lifestyle quality, but not everyone on FBI at that time did. I already had done it. Obviously, I came from CIA. Another reason,

Starting point is 00:38:58 like, why would you not believe me? I literally brought my clearance over here with me. It's fine. Anywho, I think because I had that SCI and it was the only Chinese counterintelligence case in the Bureau at the time and it was dealing with the CIA, the Navy, it was a very sensitive case, a very small group of people. They wanted my clearance there. They didn't want to have to clear someone else. And so they put me there because my clearance. That's what I think. No one ever told me that. That's what I think. So that's, and that's the case you worked a, uh, uh, espionage or Chinese? It was the very first, Chinese economic espionage case here in the U.S. It was covered in the New Yorker and like it's actually a really interesting case. Do you want me to tell you about it or not? Yeah, of course. I want to hear about it.

Starting point is 00:39:43 Well, first of all, well, one, could you clarify what, you know, the economic espionage means? And two, I want to hear about it because I'm actually working on a story, which I've been working on for like two years. So it's going slow. But, but I'm fascinating. It's, it's, because it takes place in the, in the, early 90s where it was a group of, um, uh, Chinese triad members that started.

Starting point is 00:40:12 Oh, yeah. They're so violent. Yeah. They're one of the most violent gangs. Well, and this is the thing. It was, so this is when China was starting to manufacture computers. And so they came over here and they went to the triad. Actually, they were in Hong Kong.

Starting point is 00:40:31 it's whatever, it's too complicated. But they were in Hong Kong and they connected with a triad. And they sent, you know, businessmen, Chinese businessmen, which, you know, might as well be the government. So sent them over. Agreed. We need these types of computer chips. And they manufacture them in the United States. And here's the places they manufacture them.

Starting point is 00:40:52 And so the triad members would go in. You might remember this. Well, obviously you weren't, you weren't working at the time. But it was huge that they would go in. They would watch a manufacturing plant, go in in the middle of the night, you know, zip tie everybody, load up a van with 10,000, you know, processing chips. And then almost drive to like a parking lot and swap out the van for, you know, a duffel bag full of, you know, $5 million, $2 million. So they're giving $10 million for three.

Starting point is 00:41:26 They'll get 30 cents on the dollar. Right. And so they're taking these ships and they're shipping them back to China to be put into computers that are then reshipped to the U.S. to be sold to consumers in the United States. So they're, sorry, they're shipping them to China for the manufacturers to put them in computers and ship them here to be sold to the citizens. And this went on, this went on. And I mean, there was like 30 of these things. It was, it was huge. It was a massive rash.

Starting point is 00:41:54 It was so bad that Bill Clinton did a presidential order to say that in, all computer manufacturers in the United States had to have armed guards on staff. Wow. Then they start hitting the trucks leaving, you know, leaving. They would pull them over and rob them that way. So eventually, listen, eventually there was a murder and the FBI came in and I forget the name of it. It had some some called Westchimp or something. I forget what it was called, but that's some cutie name.

Starting point is 00:42:26 And they came in and they busted. they busted a ton of the groups but there were two separate groups so they're rah rah rah we just took them down and two weeks later bam another one gets hit because they did they took down one whole one group and then but they they missed the other one so a few months later they got that group

Starting point is 00:42:46 and they eventually just dismantled the entire operation but it was it was so it's such an amazing story that these guys were so brazen Like when you hear what they did. But that's pretty typical for triad. They're very brazen and they're very violent. So I mean, I don't want to say I'm shot.

Starting point is 00:43:07 You know, I don't want to minimize, obviously. But like that is how they operate. It's a very, it's a very triad. Yeah. So anyway, that's a story I'm writing that I'm fascinated with. The problem is I contacted the guy in prison. We spoke for, we spoke a few times. And, you know, he doesn't, he didn't want to be involved.

Starting point is 00:43:25 He did, but then he didn't because, you know, he's very ingrained. He's got like 350 years and like, you know, in multiple jurisdictions. He's never getting out. And he's very, you know, I'm not snitching on my friends. Right. Well, because there's an idea of self preservation in prison, right? Like I can't, I can't be mad at him for that. He doesn't want to be.

Starting point is 00:43:42 Right. Right. Well, then, but then he's also telling me like, I can't, he was telling me he's going to file a lawsuit. I can't, I can't do this. He's already copyright. His story. I'm like, well, you didn't sue the New York time.

Starting point is 00:43:54 Yeah, no. And not just that. I'm like, I'm reading the transcripts. Like, I don't need. your help to write this story. I would like it. I would like to know about his daughter. I would like to know about, you know, his relationship with the mother of his kids, his parents, his, and there's some stuff you could just garner. Humanize him. Yes, I would like to. But after speaking with him, he was such a jerk off about it. Um, here's the thing, too, is like, I would imagine as part

Starting point is 00:44:19 of his sentencing, although obviously it could be wrong, but I would imagine as part of his sentence. He's not allowed to profit on it about it. And he's probably not allowed to write books on it, right? Like, especially books from prison. Well, you wouldn't be writing the book. I would be writing the book about. That's what I'm saying. So I don't know what he's copyrighting. Like, there's nothing he can do with it. If that makes sense. It's, listen, it's inmates. So they get something in their head sometimes they think this is the way it works. Yes. And it's like, listen, that's not how it works. It's like these people that are in a public park and you take a photo and they're like, oh, you got to erase that. You've got me in the photo. It's like,

Starting point is 00:44:52 you're in a public park. It's a public park, dude. Sorry. Don't come here if you don't want. I agree with me. So, so yeah, I'm super interested in the whole Chinese thing. Yeah. So what we did is a little different in that it was less brazen, to be totally honest with you, but actually a little more disturbing when you think about all the effort that went into it. And so this is this case is out there. He's been tried.

