Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 7/8/22 John Kiriakou on Vault 7, Robert Grenier and Bin Laden’s Escape at Tora Bora

Episode Date: July 10, 2022

Scott is joined by CIA officer turned whistleblower turned political commentator John Kiriakou to discuss the trial of Joshua Schulte, the man accused of leaking the CIA’s Vault 7 program to Wikileaks. Schulte denies being involved in the leak. His next trial is fast approaching. Kiriakou explains how the Justice Department also accused Schulte of having child pornography on his computer, although they walked it back when the judge requested they actually press charges. Scott and Kiriakou discuss past cases where the U.S. government weaponized false allegations of sexual crimes against whistleblowers. They then get into a discussion about former CIA officer Robert Grenier who Kiriakou worked with. He talks about their falling out. And any discussion of Robert Grenier is inevitably going to include Bin Laden’s escape into Pakistan at Tora Bora in December of 2001. Scott goes through some of the best books on the topic and Kiriakou gives his account of that critical time period from inside the Agency.  Discussed on the show: “A Whistleblower’s Agony” (Scheer Post) Kiriakou’s books  @innercitypress on Twitter Robert Grenier’s post-Jan 6th interview on NPR 88 Days to Kandahar by Robert Grenier Jawbreaker by Gary Berntsen Kill Bin Laden by Dalton Fury/Thomas Greer “This Air Force commando called in 688,000 pounds of bombs in one battle” (Task & Purpose) Bush at War by Bob Woodward John Kiriakou is a former CIA officer and author of The Convenient Terrorist: Two Whistleblowers’ Stories of Torture, Terror, Secret Wars, and CIA Lies and Doing Time Like A Spy. He is the host of Loud and Clear on Sputnik Radio. Follow him on Twitter @JohnKiriakou. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. Almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at Scott Horton.4. You can sign up the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. All right, to you all on the line, I have got John Kiriaku.

He used to be a CIA analyst, and then he was a CIA officer operative type, and then he went to prison for saying some true things about their, torture program. They don't like that. If he tortured people, he'd have had full immunity, you know. But talking about it, that'll get you in trouble. And he's a writer now. Oh, I forget. I'm sorry. Correct me in a second about your show and where it's on and when. I forget. But he is the author of Surveillance and Surveillance Detection, a CIA Insider's Guide. How to disappear and live off the grid, a CIA Insider's Guide. I sure hope you're not just entrapping people. people on that one. They say that you're, once you're CIA, you're always CIA, even after they

betray you and put you in prison. Lying and lie detection, a CIA insider's guy, very interesting, doing time like a spy, how the CIA taught me to survive and thrive in prison. I know a couple people who've read that and really liked it. And then here's the one that, no, I've read a few of these. I read this one, reluctant spy, my secret life, and the CIA's war on terror, and the CIA Insiders Guide to the Iran Crisis. Of course, Gareth really wrote that one. All about Iran, which is beautiful and perfect. And not as good as manufactured crisis, but pretty close.

And then the convenient terrorist with the American hero, certifiable American hero whistleblower, another whistleblower, Joseph Hickman about Abu Zabeda, or should I say, the Abu Zabedas involved in our terror war. And man, here you are sticking up for another whistleblower, as you ought to be. And this guy's name is Joshua Schulte. And I think we've covered him on the show at least once or twice. He is accused of leaking the Vault 7 CIA League to WikiLeaks.

So welcome back to this show. First, tell me about your show, since I screw that up and left that out of your bio. And then let's talk about Joshua Schulte here. Sure. I've got a show Monday through Friday on Sputnik Radio. It's called Political Misfits. It's from 12 to 2. You can hear it at sputniknews.com or on Rumble.

We're banned everywhere else. So you can't hear it anywhere else. 12 to 2. Now, well, I'll go ahead and ask it because I know how people are with their silly little feelings and emotions and stuff like that. Have you sold your soul to Vladimir Putin in exchange for some paper Federal Reserve notes here?

No, I haven't. People ask me this all the time. And I'm always happy to answer the question. When Sputnik first approached me now five and a half years ago to ask if I wanted a show, I turned it down. And then they came back six months later and they offered it again. And I said, look, if I work for you guys, I want the freedom to say anything I want, no holds barred. And I want the freedom to criticize anyone I want, including Vladimir Putin. They said, done.

I said, would you be willing to put it in the contract? They said, yes. And they did. And so I speak freely. In fact, on the day of the invasion of Ukraine, I said that I was opposed to cross-border operations that any country launched. If the United States had invaded a country, I would protest that. I understand why they did it.

I disagree with them doing it. And I urge the Russian military to retreat back to Russia. So they let me speak my peace. Nobody ever makes any complaints. Well, that's good. And good for you. for you know standing by your principal there and you know obviously you're interested in telling the truth to the American people and you gotta eat too and I think it's fine just as you said as long as you're willing to sit here and virtually well in audio form look me in the eye and tell me I don't give a damn dude I say whatever I feel like just as I always did and that's good enough for me for sure and you know I never hold it against anybody who goes on RT or goes on Sputnik I used to go on there when I lived in L.A. about 10, 12 years ago, I used to do RT sometimes.

I would do press TV a couple of times. And then, well, press TV censored me when I talked about Iran's role in Baghdad. They didn't like that. So that was the end of going on there. And then with RT, like, I always appreciated the fact that they would give a voice to American political dissidents who deserve a voice, who absolutely should have a chance to be interviewed on mainstream TV news all the time and just are not allowed to. at the same time though they're doing it because they care about us and it is kind of it is tainted in a way that like you know all my anti-american imperialism is not on russia's behalf believe me it's

on america's behalf and i don't like the appearance of the conflict of interest there but but as i say that's only just for me and also drive my wife completely crazy because she hates russia so much um but um but i don't hold that against anyone else who goes on russian media including people who I know like you are American patriots and don't give a damn for Russia other than a decent respect for all of humankind, but that's it, you know.