Starting point is 00:45:15 He's been convicted. It's been written about. So I am not divulging anything in any way, shape, or form. And so this dude, this family, the Mack family, namely Tai and Xi Mack, they're brothers. And one of the brothers was working at a company in Southern California called Power Paragon. And the Navy noticed that two technologies that they had were like missing all of the sudden and that the Chinese like developed it overnight when it was something that we had spent like decades doing. Right. So they tipped off the CIA. And the CIA then found out that those two

Starting point is 00:45:54 technologies came from a company in Southern California. So then the CIA had to tip off the FBI because the company is in California. And so the two technologies, which seem like really irrelevant, but are actually kind of a big deal. The first one's called QED or quite electric drive. It makes submarine propellers silent. That's actually a big deal. Like you want the element of surprise, right? In war. And then the other one was sort of a radar confusing paint. So they would paint the underside of of our warships and then our submarines with this paint. So it would confuse radar, right? So that they couldn't say that's actually a big deal too, right?

Starting point is 00:46:33 Like you want that. Well, the Chinese like developed it overnight. And so basically the Department of Navy, the CIA and the FBI are like, okay, we have like a problem. Someone stealing the shit and like giving it to China. Right. So we got to figure out who works this account, just a few people. And then they figured out that there was a guy who had been here 28 years, became a naturalized citizen. China planted him here for 28 years in this company to steal this stuff. Like that is

Starting point is 00:47:03 very well thought out so much so that he and Rebecca, his wife, became naturalized citizens. Like that's how long they were here. That's crazy. And so he was very much an agent of China. He was a huge Maoist, like big time Maoist and was like super cheap. We thought, I don't know if this is like too much detail. No, I love you. I already got questions. We were tailing him and we thought it was so weird. We were in like a Lowe's or a Home Depot.

Starting point is 00:47:33 You know, like one of those stores. I just don't remember which one. And we're like, oh, he's going to go meet his handler here. We're going to watch him. No, he went there at a certain time every day to get free coffee because he was so cheap. And so he made millions of dollars a year. But this is how he chose to live because he gave all of his money back to the government because he was such a malice and such a communist.

Starting point is 00:47:53 Like that's ideologically what he believed. Fine. And so we thought we were like going to get all this cool stuff, right? Like from following him. We followed him to a car wash. He would just to the gas station. He would go there to like clean his car for free. Like I mean, it was just so weird. And then one day we concocted a plan. We made him believe that he won a sweepstakes to go on a cruise to Alaska, knowing how cheap he was. Like so this whole thing takes time. Like, you have to get inside people's heads, right? And think about, like, what makes them tick? I think a lot of times, even at CIA, when you're recruiting an asset, it's not about finding things to blackmail them. It's about finding actually commonalities and what makes them tick, right? To, like, get that relationship. I think we see in TV that it's about blackmail.

Starting point is 00:48:42 It's actually not. But with him, we realize, okay, you're totally cheap. You will absolutely take a free cruise to Alaska. And he did. And so we sent, they didn't even work this case, but we said, but we said, you know, sent a husband and wife agent team all in the crews with them to follow them, which is like a sweet gig, right? And then the rest of us, we obtained, which is very rare, a surreptitious entry warrant. Those are very rare to get. And we broke into his house without him being there and installed

Starting point is 00:49:13 every camera listening device under the sun that you can possibly imagine. So we broke in at like 2.30 in the morning. But even that takes time too. So that. So that's That was fun. We got nothing off of those devices ever, like at all. And so you would think we would, right? But you want to know how he was gone was from his trash. So we always dumpster dive on people that have open cases on. That's like not unusual. I think everyone knows that. But we don't like just pull up to your house, take your trash and like move along, right? Like you don't do that. So they would pick up within a five mile radius, the waste management facility. And so you, you would have to go back to the waste management facility to go through the trucks. Oh, that's horrible. Well, but you have to kind of, they kind of tell you like that neighborhood was dumped in this area and then you guys have to sift through all that kind of, oh, man. And I had to go into the trucks because just did.

Starting point is 00:50:11 And so that's a, that's all glamour. It really is. But it was interesting. One of the things that was so great, though, was very easy to find their trash. I got used to it after a period of time. They were so cheap, they didn't buy plates. So they would eat on newspapers and then fold up the newspapers into like these origami. So it just looked for the bags that had that in it. It was so easy. But one of

Starting point is 00:50:33 the ones we noticed had like ripped pieces of paper in Chinese. And so we always would bring those back. We don't speak Chinese, but there was an analyst who spoke Chinese. And so they put them on the table and then put them back together. And it was his actual handling documents from the Chinese government telling him what to steal. So easy. That's like an open shot case, right? Like at that point. And so he was arrested at LAX and then sentenced to Lone poke. He died in loan. He was pretty, he was 72 when he was arrested. I mean, he died in prison. His wife served three years and then she was deported back to China where I'm sure she's like a hero there. But yay. So one for them to send him here. I mean, keep in mind they don't know

Starting point is 00:51:16 like at that time they don't know the technology. They just thinking to themselves get in a position where you can acquire technology. The thought behind that is insane. And then the other thing is, I would think being surrounded or being, you know, what I'm trying to think of, you know, whatever, engrossed in the U.S. culture for that long, you would start to look around and say, listen. Nope, not him. They never assimilated.