That is it. You've hit it on the head. Good. And look, I remember you telling me about being in prison how you got along with the mobsters because, well, they get along with the CIA, they hate the FBI, but they've got a relationship going back with the CIA, but it's not just that. It's that they're

very patriotic, and they look at CIA officers as, really be in the front line and protecting the country in that sort of naive way that most Americans do. And that's why they loved you so much, is because, you know, that is what you personified to them, is that you're in it. What's your interest in this is protecting the life and liberty of the American people, same as in your oath as always. You know, there was a, there was a line in the Sopranos way back when, where they were asking Tony to provide some counterterrorism information and he was reluctant and one of them said your daughter she goes to columbia does she

get there using the bridges and tunnels and you know that's really what it comes down to i'm still in touch with those guys you know they've invited me to a couple of parties we met up in atlantic city uh there there was a mutual respect that uh that continues it was it was eye opening yeah man um all right and of course it'd be the if anybody's blown up the brooklyn bridge in new york we all know it's the FBI, Robert Mueller, and his thugs. You know? Exactly. They're the ones that run all these false flag operations.

That's why we need the CIA to protect us from the FBI. And that's why we need the Marines is to protect us from the CIA. That's right. Anyways, so listen, let me ask about this Vault 7 thing because, you know, it's funny the way this has gone not unreported, but, you know, mostly uncovered. And it hasn't gotten quite the controversy about it, even though. This is really, if I remember. Right. This is a huge revelation even to, you know, people like myself who, you know, I've been interviewing the likes of James Bamford since long before Ed Snowden. You know what I mean? I'm interested. I've always been interested in that kind of thing. But this showed that the CIA is essentially just as capable or at least just as well equipped as the NSA or the FBI when it comes to violating the privacy of the American people. Which is really incredible. Like, we did not know that, did we? Or you did maybe, I don't know. We did not know that the CIA was as deeply

involved in technological development as they are. We did not know that they could rival DARPA or NSA in the development of new cutting-edge technologies that can be used against American citizens until the Vault 7 revelations. Yeah. So tell us what's in there. Remind us. Yeah, you know, vault 7, wow, where do we even begin? What? What? was in this information? These were really the crown jewels of the CIA. Mike Pompeo called the Vault 7 revelation Digital Pearl Harbor. That's how serious the CIA, or seriously, the CIA took this revelation. And they've zeroed in on Joshua Schulte, who was a kind of a, he's probably on the autism spectrum. He was a CIA hacker, you know, somebody that the CIA

employed to hack into foreign systems. He didn't get along with his co-workers. He didn't get along with his supervisor. And so they zeroed in on him as the suspect. He has always denied that he was the guy that released Vault 7 to WikiLeaks. And in fact, he was originally put on trial last year. The jury hung on most of the counts. On two of the counts, something that we call process felonies or throwaway felonies like making a false statement or or obstruction of justice he was acquitted of those and so he's being retried right now in the southern district of new york and in fact i believe that the case is going to the jury on monday i've been trying to follow this on on twitter because like you say scott almost nobody is covering this you you have to

really seek out reporting and um and it's these you know blogger and minor independent journalists that are covering this thing. Schulte, I think, is making a serious mistake in that he's representing himself. He got rid of his public defenders, and he's been representing himself. Now, I'm going by only what I'm reading coming from, it's called Inner City Press on Twitter at Inner City Press. And what they're reporting is that he's actually done pretty. well in holding his own, but I'm not seeing the other side.

I'm only seeing Schulte's side. For example, the judge said today that he was going to finally issue jury instructions. And Schulte asked for the judge to order the CIA through the prosecutors to say whether or not they have what is called closely held information. that includes recipes for hot chocolate, for example, because at the CIA, all of us, and I mean literally all of us, had a very bad habit of classifying literally everything.

So if I sent my wife, who was also a CIA officer, a text, a classified text through the system, or a classified email, and I'd say, hey, do you want to have lunch today? I would classify that at the secret level, Secret no foreign. Why? Because. Because everybody does it. And then she would say, yeah, let's meet in front of the deli. And she would classify that secret. Well, everything's classified. So Schulte is saying, look, because everything is classified, then nothing is classified. Everything is over classified. Are you classifying a hot chocolate recipe? If so, is that considered to be national defense information? Remember, the espionage act under which he's being prosecuted, is so old it was written in in 1917 that it doesn't even mention the term classified information because the classification system wasn't even invented until the 1950s.

It mentions only national defense information and nowhere in any statute is the term national defense information explained or described, right? We don't really know what national defense information is. And so this is what Schulte is saying, that he didn't do it, first of all, is argument number one. Second of all, even if he did do it, the government has never really explained what national defense information is. And so the statute is unconstitutionally broad. So I guess we'll see some time next week what the jury thinks about this. In the meantime, this guy has been held in absolutely inhumane conditions.

uh, at, uh, well, do you know, I'm sorry, John, but do you know if they've demonstrated that he was involved in this at all? I mean, it sounds like the way you frame it there is quite different from many of these other whistleblowers. It seems in doubt whether he's the guy or not. Like, we knew Thomas Drake did something and we knew that Bradley Manning did something there, you know. Yeah. And I went on TV and did it for everybody to see. But he claims that he's, um, that he's not the guy. In fact, there was an FBI agent on the stand for, for much of the week this week um saying you know he was asking this FBI agent did you take this hard drive off my desk yes uh did you look to see what was on the hard drive uh I tried why didn't you see what was on the hard drive

it was uh encrypted or password protected we couldn't crack it okay well then that's it so there's no proof that he actually did this but they're saying that he was such an asshole and he was such a malcontent and couldn't get along with anybody and then they fired him that out of anger and spite he went and did it now scott they also did something else the the prosecution did something else that i think is part of a a strategy um they charged him with multiple counts of child pornography and those charges are not being heard in this trial they've kept them aside and i think they've done this for a couple of reasons first of all They charged Julian Assange with sex crimes, of course, and those charges were eventually withdrawn.

They charged Matt DeHart with child pornography. And then when Matt DeHart's attorney said to the judge, look, we've not received any discovery at all about these child pornography charges. Then the Justice Department said, well, there actually wasn't any child pornography. But what they do now, almost- They did, wait, wait, they did say that. They conceded that, oh, yeah, no, we don't have any evidence for that. We were just making that up. Yeah, and in fact, he was never, he was never tried on any child pornography charges.

Well, I mean, him not being tried is one thing, but them saying to the judge, ah, yeah, nah, we were just bluffing about that essentially is something else entirely. And they tried to cover themselves by saying that when they had first confiscated his hard drive, they had reason to believe that there was child pornography on the hard drive, and then there wasn't. And so they needed to update the charges. So they ended up dropping those child pornography charges. Wow.