Starting point is 00:51:44 They barely learned English. And I'm not saying you have to assimilate, but to be her 28 years and not how to. have any of the culture rub off on you is unusual. Yeah. One of if that's part of their practice that they, well, you know, listen, the Chinese are so brazen too. Like they've, they're practically setting up like, you know, little, little, um, offices here to, to harass, you know, Chinese, um, police stations.

Starting point is 00:52:11 Yeah, yeah, they call, yeah, they're little police station. Sometimes they'll even grab somebody or try and force them on a plane or. Yes. Ridiculous. Um, like that, that to me is extremely. It was brazen. And I mean, I'm glad he's went to jail and died there. But how many other people have been here for 28 years? Right. Like it's very interesting. And he was the equivalent because I know we were talking about undercover before. He was the equivalent at CIA of what we would call a knock, right? Like there's all different kinds of cover. And so knock cover is very rare because it's very expensive. But that's what Valerie Plame had. I don't know if you know her. She was the one that was outed by the Bush. administration. The CIA officer had to be called back. So she worked in my office. And so she had to be called back. But knock and non-official cover is being like working in a private

Starting point is 00:53:06 business. Official cover is, you know, any official government entity. Oh, I was thinking of the TV show. You probably never watched this, but it was pretty good. It was called the Americans. So actually no Joe who wrote it. Oh, really? Yeah, great show. I moderated his book discussion for him. Yeah, he's, I really like him. Russia's really like his passion. You know, we, I don't know that he and I had actual.

Starting point is 00:53:36 So when he would have been at the agency, he was working Russia. I was working counterterrorism. So we wouldn't have had any like crossover. And I think he left after like two or three years. So I didn't have a lot of crossover with him. But I've since become like friendly with him since then. And he's really cool. What a great show. It only lasted a few seasons, right?

Starting point is 00:53:56 Yeah. That's too bad. It was such a great show. He just wrote another book, though. It's good. What's the other book about? I don't remember. Sorry. Sounds like it must have been really good. So, okay. So that, that, so I have a question. Look, just because the, what was the Chinese guy's name? Tai Mac and Chi Mac were both of them. two guys. Oh, okay. Okay. They're brothers. So when they came here, right, and you obviously,

Starting point is 00:54:33 you backtrack who had access to this information. And of course, he's suspicious. He's a Chinese, you know, national, naturalized citizen, right? So you become suspicious. How are you sure? Like any number of people probably could have had access to that information. Like, how are you positive or did you look at multiple people? We did. Zero and our. We looked at multiple people, but there were only two people working those accounts. Oh, okay. And so it became very clear that he sort of had this motivation because you've got to surveil him.

Starting point is 00:55:05 Like, oh, this stuff takes time. This takes years, right? Like this isn't just like we woke up one day and decided that they were going to be our, you know, people. This takes time. Yeah, I was just going to say, do you have any idea, but obviously you do? I was going to say the discipline it would take to be, in that environment and have such strong, you know, whatever his, that his values were so strong

Starting point is 00:55:32 and so different than everybody around him to never say anything. Like I can barely, you have no idea how many times someone will say something on a podcast. And the most I'll let slip. And every once in a while, I'll let it slip. And I'll say, I don't necessarily agree with that. But anyway, and I just keep going just because it's almost like, I can't let that go. Like, I can't let you say that and say nothing. And so to be surrounded by a bunch of Americans that long and not let them know how you feel about their values, like the discipline involving.

Starting point is 00:56:06 It was really interesting because one of them never had children, but the other one had a wife and children. And what was fascinating, because when you hear 28 years, like you're going to have a family. But the fascinating thing was one of them had a 19-year-old son who was a student at UCLA. and was in every sense a capitalist American. And you would hear them fighting about him because they couldn't understand like why he's so into stuff and things and money and all of the like. And it was just like an interesting like family dynamic because I think the generation below them clearly wanted nothing to do with this like Maoist whatever lifestyle.

Starting point is 00:56:44 They didn't grow up in China. They grew up here. And so it was just that kind of like fighting, I guess. Well, there's there's tons. of, I don't know if tons is the right word, but there's a considerable amount of Chinese that like they'll find coming across the border. Oh, you mean like in the southern border? Yeah, I've seen that.

Starting point is 00:57:07 You know, it's, I'm always wondering, one, how do you even get out of China? You know, like two, you know what I'm saying? Like, and then you make it across the border to the United States. So, I mean, China allows freedom of movement and freedom of travel, right? It's not North Korea, which like North Korea, you don't get out. out of. So, you know, but I think to the ones coming over the border, I mean, that was new for me even, right? Like, that's not what I expected either. But I do, usually I have an idea of what people's motivations are for like coming across the southern border, whatever their nationality. I can

Starting point is 00:57:47 usually figure that out. With this one, I'm definitely on the fence. I can't decide if they're coming here as like government plants because I don't think they are. Because if you're coming here from the border undocumented, you're not going to get a job, right? Like within these companies. And so that's what I can't quite figure out. I'm on the fence still. I think, to me, if you're leaving China and they're saying, look, we don't want you arriving in the U.S. as a Chinese citizen and being documented as coming into the United States, we would prefer you to appear to

Starting point is 00:58:25 to be going on vacation to Mexico and then sneak in, get rid of all your documents, and then use some kind of identity theft to start a new life. I mean, and that's something that, you know, I don't know how much you know about, you know, my, my charges, but listen, I've had two dozen. I've had two dozen passports. U.S. passports issued by the State Department. I've had 27 driver's licenses issued by the DMV. And these are people that, and, you know, pulled over, given tickets, gone to traffic school, questioned, brought downtown. And never was my identity in question because I had a legitimate document.

Starting point is 00:59:07 Right. Now, then. Right. Well, it, they're not hard to acquire. If you, if you steal someone's identity that is not using their identity actively, then it's not hard to go into the DMV and say, hey, this is who I am. Here's all my paperwork.

Starting point is 00:59:25 Here's this. Take a picture. Get your driver's license. Listen, a week later, I'd go to and fill out my passport application with my pictures with my their birth certificate. Right. I was going to say that their birth certificate. Yeah. And then, you know, two weeks later, and this was, keep in mind, this was 10 years ago, two weeks later, but it's still post 9-11, like nothing's changed other than the fact you could pay back then and get it expedited.

Starting point is 00:59:49 And in two weeks, I'd have a passport. Now you can pay the fee to be expedited. still takes two months. Like it's... What about biometrics, though? Because I wonder how much that will change the shape of this. I, that, yeah, you're right. But even now, even to this day, they don't ask for fingerprints.

Starting point is 01:00:05 They're not for your passport. They're not asking for anything like that. So, you know, and honestly, those photos of you, they're not close enough to take retinal scans or do anything. Oh, no, I agree. Facial recognition, maybe, but... I just wonder if it'll at some point get to... a point where every ID is biometric-based. Like, I know we're not there yet, but then I just wonder then how that will go in terms of getting fraudulent. But the technology is changing so fast.

Starting point is 01:00:34 Yeah. Like, you hate to be that first guy. You know, he's already been in there like, Mr. Cox, could you come over here? Mr. Cops. My name's Brad. Stop it. Sure. I just, I do wonder, though, how that will start to like, because I think the. technology is getting there, right? Like, I just feel like it is. And so I wonder how much, because I arrested plenty of white color folks, you know, at the FBI who had plenty of fake documents, you know, at any given time. So all of that's not surprising. With the Mac brothers, they came here in their real name, right? And so, but I think they had no nefarious anything linked to them. They just looked like Chinese immigrants, right, who were coming to the U.S. So, I don't know.

Starting point is 01:01:21 it's interesting. The white collar folks always had a lot of documents. Yeah. Their favorite thing to do is to put the white collar crime guys, the older ones, in my car to drive back once they had been arrested because none of them thought I was worth anything whatsoever. They'd all been Mirandized. They're chatting you up. I think they're chatting you up. Because they thought that I was just some dumb 21, whatever year old person and they would just Yeah. It's a problem.

Starting point is 01:01:53 I enjoyed it, but I'm sure. Arrogance works against you a lot of times. Yes, but it works for me. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm not looking at it from your point of view. But see, being unexpected, both at CIA and FBI, helped me sometimes be successful with terrorists, with criminals, whatever. Right.

Starting point is 01:02:14 Ego is my best friend, because I don't have one. But, like, criminals do. I was thinking when we were talking about motivation, I was thinking like motivation, like, and you were talking about, um, uh, blackmail. Like, yeah, I don't think blackmail really works well at all. It's, it's like, it's like ideology, economics. I forget what the other one is. Well, the interesting thing was when I would be at dark sites, black sites that we call them at CIA and talking to terrorists. I thought, I guess ego did get in my way. I thought I knew why terrorists became terrorists. Like I thought all of them were fanatics,

Starting point is 01:02:51 all of them hated America. Like, I just thought all the things. And boy, was that wrong. One of them, big, big terrorist, was like, hey, like, I didn't become a terrorist because I hate America and I'm like a radical. I became a terrorist because I'm from a country that has no government, doesn't provide for the needs of his people. He was abandoned when he was seven, living in a sewer ditch, couldn't read, couldn't write,

Starting point is 01:03:17 had unchecked hepatitis. Someone from al-Qaeda found him. in that sewer ditch, brought him to a school, educated him, gave him food, gave him clothes, gave him money, gave him medicine. So he feels beholden to them. And I was like, oh, my God, this is why people become terrorists. I didn't know that. I was so dumb, you know, but.

Starting point is 01:03:36 Well, I mean, and what a great purpose for in life. If your life has no purpose and this is, this becomes your purpose, it gives you a reason to live. Right. Whether it's a deep, you know, deep-seated, you know, difference in ideology or not is, you know, for some people, for some people, I'm sure that that's, that's probably the case. But yeah, I can't. Bin Laden's was all religion. Bin Laden's a gazillionaire. That's like not his issue.

Starting point is 01:04:05 His was religion. Right. But I would say number two and under, a lot of them grew up in environments that like, we would never understand if that makes sense. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like, hey, this is how I'm going to eat. Right. This is how I'm going to stay alive. I have this. They're helping take care of me. Everyone, I have to do this. I have to do that.

Starting point is 01:04:23 You know, they're feeding me. All I have to do is get up every once in a while and say, yeah, rah, raw, yeah. You know, and hopefully they don't ask me to put on a vest and walk into a crowd of restaurant. You know, that's something maybe somebody else does. You know, hopefully I'm just a guy that's a lookout or. And I'm not excusing their behavior. They all deserve to like rot. I don't trust me. But it might help us like stop it in the future if we understand how some of these are radicalized, how some of these folks are radicalized.

Starting point is 01:04:51 I think that was right. Well, the Chinese guy that kills me. Because listen, the Chinese guys that the triads that I've been investigating, like it's all just money. It's all just money. It was not for the max. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? They were not paid a set.