Okay. So that's, I mean, that is different than them saying, well, we're not sure if we can get a conviction on this for one reason or another. And saying that actually, no, we have no evidence of that thing that we said. That's a pretty big climb down from them, you know? I talked to him last weekend and he told me that they literally ruined his life with the accusation. Oh, yeah, dude. That's the worst thing you could falsely accuse somebody of, me. man absolutely you know somebody's guilty of that then they deserve whatever you can do to them but

if they're not oh man that's so unfair to do to somebody when he was first arrested this is matt to heart um his attorney reached out to me and said look you know i know your feelings on pedophiles you you've written about pedophiles but he goes matt to heart needs your help and i can guarantee you he is no pedophile and it was only because of that that i reached out to the guy and then i started to really follow the case, and they just lied about him. They just lied. And now, I'm sorry, who's DeHart? That's his lawyer? No, no, Matt DeHart is the Army whistleblower. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I forgot. Which whistle did he blow there? Now you put me on the spot, and I don't remember. What got him, what really got him into

trouble was at the first sign of a problem with the military, he ran to Canada. And then the Canadian sent him back here. And so he was held without bond because they said he already fled once and they're afraid he was going to flee again. I see. But he's still, he's still engaging with attorney. He's finished his prison sentence and he's home, but he's still engaging with attorneys to try to clear his name. But this is what the Justice Department does. There's this whiff of sexual impropriety, right?

Oh, well, Julian Assange, he forced himself on these women. Matt DeHart had child porn on his computer. Sorry, Josh Schulte had child porn on his computer. Well, did he? Because he denies, adamantly denies, that there is any such thing on his hard drive. And if they had child porn, then why didn't they try him? Why break up this case? Yeah.

It doesn't make any sense. Well, and sure, it is great character assassination there. Beautiful. Because what it does is it separates you from your natural allies and supporters. Right. All right. Well, man, I found this Twitter feed, which apparently I already follow Inner City Press. And I can see where this guy, you know, is in the courtroom tweeting all of this out. Yeah. It's very impressive. I'm trying to see what actually. I page down too quickly. I should have looked more carefully at what the last thing was. He says, okay, he dismissed them until Monday.

Yep, yep. So it's over for today, at least as far as that goes. Now, and on the Vault 7, I mean, this is where we learned about marble cake, which was, you know, I'm sure they changed the name of all these things, but this is where the CIA can hack into a computer and also, I guess, automagically, right? They just, with a couple of clicks, they can try to frame somebody else to make it look like it was somebody else who left their fingerprints behind. Yeah, and they can watch. you through your smart TV, which sounds just like either Orwell or BS, but it's true. It's true.

You took the words right out of my mouth. They can hack into your smart TV. More frightening is they can hack into the computer system of your car. And they can actually force the car, you know, off the road, into a tree, off a cliff, all different kinds of things. And, you know, Andy Greenberg, I believe is his name. Yeah. From Forbes magazine. Brilliant computer genius.

He went and put all that to the test and showed that it was correct. Wow. That they could do it. And, of course, look, I got to bring it up because what the hell, man. I ain't trying to be sensationalist about it. Frankly, I really am not. But there's reason, of course, to suspect that that was what happened to Michael Hastings. And, you know, I think there could be something to that.

Now, I have to say, I mean, just a lot of people are automatically suspicious about that. Now, I'll fast forward to the end. My conclusion is that that's not right. And that's because his brother gave an interview to their family friend who was a journalist. That's like an hour and a half long interview that you can read, where he just explains everything about what was going on. And he had severe PTSD and was having a meltdown at the time. And his brother didn't think for a minute that it was murder. His brother just thought that he kind of went out there and did it.

And death by speeding, you know, suicide by speeding is a thing, especially if you're from Central Texas. And you know that veterans up at Colleen, Fort Hood, get on their crotch rocket and hit 150 and hit the bridge and whatever. You know, happens all the damn time. Right. And so, anyway, so I got to settle for that. However, like I have to say, it is true. And I believe the man, and pretty sure he told me this himself, I don't know, on or off the air. And it's years ago now.

But it's absolutely in the book that the SAS guy that was paling around with Stanley McChrystal. and Michael Flynn in their team in the Afghan surge that he told Hastings right to his face if you trash us in this article I'm gonna kill you and that Hastings did not take it as a joke at all and that like in the room walked McChrystal and Hastings said hey this guy

just threatened to murder me like just now and McChrystal said all right I'll take care of it walked him out of the room and then gave the guy dressing down supposedly for his ears anyway or something like that and then it blew over and that was it. But it was a credible threat, man. You'd have to take that as a credible threat.

And boy, did Hesians get them good in that article. That was the one where he quoted them directly trashing Obama and Biden, which meant that McChrystal had to resign and leave the war. And Flynn had to go become head of DIA and leave the war too, and all the rest of them got scattered to the wind from that or whatever. So there's certainly motive there. And he was a badass, and he was always on the, the case of the CIA and the national security state. And he was working with the likes of

Barrett Brown on all that project PM and all those things where they're trying to go after the private contractors that are, you know, these shadowy pseudo intelligence outfits that sort of like the vice president's office, just help them get around the law and do whatever they want. And so like, man, yeah, was there, you know, you correct me from wrong CIA, man, it's not usually the American tradition that they kill journalists. They'll kill sources. They don't usually murder journalists.

No, no. It would be exceptional, but he was exceptional, man, and it's worth bringing up, you know? I hate to say it, but it is, you know? I've heard rumors that his next story was about John Brennan, too, for what that's worth. I don't know if it's true or not, but that's what I've heard. Yeah, I've heard that, too.

They don't kill journalists. They will try to entrap journalists, to humiliate journalists, You know, it goes much farther to convince the public that somebody's a pedophile than it does to kill them and make them a martyr. Right. Yeah, that's true. And now, I'm sorry, just to clarify again, when I just want to make sure that I didn't space out and miss your point when you were talking about that other army guy that you brought up. When you were saying the Justice Department has admitted they have no evidence, you were talking about Schulte's case, correct?

Yeah. Or you were talking about the other guy. I was talking about Schulte's case. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure that that was right. Yeah, well, my point was that it seems like, you know, after essentially losing the Tom Drake case, and in my case, I've heard from several people, one at the Justice Department and two at the FBI,

that they were furious that I ended up with such a short sentence, that once they got through our cases, they started adding these either sex crime charges or allegations of some. sexual impropriety because it makes people that much easier to prosecute. You know, if you've got, if you've got no supporters willing to go on the record for you because you're an accused pedophile or, or to go to court and, you know, give interviews outside the courthouse because you're an accused pedophile, it makes their job that much easier. Yep.