Starting point is 01:05:09 But if you think about like some of the spies that we've had here, some of them have been paid. but some of them have not been paid. If you look at Anna Montes, who was the Cuban, who was arrested on September 13th, 2001, so I think she flew under the radar. She never received dissent from the Cuban government ever for being a spy. It's crazy. What about, but then, well, I was going to say,

Starting point is 01:05:35 there's Aldrich Ames. Yes. What was the other one? So Aldrich Ames is why we have to take the lifestyle polygraph, and then every six months, We have a financial check done on us at CIA. And that's because of Aldrich Ames. Because Aldridge Ames, so I mean, this was back in the 80s, right?

Starting point is 01:05:52 So like, let's put the money in relative. But he was like a GS 14, 15, which I left at a 14. 15 is the highest you can go. You're not making a ton of money. This is like the federal government. Like, right? You know, and he bought two $500,000 houses. So this was like in 1985, right? That's a lot.

Starting point is 01:06:13 We're looking at two, probably $2 million houses on just a government salary, which is, he bought two Jaguars. He bought two. Unless you're in Congress. True. I'm an excellent trader. I'm an excellent trader. I just know how to pick them.

Starting point is 01:06:29 But he is why we have to have financial checks every six months. Hmm. But he was definitely, he was definitely, well, he was paid for sure. No question. The Russians tend to pay. That's different. And so was Robert Hansen, who was. was the FBI spy guy.

Starting point is 01:06:45 I don't know. He was paid in diamonds by the Russians, but both of them were paid. But Anna Montes, who spied for the Cubans, was not paid, and then the max were not paid. I mean, if you're going to do something illegal, at least get like money, right? Yeah. And get out before that it, you know, well, you know, of course he's, I guess they're supposed to have, they were, had bought it. They had a, you know, a summer retreat for him on a river or I'm sorry, on a lake in Russia and everything. Like, I mean, to me, there was plenty of times you could have taken off. Like,

Starting point is 01:07:21 you had plenty of money, you could have taken off. But I wonder if deep down he was thinking himself, like, I'm never going to make that. That's never going to have. Like, I'm going to get off the plane. They're going to pop me in the head. I've watched interviews with Aldrich Ames. No. I don't think he, I, he's very, speaking of ego, I don't think I've ever seen someone with bigger ego. Yeah. Like super arrogant. So arrogant. It was fascinating to want. Um, yeah, but he, he didn't seem like he was leaving. It wasn't like he was preparing to leave. No, no, even though, even though he felt he was set up over there and he had tons of money, he could have started liquidating and gone over there. I, in my, my fear is, and this was the same fear

Starting point is 01:08:04 when I was on the run. Everybody's like, why didn't you go to Russia? Like, you know, if you get a couple million dollars, why don't you go to Russia? I'm not Russia. Sorry, what am I thing. Mexico. Why don't you go to Mexico? Why don't you go to Brazil? Why don't you go? And I was like, bro, if I show up with a couple million dollars in Mexico, you're going to know you're on the run. Everyone there's going to be. I was going to say like the cops will take it from me. It's not like I have to worry about the criminals. Like even the police will come. You can't. I said, there's nobody to call. I was like, you know, then I have to live in Russia. I mean, then I'm sorry, then I have to live in in Mexico. I'm like, I just, you know, and maybe and I've talked to people where they're like,

Starting point is 01:08:35 no, there's plenty of pockets there where there's tons of American patri or expats. You could have gone here. You could go on. I don't know. I just, I think I was just so arrogant. I felt like I just wasn't going to get caught, you know. But in my opinion, I hate to say this. I didn't feel this way about terrorists, but I felt this way about the criminals of the FBI. I do think their arrogance is what ultimately gets them caught, right? Oh, listen, every, listen, every bad decision I've made in my entire life was based on arrogance, every single one and has bitten me in the ass every single time. And that, and I don't just mean from once I started doing criminal activity, the arrogance that got me involved in criminal. Like it was from the beginning all the way through.

Starting point is 01:09:21 Interesting. You know, and it was only non-arrogant decisions after. And really, honestly, once I started, once I started my sentence, probably about three, four years into my sentence when I started. Humble you real quick. Yeah, I started thinking, you know, you get to a point where you're, you're, you're a bitch. and moaning about being there and how you shouldn't be there and how this and that. And then at some point you start to, well, I did.

Starting point is 01:09:45 You started to go, now you're supposed to be here. You know what I mean? Like, you know, maybe you shouldn't have got 26 years. I'll give you that. That's excessive. But you definitely should be here. You know, and then you start, you know, I started writing, I wrote a memoir and you kind of have to do a lot of self-reflection.

Starting point is 01:10:02 And you start thinking, you know, what are the decisions that led me here? And, you know, and if you start thinking and all of those. those decisions are my fault. Because that's a great way to look like, you know, it's not because she did this or because this guy did this. No, no. You know, you start taking responsibility for every, even every everybody else's actions. You know, so, you know, I started doing that.

Starting point is 01:10:23 I think I just fundamentally kind of had a change of heart. I think that's commendable that you like own that. I don't know how to say that. I just think that's really impressive that you own that. So I think it's just preservation. Because I watched so many people leave prison and come back. Come back. I mean, our racism rate is like 90%.

Starting point is 01:10:45 So. It's like, what we're thinking? Yes. You know, and, you know, they was always like, well, man, I needed money or I needed this. I was like, well, I thought like we talked about this. I thought you were going to rent a spare room at somebody's house and keep your bills. I know, but I met this chick and she had two kids. And she was like, well, you weren't going to date anybody.

Starting point is 01:11:04 You were going to do, you had this whole goal. You're all, I know, but you didn't even get out of the halfway house. You know, and you're already making these decisions to get yourself back in. And so many, I spent so much time with other like con men, right? And I would listen to them. And I'm telling you right now, 90% of them were actively saying, would say, well, you know, there's this place, there's this business called, um, uh, Reputation.com.

Starting point is 01:11:36 And they can bury all of the stuff that's on you. you. So, you know, in, you know, so if you go to look on Google, all the articles that were written about your case, they can bury it. So they're 15 or 20 pages down so nobody can find them. That's really disturbing. Oh, yeah. So, and they can also boost things that you want. So not for you. Like I don't, I feel like your crimes, they're not, they're not. Right. Right. Yeah. Like those are crimes I don't really want buried. Well, I think what these guys were doing is they, they would start talking about all the things that they were going to do. And to me, as I'm listening to them, like try and get your name change, trying to, you know, hire Reputation.com, hire this, hire that. And I might have the name wrong. I think it is reputation like dot com. Anyway, so they would hire like, I'm going to do this.

Starting point is 01:12:29 I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And I kept thinking like, I feel like you're just working on your next indictment. Like, what? You know, why are you trying to hide all this? Well, I got to get a job. I'm like, then you get a job that's accepting of the fact that you went to prison. Oh, no, nobody will hire me.

Starting point is 01:12:45 Well, you know, I'm thinking people do hire you. I'm thinking that you go out and you start at the bottom. Well, what I'm going to dig ditches. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to dig. That's what you're going to do. You do it for a little bit.

Starting point is 01:12:55 It's not forever. It's not fun. Right. Somebody will, you know, and you climb that ladder. Right. So I used to tell everybody I was, I was going to work at, McDonald's. And I was genuinely almost disappointed that I didn't get a job at McDonald's. Instead, a friend of mine hired me to work at a gym that he owned. And I was like, I was really

Starting point is 01:13:19 kind of wanted to be able to say I worked at McDonald's for six months or something. You know what I'm saying? Like I had a whole. Okay. And I did. I lived in someone's spare room for 18 months. But if that's what you have to do to get back to not go back, then I think. That has to be, we have a very high recidivism rate in this country. It's one of the highest in the world. And I think that that just bows with what you're saying, right? That, you know, everyone's going back. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:13:48 Well, I think it's twofold. I think one, they're not trying to rehabilitate anybody. No. There are programs, but they're so, it's really, you go to the program, you're like, I feel like this is, like it's window dressing, you know, for politicians or for, people. And then I, um, so one, it's, it's, it's, it's, it is. It's just people there. So there's no way to read there, there's very little rehabilitation. Right. And then you get out and there's very little help. Like they, if you had a lot longer in the halfway house and some more help in the

Starting point is 01:14:25 halfway house, because I know guys that had done 10 years and they got like three months and a halfway house. It's like they've had nobody to go out to. It's not a good reentry into society. Right, right. You know, there's very, very little forgiveness, I think, in people's hearts. See, that's not fair. And I think even in law enforcement, you do have to have empathy to a certain degree. Even at CIA in dealing with terrorists, right? You have to have empathy to a certain degree just because someone made a bad choice. It doesn't mean that they're defined by the sum of all of those choices, right?

Starting point is 01:14:56 Right. Yeah. It's a tough situation. But we'll see. It worked out for me. Um, but yeah, a lot of these guys, like I said, they just, they have, they, they just can't, they can't conceive of the fact that they put themselves there. It's always somebody, somebody snitched on me. Somebody somebody, somebody did something that is why I'm here and, you know, it's like, okay, well, you sound like you're coming back. And I, like you said, most of them do come back. Um, but, uh, so, so ultimately you did you ultimately you were, you retire. I, I, I mean, I just like left in good standing. Same at the CIA. You know, I left. You know, I left. I don't want to be specific because it makes me a little uncomfortable, but the sexual harassment got extremely bad to the point that I always had dinner with my dad.

Starting point is 01:15:43 And he was like, I don't understand why you're still there. This is not okay. And so I actually did file a complaint. I was really, like, proud of myself. There's no way to really do that. And their solution was to move me to an office four and a half hours away, not pay my expenses until they could figure out how to resolve the complaint. And so, and my SSA was notorious for being a sexual harasser.

Starting point is 01:16:08 He shouldn't have ever still been there in the first place. Like, there is just a whole. And he, so I just made a decision at that point in time that, you know what, it's time to quit. And it's so interesting. I almost didn't put in my book that I worked at the FBI because sometimes when that happens to you, feel like it's your fault. But I know it's not my fault. That's ridiculous.

Starting point is 01:16:28 I know that. But I didn't want to talk about it. but I received a letter since 2019. I don't remember from an individual with a link to the New York Times. And I clicked on the link. And it's a 19 women gender discrimination lawsuit against the FBI and against the director of Quantico. And the new director of Quantico was someone who had made my life absolutely miserable at the time. And it didn't stop.

Starting point is 01:16:57 But clearly it didn't stop. And so that's when I decided to put. it in my book too because I think we need to have a chitty chat about it. And then, so I left the FBI and it actually became a high school history teacher. Okay. What I went to college? What? That was the original plan. What I went to call it to do, but I put a different spin on it. I started teaching at the largest, probably most prestigious all-girls school in the U.S. And I realized like we need to change the gender narratives like in these jobs. And so I created a class on national security, crime, and foreign policy for women only.