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But I became much more reluctant to interview him. I had interviewed him twice on the show before. and frankly like before he put out the Manning League the way he did there was a proposal that included Gareth Porter and myself and my wife and some others who were going to work on whatever his new score was he had this big new score that he wanted to get together a group of people to do it and then that all fell through like that never did happen but there was like the beginning of a bit of a relationship there between WikiLeaks and antiwar dot com and all this kind of thing

and then they came out with that and it's not that I put him on a black list and said, I'll never interview him again or anything like that. But it just made me more reluctant to interview him. And then, like, frankly, in practice, that meant I never got around to interview him again before they locked him up or at least chased him into that, into the embassy, you know. And then, which wasn't that long after, you know, and then that was my last opportunity to talk to him again after that. So, like, I didn't throw him on the bus. Like, I did throw Scott Ritter under the bus, man. They kept entrapping very easily successfully entrapping that guy and being a pervert.

And so screw him, man. I don't care. But sorry I bring that up again. I don't own that. But I did really throw him under the bus kind of, you know, back then. But Assange, I never did. But I did kind of like get the idea that like, eh, this guy's a little icky and some of his ickyness might rub off on me. Even if I didn't think it all the way through, I kind of had that feeling a little.

I got to admit it's true, you know? exactly exactly and that's what they want to happen yeah yes indeed sucks um and and of course we know now like how completely ridiculously overblown all of that was um you know that entire case and and what a farce that wasn't and under what pressure the swedes were to come up with something against this guy because the americans demand it and all the rest of this uh that we found out since then. And lo and bold, he's still in their custody. Yeah. And they're talking about bringing him here and threaten him with decades of prison for espionage when all he ever did was publish a leak. And it's not even really espionage. If it's a leak, you're already

stretching. To apply espionage to a leak er, like yourself or them, I mean, that's just a technicality that that's the law that you can apply there. Because otherwise it's like free speech, or just breaking a secrecy agreement that you sign a contract that you signed. But I thought, and actually, I don't know French. I mean, doesn't espionage mean spying on behalf of a foreign power or something like that? Now they want to apply that to the publisher,

not just the leaker, but the leak E? It's crazy. Exactly. Exactly. Man. So, back to the case of Schulte here. Can you explain about the way he's being treated? In fact, like some of this, you know, I imagine is simply public relations for the jury.

The way they have this guy, I think you say he's chained to a bolt in the floor in the courtroom. Like he's somehow going to go crazy and rip everybody's face off with his bare hands if they, you know, just let him sit at the defendant's table and all that. Is that right? Yeah. And they're doing that to Assange, too, right? making him stand in this glass cage. It's weird plexy glass cage and all this, like he's Hannibal Lecter.

And with Schulte, they're using something called a black box, which I've never understood. So they chain your ankles, and they handcuff your hands, then they attach the handcuffs to your ankle chains, and then they take this steel black box, and they put it around your hands.

So your handcuffed hands are inside, this heavy steel black box, I just don't understand it. It's meant really to humiliate more than anything else. And it's even worse where they have him staying. He's at the MCC, the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, which is already notorious for the fact that it's so cold in the wintertime that the water in your toilet freezes. But they've got him in a cage, an actual steel cage and then they placed the cage in a concrete cell the size of a parking space. He's so cold at night that he wears five layers of clothing and the place is full of rats. He's constantly chasing rats away, full of cockroaches.

They don't give him enough food to eat. I mean, they're trying to break him, really. that's what this comes down to uh and and judges repeatedly have cited with him in his complaints to the bureau of prisons and the bop just gives him the middle finger and says you know what are you going to do what are you going to do about it man it's just nuts the way that the well it's because it's so many years in a row of no accountability whatsoever oh for me um for these uh just the department officials. And they just get away with bloody murder. It's like when I was a kid, they

talk about if you go to a Turkish prison or whatever. No, you can say all that stuff about an American prison. Oh, yeah. It's just as bad. Oh, you're absolutely right. Absolutely right. And special administrative measures. I mean, that sounds very German right there. I can't do the

translation, but can you explain to me what that or sounds... Yeah. Well, I hate to say if it sounds either German or Israeli. I'm not sure which more. Seriously. man so tell me when were those things even invented like that's a pretty new thing is that just from the

terror war this century yeah it's it's just post 9-11 so and that's that's where this comes in with the parking space sized slot and all that correct yes

what they do in a special administrative unit a SAM unit is several fold you're a essentially in solitary confinement, you're allowed out once a week, sometimes twice a week, depending on the prison, to take a shower. Some of the prisons have exercise time one hour a day,

but what that means is at the back of your cell, there's a small steel door, and it opens up to the outside, and you go through that small steel door into an outdoor cage that's, that's, um, 10 by 6 or 10 by 8 and you can walk in circles in that cage like a dog for an hour and then you have to come back inside you're not allowed to you're allowed to receive mail but not physically what they do is is they'll open your mail and they'll scan it and then they'll put it on a on a TV monitor that's mounted to the to the ceiling in your cell so it's too high for you to get to it's out of reach and they'll they'll put each letter on the screen for five minutes you can stand there and read it for up to five minutes and then it disappears it's gone you can't respond to

any of that mail you are allowed to have as as visitors only your attorneys and even then only once a month you're allowed to call you're only your attorneys and depending on the prison it can be once a month or twice a month. In the Supermax, you're not allowed to have books. You're not allowed to have magazines or newspapers. Nothing. Nothing. You know, and these special administrative units are supposed to be for the most dangerous,

most murderous psychopaths in the U.S. prison system. And they're not just for those people. You know, at the one where the whistleblower... I mean, they even about code words, right? It could be like Al-Qaeda could say, get me my lawyer, but if you scramble it, it means blow up the mall. And so we can't let them talk at all, right? Exactly right. A bunch of crap.

Always based on a bunch of crap in the first place. It's all crap. Yes, you're exactly right. I was in a modified, Sam. That's what they called it. So I was in Genpop, but then my letters, both my outgoing and incoming letters were read in advance. And there was a five-day delay on my outgoing and incoming emails. And then people would send me books and magazines.

And instead of allowing me to receive those books and magazines, I would get a form letter from the wardens saying that to allow me to have access to this reading material. would disturb the smooth operation of the institution. That was always the language that they used. Right. You write in here about the process where if you try to complain, they have the right to then respond, and you have to respond to their response, but they always backdate their response and never give you enough times.