Starting point is 01:17:35 And since then, I've had girls go into the State Department, Homeland Security, the military, the FBI, the CIA, you name it, they're there. And I'm like so excited that I could like change things from like the ground up. Right. I guess I don't know. But I've since left that school. And I'm happy to share my experience here because it's a criminal one if you want to hear it. So you know, I'm former CIA, former FBI, I went to that school as teacher of the year.

Starting point is 01:18:06 I mean, I just, I had a very successful career. Let's put it that way. And I was really excited because at the school, they have a like a child development center that's attached to it. And so when we had our daughter, we're like, this is great. She can go to school with me every day. Like how cool is that, right? She was doing great there. But when she was three, her arm was broken by her.

Starting point is 01:18:29 her teacher. And listen, I'm a teacher. Shit does happen. Kids break stuff on play on playgrounds. Like it happens, right? But he lied about how it was done. And he said that he just was pushing her on the swing and that's what happened. But the orthopedist was like, no, he forcibly, she had too many breaks in her arm for it to just be that. And so I lodged a complaint with the school because I wasn't upset necessarily that she broke her arm. I was upset that it was lied about if that makes any sense. Like that was my thing. And they said, no, we're not going to fire him. Stop complaining about him. Everyone loves him. We're not going to fire him. And at that point, we weren't fully into the school year yet. We were a bit into the school year. And I was like, do I quit? Like, what do I do here?

Starting point is 01:19:16 My husband's like, well, we're not in a position for you to quit. And then my daughter came home and started talking about how Mr. Jason was like locking her in the closet. And I got it on on my own and I called CPS again and the school was like why did you call CPS? We're going to make your life miserable for doing that. You shouldn't have called CPS. Not oh my God, we're so sorry. Right. So I quit. And five months later, that teacher who I had formally complained about was let out of the school in handcuffs and is serving a 20 year prison sentence on child pornography charges. Oh, wow. So I have become a massive advocate about teacher hiring habits and fighting for the rights. And the warning signs are there.

Starting point is 01:20:07 You're just. And I think to me being forthcoming about my story, if it can happen to me, it can have it. Like, I'm former CIA. I'm former FBI. I am very security aware. And, you know, that school is, it costs the tuition is $50,000 a year. This is not, this is an elite school. And if it can happen there and if it can happen to me, I'm very much pro sharing my story.

Starting point is 01:20:33 If that makes any sense. But I trust no one. I don't trust teachers. So I have a question. Did you won the 18 women or, well, I think you said 18. Did you join? 19. Did you join?

Starting point is 01:20:47 No. No. Oh, I was going to say. I supported them. Like, you know, I like gave them words of encouragement. But I wasn't interested in like suing like I want to help make create change, but just in a different way. I support what they're doing a thousand percent.

Starting point is 01:21:01 I just do it a different way. Right. And what about the school? Did you ever file anything against the school? I sued the shit out of the school. Okay. Okay. I'm assuming they settled at some point?

Starting point is 01:21:13 Nope. Or is that still going on? Four years later, they still will not settle. Wow. Even though it's so, oh, that seems, okay, that seems obvious, but. You would think so, especially because he's in prison. Like, this isn't even a question. Like, do you know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:21:28 There's not even a question mark involved. I think they have just never had someone. This is going to sound interesting. I think people very much underestimate me. And I will not mess with people overtly, but if you wrong me, I will absolutely mess with you. And like, I think the school is probably in a state of shock that I, one, talk about them. I mean, I'm kind of a social pariah in the city that I live in because everyone loves this school so much. And I did drag them through the mud. But in my opinion, that story needs to be told because parents need to be aware of like what happens and why some claims are not like brought forward. So I don't know. But I think it's definitely impacted us. We have my daughter still goes to therapy. It's going today. You know, and so it's just it's fun. because I can almost die in Afghanistan.

Starting point is 01:22:23 I can get shot at and have all this stuff happen. That was the worst experience ever. Yeah, I mean, is it scheduled for trial? Yes. Do you know when? Yeah, in about six weeks. Oh, wow. Okay.

Starting point is 01:22:41 I say go for it. The way that I see it is that whether I win or lose, I feel like I will always look like I'm on the right side of history here. Right. You really can't spin having a pedophile employed by your school and ignoring claims about it a positive way, especially when he's already been convicted and pled guilty. It'll be hard to get him on the stand. I don't think they need to. No, I know.

Starting point is 01:23:06 I'm saying. Yeah, no, I mean. I feel like, you could call this guy to the stand. No. And he's like, well, no, it doesn't happen. So really, why are you in orange? It's not a good look. But no, I've never actually litigated against anyone in my entire life.

Starting point is 01:23:20 life, to be honest with you. I'm just not that kind of person. But this was something that I felt shouldn't be swept under the rug. And there's pretty horrible laws called, have you heard of taking out the trash laws? So this is to your point about the Reputation.com or whatever that's called. Yeah. With teachers, so he had worked at multiple schools.

Starting point is 01:23:41 Oh, okay. And with teachers, by law, they can't say why they've been fired. And so if a school had an inkling that he was engaging in, and put up here or whatever, they could fire him. But if he hasn't been convicted of a crime, they can't tell the next school. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, it, to me, like, okay, here's, well, I mean, look, you know, like, like you said, what is it, DCS?