They're sabotaged. I mean, look, you're in prison, right? They could do whatever they want with you. Anything they want. And if you appeal, And by the way, this guy's not accused. Well, they did accuse him. Then they dropped the accusation that he was involved in any innocent person being hurt in any way.

He's accused of telling the American people the truth that we had the right to know that the CIA staring us through a got-in TV set in real life. I say that all the time. The American people own this information. We have a right to know what the government is doing in our name. And we also have a law in this country that makes it illegal to classify a crime. And so if something is a criminal act, the government is not permitted to classify it. So revealing it in the media is not a crime. Right.

But they want to fight with us over that. And seriously, like, if this guy had held up the local tire store for $600 bucks, I would be pretty hard on him. You don't pull a gun on some guy, man. What are you doing? You can't do that. Lock them up. I don't know how long, but I ain't sad.

But this guy, he didn't do anything at all. No. Not anything shameful that I could think of. Certainly not criminal. No, I agree. I agree. And, you know, this is why I kind of feel bad. I feel trepidacious that he's representing himself because I believe that his case is very, very strong.

His defense is very, very. strong. And you know, there ought to be, listen, when I, when I got arrested, there were a list Washington attorneys just offering up their services for free. One of my attorney, I had 11 attorneys and one of them was the head of white-collar defense at Aiken Gump and Strauss, the largest law firm in the world. Wow. This guy was a genius and he never charged me a single dollar. And I'm surprised and disappointed that there were not similar attorneys lining up in New York to represent Josh Schulte. Well, you know what?

You'd made a real name for yourself and you have a very unique name and they didn't accuse you of the gravest sin of all. Right. At the time. So you're much less radioactive than this, a little bit more of a cause-seleb kind of a thing that they could get behind. Fortunately for you, but it ain't fair the way that he's being ignored, as you're saying here. No, I feel for the poor guy. I really wish him the best. Hey, and listen, if we're talking

about, man, you know what a sick police state, the Ayatollah comedies Iran is? You got this guy, he's accused to being a whistleblower over there, and he's got, everybody knows he's got a congenital heart condition, but they won't let him see a doctor. You'd be like, yeah, the Ayatollah is a son of a bitch. Everybody knows that. Exactly. But we're talking about the United States of America I hear, man. Exactly. Exactly. You remember Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA whistleblower.

Jeffrey Sterling had, you know, a heart attack in prison. He had ongoing serious health problems, and they would not allow him to see a doctor. Yeah. They do. Yeah, it is. It's as bad as it could be. And, you know, I always say this and it sounds kind of trite maybe or something. I don't know, but, like, this is the way I think of it, too.

It's, like, weird and ironic in a very dumb way in elementary school education kind of a way that, like, I am from here. And also, I really disapprove of the way things are going right now and the decisions being made, especially the ones being made in all of our name, the way that they do this stuff. and how unnecessary all of this is and frankly how easy it all should be to correct if people would all get on board with our same point of view on just a few issues like this. It just doesn't have to be this way at all. It's just crazy that we'll let it go on like this. No, and you know, it's not like this in most Western European countries as an example where, you know, they stress things like rehabilitation and education.

And then as a result, they don't have the levels of re-offence that we have, the recidivism rates. It's nothing in Europe like it is over here. Hey, let's talk about Gina Haspel for just a minute here because there's conflicting reporting and then there's your own experience. And I was hoping for a little bit of clarity here. she had been accused in an article in ProPublica of overseeing the torture of Abu Zabeda and then they said oh man you know what sorry we got that wrong and we retract it cross that and it was

John Kiriaku's fault that they got it wrong oh is that what they said well hold that thought for just one second hold that thought for just one second So then now there's new information that's come out in the trial of Mitchell and Jessen, or is it just Mitchell or just Jessen or some kind of thing going on? They're being sued for their role in the torture here. And they threw her under the bus, one of them or the other did, said that she was there during the torture of, it's on the tip of my tongue, Nashiri, I believe. And so that's not the same thing, or maybe it is the same accusation.

and just one is Tuesday and one is Thursday. I don't know the details, but so, and I'm glad, actually, that they threw you under the bus because that means that you're right in the heart of this story and have a whole story to tell about it, and that's what I want to hear. You know, the Washington Post said back then that she had overseen the torture of Abu Zabeda. So I said in an article, the Washington Post said she oversaw the torture of Abu Zabeda. then ProPublica wrote this article and said John Kiriaku said she oversaw the torture of Abu Zabeda

Uh huh And I had even missed that that started with the post Yeah it's my eyebrow just went up when you said that I did not understand that was the chain there and and so I didn't know that you were involved I didn't remember that they said that you were the source I just I thought that they claimed that they had sources that they couldn't name that had told them that or something And I said I don't have any idea who the Washington Post's source is. That's why I said, according to the Washington Post. And, you know, I should

have seen it coming because when I sent that article to the, to the CIA for clearance, they cleared it. And they knew it was false. And they cleared it anyway. And I think they did that to embarrass me. But that's a different issue. So then when it turned out that it was Abderahima Nashiti's torture that she oversaw, ProPublica, instead of issuing a one-sentence correction in saying, we mistakenly said that she oversaw the torture of Abu Zabeda. Instead, she oversaw the torture of Abdri Jimenezchiti. They retracted the entire story. So then I get a call from this idiot at NPR, Steve Inskeep.

And he says, hey, can you come on the show and talk about Gina Haspel? I said, sure. So I go up to NPR. It's like very inconveniently located on Capitol Hill. and as soon as I get into the studio, the guy starts attacking me. And I fought back and I said, look, it's not up to John Kyriaku to do pro-publica's fact-checking for them. I said, according to the Washington Post, this is what she did.

It's not my fault that the Washington Post got the name wrong. And I said, it's also not necessary for ProPublica to retract the entire story. The story was correct. The only thing that they got wrong was the name of the person being tortured. That was it. And so the 30 minute interview, of course, they cut it down to like four minutes. And at least they put in, you know, they kept the fact that I had raised my voice and told Stevenski to get his facts straight before he started pointing fingers at people. I've never been invited back to NPR, by the way. And this was years ago that this happened. So, yeah, that's where that's where we left it. And now Jim Mitchell is testifying to try to save his own

skin or to save his own pocketbook anyway, saying that not only was Gina Haspel in charge of the torture program at the secret site, the original secret site where Abu Zabeda and Neshiti were held, but she was also the chief at Guantanamo, which we had never known before. That was news. and I think he's at the point where he doesn't care what the CIA clears for him to say and what they don't clear. I think he's just coming out with it. Yeah. Well, I mean, they all know there's just no accountability whatsoever.

Like, we already know, too, that she was, helped me out, the chief of staff to the director when they decided to destroy all the. Correct. She was chief of staff to Jose Rodriguez, the notorious director of the, um, of the CIA's counterterrorism center who went on to be the deputy director for operations and when he was promoted to DDO he made her the director of the counterterrorism center

and that was she was in charge the counterterrorism center from what years to what years it was it was right after Bob Grenier was fired let me think I'm going to say it was like oh eight to 11 or 12

something like that yeah man yeah I got all these overlapping timelines in my head I gotta stop and think about that one for a little while I don't remember that's very interesting

I also am very curious about Grinier because I read his book where he talks about you know I cite him heavily even though he would disagree with my conclusion I'm sure I cite him heavily in the story of how they let bin Laden get away in his role in... Oh, yeah.

And I don't think he did. I think he did his job. Yeah, he did everything that he could. Yeah, he was supposed to meet the bad guys on the Pakistani side of the line when they came running. But when they came running, he was ordered to stand down and wasn't allowed to get into the fight at all. And, of course, the Delta Force wasn't chasing him, because they were forbidden from chasing him. That's right. Um, but he tells that story. And then he goes, nah, I think it was all just a fluke, though.

I'm like, yeah. You know, typical bureaucratic snafu. These things happen. Um, but, uh, you know what? As long as we're talking about him, um, I want to bring this up because I think it's important. You and I may have discussed this before, but I got what Biden's got. And I can't quite remember stuff right anymore. So you got to bear with me. But, um, it's this great little double whammy of a, um, anecdote about Grinier, right? So he's on N. are news, and it's right after January 6th. And he's making an analogy. Oh, I remember this. Okay, good. Okay, so he's making an analogy between al-Qaeda and the Taliban and the January 6th, cooks, and the broader American right. Okay, so he says, at the dawn of the terror war,

what happened was we got attacked by Al-Qaeda, right? So what we decided to do, though, in Afghanistan, from the very beginning, we decided not to go after them that they would be a second I think he says they would be a secondary target and that our primary objective was sort of this broader milieu in which they were thriving

meaning we're going to go to war against the Taliban instead of the guilty terrorists that attacked us who were all hold up in a one square mile little hideout in the Nangahar mountains there. And then, but his point then, so on one hand, he's just completely

admitting in it just about as plain as English as you can get, that they really decided not to focus on al-Qaeda, but to focus on the Taliban instead, not to, you know? And just forget the pretense

there. And then, of course, this broader point is so never even mind the people who rioted at the Capitol for one day um that the enemy is the entire american right then because they're the taliban and and it was smart for us to let bin laden go and focus on mullah omar and friends instead and it's going to be smart when we don't focus on the proud boys and the three percenters and other fbi informants like that instead we're going to focus on delegitimizing essentially all right

wing descent outside of the republican party in this country and maybe inside it too and So that's what a bastard That guy is I don't know how well you know him Or whatever But as far as his thinking goes It's just incredible To hear him say that stuff out loud

You know what I mean? You know what I mean? You know what Robert Innskeep This reminds me that time We brilliantly decided to let Osama bin Laden go And that's what we should do here too Right

I was I was Grenier's Executive Assistant For a year All right spill your guts Kiriaku Let's hear everything And I worked for him directly in Pakistan when I was the chief of counterterrorism operations there.

Grenier no longer speaks to me. And it's funny because after I blew the whistle, he was still very supportive. And then I wrote my book. And I said to him, hey, do you mind reading my manuscript and just make sure my memories are correct? So he said, sure, and I gave it to him. And he gets back to me and he says, wow, you really were tough. on a couple of these former colleagues of ours and I said yeah yeah I figured I'm just going to come out with it and tell the stories and he said yeah I think you're I think you're he had two

objections and I said that I couldn't that that I knew that my memories were as I recounted them were wrong but they were classified and the agency made me change some of the facts so I said yeah I know that those stories happened differently but this is what they made me right and um and he is fine with it. And he and his wife would come over to our house and have dinner. And we would go over to their house, have dinner. We went to a couple of ball games together and cookouts and stuff like that. And then I got a call from another agency, friend of mine, the day my book came out. And my friend said, hey, I just got the craziest call from Grenier. And I said, yeah, what do he say? He said that you're a liar, you're a disgrace.

that no one should read your book, nobody should buy the book. You're on, I was on every news network in America the day my book came out. No exaggeration. And I made number five on the New York Times bestsellers list. And I was like, what? I said, he reviewed the book when it was still a manuscript. He knew everything that was in that book. Then I get a call from one of my closest friends saying that his boss,

had gotten a call. And these are like very highly placed household names we're talking about. Got a call from Grenier and Grenier's trashing me. Then I get a call from John Kerry. I was working for Carrie at the time. And he says to me, I just got the most insane call from Bob Grenier. And I said, let me guess. And I told him what I had been hearing. And he said, yeah. And I said, Senator, none of it's true. I don't, I, for the life of me, I, I, I, for the life of me, I can't understand why he's doing this. I hang up with Kerry, and then I get a call from CNN. And I was like, all right, I've had enough.

So I called my attorney. I told my attorney, he said, we could file a defamation suit. And I said, well, send him a letter because the guy's going to have an economic impact on me. He's trying to get me fired, and he's trying to kill sales in my book. So I gave CNN an interview, you know, sort of. of on background, and then I had them talk to my attorney, and then they didn't report on it. So a couple of months pass, and I'm out in L.A. with this friend of mine, the first one who called me, and we're having dinner with this big producer from Universal Pictures.

And as we get up to leave, the producer says to my friend, oh, by the way, we're a go on that movie. And my friend says, which movie? He said, you know, this movie we were talking about with Grenier that Air Force One goes down in Pakistan and the president's the only survivor. And we're looking at each other. Like, what are you talking about? And then he said, you don't know what I'm talking about, do you?