Starting point is 01:24:10 You know, child service. Child Protective Services. CPS. CPS. Yeah. I think they call it something else in Florida. But, um, but, yeah. So anyway, I was going to say, like, it's.

Starting point is 01:24:20 funny because it's like the, you know, the child's protection of the child trumps even the parental rights. You know, they'll come in, take like even just an allegation. We'll come in. Here's what we're going to do. No, I don't want to do that. You can't talk to my child. You can't. No, no, no, no, we'll talk to your child. We'll put them in foster care. If you, it's like, what are you talking about? I haven't been charged. It doesn't matter. It's so there are some things that that trump the average citizens rights, even parental rights. So to me, if it doesn't make sense that you're going to be working around children and you're saying, no, no, my rights trump the rights of the children. I agree with you. And that's why I work on passing laws. I'm trying to work state by state.

Starting point is 01:25:02 Some states have, I think it's Ohio has, does have one in place where they will tell the next school. But yes, you're right. The argument people are making is privacy. And in my opinion, if you have engaged in pedophilia, I don't know that you have a right to privacy anymore. Yeah, it's kind of like the priest where they're moving them from parish to parish. Yes, this is what's happening with teachers. They're moving them from. And look, I'm a teacher. I'm like, I do not think all teachers are bad and pedophiles. That's not what I think. But we need to reexamine these laws. Because it's not okay in my opinion. Yeah. And I think he hated me. He treated my daughter very poorly. And he hated me because I think I made him nervous being. FBI. Right. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing happens with detectives. I'm not sorry, detectives, but police officers too, they'll go. It's like, okay, well, you think somebody would say in five years, this is the third or the, you know, the third, you know, I'm saying the, sheriff's department you've been in. Like, you know, but they can't really tell them why they left

Starting point is 01:26:11 the last one. Right. It's, I just think, I don't know, but yeah, that's what I work on now. And then I just got a bill passed for CIA officers to be covered for mental health care as well. I got that passed last summer, which is awesome with my senator. So this is your full-time thing now? No, my full-time is I am the national security contributor to News Nation. Oh, okay. Yeah, which I love. It's awesome.

Starting point is 01:26:40 And then I am an adjunct professor of criminal justice. Okay. Where? At TCU. I'm in Dallas. Yeah. All right. Well, that's cool.

Starting point is 01:26:50 I like it. Yeah, you've got some cool gigs, right? Yeah. I really like it. Well, I mean, how do you feel about this? Are you okay with, um, with wrapping this up? Is there anything else you want to talk about? No, I really enjoyed talking with you and I really am impressed with, like, what you do and how you're so forthcoming, like, about, I just think that's really cool.

Starting point is 01:27:13 Okay. I was going to say I just shoot the shit with people. No, I know, but you're very open and honest about your past. And I think that that is something that serves a lot of people well in terms of education. And I just, it's good. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And it's funny too because like I hear that all the time.

Starting point is 01:27:30 Like where to me I always joke around with like when guys will, well, most of our stuff now is people coming in person and, you know, they'll be like, you know, so I'm talking to some guy. And I'm like, honestly, I feel like I'm just back in prison in the yard, shooting the shit with some guy. You know, like, what happened? You know, where there's no time limit because, like, you know, you've got four or five hours where they're not going to let us back in the unit. It's like, so you're like, so how's the kid's here? And you just, you just keep asking questions. Well, what happened with that guy? Well, what happened when the police came?

Starting point is 01:28:01 Well, I don't understand. Why did you trust that guy? You knew he lied before. So I just, I, that's what I feel like. And even when I was doing that, I remember thinking to myself, like, I wish this could be, I could get paid for this. Like, you know, because you. That's awesome. Why not?

Starting point is 01:28:15 Right. Because it's, it's funny. Interesting people are some of the, it's some of the few times that I, I genuinely take a real interest in other people when they have an interesting kind of, when they're not, it's not the norm. You know what I'm saying? It's like you don't, it's not normal. Like you're, you clearly have not had a normal life.

Starting point is 01:28:33 See, and that's why I feel I'm, I feel opposite. I feel like I'm very unremarkable. So that's funny. When I come all things. That's kind of how I feel. I don't know why he wants to know about me. I'm not that interesting, but okay. But, you know, it's the same thing.

Starting point is 01:28:45 It's the, it's the fish in water, right? Like the fish doesn't know he's surrounded by water. But you don't understand, you know, the environment you're in because it just seems so natural to you. It's normal. Right. Right. Well, I hope this was okay. No, this was great.

Starting point is 01:28:59 This was great. What is the name of your book? Oh, yeah. My book is called The Unexpected Spy. And then that's also my Instagram and TikTok handle as well. The unexpected. That's kind of, you know, the boost of Monte, you know, the everyday spy. Mine's an unexpected spy.

Starting point is 01:29:14 And I think it's, my husband came up with it. And I think that that's, that's good. But it's been out for gosh, four years now. Okay. Yeah. Good. And it's available what on Amazon? You can just click on.

Starting point is 01:29:26 Everywhere, Amazon Target. Some independent bookstores still have it. Wherever. All right. Well, that is cool. I, yeah, I appreciate you coming on. Thanks for having me. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching.

Starting point is 01:29:40 Do me a favor if you like the video. Please share the video. Please click on the like button. hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Leave me a comment in the comment section. And also, we are going to leave Tracy's book link for Amazon in the description box and any social media that she gives me. I really appreciate you guys watching.

Starting point is 01:29:58 Thank you very much. See you.

Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Cia Spy Exposes Fbi Government Corruption

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