And he said, no, I've never heard of this movie. And the producer says, yeah, Grenier is going to be on as the script consultant. And my friend said, you know, I have a problem with Grenier now. And if he's going to be a script consultant, I'm not going to work. with you on this movie and and then the producer says to me and he sure is down on you and i said yeah he tried to get me fired he tried to kill sales of my book i just don't understand why and the producer says oh i can tell you why he said he was ranting and raving when your book hit the bestsellers list because he was afraid that you were going to make money selling the movie rights

to it and he was screaming, that was my story. He was my assistant. I should be the one getting movie deals, not him. And I said, there it is. Jealousy rears its ugly green head. That's funny. Give me just a minute here. Listen, I don't know about you guys, but part of running the Libertarian Institute is sending out tons of books and other things to our donors. And who wants to stand in line all day at the post office? But stamps.com? Sorry, but their website is a total. disaster. I couldn't spend another minute on it, but I don't have to either, because there's easyship.com. Easyship.com is like stamps.com, but their website isn't terrible. Go to Scotthorton.org slash easy ship. Hey, y'all Scott here. You know the Libertarian Institute has published a few

great books. Mine, fools errand, enough already, and the great Ron Paul. Two by our executive editor, Sheldon Richmond, coming to Palestine and what social animals owe to each other. And of course, no quarter, the ravings of William Norman Grigg, our late great co-founder and managing editor at the Institute. Coming very soon in the new year will be the excellent voluntarious handbook edited by Keith Knight, a new collection of my interviews about nuclear weapons, one more collection of essays by Will Grigg, and two new books about Syria by the great William Van Wagonin and Brad Hoff and his co-author Zachary Wingert. That's Libertian Institute.org slash books.

Well, you know what? If he had named some CIA torturers and gone to prison, then maybe he would have had a little bit more notoriety and someone would ask him what he thought about something. And then, you know, he asked me, he had asked me before we had this falling out if I could introduce him to a ghost writer. And I said, I said, yeah, I've got a buddy who wants to get into that. And he's a terrific writer. He used to be a reporter for the Associated Press.

I said, I can introduce you. So I introduced him. and they could never come to an agreement. So Grigny ended up writing his own book, but like 50 people read that book. And then he couldn't understand why he didn't get any big movie deal or syndication rights or something. He never got anything.

He didn't make any money on that book. Yeah. Well, it's not that good of a book. It's not. It's not that good of a book. I mean, when I'm reading Jawbreaker, I'm going, oh, my God, dude. What in the hell?

You know what? Jobbriker set the standard for those CIA. with memoirs. Yeah, or Kilbin Laden by Thomas Greer about, you know, the Delta Force betrayal there, the betrayal of the Delta Force there. That's right. By the way, as long as we got

some Torabora here, I gotta make sure this goes out on the record a couple times so it's out there somewhere. And I wrote about Torabora in both books, Fools Aaron, and enough already. And I had read Greer by the time I wrote enough already, so it's even better there,

the treatment of it. But, the thing of it is I had only read this I think last December if my brain works right but I definitely read it in the task and purpose there oh you know what it might have been last summer during the withdrawal from Afghanistan everybody's kind of doing their reminiscences and things like this and here's what it was it was task and purpose and the story was the Air Force special operations officer from task force whatever it is I'm sorry who was the man on the ground with this Delta Force, the Air Force man on the ground with the Delta Force, running all air traffic control at Torabora and maybe for all the Nangahar province. And by air traffic control, that means everything right down to the lazing of the targets for the planes and everything else. And in fact, in this story, this is a side note, but it's interesting that there had been a friendly fire accident somewhere else in the country. And the Air Force Command ordered a halt to all air attacks anywhere in Afghanistan

for a period of time a week or maybe two weeks even except at Torbora where we have this special operation to get bin Laden and Zawari there and we're going for it and so not only was this guy in charge of bomb and Torabora

but he had every plane in theater including the British planes and whoever else at his disposal and he was making work of it and he was bombing the hell out of Torabora and then it just gets a throwaway line and no one even seems to notice but it's in there that then they called him

and all the planes with him out on December the 8th. Oh my God. And I'm going, wait a minute. And it's widely agreed by the CIA, the Delta Force, and everybody else who was

there who had anything to say about it, that he got away on December the 17th. Wow. And so all that we know about all that, and see, I would even say my speeches and stuff, I would say, well, look, you know, I'll give them credit if that's what you want to call it, that they did bomb the hell out of them. They dropped the daisy cutter on them, and they called in F-16 and F-15 strikes, and whatever they could, and they did bomb the hell out of the

place, and that could have killed bin Laden. But the real point is they would not give the reinforcements that CIA and Delta were demanding at the time, and that they did have available Green Berets, Rangers, and Marines available and did not dispatch him. That is the real point. But then it's like, no, actually, I'm sorry, I was giving them too much credit on even the air attack there. What reason in the world would they have

to call off the air assault on December the 8th? I mean, they were only really just engaged. They'd been engaged for at that time, only like a week and a day, I guess, right? Like, they didn't get there until, I think, like even the second of December and start the fight. Maybe not even then. It could have been the

very, very end in November, but we're still talking about just a little more than a week of air attack. And then I don't know. Anyway, and you know what? I do have a slight doubt of my mind. Maybe it was the ninth, but it was definitely not the 10th. Because I remember trying to count on my fingers, like,

wait, how many days was that before they got away? You know what I mean? So it was definitely the 8th or the 9th. but I think it was the 8th. And so then nine days before he got away. Maybe it was the 9th, and then 8 days before it got away. That's what I'm trying to think of. Anyway, so there you go.

That was the terror war. And they clearly, I mean, so tell me this. You were in the CIA then, and really he kind of ducked my question about telling me everything about this bastard other than what he did to you. But I would like to know more, you know, about him. But I want to know about if you were working for him at the time when all this was going on,

Then what was your take on the canceling of the attack on al-Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan in that December? There were a bunch of us who vocally, actively opposed that decision. You know, our position was the Taliban as wrongheaded and misguided as it might be was not out there actively seeking to kill Americans. that the mission should be very simple, very quick. We go in and get bin Laden and Zawahadi and the handful of other people that we knew were in Afghanistan at the time, destroy the organization and leave. Simple as that, plain as that. And that's why I went to Pakistan because the idea was not to target the Taliban, it was to

target those al-Qaeda fighters who had crossed the border into Pakistan. My very first day there, the operation that I proposed was to pull all of the CIA personnel off the border. We had people up and down the Pakistani Afghan border, like in its entirety, pull them off the border and then relocate them into major Pakistani cities. Just allow the al-Qaeda people into the country because you know they're going to congregate in safe houses and they're going to feel like they're safe that they're protected there and then we hit the houses

and we catch everybody all at once instead of just plucking them one at a time off the border none of us wanted to go to war with the Taliban we didn't have any beef with the Taliban yeah they clearly did have beef with al-Qaeda and you guys all knew that right oh yeah oh yeah definitely I mean, it's in the Woodward book that even on the National Security Council level, I guess Tenet even advised.

Maybe he had convinced Rice, and he and Rice took the position that we should focus on al-Qaeda and demonstrate to the Taliban. We're really not trying to bomb you guys. Really, stay out of our way. And that that was overruled mostly by Rumsfeld. Yes. He said, no, we want to make sure the war gets bigger, faster. And we don't want the American people to think that, oh, look, we killed the bad guys, and now the war is over. Because that'll ruin everything.

Exactly right. They have the direct quotes in there. That's what people don't understand about those Woodward books, man, especially that first Woodward book, but maybe after that in the W. Bush years. That first W. Bush book, they just gave the entire National Security Council minutes to this guy. Oh, we can trust Bob.

He's fine. And he just republished verbatim some of what you would consider if it was like leaked to WikiLeaks only. You might be like, whoa, is that really real? Rumsfeld really say it that blatantly and then Bush agreed and what have you the way it is portrayed in there. It's incredible to read. It really is. Listen, I was sitting at my desk one day. Grinier and I had a very small office. I mean, it was just the three of us. It was Grinier, the secretary and me. And so his office was on one side of the room. My office was on the other and the secretary was between us. So I'm just kicked back in my, in my chair with my hands behind my head, looking out the out the, out the, door of my office into the hallway and I see Bob Woodward walk by all by himself and I said to the secretary am I imagining things or was that Bob Woodward that just walked by and she said no that was woodward and I said Bob Woodward just walking around without an escort like he owns the place

and she said oh you didn't see the director's memo I said no what memo and she said he's writing a book and we're all ordered to cooperate with him. I was like, so that's what it's freaking come to. Which, hell yeah, man. I mean, thank God. It just goes to show what bumbling incompetence

that Bush and his government are. Yeah. Like, yes, he is a trusted confidant type insider with them, of course. But at the same time, it's just the truth about how evil they were and what they were saying

didn't dawn on. on them how incriminating these block quotes are going to be if we give him that much stuff like they just thought it wouldn't be a problem and it's a problem a big problem that's right although you know when the book came out the politics were still worship bush or shut the f up you know that didn't change people don't remember this but i do that didn't change until katrina at the end of o five and so then it was like okay maybe these aren't the most competent administrators in world history or something like that. But before that, it was like criticizing Jesus or something, just absolutely. Right. Yes.

So even when that book came out, it was like, there was some grumbling among some Democrats, but certainly never took off in the mainstream the way it could have. Because they really do discuss, come on. Like, it's not in absolute plain language, like the most plain English, but as close as you can get to them saying, we have to let him go so that we can continue the war beyond here and on to arrive. and the rest, you know. That is it. It's great stuff.

Well, so, all right, I'm going to go back one more time. Tell me more about Grenay and stories of you and him in Pakistan. And, I mean, you did capture some spies there and things like that. But so without going back to prison, like, what should we know about that period of time, man, that you would really harp on here? Yeah, you know, that period of time, it separated people at the agency. There were the ones like Kofa Black and Jose Rodriguez and Jim Pavit and George Tenet that wanted to do literally anything and everything to kill bin Laden and destroy al-Qaida, human rights be damned, international law be damned, they wanted to do anything.

You know, Kofa Black made that famous statement that he wanted there to be flies on bin Laden's eyes. eyes and would have his head on a pike and all this silliness. The other side was, you know, the Grenieres of the world, where Grinier is very mainstream, very neocon, he does as he's told, but then at the same time, he does have some respect for the law. I can't believe I'm complimenting him, but I sort of have to. so the reason why he was fired you know the one he was fired when i left the agency and as soon as i left grenier became the head of the counterterrorism center he was only there for a year and he

was fired and the washington post said that he was fired because um he had this concern for human rights and he was afraid that the agency was violating the law that was all bullshit That's what he leaked to the Washington Post. The reason he was fired is that he was wishy-washy when it came to carrying out operations. When you're the director of counterterrorism, you know, you've got to be the guy that makes the ultimate decision over whether people live or die. And so he was getting these calls, like every CTC director before him, saying, We've got the bad guys in our sites. They're in a Jeep, request permission to launch, and Grigny would want 24 hours to think

about it and mull it over and consult the attorneys, and by then the bad guys had gotten away. And every previous director would say, you know, launch, fire. It was even worse when, you know, we're 80% sure that it's the guy. it might not be the guy. It might be his brother. You don't have 24 hours to consult the lawyers and call your priest and ask for guidance and whatever. I don't know, man.

You're talking me into liking this guy more and more now. I know they kill 90% innocent people down there. They don't know who they're killing down there. They do. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. That's why I said, I can't believe I'm complimenting him. He was right on those issues.

Yeah. The only reason Grignay and I are not friends anymore is because he was jealous. over my book. Yeah. It was as simple as that. That sucks. Oh, that's funny. Somehow I got Steve Inskeep from NPR News in my Twitter feed right now, coincidentally.

Oh, that's funny. Don't send him my best. All of those guys are just insufferable. Robert Siegel and all those guys. It's almost like they're not real people, but they are, you know? Right. Yeah. Right.

Anyway, man, it's Friday afternoon, and I better let you go have a weekend. We could do this for a while. And you know what? I'm going to reread the reluctant spy. That's the one I'm most interested in. And I don't remember it well enough. But I'm so interested in the terror war era, not that it's over. And I always will be unable to let all that stuff go.

So at some point, and I think I've interviewed you about it, like right after I read it the first time. Yes, I remember that. I think I may, maybe I'll just go back and listen to that for the Cliff Notes. Anyway. Awesome. All right, well, listen, man. Great to talk to you again. Thank you, John.

Great to talk to you. Thanks for having me. Aren't you guys? John Kiryaku, former CIA guy. Now he's all right. Find him at Sputnik every afternoon. And he wrote this for the sheer post. I don't think I said that at the beginning. Sorry. The sheer post, John Kiriaku, a whistleblower's agony about Joshua Schulte accused of heroically leaking the Vault 7 leak. The Scott Horton show, anti-war radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A. sradio.com, anti-war.com, scothorton.org, and libertarian institute.org.